I’ve got two songs from the group The Police bouncing around inside my head right now as I type this: De-doo-doo-doo De-daa-daa-daa and Canary in a Coal Mine. Apparently, my subconscious knows a lot better than I do about what should be considered pertinent information, but at times, I fail to pay attention to that inner voice (which should come as no surprise). This time I’m going to have to.
First, let’s address the second song, Canary in a Coal Mine. I had initially intended to write this particular screed about a revolt of the mid-grade officers, specifically Lieutenant Colonels Stuart Scheller and Matthew Lohmeier, and Commander J.H. Furman. I’ll get into the details about what each of these individuals has done shortly. What stands out here, isn’t the fact that they may have to face the music for what the higher-ups see as insubordinate behavior, but that their situations are barometers of what has been happening in greater society over the course of time (i.e., they’ve become canaries in their respective coal mines).
As of this writing, Lt Col Scheller was just released from the Brig at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina and is awaiting an Article 32 hearing (military speak for whether the Marines will charge him with any courts martial offenses). This Military Times article is a good summation of his actions leading up to his confinement and the military’s response. Now contrast his behavior with that of the nation’s most senior military officer, General Mark Milley. We know that he was involved in two separate phone calls with his Chinese counterpart. One prior to the 2020 election, and the other one after the melee at the Capitol. He was also involved in a phone conversation with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi concerning the president’s access to the nuclear codes in the waning days of the Trump administration. A call he had no business taking, or offering any assurances to the speaker about access to the “football” and the chain of command. If ever there was an individual who should have been cited for insubordinate behavior, it was Milley. His defense was that he had informed his bosses at the Pentagon, as well as the White House and State Department about his intentions, and that the calls to his counterpart had been sanctioned. Problem is, except for former Defense Secretary Mark Esper, who has remained radio silent on this matter, everyone else has refuted Milley’s claims about being informed.
The withdrawal from Afghanistan was botched. That’s all there is to it. This Washington Post article explains in detail how this all came about and is worth reading in its entirety. What is left out though, is what led up to the Ghani government’s spectacular collapse and the narrative that the Afghan Army was incapable of fighting its own battles. We now know that President Biden was on a phone call with President Ghani persuading him to maintain a façade of control over his country as things were falling apart around him, in exchange for more U.S. military support, which, in the final analysis, would not materialize.
Lt Col Lohmeier pulled back the curtain on what has been going on in the military in terms of Critical Race Theory (CRT) and the Trojan Horse, Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI), that it was being brought in on. Just as with Lt Col Scheller, he dared give a public voice to what he, as a commander, saw as something that was prejudicial to the conduct, good order, and discipline of the military services. One cannot fight racism with anti-racism. Anti-racism by its very nature counters racism with a different form of racism. You are again being judged by your skin color, ethnic origin and even gender, all immutable human characteristics. Additionally, you are being put into even more boxes by being classified as oppressor or oppressed. For some readers this may sound familiar, for others not so much. Allow me to explain. Back in the spring of 1986, I attended a survival course meant for aircrew, or individuals of other warfare specialties, who might find themselves on the run behind enemy lines. It was called Survival Evasion Resistance and Escape, or SERE. It had its’ genesis as a takeaway/lessons-learned from the Vietnam War and the folks who found themselves guests of Ho Chi Minh at various POW compounds throughout North Vietnam. During the resistance phase, we were placed in a mock POW compound where the same sorts of Marxist propaganda, that we are now witnessing, played out at the hands of our “captors”. All of this was meant to give us a leg up on the sort of tactics that we might find ourselves subjected to. Division and demoralization, and ways to combat these sorts of things were central to that phase of training. At the time, I could not have imagined that we would find this divisive rhetoric making its way to our shores. I ignorantly thought that we were sufficiently insulated from this nonsense. I was wrong.
The lockdown did have some benefits when it came to our children’s education. Quite a few parents got an opportunity to see for themselves what their children were being taught. Furthermore, exposes into CRT by various journalists, made their way into the consciousness of mainstream America. We are now witnessing a renaissance of civic mindedness among parents and those who care about what America’s children are learning at government schools (there are some elite private schools that have been called out for doing the same thing).
CDR Furman’s sin was that he put together a point paper on why these vaccines pose a potential national security risk vis a vis personnel and readiness issues. This is a well thought out document with a plethora of citations and I highly encourage its reading. Beyond the military and federal service personnel, these mandates have been rolled out to colleges and universities, workplaces with more than 100 employees, and various healthcare organizations, including hospitals. In New York City, you cannot dine indoors without proof of vaccination (can anyone say, “where are your papers?”). The White House has even gone as far as criticizing those who are unvaccinated and painting them as a danger to those who have already gotten the jab. Of course, this makes absolutely no sense since those who have been vaccinated are at no risk from the unvaccinated. That was the whole impetus behind these shots, wasn’t it? Before I go any further, I need to be up front with everyone reading this. I did get the jab, due to my doctor recommending that I do so for underlying health reasons. Prior to that, I was willing to sit back and let the issues with these vaccines work themselves out over the intermediate and long term before I considered getting poked in the arm. Now on with the rest of this screed.
