Number Two in the Wings of War series, this novel gets its name from an air interdiction operation against a segment of the Ho Chi Minh Trail.
Author Mark Berent was a fighter pilot in Vietnam who also took the initiative to find out what the war on the ground was like. That means his characters/stories have, as a backdrop, a fairly cohesive strategic and tactical overview (such as a strategic concept was, in Vietnam).
Jet jock Court Bannister has finished his first combat tour and has managed to earn a slot in Test Pilot School for the second time. That’s a step toward becoming an astronaut, which is his ambition.
Meanwhile, Toby Parker is also stateside, officially earning his wings. His hoity-toity family is pleased with the enhanced status he lends them by having become a hero, but not so pleased with his intentions of remaining in the Air Force. Given his alcoholism and increasingly rebellious behavior, not everone in the Air Force thinks he should stay in, either.
Wolf Lochert, fighting a whole different sort of campaign on the ground, is an unconventional warrior in an unconventional war who is just too unconventional for the typical snooty brass who are overseeing the lose/lose experimental quagmire in Vietnam.
Both pilots are privileged offspring of wealthy parents, but also way too cowboy for their chains-of-command. By saving another test pilot’s life, along with an expensive aircraft, Bannister is judged unfit for the astronaut program. Parker is an outstanding flier, but his reckless antics get him barred from flying fighters. Both of them wind up returning to Vietnam.
The author, back in the day.
A fatal barroom brawl lands Wolf Lochert in military prison, and his fate appears grim.
From available information, it would seem that Berent was a good pilot. While I wasn’t there, hence can’t confirm or deny, I can confirm that he is a great storyteller. Tom Clancy said Berent spun yarns of “good men in a bad war” and that sums up Wings of War quite well. His three primary characters work within the idiotic constraints they are saddled with, and pursue a victory that is forbidden by Washington.
The author interprets the jargon and explains some technical details which might otherwise confuse some readers; but doesn’t interrupt the story flow long enough to be a nuisance. He’s also got some “character sketches” that will probably resonate with anybody who has served some time in the military.
With all this you get a Soviet MiG pilot, a wartime sting operation, plus glimpses inside the Hanoi Hilton and the Johnson State Department.
Steel Tiger is credible, informative, and great fun to read.
With a thrilling last second see-saw finish, Tony Stewart fought his way to a win at Sonoma on Sunday. This was his first win since coming back from a spinal injury, in what will be his last season in NASCAR’s Cup series.
Stewart’s fortunes improved when Lady Luck gave the field a caution right after his green flag pit stop, and he took the lead for the first time. After two deft restarts. he held off Martin Truex Jr. and Denny Hamlin, in turn…until the very last lap. Stewart got loose and let Hamlin get around him, and it looked like it was all over (despite announcer and former race driver Jeff Gordon assuring the audience it was not).
Two turns later, Hamlin was paying more attention to Stewart in his mirror than negotiating the turn, and drifted too wide on entrance. Stewart dove underneath, taking the inside of the curve. They traded some paint, and Hamlin bounced off the wall. Stewart sped away and took the checkered flag seconds later.
Tony Stewart has got some bragging rights–the only driver to win championships in both NASCAR and Indy Car; and to win championships with three different Cup sponsors–Winston, Nextel and Sprint. He’s also got eight road course wins.
The race was not without its heartbreaks. Clint Boyer suffered a DNF (Did Not Finish) due to an electrical fire. A.J. Allmendinger took the lead for a while and looked very strong until a bad adjustment during a pit stop got him moving backwards through the field. And Dale Earnhardt Jr, who had a well-performing car and was moving forward all day (despite some pit stop setbacks), was on the receiving end of an automotive billiards shot resulting in a tire rub that yanked him out of the top ten.
Stewart was having a rough season, but now he’s in the Chase. Maybe this is the turning point in what will be a Cinderella season.
