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STRENGTH IS WEAKNESS, WEAKNESS IS STRENGTH — 26 Comments

1. I just watched a German news report on the Obama meeting. They said that Obama told the Europeans that although he will do more to provide energy sources, they must must do more to assure their own energy supplies. Isn’t Obama the one who bought completely into the Kyoto aims? Isn’t he the one who wanted America to pursue the same utopian dreams about renewables? Isn’t he the one who can’t quite decide about Keystone or about opening more federal lands to oil exploration? So now, without admitting he was wrong, he’s lecturing the Europeans.
   This idiot is a total embarrassment, but he is also dangerous.

2. Thanks to non-stop media fawning and worship and cheerleading, we’re stuck with a dangerously naé¯ve part-time school teacher, with a family history of Marxism and Islam. Great, just great.

3. What will scuttling the missiles accomplish, saving money? He could save more by curtailing his wife’s travels. Hampering the ability of the United States to assert itself? Forcing a successor to put sailors closer to harm’s way in a crisis? It is despicable for a president to betray the country this way. Well, if this be treason, he’s making the most of it.

4. I hadn’t really made the connection before, thinking of the American media as America’s version of the Soviet’s Pravda but I think the common historical revision that is now the norm on the left’s part makes the “Ministry of Truth” an even better fit for the MSM. The NYT seems to be the most adept or at least brazen at it.

   Obama; no lie, prevarication or obfuscation is beyond him.

   The cutting of the Tomahawk and Hellfire missile programs is a direct attack upon the US military’s capabilities. It is a much more profound than other cuts and literally hamstrings our military. Obama is steadily castrating the US Military.

   Here is a quick summary of the moves Obama and his administration have made, to provide perspective;

   >Cutting the military to pre-WWII levels. 
   >Proposing to cut our nuclear arsenal to below China’s. 
   >US Navy to cut back to just two deployed Carrier Groups 
   >Disposing of the Air Force’s entire fleet of A-10 Warthog attack jets, critical to supporting ground troops and special forces operations
   >Mothballing a batch of Navy cruisers 
   >Curtailing the Navy’s Littoral Combat Ship program
   >The Army is canceling its Ground Combat Vehicle 
   >Obama is Cutting the Key Reconnaissance Fleet of AWACS by 25 Percent 

   In the opinion of many top brass:
   >Obama is ‘PURGING THE MILITARY’
   >In the past 5 years, forcible ‘retirement’ of over 200 senior officers. 
   >Army Reserve training material: Evangelicals, Catholics are extremist groups
   >West Point Terrorism Study Targets “Far Right” Conservatives 
   >Air Force Academy Adds Male Bashing Gender Theory “Male and Masculinity” Course

   Sailors leaving Navy over stress on social issues, Top Gun instructor says

   “A Navy F-18 fighter pilot and former Top Gun instructor is publicly warning admirals that retention is beginning to suffer from the military’s relentless social conditioning programs.

   Cmdr. Guy Snodgrass, until recently a Pentagon speech writer for the chief of naval operations, Adm. Jonathan Greenert, said sailors are becoming fed-up with the constant emphasis on social issues – an apparent reference to gays in the military, women in combat and ending sexual harassment. [my emphasis]

   Now Obama is Killing the Tomahawk and Hellfire Missile Programs

   This is far too comprehensive to be accidental or unplanned.

5. Fool or knave? In this context, pacifist or fifth columnist?

6. Geoffrey Britain,

   Go activist or go home. Except our home is the arena of competition, so really, it’s go activist or else.

   What is the Right going to do?

7. Geoffrey Britain, I owe you a beer!
   nice list… scary is that you and i know its a lot longer
   and a lot weirder in some of the things

   though i wonder when the light will come on in realizing that you only need a small altercation and Obama to give up, and viola…

   Go back, way back, you will see that i mention were it was all going to head because weakness draws predators.

   They are not going to get another pairing like Obama Biden in how many years?

   Behind closed doors the U.S. government is giving Russia free military equipment–also used to train American troops–even after President Obama announced punitive sanctions against Moscow and, more importantly, a suspension in military engagement over the invasion and occupation of Ukraine

   It turns out that the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has been providing the Russian Federation with the Multiple Integrated Laser Engagement System (MILES), the federal legislators say. The U.S. military uses MILES for tactical force-on-force training because it has a system of lasers and dummy ammunition to simulate ground combat.

   http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2014/03/u-s-gives-russia-free-military-equipment-used-by-army-marines/

8. There is no room for doubt when it comes to BHO’s objectives; he wants to weaken America’s stature on the global stage, turn our society into a banana republic where he is the dear leader for life, and he wants to promote the return of the caliphate. Come 2016 there will be a crisis that is too good to waste.

