It has been just eleven years since Lee Greenwood recorded GOD BLESS THE U.S.A.. In 1951, Red Foley's version of PEACE IN THE VALLEY was the first gospel music song to sell a million copies.
In 2020, National Public Radio announced that Cardi B's song WET ASS PUSSY was the greatest song of the year.
I have lived too long.
I know it.
I could do something about that, but I enjoy life too much. I do not credit the blessing of the Essene Jesus to my peace of mind: I credit the Law of Attraction.
I acknowledge that the Law of Attraction has some "new age" components and most denigrate it and dismiss it as self-hypnotism; but as Maharishi Mahesh Yogi once said, "Don't knock it if you haven't tried it".
We are exposed to negativity and fear 24/7 on our omnipresent television "news networks". Our parents (speaking as a member of the Dying Generation) were blessed with Walter Cronkite, David Brinkley, and Chet Huntley. These gentlemen presented the daily news in concise 30-minute presentations and then we were all free to watch entertainment like THE SHOW OF SHOWS, ED SULLIVAN, THE HONEYMOONERS and I LOVE LUCY.
For those unfortunate enough to be born in the 21st century, weekly sitcoms used to broadcast new shows for more than twelve weeks in a year. In 1955, there were 39 episodes of THE HONEYMOONERS produced and aired. Can you imagine that?
As Ol’ Man Time takes away my health and my mental acuity, the only character on television I can relate to is Abe Simpson (and I no longer watch THE SIMPSONS because it is no longer relevant, edgy, or funny).
But, enough about me.
I'd like to share a thought or four and then retire to my contemplation of the magical properties of the numbers 3, 6, and 9, the Golden Ratio, and the Fibonacci Sequence.
Have you noticed how television's propagandists are practically soiling themselves as they excitedly tell us how close Russian bombs are coming to NATO territory? Have you ever questioned what is going on in Ukraine or wondered how many American troops are on the ground in that country, "advising" the Ukrainian Azov Regiment? Are you aware that the Nazi leader from WW II, Stepan Bandera, is revered in western Ukraine or that Jews were rounded up and routinely robbed and murdered by the Nazi regime of Ukraine?
These, of course, are forbidden subjects, and have made me a subject of derision among my friends and family. The history of Ukraine, from its alliance with Hitler to its deals with Hunter Biden are available in the still-available Oliver Stone documentary UKRAINE ON FIRE.
That being said, if you are still reading, let me share a revelation I woke with this morning.
Television tells us that Russian troops are stalled around Kiev and digging in. We hear that the Ukrainians are successfully beating back the Russians and that the ignoble Russians are committing war crimes, using mercenary soldiers in the "genocide", and that there is now some concern that they are about to unleash biological weapons in their failing efforts.
First of all, I'd like to remind my readers of America's "war crimes" in WW II. We destroyed the beautiful historic city of Dresden. We fire-bombed Tokyo. We dropped the only nuclear weapons ever used on the civilians of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Secondly, for those who are excited to see pictures of Russian tanks settling in to berms as they surround Kiev, there is a term called a Siege that has been used for time immemorial to starve the citizens of an embattled city. That is what the Russians are doing. Why is the "news" suddenly frightening us with the thought that Russia might use biological weapons in their war against the fascists? Maybe it has something to do with the U.S. funded biolabs that will soon fall into Russian hands.
If you have watched the news lately, it might have struck you as odd that sophisticated printers are displayed prominently with the tons of supplies you have paid for to defend Ukraine. Could these be to print phony documents to place in the bio-labs as the scientists and military leaders anxiously destroy the evidence that might otherwise be discovered when Odessa falls?
Who knows anything, these days?
STRAY THOUGHTS
I don’t remember writing this, but I’m sure I must have. Then again, maybe not. It’s much kinder than anything I might have said.
Anyone with half a brain should be boiling with contempt, anger and distrust for the American government and its foreign acolytes of ruthless business-people. And that’s just on account of Russian activities of late. Never mind the china virus scam.
And for all the good folk who are upset with Mr. Putin; who clamor daily to send our teenagers to Ukraine to die for nothing; who stupidly believe that the U.S. is the center of the Universe; and who believe all countries can be prosperous all the time, and whose citizens should be free to go to the manicurist once a week to talk with their friends about the stock market, I say: There is something dreadfully wrong with your mind.
To them I say, try using that mind for a change. Maybe you could read a book; or maybe you could try thinking. Now there’s an idea.
Mr. Clemens is quite right to remind his readers about American atrocities. The ignorant among us are of course clueless. Anyone who believes the My Lai (pronounced ME-LIE) massacre was a one-off aberration is a dumbbell. And let’s not forget that the procedure affectionately known as scalping was introduced to the Stone Age inhabitants of this continent by sophisticated white Europeans. (Were the Plains Indians better off without the wheel? We can only wonder.)
Will U.S. citizens never snap to the fact that Ukraine’s Zelensky is no less a brutal thug than Russia’s Putin? Maybe after a few thousand flag-draped coffins arrive back in the states will they begin to understand how perfidious our political leaders are. And where were all the starry-eyed idealist supporters of “righteous” war when the Rwanda genocide was all the rage? Did a million or two corpses, all chopped to pieces with machetes not upset them? There must not be any oil in Rwanda.
And why are all the talking heads so hysterical about the prospect of nuclear war? An atom bomb is just a bomb. The razing of Dresden and Tokyo was not done with an atom bomb. Berlin was flattened, but not by atom bombs. Big deal, atom bombs. Nagasaki and Hiroshima today show no signs at all that they were leveled in 1945. I am much more afraid of Google than I am an atom bomb. And I am much more afraid of the think-tank neo-cons than I am of Google.
I doubt that many people are seriously concerned about a nuclear war (at least until Biden arranges for Iran to get one). In defense of our European forefathers, the earliest evidence I've seen of people scalping one another was in a book called THE TEMPLARS. Muslims regularly scalped Crusaders and showed off their scalps on their lances.