REMEMBERING -- EVERY -- AMERICAN SOLDIER

The city of New Orleans recently removed three memorials to Confederate leaders (and a fourth marking an obscure clash during Reconstruction.)  I understand they did this because these reminders of a terrible time in American history are offensive to some -- and those honored by the statues deserved no honor for some period of their lives.  But let us considering placing these relics in some park, perhaps on private land, rather than attempting to dis-remember (in Orwellian terms) this horrible part of America's true history.

Viewing their tortured decisions only through a 21^st-century prism doesn't remove their actions or thoughts; it merely denigrates our current ability to deal with the truth. 

Revisionist history is a trait of autocracies, not democracies. 

A willingness to reduce historical events to a sound bite is worse: “North good.  South bad.  Destroy anything causing offense today to people who weren’t there and don’t care to learn.  Story at 11.”

We need to be clear-eyed about this: the American Civil War was about slavery, not states’ rights.  That latter argument is mostly post-bellum revisionism, creating a myth of nobility where none existed.  Treating any human being as bereft of intellect, emotion or soul to be bought and sold as property is a heinous and loathsome assault on all of us.  5000 years of world history in which it occurred on every continent and by nearly every culture does not make it right. 

But let us also remember a bit more of our history, a subject seemingly under-taught in US schools today.

The U.S. abolished the Atlantic slave trade in 1807 under President Thomas Jefferson, but it took the Civil War to abolish slavery itself.  During these years from 1807-1861, the United States had grown to become a transcontinental power, but one based upon very different regional economies.  It should be no surprise that the more industrial, more urban, more economically diversified North would have less in common with the more agrarian, more rural, and more economically commodity-driven South.

There is nothing “civil” about civil war.  It is a terrible thing when a father turns against his own son or a brother against his only brother.  More than once I imagine both died on the same battlefield, each willing to give his life for his beliefs.  To suggest today that such a decision is taken lightly is to belittle the anguish of a time we can only view but not experience. 

With this history as context, were the three men whose statues were removed traitors or some sort of heinous monsters?  Only if you believe the U.S. Military Academy at West Point turns out heinous monsters. 

All three, Jefferson Davis, P.G.T. Beauregard and Robert E. Lee attended West Point and prior to the divisiveness that created the war, served with bravery and distinction as officers in the army of the United States of America.  In addition, Jefferson Davis served as the U.S. Secretary of War in President Franklin Pierce’s cabinet.   General Beauregard was appointed superintendent of West Point, but left that position as war clouds gathered.  General Lee did serve as superintendent and, when the war began, was offered a leadership position as a Major General in the U.S., or “Union”, Army.

Yet  in 2017 the mayor of New Orleans decreed, “It is self-evident that these men did not fight for the United States of America.  They fought against it.”  How easy it must be for some to believe there is no gray in this world and how cavalierly a decision can be made to resign your commission and end your life’s work because you also hold another disparate belief.

These men did, of course, choose the path of secession, as did most of the 6 million residents of the South and between 750,000 and 1 million men who served in the Confederate Army.  Davis, Beauregard and Lee lost.  The South lost.  The idea that one man could be the slave of another lost.

Some became embittered and refused to accept the outcome.  But not the three men whose statues were toppled.  Robert E. Lee became president of Washington College (since renamed Washington and Lee University), P.G.T. Beauregard became president of the New Orleans and Carrollton Street Railway, and Jefferson Davis the president of a life insurance company (having turned down the presidency of Texas A&M.)  All contributed once again -- as Americans.  As Americans who participated in our history, good or bad, they deserve our remembrance.

What does this have to do with our remembrances on Memorial Day?  Everything.  We fought with and killed each other during a terrible time in our nation’s history.  We can either stupidly pretend the war is still ongoing, as the KKK does; we can be embittered as some descendants, both black and white, are; or we can be thankful that out of such devastation and such hostility and bitterness, we have forged a better nation, a more tolerant society, and a more enlightened people.

It isn’t about a stone or marble statue or memorial.  To raise a statue is a decision for each individual on their own property or each city or state on its public land to make. What it is about remembering the sacrifice of all Americans who served and fought, including all soldiers of the Confederacy whose advice to their children and grandchildren must have been to defend the renewed American nation that arose from the ashes of the Civil War -- today's military enlistments show they have done so all out of proportion to their population.

I choose to remember even those I would have fought as my enemy in that most catastrophic of wars.  The men represented by these statues were born Americans and died Americans, buried on American soil.

There are those who would disenfranchise our fathers, sons and brothers as venal traitors rather than conflicted human beings fighting for a cause who, after losing to loftier ideals, rejoined mainstream American society.

 If you are among those who cannot bring yourself to forgive and show respect this day of remembrance for the men in gray, the men in blue, and the millions of men and women who have followed them in some variation of blue, gray or olive drab, may I suggest you visit Robert E. Lee’s former plantation. 