9. Well…

   He’s got more flexibility.

   He’s getting rid of the old fashioned stuff…

   And, naturally enough, is cancelling unproven systems.

   The cancellations are occurring exactly at the same time that Russia is gobbling up the Near Abroad.

   Perfect!

10. IT will be very interesting when the left gets what it wants, and finds out it not only doesn’t want it, but that its spent its own life energy making it happen to themselves.

    been trying to make this whole issue a subject from years ago and over and over, to no avail.

    while we discussed all manner of stuff, that list Geoffrey Britain was being accomplished and no one wanted to discuss what these various fundamental changes as a group together mean (and most of these things as parts were not interesting either)

    They got off discussing pointillists points, and could never stand back and see what all those colorful dots were making appear.

    Even worse, like a good mystery, all the clues and information was there for them to look at, read and understand. but they would rather make up reasons leaving out reality and get off on the beauty of these thoughts. I guess, like a mystery, wanting to be surprised at the end.

    when life is so good, one can live a fantasy life detached from the requirements of reality due to the organization of the society, one loses touch with the idea that reality is real. it becomes hard to be motivated, the things that used to be important aren’t any more as being detached one loses their reason to do the things one does when one is a part of something. why read something so that what you know gets passed on? why care, as that can be left to someone else who does care.

    once detached, one could then send them down long winding roads that go on forever (with an itch called vague yearning and arms too short to scratch)… and let them forget that they are not immortal, and they “should gather ye rosebuds while thee may”, convincing them that somewhere farther down the road is the McGuffin that they seek.

    one only has to then wait till the effects get to the point where they cross someone willing and able to act on them.

    tools are not magical, they have to be used properly too…

11. Eric,

    There are various levels of activism. This blog is one level of activism and a profoundly important one. Voting is another. Elect enough conservatives to the House and both the regulatory and entitlement States can be stopped dead in their tracks. A large enough block of votes in the House can stop both the raising of taxes and the raising of the debt ceiling. That would force Congress to finally be held accountable for the choices it makes in funding.

    Let Obama and the dems explain why obscene multimillion dollar Presidential family vacations are more important than cancer research. Why the EPA and Dept. of Energy and Education are more important than funding the military. Let the pork that funds the democrats special interest groups like Planned Parenthood be cut.

    What we need is political power and political power to achieve goals must have the leverage of Congressional votes. Especially in the House, which controls the purse strings.

    Time to play hardball, not yet time for revolution.

12. parker,

    That the left intends to, when possible seize power is IMO, undeniable. But Obama can’t manufacture a crisis out of thin air and have it ‘hold water’. It must be a plausible excuse for him or any future President to seize power. And to be a sustainable seizure of power, it must have the imprimatur of legality.

    While there may well be other scenarios, IMO the two most probable crisis on the horizon that would provide a democrat President with the needed excuse are a collapse of our financial system and/or a successful nuclear terrorist attack upon a major American city.

    Obama’s policies, both foreign and domestic are IMO, clearly driving us toward those outcomes. Ultimately, it matters not whether it is intentional or ‘accidental’, as the result will be the same; Martial Law.

    Under martial law, there exists prior legal, constitutional precedent for a President to declare constitutional guarantees and provisions suspended for ‘the duration of the national emergency’.

    At some point, the left has to unequivocally declare itself and act extra-constitutionally. IMO, it cannot “fundamentally transform” America otherwise. As there are just too many on the right. Doing so under a veneer of ‘legality’ is needed so as to gain compliance from the local police, state and federal agencies and most critically, from the military. That is needed to secure a sustainable seizure of power by the left.

    For those who imagine, as I once did that the US Military would never cooperate in essentially overthrowing the US Constitution, I suggest watching this remarkable presentation; “Message to Police” by Josie the Outlaw

13. Step 3: Neuter our military’s greatest human weapon, the Special Operations Forces, by changing their operating concept from capturing & killing the enemy to “achieve strategic outcomes by working with and through interagency and foreign partners to understand and influence relevant populations.”

    Seriously: http://preview.tinyurl.com/k2kfgsn

14. On the bright side, there are an awful lot of recent veterans who know a hell of a lot about insurgencies.

    In Iraq and Afghanistan they were fighting against insurgents, but that also means they know how insurgencies are conducted.

15. Geoffrey Britain Says:
    March 26th, 2014 at 7:43 pm

    “Message to Police” by Josie the Outlaw

    I think I’m in love.

    In a related vein, see this.

