Well, it appears that the mullahcracy in Iran is still steamed over the death of their military mastermind Quassam Soleimani, the chief of so-called Quds Force sort of the Iranian SS, I have always thought. On the one-year anniversary of that momentous drone-zap (a consummation quite overdue in my opinion) the president of Iran directly threatened the life of President Trump. Talk is cheap, and Iranian threats of dire revenge are the equivalent of those teeny and nearly worthless Spanish 1-peseta coins, which were struck from aluminum in the early 1990s, about the size of a child’s fingernail and looked like nothing so much as doll money. But still … the militant Muslims of Iran are certainly dedicated and determined sufficiently to have racked up any number of lesser-known and less-protected hits, so I wouldn’t be surprised at all if this was something more than just tough talk for the benefit of their domestic audience and fans of Islamic mayhem in other countries.
The consideration which kept me awake for a good while after I thought of it earlier this week was a conviction that if Iranian assassins truly had a go at President Trump, a goodly number of our so-called intelligence, law-enforcement and members of the intelligentsia and media would either sit back and passively watch it happen and feeling mild satisfaction at the spectacle. And that would be at best; at worse, they would be actively assisting. I’d hoped for decades that at the core of the CIA was a hard-disciplined and able handful of agents for which the notorious bumbling of the larger agency was merely a cover (a CIA front for the CIA, if you will), and that the common local law-enforcement interpretation of the FBI as “Famous But Incompetent” was merely a kind of interservice joshing … but after the last four years, I must regretfully concede that yes, they are on the other side. They have sold out the good of the nation and the respect of ordinary American citizens for a mess of pottage, gone partisan-political. Those prominent in the political swamp of DC have likely sold their souls to the Chinese, or for variety, various iterations of the Muslim Brotherhood. I expect that the particularly brazen have sold themselves to both.
I have no idea of what will happen tomorrow in Washington DC and no particular hopes, either. Only a primal fear that unless enough of us have the determination and the skill to resist what is coming down the track towards us … we are done as a civilized, democratic republic.
Comment as you wish.
Yes, if anything happens to Trump, he’s a martyr for half the country, who will be certain the Deep State did it. And could you blame them? Not for a second.
Here’s my conspiracy–we know Joe isn’t functional, and when he steps aside, or is pushed out, half the country will view his successor as the fraudulent stand in for a fraudulent president. Unless…he is taken out by someone in an act that can be used to discredit her political opponents…seems crazy, but we’re living in crazy times.
We all know now how Roman pagans must have felt as Christians came to power. Our statues and temples are defiled, and theirs are sacrosanct–Columbus and Washington and Roosevelt (the “good”/less bad one) are thrown aside with impunity, but say you tore up some stupid BLM banner and you’re arrested and exiled from the nation’s capitol.
The nation is dead, the state is illegitimate, the barbarians have taken full control.
I fear what the Dems and the media might have planned for tomorrow.
I’m worried, too.
I’m praying.
America murdered Soleimani. Plain and simple. A criminal act by a criminal nation, in fact.
America murdered both Soleimani and the Iraqis with him, while he was on his way to meet with the Iraqi PM. Another reason I want America broken on the ash heap of history.
Salami guy was a brutal murderer, right along with Reinhold Heydrich, Penny. Do try to keep up. We took out the trash.
Nice of you to reveal yourself in all your anti-American glory.
I like picturing the expression on Soleimani’s and Bin Lauden’s face when they get to the afterlife and find out there has been a slight mistake in translation and that they’re the virgins.
I don’t respond to PenGun’s turds but I do appreciate an example of why.
I do not trust the USSS after one (female) agent said she “would not take a bullet for Trump.” He had his own personal security guy but I hope he hires some non-USSS people for protection.
Pen Gun – Banned. Done with him.
PenGun – banned
I enjoyed the gamesmanship in the Gulf. The IRGC had planted explosive “mines” on tankers during daylight and when they were sure to be observed. That was a ploy to get the U.S. (The Great Satan) to attack and thus unify Iran society against the agressor. President Trump side stepped the opportunity to spend U.S. Blood & Treasure to kill some Iranians who were just doing their job. The President waited for a shot at a “high value” target. Gen Soleimani made his reputation by stopping demonstrations with automatic weapons fire and by organizing the rocket and car bomb attacks against Americans and “Loyal” shiite Arabs in Iraq. Iran was determined to make Iraq into a client, vassal state to protect that vulnerable western border area with all the gas resources. Soleimani was probably eventually going to visit and threaten the Iraqi PM, but first he had a meeting with all his militia commanders to discuss their rocket and car-bomb attacks and assasinations. All in one obvious car under drone surveilance.
I can’t decide if that was arrogance or stupidity. The first two Hellfire missiles obviously had MAC (Metal Augmented Charges) warheads, one for the leadership car, one for the escort vehicle, in case there was an overflow crowd. The primary vehicle then got two Hi-Explosive warhead hits, probably to “make sure”.
Soleimani wasn’t a diplomat. Soleimani was meeting in a foreign country to arrange for the murder of Americans and Iraqis by his Pro-Iranian militia thugs. President Trump didn’t take the bait to kill Jo and Harry Persian after the theatrical performance with the mines. President Trump got the Iranian leadership for the terror and murder campaign in Iraq. Soleimani made his bones murdering innocent people in Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria. He was so deserving.
I loved the message. The U.S. will not carpet bomb the common people that you don’t care about. The U.S. will get YOU. That insures “peace”. At one point President Trump threatened mosques and libraries because, I am sure, he was telling the “Bearded Ladies” that he knew where they planned to hide.
Threatening an entire country may be appropriate at some point, but it is so old fashioned. Letting the leadership know that you have plans for THEM is far more effective.
Soleimani’s car was shredded and the Iranians are pretty sure that he is dead since they found a hand with a battered, garish ring like the one the murderous General used to wear.
We have nothing against your country, but YOU are really pissing us off. So sayeth, President Trump.
Outstanding! President Trump knows how to “deal”.
So after seeing Soleimani and Deir ez Zor, Syria i am waiting for what he has planned for the Democratic electoral coup by fraud. I doubt that there will be Hellfires and AC-130s in Philadelphia or Atlanta, but you never know.
It may be a fine point, but the fake ballots and rigged machines already have us way beyond the Constitutional structure.
I dunno… TBH, I am coming around to the idea that this whole thing over the last four years has been essentially a grand kabuki dance of fraud, more of the same-old, same-old Republican BS.
Despite McConnell using the opportunity to fill the court vacancies, most of the Republican Party has spent the last four years slow-walking or actively opposing Trump–Which should tell us a lot about them, and their priorities.