You may know it by a different name.  It is the final resting place for numerous men and women dating from the Civil War, Confederate and Union, black and white, native-born or once an immigrant. They are Americans one and all.  Today it is called Arlington National Cemetery.

© 2017 J.L. Shaefer

THROWING ISRAEL TO THE JACKALS

Here are the 14 nations of the UN Security Council that agreed to censure Israel for building settlements in the West Bank.  I have provided a thumbnail sketch of the first four to provide context for the “moral outrage” they proclaim.

Egypt, sponsor of the motion  – Was Egypt bowing to pressure from the Saudi financiers of Egypt’s shaky economy?  With far fewer civil liberties and political rights than Israel, was el-Sisi thinking that terror attacks on Egypt would stop if only he paid lip service to the Palestinians?  Much as I’d like to, I won’t be returning to Egypt these days.  I’m guessing they just lost billions in revenue from other travelers, as well.

Malaysia –Has among the strictest limitations on freedom of speech, press, assembly, and association.  Is well known for arresting persons without warrants and detaining them indefinitely without trial.  And this paragon of virtue lectures Israel?

Angola – The constitution limits the president to two 5-year terms.  President de Santos has now been there for 36 years.  His daughter, somehow, is the richest woman in Africa.  Persecution of journalists, political activists, and many religious groups is rampant.  Who better to censure Israel than such an upstanding leader?

Ukraine – Still a kleptocracy, fighting for its life, Ukraine has a low rating for protecting  civil liberties.  What were they thinking?  Perhaps that this would form a precedent to get Russia to return Crimea?  Ukraine needs every friend it can find.  Better a dependable pariah like Israel than fair-weather acquaintances that will dance to Moscow’s or Riyadh’s tune.

Other current temporary members: New Zealand, Spain, Uruguay, Japan, and Senegal – normally more responsible members of the world community, and

Permanent members: Russia, China, France, and the U.K. – and of course the US, which fomented the vote by promising to abstain.

There are two groups represented here: the Club of Tyrants and Dictators exemplified by one-man rule on the one hand, and on the other, those who believe Israel, alone among nations, should be forced to give up territory because there are other people in that territory who object to its presence.

Using this standard, Spain should relinquish control of Catalonia, the UK should grant independence to Scotland, France should cede a homeland to the Basques, China should relinquish its stranglehold on Tibet, and Russia – most recently – must return Crimea to Ukraine.  Can anyone spell “hypocrisy?”

A bit of history: the land in question was historically called the Land of Israel, which encompassed the kingdoms of Israel and Judah.  After about the 3^rd century, many Christians also occupied this terrain, followed a few hundred years later by Muslims. 

It wasn’t until after WWI, when Britain was charged with administering this part of the defeated Ottoman Empire’s territory, that the term Palestine was used with quasi-defined borders.  At this time, the international press typically referred to the Jews – not the Arabs -- living in this area as “Palestinians,” recognizing they were the first to live there.

The British found these Palestinians and Zionists (those who believed in leaving parts of the world where Jews were most often persecuted or marginalized and resettling in the “Land of Israel”) most annoying.  Exhausted by other issues in India, in 1947 they abdicated in favor of letting the United Nations deal with the Palestine / Israel issue. 

The U.N. proposed that Palestine should be partitioned into a Jewish state, an Arab state and a U.N.-controlled enclave around Jerusalem.  This plan was adopted on November 29, 1947.  The nation that would become Israel agreed to this 2-state solution.

Of the Arab neighbors, only King Abdullah I of Jordan (then called Transjordan) was in favor of the proposal.  He preferred an amiable Jewish state on his western border to a Palestinian Arab state run by former Nazi collaborator Amin al-Husseini.

 

No other Arab state was willing to agree to the 2-state solution.  They wanted it all.  On May 14, 1948, when Israel declared its nationhood, it was immediately attacked by Egypt, Syria, Iraq and, to avoid its Arab neighbors’ enmity, Transjordan.  These were soon joined by the Syrian-sponsored Arab Liberation Army and volunteers from Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Lebanon.  

After a brutal war in which the Israelis were badly outnumbered, Egypt, defeated in battle, agreed to an armistice and the other aggressor forces evaporated.  Thus were the Israeli borders fixed until 1967 – including Jordanian annexation of the West Bank.

After the 1967 war, Israel closed some of the gaps in its defenses, taking the Golan Heights, the West Bank and the Sinai.  Jerusalem is directly on the border of the West Bank and Tel Aviv, Israel’s commercial center, is just 11 miles away.  When the Arab nations speak of driving Israel into the sea, this is where they would have liked to begin – and likely would if Israel were to cede the entire West Bank.  Such a geographic surrender would be tantamount to, say, allowing Russian missiles in Cuba.

