To this day the three blind mice of Austin, Milley and McKenzie have NEVER been held to account and take full responsibility for their actions up to, during and after the withdrawal, retreat, failure of the Afghanistan Non-combatant Evacuation Operations (NEO). One can throw in a healthy dose of cowardice and failure over at the State Department with our left handed guitar playing Secretary of State or the king of comb overs Jake Sullivan, but as a body our government is so feckless and pathetic over decades it’s hard to throw too much blame at them. Only Lieutenant Colonel Stuart Scheller was held accountable for the unimaginable sin of calling out his superiors for their failure and their refusal to admit failure and apologize to the American people and especially the families of the 11 US Marines, 1 Sailor, and 1 Soldier. He was Courts Martialed and drummed out of the US Marine Corps. Shame and derision and humiliation ought be served in heaping portions on these adult clowns, they are arrogant, stupid, over educated fools, with no concepts rooted in reality.
If there is any doubt, the disgraceful performance by the President of the United States in front of the world this past week at the various memorial events marking 80 years since the invasion of Normandy France, simply highlights the pathetic state of affairs in the United States today. The worlds greatest generation has handed the keys over to the baby boomers and they are the worst generation and what follows, well time or a mushroom cloud will tell. The speed and mass of inertia that the genius’ in Washington DC are moving to create a nuclear confrontation with the Russian Federation is stunning. The conflict in Ukraine is lost for the Ukrainian people, we did that, and instead of working to a settlement and stopping the carnage we are allowing US weapons to be fired into Russia. If Mexico armed with Russian munitions fired into Texas or or Arizona we would declare war. This madness needs to stop before it really goes completely pear shaped and the worst of all outcomes occurs.
Enh. The "Greatest Generation" weren't so great. They were supposedly the ones whom, having grown up in The Great Depression, knew the value of money, and yet they cheered on (in the main) all the crap that the Feds did to screw the economy, because it benefited them. In the end, they were pretty damned short-sighted. I mean, where do you think the Baby Boomers *learned* that from? And then generally speaking, my generation (X) is even worse...
Well I served with Officers and enlisted alike that fought in the Pacific and they were great. As to the issue of Fed and monetary policy try this on, Jerry Kolhberg advanced the concept of the initial public offering which HAD its merits, his two apprentices Henry Kravitz and George Roberts took the concept and gain of functioned it to that which it has morphed into today. A massive grift supported by loose monetary policy. Kolhberg resigned from KKR over the way K and R were aborting the notion and creating massive wealth for themselves. So the greatest gave the idea, the worst have abused it. I hear the lament from X,Y and Z generations all the time. Andrew Cuomo said our nation was never great. Okay then come up with a better mouse trap. You can complain and cry in your generation X beer or you can stand up and fight. The baby boomers are toast the python is swallowing us, it is now your circus and your monkey’s. One good thing is that the notion of “hearing your country calling” seems to span the various generations. You should be concerned that the gen Z are deaf to that appeal, can you blame them? You are either part of the problem or part of the solution. Lead, follow or get the Hell out the way…
> "Well I served with Officers and enlisted alike that fought in the Pacific and they were great."
Sure, and I've known officers and enlisted who were in everything from Vietnam to Afghanistan, and mostly they were pretty great too. It's not the *military* people I'm talking about. It's the folks who grew up in the Depression, and the "Silent Generation" that was born during it, who should have known better.
> "Kolhberg resigned from KKR over the way K and R were aborting the notion and creating massive wealth for themselves. So the greatest gave the idea, the worst have abused it. I hear the lament from X,Y and Z generations all the time."
So... instead of doing something to stop it, as the senior partner, he just walked away. I'm certainly not saying that the Boomers don't have their part of the blame, but the folks who predated them were the adults in the room. And while we're at it, Kravitz and Roberts would have technically been part of that Silent Generation
So yeah, I'm sure Gen X does bitch about this a lot. KKR was founded the year I was born, and that divergence had just kept on getting wider since about 1970.
> "Andrew Cuomo said our nation was never great."