Sonoma (formerly Sears Point) and Watkins Glen are the two Cup Series road courses, and my favorite races of the season take place there.
…And gives Hillary the pimp-slapping she deserves.
I apologize for linking to Politico; but a search for Trump’s speech failed to locate a transcript on any site besides the leftist virtual rags.
There was plenty more that The Donald could have said about the Clintons, but what he did say opened a whole can of butthurt on Hillary and her army of useful idiots. Really, this speech was unprecedented in my lifetime.
Even a goose-stepping leftard gets something right every once in a while.
The elites have mastered the science of limiting our choices, then getting us to bicker about what is within their approved frame of debate. Policies which would put American interests first do not fit within the approved frame of choices. Other nations are allowed, expected, and encouraged to seek their own interests first, but this is forbidden for the USA. Donald Trump just took a chainsaw to the Approved Frame and stomped the fragments to splinters. Not even Reagan managed to implement “America First” trade and foreign policies, though perhaps he would have liked to. If President Trump’s actions match this rhetoric, we will witness an attempt at a polar shift in policy (which could have saved the country 20-30 years ago).
The Clintons and Obama have committed high crimes and treason worthy of the death penalty. While it’s expected that the press and the Democrats (forgive the redundancy) would approve of their treachery, and assist in the cover-ups, one would at least expect their “opposition” in the GOP, Fox News, et al, to take them to task for it. But “conservatives” (whatever that means) prefer to strain out gnats while swallowing camels. That’s why, for instance, the GOP made a big deal out of one of Bill Clinton’s tamer sexcapades, while hardly mentioning his giving of military secrets to Red China. No doubt many in the GOP were successfully blackmailed via the FBI dossiers on them criminally obtained by the Clintons; but there’s also the insane unwritten rule among NeoCons that Democrats should get off scot-free when the their crimes are so heinous that drawing attention to them would transgress some unwritten sense of propriety. Donald Trump just skull-stomped that tradition, too. Nobody else running for public office anywhere has had the guts to call a skunk a skunk. The Donald just drew attention to highlights of Hillary’s rap sheet that Big Media has been working so craftily and diligently to hide. I have underestimated before both Big Media’s capacity for doubling down, and the obedience of two-legged sheep who follow Big Media to think only what they are told to think…but it seems to me it’s gonna be very difficult to get the toothpaste back in the tube now that Trump has squeezed it out.
We will never be able to fix a rigged system by counting on the same people who rigged it in the first place. – Donald Trump
Republicans are supposed to bring knives to gunfights. Donald Trump just brought a full auto grenade launcher. This is yet another reason the RINOs will just hate him even more, and shriek how they will vote for Hillary instead of him.
She gets rich making you poor.
…Hillary Clinton has also been the biggest promoter of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which will ship millions more of our jobs overseas – and give up Congressional power to an international foreign commission. – Donald Trump
Kudos to Trump for drawing a distinct line between himself and the globalists. It’s a shame Trump decided to infect such a strong speech by pandering to LGBTs and Bernie Sanders voters (forgive the redundancy). He also checked the “poor moderate Muslim victims” box, too. Granted: even firebrands feel the need to butter up the fickle swing voters on occasion, and being from New York, it’s quite possible that his warm, squishy sentiments toward sexual deviants, socialist midwits and backslidden cultists are authentic; but a better strategy would have been to stick to bold, cocksure Trumpian broadsides against his selected targets, like this one:
Ambassador Stevens and his staff in Libya made hundreds of requests for security.
Hillary Clinton’s State Department refused them all.
She started the war that put him in Libya, denied him the security he asked for, then left him there to die.
To cover her tracks, Hillary lied about a video being the cause of his death. – Donald Trump
How are Hillary, her handlers, and the globalist machine going to handle broadsides like this?
