Ranting about how messed up the world is, espcially Oklahoma.
Author Archives: Curtiswselby
They say not to write a blog from a tired space, but I suffer from chronic fatigue syndrome, so frankly, everything I do is from a tired space. Likely I'm not doing the greatest job of search engine optimization. But I know there are others like me. Passionate about life.
Freedom of speech does not mean freedom of consequences.
I know it has been a while. I finally found a topic that I wanted to write about before I talked about it. The topic is hyperbole. For those who don’t know what that means, hyperbole is exaggeration intended to convey strong emotion or to emphasize a point, something not intended to be literal. All too often, we expect everyone to understand and approve our hyperbole, but someone we are arguing with, we want to hold up their words to a fundamentalist stringency that marks them as idiots. As Christ said, we strain at a gnat but swallow a camel.
On one hand…..surely we all understand that the choice of words was exaggeration. Surely none of us is so crazed as to think that Biden actually was calling for assassination. Having said that…..
We all have said foolish things. Where is the line drawn between simple human foolishness and dangerous rhetoric? And are we so sure our side doesn’t have some dangerous rhetoric running around?
It’s Going to be a Bloodbath
I try to be centrist. But I also call out things, when I have a listening ear that isn’t serving a closed mind. My liberal friends, those with charitable hearts will forgive Biden and let bygones be bygones and simply live in peace. But make no mistake….there are reasons, frankly, legitimate reasons, why your conservative friends find it hard to let it go, as I believe most of you wish.
Does anyone remember when Trump was castigated by the media for saying if he lost the election it was going to be a bloodbath? With very few exceptions, liberal and even some centrist media reported this as though he were calling for riots, sedition, and revolution. Here are some examples of the reporting.
NPR did at least point out that this was merely hyperbole, but then they explained to us why, in their minds, this actually WAS dangerous and unacceptable. There was a time when they just would have reported it and let us make up our own minds.
In this one, the reporter bounces back at Pence “Was that clear to you”?
Media Manipulation
In the above videos, from supposedly centrist media, NPR, who I would have thought would have done better, made it through the first part of the video not telling us what to think, simply reporting the facts. But that is not good enough any more. You can’t make up your own mind about Trump based off of his hyperbole. We have to be sure to explain: “This is what Trump does…he uses words that get a rise out of people, then he can wave his hand and blame the media for creating some false narrative, but while many are litigating what he meant by those comments, going less noticed is Trump standing there and saluting January Six rioters, calling them hostages and patriots, and saying the prosecutions are a disgrace.”
That sure is a lot of words to say in order to prove to us that the half of the population who supports Trump are in fact (because after all, if you vote for this man you are like this man) wanting a bloodbath, and we know that because we know there were rioters in that audience (I guess we have the whole roster before us…there is no possible thought that maybe he was maybe addressing the whole nation and not JUST the people who took part in January 6). Your neighbor that voted for him are wicked dupes who want to bring out pitch forks and torches as soon as there is an excuse.
Only an idiot votes for insert candidate name here.
In the next, we have a reporter challenge Pence. “Do we REALLY understand what he means”? Because again, we can’t be allowed to do our own thinking. I am not smart enough to look up his speech and decide for myself, the reporter has to tell us. So why is the Tired Blogger hopping up and down about this?
NEW: CNN guest @ScottJenningsKY *BLASTS* the network as "pathetic" for spreading the "bloodbath" and "dictator" lies in the wake of the Trump assassination attempt.
Trump's "bloodbath" comment was about the economy. Here is the full context of his remarks from his Ohio rally in… pic.twitter.com/fvM2B7FsWb
I don’t doubt there are plenty of liberals who think that January 6 justifies all of this. The “fact” that Trump was a Russian asset justifies this. The media has told us a hundred reasons and a thousand times why anything we do or say against Trump is justified. But I tend to at least mostly agree with Scott Jennings.
At the very least, if you are going to even pretend to be fair minded, in my mind we have to come to an agreement that there was January 6, there was an assassination attempt. Maybe both sides should 1) take accountability for what they have done or said, 2) reporting has to get back to being less partisan, 3) if reporters can’t stop themselves from telling us not just the facts, but how they should be interpreted….I think it is our duty as citizens to STOP LETTING them do our thinking for us. Shut OFF the news for a while. Reflect, pray, meditate, read something that doesn’t just tell you how bad Trump is. Or Biden.
Better to reign in Hell, then serve in Heav’n. Paradise Lost.
