Published on Portside (https://portside.org/)
The Toxic Lure of
“Guns and Butter”
Norman
Solomon
April
15, 2019
Common
Dreams
The current
political brawl over next year’s budget is highly significant. With Democrats
in a House majority for the first time in eight years, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and
most other party leaders continue to support even more largesse for the
Pentagon. But many progressive congressmembers are challenging the wisdom of
deference to the military-industrial complex—and, so far, they’ve been able to
stall the leadership’s bill that includes a $17 billion hike in military
spending for 2020.
An ostensible
solution is on the horizon. More funds for domestic programs could be a quid
pro quo for the military increases. In other words: more guns and more butter.
“Guns and butter”
is a phrase that gained wide currency during escalation of the Vietnam War in
the mid-1960s. Then, as now, many Democrats made political peace with vast
increases in military spending on the theory that social programs at home could
also gain strength.
It was a
contention that Martin Luther King Jr. emphatically rejected. “When a
nation becomes obsessed with the guns of war, social programs must inevitably
suffer,” he pointed out. “We can talk about guns and butter all we want
to, but when the guns are there with all of its emphasis you don't even get
good oleo [margarine]. These are facts of life.”
But today many
Democrats in Congress evade such facts of life. They want to proceed as though
continuing to bestow humongous budgets on the Pentagon is compatible with
fortifying the kind of domestic spending that they claim to fervently desire.
Democratic leaders
on Capitol Hill have reflexively promoted militarism that is out of
step with the party’s base. Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill have
reflexively promoted militarism that is out of step with the party’s
base. In early 2018, after President Trump called for a huge 11 percent
increase over two years for the already-bloated military budget, Pelosi
declared in an email to House Democrats: “In our negotiations, Congressional
Democrats have been fighting for increases in funding for defense.” Meanwhile,
the office of Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer proudly announced: “We
fully support President Trump’s Defense Department’s request.”
What set the stage
for the latest funding battle in the House was a Budget Committee vote that
approved the new measure with the $17 billion military boost. It squeaked
through the committee on April 3 with a surprising pivotal “yes”
vote from Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), who is now among the lawmakers
pushing to amend the bill on the House floor to add $33 billion in domestic
spending for each of the next two years.
As Common
Dreams reported last week, progressives in the House “are demanding
boosts in domestic social spending in line with the Pentagon's budget
increase.” But raising domestic spending in tandem with military spending is no
solution, any more than spewing vastly more carcinogenic poisons into the
environment would be offset by building more hospitals.
Rep. Ro Khanna and
Congressional Progressive Caucus Co-Chair Pramila Jayapal, who both voted
against the budget bill in committee, have said they won’t vote for it on the
House floor. In Khanna’s words, “You can't oppose endless wars and then vote to
fund them.” Jayapal said: “We need to prioritize our communities, not our
military spending. Progressives aren’t backing down from this fight.”
The New York
Times described the intra-party disagreement as “an ideological
gap between upstart progressives flexing their muscles and more moderate
members clinging to their Republican-leaning seats.” But that description
bypassed how the most powerful commitment to escalation of military spending
comes from Democratic leaders representing deep blue districts—in Pelosi’s
case, San Francisco. Merely backing a budget that’s not as bad as
Trump’s offering is a craven and immoral approach.
Sen. Bernie
Sanders’ staff director, Warren Gunnels, responded cogently days ago when
he tweeted: “How can we keep giving more money to the Pentagon than it
needs when 40 million live in poverty, 34 million have no health insurance,
half of older Americans have no retirement savings, and 140 million can't
afford basic needs without going into debt? This is insanity.”
Yet most top
Democrats keep promoting the guns-and-butter fantasy while aiding and abetting
what
Dr. King called “the madness of militarism.”
Norman Solomon is co-founder
and national coordinator of RootsAction.org.
Donations can be sent
to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD
21218. Ph: 410-323-1607; Email: mobuszewski2001 [at] comcast.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/
"The master class
has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles.
The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject
class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their
lives." Eugene Victor Debs
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