It is easy to sell a bit of your soul to keep yourself comfortable and with the friends you have become accustomed to.
This week we saw something we should all encourage. Read it all - but study in detail what happened to Juan Williams and how he responded to it.
Yesterday NPR fired me for telling the truth.Juan, BZ. At least you can look yourself in the mirror in the AM.
This Long War will in many ways be a war of ideas and culture. Some of our greatest enemies own a USA passport and would never think of blowing up anything or killing a fly - but they can do things much worse.
One, two, a thousand Juan Williams - we need them. Oh, and while we are needing to save money - totally defund PBS/NPR et al. Live in the marketplace of ideas or die - two can play at this game. You try to destroy Juan's income, he prospers. I guess we can try to take your income away - good luck to you.
104 comments:
"All Things Considered" can now be "Very Few Things Considered". The firing reflects the hands-over-ears "LALALALALALALALALALALALA!" approach that the far left (led by BHO) takes to the problem of Radical Muslim Fundamentalism and the failure of so-called "moderate" Muslims to condemn that radical, hateful, ant-Semite and anti-Western agenda.
New People's Radio should have public funding pulled. Immediately. There was a piece on there a few weeks ago advocating strongly for the Ground Zero Mosque and condemning any opposition as serious violation of the First Amendment. Free speech and religion is absolutely sacrosanct, I was told.
Unless, of course, it is something the far-lefties at NPR disagree with. Then, you need a psychiatrist, and another job.
Hypocrites.
As much as radical militant Islam doesnt represent entirety of that religion - it is has identified itself always as an Islamic movement. We can't overlook this, and while our fears may be irrational (Example: in a metro wagon a suit-clad man opposite of the burka-covered woman may be convertite who has undergone training in Pakistan and is attempting a sucicide attack, while the woman can be a housewife with three children and a wonderful person who would not kill a fly), they are based on real events. The 9/11 attackers made "Allach akbar!" their battle cry. We must overcome our fears by confronting them, not by closing eyes and pretending they dont exist.
When I think of the billions that Sesame Street takes in with toys, coloring books, computer learning programs, stuffed animals.... makes me want to club some executives and congressmen with Tickle Me Elmo dolls and tell them to pay their own darn freight. Our tax dollars for Stalinist mind control from the "happy generous liberals". Gag.
I have disagreed with much that Mr. Williams has said. However, I have always found him to be intellectually honmest, his reoporting fair and objective, and his demeanor professional. That is much more than the majority of hacks and and vacuous editors currently working.
PBS/NPR doesn't need a dime of taxpayer funding. I find the whole concept of a national-media abhorrent to begin with. It is nothing but state propaganda dressed up to try and fool the masses.
Pull the plug on their funding, and let them sink or swim.
FWIW, I feel the same way about a National Symphony Orchestra, Theater troupe, etc. Let every artist find their own funding, either through profucing products which the public is willing to buy, or through patronage, and time-honored source of income for all forms of art.
To be frank, I've never listened to Williams before. But, what he apparently said on Fox the other day makes sense.
To borrow from one of me and Byron's favorite authors, John Ringo ... "Every major terrorist attack on [our] people has been by Islamic males* between the ages of seventeen and twenty-five. ... Paying particular attention to such people simply makes sense."
*OKC and Atlanta excepted
Millions for defense but not another dime for propaganda aimed at American citizens!
Defund PBS entirely, and immediately (or as soon after January 2011 as possible)!
"When your opponent is beating himself, the best course of action is to get out of the way and let him finish the job."
-- someone famous, slightly paraphrased
The lefties are eating their own best and brightest (even though I disagree with about 99.44% of what Mr. Williams says). Megyn Kelly and another FNC lawyer were discussing several possible actionable events that occurred here.
Time to pop some popcorn, pull up a chair, and watch the fireworks....
Less than 2% of NPR's $166 million budget comes from the feds. Funding is provided by affiliates around the country, major donors (like charitable foundations) and listeners like you(!). "Defunding" them would be a drop in the bucket and likely not change anything.
That is $8 million in taxpayers' money. I want it back.
The Left engages, more and more often, openly in Orwellian fashion. NPR says they support free speech, but punish the exercise of that right. Obamas say visit the Gulf, but the Mrs. vacations in Spain and in haute Martha's Vineyard with the Big O. They say tighten your belts to the citizens and fly to NYC for dinner and a show on our dime. They throw parties at the White House and invite celebrities to comment and give advice on policy while they ignore people with indepth, first hand knowledge. Reminds me of the pigs in Animal Farm.
