Gangster Government: Eliot Ness and Al Capone as business partners and the Athens Antidote.

A kid demands "a piece of the action" from Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock on a planet run by gangsters.

One cold Ohio night in January, 1968, I watched an episode of Star Trek play the concept of gangster government for laughs. I was fifteen and enjoyed it immensely.

The Federation's previous visit to the planet of Sigma Iotia II a hundred years before had inadvertently left behind a book, entitled "Chicago Mobs of the Twenties." The highly imitative Iotians then crafted a planet-wide system of governance based the concept of "a piece of the action."

It was, as I said, a very funny episode. I mean, how can you look at this image and not laugh?



Flash forward forty-one years. Today we have gangster government, and it ain't funny. Not even a suppressed chuckle's worth.

On Thursday, Michael Barone, commentator of the status quo, wrote this in Investor's Business Daily.

Property Rights Trumped By UAW In First Episode Of Gangster Government

By MICHAEL BARONE

Last Friday, the day after Chrysler filed for bankruptcy, I drove past the company's headquarters on I-75 in Auburn Hills, Mich. As I glanced at the pentagram logo, I felt myself tearing up a little bit. Anyone who grew up in the Detroit area, as I did, can't help but be sad to see a once-great company fail.

But my sadness turned to anger later when I heard what bankruptcy lawyer Tom Lauria said on a WJR talk show that morning.

"One of my clients," Lauria told host Frank Beckmann, "was directly threatened by the White House and in essence compelled to withdraw its opposition to the deal under threat that the full force of the White House press corps would destroy its reputation if it continued to fight."

Lauria represented one of the bondholder firms, Perella Weinberg, which initially rejected the Obama deal that would give the bondholders about 33 cents on the dollar for their secured debts while giving the United Auto Workers retirees about 50 cents on the dollar for their unsecured debts.

Gross Violation

This, of course, is a violation of one of the basic principles of bankruptcy law, which is that secured creditors — those who loaned money only on the contractual promise that if the debt was unpaid they'd get specific property back — get paid off in full before unsecured creditors get anything.

Perella Weinberg withdrew its objection to the settlement, but other bondholders did not, which triggered the bankruptcy filing.

After that came a denunciation of the objecting bondholders as "speculators" by Barack Obama in his press conference last Thursday. And then death threats to bondholders from parties unknown.

The White House denied that it strong-armed Perella Weinberg. The firm issued a statement saying it decided to accept the settlement, but it pointedly did not deny that it had been threatened by the White House. Which is to say, the threat worked.
The same goes for big banks that have received billions in government TARP money.

Many of them want to give back the money, but the government won't let them. They also voted to accept the Chrysler settlement. Nice little bank ya got there, wouldn't want anything to happen to it.

Left-wing bloggers have been saying that the White House's denial of making threats should be taken at face value and that Lauria's statement is not evidence to the contrary. But that's ridiculous. Lauria is a reputable lawyer and a contributor to Democratic candidates. He has no motive to lie. The White House does.

Think carefully about what's happening here. The White House, presumably car czar Steven Rattner and deputy Ron Bloom, is seeking to transfer the property of one group of people to another group that is politically favored.

In the process it is setting aside basic property rights in favor of rewarding the United Auto Workers for the support the union has given the Democratic Party. The only possible limit on the White House's power is the bankruptcy judge, who might not go along.

Michigan politicians of both parties joined Obama in denouncing the holdout bondholders. They point to the sad plight of UAW retirees not getting full payment of the health care benefits the union negotiated with Chrysler.

But the plight of the beneficiaries of the pension funds represented by the bondholders is sad, too. Ordinarily you would expect these claims to be weighed and determined by the rule of law. But apparently not in this administration.

What 'Empathy' Really Means

Obama's attitude toward the rule of law is apparent in the words he used to describe what he is looking for in a nominee to replace Justice David Souter. He wants "someone who understands justice is not just about some abstract legal theory," he said, but someone who has "empathy."

In other words, judges should decide cases so that the right people win, not according to the rule of law.

The Chrysler negotiations will not be the last occasion for this administration to engage in bailout favoritism and crony capitalism. There's a May 31 deadline to come up with a settlement for General Motors. And there will be others.

In the meantime, who is going to buy bonds from unionized companies if the government is going to take their money away and give it to the union? We have just seen an episode of Gangster Government. It is likely to be part of a continuing series.

The Harrisonburg, Virginia, Daily News concurs in an editorial today entitled "Gangster Government" -- Obama Rejects The Rule Of Law:

A frightening aspect of President Obama’s near dictatorial control of the American economy isn’t merely the cataclysmic shift in the relationship between the federal government and business. Rather, it is what Mr. Obama’s power grab represents: disrespect for the rule of law and the Constitution.

Indeed. It is not like this comes a surprise to American gun owners. Like John McClain in Die Hard, we can only shout at Barrone and Co. in exasperation, "Welcome to the party, pal!"

Meet Barack Hussein Obama, the new Capo di tutti Capi -- the Boss of Bosses.

Nice arrogant sneer, huh? Why is this guy's facial expression straight off of a History Channel special on Mussolini?

Unfortunately the old paradigm of gangsters being run out of business by government action in response to an aroused public a la The Untouchables is no longer true, if it ever was. Imagine a remake of that Costner movie with Eliot Ness and Al Capone as business partners.

Capone: "Hey, Ness, work wit me on this an' I'll make you President." Ness: "Hey, why not? It's the Chicago Way."

Of course, there is no need to imagine it, for that is the system we have today.

But if this tyranny is no newcomer to the long sad, tale of human affairs, history also offers a remedy.

The Athens Antidote to Gangster Government

Bill White, who had fought in the Pacific while still in his teens and come home an ex-sergeant, had gotten angrier as the day wore on. At two in the afternoon he had harangued the group of veterans in the Essankay, saying: “You call yourselves GIs—you go over there and fight for three and four years—you come back and you let a bunch of draft dodgers who stayed here where it was safe, and you were making it safe for them, push you around. … If you people don’t stop this, and now is the time and place, you people wouldn’t make a pimple on a fighting GI’s ass. Get guns…”

In the early evening White went to get the guns himself. He sent two GIs to get a truck and, with a few other veterans, perhaps a dozen, he headed for the National Guard armory. There, he said in a 1969 interview, he “broke down the armory doors and took all the rifles, two Thompson sub-machine guns, and all the ammunition we could carry, loaded it up in the two-ton truck and went back to GI headquarters and passed out seventy high-powered rifles and two bandoleers of ammunition with each one.”

-- The Battle of Athens by Lones Seiber, American Heritage Magazine, February 1985, http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/1985/2/1985_2_72.shtml

The Battle of Athens was a rebellion of citizens in Athens, Tennessee, against a corrupt and violent local government in August 1946. The citizens, led by veterans freshly returned from World War II, had been victimized by the local Democratic Party political machine which used the police as enforcers and stolen elections to maintain their reign.

It was the efforts of the corrupt machine to steal the 1946 election that led to the rebellion. Innocents were shot and GIs were beaten by the machine. The GIs armed themselves, laid siege to the county jail where the Sheriff had retreated with the ballot boxes. A fire fight broke out, culminated by Molotov cocktails and improvised dynamite satchel charges. The deputies surrendered, the ballot boxes were secured, and by dawn the battered town was at peace, patrolled by armed ex-GIs.

The state attorney general had threatened to send in the National Guard, but backed down when it was pointed out to him that the Guard would likely side with the ex-GIs. The national press, most prominently among them the New York Times, condemned the GIs for taking the law into their own hands. This ignored the fact that they had begged for help from both state and federal governments but had been turned down because of a reluctance to remove crooks of their own party. Go here, here, here and here for a more complete description of the Battle of Athens.

When the ballots were counted, the GI candidate for Sheriff won. All of the reform slate won. The national press still fulminated but peace and good government had come to McMinn County, at least for a time.

There are many lessons of the McMinn County War and the Battle of Athens, but the principal one is this: gangster governments do not give way to anything less than force. This is true whether it is one enforced by a crooked county sheriff or led by a gangster president. The difference is only one of scale.

If we wish to be delivered of gangster government, we must stand ready to provide the Athens Antidote if all else fails.

Are you ready now? How much more time do you think the gangsters will give you?

