08:30 – It’s Memorial Day here in the U.S., the day set aside to remember those who sacrificed themselves to protect our freedom. Although the official purpose of Memorial Day is to remember those who gave their lives in the service of our country, let’s also remember all of those brave men and women, living and dead, who through the years have put their lives on the line to protect all of us. As we have our cookouts and family get-togethers today, let’s all take a moment to think about our troops in the Middle East and elsewhere, who can’t be with their families. And let’s have a thought, not just today but every day of the year, for them and the sacrifices they are making and have made.
We drove over to Barbara’s sister’s house yesterday for dinner. Frances cooked and Al grilled. We took Colin along on his first-ever social outing. He was excited to explore a new place, but settled down quickly and behaved very well. I was proud of him.
We also hauled home the bedside commode that Al had been keeping for us in their rented storage. It looks much like this one, and I wanted to check the bucket to make sure a 1/6-barrel t-shirt bag would fit it. We buy those by the box of 1,000 for science kits, so we typically have 1,000 in inventory, if not 2,000 or 3,000. If there’s an emergency that makes flushing the toilet impossible, one of these bedside commodes and a large stock of plastic bags makes things a lot more livable. A standard 5-gallon bucket with a snap-on toilet seat works, but unfortunately the t-shirt bags, which cost something like $14/thousand, aren’t large enough to fit over the rim, so you’d have to stock more expensive larger bags.
The civil unrest in Cleveland appears to be passing with less violence than there might have been, but as Barbara and I discussed yesterday on the way over to visit Frances and Al, this kind of thing could happen anywhere at any time, on zero notice. And the day may well come when a literal firestorm breaks out nationwide rather than just in scattered cities. That’s one of the main reasons we’re going to relocate, although we’d probably have done so even in the absence of that threat, simply because we prefer the small-town environment. Occasional trips into the big city for Costco runs or whatever will be just fine for us.
Firsties!
“T-Shirt Carryout Bags are perfect for groceries, convenience stores, restaurant take out and carry out.
These Classic T-Shirt Carry-Out Bags are 100% recyclable.”
Tell that to CA gov Moonbeam, who tried to ban them. We put ours to lots of good uses. I went so far as to suggest that we buy our own and take them to the stores for our personal use if banned. Now the measure will apparently be on a referendumb in November 2016. Wonder if it will pass.
I wouldn’t rely on the “classic t-shirt bags”. The manufacturers have been making them so that they disintegrate after a few years. Not long ago I came across on unopened box of t-shirt bags that I got at Costco some time in the past, I guess at least 5-years old. I opened the box, tried to pull out a bag and it immediately self destructed into powder and chunks. The whole bag was that way.
So, IMHO the eco-weenies have struck again.
Today my family will not BBQ, too much of a party for this solemn day. Instead we will have a family sit down dinner that was my Dad’s favorite: roast beef, mashed potatoes and gravy, succotash, and strawberry shortcake with a toast of Seagrams 7 (his whiskey tastes were rather simple).
Deepest appreciation to all of our ancestors who have enabled this great experiment of a nation to continue. Long may their example serve as a standard for us all. Remember the Alamo.
A Boeing/Raytheon/LockMart team has developed a cruise missile with a directed EMP weapon. Can take out a single building, and in a test a few years ago it took out 7 targets. It’s been in the works since 2009.
A non-technical article:
http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2015/05/24/boeing-unveils-electromagnetic-pulse-weapon.aspx?source=eogyholnk0000001
(The article talks about how the Air Force confirmed this last week – well, the RFP went out in 2009 and was public.)
A more technical article from the always excellent Strategy Page:
https://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htecm/20150414.aspx
It’s a microwave emitter system and is non-nuclear.
That fool.com article includes a badly-mislabeled US map. This map is from a 2008 article and presents not “Oak Ridge National Laboratory maps the areas likely to be blacked out in the event of a high-altitude nuclear EMP attack on the United States” but rather the possible effects of a Carrington-class CME. Very different things, and presumably at least something has been done since 2008 to ameliorate things.
Or perhaps OFD is right and the powers that be actually want to see hundreds of millions of dead. Given that NASA says the likelihood of a massive CME striking earth is about 12% per decade, what other explanation is there? Massive stupidity and incompetence, perhaps. Never attribute to malice …
” Never attribute to malice …”
Never say never. Sure, most of it is due to sheer stupidity and massive incompetence, but I don’t rule out malice aforethought when considering the evidence for what our rulers have been doing for half a century.
“Remember the Alamo.
And Lexington, Concord and Bunker Hill.
No BBQ here, either; I can’t fathom the mindset that treats this as a big-ass party day and the start of the summer hoopla in the face of all those dead soldiers, marines, sailors, and airmen, and the toll that all our wars have also taken on the families back home.
No celebrations or cookouts here, either.
I don’t know how to feel. Surely there can be a balance between the solemnity of the day and celebrating the lives of the lost and the lifestyle they fought for? Not saying that most people even remember the reason, or attempt balance, but I know that after my cousin returned from WWII he spent the rest of his life trying to live the perfect American Dream. That included a well kept house in the suburbs, a successful small business, and yes, bar-b-ques and pool parties with the family at every possible occasion. I think that part of living that way was for the guys who couldn’t.
As a decorated Marine, who was on Iwo Jima, he still participates in his community’s Memorial Day ceremonies, but he also doesn’t spend the day in mourning.
