top of the heap to third world status in one generation

[White Beard]

Apologies, I missed you asking about it.

It’s in the future, still. My current situation makes growing out of the question, so it is AT LEAST six months away, after I relocate. Depending on where I relocate to, I’ll have to wait for spring. (“It’s complicated”)

You and I may agree or disagree with the place / role / status of women in Muslim societies, but a great many feel Muslim women in Muslim cultures feel respected, protected, and spared by the customs.

Just today, I was hearing about hard line support for the Daesh ‘caliphate’ among refugee women in Syria. Yes, they want the rigor of ISIS, contrary as it may seem.

A fine evening to you

 

[TychoMonolyth]

For the most part, we're a product of our environment. A child who's beaten and sees dad beat mom, mom beat dad, will grow up to think "oh.... that's what love is. That's normal." Not always on the surface, but underneath it's always there. A child witnessing violence reacts as if it's happening to them. It's also been proven that there are DNA changes after someone witnesses a traumatic events. Expose them to it enough to desensitize them and you have one hell of a dog eat dog person.

When it's all you know, backed by a fear of being suspected or god forbid discovered, you'll convince yourself and believe anything. To the bottom of your soul. It doesn't even need that big of a push. Look at the amount of people, muslim and christian alike, who think God will hear them if they pray hard enough, with all their might, and ignore them for a reason. Totally bat shit crazy.

It's ironic that the USA's war cry is "We will force you to be free." Is it any wonder they're hated in the Arab world? It makes it awfully easy for the rulers to convince the plebs to rally around their cause. That being, remove the infidels from muslim countries. Keep in mind that prior to Jean Paul Sartre's writing, which the Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini studied and adopted its beliefs while living in exile in Paris, Muslim Mullahs preached non-violence with the "God punishes those who love him most" mantra.

Our societies just don't mix. It's Water and Oil. The west has 2 options:

1. Invade, take no prisoners, take the country, then execute the leadership and implement something akin to the marshal plan.
   or
2. GTF out of the muslim world and let them evolve as they will. Let the people solve their own problems. Real or perceived. As severe as it is, STOP all muslim immigration and deport immigrants convicted of violent crimes. Stop ALL purchases of Arab oil. Stop ALL Arab banking in US Banks.

This might mean the US needs to actually swallow the Green New Deal, as shitty as it sounds, and force cars to go electric for a start. Continuing down the path driven by business profits can only lead to massive failure. The only people who will temporarily win are the recipients of elite profits. It's temporary because pitchforks will inevitably come for them. And that really will push the US into the third world.

 

[Gry]

For the most part, we're a product of our environment. A child who's beaten and sees dad beat mom, mom beat dad, will grow up to think "oh.... that's what love is. That's normal." Not always on the surface, but underneath it's always there. A child witnessing violence reacts as if it's happening to them. It's also been proven that there are DNA changes after someone witnesses a traumatic events. Expose them to it enough to desensitize them and you have one hell of a dog eat dog person.

When it's all you know, backed by a fear of being suspected or god forbid discovered, you'll convince yourself and believe anything. To the bottom of your soul. It doesn't even need that big of a push. Look at the amount of people, muslim and christian alike, who think God will hear them if they pray hard enough, with all their might, and ignore them for a reason. Totally bat shit crazy.

It's ironic that the USA's war cry is "We will force you to be free." Is it any wonder they're hated in the Arab world? It makes it awfully easy for the rulers to convince the plebs to rally around their cause. That being, remove the infidels from muslim countries. Keep in mind that prior to Jean Paul Sartre's writing, which the Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini studied and adopted its beliefs while living in exile in Paris, Muslim Mullahs preached non-violence with the "God punishes those who love him most" mantra.

