J. D. Pendry

J. D. Pendry

Or maybe it is rather the seeds of our demise. As a nation, we’ve sown ours over the years.

I think our first seed was in Korea. That’s where we first decided that a cease fire is as good as total victory. We hold up South Korea as a great democratic and economic success. It is that no question about it, but everyday its Soldiers and ours peer across the world’s most fortified and defended border at an enemy still holding onto the goal of reuniting the peninsula under communist rule. That is where we demonstrated our ability to win military battles and lose political ones. The Chinese and Soviet proxy of North Korea never gained anything for its war effort, but in the end it never lost anything either.

Then followed the Vietnam seed. Following our credo to help people who seek liberty over tyranny, we again sent our Soldiers into a divided country. Yet again, we faced a Chinese and Soviet proxy by whose own admission we defeated militarily. Political bumbling, the anti-war elites led by the likes of Fonda and Kerry, and the leftward tilting media led by Walter Cronkite caused the war to drag on. As the last of our Soldiers left a South Vietnam capable of defending itself with our promised support, Congress withdrew financial and logistical aid. The Soviet and Chinese supported communists rolled into Saigon as we evacuated it. We abandoned our ally to reeducation camps and killing fields. Atrocities now discounted with a nonchalant wave of the hand by the same politicians whose actions caused them. Those lessons were not lost to our future enemies nor to our allies.

In 1973, the surrounding Arab nations started the Yom Kippur War with Israel. We provided support to Israel. For our efforts to support the region’s only democracy the OPEC cartel, who if not for the help of Western technology and engineers would still be trying to get their oil out of the ground with siphon hoses, decided to impose an oil embargo on the United States. We made feeble attempts to improve our domestic energy production and OPEC countered by turning back on the cheap Arab oil spigot. We responded like crack addicts. Instead of improving our domestic energy production, we grew more dependent on foreign energy. We provided the money that further separated the ruling classes in those countries from the masses that were getting their indoctrinations from the Mullahs teaching them to lay all of their problems at the door of the Great Satan. Our response to energy blackmail was to build no new nuclear power plants, no new oil refineries, conduct no new oil exploration, make no efforts at improving the technology to extract any of the 2 trillion barrels of oil reserves we have in shale, and no efforts toward improving coal to liquid fuel technology… The Arabs knew then and know now that the Great Satan is also the great cash cow that insists on financing its own end. Political ineptitude is another of our seeds.

In 1979 as we did in Vietnam, we abandoned another ally. We abandoned the Shah of Iran to the Islamic Fascists. Led by the Ayatollah Khomeini, described by some of our politicians as a holy man who would improve the lives of Iranians, the fascists invaded our sovereign territory. They invaded the grounds of the United States Embassy in Tehran and took American hostages. We attempted a rescue. What we achieved was leaving dead Americans in the desert for the mullahs to later display on television. On top of solidifying the idea of abandoning allies in the minds of our enemies, we now planted in their minds the seeds that we were not able of or willing to fight either.

In 1983, our forces were attacked in Lebanon leaving more than 300 dead. Instead of responding to the Iranian sponsors of that attack, we left again. The seed of not able or willing to fight was added to the seed of if you hurt them, they will quit.

In February 1993, the Islamic Fascists made their first attempt to destroy the World Trade Center. We viewed it as a criminal act and not an act of war and responded accordingly deepening the roots of political ineptitude.

In October of 1993, our Somali humanitarian aid mission morphed into a nation building one and our Soldiers were sent into Mogadishu to capture leaders of the war lord hierarchy. They went in denied the armor support they’d requested. When the battle ended, two Blackhawk helicopters were destroyed and 18 Americans were dead, some of them drug through the streets. We responded not by laying waste to those militias, but by leaving. Osama bin Laden indicated that this was further proof that America was just a paper tiger – strong in appearance and bluster, but not willing to sustain the tough fight.

In 1998 embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were bombed by the Islamic Fascists. In October 2000, the USS Cole was bombed killing 17 Sailors. The seeds we planted of not being able or willing to fight were continuing to bear fruit for our enemies up until the attacks of September 11, 2001.