16. http://www.oftwominds.com/blogmar14/sociopaths3-14.html

    In a similar vein. ^^^

    “…Cousins described the pathology of power thusly:

    “Connected to the tendency of power to corrupt are yet other tendencies that emerge from the pages of the historians:

    1. The tendency of power to drive intelligence underground;
    2. The tendency of power to become a theology, admitting no other gods before it;
    3. The tendency of power to distort and damage the traditions and institutions it was designed to protect;
    4. The tendency of power to create a language of its own, making other forms of communication incoherent and irrelevant;
    5. The tendency of power to set the stage for its own use. …”

    What hydrophobia does to a rabid animal, unchecked hubris does to the political elites.

17. Eric:

    Back in the 60’s, William Buckley and Ayn Rand were my heroes. They did not agree with each other in fundamental ways, but they were each non-Leftist meteoric intellects, in their own way they both saw the emperor had no clothes.

    They represented the usual minority opinion, roughly the opinion of Brutus and Cassius. Do you have an opinion on the assassination of Julius Caesar?

    We have two things to consider, what the present reality actually is, and what we can do about it.

    I refer to Hitler reluctantly but necessarily. The Left has collectively achieved dominance in the same bogus yet effective way Hitler did.

    I say this with a great deal of sadness, and I hope I am wrong.

    There is no realistic chance the non-Left can adopt Alinsky tactics. Alinsky adopted Hitler tactics perfectly.

    Alinsky tactics are the actual point, essence, meaning, explanation, definition of the Left. Doing what is required at the current moment is the bizarre significance of it all.

    The non-Left is (honorably) incapable of the child’s play.

    The non-Left can be much smarter than it is. Much smarter.

    We have very narrow options necessarily and can only (IMO) go with the flow.

    The bizarre reality is that we non-Leftists must merely remain faithful to our adult, prudent, wise pov.

    We must talk about Frost.

    And Mamet.

    And Barzun.

    For all the other stuff, the stuff which overcomes epistemic closure, we have only the truth, always a roll of the dice.

18. “Doing so under a veneer of ‘legality’ is needed so as to gain compliance from the local police, state and federal agencies and most critically, from the military. That is needed to secure a sustainable seizure of power by the left.”

    I know, on a personal level, the sheriff and his deputies in my county. I know every individual (not a lot of people) on the police force in my town. They know that I know where they live and I know all of all their spouses and where they work. They also know that I will retaliate accordingly should they forget their oath to uphold the Constitution. This is not possible in urban areas, but it is possible in more rural areas.

    Every member of the private county range where I am a dues paying member (there are currently 205 of us) has relayed the same message to county and town LEOs. We all understand what is at stake once “every man for himself, government against all” occurs. Many of us have also had a sincere discussion with local members of the Iowa Guard. We have them out numbered and we have more fire power because few, if any of them, have a 30 caliber rifle and can hit a dinner plate at 400+ yards.

    rickl,

    Back 3 generations ago, in Kentucky, my ancestors knew how to handle revenuers who came to arrest them for making white lightening in order to pay property taxes. They simply disappeared in the hog pen. Unknown unknowns are pigs that come home to eat everything, including the bones.

19. Eric:
    Here is a pretty good explanation of why using the Left’s tactics against them is…problematic.

    Unruly Progressives

    A lot of people formulate their worldview in a particular order. From what they’re taught as children, and what they observe as they age, they come up with a series of principles. Then they assess others around them, concluding that the ones who live by those principles are the good people and the ones who don’t are the bad people.

    …

    Many progressives organize their worldview in the reverse order: They pick the good people – themselves – and everything else is negotiable.

20. actually comrade zero sounds like an esalen lecturer or a cheap pop psychologist, practicing psychiatry without a license

21. Geoffrey Britain says:

    “A Navy F-18 fighter pilot and former Top Gun instructor is publicly warning admirals that retention is beginning to suffer from the military’s relentless social conditioning programs.”

    It was obvious despite what the Joint Chiefs and SecDef were saying that this was going to be a huge issue. The guys I know who are still in told me that Officers and Chiefs/senior NCOs refused to even take the survey. They were assigned their logins so they knew they were traceable. So they couldn’t say what they really thought because they were just marking themselves for reeducation camp and/or a quick end to their careers.

    So the survey results allowed the Pentagon to say it was mostly going to be a non-issue. But of course it is, as you can see. There is just no way you can spend six months on a ship and not offend anyone. And the services just can’t have that. Recall how the media and the left wanted Commandant of the Marine Corps head for simply defending what was current policy. The writing was on the wall. It WILL be a success and the beatings will continue until it is. The point being that mere tolerance was never going to be enough. You have to “celebrate diversity.”

