Corruption! War Profiteers in U.S. Congress! | Thinking Out Loud

In this episode of his "Thinking Out Loud" series, Double D discusses the prevalence of insider trading within the United States Congress.
Opening the video, Double D reads excerpts from an article from 'Jacobin', he then outlines the influence the Military Industrial Complex has on elected officials, noting lobbying, super PAC's, and Iron Triangles that recycle corporate execs into politicians and pundits and then back again.
Double D goes on to examine ever increasing military budgets, noting that this years National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) is increasing yet again, to the tune of another $100 billion dollars. He sardonically points out that while partisan gridlock is used to perpetually justify a failure to act on the nation's most pressing issues, there never seems to be an issue with cross-party collaboration when it comes to bank rolling militarism. Relating the reality of bloated military budgets to the issue of congressional insider trading, Double D shows how 284, or 53%, of sitting members of congress own stocks. Beyond this, he shows how 97 members of congress have bought or sold stocks in the very industries those members of congress have "exercised" legislative authority over. He cites too, how before the public was made aware of the seriousness of the pand - emic, briefed members of congress cashed out millions of dollars worth of stocks and financial assets; then proceeded to use the crisis as an excuse to further line their pockets under the guise of response.
Reading more excerpts from the article, he notes how anti-congressional-stock-trading legislation exists, but that the law is minimally enforced, and that fines for transgression seldom amount to more than a paltry $200. Double D disagrees with the author of the Jacobin articles position, that more anti-stock-trading legislation will do anything to curb this endemic issue. He points out first that existing legislation is already not enforced, and that the criminal justice appointees who would enforce such laws will never do so, seeing as they are appointing by the very individuals who are engaged in corruption. He notes also that such levels of brazen corruption are inherent to liberal democracies, where the government and the corporation have become completely inseparable. He insists that without mass mobilization and structural organization of working class power that is capable of rendering consequences for the corrupt, the cash cow of congressional insider trading will continue to be milked.
Continuing with the subject of congressional insider trading, Double shows how this process is inextricably linked with military contractors. He points out how members of the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) are known to engage in the most trades, trading in the stocks of the very companies their discretionary budgeting will bank roll.
Noting that the NDAA is expected to reach an inconceivable $1 Trillion by the year 2027; Double D tries to wrap his head around that sum, imagining what sort of global society we could be living in if $1 Trillion were invested in humanity rather than war.
Closing out the video, Double D ruminates on the systemic and economic nature of Empire and the Military Industrial Complex. He explains how the United States has become completely dependent on this form of Keynesianism. He elaborates on how endless military expenditure is a method of burning through excess capital without fundamentally reforming an economic system that puts a handful of people at the top of a hedonistic pyramid. He shows how militarism keeps what remains of American industrial capitalism, and its debt driven consumerist engine running, as the economy, and society as a whole, continues to be hollowed out by imperial hubris and corporate greed.
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