We took out the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan then entered into Iraq. We are still in both places and Al Qaeda is still dying there, as the President reported in his speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, at the tune of about 1500 a month. Since American Forces have been engaged with Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Iraq, there have been no attacks on United States interests or on the United States proper.

We are sowing another important seed. One that shows we are now willing to pursue and fight those who want to harm us for as long as it takes. Still, as the political winds blow across Washington there is a fervor to prematurely uproot all that’s been gained.

The rule of the harvest is an unchanging principle.

© J. D. Pendry 2007 All Rights Reserved

J. D. Pendry

A sick society must think much about politics, as a sick man must think much about his digestion. - C. S. Lewis

I was asked how we can ever expect to select the best leader for our country - one with integrity, candor and a strong moral fiber. Unfortunately, my answer has to be that most of us won’t make the choice based on those characteristics. We are a media driven society. One-half of the 50 percent of us that will turn out to vote, even fewer in the primary elections, will choose the best packaged façade to lead us. We’ll choose the one with the slickest campaign ads, best sound bites and of course the one most championed by the media as likely to deliver to us the promised utopia. Then all of us, including the 75 percent of the voting population that didn’t participate in choosing our leader, will lament the sad state of our nation. Then we will repeat the same mistake the next time around. It’s like the instructions on the shampoo bottle, wash, rinse, repeat.

How do you gage the integrity of a candidate? People can change their minds, their attitudes and the direction of their lives. The best example of that I can think of is Charles Colson. Life events brought about his changes, not a campaign for political office. So, I’m wary of candidates who have life changing revelations that just happen to coincide with the well-known beliefs of their party’s political base. How can a politician state logically, for example, that he or she is personally pro-life but must defend a woman’s right to choose to kill an unborn child?

How do you assess candor? In our poll driven society, my radar activates as soon as a politician cites the poll telling us what most Americans believe or want. There’s a problem with that logic. We are media driven. Most Americans do not take or have the time to truly study issues because they are too busy with other things – like working every day to support their families. Instead, they rely on what the media provides them. People listen to and accept what they hear and read in the media – even if Dan Rather said it. They respond to poll questions based on being barely informed. Politicians react to polls. Wash, rinse, repeat. A candid politician studies the issues then has no difficulty outlining and informing people about what the real problems are regardless of what the polls indicate.

Does one have a strong moral fiber? It is a perplexing question for most in modern society. Each of us defines what is moral according to our own beliefs and value systems. C. S. Lewis reminded us, “Moral collapse follows upon spiritual collapse.” The Apostle Paul explained it more directly in Romans 1:18-31. You’ll need to make your own moral assessment.

He has shown you, O man, what is good. And what does the lord require of you? To act justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God. – Micah 6:8 (NIV)

While searching for your perfect candidate, you must make a serious assessment that transcends the media façade. An assessment that transcends stated positions and attempts a deeper examination of the character of the person. I assess leaders, which most certainly includes any who hope to lead the world’s most blessed nation, using do justly, love mercy and walk humbly.

Do justly - means to act or conform to what is morally upright or good. This is not a complicated assessment. Do the candidate’s values expressed through words and deeds meet the criteria? This of course filters through your concept of what is morally upright or good. Do the candidate’s actions (not promises) represent just acts as they’re defined? Do the actions represent what is best for our most blessed nation?

Love mercy – means having a disposition to show kindness or compassion. Like you, I’ve been listening to unceasing political rhetoric. One group in particular has been quite shrill and disrespectful. Do you know what’s funny here? Not everyone is going to agree about which group that is. That’s fine because it’s the candidate’s response to political attacks that demonstrates if he has the needed disposition or not. Add to that an evaluation of policies. Can you find kindness and compassion in your candidate’s actions versus his or her promises?

Walk humbly – a person who walks humbly ranks himself low in a hierarchy and is not too proud or arrogant. Can you relate to the candidate on a personal level? For me, red flags go up when a candidate tells me his purpose is to look out for the “little people.” With such a statement, the candidate places himself above “little people.” One, who walks humbly, does not make such distinctions because he knows that in the grand scheme, we are all little people.

Choose wisely, the fate of our country depends on it.

© J. D. Pendry 2007

J. D. Pendry

“I believe this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space, and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish.”