Every dollar counts. Take em' back!
Defund...and send the money to the Navy. Those ships aren't getting any younger.
8 million $ buys 100 ATGMS which can knock out Russian tanks en route to Tbilisi or Tallin or Warsaw... or 8 good ASCMs which can take out 8 chinese warships en route to Taiwan.
It can be a lot.
Ahh yes, the Corporation for Public Brainwashing, and contributions from viewers like you.
Cokie used to be a bit of a babe, but now she just looks like David Bowie.
<span>Ahh yes, the Corporation for Public Brainwashing, and contributions from viewers like you.</span>
Wonder if NPR will now fire Mara Liasson...or will it be that we shall nevwer see her on Fox again?
I used to wonder if she and Nina Tottenberg were drinking on the Friday afternoon shows when it first started...
They used to get outright giddy.
But never forget how the Right Wing Christians like Tim McVeigh are really the major threat to the US and Western civilization.....
Somehow I don't recall any Bibilcal references to justify the OKC attack, but I do recall hearing about a small town named Waco being used as a rationale, however illegal, that was the cause (I think...correct me if I'm off the mark)....and what threat was that? Hmmmm....
But only if the money goes straight to those like Byron, not a DIME FOR DIVERSITY!
This comment clearly shows some Federal Goverment "Waste, Fraud and Abuse®" is more equal than other forms of same...but I digress.
How about we send it straight to the hull of USS Olympia? $8 mil of the $10 mil estimated is right there for the taking.
We solve the Public Broadcasting brainwashing problem and save a historical and technological treasure at the same time.
xformed, you got that right. If there had been Muslims in Waco, the US (especially THIS administration) would have acceeded to every one of their demands and not gone near the place. More, they would have sharply criticized anyone who advocated armed intervention as "Islamophobic" and hateful right-wing bigots.
ANd this just in: Muslims fear backlash from NPR firing.
I hate this guys long freaking links, but here goes:
http://www.polijam.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=33795:npr-under-fire-from-all-sides-for-firing&catid=52:politics&Itemid=28
Muslims fear backlash, Westerners fear being blowed up at altitude, i a subway, or at the Mall of America, by explosives in a dude's underwear/burqa (that's not a mistaken reference) or heavy coat.
Some fear, is also more equal than others.
George Orwell, you Magnificant Ba$t@rd!
We're going to know pretty quickly if the new Republicans who get voted in on November 2 are serious about change or not. If they leave funding for nonsense like this in place, they're going to get an earful from the electorate.
ONe of the most discouraging things about the last decade has been the propensity of Muslims to scream about the backlash that they always see coming, instead of dealing with the radicals in their midst. I had hoped for better.
b-non, So what...it would be a statement of righteous indignation. Also, the logic of "Hey it's not that much money in the grand scheme of things" is the one that politicians use to defend their individual "pork projects".
...but I LIKE Click and Clack...
like sid, if I'm driving somewhere on a Saturday morn I'll tune in.
(and they have managed not to get yanked even with some verrry pointed *but funny* slams on women drivers)
...but I LIKE Click and Clack...
like sid, if I'm driving somewhere on a Saturday morn I'll tune in.
(and they have managed not to get yanked even with some verrry pointed *but funny* slams on women drivers)
I always thought the show was called "All Things Left & Liberal"
Oy, sorry for the double-post. No clue what just happened there.
"I want it back." Sure--go get it. Write your congress-persons. We all know $8 million could be better spent elsewhere, but my point being that (even) if Congress re-appropriates the $, NPR won't change how they do things. There'll just be more annoying pledge drives.
Have been upset by NPR's actions in this case since I first heard about it. Like sid I've listened to NPR for years and appreciate their in-depth reports on a variety of topics. Most thinking individuals can factor in their liberal bias and judge their reporting accordingly. Although I don't always agree with him (and I can say that about most journalists) I've always appreciated Juan Williams reporting and his journalistic rigor in developing his arguments.
Just finished watching George Stephanopolis' interview of Juan Williams (it's at washingtonpost.com) and found Williams' comment about being surprised by NPR's "left wing orthodoxy" most amusing. Fortunately it sounds like he's landed on his feet and NPR's leadership has egg on its face.
The irony, is that the larger point that Williams was making on O'Reilly's show was just the opposite of the one that's being used by the NPR leadership to support their action. Of course, if you're spring-loaded to be offended you may miss the point of a structured argument that takes more than 30 seconds to convey.
