Happy Birthday, America!

Happy Birthday, America!

There have been few times in America’s history more profoundly momentous and more potentially hazardous than the election of 2012 when we choose the man who will lead our great country into 2017.




Actually, that choice is relatively simple.



Do we as a nation decide on November 6th to re-elect Barack Hussein Obama and suffer through four more years of a left wing extremist who has proven himself to be a dangerously incompetent head of state devoid of leadership abilities and love for the United States and our values, a president who has undermined America’s national security and national pride and confidence?



Or do we put aside petty misgivings and differences and elect Governor Mitt Romney, a man who has proven he can lead, who has shown he is much better qualified to guide us out of Obama’s economic cesspool and international quagmires and, perhaps most importantly, believes in his country and our future.



For now, though, we should put politics aside and celebrate America’s birthday! . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=26278.)

The OWS and the Sin of Presumption

The OWS and the Sin of Presumption

At one time or another, most of us assume and presume too much but few of us ever envision the United States of America collapsing as a great nation. Historically, such a presumption was not uncommon.




The thought of ancient Rome being overrun by barbarians had to have been unfathomable to the average Roman in the street, until it happened.



The idea that Russians would be ruled by Lenin and his Bolsheviks after Czar Nicholas II must have seemed beyond the pale of believability, until it happened.



Most Germans were unaware that Adolph Hitler would initiate one of the most brutal genocides in human history and precipitate a world war leading to Germany’s near-extinction, until it happened.



And, thanks in large part to the complicity of the mainstream media which prefer to liberally slant news and ignore what is the most dire threat to America’s existence since Hitler and the USSR, the presumption that we will survive the insidious Occupy Wall Street movement aimed at undermining the capitalist foundations of our prosperity and success, could very well come to fruition in the not too distant future.



The mortal sin of presumption is a Roman Catholic doctrine which essentially holds that to arrogantly believe and trust in one’s own merits to the exclusion of any divine intercession can lead to salvation is the road to perdition.



Whether or not Americans accept that religious teaching, vainly presuming the United States will exist indefinitely, that we as a country are immune to forces which can effect our dissolution, that we are impervious to external and internal threats, is not only presumptuous but reflects a dangerous ignorance of the history of all great nations and empires.



Those nations and empires have had an average life-span of two centuries. As of 2012, the U.S.A. will be 223 years old.



The reality of presumption, that Americans and America will continue to regard the OWS, the Occupiers of Wall Street and everything else they choose to occupy, destroy, and desecrate as just another protest group, is beyond foolhardy. In fact, they are busily plotting the overthrow of government and institutions which have served us, never perfectly, but satisfactorily, for centuries.



An extreme scenario? Please read on. . .




(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=23194.)

Paul Harvey's "If I Were the Devil" Still Rings True

Paul Harvey's "If I Were the Devil" Still Rings True

For those not familiar with his name, Paul Harvey Aurendt who went by the professional name Paul Harvey, was a conservative radio broadcaster and newspaper columnist.

At the peak of his influence, Harvey reached some 24 million listeners to his ”Rest of the Story” comments, millions more listeners than Rush Limbaugh and with nary a single “slut” comment during his long career.

Paul Harvey News was carried on 1,200 radio stations, 400 Armed Forces Network stations, and hundreds of newspapers, and his commentaries and newspaper columns have been frequently reprinted in the Congressional Record.

He was named “Commentator of the Year,” “Person of the Year,” “Father of the Year,” “American of the Year,” elected to the National Association of Broadcasters National Radio Hall of Fame, appeared on the Gallup poll list of America’s most admired men, and was awarded eleven Freedom Foundation Awards and the Horatio Alger Award.

Perhaps none of Harvey’s contributions to broadcasting and Americana is as noteworthy as what he said 47 years ago.

Harvey died at the age of 90 in 2009. He is sorely missed in America today and will long be remembered for his prophetic “If I Were the Devil” broadcast warning to Americans on April 3rd, 1965. In that brief commentary, Harvey focused on virtually ever ill that has beset the United States since he articulated them.

Paul Harvey’s 1965 reflections in their entirety, as published by Fox News:

He said, ”If I were the Devil . . . I would of course, want to engulf the whole earth in darkness. . . so I should set about however necessary to take over the United States.

“I would begin with a campaign of whispers. With the wisdom of a serpent, I would whisper to you as I whispered to Eve: ‘Do as you please.’

“To the young, I would whisper, ‘The Bible is a myth.’ I would convince them that man created God instead of the other way around.

