I've got a little list and they never will be missed.

I’VE GOT A LITTLE LIST!

I've got a little list — I've got a little list
Of society offenders who might well be underground
And who never would be missed — who never would be missed!

 aka “As someday it may happen” “The Mikado” by Gilbert and Sullivan.

  Like most people of my generation I’m not a huge fan of opera, though I do like the little operettas of Gilbert and Sullivan. I first encountered The Mikado in my junior high school music class where Mrs. Jacobson had us set through and listen to Groucho Marx in the Mikado. That one song stuck with me as it struck a chord in my soul.

   We have all felt this way at one point or another. That those annoying people who make day to day living sheer Hell should all just drop dead.

   When it was written over 150 years ago it listed people who played Banjo solos, and who shook hands with a 2 handed grasp of yours and a violent prolonged shaking, as possible fodder for the headsman’s axe. And every few years the list has been updated to include the newest forms of public nuisances.

  So here, in no particular order, is my unfinished list of those who “Never will be missed”.

1.     Those people who get to the checkout clerk and are compelled to pay with exact change. And then must dig through every available place to find 2 pennies.

2.     Those souls that hold impromptu reunions in the aisles of the supermarket and block all possible movement.

3.     Likewise those who meet old friends in the door of the place and must stop and discuss old Aunt Mable and her cat.

4.     Those lost souls that get in their cars and start the engine, put it in reverse so that the lights come on, and then feel a sudden need to dig through their possessions to find something while traffic backs up waiting for them to get the Hell out of the way.

5.     Drivers and you know who you are, who set at the light sending and checking messages until the light has nearly cycled full circle. You then gun the car through the yellow light and leave the rest to wait.

6.     People who cruise along at or below the speed limit in the inside lane of the road blocking anyone from passing anyone.   

7.     Those deaf and dumb idiots who have the base cranked up to where it makes your mirror vibrate and your vision blur as they set beside you.

8.     The imbeciles with the loud pipes that blast up and down the street in the wee hours of the morning just to see the lights come on. You know the ones that you hear coming for 10 minutes before they turn the corner with squalling tires and pipes blasting to roar off in the other direction where you can hear them fade away for another few minutes. 

9.     Idiots so focused on their phones they run you over with a shopping cart or just run into you themselves.

1.  And then there are the telemarketers who somehow clone local phone numbers so you can’t tell who’s calling you. I get at least one call a month from the local National Guard base selling some kind of credit service.

1.  Everyone who has ever been a guest on either one of those talk where the woman can’t remember who she slept with to get pregnant, and the guys all swear they couldn’t possibly be the father of a child that look just like them. (DNA don’t lie fool) What shining examples of Americans put up there for the world to admire.

 . Then there are all the owners of all those click bait website that get your attention with a hot picture and a suggestion that someone has died, then when you click for the story you get a new page with one picture of something else and one sentence about the subject. You have to click through a dozen or more pages to get a story that could have been told in a short paragraph.

1.  Lastly and I’m sorry, but people who just cannot control their children when they take them out to eat or anywhere else. When our kids acted like wild animals in public they went back in the car and we went home.

There is a long list of others out there as well but you get the idea.

Not a single day goes by when my opinion of the average human does not slip a little bit more. And keep in mind that on average that means that half of the rest of the people are even worse than that one.   

