L to S

It is difficult to believe that the simple change of an L to an S ... ISIL to ISIS ... has made such a dramatic difference in just 10 months. Now ISIS fighters who just last year, as ISIL, were cutting the heads off Christians ... now are befouling themselves when captured by the Kurds in Iraq. It is clear to me that Obama was merely going through the motions of trying to defeat that "JV team, ISIL" .... unwilling to bomb their oil-truck convoys that funded these murders ... or really carry the fight to these monsters. Our community organizer's years of pretending to "degrade ISIL" were a sham and it cost the American taxpayers billions and created a worldwide immigration crisis which, in turn, promulgated hundreds of terrorist attacks.

Now our new president has changed this enemy's name to ISIS and promised to DEFEAT them ... and is doing just that by unleashing his military and arming the Kurds. And this bit of simplicity is clearly working. I suspect it will take many years until historians recognize this truth ... that is, unless Ken Burns tells the tale.

I also suspect, nay predict, that the same scenerio may soon be taking place in Afghanistan as it becomes clear to the Taliban that its opposition is now serious about destroying them.

Three Faced

That truly deplorable harridan, Jane Fonda, was a hottie when she was young ... many think she still is. But she also was and still is a traitor ... a traitor who supported her country's enemy in time of war ... and has justifiably earned the animus of much of America, including this writer.

Back in 1972 while the US was at war she traveled to Hanoi, North Vietnam where she was pictured womaning an anti-aircraft gun ... smiling from ear to ear. She also said that American pilots held as POWs nearby were war criminals and should be put on trial and, presumably, executed ... see: The Lily Story.

After living under this cloud for 44 years, she finally seemed to rue this youthful indiscretion and, in particular this photo, saying "I was wrong. It was a huge, huge mistake." ... which also helped push her just-released book ... see: Hollywood Reporter Story and  Fox News Story

But now, after seeing herself on the Ken Burns documentary on this subject, and in a rethinking of her rethinking, Hanoi Jane now says, "I do not regret going to Vietnam" -- "I'm proud of it" ... see: Breitbart Story.

What a three-faced hottie hag!

Have you now figured out that I am not fonda Fonda?

Baby Killers

As I kinda expected, Ken Burns's "The Vietnam War" has evolved into a nifty piece of anti-war advocacy. Last night this PBS documentary pulled back the curtain on this theme. Not that there is a lot wrong with this point of view. But it still is a little irksome that the sacrifices of so many young American soldiers have been and, once again, are diminished instead of respected.

Up to now this Nam recounting has been pretty much down the center ... but last night it took a decided left turn ... accenting the negatives surrounding this war -- the massacre at My Lai, "fragging" of officers, the Kent State shootings, the huge anti-war demonstrations across the U.S., heroic soldiers being tagged as baby killers ... all within a background of counterculture music.

We, who were not then members of the Weather Underground, were being tweaked for our inaction. On camera,veterans and families who, in previous comments, talked primarily about the rigors of the war, now revealed themselves as rabid peaceniks ... with the implication that we all should have been too. Burns and company were rubbing our noses in our inaction.

This sudden shift in message got me curious as to why. I had heard that Lynn Novick was the real power behind this documentary, so I started there. She was born in 1962 so she couldn't have had any first-hand knowledge of this war. But in her Wikipedia Entry I discovered that she had previously worked for Bill Moyers, that ultra-radical leftist who had been a very effective propagandist for the anti-war movement. Suddenly this hidden agenda revelation all started to make sense. It is never too late to kick a sleeping dog.

Nam

After watching three out of four episodes of Ken Burns' "The Vietnam War" on PBS I am chagrined to confess that there was much about this war that I didn't know. But I have still drawn a few conclusions from what I have seen so far. I know not whether these conclusions are what Ken Burns had in mind for his audience, but I do feel that his treatment of this very contraversial subject seems, so far, to be even-handed. (But I haven't seen Jane Fonda on  the anti-aircraft gun yet.)