Yes.... it's like trying to find an everyday Nazi in Germany after 1945. It was always someone else who joined the party, not me! Nobody I knew were Nazis! It was just a small number of folks! It was the newspapers and films that distorted the truth! Really! Nobody knew about the camps!
Sigh.... history DOES indeed repeat itself. It's just doing it in an ad hoc manner at the moment.
NPR, without public funding, can do whatever the hell they want. They can be just like Air America. As long as they don't violate the law, they can be as disingenuous and hypocritical as George Soros is willing to pay for.
I will indeed write my congressmen. Beginning with an X in some blocks on 2 Nov.
Good, then they won't miss it.
Tim, I'm reminded of something Bill Mauldin observed in Up Front; the vast majority of the time they weren't fighting Nazis, just German soliders. They hardly ever saw a Nazi unless they encountered an SS unit. My parahprase.
So just how many Germans officially joined the Nazi party? Yes, millions voted Nazi, but after 1933 that they only vote they could cast. Not to mention that many men joined the party because it was the only way they could run their business. Pretty much the same way one had to join the Communist Party in order to suceed in the Soviet Union. How many of those Party members were dedicated Communists?
And, yes, it's sad how the moderate Muslims don't go after the gangsters, but sometimes I wonder if that's because the gangsters will kill, your family, and your whole tribe if they can get away with it. That tends to put a damper on things. *DONT_KNOW*
Not to mention -and this is something I have trouble getting my head around- Muslims generally do seem to buy into the whole "Inshallah" thing, so maybe they're waiting for God to exercise His will.
Well, let me remind you, it is indifference of average "Achmed on the street" that makes Muslim militants unable to form mass armies and forces them into terror attacks. Terror is basically, a tool of the desperate. Far left of the 1968 revolution resorted to terror only after "the worker masses" abandoned their dreamed revolution.
<span><span><span>“I hate newspapermen. They come into camp and pick up their camp rumors and print them as facts. I regard them as spies, which, in truth, they are. If I killed them all there would be news from Hell before breakfast.”
—- General William Tecumseh Sherman<span></span></span></span></span>
Wisconsin Public Radio just had thier Fall Fund Drive, and they said it was 15%, not 2%. 5 of the presets on my Ranger's radio are set to WPR, as I do enjoy Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, and Says You, from NPR, and Larry Meiller's show on WPR, a talk show host who does not let politics enter his show very often. My weekends would be incomplete without Old Time Radio Drama with Norman Gilliland, from 8 to 11 Saturday and Sunday nights.
I loathe Keillor's PHC, as it is now just a 2 hour anti conservative screed. 'Tis a pity, as I truly enjoyed the News From Lake Wobegon. ( I hear Lake Wobegon Lutheran has a new pastor, by the way. Pastor Inqvuist retired). I do not like Click and Clack, as WPR used to have a show called About Cars, with Matt Joseph, who would give straight answers to callers car questions, without being amused with his own wit. I find myself listening most to Mark Levin, Coast to Coast AM, ( a very odd program), and Old Time Radio programs from internet sites.
A second like to URR. the Teddy Bear, ( or so we are told), who knows that of which he speaks! HUZZAH!
Most of my experience with Mr. Williams is from his days of hosting Science Fridays, and I always enjoyed that. Having said that, I agree with Tim, and see no reason for the existence of the National Endowment for the Arts.
Second like to The usual Suspect! The Left reminds my every day of the pigs of Animal Farm.
And they sure wouldn't have used those incindiary tear gas rounds, either...
the 2 pct is direct funding. Much of NPR funding comes from organizations funded by the Feds. The 2 percent number is nonsense. It's our tax money, laundered through other organizations.
"Public radio and public television are funded with your money to the tune of some $400 million in direct federal handouts and tax deductions for contributions made by individual viewers, not to mention untold state grants and subsidies. Supporters argue that this amounts to a tiny portion of state-sponsored media’s overall budget, and an even tinier portion of the overall federal budget." source: michellemalkin.com
please don't defund PBS... I like my antiques roadshow ;)
URR,
That's my point as well. It would be easier to put the kibosh on generalities and distrust were the Muslims who consider themselves to be moderates start demonstrating in the streets, writing letters to the editors, denouncing these acts, etc. It would be nice to see large groups of US Muslims stating plainly and without reservation that, in this country, religious laws are always subordinate to secular laws.
But that hasn't happened. They have missed some excellent opportunities to step up to the microphone and explain what's going on, but no one has done that. At least no ione from the "Musim on the streets" sector.
