Is serious left criticism of government’s share of GDP possible? (19)

Continued from here:

In the aftermath of the Vietnam war, when an exhausted and defeated nation might have considered both the logic and necessity of expending itself on efforts to police the planet, the rest of our species likely gasped in horror to behold the return to the public debate of the very who assholes who had, in two short decades, brought the United States from unrivaled industrial, financial, military and diplomatic power to just another embarrassed wannabe colonial power smacked down by a bunch of guys in black pajamas.

Even the British, who believed it to be their destiny to civilize the darker races, had long since conceded their impotence in India.

But, not Paul Nitze and Leon Keyserling – and, of course, the American voter, who continued blithely stumbling through history with his head up his ass.

That latter would be you.

Nitze fired up his old coalition of cold warriors, Committee on the Present Danger (CPD II):

The revitalization of the CPD grew out of an independent group called Team B. Team B was authorized in 1976 by President Gerald R. Ford and organized by then-CIA chief, George Herbert Walker Bush. The purpose of Team B was to develop an independent judgment of Soviet capabilities and intentions. Team B was headed by Richard Pipes and included Paul Nitze, Foy Kohler, William R. Van Cleave, Lt. Gen. Daniel O. Graham (ret.), Thomas Wolf of RAND Corporation and Gen. John Vogt, Jr. (ret.). Also a part of Team B were five officials still active in government: Maj. Gen. George Keegan, Brig. Gen. Jasper Welch, Paul Dundes Wolfowitz of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, and Seymour Weiss of the State Department. Team B was housed in the offices of the Coalition for a Democratic Majority.

The Wiki adds, “CPD II broadened its base considerably from the original group by including in its ranks top labor officials, Jewish liberals and neo-conservative intellectuals. It managed this feat by including in its ideology not only a strong anti-Soviet policy, but also one which promoted growth and expansion.”

Which, of course, brings us to Leon Keyserling, also a member of the CPD II, who began to campaign for an updated version of the Full Employment Act of 1946, which would serve as the economic linchpin of a reinvigorated containment policy.

Working with a coalition of labor unions, including the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers, and, the United Auto Workers, Coretta Scott King, the Congressional Black Caucus, and assorted others, Leon Keyserling drafted the new Full Employment and Balanced Growth Act of 1978.

It was signed by President Jimmy Carter, on October 27, 1978.

At the signing ceremony, President Carter thanked Mrs. King, and to the Congressional Black Caucus for their efforts to make the bill law.

Then, Mrs. King addressed the assembled – thanking Leon Keyserling, and the coalition of labor, civil rights and religious leaders who helped make it possible.

She called the bill signing, “a great historical occasion, perhaps as significant as the signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Perhaps in the future, history will record that it may be even more significant, Mr. President, because I think it deals with an issue on a basic human right that’s the most basic of all human rights, the right to a job. And that is a central priority now of our economic policy with the signing of this act into law today.”

Then, she turned to a brief anecdote:

As President Carter said in 1974, I called him and he was still Governor, and asked him if he would join our committee. And he asked if I would send the material, and later on, he signed his card as a member of the National Committee for Full Employment. Now, we’d selected only one Governor, and we very carefully selected him. [Laughter] I don’t know; maybe we were prophetic, because here he is today as the President who signs this legislation and makes it a law.

Finally, she closed with a moving tribute to her husband:

And also, I would like to say that this bill is a tribute, or this law now, this act, is a tribute to the dedication of Senator Humphrey and Gus Hawkins and both Senators, but it’s also a tribute to Martin Luther King, Jr., because in 1968, he started a crusade calling for a job and income for all people who needed a job. He did not live to carry out that campaign, and so in 1974, we felt that we had an obligation, a mandate, to pick it up and to carry it forward. And now today, I am sure Martin Luther King, Jr., is with us in spirit, because his concern was that all people in our society would be able to share equally in the fruits of this great Nation.

It was, no doubt, a moment heavy with irony for Keyserling, since Mrs. King’s husband, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., had broken with him and the other Cold Warriors responsible for that bill more than a decade earlier – condemning the Vietnam War, and, drawing their opprobrium.

His words, sealing his break with the authors of NSC-68, were “prophetic” as well:

The war in Vietnam is but a symptom of a far deeper malady within the American spirit, and if we ignore this sobering reality…and if we ignore this sobering reality, we will find ourselves organizing “clergy and laymen concerned” committees for the next generation. They will be concerned about Guatemala and Peru. They will be concerned about Thailand and Cambodia. They will be concerned about Mozambique and South Africa. We will be marching for these and a dozen other names and attending rallies without end, unless there is a significant and profound change in American life and policy.

Mrs. King had collaborated with the very men Dr. King opposed, to renew the very economic philosophy which led to that awful war.

To be continued.