Category Archives: United States Armed Forces

President Trump Sounds the Dawn Reveille

Posted on January 20, 2017 | Leave a comment

Donald John Trump has been inaugurated as the President of the United States. The Ceremony and the preliminary ceremonies as of this posting were it seemed to me decorous and worthwhile. His speech set a clear tone and although almost seventy Congressional Democrats were not in attendance the crowd seemed sizable enough given the gloomy weather and other factors.  We have a forty-fifth President. If somehow I were a slightly different version of myself living in a slightly different version of America, his speech would promise a time of opportunity for me personally as America sought to deal with China, Mexico and outer space in challenging new ways. Those are three places that have long been very important to me. But I will leave that as my personal note for now. I do not see President Trump as asking for my help or any real chance to be effective emerging here for me. This is a brief post centered on his speech. I think his speech is neither without merit nor without promise. But parts of it do concern me as well.

The new President Trump spoke succinctly enough greeting those present with propriety:

Chief Justice Roberts, President Carter, President Clinton, President Bush, President Obama, fellow Americans, and people of the world: Thank you.
We, the citizens of America, are now joined in a great national effort to rebuild our country and to restore its promise for all of our people.
Together, we will determine the course of America and the world for years to come.
We will face challenges. We will confront hardships. But we will get the job done.
Every four years, we gather on these steps to carry out the orderly and peaceful transfer of power, and we are grateful to President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama for their gracious aid throughout this transition. They have been magnificent.

 

His acknowledgement of all that is involved in legitimacy and continuity was in contrast to the way that many have received his own ascent to power. I thought that was to his credit. He did strike a populist tone and make clear that the American Forgotten Man, already credited with his electoral victory was at the center of his launching of the new product line that is the Trump administration.   He addressed the people in a kind of idictment of the dignitaries he had just greeted moments before, saying:

Today’s ceremony, however, has very special meaning. Because today we are not merely transferring power from one administration to another, or from one party to another — but we are transferring power from Washington, D.C. and giving it back to you, the American People.

For too long, a small group in our nation’s Capital has reaped the rewards of government while the people have borne the cost. Washington flourished — but the people did not share in its wealth. Politicians prospered — but the jobs left, and the factories closed.
The establishment protected itself, but not the citizens of our country. Their victories have not been your victories; their triumphs have not been your triumphs; and while they celebrated in our nation’s capital, there was little to celebrate for struggling families all across our land.

Whether Trump can continue to connect with important millions across this vast land remains to be seen but he seemed sincere enough in the attempt.

 

 

As President Trump reminded us all our woes and sense of alienation he seemed confident he could make a difference in our experience of life in this country. He laid that out as well:

That all changes — starting right here, and right now, because this moment is your moment: it belongs to you.
It belongs to everyone gathered here today and everyone watching all across America. This is your day. This is your celebration. And this, the United States of America, is your country.
What truly matters is not which party controls our government, but whether our government is controlled by the people. January 20th 2017, will be remembered as the day the people became the rulers of this nation again. The forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer.
Everyone is listening to you now.
You came by the tens of millions to become part of a historic movement the likes of which the world has never seen before. At the center of this movement is a crucial conviction: that a nation exists to serve its citizens.

Americans do want someone to listen and Trump surely is chief among those they hope will hear them. The reaction over recent weeks has included the Congressional Boycott, The Arly Protests and the protests outside the electoral college voting. But it has included a wide variety of responses across the political spectrum. Those include, The Hill and many other outlets in the media who have reported that President Donald Trump came into today’s ceremonies with very low approval ratings for a new President of the United States. I will be looking to see how his ratings fare after today’s ceremonies. But merely saying there is discord has not been the totality of the conversation so far.

A lot of clever people from across the country have been weighing in on the Inauguration Day festivities for quite some time and most of all on the man and the office that together make up 45th POTUS, Donald John Trump. One article from South Carolina  reminded readers in advance that there was indeed a good bit at stake in this election.  As the nation prepares to mark a new course and follow it on immigration some have pointed to Melania Trump’s own journey to citizenship. While Trump did secure a sizable minority of votes among American Jews by his staunch support for Israel there have been actions in the Liberal majority of American Jewry that have been reported in the press and online of those lamenting his election. Trump did not emphasize abortion, Israel, or Obamacare in his speech. He focused on certain key parts of his platform. Note the issues mentioned:

 

Americans want great schools for their children, safe neighborhoods for their families, and good jobs for themselves. These are the just and reasonable demands of a righteous public.
But for too many of our citizens, a different reality exists: Mothers and children trapped in poverty in our inner cities; rusted-out factories scattered like tombstones across the landscape of our nation; an education system flush with cash, but which leaves our young and beautiful students deprived of knowledge; and the crime and gangs and drugs that have stolen too many lives and robbed our country of so much unrealized potential.
This American carnage stops right here and stops right now.
We are one nation — and their pain is our pain. Their dreams are our dreams; and their success will be our success. We share one heart, one home, and one glorious destiny.
The oath of office I take today is an oath of allegiance to all Americans.
For many decades, we’ve enriched foreign industry at the expense of American industry; subsidized the armies of other countries while allowing for the very sad depletion of our military; we’ve defended other nation’s borders while refusing to defend our own; and spent trillions of dollars overseas while America’s infrastructure has fallen into disrepair and decay.
We’ve made other countries rich while the wealth, strength, and confidence of our country has disappeared over the horizon.
One by one, the factories shuttered and left our shores, with not even a thought about the millions upon millions of American workers left behind.
The wealth of our middle class has been ripped from their homes and then redistributed across the entire world.

Trump was concerned about secure borders, trade, crime and economic development.  Those were the first themes he hit upon. While he did not malign China or Mexico they were clearly the most threatened by him as in all past speeches about the overall geopolitcal situation. He promised a new era, of Trumpist protectionism and fine infrastructure:

But that is the past. And now we are looking only to the future. We assembled here today are issuing a new decree to be heard in every city, in every foreign capital, and in every hall of power.
From this day forward, a new vision will govern our land.
From this moment on, it’s going to be America First.
Every decision on trade, on taxes, on immigration, on foreign affairs, will be made to benefit American workers and American families. We must protect our borders from the ravages of other countries making our products, stealing our companies, and destroying our jobs. Protection will lead to great prosperity and strength.
I will fight for you with every breath in my body — and I will never, ever let you down.
America will start winning again, winning like never before.
We will bring back our jobs. We will bring back our borders. We will bring back our wealth. And we will bring back our dreams.
We will build new roads, and highways, and bridges, and airports, and tunnels, and railways all across our wonderful nation.
We will get our people off of welfare and back to work — rebuilding our country with American hands and American labor.
We will follow two simple rules: Buy American and hire American.

Beyond that he was hawkish only toward radical Islamic terrorism. He was able to use the term and able to promise to unite the world against these foes. See the next phrases:

We will seek friendship and goodwill with the nations of the world — but we do so with the understanding that it is the right of all nations to put their own interests first.
We do not seek to impose our way of life on anyone, but rather to let it shine as an example for everyone to follow.
We will reinforce old alliances and form new ones — and unite the civilized world against radical Islamic terrorism, which we will eradicate completely from the face of the Earth.
At the bedrock of our politics will be a total allegiance to the United States of America, and through our loyalty to our country, we will rediscover our loyalty to each other.
When you open your heart to patriotism, there is no room for prejudice. The Bible tells us, “How good and pleasant it is when God’s people live together in unity.”
We must speak our minds openly, debate our disagreements honestly, but always pursue solidarity.
When America is united, America is totally unstoppable.
There should be no fear — we are protected, and we will always be protected.
We will be protected by the great men and women of our military and law enforcement and, most importantly, we are protected by God.