Offering an olive branch, Israel returned the Sinai to Egypt, which cost them dearly in the 1973 war.  Israel later also unilaterally withdrew all settlements from Gaza, which is a picture of what would likely occur if it were to withdraw completely from the West Bank: Hamas immediately began sending rockets and terrorists into Israel, vowing to completely obliterate Israel.  

Is there anyone so naive to believe that nations and terrorists who have sworn to kill every Israeli will change just because Israel gives even greater competitive military advantage to them?

In 2000, there was yet another Camp David accord, granting the Arab Palestinians another olive branch: almost all of Gaza and the West Bank.  Which the Palestinian leadership rejected.

The issue of Jewish settlements is not the real obstacle to peace.  If it were, then why is Gaza, with no Jewish settlements, a hotbed of hatred and terrorism?  Even the Egyptians carefully monitor their border with Gaza.  The simple truth is that, for 69 years, Israel’s Arab neighbors, with the exception of Jordan, have refused to accept Israel’s right to exist and done everything they could to destroy it.  

If the U.N. really cared about the peace process, the starting point of any discussion would be that there is no discussion until these neighboring states recant their oath to destroy Israel.

Parenthetically -- if Israel is to be censured by the U.N. for the crime of keeping some of the lands it acquired via warfare, we need to fortify a hell of a lot of glass houses.  In addition to the already mentioned hypocrisies of the 14 U.N. members voting to censure, we in the US might be wary of setting such a precedent as forcing Israel to give up territory gained via warfare, offensive or defensive.

Such a precedent might create quite a stir in the nearly 500 tribal nations that were displaced in our westward march.  Should the US give those lands back?  Of course not.  The dissolution of the USA would do far more harm than good.

Well then, should there be a U.N. resolution that the U.S. cede nearly all of present-day California, Utah, Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico back to Mexico (which took the land from Spain, which took it from the Aztecs and other indigenous people?)  It would be ridiculous and serve no purpose to do so.  Every nation has acquired or lost territory in some distant past time.

Yet Israel alone, which has the oldest claim on these lands, is singled out as a cause célèbre by dictators in the the Middle East and elsewhere.  Why?  Most likely to deflect popular anger from being directed where it should be – at their own regimes. 

These autocrats and oligarchs have had ample opportunity, beginning 69 years ago, to create a homeland for displaced persons who share their ethnicity and their religion.   Only Jordan has invited them as citizens.

Israel is smaller than Djibouti, smaller than Macedonia, smaller than the Solomon Islands.  The Sinai Peninsula, which Israel returned to Egypt as part of the Camp David accords, is bigger all by itself than Israel!  Yemen is 25 times as big; Egypt is 50 times as big; Saudi Arabia more than 100 times the size of Israel.  Israel is 1/700^th of the land mass of the Arab League nations.  Surely if they were truly concerned about the plight of the Gaza and West Bank Arabs, they could find it in their hearts and their terrain to follow Jordan’s lead and recognize Israel’s right to exist, yes?

Apparently not.  It’s much easier to continue buying gold-plated Mercedes limos, living a life remote from that of their citizens, and pointing the finger at Israel or the USA for causing all their woes.  The difference this time?  The current administration has chosen to aid and abet such behavior, distancing our nation from the only true democracy in the Middle East as we spout rhetoric about democracy versus autocracies.  

My own, my country’s shame.   

(c) 2016 JL Shaefer

THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE & THE CONSTITUTION

 In 1787, at the conclusion of the Constitutional Convention, a large crowd of anxious citizens waited outside.  Some delegates to the convention, like Alexander Hamilton, had advocated a strong central government along the lines of the British monarchy with its House of Lords and House of Commons.  So there was a concern that the rights of the States might be trampled by exchanging one British-style government for another.

One woman shouted out to Benjamin Franklin as he exited, “Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?”

Franklin replied: “A republic, if you can keep it.” 

A “republic” was seen by the Founding Fathers as the highest form of government in which the rights of the common man are defended and each citizen, each region, is well-represented by fellow citizens whom they elected to public office.  

The fact that the word “democracy” doesn’t appear in the Constitution does not disparage our democratic principles. 

In fact, the first two political parties in this country called themselves the Federalists, who wanted more decision-making power in the hands of the national government, and the Republicans, many of whose members referred to themselves as Democratic-Republicans.

The distinction the Founders made was best summed up by James Madison, writing in The Federalist Papers: “In a democracy, the people meet and exercise the government in person; in a republic, they assemble and administer it by their representatives and agents.”

He went on to say, “It is essential to such a government that it be derived from the great body of the society.”

A direct democracy might – might – work in a town hall meeting of 100 or 200 people from the same small town.  Although, if you have ever seen the carnage and carryings-on in such meetings, where everyone insists on getting time to speak their mind, you might also look to find some better way to govern even so small an enterprise.  Multiply that group size by a thousand or a million and you can see why the Founders decided to use the term “republic” – a representative democratic republic -- for our form of government.

