What's good for General Bullmoose...
As long as Ukrainians, not Americans, are doing the dying, Biden claims that sending billions more in missiles and artillery to Ukraine is good for the US economy. -- Reuters
Michigan's strong 'uncommitted' vote shows Israel's impact on Biden's support
About 13.5% of Michigan Democrats cast a ballot for "uncommitted" in the primary, following a weeks-long push by activists. With about half of all votes counted, the uncommitted vote was already over 61,000 votes, suggesting the final total will be many times expectations.
‘What’s good for General Bullmoose is good for the USA.’ — Bashington T. Bullmoose
Created by Al Capp in June 1953, Bashington T. Bullmoose was the epitome of a mercenary, cold-blooded capitalist tyrant tycoon. Bullmoose's bombastic motto was adapted by Capp from a statement made by Charles E. Wilson, the former head of General Motors when it was America's largest corporation. In 1952, Wilson told a Senate subcommittee, "What is good for the country is good for General Motors, and vice-versa."
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On the eve of the Michigan primary, Pres. Biden did his best Bullmoose imitation in a desperate attempt to punch up his campaign and pitch for billions more in war appropriations for the unwinnable proxy war in Ukraine and Israel’s assault on Gaza.
Biden argued that more US military support for Ukraine is good for the US economy since it helps weaken Russia with no Americans dying in combat (yet*).
As Biden pushed House Republicans to approve another $60 billion in military aid, he claimed that nearly two-thirds of the money would actually be spent in the US since it would cycle back from Ukraine to munitions plants owned by American military contractors like Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, Pratt & Whitney, and Lockheed Martin.
“While this bill sends military equipment to Ukraine,” Biden said Tuesday, “it spends the money right here in the United States of America in places like Arizona, where the Patriot missiles are built; and Alabama, where the Javelin missiles are built; and Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Texas, where artillery shells are made.” (AP)
Biden’s argument is essentially that war economy is good for American workers and taxpayers, and that most of the money spent on weapons for Ukraine and Israel goes to US corporations, funding assembly lines to refill depleted stockpiles of bombs, missiles, and artillery shells that have already poured into Ukraine’s killing fields.
This idea, that what’s good for General Dynamics is good for the USA has been put forward by some hawkish think-tankers and White House cold-warriors from the very start of the war in Ukraine two years ago.
“Aiding Ukraine, giving the money to Ukraine is the cheapest possible way for the U.S. to enhance its security,” Zanny Minton Beddoes, editor-in-chief of the Economist, recently told the Daily Show’s Jon Stewart.
“The fighting is being done by the Ukrainians, they’re the people who are being killed.”
The U.S. giving financial aid to Ukraine is an "incredible" investment for the country, as Washington is spending "peanuts" for what, economist Timothy Ash told Newsweek, would eventually produce wins "at almost every level."
So far, that amounts to $75 billion worth of peanuts.
It's a cynical calculus for Biden. Keep pumping money into the war zone as long as Ukrainians are the ones doing the fighting and dying. And it not just the Democrats running this line.
As long as we help Ukraine with the weapons they need and the economic support, they will fight to the last person,” said Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.) early into the war, accidentally voicing what the war’s critics have often said about the war — that the U.S. will fight it “to the last Ukrainian.” Later, Graham called it the “best money we’ve ever spent.”
“No Americans are getting killed in Ukraine. We’re rebuilding our industrial base. The Ukrainians are destroying the army of one of our biggest rivals. I have a hard time finding anything wrong with that,” U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) remarked.
*According to the New York Post, not long before Aaron Bushnell self-immolated, he had told a close friend that he had secret knowledge of US troops fighting in tunnels under Gaza.
"He told me on Saturday that we have troops in those tunnels, that it’s US soldiers participating in the killings... His actual job involves the processing of intelligence data. Some of what he was processing had to do with the Israeli Gaza conflict."
