Military Industrial Complex

In January of 1961, when President Dwight D. Eisenhower gave his farewell address, the outgoing president and a former general, warned for America’s future of the formation of a military industrial complex.  By definition, an informal alliance between a nation’s military and its defense industry which supplies it; seen together as a vested interest which influences public policy.  By public policy, the need to create war for the purpose of manufacturing weaponry and artillery to stimulate the economy and give the military a usage in return.

Skeptics of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, while the nation was not fully recovered from the Great Depression in 1939 when the war in Europe began, believed the depression ended not because the New Deal finally kicked in and produced relief, recovery, and reform, but because American factory workers returned to work to build the weapons and ammunition of war.  Hence, a military industrial complex.  Noteworthy as we approach the Christmas season that A.C, Gilbert, toy manufacturer best known for the invention of the Erector Set, converted his factory to artillery shells in 1917 for World War I.

Now Trump’s latest pick for Secretary of Defense General Mad Dog Mattis, albeit he has not yet made bigoted statements, but another belligerent one—if you make general, they don’t call you Mad Dog for nothing.  Between Flynn, Pompeo, and now Mattis, it would appear as though Trump is creating a military industrial complex.  As he will be disassociated with his [billion] dollar businesses for a while, he is still a businessman at heart and while either his children or some blind trust watches over the Trump Financial Empire for the next four to eight years, Trump gets involved in this new business—the military industrial complex he is building in Washington.

General Douglas MacArthur, who made a pitch at the 1952 open delegation GOP National Convention, cited the Democrat party as the war party.  Wilson, a Democrat, was president in World War I.  FDR, a Democrat, was president in World War II.  Truman, a Democrat and our current president, president during World War II and the Korean Conflict not yet resolved.  Therefore, the Democratic party is the war party!  And it was the Republican and former general Dwight D. Eisenhower who warned the nation of the military industrial complex.  A warning Donald Trump either wishes to pay no heed or is intentionally looking for a money-making proposition of which he can be involved while serving as President of the United States.

If Eisenhower were alive today and could comment on the election of Donald Trump to the presidency and following the people being selected for the President Trump team, Ike would tell the nation that the nation, the Republican party, and those involved gave a book of matches to a child.  The unstable Trump has remarked in passing that we have nukes, why don’t we use them…  The last person in Washington who should ever be at the helm of a military industrial complex is Donald J. Trump.  I don’t know what direction this nation is going, but if this is making America great again, I just assume live out my life in a nation in decline.