Eisenhower tried to warn us, but no one would listen (or believe him), so we just kept voting for the same eternal warmongers from both parties, and here we are. As Bill Bonner has said, "voters rarely get what they want, but they always get what they deserve".
For the sake of a fuller picture, let's not overlook that Eisenhower made those statements on his way out. Never took a single step while in office to do a thing about it.
Eisenhower laid the groundwork for and enabled it. He was only able to give that prescient warning because he was the man responsible for it, and as you noted, only on his way out the door. Which is far more honest than any subsequent President, I guess.
Well before Eisenhower, people were calling out the Merchants of Death driving us into wars for their own profits. But it's not just the weapons sellers pushing it. As Jeffery Epstein and Ehud Barak discussed, it is far easier to make a profit out of a collapsing state than to have to create something new.
This take has always driven me up the wall. Eisenhower spent eight years *building* the military-industrial complex, securing the bipartisan consensus that inaugurated the forty-year bloodbath of the post-Korea Cold War, and then with one foot out the door he's like "Oh hey, by the way, this might be a problem, someone should probably do something about it. Anyway, good luck with all that!" What an asshole.
As the US Army chief of staff from 1945 to 1948, Ike directly dealt with the carnage of WW2. He then retired but was tapped by the GOP for the presidential race, which he handily won.
Our political class, rather than finding ways to work with steeley-eyed Stalin, entered into a demonic arms race which Ike was charged with.
As a former successful war maker, should we have expected him to go against the will of Congress as a more effective peacemaker? Or is it reasonable to understand that he did warn us on the way out the door?
Added context is fair. It's likely that even as he played the key role in implementing what he labeled the MIC on his way out the door, he may have been constrained not only by the realities of his era, but because back then it was probably very difficult to ascertain all the moving parts without the benefit of the pre-censorship Internet or precise understanding of what the MIC actually was or would become.
Saying voters get what they deserve seems to me to be misunderstanding the way politics actually works, which is, at a professional level, to promise, delude, vilify, obscure, and overwhelm. The voters do not necessarily have the necessary tools to see through this. Add to that a Uniparty, in which the only options available do not lead to meaningful change, I find it very difficult, not to mention, uncharitable, to then put the blame on those being victimized.
I strongly disagree. Most voters don’t deserve this. Even most people who voted for Biden and Trump don’t deserve this. I don’t share your misanthropy. Maybe you deserve it though?
For twenty-five years, I have hounded my elected representatives about obscene Pentagon budgets, in part driven by disastrous wars of choice, but also with an inkling that one day the military might be ordered to turn its weapons inward, at all of us. Hegseth is a disgrace, as are the Senators that voted to confirm him. Never forget that. This unqualified man was confirmed by the US Senate. Hegseth is the best argument I know against the idea of white male supremacy.
Some might argue the new "integration" of the Israeli military into the US military, is a strong contender for this title of "Greatest Threat to America."
They will all be crying when their SS checks are slashed because we ran out of money. Tick tock. Instead, we are funding this insanity based on lies. How much did Vietnam cost? Iraq war? Afghanistan? What did we achieve?
Right off the top, “Pete Hegseth in his wisdom…” I thought it was a misdemeanor to put “Hegseth” and “wisdom” in the same paragraph, leave alone sentence, and so close.
Then, “In his eternal quest to remind everyone there’s a dumber official than Sebastian Gorka (somehow), the Secretary of War testified…” Priceless.
“War is hell — a hell of a good business, that is.” Says it right there.
“Democrat Congressman Adam Smith.” Such an irony, pity, and affront that this buffoon, whose stance on Pentagon spending stands to hasten the ruination of this nation, shares a name with a towering intellectual whose treatise “The Wealth of Nations” still holds relevance not only in economics but political philosophy as well, 250 years after its publication.
