O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
I’ve been useless for about a week. Spinning my own wheels. Sweating the small stuff. Have the novel finally in my head, but not the strength to write it.
Yesterday I realized I was in “cringe mode”. I was waiting for the other shoe to drop.
This is stupid. Or at least my friends who know better than I do tell me it is stupid. They say Al Quaeda might not be on the run, as our president so quaintly said, but it is too degraded to hit us.
Maybe. I don’t think rolling over like a puppy and displaying our underbelly to the world is the way to avoid being hit again. And no, I also don’t think that bombing Syria would make us safe because “they wouldn’t dare attack us.” I think the clown show of the last two weeks has increased our danger immeasurably, but I also realize that even a simple attack can be years in the making.
Maybe.
This afternoon I came to realize that what I was feeling was what my grandmother used to phrase as “Once scalded, the cat is afraid of cold water.” And also that I’ve totally lost faith in our government and our institutions to protect me or mine, or even to avoid making my kids’ future a third world horror.
Nine eleven – the first one, in 2001 – didn’t do it. Oh, sure, I can talk all day about how we weren’t effective enough, we weren’t decisive enough, we shoulda, coulda, woulda….
But I felt like they were at least trying, like, you know, the people in power were trying to keep the nation safe and trying to punish those who had hurt Americans.
Then came 9/11/12.
What do you do with that? What do you even do with that? If I could forgive apology videos in Pakistan; if I could forgive blaming America for the attack; if I could forgive “What does it really matter” – I could not forgive that they’ve done nothing to apprehend the culprits.
If we’re very lucky, our children and grandchildren won’t pay with their lives for the feckless, reckless, self-aggrandizing nonsense of this Marxist administration.
And meanwhile?
They’ve abandoned us. They’ve left us exposed. Worse, in one of those crimes that used to make it to legends, back when societies had moral compasses and a sense of themselves, we’ve forgotten our dead. We’ve forgotten those who were sacrificed just because they were Americans, we’ve forgotten those who died doing their duty, and we’ve forgotten the heroes who rushed to the fight and paid for it with their lives.
The tears un-cried over the blood shed call out to us. It is not a law we enforce. It is not something we hope for. But blood un-avenged leads to more blood. It always has as long as humans were humans. It always will. One way or another it will.
And in the lull before the storm – whatever form that storm takes, whenever it comes – I look at my neighborhood in the golden light of a September afternoon and remind myself that if I no longer believe in American authorities, or at least not in those elevated rarified authorities in DC who deal death with a word and appease enemies with the other, I do believe in America.
I believe in the Americans who live their lives honestly, who look after those who need them, who work and pay their dues. I believe in Americans, born free and unwilling to submit. I believe in life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. I believe our constitution and our great founding, and our coming together from all over the world make of us a nation different enough, strong enough, innovative enough that we will come through the night and the storm and emerge stronger: a beacon of light and plenty for the world again.
Today we mourn. Tomorrow we go back to innovating and building under and being American. Tomorrow we go back to being that which the statists fling at us as an insult: Ungovernable.
Today American mourns its dead. Tomorrow it resumes living twice as hard.
It would do well for our enemies to remember: our leaders are not the country. This clown show can’t endure forever. In the end we will survive. And trust me, we will remember.
UPDATE: Post up at Lifestyle as well
According To Hoyt 
Three times is enemy action. Our leaders ARE the enemy.
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What I’ve been saying all along!
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Sadly.
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And the thing is, I don’t WANT them to be my enemy. But when they consistently act in the manner of an enemy, not treating them accordingly is wrong.
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Powerful.
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Like I said I am sad on this day for what has happened. I am also still angry. I am angry we did not do enough the first time and we did nothing the second time. I am angry when I look at my different social networks and the world trade center is now used as the butt of jokes and memes. Maybe the ones doing it were too young to remember what it really meant when it happened. I do not know. I do remember I remember that night despite living near a normally busy airport and train yard everything being silent. Having to get out of the house I walked with my sister through a ghost town everyone shuttered inside glued to their TVs. She asked me if it was ever going to be the same and I said no. It is not and has not been. Many of us are more awake. We realize we are vulnerable. We snapped out of our false sense of security…. and we are angry.
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Wait – WTF? Jokes and memes? Oh, that would call for a blistering response. Of epic proportions.
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Don’t visit 4chan or google+ then
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It was bad enough today, when I clicked on a link to a story about a woman who had claimed to be one of the survivors from the 78th floor (don’t remember which building), where the plane hit, then was later found to be lying. In the comments, 3/4ths of the commenters were Truthers.
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I found one 9/11 video today on YouTube with some really vile recent comments and discovered that while I could vote up any comment I wanted to, the vilest comments did not allow any down votes!
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We’ve been hit by truthers who’ve recently done a lot of spray paint graffiti on I-91 signs.
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I live in Israel and I share your pain and your belief in the administration. If I was the PM of Israel I would switch my alliance to Putin. He stands behind his friends like a shield while your president stand behind them and stub then in the back. He ruined USA power forever. Who would trust your country again?
The worse thing is that I think he did it intentionaly.
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no, Putin is giving Assad weapons. Those weapons can and will likely be used against Israel no matter who comes out on top in this charnel house called Syria.
as for 0bama, of course he did it intentionally. This is the party that drove one of it’s biggest leftoid senators from the party for having the temerity of being Pro-Israel, and supporting overthrow of Saddam.
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Well yes, but that kind of proves Yechiel’s point. Assad is Putin’s friend and he is standing behind him.
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Putin has to stand behind Assad. How else can he get his hand up into the puppet?
I do admire Putin’s chutzpah, since Russia probably provided the bulk of Assad’s chemical warfare equipment.
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Oh. That image. EW.
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I’m sure Putin was kicked back with a glass of cognac waiting to enjoy Obama’s speech last night. After listening to it he probably called for the whole bottle to celebrate Obama’s accomplishment of managing to make himself look like even more of an incompetent idiot that Putin made him look like.
“I do admire Putin’s chutzpah, since Russia probably provided the bulk of Assad’s chemical warfare equipment.”
I’m sure this is why Putin figures we won’t complain to much about Russia acquiring Syria’s chemical weapons.
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Yes, he did it deliberately.
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However, Yechiel, don’t count us out. America has long been bipolar. We can and will change this. We will come back. We are Americans. You can knock us down, but we won’t stay that way. In a way, perhaps it is intended that the two enemies of freedom — a religion that squashes all human dignity, and … no, two religions that squash all human dignity because Communism is a particularly evil religion — should come to our shores at the same time, and get the reins of our institutions. Nothing else would make America wake up and see.
So, the epic show down is set. I wish it were not in my time, but He gives us what He thinks we can do.
As for Israel — other countries might claim to be friends of Israel, but in the US our leaders dare not confess if they hate Israel, because it would destroy them.
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Yes–
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I am not putting you down. I was talking about the international relations. Who would think that USA commitment is long term when you get people like Clinton and Obama who renegade on previous agreements of USA presidents? We were at the receiving end of this s**t a few times. I follow the international news a little and I see that Putin blocks every move against Syria.
You are a great nation but you need waking up. I am glad to see a few signs of that.
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Even Clinton for all his faults was a more reliable ally to our traditional allied nations than Obama has demonstrated.
I’m hoping that our allies understand that the United States hasn’t changed and we’ll flush Obama away in January 2017, never to return.
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BTW – With the current president, the only country I count as a friend of Israel is Canada. The current administration is doing all it can to support out enemies. They support the Muslim brotherhood in Egypt, Erdogan in Turkey, El Kahida in Syria etc.
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I am well aware of this PreZ policy to play havoc with our real allies *sigh. His other mission is to take away the power we have enjoyed as for years. Well, we are now seeing its affects– plus many of us were predicting this outcome in 2008 (Yes– I was one of them).
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His goal IS to destroy America. He’s not incompetent. he’s on the other side.
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Yes– a planned attack imho.
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Agreed. And consider, it has been proved to every rational person’s satisfaction that we cannot sustain a long war or “nation building”. The next time there is a major terrorist incedent in this county when there are patriots in office we will probably just obliterate the responsible country(ies). The world should be very afraid of what has been wrought here.
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Netanyahu visited China recently and discussed combining Israeli innovation and Chinese manufacturing. I’m not pleased to see it but can’t blame him.
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Israeli businesses have been outsourcing manufacturing to China for a long time, same as the US. What Netanyahu is going to do is sign some meaningless agreements in all likelihood.
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Putin would f* you in the a* so hard your ears would bleed.
You’ve heard a lot about what the moustachioed Austrian did, but very little about how many jews were killed at the hands of ethnic Russians.
Obama is a feckless f*tard, but he’ll be gone soon. When Putin dies there will be another one.
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Ditto. At least the recall elections in Colorado went the right way.
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Yes. After her post yesterday, I was worried, but it hit the top new in Google.
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Chris Muir nailed it today. Which means I am spitting nails today.
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There are two fewer tyrants in Colorado this grim and tearful morning. So there’s that. It’s been a while since “Thank you God” burst unplanned from my lips.
We murmur uneasily in our long sleep. Behind our twitching eyelids our self-appointed rulers swing from a million lampposts. Our dreams are leaking into the dayworld. Two less tyrants in Colorado.
My thanks and love to all who run into the shadow to serve and to save. Never ask “where do we get such people?”. God _is_ helping us. They are that help.
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My feelings exactly.
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Two less tyrants in Colorado. And a lot of would-be tyrants thinking twice and yet again about taking away our guns and ignoring our voices.
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The giant still slumbers, though many think to see him awake. The japery and the clowning that some seem to think is his manner remains nothing but a dream. Many insults are suffered as he slumbers while the jackals cackle with glee. His sleep no longer restful, the dream a nightmare has come to be.
Woe to those who’d wake his slumber, woe to those who’d see him wake. Should true danger end his resting, his thirst for wrath will be hard to slake.
Proud as I am of my country’s history and the ideals it was founded on, the elected officials are not my country- they are servants of the people. Uppity, yes, but they are *my* elected officials, whether I voted for them or not- we are not *their* peasants. They can be removed.
Ack. Need coffee, not making enough sense yet, brain cells not all firing…
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And the terrible resolve is still pending. But present, so present, in its absence.
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Sarah, please don’t give up hope. Today the media is buzzing with conservative victories in Norway and Australia. And in your home state, despite fears of another stolen election it appears the forces of real Americans have triumphed. Maybe we will look back on this day as when the worm began to turn.
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I’m beginning to think that 2008 was the high-water mark of Progressivism. Barry received fewer votes in 2012 than he did in 2008, just not enough fewer to put him on the lecture circuit. I wouldn’t be surprised if Colorado moves to repeal the gun-control ban in an attempt by the progs to keep their phony-baloney jobs.
