Eisenhower warned us

[DuctapeFatwa]

President Eisenhower warned of the military-industrial complex and its potential to take over the country...In the losing of a war, the government's appetite for 19-year-olds is insatiable...I then knew that we were fighting a war that could not be won. In Vietnam, tens of thousands of 19-year-olds laid down their lives for presidential lies. And now George W. Bush has delivered the ultimate, a lie trumpeted in his State of the Union.

For me, the worst symptoms of the new dominance of militarism can be seen everyday and everywhere here in America. Millions of people seem to equate greatness with military strength, proudly asserting that "America is the most powerful nation the Earth has ever seen." Certainly billions are being spent on advertising to make the point. There's the U.S. Army-sponsored drag racer, Tony ("Sarge") Schumacher. Or the Marines' TV commercials, which make it seem as if their job were a video game. The absolute worst symptom is that Forbes has named Northrop Grumman "2003 Company of the Year." And that weapons maker's corporate slogan, so heavily advertised, is, "Northrop Grumman, defining the future." Defining the future!

Perhaps history is over if a weapons maker is defining the future...

http://www.antiwar.com/ocregister/eisenhower-warned.html

[AntiCoup2K4]

1. And the reason that Ike knew it was coming

Is that he was a reluctant part of the plan. Prescott Bush is the one who chose the Eisenhower/Nixon ticket. Nixon played along with the agenda much better than Ike did. But as usual, people didn't listen. You would think that when a guy who was the European commanding general during WWII tells you the defense industry is out of control, it would mean something.

Ike's gotta be doing cartwheels in his grave right about now :evilfrown:

[joycep]

2. Yes, you would think that we would have paid attention

I just cannot imagine why we ignored such a high ranking military man and president of the US. We certainly cannot say we weren't warned.

[Coldgothicwoman]

3. A guess?

I would say that things like 'Military Industrial Complex' were words that were too Reich-like for us, at the time. You know, the whole 'surely it can't happen here' thought?

I dunno, just a thought. Its still sad we never noticed it. :(

[Minstrel Boy]

4. I believe Eisenhower's original draft warned against the

undue influence of the military-industrial-intelligence complex. Perhaps more people would have paid attention if he'd left it in.

For today, we should probably add "infotainment."

[Kanary]

5. Been thinking a lot about Eisenhower the last month or so

Reread his final speech. So prophetic.

WE can still choose to come together and fight the monster.

But, we'd rather spend our energy ragging on Laura's appearance, etc.

We get what we deserve.

Kanary

[G_j]

6. A great quote from Eisenhower:

www.costofwar.com

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed."

President Dwight D. Eisenhower
April 16, 1953

[Minstrel Boy]

8. Another good one from 1953:

"All of us have heard this term 'preventive war' since the earliest days of Hitler," he said. "I don't believe there is such a thing; and, frankly, I wouldn't even listen to anyone seriously that came in and talked about such a thing."

Eisenhower has some big, black marks against him. The coups in Guatamala and Iran, for instance. Hundreds of thousands of deaths in the decades since can be attributed to them. The coups overthrew democratic governments, and created strategic nightmares for the US with which it is still wrestling.

But perhaps his warning at the end of his second term was given with the regret that he'd allowed himself to be played by the military-industrial-intelligence complex at the beginning of his first.

Eisenhower wasn't all darkside. What would he make of Bush and Cheney?

[sistersofmercy]

7. Obviously history teaches some nothing at all, especially those with

an agenda and the flock they keep ignorant with misinformation.
Great find DF and thanks for posting.

[Beam Me Up]

9. Complete Text of Farewell Address

Most quoted is half to two thirds of the way down. Note mention of education and science as another factor as it receives so much government (military) funding. The whole thing is prophetic.

Dwight D. Eisenhower
Farewell Address - January 17, 1961

My fellow Americans:

This evening I come to you with a message of leave-taking and farewell, and to share a few final thoughts with you, my countrymen.

Like every other citizen, I wish the new President, and all who will labor with him, Godspeed. I pray that the coming years will be blessed with peace and prosperity for all.

We now stand ten years past the midpoint of a century that has witnessed four major wars among great nations. Three of these involved our own country. Despite these holocausts America is today the strongest, the most influential and most productive nation in the world. Understandably proud of this pre-eminence, we yet realize that America's leadership and prestige depend, not merely upon our unmatched material progress, riches and military strength, but on how we use our power in the interests of world peace and human betterment.

Progress toward these noble goals is persistently threatened by the conflict now engulfing the world. It commands our whole attention, absorbs our very beings. We face a hostile ideology global in scope, atheistic in character, ruthless in purpose, and insidious in method. Unhappily the danger it poses promises to be of indefinite duration. To meet it successfully, there is called for, not so much the emotional and transitory sacrifices of crisis, but rather those which enable us to carry forward steadily, surely, and without complaint the burdens of a prolonged and complex struggle--with liberty the stake. Only thus shall we remain, despite every provocation, on our charted course toward permanent peace and human betterment.

A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction.

Our military organization today bears little relation to that known by any of my predecessors in peacetime, or indeed by the fighting men of World War II or Korea.

Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence--economic, political, even spiritual---is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades.

In this revolution, research has become central, it also becomes more formalized complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.

Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers.

The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present--and is gravely to be regarded.

Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.

It is the task of statesmanship to mold, to balance, and to integrate these and other forces, new and old, within the principles of our democratic system-ever aiming toward the supreme goals of our free society.

Another factor in maintaining balance involves the element of time. 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, for our own ease and convenience, the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without asking 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.

Down the long lane of the history yet to be written America knows that this world of ours, ever growing smaller, must avoid becoming a community of dreadful fear and hate, and be, instead, a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect.

Text prepared by GMW
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(US Historical documents from 1400 to 2001)
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Last update: 2003-3-6 time: 07:37
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