I suspect Wilbur Smith is a closet anthropologist…not just because of the attention he gives animals in some of his novels, but because of the human actions and interactions he depicts–usually according to type. In this novel especially, Smith writes like somebody who is a manosphere junkie…except he doesn’t use the lingo.
There is a beta protagonist (Ryder Courtney); an alpha hero (Penrod Ballentyne), some nubile Victorian-era babes rife with symptoms of hypergamy/AFBB…and a whole lot of blood and thunder.
All these characters, and more, intersect at the siege of Khartoum. They are all depicted masterfully by the writer, who gets you to care about them before shoving them to the brink of death repeatedly. At any point in this book there’s a lot at stake and the suspense is high.
Like most true alpha dogs, Ballentyne is willing to take bigger risks than the average Joe. While this elevates his status in the eyes of women from both cultures (Muslim and Western), it also tends to put him in the most hopeless situations. His life dangles by a precarious thread for most of the second act, though he earns the respect of his bloodthirsty captors just being himself (a theme I’ve noticed in other Smith novels). And also like most true alpha dogs, Ballentyne is willing to dish out harsh preemptive justice, retaliation, and revenge, with little to no remorse. And he’s certainly not above using people to get what he wants.
Courtney is a good man who is moral to a fault. He’s sympathetic, smart, and certainly not lacking in courage, but destined to be a beta provider for a headstrong woman (of which the Victorian era had a few). There’s one scene in particular where he really needs a big dose of alpha ruthlessness, but his untimely mercy puts everyone at risk and causes unnecessary suffering and death.
This novel accelerates to a quick start and romps like a steamroller right to the end.
Tom Wolfe’s 1979 novel about the Space Race (late ’50s-early ’60s) is a portrait of the test pilots who became the first astronauts. The film based on the book is an artistic rendering of history as myth.
Wolfe compares the Space Race to single combat in ancient warfare: rather than armies clashing in the field, a champion was chosen to represent each side. Whichever champion prevailed sealed a victory for his city or nation. (Think Achilles or Goliath). This was what the Americans and Soviets were doing with their astronauts, according to Wolfe.
Once the Americans got rolling, they were unstoppable. The first to reach the moon, they could have gone well beyond if the ambition of the space program wasn’t seriously scaled back. But in those early days the soviets had a head start.
Americans relied on bombers to deliver bombs, should a nuclear war become reality; but the Russians concentrated on cheaper unmanned missiles to compensate for their inferior aircraft technology/industry, and used their captured Nazi rocket scientists to get the jump on the Yanks. The US Air Force was already working on an aircraft that could break out of our atmosphere, but when Sputnik shot into orbit, all effort was redirected at catching up to the USSR’s capsule-launching method.
Wolfe’s character portraits of the first American “star voyagers” was both fascinating and hilarious. I’ve never forgotten his colorful expose` on the collective subconscious of the test pilots/astronauts, in particular. Like the ziggurat metaphor used to describe the egocentric construct of the unspoken hierarchy according to how much of the Right Stuff each individual thought he and his peers possessed.
The Mercury astronauts were alpha males to an almost comical degree. It’s rare in this world to get so many of them crowded together in one place. You’ll usually only find such groupings in elite military units or perhaps professional sports teams. The egos are huge, but also fragile. Deep down, each of these men feared getting left behind (not making the cut) at every stage of their climb up the ziggurat.
Except, probably, Chuck Yeager. This penultimate test pilot was never invited into the space program–possibly because he’d never been to college. (Sad to think of how many potential Yeagers who will never even get a chance to fly because of this snobbery.) But in both the book and the movie you get the impression that despite all the hype about “Spam in a can” (astronauts in capsules), he remains alone and unchallenged at the top of the ziggurat, with that heavenly light shining on his aloof indifference.
I wish the clip above included just a few seconds prior, when Yeager asks his buddy about the latest high altitude record. Nobody cares about that, his buddy informs him; it’s all about capsules and astronauts these days. After a pause, the undaunted Yeager looks at the test prototype jet and opines that it just might be capable of breaking the record. Next thing you know, he’s going through the Beeman’s chewing gum ritual with his comrade, and up he goes.
Anyway, the psychological insights are only dressing for the thorough investigative reporting Wolfe wove into an informative and entertaining inside story of an elite subculture in history.
For those who haven’t both read the book and seen the film, I encourage you to correct that. It’s not a case of one being better than the other; instead they compliment each other.
