It was a fairly innocuous speech for that time and place in American history until it got to this part:
The conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence-economic, political, even spiritual-is felt in every city, every state house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.
That, dear readers, was the equivalent of firing a warning flare above the heads of the American people with the intent of counseling them that freedom and democracy as they know it can easily be undermined and impeded by a citizenry that is apathetic and disengaged in the crucial role of maintaining a taut leash on the profit-driven armaments industries in the country.
Dwight D. Eisenhower had seen and participated in the folly and savagery of war, and knew damn well that the only people who were measurably benefiting from it were the people running the arms corporations and the wealthy elites who comprised their investor base.
For sharing his wisdom and insight in such a public manner, The Gadfly looks upon Eisenhower as one of the godfathers of political dissent - someone not afraid to speak up when he sees threats to the inherent decency and benignity of the American way of life, and unafraid to look the enemies, existential or hypothetical, straight in the eye and caution them that we the people are being vigilant of their actions and activities and will not hesitate to draw a line in the sand when it comes to safeguarding the freedom and liberty that our forefathers fought and died for and which have been guaranteed to us in our nation's most honored document - the U.S. Constitution.
But vigilance over the military-industrial complex was not the only thing that Eisenhower implored his fellow Americans to take heed of that historic day. Here is the closing to Eisenhower's speech:
We pray that peoples of all faiths, all races, all nations, may have their great human needs satisfied; that those now denied opportunity shall come to enjoy it to the full; that all who yearn for freedom may experience its spiritual blessings; that those who have freedom will understand, also, its heavy responsibilities; that all who are insensitive to the needs of others will learn charity; that the scourges of poverty, disease and ignorance will be made to disappear from the earth, and that, in the goodness of time, all peoples will come to live together in a peace guaranteed by the binding force of mutual respect and love.
And if The Gadfly did not know any better, dear readers, he would postulate that the progressive ideals embodied in those words might very well have been aimed at a certain ideological segment of our society today. Eisenhower knew back then who exactly it was that those words were meant for. You know who they are today dear readers. The Gadfly knows who they are. They themselves know it as well. Therefore, it goes without saying that compelling them to acknowledge and modify their trenchant and regressive mindset is the present-day prime objective of the mission at hand. Only then will this country be able to move forward and flourish in economic prosperity and peaceful endeavors that benefit all of it's people equitably.
----TFG
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