Next,He laid out the vision of a technologically progressive and economically powerful America that would lead the world to the future. See the rest:

Finally, we must think big and dream even bigger.
In America, we understand that a nation is only living as long as it is striving.
We will no longer accept politicians who are all talk and no action — constantly complaining but never doing anything about it.
The time for empty talk is over. Now arrives the hour of action.
Do not let anyone tell you it cannot be done. No challenge can match the heart and fight and spirit of America.
We will not fail. Our country will thrive and prosper again.
We stand at the birth of a new millennium, ready to unlock the mysteries of space, to free the Earth from the miseries of disease, and to harness the energies, industries and technologies of tomorrow.
A new national pride will stir our souls, lift our sights, and heal our divisions.
It is time to remember that old wisdom our soldiers will never forget: that whether we are black or brown or white, we all bleed the same red blood of patriots, we all enjoy the same glorious freedoms, and we all salute the same great American Flag.
And whether a child is born in the urban sprawl of Detroit or the windswept plains of Nebraska, they look up at the same night sky, they fill their heart with the same dreams, and they are infused with the breath of life by the same almighty Creator.
So to all Americans, in every city near and far, small and large, from mountain to mountain, and from ocean to ocean, hear these words:
You will never be ignored again.
Your voice, your hopes, and your dreams will define our American destiny. And your courage and goodness and love will forever guide us along the way.
Together, We will make America strong again.
We will make wealthy again.
We will make America proud again.
We will make America safe again.
And yes, together, we will make America great again. Thank you. God bless you. And God bless America.

 

 

So Obama is gone and our civilization appears to be going on. The worst of the fears projected in this space have not been realized. The future is of course uncertain. The truth of the transition and all that will come of it is about to emerge more clearly.

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Posted in 1, Asia, Geopolitics, Islamist modern Jihad, Israel, Judaism, Palestine, United States Armed Forces, United States of America, Western civilization, White House

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Clinton’s Campaign: Does She Have Credibility, a Creed and a Contest ?

Posted on July 5, 2016 | 1 comment

Will Secretary and Senator and Former First Lady  Hillary Rodham Clinton be the first female President of the United States? It certainly seems likely. Here you can read my first post when she became the presumptive nominee of the Democratic Party.  Since the very first version of this post came out the Washington Post has run an article saying that her credibility is damaged, that article is here and it may or may not represent political reality. But the contention made here in all versions of this post so far is that there appears to be a small chance that she will be indicted, arrested and charged in the email scandal or in any matter to do with Benghazi. By small of course I mean that there is not a large chance. There appears to be a miniscule chance that Bernie Sanders will mount a successful revolt or set up a powerful third party challenge which would derail her path to the presidency. There is more or less no realistic chance that she will be stopped from being elected except by the victory of Donald Trump as the Republican Nominee over her as the Democratic Nominee in the general election. Almost no chance is not the same as no chance. Any number of things could happen including death of physical impairment. But the odds seem to be better than fifty percents that she will be the next POTUS. Few people have ever had more relevant work or official experience when approaching the highest office in the land. To be a Senator is a lot, to be Secretary of State is a lot, to be First Lady is a lot — to be all three is a staggering degree of experience. Of course I physically stagger more easily than some more physically gifted readers and so I go to that adjective and the related adverb more readily than they might. But if one does not stagger one at least must take notice of the degree to which she embodies tremendous experience. Compared to her:

  1. Donald Trump has never held elected office,
  2. he has never lived in the White House,
  3. he has never lived in the executive mansion of a State,
  4. he has never held an office appointed by a President,
  5. he has never led a sustained policy discussion as Clinton did with healthcare,
  6. he has never been officially invited to sit at the table to negotiate  a formal treaty on behalf of the United States.
To safeguard liberty we must be able to adapt to the changing times.

To safeguard liberty we must be able to adapt to the changing times.

On the other hand they do have some lack of experience in common:

  1. Neither on has held a major post in a religious institution,
  2. neither has served in the military,
  3. neither has served in the workaday world of the intelligence community,
  4. neither has lived on our borders or in border towns for any length of time,
  5. neither speaks Spanish of French well, official languages of our neighbors,
  6.  neither has lived and worked as a citizen in the way business people, missionaries, journalists and  volunteers do every day across this world as they forge an American identity abroad.

Ambassador Stevens was an unusually high ranking victim of violence abroad. In the last few days other Americans have lost their lives around the world but a glimpse into the kinds of decisions he faced is also a glimpse into kinds of decisions that Americans who believe in what they are doing abroad face every day.  The following excerpt is from the recent report on the Benghazi incident:

While the end of the fiscal year funding deadline was looming, the Diplomatic Security Agent in charge at the Embassy in Tripoli was, nonetheless,
concerned about Stevens’ trip to Benghazi. Although his first planned trip to Benghazi in the beginning of August 2012 had to be canceled because of security,14 Stevens was adamant, however, about going in September.15 The Diplomatic Security Agent testified:
Previous to this—to his decisions to going up there, there was— we would meet weekly to discuss the security situation in Libya.…[
T]here was a specific meeting regarding what was happening in Benghazi. In that meeting, we reviewed incidents and  probable causes, what’s initiating it. And a lot of discussion was that it was the conflict or the incidents up there were, you know, local population against local population and that that they weren’t specifically targeting Americans … up there. I expressed my concerns about the incidents that did involve us. And the basic response was that they … were anomalies.

We all have images of what leadership should look like which are not simple portrayals of reality.

We all have images of what leadership should look like which are not simple portrayals of reality.

Romney was a missionary in France during anti-American times, Bill Clinton visited Russia as a student in the Cold War years and there are other connections to tat least the same world Chris Stevens lived in that can be found in other political lives outside the military but not in the lives of Hillary Clinton or Donald trump so far as I know. Both have traveled a great deal. both have been at some risk but the proportion of risk to resources has never been equal in my opinion to the baseline many Americans abroad have experienced every day all of my life.

The other thing that they have in common is access to fame, fortune, privilege and the people in power. This is not an even contest between the two of them but neither does it really matter who has had more of such opportunity. These opportunities have defined both of their lives for a long time. One big difference of course is that Trump like all previous American Presidents is a man and Clinton is a woman. I visited that in the post where her candidacy was all but assured but I am not going to deal with it much in this post.

There are issues related to Clinton that have very little to do with the fact that she is a woman. Trump recently said he just knew very little about her religion and she responded by declaring her self emphatically enough to be a Methodist. My own take on some of the discussion of Clinton’s religion has been posted in this blog before and can be seen here. Of course there may be more to say as time goes on.  One fact about the election of the first Clinton to the Presidency is that the result was likely determined by the most credible third party candidate in presidential politics in my lifetime — Ross Perot. He made it more than possible for Bill Clinton to defeat George Bush Senior. Thus Clinton did not face the kind of intense contest he would have otherwise.  This kind of splitting is well established in British politics and may have been fostered in some way or another by the Rhodes Scholar, Bill Clinton as the biggest take home lesson from his time in Oxford. Some may see Trump as Ross Perot on steroids. He is the third party candidate who became the  candidate of a major party and the main obstacle to Clinton’s election. that would still be true even if Romney or someone becomes a real third party candidate somehow. So how does trump match Clinton on matters of faith?

To see Clinton’s faith in political terms this season means to examine Donald Trump’s faith as well. He seems to be a person, like Clinton, about whom one could say a great many contradictory things based on pretty good evidence. That is not necessarily because he is deceptive or a hypocrite but may be because of the place he comes from in his life context. Interestingly enough he has made it clear that he supports Christmas as a national holiday and seeks to preserve it. That was the narrow subject of my original blog post about Clinton’s faith and the faith of other candidates.    Christmas was of course never my only interest in the religious identity of candidates. I love Christmas very much and the Christian observance of it by this country is a tradition I think worth striving for and worth some sacrifice. However, it is interesting that the ugliest rumors and suspicions about Donald Trump involve the ways in which he reminds people of the NSDAP or Nazis and the Third Reich. While many Christians nothing like the Hitlerites have rallied around Christmas, there is also no doubt that the Nazis made Christmas and especially the control of Christmas tree sales and early focus of political activity.  In further clarification, it is interesting to note that the list of candidates in the Democrats poll I posted in that article did include Biden but did not include Sanders. Even more interesting is that Trump does not appear among the six Republican candidates who appear in the poll I posted and reviewed in terms of the religion of the candidates. Huckabee was the leader in the poll and he was of course a Baptist minister who claimed the same hometown as President William Jefferson Clinton — Hope, Arkansas. So where does that leave the discussion of religion as I saw it back in 2014? It is not a perfectly relevant post in every way  then.  But here is the principal quotation from that blog post as it pertains to understanding Clinton’s faith in very general political terms. The first paragraph below deals with how Americans likely to vote Republican were thinking about Republican candidates in 2014 and how that related to Christmas and it observance by the Christians of this nation . However the remaining paragraphs  relate to what Clinton’s religious identity is likely to be. It is perhaps best to look at the text:

There is a lot of shaking out to do if these numbers mean any thing before any Republican can claim the nomination.  But it does indicate perhaps the streams of thought that are shaping the country as regards finding a religious root for values expressed by America’s  “right” in politics.

