Point Loma: Useful Idiots
Editor’s Note: There is a lot of excitement in the continuing circus of American politics. You have seen them starting already- favorites for this young week are the delayed announcement of a vaccine to provide 90% protection against the dread scourge of Corona Virus- which has a 99.5% chance of survival for most of the population, except old folks like us. Then there is the swirl of the election fraud allegations- something you will hear about as “widely debunked” from those who favor the outcome. That term is another that has become prominent during the four year campaign against the almost former President, both for and against, though only the “against” part of it is reported. We will see how that goes- the Electoral College is supposed to vote on December 14th, the Senate run-off elections in Georgia hold the prospect of hobbling a Biden Administration, or opening a unified Congress to enable the continued transformation of the Republic into something else. Socotra House stands with chaos and confusion. We will continue to follow as closely as they allow as this marvelous story continues to unfold.
– Vic
Author’s Note: Well, now that Joe Biden has been duly declared as elected to be our next President, I don’t know whether to be frightened or relieved. Two things are for certain – we are going to be poorer and less free. At the least, I’m glad to see that my dire warnings of a societal meltdown have not come to pass – but there is a parable here…
– Point Loma
Useful Idiots
Twenty years ago, I go the chance to talk in person with Dr. Samuel P. Huntington, author of “The Clash of Civilizations,” at a cocktail party in Cambridge. He was your typical Harvard professor of the day, sporting a threadbare Harris Tweed blazer with elbow patches, and an open-collared shirt at a more formal dress event. He had a snaggle-toothed smile with teeth stained yellow from years of nicotine and coffee. Francis Fukuyama had recently published his repudiation of “Clash” based on the dissolution of the Soviet Union and failure of Communist dogma, titled “The End of History and the Last Man.” I asked Dr. Huntington about what he thought about that book; he favored me with a wicked grin and offered this younger whipper-snapper an interesting observation born of wisdom “It ain’t’ over yet.”
Screen Shot 2020-11-10 at 9.14.15 AM.png
Uncle Joe & Kammie
Wiki says it as well as any source – “In political jargon, a useful idiot is a derogatory term for a person perceived as propagandizing for a cause without fully comprehending the cause’s goals, and who is cynically used by the cause’s leaders. The term was originally used during the Cold War to describe non-communists regarded as susceptible to communist propaganda and manipulation. The term has often been attributed to Vladimir Lenin, but this attribution is unsubstantiated.”[1] However, it definitely sounds like something Lenin would have said. What it doesn’t say is that once their usefulness is up, the idiots are eliminated – either by execution or by relegation to the dustbin of history.
And so, in almost 48 years of government “service,” the man managed to not pass one substantial piece of legislation with his name on it, but taking advantage of other’s work which was a skill he perfected when he was in college. Now that he has been elected, don’t expect any sudden miracles – COVID-19 is vanquished although Pfizer now says they have a miracle vaccine that is 90% effective (an announcement they could have made in October but chose not to for some reason…), the economy fully rebounds, and we get back to living our normal lives as if nothing ever happened – sort of like Serv Pro for the Soul. But Uncle Joe has served his purpose – he has replaced Trump and thereby restored most of the power and prerogatives of the Deep State. What makes it interesting is that now in the COVID-19 world and he is 77 years old with a history of underlying health issues, he is only one good deep breath away from that one-way ticket to the ICU and mortal oblivion. The political thriller aspects are delicious. Like the Caesars of old, his handlers and now the Secret Service shouldn’t let anyone unknown from the outside who could be a COVID-19 carrying assassin anywhere near him, even though it is kind of hard to sample the air we have to breathe, which is unlike tasting food for poison.
I didn’t bother to watch the returns on election night since I pretty much knew what was going to transpire, and I wanted to avoid any case of projectile vomiting. Not wanting to hit the rack too early, I flipped through the channels and came across a Godfather marathon – great stuff. In the first movie there was a scene that I hadn’t paid much attention to before, but I did last Tuesday night. It involves a short conversation between Michael Corleone and his waspy wife Kay about the uses and abuses of power.[2]
Screen Shot 2020-11-10 at 9.14.36 AM.png
Al Pacino as Michael Corleone
“My father is no different than any powerful man, any man with power, like a president or senator.
“Do you know how naive you sound, Michael? Presidents and Senators don’t have men killed.”
“Oh. Who’s being naive, Kay?”
And now waiting in the wings are all of the bad guy dictators and other egotistical world leaders who are probably vying for the chance to be the first to have their pictures taken next to a guy who can’t figure out which way he needs to put on his Depends® in the mornings. They will want to contrast their strength against his frailty as sort of a metaphor of America’s fall vs. the world and in particular, their vision of leadership for their countries, their societies and their civilizations – it should prove to be both degrading and disgusting.
Waiting in the wings is VP-elect Harris, who no one wanted and before this, whose biggest claim to fame was being denied free bus rides to school courtesy of Uncle Joe’s tagging along on a desegregation bill. Her lack of real personal charisma and a UC Berkeley liberal background so alienated her from the voters that they registered their repudiation by forcing her to withdraw from the campaign before the first Democratic primary was held. Now, she is in line to become the first female President – is this a great country or what?
Even though I can be hypercritical, I do wish them well and all success in defeating COVID-19 and righting the economy. We all have a vested interest in the future of the country and that they can achieve bi-partisan consensus and try to do the right things and not overreach, if they are allowed to govern on their own. But there are always mitigating circumstances, good intentions notwithstanding.
Screen Shot 2020-11-10 at 9.14.56 AM.png
The Politburo (the original Uncle Joe is in the middle)
The real question is, who is in charge here? Since the Communist Party of North America disappeared inside the Democratic Party sometime in the 1950s (as they were being hunted down by Tailgunner Joe McCarthy), they have re-emerged rebranded as the Progressives (see Bernie Sanders for details). Stymied in 2016, they were licking their chops on how they were going to remake America this time around, except a funny thing happened on the way to the Revolution – the Blue Wave of Liberalism didn’t materialize to carry the election the way they were slavering over. On the contrary, the only real loser was Donald Trump, and you can argue that without COVID-19, he’d still be President four years from now. It turns out that the hoi polloi figured out that free stuff won’t exactly be free, and that law and order really does mean something to most Americans, even illegal immigrants. Absent control of the Senate and the now inability to pack the Supreme Court with Liberal justices, and the Green New Deal is not going to happen, they will be reduced to what they can get away with using Executive Orders and legislating by regulation by the various members of the Politburo waiting to be named. They will be the front for the real power brokers in the country going forward. The nice thing going for them is that they will get to have it both ways – they can blame both COVID-19 and Donald Trump for the measures that they will propose in order to save the country – they are patriots, after all. The first will probably be a national mandate for mask wearing that all will agree with – while it makes sense from a public health standpoint, it is an egregious power grab and sets a bad precedent – “Simon says wear a mask; Simon says pay a national wealth task; Free health care and education for all. Yeah, I didn’t say Simon Says, but I don’t have to anymore since you agreed to wear that mask.” On the other hand and now that Trump is on his way out, there is another group of useful idiots out there who can be re-directed to achieve by violence and action what couldn’t be achieved at the ballot box.
Screen Shot 2020-11-10 at 9.15.09 AM.png
The Mob
Ordinarily, the Mob, having accomplished its mission, would be disbanded by sponsors pulling their funding support, and with a cold winter approaching, send everyone home to figure out how to cope without jobs in the COVID-19 society. If not, then you’ve got to find something else for them to do since they’ve become addicted to street frenzy – another social cause to espouse. Here you have a trained and organized force like the Nazi brownshirts, who are waiting around to be aimed like a weapon, so why not use it? So, what is it that the big money people, like Georges Soros, who pull the strings behind the scenes to their own ends, really want to get rid of? The First Amendment has been mortally wounded, and bleeding out; Free Speech is being labelled as Hate Speech or shouted down by those who have big enough megaphones, and who don’t approve of or agree with what you think and say. That leaves the Second Amendment, so let’s get on with gun confiscation by perpetrating acts of gun violence that demands (more) legislative and regulatory action. Simon Says give me your weapons – or else.
And in an interesting twist, the Hilary Clinton “deplorables” meme has resurfaced. I saw a headline on Drudge about MAGA supporters “brandishing” firearms (which is a Federal crime everywhere) and worshipping crucifixes (which is not yet), sort of like what Obama said back in 2015 about people clinging to their guns and religion – none of it was true, of course. Well, Jesus saves and guns protect – we’ll have to see if it sticks as part of the Biden-Harris agenda going forward.
Screen Shot 2020-11-10 at 9.15.21 AM.png
Trump News Network?
What’s next for the President. First, he gets to join a very elite club of ex-Presidents, and an even smaller one of those who survived impeachment. He is still fighting it and, in his mind, he didn’t lose. He declared victory on Tuesday night, and the argument that he will take to his grave will be that he won but the election was stolen from him. He’s a winner, after all, so you know he will not let it go. Then there is the Durham investigation waiting to drop, which should prove interesting, if not revelatory, along with the Senate race run-offs in Georgia – ugh. But I don’t think those are really going to change anything.
And what is his chief gripe, anyway – that his opponents cheated better than him? Dead people voting in elections is a well-established American tradition, like collecting Social Security in your grave is a human right in America. That’s why all elections are administered at the “local level” not Federal, and that voter registration information is so zealously guarded – for just such occasions as during this past election. He should have known better.
Assuming the status quo holds, you can guaran-goddamn-tee Trump will be living in Joe Biden’s ass for the foreseeable future – either via Twitter, radio and TV show call-ins, or his own TV or talk show. You can see steps being taken to try to limit his what was relatively unfettered access to social media, to include restrictions being visited by Twitter, Facebook, and others. It may well be that he does set up his own network or get a show on one of the conservative channels. Hell, if they can give a bully pulpit to the Reverend Al, then why not the Donald? And while the Cancel Culture will be busy trying to eradicate Trump’s legacy, at least we never had to use the title “President Hilary Rodham Clinton” and all that potentially entailed.
