White Light Black Light

Chalmers Johnson, author of Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic, discusses the enormous and expanding U.S. defense budget amidst a general economic collapse, the army of defense lobbyists ready to fight against any spending cuts, how military spending diverts economic resources away from beneficial uses and how defense contractors make the largest and most dubious defense projects into sacred cows by spreading production to as many congressional districts as possible.

MP3 here. (22:46)

Chalmers Johnson is the author of Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire, The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic and Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic. His latest article, “Economic Death Spiral at the Pentagon”, co-written with Tom Engelhardt, is at Tomdispatch.com and at Antiwar.com.

// posted by Alice @ Saturday, February 07, 2009