“Many creative writers keep journals; the sociologist’s need for systematic reflection demands it.” -C. Wright Mills

I watched Jarecki’s Why We Fight (2005) last night. Though well crafted, it doesn’t go into enough detail and begins to get repetitious. However, it did contain excerpts from Eisenhower’s farewell speech that introduces the phrase “military-industrial complex” and presciently warns that allowing the military and industry to get too close will threaten democracy. It makes for compelling listening. In the long version he attributes the need for a permanent complex to the rising rate of technological development and the necessity for organized teams of researchers. He then goes on to warn that we must beware of the capture of “free universities” by commercial enterprise. (Too late?) He also provides an early (non-environmental) concern for sustainability:

As we peer into society’s future, we–you and I, and our government–must avoid the impulse to live only for today. Plundering for our own needs and convenience the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow.

Has democracy already become and “insolvent phantom”? (What a beautiful phrase!)

(short version (video); long version (audio): part one, part two).