I think Trump was a fluke, in that he was entirely unexpected to win, by anyone, and that the system has reacted to him like any system will, and attacked the outsider simply because he isn’t of the system. Trump was always doomed to failure, and you knew that from the beginning by how they didn’t actually, y’know… Drain the swamp. His administration should have begun with wholesale firings and mass trials of crooked bureaucrats and politicians. He didn’t do that, and if he had, the Republicans would have done even more to stop him–Because, he threatened their gravy train.
At this point, I think that there is effectively no real opposition to what is a de facto one-party state; they clothe themselves in the robes of opposing parties, but the reality is that it’s one big self-interested parasitical entity that’s been playing us as fools for generations. I have no use for the Republicans at this point, none whatsoever. They talk big game, but when the time comes, they do exactly as their supposed opponents do, and blow budgets with gay abandon. They don’t actually do a damn thing they promise, and all we get is more of the same. McCain is a perfect example–That little POS campaigned on repeal of Obamacare, and when the moment came, when he could take part in doing it? Voted against it.
And, the rest of the establishment Republicans sighed huge sighs of relief, knowing that their campaign donations from Big Medicine were safe. Never mind that we’re now spending more on overhead and administration, that was the point of it all. Just like the point of the Defense Department isn’t defense, but social engineering and providing “opportunity” to minorities of various flavors.
Like I told the Republican ass that called me during the last election–I’m no longer voting on party lines. Instead, I’m voting on the basis of incumbency. If you’re in office? Screw you–I’m voting against your sorry ass. If you’ve been in another office, and are running for something else? Screw you, too… Professional politicians are creatures we all ought to be scraping off the bottoms of our shoes, rather than voting for.
I’m no longer for any political party; instead, I’m against ’em all.
Kirk: Remember Trump’s inaugural address. It was incredible, stressing the DC has prospered while vast swaths of the nation have sunk into depression, both economic and spiritual. Everyone should read it regularly. And the news reports focused on W Bush saying something like “that was some weird $h!t.” From before he was even in office, DC treated Trump as a foreign infection to be ejected. Not just the Democrats, but the Republicans at least as much. A cleansing fire is what’s needed.
I think Trump was a fluke, in that he was entirely unexpected to win, by anyone, and that the system has reacted to him like any system will, and attacked the outsider simply because he isn’t of the system. Trump was always doomed to failure, and you knew that from the beginning by how they didn’t actually, y’know”¦ Drain the swamp. His administration should have begun with wholesale firings and mass trials of crooked bureaucrats and politicians. He didn’t do that, and if he had, the Republicans would have done even more to stop him–Because, he threatened their gravy train.
I agree completely. VD Hanson has written that Trump is a tragic hero, and I agree with that, too.
If you haven’t, read Angelo Codevilla’s “Ruling class essay.”
I also recommend Steve Bannon’s two interviews with PBS. It’s 2.5 hours but worth the time.
I don’t know where we go from here. But I am sure that ammunition will remain hard to find for months.
Gratuitous insult from Penn Gun deleted – Sgt. Mom
Pen, your being banned on Chicago Boyz is like Brian Williams taking RPG fire in a helicopter over Iraq, Hillary landing under sniper fire at a Bosnian airport, or Joe Biden getting arrested with Nelson Mandela in South Africa. None of those things happened nor have you been banned, apparently.
For a banned entity (that’s a gender neutral term), you sure to post a lot. Run away.
Death6
Kirk: Draw your line, and vote for the best GOP candidate in the primary who meets your requirements. If some GOPe trash gets the nom and isn’t good enough, let them lose, and get a better candidate next time. And when the candidate turns into a swamp rat, primary and get rid of them. In the meantime we need to work to destroy DC in any way we can–term limits and forcing them to work remotely from their home districts would be a good start, as well as scattering federal offices across the nation. All stuff we can’t do now, but the next GOP president (and yes, there will be one, let’s not lose our heads), won’t be so nice as Trump was in attempting not to upset the apple cart of the establishment.
@Brian,
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Term limits or any of the other faddish BS panaceas that wishful thinkers come up with simply will not work. All you will do is exacerbate the problem we already have, which is that Congress is not doing its job in the first damn place. The Representatives and Senators are all just figureheads, while the real work of the legislature is farmed out to lobbyists, unelected bureaucrats, and staff members. The Congress isn’t congressing, and all you’ll manage with regards to term limiting them is make it easier for whatever schlub gets elected to get rolled by the “support systems” they find in place upon arrival in Washington.
Only real answer? Remove power from the bastards, entirely. How you do that, when they’re entrenched and will only give up that power at gunpoint? Well, ya got me…
But, don’t make the mistake of thinking that “term limits” or any other Prop 13 analog “solution” are going to work. All you’ll do is push in on the balloon, so that it expands elsewhere.
The real issue here is this: We’ve ceded our power as citizens to the government, and we likely ain’t getting it back short of armed insurrection. The loss of the Senate just goes to prove that–There is no damn way that Georgia’s electorate made the choice for Warnock and that other idiot absent vote fraud.
At the very least, it’s time for Irish Democracy. We’re at that awkward stage where the ballot box has been suborned, but it’s not quite time yet for the cartridge box to rule. That’s going to require a lot more overreach and a lot more convincing of the middle ranks that they need to act. I give Kamala Harris until about midway through her second term, TBH.
Kirk:
Agree to disagree. I think term limits are a necessary but not nearly sufficient tool in the box.
What a joke this DC nonsense is. So clearly fake. Prepare yourself.
I find myself midway between Brian and Kirk.
Brian is right — there are rational steps a nation could take to keep itself on the straight & narrow. Term limits would be good — or even better, incumbents are prohibited from running for any elective position, including the one they currently occupy. Civil service reform. Balanced budgets. Etc.
Kirk is right — the Political Class denizens who benefit from the current system have zero incentive to relinquish any of the control or perks they currently have or aspire to. So all the good reform ideas are non-starters.
Could we vote ourselves out of this problem by choosing better people to represent us? Silly question! The Political Class has demonstrated they can steal a Presidential Election in broad daylight. They will do it again, and not just at the Presidential level. From this point forward, there is no point in voting.
I think we just have to accept that we have watched Hitler march into the Rhineland and done nothing. Events will take their course; the financial idiocy of the Political Class ensures that collapse is inevitable.
What can we do as individuals? Short answer is — start learning Chinese. That is going to be a very valuable skill in the coming years.
Like I said, “I fear what the Dems and the media might have planned for tomorrow.” and it’s not even dark yet.
The Dems are laughing their @$$es off today. Everyone who flies a Trump flag is now a legit target for the feds whenever they want to bust up a news cycle.
RE: The “Dems are laughing their @$$es off today.”.
