I used a portion of Ike’s famous Military-Industrial Complex Speech in two Diaries yesterday, both discussing the decline of our nation generally, and democracy specifically. I awoke this morning to several suggestions that it be highlighted in its own diary.
I know this speech inside and out because it is part of the structural framework to the plot of a Novel that I released a bit back.
Everyone knows about the dire warning regarding the power of a growing Military-Industrial Complex. If you (like me, prior to researching it) can cite the famous part by-heart, but know nothing of the rest of the speech, you’ve done yourself and your country, a dangerous injustice.
First, here is an essential link to the entirety of the speech, which you should take the time to read because even in a diary, I cannot highlight all the prescient and dire warnings. Second, here’s what we know:
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.
Fine. Good Stuff.
But, one almost wants to pull one’s hair out when one reads what follows right upon that portion, that rings TRUER today than ever, and is, perhaps, more dangerous (I highlight certain clauses for brevity):
Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades… 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. It is the task of statesmanship to mold, to balance, and to integrate these and other forces, new and old, within the principles of our democratic system -- ever aiming toward the supreme goals of our free society.
IBM, then Microsoft, then Google, Facebook, Apple, Comcast …. And the inability of our “statesman” to balance the use of technology to foster democracy, not bring it down.
Now, the part that stopped my heart cold:
Another factor in maintaining balance involves the element of time. As we peer into society's future, we -- you and I, and our government -- must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering, for our own ease and convenience, the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow.
Transglobal-Corporations, Monopolies in the interest of “packaging” convenience, plundering resources, leading to a hotter, more poisonous planet … and the loss of a political/spiritual heritage?
I quote a character: “What if I told you that the failure to grasp the meaning and accept the challenges within, poses a greater danger to your country, than the failure to grasp the full meaning of the Gettysburg Address?”
The real warning: A “scientific-industrial elite” will “plunder the Earth,” “for our own ease and convenience” and in doing so, will “threaten” the very fabric of democracy and the United States into the future.
I used aliens as an analogy to carry out the message.
But here and now, I note that the speech relates a hard-cold truth about our modern American society, from Movement-Conservatives, Citizen’s United, Birtherism, Voter I.D., Gerrymandering, Justice Gorsuch, not Garland, Trump, Oligarchs, Russia, to … fascism.
The real warnings in this speech don’t just go unheeded, they are not even taught. And thus not known. At least now, you know. Read the entire speech, please. Comment. And, please: Pass it on.
** From the comments so far, apparently some are reading this as general praise of Ike. No, it’s general appreciation of a warning clearly delivered, linking things not often linked.