After Trayvon Martin and Ferguson, plus having my finger on the pulse of the Official Victim Class where I live and work, I’m removing my rose-tinted Ray-Bans: There will never be a post-racial America. Those who truly desire harmony (and I believe there’s not many who actually do) don’t have the power or influence to compete with those who are inflaming racial tensions in America.
The present occupant of the White House promised a “post-racial America.” But then he also promised you could keep your doctor and health plan if you liked it, and that he would cut the national debt in half or he wouldn’t run for a second term. Obviously he does exactly the opposite of what he promises…with one glaring exception: his mission statement of “fundamentally transforming” America.
Got a whole lotta’ that going on.
The Official Victim Class never cared how or why the fatal shooting in Ferguson occurred. All they needed to know was who is black, who is white, and their minds were made up, permanently.
Exactly their same attitude in the last two presidential elections, come to think of it. Ironic that they accuse whites of racism so often.
So anyway, Radical Times is about the first “race war” in America–the South during Reconstruction, when blacks truly were oppressed. The original cover was okay, but nothing special. I like this new one much better.
The novella is a quick read with action, lost history, and my first attempt at a romantic sub-plot.
And hopefully it’s much less depressing than what’s going on, now.
Lucky for us, many of the men’s adventure series of yesteryear are being re-released as E-Books. Renegade is one of those shoo-in canditates, I thought…and somebody at Piccadilly Publishing evidently agreed with me.
I only read a few paperbacks from later in the series, so this was an opportunity for me to go back and see how it all started without breaking the bank or straining my already-overloaded bookshelves.
Lou Cameron originally wrote these men’s adventures under the pseudonym “Ramsay Thorne.” They are being advertised as westerns now, but that’s not exactly accurate, as they take place in Central and South America during the 1890s. I guess I’d call them “jungle mercenary” adventures.
In this one we meet Dick Walker AKA Captain Gringo as he’s awaiting execution by the US Army. As a commissioned officer, he allowed some prisoners to escape because he thought they were getting a raw deal. That earned Richards himself a raw deal. I found it interesting that he had been assigned to the “Buffalo Soldiers”: the 10th Cavalry–a unit I once researched extensively for a project I may or may not ever undertake.
The Renegade escapes, and almost immediately runs afoul of crooked authorities in Mexico. He also makes acquaintance with Gaston Verrier–a middle aged soldier of Fortune who originally came to Mexico as part of the Foreign Legion. In almost-believable fashion, the two of them team up to survive against bleak odds, and raise a lot of hell along the way. Surprisingly, they part ways before the novel is finished (Gaston is Captain Gringo’s consistent sidekick in the series).
The Renegade series reads almost like a Foreign Legion adventure, only with a XXX rating. And the sex scenes in this book are much raunchier than I remember them being in the later ones I read years ago. Cameron seems to have been more of an “anything goes” perv than I took him for back in the day. I now wonder if he didn’t spend some time in Hollywood adapting screenplays, or some other moral cesspool (Greenwich Village, maybe?) that erased any notion of taboos. But I’m getting ahead of myself here and reacting perhaps as much to #2 in the series as to this one.
The ethnic stereotyping is also much more pronounced than I remember, and occasionally grates.
Based on the typos in the new E-book, I would guess they put the original into digital format by running a scanner over one of the paperbacks, then trusting software to sort out the spelling and punctuation. It’s plenty readable, just annoying if you have OCD concerning syntax…like somebody I know. Ahem.
One asset to reading any of Cameron’s work is the nice little historical and cultural tidbits he mixes in with the plot, whether it be Latin customs or mindset; unexplained natural phenomenon; obscure historical events; or the function and employment of a water cooled machinegun. Though pulpy to the extreme, it can’t fairly be called “mindless entertainment.”
We have reached Number One in my Top Five Literary Badass List. The Top FIve were chosen partly out of consideration for where the hero stands in the socio-sexual hierarchy; partly for how much fun it is to read them.
I used to apply the term “guilty pleasure” to men’s fiction such as what I’m referring to. But guilt (in this context) is for manginas and others overly concerned about what people think.
The Top Dude-LIt Badass is Master Sergeant Clarence Mahoney–the worst nightmare of German soldiers (and plenty of American lower enlisted as well).