The result is that we elect Senators, Representatives and Presidents to represent the interests of our state’s workers, resources, needs and contributions on our behalf.

Which brings us to the Electoral College.

The Electoral College is also charged with representing their individual states with one slight change – since they are there to represent the results of their state’s votes for President, the electors are selected by the winning party of that state.  That is, whichever party fielded the candidate who won the popular vote in their state selects the electors who are charged with voting in accord with the will of the people in their state.  When we vote for the President and Vice-President, we the people are effectively voting for the electors, as well.

(There are two exceptions to this: Nebraska and Maine split their votes by Congressional district.)

Every time there is a disparity between the results of the state-by-state popular elections and the counting or recounting of the popular vote nationally, there are those who advocate for majority rule.  But that is exactly what the Founding Fathers wanted to avoid!

Since California is the most populous state, it already carries the most Electoral College Votes.  Were we to look only at total national voting, states with large urban populations would skew the results and less-populous regions find themselves at the mercy of majority dictate.

That’s not the way the laws of our nation were conceived and written. 

Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution does not specifically prevent an Elector from voting his or her conscience.  It simply states “Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct…” their electors.  All within the bounds of the law.

The framers of the Constitution did not discuss what might happen if there were a “faithless elector” who takes it upon himself to ignore the will of the people in the state he represents. Such a thing would make a mockery of the whole idea of representative democracy. 

States can and have stripped electors who fail to honor that pledge of loyalty.  They have fined them and I believe at least once jailed them.  The people of the each state have spoken.  The elector is there to honor the will of the people they represent.

In 1952, the Supreme Court even interpreted the intent of the Constitution as it regards faithless electors, with the decision that electors only act “by authority of the state” they represent.  The Court further stated that such electors constituted a “fraudulent invasion.”  Electors are agents of the will of the people, not independent actors.

None of this will likely dissuade grumbling from whichever party or parties lose to the express will of the greatest number of states if their candidate received a single popular vote more than the actual winning candidate. 

Representative democracy – republicanism – ensures that no simple majority gets to dictate “my way or the highway.”  Farming was once the primary occupation in America; that didn’t mean farmers could place a demagogue in power concerned only with farmers’ welfare.  

Wyoming may have fewer people than California, but does that mean its interests should be ignored at the national level?  Of course not.  Especially since we are all intertwined.  Farmers, miners, software engineers, bureaucrats; we all derive something from somewhere else in this great country.

So – could it happen that an elector ignores his oath and votes contrary to the way his state’s citizens voted?  It could.  Many of the electors are politicians or political appointees and many career politicians fail to see the complexity of the American voter. 

They live insular lives and either really are members of an elite that seldom gets out into the world the rest of us inhabit -- or are simply legends in their own mind.  They have become detached and inattentive to the voters who elected them.  They think a pipefitter or carpenter can’t have an intelligent discussion on foreign policy.  In this they are not only wrong, but pathetically prejudiced and uninformed.

Finally -- for those tweeting #NotMyPresident, there is nothing we can say that will sway their unwillingness to accept the results of the current election.  There are two consolations I might offer them:

1.) If you fervently believe the Constitution needs to be changed, change it.  There are 27 amendments to the Constitution.  If you want to make this a majority rules nation rather than a democratic republic you have only to get ¾ of the states to agree.

2.) Whoever wins a presidential election, it’s only from Jan 20th of their first year of service until the 10^th month of their 3^rd year (when they become a lame duck) until you have a chance to replace them.  That’s called democracy within a republic.  Start now instead of whining about yesterday and you may change the outcome.  Even if a President turns out to be as rotten as James Buchanan, take hope – he may be replaced by an Abraham Lincoln, as Buchanan was.  That’s the glory and the resiliency of our republican system.

Tomorrow, the Electoral College will meet and they will once again, as they have for 216 years, affirm the will of all the people, rural and urban, young and old, black, white or polka-dot, recent immigrants with citizenship and Mayflower descendants – Americans one and all. 

United we stand.

(c) 2016 JL Shaefer

REMEMBERING: 2 DAYS THAT WILL -- OR SHOULD -- LIVE IN INFAMY FOREVER...

DECEMBER 7, 1941. SEPTEMBER 11, 2001.

Today marks the 75th anniversary of Pearl Harbor. 

Interestingly enough, it might never have happened.  Japan’s first plan was to subdue China and use its natural resources and labor to continue the war.  Once they had done this, their plan was to attack the Soviet Union from the east as Hitler’s Germany advanced from the west.  Since Japan had easily humiliated Russia in the 1905 Russo-Japanese war and were now even stronger, Russia seemed an easy target, one also rich in resources.

