by Barry Hastings
I hate to start on Trump. He’s a downer. The lines of BS, disinformation, misinformation, and spin he weaves make me sick.
And even sicker when I think of how many Americans have no real ability to discern truth when it becomes obvious. They easily fall victim to the lies of miscreant politicians (say, Huey Long); or of militarist maniacs and rabble-rousers, and political opportunists, like Genghis Kahn, Napoleon, Kaiser Wilhelm, Stalin, Hitler. There are several active today (Putin, for one) who hope to attain such status.
America, plus NATO, is what keeps them (reasonably) reasonable. Domestically, we have DT, and frankly, he gives me something akin to the DTs.
Hillary Clinton and Elizabeth Warren, that’s what I hope for. The first is the toughest guy we’ve got. The seeond, the second-toughest guy we’ve got. The anti-intellectuals will love hating them! Their dual campaign stop last Monday was thing of beauty. Warren cut the ground from under Bernie by being there (and saying what she said). She also gave the Donald a new nick-name, “Nasty man,” then deemed Hillary tough, resilient, courageous, and, she emphasized, as, “having a good heart.”
I’ve been saying exactly the same things about her since the morning after John Kerry lost in 2004. I’m certainly pleased to find a person of Senator Warren’s stature agrees with me. Electing a Clinton/Warren ticket to national leadership, will go a long way toward empowering women nationwide. Once they realize the power they’ve gained, and what remains to be garnered, things will happen. Things will change. When you’ve got power, you can take part in Realpolitic, effectively. Both these women know how to do it, and how to lead a movement. Come along?
Did you see Senator Mitch trying to convince us the country’s Republicans are coalescing with the “hair” last Monday? Mitch sans Chin. Much of his native patriotism must have been embedded in the missing jawbone. Birth damage done by a backwoods doctor? McConnell is a very desperate Senate Majority Leader, and we can expect much more from him — until events prove he missed the boat, which he’s certainly done, but is also certainly not ready for an admission.
Can Trump make our military great again?
Emphatically NO! Neither can any other individual person. The military, to be great, must represent a “great” people. That’s not happening. Our military consists of a pretty well educated upper middle-class officer corps supplied by the several military academies, and by ROTC programs within the nation’s public and private universities. But today’s volunteer Army, particularly, does not measure-up to the draftee army of World War II, nor of the Korean era, nor of Vietnam, where our soldiers won the battles, but their lying generals and our lying politicians lost the war.
The Pentagon wanted the all-volunteer forces so they’d have an army willing to shoot citizens, if ordered to do so. I doubt they could have made such a thing happen with a draftee army of old, but have few doubts about the capacity of this semi-brainwashed volunteer force to “do what they’re told.” Of course, we won’t know ’til it occurs.
Most, not all, but most of these modern soldiers know very little about our national roots or history, nothing about our government. Some of them went further in jail, than in high school. If we had to fight a war right now, we’d be in trouble — couldn’t do it if it called for a large, well trained infantry force. Infantrymen today are little more than over-stressed human bomb and ambush detectors.
Success will require efforts from the whole government, and the whole nation. It will require de-privatization of the act of war. It will require re-institution of a fair military draft, with few escaping service. Our army of 1939 to 1946, was far and away the very best we’ve ever built. It was, in fact, and without question, the best army ever seen on this earth.
People of all classes, levels of education, and backgrounds must all be brought to service — few exceptions. No Dubya sneaking into the Texas Air National Guard through the back door, en route to visiting an institution planning to “dry him out.” Too late, in retrospect; his brain seemed to have already been damaged beyond repair by cocaine and alcohol.
The truth about Hillary and Benghazi:
Let’s start, rather than close, with the truth of the matter. Blame for what happened there — the murder of our Ambassador and three aides and security types. The deaths of these public servants was not caused by Secretary of State Clinton, nor by anyone in the Department of State, nor by anyone in the White House. It was, however, directly caused by a Republican House and Senate trying (it’s best and hardest) to impede efforts of an administration (led by a black man) they’d (pretty near all of them) sworn often, publicly and privately, to keep from being re-elected through cooperating on nothing — that is to say, “on NO thing.”
The death blows rained on four Americans were the direct result of big cuts in Department of State security funds by a Republican Congress, busily sucking-up to the Tea Party, and gun nuts. Failure of our intelligence/military services to detect the plot, and/or to have adequate military help within range to provide assistance and protection, sealed their fate.
The charges against Secretary Clinton are, to put the point in words everyone will understand, more Republican B.S. and that from a political party that’s offered little else since President Eisenhower left office B.S., lies, misguided wars provoked by draft-dodgers and moral cowards.
It was, basically, planned to embarrass the President and Secretary Clinton. They’d been trying to destroy her since her husband chose to run for President. If what the Bible says about your misdeeds coming back to punish you “ten times over,” these people are in deep, deep trouble. Indeed, it seems their troubles are upon them!
Very few of these GOP twits, cowards, blowhards, racists, incompetents, have served as anything but defenders of the status quo. Fortunately for the nation, few ever will.
Speaking of General Ike
The last good Republican President and the best General Officer since W.T. Sherman. He was a man who instinctively knew people want to be heard. He was a soft spoken, though firm commander who successfully completed the world’s first moving Monopoly game. When he retired from office, he wrote a letter to the Nation.
If people tell you they saw the speech on TV, they’re lying to you. He never delivered it as a “speech,” but only as a letter to America (largely, perhaps mostly, ignored, by the way).
The meat of his text is as follows:
“We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals so that security and liberty may prosper together.”
Of course, as study of our history clearly demonstrates, we’re a people not generally given to taking “good advice.”