Special to the Cape Charles Mirror by Paul Plante
TALK RADIO 1300 on June 13 2016 at 1:11 pm – With respect to mass murder as a part of our foreign policy and this “spirit of ruthless brutality” which I too believe has now entered into the very fiber of our national life as @11:14 am talks about above here, for a time, I was an infantryman who served as a Nighthawk in Viet Nam in 1969.
As a Nighthawk, I went out each night on a helicopter armed with an M-14 rifle with a Starlight scope mounted on it so that I could see in the dark with the helicopter as my firing platform.
One night we were ordered to go to these certain grid coordinates and when we got to there, it was a small “ville” that was being barraged with CS-gas mortar rounds to drive the people out of their houses and into the open where they were clearly illuminated by parachute flares.
I can see them down there to this day.
Women and children.
I can still hear the “voice” coming into my head over the helicopter’s radio from the Battalion Operations Center back in the big base camp that was in “control” of what the mission was going to be that night.
“KILL THEM ALL!”
That was “THE MISSION,” to gun down each and every one of those people, an order that was given to a machine gunner next to me and myself – start firing, gun them down, kill them all.
Nits breed lice.
The aircraft commander, a Lieutenant, countermanded that order.
My memory of that event is that he drew his pistol on me and the gunner, and he told us not to fire, or by God, he would.
And in the meantime, the “voice” continued, “KILL THEM ALL.”
Now, that “voice” was my chain of command, not the Lieutenant.
However, on board a helicopter, the aircraft commander outranks everyone on board, and besides he was there with a pistol drawn and aimed.
WHOP! WHOP! WHOP! WHOP!
Like in slow motion, the rotor blade spun around.
The people on the ground were still running and milling around, trying to escape the gas.
The flares continued to hang there by their parachutes to turn night into day.
And there we all were on the helicopter, EN TABLEAU for what seemed like forever.
By not pulling the trigger, I was disobeying a direct order from my battalion command staff.
If I pulled the trigger, I was disobeying a direct order from the AC.
The AC prevailed.
No shots were fired.
No women or children in that “ville” were killed by us that night, despite the orders from our chain of command, which originated in the oval office of the Washington White House, as all military orders do, to kill them all.
But the Lieutenant was not just leaving things there.
It wasn’t enough to him that we did not fire our weapons.
That did not end anything.
It began something instead, a revolt.
A revolt by that officer of the U.S. Army.
Shortly after that, he was vectored into the path of our own outgoing artillery, and he was shot down out of the sky in flames.
That crew, all of whom I knew, burned all the way down.
For those who don’t know, helicopters burn real hot.
In my estimation, which I will take to my grave, those people were murdered because of that revolt by that Lieutenant.
I know they were vectored into the path of that artillery because I was monitoring the radio that night they died.
That Lieutenant was going to make a federal case out of that mission that night, and so he was eliminated.
And three other people on that helicopter that night went to their fiery deaths with him.
One of them, my friend whose life I had previously saved in another episode was still alive when the helicopter hit the ground.
We know that because he was found so many feet away where he had managed to crawl before he died.
His legs were burned off up to his knees.
And people wonder why we have so much violence in this country today.
Go figure.
It is because we fostered it, and sowed the seeds for it, and now, the plants have matured and we are reaping the fruits of what we ourselves set in motion so many years ago.
Paul Plante, Viet Nam 1969
With respect to our national leaders in this country fostering violence and murder as ways to solve one’s problems, thus sowing the seeds for the violence in this country that surrounds us on all sides, as the plants have matured, so that we are now reaping the fruits of what we ourselves set in motion so many years ago, I am reminded of an article posted on Huffington Post by Shirin Sadeghi Independent TV & Radio Host ex-BBC & Al Jazeera 10/19/2011 entitled “Hillary Clinton Wants Gaddafi Killed,” wherein was stated as follows:
It was only last week that the US government tried to negatively portray Iran and Iranians by associating them with political assassinations.
It was just this week that US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton openly called for the political assassination of Moammar Gaddafi, the Libyan leader.
“We hope he can be captured or killed soon,” she said — while in Libya, to Libyans.
It is actually against the law, what the US government is doing.
And not some kind of United Nations “law” or international legal standard (of the sort that sound fantastically humane but are actually just unenforced moral standards that most countries, especially superpowers, routinely ignore).
State-sponsored assassination is actually illegal according to the laws of the United States itself.
In the decades before and since President Gerald Ford signed United States Presidential Executive Order (EO) 11905 on February 18, 1976, the US government has directly and indirectly assassinated people — many people.
And EO 11905 is not exactly ambiguous legal speak — it’s one of the most straightforward pieces of legal documentation you will find.
In Section 5, subsection G, it clearly states that “No employee of the United States Government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, political assassination.”
end quote
When you have national politicians like Hillary Rodham Clinton publicly advocating murdering people as a way to solve your problems with them, is it really any surprise that people like this Omar Mateen take her words to heart as they go out on their own killing sprees?
Perhaps when main stream American politicians like Hillary Clinton stop publicly advocating murder as a way to solve problems, ordinary Americans will stop thinking it is alright to do.
Paul Plante, Viet Nam 1969
With respect to the public glorification of killing and murder as tools of public policy here in America, we need look no further than the article “Democrats brag about killing Osama bin Laden” by Holly Bailey, Yahoo! News, Senior Political Reporter on 5 September 2012, wherein we were informed as follows:
CHARLOTTE—Perhaps acknowledging a potential weakness this November, several Democrats have used their speeches on the first night of the Democratic National Convention to promote President Barack Obama’s record on the military.
At least three times, speakers, including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and former Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine, have pointed to Obama’s decision to approve the raid that killed Osama bin Laden—suggesting Obama overcame Republican skepticism about a potential raid.
“Some said he shouldn’t move heaven and earth to get bin Laden,” Reid said.
“But President Obama made the tough and right call to bring the world’s worst terrorist to justice.”
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Now, if these national-league Democrats can brag about killing people as a way to solve your problems with them, as Obama and HILLARY Clinton did with Osama bin Laden, then my goodness, killing people as a way to solve your problems with them has to be alright, does it not?
I mean, if it wasn’t alright, then why on earth would these national level Democrats, who set the example the rest of us are supposed to follow, be openly bragging about it?
What kind of example would that be setting for what President Barack Obama said was “an angry, disturbed, unstable young man,” referring to the Orlando shooter after a meeting of the White House National Security Council, as was reported in the Telegraph article “Orlando shooting: Gunman Omar Mateen was a closet homosexual, say friends – as wife faces charges after ‘helping him scope out attack'” by Harriet Alexander; David Lawler; Ruth Sherlock, Orlando; Raziye Akkoc and Chris Graham on 15 June 2016?
If the top-level Democrats in this country can openly brag about killing people, as if it were an achievement and accomplishment to be actively sought after, seek out your enemies wherever they might be hiding, and blow their **** away, what message does that send to our youth, who seem to be doing a lot of the killing in this country today?
Something to think about, anyway, in the wake of this Orlando shooting.
As to HILLARY Clinton, in a Los Angeles Times article by Kate Linthicum on June 18, 2015, it was reported as follows:
Saying it was time to “face hard truths about race, violence, guns and division,” Hillary Rodham Clinton called for action Thursday in response to the shooting that killed nine worshipers at a historic black church in Charleston, S.C.
She did not, however, offer any specific plan for reducing gun violence.
end quote
That, of course, is not surprising that HILLARY Clinton did not offer any specific plan for reducing gun violence, because as a part of the problem, relying on gun violence to solve her problems with her plethora of enemies when secretary of state, HILLARY simply doesn’t have one.
You can’t be for gun violence on the one hand, as HILLARY was as secretary of state, advocating the killing of Gaddafi, and against the same gun violence you previously advocated for, as a presidential candidate, no matter how glib your tongue, or how facile you are at lying, without tying your tongue into knots, so from HILLARY we get silence.
To close, when you have national level Democrats openly bragging about murdering people as a way to solve your problems with them, is it really any surprise that people like this Omar Mateen, described by President Barack Obama “an angry, disturbed, unstable young man,” take their words to heart as they go out on their own killing sprees?