In case you missed it the first time, let me end with the words of Bill White.

"If you people don’t stop this, and now is the time and place, you people wouldn’t make a pimple on a fighting GI’s ass. Get guns…"

Remember, when democracy turns to tyranny, you STILL get to vote.

Praxis: "Street Fighting Men" -- "The winner of the hand-to-hand fight in combat is the one whose buddy shows up first with a gun."

From Strategy Page we have this.

Street Fighting Men

May 5, 2009: Increasingly, the U.S. military is emphasizing street fighting as a neccessary combat technique. The U.S. Army and Marines even hold competitions, where troops can determine who is the best practitioner of "combatives" (as the military likes to call this amalgam of martial arts and brawling.)

Even the U.S. Air Force, after some 20,000 of its airmen served in Iraq, and were exposed to ground combat, decided to upgrade the combat training all airmen get.

While the air force has its own force of security troops, who receive infantry training, Iraq demonstrated that the war could come to everyone. Not since Vietnam, have air force ground operations faced the threat of ground attack. While most air force warplanes operate from nearby nations, and not in Iraq itself, there are still plenty of airfields in Iraq and Afghanistan that have to be defended, and are always subject to terrorist attack. Such attacks have been rare, largely because the air force has, like the army, put a lot of effort into defending those bases.

Starting last year, in addition to more training with assault rifles and pistols, all airmen began taking a course in hand-to-hand combat. The Air Force Combatives program is a 20 hour version of the 40 hour U.S. Army Combatives Program. It basically teaches you the best moves to make if you are ever in a hand-to-hand combat situation. Airmen are encouraged to take additional training, after they have completed the mandatory 20 hours of instruction. Those who have served in Iraq, and especially those who came back with a combat badge, don't need much encouragement.

The army began its Combatives program seven years ago, and it proved so popular that it evolved into a competitive sport. Two years ago, the marines began requiring that everyone qualify for the lowest level belt (tan) of the martial arts program it began in 2001. That goal has proved more difficult than anticipated, but has got marines more focused on hand-to-hand combat.

The marine martial arts effort is also a program of well, street fighting. The Martial Arts Training Program is taught like most other martial arts, allowing for degrees of proficiency, and colored belts to indicate how far a marine has gone from tan (the lowest level) to grey, green, brown and black (the highest.) The marine program is notable for elements that accurately represent actual combat conditions.

For example, before doing the actual combat fighting, trainers wear the marines out with vigorous physical exercise. In combat you are likely to encounter the enemy face to face only after a lot of running around. Another realism element is the random introduction into the training area of items that could be used as weapons (a knife, pipe, piece of lumber). These realism touches make the Marine Corps Martial Arts Training Program popular and effective.

The fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan has reinforced the importance of this program. So all marine infantry had to achieve the green belt by the end of 2008. All combat support marines have to get the grey belt by early 2009. The first (tan) belt only requires about 28 hours of training, but the others need more (from 47 to 72 hours for each level). And, you have to be in very good shape to even get started on the tan belt. But the skills obtained have proved to be lifesavers, especially in raids and search operations, where a nearby civilian often turns into an armed hostile on very short notice.

More on the U.S. Army Combatives School at Wikipedia here, which will introduce you to SFC Matt Larsen's contribution to modern combatives.

More can be found at his own website here, including this:

Welcome to the official web site of Modern Combatives, started in 2002 as a way to promote the efforts, training methods and techniques of the Modern Army Combatives Program as created by Matt Larsen. The goal of Modern Combatives is to build real combative ability by teaching realistic training methods and growing self sustaining indigenous Combatives programs within units and organizations.

There are a couple of basic tenants of Modern Combatives that are important to understand. The first one is that the winner of the hand-to-hand fight in combat is the one whose buddy shows up first with a gun. This is important thing to remember because it puts combative training in perspective. If you drop an enemy dead at your feet with the Vulcan death touch, and his buddy comes in with a gun, you still lose.

As Rex Applegate said in his book Kill or get Killed “Unarmed combat is just what the name implies- a system of fighting intended for use when weapons are not available or when their use is not advisable” Where then does combatives training fit?It must be an integral part of the close quarters fight. Too often “hand-to-hand” is treated as if it were a side note to the actual training. When your weapon malfunctions three feet from the bad guy is no time to start integrating your techniques. Noted Firearms instructor and author Massad Ayoob said it best, “At close range it’s not a shooting contest; it’s a fight.”

With that in mind, the second tenant is that the defining characteristic of a warrior is the willingness to close with the enemy. We do not win wars because we are better at hand-to-hand combat than the enemy, we do however win wars because of the things it takes to be a good hand-to-hand fighter. Any training plan that does not serve to build this fundamental aggressiveness is actually counter productive.

Confidence comes from competence. It is not enough to simply tell soldiers to be aggressive; they must have a faith in their abilities built through hard and arduous training and know that they are going to win; so that when that weapon does malfunction three feet from the bad guy, they will instinctively attack.

And in a brilliant example of great minds thinking alike, Live Free or Die sent me this from the lower end of the combatives spectrum via email just as I was preparing this piece. I doubt this is one of Matt Larsen's students, however.

Quote of the Month: "The Ditch Carp of Democracy."

Common Carp

P.J. O'Rourke delivered a lecture to the Centre for Independent Studies in Sydney, Australia and this is an extract:

America has wound up with a charming leftist as a president. And this scares me. This scares me not because I hate leftists. I don't. I have many charming leftist friends. They're lovely people - as long as they keep their nose out of things they don't understand. Such as making a living.

When charming leftists stick their nose into things they don't understand they become ratchet-jawed purveyors of monkey-doodle and baked wind. They are piddlers upon merit, beggars at the door of accomplishment, thieves of livelihood, envy coddling tax lice applauding themselves for giving away other people's money. They are the lap dogs of the poly sci-class, returning to the vomit of collectivism. They are pig herders tending that sow-who-eats-her-young, the welfare state. They are muck-dwelling bottom-feeders growing fat on the worries and disappointments of the electorate. They are the ditch carp of democracy.

Young carp nibble at your toes. P.J. sure nailed the metaphor, didn't he?

(Hat tip to the Wretched Dog.)

Shout your oath in the tyrant's face.

Over at Western Rifle Shooter's Association here, (http://westernrifleshooters.blogspot.com/2009/05/shout-our-oaths-in-tyrants-face.html) Pete has given the muster drumbeat for all Three Percenters to be on the Mall in Washington D.C. to renew or swear their oaths to the Constitution. The media ignored the Muster on the Green in Lexington, Massachussett's on 19 April. We must make such a large turnout in DC that they cannot ignore us.

In Lexington, I watched current-serving and retired military men, current serving and retired law enforcement officers and members of the armed citizenry of the United States take the oath, some for the second time, some for the first, some of them with tears streaming down their faces.

I second Pete's call. Shout your oath in the tyrant's face. I will.

See you in D.C.

Mike Vanderboegh
III



Thursday, May 7, 2009

'Shout Our Oaths in the Tyrant's Face' - Washington, DC -- June 13, 2009

Join the Oath Keepers (http://oath-keepers.blogspot.com/) on the Mall in Washington, DC on June 13, 2009 as they join Gathering of Eagles (http://gatheringofeagles.org/) and Pro-Troop Events for a "Muster on the Mall".

As the storm clouds continue to build across our country, take one day from your busy schedule and renew your oath to protect and defend the Constitution from ALL enemies, foreign and domestic.

You and your fellow Americans, military and civilians alike, will demonstrate by joining us in Washington your resolve to do whatever it takes to return this country to its heritage as a limited-government republic.

Stand with us, and tell your public servants that you will not only disobey, but actively oppose all of the Ten Orders We Will Not Obey. (http://oath-keepers.blogspot.com/2009/03/oath-keepers-declaration-of-orders-we.html)


Show the statists of both parties and every government agency that you have the courage to stand up in public and tell them each:

NOT ON OUR WATCH!

As Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes says:

With the latest DHS smear document, the Domestic Extremism Lexicon, (http://www.tdbimg.com/files/2009/04/30/-hsra-domestic-extremism-lexicon_165213935473.pdf) labelling "constitutionalists" and "patriots" as extremists (which means the same thing as "terrorists"), it is clear that if you dare to support the Constitution, and dare to quote the founding fathers of this nation, and take the Constitution seriously, then you will be considered an "extremist" and a threat to the powers that be among the political elite.

