Wednesday, October 28, 2015

On Republicans and culture war

For the last generation or so, the GOP has been fighting an uphill battle against the media, of course, but also the culture. The nation is in the midst of a culture war, or a culture cold civil war, as John Derbyshire likes to call it. Most conservatives are at a massive disadvantage. The other sides want to talk culture while conservatives are trying to talk about policy issues.

The author has a bit of experience with this. In 1995 he was an intern with Senator Bill Roth (R-DE) and attacked to the Governmental Affairs Committee. That year the newly GOP congress tried to enact some reforms of Medicare and Medicaid that would have reduced the spending increases. I say against reduced the Spending Increases. Personally, the author was prepared to have a discussion about deficits, budgeting and the nature of government. Democrats wanted to accuse the GOP of starving children and throwing old people on the street.

The GOP never stood a chance.

There was a time when Republicans knew how to fight and win culture war. Today he is thought of as an nice old man but 25 years ago Bush the Elder had a reputation as a vicious partisan fighter. Here is a clip of of him socking it to Dan Rather:

Note, George Bush was sharp enough to insist the interview be conducted live.

And here is Bush's notorious 'Willie Horton ad':

That ad and a few others like it were devastating.

Bush, that old, out of touch ninny understood there was a culture war on, and understood how to fight it. Is there hope for the modern GOP?


Tuesday, October 27, 2015

In the Future There will be...no rock and roll, no rock and roll...

An interesting what if....what if Alan Freed had keeled over from alcoholism in the late 40's rather than the mid-60's? There would be no DJ listening to this new kind of music that sings blues to a jazz beat, no one to spin its records and no one to advocate for it. No payola either, but whatev. What if Glenn Ford's son hadn't played an obscure 45 to him leading to its use in the opening credits to Black Board Jungle?

To put it another way, could there have been a counter-culture without rock? Frankly its hard to believe the kids would have rebelled to the songs of Frank, Dino and Sammy, the Lennon Sisters, Rosemary Clooney and Jim Neighbors. One supposed that folk music would have come on, but you don't change the world to soft guitar strums.

My generation rebelled against the counterculture. Imagine a bunch of College Republicans coming to meetings in shorts and sandals but also wearing coats and ties. Of course we were fueled by Metal and Grunge, as this was 1994, mostly Grunge and by the end of the decade my friends and I were in Northern Virginia trying to re-create Ozzie and Harriet. As PJ O'Rourke once said, we took one look at the '60s and said 'give me a haircut and a job'.

I just don't know if you can need a haircut if the Beatles never came along:




Operation Eastern Storm et al (Update)

The MS for Operation Eastern Storm has been submitted and is in the formatting stage. At this point we're anticipating a release early next year.

On a few other notes, World War 1990: Castro's folly is coming along slowly but nicely. As noted before this will feature short stories in Angola, Nicaragua and Vietnam, among other places. Watch out for the Aussies, Ho Chi Minh.

I am still working on To Liberate Mars to quote Jerry Pournelle (notice the absence of dates). As noted elsewhere, half the short stories are complete, at least one will be completed this year. I am hoping to release it 2016.

My history of John J. Pershing and the AEF is in a good place. I am completing a chapter linking the Marne campaign with the Meuse-Argonne Campaign. This should be the last chapter I have to write surrounded by stacks of musty WWI memoirs. After that I have to do my intro, which I can't do before I write my conclusion. I also thought it'd be fun to spend 5,000 words writing about the memoirs and history of the AEF. My rough draft will be completed January 30, 2016, after which I intend to spend the year editing and revising.

I have a meeting with an agent about this project next week.

Sunday, October 25, 2015

Hillary! and Hilarity

So Hillary testified before congress about the Benghazi debacle.

That hearing was devastating. Some thing Hillary! outsmarted Trey Gowdy by wanting the hearing public, but she fell right into the trap. Wow she looked composed. Big deal. She told creepy jokes about Ambassador Stevens, said she had no state department computer or email, revealed that she ignored 600 requests for extra security, admitted that Ambassador Stevens had no way o contact her but Sid Blumenthal could contact her whenever she wanted, and we learned that the next day she told the president's of Libya and Egypt, as well as Chelsea (WTF?) that they new it was a terrorist attack and the video had nothing to do with it.

