2014

The Weekend America Stopped

It was a typically warm Friday afternoon in Hollywood, Florida as the students of South Broward High School filed into the bleachers in the football field around 1:30 in the afternoon for a pep rally.

We were released from class early for the pep rally as there was an important Basketball game scheduled that evening with our across town rivals from MacArthur High School and the principal wanted us to be charged up for a win.

South Broward was a pretty large school, even back in 1963, making me, a 15-year old sophomore one of just under 3,000 students’ enrolled sitting in the bleachers.

All of us were excited, classes were let out early for the Pep Rally, we had a weekend of fun facing us since we lived so close to the beach, just over one mile away.

To us, the world was at peace. Castro’s Revolution in Cuba, a little over 200 miles south of us had been over, the Bay of Pigs invasion and the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 were behind us. Civil Rights demonstrations were popping up on TV occasionally, but they were far north of us and even though we too were segregated then, racial unrest seemed to be for others in the south, not us.

Few people had heard of Vietnam and the Berlin Wall, even though fairly new, was thousands of miles away.

As typical teenagers, we didn’t have a care in the world and were just expecting another weekend of sun and fun in South Florida as we all joked and poked each other in the bleachers as we wondered why the Pep Rally was delayed.

Then Mr. Phares, the Principal came out and instead of leading off the Pep Rally, solemnly informed us all to report immediately to our Home Rooms, not giving us a clue why. So, we emptied the bleachers and headed off to our home rooms.

As we entered our Home Rooms, I couldn’t help but notice that Mrs. Pauline Watkins, my Home Room teacher as well as my World History teacher had been crying. This was her last year teaching as she was retiring at the end of the school year, and even though in her 60’s at the time, she had never seemed emotional to me, so seeing her red, puffy eyes puzzled me, especially given the unexpected announcement of no Pep Rally against our arch rivals.

Mrs. Watkins didn’t say anything other than for us to take our seats. Once seated, she informed us that President John F. Kennedy had been shot in Dallas, Texas just minutes before an asked for all of us to lower our heads and pray for him.

It couldn’t have been a couple minutes later that Mr. Phares announced over the PA system that President Kennedy had died of his wounds and the Basketball game that evening was cancelled.

Mrs. Watkins tears flowed freely and I believe all of us sat there with lumps in our throats at the news as it was just days prior that he had visited Miami, Florida, just 20 miles south.

We learned of assassinations in history, but to have one happen now really threw us all.

Who did it? Our peace was shattered, was it by Castro? The Soviet Union’s Nikita Khrushchev? Were we to end up at war? Were we going to be invaded or see the dreaded nuclear holocaust we grew up in fear of?

No one knew and our young imaginations ran rampant until we got home and our parents were glued to the television sets, all programming on all three networks broadcasting them reporting news on the assassination.

That is all that was on and it didn’t take long for reports of the arrest of Lee Harvey Oswald to be reported, as he was quickly linked to the killing and reports out of both Cuba and the Soviet Union were quick to deny any involvement in the assassination.

The conspiracy theories had not yet surfaced, it was all too fresh and the country was numb, reeling from the shock of it all. There hadn’t been an assassination in 62 years when William McKinley was killed in 1901, when our grandparents were but babies.

Being teenagers, it didn’t take long before we became bored with the repetitive news reports on all stations, all other programming cancelled. Even our favorite AM radio stations were more focused on news of the assassination than playing the top 40 of the time.

The Basketball game was cancelled, but this was South Florida where there seemed to always be something for kids to do, even if just hanging out.

It was long before my two closest buddies of the time, Dennis and Corky, stopped by, also bored and wanting to get out of the house. We walked around town looking for others, but it was almost eerie, businesses closed, lights turned off all up and down the main street.

Unlike other Friday nights, there were few cars out and about.

We headed to the Arnold Palmer Putter Golf course and it was closed, lights off. Same with the trampoline court next door, lights off and gate locked.

We walked to the Ice Cream Parlor kids often hung out at and it was also closed.

Even the hamburger driven-in, usually hopping on Friday nights, was closed.

We walked around for a couple more hours and finding nothing open, bid each other goodnight and headed off to our individual homes as curfew was coming soon.

While largely taken for granted today, television for 24 hours was very odd to us back then. And even though television broadcast all night through the weekend, all that was on was news of the assassination and Kennedy’s life.

Camelot was being born as his short administration became a mythical time that it really never was.

We saw as Air Force One off-loaded his casket into a hearse. We witnessed Lyndon Johnson being sworn in as President, Jackie Kennedy standing next to him with her husband’s blood still on her jacket, dress and gloves. We watched as Oswald and his rifle was paraded and scenes of the “sniper’s nest” were broadcast. On Sunday, we saw him also be shot by Jack Ruby, dying shortly after.

By Monday, schools across the country were closed as the hastily assembled funeral was also broadcast, the country laying President Kennedy to rest in Arlington Cemetery and the eternal flame lit, even before it was fully constructed.

Looking back 50 years ago, November 22, 1963, we seemed to have lost our innocence, or at least the perception we had of innocence.

The decade was to become the most turbulent one in history, racked with race riots, more assassinations as Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, JFK’s brother were also to be gunned down before the decade ended.

Racial unrest exploded across the south and even up north in Chicago and Boston, also in Los Angeles as the Watts riots exploded in 1965.

Vietnam quickly escalated as did the anti-war faction that began opposing not just the war, but those of us sent off to fight it.

College campuses saw a great deal of student unrest that I can’t recall ever hearing of before.

We will never know if it would have been different had Kennedy lived or even if he would have had a second term in office.

We will never know if he would have been able to quell much of the violence we all witnessed or if he would have pulled us out of Vietnam before it became the quagmire it did. All of that will remain idle speculation, each individual imagining for themselves how it would have been.

Did the assassination of Kennedy have anything to do with the way the decade of the 1960’s turned out?

Is there any merit in any of the multitude of conspiracy theories still being debated today, 50 years later?

All of that too will likely never be known, at least not in our lifetimes.

But all I do know, that one weekend, everything seemed to stop in America. We were ripe for invasion if any enemy had a mind to. Luckily, none did.

But something happened then and life as we knew it seemed to be forever changed.

And, I can’t say for the better.

When the Shoe Is On the Other Foot

It never ceases to amaze me seeing the blatant double standard practiced by Democrats today.

I received a notice by email from Politico stating, "Senate Republicans have blocked the nomination of Robert Wilkins to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, the third such rejection to the court in three weeks. Wilkins failed to garner 60 votes to break the GOP filibuster, 38-53."

"The fight over judges could spill over into another confrontation over changing Senate rules by a majority vote, in which Senate Democrats seek to curtail the GOP's filibuster use by invoking the so-called 'nuclear option'."

For refutation of their threat of the so-called "nuclear option," let's look at some words spoken by the former sweetheart of the Democrat party, now deceased, Senator Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts, from back in 2005 when the Democrats were blocking judicial nominations left & right.

The nation’s founders understood that those in power might believe rules don’t apply to them. That’s why they put in place a democracy that preserves our rights and freedoms through checks and balances. These checks and balances protect mainstream values by preventing one party from arrogantly imposing its extreme views on the nation.

