Does anyone win in a Military Industrial Complex system?

[shance]

"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. "

Dwight D. Eisenhower

I think if anyone would know more about such a system, it would be someone who lived his life working for the military. In his farewell address as president, General Eisenhower spoke directly to the issue of the Military Industrial Complex.

Flash forward to today.

The current Administration is promoting the very system that Eisenhower warned against, and many in our Congress are either supporting this miltary globalization aggression and/or are sitting on their hands and shutting their mouths. It's as if they've lost sight of any basic, elementary, but long term vision as to what will incur if we continue to take this path. There's already been mind boggling damage and destruction with repurcussions, and yet so many of our so called leaders defy the insight of Eisenhower and other teachers, and carry on with business as usual.

I dont need to add (but will any way*) that due to the access and promotion of nuclear weaponry and its production, along with an economic defense base to begin with, a Military Industrial Complex is a no win situation. This doesnt begin to address the problems we already face due to Global warming and our own intrusions into the climate world.

Even those who stand to financially gain and/or imperically gain will eventually lose as well. Can they not see this? Do they not choose to see this? Are they incapable of seeing this?

Seems to me, there are simply no winners in an MIC, however everyone on this planet will lose eventually with such a complex dictating the world. I believe we are seeing this right now.

[wtmusic]

1. the military

am I first?

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. No, ot the military

the Corporations, the GEs of the world the Martin Thiekol of the world.. you think a Navy Chief wins? Nope, maybe the Admiral, but not the Chief

[shance]

3. But do you think they really win?

According to even Eisenhower, it appears he would even disagree with you.

[wtmusic]

8. My bad

You're right. Defense industry wins, in the short term.

A little too fast on the old trigger finger.

[Singular73]

4. Actually, its not that bad.

Tax money at least gets cycled back through the system, funding tons of R&D, and keeping a LOT of American companies (especially tech) afloat.

They hardly ever outsource MIC work.

Its been done that way for years.

Fine as long as there is a fair bidding process.

[shance]

7. Would you call todays climate " a fair bidding" process?

n/t

[Singular73]

10. Fuck no

lol

[nadinbrzezinski]

11. Care to compare the percentage of the budget

for oh I don't know education vis a vis The MIC?

[VTMechEngr]

29. Hell, The MIC is one of the few industries that keep engineers here!

Only Americans can work on DOD projects. Thank God for that.

[alittlelark]

33. Are You F*cking kidding?????

I have gained from the rise (dad is nuclear physicist who went private after retirement) of these parasites. My father gained $. After 9-11 he retired from his parasitical firm. The other ex-military were contacting their friends at bases and learning about the 'stand down' order.

He and his co-workers spent a few nights discussing what happened in local restaurants and taverns.... they retired w/in 3 months.



Stop w/ your 'trickle-down sh*t'


PS - there is no 'fair bidding process'. It depends on who knows who - that's why these parasitical defense contractors pay big$$$ for high level ex-military.

[bonito]

5. I hope we are all seeing it now too

A long overdue wakeup call for those in power, at best. Peace

[shance]

9. I do too Bonito.

n/t

[shance]

6. Who wins if everything stands to be physically annihilated?

How much will money, prestige and power mean in the midst of an apocalypse?

[autorank]

12. Great point shance...Eisenhowers warning is our lament.

Why don't we listen to him now? Because people hardly know about this. It should be mandatory reading in every civics class, history class of the period, and debate class.

He gave us a gift. We've hidden it under tons of money diverted to bathe the defense industry in a bottomless pool of green.

Read, write, become a true citizen; and then become the media.

[shance]

16. Thanks AR**Other than a great Eisenhower quote posted here earlier,

I watched JFK again the other night and I had forgotten that the movie opens with Eisenhower's farewell address discussing the MIC.

Its jogged my thinking about the issue and how important that speech really was.

Needless to say you are so right when you say we must 'become the media' because the "other" media seems to be doing almost everything it can to keep us distracted, consuming and looking the other way from what we need to know the most.

