August 2, 2007
Attacking in Another Direction
General Douglas MacArthur, in 1957:
“The powers in charge keep us in a perpetual state of fear… keep us in a continuous stampede of patriotic fervor with the cry of grave national emergency. Always there has been some terrible evil at home or some monstrous foreign power to gobble us up if we did not blindly rally behind it by furnishing the exorbitant sums demanded. Yet, in retrospect, these disasters seem never to have happened, seem never to have been quite real.”
Not sure if that’s an accurate quote… would be nice to see the original source.
Cat: | Time: 12:11 pm (utc+8)
August 2nd, 2007 at 2:39 pm
What national emergency was he talking about, communism? I can’t find the original source.
August 2nd, 2007 at 6:17 pm
The MacArthur quote is in the last paragraph, Paul is a Republican Memebr of Congress, so while this still isn’t a source, it’s at least an indication that the quote has entered the mainstream.
It’s certainly true enough.
August 2nd, 2007 at 6:20 pm
Also see:
“”Of course the people don’t want war. But after all, it’s the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it’s always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it’s a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger.”"
http://www.snopes.com/quotes/goering.htm
August 2nd, 2007 at 7:54 pm
I guess Gen. MacArthur was feeling a little guilty for wanting to invade China during the Korean War.
August 2nd, 2007 at 8:05 pm
1984 baby. good times.
August 2nd, 2007 at 9:16 pm
Eisenhower warned about the same military industrial complex on his farewell address. It seems his warning came true to a tat: “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 the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.”
August 2nd, 2007 at 10:21 pm
the 2 minute hate from the movie 1984
August 2nd, 2007 at 10:56 pm
I found some references to a 1957 MacArthur speech to Congress, regarding a containment of DoD spending, and I think a related, successful effort to reduce US service personnel levels in Japan from 100,000 to 50,000 around that same time. (Maybe by 2015 we can do the same w.r.t. Iraq?)
scoot: Pretty influential book, wasn’t it? (to have taken voice in a US general 8 years after it was published by UK socialist.)
August 3rd, 2007 at 12:13 am
now maybe the time for that deep value XHB trade.
nothing but horrible news, flushed out a ton of sellers and put a very nice bullish candle on the weekly chart.
we may look back at this week in a year and note that it marked the bottom for the housing stocks.
August 3rd, 2007 at 3:11 am
The so called “New World Order” actually was brought into existence with the creation of the Bank of England and the doing away with tally sticks and any ties to accountability. All history since then is the evolution of yet another world empire in the mold of the Roman, Babylonian, etc, empires that came before. This empire will engulf the whole world and anyone who gets in the way will be crushed. It’s an economic war with military battles.
August 3rd, 2007 at 7:40 am
Donk: Tally sticks?
August 3rd, 2007 at 8:52 am
[…] I’ll feature a weekly chart of the Homebuilders ETF (XHB) … you can see the flush down below $25 … if it closes strong tomorrow (Friday) then it will form a pretty “hammer” as commenter Born2Code points out. Buy above the hammer’s high and set your stop below its low (and cross your fingers). […]
August 3rd, 2007 at 10:04 am
Mao: - Twas it an omen?
Certainly it can be agreed that the fractional reserve scheme isn’t exactly “tally stickish” in nature is it?
August 3rd, 2007 at 6:59 pm
wow It sounds like he’s talking about Al Gore!
August 3rd, 2007 at 7:46 pm
yo not too bright
August 4th, 2007 at 9:27 am
MacArthur could have been talking about Al Bore.
“America is the natural leader of the world, and our world faces a true planetary emergency. I know the phrase sounds shrill, and I know it’s a challenge to the moral imagination to see and feel and understand that the entire relationship between humanity and our planet has been radically altered.”