The Constitution grants the President a check on Congress by allowing him to veto any measure that he believes crosses the line.
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Throughout our history, the Senate, has structured its processes to reflect its unique powers. For such irreversible steps as conferring lifetime judicial authority, it has given its minority the ability to protect our republic from the combined tyranny of a willful Executive Branch and an equally willful and like-minded small majority of Senators. Thus we allow the minority to speak as long as necessary to stimulate debate and compromise, and to prevent actions that threaten the balance of powers, or seriously offend a substantial minority of Senators.
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In these circumstances, we Senators have not only the right, but the obligation, to use every power at our disposal, within the Senate’s rules and traditions, to focus the attention of the Senate and the nation, and ultimately the President, on the overreaching abuse of power by the White House and the Republican majority. That’s what our Senate powers and our Senate rules are meant to do. That’s what checks and balances are all about. That’s why the filibuster exists.-----
In short, neither the Constitution, nor Senate Rules, nor Senate precedents, nor American history, provide any justification for selectively nullifying the use of the filibuster. Equally important, neither the Constitution nor the Rules nor the precedents nor history provide any permissible means for a bare majority of the Senate to take that radical step without breaking or ignoring clear provisions of applicable Senate Rules and unquestioned precedents.
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Fortunately, the vast majority of Americans’ share our commitment to basic fairness. They agree that there must be fair rules, that we should not unilaterally abandon or break those rules in the middle of the game, and that we should protect the minority’s rights in the Senate.

You can read or copy the 11-page speech in full here

If it was wrong for Republicans, isn't it also wrong for Democrats?

But, it shows that Democrats want to live by their standards and impose their standards on others with no regard of people have differing values.

Where they were accusing George W. Bush of stacking the courts with conservatives, they now seek to stack those same courts with liberals that care more about a liberal agenda interpretation of laws, some even seeking decisions of foreign courts over our own laws, all to justify whatever the agenda du jour is.

In short, Democrats seek to have their cake and eat it too, continuing their push towards an oligarchy with their party alone ruling, a party that has repeatedly shown a desire to recreate the failed Soviet Union.

A Greater Nation

The latest from our friends Michael & Angela Souders and those wonderful children at Tussing Elementary School

Michael says we are wonderful to them. It is they that are wonderful with their respect and thanks to Veterans every year.

Obama’s “Fundamental Change” of America

CBS Resurrects Vietnam Era Veteran Bashing

Those of us who served in Vietnam know all too well the “Myth of the Deranged Veteran” that cast a dark shadow over us for so long. We recall the negative portrayals of us after our return in television, movies and even book series.

We were ticking time bombs, drug addicts, mentally disturbed due to some horrific experience we were forced to endure by the hated government of the time and we were subject to “flashbacks” where we would mentally find ourselves back in some battle, but in reality doing harm or killing innocent people, people we either didn’t even know or our loved ones.

That it was a lie did not even matter, it sold and convinced many to either fear us or to pity us.

The Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) ran a three part series earlier this year showing how Hollywood’s portrayal of Veterans changed during the Vietnam era and remains today mostly negative, March, April and May.

Veterans Organizations have worked double overtime to counter this false narrative of the damaged Veteran as have individual Veterans. We adopted the slogan “Never Again” to signify we would not sit still and allow today’s Veterans to be mistreated for their service as we were upon our return and after.

When factions within the country began once again targeting Veterans as they worked diligently to recreate the unpopularity around the War on Terror they did during Vietnam, I penned Veterans, Warriors and Heroes, not Victims where I brought out that many of those complaining the loudest about “deranged Veterans” are more at fault for the few who do experience trouble than the actual battle experiences they may have endured.

What I did not realize at that time, since I had largely stopped watching network television due to their pathetic programming lacking in talent and substance, was that the CBS network was returning to the era where the Veteran is the ‘heavy’ in crime dramas, running around murdering innocent people as some simple noise they heard set them off on a PTSD fueled rampage.

I am not going to individually go through every episode of every show, but will focus on just two programs, a February 2007 episode of Criminal Minds where “a post-traumatic veteran reliving a war zone” goes on a rampage in Houston, Texas, thinking he back in Mogadishu trying to protect citizens, but killing innocent workers who come down to his hiding place to see what is happening.

The Vet is killed by a sniper in the end, uttering only a hope the child he tried to protect was okay.

I figure that last line was to raise a little awareness, but they forget the many innocent lives the writers have him first kill and that requires assistance from the FBI in profiling who is doing all of the killing.

Fast forward now to popular daytime Soap Opera, the Young and the Restless.

In a nut shell, they brought in a character, Dylan McAvoy played by actor Steve Burton.

The character of Dylan was thought dead in Afghanistan and was the fiancé of the character Avery Clark, played by Jessica Collins.

As it usually is in unrealistic Soap Operas, she falls in love with someone else, thinking her fiancé dead, only to have him return and complicate the new life she is creating. It’s a tired old plot long overused in television.

But they have to drag this story line out even further and make matters worse.

Dylan meets another woman after Avery chooses the other man over Dylan, who has been convalescing in the hospital far away, thinking only of Avery. They have a one night stand, but the other woman is already pregnant from her ex-husband, a bad guy in the show and one she doesn’t want to know she is carrying his baby.

She tells Dylan it is his baby some weeks later and of course, he falls in love, she gives birth prematurely to a full-sized baby boy they name after his father, since they had just gotten married.

It doesn’t take long for him to discover the baby isn’t really his and of course, he is devastated.

He decides to leave is new wife and the baby he thought was his, asking only for a moment in private with the newborn to say goodbye.

But, it just so happens that this occurs during a thunder storm that sends Dylan into a flashback to Afghanistan where a little girl died in his arms that he was trying to save and couldn’t.

He kidnaps the baby to run and save it, sending everybody into a panic looking for him and when finding them couched in a cabin, holding a flashlight thinking it his service pistol, ends up being labeled a lunatic by the baby’s real father, the bad guy in this series.

Some of this story line can be seen in You Tube clips with more to be added, I’m sure.

But, is it really necessary to almost always portray the heroic Veteran as flashing back to the war and endangering those around him?

Especially since it is not even true.

But television and movies are powerful tools, many people accepting what they see as true, never bothering to actually check.

Why don’t they show Veterans as heroic Police, Fireman, Paramedics or even Icons of business and community, as most are? That is closer to the truth about the overall majority of Veterans.

But no, Veterans must be portrayed as damaged people, still ticking time bombs that even Fourth of July fireworks may send off on a murderous crime spree.

I have written CBS with my complaint on this story line, but doubt my voice will sway them. But maybe the more voices they hear from will have them reconsider and begin properly portraying Veterans in their shows.

It’s just a shame that all of these decades later, over 40 years after the Vietnam War, the same networks that went out of their way to portray and mistreat Vietnam Veterans now elects to do it again.

Well meaning or not, it is just wrong!

Did “White Guilt” Play A Role in the Navy Yard Slaughter?

“White guilt is a form of self-congratulation, where whites initiate ‘compassionate policies’ toward people of color, to showcase their innocence to racism.” George Will, Columnist

Tragedy once again unfolded early morning September 16, 2013 as gunfire opened inside the U.S. Navy Yard in Washington D.C., ultimately seeing 12 innocent people and the shooter dead and with many more injured.

