Progress During a Long Life

 

Progress During a Long Life

 We 21^st century moderns carry access to all the world’s information in our pockets or purses, in the form of an IPhone or  “smartphone” or “tablet”, that can connect wirelessly to all of this information, pretty much wherever we are in the world.

 It wasn’t that long ago, that if you needed to research something, you went to a library and found and opened an encyclopedia or dictionary or other reference source in book form, and looked up the subject.  Nowadays, you can pull out your smartphone, access the Britannica Encyclopedia or Webster’s Dictionary, or many other sources online, and get as concise or complete an answer as you wish.

 I’m an old guy, and my origins are in a little hill town in Western Massachusetts that was not even connected to the electrical grid during the Second World War, much less TV and internet.  I did homework by kerosene lamplight until my father installed a 32 volt generator and batteries to provide light, other than by candle or kerosene lamp.

 I attended a one room school with eight elementary grades.  From seven years of age onward, I started the fire in the pot-bellied stove before classes started on cold winter mornings.  Cherry Hill School was about a quarter-mile from our house, and the school is now a dwelling.  My nephew and his family now live in the old homestead, and my sister lives next door to them.

 We spent a lot of time outdoors. Swimming, pickup baseball and football, berry and mushroom picking, climbing trees and building forts in the woods in summer; sliding, skating and rudimentary skiing in winter; fishing and hunting when a little older.  Guns for hunting were tools to be learned about and respected, like other home and farm tools that could hurt you.

 News, primarily of how our troops were doing in WWII, was provided by the local newspaper, the “North Adams Transcript”, and radio, with Edward R. Murrow and others.  Radio also carried “The Lone Ranger”, “Green Lantern”, “The Shadow”, “Little Orphan Annie”, “Red Ryder” and other great and absorbing radio programs.  I got interested in the Boston Red Sox early on, and listened to, and scored their games.

 On many winter nights, AM radio signals would bounce off the ionosphere and provide reception of the “The Grand ‘Ol’ Opry” from WWVA, Wheeling, West Virginia, as well as stations from Indiana, Chicago, Pittsburgh, and from all over the country.  

 My first car was a 1937 Plymouth that I bought for $25.  It had faulty brakes, and my father helped me fix them.  We repaired and rebuilt our own cars, tearing down and restoring the internals of engines if necessary.  We also did our own carpentry, electrical, plumbing and other house repair and construction jobs.  This was knowledge that I took into adulthood, and used for my own cars, houses and life in general.

 My father built the house that we lived in, with help from friends experienced in the more esoteric building trades. I was taught early on that self-sufficiency was a virtue, and if you didn’t know how to do something, you learned how, and pretty much did most things yourself, relying only on more expert knowledge as a last resort.

 Of course, I lived through myriad inventions and innovations through the years.  TV, (one station, WRGB, from Schenectady, New York), came in 1948-49.  It was 50 miles away, so we needed a sizable antenna pointed at it.  I had an old Webster wire recorder with which I had a lot of fun.  Radios became smaller, and the current high-quality FM radio became ubiquitous during the 1950’s and 1960’s, after operating in two separate frequency bands for several years.

 I received my Chemical Engineering degree in 1959 using a slide rule to do all of my engineering coursework calculations.  Mechanical calculators and “Red eyed monster” electronic calculators soon followed in the 1960’s, costing thousands at first, then dollars, and then pennies soon thereafter.

 The first IBM computer that I used professionally was an IBM 704 in the old Union Carbide Building in NYC (now JP Morgan Chase corporate headquarters), that Caltex paid $600/hour to use.  It took up half of a NYC office floor, and was called a “704” because it had 4000 bytes (4kb) of memory.  I now have more, of a much more advanced type of memory, in my watch.  We punched our own IBM cards, carried them across the street in cans, and fed them into the card readers.  We changed out the “breadboard” in the massive computer to make a refinery simulation run, rather than an accounting run.

 Mankind went to our moon in 1969 using telemetry and about 2mb of computer memory.  You cannot buy such a small amount of memory these days.  The smallest modern flash drive is 2gb, about 1000 times the size of memory used to send Apollo 11 to the moon.

 Industrial computers became smaller, faster and more powerful, and hand-held calculators became promotional and give-away items. The invention and use of transistors and solid-state devices led to the conversion of mechanical and analog devices and data to more efficient digital form, and to an explosion of technology that resulted in world-wide digital networks.

 The Open Systems Interconnection model (OSI model), developed in the late 1970’s facilitated the proliferation of digital communications, and eventually, the internet, which was “wired”, at first, but soon became portable and “wireless”.  Devices using this technology proliferated, and really took off with the introduction of the first IPhones by Apple Computing in 2007.

 It would take a tome to track all of the technology and inventions of recent years, but some that quickly come to mind are video recording and improvements, CD and DVD technology, USB and flash drives, smart TV’s, more powerful smartphones, faster and more powerful wireless devices, smart appliances, and on and on.

