Once upon a time getting a college degree meant reading classic literature and philosophy, learning about history and politics, studying mathematics and science, learning new languages, and debating the great issues of the day in student forums.
The billionaire class and Pentagon, however, do not want young people to think critically, or to be worldly and idealistic.
They want the university to function as a breeding ground for creation of a docile, technically skilled workforce that they can control, and as a laboratory for the development of new weapons systems and testing ground for those weapons that can help them dominate the world.
On April 5, Massachusetts Peace Action and the War Industries Resistance Network hosted a webinar on the militarization of higher education featuring Michael T. Klare, the national security correspondent for The Nation magazine.
Klare warned about the Pentagon’s drive to recolonize American universities and exploit academia’s expertise for the development of new weapons, including hypersonic and robotic weapons.
According to Klare, the military-industrial-academic complex first emerged during World War II and was expanded during the Cold War when the Pentagon developed a significant presence on American campuses.
Among other things, it financed academic research in nuclear physics and radar and missile technologies, and helped to develop the hydrogen bomb along with many other weapons systems that caused methodical devastation in the Korean and Vietnam Wars.
The political awakening of the 1960s led to large-scale student protests, which influenced many universities to sever their ties with the Pentagon, or move military-related research facilities off campus.
However, since the declaration of the War on Terror and new great-power competition with Russia and China, the Pentagon is now moving back on campus with limited pushback as the government attempts to wage an “all-society struggle” to ensure U.S. military supremacy. (more...)
The Pentagon Has Been Recolonizing University Campuses—Why Aren’t More Students Protesting?
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