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Defense spending and the Transnational State

I can remember watching a particular scene in the television show, A Band of Brothers, in whicha US soldier riding in the back of a truck was yelling at a German soldier in retreat leading a horse

drawn cart filled with goods. He yelled, What were you thinking thinking? We have GM, Ford, there

was no way you could have won. In 1953 when Charlie Wilson, president of GM, was picked byEisenhower for Secretary of Defense, Senators in the confirmation process asked if he would be willing

to make a decision that would be in the interest of the US if it conflicted with the interest of GM. He

said, I cannot conceive of one because for years I thought what was good for our country was good forGeneral Motors, and vice versa. The difference did not exist. Our company is too big. It goes with the

welfare of the country. (Confirmation hearings, February 18, 1953) As human beings we are curious

by nature Why was the question asked in the first place?

We the American citizens have been somehow convinced that American companies are great

and fine citizens that support democracy. We are loyal to brands and at times wear their images on our

clothing and automobiles. As a minister when I address some of the problems of the corporate world,someone always responds to defend corporations, sometimes labelling me a commie. That defensive

response and pursuing attack has led me to believe that belief in corporate life is as strong as belief in

religion for some people. However when exploring and providing information about the history andactivity of corporations, we need to suspend our beliefs. I for one do not want to believe what I am

discovering, and even as I read source after source, including congressional committee meetings, a part

of me wants to dismiss the history as not true; and I certainly do not want to think about theimplications if it is true. My patriotic world view is becoming dismantled and I find myself with no

cultural, political, or social center to which I can be loyal. I become an isolated individual without a

nation nor a people, for what I believed has dissipated into the air from which it came, propaganda

through the public air waves which are now privatized. I can fully understand why a politician canstand up and tell lies, proven beyond doubt, and be elected to represent truth and freedom. The

transition from letting go of a false world view that structures and brings comfort to our souls, to

aloneness without that binding element of meaning, to finding something that is close to real is no easyjourney. It is the stuff of the Dark Night of the Soul, Jesus in the dessert facing his Satan, Buddha lying

in the road almost dead until a young girl brings milk to his lips restoring him to life after his journey to

enlightenment. To face a history you believed in with all your mind, heart, and soul, and then to let itgo because of the discovery it is false, is not for the faint hearted and weak. It is odd but the passion of

holding onto old beliefs to the point where you are willing to sacrifice a democracy, kill others and

become the very beast you fear in order not to experience the anxiety and emptiness of spiritual growth,

is a sign of weakness and an admission that one needs the law and the guns of a police state to maintainloyalty to a belief system of the past. But we must travel there to understand Defense spending and the

Transnational State.

We begin by looking at a time when corporations demonstrated nation building as a policy in anattempt to find a governing structure for nations that best suited there primary value of profit and the

eternal life of the corporation. I believe we can see the seeds of the transnational corporate movement

and the transnational class system of governance in the behavior of some corporations before WWII.What we discover is not a loyalty to the host country of the corporation but a desire to change

governments and social structures and a willingness to make profits at the expense of lives, millions of

lives, for the sake of the way of life of the giant corporate world. We begin this journey into the heart ofcorporate leadership with a quote from William E. Dodd, U.S. Ambassador to Germany, 1937,

"Certain American industrialists had a great deal to do with bringing fascist

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regimes into being in both Germany and Italy. They extended aid to help

Fascism occupy the seat of power, and they are helping to keep it there."

Who are these American industrialists and who are they accountable too? Do wewant to know? Have we stopped them, the lean toward fascism by corporations and

transformed them to a belief that the good of all people is part of the business world as well

as the cultural and political worlds? Below I will list some of the activities of corporationsduring that time in the hope that we will remember history does repeat and the repetition

can be stopped.

William Randolph Hearst, instructed all Hearst press correspondents inGermany, including those of INS [Hearst's International News Service] toreport happenings in Germany only in a friendly manner. All of suchcorrespondents reporting happenings in Germany accurately and withoutfriendliness, sympathy and bias for the actions of the then German government,

were transferred elsewhere, discharged, or forced to resign. . . ."

"Thurman Arnold, as assistant district attorney of the United States, hisassistant, Norman Littell, and several Congressional investigations, haveproduced incontrovertible evidence that some of our biggest monopoliesentered into secret agreements with the Nazi cartels and divided the world upamong them," states Seldes in his book, "Facts and Fascism," published in1943. "Most notorious of all was Alcoa, the Mellon-Davis-Duke monopolywhich is largely responsible for the fact America did not have the aluminumwith which to build airplanes before and after Pearl Harbor, while Germanyhad an unlimited supply."

