We’ve all heard about Dwight D. Eisenhower’s warning to us about the “military industrial complex”. It’s practically iconic. But what I didn’t know was that same farewell speech contained a second warning, one that hints at our current situation with such figures as Dr. James Hansen. This is from the blog “Big Hollywood” It’s worth a read. – Anthony
Ike’s Not So Famous Second Warning
by Dwight Schultz “Big Hollywood blog”
On Saturday January 17, 2009, during the Fox 4 0′clock news hour, Shepard Smith recalled the anniversary of President Eisenhower’s famous 1961 farewell address to the nation, but he only mentioned one of Ike’s threat warnings, the one that reminded us to beware of the “Military Industrial Complex.” This warning came from a military man, so it’s been a turn of phrase that slobbers off the lips of suspicious lefty infants shortly after they’re forced to abandon the nipple and accept Marx.
So I shouted at Shepard, “What’s wrong with threat number two, you big beautiful blue eyed capitalist! What’s wrong with Fox News and your staff? There are only two warnings in that speech for God’s sake, if you’re going to honor a historical document maybe somebody could at least read it, and maybe for once in almost fifty years remind us of Ike’s second warning: “…that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.” Does anything come immediately to mind when you read that? Ike goes on, “…Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity.” And, “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.”
Do you think Ike was warning us that politicians like Al Gore and Barack Obama could cuddle with the scientific technological elite alike and, oh, I don’t know, maybe get behind Obama’s plan to tax your breath? Do you think that perhaps some time in the near future you might not be considered a person but a carbon footprint … does something like that sound ridiculous?
Have you seen how fast Obama has placed environmental academic hysterics and socialists in positions of real power? Steven Chu, John Holdren, Carol Browner and others are there to see to it that every exhaust in your life is a financial event favorable to the government. So how is it that one of Ike’s warnings became famous and the other a historical ghost note?
Above: Watch Ike’s farewell address in its entirety, 46 minutes
It’s really not hard to grasp. Our educational institutions monitor and control historical information and also educate and train the future guardians of public discourse — the indispensable journalists we read, see, and hear every day. By definition both the media and our nation’s scholars digest information and parcel it out in what should be an honest and thoughtful way. They digested Ike’s warning about the military and saw fit to warn us 10 billion times that the military is bad and needs to be feared and pushed off campus. They digested Ike’s warning about universities, scholars, federal money, science and policy, then gave it to Helen Thomas to scatter on some hot house tomatoes in the Nevada desert. It doesn’t get any simpler.
Think about this: How many times have you heard that the debate over anthropogenic global warming has ended? When and where was this debate? The mere recitation of the words, “the debate has ended” closed the discussion without you having ever heard it because, get it! It’s ended! Get It! Neat trick! Gore says the debate has ended….McCain says the debate has ended…Obama says the debate has ended …Hanson says the debate has ended, and no one in the media wants to ask, “What debate?” When? Where? Was there a scientific or political debate… or, God forbid, both, and who was for and who was against?
Gore’s film “An Inconvenient Truth,” has by now been proven to be almost a 100% big fat lie, and yet there is no media outcry against it or price for Gore to pay because he is supporting the scientific technological elite who want to hold public policy captive to the carbon tax that Socialists and Democrats have wanted since the 1992 Rio summit.
This is a clear example of years of liberal bias in protective favor of the university media structure. It just takes a lot of repetition and a strong ideological preference for saying: American military bad! American university good! CO2 bad! Tax our breath! Raise the tuition! Kick the Marines off campus! Long live man made global warming and the tax dollars we shall inherit from it. STING shall be our band and “Every Breath You Take” shall be our song … revenue streams for eternity.
Repeat after me this slogan … or, if you would rather stick this on the backside of your transportation vehicle , please do and remember, paying higher taxes is patriotic, so breathe baby, breathe for your country, just don’t breathe behind our back and not let us see you, ‘cause we’re talk’n money now, baby! The debate has ended!
…Hmmm?
