Reply #8: It was war policy that destroyed the Great Society and the New Deal [View All]

[Douglas Carpenter]

coalition in the first place.

LBJ began the most progressive administration in American history following his win by one of the greatest landslides in American history running a platform that promised massive progressive and liberal programs and a promise not to escalate the war in Indochina. His base of support did not collapse because he was seen as militarily week. It collapsed because of war. Richard Nixon was not voted in in 1968 because he was going to "stay the course". He was voted in largely because he promised to end the war. Just as earlier Eisenhower was voted in with his promised to go to Korea and make peace.

I am not suggesting that war can never be justified. But let's not fool ourselves; American does not need two hawkish/neocon parties, especially as America grows weary of war. And we simply cannot afford to continue to outspend the rest of the world put together on instruments of war.


"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 not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientist and the hope of its children. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron."

President Dwight D. Eisenhower