Our societies just don't mix. It's Water and Oil. The west has 2 options:

1. Invade, take no prisoners, take the country, then execute the leadership and implement something akin to the marshal plan.
   or
2. GTF out of the muslim world and let them evolve as they will. Let the people solve their own problems. Real or perceived. As severe as it is, STOP all muslim immigration and deport immigrants convicted of violent crimes. Stop ALL purchases of Arab oil. Stop ALL Arab banking in US Banks.,

This might mean the US needs to actually swallow the Green New Deal, as shitty as it sounds, and force cars to go electric for a start. Continuing down the path driven by business profits can only lead to massive failure. The only people who will temporarily win are the recipients of elite profits. It's temporary because pitchforks will inevitably come for them. And that really will push the US into the third world.

We once had a president which recommended just that.
There was an industry and an agency which did not
approve.
The irony to this is that those at the apex have this worship thing
going for all things German, and no country on earth has embraced
green technology more effectively.
When I pause and consider how differently things could have been
had we wholeheartedly embraced such an approach at the time it had
originally been proposed, it does not leave me feeling good.

I do not agree at all with your assessment of Islamic
cultures.
Western peoples have interfaced with them successfully
for a long time. It is history that does not get spoken of a great
deal, but it certainly is there.
Really enjoyed reading what you chose to share.

 

[Gry]

[youtubeif]anB89MgrUNI[/youtubeif]

 

[Gry]

Guaido, Guaido, Guaido.

 

[Gry]

The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Prince, by Nicolo Machiavelli
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1232/1232-h/1232-h.htm

 

[Gry]

Machiavelli - The Prince Explained In 3 Minutes


[youtubeif]IHcqIl8vT44[/youtubeif]

 

[Gry]

Very neat Rolling Stone article on Willie Nelson, loaded with really neat material.
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/willie-nelson-weed-issue-826290/

 

[jump117]

“What is ‘The Armenian Genocide’?”
...
Perhaps you don’t know that the Turks are Muslim, as are (were?) the Armenians (IIRC), ...

Armenians are not Muslims and have never been. The Apostolic Church of Armenia is one of the oldest Christian churches, the baptism of Armenia took place in 301 AD.

 

[Gry]

Mere days after victory over Japan a young Captain John Birch abandoned radio protocol while

speaking with a pal with whom he had intended to meet up and celebrate.

They each thought conflict was done and that everything was going to be just fine.

They both described in detail the routes they would take to meet up ...

 

[Gry]

The Date the Dollar Die
Peter Tosh


I see Johnny with his head hanging down
Wondering how many schillings left in that pound
Cost of living it is rising so high
Dollar see that have heart attack and die
Bills and budgets are waiting
Finance ministers anticipating
Unemployment is rising
And I hear my people, they're crying
The day the dollar die
Things are gonna be better
The day the dollar die
No more corruption
The day the dollar die
People will respect eachother
The day the dollar die
Tell me brother
Is there something I can do
Don't you let frustrations make you blue
Time is hard
And I know that is true
But if you pick yourself up
That's all you've got to do
Things can be much better
If we can come together
Long time we been divided
And it's time we be inited
The day the dollar die
Gonna be…

 

[Gry]

OAC's Harvard educated campaign manager wearing a [FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Chandra Bose tee shirt might have seen as
[/FONT][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]just a bit of a dead giveaway.
[/FONT]
Remember the milk bottles at the old time carnival's ?



[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]
[/FONT]

 

[White Beard]

Armenians are not Muslims and have never been. The Apostolic Church of Armenia is one of the oldest Christian churches, the baptism of Armenia took place in 301 AD.

Clearly I did *not* remember correctly.

 

[White Beard]

Done my time with the John Birch Society...same dishonest fuckers we’re dealing with now, same elitist point of view, same idolatry of Plato’s “philosopher/kings” ruling the rest of society, same scorched-earth arguments and tactics...

 

[Gry]

Done my time with the John Birch Society...same dishonest fuckers we’re dealing with now, same elitist point of view, same idolatry of Plato’s “philosopher/kings” ruling the rest of society, same scorched-earth arguments and tactics...

Like many things, essentially a myth designed and built to protect something that they want to remain hidden.

