Boston Veterans' Day 07

Boston, New England Emirate, November 11, 2007:

Here we are in Boston, The Athens of Attitude, and a town that’s politically correct and patriotically indifferent, on another Veterans’ Day. No parades here. After all we just got over a city election when even a hint that such manifestations appearing in the budget would raise the ire of the philosophically constipated. Where else would profiles in courage cower away, trembling at the image of the martial menace? Yes, that was the excuse I got two years ago from a city hall martinet when I asked why there would be no parade. “We’re afraid of peace demonstrators.” (Hold that thought. No, go ahead. Parse that thought. I’ll comment no further on that point.)
Of course, maybe they fear the wrong kind of protesters. Can you imagine Rev. Phelp’s legions waving protest signs saying that Henry Knox, Paul Revere, Dr. Warren and the Sons of Liberty, the 54th (Black) Regiment of the Civil War, all risked their lives egregiously as they committed themselves to a country that would become a haven for homos cavorting in queer-only Quonset huts.
Now for balance we should consider the issue on everyone’s mind who suckle from the breast of Main Stream Media. Neither the military nor the Veteran’s Administration grant survivor privileges to same sex spouses. There’s an issue that could even stop a sale at Nieman’s. (Not to mention some very fit ‘eye-candy’ for 4F aunties to gawk at, scoff or run off San Francisco Fire Department comments.) (It’s same-sex marriage or nothing, forget the country.) (Gay pride wasn’t concerned at all when a procession to the New England Islamic Center bumped the annual parade from the front page of the “Boston Globe”. {Forget that the Ikwan would harvest homosexuals for Hell.}. These are people religiously committed to the killing any who don’t share their interpretation of the ‘Transcendent”)
Let me herein correct any notion that I’m slamming Arabs and all Islamists. I’m not.
Frankly, accept my pity for you’re being currently emasculated and pimped by Persian potentates and have an historical legacy of manipulation by sexually frustrated ghouls like Zawihiri, l’Qtub, back to the drunken Turkish sultans and to the merchant-woman’s boy-toy himself.
So, how does this Kweer Kamerad show his regard for his forebears, those currently serving and those we’re missing? I find intimidation to be a handy vehicle of pre-emption. I add additional flags to the ‘Ole Glory’ already straddling my bowed windows. From Noon til 2:00 pm, military music and airs bless my neighborhood. This year I began it all on Saturday, the 10th at Noon, honoring Marines on their birthday with the Marine Corps Hymn and a few Sousa tunes. Sunday, of course, the actual Veteran’s Day the repertoire kicked off with a whole run. (By the way “Black Jack” in honor of 5 Star General Pershing has a nice lilt to it. After all, who commanded the American Expeditionary Force that led to “Armistice Day”? ) (I’ll omit, for now, mentioning his mobilization to chase Pancho Villa back to Mexico after the latter’s murderous raid on US citizens on US soil.)
But, it’s more than Boston where The Boston Sunday Globe’s Magazine had to feature (with cover photos) a story about how much easier it has been for a 15 year old lesbian to come out now than ten years ago. (Did she want to ‘come out’ five?) Inside the ‘Region’ section carried an article on how young men came home devastated from current conflicts. It’s Americana somewhat less diluted here with its misery index fostered by a couple of generations of people whose lives orbit their navels. It’s the victim status. If you’re not one, you should at least know one. If you’re not one, or don’t know one, the media will find one for you. Well, I guess the media has sensitivities that I don’t share. (I guess I can afford to have differences. Nobody’s advertising on my back. Even without incentives I’d have used, maybe Henry Knox, Colonel Knowlton, John Pershing, or….)
Oh, yes. The front page listed all the issues of importance. Types of store open (all). No postal or bank services. Federal, state and municipal offices; closed. The fillers were all ads for “Veterans’ Day Sale”, “Veterans’ Day Special”, but nothing suggesting “Double Discount with your DD214”. But then again, that would like admitting conspiratorial guilt in Boston. Then again, those who we lost in Verdun, Tarawa, Anzio, Chosin, Hue, Grenada, Kabul or Anbar
Province are beyond caring how we spend their investment into our country.
Well, it seems that only a few of us care about them.

de Officiis

I chose the title "de Officiis" of Marcus Tullius Cicero work for the very interpretation "On Duty" suggests the virtue that transcends history.

