Ode to Midway

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Annual Ode to the US Navy and the Battle of Midway
by BummerDietz

June 4-6, 1942

During Memorial Day and the first week of June, we pay respect to our fallen military heroes. The week is also full of 20th Century warfare anniversaries. Tantamount will be commemoration of the Allied D-Day assault against the Nazis on the beaches of Normandy, France, on June 6, 1944. The Israeli-Arab 6-Day War began on June 5, 1967. The Marshall Plan was introduced on June 5, 1947. And Israeli jet pilots destroyed Saddam Hussein’s Osirak nuclear reactor on June 7, 1981.

Yet a US Navy battle this same week, just 6 months after Pearl Harbor and a full 2 years before D-Day, is often forgotten, yet it certainly represents the greatest naval victory in history, and perhaps the pivotal event in world military history since the Battle of Little Round Top at Gettysburg in July 1863. It is the Battle of Midway, which, like Gettysburg, occurred over a three-day period, June 4-6, 1942.

The Background.

The Japanese WWII strategy was to destroy the U.S. Navy quickly, parallel with the successful tactics of the German infantry blitzkriegs in Europe. The December 1941 surprise Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor destroyed or damaged 8 American battleships - then the core of US Naval groups.

Pearl Harbor was the first attack. The Battle of Midway, just 6 months later, was to be Japan’s coup de grace.

New warfare paradigms had shattered the Old Guard military structure that had existed more-or-less since medieval times. Germany coupled a new military strategy – the Blitzkrieg -- with an advanced new weapon – the Panzer tank brigade. The result was that German armies over-ran countries in mere days or weeks.

Similarly, Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor was an equally revolutionary development, in effect a strategic equivalent and precursor to intercontinental missiles. Japan had built a dozen aircraft carriers, and with them the Zero fighter, vastly superior to any fighter plane in the world. This combination, along with highly-trained pilots, resulted in Japan having mobile military airfields which could roam the oceans and attack unannounced from a hundred miles beyond the horizon. In an age before advanced radar, these carriers could launch the equivalent of one-sided, un-announced intercontinental missile attack.

At the outset of WWII, the Japanese Navy was vastly more powerful than the US Navy. The US had only 6 aircraft carriers worldwide, of various classes, compared to Japan's 10 carriers (with 3 more emerging from Imperial shipyards in the ensuing weeks). In addition, Japan had developed a naval fighter plane, the Zero fighter, in a class of its own, complete with a large trained pilot corps.

Even more stunning, after the devastation of the U.S. Navy at Pearl Harbor, the Japanese superiority in battleships was 11-to-0. In short, Japan had an overwhelmingly strong navy.

The Japanese Plan.

The Japanese Midway strategy was two-fold: To take over the U.S.-controlled island of Midway, which would deny the U.S. the ability to stage any operations in the Western Pacific; and, to destroy the remaining US Pacific Fleet. Without the US Navy to defend the West Coast, or to stop Japan’s empire building in the far east, Japan intended Midway to be the decisive, take-out blow against the US.

Japan's tactics were to attack Midway, which would draw the remaining U.S. fleet out of Pearl Harbor to defend the important island. The lurking Japanese armada lying-in-wait off Midway would then destroy the U.S. fleet.

Coincident with the Midway attack, a small Japanese carrier group first launched an attack on Alaska, a feint – second-guessed over the ensuing decades – perhaps designed to split the U.S. Fleet into smaller groups, one responding to the Alaskan attack, the other to Midway.

Off the western horizon of Midway, out of sight of the US Midway scout planes, Japan had amassed an overwhelming carrier and battleship attack force, laying in wait to surprise and destroy the US forces. The combined Japanese Alaskan and Midway forces, including those in support role, involved 200 ships, including 8 carriers, 11 battleships, 22 cruisers, 65 destroyers, 21 submarines and approximately 700 aircraft.

The US Naval forces were tiny, in comparison.

Had the Japanese achieved their objective of a quick knock-out of the US Pacific Fleet at Midway (following the devastation at Pearl Harbor), the US West Coast would have been substantially defenseless against the Japanese Navy just 6 months into the war. Although the US had authorized a naval shipbuilding program the prior year, the launch of those boats was months away. It is entirely possible – and the subject of much Monday morning quarterbacking by military thinkers – that threatened or actual Japanese naval attacks on the US West Coast would have caused the US to agree to a ceasefire with Japan. It could have also forced the U.S. to divert scarce naval assets away from Europe, thereby allowing Germany to prevail over England and thus win the war.

"Midway was far more than a decisive naval victory. It was far more than the turning of the tide in the Pacific war. In a strategic sense, Midway represents one of the turning points of world history--and in that role it remains under-appreciated."
-- James R. Schlesinger, former US Secretary of Defense

The Surprise Counter-Attack.

Unknown to the Japanese, their military codes had been broken by the US codebreakers just weeks before the Midway attack. With solid warning that the Japanese were amassing their forces for a surprise assault on Midway and any US Naval ships that came to Midway’s defense, the US neither split its fleet nor held any carriers in reserve.

Rather, the U.S. gambled and sent all three American carriers - the entire US carrier fleet in the Pacific - to lay in wait for the Japanese flotilla at Midway.

In short, it was a surprise counterattack on a surprise attack.

The Battle.

Japanese Attack the Island. As the Japanese launched their attack on Midway Island, they had no idea that the US carrier forces lay off the horizon a couple hundred miles to the east. On June 4, 1942, four Japanese aircraft carriers launched a strike with over 100 combat planes against the Naval Air Base at Midway. The US Midway base and its airplanes were damaged, but not completely destroyed.

Annihilation of U.S. Torpedo Bombers. As the Japanese attacked Midway Island, squadrons of US torpedo planes from the USS Hornet, the USS Enterprise and the USS Yorktown, launched their surprise counter-attacks on the Japanese carrier fleet.

The US torpedo bombers came in "low and slow" over the water to drop their torpedoes. One by one, they were blown from the sky by the superior Japanese Zero fighters. Not a single US torpedo bomber scored a hit on the 4 Japanese carriers.

Almost every US pilot and crew was killed, including by Japanese patrols that pulled American fliers out of the water and executed them. Only 2 of 42 torpedo bomber squadrons survived.

But the men of those 40 doomed squadrons from the Hornet, Enterprise and Yorktown had not died in vain. The Japanese Zero fighter cover normally would have flown high above the Japanese carriers, forming a protective bubble. But in order to repel the torpedo bombers on their “low and slow” approach, the Zeros had been brought down to low altitude, all while the Japanese flotilla scrambled in evasive maneuvering.