First, I must start by stating I was never in the armed forces nor, obviously, in Vietnam although I was of an eligible age. I have two metal rods holding my spine in shape as testament to why this is so. I had actually been called for my pre-induction physical in 1963 but was, to my lasting gratitude, rejected. So I spent those war years working on Wall Street, getting remarried and having another family. And, to my shame, I was barely aware of what was happening in Southeast Asia or why there was unrest at home. All this gnashing of teeth was like chirping  crickets to my busy life.

Anyway, to my few thoughts inspired by  this TV documentary special:

- Much of the angst coming out of this conflict was due, IMHO, to the gradualism exhibited by both JFK and then mostly Lyndon Johnson. I now strongly feel that getting into this quagmire was a mistake, but, once committed. I think someone very wise said, "if you go to war, go to war." Don't pussyfoot around like we have done so many times since WWII. Our painfully slow escalation of this conflict allowed the Viet Cong and North Viernam time to react to each incremental increase of commitment ... and America's youth to organize an effective domestic resistance ... the legacy of which we are experiencing even unto today.

- "A resolute army will almost always defeat a reluctant army." This is just another way of saying that, unless there is a real threat to one's homeland, your soldiers are not quite as motivated as the enemy. However bravely Americans fought in Nam, we were really not being pulled by patriotism, but rather pushed by fear and platitudes. ("Hell no, I won't go!) LBJ never really made the case that the "domino theory" was a big enough threat to Peoria. And history has shown that it wasn't. Matter of fact, I am astounded at the friendly reception American tourists recieve when they visit Vietnam (even the North) today ... given what this program showed us doing over there in the 1960s.

- And lastly, resistance to the war taught a generation of America's youth that it was OK to love one another but hate your country. This "hippie" culture was the genesis of much of our national divide today. It is a price that we will be paying for many years to come.

Progressivism

The Ken Burns' documentary "The Roosevelt's" has spent considerable time on Teddy Roosevelt's progressive reforms (trust busting, pure food and drugs, civil service hiring, land conservation, etc.) ... most of which are universally lauded today.  And T.R. has had his likeness carved on Mount Rushmore as a consequence.

This has got me musing ... there is one fundamental flaw with the progressive agenda ... and that is ... after the most obvious beneficial reforms have been enacted, many "progressives" think that any change is still necessarily good. Thus change becomes an objective in and of itself … with little thought to the possible consequences. If the progressive movement was right in Teddy Roosevelt’s time, then it must still be the bright path to lasting political fame.

Once most or all of the low-hanging progressive fruit has been plucked, then progressives find sillier and sillier things that must be reformed ... many of which begin to erode the very fabric of our society. Many of these inane progressive fixes have more to do with changing social norms rather than fixing structural economic problems. Here are a few:

- Poverty is a primary target of the progressive movement … with transfer payments of all types now totaling hundreds of billions of dollars annually. The result? This country now has a huge indolent class which is now totally dependent on these government handouts … and unwilling to seek gainful employment. Yet they are still indigent because “poverty” keeps being defined upwards and most of those transfer payment are not included in such measurements. And this growing unproductive population then requires millions of immigrants to take their places at an additional economic and socially-disruptive cost. And this is called progress …

- Progressives have now determined that the government cannot now intrude into the bedroom to define deviant and often destructive moral conduct ... yet it can and must intercede to pay for the consequences of such questionable morality ... contraceptives, an AIDs cure, abortions, redefining marriage, sex-change operations, etc. So far pedophilia, bestiality, incest, and polygamy have escaped such social "progress" but, if such progressive trends continue ...

- Progressives have also decided, on very dubious “scientific" evidence, that carbon dioxide, a gas that is the basis of all life on earth, is a pollutant and must be regulated with punitive economic policies. This would be the equivalent to Teddy Roosevelt, because of the then unsanitary slaughterhouse practices, outlawing meat.

