Leftist Obama-Admirals Stavridis and Locklear should be ashamed of themselves. Sadly, they actually BELIEVE their own BS, see none of their damaging DIE views as contributory to the sorry state of affairs in today’s Navy…and thus they aren’t. (With Locklear - in full Obama/Democrat Party ass kiss mode - stating that global warming/rising sea levels was the greatest threat to the Pacific Fleet, it’s taking all I can muster to not call him an idiot. The ChiComs must have got a good laugh out of that.)
Current USNA Sup goes right to global warming when addressing the increased flooding at USNA. But that's what happens when you shoehorn every data point into your reductionistic worldview.
Another DEI hire. As I’ve mentioned here earlier, at my USNA 45th reunion back in September, all the DIE Supe could do was gush about the wonderful “diversity” of the Brigade: 46%! When you’re offering admission based on superficial crap like gender/race, you’re not offering it on merit. But I get why the DIE Supe is all about diversity: that’s how she got her job as Supe.
I can remember how the race riots on CV's were solved (salved?) back in the Early 70s. It was by the UPWARD Seminars, their telling one side to stop oppressing and the other to not tolerate the oppression. But they did it with smiles, polite psychobabble and crushing any opinions contrary to the lesson plan. It was an ugly time in the Navy, and it was aggravated by wide-spread drug abuse. I was ready to get out and try my hand in the fast food industry but promoted to Chief in 1974 and promptly transferred to Paradise, an FF in Hawaii. '70-'74 sucked, didn't it, Bear?
I was in the USAF '71-'74 and knew of the problems, but I never saw any in my soda straw view of the world. No racial tension, no drugs. Certainly knew of the drugs and race problems in the Navy and the Army, though. I think because, in the ordnance field, we were separated mainly from day-to-day base stuff and often worked in isolation. It was a weird time. No one ever thanked me for "my service" (and that was fine)- except family and the neighborhood folks, many of them WWII vets.
I cannot recall any overt racism in my naval service (except for the CVA I served on...and to my eye it seemed sanctioned...a pre-DEI thing) and I don't believe I was either deaf or blind. But then I am Caucasian and perhaps imperceptive or too dense to perceived slights. We all got along, except with slackers, bozo's and troublemakers. That's a given 10% which is color-blind. But it is, as we have seen, not so difficult to stir the pot, set people apart and then set them against each other. Who would do such things? Why? I think we know why. Maybe I'll go find the nearest glue factory and see if they will sell me the jawbone of an ass. Heavy blows need to be smote.
Very interesting, I'll definitely read it entirely since even just the parts you quoted helped me understand a bit better the "what the heck was wrong with the last decade" part.
On the Twitter acquisition, if my memory serves me right, it was even worse:
- Elon makes a joke and says will buy twitter, then makes an offer
- discovery turns out Twitter is in worse shape than it was believed, which makes Elon pull back and try to rescind his offer
- a leftist judge forces Elon to buy Twitter and pay the original price, with the left thinking "ha ha ha, we suckered Elon! take that!"
- Elon buys Twitter and the rest unfolds
So, again if I remember correctly, not only they allowed Elon to buy Twitter, but they actually forced him to buy it when he had second thoughts. This is cosmic karma, I think, and will go down as one of the funniest moments of the early 2020's.
The "leftist judge" was just enforcing well-established contract law. Make an offer, don't be surprised you're held to it. You learn that in 1L.
The Twitter board of directors was initially reluctant to accept the offer, until a lot of shareholders reminded them that they had a fiduciary duty to the shareholders to accept an offer so much in excess of fair market value. Again, basic Corporations law.
That was capitalism at work.
My God, can anyone see anything without trying to ascribe ideological extremism to the actors?
CDR Sal, the author along with Matt Taibi and others are of the opinion our dodging this bullet was a very near run thing. I agree. Mr. Axelrod was likely influenced by former military / agency types willing to sell their sou..., er, expertise in the field of MISO. That is a military activity that aims to influence the attitudes and behaviors of foreign (not to be used in the U.S.!!) groups by developing and sharing messages. MISO activities can include: Public engagements, Radio, Television, Print products, Social media, Websites, and Text messages...IOW, exactly what Mr. Axelrod "discovered".
Permission structures? Nice words. Regarding senior DoD officials, I'd prefer "incentive structures". Go along with the program and get promoted; conversely, resist and get retired. Oh, and if you go along, there's a nice board position at a major defense contractor coming open. Resist, and good luck finding work in the "community". We've now stopped digging the hole we've dug ourselves into. Getting out isn't going to be easy, as a lot of the people digging have no incentive to stop.
