Friends, this week's Newsmaker Show is the usual intellectual potpourri. First, we cover an array of fascinating historical topics, including: the role played by Hermann Goering's Luftwaffe in Germany's World War II adventures and misadventures, the lessons of the Tet Offensive and the Viet Cong massacres in Hue, the U.S. campaign to retake the Philippines in 1944-45, the U.S. withdrawal from Beirut in 1984, and the defeat of the Sandinistas in the Nicaraguan elections of 1990 (and what the socialist Bernie Sanders might have to say on the topic). Whew! No stone left unturned.
Naturally, Brian and I also get into some analysis of the state of the Democratic race for President, including the positives and negatives of a potential Bernie Sanders nomination. You know my view: we conservatives should wish Bernie well, because no one is better equipped to destroy the Democratic Party as we know it than him!
All in all, it's a great show, in my humble opinion. I hope you agree...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWMxpme4ebQ&feature=youtu.be
Wasn't the Luftwaffe banned via the Treaty of Versailles? I recently read (somewhere) that it continues to be used by NATO forces. Wondering if that is true, Dr. Waddy.
ReplyDeleteI think my dad would disagree about the USA needing to be there. He was shot down (and suffered gun shot wounds to his abdomen) during a February-March(?) 1967 military operation (he was a door gunner). I don't remember the name of the military operation, all I know is- he was sent to Guam then to Hawaii where my mother and I were. He refuses to discuss this and the whole Vietnam conflict to this day. I do know he has a big box of things in the attic, which we are free to look at. He was sent back to fight the Tet Offensive. I have to admit I do have a fascination with the discussion of Vietnam, probably because the subject is still banned within my parents house-52 nearly 53 years later.
Indeed, the 1984 Beirut was a retreat. That would make a very good subject to discuss with my husband, who was in the high school JROTC/early entry program at the time and into which was ultimately his unit. If you ever get a chance to discuss this with him, please do not ever say disparaging remarks about Oliver North, wink.
Which brings me to the Sandinistas in the Nicaraguan elections of 1990 topic. Again, do we really have to discuss what led up to the elections (North and Reagan)? This is what I find so interesting about history in general, one has to discuss the past and what led up to the elections. I'll just say, the USA is not innocent of anything. We certainty stick our noses in places we ought not too (and continue to do so). One of my favorite professors and I actually had a heated discussion about America's role in Nicaragua, he actually had to apologize due to the fact he was semi wrong. If I seem to remember correctly, the U.S.A. had played a huge role in the financing, training, arming, and even advising the contras over a long period, and the contras only became capable of carrying out significant military operations as a result of this support from us-the U.S.A. I also admit, war history is not my "thing". I just like to get the facts sooner than later, grin. We all know that European, Medieval and American History is my cup of tea, so to speak.
As for Bernie Sanders. I know you probably haven't been watching the debates, but last nights debate took "the cake". I am happy to report, seemingly, it seems the democratic party is imploding, much to my joyful glee. I am still having a hard time with the realization that the party will be making that hard left turn. Will they? I just don't know. I am still standing by the brokered convention thought. It seems even the MSM media is perhaps turning on Bernie? We shall see what Super Tuesday brings.
Dr. Waddy and Linda: I can only speculate about why Vietnam ground combat veterans feel as they do about the experience. I was out there on carrier; it was no day at the beach but it cannot compare with the ordeal the ground guys endured (our pilots, some of whom were lost, were of course in direct combat).I'm only going to guess that the extreme discomfort many ground vets feel even to this day is due to an understandable conclusion that it was all for nothing. That it was due to traitors at home, the same lowlifes who savaged our soldiers when they came home AND due to the failure of the U. S. public, including the major vets organizations, to, if necessary physically stand against the scum who undermined our forces, bred in those vets a deep, deep disaffection. Lets keep in mind that one of those low lifes is running for President (encouraged, no doubt by the shameful reality that a cunning draft dodger was elected in 1992.)
