Duke Cunningham is getting unfair billing: they say (Mercury News) it was 'extreme' corruption.
Nope. About average, from what I see. Check out the Big Dig. It's passed the two decade mark and Boston is still a place where willingness to drive is proof you're a menace to yourself and those around you.
The only good Kennedy is a Dead Kennedy, but even they aren't that great without Jello Biafra.
The famous 'military-industrial complex' speech Ike parted with, think about this:
Ike was a politician. Yes, he was a general, which is to say he reached a high executive post in a very political system, the military. As in most things, promotion may be based on merit, but to reach such lofty heights, the 'merit' is probably largely the result of those below the person taking the credit and advancement. And war hero or not, you don't get to the Oval Office (or even Congress) without being a masterful politician. This means fooling some people and buying off the rest until you have a sufficient 'majority.'
I think Ike was as corrupt as Reagan, Clinton, Carter, LBJ, and the Bushes. Oh, and those 'dead' Kennedys (the living ones too). I'd say if Ike was freaked out at all by what he saw, it had to be pretty extreme. Like making a mess that will gag a plumber, if you actually outrage a politician, wow.
Think about it, the New Deal and all the other jerkoff tricks FDR pulled did fuckall for the economy. The real problem was the Federal Reserve, but he couldn't fix that (and didn't want to), but war had a beautiful way of generating prosperity while making Hamburg and Dresden into ovens and Hiroshima and Nagasaki into nuclear test sites.
Not to take away from the Holocaust. An atrocity with offspring (Israel).
But the U.S. press-ganged a bunch of resources into place to win the war and then there was no war. We had zero competition.
I believe it's as likely as not that the 'red' bomb Russia detonated while America was just trying to listen to a baseball game, was built from leaked info. If we didn't give them the info they needed to make a mushroom cloud, I'm sure we would have.
No, I don't think Russians wouldn't have figured the trick out, but if they needed a nudge, I'm sure we would have provided it.
Why?
Because you can't build an empire with no opposition. Since the 'savages' of a country doesn't wash as an argument a time when the U.K. and France were coming to their senses about having colonies at all, we needed cover building our own (Japan, Germany, etc.) We needed a rival capable of inspiring the insane tax-and-spend policies to keep dividends up at defense sub-contractors. Since the USSR fell apart and the war on drugs is mainly a way of extending Jim Crow (my advice, if you must do coke, be white), we now wage war on 'terrorists.' All part of the same sick system.
We need a scary enemy, even if it's a freak in the dessert we once armed against the Soviets, and even if he goes too far knocking down skyscraper, we need Osama if we can't have Stalin. I fact, since anything from a Zippo lighter to a dirty bomb is a potential terrorist threat, Osama makes a better enemy if you make a profit from America's lack of national security.
I'm not saying be light on Duke. I'm saying, while you have the hot tar and feathers handy, why not make a clean sweep? I'd even tar and feather Ron Paul since he voted for the first Patriot Act...
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