1. “I Don’t Like Ike
Indeed, the entire Cold War ideology was invented by Harry Truman and his advisers in 1948 as: 1.) a political trick to keep from losing more congressional backing, 2.) a way to circumvent political pressure for postwar disarmament, and 3.) a method to maintain U.S. industrial dependence on government spending, particularly with regard to American corporations operating overseas.
It was an unprecedented form of peacetime socialism, designed to appeal to big business, and Eisenhower became its spokesman. Savvy libertarians knew exactly what was going on and supported Cold War opponent Robert Taft for the Republican nomination in 1952. But the nomination was effectively stolen by Eisenhower, with massive establishment backing. He repaid his backers with his support and expansion of Truman’s program.
It’s true that his farewell speech warned against “unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex,” and this is the part that people remember. But Eisenhower himself entrenched this very machinery in American life, virtually inventing the peacetime armaments industry and imposing military regimentation on the country. His approach was fundamentally un-American; or, another way to put it, he redefined what it meant to be an American. Instead of a free people, he forged a program for the permanent militarization of the country.
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His buildup was not limited to the arms sector; it penetrated every aspect of civilian life. Our schools were made to feature scary and abusive drills to practice what children should do if the Russians should drop bombs on their heads. An entire generation was raised with irrational fears of mythical threats.
Then there was the catastrophic Interstate Highway System, which was not built to make your trip to the beach go faster. Its purpose was to permit the military to move troops quickly. There were also cockamamie schemes of driving nuclear bombs around on those highways to prevent the commies from keeping track of them.
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Given all this, the notion that Eisenhower was worried about the military-industrial complex is preposterous. He was devoted to it.”
http://www.amconmag.com/blog/ikes-last-stand/i-dont-like-ike/
2. “Naw, There’s been no Right Wing Extreme Rhetoric
Limbaugh responded to his critics, saying “Do not kid yourself. What this is all about is shutting down conservative media. That’s what this is all about. Shutting down any and all political opposition.”
Limbaugh is admitting that the only way his version of the Republican Party can succeed politically is to engage in hate speech and whip up dangerous emotions, and he considers any pressure to back off these ugly techniques of demagoguery to be a “shutting down” of conservatism. That is, were he to have to fight fair, he would inevitably lose out to Democratic voices of reason.
No wonder the Right is pushing back so hard for its right to put people in the cross-hairs.”
http://www.juancole.com/
3. “Hate Speech” and the Risks of Free Speech
Madison’s misanthropy is more than justified by the media’s screaming rabble-rousers and by Palin’s smart-alec thuggishness. But Madison also understood that “the most common and durable source of factions has been the various and unequal distribution of property.” (Ibid) Put another way, the human tendency toward disputatious vehemence is increased by inequality and insecurity.
Thus, it is a useless, if pretty, piety to urge everyone to be “civil” in their discourse. The reason for the inflamed nature of present political debate in the United States is that the country is in decline and economic inequality and insecurity have destroyed our social and cultural fabric. This creates a terminal downward spiral because the insecurity-generated yelling and accusing prevents the emergence of fair and reasonable solutions to economic and social problems whose very gravitational pull is aggravated by the inflamed rhetoric generated.
To make matters even worse, some of the very forces which generate the economic inequality also finance the spewing of inflamed rhetoric which they then assert needs to be controlled in the name of personal or national safety.
It is a false consciousness to think that “civility” in discourse can be restored by political correctness or laws against seditious incivility. A greater modicum of civility will be restored to political discourse when and only when our civis itself becomes more fair and just and when we cease chasing after the chimera of militarized security. That will be a hard reversal to manage.”
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=22730