“I would confide that what is bad is good, and what is good is ‘square’.

“In the ears of the young marrieds, I would whisper that work is debasing, that cocktail parties are good for you. I would caution them not to be extreme in religion, in patriotism, in moral conduct.

“And the old, I would teach to pray. I would teach them to say after me: ‘Our Father, which art in Washington.’

“If I were the devil, I’d educate authors in how to make lurid literature exciting so that anything else would appear dull and uninteresting.

“I’d threaten T.V. with dirtier movies and vice versa. . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=18613.)

America Is No Longer America!

America Is No Longer America!

Those naive souls who foolishly believe that the United States of America is still a free and independent nation, that we should be proud of who and what we are and what we have achieved, that we are one nation under God had better read the newspapers.

Thanks to America’s Left and to the United States Congress, those foolish beliefs have been undermined for decades and, since the accession to the presidency of Barack Hussein Obama on January 20th, 2009, they have been proven absurd.

A few recent instances, which have been covered by Obama’s mainstream media with its usual spin:

Obama’s Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta confirmed the reality that this administration regards American sovereignty as much a thing of the past as gasoline.

Panetta appeared before the Senate Armed Services Committee and effectively declared that the congress’ constitutional responsibility to declare war and the president’s power to wage war null and void.

In reference to calls for military intervention in the newest Islamic cesspool, Syria, Panetta said that the “goal would be to seek international permission . . . Whether or not we would want to get permission from the Congress–I think those are issues we would have to discuss as we decide what to do here.”

“Whether or not?”

Translated: The USA would require the “permission” of the corrupt, Third World-infested United Nations before we interceded in Syria, which would supersede any constitutional provisions.

So much for independence and soverignty.

An even more telling incident demonstrating that our country isn’t what it used to be occurred at a basketball game in San Antonio, Texas.

The Alamo Heights boys’ basketball team trounced San Antonio Edison and the student crowd erupted with chants of “USA, USA, USA!”

That enthusiastic show of patriotism was condemned by the press, the coach, and by Alamo Heights’ administrators as “racist” on the sole basis that the Alamo Heights team is predominantly white and Edison is mostly hispanic and, therefore, the chant must have been racially inspired.

KSAT.com reported the enthusiasm as a “racial incident” and district spokesperson, Lesley Price, said, “This is very disrespectful to our students. It is surprising and it’s disappointing to hear that anyone would be out there making those kind of remarks.”

Again, those disrespectful remarks were, “USA! USA! USA!” . . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=16421.)

2011 Hopes, 2012 Realities

2011 Hopes, 2012 Realities

I began writing an article entitled “A Christmas Retrospective” with, “The eventful year 2011 now drawing to a close may have been one filled with natural, political, and sociological disasters yet it produced unmistakable signs that all is not lost for America and the rest of humanity.”

I recounted the earthquakes, tsunamis, and tornados, the Arab Spring which portended an Arab Winter and worsening national and international tensions, the Occupy upheavals suggestive of revolution supported by Barack Hussein Obama 201 and yet I decided 2011 wasn’t as much a debacle as it was a year of hope springing eternal for our beknighted planet and nation.

Scratch any suggestions of 2012 being an improvement on 2011. On re-consideration of my Chistmas-inspired attack of optimism, 2012 promises to suck big time.

In part, events occurring over the past few days forced the revisionism.

The mayhem resulting from the sale of Air Jordans, a Santa in Grapevine Texas murdering 6 relatives, riots over rappers at the Mall of America, and Tim Tebow’s Denver Broncos losing all contributed to a change of perspective.

Iran taunting the U.S. Navy in the Strait of Hormuz and Obama’s public approval rating rising to 47.1 didn’t help, either.

Still, it was an article by Professor James Petras on GlobalResearch.ca that convinced me my rose-colored glasses had been clouded by my cataracts. Titled “Unrelenting Global Economic Crisis: A Doomsday View of 2012,” the article makes mincemeat of fools who detected substantial brightness in the world’s and America’s futures.

It should be noted that Petras, a retired professor of sociology, is an ardent socialist, self-described “revolutionary and anti-imperialist,” has been accused of anti-Semitism, and has taken distinctly anti-American positions. All that makes his views suspect but does not necessarily preclude the possibility he is wrong about the future.

Of course, too, one man’s opinion is just that, an opinion, but Petras’ gloomy forecast for the new year and beyond is both chilling and documented. When he writes, “The economic, political and social outlook for 2012 is profoundly negative. The almost universal consensus, even among mainstream orthodox economists is pessimistic regarding the world economy,” the professor doesn’t just predict, he substantiates his predictions.

