It is the U.S. Military supplying U.S. municipalities with battlefield weapons that is raising the civilian cry to “Defund the Police.” No Black Lives Matter protest is suggesting a “zero police” public policy. When an inflated Pentagon budget has more than $7.2 billion worth of equipment given away over the past couple of decades, including $293 million worth of property — from assault-gear to grenade-launchers — given away — to municipal public safety — last year, according to the Pentagon’s Defense Logistics Agency website. It’s no wonder we are training public safety to be civilian warriors. Though the Koch Brothers may be initially responsible, with their financial gamesmanship that has found a bottomline profit with consumers’ and competitors’ reactions based impulsively on fear, those directly responsible are the pseudo-public servants crying public priority dis-investment of social goods, like education, infrastructure and environmental de-toxification, in a libertarian, Tea Party delusion of nation as self that, without complete awareness, recognizes no benefit in social good.
If we refuse to encourage the noble leadership that can defy this impulsive response to maximize self-gain, and instead cleave to those leading a path of wealth stockpiled to buy our government, the energy in our BLM uprising may not be, nor should be, immobilized until November or January 2021.
John Sonin,
Douglas
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