    Well, a certain kind of diversity. The services have been giving training designating Catholics, Baptists, and Evangelicals as hate groups. Perhaps that’s what was going on here.

    http://radio.foxnews.com/toddstarnes/top-stories/military-blocks-access-to-southern-baptist-website.html

    “The U.S. Military has blocked access to the Southern Baptist Convention’s website on an unknown number of military bases because it contains “hostile content” – just weeks after an Army briefing labeled Evangelical Christians and Roman Catholics as examples of religious extremism, Fox News has learned.

    Southern Baptist chaplains reported that SBC.net had been blocked at military installations around the nation. An Air Force officer told Fox News that when he tried to log on to the website he received a message that his Internet usage was being logged and monitored for trying to access a blocked site.”

22. Not to keep harping on the same subject, but when Marine General Sheehan testified that the Dutch Army Chief of Staff told him that the presence of gay soldiers was one of the factors behind the collapse at Srebrenica it caused a huge outcry.

    The Dutch responded:

    http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/19/dutch-reject-claim-that-srebrenica-fell-because-of-gay-troops/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0

    “Soon after the hearing, the Dutch ambassador to the United States, Renée Jones-Bos, said that she ‘couldn’t disagree more,” in a statement posted on her embassy’s Web site. The ambassador added:

    The military mission of Dutch U.N. soldiers at Srebrenica has been exhaustively studied and evaluated, nationally and internationally. There is nothing in these reports that suggests any relationship between gays serving in the military and the mass murder of Bosnian Muslims.

    On Friday, Dutch radio noted that ‘among all the introspection and adjustments made in the wake of Srebrenica, the issue of homosexuality never came up.'”

    Of course there was no introspection. Of course there weren’t any adjustments made. Of course there was nothing in the reports. It can’t be talked about.

    http://www.defense.gov/pubs/pdfs/DOD-ProtectingTheForce-Web_Security_HR_13Jan10.pdf

    That’s a link to the DoD report on MAJ Nidal Hasan’s murderous rampage. Guess what there was no introspection about? Guess what’s not in the report? Neither Islam, that he was a Muslim, he’s not even identified by name. One would think it might have come somewhere in the sections dealing with “identifying the threat” or “The Alleged Perpetrator” but no. It too can’t be talked about. And if you can’t talk about something because it’s taboo, then no adjustments can be made.

    When that fighter pilot is telling his Admirals that sailors want to get out because of the “social issue” indoctrination he wasn’t just talking about gays or women in the military. This report’s message, “Protecting the Force: Lessons from Fort Hood,” had a message that was heard loud and clear, too. It kills morale when you have a situation that’s hurting morale, or in Hasan’s case a deadly threat, and you know if you mention it you will be the one considered to have a problem. That report just screamed out that they don’t want to protect the force, because they don’t want to learn the lessons, because that’s too sensitive to talk about. So it’s no wonder those sailors want to get out.

23. Unapologetically Orwellian. Horrific. And, yet, here the vast herds of pinheads sit. Without objection or even a pause for, “Huh??”

    Unimaginable that Comrade Putin would even contemplate an invasion of the Ukraine in the time of GWB.

    If there is anything we have learned from History: WEAKNESS IS PROVACOTIVE.

    The lessons of the recent 20th Century—with accompanying Rivers of Blood—may as well be pre-historic in this Age of Idiots. Tweety by Insta Facey, anyone??

24. You know what Comrade Putin is contemplating? Returning his forces to the Caribbean and Latin America.

    “To the alarm of lawmakers and Pentagon officials, Putin has begun sending navy ships and long-range bombers to the region for the first time in years.

    Russia’s defense minister says the country is planning bases in Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua, and just last week, Putin’s national security team met to discuss increasing military ties in the region.

    “They’re on the march,” Gen. James Kelly, commander of U.S. Southern Command said at a Senate hearing earlier this month. “They’re working the scenes where we can’t work. And they’re doing a pretty good job.”

    Kelly said there has been a “noticeable uptick in Russian power projection and security force personnel” in Latin America.

    “It has been over three decades since we last saw this type of high-profile Russian military presence,” Kelly said at the March 13 hearing.”

    Read more: http://thehill.com/blogs/defcon-hill/policy-strategy/201305-putins-quiet-play-for-latin-america#ixzz2xAuymaS8
    Follow us: @thehill on Twitter | TheHill on Facebook

    Not bad for what’s merely a weak regional power, eh?

