Plan B

photog Current Events , , ,

President Nayib Bukele in El Salvador declares martial law and arrests tens of thousands of gang members.  In Argentina President Javier Milei is taking “a chain saw” to the bloated federal bureaucracy both to reduce the budget deficit and inflation and to scale back the over-regulation of life in his country.

Why do I see these actions as significant?  Because both of these countries are poster children for the abuses that their present leaders are trying to address.

El Salvador has been struggling with violence for many decades.  After a thirteen-year civil war gangs ran wild over the countryside and the murder rate was astronomically high.  Bukele has cut the murder rate by at least 50%.  As draconian as the method he used to accomplish this clean-up was, the people support his results.

In Argentina rampant hyperinflation has been going on for decades.  Milei ran on the promise that he would fix the economy.  And the people of Argentina elected him because at this point no one else has spoken the truth about why their country which has so much potential is an economic basket case.

Latin America is supposed to be hopelessly corrupt and unfixable.  Well, maybe things can change.  When the basket cases of the world start getting their acts together, maybe something is happening to the old world.  Maybe there is even a little hope.

It’s certainly true that some of these actions aren’t particularly legal.  Bukele used martial law and unconstitutional powers to arrest the gangs.  There is talk that many innocent men were swept up in this dragnet.  Well, maybe what we are looking at is the rise of the strongman.  Could this lead to dictatorship?  Maybe.  But when democracy fails you spectacularly you have to try something.  You go to Plan B.

And what does this tell me about the world at large and the United States in particular?  It may mean that results are beginning to outweigh lofty ideals and good intentions in the minds of the people.  After all that is sort of how Donald Trump and Brexit got their victories.  People want results and they want the truth.  Both of these seem to be in very short supply from the politicians and bureaucrats that rule in the Western democracies.  Now, the United States isn’t as chaotically lawless as El Salvador was nor as economically mismanaged as Argentina.  But we’re headed in those directions at a brisk clip.  Maybe a sea change is in the cards.

And maybe it won’t be that long.  2024 will be an important election.  If Trump gets elected there’s still a small chance, he can purge the bureaucracy of its deep state cronies in order to restore control over the government to the duly elected officials.  But if Kamala Harris is installed in the White House, then we can say definitively that United States is no longer a functional republic but rather an oligarchic junta that cares almost nothing for the welfare of the people.

If Harris is running this country, even as a puppet of the oligarchy, I assume the country will suffer a catastrophic decline with rampant violence and economic and fiscal instability at a level that will spark essentially a popular upheaval.  And regardless of how it is clothed in constitutional language, there will be revolutionary changes in how things get done.

Of course, I could be completely wrong and Kamala could turn out to be a wise and effective ruler who turns her term into a golden age.  But after enough yellow school bus speeches and other brilliant clap-trap, I kind of doubt it.

We seem to be speeding toward destiny.

Guest Contributor – Milo Mindbender – 10AUG2024 – Sergeant Tim Walz

photog Current Events, Guest Contributors, Milo Mindbender , , ,

I have served in the Army, and understand what a conditional promotion is. You get the rank without the full set of qualifications, and promise to complete them within a specified time frame or lose the promotion.
My problem is Walz refers to himself as a retired command sergeant major E-9, but his actual retirement rank is master sergeant E-8. He did not hold the rank long enough or complete the requirements to keep it. He reenlisted for 4 years in 2003, promoted conditionally in 2004, rumour has it learned through the grapevine about an upcoming deployment, and jumped into retirement. This means he could state ” I was a command sergeant major, and I am a retired guardsman” both of those statements are factually correct. He is not a retired command sergeant major, but a retired master sergeant. In 24 years of service according to his Wikipedia page he has 1 army commendation medal, that seems kinda low, I served 4 years active duty, and got 2 ARCOMS, as a Spec-4, I now have 40 years of service total, and my highest personal award is a meritorious service medal, gotten for 26 years in the Air Force reserve, when I transferred to the Air Guard. I saw no overseas service or combat campaign awards, this looks suspicious, because that means he never carried anything in any war zone, because he was never there. This seems like a minor distinction, but it gripes me to hear someone self promote and then try to weasel their way out of an exaggeration by claiming to be a higher rank than their ID card shows.

Update:

TomD commented:

Walz’s military record, or lack of it, is entirely peripheral to me. The core issue, and this is indisputable, is that he has governed as a hard left radical, adopting and enforcing every leftist position right down the line.

He could have been the Commandant of the Marine Corp with 9 combat deployments and it wouldn’t make a whit. The fact of his deception is just carrying coal to Newcastle for me.

