Tag Archives: Kennedy

Climate, Culture, Economics, Elections, Governance, Health Care, Politics 2023, Religion, Representation

LE MAIN GAUCHE

Leave a comment

The laziness of Americans, as opposed to the laziness of humans in general, will prove the undoing of our culture and comforts, unless there is large-scale social change.  The pieces – or parts – of the social engine that created a series of technological revolutions that placed men on the moon in 1969, are well-known, but widely disparaged.  How can a successful society turn away from what worked for it for hundreds of years – even thousands – and turn in a generation or two towards multiple paths of destruction of those same social-civil engines that made America the most attractive, envied nation in the world?  It requires intense purpose and planning.

Not long before the Eagle landed, the United States reached its highest level of living standards for the largest number of people, of all races.  John Kennedy was president at the time and it’s been downhill for the United States since then.  Social pollution had slipped into our “main” stream of progress towards the future.  The generations of World War I and the Depression had proven their rightness and righteousness by raising up the “Greatest Generation” who sacrificed lives and property to remove large elements of evil in World War II, and then rebuilding former enemies so that they might join “America” in a future of freedom, democracy and prosperity.  Unfortunately, the evils of Communism were not destroyed at the same time, instead literally encouraged through treaty and malfeasance to grow and entrench in two of the largest countries: the U.S.S.R. and China.

Communism is unalterably antithetical to the American idea and system; it is antithetical to religion, by definition, and it is contained and promoted within a mission of ridding the world of religion and individuality… two of the key engines of American success.  How is it possible that Communism could ever gain a foothold against the beautiful system and ideals of America?  Long-term, never ending planning and step-by-step erosion of values.  “Well, I’m not a Communist,” you are saying to yourself, “and there’s no way other Americans could ever fall for that crap.”  You’re only half right… on both parts of your statement.

First, how could anyone fall for Communism in the United States?  We “know” it fails to increase freedom and inevitably descends into fascist authoritarianism, controlling every aspect of life and interaction in society.  Communist nations are organized by classism and are examples of racialism of the worst sorts.  Communists of varied virulence have followed two tracks, and one is education.  Over the past 60 years, while our “representatives” have been consumed with clinging to their elected sinecures, leftists, convinced of their being so much smarter than those who “cling to their guns and Bibles” as Obama notably observed, have taken control of educational colleges and programs.  This placed leftists (Communists) in charge of certifying teachers and controlling the curricula in education degree programs.  Bit by bit our schools, mostly public, but the majority of private schools as well, have slanted curricula toward what “educators,” especially those Phd.’s who get hired as superintendents and commissioners of education, think is most “progressive.”  No one wants to be “old fashioned” else we won’t be keeping up with competing countries.

From teens and college students who got away with drugs and free sex rebellion in the 60’s and 70’s, have sprung generations of children who have been raised in “socialist” homes by parents who perceive winning as more valuable than learning, training and personal advancement.  If that means “beating” the system and protecting their offspring from the consequences of failure, then there are no limits.  College courses, themselves, have more and more quickly responded to social change and trends, first from feminism and then anti-Christianity and sexual deviance.  Today students can “major” in relatively useless study areas that have grown out of non-individuality, non-individual responsibility, communalism.  We can hear this diversion from what made us strong and resilient when “advocates” and activists describe their deep feelings and concerns for this or that “community.”

The “gay community” or the “trans community” or the “African-American community” are terms that display an inherent rejection of Americanism.  Our fundament is individual responsibility, individual success and individual failure, if that is what it takes to learn how to improve and succeed.  The quality and character of each of us Americans, is what matters… not the false groupings proto-Communists would try to have us believe exist.  Everything, good or bad, is “class-actionable” to communists.

The most destructive laziness is to allow the present circumstances to continue.

The other part of your – our – belief that we’re not Communists also is, sadly, in question.  Leftists – Democrats – love to accuse Republicans of planning to cut Social Security and Medicare.  Republicans automatically trumpet their promise to “protect Social Security and Medicare!”  What they are really saying is: “We believe in these parts of the Communist Manifesto even MORE than those Democrats who claim to care about you!”

Federal money has purchased most Americans’ philosophies.  The line between good solid American values and corrupt socialist nanny-statism is moving with almost every “omnibus” bill in Congress and every election cycle.  We are, by and large, afraid to give up Communism, now.  How can we make the case for freedom?  And, what is that case?  If most Americans are committed socialists, who is going to rally behind rolling socialism back?