But, now that he is going to have to yield power whatever the circumstances, then he’s got to be thinking about Numero Uno, and that’s how to avoid going to prison if his biggest detractors and haters get their way. The best way is to issue himself a Presidential Pardon. If that’s not possible, then wait until the last minute, resign and get Mike Pence to do it. That would be an interesting coda to what has been a strange year, a true asterisk to an amazing election year and one in American history that ain’t over yet.
I remain your faithful servant.
Post-Script – I note with no small level of amazement the date when I initiated this screed – 40 years ago to the day that I raised my right hand along with 300 other fellow Officer Candidates there in Newport and took the oath. Where in the fuck does time go?
[1] Source: Wikipedia.
[2] Source: Mario Puzo “The Godfather,” 1972.
Copyright 2020 Point Loma
www.vicsocotra.com
03 November 2020 Editor’s Note: It is Election Day, and the madness that has gripped the nation this strange year will transition to something else. Some organizations are calling for civic disturbance here in The Swamp, effective 4:00 EST, and that could go on for a while. So, with the realization that things will not make sense for the duration, it seems appropriate to turn to noted author Point Loma for his observation about the nature of things. Sometimes even dumb stuff takes a lot of planning. We may be seeing a lot of it. – Vic Author’s Note – I’m a little behind on my creative writing as I had an unexpected out-of-town house guest last weekend that threw my schedule for a loop, and otherwise having writer’s block on a project at work that I can’t seem to get my heart into. In any event, I wanted to get this our pre-election as I have a harsher piece warming up for what comes next. Monkeys Flew Out of My Butt Screen Shot 2020-11-03 at 8.28.57 AM.png The Infamous F/A-18 HUD Video – Is it Real? Has any sentient being on the planet not seen this by now? When the Pentagon created a UFO Task Force (or called UAP – Unidentified Aerial Phenomena) back in August, I noted it with interest. Obviously, there is something going on here that can no longer be hidden or covered up in whatever manner – although I suspect that it’s probably an Area 51/Men-in-Black, missing evidence type of operation which has nothing to do with extra-terrestrials, whomever they may be. It does have all of the dripping deliciousness of a conspiracy – which is stock in trade in American political discourse these days. Sort of interesting that the Navy has the lead in this effort – which suggests to me that they were the ones that screwed whatever up and now have been given the unenviable task of doing damage control and making the whole thing go away. Good luck with that. In addition to conjuring up the Roswell incident in 1947, there is also the other-worldly involvement of the USS NIMITZ – the subject of time travel in “The Final Countdown” and a focus on strange goings on in the SOCAL operating area to the point that a commercial company is planning to focus all of their satellite imagery resources in the off-hand chance that they will spot something. It makes sense to do that, since there are now so many eyes in the sky that it’s hard to take a leak in public without someone watching, and catching you on video in the act – and then posting it on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram for the rest of the world’s vicarious pleasure. Then, a friendly police drone will descend from the sky and hand you a citation for polluting the environment and thereby contributing to global warming and climate change. Is this a great country or what? One train of thought (okay, mine) thinks that it all could be just one major prank, which we in Naval Aviation have been known to perpetrate on an unsuspecting humanity from time to time, like Crop Circles in England. Of course, I’m referring to the Sky Penis over Okanagan. Screen Shot 2020-11-03 at 8.28.38 AM.png A Paean to Good Crew Planning. I know a lot of people lacking a sense of humor didn’t like or appreciate this – I thought it was fucking awesome. If you really know and/or appreciate what it took to plan an execute something like this, then you are on my clue bus. And if you got upset about it, then fuck you. I was always amazed at the lengths we would go to just to screw somebody over. I used to tell my air wing bubbas: “If you would put as much effort into doing your real job as you do in perpetrating slams on each other, then this would be a truly great operation.” So, this Growler air crew had to do the research, study the weather for the right contrail conditions, determine where the air space would allow free maneuvers, plan the mission profile so as to have some gas to dump into the air stream, be able to control the flight schedule to take advantage of the right weather window and accommodate whatever bullshit reason this mission had to be flown, and then execute it while not laughing your asses off. In the old days, this would have been blow off but that was the old days. I think the only reason that the flight crew did not have their wings pulled or otherwise put in hack was that it was a mixed gender aircrew – reportedly the Growler ECMO was female. That defeated the narrative of toxic masculinity and made it a Naval Aviation thing. And besides, it had to be a penis – what could be more recognizable? No one would have even noticed a vagina as a work of sky writing art. We haven’t had this much fun since hell, Tailhook ’91. So, the idea of this whole UFO/APU thing being a massive hoax can’t be discounted – even one conceived and executed to hide something else. And if it is just the pilots involved in tweaking the sensibilities of the world, then it is huge. Back in the day, we would plant stories into the intel traffic all of the time just to see who would pick up on them, and how long the half-life of a joke lasted before it circulated the planet, and the attendant wonders (and intellectual laziness) of circular reporting on the part of peers. The more time your rumor or purely made-up story was breathlessly repeated as “news” then life was good. Now, there are all kinds of prohibitions on doing that sort of thing now. Yep, everyone has lost their collective senses of humor, if not their minds. So whatever it is, it’s not aliens from the Planet Zorax, or some other ungodly uninhabitable place in the Solar system like Mars, Titan, Ganymede, or even Uranus. If evil aliens really wanted to enslave us or eat our brains, they would have already done so…Hey! wait a minute???? Screen Shot 2020-11-03 at 8.28.21 AM.png Another Point of View “It’s important to keep an open mind, but not so open that your brains fall out.” Carl Sagan Dr. Masters makes some interesting and even compelling arguments on why whatever we are seeing is not extraterrestrial in origin, and in fact may be ourselves out of another future time doing anthropological and biological research on living specimens, or just entertaining themselves. His term for our inheritors is “extratempestrials” – people out of time. He has many explanations, mostly rooted in hard science but also speculative as why this may be so. The scientific rationale is understandable if that is what our successors are trying to understand – where they come from and how they got there despite our best efforts to the contrary. So, killing us would not be in their best interest – and if they did want to do that, they would have already. Of course, we all may wind up speaking Chinese, but I digress. the book itself is a good read but has enough science and technical jargon that makes it one of those you have to put down from time to time to figure out just what he meant. Nonetheless, it is entertaining in a high-brow sense, given the brouhaha surrounding the pandemic, the Chinese world takeover, and the impending election and all the shenanigans and hijinks sure to follow. And if it true, it means that, somehow we will have figured out how to survive all of the mass hype, disease, and hysteria. And it they are doing if for entertainment value, as if every future humanoid or hominin has a time machine at their disposal, image if you will the following dinner time conversation that could take place in the 43rd Century: “So Blaylox, what era or event do you want to visit tonight?” “I’m partial towards North America in the 20th Century. People were so theatrical and operatic back then. They took themselves and their causes way too seriously.” “How about 1945, so we can watch the first atomic bomb go off in WWII, or maybe the Kennedy assassination – never get tired to that Lee Harvey Oswald character. What would you like to do Hortix?” “Those are sort of boring and old hat – what say we visit the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election, so we can watch the meltdown of America in just one day.” “That sounds good dear, all of that violence and blood – it should be fun. We will have to be careful about where we go since they’ve just set up that UAP Task Force – there will be eyes everywhere. I’ll warm up the Rolex (imagine if you will that watch brands evolve into time machines, just like Porsche and Lexus).” “I’ve got a better idea – we’ll get the neighbors to go with us and if someone gets noticed, we’ll just do some formation flying over some major city, make time warp jumps around the U.S., go take formation photos with the International Space Station, and totally distract those morons.” “Good idea – we don’t want to get caught like Uncle Alixious did back in 1947 near Roswell. That was a total fooking disaster.” “We’ll just have to be more careful. There will be a lot of people out there with loaded guns, looking for a good time.” “I’ll pack the chicken salad and the brie, and a good bottle of Happy Hour White.” “You know, I wish that place they called the Willow Bar was still open in 2020 – that would have been the place to watch a disaster of biblical proportions.” And if you can believe this, then monkeys flew out of my butt. I remain your faithful servant. Copyright 2020 Point Loma www.vicsocotra.com
Editor’s Note: It is Election Day, and the madness that has gripped the nation this strange year will transition to something else. Some organizations are calling for civic disturbance here in The Swamp, effective 4:00 EST, and that could go on for a while. So, with the realization that things will not make sense for the duration, it seems appropriate to turn to noted author Point Loma for his observation about the nature of things. Sometimes even dumb stuff takes a lot of planning. We may be seeing a lot of it.
– Vic
Author’s Note – I’m a little behind on my creative writing as I had an unexpected out-of-town house guest last weekend that threw my schedule for a loop, and otherwise having writer’s block on a project at work that I can’t seem to get my heart into. In any event, I wanted to get this our pre-election as I have a harsher piece warming up for what comes next.
Monkeys Flew Out of My Butt
The Infamous F/A-18 HUD Video – Is it Real?
Has any sentient being on the planet not seen this by now?
When the Pentagon created a UFO Task Force (or called UAP – Unidentified Aerial Phenomena) back in August, I noted it with interest. Obviously, there is something going on here that can no longer be hidden or covered up in whatever manner – although I suspect that it’s probably an Area 51/Men-in-Black, missing evidence type of operation which has nothing to do with extra-terrestrials, whomever they may be. It does have all of the dripping deliciousness of a conspiracy – which is stock in trade in American political discourse these days. Sort of interesting that the Navy has the lead in this effort – which suggests to me that they were the ones that screwed whatever up and now have been given the unenviable task of doing damage control and making the whole thing go away. Good luck with that.