President John F. Kennedy, speech to U.S. Congress, May 25, 1961

Eight years after President Kennedy made that speech, American Astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin were standing on the moon. In less than one decade, with technology light years behind what we have today, we moved from second place behind the Soviet Union to leading the world in space exploration. It’s a position we can only lose to complacency.

We were a different America then. We were not a collection of people looking to hide our Americanism behind a hyphenated loyalty to a place or culture never visited and never likely to be. Being American meant something. It meant a nation of people yearning for challenge and willing to commit to a world leading vision. While our Soldiers were fighting for the freedom of another people in the jungles of Vietnam and our Astronauts were astounding the world, Americans were taking to the streets trying to find themselves. Woodstock, mind-expanding drugs, war protests, and new hyphenated identities supplanted just being American. We demonstrated to the world that our time for facing down dangerous enemies as we did during the Cuban Missile Crisis or leading as we did with the Apollo Space program was lost to hyphenated individualism. The loss of our national identity and will became apparent to all of our potential adversaries culminating with our political loss of the Vietnam War. The nations that hoped for our end or that wished us to move backwards or standstill saw us losing our ability to commit to achieving any great challenge.

In October of 1973, because of our support for Israel during the Yom Kippur War, the Arabs handed us an oil embargo. As the price of fuel moved up faster than an Apollo moon shot, our responses were fuel conservation and tinkering with daylight savings time. We could buy gas on odd or even numbered days depending on the digit with which our license plate number ended. Politicians started preaching that the resolution to our problem was to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. Yes, that was in 1973.

We countered with the Trans-Alaskan pipeline. Some oil companies also invested large amounts of money into learning how to extract oil from shale, but it was an expensive proposition at 1970’s prices and with 1970’s technology. The Arabs responded to our efforts in the 70’s by reducing the price of a barrel of oil and turning the spigot back on. Our political leaders and oil companies chose cheap Arab oil over the more expensive alternative of freeing ourselves from dependence on it. The Arabs figured us out.

Our estimated reserve in oil shale is 2 trillion barrels. That is 60 percent of the known reserve worldwide and 80 percent of that is on federally owned property. At today’s prices and with today’s technology it’s economically feasible to go after it, but we seem bent on growing more corn while continuing to enrich those financing the opposition in our “terror” war.

Oil shale development will diversify and increase the supply of domestic energy. The Nation’s 2 trillion barrel untapped oil shale resource base could make a significant contribution to our future mix of energy options. – Strategic Significance of America’s Oil Shale Resource

Here in my state we provide the coal that keeps the lights on in more than 50 percent of America. We have enough of it to match the fuel produced by some Middle Eastern Countries. The Fischser-Tropsch process for producing liquid fuel from coal has been in use for a long time. The German namesakes developed it in the 1920s and the Germans used it as a source for fuel during World War II. Sasol of South Africa is the current world leader in using this process, producing 30 percent of South Africa’s fuel supply. The EPA tells us it’s cleaner than the diesel fuel we now burn in our vehicles. In regards to industry, the Southern part of my state resembles and underdeveloped third world country. Our politicians believe the answer to our economic woes lies in a Vegas style gambling industry. Of course, that’s more glamorous and it’s easier than building and operating coal to liquid fuel plants. In the long term, which commitment will better serve our people and our country?

In retrospect, the cost in lives and wealth of weaning ourselves from the Middle Eastern oil teat would have been much less than it has been. For the decades since October 1973, we have transferred enormous amounts of our national wealth to oppressive Islamic regimes whose religion and teaching does not allow for our co-existence and whose terrorist offspring have taken thousands of American lives. To steal a phrase from a Presidential candidate: In America, “Energy Independence” is little more than a political bumper sticker. Until we make a true national commitment toward it we are not nor will we ever be a free nation. “I believe this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal …”, now. To paraphrase President Kennedy, no single commitment in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range security of our nation.

© J. D. Pendry 2007

J. D. Pendry

anarchy: 1. lack of government. 2. chaotic situation

I’m not too sure where I first heard or read that there are three milestones leading to the fall of great nations. First there is spiritual apostasy, followed by moral degeneracy, and then comes political anarchy. I think history supports those assumptions.