What then about the left? Where does the other side of American  political energy come down on our connecting with the roots of Christianity.  Unlike the possible GOP nominees, Hillary Clinton has tended to tower over her challengers for the 2016 Democratic nomination. Some people are saying that candidates like Elizabeth Warren are poised to show explosive growth but it would take a lot of growth to challenge  Clinton in the primary.

Joe Lieberman who ran with Al Gore was not a Christian but a Jew who seemed to tolerate a good deal of public Christmas. Mitt Romney belonged to what most scholars consider to be a post-Christian religion but it is one that celebrates Christmas as an American holiday and the birth festival of Jesus Christ. Many presidents have been devout Christians: Washington, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Eisenhower, Jimmy Carter, Woodrow Wilson, John Kennedy and half a dozen others are clearly men who in my opinion must be seen as Christians entirely. Whatever they did not achieve of the Christian ideal is not because they did not adhere to that faith and religion. Richard Nixon was reared as a Quaker and (though many American Quakers seem pretty much to be Christians) Quakers as a whole are not a Christian faith but one which grew up among Christians.  It is hard to say what Nixon was when he was President. With men like Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson and  a few others it hard to say where they stood in terms of religious classification and identity.

So that brings me to Clinton. She is a favorite enemy of the Christian Right and other religious people in American politics and she may well deserve it. She has a background which is mostly verifiable: Clinton was reared a Methodist Protestant Christian, belonged to a Senate Prayer Group and has spoken at Prayer Breakfasts.  Her profile may seem different to American atheists than to most other people. Here is an atheist site evaluating Clinton’s background and religious values.  It is hard to know how  she would deal with Christmas.

I have just finished observing the Independence Day  holiday in a minimal sort of way. It is always a time that I like to think about what it means to be an American and posts about those thoughts can be seen here. But although those ideas have been posted here they have more often been shared in other places and my thoughts about America have been posted here on other holidays. Those holiday thoughts on Memorial Day have been  here and on Veterans day have been here. While I have in common with Clinton and Trump that I have not a day of service in the military in my past it seems to be the military holidays that most inspire my patriotism. My observation of the Independence Day holiday was not entirely minimal by every standard and I did post quite a few notes and the lyrics of the National Anthem on my Facebook profile but minimal my observance  certainly was  in some measures. Neither Trump nor Clinton were very visible in my own perusal of our nation’s birthday. But one of them will likely be the American Head of State by next Independence Day. Unlike Christmas these holidays are not specifically Christian. I am a Christian and for me Christian prayer is part of these national holidays. I am not sure how the faith of either major candidate informs  their celebration of these days.  But faith and the most gung ho kinds of patriotism are linked by many as can be seen at links here and here. What else does  America expect from a leader and does Clinton have it?

Clinton has a lot of government experience, but the range is not infinite. One of the big achievements of this week has been the placement of the Juno observatory in position as a satellite of Jupiter. Some of the reason many people around the world are interested in this project can be gleaned here.  Neither Clinton nor Trump seems to be the kind to play an extraordinary role in blazing a pioneering trail into space.  These kinds of brave explorations may shape the future or not but they do not seem to define the vision of either Clinton or Trump.

One question many people have about religion is whether or not someone who prays for help should be President. Perhaps prayer means one cannot do the job. But some contend Clinton had private emails because she did not want to disclose the degree to which she could not do her job. That story can be seen here. It is to be noted that this not entirely clear story comes from a publication as biased in favor of Clinton and against Trump as one can get. But the point is here only that Buzz Aldrin, a rocket scientist, astronaut and space planner is a noted public prayer promoter in his own life and not being known for religious acts makes nobody a scientist.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Posted in 1, Christianity, France, Independence Day, Religious Holidays, Russia, United States Armed Forces, United States of America, Western civilization, White House

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Presidential Politics and the Current American Mindset

Posted on June 9, 2016 | 2 comments

So will the US ban all Muslims from entering the country for a time? Will it seek to get along better with North Korea and not so well with the UK? Will it deport tens of millions of aliens to Mexico by relative force across the country? Do those visions fairly represent Donald Trump?

Will it lie, deny, distort and obfuscate as long and as much as can be imagined when challenged on any wrongdoing in the White House? Will it sing the official praises of those who who sell human body part of members of our species deliberately dismembered? Will it find ways to blame working class white men and unidentified big businesses for larger and larger parts of the country’s problems no matter what the evidence may be? Is that a fair vision of a potential Clinton presidency?

This blog post does not attempt to answer any of those questions.  This post does assert that while I am doing other things I am still committed to the political commentary in this blog. It is a little different than the commentary any where else. It is very much my own.  Some of that commentary begins just now.

We all have images of what leadership should look like which are not simple portrayals of reality.

We all have images of what leadership should look like which are not simple portrayals of reality.

It looks like there will be a race for the White House between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. There may be surprises or a third significant candidate but it appears that those two will lead the charge for the major parties in this country. This post is a chance to simply link together a few thoughts and references for this blog which began during the presidency of Barack Hussein Obama. I still have a few more posts in my series Emerging Views but this post is about the developing presidential election and what all of that will mean for this blog and other aspects of life, culture and politics. While this blog is obviously a particularly small voice in the world of news and information it is not clear that America has the kinds of voices today which Time and Newsweek represented in the 1980s and 1990s. Those were far from perfect times and those two famous weeklies were far from perfect media outlets.  Perceptions of bias and the wrong kinds of selectivity were often stated and were justified.  But these news and culture magazines did seem to capture a sense of where American political energy and interest were in a way which no handful of media outlets do today. Rush Limbaugh, the ABC, NBC,Fox, CBS, Yahoo and Google News programs taken together cover a lot waterfront. I am not sure they bring together a sense of the country as those two magazines and handful of their peers once did. I wonder where and how this great debate and discussion will play out.

To safeguard liberty we must be able to adapt to the changing times.

To safeguard liberty we must be able to adapt to the changing times.

Before there were blogs forming a blogosphere there were letters to the editor in journals and magazines and I had quite a few published. That includes on published in Time. I recently wrote two long letters to Time although they really do not publish much in that way. Here they are reproduced nearly in entirety. The first discusses the state of political discussion in America from a particular point of view.

 

