Martin Luther King Day marks Eisenhower 'military industrial complex' speech

Martin Luther King Jr., President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Buckminster Fuller were all men of peace known for something other than their stance against war and the military industrial complex that profits from killing.  In an interesting twist of fate, we celebrate Martin Luther King Jr.’s birth today; exactly fifty years after Dwight D. Eisenhower warned us about something he labeled the “military industrial complex” in his Farewell Address to the nation prior to the inauguration of President John F. Kennedy.  Eisenhower was actually following a cultural trend toward peace and away from war that had begun years earlier by futurist, architect, inventor and poet Buckminster Fuller.

On January 17, 1961, President Eisenhower (1980 - 1965) made a spectacular plea for a shift from weaponry to livingry.  This was particularly unusual for a man who had been a career military officer, five-star general in the Army and commander of Allied troops in Europe during World War II.  Still Eisenhower warned,

"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."

Some years later, Martin Luther King Jr. (1929 - 1968), who is primarily know as a leader in the civil rights movement, said,

“A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom.”

Although neither of these two men is most known for their stance against war and in favor of global peace, they stand on the shoulders of Buckminster Fuller who began championing global peace and the obsolesce of war in the 1930’s.  Bucky Fuller monitored the changes in global resources well before we had computers to make such massive calculations, and he determined that somewhere around 1976, there would be enough resources on the planet he labeled Spaceship Earth to support everyone.  Thus, fighting over resources (war) would be obsolete.  Fuller said,

“Humanity has the option to become successful on our planet if we reorient world production away from weaponry– from killingry to livingry. Can we convince humanity in time?”

This remains an open question.  Will we listen to the sane voices of these and other leaders or will we continue to be swayed by the corporations and the politicians that they control?  Will “we the people” take control of our destiny or will our fate continue to rest in the hands of what Eisenhower labeled the “military industrial complex” fifty years ago?

May we all find the answers to these critical questions for ourselves, and may we take a stand for peace as these men chose to do regardless of public opinion and consequences.