There are some folks who say, well, this is all brand new, right? This Republican tax scam and all this kind of stuff.

Let me share with you a very brief quote. This is from a piece by Robert McElvaine in the Washington Post, but the quote is from William Jennings Bryan.

William Jennings Bryan in 1896 gave a speech called the "Cross of Gold" speech. Now, Eisenhower somewhat reprised this in 1953 with his Cross of Iron speech.

William Jennings Bryan spoke in 1896 about essentially the difference between the Republican idea and the Democratic idea. He said:

"There are those who believe that if you will only legislate to make the well-to-do prosperous their prosperity will leak through on those below."

1896 he said this, trickle-down economics.

"The Democratic idea, however, has been that if you legislate to make the masses prosperous their prosperity will find its way up through every class which rests upon them."

Petty straightforward stuff, right?

In his letter to his brother Edgar in 1954 Eisenhower said, "Should any political party attempt to abolish social security ... Their number is negligible and they are stupid." He was specifically calling out the Hunt Brothers, but he also he also warned us about the whole military-industrial complex.

Dwight Eisenhower gave a speech January 1961. Of course, the new president is sworn in on January 20th of the year following the election, so this is the election of 1960. Eisenhower's party lost. Richard Nixon, his vice president, was running for election as president but lost to John Kennedy and the next day John Kennedy was going to be sworn in as president.

So this is Dwight Eisenhower's Farewell Address. And he starts out talking about how we've never had a permanent arms industry in the United States, but as a result of World War Two and the decade and a half after World War Two. - keep in mind he was he was speaking literally just 15 years after the end of the war - we now have one. And we have to consider the consequences of it.

-Thom


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