The elections are weeks away, and tonight I’m grading papers and continuing to refine a writing assignment that asks students to engage with difficult texts on vexed topics in ways that require some attention to one’s own politics. In coming up with lead-in exercises, I’ve again encountered a Web site I’ve used as part of past class exercises, and I’m delighted to see they’ve fleshed out their materials considerably.
One of the things they now include is a quiz, from which I’ll shamelessly steal the following question:
What prominent American Republican said these two things?
1. “Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are. . . a few. . . Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid.”
2. “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 are not clothed.”
I hope you might venture a guess in the comments. If you know, or if you Googled, please play nice and don’t spoil the fun.
Bonus discussion question: What sorts of politically correct feminist tree-hugging left-wing hippie peacenik terrorist-loving Democrats and academics can you imagine mouthing such sentiments?
Examples welcomed.
I don’t know, but I sure like Ike!
1. I don’t know–are you asking about any Republican or a politician? Is it Ahhhnohld?
2. Mahria
Well, to clarify: for questions 1 and 2, the same person said ’em both.
I don’t know any current Republican or Democrat who could come up with any such comments…well, at least any that could actually word them so eloquently. 🙂
I’m certain, however, that it was not the “decider”.
I read the first quote before somewhere–Kos?–and I think it actually was Ike.
To borrow a quote from one of his contemporarires (who would probably take the opposite view from both quotations), “and now, for the rest of the story:”
1. The political processes of our country are such that if a rule of reason is not applied in this effort, we will lose everything–even to a possible and drastic change in the Constitution. This is what I mean by my constant insistence upon “moderation” in government.
2. This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.
I’ll go with DDE for the first two, and I’d volunteer Mary Harris (Mother) Jones for the bonus. Does she count as a Democrat or an academic?
Well, OK, yeah, it’s Ike. Which leads me to ask: how much of an icon — Republican, presidential, or otherwise — is Eisenhower today? Is he the Grant of the 20th century, a far better and more insightful General than he ever was President? Does he get too much credit for that “military-industrial complex” formulation, is he forever compromised by his ugly foreign policy decisions undertaken in the name of anti-communism, is he underacknowledged for the good things he did?
Nicholas Lehmann menioned the “M-I C” comment in his pretty sloppy piece on conspiracy-theory journalism in the most recent New Yorker. He thought that Ike’s comment, which evidently was in one of the last Presidential speeches he gave, didn’t in any way represent a change of heart about military hegemony–but has been taken that way by conspiracy-minded liberals ever since. That might have been one of the only worthwhile things he said in the article.