Almost Forbidden Thoughts IV
by Clyde N. Wilson
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American top military leaders are these days more bureaucrats than soldiers.
In the war of 1861-1865, nearly all the Northern public, politicians, and soldiers thought black people were inferior and approached them with dislike and authoritarian management. Nothing the U.S. government did in the war or Reconstruction had the well-being of black people as a primary motive. Not all black slaves rushed into the arms of the invader, and many who did regretted it. A great many were abused by U.S. soldiers. In general, freed black people were not told that they were free, but ordered to transfer their obedience from their masters to the U.S. government.
John F. Kennedy was not a great staesman nor a remarkable and noble individual. Neither was his assassinated brother.
American education is an extreme failure, especially when plotted against its per-pupil costs.
The purpose and result of the Great Society was not to help the unfortunate and increase the quality of life but to provide easy white-collar jobs for thousands of pseudo-intellectuals, as well as establish vast opportunities for political patronage.
Voting means little when Lawrence Rockefeller has more influence than any ten million of us.
The Federal Reserve is not a public institution but a private banking cartel.
Most Americans are barred from any hope of ever seeking justice in the courts because it has become too expensive.
The term “American,” as a description of a people, no longer has any meaning, especially as used by politicians. “Americans” of today have almost no idea what their country really meant to its people in the first three centuries (1600’s-1800’s).
“When the blind lead the blind, both fall into the ditch.”
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1 Comment by Sid Cundiff on 6 August 2007:
“American top military leaders are these days more bureaucrats than soldiers.”
And they’ve learned NOTHING from Vietnam (or the French experience there and in Algeria, the British in Palestine, the Israelis in Lebanon, the Soviets in Afghanistan, and the Nazis in Yugoslavia). They know ZERO about 4th Generation War, and the names Martin van Creveld and William Lind might as well be the names of proverbial villages in China — or Iraq. By the way, one somewhat Great Power actually won a 4GW: The United Kingdom in Northern Ireland. And it might be worthwhile to find out how it was done.
“John F. Kennedy was not a great statesman nor a remarkable and noble individual. Neither was his assassinated brother.”
Fervent Amens! Our worst presidents, from least worst to worst worst: 4) JFK, 3) Dishonest Abe, 2) The Great Satan (FDR), and 1) Woodrow the Worst. Hoover was just proto-FDR. The two men’s programs were the same in design, the same in effect. With apologies to folks in wheelchairs, FDR was Hoover on wheels. LBJ was just Son of The Great Satan. Nixon was Son of Woodrow. And Clinton was Son of JFK.
Aside from the tax cut, JFK’s presidency was quite mediocre. Yet it had a more subtle malignant effect: Prior to JFK, the USA still had the resemblance of a republic, with unglamorous leaders with serious pot bellies, the Congress still a serious branch, and the press less enamored with an “existentialist hero”. With and after JFK we became an elective monarchy, complete with playboy antics that would have blushed Don Giovanni, a host of glamorous courtiers and courtesans, the infernal wiz kids Rusk and McNamera, and the beginning of a royal dynasties (Kennedy, Bush, Clinton). At least LBJ, Milhous, and Jimmy didn’t name their brothers Attorney- General. Until JFK our presidential candidates were chosen by party convention. The primary has proven to be an even worse way. And Vietnam was the JFK blue plate special. As for RFK, ever notice that we never see on “Public” Broadcasting film of the McCarthy hearings. Because if we did, we’d see someone whispering sweet nothings into ol’ Joe’s ear. So bad was RFK that I wonder if Jimmy Hoffa has been redeemed.
Of course we’ve had our mediocrities (Taylor, Grant, Harrison II, Carter, Taft), but to the extent that they did any damage, it was repaired by successive regimes. Sad to say, three of our greatest American political leaders were at best just average Presidents: Washington, Jefferson, Madison. Indeed Madison was simply a bad president, and a positive memory of him obliges our overlooking his woeful presidency. Sad also to say, some good presidents are ruined by one big boo-boo or a big moral blight: John Adams with the Alien and Sedition acts, Andy Jackson with his Indian Removal Bill. Sad also to say, but great men need great times. No finer man EVER sat in the White House than Grover Cleveland, the last Jeffersonian. He didn’t have great times.
