MOYERS: Earlier this summer Chuck was recognized for his work by POGO, Project On Government Oversight.
MILLER: Hard not to be impressed with a guy like Chuck who can accuse the Department of Defense of cooking the books on national television and then return to his office without the locks being changed. snip
SPINNEY: They don't know where the money's going.
Well, guess what the Senate Armed Services and the House Armed Services agree to do in their infinite wisdom? They decided to waive the Pentagon's requirement for these annual audits in their authorization bills. So the Pentagon no longer has to do it.
Now the rationale was that we all know that this is a problem, we don't need to be told every year. Of course the one good thing about these audits was it would generate a small burst of news stories every April or May when the audits were due saying the Pentagon can't follow it's money. You know, there's a trillion dollars unaccounted for.
MOYERS: What does this do to the national ethos?
SPINNEY: Oh, I think it corrupts it. I think it corrupts it. Essentially you have all the pretensions of a democracy, we're really a democratic republic where you have representatives of the people in the government, and you have the representatives are under certain strictures to behave in a certain way. And in fact they're not behaving that way.
MOYERS: Your own…
SPINNEY: It's a fundamental moral issue.
MOYERS: Yeah, you've said it's a moral sewer there on the Potomac.
SPINNEY: That's correct.
MOYERS: What do you mean moral sewer?
SPINNEY: Well, fundamentally we take an oath of office to preserve the Constitution and we are in fact… in effect undermining the Constitution because we won't address this issue of accountability.
A lot of the people that are involved in this don't realize the moral implications of what they're doing. They regard what they're doing as being for the most patriotic of motives.
You know, "We've got to get the money out of Congress. And if we have to lie to get it, we'll do it. If we have to cook the books in order to sell a program, we'll do it because we're trying to save the country from the hoards," the Communist hoards(sic) or whatever…
snip
http://www.pbs.org/now/transcript/transcript_spinney.html---
"To oppose the policies of a government does not mean you are against the country or the people that the government supposedly represents. Such opposition should be called what it really is: democracy, or democratic dissent, or having a critical perspective about what your leaders are doing. Either we have the right to democratic dissent and criticism of these policies or we all lie down and let the leader, the Fuhrer, do what is best, while we follow uncritically, and obey whatever he commands. That's just what the Germans did with Hitler, and look where it got them."
Michael Parenti
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Corporate Control of American Democracy
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Controlling_Corporations/ControllingCorporations.html Introduction to Defense Death Spiral
http://www.d-n-i.net/fcs/defense_death_spiral/intro.htm The Defense Budget Time Bomb Has Been Outted By the Congressional ...
http://www.d-n-i.net/fcs/comments/c468.htm Deception at the Pentagon
http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~canfrobt/spinney.html Soinney - Frontline
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/future/interviews/spinney.htmlhttp://www.apfn.net/messageboard/12-06-03/discussion.cgi.2.htmlhttp://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/index.htmlhttp://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x3045658---
"Four sorrows ... are certain to be visited on the United States. Their cumulative effect guarantees that the U.S. will cease to resemble the country outlined in the Constitution of 1787. First, there will be a state of perpetual war, leading to more terrorism against Americans wherever they may be and a spreading reliance on nuclear weapons among smaller nations as they try to ward off the imperial juggernaut. Second is a loss of democracy and Constitutional rights as the presidency eclipses Congress and is itself transformed from a co-equal 'executive branch' of government into a military junta. Third is the replacement of truth by propaganda, disinformation, and the glorification of war, power, and the military legions. Lastly, there is bankruptcy, as the United States pours its economic resources into ever more grandiose military projects and shortchanges the education, health, and safety of its citizens."
Chalmers Johnson, Sorrows of Empire
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Dick Cheney and the Self-Licking Ice Cream Cone
p27
The revolving door between the government and weapons contractors isn't new, but it has reached new heights (monetarily) and depths (ethically), in recent years. Cheney's relationship with Halliburton is a perfect case study of all that is wrong with the relationship between our democratic form of government and the corporations that finance our elections and feed at the government trough on a daily basis.
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Corporate_Welfare/CarlyleGroup_HMOWD%3F.html