In addition to conjuring up the Roswell incident in 1947, there is also the other-worldly involvement of the USS NIMITZ – the subject of time travel in “The Final Countdown” and a focus on strange goings on in the SOCAL operating area to the point that a commercial company is planning to focus all of their satellite imagery resources in the off-hand chance that they will spot something. It makes sense to do that, since there are now so many eyes in the sky that it’s hard to take a leak in public without someone watching, and catching you on video in the act – and then posting it on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram for the rest of the world’s vicarious pleasure. Then, a friendly police drone will descend from the sky and hand you a citation for polluting the environment and thereby contributing to global warming and climate change. Is this a great country or what?
One train of thought (okay, mine) thinks that it all could be just one major prank, which we in Naval Aviation have been known to perpetrate on an unsuspecting humanity from time to time, like Crop Circles in England. Of course, I’m referring to the Sky Penis over Okanagan.
A Paean to Good Crew Planning. I know a lot of people lacking a sense of humor didn’t like or appreciate this – I thought it was fucking awesome. If you really know and/or appreciate what it took to plan an execute something like this, then you are on my clue bus. And if you got upset about it, then fuck you. I was always amazed at the lengths we would go to just to screw somebody over. I used to tell my air wing bubbas:
“If you would put as much effort into doing your real job as you do in perpetrating slams on each other, then this would be a truly great operation.”
So, this Growler air crew had to do the research, study the weather for the right contrail conditions, determine where the air space would allow free maneuvers, plan the mission profile so as to have some gas to dump into the air stream, be able to control the flight schedule to take advantage of the right weather window and accommodate whatever bullshit reason this mission had to be flown, and then execute it while not laughing your asses off. In the old days, this would have been blow off but that was the old days. I think the only reason that the flight crew did not have their wings pulled or otherwise put in hack was that it was a mixed gender aircrew – reportedly the Growler ECMO was female. That defeated the narrative of toxic masculinity and made it a Naval Aviation thing. And besides, it had to be a penis – what could be more recognizable? No one would have even noticed a vagina as a work of sky writing art. We haven’t had this much fun since hell, Tailhook ’91.
So, the idea of this whole UFO/APU thing being a massive hoax can’t be discounted – even one conceived and executed to hide something else. And if it is just the pilots involved in tweaking the sensibilities of the world, then it is huge. Back in the day, we would plant stories into the intel traffic all of the time just to see who would pick up on them, and how long the half-life of a joke lasted before it circulated the planet, and the attendant wonders (and intellectual laziness) of circular reporting on the part of peers. The more time your rumor or purely made-up story was breathlessly repeated as “news” then life was good. Now, there are all kinds of prohibitions on doing that sort of thing now. Yep, everyone has lost their collective senses of humor, if not their minds.
So whatever it is, it’s not aliens from the Planet Zorax, or some other ungodly uninhabitable place in the Solar system like Mars, Titan, Ganymede, or even Uranus. If evil aliens really wanted to enslave us or eat our brains, they would have already done so…Hey! wait a minute????
Another Point of View
“It’s important to keep an open mind, but not so open that your brains fall out.”
Carl Sagan
Dr. Masters makes some interesting and even compelling arguments on why whatever we are seeing is not extraterrestrial in origin, and in fact may be ourselves out of another future time doing anthropological and biological research on living specimens, or just entertaining themselves. His term for our inheritors is “extratempestrials” – people out of time. He has many explanations, mostly rooted in hard science but also speculative as why this may be so. The scientific rationale is understandable if that is what our successors are trying to understand – where they come from and how they got there despite our best efforts to the contrary. So, killing us would not be in their best interest – and if they did want to do that, they would have already. Of course, we all may wind up speaking Chinese, but I digress.
the book itself is a good read but has enough science and technical jargon that makes it one of those you have to put down from time to time to figure out just what he meant. Nonetheless, it is entertaining in a high-brow sense, given the brouhaha surrounding the pandemic, the Chinese world takeover, and the impending election and all the shenanigans and hijinks sure to follow. And if it true, it means that, somehow we will have figured out how to survive all of the mass hype, disease, and hysteria.
And it they are doing if for entertainment value, as if every future humanoid or hominin has a time machine at their disposal, image if you will the following dinner time conversation that could take place in the 43rd Century:
“So Blaylox, what era or event do you want to visit tonight?”
“I’m partial towards North America in the 20th Century. People were so theatrical and operatic back then. They took themselves and their causes way too seriously.”
“How about 1945, so we can watch the first atomic bomb go off in WWII, or maybe the Kennedy assassination – never get tired to that Lee Harvey Oswald character. What would you like to do Hortix?”
“Those are sort of boring and old hat – what say we visit the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election, so we can watch the meltdown of America in just one day.”
“That sounds good dear, all of that violence and blood – it should be fun. We will have to be careful about where we go since they’ve just set up that UAP Task Force – there will be eyes everywhere. I’ll warm up the Rolex (imagine if you will that watch brands evolve into time machines, just like Porsche and Lexus).”
“I’ve got a better idea – we’ll get the neighbors to go with us and if someone gets noticed, we’ll just do some formation flying over some major city, make time warp jumps around the U.S., go take formation photos with the International Space Station, and totally distract those morons.”
“Good idea – we don’t want to get caught like Uncle Alixious did back in 1947 near Roswell. That was a total fooking disaster.”
“We’ll just have to be more careful. There will be a lot of people out there with loaded guns, looking for a good time.”
“I’ll pack the chicken salad and the brie, and a good bottle of Happy Hour White.”
“You know, I wish that place they called the Willow Bar was still open in 2020 – that would have been the place to watch a disaster of biblical proportions.”
And if you can believe this, then monkeys flew out of my butt.
I remain your faithful servant.
Copyright 2020 Point Loma
www.vicsocotra.com
Point Loma: Wolf Warriors- Yeah, Right….
Editor’s Note: This is an offering from Point Loma on another player in the wild circus that will continue to sweep over us in the next few weeks and months. I was distracted today in a matter of oral surgery that replaced several well-used teeth. The travel, anesthetic and kinetic impact is leaving me a bit out of norm. More on all that mañana.
– Vic
Author’s Note: This was written several months ago but got lost in the shuffle. Still doesn’t change much in the greater scheme of things.
– Point Loma
Wolf Warriors – Yeah, Right…
Wolf Warrior Movie Poster
I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of being threatened by a bunch of aggressive Chinese foreign policy and comical PLA general staff bobbleheads and would-be Wolf Warriors every time we take exception to what they are doing over in my Westpac. I think there are a few more people over there who are growing weary of thuggery and bullying: to list a few – Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, the PI (finally), Brunei, Singapore, Japan, Taiwan, and a few of our European/NATO allies who still have a fucking clue about their enduring interests – like the French. The Indians even got their spines up after their little border dust-up so the Chinese decided to dis-engage and go bully up on Bhutan – Bhutan? Then there is what is happening in Hong Kong, which is a crime against all humanity and notions of human rights and respect for the sanctity of sealed agreements. Really? And then threaten to levy sanctions on your critics, weak. So how fucking brave is that?
So after all of the tough talk on cracking down, the following two headlines sort of sum up my headline:
South China Sea: Chinese military told not to fire first shot in stand-off with US forces[1]
· Sources say that troops have been given orders not to escalate situation as both sides step up their activities in the disputed waters
· Beijing said to be keen to cool the ‘tense and dangerous situation’ and agreed to a conversation between defence ministers after initially snubbing the request
And this one doing a backstroke on all the Hong Kong tough talk:
National security law: Hong Kong media mogul Jimmy Lai freed on bail as activist Agnes Chow calls her arrest ‘political persecution and suppression’[2]
· Lai appears outside Mong Kok Police Station shortly after midnight to loud chants of ‘Support Apple! Support till the end!’ from supporters
· Apple Daily founder was one of 10 people arrested in dramatic operation on Monday
Even the “Wolfmen” are afraid of Jimmy Lai. Why am I not surprised?
Confucius and Sun Tzu must be doing cheetah-flips in their tombs. Wolf Wimps is more like it – we know how to bring it a lot bigger and badder than they can dream, because we already have – ask the IJN, the Nazis, or what’s left of the Iraqi Rev Guard. Ah-so, I and my friends have the track record and resume to prove it. I had to go to a few lengths to figure out how to say “go fuck yourself” in Mandarin as well as translated into Kanji characters. Here’s my own personal message:
It Looks Right – Admire the Symmetry
“Yeah, you didn’t like the contrast of the images of our two carriers vs. your puny ones operating in the SCS. And then telling the world that you control where and when we operate as if that were your prerogative – you are playing right into my personal wheelhouse so Wolf Warriors my ass. You’ve got to earn that right and show me something. The last time you really tried it after Korea, the Vietnamese handed you your sorry butts. If you want to play ball with the big boys, then time to start working out. I know you, and you haven’t shown me shit, so 去他妈的 – Qù tā mā de.”
So, I’ve been there and done that with those motherfuckers; gotten down and dirty drunk with them and saw a lot of what they are attempting in the construction of a new Chinese society – it was breathtaking 25 years ago, but a beautiful and breathtaking culture bent to a polluted ill wind, built upon a gomi pile of corruption, shoddy construction, and bullshit – all show, no go. But still, I actually liked some of our barbarian handlers – they were smart and engaging guys and so were there for that reason, mostly to solicit information out of us and my God they partied hard. There’s no reason we can’t get along with them with a certain amount of mutual respect and understanding but that’s not the message President Xi Jinping is preaching. He’s trying to have it both ways, which usually fails – ask guys named Adolf and Benito when you get to wherever that certain rung in Hell may be. Now you can see how this is being played out in Hong Kong – they were rightfully afraid of Hong Kong as I predicted almost 40 years ago; that Hong Kong could wind up controlling all of China – well now they really need Hong Kong. But instead, as all dictatorial miscreants do, they will destroy a good thing and a wondrous place as consumed in their wanton stupidity and as mis-guided by their own precious perceptions of the exceptionality of the long-term history of China as they are. Just wait until the Three Gorges Dam bursts…
So right now, I think their strong-arm tactics suck but it’s all threat, and ours should also be as biliously empty on rhetoric but long on deeds – and this is no time for 娘们 (niáng men = wussies). As usual in the peacetime interregnums, we unilaterally disarm, so here we are once again woefully unprepared and not in a good position in Westpac for a lot of the wrong reasons, mainly a lack of leadership over the past thirty years as well as complaisance with the status quo, so we have got to trade bluster for bluster to gain some strategic distance and time. Sending two carriers into the SCS was a good idea, as well as flushing all the fast attack SSNs which was fucking brilliant – I wouldn’t want to have been the PLAN Intelligence Head of Submarine Analysis when that news happened.
