# Is George Bush a tool of the military-industrial complex? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [May 16, 2006, 10:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-george-bush-a-tool-of-the-military-industrial-complex/356955 "2006-05-16T10:09:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2006, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-george-bush-a-tool-of-the-military-industrial-complex/356955/21 "2006-05-16T15:04:15Z")
> [@bryanh](#): > > So a second question would be why does America tolerate it? Because most Americans worship the rich, and will tolerate virtually anything if it benefits the wealthy. ---
**Author:** ![UncleBeer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/977dab/32.png) [@UncleBeer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UncleBeer)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2006, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-george-bush-a-tool-of-the-military-industrial-complex/356955/22 "2006-05-16T16:07:56Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > I don’t think it’s a matter of America tolerating it. It’s a matter of how you frame the debate. One example- the estate tax. Instead of calling it a tax on the wealthiest of heirs, they called it the “death tax” . . . Who the hell is “_they_?” ---
**Author:** ![OneCentStamp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/13edae/32.png) [@OneCentStamp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OneCentStamp)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2006, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-george-bush-a-tool-of-the-military-industrial-complex/356955/23 "2006-05-16T16:26:40Z")
> [@The King of Soup](#): > > \ That should have been the title post of a great Pit thread all its own. \m/:mad:\m/ ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2006, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-george-bush-a-tool-of-the-military-industrial-complex/356955/24 "2006-05-16T16:44:24Z")
> [@UncleBeer](#): > > Who the hell is “they?” Conservative advocates of repealing the estate tax, most recently under the [guidance](http://www.60plus.org/deathtax.asp?docID=347) of Republican pollster Frank Luntz: > [@](#): > > California congressman Christopher Cox (R-Calif.), lead sponsor of repeal legislation, notes that there were many references to “death taxes” in professional tax journals dating back to the 1970s. Californians, who repealed their state inheritance tax in 1982, deployed the “death tax” phrase throughout the campaign. President Reagan first used the term in a Minnesota speech in 1982. > > One significant player in advancing the “death tax” tag was Jim Martin, a longtime activist who founded “60 Plus,” a conservative Washington beltway alternative to the American Association of Retired Persons. […] > > Martin is credited with having brought the “death tax” coin back into wider circulation in 1993. He gained an ally in political mastermind Frank Luntz. Luntz, who conducted focus groups for conservative caucuses and politicians, understood the importance of language. […] > > Luntz’s message research found that “death tax” kindled voter resentment in a way that “inheritance tax” and “estate tax” didn’t. Luntz shared his findings with Republican leaders and included the phrase in the GOP’s 1994 “Contract with America.” > > In a strategy memo to GOP lawmakers, the media-savvy Luntz suggested that legislators stage press conferences opposing the estate tax “at your local mortuary” to dramatize the issue. Anti-estate-tax Republican politicians and lobbyists allegedly encouraged the use of the “death tax” term by levying nominal fines on staffers who forgot to use it: > [@](#): > > Across Washington, D.C., by water coolers in lobbying organizations, the hard-won battle for message discipline was waged. Woe to the innocent office intern or researcher who referred to the “death tax” as “the estate tax” or by its proper name, “the Federal Estate and Gift Tax and Generation-Skipping Transfer Tax.” For this transgression, a one-dollar fine was levied to the pizza fund. The amount collected would pay for a periodic pizza party. > > “Death tax pizza funds” first appeared at Jim Martin’s 60 Plus organization. Then, across the Potomac, a pizza fund was instituted by Jack Faris, the president and CEO of the National Federation of Independent Businesses. Soon the idea spread to Capitol Hill, where then House Speaker Newt Gingrich and other pro-repeal lawmakers instated pizza funds in their offices. ---
**Author:** ![UncleBeer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/977dab/32.png) [@UncleBeer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UncleBeer)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2006, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-george-bush-a-tool-of-the-military-industrial-complex/356955/25 "2006-05-16T17:57:19Z")
So you’re telling me Republican pollster Luntz held influence so great that professional tax journals routinely incorporated his jargon into their publications? Damn, I gotta get me some influence like that. Great research work, Kimstu. I had no idea the term went back that far. Or that its use was “encouraged” so strongly by the advocates of the estate tax repeal. I guess I had always just thought it was short-hand newspeak employed as a “grab.” Thanks for the poop. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2006, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-george-bush-a-tool-of-the-military-industrial-complex/356955/26 "2006-05-16T18:12:09Z")
> [@UncleBeer](#): > > So you’re telling me Republican pollster Luntz held influence so great that professional tax journals routinely incorporated his jargon into their publications? Damn, I gotta get me some influence like that. It won’t be easy! [Frank Luntz](http://www.pbs.org/now/politics/luntz.html) is probably the most influential political/media consultant, next to Karl Rove, of the past couple decades. He seems to have hit a public-relations sweet spot with his ideas about “framing the discourse” or strategic choice of terminology, esp. when the Republicans took control of Congress in 1994 and acquired the weight, and now needed the strategy, to define a lot of issues from their own perspective. > [@](#): > > In addition to being an adviser to some of the most powerful Republicans in America, Luntz was a consultant to NBC’s THE WEST WING, worked for several Fortune 100 companies and four different billionaires. Luntz is the wordsmith who championed such catchy phrases as “The Clear Skies Initiative” and “The Death Tax.” ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2006, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-george-bush-a-tool-of-the-military-industrial-complex/356955/27 "2006-05-16T19:03:18Z")