- Gender and sexual-orientation equality has morphed in the progressive mind to gender and sexual-orientation equivalence. Women are now encouraged to serve in military combat roles. Men who think of themselves as women must be allowed to intermingle with women in all their erstwhile segregated places ... and visa versa. Did Teddy, the archetypical progressive have women serving with him in the Rough Riders?

Has ‘progressivism” now devolved into something bad instead of something good? To me it has …

The Roosevelts

Like many, I have been watching Ken Burns' documentary about the Roosevelt's on PBS. So far it has included many interesting facts about Teddy Roosevelt of which I was unaware ... for instance, his actual derring-do (which I had understood to be manufactured) ... his many interactions with Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt ... and his early cowboy life in the western United States. The preponderance of the story has so far has concentrated on Teddy, but I am looking forward to more on FDR and Eleanor ... whose lives somewhat intersected mine.

In particular I have two recollections of this pair ... one, somewhat shabby and the other, somewhat poignant. First the shabby one ... even as a young child I can still hear the animosity that many in this country felt toward the Roosevelt's ... as exhibited by this joke I recall hearing (even with the inflections mimicking FDR's patrician way of speaking.) It goes thusly:

FDR -- We have a new weapon that will destroy all armies ... We have a new weapon that will destroy all navies ... We have a new weapon that will destroy all nations ... Eleanor, show them your teeth. (Sorry, not very kind ... but for the sake of an historic perspective, I repeat it.)

The other story involves me, at the age of six and a small playmate, Eliot. We were playing below our house in an alleyway when my father came home from work and called out to greet us. Eliot shouted up to my father that Roosevelt had died. To my lasting surprise, my father started crying. I say surprise because I thought my father, a Republican, didn't care much for FDR. But apparently the stress of the war and his understanding of how FDR had carried us (almost) through it, brought out this stronger emotion. My father himself died a few months later.

I look forward to the remaining episodes of this well-researched and carefully-produced documentary.

A Civil Action

Joshua Chamberlain

Nathan Forrest

Today is the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War, that wrenching spasm in the early maturation of our great nation (see: 150th Anniversary).  I have been rewatching Ken Burns' PBS series on this war and I can truly say, I have been (once again) greatly moved.  The only criticism I could level at this fine documentary is that it conveniently glosses over the religious tenor of this conflict.  Clearly, The Battle Hymn of the Republic, is, among many other things, an indication of the intensity of religious overtones to this war ... overtones which Ken Burns left on the cutting room floor.  Apparently, political correctness trumps historic accuracy.

Condoleezza Rice recently brilliantly said that slavery was the United States' birth defect. The Civil War, it was hoped by most abolitionists, would correct this malformity.  Unfortunately, it didn't, but it was a bloody good start.  In fact, Abraham Lincoln, bemoaning the length and the cost in human lives (600,00+} of the Civil War, came to believe that this carnage would continue until there had been established a parity with the suffering of Africans under the American slavery system.

The above pictures represent two of the luminaries of this great strife that were highlighted by Ken Burns: Joshua Chamberlain, the Northern hero of Gettysburg who dramatically repulsed the Southern's attack on Little Round Top and helped turn the tide of battle.  Please see and read: Joshua Chamberlain  to understand why he was the General who oversaw Lee's surrender at Appomattox.  The other is Nathan Bedford Forrest, a brilliant Rebel military tactician (and butcher) whose heroics are almost beyond belief. Also see and read:  Nathan Bedford Forrest to understand why he is an important Southern hero on a par with Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson.

And please take a few moments today to reflect on the huge losses that were suffered on both sides in this bitter internecine war ... bigger than all the deaths in all the American wars that have been fought since.

Afterthought: I am 72 years old, yet I still seem to remember seeing at least one Civil War veteran marching in a late 1940's July 4th parade in my hometown in Western Pennsylvania.  Funny how these events get compressed across the ages.