Perhaps you were an obedient mask-wearing soldier in the battle against COVID-19.  Some of your compatriots are still wearing their masks, convinced, by government wisdom, of something or other.  You have thought you were protecting others and saving lives (despite all science to the contrary) and need only for our benign governors to alert you to something else that only your sacrifice can save us from… imminent destruction of the environment and our planet, for example.  “Whatever it takes,” you think to yourself, “just tell us so that we know what to do.”  Needless to say, YOU will never be called an “anti-vaxxer” like those deplorables that are constantly skeptical of what is necessary to save us, all.  Many of them probably attended Trump’s speech on January 6th, 2021.  You don’t need to convert to Communism, the Communists are perfectly happy with you as you are: malleable and far removed from individuality. No trouble.

Now, to save the planet, we are instructed, American success must be stifled.  Americans use too much energy, eat too much food, consume too much health care, drive too many miles, invent too much.  Maybe if we legalized extra-strong marijuana, dumbed down our education, shifted our university education towards social confusion and division, spent time and money on transgenderism in the military… perhaps then we can make progress towards snuffing out that damned American energy and genius.  Individualists will never kneel down for global government so let’s force Americans to divide against one another.  Students must be encouraged to foreswear their responsibilities by pretending to be the opposite sex – it’s a good way to divorce them from their meddlesome parents, as well.  We can’t have parents inculcating their offspring with religious beliefs and hard-work ethics.  All that pro-American stuff must be watered down.

So who are the “we” making all these plans?  Why they’re our elected and appointed federal and state officials!  We, the people, put these communist-socialists into power over us!  We, the people, largely ignorant of our responsibilities as U. S. citizens, have agreed with the hateful divisions that have popped up everywhere with the appearance of COVID.  Leftists have been rubbing raw the feelings of many blacks, mainly those who have failed to excel after generations of welfare dependency, failed education and inner-city criminality.  Institutionalized failure under federal “programs” have rewarded “community activists” for agitating a restive sub-group.  Leftists have worked for years to forgive the somehow-justified hatred for “white” culture, even when it expressed in riots, murders, looting and arson.  All that has been needed is an “unjustified” death at the hands of white police personnel – and not always “white” – any police.  A few communists, a few hired-to-be-incompetent district attorneys, and almost any tragedy can be turned into a society-ripping weapon against America.  If you think the anger and destruction is justified: the “Saint George Floyd” effect, then the committed communists and globalists (same people) are perfectly happy with you.  Their plans to remove the U. S. of A. as a stumbling block to globalism, are working better than well.

There’s always the next election, of course, when we can vote in some true patriots who will correct the problems the federal government creates for us.  That might be a plan if we hadn’t acquiesced to wholesale weakening of election laws and voting regulations slowly for decades, then in a rushing flood under COVID.  Every one of us must be vigilant in our states and question every regulation for voting that has been promulgated since March of 2020.

Communists and other leftists LOVE democracy.  All that voting… all those ballots… people can be persuaded to believe they are in control and making real choices.  One can observe that the largest “democracies” have nearly universal voter participation and, interestingly, nearly universal approval of one candidate.  How wonderful.  Even not-so-large “democracies” where some hapless opponent(s) of the approved candidate(s) find that the approved candidate still manages to eke out a win after ALL votes are counted.  This means ALL ballots are counted, not actual votes, but ballots.  As the great democrat, Josef Stalin opined, the people who count the votes are more important.  Clearly that has become the byword for leftists and capital-D Democrats in the United States: the purpose of an election is power – not democracy, not strengthening our republic, not expanding citizen participation… power.  And, since that is the true purpose, whatever it takes to realize that goal is justifiable.

After all, whenever leftists slip up and a Republican gains power, he or she is merely an interloper to be tolerated until power is restored to its rightful owners.  It is time, fellow citizens, to restore honesty in government – all three branches and the elections that create them.  Maybe a candidate will run on a platform of honesty and truth-telling to his or her constituents… ummm, naah.

We could ask, though.  If you’d like to make a candidate squirm, ask if he or she will adopt honesty and truth-telling as his or her platform, promising to tell the truth about government to constituents… to people like, well, you?  You won’t be able to keep up with the semi-true and misleading replies that question elicits.  Should that person take office, Prudence predicts that the answers he or she might offer, should you ask, will become less and more tenuously connected to truth.  Finally, “our” representative become a representative of the government TO us.  That is when we ought to know that it’s time to replace him or her with someone new.  Otherwise that sickly-sweet candy shell with the intensely bitter center, known as Communism, will win.