Through nine novels, countless firefights, bayonet duels, and plenty of cheap, meaningless fornication, the picture we have of Mahoney is crystal-clear: he’s an alpha male to his very core, who rose up through the ranks in a very competitive (dog-eat-dog is more accurate) environment purely by merit. He wants to be in charge and usually is. The betas in his platoon (especially sidekick Corporal Cranepool) are fanatically loyal to him/want to be him.
Ladies and other civilized people tend to think of him as a barbaric brute, yet he’s got enough game to make notches out of those same ladies anyway. And pretty much any other broad who conveniently becomes available on his blood-splattered path through wartime Europe.
Amidst all the mayhem in the series, you also get some nice slices of historic facts. Author Len Levinson did his research, resulting in much more historical accuracy than you might expect from war pulp.
Possibly inspired by 19th Century mercenary William Walker, the Renegade AKA Captain Gringo AKA Richard (Dick) Walker, raises hell in Latin America over the course of 36 novels. Writing as “Ramsay Thorne,” prolific pulp prose-peddler Lou Cameron undoubtedly had loads of fun (and passed it on to us) writing a character used to “winning in battles and bedrooms!”
I’m delighted to discover that these are being released as E-books now, under Cameron’s own name. I only bought a few of the paperbacks while they were in print (wasn’t on a historical kick at the time), but now I should be able to read the whole series.
Captain Gringo is a definite alpha dog. In a setting rife with treachery, teeming with tyrants, revolutionaries, and German agents, the only man of integrity to be found is the lecherous Frenchman Gaston, his loyal sidekick. The Renegade seduces more women in each novel than some men will in their entire life (women who shout lines like “Oh Deek, my great bull!” during the throes of passion), and Gaston feeds on his scraps without complaint.
In his tactics and instincts, Captain Gringo is seemingly flawless as written. But there’s more than enough wild cards thrown at him to keep the pages turning…and the rounds feeding through his Maxim machinegun.
For those who know who John Wayne was, the typical assumption is probably that the characters he played were alpha males (for those familiar with the term “alpha male” anyway).
Having seen my share of Duke flicks, I can testify that his characters were never pick-up artists (PUAs)–something that seems to go hand-in-hand with alpha behavior. (In fact, it was usually the woman who pursued and approached him–especially in the Howard Hawks movies.) That and a few other personality traits perhaps make a further study of the John Wayne persona worthwhile in the future.
But I used the word “persona” intentionally, rather than mention any specific role he played. Critics of the Duke point out that he wasn’t really an actor, but a movie star. There’s some truth to that, because the characters he played were usually the same guy, just with different names and historic contexts for the different movies.
To over-simplify it for a moment: John Wayne was almost always the hero. I say “almost” because there are a couple exceptions when he was called on to play an antihero.
One of those exceptions occurred when he was curiously cast as Ghengis Khan in The Conqueror. The most interesting exception was the role he played in a John Ford western called The Searchers, and that’s what we’ll look at now.
The Searchers is a great film for many reasons. One of the most basic of those reasons is the characters it is built around.
The role of Ethan Edwards was a real departure in the screen career of the Duke. Yes, he still exuded toughness, strength and cocksurity, but underneath that was a vengeful, bitter racism that made him the darkest character Wayne ever played.
Unless you watch carefully for details, you’ll miss that Ethan’s
The tombstones in this scene reveal that Ethan’s parents were killed by Commanche, but you have to be a speed-reader to catch it.
parents were murdered by Commanche. Ethan Edwards is a fanatic. His hatred of the Commanche has caused him to learn their language and customs, and even think the way they do. Ironically, this obsessive racism has made him a perpetual outsider among the white settlers in 1868 Texas.
The clip below reveals a lot about the plot, the characters, and what’s gone on behind the scenes. Watch carefully and take special note of how the hierarchy shines through.
You can spot the alpha dog right away, can’t you? Ward Bond’s swaggering alpha bravado is right at home in…nay, demands to be…the center of attention. He’s a natural leader, and he barks orders at everyone lest they forget who’s in charge. The posse he’s putting together is made up of betas and arguably a couple delta males. Then you can feel the power shift as Ethan Edwards makes his presence known.
Ethan Edwards at this stage of his life is a “sigma male.” He’s the only one in the film the Reverend/Captain Samuel Johnson Clayton (Bond) can’t bully, intimidate, or inspire to follow his leadership. Not only that, but Ethan overrules his authority without hesitation or apology, and turns the impromptu interrogation around on Clayton by questioning his loyalty to the Confederacy.
