Previously I've referenced this address. I heard it live on television 17 January 1961 and it was discussed in school for the next four years. Perhaps it is not that familiar to others, but in my opinion it should be. Therefore I copy below some excerpts from the official transcript of which have not received as much attention as have others, yet which are particularly relevant in the 2020s.
================================
We should take nothing for granted <;> only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.
...
In this revolution, research has become central; it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.
Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been over shadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers.
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.
Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.
It is the task of statesmanship to mold, to balance, and to integrate these and other forces, new and old, within the principles of our democratic system-ever aiming toward the supreme goals of our free society.
==========================
I suggest that the underlined passages above accurately foresaw and explained the gross malfeasance by Fauci and others two years ago in coercing men who, for example, had concluded that a virus outbreak had escaped from a Communist Chinese laboratory, to nevertheless co-author a paper which asserted the opposite, as well as many other efforts to manipulate public understanding and opinion through outright propaganda and which have led to actual harm to the citizens of our Nation.
Perhaps the only significant aspects of the past two years omitted from President Eisenhower's otherwise prophetic foresight were things like the employment of the traditional media and novel corporate forums for public discussion of the issues of the time as accessories to the efforts of the "elite" through selective reporting, vilification of opposing opinions, "fact checking" by parties with 'dogs in the races', and outright censorship. In 1961 the Press would have been appalled by this and would rather be picking apart the pronouncements of the "elite". In these troubled times, alas they are no longer performing that useful service but have been co-opted by the same forces they ought to be investigating.
I think Eisenhower had a clear vision of where things could go, insofar as his imagination allowed at that time. I wish, however, he had consulted men like Isaac Asimov or Robert Anson Heinlein for their thoughts on what might lie beyond the horizon of his imagination before completing those last paragraphs of this part of his historic address.
No comments:
Post a Comment