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy and Linda: We are lucky that the Luftwaffe was as mismanaged as it was. Dr. Waddy, you correctly noted some of its weaknesses. In addition, its presentation of the ME 262 jet fighter midwar was indicative of brilliant German aeronautic engineering and imagination and if properly manufactured and utilized, could have played perhaps decisive havoc with Allied bombers and even the Normandy invasion fleet.It was a very formidable plane.The Mig-15s which shot down B-29s over Korea were direct descendents. But no, Private First Class Hitler decreed that it was to be used as a fighter bomber and the voluptuary Goering, wary of the very unpleasurable methods favored by the Gestapo, was loathe to disagree.Too, to be considered is that the V-2 missile, which would certainly have been followed shortly by far more advanced engines, proved a very useful instrument for the nascent American and Soviet ICBM and space programs postwar. Had Britain faced Nazi Germany alone much longer, it might well have been terribly savaged by such weapons, including, perhaps, nuclear bombs, had it not already been starved by the Uboats.
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy: VC and NVA massacres in Hue as an argument as to why we were in Vietnam. I agree completely. I mean, do cows ----? Of course they do and of course morally freed totalitarians massacre for, WHATEVER! And physical attack is not completely necessary; complete disenfranchisement of the politically incorrect is sufficient, isn't it so, Andrew Cuomo and Bernie?
ReplyDeleteThat Tet was falsely presented to the U. S. public by the then much straitened mass media is attributable simply to a traitorous resolve to discredit our country. Oh, sure there were those even in the media who naively believed we were doing wrong. I do not recall them having made "news" of the mass graves in Hue. Perhaps those who proposed it were threatened with vocational dislocation?
I know guys who were in country in Vietnam who told me they knew Dan Rather was lying about them and that he was lucky he wasn't fragged.
Dr. Waddy and Linda: I'm not sure about what to attribute the very fact of the 1990 Nicaraguan elections. Surely, if the Sandinistas did not pursue preventative measures, they must actually have thought they would win. Silly dreamers!But they are back aren't they?Surprise, surprise.
ReplyDeleteThey have regrouped and Ortega (he of the 3000 designer glasses purchased in NYC) obtains and perhaps, increasingly, dominates again.
That Bernie approved of him is undeniable and that is much supportive of the conclusion that Bernie supports ALL efforts, no matter how undemocratic, no matter how destructive, of the rights of those of whom he arrogantly approves, to achieve HIS view of "justice" - take from the productive, give to the unproductive.
To all: I should have said: "of those of whom he arrogantly DISAPPROVES... ."
ReplyDeleteIs there some magic guarantee that Bernie won't get the nomination. and by some "quirk of fate" win the Presidency? He has millions and millions of devoted followers who will get out their and vote for him. They have closed their minds to anyone else but Bernie, because he is going to give them everything free. So, why not a Bernie Presidency, which would no doubt substantially wreck the country, but prove to the millions and millions of Bernie Sanders followers that he has failed. Bet you half way through a Sanders Presidency that his followers would be rioting when they didn't get all that free stuff.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous, I'm just not so sure he will get the nomination--that means the party will have to wholly support the far left. Oh, I am quite sure in your thoughts of the halfway in his presidency that his followers would be rioting.
DeleteWhat do you think of the democrats and this attitude of "let's burn the house down" and this current virus hype? Too much hype? Not enough? Overblown? Do you think China is purposely tanking the over inflated stock market so it would affect the Presidency?
Nothing the Chinese do surprises me. We can all thank President Nixon and that intellectual snob Henry Kissinger for extending recognition to the biggest Communist dictatorship in the world, in hopes that it would "good". What a huge mistake!
DeleteSorry about the typo in the second sentence.
ReplyDelete(their should read there).
Thank you.
p.s. That is ok, we will not hold it against you, smiles. We are not grammar 'toads' lol.
DeleteDr. Waddy: I was struck by the interviewer's comment that" to be opposed to war is one thing but... ." But the Vietnam protestors, by their only sometimes objection to war in general, enabled the North Vietnamese Communist war effort (as confirmed by NVA General Giap) and I know that for some of them, this was a "consummation devoutly to be wished". When you actively and publicly oppose your country's war effort you aid the enemy (one definition of treason)no matter what your good intentions may be.During the Civil War, apparently General Sherman displayed consummate hostility to the press as he thoroughly distrusted their objectivity and scorned their relatively fleeting acquaintance with the realities of battle.