 I’ll end here in our modern 21^st century world, having started in the 1930’s and 1940’s in a completely different and much simpler world.  My progeny might be writing a further chapter from their home on Mars or one of the gas giant’s moons, or from their vehicle in space.  I hope that human intelligence will continue into the future so that can happen.

Ray Gruszecki

July 31, 2021

Covid, and Control of the Country

 

Covid, and Control of the Country

 The world all of a sudden, had a killer virus, (released intentionally or accidentally), from China in late 2019.  President Trump, after some fumbling on how to handle the then unknown virus, pretty much immediately ordered and financed big pharma (with government funds), to develop effective vaccines against this Covid-19 killer virus.

 This was at the same time that Trump was leaning on big pharma to reduce their exorbitant prices for some drugs, which did not endear him to the industry, and they got back at him by withholding the good news about successful vaccines a few weeks, or so, until after the November, 2020 elections.

 As the vaccines were nearing successful completion of development, in an unheard of nine months from start, Joe Biden, and particularly Kamala Harris loudly proclaimed that they would not take the vaccines if they were recommended by President Trump.  This, of course, further politicized the issue of the vaccines, and threw the country into an increasingly doubtful state about the vaccines that persists to the present day.  There is now a lot of denial about this, but here is VP Harris, last year:  https://youtu.be/p7WD8l0Dc1I

 Among the political correctness, “wokeness”, cancel culture, critical race theory, multi-trillions in socialist spending and taxes, and myriad other socialist/communist predations being inflicted on the country, the one thing that Biden and his handlers seemed to be doing right was encouraging the country to get vaccinated.  Of course, this was accompanied by such ridiculous virtue signaling as wearing a mask (or double mask), while vaccinated, in the middle of an outdoor field, but the impetus for everyone to get vaccinated seemed sincere and pertinent.

 Alas, with time, though, as his boss Obama once said “Joe would f--- it up.”  And he and his handlers sure did.  “Masks on, masks off, vaccinated masks off for good”, -- oh wait, delta variant or zeta variant, or whatever, and masks back on again!  The vacillation and lack of consistency and a cohesive picture is appalling, and smacks of well-intentioned, but inept liberals trying, but failing, to act like adults.

 The Biden cabal’s intent to get everyone vaccinated was well intentioned.  But they have undercut the effort by politicizing it, and now are acting in a heavy-handed, totalitarian manner, to ram vaccination and mask wearing, including normally immune children, down people’s throats.  People are resisting vaccination, to their detriment, but what it’s proving is that people will only tolerate so much, before they take a stand.  Let’s hope they take a similar stand with “wokeness”, critical race theory and other “off the wall”, leftist inspired nonsense.

 Unfortunately, the controversial, but pragmatic businessman that ran the country before this current useful idiot, tweeted his frustrations late into the night directly to the people, and pissed many of them off with his pithy comments, notwithstanding his otherwise good works.  He withstood the massive intra-government, media, big-tech and Hollywood forces arrayed against him for four years, but they finally brought him down in a dubious election fueled by Covid-inspired election rule changes, media lies and two impeachments for trivialities.

 So, we head toward socialism/communism, with the thinnest of leftist margins, and with much of the younger country blissfully unaware that this corrosive ideology has never, ever worked successfully, wherever it was implemented, and has resulted in the deaths of 120 million people in the twentieth century.

 We can only hope that the greater American public will stop being docile, obedient sheep to the current democrat overlords, and vote them out of office during the mid-term elections.  If they do not, another two plus years of socialist rule will solidify our country as the United Socialist States of America.

Ray Gruszecki

July 31, 2021

Living Lies

 

Living Lies

 With each passing day, the Biden administration moves further and further toward socialist totalitarianism.  This is manifested by what once was once termed “political correctness” and “social justice”, but which increasingly taken on the mantle of “wokeness”, cancel culture”, and plain old socialism/communism.  

 Rather than a critical appraisal of this drive toward a one-party dictatorship, on the model of Venezuela, or twentieth century Eastern Europe, the mainstream media in this country looks more like the old Russian TASS or Pravda, or today’s RT, than an American free press.  ABC. CBS, NBC, CNN, NYT and WaPo, slavishly echo the party line lies of the socialist, left-wing Biden cabal.  They seem more interested in what flavor ice cream Joe likes, rather than the fact that he is ruining the country.

 The lies and obfuscation pervade all aspects of our society, from distortions about the Covid pandemic, vaccinations and masks, to lies about election laws and fraud, to lies about the effects of multi-trillion social and environmental programs on inflation, to lies about what is happening on our southern border, with unvaccinated illegal aliens, drugs, (including deadly fentanyl), streaming across the border, to lies about the massive numbers of black on black killings in our largest, democrat run cities.

 We are living in a truly dystopian society, caused by the mountains of inept and ineffectual executive orders and rules passed by Joe Biden at the behest of his handlers.  In the meantime, poor old Joe pats himself on the back with his old arrogance, now supported by the fawning media, as he stumbles and mumbles to put a cohesive sentence together.

