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Missile Defense

Technology has always found its greatest consumer in a nation's war and defense efforts. Since the last attempts at a "Star Wars" defense system, has technology changed considerably enough to make the latest Missile Defense initiatives more successful? Can such an application of science be successful? Is a militarized space inevitable, necessary or impossible?

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rshow55 - 10:41am Jul 12, 2003 EST (# 12977 of 12980)
Can we do a better job of finding truth? YES. Click "rshow55" for some things Lchic and I have done and worked for on this thread.

I've quoted Berle's Power many times on this thread - and cited his Laws of Power 666 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.JHt6bYrEpvK.0@.f28e622/826 - because I've felt that Berle had a number of fundamentals straight. Berle thought hard about basics that are fundamental and unchangeable.

Adolf Berle knew about power. He was first a guest at the White House and the Oval Office in 1913, as an 18 year old - and had the good fortune and connections to serve at the Versailles conference after World War I. He was involved with, and studied, power relationships - military, economic, and political, all through his life. He was a senior "brain trust" advisor to Roosevelt from 1932, and an assistant Secretary of State under Roosevelt and Truman. I wish I'd had a chance to meet him.

In Chapter 5, Section 5 of Power , Berle states some basic facts that need to be much more deeply understood than they are. Facts that were widely known to people who had to take responsibility for action in the 1940's and 1950's. Berle uses the phrase "private collectivism" to refer to corporations in the following.

" Translation from a private collectivism to a state collectivism is the easiest trick in the world where (as is the case under the corporate system) the collectivism is already well organized for production. Lenin, in the semiprimative Russian state, found much personally owned production and little collectively owned industry, and the takeover was difficult to work out. Hitler, virtually nationalizing plants in Germany, needed merely to coerce or arrange transfer of allegiance of managers to his Nazi apparatus. . . . . A really modern state takeover probably would not disturb stockholder, manager, or anyone else. It would merely prescribe methods for action as needed, levy taxes as desired, and work out measures for guiding production as wanted. This was done, in fact, when, between 1933 adn 1938, the Federal Reserve Board acquired the power to determine the policies and in some measure the practices of privately controlled banks.

I believe that everybody who cares about America, and the values we profess, should consider carefully, and remember, the concerns about the “military-industrial complex” set out in the FAREWELL ADDRESS of President Dwight D. Eisenhower January 17, 1961. http://www.geocities.com/~newgeneration/ikefw.htm

In many ways, things have gone worse the Eisenhower's worst fears, and there are things to be faced, and fixed.

Repeat:

"Hitler, virtually nationalizing plants in Germany, needed merely to coerce or arrange transfer of allegiance of managers to his Nazi apparatus."

How well defended are US institutions to takeovers of that kind? How far have such takeovers progressed?

One thing the Nazis took very far was manipulation of information - the practice of the Big Lie - - and lots of other lies, too.

A Perfect War? By MICHAEL R. GORDON

WASHINGTON, July 11 — The Defense Department has come up with a novel explanation for the looting, robberies and shootings that have afflicted Iraq since Saddam Hussein was overthrown: They are the unavoidable consequence of a triumphant war plan.

Attack On The Ad-Man by A.S.J. Tessimond bears reading. http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.JHt6bYrEpvK.0@.f28e622/5217

The connections between the Bush administration and Nazi practices, both operationally and historically - are uncomfortably close.

Neither Eisenhower nor Casey liked Nazis at all, and both men were terribly concerned about the possibility that our system would fall into similar patterns. I made some promises to Casey and Eisenhower.

Are we becoming a "national socialism for the rich?"

Not if I can help it.

lchic - 04:08pm Jul 12, 2003 EST (# 12978 of 12980)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

LIFE'S a jolly holiday for Mary who as the political power over young lives took note of Berle's

Rule Three: Power is invariably based on a system of ideas of philosophy. Absent such a system or philosophy, the institutions essential to power cease to be reliable, power ceases to be effective, and the power holder is eventually displaced. (#666)

ALIGNMENT-government with a sector of population who's thinking is ideological-simplex rather than reality-complex ... TIME will show to be an imperfect fit.

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