Eisenhower was the first president I was relatively well aware of (he was elected when I was seven and again when I was eleven) albeit in a child’s way. I still have an IKE tie clip.
But of course he was the President who helped enable the process of formally Christianizing capitalism in response to 'godless Communism'. It was during his …
Eisenhower was the first president I was relatively well aware of (he was elected when I was seven and again when I was eleven) albeit in a child’s way. I still have an IKE tie clip.
But of course he was the President who helped enable the process of formally Christianizing capitalism in response to 'godless Communism'. It was during his administration that “In God We Trust” was added to the currency and 'under God’ was added to the Pledge of Allegiance. Thus began this march toward Christian Nationalism. All such marches tend to start innocuously while few except the committed really aware of what is underway. And it was Eisenhower who enabled and oversaw some of the worst excesses of the CIA’s foreign ‘entanglements', including the Bay of Pigs fiasco.
As to Democratic presidents - we should not forget that a Democrat got us into Vietnam and another who kept us there until our involvement killed 50,000 of my generation, millions of Vietnamese, reduced whole portions of their country to rubble, and tore this country apart in a way we have yet to match even with Trumpism.
We get the leaders we choose. They do not arrive, fully grown from the Head of Zeus. And the recored of our choices is hardly one to inspire some vast level of trust in the process of selection on either side. To my mind we’ve had two great ones, a number of competent if flawed ones, some utter nonentities, and at least three near disasters (Jackson, Johnson, and Trump)
The price paid for being anti-communism not to mention the Cold War and Vietnam and the MacCarthy hearings. Communism never really existed anywhere and where it was called communism it was a failed system of government. Capitalism is a failed system without regulations and wealth redistribution.
Communism never really existed because it always required authoritarians to run it. While idealistic in its conception, it completely failed to take into account the fact that humanity is at least as selfish as it is either empathetic or idealistic. The communist suppression of individual initiative and thus the personal rewards gained thereby reduced producers to virtual automatons, a form of existence not possible unless it is mandated and controlled by force, and even then the current of opposition was always going to make the society too unstable for long duration.
Capitalism, on the other hand, has hardly failed precisely because it greatly rewards the personal intuitive that communism suppresses, although its predatory nature and its regular, savage depredations along with its inherent inequality keep roiling society with jealousy and grievance. But there are too many at the top of the food chain with great incentive to maintain it. and they have too great a capacity for control of the political scene through the power of financial influence and collusion for any kind of failure.
You could also say that our involvement began when we backed the French in Vietnam so that they would back us in Europe against the Russians, something we are now doing in the Ukraine among other far lesser known places. And incidentally, of course, we failed to learn the lessons of the French failure.
We’ve sent military advisors to a number of countries - including South Korea (KMAG of which my best friend was a member) without getting involved in a shooting war, although it is certainly true that some of the ones sent to Vietnam did get involved in actual fighting.
Our Vietnam problem, however, didn’t really begin until we started using our own combat troops against the Viet Cong. Up until then, we could have pulled out of a situation that was already going downhill because of the corruption of the South Vietnamese government and the general lack of purpose and initive in the South Vietnamese military. We decided, unfortunately not for the last time, that the US Army was capable of nation building in addition to making war.
It is ironic to me that the Republicans are making so much of Biden’s pullout from Afghanistan when our pullout from Vietnam under a Republican president was far more humiliating and disastrous. There is no good way out of a bad war.
Eisenhower was the first president I was relatively well aware of (he was elected when I was seven and again when I was eleven) albeit in a child’s way. I still have an IKE tie clip.
But of course he was the President who helped enable the process of formally Christianizing capitalism in response to 'godless Communism'. It was during his administration that “In God We Trust” was added to the currency and 'under God’ was added to the Pledge of Allegiance. Thus began this march toward Christian Nationalism. All such marches tend to start innocuously while few except the committed really aware of what is underway. And it was Eisenhower who enabled and oversaw some of the worst excesses of the CIA’s foreign ‘entanglements', including the Bay of Pigs fiasco.
As to Democratic presidents - we should not forget that a Democrat got us into Vietnam and another who kept us there until our involvement killed 50,000 of my generation, millions of Vietnamese, reduced whole portions of their country to rubble, and tore this country apart in a way we have yet to match even with Trumpism.
We get the leaders we choose. They do not arrive, fully grown from the Head of Zeus. And the recored of our choices is hardly one to inspire some vast level of trust in the process of selection on either side. To my mind we’ve had two great ones, a number of competent if flawed ones, some utter nonentities, and at least three near disasters (Jackson, Johnson, and Trump)
The price paid for being anti-communism not to mention the Cold War and Vietnam and the MacCarthy hearings. Communism never really existed anywhere and where it was called communism it was a failed system of government. Capitalism is a failed system without regulations and wealth redistribution.
Communism never really existed because it always required authoritarians to run it. While idealistic in its conception, it completely failed to take into account the fact that humanity is at least as selfish as it is either empathetic or idealistic. The communist suppression of individual initiative and thus the personal rewards gained thereby reduced producers to virtual automatons, a form of existence not possible unless it is mandated and controlled by force, and even then the current of opposition was always going to make the society too unstable for long duration.
Capitalism, on the other hand, has hardly failed precisely because it greatly rewards the personal intuitive that communism suppresses, although its predatory nature and its regular, savage depredations along with its inherent inequality keep roiling society with jealousy and grievance. But there are too many at the top of the food chain with great incentive to maintain it. and they have too great a capacity for control of the political scene through the power of financial influence and collusion for any kind of failure.
James Quinn: for clarity re U.S. involvement in Viet Nam, please read this more extensive discussion. It includes Eisenhower's sending advisors. http://mahargpress.com/wounded/additional-material/timeline-of-vietnamconflict/
You could also say that our involvement began when we backed the French in Vietnam so that they would back us in Europe against the Russians, something we are now doing in the Ukraine among other far lesser known places. And incidentally, of course, we failed to learn the lessons of the French failure.
We’ve sent military advisors to a number of countries - including South Korea (KMAG of which my best friend was a member) without getting involved in a shooting war, although it is certainly true that some of the ones sent to Vietnam did get involved in actual fighting.
Our Vietnam problem, however, didn’t really begin until we started using our own combat troops against the Viet Cong. Up until then, we could have pulled out of a situation that was already going downhill because of the corruption of the South Vietnamese government and the general lack of purpose and initive in the South Vietnamese military. We decided, unfortunately not for the last time, that the US Army was capable of nation building in addition to making war.
It is ironic to me that the Republicans are making so much of Biden’s pullout from Afghanistan when our pullout from Vietnam under a Republican president was far more humiliating and disastrous. There is no good way out of a bad war.