Exhibit B is Ethan’s sister-in-law Martha. Notice how she caresses Ethan’s coat, and all the unspoken feeling that passes between them when she hands it to Ethan? Important subtext was revealed right there:
Martha married and bore children to stable beta-male provider Aaron Edwards, but her desire is (and always has been) for bad boy Ethan, who left her to go fight in the Civil War.
Female hypergamy hasn’t changed at all since 1868.
Also notice how Sam Clayton witnesses this, but doesn’t find it surprising at all.
Another interesting character is Martin Pawley, played by Jeffrey Hunter. He’s an adopted orphan, in his late teens. He’s an outsider when the story begins. Seems like a beta male, with some alpha tendencies that grow as he matures into a man. (Unfortunately, he fights like a girl.)
Back to Ethan Edwards and the Reverend/Captain Sam Clayton: There’s a scene leading into the climax of the film where a young cavalry officer finds Ethan and Martin who have just crashed a wedding (and Martin took back the bride-to-be from his beta rival, Texas Ranger Charlie McRory). The cavalryman is looking for the Captain of the Texas Rangers, and, upon observing those present, he assumes it’s Ethan Edwards until corrected.
Something about Ethan just makes people assume he’s in charge. Sam Clayton is miffed about this and takes to humiliating the young lieutenant. Ethan, who is often amused by the drama that goes on between other people (most of whom he regards with barely-hidden contempt), actually joins in on the roast of the young Yankee officer (who is played by Wayne’s son and becomes an increasingly comedic/pathetic character as the film goes on).
There are a lot of reasons to watch The Searchers, re-watch it, and analyze it visually and thematically. One reason is that, half a century before there was a “manosphere” or any discussion of the socio-sexual hierarchy, director John Ford knew how it all plays out in the theater of life.
It doesn’t take that much military science savvy to look back at Vietnam and decide LBJ was either an incompetent buffoon, or acting on behalf of someone who wanted to give a sterroid shot to the military-industrial complex without actually “halting the spread of Communism” (but simultaneously using that as the excuse).
What a lot of people assume is that, had JFK not been assassinated, Vietnam would have turned out much differently—maybe he would have never even sent combat troops. I used to go along with this assumption.
Now I believe differently.
When you look at the Bay of Pigs debacle honestly and in detail, it’s easy to identify the same kind of decision making that guided our involvement in Vietnam.
Originally the plan to oust Castro from Cuba involved a quiet infiltration in an area where, should the infiltration be discovered, the anti-Castro forces could easily slip into the mountains, from which they could conduct guerrilla operations. This site was also in close proximity to an area with a large population of anti-Castro Cubans who would likely join the guerrillas as they became aware of a resistance movement. In fact, guerrillas were already hiding in the mountains, but without the arms and supplies needed to pose much of a threat to the new dictator.
This plan had a high probability of success, and with little chance of exposure of US involvement. But for some unspecified reason, the plan was radically altered to a WWII-style amphibious assault. And the location chosen for the landing was a beach closer to Castro’s center of power, where the dictator could quickly deploy enough units from his army–including heavy armor–to smash the 1500-man invasion force. The landing area was wedged between the ocean and an unnavigable swamp.
In other words, it was a near-perfect trap. And probability of success had been reduced to less than ten percent.
With this shift to a conventional amphibious invasion by unconventional forces (a recipe for disaster perhaps all by itself), success for the initial stage of the operation would be impossible without complete air superiority. All of Castro’s combat aircraft had to be destroyed on the ground prior to the invasion for there to be any chance for “Brigade 2506” to fight its way out of the Bay of Pigs. Not only that, but they would need their own air cover when Castro’s tanks blocked the only causeways from the landing area through the swamps.
The CIA had trained pilots to fly a squadron of old WWII surplus B-26 bombers to provide the air support needed for the invasion. The entire operation now hinged on the preemptive bombing. So Kennedy reduced the number of bombers to four and limited the targets that could be engaged. Why? Because applying the necessary force for success would be “too noisy” (high profile).
It’s plain to see that, going in, Kennedy was more concerned with the image of his administration than with achieving victory. He also forbid US commanders to support Brigado 2506 with any of the considerable air or naval assets the US had in-theater.
