"Every Gun That is Made..." IKE

In April of 1953, upon leaving office, President Dwight Eisenhower (a republican, for those who think the GOP only had Donald Trump) gave a speech known by the above title.  It is more pertinent now than ever before and I will record some of it below.

"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 it's laborers, the genius of it's scientists, the hopes of it's 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 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 8000 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 sense.  Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron."

(I would only add that the cost of those weapons might very well be greater today than in 1953).

Trump and "war on terror".

Trump says he will impose a process of questioning Muslim immigrants that would include "extreme vetting" (sounds like torture to me) and would deny entry into the US "...not only those with terrorist sympathizers but those who believe in Shariah law, don't believe in the US Constitution (how are immigrants going to know what's in the Constitution when most Americans don't know what' in it) or support BIGOTRY AND HATRED" (my emphasis).  This from the man supported by the American Nazi Party and the Klu Klux Klan?

Some thoughts today

Green Party candidate Jill Stein noted on his site and something called "Ring of Fire" that the US has 700 to 800 military bases around the world and "only 16 % of the US budget is  spent on military operations at home and abroad".

Huffington Post on 8/16/16 reports that 64 million Americans are paid less than $ 15 an hour.  This group of workers has recently held a "convention".  I have no other information on this convention at this time.  Research is required.

47 % Americans pay no income tax bit.

My friend Steve posted on Facebook recently that Mitt Romney claim that "47 % of Americans who pay ZERO federal income tax are voting on what to charge everyone else".

My response to Steve:  But they pay social security taxes, federal excise taxes, state income taxes, sales taxes and many pay property taxes.  How many of this number are wealthy who pay not federal income taxes; I know at (least )two.  To our knowledge Donald Trump pays no federal income tax, and the only way that can be disproved is if the Donald releases his income tax records like all other major presidential candidates.  Prove me wrong and "I'll kill your ass in Macy's window".

To Kill a Mockingbird

I came across the following passage while re-reading one of the great literary classic of our time.

Atticus Finch, while talking to his young son Jem, defends a neighbor who Jem believes is the worst person he knows.  He says the following;

"I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand (Atticus is talking about himself).  It's when you know you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what.  You rarely win, but sometimes you do.  Mrs Dubose won, all ninety-eight pounds of her.  According to her views, she died beholden to nothing and nobody.  She was the bravest person I ever knew"

My guess would be that Harper Lee was also foretelling a tribute to Atticus who takes on the defense of a black man accused of a sex crime he did not commit.  He knew the Alabama of the 1930's will find his client guilty simply because a white man accused him.  Hopefully today the verdict would be different.

July 31,2016 Thoughts

We were told by the US Supreme Court that corporations are akin to people and have to be afforded the same rights as people; the Citizens United case.  I recently read in The Nation (March 7, 2016)-ok I am behind on my readings-that corporations can deduct on their income taxes "customized company-sponsored pension plans" paid to their CEO's.  Being done by half of the 383 Fortune 500 companies that provided info.  The plans cover the CEO's for the "rest of their lives", while the same companies  have done away with "guaranteed monthly compensation" for the average employee.

Now if corporations are people, then people must also be corporations and allowed the same rights.  Thus I will pay my wife-as the CEO of our family-a monthly pension check and then deduct that cost from my income taxes.  Seems only fair. 

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I am one to be more concerned about domestic policy, but foreign policy developments are setting us up for some major disaster. 

First, we have been building up or modernizing our military forces and arsenals at a considerable rate.  The new F-35 plane will cost us billions, the Navy wants a new class of submarines with nuclear capability, the Air Force says we need to replace the B-52 long range bomber and build another ICBM missile to replace the Minuteman III.  

Second, we have allowed NATO (and the US) to take on the defense of former Soviet republics in the Baltic region.  We now have Russia completely surrounded by our military might.

Third, we are about to elect as President (Hillary Clinton) who is clearly a "hawk" on foreign policy, meaning she is want to flaunt our military power in the name of national interest.

(I hate to note this here, but Donald Trump says we should not pledge ourselves to the defense of countries that do not pay their share of the expenses of NATO; specially Baltic nations.)

Fourth, it should also be remembered that when nations are in the midst of domestic turmoil and bordering on civil war-racial or economic-their develops and atmosphere that is ripe for governments to use warfare to take their citizens minds off their differences and unite to defend the homeland.  A case could be made that the domestic issues in this country are at that point.

My musings for today.

I am  trying to stay off Facebook to give my friends a rest from hearing my excellent political commentary.  I don't want them to have to say "I wish I thought of that".  Anyway here are come comments for today.

1.  Clinton delegates: she still does not have enough earned delegates to win the nomination outright. If the super delegates don't stick with her, the convention would be wide open.  Some democracy we preach.  After a full season of primaries and caucus's the voice of the people is still going to take a back seat to the political establishment.  And we want to sell out system around the world?  A system where those who vote stick their finger in an ink well to indicate they voted might be better than the millions we spend to get a result that is highly suspect.

2.  Donald Trump is taking aim at NATO and questioning why we should be spending our money to defend places that don't spend their own.  It is dangerous to tell former republics of the Soviet Union we will come to their defense if Russia attacks.  How would we respond if Hawaii and Alaska decide to go it alone and Russia makes a defense treaty with them.  Going "ape shit" would be my guess. Trump is going to get a lot of people nodding their heads in agreement with his anti NATO spending plan.  I have been thinking for a long time that the US  should just pull its forces back from most of the areas in the world we have them and tend to business in this country.  Isolationism I know some will say, but we are spending billions on places in the world where the money would do more good here at home.  George McGovern use to say in 1972 "Come Home America".

3.  New Jersey legislature has come up a plan to fund the highway construction program in the state by raising a sales tax (gas tax) every gallon purchased and compromising with anti tax conservatives by ending the estate tax and giving back other tax breaks to select groups, like seniors and veterans.  So conservatives that want to re-distribute wealth.  Well this is exactly what this plan is.  It shifts the burden of paying for transportation needs from the very wealthy to the middle class and poor.