No known motive has yet been revealed and there are many questions being asked, mostly centered around security, just who was Aaron Alexis, the 34 year old man said to have entered the building and killed so many and as information is coming out, many are wondering just how this man obtained and held a Security Clearance to access the Navy Yard, much less allow him to buy the shot gun officials now say was used in the killings.

Once identifying Alexis as the shooter, within hour’s reports began appearing in the media of a very troubled man with a history of mental instability, misconduct while in the Navy Reserves and at least two run-ins with law enforcement over gun charges.

While many who knew Alexis were stunned with disbelief of him doing such a heinous act, we began reading accounts of him being “was pushed out of the military because of repeated incidents and arrests” from a quote in the Wall Street Journal Monday evening from an unidentified defense official.

We read of a run-in with the law in Seattle in 2004 where Alexis is said to have shot out the tires of someone’s car that he felt “disrespected” him. He explained that incident as “anger-fueled blackout.”

In 2010 he was said to have shot through the floor of an apartment above him in Ft. Worth, Texas, narrowly missing the occupant, a woman he often complained “made too much noise.” He explained that as the gun going off accidentally while cleaning it.

His own father, when contacted, claimed he “had been involved in 9/11 rescue efforts and had post-traumatic stress and anger-management issues.”

It’s known now that he had been treated for paranoia and hearing voices in his head.

Yet, in spite of such a record, he held a security clearance to enter the Navy yard and passed both an F.B.I. and State of Virginia background check to ‘legally’ purchase the shotgun he used to kill and take a handgun off of one of the security guards.

Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel admits “there were a lot of red flags missed in the security clearance process,” adding “Why they didn’t get picked up, why they didn’t get incorporated into the clearance process, what he was doing, those are all legitimate questions that we’re going to be dealing with.”

Aaron Alexis

While there will no doubt be Senate and House hearings, accusations will be hurled and much finger-pointing amid renewed calls for “background checks” and more gun control laws, will there be any focus on the deterioration of race relations in the country?

What is unusual in this mass shooting is the shooter was a Black man. Not that Blacks don’t kill, but we rarely hear of a Black man committing one of these mass killings.

His being Black has nothing itself to do with his mental state nor is it a direct reason for shooting those people, but I can’t help but wonder if it is a reason so many red flags that should have been caught in his records weren’t there?

Referring back to the quote at the top of this post, many people are scared to death to be labeled a racist” today and have been known to bend over backwards when dealing with Blacks because of that fear.

On some occasions, a few Blacks have taken advantage of this “white guilt” to get ahead or allege wrongdoing if terminated from or denied a position.

An NBC Report is claiming a friend saying,

“He felt like he had been cheated out of money from the contract and complained that he was mistreated because he was black. He felt a lot of discrimination and racism with white people especially. He did have the tendency to feel like people owed him something all the time.”

Yet, so many red flags that should have denied him not only his security clearance but the ability to legally purchase a shotgun and ammunition were not in his records when the background checks were performed.

Why?

I cannot say with complete confidence, naturally, but I just can’t help but wonder if the attitude his friend described of discrimination and racism from whites was projected unto others over the years and out of fear of being labeled a “racist,” encouraged them not to put those red flags into his records.

Without a doubt, there remains pockets of racism in our country today, but it is nowhere near as prevalent as it once was.

But racism goes both ways today, crossing racial boundaries in both directions.

Black author Shelby Steele wrote a book a few years ago, White Guilt: How Blacks and Whites Together Destroyed the Promise of the Civil Rights Era and in it he says,

“In the age of racism, Whites said Blacks were inferior so as to not see their own desire was to exploit them, their true motivation. In the age of white guilt, whites support all manner of silly racial policies without seeing that their true motivation is simply to show themselves innocent of racism.”

And now I wonder if “White Guilt” has played a role in the deaths of 13 people, including Aaron Alexis, by keeping those ‘red flags’ from being included in his record, out of fear of being labeled a racist?

Maybe too, it’s time we stopped hurling racially charged rhetoric about as if it carries no consequences and realize that we are all in this together.

Rise Up, America

Of Media Bias, Situational Ethics and Mulattos

On this 50th Anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr’s famous I Have a Dream speech, it seems we are further away from that dream than we have been in my lifetime. Unlike he hoped for in that speech, a time when people “will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character,” skin color seems to be one of the first factors we leap to in judgment of each other.

For instance, the death of Trayvon Martin in Florida where George Zimmerman was instantly identified as a White person, based solely upon his name and the media joining forces with the likes of race baiters Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson in taking a local story and blowing it into an international outrage indicating a major racial problem, but ignoring Zimmerman’s true ethnicity, Hispanic of Black ancestry as well as the actual evidence in the case that exonerated Zimmerman.

Trayvon’s past was to be ignored while Zimmerman’s was picked over with a fine toothed comb as Trayvon ended up being portrayed as a poor innocent Black youth gunned down in the dead of night by an angry White person.

That it isn’t actually what the evidence showed really happened isn’t important as we saw how the media, with their heavy bias and Democrats with their situational ethics twisted the case every which way they could think of to take political advantage of it.

And nowhere is it more apparent than in media coverage concerning Barack Obama, also of biracial heritage, but you would have forgotten that what with the media coverage always portraying him as a Black man, the first Black man to achieve the highest office in our country.

We are reminded of it so much that if you disagree or oppose policies he wishes to implement, you’re quickly branded a “racist” in an effort to silence criticism as opponents are beat into submission and reminded of times past to when MLK made his famous speech, as if we are still mired deeply in those times.

Looking around us, ignored by media and agenda driven liberal politicians, it is evident that we are not still locked in those times as we see more successful Blacks than ever before, no segregated communities filled with slums where Blacks are made to live, even though large cities still have their ghettoes where all minorities seem locked into because they do take advantage of the means of escape offered, education and working for it, and a list of biracial celebrities unlike we have ever seen before.

Many Mulattos, for whatever reason, deny or ignore their White heritage and cling to their Black heritage today, unlike those of the past that downplayed or denied their Black Heritage to make in this “White man’s world.”

Even though there really is no “White man’s world” any longer, both media and liberals readily go along with this façade we witness their bias and situational ethics on full display in what appears to be an effort to swing the racial pendulum over to promoting the good of Blacks over the Whites.

I’ve noticed it in many commercials where we subtly see more intelligent Blacks correcting the dumb White to sell their product. Not all mind, but from what ads I see, more often than not.

But where this façade shines the brightest is in reporting of crimes, White on Black crime usually quickly labeled a ‘Hate Crime’ while Black on White crimes seem not to be, even when it is glaringly apparent they should be.

We see it in the description given of criminals as media seems to go out of their way to hide Black criminals while ensuring readers and viewers know the race of the White criminal.

We evidence this with the recent murder of Australian ball player, Christopher Lane in Oklahoma by three Black youths because, as they said, “we were bored.”

But wait, one of those youth’s, Michael Jones is biracial, another Mulatto with a White mother and a Black father, just like Barack Obama’s heritage.

While we are repeatedly reminded that Barack Obama is Black, indentifying 17-yearold Michael Jones as Black, along with his two accomplices on Fox & Friends and the Daily caller raised the scorn of Mediaite, a so-called “news and opinion blog covering politics and entertainment” that is actually more of a liberal site established to try to counter the growing popularity of Fox News in 2009 and counter any good news published on conservatives.