 

[White Beard]

Mrs. Chennault, yes? With a portrait of her husband, Clare

 

[armedoldhippy]

Done my time with the John Birch Society...same dishonest fuckers we’re dealing with now, same elitist point of view, same idolatry of Plato’s “philosopher/kings” ruling the rest of society, same scorched-earth arguments and tactics...

the Birchers make the Klan look like the compassionate neighbors you always wanted. Klansmen have been known to grow up & recant; Birchers die as true believers...

 

[Gry]

UNDERSTANDING
SPECIAL OPERATIONS
And Their Impact on The Vietnam War Era
1989 Interview with L. Fletcher Prouty
Colonel USAF (Retired)


Military Experiences
Part II: 1945-1961
On Okinawa: The Surrender of Japan,
and a 500,000 manpack Re-Routed to Korea and Indochina
Prouty: On September 1st, 1945 we left Okinawa after an enormous hurricane and flew north to Tokyo over the storm, which meant we had to fly at about 14,000 feet. We never saw any of the islands as we approached, but our navigator got us directly up there so that we looked down in the clouds and right in the top of the clouds we saw the top of Mt. Fuji. With that as a fix we went down through the clouds into Tokyo Bay. We had no electronic navigation aides, but of course Mt. Fuji was a good fix. We broke out of the clouds at about 1100 feet in heavy rain. There, almost right under us, was the U.S. Navy anchored almost in a big crescent of ships with the battleship Missouri as a centerpiece. September 2nd, the day after we made this first flight into Japan, was the day the Japanese surrendered on the U.S. Navy Battleship Missouri to General MacArthur.
We followed a small river to an air base called Atsugi and landed there. We found out after we had landed that, out of about fifty airplanes that had taken off that morning, only three of us had arrived there -- because the weather was severe. It was just the luck we had of seeing that little tip of Fuji that made it possible for us to get in. But it turned the tables on us. Because here we were: we were the second plane -- there was one plane there and shortly after we landed a third plane came. And Atsugi was surrounded by several hundred thousand Japanese. And we thought: we were in a deathly war only a few days before; we'd hit them with atom bombs -- what's our reception going to be? And here we were just in an unarmed transport plane.
Our cargo, interestingly enough, was 44 Marines. The other airplanes had equal numbers but, with only three planes we had about 130 Marines. They were going to become the elite guard for MacArthur as he set up his headquarters in Tokyo. So with 140 Marines I don't know how long we could have lasted. But, the Japanese had been told by the Emperor that the war was over. They made no hostile moves. In fact, they came forward and by hand off-loaded our airplane. We had three jeeps on that plane. And by standing on the flatbed of a truck, they lifted the jeep from the plane onto the truck and then lifted the jeep onto the ground. And these were our enemies the week before.
It's unbelievable, to think of how wartime emotions can shift immediately. Of course we need to think more of that, because our wartime alliance with the Soviet Union ended in the same way. When the hostile battles against the Germans and the Japanese ended, they became our friends immediately; and the Russians became our enemies. It's a very strange thing. I don't think that historians have dealt properly with the enormous differences that took place -- even before the end of the war (I was going to say at the end of World War II) -- even before the end of World War II.
I'd like to recap a few months. The Germans surrendered on May 8th, I believe, 1945. Before their surrender the German foreign minister, Count Lutz Schwerin Von Krosigk made the Iron Curtain speech in Berlin. Not Winston Churchill. A Nazi made that speech. You can read it in the London Times of May 3, 1945. He stated that the Russians were going to lower an Iron Curtain over Eastern Europe. Churchill read that and was impressed by it. He had yet to meet Truman officially. (Truman had just become President after the death of Roosevelt.) He wrote Truman a letter in which he spoke about this Iron Curtain being dropped over Eastern Europe. Truman was fascinated with the letter, invited Churchill (later, 1946 I believe) to come to the States, and it resulted in the famous Iron Curtain speech at Westminster College, Fulton, Missouri.
Churchill did not originate the Iron Curtain concept; the Germans did. And the Germans that did were the ones who were in contact with our OSS and who had been led to believe there would be life after war if they allied themselves again with the Americans. Even the Iron Curtain speech had its origins during the war instead of after the war. These are interesting events when you think back to them.
