Saw this last night on C/Span after way too many beers.

Quote from Eisenhower's farewell address in 1961. I'm not a historian or even a good judge of history and its players in the recent past. Embarrassingly enough, Thats the kind of stuff I should be aware of....I heard this and it hit home. Text is very appropriate and even scary. We can't count on the government or the media, all we have is each other.

<snip>
"Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. 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. The total influence-economic, political, even spiritual-is felt in every city, every state house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

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 huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together."

The entire speech:
http://www.eisenhower.utexas.edu/farewell.htm

It's funny how real vets like Eisenhower want to avoid war, while greedy chickenhawks love playing GI Joe from 6000 miles away.

>> We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. <<

Too late.

we make money out of the wars we fight (Helliburtin and Bechtel) but I was reading a history book my granddaughter used this year in school and it showed a diagram of arms exports by the world's countries. We export about 45% of the worlds weapons with England right behind us. I think that may be the only manufacturing jobs left in America?

-- but he's famous for warning us about the military-industrial complex. He invented the term. Then the military-industrial complex assassinated the very next president -- JFK -- when he didn't keep in line with the arms dealers.