Nope..... those speaking the loudest are those with ties of all sorts to the very Muslims who want to kill all the kaffir and destroy this nation. CAIR... I'm looking at YOU! Add in all the "clerics" who are discovered to have financial ties to Hammas, Hezzbollah. Iran, Syria, the PLO, etc and there is planty of ammunition for folks to make a convincing case that there are NO moderate Muslims.
When evil things are done, those who stand by and do nothing are just as guilty as those who perpetrated the act. There are many ways to resist these acts, but as yet, I have seen damned little in that department. I have heard, however, an awaful lot of silence, and that to me is just as troubling.
To Mr. William's point.
Remember what happend on this date in 1983?
There is a forever young HN Jimmy Ray Cain interred one row over in a peaceful cemetary in Alabama...
Kristen is spot on. When will the Muslim community own up to the crazy radicalism which lies within?
And how come I have to bend over backwards and accomodate that lack of concern?
An also forever-young LCpl Thomas Perron in the Blackstone Valley, too. Here is something to consider:
Black September- Muslims (11 Israelis killed)
Beirut barracks- Muslims (241 Americans killed)
Kuwait Airlines- Muslims (2 Americans killed)
Egypt Air 648- Muslims (60 people killed)
Pan Am Flight 73- Muslims (22 people killed)
El Descanso Bombing- Muslims (18 people killed)
Kuwait Flt 622- Muslims (2 people killed)
TWA Flight 847- Muslims (SW2 Stethem murdered)
SS Achille Lauro- Muslims (Leon Klinghoffer murdered)
Pan Am Flt 103- Muslims (270 people killed, mostly Americans)
Buenos Aires Embassy Bombing- Muslim (29 people killed)
First WTC Bombing- Muslims (6 people killed)
AMIA Bombing- Muslims (95 people killed)
Khobar Towers Bombing- Muslims (19 Americans killed)
9/11 Attacks- Muslims (2,977 people killed)
Beslan Elementary School- Muslims (514 people, including 187 children, killed)
Each and every time was an opportunity for loud and unequivocal condemnation of Islamic Jihadist terrorism. Yet, never did it come.
Oh, and I forgot:
USS Cole- Muslims (17 Americans killed)
Madrid subway bombings- Muslims (191 people killed)
Which I won't watch
beverage too? 8-)
To counterbalance:
First things first: how many Iraqi and AFG troops have fought - and died - for their countries alongside US and allied troops?
Secondly: Dresden, Tokyo, Hiroshima - all done by Christians. To not be accused of antiamericanism, Warsaw, Rotterdam, Coventry, and Auschwitz too. Wehrmacht did have chaplains too, and cross as a recognition symbol on planes and tanks...
You dont hear those who oppose terror within Islam as often for a single reason - they dont live long usually.
And Byron, last of the "drive to the sea" wars against Israel was in 1973... Thats, like, 40 years ago. Egypt has reclaimed since the Sinai by negotitation and surprise, no more major wars. Egyptian leader has paid his life for what Islamic brotherhood deemed "treacherous peace". But the peace has held. Syria has been official enemy of the Israel, but never allowed Hezbollach to form a state-in-state like in Lebanon. Ponder.
THUNDER ON BYRON, THUNDER ON.
c
Agree with Sid, ewok. There IS no counterbalance. Nobody said all Muslims participated in the terrorism and murder I outlined above. But what I did say, and say again, is that such acts were opportunities for the so-called "moderate" Muslim community to condemn and distance themselves from such acts. They have categorically failed to do so, and in so many cases have temporized instead. When called upon to condemn Hamas and Hezbollah, the Imam of the "ground zero" mosque, Rauf, refused to do so. Instead, he told us that it was "the Americans who had blood on their hands". He is described as a "moderate". Yet you seem unable to understand how that makes Americans angry and suspicious.
Perhaps you should be more understanding if Germany talks again of expansion to the east, and taking back its rightful ancestral lands and assimilating the German peoples not within their borders.
You compare terrorists targeting children with what the Allies had to do to win WWII? Putting our actions in the same category as killing a man in a wheel chair and throwing him overboard? Not quite a counterbalance. Were you suggesting we should have expended American lives invading Japan instead of dropping the A-bomb? They certainly wouldn't have been Polish lives. Just who might you be to suggest that we should have executed an invasion of Honshu and Kyushu and suffered more than a million casualties, likely including my father, to save Japanese lives?
One more:
OPM-SANG -- Muslims (6 people, of which 5 were Americans, killed), 15 years ago next month.
URR why do you hate the Car Talk guys?