Petras isn’t merely referring to economic chaos and crises as causes for concern. His prognosis for the world in general is ominously and universally dismal, which is typical for liberals.

Among his prognostications . . . (Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=11820.)

It's a Wonderful Life, Despite Rich Cohen

It's a Wonderful Life, Despite Rich Cohen

It’s ”really the most terrifying Hollywood film ever made, a tale of hunger, greed and a troubled America.”

Only a misanthropic, jaded contributor to Salon.com, or to one of that website’s twisted sister sites, could interpret Frank Capra’s classic film “It’s a Wonderful Life” in such a fashion as columnist Rich Cohen does.

Sadly, some people get up every morning in America and spend a good part of their day, if not their entire day, not in giving thanks for having been born in and for having prospered in our great land but in thinking up ways to denigrate “their” country, to undermine its values and traditions, or to simply poke holes in good things.

While conferring needlessly gratuitous compliments upon the late renouned director Frank Capra as “an Italian immigrant who . . . lived through the Depression, then through the rise of terrible ideologies,” Cohen concludes that Capra ”knew how bad things could get. He knew, too, that the United States was not immune and this knowledge spiked his love with the worst kind of fear. The result was that special melancholy, blue shot through with black, that runs through his films, the best of which are parables that operate on various levels, some of which were probably unknown to Capra himself.”

The supremely arrogant Cohen knows what that ignorant Italian immigrant couldn’t possibly grasp: In Cohen’s warped view, Capra’s philosophy and films were attributable to the fact that he “loved America [but only] because America saved him.” Capra had no appreciation of his adopted country, no patriotism, no innate sense of rectitude and morality, just a debt of gratitude to America.

To Cohen, the protagonist of “IAWL”, George Bailey, isn’t really saved at all. As Cohen writes at the end of his trash piece, Bailey was living in tawdry Pottersville all along and never did live in wholesome Bedford Falls and Cohen admits he relates to the Pottersville tawdriness.

That’s why, to the omniscient Cohen, in the last scene, “George looks at his friends with terror. He’s happy to be alive, but he’s disillusioned, wised up in just the worst way. He finally knows the world as it really is, what his friends are capable of, the dark potential coiled in each of them . . . It’s the sort of vision that makes a person go insane. . . "
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=10438.)

The End of "The Age of America"

The End of "The Age of America"

We may, or may not, be living through The Age of Aquarius but since astrological ages last on average about 2,150 years it doesn’t matter very much.

More relevant to Americans is the duration of The Age of America which doesn’t refer to our nation’s chronological age but to that period of world history when the United States dominated the world stage. Past tense is apropos since the Age of America is coming to a close.

Liberal commentators, who philosophically if not in actuality resent that dominance, may be applauding the recent forecast issued by the International Monetary Fund that China’s economy will reach and surpass that of the U.S. within five years but most Americans will experience a sense of loss, a feeling of defeat and even grief for the end of greatness at the IMF announcement.

On the other hand, conservative observers, ever-confident in that greatness, are disputing the IMF’s opinion on various bases, most often pointing to the inherent illusory quality of the explosive growth of the Chinese economic model.

For example, Stephen Green in, “Is the ‘Age of America’ Really at an End?” highlights China’s fundamental flaws, its weak yuan and GDP, the continuing poverty of its people, its dearth of close friends in the international community, and its ecological disaster caused in large part by China’s inexorable pursuit of prosperity.

Green concedes significant Chinese strengths, notably its $3 trillion foreign currency reserves, (much of which represents ownership of America), and President Deng Xiaoping’s capitalistic invocation to China’s masses to get out there and get rich! http://bit.ly/eQdgBo

Juxtapose those reserves and that mandate against China’s unprecedented military build-up, against our out-of-control budget . . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=4249)

The Coming Collapse of Liberalism in America

The Coming Collapse of Liberalism in America

Liberalism in America has been in a state of collapse ever since it was born. Most liberals just never knew it and those few who did refused to publicly acknowledge or personally accept it.

Of course, the terms “liberalism” and “liberals” would have to be defined but if modern liberalism began with FDR’s New Deal, reached its glorious fruition under LBJ’s Great Society, and achieved its nadir with BHO’s Obamacare, it would have to be judged an abject failure, as much a failure as its philosophical cousins, Marxism and socialism, which have failed repeatedly and ignominiously.

