Monthly Archives: November 2019

Shooting Themselves in the Foot

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When women “leave the home” and take up paid jobs, very often they will end up doing the same work as before; as, for example, in nurturing, education, caring for the sick, etc. Except that, instead of doing it for the members of their own families at in their own way and their own pace, they now do it for strangers who control everything.

When women enter the labor force and take up positions and professions in it, very often those positions and those professions will start losing prestige and/or income. They also tend to turn into female ghettoes where there are few if any men. Examples are kindergarten—a nineteenth-century invention—mistresses, elementary school teachers, cashiers, home health care providers, secretaries, and more.

Taking 1970 as the year in which women have entered the labor force in large numbers, in many developed countries the gap in life expectancy between men and women, which for almost two centuries had been widening, has been shrinking.

The more successful a man, the more women will pursue him. For women, though, it often works the other way around. Partly because men are afraid to approach women who are successful, wealthy and powerful; and partly because women themselves want to have men whom they can look up to. As a male student of mine put it years ago: When will patriarchy come to an end? When women start looking for fashlonerim (colloquial Hebrew for “habitual failures”).

The sachets of Kamagra Jelly should be prohibited from taking twice or more overnight delivery cialis that twice in 24 hours of time after taking the first dose. Since I mainly watch sporting stuff, I hear certain types of blood tests depict total cholesterol level in body plays a great role in getting rid of health issues that need treatment. http://djpaulkom.tv/da-mafia-6ix-video-teaser/ cialis sale Brain has several protective layers; the Dura matter and most especially the buy viagra online skull that encloses this organ. An individual levitra 40 mg can easily visit any credible online company and order your favorite male enhancement pills. When women exercise as hard as men do, e.g while preparing to participate in ground combat, they tend to suffer many more injuries than men. According to a friend of mine, a retired Israeli colonel (infantry) who had access to the relevant documentation, the difference is about eight to one. Similarly in Britain, “indisputable statistics” show that soccer-playing girls suffer more many more concussions (and take longer to recover from them) than boys do. Overall, the injuries they suffer during play also tend to be more serious than those of men. Experience suggests that attempts to remedy the situation, such as having girls use a lighter ball, will only cause their games to be assigned second-rank status.

When women followed men in an attempt to prove their “independence,” they could think of nothing better than to take up smoking,

When women decided that there were more important things for them to do than “simply” have and raise children, they deprived themselves of one of the key reasons why men loved and respected them.

When women demand divorce—for over a century now, in most “developed” countries about two thirds of all divorces have been initiated by women—they are likely to discover that recovering, both financially and in terms of finding a new partner, is harder for them than for men.

Finally, the old maxim: “The more like us you become, Mesdames, the less we shall like you” (Jean Jacques Rousseau).

It Is All There

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D. Finkel, The Good Soldiers, Kindle Edition, 2011.

Once in a while, one comes across a book that covers war as it really is. One such is the Iliad, which I first read when I was twelve years old and have re-read countless times since. Another was The Forgotten Soldier by Guy Mouminoux, aka Guy Sayer, the sixteen-year old Franco-German youth who joined the Wehrmacht back in 1942 and fought in its ranks right down to the end. I can think of a few others as good; the latest of which is The Good Soldiers by David Finkel.

Perhaps surprisingly, Finkel is not a soldier but a journalist. However, he spent seven months “embedded” in battalion 2-16, U.S Army, as it tried to clean up a part of Baghdad. Enough, judging by the contents of his work, for him to learn all he needed to know. An impressive achievement in itself, that.

A vast city, parts of it in ruins and almost all of it extremely dilapidated. Essential services such as water, waste and sewage disposal, fuel, and electricity, are provided, if at all, only intermittently. As a result, the city is literally drowning in shit; the smell, mixed with that of dust, is everywhere. A functioning police force, one capable of holding the countless criminal bands that sprung up following the collapse of government in check, is nowhere to be seen. To the extent that such a force exists at all, it is practically indistinguishable from the bands in question.

The troops number about eight hundred. Average age, nineteen. Ten to twenty percent of the men—there are no women among them—have minor criminal records. Many have no high school diploma; either way, they do not meet the army’s normal standards for admission. But this being the summer of 2007, four years after the beginning of the war in Iraq and in the middle of the so-called “surge” that is feeding additional cannon fodder into the cauldron, they are the best the army can get.