Hey now, don't get me wrong. I love this country and the concepts it was founded on. I *lament* the way this country being debauched. And I'm certainly not saying that *everyone* in that generation was trash, I certainly loved my grandparents and many people their age. But the lionizing of them as "The Greatest" just grates. What makes them any better than the folks who fought WWI? Or the Civil War? Beyond the fact that we could actually remember them, and the televised media finally got spun up during their hey-day.
My point is that *they* are the ones who were in power when Nixon finally divorced us entirely from the gold standard, and that's the point from which the average wage for people was totally decoupled from the growth in GDP. *My* parents were 17 when that happened. *Their* parents should have known better. As should have their entire generation.
When I'm talking about that "divergence", this is what I mean -- Consequences of the end of Bretton-Woods and the final death of the Gold Standard, in graph form: https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/
> "Okay then come up with a better mouse trap. You can complain and cry in your generation X beer or you can stand up and fight. The baby boomers are toast the python is swallowing us, it is now your circus and your monkey’s."
Yeah. We've definitely inherited the circus, the monkeys, the elephants, and the tigers. Sadly, we've also inherited 50 years of unshoveled monkey, elephant, and tiger dung. "Quit whining, you inherited a circus!" doesn't really help all that much. I'd be grateful for the fertilizer, I suppose, except the Gerontocracy is working on making it illegal to farm, too.
> "You are either part of the problem or part of the solution. Lead, follow or get the Hell out the way…"
OK, so what are you doing to be part of the solution, beyond telling me how grateful I should be to the people who have left me half buried in shit? If you have some solid plans, and are leading the way, I'll follow, because I sure as hell haven't been able to come up with any workable solutions. But you seem to just be sitting in the internet bitching just like I am.
What am I doing? Cheeky, I did what only one percent of Americans did I served our nation in the Marine Corps as an Infantry Officer. It wasn’t popular but I heard my country calling and answered the call. I am now working with a group of Marine Officers to ensure that there is a Marine Corps. The issue of a Corps going forward is in doubt. But the 169,000 active duty Marines are the best DOD bang per buck. The elites writ large hate the Corps, it is too lean and too hungry if you follow the analogy. You follow or lead both you can do and sometimes simultaneously. You can exercise your franchise. Aka vote. You can run for office and change it. You could take on your school
Board if you don’t like it. Etc. Start a small business and employ five people.
I am sixty eight and if that ass hat who is our current Commandant called and said report for duty I would drop everything and head to where the Hell he said I was meant to report. I would not complain or bitch but take on the assignment he or any superior officer assigned or ordered me lawfully to do.
You have many fair points and by the way Nixon used an executive act to take us off the gold standard which we seem to agree was a terrible move.
20/20 hindsight is always good, but if one takes the more egregious concerns from the generation you seem unhappy with and apply the lessons that fix it, than you are on the road to Damascus. There are opportunities at every failing you note. Find one thread and give it a pull. My take is you are intelligent, mindful, willful and able. This ain’t bitching, it’s dialog, dialog leads to deliberation, deliberation to consensus. Hey you never know we might find our Constitutional Republic among the all the circus animal dung..so guess we all keep shoveling. You are not alone out there…
> "What am I doing? Cheeky, I did what only one percent of Americans did I served our nation in the Marine Corps as an Infantry Officer."
Well, thank you for your service. Both my grandfathers were in the military, Army in WWII, and then one of them in the Army Air Corps and finally Air Force once it was called that after. My father was in the Navy, and were I physically capable of becoming fit for duty, I'd have picked the Corps, myself. Alas, the Corps (and everyone else) is uninterested in someone who is already occasionally using a cane by the time they graduate high school due to joint degeneration. :-/
> "This ain’t bitching, it’s dialog, dialog leads to deliberation, deliberation to consensus. Hey you never know we might find our Constitutional Republic among the all the circus animal dung..so guess we all keep shoveling. You are not alone out there…"
Fair enough, I do apologize, it's been rough lately and every time I look up it seems like I'm seeing a cliff that's coming closer and closer, and I'm not the one driving. And likewise, thank you for your words of encouragement.