This is the tactic used by all governments that turn oppressive: use vague, broad brushed labeling of people as "enemies of the state" to marginalize them and increase the artificial divide between the people and the police and military, and then use that labeling and marginalization to make people afraid to speak up, to chill their speech, and silence them out of fear of being singled out for persecution. The DHS reports are such broad smears that they basically boil down to "anyone who doesn't agree with us is a potential terrorist."

The final stage of persecution is to actually apply all the powers of the state against anyone who does dare to speak out, arresting them on trumped up charges of terrorism, for example. We are still in the smear and marginalization stage, and are also beginning the chilling of speech stage, but we can see where this is headed.

But as these veterans point out in their Oath Keepers videos, (http://oath-keepers.blogspot.com/2009/05/rumblings-of-outage-dhs-is-ticking-off.html) the DHS smears of veterans, constitutionalists and patriots is backfiring just as badly as Obama's suggestion that disabled and injured veterans pay for their own medical care. Nothing is waking up the people, and especially the veterans, like these leaked government "reports."

This is not Germany, the USSR, or communist China.

This is America, and attempts to chill our speech and marginalize us only make us stronger and more resolved to speak out.

Join us as we shout our Oaths in the tyrant's face, publicly defying this man and his ilk, each of whom wants you cowering and terrified as they execute their masters' commands:



See you on the Mall.

News Item: 200 New Species of Frogs Discovered

Barking Tree Frog (Hyla gratiosa).


Barking Political Tree Frog (Hyla gratiosa Janetus. Nasal zits common to species.)

NEWS ITEM:

200 New Species of Frogs Discovered

By Richard Lough, Reuters

PORT LOUIS (May 6) - Scientists have found more than 200 new species of frogs . . . but a political crisis is hurting conservation of . . . unique wildlife, a study shows.

Do not feed this frog after midnight or it turns into this:



Another example of the same species of frog:



Warning: These barking political tree frogs are dangerous to humanity. Provoking them leads to this:

No More Free Wacos: An Explication of the Obvious Addressed to Eric Holder, Attorney General of the United States.

Explication - noun; the act of making clear or removing obscurity from the meaning of a word, symbol or expression. -- Webster's Dictionary.


5 May 2009

Dear Eric,

I believe I'm entitled to use your first name, since you have expressed an interest in circumscribing my liberty and seizing my personal property, to wit, three heretofore legal semi-automatic rifles of military utility (mistakenly dubbed "assault rifles"). Anyone who wants to do something so personal and intimate as to commit premeditated theft upon you need not be given any honorifics, don't you agree? I mean, if a street thug announces that he wishes to rob you, there is no need to address him as "Sir" this or "Mister" that. Why should rapacious government thieves who announce their intentions so boldly be treated any differently? If you are offended by the fact that you are unused to being addressed in this manner, I can only say that you are not as offended as I am at the prospect of your administration trying to steal my property and liberty.

But, that is not why I write you today. No, I received what I believe to be a credible report this afternoon about someone whom the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives views as a real thorn in their side. The substance of the report has it that you, or someone in your office, has, in reference to this friend of mine, muttered something very much like the following:

"What miserable drones and traitors have I nurtured and promoted in my household who let their lord be treated with such shameful contempt by a low-born cleric! . . . Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?"

That, of course, was Henry the Second speaking of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Becket, in the year of our Lord 1170.

Shortly thereafter, four of Henry's knights, Reginald Fitzurse, Hugh de Moreville, William de Tracy, and Richard le Breton entered Canterbury Cathedral, and hacked Becket to death with swords, scattering his brains on the floor. "Let us go," said one, "this fellow will not be getting up again."

That political murder had great consequences for Henry, and he regretted it the rest of his long reign.

But enough of Henry. Let's talk about the alleged threat. I am sure that this is a base canard, something attributed to you by someone who just wishes to make trouble. However, as it happens, this is not the first time, or even the second, that I have heard such threats attributed to your department since the election.

Yet, surely, such an educated man as yourself would not make King Henry's mistake. However, it seems likely that it did come out of your department, so let us say that in some perverted attempt to convey a threat to "this troublesome priest" one of your subordinates actually uttered it. Let us say, for purposes of hypothetical argument, that it is in some sense, true.

I know how agencies can spin out of control if not properly guided by upper management. So do you. I'm sure that you saw the television images out of Texas on 28 February and 19 April 1993. I think you would agree with me that neither of those days likely represented the official policy of the Clinton administration. Yet, they happened.

Subsequent to that, citizens formed self-defense militias, millions more of your hated "assault weapons" were imported and sold before the ban and we spent the next seven years staring uneasily at one another, waiting for the next government-issue bloody shoe to drop. Oh, yes, and your party lost control of the Congress, with even President Clinton blaming it on the passage of the Brady Bill and the Assault Weapons Ban. The Law of Unintended Consequences sure sucks, doesn't it?

But, the other shoe didn't drop.

Yet, there's something you should understand about that whole process. As an amateur historian and keen observer of current affairs I can see it without difficulty.

You only get one free Waco.

If the statistics on the sales of firearms and ammunition tell you anything, you ought to understand that the same dynamic is at work now and yet from your point of view you haven't DONE anything to deserve it. Oh, you've muttered occasional threats to reinstate the Assault Weapons Ban, but no one believes politicians when they speak anyway.

So why, you may ask yourself, is this happening?

Like I said, Eric, you only get one free Waco. It was your original sin. The botched raid, the massacre, the cover-ups, we've been through them already. You may remember that no one was held to account for that -- not very reassuring to the citizenry. And if, as is apparent, someone in the Department of Justice hasn't learned the lessons of the first Waco, we, the millions of "bitter clingers" out here in fly-over country, have. We have no reason to be trusting of your motives. For we, and you, have been here before.

So, let me explicate the obvious: There are no do-overs, not when it comes to your employees killing American citizens for bad reasons. Look around, count the guns, estimate the billions of rounds of small arms ammunition in private hands, and consider that the latest Janet has already declared most of the rest of us, including veterans, "domestic terrorists" anyway. Do you think we have not noticed? Do you think we do not remember the misdeeds of the last administration you were a part of?

In addition, recent government misconduct -- bureaucratic, legal and judicial -- in the Wayne Fincher and David Olofson cases (the same kind of chicanery that rightly caused you to overturn the conviction of Alaska Senator Ted Stevens) has convinced many of us that there is no percentage in betting on a fair trial if the ATF sets their sights on us and we are not part of the Mandarin class.

If we are no longer under the rule of constitutional law but are merely subject to irreversible bureaucratic diktat and we do not fancy being railroaded in a patently unfair federal trial where expert witnesses are denied access to evidence, then our options when approached by ATF agents are rather limited. It is plain, in the absence of the right of a fair trial, that a target of ATF investigation has little to lose by resorting to the right of an unfair gunfight. This may be an unintended consequence of those cases. It is nonetheless real.

Wake up and smell what your administration is shoveling from downwind, where we are forced to stand. And please understand the predicament you've put yourselves in by your present and former bad behavior.

There will be no more free Wacos.

Please, for all our sakes, counsel your employees, who apparently seek to curry your favor by misquoting you, that replicating 1993 is neither good policy nor is it your intention. We don't need any more itchy trigger fingers in this country.

And Eric, not to put too fine a point on it, but you and I both can make an educated guess about what mischief will likely ensue if ANY high-profile Second Amendment activist "has an accident". Best to tell your lads and lasses to stick to those nice safe paper cases (you know, the ones with the 4473s completed with a "Y", rather than "yes") and confine their wet-work fantasies to their off-duty reading. There's still lots of vicious drug gangs, murderous career criminals and real terrorists out there to keep them busy without picking a fight with honest American gunowners who merely want to be left alone.

Thank you for your kind attention in this matter. I wish you a nice, full and safe term of office. Really.

Mike Vanderboegh
PO Box 926
Pinson, AL 35126
GeorgeMason1776@aol.com
sipseystreetirregulars.blogspot.com

(A distribution note to Three Percenters: Cast this one far and wide, folks. I have been told we need to make sure that the adults in the permanent bureaucracy exercise some control over their temporary charges, no matter how short-sighted, immature and petulant the Obamakiddies seem to be. The children are on the playground with loaded firearms, playing with societal forces they scarcely understand. Of course, this is putting the very nicest face possible on such potentially deadly behavior. Do I think it will work? Unlikely, but we have to try anyway.)