Such grand designs sometimes take a while to expire, especially when bolstered by repressive political regimes in control of obsequious media–such as in the U.S.S.R., Cuba, North Korea, et al.–but fail they do, eventually. Less competent dictators–think Latin America–come and go like tortillas at a Mexican festival. Still others are in process of failing miserably, as in Venezuela, but fail they will. They always do.

Here at home, Roosevelt’s foundational social initiative, Social Security, is on its last tottery legs, Johnson’s socialized salvation for medical care for elders, Medicare, is even worse off, and Obama’s Obamacare, though not still-born, is hopefully, thankfully, soon to be strangled in its cradle.

With the exception of those who are born and bred to be dependent and subservient, those devoid of ambition and self-worth, and those who are truly needy, Americans, indeed, any free people, tend to reject government imposition. . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=3376)

A Leftist's Less than Wonderful Life

A Leftist's Less than Wonderful Life

It’s ”really the most terrifying Hollywood film ever made, a tale of hunger, greed and a troubled America.”

Only a misanthropic, jaded contributor to Salon.com, or to one of that website’s twisted sister sites, could interpret Frank Capra’s classic film “It’s a Wonderful Life” in such a fashion as columnist Rich Cohen does.

Sadly, some people get up every morning in America and spend a good part of their day, if not their entire day, not in giving thanks for having been born in and for having prospered in our great land but in thinking up ways to denigrate “their” country, to undermine its values and traditions, or to simply poke holes in good things.

While conferring needlessly gratuitous compliments upon the late renouned director Frank Capra as “an Italian immigrant who . . . lived through the Depression, then through the rise of terrible ideologies,” Cohen concludes that Capra ”knew how bad things could get. He knew, too, that the United States was not immune and this knowledge spiked his love with the worst kind of fear. The result was that special melancholy, blue shot through with black, that runs through his films, the best of which are parables that operate on various levels, some of which were probably unknown to Capra himself:” http://tiny.cc/aoj8o

The supremely arrogant Cohen knows what that ignorant Italian immigrant couldn’t possibly grasp: In Cohen’s warped view, Capra’s philosophy and films were attributable to the fact that he “loved America [but only] because America saved him.” Capra had no appreciation of his adopted country, no patriotism, no innate sense of rectitude and morality, just a debt of gratitude to America.

To Cohen, the protagonist of “IAWL”, George Bailey, isn’t really saved at all. As Cohen writes at the end of his trash piece, Bailey was living in the tawdry Pottersville all along and never did live in the wholesome Bedford Falls and Cohen admits he relates to the Pottersville tawdriness.

That’s why, to the omniscient Cohen, in the last scene, “George looks at his friends with terror. He’s happy to be alive, but he’s disillusioned, wised up in just the worst way. He finally knows the world as it really is, what his friends are capable of, the dark potential coiled in each of them . . . It’s the sort of vision that makes a person go insane. . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=3192)

The Insanity Goes On: America and Terrorism

The Insanity Goes On: America and Terrorism

Einstein’s now-famous theory of insanity, doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, is in process of being proven as valid as his equally-famous theory of relativity and the leaders of Western civilization are its most proficient proponents.

America’s and the West’s policy toward Islamic terrorism and terrorists, if indeed it can seriously be considered policy, is fundamentally, and insanely, flawed and reactionary: We wait, they do something, we react. It can be reduced in equivalency to the advice many practical parents give to their sons when they are the victims of school bullies: If he hits you, hit him back or else he will continue to hit you, or worse.

Other parents instruct their kidlets to go tell a teacher or tell an administrator or tell it on some mountain, all of which tactics invariably result in Little Johnny being ostracized, labeled a snitch, being bloodied even more by the bully’s buddies and/or by the bully himself off schoolgrounds in a dark alley.

The chief problem for America and the West with employing either of those approaches is that America and the West aren’t being threatened by some snotnosed kid out to make a schoolyard name for himself or merely acting out some psychological issues. Radical Islamists are certainly out to make a name for themselves and are acting out of a deep-seated and perverted visceral fury, intermixed with a disturbed religious fervor, but their aims go far beyond those of a bully.

Their intent is not to bloody noses but to maim and murder Americans and Western Europeans, to destroy our basic institutions and the societies in which those Americans and Western Europeans live, and to establish a new, world, Islamic-sharia-Koranic order. And there is no one we can turn to to ”tell on” them.

Yet, as seen in the case of the recent Stockholm bombing and the multiple attempts to execute mass mayhem in the United States, from the “Underwear Bomber” last Christmas to the Portland “Holiday Bomber” last week, we patiently wait and wait and wait.

