7/30/2014
GLOBAL SOFT DIPLOMACY
GOAFS II: #103
PICTORIAL PRIMER of
PRAGMATIC PROGRESSIVE POLITICAL
PRACTICE —101.8
GLOBAL SOFT DIPLOMACY
7.30.14
ALCHEMIST IN CHIEF:
Gets up every morning, puts on his
Overalls, picks up his phone,
And gets busy transforming
Hope and Change into
Bait and Switch.
Jerry Sweers
GROWING OLD AIN’T FOR SISSIES
Sailing directions for
Pilgrims of the Heart.
Remembrances, reflections and
rants
of an endangered species;
Curmudgensis Americanus Bibliophilius
site: crmudgeon.blogspot.com
email: cmudgeon@windstream.net
7/23/2014
THE LOVING FIRST COUPLE
GOAFS II: #102
PICTORIAL PRIMER of
PRAGMATIC PROGRESSIVE POLITICAL
PRACTICE —101.7
GOOD GRIEF, CHARLIE
BROWN
7.23.14
The cartoon in this week’s blog has been around a while but the never-ending litany of scandals has kept it as fresh as this morning’s news. A friend recently sent me this letter printed in a Chicago newspaper:
OBAMA IS NO ORDINARY WEAKLING
Those who compare the bare-chested conqueror of the Crimea with the metro-sexual ruler of the United States and find our emperor weak to the point of deserving ridicule miss the essential strength of Obama.
It’s no ordinary weakling who can turn a once-respected country into an international joke; reduce Congress to a gaggle of sniveling sycophants; turn the world’s finest medical system into a failed third-rate socialist nightmare with the stroke of his pen; shatter our Constitution without attempted recourse by the sons and daughters of frontiersmen and pioneers whose blood was used to write that inspired document; and turn the people of the United States into a herd of competing minorities who, like suckling pigs, are each afraid to lose his place on the government teat should he raise his voice to protest the ruin of our country.
So don’t denigrate the nonentity ruler who has overcome his uncertain ancestry and ludicrous incompetence to do what no other king or dictator has been able to do in our 237 year history: He has destroyed America.
REIS R. KASH
Springfield
I would modify his last sentence—I think the Jury is still out on whether America can survive Obama’s Imperial Presidency—but other than that, I think this writer hits the nail squarely and eloquently on the head.
So here is the current mess we are in in a simple picture:
THE LOVING FIRST COUPLE
Basking in the light that failed—
RULES FOR RADICALS
BY SAUL ALINSKY
HAS NO CHAPTER ON HUMILITY
Jerry Sweers
GROWING OLD AIN’T FOR SISSIES
Sailing directions for
Pilgrims of the Heart.
Remembrances, reflections and
rants
of an endangered species;
Curmudgensis Americanus Bibliophilius
site: crmudgeon.blogspot.com
email: cmudgeon@windstream.net
7/16/2014
MILITARY READINESS-PHOTO OP
GOAFS II: #101
PICTORIAL PRIMER of
PRAGMATIC PROGRESSIVE POLITICAL
PRACTICE —101.6
HAZARDOUS DUTY PHOTO-OP:
MUNCHIES IN THE MESS HALL
7.16.14
FLEXIBLE MILITARY
READINESS
The Commander-in Chief,
Leading from behind.
Jerry Sweers
GROWING OLD AIN’T FOR SISSIES
Sailing directions for
Pilgrims of the Heart.
Remembrances, reflections and
rants
of an endangered species;
Curmudgensis Americanus Bibliophilius
site: crmudgeon.blogspot.com
email: cmudgeon@windstream.net
7/09/2014
JULY 4TH POST SCRIPT--FREEDOM
FREEDOM--Independence Day
Post Script
I write this
on July 7, 2014, after a long Independence Day weekend filled with
inspirational reminders of the goodness and the greatness of America. It was so
inspirational that even our President managed a few grudging words along these
lines, even though anything remotely suggests an endorsement of America’s
exceptionalism turns immediately to dust in the mouths of progressive liberals
in general and the Chief Executive in particular.
Lest we drift
off on a cloud of euphoric afterglow, I would like to say a few words about the
state of freedom in America. I will preface my thoughts with a few relevant
quotes:
It is yet to be decided
whether the Revolution must ultimately be considered a blessing or a curse: a
blessing or a curse, not to the present age alone, for with our fate will the destiny
of unborn millions be involved…At this auspicious period, the United States
came into existence as a Nation, and if their Citizens should not be completely
free and happy, the fault will be entirely their own.
--“Circular
to the States,” Newburg New York, 1783
History shows that all
great nations commit suicide.” Arnold
Toynbee, Personal conversations with Os Guiness
{We should not comfort
ourselves} on the superstition that the barbarians are still far from us, for
there are people who allow the light to be snatched from their hands, and there
are other peoples who stifle it under their own feet.
