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Vietnam started under Eisenhower, Bosnia wasn't really a war. WW2 and Korea had legitimate reasons for our involvement and were approved by both parties as were all wars we have been involved.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by travis t
This is actually not quite right. US involvement in Vietnam started under Truman. Truman wanted France as an ally, and helped them in Vietnam to gain favor. By 1952 (prior to Ike taking office) the US was funding over 40% of French military costs in Vietnam.
Eisenhower hated war, having had his fill of it as allied supreme commander in WWII (I would argue that Ike hated war to a fault, and left behind several messes as a result). Ike did everything he could to de-escalate in Vietnam. The US troop build-up did not come until under JFK took office.
How and why did republicans get labeled as the warmonger party?
Quote:
Originally Posted by victimofGM
This thought popped into mind last night. ...
Short answer: Military Industrial Complex.
Longer answer: Traditionally the Republican party rose out of the ashes of the Whig party (a party of shopkeepers and professionals), and these folks really believed in small government, for a lot of reasons but mostly based upon the idea that business people do not like to pay more taxes than necessary. When I say they really believed in small government, that meant a small military too, and a reluctance to get involved in foreign wars.
The one exception was in the very early days of the party, when the US civil war broke out (not actually a foreign war, of course), many northern businessmen made their first big fortunes on Union military spending. This wedded the party with the large industrialists (to the detriment of the small shopkeeper), a marriage that lasts to this very day.
But once launched, these large and growing businesses wanted to control costs: suppress wages and oppose taxes that do anything other than protect their wealth. That's what the Republican Party strived to do for them. (They were ok with a war with Spain, as long as it could be done on the cheap. It opened up new business opportunities in the captured territories.)
Sadly, this reluctance to spend money on the military had some knock on effects in US history, such as how Lt. Col. Custer's cavalry were armed at the Little Bighorn. Well, that's water under the bridge now ...
Republicans, not alone in this, led the way in American isolationism in the first few decades of the 20th century. (They did like selling things to the warring parties in Europe though, it was very profitable.) They also opposed government intervention in America's economic crises starting in 1929. No help for the needy.
Then World War II came washing over our nation like a rainstorm. The US government in some cases literally sent purchase orders to companies without quantities. The instructions were to keep making the products until they were told to stop!
This not only put a lot of ordinary folks to work, it put many factories on a 'round the clock business plan: three shifts in twenty four hours. The effect on profits was explosive. It was like getting hooked on a drug, corporate America found out that it liked to be on the receiving end of government spending and couldn't get enough of it. This while a large faction of the Republican party, traditionally supported by corporate industrial America, now supported a bloated military and small wars to justify it.
It is a classic case of a special interest taking over a political party's policy. President Eisenhower, a Republican himself, famously warned against this trend, but that's what we got stuck with.
Yes, both Truman (D,MO) and Ike(R,KS) sent 'advisory' military troops. The real ramping up of troop deployment did not begin until 1963 under President Kennedy (D,MA). It was a bipartisan project.
The partisan backbiting and historical revisionism really gets to be tiresome.
How and why did republicans get labeled as the warmonger party? Short answer: Military Industrial Complex.
Longer answer: Traditionally the Republican party rose out of the ashes of the Whig party (a party of shopkeepers and professionals), and these folks really believed in small government, for a lot of reasons but mostly based upon the idea that business people do not like to pay more taxes than necessary. When I say they really believed in small government, that meant a small military too, and a reluctance to get involved in foreign wars....
The whigs were never small-gov't advocates. They were for heavy gov't involvement in infrastructure such as rail and canals. The small gov't advocates of the time were known as 'liberals.' The whigs and liberals had a tenuous alliance based on a common hatred of slavery, which became the Republican Party.
Eisenhower's phrase was originally "Congressional Military Industrial Complex" advisors told him to strike the congressional....
modern views can probably start with the republican McCarthy era charge that the democrats "lost" china leaving that party to be "tougher" with the military...just another legacy from Ann Coulter sweetheart "tail gunner Joe"...if politicians did not have to react to fear mongers with the emotional maturity of a 12 years old ....
