The first time the term Military-Industrial Complex was publicly uttered was in President Dwight D. Eisenhower's farewell speech at which time he warned the AmeriKKKan public to beware the insidious influence and creeping hold the military, defense research-technology, corporate and governmental hydra had on the nation. Would the AmeriKKKan people had heeded Eisenhower's warning, this nation would not have morphed into the imperialist juggernaut it has become today; with a global empire that rivals its European predecessors.

Today as AmeriKKKa stands on the brink of launching an ill-advised and immoral pre-emptive attack/invasion against a woefully undermanned, poorly equipped and inferior military capability and civilian population in Iraq, many AmeriKKKans are ambiguous about the looming war while increasing numbers are joining the anti-war movement despite the overwhelming support  given to Bush & Co. by the pliant corporate mass media. People around the world are becoming alarmed at AmeriKKKa's arrogance and unreasonableness.

This is an example of the power of the military/industrial/propaganda/political complex in action. Large defense contractors which also own media networks hire lobbyists and make sizable campaign contributions to both political parties to hawk their wares and promote government spending on their weapons, logistical support systems and mercenary forces (now called military or security for hire). The costs to the AmeriKKKan taxpayers runs in the billions money-wise while incalculable damage is being done psychologically and metaphysically. The collapse of the Soviet Union which was never really a formidable adversary (look at how inept their army proved to be in Afghanistan and their dismal record domestically as an economic production system) did not stop the drain on taxpayers for defense spending. It slowed it down a bit but there were always players in the wings waiting their turn to make a buck pumping military spending.

One such player is the Carlyle Group a very profitable venture capital/acquisition company which has used the influence of its high profile members (former C.I.A. Director and U.S. President George H.W. Bush, former Secretary of Defense Frank Carlucci, former Secretary of State James Baker, former British Prime Minister John Majors and former World Bank Treasurer Afsanch Masheyekhi as were members of the bin-Laden family until immediately following 9-11) to generate  huge profits in a myriad of businesses most notably aerospace and defense, automotive, energy, telecommunications and media, healthcare and real estate.

However, recent developments stemming from 9-11 have raised a caution flag about conflicts of interests and influence peddling, given that George H.W. Bush is the father of George W. Bush and a close friend of Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice. The Carlyle Group  is doing well with its investments and acquisitions in defense and war, as are the major defense contractors who are racking up huge profits as the "War On Terrorism" expands across the globe. According to The Carlyle Group's Website since 1987 the firm has invested 7.2 billion in 263 transactions with an aggregate accusation value of 19 billion. Not bad.

I'm all for economic growth but we must always remember and understand Western capitalism is a predatory system based on the invasion, exploitation, and subjugation of people of color world wide. The bottom line of The Carlyle Group is enhanced by war, the suffering, and continued exploitation of the world's poor. Bush and Co.'s pending move on Iraq is a continuation of this predatory  tradition. It's all about  oil and geo-strategic global positioning to enhance the AmeriKKKan Empire which will enrich and benefit a select few.

September 11 just gave the Bush Cabal the excuse they needed to initiate their plan to expropriate the world's land, labor, and resources. Bush came into office with a war and imperialist agenda that would make the Roman Legions, the Huns, and Hitler blush. What we are witnessing now is its execution, on a global scale. To accomplish this they need advanced weaponry, an all-pervasive propaganda apparatus to lobotomize  the masses, sophisticated surveillance systems to monitor both foreign and domestic subjects, and willing soldiers to serve as cannon fodder, invasion and occupational forces.

The military industrial, technology complex stands poised to provide  support for the AmeriKKKan Empire. Not only will they supply weapons, but companies like Dick Cheney's former company, Haliburton, will contract to provide a myriad of services such as logistics, oil drilling, pipeline construction and maintenance as well as security (soldiers for hire). The super rich like to keep it all in the family. The problem for the rest of us is, while the super rich and their minions are getting richer, Joe and Jane Sixpack will be losing their sons and daughters on the battle and oil fields in far off places like Afghanistan (we need to wake up and realize all these casualties there can be from helicopter crashes and motor vehicle accidents) Iraq, and coming soon, Colombia, South America. I would put North Korea in the mix but Bush and Co. have shown their true colors and aren't about to take on countries that might actually be able to present formidable resistance, not at present anyway.