 If this were President Trump, there would be talk of 25^th amendment action.  But this is a democrat, and it has to be evident to everyone, that there are two levels of justice in the country, one level of justice for republicans where the president is impeached with impunity over trivialities, and another level of justice for the democrats, where Hunter Biden charges millions of dollars for infantile bubble art which allows access to “the big guy”, while charged with firearms crimes and with an incriminating laptop, again glossed over by our biased media.

 Alas, alas for our poor, beleaguered country!

Ray Gruszecki

July 27, 2021

Our Encroaching Socialism

 

Our Encroaching Socialism

 Why do succeeding generations of younger people continue to be attracted by the siren song of the altruistic aspects of socialism and/or communism, as is happening right now in America?

 Have they not read, and do they not remember or understand the debilitating experience resulting in massive deaths, of nearly every country that has tried or experimented with these corrosive doctrines clothed in beneficent sounding rhetoric?

 In actual fact, every country that has been ruled by communism, has failed completely, or converted to quasi market-oriented dictatorships.  The most extant examples are the Soviet Union that fragmented into separate independent states in the early 1990’s, and China, a communist dictatorship converted to a market economy by Deng Xiaoping in the 1980’s.

 This is a partial list of people who died under communism during the 20^th century.  The total is over 120 million people, and does not include many other countries with smaller counts.

 China: 82 million,  USSR: more than 21 million,  North Korea: 4.6 million,  Vietnam: 3.8 million,  Cambodia: 2.4 million,  Afghanistan: 1.5 million,  Yugoslavia: 1,172,000,  Germany: 815,000,  Mozambique: 729,000,  Ethiopia: 725,000,  Romania: 435,000,  Czechoslovakia: 262,082,  Venezuela: more than 252,000,  Poland: more than 235,000,  Hungary: 210,000,  Angola: 125,000  Colombia: 105,419,  Albania: 100,000,  Rhodesia / Zimbabwe: more than 50,000,  Laos: 45,000,  Bulgaria: 31,150,  Cuba: 73,000.

 Why do communist/socialist regimes result in death of their citizens? After all, these political movements, as conceived by Marx, Engels and others, are for the benefit of the people, or for the proletariat, by getting the wealthy, or bourgeoisie to “pay their fair share”, and to “provide equity” in society.  Sound familiar?

 Socialism always starts out with dissatisfaction of the status quo, and with idealistic promises for the future.  In our current political environment, this dissatisfaction consists of several elements.  “Racism” is the catch-all used by the Marxist activists in our current government for a variety of imputed social ills.  “Racism” is also synonymous with “capitalism” in the current Marxist dialectic. 

The promise that will assuage this dissatisfaction is “free stuff for everyone”, particularly those that are deemed to have been culturally denied in the past.  This includes free health care, free abortion, free education and a myriad of other free social services, including a guaranteed job and an arbitrarily high minimum wage.  A recent phenomenon, free stealing from California stores, of items totaling less than $950.

How are these all to be paid for?  Why, by increased taxation, of course, coupled with the above mentioned redistribution of wealth.  In other words, socialism proposes to penalize the wealthy innovators to provide “free stuff” to everybody else, including those who are idlers in society.

Obviously, this does not come naturally, so other means are necessary.  It is absolutely essential to take the guns away and disarm everyone.  Speech disagreeing with “politically correct” social justice mundanity must be curtailed and termed as fascist or racist or “white supremist”.  Laws against emigration and movement by wealthy people and companies need to be enacted. Stronger government and erosion/cancellation of individual and civil rights must lead the body politic toward totalitarianism and away from any remnants of democracy.

These drastic measures are necessary because taxation can only go so far.  Confiscation requires a strong, dictatorial government.  Both socialism & communism require a commitment to the use of force.  You cannot decide what to do with the other guy’s money unless you are committed to use force to take that money from him. All socialist programs are mandatory.  This is the reality of socialism — a pseudo-religion grounded in pseudo-science and enforced by political tyranny.

But wait a moment, say our liberal apologists.  Your dissertations are based on perversions of the socialist dream of “equity” and “social justice”, and economic viability for everyone.  Our brand of socialism is truly altruistic, and “for the people”.  One can only respond, “originally, so was Hugo Chavez’ and Maduro’s for Venezuela”, and even Lenin’s for Russia and Mao’s for China.

But, our indomitable liberal will say, “what about the successful ‘cradle to grave’ socialism in the Scandinavian countries?  They are among the richest and best governed in the world.” 

Ask a Dane or a Swede about his “socialist” country, and they will laugh you out of the room.  These countries are among the most successful capitalist countries in the world.  What they have are extremely voluntary high tax rates that pay for their “cradle to grave” care.

I heard the numbers at a lecture in Estonia, (a model for the Scandinavian countries). The tax rate on earnings in Estonia is 55%, with a Value added tax, or VAT of 15%, for a total of 70 % of earnings.  A typical professional salary is about $3000/mo.  Tax is $2100, and take-home pay is $900/mo.  It is cradle to grave care, and it’s paid for by very high taxes.

