rigorousintuition.ca

This has got to be the most whacked-out thing I have ever read if I'm interpreting this fellow correctly:

http://www.keshertalk.com/archives/2007/01/why_we_fight_th.php

I read an article like this about two years ago and didn't get it, and I don't get this either.

Am I losing my marbles or is he making an issue out of whether or not Eisenhower was "warning" of the MIC or "criticising" it? I mean that's a non-issue. Of course he wasn't criticisng the damn thing, it was only just coming into play! He was just saying that citizens need to stay vigilant in order to keep the industry in check.

And how is whether Eisenhower was for the arms industry an issue? That's like saying Kurt Vonnegut was pro-war because he felt WWII was justified. The issue is that we have to keep the arms industry in check.

So am I losing my mind or is this guy playing the semantics game and making an argument out of nothing?

Truth4Youth wrote:This has got to be the most whacked-out thing I have ever read if I'm interpreting this fellow correctly:

http://www.keshertalk.com/archives/2007/01/why_we_fight_th.php

I read an article like this about two years ago and didn't get it, and I don't get this either.

Am I losing my marbles or is he making an issue out of whether or not Eisenhower was "warning" of the MIC or "criticising" it? I mean that's a non-issue. Of course he wasn't criticisng the damn thing, it was only just coming into play! He was just saying that citizens need to stay vigilant in order to keep the industry in check.

And how is whether Eisenhower was for the arms industry an issue? That's like saying Kurt Vonnegut was pro-war because he felt WWII was justified. The issue is that we have to keep the arms industry in check.

So am I losing my mind or is this guy playing the semantics game and making an argument out of nothing?

Hey Truth.

What don't you understand, and I will try to help you out. I am familiar with the historical context for the speech.

What was it about the post that seemed whacked-out to you?

Truth4Youth wrote:This has got to be the most whacked-out thing I have ever read if I'm interpreting this fellow correctly:

http://www.keshertalk.com/archives/2007/01/why_we_fight_th.php
.....
So am I losing my mind or is this guy playing the semantics game and making an argument out of nothing?

The top of his page has his self-description as a "hawkish liberal jewish perspective, since December, 2001."

But he's either a pro-war pro-cryptocracy propagandist or amazingly ignorant and ranting like Rush against 'those peaceniks who want America to lose.'

Ike was indeed warning us about the total infiltration of the "military-industrial complex" and even though he didn't say it he also meant "beware the CIA.".

This old WWII general realized that Allen Dulles' CIA and the Nazi-supporting Wall Street/Council on Foreign Relations types along with actual Nazis had taken over the US government right out from under his nose after he thought he'd defeated the Reichstag, just as USAF Col. L. Fletcher Prouty described in his 1973 book,
'The Secret Team: The CIA and Its Allies in Control of the United States and the World.'

Prouty had been the Pentagon's liason with CIA from 1955-1963 and had 'top view' of all the compartmentalized CIA projects that came to him for arms, planes, ships, etc.
(Victor Marchetti was one of the few other whistleblowers with 'top view' of the big picture.)

Ike tried to have peace talks with Kruschev in 1960 but was sabotaged by the CIA when they very likely (according to Prouty who was the one grounding the U2 flights) caused Gary Powers U2 plane to sputter out and land in the USSR on May 1, 1960.

Ike denied at first that the flight had happened and was then intentionally left holding the bag when the plane and Powers were produced by the Soviets for the world to see.

Preventing this peace conference perfectly continued the lucrative and social-controlling Cold War, a trick that has been done a few times. CIA Director Richard Helms admitted to a Senate panel that Gary Powers was not shot down but that cover story is embedded in US Cold War mythology.

That's why Ike surprised everyone with his warning on live TV in January, 1961 as he handed the White House over to JFK who found out just how right Ike was in Dallas.

Most people thought Ike meant beware the military because not much was known about the CIA that had become the secret government. And the Pentagon had scary John Birch/fascist types like General Walker who were making the same kind of mutinous sounds that resulted in assassination attempts on General de Gaulle by his own generals in France.

