A somber moment

Sorry I haven't posted in a few days. A few things have kept me occupied mentally and physically. Oddly, I do have a lot of free time, but I am using it to keep myself distracted from the general shit state of my city, my country and the world right now. If I have to elaborate on that, you are already lost.

I watched Why We Fight last night, and before watching it, I thought I could not get even more depressed as hell about how things are. Well, I was wrong. So, to bring you up to speed, I give you excerpts from a speech by Dwight D. Eisenhower. Read it, and compare it to the current squatter in the White House and his "Bring It On" and "Let's Roll" vomiting.

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 is 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.

And here is another bit of comment from the last good Republican the country ever saw:
Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are H. L. Hunt (you possibly know his background), a few other Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid."

Nevertheless, I am not giving up or anything. In less than a month, I shall be married. Ol' Frankie Machine is really looking forward to the happiest day of his life, and seeing some of his old comrades of the savage life.