"If America loses this war," said Secretary of the Interior [Harold] Ickes, June 26,1941, "it can thank the Aluminum Corporation of America."

"By its cartel agreement with I.G. Farben, controlled by Hitler," writes Seldes,"Alcoa sabotaged the aluminum program of the U.S. air force.

"The Du Ponts' fascistic behavior was seen in 1936, when Irenee du Pont usedGeneral Motors money to finance the notorious Black Legion. This terroristorganization had as its purpose the prevention of automobile workers fromunionizing. The members wore hoods and black robes, with skulls and

crossbones. They fire-bombed union meetings, murdered union organizers,often by beating them to death, and dedicated their lives to destroying Jews andcommunists. "

"Between 1932 and 1939, bosses of General Motors poured $30 million intoI.G. Farben plants . . ." Further, Higham informs us that by "the mid-1930s,General Motors was committed to full-scale production of trucks, armoredcars, and tanks in Nazi Germany."

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GM and Exxon joined with German chemical interests in the erection of the lead-tetraethylplants. According to captured German records, these facilities contributed substantially to theGerman war effort: 'The fact that since the beginning of the war we could produce lead- tetraethyl is entirely due to the circumstances that, shortly before, the Americans [Du Pont, GM

and Standard Oil] had presented us with the production plants complete with experimentalknowledge. Without lead-tetra ethyl the present method of warfare would be unthinkable.'"At about the same time the Du Ponts were serving the Nazi cause in Germany,they were involved in a Fascist plot to overthrow the United States government.

"On November 23, 1937," states Higham, "representatives of General Motors held a secretmeeting in Boston with Baron Manfred von Killinger, who was . . . in charge of West Coastespionage [for the Nazis], and Baron von Tipplekirsch, Nazi consul general and Gestapoleader in Boston. This group signed a joint agreement showing total commitment to theNazi cause for the indefinite future. . . ."

Seldes describes the plotters as "the great owners and rulers of America whoplanned world domination through political and military Fascism" including"several leading American industrialists, members of the Congress of theUnited States, and representatives of large business and politicalorganizations . . ."

STANDARD OIL OF NEW JERSEY (Now Exxon)

"On February 27, 1942," according to Higham, "Arnold, with documentsstuffed under his arms, . . . strode into the lion's den of Standard at 30Rockefeller Plaza. Just behind him were Secretary of the Navy Franklin Knox

and Secretary of the Army Henry L. Stimson." They confronted Standardofficial William Farish and "Arnold sharply laid down his charges" that "bycontinuing to favor Hitler in rubber deal and patent arrangements," StandardOil "had acted against the interests of the American government . . . suggesteda fine of $1.5 million and a consent decree whereby Standard would turn overfor the duration all the patents" in question.

"Farish rejected the proposal on the spot. He pointed out that Standard" wasalso selling the U.S. a "high percentage" of the fuel being used by the Army,Navy, and Air Force "making it possible for America to win the war. Wherewould America be without it?"Blackmail? Yes, says Higham. And effective.

Arnold was finally reduced to asking the oil company official "to what StandardOil would agree. After all, there had to be at least token punishment. . . .Arnold, Stimson, and Knox soon realized they had no power to compare withthat of Standard."

Between the 26th and the 28th of March, 1942, Arnold "produced documentsshowing that Standard and Farben in Germany had literally carved up theworld markets, with oil and chemical monopolies all over the map," accordingto Higham.

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Executives of Standard Oil and Farben, at a meeting in Holland, established a'modus vivendi' for continuing the arrangements in event of war between theUnited States and Germany - although the arrangements interfered with theability of the United States to make synthetic rubber desperately needed after itentered the war in December 1941.

Harry S. Truman, characterized the arrangements as treasonable."

As late as 1940, Ford Motor Company "refused to build aircraft engines forEngland and instead built supplies of the 5-ton military trucks that were thebackbone of German army transportation." (20)

INTERNATIONAL TELEPHONE AND TELEGRAPH

Even after Pearl Harbor, ITT was working for the Nazis, reports Higham: ". . . theGerman army, navy, and air force contracted with ITT for the manufacture ofswitchboards, telephones, alarm gongs, buoys, air raid warning devices, radar

equipment, and thirty thousand fuses per month for artillery shells used to killBritish and American troops."

ITT also "supplied ingredients for the rocket bombs that fell on London," andother devices as well, without which "it would have been impossible for theGerman air force to kill American and British troops, for the German army tofight the Allies in Africa, Italy, France, and Germany, for England to have beenbombed, or for Allied ships to have been attacked at sea."