 Nancy Gibbs and Colleagues

Time Editorial Staff
225 Liberty Street
New York, New York 10281-1008
Ms. Gibbs (not to insult those who actually read this),
I am responding in part to the cover of the May 23 issue on Rana Forohaar’s careful rendering of her book into a lead article on capitalism. There is some alarming material in the article in the sense that it raises concerns that pose a threat to all of us. But the tone is perhaps other than alarmist. The cover was sort of evocative of covers that have appeared over times past with a contemporary take and for whatever mix of nostalgic and critical reasons I liked the cover and its kind of conversational approach to saving the U.S. economy. I also saw much of the same use of concepts of gate-keeping, source identification, making comparisons between varied crises and challenges for perspective and all these little traits reminded me of Time over the decades. But this time my reading was influenced by another experience that I will only mention and leave to any reader’s imagination as to how it influenced my reading of Time. The experience involved an interaction with an institution In some ways not at all like Time, yet both have played a role in the great and American intellectual commons which is distinct from a world or civilization based heritage or any regional or sectional intellectual ferment. That institution is one of the officials in the particular sport of television. I published a review in the Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television in the early nineties and since I have no plethora of academic publications that is yet another reason for me to be more interested in the NIelsen process than most. Thus I found it stimulating.  
Just about the time your issue was hitting stands and libraries I had a chance to participate in the Nielsen ratings. It gave me the opportunity to think a bit more clearly about the ways in which all that we know as mass communication is changing and about how our society is changing. I deal a good bit with issues of social change and and communications and I do it in my blog, Facebook profiles and other places which are possessed of much longer comments on these events than you have time to read from an over the portal source. A look at my Twitter feed and profile would quickly tell you two things: I do have some influential followers although the number is small and I just added Time to those I am following as I started typing this email. It is not that I never viewed your tweets — I just don’t remember to add people and institutions to my list.  My Linked In profile which should be available herealso show some other connections. The relatively long and bizarre path through life depicted there is not a fiction, doubtless there are some errors and some of longstanding.But every thing in it is at least close to the truth or has simply evaded my limited attentions as an editor of the profile.
Time has bigger fish to fry than my little corner of the media world. Your recent issue of May 23 seeks to address Capitalism, feminism with Megan Kelly, mental health with Kristen Bell, Jodie Foster discussing the meaning of her movie and how Sadiq Khan hopes to combat extremism. You do this in a way which is fairly coherent, clever and informative and makes someone like me want to write you a letter even though no letters to the editor appeared in the issue about which I write. But it is clear is it not that there are forces almost of the type found in YA literature which challenge Time’s capacity to marshal an argument, stage a debate and aid in the creation and dissolution of any consensus in these United States. Much of this is blamed on Culture Wars by some who keep up with news from the eighties and nineties. However, this year it is notable that energies channeled into supporting Hillary Clinton, Donald trump and Bernie Sanders all find focus in places near your offices in New York City. They really do not seem to be cultures at war. More like a single culture not able to deal well with the people who make up the culture. I on the other hand am one of the real outsiders compared to New York and D.C., Jackson’s demise as a face on currency in favor of a Broadway promotion of Hamilton will hurt tourism associated with the Battle of New Orleans and I will feel it more than most  — although being too disadvantaged to feel it much.   I did live in New York for a year as a child and in a vague and general way I am part of the numerous constellations of enclaves the best of New York journalism used to seek to stay in touch with but I think finds it more difficult to do these days. I believe Time  is bringing to bear a great number of important questions and people are reading Time and yet I am not sure the influence on a national dialog is very great.  The recent past was not perfect but there was a conversation going on about its imperfections when your mentors were young. But the costs are not trivial, I care about fur trappers, cowboys, loggers, oilmen and stevedores. Most of all farmers and fishermen have made up large parts of my life and I consider myself an ardent environmentalist. Likely any relationship with New York journalism would experience plenty of frictions from that area of tension alone.   
The magazine you lead is really defined in part by a set of relationships with Newsweek, Life, Business Week, National Review, U.S. News and World Report and a handful of journals just as much as it is defined by its relationships with readers, advertisers, interviewed talent and newsmakers. It is easy to see that  Life andNewsweek are relatively defunct, National Review is less than it was under the leadership of the late William F. Buckley and the others are struggling at least as much as Time to find their way forward in the current era and into the future.  
I am fifty-one years old and had a letter to the editor appear in Time in the days when voice mail was means of communication that was in vogue. That was sometime around 1993 and I was more optimistic, less bitter and more hopeful of a positive future for myself and the people, communities and values I care about in an emerging American society. I think the tone was perhaps more strident and angry than the tone of this email but I was less alienated. This year is a special year for many observers of and participants in American culture, with its communication focused at actual vocal human beings in attendance at the excited and seemingly burgeoning rallies for Trump and Sanders and the coverage of those events. This makes this political season a year about a different kind of dialog. But this is not coming out of nowhere,Black Lives Matter, Occupy, pro and anti Confederate Flag rallies, Hispanic identity rallies, anti-immigration rallies, the rallies at the Papal visit and with the Pope near the border all form a compelling national dialog. In addition David Duke’s endorsement of Donald Trump reaffirmed that the pure blogosphere ( in which Duke is a player) can make a difference at least for a moment in the news cycle. My own blog is right here. Or you can drag and paste https://franksummers3ba.com/ into your browser. Isn’t it also time to admit that many of the mass shootings are acompanied by political statements which are fairly serious, reasoned attempts by Muslims, White Supremacists, East Asian Americans, military veterans, African Americans and the victims of bullying. They feel alienated and that there is no real recourse in our major social and political process. The  focus on guns and mental illness to the exclusion of everything else these people are expressing is perhaps a real sign of profound bankruptcy as regards our national conversation. I myself would like radical change and I outline it in my blog.  But how change is achieved matters almost as much as what changes one seeks.

 One of the mysterious casualties of Hurricane Katrina and a host of other troubles was the loss of a daily New Orleans newspaper in the Times Picayune. The Advocate from Baton Rouge seeks to make up the slack, but I do not think this will be without some dire consequences down the road.The decline of newspapers has been discussed all my life. I worked for or with and have been published in a variety of papers that there is only  a small chance anyone in the initial review of this letter will know. Among these newspapers are the Abbeville Meridional (principal voice of Vermilion Parish, Louisiana since the 1850s), Gannett’s Daily Advertiser, The Vermilion ( student paper for UL now then USL)and Bonnes Nouvelles ( the Vermilion Parish edition of a  chain owned by connected members of the Dardeau family). 

My Facebook friends list has the publishers and journalist of many Catholic and also of many regional outlets. The  list also includes the principal editor of the Queer Times and a number of space related blogs. Yet I cannot help but wonder if I am more alienated from the center you represent than ever before. Would it be to risky for Time to interact with me given perhaps some position or other in my blog?  The question is not purely rhetorical. I admit I would still love to have a byline in Time. I do not pretend that I am the only and best qualified person wanting to publish in your pages. I think your recent issue did a credible job. I enjoyed it although less perfectly than in the past and did not read every word. But I do wonder is Time very committed to a sort of national conversation? Committed in the way so many others are to so many other things? If not, then who is?   

— 

Frank W. Summers, III
Frank “Beau” Summers

The next letter I wrote to Time was related to an article I had read in their pages related to the  South China Sea and the brewing tensions there.  It is less to the point of this post than the first but it is not irrelevant:

 

Timelords (is that the correct form of address?),

 
Fiery Cross Reef is vital to Chinese military interests. There artificial island should be expanded with a more naturalistic artificial coastline. We need a very civilized rival somewhere in the world to justify maintaining our investment in traditional military assets. We need traditional military assets to have a long term future. The Philippines and the United States have a vital interest and real claims in the region are indeed held by several powers as described in the article.
 
The total story is a complex one. But where are the calls for the kinds of dispute resolution which the vast and costly international legal system and the United Nations could possibly actually resolve?
 
There are not yet any real bad guys in this story. It may turn out in the long run that a real belligerence must arise in this region. I wish that were less likely than it is… However, if the United Nations, the various systems of mediation and other institutions are worth anything then many people should be calling for them to be fully used here.
 
I also believe artificial islands must become major priorities for many of the world’s great powers. Learning to address the issues related to such projects ought to be both an American and a global priority.
 
Sincerely,
 
Frank Summers
Foreign Expert
People’s Republic of China
2004 to 2005
Students & in English Corner meeting on Campus SDIBT Yantai.

Students & in English Corner meeting on Campus SDIBT Yantai.

America has a lot on its plate right now. It is not mostly China which challenges us in the world. Our policies from Syria, to Iraq, to Israel, to Afghanistan and on to Europe are at least subject to serious question. This blog has been questioning policies throughout the Obama presidency. It has also been the place to put forward some policy proposals — many of them radical which may be up for discussion or may be ignored but are not being deleted from this site.  It has also made many correct predictions and some dire predictions about the possibilities of the Obama Presidency that may not turn out to be the case. While that was always hoped for by me and others around it nonetheless does undermine the credibility of the blog if things do not get significantly worse than they are before January.  My own life in these years has arguably been more and more ineffective with a few bright spots and counter trends not disproving that general direction. But while I  have problems and many others do as well I am not sure mine are the problems that resonate with the electorate per se. At least they are not likely be determinative of the outcome of the election. Yes I need better opportunity and more money but not in the same way as some other people whose needs better represent more voters.

America has many challenges to face and this blog is full of my thoughts bout meeting those challenges. but so far there is little evidence that this blog will be a major factor in shaping the key discussions of these matters at the heart of our political discussion.  I myself am more than a little weary and the worse for wear.  But I began this blog to express a point of view and influence the American mindset and I will continue to try to do that.

