Many in the Colorado Springs Justice and Peace Commission seem enamored with Eisenhower, and even wear caps with ‘I Like Ike’ on them, and carry banners highlighting his one speech supposedly warning about the Military-Industrial complex.
Far from warning us of the dangers of this beast though, Eisenhower brought the beast home to bite America big. I cannot bring myself to ‘like Ike’ as they seem to do.
One aspect of ‘Ike’ was how he was the master of the witch hunt. Most know that Joe McCarthy rose and fell during Eisenhower’s time in office, but too many believe that it was ‘Ike’ that stopped him, and deny that ‘Ike’ made the McCarthy Era happen. If you read the wikipedia info on McCarthy, one will even discover that Robert Kennedy was an employee of Joe McCarthy. The Kennedy’s were in bed with this sick maniac, and so was Eisenhower.
Eisenhower finally had to make some distance from McCarthy, but in no way did he distance himself from witch hunting, red baiting, and homo baiting. Similarly, he gave one speech supposedly distancing himself from the Military-Industrial complex, but his entire career was based on feeding that machine, and enlarging it. To hold this one speech by him high up as being an important and defining one is insane. Will one day some liberal folk focus on some speech by George Dubya talking about the need for compassionate conservatism and enshrine that speech in myth, too? Let’s hope not.
During ‘Ike”s presidency, the US almost started a nuclear bombing and invasion of China, and these years were the coldest of the Cold War. Put simply, I don’t like Ike and there is little reason for any even moderately liberal person in the US to like him either. It’s time to put in their graves these two mistaken J&P banners quoting Eisenhower on one, and Henry Ford on another. Henry Ford, too, was an American fascist thug of a previous era like Ike. It is sad to see proPeace activists carrying quotes from these two Right Wingers.
These two banners should be thrown in the garbage can and never again be used here in Colorado Springs. If not done soon, I think I will make up some banner quoting Joseph Stalin on the need for Peace (Yes, he certainly spoke to that many a time) and carry it side by side with the ‘Ike’ and Ford ones. Maybe then????? these nice pacifist liberals might get the message about how dismaying their choice of wording on these two banners really appears? Who knows?