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self-perpetuating and self-protective mechanisms, which, for one thing, REQUIRE a major war every 20 years or so, paid for by the rest of us, to feed the corporate hogs who live off these manufactured conflicts. It's time we cut the military budget back by 90%, to a true defensive posture, and re-establish the flag as a symbol of Constitutional democracy, not of blood shed in the interest of Corporate profit. We have paid dearly for winning WW II. We have never demobilized, and the corporate/military leeches have just grown and grown to humongous size, and now operate independently of the people who pay the bills and who theoretically give the orders. Eisenhower--the general who oversaw our WW II victory in Europe, and was then elected president--warned us against this. He called it the "military-industrial complex" and said that it was a threat to our liberty. He was so right. But it will not be easy. The military corporations are even more octopus-like, throughout our economy, than the oil corporations, reaching into every aspect of our government and society and sucking the life out of us. And they constantly put the common soldier in front of them as a shield. To attack the corporate leeches is to attack the patriotism and courage of soldiers and ordinary Americans. The flag is now THEIRS, not ours. It is used to fool and trick people into ignoring what they have done to our country. We really have to ask, when was the last time the "military-industrial complex" defended us, in any true sense of the word? They couldn't even defend our nation's capitol--not even the Pentagon--on 9/11. They--or some element within them--let themselves be stood down. How does the Iraq war "defend" us? How did the Vietnam war "defend" us? These major and grievously expensive conflicts were both wars of choice! Neither of them had anything whatever to do with our "defense." And Iraq came along right on schedule, to feed the beast. And it is that beast that now poses a greater threat to our democracy than any terrorist group. It is in fact creating terrorists where none existed before, with its wanton killing and torture. Defending this country--truly defending it, eliminating wars of choice--requires only about 10% of current military expenditure. That's what we should aim for. But this will require a major effort of our society at demobilization, and a steely-spined commitment to restoring order in Washington DC.
Anyone wonder, as I do, why so many Iraq vets didn't make it to Congress in the midterms? I think all the corrupt money in our political system, and, above all, the Diebold/ES&S "trade secret" vote tabulation, were used to keep them out. Because they, more than anyone, know what this war is all about. It is not about "defending" the U.S. It is not about the flag. It is about the mind-boggling "military-industrial" hogfest that the Bush Junta unleashed in our nation's capitol, with the collusion of our own party. My advice: Watch what the new Senate does with election reform (that is, real election reform--elimination of the "trade secret" programming code) as a clue to the difficulty before us regarding all real reform. Prediction: The Senate will gut or veto election reform bills from the House, in committee. The takeover of our election system by rightwing Bushite corporations, using "trade secret" vote tabulation programming code, is now the key to keeping us at war. The War Democrats fully supported the elimination of transparency in vote counting, and secret corporate control of all results. This also explains the Carville/Clinton attack on Dean's DNC, which favors real election reform, and managed, through excellent organization and focus, to defeat some of the goals of the election theft industry in the recent midterms.
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