Showing posts with label History. Show all posts
Showing posts with label History. Show all posts

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Obama History "Fail" Once More

At a fundraiser last night President Obama said:
"We've lost our ambition, our -- our imagination, and -- and -- our willingness to do the things that built the Golden Gate Bridge and Hoover Dam and unleashed all the potential in this country,"

Interesting fact about the Golden Gate (From California Historian):

"This bridge was the first of such magnitude and controversy to be completely financed by private citizens (Gronquist 128-129). All who did contribute money were promised restitution at four and three-fourths percent interest rate within a maximum of 40 years.

It is amazing how successful this way of financing was, considering the effects of the Great Depression."

More importantly the insurmountable level of regulations required to complete a project such as the Golden Gate Bridge or Hoover Dam would kill either of these projects before they even got to the drafting stage.

As Rush Limbaugh said today:
"The people in this country have their imagination. The people of this country still have their dreams and their willingness to do things. You stand in the way. The federal government stands in the way. Mountainous regulations. We did build the Golden Gate Bridge, the Bay Bridge, the Hoover Dam, and the Empire State Building in ten years -- and we did it in the middle of the Great Depression. You couldn't do it today. Regardless the ambition, imagination, willingness, or desire, you couldn't do it in ten years today. Look at Ground Zero in Manhattan. You couldn't do it. I mean, physically it could be done, but it couldn't be legally done."

Thursday, December 3, 2009

Read the Speech, Mr. President, Don't Just Quote From It!

During his December 1, 2009 speech to West Point President Obama quoted from President Dwight D. Eisenhower's Farewell Address of January 17, 1961,

I'm mindful of the words of President Eisenhower, who -- in discussing our national security -- said, "Each proposal must be weighed in the light of a broader consideration: the need to maintain balance in and among national programs."

Over the past several years, we have lost that balance.  We've failed to appreciate the connection between our national security and our economy.

With all due respect, Mr. President, it is frankly ironic that you would choose this speech.  If you did read and understand this speech you would understand that it is a frank warning against everything you have done and proposed to date. (I have previously written about the Eisenhower speech while discussing the scientific-technological elite and global warming).

A few examples:



Take over of the nations health care:
Crises there will continue to be. In meeting them, whether foreign or domestic, great or small, there is a recurring temptation to feel that some spectacular and costly action could become the miraculous solution to all current difficulties. A huge increase in newer elements of our defenses; development of unrealistic programs to cure every ill in agriculture; a dramatic expansion in basic and applied research -- these and many other possibilities, each possibly promising in itself, may be suggested as the only way to the road we wish to travel.
Cap and Trade/Climategate:
The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present -- and is gravely to be regarded.
Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite. 
Bailouts/Takeovers/Nationalization :
But each proposal must be weighed in the light of a broader consideration: the need to maintain balance in and among national programs, balance between the private and the public economy, balance between the cost and hoped for advantages, balance between the clearly necessary and the comfortably desirable, balance between our essential requirements as a nation and the duties imposed by the nation upon the individual, balance between actions of the moment and the national welfare of the future.
Stimulus/Economic/Resources :
Another factor in maintaining balance involves the element of time. As we peer into society's future, we -- you and I, and our government -- must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering for our own ease and convenience the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow.
Foreign Policy/Honduras:
America is today the strongest, the most influential, and most productive nation in the world. Understandably proud of this pre-eminence, we yet realize that America's leadership and prestige depend, not merely upon our unmatched material progress, riches, and military strength, but on how we use our power in the interests of world peace and human betterment.

