Pacific Northwest Research Center. Rockwell International: Where Business
Gets Down to the Science of War. Eugene OR: PNRC, 1975. Written by Paul
Fitzgerald, John Markoff, Roger Walke, and John Woodmansee, with a foreword
by G. William Domhoff. 69 pages.
PNRC was a collective of researchers that thrived for a time in the
1970s when "power structure research" meant identifying and tracking the
influence of corporate and government elites. One of PNRC's contributions
was this booklet on Rockwell International's cozy relations with Washington
and Pentagon bigwigs. By looking at Rockwell and its B-1 bomber contract in
particular, this booklet presents an amazing case study of how the military-
industrial complex works. (Nothing has changed since 1975. In 1991 I was
employed by Grumman, which along with Rockwell and others was a contractor
for NASA's space station. This latest tax-dollar boondoggle caused me to
resign in disgust after only three months of very fat paychecks.)
By the late 1970s the tendency of "the personal as political" replaced
"power structure research" on the U.S. left, and progressive funding sources
were now controlled by self-interested feminists and multiculturalists. They
succeeded in forcing one foot into the power structure by legislating and
lobbying for preferential treatment. But this neither exposed nor challenged
the way the system works, and by now it's increasingly clear that they were
simply bought off. -- D.Brandt
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