JFK insisted that the movie, 'Seven Days in May,' be produced and for good reason.

Ike's 1/61warning was one of many events that caused Senate hearings in 1962 on how to increase conditioning propaganda for the US public and soldiers alike.

Korea plus POW scandal, losing in Vietnam since the '50s, losing Hungary, being beat by Sputnik, embarassed in Indonesia, the U2 exposed, Ike's TV warning, losing Bay of Pigs,
the Spring '62 Senate hearings on "Cold War education," public trials of Operation Vulcan saboteurs in August '62, the Cuban Missile Crisis, tensions from the murder of Medgar Evers, 'magic bullets' in Dealey Plaza, etc.

The Cold War was a helluva bad time for CIA. That's why they went so bad and firmed up their Operation Mockingbird psy-ops culture to cover their ass.

And covering up that Nazi thing, well...

The Mossad took advantage of CIA being busy with the Powers incident and grabbed Adolph Eichmann in Argentina the next day, May 2, 1960. This began the first period when the CIA was really worried about Project Paperclip and the Gehlen Organization being exposed from 1960-1966 as Eichmann went on trial and then Auschwitz trials commenced in West Germany from 1963-65.

And now all this dirty laundry is being exposed all over again because of the internet and Bush crime family.

So this "hawkish liberal" blogger has his head up his ass.
Or he's trying to get our heads up ours.

populistindependent wrote:Hey Truth.

What don't you understand, and I will try to help you out. I am familiar with the historical context for the speech.

What was it about the post that seemed whacked-out to you?

Well, this this blogger's argument just seems to confirm what the people he is disagreeing with have been saying.

And there was really no way for Ike to truly "criticise" the MIC because it was just growing into power. That's not the issue. The issue is that Ike warned that it could gain unwarranted power and that we must be vigilant against that. How does this blogger's argument really defeat anyhting that the anti-arms industry/antiwar people have been saying?

Truth4Youth wrote:

populistindependent wrote:Hey Truth.

What don't you understand, and I will try to help you out. I am familiar with the historical context for the speech.

What was it about the post that seemed whacked-out to you?

Well, this this blogger's argument just seems to confirm what the people he is disagreeing with have been saying.

And there was really no way for Ike to truly "criticise" the MIC because it was just growing into power. That's not the issue. The issue is that Ike warned that it could gain unwarranted power and that we must be vigilant against that. How does this blogger's argument really defeat anyhting that the anti-arms industry/antiwar people have been saying?

The prime point he was making is that certain factions want to use Ike's message as part of their anti-war agenda when his message was obviously not anti-war but anti-fascism.

Doodad wrote:......

The prime point SHE was making, ahem, is that certain factions want to use Ike's message as part of their anti-war agenda when his message was obviously not anti-war but anti-fascism.

That distinction is what Ike was debunking. Other generals, like Smedley Butler with his 1935 pamphlet called 'War is a Racket,' had figured this out in retirement, too.

Ike warned that war culture had an agenda and momentum all its own based on profits and psychology and infiltration into all social institutions as a way of life.

This was the same military-industrial complex that had built the Nazi monster that Ike helped defeat...temporarily.

So there's no such thing as being anti-fascism but not anti-war.

Hugh Manatee Wins wrote:
So there's no such thing as being anti-fascism but not anti-war.

In your worldview perhaps but only war has ever been able to end fascism. It doesn't go away when you say pretty please.

Doodad wrote:

Truth4Youth wrote:

populistindependent wrote:Hey Truth.

What don't you understand, and I will try to help you out. I am familiar with the historical context for the speech.

What was it about the post that seemed whacked-out to you?

Well, this this blogger's argument just seems to confirm what the people he is disagreeing with have been saying.

And there was really no way for Ike to truly "criticise" the MIC because it was just growing into power. That's not the issue. The issue is that Ike warned that it could gain unwarranted power and that we must be vigilant against that. How does this blogger's argument really defeat anyhting that the anti-arms industry/antiwar people have been saying?