Until they can lock down the Internet and reassert their monopoly on the flow of information, this is a sticky wicket for them. My best guess is that they will ignore the specifics Hillary is called out on, and try to dismiss the speech in its entirety as delusional crackpot fodder. Oh yeah, and racist, of course. But it’s not an easy assignment–they must avoid, at all costs, intriguing ignorant fence-sitters into actually listening to the charges. Hearing Trump’s actual words might motivate them to do some fact-checking of their own, and the usurpers dare not let Hillary’s track record come under any meaningful scrutiny. They have to assassinate Trump’s character, somehow, if not the man himself. There are efforts to do this, ongoing, like the Trump University controversy and vague accusations about his business practices… but they have been uncharacteristically inept, so far.
The irony of it is, they’ve had such success ruining America’s moral compass (in order to get the sheeple to accept the amoral scum they foist on us every election, and to normalize perversity), that stirring up moral outrage against Trump for unethical practices, real or fabricated, is hardly an effective tactic anymore.
Here are a few things a Trump Administration will do for America in the first 100 days:
Appoint judges who will uphold the Constitution. Hillary Clinton’s radical judges will virtually abolish the 2nd amendment.
Change immigration rules to give unemployed Americans an opportunity to fill good-paying jobs
Stand up to countries that cheat on trade, of which there are many
Cancel rules and regulations that send jobs overseas
Rolling Thunder is the first novel in Mark Berent’s Wings of War series. The title comes from a strategic bombing campaign during US involvement in Vietnam.
Here’s a little about the author:
Lt Col Berent began his Air Force career as an enlisted man, then progressed through the aviation cadet program. He attended pilot training at Columbus Air Force Base, Mississippi and then Laredo Air Force Base, Texas flying the T-6, T-28 and T-33 aircraft and then moved on to F-86s at Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada. He served on active duty for 23 years until retirement in 1974. He began his operational flying career in the F-86 and F-100 flying at various posts throughout the United States and Europe. He later served three combat tours, completing 452 combat sorties, first in the F-100 at Bien Hoa Air Base, South Vietnam, the F-4 at Ubon Royal Thai Air Base, Thailand, and then in Cambodia for two years to fly things with propellers on them and through a fluke in communications timing, to personally run the air war for a few weeks.
He has also served two tours at the United States Space and Missile System Organization (SAMSO) at Los Angeles, California working first in the Satellites Control Facility and later as a staff developmental engineer for the space shuttle. In his expansive career he has seen service as an Air Attaché to the United States Embassy, Phnom Penh, Cambodia and also as Chief of Test Control Branch at the Air Development and Test Center at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida. He also served as an instructor at the Air Force’s Squadron Officer School.
…His decorations include the Silver Star, Legion of Merit, Distinguished Flying Cross with one oak leaf cluster, Bronze Star, Air Medal with twenty four oak leaf clusters, Vietnam Cross of Gallantry, Cambodian Divisional Medal, and numerous Vietnam Campaign ribbons...
Quite a guy. And Berent tells a rip-snorting story of the air war over Vietnam.
The characters are great–Hollywood prodigal Court Bannister, soul sick rich boy Toby Parker, and devout killer Wolf Lochert. Much like W.E.B. Griffin, Berent seems to like privileged, wealthy characters who don’t have to serve, but do anyway and prove to be natural, superb warriors. Not easy for me to relate, but the author did a fine job winning my sympathy.
Bannister is a jet jock who flies the F-100 Super Saber during his first combat tour. While males all over the USA were finding ways to escape serving in Vietnam, Bannister turned down his dream of Test Pilot and Astronaut training to serve there.
Toby Parker wasn’t even a pilot, but circumstances threw him into a situation where his exceptional skill and bravery earned him recognition as a hero. Unfortunately, a drinking problem might just ruin his career and reputation.
Wolf Lochert is a Special Forces officer and the consummate warrior. He’s no dummy, but one of his most trusted indigenous soldiers is determined to frag him when the opportunity presents itself.