Perhaps when main stream American politicians like these Democrats stop publicly bragging about murdering people as a way to solve problems, ordinary Americans will stop thinking it is alright to do.
Paul Plante, Viet Nam 1969
Some people in America today think and/or believe that we’re being visited with a plague of murders in this country which people attribute to a form of divine retribution or karmic or hubristic backlash to all the murders Obama is committing in the name of the American people throughout the world, where he has appointed himself judge, jury and executioner, all in one.
Many people find that hard to argue against.
They see this mounting death toll in this country under Obama is proof of that belief.
As I am sure people must remember from their own school history lessons, back in the time of WWI, another time of anarchy in the history of the world, then-U.S. president Woodrow Wilson warned us as a nation that “To fight, you must be brutal, and ruthless, and the spirit of ruthless brutality will enter into the very fibre of our national life, infecting Congress, the courts, the policeman on the beat, the man in the street …”
And so it has, as we are seeing with all this violence in this country today.
A parallel was back in the Viet Nam times when Fayetteville, North Carolina, near Fort Bragg, home of the 82d Airborne, was known as “Fayette Nam” because of all the violence there that followed the soldiers home from Viet Nam.
Anyone interested in that American history can find an accounting of it in “The Long Grey Line” by Rick Atkinson.
How long have we been at war now in this nation?
Well over a decade, now, isn’t it, with no end in sight, and the conflicts growing.
How many young people in this country have come of age in a time of endless violence and murder in the name of “national security?”
It would be in the millions, wouldn’t it?
As Woodrow said so long ago, to fight all those wars without end, the nation must be brutal, and ruthless, so that now, that spirit of ruthless brutality has entered into the very fibre of our national life, infecting everybody in this country, so that President Obama now holds the record for the most mass murders on a single president’s watch.
Pretty disgusting, isn’t it?
The real question is, when it will ever end.
How many more will have to die for the lie that killing people in other countries makes us safe in ours?
Paul Plante, RVN 1969
Paul, great article and an even better responsible response. I cannot help but wonder, in some cases,the influence violent video games and movies have had on the youth of America. I have had conversations with peers about the cause and effect of violent video games on some people and in all cases we have all agreed that there has to be a correlation. The culture of America (since World War Two) through movies and television has proven time and time again, the gun solves a myriad of problems. Whether through war scenes or westerns or crime, the gun, time and time again resolves any major issue. This is just not the case in real life. The same kids, who grow up playing these realistic and graphic video games are drawing a closer distinction between what is real and what is fiction. At some point, the lines are bound to merge. As a vet, I cannot comment, as I am not one. But I thank you for your service and for your time given.
I think, Charles, from what I observed in Viet Nam in 1969, and what I further observed upon getting back, just before the Kent State Massacre, was how cheap human life had become, like a poison seeping through the fabric of American society.
Oh, ho hum, so we killed some women and children, so what, they were collateral damage, and besides, they shouldn’t have been near the __________ (fill in the blank with your favorite term for who you wanted to kill, terrorist, criminal, Viet Cong, Red Commie Bastard, etc.) in the first place if they didn’t want to get killed.
That cheapifying of human life came home with us from Viet Nam.
The younger generation alive at that time became regaled with tales from their older brothers or cousins who were there of killing gooks and slopes, non-humans, really. so you didn’t have to worry about killing them.
That scenario was vividly portrayed in the movie Platoon.
When the Iraq war came about, modern communications technology that wasn’t around during the Viet Nam war had come into existence, so cyber-space became filled with pictures taken of dead bodies in Iraq that were posted on various websites, and human life became even cheaper.
And it has been a downhill run from there.
As to violent video games, I cannot but think that somebody has to have a warped mind to play those things, and it has to be a warped society that welcomes those things into its midst.
“Well, what did you do today for play, little Johnny?”
“I blew the **** out of five different pregnant women on my computer, and I scored some extra points for killing some kids.”
WTF!
I have come to think, Charles, that the veneer of civilization is really not very thick in the first place, in the best of times, and in our case, not only has that veneer worn through, but the glue holding it on must have come from a really shoddy batch, because the veneer is coming undone, all over the place.
Mass psychoses, as Carl Jung would have said.
As the song says, there’s a bad moon on the rise.
Paul Plante, RVN 1969
Charles, you say “The culture of America (since World War Two) through movies and television has proven time and time again, the gun solves a myriad of problems.”
To be truthful, having grown up in those times, that was never my impression that “the gun solves a myriad of problems.”
The “gun,” like an axe, an adze, a hammer, a cross-cut saw, is nothing more than a tool, and it sure would not have solved a myriad of problems that night over that village in Viet Nam, not by a long shot.
And then you say, “Whether through war scenes or westerns or crime, the gun, time and time again resolves any major issue.”
But any sane and rational person knows that simply is not true, despite what television and the movies would like to have people think.
Guns are inert.
Because they are inert, they are incapable of resolving anything.
Guns can only kill when they are in the hands of people willing to use them.
In your other post in here on the “gun culture,” you talked about the “insanity of the gun culture.”
That has caused me to do a lot of thinking, especially in this thread which started out talking not about the “insanity of the gun culture,” but mass murder as a part of our foreign policy and as a consequence, a “spirit of ruthless brutality” which I believe has now entered into the very fiber of our national life.
The “insanity of the gun culture” in this country starts, as far as I am concerned, having lived that experience described above here, in the White House in Washington, D.C.
That is why the My Lai investigations stopped with Lt. Calley, because if they kept going, they would have had to go up the chain of command right to the commander-in-chief, himself.
As was said in “Apocalypse Now,” arresting people for murder in Viet Nam would be like handing out speeding tickets at the Indy 500.
Consider this testimony of Secretary of State John “Jack” Kerry before subcommittees of the U.S. Senate, April, 1971, to wit:
There are all kinds of atrocities, and I would have to say that, yes, yes, I committed the same kind of atrocities as thousands of other soldiers have committed in that I took part in shootings in free fire zones.
I conducted harassment and interdiction fire.
I used 50-caliber machine guns, which we were granted and ordered to use, which were our only weapon against people.
I took part in search and destroy missions, in the burning of villages.
All of this is contrary to the laws of warfare, all of this is contrary to the Geneva Conventions and all of this is ordered as a matter of written established policy by the government of the United States from the top down.
And I believe that the men who designed these, the men who designed the free fire zone, the men who ordered us, the men who signed off the air raid strike areas, I think these men, by the letter of the law, the same letter of the law that tried Lieutenant [William] Calley, are war criminals.
end quote
There, Charles, is the beginning of the insanity that you talk about, but it is insanity of our culture, itself, as I see it, given that “Jack” Kerry, flip-flopper that he is, has now embraced the very violence he once denounced.
And that insanity has been spreading like a noxious poison through the very fabric of our society to the point of where people don’t even think about it, unless there is some “spectacular” event like Sandy Hook, or Orlando, and then, it is guns that get the blame, not the insane society out of which such acts spring.
Consider this Orlando shooter, for example.
He was a licensed security guard.
His security company does security work for the U.S. government.
With respect to our insane culture, according to published news reports, in 2002, G4S, the employer of the Orlando shooter, acquired the United States-based Wackenhut Corporation, a private security and prison contractor with a deeply troubled history, including the widespread sexual assault of inmates at a Texas detention center in 1999.
Wackenhut went on to win a contract to guard the U.S. Embassy at Kabul, worth $189 million over five years.
In 2009, the Project on Government Oversight sent a letter to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton with photographic evidence that embassy guards had created a “Lord of the Flies environment,” at the embassy, said to include guards and supervisors “peeing on people, eating potato chips out of [buttock] cracks, vodka shots out of [buttock] cracks… [drunken] brawls, threats and intimidation from those leaders participating in this activity.”
Nevertheless, Wackenhut was hired by the U.S. government and BP in 2010 to manage perimeter security for the Deepwater Horizon oil spill on the Gulf Coast.
end quote
Ho hum, just some good old boys having some fun, is all, letting off some steam, downloading some stress, nothing to worry about, at all.