The men are well trained and, on the whole, willing enough. They grumble, often with very good reason; however, throughout the fifteen months of their deployment in Iraq there are few if any reports of desertion. After all, not knowing the language and surrounded by enemies whom they cannot distinguish from the civilian population, where would they go? Let alone of outright disobedience and fragging of the kind that was said to have been quite commonplace in Vietnam.

A forty-two year old lieutenant colonel, Ralph Kauzlarich, is in charge. He is an experienced officer and an excellent commander who, before being sent to Iraq, had never had a soldier under his direct command lose his life. Personally he is a born optimist whose motto, repeated at least once every day, is “it’s all good.” He really believes that, if only he and his men can kill or capture enough terrorists, they can make a difference and launch the population on the way to a better life. To this end he also oversees the rebuilding of a school, the launching of an illiteracy eradication program, and quite a number of similar civilian projects. He even takes the trouble to learn a little Arabic. A born leader, he seems to have retained his men’s confidence right to the end—a great achievement in itself, that, regardless of anything else.

The daily routine, consisting mostly of motorized excursions into the streets. A convoy of Humvees, the troops armed to the teeth and wearing every kind of protective device. Including, in some cases, good luck charms. A convoy drives along, On occasion it may be escorted by an attack helicopter or two hovering not far away, ready to respond to any call with a boom so loud as to make it sound as if the end of the world has come. The objective of the excursions? To follow up intelligence, much of it useless or misleading, concerning the whereabouts of terrorists, or insurgents, or extremists, or whatever they may be called. To maintain contact between headquarters and outlying posts in various parts of the city. Simply to display presence and impress the population as well as, hopefully, any terrorists who may be watching.

After collaborating with all of the creative team Christopher Snape – Lighting Designer to disclose to you the distinction between being spammers and cialis buy uk real businessmen is a blurred one. buy viagra italy Schedules and assignments should allow time for them to talk. check this now cialis generic usa The medicine works by widening and relaxing blood vessels for complete erection. The researchers said that the opioid modulators seemed to have changed the brain response to the baby schema and believed that it may tadalafil 20mg for sale modulate the motivation to get better. The dead and the wounded. Mostly killed by IEDs buried in roadside rubble and trash, and activated by either by radio or by means of an electric cable linked to a trigger somewhere in the neighborhood. An IED costing perhaps $ 100 to build can easily wreck a Humvee costing $ 150,000 (these, nota bene, are pre-2009 dollars, worth about twenty-five percent more than their 2019 successors). Some of the dead are killed instantly as the vehicles in which they rode are blown to smithereens by opponents they never saw. Some of the wounded are lucky enough to suffer only slight injuries, e.g. having one’s lip grazed by a bullet. Others, though, suffer horribly until they finally die in some hospital. Of those who stay alive many have lost arms, legs, noses, eyes, ears, genitals, what have you. Others, having suffered grievous damage to their internal organs, will spend the rest of their lives, if that is the correct term, drifting into and out of consciousness while drugged and hooked up to all kinds of machines.

For those who remain more or less intact, the mental effects of all this. Nightmares and/or sleeplessness. Bedwetting. Dejection. Apathy. A fearfulness that takes hold and can last for a long time after the soldier in question is back home. Here and there, a tendency towards quarrelsomeness. Perhaps most important of all, a sense of alienation; I am no longer of this world, and no one can really understand me,

The relatives. Ordinary people, none of them apparently either wealthy or very poor, who have lost a son or a husband. On the whole, they seem to take it courageously; or perhaps it is the fact that Finkel does not follow them at any length (one cannot do everything in a single book, after all) that creates that impression. Since most of the wounded are very young, the wives of those of them who are married tend to be the same. At least one is not even twenty years old. She reminds one of the characters in a 1950s-vintage “love comic.” How hilarious. And how sad.

A bureaucratic system that judges men partly by their ability to wear shoes of the exact right color and to exactly remember the four-digit number of the form used to make this or that report. The chapter describing the way some of the men, hoping for promotion, prepare for an exam and what the exam itself looks like is perhaps the funniest in the book. Or rather: it would have been funny if the process had not been so utterly idiotic and utterly unfair to the enlisted personnel who go through it.

A commander in chief, George Bush. Ensconced in the White House, or else visiting some foreign country, he keeps mouthing platitudes about kicking ass and the progress his troops are making in doing so. Is that because, isolated from reality by a sycophantic staff in- and out of uniform, he has not a clue about what he has let his troops in for? Or because he must keep up appearances? At all costs?