"One of the statists' most feared bogeymen": I get some free publicity from the citizen disarmament crowd.

Bad dreams in gun control land. The Boogeyman Gonna Get Ya, If'n Ya Don' Watch Out.

Kurt Hoffman at Armed and Safe notes here that the El Guapo and El Jefe of citizen disarmament are out with a new book advocating a government monopoly of force and are using me to do it. Guns in the hands of the common people are just too dangerous to "democracy." Well, duh, the Founders certainly agreed with that, that's why they gave us the Second Amendment and a constitutional republic to go with it -- NOT a democracy.

(I love the first half of Kurt's first sentence, so I've posted it prominently here at Sipsey Street.)

Indeed, I'm so proud that I'm under the CSGV's skin, I could just defecate. Here's Kurt, but be sure and go to his site, and to his Examiner column, and follow all the links.

Mike
III


Monday, May 04, 2009

Mike Vanderboegh gets some more free advertising

I believe that being despised by the despicable is as good as being admired by the admirable, and that being the case, Mike Vanderboegh is racking up the unintended endorsements. I've talked often in the past about the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence (CSGV), and their open advocacy of a monopoly on force.

That advocacy, indeed, is what I see as the most notable characteristic of that bunch. The other citizen disarmament groups clearly want the armed might of the government to be well beyond the people's ability to realistically challenge, but are a bit less eager to publicly acknowledge it. Not so with the CSGV--whose executive director, Josh Horwitz, is now promoting a book he wrote on that very subject--Guns, Democracy, and the Insurrectionist Idea.

And that brings me to today's topic--on the above page, advertising the book, is the category, "Insurrectionist Talk." There, Mike is featured not once, but twice, with links to both Monopoly (or, Slouching Toward ‘Nut Cuttin' Time.’), and "Kill All They Send..." -- both excellent reads (as I've come to expect from Mr. Vanderboegh). Too bad they seem to have missed And you thought this was a comedy? -- "El Guapo" & "El Jefe" Ride Again with Guns, Democracy and the "Insurrectionist Idea."

And we can't forget the Brady Campaign. Back in August, they had this (among other things) to say about him:

In the wake of the Vanderboegh letter, to one degree or another, armed revolt has been treated as a legitimate policy answer to popular gun control measures by one blogger after another in the gun community - rather than denounced as immoral or as street-corner gibberish uttered by one who wears a tinfoil hat.

Mike Vanderboegh is fast becoming one of the statists' most feared bogeymen. My admiration continues to grow.

"A Simple Matter of Force": Olofson, Legitimacy & Longing for Fort Sumter.

Reactions to the Olofson appeal decision continue to roll in. Go here to read Peter's at Western Rifle Shooters Association. He says:

Tuesday, May 5, 2009

A Simple Matter of Force

David (Codrea) announces the affirmance of David Olofson's conviction.

WND covers the matter.

The Sipsey Street Legal Advisor notes his thoughts.

And here are mine:

1) We are now (and actually have been for some time) down to a simple matter of force between those who support ever-burgeoning government power and those who oppose such totalitarianism. The concept that the Constitution, the so-called "conservatives" on the Supreme Court, fundamental fairness, or any other check on Leviathan's power has any relevance to the nuts-and-bolts of everyday life in today's America is a dangerous anachronism. Distrust automatically anyone who tells you otherwise.

2) Given that Leviathan can now, among other things, try and convict men for possession of an automatic weapon but yet not have to disclose the manner by which it was determined that the firearm in question was actually capable of automatic fire, don't think that any semi-automatic firearm in your possession can't also be the basis of a felony conviction.

3) The term "a simple matter of force" refers not only to the power of Leviathan, but, more importantly, also to the rules now in effect. The rule of law was established so that disputes between parties could be addressed without resorting to violence. Look over the past nine months and tell me -- logically and factually -- how it can still be argued that the Federal Government is still bound -- in any arena -- by the rule of law.

Alea iacta est.

The die is cast.

Pete has a way of getting to the uncomfortable nub of things in fewer words than I can. But for some, it is not enough that the die is cast. They wish it to be struck, and struck quickly. I received this response to my post on Olofson:

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Olofson Appeal Rejected: 7th Circuit Confirms No R...":

Mike,
Why are we still not shooting?

I know you've said no Ft. Sumters and that we would know when the time had come by one action.

Why is this not it?

Remember the scout sniper who said he would get 100 for you?

How is Mr Olofson less of a canary in the shaft than you?

The ATF has proven in this case and the ongoing crap with Mr Savage that they have no interest in objectivity. WHATEVER they want to deem full-auto will be. They will do whatever is necessary to make it so.

Why do we allow them to RULE over us when they have no interest in being answerable to us?

"Why are we still not shooting?"

Well, I'll tell you why. There are a million reason but I will give you a few of the ones I think most important.

Because our hand has not yet been forced. May I remind everybody of something that most who revere the "shot heard 'round the world" tend to forget? Captain Parker's company HAD PULLED BACK FROM CONFRONTATION WITH THE BRITISH REGULARS AND WAS BACKING UP EVEN MORE WHEN THE SHOT WAS FIRED. Why? Because their muster was intended to make a point, not start a war. Not then. Not there.

If I may summarize the silent statement of these men under arms: "We defend this village. Leave it in peace and we will leave you in peace." In modern parlance: "Don't start nothin', won't be nothin'."

Everyone knew they were headed for Concord. Hancock and Sam Adams had already flown the coop (although Paul Revere was dragging a trunk of secret papers that had been left behind across the back of the green and into the woods beyond). For months, many other marches such as this had been harrassed (as the British saw it) before this day. Once, two militia cannon were emplaced at the end of a bridge to deny the Regulars access. The lobsters took one look and very gently turned around and marched away. No shots fired. Point made, point taken.

Yet at Lexington the shot was fired. No one knows to this day who fired. In order of probability: a British officer firing deliberately; a British soldier with an AD ("Accidental discharge" in current terms, although a certain sergeant in the 101st Airborne says "AD" means "asshole discharge."); a skulker on the sidelines of one political persuasion or another who wanted blood to be spilled. Take your pick, but the point is Captain Parker sure as hell didn't give that order. Thus everything that happened afterward WAS SELF DEFENSE UPON THE PART OF THE COLONISTS. They did not return fire until their hand was forced. Perception of legitimacy: colonists.

At Fort Sumter, the South Carolinians fired when they did not have to. Perception of legitimacy: Lincoln.

Starting to get the picture?

We are not ready. Not politically, not militarily. I don't know about you, Anonymous. Are YOU ready to take on an even greater military force than the British Empire of the Eighteenth Century? I'm not. No one I know is. Well, there ARE a few folks up in Winston County. ;-) Anyway, FEW people I know are. The Minutemen and common militia at Lexington and Concord and long road back into Boston had been preparing for YEARS. Read General Galvin's book, The Minutemen. The ability to blunt and harry a British column was not an accident. I tell you plainly, WE ARE NOT READY. The military groundwork has not been laid. The political groundwork has not been laid. We are not ready and you want to start something that will make our defeat easy?

"A long train of abuses and usurpations." When did Jefferson write those words? MORE THAN A YEAR AFTER LEXINGTON. Olofson's case certainly falls into that category. But it is not yet time. This fight, if all else fails politically to prevent it, MUST be undertaken reluctantly. We must accept the burden of the abuses and usurpations as long as they can be borne, so that when we round on the whipmaster and feed him his whip it will be seen as justice by as many onlookers as possible. The Regulars MUST march out of Boston of their own accord. They MUST fire the first shot. Or the second. Or the third. THEN, and ONLY then, we will finish them and their tyranny. If they pass laws to accomplish this (they think) without direct confrontation, we will defy the laws and goad them into attempting to force us to comply. Think Boston Tea Party. Their whole system depends upon willing subjects. They don't react well to defiance. They WILL give us the moral high ground. Their appetites will demand it.