With respect to our culture today, compared to the culture which existed when I was young, back in the 1950s, GOOGLE the bio of United States president Barack Obama on WIKIPEDIA, as I just did to check that it wasn’t deleted, and this is what you will find:
Obama has also written and talked about using alcohol, marijuana, and cocaine during his teenage years to “push questions of who I was out of my mind”.
Obama was also a member of the “choom gang”, a self-named group of friends that spent time together and occasionally smoked marijuana.
end quote
There is modern culture, Charles, staring us in the face.
If the man who is now commander-in-chief of our military right now today used alcohol, marijuana, and cocaine during his teenage years, his so-called formative years, to “push questions of who I was out of my mind,” then who is he today?
How would he know?
When I was in my teenage years, I didn’t know there was such a thing as cocaine, and while I didn’t know all of who I was going to be, as no one when young really does, I wasn’t trying to “push questions of who I was out of my mind,” because I didn’t have such questions in there in the first place.
I worked on a farm and had responsibilities to fulfill.
When I read about the teenage Obama using cocaine as a teenager to “push questions” of who he was out of his mind, the first question that comes to my mind is where the hell was he getting it from?
And how on earth was he paying for it?
And how come no adults around him seemed to notice?
The answer to that last is that times have changed, Charles, and the culture in America has changed with it, so it is accepted that of course, the future president of the United States of America would spend his teenage years using alcohol, marijuana, and cocaine to push questions of who he was out of his mind.
I don’t know about you, Charles, but as for me, culturally, I have become a dinosaur.
Thus, I am probably the last person on earth who can give you any solutions to deal with the insanity we now find ourselves surrounded by, that often manifests in acts of violence.
Would that it was otherwise, but sadly, it isn’t, and where we as a nation go from here is now very unclear to me.
But it seems right now to be more downhill than up.
Paul Plante, RVN 1969
When I enlisted in the United States Army in 1967, it was not because I was a violent person looking for a weaker p0eople that I could inflict acts of wanton violence on.
I did not enlist in the United States Army because I was a psychopath, or a sociopath.
I did not enlist in the United States Army because I was a racist.
I enlisted in the United States Army because as a teenager, I heard then-United States president John Fitzgerald Kennedy say: “Do not ask what your country can do for you,” which has actually become the mantra in today’s national politics, asking and expecting the federal government to do everything under the sun for us, with everything free. like college.
“Ask instead what you can do for YOUR country!”
How un-American that sounds today, doesn’t it.
At that time in OUR Nation’s history when I enlisted in the U.S. Army, for those with memories of those times, we were supposedly threatened with a Communist invasion of this country by the Viet Cong, which was horse****, although being young, idealistic and naïve, I didn’t know that then.
The DOMINOES were going to fall, we were told, and if we didn’t stop them from falling in Viet Nam, why, my God, we would be next.
Sounds a lot like today, doesn’t it, with those in positions of power over us, Barack Obama, members of congress, making it sound as if ISIS will be here any time now, to kill us all, all 300+ million of us, as if we were all sheep easily slaughtered.
So to stop the DOMINOES from falling, I enlisted in the U.S. Army to do something for the country, as opposed to sitting on my posterior waiting for the country to come coddle me, and off to Viet Nam I went.
Suffice to say, I learned a lot about life in Viet Nam, and myself, as well.
I learned how gullible I was, how naïve, how easily led astray by lies as I was when I enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1967, to do something for MY country, as I had been told to do by U.S president John Fitzgerald Kennedy.
That is when I saw the division that plagues this nation today beginning.
We became on the one hand a nation of those who accepted being lied to, as if it were their due, as if somehow, in some undefined way they didn’t have to give more thought to, the lies would keep them somehow safe, from what they could not say, and on the other, people like myself, who began to question what the hell was going on.
What I have found in the intervening years is that questioning government is a dangerous pursuit in this country, and only recently, with the advent of on-line publications like this, has it even become possible, so heart-felt kudos in that regard to Wayne Creed and the Cape Charles Mirror.
My reason for making my voice heard in here today, after a period of silence, where the subject is “The Legacy of Violence is Ours,” stems from the violence that occurred last night in Texas, where 11 police officers were shot down in cold blood by what can only be called domestic terrorists.
It further stems from all these police shootings, which I find very disturbing, especially as a Viet Nam combat veteran who will die with vivid memories etched indelibly in my forebrain of acts of wanton violence inflicted on women and children and old people in Viet Nam by those who wore the uniform of the United States Army, as did I.
When I got back from Viet Nam and told this story above, the reactions varied.
Many said it never happened because Americans would never order that to happen, so I had to be lying to in order embarrass the U.S. government and those in power over us, who we all had to a duty to obey unquestioningly, because I was against the war, and thus, had to be a hippy, notwithstanding that I actually was a Viet Nam combat veteran.
No, I had to be making that up to, notwithstanding that I had a DD-214 listing service in Viet Nam on it.
But many more said to keep your damn mouth shut about it, to talk about it was to be disloyal, and if I didn’t love it here, and accept that almost-massacre described above here as right and just and holy, then by god, theirs, of course, the god who didn’t like Commies and wanted them all dead, women and children too, because nits breed lice, I had better leave here and go somewhere else where freedom of speech was guaranteed by their Constitution, because it sure as hell was not guaranteed here, especially in the midst of a war to the death with godless Communism, the scourge of the free world.
If we didn’t beat the Commies in Viet Nam, we would all end up behind the Iron Curtain, and that would be the end of our freedom, so to keep that from happening, it was better to surrender our freedom instead to our own leaders in Washington who are there to tell us what to do and what to think and how to act, and thus, it was necessary for me to suppress the truth, and live the lie instead.
What a sorry story this is when you think about it, how this nation has become ruled by lies across the board.
And now we are turning into an armed camp, because of the power of those lies to incite violence.
Hillary Clinton tells us that all white people are privileged racists.
Just this morning, in the BBC news from England, U.S. president Barack Hussein Obama was quoted as follows:
“Pointing to statistics showing African-American citizens are far more likely to be shot by police than whites, Mr Obama has called on law enforcement to root out internal bias.”
end quote
There we are people, that has to be it, ALL white cops are racists, because Barack Obama says they are, and he would have to know, wouldn’t he, because he is the president.
They all suffer from a psychiatric malady known “scientifically” as “implicit bias,” which psychiatric malady only affects white people.
In Hillary Clinton’s own words in an article in the DailyCaller section on “Elections” entitled “Hillary Tells Black Church White People Must End ‘Systemic Racism’” by Alex Pfeiffer, Reporter from 04/20/2016, we were all informed by Hillary Clinton, more than likely our next, president, as follows:
She later said at the event, “We all have implicit biases.”
“They are almost in the DNA going back probably millennia.”
end quote
Except that is plain old-fashioned, demagoguery, which is to say, a lie.
And now, based on that lie, and the violence it incited, police officers in Texas died last night by sniper fire, the way we died in Viet Nam, for the lies of another U.S. president.
All I can think at my now advanced age is what a sorry nation we have become, where the path to the White House and highest office in this land is now gained, not by truth, not by honesty, not by forthrightness. not by reasoned analysis based on facts, but by being the best liar in a lying contest called a presidential campaign.
Paul Plante, RVN 1969
When I joined the United States Army as an enlistee in January of 1968, I was given a book which I still have to this day which was entitled “THE SOLDIER’S HANDBOOK.”
At the time I was receiving that Handbook, United States president Barack Obama, who was born August 4, 1961, was seven years old.
At page 2 of that Handbook, it states:
Each individual in this nation has the duty to contribute as much as he can TO THE WELL-BEING of the nation and its people.
end quote
Think on those words for a minute, as we all ponder the violence sweeping this nation these days.
Each individual in the nation.
A duty to contribute as much as he (she) can TO THE WELL-BEING of the nation and its people.
So who is excluded then?
Anybody?
Notwithstanding those words in a Handbook that is now about as old as Barack Obama is, are there people in America today who do not have a duty to contribute as much as he or she can TO THE WELL-BEING of the nation and its people?