:)
I've been reflecting on sid's comment yesterday about calling up his local NPR station to tell them why they shouldn't expect any money from him this year and wonder if a larger version of this plan might have an impact. I suspect that there are many contributors to NPR and PBS who are moderate or conservative and who are offended by this action, the way Mr. Williams' termination was handled, or the NPR CEO's snarky comment about his psychiatrist. It's easy for the leadership at NPR to reject action by Senate and Congressional Republicans as just another example of that vast right wing conspiracy. I wonder what their reaction would be to a large number of listeners who called in to cancel their pledges, dispute credit card charges, or (like sid) called in to express their displeasure.
Based on the casualty rate for the late-war invasions (Iwo Jima, Okinawa, etc...) in addition to the 100,000 projected American casualties, you were looking at something on the order of 1 million Japanese. As much as we might abhor the use of atomic or thermonuclear weapons, the weapons of Hiroshima and Nagasaki saved lives on both sides. Plain and simple. Anything else is revisionist history, and denies reality.
Aubrey,
Add a zero. General Marshall's planners, using an updated "Saipan ratio" that included some Iwo Jima and Okinawa data, estimated 500,000 US casualties for Kyushu (Olympic) alone, and more than one million for Olympic and Cornet (Honshu). Before we ever set foot on the main island. Even at that, Marshall was using estimates of Japanese air and artillery strength that were far below what was found in Sept/Oct 1945 when the occupation began.
<span>Aubrey,
Add a zero. General Marshall's planners, using an updated "Saipan ratio" that included some Iwo Jima and Okinawa data, estimated 500,000 US casualties for Kyushu (Olympic) alone, and more than one million for Olympic and Coronet (Honshu). Even at that, Marshall was using estimates of Japanese air and artillery strength that were far below what was found in Sept/Oct 1945 when the occupation began.</span>
Estimates of Japanese casualties was in the 5-8 million range.
Add a zero, and multiply by two. I am currently reading Hell To Pay: Operation Downfall- The Invasion of Japan 1945-1946. The Imperial High Command told the Emperor that the US is coming, and there is nothing we can do to stop them. We know how the USN and USMC does this sort of thing, so we know where they can come ashore, and what month they are gonna come. We cannot stop them, but we can make them pay a very heavy price. we anticipate up to 20 million of our people will die opposing the Americans, but we believe that we will inflict at least 5 million casualties on the Americans. Japan may be destroyed, but the world will remember how we resisted the Americans.
No, that would be me. They spend too much time being amused by themselves.
That strategic bombing of Japan (of which Hiroshima was not even most bloody) was necessary to bring Japan to surrender doesnt reduce the horrific death toll it has involved, against civilian population that has never fired a shot against US forces.
'You think, as is your wont, my lord, of Gondor only,' said Gandalf. 'Yet there are other men and other lives, and time still to be. And for me, I pity even his slaves.'
'Secondly: Dresden, Tokyo, Hiroshima - all done by Christians. To not be accused of antiamericanism, Warsaw, Rotterdam, Coventry, and Auschwitz too. Wehrmacht did have chaplains too, and cross as a recognition symbol on planes and tanks... '
Good God ewok, and you say that as a Pole????
The Wehrmacht did have chaplains... because even a totalitarian regime like nazism was not capable of obliterating a century-old tradition. Even nazism was reluctant to remove the 'Gott mit uns' from the belt clasps of ordinary German soldiers.
But you can be DAMN SURE, ewok, that if the nazis would have won the chaplains and the clasps would be gone after just a couple of years. The Waffen SS had no chaplains, and their belt claps read 'Meine Ehre heisst Treue'.
In general I agree with you ewok, but in this case you go overboard son. Do you know that even after Hiroshima an officer clique, upon hearing the government wanted to sue for peace, staged a coup to keep Japan in the war???
In tetrospect it is easy to condemn Bomber Harris and Le May, and you know what? I don't find these characters savoury in the least. Do you know that Churchill was outraged - OUTRAGED!!!!! - when he heard of Dresden???
But this was World War II, and you HAVE to see the actions of the allied commanders in that perspective.
Right now liberal democracies are waging a war against islamonazis who have managed, in let's say 25 years, to kill perhaps around 10,000 westerners, civilians and soldiers alike. AND YET almost from the very start very public personages condemn our efforts to defend ourselves.
BACK THEN, ewok, nazism, fascism and shintoism had managed to kill, in roughly the same time, around 40 million of OURS (I'm counting Chinese civilians, Poles, allied military personnel, Russians etc etc etc).