Culture, Economics, Education, Family, Governance, Health Care, Immigration, Politics 2021, Representation

ON LITTLE CAT FEET

Leave a comment
Tyranny by any other name…

Tyranny crept in on little cat feet.  You may have been too busy – or frightened – to have noticed what happened to our nation and to our attitudes over the past 60 years.  So, ummnnh, let’s see… 2021 minus 60 years, well, that would be, ahh… 1961!  All right!  I got it.  Don’t ask, it’s a white supremacist thing.  Nineteen-sixty-one: Kennedy was president; the United States had achieved its pinnacle of average standard of living for all races and classes of people.  Black families were making economic progress at a higher rate than whites.  We were starting to tickle the edge of space and gearing up scientifically, technologically and educationally to defeat the Soviet Union.  People everywhere respected, envied, the United States’ obviously superior political and economic system: Freedom… even Americans themselves!

There were rumblings, for sure.  It was fairly obvious that Kennedy’s election was the result of vote fraud in Chicago among other cities, but particularly the Mayor Daley machine that delivered Illinois to Kennedy.  Kennedy won by a “national” margin of about ONE VOTE per precinct.  Nixon, to his credit, decided to not challenge or call for recounts, even in Illinois, believing that doing so would be bad for the country, a foreign concept in 2021.

Kennedy squelched the “Bay of Pigs” invasion of Communist Cuba by denying U. S. air support for the C.I.A. –trained and encouraged army of anti-Castro Cubans.  It was a project hatched under Eisenhower, possibly without Eisenhower’s own awareness.  An unholy alliance of the Mafia and shadowy C.I.A. operatives, the invasion was inherited by Kennedy, who was already skeptical of the latitude of operations arrogated by that secretive agency.  To Kennedy’s credit, he took responsibility, publicly, for the failure of the “invasion.”  It is widely perceived that the same unholy alliance that wanted to re-establish pre-Castro Cuba ultimately had Kennedy assassinated in 1963.  The slide from America’s pinnacle had begun.

Lyndon Johnson, a racist, shepherded Kennedy’s Civil Rights Act through Congress, relying on substantial Republican support and widespread sympathy for Kennedy.  More significantly, he acquiesced to another C.I.A. scheme in French Indo-China where, following the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu in May of 1954, French colonialism in Southeast Asia ended.  The U. S. had helped France fight the Viet Minh communists to no avail.   Truman’s policy of “containment” of international Communism was threatened.  Viet Nam was divided into North and South and U. S. “advisors” attempted to build up South Vietnam’s resistance to takeover by the North, viewing South Korea as a shining model.  The C.I.A., as an armed tool of the State Department, basically set policy for America’s role, there, ultimately engineering the assassination of South Vietnam Premiere, Ngo Dinh Diem and his much disliked brother and sister-in-law.

Theories have swirled about Kennedy’s assassination being linked to his supposed desire to pull away from involvement in South Vietnam, but facts don’t support such a course.  Anti-Castro Cubans, Mafia leaders and the C.I.A. are the more likely perpetrators.  Once Kennedy was eliminated (There were about 16,000 American troops assisting ARVN efforts against the Viet Cong when Kennedy died.) Johnson fell for the ridiculous “Gulf of Tonkin” incident report and committed major ground forces to the Vietnam “Conflict.”

With daily broadcast of bad news from Vietnam and revelation of the “Pentagon Papers,” Americans began to lose faith in our government and our military, while the existence of a “Deep State” within our own government became apparent.  Politics, and the future of the United States had become clouded.

The Press and the Democrats took down Richard Nixon.  In the process they had even Republicans believing that the crimes Nixon had apparently done in covering up stupid political stuff were so threatening to our Constitutional Republic that he had to go.  Maybe, but there was a lot of theatre.  Numerous characters saw their careers secured by working to expose the President or working to sabotage him.  Some were right… about the career part.  But “the press” has never been the same.  No longer are journalism majors directed to learn how to report the truth; now they all intend to change the world from their digital pulpits from which they preach about others than the God of Truth.  Fake news is a mark of pride, today, if the result fulfills intention.

The loss of a free press and of free speech is a key stepping stone to tyranny.  An “agenda-press” will protect crimes by people whose philosophy comforts it, while it works to erode and corrode those with whom it disagrees… truth be damned.  Readers, watchers, listeners are misled through misinformation, and by the rat-a-tat-tat repetition of lies spread by philosophers the organs of information agree with.  Soon whole beliefs are addled and worse philosophers and philosophies, become “mainstream.”