Because what happens the moment after that shot is fired is so horrible than any sane person would do anything to avoid it. I have NO patience for someone who WANTS A FIGHT. It usually means they've never been in one. Do you understand what horrors await us all after that terrible moment? Have you ever seen the bloated bodies of children on the road? Entire neighborhoods in flames? Heard screams of dying innocents in the night? Smelled roasting flesh of men, women and children, people, innocent people, even as you, or me, or our loved ones?

I doubt it. But you know what? Neither have I. My son has. But I have not. Still, I am smart enough to understand that that's what happens when you open up the Pandora's box of civil war. Why wouldn't you do everything in your power to put that off as long as possible, until you could not delay a second longer this side of defeat and slavery?

Those are some of the reasons I can think of. There are others.

Yes, the die is cast. The prospect that we will get out of this without a fight diminishes with every passing day and every power grab of this administration.

The die IS cast, but THEY MUST STRIKE IT.

Not us.

Them.

Our would-be tyrants.

Being a Christian has its solaces and one of them is the realization that all of this is in God's hands. We must stand, but the outcome is subject to His will. What will happen, is what will happen. But we do not serve God or man or the Founders' Republic or even our own selfish prospects for victory if we fire first.

No Fort Sumters.

No. Fort. Sumters.

NO FORT SUMTERS.

Not if you want to win. Me, I'd like to win. How about you?

The CIA's Fight With Obama: An Inside Baseball Story Told in a Riverfront Stadium About To Be Wrecked By the Godzilla of Events.

This is one kind of sweeping up done at the CIA. There are other kinds.

Folks,

This is most likely an inside baseball story told in a riverfront stadium about to be wrecked by the Godzilla of events, but I still find it fascinating. A couple of comments.

First, Jack Kelly is a well-connected reporter/commentator. He is an ex-Special Forces officer and once interviewed me and some of my militia boys for one story of a series he did for the Toledo Blade back in the day. I found him to extremely knowledgeable and factually accurate. The story was fair and balanced before that became a buzzword of fools.

Second, although Kelly does not mention it, some members of the CIA in the 90s (dubbed at the time "the Fifth Column") did the same thing to Bill Clinton after the strange death of Bill Colby subsequent to his leaking the Waco FLIR tapes to the Davidian defense thru the cut-out of Gordon Novell. I know this because I was given material on Andreas Carl Strassmeier that in restrospect HAD to have come (again, through cut-outs) from disaffected CIA sources. (See The Secret Life of Bill Clinton by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard and the work of J.D. Cash in the McCurtain County (OK) Gazette.)

I also had a number of illuminating conversations with the novelist William Johnstone about CIA practices. Johnstone did intra-CONUS spying for the agency in the 1960s. I recommend getting a copy of Johnstone's novel Breakdown. There is more truth than fiction there.

Kelly's story is fascinating to me because it would seem that here once more we shall have Agency . . . hmm, what shall I call them? Not allies, exactly . . . how about "actors", yes, agency actors on the same stage, coming up behind Goliath and whacking him in the head occasionally, distracting him while he strives to stomp us little Davids into the boards.

We should not make too much of this. The "Fifth Column," whoever they were, did not give us enough information to finish off the political career of Bill Clinton, or even to achieve justice for the Waco and Oklahoma City innocents. And every agency has its factions, divisions and bifurcations. But Obama has struck at the twin engines of the CIA's institutional life force -- operational secrecy and agent anonymity. They will not forgive him easily for it, and Obama's own narcissistic egomania will likely get in the way of any true mea culpa. And the corrupt Leon Panetta, of all people, is hardly competent enough to unfornicate this.

Still, this could be fun to watch until the bullets start flying our way. You may find Jack's analysis here.


Mike
III

May 5, 2009

The CIA's Fight With Obama

By Jack Kelly

Has Barack Obama made an enemy who can sabotage his presidency?

The presidency of George W. Bush began to unravel when some in high positions at the Central Intelligence Agency began waging a covert campaign against him.

It began in the summer of 2003 when officials at the CIA asked the Justice department to open a criminal investigation into who had disclosed to columnist Robert Novak that Valerie Plame, wife of controversial former diplomat Joseph Wilson, worked at the CIA.

The officials knew at the time the Intelligence Identities Protection Act did not apply to Ms. Plame, who'd been out of the field for more than five years.

Another blow was struck with the publication in 2004 of the book "Imperial Hubris" by Michael Scheuer, who'd headed the bin Laden desk during the Clinton administration. It was harshly critical of the Bush administration's conduct of the war on terror in general, and the invasion of Iraq in particular.

Never before had a serving officer been allowed to publish such a book.

The CIA typically slow-rolled and censored books even by retired CIA directors.

"Why did the CIA allow such a controversial book to be published in the first place?" asked attorney Mark Zaid, who specializes in national security law. "There is simply no question that the CIA could have prevented the publication of Scheuer's book if it had wanted to do so. And no court would have sided with him."

Why would some at the CIA want to sabotage President Bush? One motive might have been to deflect blame for intelligence failures. The CIA confidently had predicted Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. But none were found. The tactical intelligence the CIA provided to the U.S. military forces invading Iraq proved nearly worthless. And the CIA was caught flat-footed by the insurgency that developed several months after Saddam's fall.

There may have been a simpler motive. The novelist Charles McCarry was a deep cover CIA operative for ten years. "I never met a stupid person in the agency," he said in a 2004 interview. "Or an assassin. Or a Republican."

The CIA's war against President Bush was motivated by ass covering, or by political partisanship. But with President Obama, it's personal.

Many are furious about his disclosure of explicit details of the interrogation methods used on some al Qaida bigwigs, and his waffling on whether or not those who employed them will be subject to prosecution.

Others are incensed by his decision to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay, and to let some of those incarcerated there (17 Chinese Uighurs) loose in the United States.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi held two hush hush meetings with CIA Director Leon Panetta and Democratic members of the Intelligence Committee last week.

"Her fear and frustration have apparently given way to panic after word reached her of the CIA's reaction to the damage she, President Obama and other Democrats have done to the spy agency in the last three months, wrote Jed Babbin, a former Deputy Undersecretary of Defense, in Human Events May 1. "Pelosi learned that her actions and those of President Obama have so damaged CIA morale that the agency's ability to function could be in danger."

The upshot of the meetings was an unprecedented letter from House Intelligence Committee Chairman Silvestre Reyes (D-Tex) to Mr. Panetta, making a quasi-apology.

Rep. Reyes asked the CIA director to "disseminate it to the CIA workforce as soon as possible."

But the CYA nature of the letter, and Mr. Reyes' pledge of more oversight are unlikely to mollify many at Langley.

Other Western intelligence services regard the Obama administration with contempt and rising concern, an officer of the DGSE, France's military intelligence agency, told my friend Jack Wheeler (the real life Indiana
Jones) last week.

"All of us in our little community are worried -- us, our friends in Berlin, London, Tel Aviv," the DGSE officer told Jack. "It is not like the barbarians at the gates. It is every barbarian horde in the world being told there are no gates."

Olofson Appeal Rejected: 7th Circuit Confirms No Right To A Fair Trial; You are STILL entitled to a fair shootout should you not wish to be railroaded

"We're gonna have us a fair trial, followed by a first-class hangin'." -- Sheriff of Silverado.

7th Circuit Court of Appeals Upholds Right to a Fair Gunfight, if not a Fair Trial.

A TRIUMPH OF AMERICAN JURISPRUDENCE IN THE AGE OF OBAMA!

7TH CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS DECLARES YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO A FAIR TRIAL AND APPEALS PROCESS.

HOWEVER, YOU STILL HAVE A RIGHT TO A FAIR SHOOTOUT SHOULD YOU NOT WISH TO BE RAILROADED!

David Codrea reports:

David R. Olofson's conviction "for knowingly transferring a machinegun in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(o)" has been upheld.

Gun Rights Examiner has the story, including a downloadable copy of the decision.

http://www.examiner.com/x-1417-Gun-Rights-Examiner~y2009m5d4-Olofson-Machine-Gun-Transfer-Conviction-Upheld

This is bitter medicine for David Olofson and his family and no comfort to the rest of us potential victims of federal excess. However, the Sipsey Street Legal Advisor's analysis of this sorry case points out that even in the absence of a hint of the possibility of a fair trial, you are still entitled to a fair shootout should you not wish to be railroaded on bogus charges without possibility of legal remedy.

