2 important stories

http://www.npr.org/2012/10/14/162860710/how-kennedy-stepped-back-from-the-brink-of-war

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-19944078

I really think that these are 2 incredibly important stories.

The first story is about the secret recordings Kennedy made during the Cuban missile crisis, including General Curtis LeMay calling Kennedy and his advisers a bunch limp wristed dandy-boys for not bombing Havana into a passing notion.
All thru high school, most of my teachers and more than a few of my friends, would joke about how the entire cold war came down to no more than a pissing match between the United States and the Soviet Union.  It was the type of joke that was supposed to have an element of truth to it.
You would see the same theme weaved into sketch comedy shows on TV and even into more dramatic programs where the plot would revolve around two powerful characters that "needed to learn the power of cooperation" and that they really weren't so bad after all once you got to know them.

Yeah.

I'm not sure if my teachers were just lazy or flower children or just f@#ing stupid but never did I hear that communism was wrong, evil, bad, etc.
It was just another form of government.
Another form of government (responsible for sending millions of people to their early graves).  Nothing to see here.  Keep moving citizen.
I do, now that I'm an adult, wonder why my teachers never mentioned that Stalin killed 10 times the number of people that Hitler killed.
It's not like it was a secret.
At the end of World War II General Patton said that when the Russians took east Germany, "any woman who ran was shot and any woman who didn't run was raped."
And yet, most of what I heard in school made the differences between our two political philosophies sound like no more than a family spat.  We just have a different system.
Tomato, toMAto.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
And while we were learning to feel guilty about what rich, white, Europeans had done to the American Indians, the Ukraine, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland and others were silently suffering under the pressing heel of this toMAto.
It's alarming and downright dangerous to be this stupid and I can only conclude that I and my classmates were being shown only what our leftover hippie teachers wanted us to know.
Who the hell came up with this curriculum anyhow?
I don't remember ever hearing about the landings on D-Day or the liberation of Paris, but I sure as hell remember hearing about measle filled blankets, and oppressing indigenous peoples or about the shame of slavery, or about bombing villages in Vietnam.
I can't recall any teacher saying that, despite whatever mistakes or abuses that the U.S. had committed, it was still the best thing going on the planet, evidenced by the sheer number of people willing to staple together a raft and risk life and limb to get here.
Not one time.

And then there's the story of the little girl who kept a blog.
She's in junior high.
Or she would be if she were in a civilized country.
Instead she's recovering in the hospital.
She was shot in the head because she dared to go to school and write a blog about the dangers of a girl going to school.

Well, lesson learned.

I connected these two stories because I think they're both about systems that are evil - communism and Islam.
I'm not going to give you the normal caveats.  You've heard enough to know them by heart.  I don't care to repeat them.
And honestly I'm sick to death with hearing them.
The problem is not going to go away just because you fail to recognize it and call it what it is.
There is right and wrong and good and evil.
They do exist.

All of this has been brewing in my head for the last couple of weeks since the crisis in Libya started to unfold.
On the anniversary of 9/11, terrorists attack our embassy and kill our ambassador, along with 2 Navy SEALS, and this administration blames it on a bad movie.

Then a video of Obama speaking in 2007 comes out which shows him in front of a group black clergy.
First he thanks the Reverend Wright profusely.
Remember him?
He's the close friend that President Obama ditched because he was too controversial.
After 20 years attending this guys church and hearing his sermons and looking to him for advice and support, Obama drops him because he plays poorly on TV.  He drops the minister that married him.

Annnyyhooo.....

In this particular speech, Obama sounds particularly Urban.
That's odd given his elite education.
But he also goes on to tell this group that the federal government didn't pony up for Hurricane Katrina because New Orleans is primarily black and the federal government doesn't like black people.
Except that Obama, who was a sitting Senator at that time, knew that billions (with a "B") had been appropriated for disaster relief just 2 weeks before that.
Nice.

So I look at all of this information, and I wonder just what in the hell is going on here.
I mean, this Libya thing is huge.
But if you turn on the TV the story is either,
A.  Things about sweet tea that are killing our children, or
B.  Is the Romney campaign falling apart?

And then I start to think, well there's an agenda going on here.
The information is out there.
We knew who the Russians/communists were.
We know who the Taliban is.
We know who Obams is.

But it's failure to identify the issue and act accordingly that will determine outcome.


Editor's Note:  I realize that taking sides in politics risks alienating exactly half of any potential audience, which if my high school math is correct is nearly 63%, so I would like to clarify by saying  that I'm not in love with the Republican party in general or the Romney/Paul ticket specifically, but I do feel like the republicans are less likely to interfere with my daily existence, which is my most valued attribute in any potential candidate, and what I want from most people - to be politely ignored and allowed to rise or fall and live and die by own efforts.  Actually, more of a libertarian pursuit but until there's a viable candidate fromt that party.....