$1 trillion a year now spent on military/defence industries.

This is a MASSIVE power and interest group in the US. Remember the US spends more on military than the other 200 countries in the world combined.

SO there will always be FAKE wars like Iraq.. and exaggerated enemies/threats fed to the US public.. to justify this hilariously ridiculous over expenditure.

Enemies will also be provoked and encouraged. The defence industry in the US NEEDS enemies...real or imaginary.

Now most americans dont benefit from this state of affairs..but a very powerful few do.

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"Religion is considered to be true by the common people, false by the wise and useful by the rulers".Luceus Annaeus Seneca

"Religion is comparable to a childhood neurosis"
sigmund Freud.

Excellent point. War now is a business venture. The military is serving corporations and they don't even know it.

Notice how conservatives get upset if people aren't talking about enemies and terrorism all the time. It's because their corrupt theft ring can't survive without the people believing we're surrounded by people determined to destroy us. At the blistering rate of a few dozen or hundred a year (cars kill 40,000 people a year, but you don't hear republicans calling for a war on driving).

i dunno what's gonna break the taboo on military spending, i literally think we could cut the defense budget at least by half. and it's funny, with all the whining about the 800 billion dollar stimulus and how it's going to ruin the economy, the defense budget is about that every year. that's an economy-ruining stimulus every year.

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cons lose wars did cons' mommas show them enough love when they were children? why nazis are cons silly rabbit! jim crow's for cons

"The truth is rarely in dispute. Debate is one side trying to misrepresent it, and the other side trying to make them look foolish doing it."
-- Sparks, QFT

The US is essentially a warmongering state and has weapons as its biggest industry. To keep things afloat, those weapons have to be used.

Its the same principle as Nazi Germany - huge amounts of weapons and vehicles made, thus WW2 had to happen to get rid of the surplus.

The Defense industry employs hundreds of thousands of people. Cut the defense budget, you cut jobs. Politically, not a very smart thing to do.

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It is the duty of every American to protect his country from it's government -- Thomas Paine

All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent. -- Thomas Jefferson

Good point. How about just cutting the contractors?

In 'war time' the US Government doesn't need to adhere to the US Constitution, giving it unlimited power to Govern. That's probably why the US will never be truly 'at peace' again. But yes, there is a lot of interplay between War, Money and Politics.

The military industrial complex is WAAY to powerful in the USA. This is a problem and unfortunately it will be very hard to solve. Because it would require closing down plants, bases, etc. Already they talked about cancelling submarine programs which would close the Groton submarine base and there was a huge roar of complaints and I swear I think we are building nuclear subs just to keep a town employed.

The other aspect is that the right wing have long used Straussian political theories to generate support for themselve. Those theories states that the ignorant masses must be controlled with the "noble lie" and through unifying support through an external enemy. Straussian theory even says that if an external enemy does not exist, create one. First it was communism. Now it is terrorism. So the right wing scares people wo generate patriotism and support for the leaders who will protect them.

Notice that the right wingers are the ones who are even complaining that Obama is not "talking" about terrorism enough. The fact that he is actually doing more is ignored or dismissed. They actually crave the fear and hatred of the external threat. But if a more moderate comes forward with rational arguements, like the threat of terrorism is exagerated and more people die a year in the USA from lightening strikes than terrorists, and we don't have speeches weekly and trillions of dollars spent fighting lightening strikes, they will be called weak, and many many people will believe they are weak.

Excellent post Hard Driver.

You have described the Bush team operations over 7-8 years perfectly.

What completely baffles me.... is that so many americans fall for it.

I mean it is so glaringly obvious... are there really that many untravelled, uneducated gullible sheep? Bizarre.

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"Religion is considered to be true by the common people, false by the wise and useful by the rulers".Luceus Annaeus Seneca

"Religion is comparable to a childhood neurosis"
sigmund Freud.

Well, one could argue that it's the continuation of Cold War policies started during the 1950s. Or it could be argued that it is all part of American imperialism. Or it could be that the US makes a great deal of money off of the export of arms and military equipment. Or it could be argued that it exists to acquire and protect US economic interests. Or it could be that Americans are generally insane and believe in a necessity for an extremely powerful military.

I don't think all of these are correct, but they're certainly possibilities. No matter what the answer is though, it effects me as much as my motorbike obsession effects Americans.

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~bonitas non est pessimis esse meliorem~

"It is not goodness to be better than the worst"