Let's look at Jimmy Carter - one of the most seemingly ethical and good-standing Presidents in recent times. Even he attended received military indoctrination at the naval academy.  Moreover, many of Carter's family members have served in the military:

Jimmy Carter's great grandfather: Private L.B. Walker Carter served for the Confederates in the Civil War
Jimmy Carter's father:  James Earl Carter, Sr. - World War I lieutenant
Jimmy Carter's brother: Billy Carter - Marine Corps

Reagan was a Captain (almost a Major) in the US Army.

Truman was an artillery officer in WWI

And as you say, Nixon and Ford also served in the military.

Are these your examples of presidents who you'd think I wouldn't find suspicious?  These are people who have had it drilled into them to take orders UNQUESTIONINGLY. 

Don't you find it at all strange that military service - err INDOCTRINATION - is almost a pre-requisite for even being considered for nomination for President or any other political nomination?

I'd think those who have had it drilled into them to follow orders unquestioningly should be automatically BANNED from any CIVILIAN public office.

The military is about respect for the change of command, Xeno.  If someone outranks you and tells you to do your job or face court martial, you do not go complaining, hire an attorney, and set up a union and claim that you were mistreated and disrespected.  Those who come out of the military take with them strength of discipline, order out of chaos, and know the importance and efficiency in the chain of command.  The military also makes room to make sure you do the right thing, even if your superior says to do otherwise.  It's not like they'll put you to the whip or place you in front of a firing squad for disobeying orders that would otherwise cross moral grounds.

"Fort 500 Companies are founded by Prior Military, and more so Prior Marines."

And how are these companies set up?  Like military dictatorships.  Face it, the militarist's mentality, with a complete lack of responsibility to the general population rules our current age. 

They care only about profits, and not furthering the quality of human life.

In all wars in human history, it was the civilian population who suffered the most, with far more deaths due to land mines or disease, malnutrition, 'collateral' casualties, etc., and yet again and again the civilian population always continues to support and uphold the militarists' movement, despite it having been proven by history countless of times its tyrannical dominance of systems of government, corporations, education, etc..

WHY?

Since 10,000 years ago, by the evolutionary selection process, those humans who submitted to the authority of the pyramid social structure were more reproductively successful than those who did not, either by being enslaved or executed for their critical viewpoints, or because they lived a hunter-gatherer lifestyle away from 'civilized' society.  Thus, the majority of humans today have a biological propensity to uncritically conform to what falsely seems to be a rigid and unchanging stratification of society, despite the obvious fact of their victimization by those at the top of the pyramid system.

don't blame me, I voted for Alan Keyes

"Any rejection of the system would require rejection by all people in the system (including the exploiters)"

A rejection of the system does not require all people within the system to revolt against it, overthrow it or some other such bullshit.  The rejection of the system has been an ongoing process over the course of decades.  Just as the spread of new information technology through globalization has increased the potential magnitude of global tyranny, so too has the spread of information technology increasingly made more and more people ever more aware of the crimes committed by tyrants both past and present.  Information technology advancement has allowed the possibility for the individual citizen to pursue more leisure time with which to make more transparent to that individual the illegal and or unethical efforts of the tyrant attempting to control  and or manipulate mass media, public opinion, and information technology itself.  But the pyramid structure of political control upon which the tyrant's power is based is just as much dependent on the continued development of information technology as is the individual citizen's power to accurately perceive the tyrannical efforts of the present-day tyrant.  It thus becomes only a matter of time before the tyranny of a political system (global, national, regional, municipal, or local)  is exposed to enough people within that political system for incremental changes to that political system to be initiated, with or without the consent of the controlling government.  This process happens organically, without any traditional concept of social organization required.  These incremental changes within the society simply occur, and occur regardless of the form of government currently in control, whether capitalist, communist, fascist, anarchist, or otherwise.

The current stress and frustration felt by the citizen of humanity of our present-day is that progressive social-political changes within a given society have not kept pace with the more rapid progressive technological developments within that society.  The social-political pressure for change, however, must inevitably find a state of equilibrium with information technology changes.

I expect within the next 50-100 years we will see the economies of underdeveloped and rapidly developing countries functioning with as high if not higher average standards of living for their citizens within the context of as high if not better environmental sustainability than most people from our present-day 'developed' countries ever dreamed could be attainable.  And it will be done with almost no dependency on the global monetary system, primarily due to the growth of economies based on barter.

