Rhetorical question, but I have to wonder - is there some psychological reason why we can't just focus our efforts on all those good things without having to come up with some enemy to motivate us? Naturally there's no way of knowing, but I feel we will move beyond it eventually.

 

Your explanation of the MIC is one of the dumbest I've seen yet. I wouldn't be shocked if you started quoting Ron Paul and Howard Zinn.

-The military industrial complex, in its true meaning, comes from a farewell address made by Dwight Eisenhower in which he warns about Congress wasting money on military without oversight and without the knowledge of the tax-payers and citizens, along with the growth of that influence gaining power over our liberty. It's about ensuring power isn't misplaced from the the people. And by the way, right before he says military-industrial complex, he says that the the ties between business and the military are an imperative need. So not only do you not know what the term means you also are taken the exact opposite position of its originator.
--The modern meaning comes from kids on the internet thinking they uncovered some secret message from the past warning us about the military and wars and blah blah.
---Eisenhower originally intended to use the term military-industrial-congressional complex. Indicating that government must be watched, not that the military or industry shouldn't create jobs.

This age old myth is just like the Kennedy myth. Thousands of kids with google on message boards think JFK was warning us about a secret NWO society in a speech that was actually about the growing influence of Communism. Ignorance + Conspiracy Theories + Out Of Context = The Internet.

What's self-serving is wanting to spend money on a dead planet like Mars, because it *could* affect our every day lives, instead of protecting the lives of over 300 million citizens of a country. The mission to get to the moon went on during the Cold War; not a luxury worth having during a hot conflict like say WWII when your main objective ought to be national security. And granted we're not facing conventional armies today like back then, but anyone with a lick of sense should make defending their countrymen their objective over dusting space rocks.

Yeah, except the first thing is real and the next thing is just a cute slogan for something else. It's called medical science. They already have that.

It's called civil engineering. They already have that.

Killing machines used against 7th century barbarians? I'm game.

I can't believe when I was younger I had such an idealistic, unrealistic thought process about how the world works. We don't have the luxury to pack up our shit and declare war abolished. We're not fucking Iceland.

 

Best said by the great pinko, sissy, liberal, Dwight D. Eisenhower:

 

As if the argument was if war was nice and enjoyable. Eisenhower hated war, which is why he wanted to much to end it. However, back then securing peace meant actually winning and no surrendering. His entire presidential campaign consisted of criticizing Truman for being too weak on Korea. This is the same president that threatened to nuke his enemies to secure peace. The same president that pursued brinkmanship with the Soviets. Eisenhower wanted peace, but not at the cost of freedom. Lamenting that wars occur and that peace is a pipe dream is a characteristic of damn near anybody, hawks and doves alike. But if the quote game is in session:

Let's not take a dead man's words out of context to promote something he wouldn't support.

 

enjoy bombing cave-dwellers with your robot drones. And the drones that perform any mental sleight of hand required to justify such perverse situations.

I suggest you re-read that speech, because he was not talking about the danger of government, but quite clearly talking about the danger of government being influenced or even hijacked by various interests, particularly military-industrial interests. And he was 100% right. When you have a government with all these doomsday devices and insane military might, you need to be extra vigilant that they are not misused. You can't just salute the flag and assume that because it's us, we're the good guys, therefore everything we do is right.

 

Whoa, everybody simmer down!

I didn't start this thread to debate war, I started it to get some insight into joining the cause, people! Let's stay on course, eh?

 

I will, and you enjoy not living in dhimmitude and being beheaded.

I suggest you do a little research. He starts off acknowledging the need for a war industry, that the whole country is a part of it, and that it's part of the American experience. He then relates us (the people) and our resources to this system. He then goes on to mention the government - Congress.

Now I don't expect you to have researched the implications behind the speech. We can extrapolate from the speech he's referring to the government's nature and scope and not the military industrial base. IF YOU READ the whole speech, he says the same thing about the federal government being involved in medical and agricultural programs. He wasn't warning of an insidious alliance of business and war, and the very fact that he says "sought OR unsought" shows he's talking hypothetically.

And again, he says we need it over and over.

"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. "'
"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."

And he doesn't blame the military industry for war. He blames our enemies for the wars, the Communists. The "hostile ideology global in scope, atheistic in character, ruthless in purpose, and insidious in method."

But then you didn't read the whole speech, you just picked a convenient and well-known portion and took it out of context

 

Exactly. Still, some have limited constitutions and require the patriarchal structure of institutions like the military to give their life purpose or meaning. It may be difficult to empathize with or even respect, but it's nonetheless a valid choice even if ultimately misguided and overall detrimental to a civil society.

Let them play their dress up and leave this sort of discussion to more thoughtful ears.

 

One time we saw a buncha dead fools that Hammer--an AC-130 gunship--had hit the previous night. 20 mm chain guns, direct fire 105 mm howitzer...it was crazy, there were bodies everywhere. Some of them just had a hole or two, you had to look for the kill shots...others were chewed to pieces, so much so that there was less than half the original bodymass remaining. Just gobbets of meat barely attached.

Anyways, I'm not gonna lie, it made me a little hard. Ain't no mental sleight of hand for me, just pure, unadulterated joy at the thought that here lay a buncha assholes who wanted to kill me and mine. Bad guys, now dead guys. GET SOME.

The idea of Hammer being replaced by UAVs is even more awesome...killing from half a world away without putting pilots in danger? GET SOME MORE.

 

I don't think you know what that word means.