Generally, I avoid what could be interpreted as jingoism of the reactionaries or people thriving on a past that has developed into more of a pageant the greater they lived from it. I often equate it to the 50 year old ex-high-school jock critiquing this year's Homecoming Game. So to give fair homage to those currently serving this country, I'm only offering a point of reference from my own experience lest it ever be found exaggerated.

I guess being a World War II baby it's only reasonable to think back from time to time on the images I have of those times; tagging along with my mother as she turned in bacon-fat for coupons, the town sirens for air-raid drills, remembering in prayers an uncle in a submarine, cousins also on fronts; land, sea and air, "Buddy" down the street who was a Marine in the Pacific. It was a dramatic time in the eyes of a little boy whose first five years would parallel the greatest war in history. For the more mature it provided moments of trauma, fear and anxiety.
My brother was building models of Mustangs, got a letter from "Ike", and, with a friend created my 'Jeep' (Pictured). He'd take me on the handle-bars of his bike down the road to a railroad bridge to see the flat-cars of tanks to be boarded on ships in Boston. The songs supporting our soldiers filled the kitchen as my brother and my sister did the dishes after dinner. Both would serve in uniform later in their lives. I guess that type of experience, with the examples of those who've preceded me in life, set standards for me, "Duty to God and Country", motivates me still. And I don't blush over it.

Raised in a community where college education followed immediately as a natural course of events, wherein draft deferments provided for that routine; a step off that tread made for easy pickings for the "Draft Board". Much had happened in my mid-teens; premature deaths of my parents, siblings developing their own families, and my own hesitancy to settle upon a decision for my future, always and easily distracted.

The constant was the anticipation that I would, in time, serve my country. Very simple - a core value. I enlisted in the Regular Army in 1962; Laos was in the news, eventually to be followed by the Cuban Crisis. I was fortunately selected for the then Counter-Intelligence Corps (CIC) (later changed to MI) (just like that big brother was 10 years earlier). It set in motion for me many interests that abide with me to this day; (frankly exceeding in involvement my earlier duties). Being (reportedly) the youngest in 62 to get credentials, I was assigned, and took advantage of, some unique experiences. (Enough. We're all - even a little - legends in our own minds.) (My fellow agents used to say it was to keep me out of their way.)

Over years since my regular and further reserve service, many young men and women have been called, and responded to serve in circumstances much nastier than I had (in my suit and rep tie). Some, like myself, stayed close to the intelligence field through organizations that are short of being official; avocational might best describe them.

Too many of our best have died, suffered maiming and injuries to body and emotions. And many, too, have within the experience of duty, found a calling which they've extended with great integrity. For those I still stand in awe. Most people really don't know the discipline within such a community. As this part reflects on those who re-up, Like others, I watch and feel the contempt that some heap upon those youngsters from our communities for the sake of political advantage, comparative ego enhancing, moral equivalency in self-justifications and ozone-based status. It embarrasses me and hurts me at the same time.

The embarrassment stems from how my fellow citizens dispose themselves to those serving. The hurt is different. It's how I wish I could absorb it from the feelings of those serving. It's almost like feeling inadequate and not sharing more of their load. Why would any American feel otherwise?

I must add that this was motivated by a guy who emailed me. He's served his time, and continues serving "I missed the camaraderie .." he wrote. I am humbled by him. Let's call him Barry.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,299439,00.html

Trojan Horse or Stable

When I came across the cited article, http://www.nysun.com/article/63064 through jihadwatch.com, it triggered in my memory the foot-baths in colleges and airports, the Islamic school in New York, various political appointments, America's children, Adam Gadahn, and John Walker Lindh http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Gadahn and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Walker_Lindh), America's other children in Iraq and Afghanistan whose faces will always be in your hearts, restraints against traditional holidays, students sporting pipe bombs and a med-student dressed in camouflage touting an AK-47 in Dearbornistan, The Holy Land Foundatiion Trial, Mogadishu, a leader in his stocking feet appearing in an expression of appeasement to the local Washington mosque, Visa-Waivers, USS Cole, and that event September 11th, 2001.