So let's stipulate that Hillary Clinton is a horrible Secretary of State. Worst ever, who knows? But certainly horrible.

Who are the best?

Kissinger has been a celebrity for 50 years. He can point to the Paris treaty, shuttle diplomacy, opening up China, SALT I. On a side note I had to read his history of the Congress of Vienna as an undergrad. Harold Nicholson's book is better and you don't get that Kissinger voice in your head when reading it.

How about George Schultz, Reagan's secretary of state. He provided wise council to the president and helped formulate policy that won the Cold War.

William Seward helped keep Britain and France out of the Civil War, with a huge assist from Ambassador Charles F. Adams in the case of the former, and he bought Alaska.

Of course, Seward was part of a cabinet of great men, the 'team of rivals', Stanton at the War Department, Chase (as in Chase Manhattan Bank) at treasury, all of whom were qualified to be president.

Bill Clinton himself had cabinet issues. During the first few years of his administration there was much turmoil and turn around, Sec Def Les Aspen had to resign after the Somalia debacle and Warren Christopher at State was a woman. But in his second term BC appointed some grownups to the cabinet, Robert Ruben at Treasury, later Lawrence Summers, currently being lampooned at my very own RVCC, and Madeline Albright.

Much of Clinton's turn around was not due to the cabinet but his Chief of Staff, Leon Panetta, one of the aforementioned grownups who went on to be Secretary of Defense and Director CIA for Barry. The CoS is hugely important, his temperament is key. Donald Regan was an ego-maniac who thought he was 'deputy president' in Reagan's second term. Reagan brought in Senator Howard Baker to clean things up and Reagan's last two years were quite good.


Friday, October 23, 2015

The Austrian Painter

Over at the FB Alternate History Group and interesting discussion about a different outcome for WWI.

The war in some form was inevitable, the question for me is what if Germany's Schleiffen Plan had worked?

Well, we can expect that Germany would have taken the Longwy-Briey Iron basin near Metz but probably little other French territory. What would they want with Lille?

The important point here is that without a drawn out WWI and a defeated Germany the entire 20th century is different.

Imagine now, its 1964 and Germany is commemorating the 50th anniversary of its great victory at the Marne. To the West, the military government of the economically anemic France sends a representative. The Austro-Hungarian Confederation is well represented with ambassadors from all of the Slavic nations within. The president of the Free State of Poland attends the ceremonies of its closest ally against the Russian menace. The President of Russia attends as well.

The English speaking peoples are ambivalent. Britain has long moved passed its minor defeat in Belgium and has for the last 50 years concentrated on its empire. There is talk that Parliament may cede its reserve powers to the Dominions. While India has been granted Dominion status, the great British empire in Africa thrives. America is indifferent to the anniversary and consumed with consolidating it's resent gains after the Third Pacific War against Japan.

In Nuremberg a kindly old Austrian painter, well liked in the neighborhood and known to do quick portrait sketches for children, celebrates his 75th birthday.

Thursday, October 22, 2015

Red Ensign over America

I participated in an interesting discussion thread on a FB alternate history group speculating about what if Britain crushed the American rebellion in 1776.

It almost happened.

When Lord Howe arrived in New York Harbor in June of 1776 he had a fleet of 70 + ships and an army of 25,000 men. He walloped Washington in one battle after another only to see him escape time and again. Howe chased him up the Hudson Valley and into New Jersey and Pennsylvania.  Realizing that his army was about to melt away, a desperate Washington struck at Trenton and then Princeton. This act saved the revolution.

Had How pursued Washington more vigorously in New York, or pursued him into Pennsylvania, he'd be known as the victor over the American rebels.

Now, on the discussion thread a contributor asked if George and Parliament could have reestablished the King's Peace in a manner that wold ensure that's peace's long term viability. This is precisely what they sought to do.

General Howe was chosen because it was thought he could bring about a peaceful settlement. He had fought in American during the Seven Years War, he was Wolfe's number two man at Quebec, married an American and was very sympathetic to the Americans in parliament. He was sent to America to be a peace maker, the massive military force he brought with him was the Crown's 'big stick'.

