RUTHFULLY YOURS

In the weeks leading up to Memorial Day and President Barack Obama’s scheduled trip to Vietnam, a prominent Vietcong communist leader privately thanked American anti-war activists for helping defeat the U.S.-allied government in Vietnam in the 1970s, saying protest demonstrations throughout the United States were “extremely important in contributing to Vietnam’s victory.”

For Vietnamese guerrilla leader Madam Nguyen Thi Binh, who sent the private letter from Hanoi dated April 20, “victory” meant the communist takeover of South Vietnam. The letter addressed veteran American anti-war activists who gathered in Washington, D.C., at a May 3 reunion of radical “May Day” anti-war leaders.

The Daily Caller News Foundation obtained a copy of the letter at the meeting.

Binh, now age 90, originally served as the highest ranking Vietnamese delegate to the Paris Peace Talks that imposed a ceasefire in the country in 1973.

The “Vietcong” was a ragtag group of communist guerrillas who were allied with the official communist government in North Vietnam. The country was cut in two in 1954, with the south seeking to build a democratic state allied to the West.

Binh’s frank admission highlights a secret side of the communist’s effective lobbying influence in the United States. Rather than live in the southern part of the country, which for decades she represented as a diplomat, it appears after the war Binh was living in Hanoi, the original capital of North Vietnam.

Mr. President, General, the distinguished guests here with us today, my fellow citizens:

In America’s cities and towns today, flags will be placed on graves in cemeteries; public officials will speak of the sacrifice and the valor of those whose memory we honor.

In 1863, when he dedicated a small cemetery in Pennsylvania marking a terrible collision between the armies of North and South, Abraham Lincoln noted the swift obscurity of such speeches. Well, we know now that Lincoln was wrong about that particular occasion. His remarks commemorating those who gave their “last full measure of devotion” were long remembered. But since that moment at Gettysburg, few other such addresses have become part of our national heritage—not because of the inadequacy of the speakers, but because of the inadequacy of words.

I have no illusions about what little I can add now to the silent testimony of those who gave their lives willingly for their country. Words are even more feeble on this Memorial Day, for the sight before us is that of a strong and good nation that stands in silence and remembers those who were loved and who, in return, loved their countrymen enough to die for them.

Yet, we must try to honor them—not for their sakes alone, but for our own. And if words cannot repay the debt we owe these men, surely with our actions we must strive to keep faith with them and with the vision that led them to battle and to final sacrifice.

Our first obligation to them and ourselves is plain enough: The United States and the freedom for which it stands, the freedom for which they died, must endure and prosper. Their lives remind us that freedom is not bought cheaply. It has a cost; it imposes a burden. And just as they whom we commemorate were willing to sacrifice, so too must we—in a less final, less heroic way—be willing to give of ourselves.

It is this, beyond the controversy and the congressional debate, beyond the blizzard of budget numbers and the complexity of modern weapons systems, that motivates us in our search for security and peace. War will not come again, other young men will not have to die, if we will speak honestly of the dangers that confront us and remain strong enough to meet those dangers.

It’s not just strength or courage that we need, but understanding and a measure of wisdom as well. We must understand enough about our world to see the value of our alliances. We must be wise enough about ourselves to listen to our allies, to work with them, to build and strengthen the bonds between us.

Our understanding must also extend to potential adversaries. We must strive to speak of them not belligerently, but firmly and frankly. And that’s why we must never fail to note, as frequently as necessary, the wide gulf between our codes of morality. And that’s why we must never hesitate to acknowledge the irrefutable difference between our view of man as master of the state and their view of man as servant of the state. Nor must we ever underestimate the seriousness of their aspirations to global expansion. The risk is the very freedom that has been so dearly won.

It is this honesty of mind that can open paths to peace, that can lead to fruitful negotiation, that can build a foundation upon which treaties between our nations can stand and last—treaties that can someday bring about a reduction in the terrible arms of destruction, arms that threaten us with war even more terrible than those that have taken the lives of the Americans we honor today.