[rbajai]

13. * is the very thing the neocons have been salivating over for years...

a malleable, unintelligent, uninterested President who could be molded to go along with any plan regarding the neocon agenda.

[cquik18]

19. Can you say, "Manchurian Candidate"?

eom

[rbajai]

26. I saw the old Manchurian Candidate on DVD

and yep, I can see that. Yikes.

[cquik18]

35. Haven't seen the original yet....

but last year's remake was spooky as hell....I feel uncomfortable eating Ramen noodles now, LOL!

[rbajai]

14. Also watch "The Corporation" on DVD.

It is long and quite depressing actually but revealing about what our large corporations are up to (too much power), what they own, what they want to own, and how the military is really used to protect American business interests.

[shance]

25. Yes Rbaj, Ive heard its a great movie and very informative.

Wouldnt it be nice for schools to show it.

I don't know if you have read Smedley Butler's book, War is a Racket, but it probably confirms the Corporation in how the military is used for protecting business purposes.

[rbajai]

27. I forget the details bu

in a part of that movie they went on to describe how an American company actually claimed ownership of RAINWATER falling from the sky in one South American country. Therefore it would be illegal for the people, in theory, to collect rainwater in buckets because that rainwater belonged to the CORPORATION!! Ugh!

It opened my eyes to the ever-growing beast of coporate fascism that is currently taking over our world. * is currently its main spokesperson it seems.

[shance]

28. Just when I think Ive heard it all. The ownership of rain?

Thats so outrageous, and yet, we've already seen so much outrageous stuff. Its time to say enough, before its too late.

You know, I guess the level of entitlement power abusers reach is dependent on how far we allow them to go?

[G_j]

15. "war is a racket"

you are so right,
and also, many in our Congress are profiting from the MIC.

excellent post

[shance]

17. Good ole Smedley. What a powerful book*

I keep buying extra copies to pass out to friends because its a quick read and in its brevity seems to say it all.

Thanks G_j*

[av8rdave]

18. I was a military officer for 8 years

There is a need for a "military industrial complex," believe it or not. Such a structure serves the need for rapid procurement of new systems when needed, as well as rapid improvements to existing ones. During a LEGIGIMATE conflict (as opposed to Iraq/Viet Nam), this can be crucial.

However, I also believe that much like services and utilities essential to the public good, a military - industrial complex needs to be carefully regulated, and the financial aspects need to be open to public scrutiny. I agree with Eisenhower's comments re. the potential for impropriety and abuse. However, this risk does need to be balanced with the need for the best of our technology and industtry to be able to respond quickly to the needs of our military.

av8rdave

[shance]

22. Thanks Dave. You make some good points.

Would you say that the overall stability and 'sanctity' (for lack of a better term) of the military depends primarily on those who run or govern the military?

That is one of my main concerns. That the overall safety and security of the military depends on who's governing and how qualified and mentally equipped they are to run the military and its agenda.

Robert McNamara discussed this in the documentary the "Fog of War" and said that if level heads both in the US and in Russian leadership had not been a factor, the outcome very well could have been quite different and much more disastrous.

[av8rdave]

51. That's a great question

The concept is supposed to be a well equipped, trained military that is subject to the orders of the civilian authorities - i.e., the comander in chief (*) and the secretary of defense.

I think by and large, in recent years, the military has done a pretty good job (with obvious glaring exceptions, like Abu Gharib (sp?). The problem has been renegade and irresponsible civilian commanders - i.e., the commander in chief (*) and the secretary of defense.

Dave

[anarch]

20. I think the long term negative effects to the big-shot execs

at the big corporations that are making massive profits from war and aggression are outweighed, in the minds of those execs, by the immediate gratification of huge personal wealth accumulation. I think they really are incapable of seeing that they (or their children, if that applies, and if they possess the emotional capacity to care about anyone at all besides themselves) will eventually lose, or they discount it as meaningless to them personally as long as they keep generating revenue.

So it's a combination of incapability to see and choosing not to see.

