“Patrick Lawrence... argues it’s high time for America to embrace defeat and to learn from it.”
How much time was spent, lives lost, billions wasted, so this country could have “peace with honor” from a dishonorable war in Vietnam, as opposed to “declaring victory, taking down the flag, folding up the tent, and going home” (not sure, was that George McGovern?)? Any lessons learned from that? Obviously not, another George, Bush I, saying, “By God, we've kicked the Vietnam syndrome once and for all. The ghosts of Vietnam have been laid to rest beneath the sands of the Arabian desert."
No need to expound on idiot son Bush II.
I may have commented previously in this forum, if not then elsewhere, on “war” being a part of the American vernacular, mindset, perhaps DNA expressed so far back as colonial times against Native peoples. The connotation is one of consuming the public consciousness, commandeering the nation’s resources, to achieve victory over “the enemy,” however defined. War on Poverty. War on Cancer. War on Crime. War on Drugs. War on Terrorism. The all the military adventures termed “wars” so as to justify interventions that weren’t really wars, but illegal actions from Korea all the way to the present. In each case failed application of the metaphor, for various reasons, but perhaps with this common denominator – the enemy was never clearly understood. Didn’t need to be, a hint conforming to conventional wisdom (invariably not) was all that was needed, overwhelming firepower would take care of the rest, the truth of the matter then buried underneath all the rubble.
Again I cite Martin Luther King, Jr., April 4, 1967, Riverside Church, New York, in his “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence” speech, “The greatest purveyor of violence in the world, my own government.”
My how things have changed over the past 59 years.
Citizens of this country do not have a unique set of chromosomes of course. [I am finally reading a book I bought over 20 years ago about human evolution and the role played by DNA, "The Seven Daughters of Eve," by Bryan Sykes. Fascinating and I highly recommend it even though I've not gotten 40 pages in yet.] Ages ago I bought a "button" that reads "Racism is a Social Disease." Broadening that a bit, the sickness that rules our country is a deeply embedded societal condition. No easy solution. Except mebbe chemical castration for most males as soon as they reach puberty? Ouch! Tongue at least partly in my cheek!! :-)
Ha! I bet you'll finish reading that book before I finish my copy! I am a slow reader; I read to absorb info and enjoy good writing, not to zip thru something so I can boast I've read X number of books in X amount of time. I recall that when G. Dubya Bush was criticized for not being the most well-read fellow around, he vowed to read a book a week for a year or some such foolishness. He and Reagan were very hard-pressed to present Presidential Libraries. Trump? His will only contain books ABOUT HIM raving about his greatness! Or maybe he'll treat the whole concept like it's the Constitution and discard the idea! :-)
"I bet you'll finish reading that book before I finish my copy! I am a slow reader; I read to absorb info and enjoy good writing..."
No, on that score we are the same, I am a PAINFULLY slow reader, for the very reasons you mention. As for Dumbya and Reagan, the only reading they did was of the scripts fed them by the rabid Right. And as for their respective presidential libraries, I rather doubt the former has much research material on his being a war criminal and violator of the Constitution he took an oath to uphold, ditto that for the latter for among other things Iran-Contra and screwing around in Latin America. Is it "all hail" or "all heil" these two examples of democracy (in)action?
Good for you! That's the only way I've ever known how to read. Doesn't Dubya's "library" contain a retired version of Air Force One or something like that? Or did I imagine that? Cheney kept little George busy walking that West Wing treadmill while he (Uncle Dick) was running the show.
" Doesn't Dubya's "library" contain a retired version of Air Force One or something like that?"
I think I heard something like that, but not sure. Less space would be taken up by the F-102 he learned to fly in the Texas ANG when Pappa pulled strings to keep him from going to Vietnam, and he showed his gratitude for that by going AWOL. Early indications of his presidential material.
What we have here in America "Murica" is not a Gun problem, but a Mental Health problem. My 4 Gun safety Rules in my Old Sky-Cop days in SAC 73-77 1. Treat every weapon as if it were loaded 2. Never point a weapon at anything you do not intend to shoot 3. Keep finger straight and off the trigger until you are ready to fire 4. Keep weapon on safe until you intend to fire Happy 4th. & 250th. The Beach Boys are playing the Hollywood Bowl...."Don't Worry Baby" :/ :o)
Weapons? Hmm, sanctions kill many many more than kinetic ones. Rigged elections and the plague of Jewish Israelis moving though the globe with their perversions? Colombia? Argentina? Peru? Greece? El Salvador? Venezuela? Chile?.