In the quest for peace, the United States has proposed to the Soviet Union that we reduce the threat of nuclear weapons by negotiating a stable balance at far lower levels of strategic forces. This is a fitting occasion to announce that START, as we call it, strategic arms reductions, that the negotiations between our country and the Soviet Union will begin on the 29th of June.

As for existing strategic arms agreements, we will refrain from actions which undercut them so long as the Soviet Union shows equal restraint. With good will and dedication on both sides, I pray that we will achieve a safer world.

Our goal is peace. We can gain that peace by strengthening our alliances, by speaking candidly of the dangers before us, by assuring potential adversaries of our seriousness, by actively pursuing every chance of honest and fruitful negotiation.

It is with these goals in mind that I will depart Wednesday for Europe, and it’s altogether fitting that we have this moment to reflect on the price of freedom and those who have so willingly paid it. For however important the matters of state before us this next week, they must not disturb the solemnity of this occasion. Nor must they dilute our sense of reverence and the silent gratitude we hold for those who are buried here.

The willingness of some to give their lives so that others might live never fails to evoke in us a sense of wonder and mystery. One gets that feeling here on this hallowed ground, and I have known that same poignant feeling as I looked out across the rows of white crosses and Stars of David in Europe, in the Philippines, and the military cemeteries here in our own land. Each one marks the resting place of an American hero and, in my lifetime, the heroes of World War I, the Doughboys, the GI’s of World War II or Korea or Vietnam. They span several generations of young Americans, all different and yet all alike, like the markers above their resting places, all alike in a truly meaningful way.

Winston Churchill said of those he knew in World War II they seemed to be the only young men who could laugh and fight at the same time. A great general in that war called them our secret weapon, “just the best darn kids in the world.” Each died for a cause he considered more important than his own life. Well, they didn’t volunteer to die; they volunteered to defend values for which men have always been willing to die if need be, the values which make up what we call civilization. And how they must have wished, in all the ugliness that war brings, that no other generation of young men to follow would have to undergo that same experience.

As we honor their memory today, let us pledge that their lives, their sacrifices, their valor shall be justified and remembered for as long as God gives life to this nation. And let us also pledge to do our utmost to carry out what must have been their wish: that no other generation of young men will every have to share their experiences and repeat their sacrifice.

Earlier today, with the music that we have heard and that of our National Anthem—I can’t claim to know the words of all the national anthems in the world, but I don’t know of any other that ends with a question and a challenge as ours does: Does that flag still wave o’er the land of the free and the home of the brave? That is what we must all ask.
Thank you.

Real life too often today puts satire to shame. I shall begin with “Liberal Line Dancing.”

Some years ago in Baltimore I took a stroll through a street festival near the Inner Harbor. One event I encountered was something I hadn’t witnessed in person before: line dancing. I had become immersed in the subject of dancing while researching the Sparrowhawk series, set in 18th century Britain and America. I learned that it was only in the early 19th century that individualized dance between couples was introduced and became popular, preceded by the form of highly formalized and controlled modes such as the minuet and its variants, in which the couples barely touched each other.

Until then, from Medieval times to the present, dance was largely a collective pastime. Line dancing seems to be a hybrid of square dancing, which itself has roots in contra or country dancing preceding even Shakespeare’s time, but without participants even having to touch anyone. I was obliged to square dance in high school, and had to clasp the sweaty palms of dozens of others of either gender I didn’t know and didn’t want to know. Personal choice in such affairs of one’s partners was ruled out.

In liberal political, synchronized line dancing, all the players, in unison, wobble, wiggle, gesticulate, kick, turn about, swivel their hips, pantomime, roll their shoulders, and place their hands over their ears, mouths, and ears. The moves are commanded by a dance master, accompanied by a fiddler playing a monotonous tune over and over again, or perhaps with a Karaoke player. The most popular liberal line dances are called “The Shuffle,” “The Dodge,” “Duck and Grovel,” “The Wet Dog,” “The Double Side Step,” “Shake ‘n Bake,” “The Burqa Bop,” “The Muslim Moon,” “The Prayer Rug Stomp,” “The Shadada Shimmy,” “The Cover Your Butt,” “The Twirly,” and “The Hillary Rodham.”

