Would this guy have even made the GOP debate?

[Little Stevie]

It's only been a few days since the group I often hear referred to as "The Seven Dwarfs" debated in a effort to curry favor with a huge coalition of "single-issue" voters who have come together to forge a dangerous but powerful political force.

My only question on this thread is to ask for your speculation about one of my favorite President's. I ask whether or not he would have been embraced by his old party or would have chosen instead to run as a Democrat.

Before I write his name please look at this except from one of his speeches and then read the article in the NYT archive written by his son. Then weigh in.

From the article here (simply replace the DOT'S with periods when your browser tells you it cannot find the URL)

"He expressed his convictions eloquently in April 1953, about three months after his inauguration as the 34th president of the United States:

"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….



"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….



"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 8,000 people."


Not surprisingly, the war that included D-Day had made a pacifist of the man who bore the responsibility, its supreme commander."


Now you know the President about whom I'm talkng.


I am relatively certain that today, without the uniform, he would be branded "weak on Homeland Security", "Anti-Military" and even ... oh, perish the thought... a "Lib".


After declaring during his campaign that he would go into Korea, Ike reassessed the situation after being elected and going there to evaluate our military options.


The full article from which the quote below comes is here (simply replace the DOT'S with periods when your browser tells you it cannot find the URL)


What Ike said:


Eisenhower rejected the argument [by advisers]. “If Mr. Dulles and all his sophisticated advisers really mean that they cannot talk peace seriously, then I’m in the wrong pew,” he told an aide afterward. “Now either we cut out all this fooling around and make a serious bid for peace — or we forget the whole thing.”


One week later, speaking before the American Society of Newspaper Editors, Eisenhower made his intentions public. In what many regard as the most important foreign policy address of his presidency, Ike blew the whistle on those who sought to win the cold war militarily.



“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed….”


I wish Ike had been here to keep us out of Iraq in 2003 and to realize that after we killed Bin Laden, we should be getting out of Afghanistan and Libya. He was a member of Augusta National Golf Club - the home of the Masters - and there is no more elite golf club in the U.S. but that isn't the point.


The point is that this country has REGRESSED into the rhetoric and philosophies we saw at the GOP debates - The Seven Dwarfs - six of whom want to give our country to CEO's and can't figure out why 10 years of "charging" huge wars and at the same time reducing revenue by handing out tax cuts hasn't done anything but wreck the economy and put us into a hole they conveniently want to blame on Obama. Then there is the other one who wants to do away governing anything.


I fear that one of the six morons who believe reducing the debt will help the economy will actually get elected like the stupid non-economists in this new GOP Congress and that we will see a bigger depression than there was after the collapse in 1929.


You can either INFLATE your way out of a recession or you can DEFLATE your way out of it. Those are the only two choices. Believe me when I say you do not want the 20%-30% unemployment that will accompany a full blown depression.

[DFW5Traveler]

Ike also coined the term "Military Industrial Complex". He was convinced that the MIE was undermining the integrity of those politicians who would garner votes for armaments. What was a huge issue after WWII, became an even bigger double edged sword. Where did the MIE come from? It came from the build-up during WWII. Now If I said the FDR was the catalyst, I'd probably be shouted down. However, WWII was entered during FDR's reign.

Yes, there were politicians bought by the MIE, from BOTH sides. Those MIE companies did provide jobs for the people. They did develop a very strong nation. And the people working within the MIE occupations were very well compensated. Had there not been a strong national defense to counter other threats, how far would they have spread? Finally, was JFK speaking about the same thing when he gave this speech? Both of the "only" 2 options given to the population have been guilty of corruption. What is it we have all learned to say during the election cycles of this country? "I had to vote for the lessor of 2 evils."

[Little Stevie]

Agree FDR was the instigator of the MIC. However totally disagree that we should be the world's police force OR that Communism would have spread further. Reagan did not force Gorbachev to "tear down that wall". The financial inability to occupy and control all of the nations it sought to control was Russia's downfall - not Reagan. Now we are doing to our own nation what the Russian model should have taught us not to attempt.

Nothing against a strong DEFENSE (emphasis on defense) but being able to control the world from the U.S. is not only physically impossible but it is also financially impossible as well.

[DFW5Traveler]

Trust me when I say I don't believe we should be the world's police force. There was a time for the MIC, that time is gone. We do need a strong defense, but I disagree with the patriot act and the DHS, police state, that even our current administration is expanding the authority of.