America is going to hell, and it is going Greyhound. Many of us have been shouting to the rooftops that the uniparty system we have disguised as a two party system is destroying our country. Both sides seem to be ignoring reason. Make no mistake, the two party system is a puppet of a more powerful force. If you cannot read this with an open mind, if you insist that Biden or Trump is our savior, you needn’t even read this. I have noticed people on both sides of the aisle being totally dismissive of anything the other side has to say, on a level that offends and frightens the hell out of me. You also need not read this if you believe that ANY of the large corporate news organizations are feeding you truth. You will simply believe all the fact checkers that you happen to listen to, and I am finding that facts are becoming awfully hard to come by. Lastly, if you honestly believe that the current efforts to mold a new world order are good for people, you need not read this either. While I agree in principle that the genie is out of the bottle as far as global trade, global communication, global influence, I also believe that the hegemony that is attempting to actually RULE the world is evil. But they have not won yet. Their desperation proves the point. But they may. Likely my own feeble efforts to warn you will go unheard. But I will still take my shot in the dark, and the globalists are, in fact, to blame. They give democracy a bad name. After all those words, if you are still patient enough to read…..let’s begin.
I think Fox is missing from this list, but I lump them in with the rest.
There will be three points I want to make, and none of them are going to be easy. In order to reduce the censorship I am bound to face, I will deliberately keep the second and third point to myself until I write further posts. The first point is that we are being censored. I have three points to make about censorship. 1) In an Orwellian twist, we have established what is essentially a Ministry of Truth that censors what we say. 2) The rhetoric that online censorship is instituted by private companies is a red herring of the grossest order. The United States government is in fact the captain of the Ministry of Truth. 3) No one is safe from the Ministry of Truth.
Censorship is Essential to the Preservation of Democracy
Take a look at this video. Go ahead, don’t be afraid. Yes, I know, one of the candidate’s names is on it. I promise I am not trying to get you to vote for him. Unless some strange miracle happens where God commands me to do so I am not voting for him. But you NEED to see this if you care AT ALL about truth, objectivity, freedom or liberty. You won’t melt, and while it may help my case, by itself it proves…well…watch it and see what it proves. If you have seen it before, please don’t dismiss this. Watch it, and then read what I have to say.
Do you REALLY trust this narrative? Do you REALLY believe that these are people trying to inform you? Is it possible these people are just trying to brainwash you into thinking a certain way? Are we really not capable of doing our own thinking?
The sad truth is that the very censorship I am condemning is going to make it difficult to document the censorship that is out there.
Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
There was a time when free speech was an arm of the military industrial complex. Not so much that they actually allowed it or valued it, but it was a big selling point. America had the moral high ground. So it was in the interest of the Juggernaut corporations and the shadow lords of the alphabet soup bureaucracies to at least give the charade that it existed. I do (possibly foolishly) believe that at one time we actually DID have freedom of speech. I think in my youth, in the 80s, there was quite a lot of freedom of speech. There were some limits, and it is debatable how free we really were. But I never really felt truly afraid of what was happening until recently. The internet became a thing, and it seemed as though freedom of speech was not only an American thing, it was the value that would free the entire world. Russians were posting web sites (and still do….ironically I can find Russian web sites protesting Putin more easily than I can find American websites protesting…the topic which shall not be named in this post for fear of censorship…..(I know, it is cryptic. But I mean it. I don’t want to be canceled until I have written the last post). America was the Queen of Freedom, and with the internet (we always liked to claim we invented it, but CERN also claims to have invented it) spreading world wide, it was only a matter of time before freedom rang on every shore. We would evolve into a world where people were no longer afraid of tyranny. We could speak our minds and believe what we wanted and form communities, if only on the internet, of like minded people that would blend into a global melting pot of liberty.
Around 2010 or 2011, all of that changed.
No, these are not the Qanon Shaman’s brothers. I think. This is an image from the Arab Spring.
One of the key elements of both spreading and coordinating the Arab Spring was social media. Suddenly, the elites were terrified. Even though we have been manipulating regime changes for seventy years or more, when the people started to do it themselves the military industrial complex went nuts. Ideas had become weapons. Democracy no longer meant rule by the people. It meant rule by the institutions of Democracy.
“As the Arab Spring blossomed and President Obama hesitated about whether to speak out in favor of protesters seeking democratic change in the Greater Middle East, the Pentagon acted decisively. It forged ever deeper ties with some of the most repressive regimes in the region, building upmilitary bases and brokering weapons sales and transfers to despots from Bahrain to Yemen.
‘As state security forces across the region cracked down on democratic dissent, the Pentagon also repeatedly dispatched American troops on training missions to allied militaries there. During more than 40 such operations with names like Eager Lion and Friendship Two that sometimes lasted for weeks or months at a time, they taught Middle Eastern security forces the finer points of counterinsurgency, small unit tactics, intelligence gathering, and information operations—skills crucial to defeating popular uprisings.’