But perhaps that conversation should be left to more thoughtful ears!

 

Oh look at you playing dress up as a sociologist and intellectual.

 

of course I read the whole speech. I wouldn't ask you to read something I hadn't read and understood myself. Much of it has to be taken in the context of the Cold War, which is now over.

In the present day there is only one superpower. Today there is no arms race. No one to threaten or compete militarily with, and yet still no serious disarmament. Instead we conjure up various bogeymen and imaginary hypothetical scenarios.

I don't think Eisenhower was talking hypothetically about the military-industrial influence on government. I suspect much of it came from first-hand experience. He held the reins of power. He knew how these things work.

Much as he talks about the then-current necessity of maintaining military at a certain level, he also talks about the need for disarmament, on both sides, mutual disarmament. The whole speech isn't about becoming defenceless, it's about the need to maintain a balanced and proportional approach in such matters.

 

... cheers Bryan, you may be psychotic, but at least you're honest about it. I wonder what you'd be doing if your country was occupied by a foreign military power and their robots. Judging by your constitution, you'd probably end up a dead asshole too. Because I doubt you'd take it lying down.

Going by the context: mental constitution; state of mind.

 

And yet you didn't apply the context.

Yes. Bogeymen.

I just explained earlier why the full context matters. He also mentions the dangers of scientific and agricultural spending in the same ominous tone. He wasn't seriously suggesting such a thing was happening then. It was a farewell address at the start of the Cold War and one of the most contentious periods of it, and also a time when government spending and programs were increasing long after the death of FDR. You apply the context, you realize his comment about the possibility of our country being ruled by a scientific elite as he says is still just a possibility like the other possible threats possibly happening.

He's talking about the arms race. What does that tell you? Nuclear weapons. The Soviets had us beat in the numbers department since the end of WWII when it came to weaponry and men, and eventually even nukes. Yet we didn't stop building bombs, and that's what he wanted to see an end to. There's already enough evidence he didn't want to weaken the military; his presidential campaign was about building up our military. The nukes were the problem, and last I checked we've stopped building nukes and have disarmed quite a few of them. If anything Ike would be sad to still see war but glad the nukes are *virtually* not a factor any more.

Today we're making predator drones, not h-bombs. And we're blowing up cells, not entire civilizations. Does not apply. If anything the more advanced our weaponry becomes the less dead we pull off the battlefield; something I think Ike would appreciate.

 

Hell, no! I feel like you've known me my whole life...you complete me.

It's true, I'd condense the nonsense...wave cheerfully to the tanks during the day, go to work at night. I mean, what would you do?

 

Look at the proportionality of it. I certainly wouldn't want to diminish the tragedy of September 11th, but if you look past the symbolism of it, worse things have happened this year, last year, that less is done about.

It's a horrible thing, but it can't be used to justify everything that has been wreaked in its name. Even in the worst year, the death toll of terrorism is a fraction of the death toll from something like drink-driving. Millions of lives were at stake in the second world war and the cold war, so as much as it was a terrible expense to maintain the military during those years, it was a lot easier to make the case for it.

In the speech, Eisenhower talks specifically about 2 major threats as he sees it. He wouldn't have mentioned them unless he saw them as real threats, not as possible, hypothetical threats.

Neither is the government itself. The first is undeniably the influence of the immense military establishment on government. The second is the influence of a sort of scientific-industrial complex. Presumably his thinking on that is coloured by the role of scientists in Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia.

It might take more guts than I could easily summon, but I'd go the route of Tankman. I suppose it would be easier than self-immolation.
 

Bryan, since you're so fascinating, another hypothetical question: who do you root for when you watch Rambo 3 ?

 

If I join i'll prolly Join the Army like my dad.

I preferably don't want to join the military but It's in my Blood and it's called me as a very possible option lately.

both my Grandfathers were Marines and my Father is currently in the Army XD

 

Is that the one where he's killing the Afghans? I've never seen it.

I love the first one though, I totally root for him through the whole thing. I'm actually watching Avatar right now for the first time and hoping the Colonel takes out these blue freaks.

 

I was rooting for the NA'VI in that movie :/

we just rolled up and tried to kick em out of their home and destroy their culture because they disagreed with us. In this scenario I would've considered Heavier Diplomacy not giant trucks and heli carriers.

 

Whatever. Look, it's survival of the fittest. If they made it to our world, they would try to do the same to us. Don't hate just 'cause we beat them there.

And we DO win. It might not show it in the movie, but please. We come right back with a space fleet and nuke the site from orbit. It's the ONLY way to be sure, after all.

 

What symbolism? People like you treat the attacks like it was Janet Jackson flashing her breast on tv. Thousands of people died in an attack on the country. That's not symbolism, that's an act of war. And it's been going on for decades. The only thing it symbolizes is complacency; that we've been at war without realizing it.

Well I guess we should wait for terrorists to take over a nation state before considering them to be a threat. The amount killed is what determines our actions? That kind of thinking ignored attacks on our citizens for decades. The way you stop a WWII is by stopping the perpetrators. I'd rather not wait until we have to fight large armies and nation states. Like a weed you nip the enemy in the bud.

He was talking about American government, and uses the word 'or' signifying it's not immanent in his eyes. And again, he put military industry in the spotlight, but also agriculture and science.

You're grasping for straws, because speaking of straw he goes after agriculture too.

For God's sake, he's talking about spending and government programs. Not Nazi-esque scientist plutocracies.