Actually, inasmuch as these people will probably live in luxury right up until the end of their own lives--whether in an apocalyptic econo-cataclysm, or quietly, of old age, in their expensive beds--unless you believe in an afterlife, or reincarnation, I guess they do "win", by their own evil and small-minded standards.

Yeah, the whole world loses, but to these assholes, "he who dies with the most toys wins".

[shance]

24. Fantastic however sobering post. I hope for everyones sake

they wake up don't you?

I know we all like some creature comforts, but when do a few material objects become abject greed and hedonism? Im not sure why some individuals choose not to "see", but seems to me they keep themselves so insulated and incapsulated from reality that they don't have to look at reality.

[G_j]

30. and isn't that really

the definition of a psychopath when it comes down do it? no conscience
perhaps greed alters one's brain chemistry? :shrug:

[Beam Me Up]

21. It's the National Security State -- of which the MIC is only one dimension

MIC is an important aspect, by all means, but the problem goes even deeper. What it really has to do with is our human inability to feel the consequences of our actions. I said in another thread that the elite of our world have become paranoid misanthropes.

Ultimately IMO what is facing humanity is a SPIRITUAL problem. It is unfortunate that we have so little understanding of what "spiritual" actually means. What is meant might require a very long discussion. Here is Gregory Bateson (one of the geniuses of the past century) on a subject related to what I have in mind (From a lecture, dated 1970):

First, let us consider ecology. Ecology has currently two faces to it: the face which is called bioenergetics—the economics of energy and materials within a coral reef, a redwood forest, or a city—and, second, an economics of information, of entropy, negentropy, etc. These two do not fit together very well precisely because the units are differently bounded in the two sorts of ecology. In bioenergetics it is natural and appropriate to think of units bounded at the cell membrane, or at the skin; or of units composed of sets of tiers at which measurements can be made to determine the additive-subtractive budget of energy for the given unit. In contrast, informational or entropic ecology deals with the budgeting of pathways and of probability. The resulting budgets are fractionating (not subtractive). The boundaries must enclose, not cut, the relevant pathways.

Moreover, the very meaning of "survival" becomes different when we stop talking about the survival of something bounded by the skin and start to think of the survival of the system of ideas in a circuit. The contents of the skin are randomized at death and the pathways within the skin are randomized. But the ideas, under further transformation, may go on out in the world in books or works of art. Socrates as a bioenergetic individual is dead. But much of him still lives in the contemporary ecology of ideas.

It is also clear that theology becomes changed and perhaps renewed. The Mediterranean religions of 5000 years have swung to and fro between immanence and transcendence. In Babylon the gods were transcendent on the tops of hills; in Egypt, there was god immanent in Pharaoh; and Christianity is a complex combination of these two beliefs.

The cybernetic epistemology which I have offered you would suggest a new approach. The individual mind is immanent but not only in the body. It is immanent also in pathways and messages outside the body; and there is a larger Mind of which the individual mind is only a subsystem. This larger Mind is comparable to God and is perhaps what some people mean by "God," but it is still immanent in the total interconnected social system and planetary ecology .

Freudian psychology expanded the concept of mind inwards to include the whole communication system within the body—the automatic, the habitual, and the vast range of unconscious process. What I am saying expands mind outwards. And both of these changes reduce the scope of the conscious self. A certain humility becomes appropriate, tempered by the dignity or joy of being part of something much bigger. A part—if you will—of God.

If you put God outside and set him vis-a-vis his creation and if you have the idea that you are created in his image, you will logically and naturally see yourself as outside and against the things around you. And as you arrogate all mind to yourself, you will see the world around you as mindless and therefore not entitled to moral or ethical consideration. The environment will seem to be yours to exploit. Your survival unit will be you and your folks or conspecifics against the environment of other social units, other races and the brutes and vegetables.

If this is your estimate of your relation to nature and you have an advanced technology, your likelihood of survival will be that of a snowball in hell . You will die either of the toxic by-products of your own hate, or, simply, of over-population and overgrazing. The raw materials of the world are finite.