“Excerpt on Orientalism and the Arab Spring: “The field of Middle Eastern studies has a long history of speaking for Middle Easterners, going back centuries to when it was referred to as Oriental Studies. This role of Western participation in Middle Eastern affairs is part of what Edward Said defined as Orientalism in the West. From Rudyard Kipling’s Kim,- about a young Irish boy who acts as a spy by disguising himself in the garb and languages of various Indian ethnicities and religions,- to Anglo actors in black face portraying Othello, to T.E. Lawrence’s legacy as Lawrence of Arabia, the idea of representing the Orient has fascinated “bright young Westerners”. The introduction of technology into this long-standing Orientalist trend has enabled new generations and larger numbers of Westerners to represent the East for Easterners. After all, “social media, by its very nature, is only an extension of the social context in which it operates.” And the unusually high level of participation displayed by foreigners in the Arab Spring who otherwise do not concern themselves with events in the Middle East demands explanation. In this work, I suggest that multiple avenues available to “bright young Westerners” to represent Orientals are used today to reorganize the Middle East in accordance with US policy objectives. On the deliberate side of this Orientalist policymaking are wargames – wargames (دوريات) in which US intel-security roleplay and strategize as Middle Eastern regimes. Secondarily, unwitting Westerners (so-called “useful idiots” in intelligence parlance) assume the Internet proxies and even political voices of Middle Easterners, as happened in the 2009 Green Revolution in Iran and the Arab Spring of 2011. “
“Original Terminology: “The VNN effect is the use of wargames/scenario-based media to set policy agendas, impede opposing agendas, and push decision-makers into action. ‘VNN’ is taken from the name of the mock news channel used in disaster scenario trainings by FEMA. While the CNN effect is understood to be the use of authentic news stories to alter policy agenda and action, by terming this phenomenon ‘the VNN effect’, I trace the media used under CNN effect conditions to their wargame/scenario origins. The media used in the VNN effect are based on speculative fiction by policy and military industries, unlike media used to create the CNN effect, which are understood to be true but promoted for political purposes. Like the CNN effect, the VNN effect is used to propel nations into war.
“In the VNN Effect, it is further shown that media are regularly used, without the informed consent of the public, as The Public Space for the manipulative wargaming of real-life situations and crises.”
In the interests of fairness, the Arab Spring seems to have had a positive impact on only one nation, that of Tunisia. Otherwise the correlations have been at best a null much ado about nothing, and at worst, led to less democracy, a lower standard of living, increased unemployment, increased jailing of journalists, massive Syrian displacements of population, increased government crackdowns on the internet (except in Tunisia), increased government corruption.
One of the theories that was at least partially influenced by the Arab Spring was the Gerasimov Doctrine. And what, pray tell, is that you say? I will be citing armyupress:
He predicted that the U.S. government, going forward, was going to drastically change their strategy for regime change in order to counteract the forces that had come into play in the Arab Spring. “Instead of an overt…invasion, the first volleys of a U.S. attack come from the installment of a political opposition through state propaganda (e.g., CNN, BBC) the Internet and social media, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs).”
Uncle Sam said it best.
The article continues: “After successfully instilling political dissent, separatism, and/or social strife, the legitimate government has increasing difficulty maintaining order. As the security situation deteriorates, separatist movements can be stoked and strengthened, and undeclared special operations, conventional, and private military forces (defense contractors) can be introduced to battle the government and cause further havoc.” As tensions rise in the State that the U.S. alphabet soup have pronounced doom upon, the “government is forced to use increasingly aggressive methods to maintain order, the United States gains a pretext for the imposition of economic and political sanctions, and sometimes even military sanctions such as no-fly zones, to tie the hands of the besieged governments and promote further dissent.
Couldn’t get the whole graph to download, but this is part of the graph describing what the article is explaining.
The article continues: “Eventually, as the government collapses and anarchy results, military forces under the guise of peacekeepers can then be employed to pacify the area, if desired, and a new government that is friendly to the United States and the West can be installed.
General Gerisamov, the man whose analysis got all this started.
Ok, so some Rusky general wants to accuse America of internet skull duggery with the aim of taking down regimes we don’t like. But Russia is the enemy, of course they are going to paint us as the bad guys. I mean, after all, they are the ones who bought Donald Trump, right?
I may deal with the Trump thing some other post, but I don’t want to get distracted now. This is what this is all about. The government has coopted the largest social media platforms for its own ends. Don’t believe me?
Read Them and Weep
Image of a statement to Congress. Source, the Twitter Files of Matt Taibbi.
For a long time I have been feeling like a noose is tightening around our freedom of speech. I think I can name two or three friends who believe I am full of bull. And so, for a long time I have hesitated to revisit this topic. I wrote about this in an earlier blog post, but it received very few views. I don’t want to be too angsty or to alienate my more liberal friends, but I felt strongly that the right wingers in my circle appreciated the article far more than people on other points of the spectrum. And I wondered if maybe I was just crazy. Maybe there was something I was missing. I will leave a link to that post here. If you wish, please read it and let me know if you believe I knew what I was talking about then, or not. And just for grins and giggles, I will leave a few links to other posts of mine that vaguely relate to free speech.
An internal chat between Twitter monitors. Nothing to see here citizens. Source, the Twitter Files by Matt Taibbi.
