We’re halfway through the year! Is everybody having fun?
More from HU – because it’s a real toe-tapper
Bullet Points
** Corporate America doesn’t hear anyone – (American Thinker) “We hear you,” says Anheuser Busch. But do they? The evidence says otherwise. Obviously the Democrats don’t hear the people. They don’t recognize that, in general, the people are smarter than Chuck Schumer looks. They are complaining that Biden is not getting enough credit for bringing down inflation, inflation that he created. Oh, and while inflation may be officially at 4%, that’s only because the government doesn’t include all of the things people need in their inflation calculation. And it’s still significantly higher than when Biden took office. Nor do they include the devaluation of money which is also inflation that people must deal with…more.
** Ahhh, so it’s not that cross-dressing deviants obsessed with sex and advocating for the amputation and mutilation of healthy body parts are mentally ill, it’s those mean conservatives with their bigoted opinions sending these “marginalized” outsiders into a suicidal spiral. Yes, the people who get a carte blanche check to violate indecent exposure laws in front of children for a whole month, and have major corporations like Lockheed Martin, Bud Light, Target, Kohl’s, and the United States federal government promoting their agenda, are “marginalized.” Got it.
** Will Putin last longer than Pedo Joe? And if that’s how the Russians roll, what will Russia look like post-Vlad? How long before Yevgeny Prigozhin jumps from a balcony?
Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity doesn’t apply to everyone…
Fortress of San Juan de Ulúa, in Veracruz (Mexico)
Exactly
Identify the Aircraft
This Day in History, Picket Charged
The Army of the Potomac had to keep itself between The Army of Northern Virginia and Washington DC. The campaign concluded this day in history in 1863. Coincidentally Vicksburg fell on the same day.
Identify the Aircraft:
Martin-Baker MB 5
Yes
The Avro Arrow of WW2.
One of them, anyway.
-Kle.
As the Grand Army of the Republic was a Union veterans organization, perhaps the Army of the Potomac was meant?
For some reason, my head wasn’t completely in the game. You’re right, and I’ll edit it.
Picky AIs.
You probably also meant 1863 if I remember my USA history (or saw the movie)
Don’t worry I’m on day four of a head cold and thinking can be fuzzy
Doesn’t plant based food mean free range cattle? Or the ones we culled from the stud lines.
I still think vegan means bad hunter.
Pickett’s Charge occurred on 3 July 1863. Vicksburg fell on 4 July 1863.
– History geek, I am
I’m getting slaughtered on my own blog — with cause.
At least it isn’t with prejudice…
It’s a learning experience.
I have a lot of those.
I think we all have. It’s why we’re still here….
History is written by the survivors and the current crop of Liberal Historians….who can really know exact dates on such things?
But it’s not just Corporate America that appears to have presbycusis, it’s the Republican party (for the most part), even the Democratic party: most of the “Democrats” I know just aren’t that far left – well not as far left as their representatives turn out to be. Even the Armed Services appear to have lost use of the 8th nerve, not only have they become stone deaf, their gyroscope isn’t even working.
MY question is why; what’s causing it?
It’s a generational shift. The present generation (30-40) grew up without privation. The wars were distant and somewhat sterile. If you don’t like somebody somewhere, send a drone and launch a Hellfire. They are very tolerant of bullshit and the tolerance emboldened the slide. I don’t know if that is the whole answer. They give credence to the toxically aggrieved – here’s a cookie, take another gender studies class.
When I was young, segregation on college campuses was bad. Today, black people are screaming for more segregation as are the LGBTQI2+ crowd.
Anti-segregation has largely been a one-way valve, in my experience. Meaning whites are not allowed to keep Negros out of their spaces, but Blacks are allowed, even encouraged, to exclude whites. Even at nerdy, then mostly apolitical MIT in the late 1980’s one of the dorms had a section (a floor? I never knew the details) called Chocolate City by its inhabitants. Non-Blacks functionally not allowed. A friend of mine, quite dark (melanin-wise) was repeatedly recruited by the Chocolate City denizens. She was from one of the most influential families in Belize and quite utterly repulsed by American Black culture and behavior. I’ve also had a few African friends (Nigerian, Zimbabwean, etc) who are similarly not eager to “assimilate” into what many Americans (Blacks and whites) seem to expect of them, but rather “act white”.
Oh, what’s causing all this? Multifactorial, but high on the list is the ascension of Victimhood (claimed is enough) into the primary measure of a person or the value and goodness of a group or class. Agree with LL that excessive comfort and not being held accountable for anything are also major contributors. Hmmm. Now that I think about it, might also be the overall change of US culture/economy from primarily Apollonian to Mercurian, to use Yuri Skezkine’s (imperfect) terminology and categories, though they are an interesting mental construct on which to elaborate. Briefly, “Apollonians” make things, grow things, do the stuff that maintains the infrastructure of civilization. “Mercurians” deal in intangible “services” or information, or act as middlemen. The emphasis on mental constructs rather than hard physical reality (that horse will kick you, pouring molten steel wrong can and will get you killed, etc) may be another reason our society is so messed up. (Both sorts are needed in a complex society, I freely admit that. But maybe the West has become too Mercurian in outlook and emphasis.)