The Japanese mistakenly believed that the doomed torpedo bombers from the Hornet, Enterprise and Yorktown had been launched from Midway Island. In response, the Japanese Admiral Nagumo decided to strike Midway again. Returning Japanese fighters were re-armed with bombs for the attack on Midway’s airfields. But as the Japanese were preparing their fighters, they received a delayed report from one of their scouting planes, warning of a sighting of a US carrier. Nagumo reversed himself, and ordered that his fighter planes be re-armed with torpedoes. Thus, the decks of the Japanese carriers – painted yellow, with a red sun signifying the Japanese imperial war regime - were strewn with bombs, torpedoes and fuel tanks.

Nagumo's 5-Minutes of Glory. A few moments after 10:00 a.m., June 4th, 1942, the Japanese Admiral Nagumo and his staff believed that they had just annihilated all of the U.S. air cover for Midway, and in addition, their massive armada including 4 aircraft carriers with vastly superior planes and pilots was ready to attack the just-sighted U.S. carrier. Surely, the U.S. carrier group would be similarly destroyed.

Thus, at 10:15 a.m., June 4, 1942, Admiral Nagumo believed that Japan was moments away from defeating the United States. The War of the Pacific was about end in glorious victory for the Empire of the Rising Sun.

The Dive Bombers Arrive. Yet, at this critical moment, the so-called "lost squadron" of US planes from the USS Enterprise arrived at high altitude over the Japanese carrier group. Lt. Cmdr.Wade McCluskey’s dive bomber group had failed earlier to locate the Japanese fleet, and rather than turn his fighters back to his carrier, he changed course to search out the Japanese ships. They were located by trailing a Japanese destroyer trying to catch up to its flotilla.

McCluskey’s squadron of 32 dive bombers was then joined by two other U.S. dive bomber squadrons, and they came upon an extraordinary situation: Four sitting duck Japanese carriers, with their protective shield of Zero fighter planes either thousands of feet below (having shot down the US torpedo bombers) or sitting on the carrier decks being refueled:

“If they’d looked up they coulda seen us, but they were too busy trying to destroy the torpedo planes that had gotten there first.”
-- Wilbur Roberts, U.S. Dive Bomber

The Japanese carrier decks were painted yellow, with the empire’s huge “Rising Sun” red circle painted on the bow of each carrier. This was a further gift to the U.S. dive bombers -- a red targeting ball on a yellow deck, set against a dark gray ocean:

“Here are the arrogant Japanese with their bright yellow decks with a meatball up on the bow.”
--Lt. Richard Best, U.S. Dive Bomber

Apogee of the Japanese Empire. At 10:22 a.m., June 4, 1942, the U.S. dive bombers - armed with bombs, not torpedoes - attacked the Japanese carrier fleet from high altitude in classic dive-bomber style. The Japanese had only a few minutes to savor what they thought had been a victory over the United States; it all evaporated within 5 minutes, courtesy of the dive bombers.

There were 4 Japanese carriers at Midway. The U.S. dive bombers immediately scored hits on 2 of those carriers (the Akagi and the Kaga) by precision dropping the bombs onto the carriers' loaded decks. There was no Japanese fighter cover in place at higher altitude to repel the attacks. A couple of bombs from US dive bombers, aided by the re-fueling tanks, torpedoes and bombs stacked on the decks of the Japanese carriers, turned into an inferno. Akagi and Kaga were destroyed.

Shortly thereafter, a dive bomber squadron from the USS Yorktown attacked and destroyed the third Japanese aircraft carrier, the Soryu. Notably, these Yorktown dive bombers attacked with only a dozen working bombs.

Later, a small squadron of dive bombers from the USS Enterprise attacked and burnt the fourth and last Japanese carrier, the Hiryu, but not before Hiryu was able to launch an attack that disabled the USS Yorktown.

All four Japanese carriers at Midway – the Akagi, the Kaga, the Soryu and the Hiryu, burned and sank to the bottom of the Pacific.

The ailing Yorktown was later sunk by a Japanese submarine while limping back to Pearl Harbor.

Minor skirmishes between the retreating US and Japanese naval groups continued through June 6th.

The Result.

When various other skirmishes ended by June 6, Japan had lost 4 carriers, 332 aircraft, and hundreds of its best pilots and crew. The US had lost only one carrier, 144 planes and scores of pilots.

Japan had 9 aircraft carriers when Midway began. One day later, it had only 5.

The U.S. had only 3 carriers going into the Battle of Midway. After Midway, it still had 3 carriers, as the USS Saratoga came out of dry-dock and replaced the sunken Yorktown.

Japan had planned to seize Midway, and emerge from the battle with a 9-0 carrier advantage, giving the mobile airfields and its Zero fighters free reign of the Pacific (including over Pearl Harbor and even the US West Coast). Instead, Midway remained in U.S. hands, and the overwhelming Japanese carrier dominance was reduced to a basic parity. The Battle of Midway was nothing short of a complete rout of the vastly superior Japanese Navy.

With the US war shipyards already producing at full capacity, Japan had lost at Midway its one chance to defeat the US via an early take-out. Instead, it was a matter of time before the massive US industrial war machine would overwhelm the imperial militarized Japanese.

10:15 a.m., June 4, 1942, turned out to be the height of the fascist Imperial Japanese Empire. Unscathed and convinced of victory over the US after destroying almost every U.S. torpedo bomber in the initial engagements of June 4th, Japan's war effectively became a lost cause by 10:30 a.m.

The US Navy - outnumbered in carriers, ships, technology, planes and pilots - had achieved the greatest naval victory in modern history.

The near total destruction of the first wave of U.S. pilots and crew on board the “low and slow” torpedo bombers was not in vain; it alone made possible the exact conditions that allowed the U.S. dive bombers to send the Japanese armada to the bottom of the ocean just minutes later. And as the Japanese aramada sank, so too sank any realistic chance of Japan prevailing over the U.S. in WWII.

***

So during this Memorial Day remembrance, member the Battle of Midway, its codebreakers, and the dozens of torpedo-bombers and dive-bombers of the U.S. Navy who may well have changed the course of history.

Les Francaises Dit "Non"

The French voters have voted down the proposed European Constitution, by about 56% to 44%.

I have three reactions, all applauding:

1. One the one hand, Chirac is an enemy of the U.S. What he is for, I am against. His retirement cannot come soon enough; if this accelerates his demise, that is good.*

2. On the other, I generally like the French, as silly as they often are. I respect their vote. "Keep France French."

3. Finally, a unified Europe is a zero-sum winner vs. the U.S. in things economique.

____
* -- Kraut Chancellor Schroeder had the early election door hit him in the posterior a few days ago, too. Yet Blair prevailed. Despite the propaganda of the MSM, the pro-U.S. leaders continue in office; and I'm short on the length-of-service of the anti-U.S. leaders.

MSM's Asian Dry Lake Fetish

May 27, 2005: The day that both the L.A. Times and the New York Times ran front-page stories about Asian dry lakes.

Has the MSM has caught an Asian dry lake virus?

