Why would anyone think that Hillary or Barack wants to control the military industrial complex, or any other giant corporations?

Have either made any noises to imply that they would stop the war machine, or the prison industrial complex or the FIRE cabal?

I think not.

It appears that the real issue here is who best brings in money to the M.I.C.: the good cop (Obama/Clinton) or the bad cop (Bush & Co.)?

The idea that any single politician could "control" these run amok industries is hopeless. It was hopeless when Eisenhower warned us about it over half a century ago -- you'll note that the warning came when he was leaving office, not campaigning. That little factoid, that tiny insight, tells all.

Caroline Arnold asks ". . . will Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama be able to contain and control them?"

Wrong question. Clinton and Obama ARE them.

Just examine their policies.

Please, no more Clintonian and Obamanian illusions of progressivism. They are corporate militarists and support the continued domination of the corporate militarist regime over the world.

POGO rules America

- That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Thomas Jefferson

Can't say anymore than that.

There is a 59-page outline of what Barack Obama plans to do for America if he's elected President. This man hasn't left out a thing. Not only that, he includes a detailed plan of how he's going to carry out every one of his intentions.

It's very compelling - and he will definitely have my vote if he is chosen to run for President. I've never in my life seen or heard such a detailed outline of what a candidate plans to do once he gets into office - regarding every topic any thinking American could possibly be interested in.

If you'd care to take a look at it, it's at this web site:

http://www.barackobama.com/pdf/ObamaBlueprintForChange.pdf

George W. Bush is the worst President in the history of the United States of America !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Don't you wish George H. Bush and Barbara Bush had practiced Abstinence ??????????

Mc Cain & Abel

Mc Cain are you truly able
to save that black gold
in the oily fertile valley for the few?
Are we truly able to pay for a century of strife
Are we truly able
Say.....Mc Cain
Who slew Abel?

Skull and bones sounds like a fraternity
Did your jungle Nam jet get lost in fratricide?
The Qur'an and the Bible don't have much to hide
they both concur on Abel
but are you Cain?
like a farmer of old for told on a scroll
by the holy depleted U dead sea?

Mr. Mc Cain are you blamed for starting eternal strife?
Would you prefer a bomb or a knife?
How about a name like Sue?
Aren't you glad your framed as blue?
For a villain knows what he must do.

GWOT - you mean the unConstitutional global war on terrorizing everybody?

Bush announced this war after 9/11. It is not legal.

But it has become the American mind-set, and influences everything, everywhere, forever and ever. We fight this war from Somalia to Pakistan to NYC.

All our wars (Iraq, the war against the 9/11 attackers) roll into one (a deliberate ploy) so that the 'America at war' paradigm can be unveiled whenever needed, so Bush can be Commander-in-Chief, so any complaint or dissent can be labeled treason.

We will never be free from this war until Congress tells the President where to stuff it.
Or until pigs fly, which will probably come first.

We'll be done when the country's bankrupt and the bills are due. They may figure out a way to keep the war going anyway.

I guess I'm trying to figure out how it was that we conquered the Germans and Japanese in a shorter time -- and were once ready to fight a large superpower. But a handful of nasties have us this tangled up? Something is rotten, eh?

Lo, midst darkening days, they looked for a hero
to deliver them.
One mighty and wise, ever tireless in battle
against what they feared.
Seeing him not, they trembled and sighed anew
"Who will save us?"

No heroes stood above them, come to save the day
alone among all.
"We are undone!" they moaned, no heroes to be seen
looking each to the other.
They were but ordinary men, who told tales of heroes
knowing it was not them.

Amid drought and sweltering heat, they grew hungry and weak
for none did save them.
Their leaders spun lies, dulling minds and increasing fears
while reaping from the weeping.
Lo, amid darkening days, the many waited still for a hero
that did not come.

One hearing their leaders lie, exclaimed "They have no truth."
faced turned at the sound.
Another heard clearly, defining the disconnect and connecting
the lies and excuses.
Yet another grew stubborn, remembering the freedom once believed
when yet they were free.