Warning number two? What warning? Oh, you mean the military thing? We’ve taken care of that. Here’s Matt Damon’s number, he’ll tell you all about it. He went to Harvard you know. Remember, be upscale, don’t listen to Rush Limbaugh, breathe! And did I tell you to pay your taxes and act patriotic, especially when they’re going up?
Gotta run, I’m meeting Tom Daschle, Laurie David, Tyrano-Soros and secretary Geithner for lunch.
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There is one way out: Come to latin america, you will be wellcome. Any way you´ll have to fly southwards during solar minimun 🙂
Squidly — “Are you sure about this?”
Reasonably sure. See my post to J Hansford above. It seems likely that Ike being president understood the role of concresscritters, therefore he had to have been referring to that which has no possible civilian use… i.e. it’s a warning of letting the “elite” becoming too insular, of doing those things that are beneficial to the elite and none other.
Similarly, Jerry Pournelle has an “Iron Law of Bureaucracy” which states that in any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people: those who work to further the actual goals of the organization, and those who work for the organization itself. Eventually the second group overwhelms the first.
Pournelle and Ike seem to be talking about the same thing.
As a Card Carrying Liberal who agrees that the AGW thing has gone off the rails I wish everyone could show a little respect and empathy for people who disagree with them. I think everyone honestly wants to do the right thing and everyone is influenced by corrupting forces. Richard Lindzen summarized the problem pretty well here:
http://ecoworld.com/features/2008/10/30/climate-science-is-it-currently-designed-to-answer-questions/
Among other things, he suggests that science would be less easily politicized if scientists could be more secure in their funding — not having it cancelled if they come to the “wrong” conclusion or (god help them) solve the problem. Some time ago an ecologist friend of mine did a study on the effects of air pollution on on fungus biodiversity. If he didn’t conclude that air pollution hurt fungi, he’d never get the work published and would get no money for further investigations. This conundrum influenced the evolution of the project as you might imagine.
This problem is also endemic in the Pharmaceutical industry where researchers are under great funding pressure to endorse industry claims and suppress evidence to the contrary. Whistle blowers frequently lose their jobs and are forced to change professions.
It’d be nice to have less yelling and finger pointing and more thinking about systemic reform.
As the saying goes “the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”
Katlab
St Damien? The implications are too horrendous to contemplate.
Although the scientific community should be doing basic research instead of wasting time with “global warming” we don’t see enough research into out of the box solutions. Energy could be made so cheap that it wouldn’t cause wars and promote poverty. Two areas that the government does not fund enough are superconductors operating at room temperatue and photovoltaic cells that would easily supply enough electricity to run a home with superconductors. I know that nanotechnology will play a big role in this and I’m sure that it is the path to future innovations that haven’t been thought about yet.
red432 (09:56:09) wrote:
“I think everyone honestly wants to do the right thing and everyone is influenced by corrupting forces.”
“It’d be nice to have less yelling and finger pointing and more thinking about systemic reform.”
Red432, please expand on the points that you wrote above. Are you implying that we have been yelling and finger pointing on this topic? I have not read any ad hom or personal attacks in this entire discussion. Am I wrong?
Now, I believe that “most” people want to do the right thing, but “many” want to do what is right for them.
Remember, in many cases, the pedigree of an idea is more important than the idea itself. It is my belief that in order to reach stage four thinking, the pedigree of any idea must be discussed.
markm
Bill D:
As an editor and reviewer of journal articles, how could you be unaware of Prof. Richard Lindzen’s recent paper, which states:
Lindzen makes clear that the ‘voice’ of professional climate organizations is 180 degrees out of phase with what the rank-and-file membership thinks. But the average member has no public voice; the media only reports what the organization’s executive council wants reported.
Eisenhower was right. These organizations have learned how to game the system. And it’s bad business.
It was a bad idea to publish this item. Some of us want to know the truth about global warming. Others just want their own side to win. Neither Rush Limbaugh nor George Monbiot are good role models for us. Their purpose is to inflame, not to inform. The extremists on both sides misunderstand the motives of the other side. Slandering the other side may make you popular with your own side, but it won’t win any converts from the other side, quite the opposite. It’s a scientific question and science is decided by the people qualified in science. The Libertarian versus Socialist arguments are all counterproductive diversions.
