I just listened to C-Span's Sunday night Q&A.
Who knew it would leave me angry and motivated?
The guest was Dr. Karen Kwiatkowski, Ph.D.Lt. Col. USAF (ret.) and she was talking about being a quiet whistle blower, doubter and "nobody" who tried to speak Truth to Power.
She didn't get very far.
Her insider's knowledge about how various Neo-Con think tanks pre-scripted Bush's reasons for going to war with Iraq in 1998 was very interesting. You might want to read some of her recent essays HERE. She says the makes them sardonic and funny to keep from crying. As a descendent of a hotshot Quaker Minister, I blamed a lot of things on "the military." I was wrong. The military seems to know what's at stake. Lives, economies, material goods and property. It is the ideologues in politics who seem to forget.
She is also interviewed extensively in the movie that won the 2005 Sundance award, called Why We Fight.
If you belong to a movie club, consider watching it. I'm checking local theaters, then Netflix, etc.
The problems facing the US and the world are not new. Dwight D. Eisenhower succinctly (and grammatically) expressed them in his farewell address in 1961. If he were alive today, he would be speaking out against the imperialistic, oil-based, short-sighted goals of the present dynastic oligarchy.
Be a part of the "educated electorate." Read. Study. Converse. THINK!!
Do not give in to the spin meisters, or even the commedians who somehow make it OK that the US has become a bully balanced on a knife edge of indebtedness, and theocracy at the same time we are dependent on citizens around the world to buy our products, sew our clothes, and answer our telephone inquiries.
... We now stand ten years past the midpoint of a century that has witnessed four major wars among great nations. Three of these involved our own country. Despite these holocausts America is today the strongest, the most influential and most productive nation in the world. Understandably proud of this pre-eminence, we yet realize that America's leadership and prestige depend, not merely upon our unmatched material progress, riches and military strength, but on how we use our power in the interests of world peace and human betterment...
Throughout America's adventure in free government, our basic purposes have been to keep the peace; to foster progress in human achievement, and to enhance liberty, dignity and integrity among people and among nations. To strive for less would be unworthy of a free and religious people. Any failure traceable to arrogance, or our lack of comprehension or readiness to sacrifice would inflict upon us grievous hurt both at home and abroad...
A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction.
Our military organization today bears little relation to that known by any of my predecessors in peacetime, or indeed by the fighting men of World War II or Korea.
Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.
This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the militaryindustrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military (and congressional -- ed. note) machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.
The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present...Another factor in maintaining balance involves the element of time. As we peer into society's future, we -- you and I, and our government -- must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering, for our own ease and convenience, the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow.
Down the long lane of the history yet to be written America knows that this world of ours, ever growing smaller, must avoid becoming a community of dreadful fear and hate, and be instead, a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect.
Such a confederation must be one of equals. The weakest must come to the conference table with the same confidence as do we, protected as we are by our moral, economic, and military strength. That table, though scarred by many past frustrations, cannot be abandoned for the certain agony of the battlefield.
Disarmament, with mutual honor and confidence, is a continuing imperative. Together we must learn how to compose differences, not with arms, but with intellect and decent purpose. Because this need is so sharp and apparent I confess that I lay down my official responsibilities in this field with a definite sense of disappointment. As one who has witnessed the horror and the lingering sadness of war -- as one who knows that another war could utterly destroy this civilization which has been so slowly and painfully built over thousands of years -- I wish I could say tonight that a lasting peace is in sight....To all the peoples of the world, I once more give expression to America's prayerful and continuing aspiration:
We pray that peoples of all faiths, all races, all nations, may have their great human needs satisfied; that those now denied opportunity shall come to enjoy it to the full; that all who yearn for freedom may experience its spiritual blessings; that those who have freedom will understand, also, its heavy responsibilities; that all who are insensitive to the needs of others will learn charity; that the scourges of poverty, disease and ignorance will be made to disappear from the earth, and that, in the goodness of time, all peoples will come to live together in a peace guaranteed by the binding force of mutual respect and love.Complete text HERE
it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy."
~~J. Madison (1809-1817)
**I was way too "proper" to be on the front lines of demonstrations in the Viet Nam era. But at one time I knew most of the words to this anti-war anthem by Country Joe and the Fish. Some dear readers have said there are current anthems about Iraq, but they certainly don't get the airplay this one did. 
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