[Little Stevie]

I agree 100% BUT I think you should take it a step further and realize supporting the coalition of single issue voters that now controls GOP politics shares none of those views and to make matters worse they want to legislate a new and very restrictive Christian morality that is unreasonable, dismissive of science and CERTAINLY would seek to shut down SHMB's and the activities they discuss.

Except for C*aribou B*arbie and very few others, second amendment rights are the exclusive domain of males just as is a SHMB - of course that also excludes ladies who sell ammo or who provide places we can practice "shooting".

[DFW5Traveler]

Single issue as in Global Warming or Pro-Choice or Gay/Lesbian rights or PETA? There are single issue groups on both sides. Although I don't prescribe to religious idolotry, I have to take issue that you single out Christianity. What about Judaism or Islam. ALL religions have oppressive sects but when one is singled out over another, that's when the person becomes less credible.

If you have ever been to the Middle East, you will see a huge difference in the oppression of women and/or gays compared to Christianity. Even different factions of Chritianity have become accepting of gays and they don't tell women they can't drive. As far as Islam goes, why is it OK for a man to have several wives but not a woman to have several husbands?

Religion to me, is a man made ideological way to force humanism or cognative behaviors on a population as a means of control. I see no difference in politics which prefers behavioral therapy to push/nudge a population into specific patterns of behavior. Passing oppressive laws through threats of incarceration/fines is no different than a religion threatening eternal damnation IMHO.

[Little Stevie]

Well said, DFW5. I prefer to be socially liberal and fiscally conservative and the Democrats seem to have a more inclusive tent for me in that respect. I absolutely agree that both politics and religion are attempts at societal control but so is monetary policy.

I see both Soros and the Koch Brothers as bigger threats than some religions BUT that said, I think the "think tanks" that the Kochs and others like them have set up, are behind propping up the suicidal economic policies that have recently populated the far right's monetary plan.

If they (mega corporations) can hold onto their control by shrinking middle class income, they remain in control of the politicians who make the laws that regulate them.

If you will check to see who is affected least by the current economy, you will notice that the biggest corporations are sitting on more than a trillion dollars in unspent profits.

Of course, they want to spend that to further control what they think is intrusive legislation and regulation. But...is it really that instrusive or unnecessary?

My theory on man-made planet destruction is that no one truly fathoms what effect 7 Billion people can actually have on the earth.

Here is something that should make you throw up, 60% of the 6.5 Billion people who populate the planet (or almost 4 Billion) have no toilets, either public or private.

The plastic pollution in this picture is right here in the U.S. and unlike here where it is caught and collected, other cities in the U.S. and in other countries allow it to be dumped into the ocean.



Further imagine that you are looking at is a river in Mumbai that eventually empties into the ocean and that the plastic here is actually human feces. Remember that 60% of the world has no toilets.

We just de-funded more inspections at the FDA at a time when deaths from food-borne illnesses in the U.S. rose to more than 3,000. I really do not want a regulatory vacation since I do not think the free-market EVER responds to catastrophic wrong-doing quickly enough.

I've heard all about over-regulation and frivolous lawsuits but let's face it, we'd still be buying pajamas that ignite better than lighter fluid if we'd waited for the "free-market" to introduce mush more expensive non-flammable PJ's.

You can bet that Wal-Mart would STILL have kindling on the Halloween Costume and Pajama aisles if they were a few cents cheaper and no one had made a big deal out of babies being roasted when they got near an open flame.

[Doove]

Originally Posted by DFW5Traveler

Single issue as in Global Warming or Pro-Choice or Gay/Lesbian rights or PETA? There are single issue groups on both sides.

Sure, there are single issue voters everywhere. Let's face it, the vast majority of people are little more than 3 or 4 issue voters, so it shouldn't surprise us that there are single issue voters. That said, i do think it's far more likely that you'll have a pro life candidate, or a global warming pooh pooh'er, or someone who hedges his bets on Gay/Lesbian rights become the Democratic nominee than it is to have a pro choice or pro gay rights candidate become the Republican nominee. Which is to say that the Democrats as a whole are far more flexible when it comes to 1 issue voters.

I think the reason for that mostly has to do with the religious influence on the Republican side. For Democrats, voting pro life or anti gay rights is little more than a vote for someone who may disagree with you on those issues. For Republicans, voting pro choice or pro gay rights isn't just a vote for someone who disagrees with you on 1 or 2 issues, it's a sin. At least that's how i'm sure many Republicans view their vote in regards to those 2 issues. Ergo, they're only naturally going to be the more strident 1 issue voters.