Okay, so much for the yuk-yuks, time for some reality checks (which invariably bounce with this bunch), let’s take a look at the threats $1.5 trillion in “defense” spending actually poses to this country:
• That obscene amount is being, and will be, funded, but only partly, from cuts in the SNAP (Supplementary Nutrition Assistance Program) already happening, and $900 billion in Medicaid cuts over the next ten years, meaning 10-15 million stand to lose their coverage. Go figure the increase in morbidity and mortality from people going without health care.
• Since it’s a violation of Natural Law to claw back in taxes what has been given to the already have-mores in tax cuts over the decades, then paying for all that “defense” will be done by piling on to the national debt, already at a staggering $39 trillion and climbing, the interest on which takes up an increasingly larger chunk of the federal budget, which then squeezes out spending on pressing needs such as the social safety net, which leaves people without necessary coverage and services, and well, you get the picture…
• Among the things getting crowded out in the federal budget is spending on the nation’s infrastructure, a term which spans 18 categories in the American Society of Civil Engineers annual report card on infrastructure https://infrastructurereportcard.org/. Here’s how the greatest country on earth, with the largest, strongest, most envied economy in the world ranks in a few categories: Wastewater “D+”. Transit “D”. Roads “D+”. Schools “D+”.
“I agree that the Pentagon budget represents the greatest threat to America — but not in the sense that Hegseth means.” Spot-on again, Ken. And not a laughing matter, is it?
No taxation without representation. General strike. Become ungovernable. What will get the American people to rise up, for gods sake!? Time for 2nd American revolution!
It is OUR money that they propose to spend. It seems to me we should be asked. Our representatives should be asked. Let's not forget that they are supposed to govern WITH THE CONSENT OF THE GOVERNED.
They have not experienced yet attempting to govern *without* the consent of the governed. The Resistance, La Fronde, and similar movements come to mind.
That's the War Powers Act was destined to do: to act as a brake on the eagerness of some to make (a lot of) money from war.
I really fear that Trump has started WWIII. Various countries are finding their 'lane', and it is a really bad idea to go out of our way to raise tariffs and piss off our allies, but that's what the felon is doing.
There is zero doubt in my mind (and I think in most people's minds) that this is a war for oil.
Instead of attacking other countries because they are sitting on oil-rich land, how about investing in renewables? Somehow, this seems to me a good time to diversify our energy portfolio.. Just saying!
We no longer have a draft, so this is an all volunteer army, although not quite, as soldiers are paid, (Not enough for the sacrifices they are asked to do, but still, paid.)
So this seems also a really bad idea to throw away, fire, demote, brow beat, demote members of our Armed forces because they are, (take your pick): women, black, Hispanics, Muslims, not binary, transgender, or fall below the acceptable testosterone level.
I snorted my coffee through my nose when I heard Hegseth suggest to test our men and women in uniform to check on their manliness, and correct it if need be with some testosterone shots!!! So I guess, hormone therapy, gender enhancing therapy is OK, now? (What blipping hypocrites!)
Related to that, maybe it's because I'm a woman, but I find seriously dangerous the manosphere presently rising, typified by showing you have guts, are brutal, rude and especially (like the felon) disrespect women.
We didn't use to have this, at least, not as flagrantly. I'm referring to the popularity amongst young men of the Tate Brothers who gave courses on how to groom women and manipulate and subjugate them, rape them to earn your keep for you. I think of it as a School for pimps, complete with conferring degrees in how to take advantage of women.
I hear that Bannon Trump is running with that crowd. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree after all...
So let me get this straight, the MAGA party of no more forever wars, wants a FOREVER budget which will not even achieve its stated goals—which by the way haven’t been stated at all!
We’ve watch this administration dodge and weave about how Iran’s military and nuclear arsenal has been eradicated over and over again while simultaneously finding the need to continue to wage war.
We’ve watched Dear Leader claim he achieved peace with Iran 38 times in 60 days—an achievement which will flummox military historians for decades to come—perhaps even centuries!
I have a suggestion, before we grant the drunken former part time weekend Fox News host and his new and improved Department of War any new funds, we force a DOGE audit on them to cut all the waste, or maybe Cyber Ninjas—they were so successful finding bamboo fibers in Arizona during that audit!