As we witness riots, and looting, and police being shot, and parts of cities being burned down by angry mobs incited to violence by demagogues, can we say that those actions in any way, shape or manner contribute to the well-being of the nation and its people?
Getting back to “THE SOLDIER’S HANDBOOK,” U.S. Army circa 1968, at p. 2, it states as follows:
As you look around you will not find a “typical American soldier” in height, weight, color of eyes and hair, family origin, education, wealth, intelligence or similar characteristics.
The soldiers you have met and will meet are from all walks of life and all parts of our country.
But all of you have two things in common.
First, you are all serving the United States of America and believe in the principles that make it a free country.
end quote
Serving the United States of America.
Believe in the principles that make it a free country.
Does that stuff mean anything today?
Or has it just become a load of hoo-hah, like so much of what we believed in, in our past?
With respect to what we did believe in, in the past, at p. 5, the “U.S. ARMY SOLDIER’S HANDBOOK” informed us as follows:
The Declaration of Independence was adopted on 4 July 1776 and is divided into three important parts.
PART ONE states the fundamental principles of our American Government – that all men are created equal; that each man has the inalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; that governments receive their power from the governed; and that the people have the right to alter or change that government if it becomes destructive to these ends.
PART TWO covers the acts which had been committed by the British against the American colonies.
PART THREE is the actual Declaration of Independence, ending with a pledge by the signers of their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor in the cause of the United States.
The Declaration of Independence states our philosophy of government and the pledge of our forefathers to support it as the first pillar of our American freedoms.
end quote
OUR philosophy of government!
ALL men are created equal.
If that is so, and I believe it to be, why do we have a U.S. president today calling himself an AFRICAN-American?
Why isn’t the president of the United States of America calling himself what I am, which is an American, regardless of what I look like, or where my ancestors were born?
Why is the president of the United States of America separating himself from the rest of us by putting a qualifier on the type of American he is, which serves to divide this country along racial lines, when we are supposed to be one people, regardless of race, color, or creed?
Why do we hear the president of the United States of America talking about “minority communities” here in the United States of America in 2016?
What, pray tell, is a “minority community” here in the United States of America?
If everyone is supposed to be equal in the eyes of the law, then how does someone become a “minority?”
If in 1968, when Barack Hussein Obama was 7 years old and living a life of ease and privilege that would see him coast with relative ease to the Washington White House and the highest office in the land, “THE SOLDIER’S HANDBOOK” of U.S. Army circa 1968 was telling people like me that I would not find a “typical American soldier” in height, weight, color of eyes and hair, family origin, education, wealth, intelligence or similar characteristics as I looked around me, and that the soldiers I met would be from all walks of life and all parts of our country, with the thing we had in common being that we were all serving the United States of America while believing in the principles that make it a free country, why are we hearing the president of the United States of America forty-eight (48) years later in 2o16 talking about “minority” communities?
Why, if we are supposed to be one people, is the president of the United States of America segregating us and dividing us?
As a loyal American citizen who is not a racist, and who does not tolerate racism, I would like the know why the president of the United States of America is promoting racism and disharmony and divisiveness in this country based on a totally bogus, crack-pot “science” called “Implicit Bias?”
Why are we hearing the person the president of the United States of America is “all fired up” about supporting while telling us “In fact I don’t think there’s ever been someone so qualified to hold this office” herself being quoted in the DailyCaller section on “Elections” in an article entitled “Hillary Tells Black Church White People Must End ‘Systemic Racism’” by Alex Pfeiffer, Reporter from 04/20/2016, as follows:
She later said at the event, “We all have implicit biases.”
“They are almost in the DNA going back probably millennia.”
end quote
How does Hillary Clinton, a career politician with no scientific or medical background, know any of that to be true, especially the part about “almost in the DNA going back probably millennia,” for anyone other than herself?
Where does Hillary Clinton, a pandering politician and dangerous demagogue willing to say anything to anyone for a buck or a vote, get off telling any of us that we have “implicit biases” that are “almost” in the DNA going back probably millennia?
More to the point, how big a fool do we have to be to believe her?
And what does “almost in the DNA” mean, anyway?
If these “implicit biases” are almost in the DNA, then where exactly are they – part way in and part way out?
Somewhere near the DNA, but not quite touching it?
What kind of absolute horse**** are we being peddled here by the person likely to be the next U.S. president, and why are we tolerating it?
And if we don’t know where these supposed “implicit biases” really are, and they have been there for probably millennia, which means thousands of years, then how are we to get rid of them?
In short, Hillary doesn’t know, because that is all horse**** that she made up out of whole cloth to pander for votes by dividing America across racial lines: “And what we need to do is be more honest about that and surface them,” adding, “I don’t have the answers, I’m not a behavioral psychologist or anything, but I think that needs to be done in every community kind of setting we can find that is open to doing it.”
In the light of what “THE SOLDIER’S HANDBOOK” of U.S. Army circa 1968 was telling all of us American citizens that there is not a “typical American soldier” in height, weight, color of eyes and hair, family origin, education, wealth, intelligence or similar characteristics that the soldiers we would meet were from all walks of life and all parts of our country, is everyone following what Hillary Clinton is saying here, because it affects each and every one of us, whether we are aware of it or not?
To understand how if affects us as a nation divided, it is necessary to provide some perspective and context.
When Hillary Clinton, who Barack Obama characterized recently by saying “In fact I don’t think there’s ever been someone so qualified to hold this office,” said those words, it was in Philadelphia in April of this year during a visit to a black church, where Hillary Clinton told the predominately African-American audience that it is the “responsibility of white people” to end systemic racism, incorrectly stating a popular hip-hop phrase in saying we will “ride and die.”
“If someone has white skin,” HILLARY told those people, “they are a racist because of Implicit Bias, and we need community programs here in America to cure them.”
Clinton was visiting the St. Paul’s Baptist Church along with “The Mothers of the Movement” and former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder.
The Mothers of the Movement HILLARY was meeting with consisted of mothers who had lost loved ones in police shootings, and the stated topics of the event were police brutality, mass incarceration, gun violence and racism.
“We have to be honest about systemic racism and particularly the responsibility of white people, not just people in public life but all of us,” Hillary said.
Before HILLARY spoke at the event a group of protesters gathered outside who were a part of an organization called Philly R.E.A.L. Justice Coalition.
They hammered Clinton on her support for her husband’s 1994 crime bill and they demanded that Hillary pledge that as president she would pardon all those convicted due to the law.
end quote
I frankly find it incredible beyond belief that the person the president of the United States of America is characterizing as “In fact I don’t think there’s ever been someone so qualified to hold this office” is herself out there pandering for votes by telling black folks that “If someone has white skin, they are a racist because of Implicit Bias, and we need community programs here in America to cure them.”
That is a statement only a lunatic would make, given that this “Implicit Bias” Hillary and Obama and the Democrat party are pushing all across America is something that has no scientific basis in fact.
If Hillary Clinton herself suffers from implicit bias, then by all means, she should seek competent professional treatment for it from a behavioral psychologist or psychiatrist to see if she can get herself cured of it.
In the meantime, she should not be dividing this nation by pinning this bogus mental ailment on the rest of us so she can score some cheap political points based on crackpot science.
Paul Plante, RVN 1969
14 July 2016
The President
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, DC 20500
RE: Your Town Hall Meeting on a Racially-Divided America
Dear Mr. President:
When we are supposed to be one nation, one people, with our philosophy of government being that ALL men are created equal, why do you divide the nation by calling yourself an AFRICAN American?
Why do you not call yourself what I am, which is an American, regardless of what I look like, or where my ancestors were born?
Why as President of the United States of America are you separating yourself from the rest of us by putting a qualifier on the type of American you are, which serves to divide this country along racial lines, when we are supposed to be one people, regardless of race, color, or creed?
Why do we hear you as president of the United States of America talking about “minority communities” here in the United States of America in 2016?
What, pray tell, is a “minority community” here in the United States of America?
If everyone is supposed to be equal in the eyes of the law, then how does someone become a “minority?”
Why, if we are supposed to be one people, are you as President of the United States of America segregating us and dividing us?