". . . ITT now presents itself as the innocent victim of the Second World War,and has been handsomely recompensed for its injuries. In 1967, nearly thirty

years after the events, ITT actually managed to obtain $27 million incompensation from the American government, for war damage to Focke-Wulfplants - on the basis that they were American property bombed by Alliedbombers."

"After the cessation of hostilities, GM and Ford demanded reparations from theU.S. Government for wartime damages sustained by their Axis facilities as aresult of Allied bombing. By 1967 GM had collected more than $33 million inreparations and Federal tax benefits for damages to its warplane and motorvehicle properties in formerly Axis territories . . . Ford received a little lessthan $1 million, primarily as a result of damages sustained by its military truck

complex at Cologne."

The above information is from the article, Nazis in the Attic, By RandyDavis. This information can be found in many reliable sources. The horror that

is revealed is the lack of concern for the deaths of millions facilitated by the

decisions of corporate leaders for the sake of profit, power and the search forthe perfect host in which the corporate elite can rule and manipulate the nations

of the world. After great pressure from the government and in some cases the

government takeover of corporation and some financial institutions assisting the

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German war machine, these attitudes of callous profit and power accumulation

went underground. We have learned several things: 1. Corporate loyalty to a

nation is an oxymoron, 2. corporations with factories in more than one nation

can be problematic, especially in time of national tension, 3. Corporations dopractice nation building, 4. Corporations also make efforts to transform nations

to change legal, social, political, and cultural infrastructure to meet their needs.

5. There is little concern for the wake they make nor the destruction the wakecauses. It would be socialism to tax the corporations to clean up after

themselves, a redistribution of income. The search for their perfect host brings

us back to the transnational state and the Administration of Ronald Reagan.

As President Reagan was dismantling the safety nets and economic stabilizers,

he also began to increase the national debt by increasing the military budget by35% in his two terms.

"It wasn't a buildup, it was just a spend-up," He resurrected the B-1 bomber, a

problem-plagued program that the Air Force didn't want and the Carter

administration canceled. Reagan's generosity also bred waste and excess in thedefense industry leading to scandals after which Congress scolded the military

for spending hundreds of dollars on spare parts such as hammers and toilet

seats. (Reagan's Defense Buildup, By Greg Schneider and Renae Merle,Washington Post Staff Writers Washington Post June 09, 2004 )

Most of the time when we hear the amounts of the military budget we are

amazed. I often wonder how do you spend that much money? It is another

world which my mind cannot grasp. But in exploring the actual companies thatreceive these sums of money, it begins to make sense. These companies are

giants with 1000s of employees. They take the money and not only build war

weaponry and infrastructure; they expand and begin to appear in other countries

doing the same type of work, war weaponry and infrastructure. Sound familiar?Below I have gathered information from corporations that that contract with

our government for military purposes. The information is from their web pages.

Blackwater

As one of the worlds most successful security services corporations, we are a leading provider ofcreative solutions for the United States government. We have designed and manufactured myriadinnovative products; state of the art remotely piloted airships, IED safe armored personnel carriers,and effective training support systems to name a few.Blackwater Worldwide operates in nine countries

delivering critical assistance to clients focused on post conflict and post disaster stabilization efforts.

Blackwater Security Consulting (BSC) is the newest addition to the Blackwater family of companiesserving security, firearms and training needs around the world. Blackwater has deployed teams acrossthe nation and the globe in support of federal, state, and private industry interests. Backwater'ssecurity specialists have extensive experience in all dimensions of domestic and international securityoperations, particularly in high-risk zones. Blackwater provides services to the United Statesgovernment as well as local, state, and federal law enforcement. BSC can provide the followingservices

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(Yes, Blackwater has its own manufacturing plant. ) We are committed to manufacturing excellence. Weare dedicated to your safety in the field. Blackwater Airships will begin selling or leasing airships toDepartment of Defense, Department of Homeland Security and other government customers.Blackwater presents the GRIZZLY the worlds only Armored Personnel Carrier intended to counterthe most lethal threats in the modern urban combat environment. (Last year Blackwater received over

100 Billion dollar contracts from the US alone.)

Halliburton

Halliburton Company announced today at a regional energy conference in the Kingdom of Bahrain theopening of a corporate headquarters office in the United Arab Emirates.The Company often enters into business relationships with other persons and companies outside theUnited States. These "International Business Relationships" take the form of agency agreements, jointventures and other forms of business combinations. Company policy governs the manner in which itwill enter into and manage these business relationships.Today, Halliburton spans its energy services operations across nearly 70 countries with more than45,000 employees serving the upstream oil and gas industry

Northrop Grumman

For over 50 years, Northrop Grumman IT has helped define the future for government and businesses.Today, our trusted solutions serve all branches of the Armed Forces, federal civilian agencies, nationalintelligence community, state and local government, and commercial andinternational clients.

