"GREAT WORDS FROM GREAT MEN"

"GREAT WORDS FROM GREAT MEN"

          "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is it's natural manure".---Thomas Jefferson.  I truly believe that this country was brought about because of men who were visionaries.  Certainly Jefferson was a man who was way ahead of his time.   He served in various political offices, including governor of Virginia, Secretary of State and eventually President.  While he was in the White House he vanquished the Barbary pirates who had been capturing American merchant ships, pillaging valuable cargoes and enslaving crew members, demanding huge ransoms for their release.   President John F. Kennedy made the following opening remarks at a White House dinner honoring a gathering of Nobel Prize winners, April 29, 1962.  “I have been impressed by the intellect of Thomas Jefferson.   Ladies and gentlemen: I want to tell you how welcome you are to the White House.  I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.”

          John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Navy hero, Senator and  35th President of the United States from January 1961 until he was assassinated in November 1963. Notable events during his presidency included the Bay of Pigs Invasion, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Space Race—by initiating Project Apollo (which would culminate in the moon landing), the building of the Berlin Wall, the African-American Civil Rights Movement, and increased U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War.   He was greatly assisted by his wife, Jackie, as she brought a veneer of culture.  Some of the great words that he said were "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country."   He was proud of his Naval service and about that he said, "And any man who may be asked in this century what he did to make his life worthwhile, I think can respond with a good deal of pride and satisfaction: 'I served in the United States Navy.'"  If he had lived, I believe that he would have been ranked as one of our great presidents.

          "A good Navy is not a provocation to war. It is the surest guaranty of peace.", so said President Theodore Roosevelt, December 2nd 1902, in his second annual message to Congress.   Teddy was an American of the first magnitude.  He ate, slept, and lived to be an American.   Roosevelt was a sickly child who suffered from asthma. To overcome his physical weakness, he embraced a strenuous life.  He is known for his exuberant personality, range of interests and achievements, and his leadership of the Progressive Movement, as well as his "cowboy" persona and robust masculinity.  His book The Naval War of 1812, published in 1882 established him as a learned historian and writer, but he was much, much more than that.  Following the death of his first wife, Alice, Roosevelt temporarily left politics and became a cattle rancher in the Dakotas.   He was a governor of New York, the police commissioner of New York City and, of course, there was the Rough Riders.   His position on being an American went like this...“There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism. When I refer to hyphenated Americans, I do not refer to naturalized Americans. Some of the very best Americans I have ever known were naturalized Americans, Americans born abroad. But a hyphenated American is not an American at all.    Our allegiance must be purely to the United States. We must unsparingly condemn any man who holds any other allegiance.”

          Harry S. Truman  was the 33rd President of the United States, and  succeeded to the presidency on April 12, 1945, when FDR died after months of declining health. Under Truman, the U.S. successfully concluded World War II; in the aftermath of the conflict, tensions with the Soviet Union increased, marking the start of the Cold War.  Harry was a plain-talking man from Missouri, a US Senator, and a veteran of World War 1.  He said civil rights was a moral priority, and submitted the first comprehensive legislation in 1948, and issued Executive Orders to start racial integration of the military and federal agencies that year.

One of his quotes is "It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.", and it is indicative of his no-nonsense approach to everything.  He will always be remembered because, on his desk sat this pledge…"The buck stops here."

          With men like these, and others, the United States rose to prominence in the 20^th Century.  We’ve not fared well in the 21^st Century, so far, but my expectation is that when a hero is needed, one(or more) will come forward.  For me, I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States, and to the republic for which it stands…now, and forever.

"SCRAPS FROM MY DESK DRAWER"

"SCRAPS FROM MY DESK DRAWER"

          There have been several stories recently, about the poor condition of our roads and bridges.  Didn't the government throw out 800 BILLION dollars to fix them, about 3 or 4 years ago?  I don't know about you, but that's a huge amount of money to me...and the roads and bridges are still not fixed?  So, how about somebody in the bookkeeping field telling me where all that money went.   Now the government, the president actually, wants to give out another huge amount of money to do the big fix on roads and bridges.   Am I the only one that thinks we are spending ourselves into bankruptcy?   It was Uncle Joe Biden, I believe, that said we had to spend more money to get ourselves out of the fix we were in...and that hasn't worked, has it?  What, if anything, that this administration has proposed, has worked out the way it was supposed to?  Of course, there is a school of thought that it's working out EXACTLY as planned...we ARE headed in a downward spiral, and we WERE told that America was going to be fundamentally changed.

          Another group of people, and this one includes me, believes(but cannot prove) that the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court made his decision on the healthcare law based on a death threat on him and his family.   There have been several attempts at bring a court case against the president, based on the belief

and their evidence, that he was not American-born and therefore could not have been eligible to be president.  A person, ANY person, brought up in an atmosphere of thuggery, is going to operate that way.  The president was never exposed to the American experience as a child, a teen or at any point in his adult life.  He is an outsider, believing in heavy-handed methods as practiced by Chicago hoods in the last century.  Any judge, at any level, who fears for his or her life, as well as that of their family is not going to do anything stupid, and that includes continuing action on a case against the president.

