Summer in South Carolina in 1952 was hot. So we listened to the Republican Convention outside on our car radio. Senator Robert A. Taft of Ohio, who would die the following year of cancer, was neck and neck with Dwight Eisenhower.
Have you ever noticed how the establishment always wins the close ones? In 1976 President Ford won a very similar squeaker against Reagan. Taft had been the conservative candidate in 1040, 1944, and 1948, and each time the establishment beat him and put in a semi-Democratic candidate.
Taft represented a point of view which disappeared altogether with his death. He had opposed extreme interventionism in the European War, and he opposed extended American commitments against Communism.
Actually, what he opposed was what I repeatedly called “military welfarism,” a term which is now for the first time being used.
You should y now take it for granted that the same Eisenhower who used the term “military-industrial establishment” was its greatest architect. He wanted American troops on European soil supplied by American taxpayers using weapons made by American industry .
In 1959, when Europe was on its feet industrially, Eisenhower renewed the old post-War contract that drafted American troops at American expense to go to Europe and protect them. By then Western Europe’s economy and its population outstripped the Soviet Union.
But by 1959, with Taft’s death, the Republicans Party upheld military welfarism as part of its Potemkin Patriotic policy.
Ron Paul is considered a real kook for saying that country which is collapsing under debt should not get into war after war.
Paul is throwback, but a very legitimate throwback.
#1 by BGLass on 01/30/2012 - 8:46 am
it cracks me up that the “left” will only attack military on MORAL grounds, lol. THEY never go after “military spending,” like Paul, or even say THEY, themselves, want the money the military keeps getting.
(white) Military always bash “freeloaders.” Nothing could be more vile to them than non-whites getting “Ebt” cards or whatever. Ebt doesn’t pay, the way they do (in their minds).
It’s like Santorum— bragging about “homeschooling” when his tax-supported-salary sucks dry people who now can’t afford to homeschool, and would have done so for ideological reasons, where he is only able to pass on his own education (which has nothing to do with the ideological reasons for the rise of homeschool in the first place.)
Somehow, they all construe they pay taxes, when they are PAID BY them. In this way, they are “non-contributers” and “Ebt” is just Efter Basic Training.
So anyone who lives off the public MUST put the “tax payer” down. (Or tell themselves they are a taxpayer, when they are not—this happens a lot). It’s the same principle as a psycho boyfriend— the non welfare-warfare taxpayer must be stupid, fat, from flyover country, xenophobic, racist, southern, appalachian, hoosier, uneducated, ignorant, without life exposures, etc, etc.
Then military or social programs can feel better justified living off them, doing something GOOD.
#2 by BGLass on 01/30/2012 - 8:49 am
What kind of society could LIVE on only warfare and welfare paychecks?
What happens to the rest of the positions. Nobody ever asks
#3 by ANOTHERWHITERABBIT on 01/30/2012 - 11:40 am
all that big money the military gets isnt for paychecks. Believe me i just got out after 7 and 1/2 years and the real money goes to redundent contracts. for example i have a R/T in aircraft that is broken the militry pays 30k for. I pull it out order a new one which the military will pay 30k for but here is the kicker. I take the old one give it to another command to fix they put it back in stock. which the military will buy for 30k later. so something breakes the military pays the company for a new one but really gets a refurbished one that was refurbished by the military. But hey it makes the bean counters job easier
#4 by BGLass on 01/30/2012 - 1:00 pm
Well, all that is SOMEBODY’S paycheck and it sure keeps the system going.
#5 by Genseric on 01/30/2012 - 2:08 pm
“Ron Paul is considered a real kook for saying that country which is collapsing under debt should not get into war after war.” – Bob
This let’s everyone with half a brain know where our foreign policy is headed. Moreover, it let’s everyone know what the people are going to get for a President, whether they like it or not.
#6 by Gavin on 01/30/2012 - 2:33 pm
No one really believes that the US government is acting in the best interests of Americans in regards to it’s foreign policy.
In order to ease their own minds and ignore the reailty that their country has been conquered some Americans have convinced themselves that there must be a groups of government bureaucrats with esoteric knowledge and these wars really are in the best interests of Americans.
Jay Leno once said that he believes that Presidents are taken aside by such a group and told the “real deal” on such matters. After all no one, not even Jay Leno buys the establishment line.
Ron Paul is like the boy who points out that the Emperor has no clothes but some people are so invested in the fantasy that they can’t bring themselves to grips with the reality. They have become comfortable with treason and happy being under the establishment thumb.
#7 by Genseric on 01/30/2012 - 11:36 pm
“Jay Leno once said that he believes that Presidents are taken aside by such a group and told the “real deal” on such matters. After all no one, not even Jay Leno buys the establishment line.”
BUGS is the real deal people like Leno ‘wonder’ about. But, greed and the nasty business that goes along with it explains the Epiphany we see in so many politicians.
I was watching C-SPAN today. Yeah, I know… And the Senate had a call for quorom on “insider trading and the abuse of congressional powers.” Apparently they see something coming down the pipeline and wanted to jump out in front of this and redirect the backlash. As if there isn’t legislation stating this is ILLEGAL already. Something BIG is on the horizon and they can see it too!
http://www.newsday.com/news/congress-tries-to-police-itself-on-insider-trading-1.3487684?qr=1
#8 by The Old Man of the Mountain on 01/31/2012 - 10:30 am
Individuals on the inside who can see what is coming, and can afford it, have paid a lot of money for underground bunkers.
They have moved out of the big cities, and away from the coast.
#9 by backbaygrouch on 01/30/2012 - 5:07 pm
The 1952 GOP convention was acrimonious. The vote was close. Many delegations were polled upon request of members who suspected shaving. The weather was hot in New York City. The battle was grueling. The oratory was florid. No quarter was asked. No quarter was given. Politics does not get any rougher.
Sen. Leverett Saltonstall, He Liked Ike, headed the Massachusetts cohort. He had been Speaker of the House, the most powerful position in the Commonwealth and Governor. A self-styled machine politician he was a man not to be crossed. He knew which state payrolls all your kin were on.
He was a boyhood hero. Not up there with Ted Williams at Fenway Park or Warren Spahn over at Braves Field, but good, well known role model.
After Salty gave Speaker Joe Martin, a Bay Stater, the total a delegate from Cape Cod, Who Had Got On The Raft With Taft, rose to challenge the count. Saltonstall glared him down asking, “I counted the votes myself, are you questioning my integrity?” The delegate thought better of it and sat down.
No one knows if the Senator shaved a vote or three or four. The stakes were high.
So what does this have to do with the Mantra?
Everything.
The Senator did not win the argument on the merits. He changed the subject. He won on his grounds. He seized control of the discourse in much the way Mommy Professor weaves and bobs when faced with the unanswerable charge of Genocide.
“Are you accusing me of racism?” ” What is race?” “Does race exist?” “Are you a naziwhowantstokillsixmillionjews?” Anything but the issue of the Genocide of the White race.
Do not get stared down. Do not let anti-Whites change the subject. Hit them with the Mantra again and again. until you get an honest transparent accounting of what is happening to the White race..
#10 by The Old Man of the Mountain on 01/31/2012 - 10:23 am
After the International Banks have looted America, they will soften America up and destroy it.
“When we have extracted everything we can from America, it can dry up and blow away.”
–Benjamin Netanyahu
The Wealth of America has been well looted, the Infrastructure of America has been dismantled, are they ready now to destroy America?
Is the next step WW III?
Is that the reason for the push for War with Iran?