Public employee unionism, especially applied to the education industries, public and private, has in recent decades, gained control of teacher qualification and certification, all with 90+% leftist attitudes.  Students seeking a path out of poverty, often a path away from failed families, are fully malleable by prevailing philosophies in schools of education.  They all seem to want to change the world, as well.  Trusting parents are trusting the wrong institutions to reinforce their philosophies of life, truth, honesty, religion and responsibility.

Since the 2000 elections the concept of government by litigation has grown beyond rational bounds.  When the Supreme Court ended the charade of selective recounts in Florida the politics of hate gelled into a real means of acquiring power: first, destroy the opponent(s) personally, then destroy his or her followers and supporters.  “The politics of personal destruction.”  It’s not an “American” thing.

For whatever reason, Republicans posted two weak candidates in a row against Barack Hussein Obama.  McCain had a shot in 2008 with Palin as V.P., but her conservatism was carefully constrained by McCain’s handlers.  Then the financial crisis hit.  What a fortuitous coincidence for the Obama campaign.  Eight or ten key money people demanded settlement simultaneously and dominoes began to tumble.  President Bush was out of his league, deferring completely to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, a product of Wall Street and Goldman Sachs.  As the FED and emergency legislation started a flood of hollow dollars to bail out the very investment banks that precipitated the crisis, McCain appeared helpless while Obama remained simply concerned, saying little.  Goldman Sachs got a goodly share.  Others did less well, places like Lehman Brothers, and AIG, the re-insurance company.  General Motors took plenty, as did Chrysler, but Ford declined.

As a result of it all, McCain lost respect, Obama got elected to “transform” the United States, and the financial system became more tightly controlled by – or integrated into – the federal government.  The near-collapse was global, exposing the dangerous (to self-government) interconnectedness of banking, particularly of central banks.  The ease of controlling populations is multiplied by control of their personal money and finances.  Legislation that reacted to the 2006-2007-2008 banking crisis, like Dodd-Frank, define certain financial institutions as “too big to fail.”  American taxpayers, indeed, American short-term financial health altogether is now tied to propping up what are essentially international institutions.  The loss of financial sovereignty is a keystone to collapsing national sovereignty, the worst element of tyranny when that nation is the United States.

It should be growing clearer how seemingly unrelated events provide facilities for imposing Fascism or worse should a government be controlled by people who believe that top-down imposition is the best way to organize a nation or a people.  Constitutional limitations interfere with that form of thinking.  The American Constitution serves as an obstacle to global, transnational tyranny of every type, but its strength depends on leadership that agrees with its principles.  The Constitution, itself, provides very limited tools to counter the political power of anti-American leadership.  It is one of the contingencies of self government that the founders could not conceive of: that the electorate would be so twisted in its thinking that it would elect – and re-elect repeatedly – representatives who were decidedly UN-Constitutional, or anti-Constitutional – which is to be anti-American – in their thinking.

Obviously the effects of two or more generations of public education could sway enough voters to misunderstand their roles in self-government, and to misunderstand the roles of the institutions of government to be not defenders of individual rights and responsibilities and of private property, but rather dispensers of welfare in various forms so as to provide comfort to citizens.  In order to provide that much welfare the government entities must take the money from those who have earned it and to whom it belongs.  If people are constantly being taught, or encouraged to think that it’s not FAIR for some people to have more wealth, the political will to take more from “the rich” is easy to find and hard to oppose.  Undreamed of debt, weakening the nation’s ability to defend itself or to perform its Constitutional duties, becomes a threat to everyone.  As resources begin to fail, more government, and more tyrannical government will appear to be the only answer for literal survival of large fractions of the population.

Government types have encouraged media conglomerates to tilt, then embellish and finally create “news” that has political value and, now, actual control value of nearly the whole country.  This has been the greatest “end-run” around representative government and inalienable rights, ever.  A generation of Americans has been convinced that its country is so imperfect as to be indefensible.  In effect, patriotism for the United States has been made negative, something espoused only by ”white supremacists” and other sorts of obvious racists.  Even the U. S. flag is viewed negatively by some – those who are in agreement with Black Lives Matter, that the whole American culture, history and success must be torn asunder and replaced with communism, the direct route to tyranny.  For shame.

The Biden regime openly colludes with Google, Facebook, Twitter and others to censor ideas and speech it doesn’t want heard.  For the government to be involved with that corrupt and twisted role, assumed by those companies, is utterly unconstitutional, but the Congress is unable to convince itself that the political advantage those organs provide is not worth the damage to the Republic.  With representatives like those, who needs tyrants?  There are, potentially, institutions and limits that could be created to prevent this form of Fascism from becoming rooted, but we have yet to find the courage to create them.  At the present time there are about a dozen courageous members of both houses combined, and 523 sheep who are most involved with re-election and not with the defense of America or even with citizenship.  For shame.

