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Post by kungfuzu on Nov 21, 2020 23:26:17 GMT -8
Well, it was 400 years ago on November 21, 1620 that the Mayflower arrived on our shores.
Four hundred years is not a bad run. Two hundred forty four years is also not bad for a nation. I wonder how many more we have before the place collapses under the weight of corruption and communism.
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Post by kungfuzu on Nov 21, 2020 23:29:12 GMT -8
I would bet each of us can recall where we were fifty seven years ago on this date, November 22nd. I was in my homeroom class, when Dr. Rains (? spelling) came over the loudspeaker system and asked us to stand. He then announced that John F. Kennedy had died.
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Post by timothylane on Nov 22, 2020 7:15:30 GMT -8
We were in Greece at the time, where my father was Assistant Army Attache, so it would have been several hours later for us. My brother told me the next morning as we got up. (We slept in bunkbeds.) How he knew I don't know, though he did have a short-wave radio (we had listened to bits of the World Series the previous month).
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Post by artraveler on Nov 22, 2020 7:40:23 GMT -8
I would bet each of us can recall where we were fifty seven years ago on this date, November 22nd. I was in wood shop the the principal M. O. (MO) Ramey announced the shooting. Less than an hour later we were all sent home. Our phone rang and my father was informed that he was being recalled. He was 53 at the time and not in the best shape. This was his second recall in two years. He was recalled in 62 to train units at Camp Lejeune for the invasion of Cuba. A few days later his recall was cancelled just as he was about to leave. |
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Post by timothylane on Nov 22, 2020 8:43:55 GMT -8
Incidentally, November 22, 1963 was also a loss for literature. Both Aldous Huxley and C. S. Lewis died that same day.
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Post by artraveler on Nov 25, 2020 7:57:32 GMT -8
August, 1946: The citizens of Athens, Tennessee stage an armed revolt against their corrupt local government. People had long been outraged by the local Democratic machine, headed by Boss E.H. Crump, which maintained power through graft and electoral fraud, and used the local sheriff's department as a tool of oppression and brutality. The machine also kept tight control over the region's newspapers and its grasp extended to every part of local government: said one veteran returning from WWII, "You couldn't even get hired as a schoolteacher without their okay, or any other job." The sheriff's department routinely rousted returning G.I.s and hit them with trumped up fees and fines to steal as much of their pay as possible.
Receiving no help from the federal government - The Department of Justice had investigated election fraud in 1940, 1942, and 1944, but had failed to take any effective action - tensions grew until the August 1946 election, when a group of G.I.s put forward their own slate of candidates in an attempt to overthrow the Crump machine once and for all. They were met on Election day by false arrests, vote fraud, and voter intimidation. Things finally came to a head when an elderly black farmer was turned away from the polls, and subsequently beaten by a policeman with brass knuckles when he and the veteran assigned as a poll watcher objected. The farmer tried to escape, but was shot in the back and killed.
The people had had enough. A group of veterans and other citizens gathered together and, still desperate for a government solution, telegraphed the Governor of Tennessee and the US Attorney General pleading for help. But when no response came, and they learned that the sheriff had sent armed deputies to the polling places, the citizens decided that a show of force was necessary. A small group of men broke into the National Guard Armory and stole 60 rifles and a couple of tommyguns, armed the crowd, and went on the march.
By then, word had spread that the sheriff's deputies had seized the ballot boxes and taken them to the local jail. Using the military tactics that they had learned in WWII, the vets quickly developed a battle plan and laid siege to the jail. They knew that they had to take control of the ballots before the Crump machine could arrange for reinforcements, and before they could complete any plans for vote manipulation. Several hundred armed citizens surrounded the jail and traded gunfire with the sheriff and his deputies. The fighting continued through the night, with small arms fire and even dynamite, but by 3:30 AM the deputies were beaten and finally surrendered.
With their surrender, the ballot boxes were recovered; the G.I. candidates had defeated the Crump machine candidates by a 3:1 margin.
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Post by timothylane on Nov 25, 2020 8:14:01 GMT -8
I think I've heard of this story before. We may yet need to repeat it in a few places, but it will be more difficult because the vote fraud is in areas in which most voters are Demagogues.
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Post by kungfuzu on Dec 7, 2020 9:50:31 GMT -8
At 7:48am on this date in 1941, in a secret attack, airplanes of the Japanese Empire bombed Pearl Harbor and Honolulu.
The USA has been under attack from internal forces since long before 1941. It took three and a half years for the USA to defeat the Empire of Japan. It has taken the traitors within the USA much longer, but their victory will be much greater.
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Post by timothylane on Dec 7, 2020 19:21:12 GMT -8
Laura Ingraham just reported the death today of Chuck Yeager, the first man to go faster than the speed of sound and arguably the hero of The Right Stuff (as Jeff MacNelly noted in an editorial cartoon). He was 97, and retired from the military in 1975 (28 years after his most famous feat).
