The Silver Lining or In God We Trust

Tour boats ferry people out to the USS Arizona Memorial in Hawaii every thirty minutes. We just missed a ferry and had to wait thirty minutes. I went into a small gift shop to kill time. In the gift shop, I purchased a small book entitled, “Reflections on Pearl Harbor” by Admiral Chester Nimitz.

Sunday, December 7th, 1941–Admiral Chester Nimitz was attending a concert in Washington D.C. He was paged and told there was a phone call for him. When he answered the phone, it was President Franklin Delano Roosevelt on the phone. He told Admiral Nimitz that he (Nimitz) would now be the Commander of the Pacific Fleet.

Admiral Nimitz flew to Hawaii to assume command of the Pacific Fleet. He landed at Pearl Harbor on Christmas Eve, 1941. There was such a spirit of despair, dejection and defeat–you would have thought the Japanese had already won the war. On Christmas Day, 1941, Adm. Nimitz was given a boat tour of the destruction wrought on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese. Big sunken battleships and navy vessels cluttered the waters every where you looked. As the tour boat returned to dock, the young helmsman of the boat asked, “Well Admiral, what do you think after seeing all this destruction?”

Admiral Nimitz’s reply shocked everyone within the sound of his voice. Admiral Nimitz said, “The Japanese made three of the biggest mistakes an attack force could ever make or God was taking care of America. Which do you think it was?” Shocked and surprised, the young helmsman asked, “What do mean by saying the Japanese made the three biggest mistakes an attack force ever made?”

Nimitz explained. Mistake number one: the Japanese attacked on Sunday morning. Nine out of every ten crewmen of those ships were ashore on leave. If those same ships had been lured to sea and been sunk–we would have lost 38,000 men instead of 3,800.

Mistake number two: when the Japanese saw all those battleships lined in a row, they got so carried away sinking those battleships, they never once bombed our dry docks opposite those ships. If they had destroyed our dry docks, we would have had to tow every one of those ships to America to be repaired. As it is now, the ships are in shallow water and can be raised. One tug can pull them over to the dry docks, and we can have them repaired and at sea by the time we could have towed them to America. And I already have crews ashore anxious to man those ships.

Mistake number three: every drop of fuel in the Pacific theater of war is in top of the ground storage tanks five miles away over that hill. One attack plane could have strafed those tanks and destroyed our fuel supply. That’s why I say the Japanese made three of the biggest mistakes an attack force could make or God was taking care of America.

I’ve never forgotten what I read in that little book. It is still an inspiration as I reflect upon it. In jest, I might suggest that because Admiral Nimitz was a Texan, born and raised in Fredricksburg, Texas — he was a born optimist. But anyway you look at it–Admiral Nimitz was able to see a silver lining in a situation and circumstance where everyone else saw only despair and defeatism. President Roosevelt had chosen the right man for the right job.

There is a reason that our national motto is, IN GOD WE TRUST.

Senator Calls Senior Citizens Greediest Generation

Alan Simpson, Senator from Wyoming, Co-Chair of Obama’s deficit commission, calls senior citizens the Greediest Generation as he compared “Social Security” to a Milk Cow with 310 million teats. August, 2010…

Here’s a response in a letter from an unknown fellow in Montana, I think he is a little ticked off! He also tells it like it is! I couldn’t possibly agree more with this letter! It’s too bad we can’t make this into a form letter and send it to every pathetic political bastard in D.C.!

Hey Alan, let’s get a few things straight

1. As a career politician, you have been on the public dole for FIFTY YEARS.

2. I have been paying Social Security taxes for 48 YEARS (since I was 15 years old. I am now 63).

3. My Social Security payments, and those of millions of other Americans, were safely tucked away in an interest bearing account for decades until you political pukes decided to raid the account and give OUR money to a bunch of zero ambition losers in return for votes, thus bankrupting the system and turning Social Security into a Ponzi scheme that would have made Bernie Madoff proud.

4. Recently, just like Lucy and Charlie Brown, you and your ilk pulled the proverbial football away from millions of American seniors nearing retirement and moved the goalposts for full retirement from age 65 to age 67… NOW, you and your shill commission is proposing to move the goalposts YET AGAIN.