Hate Think Joke: two Apollonians are shipwrecked on a deserted island. When they are rescued a year later, they’ve built a rain catchment system for fresh water, a cozy hut, and are in surprisingly good health. Two Mercurians are shipwrecked on another desert island. When they are found three days later, they are both starved, sunburnt, and severely dehydrated. But on the plus side, both are now multimillionaires from selling their hats to each other, back and forth, during those three days.
Typo. It’s Slezkine, not “skez”.
We regert the error.
I agree: I’m not quite certain?? that’s the whole answer!
My generation (American kids born ’40 and after – WTH! we really didn’t become aware until ’50 (10 years old, if then); we didn’t grow up with privation; not like my mom who managed to hit 7 in the Ukraine before the family left, eating grass and worms when she was lucky; it was very vivid in her nightmares as an adult: we kids (even blacks) in America were (comparatively) spoiled.
“When I was young, segregation on college campuses…” was almost non-existent (Cornell ’62). A friendship with a black was (and I hate to say this) “a prized possession.”
Blacks didn’t want to make friends with the whites (most particularly those who “strove” to make friends with them).
OK! OK! These were the (highly priviledged and/or extremely bright) African and Caribbean blacks; but this held true for even the few American blacks we had on campus.
And in the late’50s/early ’60s our fraternity rushing rules were very strictly enforced by the Nationals (no blacks or Jews allowed: Chinese or Japanese – y’ gotta be kiddin’ !! Even a Mischling was looked at askance.)
I just think the pendulum has swung a bit too far to the overly tolerant. I’d like to see it begin to swing back; perhaps it already has (cf. extremely recent SCOTUS decisions to the those of a just couple of years ago).
sorry about the “priviledged” – sorta slipped there
Corporate America. The various companies that are “woke” hear but don’t care. They no longer have profitability as their primary goal. If I were a stockholder I would be raising hell.
Hu, I enjoy their music but have to admit that people looked at me a bit strangely when they saw 70 year old guy filling up my truck with this song playing on the stereo. So be it. It is good driving music for the the open road.
I eat plant based food every day…it is called beef, or sometimes pork.
Or chicken. I hope that you’re not not avian-phobic.
And of course chicken, how could I forget. Not only chicken but eggs too. Don’t know why I left chicken off. I had just finished my bacon and eggs breakfast cooked on my outside griddle when I typed my original response. It appears that corrections will be systemic today. Maybe the Internet is at fault?
“Maybe the Internet is at fault?”
I’m pretty sure systemic racism and toxic masculinity are to blame.
People think it’s weird that I enjoy old-timey Appalachian music. Guess they just have to live with their “cultural dissonance”. 😀 After all, what am I supposed to listen to? Peking Opera? (Horrid). The rap that was so enthusiastically rammed into American culture (no lube and not even the courtesy of a reach around) by persons who shall not be named? But it’s not all dulcimers and Lower Hebridean nostril whistles. Was listening to Nightwish this morning.
Fan of Nightwish and Advantasia too. “Last Ride of the Day” is, again, good driving music. Also Sabaton shows up on my playlist. I take it from your comment that I am guilty of systemic racism AND toxic masculinity both? Cool, a twofer 🙂
Oh not you personally (unless you want to be). In this fallen world you don’t have to be personally responsible for anything. It’s always someone else’s fault.
Er, unless you’re a straight, white, Christian male. Then everything IS your fault. Oops, looks like yer screwed (I’m guessing). Sorry about that. I don’t make the rules, but them’s the rules.
The scorched Earth concept that the elites have undertaken in the social suicide that we see is amazing, but it didn’t start with us. It seems to be a genetic flaw that is present in all societies. “My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Chicken feed, approximate percentages, off the top of my head:
Ground corn, 60-65%
Soybean meal, 20% or so.
Poultry meal (cooked and ground chicken pieces/parts they can’t sell), 10-15%.
Various stuff like calcium, trace minerals, drugs. When they say “no anti-biotics” don’t you believe it.
Usually pelleted and sprayed with a heavy concentration of rendered poultry fat or other animal fat (a.k.a. roadkill) so the birds will eat it.
Bon appetite.
“chicken pieces/parts, 10-15%”
Just like in that movie where Charlton Leghorn shouts “Soylent Green is people!” Truly we live in Chicken Dystopia. 😳
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4UPDUpjkHg0
Ed-C…think of it like a Haka at the Quick Stop, it’s a fair warning to wannabe reprobates.