The earliest post on this blog was provided by Word Press but I could have deleted it. I am not sure if I edited it at all it appears here. 

It is reproduced here:

Hello world!

Posted on August 18, 2009 | Leave a comment

Welcome to WordPress.com. This is your first post. Edit or delete it and start blogging!

My next blog post was a kind of manifesto lifted from a series of Facebook notes just a few months earlier in its release on Facebook. You can read it here if so inclined. The idea of a very personal blog with a political view is quite manifest but not so much presidential politics. In fact specific politics as the term is often  are not much in evidence in that post.

The next post, which appears here, lays out some geopolitical ideas, visions and policies. It takes tongue in cheek a limitless ambition and scope as part of the nature of this blog.  I had nothing much to say about presidential politics in the manifesto.

The first post dealing with presidential politics in this blog links here. It was a reposting from a now long neglected or abandoned user blog I had on Politco.

I reproduce the long introductory segment of it here below. I cannot say that none of my views have changed or evolved but many have not:

I feel a certain amount of sympathy for Barack Obama. I choose to start with that line because I consider myself to be one of the people most opposed to Barack Obama within the spectrum of legitimate politics. However, I don’t think that there is any doubt that we have reached the point where Conservatism can be looked at as something which has merited the term “crisis”. America is in a crisis and I believe that it will prove to be a very grave crisis. However, conservatism is in a far greater crisis. For argument’s sake let us say that the terms right and left, Democrat and Republican describe a real political dynamic which matters in this country. I would argue that on the right in this country we have lots of politicians who use the label“conservative” but actually we have a collection of Libertarians, Tax Avoiders,  Moderate Neo-Fascists , Ultra-Reformed  Protestant Theocrats, and Anglophile Antiquarians who collectively squeeze a weak and demoralized conservative group of Americans who hardly matter at all.  Some of these five never discussed groups would be Conservatives if there really was a Conservative Movement for them to be part of , on the other hand many fundamentally despise Conservatism.I voted for George Bush the first time and almost certainly would have voted for him the second time if I could have made it to Beijing’s American Embassy in time to vote. However, I missed that election. I voted for McCain-Palin in the most recent election. I also voted for Mary Landrieu a Democrat this year. Through my life I have voted for a collection of Democrats, Republicans and Independents.  My sympathy for Barack Obama comes into play in this regard. Like Obama (and a lot of other people)  I have had to make the best choices I could at any given time. By the time I was old enough to vote I had forged a lot of bonds and relationships which included fundamentalists, communists in other countries, resentful Moslems, white supremacists, black radicals and lots of other people who don’t fall into the neat safe categories that President mills like mid century Yale Law normally produce in quantity.  If I were to have made a run at the US Presidency there would be people some folks would like as little as I like Rev. Wright and David Ayres. Despite all that colorful background I have lots of self-respect and more oddly yet, I think of myself as an authentic American Conservative. Arguably, I am one of the only American conservatives who could be optimistic about the Obama example. Because if such an oddly positioned person of such a background as Barack Obama can be President of the United States then maybe I could at least get elected parish assessor, city dog-catcher, county councilman, water-district representative or something else somewhere in the land of the free and the home of the brave. Somehow I don’t think Obama’s election signifies anything nearly that hopeful for someone like me.  I am able to accept that there is not likely to be a government paycheck in my future. That is unless you include the kinds of fellowships and part-time job checks form school boards and universities which I have gotten in the past. I don’t hate liberalism but I know that Liberals are more likely to take a political interest in those with odd and quirky backgrounds than conservatives are. I am able to say that I have won a few elections. I won a seat on Dorm Council in College, I was elected as Outstanding Graduate in my department , college and university for that particular commencement exercise at a different school. Then In China  a few years ago I organized elections among my student for various class and subgroup offices. Then there are a couple of elections where I was elected to post that I can’t discuss here by groups that like their privacy.  None of those races seem very much related to the Presidency or even a governorship however. In most of these races my political philosophy was not a central aspect of what people were electing me for or voting against. Many people hold office for other reasons than political philosophy. People vote for friends, members of their race or class, to keep seniority in a legislature or because they are personally opposed to the candidates opposition. But in  the big leagues there are always some questions of political philosophy that become important. I would argue that Conservatism is usually not on the menu.I think that a coherent expression of American Conservative political philosophy would require at least one very long book. If someone hasn’t read any of the books which have helped to from my opinions then an article or two would not make the great sweep of ideas stand clear. Here I am going to do something very different. I am going to propose ten unthinkable planks in a platform in an aggressive conservative movement. I don’t think that conservative means passive. Some of these would even require constitutional amendments. I believe that these planks would probably unpopular and are largely undemanded but that is because Conservatism is largely dead. I think that passing something along these lines would be essential to setting our country on a good conservative path. I believe struggling for something like this would be essential for rebuilding a conservative movement.

What is the mindset or set of mindsets which will shape American destiny in the coming election cycle?  Where are we headed as country?  This blog will still be involved in tracking these questions and any answers that it can find.

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Posted in 1, blogs, Geopolitics, Israel, media, Palestine, Peace Plan in Israel, Personal Philosophy and Moral Economics, Sarah and Todd Palin Family, time, United States Armed Forces, United States of America, USA--UK Relationship, White House

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Features Of this Blog: Part One, the Glossary

Posted on March 24, 2014 | 3 comments

I want to take today’s post to comment on and improve the accessibility of some of the features of this blog. I am not sure how logical that is as this post will be buried in posts more quickly than the features themselves but here we go. I will start my little tour:

I have a glossary which is important to the  subjects discussed in this blog. I have the first page linked  earlier and also three more pages . This glossary will define many terms and proper nouns which would not be familiar to most readers.

While the  glossary is only four blog pages it is as long as a booklet if printed out.  The formatting on this post is not the formatting used in the glossary. It differs in that I have used the quotes feature to expand the margins and thus lengthen the column. But otherwise this is directly lifted from the glossary. I hope to use two of the definitions as examples of what you might find there:

Zouaves  Here this almost always will refer to the Louisiana Zouaves of the War Between the States although the French Zouaves do enter a bit into the historical interests of this blog as well.  Zoavisme was a movement brought to Louisiana from France by an odd hybrid of military drill instructors and actors who toured Anglophone, Acadian and Creole regions of the State before the war. Yankee or Union Zouaves played a role in that great struggle and there were a significant number of of other Confederate Zouave units. But the Louisiana units are the most famous even in a history which often ignores Louisiana and are often called Louisiana Tigers by a variety of people . Unlike most Federal Zouave units, most Confederate Zouaves were not autonomous “regiments”: Louisiana followed this trend  or started it and these men  were often companies within larger units. The cognomen “Louisiana Tiger” is a venerable term  which dates from the Mexican War although Acadian fighters were sometimes known as gamecocks, crocodiles, alligators, Les Loups, and other animals Louisiana’s fighting animal was mostly the Tiger  and  the term refers to any Louisiana state trooper LSU athletic teams but all this has little to do with Zouaves. None of the Mexican War Louisiana “Tigers” were Zouaves for example.  The earliest, and most famous Louisiana Zouave unit was Confederate officer  White’s Company B (the “Tiger Rifles”) of Major Chatham Roberdeau Wheat’s First Special Battalion, Louisiana Volunteers, aka “Louisiana Tigers”.

This can be confusing because Lee’s Tigers is a term correctly applied to all Louisiana soldiers that served in the Army of Northern Virginia. These are not to be confused with the Louisiana Zouaves  who were the “Louisiana Tigers” or “Coppen’s Zouaves.” These names have been confused with “Louisiana Tigers at Gettysburg.” Coppen’s Zouaves were at Gettysburg, but they were not then known as “Louisiana Tigers” in any way related to the unit although they may have been called Tigers in a broader sense.  Captain White’s Company B, “Louisiana Tigers”, of Major Wheats’s First Special Battalion, were not at Gettysburg, having been disbanded after Wheat’s death at Gaines Mill in 1862. There are two other Zouave units of company size for which I have little documentation but believe existed for a small part of the war.

This one comes at the end of the alphabet and has its limitations and challenges that are unique to the word and its history. Here is another example from elsewhere in the glossary, in this case I have three definitions that fall in order here:

Post, here means Lauren C. Post This is the writer of an important little book on the edge of serious scholarship called Cajun Sketches. It has photographs and writings about the Acadian people of Louisiana.

