Ike, COVID, and Fauci

The Other Warning in Eisenhower's Farewell Address

Thanks again to American Thinker for running this piece. You can visit the website at: https://www.americanthinker.com/

This we all – if we have a sense of history – remember from Dwight Eisenhower’s farewell address three days before John F. Kennedy became president in 1961:

…(W)e must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.

This quote is immersed in popular culture, from the movie “JFK” to any number of anti-war liberal speeches and op-eds and such --  that is until recently when the military-industrial-intelligence complex as currently epitomized by CIANN, etc. were utterly “media purified” because they opposed Donald Trump.

What is less discussed is what Ike said only a few moments later:

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.

And he continued:

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 scientific-technological elite.

And that brings us to Dr. Anthony Fauci.

Ninety-three percent bureaucrat, three percent doctor (exactly zero percent epidemiologist). Fauci sits atop the medical research funding pyramid more powerfully than any pharaoh. 

His previous incompetence has been noted by so many other sources – from COVID (I would put a link here but what’s the point – there are so many)  to AIDS -  here and here -- that to repeat the failures of this particular low-rent GP in charge of billions of dollars of government money is akin to spiking and then twirling the football in the end zone.

Elite means that is one is the very best at something.  Tiger was (is?) an elite golfer; Van Gogh was an elite painter (once people noticed); Baryshnikov was an elite dancer (both shorter and a much better golfer than you think but still unquestionably the best of his or possibly of all time, though Nijinsky would probably complain about that), etc.

And that brings us back to Ike, and his worry.  Well-educated, credentialed but not necessarily bright and selfless people take over an/d or live off of the government money faucet,  like Fauci and another name we have heard before – Dr. Peter Daszak and his EcoHealth Alliance - which received millions in Fauci/Federal funding for Gain-of-Function research specifically to be conducted in a dodgy Chinese lab run by a person with whom Daszak had a long-standing financial and personal relationship.

Amazingly, EcoHealth – which may have played a role in creating COVID - to this day this is on their website:

Who stands between you and the next pandemic?

The billions in financial support numbers are staggering – Daszak’s group exists solely due to government money (although if you go the website you still get asked to drop them 50 bucks), but the idea of what can be hidden in the vapor trail of government dollar zeroes cannot be understated.

There was an infamous call/Zoom/email/smoke signal/talk that occurred at a February get-together – however you wish to describe it- that shows the (financial) hammer that Fauci could bring down.  A Scripps human was legitimately worried, before the call, about a lab leak possibility,  As the vast majority of his lab funding comes via Fauci – he said something very, very different after the chat.

A few months later, his lab got a nearly $10 million grant – from Fauci’s gang.

Then there is the matter of “regulatory capture.”

It refers to industries that have become so intertwined with government money and functions that they have essentially taken over the agency meant to be their regulator.  The harridan spawn of Randi Weingarten running rampant in the Department of Education is an example, or the union folks working at the Department of Labor. Semi-conversely, there is the reality of “industry capture,” i.e.  the former generals, junior birds, etc. getting paid by defense contractors and/or the other way around to take advantage of their erstwhile bureaucratic connections.

A particularly egregious example of this concept is Pacific Gas and Electric - a regulated utility in California of Nancy Pelosi, Gavin Newsom, etc. control fame - that has literally pleaded guilty to killing people through it gross incompetence - but still manages to have a revolving personnel door arrangement with the state’s Public Utility Commission.

And then there is the matter of hiring your own boss, which could be referred to as “industry capture.”  Imagine you want a job at a company – do you think your chances of getting the job, amazing benefits, and the ability to demand raises and/or time off at any time you wish would be helped if the boss owed you money?  That is precisely the situation around the country when it comes to teachers’ unions and school boards – the unions make up the overwhelming majority of all school board election campaign funding so, in essence, they get to hire their own boss.

As Eisenhower warned, this unholy alliance of money – always spent on the “greater good,” so regular lumpen voters cannot dare to complain – and power is a cancer on society.

And, like regular cancer, it is not always curable.