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.
I think a more appropriate example would be how the american press and the left snatched defeat from the jaws of victory in Viet Nam. We had stopped the TET offensive, just like leyte gulf and the battle of the bulge. The north was dead and all we had to do was finish it just like WWII. If not for the will we would have and Viet Nam would be free and the killing fields would have been stopped in the surrounding countries as the communist would have been defeated.
ReplyDeleteKen
Link to article doesn't work.
ReplyDeleteLink fixed. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteKen: I agree.
Amen, Ken. And for the 58,000 dead, and 1 million plus wounded, I intend to wreak a terrible vengence for them, on the traitors still alive who are responsible. It's coming. III.
ReplyDeleteI think the linked propaganda piece is great, but I started reading his book and only made it through 2/3rds. It is full of errors in economic analysis. For example, we now plant corn with combines instead of a pointed stick and a bag of fish. This permanent reduction in the number of human labor hours required per ear of corn produces a permanent improvement in human lifestyle. The freed-up labor hours will be reapplied to some other job. oftwominds.com doesn't get this. He sees people being permanently laid off out of jobs which have been automated away, as a permanent removal of those people from productive work. This is Luddite. This is viewing the economy as a zero-sum game, where "social justice" consists of spreading the fixed amount of work around evenly. This is false.
ReplyDeleteNote that the ships were not
ReplyDeleteDestroyers but Destroyer Escorts, smaller in size and firepower, unequaled in courage and guts. Last Stand is a terrific read!