Corporate America (in the long run) doesn’t really have to listen to the people, the lite beer people learned a lesson but when you OWN the media you know that, in time, the “reality” for the people will become what the 24/7 media says it is.
The lite beer lesson only shows that it was too soon for that….
Blue and Grey.
The first time I read Grant’s memoirs, particularly his recounting of the Mexican-American War, I was struck by the familiar names such as Lee and Meade. It got me to thinking then about how many in the CSA had before worn Union blue. In another book is explained a powerful sentiment as to why shed the blue for the grey. Now I see that same sentiment expressed today–
“But what else? What else that the article didn’t mention or hint at? But I believe is in the minds of every local American family with young men and women of military age. It’s that if they join the US Military at this time, that the day is coming when they will be deployed for War here in our own country, against their own families and neighbors.”
From here–
https://onthenorthriver.com/2023/07/01/comprehensive-article-but-leaves-out-one-important-thing/
I do like a blast of HU from time to time.
It gets the blood pumping. Of course, the Mongolian army never met the disciplined cavalry of the Dallas Light Cavalry on the field. If they had, it would have been historic.
Where’s the money? You shouldn’t need to ask.
July has arrived!
Have No Shame Month is past.
X2
tomwoods.com/ep-2232-when-civilizations-hate-themselves reviews a new book Western Self-Contempt: Oikophobia in the Decline of Civilizations by Benedict Beckeld. This is a historical survey of societies where the external enemies have been vanquished and the society has free intellectual inquiry — whereupon it starts loathing itself. This sounded to me like an autoimmune disease; immune system no longer has an external threat to fight, so it searches harder and harder for something to do, finds the self, and attacks it. Relatedly, I think religion is partially a theory to rationalize feelings of self-loathing already present.
Exactly. I can’t explain it because I don’t loathe myself and can’t explain it in others. I think that their sense of entitlement provokes a sort of autoimmune response that you mention, for want of a better word. Frankly, I have had to work hard for everything I have and feel gratitude that the aggrieved can’t allow themselves to appreciate.
Nobody seems more bitter than the trust fund babies – idle rich. Many of them despise themselves and everything and everyone around them. They don’t have to work to feed their families and to find some sort of validation for their existence, they protest. Many years ago when I dealt with the protesters for a living, I found the same people showing up at the SAVE THE WHALES, NO NUKES, etc. Most of them were either rich and entitled, mentally ill, or both. The common denominator was that they didn’t have to work to live.
The same people who were present at pro-Nazi marches were present at KKK rallies and then I saw them protecting Irv Rubin of the Jewish Defense League in Los Angeles. I found that odd except that there was a symbiotic relationship between the Nazis and the JDL. They all had donor constituencies and one grievance group couldn’t be successful without another so they cooperated. Some of the Nazis and KKK types had day jobs. The more successful fundraisers like the late Tom Metzger (KKK/White Aryan Resistance, etc.) could afford to be full-time in the trade. Irv Rubin (who committed suicide in jail in 2002 when awaiting trial on charges of conspiracy to bomb private and government property) was also a full-time operator.
My problem with the societal autoimmume disease hypothesis is, exactly where does this hypothesized code run? How, concretely, does this feedback loop work? If human society is a supercomputer design, the brains are so fat and the inter-person communication links are so slow. Or maybe it’s no worse a ratio than a bee hive?
Personally meaningful work is a requirement for human happiness; the removal of striving does not satisfy the environmental requirements of human firmware. Wasn’t there an elite tradition where the rich send their sons out to be conquerors or explorers? Plenty of room on Mars.
I have never understood why J.E.B. Stuart didn’t sally toward Washington DC after the skirmish at Aldie. He was east of Hood’s forces with nothing between him and DC.
If he’d gone to DC he would have to have fought a set piece battle agains entrenched inferior troops. For Stuart, maneuver was life and his cavalry were raiders, not assault troops. He wouldn’t be playing to his strengths and despite the fact that he lost contact with Lee, his mission was primarily to screen the Army of Northern Virginia, not to try and take the nation’s capitol. Stuart had 10,000 troopers in five brigades and I’m with you in that he could have taken DC with that force. He might have ended the war. Or he could have become tangled in DC defenses (weak, such as they were).
Lee could have taken one of Stuart’s brigades to screen and sent the other 8,000 to take DC. It would have been a bold move even for Mars Robert, but it might have worked. But that was not Lee’s plan.
The other thing to remember is that it’s all clear to us today in hindsight, but on the ground at the time, Stuart probably didn’t really know the hole was there to go through, at least not for sure. His assignment was screening, and if he’d dived for the hole and hit superior unknown forces, he’d have lost his force for nothing while not doing his job.
It’s also quite possible that he was working on it, and it just took to long to arrange and the time passed. Operational friction is the greatest overlooked factor in mobile warfare, and the farther back you go in time, generally the worse it gets.
-Kle.