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Post by artraveler on Dec 8, 2020 7:30:26 GMT -8
Chuck Yeager He lived in the hills above Sacramento and could often be found walking the streets of of old Hangtown (now Placerville). A true American and a real hero. |
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Post by kungfuzu on Dec 9, 2020 19:17:41 GMT -8
"The Accidental Superpower" by Peter Zeihan The Accidental Superpower is a wonkish book, which deals with "Big Picture" issues, perhaps the Biggest Picture issue, that of how humanity got where we are, why and where we are going. The author, Peter Zeihan, worked for Stratfor, the well known research firm that advises governments and businesses on various economic and intelligence questions. He left Stratfor, set up his own research business, and wrote this book.
The book's main thesis is that geography is responsible for just about everything in human history.
The author breaks this down into several parts.
He explains the importance of transport, thus the importance of rivers and oceans. The importance of defensible areas, thus the importance of mountains, deserts and large bodies of water. The importance of fertile land, thus the importance of water.He makes some large claims as to the way all the world's societies, cultures and economies are formed and bound by these and other geographical constraints.
Zeihan then proceeds to go through a list of countries to prove his thesis and demonstrate how some countries have had much greater advantages than others, and how all were forced to compete, often violently, for resources and survival. This list goes from countries with horrible geographical positions or assets to the country which has the greatest geographical assets in history, i.e. the U.S.A. America has an unbeatable combination of rivers which connect all parts of the country to other parts, defensible barriers with oceans on the East and West and deserts on the South and largely barren land on the North. It also has the greatest swath of rich agricultural land in the world.
The author then goes into how the historical nature of human interaction changed drastically due to the USA winning WWII and instituting the Bretton Woods agreement. With this agreement America guaranteed open resources and markets to every country which agreed to come under its umbrella. The agreement gave countries which, historically, had lousy possibilities the chance to take advantage of the artificial situation created by the USA and thus over perform economically.
Unfortunately, Zeihan says the Bretton Woods Agreement is almost a dead letter due to fracking. Because of this, the USA no longer has to be concerned about importing energy from all sorts of crummy places around the world, thus has no need to guarantee the safety of the sea lanes for the rest of the world.
Because of this, history is about to start again and geography and demographics will, as before, determine the fate of billions. Zeihan again goes through a list of countries laying out how some will disappear, some will struggle, others will prey upon their neighbors and some will fall apart. In the end, only one country, the United States of American will come out of this as powerful and wealthy as ever.
I found the book to be very interesting, but I disagree with Zeihan's overly deterministic view of things. He does not give much credence to the idea of human or individual agency or influence upon things. On the contrary, we are all pushed along in history by things totally outside our control and over which we have little influence.
He gives right and wrong, good and evil human action short shrift, and when he does mention it, he only comments on how this or that group was abused by Westerners. Thankfully, such observations are rare.
That said, I agree with much of what he writes, particularly about the inherent weaknesses in China and the natural inclination of the country to fall apart. Where I differ with him is I think the CCP will be more successful holding on to power thus keeping the country together for longer than he appears to think. One way they are doing this is by trying to use the USA as a satellite from which to draw their raw materials and sell their second class wares.
Given all that has recently come out about China and our rulers, it appears to me that a number of people in power have read Zeihan's book and are using it as a guide on how to avoid the fate Zeihan has assigned China. I am less deterministic than Zeihan, so I think the CCP has a good chance of keeping things going their way for some time. I also don't hold with Zeihan's rosy view of America's future.
That said, I can recommend the book for anyone interested in facts about the world and trying to predict future trends.
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Post by kungfuzu on Dec 14, 2020 13:17:35 GMT -8
"Give Me Tomorrow" by Patrick K. O'Donnell
Give Me Tomorrow covers the exploits of the First Platoon, Third Battalion, First Marine Regiment i.e. the 3/1- George Company, also known as the Bloody George, during the Korean War, with a strong emphasis on the Battle of the Chosin Reservoir.
O'Donnell was a reporter during the Iraq War and was with the Marines during the Battle of Fallujah. The book begins with O'Donnell on a flight from Iraq to the States.
On that plane he was wearing a Marine Corps uniform when some unknown Marine approached him and said,
"It took me thirteen weeks to have the opportunity to wear that uniform. You think you earned it?"
O'Donnell writes,
"I just looked at him, and another Marine from the unit I was with answered affirmatively for me. During the Battle of Fallujah I wore a Marine Corps uniform while I cleared houses and fought with the troops. Why? It was a simple matter of survival."
Upon arrival in California and reaching Camp Pendleton, O'Donnell is alone as he asked his family not to meet him there. He says "In one of those remarkable random acts of kindness," a Marine Corps veteran, Lt. Colonel Clark Henry, offered to drive him to the station and have lunch.