As for the fate of the rebels, it is hard to see Howe allowing mass hangings, perhaps exile for Mr. Washington, Hancock and the Signers but not hangings. Its easy to be magnanimous in victory.

As to what would have happened next, Americans would have undoubtedly continue to steam over the Appalachians against the Crown's wishes. As they pushed west against Indians, Spain and France endless trouble would have ensued. Early on in the new century, Britain may well have wondered if keeping the colonies was worth it.

Tuesday, October 20, 2015

Oh! Canada?

I've had an unhealthy interest in Canadian politics since roughly 2005. It goes back to something called the Ghomery Scandal, the details of which escape me, but which intrigued me because the press was forbidden from reporting on it by a judge. American bloggers kept getting the details and sending them north.

A year later Stephen Harper was elected.

Like most Americans I hadn't thought about Canada much before 9/11. It was that country to the north. Heck, lots of times I would forget that it was even there. I was only vaguely aware that the Toronto Blue Jays played in another country until an incident in 1993 when Yankee fans gave 'Oh Canada' the ol' Bronx Cheer.

Canada came into my consciousness via Mark Steyn, who for me anyway, skyrocketed after 9/11. After reading a lot of his stuff I remember thinking, 'Oh yeah, Canada. I had forgotten about it, tucked away down there.'

The dates are a little hazy but I know for certain that by 2003 I was hooked. I was a Steynian, a Steyniac. I vividly recall sitting in my dinning room reading his stuff at the old Western Standard. He used to write about Canada being a power within in the commonwealth, a major contributor to the Allied cause in WWII. I looked into it myself, and eventually wrote a short magazine article about the Canucks in WWII, and sure enough, Canada had a large navy and army of half a million men. Here was a muscular, confident democracy unafraid to go to war. A far cry from the 'wimps' National Review wrote about.

I paid attention to Steyn's 'Deranged Dominion', following the elections. Harper won in 2006 and again in 2008. 2011 he really romped, walloping Professor Michael Ignatieff. A nice enough man. I always felt bad for him.

Harper got trounced last night by Justin Trudeau. A dilettante playboy with a thin resume and questionable paternity. Allegedly his father was Pierre Trudeau, Canadian PM.

What are these sober, clear headed people doing putting a guy like Trudeau into office?

Oh Canada, you don't ever get to complain about America again.

Friday, October 16, 2015

X Lament

So this guy writes an article detailing all the Millennial traits and habits he hates. This fellow is a humor writer, right? He thinks lamenting the younger generation is original and funny? There is nothing of the sort in this piece, I assure you. A sense of entitlement? Wow,  when has that ever happened? Technology rules them? Really, you noticed this all by yourself?

Hey, I admit some Millennial habits annoy me too, the handshake/hug thing or whatever it is they call they're greeting.

I think a lot of this is class. I've been around this generation for more than a decade. I think what the author describes may be true of the over-achieving types. I don't see it where I teach at Raritan Valley Community College Of course we cater to a lot of middle and working class kids, immigrants and vets. Pretty hard to think your student feels entitled when she took a EFP to the head in Iraq.

This is really nothing new.

I'd like to draw the reader to this piece by the late Mike Royko. I read it in 1990 and it stuck with me ever since. There he is, a hard-bitten and aging writer complaining about the next generation. Look at that, he doesn't like those high tech Sony Walkmans these kids listen to. Oh and that goes double for CD players. He bitches about MTV. These kids had it easy and he wants to bring back the draft. That'll show 'em.

Royko was right, we were comfortable. But we knew it. Grandma and Grandpa told us stories about the Depression and World War II. Both my mother's and father's parents met because of the war. Hey, the 80's were a great time to grow up and we knew it. That's the world the Greatest Generation made. Wasn't that the whole point?

But there is the matter of their children.  Our parents couldn't shut up about the goddamn 60's.  We always looked back at 'the 60s' in confusion. The music and clothes were cool, don't get me wrong, but we always wondered what the hell they were complaining about. The 50's looked darn good to us. Especially when one considers that most of our first memories came during the 70's. Happy Days was called Happy Days for a reason.

