U.S. military slammed as decrepit, obsolete and dysfunctional in wake of recent Lower Trestles shuttering

"This isn’t a sign of ascendant fascism so much as the nadir of late-stage capitalism..."

Days ago, Southern California’s most famous wave, slated host for the surfing bit of the ’28 Los Angeles Olympics, was closed. The reason nothing to do with nuclear waste leakage from the nearby San Onofre Nuclear Power Plant nor Amtrak rails, for which the break is named, tumbling once and for all into the sea. No, the 5 freeway, which connects San Diego to points north, was closed because Marines at nearby Camp Pendleton were putting on a show for U.S. Vice-President JD Vance which included F-18 and F-35 flyovers, parachute landings, Navy Seals swimming ashore, offshore destroyers and amphibious ships, simulated village explosions, MH-60 helicopters dropping additional Seals over the water and, of course, live ammunition.

The Marines conducted a study that suggested there was no danger to the public and, thus, no reason to close the 5. California Governor Gavin Newsom very much disagreed, declaring, “Firing live rounds over a busy highway isn’t just wrong – it’s dangerous,” and ordered it shut.

As it was, a shell prematurely exploded over the mostly empty road, lightly damaging Vance’s entourage and forcing a cleanup.

A predictable oopsie?

In a recent damning exposé, best-selling author Seth Harp slammed the entire U.S. military as decrepit, obsolete and dysfunctional, poking many holes in the notion of supreme dominance. The investigative journalist did not attend the Marine pageant but did go to this past summer’s military parade honoring President Donald Trump and the Army, which share a birthday.

While many on the left described the spectacle as a fascist fever dream, Harp was shocked by the lack of physical fitness amongst the troops, the completely out-of-date and dangerous machinery on display and general apathy even though the U.S. defense budget is almost one trillion dollars.

Harp opined on how this admixture has led to defeats in Iraq and Afghanistan and, most recently, getting embarrassed by Yemen’s Houthis after they caused two $67 million dollar fighter jets to fall off the deck of an aircraft carrier in the Red Sea.

“This isn’t a sign of ascendant fascism so much as the nadir of late-stage capitalism, which depends on forever wars to juice corporate profits at a time of falling rates of return on investment,” he wrote. In its doddering senescence, the capitalist war machine is no less murderous than fascism was—witness the millions of Muslims killed by the United States and Israel since 2001—but it has considerably lower production values. In this soft dystopia, our military forces will not be destroyed in a cataclysmic confrontation with the armies of Communism, as befell Nazi Germany on the Eastern Front. Instead, the defense oligarchs who own Congress will go on pocketing the money allocated to the military, just as they have been for the past forty years, until nothing is left but a hollow shell, a shrinking and sclerotic military so debilitated by graft, suicides, overdoses, and violent crime that it’s incapable of fulfilling its mission, and suitable only for use in theatrical deployments at home beating up protesters and rounding up migrants and the homeless.”

And, I suppose, frustrating surfers who were looking to ride e-bikes then blast air reverses.

No fun for Pip.

Thoughts?