As a loyal American citizen who is not a racist, and who does not tolerate racism, I would like to know why you as President of the United States of America are promoting racism and disharmony and divisiveness in this country based on a totally bogus, crack-pot “science” called “Implicit Bias?”
Why is Hillary Clinton dividing this nation and causing racial disharmony and promoting violence by saying, “If someone has white skin, they are a racist because of Implicit Bias, and we need community programs here in America to cure them.”
Please address these serious questions at your Town Hall meeting tonight, because as an older American, I would like to hear your answers to them.
Respectfully,
Paul R. Plante
While we are on this subject of violence in America, when I first came across the term “implicit bias,” it was in the form of a question from a police officer on the Albany, New York Police Department asking me if I had ever heard of it, and what did I think of it.
He wanted to know my thoughts on the subject as an older person in the community, as he was being required to take a mandatory course in “implicit bias” as a white police officer.
This was right around the same time in April of 2016 when Democrat presidential nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton was visiting the St. Paul’s Baptist Church along with “The Mothers of the Movement” and former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder where she told them that “If someone has white skin, they are a racist because of Implicit Bias, and we need community programs here in America to cure them.”
This mandatory training for this white police officer in Albany, New York appears to have been a part of the “community programs” here in America to “cure” white people of being alleged racists because of “Implicit Bias” that is being pushed on America by Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and the U.S. Department of Justice, which is why former U.S. Attorney General Eric Himpton Holder, Jr. was there at that meeting with Hillary Clinton.
As people will recall, former U.S. Attorney General Eric Himpton Holder, Jr. is the same man who called us a “nation of cowards” at a closed meeting out in Ferguson, Missouri after Michael Brown, the convenience store robber, was shot and killed by a white police officer whose gun had Michael Brown’s fingerprints on it from when he tried to take the gun from the police officer after using his fists on him.
Eric Himpton Holder, Jr. is the man who was quoted in the Daily Mail on 20 August 2014 as saying “As they write about the legacy of the Obama administration, a lot of it is going to be about what the Civil Rights Division has done.”
And what the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice under Eric Himpton Holder, Jr. has done is to make it a matter of federal government policy that “if someone has white skin, they are a racist because of Implicit Bias,” so that we need community programs here in America to cure them.
Re-education camps, in other words, like those set up by the Communists in Viet Nam after the fall of the Saigon government to “re-educate” anyone associated with the government or military of the failed government of South Viet Nam.
The husband of a good friend of mine who is Vietnamese spent ten years in one of those re-education camps because he served in the Army of South Viet Nam (ARVN).
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy in an article on the subject published Feb. 26, 2015 states that “implicit bias” is a term of art referring to relatively unconscious and relatively automatic features of prejudiced judgment and social behavior.
Note that phrase “term of art.”
A “term of art” is not science, and yet, based on that “term of art,” voodoo science, if you will, the United States Department of Justice and Hillary Clinton, very likely our next president, have made a blanket accusation that every white person in this nation is a racist in need of a cure in a federal government-mandated community program.
With no proof, and no need for proof, Hillary Clinton and the United States Department of Justice have condemned, yes, that is the right word, condemned every white person in this country as being afflicted with a serious mental defect or disorder that is detrimental to societal harmony in this nation, which harmony cannot be restored until every white person in this nation said to be afflicted with “implicit bias” has either been “cured” in a federal government program, or permanently removed from society through some other means, such as permanent psychiatric confinement in a secure mental facility.
Yes, people this certainly does sound like something straight out of TALES OF THE BIZARRE, but it is not.
Hillary Clinton is not a character in TALES OF THE BIZARRE, although she certainly could be; to the contrary, she is the leading contender to be our next chief executive officer in this country, as well as the head of our military, and the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
And this is not just some idle chatter on my part in here.
As we have this conversation here in the Cape Charles Mirror in Virginia about violence in America, this voodoo science of “implicit bias” is being used in New York state by Democrat governor Andy Cuomo in an executive order to bypass the Grand Jury procedures in our Criminal Procedure Law in cases where a white police officer has shot what Andy Cuomo calls “a person of color” in New York state.
In other words, by executive fiat, the Democrat governor of New York state is by-passing our written law to place the fate of a white police officer involved in a confrontation with a “person of color” in his hands alone, based on the federal government dictum that “if someone has white skin, they are a racist because of Implicit Bias,” and thus, cannot be trusted to serve on juries or grand juries where “justice” for a person of color is involved, which is simply incredible.
So for us to the north of you, this is serious business, indeed.
With no due process of law, we have been stripped of equal protection of law and rendered second-class citizens in need of being “cured” by the federal government, simply because we have skin that appears to be white in color compared to that of Barack Obama and Eric Himpton Holder and Loretta Lynch and the Reverend Al Sharpton.
So much for the Constitution I fought and bled for as an Army infantryman in Viet Nam, for it does not protect me from federal government prejudice and bias, simply because of what I happen to look like, and what a statement about the times we are now in, that is.
Paul Plante, RVN 1969
Recently, we in this country were treated to a huge drama involving Donald Trump, who could be called a drama queen, or a magnet for drama, which is his God-given right as an American citizen under our Constitution and laws, and Republican Senator John McCain, another drama queen, Barack Hussein Obama, the Democrat National Convention, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, of which I happen to be a life member, and Khizr and Ghazala Khan, originally from Pakistan, who are the parents of United States Army Captain Humayun Khan, who was killed in 2004 during the Iraq War, and who themselves received international attention following a speech at the 2016 Democratic National Convention for this following statement:
“You have sacrificed nothing — and no one.”
end quote
“YOU HAVE SACRIFICED NO ONE!”
As a Viet Nam combat veteran, an infantryman who many times was used as “chum” by this country, that statement caught my attention in a hurry.
In fact, it took me back to Country Joe and the Fish and their VEET NAM era song “I Feel Like I’m Fixin’ To Die Rag (Take 1)” with these famous lines in it:
Come on mothers throughout the land,
Pack your boys off to Vietnam.
Come on fathers, and don’t hesitate
To send your sons off before it’s too late.
You can be the first ones in your block
To have your boy come home in a box.
end quote
Yes, sacrifices, people, which brings us to the definition of the word SACRIFICE itself:
“An act of slaughtering an animal or person or surrendering a possession as an offering to God or to a divine or supernatural figure.”
end quote
Are Khizr and Ghazala Khan, the parents of United States Army Captain Humayun Khan, telling us that they, like many parents before them during the VEET NAM war, as LBJ called it, “sacrificed” their son by giving him up for slaughter as an offering to God or to a divine or supernatural figure like Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton or the Democrat Party?
Is that what we are being told here?
And let me say here that I enlisted in the U.S. Army of my own free will, just like Humayun Khan did, not to make a “sacrifice,” but to fulfill a DUTY. as that duty was spelled out at page 2 of THE SOLDIER’S HANDBOOK, U.S. Army circa 1968, wherein was stated as follows:
Service in the Army is a duty and a privilege.
Each individual in this nation has the duty to contribute as much as he can TO THE WELL-BEING of the nation and its people.
Military service is one form of such a contribution.
From the oldest times it has been considered a privilege to be permitted to bear arms IN THE DEFENSE of one’s nation or people.
This privilege is afforded only to those who are individuals of good standing and good reputation.
end quote
As I read through Humayun Khan’s biography, where it stated “As a young child, Khan read extensively about Thomas Jefferson,” (who ironically has been denounced and discredited in this country as a racist because he owned slaves), it came to me that he and I were not really all that different in our beliefs.
We both went off to STUPID, ILL-MANAGED, TOTALLY ******-UP “wars,” in his case, one which Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden, both democrats, voted for, because we both LOVED this country.
In my case, in fulfilling my duty, I was twice-wounded and still have RPG fragments lodged near my spine, which cause me great physical distress 24/7/365, as well as having been poisoned with Agent Orange, which may well end up killing me in the end.
I got to witness first-hand the scene described in the opening post of this thread, where a village of women and children out near the Cambodian border in Viet Nam north-west of Saigon and south of the Saigon River and Tay Ninh were to be indeed sacrificed for LBJ, the United States and the glory of god, although it was uncertain which one that was, other than one that needed human blood, and a lot of it, to know that it was loved.”