Is it getting cold again? Do the Democrats want another Cold War

  I clearly remember the Cold War era. I remember all the discussion of how evil the Soviet Union was and how they meant to carry out Khrushchev's promise  "We will bury you !". He made that promise while standing in front of the cameras in the United Nations main chamber and a full meeting of the UN. He even took off a shoe and used it the strike the podium for emphasis. 
  I remember the anti communist fears of those days, and I remember the Cuban Missile Crises when I stood in the school playground with a group of chums looking at the sky and discussing whether you would see a missile coming in before it exploded.   
  And I remember how after John Kennedy the Democrats began to move to the left and preached how we should accept and learn to live with the Communist governments of the world. 
  After all, "Better RED than dead." 
  From then on the Democrats became the party of a friendly hand toward the USSR. They changed though when a Republican tried to reach out in friendship. When Nixon ended the Vietnam War the Democrat controlled congress de-funded the peace accords. When the Reagan administration pushed the Soviets to try and de-stabilize their economy Senator Ted Kennedy, the brother of John Kennedy of the Missile crises, contacted the Russian ambassador to assure him that there were enough democrats in the Senate to block anything Reagan tried to do.  When the Soviet Union collapsed these same people suddenly cried out about the hardships being placed on the people in those countries. 
  Where were their voices before that?
   I spent 22 years in the military and served in Vietnam. For most of that time all we trained to fight was the Soviet Union and always in Germany. So deeply was the fear of them ingrained that even after the collapse we trained to fight them.
  Then came Glasnost. We started to talk about mutual concerns and the walls came down.
  We began to invest in the former USSR and it seemed that the Democrats now began to talk of fear toward what was fast becoming an ally.
  I hope McCain's fears are based on his life in the Cold War and not some political plan to use the Russians as a Boogy man to scare the rest of the country.
  Below is what someone else thinks about what is going on.
.  


Lavrov vs. McCain: Is Russia an Enemy?

Home  Commentary  Lavrov vs. McCain: Is Russia an Enemy?

Patrick J. Buchanan February 28, 2017 at 6:54 am 0Commentary, Lead Stories

  The founding fathers of the Munich Security Conference, said John McCain, would be “be alarmed by the turning away from universal values and toward old ties of blood, and race, and sectarianism.”

McCain was followed by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov who called for a “post-West world order.” Russia has “immense potential” for that said Lavrov, “we’re open for that inasmuch as the U.S. is open.”

  Now McCain is not wrong. Nationalism is an idea whose time has come again. Those “old ties of blood, and race, and sectarianism” do seem everywhere ascendant. But that is a reality we must recognize and deal with. Deploring it will not make it go away.

  But what are these “universal values” McCain is talking about?

  Democracy? The free elections in India gave power to Hindu nationalists. In Palestine, Hamas. In Lebanon, Hezbollah. In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood, then overthrown in a military coup welcomed by the world’s oldest and greatest democracy. Have we forgotten it was a democratically elected government we helped to overthrow in Kiev?

  Democracy is a bus you get off when it reaches your stop, says Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, autocrat of Ankara, a NATO ally.

  Is freedom of religion a “universal value”?

  Preach or proselytize for Christianity in much of the Islamic world and you are a candidate for martyrdom. Practice freedom of speech in Xi Jinping’s China and you can wind up in a cell.

  As for the Western belief in the equality of all voluntary sexual relations, in some African and Muslim countries, homosexuals are beheaded and adulterers stoned to death.

  In Nuristan Province in U.S.-liberated Afghanistan this month, an armed mob of 300 besieged a jail, shot three cops and dragged out an 18-year-old woman who had eloped with her lover to escape an arranged marriage. Beaten by relatives, the girl was shot by an older brother with a hunting rifle and by a younger brother with his AK-47.

  Afghan family values.

  Her lover was turned over to the husband. An “honor killing,” and, like suicide bombings, not uncommon in a world where many see such actions as commendable in the sight of Allah.

  McCain calls himself an “unapologetic believer in the West” who refuses “to accept that our values are morally equivalent to those of our adversaries.”

  Lavrov seemed to be saying this:

  Reality requires us here in Munich to recognize that, in the new struggle for the world, Russia and the U.S. are natural allies not natural enemies. Though we may quarrel over Crimea and the Donbass, we are in the same boat. Either we sail together, or sink together.

  Does the foreign minister not have a point?

  Unlike the Cold War, Moscow does not command a world empire. Though a nuclear superpower still, she is a nation whose GDP is that of Spain and whose population of fewer than 150 million is shrinking. And Russia threatens no U.S. vital interest.

  Where America is besieged by millions of illegal immigrants crossing from Mexico, Russia faces to her south 1.3 billion Chinese looking hungrily at resource-rich Siberia and Russia’s Far East.

  The China that is pushing America and its allies out of the East and South China Seas is also building a new Silk Road through former Russian and Soviet provinces in Central Asia. With an estimated 16 million Muslims, Russia is threatened by the same terrorists, and is far closer to the Middle East, the source of Sunni terror.

  Is Putin’s Russia an enemy, as McCain seems to believe?