We seem to be waiting for another 9/11, or worse . . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=3070)

America's Veterans

America's Veterans

When you next look at your kids, thank a vet. When you next go shopping, thank a vet. When you next go to church, thank a vet. When you next draw a breath, thank a vet.

It’s far too easy to forget the men and women who made all that looking, shopping, church-going–and breathing– and the hundreds of other things we do daily, possible.

They are America’s veterans, the people who fought, and sometimes died, in America’s wars and who are too often forgotten in our day-to-day lives. They are the men and women who served the people of America. They are the other people, those who risked their lives so that we could shop, worship, and, yes, breathe. . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=2610)

2 Books, 2 Obamas, Same Rage

2 Books, 2 Obamas, Same Rage

Two books about two different Barack Obamas are hot off the press and, based on reviews, promise to be fascinating reading even if the media have afforded them scant attention. One would not please the president, he may be ambivalent about the other.

The first book, The Roots of Obama’s Rage written by Dinesh D’Souza, who is clearly not a member of the president’s fan club, describes Obama as “a much stranger, more determined, and exponentially more dangerous man than you’d ever imagined.”

According to one book review, in D’Souza’s view, Obama doesn’t give much of a hoot about past civil rights struggles, which would seriously disappoint many of his supporters. On the other hand, those critics who believe he is motivated by Marxism-socialism, as his father, Barack Obama Sr. was, will also be disappointed since the author contends that those “isms” are not his inspiration.

His true inspiration, his motivation, the driving force behind Barack Hussein Obama, is much scarier than any Marxist-socialist philosophies.

That review continues, “What really motivates Barack Obama is an inherited rage—an often masked, but profound rage that comes from his African father; an anticolonialist rage against Western dominance, and most especially against the wealth and power of the very nation Barack Obama now leads. It is this rage that explains the previously inexplicable, and that gives us a startling look at what might lie ahead.”

Furthermore, the president sees his own country, our country . . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=2286)

America, the Money Tree

America, the Money Tree

Advertisers know that certain key words attract attention. One of those words is “FREE!” since everyone loves a freebie.

Under the auspices of President Gotrocks, who shovels money out of the United States Treasury as if it were worth nothing, which it soon may be, Uncle Sam has become the very generous old uncle who used to throw quarters or a dollar bill our way when we were kids. The primary difference between Obama and that old unc is that Obama doesn’t toss his own bucks around, he dispenses the taxpayers’ bucks.

Barack Hussein Obama, having now joined the heady ranks of the newly rich himself thanks to his book sales, like others in that nouveau riche classless class such as the Clintons, has no respect for hard-earned money, especially when it’s not his.

Bailouts on top of bailouts, stimuli on top of stimuli, with government bureaucrats handing out stimulus funds as if it were candy, as if it were Marie Antoinette doling out cake to the bourgeosie and hoi polloi, as if it is a useful tool to purchase votes, have caused an unprecedented explosion of American greed.

Where’s my cut of all those trillions, people are thinking and saying, when do we get our share? . . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=1843)

The Last, Best Hope for America: General David Petraeus

The Last Best Hope for America: General David Petraeus

. . . It’s time for General David H. Petraeus to lead this country.

Thirty-six year veteran of the United States Army, West Point grad, four-star general, commander of the U.S. Central Command, former commanding general of the multinational force in Iraq, Ph.D in international relations, if Hollywood tried to cast the perfect president, it couldn’t do any better than with General Petraeus.

Infamously labelled, “General Betrayus” by Moveon.org as he masterfully conducted Bush’s Iraq surge to victory in that beleagured country, Petraeus has expressed as much interest in the presidency as Gen. Sherman after the Civil War.

Nevertheless, David Petraeus is a patriot and his nation is in dire need of his leadership. If he agrees with Rush Limbaugh that the future of the country is at stake, he will step up and take charge.

If he doesn’t do that, he will be complicit in the decline and fall of our great nation.
(Read mre at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=1614)

Wondering about America's Future

Wondering about America's Future

An article title such as ”Wondering about America’s Future” spontaneously evokes suppositions that the writer of said article is fatally pessimistic on whether this nation under God is capable of surviving for the near future and for an extended period thereafter.

I could deny that assumption but I won’t.

Personally, I don’t think we can survive for much longer which is not to say the U.S.A. will disappear from the face of the Earth by next Tuesday. Rather, for our children, what the country has been and what it has meant for centuries will become a dim memory.

