Soldiers Of Reason: The RAND Corporation and the Rise of the American Empire
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The Rand Corporation: The Think Tank That Controls America (archived)
By the 1960s, America’s rivals were paying attention. The Soviet newspaper Pravda nicknamed RAND “the academy of science and death and destruction.” American outfits preferred to call them the “wizards of Armageddon.”
I love reading Pamphlets’ Twitter timeline for the laughs, but I love proving him wrong even more. Don’t slander Daddy Stalin! 🤭
To understand how America is preparing for its nuclear future, follow Melissa Durkee’s fifth-grade students as they shuffle into Room 38 at Preston Veterans’ Memorial School in Preston, Conn. One by one, the children settle in for a six-week course taught by an atypical educator, the defense contractor General Dynamics.
“Does anyone know why we’re here?” a company representative asks. Adalie, 10, shoots her hand into the air. “Um, because you’re building submarines and you, like, need people, and you’re teaching us about it in case we’re interested in working there when we get older,” she ventures.
Adalie is correct. The U.S. Navy has put in an order for General Dynamics to produce 12 nuclear ballistic missile submarines by 2042 — a job that’s projected to cost $130 billion. The industry is struggling to find the tens of thousands of new workers it needs. For the past 18 months, the company has traveled to elementary schools across New England to educate children in the basics of submarine manufacturing and perhaps inspire a student or two to consider one day joining its shipyards.
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Though the new Columbia-class subs are primarily being built in Rhode Island, Connecticut and Virginia, the Navy is going to tremendous lengths to recruit talent across the country. Over the past year, a blitz of ads has appeared at various sports events — including major league baseball games, WNBA games and even atop a NASCAR hood — steering fans to buildsubmarines.com. The website connects job seekers with hiring defense contractors as part of a nearly $1 billion campaign. Some of that money will go toward helping restore the network of companies that can supply the more than three million parts that go into a Columbia sub. Like so much of the nation’s nuclear infrastructure, those supplier numbers have plummeted since the 1990s.
America Is Updating Its Nuclear Weapons. The Price: $1.7 Trillion.
Now this is grooming!
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Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer is still going strong at the box office, returning to the #2 spot, after one week in third place, still behind heavy Mattel Barbie but now up to $264 million gross just in USA.
Press coverage continues constant, including new praise and firm complaints (often in the same article). Here’s one hit, from Stars & Stripes no less, claiming the film really underplays the role of female scientists on bomb project.
When First Foreign Reporter Arrived In Hiroshima – and Then Got Kicked Out of Japan
Related:
How Oppenheimer and other 1945 leaders saw the future — and what really happened
The anniversaries of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki present an opportunity to demolish a cornerstone myth of American history — that those twin acts of mass civilian slaughter were necessary to bring about Japan’s surrender, and spare a half-million US soldiers who’d have otherwise died in a military conquest of the empire’s home islands.
Hiroshima, Nagasaki Bombings Were Needless, Said World War II’s Top US Military Leaders
Disclaimer: The views expressed herein are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of Ms. Cat’s Chronicles.
Scott is joined by Patrick MacFarlane, the Justin Raimondo Fellow at the Libertarian Institute, to discuss an article he wrote recently as well as the new direction he’s taking his podcast Vital Dissent. Scott and MacFarlane first dig into the growing tension between Washington and Beijing over Taiwan’s sovereignty. MacFarlane points out that some of the best opposition to both the policies that provoked Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and NATO’s subsequent response is from populist right-wingers. But those very same people throw all their logic out the window when the topic turns from Russia to China.
Discussed on the show:
– Nothing But Welfare Queens: American Aid to Zelensky and Tsai Ing-wen
10/22/22 Patrick MacFarlane on the Populist Right’s Taiwan Hypocrisy
The Bulletin emerged after World War II as a voice for peace, but has since drifted into being an echo chamber for the US imperial project.
With Its Doomsday Clock at 100 Seconds to Midnight, The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Calls for Escalating US Aggression against Russia
Mineral riches bring great power rivalry and resource wars to the Democratic Republic of Congo. The United States was and is at the center of violence and exploitation, even as it accuses China of wrongdoing in the region.
Backed by AFRICOM, Corporations Plunder DR Congo for “Climate-Friendly” Materials and Blame China
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Ms. Cat’s Chronicles 
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