Ray Gruszecki

July 25, 2021

GET VACCINATED

GET VACCINATED

 There are some fringe “anti-vaxxers” in the country, who would rather risk their children becoming deathly ill or dying from childhood diseases such as measles, mumps and diphtheria, rather than vaccinate them as infants.  There are other fringe groups that resist life and disease saving vaccinations because they feel that their rights and freedom of choice are being violated.

 And then there are those who are just confused by the inconsistent debates and politicization of the Covid vaccine issue to the point that they are hesitant, and unsure about the efficacy of the Covid vaccines, particularly since they were developed in such a short time frame.

 Notwithstanding all of the above, it has been scientifically and medically proven that the three anti-Covid vaccines available in this country, Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson, all work exceedingly well to prevent Covid infections and death.  The upshot to all eligible unvaccinated Americans is: “GET VACCINATED”.  The shots are free, readily available, and cause a minimum of side effects.

 They are not chicken or pig based.  They are biologically engineered, mRNA based.  They may result in a slightly sore arm or other minor reaction, but THEY MAY SAVE YOUR LIFE, particularly if you are older or have medical issues.

 President Trump initiated and oversaw the development of the “Warp Speed” program to produce effective vaccines within nine months.  Unfortunately, progress on the vaccines was met with bitter anti-Trump rhetoric, with Kamala Harris and others saying, “I won’t take the vaccines if Trump says they’re OK.”  Also, the release of the vaccines was held up until after the November presidential election, so that President Trump would not get positive publicity prior to the election.

 The vaccines were denigrated by the democrats and their media and big tech accomplices because President Trump had a hand in their development, and of course, this confused the issue further for the uninformed American public.

 The heavy-handed Biden cabal just stomps all over the First Amendment by their “big brother” tactics threatening citizens if they don’t get vaccinated.  The cause to get everyone vaccinated is valid, but many people resent the tactics they use.

 So, it is no wonder that many Americans refuse to get vaccinated.  Vacillating politicians, scientists and doctors have sown confusion in the American public to the point where many people really have forgotten the importance of getting vaccinated.  And as Joe Biden is wont to say “PEOPLE ARE DYING”; only not from Facebook, - from confusion historically disseminated by the democrats.

Ray Gruszecki

July 18, 2021

State Election Rules and Audits

 

State Election Rules and Audits

 Discussion of the fraudulent or stolen 2020 election by the democrats has been censored by the socio-fascist Biden administration, their biased media accomplices, and the equally biased big tech oligarchs.  Mention of the thousands of whistle blowers reporting election anomalies and down-right fraud and cheating has been dismissed and censured out of hand, as has the unconstitutional tampering with state election laws and rules by democrat party operatives.  Also dismissed are media efforts during the election campaign, to either withhold news detrimental to the democrats, such as the details of Hunter Biden’s laptop, or manufacture and embellish news detrimental to President Trump and the republicans.

 Democrats have rationalized that election aberrations, such as mass ballot mailings and harvesting, lack of identity verification and control, and outdated poll and death lists, were necessary because of the Covid pandemic.  When asked “how could Joe Biden, sitting in his basement, garner 15 million more votes than the saintly Barrack Obama did in a previous election”, the democrats’ response was, “not to worry”, “nothing to see here”.

 But even though what now stands as government, together with the massed biased, dishonest media and big tech, yowl at every turn, responsible state leaders are passing laws to redress the 2020 election frauds by making it more difficult to cheat, and conducting audits of the 2020 election results.  Arizona and Georgia are close to reversing their 2020 election results, and Pennsylvania and Wisconsin could soon follow.  

 Per the attached link, if all four swing states reverse their 2020 election results, President Trump would have won the election, with concomitant effects on the congress.  However, there is no mechanism under the constitution to replace a president and members of congress six months to a year into the present term.  As the article says, “we just don’t know”.

 Let’s just hope that the American people, once they know what’s happening, will not allow a group of smart-assed socialist/communist democratic operatives, to so blatantly change our country into a totalitarian, one-party, hard-left oligarchy

 https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/07/what_if_the_2020_election_audits_show_trump_really_won.html

Ray Gruszecki

July 18, 2021

The “Warlock”

 

The “Warlock”

 In the 1970-71 time frame, post-divorce, I was living alone in Midtown Manhattan and working as a supervisor in my career profession, with Process Engineering, Caltex Petroleum Corp.  My official IRS address at this time was in Savoy, Massachusetts, 170 miles north, where my kids were being raised by my mother.  I spent Monday through Friday working in the City, and the weekends in the Berkshires with my kids and extended family.

 A summer attraction at that time, was “Windsor Pond”, a beach, pavilion and recreational area about 3 miles from my mother’s house, and owned by my brother-in-law’s father, Karim Ziter.  One side of the pavilion was a bar and grill, serving a full range of beers, wines and liquor.

 I had known Karim Ziter for years, long before his son married my sister.  As things developed, I end up tending bar for Karim, part time, on some summer weekends, so I was familiar with the pavilion, bar and environs.

 This one particular Sunday, I was not tending bar at Windsor Pond, I was running errands in nearby Adams, Massachusetts.  When I arrived at the pavilion and bar that afternoon, there was a large crowd milling outside of the premises, with none of the crowd inside. The crowd advised that Karim was inside holding a biker gang member, who had become violent and destructive, at bay, with a pistol.