We read, “A Duncan, Oklahoma police source confirms, to Mediaite, that 17 year-old suspect Michael Jones is, indeed, a white male.”

It seems that if a person of biracial heritage commits a crime now, they are “White,” and no longer “Black.”

How convenient for race baiters.

The other two charged with the crime are decidedly Black, but all we hear about them is “Edwards and Luna are being charged with first-degree murder, whereas Jones is charged with ‘using a vehicle to facilitate the discharge of a weapon and accessory after the fact of murder in the first degree’,” in another vain effort to paint the court system as racist by charging the “White” person with a lesser crime than the two Black people.

Again ignored, Jones did not shoot, but drove the car the other two were in, got out of and shot Lane to death. So of course he would be charged with the lesser crime, even if they described him by his Black half.

But that wouldn’t fit the agenda of criticizing conservatives who are asking where are the race baiters that created such a stink over the Trayvon Martin incident and where is Barack Obama who spoke out soon after that case blew into a national story saying, “if I had a son, he would look just like Trayvon.”

No, given the messiah-like aura constructed around Obama, no one wants there to be any connection to a criminal like Jones to Obama.

The tragic outcome of this media/situational ethics is an ever deepening divide between us, Whites beginning to distrust Blacks more than before, some Blacks feeling empowered to lord it over others. All the exact opposite of what Martin Luther King dreamt in his famous speech.

One such example would be the outrage of over a recent video gone viral of children “Behaving Badly” quickly seen as “Bullying” of a little White girl by Black children.

Standing back and viewing it, would we see it as racially motivated as claimed if it were reversed or if it all Black or all White Children? I doubt it.

But since it is Black children picking on a smaller White girl, our moral outrage is triggered, much like the biased media succeeded in doing with Trayvon Martin.

Then too, the 12-year old who took the video and posted it online under the title “When white people piss black people off part 1” only helped stoke that outrage.

But as both parents say of this, it is “is a case of children behaving badly and has nothing to do with race,” the children regularly playing together prior to this.

The 12-year old is being punished for it by his father, ‘Eddie,’ and I have to trust the girl’s father that it is acceptable. My only comment to Eddie would be that perhaps you need to take a closer look at some of your son’s friends and acquaintenance’s over the poorly chosen title.

But, this is where we have been brought in this “post-racial” era of Barack Obama, fueled by a biased media that expresses situation ethics and outrage, as well as biracial people are selectively portrayed as Black or White, all depending on how that biased media wishes to stir up hysteria or justify their point of view of who are the good people versus who are the bad people.

It’s really tragic that here we are, celebrating the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s I have A Dream speech and our distrust of each other is worse than it has been in decades as skin color takes precedence over character.

Obama & Kerry, Preparing to Send Troops “to Die For the Biggest Nothing in History?”

“I said this from the beginning of the debate to the walk up to the war. I said, Mr. President don’t rush to war, take the time to build a legitimate coalition and have a plan to win the peace. It’s the wrong war, in the wrong place at the wrong time.” – Sen. John Kerry, August 30, 2004 in opposition to the Iraq war.

“There is a reason why no matter what you believe about Syria, all peoples and all nations who believe in the cause of our common humanity must stand up to assure that there is accountability…” Sec. of State John Kerry, August 26, 2013 in support of Military action against neighboring Syria.

Once again we get to see the situational ethics plaguing today’s Democrat Party as there is nothing they won’t politicize for political gain, even if it costs the lives of some of our Troops.

Kerry, the scorn of many Vietnam Veterans, this blogger included, for his treasonous acts and ‘testimony’ filled with lies before the Fulbright Commission back in 1971 after his abbreviated 4-month tour in Vietnam, who voted to approve sending Troops into Iraq only to come out heavily opposed a year later when he campaign for the Presidency, who claimed “I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it” to fund the Iraq War and who said in 2007, “Iraq, as in Vietnam, more American soldiers are being sent to fight and die in a civil war we can’t stop and an insurgency we can’t bomb into submission” somehow now seem to think that we will be able to bomb or stop what is going on in Syria with Military intervention.

We now read of remarks by Kerry supportive of Military intervention as he says,

“President Obama has also been in close touch with the leaders of our key allies, and the President will be making an informed decision about how to respond to this indiscriminate use of chemical weapons. But make no mistake: President Obama believes there must be accountability for those who would use the world’s most heinous weapons against the world’s most vulnerable people. Nothing today is more serious and nothing is receiving more serious scrutiny.”

But we also have known for some time that the crimes of Iraq’s President, Saddam Hussein were well known to the world, including John Kerry.

Even though he labeled Iraq the “wrong war, in the wrong place at the wrong time,” in 2004, he also warned us numerous times of the WMD’s (Chemical Weapons) of Iraq as well as recommended President Clinton take acts to remove Hussein as President of Iraq in a 1997 Senate Floor Speech: We Must be Firm with Saddam Hussein.

After approving of the Iraq War and justifying his YEA vote against his subsequent opposition to the Iraq War when campaigning as President and later when the Democrat party opposed the Iraq War in unity during the 2006 mid-term elections, it was Kerry we heard continually telling the country the only viable Iraq solution is a political one.

That from the same John Kerry who just days earlier, later alleging a “botched joke” told a group of college students,

“You know, education, if you make the most of it, if you study hard and do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq.”

Kerry’s flip flopping from Hawk to Dove, Dove to Hawk, depending on which party is in power is legendary.

And now, after years of the Democrat Party campaigning in opposition to war led by Republicans, even though defending our nation after over two decades of Islamic Extremist attacks, we are to believe these same Democrats, especially Barack Obama are well suited to lead the country into another ill-advised war right next door to the very country they so strongly opposed later during the Bush Administration?

Democrats, who in their efforts to portray President Bush as out of touch as he was building the very successful ‘surge,’ claimed U.S. can’t fix Iraq violence as they geared up for the 2008 Presidential Election.

Can we forget Obama’s claims made just a few years ago for him to win that Presidential election?

He told the world then that there was “No Military Solution in Iraq’ after earlier saying “Preventing Genocide Isn't Reason to Keep U.S. Troops in Iraq,”

But now and right next door to Iraq, we are told that

“President Obama believes there must be accountability for those who would use the world’s most heinous weapons against the world’s most vulnerable people. Nothing today is more serious and nothing is receiving more serious scrutiny.”

Kerry and the Democrats questioned the intelligence President Bush relied upon. Even then Senator Hillary Clinton, in an appearance on the Larry King show April 24, 2004 said of that intelligence,

“The consensus was the same, from the Clinton administration to the Bush administration. It was the same intelligence belief that our allies and friends around the world shared.”
“But I think that in the case of the [Bush] administration, they really believed it. They really thought they were right, but they didn’t let enough sunlight into their thinking process to really have the kind of debate that needs to take place when a serious decision occurs like that.”

It was Democrats that claimed the intelligence was manufactured, that Bush lied, that he didn’t listen, labeling him a ‘warmonger’ who came to the Oval Office with the express intent of starting a war in Iraq.

But now, it’s all good again? The intelligence is accurate even though other countries are questioning it and warning Obama to not interfere in Syria?

And hasn’t it been Democrats blasting President Bush over the cost of the War on Terror, claiming going into Iraq is what killed our economy?