See, here’s the thing: It’s not the Dems that are laughing at us, it’s the establishment that’s actually running things. Which includes the suborned and cooperative Republican fellow-traveler running dogs of McCain’s ilk.
In other words, all of them.
What’s so damn funny about it all, to me? I just realized this, today: These sphincter-wipes are now in the position of the dog chasing cars who has finally managed to catch one of the damn things.
What’s he going to do with it?
Now that the masks are coming off the masqueraders, it’s going to be increasingly hard to pull the sort of fast ones that they’ve been pulling, where they raise their hands and say “Well, if it weren’t for the Democrats/Republicans, we could fix all this…” or “It’s all their fault…”.
No, jackass, it isn’t “their” fault; there is no “they” you can blame for this BS, it’s just you and us, and the “us” half of that equation is growing to recognize that ain’t none of “you” playing on our side.
This is a watershed moment, and I think they’ve overplayed their hands. Remains to be seen–I suspect that the unrest in the Capitol is only the tip of the iceberg for what’s coming over the next few years.
The assholes should have co-opted Trump, wrapped their arms around him, and then made him one of them. Instead, they played out the BS we’ve been seeing, and given the rubes a warning that there’s a con going on. Not what I’d call “smart”, but then, if they were smart, they’d be doing what Elon Musk does, as opposed to politics…
The crowd at the capitol knows (or feels) that the Democrats are dealing from the bottom of the deck and when they win they will take the pot and leave. They intend to define the rules from now on. And the crowd has the impotent anger that comes in a totalitarian state where some citizens realize they actually do not have any power – any power at all.
The vote is no longer meaningful.
Democrats intend to become the one-party government of the US, they have begun and will more intensively redefine everything that was private or familial or spiritual or apolitical communal or even an avocation political (as if there isn’t already much left that isn’t – from scholarly or trade organizations like MLA and AMA to unions like SEIU). And then to enforce this group think, the last step are re-education camps (or gulags or concentration camps or. . . whatever the Chinese are using to enclose the crowd they keep in check – and from which, apparently, they extract slave labor and an occasional body part). These are Pipes’ steps toward communism. And it is becoming more and more believable it can happen here.
@Ginny,
It’s past time to recognize that we do live in a one-party state; the oligarchy that calls itself the “establishment”. There are effectively zero effective differences between the two putative political parties; examine the actual conduct of the so-called Republicans over the last 12 years. Did they do anything effective against the Obama regime? At all? Nope; given the opportunity, they actually stopped the repeal of the much-hated Obamacare package, and even laughed in our faces after campaigning that they would.
There is no real Republican Party; it’s been a dead letter since FDR. All they do is provide cover for the real power in Washington, the permanent bureaucratic class. What was the last time we saw legislation that was actually written by Congressmen? Sometime back in the 1950s? Ever since, it’s all the lobbyists, the supporting staff, and then they pass it off to the unelected and beyond recourse bureaucrats running all the Executive branch agencies. Hell, you can’t even appeal to a Congressman for redress in all too many cases, because they’re too stupid to realize what’s going on, and they will tell you that they’re powerless in the face of the bureaucracy.
This is only the tipping point, where you realize the reality of what has been going on, and they’re rubbing your nose in the fact.
There is no Republican or Democratic Party; it’s two sides of the same coin. Flip it, and it is heads, they win, tails, we lose.
What can we do as individuals? Short answer is ”” start learning Chinese. That is going to be a very valuable skill in the coming years.
Irony alert. When my daughter was in business school, I recommended she learn Mandarin as this was the 80s and I assumed the Chinese were less sexist than Japanese, who were riding high at the time.
Well, she went to law school and ended up as an FBI agent. She is a lefty Trump hater, as well.
She spent years trying to recruit her sister who reads and speaks Arabic. That daughter has spent considerable time in China, although we were going to take a Mandarin class together but never did.
With Biden in office (so to speak) maybe Mandarin classes will fill up.
what is going on right now? where is the president?
Brian,
G. Kelly @ NewsMax said he’d seen those same disguised figures (the horned guy, and the bare-chested one) in the videos from summer riots. And that now there were antifa thugs mixed with the crowds, in uniform and waving their flags.
Prepare for 3 months of Reps senators “condemning violence”, apologizing and licking the Dems’ boots. Then whole theater turns openly commie. Nomenklatura of 50 States, unite
Is it paranoid to wonder why twitter and Facebook have shut down Trump, and why we haven’t seen or heard from him????
Thinking the same thing, Brian. I’m checking gateway pundit, newsmax and breibart for the last hr: nothing from him, only from the traitors and appeasers.
It is clear that Penny’s anti-American bigotry has driven him completely over the edge. He lives in one of 2 countries that share the longest peaceful border on the planet, yet he would rather border the PRC.
Perhaps he shall get his wish. The PRC has decided that the Arctic Sea is in their back yard. Canada has no real Navy (or Coast Guard) to speak of, and has the world’s longest coastline (about 5X #2, Indonesia- they are on the chopping block too) , measuring 243,042 km. If Prime Minister Zoolander (Trudeau} declines to let China buy the Nunavut gold mine on their Arctic coast, all China has to do is move their ginormous subsurface ocean dredge in, and create their own island air bases just off-shore. That might even be cheaper than paying what it takes to get the assent of the Canadian politicians. They are not like Penny- he can be bought for a bag of peanuts. With 1.2 billion tons of annual steel making capacity, building 10,000 troop transport ships and all of the ancillary logistics infrastructure will be a piece of cake for China. With a population nearly 50X that of Canada, China can afford a war of attrition until every last Canadian is exterminated. They do like living in Vancouver, right Penny? Won’t take long for them to get their fishing poles out, and take every last trout to be had in Canada.
Here is the good part. Following our own Civil War, American politicians and military resolved to avoid fighting land wars over American soil. So, they are not completely stupid. When the Chinese instigate the next great war, by the time it goes nuclear, it will be over Canadian soil. Win-Win.
Kudos to Sarah Hoyt for her defiant posts at Instapundit this morning. This at a time when so many “conservatives” are turning up, hat in hand, protesting that they’ve been thoroughly domesticated and housebroken, and would never dream of taking any action to protest a blatantly rigged election beyond writing polite letters of remonstrance and perhaps filing a few ineffectual legal briefs. Really when you think about it, the last four years have been a hoot. After eight years of Obama the leftists thought they were so firmly in the saddle they’d never have to worry about elections again. Then Trump happened. They’ve been howling like scalded cats ever since. Now that a few of his followers have gone beyond polite letters and taken actions the Left refers to as “democracy in action” if their own followers are responsible, they have literally started foaming at the mouth. In spite of the fact that Trump is now completely isolated and powerless, they are actually insisting that we invoke the 25th Amendment to deprive him of his last two weeks in power! No worries. After four more years of open borders I doubt that the Establishment will ever have to go to the trouble of rigging another election again.
