Political Comment

Last Saturday I attended the 4th Annual Student Research Symposium at the University of Montana Western. Among the presentations was an analysis of the privatizing of military operations in many parts of the world, wherein private companies like the former Blackwater are hired to provide various support and personnel services to governments who can't or won't depend on their citizens to fulfill those duties. These companies operate to make money, and in some instances even hire themselves out to both sides in a particular conflict. As you may know, the United States has considerable contracts with these outfits too, and the value of those contracts no doubt increases the longer we remain engaged in military operations both at home and overseas.

It was after hearing that presentation that I saw the story about Bill Maher's comments on the Tea Bag Party, specifically that group's resistance to address defense spending as part of their call to cut back federal spending. I think I've mentioned here before that I'm not a big fan of Maher's, but he's definitely on to something here. The credibility of anyone critiquing government spending has to include an evaluation of their position on defense, which is the single largest category of federal spending and always seems to get a pass despite numerous reports of waste and inefficiency (how many millions went missing in Iraq?), not to mention the exorbitant contracts doled out to companies like Blackwater (or whatever they're currently calling themselves after rebranding to dodge the fallout from their abuses) whose business model depends on generating profits from such deals (which isn't true of the actual military which I suspect most Americans believe are the beneficiary of governmental defense spending). This is of course not to question the importance of providing for the national defense, but to take it off the table as a point of the budget/tax discussion suggests to me that the real agenda is not to reduce spending, but rather to attack programs that are unpopular for other reasons (not least, because they provide some necessary competition to private, profit-seeking entities). So bravo to Maher for pointing this out.