Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2002 12:47:54 -0800
From: Michael Andre-Driussi 
Subject: (urth) "Hour of Trust" corp <> mil./ind. complex

I wrote:
>A more important point which has not been articulated (though it may be
>well known): the corporations of "Hour of Trust" are not generic
>mega-corps, say McDonald's or Ford Motor Co, who have somehow acquired the
>Pentagon, etc.  The corporations are specifically the military/industrial
>complex, the weapons makers, who have amassed enough wealth and power as to
>consume their socially decadent host, yet they are incapable of fulfilling
>their new roles. So they can produce such durable goods as warplanes, for
>example--not that they have also picked up these war factories for cheap,
>but rather these war factories have been their cash cows in the 50 years
>after WW2.

But this was one of those cases where, once I had sent it, the doubts came
in. The tree farm, etc.  Things that the military/industrial complex is not
assuredly involved in.

So the corporations aren't exactly the micomplex: they seem to have
absorbed the micomplex, among many others. "Would you like a B-52 with that
hamburger?"

To take another tack: What is the story saying about the military?  On the
one hand, it seems to be saying "The military is a properly an area of the
Federal government [i.e., the Common Defense] and it should not be
privatized or otherwise left to amateurs."  Does it also argue for or
against conscription (that is, The Draft, and all the protest raised
against it)?  I'm not sure.  The struggle between having a Standing Army of
Professionals, or a Standing Army of Conscripts, or a non-standing Army of
Conscripts (that is, the army is raised in response to crisis, then
disbanded), or a non-standing Army of Volunteers.

=mantis=


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