Can you say "Mayaguez"?
My dear friend Alice Green is trying to encourage me to abandon anger in my life.....Anger at idiots, morons, and the socially inept or actual sociopaths does seem to be right up there with Caligula sending his Legions against the sea......Alice has a point.
Here is my point: Doesn't Evil and Stupidity need to be confronted? Too many people don't seem to even notice either....much less confront them. Looking at the available tools.....Anger seems to be the most useful.
So....deep breath. Hold that breath for four months......At some point I defer to Bob Dylan: "What kid of price do we have to pay....to get out of going through all these things twice?"
What ever happened to intelligent dialogue? Facts, history, experience, respect, the thrill of battle against opposing ideas and the glory of compromise that moves us all forward?
Done and dusted.....
My dearly beloved brother Rob was at one time entranced....or at least attracted.... to John McCain for his various feisty, principled stances on policy. Rob died in 2001, and so did any sense of propriety and reality in anyone connected to Senator McCain...
Every single thing that President Obama is now trying to move forward with is now being tied up by Republican opposition.....not from any rational argument, just because. Because....?
I am not a huge fan of the President.....I am on record as saying in print that Leon Panetta has a tiny little penis for continuing the attacks on privacy and personal freedom that started with Dick Cheney and George Bush....and were enthusiastically continued under our current President.
Don't start me on Medical Marijuana.....
Or ICE and Immigration.....
Democrats have always sucked.....They just suck less than modern Republicans....
But.....
Senator McCain and his buddies continue to bring up Benghazi as some kind of boogie man and tar-baby that is supposed to discredit every appointee that President Obama makes....no Secretary of State, no Secretary of Defense, no head of the CIA will be allowed because Obama did not rescue four guys in Benghazi in September, or Obama somehow lied about it.
We (Cachagua General Store) are locally famous for putting thousands of crosses on Carmel Beach to recognize our lost sailors, soldiers, airmen and Marines on Memorial Day. Our display was only made possible by help from some of those very Marines who did the groundwork. I have kept track of them...most are OK. Some not. (We won't talk about the never spoken of effect of getting hit by an IED and surviving....and having your balls and dick blown off a few months after your wedding to your sweetheart....No one wants to pay that bill). Or even acknowledge it......
Others of my Marines are in task forces hovering in various places....some in the Med. These guys and gals are ready to respond to any crazy thing that might happen anywhere from Rome to Malta to Cairo....to Benghazi. Helicopters, jets, bombers, Special Forces, Seals, Delta.....whatever.
One thing they don't do.....and no one in the military will do.....is randomly fly into somewhere with our overwhelming skill, bravery and technology without local knowledge of what is going on on the ground.
Why?
Common sense.....and the "Mayaguez".
After the Vietnam War was over...way back in the day in 1975.....some random Khmer Rouge idiots captured a US container ship off Cambodia.
Long story short.....our response was unprepared, hyperbolic, with little info on the situation on the ground....and we wound up losing more Marines in the rescue than those sailors exposed on the ground. Not one of the captives from the Mayaguez died....but the rescue crew was frankly humiliated. Three captured Marines were executed in public, and the US could do nothing about it but watch. Not to mention the ten killed in the uniformed assault.
From Wikipedia:
The Mayaguez incident took place between the Khmer Rouge and the United States from May 12–15, 1975, was the last official battle of the Vietnam War. The names of the Americans killed, as well as those of three U.S. Marines who were left behind on the island of Koh Tang after the battle and who were subsequently executed by the Khmer Rouge, are the last names on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. The merchant ship's crew, whose seizure at sea had prompted the U.S. attack, had been released in good health, unknown to the U.S. Marines or the U.S. command of the operation, before the Marines attacked. It was the only known engagement between U.S. ground forces and the Khmer Rouge.
For John McCain to use the Benghazi incident as a bludgeon against President Obama and his appointees and his policies is an act of breathtaking hypocrisy.