[Little Stevie]

+1

[DFW5Traveler]

Doove, you are still missing the point. You lump everyone into 1 of the 2 categories that have dominated the landscape. I, personally, am not a single issue sheep. Just because I disagree with your ideology on specific issues, you tend to point that R finger at me. There are those of us who DO NOT believe that voting left or right is the only choice. I am tired of people who think R or D are the only directions.

Evil begets evil, or voting for the lessor of two evils is still voting for evil; to put it in it's simplest terms. Politicians are bad, career politicians are even worse. Putting faith in a person of low character and HOPING they make the changes you want is no different than those people who put religious faith above all else. What if and that is just it, what IF, you are wrong?

Take the GDP for example. Government spending is part of GDP. It only makes sense that if gvmt spending goes up that GDP goes up creating growth. Right? That theory only works if the rest of the economy is spending also. Think of the budget as a fulcrum. If something goes up on one side, the other side has to go down. Gvmt gets its revenue from the opposing side of the fulcrum. If it spends all of the money it has to borrow. i.e., deficit spending, the fulcrum artificially increases, but the gvmt eventually has to pay it back. With an artificially high fulcrum, consumer prices stay high, or inflates.

There has to be give and take. The value of a dollar has never decreased since the FRA was passed in 1913. That is why Keynsian theory is wrong, it does not allow for that give and take.

LS is correct, but monetary policy is intimately tied to gvmt in the current, ever-growing oligarchy.

[cptjohnstone]

I am a Republican but I believe it is a women's choice to have a baby or not, that being said

Ike was responsible for the interstate road system we have and I just learned he had it designed that there would be one mile straight aways for bombers to land if necessary and

Ike proposed to let African Americans to right to vote and a few other intergration issues but LBJ voted it down so he could get credit for. I did not snopes it so it could be fact or fiction but he did push for intergraded troops

[Little Stevie]

You are correct about I*ke, Cptjohnstone. I wish the people we had to choose from today had I*ke's sense of country and his ability to learn from the past. Many say he became a Pacifist after WWII but I suspect it was his amazing ability to evaluate the military risks of escalating in Korea.

There is some good information that is still available about his thinking on the Koren War Truman had us involved in.

The Interstate Highway system was absolutely genius as was his handling of the National Guard to enforce integration in Little Rock.

I think eiter party would have been happy to have him at the top of the ticket and might still think so today.

He also warned us as DFW5T and I mentioned above of the MIC.

I doubt seriously if we would have been in any war except maybe Kuwait with I*ke at the helm. I think he would have looked at the half-dozen or so failed attempts to conquer and/or occupy Afghanistan over the last 1800 years and figured out a different way to go after OBL.

Whadayabet even JFK consulted with I*ke during the Cuban Missile Crisis whether anyone admits it or not?

[TexTushHog]

African Americans were given the right to vote when the 15th Amendment was ratified in 1870. Ike didn't try to do that nor did LBJ block it. Neither was born at the time. You probably won't find anything on Snopes.com about it because it's not believable enough for anyone to seriously think anyone would fall for it.

That being said, many diverse means were used by State officials to make it difficult or expensive for African Americans to use the rights to vote that they had long possessed. The NAACP brought it's first voting rights case in 1915, and filed many more through the years. However, the cloture provisions in the U.S. Senate were such that no comprehensive legislative solution was possible. In fact, between 1927 and 1962, there were eleven attempts to invoke cloture for debate on various measures in the U.S. Senate on various measures (including Civil Rights and Voting Rights acts) and it failed each and every time. Johnson was finally able to cobble together a coalition of 67 senators to vote for cloture and passed the Voting Rights Act in 1965, one years after he passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

[DFW5Traveler]

Eisenhower publically supported the Civil Rights Bill (pdf from Ike.archives) of 1957. It was the Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Baines Johnson (pdf from Ike.archives) who opposed it for several reasons including his want for the Presidency as a means of political expediency.