The engineered diseases that result from COVID-19 have exposed the weak-mindedness of a large number of Americans , and the tendency toward Fascism of many of the rest, mostly government types and other authoritarians, even in private business.  A supposedly “free” people has been exposed as unable to make thoughtful judgments about where personal sovereignty ends and government control begins.  In the American Constitutional system the individual citizen is sovereign, relinquishing only enough freedom as to enable the “federal,” not “national” government to provide what individuals and local governments, even state governments, cannot.  The system is virtually backwards, or upside-down, today.  The supposedly federal government has arrogated powers to dictate everything from lightbulb design to grade-school curriculum, even the meaning of words and content of religious faith.  Forcing free citizens to wear masks or receive injections of barely understood concoctions falsely called “vaccines,” while lying publicly about the nature of and origin of the latest, new, viral disease, was a relatively small step.

That same government has succeeded in dividing Americans against one another over relative rates of conformity to false premises – even to restricting everyday freedoms for failing to conform to federal “Covid” dictates.  America, awake!… please.

Major corporations are in league with proto-tyrants in subverting Constitutional limitations and in subverting freedom, itself.  While an individual artist baker or web designer is punished by the courts for refusing to employ his or her artistry for morally or religiously objectionable activities, airlines, sports team, employers of 100 or more and many others, are empowered to refuse service or entry to those refusing the injection of phony and proven remarkably harmful, “vaccines.”  It’s how Hitler built the Wehrmacht.

“And you tell me, over and over and over again, my friends, that you don’t believe we’re on the eve of destruction…”

Politics 2020, Trump

And on the other hand…

Leave a comment

Prudence has worked for 2 weeks on a response to the Democratic convention.  It is a topic that has piled up words faster and deeper than any other… and it’s not finished.  Whether it’s ever posted is a question.  Who on Earth would read it?

So, a lighter analysis of 2020 politics is in order.  Might be fun.

There are two distinct sets of philosophies vying for power in this presidential year – no news, there.  Summed up, one is generally in favor of our constitutional system of distributed power, installed as governance for the first time in 1789; one is in thrall to ultimate government control over the economy and not just the economy, but control over individuals: how they live, what medicines they are permitted – or MUST – take and how they educate their children and about what.

One recognizes that America succeeds within a culture that is worth strengthening and imparting to succeeding generations; one appears anxious to displace American culture and replace it with race-based socialism.  What has this to do with each of us?  Whichever philosophy wins the 2020 election is going to have a direct impact on the lives of many – not all, but many Americans.  It will also affect the lives of millions of people in other countries.  There aren’t many election decisions when that is true.  Why will it be so?

In the event that Trump is re-elected, and we do, historically, tend to re-elect presidents if they have not failed economically, primarily, but not always… in that event there are significant risks to both our culture and our economy – affecting most of us, but not all.  The forces arrayed to stop Trump in his first term will not have given up.  If anything they will be more sharply aimed with greater destructive intent.  It is sad but Prudent to consider the possibility that he will be assassinated.  His determination to undo the deep state and eventually the economic oligarchy has not abated, and will be sharpened, as well.

The upset to our culture will be significant, much like the Kennedy assassination that began a long process of distrust of government and the decades of sex, drugs… and rock-and-roll, but I repeat myself.  It opened the door to Johnson, the Great Society’s 60-year erosion of our family-centered culture, and led to the Viet-Nam War and to Richard Nixon, whose removal from power changed politics – and the media – forever.  It is impossible to predict the upheavals that would follow an assassination, but none would be positive from a Prudent point of view.

Trump’s re-election is perceived as dangerous by many, and will expose him and his family to danger.

If, on the other hand, Biden is dragged across the finish line in November, there are significant risks to both our culture and our economy – affecting most of us, but not all.  The radically left forces that have grasped the philosophy of the Democrat Party will be vindicated even as they celebrate their relatively cheap victory over tradition and constitutionalism.  Elements of the “Green new Deal” will be proposed for legislation almost immediately, as will proposals on how to pay “reparations” to some amorphous group of non-whites.  Green energy, so called, will be sold as an infrastructure plan; money in the defense budget will be diverted to pay for part of it.  “Climate change is an existential threat.”