So we have a documented fear of the Arab Spring. We have a Russian general calling out the United States military (right or wrong) as being in control of the Western Media outlets. And then we have the very controversial revelations that were uncovered after “CEO Elon Musk gave Twitter documents to journalists Matt Taibbi, Bari Weiss, Lee Fang, and authors Michael Shellenberger, David Zweig and Alex Berenson shortly after he acquired Twitter on October 27, 2022. Taibbi and Weiss coordinated the publication of the documents with Musk, releasing details of the files as a series of Twitter threads.”
Again, people on the left completely disregard these files (except for Russel Brand). People on the right are happy to pounce on them as proof that there is a liberal bias that is censoring people. Let’s take at least a quick look at these files and see what we can find out.
“But Twitter was more like a partner to government.
“With other tech firms it held a regular “industry meeting” with FBI and DHS, and developed a formal system for receiving thousands of content reports from every corner of government: HHS, Treasury, NSA, even local police:
Just asking…..WHY was the FBI making plans for an election? Was it a legitimate fear of riots from either party?
Some of this honestly seems legit to me. Likely the big tech corporations did need, and frankly likely desired some some information, if not actual guidance, with handling Iranian, Venezuelan, and North Korean social media posts. Part of me feels that true freedom of speech means there should be minimal interference with any speech that isn’t criminal i.e. child porn, criminal/mafia communications to perform violent crimes, communications of actual physical threats to people over the internet. Having said that….why discuss FBI posturing. According to https://dictionary.cambridge.org/ the definition of posturing is “behavior or speech that is intended to attract attention and interest, or to make people believe something that is not true.” Obviously this was not intended to attract attention, they have done all they could to belie that this has been happening. Is it possible, then, that the FBI is trying to use social media platforms to make us believe things that are not true?
The Twitter Files continue: “By 2020, requests from connected actors to delete tweets were routine. One executive would write to another: “More to review from the Biden team.” The reply would come back: “Handled.”
In case you think it is only Biden who is guilty here:
Both parties had access to these tools. For instance, in 2020, requests from both the Trump White House and the Biden campaign were received and honored. However:
“11. This system wasn’t balanced. It was based on contacts. Because Twitter was and is overwhelmingly staffed by people of one political orientation, there were more channels, more ways to complain, open to the left (well, Democrats) than the right. https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/twitter/summary?id=D000067113“
Taibbi, who was quoted as saying when conservative Andrew Breitbart died “”Good! Fuck him. I couldn’t be happier that he’s dead.” He wrote that the obituary was “at least half an homage“, which gave respect to aspects of Breitbart’s style and also alluded to Breitbart’s own derisive obituary of Ted Kennedy. In a postscript, Taibbi wrote that some fans of Breitbart were angered by the obituary and responded with “threats and insults”.[55] Quote from Wikipedia.
I point this out to share that Taibbi points out the extreme Democrat slant at Twitter, and he documents this by comparing political contributions from Twitter: in 2018 Twitter donated $11,100 to Republican candidates, $295,722 to Democrats. It grew more, not less pronounced with time. In 2020 Republican contributions were $14,137, Democrat $909,431. And in 2022, before Musk bought out Twitter, Democrat candidates received $165,969 from Twitter, Republicans….a whopping $451.
“On October 14, 2020, the New York Post published BIDEN SECRET EMAILS, an expose based on the contents of Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop:
Remember, an election was going on. And whatever you may think of Trump or January 6….all of that was in the future. There was at this time no “insurrection” to justify one sided protections of ANY political candidate. The Twitter Files continues: “Twitter took extraordinary steps to suppress the story, removing links and posting warnings that it may be “unsafe.” They even blocked its transmission via direct message, a tool hitherto reserved for extreme cases, e.g. child pornography.”
In the eyes of these partisan technocrats, the story of the lap top getting out to the public was dangerous on the same level as child pornography getting released. Do you agree? Let me know if you do.
The Twitter Files continues: “White House spokeswoman Kaleigh McEnany was locked out of her account for tweeting about the story, prompting a furious letter from Trump campaign staffer Mike Hahn, who seethed: “At least pretend to care for the next 20 days.”
Donald Trump’s team sent a scathing email relaying they were upset. Whether you take his side or not…do you blame him? Blocking this story was the height of unfairness. Please explain to me how anything Trump did before January 6 justifies blocking the story? Or please explain to me why Biden is so wonderful that we should ignore this story. I’m fine with you supporting him or voting for him. But turning a blind eye to the truth is neither going to earn my vote, nor my respect.
