RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://swtotd.blogspot.com/

The question: Will young people schooled to disdain America for her racist and imperialist past, and her misogynist and non-inclusive present be willing to defend her in time of war?

The United States has long shunned standing armies. Such an attitude is in the “American DNA,” as Representative Mike Gallagher (R-WI) stated in an interview a week ago in The Wall Street Journal. Nevertheless, the military was respected. That appears to have changed. A recent annual poll by the Reagan Institute, showed a “great deal of confidence” in the military at 45%, down 25% in three years – victim of “woke ideology,” according to Representative Gallagher.

Is this lack of respect for the military symptomatic of a greater problem? Historically, a positive aspect of democracy has been the ability to criticize it. Yet we now live in an Orwellian world, defined by identity politics, where truth is not based on historical or empirical evidence, but on what we are told. Identity politics is a way of relegating the individual to the group, a precursor to authoritarian rule We should be able to love something, yet criticize it, with the goal of making it better. Now, discrimination has taken on a new look. Instead of racial or gender discrimination, we have discrimination against dissenting opinions – the censoring of conservatives on college campuses, and the blocking of political opinions that do not conform to a prescribed message. 

Yet, regardless of our political persuasions, it may become necessary to defend this nation, which means that critics must be willing to pick up arms, to defend what they have been taught is indefensible. So, the question must be asked. Is it possible to defend a nation where partisanship has given birth to hatred? Our internecine bickering has been noted by leaders in China, Russia, and Iran who use our own words to drive deeper the wedge that separates us. When we claim our nation is racist, inequitable, and imperialist, they agree – we are the “Great Satan,” as Iran’s leaders say. Now, with so many pundits, politicians and teachers declaring we are a nation born on the backs of slaves, it is difficult for many to recognize how fortunate they are to live in this land. And it may prove difficult for them to recognize that freedom is not free, and that there are times when it must be defended.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/inflation-heating-bills-this-winter-energy-costs-rising-2022/

Across the U.S., families are looking to the winter with dread as energy costs soar and fuel supplies tighten.

The Department of Energy is projecting sharp price increases for home heating compared with last winter and some worry whether heating assistance programs will be able to make up the difference for struggling families. The situation is even bleaker in Europe, with Russia’s continued curtailment of natural gas pushing prices upward and causing painful shortages.

In Maine, Aaron Raymo saw the writing on the wall and began stocking up on heating oil in 5-gallon increments over the summer as costs crept upward. He filled a container with heating oil as he could afford it, usually on paydays, and used a heating assistance program to top off his 275-gallon oil tank with the arrival of colder weather.

His family is trying to avoid being forced into a difficult decision — choosing between food or heating their home.

“It’s a hard one,” he said. “What are you going to choose for food, or what amount of fuel oil are you going to choose to stay warm?”

What’s driving up heating costs

A number of factors are converging to create a bleak situation: Global energy consumption has rebounded from the start of the pandemic, and supply was barely keeping pace before the war in Ukraine further reduced supplies.

The National Energy Assistance Directors Association says energy costs will be the highest in more than a decade this winter.

The Energy Department projects heating bills will jump 28% this winter for those who rely on natural gas, used by nearly half of U.S. households for heat. Heating oil is projected to be 27% higher and electricity 10% higher, the agency said.

https://amgreatness.com/2022/10/20/the-commie-trains-acomin/

Several large American cities have contracted with a Chinese state-owned rail car manufacturer to design and manufacture subway cars for their subway systems, raising serious cybersecurity and human-rights concerns. Over the past eight years, China Railway Rolling Stock Corporation (CRRC) has secured more than $2.6 billion in federal transit contracts to provide passenger railcars in Los Angeles, Boston, Chicago, and Philadelphia.

Lawmakers from both parties have taken notice, and are now demanding that the Biden Administration take action to prevent a company that has links to the Chinese military from dominating the railcar market in the United States.

CRRC, the world’s largest rolling stock manufacturer, has a headquarters in Springfield, Massachusetts (CRRC MA), and a production facility in Chicago (CRRC Sifang America). The Chinese state-owned company is reportedly controlled by the communist People’s Liberation Army (PLA), and has been identified as a threat to U.S. economic and national security. CRRC also has been called out repeatedly for human rights and labor violations.

CRRC’s use of brutal, anti-competitive tactics has given it the ability to offer bargain-basement prices that U.S. transportation agencies have found irresistible. The company allegedly uses the slave labor of Uyghur Muslim minorities in its factories, and child labor to mine for a mineral used in manufacturing its railcars.

In April 2019, retired U.S. Army Brigadier General John Adams wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post advising the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority to reject CRRC’s bid for its next series of rail cars.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19009/profits-patriotism

Today’s American mega-billionaires need to think long and hard about where their allegiances lie: perhaps reciting the Pledge of Allegiance before our nation’s flag might be a good place to start.

If past history is any indication, their current corporate behavior will become their personal legacy illuminated under a harsh and revealing spotlight.

American industrial giants, General Motors and Ford, found that to be the case when lawyers dug through national archives in the 1990s and discovered documents that revealed how these two corporations had their German-based subsidies working hand-in-glove with the Nazi regime both before World War II and during the conflict.

Company spokesmen were quick to suggest that those firms were operating at a distance but researchers begged to differ. History records that there is reason to be skeptical of corporate “spin.”

IBM also found itself being questioned about its business relationship with the Nazi regime. A 2002 report that found that its computing machines helped the Third Reich managing to commit mass murder on an industrial scale.

Today, social media founders such as Mark Zuckerberg need to think long and hard about their corporate relationships with countries such as China — nations that seek to assume the role of a global superpower at the expense of the United States. Published reports reveal that Zuckerberg has long regarded China as a crucial market for his products, only to find that the Chinese may now be seeking to “out-Zuckerberg” him by developing their own online “virtual universe” – a massive undertaking that Zuckerberg has sought to introduce as his next very big (and presumably very profitable) venture.

What he and other corporate executives are learning is that profits at the expense of patriotism is a dangerous game to play. The dividends for such a strategy will eventually be revealed to all and history will ask, “At what price was your nation’s future put at risk?”