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9/11 isn’t THAT horrible a date. After all, if memory serves, 9/11/73 was when Augusto Pinochet (“the savior of his country”) deposed the Marxist Salvador Allende, restored democracy to Chile*, suppressed the Marxist counter-revolution… and then stepped down peacefully when voted out of office. People in Chile today still toast his memory (except for the Marxists, of course), women cross themselves when they walk past his former home in Valparaiso, and the sidewalk in front is strewn with fresh flowers every day.
And Chile today is a healthier capitalist democracy than any other country in South America (and most in North America ahem), thanks to Pinochet.
*Allende was about to (illegally) amend the Chilean constitution to create a one-party state — guess which party?
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9/11 was the day the Muslim hordes were turned back from the gates of Vienna, not to attempt to expand Dar al-Islam into Dar al-Harb for centuries.
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Battle of Plattsburgh, 1814 — US defeats British invasion of New York, forcing Britain to accept peace on “status quo ante bellum”, plus guaranteeing US access to the Great Lakes, and US control over Lake Champlain. (This almost exactly one year following the British defeat at Put-In Bay.)
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11
Highlights:
EVENTS
1185 – Isaac II Angelus kills Stephanus Hagiochristophorites and then appeals to the people, resulting in the revolt that deposes Andronicus I Comnenus and places Isaac on the throne of the Byzantine Empire.
1297 – Battle of Stirling Bridge: Scots jointly-led by William Wallace and Andrew Moray defeat the English.
1390 – Lithuanian Civil War (1389–1392): the Teutonic Knights begin a five-week siege of Vilnius.
1609 – Henry Hudson discovers Manhattan Island and the indigenous people living there.
1649 – Siege of Drogheda ends: Oliver Cromwell’s English Parliamentarian troops take the town and execute its garrison.
1775 – Benedict Arnold’s expedition to Quebec leaves Cambridge, Massachusetts.
1789 – Alexander Hamilton is appointed the first United States Secretary of the Treasury.
1792 – The Hope Diamond is stolen along with other French crown jewels when six men break into the house where they are stored.
1829 – Surrender of the expedition led by Isidro Barradas at Tampico, sent by the Spanish crown in order to retake Mexico. This was the final consummation of Mexican independence.
1830 – Anti-Masonic Party convention; one of the first American political party conventions.
1847 – Stephen Foster’s song “Oh! Susanna” is first performed at a saloon in Pittsburgh.
1940 – George Stibitz performs the first remote operation of a computer.
1941 – Ground is broken for the construction of The Pentagon.
1943 – World War II: Start of the liquidation of the Ghettos in Minsk and Lida by the Nazis.
1944 – World War II: The first Allied troops of the U.S. Army cross the western border of Germany.
1945 – World War II: Australian 9th Division forces liberate the Japanese-run Batu Lintang camp, a POW and civilian internment camp on the island of Borneo.
1978 – Janet Parker is the last person to die of smallpox, in a laboratory-associated outbreak.
1985 – Pete Rose breaks Ty Cobb’s baseball record for most career hits with his 4,192nd hit
1989 – Hungary announces that the East German refugees who had been housed in temporary camps were free to leave for West Germany.
2007 – Russia tests the largest conventional weapon ever, the Father of All Bombs.
BIRTHS
1862 – Hawley Harvey Crippen, American physician and murderer (d. 1910)
1877 – Felix Dzerzhinsky, Polish-Russian revolutionary and statesman (d. 1926)
1885 – D. H. Lawrence, English novelist (d. 1930)
1913 – Bear Bryant, American football player and coach (d. 1983)
1917 – Herbert Lom, Czech actor who worked in the UK (d. 2012)
1917 – Ferdinand Marcos, Filipino politician, 10th President of the Philippines (d. 1989)
1917 – Jessica Mitford, English author and journalist (d. 1996)
1935 – Gherman Titov, Soviet pilot and astronaut (d. 2000)
1937 – Robert Crippen, American astronaut
1939 – Charles Geschke, American businessman, co-founded Adobe Systems
1940 – Brian De Palma, American director
1965 – Moby, American singer-songwriter and DJ
1965 – Bashar al-Assad, Syrian politician, 21st President of Syria
DEATHS
1971 – Nikita Khrushchev, Soviet politician (b. 1894
1987 – Peter Tosh, Jamaican singer-songwriter and guitarist (Bob Marley & The Wailers) (b. 1944)
2001 – Casualties of the September 11 attacks: [REDACTED]
2002 – Kim Hunter, American actress (b. 1922)
2002 – Johnny Unitas, American football player (b. 1933)
2003 – John Ritter, American actor (b. 1948)
2004 – Fred Ebb, American songwriter (b. 1933)
2009 – Gertrude Baines, American super-centenarian (b. 1894)
2009 – Larry Gelbart, American screenwriter (b. 1928)
2012 – Glen Doherty, American security officer (b. 1970)
2012 – Sean Smith, American diplomat (b. 1978)
2012 – J. Christopher Stevens, American lawyer and diplomat, 10th United States Ambassador to Libya (b. 1960)
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Regrets for lengthy post. You should see all I excised. ;-)
For the record, Ty Woods’ death is dated Sept. 12, 2012
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Odd. Epoch Times is the only real notice of the Chilean observance of the 40th anniversary. They only touch on the how much he was missed and how brutal Pinochet was.
Mercopress, in an unintentionally blackly humorous article has reported in the last year that Allende’s family is requesting that the government return the AK-47, the gift to Allende from Castro, that Allende supposedly committed suicide with during the coup. One might wonder at the children of devoted socialists wanting private ownership of firearms…..
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Last semester my cultural anthropology professor had us watch a short video where a Chilean in exile basically said that America should sit down and shut up, they had lost ten times that many people on their 9/11, and it was all our fault. My reaction to the video was… incandescent. I wrote a paper, shared with the class online so I was *certain* that they knew better than to believe the video. I probably didn’t change the prof’s mind, since he though Allende was a hero, but at least I didn’t let it go unchallenged.
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In a democracy you get the government you deserve. Never underestimate the power of greed and gullibility in the hands of a confidence man. We deserve what we got when we let the draft dodgers of the Vietnam era unionize and run the schools that produced those low-information-voters who thought 9/11/12 was about a you-tube video. We deserve what we got when we believed the bona fides of the “opposition” party that funds ObamaCare at a Federal level and creates the exchanges that enable it at a state level.
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No, you get the government that 50%+1 deserve.
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First off, high five for the double win on the recalls. Two for two, and by all accounts old Hickenlooper has popped a sweat and is likely looking over his own shoulder. We know they cheat. We know the fix was in. So cudos to the Colorado people for doing the right thing in spite of the opposition.
As for our enemies, they would do well to recall that there is only one country that has ever used nuclear weapons in warfare. Twelve years ago John Ringo did several articles on the “zero option.” Essentially turn large areas of the Middle East into fields of shiny peaceful green glass. Of course it may be the Israelis who wind up pulling that pin, but with the current use of chemical WMD and the whole Iran issue, it feels like it may only be a matter of time.
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I believe the Zero Option is the only way to have any lasting peace in the region, and if we continue to F up by the numbers in our handling of every situation it will become our only option for our own survival.
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Sarah: Amen! We Remember
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The US responds on an S-curve. We did close to nothing after the first WTC attack (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1993_World_Trade_Center_bombing). After the second, we set up an exchange ratio of one country per office building.
Will there be other terrorist attacks? Certainly. We are an open society, and there is no way to stay such and be terrorist-proof. But I think next time we won’t even try nation building, we’ll go for a punitive raid. Hopefully not the kind in Tom Kratman’s Caliphate, but something milder.
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I’d like to see a complete destruction of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard and other internal security services. See how well the regime survives when it can’t kill and intimidate the populace.
Should have done it during the Green Revolution, but Obama.
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Yes, exactly. “WWWIII because Obama” is actually not so funny.
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If we attack the Iranian military, it could provoke reactions going either way. It might unite the Iranians around the regime, because they wouldn’t want to appear to be traitors.
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The Iranian Revolutionary Guard is distinct from the Iranian military, and there’s little love lost between the two. I think as long as we take pains to attack only the regime and make it clear that we have no interest in dominating or conquering Iran or its people there will be little pro-regime support.
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Of course it would have been simpler to just support their own rebels a few years ago, but…Obama.
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– I could not forgive that they’ve done nothing to apprehend the culprits.
Mayhap it is because they are still working with them to arm rebels?
I’d hope to be wrong (hoping for incompetency … heh …Hope) but with this administration, I cannot put aside my cynicism.
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Yes, I’m very much afraid it’s active malice.
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Ummm.. http://www.amazon.com/The-Blueprint-Democrats-Republicans-Everywhere/dp/1936218003/
Seriously. It *IS* active malice.
Mew
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If I watch actions and ignore the words, key members of our government have acted to support the Muslim Brotherhood over the last 5 years. I suspect THAT is the reason behind the Benghazi smokescreen. We were funneling arms to Syria through the CIA station in Benghazi. We didn’t want that known at the time. And today our administration works to distract attention from that very open secret. I can accept – barely – the channeling of arms as a poor decision, but I cannot countenance the failure to pursue those responsible for the deaths of our people. Worse still are the tactics used to isolate and silence those with full knowledge of the events.
My memory is rusty, but I believe Jefferson’s indictment of George III included the charge that he had made war against his own people. How different is an administration that treat’s its own ambassador and the people who gave their lives to protect him as mere tools to be used and discarded dishonestly and at need?
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Congratulations on the recall elections. It’s always nice to wake up to a bit of smack-back on this day. Still angry.
Another nice thing I just noticed–or perhaps I dodged it–was no calls by Dear Leader for a “day of community service” today, which always frosted me. My “community service” consists of flying the flag, checking my emergency supplies and the smoke detectors, and counting ammo. (Low on .45…)
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Yes — we haven’t heard the day of community service thing, like this was a natural disaster we’re trying to make better.
As for frosted — I’m so chill that you could make ice cubes on me.
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They had a few useful idiots in NYC on the national news today, and now it was all their idea and new! Their group was called “I Will!” (yes, seriously) so one assumes they are more Dear Leader-ites.
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possibly Will-ies?
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Nyah — you know none of those guys have willies.
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:-)
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That would change the whole character of the phrase “get the willies…”
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lol
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Thanks for reminding me Sabrina, that I need to put in some hours at the reloading bench … yeah, thanks a lot. ;-)
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Don’t forget your friends, O Undead Praetor :-D I’ll save you my brass.
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I don’t have .45 but if you need .40 or .44 I have them coming out my ears. :) (people know I reload so they save me their brass, while it is nice to have I don’t know if I’ll use another 2K of 44 mag in my lifetime)
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I’m trying to figure out how much trouble I will get in if my wife finds out I’m getting brass from strange women … ;-)
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As long as it’s only brass and not ass you should be ok.