Can we really afford now to go back next door to Iraq into Syria and support the rebels fighting the Syrian government, knowing that many have admitted their alliance with Al Qaeda, our sworn enemy?

And hasn’t it been Democrats throughout the Bush Administration reminding us that we are not “the World’s Police Force?” But now, somehow we are?

The New York Sun concluded in an Aug 26, 2013 editorial,

“We carry no brief for Bashir al-Assad. We carry no brief for the Islamists who are in arms against the Syrian regime. What we do is predict that if the President takes us into this war and if there is an escalation — if, say, Russia or Iran enters the lists — then neither Mr. Obama nor the next president nor America itself will be able to count on Mr. Kerry. If the going gets rough, he’ll prove to be a summer soldier and fall away, maybe to go treat with the enemy at a future parley at Paris. We’ve always said that history has a way of playing its tricks.”

John Kerry and Barack Obama would do well to recall Kerry’s scripted words spoken back in 1971 on giving Troops “the chance to die for the biggest nothing in history.”

Democrats have long complained of getting involved in civil wars of other nations and yet, here we are poised once again to involve ourselves in another civil war at the behest of the Democrats.

Isn’t it about time we let those oil rich nations all over the Middle East, who do not want the Muslim Brotherhood or other radical extremists in power, deal with what is happening in their own front yard?

Why Many Vietnam Vets Are Boycotting 'The Butler'

It is being reported how many Vietnam Veterans are both boycotting and calling on others to boycott the Lee Daniels movie, the Butler, leaving many, mostly younger people who weren't yet born or who were too young to recall those days asking why.

I hope this post helps those of you to understand as well as join us in boycotting this movie, also under fire for specious representation of Ronald Reagan.

WHY WE BOYCOTT HANOI JANE

Excerpt of an undated speech Hanoi Jane Fonda gave at U.C. Berkeley in the early 1970's, where she praises the Communist North Vietnamese and students in attendance applaud upon hearing her gleeful announcement of 34 American B-52's being shot down by the Communist North Vietnamese. That would be a potential 170 American Servicemen dying. Is it any wonder why so many of us Vietnam Veterans despise this person?


For any who wonder why we boycott and still despise Hanoi Jane, hear her in her own words. In July 2011 on her personal Blog, Fonda said, “I have never done anything to hurt my country or the men and women who have fought and continue to fight for us.” She has never apologized, she only expressed regret over the famous photo of her sitting at the anti-aircraft gun. She still stands by everything else she said or did.

http://janefonda.com/qvc-cancelled-my-appearance/

And now she tells Vietnam Veterans we need to "get a life?"

http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2013/04/11/jane-fonda-tells-veterans-boycotting-her-movie-butler-to-get-life/

It should also be remembered, prior to the Tet of 68 offensive, where the Communist forces were all but decimated, contemplating negotiating a surrender according to many, less than 20,000 American Troops had been killed. From Tet until we pulled out in early 1973, nearly 40,000 more American Troops were killed. Tet was also the turning point where the anti-war left, many actually supporters of the Communist North, gained in popularity and acceptability in America. Their efforts resulted in twice as many troops being killed and untold numbers of Vietnamese as they prolonged a war that was close to over in 1968.

Interviewed and published in the October 2005 issue of Vietnam Magazine, North Vietnamese General Nguyen Duc Huy was asked, “After the war, Giap told a group of Western reporters that Communist losses in the Tet Offensive were so devastating that if the Americans had kept up that level of military pressure much longer North Vietnam would have been forced to negotiate a peace on American terms. Do you agree?”

General Huy responded, “If the American army had fought some more, had continued, I don’t know. Maybe. I can’t say what would have happened.”

http://www.historynet.com/wars_conflicts/vietnam_war/3035906.html

Interviewed by the Wall Street Journal in August 1995, former North Vietnamese Colonel Bui Tin, who became disillusioned with the Victorious Communist Liberators and defected to France was asked and responded;

Q: Was the American antiwar movement important to Hanoi's victory?
A: It was essential to our strategy. Support of the war from our rear was completely secure while the American rear was vulnerable. Every day our leadership would listen to world news over the radio at 9 a.m. to follow the growth of the American antiwar movement. Visits to Hanoi by people like Jane Fonda, and former Attorney General Ramsey Clark and ministers gave us confidence that we should hold on in the face of battlefield reverses. We were elated when Jane Fonda, wearing a red Vietnamese dress, said at a press conference that she was ashamed of American actions in the war and that she would struggle along with us.

Q: Did the Politburo pay attention to these visits?
A: Keenly.

Q: Why?
A: Those people represented the conscience of America. The conscience of America was part of its war-making capability, and we were turning that power in our favor. America lost because of its democracy; through dissent and protest it lost the ability to mobilize a will to win.

http://www.viet-myths.net/buitin.htm

Now deceased but also held in disdain by many Vietnam Vets, Walter Cronkite who reported on the failed North Vietnamese Tet of 68 Offensive, “Who won and who lost in the great Tet offensive against the cities? I’m not sure. The Vietcong did not win by a knockout, but neither did we. The referees of history may make it a draw. It seems now more certain than ever that the bloody experience of Vietnam is to end in a stalemate. But it is increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational way out then will be to negotiate, not as victors, but as honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy, and did the best they could.”

In a 2000 speech, General Frederick C. Weyand said of his meeting Cronkite in Vietnam, “After Tet, General Westmoreland sent Walter Cronkite out to interview me. I was in Command of the Forces in the South around Saigon and below and I was proud of what we'd done. We had done a good job there. So, Walter came down and he spent about an hour and a half interviewing me. And when we got done, he said, ‘well you've got a fine story. But I’m not going to use any of it because I’ve been up to Hue. I’ve seen the thousands of bodies up there in mass graves and I’m determined to do all in my power to bring this war to an end as soon as possible’.”

“It didn’t seem to matter that those thousands of bodies were of South Vietnamese citizens who had been killed by the Hanoi soldiers and Walter wasn’t alone in this because I think many in the media mirrored his view…”

“When I was in Paris at the Peace Talks, it was the most frustrating assignment I think I ever had. Sitting in that conference, week after week listening to the Hanoi negotiators, Le Duc Tho and his friends lecture us. Reading from the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Herald Tribune, the Atlanta Constitution, NBC, CBS, you name it. Their message was always the same. ‘Hey, read your newspapers, listen to your TV. The American people want you out of Vietnam. Now, why don’t you just go ahead and get out?’ So finally a Peace Agreement was signed that everyone knew would be violated and with no recourse or hope of enforcement on our part.”

Gen. Weyand did not hold the media to blame, but they cannot be exonerated either in my estimation.

http://www.i-served.com/Reference/GeneralFredWeyand_speech.htm

Hanoi Jane did more than just her part by traveling to North Vietnam, not just having her photo taken at an anti-aircraft gun, but also making a series of radio broadcasts from North Vietnam, aimed at demoralizing the American Troops and supporting the Communist North Vietnamese.

http://www.wintersoldier.com/index.php?topic=FondaHanoi

Prior to her trip to North Vietnam, she was instrumental in the production of an anti-Army film, F.T.A.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F.T.A.

This is but a portion of why so many of us despise Hanoi Jane, Walter Cronkite, John F’n Kerry and more. If you are still unable to understand our why, I don’t know if you ever will.