The New York Times' front page picture and story focuses on the drying Crescent Lake in the Chinese Gobi desert. Kudos to the Times for a brilliant, artistic front page photo, the best to grace the Times in years. As good as Life Magazine at its cynosure.

The Los Angeles Times' front page story focuses on the Russian Gulag, where the peasants in the town of Bolotnikovo awoke to find their cherished White Lake had disappeared into a sink hole.

***
nb: Is it that Charles at LGF might be setting the pace here for the NYTimes, via his periodic atavistic and plein-air digital photo renditions?

This Transcript Belongs in the Evidence Locker

I spent an hour trying to find a complete transcript of George Galloway's performance piece in front of the U.S. Senate. Some ballin' blog Simply Appalling did the yeoman's work, and transcribed one. Find it here.

Nothing pisses off government people - and particularly Republicans - more than lying to them, under oath. Ask Clinton how that worked out for him.

The issue is whether Galloway received payments, directly or indirectly, from Iraq, through any type of Oil-for-Food vouchers. The allegation against Galloway is precisely that these were given as bribes, and not in the ordinary course of the oil trade. (Ipso facto, if Galloway was a professional oil trader, then his receipt of oil vouchers wouldn't be bribes.)

In Clintonian style, never once does Galloway deny receiving money from Iraq. Instead, he denies the obvious. It fools idiots, but not lawyers:

SEN. COLEMAN: Mr. Galloway...The evidence clearly indicates you as an allocation beneficiary, who transferred the allocations to Fawaz Zureikat, who became chairman of your organization Mariam's Appeal.

...Senior Iraqi officials have confirmed that you in fact received oil allocations and that the documents that identify you as an allocation recipient are valid.

...If you can help provide any evidence that challenges the veracity of these documents or the statements of former Iraqi officials, we'd welcome that input.

GALLOWAY: Senator, I am not now, nor have I ever been, an oil trader, and neither has anyone on my behalf. I have never seen a barrel of oil, owned one, bought one, sold one - and neither has anyone on my behalf.

OK, George, you weren't an "oil trader." But that isn't the question. The question is, "Did you, directly or indirectly, receive any payments that were derived from the Iraqi Oil-for-Food program?"

Hidden Fact: Dems Didn't Have Enough Votes

Advance notice: Be sure to check in here on June 1st for the read of the year....

******
Re the Filibuster Affair, I must say this, as no one else (to my knowledge) has: The Democrats simply did not have the votes to prevent an up-or-down vote on the nominees.

Almost all the commentary on filibuster showdown comes from (a) the Right, (b) the Left, and (c) the MSM.

The Right wanted to use the nuke option, and its analysis follows, to wit: Why fold a winning hand? There is also vitriol towards “defecting GOP Senators.”

The Left says…well, Bush is evil, etc.

The MSM focused heavily on a Bush power grab, and the “defecting GOP Senators.” Of course; they want this to be a defeat for Bush.

**
All of this is fine analysis, per se, but it all misses the reality of the timeline.

The short analysis is that this was a classic game of chicken, with one twist that no one has analyzed: The cloture vote was the first of a 2-part act. Cloture vote first, followed by vote on changing the filibuster protocol. The Right, Left and MSM all focused on the second part – the filibuster vote, and end up with the analysis cited above.

They all miss the reality that the cloture vote was the key, and the Democrats did not have the votes.

Here’s why:

You are a moderate Democrat Senator from East Dakota – John Jones. Your leadership – Harry Reid – isn’t your ideal guy. Reid reacts emotionally to the bait laid by the Republicans – the nomination of an African American female conservative, and a second female, both anti-abortion. (This, after the Republican hispanic nominee has been filibustered.) Reid reacts emotionally – he draws the line with these minor appellate nominations. “Minority appointments are the province of the Democrats, not the Republicans. You cannot have our high ground,” or something like that.

So Reid makes an error: He gambles the last weapon of the Democrats – the filibuster – over a bunch of appellate court nominations that no one outside of the elite cares about. A strategic blunder.

Now, you, the moderate John Jones, see this blunder. Your opinion is to save the filibuster for a Supreme Court nomination, when it really matters and when the country will be paying attention. They simply are not paying attention to the appellate court nominees; they just don’t care.

And here’s the rub: John Jones knows that he must vote first, on cloture. There is no way that he can reverse the order of the vote. Cloture first, followed by a vote to eliminate the filibuster.
So what does John Jones do? He believes that Frist will, in fact, hold a filibuster elimination vote -- Frist is not bluffing.

So for John Jones, there is an almost certainty that the cloture vote is the key vote, because if debate is not curtailed, the filibuster vote kills the filibuster 12 hours later. That is what the analysts have all missed, or (in the case of the MSM) obfuscated. “It was the cloture vote, stupid.”

What does John Jones do? John Jones decides that he will vote to end debate. But…doing so will mean civil war in the Democratic Party. Jones knows this. And John Jones may well lose his committee ranking member status for defying Reid - Reid will punish him. So, if Jones votes to end debate, the Democratic party in the Senate will have effectively devolved into civil war, between the Dem Left and the Dem Middle.

John Jones knows this - he is not reacting emotionally, but logically. So John Jones determinest that he needs cover, to bandage over the strategic blunder by Reid, thus to avoid the spectacle of picking a fight within his own party. (And ... to prevent the MSM from having to report the foregoing.)

John Jones smartly decides that a coalition of Dems and Republicans (and better if it is a mathematically-matched coalition) is the perfect device to provide some smoke to cover up what is really going on – under the cover of ‘bipartisanship.”

Why perfect?

1. Because the MSM will play along - the MSM simply cannot resist a "bipartisan" storyline when it is perceived by the MSM as a criticism of the Bush right wing.

2. And the Left will say -- well, who cares what they say, it's all emotional, not strategic.

3. And the true believers on the Right will continue to focus on the emotional, let's-show-em-who's-boss (and, irrelevant) filbuster vote, not the cloture vote. That is, the Right takes its eye off the ball.

So John Jones surrenders first – but no ones knows it -- he reveals his intentions to one or more moderate Republicans:

“I will vote for cloture and to end the debate, so you won’t have to use the nuke option. And I’ll round up enough in the anti-Reid wing, to get you at least 5 votes. What I need is an exact match – 5 Republicans – to agree with us, so that our votes are viewed as a compromise, not a defection. We need covering fire.”

There it is, folks. It was all in the cloture vote occuring first. The Democrats didn’t have the votes to continue the filibuster.

It was the cloture vote, stupid !

***

Post script: The cloture vote ended the debate, 81-18. Although this doesn't prove that my analysis is correct, it certainly supports my thesis. Instead of a 62-38 vote (the straight math outcome without "the deal" in place), 20 Senators who were "supposed to be voting to continue the debate," in fact voted to end the debate. Some of that cross-over may be due to the desire to respect the compromise. But methinks not all.....

