Andrew+Week+12

Military-Industrial Complex, these three simple words that sound more like a psychologists diagnosis than a national issue now, disturbingly, define American politics. Coined by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, this phrase refers to a triangle between the armament industry, the military, and government decision making. The former of this group leading maintaining a grip to direct the actions of the latter. Today this is an ingrained part of American government and culture. Since the end of World War II our country has maintained a level of permanent militarization. We have a sizable standing army and vast amounts of tax payer money being poured into weaponry and R&D. The documentary “Why We Fight” hits on many points in describing the depth of the roots of this complex. One of the bigger examples being how the weapon industries push the hands of politicians for their own gains, sometimes even at the detriment of the public. In one situation it is done by using the employment card. We all know basic politics in that if a politician wants to remain in office then they need votes, to get votes they to appease the voters. Upset the voters and a politician may find his career coming to an early end. Now obviously as with any industry workers are needed to produce armaments and there jobs are created, sometimes many. Therefore the threat of layoffs can nudge politicians to support military spending, even if they oppose it, to maintain their voter base. After decades of playing this game the industry has refined it's tactics to bear a razor edge. Instead of just having one factory developing a product, in many cases, they decentralize production, as with the F-22. In this way, instead of just one or two officials being pressured but easily overruled, the heat of the situation is spread across many, pulling more votes in the industry's direction. Getting into an even darker area, what produces a greater demand for weapons and therefore produces more jobs? The horrid answer, War. War is one of the ultimate consumers and therefore the best for business, to put in simple. Almost every industry in a war is boosted, soldiers need gear, food, guns, ammo, vehicles, fuel for those vehicles, and so on. So in a horrifying way, to a politician and a corporation where people start becoming more of numbers than, well, people, a little bit of war can be a great way to increase the numbers where it matters. With all the wars we've fought and all the reasons we've been given it makes one wonder, if we dug a little deeper how much would hold up? So where did all of this come from, how did such an unsettling system come around? The Cold War, mismanagement, and greed are probably good places to start. After World War II there was the Red Scare where American propaganda and the culture of the time centered around a fear of the growth of communism. We had to stop the “commies,” we couldn't let them win. This was the idea ingrained into society and to do so we obviously had to have a strong military, we needed thermonuclear bombs, we needed bigger, better, faster. The weapons manufactures had to have loved this as it meant one basic thing, solid cash flow and they were gonna take all they could. In a quieter time a sensible person would probably have resisted, do we really need to be able to kill every living being on the planet multiple times over? But it just wasn't thought of that way, at the time someone would have been labeled a “commie” with all the unpleasant details that went with it. The level headed people that saw what was going on either didn't have the power or enough to stop it. The intellectuals that had developed the nuclear bombs were given no say in their use, production, and policy. And again anyone speaking against policy was labeled communist. Robert Oppenheimer, the man who made the American fission bomb, was attacked, betrayed and destroyed by his country, labeled a traitor, even after all his devotion and labor. Even Eisenhower, the war hero president, had to deal with detractors and being labeled as a communist by some. This man named, predicted, and warned against the military-industrial complex and even as president failed to prevent it. Probably made possible through something he mentions in another statement which I quote from the New York Times, “[Hoffer] points out that dictatorial systems make one contribution to their people which leads them to tend to support such systems — freedom from the necessity of informing themselves and making up their own minds concerning these tremendous complex and difficult questions.” In another sad revelation, many people just don't like to have to think and ask the hard questions. This is how propaganda works, this is how the crafty get what they want, the politicians, the corporations, and how America got the way it is.