MISO and modern advertising both have roots in the massive campaign used to mobilize public opinion for the First World War. The changes in mass media and the like mean that Mr. Axelrod's system was only different in it's depth and pervasiveness.
The true MISO pros since Oct 7 sadly have been Hamas and the other Iran proxies. Convincing thousands of American youth (and the education system that promotes it) that their cause is just and Israel is evil is beyond me. This is the exact message that Sal is conveying as I see it...purposeful deceit by the left. Their cause has been destroyed by Israel the past six months and I hope that our country can regain the upper hand with messaging to our easily confused youth.
I need to read it but I think the "permission" part of the structure is created by inventing an ecosystem where the target of the preferred narrative, perceives "permission" to believe in and become a faithful adherent to the new narrative from the myriad "experts" and "thought-leaders" as well as other talking heads that repeat the message (narrative) everywhere.
This ecosystem is supported and amplified by the by the media, politicians, movie and music stars and other celebrities and hundreds and thousands of mindless bots (in meat and cyber space).
The target then uses this perceived permission to believe and evangelize for the new narrative, regardless of how formerly ludicrous, harmful, nonsensical, or insane it was considered even months before.
Examples include changing gender, anthropogenic global-cooling-warming-climate change, and most recently and obviously "Kamala Harris is a brilliant, qualified President and everybody is so excited and optimistic to have have lead this campaign and the Joy is omnipresent."
Great commentary. It was a fascinating read the first time when it came out.
I don't think anyone realized the machine Mr. Axelrod built until recently. When the wheels came off because Mr. Musk was tired of certain things and started disassembling the machine, that's when things began to change.
I'd agree with the author about the three men. It's likely Elon saw what was going on and elected to buy Twitter at a loss. Once he had it, realized things weren't as bad as he thought...they were MUCH worse! He then turned it into his own personal MISO tool. Trump...too much to go into, but inches from national disaster is underselling things, IMO. Bibi bears responsibility for Oct 7 as he was in charge. However, it seems he felt unfettered by events and perhaps was willing to unleash the IDF since (perhaps) had nothing to lose personally and sought revenge. Again, we'll never know, but the resulting remaking of the Middle East is remarkable.
Bibi also understands the first priority of any government is keeping citizens from being killed. Hamas and Iran exceeded the pain threshold of Israeli society, and in return, are currently testing that assumption at their convivence.
I still do not understand the thought process behind Mr. Obama's attempts to normalize the Islamic Republic of Iran. They will hate us from the starting point of their ideology, and run a state terrorism organization. There is nobody to negotiate with there.
Perhaps understanding the thinking of whoever actually created and controlled Obama (my tinfoil hat is under my desk!) would help. I'd posit Val Jarrett (sp?) as a mechanism, but not the "brains". Means to an end most likely, the end being the destruction of Israel and damaging U.S. influence in the region and world...all wild speculation on my part, of course.
Marxism is basically built on that concept, that for Utopia to happen the old structures need to be torn down so that the masses can see The Truth(tm).
For one example off the top of my head, see Mao's campaign during the Cultural Revolution against the "four olds": old ideas, old habits, old culture, and old customs.
A country's government has three basic obligations - secure the perimeter, provide basic (repeat, BASIC) services, and stay out of its citizens' way. These are specified in Article I of the US Constitution, a document that is too little read these days. Over the past several decades, the US federal government has failed miserably at all three, which is why I think the Democrats were voted off the island this year.
Mr. Obama was trained by a cadre of radicals, including his parents and college profs, who believe that the root of all evil is the United States. He found enough alllies in the Democrat party to turn his "specialness" into a position of nearly unfettered Executive Order power. I really think it is that simple. Therefore, supporting a terrorist nation whose ideology is anathama to western democracy was and is the next logical step, as was his Dreamers excuse for opening up the floodgates on our borders.
The positive changes in the Middle East will rival the changes due to the end of the USSR. Wish I knew how the enduring disaster of the Sykes-Picot Agreement, which established the modern boundaries of the Middle East as we know them today, can be overcome.
Thank the stars Elon believes it is essential for mankind to establish a permanent presence on Mars soon. I think he looked around and said to himself "We're never going to get to Mars riding this Clown Car. I'm taking the wheel to get us back on track."
