Political Irony

Fifty years ago, Dwight D Eisenhower warned America about the growing power of “the military-industrial complex”. His words were unfortunately prophetic:

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.

UPDATE: Read this article in the New Yorker about new information recently uncovered about this important speech.

Fox News celebrated Martin Luther King, Jr. day in its own unique and ironic way. The article “Ronald Reagan – More of a Friend to Blacks than Obama?” by Michael Reagan (president of The Reagan Legacy Foundation), claims that Ronald Reagan did more for blacks than Barack Obama. But the article does it using crude sniping, especially its conclusion:

Today, as our nation honor’s [sic] Dr. King, less than a month before the hundredth birthday of Ronald Reagan, it’s fitting to note that Ronald Reagan did more to improve the lives of African-Americans than any other president since Abraham Lincoln. Unfortunately, we have to acknowledge that America’s first black president has made life worse for us all—and especially for black Americans. History does not judge presidents by the color of their skin, but by the content of their policies.

So are we to forget about the Ronald Reagan who aligned himself with the apartheid government of South Africa? Or the Reagan administration which famously classified ketchup as a vegetable so they could cut funding for low-income school lunches? Or the Reagan who opposed the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (calling it “bad legislation”), and fought to restore federal tax exemptions to schools like Bob Jones University who discriminated against blacks? The Reagan who pandered for racist votes? My family was personally affected, when as governor of California he cut funding for the Head Start school that my mother ran, which studies had shown actually saved the state money by keeping disadvantaged kids in school.

So how does Michael Reagan support his argument that his father was a friend to blacks? Yup, you guessed it, using stories that show that some of his father’s best friends were blacks. sigh

I kid you not. This is an actual book title by political scientist Daniel Drezner, which you can buy on Amazon:

What would happen to international politics if the dead rose from the grave and started to eat the living? Daniel Drezner’s groundbreaking book answers the question that other international relations scholars have been too scared to ask. Addressing timely issues with analytical bite, Drezner looks at how well-known theories from international relations might be applied to a war with zombies. Exploring the plots of popular zombie films, songs, and books, Theories of International Relations and Zombies predicts realistic scenarios for the political stage in the face of a zombie threat and considers how valid–or how rotten–such scenarios might be.

Drezner boldly lurches into the breach and “stress tests” the ways that different approaches to world politics would explain policy responses to the living dead. He examines the most prominent international relations theories–including realism, liberalism, constructivism, neoconservatism, and bureaucratic politics–and decomposes their predictions. He digs into prominent zombie films and novels, such as Night of the Living Dead and World War Z, to see where essential theories hold up and where they would stumble and fall. Drezner argues that by thinking about outside-of-the-box threats we get a cognitive grip on what former U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld famously referred to as the “unknown unknowns” in international security.

Correcting the zombie gap in international relations thinking and addressing the genuine but publicly unacknowledged fear of the dead rising from the grave, Theories of International Relations and Zombies presents political tactics and strategies accessible enough for any zombie to digest.

Amazing news from Egypt:

Muslims showed up at Christmas Eve mass services in churches around Egypt and at candle light vigils held outside, offering their bodies and lives as “shields” to Egypt’s threatened Christian community. Among those shields were beloved comedian Adel Imam and movie star Yousra, popular Muslim televangelist and preacher Amr Khaled, the two sons of President Hosni Mubarak, and thousands of citizens who have said they consider the attack one on Egypt as a whole.

The Coptic church celebrates Christmas on January 7, but Christmas almost didn’t happen after a New Year’s eve bombing attack at Saints Church in Alexandria by terrorists which killed 21 people. According to one Muslim student “This is not about us and them. We are one. This was an attack on Egypt as a whole, and I am standing with the Copts because the only way things will change in this country is if we come together.”

The Bishop of Alexandria said that Muslims attending the funeral of the Christian victims of the bombing had treated them like Muslim martyrs and had erupted in applause at the condemnation of the terrorists.

Millions of Egyptians changed their Facebook profile pictures to the image of a cross within a crescent – the symbol of an “Egypt for All”. Around the city, banners went up calling for unity, and depicting mosques and churches, crosses and crescents, together as one.

I can’t help but compare this to our response to the recent terrorist attack in Arizona.

[Hat tip to Juan Cole.]

Paul Waldman at The American Prospect makes an excellent point about what passes for political discourse in this country recently:

The rhetoric of violence is not the only kind of rhetoric that encourages violence. The apocalyptic rhetoric we’ve seen from some on the right, most notably Glenn Beck, should be part of this discussion too. When Beck portrays Barack Obama as the head of a socialist/communist/Nazi conspiracy whose goal is the literal destruction of America, he is implicitly encouraging violence. If that really were the nature of the administration, and our liberty really were on the verge of being snuffed out, violence would be justified.

I find this kind of “ginning up the natives” way more dangerous than things like drawing targets on a map. Statements claiming that Obama or some other politician is going to kill your grannie with “death panels” or will destroy your freedom or take away your guns, or otherwise threaten you with harm is purposely designed to scare the pants off of people and push them toward Sharon Angle’s “second amendment remedies”.

Indeed, as Waldman points out, if Obama really was threatening to do half the things that the right-wing have claimed he is doing, then I would likely be out there with them employing those remedies. But just because you don’t like a politician (who was elected by a majority of voters), doesn’t make them a tyrannical despot who deserves assassination. Instead, we have elections.