I guess this is our new Patriotism—hand a bunch of incompetent and unqualified lunatics a blank check! I don’t know about the rest of you, but all I can say is “be afraid, be very afraid!”😱
The US Department of War--formerly, rather less honestly, the Department of Defense--is the maw that never closes.
It's never won a war in 75 years, and has imperially ever bungled invasions, occupations, incursions.
Eisenhower, who coordinated with the Allies without whom that war also would never have been won, clearly recognized how the American military industrial complex arose and morphed into our Dr. Strangelovian monster.
I just realized what fools we American people have been for many decades and it is so easily corrected by following one simple rule:
Never elect a man who uses hair pomade! Think of this rule being followed all the way back to Reagan. Hegseth was not elected but we see the effect of hair pomade on him seeping into the scalp and beneath. Gavin Newsom wants to president. No. Just remember, you wouldn't want the stuff on your hands or hair, so why put it in office?
As for the military budget. Let's get rid of the US Army. All of the killing we do is conducted quite well by the USAF, the US Navy/Marines. There is no possibility of masses of uniformed men going to war since drones, air power and as a last resort nuclear weapons would wipe the multitude out. So what purpose an army? Israel can use it with abandon because it faces poorly equipped or unequipped opponents.
"You can see why the Pentagon has never once passed an audit."
Has it ever actually *been* audited? Last time I remember it being a serious endeavor, a "plane" pulled an unprecedented barrell roll and descended over the most heavily monitored airspace in the world, then made a perfect horizontal approach and exploded directly into the section of the Pentagon where said "audit" was being managed.
Eisenhower tried to warn us, but no one would listen (or believe him), so we just kept voting for the same eternal warmongers from both parties, and here we are. As Bill Bonner has said, "voters rarely get what they want, but they always get what they deserve".
For the sake of a fuller picture, let's not overlook that Eisenhower made those statements on his way out. Never took a single step while in office to do a thing about it.
Well at least he gave the MIC a name. That should have given us a clue as to the self perpetuating nature of this monster.
But the unanswered question was "how do you transition from being the world's cop, to being something less aggressive?"
Eisenhower laid the groundwork for and enabled it. He was only able to give that prescient warning because he was the man responsible for it, and as you noted, only on his way out the door. Which is far more honest than any subsequent President, I guess.
Well before Eisenhower, people were calling out the Merchants of Death driving us into wars for their own profits. But it's not just the weapons sellers pushing it. As Jeffery Epstein and Ehud Barak discussed, it is far easier to make a profit out of a collapsing state than to have to create something new.
Smedley Butler. "War is a Racket"
https://www.heritage-history.com/site/hclass/secret_societies/ebooks/pdf/butler_racket.pdf
This take has always driven me up the wall. Eisenhower spent eight years *building* the military-industrial complex, securing the bipartisan consensus that inaugurated the forty-year bloodbath of the post-Korea Cold War, and then with one foot out the door he's like "Oh hey, by the way, this might be a problem, someone should probably do something about it. Anyway, good luck with all that!" What an asshole.
Bob, I think you are too hard on Ike.
As the US Army chief of staff from 1945 to 1948, Ike directly dealt with the carnage of WW2. He then retired but was tapped by the GOP for the presidential race, which he handily won.
Our political class, rather than finding ways to work with steeley-eyed Stalin, entered into a demonic arms race which Ike was charged with.
As a former successful war maker, should we have expected him to go against the will of Congress as a more effective peacemaker? Or is it reasonable to understand that he did warn us on the way out the door?
Added context is fair. It's likely that even as he played the key role in implementing what he labeled the MIC on his way out the door, he may have been constrained not only by the realities of his era, but because back then it was probably very difficult to ascertain all the moving parts without the benefit of the pre-censorship Internet or precise understanding of what the MIC actually was or would become.
