Ralph Peters 9/11 Column

Ralph Peters' September 11, 2009 column:

"Eight years ago today, our homeland was attacked by fanatical Muslims inspired by Saudi Arabian bigotry. Three thousand American citizens and residents died.

We resolved that we, the People, would never forget. Then we forgot.

We've learned nothing.

\Instead of cracking down on Islamist extremism, we've excused it.

Instead of killing terrorists, we free them.

Instead of relentlessly hunting Islamist madmen, we seek to appease them.

Instead of acknowledging that radical Islam is the problem, we elected a president who blames America, whose idea of freedom is the right for women to suffer in silence behind a veil -- and who counts among his mentors and friends those who damn our country or believe that our own government staged the tragedy of September 11, 2001.

Instead of insisting that freedom will not be infringed by terrorist threats, we censor works that might offend mass murderers. Radical Muslims around the world can indulge in viral lies about us, but we dare not even publish cartoons mocking them."

Hit Counter Accuracy

Although there has been a lot of news to comment upon this Summer, I did not do a lot of posting here on my politics blog. I spent a lot of time getting familiar with Facebook. Sometimes, I engaged in a bit of political discussion on my Facebook page. I try not to do that, but a few times I posted links about the Cash for Clunkers plan or President Obama's health plan. I also could not always resist the temptation to disagree with some of my Friends' comments.

So, I have not been very active here and yet imagine my surprise when I came by here yesterday to write about 9-11 and saw that the hit counter had gone from about 250 to almost 12,000! How could that possibly be accurate when I have done no publicity on this and have mentioned the site address to just a few close friends?

Given that none of my posts have inspired anyone to comment, I am inclined to believe that the hit counter is inordinately high because of some type of robotic spam effort to harvest e-mail addresses or something. I don't know how that is done, but getting this many hits on this site makes no sense.

If I am indeed getting real visitors to this site, then I hope they will leave a comment here.

9/11 Anniversary

Some quick thoughts about the attacks that took place eight years ago today.  In the news today was a report about efforts to develop a curriculum for teaching about 9-11.  Since I home school our kids, I thought it a worthwhile site to look up. It is learnabout9-11.org .  Although I did not yet purchase the curriculum, my 12 year old daughter and I did view the 12 minute video which summarized what happened on that day.  She was only four when it happened, but she does remember so much of that day as we were getting ready to check out of an Illinois motel and drive to our Maryland home.  We had the TV on in the motel room as the terrible events transpired and we packed up our stuff for the long drive ahead.  She remembers our discussing the wisdom of driving to Washington as we traveled on near desolate highways contemplating the attacks that had been going on that day.  Here we were, in the middle of central Illinois, far from any targets, and we were headed straight for the Washington DC metropolitan area.  No one could say for sure what would happen next, so why not stay in the midwest for a few days?  Well, we just kept on going and got home and thankfully, no attacks have been committed on U.S. soil since that day.

Today, I was reminded of how it felt to watch that first tower collapse to the ground at 10:00 AM.  The plane crash and fires and explosions were bad, of course, but somehow the pancaking of the entire tower brought the true nature of this awful and devastating tragedy home.  

Cash For Clunkers

The Cash for Clunkers program has cleared out new cars from dealerships across the country.  That's a good thing, I suppose.  But the postings by a Facebook friend who works for a California dealership got me to thinking.  The utter waste that is involved in this program as hundreds and hundreds of perfectly good engines are destroyed with a chemical solution added to the engine.  As someone who believes in using things until their useful life is over, this just seems so wrong.  

How much energy in all its forms is used in building, transporting, and selling one new car?  If we take a perfectly good used car off the roads five years before its time, then are we really saving any energy with this program?  And we, the American taxpayers are paying $4,500 for every one of these transactions!  Now, I understand that if everyone was like me, the economy would slow and car production would be drastically reduced.  But still should we be really going all out like this to push people to discard perfectly good cars that could at least have been used by people who cannot afford new cars?

The Elitists look down on us

A friend who moved from Washington DC to New York 15 years ago is on Facebook and I am really learning first hand what a New York liberal elitist attitude is.  He recently met up with a "right-winger" on a golf course.  While the guy sounded rude, I think the biggest shock to the liberals was that this guy had conservative ("Right-Wing") views.  They probably never meet such neanderthals in their circles.