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Yes, but I know how Julius spells. it will end up being getting bras from strange women…
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That shouldn’t be an issue, so long as they fit . . .
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What size does Julius wear?
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I’ll vouch for Sabrina. She’s not strange. She’s ODD.
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I know by the way that you are secretly emailing behind the scenes to warn them all off.
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LOL.
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I’m starting to dollar cost average into base metals (copper, lead, brass).
Each month I buy a case of something. Last month it was 308. After the middle of the month paycheck probably 1k rounds of 9mm. Or maybe some .223.
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Beautifully said.
I really do hope your country can get its act together again. During the last years the strongest flame seems to have been that of gun rights, those seem to have steadily getting better again – some occasional setbacks perhaps, but on the whole better, at least it looks like that from here – but if you can manage that perhaps you can manage the rest too, in time.
And one can always pray that something like Obama’s two terms might even be a blessing in disguise. The frogs boil if the heat raises slowly, but even they will notice if it gets hot fast, and it seems the people now in power there have been trying to raise the heat fast lately. Maybe enough people will finally wake up, fully wake up.
One can pray.
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I posted this on Facebook, but thought I’d share it with you all as well. I highly recommend Flight 93 by legendary filker Leslie Fish. She might not see eye to eye with the Huns on many things, but she is an unabashed lover of liberty, self-determination, and her fellow man. Folk music serves to preserve two essential things: the history of the tribe or people, and the values that are key to them. This song helps us to remember both.
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I watched it.
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Oh, you mean the song. Never mind.
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I love Leslie Fish in the fannish way, but there was never any way in Hell that Americans were trying to deliberately crash the plane. We just don’t do that — not with kids on board. Heck, never. We’re always trying to take the other guy down, not kill ourselves — even when we take on suicide missions, we’re hoping for that last bit of luck.
I was angry at the time that she would say such a thing, and of course it turned out that it was the hijackers who gave up and tried to commit suicide. I suppose by now she’s changed the lyrics to adapt to established facts, but it still bugs the Hell out of me.
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Btw, Project 2996 has lost a lot of the original batches of tributes over the years. They’ve got a list at the website of the 1274 needing tributes, so feel free to pick one today and pick up the slack. We remember.
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It would out of me, too. We are not like that.
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I think you missed the point of the song: If the only way to prevent more carnage is to “fall on the grenade”, then you do it.
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I wrote this poem a few months after 9/11 http://cynbagley.wordpress.com/2013/09/11/thundering-at-daybreak/ and it was published in the Acumen in 2001.
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Let’s not forget either: this is the same week that CNN has given a 9/11 truther (Van Jones) his own TV show.
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It is important to remember that on this date in 2001 our enemies not only killed almost 3,000 of our fellow Americans (all — except the nineteen — who died that day will forever be Americans) but they attempted the murder of ninety-seven thousand more of us. That was their goal: 100,000 dead Americans.
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Yes. We remember.
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And now I’m hearing of *two* bombings in Benghazi today. It’s like they’ve been emboldened, or something . . .
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No! WHAT could have caused that?
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Smart power.
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American, It’s more a state of mind than an accident of geographic location, at least, in my head, that’s the way it is. I wish the term hadn’t been so co-opted and corrupted.
I guess the best definition I’ve heard in some time is “men (and women) determined to be free,” which was a description used by “Mad Anthony” Wayne in a letter to Gen. Washington upon the surrender of British forces at Stony Point (1779).
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We are Usaians!
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What’s the pronunciation of Usaians? uh-SIGH-ans, which is how I read it?
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I hear it Uh eh say ans, but that’s me.
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I hear it Yew-es-eh- see-uns
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You say Yew-es-eh-see-uns, I say Yew-say-uns . . .
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Well– maybe easier to say– I just can’t get past the USA ;-)
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Thanks a lot — now I have Dinah Shore singing in my backbrain. And I don’t even like Chrevolets.
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lol
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Stop that! Stop that now!
Spreading earworms ought to be a crime or something!
(Cheshire grin)
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Have you ever heard the “greatest hits” of Barry Manilow — commercial jingles he inflicted on the public subconscious before perpetrating such lesser crimes as as “Mandy” and “Copacabana (At the Copa)”?
Forget about traveling back in time to kill Hitler — I’m targeting Manilow.
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I like Barry Manilow the way I like Mom’s recipe of toasted cheese sandwiches and tomato soup made with dried milk. It was never a sense a sensory overload, but it was Mom’s.
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I have Julie London singing in my head. But that’s because I’m more cool than you.
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Let’s call the whole thing off.
On Wed, Sep 11, 2013 at 12:53 PM, According To Hoyt wrote:
> ** > Christopher M. Chupik commented: “You say Yew-es-eh-see-uns, I say > Yew-say-uns . . .” >
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so anyone knows what a U-see-um is ;-) /rums
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Rums?! Works for me! (runs in the other direction)
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Oh geez– I can’t see or spell today… *sigh rUMS
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No, but I know what a no-see-um is.
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lol
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a museum that’s an emectomy? I still prefer American.
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huh? I even tried to figure it out *sigh
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Unless you are meaning getting rid of an m… I was playing with the word no-see-um (well what we used to call a small gnat)
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Yew-es-ay-ans is how I say it.
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Yep
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Americans!
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That too, but I can see it getting confused in the future. (Sssshhhh — I’ve managed not to wake Nat and Luce.)
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Close enough to how I hear it, actually. I have trouble transcribing stuff.
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;-)
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When I read it, I hear “yew-ess-AY-ans”. I hope that’s close enough.
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http://www.buzzfeed.com/susannahgeorge/syria-researcher-elizabeth-o-bagy-fired
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Doesn’t surprise me. Not one bit.
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In a nutshell this is what is wrong. She was fired because she had not finished her doctorate but the institute approved of her support for fanatic Muslims who wants to kill them.
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We almost went to war, and may still, because a con woman with fake credentials told McCain and Kerry to do it.
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I see no reason to think that fake credentials are an impediment to being taken seriously in Washington.
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Nile Gardner, writing at the London Telegraph:
In essence, and this was amply displayed tonight, Barack Obama has no big picture strategy on Syria, or the wider Middle East, and is bereft of a clear game plan. His speech was also a sea of contradictions. He talked about deploying American military might but has no intention of delivering a decisive blow. He paid lip service to the ideal of American exceptionalism, but is happy to kowtow to Moscow. He urged Congress to support his approach, but wants them to wait before they vote. For these were the words of an exceptionally weak and indecisive president, one who seems to be making up policy on the hoof, as he stumbles and bumbles along on the world stage, with his hapless Secretary of State in tow.
How different to the halcyon days of Ronald Reagan, a man who led the world’s superpower with strength and conviction. The Gipper knew the meaning of American leadership, especially at times of crisis. Unfortunately President Obama can only dream of holding a candle to Reagan’s achievements, and at present is even outperforming Jimmy Carter as the most feeble US president of modern times.
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Where were these people during the Reagan administration?!? All I ever heard was that that idiot cowboy Reagan was going to blow the planet up. This wiser-than-thou schtick from the Brit press regarding Obama, to whom they gave a tongue bath five years ago, is infuriating.
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What’s truly blood-boiling about Benghazi is that those men have been purposely forgotten to preserve Hillary’s future presidential hopes.
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yes. I wrote this and the PJM post because writing “I wake up screaming” and “I want to bite people” would be less… professional.
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You MUST title a blog post “I Want to Bite People”. ;-)
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Seconded!
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Second Seconded!
(unless it turns into “Sarah writes vampires” or something…that would involve more overcrowding in the author’s headspace and should be avoided)
Mew
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Made me think of this:Or at least 35 seconds worth of this.
“USE THE SWORD!”
…
“USE THE SWORD AS A SWORD!”
“Don’t tell me what to doooo!”
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Dagnabit, that was supposed to start at 2:59.
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Sometimes you need to bite.
When I was in JHS I was a classical nerd (probably still am). Kids picked on me and worse. Once when 3 bullies ganged up on me, one holding me and the other two pounding on me, the bully holding me made the mistake of holding me facing him. Since he had my arms I could not use them, so I opened my mouth wide and attempted to take a large bite out of his chest. His screams brought a teacher. Of course _I_ got into trouble rather than the bullies, but I was not picked on as much after that.
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The early adolescent version of “Nuke the Moon.”
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I wish I could believe this is just an incompetent clown show, but after living in Oakland, CA I’ve come to see there are Americans who hate America and are willing to lie, cheat & steal to bring down what they consider to be an evil empire. Hard to comprehend, but our greatest enemy right now is us.
However, there are also many good people in America, the kind who built this country, the kind who raised me. I even see one really good Presidential candidate on the horizon. A candidate that makes me willing to crawl over broken glass to get him to the White House. I didn’t think I could feel this positive again about any politician, what a lovely surprise!
The really good news is that both Norway & Australia have just elected conservative leaders to run their respective countries. If Norway can change course the US certainly can. Do we have trouble? Yes, we have major trouble, but this is not the time to waver. This is the time for all of us to get behind the plow and push hard and not stop pushing until we get to the end of the field.
Take heart, Patriots. We have just begun to fight!
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The worst part is the people who hate America are IGNORANT utopian idiots who think other countries are “not racist, not homophobic” etc. I’ve seen more than one go abroad, uninsulated, and come back changed OR having decided all of humanity is depraved.
Our schools are creating enemies for us.
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I had a friend who was sort of like that. He didn’t go abroad, but when I tried to get him to consider human nature in reference to his utopian (I spelled that ‘utopain’ twice, heh) scenarios (Walden II was a favorite of his), he decided that most of the human race was evil and started hoping for an asteroid.
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Y’know, I’ll take that over a 30something with no copulating clue.
A person in a “we all suck” state can be forcefully shown that there are glimmers of goodness, but that they’re on an *individual* level, not a *governmental* level.
Putting on my extreme cold weather fur, people in this state also sometimes remove themselves from the equation, which simplifies things.
Mew
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Just to mention in passing, Instead of School, by Ron Harrington, packs a lot of nutty goodness into a small, easily-digested package. IMO, we need to kill the state school system and bury it at the crossroads with a stake in its heart.
M
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That’s the same sad conclusion I’ve reached, and I believe it’s been a process that’s been in effect since the days of Thomas Dewey, accelerated by such thoughtful luminaries as Gramsci.