Sexual aberration will be further codified and given taxpayer support for any treatments or operations needed.  Laws defending sexual identities and how everyone must accommodate them, will become more strict and widely enforced.  Public safety and policing in general will be softened, and sanctuary status allowed where municipally claimed or, God forbid, state-claimed.  The nullification of federal laws will become rampant.  It is hard to predict whether rioting and anti-capitalist / anti-white destruction of urban centers will continue.  Those who have permitted it in 2020 will also feel vindicated and their anti-Americanism rewarded; it’s possible.

Should Trump win and survive, there are positive changes he will promulgate, and among these are immigration enforcement and the eradication of “sanctuary” status everywhere.  There is the distinct possibility that riots will continue, but Trump will feel vindicated by re-election, and will more readily impose states of emergency or even martial law to stop them firmly.  This is a danger to everyone should martial law become acceptable for solving policing problems.  At first it will be welcomed, but it is at least extra-legal and a terrible precedent and habit.

The reactions of China, North Korea, Iran and, interestingly, Pakistan to the re-election of Trump, are hard to pin down.  Xi Jinping of China hates Trump for constantly calling out China over the Covid virus release, if not for several other reasons.  His desire is to embarrass Trump so as to put him in his place, as it were.  Xi naturally perceives his China as destined for global hegemony and sees Trump as his biggest impediment.  Trump must lose face for the world to recognize China’s ascendance.  This could take the form of North Korean provocation to near hot war with China’s declaration of support for North Korea including full military force, forcing humiliation on South Korea and the United States.  Many alliances will be strained or broken if Trump backs down or appears to.

Pakistan, particularly with the conclusion of a much anticipated “peace” treaty with the Taliban in Afghanistan, may be encouraged, again by China, to resume clandestine and, perhaps, direct operations against India.  All 3 states are nuclear armed.  China has had hot incidents with India, most recently in 2020.  It could serve China’s interests to see India tied down in the mountains of Kashmir, and to see the United States take India’s side.  This would provide opportunities for China to act aggressively elsewhere.  Whereas Trump has moved from treaty to agreement with abandon, re-making trade and other agreements to benefit the United States as he wished, in his second term he will be severely tested by China.

What would world leaders do with Biden in the White House?  He has shown himself willing to bribe and take bribes from other countries, as has his “buddy,” Obama.  He has supported softening relations with China for decades.  Would he suddenly be tough?  Doubtful.  He has shown himself unwilling to denounce “Black Lives Matter” or the rioting in several cities.  He appears to like top-down directives from government and would lock down the economy a second time if “experts” told him to.  The only bold moves he has described for his administration have concerned climate change and the green new deal… plus raising taxes.  For middle-class Americans, the Biden agenda, distorted by socialists, is unpleasant to contemplate.

As George Soros, evil globalist, recently stated, “The 2020 election will affect the entire world.”  Be Prudent when you vote.

Economics, Governance

Borrowing for Welfare?

Leave a comment

Nearly every day there is some article or letter in the newspapers that decries the fact that the United States’ “defense” budget is larger than the next 7 nations’ defense budgets, combined. Moreover, that “bloated” defense budget could be reduced significantly so that the “savings” can be used to feed the hungry and house the homeless right here in our own country, for Heaven’s sake.

None of these heartfelt concerns is based on the right perspectives or even the right data. That’s the trouble with statistics.

For example, 65% of fiscal 2017’s Federal Budget is committed to entitlements, pensions, health-care and education. From a Constitutional standpoint, most of that 65% is not the business of the federal government, whereas defense, now 16% of the budget, categorically IS.

Years ago welfare was strictly local… and recipients were a little ashamed of having to ask for it. Many, your grandparents or great-grandparents, and many of your parents, would do the most menial jobs to AVOID being on welfare and to get “off” of it as quickly as possible. Children learned this reaction and revulsion. Welfare was a handout when you needed it, as temporarily as possible.

Soon after World War II, though, states took over welfare from cities and towns, mainly under pressure from cities, which were buckling under the northward migration of blacks from the deep south. Almost immediately, states began prevailing on Washington to take the burden off of their backs. After all, weren’t the new Northerners crossing state lines because of “national” conditions in the economy?

After 13 years of the “New Deal,” we could have seen where this was going. There were votes to be gained in the impassioned cries for better – federal – welfare: codified compassion.

Truman blazed integration trails, Eisenhower enforced anti-segregation in schools, Kennedy hemmed and hawed but crawled toward full integration and voting rights legislation, Johnson, riding a wave of sympathy for his murdered predecessor, got civil rights legislation done, and then carried on further to create some wildly expensive – reckless – new “rights”: federal, unaccountable, politically charged, easily defrauded, vote-attractive welfare.