You will probably learn more relevant information about Vietnam in this one novel than you can from any and every history book that covers US involvement in the conflict. I’ve read plenty of fiction and non-fiction about Vietnam, and this has become my favorite so far–just from one reading.
I’ve also read Steel Tiger, the second in the series, and have started Phantom Leader. Reviews are forthcoming. It’s a fantastic series and well worth your time.
Some years ago I passed along some information from a one-time publishing insider, as part of a post at The Two-Fisted Blog:
During a given fiscal year, a tradpub house only has so many books it can publish. First dibs go to the proven heavy hitters like Stephen King, whose grocery list would become a New York Times Bestseller as long as his name is on it. Next in line (and this is nauseating, if not surprising) are the writers who “know people” inside the industry. There is a little more scrutiny/quality control here than for the big name authors, but this is where a lot of the worthless drivel comes from. Next on the pecking order are female minorities. Then male minorities. (Homosexuals have been given quota parity with racial minorities for quite a while. Now they are one of the most powerful special interest groups in existence and I have no doubt this is reflected in the current pecking order.) Then women in general (which sometimes includes men who write for female audiences and/or who write female protagonists, plus men who use female pseudonyms). Everyone not heretofore mentioned is at the bottom of the slush pile, competing for the very smallest portion of the publishing pie.
…Somewhere in there (unless the author is a celebrity with clout), the book must pass the ideology test–the politics must resonate with that of the New York Publishing Cartel, and any characters in the book who believe differently had better be either from the Archie Bunker/Frank Burns/Denny Crane cookie cutter or, better yet, the next Hitler or Darth Vader.
I am not joking when I say that one of the best possible investments in your writing career, as a straight male who wants to get published, would be to hire a fat transgender “woman” of color and simply ghostwrite for “her,” or else acquire pictures of one and add “agoraphobic” to your Twitter resume of socially appealing forms of oppression—so no one expects to ever meet you.
No occupational field has inhaled diversity quotas this much. Looking at lists of award winners, grant recipients and editorial board members, made up predominantly of women, one would think that men are half-way illiterate. But in truth, far-left badges are ravenously shared and traded by the NY literary establishment, with many magazines and agents expressing a preference for “underrepresented writers,” not to mention all the literary events based around LGBT youth, minorities, inner-city kids, etc.
This whole “underrepresentation” mantra is blatantly dishonest to the point of absurdity, of course. But in the mind of a creative SJW, they must compensate for centuries of “oppression” with every contract; every book; and every character. The lack of cross-dressing perverts on the bookshelves in days of yore must be avenged!
Witness Garth Risk Hallberg, whose novel City on Fire recently received the possibly highest advance ever given to a novel: $2 million. Right from the first page, Hallberg introduces us to an interracial gay couple comprised of a wealthy but negligent white man who walks out on his long-suffering, paragon-of-virtue black boyfriend.
Or consider the “masculine” baseball novel The Art of Fielding, which revolves around a college dean and his affair with a black male student…
…It’s impossible to know where the virtue-signalling impulse ends and the story-telling begins. Possibly, they are trying to avoid the fate of Jonathan Franzen, who, despite being a bespectacled, militantly Democratic bird-watcher who writes an excess of female characters, faces a wrathful literary establishment who can’t quite countenance a straight male writer who has opinions about things.
It was foolish of me to have ever assumed I could be tradpubbed by the NYPC. And while I never sold my soul to make it past the gatekeepers (write the obligatory “strong female characters,” pander to the sodomiphiles; incorporate anti-American messages; etc.); I really regret watering down my earlier fiction for the benefit of those who would have never appreciated my restraint anyway.
Latest reports from Orlando are that 59 are dead and 53 wounded at an LGBT night club. This latest media circus shooting spree efficiently checks off more than one box in reinforcing The Narrative:
“We need to do something about these awful guns!”
“We need to do something about these awful thought criminals who don’t accept homosexuality as normal!”
“We need an expanded Terrorist Watch List!”