          The current president has made it crytal clear that if he cannot get Congress to do what he wants, he'll do it by Executive Order.  Does it matter that he skirts the Constitution and the Bill of Rights?  Apparently not.  There is no hue and cry coming from the public about these little chunks of our freedom that the president is cutting away.  He may not have written more EO's than any other president, but that doesn't matter because the ones that he HAS written are the ones that are hurting us.  His so-called advisors, if you put them all together in a darkened room, wouldn't have enough common sense to switch on the light.   This administration has one of the worst, if not THE worst group of advisors ever.  They either don't tell the president anything(he finds out things by reading newspapers and watching TV) or they DO tell him and he doesn't understand what he's been told.   Either way, this president doesn't instill confidence in my mind, or in the minds of people around the world, apparently.   Various members of the administration have lied to Congress but not one of them has lost their job.  Instead they are moved to someplace where

the press cannot get to them, or they go on extended administrative leave.  That last one, if you think about it, is a paid vacation.

          America...the America in which I grew up and the one for which I served in the armed forces, is on very shaky ground.  This administration has deliberately, and systematically, attacked the American Dream, the armed forces, and just about anything it puts its hand on.  The president is a person who believes in things that are exactly opposite of what America is, was, and should be.  He says one thing out of one side of his mouth, and says something completely different out of the other side of his mouth, and does exactly opposite of what he just told you he was going to do.  I've said this before...if the president's lips are moving, he's lying.

          This administration, and in particular, this president has made up so many things, and failed to carry them through, except where it benefits him or his cronies.  With the midterm elections coming up, patriotic Americans will go to the polls and, after they show a photo ID, will be able to vote.  Will they vote for the status quo, which is taking the United States in a downward spiral, or will they change the majority in Congress and give us a chance to bring back the ship of state to the previous, and prosperous, course. 

IGNORANCE AND APATHY

IGNORANCE AND APATHY

          Maybe this will come as a shock to you, but America, the once-great nation, is being systematically poisoned.  No, not by chemicals(but I wouldn't doubt that either), but by the public being ignorant and apathetic...and they don't know or care that they are.  As there are probably some people reading this that will think differently, let them come forward with some solutions.

When you have an electorate that can accept slick slogans instead of sensible solutions, that is taking the easy way out and, in the end, proves not to be easy at all.  When the electorate chooses a candidate based on what he/she says, rather than any past performance, that is also the easy way out and, as has been pointed out, does not prove to be the easy way at all.

          I have what I call the three generation theory, and it goes like this...my generation, which is Generation 1, is the last one with a direct connection to "the war" and, to my generation that is World War Two.  My children, and they are Generation 2, know of the war and treat it as history and, perhaps have a family member that served in the war, plus they will still experience SOME of what America was, but is changing into.  My grandchildren, Generation 3, will only know of the war as a history lesson, if they learn anything about it at all in school,  they will accept America as they find it...and it will be vastly different from the America of my generation.   The crux of the matter will be that they don't know and don't care about what came before.

          Therein lies the problem.  Schools are not teaching about America.  They don't teach our values, our history, our governmental system.   Politicians spout off with empty platitudes which sound good on television but have no actual meaning, and, if you watch TV much you'll notice that many of them are speaking in an empty chamber...much like their heads.   Our founding fathers knew, and prepared for, an event which is unfolding before our eyes...the usurpation of power by one branch of the government.  They gave us a system of checks and balances which was designed to combat that very thing...provided that the three branches actually worked.  It seems that no one cares much about those checks and balances, at least not to the point where they could(and should) invoke sanctions against the usurper(s).

          Americans, by and large, simply don't know and don't care what happens in government.   So long as they have sports on television, celebrities having babies out of wedlock, divorces that may end spectacularly, and they can live those lives vicariously, they're happy.  What a sad state of affairs this is.  The United Negro College Fund motto is "A mind is a terrible thing to waste", and to that you can add "A whole country is also a terrible thing to waste", and we're doing it.   You can see that the country is being wasted when you watch members of Generation 3 answer questions asked of them. 

          On a recent man-in-the-street series of interviews, when he was asked about government, the wars, the economy, this man(who I judged to be in his mid-40’s, and therefore in Generation 2) answered everything with “I don’t care”.

Another outstanding example was a young man(I judged him to be about 25, and therefore in Generation 3) was asked about our borders.  He replied that we didn’t need borders and when told that borders define a country he said “Who needs a country?”  Before you say that these were hand-picked answers, let me assure you that the interviewer was just stopping people randomly.