Then, in one of Boston's little subsidized neighborhood news rags, ("The Fenway News"), which I picked up yesterday, was the front page article with picture. "Islamic Culture Center May (Finally) Open" (at the corner of Columbus Ave and Malcolm X Blvd.) (I expect someone will move to have "Columbus" stricken soon.) (About a mile (+/-) from the Christian Science Center and the Holy Cross Cathedral. This project garnered some attention when it first developed. Apart from the imprint of the Islamic thumbprint, and, not to be discounted; the Muslim-laced population of students; international and easily impressible scions of 'Americana', was the means of obtaining the property. Near enough to the center of the city, the site has easy access to highways, nearly abuts Northeastern University, lies along an unofficial bordering line of black and white neighborhoods (a senate district which I represented for twelve years in the GOP State Committee of Massachusetts).

They got it for below market value through the Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA). (Christian Science Monitor suggests BRA has done this for other religious efforts. {Proof?})
Certainly, my parish has witnessed no such largess. Now take into account redevelopment authorities (which become autonomous and sterilized from public opinion) are created to improve the viability of a cities economic base. The project has had its legal donnybrooks, but it seems to have prevailed with the minaret rising.

So it's not just a "Trojan Horse". It's a stable holding the mounts to carry, recruit and train the Ikwan, the shock troops from the Arab Rebellion. The name "Ikwan" gives quite a dramatic impulse to the (US) Muslim Brotherhood. http://nefafoundation.org/miscellaneous/nefahlf0807.pdf

Another interesting aside to this: Boston, San Francisco and other leading cities have always made their gay-friendliness almost a competition, and a media and political smorgasbord. "The Boston Globe" usually gives "Gay Pride" a "Sunday Globe" front-page splash. Not this year. It front-paged a procession of Muslims in procession to the Islamic Cultural Center (about a half-mile from the gay marshalling point) (and no one noticed). (Gay or not it's worth filing in the memory bank.)

A Little Knowledge vs. Abundance of Ignorance

Who hasn't heard the the old saw, "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing." I've always tended to suggest when that is used as an out for a mishap, a reasonable neutralizer is, "An abundance of ignorance doesn't help much either." It also seems that the degree of separation from the issue determines the reaction or comment.

Now I consider the degree of separation between me and one who would kill me factored by the diligence or indifference of duly established authorities empowered to prevent that event. And maintaining the integrity of that system. That should not allow for investing anyone who would not respect and maintain the laws that I must.

I look at this immediate threat to The United States of America growing incrementally within it when I recognize relative easements by communities authorities; whether it be Area D of the Boston Police, a political sinecure in Virginia, licensing illegal aliens, courts in Oregon, egregious endorsements of convicted criminals, and philosophical warping of basic formative education.

When a governor of a state, county commissioners, mayors and alderman, feign surprise at an appointee's hostile background tied to criminal activity, or with a record of stated hatred for the country and tradition of the domain in which he's named to honor; I tend to think it is not just as only a little knowledge (comparatively), nor only an abundance of ignorance; it is far worse. I see it purely as the mercenary pollitical character at its most vile.

Putting aside all the negative slants against PC, feel-good legislation, life-style communities issues, and legal exceptions for water-walkers - you may note I have a few - I cannot help but declare the greater part of Political Americana (not just non-partisan, but omnipartisan, pan-partisan, ?) bordering on treason. As so many of these situations crop up, the appeasement factor reeks. As so many of these situations crop up, the contempt is purely odious. As so much is being risked; the appeasement and contempt combine to become - In my mind's eye -criminal.