 Now, I am not a particularly brave or rash person, but is was evident to me that Karim was in need of some help.  No one in this fairly sizable crowd of friends and neighbors obviously was about to do anything positive, other than “watch the show”.

 So, I went inside, and Karim appeared relieved to have some backup.  He instructed me to “go in the back and get the shotgun”.  Karim’s wife and daughter were in the back of the pavilion, and found the shotgun, but not the shells.  We scrambled around trying to find the shells, but to no avail.  We couldn’t find them, so after ensuring that the State Police had been called, I took the empty shotgun into the main pavilion area, and placed it on the counter across from where Karim sat holding a small pistol.

 Karim’s pistol did not seem to be much bigger than .32 caliber, which probably would have pissed off the big, burly biker if he were shot.  It turns out that the biker was actually a member of the fierce Warlocks biker gang.  And there we were, Karim with a puny nickel-plated small caliber pistol, and me, with an empty shotgun.  Although, of course, the biker didn’t know that the shotgun was empty.

 We sat that way for an interminable time, probably a half hour or so, with the biker making threats. but taking no actions.  Karim later told me that before I came in with the shotgun, this guy was about ready to cover the 25-30 feet between them, and try to take the small pistol away from him.  The shotgun thwarted that, since the biker thought that I had him in a crossfire.

 A Massachusetts State Trooper finally arrived, arrested the biker, and normalized the situation.   When I told the cop about the empty shotgun, he patted me on the back for contributing to keeping the biker docile, at the same time admonishing me for being so dumb.

 Since the Warlocks had a reputation for violence, Karim was somewhat fearful that this guy would come back, in force, with his “crew”.  Thankfully, this never happened, but I’m sure Karim bought some shotgun shells, just in case.

 What lesson did I learn from this incident?  This was not exactly my first rodeo.  I had to evacuate my family out of Beirut, Lebanon during the Six Day War in 1967, just after proximate, violent riots.  Also, I was a drinker back then, and had been in several tight situations, both foreign and domestic.

 What I learned is that people are like sheep.  They will rarely get out of their comfort zone, no matter what the situation.  But there are some situations in this world where, no matter how unpleasant or potentially dangerous, when one needs to take action.  Not out of bravery or bravado, but because it’s the right thing to do.  I’ve pretty much lived my long life this way, and some may call me a “cowboy”, “mais, non, je ne regrette rien”.

Ray Gruszecki

July 17, 2021

Will America Ever Recover?

 

Will America Ever Recover?

 Will America ever recover from “Jim Crow” Joe Biden and his socialist/communist handlers?  We hope so, for we Americans have prevailed over various past attacks to our liberty, freedom and values, such as McCarthyism in the 1950’s, the anti-war and race riots of the 1960’s, a debilitating civil war in the nineteenth century, two world wars, and many other civil and political upheavals.

 In spite of the impact of ruinous policies on the country, the cognitively deficient Joe Biden pats himself on the back as doing a great job, in an ersatz arrogance generated and supported by his Marxist puppeteers.

 In truth, everything these Marxists touch turns to crap.  They have now pretty much undone everything positive that President Trump had accomplished, and replaced it, and more, with Marxist based, liberty diminishing programs and rules. 

 The current Marxist based attack on our society, culture and heritage is truly alarming, because it employs the tools of Marx, Lenin and Trotsky, to permanently make our country a one party, totalitarian, socialist, dictatorship, on the model of Maduro’s Venezuela and other socialist/communist dictatorships.

 Since the classic communist class struggle doesn’t fit well in a relatively wealthy country like the U.S., the socialist/communist left has replaced class with race in their efforts to tear down our capitalist-based society, and replace it with a socialist dystopia. 

 A distorted hero/martyr of the left in this effort, is a black criminal and drug addict, unfortunately killed by a white police officer in Minneapolis last May, and elevated to an undeserved god-like status.

  Organizations that have wheedled their way into popular, government, media and corporate acceptance and support, are Marxist based Black Lives Matter and to some extent, Antifa.  Both of these are acknowledged Marxist inspired organizations, yet are accepted by many Americans as valid social justice movements.

 Some of the tools being used to destroy the foundations of American history, culture, heritage and values are anti-history theories such as Critical Race Theory, again with origins within the communist dialectic, and the New York Time’s 1619 Project, which are being taught to our elementary school children, with the backing of the teacher’s unions.  These teachings posit discrimination based on skin color, and black/minority supremacy over white “systemic racism”.

 Other insidious propaganda and indoctrination techniques include “wokeness” identity politics and cancel culture, which are intended to accomplish the same in our overall society as being taught in our schools, - that the country is “systemically racist”, and must atone through reparations, for the past 400 years.  Most of these propositions have been slavishly accepted by most elements of our society, certainly by the main stream media, Hollywood and big tech, but also corporate America, and even, recently, the military.

