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All great points. Yet Eisenhower defeated his opponents, both abroad and at home. Eisenhower was a champion of his era. He was a soldier who had seen war and d

by FD3SA 12y ago

All great points. Yet Eisenhower defeated his opponents, both abroad and at home. Eisenhower was a champion of his era. He was a soldier who had seen war and death firsthand, and understood the costs. He also understood the severe costs of allowing a nation to be robbed of its dignity by a parasitic oligarchy intent on bringing common working folk to their knees via the machinations of capital. It's not "capitalism" or "laws" that hold a nation together, it's trust. Also known as the social contract. Go travel and learn about places like Brazil, China, Russia, India and any other developing country in the world. Do you know what they lack as societies? Trust. The oligarchs have rigged the game, and everyone knows it, yet the masses are powerless. America was once the only place where the game was not so heavily rigged. This was a time long ago, and I doubt we shall ever see it again.

fleitz 12y ago
He also spoke quite extensively of the evils of the military industrial complex (I believe he coined the term)
dragonwriter 12y ago
> Yet Eisenhower defeated his opponents, both abroad and at home. I'm not really sure what Eisenhower has to do with the New Deal other than not actively ending the programs that had survived to his Presidency (which were, naturally, the least controversial ones, and ones that by the time he was elected the controversy that had been associated with them had faded.) > America was once the only place where the game was not so heavily rigged. No, America -- for most of its history up through WWII (ironically, the New Deal was a major factor in starting to break this up, and the Civil Rights movement did more to unsettle it) -- was once a place where the game was much more heavily rigged, where most states were virtual one-party states, and where national politics was mostly backroom deals between elites that were unchallenged in their own domains. To the extent there are kinds of visible divisiveness and distrust than before, its not because the game is more rigged than in the time you seem to idealize (apparently from Roosevelt's election through Eisenhower's presidency), its because the game is less rigged, and more actively contested. Even the setbacks (like Citizens United) that are credited with stacking the deck for the elites today are strikes against attempts to limit longstanding ways in which elites have stacked the deck since the dawn of the Republic, not new advanced by elites.

by FD3SA 12y ago

fleitz 12y ago

He also spoke quite extensively of the evils of the military industrial complex (I believe he coined the term)

dragonwriter 12y ago

> Yet Eisenhower defeated his opponents, both abroad and at home. I'm not really sure what Eisenhower has to do with the New Deal other than not actively ending the programs that had survived to his Presidency (which were, naturally, the least controversial ones, and ones that by the time he was elected the controversy that had been associated with them had faded.) > America was once the only place where the game was not so heavily rigged. No, America -- for most of its history up through WWII (ironically, the New Deal was a major factor in starting to break this up, and the Civil Rights movement did more to unsettle it) -- was once a place where the game was much more heavily rigged, where most states were virtual one-party states, and where national politics was mostly backroom deals between elites that were unchallenged in their own domains. To the extent there are kinds of visible divisiveness and distrust than before, its not because the game is more rigged than in the time you seem to idealize (apparently from Roosevelt's election through Eisenhower's presidency), its because the game is less rigged, and more actively contested. Even the setbacks (like Citizens United) that are credited with stacking the deck for the elites today are strikes against attempts to limit longstanding ways in which elites have stacked the deck since the dawn of the Republic, not new advanced by elites.