Our grandchildren may well come to ask, “What’s a democratic republic, Gramps?” or “Will Great Leader Obama always be the president, Mom?”

That’s a pretty gloomy forecast but one which is unavoidable given the state of the nation as it stands today.

However, another major factor often intrudes on pessimistic outlooks, also given the nature of man, and that is a ray or two of hope always trying to pierce the dismal clouds. It’s the American way and character to be positive and optimistic but even the most positive and optimistic American should take pause at recent events and developments:
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=1587)

Crouching America, Hidden Chinese Dragon, Part Two

Crouching America, Hidden Chinese Dragon, Part Two
Merriam-webster.com defines “crouch” as follows: intransitive verb 1 a : to lower the body stance especially by bending the legs b : to lie close to the ground with the legs bent 2 : to bend or bow servilely : cringe 3 : to stand at a low height transitive verb : to bow especially in humility or fear; bend

I posed a question at the end of Part One: “Is Obama’s crouching, bowing, and scraping to foreign leaders all part of our socialistic leader’s stated intent of wealth distribution not just to America’s needy but to the planet?”

Obviously, I don’t know the answer to that query. I can’t read the man’s mind, I can only judge him by his actions and words.

We do know, the world knows because we have witnessed it, that our president has an affinity for bowing to foreign leaders and potentates. Whether those actions merely reflect an innate humility–which is counterintuitive–or an abject sense of subservience–which is repugnant and unprecedented for an American president–is as yet unclear.

What we also know is that, despite his naïveté about the nuances of foreign relations, that Obama is a committed internationalist who implicitly trusts in the gentle graces of the most corrupt institution in the history of international bodies, the United Nations.

We know, too, that he inclines toward socialism and “sharing the wealth,” that wealth being the hard-earned wealth of Americans and America.

So, where do we go from here? . . .

(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=1488)

Part One: The Paper Tiger Surrenders in Pieces

Intimations of Destiny Part One: The Paper Tiger Surrenders in Pieces

I had the pleasure of visiting with a member of the newest generation last weekend, not with teenagers who, whether they like it or not, are really part of the present generation, but with my 2 year old grandson.

With all the upheaval going on in Washington where Obama is so obsessed with radical change for its own sake and throughout the planet where revolutionary and terrorist forces are in play to complement Obama’s radicalism in their own land and in their own ways, his future isn’t promising.

Other movements are also disquieting for him and his generation.

In a number of quarters we are witnessing efforts to unseat the formerly almighty dollar as the world’s preeminent currency of exchange. If successful as they very well may be, those efforts may not alter Americans’ day-to-day life at first but would be a clear signal that the “American Era,” our dominance over world affairs, is over.

The long-term effects of what lay ahead, perhaps the China Era, as many believe, may be conjectural but in no way suggest good tidings for the United States and its approximately 305 million citizens, or for my kids and grandkids.

More imminent than Sino supremacy over the planet and its peoples and the resultant effects on our country is the matter of wars we are about to lose, lose for the same reasons we lost the last two–the lack of a resolve to win.

One of those current wars, the most consequential by far, is the War on Terror which has unilterally been suspended by the Obama administration due to a lack of interest in favor of his naive hands across the seas policies.

As with any war, if the opponent concurred in the suspension of hostilities, we would be in a state of truce. If not, as is the case with Islamic terrorists, we would be, and are, in a seriously disadvantaged and dangerous position.

Our president is so enamored of himself that he seems to believe that if he extends his, America’s, open hand in friendship and conciliation, Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will unclench his smarmy fist. Mahmoud has already and repeatedly shown that Iran’s fist is still very much clenched, save that one middle finger salute in our direction.

I have no idea what Obama really expects from his make-nice policies toward America’s unrepentant enemies. However, you could sooner anticipate the lamb lying down with the lion at night and believing it will be grazing when the sun rises than expect Iran in 2009 to extend an unclenched fist.

It matters not that the American hand has been rebuffed and bitten by the Persian lion. Hope springs eternal for this ass of a president with whom we are burdened and who almost makes one yearn for a return of the most incompetent leader in our history, bumbling Jimmy Carter.

Barack Obama is a man-in-waiting for that mantle of most grossly, naively incompetent commander-in-chief to be conferred on him. Based on his first six months, he is clearly on target.

It won’t be conferred as a result of China’s machinations and its economic boom which will take a while. It will be rightfully awarded when Obama retreats under fire and loses the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, probably within the next two years or less but definitely after the 2010 congressional elections.