There are quite a few studies out there that suggest, regardless of vaccination status, both groups (vaccinated and unvaccinated) are shedders of this virus. Since that is the case, the big question should be who would really infect whom with adverse results? My money is on the vaccinated infecting the unvaccinated, not the other way around. Also, whatever happened to natural immunity? It seems to be a subject that is being discussed in certain circles but isn’t getting much traction in mainstream thought. Part of the problem lies with our medical establishment. The CDC and NIH websites contain conflicting information on natural immunity. The NIH site talks about the potential long-term benefits that previously infected individuals enjoy, while the CDC site calls that immunity into question based on a limited study conducted by the State Department of Health in Kentucky. At around the same timeframe, the CDC stopped keeping records of breakthrough infections for those who were vaccinated against the virus. A reasonable person would think that these circumstances might warrant further investigation. Apparently, so did Republican leadership in the House Energy & Commerce Committee, which is why they sent a letter to the CDC Director inquiring into the matter. This is significant since Massachusetts has been having a bit of an issue with breakthrough infections. As we become aware of the efficacy of these vaccines decreasing over time (6-7 months on), the risk of breakthrough infections increases, which is most likely why there is a push for a booster shot 8 months or so after the injection sequence (second shot with Pfizer and Moderna). The focus groups for this effort are the elderly and those with underlying health conditions, but we are seeing these breakthroughs crop-up in otherwise healthy individuals as well.
Forgive me, I’m going to have to backtrack a bit here. Prior to getting my shots, I had not been sick in almost two and a half years. A few weeks ago, though, I caught a cold that took me several days to shake. It was primarily just a lot of drainage, but that’s my least favorite phase of a cold. Apparently, one of the aspects of this new MRNA technology is that it “borrows” a portion of our bodies’ immune response to combat this virus. What this means is that new pathways are opened for other infections to enter, since the guard dogs have been sent elsewhere. I’m of the opinion that our bodies, on a cellular level, realize this and have stamped these vaccines with a “no later than” expiration date, which would help explain why the efficacy of these vaccines wanes over time. If that is the case, then these vaccines have become nothing more than an overhyped form of injectable prophylaxis that is making big bucks for these companies and their executives. I touched on this briefly in Part 4 of this series.
In my industry, the mandates are coming hot and heavy. My employer recently acquiesced to the government’s demands to require vaccinations. I saw this one coming, as we are a defense contractor and the executive order requiring companies that do business with the federal government to comply, was handed down over a month ago. To their credit, the unions involved in just about every labor group in the industries where these mandates are being put into place, are pushing back. What will turn the tide though, will be a public backlash against the idea of mandates. If you are part of the traveling public, this will affect you too. Back in August, Representative Ritchie Torres (D-NY) authored a bill (HR4980) which would mandate all persons traveling through US airports to be vaccinated. When I say airports, I mean ANY airport. That means not just the passenger terminals at commercial airports, but also Fixed Base Operators (FBOs) at smaller airports. Why is this so significant? Because corporate flyers and general aviation (GA) types would also get caught up in this mess. Think personnel at flight schools, business jet operators and their passengers, private pilots (folks with their own aircraft), and others who would now have to get the jab, by virtue of this bill becoming law.
The textbook definition of inflation is when too many dollars are chasing too few goods. We are living through a period of high inflation due to a scarcity of products that has its origins in a labor shortage. Given the amount of money made available to help folks who may have been suffering through this pandemic financially, people were conducting their own cost benefit analyses, and in many cases found it more profitable to stay at home rather than return to work. Since scarcity drives up the price of goods and services, we have no choice but to pay more for them. If these mandates force even more workers out of the labor force (either quitting or being terminated), what will that do to the already high prices we’re suffering through now? I think we all know the answer to that one.
In De-doo-doo-doo De-daa-daa-daa, we are reminded of the elites in society and how words (rhetoric) have basically put them in the positions of power that they currently enjoy. More importantly, we are also admonished that when their eloquence escaped us, that their logic would tie us up and rape us, and that is exactly what has been happening. We were assured by the administration that they had taken the most prudent course of action in the withdrawal from Afghanistan. That only a couple of hundred Americans had failed to make it out, and that the airlift had been the largest and most successful of its kind in the history of the US military. We were told that if you opposed DEI or CRT, then you must be a white supremacist, a domestic terrorist, a racist, a xenophobe, a transphobe, or were colonized if you are a person of color. We were told to believe the science when it came to taking steps necessary to fight this pandemic. It didn’t matter that “two weeks to stop the spread” has now turned into a year and a half effort to eradicate the virus altogether. Now that they’re in charge, the Boomers, the generation that coined the phrase “question authority” are telling us not to question their authority. We’re being told to be good little obedient sheep. Well ladies and gentlemen, the last time I checked, sheep were meant to be shorn, and the flock that they plan on tending to, consists of true believers, useful idiots, and gullible rubes. Sorry, but I’m outta here, I’m nobody’s sheep!
You gotta love government mandates and edicts. You’re either being spoon fed or force fed. Rasley