But China was proving a far more difficult enemy to subdue and Japan still needed petroleum, rubber and other resources to press their war.  Admiral Yamamoto, who had been a student at Harvard from 1919-1921 and traveled extensively around the United States, was ordered in 1940 to devise an attack on the United States, in order to ensure Japan unencumbered access to the resource-rich South Pacific, Australia and Southeast Asia.

Yamamoto understood that the US would enter the war on the side of our British allies if Japan were to take the British Empire resources it desperately needed.  So he devised a plan to take the fight out of the big dog and, hopefully, the big dog out of the fight, as convincingly as possible.

So on this date, December 7^th, 1941, the enemy that had been planning their surprise attack for more than a year killed some 2,300 men who stood on the decks and in the bellies of 80 ships of the line -- virtually our entire Pacific Fleet.

The day after, Admiral Yamamoto was alleged to have said, "I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and filled him with a terrible resolve." (Actually, no record exists that he ever uttered these words. They are possibly the after-the-fact words of a Hollywood screenwriter since the first time anyone heard them was in 1970, when the actor portraying Yamamoto says them in the movie Tora! Tora! Tora!)

But what is documented is what he said to his Prime Minister, Prince Kanoe: "I can run wild for six months … after that, I have no expectation of success."

Which was chillingly prescient given that six months TO THE DAY later, the Battle of Midway ended with the sinking of four Japanese carriers (leaving them with just two.)  At Midway, 200 of the most experienced Japanese combat pilots met their deaths. (This was more deaths in a single day than they had trained in the entire year prior to Pearl Harbor.)  Their defeat meant the end of Japan's ability to project power across the Pacific all the way to Seattle, San Francisco, or Los Angeles. 

After Pearl Harbor, the citizens of the United States pulled together as never before. Recruiting stations were swamped with young patriots determined to defend our nation. Women rushed to fill jobs vacated by their men at war and Rosie the Riveters began to build the ships and tanks and airplanes we needed to defeat fascism in Europe and in the Pacific.

We honor these men and women with the sobriquet of “The Greatest Generation” and give our generous thanks for their many sacrifices in facing an existential threat to our being, especially on this day.

60 years after the attack on Pearl Harbor, on September 11, 2001, an equally determined and deluded enemy murdered nearly 3000 civilian men, women and children. Did Americans rush to the recruiting stations? Some did.  Most did not.  Yet this was also an attack on Americans, this time in the American homeland, by a vicious enemy intent upon destroying our way of life.  Murdering 3000 was just a prelude for them. 

Did the country pull together to defeat this equally powerful and hateful foe?  Some agreed that a military response was appropriate, some wanted to find and try these murderers in civilian court as if this was merely a typical crime, albeit on a larger scale.  Most placed We Support Our Troops yellow ribbons on their cars, but expected young Americans already serving in the military to deal with this issue. 

15 years later, more than three times as long as our nation’s involvement in World War II, we are still “dealing with it.”  We have tracked down and retaliated against thousands of those who financed, planned, and cheered the cowardly, vicious attack by a fanatical bunch of Islamist thugs. 

But along the way we created Rules of Engagement which have limited our efforts to bring this war closer to a conclusion.  Our leadership called the most vicious of these thugs “the junior varsity team,” implying there was no need to spend time or treasure on them.  We created Red Lines that no one dare cross – until they stepped across them with impunity.

In World War II, we knew who our allies were and we knew who the enemy was and we treated our friends with respect and accommodation, our enemies with peace through superior firepower and the moral integrity that comes from fighting for a cause greater than ourselves. 

Today, however, our “diplomacy” is derided by our remaining allies as ludicrous appeasement and as proof that we are a paper tiger by the club of autocrats that would destroy us in a moment if only they could.

Even though crippled  by equivocating yo-yo leadership and by the inevitable weariness that accompanies goals left unfinished, our young Americans in the military have responded with honor, with strength, with compassion, and, where needed, with a vengeance. 

But many Americans still do not understand or are unwilling to accept that this enemy is every bit as fascist, fanatical and committed to our destruction as were the Japanese and their allies in World War II.  They stand at our doorstep today and would slit our collective throats if we let our guard down for even a moment.

This is an important day of remembrance.  I'd like to say thank you to the boys and girls of 1941, 1942, 1943, 1944, and 1945.  I’d also like to say thank you to the boys and girls of 2001-2016.  With better leadership and clearer direction and focus, they will make us all proud.  Pearl Harbor was attacked 75 years ago today.  

No one will care 75 years from now who was on the cover of People Magazine, the rap star of the moment, or someone who is today famous for being famous.  But they will care, and remember, whether Americans in 2016 were able to muster the moral courage that Americans did in 1941. I hope and pray we do not disappoint these future generations.