The Gen Xr has always had a sense that something went terribly wrong. Of course, the Balding Boomer would always say 'you weren't there, you don't understand!' I wasn't in California in 1942 either, but I still understand that the internment of Japanese Americans was wrong.

The Balding Boomer's explanation for 'the 60s' usually follows a pattern; JFK + Vietnam + social unrest =Woodstock!

Sorry, I'm not buying it. Look at the Gen Xr's formative experiences. We too saw a president get shot (Reagan). We had a war (Desert Storm), we saw social unrest (Rodney King riots, crack epidemic, Aids), music controversies (heavy metal and rap), opposed youth culture (MTV). So cry me a river. The difference is we endured crisis without a mass generational freak out. We even had a Woodstock, two as a matter of fact. When it was over we just went back to class.

Tuesday, October 13, 2015

Thoughts on the New York Mets

For any of you goddamn foreigners reading this, the Mets are the other professional baseball team playing in New York.  They are in baseball's post-season right now and threatening to beat the L.A. Dodgers to advance to the next round.

Now, they're history is interesting. In 1962 they got their start and were one of the worst teams ever. In that year the Mets went 40-120. They lost a hundred and twenty games. But it was still fun and funny. They're manager, old baseball hand Casey Stengel once asked in desperation, 'Can't anybody play this game?' In school we learned this song, a parody of the official team song:

Beat the Mets
Cheat the Mets
Step right up and defeat the Mets
Bring your kiddies
Bring your dog
Come on out and eat like a hog.

This is actually a a parody of the Mets official team song:

And they sucked for a while, till 1969 that is. That was the year of the miracle Mets. Led by Tom Seaver, the greatest pitcher since WWII the Mets beat the mighty Baltimore Orioles, winners of a hundred games, in the World Series.

They got the World Series again in 1973, another miracle season captured with the slogan 'We Believe'. The Mets lost the World Series in seven games to the Oakland Athletics.

The Mets had a few more good seasons but by 1976 they were a bad team. The next season they traded Tom Seaver and by 1980 they were a terrible team. They were losers, not in the fun 'let's see how they'll blow it today' way the '62 team was. They just stunk.

But with new ownership the Mets rebuilt, contended by 1984 and won the World Series in 1986. This was an interesting time. For the first time in city history the Mets dominated New York. Jerry Seinfeld was a Mets fan:
The '86 Mets were bullies and the best team in baseball. Interestingly they were still in touch with they're old identity, the spunky, 'we believe' miracle team. After all only one cycle had passed since that era.That all began to change though in the late 1980s.

In 1988 the Mets lost in the playoffs to the L.A. Dodgers, an inferior team that got lucky because the Mets were overconfident and couldn't get out of their own way. The next season the Mets made some baffling trades. 1990 was their last good year but by 1993 they were once again the worst team in baseball.

Meanwhile, in the Bronx the Yankees were resurgent and won the first of four World Series in five years in 1996. By then Seinfeld was Yankees fan:
This was the era when the Mets lost their 'miracle' feel. No more were they the spunky little team that could. The decade embittered the Mets fan. He was jealous at the Yankees' success. George Steinbrenner, owner of the Yankees, rubbed their nose in it, signing former Mets stars like Dwight Gooden and Daryl Strawberry. The Mets and Yankees even met in the World Series in 2000. The Yankees won in five games.

The Mets collapsed soon after and would only make the playoffs once in the next decade.  In fact in 2007 and 2008 they had a pair of epic end of the season collapses, losing their division after being 7 games up with 17 left to play in 2007, and 3 up with 7 left to play in 2008.

Its been a long hard slog for Mets fans ever since.

Really, the franchise hasn't been the same since 1990.

The current team a crop of youngsters really, has a bit of the old miracle Mets feel, but it will take a lot of winning to overcome the last 25 years.

Sunday, October 11, 2015

A Professor's thoughts on the eve of Columbus Day

Columbus was a lost Italian sailor.

He had a Viking map.

The Vikings probably got all the way to Minnesota.

When one considers that one can travel from Britain to the Shetlands, to Iceland to Greenland in aprox. 300 mile spurts the Atlantic crossing doesn't seem so daunting.

