Who or what is in control?
That is the first question you need to ask if you want to be control savvy. I have been searching for the answer to “Who controls the Gaza Genocide?”. I went on to ask, “Cui bono?”, “Who benefits from the Gaza Genocide?”. That led me down a very dark path to a short list of suspects. Let’s start with number one on that list: The Military-Industrial Complex (MIC).
At this point, a control-savvy reader would ask, “What is your definition of “Military-Industrial Complex”? Never allow a speaker or writer to throw big words at you (like Pandemic) without clarifying exactly what the big word means.
There are two definitions. The first comes from a speech given by U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower back in 1961. The second must come from people who live in the present.
On January 17, 1961, millions of Americans watched on T.V. as Eisenhower delivered his Farewell Address to the Nation.
“Three days from now, after half a century in the service of our country, I shall lay down the responsibilities of office as, in traditional and solemn ceremony, the authority of the Presidency is vested in my successor. “
Half a century? He had spent the last eight years in the White House. What about the other forty-plus years? For more details, we can visit Wikipedia.
“During World War II, he was Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Europe and achieved the five-star rank as General of the Army. Eisenhower planned and supervised two of the most consequential military campaigns of World War II: Operation Torch in the North Africa campaign in 1942–1943 and the invasion of Normandy in 1944…In 1945, Eisenhower anticipated that someday an attempt would be made to recharacterize Nazi crimes as propaganda (Holocaust denial) and took steps against it by demanding extensive photo and film documentation of Nazi death camps.”
But we still don’t have a definition, do we? So, back to the speech.
“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.
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…
…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 scientific-technological elite…”
In less than ten minutes, Eisenhower not only named and defined the Military-Industrial Complex, he also outlined and predicted its potential danger.
The Military-Industrial Complex in 2024
The Military-Industrial Complex has far exceeded Eisenhower’s worst nightmares. It does indeed have “unwarranted influence”. Its power over all aspects of government has risen to disastrous levels. It is multinational—conjoined with all the countries in the United Kingdom and the European Union—plus individual nations, like Israel. This is not “Mis/Dis/Mal-Information”. Years of treaties and legislation provide written evidence of the increasing world-wide dominance of an international power structure dedicated to war. It likes to describe itself as an alliance of democratic nations defending themselves against the totalitarian regimes of Russia and China (who have massive Military-Industrial Complexes of their own). In fact, the “Western Democracies” do not control the Military-Industrial Complex of the “West”. It is the other way around.
Israel is not acting alone. The Military-Industrial Complex of the West could shut it down at any time. Israel is just doing the dirty work of the M.I.C.
Who controls the Gaza Genocide? The Military-Industrial Complex of the West.
Who benefits from the Gaza Genocide? The Military-Industrial Complex of the West.
I have named a huge, complicated entity made up of many governments and corporations, but let’s not lose sight of the fact that the Gaza Genocide is being perpetrated one death at a time. For each human death, you only need one human finger to pull the trigger—but with today’s weapons, one trigger can kill hundreds, thousands, millions, even billions of humans.
How do we as human beings interact with the Military-Industrial Complex? How does it control us? How can we resist its control? Should we resist Its control? It is my belief that we should, because, as the Gaza Genocide has shown us, the Military-Industrial Complex benefits at the expense of the lives and the souls of normal, everyday people like you and me.
LINKS
- Eisenhower’s Farewell Speech to the Nation–Full Transcript. https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/president-dwight-d-eisenhowers-farewell-address
- The Military-Industrial Complex Revisited: Shifting Patterns of Military Contracting in the Post-9/11 Period by William D. Hartung. https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/files/cow/imce/papers/2011/The%20Military-Industrial%20Complex%20Revisited.pdf
- The Business of War: Understanding the Military-Industrial Complex and How It’s Still Used Today by Melissa Mastrogiovanni https://dc.cod.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1128&context=essai
- The Information-Industrial Complex.https://corbettreport.com/episode-325-the-information-industrial-complex/
- The U.S. war machine and capitalist ‘democracy’. https://www.liberationschool.org/ch-12-the-u-s-war-machine-and-capitalist-democracy/
- Left and Right Against the Military-Industrial Complex by Jon Basil Utley https://original.antiwar.com/utley/2009/03/31/left-and-right-against-the-military-industrial-complex/
- Why the military-industrial complex keeps growing and growing https://www.currentaffairs.org/2021/11/why-the-military-industrial-complex-keeps-growing-and-growing
- Weaponizing Reality: The Dawn of Neurowarfare https://thefreethoughtproject.com/military-industrial-complex/weaponizing-reality-the-dawn-of-neurowarfare
- Meet the Companies Profiting From Israel’s War on Gaza https://www.commondreams.org/news/weapons-used-by-israel
- These Are Western Countries Aiding Israel’s Genocide In Gaza https://geopolitics.co/2023/11/24/these-are-western-countries-aiding-israels-genocide-in-gaza/#
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