Ok, I appreciate Nick's efforts, but business is business. Business is not supposed to care who it does business with, that is its nature. Trying to blame business for that is like trying to blame an elephant for being big.

Your callousness is staggering. How can you justify the death and disfigurement of millions of people in the name of profit?

I do not justify it, I only make it clear that business is amoral. The citizen's duty is to check business and where it heads.

But ... but ... that's socialism! Which is practically communism!

There's a step missing. A single citizen can't influence a collective like a business or corporation. Only another collective of some kind can.

Anyway, the thing that always made Marvel better than DC was that it had more industrial-congressional-military complex characters.

Talking of collective action, take a look at this. http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/05/20/carney_ads/index.html Worth throwing a few bucks at, no? There'll be strong resistance to it, and it may not work smoothly. Recall that Lieberman was re-elected in CT. Notice, however, that he's been sidelined and effectively crushed, reduced to nothing more than a toady for McCain.

@En Ming Hee
Perhaps my dictionary has failed me, but it seems to me you are justifying it. You claim that, as long as third-party citizens aren't organized enough to stop it, arms dealing is acceptable. I say that it is always unacceptable to profit from war.

You are reading things into my statement that I never implied. I never said it was acceptable, but I was saying that it was INEVITABLE. There is a difference between the two.

Also, Nick was not talking just about arms dealers. He was also talking about lay corporations that have contracts with the military. It is those that I am talking about. Given those do not make arms (they may supply personal computers, like the ones you use, for the military). There is actually no way to say that these companies are profiting "from war", since they manufacture a good that is in demand by many people and do not comprise of the main belligerents in an armed conflict. One can in fact say that peace is in fact far more bullish for these companies because they would be able to innovate for more people and on a greater scale (look, for example, at the GPS, which was developed in the army.)

I think Nick's point is less that "Hollywood shouldn't be in bed with the Pentagon" and more that "We should be aware of how the Pentagon is using Hollywood to manipulate us." And, as you say, with concerted citizen action such things are not inevitable (in theory).

I remember feeling the hair go up on the back of my neck when that "Pearl Harbor" stinker starring Ben Affleck made its debut. I was noticing everywhere around me a full-court pro-military/recruiting press. Those "Army of One" PSAs were running all the time on TV, and my beach town had the first-ever visit by a warship, the USS Elliot. When the Elliot made a return visit in late summer I thought that I'd write my local paper and ask "What's up with all this". I never wrote that letter, as is probably the case more often than not. I looked up online the date of the USS Elliot's last visit and lo, it was about a week before Sept. 11. I guess I was distracted.

Business is not supposed to care who it does business with, that is its nature.

Howsoever true, it is no less an indictment of the corruption at the core of the 'nature' of business as you seem to construe it. How does "business" get to opt out--mostly in private, it seems to me, out of the public eye--of the ethical and trans-personal demands that theoretically at least constrain the rest of us from behaving as mindlessly (by which I do intend the contrary quality, mindfulness) as starving amoebae?

THE INTERNET IS THE NEW THIRD PARTY AND THE BLOGOSPHERE ITS POLITBUREAU. Since the 'other' 2 parties support what MICFIC is doing, only a third party can supply a TRUE choice. An uninformed voter cannot make a logical, informed choice. THE INTERNET allows US to converse on MANY subjects of interest and import during the day with many people. This IS the essence of POLITICAL POWER.

En Ming Hee 1:39: EXACTLY.

I wonder what the reaction would be if somebody made a well-done superhero movie about, say, a billionaire Iraqi oil magnate who, at the start of the Occupation in Iraq, gets tortured and waterboarded by US neocons (in an unsuccessful attempt to get him to give up the master codes to start his fleet of oil refineries or somesuch), then manages to escape, realizes that his previous profits from supplying oil to the West was completely amoral, and uses his superintelligence and vast wealth to create an invincible suit that allows him to fight his old business partner, who is becoming rich by literally fueling the villainous Project for a New American Century.

Off topic.

I just saw Clintons’ speech in Florida. I wouldn’t have belived it if I hadn’t seen it myself. She is being the most Divisive, and win at any cost, person I belive I’ve seen. This speech should convince the Superdelegates to throw all their votes behind Obama, to save the party from her and McCain. I’m a registered Republican for 30 years whom will be voteing for Obama this season. I’m totaly disgusted with my party. McCain has done an about-face, and shows he can’t be trusted. I and my wife will be changing to Independants this year.

Hillary can’t let go of her ego. If the delegate totals were reversed Hillary would be singing a very different tune when it comes to Florida and Michigan. All candidates agreed with the rules and now that she is losing she thinks things are unfair. She needs to get out of the race, quit whining and get a life.

By the way, if Hillary can’t run a campaign without debt, how would she run the country?

Maezeppa, it's interesting though. Hollywood used to be able to find WAYS around the terms as dictated by their contracts with the military. Dunno if you ever saw the classic romance FROM HERE TO ETERNITY (which is THE Pearl Harbor movie to watch), which was likewise made in collaboration with the military as well. It's a brutal indictment of military life no matter how you slice it, but it's filmed in such a way that that it is not the first thing you remember about it, and the indictment only sinks in much later.