Most tales of previous crossings, the Carthaginians, Madoc, the Knights Templar, are crap.

Some Eurasian people undoubtedly reached the Pacific coast.

The most important impact of his discovery of the New World was the blow struck against the Medieval mindset which placed the earth at the center of the universe and Jerusalem at the center of the earth. With the discovery of the New World Jerusalem was no longer in the center of the earth.

In North American in 1492 there was as few as two million, and as many as 19 million people.

There are about five million Native Americans (including mixed) in the United States today.

There are about 1.5 million aboriginal people living in Canada today.

The author assumes no responsibility for indigenous peoples south of the Rio Grande.

God bless Hernan Cortez.

Saturday, October 10, 2015

...and Putin can't win

Via Richard Fernandez, this is kind of interesting. Basically the NYTs is reporting that Obama is planning to do nothing in Syria; 'patience' the times calls it.

Its almost as if Obama knows, just knows that Putin's gambit in Syria is doomed to fail. After all look at the American experience in Vietnam and Iraq and...

Everyone knows you can's defeat an insurgency. The British didn't do that in Malaya, we didn't do that in Vietnam, and we certainly didn't defeat the insurgency in Iraq. Everyone knows that.

Of course, Putin made his bones smashing Chechnya in the 2000's.

Now, when America, or say, Israel fights terrorists, both nations make heroic efforts to avoid civilian casualties. I once heard Tom Friedman on Imus, in a rare moment of clarity ask, 'How lucky is Arafat that his enemy is the Jews?' Indeed. Assad would have wiped out the Palestinians.

Putin, of course, has no compunction about flattening entire cities. Just ask the citizens of Grozny. Today Chechnya is still a part of Russia, and firmly under the control of a Putin approved and supported strongman.

Whatever the endgame in Syria, Putin plans to smash the various rebels (U.S. back rebels so far, imagine that) and leave his favored strongman in control.

Worked before, didn't it?


Wednesday, October 7, 2015

I Don't Loath Myself, Just my Religion (a continuing series)

Frontpage Magazine tells us about curious happenings over at the American Holocaust Museum. Briefly the museum is warning that the Muslim Brotherhood is in great danger of genocide or some such. 

Because you, fair reader, are visiting this blog, you are of course of kind heart and wise counsel (sorry I've been binge watching GoT) so you no doubt are thinking, 'Great, the AHM is putting out the warning that the Muslim Brotherhood is out commit acts of genocide.' If you said this, you were wrong.

The AHM is worried that the Muslim Brotherhood is in great danger:
Despite the constant threats to destroy the Jewish State, Iran is also rated at low risk. Instead the Holocaust Museum claims that the real threat of genocide is in Egypt which is “experiencing a mass killing episode perpetrated by the current regime against the Muslim Brotherhood and oppositionists.”
In Israel Strikes: War of the Red Sea, a Sudanese Soldier remarks that his Imam is right, the Jew is clever.

In fact, the Jew is a fucking moron. Honestly, how does the Muslim Brotherhood, the KKK, The Rent is Too Damn High Party, and all the other Jewish conspiracy whackjobs out there think Jews control the world when Jews are doing things like warning of the danger faced by the Muslim Brotherhood.

I've been the the AHM a few times, back in my D.C. days, this is the '90s mind you.

I'm confident, that if it hasn't already, the AHM has exhibits on say, Native Americans, Armenians, Ukrainians, etc, etc, and is straying far from its original mission of documenting the Jewish holocaust. I bet there's something on Pinochet, Stroesner, Fugimori, Galtieri, etc etc...

For the life of me I can't understand why we even have this thing in America. That's not true, I understand full well why. Jews are freakin' morons, at least the American ones. We have this blight on D.C. because of politics. Because the 'official Jews' as Ezra Levant up north likes to call them won't shut up about the damn Holocaust. Like every other Jew on the planet, I lost family in the Holocaust. You will find no Stroocks in Europe.  I've moved on. Just the other day my oldest wanted to watch a documentary about the Holocaust in the Ukraine. I freaked out. 'You'll learn about the Israelis,' I said. 'Not a bunch of Jews lining up and waiting to be shot.'

