/jordan replies:
>I'm sure this make good ad copy on mailing lists, but a full 70%
>of the defense budget of the US is for personnel related items.
>That is: food, shelter, payroll, benefits ... these "toys" aren't
>very much of the budget.
you should remember that a lot of the high tech expenses show up in the budget of the US Department of Energy. Also, the food, etc. of the footsoldiers is seen as a necessary evil by the Clancyites.
I wouldn't blame Clancyism alone for the persistence of "cold war liberal" attitudes after the cold war itself is over. They're _paid_ to have these attitudes. There's also the "world Hobbesian" attitude: the world has all sorts of "rogue states" that threaten to disrupt the "new world order." The US is the needed World Leviathan that must maintain the order by suppressing the rogues. Else life will be nasty, brutish, & short. On top of that, the Warriors want to make the world safe for business.
Trond, I wouldn't be too upset by the creeping of the word "defense" in to a discussion when the author meant "military." It's a slip of the tongue (or of the keyboard), one that's hard to avoid when swamped by the dominant culture.
BTW, what's all this talk about "public TV"? we don't have that in the US. There's something _called_ the Public Broadcasting Network (and National Public Radio and Public Radio International). But they have a tremendous number of commercials and that number is growing. Archer-Daniels-Midland, price-fixer to the world....
Jim Devine jdevine at popmail.lmu.edu & http://clawww.lmu.edu/Departments/ECON/jdevine.html "Life is like a shit sandwich. But if you've got enought bread, you don't taste the shit." -- Jonathan Winters.