Lockheed Martin

Lockheed Martin is aglobal company with customers around the world and partners in more than 50countries outside the United States. Working with our partners, we are meeting a broad range ofgovernment priorities, from strengthening global security through defense system modernization, to air,marine and rail traffic management. And from military and civil command and control systems tobuilding and launching satellites.

BAE Systems

BAE Systems is the premierglobal defence and aerospace company delivering a full range of productsand services for air, land and naval forces, as well as advanced electronics, information technologysolutions and customer support services. With 97,500 employees worldwide, BAE Systems' salesexceeded 15.7 billion (US$ $31.4 billion) in 2007.

* 3rd largest global defence company* 6th largest US defense company* 97,500 highly skilled people* Global capability* Customers in over 100 countries* Annual sales exceed 15.7 billion* Annual R&D spend exceeds 1.4 billion* More than 100 new inventions every year

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The Boeing Company

Headquartered in Chicago, Boeing employs more than 160,000 people across the United States and in70 countries. Boeing is the world's leading aerospace company and the largest manufacturer ofcommercial jetliners and military aircraft combined. Additionally, Boeing designs and manufactures

rotorcraft, electronic and defense systems, missiles, satellites, launch vehicles and advancedinformation and communication systems. As a major service provider to NASA, Boeing operates theSpace Shuttle and International Space Station. The company also provides numerous military andcommercial airline support services. Boeing has customers in more than 90 countries around theworld and is one of the largest U.S. exporters in terms of sales.

General Dynamics Corporation

General Dynamics has four main business segments. Aerospace designs, Combat Systems is a globalleader in producing, supporting and sustaining land and expeditionary combat systems for the U.S.military and its allies. Marine Systems designs, builds and supports submarines and a variety ofsurface ships for the U.S. Navy and commercial customers. The Information Systems and Technologygroup offers a breadth and depth of technology and service capabilities that support a wide range ofgovernment and commercial needs, including systems integration expertise; hardware and softwareproducts; and engineering, management and support services.

TheInternational departmentrepresents the company's interest before the elements of the U.S.Government responsible for defense trade policy and international arms and technology transfers.Among its responsibilities, the department assists all company's business units with strategic plans towin new work, develops team marketing initiatives, assures company-wide compliance with all U.S.and international regulations governing the sale of military products, and reviews all agreementsrelated to the company's international transactions.

Raytheon Company

TEWKSBURY, Mass., Sept. 9, 2008 /PRNewswire/ -- Raytheon Company (NYSE:RTN) has been awarded a U.S. Army contract modification to provide additional persistentsurveillance capability through the Rapid Aerostat Initial Deployment (RAID) program.

Raytheon was awarded $27.6 million to provide RAID elevated sensor systems to the U.S. Army as partof the Base Expeditionary Targeting and Surveillance System program (BETSS).

A key element of Raytheons growth is itsstrong commitment to the global marketplace. The companysells products and services to customers in 80 nations, and its international opportunities and pursuitsare growing. Committed to Serving Customers Worldwide Raytheon maintains offices in 19 countriesand has established global companies to serve customers in the United Kingdom, Australia andCanada.

Raytheon International, Inc. leads the companys efforts to capture new overseas business, andcoordinates the operations of its international locations. Recent bookings with civilian and militarycustomers in Europe, Asia and the Middle East demonstrate Raytheon International successful strategyof pursuing a worldwide customer base.

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Transnational Corporations in the Service of ?

Ronald Reagan joined a stream of history and jump started the formation of a transnational

State. To fully understand this movement into which Reagan infused so much energy and money, andthe role of the Presidents that followed him, we will need to understand the formation and mission of

the Trilateral Commission. The Trilateral Commission is how these corporations receive their money.

This group of persons have the power to send American taxpayers funds to these corporations and theydo so at the expense of the quality of life within the United States.

President Bush's speech to Congress

March 6, 1991

George W. H. BushNow, we can see a new world coming into view. A world in which there is the very real prospect of a

new world order. In the words of Winston Churchill, a "world order" in which "the principles of justice

and fair play ... protect the weak against the strong ..." A world where the United Nations, freed from

cold war stalemate, is poised to fulfill the historic vision of its founders. A world in which freedom andrespect for human rights find a home among all nations.