Brian:
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/01/breaking-president-trump-issues-statement-responding-electoral-certification/
Immigrant women from authoritarian countries seem to Get It more than anyone else…
“I am on nobody’s side because nobody is on my side.” –Tolkien. And me. And 80+ million other people.
Trump should have done so much more, so much faster. What a wasted opportunity. And the establishment brought violence ahead by decades, the total idiots.
It is infinitely hilarious to read “conservative” twitter today–oh, Trump is poison now, the GOP will nominate Nikki Haley and sweep to victory in 24! Hahaha. Clueless morons.
Who wants to bet that the Left arranges Trump’s death, then claims it was done by Iran, and that “it’s justice”, and that’s the end of it?
It’ll never be proven, of course, because, like this fraudulection, it’s never actually going to be investigated.
Welcome to the end of America.
I have to laugh a little bit at all the people who are just now discovering that the Republicans are merely the distraction in the oligarchy’s sleight-of-hand games with the “rest of us”. There is, and has been, no real opposition to the Democrat-fronted destruction of the Republic. They have gone along with every step, neutering Congress and allowing unelected third parties to effectively control the levers of power in Washington, ranging from lobbyists who write the legislation to the bureaucrats who decide what the regulations should say.
Only now is it becoming apparent to the majority what has been going on for generations. The Republicans were only ever a front, a face meant to calm the masses as their civil rights were gathered up and stored away in the attic.
Face it: We’ve been patsies, marks in a con game.
Things really haven’t changed in Washington, with Trump gone and the Congress in entirely in Democrat hands. Who sits in the Oval office, and who runs Congress have become only peripheral issues–The real power resides in those like Comey and Brennan. They’re the ones who matter, and they’re beyond control of the electorate. Have been for decades, now–What, pray tell, do you suppose that Hoover’s lifetime tenure in the FBI should have told us, as far back as the 1940s? Can you think of any other precedent before him, or any since…? Man ran the FBI through Democrat and Republican administrations, and there was never any serious attempt to get him out of there, either. By anyone.
Wonder why?
They’ve gotten slicker about it, and hide it much better. But, the outlines are visible–Something like what happened in the Ukraine with the Biden Crime Crew has to be going on with Pakistan, with our foreign aid going to bribe our own government to look the other way while Pakistan takes some of that aid and uses it to support the Taliban in Afghanistan, who kill American troops with fungible American dollars.
Wonder why the military slow-walked all the withdrawals that Trump wanted? Take a guess… Someone is profiting from that crap, here in America. Remember the Pakistani IT guys, who Debby Wasserman-Schultz hired and then covered for?
Look at the outlines, folks: Connect the dots. All that has really changed in DC is that the fecal matter is starting to ooze out of containment.
Trump was really doomed from the beginning. Nobody, whether Democrat, “Republican”, or bureaucrat, can afford for the information about what’s been going on to get out. It’s all corruption, all the way down. Trump was naive to think he’d be able to fix anything, and the reason they all turned on him the way they did was because he’s an outsider that endangered all their little fiddles.
I’m coming to consider him an American Gracchi, and he’ll likely wind up the same way they did. There’s a replay going on of the death of the Roman Republic, and we’re all invited to it as the Boni loot the corpse.
Not sure where the hell the Emperor is going to come from, though, to be quite honest. We don’t do our politics such that a Caesar can come to the fore the way it happened in Rome. We will come up with our equivalent, though–The idiocy and utter stupidity of the governing class is making that inevitable.
Kirk: “Not sure where the hell the Emperor is going to come from, though, to be quite honest.”
Who needs a stinking Emperor in the former US when the world has a perfectly good one in China?
Here’s my working hypothesis — subject to revision in the light of new information, of course:
The old International Communist movement started the rot long ago, arguably in the Wilson Administration. They seized on the concept of Gramsci’s Long March Through The Institutions, and created a bunch of Useful Idiots as well as some True Believers. Smart boys responded to incentives and pushed the narrative as the price for enriching themselves with money, power, or both. Over the course of about 4 generations, this has resulted in a dumbed-down society where unscientific ideas like “Climate Change” don’t get laughed out of the public arena and around 90% of the population willingly submit to useless masks & counter-productive Lock Downs on account of a disease which 99.9% of people survive.
When the USSR failed and the Chinese rise began, the competent guys running the Chinese Communist Party realized they could build on the Gramsci movement started by the now-defunct Russian Communists. CCP leadership realized they could achieve their goals by economic war rather than by military means – and dumb Westerners would not even realize they were in a war until it was over. US industrialists were bought off by short term profits from moving production to lower-cost China, de-industrializing the US in the process. US politicians were simply bought off, in the Clinton/Biden model. As the US rotted from within, the CCP found they could buy US academics, media, even elections — and they competently used every tool they could to accomplish their long-term goal of re-establishing China as the Middle Kingdom.
CCP goals for the US are quite clear:
First, the future US will be unable to support a military which could challenge China. Look to Beijing Biden to defund the military and promote incompetent transgendered officers.
Second, de-industrialization of the US will be continued. Look to Beijing Biden to pile on ever more complex regulations to drive out remaining US productive capabilities. In terms of manufacturing capabilities, the US is already looking a lot like bombed-out Germany & Japan at the end of WWII.
Third, the long-term future of North America will be to supply food & raw materials to the Middle Kingdom. Population surplus to that limited need can kill each other off in civil wars or starve to death, they don’t matter to China. The CCP will play the old game the English perfected with Continental Europeans, dividing & conquering by playing both ends against the middle. The CCP will have plenty of North American Bidens to choose from as local satraps as required. Remember, the CCP does not care what happens to the people remaining in North America, as long as those future Chinese ships carrying food, fuel, and raw materials to China leave regularly for Shanghai.
Our only hope of avoiding a constrained future as China’s granary would be if future generations of CCP leaders lose their current hard-edged focus & competence. History tells us that will happen eventually … but it may take another 200 years.
@Gavin,
I don’t know if you’ve noticed it or not, but the life-cycle for empire has drastically sped up. I don’t think that China, if it does wind up on top of things, is going to last very long. God knows there’s enough contradictions within their system to cause their downfall, and that their leadership ain’t what I’d call competent, either.
The real problem here isn’t that the Chinese are going to take over, but that the “international incompetents” already have. China ain’t going to do any better at “empire” than the Japanese of “Japan, Inc.” did thirty years ago.