Media Follow-up Is Always Appreciated

Seen on KOIN 6 News:

It's always nice to see the media follow-up on blog posts. KOIN reported this story on May 22, 2013 VA hospital worker’s criminal past was TV movie giving no credit to anyone else.

This blog reported on it on March 5, 2013 Deadly Intentions and Sociopathic Tendencies

The Sky Valley Chronicle referenced the story with full credit to this blog on April 3, 2013 THE "DEADLY INTENTIONS" DOCTOR Where is he now?

That I can find, the local newspaper of record, the Columbian, has yet to discover it, even though it happened right under their noses.

Thinking of Voting to Reelect Tim Leavitt?

“EQUALITY NOW!” Except in Accountability

By now I am sure most have heard the tale of the alleged persecution of a poor little 19-year old Lesbian down in Sebastian, Florida and how the homophobic forces are out to get her because she was having a consensual sexual affair with another girl in her school.

Well, that is the way her parents have laid it out in social web sites and news media ever since then 18-year old Kaitlyn Hunt was arrested in February, charged with lewd and lascivious battery since the 18-year old chose to engage in a sexual relationship with a 14-year old, well below the Age of Consent in Florida which remains at 16 years of age.

In plain terms, an under-aged minor may not consent to a sexual relationship and even though the consent age slightly differs throughout the country, every state has age of consent laws to protect minors.

Kaitlyn’s mother Kelley explained,

“They are out to destroy my daughter, because they feel like she ‘made’ their daughter gay. They see being gay as wrong and they blame my daughter. Of course, I see it 100% differently. I don’t see or label these girls as gay. They are teenagers in high school experimenting with their sexuality – with mutual consent. And even if their daughter is gay, who cares? She is still their daughter.”

Completely left out of that allegation is that her daughter is an adult, the other girl an under-aged minor. Trying to deflect that by creating a false illusion of “homophobia” or “gay bashing” is completely erroneous, County Sheriff Deryl Loar saying,

“If this was an 18-year-old male and that was a 14-year-old girl, it would have been prosecuted the same way.”

Even Sunny Hostin, legal analyst for CNN agrees, adding

“A kid, a child under the age of 16, cannot consent to having sexual relations with an 18-year-old, an adult under the eyes of the law. And that really is all this case comes down to when you look at it legally.”

A British media report on this matter includes a quote from unnamed Gay rights advocates that say,

“older high schoolers dating their younger counterparts is an innocuous, everyday occurrence that is not prosecuted – regardless of sexual orientation – and not a crime on par with predatory sex offenses.”

Sorry, but that is not quite accurate.

Much disinformation was released initially by her parents, including both her age and the minor’s age as they created the illusion of this being strictly about a consensual same-sex relationship, ignoring that Kaitlyn had been told by the minor girls parents to stay away from their daughter or that Kaitlyn once helped the minor run away from her parents home and Kaitlyn took the minor to her home where they engaged in sexual relations, Kaitlyn “penetrating her vagina with her fingers.”

As you can see in the following screen shot of the page set up by Kaitlyn’s father for petitioning the Attorney General to not prosecute, nothing is said about the other girl being an under-aged minor.

Articles found indicate that the parents upset and fighting to change statutory rape laws are parents of the older teens, not those of the younger victims. That they are interfering in someone else’s parental rights in raising their children doesn’t seem to matter to them, just that their little precious be permitted to go after whoever they can seduce, regardless of age or parental values.

But, given that there is this growing sympathetic movement completely disproves the claim of the Gay rights advocate above of this being “an innocuous, everyday occurrence that is not prosecuted.”

In this case, for some reason prosecutors offered Kaitlyn some very generous plea deals that would keep her out of jail and prevent her from having to register as a sex offender. So far, she refuses to accept them, opting instead for a trial by jury, hoping for an acquittal due to societal emotions over the law is my guess.

But while such generous plea deals were offered, it became known that she not refused to accept either of the plea deals, she also refused to follow the court order to stay away from and avoid contact the minor girl.

Prosecutors say they have “collected about 20,000 text messages between the two, all of which were sent after the defendant was ordered by two circuit judges to have no contact. They contain more than 25 ‘lewd and lascivious photographs,’ including some of Kaitlyn nude and engaging in sex acts and at least one video of her ‘pleasuring herself’.”

Apparently this young lady, an adult, has no intention of following any of our laws and expects a pass so she can please herself at the expense of another.

Also obvious, in keeping with the “slippery slope” many of us keep warning about as societal mores continue to disintegrate, homosexual activists have joined in by supporting Kaitlyn not being held accountable for her actions, with no regard for the then 14-year old possibly only being confused or deluded by an older girl.

A facebook page set up to support Kaitlyn, “Stop the Hate, Free Kate” contains the following image,

Sorry, she CHOSE to go after an under-aged minor. She CHOSE to continue to go after the girl in open violation of court orders, she CHOSE to do all of this and her parents CHOSE to make it a national issue and now, somebody CHOOSES to bring in high profile defense attorneys.

Kaitlyn’s mother posted on facebook,

“Dear friends and supporters, this afternoon we learned that Attorney William A. Korman, an attorney who has been nationally recognized for his work defending individuals accused of sexual misconduct, has joined Kate’s formidable legal team. Mr. Korman, who is based in Boston, Massachusetts, was so outraged by the spurious attacks against Kate, that he agreed to become involved in this case based on his moral outrage at the criminalization of what would be considered typical adolescent behavior and actions. We look forward to Attorney Korman assisting us in this matter. We thank you all for your continued support.”

What kind of an attorney would become “morally outraged” at an adult seducing and molesting an under-aged minor and support the perpetrator and not the under-aged victim?

Can you spell A-G-E-N-D-A?

It seems that “Equal Rights” for homosexuals now is moving towards ending age of consent laws, labeling them outdated, oppressive and harmful as we see the promotion of “Intergenerational Intimacy” coming to light.

We are becoming ever more desensitized into accepting yesterday’s immorality as today’s new morality. In other words, no morality at all.

Will child pornography laws one day face assault too?

This is where the push for equality stands today. Forced acceptance of a deviant lifestyle and removal of any laws that might protect young impressionable people from those practicing the deviancy.

Yes, it’s all about Equality. Except of course, when it comes to being held accountable, equally.

I’ve always been amused by the City Limit Sign down in the small town of Sebastian, Florida, having visited the city numerous times when my parents were alive and lived there. I feel it only appropriate to update it reflecting this case that is now internationally known.

Clowning Around

In light of the Missouri NAACP calling for a Secret Service investigation of a Rodeo Clown:

 You can't have it both ways and still live in a free  society

It’s Alive, the Undead CRC

Back from the Dead, like an old horror flick sequel, the monster we hoped was dead rises from the grave to once again taunt and torment taxpayers in Southwest Washington and Northern Oregon.

The Columbia River Crossing light rail project roars back to life as special downtown mafia interests quietly plotted against rejoicing taxpayers to give rebirth to the mega-project destined to bankrupt the middle class taxpayer in Clark County, Washington with ever increasing gasoline taxes, license fees, tolls and whatever other means they can dream up to force the struggling middle class to accept the burden of extending Portland’s ill-fated light rail a short distance cross state lines into our community.