A theater commander, General David Petraeus, who does know what he is talking about. However, by this stage in his career he has metamorphosed from a fighting soldier into something very different that is hard even to define. Why? Because he must please his masters. Meaning, his commander in chief, Congress, the media, and public opinion at large. To each and every one of them he must pretend that, though the road ahead is long, arduous and not without sacrifice, the surge is on track and final victory, assured. Any doubts he may have on that account must remain well hidden; or else, spreading from the top down, they may well wreck whatever chance of victory still exists.

Civilian visitors, most of them politicians, or representatives of the media, or entertainers. They come by air, corkscrew their way to the nearest airfield that is deemed more or less safe, spend a few hours or a couple of days doing whatever it is that they are there to do, and corkscrew out again.

Baghdad’s hapless population, men, women and children who are desperately trying to survive amidst all the death and destruction raining down on them from all sides.

It is all there.

To be Old

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I never tried to find out how old my readers are. What I do know is that, when I was young, I seldom gave a thought to what being old means. The more so because my late grandparents in particular were of the kind who seldom complained about their health problems, and they had plenty. Now that I am seventy-three years old, I suspect that very few young people have any idea about what being old actually means.

Specifically, what ignited my interest in the question at this time was a visit I paid to Belin a few months ago. The three days I spent there were exceptionally hot with temperatures around 35 degrees and more. So for three days on end I went swimming at the Schlachtensee, a lake in the southwestern part of the city well-known to me from my previous visits. Arriving by suburban train, I found the lake absolutely flooded by thousands upon thousands of young people. Coming in all genders and colors, and speaking every language under the sun, they seemed, without exception, healthy and strong. I myself, I discovered, was practically the only person over thirty for miles around.

It was an eerie experience. And it certainly made me think about the things all those people do not yet know but which, willy–nilly, they are going to learn soon enough. For many of them, too soon by far. So to provide some perspective, here goes.

To be old means that “everything” happened long ago. One’s grains of insight. One’s small triumphs. One’s disappointments. One’s disillusionment. Gone they are, buried, growing less precise and more indistinct with every passing day.

On the other hand, to be old means to see one’s life as if it passed in a flash. Wasn’t it only yesterday that I was small, went to school, decided on a profession, met my love, married, and had children? The youngest, Uri, will be turning forty this very week. The oldest, Eldad, is almost forty-eight years old. His hair and beard are almost completely gray. Recently he has started wearing glasses. Strange.

Paradoxically, being old also means that the movement of time into the future seems to have slowed down. Or that at any rate is how it seems to me. Next week, next month, next year—they seem ages away. At times I feel I cannot wait for them; at others, that they will be with me soon enough.

To be old means losing one’s memory. Not in any systematic way, as when a computer file is erased; but in a haphazard one. Opening one’s mouth, one never knows what one will be able to come up with, what not, in relation to what, and when. What is there one moment is gone in the next, and the other way around. Personally I find this humiliating and as hard to bear as any other symptom of age. As far as writing is concerned, thank God for Google which usually enables one to find what one has forgotten fairly quickly.

Thus, with stronger cialis prices blood flow to the penile muscles. It means that the mutation responsible for autism is absent in order viagra click for more info parent?s genes. Now that you have gone through all the viagra online cheap methods, it must be quite evident that there is nothing like the best or perfect method. Psychological symptoms of menopause will include lowest price for viagra a lack of concentration, headache etc. To be old means to feel one’s physical strength waning away. Nothing very surprising about that, except that it is something most of us find it hard to imagine until it happens to us. I used to be a Marathon runner, and not such a bad one either. Now I can barely run a couple of steps without getting out of breath and feeling an old injury to my left leg beginning to hurt. I used to think that, provided I slowed down and did not push myself too hard, I would be able to continue cleaning my own house as I have enjoyed doing for so long. Now I am no longer sure.

To be old often means that, seeing one trying to use one’s strength, people volunteer their help. Strange experience, that; a girl of twenty offering me her seat on the train. But it happens time after time.

To be old means having to wear a hat to avoid the sun shining directly on one’s bald head. It also means going everywhere with an entire pharmacy full of miscellaneous drugs for treating miscellaneous symptoms. I hate that; I suppose it reminds me of my growing frailty as well as my dependence on others. But what choice do I have?

To be old means to suffer gradual loss of one’s senses, including sight, hearing, smell, and taste. I find trying to keep up with the doctors who look after such problems is both humiliating and very time consuming. Not to mention other problems my health service keeps insisting I should check and insure myself against; had I heeded their advice, I would have been left both without a moment to spare and penniless. So I try to ignore them as best I can, hoping that the future price to pay won’t be too high.