          What does that tell you?  It tells me that the systematic dumbing-down of America is working, just as it was designed to do.  This isn’t, as you might be ready to claim, just from this administration…no, this goes back 40, maybe 50 years, could go all the way back to Harry Truman, the last completely honest

president this country had.  Harry had a way with words, and he didn’t waste them with meaningless phrases.  If he had something to say, he said it, and there was no way you would not understand what he meant.  Ignorance and apathy

are alive and well in America, and we are the worse for it.

          My parting shot is this…when a president speaks he should leave no doubt as to what he means.  I would like to hear this from a president: The United States is a peaceful nation and we despise war, but make no mistake, if you screw with us, we’ll put you back in the stone age, and nothing will grow in your land, not people, not animals, not plants…nothing, for a thousand years.  Is that what you want?  If it is, bring it on.

"ACTION, NOT REACTION"

"ACTION, NOT REACTION"

          In the early part of the 20th Century Mexican bandits, let by Pancho Villa, came across the border into Columbus, New Mexico.   Villa's men raided across the border March 9, 1916, killing about a dozen Americans before being driven off.  US president Woodrow Wilson ordered General John J. Pershing to lead a punitive expedition into Mexico in pursuit of Villa, whose forces skirmished several times with the invaders. This American invasion, which was labeled a failure after 11 months and  Pershing withdrew in February 1917 because Villa, whose raids continued, could not be captured.  That, my friends, was a reaction.   The United States is, for the most part, a reactionary country...which simply means that we seldom initiate action. 

          Perhaps, if we had stronger leadership for the past 40 or 50 years, we wouldn't be in the lowered position, economically, militarily and even morally, that we are now.   It doesn't take a genius to figure out that America has lost prestige and respect in the world...it's evident every day by the way we, as a nation and as individuals, are treated.   There was a time in the world when an American citizen was held in high regard and could travel almost anywhere without fear.  That, of course, is when America WAS America.  Now, unless you've been living in a cave, you have to be aware that our citizens are kidnapped, and murdered(butchered actually) with no fear on the part of the murderers.  We have become a paper tiger.

          Think of Washington, with his ragtag army, defeating the professional soldiers of the Hessians at Trenton, during Christmas week 1776.   Think of George Patton racing through Europe.  An American icon with no equal Patton stands out in the American conscious better than any other general. As a combat general he was unequaled, fearless, brave to a fault and keenly aware his destiny was in the hands of the Almighty.   Think of the crews of the PT boats in World War 2.  The PT boat squadrons were nicknamed "the mosquito fleet". The Japanese called them "devil boats".   They actively searched for danger, and many times they found it.   Think of Alvin C. York, the fighting sergeant of World War 1, who, almost singlehandedly, captured 132 German prisoners.  

          These were men who did not react…they took action, decisive action that probably saved many of their fellow Americans.   This country needs to stand up on its two feet, beat its chest and bellow that phrase from the movie “Network”,

"I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!"  When you have done that you will feel better, more in charge, and ready to take on some of the problems facing this country.  One big problem is that we have a US Marine languishing in a Mexican jail and our government won’t do a damn thing about it.   We need ACTION, and we need it now!   Our country is under

attack every day, whether by overt or covert jihad and we need to act on that, because if we don’t act, we will have to react to a possibly worse scenario than was done on September 11, 2001.

          My friends, you cannot be complacent.  The enemy counts on that, he counts on our inherent ignorance and apathy so that we can be taken over easily, and I believe that our present administration is aiding and abetting that takeover.   When we act, in the interests of self-preservation and safety of the

homeland, we meet the enemy on our terms, not theirs.   Reaction, to an action by the enemy, will be costly…much more so than it has to be.   The movie, Network, came out in 1976, and reading over the text of the character’s rant,

nothing seems to have changed since then.

          Action, not reaction, that’s my motto.  We can, and must, preempt any

attacks on the homeland, as much as possible.  There ARE steps that can be taken, but I fear that this government will not take them…and America will suffer the consequences of that inaction.   Once you have citizenship in the United States, either by birth or by law, you can not lose it UNLESS you engage in some kind of act that is contrary to the well-being of the United States, or that shows you have greater loyalty to another nation. In other words, as long as you're a law-abiding citizen with no major secrets to hide, you'll be able to keep your citizenship.

          Treason is a serious crime in the United States. If you are convicted of treason, it means that you've worked with foreign powers or with another political group to overthrow or bring down the U.S. government. It also includes working with another nation to fight a violent war against the U.S. Even if you are a citizen by birth, you can lose your citizenship by doing this.   It’s no secret that, now, today, there are people in our government that have ties to enemies of our country…and they were placed in positions of power and policy…deliberately.

Wake up America!   Your country needs you to ACT!

          Larry Usoff, US Navy Retired    www.AirHumanityRadio.net