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"I learned that in extreme situations when human lives and dignity are at state, neutrality is a sin. It helps the killers, not the victims." Elie Wiesel, Holocaust Survivor who lost his family in the Holocaust - Nobel Prize Author
Socialism - Liberalism Quotation
"The American people will never knowingly adopt socialism, but under the name of liberalism they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program until one day America will be a socialist nation without ever knowing how it happened." – Norman Thomas
There has been a plethora of disrespectful activity out of the Obama White House, but this goes to the top of the list. Barack Obama has chosen to take a "long holiday weekend" in Chicago rather than attending and laying a remembrance wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery on Monday, May 30th.
You have done a great many unjust things, President Obama. You have
apologized for America being the strongest damn Nation on Earth to
weaker countries. You have done your best to bankrupt us. You have
lied, manipulated, and coerced your way into office. But this. Wow.
You might just as well spit on Veterans.
No, President Obama is not the first President to miss the ceremony. There have been a couple of others, but he is the first to skip it just because he wanted a vacation...just because it is inconvenient. If a President cannot manage to stay in town, or arrive back into town, for this tribute on behalf of the American people from the highest office in the land, to those who made the ultimate sacrifice...well, I'm speechless and ashamed for this man and his family. I predict a pox on him coming directly from ballot boxes all over the country.
All of us denounce war -- all of us consider it man's greatest stupidity. And yet wars happen and they involve the most passionate lovers of peace because there are still barbarians in the world who set the price for peace at death or enslavement and the price is too high.
President Ronald Wilson Reagan September 15, 1972
For those who are in the fight for freedom now, and for those who fought before, God bless you and yours. I am grateful.
I was sure by now / That You would have reached down / And wiped our tears away / stepped in and saved the day / but once again, I say "Amen," and its still raining
As the thunder rolls / I barely hear You whisper through the rain / "I'm with you" / And as Your mercy falls / I raise my hands and praise the God who gives / And takes away
I'll Praise You in this storm / And I will lift my hands / For You are who You are / No matter where I am / Every tear I've cried / You hold in your hand / You never left my side / And though my heart is torn / I will Praise You in this storm
I remember when / I stumbled in the wind / You heard my cry / You raised me up again / My strength is almost gone / How can I carry on / If I can't Find You
As the thunder rolls / I barely hear You whisper through the rain / "I'm with you" / And as Your mercy falls / I raise my hands and praise the God that gives / And takes away
I'll Praise you in this storm / And I will lift my hands / For You are who You are / No matter where I am / Every tear I've cried / You hold in your hand / You never left my side / And though my heart is torn / I will Praise You in this storm
I lift my eyes into the hills / Where does my help come from? / My help comes from the Lord / The maker of Heaven and Earth
I lift my eyes into the hills / Where does my help come from? / My help comes from the Lord / The maker of Heaven and Earth
I'll Praise You in this storm / And I will lift my hands / For You are who You are / No matter where I am / Every tear I've cried / You hold in your hand / You never left my side / And though my heart is torn / I will Praise You in this storm
And though my heart is torn / I will Praise You in this storm
Tracked by: This Memorial Day, Take Time to Honor Them from Big Dogs Weblog - Excerpt: Memorial Day is more than just a three day holiday weekend or the beginning of the swimming season as pools open for the Summer. Memorial Day is a day we honor those members of the military who have died in the service of our country. It does not ma...
On Memorial Day from Ogre's Politics and Views - Excerpt: Today is Memorial Day. This is, to me, a very solemn day. I realize that to many, today is the day for cookouts and is the official start of summer. I know in many areas of America people are opening their pools and gathering with family and friends...
Linked by:
Video: Vets4Freedom have a question of Obama from Rosemary's Thoughts - Excerpt: As many of you remember, the Vets For Freedom went to DC on April 8, 2008, to meet with our congressmen and senators on the same day that General Patraeus was to testify before congress. Most of the people we pay to be there showed up, ...
from 123Beta - Excerpt: Yeah, yeah, yeah! The Beatles live on at Abbey Road on the River Unfortunately, I won't be able to attend. I'm working all weekend. But please feel free to post as many articles as you would like. Additionally, please let me know if you ...
The following is a portion (roughly the last half - with no changes to text sequence) of Mark Steyn's 2004 Memorial Day reflection. (Emphasis in red text is mine).
The Loss of Proportion Memorial Day, 2004
All wars are messy, and many of them seem small and unworthy even at the moment of triumph. The sight of unkempt lice-infested Saddam Hussein yanked from his spider hole last December is not so very different from the published reports of Jefferson Davis’ capture in May 1865, when he was said to be trying to skulk away in women's clothing, and spent the next several months being depicted by gleeful Northern cartoonists in hoop skirts, petticoats and crinolines (none of which he was actually wearing).
But, conquered and captured, an enemy shrivels, and you question what he ever had that necessitated such a sacrifice. The piercing clarity of war shades into the murky greys of post-war reconstruction. You think Iraq's a quagmire? Lincoln's "new birth of freedom" bogged down into a century-long quagmire of segregation, denial of civil rights, lynchings. Does that mean the Civil War wasn't worth fighting? That, as Al Gore and other excitable types would say, Abe W. Lincoln lied to us?
Like the French Resistance, tiny in its day but of apparently unlimited manpower since the war ended, for some people it's not obvious which side to be on until the dust's settled. New York, for example, resisted the Civil War my small town's menfolk were so eager to enlist in. The big city was racked by bloody riots against the draft. And you can sort of see the rioters' point. More than 600,000 Americans died in the Civil War - or about 1.8 percent of the population. Today, if 1.8 percent of the population were killed in war, there would be 5.4 million graves to decorate on Decoration Day.
But that's the difference between then and now: the loss of proportion. They had victims galore back in 1863, but they weren't a victim culture. They had a lot of crummy decisions and bureaucratic screw-ups worth re-examining, but they weren't a nation that prioritized retroactive pseudo-legalistic self-flagellating vaudeville over all else. They had hellish setbacks but they didn't lose sight of the forest in order to obsess week after week on one tiny twig of one weedy little tree.
There is something not just ridiculous but unbecoming about a hyperpower 300 million strong whose elites - from the deranged former vice president down - want the outcome of a war, and the fate of a nation, to hinge on one freaky jailhouse; elites who are willing to pay any price, bear any burden, as long as it's pain-free, squeaky-clean and over in a week. The sheer silliness dishonors the memory of all those we're supposed to be remembering this Memorial Day.
Playing by Gore-Kennedy rules, the Union would have lost the Civil War, the rebels the Revolutionary War, and the colonists the French and Indian Wars. There would, in other words, be no America. Even in its grief, my part of New Hampshire understood that 141 years ago. We should, too.
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