There oughta’ be more laws empowering Big Brother to spy on citizens to determine if they’re harboring thought crimes that might later turn violent!”
Unfortunately, I was in a public venue this morning, where the TV was on, tuned to MSNBC. That bastion of impartial journalistic integrity was sickeningly predictable in the series of stimuli it broadcast out to its braindead audience. Had someone been participating in a drinking game, the obvious words and phrases to establish as drinking penalty cues would be “guns in America;” “horrific;” “hate crime;” “anti-gay violence” and “assault weapon.”
The talking heads on MSNBC put an “expert” on from that bastion of civil liberties, the FBI, to parrot the blanket generalizations of the Political-Media Axis. Techniques like this are never to provide insights into law enforcement or to reveal specific information about the case in question. The purpose is to have somebody in a position of authority endorse The Narrative.
Interestingly, the FBI mouthpiece took pains to check the “Islam is a religion of peace” box while implying homophobia and the right to keep and bear arms are at fault for the shooting. Again: predictable. Before many facts were known, the spin doctors tipped their hand as to how this crisis will be milked.
The shooter, Omar Mateen, allegedly called 911 himself, and declared allegiance to the Islamic State. But since we have it on the authority of Barrack Hussein Obama that the Islamic State is not Islamic, we can safely assume that it is gun-toting, church-going, right-wing military veteran home-schoolers who are really to blame.
The shooter is also allegedly a US citizen (originally an “anchor baby” of two Afghans, sounds like). But even if he wasn’t, you could bet money that of all the solutions being considered by the Political-Media Axis, closing the border will not be one of them.
It is admitted that there are ISIS terror cells in every major American city. It is also admitted that hordes of violent jihadis are swarming into our country through our open borders (mixing in with the multitudes of La Raza type subversives). There is absolutely no effort to check this invasion, even though the Federal Government is required by law to do so. But the Feds are more enthusiastic about breaking the law than upholding it, and in fact will sue any state that tries to protect its own section of the border. Meanwhile, US Citizens are treated like criminal suspects at airports, bus stations and sports arenas “for our security.”
This situation only makes sense for those hell-bent on destroying what is left of America. They have a whole bunch of solutions in need of crises in order to implement. A heavily-armed sociopathic fifth column dwelling among us is custom-designed to provide the necessary crises.
High Couch is a classic. It is also, so far as I know, sui generis. In a long life of writing and editing in which I have written nine books, edited more than two hundred and read thousands I do not know of another book like it, not even remotely. On one level it is an exciting sci-fi adventure. On another it is a sword and sorcery epic, and on yet a third it answers Freud’s famous question, “What do women want?”
A brilliant woman has decided to give the game away, and guess what? Feminists have attacked her for it.
The writing style is heroic, but readable and fun. The characters are recognizable, the plot is satisfying, and the world it creates is like nothing you have seen before, but is still believable. It also contains what I consider the most erotic single sentence in all the thousands of books I have read:
“Flesh toy, come here!”
If that doesn’t set up a scene in your mind then you have no business reading fiction.
I’m not going to give the plot away. I’m just going to recommend it. Highly.
Janet Morris began writing in 1976 and has since published more than 30 novels, many co-authored with her husband Chris or others. She has contributed short fiction to the shared universe fantasy series Thieves World, in which she created the Sacred Band of Stepsons, a mythical unit of ancient fighters modeled on the Sacred Band of Thebes. She created, orchestrated, and edited the fantasy series Heroes in Hell, writing stories for the series as well as co-writing the related novel, The Little Helliad, with Chris Morris. She wrote the bestselling Silistra Quartet in the 1970s, including High Couch of Silistra, The Golden Sword, Wind from the Abyss, and The Carnelian Throne.
This quartet had more than four million copies in Bantam print alone, and was translated into German, French, Italian, Russian and other languages.
In the 1980s, Baen Books released a second edition. The third edition is the Author’s Cut edition, newly revised by the author for Perseid Press.
