In Bed With The Warmakers: A review of `The Trillion Dollar Silencer'

In a 2003-published ground-breaking book, Foundations and Public Policy: The Mask of Pluralism, Joan Roelofs exposed the political role that U.S. power elite foundations have played since the early 20th-century, in exercising a powerful--but undemocratic--special influence on policy priorities and agendas of the "Non-Profit Industrial Complex"'s various institutions and "civil society" NGOs, within the USA and in foreign countries.

Now, in another ground-breaking book 20 years later, titled The Trillion Dollar Silencer: Why There Is So Little Anti-War Protest in the United States, the retired Keene State College Professor of Political Science Roelofs exposes "the interests created by" the U.S. military-industrial-complex's "penetration into so many aspects of" U.S. "civilian life" that has largely been "ignored" by most U.S. anti-war movement supporters and readers; and attempts, in the book "to make visible the enormity of this penetration."

The Trillion Dollar Silencer book, published by Clarity Press Inc., consists of a 16-page introduction and 6 chapters describing the U.S. military establishment, U.S. military bases and installations, military contractors, university-military partnerships, U.S. military ties to philanthropy and non-profit organizations and the military influence on U.S. state and local governments. It also includes a 14-page chapter suggesting possible ways U.S. anti-war movement supporters and readers can reverse the increasing 21st-century militarization of U.S. society; and a brief "final word," in which Roelofs asserts that "many have been indoctrinated to believe that militarism is normal and necessary."

The book's introduction discusses how pro-military propaganda blankets, fear of reprisal, distractions and interests, visible and hidden,, have the effect of limiting the number of U.S. citizens willing to participate in U.S. anti-war protests. And Roelofs also points out in this introduction that "the military economy yields a high return on investments;" and these returns benefit..."union and civil service funds, churches, universities and charitable, human rights and cultural organizations" as well as the wealthy and corporate executives, because the mutual funds offered by Vanguard, Fidelity and others in their portfolios "are lucrative due to weapons manufacturers' stocks."

In its chapter 3, which examines military contractors, The Trillion Dollar Silencer book also observes that "weapons firms have...channels for influencing progressive activists" because their "executives and board members serve on...boards of universities and nonprofits;" and also provide technical assistance "to social justice and even peace organizations," at the same time "universities and nonprofits (including churches) receive excellent returns on their investments in military contractors."

While all the chapters of The Trillion Dollar Silencer contain a wealth of extensively footnoted information, photos and charts that vividly illustrate the extent to which the U.S. military-industrial-complex's special influence has penetrated all aspects and institutions within U.S. society, Upper West Side Patch anti-war readers will probably find chapter 4, about university-military partnerships, and chapter 5, about U.S. military ties to philanthropy and nonprofit organizations, to be the most eye-opening chapters.

In chapter 4, for example, Roelofs recalls that "after 9/11 the militarization of higher education was mostly accepted, if not cheered," 1,700 U.S. colleges or universities now have ROTC programs that train students to be U.S. military officers and "the militarization of academic research has spread far and wide." And in chapter 5, Roelofs notes that "military contractors are important sources of support" for NGOs, "NGOs are partners, contractors, grantees, and sometimes fronts for government national security departments and agencies," "Boeing partners with Tree People" and "board members of the major weapons corporations also serve on boards of many nonprofits" (like on Boston's GBH public television channel).

And Upper West Side antii-war movement supporters who are New York City public school teachers or retired New York City public school teachers might also find it eye-opening to learn from reading chapter 6 of The Trillion Dollar Silencer that "state and local government general funds and pension funds are heavily invested in weapons manufacturers..as is the separate New York City Teachers' Retirement System."