Saying voters get what they deserve seems to me to be misunderstanding the way politics actually works, which is, at a professional level, to promise, delude, vilify, obscure, and overwhelm. The voters do not necessarily have the necessary tools to see through this. Add to that a Uniparty, in which the only options available do not lead to meaningful change, I find it very difficult, not to mention, uncharitable, to then put the blame on those being victimized.
I strongly disagree. Most voters don’t deserve this. Even most people who voted for Biden and Trump don’t deserve this. I don’t share your misanthropy. Maybe you deserve it though?
We don’t deserve this.
For twenty-five years, I have hounded my elected representatives about obscene Pentagon budgets, in part driven by disastrous wars of choice, but also with an inkling that one day the military might be ordered to turn its weapons inward, at all of us. Hegseth is a disgrace, as are the Senators that voted to confirm him. Never forget that. This unqualified man was confirmed by the US Senate. Hegseth is the best argument I know against the idea of white male supremacy.
Greed knows no bounds.
Some might argue the new "integration" of the Israeli military into the US military, is a strong contender for this title of "Greatest Threat to America."
100%
They will all be crying when their SS checks are slashed because we ran out of money. Tick tock. Instead, we are funding this insanity based on lies. How much did Vietnam cost? Iraq war? Afghanistan? What did we achieve?
The US is the best at dealing in death, destruction, and misery and it wants to get better. More at 6.
First, the laughs:
Right off the top, “Pete Hegseth in his wisdom…” I thought it was a misdemeanor to put “Hegseth” and “wisdom” in the same paragraph, leave alone sentence, and so close.
Then, “In his eternal quest to remind everyone there’s a dumber official than Sebastian Gorka (somehow), the Secretary of War testified…” Priceless.
“War is hell — a hell of a good business, that is.” Says it right there.
“Democrat Congressman Adam Smith.” Such an irony, pity, and affront that this buffoon, whose stance on Pentagon spending stands to hasten the ruination of this nation, shares a name with a towering intellectual whose treatise “The Wealth of Nations” still holds relevance not only in economics but political philosophy as well, 250 years after its publication.
Okay, so much for the yuk-yuks, time for some reality checks (which invariably bounce with this bunch), let’s take a look at the threats $1.5 trillion in “defense” spending actually poses to this country:
• That obscene amount is being, and will be, funded, but only partly, from cuts in the SNAP (Supplementary Nutrition Assistance Program) already happening, and $900 billion in Medicaid cuts over the next ten years, meaning 10-15 million stand to lose their coverage. Go figure the increase in morbidity and mortality from people going without health care.
• Since it’s a violation of Natural Law to claw back in taxes what has been given to the already have-mores in tax cuts over the decades, then paying for all that “defense” will be done by piling on to the national debt, already at a staggering $39 trillion and climbing, the interest on which takes up an increasingly larger chunk of the federal budget, which then squeezes out spending on pressing needs such as the social safety net, which leaves people without necessary coverage and services, and well, you get the picture…
• Among the things getting crowded out in the federal budget is spending on the nation’s infrastructure, a term which spans 18 categories in the American Society of Civil Engineers annual report card on infrastructure https://infrastructurereportcard.org/. Here’s how the greatest country on earth, with the largest, strongest, most envied economy in the world ranks in a few categories: Wastewater “D+”. Transit “D”. Roads “D+”. Schools “D+”.
“I agree that the Pentagon budget represents the greatest threat to America — but not in the sense that Hegseth means.” Spot-on again, Ken. And not a laughing matter, is it?
Ken, did you catch the part of his testimony that the bombs were a "generational investment?" WTH is that.
No taxation without representation. General strike. Become ungovernable. What will get the American people to rise up, for gods sake!? Time for 2nd American revolution!
It is OUR money that they propose to spend. It seems to me we should be asked. Our representatives should be asked. Let's not forget that they are supposed to govern WITH THE CONSENT OF THE GOVERNED.
They have not experienced yet attempting to govern *without* the consent of the governed. The Resistance, La Fronde, and similar movements come to mind.