There are internal emails relaying that there were people on the comms/policy teams who challenged this decision. The justification put forth by the safety/trust teams was “the laptop story had been removed for violation of the company’s “hacked materials” policy.” There were quite a few employees who didn’t buy this excuse. “They just freelanced it,” is how one former employee characterized the decision. “Hacking was the excuse, but within a few hours, pretty much everyone realized that wasn’t going to hold. But no one had the guts to reverse it.” The debate when on at the higher levels. Good to know there are some Democrats with some intellectual honesty. “Former VP of Global Comms Brandon Borrman asks, “Can we truthfully claim that this is part of the policy?” Nor were Twitter execs the only Democrats who expressed concern: “In one humorous exchange on day 1, Democratic congressman Ro Khanna reaches out to (Twitter executive) Gadde to gently suggest she hop on the phone to talk about the “backlash re speech.” Khanna was the only Democratic official I could find in the files who expressed concern.” What follows is a curious back and forth of emails where a Democrat congress woman is trying to speak up for free speech, only to get form letter techno babble responses that all of this is in “Twitter’s policy, please refer to our website.” It never entered this yes-man’s mind that the First Amendment was at stake.
The net result? Since Twitter didn’t have the common sense to know when to moderate dangerous speech and a legitimate story, they brought in the big guns. “Within a day, head of Public Policy Lauren Culbertson receives a ghastly letter/report from Carl Szabo of the research firm NetChoice, which had already polled 12 members of congress – 9 Rs and 3 Democrats, from “the House Judiciary Committee to Rep. Judy Chu’s office.”
The result of this survey? “”THE FIRST AMENDMENT ISN’T ABSOLUTE”
I’ve made at least the beginning of my case, albeit likely in a pretty disjointed fashion.
And I am having trouble saving this post. I wonder why….
The biggest reason I wrote this post was, I shared this with a close friend of mine. Their response was that that debate was over. Respectfully….no it isn’t. It was always censored before this debate. Open your eyes folks. It isn’t Democrat vs Republican. It is the censorship/military/industrial complex vs us.
Dragons are one of the most powerful symbols in the Chinese culture. The nation, just like Britain, has seen itself as a dragon. Powerful, beautiful, elegant, and intensely dangerous. Here we have a celebration of the Chinese New Year, which this year is the year of the Dragon (for real this time).
One of my earliest posts was a very rushed post on the Chinese New Year. I mistakenly believed that it was the Year of the Dragon, and I was wrong. But I had so much fun writing it that I left it up. I will leave the link here: https://wordpress.com/post/tiredmidnightblogger.com/453
“People born in Dragon years usually possess natural courage, tenacity, and intelligence, often displaying enthusiasm and confidence…In Chinese culture, the Dragon holds a significant place as an auspicious and extraordinary creature, unparalleled in talent and excellence. It symbolizes power, nobility, honor, luck, and success. 2024 is forecasted to bring about opportunities, changes, and challenges. If you’re seeking a shift in your current lives, this year might offer a favorable chance.”
The first Chinese emperor, Qin Shi Huang, unified all of China for the first time in 221 BC. He worked with his minister Li Si to standardize both political and economic systems throughout the Empire. He had many books banned, and many burned. Scholars were put to the sword to cement Chinese unity.
FBI Claims They Stopped Chinese Hacking
According to the website: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/us-government-disrupts-botnet-peoples-republic-china-used-conceal-hacking-critical “The Justice Department has disrupted a PRC-backed hacking group that attempted to target America’s critical infrastructure utilizing a botnet,” said Attorney General Merrick B. Garland. “The United States will continue to dismantle malicious cyber operations – including those sponsored by foreign governments – that undermine the security of the American people.”
“In wiping out the KV Botnet from hundreds of routers nationwide, the Department of Justice is using all its tools to disrupt national security threats – in real time,” said Deputy Attorney General Lisa O. Monaco. “Today’s announcement also highlights our critical partnership with the private sector – victim reporting is key to fighting cybercrime, from home offices to our most critical infrastructure.”
Evidently when the Alphabet Soup isn’t plotting the death of a recalcitrant President or the overthrow of a foreign (or not so foreign) regime, they actually DO something to protect….well…not the American people per se, but the system that keeps their paychecks being predictable.
Meanwhile, China accuses the US of being the hackers.
In a less publicized (at least in the US) article, the Chinese accuse the US of hacking their systems. According to The Global Times: “Throughout 2023, 360 detected over 1,200 APT attack incidents targeting China from 13 foreign APT organizations, mainly based in North America, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and East Asia.” Going into more detail, this Chinese news outlet states “APT attack techniques are being continuously upgraded, with targets spreading and attacks becoming more sophisticated. The APT attacks launched by the US are the most severe, the report said.
“It showed that APT organizations from the US have already demonstrated automated, systematic, and intelligent characteristics in their global cyberattacks. Their attack techniques are able to cover almost all internet and IoT assets worldwide. They can control foreign networks and steal critical data, serving their military and political espionage objectives.”
The Chinese state that the US hacking involves a wide swathe of the society. “The cyberattacks affecting China involve 16 industries, with the top five affected industries being education, government, scientific research, national defense and military industry, and transportation.”