I don't have any ideas on how to fix it, is part of the problem. Letting go of the gold standard is something of a one-way operation. We let a 35 pound Bobcat out of the bag, and now we'd be trying to stuff a 2200 lbs Siberian Tiger back into it. The bag's not big enough. But without a stable currency, it's difficult to stop the automatic graft that occurs. I've been adjacent to that problem for a long time, working on things like Bitcoin and other even older solutions since the late 90's, but there are, as you likely know, many problems with the actual practicality of such things. And far too many of them, if not properly constructed, would result in an even worse Orwellian surveillance state nightmare than we've already got.
It wouldn't be completely impossible, I suppose. The US could declare that it was going back to the god standard, and pin the value at $2,000 per ounce. Tenth ounce $200 coins wouldn't be completely useless, though hundredth-ounce $20 coins would be difficult to handle, to say the least. Bimetallic systems have their own problems as values fluctuate between the two types of specie. I suppose we could use bills and electronic numbers for smaller denominations, but someone would have to keep a sharp eye on the Feds to make sure they didn't get up to any games.
The Elites would hate it, of course, because they could no longer skim profit off of GDP and inflation at the source. And of course the biggest problem of all would be that most would consider me a crackpot merely for proposing it.
I had a moment when my famous temper was going to respond one way to you, and then my buddy Aristotle kicked me in the ass and said why don’t you communicate like an adult with Warmek. Surely that has worked out. Couple of thoughts helpful or not. You have the personality that sees things and wants to fix them if they are wrong or bad and tweak them if they are good. I sense a level of concern with ability to pry and prod for answers and some of the questions just can’t be answered well, which of course is a good reason for asking them. You triggered a memory of a young Sargent I served with. He was an 0341 machine gunner, and one of my better instructors but a GIANT pain in the ass, in the most wonderful way. He knew he could get a reaction out of me, and we would go around and around, but it was very good for me as a young Lieutenant to have the challenge. I tried like mad to have him re-enlist but no dice. It was a disappointment to me that my leadership wasn’t enough to make him want to stay. But he was fed up and for good reason. The Corps was turning a corner in the most positive way, but his bad experinces were too much and he needed out. More is the pity.
This all said, never give up, never give in. You are SO NOT alone in your despair. But in your despair there is or are answers. The pain produces wisdom. For sure this very unattractive “silent” gerontologist types have made a mess, but that is sort of the point in the matter. Okay the circus animals are loose and their dung is high and all over the place, but what happens if PT Barnum aka Warmek corrals the animals, sets the three rings up, hires the trapez artists, gets a grand little side show going and takes it on the road. Okay too long an analogy but no doubt you get the drift.
I believe in pathological optimism with a healthy dose of realism. Here we are, there is an election coming up. For sure exercise your franchise. In the meantime there are more gold bugs out than you might think. If we fail as the global reserve currency than Gold or bitcoin or your iterations of same will have a true need. Perhaps pull hard on that thread. As my old man used to say “sprinkle some water on it maybe something will grow”. An apt analogy, not so?
And if anyone want s a case in point in modern era, nobody was blamed for the immeasurable loss of equipment and twelve(?) loves of the cowardly retreat from Afghanistan.
Oh, come on. The British were buying commissions at the time and occasionally displayed gross levels of incompetence, for example, in the Crimean War.
Roosevelt waged war against the British Empire and won (during WW2), and the United States was at the pinnacle of power. If I'd have to nominate one, it would be Lyndon B. Johnson. A lot of things that plague modern America started with him.
The story of Hull epitomizes a long extant, ultimately fatal trait of our system - lack of accountability. Much like an imploding building, the momentum of our collapse accelerates at ferocious speed.
I write to you today in a sincere effort to help you accomplish your noble goals for seeking this office.
That is to help you facilitate the betterment of our schools for our children and young people.
To do this, I ask you to make the Board meeting agenda and the data points behind them available to me as well as all of the other taxpayers.
Upload the stack to a server where we can read, ratify and or annul the elements after log on.
In a perfect world each paragraph must have at least three possible answers: agree, disagree, no opinion at this time.
Direct democracy is a growing trend, and many companies offer these services:
hosting, voter receipts, and a running tally of totals for everyone to see.
In this way Madam Trustee you are assured that you will always have the strength of the community with you when making the decisions that really do effect the lives of our people.