40 million ewok. How do you think the mindset of the allied commanders and civilians was towards the axis forces? Towards axis civilians?
Rusty, can you imagine how bad it would be for radical Muslims if Ringo were elected President? Think "high body count". He doesn't buy all that "moderate Muslim" bullshit either.
And to terminate Nazism, Allies have befriended Stalin who had anything from between 20 to 40 millions exterminated on his own soil in pecetime. And has murdered over 20000 Allied officers before. (Yes I am talking about Katyn!)This was, as Njall Fergusson argues in his excellent "War of the world" book and tv series , a tainted victory. I do not condemn those who had to do those decisions back then, I just find the entire slaughter repulsing.
Axis has sown the wind and reaped a storm. But it wasnt the ordinary citizens in bombed cities who have taken the decisions and executed them. Most did not even work in the arms production. More than half were women, many were children. Necessary evil isnt any less evil.
The long war we are waging today is another story. A handful of terrorists lurks within societies of not only Muslim nations, but Western ones too. No amount of bombs dropped in Hindukush will affect lone gunman in the US, or hidden cells in Germany, France or UK. Firepower won't be substitute for intelligence, in both senses of the word.
And branding all Muslims as "willing accomplices" of terror sect is simply stupid. Heck, even AQ broadcasts are full of bile against those who preach coexistence. If there were none, why AQ is afraid of them?
I have 49 pages to go in "How The Far East Was Lost" by Anthony Kubek. On p. 400 he wrote,
"Long before many of us here in the United States awoke to the threat of Communism, Chiang Kai-shek was fighting it without compromising."
The Islamic Totalitarians are using the same tactics the Communists used in the 40's and 50's.
The message being sent by the Williams firing is that if you speak the truth and don't work towards "peace and unity" with those who are ideogically opposed to you than you will be fired, attacked, discredited, etc.
Ewok, "Willing accomplices" is your term.
While you might find the slaughter of the Second World War repulsive, your suggestion that it should have been Americans who get slaughtered rather than the Japanese who instigated the war is disingenuous and revisionist.
I will ask again, who are you to say that my Father's life should have been expended to save the life of a Japanese soldier, or even a Japanese woman or child? Bringing war to the makers of war has its consequences. Should it have been my Father, then the rest of his life would have been taken, and that of my brothers and sister, and nieces and nephews. Against that, I would not blink at the destruction of the lot of the Japanese, especially in 1945. The saving and protecting of the lives and safety of our loved ones. Otherwise, what was the war about?
And to add to my comments about no public money for the arts, etc... I have spent years working in theater, film and television. I spent 6 years as an actor with the American Renessaince Theater. In those 6 years, we managed to stage a number of Shakespeare's history plays, and other plays, without a single dime of taxpayer's money. We found a patron who could bankroll the seed money, and we all worked and scraped to make it happen.
Artists, actors, musicians, etc, should all be able to generate an income based upon their products. If not, perhaps they ought to be doing something else.
Gotta say, it felt good to make the call...but I knew it had about as much impact as an ant flatulent in a hurricane.
The "real" money to NPR (and PBS) comes from some mighty big players...
Like these people.
Hmmm. Annenberg...
Where have I heard that name before (other than the daily blurb about a, "just and verdant world" on NPR)?
Oh yeah.
Here!
Heh. Mike Harmon for Prez, Adams for VP, Vanner for Sci & Tech advisor or DCI, and Greznya for NSA. :D
Unfortunately it looks like Ewok has bought in to the moral equivalency argument:
The Axis killed people and the Allies killed people, therefore Allies = Nazis
I am expecting him to start quoting Ward Churchill's writing any day now (I live in Colorado, so I still have to hear that idiot's crap every few months).
Yeah, Aubrey, I think you are right. So common today. If one side is inherently good but isn't entirely perfect, and the other is inherently barbarous, as long as a single common act can be attributed (not even proven), we are told there is no difference between them. (Read the comments here and here.)
A shame, and not something that survives any objective analysis.
Of course! Perhaps even that ale our host is currently imbibing...
Don't forget Nielson for SECDEF and Mother Lenka for SECAG :)
URR, ask our host, he knows best that not even German naval personnel was fanatical Nazis as portryed widely, and most early war U-boat aces were brilliant professionals (later on U-boat commanders tended not to live long enough to gather experience). Of course Allies have fought for the good cause, liberating the death camps not defending their continued functioning. But means Allies were forced to employ were horrible.
