Archive for October, 2006

Below Average-American

Sunday, October 29th, 2006

Looks like I’m not an Average-American.  Whether I’m above or below the mean is debatable.  Each time I hear the news, or look at the Internet some pundit person or pollster tells me what Average-American thinks.  It’s odd how my thinking always falls into the group that doesn’t think as Average-American does.  So, I can only conclude that I am the Below Average-American.  Either that or some entities are working extra hard to convince me of it.

For example, I think the economy is in great shape.  Best in my lifetime.  My retirement account is a crankin’ and there’s no Internet bubble to pop and suck the life from it.  Yet, each day I hear that Average-American believes the economy is a wreck.  Rather makes me feel guilty that my middle-classed hillbilly self thinks it’s doing OK.  It makes me pine for the good old Carter days of gas lines, 7.6 percent unemployment, 20 percent interest and 13 percent inflation.  Where the solution offered for our problems was turn down the thermostat and put on a sweater. Average-American doesn’t believe the war in Iraq is going well either.  He hears the daily casualty count.  He knows how many car bombs went off in Baghdad.  He knows that a dozen politicians a day call the President an incompetent liar and demands the resignations of all of his cabinet.  He hears about the Soldiers that committed acts of stupidity and got themselves into serious trouble.  He knows that it must be bad when CNN decides to show terrorist propaganda and call it news.  After a daily dose of that for several years, what else could we expect Average-American to believe?It’s a tragic event when any Soldier is injured or loses his life.  It’s sadder still when the people who control information that gets to Average-American can’t take the time to tell him or her what those Soldiers accomplished for their sacrifice.  It’s distressing when the Department of Defense has to put up a webpage to correct the misinformation that appears in our Nation’s largest papers and to provide Americans with information that they simply don’t get from any other source. Mr. and Ms. Average-American go to work each day, except for about 4.5 percent of them, and rely on traditionally trusted media sources to bring them information.  Generally, they accept it as truthful and if it’s all negative gloom and doom, they begin to believe it.  They don’t know the things that the Below-Average Americans know because they don’t have or take the time to study for themselves.  This is why politicians resort to slime campaigns instead of campaigns of substance.  That, they believe, is the depth of Average-American’s knowledge and thought.  They maybe right, but in this information age probably for not much longer.As for Iraq, I don’t expect that Average-American knows how many schools we’ve rebuilt, how many medical care facilities, roads, sewage treatment plants, how much fresh water we’ve provided, how much we’ve improved electricity service, how we’ve raised their oil production to near capacity…(slow loading PDF document, but worth the wait and read) or much of anything about the 11,000 reconstruction projects either completed or in progress. This is information you won’t hear from Brian, Katie and Wolfe or read about in the New York Times.  Terrorist’s hits on our Soldiers is news, but reporting this would be to them pro-war propaganda.  We Below Average-Americans can’t comprehend that logic.  Guess that explains our below average-ness. Average-American, led by politicians and popular news media believe the war is taking too long, the cost is too great and that we need to bring the troops home right away.  He’s told it’s taking longer than World War II did.  World War II casualties were around 450,000.  In Iraq, we’re mostly rebuilding what the Hussein regime destroyed through neglect.  In Japan, Germany and South Korea, we rebuilt what war destroyed.  Do you think it registers with Average-American that United States Military Forces are still in Japan, Germany and South Korea?  More than a half-century after those wars ended.  And because of that presence, each place has seen peace and prosperity.  Wars such as those and the one we are now in never end completely because Soldiers stay on to rebuild and secure the peace.  Average-American’s Grandchildren will see, from necessity, strategic United States Military Bases in Afghanistan and Iraq – regardless of which political party controls Washington, DC.Now we’re hearing about some active duty soldiers who are petitioning their representatives to withdraw U.S. forces from Iraq.  It’s their right to do that.  John Kerry and others did it.  I guess they’re no different from our bevy of retired Generals and are probably following their example.  I expect Average-American will hear much about this group of soldiers, in between the campaign slime ads, in the days before the election.  He will not hear much about the achievement and sacrifice of other Soldiers unless we Below-Average Americans make an effort to tell him.Why don’t we do that? 

Copyright © J. D. Pendry 2006 

 

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Punish Whom?