This is coast to coast, border to border; the Carolinas to Oregon, Manhattan to Phoenix, Boston to Dearborn, Columbus and Cleveland to Tampa and Boise. But, as recently as a day ago, a govenor had to recall an appointment, while another decided people culpable for breaking the immigration laws should be granted driving privileges as a reward for successfully doing so.

* a worthy point here: NY where this was done has a major population abiding in cities wherein an automobile is more of an expensive encumbrance. (OK Cab Drivers - but what is the legal standard for that?) OK, an ID - When a green-card would say more? I guess to get up to the range in the Appalachians.

I guess it would be real perjorative of me to cite the Islamic proselytizing in prisons since the 60's and 70's up to the present with an umma reaching directly into schoolrooms and public service. Look into their goals, http://nefafoundation.org/miscellaneous/nefahlf0807.pdf IKWAN. Not since the penal colony of Australia matured into a self-governing nation has criminality reached such heights. The difference being the Muslim Brotherhood converts were convicted based upon evidence prior to sentence, the future Australians were just sentenced for being who they were at the time. I would bet, too that an Australian kid, whatever his or her lineage, knows the respect of the national symbol.

If that isn't enough, maybe I should recommend Bruce Bawer's work, "While Europe Slept". Okay, you must know by now, I don't believe Americana will read it, maybe they'll see it no more than a sociological survey.

But, you know what? I take it seriously. Damn seriously. In my heart and soul, it's good I do.

Some of the sources:

http://www.investigativeproject.org/article/493A

http://projects.washingtonpost.com/staff/email/dan+eggen/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Oregon?tid=informlinehttp://www.amny.com/news/local/wire/politics/ny-bc-ny--licensespat0927sep27,0,2496313.story?track=rss NY Licenses

http://counterterrorismblog.org/2007/07/tribunes_former_public_editor.php

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=3C031077-2D41-40E5-996F-6660BC6F6183OHIO

Who's who where you live

I guess the country had to go through repeated cycles of starlets burning their brains out, a few political embarassments, a religious scandal or two, discovery of lawlessness in a sub-culture, discovery of pious tummy-rubbing in a sub-culture, questions of political ethics (Thou shalt not get caught.), educational transparency, xyz-phones.....before it remembered...What was it that I the media should help us remember? Oh yes. Some nuts flew a couple of planes into a couple of buildings in New York; the army place outside Washington and that field in Pennsylvania. "Didja hear how the cell-phones worked, even back then? Gee, if they had pics...."

The media hasn't been doing much successful informing, awareness raising or shown any greater angst than the rest of Americana wants to read or hear. Hell, they were busy drawing out and pouring that banal drool that I cited above. Recently a couple of news runners must have endured a reality-moment and resurrected for their MSM a reporting that should be amplified.I won't call it news, because it isn't. It's far from it. I might stretch the term news if I thought it would make a difference, but it won't...George and Arthur are getting married, Brenda Bra is considering doing the rehab thing (might even run a poll), a celebrated thug is caught in thuggery, and the school drug crisis is causing a drop in demand for Ritalin.

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSN212762820070921

Never-the-less, who are your new neighbors? Has anything in your neighborhood changed? Remember: If you see something, say something. Have you, did you?

Columbia Alumni WWII

Bret Stephens WSJ wrote citing the supposed situation of former Columbia alumni should Adolph Hitler have taken the forum at the prestigious university prior to WWII as one its deans, John Coatsworth, suggested:

"In just a few years, some of these men will be rushing a beach at Normandy or caught in a firefight in the Ardennes. And the fact that their ideas were finer and better than Hitler's will have done nothing to keep them and millions of their countrymen from harm, and nothing to get them out of its way." http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/bstephens/?id=110010648

In 2007, 2008, or further into the future, some Columbia student, alumni or professors could be taking their orange Volvo from a parking valet at a restaurant. And, though they are people high ideals; finer and better than Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in only a quarter of a mile their values, if not their identities, will be in question.