Something to think about. I wonder if the 7th Circuit thought about that unintended consequence? You can bet your ass that from here on out every ATF raid party member with half a brain will be thinking about it.

Miranda in the light of Olofson:

You have the right to remain silent and refuse to answer questions. Not that it will do you any good. Do you understand?

Anything you do say, or we say you say if we have more witnesses than you, will be used against you in a court of law, if we think we can get away with it. Do you understand?

You have the right to consult an attorney before speaking to the police and to have an attorney present during questioning now or in the future. You will not have a chance to challenge our lack of standards or scientific method in our lab results and your expert witness will not be allowed to witness anything if we can help it. Do you understand?

If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you before any questioning if you wish, not that the sorry bastard will be worth anything or even be quick-witted enough when we deny him exculpatory material because we claim it is tax information. Do you understand?

If you decide to answer questions now without an attorney present you will still have the right to stop answering at any time until you talk to an attorney, unless we can scare you by threatening your wife and kids, or find some way to wheedle it out of her at the scene. Do you understand?

Knowing and understanding your rights as I have explained them to you, are you willing to answer my questions without an attorney present? Because, remember it won't matter anyway, for your ass is ours. If the facts don't fit our case against you we will trim them. If the lab results come back showing your innocence, we will redo them until they agree with our preconception. If the US Attorney discovers we've messed up, he will ignore it. And if the Appeals Court even sees your case, they will be loathe to overturn it. We do all this to keep our system well-stocked with blackmailed snitches. Do you understand?

A Missed Anniversary: "Vous les Americains Sont Pires que les Francais."

29 April 1975

April is a month of bittersweet anniversaries. 19 April of course marks Lexington and Concord, the Warsaw Ghetto, Waco, Oklahoma City, and in certain drunken ATF debaucheries, the birthday of their patron saint, Elliott Ness. The picture above marks another event, the fall of Saigon in 1975. This photo was taken 29 April. Saigon fell the next day on the 30th. Phnom Penh, Cambodia had fallen about two weeks before.

I missed marking this anniversary this year. I don't know why. The memories always hang heavy on my heart. This is not merely because it was hardly my country's finest hour, but because I bear personal guilt for it. You see, as the NVA gradually overran South Vietnam and the Khmer Rouge overran Camodia, I cheered the fall of every province, marking them on a map. This was during my Benedict Arnold period, when I was a communist and an avowed enemy of the constitutional republic of the United States. As a member first of the peacenik anti-war movement which I joined in 1967, then later the Students for Democratic Society, the Young Socialist Alliance, the Socialist Workers Party, the Workers Action Movement and finally the Maoist Progressive Labor Party, I had demonstrated, leafleted, marched, rioted, been tear gassed, billy clubbed and briefly, arrested (but later released without charges), eight years of street-level radicalism, all with an eye toward this day.

Toward the end, I became a member of the PLP's "secret party," dropped from public view and on instructions began to organize a "worker's militia" in central Ohio. We'd start out vetting new members by having them break into National Guard armory parking lots and slash vehicle tires. In the end, we'd rob dope dealers to raise the money to buy weapons, all kinds of weapons. We were very good at what we did. And very, very lucky. Don't believe me? Most of my "Benedict Arnold" period papers are part of a collection at the Ohio Historical Society. Look it up. You can look up the statute of limitations too. Nobody died. Like I said, we were very, very lucky.

So when Cambodia and South Vietnam fell, I was one of the happiest traitorous bastards around. I just hoped "the Revolution" would start here in my lifetime. Yeah, I was that stupid.

I suppose I would have continued on being terminally stupid until I became stupidly dead, if it hadn't been for a kindly old ex-Wehrmacht surgeon named Richter who, at the end of his life, decided to wrestle the devil for my soul.

My day job, when I wasn't buying or stealing guns for the communists, was as a hospital aide at University Hospital in Columbus, Ohio. I was on my first marriage, then, though my son Matt had not yet been born. Richter (I am ashamed to say that at this remove I am not even absolutely certain that was his real last name -- I always addressed him as "Herr Doktor" and what few papers, reading lists and so that he had given me were apparently discarded during the split with my ex-wife) was a patient of mine, come to OSU to get a second opinion from an American neurosurgeon he trusted.

It was the two weeks between Christmas, 1976, and the New Year, 1977 that this occurred. Nothing much happened over the holidays, and here he was, stuck in another country, far from the Germany he loved. I wonder now if he saved me because he was bored and had nothing better to do. He knew that I needed saving because he was a major fan of the United States system, which had just that year seen its bicentennial. That was the question that he posed to me first, I know.

"What," Herr Doktor asked in that slightly accented and very precise English that he spoke, "did you think of the 200th anniversay of your independence?" He always had this half-smile, but with a professorial air that demanded manners. I had a Czech refugee for a history professor once before (1971) who had the same mein. Like Vlad Steffel, Herr Doktor commanded respect.

I blew him off, though, with a stupidly shallow answer about America as a force for evil in the world which would, I was sure, soon be turned back by the forces of, I probably used the commie term "people's war." Herr Doktor was mildly amused and offered to dissuade me of that theory if I would just show him the courtesy of reading some books and articles and discussing them with him during and after my shifts. I agreed. It was the unintentionally smartest thing I ever did in my life.

We began with The Road to Serfdom by Hayek. I have always been a quick reader, but my mind rebelled at the points where Hayek's analysis diverged from my own adopted dialectical materialism, which is to say, everywhere. The first time I tangled with Herr Doktor was in the cherished notion I had that it was Soviet Communism that defeated the Nazis. The Communists were the real heroes of World War II, didn't he know that?

Herr Doktor brought me up short with the observation that he had seen that conflict up close and I was dead wrong. For two days, I think, we went back over the events of his life. His German Catholic family, always doctors or academics for hundreds of years. The decadent Weimar Republic, the street fighting, the longing for order, Hitler's rise, the early clashes between the Nazi Party and the Catholic Church, the sellout of the German Catholics by the Pope, how he missed the Hitler Jugend because of his age but was impressed into the Wehrmacht as a surgeon in 1939, all of these were mere prelude to his vivid description of the tragedy of millions of young men dying in the snow, killing each other for two sides of the same collectivist coin. His escape from Stalingrad on one of the last Junkers to leave the kessel. The crimes of the Nazis. The crimes of the Soviets, and later of the East German communists. "Two parties, same faces," he pointed out. Any Nazi who wanted to live in the new system had merely to declare his conversion to Marx, Lenin and Stalin and become what Eric Hoffer dubbed a "true believer." Hoffer was another title Herr Doktor recommended.

We got fairly well along in my conversion before he left to go home to Germany to die. It was ironic that it took a foreigner to teach me how little I really knew about my own country's history. I dove into his reading list, putting it together with things in the press, things I'd observed, first as a radical then as a communist. This wasn't trading one commissar for another gauleiter or vice versa. It was becoming educated in the Anglo-American concepts of individual liberty, property, commerce and polity. It was being reminded of the Judaeo-Christian roots of all of it. It was from Richter that I realized first that while a man cannot choose the time he lives in, he can choose how he lives up to that time. And yes, Herr Doktor's reading list included Rand, Locke, Adam Smith, Tolkein and C.S. Lewis.

No one analysis fit the reality of the world, said the Doktor, you must evaluate the facts and the truth, which is sometimes unsupportable by mere facts, and make your own judgments.

The sum total of what Herr Doktor taught me subverted completely my belief in communism, which from my own experiences had become somewhat cynical and jaded anyway. I handed off my assignment and, more's the pity, the arms dumps, to my second in command. If I hadn't he probably would have killed me. He wanted to anyway, me being a traitor to the class struggle and all. (That, plus the fact that I had in my head enough evidence to send about six men and three women to federal prison for a very long time.)

Of course I didn't tell them that this was because I had a crisis of conscience. I lied and told them I was just burnt out and that my wife was about to divorce me. This was more or less true, but still a lie. However, the first thing you're taught when you get to be a killer tomato (red thru and thru) is that it is OK to lie to anybody about anything if it advances the party's goals. So given that, lying to liars was even expected, in a way.

Anyway, I got out and never looked back. That didn't mean I wasn't constantly haunted by the reality of what I had done.



Chieu Hoi and Hoi Chanh.