Let me add something - a good bit of the reason Silicon Valley’s elite turned on Biden is due to Lina Khan killing M&A -which has made investing in startups much more difficult-since M&A is a primary exit path for those companies ( even more than IPOs). I was hearing this complaint as early as 2021 once COVID became normalized…. I think that helped Musk in particular because many elite SV types were supporting him
It is horrifying that people who fundamentally hate America were able to function as the vanguard of the woketariate to do so much damage to our country. Are we at a turning point? I hope so. But as a wise man once said, this isn't the beginning of the end. It is the end of the beginning.
Exactly. The Left hates the America of our Founding Fathers and their vision of a shining city on a hill. The Leftist vision can be seen in the inner cities: crime, gangs, crappy schools, no fathers, garbage, etc.
CDR Salamander, all of your posts are very good, but by far this is just the best to date. As one might say a “stem winder” if given as a speech or perhaps a real “humdinger” of a cliff notes version of a long piece and analysis to go with it. As this writer read of the Axlerod/Obama relationship the imagine of Lord Voldemort and his Snake Nagini (whom Voldemort fed his corpse to in order to increase his powers) came immediately to mind; not sure who is whom in that relationship but powerful and poisonous they were, and until truly vanquished the nation isn’t safe. But it sure seems that we may be turning a corner. A lot needs to get unpacked, a lot needs to change fast. But as a small example, if the new SecNav gets confirmed a sure sign of change is Finland selling the US some of their new “older” icebreakers and maybe even partnering on a shipyard over here to build ships or simply build out our Navy in the Helsinki Yards.
The middle of America, the working poor, the lower and middle classes never bought the grift. They just stayed silent. In their silence they retreated from traditions like sending the great great grand sons of their linage to fight for their nation. Perhaps they will reinvigorate the link. Forget the over privileged rich, as mentioned they are so fragile they make a Faberge’ Egg seem resilient. Fingers crossed, current CNO and Commandant of the Marine Corps are fired day one. Okay day two, the poor dude has to find his desk first, wouldnt be surprised if he is agile enough to operate at first without the BS that comes with title and just gets the process of rehabilitating the Navy and Marine Corps rolling at high port arms.
I used to equate the odds that the once proud Secret Service would perform as badly as they did in July to the odds that a Navy nuclear submarine would allow sailors to use CIC as a urinal like what happened in the surface navy in the late 2010s. In other words 99.9999% impossible. What other explanation is possible then for the SS other than there was some purposeful intent in Butler last July.
CDR Sal, you provide a great service by bringing this article to the attention of the audience. It gets at the "how and why" we got into this hole. Really helps us typical military linear thinkers. BZ sir!
An hour ago, I listened to Richard Feynman on a few topics, and it again made me realize just how far ahead he is of most people in seeing and understanding the world. Then Sal posts this article and gives me the same feeling. I love it!
Everything I have seen happen in the last several years has done nothing but increase my belief in, and reliance upon, Divine Providence. The "Head Turn" was a pivotal moment in that for many, many people.
Having said that, I can now say that your analysis of what has gone before and it's implications on what will come is as insightful as ever. Even when I do not agree with your conclusions, I cannot fault your collection of that facts and your presentation of them.
“As I was within that distance,” Ferguson subsequently recorded, “at which, in the quickest firing, I could have lodged halt a dozen of balls in or about him before he was out of my reach, I had only to determine; but it was not pleasant to fire at the back of an unoffending individual who was acquitting himself coolly of his duty, and so I let him alone.”
Leftist Obama-Admirals Stavridis and Locklear should be ashamed of themselves. Sadly, they actually BELIEVE their own BS, see none of their damaging DIE views as contributory to the sorry state of affairs in today’s Navy…and thus they aren’t. (With Locklear - in full Obama/Democrat Party ass kiss mode - stating that global warming/rising sea levels was the greatest threat to the Pacific Fleet, it’s taking all I can muster to not call him an idiot. The ChiComs must have got a good laugh out of that.)
Current USNA Sup goes right to global warming when addressing the increased flooding at USNA. But that's what happens when you shoehorn every data point into your reductionistic worldview.
Another DEI hire. As I’ve mentioned here earlier, at my USNA 45th reunion back in September, all the DIE Supe could do was gush about the wonderful “diversity” of the Brigade: 46%! When you’re offering admission based on superficial crap like gender/race, you’re not offering it on merit. But I get why the DIE Supe is all about diversity: that’s how she got her job as Supe.
CLNC 2d Mar Div was wracked with race riots when I was there in the early seventies.