 Pontalba, Madame Celestin Pontalba, Baronesse Micaela Almonester de Pontalba was the wealthy investor and patroness of architecture who helped her  architect to redesign the decaying Place de Armes in New Orleans into Jackson Square in the center of the old city and French Quarter. She was the successor to charitable, commercial and public building projects organized by her Almonester ancestors.  By the time she built The Pontalbas (as the whole project is known) she was bo longer the rather beautiful woman she had been she had one lung, a rotting finger and little left of the others on one hand and one of her breast was mostly a prosthesis. She also had metal fragments left in her chest. All these physical ailments came from being shot by her father-in-law the Baron Pontalba. While she and her husband later Celestin Barone De Pontalba seem to have ended life both separated and in love their marriage is a rather horrid tale of conflicts between the greater property rights enjoyed by women in Louisiana and the lesser (almost nonexistent ) rights of women to property among the European Nobility — in this case Napoleonic Imperial French Nobility. In the state she is rumored to have had an affair with Andrew Jackson for whom she named the Square. Except for naming the Square for him, them both being alive at the same time and capable of consideration in such matters and   her being rather independent and a Louisianian all things seem to be against this. All time lines seem wrong to me. Who knows what is possible but it does not seem possible they were together in the right ways and times.

Prince Camille de Polignac This man was a French Prince and Confederate General who fought in Acadiana during the War Between the States. Since that time Liaison a la Maison de Polignac has been an office in the Maison de le Roialso seated in the Tout et Rien. This person is supposed to a De Polignac.

I am always correcting some typefaces, improving spelling and getting translations more accurate. There are no footnotes and I do check websites of place I have worked, Wikipedia and my own files regularly without being perfectly professional in the use of those sources. For these and many other reasons I call this a Glossary of Terms Casually Defined. But I think it may have some helpful information.  Check it out, it may be a bit better than these quote the next time you look at it.

 

 

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Posted in Acadians, blogs, Louisiana, media, Sex, United States Armed Forces, War

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Strength, Security and the Future

Posted on March 9, 2014 | 2 comments

Is the crisis in Ukraine and Crimea largely a show of strength? Who is showing strength to whom? Does Syria matter intensely and greatly in all this are is that just another small piece of a world wide puzzle which is likely never to be completely assembled? Our security in the United States and the security of many others around the world depends on many questions besides these. There are so many reasons to be concerned that I will not discuss in this blog. I just spent much of the week dealing with a death of the grandfather of two of my nieces and a nephew. Another former colleague and friend in a limited sense is in the hospital having lost most of her physical functions in a sudden injury. I never lack for reminders of how fragile human strength is in the individual.  It is far from everlasting in nations and states.

This is the author of this blog. I am standing beside the stone boat in the Summer Palace in Beijing.

This is the author of this blog. I am standing beside the stone boat in the Summer Palace in Beijing.

I am more aware than usual of the limits of my own strength. My father is lying abed with a painful foot and ankle  now and my only living grandfather (or grandparent for that matter) is bedridden and has been for years.  But this post is not about my own struggles with my health or those of my ancestors. This post is more about the strength of the United States of America in 2014. Strength is a fairly broad term to use to describe a set of qualities in a man, community, corporation, athlete or country. The quality of strength desired and measured differs from on type of strong being which is measured to another.

My immediate family vacationing on False River before my cousin Severin W. Summers III was killed in Afghanistan. That was the site of the last long conversation we had about war, honor and family and peace.

My immediate family vacationing on False River before my cousin Severin W. Summers III was killed in Afghanistan. That was the site of the last long conversation we had about war, honor and family and peace.

It also differs in a variety of ways that depend mostly on who is doing the measuring. What is the truth about American strength right now? What is the truth about other problems we might face? What is the truth about whatever my own views of a way forward might be? These are questions I might try to raise in this blog that relate to more specific questions about our role in Ukraine and Crimea for example.

What can be done to help the Ukrainians who seek to move forward the process of transforming their society into an ever more positive and prosperous regime without creating impossible conditions for Russia? Can America admit that there is questionable legitimacy in the rump parliament and revolution government? Can the US admit Russia cannot place Crimea in such uncertain hands and most Crimeans may well want a Russian Crimea?

Yes secession of Crimea for a real independent Ukraine perhaps more federal than this one could be the answer. They will have to work with Russia on the issue of natural gas pipelines to Europe.  But America needs to protect its borders and solvency as well as to maintain its military heritage. I am not sure how much we can do in Ukraine. We must do something but  be honest with Ukraine that the more they want ties with us the less that can be done for Crimea. Truthfully this applies to the EU and it is the EU more than the USA that Ukraine is now courting.

I have in this blog many proposals to change America. But war with Russia over the Crimean Peninsula is not in any plan I have. I believe there is a role for America. But it is a dangerous game and nobody will come out looking like a superhero. The more Western we make Ukraine the more Russian Crimea must be because at some point we have to stop pretending international law is something we always observe and obey. Because some fairness is necessary.

The seal of the Confederacy ties the Lost Cause to the Revolution and the past long before that war.

The seal of the Confederacy ties the Lost Cause to the Revolution and the past long before that war.

This is not an easy time but it is a good time to promise oneself and commit oneself to the cause of a strong secure America with a future. To some degree we all face the facts of living in an age where strength in nuclear warheads deters less than some thought it would. Yet we also face the fact that our country must survive each challenge along the way — even as we seek to reach heights of excellence.

Strength requires wisdom to manage. I myself have both strength and weaknesses and each have caused me their own sets of problems. America has many problems past this one. But this is a serious issue. We are trying to really impose our views on the borders of Russia in a very open and confrontational style. I hope that all of this is being handled well.

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Posted in Geopolitics, Russia, Ukraine, Ukraine, United States Armed Forces, United States of America, White House

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Remembering Usama bin Laden

Posted on May 4, 2011 | Leave a comment

From Facebook
“Remembering Osama bin Laden
by Frank Wynerth Summers III on Wednesday, May 4, 2011 at 7:12am
Your note has been created.
Osama bin Laden has been killed by a group of American Navy Seals and others who perhaps will not have their names revealed because of the widespread and fairly random nature of the violence in this global war. He was killed in a modest palace in Pakistan in a military area. Clearly he was living as an honored Sheikh and secret warrior and he was killed as he should have been killed by our own black ops elite. He was killed as he should have been killed by forces that came into the country without the full protection of convention and law and did their duty. He was killed as he should have been killed with some civilian deaths of those near and dear to him. He was man who whatever he wished to be was an outlaw and and an unconventional warrior.

I watched a wide range of news sources yesterday and noticed that MSNBC especially kept saying that he had been killed after an almost ten year manhunt. That is part of the great American tradition of lying about Osama bin Laden. Osama was being hunted aggrssively by this country before 9/11. He was retailiating after we had flagged him for destruction. H e deserved to be flagged for destruction we simply failed as a nation to anticipate what he could do on his side of the war.

I remember, less clearly than I might once have remebered watching our country plan operations against the Saudi millionaire. At the time Bin Laden was supporting and financing militants in the Middle East and Africa.There is no doubt that as early as 1998 there was a team of American intelligence experts working full time on bin Laden and no doubt that as early as 1996 there were people giving him considerable attention here in these United States. But our relationship with bin Laden is much older than that he was our ally in the Afghan war against the Soviet Union portrayed in the movie Charlie Wilsons’s war. Osama or Usama fought with distinction in that conflict and all of us who cheered for the Mujahideen were cheering for him among other people. Life is complicated. I cannot really see that the US could have gotten happy about the Soviet takeover of Afghanistan. I cannot really see that we ever could have lived in peace with Usama bin Laden. I am grateful the Seal Team Six or whoever it was killed the man and I am glad to have him out of contention to the degree that he is out.