 Politically, the senile Joe Biden, orchestrated by the democrat-socialist left, would like nothing better than to consolidate socialist/communist one-party power forever.  Of course, with a very slim house majority, and a 50/50 senate, this sounds like delusions of grandeur.

 Nonetheless, what the leftist democrats want to do, is eliminate the senate filibuster, making the senate just another weak majority body.  If they can accomplish this, (and they are close), they can pack the SCOTUS with additional leftist judges, pack the congress with additional leftist states, like DC and Puerto Rico, and therefore exclude the republicans from government, and ensure a one-party totalitarian, socialist/communist government forever.

 Even without the potential destruction of our two-party system, what Biden and his puppeteers have destroyed in their six months in office is amazing.

 They have spent trillions of dollars, already leading to inflation, and want to spend $4 trillion more, primarily for “green new deal” pork and bailout of poorly run democrat cities.

 We have an open southern border, where not only economic immigrants, but also potential terrorists, drugs, including fentanyl, have open access to our country.

 Crime is rampant, particularly in our democratic-run cities, after leftist efforts to “defund the police”.  Biden’s & minions’. Answer?  Guns are doing it, so pass laws restricting legal gun ownership.

 Since Biden and his handlers have shut down oil leases and pipelines, we are no longer energy independent, and gasoline prices are approaching $5.00/gal in some states.

 We are a laughing stock internationally.  “The suckers are back”, say the Europeans, while China’s Xi, Russia’s Putin, Turkey’s Erdogan, and other despots lick their chops at our weak excuse for a president, his “rock ‘n roll” secretary of state, and his “woke” military. 

 We have re-joined organizations that are detrimental to the U.S., such as the Paris Climate Accords, and are acquiescing to the Iranians on the defunct Iranian nuclear agreement.

 And the recent crowning achievement is to invite the typically left-wing United Nations to investigate the “systemic racism” in our country.

 Many people becoming aware that not all is as it seemed in November, 2020.  President Trump was right, and did right in many instances where he was excoriated by the biased left-wing media, including for a fraudulent election, although discussing this latter is taboo in Biden’s “communo-fascism”.

 Moderate “Grandpa” Joe Biden is no moderate.  He has swallowed the socialist/communist Koolaid, and sways with the prevailing political winds, as he has done for 50 years.  He, and his administration are attempting to destroy this country, before rebuilding it as a socialist/communist dystopia, just like Marx, Lenin and Trotsky postulated.

 Hopefully in 2022, we will vote these clowns out, (if we still can), and render Biden and his handlers ineffective, or hopefully impeach him and Kamala Harris as socialists and communists, and make Kevin McCarthy president until Trump returns to steer the country back on its traditional free path in 2024.

Ray Gruszecki

July 15, 2021

Two Poems

 

Two Poems

 Two poems defining conservative / libertarian values, in the face of the “woke”, cancel culture police.

 “If-“, Rudyard Kipling

 If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,

Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,

And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

 

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;

If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;

If you can meet with triumph and disaster

And treat those two imposters just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,

And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;

 

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

To serve your turn long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";

 

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

Or walk with kings—nor lose the common touch;

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;

If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -

Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,

And—which is more—you'll be a Man my son!

—Rudyard Kipling

  

Invictus, William Ernest Henly

 Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the Pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be

For my unconquerable soul.

 

In the fell clutch of circumstance

I have not winced nor cried aloud.

Under the bludgeonings of chance

My head is bloody, but unbowed.

 

Beyond this place of wrath and tears

Looms but the Horror of the shade,

And yet the menace of the years

Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

 

It matters not how strait the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll.

I am the master of my fate:

I am the captain of my soul.

-----William Ernest Henley

Ray Gruszecki

July 10, 2021

On Afghanistan

 

On Afghanistan

 The Biden Marxist government, in a sophomoric, ill thought out and precipitous action, ordered all U.S. troops out of Afghanistan, forthwith.  Other NATO forces are right behind the U.S. withdrawal.

 After Twenty years of war, over 2400 American military lives, and over $2.2 trillion in U.S. taxpayer funds, are to be for naught, since the same Taliban that ruled the country as a seventh century fiefdom, is poised to once again subjugate the country to a brutal form of Wahhabism inspired, literally, by seventh century, Islam.

 Not to say that we should not be getting out of Afghanistan after America’s longest war, but not via a juvenile, naïve, total withdrawal on the spur of the moment, leaving billions of war materiel behind for the Taliban, but no residual exit forces.

 Joe Biden’s assurances to the uninformed masses, that the non-Taliban Afghan forces are strong enough to fend of the ever-encroaching Taliban are marvels of wishful thinking and dishonesty.  Our Rock’n’roll Secretary of State, Blinken, must have told Grandpa Joe this bedtime story with his warm milk.

 This article is somewhat dated, from 2014. (It’s interesting that the author talks about a NATO withdrawal in late 2014).  These are some quotes about Afghanistan being “unconquerable”. –

 “It is clearly not true, as is sometimes said, that its impossible to conquer Afghanistan -many Empires have done so, from the ancient Persians, through Alexander the Great to the Mongols, the Mughals and the Qajars.

