This has been the way of life forged by 8 years of fear and force.
What can the world, or any nation in it, hope for if no turning is found on this dread road?
The worst to be feared and the best to be expected can be simply stated.
The worst is atomic war.
The best would be this: a life of perpetual fear and tension; a burden of arms draining the wealthand the labor of all peoples; a wasting of strength that defies the American system or the Soviet system or any system to achieve true abundance and happiness for the peoples of this earth.
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.
This world in arms in not spending money alone.
It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.
The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities.
It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population.
It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals.
It is some 50 miles of concrete highway.
We pay for a single fighter with a half million bushels of wheat.
We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.
This, I repeat, is the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking.
This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.
These plain and cruel truths define the peril and point the hope that come with this spring of 1953.
This is one of those times in the affairs of nations when the gravest choices must be made, if there is to be a turning toward a just and lasting peace.
Dwight David Eisenhower's warning was as prophetic as it was alarming. Unfortunately we have not heeded his alarm and have proceeded to make Ike a prophet among prophets. Not only has the Military Industrial Complex succeeded in spending all of our money on a useless war they in essence have taken over the entire country and own most all of our industry. In their arrogance they have sent our jobs overseas and are purchasing most of our needs from there also. I wonder what they will do when the rest of the world decides to cut us off from our food, material, and energy sources. If We, the People, ever want to recover our heritage and country we must learn to vote out almost all incumbents not only this November but in the many elections to come until our elected officials begin to actually listen to the people that matter.
by
Hayesml47 (5 articles, 0 quicklinks, 4 diaries, 502 comments)
on Monday, July 28, 2008 at 6:24:23 PM
1 comments
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