That's the War Powers Act was destined to do: to act as a brake on the eagerness of some to make (a lot of) money from war.
I really fear that Trump has started WWIII. Various countries are finding their 'lane', and it is a really bad idea to go out of our way to raise tariffs and piss off our allies, but that's what the felon is doing.
There is zero doubt in my mind (and I think in most people's minds) that this is a war for oil.
Instead of attacking other countries because they are sitting on oil-rich land, how about investing in renewables? Somehow, this seems to me a good time to diversify our energy portfolio.. Just saying!
We no longer have a draft, so this is an all volunteer army, although not quite, as soldiers are paid, (Not enough for the sacrifices they are asked to do, but still, paid.)
So this seems also a really bad idea to throw away, fire, demote, brow beat, demote members of our Armed forces because they are, (take your pick): women, black, Hispanics, Muslims, not binary, transgender, or fall below the acceptable testosterone level.
I snorted my coffee through my nose when I heard Hegseth suggest to test our men and women in uniform to check on their manliness, and correct it if need be with some testosterone shots!!! So I guess, hormone therapy, gender enhancing therapy is OK, now? (What blipping hypocrites!)
Related to that, maybe it's because I'm a woman, but I find seriously dangerous the manosphere presently rising, typified by showing you have guts, are brutal, rude and especially (like the felon) disrespect women.
We didn't use to have this, at least, not as flagrantly. I'm referring to the popularity amongst young men of the Tate Brothers who gave courses on how to groom women and manipulate and subjugate them, rape them to earn your keep for you. I think of it as a School for pimps, complete with conferring degrees in how to take advantage of women.
I hear that Bannon Trump is running with that crowd. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree after all...
Like the guy upselling you car mats
😂
in the picture, was he talking about the size of something?
So let me get this straight, the MAGA party of no more forever wars, wants a FOREVER budget which will not even achieve its stated goals—which by the way haven’t been stated at all!
We’ve watch this administration dodge and weave about how Iran’s military and nuclear arsenal has been eradicated over and over again while simultaneously finding the need to continue to wage war.
We’ve watched Dear Leader claim he achieved peace with Iran 38 times in 60 days—an achievement which will flummox military historians for decades to come—perhaps even centuries!
I have a suggestion, before we grant the drunken former part time weekend Fox News host and his new and improved Department of War any new funds, we force a DOGE audit on them to cut all the waste, or maybe Cyber Ninjas—they were so successful finding bamboo fibers in Arizona during that audit!
I guess this is our new Patriotism—hand a bunch of incompetent and unqualified lunatics a blank check! I don’t know about the rest of you, but all I can say is “be afraid, be very afraid!”😱
The US Department of War--formerly, rather less honestly, the Department of Defense--is the maw that never closes.
It's never won a war in 75 years, and has imperially ever bungled invasions, occupations, incursions.
Eisenhower, who coordinated with the Allies without whom that war also would never have been won, clearly recognized how the American military industrial complex arose and morphed into our Dr. Strangelovian monster.
I just realized what fools we American people have been for many decades and it is so easily corrected by following one simple rule:
Never elect a man who uses hair pomade! Think of this rule being followed all the way back to Reagan. Hegseth was not elected but we see the effect of hair pomade on him seeping into the scalp and beneath. Gavin Newsom wants to president. No. Just remember, you wouldn't want the stuff on your hands or hair, so why put it in office?
As for the military budget. Let's get rid of the US Army. All of the killing we do is conducted quite well by the USAF, the US Navy/Marines. There is no possibility of masses of uniformed men going to war since drones, air power and as a last resort nuclear weapons would wipe the multitude out. So what purpose an army? Israel can use it with abandon because it faces poorly equipped or unequipped opponents.
"You can see why the Pentagon has never once passed an audit."
Has it ever actually *been* audited? Last time I remember it being a serious endeavor, a "plane" pulled an unprecedented barrell roll and descended over the most heavily monitored airspace in the world, then made a perfect horizontal approach and exploded directly into the section of the Pentagon where said "audit" was being managed.