Arthur H. Vandenberg (1884-1951) was a respected Republican Senator from Michigan from 1928 to 1951. In 1945 he was the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Harry Truman, formerly a Democratic Senator from Missouri, became Vice President of the United States when Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected to a fourth term in 1944.

In his excellent book “Harry and Arthur: Truman, Vandenberg and the Partnership That Created the Free World” Lawrence J. Haas describes their cooperation and how they navigated post war policies through Congress.

You can read a review here: http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/harry-and-arthur-truman-vandenberg-and-the-partnership-that-created-the-free-world-by-lawrence-j-haas

Vandenberg’s most memorable line was stated in 1948 “”We must stop politics at the water’s edge.” The wording may not be exact but the meaning was. In times of international turmoil our leaders must present a united front to the rest of the world and leave political rancor and partisanship at home.

Obama’s criticism of Donald Trump during his tour abroad was petty and nasty. But, he’s no Truman and never had the stature as a Senator that Vandenberg had. rsk

From the FSM National Security Team

Monday May 30, 2016 is Memorial Day when we honor veterans.

In this season of political partisanship and rancor we at Family Security Matters would like to pay tribute to members of the 114th Congress who have served in the military.

All legislators are willing to take a ballot for America. That’s democracy.

The following is a list of legislators in the Senate and the House of Representatives who were willing to take a bullet for our great nation.

Democrats are in italics for purposes of identification. To all we offer our gratitude for their service.

On his visit to meet with Communist leaders in Vietnam, Obama criticized the United States for having, “too much money in our politics, and rising economic inequality, racial bias in our criminal justice system.” He praised Ho Chi Minh’s evocation of the “American Declaration of Independence” and claimed that we had “shared ideals” with the murderous Communist dictator.

Shortly after the “evocation” that Obama praised, his beloved Ho was hard at work purging the opposition, political and religious. When Obama references these “shared ideals”, does he perhaps mean Ho’s declaration, “All who do not follow the line laid down by me will be broken.”

Perhaps he means the euphemistically named “land reform” which may have killed up to a million people. Like Stalin and Mao, Ho Chi Minh seized land and executed property owners as “enemies of the state”. The original plan had been to murder one in a thousand. But the relatively modest plan for mass murder was swiftly exceeded by the enthusiastic Communist death squads.

Obama has consistently called for wealth redistribution. This is what it really looks like. It’s men being hung from trees or lying in dirt dying of malaria. It’s death squads coming in the night. It’s a declaration that you are to be executed because you are the wrong class in a class war. It’s a man condemned to hard labor in a New Economic Zone and a family starving to death because the regime has commanded that they must be made an example of to other peasants.

http://www.amazon.com/Exegesis-Cyrus-Skeen-Myster-18/dp/1533003475/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1464297721&sr=1-2&keywords=exegesis+edward+cline
The print edition of Exegesis, the 18th Cyrus Skeen novel, is now available, as well as the Kindle edition.

It is late June, 1929. Cyrus Skeen has concluded his case in Stolen Words, in which he exonerated a prominent novelist of the charge of murder, even though the author had plagiarized other authors with the cooperation of the now defunct publisher. Skeen’s artist wife, Dilys, has returned from a visit to relatives back East in Massachusetts, and was preparing to work on her first painting. Skeen’s new secretary, Lucy Wentz, is quick on the uptake, and is working out fine. But now a new nemesis has confronted Skeen, an unknown person who is killing people who have committed horrendous crimes. He writes Skeen and expresses his appreciation for Skeen’s crime-fighting acumen and skills, but wants Skeen to join him in a crusade to terminate all killers. Skeen has not killed any criminal gratuitously – he has killed in self-defense only when someone has threatened to kill him or someone who is a value to him – and wonders why his admirer thinks he would be open to the idea. Then the district attorney for San Francisco demands an explanation for why Skeen’s revolver was found next to a murdered mass killer. More criminals are found dead. The unknown vigilante pins a note to each body, signed “Exegesis.” In another unusual case tackled by Cyrus Skeen, the intrepid and unflappable detective delves into the mystery with his usual panache and certitude.