It will be accomplished by the traditionally oppressed '3rd-world' laborer as he survives the current evolutionary selection process by developing innovative survival mechanisms within a local barter-based economy, aided greatly by his access to information technology or the intellectual property distributed therewith, so as to increase his leisure time to further educate and become more aware of the tyrannical social-political forces at work in the world, while still providing for his family's basic needs.

There isn't one person doing this 'movement', as you call it.  It always happens.  It always has, with every sort of new technological development since the dawn of the human race.  It is just how human society works.

Take the television - a recent development in IT or 'Information Technology' - which, by the way, started with spoken language, and not Windows.

Nowadays, there isn't probably less than 10,000 people who don't have regular access to a television.  Moreover, the stories that are re-told from a person who initially watches a television broadcast reach an even wider audience, to the extent that even the few tribal peoples who have never seen a television in their lives, at least hear the important world events retold to them.

This development in IT has brought the same, general, broad-based, albeit probably filtered, view of the world to every single person on the planet.  Now, when did this thing called TV start being used? Maybe 60 years ago?  Now, how about laptops, and wireless internet?  How long will it take for the average papa-new guinea highland tribesman / herder to get broad-band, live-streaming video of their CHOICE of online content on his mobile phone?  How long will it take before computer components for internet reception and transmission are so abundant that hunter-gatherers start constructing their own computers and access the internet from their village huts deep in the Amazon rain forests?  At the rate of technological development, I wouldn't be surprised if it's already happening.  And so what is the sociological effect of this?

Well, tyrannical acts that would have occurred in the past simply cease to occur.  Let's say 20 years ago a more powerful papa-new guinea tribe with guns attacks a smaller, less-powerful tribe who only know how only use bows and arrows.  The larger, more powerful tribe with guns massacres and mutilates, rapes and cannibalizes the smaller tribe. Who would have heard about it in the outside world?  No one.  But today?  The tribesman from the smaller tribe not only knows about guns and not only has acquired them so as to even the odds against the bigger tribe due to having a mobile phone at his disposal, but he also needs only to point his mobile phone INSTEAD of a gun at an atrocity being committed by the larger tribe, take a photo, send it to Reuters, and bingo - the enemy tribal leader gets arrested by the national police and is imprisonment or executed or whatever for his crimes.  Future such attacks are deterred and the smaller tribe is protected against the tyranny of the larger one. 

Who initiated the 'movement' that gained the improved security, dignity, human-rights of the smaller papa-new guinea tribe?  No one.  It just occurred as a sociological effect of having mobile phone technology available to them.  Such improvements in human dignity, human rights, security, and independence, occur due to the increased availability of new forms of information technology.  Take the example of the printing press and your US constitution as another example.

There is never a need for a movement, however.  It just happens as new developments in IT 'happen'. 

However, a real crime against humanity occurs when this process is hindered by tyrants; when technology that could improve human beings' lives is deliberately with-held from a given population so as to allow a more technologically endowed population to exploit the less technologically endowed population.

Such a crime against humanity, I am afraid, is exactly what the Multinational Military Industrial Complex and Multinational Oil Corporations are guilty of - and not against the populations of Iraq or Iran, or Afghanistan, but against all humanity.

How?  By deliberately sabotaging the development of renewable energy technologies via their ABUSE of the SPIRIT of intellectual property rights and patent laws.

So is Obama going to change IP rights and patent laws to allow under-developing countries to solve their sustainability issues, or is the developed world going to continue to hammer them with the laws your governments make to protect your apparently rapidly failing economies.

Nope.  Sorry, Americans.  Obama won't change anything, at least nothing REALLY important.  He can't.

"

1: The oppressed don't have the technology of the modern oppressor.  Fighters, nuclear weapons, etc.
2: Don't even think of using Iraq as an example of how the oppressed can fight the oppressor, because the US is showing restraint.  Once greater numbers, including their own population, becomes the enemy of the state, restraint for the purpose of protecting populations is meaningless since everyone is guilty.  If the government wanted to, they could pick any number of ways of taking down populations, including:
A: Direct warfare.
B: Control of food supplies or other key resources.  Can't endorse a post-modern, harmonious society when you're all starving!
C: Isolating regions, which prevents organized movements.
D: Screw it... just nuke em!  Technology allows us to replace humans with machines when possible."

And then everyone capable of using machinery escaps the land, teachers leave, anyone educated leaves and you are left with a country filled with shitbags.