Smartly, though, Johnson couched the new largesse to which people were now entitled – not ashamed-of, in wonderfully sympathetic terms and names. Names like: Aid for Dependent Children (AFDC), Women, Infants and Children (WIC), Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), Supplemental Security Income (SSI), Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP, ie. Food Stamps), Pell Grants (free college), Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF), Rental Voucher Program (Section 8), Federal National Mortgage Administration (“Fannie-Mae”), Child Nutrition (School lunch, breakfast, dinner!), Head Start (very, very expensive day-care), Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), and, the granddaddy of them all: MEDICAID.

Current spending on these and more than ONE HUNDRED other federal “anti-poverty” programs (who could be PRO-poverty?) is nearly 900 BILLION dollars. That means that our virtually bankrupt federal government is BORROWING money to provide welfare.
Well, say unionized federal social workers and sympathizers, our defense budget is larger than the next 7 nations’ combined, let’s cut that, first!

Except… it isn’t.

When China, for example, builds sand islands in the South China Sea, and puts military airstrips and naval “bases” on them, and claims 200-mile territorial waters around these extensions of “China,” it’s not a military expenditure, but something else. For example.

When Russia directs a manufacturer to produce engines for new IRBM’s and ICBM’s, they aren’t military expenditures – they’re developments in space exploration. All peaceful. And subterranean military bunkers for both armament manufacture and survival are certainly construction projects… and expensive, but military? Not so you’d know.

And no other country carries the degree of personnel costs and benefits that are packed into the “Defense” budget of the United States. Simple ledger numbers are not comparable with other nations’ budgets.

Actually, under the Obama administration, defense has been cut a few times. One of his first steps was to fold tens of billions of retirement costs into the Defense Department budget. Logically, the cost of military retirements should not be measured as part of the Pentagon’s war-fighting / force-projection budget, should they? They certainly don’t threaten anyone but us.

Next, Obama forced the Congress into the “sequester” process, of which a large fraction of restrictions were imposed on defense – to be “fair.” Big cuts.

Finally, he walked out of Iraq, abandoning the very bloody, very costly gains we had made there. We are now paying to regain what had been won. His frothy, fraudulent Iran anti-nuclear “agreement” (cunningly not a treaty), will cost us many billions going forward – billions that need not have been spent had there been a different foreign policy.

The new president sees significant weakness that exists now or very shortly will, as normal refitting and reconditioning of hardware takes larger and larger fractions of critical military systems out of service. Warplanes are becoming antiques as our most experienced pilots are retiring; it is our phenomenal pilots who keep last-generation fighters useful in their 30th year of service. Now our latest fighter platform is too expensive to buy enough of!

If anyone thinks that McDonald’s and Kentucky Fried chicken are going to convince our potential enemies to not work – and fight – to destroy us, it is time for him or her to wake up. Maybe unrestricted immigration will make everybody love one another, but so far it is weakening the “West” and confusing our Constitutional rights with national suicide.

Culture

More than a game

Leave a comment

What can be said that hasn’t been beaten into the ground already, about football? Well, some things can be said about the meaning of it. Your response may be that there must be something more important to expound upon, but there is a point, here, worth making.

Football is a metaphor for America. Not because of the “sport” aspect, but because of its declaration of excellence being rewarded and celebrated, vicarious inclusion of couch potatoes, and attraction of profits – even the creation of millionaires.

“Aww, c’mon,” you say, “it’s just a game.” No, no it isn’t.

Football is a great business, and Americans react well to this because we are, like every other human, innately capitalist. We recognize and appreciate smart business, smart marketing, and that wonderful effect of smart business: secondary benefits to multiple other businesses and tremendous flows of profit dollars into charities.
Even better, football succeeds, itself, because it grandly recognizes and rewards individual excellence and discipline.

No matter how loosey-goosey our morals appear to be, we each value excellence and we honor those among us who strive, daily and hourly toward perfection. We are awed and thrilled by organizations whose profit motivations imbue their individual members toward constant improvement… and success.

“Do Your Job.” Americans respect and reward responsibility. No matter the qualities of leaders – and successful organizations, particularly business organizations are led, obviously, more than simply managed – every individual following a leader is ultimately responsible to that leader, to his associates who depend upon him or her, and to him- or her-self, for the task each has trained and learned to accomplish at the moment of execution. Ya’ gotta’ love it.

There are a handful of truly great and greatly led moments in our history, when large fractions of the nation followed, even sacrificed, for the proper purpose a recognized leader had placed before us. The Revolutionary War – in a sense our first Civil War, as we “seceded” from England – is a perfect example. Clearly Washington was a superb leader who was able, in the face of extraordinary odds and opposition, to maintain the shining goal and keep his under-fed, under-supplied and under-appreciated troops striving toward an “impossible” goal: Independence.