President Willam Jefferson Clinton had been victorious in his heroic invasions of the women and children at Waco and Ruby Ridge was able to marshal enough forces to pressure bin Laden and he was forcred to recreate himself in the Afghan context which joined the Taliban and al Qaeda. In 1997’s later months- he had moved his base completely from Sudan to Afghanistan, and began a worldwide anti-American campaign. His cries for Muslims to organize against us were more effective than our CIA and DOD efforts at the same time to form an expert unit which had formulated plans for Afghan tribesmen to capture him before handing him over to the US. After evaluatingf the mood in Afhanistan, the director of the CIA decided canceled the program, according to a later report issued by the 9/11 Commission’s report.

Bin Laden showed his capacity for mayhem soon thereafter in August 1998 when well over 200 people were killed when bomb-filled trucks and vans drove into the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. The hot war with the new Central Asian Usama bin Laden began when US President Bill Clinton ordered the launch of missile strikes against militant camps in Afghanistan, including Bin Laden’s compound. The missile strikes did not kill any al-Qaeda leaders but modified al Qaeda doctrine thereafter and Osama’s habits thereafter. The Saudi rich man who would later offer Kazakhstan millions for a a nuke could afford a series of homes and got them. Bin Laden also devloped mobile camps and a guard and logistics unit that could move quicklyand began changing locations frequently and unpredictably. The absence of this large guard is one of the features of his death they had apparenly been replaced by the protection of the Pakistani governement. He also got the courier system going which changed his method of communication and put the kinds of things the NSA looks for further from home. Nevertheless, despite his history as a hero against the USSR we found many who disliked him in Central Asia and tribal sources were still able to provide regular updates on where he was.

In 1998 and 1999 numerous opportunities to attack and kill him were passed up during his meetings with Afghan officials in areas full of civilians. However, I think it is absurd to say that we surely would have killed him when we attacked. He was more slippery in those days than he has been in recent years. Yet he was quite secret as Special Hero of the Pakistan Military as well.

On the 11th of September in the year 2001 his attacks on the US government at the Pentagon, his slaughter of airliner passengers, the destruction of the World Trade Center and other things made him the man we all know well. This long story has ended with the bravery of the special forces who stormed his compound and killed him. I like George H. W. Bush because he has two beautiful daughters he loves, he likes baseball, he honors his dad, he cares about people and he is pugnacious for America. He is a better man than Usama or Osama or whatever ever was but he also lied about ‘sama bin Laden. He called him a coward. The man was no coward he was one of the bravest and toughest warriors that has lived in my lifetime. As a kill trophy the Seals can claim on of the greatest prizes of our time. Maybe the greatest.

This leader was also trapped by destiny. He was the 17th of 52 children of his polygamous father and could certainly not love a West which singles out polygamists uniquely for hatred and abuse. He believed in Jihad and followed his convictions. But I am not like the Rodney King of the Los Angeles riots. I do not believe that we can all just get along.
People like Jesus and Jesus himself worked very hard at very hard models of peacemaking and they deserved to be taken seriously but not all crackpot ideas of peace deserve such support.

I hated bin Laden’s support of the Taliban that kept girls out of schools, created more dependence on heroin alone and pushed Afghanistan on a path I call evil.

I hated Usama bin Laden’s destruction of embassies where peace is the primary work and the innocent the primary victims.

I hated Osama bin Laden’s involvement in killing Christians and bombing churches in lands I think should be theirs more or instead of Islam’s and were theirs first. I hated his causes more often than I did not hate them.

I hated bin Laden’s antisemitism and cheap hatreds.

Of course I was deeply affected by 9/11. I do not think it was a uniqule morally repugnant act but it was unconventional and murderous and deserves our maximum reasonable vengeance. I had put Osama bin Laden on the list of one hundred people to watch in the second post 9/11 decade which does not begin until September 12, 2011. I did write in that seires on my blog that some might die before the kickoff. He still deserves to be on the list his influence through history will be large and in near years more so then later. But killing him was an important first step. He was seven years older than I am and I will have to wait seven years to see if I have any temptation to gloat over outliving him. In many ways he was a man of great passions and powerful iconography who lived out his goals at a very grand level and after a long hunt we have killed him. I rejoice in the chance to move forward but I find no reason to minimize him. I believe a team of skilled troops can do very important work and in this case they did. As long as he was alive he would have continued to redesign terrorism.

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Posted in 9-11 attacks, Asia, Christianity, Geopolitics, Judaism, United States Armed Forces, United States of America, Western civilization, White House

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The Danger of Being a Complete Idiot

Posted on September 4, 2010 | Leave a comment

I have decided that I am personally opposed to be the world being run by complete idiots.  I think that in time there will be a need to decide that merely being a complete idiot is not a sign of a divine right to govern. Being a complete idiot may be  a fine ideal for people at many levels and may feel really wonderful but it is not sufficient to outweigh all other possible human qualities.

We have a society that moves fast and moving fast has become essential to a lot of what we do and who we are. However,  we often move in a lot of ignorance and foolishness. The adjustment to a somewhat more deliberate pace will not be an easy one.

I think that it is somehow important to be able to step out of the ordinary and mundane flow and norm of human life and society.  It is important to be able to see the bigger picture and the connections between the separate pictures which are the worldviews of each society, nation and culture. I think it is good to be able to see the several goods that conflict with the several evils that may accompany a policy decision  and also to see  how those evils conflict with each other and how those goods conflict with each other. I trust the analysis that follows such a  moral parsing  more than one which starts always looking for just the good and the bad of a choice. I trust even less that analysis rooted in the opinion that there is no good or evil.

I like the idea that a school should be a place of learning first for all the students. I do not believe we can eliminate all the rest but I believe that rape, bullying, brutalization, farting, stupidity being propounded pompously and theft should be less important than well-organized lessons, sporting events, school dances, plays, bands, moderate punishments and friendly conversation at the lunch table. I am willing to see the world that I live in clearly but I am not willing to see it as all perfectly good and right.

I think that the main purpose of the world we live in from my point of view is to suck as much as possible. However, I sometimes choose to resist this trend. One thing I hate is that whole trend which has amended the election of any US Senators by the State Legislatures away, made absolute robots of the College of Electors to the point of completely ignoring them except as mathematical factors, diminished the role of the Vice President as President of the Senate, started the rule of saying the United States is a country instead of the United States are a country (to which like others of these rules I adhere), racial policy that says either no colored people can share a conference center with white people anywhere or else blacks have the obligation to overrun every white school and rearrange its curriculum and life. These are just some of the many ways in which the country which is my home has made being a complete idiot the national ideal. I wish it could be changed.

It takes great intelligence and knowledge and some discipline to really follow the beauty pageants system, baseball at each level, the NCAA basketball tournament or a good game of football. It takes great knowledge and intelligence to stay current on what is happening in Country, Cajun, Zydeco, Bluegrass, various regional forms of the Blues, Contemporary Christian, Southern Swing, Motown, Jazz, Broadway Showtunes and movie Soundtracks. It takes great knowledge and skill  to follow and understand the Mercantile Exchange, The New York Stock Exchange, the history of the New Orleans Cotton Exchange, the Urner-Barry Seafood Price Current, the NASDAQ and the Morningstar summary of  mutual funds. Nobody apologizes for any of this difficulty. But I am convinced that in the essence of our polity and commonwealth and in the social mechanics that hold us all together  we face the ideal of the complete idiot gaining ground year by year and generation by generation.  I do not mean democracy.  I really mean the ideal of the complete political idiot. I am not joking. We have not achieved our ideal yet, but that is the ideal to which we are being drawn and towards which we are drawing the world.

I wish we would adopt a different ideal. I fee l that there are real dangers in us all becoming complete idiots in this area of our lives. We will face challenges in the environment, politics, war and diplomacy which a complete idiot is not the best person to address. Sometimes we will need people who are not complete idiots.

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Posted in Amy Grant, Asia, College Football, Contemprary Christian Music, Country Music, Geopolitics, Music, Peace Plan in Israel, Population policy, United States Armed Forces, USA--UK Relationship, Vince Gill, White House

America and the Next Big Thing

Posted on August 12, 2010 | Leave a comment

We are at a place in our history where we must see real change soon.  The truth is that broad and significant change is one of the greater risks which a society can undertake. All though I do advocate substantial change I don’t do it in a way that is blind to the risks.  America is still a self-perceived success by almost every measure and so we have more chances to create the perception of both failure and oppression than in any other country almost. I want to list here a few things that would be addressed by the model which would be addressed by this model and in short paragraphs try to disclose why the solutions are needed as well as how they would work.