(c) JL Shaefer, 2016

NOW THAT THE ELECTION IS OVER, WILL HOLLYWOOD EMIGRATE TO CANADA?


With all the divisiveness, pouting and general bad behavior that has followed the election, a little humor may be the best way to bring us together as we have done ever since the first peaceful change from one political party to another (from John Adams to Thomas Jefferson 216 years ago.)

I don't know the wag who penned this back in 2000 or so but I tip my hat to whoever it was.  It is as funny today as when it first came out!  

Canada has given us so many gifted singers, songwriters and entertainers -- Gordon Lightfoot, Leonard Cohen, Shania Twain, Christopher Plummer, Michael J Fox, Donald Sutherland and so many more.  The least we can do to say thank you is to allow Cher, Alec Baldwin, Madonna, Streisand, and Whoopi et al to keep the promises they first made and broke in 2000 to emigrate with our best wishes.  After all, they promised to leave (again) just this year.  Bon voyage!

​JL Shaefer

News Update from Canada

The flood of Trump-fearing American liberals sneaking across the border into Canada has intensified in the past week. The Republican president-elect is prompting an exodus among left-leaning Americans who fear they'll soon be required to hunt, pray, pay taxes, and live according to the Constitution. 

Canadian border residents say it's not uncommon to see dozens of sociology professors, liberal arts majors, global-warming activists, and "green" energy proponents crossing their fields at night.

"I went out to milk the cows the other day, and there was a Hollywood producer huddled in the barn," said southern Manitoba farmer Red Greenfield, whose acreage borders North Dakota.   "He was cold, exhausted and hungry, and begged me for a latte and some free-range chicken.  When I said I didn't have any, he left before I even got a chance to show him my screenplay, eh?"

In an effort to stop the illegal aliens, Greenfield erected higher fences, but the liberals scaled them. He then installed loudspeakers that blared Rush Limbaugh across the fields, but they just stuck their fingers in their ears and kept coming. Officials are particularly concerned about smugglers who meet liberals just south of the border, pack them into electric cars, and drive them across the border, where they are simply left to fend for themselves after the battery dies. 

"A lot of these people are not prepared for our rugged conditions," an Alberta border patrolman said. "I found one carload without a single bottle of Perrier water, or any gemelli with shrimp and arugula. All they had was a nice little Napa Valley cabernet and some kale chips.  When liberals are caught, they're sent back across the border, often wailing that they fear persecution from Trump high-hairers.

Rumors are circulating about plans being made to build re-education camps where liberals will be forced to drink domestic beer, study the Constitution, and find jobs that actually contribute to the economy.

In recent days, liberals have turned to ingenious ways of crossing the border. Some have been disguised as senior citizens taking a bus trip to buy cheap Canadian prescription drugs. After catching a half-dozen young vegans in blue-hair wig disguises, Canadian immigration authorities began stopping buses and quizzing the supposed senior citizens about Perry Como and Rosemary Clooney to prove that they were alive in the '50s. 

"If they can't identify the accordion player on The Lawrence Welk Show, we become very suspicious about their age," an official said.

Canadian citizens have complained that the illegal immigrants are creating an organic-broccoli shortage, are buying up all the Barbara Streisand CD's, and are overloading the internet while downloading jazzercise apps to their cell phones. 

"I really feel sorry for American liberals, but the Canadian economy just can't support them," an Ottawa resident said.  "After all, how many art-history majors does one country need?

"WHO ARE THE 'VETERANS?"

J.L. Shaefer

It seems strange to previous generations that anyone would even ask such a question.  They knew who the veterans were – they were their fathers, their grandfathers, their brothers and sisters, themselves or, most worrying of all, their children.

But ever since we abolished the draft as a means to fulfill the obligations that our civilian leadership deems necessary for the security of the nation, a smaller and smaller percentage of Americans actually serve.  In fact, less than 1 in every 200 Americans is currently in the armed forces.  How many people among the 199 know that person?  Twenty?  Forty?  A very large segment of the population knows no one serving and no one who has served.

We have gained something and we have lost something in this transition.  Yes, our service members today serve because they have a strong sense of patriotism, or because it is the best way up and out of a life that offers them either too little challenge or too little opportunity.  They may have heard it is a meritocracy that works better than almost any other institution, or they want to experience first-hand the camaraderie that shared hardships offer, or maybe they are the kind of individual who wants to prove themselves early on in life.  Usually it is some combination of these.  The result is a more professional military where lifetime friendships are made with colleagues and comrades who know how to do things right and most often try their damnedest to do the right thing.

There are no “jumpin’ junkies” in this military, no one who whines that their daddy couldn’t buy them a deferment or the stupid doctor said their back was just fine.  You can actually trust the man on your right and your left to save your life just as you would theirs. No fragging, no divide between the Harvard dropout and the poverty-hobbled the-Army-or-jail enlistee. 