Under cover of everybody paying attention to the outcome of the Aug 6 Primary Election last evening, the Lazy C posted an article about 10 PM saying, “A group of Columbia River Crossing supporters believe they’ve hatched a plan that could revive the controversial Interstate 5 Bridge replacement — with light rail — and without the approval of the Washington Legislature.”

Not only does this special interest group plan on bypassing the Washington Legislature to force the community to buy into the financially troubled light rail, they express no intention of seeking approval from you, the struggling middle class taxpayer they hope isn’t paying attention as they plot against us.

This blog was one that voiced concern over the planned slow closing of the CRC offices, questioning why it would take months to just shut it down.

We now see why as the Willamette Weeks Andrea Damewood began questioning on Monday just why they had removed notice of closing on their web page, they never planned on closing and just began hatching another plan to screw over the middle class taxpayer.

Tim Schauer, president of Vancouver-based consultant MacKay & Sposito and one signer of the letter sent today to the governors of Oregon and Washington said, “Let’s not wave the white flag. The clock’s running down, but it’s not out. They didn’t kill a project. They left an approved project unfunded.”

Approved by whom, Mr. Schauer? You and your cronies haven’t bothered to ask taxpayers again, after we repeatedly defeated every effort to impose extra expenses on us, the struggling middle class taxpayers of Clark County.

Rookie State Sen. Annette Cleveland, turned expert on how to spend your money for you chimed in with, “We’re too close to give up. I believe there's a willingness on everyone’s part to explore any option that might be viable. I think that’s our responsibility.”

Again, asking you is not in her plans nor considered a “responsibility,” only taking what she wishes of your dwindling paychecks.

Patricia McCaig, adviser to Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber, currently under investigation for potential ethics law violations connected to her previous work lobbying for the CRC added, “The need didn’t go away for a span to replace the Interstate 5 Bridge linking Portland and Vancouver. We have been and will continue to look at any possibilities that would allow us to take advantage of the $170 million we’ve spent wasted over the last decade, and the technical work we’ve done and the permitting and environmental process we completed.”

The United States Coast Guard has yet to issue any permits approving of the restriction to river commerce required to create this mega-monster light rail crossing.

And again, she makes no mention of consulting the taxpayers who she would stick with paying for a mega-project they have continually indicated they do not want.

Showing absolutely no regard for the plight of middle class citizens, McCaig says, “To not finish it would be a waste of money.”

Wasting $170 Million, that in my opinion should see some lengthy prison sentences after a proper criminal investigation were conducted, isn’t bad enough, people like McCaig, Sen. Cleveland and more would go ahead and strap you with the full price, in the Billions before interest or cost overruns and not giving one tinkers damn if you can afford to feed your family.

Unable to contain his glee thinking about bending taxpayers over to ram it home again in screwing them over, Democrat Jim Moeller, famous for suing constituents to invalidate their votes when he doesn’t approve, left the comment, “Although I must admit, it can be enjoyable listening and watching heads explode about the possibility of a revived CRC the fact is that 2/3’s of the funding is intact. Additionally, Oregon and Washington DOT’s have secured the LAA (Locally Approved Alternative) the EIS, (Environmental Impact Statement) a federal Record of Decision and soon will have a permit for the bridge from the USCC by the end of September as the CRC has not withdrawn it’s application. Additionally, mitigation is almost complete (it lacks only one more signature) and this project is one of 4 on the Presidents ‘We Can’t Wait’ Initiative for mega transportation infrastructure projects.”

“I hope Oregon is successful! To go forward with the project that re-establishes our commitment to invest in our own infrastructure and remove the final, last full stop on an interstate corridor, build a safer bridge and bring light-rail and other real transit options for today in crossing the Columbia into Vancouver. A project of this size and importance will always have it’s critics, and there will be a riot of criticism heaped upon this idea. But as we begin to pull out of the worst recession since the great depression, let’s show the world that we believe in OURSELVES and are willing to invest in OURSELVES and that we CAN do this for OURSELVES and our children yet to come.”

Of note, like the rest, Moeller makes no mention of seeking the approval of the struggling middle class taxpaying voter. In fact, his past actions indicate how much contempt he holds for you, the middle class taxpayer as he strives every legislative session to impose more and more tax burden on you.

That “our children yet to come” will be bearing the burden of paying off this monster well into their gray years is of no concern to the likes of Moeller. He is only interested in causing your families harm, quite possibly as retribution for his homosexuality and feeling abnormal, blaming you.

Moeller has pushed to impose the expense of this monster on you from the start and is one of the loudest voices to prevent you from having a say in it, preferring instead “A scientific and balanced poll… at least gives lawmakers ‘something’, some numbers, anything, to hang their hat on then a ‘advisory vote’.”

In other words, your voice doesn’t men squat to him, just the results of a cooked poll targeting those sections of town known to support the mister project and ignoring the larger sections opposing it. That, to Jim Moeller is “scientific and balanced.”

Ever since we heard of the governors “pulling the plug” on this mess I have cautioned you, along with others, to keep your eyes open, it isn’t dead. Too many indicators showed something was up and it was only a matter of time before the pits of hell opened up and released this bloody monster on your again.

If only it were a sequel to a classic ‘B’ grade horror film.

It is now more imperative than ever to study candidates running for election. Be they incumbent or challenger, city council, mayor or freeholder for a new County Charter, none supporting this ugly monster should win.

Comparing Ho Chi Minh to America’s Founders is a Slap in the Face

I don’t know whether Barack Obama is as clueless as he comes across or if he honestly thinks sucking up to a Communist regime will somehow improve his dismal performance in the Oval Office, but comparing a brutal dictator like Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh is a slap in the face to every American, especially to those of us who actually served in Vietnam during Ho’s reign of terror.

Standing alongside current Vietnamese President Truong Tan Sang, Obama recently said, “At the conclusion of the meeting, President Sang shared with me a copy of a letter sent by Ho Chi Minh to Harry Truman. And we discussed the fact that Ho Chi Minh was actually inspired by the U.S. Declaration of Independence and Constitution, and the words of Thomas Jefferson. Ho Chi Minh talks about his interest in cooperation with the United States. And President Sang indicated that even if it's 67 years later, it's good that we're still making progress.”

Anybody who believes communism and our Declaration of Independence have anything in common is sadly mistaken.

To begin with, let’s peek at that “letter,” actually a telegram, that Ho sent to Truman in 1946. Why President Sang had to ‘bring’ Obama copy, I can’t understand since it is readily available in our own Government archives.

But he did and as we can see, Ho used the ploy of “independence” in appealing for America to “interfere” with the French who had held Vietnam as a colony long before World War Two and was reasserting their control afterward, calling for assistance in “support of [their] independence.”

In penning the Vietnamese Declaration of Independence in September 1945 Ho quoted, “All men are created equal; they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights; among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Of that he wrote, “This immortal statement was made in the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America in 1776. In a broader sense, this means: All the peoples on the earth are equal from birth, all the peoples have a right to live, to be happy and free.”

That has been a common ploy of the Communists ever since its beginnings, preach “independence” while actually enslaving.

Shortly before his death in September 1969, Ho tried a similar ploy with then President Nixon in an exchange as Nixon was striving to bring hostilities to an end, Nixon and others not recognizing that the “Tet of 68 offensive” was a resounding Military Defeat for the Communist North Vietnamese, but allowing it to become a decisive Political Victory for them instead.