Hmm, so 13,000 of Satan's workers in Tucson making Tomahawks for Raytheon? Hmm, the Jewish State of rape and murder and theft? Imagine that proving ground in Gaza and Lebanon and Syria and West Bank? Top murder weapon sales in Israel last year?
.
Now? The Jews want to conquer space. Lasers and that AI data battlefield?
Nah, Iran won nothing. 90 million struggling for water and food and how's that AC doing in the hottest part of the world?
Two million murdered in Vietnam and a country poisoned by PCBs? Christ, USA is empire of chaos and terror and manipulation and madness.
US uniformed mercenary army met its recruiting goal for 2026 last month. Boys and girls .
Oh logic, who needs logic?!!? Just take another pill to "keep you hard" for hours on end and enjoy living in the nation that has for decades been the greatest purveyor of violence on the planet. Martin Luther King Jr.? Who was HE?? Oh yeah, that Communist outside agitator! Hey, if Donald gets his way for a new class of warships named for him, wouldn't it be awesome if the first one completed sank the moment it slid off the launch ramp? :-)
President Dwight D. Eisenhower delivered his famous "Chance for Peace" address—known as the "Cross of Iron" speech—to the American Society of Newspaper Editors in Washington, D.C., on April 16, 1953. The speech is a profound plea against the heavy economic and human costs of the Cold War arms race
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.
This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement. We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.
This is, I repeat, the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking. This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron. These plain and cruel truths define the peril and point the hope that come with this spring of 1953-2026 The Pentagon budget was $50 Billion in 1953. In 2026 the Pentagon wants $1500 Billion.
Thanks, Ray. I didn't realize how early in his first term Ike made that speech. I'm not sure if Eisenhower personally got very close to actual combat in the European theater of war, but he certainly understood the carnage war wreaks. Now let us ponder how close Maximum Leader Trump has gotten to combat. Oh, my bad! Yeah, poor chap suffered bone spurs in his heels, didn't he? :-)
“Patrick Lawrence... argues it’s high time for America to embrace defeat and to learn from it.”
How much time was spent, lives lost, billions wasted, so this country could have “peace with honor” from a dishonorable war in Vietnam, as opposed to “declaring victory, taking down the flag, folding up the tent, and going home” (not sure, was that George McGovern?)? Any lessons learned from that? Obviously not, another George, Bush I, saying, “By God, we've kicked the Vietnam syndrome once and for all. The ghosts of Vietnam have been laid to rest beneath the sands of the Arabian desert."
No need to expound on idiot son Bush II.
I may have commented previously in this forum, if not then elsewhere, on “war” being a part of the American vernacular, mindset, perhaps DNA expressed so far back as colonial times against Native peoples. The connotation is one of consuming the public consciousness, commandeering the nation’s resources, to achieve victory over “the enemy,” however defined. War on Poverty. War on Cancer. War on Crime. War on Drugs. War on Terrorism. The all the military adventures termed “wars” so as to justify interventions that weren’t really wars, but illegal actions from Korea all the way to the present. In each case failed application of the metaphor, for various reasons, but perhaps with this common denominator – the enemy was never clearly understood. Didn’t need to be, a hint conforming to conventional wisdom (invariably not) was all that was needed, overwhelming firepower would take care of the rest, the truth of the matter then buried underneath all the rubble.
Again I cite Martin Luther King, Jr., April 4, 1967, Riverside Church, New York, in his “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence” speech, “The greatest purveyor of violence in the world, my own government.”
My how things have changed over the past 59 years.
Citizens of this country do not have a unique set of chromosomes of course. [I am finally reading a book I bought over 20 years ago about human evolution and the role played by DNA, "The Seven Daughters of Eve," by Bryan Sykes. Fascinating and I highly recommend it even though I've not gotten 40 pages in yet.] Ages ago I bought a "button" that reads "Racism is a Social Disease." Broadening that a bit, the sickness that rules our country is a deeply embedded societal condition. No easy solution. Except mebbe chemical castration for most males as soon as they reach puberty? Ouch! Tongue at least partly in my cheek!! :-)
Thanks for book recommendation, local library system has it, just requested.
Ha! I bet you'll finish reading that book before I finish my copy! I am a slow reader; I read to absorb info and enjoy good writing, not to zip thru something so I can boast I've read X number of books in X amount of time. I recall that when G. Dubya Bush was criticized for not being the most well-read fellow around, he vowed to read a book a week for a year or some such foolishness. He and Reagan were very hard-pressed to present Presidential Libraries. Trump? His will only contain books ABOUT HIM raving about his greatness! Or maybe he'll treat the whole concept like it's the Constitution and discard the idea! :-)
"I bet you'll finish reading that book before I finish my copy! I am a slow reader; I read to absorb info and enjoy good writing..."