I take a certain grim satisfaction in knowing that the Belt & Road Initiative is turning into an invitation to unforgiving debt, disease, and death from COVID-19, and not deliverance from poverty but national indentured servitude for entire nation states who signed up for that hit of crack. When they try to invade and take over Taiwan, which they may, I would love to be the Commander of the Joint and Combined Forces that gets the pleasure of drowning several hundred thousand stupid PLA pricks. And for you Wolf Warrior boys, it would be better for you that you should go out and earn some T-Shirts as mine came at a price, one that I’ve already paid. If not, go out and howl at the moon, make your fucking empty threats, or shut the fuck up. Right now, all I see is a huge backing down when faced with a couple of carriers who meant no-shit business – that’s the Navy I loved, and the right way to use it. Take notes.
I remain your faithful servant.
[1] South China Morning Post article, 03 August 2020.
[2] Ibid, 12 August 2020.
Copyright 2020 Point Loma
www.vicsocotra.com
Point Loma: Once Upon a Time
Editor’s Note: In keeping with the gentle and respectful media storm surrounding the election cyclone, I will avoid comment on the VP debate last night. or now, anyway. Our pal Point Loma felt the same way, and wrote an account that is both real and surreal. It seems to be about a place- a country- that once existed on the land between shores.
– Vic
Author’s Note: As I promised at the advent of the last installment, I am going to try to stay away from politics since it is an unhealthy business, best left to the professionals like Arrias –and you have to admire how adroitly I just handed him that piece of shit task. I have often been accused of being a man obsessed with living in the past, and as a Midway sailor I have always thought I was born 40 years too late. I’ve done what I could to drag the lessons of those times forward with me into the present, and maybe aiming it all at a future that we still can’t see or even comprehend. Given the chaotic nature of today’s headlines, I will always go back to things that are tried and true – tested by the passage of time. It is an intellectually safe place to be unless you can imagine and dare to sally forth to do better in shaping the present and thereby through your actions, the future.
Once Upon a Time
Old Blue Eyes
“Once upon a time
The world was sweeter than we knew
Everything was ours
How happy we were then
But somehow once upon a time
Never comes again”[1]
Twenty years ago or so, I was involved in an extended project out at the Naval Post-Graduate School in Monterey, California. I was staying at the BOQ – which was the former Del Monte Hotel since the Navy had taken it over in 1942 – commuting out there for weeks at a time. We worked out a deal so they gave me a dedicated room where I could leave my gear, so it made it easy to go back to DC for weekend conjugal visits. My semi-permanent BOQ room was on the top floor, but it wasn’t a suite – more like a garret apartment in Paris. I had a twin bed, a standup wardrobe for my clothes and uniforms, a kitchenette with a two-burner stove and boiled water coffee maker, a small fridge, a cramped head with a stand-up hand-held shower, and a balcony where I could go outside and smoke. On good, clear days I enjoyed a southward view of the mountains that were the precursor primordial stepping stones to Big Sur – I felt like fucking Hemingway. However, I was not as obsessed with writing like I am now, since there was no Wi-Fi or ready Internet access back then – you still had to think. I was not without friends out there and a had a few fellow liberty risks, like Fred, who I hope is reading this now. But the smoldering red ember of a Marlboro was always my main muse. I used a keyboard as my medium, but instead of writing I was more into composing music, like Duke Ellington, whose style I had studied at MIT.
The Hotel Del Monte
My first extended weekend out there was more than interesting. On a fine hungover Saturday morning I sought out the communal laundry room to clean my skivvies, and then while waiting for the coin-operated washer to stop and my turn at the small bank of dryers, I decided to go exploring. I went back to the room, cracked open a beer for breakfast, and found the fire escape. It took me steeply down a few boring floors, and then there was the choice of the normal exit, or a mysterious sharp left turn – which led to a spiral staircase that invited me to descend to the relatively unused ballroom. What I found there rendered and left me forever gobsmacked; and for a Duke Ellington wannabe, it was exciting beyond category:
Steinway Concert Grand
I emerged into what was the backstage of the big ball room; seemingly full of all of the seasonal props and accumulated detritus from when the Del Monte first opened to the public in 1880, waiting to be dusted off and trotted out for whatever was the event of the season. The piano itself was covered with scum, but not locked. I took off the coverlet and raised the top, opened up the keyboard, and started to tinkle the ivories – and of all miracles, it was pretty much in tune, which was good enough for my purposes. I felt transposed back to a now far distant past when that grand ballroom hosted the likes of Count Basie, the Duke, and Frank Sinatra – I had music playing in my head that I hadn’t heard since when I first walked into the jeu de paume in Paris almost 30 years before. Back then, it was Debussy but now, I could hear Frank crooning his heartfelt tunes in that ornate setting that once echoed with the grandeur of days and heroic feats that with time are now sadly long gone by.
I went to find the housekeeper’s hooch, purloined a vacuum cleaner and some furniture polish, sucked out all of the accumulated years of dust and neglect off the strings and hammers, and cleaned her up nice. Fuck, I couldn’t help myself. And then when I dove into the rich timbre of the keys, I felt like George fucking Gershwin – I knew then what I was going to be doing for the next couple of months or so until that TDY gig ended. Since the ballroom was little if never used except maybe for New Year’s Eve or Navy Balls, I had it pretty much all to myself for that magic Spring. Every once in a while when I was playing, the Mexican immigrant housekeepers would peek in to see what was going on – I assured them that it was all okay. I had by then brought out from DC all of my Ellington books, music scores, and blank composer and arranger charts – it was hard to tear away from it, and my talent if it not taking off, was on the launch pad, or at least standing on the precipice of that platform in a mythological Harlem, waiting for the “A Train” to whisk me away for my debut at the Apollo.
Duke Ellington – Beyond Category
Then one Sunday in late-April, I was returning from a week’s trip home to DC; nearing the end of what had become a months-long project (I might have had a hand in extending that timing). I unloaded my bags in my temporary West Coast bohemian apartment home for the final time, poured myself a glass of what Vic would call cold Happy Hour White, and lit up a Marlboro to unwind; all the while thinking about what I was going to play once I got downstairs to the ball room – my fingertips were tingling in anticipation of the ivory and ebony tickling to come…
With great expectations, I decamped from the fire escape and took the familiar left three floors down onto that spiral star case to see my sweet gleaming ebony baby – and she was gone. WTF? I charged straight to the front desk to find out from the BOQ OOD or whomever in charge what had happened. It turns out that they sold it. It seemed that someone had heard someone playing the ball room piano that had been long forgotten. After looking into what it could sell for, the powers to be (the infamous “they”) took the first offer that made financial sense; and now it was gone, just like that. If you have never had your fucking guts ripped out like that and totally crushed by fate, then you cannot even begin to understand how empty and angry I felt at heart, and the awful realization that it was all my fault.
I have buried this one for a long while, but as time is running out on us all, I thought maybe I should share it. The memory of betrayal still pisses me the fuck off. But in retrospect, for a few weeks it was magic, in a time and place and in circumstances that only come around once upon a time.
I remain your faithful servant.
Copyright 2020 Point Loma
www.vicsocotra.com
[1] Music by Charles Strouse, lyrics by Lee Adams. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Once_Upon_a_Time_(Charles_Strouse_and_Lee_Adams_song)#:~:text=Composer%20%28s%29%20Charles%20Strouse.%20Lyricist%20%28s%29%20Lee%20Adams.,their%20version%20appears%20on%20the%20Broadway%20Cast%20recording.
Point Loma: Bill of Rights
Editor’s Note- As you know, Socotra LLC made a decision on covering the interesting rebellion here in our beloved America. In order to do so, I have taken a light-hearted approach to the coming chaos. There is a shared presumption of what may be coming. Arrias dipped into the well of ancient tales yesterday. He and Point Loma seem to have drank from the same wellspring. For my part, I will try to put the most jovial face on the madness I can, and dissect how the two narratives are playing as we advance to the “unrest” that will attend an election the like of which we have not seen in these United States. Marlow is warming up in the bullpen. Stand by for more thrills.
– Vic
Author’s Note – As I promised in my last screed on the legacy of Thomas Jefferson, I was going to originally do an Arrias-style deep dive on what I think are the bigger issues here, but then I had to wake up to the fact that I am just another cheap closet intellectual so why compete with a guy who can kick my ass if I piss him off? There are lanes in the intellectual roads of the Vic Socotra panoply of quasi-pundits, after all, and I have my own unique way of going about it. Besides, I didn’t want to think that hard; otherwise I would have slipped off the satin sheets of my quarantine chaise lounge while reaching for another Budweiser. However, let there be no doubt that I will both excoriate and seek to smash every whimper of anti-Americanism that I sniff from the lib-tards, who would otherwise fool us into willingly surrendering the rights that we secured and have fought for over the past 250 years. You ain’t going to take it away from me and my like-minded friends that easily.
