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Only in a society and economy fueled by high tech imperial warmaking could "sacrifice" be seen as a result of ending the war. But that's how Sanchez sees it, and rightly so. Her constituents would sacrifice their well-paid livelihoods if she were to vote against that defense spending bill. Neat how that works, isn't it?
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Indeed. My dad made (and I hate to admit this because I don't want anyone to get the wrong idea) millions as a defense contractor during the Vietnam War. He had contracts with Grumman Aerospace, Republic Aircraft, Rockwell, Bell Helicopter, Boeing Aircraft, Remington Arms, DoD, and NASA and employed 150 people (union, he was a Dem after all. Well, except for me, whom he paid minimum wage so he didn't have to hear the remarks about "the boss' kid having a cushy job"). His business started going down when Republic Aircraft left Long Island not long after Vietnam was over. He always told me that he would never see the profits he did during that time unless we got into another war.
He'd kid me when I was in the Air Force, asking to arrange something like dropping a bomb in the wrong place, in order to drum up more business. His favorite line was "America runs on war" and he was absolutely right. At least my dad earned the money he made from the American taxpayer (I know how hard he worked, watched him kill himself working 18 hour days to make that damn company run), not swindled it away like Halliburton, KBR, and the rest of the current crop with connections.
The Military/Industrial complex and the filthy rich who run it have a lot more to say about how this illegal war will end than the elected representatives of the people. They employ a lot of people who vote (how many thousand people work at Boeing?) and if this war ends, those people are gonna vote with their wallets. All they need to hear is they're losing their jobs (and more importantly benefits) because of government cutbacks.
The moral aspects of this war should be enough to bring it to an end, but it won't as long as so many jobs depend on keeping it going.
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