5. I, and millions of other Americans, have been paying into Medicare from Day One, and now you morons propose to change the rules of the game. Why? Because you idiots mismanaged other parts of the economy to such an extent that you need to steal money from Medicare to pay the bills.

6. I, and millions of other Americans, have been paying income taxes our entire lives, and now you propose to increase our taxes yet again. Why? Because you incompetent bastards spent our money so profligately that you just kept on spending even after you ran out of money. Now, you come to the American taxpayers and say you need more to pay off YOUR debt.

To add insult to injury, you label us greedy for calling bullshit on your incompetence. Well, Captain Bullshit, I have a few questions for YOU.

1. How much money have you earned from the American taxpayers during your pathetic 50-year political career?

2. At what age did you retire from your pathetic political career, and how much are you receiving in annual retirement benefits from the American taxpayers?

3. How much do you pay for YOUR government provided health insurance?

4. What cuts in YOUR retirement and healthcare benefits are you proposing in your disgusting deficit reduction proposal, or, as usual, have you exempted yourself and your political cronies?

It is you, Captain Bullshit, and your political co-conspirators who are greedy. It is you and they who have bankrupted America and stolen the American dream from millions of loyal, patriotic taxpayers. And for what? Votes. That’s right, sir. You and yours have bankrupted America for the sole purpose of advancing your pathetic political careers. You know it, we know it, and you know that we know it.

And you can take that to the bank, you miserable son of a bitch.

PASS IT ON!!!!



A Culture of Corruption

Here’s something to think about…

I remember asking dad about Castro when I was about 9 years old.  I asked, “Is Castro a good guy or bad?”  Dad said he couldn’t tell!!  This was about 1955.  We were living in Louisiana at the time.  Dad was in the army there.

Cuba was fairly close and in the news a lot.  The Cubans were asking the same question! Ike was president.

This past July, we had the pleasure of sharing a summer barbecue with a refugee from Cuba.  Our dinner conversation was starkly different than most. This refugee came to the United States as a young boy in the early 1960s. His family was more fortunate than most as they were able to bring a suitcase and $100 when they fled Castro’s newly formed revolutionary paradise.

Our dinner consisted of all-American fare: hamburgers, potato salad, watermelon and fresh ears of sweet corn.  This is a menu shared with family and friends nationwide, while celebrating the birth of our beloved America on the Fourth of July.

We began with a simple discussion about our country and the direction it has taken since Barack Obama came to power.  We shared the usual complaints about the sour economy and liberal social engineering emanating from the rulers in Washington.

But then he said it.  The sentence came naturally.  I assume it was unplanned. But it carried the weight of a freight train.  “You know when Castro took power, none of us knew he was a Communist.”

We sat stunned.  He continued, “Yes, we all thought he was a patriot, a nationalist.  Before the revolution he didn’t sound like a radical.”

The comparison at this point was easy, and I interjected, “You mean just like Barack Obama?”

He responded; “Yes, just like Barack Obama.”

He continued, “We were all shocked as the government just continued to grab more power.  First they said the revolution is over, so please turn in your guns.  We all complied.”

“I remember my uncle saying after it started, ‘Castro will only nationalize some of the big industries, he will never come and take our family hardware store.’ But that is exactly what happened; Castro started with the sugar mills and the large industries, but they eventually came and knocked on the door of our family hardware store.  My family had run this store for generations.  They said we now own the hardware store, you work for us.  And that nice, large four-bedroom home you own, it is now our property also, and you can move yourself and five children into two rooms of the house because others are moving in with you.”

The lesson learned from this discussion is a lesson most Americans refuse to hear.  Political leaders can lie about their agenda and once in office they can take totally unexpected turns.

If you had asked us three years ago if we thought General Motors would be nationalized, we would have never believed it.  We could never contemplate a country where the rule of law, the most fundamental building block of a justice society would be evaporating just like it did in Castro’s Cuba in the early 1960s.