--Democracy
in America, Alexis de Tocqueville, 1835
At what point then is
the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reached us, it must
spring up among us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we
must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live
for all time, or die by suicide.
Abraham
Lincoln, “Address Before the Young Men’s Lyceum,”
Springfield,
Illinois, 1838
If the founders were
correct, contemporary America’s pursuit of political leadership without
character, economic enterprise without ethics and trust, scientific progress
without human values, freedom without virtue, and negative freedom without
positive freedom, can only end in disaster. It rings the death knell of
sustainable freedom, and as it works itself out socially and politically in
countless areas, it makes the decline of America only a matter of time.
A
Free People’s Suicide—Sustainable Freedom and the American Future, 2012, by Os Guinness
If you are
not familiar with Os Guinness, you should be. He was born in China, educated in
England, and now lives near Washington D.C. He has written 25 books, all of
them worth reading. He founded the Trinity Forum, and has been visiting fellow
at the Brookings Institution as well as a guest scholar at the Woodrow Wilson
Institute for International Studies.
His book, A Free People’s Suicide, Is the most
thorough and thoughtful look at democracy in America since the Frenchman wrote Democracy In America in 1835-36.
If you prefer
to ignore the disaster that is inundating America today, and wish to have
peaceful slumber at night, I strongly urge you to skip this book. If you would
say to me, “Some trust in chariots and some in horses,
but we trust in
the name of the Lord our God,” I would say, “Amen,” but remind you that the God we trust is Sovereign over
every corner of all of life and he expects His children to be good citizens as
well as good Christians.
If you would protest: “our struggle is not against flesh and
blood, but against the rulers, the powers, against the world forces of this
darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in heavenly places,” I
would just remind you that spiritual warfare does not exclude the realm of
ideas, in fact, it has to do in large part with ideas and their consequences.
Communist Russia was the product of one man’s bad idea. Nazi Germany was the
product of one man’s bad idea. Islam is the product of one man’s bad idea.
To find this battlefield, we only need to look, domestically,
inside the beltway at the ravages of the Alice-in-Wonderland socialist utopia
being rammed down our throats by the progressive liberals in the seats of
power. Internationally, the best example is the evening news that daily reports
on the homicidal sons of Allah busily forcing a false god, a false prophet, a
false book, and a false law down the throats of the people in Southern Syria
and Northern Iraq.
I am not going to wax eloquent on all this—Just summarize the
things covered in Guinness’ book in case you might want to get it and pursue
this seriously.
CHAP 1. A broad overview of the problem of
sustainable liberty.
CHAP 2. The founder’s understanding of the
three essential tasks they were addressing in the “great experiment” in freedom
that the American Revolution began, and how the current generation has
neglected the third task—the all important one today.
CHAP 3. The contrast of these challenges with
the founder’s realism about the classical understanding of why no political
systems ever endured; how they attempted—daringly—to use history to defy
history; and how most Americans today have no knowledge or interest in these
things.
CHAP 4. The founder’s solution to the
challenge of sustaining freedom and the historical use and misuse of this
solution.
CHAP 5. The domestic condition of American
freedom today and the present culture wars as a second American freedom war
with decisive implications for America’s future.
CHAP 6. The international condition of
American freedom—recent foreign policy in the light of the question “Is
America’s superpower influence an empire worthy of a free people?”
CHAP 7. An examination of the grounds for a
possible American restoration and a reflection on the essence of America that
is symbolized by the American eagle and its implications for the present
generation’s choice between decline and renewal.
The big question at the bottom line of all this is:
“Are there enough
citizens who are still able to turn aside from the tyranny of the ‘obsessive
now’ and consider the restoration of the first things of this great republic? God only knows.”
Guinness
knows God, and he knows that God knows all things, so the essence of his
question is in the words, still able to turn aside from the tyranny of the obsessive now and give attention to the Word of God and the will of God.
My last words
to you today are the breaking news from the Isle of Patmos, over 2,000 years
ago:
1 The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to
his servants the things that must soon take place. He made it known by sending
his angel to his servant John, 2 who bore witness to the
word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw. 3 Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed
are those who hear, and who keep what is written in it, for the time is near.
4 John to the seven churches that are in Asia:
Grace to you and peace from him who is and
who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his
throne, 5 and from Jesus Christ the faithful witness, the firstborn of
the dead, and the ruler of kings on earth.
To him who loves us and has freed us from our
sins by his blood 6 and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father, to him
be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. 7 Behold,
he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who
pierced him, and all tribes of the earth will wail on account of him. Even so.
Amen.
8 “I am the Alpha and the
Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is and who was and who is to come, the
Almighty.”
Revelation 1.1-8
Jerry Sweers
GROWING OLD AIN’T FOR SISSIES
Sailing directions for
Pilgrims of the Heart.
Remembrances, reflections and
rants
of an endangered species;
Curmudgensis Americanus Bibliophilius
site: crmudgeon.blogspot.com
email:
cmudgeon@windstream.net