 But the economics means that it is impossible to get Afghanistan to pay for its own occupation - it is, as the then Emir said as he surrendered to the British in 1839, "a land of only stones and men".

 Any occupying army here will hemorrhage money and blood to little gain, and in the end most throw in the towel, as the British did in 1842, as the Russians did in 1988 and as NATO will do later this year.”

 https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-26483320

 

This article by “The Diplomat” gives a brief description of the various powers that have invaded Afghanistan over the centuries, with mixed success.  To be noted is the fact that Afghanistan in nearly 100% Muslim, owing to the fact that the territory was conquered and converted to Islam by invading Arabs during the 7^th century.

 “During the 7th century, the Rashidun Caliphate Arabs entered the territory that is now Afghanistan after defeating the Sassanian Persians in Nihawand. After this colossal defeat, the last Sassanid emperor, Yazdegerd III, fled eastward deep into Central Asia. In pursuing Yazdegerd, the Arabs entered the area from northeastern Iran via Herat, where they stationed a large portion of their army before advancing toward northern Afghanistan.

 Many of the inhabitants of northern Afghanistan accepted Islam through Umayyad missionary efforts, particularly under the reign of Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik and Umar ibn AbdulAziz. In the south, Abdur Rahman bin Samara made incursions into Zabulistan which was ruled by the Zunbils.

 https://thediplomat.com/2017/06/why-is-afghanistan-the-graveyard-of-empires/

 

The U.S. is not the first world empire to founder on the rocks and mountains and Mujaheddin of Afghanistan.  One would think that we would have learned something from the past invaders, particularly the USSR in 1988, and the British Empire in the nineteenth century, who, in 1842, lost 4,500 troops, along with about 12,000 civilians: the latter comprising both the families of Indian and British soldiers, plus workmen, servants and other Indian camp-followers, annihilated by Afghan tribesmen.

 A quote from Rudyard Kipling’s “Young British Soldier”, -

“When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains,

And the women come out to cut up what remains,

Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains

an' go to your Gawd like a soldier.

Go, go, go like a soldier,”

 

Ray Gruszecki

July 10, 2021

Intellectual Arguments, Pro and Con, on Critical Race Theory

 

Intellectual Arguments, Pro and Con, on Critical Race Theory

 These are two current intellectual arguments for and against Critical Race Theory being taught in American K-12 schools.

 The New York Times essay is by Kmele Foster, David French, Jason Stanley and Thomas Chatterton Williams, who are represented as a cross-partisan group of thinkers who have written extensively about authoritarianism, liberalism and free speech.

 The response in National Review is by Cameron Hilditch, who is a William F. Buckley Fellow in Political Journalism at National Review Institute.

 These arguments are lengthy and somewhat cerebral.  They present intellectual arguments, and not emotional appeals.  They present the liberal (NYT) case for Critical Race Theory, and the conservative (National Review) case against it.  These articles are well worth the read to stay informed on this important, divisive topic.

 https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/07/ban-critical-race-theory-from-k-12-classrooms-a-response-to-the-new-york-times/

 https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/05/opinion/we-disagree-on-a-lot-of-things-except-the-danger-of-anti-critical-race-theory-laws.html

Ray Gruszecki

July 8, 2021

Where is the Outrage, - Again?

 

Where is the Outrage, - Again?

 This Fourth of July weekend there were 287 violent deaths and 687 acts of violence in the country.  Most of these were shootings by black men shooting other black men in mostly black   democrat run cities.  17 deaths, including 2 children, and 108 shootings happened in Chicago.

 Where is the outrage?  Where is Black Lives Matter and Antifa protesting in the streets at these atrocities, as they did during the summer of 2020 in response to the killing of a black criminal and junkie by a cop in Minneapolis?

 These black on black killings are not in the current narratives of those black mayors running our cities, or the upscale Washington narratives of the Marxists running a senile Joe Biden.  The universal response and rhetoric to these killings? – pass increasingly restrictive laws against legal firearms owners, lying to the uninformed masses that this will somehow impact the illegal street guns available like candy in our large cities.

 So why all this violence, amidst calls to “defund the police”, and calls for other social disorder by our political and sociological leaders?  In order to answer this question, we have to realize that what is happening in this country is an attempt at a Marxist revolution, where our American liberties, values and culture, are being replaced by Leninist, Trotskyite and Alinskyite principles.  Instead of class war in our wealthy country, race is being used as the divisive sociological element.  Violence and chaos in our cities are links in the Marxist march to a one-party, totalitarian socialist/communist government.

 From Lenin: - “The Leninist branch of Marxism argues that a proletarian revolution must be led by a vanguard of "professional revolutionaries", men and women who are fully dedicated to the communist cause and who form the nucleus of the communist revolutionary movement. This vanguard is meant to provide leadership and organization to the working class before and during the revolution, which aims to prevent the government from successfully ending it”.

 From Trotsky: - “Revolution is impossible without the participation of the masses. This participation is in its turn possible only when the oppressed masses connect their hopes for a better future with the idea of revolution. In a sense the hopes engendered by the revolution are always exaggerated.”.

