Cassandras:
1787, James Madison addressing the Constitutional Convention: "...A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive
will not long be safe companions to liberty. The means of defense against foreign danger, have been always the instruments
of tyranny at home. Among the Romans it was a standing maxim to excite a war, whenever a revolt was apprehended.
Throughout all Europe, the armies kept up under the pretext of defending, have enslaved the people."
1935, Albert J. Nock projecting US trends in Our Enemy, the State: "...a steady progress in collectivism
running off into a military despotism of a severe type...
a steadily growing bureaucracy...production languishing, the State in consequence taking over one "essential industry" after another...
Then at some point in this progress...an industrial and financial dislocation too severe for the asthenic social structure to bear...
and the casual anonymous forces of dissolution will be supreme."
1961, President Eisenhower warning about the growth of militarism:
"...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....
The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money
is ever present and is gravely to be regarded."
Nemesis:
2007, Chalmers Johnson in the prologue to Nemesis: "Unfortunately, our political system may no
longer be capable of saving the United States as we know it, since it is
hard to imagine any president or Congress standing up to the powerful vested interests of the Pentagon, the secret
intelligence agencies, and the military-industrial complex."
|