Don’t get me wrong; some of my best friends are betas and white knights, but…
…In the socio-sexual spectrum, betas and white knights are the useful idiot minions for the perverse cultural Marxist social engineers.
A telling anecdote about the state of America’s girls and women:
In 15 years as a BSA leader I never heard dads speak so proudly as when saying that their daughters were tomboys.
(BSA=Boy Scouts of America?)
Truth be told, I’ve even heard ostensible alpha males bragging about their macho daughters. (No, I am not referring to John Scalzi admitting his daughter can beat him arm-wrestling, just in case I confused you.)
…Another reason for this glorification of grrlpower and imputation of male sex roles onto daughters by beta dads is, it must be said, a subconscious kowtowing to the reigning feminist shrikegeist. The culture is so steeped in feminist idiocy and the attendant ugly woman project of training girls to grow up into ballbusting men (and of shaming men to become supplicating nancyboys) that it seems perfectly reasonable and normal for the regular dad on the suburban street to crow about reshaping his daughter into an androgynous weirdo with a penchant for throwing balls…
Well, yeah. But I’ve noticed this attitude in white knights even when the female in question is no relation to them. They take some kind of pride in it–most of them even have the same facial expression when they sing the praises of some butch broad who comes to their attention. Maybe part of this is the American worship of underdogs; or the equally pathological hatred of favorites. Maybe this speaks to a subconscious obsession with gender-bending that has spread from the elites into the commoners.
I am frequently annoyed at how superficial the manosphere and “Alt Right” work so hard to be. But on the other hand, I must admit that we aren’t just being threatened politically, economically and militarily–we are under attack on even more basic levels:
Genetically–we are being herded toward a race war.
Anatomically–we are seeing the tip of the iceberg in regards to self-mutilation. The more “transgenderism” is normalized, the more psychologically damaged people will volunteer for it. And it won’t stop with mere gender-bending.
Pharmacutically–As if we need more psychologically damaged people, more of the population is being medicated with powerful, mind-altering drugs for excuses that are suspect. And children are getting hooked young–usually with the consent of parents.
Even for biologically sound individuals who don’t want a sex change, the male population is increasingly effeminate while women become more and more butch–all encouraged by pop culture and the Public Education Cartel. This engineered gender confusion is destroying what is left of the family–the fundamental underpinning of humanity.
Our enemies won’t stop at destroying the USA. You can see they’re already positioning themselves to fundamentally transform humanity itself.
I don’t usually agree with Vox Day concerning race. And since he seems to believe that the solution to every single problem or issue known to man is separatism…we don’t agree on a whole lot of anything I guess.
Everywhere you go, from San Jose to Melbourne, the race war will find you. Vibrants don’t give a damn that you are a good anti-racist. They could not care less that you deplore racism with every bone in your body. They are totally indifferent to the guilt and shame you feel over the actions of your ancestors. They understand, as you do not, that there is no such thing as racial equality, there is no such thing as a “proposition nation”, and there is no such thing as a Brotherhood of Man.
They hate you for the very simple reason that you are not them. And they will attack you, unprovoked, every chance they get.
Like it or not (and I don’t), he is absolutely correct in his statements here. My personal experience has taught me this, as defeatist as it may sound.
Where I disagree with Vox and his ilk (pun intended) is how inevitable this was. They insist that genetic differences demand set patterns of cognitive conformity, and imply that race alone has brought us to the brink of ruin. But we didn’t have to let the divide-and-conquer strategy work. (Plus, the traitors who pushed America onto the slippery slope were lilly-white–and no dark-skinned boogeyman held a spear to their heads.)
Nevertheless, here we are. Self-fulfilling prophecies have manifested; perverted revisions of history are clung to as gospel; and speaking the truth accomplishes little besides identifying yourself as a target to those who haven’t already targeted you.
