“Big White Men”

“I always voted Republican… Republicans are the party of big white men. I’m a big white man, so I vote Republican. When George W. Bush came along, he made clear he represented the party of big white men. So I voted for him… It has only been through the administration of George W. Bush that I’ve come to realize that big white men are the men most to be feared in this world” – John Eisenhower, author, former U.S. ambassador to Belgium, brigadier general, and son of our 34th President.


The above words of John Eisenhower were said to Eugene Jarecki during an interview for Jarecki’s book, “The American Way of War – Guided Missiles, Misguided Men, and a Republic in Peril”. Jarecki notes that he failed to get Eisenhower’s words on camera, and he could never get him to expand on those thoughts, but that he would never forget them.
Voicing opinions like that about a sitting war-time President is not something that a high profile person and former military officer does lightly.

Nevertheless, four months later John Eisenhower made public his quitting of the Republican Party, in an editorial in the New Hampshire Union Leader, writing:


Eisenhower’s statement to Jarecki was much more than just a repudiation of the Republican Party and its leaders – which is why Jarecki said he will never forget it. More important, it is a confession, perhaps inadvertent, of long-standing misguided priorities. The fact that “big white men are the men most to be feared in this world” is not something that started with the presidential administration of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. True, it reached new heights under them, but it didn’t start with them. Eisenhower’s statement to Jarecki implicitly acknowledged that by the words “It has only been through the administration of George W. Bush that I’ve come to realize…”

I’ve discussed this issue in previous posts by detailing our long history of slavery, imperialism, militarism, genocide, and regime change of sovereign governments. My dwelling on this issue is not meant as a racial slur on white people. Like John Eisenhower, I am also white. Rather, these facts reflect the reality that white men in general, and the United States of America in particular, hold great power and that they have often abused that power, with devastating consequences to other peoples of the world. It is a statement on the nature and perils of power, and on the need for citizens of democracies to be aware of how their leaders make use of their power.

John Eisenhower’s statement to Jarecki is so significant because it is an admission by an historical figure that our country has gone very wrong – an admission that, contrary to what many American politicians keep on telling us, the United States has definitely NOT been the “greatest force for good in the world”. It is a terribly difficult thing for people to admit that they or their country have been guilty of very serious misdeeds. Yet it is absolutely necessary if we are ever to reverse course.

And it is extremely interesting to me that John Eisenhower’s own father’s career embodies the dilemma that he raised in his interview with Jarecki.


President Eisenhower’s dilemma

Dwight Eisenhower’s mother was a pacifist, and Eisenhower himself was a man of peace – his military career notwithstanding. His discomfort with nuclear weapons and his disagreement with Harry Truman’s decision to use nuclear weapons against Japan in World War II have been well documented. Here is what his son John says about his father’s opinion on the subject:


Eisenhower ended the Korean War six months after he took office, true to his campaign pledge to do so. He long held grave misgivings about the amount of money that our country spent on its military, as noted in his “A chance for peace” speech of April, 1953:


Jarecki notes that Eisenhower was concerned about war profiteering and the military industrial process long before his famous farewell address of 1961, as evidenced in speeches he gave even before he became president. Jarecki describes the role of the newly created CIA (1947) in facilitating war profiteering:


Eisenhower faced great pressure to increase military expenditures, despite his aversion to them. When the USSR developed the hydrogen bomb in 1953, a wave of fear swept the country. Eisenhower’s political opponents repeatedly warned of a “bomber gap” and a “missile gap”, which never existed, but for which they blamed Eisenhower for not spending enough money to address them. Eisenhower’s own Pentagon, allied with the defense industry, repeatedly clamored for vast amounts of money. Jarecki says that an exasperated Eisenhower told Republican leaders he was



Eisenhower’s meddling with the rights of sovereign nations

Given Eisenhower’s aversion to military spending and war-profiteering, one wouldn’t expect him to be the first U.S. president to use the CIA to overthrow sovereign governments for the benefit of corporate interests. Yet, that’s exactly what he did, with long standing tragic results for the nations we overthrew.