"Will you dare be a hero?",asked many cowering in fear dreadful
that none are free.
But heroes none, those stubbornly remembering their freedom
their leaders leave be undone.
"Not I" whispered one, "Not I" said yet another and another
many whispers that it roared.

"Not I would see freedom undone. Beware the disconnect!"
leaders called her stubborn.
Another called it framing, lies that reaped from sorrow
others saw clear anew.
"We are our heroes!", standing taller lies unravelling
amid darekening skies.

We are our heroes...

Dulce et Decorum Est

by Wilfred Owen

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!-- An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And floundering like a man in fire or lime.--
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

Our nation is now investing heavily in autonomous robot warriors - mechanical devices that are described as "cost-effective and risk-free."

Cost effective? Not when we need to actually build and destroy these robots. Just think how "risk-free and cost-effective" computer simulations would be. After every "virtual" battle each side can just put the appropriate number of it's citizens to death. This is virtually cost free to the Merchants of Death and reduces overcrouding and pollution.

The funny fact we all have to face is that the Pentagon is starting to outsource its military production to other countries.

The recently multi-billion dollar contract given to a French firm so that it will produce air-borne bomber refuelers for the US military is a harbinger of things to come.

Thus the Pentagon will find it increasingly difficult to find the appropriate high-quality US manufacturers and IT systems innovators they depend upon.

Why? Because the Power-Elite needed to stupify and demoralize the mass subjects that reside in the US; the PE needed to do so in order for this population to fight their wars, support their policies and, if they didn't, they wouldn't have the intellectual wherewithall needed to find critical information nor would they have knowledge of social models needed to understand how the US actually operates.

Furthermore, the Pentagon will eventually not have access to the incredible wealth and potential personnel that it earlier relied upon. The US citizenry (or subjects) will not have enough taxable income to replenish the treasury, the US dollar will become a less sought after currency, and the quality and training of its soldiers will increasingly decline.

Mercenaries and robotic devices will increasingly be used but they also require much more money for motivation and for constant upkeep. Additionally, the technical training required to direct, control and maintain these robotic military units will be increasingly less available to the general US population because of rising college tuitions, the bad foundational education before college, and the fact many of these positions will be off-shored (and thus less controlled and more easily hacked into or infiltrated).

Empires usually cannabalize the center's peoples, resources and production of wealth.

balakirev -- You're spot on. The damn parasites are sucking our life's blood, and will have no compunction to move along to healthier "hosts" as the needs manifest.

When our body's notice a systemic attack, they intelligently mobilize EVERYTHING to fight the invading parasites.

Fever is a good thing, although it has taken me a while to appreciate that the heat is what is killing off the bugs - and even though the host is damaged (dead brain cells + pain) during the fight - eventually the overall war is won.

Let's PLEASE focus on the positive, and make that the reality that we create for the unprecedented future (where the MIC shrivels up and drops off as a dried-up cankerous husk.

OK ?

… … … … … Mahatma Gandhi … & … ML King … … Inspiration … … … … …
« We must be the change we wish to see in the world »
« There is a sufficiency in the world for man's need but not for man's greed »
« We adopt the means of nonviolence because our end is a community at peace with itself » — MLK

Yes, let's focus on the positive. The age of the military industrial state is fast coming to an end. America's MIC will fall apart due to its insane and fundamentally unsustainable objectives. There is not the energy to facilitate its plans for world domination. And the world will finally grow tired of being tyrannized by a ruthless, robotic hegemon, and economically and politically isolate the source. The MIC won't be voted down via referendum, because that is one thing we NEVER get to vote on, much less even discuss, in the corporate media.

I'd be inclined to hope for something like peak oil, perhaps "peak war" -- a point at which war is no longer profitable, but I'm unsure it quite works that way.

War has a renewable resource: recruits, conscripts, mercenaries, perhaps robots, etc.

Last, and not the least, it's possible to imagine a pseudo-war, a war without much in the way of bullets. Just a mandate for multi-zillion dollar projects that don't work, lack a real enemy, will never need to be tested in real-life, and perhaps was never actually built in the first place (classified, of course).

So perhaps war is "sustainable" after all?