AIRPOWER/Cold War - Its literally the first two lines of their hymn

The Something Awful Forums > Archives > Comedy Goldmine > The Goodmine > AIRPOWER/Cold War - Its literally the first two lines of their hymn

shovelbum: Oct 21, 2010; Fun Shoe

Good thing Russia is our friend now and would never do anything stupid or evil!

# ¿ Dec 16, 2010 03:58

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 14:35

shovelbum: Oct 21, 2010; Fun Shoe

Scratch Monkey posted:

On the contrary. Ike was very much aware of how the technology industry was beginning to drive the military, and he was very wary of what would happen once war and defense was put mainly into the hands of the business sector.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rd8wwMFmCeE

You don't even need to wait that until the 60s to get that talk from him. I always found The Chance for Peace a good example of that thinking.

Ike, 1953 posted:

This has been the way of life forged by eight 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 wealth and 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.

I can never get this out of my head, when I am driving through some woefully undeveloped part of America, usually on a terrible road, especially when the radio is telling me about billions and billions spent on private Iraq "reconstruction". At least we're living the best-case scenario and not atomic war!

# ¿ Dec 16, 2010 19:07

shovelbum: Oct 21, 2010; Fun Shoe

iyaayas01 posted:

....

Uh, if that was a serious post....yeah. I'm far from some AMERICA gently caress YEAH LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT type guy, but if you truly believe what you said you have a deeply warped view of the relationship between the PRC government and the Chinese people.

And I'm not just talking CHICOM CENSORSHIP GREAT FIREWALL type poo poo, either.

I wonder if what he is saying is that he thinks that Chinese business and government interests often behave nationalistically, as opposed to strictly in the service of international capitalism. China working to build up their industry rather than sell it overseas to chase bonuses etc. Are powerful Chinese interests in any way "patriotic" in fact? I have no clue.

# ¿ Feb 15, 2012 16:40

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