Here's a recent set of comments from him and his friends:

[MY OLD FRIEND] I was punished for cutting out of work early to play golf. I was paired with a right-wing pot smoking Brooklyn psycho who started yelling at me by the third hole. I'm sorry freelance gods, I'll work hard and be good today.

Yesterday at 8:43am 

[FRIEND #1]Sort of like my friends husband yelling at me comparing the Democratic Party to the Nazis in 1933 and thinks Glenn Beck is a genius. I don't know what I did to deserve that, but I better get painting too!

Yesterday at 8:48am

[MY OLD FRIEND] A third guy with us and I decided to egg him on with his rants in the hope he would wear himself out and shut the f*** up. We started saying stuff like, "Do you think Obama is really a citizen?"

He talked himself to exhaustion and lost the will to live by the 16th hole.

[FRIEND #2]Now that's a new tactic -- and I like it. Just rant back in little pecks and nits and hope for apoplectic shock! Don't spell check that!

Yesterday at 9:11am

[FRIEND #3]Ha, sure he loved golfing with Yang too! A dang fernner....

Yesterday at 10:45am

[ME]:Thank you for providing ANOTHER reason not to ever take up golf. And to think you had to PAY for that experience with that rude Brooklynite.

I was about to leave an additional comment, but then decided not to get into a fight:  "an alternative, crazy method: Simply be direct: Tell the guy that you're there to play golf and that the others in the foursome would appreciate it if he would keep his opinions to himself. A little less fun, perhaps, but a little more grown-up too."

And if you are asking, why do I consdier this guy a friend, well I'm wondering the same thing myself.  I enjoyed his company 15-20 years ago, but I don't know if I fit in with him any more.  What if I told him I LIKED Sarah Palin!  Oh the mocking and snarky comments they would make!

Nine Months Ago . . .

As I have become a Facebook user over the past month, I have been uncertain as to how to use the blogs that I have created.  There have been some political items I have brought up in Facebook, but I am now thinking that I would be happiest to keep politics and Facebook separate.  Kind of the way Michael Jordan never endorsed Democratic or Republican candidates because why would you want to alienate half of your audience.  

But this site is for politics and if you're here you know where I stand.  

I wanted to take note of the fact that the S & P 500 today reached 1000 again for the first time since Election Day 2008.  The beginning of what I earlier called  Obama's Crash of '08.  His election marked the beginning of a steepening downward fall for stock prices.  Over the last three months, stocks have finally recovered to their November 4, 2008 value, and it is only fair that we note that.

Why is this happening?  I do not know.  I am an inactive trader right now because I do not feel confident that I understand the market and the government's efforts to intervene.  Perhaps the fact that Obama is facing struggles to implement his agenda is buoying the market.  It is certainly making me more optimistic!

Sarah Palin's Resignation as Alaska Governor

I am a big fan and defender of Sarah Palin's.  I was not pushing for her to be the V-P nominee last Summer, as many conservatives successfully did.  I thought a Mitt Romney would be more conventional.  But I had seen her months before on C-SPAN and she impressed me.  And as I learned her life story, I really grew to admire her.  And once she spoke to the convention, I was blown away!  Wow!

However, her decision to leave the Alaska governorship does not please me.  I like it when our elected officials fulfill the "contract" that they signed when they sought election.  I could see her stepping down when she learned she was pregnant, or after the birth of Trig, or after she learned her 17 year old daughter was pregnant.  I think most of us would respect decisions to take care of family first.  The timing of this resignation just doesn't make the same kind of sense.  Yes, I have heard her say that Alaska deserves a governor who isn't fighting phony ethics charges all the time.  Maybe that's true.  But all politics is brutal these days.  I will agree that her family has gotten hit way too hard at a time when children of politicians should be off limits.  

We are 40 months away from the next presidential election.  That's a long time, so I wish Sarah well and we will see how things develop in the next couple of years.  I will not hold this decision against her.  Maybe it is important for some people to pick their candidates this early, but for most of us, we can wait until 2012.