Who are the good guys? Who are the bad guys? Does anybody really know? And whatever happened to these folks? Comments welcome.
Chinese Leader Assures President Biden That China Will Not Tamper With US Elections
This fails to comfort your Tired Blogger. According to NBC News: “China tried to shape the outcome of specific races in the 2022 midterm elections, reflecting a more aggressive approach by Beijing to try to influence American politics and exploit societal divisions, according to a newly released assessment from U.S. intelligence agencies.”
NBC also shares: “Beijing likely sees its information operations in the U.S. as a response “to what they believe is an intensified US effort to promote democracy at China’s expense,” the report said.
“Since 2020, Chinese senior leaders gave orders to intensify efforts to influence U.S. policy and public opinion in China’s favor, according to the report released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
“We assess that these directives gave PRC (People’s Republic of China) influence actors more freedom to operate ahead of the midterms than the presidential election in 2020, probably because PRC officials believed that Beijing was under less scrutiny during the midterms and because they did not expect the current Administration to retaliate as severely as they feared in 2020,” it said.”
A Chinese spokesperson at the Chinese embassy called these allegations “groundless and fabricated.”
So who hacked who? Or do we just all hack each other? I surely don’t know. But to the good Chinese who are out there, in both nations, I would love to wish all of you (and all of us) a very happy Chinese New Year of the Dragon. Let us hope that peace comes to the Earth, and we can stop trying to destroy each other.
Many think the debate is over, the right side won, and we should move on. But young people (including my own son) have mysteriously had heart problems since. A good friend has suddenly acquired diabetes in a way taht is unprecedented.
The image comes across pretty vague, but people claim they see a seven foot gray alien in the smoke in the circled image above right. Whatever is going on, over three dozen police responded to a disturbance in the Miami Bayside marketplace. Too bad X-Files was canceled. Image from Newsweek.
Your Tired Midnight Blogger was really interested in aliens when younger. Star Trek had only been canceled for two years when I was born, and Star Wars came out when I was five. Like Fox Mulder, I wanted to believe. I won’t go too deeply into the lore of aliens, but as I grew older, I also became more skeptical.
Mostly because I was so upset that they never chose to visit me! I wanted so badly to visit the aliens and fly to the ends of the galaxy. Fight the forces of evil. Save the Galaxy. Win the Princess. Gloat over my friends. Sadly, none of this was to be. Still, if you want to share more of the feeling I had in the first twelve years of my life, I will post a link to the song that best describes my thoughts and feelings as a youngster.
Sadly, this pretty much sums it up almost perfectly.
Years went by, and the pain and grief of living took most of the wonder and joy of space away from me. I will never get to walk on the moon. I will never be one of the first colonists on Mars. I will be lucky to ever fly again.
Something happened on January First that, for just the briefest of moments, led me to hope for just a second. Maybe the little boy in me is not completely gone. Sadly, the old man took control again within less than ten minutes. Here is what happened.
Likely all of you have heard this already, but according to The Miami Herald: “A sea of cop cars occupied Biscayne Boulevard after teens lit fireworks, rioted and fought at Bayside Marketplace on Monday, Jan. 1, 2024, Miami police said.” You can read the article, the details are pretty mundane. https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/crime/article283726773.html
So why in Sam Hill (if I haven’t lost you already) is your Tired Blogger talking about aliens for crying out loud? What has that got to do with anything?
Aliens You Say? Capital Idear! Glad I voted for it!
Miami police questioning a Miami youth during the disturbance on the Force….First! January first. The police were quoted as saying “There are no aliens here to see citizen. Keep moving!”
There was a disturbance at Biscayne Boulevard. An inside source communicated to your Tired Blogger that there is an annual custom of local hooligans causing trouble there as part of the New Year festivities. This year somebody panicked and broadcast a request for EVERY available officer in Miami to come help. And it does my heart proud (I’m actually not joking here) that the Miami police answered the call. It turned out not to be serious enough to merit the response, but in my very civilian opinion, not having a riot, and nobody dying or getting injured is a win. I would way rather the police over reacted and restored the peace, as that they fail to respond and some innocent person get killed.
I can hear my readers now. “What is all this to do with ALIENS”? It was reported by several conspiracy theorists (including one of my favorites) that there were reports of ten foot aliens. A photo was produced with a shadowy figure in the mist that did look like it might be a gray. But it was so vague, that in spite of my Fox Mulder wishes, I couldn’t take it seriously. Still, in the interests of top notch journalism, I did some research, and reached out to a friend who had a friend in Miami PD, and found that sadly, all that was going on was dull, every day Miami thuggery.
2024 is already proving to be a massive disappointment. Still, if you know any space aliens that need a pilot for their ship, send them my URL. Happy New Year.
I haven’t cited Fox in a long time, but this one was fun. I wonder if the aliens just took a wrong turn at Albuquerque on the way to the secret alien base in Antarctica.
