{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/2974",
    "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it.  Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.",
    "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'"
  },
  "archive": "urth",
  "thread": {
    "id": 2974,
    "subject": "\"Hour of Trust\" corp <> mil./ind. complex",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "2002-02-20T20:47:54+00:00",
    "last": "2002-02-20T20:47:54+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0202-189@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Michael Andre-Driussi",
        "address": "mantis at siriusfiction.com"
      },
      "date": "2002-02-20T20:47:54+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) \"Hour of Trust\" corp <> mil./ind. complex",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "I wrote:\nA more important point which has not been articulated (though it may be\nwell known): the corporations of \"Hour of Trust\" are not generic\nmega-corps, say McDonald's or Ford Motor Co, who have somehow acquired the\nPentagon, etc.  The corporations are specifically the military/industrial\ncomplex, the weapons makers, who have amassed enough wealth and power as to\nconsume their socially decadent host, yet they are incapable of fulfilling\ntheir new roles. So they can produce such durable goods as warplanes, for\nexample--not that they have also picked up these war factories for cheap,\nbut rather these war factories have been their cash cows in the 50 years\nafter WW2."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "But this was one of those cases where, once I had sent it, the doubts came\nin. The tree farm, etc.  Things that the military/industrial complex is not\nassuredly involved in.\n\nSo the corporations aren't exactly the micomplex: they seem to have\nabsorbed the micomplex, among many others. \"Would you like a B-52 with that\nhamburger?\"\n\nTo take another tack: What is the story saying about the military?  On the\none hand, it seems to be saying \"The military is a properly an area of the\nFederal government [i.e., the Common Defense] and it should not be\nprivatized or otherwise left to amateurs.\"  Does it also argue for or\nagainst conscription (that is, The Draft, and all the protest raised\nagainst it)?  I'm not sure.  The struggle between having a Standing Army of\nProfessionals, or a Standing Army of Conscripts, or a non-standing Army of\nConscripts (that is, the army is raised in response to crisis, then\ndisbanded), or a non-standing Army of Volunteers.\n\n=mantis=\n\n\nSirius Fiction\nbooklets on Gene Wolfe, John Crowley\nNow with UPDATES!\nhttp://www.siriusfiction.com/"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}