Month: November 2023

19NOV2023 – Quote of the Day

photog Quote of the Day ,

There’s some say that we wan, some say that they wan,

Some say that nane wan at a’, man,

But one thing I’m sure that at Sheriff-Muir,

A battle there was which I saw, man.

And we ran and they ran, and they ran and we ran,

And we ran, and they ran awa’, man.

Murdoch McLennan

 

Battle of Sheriffmuir was an engagement in 1715 at the height of the Jacobite rising in England and Scotland

Guest Contributor – War Pig – 18NOV2023 – Circa 1968

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In reply to ArthurinCali.

I turned 19 one week before my unit was ordered to retake Hue City in Tet of 1968. I was 2 weeks in country and was in my unit three days. Hotel Company, 2/5 Marines. Our C.O. was Captain Christmas. No joke. Our unit took 50% casualties in pretty fierce door-to-door fighting, but we took Hue. The C.O. was medevacced out and got a Navy Cross. He retired as a Lt General. It was a different time. No gayboi stuff, race relations was ok. You don’t care what color skin your squadmate has so long as he’s got your six.

I hit San Fran Airport in uniform with ribbons. I was spat upon and called a baby killer by some hippie. I spent the night in a holding cell at the airport until a magistrate turned me loose next day for self defense. Today I’d likely get ten years for ktfo-ing the punk. Why liberals believe they should get physical with a warrior fresh from the fight I don’t know.

There was no babysitting during wartime in the Marines. Do or die. I left the corps when our politicians betrayed us. I know how Afghanistan veterans feel. I took a year and a half off then joined the army and worked for the DIA until I retired.

Guest Contributor – War Pig – 18NOV2023 – Thumbs Down on 2024

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With California and New York both sealing conviction records, even for felonies, I doubt we can really turn the corner by peaceful means. How long before blue states seal pedophile and sexual predators’ records? So child care facilities, nursing homes and schools will have no way to detect paedos/predators and prevent them from working with vulnerable populations. Banks will wind up hiring thieves. This happened to me. My bank hired a juvenile thief with 20 arrests and 3 convictions and who’s records were expunged. He stole my and several others’ debit card data and account access and ordered merchandise sent to various she’ll addresses where his group picked it up. Thankfully I check my accounts daily, noticed the false purchases, and got the ball rolling. His bunch got ten years apiece.

But with Blue state politicians working as hard as they can to release a wave of criminals and illegal immigrants, I mean, Democrat voters, it will take a 1930s style depression to start waking up leftist voters, most of whom are women.

So banning another Great Depression, world war, or armed rebellion I don’t see a path forward.

 

The Ghost of America Yet to Come – Part 2

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Yesterday in the first part of this exercise I extrapolated where all the awful policies and consequences of Democrat rule would lead.  It was pretty much the train wreck scenario for our progressive trajectory.  Is there any other path forward?  I’m not sure.

It would be highly unrealistic to imagine a version of the future where traditional values are easily restored to the country.  That would be ignoring reality because the majority of young people living in this country are leftists.  They believe in the woke orthodoxies and align with the agenda that the Democrats espouse.

But it is true that the Biden administration has made a hash of the economy.  Many of the young resent the lack of opportunities in this economy.  And the horrific crime surging around the cities has even begun to frighten urban leftists.  Especially since several of them have become high profile victims of random violence.  So, let’s see if we can spin a version of the future that doesn’t make me want to emigrate.

Here are the circumstances that would have to align to permit us to avoid the future I outlined in Part 1 of this thought experiment:

  1. Joe Biden will have to get his wish and remain the 2024 candidate despite his extreme unpopularity and obvious incompetence.
  2. Donald Trump will have to defy all odds and not get thrown off the ballot by the two major parties.
  3. Joe Biden’s America has to descend three more turns down into the maelstrom its’s currently circling. Maybe the price of food, fuel and housing will continue to spike and interest rates will make home ownership impossible for most people.  Maybe the mass layoffs at the banks and other corporations will start to cut into the Democrat support.  And maybe Joe’s transparent lies will just finally aggravate even the stupidest voters.
  4. And finally, it will require that the Republicans will actually try to restrain voter fraud in the swing states like Georgia and Arizona.