 From Alinsky: - “A revolution without a prior reformation would collapse or become a totalitarian tyranny. A reformation means that masses of our people have reached the point of disillusionment with past ways and values. They don't know what will work but they do know that the prevailing system is self-defeating, frustrating, and hopeless. They won't act for change but won't strongly oppose those who do. The time is then ripe for revolution”

 We need responsible government.  We need leaders who pass and apply laws that protect the people.  We need American patriots who are not afraid of the ridiculous social (and socialist) trends such as “wokeness”, “critical race theory’, cancel culture that are now pervading our society.  We need common sense.  We need a return to American founding principles, rather than allowing the Marxists to tear our country apart.

Ray Gruszecki

July 6, 2021

Grandpa Joe and the Marxists

 

Grandpa Joe and the Marxists

 I can cut Joe Biden some slack on his bumbling caused by senility.  I am his senior by several years, and have balance issues due to age, past back surgery, and several knee replacements.  I also have several good, very accomplished, friends who have succumbed to dementia and/or Alzheimer’s, and are effectively no longer with us in the real world.  Thankfully, my mind still works reasonably well, other than maybe sometimes not remembering that actor’s name immediately.

 Because of his obvious diminished mental capacity, Joe Biden should not be sitting as President of anything, least of all, our country.  “Saint” Obama recognized this when he admonished Biden not to run for president early on.  Nonetheless, the alt-left, Marxist power brokers recognized that if they could use their considerable media, big tech and propaganda resources to push “good ol’ Grandpa Joe”, with nearly 50 years of relatively undistinguished government experience into the presidency, they would have the ideal stalking horse to implement their Marxist goals.

 There is still some doubt about Biden’s election to the presidency.  Forgetting the many whistleblowers reporting anecdotal election abuses, and even forgetting the unconstitutional modifications of state election rules in the main swing states by left-wing operatives, can one forget that Joe Biden is deemed to have received 15 million more votes that the saintly Barrack Obama did, all by sitting in his basement for most of the campaign?  It is not “cool” in this “woke”, Marxist, Biden world to ask such questions, particularly after the January 6^th protests at the capitol, which, rather than being classified along with the BLM and Antifa riots during the summer of 2020, are being represented by the leftist propaganda machine as “the worst attack since the War of 1812” on the capitol.

 There is no slack like that for the senile Biden, for what is happening to our country.  Both the president and our congressional leaders have sold out to the Marxist based alt-left who are trying to change our country into a one-party, totalitarian, socialist/communist oligarchy, as quickly as possible, before the people (if they still can), change the congress in 2022.

 Everything that Biden and his puppeteers touch smacks of the above drive toward socialism/communism.  Their first goal seems to be to undo everything positive that President Trump accomplished.  This includes opening the southern border to all comers, including criminals, Fentanyl and other drugs, Middle East terrorists, etc.; - closing down our economic sources of energy and pipelines, and reverting to expensive imports; - defunding police in major democrat run cities, to the detriment of black and brown minorities; - joining the international “club”, where our trade agreements always favor the “other party”, rather than the U.S., and “other parties” shirk their 2% of GDP obligation; - rejoining the one-sided Paris Climate Accords and Iran Nuclear agreement; - rather than love of our country, flag, history and values, financing and backing Marxist, anti-American “woke” cancel culture, fed by identity politics such as “The 1619 Project”, “Critical Race Theory”; - defunded police and other trappings of the continuously emerging Marxist dystopia.

 We are again the “suckers”, and the laughing stock of the international community, particularly, China, Iran and Russia, who are poised to further their national goals at our expense.  To our allies, “good old Grandpa Joe is back, with the U.S. taxpayers’ checkbook.  “It’s so nice to have you back in the club, after that nasty Trump made us pay our own way.”

 Trillions of “pork barrel” social programs have been passed, and trillions more incipient, via the reconciliation process.  Inflation, of course, is the obvious result, from printing these trillions.

 Perhaps the most insidious of the measures being considered by the Biden cabal is the weakening of the senate by eliminating the 60-vote filibuster and making it a strict majority body like the house.  Next would come the march toward a one-party totalitarian dictatorship, by hijacking of our state election laws, packing of SCOTUS to make it a rubber stamp socialist body, and admitting more states with leftist congressmen, to ensure leftist socialist hegemony forever.

 We are fed the most egregious lies and “newspeak” imaginable by Biden and his minions, and by the biased, propagandizing, pro Biden mainstream media.  The trillion-dollar programs are called “American Rescue Plan”, “Covid relief plan” or “infrastructure plan” or “jobs plan”, whereas the bulk of these plans are pure socialist “pork” or environmental socialism ala the “green new deal”.

 So, this is where we stand, with poor old Grandpa Joe bumbling and stumbling, and reading (barely), from the prepared and scripted “press conference” prepared notes, and “getting in trouble”, in any impromptu or ad hoc exchange.  And his minions building him up to an ersatz arrogance, where he actually thinks that he is doing great, rather than ruining the country, by his administration’s almost communistic drive for one-party domination.

Ray Gruszecki

July 3, 2021