And yet, you yourself have no self-discipline in facing your errors in grammar, usage, and punctuation and correcting them. It is a matter of minutes with spellcheck and “read aloud” to catch most of them, and a matter of the humility of asking for help to get a proofreader to fix the rest for you.
Geez, I wonder what government in the history of humanity has ever held its employees (all of them, no exceptions) accountable, responsible and liable? The US government was supposed to be held responsible and accountable by the US citizens. How is that working out over the last 200 years?
as i have gently pointed out understanding British history 183% 'til 1995 is simplified by reading closely the works of George MacDonald Fraser. one might start with the Flashman books which cover all sorts of worldwide events; one might then peruse his memoir of his time in the burma campaign. his history of the scottish borders and reivers seems more than sound as he was a child and student of the place.
his mac Ausland books are both funny and chilling. jest 'cause he were an evil white male of colonial extraction do not make him one of the best, but he be that.
A pattern emerges where Americans are great at Ares-like destruction but are totally incapable of building effective empire. Even Washington is known for his failures to build and protect pre-Revolution only to make up for it in his Revolutionary destruction.
Americans are terrible at building an empire because most of us have zero interest in it. We’ve got our own continental empire already, with plenty of opportunities for the average man. Until recently at least.
A tiny cabal of Ivy League Fauntleroys have always been the driving force, and chief beneficiaries, of all of our flailing imperial adventures. We would have even sat out WWII if they hadn’t conspired to drag us into it.
Interesting thoughts. It's not like anywhere else is particularly good about such things these days in the West, but if they had been here up until WWII (which seems to have been the falling over point for most places to go completely into the mire) it would have been much better. Certainly there are plenty of senior officers in today's US Military who should probably be hanged.
To this day the three blind mice of Austin, Milley and McKenzie have NEVER been held to account and take full responsibility for their actions up to, during and after the withdrawal, retreat, failure of the Afghanistan Non-combatant Evacuation Operations (NEO). One can throw in a healthy dose of cowardice and failure over at the State Department with our left handed guitar playing Secretary of State or the king of comb overs Jake Sullivan, but as a body our government is so feckless and pathetic over decades it’s hard to throw too much blame at them. Only Lieutenant Colonel Stuart Scheller was held accountable for the unimaginable sin of calling out his superiors for their failure and their refusal to admit failure and apologize to the American people and especially the families of the 11 US Marines, 1 Sailor, and 1 Soldier. He was Courts Martialed and drummed out of the US Marine Corps. Shame and derision and humiliation ought be served in heaping portions on these adult clowns, they are arrogant, stupid, over educated fools, with no concepts rooted in reality.
If there is any doubt, the disgraceful performance by the President of the United States in front of the world this past week at the various memorial events marking 80 years since the invasion of Normandy France, simply highlights the pathetic state of affairs in the United States today. The worlds greatest generation has handed the keys over to the baby boomers and they are the worst generation and what follows, well time or a mushroom cloud will tell. The speed and mass of inertia that the genius’ in Washington DC are moving to create a nuclear confrontation with the Russian Federation is stunning. The conflict in Ukraine is lost for the Ukrainian people, we did that, and instead of working to a settlement and stopping the carnage we are allowing US weapons to be fired into Russia. If Mexico armed with Russian munitions fired into Texas or or Arizona we would declare war. This madness needs to stop before it really goes completely pear shaped and the worst of all outcomes occurs.
Enh. The "Greatest Generation" weren't so great. They were supposedly the ones whom, having grown up in The Great Depression, knew the value of money, and yet they cheered on (in the main) all the crap that the Feds did to screw the economy, because it benefited them. In the end, they were pretty damned short-sighted. I mean, where do you think the Baby Boomers *learned* that from? And then generally speaking, my generation (X) is even worse...
We're pretty solidly fucked, I think.