 

War Pig commented:

I agree. Sort of fishy. I do not mind him not having served in actual combat as relatively few service members realy do fire a weapon in anger or are in an area where they can be bombarded. But, look at the man and two women killed in the drone strike. Death can find you. I know of a couple of sergeants major who never fired a weapon other than on a range but were in the artillery and air cav, respectively. Both served I think it was 32 years active, but had several medals and badges. Then there are those who manage to serve 20 and not actually perform their MOS except in training. They go off into “temporary” duty as a special services NCO or one of a hundred other make work jobs. They found out how to work the system. I’m pretty sure you knew of various NCOs assigned to your unit you never saw except at quarterly recall formations. Could be he was one of those soldiers. Nothing dishonorable, just nothing special. He may have heard about a deployment and took the easy way out. Not illegal, just not someone I’d want to be one heartbeat away from the Oval Office and the Football.

War Pig commented:

This is true. He’s in Soros’ pocket and all his thinking is done by Obama. He joined in with the Defund the Police movement, which hurt minority citizens the most. Martha’s Vinyard is not effected by Defund the Police, but inner city families in blue cities sure are.

Friday, And Now for Something Completely Different

photog Uncategorized

I’ve reached the halfway point in my marathon of horror and boredom.  And honestly, boredom is the deadlier poison.  That must be why prison is so horrible.  It’s the boredom.  Being forced to do nothing for years on end doesn’t sound like the worst thing that can be done to you.  And it’s not, but it’s bad enough.

There is magic in being at the half-way point.  From then on, it’s downhill.  Unfortunately, the last day is like a double portion, so counting hours it’s really not halfway, but the calendar is a more powerful measuring stick.  By early Wednesday morning the horror will be over.  And so, heading home tonight I had a jaunty smile on my lips and a song in my heart.

When I got home, I looked at the news and it was the same old, same old.  Kamala, Tim, Russia, Ukraine, Trump, Vance, Coke and Pepsi.  ¡Ay, Chihuahua!  Honestly, we’ve got to give this stuff a break.  Let the hacks working for the campaigns flood the airwaves with whatever memes they can generate.  After all they’re getting paid for it.  We need something better.

So, let’s have some entertainment.

 

Colter Wall has a few very entertaining songs that always cheer me up when I hear them.

 

 

This version of the speech I think is the best I’ve seen.

I don’t think I’ve ever found the version of Macbeth’s “Tomorrow” speech I completely enjoy.  But this one is the best of what I’ve found.

Thursday’s Surcease of Sorrow

photog Current Events ,

I had today off.  Ah, the glory.  But I still had to get up early because we had visitors and as pontifex maximus I have prescribed duties that include invocations and vague mumblings that render me canonically relevant but still slightly insane.

But it was good to be free for the day.  I spent time with the grandchildren and Camera Girl as she presided over mass quantities of juvenile comfort food (macaroni with cheese and grilled cheese sandwiches) and really bad kids’ movies (the 2021 “Tom and Jerry” movie and that monstrosity, “Ants” that Woody Allen, of all people, was in).  They taught me a game called, “Swim, fishy, swim” which is basically a version of tag or red light, green light.  Then we broke out the card games but other than war I didn’t know these other games.  They used non-standard decks of cards and weird rules.

While playing war I discovered that their reaction time is a lot faster than mine is now.  It is humbling to be in the presence of neurons that fire perfectly.  Old age is not for sissies.  But at least I was able to correct them in their use of the subjunctive mood.  Of course, I don’t think the subjunctive is still acknowledged anymore in grammar school.  In fact, I don’t think they teach grammar in grammar school anymore.  But I digress.  It was good to be among the young and away from Dunwichian responsibilities.  I still have five or six days of horror beginning tomorrow but a day off was great.

Of the various things going on I thought the most interesting development was the background on Gov. Tim Walz’s military service.  From what I read Walz retired out of his National Guard unit after he was notified that his unit was being deployed to Iraq in 2005.  And at the time he was the ranking non-commissioned officer in the unit.  I listened to a video where Megyn Kelly interviewed Tom Behrends, another non-commissioned officer from Walz’s National Guard unit, and he basically called Walz a coward for refusing to lead his unit into combat.  Never having served myself I’d be very interested in getting the opinions of those on this site who have served as to whether what Behrends says is reasonable.  What is the moral responsibility of a National Guard leader when his unit is called up for war?  How prevalent would this kind of reaction to deployment be?

Now I dislike Walz because he was the governor during the George Floyd riots in Minneapolis and he never ordered the National Guard to halt the rioting, arson and plain murder that went on during those riots.  I think he should be prosecuted for that.  But apparently in Minnesota they’re alright with that sort of thing.  So, they should get as much of that as is humanly possible.  In that sense it’s like California or New York.  But if Walz is running for Veep then his actions as governor should be fair game.  So, reviewing what he did during the Floyd riots makes perfect sense.

As for his refusal to be deployed to Iraq, I’m interested in what knowledgeable have to say about it.

Well, I better get some sleep.  More fun and games tomorrow.