There is something fundamentally weird going on in academia. Really weird–I’ve got a friend of mine, who was a Sergeant Major in the Army. When I was working for him back in the 1990s, he was a fairly conservative sort, and had a fairly conservative background. After he retired, he decided to become a teacher, and went and got himself an education degree so he could teach high school-level history. I was stationed near where he retired, and kept in touch. Watching him, all I can say is he changed the longer he was exposed to the environment he was in. Most of his expressed views and opinions back when we were active duty together were ones I could agree with, and didn’t disturb me to hear or listen to. Now? The last time we sat down together, when I retired ten years or so after he did, the majority of what came out of his mouth was stuff that sounded quite Truther-ish, and I started getting Obama election messages from him shortly after that started up.
If you’d have told me that a career NCO who was in his late forties or early fifties would so easily and thoroughly change his mindset, I’d have called you crazy. Yet he did. It’s no wonder to me that so many delusional people are out there–Our educational system is set up to churn them out by the thousands, every day of every year.
How the hell did that happen?
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Stockholm syndrome.
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I was still living with my parents back then. I woke up, my mom was already watching TV. She said a plane hit the WTC. I assumed a small plane, an accident. Watched a while, and then the second plane hit. Spent the morning watching the towers collapse, wondering what the hell was going on. Went to work. Not sure if anyone at the bookstore was actually working. We just wandered around the store, listening to the radio and TV, helping the few shell-shocked customers we had.
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Wife woke me up with the news.
Went to the gun locker and loaded two guns, put one of them in my messenger bag and went to work.
Only about 1/10th of the people showed up, so I knocked off early (about 2 in the afternoon).
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My writing buddy, Rebecca Lickiss — back then we were both just published and called each other to “clock in” to writing after kids were in school — called me. I’d dropped kid off at kindergarten, grabbed cup of coffee and was making it up the stairs to my office. You see, we lived in Manitou and my office was the third floor. STEEP flights of stairs up. I came down, grabbed the phone and she was shouting “Turn on your TV NOW.” Only we only had one TV and it didn’t get almost any reception. I thought that it was a small plane, when she told me, then I turned on the TV and watched “snow” on the TV and through it the images… It was horrible. Spent the rest of the day alternating between TV, sff.net (making sure all the New Yorkers were safe) baking doughnuts and drinking myself blind. Until Dan got home from DC (R. J. Reynolds, not government) a week later, I spent the time in a bottle of Jack Daniels. I still feel something died that day, beyond those people. Call it my youthful idealism.
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I was working just outside of Evergreen State College and when my crew chief went to move the truck he heard it on the radio. I remember sitting in the truck eating lunch (we NEVER took lunch breaks) and listening to the news on radio for at least three times as long as we should have taken for lunch, and having the office and my crew chief’s ex-wife call us to tell us the news. All while watching a bunch of hippy students walk by on their way to and from classes all happy-go-lucky without a care in the world.
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The morning of 9/11 I was preparing to go to work when I heard that a plane had hit the WTC, I started watching and got my wife up to hear about it. Then a second plane hit the other tower, and I thought, ” they must really have an Air Traffic Control Problem!” As I started to back out of the driveway my wife Rushed out and told me that the pentagon had been hit. The it struck me- Bin Laden!
When I got to work we cpould not access the web sites, so we switched to spanish language Site and a spanish speaking co-worker translated for us.
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Many have said here that the current crop of politicians are actively working against America. And I think that’s exactly right. But more insidious, more frightening I think, is that they are so truly ignorant of some of the fundamental foundations of the institutions they control, and the people who make them up. Not to mention the world. And so while they actively work, they do far more damage unthinkingly (and therein lies our hope).
I’ll start with the world, because it’s easier for me. I think Obama, Kerry, H. Clinton and all their sycophants believe that other national leaders (hate the term but it’s politically applicable) are playing the same bombastic game they are. They believe that the posturing and stern looks and lectures they present on TV are of the same substance (which is to say, none) that other leaders present. They believe their hollow emotional hyperbole reflects the same cheap appreciation for the native culture that every other ‘elite’ leader holds. And this is why Putin mocks us. This is why the Israelis think our foreign policy is fundamentally unserious. Because Putin does not hate Russia. He does not dismiss Russia’s interests in favor of some ‘bigger’ global clusterf*. And Israel does not hold up her dead for some pious and overwrought emotional posturing, sternly saying that this will not stand, while trying to cower behind whatever cover allows them to skirt responsible action. They mourn their dead. And they ACT.
At home we could talk about Obama’s repeated use of the personal possessive in reference to the military, and more ridiculously, military actions. Or we could talk about Kerry’s history. Or the top brass quietly forced out. But I think Hillary sums it best:
What difference at this point does it make?*
That four Americans died in violence on foreign soil, and nothing was tried. That four Americans stood against a foreign attack, and nothing was tried. That they dithered while we shed blood and died. And they’re more concerned at the political inconvenience of it all.
There is a deep, in the bone, tradition in the American military. It is an informal pact. It underlies why, and how, sane and rational people walk into horror of their own free will. We will come for you. We will send many to save few. I may die, but I will walk into that hell to pull you out. And the man beside me will drag us both home. It can be tempered, by the mission, by the needs of our nation, by our deference to civilian authority, but it must be tempered. The urge to act is innate.
That they do not understand that when they heard of our beleaguered fellows every uniformed American, active or veteran, felt the call to rush to the sounds of the guns… that they do not understand the compulsion in the blood to go and bring our people home did not stop when the last man lay down his life… That they do not understand that it is never to late, we will come for you…
They’re dismissive, and arrogant, and blind. But their greatest failure to understand, and our hope, is that the in the bone tradition was not born in the military. It comes from a strain in our culture, from the heart of being American. Firefighters and Police and Citizens rushed to the Towers. College students walked into the recruitment office during Vietnam. Teachers and mechanics and bakers stormed the beaches of Normandy. Farmers faced down the mightiest empire in the world.
We will come for you.
*I know there’s greater context to Hillary Clinton’s testimony, but I don’t think that context changes the underlying misjudgement. Her comment stands as a greater reflection of the attitude.
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Dear sir
Write me a guest post on this theme. When an American is cut, everyone who is an American at heart bleeds. this explains my deep funk when Americans died trying to rescue the hostages in Iran. I didn’t yet know it, but I was an American. This is one of those things that makes America a shining light. And you’re right they’re blind to it.
Write me a guest post.
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Ma’am, I will…try. It was hard to work through just the comment, but I’ll see if I can’t lay something out in a more planned fashion.
Um, is there an off-forum contact I should send it to?
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sahoyt at hotmail dot com
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Got it, thx. In progress.
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What’s the protocol for the nudge? Not wanting to be a pest and not wanting to fail in my reminder duties…
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Um… Once an evening till you hear. I really have brain of swiss cheese.
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Okay. This I can do. I’m gonna let this stand as today’s nudge, ’cause I know you’ve got a full plate.
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With all the characters inside demanding her attention, she has also a full pate. (And might even be full of pâté.)
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All I can do, sir, is tip the fedora once again…
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It truly saddens me that so many of our citizens at heart really are not Americans.
But on the other hand, how wonderful that so many on foreign shores truly are. If only there were a way to guarantee such only entrance I’d say throw the doors wide open. We need more of such people.
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“We will come for you.”
America’s promise, to friends and enemies alike.
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Yes.
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One factor such “leaders” have in common is that they are embarrassed by their countrymen and their country. That is part of why they eschew flag lapel pins and similar emblems of this nation. That is why they are so eager to instill in America the policies and attitudes that typify Europe. For all their narcissism, they are conscious of their inferiority, an inferiority they blame on their fellow citizens, and resent those fellows the way an adolescent resents her family.
They miss the point. Once again this nation finds itself engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal, can long endure.
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You brought tears to my eyes.
I work in DC and saw the bikers when I went out for my lunch. I waved, they waved back. We were very serious. I wish I’d thought to blow them kisses.
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Thanks, it was a little humid around here while I was writing it.
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I went loking for this as an expression of fundamental American approach, and one element of “the special relationship”:
As is so often the case, while trying to choose which video clip best captures the mood, I found something else which better expresses the point —
I know Col. Kratman’s opinion of Chamberlain, and do not know history well enough to dispute nor join it. That does not matter. The historical Chamberlain is not the one who speaks in that clip. In that clip speaks the myth of Chamberlain. Just as in 1776 it is the myths of Adams, Franklin, Jefferson, Dickinson and others who sing and dance, and just as at the Alamo the myths of Crockett, Travis, Bowie and the rest were born while the men died.
America is a country built on ideas, and myths are the bread and butter of such ideas. Forget Chamberlain the man and attend to Chamberlain the myth. “No, sir. This is the West, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.”
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It is after all not so much who shot Liberty Valance, or who receives credit for the act. Rather it is that someone gathered the courage to take action and remove that mangy cur from the face of this good Earth.
For all that is required for Evil to triumph is that good men do nothing.
Or in the words of that noted poet and philosopher Toby Keith:
We’ll put a boot in your a$$
It’s the American way.
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In the late 1990s I had predicted something like 9/11 (I checked with the guy I talked with to confirm that the memory is real) although i didn’t expect it for another decade or two. Nevertheless, my shock faded quickly.
What faded more slowly was the concern that 9/11 would shortly be followed by many comparable attacks.
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Yep. Thank Darwin that Bin Laden & his crew were so monomaniacally focused on one big attack, and had no follow-up planned. Can you imagine the harm they could have done had they gone for multiple infrastructure targets instead of one big attack on our symbols?
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In general, I avoid talking about things that I would do differently, to avoid giving them ideas, but yes.
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Psychodrama. They wanted something that would impress the rubes back home. I’ve read that OBL actually thought that the strike he orchestrated would cause the collapse of the U.S. Possibly it would’ve had that effect on the countries he was familiar with.
A serious infrastructure attack would’ve been more effective in damaging the country, but not sexy enough to excite the people back in the Dar al Islam.
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I drove into work this morning and saw that the Flags in front were at half-mast and I thought to myself, “Who Died?”
Got in and after a while found a video posted replaying the first news reports of a plane striking the World Trade Center.
And then I Remembered.
I knew a week ago this time was coming around again, but I forgot.
I feel ashamed and disappointed that I had forgotten.
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I woke up that AM when the phone rang and Sib said, “Turn on the radio, Sis. Your world just changed.” I had to go to the airport to do end-of-rotation paperwork and it was, well, strange. They’d not had planes that big land there since WWII ended. And then I started getting mad. And I started reading. And then I got involved with L1ttle G-een [redacted] and later with the Jawa Report among others, in order to help get even.
Oh, 21 people showed up for the Million [religion] March today in D.C. *mean smirk*
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They were also truthers. They were emphasizing the religion thing, but it was the million truther march AND there are one million bikers. (Smirks.)
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Also, Carlos Danger and Client Number Nine lost their elections. Maybe there’s hope yet. :-)
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9/11/12?
That’s some inconceivable, unforgivable thing?