Well I served with Officers and enlisted alike that fought in the Pacific and they were great. As to the issue of Fed and monetary policy try this on, Jerry Kolhberg advanced the concept of the initial public offering which HAD its merits, his two apprentices Henry Kravitz and George Roberts took the concept and gain of functioned it to that which it has morphed into today. A massive grift supported by loose monetary policy. Kolhberg resigned from KKR over the way K and R were aborting the notion and creating massive wealth for themselves. So the greatest gave the idea, the worst have abused it. I hear the lament from X,Y and Z generations all the time. Andrew Cuomo said our nation was never great. Okay then come up with a better mouse trap. You can complain and cry in your generation X beer or you can stand up and fight. The baby boomers are toast the python is swallowing us, it is now your circus and your monkey’s. One good thing is that the notion of “hearing your country calling” seems to span the various generations. You should be concerned that the gen Z are deaf to that appeal, can you blame them? You are either part of the problem or part of the solution. Lead, follow or get the Hell out the way…
> "Well I served with Officers and enlisted alike that fought in the Pacific and they were great."
Sure, and I've known officers and enlisted who were in everything from Vietnam to Afghanistan, and mostly they were pretty great too. It's not the *military* people I'm talking about. It's the folks who grew up in the Depression, and the "Silent Generation" that was born during it, who should have known better.
> "Kolhberg resigned from KKR over the way K and R were aborting the notion and creating massive wealth for themselves. So the greatest gave the idea, the worst have abused it. I hear the lament from X,Y and Z generations all the time."
So... instead of doing something to stop it, as the senior partner, he just walked away. I'm certainly not saying that the Boomers don't have their part of the blame, but the folks who predated them were the adults in the room. And while we're at it, Kravitz and Roberts would have technically been part of that Silent Generation
So yeah, I'm sure Gen X does bitch about this a lot. KKR was founded the year I was born, and that divergence had just kept on getting wider since about 1970.
> "Andrew Cuomo said our nation was never great."
Hey now, don't get me wrong. I love this country and the concepts it was founded on. I *lament* the way this country being debauched. And I'm certainly not saying that *everyone* in that generation was trash, I certainly loved my grandparents and many people their age. But the lionizing of them as "The Greatest" just grates. What makes them any better than the folks who fought WWI? Or the Civil War? Beyond the fact that we could actually remember them, and the televised media finally got spun up during their hey-day.
My point is that *they* are the ones who were in power when Nixon finally divorced us entirely from the gold standard, and that's the point from which the average wage for people was totally decoupled from the growth in GDP. *My* parents were 17 when that happened. *Their* parents should have known better. As should have their entire generation.
When I'm talking about that "divergence", this is what I mean -- Consequences of the end of Bretton-Woods and the final death of the Gold Standard, in graph form: https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/
> "Okay then come up with a better mouse trap. You can complain and cry in your generation X beer or you can stand up and fight. The baby boomers are toast the python is swallowing us, it is now your circus and your monkey’s."
Yeah. We've definitely inherited the circus, the monkeys, the elephants, and the tigers. Sadly, we've also inherited 50 years of unshoveled monkey, elephant, and tiger dung. "Quit whining, you inherited a circus!" doesn't really help all that much. I'd be grateful for the fertilizer, I suppose, except the Gerontocracy is working on making it illegal to farm, too.
> "You are either part of the problem or part of the solution. Lead, follow or get the Hell out the way…"
OK, so what are you doing to be part of the solution, beyond telling me how grateful I should be to the people who have left me half buried in shit? If you have some solid plans, and are leading the way, I'll follow, because I sure as hell haven't been able to come up with any workable solutions. But you seem to just be sitting in the internet bitching just like I am.
What am I doing? Cheeky, I did what only one percent of Americans did I served our nation in the Marine Corps as an Infantry Officer. It wasn’t popular but I heard my country calling and answered the call. I am now working with a group of Marine Officers to ensure that there is a Marine Corps. The issue of a Corps going forward is in doubt. But the 169,000 active duty Marines are the best DOD bang per buck. The elites writ large hate the Corps, it is too lean and too hungry if you follow the analogy. You follow or lead both you can do and sometimes simultaneously. You can exercise your franchise. Aka vote. You can run for office and change it. You could take on your school
Board if you don’t like it. Etc. Start a small business and employ five people.
