I Like Ike

The 1950's were a time remembered for it's economic prosperity and it's struggle with social conformity. It was the only in the 20th century were the growth of wealth in the working class outpaced the top 1%.

Money is not just the representation of wealth but it the blood of an economy and like blood in the body it is meant to be in constant circulation and reach every extremity in the system. In the 1950's progressive taxes, regulations and labor unions redirected money back to the growing middle class and that actually had multiplying effect creating even more wealth. The businesses on Main Street also prospered along with Wall Street. 

Part of Eisenhower's success came from his background as a career Army officer. He firmly believed rank had its privileges -but every privilege came with a reciprocating responsibility. During World War 2  the Army Officer Corp was held to high standard of accountability, where any officer including generals were quickly relieved of command if they did achieve their mission's objective or if they recklessly endangered the soldiers in their unit. More than once Eisenhower acknowledged that the soldiers in the field is the backbone of the Army; and that officers managed and planned warfare but it's the common soldier who wins the battle. Eisenhower brought this philosophy to the White House.  

With the up coming presidential elections the above picture is a good illustration on some of the differences between Obama and Romney. Romney is a businessman and he had his campaign hats manufactured in China. From a business standpoint this is a wise move, if you save a few pennies per hat that adds up to a lot of money over the tens of thousands of hats given away.

Obama's background has been as a community activist and politician. In politics the first question is who are your supporters and friends. The Obama campaign made a clear decision to show it's support for American workers over the benefit of saving a few dollars.   

Every national election is a referendum on what should be the role of government. Should government be run as a ruthless business entity? Or should it be recognized that government is there to provide services that private capital can not or should not provide? Americans have historically rejected private armies and private police forces but right now we are in a dialogue arguing the merits of private schools over public schools. There is no argument that government should protect its citizens against acts of foreign terrorism and natural disasters but we're not so sure about helping each other during economic downturns. 

Maybe somewhere we have to accept the fact that managing a functioning and orderly society is a messy and   not always a cost effective effort.

As one historical irony was when King George the 3rd of England tried to run his dominion strictly as a business. In 1762 he made a fateful business decision to demand that the American colonists pay their share of the cost for the French and Indian War. The colonists balked at the bill and this was the beginning of a fight that lead to the American Revolutionary War.

                                 History has deep roots

What happens now will reverberate into the future. One of the most graphic examples is how every major battlefield of the 20th century still yields up all kinds of un-exploded bombs and shells.

Eisenhower's more egalitarian interpretation Republicanism created a backlash of ultra conservatism. In 1964 Barry Goldwater ran on a party platform that was hostile to civil rights and government intervention in commerce. One of his campaign slogans was "in your heart you know he's right" but the electorate retorted with "in your guts you know he's nuts". 

Barry Goldwater's defeat did not end the ultra conservative movement in America. It returned with Richard Nixon's Southern Strategy, Ronald Reagan's Supply Side Economics and the deregulation of the housing and lending industries in 2002 -which lead to our current economic recession that almost became a world wide depression. 

I know some of the overseas readers of this blog are tired of hearing about the upcoming election here but it does effect everybody -it is a global village.

Maybe in the end we have to recognize that extremism for any cause is the ultimate vice.

                                       In the mailbox

I got an email about my post on Batman yesterday. Rob felt that Batman and Robin were not gay. If I wanted to write about gay comic book characters I should check out Percy in Sargent Rock platoon.

This month viewership is up over 50% and is now read in over 25 countries. This week new viewers logged on from Malaysia, Sweden and Poland.