If all these things happen it would be possible for a Republican Congress and President to be installed in 2025.  And if all the promises and plans were put into effect, we could start to get the country back.  The idea of replacing the bulk of the Justice Department sounds like a dream but I’ve heard scenarios that might be workable.  And other worthwhile changes could be made if we could manage to have decent congressional leaders while a Republican president was in the White House.  Putting an end to the “green agenda” would drastically lower the cost of gasoline and heating oil.  It would also lower the cost for almost everything else.  Urban crime wouldn’t disappear overnight but the feds could crack down on DA’s that weren’t prosecuting criminals.  Many things could be turned around once the Democrats were out of the White House.

And now the splash of cold water to wake us up after that pipe dream.  What do I think are the odds that all those things will happen and we escape the Part 1 fate?  One in five?  One in ten?  Hard to say.  But one thing’s for sure.  If it doesn’t happen in 2024 it’s hard to imagine it will ever happen.  Stagflation finished off Jimmy Carter in 1980.  What we have going on right now is worse on every level and includes so many kinds of dysfunction that if it could be ignored during an election year then we would have to be dealing with an entirely different America from the one I grew up in.

So, there’s the happy version.  Let me know what odds you’d give for this version in the comments.  Ho, ho, ho.

Guest Contributor – ArthurinCali – 17NOV2023 – The Old Days

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I need to write up my memories of those times pre-insanity. Joined in 1998 and it was a whole different world in the military. I have a few sea stories on Substack but it’s hard to describe how different it was then. Think of Stranger Things ‘upside down’ world compared to ours. People were real, you didn’t hold back on opinion’s amongst one another. Conflict resolution included fan room conferences. ie two guys who have a problem are ordered to go in and either fuck or fight, but settle the differences and move forward. Diversity measures were in place, yet it was more subtle and not repeated like a cult mantra how it is today. One felt they were serving a country and not a faceless GAE blob. I could write all day on the differences. Men were men and acted accordingly for the most part. Masculinity was not a dirty word, nor being superior. One had pride and felt honor for serving. At least I did. It wasn’t as much of a babysitting/jobs program with social engineering being shoved down the throat daily as it is now.

Guest Contributor – War Pig – 17NOV2023 – Strategic Considerations

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Long but interesting read. A couple of points:

1. Russia is not a near-peer to NATO. If Putin eventually wears down Ukraine and tries anything with a NATO country, he will get pimp-slaped back to Kamchatcka. In a conventional war he stands about as much of a chance as did Russian tactics and equipment during Desert Storm. The 4,000 members of the 101st Airborne stationed along the Ukranian border alone could cut a swath through Russian units like a combine through a wheat field.

2. Apparently the writer of the long article has not visited Taiwan in the last 40 years or so. It is not a little Vietnam. The Taiwanese should be able to repel a Chinese attempted invasion with just a dab of help from the US Navy. China is still a mostly paper tiger. Taiwanese troops hate the mainland Chinese and will fight rabidly. They have quietly amassed quite an arsenal of modern weapons. Remember also, the Chinese have zero experience in pulling off an opposed amphibious invasion. Unless the Taiwanese anti-air systems are seriously degraded, any lumbering cargo craft carrying troops or equipment will be easy meat.

After all, the US won all the battles in Vietnam. We lost due to turncoat politicians. However, during their ill-fated invasion of Vietnam, the Chinese got their arses handed to them quite handily by the Vietnamese, even though China had no ocean water to cross. The Vietnamese did to China what they never did to the US, win the battles. Taiwan is just as motivated, trained by the USA and the advantage of making China have to bring cargo ships across a contended ocean route with US attack submarines waiting on them like piranha. The US fleet just needs targeting data from the Taiwanese to sink Chinese ships with missiles from a distance of 120 miles or more from the US fleet.