I am sixty eight and if that ass hat who is our current Commandant called and said report for duty I would drop everything and head to where the Hell he said I was meant to report. I would not complain or bitch but take on the assignment he or any superior officer assigned or ordered me lawfully to do.
You have many fair points and by the way Nixon used an executive act to take us off the gold standard which we seem to agree was a terrible move.
20/20 hindsight is always good, but if one takes the more egregious concerns from the generation you seem unhappy with and apply the lessons that fix it, than you are on the road to Damascus. There are opportunities at every failing you note. Find one thread and give it a pull. My take is you are intelligent, mindful, willful and able. This ain’t bitching, it’s dialog, dialog leads to deliberation, deliberation to consensus. Hey you never know we might find our Constitutional Republic among the all the circus animal dung..so guess we all keep shoveling. You are not alone out there…
> "What am I doing? Cheeky, I did what only one percent of Americans did I served our nation in the Marine Corps as an Infantry Officer."
Well, thank you for your service. Both my grandfathers were in the military, Army in WWII, and then one of them in the Army Air Corps and finally Air Force once it was called that after. My father was in the Navy, and were I physically capable of becoming fit for duty, I'd have picked the Corps, myself. Alas, the Corps (and everyone else) is uninterested in someone who is already occasionally using a cane by the time they graduate high school due to joint degeneration. :-/
> "This ain’t bitching, it’s dialog, dialog leads to deliberation, deliberation to consensus. Hey you never know we might find our Constitutional Republic among the all the circus animal dung..so guess we all keep shoveling. You are not alone out there…"
Fair enough, I do apologize, it's been rough lately and every time I look up it seems like I'm seeing a cliff that's coming closer and closer, and I'm not the one driving. And likewise, thank you for your words of encouragement.
I don't have any ideas on how to fix it, is part of the problem. Letting go of the gold standard is something of a one-way operation. We let a 35 pound Bobcat out of the bag, and now we'd be trying to stuff a 2200 lbs Siberian Tiger back into it. The bag's not big enough. But without a stable currency, it's difficult to stop the automatic graft that occurs. I've been adjacent to that problem for a long time, working on things like Bitcoin and other even older solutions since the late 90's, but there are, as you likely know, many problems with the actual practicality of such things. And far too many of them, if not properly constructed, would result in an even worse Orwellian surveillance state nightmare than we've already got.
It wouldn't be completely impossible, I suppose. The US could declare that it was going back to the god standard, and pin the value at $2,000 per ounce. Tenth ounce $200 coins wouldn't be completely useless, though hundredth-ounce $20 coins would be difficult to handle, to say the least. Bimetallic systems have their own problems as values fluctuate between the two types of specie. I suppose we could use bills and electronic numbers for smaller denominations, but someone would have to keep a sharp eye on the Feds to make sure they didn't get up to any games.
The Elites would hate it, of course, because they could no longer skim profit off of GDP and inflation at the source. And of course the biggest problem of all would be that most would consider me a crackpot merely for proposing it.
Who knows, maybe I'll come up with something.
I had a moment when my famous temper was going to respond one way to you, and then my buddy Aristotle kicked me in the ass and said why don’t you communicate like an adult with Warmek. Surely that has worked out. Couple of thoughts helpful or not. You have the personality that sees things and wants to fix them if they are wrong or bad and tweak them if they are good. I sense a level of concern with ability to pry and prod for answers and some of the questions just can’t be answered well, which of course is a good reason for asking them. You triggered a memory of a young Sargent I served with. He was an 0341 machine gunner, and one of my better instructors but a GIANT pain in the ass, in the most wonderful way. He knew he could get a reaction out of me, and we would go around and around, but it was very good for me as a young Lieutenant to have the challenge. I tried like mad to have him re-enlist but no dice. It was a disappointment to me that my leadership wasn’t enough to make him want to stay. But he was fed up and for good reason. The Corps was turning a corner in the most positive way, but his bad experinces were too much and he needed out. More is the pity.
This all said, never give up, never give in. You are SO NOT alone in your despair. But in your despair there is or are answers. The pain produces wisdom. For sure this very unattractive “silent” gerontologist types have made a mess, but that is sort of the point in the matter. Okay the circus animals are loose and their dung is high and all over the place, but what happens if PT Barnum aka Warmek corrals the animals, sets the three rings up, hires the trapez artists, gets a grand little side show going and takes it on the road. Okay too long an analogy but no doubt you get the drift.