First, the transition would seek to abolish most forms of “affirmative action” and forced integration programs while at the same time outlawing under the new constitution certainly the Union and the DIG and in some areas the States and Constitutional Jurisdictions  creating legally required and enforced segregation by sex, race, religion and other  lines by which the have forced such divisions in the past. Family Associations will be forced to work with the Empress’s Bureau of Women’s Affairs and encouraged to work with the Mistress of Ceremonies in her programs and will have their own programs to improve the lot of women. Some federal programs will under the constitution be required to seek parity between the sexes. A great expense of setting up Possession and Jurisdictions will be undertaken once and then some set-asides and outreach will help to preserve these communities above a minimum standard. However, this will all be much cheaper socially and economically than maintaining the standard of various industries we will seek in the States throughout the Union.

Second, we will address population policy in challenging way which is comprehensive and civilized and less certain than the horrors some would impose. On the other hand we will avoid the certain destruction that lazy blindness will bring as others would like to see us proceed.    In a generation if the new regime endure America would be on a never easy path to a more or less stable prosperity. It would do so in a way that was objectively friendly to humanity as a whole whether seen as such or not.

Third, we would create representation in the House for military bases with supplementary votes for service. We would include General and Admirals among the newly founded Censors. Also one of the parts of the Five Fold Nobility would be the Nobility of the Sword including only military officers. In addition, we will have many new services whether Imperial or Jurisdictional that shall qualify for participation in Nobility of the Sword. All of this will be done in an anti-conscription transition that seeks to build and consolidate yet diversify many forms of value in our armed services. This will create a more hopeful military future.

Fourth, we will invest hugely in creating shared efficient values in rewards. The building of the infrastructure will supply employment and liquidity during the transition, Guildhalls, fiefdoms, family association infrastructures, new military services,  DIG Zone development and other areas of expenditure will create demand. The purchase price of fiefdoms, monies collected for family tax, border fees for Imperial services, forced labor for convicts and illegal aliens and the reclaiming of waste will produce new sources of income  as will the liquidation to new services of much existing military surplus materiel. However, as this process goes forward we will be moving towards a society where most ego needs and heart’s desire needs are not met by a limitless desire for more expensive individual standards of living. Sharing in family and community will be incentivized. During this period of growth and liquidation we will also transition to a floating quatrimetalism as our monetary policy. The new money will tighten credit and secure our credit to some real degree always. Basically coins will make up a fixed percentage of all issued money value and count. All coins will be required to have a steel inner and outer ring. The coins will  be stringable like old Chinese coins. The four metals used will be Gold, Silver, Copper and Platinum. There will be mixed metal and pure metal coins and issues will vary with the markets by formulas designed to maximize stability. All banks will be forced to hold one percent of their assets in these value metal coins after a transition period, The Imperial House and Household Bank and the Federal Reserve as well as the  Senior Invited Guilds and the Imperial Association of Nobility and Aristocracy will form a very limited Bank of the Federal American Empire of the United States largely focusing on Specie issues.

Fifth, addressing waste and creating new habitat we will join other policies to protect our environment for years to come and hopefully on a path to whatever “forever” can mean. That is our real duty as stewards of the most precious and irreplaceable trusts we hold.

Sixth we will transform foreign policy. The new policy is going to tend toward greater stability. We will pursue many paths in seeking long-term secure relationships. However, foreign policy is different in that war can come in any size at any time. that is the truth of human affairs. It is a truth we cannot afford to forget.   

Thus we are not seeking the right answers right now. We are drug addicts seeking spending and consumption alone as though we needed only those things. It is still possible although painful to find a path forward that will not be utterly austere and yet will address our needs. It will not be possible much longer.

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Posted in Environment, family, Geopolitics, Population policy, United States Armed Forces, United States of America, Western civilization

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General Elena Kagan Confirmed to the US Supreme Court

Posted on August 6, 2010 | 1 comment

The Solicitor General of the United States has been named to the US Supreme Court by President Barack Obama. Her nomination has been confirmed by the United States Senate. She will be the first third woman on the court if you take my meaning. There have never been three before. There was O’Connor, then O’Connor and Bader-Ginsburg, then Bader-Ginsburg and Sotomayor. But now there are three female justices.

Elena Kagan was Solicitor General and I have to believe she picked up some valuable skills in that job. She was Dean of Harvard Law School and that was probably useful as well. I do not think three women is excessive and I do not pretend for one second to seek a gender blind society. I think a third of the US Supreme Court could be a good place for women to be operating who are willing to engage in and capable of performing top-level public service .  I do believe that it is kind of scary and unfortunate that there are now no Protestants on the court but I do think that Jews are rightly found more often on courts than a random person of average or unknown ethnicity. They bring millenia of cultural conditioning suitable to the task.

I think Kagan brings some real limits and weaknesses to the court but that is true of all the Justices and all those they beat off the short lists to get there. Her main issues of concern are that she is beholden to an outside figure and his swept-in administration for support and lacks court experience that ties her to other unrelated positions.  She has a reputation for strong commitment to the homosexual lobby’s agenda and she is coming in just as a case written the most socially destructive terms imaginable will be coming up from California.  She is suspect as regards the US military  and we are in a position where things already seem very troubled in that regard. I sincerely hope that things will work out well for both soon-to-be Justice Kagan and for the Union of these American States.

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Posted in Christianity, Judaism, Protestantism, United States Armed Forces, United States of America, Western civilization, White House

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15 Final (for now) Things I Would Change About US Military Policy

Posted on July 27, 2010 | 1 comment

Well, I could number these 36 to 50. I could but I will not. I will just number them 1 to 15 in my last post in this series and leave it to you to remember that they are the last in a set of 50.

1. I wish that for now, while we are awaiting a full-fledged MESA, the budget for Marines at Embassies would be greatly increased. I wish that the manpower and womanpower would be increased as well. While much of what I would like to see happen in MESA should be covert and not discussed in this blog I would like to see youth sports coaching of locals and US expats by Marines become standard. I would also like the first really women’s force in a combat unit ( as opposed to somehow gender neutral with women serving) developed. A unit of all female marines trained in rifle platoon skills who would specialize in local civilian women’s issues and networking around each embassy.

2. I would like to see Stratofortresses rigged to deploy a mix of drones, microblimps, and parachute delivered surface relays in advance of infantry and special ops invasions of fortified small regions.

3.   I would like to see a developing base protocol for  advanced bases so that the doctrine for any base is non-static and has the potential of becoming a hub for positive sociopolitical  activity.

4. I would like to see the development of falconry with camera transmitters for some elite horse mounted troops.

5.  I would like to see the three Armed Services Academies require a significant amount of non-ethnic foreign language as the norm for all cadets.

6. I would like to see a significant nonlethal weapons procurement program including:

i. dye, whistle and bang artillery for quasi hostile crowd control.

ii. rocket projected nets with soft weights and glue to disable potential bomb carriers.

iii. breaching weapons that can penetrate a wall without collapsing a building or killing the occupants with an explosion.

iv. barrier shells designed only to limit movement. 

7.  Integrated Line Management technology and doctrine should be developed to maintain all the data and assets including local civilians in a semi-static zone of combat.  

8. Counter-propaganda training should be much more widespread.

9. Furloughs should be extended where possible by a few days public relations work while a combat soldier is living at home if they volunteer for such service.

10.   A hydrofoil force for coastal and lake occupations should be developed.

11. Old military equipment in working condition should be sold to any country we occupy under arms as a matter of course to establish lines of supply, correct a power imbalance and also address budgetary needs without giving the country nothing in return for its money.

12. Wounded veterans should be supplied with opportunities for involvement with crisis simulation programs for training purposes.

13.  Environmental mitigation should become a modest and limited but real and official factor in defining doctrine.

14. Units of women should be prepared to guard (including training in specialized combat challenges), feed, nurse, house and evacuate foreign and expat local women and children in a (believed) near combat zone as they are brought in by male combat troops.

15. A large wire and ceramic mesh mechanical wheel should  be developed to proceed across fields and streets detecting the presence of IEDs and EFPs where they are expected.

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Posted in United States Armed Forces, United States of America

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