Classic Video

by Dick Mac

In 1961, as he was leaving the White House, President Dwight D. Eisenhower, a general and conservative Republican, spoke candidly about the danger of a military-industrial complex taking control of the United States government.

He was ignored, of course, as is anyone who speaks ill of the purchase and sale of the federal government by businessmen. Hawks who use the fear of invasion and the promotion of xenophobia to scare Americans into voting against their own best interests.

Otherwise intelligent people think it's a good idea to continue this course of America's development. They will argue that they are opposed to the federal government collecting too many taxes and creating too many regulations, but they then vote for candidates who have every intention of increasing taxes to give to industry (especially the armamnets industry), and have every intention of restricting personal freedom by creating laws designed to regulate social behavior while they eliminate laws that regulate industrial behavior.

These otherwise intelligent people generally register to vote as Republicans, call themselves "conservatives" or "fiscal conservatives," are very angry at President Obama, support political candidates who are some of the worst actors in the history of electoral politics promoting platforms that are an embarrassment to humanity, and join tea parties because they are taxed enough already.

If these people could look back a little further than Saint Ronald Reagan, they would see that real conservatives warn of exactly the type of govenrment promoted by today's so-called conservatives and their little tea parties.

Listen to President Eisenhower's speech, and he will illuminate for you the degree to which today's tea partiers and "conservatives" are off-track.