But along the way we have lost that great leveler that crossed class, racial, and economic boundaries.  We veterans learned so much from each other and it wasn’t always about military skills.  We learned how other people lived, what they thought and, often, what it was in their upbringing that caused them to think and talk and act in a way somewhat different from the way we were brought up.

 When I grew up, I didn’t know we were poor because my military family was around mostly other military families and we were all poor!  I grew up with playmates who weren’t just different colors but who spoke different languages and wore different clothes and ate different food.  But for most draftees it was a revelation to realize there were people in this great country who weren’t like themselves. They discovered different cuisines, different accents, and different outlooks and opportunities.  We all came home richer for that experience.

Who are the veterans?  They’re you if you’ve served and you know very well what I mean.  If you haven’t, they’re still you, but slightly different.  They’ve seen things no one should have to see.  They’ve often faced odds no one should have to face.  They’ve fought against the most devious and vicious of fighters and they’ve seen the small tear on a little girl’s face because they saved her life, her family or her village.  No words need be spoken, so veterans don’t talk all that much about what they’ve seen or had to do for their buddies or the civilians they encounter while deployed.

Some are boastful, of course, but that’s often because they are young and proud of what they’ve grown to become.  That’s understandable.  Others brag about things that never happened because they don’t want to say they served stateside as a personnel clerk.  The thing is, those of us doing a different job don’t disparage them for that at all.  Somebody has to make sure we get a new assignment or get that paycheck on time.  Besides, it’s purely the luck of the draw where one is assigned.  And bravado only lasts until the day you hold  the buddy you’ve come to love and respect as a brother in your arms, knowing his injuries are fatal and you cannot save him.

I work with a lot of the best of the best even today.  I have the honor and privilege of serving on the board of the OASIS Group.  We assist those most often deployed and most often at the tip of the spear as they transition to civilian life: Army Special Forces and Rangers, Navy SEALs, Air Force Pararescuemen and Special Tactics members and, if we can raise the funds, soon the Marine Raiders as well.  Working with these special operators, I also get to meet some of their families, who have had such hardships themselves and yet are seldom discussed at all when we think of veterans.

My own Mom grew up in the shadow of WWII.  She was 12 when it began for the USA, 16 when it ended.  She didn’t know if her daddy would return from WWII.  She didn’t know if her husband would return from two tours in Vietnam.  And she didn’t know if her son would return from his various deployments in some of the world’s garden spots.  Yet she persevered.  No one ever saw the toll this must have taken.

So, please, do make the time to find out if any of your relatives have ever served.  Or your friends, or your neighbors.  Don’t ask them if war is hell; it is much worse than hell.  Just ask what their memories are and where they went and who they met.  Don’t forget their families, either.  Those who wait at home, fearing to pick up the phone or answer the knock at the door.  Talk to them, and listen. 

Worried about the higher suicide rate for veterans and PTSD​ and wish you could do something?​

Sometimes a friend, or a neighbor, or even a stranger as you share a cup of coffee or a beer, is better than any professional counseling they could receive.  To you, they’re not a client, and to them you’re just someone curious, friendly and willing to listen. Knowing that one of the other 199 really does care about their sacrifices, experiences and future could make all the difference in the world for them -- and you.

(c) 2016 JL Shaefer

ELECTION 2016: CLOSER THAN THE POLLS ARE PREDICTING?

National Affairs

We Americans have the right to vote this year for messy, disorganized and possibly vulgar change – or an expansion of what I have dubbed the Reign of Error.

Not a pleasant choice, is it?

Donald Trump is a vain, touchy, coarse and vulgar man.  He wouldn’t be the first US president to have such characteristics.  He can’t hold a candle to Lyndon Johnson in the vulgarity department and it is too late in his life for him to catch up to John Kennedy and Bill Clinton in the taking-advantage-of-women department.

Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, has been caught in a web of lies since she was first seen on the national stage.  These have been well-documented and continue to this very day.  We know her public persona and, more and more, we also know her private persona – and promises, for instance, to Goldman Sachs that contradict her public statements.  Her life has been a series of mis-steps and cover-ups that others have gone and will go to jail for.

Messy Vulgar Change or a Reign of Error?

This makes this election one of the toughest ever to call.  Neither candidate is angelic, though both try to make us think they are.  We know better.  Both candidates this year are persons of dubious character, each in their own way.  That leaves us voters their platform and their prescriptions to improve what ails us as the two areas in which we might make a more informed decision. 

Some well-educated and financially successful voters are aghast at the possibility of another LBJ.  Yet it was LBJ who changed the face of the nation with his arm-twisting, deal-making and blackmailing of Congress to ram through effective civil rights legislation.  He was an agent of change when the country most needed changing.