Throughout America's adventure in free government, our basic purposes have been to keep the peace, to foster progress in human achievement, and to enhance liberty, dignity, and integrity among peoples and among nations. To strive for less would be unworthy of a free and religious people. Any failure traceable to arrogance, or our lack of comprehension, or readiness to sacrifice would inflict upon us grievous hurt, both at home and abroad.
War on Terror/Long Term Conflict:
Progress toward these noble goals is persistently threatened by the conflict now engulfing the world. It commands our whole attention, absorbs our very beings. We face a hostile ideology global in scope, atheistic in character, ruthless in purpose, and insiduous [insidious] in method. Unhappily, the danger it poses promises to be of indefinite duration. To meet it successfully, there is called for, not so much the emotional and transitory sacrifices of crisis, but rather those which enable us to carry forward steadily, surely, and without complaint the burdens of a prolonged and complex struggle with liberty the stake. Only thus shall we remain, despite every provocation, on our charted course toward permanent peace and human betterment.

It really is a fascinating prescient speech, take a couple minutes and read the entire thing.

DKK 

 

Thursday, September 11, 2008

September 11 -- Seven Years Ago A Strong Man Comforted A Wounded Nation With More Then Just His Words!

"The pictures of airplanes flying into buildings, fires burning, huge structures collapsing, have filled us with disbelief, terrible sadness, and a quiet, unyielding anger. These acts of mass murder were intended to frighten our nation into chaos and retreat. But they have failed; our country is strong. A great people has been moved to defend a great nation. Terrorist attacks can shake the foundations of our biggest buildings, but they cannot touch the foundation of America. These acts shattered steel, but they cannot dent the steel of American resolve."
- President George W. Bush, September 11, 2001 Address to the Nation

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Rosenberg Grand Jury Testimony Released -- Are 'Scholars' Really Objective

After 58 years, historians and journalists will have a chance to examine the secret grand jury testimony of witnesses in the espionage case against Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.

The couple was investigated in 1950, tried in 1951 for conspiracy to commit espionage and convicted and sentenced to death in 1953.

(...)

The National Security Archive, the American Historical Association, the Georgetown University Law Center and others have petitioned to have the transcripts of 46 witnesses released to the public.

In an unusual move, federal authorities have said that because of the historic significance of the case, they do not oppose releasing the transcripts of testimony from witnesses who have died or who do not object to their release.

Of the 46 grand jury witnesses, 36 are either deceased or do not object to releasing the transcripts. Three others are thought to have died; four have not been located.
Interestingly David Greenglass, Ethyl's brother refused, petitioned the court, and was granted the right to keep his transcript sealed -- his testimony was considered pivotal in convicting the Ethyl Rosenberg.

Another defendent convicted of obstruction petitioned to have her testimony withheld,  Miriam Moskowitz, "now 92, expressed relief that the transcripts would not make it into the hands of the Cold War historians, 'because I know they will not write the truth.'"

Despite the release of documents from the Soviet archives that confirmed the guilt of the Rosenbergs, many still believe they were persecuted for political reasons. 
DKK
CNN

Monday, July 7, 2008

Classic Restored -- 'Metropolis' Missing Scenes Found

The museum director from Buenos Aires had something special in her luggage: a copy of a long version of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, including scenes believed lost for almost 80 years. After examining the film the three experts are certain: The find from Buenos Aires is a real treasure, a worldwide sensation. Metropolis, the most important silent film in German history, can from this day on be considered to have been rediscovered. ...

They (Paramount) oversimplified the plot, even cutting key scenes. The original version could only be seen in Berlin until May 1927 – from then on it was considered to have been lost forever. Those recently viewing a restored version of the film first read the following insert: “More than a quarter of the film is believed to be lost forever.” Zeit Online
This is fabulous news for what has remained a lasting gem of film.  Here is ten minutes from the transformation scene:
.

Giorgio Moroder did a restoration that colored the slides and added contemporary music in 1984.  I know some hated the tampering but I loved the version and the new interest in the film.  Here is one song from that restoration:


DKK

Friday, July 4, 2008

Declaration of Independence

In CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the course of human Events, it becomes necessary for one People to dissolve the Political Bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the Powers of the Earth, the separate and equal Station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the Separation.  
We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.  
That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed.
That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is in the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient Causes; and accordingly all Experience hath shewn, that Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a Design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future Security.
(...)