My take on all this is not that China is going to wind up on top of the world, but that they’re going to make a try for it, and wind up going down in flames, taking everything that’s tied in with them right along on their merry road to hell. The best thing we could do would be to decouple, and let nature take its course with all of them, China and fellow-travelers alike. There are too many contradictions, too many major issues inside China for them to last. Xi is basically a reaction to it all, as the CCP feels things spinning out of control.
Whatever length of time China lasts, I seriously doubt that you’ll be able to measure it in decades, let alone centuries. The bigger worry is what comes after the collapse… Which is nearly inevitable, at this point.
The idiots in charge now have roughly half of Americans talking like our friend Subotai. They’ve not stopped anything in the long run, just accelerated it.
The social media lockdown going on now is quite astonishing. I have said it was going to happen, but it still is jaw dropping to see. One wonders when the gun confiscations will begin–after Joe is pushed aside, or before?
This is the Time of the Great Disillusioning, I think. Those of us with eyes to see are faced with the knowledge — not assumptions, not suggestions or suppositions — that the Ruling Coalition, Dems and Reps alike are both unutterably corrupt. Brazenly stealing a presidential election in broad daylight, metaphorically speaking, not even bothering to cover it with a fig-leaf of plausibility. The Reps prefer to let it stand, rather than loose their place at the profitable trough. And the establishment media, to include social media is all-in with the steal, and treating honest conservatives as contemptable insurrectionists. Well, there when my last tiny little shred of respect and credibility for our national media.
It will be bitterly amusing, to watch China Joe and Willie Brown’s Ho being treated by a good portion of the public with the contempt they deserve. Even better, to see limp noodles like Mitt Romney booed on an airline flight – since hectoring and harassing your political opponents in public places has been established as acceptable conduct. I’d say bring it on.
As to what we can do about it all in defiance – I’m thinking along the lines of a post about this.
@SGT Mom,
I think a part of the problem, at least, has been precisely that point: These creatures have faced limited to no feedback.
Think about it–It’s just like the flag ranked idjits in the armed forces. How many of them really ever get the “ear to the ground” truth from their sycophantic minions? All they ever hear are the yes-men, the careerists telling them that their feces smells of the attar of roses.
So, Mitt Romney? When has he ever actually heard what people think of him? Who has dared to tell him to his face that he’s a crooked, lying weasel? Who ever told McCain that? All he ever heard and listened to were the people telling him he was a hero and a great man. Reality? At best, he had feet and legs up the knees of clay.
Much of our problem is that the feedback loop between public and legislator is broken; they think they’re doing what is wanted, because they never pay consequences for what they’ve already done. Who has held the Nancy Pelosi’s accountable for their games? Anyone? All she ever hears from anyone is what a great job she does, and what a great person she is. The real-world opinion? LOL… I think many of these creeps are in for a shock.
I also think they’re in for one, and in fairly short order. At least, from an historical standpoint, if not on a geologic one.
Trump was really doomed from the beginning. Nobody, whether Democrat, “Republican”, or bureaucrat, can afford for the information about what’s been going on to get out. It’s all corruption, all the way down. Trump was naive to think he’d be able to fix anything, and the reason they all turned on him the way they did was because he’s an outsider that endangered all their little fiddles.
Yup. Agree completely. The Tea Party and Sarah Palin should have been warnings. Ross Perot was too flawed on his own but he was right.
The chaos in DC yesterday was an op run by Antifa and the people who stole the election. They bussed in the cadre and the Capitol Police took over. There were cops behind the woman who was murdered. Behind her, helping them up the stairs.
Trump is now alone. His “staff” are now trying to curry favor with Democrats to get new jobs. He should get out of DC and stay there.
It is infinitely hilarious to read “conservative” twitter today–oh, Trump is poison now, the GOP will nominate Nikki Haley and sweep to victory in 24! Hahaha. Clueless morons.
Fun anecdote about Nimrata Haley- all while the Trump/RNC campaign was spamming me with dozens of emails a day, I got nothing from her.
After about a month, finally she or her handlers bothered send out something– I deleted it immediately, but I presume it had some sort of relevance to current events. I’ve since seen several other messages, all similarly dumped. I will not vote for her, period.
And why would you bother to read “conservative” twitter, ever? It’s nothing more than a swarm of carefully curated cucks, bootlickers, and other losers.
You may as well read emails from “Nikki Haley.”
It is clear that Penny’s anti-American bigotry has driven him completely over the edge.
Well, yes. But having wasted a lot of time over the years arguing with leftists for fun, I can say that PenGun is more literate, more polite, and more honest than most of them.
Considering that I’m talking about nitwits who literally fantasized about living in Castros’s Cuba, that doesn’t mean much.
But I do think that PenGun is quite typical of the people who have benefited greatly from the American willingness to spend vast sums doing nice things for foreigners, and who are too stupid to realize it.
All Americans should take heed of his casual hostility and rethink our witless affinity for such irrelevant institutions as NATO, which impose significant burdens upon us for no gain.
Mike, does there exist a way to prove your observation about Antifa cadre and about cops helping them specifically up the stairs? I know that we’re not supposed to trust our instincts nor our lying eyes, but…
In the week after the Nov election I posited that absent a slam dunk definitive proof of election fraud or integrity, we would see chaos ensue. I asked what would constitute sufficient evidence. I did not ask that question rhetorically. The next weeks saw more and more instances of promised proof but as far as one could tell, none delivered. I thought my question of how one could prove fraud grew increasingly important. When the internet posting of Jan 5 Georgia vote went from Republican I saw at 12:30 p.m. Georgia time and a friend who stayed up later saw still Republican at 2:30 a.m. to Democrat when I got up next morning in Oklahoma…. Instincts don’t count as proof, but do they count for zip?
To my mind, the Georgia election proves an analysis point: it was close. I expect that. Even if one might occupy the extreme of one party’s political spectrum, one should still expect the party as a whole to not distance greatly in aggregate from the other party. If it did, it would lose votes. Each party has identifiable central ideas that differ from the other party. But simultaneously each adjusts to pick up the most votes. I expect close elections. Putting that idea another way and to work: I do not trust as legit packages of votes that show a large difference of vote percentage for one party over the other, especially when that difference far exceeds landslide vote differences. Courts that would not indict on that and seek definitive proof of integrity or fraud would be like me doing quality control inspections, finding something strange, and failing to be inquisitive. The courts’ inaction itself makes me curious.
On a lighter note: one picture I saw of the capital with people inside had a screenshot section focus blowup and , lo, there was Nick Cage of “National Treasure” fame carrying a framed picture. One cannot trust the ‘net….
The chaos in DC yesterday was an op run by Antifa and the people who stole the election. They bussed in the cadre and the Capitol Police took over. There were cops behind the woman who was murdered. Behind her, helping them up the stairs.