Iran 1953
In 1953 Eisenhower’s CIA intervened in Iran to overthrow a popular prime minister, Mohammad Mossadegh, who had done much to improve the lot of the Iranian people. Here is how Stephen Kinzer describes Mossadegh in his book, “All the Shah’s Men – An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror”:


In Mossadegh’s place we installed the dictatorship of Mohammad Reza Shah. This is how Kinzer sums up the effects of the Shah’s rule:


Guatemala 1954
Kate Doyle describes the CIA-sponsored regime change in Guatemala:


Vietnam 1956
The Geneva Conference Agreements, which officially ended the war between France and Vietnam in 1954, provided for general elections which were to bring about the unification of Vietnam in 1956. However, fearing a Communist victory in those elections, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles convinced Eisenhower to prevent those elections from taking place as planned. Eisenhower proclaimed an indefinite commitment by the United States to that effect – a commitment that President Kennedy inherited, and which was subsequently passed on to Presidents Johnson and Nixon.

From the time that we prevented the Vietnamese from holding elections in 1956 as previously agreed, until our withdrawal from Vietnam 17 years later, the justification for our imperial policies there was always to help the Vietnamese to throw of the yolk of Communism, and also to prevent the spread of Communism to other countries.

Reasons
In each of the above three examples, the Eisenhower administration rationalized its actions by citing the need to contain communism. But Communism was not being forced on any of these countries. In Iran and Guatemala, the governments we overthrew were not Communist. They were elected leftist governments that tolerated Communists. In Vietnam, the Eisenhower administration prevented an election that probably would have resulted in a Communist government. But what moral right did we have to prevent any of these countries from having the government that they desired?

In Iran and Guatemala, a more important reason for the CIA-sponsored overthrow may very well have been the furthering of corporate interests. In Iran, the overthrow of Mossadegh enabled American and British oil companies to obtain access to Iranian oil. In Guatemala, the overthrow of Arbenz furthered the interests of the United Fruit company. In Vietnam there appears to have been no corporate interests involved. The fear of Communism may have been the only motive in that case.

It’s difficult to know Eisenhower’s true motivations. Why would a man who in many other ways demonstrated himself to be a man of peace do such things? Stephen Ambrose, Eisenhower’s biographer, who considered him a great president, had this to say (p 147) about his use of the CIA to achieve regime change in Iran:


Jarecki seems unable to make sense of it:


In summary: Lots of questions, no good answers.


Warnings and Confessions

There have been precious few Americans to occupy the highest rungs of power, who later acknowledged the profiteering aspects of our wars. Here are three:

Smedley Butler
In 1935, Major General Smedley Butler, the most decorated marine in U.S. history, warned the American people of the dangers of war profiteering, while acknowledging his role in it:


Dwight D. Eisenhower
President Eisenhower gave us a less radical warning on a similar subject in his farewell address of January 1961. Unlike Butler, he did not imply that war profiteering had historically been an issue in our country. Nor did he imply that our military was currently too big. Nor did he acknowledge any culpability. Rather, he simply warned us that, due to the rapidly increasing size and reach of our vast military apparatus, there may come a time in the not too distant future when it presents a serious problem for us. Still, it was a very radical speech for a U.S. President:


John Perkins
Perkins wrote two books, “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man” and “The Secret History of the American Empire”, in which he exposes American and corporate corruption from an insider’s viewpoint, admitting his own role in the process. He explains his basic role like this:


In his second book he describes how he finally broke free from his dark side:


And then he wrote his books.


An example of “big white men” in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina

A. C. Thompson recently wrote an article in The Nation titled “Katrina’s Hidden Race War – In New Orleans’s Algiers Point, white vigilantes shot African-Americans with impunity.” It is a ghastly story of how, freed from the reach of the law, under cover of a catastrophe, a bunch of racist white men in a white enclave of New Orleans formed a militia to prevent black people from using their neighborhood as a sanctuary from death. Several horrific examples are provided in the article. Thompson describes how the racist militias thought of themselves:


The historian Lance Hill provides some perspective on what happened, noting that “Some white New Orleanians think of themselves as an oppressed minority”:


I include this story here because it seems to me that it operates on the same principle as do many U.S. global actions, but on a local rather than on a world-wide scale.