The BAS was swamped with Malingerers' every time we went into the field.
Out there no one was a race rioter because we all were either Latino, Japanese, Philippine or White.
That is when it started.
Never forget the USS Kitty Hawk was wracked with a mutiny too. Their battle cry was "Kill the son-of-a-bitch! Kill the white trash! Kill, kill, kill!"
I can remember how the race riots on CV's were solved (salved?) back in the Early 70s. It was by the UPWARD Seminars, their telling one side to stop oppressing and the other to not tolerate the oppression. But they did it with smiles, polite psychobabble and crushing any opinions contrary to the lesson plan. It was an ugly time in the Navy, and it was aggravated by wide-spread drug abuse. I was ready to get out and try my hand in the fast food industry but promoted to Chief in 1974 and promptly transferred to Paradise, an FF in Hawaii. '70-'74 sucked, didn't it, Bear?
I was in the USAF '71-'74 and knew of the problems, but I never saw any in my soda straw view of the world. No racial tension, no drugs. Certainly knew of the drugs and race problems in the Navy and the Army, though. I think because, in the ordnance field, we were separated mainly from day-to-day base stuff and often worked in isolation. It was a weird time. No one ever thanked me for "my service" (and that was fine)- except family and the neighborhood folks, many of them WWII vets.
I cannot recall any overt racism in my naval service (except for the CVA I served on...and to my eye it seemed sanctioned...a pre-DEI thing) and I don't believe I was either deaf or blind. But then I am Caucasian and perhaps imperceptive or too dense to perceived slights. We all got along, except with slackers, bozo's and troublemakers. That's a given 10% which is color-blind. But it is, as we have seen, not so difficult to stir the pot, set people apart and then set them against each other. Who would do such things? Why? I think we know why. Maybe I'll go find the nearest glue factory and see if they will sell me the jawbone of an ass. Heavy blows need to be smote.
Excellent Essay and expert commentary - Thank you Sal!
Thank you VERY much for bringing this article to my attention.
I have a lot to read and digest and ponder and I appreciate you and Samuels for giving me the opportunity.
That was my exact thought after reading. This article is taking my brain to places I wasn't expecting. A second or third read is a must.
Very interesting, I'll definitely read it entirely since even just the parts you quoted helped me understand a bit better the "what the heck was wrong with the last decade" part.
On the Twitter acquisition, if my memory serves me right, it was even worse:
- Elon makes a joke and says will buy twitter, then makes an offer
- discovery turns out Twitter is in worse shape than it was believed, which makes Elon pull back and try to rescind his offer
- a leftist judge forces Elon to buy Twitter and pay the original price, with the left thinking "ha ha ha, we suckered Elon! take that!"
- Elon buys Twitter and the rest unfolds
So, again if I remember correctly, not only they allowed Elon to buy Twitter, but they actually forced him to buy it when he had second thoughts. This is cosmic karma, I think, and will go down as one of the funniest moments of the early 2020's.
Thanks again for linking the article!
(Edit: typos)
The "leftist judge" was just enforcing well-established contract law. Make an offer, don't be surprised you're held to it. You learn that in 1L.
The Twitter board of directors was initially reluctant to accept the offer, until a lot of shareholders reminded them that they had a fiduciary duty to the shareholders to accept an offer so much in excess of fair market value. Again, basic Corporations law.
That was capitalism at work.
My God, can anyone see anything without trying to ascribe ideological extremism to the actors?
CDR Sal, the author along with Matt Taibi and others are of the opinion our dodging this bullet was a very near run thing. I agree. Mr. Axelrod was likely influenced by former military / agency types willing to sell their sou..., er, expertise in the field of MISO. That is a military activity that aims to influence the attitudes and behaviors of foreign (not to be used in the U.S.!!) groups by developing and sharing messages. MISO activities can include: Public engagements, Radio, Television, Print products, Social media, Websites, and Text messages...IOW, exactly what Mr. Axelrod "discovered".
Permission structures? Nice words. Regarding senior DoD officials, I'd prefer "incentive structures". Go along with the program and get promoted; conversely, resist and get retired. Oh, and if you go along, there's a nice board position at a major defense contractor coming open. Resist, and good luck finding work in the "community". We've now stopped digging the hole we've dug ourselves into. Getting out isn't going to be easy, as a lot of the people digging have no incentive to stop.
MISO and modern advertising both have roots in the massive campaign used to mobilize public opinion for the First World War. The changes in mass media and the like mean that Mr. Axelrod's system was only different in it's depth and pervasiveness.