I’m absolutely not anti-Reagan. I voted for him, and would again. But I also pulled Marine bodies out of the remains of as inexcusable a cluster**** in Beirut as you will ever see. Over 200 dead because of a poorly thought out policy executed with stunning incompetence. And we turned tail and ran afterward. No justice ever, no ifs ands or buts about it. Reagan himself was quite honest about that afterward. He obviously regretted the whole thing. As well he should have.
It’s a big government acting in a big world. Bad things happen at times. We need to be adults about it when they do, not make up fantasy outrages in our head just because the other party is in power.
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Or we could consider that not saving our own when we could IS an outrage.
Tell me, oh, great lean back and talk calmly sage, what would you do if a Republican refused to save people because he wanted to preserve his chances at election?
Also, by the way, yes, killing an ambassador is an act of war. You know what else is unforgivable? Blaming a you tube video and throwing some poor schmo in jail. You know what else is unforgivable? It’s apologizing to pakistan with special made videos FOR OUR FREEDOM of speech.
Yes, it’s a great, unforgivable thing. It’s a wound in our national spirit that cannot heal until something is done about it. Like 9/11.
And like hell you ever did anything military. If you had you’d know you don’t abandon your own. YOU JUST DON’T DO THAT.
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Beirut was inexcusable. I thank you for digging the bodies out of the rubble. But the people involved are beyond our reach. Benghazi was 366 days ago, and we have the people responsible still walking around, lying, and CFing the country.
A**United States Ambassador** and three other brave men were sodomized and killed — while help was nearby and ready to go, and said military relief was *ordered* to “stand down” (an order which *must* come from the President himself). That is criminal. If not “aid to the enemy” – the definition of Treason. Those who have lied about it, put the 30 plus people evacuated from Benghazi out of reach of everybody (I, personally, wonder if any of them were allowed to live. This Administration isn’t *competent* enough to put a lid that tight on that many people, this side of the grave) — *must* be brought to justice. Now. The blood of the dead cries from the very ground for justice.
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Note Reagan called it a despicable act — He didn’t say that some filmmaker was at fault. Also, rescue efforts for an act that couldn’t be anticipated started immediately and continued for days. They didn’t let Americans die abandoned. Also we might or might not have retaliated covertly. What no one did was run around saying it was spontaneous and not an act of terror. ON NINE ELEVEN.
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Reagan took responsibility. He admitted to having a poorly thought out policy and reconsidered our presence. Publicly.
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And withdrew.
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Lying to the American people about what happened (sorta like Reagan did about the whole arms-for-hostages thing) is kind of a big deal, yeah.
Heck, even Clinton had the cojones to (sorta kinda) admit he’d screwed up after the events of Black Hawk Down.
It’s a pity you think holding commanders responsible for systemic failure is a “fantasy outrage.” It is a pity you think the only reason we are outraged over the Benghazi cover-up is “because the other party is in power.” You are wrong. You have no evidence of inconsistency and are merely projecting partisanship on an issue where none can be shown.
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“Reagan himself was quite honest about that afterward”. In that one phrase you put the lie to all your protestations afterwards. He owned his failure. He admitted he screwed up.
Kindly point us all to the evidence that Obama has ever admitted failure for anything. I’d love to see some, although I guarantee you won’t find any in this universe. Hint: trying to disappear the whole event and concealing the witnesses does not amount to admitting failure.
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He doesn’t do “I fucked up.” He does “You fucked up. You trusted me.”
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Yep.
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Beirut was a travesty, but note that you claim to have been there pulling bodies out of the rubble. In Benghazi we had military relief ready to go wheels up (and very likely to have been there in time to save our Americans) when they were ORDERED to stand down. Then our treasonous President not only never admitted to fault, but attempted to pass the blame to of ridiculous things, a youtube video! HE IMPRISONED AN INNOCENT MAN IN A LAME ATTEMPT TO DENY RESPONSIBILITY!
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“Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everyone you meet.” It helps focus the mind on “what is to be done” and what is not to be endured.
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Would someone more knowledgeable than I am check my Latin, please? I want to make use of this phrase in a couple of possible heraldic contexts:
“Vienemus ad vobis”
Would that use the nominative ‘vos’ instead? Does it maintain the duality of meaning it has in English observed upthread? Does it even convey the same sentiment? My knowledge of Latin is very limited and dictionary-driven.
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I do not claim to be more knowledgeable about Latin than you, and I supplemented my rusty memory with a bit of clicking around.
I believe you mean to say We are coming to you: Venimus ad vos. The preposition ‘ad’ is followed by the accusative case, and your ‘vienimus’ seems to be a typo.
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As in Ad astra per aspera, not Ad astris per aspera.
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IMHO, Ad vos venimus has a somewhat stronger feel.
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Agreed.
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Typo, yes. It should have been veniemus, “we will come”. Thank you for the clarification on the case after the preposition. Really need to make time and money for some Latin study.
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Erratum humanum est. ;-)
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“Tell me, oh, great lean back and talk calmly sage, what would you do if a Republican refused to save people because he wanted to preserve his chances at election?”
well, I am a Republican, and your question presupposes acceptance of a premise that exists only in your head. It’s blind partisanship to assert that the President let people die to preserve his reelection chances. That’s pretty much on par with the 9/11 truthers and their nonsense about Bush. There are legitimate criticisms that can be made of how events leading up to the Bengahzi attack occurred. Scurrilous conspiracy theories only discredit legitimate criticism.
“Also, rescue efforts for an act that couldn’t be anticipated started immediately and continued for days. They didn’t let Americans die abandoned.”
You don’t say? I was there, and I remember the palpable anger among us over a perfectly foreseeable event. Indeed, even an expected one. Casper Weinberger is on record that he pleaded with Regan to reconsider the mission and pull the Marines back into a defensible position. Reagan has admitted that. It’s why he regretted the whole thing. It’s also why he decided the misbegotten mission wasn’t worth any more wasted lives and appropriately abandoned it.
Now, does that make Reagan a bad person and horrible Commander-in-Chief? No. This kind of thing happens repeatedly in history to leaders of all parties and over the whole spectrum of ability. So spare me the uniqueness of Benghazi. I’ve seen much worse. Benghazi doesn’t make Obama an awful person anymore than Beirut made Reagan one.
God knows there’s enough to criticize Obama for in terms of policy. But if you want people to take criticism of Obama seriously, that criticism needs to demonstrate it comes from a serious mind.
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Refusing to acknowledge significant distinctions between Beirut and Benghazi while pointing to superficial similarities does much to encourage doubt the comparison comes from a serious mind.
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Oh, he’s serious. It is just that I’m being to believe he’s “flying under a false flag”. IE he isn’t a Republican just some Obama Lover pretending to be one.
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DUH. The first indication is “I voted for Reagan” — they ALL say it. ALL of them. Because, see, Reagan is dead and therefore a safe conservative.
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Or an Obama loving Rhino
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Shrug. On the internet it is easy to make claims about not being a dog, but virtually impossible to prove or disprove. Such assertions are nipple tassels — intended to distract the eye and make the boobs look larger but otherwise of no substance.
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Yes– ;-) could comparison
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good.. .good… good… could I should I … good
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I’m retired military, myself. And, I frankly find your likening of Benghazi to Beirut a little… Confusing? Is that the word I’m looking for?
I’ll admit that I, too, am still more than a little pissed-off that the Reagan administration put my Marine brothers at risk with idiotic rules of engagement, and that the Marine commanders didn’t go ballistic when they were asked to follow what amounted to a peace-time ROE when it came to security. Water under the bridge, however.
What happened in Benghazi, however, is a totally different kettle of fish. First off, can anyone not actually involved even say what the hell so many were doing there, or why the Ambassador was placed at such risk in the first place? We know what the Marines in Beirut were doing, ill-advised as it may have been. We still have not had the administration articulate what the hell they were doing there. So, there’s a major difference: Four dead Americans, including the Ambassador. And, why? We don’t know.
Secondly, the attack in Beirut was over with in a moment. The attack in Benghazi went on for hours, long enough to get word back to the US, and for the word to flow down from the highest levels. Not one damn thing was done by anyone who was not already in Libya. The National Command Authority was silent, for all we know. The only way Beirut would be equivalent to Benghazi would have been if the truck bomb had been launched, and then the attack went on for hours, while Reagan dithered about what to do about it, and then decided to do nothing, letting the bomb detonate. Which, in essence, is what the Obama administration did. I could forgive the rescue teams and fire support being late, but not going at all?
Further, nobody has yet explained why on earth the former SEAL CIA agents who were killed would have taken the risks of exposing themselves to use a laser designator, if they didn’t think they’d have laser-guided munitions to be spotting for from that roof-top. These guys are not fools, and they would only have taken the risks of doing that if they thought there was a chance they’d be able to have some effect. So, tell me: Why did they think that they did, and why didn’t the firepower they exposed themselves to direct materialize?
Additional difference between Beirut and Benghazi? Where the hell is the accountability? After Beirut, Reagan got on national tv, and in essence, came out and said “I (not “we”, you’ll note…) fucked up…”. What did the Obama administration do? They came up with some bullshit lies about an anti-Muslim film, and blamed the whole thing on an out of control impromptu street gathering of film critics… And, a year later, still no explanation for why all those CIA people where there, why the ambassador was there, and what the holy hell those meetings with the Turkish representatives were all about. Something stinks, here, and it’s not the fish.
If you see parallels between the two events, it’s only because you’re blind to the differences, and grasping at straws.
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So you are a Republican are you? Maybe you can explain how it is you see no difference between Reagan owning his fuckup and Obama trying to bury his? The only “I am a Republican” with that belief I’ve ever encountered used the “I am a Republican” line to try to slide his pro-communist leanings past the people he thought were gullible. Needless to say it didn’t work very well.
Or maybe, Mister “I am a Republican”, you could explain how it is that lying about an act of war (yes, the Benghazi attack was an act of war. According to the Geneva Convention even. Why else do you think it’s such a big thing when a country pulls its ambassadorial staff?) for weeks after the evidence was public knowledge is not treason? Or how ordering the soldiers at the nearby military bases to stand down as they were preparing to attempt a rescue is not treason?
You might even like to get ambitious and explain how the only US President to ignore an act of war against his country (Carter was execrable, but he did at least try to help the hostages in Iran) isn’t “serious”. I’d love to hear it. So I can fact check it, because so far the bullshit-to-reality ratio is weighted so far to the bullshit side it’s not funny. There are bulls having their shit surgically extracted to keep the scales accurate right now.
Oh, but I forget. You are “a Republican” so your every word is above suspicion. Pull the other one Mister “I am a Republican”. It sets off a pocket nuke.