Kennedy’s ludicrous rationale was nothing short of Johnsonesque: The ships transporting the free Cubans were escorted by a flotilla of American destroyers, cruisers, battleships and aircraft carriers. Yet by forbidding those warships to fire a shot Kennedy believed the ships would magically turn invisible and therefore not implicate US involvement?
The only feasible way to keep the operation low-profile with plausible deniability, yet with any hope of success, would have been to stick with the original plan of quiet infiltration.
The Bay of Pigs plan was not one to approve if you truly wanted to stay low-profile. But it was the plan—especially once Kennedy began tampering with it—to sabotage a Cuban-led liberation and ensure there would never again be a serious American effort to oust the Communists on our back door.
There was just too much insanity in too many aspects on too many levels to address in a blog post, but the intelligence failure is noteworthy. About 17 years before this, the greatest amphibious invasion ever attempted, by the greatest armada the world had ever seen, was planned, staged, and executed. Multiple armies from three nations were landed, achieving the element of surprise. Despite the months of planning and the number of people in on the secret, and highly motivated German spies working tirelessly to discover its timing and location, Operation Overlord maintained OPSEC (operational security).
But this little podunk covert op involving not even a full strength brigade–much less a division–was compromised before ever being greenlighted. No less than the New York Times warned the Cubans, Soviets, and the rest of the world about the mission while Brigada 2506 was still training in Guatemala. Other Communist assets filled in the details of the operation for Castro so completely that just prior to the invasion he knew exactly where to find his would-be assassin. (This would be the first of many alleged CIA-backed assassination attempts on Castro so inept as to be suspect.)
Despite the mission being compromised in the preparation stage, JFK said go. The four B-26s attempted the preemptive strike on Castro’s air force. At least three of Castro’s warplanes were relocated to other airfields just prior to the raid, and survived.
Instead of landing on an invasion beach, the landing craft carried Brigado 2506 into a rocky deathtrap where coral reefs ripped open their hulls. Those not injured or killed had to swim, then wade, ashore, losing most of their equipment and ammunition before their feet even touched land. Only a lucky few were on boats that made it to shore intact.
Kennedy cancelled B-26 airstrikes after only two. He was told some of the Cuban warplanes were still operational, but he refused to budge. The logic being, one must assume, that the first two bombings must have gone unnoticed (explosions being so quiet and stealthy, you see), but a third airstrike might tip off the world that something was happening in Cuba.
Incredibly, the bulk of the Brigade’s supplies and ammunition were loaded on a freighter that also carried the troops. One of those Cuban planes, saved from the air strikes, bombed the ship and sank it.
Castro’s forces were ready for Brigado 2506. Mortars and heavy Soviet artillery moved up to cover the only avenues out of the swamp, and tanks were on the way.
Outnumbered 20-to-1, with no food or water, no air cover, and trapped on a pathetic excuse of a beachhead by an enemy with artillery, armor, and fighter-bombers, who knew as much about the invasion as the invaders did, Brigado 2506 managed to fight on for three days before running out of ammo.
American commanders pleaded desperately for permission to lend support from the moment the crap hit the fan, but the fix was in. Kennedy did finally approve one sortie to intercept a Cuban T-33, but at a time when Castro’s planes were refueling/rearming inland, and not present to engage.
In trying to “keep a low profile” for the operation, JFK guaranteed the exposure and national embarrassment he supposedly wanted to avoid. And of course he doomed the people of Cuba to Communist rule, and the Cuban freedom fighters to death or capture. JFK’s reputation was only tarnished briefly, as the news media had built his public image back up within a year.
Obviously he still managed to piss somebody off, and theories abound as to how, who, and why. I have problems with all of them. Most of all with the official story casting Lee Harvey Oswald as the deranged culprit acting alone.
Castro’s finest celebrating the anniversary of their heroic triumph over enemies of the state.
Linked below are a couple books I’ve not yet read, but are rare in that they don’t appear to come from the typical anti-American/JFK apologist cookie cutter. Might be worth a look.
About a gazillion books have been written, and movies made, about the Second World War. Only a fraction of that have dealt with the FIrst. Of them, this is one of the best.
The protagonist is the antihero Bruno Stachel, who leaves the living hell of the infantry to join the burgeoning German Air Service and make a name for himself. This isn’t just a chance to escape the misery of the trenches, but also the lower caste he was born into (remember Napoleon Bonaparte was a Corsican peasant who managed to get a commission in the artillery because that was a young branch at the time, too).
