No study, no learning, no thought, no progress

"Lawmakers hostile to BRAC placed language in prior years' Defense authorization bills that banned DoD from even studying or planning for a potential infrastructure consolidation."
Jared Serbu, Army spends $500 million per year on vacant facilities, Army News, Federal News Radio, 31 March 2014

When it serves a worldview or a profiteering scheme to prey upon ignorance, shameless people in power will mandate that ignorance if they can. This has kept us behind in so many crucial areas of knowledge. You are forbidden from studying stem cells. You may not look at cures for disease that might annoy a religious fundamentalist. No multiculturalism in the classroom. No sex education beyond abstinence.The list goes on and includes corrupt politicians who have forbidden the Pentagon from examining ways to save money.

Even when there are the occasional fiscal hawks in DoD, then, the corruption in Congress can stop them from saving your taxpayer dollars. This patently relates to war profiteering, not to the defense of anything except corporate elites and their massive annual seizure of blood money. If the Pentagon cannot close unwanted bases without a Base Realignment and Closure process launched by Congress, and if Congress refuses to even allow data gathering (the most recent authorization finally allowed some), how can basic human services ever be funded? Pentagon waste is not so much a Pentagon problem as a contractor-Congress greed problem.

Nazis burned books and killed intellectuals. It seems the corporadoes and their Congressional lackeys can be relied on to stomp out the candles of illumination and knowledge creation when those candles shine a light on corruption in corporations and Congress. The only way to make this worse is exactly what the Roberts court has just done--remove all lids on corruption. Allow as much bribery as the rich can afford. No limits on how much the war profiteers can spend to buy venal politicians.

We are way past the appearance of impropriety. We are in a descent path to open, complete military industrial congressional corruption. Clearly the war system must be ended. Time to terminate forced foolishness. If your representative voted for the DoD authorization, perhaps you might consider voting for someone else next time.

References

Serbu, Jared (31 March 2014). Army spends $500 million per year on vacant facilities.  http://www.federalnewsradio.com/396/3593228/Army-spends-500-million-per-year-on-vacant-facilities-