Hey everybody, welcome to tonight's Firelight Chat. Tonight we're talking about dismantling

the military industrial complex. It was in 1961 in his farewell address that President White

Eisenhower coined the phrase, and when he said military industrial complex, when he originally

wrote his speech, it was military industrial congressional complex. He warned us about its

standards. But remember, he was hardly anti-military. White Eisenhower, before he was president,

of course, during World War II was the Supreme Allied Commander. All Allied forces were under

his command. So the point is that before World War II, we had no standing army. I think most

of us would recognize that one is necessary now, and they certainly recognize that one was necessary

at the end of World War II. And yet, by 1961, Eisenhower recognized, oh, there could be a big

problem here, because war had become big business. That's what we are today. All of us recognize,

or at least many of us recognize, saying that something very dangerous has happened in this country.

There is today was often called the war machine, the blob in Washington. We've seen what happened

in Vietnam. We've seen what happened in Iraq. We've seen what happened staying so long

and being such a spectacular failure in Afghanistan. We recognize that there are 800 military

installations of the United States and 80 countries around the world. So many of us realize the

outsized power of North Roman, the Boeing of Raytheon. And yet so many of us just think,

it's hopeless. What can we do? So many of us recognize the outsized power of these industries.

Tonight's conversation is specifically about the overreach and outsized power of military

industrial complex and the defense industry that exerts way too much control over U.S. foreign

policy. Tonight we have my friend, my colleague Steven Stemler, who is someone that I go to,

and that I read because the things he has to say, the things he has to teach us all about this

and all related topics is so very important for these times. Let me introduce you.

...