In the United States, legions of lawyers worked hard to push us toward the first milestone by forcing God from the public view. If it feels good do it moral relativism has steadily steered us toward the second one.

We now strive to achieve the third milestone of our demise. My life experiences have taught me to be a slow burn, but at some point, like everyone else, I reach my tipping point. That’s when I’d like nothing better than to walk into the U.S. Capitol and pass out eviction notices. The United States Capitol belongs to you and me just as does the keys to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. We’re the only landlords in the world who pay their tenants large salaries to occupy our property ($162,500 “above the table” for even the rookies) and then do not insist that they fulfill even the basic obligations in their leases. In our representative government, politicians have but two basic obligations to us. Protect us from enemies, foreign and domestic. The Islamic Nazis, for example, who want us and our culture dead and the criminals who make some of our city streets more dangerous than a stroll through Sadr City. Secondly, they must ensure that the things we need to carry on daily life are there and functioning. Basic things, such as clean water to drink and bridges that won’t collapse beneath us when we are on our way home from work.

Democratic Congresswoman Nancy Boyda of Kansas heard so much good news from retired Army General Jack Keane that she practically hyperventilated as she walked out of the Armed Services Committee hearing. It appears the General had the audacity to forego kowtowing and political correctness in lieu of offering the ground truth to the Congresswoman. A person the citizens of Kansas pay well to weigh facts and truth and make decisions on their behalf walked out on a General Officer offering her facts and truth. That is a pathetic display. Does it make you feel more secure? It causes me wonder if winning in Iraq is important to Congresswoman Boyda or other politicians like her. Or, maybe it was the possibility of our success that frustrated and frightened her so dearly. In the words of her party’s whip, Congressman James Clyburn, good news out of Iraq “could be a real problem for [Democrats].” Imagine that, American success is bad news for the Democratic Party – and they even admit it – and they’re in charge of Congress.

The media and pollsters actually control what happens in the United States. They like us to believe that they are reporting or opining about the important events of the day and how Mr. or Mrs. Average views them, but instead they’re driving events or at the minimum influencing outcomes. To me, that is just more evidence of the dysfunctional yet highly paid collection men and women we charge to meet the most basic functions of government.

One group of politicians refuses to hold a debate on a particular news network because, it can only be assumed, they fear being challenged by questions of substance that do not come from someone dressed up like a snowman. Yet, we are to believe they can well up the courage when needed to face down enemies and meet their most basic obligation which is our security.

Then, there’s the other group of politicians who rely talk radio hosts to speak to the people for them because they’ve become beholden to the art of not offending people, like Congresswoman Boyda, by speaking to them the politically incorrect truth.

I don’t know about you, but I’m looking for the political leader that is willing to talk to me, directly, and in un-poll tainted thoughts. One that can look me into the eye and tell me what we really face and what he or she intends to do about it. Then I can decide for myself if it is wise to invade an ally or swear off ever using nuclear weapons. Frankly, I’m not interested in what a few hundred or even thousands of ill-informed people called during their dinner hour believe. I’m much more interested in what one highly paid individual with much information at his disposal thinks. Problem is most of them are too chicken to tell me what they think unless it’s supported by the latest poll data.

Finally, we learned just how close we are to achieving political anarchy. Anyone with at least two firing brain cells knows that Congress has become incapable of accomplishing anything toward meeting their basic obligations. A recent poll showed a 3 percent approval rating for them. For a collection of people so beholden to the pollsters for direction, you’d think it would have some impact. I have no reason to think that it will. The other night a vote was closed in the House of Representatives defeating legislation by a vote of 215 to 213 that would have provided benefits to illegal immigrants. Then the vote was reopened, something unprecedented in the history of our country, and closed declaring the vote a 214 to 214 tie. Then it was reopened and closed again showing it passed by a margin of 212-216. Hugo Chavez parliamentary procedures turned the world’s greatest deliberative body into political anarchy and effectively voided our representative democracy.

Congress, mine and yours, cannot get past political hatred for one another and they simply cannot wean themselves from vote buying pork long enough to meet their basic obligations. Congress should move from C-Span to the comedy channel. You and I should lay in food, water, medicine and ammo supplies and avoid bridges.

© J. D. Pendry 2007