The Hugo Awards were last weekend. It’s the annual award show for science fiction and fantasy creative works. The award show took place at DisCon III, a science fiction convention held in Washington, D.C. One of the sponsors for the event was Raytheon Intelligence & Space, a subsidiary of Raytheon Technologies located in Arlington, Virginia.
Evidently, this sponsorship irritated some people.
From Gizmodo:
Amongst the sci-fi author community, the backlash has been sharp. Most of the comments in the tweet above are pointing out the bleakness of war profiteers finding a way to profit off a celebration of the typically forward thinking speculative science fiction genre. Some have been quick to point out that it’s just one arm of the company that’s doing the sponsoring, but to many more, the fact that a company who specializes in missiles and drones has a space division in the first place is troubling all on its own.
I didn’t get the memo telling me to call defense contractors war profiteers. It sounds evil, foreboding, and highly biased.
I’m a science fiction fan who likes Raytheon.
I’m very familiar with Raytheon. In the Air Force, I worked on and maintained avionic electronic countermeasures (ECM) equipment used on the old F-4E and F-4G Wild Weasel, and then on the B-52G.
I worked both on the flightline, directly on aircraft, and then in the shop on the electronic warfare line replaceable units (LRUs). Raytheon made some of the electronic warfare systems I worked on.
Believe it or not, we have a strong and capable military to act as a deterrent. You hope it’s never used. You prepare for war so you never have to go to war.
Don’t like war? Blame our elected leaders
It’s never the military that decides to go to war. That decision is always made by civilian leadership elected into office by the American voter. It’s funny that seemingly no one had a problem with the Hugo Awards being held in Washington, D.C. It’s our nation’s capital, and our elected leaders decide who our enemies are. They decide if and when to take military action against those enemies.
If you’ve got a problem with using military force against our enemies, blame our elected leaders in Washington, DC. Don’t blame our military or the corporations that manufacture the weapons our military needs.
Anyone who disagrees with Raytheon sponsoring the Hugo Awards should do the world a favor: delete their Twitter account and stop consuming science fiction content.