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Beirut (I joined the Marine corps a couple years after that and worked for a short while with someone who was there) was a *military* operation. Reagan was at fault for having us there (maybe, I don’t have knowledge he did), and for ultimately responsible because he was CinC, but he wasn’t the one (AFAIK) who ordered the gate guards to have unloaded weapons, and if he was there were at least 3 layers of generals who should have tendered their f*ing resignations rather than follow that order. He wasn’t the one that laid out the defenses poorly–again that falls on an officer and NCO class that at the time was still recovering from the 1970s–I had to deal with a lot of this (rather poor) NCOs when I was in.
As others have noted Reagan took responsibility for the debacle afterwards.
Benghazi was being run out of Foggy Bottoms (aka State) and the CIA. It was NOT a military op. Requests were made for more security by the folks on the ground–and it was denied. Fair enough, they had their chance to bail and didn’t.
But then the fight started, and THERE WERE GENERALS WHO WANTED TO SEND HELP. There was help available. There were assets who could get there fast and help hold the fort. There is *some* evidence that there was of air asset overhead (at least one of the SEALs killed was purportedly trying to paint targets). For whatever reason Clinton the lesser and Obama refused more assistance.
And the screwed up so bad afterwards that the Libyans wouldn’t let the FBI in for 2 weeks afterwards. Two weeks that allowed the killers unfettered access to to the consulate.
And for 5 days afterwards the Administration LIED ON NATIONAL TELEVISION. LIED TO THE AMERICAN PUBLIC.
The event in Beirut lasted seconds to at most a minute and a half, the truck ran the checkpoint, got close to the building and went bang. At no point after the start did Reagan have a chance to do anything until it was over and the cleanup started.
Benghazi went on for *hours*. Hours that people OTHER than the President (the President who ordered “us” into Libya in the first place) sat in the situation room while the president was f*ing off somewhere (where?). Then he did NOTHING about it.
NOTHING.
He put people, Americans, in harms way and UTTERLY FAILED THEM.
Then he lied about it.
In some ways both situations were similar. Presidents with little or no military training or understanding put people in harms way with inadequate security.
Both presidents handled the event and the aftermath VERY differently.
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Look it up. You’ll find stuff like this:
Colonel Timothy J. Geraghty, the commander of the U.S. 24th Marine Amphibious Unit: “It is noteworthy that the United States provided direct naval gunfire support [which fired a total of 360 5-inch rounds between 10:04 A.M. and 3:00 PM.] — which I strongly opposed for a week — to the Lebanese Army at a mountain village called Suq-al-Garb on September 19 and that the French conducted an air strike on September 23 in the Bekaa Valley. American support removed any lingering doubts of our neutrality, and I stated to my staff at the time that we were going to pay in blood for this decision.”
There’s a huge report detailing the whole awful thing, all the naivete and foolishness, the unacknowledged mission creep from a fantasy premise to begin with, and the refusal to acknowledge a building threat.
I hate the guys who hit us, but I understand why they did it. From their perspective, it was the logical thing to do, and it worked. They hit a pompous gorilla with a glass jaw. We caved shortly thereafter.
And I have acknowledged the distinctions between Beirut and Benghazi. Beirut is much worse to anyone who can string meaningful cause-and-effect together.
And as an aside, while the instinctive reversion to shallow, “he’s not a member of my tribe” assertions might make you feel good in the club, It’s an admission of bankruptcy to everyone else.
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First. Take some reading comprehension lessons. What happened at Beirut may have been worse – but I doubt it. Your quote makes it clear that Reagan’s fuckup included a tacit declaration of war. That makes Beirut a wartime attack. The rules are different for those.
Compare this to Benghazi where the US presence was as an ally to the provisional Libyan government, following US assistance in toppling Qaddafi (We can argue over the legitimacy of that assistance later. The point is that the US was in Benghazi as an ally, not an enemy). That makes the Benghazi attack orders of magnitudes worse because it was a deliberate attack on an ally if not organized by the Libyan government, then certainly condoned by them (or we would have been presented with the bodies of the culprits by now).
On top of that, the response of the President in the aftermath of Beirut was immeasurably better. Reagan owned his fuckup. Obama buried his and silenced the witnesses.
If you are incapable of making distinctions between the two events, then you are worse than a communist troll. You are the kind of useful idiot they love to see telling the rubes how it really should be.
As for “meaningful cause-and-effect”, I suggest you are the one who is failing to recognize them. A President who apologizes to those who have declared themselves his nation’s enemies, and worse, apologizes because his nation is more free than theirs is a fool at best and a traitor at worst. Either way he emboldens those enemies to increase their attacks, believing the weak, sluggish USA will not do more than flail a bit and maybe say some harsh words about possible embargoes sometime in the future. Maybe.
The fools do not realize what they tempt. And you in condoning this are marking yourself as a fool at best.
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Ok. Now I see.
I gave up arguing with idiots on the internet.
Have a nice day.
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The ban hammer has descended. Interestingly his ip is very close to a previously banned. I leave the how as an exercise to the class.
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I’m sorry you’re getting flak from the idiots today, here and in comments at the other post. They’re really nasty today. Thank you for that post at PJ Media.
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You’re welcome. They’re nasty today because they hate knowing they’re idiots. I’m not answering on PJM because I don’t have the ban hammer.
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“Secondly, the attack in Beirut was over with in a moment. The attack in Benghazi went on for hours, long enough to get word back to the US, and for the word to flow down from the highest levels. Not one damn thing was done by anyone who was not already in Libya. The National Command Authority was silent, for all we know. The only way Beirut would be equivalent to Benghazi would have been if the truck bomb had been launched, and then the attack went on for hours, while Reagan dithered about what to do about it, and then decided to do nothing, letting the bomb detonate. Which, in essence, is what the Obama administration did. I could forgive the rescue teams and fire support being late, but not going at all?”
We had been fighting in Lebanon, engaging an enemy we refused to acknowledge we were engaging in order to preserve a cover story for the folks back home. The attack in Beirut had been building for weeks. The situation was poised on the edge of catastrophe and everyone knew it, but the people in charge didn’t want to admit it. That’s human enough. But it certainly is, at a minimum, equivalent neglect to Benghazi, if not worse. And you’d have been surprised at the sheer chaos and confusion for hours after Beirut. Nobody knew exactly what was happening, or what was next. Pure react mode. It’s quite common in such events.
“Additional difference between Beirut and Benghazi? Where the hell is the accountability? After Beirut, Reagan got on national tv, and in essence, came out and said “I (not “we”, you’ll note…) fucked up…”. What did the Obama administration do?”
That;’s a legitimate criticism. Note, however,t hat it’s got nothing to do with fever swamp fantasies about deliberately letting people get killed to win an election. Accountability is a criticism that the public might have responded to. Instead, it got drowned out by all this nonsense to the point where nobody outside the club takes us seriously about Benghazi.
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You are misrepresenting the parallels, James. Your criticism of Beiruut now extends to the actions in the weeks leading up to that attack. To properly compare apples you must start the evaluation of policy leading up to Benghazi with the proper antecedents, from involving ourselves in the Libyan civil war under the R2P policy. Probably should include the “Arab Spring” miscalculations which installed Morsi as part of the analysis of regional destabilization.
Oddly, you end your analysis of both events with a bit of handwavium about the after effects of the two events. “Reagan cut and run” morphs into admitting he took public responsibility for command failure, but you’ve yet to acknowledge the extensive and ongoing coverup of Administration malfeasance in the year following the combat action in Benghazi. The reason that people like you are able to dismiss as “fever swamp fantasies” the command failure evidenced in Benghazi is the falsehoods, evasive testimony, destruction of records, game of hide the witnesses and suppression of whistle-blowers that has followed. As was said about Watergate, it wasn’t the crime, it was the cover-up.
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So which item in the trolling 101 handbook is “Shifting the goalposts while continuing to ignore the question?” Somewhere pretty close to the top, I imagine.
Still, you want to claim neglect? Then why the FUCK didn’t the US withdraw their staff the way the UK and others did in response to the SAME FUCKING WARNINGS? Oh, and precisely how is this documented fact a “fever swamp fantasy” other than the trolling 101 directive to never, ever admit that your opponent might actually have a point?
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I suspect we should look out for these arguments elsewhere. It has the smell of a playbook argument. Took them long enough to make it up.
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Yes. It`s not a good playbook, but it`s what they have
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So they make up for its inadequacies – and their own – by sticking to it like it was their holy book (and it ain’t – that would be one or another of the Sainted Marx’s works (and IMO if you want to saint a Marx you should be looking at Groucho)).
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And the “anti-war” crowd makes an appearance at last . . . to harrass Gen. Petraeus and accuse him of war crimes. I think I finally understand the meaning of “moral insanity”.
http://hotair.com/archives/2013/09/11/video-anti-war-students-hound-petraeus-on-new-york-streets-screeching-war-criminal/
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Monkeys fling feces at things that scare them because adult.
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“Oddly, you end your analysis of both events with a bit of handwavium about the after effects of the two events. “Reagan cut and run” morphs into admitting he took public responsibility for command failure, but you’ve yet to acknowledge the extensive and ongoing coverup of Administration malfeasance in the year following the combat action in Benghazi. The reason that people like you are able to dismiss as “fever swamp fantasies” the command failure evidenced in Benghazi is the falsehoods, evasive testimony, destruction of records, game of hide the witnesses and suppression of whistle-blowers that has followed. As was said about Watergate, it wasn’t the crime, it was the cover-up.”
Where’s a crime to cover up?
Having lived through Beirut, I can assure you nothing much is clear in the beginning span of hours. It takes time to get a clear picture to act upon. And as the story begins to take shape, human nature being what it is, some people will try and shade it to deflect potential blame. Is that ignoble? Sure, to some degree or another. Is it depressingly common behavior? Sure, to some degree or another. Is it crime? No, unless you cross clearly delineated lines with documented lies. Confusion and mistakes, even self-serving rationalizations, aren’t crimes. As Juan Williams said on Fox a few days ago, Benghazi s over. It’s all in your head.
Now should there have been a more public investigation to determine lessons learned from Benghazi? Absolutely. But this fever swamp stuff just discredits the basis for any such investigation. It’s totally self-defeating, other then to imbibe fantasies of self righteousness.
And I’m sorry you don’t like the fact that Reagan cut and ran in Lebanon. But that’s what he did. He took responsibility for the barracks bombing, but that didn’t require leaving. He chose to abandon a misbegotten mission that had become hopelessly screwed up on his watch. And that was to his credit. Lebanon will never be a bright spot on Reagan’s resume, but at least he knew when to stop throwing good money after bad. Sometimes the best of a set of bad choices is to cut and run.
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James, fluttering your hands doesn’t resolve the central issue: the cover-up is the crime. Absence of evidence is not evidence of innocence. Intimidating witnesses, evading subpoenas, lying under oath are criminal acts. Your denial of demonstrable facts are unpersuasive, and the evasions of unpalatable truths are quite revealing.
