Propaganda, Magical Thinking and Failed Offensives

Charles Hugh Smith has this entry on how belief can be and often is shattered by painful reality:

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...There are two related military analogies of our Financial Dictatorship's desperate propaganda offensive on deflation and credit destruction: The Battle of Leyte Gulf in the Pacific War, and the Battle of the Bulge in the European War.

Both were last-ditch offensives designed to gamble the last resources of the crumbling Empires on a victory so smashing that it would reverse their failing fortunes.

Both were well-planned and executed, and both very nearly succeeded. Poor weather hindered the Allies' air power from playing a decisive role in stopping the German advance. In the Pacific, the Japanese succeeded in drawing Admiral Halsey's main battle fleet north in a wild goose chase after the remaining Japanese aircraft carriers, while the main Japanese fleet of battleships and cruisers slipped toward the essentially defenseless American landing fleet.

Only a handful of thinly armored and lightly armed destroyers--nicknamed "tin cans"-- stood between the American fleet's light carriers and support craft, and the Japanese were poised to complete their bold plan: to destroy the entire American support fleet and foil the invasion of the Philippines. Just as they'd hoped, Halsey had taken the fast American aircraft carriers north, and so American air power was nowhere in sight.

As described by the recent book The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors: The U.S. Navy's Finest Hour, the handful of small destroyers launched a suicide attack on the incoming Japanese battleships.

This attack unnerved the Japanese commander, who suspected such an attack might presage a trap of some sort; and so at the very door of victory he turned his fleet around.

By gambling their last resources on a bold offensive, the two Evil Empires sealed their fate. Both offensives failed, and both decimated the Empire's remaining assets...
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Read the whole thing.

Ain't nobody -- be it Sarah, Ron, Jeb, or any other character -- gonna ride in and save us.

Believing otherwise is just another example of magical thinking.

And will lead to the same disastrous results.

It is truly "ourselves, alone" -- just as the brave sailors of Taffy 3 found themselves back in October, 1944 and their Army brothers found themselves in the Ardennes of December, 1944.

Let's win.