Other veterans joined in the lunch and one of them told O'Donnell that the 3/1 held off elements of an entire Chinese regiment at the Chosin Resevoir. From that simple statement, the book was born.
"Give Me Tomorrow" is a good introduction to the opening history of the Korean War. How the USA was taken by surprise, how unprepared we were due to cuts in the number of troops and in Dept. of Defense after WWII, and how close we came to losing the war.
Troops were rushed into Korea without basic training in a desperate attempt to keep the North Korean Army from overrunning all of the South. The 3/1 was used in numerous campaigns to plug holes in the line and generally stiffen resistance.
The book gives most space to the Battle of the Chosin Resevoir where American troops were surrounded by North Korean and Chinese troops, in numbers which were many times those of the Americans. It was not unusual for 10 times the number of Chinese troops to attack a particular American position only to be fought off by the incredible bravery of the Marines.
As bad as the Chinese were, the weather was just as brutal. At one point on a particular hill, the temperature reached -60 with a wind of 65 knots. Guns froze, skin stuck to metal, blood, sweat and tears, literally, froze to the soldiers' faces.
After dealing with the Chosin Resevoir, the book gives some space to later engagements in which the 3/1 took part. Surprisingly, the highest number of casualties sustained by the 3/1 were on July 25 and 26, 1953. I came into the world at a time the Marines of the 3/1 were leaving it in large numbers.
Most of us have heard of how the Chinese soldiers in Korea attacked in waves. The first one or two having weapons, while the following waves had none and had to pick of those of their fallen comrades. Yet, one of the more interesting points which the book brings out is that most of the Chinese troops sent to fight in Korea were ex Nationalist soldiers. Many had gone over to Mao and his Communists when it was clear Chiang Kai Shek had lost the civil war. By sending them to fight in Korea, Mao killed two birds with one stone. He got rid of his past and potential future enemies and gained stature in the world for fighting and badly damaging the U.N. Forces (Americans.)
"Give Me Tomorrow," is one of the better example of Oral History which I have encountered. O'Donnell clearly has interest and affection for his subject and there were enough veterans to give a broad view of what happened. It is less than 200 pages long and reads at a fast pace. For anyone interested in the Marines and/or the Korean War, I can recommend "Give Me Tomorrow."
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Post by timothylane on Dec 14, 2020 14:32:10 GMT -8
I had a few books on the Korean War, including the Army's official history of the war up to the Chicom intervention (South to the Naktong, North to the Yalu) as well as one on the Chosin Reservoir battle and memorials by Matthew Ridgway and Mark Clark. I got the impression somewhere that the Chinese originally relied on infiltrating (the UN lines made this easy) and only later on human wave attacks.
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Post by kungfuzu on Dec 14, 2020 16:13:07 GMT -8
The book mentions this. There is one case where the Marines were coming into some type of camp with USA tents and other equipment. I believe it was supposed to be a medical unit. The soldiers were wearing US uniforms and, from a distance, looked normal. When the Marines got closer, gun fire erupted from the tents. It was a bunch of Chinese in disguise.
There were other cases where Chinese soldiers helped wounded and retreating American soldiers get to safety.
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Post by kungfuzu on Dec 17, 2020 16:52:22 GMT -8
I see that Michael Walsh has written a new book, "Last Stands: Why Men Fight When All is Lost." This is a history of desperate battles throughout history, from Thermopylae to Rorke's Drift to the Chosin Reservoir. Walsh's father is a Marine who fought at the last one.
After reading "Give Me Tomorrow," which dealt extensively with the Battle at the Chosin Reservoir, I thought this new book might be of interest to some you.
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Post by kungfuzu on Jan 6, 2021 23:10:02 GMT -8
I think it might do us some good to have a few words of wisdom from the Father of our Country. In no particular order of importance... “… Overgrown military establishments, which, under any form of government, are inauspicious to liberty, and which are to be regarded as particularly hostile to Republican Liberty.” “It is substantially true, that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government. The rule, indeed, extends with more or less force to every species of free government.” “No punishment, in my opinion, is to great, for the man who can build his greatness upon his country’s ruin.” (Some may apply this to Trump. I think they are mistaken. They should have others in mind.)
“The common and continual mischief’s [sic] of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and the duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it. It serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which find a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passion.” “Promote, then, as an object of primary importance, institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge. In proportion as the structure of a government gives force to public opinion, it is essential that public opinion should be enlightened.” “Arbitrary power is most easily established on the ruins of liberty abused to licentiousness.” “Hence, likewise, they will avoid the necessity of those overgrown military establishments, which, under any form of government, are inauspicious to liberty, and which are to be regarded as particularly hostile to Republican Liberty. In this sense it is, that your Union ought to be considered as a main prop of your liberty, and that the love of the one ought to endear to you the preservation of the other.”