Of course the American Republic has never had true giants at the helm, men such as Numa Pompilius, Camillus, William Marshall, Charles V, Prince Eugen, Friedrich II (of Prussia), the Pitts, Gladstone, Churchill, De Gaulle, and Adenauer. Democracy in particular only turns to great men after a very big SNAFU. It often in such a circumstance turns to very un-great men.
2 Comment by Ronald Kyser on 6 August 2007:
I’m sure everyone will enjoy this excerpt from an 1863 letter home to Hoosick Falls, N.Y., from one (Henry) Worden Babcock. Worden was 27 at the time, employed as a “spinner” back home. As a Babcock, he’s a cousin to Edward Chester Babcock, the composer of JFK’s theme song “High Hopes”, and, as his mother’s a Whitney, to that inventor fellow who inadvertently enriched both sides in the war.
“Feb 10 Well hear I am in New Orleans and well we are in Camp hear and the wether is warm as it is in May up thear the Cattle are out to pasture and evrything looks like
Sumer thear is plenty of Fruit hear Oranges and Lemons a plenty the treas hang fool but Nigers are plentyer than tham any thing else that I saw”
3 Comment by robert m. peters on 6 August 2007:
Dr. Wilson,
Your words:
“The Federal Reserve is not a public institution but a private banking cartel.”
When I tell this to friends, they absolutely do not believe me. When I point out to them that the fiat non-money which we carry around is labeled “legal tender” and that said labeling enslaves us to its worthlessness, they miss the point. When I point out that primary inflation is a tax robbing us and our children of the fruit of our labor, their eyes betray an utter lack of comprehension. When I point out that our government is borrowing the “money” to finance the ever-expanding welfare/warfare state from the Chinese, there is usually a blank stare. When I suggest that “income” cannot mean the quid pro quo exchange of labor for some kind of remuneration, for there is, in such an exchange, no profit which is the historical understanding of “income,” they do not comprehend the objective correlative between that and the taxes on their wages. When I talk about the discipline which specie currency put on governments, they wonder quizzically but with no real interest.
Yet, they all continue to believe that after the plethora of campaign laws, the “management” of political news by the media, the corruption of the election process by special interests, and the intrigues of the political parties, they – those to whom I talk and speak – have control over the leviathan when they do their duty and “vote” once every four years. With such a meaningless crumb are we enticed into the snare.
Meantime, the deck chairs are rearranged, the band plays a sad tune, and the ship of state sinks below the waves.
4 Comment by Simon Newman on 6 August 2007:
Sid Cundiff:
“By the way, one somewhat Great Power actually won a 4GW: The United Kingdom in Northern Ireland. And it might be worthwhile to find out how it was done”
By refusing to fight it as a war, soaking up casualties without retaliating, and insisting on treating it as a police/criminal matter. This de-escalation strategy is one of Lind’s main counter-4GW recommended techniques.
It might seem highly unlikely the US could do this, but in fact there have already been many instances of Islamic terrorism on US soil, such as the Washington Sniper John Allen Muhammed, where the govt has ignored all evidence that it’s terrorism in order to treat it as a police matter.
Note however that the British army did not win the *support* of the Irish Catholic population, they merely prevented a general uprising*. This technique cannot create eg a pro-American liberal democracy in Iraq, but it can calm things down a lot.
*Aided by the unfavourable demography – at the start of The Troubles there were only 500,000 Catholics in Northern Ireland, vs a million Protestants. There were ca 3 million Catholics in the Republic of Ireland, but several million Protestant Scots in Scotland supportive of the Ulster Protestants. In fact realistically the IRA could only win by getting the British army to enforce unification of Ireland, which was a possibility.
5 Comment by Hucbald on 6 August 2007:
I’m an eleventh generation American. When my fifth-great grandfather fought in the Revolutionary War, my family had already been here for over 120 years. When my great-great grandfather fought for the Union in the Civil War, we had been here for over two centuries. By the time my grandfather served as Navy enlisted in WW I, the ticker was over the quarter-millennium mark. I was born 300 years exactly after my original American ancestor arrived from England, and when my dad retired as a Lt. Col. from the USAF in 1972, we were at nearly 320 years. Today, it’s exactly 350 years. So yeah, *I* know what it means to be an American. Not many folks my age do anymore, however.
6 Comment by Frank on 6 August 2007:
Hucbald,
I can trace mine back to 1690 but I’ve got some recent Scots Irish and English in me too. Really when looking at it that way I’m more immigrant than native… but the British stock is the most American.
