Eisenhowers' Nightmare
The battle over military base closings demonstrates to a tee the relevence of Eisenhowers' warning about the danger of becoming to dependent on the military-industrial complex. A community, state, even region can become addicted to the resources and employment associated with a military base, the very politics of the area is influenced by the addiction and democracy suffers. Defence Industry ( perhaps better named Offence Industry) installations create the same culture . Just listen to the politicians crying out, in the name of national security,
as the economies of their region, addicted to tax dollars, are threatened. The politicians job is threatened as well so he will vote for more pork every time.
posted by troutsky @ 1:19 PM
2 comments
2 Comments:
Ike had it pegged pretty right. Any suggestions as to what is to be done about pork?
Rarely is there an issue that most across the political spectrum can agree on like this, but eliminating pork would get the approval of most Americans I wager. Too bad our representatives won't fall in line.
From my obviously far left perspective, pork is a mechanism for bribery and coersion, creating dependencies and then exploiting them and it is a systemic problem only solvable at the system level.A "liberal" view might be to impose some regulatory framework on the current system or to believe the democratic process will give us politicians less vulnerable to these pressures.(somehow?)As to military pork, how much of the US, or for that matter world economy, is tied directly to defense expenditures? It creates jobs but it creates much more as well.
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