> [RPA] Arocalex wrote:

> 1: The oppressed don't have the technology of the modern oppressor.  Fighters, nuclear weapons, etc.
2: Don't even think of using Iraq as an example of how the oppressed can fight the oppressor, because the US is showing restraint.  Once greater numbers, including their own population, becomes the enemy of the state, restraint for the purpose of protecting populations is meaningless since everyone is guilty.  If the government wanted to, they could pick any number of ways of taking down populations, including:
A: Direct warfare.
B: Control of food supplies or other key resources.  Can't endorse a post-modern, harmonious society when you're all starving!
C: Isolating regions, which prevents organized movements.
D: Screw it... just nuke em!  Technology allows us to replace humans with machines when possible."

And then everyone capable of using machinery escaps the land, teachers leave, anyone educated leaves and you are left with a country filled with shitbags.

People are replaceable.

1: Low end workers are replaced by machines.  Yes, that means we become reliant on those who can use machines.  That brings us to step 2.
2: Knowledge in fields already exists outside teachers.  We have these awesome things called books and software which mean information is stored in places other than the minds of teachers.  And don't think the movement, transition, what have you (screw it... I'm calling it "BOB" from now on) can destroy that knowledge: there's backups in libraries.
3: "Okay, go ahead and leave.  Hope you can run your machines while we're taking down your power networks with our high tech weapons!"
4: "Alright, we're willing to negotiate.  Anyone who agrees to adhere to our movement will also be given the added benefit of being allowed to eat."
5: Beyond that, simple bribery does the trick.  Promise irreplacable people greater power in light of the shortage of workers.  A few should probably get corrupted, which only solidifies the superstate because they rely less on the masses.

Remember, that "anyone educated" would have to include the elites themselves. 

/me wonders what the HELL Xeno smokes everyday.....

I just read this thread, and my head is spinning.

Xeno,
Arent you the one who also believes a Bush/Chenny lead conspiracy planned the Attacks on 9/11 ??

Reagan and Clinton did not serve in the Military.

Just to be correct.....

CARTER was a moron, and idiot, and should be SHOT for treason.....ASAP.

Naw Carter is all ready being adequately punished for his idealism. He's building homes for poor people. As long as he's kept out of politics, we are doing great!

Xeno,

Concede it. You have been owned by Zarf. We won't think less of you for having humility.

Xeno,
Arent you the one who also believes a Bush/Chenny lead conspiracy planned the Attacks on 9/11 ??

I don't disbelieve it.  I don't believe it, either.  I suppose you could say, however, that if they had, I wouldn't be very surprised considering some of the other stunts various world leaders (regardless of what worldview they apparently adhere to) have pulled off in the past.

World leaders, as a trend, tend to lie about having no plans to invade a country while they mobilize, tend to lie about building no nukes when they are, tend to lie about not having had anything to do nor any knowledge of a particular covert operation, scandal, or conspiracy, when in fact they did.  History has proven it so often that when history finally does pass its scientifically, verifiable, irrefutable, final appraisal of 911, I won't be surprised if in fact Bush / Cheney and others did in fact have something to do with it.  But until the evidence is properly presented in accordance with overwhelming consensus of the academic establishment, I will retain a measure of doubt.

> xeno syndicated wrote:

>>Either 1) Society operates under the standards you lay out today, in which case it means the following:
A: The current system is the society you like,

Yes, it is.  It's the best we've ever had.

B: Whatever powers exist today effectively facilitate your system, and

Of course they do.  The system I am pertaining to is a system which acknowledges the fluid, changing, ever-mutating, organic form of the way things REALLY work.

C: Means that the military-industrial complex, oil companies, or whatever force lurks behind politics is either:
a: non-existent, because it hasn't been erased, or
b: incapable of being removed because of my reasons above, meaning your transition is impossible, as I said above.

It may be impossible to render it non-existent, but, possibly, obsolete.

You just messed up.  If the current system works, and is advancing further, and the current system facilitates technological advance, that means the military-industrial complex is either helping your system, a useless organ in society with no value, or incapable of being removed.  That means such has (emphasis here) ALREADY HAPPENED.  This means the very crux of this thread (the US is some country run under the military-industrial complex) is invalid because either:
A: That complex, right now, is helping the system, making it a friend, not an enemy, or
B: That complex has no bearing on society already, at which point your complaints are essentially meaningless.  Kind of like telling someone to wash the dishes when the dishes are done. 

Getting back to other stuff later.  This was shorter, and I wanted to address this.