If I am right, the whole of our thinking about what we are and what other people are has got to be restructured. This is not funny, and I do not know how long we have to do it in. If we continue to operate on the premises that were fashionable in the prescybernetic era, and which were especially underlined and strengthened during the Industrial Revolution, which seemed to validate the Darwinian unit of survival, we may have twenty or thirty years before the logical reductio ad absurdum of our old positions destroy us. Nobody knows how long we have, under the present system, before some disaster strikes us, more serious than the destruction of any group of nations. The most important task today is , perhaps, to learn to think in the new way . Let me say that I don't know how to think that way.

Intellectually, I can stand here and I can give you a reasoned exposition of this matter; but if I am cutting down a tree, I still think "Gregory Bateson" is cutting down the tree. I am cutting down the tree. "Myself" is to me still an excessively concrete object, different from the rest of what I have been calling "mind."

The step to realizing—to making habitual—the other way of thinking so that one naturally thinks that way when one reaches out for a glass of water or cuts down a tree—that step is not an easy one.

More: http://www.rawpaint.com/library/bateson/formsubstancedifference.html

[shance]

23. The " human inability to feel the consequences of our actions".

Absolutely*********where the rubber meets the road in my opinion.

How true as well, the major disconnect from Mother/Father (*whoever*)Nature and the spiritual aspect like you mentioned. I think that concerns me as much as anything does these days.

That was some heavy duty reading and Im not sure it has fully saturated my cerebrum* here but we'll give it a little time to sink in.

Thanks Beam.

[Beam Me Up]

37. It was taken out of context -- it is well worth the effort to read the

whole piece, I think. He starts right at the beginning: Epistemology: THE MAP IS NOT THE TERRITORY. The description is not the thing described.

Obviously not easy reading.

I met Bateson once quite by accident at an informal gathering in San Francisco back in the mid Seventies. I was awed by the man--he was HUGE, for one thing. Years later I attended a lecture presented on the UC Berkeley campus--sometime before he died (1980). He was quite an old man then. Standing up at the lectern, he proceeded to ramble on and on for a good hour or so and I began to feel quite embarrassed for him. He talked about one subject and then another subject and another and yet another spanning everything from coal mining and metallurgy to shamanism and black magic among many other things. All this was very interesting but as he went on and on I began to think, "poor old guy, he's completely lost his mind!" Then three quarters of the way through he began going back to each and every one of the subjects he'd spoken authoritatively on (completely without notes) and began linking first one and then another and another of them, weaving them all into a completely coherent explanation for why it is WE (humanity, but particularly Western civilization) happen to be where we are at this particular juncture of human history. It was astounding!

This was over 15 years ago but I'd say everything he said THEN (most of it lost from my conscious memory) NOW makes a whole lot more sense.

Ta ta!!

:hi:

[shance]

39. He sounds fascinating.

You've peaked my interest.

And Berkeley? Sounds like a professor after my own heart.

:)

[Beam Me Up]

40. Oh, good! But Bateson was far more than a professor:

He was an established professional in SEVERAL science related fields. Here is part of what wikipedia has on him:

Gregory Bateson

Gregory Bateson (9 May 1904–4 July 1980) was a British anthropologist, social scientist, linguist and cyberneticist whose work intersected that of many other fields. Some of his most noted writings are to be found in his books, Steps to an Ecology of Mind, 1972, and Mind and Nature, 1980.

...

Bateson is most famous for developing the "Double Bind" theory of schizophrenia together with one of the world's leading theoreticians in Communication theory Paul Watzlawick, his colleague at the Mental Research Institute of Palo Alto, and for being Margaret Mead's husband. In academic circles he is something of a cult figure whose appeal includes his obscurity, eccentricity and diversity of accomplishment. Still, the rise of interest in holism, systems, and cybernetics have naturally led educators and students to Bateson's published work.

By his own admission Bateson is widely misunderstood, and the unconventionality of his style might be largely at fault. Bateson did not have much respect for contemporary academic scientific standards of writing, his works have often the form of an essay rather than a scientific paper, he used lot of metaphors and his choice of sources tended to be unusual (for example citing old poets and ignoring recent scientific sources). At the same time, he wrote on a very abstract level. However, many scholars consider his works to contain a great deal of original thought and reward careful reading. He has been a very important inspiration in the field of family therapy.