August 4th, 2007 at 8:36 pm
simon: i don’t know one scientist who thinks global warming isn’t real. most are extremely alarmed by what they see. the biggest issue of course will be drought and water supply issues. those are already happening. when crops start to fail, people will not eat. it is that simple. the biggest deniers are money types on stock chat boards(and republicans). the natural world is under assault from every direction. we are in the midst of the biggest species dieoffs in the history of the world. i know that most of you don’t even care about that but some of us do. money types know less than squat about nature or science. did you know the oceans are becoming acidified from all the co2? it’s the only thing protecting us right now because it acts as a huge carbon sponge. a great article was in the new yorker http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/11/20/061120fa_fact_kolbert
basically in a nutshell is that as the ocean acidifies shelled organisms lose their ability to make the shells because of the chemical balance of the oceans. eventually in not too long reefs will not be able to regenerate and the food chain will collapse. massive dieoffs. the nationwide drought in the us is starting to get peoples attention.
in any case i’m sure you realize he was not talking about al gore but our own dear leader. with an administration that is rotten to the core. here’s a great devo song that sums it up http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDZUHxqnn3Y
August 5th, 2007 at 12:59 am
If Al Gore were to renounce any future earnings to all secret accounts in the future then I might pay attn to him. Otherwise he’s just talking his book.
However, GloWar is also a handy way to polarize the hordes of emotionally-supercharged green weenies and divide candidates into little groups. Obviously the candidates that worship the GloWar gods will stand a better chance of snagging the emotional vote. This is a strategy much like the republicans did by hoodwinking the Christian right. It’s all bs. Had the recent erosion of the Constitution taken place under a democrat you can imagine the uproar from the Christian right. But the facts are that this erosion has only picked up momentum and has been happening under both dem and repubs all along.
WTF are we gonna do? Air condition the earth?
IMO the only course of action that makes sense is a policy of “efficiency”. Acknowledge that we need to make everything as efficient as possible. Execute all the coxucker IP and patent attys and open the markets and let people truly innovate. Nanotech will be particularly useful in making things more efficient.
August 5th, 2007 at 1:51 am
funny how people focus on al gore when global warming is the issue. he is only a messenger. one messenger. there will be lots more “emotional weenies” when their water supply craps out(hello california). did you know australia is in a major drought? there is an epidemic of farmer suicides. enter “australia drought” on youtube and you will find a plethora of sad, desperate videos.
i agree efficiency is the biggest tool we have. as well as awareness. a campaign of disinformation is not what we need.
August 5th, 2007 at 2:47 am
I agree disinformation is not what we need as well.
The whole GloWar thing has the potential to be extremely intrusive into your everyday life and could have far reaching impacts on economies if we allow it to run amok.
Greenland got its name many years ago from its original settlers. As the ice recedes they are finding new archeological sites that obviously were there before the ice.
Science isn’t perfect. 100 years ago we thought we knew the basic elements of an atom. The last 50 years has shown the ignorance of science as it then was.
What is this glorification of science? Why should we blindly follow something as truth that is known to be imperfect and evolving?
How many of the GloWar “experts” have gotten grants from one FOUNDATION or another? My guess is 100%.
August 5th, 2007 at 8:56 pm
run amok? no one has done a damned thing yet. nothing. they fight like hell to maintain the status quo craptacular mpg ratings on cars and trucks. if you want real info on glabal warming go to http://www.realclimate.org
i believe scientists before i believe any business person, that’s the bottom line. people seem to think it’s ok to gamble with our earth like it’s some stock pick and that everything will be ok if it goes south. here is your future…http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWpf95lVW5o
and this…http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xp6urzfgJEQ
August 5th, 2007 at 11:28 pm
Yeah the whole mpg thing is sad. Remember in the 70’s when small cars came into fashion because of the “oil embargo” and price hikes. Then slowly the price of oil eased and good times were here again.
To me. an efficiency policy is more a matter of principle than fear. It just makes sense to make everything as good as it can be. (perhaps there should be some restraint on the military aspect of this?)
Running amok would be defined as taxing ourselves for something we cant be sure we are entirely responsible for and cant likely fix anyway. To give the govt money to redistribute efficiently to fix GloWar is almost as assinine as the policy of spying on all of us to “thwart” terror while the obvious culprit retains charitable org status as a “religion”.
It’s all bs my friend. Slowly, we’re all being imprisoned by fear.
August 5th, 2007 at 11:40 pm
i like how they fight against more efficient cars and then say we need to wean ourselves off oil. then stay in iraq with no endpoint in sight. then blame the democrats.
global warming is very real. i like the idea of doing something rather than it all being a race to the end. which is what it is now.