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| Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations. This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society. In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the militaryindustrial 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. |
| QUOTE |
| Disarmament, with mutual honor and confidence, is a continuing imperative. Together we must learn how to compose differences, not with arms, but with intellect and decent purpose. Because this need is so sharp and apparent I confess that I lay down my official responsibilities in this field with a definite sense of disappointment. As one who has witnessed the horror and the lingering sadness of war -- as one who knows that another war could utterly destroy this civilization which has been so slowly and painfully built over thousands of years -- I wish I could say tonight that a lasting peace is in sight. |
| QUOTE |
| The central figure of this novel is a magical monkey who founds a monkey civilization and becomes its leader by establishing a territory for the monkeys. Subsequently the monkey king overcomes a "devil confusing the world," and steals the devil's sword. Returning to his own land with the devil's sword, the monkey king takes up the practice of swordsmanship. He even teaches his monkey subjects to make toy weapons and regalia to play war. Unfortunately, though ruler of a nation, the martial monkey king is not yet ruler of himself. In eminently logical backward reasoning, the monkey reflects that if neighboring nations note the monkeys' play, they might assume the monkeys were preparing for war. In that case, they might therefore take preemptive action against the monkeys, who would then be faced with real warfare armed with only toy weapons. Thus, the monkey king thoughtfully initiates the arms race, ordering pre-preemptive stockpiling of real weapons. If it seems disconcerting to read a thirteenth-century description of twentieth-century politics, it may be no less so to read a book as old as the Bible describing tactics in use today not only by guerrilla warriors but by influencial politicians and corporate executives. Following the disillusionist posture of the Tao-te Ching and The Art of War, the story of the monkey king also prefigures a major movement in modern scienific thought following the climax of the Western divorce of religion and science centuries ago. The monkey king in the story excercised power without wisdom, disrupting the natural order and generally raising hell until he ran into the limits of matter, where he was finally trapped. There he lost the excitement of impulsive enthousiasm, and he was eventually released to seek the science of essence, under the strict condition that his knowledge and power were to be controlled by compassion, the expression of wisdom and unity of being. The monkey's downfall finally comes about when he meets Buddha, whom the Taoist celestial immortals summon to deal with the intractable beast. The immortals had attempted to "cook" him in the "cauldron of eight trigrams," that is, to put him through the training of spiritual alchemy based on the Taoist I Ching, but he had jumped out still unrefined. Buddha conquers the monkey's pride by demonstrating the insuperable law of universal relativity and has him imprisoned in "the mountain of the five elements," the world of matter and energy, where he suffers theresults of his arrogant antics. After five hundred years, at length Guanyin (Kuan Yin), the transhistorical Buddhist saint traditionally honored the personification of universal compassion, shows up at the prison of the now repentant monkey and recites this telling verse: "Too bad the magic monkey didn't serve the public As he madly flaunted heroics in days of yore. With a cheating heart he made havoc In the gathering of immortals; With grandiose gall he went for his ego To the heaven of happiness. Among a hundred thousand troops, None could oppose him; In the highest heavens above He had a threatening presence. But since he was stymied on meeting Buddha, When will he ever reach out and show his achievements again? Now the monkey king pleads with the saint for his release. The saint grants this on the condition that the monkey devote himself to the quest for higher enlightment, not only for himself but for society at large. Finally, before letting the monkey fo to set out on the long road ahead, as a precaution the saint places a ring around the monkey's head, a ring that will tighten and cause the monkey severe pain whenver a certain spell invoking compassion is said in response to any new misbehavior on the part of the monkey. The Art of War has been known for a hundred generations as the foremost classic strategy; but perhaps its greatest wizardry lies in the ring of compassion that Master Sun slips over the head of every warrior who tries to use this book. And as history shows, the magic spell that tightens its grip is chanted whenever a warrior forgets the ring. |
| QUOTE (Clandestine @ Feb 4 2006, 08:53 AM) |
| Strangely, what followed shortly after Eisenhower's speech, was an arms race. Perhaps if both sides of the race would have read the monkey king it might have turned out differently, and we wouldn't be faced with stockpiles of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons on many sides today. Seems the ring may have tightened a bit, as the story goes. |
| QUOTE (Keys @ Apr 18 2006, 04:26 AM) |
| But I don't believe we're the only democratic nation to have done so since the world wars. We've led a poor example. |