...

[shance]

45. It sounds as though Bateson was ahead of his time

which I would imagine could be a pretty painful place to be for someone in that position.

[buzzsaw_23]

31. Everyone loses-the children's future is stolen

My brother and I at the DC demo. Comments regarding your topic at link below.

nominated



http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=4885326&mesg_id=4885344

[shance]

34. Great pic Buzzsaw - thanks for posting*

n/t

[Beam Me Up]

38. Thank you for putting that statement out into the world!

That's really great!

[BrklynLiberal]

32. Only the corporations that manufacture weapons.

[NAO]

36. Chomsky: via the Pentagon, the public is forced to support high-tech biz

Chomsky maintains that the Pentagon, and the military-industrial complex is the system whereby ordinary people are forced to subsidize research and generally support high technology industry.

You can't just tell Joe Taxpayer, "hey, you must help Bill the Billionaire develop new technology and create crap for you to buy with your measly paycheck".

You have to scare him with the "Communist Menace" or the "Terrorist Menace" and then pour billions of public dollars into R&D. Then you give the technologies developed with public dollars over to the private sector to be sold back to the taxpayers (who payed the R&D costs and should by all rights be receiving dividends and patent royalties on the technologies.)

Sounds about right.

[Singular73]

47. I have no problem with the MIC funding US business for R&D

Keeps people working.

Its really THE advantage the US has in the global economy...noone puts as much money towards R&D as the US does.

[NAO]

49. Problem is that the Investors are not paid dividends or given ownership

of the technologies that they have developed. The Investors, the US Taxpayers, support that research, and yes, that is great.

The problem comes when it comes time to cash in on the research.

The technologies and the know how are just given over to private corporations, and the people who funded the research (the public) are not given any credit or ownership of the technology whose development they invested in.

The same consideration applies to natural resources. The oil in ANWR is on Public Land. As a US Citizen, I have a legitimate claim on that oil. Why not have the US Army Corps of Engineers (who are already on my payroll) extract the oil, and then sell it to Shell/Texaco at $50 a barrel or whatever the going rate is these days? Have Shell/Texaco make out their check to: "United States Treasury" and just mail it to Washington DC. No address is required; it will get there - my employees at the United States Postal Service will make sure of that.

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

41. I don't see any...

...long term winners---the clear loser is humanity:

http://www.karlandkinggeorge.com/War_Ghosts.html

[HR_Pufnstuf]

42. Wall Street.

nt

[shance]

44. But if we play the scenario out, Wall Street loses as well.

If a MIC is allowed to dictate our system and society, natural resources will be destroyed, water will be toxified to such a level that it becomes not only undrinkable but an instrument of plagues and disease. Wall Street is dependent on such resources as is everyone and everything else.

Do these people who promote such a system not realize it will effect them as well, no matter what gated community or University club with which they belong. Their life will be ruined as well, its just a matter of time.

My point is this does not have to happen. However if their greed and delusion continues this world will no doubt be destroyed and become uninhabitable.

[illuminaughty]

43. No, that is why it is so futile.

[Beam Me Up]

46. Eisenhower also warned about Science and Technology:

He foresaw that the MIC was dependent upon R&D of scientific and technological research mostly within our universities. If you haven't seen the documentary Bekreley in the Sixties, I highly recommend it. Especially the first part which deals with the Free Speech Movement and its lead up to the Anti Vietnam War Movement -- placed in the context of a University very involved in the US nuclear research. This relationship between our PUBLICLY FUNDED universities and the MIC is something that is seldom discussed but is very relevant.

Here is what Eisenhower said in his speech:

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 scientifictechnological 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.

The whole speech, well worth reading, can be found here:

http://coursesa.matrix.msu.edu/~hst306/documents/indust.html

[shance]

50. Thanks so much Beam!

I had not run across this.

Terrific reading.

:)

[htuttle]

48. Criminals always think they are going to get away with it

They reject the consideration of consequences as 'pessimism'.