JohnBoy your comments are spot on, nail meet hammer dead center.

...Your "rich get richer" comment makes no sense. Jerry

Okay Jerry, pay attention: Shaving the tiniest percent off the 2010 "defense" budget would feed, clothe and educate every person of woman born in the United States, and we'd still have the most awesomely formidable military arsenal in the history of the galaxy.

But we don't talk about that stuff. We close libraries, cut education budgets, tax everything, and borrow from our children's future instead of tapping into the awesome reservoir of taxpayer cash shoveled into the Pentagon each and every year.

There have been and continue to be some very powerful people in our country who reap immense profits from war and military expenditures and therefore aggressively seek to perpetuate them.

Oil is the fuel of the war machine and on both fronts there are obscene profits to be made. The hyprocrisy of the deficit hawks who demand massive cuts in social programs to balance the budget while simultaneously complaining that we don't spend enough on "defense" is very hard for me to take.

The "military industral complex" is bleeding this country dry in a multitude of ways, including financially, emotionally and morally. The MIC will make sure this country is always at war, with never an opportunity for peace. The question must be asked: who serves who? Does the Pentagon exist to serve the United States, or does the United States now exist to serve the Pentagon? Unfortunately, I believe it is the latter.

I spent eight years in active service USAF… and during that period I spent most of my time being a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.

The Iraq war accomplished much of what George W. Bush and his handlers wanted to accomplish, in that it tremendously enriched numerous corporate allies of the Bush administration....are you starting to see evidence of the rich getting richer here yet Jer?

President Eisenhower (a republican Jerry) gave us a warning about just where we find ourselves today in his farewell address of January 1961.

QUOTE:

"We have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions… 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…

We must not fail to comprehend its grave implications… In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial 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 machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together."


We build a global empire. We are an elite group of people who utilize international financial organizations to foment conditions that make other nations subservient to the corporatocracy running our biggest corporations, our government, and our banks. Like our counterparts in the Mafia, Economic Hit Men (EHM) provide favors...

"Interesting that some of you are now saying capitalism ruined America, when there is no doubt that we are still the only super power in the world, and not just from a military point of view." Jerry

Jerry the opposite of excessive nationalism and self-righteousness is humility – national as well as individual. Humility enables us to critically examine our own behaviors and attitudes towards things, rather than hold to the certainty that everything we do is good and right simply because we are who we are.

*Starlifter

according to comcasts news bullitens some scientists estimate it coul dbe as much as 12 times worse than the government and BP are saying. 210,000 gallons X 12. 2.5 MILLION gallons a DAY. Then again other scientists say the government estimate may be just about right. Lets say its dead in between at 1.25 MILLION a day. I still say we're pretty much screwed so far as our present mode of civilization goes.

Stimp you say there is no one to blame but Haliburton and BP failed to install a $500,000 safety switch after Dickhead Cheyney made it legal not to install the switch. Its true we all should have made more effort to switch to alternative energy but the above are guilty of criminal negligence. I realize punishing them is not going to save the planet but letting them get by because they have more money than God is not the right thing to do either.

"reality can fall on you like a ton of bricks" Webster would you wire a house and leave out the breaker box to save money? Would you drill a hole a mile deep in the ocean floor and not install a safety switch? Cheyney, BP and Haliburton could have just destoyed this planet as we know it, is that real enough for ya?

Its no secret Cheyney had the safety switch deregulated. Of course it would be almost impossible to prosecute. Thats one of the major things wrong with this country, politicians are above the law. They get away with sex and money scandals, now Cheyney could have destroyed this planet. Only time will tell. Everything has been set up where he is above the law. Cheyney and Bush should have been tried for treason when they lied about WMD's. How many innocent Americans have died over there so Haliburton can drill more oil wells? We are pumping innocent American blood in our fuel tanks, thats one reason all my vehicles are efficient. I do have a pickup that gets 20 mpg but I drive it only when I have to which amounts to a couple of thousand miles a year.

Did the kids overseas die for WMD's or have they died for Haliburton's oil wells?

It's time for me to play devil's advocate for a while. Most of you know by now that I have bit of a problem believing that Big Business and our Government have “my” best interest at heart.
Many of you are old enough to remember when Jimmy Carter had solar collectors installed on the White House roof and that Ronald Reagan had them pulled down. This was done with the support of most of the American voters. We, “I”, had just lived through a period when we were actually killing each other over our place in a gas line. As soon as the threat of  being forced to change passed, we went right back to our “comfortable” life. I myself rushed out and bought a E150 van!
I would love to blame all the evil of the world on BP and their kind, but I am reminded of the famous line of Walt Kelly's “Pogo”, “We have met the enemy...and he is us!”