Yet Another Pundit,
I disagree, this article is essential to understanding what is going on behind the scenes. If you want a relatively straightforward explanation of whether the climate is acting abnormally, or is acting as it always has, here’s a reasonable recap of recent climate history: click
[I am neither pro nor con the organization that published this. But it is a good essay, which makes it clear that the climate varies, and that the variation has not changed despite changes in human activity.]
Pundit,
George Bernard Shaw once said “Nothing is ever accomplished by a reasonable man.”
REPLY: One of my favorite all time maxims. Perhaps it is time for all of us to get unreasonable, see the newest post. – Anthony
Steven Goddard (07:50:47) :
Please, please, please don’t bring up this topic – can’t … resist … Augh!
Oh well. RISC processors didn’t loose due to one or the other being flawed.
The two main RISC processors I worked with were Intel’s i860 and DEC’s Alpha. The i860 was designed as an embedded processor for graphics systems but then they got the idea that it was a capable general purpose processor. It wasn’t, and only two companies ever figured out how to restore the processor state when returning from interrupts. Intel wasn’t one of them, one workstation vendor abandoned their product just a few months before they were going to announce it, they were relying on Intel’s support. The i860 was definitely flawed, but not for for anything behind RISC design concepts.
DEC’s Alpha is a great design and is the only processor where I found the compilers could generate better assembler code than me. It’s fate was partially due to DEC’s traditional “stealth marketing” and partially due to buying in to the promises from Intel about how Itanium would finally replace x86. Their roadmap was years late, but it didn’t matter, somehow many of the RISC vendors had bought into it.
The memory interface from Alpha was licensed by AMD and was first used in AMD’s 64 bit Opteron, which proved that x86 could grow into a 64 bit processor. That, and schedule slips for Itanium, made Itanium a minor (but expensive) footnote in CPU history.
Ultimately the reason for x86’s long success is simply because IBM chose the 8086 (actually 8088) for the original IBM PC. That created the market that kept the design alive. Intel has never been very good at designing CPUs, but it really doesn’t matter – the processor choice is immaterial to the end user.
Anthony – sorry for the long OT post, but “Stevey started it!” Don’t let him talk about DEC’s PDP-10 – I’d be completely unable to resist that one.
Hehe… Smokey, the author of your link can’t seem to differentiate between “weather” and “whether.”
To MarkM: I object to comments such as
“Have you seen how fast Obama has placed environmental academic hysterics and socialists in positions of real power?”
“Academic hysterics and socialists” is name calling and Rush Limbaugh is a jerk — he’s as bad as any polemicist of any stripe anywhere. I hope this blog returns to the high ground and great discussion of science.
Yet:
One side consistently lies, deceives and panics the public, while the other side does the opposite.
Ric,
Apologies for getting this started, but I beg to differ.
The reason why RISC failed on the desktop was because x86 processors were able to keep up performance wise – which was not predicted by academics. Your comments about Intel come from the same school of thought which led IBM and others to waste $5 billion on Power PC.
Anthony and the moderators,
You guys have my sympathies. It can’t be easy to find a happy medium for comment criteria.
I just did an Oreskian study 😉 on the front page of WUWT. I count 8 articles which could be described as “science-y”, one we’ll determine as politic-y, and one neither.
So science still overwhelms, but this one dared to mention how politics may be affecting science. So to the guys who are critiquing it’s inclusion, I’m going to conclude you’re not so much worried about politics overwhelming science on this blog, as you are it’s being discussed at all.
Sometimes I think the best stuff I’ve learned about the climate scene, I learned from South Park. What I’m hearing hear is the South Park character Officer Barbrady – “Nothing to see here. Move along people”.
Katlab – we are suffering from modern-day Hansen’s disease.
In 20 years we will talk of St Anthony of the Thermometer.
For a look at one of the U.S.’ first state laws to combat global warming, see my blog entries below. California’s grandly titled Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, aka AB 32, is now being implemented as California’s Air Resources Board finalizes various aspects. This law is what President Obama wants as the template for a federal law.