What does all this mean? It means that they are not spending your tax dollars merely to design, manufacture and stockpile weapons of mass destruction and maintain a global ready military presence just for the sake of doing it. This is part and parcel to the AmeriKKKan Empire; and the military industrial technological clique is a critical piece in the puzzle. Along with the latest weapons which only sick and demented people could design and invent anyway, there is also the need to squash dissent and keep the masses in check using fear and intimidation and promoting an anti life, anti nature mentality. This is the job of the mass media.

So if the anti-war and peace movements become too vociferous and present major challenges to Bush's imperialistic plans, don't be surprised if the Bush cabal declares martial law, invokes Fatherland, oops I mean Homeland Security (REX 84 King Alfred Plan, etc.) repressive type scenarios and inters of massive numbers of AmeriKKKan citizens. In a worst case scenario I can see Bush calling for martial law, sending the National Guard and Reserves into the streets of AmeriKKKa  and suspending the 2004 elections.

Sound far fetched? Think about this, did you think five years ago laws like the US PATRIOT ACT and Homeland Security that virtually nullify the Bill of Rights and Constitution (which never applied to Africans in AmeriKKKa anyway) would be on the books and enforced? The AmeriKKKan people should have listened to Ol' Ike.

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1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created By Charles C. Mann I’m a big fan of Charles Mann’s previous book 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus, in which he provides a sweeping and provocative examination of North and South America prior to the arrival of Christopher Columbus. It’s exhaustively researched but so wonderfully written that it’s anything but exhausting to read. With his follow-up, 1493, Mann has taken it to a new, truly global level. Building on the groundbreaking work of Alfred Crosby (author of The Columbian Exchange and, I’m proud to say, a fellow Nantucketer), Mann has written nothing less than the story of our world: how a planet of what were once several autonomous continents is quickly becoming a single, “globalized” entity. Mann not only talked to countless scientists and researchers; he visited the places he writes about, and as a consequence, the book has a marvelously wide-ranging yet personal feel as we follow Mann from one far-flung corner of the world to the next. And always, the prose is masterful. In telling the improbable story of how Spanish and Chinese cultures collided in the Philippines in the sixteenth century, he takes us to the island of Mindoro whose “southern coast consists of a number of small bays, one next to another like tooth marks in an apple.” We learn how the spread of malaria, the potato, tobacco, guano, rubber plants, and sugar cane have disrupted and convulsed the planet and will continue to do so until we are finally living on one integrated or at least close-to-integrated Earth. Whether or not the human instigators of all this remarkable change will survive the process they helped to initiate more than five hundred years ago remains, Mann suggests in this monumental and revelatory book, an open question.

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Ratification The People Debate the Constitution, 1787-1788 By Pauline Maier A notable historian of the early republic, Maier devoted a decade to studying the immense documentation of the ratification of the Constitution. Scholars might approach her book’s footnotes first, but history fans who delve into her narrative will meet delegates to the state conventions whom most history books, absorbed with the Founders, have relegated to obscurity. Yet, prominent in their local counties and towns, they influenced a convention’s decision to accept or reject the Constitution. Their biographies and democratic credentials emerge in Maier’s accounts of their elections to a convention, the political attitudes they carried to the conclave, and their declamations from the floor. The latter expressed opponents’ objections to provisions of the Constitution, some of which seem anachronistic (election regulation raised hackles) and some of which are thoroughly contemporary (the power to tax individuals directly). Ripostes from proponents, the Federalists, animate the great detail Maier provides, as does her recounting how one state convention’s verdict affected another’s. Displaying the grudging grassroots blessing the Constitution originally received, Maier eruditely yet accessibly revives a neglected but critical passage in American history.—Booklist

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The White Masters of the World

From The World and Africa, 1965

By W. E. B. Du Bois

W. E. B. Du Bois’ Arraignment and Indictment of White Civilization (Fletcher)

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Ancient African Nations

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The Death of Emmett Till by Bob Dylan  /  The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll  /  Only a Pawn in Their Game

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posted 8 February 2003