“Big white men” in perspective

What I hoped to do in this post is raise the issue of how people rationalize their evil behavior by proclaiming how virtuous they are. “I’m not a prejudiced individual, but you just know the outlaws who are up to no good…” says a white racist vigilante – thereby justifying the killing of innocent black people. “The United States is the greatest force for good in the world” we are repeatedly told by our politicians – thereby justifying literally anything that we do in the world.

On rare occasions high profile individuals see the light and come out publicly with surprising revelations, warnings, or admissions. John Eisenhower, at the age of 80, finally realized that “Big white men are the men most to be feared in this world”, and he therefore quit the Republican Party. His father warned us of the military industrial complex at the end of his presidency, though he had known about it for a long time before that, and even participated in it. Smedley Butler and John Perkins went much further, publicly admitting their evil deeds, and going on a sort of crusade to warn the people of the world about how the world is run.

I very much admire these people for doing these things. Self-criticism is one of the most difficult things in the world – and it is absolutely necessary if the world is going to survive.

When I was younger I sometimes wondered about what it would be like to be President of the United States – though I don’t recall ever actually wanting to hold that office. I always felt that the biggest argument against doing that job, even if it miraculously fell into my lap, would be that I would be routinely called upon and expected to commit deeply immoral acts. That is, it seemed to me that a U.S. President is expected to put the “national interest” so much above all else that he is expected to think nothing of exterminating the lives of thousands (or millions), so long as it advances the “national interest”. Since then I have come to believe that such a dilemma does not in reality exist, because immoral acts do not really advance the national interest. One could write a whole book on that thought alone, so I won’t expand on it further here. But I will say that I believe there are only a minority of Americans who agree with me on that point.

Now that we have our first African-American President, some might expect to see a sea change in the way that our country views the world. That could happen. I certainly hope so. But it is not a given. President Obama will be faced with the same pressures that all U.S. Presidents have been faced with. The fact that he is black may even increase that pressure. We know that he will be a significant improvement over George W. Bush. But will he go beyond that, to lead Americans to see their role in the world in a very different way than they have historically seen it? I hope that he will, but I’m afraid that he won’t.

Any more than all big black men.

Just sayin.

I said that in my post.

When John Eisenhower provided his quote about "big white men" to Jarecki, he was essentially using that term as a metaphor for men who wield a great deal of power. It just so happens that over the past few hundred years at least, white men have wielded more power and influence than other races.

I'm white. I'm neither proud nor ashamed of that fact. I was born that way. That doesn't make me bad, and it doesn't make me good. I believe that people should be judged not by how much power they have, but what they choose to do with that power.

Tragically, the world situation is such today that to a very large extent, the powerful abuse and steal from the powerless. Yet, in our country, there are way too many people IMO who areen't concerned about that. Instead, they see U.S. domination over other nations as something to be proud of, which they see as a sign of their "patriotism".

Those are the kinds of things I was trying to say.

As far as your last line goes -- 'what you were trying to say' -- I believe I was going "ding, ding, ding, ding, ding," in agreement (and appreciation), as I read through the whole thing.

Really nice work.

It's an uphill job, trying to convince most folks that there's something out of sight (but by no means "subtle") that's seriously, fundamentally affected our country's foreign policy, for the worse, for a very long time.

Readers who are foreign-born, or in some way affiliated or familiar with ethnic or racial minorities of one variety or another (ding, ding) probably find it easier to accept.

It doesn't help that many Americans' grasp of history and geography is probably below the level of the average 5th grade Hungarian's, Dane's, or Filipino's!

http://www.sing365.com/music/lyric.nsf/Bebot-lyrics-Black-Eyed-Peas/6122FDF72446321748257013000F644A

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQAGh3JViyI

The lowest-common-denominator Major Media, in the perpetual chase for highest-per-quarter profits, instead of "raising the bar," spend too much time "stepping aside," accelerating the free fall race-to-the-bottom.

