One of the writers for The New York Times reminded his readers on April 11th, that sixty one years ago this week President Eisenhower spoke before the American Society of Newspaper Editors and gave what many regard as the most important foreign policy address of his presidency.

He made clear his opposition to those who wanted to win the Korean War militarily when he stated, “Every gun that is fired, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed …”

What many regard, and remember, as Ike’s most important bit of advice, however, was the warning he gave us about nurturing the “military-industrial” complex.

No subsequent administration has heeded that warning. Recently announced budget figures for the coming year indicate that more than $ 530 billion is being allocated for guns, warships and rockets. That $ 530 billion number isn’t the whole picture either. In past years, so-called defense spending has far exceeded what was budgeted, and you can be sure that this year will be no exception.

Something else that will be exceeded this year are the growing numbers of those “who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed …”

Hunger and homelessness are always the results of unemployment. Another 650,000+ pink slips this month will only exacerbate our nation’s economic woes, but instead of acknowledging the crisis and directing aid to the needy, our elected representatives are responding to what they call a “financial crisis” by directing aid to the greedy. Wall Street interests, national and international banking firms and the armament industry are the beneficiaries of the hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars that are being misspent in useless and illogical attempts to halt the nation’s and the world’s accelerating economic decline, and what’s worse, trillions more are to be similarly wasted.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs has assured the electorate that by stabilizing the financial system, preventing home foreclosures, spurring access to credit, and reforming the regulatory system the new administration will prevent a recurrence of the current economic crisis. Mr. Gibbs said nothing about solving the nation’s unemployment problems, however, nor did he infer that there was any connection between the “crisis” and the thousands of jobs being lost every day. While none of our elected or unelected elite have been able to figure out a way to halt this impending disaster, they’re quite positive that they know how to prevent a “recurrence”. Swallow that, if you can.

Our leaders wouldn’t recognize a graving dock if they tripped and fell into one, yet we have more than 30 such treasures along our nation’s coastlines. These $ 100 million underutilized and ignored treasures have been at the ready for too many years, but with a “stroke of the pen” these structures could be put into operation and would once again bail US out of the mess created by financial gurus and warmongers. A shipbuilding program isn’t just wishful thinking. We’ve already been down that road and it’s the only “stimulus” that could ever guarantee the creation of 50 million new jobs.