  Before we can answer that question, we need to know what the new world struggle is about, who the antagonists are, and what the threats are to us.

  If we believe the struggle is for “global democracy” and “human rights,” then that may put Putin on the other side. But how then can we be allies of President el-Sissi of Egypt and Erdogan of Turkey, and the kings, emirs and sultans of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait and Oman?

  But if the new world struggle is about defending ourselves and our civilization, Russia would appear to be not only a natural ally, but a more critical and powerful one than that crowd in Kiev.

  In August 1914, Europe plunged into a 50-month bloodbath over an assassinated archduke. In 1939, Britain and France declared war to keep Poland from having to give up a Prussian port, Danzig, taken from Germany under the duress of a starvation blockade in 1919 and in clear violation of Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points and the Danzigers’ right of self-determination. In the two wars, 50 million to 100 million died.

  Today, the United States is confronting Russia, a huge and natural ally, over a peninsula that had belonged to her since the 18th century and is 5,000 miles from the United States.

  “We have immense potential that has yet to be tapped into,” volunteered Lavrov. But to deal, we must have “mutual respect.”

  Hopefully, President Trump will sound out the Russians, and tune out the Beltway hawks.

Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of the new book “The Greatest Comeback: How Richard Nixon Rose From Defeat to Create the New Majority.” To find out more about Patrick Buchanan and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators website at www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2017 CREATORS.COM

If God is real, he must feel like most parents do at times.

 Have you ever watched as one of your kids made a bad decision? In spite of your arguments they are steadfast in their choice and will go ahead in spite of all you say. That must be how God feels now. He has tried and tried but we just will not listen.

  I am not a Muslim but I can see why so many are joining that religion.

  Today the AP reports that the Pope is concerned about the number of priests and nuns who are leaving the church. He blames it on a society that doesn’t respect commitment.  It also mentions that in many countries where the Catholic Church has traditionally been strong the number of young people choosing a life of service has fallen drastically.

  I do not think he understands that he and his policies may be part of the problem.

  There has always been a belief that God is unchanging and forever. “As He is today, was yesterday, and shall always be.” God and his teachings and laws are supposed to be forever just as is his mercy and forgiveness. That is the way it has been described by the various religions that follow the Jewish-Islamic-Christian God. God is unchanging and his laws are set down in the various Holy books. Man cannot change these laws and teachings, just to suit current fashion and societal whims.

  And yet today we demand that God’s words be set aside in the name of Social Justice. Even the Pope himself has stated as much. But the Pope is not God. And he has not the power to re-write God’s words.

  In a time when most religions are losing faithful Islam is growing. Why?

  Islam is unapologetic about God’s word. It is firm in the word being the final answer to all questions. And this unyielding position sets it apart as an anchor in a world of uncertainty. As people march in the streets demanding the Catholics and other Christian sects turn their back on the Holy texts and accept a more PC way of seeing people you see few willing to march against Islam. They know these faithful will not be swayed.

  Where Christianity has become a religion of extreme tolerance and turning the other cheek it has become less and less attractive in a world of uncertainty. How can you turn to a God for help if he keeps changing his mind and going back on his word? How can you trust a God that ignores his own commandments? This is part of why Christians are so looked down on today they are selling out their own God. 

   A Pope who advocates changing the church to attract members is selling out a promise of Heaven and blessings to get a few more faces in the pews. He is damning souls to gain tithes.

   The church was made by man to worship and praise his God. To join a church that you do not agree with is stupid at best. Better to look for one that suits your beliefs, or better yet chose to learn and follow the tenets of the church you have chosen, because any church that is willing to ignore the words of its own God to suit current social whims is not going to save you.

  There is a reason that there is a “Highway to Hell” and a “Stairway to Heaven”.

  It gives you an idea of the traffic flow in each direction.    

                                                                   Utopia

So why not something for everyone?

  Have you ever heard that bit about how the richest country on the planet should provide everyone with a minimum income and lifestyle?

 I agree that we should have a minimum level of lifestyle for everyone. However, what I might think is good enough may be too low for you and too high for the next person. 

 But here are my thoughts on it.