The true MISO pros since Oct 7 sadly have been Hamas and the other Iran proxies. Convincing thousands of American youth (and the education system that promotes it) that their cause is just and Israel is evil is beyond me. This is the exact message that Sal is conveying as I see it...purposeful deceit by the left. Their cause has been destroyed by Israel the past six months and I hope that our country can regain the upper hand with messaging to our easily confused youth.
I need to read it but I think the "permission" part of the structure is created by inventing an ecosystem where the target of the preferred narrative, perceives "permission" to believe in and become a faithful adherent to the new narrative from the myriad "experts" and "thought-leaders" as well as other talking heads that repeat the message (narrative) everywhere.
This ecosystem is supported and amplified by the by the media, politicians, movie and music stars and other celebrities and hundreds and thousands of mindless bots (in meat and cyber space).
The target then uses this perceived permission to believe and evangelize for the new narrative, regardless of how formerly ludicrous, harmful, nonsensical, or insane it was considered even months before.
Examples include changing gender, anthropogenic global-cooling-warming-climate change, and most recently and obviously "Kamala Harris is a brilliant, qualified President and everybody is so excited and optimistic to have have lead this campaign and the Joy is omnipresent."
Great commentary. It was a fascinating read the first time when it came out.
I don't think anyone realized the machine Mr. Axelrod built until recently. When the wheels came off because Mr. Musk was tired of certain things and started disassembling the machine, that's when things began to change.
I'd agree with the author about the three men. It's likely Elon saw what was going on and elected to buy Twitter at a loss. Once he had it, realized things weren't as bad as he thought...they were MUCH worse! He then turned it into his own personal MISO tool. Trump...too much to go into, but inches from national disaster is underselling things, IMO. Bibi bears responsibility for Oct 7 as he was in charge. However, it seems he felt unfettered by events and perhaps was willing to unleash the IDF since (perhaps) had nothing to lose personally and sought revenge. Again, we'll never know, but the resulting remaking of the Middle East is remarkable.
Bibi also understands the first priority of any government is keeping citizens from being killed. Hamas and Iran exceeded the pain threshold of Israeli society, and in return, are currently testing that assumption at their convivence.
I still do not understand the thought process behind Mr. Obama's attempts to normalize the Islamic Republic of Iran. They will hate us from the starting point of their ideology, and run a state terrorism organization. There is nobody to negotiate with there.
Obama is the nexus where communism meets jihadism.
LOL. He's like a one man IRA-PLO-FARC conference in 1970.
Perhaps understanding the thinking of whoever actually created and controlled Obama (my tinfoil hat is under my desk!) would help. I'd posit Val Jarrett (sp?) as a mechanism, but not the "brains". Means to an end most likely, the end being the destruction of Israel and damaging U.S. influence in the region and world...all wild speculation on my part, of course.
I've come to think the end-goal really is the complete destruction of "western civilization" and any sense of individual worth or freedom.
Marxism is basically built on that concept, that for Utopia to happen the old structures need to be torn down so that the masses can see The Truth(tm).
For one example off the top of my head, see Mao's campaign during the Cultural Revolution against the "four olds": old ideas, old habits, old culture, and old customs.
But we never get to Utopia just the dictatorship of the proletariat.
A country's government has three basic obligations - secure the perimeter, provide basic (repeat, BASIC) services, and stay out of its citizens' way. These are specified in Article I of the US Constitution, a document that is too little read these days. Over the past several decades, the US federal government has failed miserably at all three, which is why I think the Democrats were voted off the island this year.
Mr. Obama was trained by a cadre of radicals, including his parents and college profs, who believe that the root of all evil is the United States. He found enough alllies in the Democrat party to turn his "specialness" into a position of nearly unfettered Executive Order power. I really think it is that simple. Therefore, supporting a terrorist nation whose ideology is anathama to western democracy was and is the next logical step, as was his Dreamers excuse for opening up the floodgates on our borders.
The positive changes in the Middle East will rival the changes due to the end of the USSR. Wish I knew how the enduring disaster of the Sykes-Picot Agreement, which established the modern boundaries of the Middle East as we know them today, can be overcome.
Thank the stars Elon believes it is essential for mankind to establish a permanent presence on Mars soon. I think he looked around and said to himself "We're never going to get to Mars riding this Clown Car. I'm taking the wheel to get us back on track."