ReplyDeleteKudos to Bush I for blocking the potentially treasonous MSM during the Gulf War. He heeded the lessons of Vietnam. And this, along with the brilliant leadership of Generals Powell and Schwartzkopf, produced a victory unparalleled in U. S. history for life saving dispatch and realistic use of force.
I personally feel, Jack, there should be more blocking of the MSM from certain issues/things. I just feel there is way too much misinformation/fake news and "gotcha" moments.
DeleteAnonymous: For a long while I thought we had weathered a Marxist President in Obama. But I believe now that he was simply an opportunist who rode his personal charm to personal aggrandisement. He thoroughly exploited and enjoyed the perks of office and I think that was his intention all along. Sanders is a fanatic but mostly excused by age of corporal fulfillment. His regime would be grimly devoted to the destruction of American fundamentals.
ReplyDeleteRead my article again please.
DeleteYou know, Goering had some really snappy uniforms, so how about our President (whoever he/she may be) start wearing uniforms like that (except for the swastika of course) when they act in their role as head of our armed forces? Just a thought.
ReplyDeleteAll of my lousy humor aside, and speaking of Bernie Sanders, how crazy has The United States of America become that we allow a man who has honeymooned in The Soviet Union to run for President in the first place, and be accepted as a candidate, and possibly become President. Are we stark raving nuts!? Not all that long ago, those of Sanders ilk would have been discussed as someone who was a patient at a mental institution.
ReplyDeleteYep, don't tell me. That other guy who ran for President of The United States of America as a Socialist over 100 years ago was Eugene V. Debs. However, President Wilson made sure that Debs went to prison, which is where Bernie belongs.
DeleteAnonymous: I reread your posts; what did I miss?
ReplyDeletePerhaps you missed my main point, but ONLY because I did not elaborate on it. Not your fault, but mine.
ReplyDeleteI think it should be very disturbing to any sane person in this country that there are actually millions of Americans who support people like Sanders, Mayor Pete, Biden, and Warren. Look at just those four. Here we have an openly Gay man whose husband (My God!) kisses him on the lips in public, a candidate who advocates Socialism/Communism and went on his honeymoon in The Soviet Union, a post-menopausal female that rambles and rambles, a former VP who along with his son is a crook
Does any of this disturb you? It certainly disturbs me, and more the fact that millions of Americans actually support these dregs and actually show up for their rallies. My God! All this shows is how much our country has deteriorated morally and otherwise.
Dr. Waddy thinks I should look on the bright side, but I am just not a member of The "Little Mary Sunshine" School of Politics.
Take another look at the "Democrat" candidates, and ask yourself if they should not be in nursing homes and mental institutions. Perhaps the people who support them are the real fools. But then look at our society nowadays and ask yourself if the founders would not be rolling over in their graves.
Finally, take another look at our sitting President and ask yourself what kind of a character we elected. Yes, he has done good things for the country, but he is not really a statesman. And his kids all hovering around, which is called nepotism if I remember anything correctly.
Now you did not miss anything, but what I have just said is merely a footnote in a disease of the soul of this country who has allowed a bunch of degenerates to run for the highest public office. Harken back to those dregs The Clintons and their first order of business "Gays in The Military". Sorry, but the general trend of this sort of rot is unacceptable.
Thanks for reading this. Have a very nice day Jack.
Anonymous: Thanks. I am very much in agreement with most of what you said above.
ReplyDeleteThe left is so very quick to level the accusation of "insensitivity"but is blithe to display behavior it knows outrages the traditional values of so many Americans. In doing so it affirms its contempt for all who treasure the positive effect these standards have had on our quality of life and trumpets its approval of the degradation of that quality. (And sorry leftists, I recognize no obligation to apologize to you for the real America's embrace of traditional mores but I will voluntarily offer this: we know that cultures do evolve but we thoroughly reject your presumptuous arrogation of authority to force summary changes according to your so often unsupportable and dictatorial fiat. And we know you can be prevented from the totalitarian imposition of your corrupted standards by resolute opposition leading to your complete political disempowerment).
