50 years ago today, Ike warned of the Military Industrial Complex

[zzzz]

A half a century ago an aging outgoing 2 term President and the leader of the Ameircan Allied forces (Europe) in WWII, warned in his final address of the threat that the permanent creation of an industrial base whose sole purpose was to create weapons of war could pose to our liberty.

Have we as citizens been alert? Has this Military Industrial Complex (MIC) emerged into an uncontrollable monster that is bleeding the resources of this country dry? As Ike said and it is true today, we cannot demobilize our armaments industry because of circumstances of the world. Yet do we need or can we support the current size of our Armed Forces! Do we still need the capability to fight 2 and a half major wars at the same time?

The MIC has obtained unwarranted power in the halls of our government and it is this power that keeps bases open that should be closed and makes the Pentagon buy unwanted or un-needed equipement. Why do we need new manned jets when we already have the best and will be be the best for 20 years. The future is not in manned aircraft but unmanned aircraft. But I trangress, I think Ike's warning of the MIC have been glossed over and what he feared has come to life.

Excerpt of speech:

Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well.

But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every state house, every office of the Federal government.

We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted.

Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

 

[editec]

And who would have been in a better position that IKE to KNOW how true what he was warning us about really was?

The military industrial complex is only a part of the system, but it is certainly truer than true that much of our foreign policy (a policy DESIGNED TO KEEP US AT PERPETUAL WAR) benefits the MIC.

And more than the MIC it benefits the BANKSTERS who are the REAL MASTER-CLASS of this and most of the world's industrialized nations.

This nation would have ZERO national debt if we hadn't been a perpetual war my ENTIRE LIFETIME.

Do the freaking math.

Follow the freakin money

Wake the fuck UP!

 

[Mad Scientist]

Ike's "Military Industrial Complex" speech:

Military-Industrial Complex Speech, Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1961

A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction.
Our military organization today bears little relation to that known by any of my predecessors in peacetime, or indeed by the fighting men of World War II or Korea.
Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.

This doesn't mean we have to get rid of the Military as some on the Left have said, it means we have to keep it and keep a watch over it for undue influence.

In the same speech, Ike also talked about the "Scientific Technological Elite":

Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades.
In this revolution, research has become central; it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.
Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers.
The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present

• and is gravely to be regarded.

Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific technological elite

You think the Global Warming "Scientists" are part of that? You bet they are. All of them fighting for an ever increasing share of Federal Money. But of course, none of them would lie or exaggerate their claims of global warming as to increase their share of funding would they? Naw! They're scientists, they have integrity right? Well not when it comes to billions of dollars they don't.

 

[whitehall]

After you put down your latte and get out of your luxury car ask yourself lefties, what the sole purpose of the industrial complex in the greatest Country in the world? To make you safe and comfortable enough to spend your spare time promoting the failed socialist system?

 

[Truthmatters]

Do you think anyone makes money off the military industrial complex?

 

[sangha]

After you put down your latte and get out of your luxury car ask yourself lefties, what the sole purpose of the industrial complex in the greatest Country in the world? To make you safe and comfortable enough to spend your spare time promoting the failed socialist system?

Thank GOd we've spent billions to have thousands of US troops in Germany to protect us from the non-existent threat of an invasion from a nation (ie USSR) that no longer exists

 

[dilloduck]

Do you think anyone makes money off the military industrial complex?

Sure. Just like the Science technology elite makes a profit for those it employs. Got a problem with profit ?

 

[Truthmatters]

If corporations profit off of war and have the ability to effect our decisions to go to war then corporations have a reason to make sure our country stays in wars to make them money.

In light of the scotus decision on corporations having the right to fund poltical activity we have set ourselves up for constant war.

 

[Bfgrn]

Did anyone consider why after a very successful 8 years as President, Ike felt compelled to make this speech?

Eisenhower was close to Détente with Khrushchev and the Russians in 1960 until his efforts for peace were undermined and subverted, not by the Russians, but by our own CIA. A U-2 was 'mysteriously was sent into Soviet air space and shot down on May Day, just before the most important summit conference. The pilot, Francis Gary Powers was captured wearing a US Air Force flight suit carrying his Air Force ID. That violated U-2 program protocol. The CIA and the Department of Defense (DOD) had spent millions of dollars sterilizing aircraft and equipment used in clandestine operations, so that anyone who might uncover an operation would be unable, under reasonable circumstances, to trace it positively to its true origin.

When CIA chief Allen Dulles was questioned during hearings held before the Committee on Foreign Relations, he was asked:

Gore: You [Dulles] have told this Committee that you received this approval [for the Powers flight] or authority after April ninth. [There had been a previous successful U-2 flight over the USSR on April 9, 1960.]

Dulles: That is my recollection.

Gore: . . . from whom did you receive this authorization, who were the parties, and was the President one of them?

Dulles: Well, we had a group.

The incident so enraged and incensed Ike that it prompted him to make the most provocative speech that any President had ever made. It was a thinly veiled damning of his own country...his final farewell address where he warned:

"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together."

That same mission for peace with the Soviet Union, an order to withdraw 1,000 military personnel from Vietnam by the end of 1963, plans to end our military involvement in Vietnam after securing a second term and secret talks to normalize relations with Cuba cost Ike's successor, John F. Kennedy his life.

Link

Link

 

[Truthmatters]

The man truely loved his country and showed that all his life, especially in this farewell address.

 

[sangha]

The man truely loved his country and showed that all his life, especially in this farewell address.

Too bad that aren't any more republicans like that anymore

 

[Truthmatters]

I bet there are still some.

They have no voice in the current republican party