Letter MIT Technology Review Spectrum

 
To: “Mr. Jason Pontin, Editor in Chief and Publisher, MIT Technology Review” Jason.Pontin @technologyreview.com,
“Editor in Chief and Publisher, MIT SPECTRUM” spectrum @mit.edu
Subject Article Submission: How Scientists, Engineers, and Scholars of Empire Subvert Both Science and Religion in the Service of Empire
Date:  June 19, 2014
Dear Editors,
Enclosed please find my article submission. I would like to believe that in your wisdom to foster insightful discussions and accurate awareness about science and technology and its impact on society, you would see fit to reprint this submission in some column or other in both MIT Technology Review and MIT Spectrum. I sometimes read the former, and recently had the opportunity to glance at the Spring 2014 issue of the latter. I can barely prevent myself from hitting my already sore head on the nearest wall at the banality of evil among the top scientists and scholars in the United States; at their cowardly silence before intellectual integrity; at their blind pursuit of scientific passions to the detriment of society and its war-mongering police-state constructions; being so ardently fostered at the highest institution of scientific and technological learning in the world. I hope I may be forgiven to think that both these publications appear to be underwriting the cheer-leading and selling of technological innovations from America's peerless academy as part of its military-industrial-academic complex, rather than underwriting any objective intellectual effort at understanding the real forces driving the funding of these innovations: the quest for primacy and hegemony in a super-militarized global scientific dictatorship. MIT is helping to build that scientific dystopia without a murmur of protest or display of conscience coming from its developers. Willing compliance with silence is rewarded with glowing tributes to their scientific acumen and achievements.
Hannah Arendt, under the rubric of victor's justice, had called that ugly compliance with the amoral imperatives of power and hegemony, of obedience to authority, the Banality of Evil. Several professors at MIT during my time there, had impressed me as the foremost moral scholars of America who, at least at the time during the declining peak of the Cold War, had appeared to me to have excelled in demonstrating intellectual integrity for uncovering past crimes against humanity, of both their own government, as well as others, but mainly the enemy governments. The same scholars, scientists and professors today are either pathetically silent before the travesty befalling their own nation, never mind the world, or spinning doctrinal garbage which ultimately assists in that very exercise of travesty in the guise of displaying moral certitude. Scientific and moral integrity is evidently not a great virtue taught and rewarded at MIT, an institution which since its inception has been funded by empire in service of empire. This is amply demonstrated, for instance, in the Spring 2014 Issue of MIT Spectrum where none of the featured scientists are quoted for the display of their moral gravitas or comprehension of the impact of their scientific quests on creating a dystopic society any differently from the scientists and technologists of the Third Reich, all of whom, incidentally, were brought over to America to lead its science and technology in the now declassified operation known as Operation Paperclip.
Specifically, when the exercise of integrity and display of morality intersects with imperial mobilization, just as during the Third Reich before the authority of Mein Führer, all self-servingly appear to fall in line United We Stand with the narratives of power today. None dare display even a tiny bit of courageous thinking outside the box of the narratives at the moment when it is most crucial to do so. That is often all that is required to say no to the bullshit when saying such timely no can actually make an impact in averting the fait accompli which their silence ensures.
Was it really any different in the Third Reich? Just as the Jews lamented in the aftermath of World War II of why they remained so cowardly silent through the scientific tyranny of the Third Reich, a topic I learned in great depth at MIT, I wish to spare myself that traditional ex post facto lament by boldly voicing that concern now.
Please read the factual and analytical piece that follows, get some MIT structural scientists to critique it if you wish, and make a judgment of your own whether the exercise of scholarship and intellectual integrity at MIT in fact permits the publication of factual analysis that goes against the war-mongering imperial grain that largely funds this institution. It is trivial, ex post facto, to offer demonstrations of high-mindedness as the former President of MIT, who, after presiding over the buildup of the same militarized society, upon retirement from the top academic post in the most militarized country on earth, thought it most conscionable to make the following banal statement of moral clarity:
“This irrational behavior is only possible because we, the citizens of the nation, permit it. It is no longer a question of controlling a military-industrial complex, but rather, of keeping the United States from becoming a totally military culture.” — The United States: A militarized society, Jerome B. Wiesner, president emeritus MIT, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, August 1985, pg. 104
JBW's biography reads as follows, just in case today's generation of scientists and students at MIT remain unfamiliar with this science iconoclast who discovered his conscience a tad too late:
“Jerome B. Wiesner (May 30, 1915 – October 21, 1994), was associated with MIT for most of his career, joining the MIT Radiation Laboratory in 1942 and working on radar development. He worked briefly at Los Alamos, returned to become a professor of Electrical Engineering at MIT, and worked at and ultimately became director of the Research Laboratory of Electronics at MIT (RLE). He became Dean of the School of Science in 1964, Provost in 1966, and President from 1971 to 1980. He was also elected a life member of the MIT Corporation.” — Wikipedia
I would hope that scientists and technologists of genuine integrity might endeavor to put a stop to such disingenuous ex post facto display of meaningless morality which cost little to utter, if anything at all, besides looking great in publications and in obituary notices to confer posthumous sainthood.
The time is now. The hour is today. Not tomorrow, not after retirement, or under victor's justice.
Sincerely,
Zahir Ebrahim
Project Humanbeingsfirst.org
California
Enclosure FAQ: Prove that 9/11 narrative is a Big Lie, URL: http://print-humanbeingsfirst.blogspot.com/2014/06/wtc-7-demolition-and-big-lie-of-911.html




Letter MIT Technology Review and MIT SPECTRUM Magazines By Zahir Ebrahim
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