The present degradation of our country, which I blame on a far too dominant faction of the gargantuan Baby Boom generation and its naivete and ingratitude; yes it does disturb me very much. How could I explain one typical night of network TV to my grandfather, who passed in 1968?
But I do see it as quite possibly: a bizarre interlude which may play itself out. The accelerating far, far leftist turn of the "Democrat" ( I use the term only for identification, they embody the antithesis of democracy) party may be embodied by their willing embrace of Comrade Sanders. Its good to consider that such as Mao and perhaps even Stalin and Pol Pot once belonged to the human race until they acquired the power to force their insane dreams on tragically ensnared populations.
A radio commentator today noted: (I paraphrase)"isn't it nice that Castro, of whom Bernie so much approves, was nice enough to ensure that people be made literate before he put them before the firing squads or granted them the consummate pleasures of his mold ridden tropical prisons". Oh Bernie won't do mass murder I suppose but all reaching" affirmative action" for starters? Eg. "Oh you want to sell your home eh? Well, how many politically correct members of protected groups have you advertised it to? How many have visited? What was their opinion of your price? You are required to document all of this lest your transaction fail approval and lead to your criminal culpability". We can be fully expectant that such tyranny is within the ken and intention of the leftist horde Bernie would empower.
Anonymous: As for President Trump's coarsening of the national dialogue: I rejoice at it ( in my little rural town I saw two signs saying "Trump: 'Enough with the bullshit' " I heard it when he said it on TV and I was amazed, since I had never heard a President use the term but I THANK him now. First, does it even approach the vulgarity the left has visited upon us? (And our young? Consider the slime they have casually and sociopathically directed at our kids in our schools -wanta know more about it? I saw it first hand as a sub in our schools - and in the media with their degenerate entertainment industry, typified most recently by their half time show at the Super Bowl? NO!). If it takes the acceptance of the general public expression of the word "shit" then I laud our President for advancing it! This guy understands the real America and our disgust with the disdainful, hypocritical, destructive left. Yes he does! I regret that the kids may see and hear this but the left has no compunctions about indoctrinating even 2nd graders with far more obscene garbage!
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy: I would add to your cautions about a possible Pres. Bernie's influence and power: There is one present leftist dictator in the U.S.: Cuomo. But he is fully enabled by the unresistable numerical( In NY State alone) tyranny of NYC. But Bernie would not have such an advantage.
ReplyDeleteMan oh man! 23 comments. Our conversation sure is thriving! I almost feel like a third wheel here. My intervention hardly seems necessary. :)
ReplyDeleteLinda, any German air force was banned by the Treaty of Versailles, yes. That ban was lifted a long time ago, and now Germany has an air force that participates in NATO operations.
Amazing that Vietnam is still a taboo subject in your parents' home. I can see why, though. Those years scarred so many people. Just imagine how many Vietnamese must feel about them!
Did we aid the Contras? Absolutely, and the Democrats tried to sabotage our pro-Contra and anti-Sandinista policy from Day One. In the end, it's hard to say if the Contras contributed to the Sandinistas' electoral defeat in 1990, but I would suspect that the pressures of a guerrilla war undermined the regime considerably.
Will the Dems ever bow to Bernie? That's the $64,000 question these days! Many of them are fighting like the Devil to avoid that miserable fate. I can see why. I know the betting markets now think Bernie is going all the way, but I remain unconvinced. I would bet on a contested convention, myself.
Jack -- I can only imagine what it must be like to fight for your country, lose close friends to the enemy, and then come home to be reviled and mocked... Clamming up would certainly be an understandable reaction. So would going postal a la Rambo!
Good point that the Luftwaffe was technologically advanced, but strategically inept. I've read that they expended vast resources on flak, which brought down only very small numbers of Allied aircraft. The smart money says that the Germans need not have lost air superiority over their own country, but luckily for us they weren't always all that smart.