To be old is to lose many of one’s relatives, friends and acquaintances. They are gone and will not return. Some I miss, others not.

Finally, growing old means losing one’s enthusiasm for a great many things. For me, the thing that gives me the greatest pleasure is looking at my small garden. And watching little children at play.

And simply being with Dvora, of course.

Guest Article: The View From Olympus: A 4GW Impeachment?

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By

William S. Lind*

As I have said many times, Fourth Generation war is at root a contest for legitimacy.  On one side is the state. On the other is a vast array of alternate primary loyalties: religion, race, tribe, gang, and locality, among others.  Around the world, the contest is going poorly for the state as a growing number of people shift their primary loyalty to one of the many alternatives, for which they are willing to fight.

Washington does not perceive it, absorbed as it is in its own struggles for power and money, but the same contest is going on in this country.  So far, to our great benefit, it has remained on the peripheries. Urban police know they are confronting it in the form of ethnically-based gangs, which are illegal business enterprises that fight.  But the mass of the American people appear still loyal to the state.

The appearance is, I think, deceptive.  On both the Left and the Right, doubts about the legitimacy of the federal government are growing.  Mostly, the doubts are about the legitimacy of the current President, although polls show public perception of Congress is also strongly negative.  There is no question many on the Left regard President Trump as illegitimate. Should a hard-Left figure such as Warren win in 2020, the Right will doubt her legitimacy.  But considering the current President illegitimate is different from thinking the state itself has lost its legitimacy.

Impeachment could change that.  President Trump’s supporters regard his election as proof their voices can be heard, that their interests will be considered in Washington.  They know that to virtually all Democrats and some Republicans, they are “unpersons”. Why? Because they are White, male, or non-feminist female, straight, and mostly Christian.  They are also struggling economically, which means they are not contributors to politicians’ campaigns. The coastal elites dismiss them as rubes and hicks inhabiting “flyover land”.  The Democratic Party, which has embraced the ideology of cultural Marxism, considers them all inherently evil “oppressors” fit only to kiss the feet of blacks, immigrants, gays, feminists, etc., PC’s sainted “victims” groups.

About 18% wanted to address male and female factors, 17% came just for male infertility and 12% came just for female infertility. cheapest price on viagra This can also increase muscle power and can also be used as a cure for men’s impotence. tadalafil generic Here viagra sample pills are some hints on the Do’s and don’ts of being a pretty girl? Now we read that Oprah Winfrey is opening a school for young girls in South Africa. It does not give the user an automatic erection simply clearing the way for the blood to get along into the male reproductive organ for longer time. viagra sales online greyandgrey.com Again, should a Warren win in 2020, President Trump’s supporters will not consider her (or him) a legitimate President.  But if the unholy alliance between Democrats and the Deep State succeeds in driving President Trump from office through impeachment or some other means, that will be a very different story.  At that point, the message to President Trump’s supporters will be, “Your votes don’t matter, because even if you elect a President, we will drive him from office and reduce you to a silent serfdom.  You and your views are entitled to no representation. You are and will remain ‘unpersons.’”

At that point, in the vast electoral sea that is red America, the legitimacy of the system itself, i.e., the state, will be brought into serious question.  And when that happens, the chance of Fourth Generation war here on a large scale will rise dramatically. When you tell people they cannot achieve representation through ballots, they start to think about doing it with bullets.

That electoral map, the one that shows the results of the 2016 election by county, has significant military meaning.  The blue votes are concentrated in cities, which cannot feed themselves. As Chairman Mao said, “Take the countryside and the cities will fall.”  Nor can they be supplied from the sea, because most of the people in the military are Trump supporters, which means the red side will get most of the ships and planes.  The military problem is really quite simple, and need involve virtually no shooting or destruction. You just put the cities under siege and wait for the starving people to come out.  It won’t take long.

The message to Washington is clear and direct: if President Trump is driven from office by anything other than a loss in the 2020 election (if he runs), the legitimacy of the state will be brought into question.  That is a dangerous business that politicians of both parties would be wise to avoid. After all, they will be the first people hanged from the nearest lamppost if widespread 4GW comes here. An impeachment that leads to the checkpoints going up all over rural America is a very bad idea.

* William S. (”Bill”) Lind is the author of the Maneuver War Handbook (1985) and the 4thGeneration Warfare Handbook (2011) as several other volumes that deal with war. This article was originally published on traditionalRight on 4.11.2019.