It's Old School Afro-Pop (not as current even as Fergie & Co.) but another song that gives some expression to the basic attitude is this one:

http://www.last.fm/music/Johnny+Clegg+and+Savuka/_/Third+World+Child

I've thought a lot about this, partly because I believe that the fate of the world depends upon it as much or more than anything else. As long as the powerful control things and live life just for themselves, let the rest of the world be damned, this world will go to hell. The problems we face are difficult enough in the best of circumstances. If we can't learn to work and live together as a world community, so to speak, there is no hope for us.

or perish together as fools."
(Martin Luther King)

Much of what you posted helps fill in some blanks most of us have regarding foreign policy. You did a great job of compiling and organizing with the necessary commentary to make this one of the best OPs I've seen here. And Happy New Year to the DU community. Time to open the champagne.
May your best days of 2008 be equal to the worst of 2009.

Happy New Year to you!

I know the archetype well. A powerful white man who needs the world to see and recognize he's a big, powerful man and if you don't, there's going to be hell to pay.

It's been like this since Agamemnon.

It's 2008, and they're still playing "King of the Hill" for keepers.

power is a tool that can be abused by anyone...small black women too, hehe.

But I'm glad I'm not big and white enough to be a repig.

very nicely said. Thanks for taking the time to put this together for us.

This deserves to be on the front page.

This topic is of great interest to me. I believe that the fate of the world depends on finding a solution to it.

"In Vietnam there appears to have been no corporate interests involved. The fear of Communism may have been the only motive in that case."

For one thing, there is a great deal of offshore oil in the Gulf of Tonkin and the South China Sea. I have personal knowledge of US oil exploration going on there quite massively in '68 and before. Also, Vietnam was a major exporter of rice before the war, and a major source of rubber, and of a variety of minerals including gold, tin, zinc & others.

The French colonized it in 1880, and held on, exploiting the people and the resources, until forced out in 1954 (Dien Bien Phu).

Vietnam may have a lot of resources of potential interest, but I've never read of any benefit that U.S. corporations received from them or any attempt to exploit them. Unlike Iran, where our oil companies benefited greatly and were clearly interested in a coup, and Guatemala, where United Fruit benefited greatly and was clearly interested in a coup, I'm not aware of any similar situation in Vietnam. That doesn't mean that corporate interests weren't part of the issue, but I've never read anything to that effect. Maybe that's simply because our war was unsuccessful. Do you have any references on that?

On the other hand, anti-Communism was a real motivating factor in Vietnam. Much of our country was gripped by anti-Communism hysteria, and from the LBJ biographies I've read, so was LBJ, who was the one who escalated our involvement into a major war. I believe that his anti-Communism motivation was way out of proportion to any real threat that a Vietnamese Communist state posed to us, but I also believe that his anti-Communist motivation was real.

Not that that excuses our refusing to let them choose their own government.

I imagine Dow and Monsanto made a lot off of Agent Orange, initially.

of someone, mostly the invaders. This holds true whether the profit involved oil, coal, land acquisition, spices, gold, rubber, sugar, bananas, coffee, tin, silver, slaves, diamonds, ivory, or whatever resource had the most value at the time.
Very often religion/patriotism was used as a way to fire up the people so they would enthusiastically take part in the war, but the underlying foundation for every war always starts with economics.
I think Smedley Butler said as much in his book, "War is a Racket". While he may have been discussing only WWI, his concepts apply universally, thru time and space.



One could say these exact words about Bush and Iraq as well as every other war..

Compare modern business interests to the old fiefs, and consider how a fief was obtained and held: you fought for the king when he went land-grabbing.

The greatest difference that I can see, in the modern Democratic era, is the fief-holders MAKE the king go warring so they can expand the borders of their fiefs.

It is probable that in all modern wars waged by imperial powers such as the United States there is an element of war profiteering as a motivation, and probable also that in most such wars it is the MAIN motivation. And we should always be suspicious of that as a motivating factor. But that doesn't necessarily mean that it is the main motivation in all of our wars.