In my last two posts I revealed how the US treated World War I vets contemptibly, paying them low wages after forcing them to fight in a war, and then when it was pointed out they lost enormous amounts of money by going to fight, ignoring their plight until the Bonus Army marched on Washington DC. I will leave those links here:
Should you prefer to watch the YouTube videos I made about them, you may watch them here:
Such determination in the face of adversity. I hope he is resting in peace now. May God bless his efforts and forgive his faults.
It never ends. We will simply die, and someone else will take up the fight where I left off.
I wish I could say this was the only time America treated her soldiers shabbily. And I had NEVER HEARD that American veterans had ever marched on the Capital, peacefully or with more warlike intent. But the truth is, our nations capital has faced threats far more dangerous, and with causes far more just, than the January 6 incident. Let me tell you another story about times American veterans marched in protest, and we shall see that politicians have all too often left our soldiers out to rot when the wars and the victory parades were over.
Why SHOULD You Get Paid?
School taught me that the American Revolution was fought by honorable men. That George Washington could not tell a lie. And while I learned a little about the terrible suffering at Valley Forge, I really had (and likely still don’t have) any real idea of what the Revolutionaries went through to win our independence. This blog is a quest for truth though, and so let us look at the truths to be found in history, wherever the facts may lead us.
I had an ancestor at Valley Forge. I wonder if he had any part in the story I am about to share.
I’m finding different versions of the story. I will attempt to share the different versions without meaning to confuse. On New Years Day of 1781, “the Continental troops of the Pennsylvania Line mutinied at Morristown, New Jersey” (libraries.psu.edu). History.com paints an even graver picture of the situation: “1,500 soldiers from the Pennsylvania Line—all 11 regiments under General Anthony Wayne’s command—insist that their three-year enlistments are expired, kill three officers in a drunken rage and abandon the Continental Army’s winter camp at Morristown, New Jersey.”
The Major General in command, Mad Anthony Wayne, who had led them with a bravery, a determination, and a ruthlessness that earned him his moniker, had led them through some pretty tough times, but the terms under which the men had signed up were in no way being honored. They had served their time, and by the traditions of war then in place, they were not honor bound to reenlist their services. And let’s face it…how happy would YOU be with your organization if you had not been paid in three years?
According to https://libraries.psu.edu/ trouble had been brewing for some time. Indeed, almost from the start there were drastic shortages in food and supplies that discouraged even the most patriotic.
“Whatever shortages were created by a fledgling wartime economy were compounded by government corruption and ineptitude. In writing Congress, Washington accused the quartermaster-general of corruption and sought his removal. Anthony Wayne made similar accusations in letters to the Pennsylvania executive council. In January, 1778, Wayne wrote that, after buying cloth at his own expense, the government stalled his efforts to have uniforms produced.”
There is some controversy over who the actual last surviving Revolutionary Soldier is, but Daniel Frederick Bakeman was the last survivor to receive a pension from the government for his service. He was a private who fought in the 1781 Battle of Johnstown.
None other than the Father of our country, George Washington himself, called our Congress to account for the shabby equipping of the neophyte army.
“Whatever shortages were created by a fledgling wartime economy were compounded by government corruption and ineptitude. In writing Congress, Washington accused the quartermaster-general of corruption and sought his removal. Anthony Wayne made similar accusations in letters to the Pennsylvania executive council. In January, 1778, Wayne wrote that, after buying cloth at his own expense, the government stalled his efforts to have uniforms produced.” (libraries.psu.edu)
Wheels Within Wheels, Revolution Within Revolution
Things only got worse, and Congress then, as now, refused to act, choosing instead to pass the buck to the States. Some states did step up to the plate and rewarded their troops handsomely. Others evidently felt freedom should come cheep. Eventually this led, ironically, to passive aggressive forms of 18th century not so quiet quitting.
“One hundred men from the Massachusetts Line marched out of West Point on January 1st, 1780, but were returned to their stations shortly thereafter. On May 25th, a mutiny occurred in the Connecticut Line. Soldiers had been going without their meat ration, only eating the rations which their officers gave up. The efforts of Colonel Return Jonathan Megis, and two Pennsylvania Colonels, Thomas Craig and Walter Stewart, quelled the revolt. Pennsylvania troops stood with the Colonels, although when the men found out what the Connecticut soldiers were doing, the Pennsylvanians wanted to join them.
“Private Joseph Martin, one of the Connecticut men, recalled that they gave up the mutiny but spent the night bantering about “starving in detail for an ungrateful people.”
“The Continental Army had 26,000 men in July 1779, but less than 15,000 by the following summer.(9) Some states vigorously sought to maintain enlistment by offering huge cash bounties to soldiers who reenlisted.”