Sunday, October 22nd, 2006

One of life’s important guiding principles is that every choice results in consequence. If you believe the media version of current events and the views of assorted and allegedly politically astute pundits, conservative Republican voters are staying home this election year – in droves.  Supposedly, we’re doing it to punish the Republicans.  Could be I don’t have as much insight as the political strategists and others do.  Out here in fly around country, I generally rely on a poll of one to decide my way.  Me.  One-hundred percent of the time, I’m correct in predicting what I will do on Election Day.  Decidedly more correct in that regard than are Misters Zogby and Rasmussen.  I suggest that you also rely on a poll of one – and your conscience. 

Only once in my life, did I vote a straight party ballot.  It was my first vote.  I could barely name the candidates much less tell you what they or their party stood for.  I come from a family of Yellow Dog Democrats so I dutifully put the X in the circle for the Democrat Party and dropped my absentee ballot in the mailbox.  I was a 20-year-old Army Private.  I can take solace because recent history tells me that the vote probably wasn’t counted anyway.  Many Americans still do it that way.  Their only information and motivation coming from campaign commercials or Yellow Dog traditions.  Sad.

 

This year, I’m going to walk into the polling place, get my ballot, computer screen or whatever it is they direct me towards this time, look for the R’s and make my voting booth visit a brief one.  No, I’m not reverting to my old uninformed ways.  Both political parties have their elected stinkers, but one has a history and they’ve already told us they’ll pull a repeat if we give them the power to do it.

 

It was a liberal biased media, led by Uncle Walter Cronkite, which convinced Americans our Military was defeated during TET of 1968 in Vietnam.  The historical truth is TET was a major military defeat - for the North Vietnamese.  Problem is, Americans trusted Uncle Walt to whom there existed no counter voice, so we believed him and turned against the war and deserted our Soldiers.  The militarily defeated North Vietnamese were politically and media savvy.  They knew the liberal American media along with their Kerry and Fonda like accomplices were turning the tide for them.  They realized that in an era that didn’t have instantaneous worldwide communications.  They also knew that they had a Democrat led United States Congress willing to pull the plug, which they eventually did when they stopped the funding that provided the South Vietnamese with logistical support they needed to defend themselves.  That was their tribute to the sacrifice of 58,000 courageous Americans.

 

That same liberal media started reporting to us within 24 hours of the beginning of the Iraq invasion that we were hopelessly bogged down.  It was only a few days later that they used Vietnam and quagmire to describe the war.  The norm since has been negative war news.  The table is now set with the comparison of the month of October in Iraq to TET of 1968.  If you believe that the people who want to kill us are not politically savvy and tuned in to the American political scene, you’re beyond naïve.  They hear what the North Vietnamese heard.  The war is wrong.  Most Americans are against it.  The Democrats vow to pull the troops out.  They believe if they increase the violence and make it more painful for Americans, the media will follow the scripted plan and help them influence American votes in their favor on Election Day.  The killers are making it obvious who they want leading our country.

 

When I consider that, along with the people who lead and influence the Democrat party, it’s easy for me to change my long-standing rule against voting a straight party ticket for this mid-term election.  There’s a Ted Turner video posted on You Tube.  In it, Jane Fonda’s ex-spouse said that he has trouble choosing sides in our war against the terrorists.  Mr. Turner is an example of the rich, influential and woefully ignorant people who fund and influence the modern Democrat party.  If that isn’t enough, then consider that CNN, founded by Mr. Turner, is airing terrorist propaganda videos of American Soldiers being hit by snipers.  I pray that a parent, spouse or child was not witness to the video of a loved one dying because insensitive useful idiots want to aid our enemies.  I can’t share the language I’m thinking.  People like Ted Turner and media like CNN – that broadcasts worldwide 24 hours a day – put for me an identifiable face on the modern Democrat party.

 

Senator Harry Reid bragged about killing the Patriot Act.  The law that provides us the tools we need to interdict the people that want to kill us.  Congressman Charles Rangel, the potential Chairman of the House, Ways and Means Committee has already bragged that you can’t fight a war if you can’t pay for it.  The Democrat’s military expert thinks we should pull back and form a defensive perimeter around Okinawa.  Collectively, Democrats want to give U.S. Constitutional rights to enemy combatants, they want to impede our ability to listen to their communications, they demean Soldiers at every opportunity, they demean and obstruct the Commander in Chief and anyone else who is trying to take the fight to our enemies.  They get their morality and leadership from the likes of Ted Kennedy whose past treasonous activities are now coming out.