WW 4

A little essay from 2 months after 9/11:

WW 4

Start exercising your brain the way your Grandfather did. The Cult of the Gray wants to censor you from a critical historical analysis.

WWI: 1914-1918
WWII: 1939-1945
WWIII: The Cold War: 1947 – 1989
WW IV: The Islamo Fascist War 2001 - ?

Don’t submit to the historical censors.

The Japanese Fascist/Nazi.

The Japanese military took over the Japanese government in the decades prior to WWII. The militarized regime indoctrinated a generation of Japanese with militarized schooling as to the need of Japanese youth the give their lives for their god-on-earth Emperor. They were brainwashed in a false perversion of vague Samarai code, that death in service of the god-emperor ensured honor to family. Martyrdom, as a religion. Genocide as an objective.
The brainwashing centered on the teaching that the Japanese were the superior race, and that other races were inferior. The Japanese military warlords sought the twin objectives of building a military empire, and controlling raw materials. The Japanese invaded and overran various countries in Southeast Asia. After invading, the Japanese killed millions in a war of genocide – the systematic mass murder of others because they are not of your race or religion or tribe. Distinctions between civilians and military were only in the mind of western apologists. Atrocities were numbing; soldiers’ wagers on the sex of fetuses hacked out of pregnant women, etc. The Japanese used what fledgling bioterrorism was available, such as breeding and spreading diseased rats in order to cause a pandemic. The Chinese city of Nanking was one target. A few months after invading, the Japanese had exterminated 350,000 civilians in that city, alone. Any living being not Japanese was worthy of slaughter, somehow in the name of the Emperor god, and the purity of a Japanese military empire.

The Japanese sought to control their entire side of the globe, as a vast empire to further their race and control raw materials – oil and other necessities.

The Japanese were taught that Westerners were weak and immoral and stood for nothing.
WWII Japanese soldiers were trained to ignore any semblance of “just war” theory or treaties, including the slaughter of prisoners of war. Battlefield medics were particularly targeted by Japanese snipers. Allied medical workers did not wear the “Red Cross”, as it simply ensured special targeting by snipers. (Even the Nazis gave lip service to respect of the Red Cross….).
The Japanese commenced WWII with a peacetime Sunday morning sneak attack on Pearl Harbor. 2400 were killed.

A few years later, the Japanese military concluded that they could not win the war with the U.S. They decided that inflicting massive casualties on the U.S. – military or civilian – during the eventual U.S. push to counterattack Japan, was needed in order to cause the U.S. public to withdraw support for attacking Japan. Thus, a peace treaty could be arranged without Japan bearing retaliation.

A year later, U.S. carpet bombing and firebombing of 60 Japanese cities, in which ½ to 2/3 of the cities were destroyed, did not cause either the Japanese military to capitulate, nor did the Japanese population rise up to stop the war.

The U.S. issued an ultimatum, which was ignored by the Japanese, and then the U.S. dropped an atomic bomb on Japan. Then another. At that point, the Japanese surrendered. Perhaps the only way the fascist military dictatorship would surrender was to witness the ruthless resolve needed to drop an atomic bomb.

The Japanese people suffered their military overlords, U.S. firebombing and U.S. atomic strikes.
Yet a generation after the atomic bombings, the two countries and its peoples, despite racial, cultural and religious dissimilarity, are close economic partners who interact freely with each other and interlink their cultures and peoples by wholesale adoption of ideas and customs from the other. They have a lasting peace, and a lasting interdependent linkage of the two groups.

The Islamo Fascist

Since the success of the radical takeover in Iran in 1979, other militant racist islamo-fascist cults have been trying to take over Middle East and Muslim countries. Coming out of a Soviet war and civil war, the Taliban cult, sponsored by a Pakistani fundamentalist regime and Saudi money, took over Afghanistan. The Taliban and its islamo-fascist allies are indoctrinating a generation or Muslims with militarized schooling as to the need of Muslim youth to strike the Great Satan (currently the U.S.) and give their lives for their cult religion. The brainwashing includes that the Muslim religion dictates a radical authoritarian racist regime ruthlessly suppressing the population, as necessary to support the dogma that radical Islam is the superior race/religion, and that other races and religions, particularly Jews and Christians, are inferior and need to be exterminated.

The islamo-fascists teach and dictate that a war of genocide – the systematic mass murder of infidel Jews and Christians and others – is one’s duty. Any living being not of the radical islamo-fascist cult is worthy only of slaughter, somehow in the name of the religion and the purity of a radical cult regime. The islamo-fascists seek the twin objectives of building a fascist Islamist empire of the Mideast, and controlling all Mideast raw materials --oil. Various Islamist factions continue to attack Mideast countries under various names – Hamas, Jihad, Martyr’s Brigade, PLO, Taliban, etc. The islamo-fascists in particular target the killing of civilians in a war of terror. The islamo-fascists and their supporters actively seek biological and nuclear weaponry.
The radical islamo-fascists teach that Westerners are weak and immoral and stand for nothing.
Islamist “jihad” warriors, or terrorists, are trained to ignore any semblance of “just war” theory or treaties. They are brainwashed that a heaven is waiting to reward their martyrdom, complete with scores of virgins there for their pleasure. Martrydom is the cost of entry. When such is accepted, it then a small matter to accept slaughter of civilians. Suicide bombings of school buses and retail stores is of particular interest to them.

The islamo-fascists commenced the war in America with a peacetime morning sneak attack on civilians in New York and Washington. Over 3000 civilians were killed.

The islamo-fascists, in their quest for a Mideast empire and control of oil, know that they cannot win any conventional war with the U.S., or any other nation state. Instead, their strategy is to inflict massive civilian terror casualties on the U.S., in order to cause the U.S. public to withdraw support for a) preventing Islamist dictatorial hi-jacking of Mideast countries in order to turn them into cultist death camp regimes, like Afghanistan, and b) any US resistance to the islamo-fascists blitzkrieg, since the US is the only remaining international policeman.

In the near future, after U.S. carpet bombing and firebombing of Taliban strongholds and perhaps other terrorist camps, cities, countries, etc., it is unlikely that all the islamo-fascists will be eradicated, and unlikely that the islamo-fascists will call off their genocide jihad. It is also unlikely that the vast moderate yet brainwashed populations of the Mideast countries will rise in anger to stop the islamo-fascists.

The Average Joe in the U.S., just like the Average Joe in 1945, needs to jolt himself from the decade of Pax Americana and begin to address in his own mind that there is a war going on, not a “police action”, but a war. Jihad soldiers across the planet would without hesitation drop genocidal biochemical or nuclear weapons on any America city at the first opportunity. Our words or ultimatum will likely be ignored.