Happy 4th of July, celebrate today "as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forevermore." (John Adams)
 DKK

Saturday, June 21, 2008

Wait Pat, Did You And Barack Have The Same History Professor?

Pat Buchanan has a new book out, Churchill, Hitler, and "The Unnecessary War": How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World, that, despite his best efforts, has been getting panned by many, including Victor Davis Hansen, whom I have a great deal of respect for as an historian.

I have not read the book yet but it is my understanding that people disagree with Buchanan's interpretation of history and his cherry picking of historical fact. Leaving out what is inconvenient to his premise, that Hitler was (well not to bring up recent wounds) "contained" and was not out to conquer the world. Christopher Hitchens hit him hard in a column earlier this week on theses issues.

It is Pat's belief that the war was made necessary by the mistaken policies of the British (specifically Churchill) and that the war was the cause of many of the terrors of that followed, not Hitler and the Nazi's.

Yesterday he published a column that was posted to Townhall.com entitled, Was the Holocaust Inevitable? Here is a bit of the column:

If Hitler were out to conquer the world, why did he not build a great fleet? Why did he not demand the French fleet when France surrendered?
(...)

That Hitler was a rabid anti-Semite is undeniable. "Mein Kampf" is saturated in anti-Semitism. The Nuremberg Laws confirm it. But for the six years before Britain declared war, there was no Holocaust, and for two years after the war began, there was no Holocaust.

Not until midwinter 1942 was the Wannsee Conference held, where the Final Solution was on the table.

That conference was not convened until Hitler had been halted in Russia, was at war with America and sensed doom was inevitable. Then the trains began to roll.

And why did Hitler invade Russia? This writer quotes Hitler 10 times as saying that only by knocking out Russia could he convince Britain it could not win and must end the war.

Hitchens mocks this view, invoking the Hitler-madman theory.

"Could we have a better definition of derangement and megalomania than the case of a dictator who overrules his own generals and invades Russia in wintertime ... ?"

Christopher, Hitler invaded Russia on June 22.

The Holocaust was not a cause of the war, but a consequence of the war. No war, no Holocaust.

He then finishes by correctly pointing out that Western Europe was not freed by WWII and that Stalin was worse then Hitler.

Again, I have not read the book, but when I read this column my first thought was, "wow, this guy completely missed some historical facts growing up! What, did Buchanan and Obama both go to the same school or something?" Both he and Obama have demonstrated fundamentally flawed views of historical facts.

(To my surprise I found that Columbia University WAS on both of their resumes, Pat attended Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and Barack attended Columbia University as an undergrad.)

Let me just make a couple of corrections to the two points quoted from Buchanan's column quoted above.

Why didn't Hitler build a great fleet?

In reality Hitler had actually begun doing just that with Plan-Z (German Navy -- History ):

The Z-Plan was Germanys fleet building program started shortly before World War 2.

In the mid 1930s a major discussion about a new fleet program started in Germany. There were two major opinions, what kind of program should have been chosen. One plan was focused on a large submarine fleet and a relatively small surface fleet for coast protection, this plan was preferred by the U-Boat fraction in the Kriegsmarine command. The other alternative was a mixed fleet of various surface ships and a much smaller U-Boat fleet, quite similar to the Imperial Navy in World War I or the British Royal Navy. In the end, this plan was chosen as the new fleet building program, after several modifications it was called the "Z-Plan".

According to this plan, the German Kriegsmarine should have grown to about 800 units, consisting of 13 battleships and battlecruisers, 4 aircraft carriers, 15 Panzerschiffe, 23 cruisers and 22 so called "Spähkreuzer" which were basically large destroyers. In addition to this many smaller vessels should have been build.

Those ships should have been build between 1939 and 1946, in this time, the personal of the Kriegsmarine should have been enlarged to 201.000 men and over 33 billion Reichsmark should have spend for building the new units.

When Plan-Z was implemented Hitler had promised the woefully unprepared German Navy that there would not a be war until 1945, his invasion of Poland short-circuited his own build up plans. Had Churchill waited he would have been met with a formidable fleet that would have put Hitler in a far stronger position then he was in 1939.