But Stachel is a little too eager to distinguish himself. He sets his sights on winning the Blue Max, which requires 20 confirmed kills. His cold, dogged pursuit of this goal is, frankly, similar to that of a hardcorps gamer trying to get the high score/next level on a videogame–only dealing out death to real live human beings, of course, instead of A.I. generated digital targets.
I have both watched the movie and read the book, and both are well-crafted.
In the movie, the cinematography is pretty and the aerial combat scenes are kick-ass, especially considering they were filmed WAAAAAAAAAAAY before CGI, and most of the Hollywood magic that preceded it.
In the book, Stachel is even more ruthless. Translate that “less sympathetic.” He commits murder at one point to eliminate competition in the form of a fellow pilot who considered him a friend. And he’s an alcoholic on top of everything else.
The ending is strikingly different between the film and the novel, but I’m not going to give either one away. I at least recommend watching the movie. Solid performances are put in by George Peppard (playing well under his age) and Ursula Andress. Personally I appreciated the visual comparisons of trench warfare to air combat. I found all the visuals striking, even before I became attentive to such things in film.
This month is the 100 year anniversary of the “war to end all wars,” retroactively labeled World War One. Nine million died before it was over, and its conclusion almost guaranteed there would be a sequel.
Many, many factors led to the crisis that was sparked by the assassination of Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand, A major catalyst was Tsarist Russia’s desire for Constantinople (and warm water ports), owned by their traditional enemy, the Ottoman Empire. Bismark’s intricate cobweb of fragile alliances began to break down once he was no longer around to maintain it. And when the Second Reich’s navy grew close to 2/3rds the size of the Royal Navy, Great Britain became hostile toward Germany and formed an alliance with her traditional enemies, France and Russia. The polyglot empire of Austria-Hungary had very pigheaded, hamfisted leadership in handling the aftermath of the assassination, and unfortunately Kaiser Wilhelm gave them carte blanch to resolve the crisis.
When the Great War began, Field Marshal Helmuth Von Moltke (the Younger–nowhere near the caliber of commander his uncle had been) tampered with the Von Schlieffen Plan at the last minute, weakening the German right wing. Spirited resistance from the Belgians slowed that weakened right wing down, buying the British and French valuable time to deploy their forces. Then tactical Blunders by German commanders, and decisive action by their French counterparts, stalled the German advance short of Paris.
Both sides raced to the sea in an effort to outflank each other, and soon a stalemate ensued that would last for most of the war. Trenches were dug and, though outnumbered, the Germans proved a match for their combined enemies on the Western Front.
Gas warfare was introduced in the trench war, by the Germans…as well as flamethrowers for breaching bunkers. Tanks were introduced by the British. Their invention was mothered by the need for an “armor plated trench-crosser” and the name for the armored monstrosities (“tanks”) came from a disinformation ploy in order to keep the weapon secret.
During the Great War, battle spread even into the sky. Aircraft transitioned from infancy to toddler-hood. What were flimsy, unreliable contraptions in 1914, used primarily for observation, by war’s end had evolved into fighters and bombers.
The reason German strategists violated Belgium’s neutrality had to do with timing, and concern over the alleged heavy hitter in the Triple Entente: Russia. Then, as later, Russia’s manpower gave her a tremendous numerical advantage over any other army in Europe. The German High Command decided they had to deliver a quick, decisive knockout blow in the West so they could turn to meet the “Great Steamroller From the East.” So they banked on the same Von Schlieffen Plan the Prussians used to capture Paris and force France’s surrender in 1871, which meant sweeping through Belgium. As noted above, however, reshuffling of divisions weakened the most crucial component of the Plan in 1914.
Ironically, the knockout blow came in the East. With comparatively small German forces, Hindenburg and Ludendorff humiliated the Russian juggernaut. Austria-Hungary, which touched off this epic powderkeg to begin with, proved worthless militarily. They were barely competent enough to handle Serbia and turncoat Italy (originally part of the Triple Alliance), much less Russia. So the Germans were stuck fighting on both fronts.
Enter globalist puppet Woodrow Wilson, who saw this epic crisis as an opportunity to bring about a League of Nations–the first overt attempt in modern history to establish world government. After campaigning in 1916 on the slogan “He kept us out of war!” (as if there were any reason to entangle the USA in that European conflict) he stepped up his efforts to get us into war.