Anonymous -- I quite agree that Bernie's followers would be crestfallen when all their free goodies failed to show up. Our country, truth be told, can't afford the welfare state it has now. It certainly can't afford Bernie's fever dream. I suspect he knows this, but seldom is a politician really held to account for campaign promises. He may figure that, once he gets his hands on power, the rest will fall into place. In the worst case scenario, he might even be right.
Now, your view that Nixon was wrong to recognize communist China is, in my humble opinion, wrong, because, in the context of the Cold War, such recognition drove a wedge through the Soviet Bloc. At that time, China was certainly no economic threat -- except to itself. Our mistake came AFTER the Cold War, in my view, when we should have pivoted much sooner to the realization that China was a long-term threat. China's rise was to some degree inevitable, but we didn't have to assist it so naively!
Linda, is China manipulating the stock market? I very much doubt it. If anyone is manipulating the market, it's the news media, and of course they've never met a panic they didn't like. My prediction is that all this will come to very little, and the market will recover soon enough. The virus may spread more widely, but for most people it's akin to a cold or the flu, after all. The current apocalyptic jabbering seems overblown.
Jack: I concur that Obama was a leftist dandy compared to Sanders, who has real commitment to the cause.
Anonymous: I agree 100% re: Nazi uniforms. They were fanatical butchers, sure, but they did have style!
Anonymous & Jack: Your conversation about the degree to which we ought to outraged by the state of our country, and the degree to which we ought to be optimistic about its prospects, is one very much worth having. Both of you make many excellent points. I fully understand why some people are prepared to throw up their hands, or perhaps to view the Obamas and the Sanderses of this world as God's righteous judgement on a nation that long ago turned its back on Him. Fair enough. And I fully understand why someone might assume, based on how low we have sunk culturally and spiritually, that we are officially "irredeemable" and in fact doomed to sink completely into the mire of degradation and immorality. It may well be so. I guess my view is, however, that self-pity, although often justified, is rarely productive. Likewise, negativity is self-reinforcing, and if we expect to lose in the end to our ideological foes, well, that very expectation could bring it about. Each of us must grapple with these issues as best we can, but as for me...I choose optimism. And, if the ship does go down, I intend to chuckle at the ironies of fate and to raise a glass to the defenders of faith and civilization who went down before me. All things come to an end, after all, but we might as well enjoy America and all she stands for while we still have her, rather than despairing at her demise before her blood runs cold...
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy: Yours are creditable thoughts on this. I just thought of another group which may fear Bernie enough to hope for a brokered convention: wealthy and corporate supporters of the left who obviously believe they will be exempted thereby from totalitarian fiat. I think they see what is obvious; Bernie is an honest radical who must be fully expected to do whatever he can to establish a leftist dictatorship, after the fashion of the thugs he admires.Even the wealthy and or corporate shills who think it worth their while to play footsie with the consummately determined communist horde have to know what Bernie is about. He is not a EuroSocialist.
ReplyDeleteHmm. I think "EuroSocialist" MIGHT describe Bernie fairly well. It's hard to say...until we entrust him with power, which I hope and pray we never will! But I agree that social liberals on Wall Street and in corporate America must be sweating bullets about Bernie. Among other things, Democratic fundraising would be in peril if he ends up as the nominee. One has to wonder whether the media, which is corporate-controlled and sponsored, might also have trouble feigning enthusiasm for him.
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy: The MSM's consummate opposition to President Trump suggests that they will support any candidate against his continued tenure.
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy: But having said that, I think your comments plausible. Yesterday, Biden won in S. Carolina apparently due to Dem "moderates" !!?? wariness about him. I heard speculation today that if denied the nomination Bernie will go Independent. I very much wish for his Dem nomination so that he can drag that existential threat to all we value with him, into the tawdry margins of our society and polity from which he rose in the '60's. But if it doesn't happen, I hope he goes bananas.
ReplyDeleteHa ha. Bananas? I thought Crazy Bernie was already there...
ReplyDeleteWould Bernie go independent? I just don't know. I do know that a good proportion of his followers are, in effect, already there. A Bernie (or a Gabbard) independent bid would seal the deal, though.