Bill of Rights
Mount Rushmore
We’re going to get spiritual here, before I get nasty. I still love what Gutzon Borglum wrote about his quest to create this memorial in 1939 after decades of effort and political infighting involved in its creation, which ultimately claimed his life before it was considered completed in 1941 – which in reality it never was or has been yet. He wrote this in defiance of, and to spite naysayers – of which there were an endless, tireless supply:
“I want, somewhere in America on or near the Rockies, the backbone of the Continent, so far removed from succeeding, selfish, coveting civilizations, a few feet of stone that bears witness, carries the likenesses, the dates, a word or two of the great things we accomplished as a Nation, placed so high it won’t pay to pull down for lesser purposes. Hence, let us place there, carved high, as close to heaven as we can, the words of our leaders, their faces, to show posterity what manner of men they were. Then breathe a prayer that these records will endure until the wind and the rain alone shall wear them away.”[1]
Yet, the lib-tards are trying to portray Borglum as a racist, KKK member, and that since there are at least two slave owners carved in monumental stone on the top of that mountain range in South Dakota, we should blow it up and/or tear it down – YGTBFSM. Borglum, writing those prescient words 80 years ago, was right. This sounds just as stupid as the dumb shit Taliban assholes who managed to destroy a lot of ancient shrines in Afghanistan, and the Islamic fuckheads who want to tear down the Pyramids in Giza. There is no shortage of these stupid shits, I just wish we had the right ROE…or at least the one we used to have a few years ago.
Back in 1934, a young Nebraskan student William Andrew Burkett won a college-era competition to write an inscription for Mt. Rushmore, while he was a student at Omaha University Law School (I had to Google it since it sounded like a place where the Wizard of Oz alter ego Professor Marvel would have gotten his degree – it is now known as Creighton University, for which Warren Buffett is a key beneficial contributor):
“Almighty God, from this pulpit of stone the American people render thanksgiving and praise for the new era of civilization brought forth upon this continent. Centuries of tyrannical oppression sent to these shores, God-fearing men to seek in freedom the guidance of thy benevolent hand in the progress toward wisdom, goodness toward men, and piety toward God.”[2]
Here’s a few more cogent passages to ponder upon so I quote them completely since I can do no better; so lest we forget:
“On July 4, 1776, our forefathers promulgated a principle never before successfully asserted, that life, liberty, equality, and pursuit of happiness were the birthrights of all mankind. In this declaration of independence beat a heart for all humanity. It declared this country free from British rule and announced the inalienable sovereignty of the people. Freedom’s soldiers victoriously consecrated this land with their life’s blood to be free forever more.”[3]
If you haven’t been there to see it in person, put it on that bucket list. And even better, there is this short passage – the result of which we swear our lives and sacred honor:
“Then, in 1787 for the first time a government was formed that derived it’s just powers from the consent of the governed. General Washington and representatives from the 13 states formed this sacred Constitution, which embodies our faith in God and in mankind by giving equal participation in government to all citizens, distributing the powers of governing, three-fold securing freedoms of speech and of the press, establishing the right to worship the Infinite according to conscience, and assuring this nation’s general welfare against an embattled world. This chart of national guidance has for more than [then] 150 years weathered the ravages of time. Its supreme trial came under the pressure of Civil War, 1861-65. The deadly doctrines of secession and slavery were then purged away in blood. The seal of the Union’s finality set by President Lincoln, was accomplished like all our triumphs of law and humanity, through the wisdom and the power of an honest, Christian heart.”[4]
So, what is wrong with all of the above – who would disagree that the free choice of individuals is a good thing? Lincoln died for it. Hell, we have fought pretty goddamn hard to secure and ensure the endurance of those rights not only for ourselves, but also other peoples to live their lives as they choose. However, there are some people who object to the idea of pure intellectual freedom and the right to be whomever you aspire to be – and while we can understand different cultures, like the heathen Chinee, who don’t agree with our ideas, it is mostly jarring to see people whom we would otherwise consider to be sentient, responsible human beings to be weirdly motivated to control the lives of others, their fellow citizens, and waiting around to be told what to do and how to think. Well, I have two words for that: FUCK YOU.
So, how do they go about doing it? The first thing is to try to delegitimize our history and the heritage of our forebears so that whatever they came up with and said doesn’t really matter, since they were all racist criminals. Call everyone who disagrees with you a cheap and superficial racist, and that everything that they/we stand for needs to be destroyed. That’s why the idiocy of tearing down Mt. Rushmore which Borglum foresaw 80 years before, demolishing the Washington monument (and don’t get me started on the penis envy part of that), and dumping the Jefferson Memorial into the Tidal Basin, ad nauseum, based on the momentum of a mob mentality that must be resisted as strongly as the COVID-19 virus makes me want to vomit, or go get a Jell-O enema. Getting rid of the Confederate monuments, which I don’t totally agree with – since they are part of our history, flawed as it may be, and it is important to understand the past, whether you venerate it or not, is also mis-guided PC for PC’s sake. But the urge to purge and the fleeting feel-good movements today must outweigh the historical significance for future generations, effectively eliminating any chance for them to reflect on the past and come to their own conclusions – as flawed as it may be construed,. It is no doubt mis-guided and dripping with conceit.
What lesson does that teach? If you don’t like something that occurred in the past, then eradicate it like you would excise a cancerous malignant tumor? It’s not that easy since you have no clue what was really going on back then but the memory of a dimly recorded history remains, and may even make it more poignant and awarded with more significance than it otherwise would have had. Just as an example, if you live in DC and have driven down Jeff Davis Highway through Old Town Alexandria and sitting in traffic there at the light at King Street, I’ll bet you didn’t feel any burning sensation of moral outrage caused by the Confederate statue who’s ass you were looking at in the middle of the street, and that it meant anything to you more than dodging the yuppies cutting through traffic in their deadly killer Land Rovers. I’d like to know who is going to compensate all of those businesses in Alexandria that now have to change their addresses, business cards, stationery, etc. But it is part and parcel of the new narrative; nothing to see here, so move along.
So, how does it work? First, you destroy the past, so you can control the future, as Orwell prophesized; thereby, you delegitimatize those who came before as illegitimate for whatever moral reasons you can cook up, while not having to prove any allegations against dead men – nice. Everything from here is now easy.
The Bill of Rights – Your Contract with America
I was going to take apart all of the myriad attacks on all of the amendments and the Bill of Rights, but that would take too long and it makes my head hurt, so I will leave that heavy-lifting for Arrias. However, it is useful to remember that the majority of the 13 states refused to ratify the original Constitution until the Bill of Rights was appended – hard lessons learned were involved. The Constitution is engaged in bigger things about the nation – the Bill of Rights is about you. And if you don’t understand that, then you are a fool.
So, now that the miscreants have done their best to discredit our ancestors and distort their intentions and vision of the future of the U.S. as enshrined in both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, they will now take on the Bill of Rights, and most importantly, the 1st, and 2nd Amendments. Yeah, as Obama said and Hilary echoed, we deplorables do cling to our guns and religion, both of which the left hate and fear. Otherwise, why would they try to shame us out of them? Well, who are we to argue against the smart guys and gals in the room right now; those who live in gated communities and have paid security guards packing cold steel and malice aforethought?
The 1st Amendment is the most important. If we can’t speak our minds and worship whomever and wherever we want, then why do we have brains? Yet, we see people trying to limit what we can and cannot say, on social media and in print, and more chilling is more and more about trying to figure out ways to control what we think. Trust me, you don’t really know what I really think – I delete more of these pieces (or actually save them for later) than I do send. Dark are many of my thoughts, so you only get to see the funny stuff.
But now my spidey senses are tingling, as the surveillance state is ramping up its efforts – we are not China, but it seems to me that we may be getting dragged there into that orbit. And, you have all the fact checkers and scolds out there to snatch you up by the shorthairs for even the most minor mental transgression.
The assault on the 2nd Amendment is even more insidious. An armed population is one thing, and a well-armed one is another. Well, it is heartening to see that we are well-armed – gun shop stock for both firearms and ammunition are running low, so now we get to see what happens. My point on this is that the attempts to control personal ownership of firearms for self-defense will be accompanied with soothing messages such as – “it’s a matter of your safety, as if.” I’m sure those were the same reassurances the Jews heard standing in line for their showers in Auschwitz or Dachau. Or “don’t worry, your local law enforcement professionals will be right there to rescue you” just like they show up every night in Portland. What they really mean is that we are going to be further and further robbed of our accumulated wealth and treasure to support those who somehow can’t or won’t; and we will be told that there is no way you can fight it, it’s just the way things are so shut the fuck up and get along. Just get in line and march cheerily towards meeting the fate we have contrived for you. And this is not just limited to the left although they have a clearer track record over the years – our current administration will just as willingly sacrifice you for the greater good if it serves their purposes. The famous philosopher Josef Stalin once observed that “a single death is a tragedy – a million deaths is a statistic.” What I keep telling my kids is that the only people who truly give a shit about them and their lives are living in the same house – everyone else will shitcan you at the first inkling that there is a threat to their own lives and livelihood. I can’t fault the perfidy and fickleness of human beings – I’d do the same. The world is a ghetto.[5]
Ayn Rand – Bring it on Lib-tards
Like many college-aged quasi-intellectuals, I discovered Ayn Rand one bright day, and inhaled the Fountainhead in a marathon reading session – something like 16hrs straight; and later it was Atlas Shrugged, but taken in smaller doses. Rand was an iconoclast, but as a survivor who had fled the Bolshevik Revolution, she did have a definite, and credible point of view, which she parlayed into a literary and cult-like religious empire – hell, I’m a member although I identify for voting purposes as a GDI, since Objectivist is not an option. If you put her on the air today on Fox, CNN, MSNBC, etc., she would demolish all liberal shibboleths,[6] and leave her unwary interviewers as quivering masses of oozing protoplasm trying to resurrect their now blasted apart psyches and shattered personal narratives.
