A brief history of presidents and what it says about democracy in America

This is not exactly new research and I won't be outlining any particular conspiracy theory in great detail. This is merely a series of anomalies in US politics which most Americans are aware of at least some of, but which together create a long term pattern that nobody seems to notice. I am curious if anyone can see any reason this shouldn't be considered odd and quite possibly symptomatic of an unseen influence.

1961, Eisenhower warned of the Military Industrial Complex.

1963 President Kennedy assassinated.
1968 President Johnson becomes the first president not to seek re-election.
1974 President Nixon becomes the first to resign.

1974 Gerald Ford becomes president without being elected to any national office.

1976 America will no longer led by a career politician, general, or other life-long government official, but by a preacher (correction, submariner turned peanut farmer turned politician and later sunday school teacher who had lived in subsidized housing for the poor at one point and reported a UFO sighting) Jimmy Carter.
1980 America will be led by an actor and corporate spokesperson, Ronald Reagan.

1988 America will be led by the head of the CIA.
1992 The former head of the CIA runs against his then-dark-horse buddy from Skull and Bones.

2008 For the first time in 20 years, America will not be led by a Clinton or a Bush, but neither candidate on the ballot was born inside the continental US.
2012 Once again, neither candidate on the ballot was born in the continental US.

2016? People are talking about Clinton v Bush again.


We were warned.
The idealist got killed,
The two biggest rats in US politics took their turns and neither of them had the stomach to finish the job.
Public relations men began to be put in the Presidency.
Then two families shared rule of America for a generation.
Then we began to be given forced-choices that undermine constitutional limits on who can be president, first in the form of non-natural born citizens, and possibly next in the form of family proxies defeating the intent of term limits.

Does this not look suspiciously like Democracy ended in the 1960s, and a generation later the new system was finally operating with complete impunity?

(edit for mistake of fact on the timeline of Carter's career)

When put that way the implications are pretty clear.

Than you take into account the actions the government has taken in those times, and it seems someone really wants to feed companies like Tyco, Boeing, Raytheon, all major players in the Military industrial complex.

They have taken this country into debt the likes of which the world has never seen, These companies make weapons where do you think the line is for them when Trillions are involved...

Indeed. The take-over attempt many are expecting to see is already over.

It's really down to how everyone reacts once the veil is no longer required and finally dropped.

reply to post by The Vagabond


Just one issue: I read JC's bio and there was no mention of any experience in the vocation of "preacher".
Did you mean to say Naval officer or peanut farmer?

link to bio

Does the corrected information fit your premise or violate your premise?

reply to post by benrl

I have lately held the opinion that Democracy in America was born of the Civil War and died at the hands of the Federal Reserve Act. We have been in transition from "Democracy" to Corporation since. 12/23/13 is 100yrs. The plan is behind schedule, damn that pesky 2nd Amendment thing, but must proceed to fruition.

I think time is getting short.

You missed one of Eisenhower's warnings.

He didn't just warn of the military/industrial complex. He also warned of scientific technocrats Obama has advising him at the moment - the so-called best and brightest that academia has to offer - and the relationship between government and science where grant money is the driving force behind public research. The desires of the public policy elites shapes the outcome of the findings.

Blame the Bilderberg group. Most western leaders and some influential people are members of this group.

Cameron & Osborne are members. So are Milliband & Balls.

Democracy died long ago I'm afraid. Freedoms are being taken away, slowly but surely. Those four jokers will be replaced in the next 10 years with the next corruptible cohort. The Bullingdon club and Trade Unions are currently warming them up for it.

reply to post by InverseLookingGlass


You are correct. Later in life he did teach a sunday school class, a fact that I apparently remembered out of context.

reply to post by ketsuko


While you are partially right, his message was still in reference to the Military-Industrial complex (or more precisely named and often forgotten, Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex). It was not a warning about scientific advisors, but corporate lackeys that try to shape public policy for the advancement of their agenda . . . it was about those who fund the research and shape the direction of scientific research.

The video you posted is heavily edited (and poorly at that) and his speech takes on a much different tone when viewed in whole and in context. The YouTube clip is akin to quote mining. Below is the section from which the quote in the video is taken from.

A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction.

Our military organization today bears little relation to that known by any of my predecessors in peacetime, or indeed by the fighting men of World War II or Korea.

Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the militaryindustrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades.

In this revolution, research has become central; it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.

Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers.

The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present
• and is gravely to be regarded.

Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientifictechnological elite.

It is the task of statesmanship to mold, to balance, and to integrate these and other forces, new and old, within the principles of our democratic system -- ever aiming toward the supreme goals of our free society.

Eisenhower Farewell Speech

He, in essence, was equating the rise in power of the corporate elements responsible for modern advancement and the collaboration of the federal government to fascism. Basically, it was a warning based on the thesis set forth by Daniel Guerin in his book Fascism and Big Business.

The danger of scientific endeavors being overtaken by the MICC lies in the fact that due to technological advances the cost of research and development has become so large that the scientists are at the mercy of the interests of the MICC.