Ever been to the Vietnam Memorial? It will still your heart......You will sob like a schoolgirl. So many dead young people.
And when you get to the end......the kids from the Mayguez.
Killed by bad intel, no intel....political over-reaction......and letting the civilians get in the way of the pros.
Obama and Secretary Clinton are only guilty of having learned from history, and having decided to not repeat it....regardless of the temporary cost.
Senator McCain......what can I say? When hard core, life long, Republican gung ho Marines are embarrassed by your behavior because it is against all rational modern military tactics and policy.....Just to score "political points"......You have jumped the shark, buddy.
There is a reason not a single one of his fellow residents of the Hanoi Hilton in Vietnam supported his bid for the presidency......
If our carriers had responded to the attack in Benghazi.....and we had Marine helicopters shot down and lives lost, and captives executed.....hours after any realistic possibility of helping our four State Department workers.....what would he have said? Support for the President's decision to send in troops with no intel? I am so sure......
Oh.....and the ultimate hypocrisy: Senator McCain voted with his "brothers" to cut the security budget for the State Department as part of their crusade to cut "wasteful" government spending.
Once an authentic hero.....maybe. Or not.
Now just a rancid piece of shit stuck to all of our shoes......
Sad......
Now denying the approval of a Secretary of Defense....during wartime.....for the first time in the history of our country.
I think "shit" would be offended to be compared to John McCain......
Here is my point: Doesn't Evil and Stupidity need to be confronted? Too many people don't seem to even notice either....much less confront them. Looking at the available tools.....Anger seems to be the most useful.
So....deep breath. Hold that breath for four months......At some point I defer to Bob Dylan: "What kid of price do we have to pay....to get out of going through all these things twice?"
What ever happened to intelligent dialogue? Facts, history, experience, respect, the thrill of battle against opposing ideas and the glory of compromise that moves us all forward?
Done and dusted.....
My dearly beloved brother Rob was at one time entranced....or at least attracted.... to John McCain for his various feisty, principled stances on policy. Rob died in 2001, and so did any sense of propriety and reality in anyone connected to Senator McCain...
Every single thing that President Obama is now trying to move forward with is now being tied up by Republican opposition.....not from any rational argument, just because. Because....?
I am not a huge fan of the President.....I am on record as saying in print that Leon Panetta has a tiny little penis for continuing the attacks on privacy and personal freedom that started with Dick Cheney and George Bush....and were enthusiastically continued under our current President.
Don't start me on Medical Marijuana.....
Or ICE and Immigration.....
Democrats have always sucked.....They just suck less than modern Republicans....
But.....
Senator McCain and his buddies continue to bring up Benghazi as some kind of boogie man and tar-baby that is supposed to discredit every appointee that President Obama makes....no Secretary of State, no Secretary of Defense, no head of the CIA will be allowed because Obama did not rescue four guys in Benghazi in September, or Obama somehow lied about it.
We (Cachagua General Store) are locally famous for putting thousands of crosses on Carmel Beach to recognize our lost sailors, soldiers, airmen and Marines on Memorial Day. Our display was only made possible by help from some of those very Marines who did the groundwork. I have kept track of them...most are OK. Some not. (We won't talk about the never spoken of effect of getting hit by an IED and surviving....and having your balls and dick blown off a few months after your wedding to your sweetheart....No one wants to pay that bill). Or even acknowledge it......
Others of my Marines are in task forces hovering in various places....some in the Med. These guys and gals are ready to respond to any crazy thing that might happen anywhere from Rome to Malta to Cairo....to Benghazi. Helicopters, jets, bombers, Special Forces, Seals, Delta.....whatever.
One thing they don't do.....and no one in the military will do.....is randomly fly into somewhere with our overwhelming skill, bravery and technology without local knowledge of what is going on on the ground.
Why?
Common sense.....and the "Mayaguez".