The prime point he was making is that certain factions want to use Ike's message as part of their anti-war agenda when his message was obviously not anti-war but anti-fascism.

I really don't think it defeats anything the antiwar people say though. I'm a dove and I never really considered that Eisenhower hated the MIC. I just took what he said as being a warning. Perhaps others have twisted it, but I really haven't been quick to notice.

Doodad wrote:

Hugh Manatee Wins wrote:
So there's no such thing as being anti-fascism but not anti-war.

In your worldview perhaps but only war has ever been able to end fascism. It doesn't go away when you say pretty please.

What you're saying is understandable, but even militarism has its extremes.

Quotin' Dood:

"In your worldview perhaps but only war has ever been able to end fascism. It doesn't go away when you say pretty please."

I think Ike was speaking to trying to prevent facism arising in our own country, to not let those factions get a hold of our society, so that we could avoid a civil war here. No one suggested 'saying pretty please' as a way to end oppressive regimes, facist or otherwise.

Disarmament, with mutual honor and confidence, is a continuing imperative. Together we must learn how to compose differences, not with arms, but with intellect and decent purpose. Because this need is so sharp and apparent I confess that I lay down my official responsibilities in this field with a definite sense of disappointment. As one who has witnessed the horror and the lingering sadness of war – as one who knows that another war could utterly destroy this civilization which has been so slowly and painfully built over thousands of years – I wish I could say tonight that a lasting peace is in sight.

Happily, I can say that war has been avoided. Steady progress toward our ultimate goal has been made. But, so much remains to be done. As a private citizen, I shall never cease to do what little I can to help the world advance along that road.

source

Context is all when analysisng any speech that is intended for public consumption. Nevertheless, the language used by the man himself is realtively unambiguous.

lunarose wrote:Quotin' Dood:

"In your worldview perhaps but only war has ever been able to end fascism. It doesn't go away when you say pretty please."

I think Ike was speaking to trying to prevent facism arising in our own country, to not let those factions get a hold of our society, so that we could avoid a civil war here. No one suggested 'saying pretty please' as a way to end oppressive regimes, facist or otherwise.

Pretty please is just my way of offering up the absurdity of thinking that all war is avoidable and thus to be anti-war is to be in league with all who claim to be anti-war but who are in reality "no war ever for any reason." While it's a lovely sentiment it's unrealistic on occasion.

Obviously in Iraq and Afghanistan it could have realistically been avoided.

Doodad wrote:Pretty please is just my way of offering up the absurdity of thinking that all war is avoidable and thus to be anti-war is to be in league with all who claim to be anti-war but who are in reality "no war ever for any reason." While it's a lovely sentiment it's unrealistic on occasion.

Obviously in Iraq and Afghanistan it could have realistically been avoided.

Well said. Much wisdom there.

People, and peoples, have the right to self-defense.

Truth4Youth wrote:I really don't think it defeats anything the antiwar people say though. I'm a dove and I never really considered that Eisenhower hated the MIC. I just took what he said as being a warning. Perhaps others have twisted it, but I really haven't been quick to notice.

Eisenhower was warning about corruption of the government by industry and collusion between industry and government officials.

It has nothing specifically to do with peace, nor with the military. He could just as well have used corporate agri-business and the USDA as an example to make his point.

The "military-industrial complex" dates back at least to the Civil War. The name Simon Cameron comes to mind immediately for me when I think of the combination of corrupted public officials and war profiteers. That would be 1861.

http://www.harpers.org/archive/2007/11/hbc-90001660

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. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement. We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people. This is, I repeat, the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking. This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron. […] Is there no other way the world may live?

–Dwight David Eisenhower, “The Chance for Peace,” speech given to the American Society of Newspaper Editors, Apr. 16, 1953.

http://www.harpers.org/archive/2007/11/hbc-90001660

gotta love the '23' in the pic.....