JFKs advisors wanted 3,000 ICBM missiles..JFK gave 1,000..at a time when the USSR had maybe 7..there never was a missile gap and the USSR lost 62 million people as a result of ww2...the entire "cold war" was hyped up non-sense to make huge profits for industrialist investors///occasionally one needs a small limited war to justify military build up...and all this was good for about a 30 plus years run...i remember my father getting mad over the Chinese islands of matsu and quemoy and him saying let the Russians have the whole world and let them go broke supporting them lol
Last edited by elvis44102; 09-24-2019 at 12:05 PM..
Vietnam started under Eisenhower, Bosnia wasn't really a war. WW2 and Korea had legitimate reasons for our involvement and were approved by both parties as were all wars we have been involved.
Vietnam started under FDR when he split that country in to two
The whigs were never small-gov't advocates. They were for heavy gov't involvement in infrastructure such as rail and canals. The small gov't advocates of the time were known as 'liberals.' The whigs and liberals had a tenuous alliance based on a common hatred of slavery, which became the Republican Party.
Rails and canals were public infrastructure to allow small businesses to thrive.
Today 'small' businesses are usually industrial suppliers and most of the big companies want to fund their own internal modes of transportation.
Giving electric lines, water ways, sewage systems,etc. into the public sector meant more prosperous small shops and community businesses.
The whigs were never small-gov't advocates. They were for heavy gov't involvement in infrastructure such as rail and canals. The small gov't advocates of the time were known as 'liberals.' The whigs and liberals had a tenuous alliance based on a common hatred of slavery, which became the Republican Party.
You are right, the Whigs did support infrastructure projects.
How and why did republicans get labeled as the warmonger party? Short answer: Military Industrial Complex.
Longer answer: Traditionally the Republican party rose out of the ashes of the Whig party (a party of shopkeepers and professionals), and these folks really believed in small government, for a lot of reasons but mostly based upon the idea that business people do not like to pay more taxes than necessary. When I say they really believed in small government, that meant a small military too, and a reluctance to get involved in foreign wars.
The one exception was in the very early days of the party, when the US civil war broke out (not actually a foreign war, of course), many northern businessmen made their first big fortunes on Union military spending. This wedded the party with the large industrialists (to the detriment of the small shopkeeper), a marriage that lasts to this very day.
But once launched, these large and growing businesses wanted to control costs: suppress wages and oppose taxes that do anything other than protect their wealth. That's what the Republican Party strived to do for them. (They were ok with a war with Spain, as long as it could be done on the cheap. It opened up new business opportunities in the captured territories.)
Sadly, this reluctance to spend money on the military had some knock on effects in US history, such as how Lt. Col. Custer's cavalry were armed at the Little Bighorn. Well, that's water under the bridge now ...
Republicans, not alone in this, led the way in American isolationism in the first few decades of the 20th century. (They did like selling things to the warring parties in Europe though, it was very profitable.) They also opposed government intervention in America's economic crises starting in 1929. No help for the needy.
Then World War II came washing over our nation like a rainstorm. The US government in some cases literally sent purchase orders to companies without quantities. The instructions were to keep making the products until they were told to stop!
This not only put a lot of ordinary folks to work, it put many factories on a 'round the clock business plan: three shifts in twenty four hours. The effect on profits was explosive. It was like getting hooked on a drug, corporate America found out that it liked to be on the receiving end of government spending and couldn't get enough of it. This while a large faction of the Republican party, traditionally supported by corporate industrial America, now supported a bloated military and small wars to justify it.
It is a classic case of a special interest taking over a political party's policy. President Eisenhower, a Republican himself, famously warned against this trend, but that's what we got stuck with.
This makes sense. Reagan supported a lot of small skirmishes like Granada, Nicaragua, Iran, while staying out of Vietnam style conflicts.
Escalation in Vietnam happened under Kennedy and LBJ.
The exception are the Bushes but they represented the neo-conservative side of the Republican party. People that not even the MIC support all the time.
Bolton for example would support the MEK in Iran or destabilize Venezuela, something big industry doesn't want.
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