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Wednesday, January 19, 2011

The American Congressional Complex

The American Congressional Complex

Push for Asia Times; "Giant weapons maker becomes Big Brother", By William D Hartung

Push for CFR for the little idea received from the interview "Military-Industrial Complex, Fifty Years On" ("the military-industrial-technological-congressional complex.") the theme of this piece.

           America’s most influential think tank conducts a fluff interview on the military industrial complex. Asia Times bites back with one company.

           Asia Times article covers just one of the most powerful companies in the world, non other than Lockheed Martin. LM has operations in all fifty states. It did so to be sure that it would have a lobbying platform with some local faces and economic benefits in all the states. LM did this to be sure that the F-35 (being that it is late, costing more, and leaving air forces with fewer planes) flies. It was however in all fifty
 states before the F-35 working for these organizations. (Department of Agriculture, the Bureau of Land Management, the Census Bureau, the Coast Guard, the Department of Defense (including the army, the navy, the marines, the air force and the Missile Defense Agency), the Department of Education, the Department of Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Federal Aviation Administration, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Federal Technology Department, the Food and Drug Administration, the General Services Administration, the Geological Survey, the Department of Homeland Security, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Internal Revenue Service, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the National Institutes of Health, the Department of State, the Social Security Administration, the US Customs Service, the US Postal Service, the Department of Transportation, the Transportation Security Agency and the Department of Veterans Affairs (resource link)) However this move for the F-35 is clearly designed to get people on state and local chamber of commerce and other in influential organizations, note how most of there work is in running the country. The economic interests of having high tech jobs creating employment and tax revenue is much more seductive.

Even without any cuts to the defense budget large gains for the American people and democracy could be made by specifically targeting operations like LM for de-monopolization. Obviously there is a need for both fusion for operational continuity and protection against espionage. This means a top down approach is necessary and inaction is a worst case scenario.