Somewhere, maybe in Riverdale, maybe in Reisterstown, or Pasaic,  Jewish kids are playing 'Holocaust', I guarantee it. They're playing at lining up and marching meekly to the gas chamber.

Oh my American-Jewish brethren, decedents of Joshua you not.

Europe does not need Angela Merkel

Via Drudge, a faux controversy about a bit of CGI trouble making by a German TV network:
German TV network accused of Islamophobia for producing mock-up image of "Muslim Merkel", as Pegida shows resurgence with 9,000-strong rally.
Click over the image is hilarious and poignant.

800,000 'refugees',eh? Just like that?

It's not as if this is the first Islamic invasion of Europe. For all the success Islamic conquerors had they were repelled many times. Charles Martel in 751, the pan-Christian fleet at Lepanto in 1571, John Sobieski at the Gates of Vienna in 1683.

Where have you gone, Teutonic Knights?

One supposes that the historian shouldn't complain that the Germans have become such sheep. Honestly, do we like the other version?

What did it to the Germans and Europe. Was it the cradle to grave welfare state, the 300,000 man American army stationed in Europe, three generations of peace?

We've had barbarian hordes rampaging through American. Just look at Ferguson, or the Baltimore riots.

If you watch the beginning, at the top of the screen you cane see some burly baseball fans fighting back, punches are thrown, bottles tossed, etc. There's a barrel chested young man with a brimmed had standing his ground. I've seen more dramatic footage of him but can't find it. He wont be moved. There are millions of beta-male metro-sexuals who would have called the cops and live tweeted. These Orioles fans are not them.

Maybe Europe needs its football hooligans.


Tuesday, October 6, 2015

Operation Eastern Storm (Update)

Honestly, I thought Operation Eastern Storm would be in print by now, but as the Hebrews say, we plan, god laughs.

One of the things I had wanted to do in this series is write about theaters of the war ignored by the important techno-thriller authors of the '80s, Hackett, Clancy, Peters, etc.

One of the early scenes, spoiler alert I suppose, details an American assault on the Soviet Pacific Coast. To my knowledge that's never been done. At the end of 'Red Army' Ralph Peters makes reference to the Americans possibly making a move there, but that's it.

Lots of potential there, China, the Koreas, Taiwan...Don't get excited, as yet there will be no 2nd Korean War in WW1990. No Kim Jon Ill, or whoever it was back then. Kim Ill Sung? IDK.

But the reader will see plenty of Vaclav Havel and later, Lech Walesa.

Stay tuned!

Thursday, October 1, 2015

Oh Yes it Did...

Over the Mosaic, an interesting article about the historical accuracy of Exodus.

When I teach World Civ I we discuss this issue. For me, Thomas Cahill's The Gift of the Jews settled the argument. I think Exodus is a historical event. Think about the ebb and flow of the story. Who would make that up? Who would write such things about themselves? That's the crux of Cahill's argument, and I have always found it convincing.

One of the essays questions on the first test is, 'What evidence do we have that the story of Exodus actually happened?'

The point of the essay is not to convince students that Exodus happened, but to get them to make an argument that it did.

There's plenty in the Old Testament to make the historian's ears perk up. We are told that the Jews wondered the desert for 40 years and then crossed into Canaan and conquered it. This sounds right, in that after 40 years in the desert the Hebrews would have been producing some tough warriors. How about the siege of Jericho? The Hebrews circled the city banging drums and yelling after which the walls collapsed. When I was studying military history I recognized what this was right away. The Book of Joshua says the walls came down because of god. Actually, it seems to me that the Hebrews were making that racket to cover up the mine they were digging under the wall.

As the Sudanese soldier boy in War of the Red Sea says, 'The Imams are right. The Jew is clever.'

Heck, geologic studies have shown that the Mediterranean was in fact filled by a great flood. Sound familiar?

Exodus is central to the Jewish identity, more so than creation or the conquest of Canaan. While Rosh Hoshana and Yom Kipper are important, Passover is the most important holiday.  Without Exodus there is no Judaism.

I really couldn't comment on that second part that got tacked on to the bible later on.

Anyway, as I tell my students, as far as judging the historical accuracy of Exodus, I wont make that judgement for you.