CAMILE PAGLIA:
On what's wrong with society today.
GLOBALISM ANYONE?
Sounds good but does it deliver?. Free trade worldwide touches on classic liberalism's (Adam Smith et al) basic freedom tenets that left alone without tariffs and all the rest associated with mercantilism (reigning ism of the 18th century in economics) the economies of the world would flourish.
GOOD TAKE ON LATE NIGHT TV:
On why Kimmel, et al, are turning to political statements all the time. It's all about declining markets and the need to be stimulating a core audience to continue watchTV. Looking back Carson was apolitical and hade a huge market for his comedy.
ONE OF VDH'S BETTER ONES ON RACE:
It's all about socialism and changing the system.
ANALYSIS OF BURN'S VN SERIES:
Far from accolades. Many, many comments posted buy veterans of that war that are mostly critical of the Burn's interpretation. TBF there are some who thought it reasonabley fair, but not many. Some of the comments are exceedingly thoughtful. On net most disagreed with the overall presentation.
MY OL BUDDY ACEMOGLU:
Hard to know how all this wrks self out.
I PLAYED IN A FIXED GAME:
As first reported in Sports Illustrated. In a follow up piece in SI:
After more information surfaced there's this from SI. Finally, a recent story on the 2017 fix involvingLouisville and Rick Patino is here:
Some things never change. The allure of money and the the glitter and glamor of sports. For some reason I was always under the impression this fixed game that I played in in Peoria against Bradley in 1957, resulted in an indictment of the referees involved in this ring. Unless there's more to the story than these two articles from SI, there was no indictment and the crooks got away their crime. It is entirely possible there is more to the story not revealed in this post. Leaving the court at the end of the game I remarked to this referee that that was the worst officiated game I ever played in. He, Fraser, remarked in turn "Yeah, Sargent, I called about as bad a game as you played." Which was a rather strange remark I thought at the time. Not so strange now.
IDENTITY POLITICS IS ALL THEY HAVE.
Democrats only believe in negative values any more. Hard to day when the Dems lost their way but probably with the Presidency of LBJ who foisted his Great Society on America with all its attendant co-dependencies. He also botched the conduct of the Vietnam War after JFK managed to set things up by botching the internal police of South Vietnam. The war was a noble effort to resist communism and its expansionary proclivities. Those who present the war as a legitimate civil war for independence have got it all wrong. HO Chi Ming was a doctrinaire commie who ruled by mind control, fear and force, the three pillars of governance by every communist state ever.
THE OTHER SIDE OF THE STORY:
The real story is usually different.
THIS VETERAN DOESN'T BELIEVE BURNS:
Vietnam war became a tragedy. After watching a few of the Burns's episodes on TV it's clear he is presenting the largely accepted wisdom now that the war was a mistake from day one and that it was mostly the result of American hubris. He doesn't push this theme but one feels it's there just beneath the surface. Obvious from the piece linked here this veteran does not agree although there's not much here to indicate what or how was to be done in the execution of the war that might have led to another, presumably, better outcome for the world. Of great interest about this blog are the over 500 comments that followed it. They are mostly from vets and they mostly object to Burns's presentation. one of the more compelling responses came from this vet:
In 1971 and 1972, I flew 120.5 sorties in the F4E out of Da Nang AB. I have a BA in Asian Studies and I have lived in Asia and the Pacific 5 times.
Like Burn's Civil War "history" the Vietnam War series also promotes false leftist narratives such as the claim that Tet uprising and the Easter Offensive were American defeats.
During Tet in 1968, Viet Cong mobilized 84,000 South Vietnamese fighters in sleeper cells. At the time, we had 560,000 Americans there. In Saigon, they had 5 objectives – overrun Tan Son Nhut air base, take the presidential Palace, capture Navy HQ, take the US Embassy and seize a radio station to broadcast a call to arms. They went 0 for 5 – taking a radio station, but the South shut off the power. Only about 10,000 VC escaped.
On 1 April 1972, we had only 40,000 US troops in Vietnam, when 200,000 NVA regulars equipped with tanks and artillery launched a 3 pronged invasion with the main thrust in Quang Tri Province. The monsoon season limited our close air support. On April 28th, the weather broke and ARVN slaughtered the NVA. According to North Vietnamese records, we had killed 100,000 of their invaders. We deployed in USAF, USN and USMC fighter squadrons from Korea, Japan, North Carolina, Florida, Georgia and other places.
Nixon directed Operation Linebacker – a real air war on the North. The USN mined their ports. We took out their command and control, air defenses, munitions and fuel storage, road and rail networks and attacked transshipment points. As they had done in the past, the north offered to stop fighting if we halted bombing. As usual, they did not uphold their part of the bargain.
On 18 December 1972 the North walked out of the Paris Peace talks. Nixon told Mel Laird and Henry Kissinger to "End this." End it they did with Linebacker II. That night and every night thereafter 100 to 150 B52 heavy bombers carpet bombed Hanoi and Haiphong. POWs recognized the 108 Mk82 500 pound bomb detonations per aircraft. By Christmas Eve, the NVA were out of anti aircraft munitions. On 28 December hat in hand, Le Duc Tho returned to the table, agreeing with all our demands in return for an end to the bombing.
By any modern measure, that constituted a US military victory, but the democrats could not allow Nixon to win. They attached the Case Church Amendment to the Fy73 military appropriations bill prohibiting the US military from operating in, over or in the waters of North and South Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. Teddy Kennedy cut aid to the South from $1.4 billion to $700 million. In May 1975, with 5 fighter wing and a bomber wing in Thailand and two Carriers on Yankee Station, we had to sit and watch Soviet tanks manned by Cubans crash through the Presidential palace.
The left wanted to "Give peace a chance," but it was more deadly than the war. We lost 58,249 troops. The South Vietnamese lost 500,000 and the north, 600,000. The victors reeducated 850,000 South Vietnamese too death and another 150,000 boat people drown. A quiet little Cambodian college professor murdered 2 million of his countrymen.
IT'S HARD TO DEAL WITH THE TRUTH:
Heather Macdonald has been doing great work on this subject forever. It often doesn't seem to make a difference how persuasive her work is but at least the body of work is there. Sadly the problems reside in the black race and any intelligent, sober and thoughtful black says so. Never mind the heritage of slavery, et al, remember most of civilization lived under slavery at one time or the other. Comes a tie when the aggrieved put recriminations and blame behind them and start to move forward. There are many examples of those who have done exactlyy this. There are the special interest voices who for personal; gain or fame do not want blacks off the reservation. That fact has to be dealt with summarily in order to begin the process of recovery. Patrick Moynahan saw all this in the 1960's and was nearly run out of town for writing about it. Charles Murray ditto. The issue has become the third rail in politics.