No, on that score we are the same, I am a PAINFULLY slow reader, for the very reasons you mention. As for Dumbya and Reagan, the only reading they did was of the scripts fed them by the rabid Right. And as for their respective presidential libraries, I rather doubt the former has much research material on his being a war criminal and violator of the Constitution he took an oath to uphold, ditto that for the latter for among other things Iran-Contra and screwing around in Latin America. Is it "all hail" or "all heil" these two examples of democracy (in)action?
Good for you! That's the only way I've ever known how to read. Doesn't Dubya's "library" contain a retired version of Air Force One or something like that? Or did I imagine that? Cheney kept little George busy walking that West Wing treadmill while he (Uncle Dick) was running the show.
" Doesn't Dubya's "library" contain a retired version of Air Force One or something like that?"
I think I heard something like that, but not sure. Less space would be taken up by the F-102 he learned to fly in the Texas ANG when Pappa pulled strings to keep him from going to Vietnam, and he showed his gratitude for that by going AWOL. Early indications of his presidential material.
What we have here in America "Murica" is not a Gun problem, but a Mental Health problem. My 4 Gun safety Rules in my Old Sky-Cop days in SAC 73-77 1. Treat every weapon as if it were loaded 2. Never point a weapon at anything you do not intend to shoot 3. Keep finger straight and off the trigger until you are ready to fire 4. Keep weapon on safe until you intend to fire Happy 4th. & 250th. The Beach Boys are playing the Hollywood Bowl...."Don't Worry Baby" :/ :o)
Where's this "well-regulated militia" the Second Amendment talks about?
To whom does this apply today?
N-O-B-O-D-Y.
ICE?
Ha!
Weapons? Hmm, sanctions kill many many more than kinetic ones. Rigged elections and the plague of Jewish Israelis moving though the globe with their perversions? Colombia? Argentina? Peru? Greece? El Salvador? Venezuela? Chile?.
Hmm, so 13,000 of Satan's workers in Tucson making Tomahawks for Raytheon? Hmm, the Jewish State of rape and murder and theft? Imagine that proving ground in Gaza and Lebanon and Syria and West Bank? Top murder weapon sales in Israel last year?
.
Now? The Jews want to conquer space. Lasers and that AI data battlefield?
Nah, Iran won nothing. 90 million struggling for water and food and how's that AC doing in the hottest part of the world?
Two million murdered in Vietnam and a country poisoned by PCBs? Christ, USA is empire of chaos and terror and manipulation and madness.
US uniformed mercenary army met its recruiting goal for 2026 last month. Boys and girls .
You are in a bubble, LTC.
https://paulokirk.substack.com/p/jews-synagogues-nyc-hotels-restaurants?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=5i319
You're mentioned in this article from 5 years ago Bill! That's how long I've been following you as a kindred Spirit!
https://rayjc.com/2021/12/13/americas-business-is-war/
Oh logic, who needs logic?!!? Just take another pill to "keep you hard" for hours on end and enjoy living in the nation that has for decades been the greatest purveyor of violence on the planet. Martin Luther King Jr.? Who was HE?? Oh yeah, that Communist outside agitator! Hey, if Donald gets his way for a new class of warships named for him, wouldn't it be awesome if the first one completed sank the moment it slid off the launch ramp? :-)
Thanks for the insight about Ike, Bill. He seemed pretty reasonable for a military guy.
President Dwight D. Eisenhower delivered his famous "Chance for Peace" address—known as the "Cross of Iron" speech—to the American Society of Newspaper Editors in Washington, D.C., on April 16, 1953. The speech is a profound plea against the heavy economic and human costs of the Cold War arms race
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.
This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement. We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.
This is, I repeat, the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking. This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron. These plain and cruel truths define the peril and point the hope that come with this spring of 1953-2026 The Pentagon budget was $50 Billion in 1953. In 2026 the Pentagon wants $1500 Billion.
Thanks, Ray. I didn't realize how early in his first term Ike made that speech. I'm not sure if Eisenhower personally got very close to actual combat in the European theater of war, but he certainly understood the carnage war wreaks. Now let us ponder how close Maximum Leader Trump has gotten to combat. Oh, my bad! Yeah, poor chap suffered bone spurs in his heels, didn't he? :-)