I don’t doubt it. But problem of the present regime is that it keeps thinking that these sort of ops are going to make the Demon Trump and his flyoverland supporters go away.
I think not, even though Mitch McConnell’s wife has now resigned her sinecure in protest. Yet as everyone with a sliver of a clue has noticed, the demonrats have been quite happy to celebrate antifa rioting and murder, or if required for expediency, ignore it.
Why should I feel bad if Trump supporters do the exact same thing as the celebrated BLM saints and antifa heroes?
I’d like to know just what, exactly, has the conservative respect for the Rule of Law and the Constitution obtained for us? Barry Obama sent the full weight of the federal government upon the Tea Party set and Mitch McConnell had nothing to say about that and made no objection. Nor did Mitt Romney, a while later.
Trump is now alone. His “staff” are now trying to curry favor with Democrats to get new jobs. He should get out of DC and stay there.
Again, no doubt. This is a telling sign of just how putrid American governance has become, alas. Perhaps Trump can get asylum in the soon-to-be Republic of Florida.
@SGT Mom, any notes about Trumpkins mayhem at US capitol? or you excuse that type?
We already have one troll, pal, and you ain’t it. Scram.
@SGT Mom, any notes about Trumpkins mayhem at US capitol? or you excuse that type?
You all see why I’m so nice to PenGun, considering this imbecile?
Brian said “Trump should have done so much more, so much faster…” True, another criticism from a friend: “Trump could have been more effective if he would have toned down his speech”. God knows that Trump isn’t the most palatable personality but he struck a chord and thinks what half the country thinks WRT the way they want to live and be governed. IMHO the media and lefts’ 4 years of hyperbole about Trump and contempt for him are responsible for the mayhem in DC. More precisely, it’s the realization, the perception, of the hyperbole and contempt by the protestors (not just people smashing things) who more or less represent the above half of the country – that resulted in the mayhem.
Trump strikes me as a figure that could be straight out of Shakespearean tragedy.
tyouth
Additionally, and in other words, the MS media, if it had not squandered it’s perceived legitimacy over the last five (for sure) or ten years would have forestalled the mayhem in DC because ALL the country would have believed them when they insisted that voter fraud “had no effect” on the outcome of the presidential election. Now they double down (for the thousandth time, it seems) and report that Trump in calling for a protest, called for insurrection. If they want to incite more of the same legislators should not move to remove the president.
sorry. the above should read: “If they don’t want to incite more of the same…”
As for “mayhem at the US Capital” – is the glass there any more precious than the glass in the windows of businesses in Kenosha, Minneapolis, Portland? The principle of “mostly peaceful protests” has been established and approved of, all this last year.
Or as set out by another writer/commenter: “For months, we have watched as politicians, the media, academia, and other political and cultural institutions have either been silent or given approval to rioting, destruction of private property and the harming of innocent people under the auspices of achieving “justice”. Some of those same politicians, reporters and professors are now shocked when another group of people have decided that their concerns over injustice warrant a similar response.
You cannot act in such a way that diminishes people’s faith in processes and institutions and then act surprised when people turn on those processes and institutions. If you claim that the system is irrevocably rigged, racist, sexist, bigoted, you do not get to then turn around and appeal to those processes and institutions for the peaceful adjudication of problems. And yet that is exactly what many in positions of influence have done. Simultaneously condemning such institutions as corrupt when it suits their purpose, and then holding them up as models to be followed when they approve of the outcomes.”
“is the glass there any more precious than the glass in the windows of businesses in Kenosha, Minneapolis, Portland?”
I assume that every single congressional race is going to have a primary run by a small business owner–bars, restaurants, etc.–who has been ruined in the past year, whether by covid, riots, etc.
every single congressional race is going to have a primary run by a small business owner..
or a business that correctly identified the source of the protection racket – like that restaurant in Cali, where Newsom had his covid party with healthcare officials. then same restaurant received “covid-hardship” checks for, as I remember, $140K.
corporatism is the name of the game.
I want 435 Lauren Boeberts.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lauren_Boebert
Banned from commenting on my posts, Penny. You were previously advised – Sgt Mom
I find Curtis Yarvin aka Mencius Moldbug to be required reading:
https://graymirror.substack.com/
So now the “Great Unifiers” are seriously planning to impeach Trump a second time in spite of the fact that he only has a few days left to serve. Nothing says “unity” better than this gratuitous insult to the millions who voted for him. It’s hard to imagine a more cowardly and vindictive act, kicking the man while he’s down, isolated and abandoned by the members of his own party. Obviously such petty concerns as loyalty mean nothing to them if it comes between them and hope for a future place at the trough. All this is based on the claim that he was guilty of “sedition” for “inciting” his supporters. I’ve heard far more credible examples of “incitement” from loudspeakers while sitting in the stands at baseball games, but it never occurred to me to sack the visiting teams locker room in response. I doubt that his “incitement” induced a such a response in a single one of his followers. Those who claim it did are either imbeciles who imagine that CNN propaganda is an accurate reflection of the real world or bald-faced liars. Obviously, the latter predominate inside the Beltway at the moment.
All the talk about “impeaching” Trump a second time is a tell; they’re scared of something, and that something is the same thing that motivated the whole “Russian Collusion” narrative.
They can’t afford to let an outsider at the levers of power. Period. If they do, then the game is up.
The coup, if you can term it such, took place generations ago. What is happening now is that the mask is sliding off the masquerade, and the oligarchy is terrified at the prospect of the rubes learning who has really been running things, and for whose benefit.
I think Trump was/is a symptom, and an unwitting participant in all of this. I doubt he really thought he’d win in 2016, and if he had, then he would have come into office with a plan to actually do something effective about the so-called “swamp”. Fact is, they rolled him. And, are still rolling him…
What I want to know is why they didn’t just do the smart thing, and embrace him, wrap their arms around him, and co-opt him. That would have been the smart thing for the Democrat/Republican oligarchy to do–Humor the man, play along with the populism, defuse the situation.
Only conclusion I can reach is that a.) things are a lot worse than we know, and if the risk of Trump blowing the con was so great they had to do what they did, or that b.) they really are that abysmally stupid. The establishment shouldn’t have needed to fight Trump the way they did, unless they were engaged in crap that couldn’t possibly be slid under the carpet, and that they were certain he wouldn’t go along with. Otherwise, it would have made a lot more sense to co-opt the man and the movement, similar to what they did with the whole Tea Party.
On the other hand, maybe Trump represents an op the oligarchy pulled to identify troublemakers and potential class traitors, a la Mao’s Hundred Flowers campaign. Let Trump take office, let the honest men in government self-identify the way Michael Flynn did, and then take them out.