Tens of thousands, and perhaps hundreds of thousands, of civilians will eventually die in this US – islamo-fascist war. Just as the Japanese suffered under their warlords 5 decades ago.
Yet a generation later, despite racial, cultural and religious dissimilarity, history shows that a lasting peace, and a lasting interdependent linkage, can nonetheless follow between the US and the Muslim side of the globe.

One Battle of the IslamoFascist War

From the Associated Press:

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A car bomb exploded Tuesday near a Baghdad junior high school for girls, killing six people.

Is your political psychographic even capable of considering the following?:

Denver, Colorado - Members of the Whig party exploded a bomb near a Denver junior high school for girls, killing six people. A caller to Denver radio station claimed that the bombing was in response to yesterday's Senate actions related to the filibuster vote.

Questions for the table:

Are islamofascists moral monsters? Are islamofascists to be treated in a manner that differs from the philosophy to which they ascribe? It really does test the nature of Western thinking.

The Golden Rule - "Treat others as you would have them treat you." Is this Western-centric and naive? In fact, is such thinking a crime against humanity?

WWII Japanese fascist soldiers are said to have believed that to be captured was a fate worse than death. A high form of humilitation, for self and family. To the West, we thought we were treating the captured Japanese soldier with dignity. To the Japanese - at least some component thereof - running prison camps where soldiers were kept alive, rather than starved or shot to death (pretty much the norm, worldwide, throughout history), was an humilitation less honorable than death.

So were we torturing the Japanese soldier, or treating him with dignity? In so deciding, then, we choose as our guide our own "Western" conception of law and philosophy; the Japanese; or some ephemeral "natural law" that transcends these?

If one has sympathy for the cause of the proletariat, then one views the islamo-fascist war as just another capitalist or colonial war. Perhaps one's view of Gitmo and Abu Garaib should be to honor these captured foreign soldiers. To make something of their brief lives on earth. Perhaps putting them on trial would be the greatest and most inhumane treatment imagineable in the MidEast. Torture.

Maybe we should just execute them. Their sense of honor is kept, and their families get the provenance of having a martyr in the family.

And, we get rid of an islamofascist.

***

Can you imagine if any of the cluckleheads who have been pretend-debating issues in the Senate, were to make the foregoing speech? Wow, the MSM would have a helluva field day with that.

Another Writer Named Thompson ...

A stunningly insightful essay by writer Keith Thompson about his decision to end a 40-year bus ride:

Nightfall, Jan. 30. Eight-million Iraqi voters have finished risking their lives to endorse freedom and defy fascism. Three things happen in rapid succession. The right cheers. The left demurs. I walk away from ... a cause... .

I'm leaving the left -- more precisely, the American cultural left and what it has become during our time together. I choose this day for my departure because I can no longer abide the simpering voices of self-styled progressives -- people who once championed solidarity with oppressed populations everywhere -- reciting all the ways Iraq's democratic experiment might yet implode.

...I departed with new clarity about the brilliance of liberal democracy and the value system it entails; the quest for freedom as an intrinsically human affair; and the dangers of demands for conformity and adherence to any point of view through silence, fear, or coercion.

...Leftists who no longer speak of the duties of citizens, but only of the rights of clients, cannot be expected to grasp the importance (not least to our survival) of fostering in the Middle East the crucial developmental advances that gave rise to our own capacity for pluralism, self-reflection, and equality.

A left averse to making common cause with competent, self- determining individuals -- people who guide their lives on the basis of received values, everyday moral understandings, traditional wisdom, and plain common sense -- is a faction that deserves the marginalization it has pursued with such tenacity for so many years.

All of which is why I have come to believe, and gladly join with others who have discovered for themselves, that the single most important thing a genuinely liberal person can do now is walk away from the house the left has built. The renewal of any tradition that deserves the name "progressive" becomes more likely with each step in a better direction.

Bravo. There's a new Thompson from the Bay.

That U.K. Sun Magazine Cover of Saddam

Drudge has it on his site - no permalink yet. "The Tyrant's In His Pants," with Saddam standing dressed only in hit tightie whities.

The culture ministers will tell us that this is a humilitation. Great; I'm sure The Sun intended that. Sorry if riots result in decimation of some folks in the Great Crescent, but on a utlitarian level, these pictures are awesome psyops against the islamo-fascists. The pictures defang Saddam. They will empower the average, downtrodden prole, who still fears the vestiges of the Evil Guy.

The Islamo-Fascist insurgents will be left to scream, "Pay No Attention to the Naked Man in his tightie whities...."

Rise up, Iraqis.

***

What would Lyndon Johnson or Ronald Reagan have said, at a press briefing, in this situation?

"Well, I only know what I've seen in the paper, but for all his crimes, Saddam appears to have a giant ___."

Damn, wouldn't that be funny. Johnson or Reagan could have gotten away with that quip. Could Bush?

Selling Out The Proles

Imagine you're an electrician for a large company. Imagine every day your boss pulls into the parking lot, there are several hundred people along the driveway with signs begging the boss to fire you and hire one of them, for half your salary. And no health or retirement benefits. And 30% longer hours.

And not a single person in that line has his electrical contractor's license. They are all illegal workers

If you were subjected to that scenario, everyday, you would soon go postal. Or threaten your government to do something. Or, you might also just get fired.

Welcome to the average work day of blue collar workers in Southern California. And elsewhere.

But, you've paid union dues; so did your father. Your union is fighting for you, right? Your union is grappling with this issue, the best it can, right? Well, let's see what the AFL-CIO says about all these illegal aliens who want your job. First of all, they've got a name for all these illegal aliens: "Immigrant workers."

Second, the AFL-CIO's position is that your boss should try to pay benefits to your replacement, when you are fired.

Read the AFL-CIO website and it Workers Without Borders stance. The AFL-CIO supports the illegals who are begging for your job every day. That's your union's position regarding the 10 to 18 million illegal immigrants that are here, with another 150,000 per month coming over the border.

The UFCW Food Workers Union website doesn't refer to the fact that illegal immigration depresses their members' wages, but rather that,

"we must demand standards that protect workers regardless of what country they came from or how they got here. Because the issue is the same: the exploitation of labor."

"The exploitation of labor?"

WHAT? That's it? That's the union's position on illegal immigration? Have I been transported back 25 years, to a state college Intro to Politics class, complete with the hippy T.A. who liked those clove cigarettes?

The LIUNA (Laborer's International Union of North America) website gives you the comfort that, "We endorse the call for legalization of all undocumented workers and... also oppose the employer sanctions" for hiring illegals.

The United Auto Workers website gives you the good news that it supports amnesty and welfare for illegal aliens, and wants employer sanctions dropped.

At least the Teamsters' website keeps its beliefs silent as to the influx of illegal workers.

***

You're making $10 per hour, and you really need $14 per hour to get by. The dozens of illegal immigrants waving the placards at your boss each morning - drawn from an army of millions - will take $5, without benefits. So what do you think are your chances over the next few years of working yourself up to $14 per hour, instead of $10? Or, avoiding health benefit cutbacks? Your chances are Zero.