Obama will slog through at least until December, 2010 after which he can with relative safety run, hide, and surrender and keep the baying hounds of the Left at bay and stop their sniping at his heels, all the while pretending he wanted to win in the first place.

The irony is that he, we, will lose those wars not because of Obamian initiatives and lack thereof but because he will mindlessly pursue the same initiatives and lack thereof which led to our defeats in Korea and Viet Nam.

One of America’s greatest generals, Douglas MacArthur,

was eerily prescient of America’s decline and fall as a great power half a century ago when spoke the memorable line that was disregarded and forgotten by our leaders the moment it was uttered.

“In war there is no substitute for victory,” said MacArthur, a truism that speaks for itself yet has been ignored since it was spoken.

Removed from command as Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers by President Truman in 1951 for insubordination, MacArthur technically was fired for refusing to heed the president’s orders. In fact he was dismissed for failure to cease and desist in his attempts to achieve victory in Korea.

(For a concise and scholarly account of the Truman-MacArthur Korean conflict, see http://www.crf-usa.org/bill-of-rights-in-action/bria-17-3-b.html.)

Harry Truman was absolutely correct in overruling MacArthur’s impertinence. It was his right and duty as America’s civilian commander to exert his authority under the Constitution. He was absolutely wrong, however, in disregarding MacArthur’s insights and premonitions.

The consequences: . . .

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Ironies On Top of Ironies

Ironies On Top of Ironies

“The essential feature of irony is the indirect presentation of a contradiction between an action or expression and the context in which it occurs,” according to Dictionary.com. Put more simply, it’s ironic when things happen that are the precise antitheses of what we would expect or wish to happen.

The world and the nation are awash in ironies today, some salutary, most depressing. A few examples:

Wartime Irony: Our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan are doing their damnedest to repel and defeat a ragtag bunch of turbaned psychopaths intent on mindless jihad and salivating for those 72 virgins promised by Allah. All they are asked to do is make the ultimate sacrifice and surrender their lives for Islam in the process of killing the infidel enemy.

Yet, though many live in the same primitive squalor in which their forebears lived hundreds of years ago, our troops have been contending with their modern weapons of limited but deadly destruction such as rpg’s, ied’s and other weapons of guerilla warfare furnished by Syria and Iran.

Now, lo and behold, they are upgrading, thanks to the United States. High-tech inclinometers, gyro chips, field-programmable gate arrays and GPS systems developed by our own military to battle their foes are being employed to more effectively cause havoc and kill our soldiers: http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=49354.

And why is that? “Technology that is legal to buy and sell within the U.S. but is illegal to export because of its potential military applications has been used to build weapons deployed against U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan because of loose export controls,” according to a GAO report.

So, because of lax enforcement of our laws and greedy exporters, the United States painstakingly and expensively develops technologies which are then illegally sent to our enemies to enable them to prolong the conflict and exact more punishment on America’s military.

Clintonesque Irony: Virginia State Senator Creigh Deeds, campaigning on a relative shoestring when contrasted with his chief opponent, Terry MacAuliffe, trounced the former Democratic National Committee Chairman and Clinton confidante in Virginia’s gubernatorial primary contest.

Despite his meager funding, a mere $3.7 million, half of fundraiser-extraordinaire McAuliffe’s haul, Deeds was able to whup the former Clintonite and an extreme leftist, Brian J. Moran. He scored almost 50% of the vote in a primary in which only 6% of registered voters bothered to make their voice heard. Deeds was so strapped for cash that he drove himself to campaign appearances in order to save money for television spots.

The wealthy late-starter McAuliffe was considered a shoo-in earlier in the race and stumped the state with his ace in the hole, former President Bill Clinton, hoping that some of Bubba’s charisma would rub off. Instead, some of Bubba’s dirt may have rubbed off as Dems showed once again that they have no loyalty to the past and especially to the Clintons and their henchmen.

Deeds, a middle of the roader, will face conservative Republican Bob McDonnell in 2010, to whom he had lost in 2005 in a run for Virginia attorney general: http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=49377.

His win over McAuliffe and Moran this time around is testimony to the fact that money and contacts count for little when it comes to Virgina voters. Those voters will have another shot at returning the state to the Republican column after 8 years of wild spending and wilder tax increases under Democrat Governors Mark Warner and Tim Kaine.

More ironically relevant, the Clintonistas have been handed their walking papers at the top of which it reads, “Your era and charisma have come and gone.”