Ayn’s been gone for a while, but she doesn’t lack for nostalgic groupies like me, and her still-living older disciples. One fine day at Reagan National, I looked up from my laptop in surprise to discover this man sitting across from me, sharing a communal table at the end of Terminal D while we were waiting for our respective flights to wherever. He is someone who saw way back when the coming disasters while studying at Ayn’s feet when he was a student at NYU – the potential failure of societal norms, a fragile economy, and what we are now collectively facing as individuals:
Alan Greenspan
This man’s back story is pretty damn interesting for his longevity, and his subsequent impact on the economic aspects of the American Century is indelible, even though quietly accomplished. He was an acolyte of Ayn Rand’s back in the 50s, which undoubtedly shaped his viewpoints when determining our financial fate while he was Chairman of the Fed. Maybe one day I will get further into Atlas Shrugged and what it means today – like who is John Galt? Unfortunately, I didn’t get to really talk with him for the 10 minutes or so we shared the table except to exchange pleasantries – and he also had a personal goon body guard with the signature pig tail ear plug of a private or even government security apparatchik who was giving me some particularly dirty looks, so a close approach was not in the cards that day.
Like many Americans who have gotten on the clue bus and woken up to the fact that our most basic rights are in peril, I have chosen to sharpen my wits, and I also bought my guns and ammo before it’s too late. Now, I am relatively well-armed, and prepared for the Zombie Apocalypse or whatever is coming. Those of you who didn’t do so when it first dawned on me about what my eyes were then and now telling me now about what I have seen at my local gun shop is ground truth – the good stuff is sold out. And try to find some handgun ammo, like 9mm – scarce as hen’s teeth it is.
First, we will be told that since COVID-19 things have changed, and that everything that we believed about our country was a lie, Jesus is dead, and then be careful what you say and think since now we are monitoring your social media and thoughts. There’s no reason for you have arms since you are under the protection of the state, and now we’re going to take your money because someone else needs it more than you – all of that is pure BS straight Communist dogma. I think a better idea would be to go out and attempt to vaccinate every American against COVID-19 – you’ll have better luck doing that than trying to confiscate our guns as a pretense for taking our hard-earned cash, and probably burning our churches just to rub it in.
I am still not afraid to think what I think, say what I want to say, and write what I write, and defend what is mine and my family’s safety. I curse like the sailor that I am and will forever be, but unafraid to get down on my knees and confess my sins. I now have the option of legally carrying a firearm to defend those basic rights – free speech, religion, and self-defense. And if you are not of the same mindset or even understand what’s at stake, then you are not fully exercising your privileges as an American citizen which were granted to us under the Bill of Rights, and paid for in blood over and over these many past years.
I remain your faithful servant.
Copyright 2020 Point Loma
www.vicsocotra.com
[1] Source: https://blackhillsvisitor.com/learn/gutzon-borglum/
[2] Source: https://www.nps.gov/moru/learn/historyculture/the-entablature-idea.htm
[3] Ibid.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Hot Damn! Got some rock-n-roll inference in here – just took a while.
[6] I’ve always wanted to use that word – just had to find the right place and context.
Point Loma: All American Favorites
Editor’s Note: This is from Point Loma on his sense of today’s world. There are a couple “F-bombs,” contained, so beware. He tells me his goal is to convey the actual language spoken by the people who lived the experience. I enjoy his stories because they feel like I had just walked down a long windowless passageway in a steel ship and turned through a watertight door into the Ready Room. Ready for action.
– Vic
Author’s Note: This phrase came to me for some reason in a dream last night. I woke up determined to remember it. Building on my idea of calling out future denizens of the Snake Farm by name, reputation, deed or misdeed, I like the idea of some ambiguity as in – “what the fuck did he really mean by that?” Its akin to my older concept of a non-profit charity web site (credit card donations accepted and welcomed!) that I want to call “Islamic Victims of America” – think about it. If CAIR can do it, then why not me? So, my idea of anti-American favorites cuts both ways, and I can deny bias – just pointing out the facts, Ma’am. So, we will go with setting the table and what their tactics are – pure Marxist-Leninist-Stalinist, with hints of Mao and Che thrown in just to spice things up. Down deep, the intent is the same – which is to fool the unsuspecting into willingly handing over their rights and hard-earned treasure in the name of some “greater good” only to suddenly wake up one day and realized that they have been enslaved. That will be a day.
Anti-American Favorites
Thomas Jefferson – Founding Father in So Many Ways
Bet you weren’t expecting this man as a lead-off hitter. As ludicrous as it may seem, the PC crowd is trying hard to portray him as all that is wrong about America today, and why we need to rip up, tear out and topple our history and monuments. Okay, he owned slaves, and fucked the best-looking one – he was a real man after all. For JC’s sake, this is now going on almost 250 years ago, and while we in our smugness “know” what was going on then, that is pure bullshit. We don’t have a clue of what these men dealt with while living their complicated lives while fomenting the American Revolution, so shut the fuck up. Here’s an example – if you wanted to travel from Charlottesville to Philly today, it might take you 4-5 hours in your Bimmer, stopping off for Burger King along the way. That same trip in a covered horse-drawn wagon back then was probably a week with overnight stays in tents or roadhouses not paid for by your personal PAC or George Soros, so think about it you molly-coddled baby-faced fools. A man can do a lot of reading and writing in that time and not worrying about his likes on Facebook or the latest YouTube and Twitter screeds – a time for quality thought. Those men, and yes they were all white, no females allowed, were there for a serious reason, and the work they did there still resonates as clear as the ringing of the Liberty Bell in the wind blown forsaken canyons of our national mind. I guaran-goddam-tee you that neither Trump or Biden could hold a candle to this man in a debate, if they were able to man up to it without handlers and medicants. He would polish the fucking floor with their chicken-shit ego guts – all he would need is Ben Franklin as the moderator…
But now he is being decried as a sex and racist criminal, judging by today’s convoluted standards. In actuality, according to our new norms just because he had sex outside of his marriage with women of color, he would be considered just another modern American man exploring his sexuality. But no, he is a hero of a long distant past who must be held to a higher standard – otherwise, we couldn’t destroy him.
Well, he eventually freed his slaves who stayed in his employ and living on the grounds at Monticello so what really changed? I guess he paid them for their labor and charged them for their board and lodging as there were not many employment options back then, but now they were free to seek out fame and fortune anywhere they pleased – so don’t let the screen door hit you in the ass on the way out. Anything else he did pales against his record as a polymath, drafter of both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, much less as Secretary of State, Vice President, and then President; the founder of the Library of Congress, and what turned out to be UVA. Are all of you UVA alumni out there going to turn in your diplomas and grad degrees as an act of protest or solidarity with what?
Yeah, I didn’t think so, either. But in the mores of modern times, he is now considered to be anti-American. I’ve visited Monticello, and UVA, but here is what grabbed me the most – it is breathtaking in its impact, and will bring you to your knees to see it for the first time:
The Thomas Jefferson Collection at the Library of Congress
The next thing you know, the Antifa and BLM brigands, and other useful idiots will want to hold a book burning there, and then go on to destroy the Jefferson Memorial. Don’t laugh, it could happen – anything is possible in today’s anarchic republic, and nothing appears to be off the table if the mob is big enough, the DC cops remain docile at the orders of a Mayor who still doesn’t understand what her real responsibilities are, and the fact that the Capitol police are overwhelmed and not permitted to carry the heavy weapons they need to in order to truly protect what needs to be. Why do you think so much rhetoric is directed to law enforcement having military surplus up-armored vehicles? Because they are afraid of them…
So, what does this all mean? I am not straying into Arrias’ territory on purpose but I will call it like I see it, and that means that there is an obvious planned all-out assault in progress on the Constitution and specifically, the Bill of Rights, all in the name of PC and making amends for the mistakes of our forefathers – like Jesus Christ atoning for the original sin of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.
Well, the last time I checked, we are a long way from those ancient days, yet the events of the past and the guilt complex have pursued us relentlessly. When these artifacts of history should be objects of scientific and anthropologic study, they have instead become battle cries for a new plane of existence, albeit lower on the scale of amity between peoples. Here is someone sleeping well in his grave, knowing that he was probably right:
George Orwell
“Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.”
George Orwell, 1984
The fight is on the destroy our history – and thereby control the future. I will try to get around to what that means and the assault on the Constitution and the Bill of Rights that is playing itself out right now before our very eyes. I’ll give you a hint – it means denigrating and tearing down the Framers as illegitimate, anti-American Favorites, like what they are trying to do to TJ.
I remain your faithful servant.
Copyright 2020 Point Loma
www.vicsocotra.com
Point Loma: Snake Farm
Editor’s Note: Yesterday, we did a run of Marlow’s view of the current travails in the Republic we served. Today, the sky is gray. The big aerial parade over Washington has been postponed again due to weather. They hope to launch again tomorrow. We will see. In a curious way, the airshow seems to presage the course of the election. If we don’t get perfect conditions, we will at least have a spectacular show. Since everything is political, we will have a prelude this weekend with the nomination of a prospective Supreme Court Justice. It is a lifetime appointment. Although the President has not made his decision final, they are already smearing a likely candidate for her temerity in adopting two kids from Haiti. The accusation in its early stage is that the children were stripped from their birth parents and shipped to this land of plenty. It does not appear to have the sordid aspects of the slime smeared on Justice Kavanaugh, though it does have a scent of kidnapping. I have no idea why a good and honorable person would permit the Swamp to romp through their lives. It really is interesting, isn’t it?
– Vic
Author’s Note: I admire Vic for his perseverance in putting out the weekly Postcard from the Swamp. It has made me think of ways to lampoon a whole bunch of tempting assholes masquerading in the raiments of the pure defenders of the rights of all Americans. Yeah, and I’ve got some waterfront property in Arizona to sell you cheap, along with the Golden Gate. Back in the day, we took a family trip down to Florida and visited a bunch of the tourist traps, to include the Alligator and Snake Farms along old U.S. 41 (aka Alligator Alley) on the way down to the Everglades and the Keys. The feeding of live chickens to ravenous alligators and then watching pythons squeeze them to death was an exotic if now disgusting spectacle for an 8-year old in 1965. I let that memory lie dormant for years and then one day, I heard this song by RWH, and it all came back into focus. We could have a lot of fun with this in our own cynical ways – tattooing a new member of the Snake Farm each week or so – but that takes a lot of energy and attention to detail. Still, it might be worth doing since it does have a high, smart-ass factor, which is nice.