I couldn't help but think, as we rolled this airplane on Atsugi air base in front of the hundreds of thousands of Japanese, that here were our enemies -- and immediately they were not. They came over and helped us unload the plane. And they've been our friends ever since. I've lived in Japan for three years since then and never was a victim of any kind of unfriendly act in Japan, under any circumstances, over the years.
Incidentally, Atsugi became the Japanese and Far Eastern headquarters for our CIA in later years and is a very active base for that purpose. So a lot of these things that we date September 2, 1945, need to be carefully analyzed for their impact upon events that have happened since then -- the Cold War and all that sort of thing.
There was also another important event: on the day we left Okinawa to go to Japan, I noticed that our Navy was loading ships in Naha harbor at Okinawa. When I came back from the flight -- we were living very close to the harbor -- I went down to the harbor and happened to run into a Navy captain who was the harbormaster.
Ratcliffe: You came back from the flight on the same day?
Prouty: Same day. It was a short flight. Four hours up and four hours back. We couldn't stay; there was no place to stay. In fact, we couldn't even get fuel. We had to carry enough fuel up to get back. That caused us quite a bit of trouble. We lost quite a few planes that way -- they didn't have enough fuel to get back. And we didn't have enough experience with that operation. But we got back that day.
The next day I went down to the harbor and met the harbormaster. Okinawa had been absolutely loaded with supplies for the invasion of Japan. It had been planned that 500,000 men would invade Japan and we had stock-piled what we call a "500,000 Manpack." That's enough equipment, medicine, radios, everything, for 500,000 men for a certain fixed period of time. I wish I could tell you, but it's probably a month, or two months, something like that.
Ratcliffe: 500,000 men.
Prouty: A "500,000 Manpack" of supplies had been stacked up there on Okinawa. Now of course that wasn't all that would go into the invasion, because ships that had been preloaded for the invasion would also come in. But anyway, on Okinawa there was an enormous amount of equipment. And all of a sudden it was being reloaded on trucks, put back on transport ships, and sailing out to sea.
The first thing I asked the commander was, "Is this all going back to the United States?" He said, "No. We don't want any of that back. Anything that isn't going to be used is going to be junked." He said, "This is going to Hanoi in Indochina." And he said, "Actually about half is going to Indochina."
At that time, that didn't have the same impact on me that it would have today. I've since learned that when it got to Hanoi -- to the harbor of Haiphong -- it was turned over to the representatives of Ho Chi Minh. We gave this equipment to Ho Chi Minh, who was with our own Army, with General Gallagher of the U.S. Army. We were equipping his people so they could help us round up renegade Japanese -- and this would be their way of arming and putting together their original army in North Vietnam.
Now this was September 2, 1945. Also on that date, by another coincidence, with the American Army General Gallagher standing beside him and OSS representative Lou Conein there, Ho Chi Minh read the Declaration of Independence of Vietnam. He established the national independence of that country on that same date that the Japanese signed the surrender.
It's an historic date, because it marks the beginning of our entry on the ground in Vietnamese affairs, which lasted from 45 until '75. Most historians don't use that 20-year period from '45 to '65, when our Marines finally landed on the shores of Vietnam. They forget that we were there for 20 years before that. We'll say more about that as we go along, but this is an important date.



[SIZE=+1]Special Operations are an ad hoc creation -- probably
the strongest ad hoc creation in our government today. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=+1] -- L. Fletcher Prouty, 1999 [/SIZE]​

 

[Gry]

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]C[/FONT]heck out the aforementioned [FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]OSS representative Lou Conein,
[/FONT][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]be sure to look at what was added to his CV in 72, and by whom.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucien_Conein[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg%20Subject%20Index%20Files/C%20Disk/CIA%20Conein%20Lucius%20E/Item%2001.pdf
[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] [/FONT]

 

[White Beard]

Did you ever read “A Bright and Shining Lie”?
Subtitle is “John Paul Vann and the American experience in Vietnam”

It essentially maps the things revealed in the Pentagon Papers to the career of a US ‘outside agitator’ in ‘Nam. It lays a great deal out.

Also, very well written as I recall.