Many middle class Americans, on the other hand, have seen their jobs lost to overseas slave or cheap labor so financially successful Americans could buy “things” more cheaply.  These befuddled voters can’t understand why anyone would vote to continue the current Reign of Error.  They have seen their jobs vanish, their homes taken from them because of Wall Street and bankers’ greed, and their children’s quality of education, and educational choice, diminish.  They wonder how anyone could vote for a candidate who promises to carry on the current travesties, while adding even more.

For what may well be a surprising number of American voters, this is a game of Truth or Consequences.  The truth, as they see it, is that our nation has been on the wrong track since before the most recent recession.  But worse, far worse, is that things didn’t improve as the recession ended.  Not for most.

But this truth is one which transcends mere personal financial gain.  It includes:

* a dangerously reduced capability to defend the nation against external threats,

* an America that is no longer respected or trusted by those who would be our allies,

* an America that is becoming a global laughingstock, pushed around by not only a resurgent Russia and imperialistic China but by third-world dictators,

* an administration that believes no nation should stand alone even if standing alone is the right thing to do; we should instead consult with “our friends” in Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, Myanmar and elsewhere,

* and Americans like those tens of thousands of coal miners in Kentucky, Ohio and West Virginia, who are thrown out of work because of some grand Stalinist-type scheme to change the world, then are told “It’s OK.  We’re going to give you welfare and nutritional assistance.”

Welfare is not work.  Becoming wards of the State is not worth it so that the USA may set an example of less greenhouse gases to the rest of the world, which example the rest of the world will surely follow.  Or not.

This brings us to what many voters see as the consequences of these truths: they believe we have lived in a Reign of Error both domestically and globally for too long. They are ready for change.  I believe they may not be willing to tell a pollster they could actually bring themselves to vote for Donald Trump, but in the privacy of the voting booth?  We may yet be surprised that this will be a much closer election than currently forecast.

Hillary Clinton is likely seen by many of those who consume news, rather than the literati who aspire to write it, as part of the problem and in no way a solution.  They see a Clinton presidency as not just perpetuating the class divisions in America, but extending them further.  A couple samples from her platform:

Free College Education for All!   There is No Such Thing as a Free Lunch.  Who really pays for this “free” education?

A Single Payer System of Health Care by Any Other Name.  There is No Such Thing as a Free Lunch.  Who pays when providers are bankrupted and individuals see their rates rise astronomically? 

Continued Lowering of US Stature and Defenses / Negotiating with Tyrants.  Who pays, and in danger, not dollars, when secret codicils to the Iran nuclear talks are deemed too sensitive for mere voters – or even Congress, the peoples’ representatives, to be allowed to see them?

A Shift to the Far Left.  It didn’t work in Russia.  It didn’t work in China.  It didn’t work in Cuba.  It isn’t working in Venezuela or scores of other places so, what the heck, it attracts a certain bloc of voters, so let’s give it a try here. 

Duplicity.  This has to be said.  Using dirty tricks against Bernie Sanders to discredit any real opposition?  Saying one thing about Benghazi then saying “I don’t remember?”  Destroying 32,000-plus e-mails and droning, “I can’t recall?”  Sending Secret (defined as “serious damage to national security” if divulged) and Top Secret (“grave damage”) messages on a private server easily hacked by foreign agents and saying, “I didn’t know they were classified?”

There are many in America who dislike Donald Trump’s style, or lack thereof, and believes he is simply too volatile to lead the nation. But that same base also distrusts Hillary Clinton and believes she might be able to lead the nation – but in a direction they definitely do not want to go.  I believe that group is larger than the pollsters are reporting, primarily because no one wants to admit they might prefer a loose cannon willing to take a different approach.  

What if more Americans are considering voting differently than they are telling the pollsters? 

What if more Americans decide they want a Supreme Court that interprets the tenets of the US Constitution as written, not as it is “interpreted in light of changed conditions.” The Court doesn’t get to rewrite the Constitution, the people do, and only via Constitutional amendments.

What if more Americans are tired of having tin-horn dictators, pompous little Napoleon wannabes and Islamist terrorists denigrate our nation and, effectively, control our foreign policy? 

What if more Americans realize that welfare is not a job and “You want fries with that?” is not a job one is fated to perform for an entire lifetime

There is fear and loathing afoot in the land.  This election will determine if it surfaces or seethes again for another four years.  Even many well-educated and financially successful voters resent the new aristocracy the Reign of Error has bred and the elitism and entitlement they see as Hillary Clinton smugly proclaims that she is the heir apparent.

Some 38% of Americans now identify as “independent” regardless of the party with which they are registered.  I believe they will decide this election. 

Let’s get on with it.  No matter how bad it is, the checks and balances on executive authority will work as intended, and the longest each party’s partisans’ worst nightmare will last is four years before a new election takes place.  We’re Americans.  We’ve seen worse.  We can handle it.