And Humayun Khan ended up dying in Iraq when he walked up to a car bomb and got his **** blown away for his trouble.
Such is duty.
So, was Humayun Khan “sacrificed?”
There, people, is what I think is an important question facing us all in this time of endless war we are now in.
Did Khizr and Ghazala Khan “sacrifice” their son Humayun Khan as was stated at the DNC on 28 July, the final day of the 2016 Democratic National Convention, as the crew of that helicopter were “sacrificed” in Viet Nam in 1969 to cover up what would have been considered by some, the more fastidious among us, to be war crimes?
Or did he die serving OUR country?
I would say the latter, and as a combat veteran who has many dead friends who died in combat, frankly, I think it was obscene for the Democrat National Convention to have these people come out on stage, riding their dead son like a horse, so that they could level political charges in a partisan political setting at Donald Trump, who they and the democrats quite obviously don’t like.
And if Trump “sacrificed nothing,” as Khizr Khan said, then so too Hillary and Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama sacrifice nothing, and yet, we heard nothing from Khizr Khan about their lack of sacrifice, especially Bill, who gained fame as a quite competent draft dodger when the Viet Nam war was going on.
As for me, I think it is way past time that these grasping, self-serving politicians like the Clintons who feed off this country like parasites without putting anything back, and Barack Obama, as well, stop using OUR military troops and veterans as THEATRICAL PROPS to aggrandize themselves as if they were SUPER PATRIOTS.
That is highly disrespectful of the purpose for which they serve or did serve.
And John McCain, and the VFW, if you want to come after me for expressing my opinion in here, come right ahead, especially John McCain, who issued a statement in which he expressed his disagreement with Trump’s statement, saying, “While our party has bestowed upon him the nomination, it is not accompanied by unfettered license to defame those who are the best among us.”
“Defame,” John?
Pray tell, who exactly got “defamed” here?
According to what I read about this huge drama, Trump suggested that Hillary Clinton’s campaign staff had written the speech where Khizr Khan spewed forth the ridiculous false political propaganda “And we will keep getting stronger when Hillary Clinton becomes our next president.”
Clearly, that was political speech made at a partisan political gathering not open to the public-at-large for the specific purpose of aggrandizing Hillary Clinton, and as an American citizen, Trump had every right to challenge it.
The fact that the Khans are “gold-star” parents does not give them some kind of special immunity or impunity to make political speeches and spew propaganda without challenge, and that sure as hell is not what I enlisted in the Army to defend.
As to the role the VFW played in this Khizr Kahn drama, following John McCain’s denunciation of Trump for questioning whether Hillary Clinton’s campaign staff had written the speech where Khizr Khan spewed forth the ridiculous false political propaganda “And we will keep getting stronger when Hillary Clinton becomes our next president,” the Veterans of Foreign Wars followed with a statement saying, “Election year or not, the VFW will not tolerate anyone berating a Gold Star family member for exercising his or her right of speech or expression.”
Berating a Gold Star family member for exercising his right of speech?
Get real here, people.
Where was the “berating” where “berate” is defined as “scold or criticize (someone) angrily.”
Who did Trump berate then?
Frankly, I thought their statement was ridiculous in the light of the facts and circumstances of the matter.
The VFW, which tells us on it website that its mission is “To foster camaraderie among United States veterans of overseas conflicts” and “To serve our veterans, the military and our communities” and “To advocate on behalf of all veterans” with their vision being to “Ensure that veterans are respected for their service, always receive their earned entitlements, and are recognized for the sacrifices they and their loved ones have made on behalf of this great country” with their alleged CORE VALUES including “Promoting patriotism,” is defending this Khan dude spewing ridiculous false political propaganda that says “And we will keep getting stronger when Hillary Clinton becomes our next president.”
How does that serve to promote patriotism in this country when Hillary Clinton has publicly denounced veterans like myself and countless others with her ridiculous and unsubstantiated and quite dangerous statement that “If someone has white skin, they are a racist because of Implicit Bias, and we need community programs here in America to cure them?”
By endorsing Hillary Clinton, the VFW is also endorsing the policy statement of Hillary Clinton that “If someone has white skin, they are a racist because of Implicit Bias, and we need community programs here in America to cure them,” which policy statement then forms the basis of the 2016 Democrat Party Manifesto, from which Khizr Khan then drew his statement “We are stronger together” which comes from the final sentence of the Preamble, where is said, “We can and we will build a more just economy, a more equal society, and a more perfect union—because we are stronger together.”
And that is in direct violation of their own stated policy which says “Don’t endorse candidates on behalf of the VFW as a Post, District, Department or National Leader.”
By standing up for Khan’s propaganda spew, the VFW is tacitly endorsing HILLARY Clinton, in spite of its own stated policy to members like myself to not endorse politicians on behalf of the VFW, and let me say that as a life member of the VFW, that betrayal of its own values I find to be quite revealing of the background aims of the organization despite what they tell members like myself what those values are supposed to be.
As a veteran, I stay informed on the issues, including veterans issues, and this 2016 DEMOCRAT MANIFESTO that the VFW has given its endorsement to is the most dangerous threat to our American way of life and Constitutional form of government that there could be, in my opinion gained by studying the document.
In fact, it is a recipe for the institution of a tyranny in this country akin to Hitler suspending the constitutional rights of the German people when he became German chancellor.
How does that serve to promote patriotism in this country?
To the contrary, their endorsement of HILLARY Clinton makes the VFW appear as a domestic enemy of our Constitution, as well as an enemy of veterans like myself who took an oath to protect and defend that same Constitution and who bled for it, as a result.
For that, they deserve special ire and opprobrium for the betrayal of the values dearly held by loyal Americans like myself who still believe in Rule of Law, not rule of Hillary.
“We need to go back to the beginning and acknowledge that the very founding of our country was an act of profound contradiction, and demagogues throughout generations who stoked racist and anti-immigrant hatred, often for votes, and then enshrined their bigotry into laws.”
And that burst of nonsensical idiocy comes to us from Democrat presidential contender and player of the race card for political benefit Cory Booker in the inflammatory New York Times article “In Charleston, Cory Booker Delivers Major Speech About White Supremacy and Gun Violence” by Alexander Burns on 7 August 2019, where we were informed as follows, to wit:
CHARLESTON, S.C. — Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey called on Wednesday for a national crusade against gun violence and a moral reckoning with the strains of white supremacy “ingrained in our politics since our founding,” as demands for government action continued to mount after two gun massacres last weekend in Texas and Ohio.
end quotes
A “moral reckoning?”
And pray tell, exactly what is that term supposed to connote to we, the American people who are sick and tired of hearing Democrats calling everyone they don’t like a “racist,” which itself is a damn stupid term, given that we only have one race of people here in this country, unless of course, Cory Booker thinks people with skin other than white are some other race than human, which would make Cory very stupid indeed?
Looking for some kind of guidance, since the political panderer Cory Booker gives us none, I did some internet research on the subject and what I came up with, outside of much on a “moral reckoning” in the field of nursing, was a book report on a book by Daniel Jonah Goldhagen entitled “A Moral Reckoning: The Role of the Catholic Church in the Holocaust and Its Unfulfilled Duty of Repair” by Donald Dietrich, a Professor of Theology at Boston College, specializing in Holocaust Studies and the Catholic Human Rights conversation who is the author of “God and Humanity in Auschwitz: Jewish-Christian Relations and Sanctioned Murder,” where we were informed as follows:
Daniel Jonah Goldhagen’s 1996 book, “Hitler’s Willing Executioners, Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust,” elicited a great deal of contentious debate, and it is likely that this most recent book will continue that tradition.
In this polemical study, Goldhagen asks the Catholic Church a question: “What must a religion of love and goodness do to confront its history of hatred and harm, to make amends with its victims, and to right itself so that it is no longer the source of hatred and harm that, whatever its past, it would no longer endorse?” (p. 3)
He has attempted to analyze the moral culpability of Catholics and their leaders, to judge the actors, and to discern how today’s Catholics can make material, political and moral restitution.