(From the Eisenhower Memorial site)

• Eisenhower appointed California Governor Earl Warren as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Warren molded a unanimous decision in Brown v. Board of Education, striking down public school segregation. Eisenhower also appointed outstanding jurists such as Potter Stewart, William Brennan, John Marshall Harlan II, and Charles Evans Whittaker to the Warren court.
• Eisenhower implemented the integration of the U.S. military forces. Although President Truman issued Executive Order 9981 (1948) to desegregate the military services, his administration had limited success in realizing it. As a life-long soldier, Dwight Eisenhower knew intimately the reality of racial intolerance in the military. As president, he commanded compliance from subordinates and was able to overcome the deeply rooted racial institutions in the military establishment. By October 30, 1954, the last racially segregated unit in the armed forces had been abolished, and all federally controlled schools for military dependent children had been desegregated.
• Eisenhower sent elements of the 101st Airborne Division to carry out the mandate of the U.S. Supreme Court, when Orval Faubus of Arkansas openly defied a federal court order to integrate Little Rock Central High, an all-white high school. This act, the first time since Reconstruction that federal troops were deployed to a former Confederate state, was condemned by many at the time, but it established that southern states could not use force to defeat the Constitution.
• et.al.

Those who CHOOSE to believe that LBJ was the civil rights leader are just plain wrong. He signed a bill in 1964 and he damned sure did it for votes, not for civil rights.

BTW for those leftist who ignore Byrd; "I shall never fight in the armed forces with a ***** by my side... Rather I should die a thousand times, and see Old Glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again, than to see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimen from the wilds." — Robert C. Byrd, in a letter to Sen. Theodore Bilbo (D-MS), 1944

You may call me a wing-nut or a tea-bagger but I am not affiliated with any party. So yes, the leftists' parties (progressive and/or liberal) disgusts me even more-so than the right who have abandoned fiscal sanity.

[WTF]

Originally Posted by DFW5Traveler

Eisenhower publically supported the Civil Rights Bill (pdf from Ike.archives) of 1957. It was the Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Baines Johnson (pdf from Ike.archives) who opposed it for several reasons including his want for the Presidency as a means of political expediency.




(From the Eisenhower Memorial site)

• Eisenhower appointed California Governor Earl Warren as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Warren molded a unanimous decision in Brown v. Board of Education, striking down public school segregation. Eisenhower also appointed outstanding jurists such as Potter Stewart, William Brennan, John Marshall Harlan II, and Charles Evans Whittaker to the Warren court.
• Eisenhower implemented the integration of the U.S. military forces. Although President Truman issued Executive Order 9981 (1948) to desegregate the military services, his administration had limited success in realizing it. As a life-long soldier, Dwight Eisenhower knew intimately the reality of racial intolerance in the military. As president, he commanded compliance from subordinates and was able to overcome the deeply rooted racial institutions in the military establishment. By October 30, 1954, the last racially segregated unit in the armed forces had been abolished, and all federally controlled schools for military dependent children had been desegregated.
• Eisenhower sent elements of the 101st Airborne Division to carry out the mandate of the U.S. Supreme Court, when Orval Faubus of Arkansas openly defied a federal court order to integrate Little Rock Central High, an all-white high school. This act, the first time since Reconstruction that federal troops were deployed to a former Confederate state, was condemned by many at the time, but it established that southern states could not use force to defeat the Constitution.
• et.al.

Those who CHOOSE to believe that LBJ was the civil rights leader are just plain wrong. He signed a bill in 1964 and he damned sure did it for votes, not for civil rights.

BTW for those leftist who ignore Byrd; "I shall never fight in the armed forces with a ***** by my side... Rather I should die a thousand times, and see Old Glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again, than to see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimen from the wilds." — Robert C. Byrd, in a letter to Sen. Theodore Bilbo (D-MS), 1944

You may call me a wing-nut or a tea-bagger but I am not affiliated with any party. So yes, the leftists' parties (progressive and/or liberal) disgusts me even more-so than the right who have abandoned fiscal sanity.

What you fail to realize is that what Ike's jurists' (Warren Court) did would be called activist judging now a days in the GOP.

Also Robert Byrd was not a liberal or at least that view was not a liberal view.

Byrd changed his ways and was later viewed as a liberal. That does not make his racist views of the day, liberal views. That makes redneck views racist, just like they have always been.



You are mistaking era's and are totally convoluted in you analogies.


In his last autobiography, Byrd explained that he was a KKK member because he "was sorely afflicted with tunnel vision —a jejune and immature outlook—seeing only what I wanted to see because I thought the Klan could provide an outlet for my talents and ambitions."[21] Byrd also said, in 2005, "I know now I was wrong. Intolerance had no place in America. I apologized a thousand times ... and I don't mind apologizing over and over again. I can't erase what happened."[9]