"We'll strike," you are assured. "And united in striking, we shall prevail."

Strike? With 15 million scabs ready to take your place?

Ask the thousands of Southern California grocery clerks how that "strike thing" worked out for them a few years ago:

"Grocery Strike Ends in Defeat; UFCW officials’ failed strategy led workers into a dead end."

What are your chances of having your job in 4 years? Pretty good, if $5 an hour works for you. If you learn Spanish and can act as a crew chief, maybe you can pull $8 an hour.

***

What on Earth has happened to the labor unions? Why are the unions in favor of destroying the livelihoods of their members, the protection of which is their reason for existence? Why are the unions in favor of flooding the lower end of the labor market, and inevitably destroying the ability of their members to get $15 an hour instead of $10? Is it some sort of secret long-term plan to re-populate the union rolls ... to re-establish an environment where 1960's-style union corruption will again be possible?

Do the members have any clue what is going on? What is going on? What am I missing?

Filibuster Notes

Observed:

1. There is no actual "filibuster" involved. The parties have done away with the requirement that someone actually show up and talk. Instead, they just say, "Filibuster."

2. There are 3 official branches of government. "Checks and balances" are between and among the branches, not within the branches.

3. Congress can make or change its own rules, including the rules as to how it conducts itself. it can adopt, or discard, the so-called "filibuster:" "Each House may determine the rules of its proceedings... ." (Constitution, Article I, Sec. 5)

4. There are ample checks and balances in the Constitution as to the Judiciary. The existence of those C&B's does not mean that they are ever used, however. (Congress rarely exercises its power to strip jurisdiction away from misbehaving courts. )

5. Note the Constitutional checks on the Judiciary:

Congressional Checks on Judicial Power:

"[Congress shall have the power]....To constitute tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court." (I/8)

"[T]he Congress may by law vest the appointment of such inferior officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the courts of law, or in the heads of departments." (II/2) [a really curious and overlooked provision - ed]

"The judicial power of the United States, shall be vested in one Supreme Court, and in such inferior courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. "(III/1)

"In all the other cases before mentioned, the Supreme Court shall have appellate jurisdiction, both as to law and fact, with such exceptions, and under such regulations as the Congress shall make. " (III/2)

"...by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, [the President] shall appoint ... other public ministers and consuls, judges of the Supreme Court..." (II/2)

Presidential Checks on Judicial Power:

"The President shall... shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons [from court criminal verdicts - ed.] for offenses against the United States... ." (II/2)

"The President... shall nominate, and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, shall appoint ... other public ministers and consuls, judges of the Supreme Court, and all other officers of the United States..." (II/2)

"The President shall have power to fill up all vacancies that may happen during the recess of the Senate, by granting commissions which shall expire at the end of their next session. " (II/2)

60 Minutes II - RIP

Killed by Memogate.



Good riddance.

The Fake Newsweek Story

I've been too burnt-out to write about the Newsweek affair, well-covered elsewhere. I test-drove a few sound bites with a dozen Hollywood liberals at lunch, and their reaction was predictable and in several broad categories: (a) Not heard about it; (b) no big deal, so much other bad stuff is happening, all caused by Bush's wars, (c) "fake but accurate" - the abuse of prisoners has already been "proven," this is just Karl Rove orchestrating a counter-punch in light of the terrible drop in the polls for Bush due to the Iraq debacle.

I know how the press works on a daily level - I've written about it here, before. It's first hand experience. The MSM does not, repeat NOT, act like a trier of fact, like the judge in some courtroom TV show you watch. Instead, the MSM acts like one of the attorneys for a litigant. The MSM has a point - often an ideological political point - to make. And any facts, or "truth," that exist that would weaken the particular reporter's thrust, are viewed by the reporter as being like the opposing attorney in a lawsuit - such facts are mere competition to be beaten.

But unlike a courtroom, with the modern advocative MSM there is no working system for rebuttal or balance. Overworked editors, and sometimes a legal department, are supposed to oversee individual reporters with seasonsed editorial judgment, factchecking, etc.. This oversight is supposed to be a primary directive, to enable truth to come out.

But for much of the MSM, these are no longer the primary directives. Instead, those oversight offices often act merely as "libel-proofers." The primary directive is avoidance of a libel lawsuit, while acting in furtherance of the political motives of the MSM. That's it. That's how the departments often work, now, albeit the reporters are the main driver of this.

Compare the facts of the Newsweek affair, with my playbook:

Let BummerDietz tell you a little bit about what the Corporate Legal Department does at a media company, since that is BummerDietz’ business….

"...When a publication has a Legal Department that has no check-and-balance function but instead exists only to insert minor text edits that maintain the thrust of the story but sidestep libel law, you have a yellow rag."

The attorneys The National Enquirer have perfected a strategy that is being copied by other media, such as CBS Legal. We call it “Head In the Sand.” The publication goes to great lengths to prevent rebuttal facts from coming into its possession, prior to deadline. To a journalist, the possession of rebuttal facts is like holding contraband - possession is punishable by a finding of Actual Malice. So journalists have changed the way they operate, in order to avoid being caught with the hot potato of rebuttal facts.

Why? Because the Legal Department might step in and delay or kill the story, if there are any rebuttal facts lying around. This manifests itself in several media bahaviors:

1. Late Ambush. A “factchecker” will call a target for comment, hours before the print deadline. To a jury, this is supposed to show the media is fair. Since the journalist has spent days, weeks or more building their story, it is impossible for the target to know what the journalist’s story says. Hence, the target typically has no comment [and the paper can report that "X refused to comment"] or the target simply has no time to respond in any substantive manner, other than to "deny the story." This late ambush allows the reporter the appearance that s/he has been fair and balanced, which is exactly the opposite of what was intended, and of what transpired.

2. Prevent Incoming Faxes. The journalist (and sometimes, the legal office) goes to great lengths to prevent any contact information – email or fax information – to be made public. They simply do not want any lawyer's letter or other rebuttal material coming into their possession, prior to publication. (Try to find a media “Legal Department” fax or email number on the internet.) This is why an “ombudsman” or “reader’s representative” is such a divisive issue with media. It seriously impinges upon the media’s ability to prevent contrary information to come into their possession, pre-publication. The reporter, or fact checker, would much rather get a short oral statement, and then modify the oral statement to fit the story. The target rarely, if ever, has a tape recorder running to record the exact statement... .

3. Fake Fact Checking. The journalist does not directly fact check with the target, but instead substitutes with a call to a friendly source who gives some lukewarm support to minor aspects of the story, and such source is quoted anonymously in the story. (“Yes, Mr. X has come to the restaurant on occasion,” as somehow being evidence that Mr. X was there on April 1st and assaulted a waitress in the bathroom).

