The Real News is an excellent independent news site (link to the lower right under “NEWS”). No corporate sponsorship, no government affiliations, no advertisement, no soundbites, no partisan agenda, no celebrity gossip. I encourage anyone who cares about honest investigation and reporting of current events to join, for which the Real News will send you an uncompressed DVD of the documentary posted below.
This Real News documentary is a fascinating look at the history and development of what some call the “National Security State.” Since many people credit WWII with rescuing the US from the Great Depression (when in fact making war entails great costs and created our permanent public debt), there is a school of thought that sees the potential for profit in war, and wishes to maintain the foundation of our society and economy on “national security”. Since much of our entrenched leadership esteems profit above all other things, there is a great deal of drum-beating and fear-mongering to support what I call the War Machine — and ultimately to support excessive profiteering based on this “Military Industrial Complex” (as Eisenhower called it) and it’s affiliated activities.
There is no doubt that real threats of violence and military or terrorist aggression exist. However, a trillion-dollar “defense” program to “keep us safe” is wasteful and excessive. Are we a nation of fear-biters and cowardly bullies? I’d prefer to think not. I’d prefer to think we’re an enlightened, ethical nation. We need to honestly and accurately audit our military expenditures and scale back what we spend to just what is actually needed for defense and divert the balance to things like education, research, diplomacy, conservation, alternative energy, retiring our debt, and other positive, forward-thinking efforts toward peace and a sustainable, healthy global community. In any case, I think you will enjoy the documentary.
Below are links to the documentary video files. They are fairly large and will take some time to load, so I recommend right-clicking on each link and selecting “save as” to download them to your local hard drive, then watching them from there. Enjoy!
-EAB
History of the National Security State – Gore Vidal
History of the National Security State – Ray McGovern, P1
History of the National Security State – Ray McGovern, P2
History of the National Security State – Ray McGovern, P3
History of the National Security State – Antonia Juhasz, p1
History of the National Security State – Antonia Juhasz, p2
History of the National Security State – Antonia Juhasz, p3
History of the National Security State – Lawrence Wilkerson, p1
History of the National Security State – Lawrence Wilkerson, p2
History of the National Security State – Lawrence Wilkerson, p3