The anniversary of Ike's warning to us all

From The Huffington Post today: "Fifty-one years ago today, President Dwight D. Eisenhower issued his final, prescient warning about the rising power of the military industrial complex. More than half a century later, we find ourselves in a political system which has ignored Eisenhower's sound advice as the influence of the war industry on our society reaches a crescendo. Nowhere is this "disastrous rise of misplaced power" more apparent than in the debate about the Pentagon budget taking place in Washington, D.C." President Eisenhower's warning, in part, to the nation: "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...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. ...We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat." Link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/derrick-crowe/military-industrial-complex_b_1211388.html

A Lesson

The George W. Bush Administration should go down in history as a lesson for the United States and the world--for Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, Independents, the Right, the Left, in short, everyone, everywhere--to show what the world is like when greedy corporations run that same world. It shows its graft, corruption, greed, incompetence, lack of care for the weak, ill, poor, etc., and sheer irresponsibility. It is exactly what President Eisenhower and Ralph Nader, both, among many, many others, warned us about, long before now and it's ignored at our larger, greater peril.

All this said, I should mention, as I said earlier on this blog, it wasn't my intention to have so much of this be about the Bush Administration and corporate America and international conglomerates running roughshod over the planet and its citizens. But with all this administration has blatantly done and with such contempt for the man on the street, it galls me that more people aren't paying attention. It has seemed it needed pointing out. That and the fact that it's cathartic to and for me, to put ideas, thoughts and facts down, so people can either know more of what's going on or, yes, hear my thoughts. It isn't meant to be about me.

Once "W" is gone, next January, I hope to broaden this blog, to more things of the world. It isn't that all the ugliness and selfishness and greed are going to leave the world with his exit, far from it. I just hope the blatant power-grabbing and sheer evil of Darth Cheney and the whole cabal will be gone and we can get back to doing more, better work for everyone's sake.

I'm not naive. We'll still need to change thigs, sure. And corporations aren't going away, along with grubby politicians. But I do hope we improve somewhat, if not a lot. The circumstances are going to require it, I think and believe.