Friends, don't miss the latest Newsmaker Show, in which Brian O'Neil and I discuss the (slim) likelihood that Democrats will abandon their vendetta against President Trump and/or admit fault in the Trump-Russia hoax. We also cover Joe Biden's touchy-feely personality and the feminists who can't abide it, the latest Brexit shenanigans, the death penalty fiasco in California, the Marshall Plan and containment, and North Vietnam's disastrous 1972 invasion of South Vietnam. Check it out!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLSx_eC-PwM&feature=youtu.be
In other news, potential "Border Czar" Kris Kobach has some inventive suggestions for dealing with the migrant crisis. I like his idea of restricting remittances to Mexico. This would hit them where it hurts, without blowback for American workers.
https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/trumps-potential-immigration-czar-kris-kobach-proposes-3-step-border-fix
Joe Biden seems to be getting the message that his initial response to allegations of improper "touching" -- Who? Me? -- isn't sufficient. He is now saying that he'll change his ways. That's a smart move on his part, although it won't make the issue go away.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/joe-biden-responds-to-misconduct-allegations-says-hell-be-more-mindful-about-respecting-personal-space
Lastly, this is a very interesting article about a countermeasure that could mitigate some of the ill-effects of climate change. Technology usually helps us resolve problems caused by...technology. Small wonder that the environmental extremists don't want to hear it. They're itching to force you to transform your life and material circumstances in a radical way -- and to make you feel shame for your car, your furnace, your last vacation, etc. A technological "fix" to climate change is the last thing these zealots want...because it isn't really the climate they worry about it. It's people, and their wicked ways.
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-47638586
Dr. Waddy: So much to comment upon.
ReplyDeleteI was out there during the 1972 North Vietnamese conventional offensive. The carrier I was on was headed back to the states but was sent back to the "line" - the Vietnamese coast - and was joined by seven other carriers. For the preceding four years it had been routine for 3 carriers only to be stationed in the Gulf of Tonkin, off the embattled coast. Migs came out and attacked our ships infrequently - that was unprecedented.
The North Vietnamese were emboldened to launch this offensive because they believed the traitorous American"antiwar" movement had sapped American will to fight Marxist subhumans. They were repulsed by American resolve. Three years later, sans American strength and determination denied by an administration intimidated by the disdainful left, the Commies prevailed as they could never have done against a properly led America fighting for freedom and humanity.
Dr. Waddy: Roosevelt was so very weary and sick at Yalta; he was at any rate incapable of fathoming Stalin's infernal evil. In my career in state prisons I often experienced sociopaths displaying an attitude described this way: "Anyone that trusts me is a fool and I'll play him good!" Stalin did that with the refined Roosevelt.
ReplyDeleteBut Truman, the only Doughboy combatant to become President, had seen horror so intense that he was able to face totalitarian hellishness with relative equanamity,eventually countering the tone of appeasement manifested at Yalta. He had an able subordinate in the great George Marshall and together they did what was necessary for a war weary U.S. to do in preventing Stalin from savaging untold more hundreds of millions.
Russia and China clashed over territorial grievances predating their Communist takeovers but its understandable that in 1949 they appeared to have formed a very formidable bloc, the apparently common ideology of which clearly threatened the free world.
Jack, I commend you for doing your duty in 1972 (and presumably in plenty of other years too)! How disappointing that the Americans (and South Vietnamese) who fought so valiantly, and for so long, against the communist hordes were ultimately betrayed "from within". I suppose we saw it coming...
ReplyDeleteJack, I think it would be fascinating to read a history of the years 1945-49, because so much changed in that time, including inside Truman's head. Stalin, had he played his cards right, probably could have had all of Europe at his feet, because America, if it hadn't been provoked into a reaction, might well have slunk off and not been heard from again. Luckily for us, Stalin was not known for his subtlety!
Dr Waddy: I do think though, that Truman's visceral courage and common sense, coupled with Marshall's consummate competence and devotion to duty, saved the day and would have met Stalin on any terms. Truman, that little banty rooster! He couldn't be intimidated. Just imagine how Henry Wallace might have fluffed.
ReplyDeleteBelieve me,we didn't see any of it coming in 1972 - 75. it was appalling, especially for Vietnam vets.
Dr. Waddy: Ditto on your view that radical "environmentalists" do not seek any solution to the problems they lament save their totalitarian dominance over the unwashed. You know, the term is vintage self righteous leftist presumption - who could oppose our "environment"? - you might as well oppose life itself, though actually I'd best not suggest that to the misanthropes, but there is very much in the agenda of those who usurp the term "environmentalism" to oppose for our very freedom itself.
ReplyDeleteAgain, their crusade is but their latest effort to direct humanity into yet another hellish 20th century style descent toward unattainable human perfection or, failing that, deserved immolation. Practical technology would but rob them of their assumed Promethean role and is therefore to be excoriated and suppressed, derailing as it would their otherwise assured indispensability and elite privilege.
Jack, as unnerving as our current political divide can be, I think I would have found the events of, oh, 1968-75 truly wrenching. How the mighty are/were fallen! It must have seemed that the nation was coming apart at the seams. That we managed to right ourselves is a testament to latent American strength and wisdom.
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy: I asked my father if he had considered, in 1942, what it would be like if we lost. He said"nope, I knew from the start that we would win". But in the Cuban Missile Crisis we seriously (though only half expectantly) discussed Buffalo being nuked. Still, there was an air of unreality about it.If in 1965, we had been shown a cultural and political portrait of 1975 America we would have been unable to believe it. But Reagan and the Conservative movement did arrive.
ReplyDelete"Unreality" is a good way to put it, Jack. The prospect of universal armageddon is really not one that any (normal) human brain can wrap itself around... Better, I think, to keep dancing the Twist in the early 60s, and let Kennedy and Khrushchev sort out Cuba as best they could.
ReplyDeleteIt's truly astounding how much America changed in a few short years. I can see how the Left has won so many of its victories -- by exercising restraint and gradually wearing down public morals -- but how they succeeded in turning America upside down in a matter of a few years...that feat is beyond me. I say "America", but in truth it was only ever a minority that drank the Kool-Aid, thankfully.
Dr. Waddy: It was us, the early boomers, who did the dirt. We were the stupidist, most ignorant and ungrateful multitude ever engendered in this country.
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