I believe in pathological optimism with a healthy dose of realism. Here we are, there is an election coming up. For sure exercise your franchise. In the meantime there are more gold bugs out than you might think. If we fail as the global reserve currency than Gold or bitcoin or your iterations of same will have a true need. Perhaps pull hard on that thread. As my old man used to say “sprinkle some water on it maybe something will grow”. An apt analogy, not so?
Biden is silent generation, but I get what you mean.
And if anyone want s a case in point in modern era, nobody was blamed for the immeasurable loss of equipment and twelve(?) loves of the cowardly retreat from Afghanistan.
Oh, come on. The British were buying commissions at the time and occasionally displayed gross levels of incompetence, for example, in the Crimean War.
Roosevelt waged war against the British Empire and won (during WW2), and the United States was at the pinnacle of power. If I'd have to nominate one, it would be Lyndon B. Johnson. A lot of things that plague modern America started with him.
The story of Hull epitomizes a long extant, ultimately fatal trait of our system - lack of accountability. Much like an imploding building, the momentum of our collapse accelerates at ferocious speed.
Very interesting, Kulak. A piece of history of which I was completely unaware.
I like it.
Start here:
Dear Mr. / Madam School Board Trustee
I write to you today in a sincere effort to help you accomplish your noble goals for seeking this office.
That is to help you facilitate the betterment of our schools for our children and young people.
To do this, I ask you to make the Board meeting agenda and the data points behind them available to me as well as all of the other taxpayers.
Upload the stack to a server where we can read, ratify and or annul the elements after log on.
In a perfect world each paragraph must have at least three possible answers: agree, disagree, no opinion at this time.
Direct democracy is a growing trend, and many companies offer these services:
hosting, voter receipts, and a running tally of totals for everyone to see.
In this way Madam Trustee you are assured that you will always have the strength of the community with you when making the decisions that really do effect the lives of our people.
Vty,
Helpful Taxpayer Citizen
Hosting Companies:
https://teletownhall.com/products/text-to-online-surveys/
https://publicinput.com/wp/online-town-hall/
https://www.govtech.com/archive/introducing-the-21st-century-city-hall.html
And yet, you yourself have no self-discipline in facing your errors in grammar, usage, and punctuation and correcting them. It is a matter of minutes with spellcheck and “read aloud” to catch most of them, and a matter of the humility of asking for help to get a proofreader to fix the rest for you.
Geez, I wonder what government in the history of humanity has ever held its employees (all of them, no exceptions) accountable, responsible and liable? The US government was supposed to be held responsible and accountable by the US citizens. How is that working out over the last 200 years?
as i have gently pointed out understanding British history 183% 'til 1995 is simplified by reading closely the works of George MacDonald Fraser. one might start with the Flashman books which cover all sorts of worldwide events; one might then peruse his memoir of his time in the burma campaign. his history of the scottish borders and reivers seems more than sound as he was a child and student of the place.
his mac Ausland books are both funny and chilling. jest 'cause he were an evil white male of colonial extraction do not make him one of the best, but he be that.
Excellent. I wasn't even aware of this till just now, but it makes the nature of America's decline make so much sense.
🤔
A pattern emerges where Americans are great at Ares-like destruction but are totally incapable of building effective empire. Even Washington is known for his failures to build and protect pre-Revolution only to make up for it in his Revolutionary destruction.
Americans are terrible at building an empire because most of us have zero interest in it. We’ve got our own continental empire already, with plenty of opportunities for the average man. Until recently at least.
A tiny cabal of Ivy League Fauntleroys have always been the driving force, and chief beneficiaries, of all of our flailing imperial adventures. We would have even sat out WWII if they hadn’t conspired to drag us into it.
Interesting thoughts. It's not like anywhere else is particularly good about such things these days in the West, but if they had been here up until WWII (which seems to have been the falling over point for most places to go completely into the mire) it would have been much better. Certainly there are plenty of senior officers in today's US Military who should probably be hanged.