Following an introduction that sets the tone of the book, Goldhagen launches Part One by explicating a fairly standard theme.
Christian churches helped develop an antisemitic bias that was dedicated to the conversion of the Jews, while simultaneously trying to “eliminate” Jews from their so-called influential roles in civic society and culture.
The churches did not support the extermination of the Jewish people.
Goldhagen and other scholars generally have pointed, however, to the fact that religious, cultural and political antisemitism softened the consciences of Christians and so allowed the virulent, exterminationist antisemitism of Hitler and his minions to spiral out of control into the brutalizing death camps.
Throughout his book, Goldhagen peppers his analysis with the moral precepts articulated by the Catholic Catechism to judge the activities of Catholics and their Church during this dark period, and he is right to do so, except that this complex story, about which volumes of commentaries have been written, cannot be tied merely to non-nuanced moral axioms.
Morality is more complicated than simple axioms might suggest.
To comprehend their meaning properly, one must understand these stark moral axioms within their evolving contexts in secular and theological history
Throughout this book, Goldhagen’s analysis tends to be reductionistic because his “proof-texting” methodology ignores the complexities of real life.
What particularly seems to disturb him is the fact that the Catholic Church during this period was acting as a political institution as well as a moral institution and not exclusively as one or the other (p. 96).
Since the inception of Christianity, and especially after Constantine, however, the Church has had to function as an institution that lives in the world and yet has a spiritual mission.
What this has meant in practice is that Church Councils, Popes, and documents have articulated theological and moral principles, but have done so only while engaging the culture.
Hence, moral principles have tried to exert guidance in the real world of marching soldiers and have at times failed.
Such failures as the Church’s antisemitism and its compromising responses to the Third Reich certainly sapped institutional vitality and constricted the possibilities of vital moral leadership, and that is a lesson that has been painfully learned.
Goldhagen seems to find it difficult to accept that human activity by its very nature is political and moral, which means that each of us has to live in a dynamic tension of balancing “real world” survival and the ethical principles that we use as guiding principles.
The fact that bishops, theologians, and lay Catholics were antisemitic should not be as surprising as Goldhagen suggests, since the bias has been carefully learned over the centuries and this systematic evil (sin) is part of our learned culture.
end quotes
And that learned exposition on the fact that human beings are neither perfect nor infallible, Cory Booker and Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama all excepted of course, since they are both perfect and infallible, takes us back then to Cory Booker’s statement, which is not historically correct, that “We need to go back to the beginning and acknowledge that the very founding of our country was an act of profound contradiction, and demagogues throughout generations who stoked racist and anti-immigrant hatred, often for votes, and then enshrined their bigotry into laws.”
We need to “acknowledge” (accept or admit the existence or truth of) that the very founding of our country was an act of profound contradiction?
WHY?
Why do we need to “acknowledge” that, especially since it is not true?
So what exactly is this “profound contradiction?”
Cory, of course, being a politician, does not say, nor did the New York Times ask him to explain.
And what are these “strains of white supremacy ingrained in our politics since our founding” besides some misplaced ideas in the head of the Democrat demagogue Cory Booker as he panders for votes and political donations heading into the 2020 presidential elections?
And the answer is that there are no “strains of white supremacy ingrained in our politics since our founding,” as if every person with skin that is white has been raised up to be a “racist,” which is bull****, plain and simple.
And have there been demagogues throughout generations in this country who have stoked racist and anti-immigrant hatred, often for votes, and then enshrined their bigotry into laws?
My goodness, of course there have been, which is something we American people used to learn in kindergarten so we would not go out into the world as adults to emulate them.
And here we are today, with Democrat demagogue Cory Booker coming forward to stoke racist hatred for votes!
For shame, Cory!
And Cory, after hearing this same **** from Democrats since Hillary Clinton was spewing her “white privilege” and “Implicit bias” bull**** during the 2016 presidential contest, We, The American People are really quite sick of hearing it.
And you should be ashamed, Cory, for sounding like such an ignoramus when it comes to actual American history, as opposed to the fake version you are spewing as you pander for votes and political contributions to fuel your presidential run.
And take a hint here, Cory, somebody like yourself who chooses to lie to us, and mislead us, and divide us, does not deserve to be the leader of a free people!
“We need to go back to the beginning and acknowledge that the very founding of our country was an act of profound contradiction, and demagogues throughout generations who stoked racist and anti-immigrant hatred, often for votes, and then enshrined their bigotry into laws.”
And that burst of nonsensical idiocy comes to us from Democrat presidential contender and player of the race card for political benefit Cory Booker in the inflammatory New York Times article “In Charleston, Cory Booker Delivers Major Speech About White Supremacy and Gun Violence” by Alexander Burns on 7 August 2019, where we were informed as follows, to wit:
CHARLESTON, S.C. — Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey called on Wednesday for a national crusade against gun violence and a moral reckoning with the strains of white supremacy “ingrained in our politics since our founding,” as demands for government action continued to mount after two gun massacres last weekend in Texas and Ohio.
end quotes
A “moral reckoning?”
And pray tell, exactly what is that term supposed to connote to we, the American people who are sick and tired of hearing Democrats calling everyone they don’t like a “racist,” which itself is a damn stupid term, given that we only have one race of people here in this country, unless of course, Cory Booker thinks people with skin other than white are some other race than human, which would make Cory very stupid indeed?
Looking for some kind of guidance, since the political panderer Cory Booker gives us none, I did some internet research on the subject and what I came up with, outside of much on a “moral reckoning” in the field of nursing, was a book report on a book by Daniel Jonah Goldhagen entitled “A Moral Reckoning: The Role of the Catholic Church in the Holocaust and Its Unfulfilled Duty of Repair” by Donald Dietrich, a Professor of Theology at Boston College, specializing in Holocaust Studies and the Catholic Human Rights conversation who is the author of “God and Humanity in Auschwitz: Jewish-Christian Relations and Sanctioned Murder,” where we were informed as follows:
Daniel Jonah Goldhagen’s 1996 book, “Hitler’s Willing Executioners, Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust,” elicited a great deal of contentious debate, and it is likely that this most recent book will continue that tradition.
In this polemical study, Goldhagen asks the Catholic Church a question: “What must a religion of love and goodness do to confront its history of hatred and harm, to make amends with its victims, and to right itself so that it is no longer the source of hatred and harm that, whatever its past, it would no longer endorse?” (p. 3)
He has attempted to analyze the moral culpability of Catholics and their leaders, to judge the actors, and to discern how today’s Catholics can make material, political and moral restitution.
Following an introduction that sets the tone of the book, Goldhagen launches Part One by explicating a fairly standard theme.
Christian churches helped develop an antisemitic bias that was dedicated to the conversion of the Jews, while simultaneously trying to “eliminate” Jews from their so-called influential roles in civic society and culture.
The churches did not support the extermination of the Jewish people.
Goldhagen and other scholars generally have pointed, however, to the fact that religious, cultural and political antisemitism softened the consciences of Christians and so allowed the virulent, exterminationist antisemitism of Hitler and his minions to spiral out of control into the brutalizing death camps.
Throughout his book, Goldhagen peppers his analysis with the moral precepts articulated by the Catholic Catechism to judge the activities of Catholics and their Church during this dark period, and he is right to do so, except that this complex story, about which volumes of commentaries have been written, cannot be tied merely to non-nuanced moral axioms.
Morality is more complicated than simple axioms might suggest.
To comprehend their meaning properly, one must understand these stark moral axioms within their evolving contexts in secular and theological history
Throughout this book, Goldhagen’s analysis tends to be reductionistic because his “proof-texting” methodology ignores the complexities of real life.
What particularly seems to disturb him is the fact that the Catholic Church during this period was acting as a political institution as well as a moral institution and not exclusively as one or the other (p. 96).
Since the inception of Christianity, and especially after Constantine, however, the Church has had to function as an institution that lives in the world and yet has a spiritual mission.
What this has meant in practice is that Church Councils, Popes, and documents have articulated theological and moral principles, but have done so only while engaging the culture.