Ben Rhodes, President Obama’s Deputy National Security Adviser for strategic communications, was the subject of a recent eye-opening New York Times Magazine article. The article discussed Rhodes’ prominent role in selling Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran to the public. Rhodes, who was originally interested in writing fiction before embarking on a government career, boasted of the “echo chamber” the administration was able to create among pliant media and non-profit groups to spin the deal in its most favorable light. Channeling his days as an aspiring novelist, Rhodes filled the echo chamber with a false narrative. It turns out that the “echo chamber” itself was more like a pay-to-play chamber, which merits investigation for possible illegal conduct by at least two non-profit tax-exempt organizations.

Money was dispensed through pro-nuclear deal tax-exempt organizations to buy favorable coverage in the media, including the tax-exempt National Public Radio (NPR), according to an Associated Press report. Ben Rhodes had specifically mentioned “outside groups like Ploughshares” as playing a key role in conveying the pro-nuclear deal narrative that the Obama administration wanted the public to hear.

According to the Associated Press report, Ploughshares, a left-wing non-profit organization financed by George Soros’ Open Society Institute, “gave National Public Radio $100,000 last year to help it report on the pact and related issues.”

Since 2005, Ploughshares has plowed about $700,000 into NPR’s coffers. Since 2010, the grants to NPR specifically mention Iran. Ploughshares’ 2015 annual report, for example, explains that the purpose of its grant to National Public Radio, Inc. is to “support national security reporting that emphasizes the themes of US nuclear weapons policy and budgets, Iran’s nuclear program, international nuclear security topics and US policy toward nuclear security.” (Emphasis added)

Ploughshares and NPR are both 501(c) (3) non-profit organizations, which take tax deductible contributions. Both organizations are prohibited from engaging in any substantial lobbying, advocacy of legislation or “propaganda.” Although both may have crossed the line in spreading Rhodes’ propaganda regarding the nuclear deal with Iran, they have denied any wrongdoing.

In its subtlety, sophistication, and, surprisingly, its quiet pace, which requires more interaction and involvement from the viewer, Genius, directed by Michael Grandage, sets a new standard for melding a superior and literate script with a superb cast and thoughtful direction that, at least to this audience, sets a new standard.

Hollywood has become associated with the cheap, the tawdry, the overexposed (in all senses), and the CGI trick trompe l’oeil green-screen that robs the actor of real opponents or adversaries, and the viewer of credulity.

Not Genius.

Colin Firth as legendary editor of the century’s most protean writers Max Perkins does something few films before attempt: he makes editing supremely watchable and deeply professional. It is not a career that is given to easy encapsulation or animation, but Firth accomplishes that. His Perkins is a solemn soul, a deeply integritous soul, whose commitment to excellence and none less is visible in his pauses, pregnant taciturnity and hesitancies. Lovely Laura Linney is luminous and touching, managing to say more in her facial composure and difficulties than most could say with paragraphs of dialogue.

Editors elsewhere are a faceless, unacknowledged suitcase of ciphers, even as Perkins/Firth tells Jude Law/Thomas Wolfe — they are often invisible, if they have succeeded in their task to bring forth a better work from the mountain of pages presented them. (We choose to think the result is both better and truer than had it been left untouched, as many writers seem to prefer.)

Jude Law magnificently embodies the quicksilver ebullience, self-doubt, flamboyance and wit of the brilliant Wolfe. Guy Pearce is a tormented and constipated Fitzgerald, and Vanessa Kirby as his blocked, maddening and maddened wife Zelda is also fine. Nicole Kidman is amazing in her capture of the imperious but besotted Aline Bernstein, such that one cannot look away from her nuanced moment by moment histrionics-cum-bleeding reality. What a powerful ensemble is amassed here, with each person possessed of his own rhythm, his own arguable pace, yet melding intoxicatingly into this moving, enlightening, mesmerizing film, one that easily bests the lesser mere entertainments of the year for genuine emotion, heart, and intelligence.