My personal hero. He never saw a day in combat, yet he used his logistical mastery and won the war.
My personal hero. He never saw a day in combat, yet he used his logistical mastery and won the war.
Good speech.
Kennedy held one at Amhearst College.
Quite good also, if I remember rightly.
"Honest Ike", when it meant something.
President Dwight David Eisenhower, perhaps the last real Republican, had a 90 percent tax rate for the super rich during his administration.
Eisenhower explained it this way: The super rich could avoid the high taxes by investing their money in things that make America stronger. If they wanted to avoid high taxes, he said they could invest in business expansions and higher employee wages. They could give a million or two to tax-exempt non-profits that feed, house and clothe poor people of America, among other things.
They did some of that, but the Eisenhower years generated enough taxes to launch and complete the labyrinth of interstate highways, the largest road project America had ever seen and is needed again.
But the Generals and their real paymasters in the MI complex won. To what good purpose, except to make fat War pigs fatter, and the average American citizen poorer?
I now full well about Ike snubs, great man- the point is that collectively, ya didn't listen! "Perhaps they'll listen now"....
It's not only America btw- collectively, we are too easily sold the war drums by charlatans.
Wondering why there are so many admirers of Eisenhower and his ideas about dismantle of Military-Industrial Complex (pity that he did not apply it before finishing his term)?
And in the same way they are proud on the achievement of M-IC over the years, being very apologetic if the results are not really to admire (what seems to be always the case...)
^Sorry, if my comment touches some esteemed members here, the M-IC has been surely also helpful for some, not only for the big guys...
Don't be sorry, just don't do it again.
What makes the US unique in the western world is waving the stars and stripes, eating mom's apple pie and singing the star spangled banner are enough reason to get public approval for invasions, killing hundreds of thousands far, far away etc . . .
The only 'check' was 9/11, the only real attack on US soil (No, Hawaii wasn't the US) and it hurt. Being quasi an 'island' far away from anywhere gives a massive strategic advantage - no neighbours who can cause harm and a psychological advantage of being 'safe'.
It hurt so badly being punched back . . . and on home soil . . . that twenty years later people, children, are still being killed for it without consequence.
The bizarre Über-nationalism excuses all behaviour and that is more powerful than any MIC.
Last edited by panama hat; 19-09-2021 at 11:34 AM.
(I am sorry, if my remark that the M-IC helped to many to their livelihood, also touches you.)
As the history tells us, there are cases that POTUS does things without Congress and vice versa. And that was one case with Eisenhower (but perhaps just a "conspiracy theory"), the case of the U-2 spy incident, when there were rumours that the plane was sent without his knowledge. A useless mission, for an intelligence that was known already before, anyway.
But it has fulfilled the purpose: very important summit with Nikita Kroushchev in Paris about disarmament was cancelled. But the POTUS cannot say: They did not tell me, can he?
And how was the case with Reagan re Iran-Contra?
BTW, do you know the joke about the president's plan for his first few days into presidency? (The 4th day he will abolish the military, the 5th day he is dead...)
Ike had served 8 years - and in his last days "all Ike could do was warn about the military industrial complex and ask Congress for it's dismantlement". (Perhaps, afraid of his life? Moreover, he did not know what will happen to his successor...)
Some call "gibberish" when the others name the things by their real names...
A bit more to my "gibberish":
Actually, I keep Ike Eisenhower more in respect than any other after him. Perhaps because seeing his picture daily in my young years, a book (2 volumes) about him with his picture on the dust jacket in my father's bookcase no one can miss to see.
Three Years With Eisenhower - Czech translation, published one year before the Communists takeover, quite popular that time in Czechoslovakia.
(Not the book from our bookcase, just finding the picture on Czech bookstores online offers)
Many times reading it in my younger years, paging through the many interesting pictures.
And recently, I was quite pleasantly surprised to learn - what the French history about General de Gaulle had disclosed (true or not?) - that Eisenhower was accepting de Gaulle's request to mutually cooperate in liberation of Paris, thus not really in accordance with the orders issued by Roosevelt (who was no friend to de Gaulle)...
Last edited by Klondyke; 19-09-2021 at 03:12 PM.
Thanks for the red bsnub.
I just kind of struggle with why, a US president, who retired before I was born is reverent to a Thai Forum?
I do understand recently current/current US world relations ... but someone who hasn't been influential in the past 60 years
Feel free to answer.
He was the last real human being we had as a president. Never served in America politics either before or after his elections. Believed in taxing the rich and built our highway network to the highest of standards. He simply was a great guy. Ended WW2 and helped Europe get back on track.
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)