Where did that rucksack with Semtex from the orange Volvo that exploded a couple of blocks up the street come from?

Mental Issue Trumps Gun Law

Now here's the typical play of PC philosophical constipation having the runs.

http://www.pressandguide.com/stories/092307/loc_20070923001.shtml

Caught en flagrante in camouflage battle wear, carrying an AK47 shooter chique the court has ordered a mental exam of a Derborn medical student.

Now, here's an argument;

Will the mental exam take into consideration Islamic culture?

How many Islamic shrinks were en-panelled to create it (the exam)?

Was he advised of his rights as an American or as a Muslim of a greater umma wherein rights are irrelevant thus cancelling out any choice of option and making anything he said inadmissable?

Now the ACLU would suggest the answers would be; No, Zero, No.

Thus throw out the case. Dearbornistan probably will. Hell, he was just practising to celebrate a wedding, a cultural thing. Or show the exam results that he was disturbed; leaving him not guilty and thus removing the gun charge. Or show that he suffers no aberrational tendencies other being an average Islamic Dearborn resident who for his safety carrying an assault weapon probably looking for a foot bath.

He could even skate on the latter argument knowing as we do how lawless Dearborn has become over twenty-five years. Hmmn, Let's see. This population of people from the Levant has been escalating since 79' 83, 91,..? The mental test will become the issue, not the facts.

But it's the gun law - Your cherished creation to keep the world safe, not the mental exam.

But who'll notice that in this case a gun law isn't so important. In 08' gun laws might not get much play.

White Sale

It's not unreasonable to notice an impulse of France to assert herself after decades of playing varsity dogdeball. There's more than one element in France that would like the honor of representing France in the large field of Weltpolitik and that is its military. Long constrained, since the days of deGaulle, and manipulated into a marginal force of the UN along with Fiji and/or Ecuador; what were its resources in weaponry, were quite often bartered off for goals never realized, than employed in any military initiatives. Now remember, this is a well trained force of French army and naval elements (not to be mistaken with the Foreign Legion) with all the allegiance from any soldier to his homeland. This is also a force that has been missed in the in the confraternity of democratic nations.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,506396,00.html

Economically, France is a ship-wreck. Perhaps they could sell their former banners at the next Democratic Convention. Think about, "White Sale - Sheets waved at Dien Bien Phu, Algiers and PAris suburbs and slept on by John Kerry."

Who brought him?

Few people suffer fools lightly, or so we say. With inner candor, we will admit that it is especially so when we find the ourselves to be the bigger or biggest of fools. But for the most part it is usually expressed outward. In another area where we find this disturbing, is when we find stupidity in others in whom we have, or would, place trust. Yet, over time we have seen some brain trusts or people of account taken for real garden walks.

Years in the mechanical side of politics, I have witnessed some of the greatest con-jobs (I live in Massachusetts, after all.) yet to be recorded. It's always amused me to see an administration take reins and, blinded by its own success, dub to nobility a phalanx of people nobody ever heard of before. Frequently they ride in on the robes trailing the truly loyal and gnaw their way up to the ermine. One of them could comprise a quartet; two faced; speaking out of both sides of each mouth; and both noses would be brown. And they're dangerous. But, that's politics on the petty scale; corrupted and venal. But this type of creature can develop characteristics also venal and corrupt, and we add here sociopathic, egotistic and vain. Perhaps this all stems out from the early stages of affirmative action; the first's of black, black female, Hispanic and, as occurred here in Massachusetts - a first black, gay, RINO serving in a deathbed administration. These situations all emerge as the unintended consequences of doing the right thing. Few will admit to the fault that the measure ended with embarrassing results - namely the 800 pound gorilla in the living room.

