Why bother with facts?

Paul Krugman does a great job dissecting the GOP’s dunderheaded rhetoric regarding health care reform in today’s New York Times editorial. Why tell the truth, when radical conservatives can just lie, distort, and twist logic?

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has estimated the repeal of health care reform will add $230 billion to the deficit over the next decade and will leave 32 million more Americans without health coverage, but the GOP elite do not care. These numbers do not fit their political agenda to faithfully serve, protect, and defend big business and the rich.

Instead of focusing on what is best for the country as a whole, the GOP and its radical conservative base would rather focus on what is best for themselves. On this national holiday reserved for “selflessness,” it is truly a sad commentary on the “selfishness” of so many in this country.

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The King’s speeches

This weblink to The Huffington Post will take you to ten of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s most important quotes. In light of former President Eisenhower’s warning about the military-industrial complex in our previous post, and the on-going cuts proposed to social programs by radical conservatives, the quote below seems particularly poignant:

“A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.”

Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?, 1967.

 

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Eisenhower was right

As Molly so aptly noted in her post on December 18, 2010, the military-industrial complex has grown beyond all reason. Here is a link via NPR to former President Eisenhower’s farewell speech where he warned all Americans abut the growing influence of the military-industrial complex. The following quote is the most pertinent portion:

“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.”

I cannot think of anyone in American history had a better perspective of this growing danger, than the man who was once the supreme commander of allied forces during World War II. On Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, a day devoted peace, love, understanding, and service, let us all begin to take President Eisenhower’s words to heart and channel our energies towards peaceful and productive endeavors instead war, guns, and violence.

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