There were many aspects to the anti-Communism that gripped our country during the Cold War (and which still grips our country today to a large extent). I'm sure that at least part of it had to do with a fear that the military might of the USSR posed a grave danger to our country. Many people believed the propaganda of the "bomber gap" and the "missile gap". When they first developed the atom bomb, and then the hydrogen bomb, that substantially intensified our fears.

Then there was also the ideological aspect of it. I talk about that in this post. Many (including me) believe that that was a big part of it -- that many of our leaders and corporate elites feared that if Communism or socialism succeeded anywhere in the world, that would tempt Americans to demand the same. It fits right in with the right wing hatred of labor unions, and their declaration that labor unions were a first step on the "slippery slope to Communism".

I'm just saying that I wouldn't underestimate anti-Communism feelings as part of the motivations for some of our wars and CIA manipulations during the Cold War.

in the name of war do it for honor/god/pride or some other concept that doesn't put food on the table.

"Many people believed the propaganda of the "bomber gap" and the "missile gap". When they first developed the atom bomb, and then the hydrogen bomb, that substantially intensified our fears."
According to Dr. Strangelove it was the "mineshaft gap" that was threatening us.
Interesting how satire can shine the light of honesty on fabricated bullshit.

See Chomsky, you can find it online, I'm sure, in some variation on that.

was rooted in political expediency because Joe McCarthy made up a myth that we were being taken over by communists that infiltrated the federal government.
He stood on the Capital steps and held up a piece of paper declaring it was a list of communists working in the State Department. It was a menu and Joe was drunk. The fear he created lasted long after his bones were interred.
When it was determined that Vietnam's oil reserves were grossly exaggerated, the U.S. began making plans to pull out our combat forces. When our combat forces were withdrawn OPEC knew we couldn't use that as a hedge against higher crude prices and shut the spigot until we were willing to pay more.
Communism never was a threat, and going to war in Vietnam to stop its spread was a scam and foreign policy disaster fomented by a president from Texas who took office under unusual circumstances.
I believe it was Bush the elder who said we need a bogeyman because you can't make money without a bogeyman.
May we all live long enough to see the Nazi scumbags put on trial at the Hague.

With regard to McCarthy, he certainly fanned the flames of anti-Communism in our country, but he didn't originate it.

There is good evidence and widespread belief that the main reason Truman used the atomic bomb against Japan was to serve as a warning against the USSR. And before that, we intervened in the Russion Civil War as early as 1918, to stamp out Communism. And before that, we repeatedly imprisoned the perennial Socialist candidate for President for speaking his mind.

dumber then than I am now, but since that time I've read about the oil in Vietnam and had my Aha! moment. So that was what the war was about, along with all the war profiteering. Even as a young teen, I knew it wasn't about Communism. Too many adults around me at the time hated Communism and knew virtually nothing about it. That was my clue that it wasn't any real reason for war. Communism was just a football game cheer and the Vietnam war was just a game.

talked about the importance of securing Vietnam for it's wood (teak, I believe) and minerals. No mention of communism at all.

Personally, I think it's a case of the business establishment once again setting policy, and selling it with fear.

peace~

Then it was the big black men like the Egyptians, then the big brownish men like the Persians. Then it was the big white men, the Greeks. Then the big white men, the Romans, Then it was the big white men, the Huns and Goths and Visigoths. Then it was the big yellow men, the Mongols, and the big brown and black men, the Moors.

Then it was the big yellow men, the Chinese. Then it was the big white men, the Europeans. Then it was the big white men the Americans.

Which big men will be next?

Great post, Time for change.

--gulp-- Sarah Palin come to mind. And our own dear Hillary, who seems to love war as much as the men do.

I think it's a HUMAN condition. The animal in us always dominates.

queen of the universe instead of the paternal god. And I agree with you and BELIEVE it would have been a less warlike world, but now we have no way of knowing.

Have you ever read a book "When God Was a Woman"? If not, it's a very interesting read.