I couldn’t find a picture of Private Joseph Martin, but I did find a picture and some information about General Joseph Martin. It makes for fascinating reading, but has no bearing on the Mutiny. Still, I thought I would share the post in case anyone was interested: https://rodmartin.org/general-joseph-martin/
“By 1781, many soldiers in the Pennsylvania Line had served for three years, having received from the state only a $20 bounty at enlistment. Furthermore, the real value of the soldiers’ bounty pay was depreciating significantly.”
Let’s see if I can put this in perspective. According to the site https://www.officialdata.org/us/inflation/1781 the value of $20 in 1781 would be roughly the same as $2,772.87. So…how would you feel if you were only paid $2,772.87 for three years labor? For some reason, some of these fellows felt the need to mutiny.
Hold the Line!
History.com shares this: “On January 1, 1781, 1,500 soldiers from the Pennsylvania Line—all 11 regiments under General Anthony Wayne’s command—insist that their three-year enlistments are expired, kill three officers in a drunken rage and abandon the Continental Army’s winter camp at Morristown, New Jersey.
“British General Henry Clinton sent emissaries from New York to meet the mutineers and offer them full pardon and the pay owed them by the Continental Army in exchange for joining the Redcoats. Instead, the men turned south towards Princeton, which they captured on January 3, intending to march on Philadelphia and Congress. From Princeton, the mutineers dispatched envoys to meet with General Wayne, who was following behind them. They aired their grievances and handed over Clinton’s men for eventual execution.
“With this show of devotion to the Patriot cause, the mutineers strengthened their position in negotiations with Congress. General Wayne and Congressional President Joseph Reed met with the mutineers to hear their grievances on January 7; they came to an agreement three days later.”
Joseph Reed, President of of Pennsylvania’s Supreme Executive Council. Sounds Communist to me…
Glad We Fixed That Problem
https://libraries.psu.edu/ tells us that the soldiers that remained from the Pennsylvania Line were critical in the triumphant battle of Yorktown, where the Revolution was won. “These same reasonable men contributed to the crucial victory at Yorktown only a few months later – if the mutiny had been more damaging, that legendary triumph might never have happened.”
Sadly, the story does not end there.
https://www.americanheritage.com/shares that after two years of continued enlistment after the war had been won “After the British surrendered at Yorktown in 1781, rumors spread throughout the ranks that the Continental Army would be demobilized without being paid. In June 1783, a small band of soldiers from the unit known as the Pennsylvania Line marched on the capital of the new nation in Philadelphia, demanding the back pay owed to them. They surrounded the State House and poked their bayonet-tipped muskets through the windows at the assembled Congress, which included such members as James Madison and Alexander Hamilton.”
Alexander Hamilton. I believe he was quoted as saying “I am not throwing away my shot.”
This time the Pennsylvania governor, a man evidently of less intestinal fortitude as Joseph Reed, fled Philadelphia post haste.
‘For weeks the soldiers held their ground. They grew into a mutinous mob of four hundred, making daily demands on the government and terrorizing the citizens of Philadelphia. Finally, after weeks of the renegade soldiers’ daily demonstrations and threats, George Washington sent a force of fifteen hundred Continental soldiers to compel the men to return to their homes. Two of the leaders of the mutiny were sentenced to be shot, led out to be executed, and faced a line of soldiers with loaded guns. At the last minute they were pardoned by Congress. Other leaders were whipped before being released.”
History is full of unintended consequences. This final mutiny was one of the events that convinced the Founding Fathers, for good or ill, that the Articles of Confederation were not adequate to the government of the federation. A stronger Constitution was needed, amassing more power from the States to the Federal government.
God help us all.
The debate would rage, but in the end the Federalists won. Sometimes I wonder if this was when we lost our freedom. But I know the popular belief is that this is when it was solidified. Comments are welcome.
The mutiny had another consequence. During the Revolutionary War, Congress had retreated three times from Philadelphia — first to Baltimore, then to Lancaster, and then to York — to avoid capture by the British. But Congress had always returned to Philadelphia. After the 1783 mutiny and the humiliating departure, the members vowed never to return. They stayed at Princeton until the end of the year, then moved to Annapolis, followed by Trenton, and finally to New York.
“When the Constitutional Convention met in 1787, memories of 1783 were still so fresh in the delegates’ minds that they wrote a provision into the Constitution, providing for a new kind of capital — a federal enclave, which would become Washington, D.C., by the turn of the century.”
As always, I have my works cited, and will end with a video that, I think, helps solidify the point. Thank you, everyone, for your patience. I know it has been a long time since I posted. Please feel free to share what you think the next post should be about.
Of course, read the Federalist Papers. But also….maybe let’s read the Antifederalist Papers….
It was ratified. The Anti-Federalists lost the debate. I know we have lasted two hundred years on a fractured version of the Constitution. I was taught to venerate it. But I can’t help but ask…is it possible we were actually wrong? Comment welcome.
Tired Midnight Blogger (What Blogs at Midnight) 