War: What Is It Good for? Making money (video)
If war were about "saving the world for democracy," we wouldn't be killing millions of people worldwide with violence and starvation.
On this Memorial Day, let’s get real about War.
War is about profit and power. It’s not about people, peace or patriotism.
I’m an Old Hippie. I was born during the Eisenhower Era. My youth was engulfed by the Vietnam War, the Civil Rights Movement, assassinations, “race riots,” burning “ghettos” and the continuous threat of nuclear war.
It was a violent time.
The War, the draft and the antiwar protests were in full swing when I was a college student. The Kent State University students were shot by the Ohio National Guard in May 1970, during my freshman year. (My cousins witnessed it.) When I transferred to Ohio State University in August 1970 to study journalism, many friends had stories of being roughed up and teargassed just a few months earlier during the spring antiwar protests in Columbus.
The Vietnam War, the draft and keeping one’s grades up to avoid the draft were constant topics of conversation … along with where to buy pot or birth control pills and who needed a ride to New York City for an abortion.
As we sat in circles of the floor, smoking pot and listening to Yes on the stereo, another hot topic for nerdy college students and budding journalists was the profitability of war and President Dwight Eisenhower’s warning about the rise of the military-industrial complex.
Eisenhower’s Warning: Beware of the Military-Industrial Complex
Eisenhower gave a televised farewell address to the nation days before he left office in 1961. You can read the text of the speech here and watch the whole broadcast speech here.
Included in the farewell address is Eisenhower’s warning about increasing power of military industrial complex. His words are chilling and more poignant today than they were during the “duck and cover” schools days of the Cold War Era. The video below includes excerpts from his address and background regarding the careful crafting of this important speech.
A military man for nearly 40 years before being elected president, Eisenhower was a US Army general and one of the leaders of the Allied Forces in World War II. If we liked Ike so much, why didn’t we listen to him? As a life-long military man, he was obviously a subject matter expert.
Eisenhower warned that the defense industry had grown so much by 1961 that millions of people were building weapons of war and the “economic, political, even spiritual” impact of the military-industrial complex was felt across the country at all levels of government.
“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence … by the military-industrial complex,” Eisenhower warned. Dang, Ike! We blew this warning off completely.
What would Ike think of our current crop of elected officials? Thanks to unlimited, nontransparent cash in political campaigns, far too many politicians are owned by capitalists and greedy influencers promoting war, hate and the military industrial complex.
Excerpt from Eisenhower’s Farewell Address to the Nation
… 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 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 ...
A.I.: The Military Industrial Complex’s Next Weapon
The world has been in a state of perpetual war my entire life.
To ensure we keep fighting each other, artificial intelligence (A.I.) — which is infamous for spreading misinformation, hate speech and false images — is being brought in as an official weapon of war.
In Andrew Ross Sorkin’s May 24, 2024 DealBook newsletter for the New York Times, author Vivienne Walt describes VivaTech, “an annual deal-making and schmooze fest” in Paris. It sent shudders down my spine when I read her report about military officials from multiple countries shopping for A.I. weapons at a “schmooze fest.”
Maybe it’s just me, but perhaps the creators and promoters of artificial intelligence could work on A.I. accuracy and developing clear benefits to humankind rather than racing toward greater profits and the destruction humankind with robot wars and water depletion.
Here’s her report from the DealBook newsletter.
War and A.I. in focus at VivaTech
Business leaders, tech researchers and investors have converged on Paris for VivaTech, an annual deal-making and schmooze-fest that ends tomorrow.
Military officials have joined the throngs in the Porte de Versailles exhibition center. Their mission: to scout out potential alliances with artificial intelligence start-ups, Vivienne Walt reports for DealBook.
With two wars on its doorstep, Europe is looking to A.I. to beef up security. In March, France’s Armed Forces Ministry, which is occupying a large space in the main hall, opened an A.I. agency that’s run by Bertrand Rondepierre, a former Google DeepMind project manager in Paris. The agency has an annual budget of €300 million ($324 million) to incubate military technology, some of which was on display this week.
More than 2,600 deal makers are present at VivaTech, including Sequoia Capital and KKR. There’s an investors-only lounge in the hall, sponsored by Microsoft, where hopeful start-up founders can book time with prospective backers.
Many of the start-up leaders at the conference have affixed dollar signs on their stands, signaling they want to talk deals.