All of these issues only become a problem when the mutual interests of these, seemingly separate, entities merge and are advanced through cooperative efforts.

reply to post by solomons path


Yes, I know it was edited, but the fact remains, he warned about government military in bed together just as much as warned about government and science getting too close.

Both are very real and present dangers.

Look at how much they are both being used and abused to try to shape public policy and opinion without regard to what is actually going on.

One minor correction, Romney was born in the USA, I believe it was his father that was born in Mexico.

According to Wikipedia

Willard Mitt Romney[1] was born on March 12, 1947, at Harper University Hospital in Detroit, Michigan

Continuity of the Military Industrial government in the Executive branch.

VP Nixon, JFK, LBJ, Nixon as president, Ford, Carter. GHW Bush as VP and then P.

All US Navy. It's pretty incredible, isn't it? What are the odds of that?

reply to post by BubbaJoe

Dear BubbaJoe,

May I join your "minor correction" club? Describing Reagan by calling him an actor and a corporate spokesman is as misleading as an Obama speech. Have we forgotten that he was a union president (Screen Actors' Guild) and the Governor of California?

With respect,
Charles1952

reply to post by charles1952


Now that's where I draw the line, granted I didn't fact check a few details, but there's no getting around the fact that Reagan's trade from beginning to end was reading the script that richer men put in front of him.

reply to post by The Vagabond

Dear The Vagabond,

I think I understand you, but it seems that we may have different views of the man. Wasn't he the one that refused to delete the line "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down that wall," line from his speech? All his advisers told him it was too confrontational. Did he read speeches to the Russian leaders in Reykjavik over the issue of SDI? Was the firing of the PATCO workers something he was told to do?

Reagan may be criticized for some things, but the idea that as a union president, Governor, and President, he was just reading lines is one I can't understand.

I just remembered his comment testing the microphone, something to the effect of we start bombing Russia in five minutes. Some thought he was serious, largely because he had a reputation for doing tough, dramatic things. Sorry, I still see him as an independent President.

Now as far as Presidents who depend on scripts and teleprompters . . .

With respect,
Charles1952

The ATS Presidential Review Board is now in open session.

reply to post by charles1952


Yes he refused to delete the line opposed by his lower-paid advisors, thereby keeping tensions high, keeping military spending high, making a ton of money for Dick Cheney and friends, and eventually pushing the soviet union over the edge so that we could back off of the same kind of spending that brought them down and get on with peaceful enterprise... or invade the middle east and spend ourselves down the same hole that swallowed Russia. What a rogue visionary, to daringly do exactly what was best for the military industrial complex, even if it meant risking the vaporization of every American who hasn't had a multi-million dollar top secret shelter built for him by the MIC at the expense of the less fortunate.

The Vagabond
2008 For the first time in 20 years, America will not be led by a Clinton or a Bush, but neither candidate on the ballot was born inside the continental US.
2012 Once again, neither candidate on the ballot was born in the continental US.

Wasn't McCain born on a military base which is considered US soil? Wouldn't that make him a natural born citizen as required in Article II of the Constitution.

If you're taking such a pessimistic and biased view at history then this can apply to even the very beginning of the nation.

KSigMason

Wasn't McCain born on a military base which is considered US soil? Wouldn't that make him a natural born citizen as required in Article II of the Constitution.

Yes McCain is a natural born citizen. That's not the point. The point is that he has an asterisk next to that. The idea in 2008 was to run two guys who were questionable but would survive a challenge to their eligibility, thus building precedent.

You see, McCain was not born a citizen, he became a natural born citizen by law when he was a toddler, due to a law that was passed to account for US military families abroad and other gray areas of citizenship.

The intent is all in the form of the resolution that McCain sought before running saying that he was eligible. www.govtrack.us...

It says that the constitution doesn't define natural born citizen, we can't prove the founders intent, this guy has done good for us, and there have been ineligible candidates in the past, therefore, this guy will be OK.

For McCain that was probably a valid argument. But it will get less valid in every try they make until Schwarzenegger gets through, and once you've had president Schwarzenegger there is no real reason you couldn't have a President Windsor or President Rothschild.

My friend, you're observations are truly worth noting.

Unfortunately, the children of the media teat, rarely understand the larger point. They have been de-tuned to the crisis at hand. To these it's about the imagery, and prestige.

Our first problem is the embedded notion that people are unable to think for themselves; and left alone - they would be barbarians. You see that's the underlying 'excuse' used by those have have us in their web.

Our nations is beset by an overriding influence which is not elect - though can purchase the glamor and notoriety of the title "world leader."

I won't get into any snarking match regarding how one was one thing or another; in the end they were all men..., each capable in their own way; each flawed in ways that most people are flawed.

But I will say that if we can't start to see that how we are "told" what to believe matters, people will continue to wait for their favorite celebrity to save the day. This country was successfully founded because the people learned that waiting for things to improve within a flawed oppressor led nowhere and served none.

We can't wait much longer; these people know that Quigley's prediction is coming true... their very exclusionary secrecy is going to bite them in the ass. Actually, I think it is an inevitability for any such conspiracy.