The Trillion Dollar Silencer: Why There Is So Little Anti-War Protest in the United States

The Trillion Dollar Silencer investigates the astounding lack of popular protest at the death and destruction that the military industrial complex is inflicting on people, nations, and the environment, and its budget-draining costs. Where is the antiwar protest by progressives, libertarians, environmentalists, civil rights advocates, academics, clergy, community volunteers, artists, et al? This book will focus on how military largesse infests such public sectors' interests.

Contractors and bases serve as the economic hubs of their regions. State and local governments are intertwined with the DoD; some states have Military Departments. National Guard annual subsidies are large. Joint projects include aid to state environmental departments for restoration, and government-environmental organization teams to create buffer zones for bombing ranges. Economic development commissions aim to attract military industries and keep the existing bases and corporations. Veterans Administration hospitals are boons to their communities.
Universities, colleges, and faculty get contracts and grants from the DoD and its agencies, such as the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. The Minerva Initiative. Reserve Officers' Training Corps programs are subsidized by the DoD. Civilian jobs in the DoD provide opportunities for scientists, engineers, policy analysts, and others.

Every kind of business and nonprofit, including environmental and charitable organizations like The Nature Conservancy and Goodwill Industries feeds at the DoD trough via contracts and grants.

Individuals, arts institutions, charities, churches, and universities succumb to the profitability of military-related investments. Pension funds of public and private employees are replete with military stocks.

Philanthropy is another silencer. The DoD itself donates equipment to organizations, especially those of youth, and lends equipped battalions to Hollywood. The weapons firms give generously to the arts and charities, heavily to youth and minorities. They also initiate joint programs such as providing tutors and mentors for robotics teams in public schools.

Our militarized economy is destructive and wasteful. How can we replace the multitude of dependencies on military funding and restore the boundary between it and civil society? Surely a first step is to see how military spending results in the complicity of civil society in its pernicious outcomes. That is what this book tries to reveal.

ISBN-13: 9781949762587

Media Type: Paperback

Publisher: Clarity Press - Incorporated

Publication Date: 01-01-2023

Pages: 218

Product Dimensions: 13.90(w) x 16.60(h) x 0.70(d)

Joan Roelofs is Professor Emerita of Political Science, Keene State College. She currently teaches in the Cheshire Academy for Lifelong Learning and writes for scholarly and political publications. She is the author of Foundations and Public Policy: The Mask of Pluralism (2003) and Greening Cities: Building Just and Sustainable Communities (1996), the translator of Victor Considerant’s Principles of Socialism (2006), and co-translator, with Shawn P. Wilbur, of Charles Fourier’s antiwar fantasy, The World War of Small Pastries (2015).

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Why is there so much acceptance of and so little protest against our government’s illegal and immoral wars and other military operations? Why is there mostly silence about the death and destruction that wars and even the preparation for war inflict on people, including the troops, and on the environment? Why is there so little concern about the potential for the extinction of human and other life posed by nuclear war, now seen as an “option” by the U.S. and other militaries? While propaganda, fear, and distractions are some of the reasons, the interests created by military’s penetration into so many aspects of civilian life is largely ignored. This book is an attempt to make visible the enormity of this penetration and the interests concerned.1

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

The Military Industrial Complex 1

The Use of Force: Illegal and Immoral 2

Why the Silence? 4

The Propaganda Blanket 4

Fear of Reprisal 6

Distractions 7

Interests, Visible and Hidden 8

Militarization 12

About this Book 15

Notes 16

Chapter 1 The Military Establishment 18

The Malignancy of War 18

World Efforts Promoting Peace 18

United States Policy 20

Unconventional Warfare 22

Military Personnel 24

Military Institutes 25

Research Divisions 27

The Natick Soldier Systems Center 27

Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency 28

Army Corps of Engineers 29

Defense Department Civilian Employees 31

Military Property 33

Cooperating Federal Departments 33

Foreign Military Training 34

Contractors 35

Notes 35

Chapter 2 Bases and Installations 39

Economic Hubs 40

Civilian Encroachment 44

Readiness and Environmental Protection Integration Program (REPI) 44

Legacy Resource Management Program 48

Toxic Overspill 49

Environmental Security Technology Certification Program (ESTCP) 51

Land and Air Incursions 53

Military-related Recreation 55

Other Nuclear Spinoffs 57

Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) 57

Trinity Site National Historic Landmark 58

Notes 60

Chapter 3 Contractors 65

Why Does the Government Contract Out? 65

Military Contractors 67

Construction 71

Intelligence 73

Civilian Businesses 74

New Hampshire 75

Preferential Contractors 78

Corporate Diversity 80

Logistics 82

Food Services 83

Clothing 84

Nonprofit Organizations 85

Environmental Organizations 86

Health 87

Human Rights 88

Educational and Professional Organizations 89

Notes 90

Chapter 4 Universities and Research Institutes 95

Political Culture: Pacifism and Militarism 95

University-Military Partnerships 97

Academic Dissenters 98

Antiwar Protest Fades 103

Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) 104

Militarized Universities 105

Intelligence Community Programs and Scholarships 106

Academic Research 108

Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency 109

Minerva Research Initiative 112

The Worldwide Funding of DoD Research 114

Environmental Research 116

Research via NATO 117

National Security Institutes 118

U.S. Institute of Peace 122

Albert Einstein Institution 126

Notes 129

Chapter 5 Philanthropy and Nonprofit Organizations 134

Department of Defense Philanthropy 136

Military-NGO Revolving Doors 139

Humanitarian Aid 140

Foundations 141

National Endowment for Democracy 143

Military Contractor Philanthropy and NGOs 145

Veterans' Nongovernmental Organizations 150

NGO Investment Policies 152

Notes 155

Chapter 6 State and Local Governments 158

Military Departments 158

Council of State Governments 161

State Civilian Departments 162

Environmental Departments 162

Army Corps of Engineers 167

Economic Development Commissions 169

Investments 172

Militarization of Police 173

State Colleges and Universities 176

Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) 178

Public Schools

Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps 179

Recruitment 182

Subsidies 183

Notes 185

Chapter 7 What Can Be Done 189

What You Can Do to Help Break the Silence 189

1 Breaking the silence is feasible 189

2 Contact your congresspeople or president or sign petitions online 190

3 Join and Work with antiwar organizations, or if that is not practical, send a donation 191

A Green New Deal 194

Creating a Peace Culture 195

A National Service Program 195

Conversion to a Civilian Economy 198

International Relations 201

The Final Word 203

Notes 204

Index 205

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