For comparison the Royal Navy was, in 1939, the largest naval force in the world. However the Home Water and Atlantic fleet contained just 9 Battleships, 4 Aircraft carriers, 35 cruisers, 95 Destroyers, 25 submarines and support vessels. The Navy had 200,000 men in service. Of the capital ships only 2 were built after WWI, the sea air power was limited to short range slow moving aircraft and the surface ships were unprepared for submarine warfare. While a build up was underway many of these ships were intended as replacements for the older ships and were built under the restrictions of tonnage, gun size, total fleet tonnage, and start date for new construction that was agreed to under the naval treaties post WWI. Hitler undermined these treaties during the 1930's and with the start of Plan-Z completely abandoned them.

Clearly German's planned fleet of newly designed and built vessels, unrestricted by treaty size, would have been a direct challenge to Britain had the war been put off for a few more years.

This doesn't include the Italian Navy which ranked 5th in size behind France,

Why didn't Hitler demand the French fleet?

In reality Hitler did demand that the French fleet be returned and neutralized, either scuttled or interred, "under German or Italian supervision."

With the start of war in advance of Hitlers planned naval build up there was a change in German Naval policy from that of Plan-Z as described above to the other major alternative, a large submarine fleet and a relatively small surface fleet for coastal protection. With that change in strategy Germany simply did not have the manpower available to man the fourth largest fleet in the world at that time.

However it was feared by the allies that this would leave the French fleet available in the future should Germany demand it and the main body of the French Fleet was destroyed by the British at the battle of Mers-el-Kebir. It is really not possible to know what Hitler would have done with the fleet had it been allowed to return to France.

For the six years before Britain declared war, there was no Holocaust, and for two years after the war began, there was no Holocaust.

In reality:

Hitler hesitated to eliminate Germans he considered undesirable by systematic killing. In 1935, he told Dr. Wagner he was considering a program of involuntary euthanasia and would start it in wartime. In 1938 he stopped waiting for war, deciding to use instead the cover of a health program and to keep the killing secret. Children were the first victims, as midwives and nurses were instructed to report births of defective infants (a category enlarged during the war to include “racially undesirable” ones). Thousands were killed by injection or deliberate starvation.

The killing was soon extended to adults, beginning with people in mental hospitals.

(…)

Up to 1939, about seventy thousand adults were killed. (…)

By 1940, the “euthanasia” program was a cover for killing political prisoners, slave laborers, Jews, half-Jewish children, and Gypsies.

Pat Buchanan has presented himself as some "conservative" standard bearer intent on preventing a repeat of some version of history he has constructed in his mind. Rather as his own column demonstrates he doesn't even have a basic knowledge of the subject.
DKK
Buchanan Column Via Gateway Pundit -- Nazi Tool Pat Buchanan Says Hitler Did Not Plan Holocaust

Sunday, May 25, 2008

Don't Know Much About History -- Continuing Saga

Since the Bush Administration launched a misguided war in Iraq, its policy in the Americas has been negligent toward our friends, ineffective with our adversaries, disinterested in the challenges that matter in peoples’ lives, and incapable of advancing our interests in the region.

No wonder, then, that demagogues like Hugo Chavez have stepped into this vacuum.


That is the heroic Barack Obama somehow blaming Bush for Hugo Chavez' election 2 years before Bush took office and 5 years before Iraq.

I don't think Obama's knows anything at all about history.

Now, as an aside, if your policy in the Americas is so bad why do we have congress blocking a free trade agreement with Columbia, an ally whose ties have only grown closer to the US under Bush? As a matter of fact, Columbia just eliminated a terrorist leader of FARC and has possibly decimated that terrorist organization. Reports are that FARC terrorists are now offering to give up their US hostages in return for their freedom.

Not bad for being a neglected America's policy, is it now?
DKK
LGF -- Obama: Bush is Responsible for Chavez (Bzzt! Wrong!)
 
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