Israeli Irony: The Jewish website Haaretz.com was almost giddy in its report on November 5th, 2008 that about 77% of American Jews had voted for Barack Obama over John McCain, according to exit polling. Alleging two years of smears, Jeremy Ben-Ami of the J Street lobby group said, “Surrogates and right-wing political operatives in our community stopped at nothing in their efforts to sway Jewish voters against Obama.” http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1034574.html

Well, obviously, any swaying was ineffective at best and Jeremy got his wish in the election of Obama with the help of a near-record number of American Jews. Jewish voters . . .
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Our "Values" President?

Our “Values” President?
Specifically, what “values” our president holds dear to his heart are difficult to define or divine.

Are they the “values” of what he called, “sharing the wealth” and redistributing America’s wealth with those who have done jacksquat to earn it while stripping hard-working Americans of the fruits of their many labors?

Are they the “values” of aborting as many pre-born babies as he can get away with while professing an oh-so-sincere desire to make aborting the innocent a “rarity?”

Are they the “values” of subverting America’s military–and our schools–with homosexuals, undermining our economy with debt that our grandkids will be paying off until they are grandparents, and instituting “green” policies that are as functional as teats on a bull?

Nah, they are the values of his concept of “national security.”

In Obama’s commencement address to the graduates of the Naval Academy at Annapolis, young men and women who couldn’t walk out or extend a middle finger if they wanted a career in our Navy, our president said, “When America strays from our values, it not only undermines the rule of law, it alienates us from our allies, it energizes our adversaries and it endangers our national security and the lives of our troops:” http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.bd0713f4765981d1edbe5b522ce08354.3e1&show_article=1.

That pronouncement was as true as rain and as misleading as only this president can mislead.

Message to Obama: You have demonstrated repeatedly that you have no clue as to America’s true values. You have demonstrated with your silvery tongue that you are adept at talking the talk but when it comes to walking the walk you talked you are inept but supremely confident that your mainstream media lackeys will never expose either your ineptitude nor your true, malevolent purposes.

Our supposed allies are committed to their own survival and prosperity, not ours, except as it serves their purposes. Our known adversaries don’t need to be energized with you in office since you seem to have far more empathy for them than for America. As for our national security I do have to wonder which nation’s values and security you have in mind since they are obviously not ours.

With every day and with every utterance of this president it becomes clearer that 53% of voters made a serious mistake on November 4th, 2008. Whether our nation will ever recover from that error is very questionable.

(http://genelalor.com)

CRINGE, FUNNY, AND IRRELEVANT TALES

CRINGE, FUNNY, AND IRRELEVANT TALES

There were 8 million stories in the old “Naked City” television series and it sometimes seems another 8 million hit the newswires daily. Some few are cringe-worthy, some evoke a chuckles, but most are overblown instances of the need for newspeople to publish or perish, aka, Who Cares Stories.

CRINGE STORIES:

A. Madonna to buy off Guy Ritchie with a divorce settlement of up to $90 million: http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D953B1Q01&show_article=1. This is cringe-worthy only because Ritchie should have taken the multi-wed slut from Michigan for at least $100 million!

B. Honest to goodness cringe story: United States Excluded from Latin America Summit: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a0a8IQrfwSFU&refer=worldwide. China, Russia, and even Iran are making inroads with our Latin neighbors and making a joke of the nearly two century old Monroe Doctrine which defined that area as part of our “sphere of influence.” The handwriting is on history’s wall and it reads, “America’s Day is Over.” All empires eventually reach a conclusion but the American Empire is going into the dustbin of history with barely a fight. T.S. Eliot called it in “The Hollow Men:” which ends, “This is the way the [American] world ends/ Not with a bang but a whimper.”

On the lighter side,

CHUCKLE STORIES:

A. The Iraqi shoe-thrower: http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/12/15/mideast/shoe.php. Although I realize throwing one’s shoe at someone is considered a deep insult in the Arab world, as is just exposing the soles of one’s shoes, which is the reason Arabs wash their feet before entering a mosque. I don’t know or care about the derivation of that tradition but both the shoe-throw-as-insult and the foot washing no doubt find their origins in all that camel dung that Arabs probably step in daily and I imagine camel dung caked on shoes or sandals or between toes isn’t a pretty sight. President Bush, to his credit, seemed entertained rather than upset as he deftly dodged the missiles and kept smiling. Personally, I’d hurl my shoes and my dirty jockeys at any leader of the military that humiliated and defeated my country. Living in a third-rate nation must be a daily downer.

B. New York’s Fat Tax: ...

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