After the Vietnam War was over...way back in the day in 1975.....some random Khmer Rouge idiots captured a US container ship off Cambodia.
Long story short.....our response was unprepared, hyperbolic, with little info on the situation on the ground....and we wound up losing more Marines in the rescue than those sailors exposed on the ground. Not one of the captives from the Mayaguez died....but the rescue crew was frankly humiliated. Three captured Marines were executed in public, and the US could do nothing about it but watch. Not to mention the ten killed in the uniformed assault.
From Wikipedia:
The Mayaguez incident took place between the Khmer Rouge and the United States from May 12–15, 1975, was the last official battle of the Vietnam War. The names of the Americans killed, as well as those of three U.S. Marines who were left behind on the island of Koh Tang after the battle and who were subsequently executed by the Khmer Rouge, are the last names on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. The merchant ship's crew, whose seizure at sea had prompted the U.S. attack, had been released in good health, unknown to the U.S. Marines or the U.S. command of the operation, before the Marines attacked. It was the only known engagement between U.S. ground forces and the Khmer Rouge.
For John McCain to use the Benghazi incident as a bludgeon against President Obama and his appointees and his policies is an act of breathtaking hypocrisy.
Ever been to the Vietnam Memorial? It will still your heart......You will sob like a schoolgirl. So many dead young people.
And when you get to the end......the kids from the Mayguez.
Killed by bad intel, no intel....political over-reaction......and letting the civilians get in the way of the pros.
Obama and Secretary Clinton are only guilty of having learned from history, and having decided to not repeat it....regardless of the temporary cost.
Senator McCain......what can I say? When hard core, life long, Republican gung ho Marines are embarrassed by your behavior because it is against all rational modern military tactics and policy.....Just to score "political points"......You have jumped the shark, buddy.
There is a reason not a single one of his fellow residents of the Hanoi Hilton in Vietnam supported his bid for the presidency......
If our carriers had responded to the attack in Benghazi.....and we had Marine helicopters shot down and lives lost, and captives executed.....hours after any realistic possibility of helping our four State Department workers.....what would he have said? Support for the President's decision to send in troops with no intel? I am so sure......
Oh.....and the ultimate hypocrisy: Senator McCain voted with his "brothers" to cut the security budget for the State Department as part of their crusade to cut "wasteful" government spending.
Once an authentic hero.....maybe. Or not.
Now just a rancid piece of shit stuck to all of our shoes......
Sad......
Now denying the approval of a Secretary of Defense....during wartime.....for the first time in the history of our country.
I think "shit" would be offended to be compared to John McCain......
posted by Txacoli at 11:22 PM
7 Comments:
Michael
I learned in Jesuit high school from Henri Bardon SJ, "Don't go the the mat on every fight, pick only the ones you can win. Remembering always, the winnable ones are few."
Bennie
Dearest Michael,
I wish I'd seen this sooner! Clearly I did not express myself well. Anger is a good catalyst for action; it is, however, a very bad place to live. Anger is information. As information it can spur productive action. Yet for action to be productive in the world it has to come from a calmer place or it will be far less effective. Holding onto anger just ends up hurting the angry person and undermines effectiveness. If a person is seen as someone simply full of angry rants--regardless of justification--that person is much more likely to be simply dismissed. "Oh, that guy, he's always ranting about something". It's just like with children--if a parent yells too much in anger, that parent gets tuned out, ignored, or worse. xxoo Alice
Mike
If Will is still around, and you see him, tell him I said Hello.
He will recognize my initials..
M. E.
McCain is not a Republican. I am a Republican. Like most of my kind, we have completely soured on good ole John McCain.
McCain is not a Republican. I am a Republican. Like most of my kind, we have completely soured on good ole John McCain.
I agree with Alice. BTW, any new news on the Big Sur fire? Joyce
For the health conscious person I have a suggestion that you can try reishi mushroom extract to keep your body fit and healthy.
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