The way the Republican establishment has worked against everything Trump was trying to do leads me to believe they’re in on the con, and that there was one. I’m not sure I can come up with another explanation that passes Occam’s Razor, TBH.
Unless Trump is a stalking horse, the smartest thing he could do would be to dump everything he knows on Wikileaks, and pardon Assange at the last minute. He really ought to be on a plane out of the US at the earliest opportunity, along with his entire family. Preferably to somewhere without an extradition treaty with the US…
What follows after that? Who knows? I’m not going to be surprised at anything, anything at all.
Some of you may have noticed that Rantburg is off the air. The reason is that Fred is in the hospital with COVID. Prayers for a quick recovery.
Maybe they want to impeach him to keep him from running for office again.
Agree that he would be wise to leave the country, preferably on his own plane.
I doubt he will flee the country, and don’t think he should, though it’s him who would be being martyred, not me. I think the Dems will try to discredit him as much as possible without going too far, but they’ve never shown any sense of where that line is in recent years…
And IANAL but I don’t believe that you can bar someone from running for President, because the constitutional limits on eligibility are the only ones that are permitted, similar to how states couldn’t enforce those stupid laws saying you had to release your taxes to run.
I think it’d be best if the Dems basically left him alone, and if he didn’t run again, but we live in the worst possible world so I doubt either of those will happen…
I don’t think that the dimwits running this con game are smart enough to realize when they’ve won, and when they should let things lie.
Nancy Pelosi is already making noises about circulating on the battlefield and shooting the wounded, so… Yeah.
I think we’re in for a rough couple of years whilst these idiots find out the real limits of their power. Where that ends, I wouldn’t even begin to speculate, at this point. I am pretty sure, however, that they’ve got a lot less support than they think, and that they’re undoubtedly going to go way too far. Expect 2022 to be a messy, messy affair for the establishment, and for all sorts of “great unwashed” to wind up winning office in the hinterlands where they don’t have full “machine” purview. The corrupt cities will remain in their hands, but the rest of the country…? Unknown.
I think the idiots are actually going to pull off the miracle of turning Trump into a martyr. Where that goes, then? No idea. None.
Like I said… Trump is filling the role of the Gracchis in Republican Rome. Who is Marius going to be? Pompey? Sulla? No idea. History may not repeat, but it does rhyme.
I read somewhere that next cycle there will be 20 dem Senate seats open? So that should keep some in line.
Brian, IANAL either but I did catch on Instapundit that some Constitutional scholars argue Office and Officer of the United States are used to refer to positions to which one is appointed, not elected. There is an impeached and convicted judge, Alcee Hastings, in Congress (Democrat, naturally), so either his penalty was only removal from the bench, or nobody has challenged his right to hold a seat. In the case of election to Congress there might be less of an issue because I think there is widespread agreement that Office and Officer never mean members of the Article 1 bodies.
Christopher B, good catch.
One might think the Dems would avoid a futile impeachment, but their vindictiveness to Trump is unbounded. Perhaps they also want to show that they think Republicans will not again be in a position to impeach a Democratic president.
They want to prevent him to declassify [presumably, damaging to them] information, while he can
I don’t think he will do it, in either case
He’s not going to declassify anything. My guess is if he even tries They will not comply and will boot him immediately. I wouldn’t be all that surprised if They have told him if he’s quiet for the next 9 days they might go easy on him and his family after he leaves.
Kirk observed: “Trump is filling the role of the Gracchis in Republican Rome. Who is Marius going to be? Pompey? Sulla? No idea. History may not repeat, but it does rhyme.”
Agree that President Trump is analogous to the Gracchis — but there is a huge difference between the Rome of rwo millenia ago and the USA today. Roman generals could fight over who would control the Roman Empire because there was then no serious external threat. In Marius’ day, control of Rome was the Prize! That is where the historical analogy breaks down. Today, Beijing Biden’s rule over the USA is the Bobby Prize. Consequently, we should not expect a Marius or a Pompey. Rather, we should expect pointless Bolshevik/Memshevik in-fighting among the victorious Far Lefties, while the USA falls apart like the old Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Unlike Rome, today the US faces a competent focused peer (or arguably superior opponent) in China, while being burdened with America-hating ankle-biters in Europe. An appropriate historical analogy may be that at the end of WWII, the Red Army stripped East Germany of much of its useful remaining unbombed manufacturing equipment and sent it back to the USSR. That is what victors do. Today’s China did not have to invade the US first — foolish US executives & politicians voluntarily stripped the US of its manufacturing facilities and sent them to China. The victorious Lefties in the US now have stolen control of a dangerously de-industrialized society which is critically dependent on continued foreign imports, particularly from China. Even worse, today’s US cannot trade anything of value to the Chinese for those necessary imports; all we have to offer are freshly-printed IOUs.
My guess is that the leaders of the Chinese Communist Party do not want to rule the US; they simply want to remove the US as a potential threat to themselves. Consequently, the CCP’s prime instructions to Beijing Biden will be to defund the US military. In the inevitable coming economic crisis, it will be easy for US Lefties to agree that the only place they can cut the budget is on the military. Nuclear aircraft carriers will be mothballed — or maybe even sold to China. Expensive short half-life tritium for nuclear warheads will decay and not be replaced. The remaining officer corps will be packed with incompetents chosen for their Leftie politics rather than for any leadership skills. Military training will be eliminated. Once the CCP’s stooges in the DC Swamp have emasculated the US military, it matters little to the Chinese if the US ends up as Venezuela or worse.
“Consequently, the CCP’s prime instructions to Beijing Biden will be to defund the US military. In the inevitable coming economic crisis, it will be easy for US Lefties to agree that the only place they can cut the budget is on the military”
Nope. They’ll not defund anything. They’ll spend and spend and spend, on everything, including the military, with the goal of destroying the dollar. Besides, the defense budget is a great place to give tons of money to your cronies very quickly. And by the time Biden/Harris is done, the entire top brass of the military will be as far left as John Brennan.
Brian: “They’ll spend and spend and spend, on everything, including the military, with the goal of destroying the dollar.”
Congress-scum have been spending & spending for years, and are already well on the way to destroying the dollar. Try to look at this from an outside perspective. Remember Mao’s caution to his fellow Communists about the US — The Paper Tiger has Nuclear Teeth. From the perspective of the leaders of the Chinese Communist Party, pulling those nuclear teeth has to be a major objective. So they tell Beijing Biden to emasculate the US military, and then Taiwan, Korea, Japan, Philippines, Vietnam will all recognize reality and do whatever the CCP tells them.