In the end, it is not about whether ends justify means. It is about remembering the cost of these means.
sid, Hate to say it but you're probably right although both PBS and NPR like to tout the contributions "...from viewers/listeners like you." Maybe something like this would be enough to get the point across.
Nobody ever said that every German was a Nazi. Nor did they say that there wasn't incredible valor displayed by ever army on the field of battle, nor that soldiers of every nation didn't believe they served their respective nations honorably. However, that does not absolve the German people of their messianic devotion to Hitler, nor their propensity to declare that few people knew what kind of regime it was.
The same can be said for the world's Muslims vis a vis the Islamic Jihadists.
ewok, Although I agree that <span>War of the World</span> was an excellent book, I didn't buy into Niall Ferguson's argument when I read it. It's basically a variation on the moral equivalency theme. The ordinary citizens of the Third Reich were the ones who initially benefited from Hitler's government, provided personnel for the Wehrmacht, and ignored the stench from those camps for political prisoners down the road.
As for Hiroshima, over this past summer I read a number of personal accounts of Marines who fought against the Japanese during the Pacific War. All of them (and some went on to become pacifists) remembered being elated when they heard the news since they wouldn't have to invade the home islands.
Just to add an intriguing additional tidbit to the mix, the allies sent a lot of deception stuff per the deception annex(s) of the OpPlans for the various successive invasions of the Japanest home islands. Unfortunately, the damage to the Japanese radio intercept capability from MASSIVE air raids, and conquest or total isolation of all the islands previously held by Japan, was so heavy that they were unable to make any sense of the few scraps they could still get.
So the "red teamed" it, identifying likely invasion beaches based on where we had invaded in the past and what there was in comman. The "red team" nailed it. Every beach on the first island to be invaded, as well as likely times and dates.
So every beach would have been Omaha, with the garrison on alert. Ugly.
Name the tune, pay the piper. After Pearl Harbor, unrestricted. After Guadalcanal and the first massacre of an entire patrol except for E & E, prisoners if convenient and at no risk. Higher higher wanted prisoners, had to issue direct orders to get them. More recently, the Falklands, Argentinians fired on a flag of truce, and became familiar with Ghurka night visitors, or rather, their grisly handiwork.
Sherman had it right. Or, if you prefer a more current reference, Capt Mal, of a certain Firefly class interstellar freighter: "I get into a war, I'll guarantee you'll see something different."
Don't know too many who have seen a bit of the elephant who would disagree.
Denial of patronage due to insolvency is not censorship. Despite the inevitable assertion to the contrary. Squeal like a pig, they will.
Groto et al: Perhaps you clicked when you should have clacked (cackle).
Why Byron, you approach free verse by your eloquence. Well said, sir, very well said.
Thats why war should not be taken lightly as Argentinian junta (and many more before them) learned the hard way.
Re: Landing on the home islands - I've read Nimitz was all against that and wanted continued blockade until surrender. Ultimately Hiroshima saved lives because either blockade (with massive famine involved) or invasion would mean much more Japanese loss of lives. The heart of it was that Emperor could ask the military: can you stop every bomber from now on and even they couldnt lie their way out of it. Did you know that Navy told the truth of Midway to the Emperor and Army in... 1944? Saving face at all costs and all that. Compared to that Allied cooperation despite clash of egos like those of Monty and Patton looks positively smooth.
And yes , I am familiar with the story of failed coup attempt in the last hours before Emperors surrender broadcast. It could have gone either way, really. Fortunately for both Japan and US soldiers, everything fizzled out when loyalists have taken command.
And regarding taking prisoners - this is assuming enemy wanted to surrender at all...
Coming from you, Grandpa, that's high praise. Thanks!
Here's a more detailed summary of how NPR gets its funding. Bottom line: 41 percent comes from the government. http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/10/how_public_is_nprs_funding.html
41%. Huh. About $70 million. That's Olympia, Yorktown, and Texas, if necessary.
For those individuals who want to see NPR loose their funding it is time to vote.
http://republicanwhip.house.gov/YouCut/
However, be prepared to be called a "reactionary" if this issue makes it to the floor for a vote.
Ewok,
You still didn't answer my question.
Cost is something to keep in mind, but when you go to war - you go to war. War is as imperfect as the humans that fight it. That being said - if you have to kill 100,000 with the hope that you will save more - then you kill 100,000.
If you have to kill 100,000 of the enemy to save 10,000 of your own - you kill 100,000. You can find the number you want south from there, but in war you kill. You kill to win. You kill because to lose is a cost you cannot afford. You have to make your enemy, if he is rational, decide that the cost of war is greater than the cost of defeat. If he is not rational, then you have to kill every last one of the enemy.