The lies began from the moment the attack on our consulate became known. Juan Williams has never struck me as a reliable analyst so much as a consistent mouthpiece for liberal talking points; his saying Benghazi is over seems more wishful thinking than thoughtful analysis. The best I can say about Williams is he is not (quite) as predictable as the liberal sock puppets who appear on MSNBC.
My opinion of what Reagan did in Beirut is something you are imputing, not a thing I have expressed. My comment was about your deliberately inflammatory word choice, a fine example of deflection and misdirection.
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So which item in the trolling 101 handbook is “Shifting the goalposts while continuing to ignore the question?” Somewhere pretty close to the top, I imagine.
“Still, you want to claim neglect? Then why the FUCK didn’t the US withdraw their staff the way the UK and others did in response to the SAME FUCKING WARNINGS? Oh, and precisely how is this documented fact a “fever swamp fantasy” other than the trolling 101 directive to never, ever admit that your opponent might actually have a point?”
Poor decisions aren’t a crime. If the evidence warranted pulling people out, and we didn’t, that is a poor decision. It is neglect. It is not an intent to get our people killed. Just like Beirut. That was poor decision piled upon poor decision, and it was neglect. It happens in the world when large organizations try to do lots of stuff at once.
Deciding that the Obama administration was negligent in protecting the Benghazi personnel is not a fever swamp conclusion. Saying that they deliberately got people killed to win an election is fever swamp stuff. It discredits attempting to address the issue of negligence.
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And yet we still fail to mention the Obama administration (including Obama himself) ordering troops to stand down rather than attempt to relieve the embassy while the attack was in progress.
You are a bullshit artist and a rather poor one at that. A good bullshit artist at least makes the story entertaining.
You have made no attempt to respond to any reasonable questions, you have consistently changed the frame of reference, and continued to spew insults while pretending to appear reasonable.
In short, you may proceed to perform the reciprocal act upon yourself at the first opportunity. With a large stick. With rusty nails in. After which you may eviscerate yourself with said stick.
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I’ve lowered the ban hammer. Interestingly IP pretty similar to previously banned IP. Not the same, but .. a digit off here and one there. I leave this as an exercise for the class.
BTW anyone noticed that since I mentioned A B Prosper’s ever mutating IP there has been NOT another comment? Ever? I couldn’t ban him, since anyone might use A or B or Prosper in a comment — so think on that one a moment.
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Color me shocked. No really. Stop bloody laughing!
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I only regret that I didn’t think to ask him what in unit he was serving when in Beirut, and what his MOS.
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If the email I tracked is him — he was serving for the British… if at all ;)
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Reviewing the Wiki description (much of which matches his talking points surprisingly closely) confirms the British were there, aiding the rescue. But he claims to have voted for Reagan, which requires American citizenship
My guess is he was serving for Hezbollah.
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You know, I was just searching the thread and the only one pushing the assertion that the Obama Administration had “deliberately got people killed to win an election” was James. Classic trollery: impute an extreme statement to your opponents then denounce them for it.
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I said they didn’t do anything and tried to sweep it under the rug to win an election. That’s different.
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But hey, maybe James knows things we don’t know
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He knows they have to push this out of polite discussion before Hillary can run for president. They have to muddy the waters and establish a claim it is all “old news.”
Right now, every ad attacking Hillary will include the phrase: At this point in time, what difference does it make?
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Oh yeah – James knows he doesn’t want to know what actually happened, nor does he want the American public to know. When that 3AM call came into State and the White House they both let it voice mail screen it and decided against picking up.
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The Obama administration is working very hard to keep me from finding out something. That’s a well established fact.
I’d just like to know what that something is. Not a kooky conspiracy.
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You just need to trust them and everything will be fine. /spits/
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After all, when have they ever misled us before, right? /naïveté
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Dear James, you are now gone, but your foolishness remains. And it *is* foolishness. If, indeed, you have served our country I respect your service. Putting one’s life on the line so that the citizens of the US can sleep peacefully in their beds is brave, and honorable. Benghazi was not brave and honorable.
Others have adequately covered Beirut here, so I will not trod over that well-worn ground. Benghazi is of my time, as I am younger than you (I presume- your misapplication of logic makes me wonder), so I will talk about that.
Consider the consulate. It is a plot of land, with buildings on it. The consulate is also the people inside, who perform the functions which make it what it is- a sort of satellite embassy, aiding citizens of the US abroad and performing minor diplomatic functions. It may be a palace, it may be not much to look at, but it holds our people.
As Eamon has said, OUR people.
Poor decisions can indeed be a crime, lest anyone be confused. Choosing to steal, to murder, to willfully and consciously break the law- poor decisions, too. Actions have consequences. The consequences of Benghazi are still being felt, and I very much worry the consequences of Obama’s blundering in Syria may someday be thought of the same. These are weak, pitiful responses that should be treated with the disdain they deserve.
Our citizens, our official representatives were attacked. Brutalized. Murdered.
Wars have been started over this sort of thing, and rightly so. Oh, I’ve heard that military assets were “too far away.” Hundreds, some thousands of miles. Send them anyway. Make it loud, and large, and unmistakably threatening. File “protest” under “too late.” Send the many to protect the few. Accept that there will be a mess, and it will be expensive and innocents will suffer. For the latter, give aid, knowing that the guilty will line up beside the innocent to receive his share. Hunt down the wicked. Uphold the sacred trust- that those who are our friends may shelter beneath our shield, those who prove themselves our enemies shall suffer our wrath. That is what we should do. Should have done.
“Negligence” is a fancy word for lace doilies and tea sipped with the pinky finger extended. “Failure of responsibility” is closer. “Fsking disgrace” is closer yet. This president has repeatedly, REPEATEDLY, failed the sacred trust, stained our honor, and shat upon our virtues. Wrecked our economy, grossly perverted the standard of service our founders began, desecrated the Constitution, and continues to attempt to irrevocably destroy what this great nation has become. The truth is a dirtier, nastier, grittier thing. The truth is raw, and real, and tastes bad for all it is good for you.
The people of this country are not our president. Mostly, we just want to be left alone. Raise our kids. Earn an honest wage for good hard labor, whether it be at a desk or in a factory or in the field. Enjoy the company of friends. Keep our business out of other peoples’. Read good books, play sports, hunt and shoot, drive fast on a curvy road.
We’re not a violent people. We change leaders like others change their oil, peacefully. This is the genius of the republic. For all that we are free, we take responsibility, too. We take the long view. Assassination, riot, and Machiavellian scheming aren’t our thing. By and large, we’re unmoved by events in other countries. A tribe has been wiped off it’s ice field, the lights have gone out in Rome…
The world cannot leave us alone, however. We are too big for that. Sometimes it may seem like swatting flies with a sledgehammer, but those “flies” are our people and deserve our respect. The world *should* tremble at our anger, for it will not fall lightly upon a foe. The day may come when the giant wakes, and all the world will feel the effects- but not under this president. No. He is incapable of strength, he dithers and mumbles when he should cry out in righteous anger and act.
We are not our president. Thank all that is good and right that this is so.
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Sir — I stand in awe. Thank you.
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I like you.
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Thank you both for the kind words. *grin* I couldn’t quite make sense of it early that morning (I still miss caffeine. A lot.), and all day long Kipling and Payne Bastiat and lots of others were bouncing around in my head.
9/11 hits hard for the son of a tough Staff Sergeant, grandson of a wily Korean War Vet, and great grandson of the biggest moonshiner in three hundred miles of Speck, Appalachia during prohibition (and so on, back a good ways into the old country). I didn’t know anyone in the towers when they fell, but got to know some of them through those who did.
I’m always glad to see folks like y’all who remember, and care enough to speak up when it’s warranted. If ever there was a time to make our opinions known, it’s now.
Heh. Sometimes we have to steal from the left, too- who’s speaking the truth to power these days? *chuckle* We’ll build under. We’ll make it through. When the going gets rough, the smart make contingency plans- because there’s folk that’ll be depending on us when things get real bad someday. Here’s hoping we can make that a little easier.
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Yes. Exactly. We have to make it for those of our friends who can’t.
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This quote just popped to mind, for some reason….
“Good evening, London. Allow me first to apologize for this interruption. I do, like many of you, appreciate the comforts of every day routine — the security of the familiar, the tranquility of repetition. I enjoy them as much as any bloke. But in the spirit of commemoration, thereby those important events of the past usually associated with someone’s death or the end of some awful bloody struggle, a celebration of a nice holiday, I thought we could mark this November the 5th, a day that is sadly no longer remembered, by taking some time out of our daily lives to sit down and have a little chat. There are of course those who do not want us to speak. I suspect even now, orders are being shouted into telephones, and men with guns will soon be on their way. Why? Because while the truncheon may be used in lieu of conversation, words will always retain their power. Words offer the means to meaning, and for those who will listen, the enunciation of truth. And the truth is, there is something terribly wrong with this country, isn’t there? Cruelty and injustice, intolerance and oppression. And where once you had the freedom to object, to think and speak as you saw fit, you now have censors and systems of surveillance coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission. How did this happen? Who’s to blame? Well certainly there are those more responsible than others, and they will be held accountable, but again truth be told, if you’re looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror. I know why you did it. I know you were afraid. Who wouldn’t be? War, terror, disease. There were a myriad of problems which conspired to corrupt your reason and rob you of your common sense. Fear got the best of you, and in your panic you turned to the now high chancellor, Adam Sutler. He promised you order, he promised you peace, and all he demanded in return was your silent, obedient consent. Last night I sought to end that silence. Last night I destroyed the Old Bailey, to remind this country of what it has forgotten. More than four hundred years ago a great citizen wished to embed the fifth of November forever in our memory. His hope was to remind the world that fairness, justice, and freedom are more than words, they are perspectives. So if you’ve seen nothing, if the crimes of this government remain unknown to you then I would suggest you allow the fifth of November to pass unmarked. But if you see what I see, if you feel as I feel, and if you would seek as I seek, then I ask you to stand beside me one year from tonight, outside the gates of Parliament, and together we shall give them a fifth of November that shall never, ever be forgot.”
[V, _V For Vendetta_]
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Agreed that between Benghazi and Beirut there is ground for either side to say tu quoque. Few can assign blame properly in such circumstances. Assigning blame for honest mistakes is a mug’s game. Assigning blame for the cover up may not be. For Benghazi there has been so much cover up the respectable English press can do a side by side of Administration positions and facts on the ground as seen in the UK.
Someone mentioned Somalia of which it can be said
The Collapse Of Les Aspin Dec 26, 1993 Newsweek John Barry.