The Americans weren’t fighting for treasure or even for comfort or out of fear, but for a set of ideas and ideals. To maintain leadership for such an effort is rare and justification for our reverence of General Washington.

Lincoln showed similar, not identical traits. But his sense of “mission” was no less complete than Washington’s. And there was a purity of purpose that never faltered and was apparent to enough people in the “Union” to re-elect Honest Abe in the midst of our bloodiest, most-hate-filled war ever.

In a sense, Washington led his troops to become the prow of the ship facing war’s stormy waters; Lincoln was, himself, the prow of that same ship. Both were leaders for the right reasons… and respected. Those being led were able to sacrifice for the purposes each leader embodied. Americans respect and honor that stuff!

Another, more refreshing example was the Apollo Moon-landing mission. Jack Kennedy was a leader. It’s not because of any significant executive experience – far from it. It was because of vision. For those of us born during WW-II, the 1960 election was the first we could vote in. We grew up under Eisenhower, but he didn’t “speak” to us. His presidency marked the end of an era and of his career… he was our parents’ president.

Kennedy represented the vitality of America and the start of new adventures, new ideas… the New Frontier. He was our start, too, and anything was possible. Somehow, in spite of his practical naiveté Kennedy perceived that the competition with the Soviets was a competition between cultures, between beliefs, between dreams, and that American needed a new dream every so often, and that the times and the possibilities were coming together. The U.S./U.S.S.R. conflict was a challenge to the ideas of America, and there simply was no room to come in second.

Kennedy’s May, 1961 Moon-landing proposal to Congress met every aspect of what a leader should include in laying out a mission: it was bold, it was a challenge, it was timed and measurable, and it had a specific goal – a goal that rose and set every day. It was perfect, and what the nation needed at a time when popular, slanted news was extolling the amazing progress the Soviet system had made in everything from rocketry to housing to medicine and to education.

The other element of the Apollo challenge was technological, and a certain boost to our economy… something every President needed. What happened?

Military leaders, scientists, engineers, colleges, think-tanks, machinists and a thousand businesses with their own leaders, adopted the mission and devised a thousand missions of their own. Most of the knowledge needed to pull off the moon landing and a safe return to Earth, was unknown. Many of the skills were floating around among the disparate parts of the nationwide, about-to-be-team, but they’d never been marshaled to a single goal until Kennedy presented a new dream. Still others had to be invented.

Again, what happened? A new unity of purpose. Indeed, there was an irresistible force of purpose that caused levels of sacrifice, stress, service and a striving for perfection rarely experienced by any industrial society… and success. The success was so profound that it swept up the vast majority of Americans into a new belief in what we stood for and could accomplish. It has not been repeated.

But metaphorically, its impact is out-pictured in teams’ quests to reach the Super Bowl. And the fans of those quests, fans of every team, respect the sacrifice and discipline, study, practice, learning and leadership that’s needed to get there. Brady would be nowhere without good leadership at the head of and within the Patriots organization, and within himself in fact.

Americans get that, and respond, even to buying shirts and hats as if to absorb a little of it.

The same qualities exist in the military, although the sacrifices are so compellingly greater. And Americans grasp what it means. We honor and respect the training, discipline, leadership and near-perfection elite teams strive for in every service… and even more, the physical, sometimes mortal sacrifices made in furtherance of the greatest mission on Earth: defending America. We share the pain when we back out of conflict without victory; we try to honor the many victories it has taken to get even to there.

We felt and respected some of the magic under Ronald Reagan, perhaps never recognizing the nature of his and our victory over the Soviet communist system.

But the momentum of dis-education and the constant anti-American pressure that has marked American culture since Nixon was forced out of office, was bearing fruit… and nuts.

From the utter debauchery of the Clintons, through the distorted semi-conservatism of Bush-43, through the Obama dislike of America, of Whites and of Christians, and his greater respect for everything we are not, Americans have yearned to respect again; to respect, perhaps, themselves. We have yearned to respect our institutions, and people, and systems and teachers and churches and everything that has, no matter how hidden or suppressed, the innate sparks of leadership, training, practice and sacrifice, that we know has created greatness in this land and in us.

No ONE can do that, and certainly he or she cannot BE that – not even Donald Trump. But he, at least, knows what IT is and its importance to the ideas of America. Like JFK, he has succeeded because he sensed Americans’ need for a new dream, every now and then.

Now is good. Go Pats!