Let me add something - a good bit of the reason Silicon Valley’s elite turned on Biden is due to Lina Khan killing M&A -which has made investing in startups much more difficult-since M&A is a primary exit path for those companies ( even more than IPOs). I was hearing this complaint as early as 2021 once COVID became normalized…. I think that helped Musk in particular because many elite SV types were supporting him
Out of the park home run post. Thank you for the deep dive.
It is horrifying that people who fundamentally hate America were able to function as the vanguard of the woketariate to do so much damage to our country. Are we at a turning point? I hope so. But as a wise man once said, this isn't the beginning of the end. It is the end of the beginning.
They only hate THIS America. They LOVE the brave new one which will soon emerge from the pod and rid the world of all sin and privation.
Exactly. The Left hates the America of our Founding Fathers and their vision of a shining city on a hill. The Leftist vision can be seen in the inner cities: crime, gangs, crappy schools, no fathers, garbage, etc.
It is [perhaps] the end of the beginning. I sure hope so
Great post! What a great analysis of the last 20 years.
"You can only avoid reality so long."
CDR Salamander, all of your posts are very good, but by far this is just the best to date. As one might say a “stem winder” if given as a speech or perhaps a real “humdinger” of a cliff notes version of a long piece and analysis to go with it. As this writer read of the Axlerod/Obama relationship the imagine of Lord Voldemort and his Snake Nagini (whom Voldemort fed his corpse to in order to increase his powers) came immediately to mind; not sure who is whom in that relationship but powerful and poisonous they were, and until truly vanquished the nation isn’t safe. But it sure seems that we may be turning a corner. A lot needs to get unpacked, a lot needs to change fast. But as a small example, if the new SecNav gets confirmed a sure sign of change is Finland selling the US some of their new “older” icebreakers and maybe even partnering on a shipyard over here to build ships or simply build out our Navy in the Helsinki Yards.
The middle of America, the working poor, the lower and middle classes never bought the grift. They just stayed silent. In their silence they retreated from traditions like sending the great great grand sons of their linage to fight for their nation. Perhaps they will reinvigorate the link. Forget the over privileged rich, as mentioned they are so fragile they make a Faberge’ Egg seem resilient. Fingers crossed, current CNO and Commandant of the Marine Corps are fired day one. Okay day two, the poor dude has to find his desk first, wouldnt be surprised if he is agile enough to operate at first without the BS that comes with title and just gets the process of rehabilitating the Navy and Marine Corps rolling at high port arms.
Wow.
If there is any crime the Left has not committed it’s only because it is not possible for human beings to achieve perfection even in malevolence.
In the Gramscian world, the smartest of them will learn from their mistakes. They'll be back.
An angel must have been protecting Trump on that day in Butler, PA.
When PYSOPS was no longer working the Deep State didn’t hesitate to go back to old fashioned methods.
💯 i suspect there will be more. some have too much to lose after selling out and going all in.
I used to equate the odds that the once proud Secret Service would perform as badly as they did in July to the odds that a Navy nuclear submarine would allow sailors to use CIC as a urinal like what happened in the surface navy in the late 2010s. In other words 99.9999% impossible. What other explanation is possible then for the SS other than there was some purposeful intent in Butler last July.
Like Dallas 1963.
CDR Sal, you provide a great service by bringing this article to the attention of the audience. It gets at the "how and why" we got into this hole. Really helps us typical military linear thinkers. BZ sir!
An hour ago, I listened to Richard Feynman on a few topics, and it again made me realize just how far ahead he is of most people in seeing and understanding the world. Then Sal posts this article and gives me the same feeling. I love it!
Ron: Richard Feynman is in my pantheon of heros. His brain was a marvel of clarity. He was also funny.
Mine also. What a treat it would have been to take a class with him.
Everything I have seen happen in the last several years has done nothing but increase my belief in, and reliance upon, Divine Providence. The "Head Turn" was a pivotal moment in that for many, many people.
Having said that, I can now say that your analysis of what has gone before and it's implications on what will come is as insightful as ever. Even when I do not agree with your conclusions, I cannot fault your collection of that facts and your presentation of them.
Thank you.
I'll take Divine Providence for $500 Brian. It seems to occur again and again in our history.
https://www.americanheritage.com/man-who-didnt-shoot-washington
“As I was within that distance,” Ferguson subsequently recorded, “at which, in the quickest firing, I could have lodged halt a dozen of balls in or about him before he was out of my reach, I had only to determine; but it was not pleasant to fire at the back of an unoffending individual who was acquitting himself coolly of his duty, and so I let him alone.”