URR, for me answer is clear - would your father risk his life to save japanese child stranded in a firefight in Okinawa or Saipan? I bet he would. Other marines have done so. In the end wasn't that great crusade waged so that people of Germany and Japan could enjoy peace and democracy too, after toppling of their bloodthirsty warlords?
What's more important, I find the entire decision to go with the nuking of Hiroshima right. It certainly helped to tip the scales in the Emperors council. It is still a tragic loss of life. It was like flooding burning ammo magazine to save the rest of the ship. A decision that is tragic in that it saves lives at the same time sacrificing them. I hope you can understand it.
Just exactly what do they mean by, " a just and verdant world "?
Apparently the answer for YOU is clear. But should he have been sentenced to die or be badly wounded on a beach, along with hundreds of thousands of other Americans because the United States declined to use all the weapons in its arsenal to end the war as quickly and as bloodlessly (for the United States, and in the end, for Japan) as possible?
If you think so, I suggest you re-examine every one of your ideas and perceptions of why soldiers and nations fight wars.
Fallows makes an excellent case why NPR is needed-and I agree with him. While I like Juan Williams, free speech is not consequence free speech especially when you are being paid for it. NPR's timing is lousy to be sure-they probably should have never renewed his contract when he started sucking on Rupert Murdoch's tit a long time ago.
<span>In their current anti-NPR initiative, Fox and the Republicans would like to suggest that the main way NPR differs from Fox is that most NPR employees vote Democratic. That is a difference, but the real difference is what they are trying to do. NPR shows are built around gathering and analyzing the news, rather than using it as a springboard for opinions. And while of course the selection of stories and analysts is subjective and can show a bias, in a serious news organization the bias is something to be worked against rather than embraced. NPR, like the New York Times, has an ombudsman. Does Fox? [I think the answer is No.]</span>
When least possible bloodshed is counted in hundreds of thousands, you cannot say everything is right. Lesser evil is evil nonetheless.
I cant possibly fathom the reason most of the politicians who start the wars, on the attacking side, especially given there is good chance that any war, (regardless of how walk in the park it seems), to end bloody, costly and possibly lost. On the defending side they fight because they were attacked. As for the soldiers, they firstly fight for own life, secondly for their brothers in arms, and thirldly, far behind, for a whatever cause is being presented.
The phrase "Fox/DeMint attack machine" tells me all I need to know from that writer. One bigot defending another bigot.
And -as pointed out earlier downstream- if the portion of Federal funds is such a small part of their budget, why not cut it? I'm not out to destroy or disestablish NPR, but I don't see the point of supporting a network which emphasizes a very specific worldview on a regular basis. This is one more example of self-declared "impartial" journalism, which isn't.
Actually Slate Magazine makes a good case for that-however I think Fallows makes a great argument against that course of action. If for no other reason than hte fact that the Republicans need NPR more than you perhaps realize.
ewok, save the "man's inhumanity to man" crap. It used to be, and still should be, that if you make war on the United States you risk total destruction. Since Korea, we have drifted from that paradigm.
The Japanese invaded Manchuria, they invaded China, they massacred civilians at the end of a bayonet by the hundreds of thousands in Nanking and Manila, along with hundreds of thousands more rapes, beatings, assaults, and murders.
Then, Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, invaded the Philippines, and started a war with the United States.
We could have done to them what they did to the countries they conquered, and we didn't.
And save me the lectures about what soldiers fight for.
<span>ewok, </span>
<span>Save the "man's inhumanity to man" stuff. It once was, and still should be, that if you make war on the United States you risk total destruction. Since Korea, we have drifted from that paradigm.
The Japanese invaded Manchuria, they invaded China, they massacred civilians at the end of a bayonet by the hundreds of thousands in Nanking and Manila, along with hundreds of thousands more rapes, beatings, assaults, and murders.
Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, invaded the Philippines, and started a war with the United States.
We could have done to them what they did to the countries they conquered, and we didn't. They deserved everything that befell them and a good deal more.
And please, save me the lectures about what soldiers fight for.</span>
Individuals who bayonetted in Nanking and those that decided about the war were responsible - not every man, woman and child in Japan. And to add irony, US spared the Emperor, who was only person able to stop rampaging military... I do not believe in group responsibility - it is what brought us 9/11.
And re: total destruction - it seems that since Korea it wasnt invoked exactly because not only US is capable of it.
Yep-then they can be just like Fox.
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