Outlining how “the United States must cease the war of aggression and withdraw their troops from South Vietnam, respect the right of the population of the South and of the Vietnamese nation to dispose of themselves, without foreign influence,” Ho also said, “This is the correct manner of solving the Vietnamese problem in conformity with the national rights of the Vietnamese people, the interests of the United States and the hopes for peace of the peoples of the world.”

The last U.S. troops left Vietnam on March 29, 1973 in accordance with the negotiated withdrawal outlined in the Paris Peace Accords, recognizing the right of the both the South and the North to determine their own governance. Or so it said.

As we know, soon after the American Congress all but stripped all support of an Independent South Vietnam while the Communist North received much support from both the Communist Soviet Union and China and seeing that America was no longer going to support the South and their freedom, the Communist North launched an all out bloody assault against the South as we witnessed Communist tanks roll into the city of Saigon deep in the South as American helicopters hurriedly evacuated Diplomatic personnel from the rooftop of our Embassy at the end of April 1975.

I previously described that as America’s Most Shameful Day. We sat and watched a free people fall to oppression as the South Vietnamese unable to board the last helicopters, struggled to leave the country, land on our aircraft carriers and a Naval Armada set sail for parts unknown, where they were unwanted.

Lauren Zanolli of George Mason University’s History News Network wrote in November 2006, “Historians have directly attributed the fall of Saigon in 1975 to the cessation of American aid. Without the necessary funds, South Vietnam found it logistically and financially impossible to defeat the North Vietnamese army. Moreover, the withdrawal of aid encouraged North Vietnam to begin an effective military offensive against South Vietnam. Given the monetary and military investment in Vietnam, former Assistant Secretary of State Richard Armitage compared the American withdrawal to ‘a pregnant lady, abandoned by her lover to face her fate.’ Historian Lewis Fanning went so far as to say that ‘it was not the Hanoi communists who won the war, but rather the American Congress that lost it’.”

Even though deceased by then, that was the fulfillment of Ho’s idea of being “deeply devoted to peace, a real peace with independence and real freedom.”

Not long after began what we called the exodus of the Vietnamese Boat People as untold hundreds of thousands of freedom seeking Vietnamese boarded any rickety craft they could to escape the “benevolent” Communists as the formerly free South Vietnamese were rounded up, assigned to “Reeducation Camps” never to be heard from again.

How many perished in the South China Sea at the hands of Pirates or weather will never be known. But thanks to Vietnamese author Le Thi Anh, we do know about the bloodbath within the “benevolent” The New Vietnam under Ho Chi Minh’s vision of a “unified Vietnam.”

Speaking next to Obama, Vietnam’s President Sang also said, “I also expressed my appreciation for the care that the U.S. has extended to the Vietnamese who came to settle in the United States and now they have become American citizens and contributing to the overall development of the U.S. And thanks to the support and assistance from the U.S. government as well as the American people, the Vietnamese-American community here in the U.S. has become more and more prosperous and successful in their life as well as work.”

Shameful that neither he nor Obama can make the same claim about Ho’s vision for Vietnam, expressed by a young Vietnamese woman married to a pilot I served with during the war, born after the Fall of Saigon in 1975, Do You Really Want to Rear Your Child in a Socialist Society?

In 1787 Founding Father Thomas Jefferson famously wrote: “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is it’s natural manure.”

Nowhere will you find any of our Founders working so diligently to enslave an entire nation and place the people under an oppressive rule as Ho Chi Minh envisioned for the People’s of Vietnam.

That Obama can now compare the murderous tyrant Ho Chi Minh to the founding of the United States of America, even with all of our imperfections, is a slap in the face to the American people, the Vietnamese-American community and especially to the memory of those 58,195 names etched on the Wall in Washington D.C. of those who paid the ultimate sacrifice in support of South Vietnamese freedom.

Trayvoning of America

One thing we know the left is masters at is creating new words that make the rights effort out to be overbearing, dumb, ridiculous and to demean our traditional values at any cost.

For example, when we stood up as a ‘Tea Party’ movement, they swiftly labeled us as “Teabaggers,” knowing the word was a code word for a homosexual practice that most of us had never heard of. The steady use of it ended up demeaning our efforts and the willing lamestream media readily joined in.

The Tea Party movement today is a mere shadow of what we started out to be.

We now see the left spreading hysteria across the country over the acquittal of neighborhood watch captain, George Zimmerman for the self defense shooting death of 17-year old Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida as protests broke out almost immediately and invoking the name of the youth, even though not one of those out in the streets crying and whining over have a clue who or what he was or may have been.

Intersections and highways are being blocked, false information is being spread in misidentifying people as having served on the jury, in an effort to accost them for reacting to actual evidence over an emotional verdict I believe, death threats are being sent out and the race hucksters are out in full force whipping lo information people into a frenzy.

All because Zimmerman was erroneously identified as a “White” person in the beginning instead of a “Hispanic” and Martin was a “Black” youth.

Race-Baiters, ignoring the thousands of Black youth murdered at the hands of other Blacks and even the massive death count over the years of Whites at the hands of Blacks, have latched onto this single incident in an effort to convince today’s Black Community that they are under constant threat from Whites, are held in bondage to Whites and that “Whitey” is the source of all of their troubles.

The only ones that seem to present any “solution” to the false claims seem to be New Black Panther King Samir Sabazz who publicly calls on others to “kill some ‘cracker’ babies.”

The Race-Baiters only demand Zimmerman be imprisoned, as if that would resolve the plight of today’s inner-city Black youth.

And it is not restricted to Blacks as the “Trayvoner” effort is filled with liberal Whites filled with White guilt over what happened in our country over 160 years ago when most Blacks were held as slaves.

Now ignored in this “Trayvon” movement is all of the strides we have made in improving race relations and so many more doors open to today’s Blacks than ever before, if they are willing to apply themselves, get a good education and put out the effort.

More than ever seen before have done just that and live amongst Whites as equals and at times, ‘betters’ in that their success exceeded that of others, rightfully due to their extra efforts.

But listening to Race-Baiters like Al Sharpton, none of that is true or those that made it are “sell-outs” and “Uncle Toms” who forgot where they came from, meaning in large part, they fail to support Sharpton by donating money to him.

In the end, the “Trayvoning of America” is nothing more than another effort to drive a deeper divide between people in this country. It is the old tried and true “Divide and Conquer” seen throughout history by evil forces that swoop in, takeover and oppress the people, falsely selling them a lie of they will be “free.”

Photo by Allie Morris/PBS NewsHour http://tinyurl.com/n5qlzjw

That they latch onto this single incident while ignoring thousands of others shows the concern is not really over the deaths of Black youth, but that Trayvon Martin has been made into a tool of the leftists to spread more and more discontent.

The acquittal angered people, yes. But can you sow me any high profile trial ending in acquittal that did not anger some? People form opinions based upon erroneous reports, preconceived notions and only seeing some of the evidence presented.

But do they get twisted into a social movement in the streets? No.

Stand up, America. Stop letting them play on “White Guilt” and feed into fears of Whites to Blacks.

Push back and do to the hucksters as they do to us. Label this effort what it really is.

The Trayvoning of America.