You may pride yourself on being colorblind (as I once did). But the “vibrants” are not. They won’t become colorblind, and have no intentions to do so. How much suffering you experience will depend on how stubborn you are about accepting this reality.
“One of your own kind… Stick to your own kind.”
You will be judged according to your “skin uniform” and little else in days ahead. If you are white, the “vibrants” hate you already. That hatred is just below the surface and ready to turn violent at the drop of the next catalyst.
I won’t even address Islam here. Anyone with a functioning brain is aware of how dangerous Muslims are–whatever their racial makeup.
Right now, as offensive as this concept is, if you encounter somebody of African descent, there is a 94-98% chance they will gleefully destroy your life, liberty and property, and that of your posterity, when opportunity presents itself. Opportunity at the ballot box today or in the bullet box tomorrow. Their education (from all and whatever sources) has taken advantage of mankind’s fallen nature to program them in the direction they desire to go, anyway, and they are absolutely convinced that they are entitled to anything they can get, by whatever means is most convenient for them.
Most Hispanics are the same or similar. And frankly, the rising undercurrent of white tribalists will eventually be no different. (The redneck parasite class already has the entitlement mentality.) Maybe you’re white, but you’re not white enough. Or not the right flavor of white, see? Comment threads around the web are already demonstrating these trends.
“Vox is gonna have his Day tonight…” Sorry–couldn’t resist.
When the cold civil war turns hot, and you encounter somebody of a different color, are you willing to risk your life, your family’s life, and the life of your proven allies, on the 2-6% chance that the individual is the exception and not the rule? Or will you put them in the dirt with 94-98% certainty you did the right thing? Or will you pause to weigh all the possibilities, assuming the other guy will give you a minute to sort it out? Maybe you’re uncomfortable even considering this scenario. Does your discomfort now guarantee you’ll never have to make such a choice?
Vox has been blogging frequently against the “proposition nation.” That’s the “America is an idea” sentiment that I myself have expressed, because Americans are ruled by law, not by men–whatever color the men in question happen to be.
To be honest, Vox is using the accurate definition of “nation.” God established the nations, and the distinction was/is purely genetic. So a polyglot like the USA is not, technically, a nation.
The USA is a country–a country founded on this conviction:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
The country built on that foundation (that fundamental, you might say) is what I once volunteered to put my life on the line for. I am an American. I have not consented to change my citizenship to a regime that is destructive of these ends. No such fundamental transformation of my country to such a regime is legal. Everyone in Congress, the Supreme Court and the White House took an oath to preserve my country and its law. Just because they are lying traitors does not obligate me to surrender my unalienable rights protected by that law.
You may insist that such a country doesn’t exist anymore. Judging by what’s going on, you’d appear to be right. In fact, I have suffered certain infringements myself. But that doesn’t mean I’ve surrendered. It also doesn’t mean I will always suffer, while evils are sufferable. It only means I pick my battles and won’t piss away what I do still have in order to make some martyr statement that two-legged sheep won’t heed or even appreciate.
You can choose to forfeit your own rights. Most North America-dwellers are choosing that, will, or have already. That does not obligate me to do likewise.
I’m an American. I don’t care what you think that means to you. What matters is what it means to me. If you are against the foundational truths summarized in the excerpt above, you are my enemy, whether you look like me or not, and whoever your ancestor was. That’s where my line is drawn. That means one side will call me a cuck; and the other side will call me a racist. Both sides will be shooting at me one day, probably. It doesn’t inspire a warm fuzzy, but I can live with that.
Where is your line drawn? If you think matching skin tones is more important than matters of life, liberty, property, and what god you will serve, sin loi. If you don’t, then please examine the alliances you’re making.
In the past I’ve usually posted something about D-Day when June Six rolls around. This year, however, the death of an iconic heavyweight is all the buzz–and much less likely to confuse and engage the apathy of the historically challenged.