To the extent that the CCP will allow their DC Swamp puppets to spend money on the US military, it will probably be spent in ways that are not harmful to China. Increasing the number of pregnant women in front line military units. Diversity workshops instead of time on shooting ranges. Research & Development on new weapons that are never deployed — but the design specs somehow end up in China.
Gavin: I bet you a virtual beer that the defense budget will go up for the next 4 years. Not nearly as much as everything else goes up, of course, but still, up up up.
Brian Says:
January 11th, 2021 at 12:19 pm
“Consequently, the CCP’s prime instructions to Beijing Biden will be to defund the US military. In the inevitable coming economic crisis, it will be easy for US Lefties to agree that the only place they can cut the budget is on the military”
No, I agree with Gavin and LGBTQ plus critical race training will pretty much suck the guts out of the military. Those above O-6 are already pretty much “Obamaized.”
The British army has already been castrated. A few years ago there were complaints about soldiers convalescing from wounds using public swimming pools.
Kipling was right again.
Mike: I said “by the time Biden/Harris is done, the entire top brass of the military will be as far left as John Brennan.”
But they will spend bucketloads of money on “their” new military, you can be sure of that…
To the extent that the CCP will allow their DC Swamp puppets to spend money on the US military, it will probably be spent in ways that are not harmful to China. Increasing the number of pregnant women in front line military units. Diversity workshops instead of time on shooting ranges. Research & Development on new weapons that are never deployed ”” but the design specs somehow end up in China.
Bingo. But this already happened a long time ago.
I’ll stick to the navy.
Ships. It scrapped or sank as targets the DD-963 Spruance-class ships before replacing them, with plenty of useful life left. The intended replacement- the DDG-1000 Zumwalt-class, was so expensive that the program was cut from 30 ships to 3. The main gun of Zumwalts is useless because the ammunition is close to $1 million a round. This program wasted many billions of dollars, including the money spent building a huge model to test the design. I can go on for thousands of words on this topic, but I won’t.
Pee-pul. One of the recent deadly collisions happened in part because two female officers refused to talk to each other. My experience with females in the navy was.. very bad. It isn’t really made better because I can think of a few who were functional and good at their jobs, because most weren’t, and most in my job didn’t even finish their enlistment. The navy appears to have “solved” that problem by doing away with military discipline and making it a punishable offense to notice something is wrong, as well as completely and expensively redesigning ships to make them more comfortable so the ladies won’t complain. I could write a lot about the pregnancy problem, but no.
Training. Another thing to note about the collisions is that the crew of one of the ships literally didn’t know how to work one of their radar sets. The second collision could have been avoided, except the crew didn’t know how to operate the ships steering gear. The 14-month course to become a surface warfare officer- which included training about shiphandling and nautical rules of the road- was replaced by a series of DVDs which officers were told to watch in their spare time.
Maintenance and material condition. The Bon Homme Richard LHD-6 burned- obviously a problem in and of itself- and it turned out the United States had no ability to fix it. There was no shipyard that had spare capacity to do so. The navy appears to have no problem with ships looking like seagoing rust buckets- and I have to wonder what going on with the internals of these ships when the navy can’t keep them painted. One of the destroyers involved in the infamous collisions had a radar set broken for so long that the crew had given up on getting it fixed.
Biden won’t have much to do to finish wrecking navy, as the heavy lifting has already been done for him.
And it will get even worse, as the honestly patriotic potential recruits from long-time military families will take one long searching look at the mess that the military has become generally … and decline to enlist. Why would we encourage our young to enlist, when our leaders are corrupt, the military-veteran families they come from have been disenfranchised, and once-stable communities where they lived have been wrecked by outsourcing industry, all in service to arrogant oligarchs, who will have some kind of financial reward out of sending them to die in a pointless war somewhere, which as been painted by the corrupt media as a desirable and necessary mission.
At some point, when they can’t find enough suckers to enlist voluntarily, I wonder if they will try to reconstitute a draft?
I also wonder how much “free college” is going to decimate the enlistee numbers, by eliminating that reason to join up.
Brian: “Gavin: I bet you a virtual beer that the defense budget will go up for the next 4 years.”
You are on, my man! But I think I am going to lose, because inflation is likely to make everything more expensive in “Money of the Day”, even if in real terms it is actually declining.
Xennady & Sgt Mom point to something very important about the military — equipment is vital, but the human factor is even more important. The spirit of a military can decline quickly when it is abused by the Political Class. Could the US do Desert Storm today?
I keep posting links to this video made for China’s 2018 Army Day, because frankly it leaves me (as the Brits would say) gobsmacked. Could anyone make a similar video for the US military today — and not have YouTube ban it immediately for wrongthink and Hillary! Clinton throw the vidoe producer in jail?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ToxdTlqUvtw
And it will get even worse, as the honestly patriotic potential recruits from long-time military families will take one long searching look at the mess that the military has become generally ”¦ and decline to enlist.
I’ve long had a suspicion that this has already happened. I note the military is much smaller than it was when I was in and has a much larger pool of potential recruits- both because of the larger national population and because nearly all jobs are now open to women- but had to substantially enhance the GI Bill and lower standards in certain ways to get enough people. That’s just a suspicion, though.
At some point, when they can’t find enough suckers to enlist voluntarily, I wonder if they will try to reconstitute a draft?
I’ve wondered the same thing recently. But they won’t call it a draft- it will be called “national service,” or some such politically correct nonsense. What job you get assigned will depend on who you are, so the hated white males will get combat infantry and any other dangerous job that doesn’t lead to a lucrative civilian career, while the beautiful people and the politically favored will get valuable training and/or easy assignments as congressional interns or social justice agitators.
Another suspicion, but as I also suspect the regime will blow itself into chaff rather promptly I can’t manage to get too worried about it.
Nah, they won’t start a draft. They don’t want the military to be what it is, or to be typical of America. Far, far better to go the route of Venezuela and similar countries and turn it into a left-wing asset. Start at the top, and it’s easy for those to then implement a lefty filter all the way down. It’ll be even easier than it was to take over academia because careers in the military are shorter than academic careers.
https://www.military.com/daily-news/2021/01/08/air-force-brass-order-removal-of-all-offensive-non-inclusive-patches-mottos-and-emblems.html
Who do you think is making the call on what’s “offensive” or “non-inclusive” (wtf does that even mean anyway?). How much do you wanna bet that before too long Chesty Puller is banned? I mean, he surely said something “offensive” or “non-inclusive” once. Besides, he fought in racist wars. So he, and pretty much every other military icon, goes onto the trash heap.
I’ve never even thought about any of this before–I guess I’ve always assumed the military is and always will be what it was when I grew up in it in the late Cold War, but everything I’ve written above seems so obvious and unavoidable.