    Meanwhile, according to the PACOM intel officer China is preparing for a war with Japan. We did nothing about that air defense information zone that announced over that bit of Japanese territory called the Senkaku Islands. They think they can take them. And perhaps some of their sea claims in the South China Sea in the Paracel and Spratly Islands without starting a major war. Because they’ve seen who’s in our White House. The strong, restrained type, who out of strength is above responding with force due to the fact he knows they’re just doing this out of weakness.

    I’d say now is the perfect time to cut the TLAM and Hellfire missile programs, and put us on the path to cut the Navy by half in the next 10 years. If I were an enemy of the United States.

25. parker @ 11:53 . . .

    “Every member of the private county range where I am a dues paying member (there are currently 205 of us) has relayed the same message to county and town LEOs.”

    Excellent comment! Everyone should reread it, even government spies and foreigners who hate us.

    I love to read various pulp-type writers, and I’ve learned a lot.

    Right now, I’m reading David Weber’s Safehold series, and he has many useful ideas on personal defense, building a navy, making allies, etc.

    I mention this because we’re probably regressing to a world of daggers and pirates. Once chaos enters the world, each and every citizen will be a menace to the so-called high and mighty.

    Government toadies should be ready for the chaos that’s awaiting us when the rule of law is destroyed by power-hungry fascist/commies.

    Sow the wind, and reap the whirlwind.

26. I thought I should clarify exactly what I was trying to say the problem was that is driving those sailors out. The ones Geoffry Britain mentioned:

    ““A Navy F-18 fighter pilot and former Top Gun instructor is publicly warning admirals that retention is beginning to suffer from the military’s relentless social conditioning programs.

    Cmdr. Guy Snodgrass, until recently a Pentagon speech writer for the chief of naval operations, Adm. Jonathan Greenert, said sailors are becoming fed-up with the constant emphasis on social issues – an apparent reference to gays in the military, women in combat and ending sexual harassment.”

    This isn’t the training material they use in these Maoist struggle sessions these sailors are fed up with. It’s what they use to train the equal opportunity advisers who lead those struggle sessions. It’s the brainchild of the Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute. In fact, they tell the EO advisers not to use it on the job, because of course the sailors must be kept in the dark about the true nature of what they’re suffering.

    http://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2014-01/deckplates-do-not-use-job

    ” Criticism of DEOMI last October involved a lesson on Power and Privilege, chapter EOAC-3000 of the Equal Opportunity Advisor Course student guide. The chapter emphasizes how “power and privilege can sometimes create exclusive work environments at the expense of others” and introduces students to the concept of white privilege. Two themes of that chapter deserve scrutiny. The first is that white males gain privileges and success through “unearned advantage.” The second is the assumption that “racism is everywhere.”

    DEOMI defines white privilege as “the package of unearned advantages granted to those members of a diverse society with white skin.” Discussion of the concept explains that whites today benefit unfairly from historical institutional racism. By logical extension, that argument means whites–the text emphasizes white men–who achieve some level of status do so unfairly, suggesting their accomplishments are undeserved.

    According to DEOMI, regardless of their socioeconomic starting point, intellectual capacity, or other factors affecting professional success, individual members of this group did not earn anything because they were unfairly advantaged by factors outside their control.

    …Likely anticipating controversy, DEOMI labeled the chapter on Power and Privilege with the phrases ‘FOR TRAINING PURPOSES ONLY’ and ‘DO NOT USE ON THE JOB’ [emphasis not added]. These phrases, which appear only once, will not prevent the concepts and conclusions from influencing equal opportunity advisers in the force. In fact, parts of the chapter are quite directive. ”

    As I mentioned, this is only supposed to used to train the trainers. The students the trainers will teach aren’t supposed to know about it. It must be used to shape the trainers’ behavior, but never revealed to the students in the fleet. And this is DoD wide.

    Substitute kulak for white and you’ll get an idea of the origins of these ideas. Bring up the Frankfurt School and talk about cultural Marxism and leftists will insist it’s all just the figment of the imagination of right wing crazies. Well if you go to that hotbed of right wing looniness, the Stanford Univ. Encyclopedia of Philosophy (online) and look up critical theory you’ll see it’s not all in my imagination. The Frankfurt School did exist, they were Marxist, and they had social theorists. And this is their brainchild (mostly; other socialists helped). They found that Americans weren’t readily amenable to being divided by economic class. But race, gender, and sexual orientation would do nicely as substitutes for oppressive bourgeois and oppressed proletariat. Guess which ones have “white privilege.”

    The orwellian nature of the training these sailors are getting mirrors the orwellian nature of the language this administration uses. So even though I’m disgusted by the crippling cuts this administration is making to the military, does a Navy that’s just supposed to be a social experiment really need missiles and ships?

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