  In the US we should start by putting every new born CITIZEN on a health care program that will cover the childhood shots and needs and provide care until they reach 21. From there on they get an annual health screen and any needed preventative treatments. Lifestyle choices that are considered bad will be provided counseling to help you get off them. Those who choose to not change will sign a waiver of coverage for any problems those choices may cause. Over eating, drugs and booze are a choice. I would build government run hospitals and clinics across the country where treatment is free except for the above mentioned lifestyle choices. Waits at free clinics tend to be long. Private hospitals will want insurance cards or cash.

  I would also give every new born a Social Security Account and from the day of their birth I would put $1000 a month into that account. That money belongs to the person from day one. Credited every month on their birth date it goes on the books.

  If a parent falls on hard times they can file to access the money to help with expenses, but they have to show a good reason to get to it, and will be limited to $1000 a month. They cannot drain what is in the account before they file. Parental access ends when the child turns eighteen.

 That money, left alone, will be over $200,000 by the time the child reaches college age and can be used to pay for the college of their choice. Or at eighteen the child can start getting the $1000 each month to live on. The choice to draw the money must be renewed every six months. Again except for justified uses like college or buying a home access to the balance is blocked.

  A young adult has another choice available. They can find a job and earn a living while still drawing that extra $1000, or just live on what they earn and let the SSA money accrue.  

 A young adult can, if they wish, choose to live out their life on just that basic income. They can try to get by in the general world, or they can choose to go where that money will be more than enough to live on. They can, if they want, sign up to be a ward of the government, or WOG.  

  We should build cities for those who choose to be on minimum support. Nice cities with public transportation and clean streets, parks and libraries. Government run schools within easy bus rides from the housing blocks, stores located in an evenly spaced grid to make them easy to get to, clinics and hospitals will all be provided. Minimum comfort levels, prices kept at acceptable levels to match the minimum level of income, everything needed for a minimum level of life within reach and affordable.

  Those who choose this life of their own free will however, will have to give up some things to get it. Someone else will decide what that minimum level of life should be. You will not be able to vote for politicians who promise to raise the standards to ever higher levels. Those who choose to be a ward of the government cannot vote. To allow them to vote risks building a block of semi slaves that will be forced to be loyal to their masters who hold the purse strings.

 Anyone can leave the WOG status at any time. Just get a job. Seek employment, start paying taxes, and after a year you are can be a citizen again. But that will mean leaving the city housing blocks and supporting yourself.  No more shopping at the low income stores and the like.

 Those who are forced to the minimum level due to health, age, or misfortune, who do not want to sign up as a WOG, still have all their rights and can choose to live where they wish. They will get the same minimum support and any other income they may have earned while working or can earn at the time. They will still be taxed at the going rate and expected to do their best to support themselves.

  Left alone that basic income should, by the age of 65 say, be about three quarters of a million in the bank. If you live to be ninety for example that would let you draw $31,000 a year on top of your $1000 a month as a basic retirement. That’s better than most get today. Add in a company retirement plan and you have a pretty good setup for your Golden Years.

  Okay so where does the money come from to pay for all this? It comes from taxes of course. Taxes on those who want more than a basic lifestyle, who feel the need to produce something with their own hands, or mind, who want to give their children and spouses a better life, and all those government workers who work in those government run cities for the WOGs. And remember the money the WOGs get, comes right back into the government coffers from the government run stores and shops.

  What current problems would be solved? Well there would be no welfare, food stamps, unemployment, disability, medicare, or medicaid to be defrauded and wasted. Unemployment will drop as a WOG is not counted as unemployed because they are not in the labor force by choice. There will still be demand for all the basics and all the luxuries and frills of life so there will be jobs providing them and well as the government jobs looking after the WOGs.

