Wikipedia summary.
Best known for his precient comments on the military-industrial complex, the speech also cautions against mortgaging the future of our grandchildren for immediate gains:
Another factor in maintaining balance involves the element of time. As we peer into society's future, we -- you and I, and our government -- must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering for our own ease and convenience the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow.Fulltext here.
Related: His Republican administration imposed a 91% marginal tax rate on millionaires, and in 1963 he opined that the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was unnecessary.
Reposted from 2019 because today I found a video in the National Archives discussing Eisenhower's role and intention in crafting the speech.
His words were meant as a warning whereas the government and the rich adopted it as a modus operandi. Sad.
ReplyDeleteIt's a shame that the Archives will likely get scrubbed and DOGEd
ReplyDeleteEisenhower was the last decent Republican.
ReplyDeleteOK, I will give you John McCain, but I suggest he was a dead-cat bounce when the rest of the Party had gone over to Nixon-Agnew-Gingrich-Reagan-Bush-Trump debasement. While I am ranting, I will predict that JD Vance will be the Gerald Ford of today, a cipher thrown into a position for which he is not ready and in which he will fail miserably. (Trump is not healthy, neither physically nor mentally, so I predict Vance will replace him in time.)