Last night on Bill Moyer's Journal Jeremy Scahill, author of Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army, gave more credence, as he has for some time now, to the fact that Bush and Republicans are privatizing government and using our tax dollars to ensure that it gets done.  It was a frightening but fascinating show and I'd urge you to watch or read the transcript to learn how you and I are contributing to our own demise through the Republican's contractor takeover of the government programs that we thought were being run by the government!

Scahill:  Well, I think we're in the midst of the most radical privatization agenda in our nation's history. We of course see it in schools. We see it in the health care system, in prisons. And now, we're seeing it full blown in the war machine. What I ultimately see as the real threat here is that the system of the very existence of the nation state I think is at stake here. Because you have companies now that have been funded with billions of dollars in public money using that money to then build up the infrastructure of private armies some of which could take out a small national military.

and

Scahill:  There's the funding of congressional candidates. And Erik Prince [owner of Blackwater] has given over a quarter of a million dollars to Republican candidates. He's also given money to the green party to defeat Democratic candidates in the 2006 election cycle. So, he's a pretty committed supporter of the Republican party. But what I think is more interesting is Erik Prince's connection to radical religious right organizations. I mean, he comes from a family where his father built up a very successful manufacturing empire called Prince Manufacturing. And the invention that they were best known for is the now ubiquitous lighted sun visors. You pull down the visor in your car and it lights up. You have a bit of Blackwater history riding around in your vehicle. And so, Prince grows up in this household where he watches his father using that business as a cash generating engine to fuel and fund the rise not only of the Republican revolution of 1994, but also of several of the core groups that make up the radical religious right. His dad gave the seed money to Gary Bauer to start the family research council. They were very close to James Dobson and his Focus on the Family Prayer Warrior Network. Erik Prince was in the first team of interns that Gary Bauer took on in Washington at the Family Research Council. And Erik Prince's sister Betsy married Dick Devos, heir to the Amway Corporation fortune, the owners of the Orlando Magic basketball team. And together, these two families merged in a kind of marriage that was commonplace in the monarchies of old Europe. And together, they formed this formidable behind the scenes power player in radical right wing politics in this country. And Erik Prince as a young man goes down, he interns in George H. W. Bush's White House but complains it's not conservative enough for him. And so, he backs Pat Buchanan in his insurgency campaign in 1992. So, these are sort of the people that peppered the landscape of young Erik Prince's life. He also interned for Dana Rauerbacher, a former speechwriter for Ronald Reagan.

What frightens me is this question:  What are Erik Prince's ties to the branch of Christian fundamentalism's Dominionist movement?  I want to be careful here to say that not all conservative Christians, even among the most political, are as extreme as the Dominionist movement.  But that's the group that favors a theocracy, with laws based on Old Testament biblical principles, such as stoning adulterers and executing homosexuals (I kid you not).  They are a very, very small subset of conservative Christianity but they have some very powerful adherents, including, at one time, Sam Brownback.

So, if Prince, who owns Blackwater, is tied in with this group (and I don't know that he is - I'm only asking about it), and is the owner of a private army, this is discomforting.

It means that basically, our government has helped to build a privately owned militia, which is not very different from those we fight, such as the Mahdi Army in Iraq, the militias in Afghanistan, and even those in Bosnia and South America.  The threat of a rogue mercenary coup right here at home is mind boggling.

After all, these are armed groups whose soldiers are not accountable to the people of America but to the single individual who owns the company that employs them.

I didn't know that.  But I'll trust that what you're saying is true.  Was James Kennedy one of those Dominionist nuts?

I agree with you... I find it quite frightening.

Here's yet another example that I just came across in Federal Computer Week regarding a GAO report on Homeland Security's inappropriate use of contractors for work which the government itself should be performing.

The Homeland Security Department is paying billions to professional service contractors to perform tasks that are similar to work usually reserved for government employees, officials said Oct. 17. 
....
DHS program officials "did not assess the risk that government decisions may be influenced by, rather than independent from, contractor judgments - as required by federal program guidance," GAO said in the report. "In addition, none of the program officials and contractors we spoke with was aware of these requirements, and few believed that their professional and management support service contracts required enhanced oversight. (emphasis added)"

And again, one more example of Bush administration incompetence in running government: few believed that these contracts required enhanced oversight!!!  We will ever be able to survive this administration?

The Treasury opted a while back to start financing government debt through more short-term securities.  Pretty soon it is going to have to roll over all that debt at current higher short term rates.  That means more of the federal budget will be going to pay for debt.  On top of that, no one has done anything to fix either of the major social welfare programs: Medicare and Social Security.  Those two programs will continue to grow and at an even more rapid pace with the retirements of baby boomers.  The net result is that there will be less money for discretionary spending.  And something will need to be cut because I don't think either party has the stomach to raise taxes.