 

If you want a Jimmy Carter economy and a military as beaten down and dejected as the Post Vietnam military, then stay home on Election Day and the Democrats will cheerfully deliver that punishment to you.  I can’t because I have to look in the mirror the next day.  I don’t want to see the face of someone that failed carry out his most important duty as a citizen of the United States of America.  Nor, do I want to see the face of someone that failed to vote while an American Soldier faced death on my behalf.

 

Copyright © J. D. Pendry 2006

 

 

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Sex, Booze, Rock and Roll – and Voting

Monday, October 16th, 2006

Occasionally, through my years in the Army, a leader would step on a sensitive part of his anatomy.  If it were especially bad, he’d dance around on it a bit.  Generally at the root of the problem was sex with someone other than a spouse, a random act of stupidity while boozed up or any of a number of other brainless rock and roll acts.  The Army is unforgiving of leaders that don’t live up to expectations.  They’re relegated to jobs where they won’t jeopardize the led or they’re given their marching papers so they can seek other employment – maybe as politicians.  Good leaders are what make the Army, all of our Armed Services for that matter, successful.  That’s why it’s important that only the best, those with impeccable character, be allowed to lead.  Even with that emphasis, an occasional bum slips through.

Bums slip through our election process too.  Slip probably isn’t definitive enough, pour through is probably more accurate.  The problem is, when discovered, they don’t usually do the honorable thing and leave.  Their cohorts won’t generally do the honorable thing either by drop kicking their butts through the goal posts of life.  And, too often, foolish voters just send the crack heads  back to office.It’s about this time during an election year that you need hit the mute button on politics.  Because if you don’t know who to vote for by now, there’s nothing in the news or campaign ads that’ll help you make a good choice.  You’ll hear about the latest scandals or you’ll hear a litany of unsupported statements about the opposition in campaign ads, but you’ll hear doggone little that is helpful.You can listen to the conservative pundits and they’ll tell you to vote for Republicans.  The liberals will tell you to vote for Democrats.  Occasionally someone, holier than thou, will beg you to forget about supporting a political party and just vote for the right person.

“There is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress.”  – Mark Twain

As all of them tell you for whom you should vote, they’ll bring up stories of prostitution rings, recent sex scandals, past sex scandals, recent bribery, recent corruption, past corruption, shady lobbyists, Senators making themselves wealthy, making the family wealthy, Representatives making themselves and friends wealthy, and typical drunks.  Sadly, if you or I invested the time we could add link after link of sexed up and boozed up crooks who we charge to lead our country.  By the time we finished reading all the dirt we could find and considering that most of it is only half-accurate, we’d probably opt out of voting altogether.  But, we can’t do that.  We have to vote, although half of us probably won’t on Election Day.  Instead of spending time on sex, booze and rock and roll scandals, take a few minutes and study the candidates from which you have to choose.  How tough can it be to look up the voting records of one House member and one Senator?  Here, you can review roll call votes of the House.  Here, you can view roll call votes of the Senate.  When all of the hype is set aside, what’s important is whether the person you put in office the last time is voting as you think he or she should.  That doesn’t mean you should vote to retain a sexually perverted, drunk crook, but a least you’ll be armed with some information that you know is true.There is another important consideration when you vote.

“I have already intimated to you the danger of parties in the state, with particular reference to the founding of them on geographical discriminations. Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party, generally. The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism.” … – George Washington, Farewell Address

Like it or not, politcal parties make up our government and they’re performing much as predicted by President Washington.  Without them, our elections would resemble those of a bannana republic with 50 candidates for every job and a winner that gets 15 percent of the vote.  When you pull the lever, punch the card or poke at the computer screen to pick the best person to send to Washington, you need to also have in mind which party you believe will best serve our nation.  No matter who you send, the party leaderhip and party focus will not change.  That’s the tough choice you need to make and it isn’t always as simple as picking the best person.  The party I want in charge will take this George Washington quote, which is applicable to today, to heart.

