military, surfing, dictatorship, holy war
yesterday i was grateful for a walk with my dog Fiona...
today i am looking forward to a blustery day on block island...
blustery day... the purple flag at the ferry port is up... no ferries today... the seas are too rough... fortunately i don't have to leave the island...
yesterday there were surfers swarming all over the island... the surf ahead of the storm... down at the entry to dickens farm preserve a god like, blond haired, youthful surfer dude with dreadlocks... surfs up?... oh yah!... i have never surfed, but through the beach boys i feel, like many americans do, some nostalgia for surfer culture... perhaps an if only kinda nostalgia... holly's cousin surfs... even with massive surgery on his neck and back and warnings not to surf... it's hard to give up what defines us...
from heather cox richardson this morning...
A former defense official told Jack Detsch and Leo Shane III of Politico the meeting was “a waste of time for a lot of people who emphatically had better things they could and should be doing. It’s also an inexcusable strategic risk to concentrate so many leaders in the operational chain of command in the same publicly known time and place, to convey an inane message of little merit.”
the country careening towards a dictatorship... 47 explicitly telling the military he wants them to "train" while subduing the liberal cities across the nation... i am very uncomfortable... the rhetoric against radical leftists is very threatening... radical apparently means anyone left of center plus any other people who disagree with him...
the whole gathering of the generals and admirals thing looked like stupid political theater, but i worry about behind the scenes... apparently all the leaders are going to get an email listing 10 things they have to agree to or loose their command...
i try to maintain my joy in the face of all this... that's in part what my gratitude practice is about... and other coping strategies i have developed... more and more people i know or know of are eyeing their options for leaving the country... a woman i know of was talking about getting her italian passport... my good friend steve is eyeing a move to italy too, with his partner... our friends d and e have already moved to canada... i don't think they are safe though... 47 wants to annex canada as the 51st state... he apparently said so during his talk to the commanders...
hegseth, for his part, seems to be preparing the way for an aggressive military, as opposed to one focused on defense and maintaining world order...
from heather cox richardson...
In his speech, Hegseth reiterated his vision of a military based in what he calls the “warrior ethos.” Ignoring the military’s mission of preventing wars through deterrence, its professional and highly educated officer corps, and its modern structure as a triumph of logistics, he told the military leaders that today was “the liberation of America’s warriors, in name, in deed and in authorities. You kill people and break things for a living. You are not politically correct and don’t necessarily belong always in polite society.”
hegseth wrote years ago that he wanted to have a holly war against liberals...
Elsewhere in American Crusade, he writes: “The hour is late for America. Beyond political success, her fate relies on exorcising the leftist specter dominating education, religion, and culture – a 360-degree holy war for the righteous cause of human freedom.”
holly wars are usually bloody affairs...
a family member voted for 47... they don't like him very much, but he was preferable to the "socialist" kamala harris... they don't believe he wants to be a dictator... they don't believe hegseth is threatening violence against liberals...