A few points need to be clarified here. First of all, as a tiny cog in the “military-industrial complex,” I feel it only fair to point out that Bush hasn’t really done us any favors. Sure, he’s restimulated research in missile defense and and offensive capabilities, but unlike the fully funded efforts of the late Fifties through the Sixties, and those under the Reagan Administration, these programs are being done on a shoestring, often hobbled by political issues, and predicated development schedules on unrealistically short timeframes. The war in Iraq has only exacerbated budget issues; development budgets have been cut again and again in order to free up badly needed funds to support that war. And while it may seem counterintuitive to the average joe, war is not nearly as profitable as building up to combat the spectre of war. It’s much easier to justify spending billions against a vague, anomolous threat that serves as a canvas for whatever scary picture you wish to paint for the American public than it is to actually engage in on-the-ground fighting and all of the accounting for expenses that entails. (One saw the same thing during the late Johnson and through the Nixon-era, where lavish defense budgets were slashed in order to free up funds to expand the war in Southeast Asia.) Second, there’s no doubt that defense contractors, _like every major corporate interest, business association, and collection of wealthy investors_, has significantly more influence on national policy than the average voter. In a sense, this is appropriate; after all, the typical voter is largely reactionary, existing primarily to be swayed, whereas business interests campaign to preserve their interests and expand their markets (thus protecting investors, most of whom, aside from the occasional ex-felon embezzler, are all part of the voting public). Of course, when a business interest has too much sway on an issue with an otherwise negative impact on the public at large then we have a conflict of interest; a politician’s way of resolving that conflict is to fart in the wind (or better yet, have some flunky do it) and then see if the smell stays around like a dead skunk stuck up under the rocker panel or if it can be swept away by diverting public interest in some other issue; say, terrorism or whatever idiot stunt David Blaine is pulling this week. A public that truly held the President or congressmen accountable would significantly reduce the control that corporate interests of all kinds have on political figures. That they do not–be it due to apathy, ignorance, or indecisiveness–is the fault, and perhaps the fatal flaw, of a democractically-run republic. Is Bush, or is predecessors, or your congressman (or woman) in the thrall of the “military-industrial complex”? Almost certainly if they have a defense-related subcontractor in their district. Does the head of, say, Boeing or Lockheed Martin call up the Prez on the red phone and tell him, “We need to stimulate some growth…The arms manufacturers tell me unless we get our bomb factories up to full production the whole economy is going to collapse,”[sup]1[/sup]?. Nah. They slip a few checks into the campaign war chest, wink about how great business looks next year, and wait for congresscritters to vigorously defend contracts that supply jobs to their districts. Ike’s concern–that having a large, permanent military-based industry that would need to be justified by regular military adventurism around the globe–has come to pass. But it’s not one President, or a group of businessmen smoking cigars in a dark room while meditating on the best way to screw the taxpayers out of more revenue. It’s more insidious than that; it’s a profitable _business_ that your dentist, your next door neighbor, and your grandmother are all invested in, and extracting that from our economy is basically impossible. Eisenhower knew this all too well, with a prescience that is as admirable as it is discouraging. Or, as Joseph Heller wrote, “The syndicate makes a profit. And everybody has a share.”[sup]2[/sup] Just wait until Bush has us bombing our own buildings, 'cause its cheaper and easier than looking for terrorists abroad. Stranger [sup]1[/sup]“Kinky Sex Makes The World Go 'Round”, _Bedtime For Democracy_, The Dead Kennedys [sup]2[/sup]Milo Minderbender from _Catch-22_, Joseph Heller ---
**Author:** ![OneCentStamp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/13edae/32.png) [@OneCentStamp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OneCentStamp)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2006, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-george-bush-a-tool-of-the-military-industrial-complex/356955/28 "2006-05-16T19:30:22Z")
> [@Stranger On A Train](#): > > Does the head of, say, Boeing or Lockheed Martin call up the Prez on the red phone and tell him, “We need to stimulate some growth…The arms manufacturers tell me unless we get our bomb factories up to full production the whole economy is going to collapse,”[sup]1[/sup]?. > Stranger > > [sup]1[/sup]“Kinky Sex Makes The World Go 'Round”, _Bedtime For Democracy_, The Dead Kennedys Best. Cite. Ever. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Triskadecamus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b19c9b/32.png) [@Triskadecamus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Triskadecamus)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2006, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-george-bush-a-tool-of-the-military-industrial-complex/356955/29 "2006-05-17T21:31:33Z")
Is representing, and facilitating the benefit of your own family, friends, and associates, your sector of the greater society being a tool? George is a rich man, the son of a politically powerful rich man, educated with rich men, and given power and authority by rich men. He has served the interests of rich men quite well. Is that being a tool? There is no complex. Particularism allows the most powerful to use hot button politics to make power secure. Wealth is power. Tris [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-george-bush-a-tool-of-the-military-industrial-complex/356955.md?page=1)