Snake Farm
Ray Wylie Hubbard
This song is by Ray Wylie Hubbard.
And no, it is not “Redneck Mother” but in many ways even more classic in its cynicism. Ray Wylie Hubbard (or RWH) has been around for a long time, and has outlived Jerry Jeff, Waylon, Townes van Zandt and a few other Texas country contemporaries. It was Jerry Jeff who made “…Mother” famous even in the introduction for then young songwriter RWH way back in 1973 which, if you do the math, was really a long fucking time ago for those of us old enough to remember.
Aside from its potential sly political aspersions, the song itself is remarkable for its simplicity, at least in the debut version which is RWH bending the strings and singing in his laconic, near-monotone narrative style, and a solo percussionist pacing his signature no-nonsense driving bluesy Texas beat playing a snare with a brush, and shaking a maraca masquerading as a rattle snake’s tale – genius. The first version when he introduced the song to an unsuspecting live audience is the best, so if you dare, click on the YouTube link below:
So what does it all mean? The words of the main verses are entertaining, but It is the refrain where the zeitgeist comes home to roost:
Well a woman now I love is named Ramona
She kinda looks like tempest storm
She can dance like little Egypt
She works down at the snake farm
Snake farm, it just sounds nasty
Snake farm, it pretty much is
Snake farm, it’s a reptile house
Snake farm, ugh[1]
The Original RWH Snake Farm in New Braunfels, Texas
The second verse is even better. I like the metaphor of the giant snake eating a little helpless mouse as the big bad government, Deep State, whatever, swallowing us little mice like so many hors’ d-oeuvres at a DC cocktail party. Besides, I’m a sailor, so partial to that dixie cup imagery. Pretty cynical…
Ramona’s got a keen sense of humor
She got a tattoo down her arm
It’s of a python eatin’ a little mouse
Wearin’ a sailor hat that says snake farm
Snake farm, it just sounds nasty
Snake farm,it pretty much is
Snake farm, it’s a reptile house
Snake farm, ugh[2]
So, what do we do with this idea? There’s lots of things that are possible; it’s easy to be an asshole but hard to be consistently clever at it – we could do an alumni series, starting with Ted Kennedy, and the Clintons, or just pick an asshole of the week, like this guy who was so clumsy even the lib-tard WaPo couldn’t ignore the greedy stupid shit he tried to pull on the DC taxpayers, and in the process dragging a witting or unwitting Howard University through the stinky muck of the Swamp:
Rashad Young
“A former D.C. government administrator has been fined $2,500 by an ethics board for his involvement in legislating a multi-million dollar tax break for Howard University, where he had been seeking employment.
The findings from the D.C. Board of Ethics and Government Accountability revealed that it appears City Administrator Rashad M. Young “inadvertently committed a technical violation of the Code of Conduct. After securing a $314M tax break for the university for a new hospital, he accepted a job offer from them on 02 August 2020.”[3]
Inadvertently? Like, he fucked it up and got caught? GMAMFB. Hospitals are worthy endeavors but this smells like the Swamp, and this slimy guy probably deserves his own cage in the Reptile House. Yeah, life can get interesting down at the Snake Farm. I’ll have to conjure up an apt one-two page format but, in the meantime – nominations for enshrinement are welcome.
I remain your faithful servant.
[1] Lyrics, Ray Wylie Hubbard.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Source https://washingtoncitypaper.com/article/351273/rashad-young-ethics/. Underlining and paraphrasing are mine.
Copyright 2020 Point Loma
www.vicsocotra.com
Point Loma: Forrest Has Left the Building…
Editor’s Note: The passing of an influential and sometimes inspiring Supreme Court Justice has already had a striking impact on our electoral process. It has also revealed some interesting deficiencies in our educational process. For example, the notion that we are a “democracy” seems to be widespread. This logically stems from the failure of our parents and schools to explain why we are a “democratic republic” from our founding, formed in revolt against a foreign king. We could remedy this as a basic feature of our nation’s governance with an amendment to the Constitution, but of course we would then have to discuss why we are what we are. Amending the Constitution is intended to be a sober and universal process, which is not what we seem to be about these days. The implications of all this are profound. One faction of our binary political system appears to be in favor of burning down the most successful society in today’s complex world. Volume and emotion have always been with us, but this is something new as a determining factor. Our trusted author Point Loma has some thoughts on that which are worth consideration. Me? I am going to try to go downtown and vote today and get my part of the process out of the way. It is a remarkable first day of autumn here in the Olde Dominion- CAVU, if you will, and ancient warbirds are flying over the farmhouse in preparation for a celebration of a now-ancient victory over Fascism.
I will let you know how it goes in this little corner of the Republic. It is fun to be a part of history, isn’t it?
– Vic
Author’s Note – I was working on this piece Friday night when word came that RBG had passed from the scene. I’m not going to pick up that thread since I’m sure Vic is hard at work trying to put it into his unique perspective and I won’t be able to do it any more justice than piling on. However, I will observe that, If anything, this event is like lighting the afterburners on the upcoming election campaigns. You just know that President Trump is going to push for a replacement and the amount of shrill outrage and hyperbole will exceed the hysteria over Bork, Thomas, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh combined. I have a lot of fears about the near future but one that will strike closest to home is that the crazies and the mob (is there any difference?) will feel even more empowered to loot, burn, rape, and rampage on what was once our fine land. And of course, we also have our friends the Chinese, Russians, Iranians, and North Koreans warming up their own versions of “Plan America.” This will not be pretty, but as Vic likes to say, it will be interesting.
Forrest Has left the Building…
I sadly learned that Winston, known as “The Bard of Point Clear, Alabama,” had passed away earlier last week during the height of Hurricane Sally’s destruction of the Alabama and Florida Gulf Coasts. A military historian and writer, he was best known for his novel “Forrest Gump” which was a multi-academy award winning film (six in all) in 1994 starring Tom Hanks, Sally Field, Gary Sinise, and others – you’ve probably seen it.
Like many of us, I have seen the film multiple times and unlike many, I also read the book. There are significant differences – mostly to appeal to audiences and take advantage of having Tom Hanks as the star (ironically Winston got $350,000 for the rights to the screenplay, and Tom Hanks got $20M in the lead role. Winston was supposed to share in the profits but was told by Paramount Studios that the film, which grossed over $600M, lost money…welcome to Hollywood). In both, however, there are similarities to Winston’s life growing up in Mobile, graduating from the University of Alabama, and serving in the US Army’s 4th Infantry Division during Viet Nam.
Like many Mobilians in the 1970s, Winston moved to Point Clear sometime later in the decade, and was a neighbor although I really didn’t know him at the time, since I left there 40 years ago to seek (and found!) adventure as a career Naval officer. But I knew who he was and where he lived – a simple sign by US Highway 98 in Point Clear, and a quiet, distinguished lifestyle. He only published something like 16 books, but Forrest Gump and its film rendition were a grand slam. He was a kind, gentle, funny, and decent guy.
WEB Griffin
Despite that omission in my education, I was able to rectify that somewhat during last year’s memorial service for WEB Griffin, another military writer of some prominence who I did know well growing up, like since 1963 when both our families moved to the Fairhope, Alabama area at the same time. Griffin was almost an exact opposite of Winston in some ways – profane and irreverent with a biting wit and sense of irony and humor; and generally accompanied with a stinking cigar and usually a strong drink in either hand. He always had a story to tell – usually some funny parable or life lesson story he had picked up the hard way while in the Army and later on as a best-selling author, all under the guise of giving me career advice. His memorial service was held in Point Clear at the Grand Hotel, where we grew up, and there were a few local luminaries in attendance – one of them was Winston. So, I finally got to make his acquaintance there and spend a couple of hours that fine but cool afternoon soaking up his stories and wisdom. Griffin wrote something like 300 books that we know of, many of them best sellers, but never sold his script rights to the TV and movie studios for any of his books, despite many offers at the highest levels of management.
Griffin’s son and I remain close friends and he is the one who informed me of Winston’s passing when I called down to Alabama to see how they had fared during Sally. That place is still suffering under the lash of that miserable cyclonic bitch. It is going to take a long time to recover, so say your prayers for them, Winston, RBG, and the country.
He also told me something even more chilling now that he has joined us on the wrong side of 60 – we’re next, time is getting short, and it is later than you think.
I remain your faithful servant.
Copyright 2020 Point Loma
www.vicsocotra.com
Point Loma: Mob Rule
Point Loma: Mob Rule
Editor’s Note: As many of you unfortunately are aware, I have been doing a weekly account of events in our amazing year of 2020. It has been quite a ride. I hope you can you tune these things out, as I often want to do. I have pals though who are used to analytic and critical thinking in situations and courses of action that have direct relation to personal or national disasters. In this essay here are raw terms of language used, but presented as Point Loma’s take on what is going on.This is the most dramatic street theater seen in a century.
– Vic
Author’s Note – I recently wrote a piece quoting Mark Twain who [allegedly] said that history may not repeat itself but it sure does rhyme. If that is true, then we are in for one hell of a ride as Vic is already warning us of – in his own unique colloquial way from the comfort of Refuge Farm. Those of us who live in or at least within reasonable proximity to the Imperial City and other urban environs need to be thinking about what mob rule really means. Me? I’m not waiting around for their vote on my family’s fate without my input since cops and lawyers may be an afterthought once they get around to sorting out the smoking carnage. So I have my own plan with options – just saying.
