I try not to look at much Trump coverage on You Tube. But Roger Stone’s discussion of Dwight Eisenhower at 14 minutes, followed by the discussion of the presidents of the 1920s and 30s was quite interesting. Overall, the video was well worth the time, especially the voting machine rigging information.
This Stone fellow is a sharp political commentator. His fear that the Clintons will have the election stolen is palpable, as it should be. It is about time that our rulers reassert the naked hand of power and dispense with subtly.
Stone is full of shit.
Under Eisenhower, DoD's spending was significantly higher than it was under Nixon, Johnson, Carter and Reagan, both as a percentage of total federal/public spending and as a percentage of gross national product.
I'm looking at the numbers in Edward Luttwak's book, The Pentagon and the Art of War, page 214.
Eisenhower is presented by the media and official history sources as some sort of popular hero who stood up to the "military industrial complex," where in reality he was entirely a creature of that complex and the forces to which it answered.
For a look at how Eisenhower rose from a Lieutenant Colonel with no significant achievements or war record to his name to Supreme Commander of the European Theater in a few years, I recommend Killing Patton (which may or may not be correct in its central premise.)
B,
Thanks for the information. I am putting off any deep reading on this past century until 2019. I figure it will take me that long to go through the Maryland Archives for the slavery project. Until then I enjoy glimpses of this much massaged subject. Any quotes, links or book recommendations are appreciated.
I would not trust Stone for a minute as he is a political functionary. His assertions will be worth following up to either disprove or prove. I'm guessing half of what he claimed about these former presidents was whitewash with the other half having at least a grain of truth. We can almost guarantees that 60% of everything that these people from Right and Left say or write is BS.
What fascinates me about Stone is his seduction of Molyneux. Stefan acts like a virgin at an orgy with these right wingers he has been embracing and Stone is the pervert with the whip!
A year or more ago Molyneux was trying [and I would say largely succeeding] to look at things according to his espoused libertarian principles, which I largely disagree with. He was at least principled and a source of mostly clean information. Now he acts like a Greek sailor on a sinking ship. I wonder what terrified him so? Witnessing the jellification of his ideological spine is fascinating.
I'm reading "The Pentagon's Brain, An Uncensored History of DARPA, America's Top-Secret Military Research Agency" by Annie Jacobsen. It's interesting and I'm learning about a lot stuff I hadn't heard before. In case you don't know DARPA is the Defense departments independent agency that only does crazy far off shit. Stuff they know they need but don't know how to do. I think they mostly invented the internet. They do stuff like find how to inject nano magnets into the bloodstream and use magnetic fields to stop woulds, super no sleep pills, powered fighting suits, etc.
Eisenhower did some crazy shit. He sent all kinds of film and electronic spy planes into the USSR. A bunch were shot down. It wasn't just the U2.
I'm going to have to read "killing Patton" I think it would interest me. I read reviews.
If you want some excellent books to read put the books on this guys sidebar(scroll down to Books of Influence on the right). I've read a lot of these. I would say make sure and read
The Pursuit of Power: Technology, Armed Force, and Society since A.D. 1000, William H. McNeill
Plagues and Peoples, William H. McNeill
The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, Kennedy
Debt: The First 5000 Years, Graeber
McNeill is really good.
"The Sovereign Individual: Mastering the Transition to the Information Age" James Dale Davidson
Absolutely excellent book that explains large Macroeconomic financial and societal events and how it effects governments and people. It's a series all of them are good but are a little dated and he got some timelines wrong. He expected complete collapse and it hasn't happened yet. His whole thesis is the same as Mao's. Remember Mao said power comes out of the barrel of a gun. Davidson says that society is based on what type of technology exists and how that technology changes the power of offense vs. defense. An example. For hundreds of years small principalities in Europe built castles and had small states. Cannons were built, the castles were blown down and all of sudden you have large States like France, Germany, Austria. It was not the people it was the cannons that made the States large.
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