Not everyone, though. I read "When God Was a Woman" years ago, and I haven't been the same since. Even though I was a longtime feminist already when I read it.

than female or male and encompasses both.

though I have to run to do errands right now, so can't sit and think out loud here....

but it is a conundrum, how women are among those utilized and even victimized by many "Big White Men" (actually, this is a worldwide phenomenon, men <=> women, not just white) to reinforce their control (self-concept of power).

In fact, it seems that the men-dominating-women equation may be the original, fundamental power dynamic.

Yet so many of us tacitly accept it, or even participate wholeheartedly. I'm not talking about the positive harmonious, mutually supportive aspects of the equation, or the conscious, joyful play within that dynamic that people also enjoy. I'm talking about its negative expression.

but that devil testosterone makes men chimps while women are more like bonobos.

Most men have just one Y chromosome, and women don't have any. But some men (a small percentage) have two Y chromosomes. Those men are 10 times as likely to end up in prison as are men with only one Y chromosome. They're more violent and aggressive and prone to criminal activity than are men with only one Y chromosome. I'm not sure if they have more testosterone than men with only one Y chromosome -- I don't doubt that they do.

I tossed out testosterone as masculine attribute (I know women have it, too, in smaller quantities), but the Y chromosome is more of a masculine attribute.

Thanks.

This is the first time I've ever heard of it. How is that even possible? The ovum always has an X chromosome--only the sperm can be either X or Y.

except that now, with our modern weaponry and the earth's capacity reaching its limits, our destructive power is greater than has ever been the case.

Bookmarked.
K & R

Thank you for your insightful contributions to our DU discussions. Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to you!

He was far from perfect, but there isn't a single Republican out there today with his character.

He would be furious that his party has been taken over by a cowardly scumbag like Rush Limbaugh. Absolutely furious.

He's certainly much better than any Republican President we've had since him. He and TR were the best Republican Presidents of the 20th Century.

His reaction to today's Republican Party would have been like that of his son, except it probably would have occurred much sooner.

:toast:

I love doing these posts :toast:

magazines, if not a front page story
:thumbsup: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause:

Wouldn't that be great if it was.

again, awesome work TfC...


drat I have to run, we have errands to do...no time to write some of the thoughts that come to mind


one quick thought though, before I run---
as a woman, it makes me wonder about how so many of the "big WhiteMen" treat women as a convenience or worse, magnifying their own "bigness"--
and so many of us women cooperate in this construct...

My opinion on that subject is that there is probably a strong correlation between men who support or participate in violence against other men or other nations and men who are abusive towards women. That makes sense to me, but I don't recall any research on the subject.

"Given Eisenhower’s aversion to military spending and war-profiteering,"

Eisenhower wasn't at all averse to military spending, in fact it was primarily due to his machinations, both as a general and as a president, that we wound up having such huge military expenditures. An interesting book to read on this subject is "Secret Empire" by Phillip Taubmann. It details just exactly how the military industrial complex got its start under Eisenhower, and how Eisenhower's Farewell Address was equal part warning and atonement for the fact that he had unleashed the military industrial complex.

Other than that, nice post.

I think Eisenhower was a complex figure.

Certainly he could have done more to decrease military spending than he did. But he did a lot better than a lot of other presidents in that regard. He ended the Korean War 6 months after taking office -- which is something that I can't see any of his successors doing, except for JFK, Carter, or Clinton.

And this speech here is not what I would expect from someone who wasn't concerned about military spending:


But I'm sure he felt a lot of competing pressures on him from different directions. Certainly his actions in Iran, Guatemala, and Vietnam were tragic mistakes. I'll look into "Secret Empire".