It's a peculiarity that manifests itself in the case of Alexis Debat who is only among the few, who as I have previously suggested rise up out of the fog and confusion of crisis; the closet cavaliers. http://www.rue89.com/2007/09/15/how-alexis-debat-managed-to-cheat-everyone-in-washington . This parallels the idiocy of the New Jersey governor who placed homeland security activities in the hands of his non-citizen boyfriend, the case of the Somali Muslim sitting on Columbus, Ohio's, homeland security apparatus or Mitt Romney's campaign security chief who flashed bogus police shields (cited more than once). But today, in a country that seems to be sleepwalking through great dangers, we have to anticipate what the unintended consequences of political largess can become. Debat was allowed into some influential places. At a time when competition within the media is throat-cutting, nobody seemed to check his credentials. ABC seemed to gulp down whatever he served up. A site search of Front Page with all it's conservative personalities show his works just as freely. http://frontpagemagazine.com/ The Counter-Terrorism Blog also ate it up http://counterterrorismblog.org/fastsearch?IncludeBlogs=1&search=debat . It would be one thing, perhaps, if we were not in a conflict and he was writing about racing boats, but we're in a conflict, and with official channels so tenderly dealing with the intelligence apparati, the absurdity occurred.

The Soviet spy, Richard Sorge, a journalist, led the WWII German Embassy in Tokyo into a bogus trust. Could either German or Japanese authorities have learned more about him? Yes. Easily, as it was eventually learned. How does Debat stack up against Sorge? I'd say on par. In each case nobody checked. Debat, by willfully filing disinformation for one political element, betraying those in whom he had trust, has now, by means of the 11the Commandment - Thou shalt not get caught, set a new low for those that used him (ABC, MOO, etc.,) - they claim they didn't know he was a fraud either.

Yet, these stories aren't new. And, should these agents of deceit survive they tend to survive well. Bet you didn't know that some people admire liars and mountebanks, for having got away with it. They have cult followers. And they think it's great stuff. It's those who allow this we must sanction.

Bay State Foreign Policy 07'

Originally, the following was intended as a reply to Kevin’s citing at http://www.queer-conservative.blogspot.com/ who had captured an article by Michael Graham writing in the Boston Herald:

In office for only nine months and the Governor of Massachusetts Deval Patrick is making policy statements regarding the avowed enemy of the United States of America. One of these sovereign states of the fifty that are united in one country is that which he governs. But, terminally unique as his state is, he would have us see it all as a great misunderstanding. How unfortunate for more than three-thousand people who once lived and worked in Manhattan.
Patrick is the result of the sad condition the Massachusetts GOP put itself in, so sad that the voters chose the evil of two lessers. There was no question what his policies would be and his leftist contempt for his oh, so common countrymen should be no surprise. He is, after all, a first ranker of the 'Clintonistas'. He was able to use the route of interests groups to harness enough strength to buck an incumbent Democrat Attorney General and a money-heavy former Lt. Gov. candidate. How? It was "Oh, So Liberal". He's the extra topping for the liberal cake. With all the history from which the Commonwealth can learn, they blindly seek to refresh their liberal addictions.
Yet, before I launch a counter-attack, honesty and candor require me to inventory the MA-GOP. Patrick's final win was a cinch. Four years earlier Romney took the "Corner Office" pretty much by default and then did nothing with it. It was a pit-stop toward his current aspirations. His follow-on Lt. Gov. was a poster child for the 'neuveau riche' and she was just handed the nomination on a silver tray (which she thought she deserved by default). From even before her campaign, she encamped herself in party headquarters and indulged in her future. No farm-team was developed; loyalties were disparaged. Mitt was always elsewhere. The party itself was alienated and many of the high-minded took a walk. Meanwhile, the Patrick people were following all the Dukakoidisms and that rejuvenated the liberals that had been held in check for sixteen years. Many had been already been granted fiefs over the twelve Republican years 'Situ-Ante-Romney'. They re-registered as Democrats or bugged out of state. Bay State fascism was, once again, looking popular. Those who were getting what they needed wanted more. Those that now 'had', forgot what it took to get it, and "Let them eat cake (taxpayers cake)," was a reaction. Then, as in most fictional utopia, "Alice in Wonderland", or Potemkin Villages, the voters of the Commonwealth had a collective memory lapse. (It happens over the span of history - ask a German villager if.....), the social stigma sets in and the lemmings only follow the hoard ahead of them.
Now, we'll have more frequent paroles to 'decorator' half-way houses, scholarships for undocumented (with 'equivalency' diplomas), non-compliance with federal criminal statutes, increased tolls, and...oh, yes...driver licenses for the 'poor undocumented souls' (who'll probably get jobs driving trucks under contract to the "Big Dig" in a special minority business law), a state visit to Hugo Chavez and a ribbon cutting at the opening of the New England Islamic Center (maybe mullah Ellison will appear).

