Bombs Over Books?

By Roshaun L. Harris


“Beware of the Military-Industrial-Complex” was a phrase coined by former president Dwight D. Eisenhower. He alluded to a pervasive force within the U.S. governing structure that was hell-bent on making profits from war and militaristic endeavors at home and abroad. He issued this warning on his way out of office, which is always a conspicuous time for president making any formal statement or declaration. What makes this particular instance so distinct is the fact that an active president was telling his citizens to beware of a covert power structure that may lead to the infringement upon democratic rule in this country and throughout the world.

Fast forward to the modern circumstance in this society. Currently the U.S. is engaged in military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan. According to reports in The Hill, a Washington based publication who regularly reports on government, the fiscal year 2010 budget for defense spending was $680 billion. Compare that to the $46 billion spent on education in the same fiscal year according the U.S. department of education. There exist a clear disparity between the two allocated amounts of funds. What does this say about the priorities of our society?

The crisis over seas has spilled into a domestic crisis for resources and education. The growing amount of money spent on fighting wars has taken a toll on the home front. “If they spent the kind of money on education that they spend on wars we would have Harvard all over the country,” said Phil Kendrick and Eastern Michigan University undergraduate student. “I feel like we would rather send kids to war or prison than college.”

What does a young person feel when they are told their school has been shut down because there is not enough money in the budget for it to remain open? Keaton Crowder is high school student in the Detroit public school system. He attends Fredrick Douglas Preparatory Academy located on the west side of Detroit. He is a member of the Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps. “They [Frederick Douglas Prep] don’t give us what we need all the time. It‘s a good school though,” says Keaton. His statement has a profound truth latent in its simple yet eloquent delivery. “They don’t give us what we need” is a statement heard in many schoolrooms across the country in urban and poor rural communities. It cuts across color lines. Many of the students affected by this lack of founding in education are white or do not live in urban areas.

The crisis has pervaded the entire education system risking future intellectual growth for generations to come. Education is seen as the key to a quality life and secure future. In relationship to the invading militarism in American society, the instability caused by an under-educated population makes it increasingly difficult solve domestic issues. It also makes the international relationships, we’re currently engaging, more difficult for society to truly grasp and come to critically thought out solutions. The two are forever intertwined in a democratic society.

Democracy depends on an informed citizenry capable of seeing itself within a context of local power relationships, federal power relationships, and international power relationships. If society does not understand these relationships it can not rule itself as espoused by the tenants of republican democracy. Many people could not tell you the difference between Kandahar and Kuwait. These two locales are deeply imbedded in the military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan. If one can not deduce the significance of these two places, how can one make sound decisions based on reason and logic, on what to do with our resources. There in lies the question, what do we do with our resources? Bombs or books?



There are many who justify the spending disparities. “You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We’ll preserve for our children this the last best hope for man on earth or we’ll sentence theme to take the first step into a thousand years of darkness,” were the words of the late Ronald Reagan former President of the United States. His words reflect a genuine concern to some segments of our society that there is an impending perilous doom facing our country if we do not fend off the shadowy figures in the global power struggle. Many would argue that peace is the ultimate objective for forceful demonstration of power. The fear of a child not having a seat to sit in during school because of a bomb blast outweighs the fear of a child not having books to read because we had to buy guns and tanks so the child would have a seat to sit in. Does fear outweigh democratic will?

In a democracy, the will of the people must have a final say in what we value as a society. Is it such a radical idea that people may want there children educated and safe from physical danger? Can these things be accomplished simultaneously? That will be one of the major challenges moving forward. One thing is for certain, if the society is ill equipped to understand the world around itself, it will be ill equipped to deal with whatever threats it incurs to its own physical safety. Speaking of personal safety for our youth, what about the over 600 people in Chicago who succumbed to a violent terror-ridden death. What is the national defense policy for them. What would buying more tanks, guns, and ammo do to combat the crisis in homicide rates across the country, which is another form of terrorism.

Does spending more on defense actually make us more safe? In reality, no it does not. Well, why do we continue down the path we’re currently pursuing? One answer may be the influence of a military-industrial-complex which is resolute on continuing the current trajectory of domestic and world affairs for its own eventual profit. The sad part about the situation is the fact that those who can not fend for themselves, the children, the ones have no say because they cannot vote, bear the burden of this conundrum. They will face this world not knowing the depth of the global and domestic crisis they’re in because we spent all the money keeping them safe (from the terrorist).

If Eisenhower were alive today he would point to the lack of focus on education alongside increased militarism and denounce the current state of affairs as a charade and cabal for those who want to maintain power and dominance over all segments of society.

What is the solution? If society wants to have control of how it is ruled in a democracy, it must take a grassroots approach to the opposition of any entity who commits to stifling that energy. Across the country there are grassroots campaigns designed to educate those who are not receiving sound basics from the public school system. In 2005 the Democratizing Education Network held a conference in Madison, Wisconsin where a charter for providing education to all was adopted. One of the ten commandments, so to speak, was to have “Education, not war. Schools, not jails.” They expressed concern for the existing crisis while also outlining plausible solutions for future involvement by the grassroots community. They understand that war and peace don’t occupy the same venue and if we continue in a perpetual state of war, not only will education be at risk but the social welfare of all society is at risk. War, is it really worth the cost when you add it all up?