Thus far, I have written on the following, and hope to have the Transportation Sector entry finished later today:
Gasoline Consumption,
Diesel Consumption,
Electric Power Generation, and
Lawsuits to Block AB 32.
A link to AB 32 is here click.
RED342:
I agree 100%. It is totally outrageous to suggest, imply or infer that Obama has filled key science/environmental post with [people] who believe that CO2 is a pollutant.
“multiply up by 265.25”
Make that “365.25”
Yet Another Pundit (11:08:34) :
“It was a bad idea to publish this item….The Libertarian versus Socialist arguments are all counterproductive diversions.”
I must respectfully disagree. While I certainly would not expect this site to devolve into one where politics is the majority, or even a sizable minority, of posts, to ignore politics would be like a political site which never mentions
AGW – seriously incomplete. When the “scientists” give us the debunked “hockey stick” and talk of “coal trains of death”, and when the policy makers use these same scientists to take our money and what’s left of our economy to combat the “hockey stick” and “the coal trains” [and to expand and centralize governmental power], then science and politics have formed an unholy alliance that is, IMHO, unhealthy for both science and public policy. With Chu, Holdren, Browner, Hansen, et al. in the positions of governmental power that they now hold, do you really believe science will be served well? Do you believe the “science” they will be feeding the media? Do you believe that the science they espouse will not be politicized? When it comes to AGW, to willfully ignore politics is to willfully ignore half of the “science” AGW is built upon.
G Alston
“Interestingly the makeup of the legislative branch of the US government looks suspiciously close to what I just described. The average worker doesn’t have the time and expertise to have a say in every possible topic, hence we elect representatives whose job (at least in theory) is precisely to acquire the necessary information to be able to make informed decisions.”
In some cases, elected officials do as you suggest above. However, the U.S. government and its governance has grown so large and so complex that the electeds now delegate (and have for many decades, this is nothing new) rule-making to unelected agencies. Such agencies readily come to mind, as the EPA, SEC, ICC, and hundreds of others. The elected officials also do not have the time nor the expertise to make an informed decision on all issues.
States work in a similar manner, for example, California’s legislature laid out the broad goals of AB 32, and the governor signed the bill into law, but an agency (Air Resources Board in this case, a part of the California Environmental Protection Agency) with appointed board members are making the regulations. The appointed governing board has a paid staff, and also hires consultants to inform their rule-making decisions. There are procedural rules that allow for input from the public at public hearings. There is an oversight function in the legislature when the rules are created and submitted for approval, but it is rare that the rules are changed at that point.
The public typically receives information on the activities via the media, so the biases and agendas of the reporters and editors have a big impact. More recently, many hearings are broadcast live over the internet, and the webcasts are archived for viewing at any time. But, not all hearings are webcasted (if that is a word). A few matters discussed in the hearings, such as lawsuits, are closed to the public as a matter of law.
The Air Resources Board (Board) consists of 11 members appointed by the Governor with the consent of the State Senate. All members serve “at the pleasure” of the Governor. The Board members serve part time, except the Chairperson, who serves full time.
From this structure of law-making, one can easily see how important it is to have a smooth speaker with a compelling message, but with few technical details, to make presentations at a hearing before elected officials. The details are brought forth at a much lower level, usually at the administrative staff level of the appointed agency.
“Steven Goddard (23:46:25) : the “Chu Effect” is working marvelously. Since he gave his apocalyptic speech about California dying from drought ten days ago, Kirkwood has received over 10 feet of snow.”
And it’s still raining/snowing in California.
Copied from: red432 (11:32:35) :
To MarkM: I object to comments such as
“Have you seen how fast Obama has placed environmental academic hysterics and socialists in positions of real power?”
Red432,
The term “hysterics” is over the top – I stand corrected. Do you have more citings from this topic? Are you embarrased to be labeled a socialist? If we people could change our collective human nature, socialism would be a viable economic solution.
The US Supreme Court has ruled, and the Obama administration is in the process of labeling CO2 as a pollutant. I don’t know at what stage the beaurocratic procedure is at, but it is underway at EPA (so I am told!). Please prove me wrong…please!
markm