3 ms·
"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
by mr_overalls 8y ago
"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 50 miles of concrete highway.
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, I repeat, is 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."
--President Dwight Eisenhower
- wpdev_63 8y agoThank you for sharing this beautiful quote.
- mr_overalls 8y agoNo problem. I've always found it fascinating that a military general turned President warned us so strongly against the dangers of the military-industrial complex.
- jessaustin 8y agoI think Eisenhower gets too much credit here. If anyone was ever well-placed to prevent the rise of MIC, it was a five-star general two-term president who just happened to be president exactly when MIC was consolidating its Korean War gains. Ike was like "holy crap this horrible thing happened on my watch but I had no idea!" The most charitable interpretation is that he acquiesced in the burgeoning abomination to protect his son's military career.
- HillaryBriss 8y agonice quotation. We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat. Here's an attempt to update that comparison: The lowest estimate I could find for one F35 is about $110 million. One bushel of wheat has ranged from $5 to $6 recently. I'll use $6 here. At these prices an F35 would buy more than 18 million bushels of wheat, or 36 times as much as Eisenhower's 500,000 estimate. https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/weapons/a21776/f-35-cheaper/ https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/weapons/a21776/f-3... https://www.nasdaq.com/markets/wheat.aspx https://www.nasdaq.com/markets/wheat.aspx