Flip back up to that first image above, the evacuation of the American embassy in Saigon. Consider the awful reality of two countries left to people who were hardly little Jeffersonian democrats, and who set about proving that in the worst possible ways after our choppers had gone.

I once did a radio show with Dr. Russ Fine, who then had the evening call-in show on a certain station here in Birmingham. David Horowitz' book Radical Son had just come out, about his conversion from being a red diaper baby into a real American. David was pimping his book and Russ was happy to talk about it and to have someone experienced from that period of history to chat with Horowitz as someone with similar background.

After exchanging bona fides about the extent of our previous sins, I asked him the question that had, since my encounter with Herr Doktor Richter, most preyed on my own mind:

"David," I asked, "do you ever feel Benedict Arnold looking over your shoulder?" He was quiet for a moment, you could hear the slight crackle of that long phone line to California. Then he said, slowly, solemnly, "Yes."

"But if you're like me, you'll never get caught on the wrong side of your faith or the Constitution again, will you?"

"No," he replied firmly, "I won't."

"Chieu Hoi," I replied, "Hoi Chanh."

David understood the reference.



Chieu Hoi means "open arms" in Vietnamese, the name of a program designed to recruit ex-communists to the South's anti-communist fight. Someone who entered the Chieu Hoi program became a Hoi Chanh, a returnee. In Vietnam, many became Kit Carson scouts and worked alongside American and South Vietnamese troops.



And believe me, there is no greater anti-communist than an ex-communist. We know all the lies, first hand.

We also know that we can't go back.

We have burned our bridges and will live or die on the ground we have chosen. Of course twelve-step ex-leftists like Horowitz and me aren't brave at all compared to the Kit Carsons, nor did we recant in the expectation that we were joining a losing side like George Orwell or Whittaker Chambers. THOSE guys changed sides in the belief that while it was the right thing to do, they were probably joining a losing cause. Both were under the impression that either Sovietism or fascism was going to win in the end. But still they denounced the lies and stood on the truth, expecting death at the wall or in a ditch rather than reward. (Orwell's Homage to Catalonia and Chambers' Witness were both on Herr Doktor's list.)

And one other thing. As near as I can tell without a god-like glimpse into other men's souls we are all, we ex-communists, motivated by guilt at what we did in the name of totalitarianism. This guilt we must expunge by our every action for the rest of our lives. We cannot backslide, we cannot be fooled, or fool ouselves, into believing the lies ever again.

Don't believe me? Let me give you an example of the depth of my own guilt, something I am reminded of often, but particularly on anniversary days in April.

"Vous les Americains Sont Pires que les Francais."



"Vous les Americains Sont Pires que les Francais" is the title of Chapter 27 of Never Fight Fair!, an oral history of the SEALS by Orr Kelly. Chapter 27 is a reminiscence of William G. "Chip" Beck, who served as an advisor with the Cambodian Army as it fought a desperate battle against the Khmer Rouge rebels from January 1974 until that fatful April 1975. Beck tells the story of the heroic resistance of the anti-communist Cambodians and especially of one man, Khy Hak who most exemplified and personified that resistance. An excerpt:

I was an advisor to the 11th Cambodian Brigade at the time. I was the only American in Kompong Thom, this little town in central Cambodia. There were two other foreignrs there -- a Norwegian doctor and a French priest. He had been there twenty-eight years and spoke Cambodian like a native. We used to call his congregation "the Christian soldiers." After he said Mass, he would go out and show them how to put up a machinegun emplacement with effective cross fire.

I had responsibility for an area between Kompong Thom and siem Reap, where Ankgor Wat is. I used to travel back and forth in that whole northern area.

I started out based in Siem Reap but I was so impressed by the quality of the officers and what they were doing with the men in Kompong Thom that I went back to the embassy and told them they needed a full timer down there with the 11th Cambodian Brigade. They agreed.

The provincial governor was also a general whose name was Teap Ben. He was the political provincial advisor and senior military person. The man in charge of most of the combat forces was Col. Khy Hak, probably one of the two military geniuses I have met in my life. The guy didn't go to school until he was eleven years old and ended up completing the national military academy at age eighteen at the top of his class.

Khy Hak had studied everything from Napoleon to Mao Tse Tung. In his library I found these huge books on the Napoleonic battles. There were maps where he had drawn in red and blue where the troops had gone and where they had made their mistakes. He could think in strategic terms. He could send massive troop units going out but also have his men infiltrate into the Khmer Rouge as guerrillas. He could fight as a guerrilla or a major tactician.

When the war started, these two guys were at Siem Reap, a little outpost. They were maybe a major and a captain at the time. That became one of the few places where, when the North Vietnamese and the Khmer Rouge started running over Cambodia, they didn't get very far. They were not guys who sat in there offices and worried about their next corruption deal. They would go out and fight with the troops.

Khy Hak got wounded, for the first time in his life, during the battle for Ankgor Wat. Instead of being evacuated, he had his men put him on a door amd carry him into battle while he was still bleeding. It was an incredible battle because Khy Hak has a sense of history. He didn't want to use heavy artillery to take out the North Vietnamese because he was afraid of destroying the historic ruins of Ankgor wat. So he had his men go in and fight hand to hand, tactical, down and dirty.

Kompomg Thom had been overrun and almost taken by the Khmer Rouge in 1973, the year before I got there, and when they sent Teap Ben and Khy Hak, literally, the Khmer Rouge were in downtown Kompong Thom. The helicopter flew these two guys in, wouldn't even land, as the troops were fighting to get back into the city. Literally, they retook the city house by house.

By the time I got there, the Khmer Rouge were still surrounding the town and attacking it, if not every day, every week. I was just so impressed by what was going on I decided to make my own headquarters there. The longer I stayed and saw what they were doing, the more impressed I got.

At one point in the dry season, Khy Hak had had enough of being surrounded by the Khmer Rouge and said he was going to take back the territory beyond the town perimeter. . . Khy Hak decided he and his brigade, under cover of darkness, would walk out of Kompong Thom along Highway 5 and wreak havoc among the Khmer Rouge. And they did. In the course of three days they walked a hundred miles and they brought back 10,000 people from among the Cambodian population. By the time a month and a half was finished, they had brought back 45,000 people from the communist zone, brought them back into a little town that previously had only 15,000 people in it.

When Khy Hak went out there, he didn't force the people to come back at gunpoint. He would get up on a tree stump or a chair and talk to the villagers.

He told them, "Look, there's corruption in the government, there's corruption in the army. But if you come back I will try to protect you. The Khmer Rouge willl try to stop you from going. I will help you get back. Once you reach safety in Kompong Thom, they will try to attack us and kill you. I will try to protect you. It's going to be hard to feed you. You will have to grow your own crops. We can't count on anybody but ourselves. But you know what it's like out here under the comminists. Choose. Make your choice."

And they made their choice, by the thousands.

I flew out in a chopper after the operation got going and I couldn't believe my eyes. . . I stayed out there with troops for three days. I really wasn;t supposed to but Khy Hak challenged me, "How do you know that I won't lie to you? Or someone will ask you if I'm lying. See for yourself. You can tell them the truth." so I stayed there . . . As Khy Hak had predicted, the more refugees we got into the town, the more of a political embarrassment it was for the Khmer Rouge. They intensified the pressure on Kompong Thom in March and April of 1974. . .

(Short of rice for the refugees and unable to get enough from USAID, Khy Hak staged a raid out into the countryside)

. . . in an area where the Khmer Rouge had been stockpiling rice they had taken from farmers. . . As we were pulling out, some mortar rounds started falling. Khy Hak got on the radio -- the Khmer Rouge had the same radios he had -- and issued a challenge: "This is Col. Khy Hak. Here is my precise position. I will wait here for one hour. There is no need for you to shoot at unarmed civilians who can't defend themselves. If you want to fight somebody, fight me. I will wait. If you are not here in an hour, I will figure you are too afraid to do it."

They didn't come. . .

(Beck tells the story of the bloody and heroic defense of Kompong Thom against overwhelming numbers of Khmer Rouge.)

The day the seige of Kompong Thom was broken, with three hundred Khmer Rouge left dead on the battlefield, the headlines in the world press, one major newspaper -- I can't remember which one -- said: "Rebel rockets hit Phnom Penh; Three Killed."