Defense is a big discussion point. Tech companies from around the world described to DealBook how their A.I. applications were catching the eye of military brass:
Cognixion, a Santa Barbara, Calif.-based neurotech start-up with $20 million in seed funding, said its A.I. brain-data headsets, designed for disabled people, are being tested for battle, too. “There are people doing military simulations out in the forest and desert” with the technology, Andreas Forsland, its C.E.O. and founder, said.
LuxCarta, a start-up in Nice that’s partly funded by the French military, is using A.I. to create maps of combat zones. The maps update in real-time and are used to prepare troops for missions, said Vincent Madelain, the company’s business development manager.
French officials hope the investment boom will revive Europe’s tech standing. “We lost the web and the tech battle at the beginning of the century,” Laurent Saint-Martin, the C.E.O. of Business France, a semi-governmental agency promoting foreign investment, told DealBook. “We don’t want to do the same thing for the next one, which is A.I. and quantum.”
This is not good for humanity.
A Prayer for ‘The Nation’: Another Flashback to the Eisenhower Era
I’m not a religious person, but I was raised in the Protestant church. In my life, I strive to be honest and just in my relationships and to live by my values, which include following the basic teachings of universal love and kindness taught in the New Testament.
I own two books from St. Peter’s United Church of Christ in Amherst, Ohio — the revised standard version Bible they gave me as a child (pictured here) and my Mother’s hymnal, dated 1957.
The other day when I was cleaning out my closets, I ran across the hymnal and opened it to the page with a prayer for The Nation. I believe in the separation of church and state and have written about the rise of White Christian Nationalism in the US.
This prayer in the back of an old hymnal spoke to me because it stands in sharp contrast to the way Christianity has been twisted by politicians for profit, power and political gain.
Here is a Memorial Day message of peace … a prayer for The Nation from the back of a 1957 hymnal. (I copied the text verbatim. Please excuse the archaic language and the aspirations weren’t true for everyone in 1957.)
Prayer for ‘The Nation’
Almighty God, the Father of mankind1, who hast commanded us to make intercession for all men, hear us while we pray:
That it may please thee to bless the whole family of mankind from one end of the earth to the other; to destroy every form of tyranny and superstition; to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death; to remember for good all rulers, and to bind all nations in unity, peace and concord,
Congregation: We beseech thee to hear us, O God.
That it may please thee to look with favor upon our country; to preserve to us the blessings of an equal and impartial freedom2; to bring in upon us the righteousness of the kingdom of God, and so to control by thy good Spirit that we may use our liberties for thy glory and the welfare and progress for mankind,
Congregation: We beseech thee to hear us, O God.
That it may please thee to bless our President and all who bear office; to rule their hearts in they faith, fear and love, that they may ever seek they honor and glory, and that their example may be a power for goodness in the life of this nation, [Yes, lots of politicians claim to be doing this but it’s not working as intended in this passage. Read on.]
Congregation: We beseech thee to hear us, O God.
That it may please thee to bless our law-makers in all their deliberations; to give each one a right understanding, a pure purpose and sound speech that cannot be condemned, and to enable them to rise above all self-seeking and party zeal into the large sentiments of the public good and human brotherhood.
Congregation: We beseech thee to hear us, O God.
That it may please thee to purge our political life of every evil that would keep back the people from the highest measure of virtue and happiness; to subdue in this nation all unhallowed thirst for conquest and love of vainglory; and to inspire us with calmness and self-restraint, and the endeavor to accomplish they will everywhere upon this earth,
Congregation: We beseech thee to hear us, O God.
That it may please thee to prosper the community in which we live and all of its institutions; to bless every effort made in our midst to remove the causes of ignorance and crime; to raise the general level of comfort, and to give a higher standard to public and private life,3
Congregation: We beseech thee to hear us, O God.
O God of our fathers, who from generation to generation hast watched over us in love, hear us now in hours of perplexity and need. Revive in all hearts a spirit of devotion to the public good, that strife and tumult may cease, and justice and truth be exalted. Enable the people of this nation and every nation to live in righteousness and good will, so that the coming of the kingdom of brotherhood and peace may be hastened, and thy will be done upon the earth; through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.
Let’s hear it for peace and good will!
And now a message from the Vietnam Era …
Please ignore the patriarchal language throughout the prayer.
Yes, in 1957, it was freedom for some — not for all. Think of this as a goal statement, I guess.
You’ll note that there is no mention of people pulling themselves up by their bootstraps here.