“The time is now near at hand which must probably determine whether Americans are to be freemen or slaves; whether they are to have any property they can call their own; whether their houses and farms are to be pillaged and destroyed, and themselves consigned to a state of wretchedness from which no human efforts will deliver them. The fate of unborn millions will now depend, under God, on the courage and conduct of this army. Our cruel and unrelenting enemy leaves us only the choice of brave resistance, or the most abject submission. We have, therfore, to resolve to conquer or die.”  -   Address to the Continental Army before the battle of Long Island (August 27, 1776)

Unfortunately:

“Politics is not the art of the possible.  It consists in choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable.”  -  John Kenneth Galbraith

Get registered.  Vote.  Our survival depends on it.Copyright © 2006 J.D. Pendry

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Ashamed

Sunday, October 8th, 2006

“I’m ashamed for my country.” – Oliver Stone

  

Me too Oliver, but for probably much different reasons from you.
  I’m ashamed that my country has become a Balkanized collection of Hyphenated-Americans demanding special treatment because of their pre hyphened identities.  We’ve become a collection of nations within a nation unable to present a united One-America front to people who wish for our destruction.  People want to re-create here the failed societies they fled.
 I’m ashamed that the citizenry of the greatest representative republic in the history of the world may be so shallow in thought that an entire election could turn on the sexual perversion of a single member of Congress.  Possibly putting in charge of our country people who resort to such a political tactic because they lack the ideas and intellect required to solve our nation’s problems.
  I’m ashamed that someone such as you would say that our President has set the country back 10 years, but lack the courage to make a similar comment about the people who wish to turn us and the rest of the world back to the 7th century.
 I’m ashamed that one of my country’s major political parties would run a political ad about promises broken to Veterans and be as ignorant of our Military as to use in the ad a picture of a Soldier from another country.  I can’t think of when I’ve been more ashamed of and insulted by a political party.  These people tell us they would do it better, but always fail to tell us what it is.  Maybe they intend to out source our defense since they chose the picture of a Canadian Soldier for their ad.
 I’m ashamed Oliver when people with the means to help solve problems, such as you, point out all of the world’s tribulations, blame them on others, then insist that someone else solve them.  You make millions of dollars and point your finger at poverty and disease asking why someone else hasn’t fixed that.  I suppose when you point out a problem for us, you’ve fulfilled your societal obligations and can feel good then to return to self-worship.
 I’m ashamed that people who claim to be patriotic citizens of the United States of America will stand embracing a troll like Hugo Chavez while calling our President a terrorist.
 

I’m ashamed that I must spend hours reading dozens of versions of the same story in order to collect most of the pertinent facts.  All because there are no media sources I can trust to give me the complete picture.  Reading or listening to the news nowadays is like reading a 9th grade term paper.  The writer or speaker tosses out everything except the one fact that supports his or her position.  I’m ashamed that too many of my fellow citizens accept your words or the words of those who fail to report the whole story to them as the complete truth.
 

I’m ashamed when our system and our people elect a government and then watch helplessly as the minority party spends every waking hour ensuring that the majority party fails while never considering the impact their idiocy has on common every day people.  Neither the political persuasion of the parties, the needs of our country nor the desires of our people determine what they do, only their minority or majority status does.  I expect it’ll take a catastrophic event of proportions most of us can’t comprehend to change that.
  I’m ashamed that we’ve killed millions of babies in our country and call it freedom of choice.
 I’m ashamed because we’ve lost common courtesy and respect in our country and we are bringing up an entire generation to act that way.  When is the last time you read a news article referring to the President as something other than a last name, or practically anyone else who has earned a title for that matter?  We wouldn’t call our family doctor by his or her last name, but it’s OK for our President, Congressman, or whomever.  That’s how our children are learning to show courtesy and respect.  When you’re child mentions Jones, you may have to clarify whether it’s the school principal, your elderly neighbor or one of his buddies.
 I’m ashamed that during a time when people wish our destruction and are actively trying to fulfill their wishes, when dangerous regimes are actively pursuing nuclear weapons, when American Soldiers are fighting and dying, when inept politicians have failed for decades to free us from dependence on foreign energy sources, when pork barrel politics are bankrupting our country, when… that the leading news story on every 24 hour news source is about a homosexual Congressman who may or may not have cyber-diddled a homosexual page and whether or not that episode will decide who gets to lead our country.  Frankly, Oliver, I found more substance in student council elections during my brief one-year tour in a public school.
 Ashamed Oliver?  Somewhat.
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Matthew 12:25
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Copyright © 2006 J.D. Pendry

 

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Fixing Yesterday

Monday, October 2nd, 2006

I’ve been quite busy this week, without much time for writing.  Feeling a little rushed this Sunday evening and with a hodge-podge of thoughts.  I hope I don’t sound too disjointed.
 