I don’t have a copy of The Great Heavyweights on the computer I’m using right now, so I can’t excerpt from it, so let me sum up Cassius Clay/Muhammed Ali first:
The man could take an extraordinary amount of punishment–especially to the body.
He was also extremely difficult to hit–probably the most elusive heavyweight there’s ever been, partially thanks to his very unorthodox defensive style.
His hand speed was also impressive for a heavyweight–though not quite in the league of Floyd Patterson’s.
His lateral movement was the quickest of any heavyweight in his time.
However, he did not have a great punch. He wore his opponents down with attrition and head games. He was a master at psychological warfare.
Judges and referees consistently let him get away with illegal tactics that no other boxer gets away with on a regular basis. He was also awarded decision victories against fighters who kicked his ass.
Despite his claim to be “the Greatest” (regurgitated by every black person on the planet, and plenty of non-blacks as well) he was not the greatest boxer; and not even the greatest heavyweight.
Now that that’s out of the way, let’s look at one way he changed sports in the USA.
Watch the little fight promo segment starting around 5:44.
Can you imagine a jock talking about himself and an opponent this way today? And most jocks in any sport spoke this way once upon a time.
I wish I could locate some interview clips of the Rock I’ve seen in the past. Once a reporter repeated some trash talk from a scheduled opponent, then stuck the microphone in Rocky’s face for his reaction. With no change in demeanor or tone, he said “That’s for him to prove on the (date of the fight).”
Keep in mind: this guy was a cruiserweight according to the scales, fighting pros who were 10-20 pounds heavier, all his career. He had very little in the way of skills, and was matched against some extremely tough men–the worst of them were friggin’ tanks. I don’t know if there’s a dude alive today who could take a punch like those guys could. And they were mostly complete fighters–not obsessed with headhunting like those who followed. Yet Marciano fought 49 bouts with 43 knockouts (most of them in the first round) and never lost a professional fight.
What am I getting at, you ask? It’s not just what he said, but what he didn’t say. If anybody ever had excuse for an ego trip, talking trash about how bad he was and how he was going to make a grown man scream like a woman, the Rock was it.
Watch the beginning of this clip. (“Sugar” Ray Robinson is possibly the best pound-for-pound boxer who ever lived. And yes: Ray Leonard and Shane Mosely were called “Sugar” because it was hoped they would be as good as him.)
Now look at this class act, here:
It’s far from just this individual–pretty much all of them are this way (with rare exceptions, like Evander Holyfield). And it’s not even just boxing–jocks in every sport are full of themselves and ready to talk smack whether asked to or not. They don’t even have to be good; they’ll do it anyway. In fact, it’s not even just jocks. Hang out in the inner city (of any city) and you can’t help but notice overbloated egos on display–and you’ll see it in all races and ethnicities.
What happened between the first two clips and the third?
Ali happened.
Egomaniacal jocks weren’t just accepted after Ali; they were preferred. Pride became a virtue and humility ugly.
Of course there were men with huge egos before–but they had to dial it down in public lest the average Joe see how ugly and petty they actually were. But, in general, even gifted men didn’t indulge in delusions of invincibility; and alpha dogs spoke louder with actions than with words.
Ali elevated smack-talking into its own sport.
Nowadays the male (and far too many females) of the species become experts at self-aggrandizement first, then worry about actually developing skills second…if ever.
Red-Blooded American Men Examine Pop-Culture and the World
Jet jock Court Bannister has finished his first combat tour and has managed to earn a slot in Test Pilot School for the second time. That’s a step toward becoming an astronaut, which is his ambition.
serweight according to the scales, fighting pros who were 10-20 pounds heavier, all his career. He had very little in the way of skills, and was matched against some extremely tough men–the worst of them were friggin’ tanks. I don’t know if there’s a dude alive today who could take a punch like those guys could. And they were mostly complete fighters–not obsessed with headhunting like those who followed. Yet Marciano fought 49 bouts with 43 knockouts (most of them in the first round) and never lost a professional fight.