These defenders had killed three hundred to one thousand enemy soldiers in bloody combat but there was never a story told about this.

For the rest of the dry season, things were pretty calm there. Khy Hak was promoted to general the final year, in 1975, in the final months in Phnom Penh.

He and I had worked out a plan where I would take his wife and children and set them up on an escape route I had set up in northern Cambodia for the civilians.

I didn't know when Operation Eagle Pull (the American evacuation) was going to go. When I found out, I was several hundred miles away from his family. I couldn't get to them directly. I had somebody else go over to the house to ask Mrs. Khy Hak to leave with them. She refused. She didn't know her husband wanted her to leave.

By the time he was able to get back to Phnom Penh, to the center of town as the perimeter was falling, there was no way to get her out. He put his wife and his five children -- beauitful little children, from four years old to eight -- in a jeep. The Khmer Rouge caught them approaching the airport and took them over to a pagoda.

One of my Cambodian soldiers who went back in and talked to witnesses said they killed the little kids. They executed the children, then they shot his wife. After making him witness that, they executed him. So they got their revenge on him.

Chip Beck's sketch of General Khy Hak.

We then started hearing of many atrocities being committed. (After Phnom Penh fell to the Khmer Rouge on 16 April 1975, as many as four million Cambodians were slain by the victors over the next two years.) The Khmer Rouge would get on the single sideband radios that had been part of the military network. After the Americans had made the evacuation in Eagle Pull, the Khmer Rouge would get on the radio and hold the key so you could hear the office people being tortured and murdered on the air. . .

Unlike Vietnam, the Cambodians could have held out. We, the advisors, were told we could supply the Cambodian army as long as they could fight. That's what we told them. After we evacuated the country, that order was rescinded.

The French died at Dien Bien Phu. They were soundly defeated but they fought and we just went out the back door.

We, the advisors who had lived with these people, sometimes for years, had to sit there and listn to them on the radio calling to us, saying, "Where are our supplies? We're still fighting. We're holding out."

Finally they ran out of ammunition. That's the only thing that made many of these people surrender and then they were executed by the Khmer Rouge.

One of the last transmissions -- the last transmission I ever heard out of Cambodia -- was a Cambodian colonel, just before they killed him. You could hear them breaking down the door. You could hear him say, "Vous les Americains Sont Pires que les Francais." -- you Americans are worse than the French.

Recovering your conscience too late.

Yes, we were. And I was among the worst. I CHEERED the murderers on. I did my best to make THIS happen.



And THIS.



And THIS.



Do you begin to understand the guilt for someone who has recovered his conscience too late? The blood of Khy Hak's family is on my hands, just as the blood of Russian kulaks was on Whittaker Chambers' hands. When you recover your conscience, the only thing you can do is make sure, to the best of your ability, that it never happens again.

We do not choose the circumstances of the world we live in, yet we must react as best we can to its challenges. For me, I have no choice. I must continue to walk along the path Herr Doktor Richter showed me more than thirty years ago in that hospital room on Nine East. My fate was set, and my Master selected, when I turned my face from pagan collectivist evil under the patient tutelage of a wise, slight-statured old man with a perpetual smile and white hair.

I can never and will never go back.

So when somebody whispers in your ear, "Well, you can't trust him, he used to be a communist," think twice. For he may be the only one who sees clearly enough to point your way through the minefield of bad choices that collectivism -- any and all collectivism -- represents.

And when I cross over to that place my Master has chosen for me, I can only hope Khy Hak is there, so I can finally beg his forgiveness for the sins of my youth. Until then, I will think of him and the millions like him every April, when spring reminds me of my guilty complicity in collectivist mass murder.

Another country heard from: Ted Rall, Geraldo Rivera and the 101st Airborne Division's Traditional Leave Taking Ceremony for Anal Sphincters.

Just in case you might miss it, I decided to replicate the new comment below from the Ted Rall cartoon piece. Someone, Rall perhaps, has taken offense at my post and the comments. Personally, I believe Rall has a right to draw whatever disgusting slurs he wants to about American servicemen. (Remember, he insulted GIs and not Bush, or his policies. He insulted them directly, in time of war, while having his lily white ass protected by them.)

Now, read the comment and I'll have a few words on the other side.

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "What passes for "cutting edge" cartoonery in the A...":

Keep it up Klan members, you're just as bad as the Muslims who threatened cartoonists. A screenshot of this entry deserves to be memorialized on another blog, as revealing of your true attitudes and motives. Apparently many of you don't seek to liberate others from oppression, you seek to wrest control of the oppression so you may use it for your own ends.

Try to look at these cartoons below from the perspective of a father of a current-serving military man, i.e., me.

The residents of the Middle East are not the real enemies of American liberty; instead, you are, for teaching your child to serve the State as a colonial oppressor.

People who sneer at other people are always amazed when the despised despise THEM. Why is that, exactly? Military men, of course, are bound by the iron code of discipline from reacting in any forcible way to someone like Rall. That is as it should be. The Ralls of the world count on that, of course. That someone unbound by formal discipline or Rules of Engagement might decide to wreak a little personal justice on them does however give them pause.

I recall Tennessee, after the Supreme Court upheld flag-burning as protected speech, passed a law codifying flag-burning as a right, but making the thrashing of flag-burners a misdemeanor with a $5.00 fine. Don't know whatever happened with that, but it seemed like a good idea to somebody at the time.

And just because soldiers are under discipline, does not mean that they cannot express themselves. Let us hop into Mr. Peabody's Wayback Machine.

Mr. Peabody and Sherman.

The year is 2003. The place, Iraq. The 101st Airborne Division is on its way to Baghdad. Soldiers are dying because of it, Iraqis and Americans. Embedded in the One-Oh-One is this guy, Gerald Rivera:

The man any Screaming Eagle today refers to as "Mr. Brown," Geraldo "I never got to open Saddam's vaults" Rivera.

Rivera is a correspondent for Fox News. He is about to do something very stupid. In fact, the troopers of the 101st consider it in retrospect to be calculated and treasonous. He does this:

Geraldo pointing out where the 101st Airborne is, where they are going and what time they jump off, live on FOX. ("Fair and Balanced.")

MG David Petraeus, the division commander, did not take this kindly. What he said cannot be repeated in front of a Baptist minister without shock and awe. He overrode his initial Patton impulse to shoot the sonofabitch himself. An enlisted man on the outer edges of the General's wrath volunteered, "Hell, Sir, I'll shoot the bastard." His offer was declined, regretfully. Petraeus got on the horn to the Chain of Command.

To prevent Geraldo from being the unfortunate target of an accidental discharge, it was decided to expel him from Iraq. And go he did, but not before the 101st had a chance to wreak their subtle vengeance on one Geraldo Rivera.

Picture the scene, helicopter rotors turning, sand blowing, Geraldo and his dejected crew, bag and baggage, loading on the bird. There, much to the FOX News crew's surprise is a line of Air Assault troopers, wanting to shake Geraldo's hand one last time before boarding for his trip back to Kuwait.

Each man grabs Geraldo's right hand with his, vigorously shaking it, wishing him a fervent farewell. Geraldo is touched, no doubt. Touched, and likely surprised, for he has hardly been unaware of the anger in the division at him. This feeling lasted, I'm sure, up until the moment the bird lifted off, when he brought his hand to face to scratch his nose or wipe the fine grit sand out of his eyes.

Yes, children, Geraldo Rivera had been "browned."

Picture a hundred or so men. Dirty soldiers, no baths in weeks. Picture the excrudescence that has built up in the nether region between their hairy testicles and the last fold of their buttocks above their anal sphincters. Picture each of those men, just before their stand-to to give Geraldo the old heave-ho, taking his right hand and sticking it well and truly home in that indelicate area, doing their very best to provide a scientific sample of that excrudescence. And picture each of them, smiling, laughing and sending Geraldo off with a small sample of their disgust.

Picture it, for that is exactly what happened. I know, my son was there. What Mr. Peabody would have made of that is impossible to say. Sherman, being younger and more enthusiatic, would have likely joined in.

So if you should have the opportunity to meet Ted Rall some day, take a tip from the Screaming Eagles. Before you punch him in the nose, if that is your wont, be sure and shake his hand first. And if you've been exposed to the Mata Mexicano virus beforehand, that's OK too.



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