7 Comment by PcH on 6 August 2007:
Frank said: “Really when looking at it that way I’m more immigrant than native… ”
I used to think that too, until I got my great aunt’s DAR paperwork.
The ethnicity of these States was set before 1776. We’re not a nation of immigrants, but a nation of white settlers. And from a narrow source: Englishmen, Scotch-Irish (who are English Borderers), Irishmen, and Northwest Europeans (such as continental Saxons and Huguenots) are the same blood stock and from a territory smaller than the US.
8 Comment by Clyde Wilson on 7 August 2007:
And don’t you get tired of hearing people here a generation or less tell you what it means to be an American?
9 Comment by Christopher Baldwin on 7 August 2007:
CW,
It’s no accident that during the Spanish Civil War America sent a contingent to fight on the Red side called the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. The name of the unit was eminently fitting; the Brigade fought for a nihilistic Leftism inspired by the “Great Emancipator.”
10 Comment by Frank on 7 August 2007:
PcH,
yes, and those of a similar stock can easily melt in.
For the record, what I was considering “immigrant” of my ancestry is at worst 4th generation. Anything post Revolutionary War is “immigrant” by the reasoning I was using.
11 Comment by robert m. peters on 7 August 2007:
Dr. Wilson,
“And don’t you get tired of hearing people here a generation or less tell you what it means to be an American?”
Confederate General Richard Taylor had to endure this very thing, did he not?
12 Comment by Thomas Miller on 7 August 2007:
“The purpose and result of the Great Society was not to help the unfortunate and increase the quality of life but to provide easy white-collar jobs for thousands of pseudo-intellectuals, as well as establish vast opportunities for political patronage.”
To some extent, that has always been so in this country, hasn’t it? In the years before the Civil War, writers who were having trouble making a living at their craft, often used high-level contacts made through their literary activities to land jobs in customs houses. Ever since World War 1, unimaginative men with Bachelors of Art degrees (as well as law degrees) have eagerly sought Federal civil service jobs , though nowadays they do so more often as federal “contract employees”, so that they can practice the self-deceit that they’re risk-takers in the free market like everyone else.
And we all know that in the future there will be far more government makework jobs created too, since the private sector of our economy is so rapidly being hollowed out of any real substance.
13 Comment by Clyde Wilson on 7 August 2007:
I would say there is a difference between getting an existing government job and purposefully creating a whole industry of worthless jobs as an alleged asset to social betterment. I dont mind so much that Herman Melville made a living in the Customs House.
14 Comment by Fr John on 8 August 2007:
As an Orthodox Priest, I clearly know and can see the hand of the same ethnic interests that gave the Bolsheviks their ‘raison d’etre’ in pre-1917 Russia at work here in the USA today, in the hands of the neo-cons and all those that control ‘Jorge Boosh, Jr.’
And, as I homeschool my children, you better believe I am telling them of America’s heritage, their own Celtic forebears, and who the ‘real enemy’ is -of Christendom first, and their own country now.
There may only be ‘7000 who have not bowed the knee to Baal’ but there are STILl ‘7000′!
Deo vindice!
15 Comment by PcH on 8 August 2007:
Frank: I like your reasoning.
I have some of that immigrant stock myself. My grandmother was everyone’s favorite in my family — chatty, cheerful, and a fantastic cook — but no one seems to have done her genealogy. She was a descendant of Irishmen who came, I believe, just before The War, so I could claim the Kelticke myth for myself if I wanted to be hip and modern. But I prefer to view myself as our forefathers rightly did throughout all our history, as Anglo-Saxon — and almost Cavalier.
Lord have mercy, I think I have uttered another almost forbidden thought.
16 Comment by Alban Ziguri on 11 August 2007:
To Sid Cundiff,
I understand you when you refer to Vietnam, Algeria, Palestine, Lebanon, Afganistan, but I am still wondering why do you mention Yugoslavia?
Did Tito defeat the Germans?
You should know that Yugoslavia was liberated by the Soviet Red Army.
17 Comment by Mike Morris on 11 August 2007:
Some of my ancestors were Scotch-Irish, others were German – all of them were looked down upon by WASPy New England types.
18 Comment by Iyanna on 18 August 2007:
hi i enjoyed the read