But the news of injustice keeps increasing.  Black Panthers are not charged with wrongdoing by the U.S. Department of Justice because their crimes are against whites. The bondholders of GM are stripped of their assets without due process by the government.  Governmental leaders are bribed in full daylight only to have all investigation of the crimes stifled by the Attorney General. The U.S. borders are overrun with crime and illegal activity and the leaders in D.C. act as if it is important to protect the lawbreakers while the innocent are killed and overrun.  When local communities attempt to enforce the law, they are ridiculed and threatened as racists and bigots.  They are sued by the very administration entrusted with enforcing the law.

Without the rule of law the U.S. Constitution is a sham. Without the rule of law our beloved America is swiftly becoming a country where only the well connected and politically powerful will be safe. As Michelle Malkin has so eloquently explained in her recent book, a culture of corruption has replaced honest government.

The only way this problem will be fixed is by massive citizen action. All honest citizens that want to be treated equally must come together and demand that the favoritism, the bribes, the uneven enforcement of law end now.  And yes, it can happen here.

PLEASE SEND THIS TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW …

And may God save the United States of America!

History Unfolding by Dr. David Kaiser

Please take three minutes to read this. Maybe he’s wrong, but what if he’s right?

David Kaiser is a respected historian whose published works have covered a broad range of topics, from European Warfare to American League Baseball. Born in 1947, the son of a diplomat, Kaiser spent his childhood in three capital cities: Washington D.C., Albany, New York, and Dakar, Senegal.  He attended Harvard University, graduating there in 1969 with a B.A. in history.  He then spent several years more at Harvard, gaining a PhD in history, which he obtained in 1976. He served in the Army Reserve from 1970 to 1976.

He is a professor in the Strategy and Policy Department of the United States Naval War College.  He has previously taught at Carnegie  Mellon, Williams College and Harvard University.  Kaiser’s latest book, The Road to Dallas, about the Kennedy assassination, was just published by Harvard University Press.

Dr. David Kaiser

History Unfolding

I am a student of history. Professionally, I have written 15 books on history that have been published in six languages, and I have studied history all my life.  I have come to think there is something monumentally large afoot, and I do not believe it is simply a banking crisis, or a mortgage crisis, or a credit crisis.  Yes these exist, but they are merely single facets on a very large gemstone that is only now coming into a sharper focus.

Something of historic proportions is happening.  I can sense it because I know how it feels, smells, what it looks like, and how people react to it. Yes, a perfect storm may be brewing, but there is something happening within our country that has been evolving for about ten to fifteen years… The pace has dramatically quickened in the past two.

We demand and then codify into law the requirement that our banks make massive loans to people we know they can never pay back?  Why?

We learned just days ago that the Federal Reserve, which has little or no real oversight by anyone, has “loaned” two trillion dollars (that is $2,000,000,000,000) over the past few months, but will not tell us to whom or why or disclose the terms.  That is our money.  Yours and mine.  And that is three times the $700 billion we all argued about so strenuously just this past September.  Who has this money?  Why do they have it?  Why are the terms unavailable to us?  Who asked for it?  Who authorized it? I thought this was a government of “we the people,” who loaned our powers to our elected leaders. Apparently not.

We have spent two or more decades intentionally de-industrializing our economy… Why?

We have intentionally dumbed down our schools, ignored our history, and no longer teach our founding documents, why we are exceptional, and why we are worth preserving. Students by and large cannot write, think critically, read, or articulate.  Parents are not revolting, teachers are not picketing, school boards continue to back mediocrity… Why?

We have now established the precedent of protesting every close election (violently in California over a proposition that is so controversial that it simply wants marriage to remain defined as between one man and one woman.  Did you ever think such a thing possible just a decade ago?)  We have corrupted our sacred political process by allowing unelected judges to write laws that radically change our way of life, and then mainstream Marxist groups like ACORN and others to turn our voting system into a banana republic. To what purpose?

Now our mortgage industry is collapsing, housing prices are in free fall, major industries are failing, our banking system is on the verge of collapse, social security is nearly bankrupt, as is Medicare and our entire government.  Our education system is worse than a joke (I teach college and I know precisely what I am talking about) – the list is staggering in its length, breadth, and depth. It is potentially 1929 x  ten… and we are at war with an enemy we cannot even name for fear of offending people of the same religion, who, in turn, cannot wait to slit the throats of your children if they have the opportunity to do so.