4. Mischaracterize the Rebuttal. The journalist will mention the rebuttal evidence in the story, but will diminish or mischaracterize the rebuttal evidence. [Note the reporter's great preference for oral factchecking; a reporter's mischaracterization of written documents can be reviewed and second-guessed by a jury.] Hence, the libelous story seems to have even more import, because it appears that the journalist has actually spoken to and considered all sources.

5. Claim A Deadline To Avoid Background Work. The most nefarious technique (to this lawyer) is for the journalist to use the self-made, artificial excuse of a “deadline’ (as if the story cannot wait until tomorrow) as a way of combining all of the above items, and to say, “OK, we got this package of 50 pages from you, there is no way I can review this before deadline, so just give me your top 3 points.” Can the reporter, who has spent hours, days or weeks researching the story, simply ignore the package and instead report that the target (or target’s attorney) “refused to comment?” Or can the reporter simply ignore the package, and report in a single sentence a watered-down version of the verbal “3 points?” (Good lawyers never take this reporter's bait for the "top 3 points before deadline." Instead, you either refuse to speak with the reporter, or merely say, "The documents speak for themselves.")

David Deals a Blow to Goliath's Immunity

The "Commerce Clause" of the Constitution (Article I, Section 8) generally gives the Fed the exclusive power to regulate commerce "among the states." The repeal of Prohibition, via the 21st Amendment, contained this political compromise:

"The transportation or importation into any State, Territory, or possession of the United States for delivery or use therein of intoxicating liquors, in violation of the laws thereof, is hereby prohibited."

This provision of the 21st Amendment has been read to mean that the states, and not the Fed, have the power to set rules for importing hootch into the state.

The dominance of local breweries and distilleries was the reality of the 1930's-era repeal - 99% of all hootch was made locally. But the twain events of the post-WWII rise of the national brands (and the consequent demise of those regional hootch factories), as well as the vast expansion of Fed power via the Commerce Clause, as a tool for the civil rights wars, has brought the 75-year old compromise in the 21st Amendment to be in stark conflict with the post-WWII jurisprudence of the Commerce Clause.

Businessmen learned that, along with massive national brands with nationwide or international distribution networks, you could set up a hootch distribution company in a single state, and by paying some scratch to the local legislators (not particularly expensive, on a state level), you had - voila!! - a booze distribution monopoly that was not subject to the rules that almost every other business was subject to. The Feds, via antitrust or any other law, couldn't touch you.

But the distributors got greedy. It's one thing to protect your high-margin Cutty Sark or Bud franchise; but to have the state solons pass a law, making it a felony for a dentist to order a $85 bottle of wine from his wife's favorite winery in Napa Valley.....?

Immunity, by its very nature, breeds market stupidity. God forbid you let it fester for 75 years. Stupidity and cockiness pretty much describes what the big hootch distributors did over the past 20 years. They got their state legislators to bar the direct shipments from Napa (i.e., sidestepping the distributors and cutting off their vig), but the state laws exempted shipments from within their own state (so as not to hurt their local wine businesses.)

A non-brainer Commerce Clause violation, but the 21st Amendment granted immunity to these folks...so they thought. But these particular laws were so egregious and widespread, and the people it hurt (small wineries) were so incensed, that David took on Goliath.*

It all changed today. The Supreme Court just struck down these insane, immunity-bred laws which forbid interstate shipments of wine.

The products fostered by immunity -- like deformed chickens in a breeding farm -- or the "booze profiteering immunity provision" of the 21st Amendment - can never survive in an open environment. Good Riddance.

-BummerDietz aka The Winemaker

_____
* - The hootch distributors claimed, inter alia, that these laws were necessary to keep juvenile delinquents from snatching Dad's credit card, going on-line, ordering a $250 case of Duckhorn Merlot from Napa on Dad's card, skipping school the next week to stay home and intercept the UPS deliveryman, and successfully faking an adult signature (required by any shipper). Those little rascals? Whatever happened to Friday night pandering in a supermarket parking lot, to get some schmuck to buy and extra 6-pack? Gosh, you think maybe, just maybe, the distributors' motives were...transparent...here.

el MexiQuip

Mexi-Quip (n): A politically embarrassing utterance by a Mexican official which nonetheless reveals the true nature of things south of the Line. (nb: generally embargoed by the MSM en El Norte, for political reasons.)

May 13, 11:29 PM (ET)

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - In comments likely to raise the temperature of the immigration debate, [Mexican Presidente] Fox defended the role of undocumented Mexican workers in the United States to a group of Texas business people meeting in Mexico.

"There is no doubt that Mexicans, filled with dignity, willingness and ability to work are doing jobs that not even blacks want to do there in the United States," he said in a speech broadcast in part on local radio and reported on newspaper web sites.

Fenwicking the Filibuster Fuss

This Filibuster thing isn't difficult. It is made difficult, only because the various wings either loathe, or desire, the expected outcome.

Read Article II, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution:

"The President] ... shall nominate, and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, shall appoint...judges of the Supreme Court, and all other officers of the United States."

It's simple. Only a majority [50.1%] of the Senate must approve Supreme Court and "other officers" (i.e., other judges).

***

Apart from that obvious constitutional mathematical outcome, BummerDietz' position is simple. It is the Millicent Fenwick position. She was a feisty Congresswoman, and one of my heroines. In the early 80's, I had the privilege of meeting and speaking with her. She believed that Congress, with its hidden rules, ability to bottle up legislation in "committee," and most notoriously, the "committee system" itself, were pretty much the root of all governmental evil in the United States (I am, of course, grossly paraphrasing her eloquent theories).

Her solution to a broken government was simple: In some way, shape or form, every single bill introduced in Congress, MUST be voted on that session. Up or down. Period. At least, that's what she told me, back in '81.

That's sorta the simple wisdom my Grandpa would have provided.

So, I keep it simple. Vote on every bill - and that includes every nomination. The deadline is the end of the session.

Any other answer is anti-Fenwickian.

Quick, We Need 5400 Virgins

75 dead islamofascists, in 24 hours. Courtesy of the U.S. Military.

That's another 5,400 virgins needed* in heaven, for these martyred jihad warriors. 72 per martyr is the pension.

***

"Hell hath no fury like the jihadist who learns that there are no waiting virgins."

-BummerDietz, 2005

____
* I estimate a 75-to-1 kill ratio in Iraq. That means about 112,500 martyrs, so far. That means they have earned 8.5 million virgins.

Even Banco Mexico Counts $20 Billion Escaping the IRS...

The Bank of Mexico puts the 2005 money transfer by [illegal] Mexican aliens, from the U.S. to Mexico, at about $20 billion. 1st quarter 2005 numbers are running 20% ahead of 2004; and the 2004 total was $16 billion. Ergo, 2005 is on a $20 billion pace.