Hence, moral principles have tried to exert guidance in the real world of marching soldiers and have at times failed.
Such failures as the Church’s antisemitism and its compromising responses to the Third Reich certainly sapped institutional vitality and constricted the possibilities of vital moral leadership, and that is a lesson that has been painfully learned.
Goldhagen seems to find it difficult to accept that human activity by its very nature is political and moral, which means that each of us has to live in a dynamic tension of balancing “real world” survival and the ethical principles that we use as guiding principles.
The fact that bishops, theologians, and lay Catholics were antisemitic should not be as surprising as Goldhagen suggests, since the bias has been carefully learned over the centuries and this systematic evil (sin) is part of our learned culture.
end quotes
And that learned exposition on the fact that human beings are neither perfect nor infallible, Cory Booker and Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama all excepted of course, since they are both perfect and infallible, takes us back then to Cory Booker’s statement, which is not historically correct, that “We need to go back to the beginning and acknowledge that the very founding of our country was an act of profound contradiction, and demagogues throughout generations who stoked racist and anti-immigrant hatred, often for votes, and then enshrined their bigotry into laws.”
We need to “acknowledge” (accept or admit the existence or truth of) that the very founding of our country was an act of profound contradiction?
WHY?
Why do we need to “acknowledge” that, especially since it is not true?
So what exactly is this “profound contradiction?”
Cory, of course, being a politician, does not say, nor did the New York Times ask him to explain.
And what are these “strains of white supremacy ingrained in our politics since our founding” besides some misplaced ideas in the head of the Democrat demagogue Cory Booker as he panders for votes and political donations heading into the 2020 presidential elections?
And the answer is that there are no “strains of white supremacy ingrained in our politics since our founding,” as if every person with skin that is white has been raised up to be a “racist,” which is bull****, plain and simple.
And have there been demagogues throughout generations in this country who have stoked racist and anti-immigrant hatred, often for votes, and then enshrined their bigotry into laws?
My goodness, of course there have been, which is something we American people used to learn in kindergarten so we would not go out into the world as adults to emulate them.
And here we are today, with Democrat demagogue Cory Booker coming forward to stoke racist hatred for votes!
For shame, Cory!
And Cory, after hearing this same **** from Democrats since Hillary Clinton was spewing her “white privilege” and “Implicit bias” bull**** during the 2016 presidential contest, We, The American People are really quite sick of hearing it.
And you should be ashamed, Cory, for sounding like such an ignoramus when it comes to actual American history, as opposed to the fake version you are spewing as you pander for votes and political contributions to fuel your presidential run.
And take a hint here, Cory, somebody like yourself who chooses to lie to us, and mislead us, and divide us, does not deserve to be the leader of a free people!
“We should soundly reject language coming out of the mouths of any of our leaders that feeds a climate of fear and hatred and normalizes racist sentiments; leaders who demonize those who don’t look like us, or suggest that other people, including immigrants, threaten our way of life, or refer to other people as sub-human, or imply that America belongs to just one certain type of people!”
Those words, people, are from out of the mouth of former American president Barack Hussein Obama in an article in The Hill entitled “Obama calls on Americans to reject leaders who feed ‘climate of fear and hatred'” by Brett Samuels on 5 August 2019, where it was stated that former President Obama on Monday urged Americans to “soundly reject” leaders who feed “a climate of fear and hatred,” and there he is talking directly about Democrat Senator from New Jersey and Democrat presidential contender Cory Booker, who according to no less an authority than the highly esteemed and venerable New York Times in the article “In Charleston, Cory Booker Delivers Major Speech About White Supremacy and Gun Violence” by Alexander Burns on 7 August 2019, is playing the “race card” in an intentional bid to pit people with skin other than white against people with skin that is white, with him as the champion of those whose skin is not white, as follows:
The speech by Mr. Booker, one of two leading black candidates for the Democratic nomination, had the potential to be one of the most important moments of his campaign, testing his power as a voice of moral clarity and racial justice in a crowded Democratic race that has largely focused so far on debates about economic inequality.
He has been something of an outlier in the primary field so far in his insistence on trumpeting themes of national healing, at times clashing with his party’s prevailing mood of hot indignation.
That healer’s ethos, however, may register differently with voters at a moment of mounting violence, frequently aimed at racial minorities and women.
But this week of turbulence and trauma has developed into a vitally important one for Mr. Booker, who after months of toiling away in relative obscurity has begun to show signs of breaking through in the presidential race.
end quotes
Yes, he is “breaking through” in the presidential race, and that is by dividing us into “US” and “THEM,” which is exactly what Obama was warning us about above here, when he told us emphatically that this kind of divisive rhetoric of New Jersey Senator and Democrat presidential contender Cory Booker is not new, but that it “has no place in our politics and our public life,” so that “(I)t’s time for the overwhelming majority of Americans of goodwill, of every race and faith and political party, to say as much — clearly and unequivocally,” which, thanks to the public spiritedness of the Cape Charles Mirror, I am taking the opportunity to do in here, as forcefully as I can,
And how on earth anyone can misconstrue the words of Cory Booker that are intended to cause disharmony between those with skin that is not white and those with skin that is white as the words of a “healer” is totally lost on me, because those words of his are not healing words, at all, as we can clearly see by going back to that NYT article, as follows:
Few venues for that message could have been as laden with symbolism as the one Mr. Booker chose: the predominantly black congregation in downtown Charleston became the focal point of a wrenching national confrontation with racism after the 2015 attack by a racist gunman who has since been sentenced to die for his crimes.
end quotes
A “racist” gunman?
How about an IDIOT, instead?
And what exactly is the message there, people?
That because there was indeed a WHACK-JOB with white skin that committed murder in a black church, that all people with white skin then are potential murderers?
Because a KOOK-A-DOOK with white skin murdered black people, that all people with white skin are now deemed to be a danger to people with skin that is not white?
And where is the healing in that message?
And what exactly is the SYMBOLISM that the demagogue Cory Booker is trying to bring forth here and invoke?
How about this:
US! (People with skin that is not white)
THEM! (People with skin that is white)
THEY (people with skin that is white) ARE A DANGER TO US (people with skin that is not white)!
VOTE FOR ME (Cory Booker) AND I WILL PROTECT YOU (people with skin that is not white) FROM THEM (people with skin that is white)!
And that is a message not of unity, but of hate, for political purposes.
BA-DOOM, war drums beating!
And what will Cory, Senator Booker from New Jersey, do about the bad white folks in America who he deems a threat to all the non-white people in America with the “WAR BETWEEN THE RACES” of his?
Here is what the New York Times tells us, anyway:
And in Charleston on Wednesday, Mr. Booker entwined specific policy demands — including new licensing requirements for firearms and a comprehensive law-enforcement strategy for fighting white nationalism — with thematic appeals to the power of love.
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A comprehensive law-enforcement strategy for fighting white nationalism?
Do tell, Senator Booker!
And tell us now, before we make the serious mistake of putting you in the White House with that thought hanging over our heads, exactly what this “comprehensive law-enforcement strategy for fighting white nationalism” is going to look like in real life, given that there is no such thing as “white nationalism” outside of an idea in some person’s head.
Are we all going to be rounded up on suspicion of being white nationalists based on nothing more than the sin and/or federal crime under the Cory Booker administration of having been born with skin not black like Cory Booker, so that we white-skinned people do not look like him, and put into re-education camps where we can all be treated for the “implicit bias” Democrat Hillary Clinton says afflicts all white-skinned persons but for her?
Tell us Senator Booker – what do you have planned for us on the day you become president?
The candid world would like to know!
And that takes us back to that New York Times article and these words from Senator Booker, as follows:
“There is no neutrality in this fight,” he said.
“You are either an agent of justice or you are contributing to the problem.”
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And given that there is no neutrality in this fight, and not wanting to be one who is contributing to the problem, as is Democrat Senator from New Jersey Cory Booker, I am taking a public stand against the Senator from New Jersey and his hate-filled rhetoric intended to divide the people of America into warring camps to benefit Cory Booker politically, which is obscene!
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