– Point Loma
Mob Rule
John Adams Under Fire
I just finished this book, and it is remarkable for what it says about what happened then, and what is happening now – the similarities are almost, hell they are eerie. John Adams, yes that guy who signed the Declaration of Independence and was later President, stood up for the rule of [then] English law in 1770, six years before the American Revolution, and won acquittal as the defense attorney in the trials of the British officer (Captain Thomas Preston) and the eight enlisted men charged in the shootings of what became later known as a burning cause celebré, the flames of which were fanned by the New World’s Colonial media, as the Boston Massacre – sound familiar?
But wait, there’s more – the first victim was a black (more or less – then termed as a “mulatto”) supposed former slave or mixed breed Indian and stevedore who first attacked the sentry at the Boston Customs House, and was shot twice for his aggression. He then went by the name of Michael Johnson, but is now better known to history as Crispus Attucks – and now by legend the first American to die in the War for Independence which was already brewing, even before the Tea Party.
Sound like anybody we know – like George Floyd, Jr.? And speaking of brewers, there were other characters involved like Samuel Adams, who was one of the chief instigators of rebellion, Paul Revere who did a little more than just polish silver and ride his horse to Lexington and Concord one fine July night, and John Hancock, who signed his name to the Declaration large enough that King George wouldn’t need reading glasses to know who he was. You’ve got to remember that up until that point, the collective “we” were all Brits, subjects of the King, and in many instances, either related or well known, to even society and long-time family friends.
Like all of the bullshit that surrounds the latest protests, the Boston Massacre took place after dark, at night, and in that instance under a full moon. But the only other lighting on King Street in Boston was provided by whale oil gas lamps carried by the constables and town criers, and torches by the mob.
There were no high-pixel fidelity recording video cell phones to capture the action, just the faded and jaded memories of the witnesse
s, the upset and tumult of it all. What was interesting was the tactic they chose to get people out of the houses and on the street. That effective method was to ring fire alarm bells.
In the middle of the fray was a mysterious “tall man wearing red,” directing the actions of the citizenry against the Brit defenders of their public buildings, who many believed to be either Samuel Adams or John Hancock; whose exact identity was never confirmed and now lost to history – BTW, has anybody seen George Soros lately? No mistaking that short shit for a tall man.
Crispus Attucks at the Boston Massacre
The case itself was one of the longest (at that time) in modern English judicial history; involving the testimony of many witnesses. John Adams took a lot of heat for defending the accused, but in doing so he was guided by his own beliefs and convictions that, if America was going to survive as an independent country one day, then the rule of law, due process, presumption of innocence, and the inherent, God-given right to self-defense should be paramount, and that men were obliged to protect their own lives in the face of a ravening mob.
He succeeded. For 250 years, his vision of no mob rule, proper jurisprudence, and that the actions of that court resonated. Well, so far so good, but there are a lot of people out there now that are in a headlong rush for judgement at every perceived transgression, and it would advantage the former VP and his running mate to maybe take a turn at this book to remind themselves that there are bigger things than playing to the mob.
Once you do that, they will never be satisfied and always want more – it is the proverbial slippery slope. But, if you live with Secret Service protection or its equivalent behind locked gates with bad-ass armed dudes out front, then who cares? What the lib fuck-tards want us to be is afraid – afraid of the mob, the loss of our lives, wealth, and well-being, but telling us not to worry while they take away our guns and rights to self-defense that John Adams argued so strenuously for, and they have the answers – which is to make everyone dependent on the government for everything.
Well, I’ve got an answer for that – we do care, but if you don’t care enough or trust in the government for your protection, then you are a fool. It’s heartening to see that a lot of our fellow citizens have jumped on the clue bus – go to your local gun shop and the handgun selection is pretty sparse – they can’t make them fast enough. And then try to find some ammunition – yeah, it may get a little sporty.
The Mob – or Just another Campout in Downtown Portland?
So, what we are seeing playing out today is nothing new, just the latest variation on an old theme and reflective of classic insurgency tactics so well played out back in the 1770s, and as recently defined by Saul Allinsky, Mao, Fidel, Che, etc. However, it may lead to even more radical changes and challenges to our lives than those already wrought by COVID-19, to include a new administration steeped in this ideology. Well those of you out there who are on board with that idea, you also need to wake up to reality. Donald Trump will still be President on November 8th, and there is a lot can happen in that 10 weeks of interregnum.
First, don’t be expecting a miracle vaccine for COVID-19 to suddenly appear, or for unemployment to
be eliminated and lost jobs to magically re-appear as the Liberal utopians install themselves in power. In fact, I predict just the opposite, and I’m afraid that the mob is not going to be very patient for a new administration – au contraire. As I said before, once you give into the beast and give it some dog food, then it will never be satisfied. You can see that already when the liberal fuck-tard mayors of what used to be nice cities like Portland and Seattle try to court favor with them, and are treated with the same abuse as any conservative civic leader – you’ve already lost control. And since you’ve already abandoned any sense of law-and-order, then by all means permit looting and riotous behavior as a diversion to buy time and even encouraging it by refusing to uphold the law and notions of public good order and discipline by letting them loose on whomever and wherever, even in the suburbs. If not, then you’ve got to start taking draconian action because now they are a threat to you, and therefore, no longer useful or needed. This will include lots of law enforcement and probably the killing of both the innocents and the guilty who don’t get jiggy with the game courtesy of DHS, the National Guard, and police to restore some semblance of social order. It will make the Kent State Massacre look like just another late summer family picnic at the Ohio State Fair.
And it’s not just the poor and down-trodden who are leading the charge. Here’s a great example of what the liberal attitudes, and the molly-coddled and Marxist-Socialist indoctrinated education of their precious off-spring render unto society with the munificence of their parent’s money:
https://nypost.com/2020/09/09/inside-the-privileged-lives-of-protesters-busted-for-manhattan-riots/
The Seven “Comrades” of New York
My friend who dug this up and sent it out to our small bad-attitude collective remarked: “These are our adversaries. Somehow, they do not strike fear into the hearts of [real] men; I like the fierce scowls, however.”
I, of course, had more to say: “They look like the fuck-stick friends of Charlie Manson, right down to the ginger-haired version of Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme (Clara Kraebber, upper left). I have to admit that I liked the happy ending of “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” the way that Quentin, Brad, and Leonardo engineered it better than what is now recorded in history as the manifestation of “Helter Skelter.”[1]
They also remind me of the Third Generation of the Baader-Meinhof Group of domestic would-be terrorist dipshits in the Germany of the 1980s – most all of them were children of privilege, Deutsch-style. They did manage to kill and wound several prominent Germans and a few servicemen, including at attempt to assassinate then SACEUR GEN Alexander Haig and the infamous bombings of the O’Club in Heidelberg, and later the Exchange at Rhein-Main when I was over there, before they all wound up in Stammheim Prison in a high-security wing built especially for them. They tried to look like bad asses, too, akin to this weak collection of punk white trash.”
I remain your faithful servant.
[1] This is sort of not funny. The Helter Skelter scenario was a theory put forth by Vincent Bugliosi, lead prosecutor in the Tate–LaBianca murder trial, to explain the series of murders committed by the Manson Family. According only to Bugliosi’s theory, Charles Manson often spoke to the members of his “family” about “Helter Skelter” in the months leading up to the murders of Sharon Tate and Leno and Rosemary LaBianca in August 1969, as an apocalyptic war arising from racial tensions between blacks and whites. Source Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helter_Skelter_(scenario)
Copyright 2020 Point Loma
www.vicsocotra.com
Point Loma: Flag at Half Staff
At Refuge Farm there was the usual grudging acceptance of the return of the sun to the gently rolling hills of Virginia’s Piedmont. It is still cold, though they say the tenuous clouds will burn off later. Other things won’t.
I was filled with unease. ‘Jiffy’ sent the warning yesterday. Hospital care was not up to Point Loma’s standards, and he and his lovely bride Suzanne decided Hospice was an appropriate alternative to the numbing pain he had suffered of late. His pals and shipmates were on alert, and I was hoping for a last story from him before what was reported to be inevitable.
Muttering my way through the morning’s harvest of electrons, I saw a last update. Marc left us last night, at peace. In a just world, his departure should have been accompanied by the roar of departing jets, or the quiet nod of those at the helm of the great ships he drove under skies far distant from these.
In one of his pieces on the lives we all lived he talked about his family. I will not attempt a eulogy for him. Jiffy and Suzanne will give us one in time. But I recalled the way he thought of things, and how his personal exclamation sums up all our feelings this morning:
YHGTBSME.
These are his words, in this case on the subject of leadership afloat and ashore. He was all about that, and here are his feelings:
“My Uncle’s squadron call sign was “Owl,” as in wise old. In addition to being one smart guy and the best original thinker and BS sniffer I ever encountered – he kept his eyes wide open, and his hearing and radar were always up. If you don’t know much about owls, then look them up – awesome creatures, and they own the night. He had that quality in spades.
Obviously, he had a lot of lessons learned to offer, and I paid attention whenever we got together when I was TDY in DC. I’m trying to channel his wisdom in some of these pieces that I write. Sometimes I get it right, and sometimes I may miss the mark. Okay, I’m all right with that, since I am not afraid of being called out for being wrong.
So now hear this – get onboard the clue bus – leadership is not measured by the number of pg. 13 entries you rack up, but in bold, inspiring action. Your people are always watching you, and take their cues from what you say and the decisiveness in what you do. Realize that you are only as good as the weakest link of your organization, be it afloat or ashore. Avoid doing stupid shit things, and adopting or slavishly adhering to PC policies that may give you an out, but have your people wondering why they would think YHGTBFSM.
I remain your faithful servant.”
He will remain that, of course. But our world is smaller this morning. I have lowered the flag we served to half-staff in his memory, and thank the stars yielding to the dawn above for the chance to have known and worked with him. Sleep sound, Point Loma, and rest well. Peace be with you. See you at Fleet Landing at the other side of The River.
A virtual memorial will be in held soon. His ashes will be returned to the sea.
Copyright 2021 Point Loma
www.vicsocotra.com
>