The Arc of America.

Those who read this should either do their best to avoid me and my offerings, like the plague, or sit at my feet and lap up my comments like pearls of wisdom from a hoary old graybeard.  One who knows the answers to every question, but very few choose to ask.  

I'm okay either way.

But here's one to which I know the answer.  I was born during the midst of the Second World War.  I watched my parents collect Gubmint stamps to be traded for sugar, and coffee, and flour, and new tires for the car.  Because everything was being used by our boys, "over there."

My Mom used lemon juice to stain her legs tan, because silk was being used for parachutes.

As I've written before, with awe, the Ford Motor Company was putting out a brand-new B-25 Mitchell Bomber every HOUR!   We built 8,079 of them!

It's been reported more than 55% of our entire Gross National Product was tied up in winning that War.  So it was no surprise that those who fought it, our dads and moms, and brothers and sisters, and our grandparents, were lauded when they came back home.  

They were our Greatest Generation!

They helped raise us up.  They came back to the store, or the family farm, or the manufacturing plant, and proceeded to contribute to the greatest economic (and baby) boom ever seen.  I got to see it all unfold.  I didn't know it at the time but it was a fine time to be alive.  And it's a damn shame our kids, and their kids, don't get the chance to live it like we did.  If they had, we wouldn't have the problems we're having today.  

You may not know it, but America has participated in more than 100 military wars and actions in our history.  Some 12 of them "major."  Like World Wars One and Two.  And the Mexican-American War.  And the War of 1812.  Lesser ones include the military actions in Iraq and Afghanistan.  And the Korean Police Action.  And the assaults on Grenada and Panama.  

And with exception of that 1812 War, we won every one of them.  Up until Viet Nam.  At which point we let the Media do the winning or losing.  We were subjected to a nightly "body bag" count to disspirit our citizenry.  We let the Corporate Media turn us against our Military.  Providing us with proof just how Left-wing our Media really was.  We never lost a battle.  But we lost the war.  And our soldiers, including me, were forced to skulk home quietly, with our heads down.  

That day the last helicopter took off from the top floor of the tallest office building in Saigon, was the fulcrum  we may now use to balance our Country's future successes or failures.  And we failed on that mission.  And we've failed on nearly every mission since.

Russia doesn't fear us.  China doesn't fear us.  North Korea doesn't fear us.  Yet they should all be made to fear us unless we desire a future confrontation.  Sun Tzu taught us in the "Art of War" that nations should either be made to love us or fear us.  Those nations I mentioned do not love us.  And they so far don't fear us.  That's a prescription for an upcoming military involvement.

Like so very many before it.

I suggest we get our sh*t together.  I suggest we spend what we have to spend to make these nations crawl back in their respective holes and leave us the Hell alone.  Reagan outspent the Soviet Union and it faded into obscurity.  We could do that again.  We should do that again.  Be advised, we'll be spending more blood and treasure if we don't...