That's just scraping the top. After all, he's only been in office nine months, I’m sure he can do more harm if he and his mentors really put their hearts in it. Massachusetts surely doesn’t care. Massachusetts Republicans have forfeited any franchise they might have had to care.

Either way, maybe Pearl Harbor, too, was just a misunderstanding. But, what would a political martinet like Deval Patrick know?

(The photo is my uncle Edmund, USN {Submariner, "Dolphin"} who, with his family {sons (front and his left} were at Pearl Harbor December 7, 1941. My brother Bob is on his right..)

On the Flag

My oldest friend (since 3 or 4 years old - yes dear friends for over 60 years) sent me a note recently on the American Flag. We grew up with, and still maintain, a reverence for our "tattered ensign". I responded with a picture of Our Flag unfurled from my apartment in Boston.

At the same time I was searching for how many different emotions have been stirred by its presence. One way is in the lines of lines of John Greenleaf Whittier:

"Shoot, if you must, this old gray head,But spare your country's flag," she said.A shade of sadness, a blush of shame,Over the face of the leader came;The nobler nature within him stirredTo life at that woman's deed and word;"Who touches a hair of yon gray head Dies like a dog! March on!" he said.

But that was written in 1864. At the time loyal Americans were in conflict with loyal Americans. Today we're in a conflict with forces far more alien, but, in spite of our strength, our delicate system is rife with inner plagues far worse than bullets or cannon.

APPROACH

I currently hold no special brief at all in public affairs. But, from a pedestrian level, I question whether or not those of us who are concerned are being drawn into arguments in vacuums. So, rather that run a full 'screed', I am putting out, not arguments against liberals measures, but more means that might be used to alter their tone to a more realistic harmony and realize themselves as liberal in heart and mind as opposed to being leftist martinets. Remember - In attacking an incumbent you don't win over the opposition's former supporters by assaulting them. So consider the following more a tactical note than a.....manifesto...Leftists don't argue anyway. They spout mantras, employ moral equivalency and propagandize. Liberals freely and conveniently grant them unearned loyalty, failing to recall that blind loyalty gave us Fascism, Nazism, Communism, Inquisitions and many human against human crimes in the name of humanity and revolutions that imperiled civilization.

Needless to say, I regard highly those who have demonstrated initiatives to establish their views, create blogs and have articulated their concerns so well that they have garnered responses not only from those of us with appreciated points of view, but those of opposing trends as well. (What can we learn if don't we hear another's point of view {no matter how poorly developed, obviously programmed and cadenced, or vacant but for social approval... {oops: so much for my diplomacy}?)

A quote from a gay blogger, USMALE, is only so clear that I can understand how many liberals miss it through the leftist fog (“Only in the Western world can a gay man live a free life as himself. Hence, the health and strength of the West is fundamental to my survival”). Unfortunately, I see the situation (vis a vis gays as being in the premier position of liberal politics) as being a form of myopia. Many gays fail to see that out of the whole gay population, it's been the few out of time, not the numbers (the community), that have gained them acceptance (or in cases like Foley, Studds, McGreavey, Craig, Arafat, etc.; notoriety). I'll even gainsay the popular view and say that acceptance begins in the familial, or parochial, before it becomes provincial, national or global. And yet, for consideration, look at the imposing dhimmitude in Europe. She’s falling under the leaden clouds of sharia influence. Gays didn't achieve their franchise in the world through an add-water'n-stir concoction, but a tidal wave of alienating interpretations could wipe it out. And, let’s be frank, there are many others whose lives have been enfranchised, no less dramatically, by way of the Western Tradition (with its history of faults).

