Ewafa
2 HN recommenders · recommended in 5 months, 2018–2023
16:15 · 1.3M views · May 18, 2015
A high-quality recording of President Eisenhower's January 1961 farewell address, including his warning about the unwarranted influence of the military-industrial complex. The uploader marks the key passage at 8:41.
HN commenters link it as the primary source for the phrase 'military-industrial complex' and urge people to hear the full speech rather than the soundbite.
5 comments from Hacker News
Has he done anything to raise the ire of the American intelligence services? The agencies that gave us [LINK] and the like still exist. Google is not ultimately in control over matters like that. Getting information on this stuff is difficult, given the blank check the NSA has had from 1959 onwards: [LINK] Eisenhower's 1961 Farewell Address is misinterpreted by many and totally forgotten by others. Please listen: this video
To add to the Eisenhower quote - I highly recommend watching his 1961 Farewell Address, where the term "military–industrial complex" was first used: this video
We can also unquestionably say that communism is not the only alternative. For the record I am not an authoritarian communist and I don't think it's a good alternative. I was very specific. I said "state corporatist capitalism" because there are even capitalist alternatives to that such as voluntarist libertarian capitalism and communitarian/co-op oriented capitalism. Our system is one of state-backed corporate capitalism backed by a centrally managed financial system and closely tied to defense and intelligence agencies. It was accurately termed the "military-industrial complex" by Dwight Eisenhower, a communist... err... wait... Eisenhower was a conservative Christian and a Republican. this video Your comment is exactly what I mean. We can't discuss alternatives because there seems to have been some campaign to gerrymander the language and discourse such that any questioning of the official system instantly implies that you're a Leninist or alternately a Hitlerist.
Once I realized that the United States has to involve itself in armed conflicts on a regular basis, it was eye opening. The United States spends more money on the military than any other country. You have to take the military out to stretch its legs every decade or so. If not to prepare for war, but to keep feeding the military expenditure process. President Eisenhower's farewell address concerning the military industrial complex nailed the course for the United States since concerning conflicts. this video
No doubt they were wary -- in fact, that attitude persisted well into the 20th century at least - for example, while he doesn't explicitly call out family dynasties and the military caste, those concerns clearly inform Eisenhower's thinking in his famous "military-industrial complex" cautionary speech: this video