Here's some bone to chew on: Not all money transfers into Mexico are cleared by the Bank of Mexico. In fact, only a fraction of dollar transfers into Mexico are processed through the Bank of Mexico.

What is the real annual number? Wachovia Bank spots the number at $36+ billion per year. If the Bank of Mexico increase - 20% this year - holds across all institutions, that $36B number would be $43 billion in 2005. Over $50 billion in 2006.

Why won't Mexico close the border? To do so would destroy their second biggest source of money -- cash wired from the U.S. Only the state oil company Pemex nets more cash.

How much is this costing the federal and state governments?

Well...12.5% Social Security withholding on $36B amounts to about $4 billion per year that leaks out of the SSN system.

5% state income tax avoidance, equals about $2 billion lost to state treasuries.

14% federal income tax avoidance equals about $4 1/2 billion lost by the feds.

Various estimates of the annual local schooling and emergency room costs, to care for illegals, are in the $10 billion range.

So, adding those up, that's about $10 billion of costs, and around $10 billion of annual tax revenues, simply transferred from U.S. taxpayers, to Mexicans. A $20 billion price tag.

Don't even start on the incalculable damages that illegal immigration inflicts upon U.S. laborers.

What is going on?

If The Campus Leftie Had Penned the Document

Yet another Ann Coulter affair, whereby one or more leftists engage in political theater by disrupting her campus forum with infantile heckling, has made the news.

Ann (who I used to dislike as a bombtosser, but I have warmed considerably) makes the most of it for her conservative causes, by pretending that it is not part of a centuries-old tradition of political theater (granted, juvenile and idiotarian...), but rather that the leftist political theater is indicative of the intellectual status of the left.

To Ann's credit, when she stopped pandering on Hannity&Colmes a couple of nights ago, she gave what has become a trademark rifle shot of clear thinking after 10 minutes of punking the Left. Ann's point about the campus left is that, as a generation, they have lost the ability to engage in logical or coherent thought or analysis, in part due to coddling by Leftist professors and Leftist media.

She makes a very good point. Sort of like the "social promotion" that crept into schools, instead of flunking poor students. Ann claims that the irrational Left students are coddled with the equivalent of "social promotion."

I can't help it, I have to illustrate the point:

In the Words of the Classicist:

"When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. ...We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness...."

In the Words of the Modern Campus Leftie:

"F*ck the Brits. F*ck this sh*t."

***

Ann has a point... .

***

Partial transcript of Ann's comments:

COULTER: ...But I think there really is a problem on college campuses and if you want liberalism to continue in this country — I don't — but just to give you a little tip: Liberal students are being let down by their professors, by the world. I mean, they're buffeted along by a liberal media. They have liberal public school teachers. They go to college. They have liberal professors. They don't know how to argue. They can't put together a logical thought, whereas you could put a college Republican on TV right now and he can debate you and do a credible job. But liberals, they throw food, they curse.

A Whole Lotta Commies and a Whole Lotta Illegal Aliens

Any person or politician who voices concern over the 10 to 20 million illegal (mostly Mexican and Central American) aliens here in the U.S., gets denounced as a racist. Face it, you are a racist bastard. The only reason you want to stop the tens of millions of "guests" from coming here, is because you are white and they are colored.

There's an equally fun game that has been played for 5 decades by Leftie professors and Hollywooders. When the extent of Communist infiltration was exposed, after WWII, those doing the exposing were attacked as being extremist tyrants and despots. But the Venona Project files - the deciphered Soviet cables from that era - establish that, in fact, Joseph McCarthy was correct. The "Hollywood Blacklist" was a good thing, because in fact they were subversive agents of a foreign power hell-bent on destroying the U.S. (Note, that precisely none of the dozens/hundreds of historians and tenured professors whose mimeographed denuciations of the anti-red movement [as being "factually wrong"], have come forward to admit they were wrong. Don't hold your breath. ...)

***

Communism was by its internal logic a world movement, as its leaders understood that the modest economic output possible under a controlled economy could not compete in the long run with either the military ordnance or consumer goods capacity of Western free market economies. Accordingly, a collectivist economic structure must either be uniformily adopted/enforced globally, or it would fall prey to capitalism's bribery of the masses, achieved via the vast array of goodies offered by capitalism (albeit inequitably distributed, so goes the Red theory).

The "Communist International" - Comintern for short - and later, the Cominform (Communist Information Bureau) - were the "trade organizations" of the commies, like the DNC is to the Clinton and Kennedy clans, or the RNC to the Bush clan. These Red organizations, along with the spy agencies of the Soviet Union and its Eastern Bloc satellites, worked the trenches of the Cold War, to defeat the West, border by border. Since the commies could not out-produce the West, either in military or consumer goods, the Cold War was fought in other ways, including the key strategic device of changing Western public opinion towards the Reds.

That's why the Reds' infiltration of both Hollywood (with its dominance over worldwide popular culture and media) and the US State Department (again, with dominant fact-finding tendrils worldwide) was key to its Cold War strategy. Those two behemoths had (and still have) a gigantic effect over domestic and world opinion. Control those, and you have a significant amount of input and control over world opinion.

***

Alas, the commie/collectivists did not go away with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Collectivists still believe that capitalism is wrong, and that one of capitalism's defining elements is that of 'national borders' - mere devices of the capitalist structure to violently protect its entrenched capital from being accessed by the proletariat. Borders prevent the proletariat from obtaining control of the means of production - raw material, land, and the like.

So, all those collectivists have not changed their minds; rather, they have migrated to niche causes. The unifying theme of those causes is the erosion of United States military and economic hegemony. Because without that erosion, the worldwide collectivist movement simply cannot thrive, other than via short-lived, localized uprisings doomed for failure, more or less akin to a co-ordinated "bread riot" movement that abates when the next inevitable local strong man steps in to impose order over the mess left by the riots.

And to break that hegemony, you have to do away with the border. That's the thinking.

***

When the efforts of the Comintern and Cominform were exposed in the US, the commie puppetmasters made sure that those who worked to expose the movement were vilified. Intimidation was their best weapon. Compare that strategy, with those who are advocates of a "U.S. without borders." Anyone who voices concern over the millions coming across the border, illegally, is a racist. It's the same intimidation and vilification strategy, brought to you from the same collectivist playbook.

***

C'mon. Of course, Soviet agents should not be ensconced in the upper echelon of the U.S. State Department.

Of course the U.S. borders should be under control of the U.S. We get to determine who gets in.

Of course, illegal aliens should be expelled. And, of course the U.S. should, and will, invite millions of immigrants back under some structured guest worker program. Maybe 2 million, maybe 10 million. Let's do the math and figure it out.

But with all the noise, how can you be sure that establishing border control is the correct policy? Because the collectivists call you racist for even considering it, that's why.

It's that easy to spot. There are no sound arguments in favor of an open border. So, instead, you get called a racist.