The Military-Industrial-Academic Complex

In the latest issue of Duke Magazine (March-April 2012), there is an article (page 8) dedicated to a recent visit that the current Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Martin Dempsey (a Duke alumnus--A.M. '84), paid to the University in Durham, North Carolina. The article notes that "At Duke, [Dempsey] studied English, and he counts poets William Blake and W.B. Yeats as important influences in his preparation for military leadership."

One wonders what Martin Dempsey could have possibly found in Blake or Yeats to "influence his preparation for military leadership."

Was it, perhaps, Blake's aphorism, "Art Degraded, Imagination Denied, War Governed the Nations" [Blake, Laocoon, c. 1820]?

As our academic institutions continue to aid and abet the slow suicide of American intellectual life and pander to the military-industrial-complex, one can only stand aside in bewilderment and tragic wonder.

The article also noted Dempsey's "wry sense of humor," on full display (according to the article's author) when he mused: "People say, 'How do you like [being the new chair]?' ... and I say, 'It's good. I have my own jet.'"

Yeah, that's wry alright. About as wry as Marie Antoinette's witticism, "Let them eat cake."

Some days it is difficult to absorb the sheer effrontery of life in these Misguided States of Amnesia.