And finally, we have elected a man that no one really knows anything about, who has never run so much as a Dairy Queen, let alone a town as big as Wasilla, Alaska.  All of his associations and alliances are with real radicals in their chosen fields of employment, and everything we learn about him, drip by drip, is unsettling if not downright scary.   (Surely you have heard him speak about his idea to create and fund a mandatory civilian defense force stronger than our military for use inside our borders?  No? Oh, of course.  The media would never play that for you over and over and then demand he answer it.  Sarah Palin’s pregnant daughter and $150,000 wardrobe are more important.)

Mr. Obama’s winning platform can be boiled down to one word: CHANGE.   Why?

I have never been so afraid for my country and for my children as I am now.

This man campaigned on bringing people together, something he has never, ever done in his professional life.  In my assessment, Obama will divide us along philosophical lines, push us apart, and then try to realign the pieces into a new and different power structure.   Change is indeed coming.  And when it comes, you will never see the same nation again.

And that is only the beginning…

As a serious student of history, I thought I would never come to experience what the ordinary, moral German must have felt in the mid-1930s.  In those times, the “savior” was a former smooth-talking rabble-rouser from the streets, about whom the average German knew next to nothing.   What they should have known was that he was associated with groups that shouted, shoved, and pushed around people with whom they disagreed; he edged his way onto the political stage through great oratory.  Conservative “losers” read it right now.

And there were the promises.  Economic times were tough, people were losing jobs, and he was a great speaker.  And he smiled and frowned and waved a lot. And people, even newspapers, were afraid to speak out for fear that his “brown shirts” would bully and beat them into submission.  Which they did – regularly. And then, he was duly elected to office, while a full-throttled economic crisis bloomed at hand – the Great Depression.  Slowly, but surely he seized the controls of government power, person by person, department by department, bureaucracy by bureaucracy.  The children of German citizens were at first, encouraged to join a Youth Movement in his name where they were taught exactly what to think.  Later, they were required to do so.  No Jews of course.

How did he get people on his side?  He did it by promising jobs to the jobless, money to the money-less, and rewards for the military-industrial complex… He did it by indoctrinating the children, advocating gun control, health care for all, better wages, better jobs, and promising to re-instill pride once again in the country, across Europe, and across the world.  He did it with a compliant media – did you know that?  And he did this all in the name of justice and… CHANGE And the people surely got what they voted for.

If you think I am exaggerating, look it up.  It’s all there in the history books.

So read your history books.  Many people of conscience objected in 1933 and were shouted down, called names, laughed at, and ridiculed.  When Winston Churchill pointed out the obvious in the late 1930s while seated in the House of Lords in England (he was not yet Prime Minister), he was booed into his seat and called a crazy troublemaker.  He was right, though.  And the world came to regret that he was not listened to.

Do not forget that Germany was the most educated, the most cultured country in Europe.  It was full of music, art, museums, hospitals, laboratories, and universities.  And yet, in less than six years (a shorter time span than just two terms of the U. S. presidency) it was rounding up its own citizens, killing others, abrogating its laws, turning children against parents, and neighbors against neighbors. All with the best of intentions, of course.  The road to Hell is paved with them.

As a practical thinker, one not overly prone to emotional decisions, I have a choice:
I can either believe what the objective pieces of evidence tell me (even if they make me cringe with disgust); I can believe what history is shouting to me from across the chasm of seven decades; or I can hope I am wrong by closing my eyes, having another latte, and ignoring what is transpiring around me…

I choose to believe the evidence.  No doubt some people will scoff at me, others laugh, or think I am foolish, naive, or both.  To some degree, perhaps I am.  But I have never been afraid to look people in the eye and tell them exactly what I believe – and why I believe it.

I pray I am wrong.  I do not think I am.  Perhaps the only hope is our vote in the next elections.

David Kaiser
Jamestown, Rhode Island
United States

If you pass this along, perhaps it will help to begin the awakening of America about where we are headed… GOD HELP US ALL!