"What happened? Just five years earlier, Eisenhower had warned the faculty and students of Columbia of the threat posed to freedom by “private pressure groups” and “the power of concentrated finance.” Did he not see that these very forces were guiding America’s actions in Iran and Guatemala? Had a blind spot emerged in his thinking? Worst of all, was Eisenhower seduced by the power afforded him by the newly formed CIA? ... The covert activity undertaken on his watch is a dark underside of his presidency. Given the widespread fears of the time and the formidable influence of McCarthy on the domestic landscape, one can fairly see how any president could have been drawn into the vortex …"

I view Eisenhower's misuse of power and speeches against it as an alcoholic or drug addict warning about the dangers of their dependencies. Logically, they know better, but emotionally if not physically, they're not always successful in abstaining from their vice. I imagine Eisenhower was under tremendous pressure from many wealthy, powerful directions trying to influence his course of action against his better judgment. Even though he could see the bubble and warn about the adverse consequences of this dynamic, the bubble still constrained him, such is the power of influence. I believe his farewell address was an acknowledgment of this growing danger.

I also believe he was correct, as the out sized military industrial complex, he warned against has now compromised the corporate media as well. I believe this was the primary lesson, the military industrial complex took from Vietnam, control or own the messengers, so as to prevent the American People from receiving any messages regarding the devastating consequences of war, feed the people Pablum so as to curtail their growth and maintain their infantile view of the world. I believe another thread floating around here stated the corporate media have basically pulled out of Iraq and Afghanistan. We're at war and there is no reporting of it by them, you might catch an occasional "Frontline" on public television but corporate T.V. "News" has abandoned their responsibility to inform the American People.

The upshot being, that today, the bubble which enveloped the Presidency or vortex which sucked Eisenhower in has grown in size to distort the American People's reality as well. Any medium attempting to buck this irresistible force is assimilated, this may be happening to NPR, this may also be happening to the History Channel. I believe we must be ever vigilant to protect the last, best bastion of free speech, that being the Internet, I have no doubt they will relentlessly do their best to neutralize that growing immovable object of the people's free will as well, greed and the lust for power have no expiration date.

Thanks for the thread, Time for change.:thumbsup:

What would we ever do without it?

I guess your use of the drug addict metaphor to describe Eisenhower's misuse of power makes as much sense as anything else I can think of. I just don't know. All I could say about it in this OP was "Lots of questions, no good answers". Not much of a conclusion, but I think that this is a very complex issue. Most of all, I think that our understanding of the pressures that our elected representatives face, including our President, is limited. I'm sure it's limited by design, by the forces you speak of in your post.

Which reminds me of a passage from Perkins' book. Perkins was relating what he was told by an anonymous friend:


I was very surprised to read that, but on the other hand it doesn't surprise me a bit that such things go on at high levels. Just surprised that someone would write something like that. Maybe Perkins was too high profile by that time to be done away with. But still, I would think that the temptation to assassinate him would be great, if for no other reason than to send a message to others who might be tempted to follow in his footsteps.

it's not just the misuse of power it's the combination of that with the succumbing to peer pressure or group think.

By nature the wealthy and powerful are the closest thing to peers for a President, their voices are without a doubt the predominant voices, a President hears.

When one segment of this group dominates the rest, thereby monopolizing the President's attention, they become that President's reality. The same can hold true for alcohol or drugs.

It is a very unfortunately fact of our political system that our elected representatives get so much of their advice from their wealthy and powerful peers. But it is true. And I don't know what it would take for a President to resist that kind of thing.

My opinion is that Carter did about as well a job of that as any President we've had since WW II. And I think that JFK did too, in his later years -- which was probably a reason for his assassination.

Carter paid the political price he did.

I recall after the hostages were taken, that was the beginning of ABC's "Nightline" they began every program literally by counting the days, the hostages were held, Day 1, Day 2, Day 3 etc, etc. Some nights, they barely mentioned Iran, but they made a point of counting the days.

I don't believe they've counted a single day since "Mission Accomplished" in Iraq under corporate puppet Bush took place.

As for JFK, he may have understood Eisenhower's message all too well.

That's a very good point about the difference between the media's handling of Carter's hostage crisis vs. our occupation of Iraq.

be mighty insecure...hence wars, violence, meanness, testiness, etc.

It's so damn tiring and so damn obvious, but no one seems to call them on it. Is it because the big white men will kill you if you speak the Truth?

See post # 47, above.

And see this:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=5495235&mesg_id=5495235