  A Blog is a lot like talking to one's self. You think out loud and type your thoughts into the web with the faint hope that someone out there will see them and perhaps see something of value in them.
 When I started this one I had been active on several web sites and had been a part of several conversations that seemed to stir my mind to look inward. Then as world events moved onward my mind wandered and other things came to mind. I posted on terror in my last two posts and those were almost a year apart as I waited to look at what was happening around me.
  I feel there is something very wrong going on today. Here in the US we see clearly for the first time that our election process is a farce, and that a small group of party elites have been running the show and they work in cahoots with each other.
  Hillary has been promised, the slot as the first woman president and the powers that rule her party will stop at nothing to achieve that goal even if it means destroying the country as it exists under the constitution to do it.
  On the other side of the isle the republican party elites have long used the presidential candidate position to reward old party loyals for their service even if they have no chance of success.
  Both parties assume that the voters are loyal to their party and will vote the party line no matter who they send out front.
  There seems to be the very real possibility that the US as we know it, and have known it, is about to self destruct. A civil war looms on the horizon no matter who may win in November and neither party seems to give a damn.
  Perhaps its just old age and my natural paranoia at play here. But there are things happening that seem very wrong.
  The Republicans seem happy to cede control to the Democrats and them selves to second place. They also seem to have absolutely nothing for which they will stand and fight.  There is no issue or position that they will not compromise on or back away from. And there are the news stories of the Secret Service pressuring elected officials with blackmail over past indiscretions. 
  The Democrats have finally dropped all pretense of not being socialists/communists and it seems to have little effect on their base as generation after generation of college educated young people seem to embrace the idea. However these same young people are having a devil of a time living in the real world. Just a week ago a college campus went mad and students were scared almost to death when someone wrote the word TRUMP in chalk on a few walls. Not death threats or racial slurs just the word TRUMP.
   With the growth of immigrant enclaves forming in many states, and the recent tendency of these groups to form neighborhoods that retain their own languages and standards and to avoid integration and assimilation it is only a matter of time before traveling to another state is like traveling to another country. Complete with very different languages and laws.
  That so many of these immigrants are here with no permission seem to make no difference. That we have no jobs for them seems to make no difference. And that without workers paying taxes the government has no money to support them is just more of the same.
  I am afraid that Hillary may be more than the first woman president of the US, she may be the last president of the US. Because it won't be long before it all falls apart.  

The PLO, PLA, SLA, Hagannah, Viet Minh, Muslim Brotherhood, NLF Red Army Faction, FALN, Fatah, PMOI, Shining Path, ISIS, ISIL, Al-Quaeda, and the list goes on and on and on.

  Group after group, place after place, year after year the beat and the death just keeps on going on.

  The Viet Mihn were called bandits and warlords at first, then they became the Viet Cong and the People’s Liberation Front, and suddenly they were “Freedom Fighters” in the eyes of many. The PLO highjacked airliners full of people and shot and killed many. They demanded ransom, and often blew the planes up when the TV cameras went dark. Today they are the “Leaders of Palestine”.

   In the American media the old saying holds true that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” As long as the Democrats held the White House the money flowed to Vietnam to fight the war started under Kennedy, and when Nixon took office it suddenly became “Nixon’s War” and congress and the media turned against it.

  We condemn the actions of the IS groups but we ignore groups just as bad elsewhere. Just where and why do we draw these lines?

   And let’s just for once be honest here, and I’m not talking to people on the ground in areas occupied or under attack by these groups, except for those do any of these groups REALLY scare you?  Do you really live in fear of ISIL?

   The attacks on 9/11 killed thousands. It was a day very much like December 7^th of 1941 in that regard in that it made Americans mad as Hell, but did it really scare YOU?

   When that bomb exploded in Oklahoma City what did you think? No vast conspiracy, no network of terrorists, just a couple of guys and a little bit of military training. Did that image of a lone nut case scare you?

   Want to know the easy way to overthrow a government?

   You don’t spend millions and kill all your own people in symbolic attacks on buildings that mean nothing to the average person. You do it from within with small attacks that are set to attract attention and at places where the average citizen might go on a regular basis.

  You strike and wait for the people to demand the government do something. Then you strike again somewhere far away from the first attack.

   The Government will do what they always do. Make some symbolic gesture and pass a few laws to restrict the daily life of the average person.

  Then you repeat the first step to show that what they did hasn’t stopped you. This will make the government look bad and the people will demand more action. Which will result in even more laws and even less freedom for many.

  The cycle repeats over and over with each step causing the government to become more and more restrictive and the people less and less free. And each strike will only serve to show that they have failed to stop you. And even better, at some point others will become so disgusted with the government restrictions that they will join your efforts.

   As your numbers grow the government will start to use military to look for you and the sight of soldiers on the streets will scare the people more than any of your attacks. Soldiers are not police and they are not trained to use stun guns and chase people on foot. People will die by military actions which will drive even more to your side.