Armchair historians will be quick to cite the sinking of the Lusitania. The Wilson administration was giving weapons and war material to the British, who were at war with Germany. One shipment was being smuggled over the Atlantic on the famous passenger liner (this has been confirmed repeatedly during the following century, though coincidence theorists still deny it). The Germans posted a warning in American newspapers that nobody should book passage on a ship flying the flag of a warring nation sailing into a war zone.
Duh.
Were the powers-that-were incredibly foolish, or were they much like the Hamas cowards in Gaza, hiding behind women and children as they fire rockets at Israeli civilians, knowing that any meaningful reprisal will make their enemy look villainous to the world?
Question: would the US Navy have hesitated to sink any vessel from a “neutral” country shipping war material to the Japanese from 1942-45? Absolutely not–that’s back when we fought wars to win.
The Germans did suspend submarine attacks against Wilson’s “neutral” arms trafficking precisely because of the public relations trap. They resumed unrestricted submarine warfare out of national desperation, partly because their population was starving due to the British Navy’s blockade, and they clutched at any straw which might cause the Anglo-French to sue for peace.
After mass desertions in the Russian army and the subsequent Bolshevik Revolution, Russia (the primary instigator of 1914, next to Austria-Hungary) bowed out of the war. This freed up German divisions from the Eastern Front, which shipped West and began to push the French and British back.
But it was too late. By now the USA was overtly involved and fresh American troops were moving up to the lines. Doughboys forced the pendulum to swing the other way.
The Second Reich now realized victory was no longer possible and agreed to an armistice.
The United States Congress was gullible enough to get suckered into World War I, but they weren’t gullible enough to get suckered into the League of Nations.
Wilson, the globalist stooge, had failed.
But the failure was only temporary. The terms of the Versailles Treaty ensured there would be another world war, even worse than the first.
In the aftermath of that war the renewed effort at world government would result in the United Nations. This time Congress would not only entangle America, but arrange so that most of its funding came from the wallets of American taxpayers; most of the cannon fodder for its “police actions” would come from American families; yet the leadership of the world body would always be Communist or Socialist.
Since the formation of the UN–ostensibly created to usher in world peace–there have been more wars around the globe than ever before.
A common fallacy concerning the world wars purports that American “isolationism” made the planet a more dangerous place. Quite the opposite is true. Interventionism paved the way for a sevenfold increase of the horror unleashed on the planet from 1914-18. Had our politicians done what they are hired to do, and genuinely kept us out of that insanity, the Great Powers would have had to sort it out from a more equitable standpoint and it is highly unlikely there would have been a travesty like the Versailles system to turn Germany into a breeding ground for Hitler, or someone like him.
Red-Blooded American Men Examine Pop-Culture and the World
The present occupant of the White House promised a “post-racial America.” But then he also promised you could keep your doctor and health plan if you liked it, and that he would cut the national debt in half or he wouldn’t run for a second term. Obviously he does exactly the opposite of what he promises…with one glaring exception: his mission statement of “fundamentally transforming” America.
Ironic that they accuse whites of racism so often.
dventure, only with a XXX rating. And the sex scenes in this book are much raunchier than I remember them being in the later ones I read years ago. Cameron seems to have been more of an “anything goes” perv than I took him for back in the day. I now wonder if he didn’t spend some time in Hollywood adapting screenplays, or some other moral cesspool (Greenwich Village, maybe?) that erased any notion of taboos. But I’m getting ahead of myself here and reacting perhaps as much to 
alker
The Renegade seduces more women in each novel than some men will in their entire life (women who shout lines like “Oh Deek, my great bull!” during the throes of passion), and Gaston feeds on his scraps without complaint.
But Stachel is a little too eager to distinguish himself. He sets his sights on winning the Blue Max, which requires 20 confirmed kills. His cold, dogged pursuit of this goal is, frankly, similar to that of a hardcorps gamer trying to get the high score/next level on a videogame–only dealing out death to real live human beings, of course, instead of A.I. generated digital targets.
Enter globalist puppet Woodrow Wilson, who saw this epic crisis as an opportunity to bring about a League of Nations–the first overt attempt in modern history to establish world government. After campaigning in 1916 on the slogan “He kept us out of war!” (as if there were any reason to entangle the USA in that European conflict) he stepped up his efforts to get us into war.
Duh.