“How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant of the weak and the strong. Because someday in life you will have been all of these.” “Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principles.” “Experience has taught us, that men will not adopt and carry into execution measures best calculated for their own good, without the intervention of a coercive power.” “However [political parties] may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.”
These observations are no doubt the product of much hard-earned experience. I quoted two about the damage done by political parties on purpose.
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Post by artraveler on Jan 7, 2021 6:46:31 GMT -8
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Post by timothylane on Jan 7, 2021 7:13:38 GMT -8
For better or worse, McConnell has already been chosen as the GOP leader for the next 2 years. Note that the tax cuts of 2017 benefitted every taxpayer who didn't have overly large tax deductions for state and local taxes (i.e., rich people in high-tax states).
But there is indeed a tendency for the GOP leadership to push for nice establishment types, not hard-core conservatives, especially women. How much of the blame McConnell deserves for the 3 Senate seats lost by McSally and Loeffler, I don't know. (McSally has a nice resume by all counts. Unfortunately, she's a dud of a candidate.)
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Post by artraveler on Jan 18, 2021 17:26:51 GMT -8
The Story
Every nation has a story. Some are simple some are complex, but all have one element in common. The story is mutual and shared among the people. Some nations have multiple stories. As Americans we learn our story the first day of school and it continues all our lives. The American story is as simple or complex as you want, or need, it to be.
Stories are how we convey our past, the glories, the triumphs, the mistakes and the disasters to the future. The story is how we learn from our ancestors of life in their era. We cannot time travel to another age, but we can read, watch and listen to those who were there. Our ancestors are the experts who tell us the who, what, where, when and how of events long in the past or before our birth.
New emigrants, intent on becoming Americans, quickly absorb the story of America regardless of country of origin. These are people who want to be Americans, not people who want to be in America. The American story has love, death, deception, truth, glory and despair. It is the story of a nationhood who have achieved great things and had tragic loses. It is a story of war and peace. It these ways it is not much different from the national stories of most nations.
However, the American story is not wholly the same. Our story does not feature ethnicity, race, or birthplace to be a national story. Other nations stress ethnic roots, or race to be a part of the story. To be, for example, Russian you must be Russian, have ethnic roots going back to the ancient Rus. To be Chinese you must have racial, and linguistic ties to the soil of china. In one form or another every nation has requirements of birth, language, or race to be a member.
So, what makes America different? True, we require new citizens to have a working knowledge of our system of government. We even stress an adequate knowledge of our language but are not over instant on it. By many standards, America is not a nation. Yet, we have national goals, a generally common language, religions, and world view. To join and be a member of another nation requires, at best the renouncing of long held personal beliefs and acceptance of the national consensus. To be American only requires a few things and the individuals closely held beliefs are not questioned. We merely ask that the American story be first and foremost.
Over the last 70 years the story of America is under attack. Attack by people who either do not know and understand our story, or those who hate the story and desire to destroy it. There are two philosophies that activistly hate the American story. Both offer a counter-story but on examination the stories of Marxism and Islam fall short. They do not offer a path to freedom and liberty but to oppression and restriction, to death and destruction, despair and desperation.
To the uneducated these stories appear to offer freedom of conscience, personal freedom and equality. But these stories have never offered anything they promise to the people. For the people living under these stories there is repression, and tyranny but for the elite the story offers a path to power and riches.
For decades the story of America has morphed into an America hating story similar to the Marxist and Islamist stories in the name of truth. But whose truth? The truth that American founders were racist, anti-Semitic, and slave holders, or the truth that they were men and women who attempted to do their best to bring freedom and liberty to the greatest number of people and often failed to achieve those goals?
A world-renowned newspaper, New York Times, in its 1619 project is attempting to smear all of the history of our founding with the brush of systemic racism. Instead of printing truth the Times is distorting the truth with ideas and concepts the founders never had. It is a blood libel not unlike the libel, also once printed in the Times, Protocols of the Elders of Zion. The Times, when it had definitive proof of Nazi death camps in 1944, kept silent and still defends that decision. To this day The Times seldom passes the opportunity to attack the State of Israel. As it seldom misses an opportunity to attack our founders. Surely, we must ask ourselves, is this the newspaper of record?
The American story offers the rest of the world an example of liberty and freedom that has never been duplicated by any other story. The American story is open to everyone seeking a better life for themselves and their children. It does not require a religious conversion, to learn a complex language or the money to purchase citizenship, but only the willingness to embrace the preamble of the Constitution; We the people of the United States in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
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Post by kungfuzu on Jun 6, 2021 17:38:54 GMT -8
I meant to post this earlier today. Although it was not exclusively an American affair, the Americans did take the biggest beating on June 6, 1944. Worse was to come. Reagan's speech |
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