   The country will explode from the inside as the people will rise up to get rid of what they now see as an oppressive government.

  Every night the media report every shooting as if it were a massacre of biblical proportions. And every citizen thinks that his values and freedoms are being taken from him. The major political parties have joined in by making it look like the primaries are a sham and that a select few have already decided who will be elected.

  What I have described is the Spiral of Oppression. A know tactic of subverting and overthrowing a government. The screw is turning and is being turned by the government, helped by the media, and loudly supported by groups funded by billionaires who stand to clean up after the fall. How far can they screw down the lid before it blows?

  This last should scare you more than any group listed at the top of the page.

   How much more before the society ruptures from the turning of the screw?  

  

Terrorism

“Know your enemy”.




Why terrorism isn’t working the way people thought it would.



The quote at the top of this page is one of the most quoted sayings about conflict in the known universe.

Those three words speak volumes about how conflicts are won and lost. You absolutely must know your enemy and that means everything that can be known about them. You must know how they think, their values, their government, their culture, and their religions. Every one of these things can affect how they will react to your efforts to defeat them.

The London Blitz of WW2 did not break the will of the British; it gave them a rallying point. Why? Their capitol was laid waste, thousands died, historical buildings were destroyed, yet the people actually gained in resolve.

The fire-bombing of German and Japanese cities killed hundreds of thousands but the nations fought on. Even increasing weapon production and their commitment to win. Why?

In Afghanistan and Vietnam however, small groups using terror tactics undermined and weakened the resolve of much larger countries and drove them from their soil. Why?

Terror as a weapon only works if the target feels the fear. The target must be made to fear even common everyday activities and locations. They must be made to feel helpless to protect themselves. In Vietnam travel was disrupted by planting mines and destroying bridges. Schools and police stations were targeted and their employees were shot. These actions made the people believe that the government was powerless to stop the Viet Cong. In village after village the ties to the government were cut and the people left feeling helpless.

In Afghanistan the same tactics were used against the Russians and the US. The land mine, the IED, and the ambush directed against government representatives and random people took away any sense of security or safety.

Supporting the government in these cases only made you a target and the government could not protect you.

So why isn’t the US afraid of the radical Islamist?

We are not afraid because we refuse to paint them as an enemy, and they haven’t attacked the common people yet.

And the people may not be the actual target. Terrorism can be a subtle weapon.

Think about that. Did 9/11 make you afraid or mad? The Boston Bombing of a week ago?

What happened is we got mad. Mad that we were attacked, and later mad that we were inconvenienced by the government actions that followed.

Around the world terrorists target the common people. In Vietnam, Israel, Afghanistan, and so on the bombs were in the markets, on the buses, and in the shops. Targets were the small towns and villages not major cities.

Striking a major city is symbolic but not very scary to Joe Six-Pack in the country.

While these attacks may not scare many they can be a part of something they used to teach in the military back in the day.

Insurgency or “How to Overthrow a Government from Within”. High profile attacks can start a spiral of oppression where-in a government can be induced to oppress their own people to the point where these once happy people now see their own government as the enemy and will actively work to overthrow it.

With each attack the people scream for protection from the bad guys. To limit the bad guy’s actions and to try to force them out into the open the government puts new laws in place and limits the freedoms of the people. With each following attack the people scream louder and the government does what governments do. They pass laws and limit freedoms.

With each cycle those people most affected by the new laws become more and more distrustful of the government, while those who need to feel protected see no real change in their safety and scream still louder.

Sooner or later a tipping point is reached where those who see the government as oppressive start to take direct action against the government and its representatives. The government, happy to finally have a target, will respond with force and then take action to pass even more laws and limit even more freedoms. Thus, driving more and more people into the ranks of the insurrection.

The downward spiral will continue until civil war is clearly taking over.

The key to stopping the spiral is for the government to speak openly to the people and take a stand on the side of freedom. They have to make the argument that risks come with freedom and that the people must stand together and not give up freedom in search of safety.

That was the message of the bombed cities of WW2. That was the message from the Blitz. That freedom sometimes demands the lives of the civilian as well as the soldier.

Freedom is never free.