According to journalist Andrew Cockburn in his latest book, The Spoils of War: Power, Profit and the American War Machine, our bloated $778 billion defense budget doesn’t necessarily provide for our safety. Cockburn, the Washington editor of Harper’s, has spent decades covering the Pentagon and defense industry and says money and power - not legitimate security concerns - is what drives our ballooning military budget.

Our podcast conversation details how we got here. According to Cockburn, “The US defense complex is best thought of not as an organization, but as a living, insatiable, creature, dedicated only to its own defense and power.”

With our government so held hostage by the defense industry, it’s we the people who are going to have to change that.

Read more at MarianneWilliamson.Substack.com