Who knows likely enough Les Aspin was to blame when he in his role as part of the Clinton administration IMHO decided to spend lives to save money – not exactly the American way but perhaps the Democratic Party way.
Be that as it may the big difference between Benghazi and Beirut in my view is that after Beirut, Robert K. Brown writing in his personal bully pulpit could honestly say that a Roman Legion wouldn’t have gone to bed so undefended and continued to say the French Foreign Legion had more or less inviolable rules for such forlorn hopes. Cyril Kornbluth has some words on The Only Thing We Learn… most applicable to certain quasi-imperial societies viz. the historian and the Chamberlain of that story. Be nice to think that a society not quasi-imperial might remember different lessons – pretty to think so.
Where is a Hackworth when we need his voice more than ever?
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With all due apologies to those involve in the production of the “Boondock Saints” movies, I offer the following as a memorial for that day which we must never forget:
To the utter ends of Earth
Wherever they may be
We will defend our Country
In air, on land, at sea.
From when we first look upon them
Until our eyes they close in death
We will protect our Family
Until our dying breath
Til the Father calls us home
To Heaven’s halls Above
WITH FLESH AND BONE, BLOOD, FIRE, AND STEEL
WE’LL GUARD THE ONES WE LOVE!
“And shepherds we shall be
For Thee, our Lord, For Thee
Power hath descended forth from Thy Hand
And swiftly shall we carry out Thy command
And we shall flow a river forth to Thee
And teeming with souls shall it ever be
In Nomine Patri et Fili
Et Spiritus Sancti. Amen.”
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One of my failings when I first took up storytelling was trying to account for every second; as a result I was very, very wordy. I’m better now, and speaking to your post: amen.
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I used to do that too. No “and then upstairs”. No, it was 10 pages per stair step! I’m better now too. High five.
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It takes a certain sort of rude and inflated self importance to intrude on other people’s conversations and disrupt them with flame throwing, no matter how intellectualized. I find it very disturbing that people believe that this is a proper way to behave. Of course, when one hears the stories of people being paid to disseminate disinformation on-line, perhaps the fact of it is understandable, but the behavior itself is the sign of a person completely out of touch with the bounds of social norms. Somehow our culture has encouraged this sort of thing, and perhaps it goes hand in hand with the politicization of absolutely all facets of our lives these days. Beyond the merits, or lack of, in James’ arguments, he frankly comes across as a person who exhibits no standards of behavior whatsoever. Even my children know better than to behave like that, on line or in person.
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What I’m curious about is if there are any other Jameses on other Blogs claiming to have served, or at least making the same comparison. That would be a dead giveaway.
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I’m late to the conversation, but, in essence, isn’t James saying “Well, Reagan had Beirut, and y’all worship Reagan, so Obama Benghazi is okay.” I wish that logic worked with my mother.
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You mean “but they did it too.” Yeah. He’s also ignoring the situations aren’t alike. It’s more akin to “So, you tripped over the dog last night; that makes it totally all right for me to fricassee the cat.”
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Oh I get the differences myself. I was just boiling down his argument to its constituent elements.
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I thought the argument boiled down to
“Blah blah blah Reagan neener neener. (Thumbs in ears, tongue out)
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And wondering how he ever thought it would get off the ground. Especially here.
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They don’t know this blog. Again, this falls under “There are parts of the blogsphere I would not advise you to invade.”
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Point elegantly made. But now I have fricasseed cat visions.
*shudder*
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(shrug) Surgery, vivisection — really, what’s the difference? Either way you’re sticking knives into people.
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Thank you, that’s surely made it all better…
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From Hot Air Putin is Trolling Obama.
http://hotair.com/archives/2013/09/11/russian-president-trolls-obama-entire-united-states-with-nyt-op-ed/
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You mad, bro?
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I feel more disgusted than mad. I passed mad a long time ago. On the other hand the administration is showing themselves to be the fools they are.
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I don’t think that the administration are fools, they’re evil.
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Yes I agree they are evil.
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You talk as if it can’t be both. A fool is devoid of wisdom, not knowledge. The evil man acts without regard to the long-term consequences of his deeds for others.
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They’re either completely brainless or they’re on the other side, yes.
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I’ll put my money on the option that says t5hat they’re on the other side.
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A lot of them are. But not the way you think. Well, the president might be — he was raised abroad — but most of them just have this vague idea of Destroy the West– Let the little brown peoples take over– ?????? — Paradise.
It’s the result of our messed up education, and they have no clue. And the rank and file on the street somehow combine that with “progressivism will make everyone happier.” Sort of a belief in communism as a sacrament that washes away original sin and therefore makes even relative poverty better than riches. It’s a messianic event, is what they believe in, something that fundamentally changes humans. BUT they don’t realize that because Marxist “psychology” has led them to believe that men would be angels but for “capitalism” (Which as you know is not the result of humans living together but fell from somewhere fully formed and was latched onto by these demon forms called the 1 percenters.)
The problem on the left is not that they’re ignorant. It’s that they’ve been taught to believe such a load of bilge.
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I did like that New York Times travel writer article about visiting the West. It was pretty hilarious to have him figure out that 1) New Yorkers are provincial, 2) NYC doesn’t have everything that’s worthwhile, 3) people who don’t live in New York have their own educated opinions on issues, and 4) not everybody who’s darned good at what they do wants to live in New York.
But it’s also sad. Why wouldn’t he ever have visited farm country closer to New York, even if just to follow the battlefields or something? How could he never before have gone to a county fair, for goodness’ sake? They’ve got plenty of ’em in New York, Connecticut, etc.
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Because he would never leave the city on a regular basis. When I lived in NYC, the idea of going to CT seemed quite difficult, Many who live in NYC have a very narrow view of the world. Many people not only don’t leave the city, but don’t leave the part of the city where they live to visit other parts of the city. Things outside the city rarely ping on their radar..
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http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://strangemaps.files.wordpress.com/2007/02/steinberg-newyorker.jpg&imgrefurl=http://bigthink.com/strange-maps/72-the-world-as-seen-from-new-yorks-9th-avenue&h=1691&w=1252&sz=1148&tbnid=BYpOV0ShqO6mkM:&tbnh=82&tbnw=61&zoom=1&usg=__GzV23c2ruDo9PF2kNtG0q0WdR04=&docid=emxmODl8lVKxeM&sa=X&ei=gKkyUpWkKbe84AOBmYCIDg&ved=0CC0Q9QEwAA&dur=640
The classic “The World As Seen From New York’s 9th Avenue” map from the New Yorker is funny because it represents a great truth. So much so that several alternate versions can be found by just popping “new yorker map of america” into your search engine.
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Yipes! That’s a nasty URL. I hoped it would pop the picture but I guess I should have gone for the embedded version of “The World As Seen From New York’s 9th Avenue“!
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See also this map.
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It’s not a mindset unique to NYC. I met a woman in LA who bragged she had never been north of Santa Barbara and south of Orange County, and her husband had traveled even less than she did — he was an aerospace engineer.
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I lived in Columbus, OH for about a year. Even though that is the site for one of the larger Universities in the country, most of the non-students never went outside of an 8-block radius. I found this out when I was without a car and riding the bus to work, plus talking to people at some of the local bars. I don’t remember the exact conversations, but I remember being shocked at how tiny their world was.
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I blogged about this on 9/11, that few people realize just how big the US really is. I didn’t really think that was still so much an issue, influenced by my own travels. I know I have talked to Europeans that have just no idea how large our country is.
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My parents call about wildfires in CA. And when my nephews came over they thought we could take a day trip to NYC.
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think that’ll help?
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Here’s one for the entire country (not that the other parts matter of course:-D): http://i.imgur.com/tapICdy.jpg
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I knew Texas was big. I didn’t know it was that big.
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In the U.S. I’ve run into a contradiction over size perceptions. Having a habit of taking long motorcycle trips I’ve heard many people say “How long will it take? Days? But that’s so far to go!” They begin to grasp scale. But these same folks, and others, make the profound mistake of believing their provincial ideas are universally applicable, the concerns and solutions the same, etc. Or they buy into regionalism via the stereotypes. The ‘South’ and the ‘Northeast’ and so on. Never grasping the fundamental cultural differences between Alabama and Mississippi, much less between Georgia and Texas. It’s the same problem of scale seen when trying to discuss the American population as a unit. Three hundred and fourteen million people.
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This perception of scale issue is also a problem across Time. It requires a conscious effort to hold in mind that only 125 years ago thirty miles was a significant distance to travel. When you get to the frontier, such as covered wagons crossing the Western plains or cattle trail drives, fifteen miles in a day was considered making good speed.
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Yes, it’s one of my idle pastimes when traveling (particularly in the West) to stop for a bit looking out over the landscape and imagine moving across it on foot, and horseback and wagon. It’s frequently humbling.
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A friend of mine comes from London to play wargames at a convention I attend in Phoenix. We were discussing him bringing the family over and taking them to see the sights. I plotted out a trip from Arizona up to Yellowstone Nat. Park and back via Highway 89 (which is a very scenic drive – no freeways). I told him that I thought he could do the trip in a week but it would be mostly driving and he scoffed – until I plotted it out on Google Maps for him hour by hour (I think it was 21+ hours driving time one way).
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The pendulum always swings. Though those on the left would love to pull it to one side and weld it there, and may even capture it temporarily, all they do is guarantee that the swing back when it comes will be much stronger than they expect.
And I think what really got Colorado was the “Hey, who the hell are you to tell ME what I can and can’t do?” aspect of it. The pendulum has started swinging back.
Yes, you get elected into office on this issue and that issue, and maybe your constituents aren’t all that happy with you, but you’re theirs and they’ll re-elect you if you don’t bugger things up too badly.
And you pass things that lobbyists want, and they make you think you really know what ‘they’ want, the vast, ignorant and unwashed masses – and then you get someone from higher up in the party feeding you money, and suggesting if you want to rise higher you need to push a particular issue.
So you do.
You are, after all, doing it for those who don’t see how right and proper what you want to do for them is.
And then you cross the line.
It doesn’t matter that you were doing it ‘for the children’, or ‘because it’s a good idea’, or ‘you don’t need that many shots in your rifle for hunting’ – you solidly come down and INTENTIONALLY step on someone’s foot HARD with ‘well-meaning’ rhetoric that shows you haven’t got a clue about how they feel about an issue, but you’re going to be the Daddy that takes their toys away, because they, the average owner, can’t be trusted with it.
And it’s really funny how grown, responsible adults don’t take all that well to being told by ignorant politicians that they’re irresponsible gun owners and have to have government to tell them what to do – in response to a couple of manifestly insane people doing horrendous acts.
Step on someone’s foot hard enough, intentionally, and you’ll get a fist in your face. Their patience may be long-suffering, but it has limits.
And when those limits are reached, the pendulum swings back… hard.
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