So....before I alienate you....further...

I have focused on the current terrorism not only for what it is, and only seen as interruptions of historical complacency by some, but the more targeted goal of those who would have a world without forums. It is war - with or without the bumper sticker. And it is immediate. The opposition isn't waiting for it to be scheduled for a dialogue with sociologists. It is being waged in places as remote as distant villages, fields and deserts, and governing councils in Foreignistan, Alliestan and as local as Dearborn, Edina and Columbus, Brooklyn, Oakland , Roxbury.., and next door to me on Saint Botolph Street, Boston. This, of course, raises the question of whether we can raise the war on two fronts; the political (US vs. external) and the criminal (enterprises that erode domestic security such as illegal immigration, drug and other contraband violations). The legal community will scream like Hell if we take more than one bite of the apple. But, let's remind ourselves. It's our apple. We can have it whatever number of ways we want.

Now, you're probably thinking (and I too wonder), "This cat's going paranoid."

How we approach this might be in the form of how Tom Sawyer got the fence white-washed. Was it subversion, disinformation, neighborhood enhancement or buddies helping a friend get on with things so they could all (together) go on to other ventures? So from the inert pallet (complacency) can vital messages be created? Hopefully, expressions can be developed that won't lead to "Well, the 'Christians did this', 'The Church did that', 'The Jews did.' and so on. The response to these objections from the bogs of indifference is, of course, 'Yes!’, ‘Yes, we did.’ (This is the history express. Nobody steps off until the ride is over.) But civilization didn't pedal backward to correct itself. Such arguments stem from the stale of spirit in the first place. On the other hand is the risk of coming tangent to the droning mantra of leftist ghoul politics and getting lost in discourse with them. They're only snipers, move on. (They love to indulge in the immediacy of present blood-shed rather than look at how step-by-step and side slipping they brought it on. They might read Bruce Brawer “While Europe Slept”). To take their theme of the 'Sixties', the cadence of their "different drummer" hasn't changed a beat. They would apply feelings as Band-Aids where surgery is the cure; rest where exercise would be the panacea; aroma therapy when the need for oxygen was critical.

Here and now is the issue, not who didn’t act or who muffed the “slam dunk”. And I don't see it being tabled to after Friday Prayers at the 'Mayberry Mosque'.

So....before I alienate you....even further...

Since September 11th 2001, there has sprouted an abundance of closet cavaliers and snake-eaters that only twelve years earlier were hollering 'Killa Commie for Christ'.
On the other hand there are some very well worked out resources. An example of encountering my own shortsightedness, I found I was taking a deeper look at Robert Spencer. From my rather inflated arrogance (having served on more than a few terrorism panels over thirty years), I just filed him in a memory recess. I am currently relying on his 'blogging the Qur'an". He didn't start out trying to neutralize Islam at all, and differing points of view are respected. (I have to admit http://www.jihadwatch.org/ has more to offer than I would be open to maybe ten or fifteen years ago.)

So, as we view sources, we should vet them. However, in doing so, we should recognize what is fairly said, and not marginalize one or another because of some idiosyncratic interpretation that riles the pangs of PC (or loosens the binds of philosophical constipation). A fair sample of open source material which I use is (oddly): http://groups.yahoo.com/group/osint, http://www.jihadwatch.org/, http://www.terrorism.com/, and http://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/; not to mention the Drudge collectives.

Do some of these sites suggest (to too many lacking even sophomoric qualifications) the unsophisticated, old fashion (to some) and strident US patriotism? Yes!
Do some exaggerate the adherence to the laws of the United States? Yes!
And to all the options of extremes that some will take….? Yes!

As I have cautioned there are so many options one must be a bit discerning. That means personally discerning, not just following the lemmings. Let's see what churns up.