Growing up in the West Virginia hills, you could count on some things.  If you stepped on a Yellow Jacket’s nest, there was a good chance you’d collect a few bee stings.  Each summer, my Mother would hang a jug half filled with honey and water from the end of the clothesline.  By summer’s end, the jug would be full of dead Yellow Jackets and other assorted bees.  Bees that couldn’t resist the lure of the honey, where they died in bunches before they could hurt anyone.
 

When part of the classified National Intelligence Estimate leaked to the press, the gloomy reports were that we were creating more jihadis by being in Iraq than we would have otherwise.  This might not be the champion silly thought I’ve heard coming from the mouths of politicians and pseudo journalists in the past few years, but it ranks right near the top.  Of course, the words that come forth from the mouths of some of those two groups are hard to top on the silliness scale.  No Americans created the people who’ve tried to destroy us before, during and after 9/11.  People in power have made plenty of mistakes through the years.  Mistakes that enabled them or emboldened them to pursue their radical fascist ideals, but we didn’t create them.
 

Hopelessness created these people.  Hopelessness given to them by evil men, most of them wealthy cowards, who have led an entire generation backwards in time while brainwashing them from youth with a hatred for us.  Not just hatred for Americans and Jews, but for all of modern Western society.  They’ve taught young people from kindergarten age that Jews and Crusaders are the reasons they have to live in sewage-polluted ghettos.  They’re taught that their only hope for paradise, their only hope to escape from squalor and provide good lives for their families is to become a martyr while killing infidels.  The best infidels to kill are Jews and Americans.  They believe it.  Unthinkingly.  Maybe they get bonus virgins for us. 
  I’m not sure where we are in this country as far as what we believe, what we stand for and for what as individuals and a collective nation we are willing to fight.  You’d think that once attacked, a nation would come together and relentlessly pursue its attacker until he is no longer a threat - as we did in World War II.  Unfortunately, and to our peril, it looks like we’d rather spend our days attacking one another, revisiting the past and trying to fix yesterday instead of confronting today.
 As a nation, we can’t accept that we are in a religious war because we’ve pulled away from religion, not just Christianity but all religion.  We’ve passed laws practically forbidding even a hint of it in public settings.  A societal belief that’s utterly opposed to the beliefs of the enemy we face.  For them, it’s an unfathomable concept.  It’s obvious to me each time I attend a worship service that there are many more people who do not attend than who do attend.  To accept that our culture is in a religious war would mean choosing a side to defend as a nation.  That’s problematic for a society filled with Rosie O’Donnels that often views all religions with disdain and considers one as bad as the other.  A mentality that figures if you don’t claim a religion then it’s not about you, not your war. 
 Rosie logic is flawed.  The self-described holy warriors we face, who would happily stone to death a homosexual Rosie while chanting god is great, have chosen a religion.  They do believe they’re in a holy war.  A war that concludes with Armageddon and they believe their side wins.  Not only do they believe in Armageddon, men who feel divinely led to bring about the last great battle between good and evil lead them.  They’re at war with everyone who doesn’t have the same religious beliefs as them - even Rosie.  All of us should know where we stand individually and collectively, but I fear we don’t.
 Our problem is that we are too busy attacking one another and maneuvering for political power to confront collectively our enemy.  If that problem wasn’t enough, we are so busy trying to fix yesterday that we can’t focus on what we face today.  We can’t continue to expend time and energy harping on why we are where we are.  Someday, a true historian will sort out the facts without bias and without the influence of the players trying to spin or fix yesterday.  He or she will lay out what happened over the years and the most important facts will be about who did what from today forward.
 First, we hung out a jug of honey water in Iraq.
 

Copyright © 2006 J.D. Pendry
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“Say what you have to say, not what you ought.”  – Henry David Thoreau

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