The Military Industrial Complex



 The allusions to the military industrial complex and closely related topics are many.  Here are a few of my favorites:


 
"It is part of the general pattern of misguided policy that our country is now geared to an arms economy which was bred in an artificially induced psychosis of war hysteria and nurtured upon an incessant propaganda of fear."  

"Our government has kept us in a perpetual state of fear - kept us in a continuous stampede of patriotic fervor - with the cry of grave national emergency." 

General Douglas MacArthur                                                                        
           
 

"Even today, there is little value in ensuring the survival of our nation if
our traditions do not survive with it.  And there is very grave danger that
an announced need for increased security will be seized upon by those
anxious to expand it's meaning to the very limits of official censorship and
concealment."

 John F. Kennedy -  from his speech in New York City, April 27, 1961, before the American Newspaper Publishers Association, regarding the role and importance of the free press - 





 

"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."

        President Ike Eisenhower -  from his famous farwell adress -