I try to find the balance, spending time with family, remembering those who can’t, but also celebrating the things they fought for, freedom, family, and country.
nick
I have a small problem: given my belief that none of our wars were justified and could have been avoided, including the ones I was in, I find it difficult to believe that we actually fought for our freedom, families and country. Instead I think we were sold a bill of goods and then sold down the river, and the old rich and powerful men who keep sending us to these wars do it for their own reasons, and those rarely, truly mean anything like what we’ve been told.
I realize I’m in a minority thinking like this, and when I tell my fellow vets down at the groups we need to stop signing up for these endless and useless wars, I hear crickets. Those beliefs are very powerful, across the country, among veterans, their families and the masses and very hard to examine carefully, let alone give up. I’m in a minority but I’m not alone; a number of my fellow combat veterans from the various wars have occasionally spoken out in this vein; we are not necessarily proud of our wartime service but we love our brothers who were with us.
Meanwhile, as we all know, but often forget, our former enemies, the Germans, Japanese and Vietnamese are now our good buddies and even military and economic allies. Whereas our former allies and friends, like the Russians, are now our perennial enemies. So what was it for? What was that all about? Freedom? Where? Here? Are you joking? While we lose more of it daily? Our families? Who don’t get it and never will and who have been badly mis-educated and now inundated by a barrage of constant media noise? The country? Who keep singing rah-rah-sis-boom-bah and sending their kids off to these flusterclucks?
Count me out. I stripped all the veteran stuff off my car yesterday and replaced it with innocuous minor-league sports team stuff. I’m going Gray Man. Now you see me, now you don’t.
I’ve always treaded carefully here, because although I believe as OFD does that none of our wars have been justified since 1812 it’s difficult to argue that without deeply upsetting a lot of people who don’t deserve to be upset. I mean, how do you tell grieving parents or widows that their loved ones died for nothing. It’s neither their fault nor that of their dead heroes that they were lied to. They are no less heroes just because they believed the lying sons of bitches who got us into these messes. Their bravery and their sacrifices were just as real and just as deserving of honor.
I have to agree with OFD as well. It’s not the troops fault, of course, and it’s fair enough to support them as individuals. However, I’ve been really, thoroughly gobsmacked at the total turnaround in the US since Vietnam. How do you go from believing the military is evil to “rah, rah, support our troops, let’s send ’em all back for another tour”? Really bizarre.
Is it the lack of a draft? Is it the focus on an external enemy instead of the domestic misery?
@OFD, RBT
I have to mostly agree with both of you.
This short 2-1/2 minute video clip explains it fairly well …
Eisenhower warns us of the military industrial complex
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8y06NSBBRtY
Some kind of American response to 9/11 was certainly justified. Destroying every mideast regime or even nuking or MOABing every mideast city would be fine. This endless nation building nonsense was not the proper response. Destroying the freedoms and increasing the taxes on Americans was not the proper response. Now, looking at the US and the middle east, I can only say the terrorists won. The American ruling class won. I’d like to say there’s a difference between terrorists and the American ruling class, but in practice I’m not seeing much of one. But there are Memorial Day sales all over the shopping malls, so enjoy your holiday, everyone.
Can I point out one fact? The USA has the best trained and equipped army / navy / air force on the planet. No one, in their right mind, will mess with us. At this point in our country, it would require the entire planet unified to mess with us. We have proven beyond a doubt that you mess with us and you will get the horns of the bull. Japan and Germany learned that lesson painfully and it has been refreshed on a consistent basis.
The downside is that the expense of maintaining our incredible military is growing and needs to be reined in. It is time to bring our soldiers home and close our foreign bases. Stop the needless wars and police actions. That includes Syria, Iran, Iraq, ISIS, etc.
I would quibble with how successful the Empire has been with its military in recent wars but now is not the day. Suffice to say we mostly seem to be on the same page here. The Empire has to go; and our over 1,000 bases/installations gotta go; and we need to bring the troops home to protect THIS country and its borders, coasts and air space. Period.
Some other germane thoughts here which dovetail nicely with some of my own:
“On the news Sunday morning, I had the pleasure of watching the now customary Memorial Day Weekend interrogation of average American voters. As expected, most the respondents had this clueless look on their face and fumbled their way to a half-assed answer that made about zero sense.”
https://westernrifleshooters.wordpress.com/2015/05/25/the-heroes-of-lost-causes/
A bit of a topic change. I was listening to some commodity traders on Fox Business today, these guys are real everyday traders, not talking heads. Anyway, maybe you have or have not been following the current bird flu epidemic. Currently 40 million birds (30 million of them egg layers) have been destroyed. What this is doing to chicken and egg prices is dramatic and will get worse through the early summer.
What this means to the Prepper is that those cans of powdered eggs and chicken are going to see a dramatic increase in price (currently 60% to 120%) so now may be the time to change your buying pattern. The commodity traders see this as a relatively short term problem that should return to normal by fall. So you might want to consider buying more powdered eggs and chicken now rather than spreading those purchases out over the summer.
Disclaimer: I am not a commodity trader and have no positions in commodities.
@Lynn, I am not trying to start an argument, but we used to have a military second to none. We are rapidly declining into that second, and maybe third, place. Obuttwad has “retired” all of the senior military leadership that had any real experience. Our recruiting and reenlistment levels are at there lowest in years. Our materiel readiness is at a near crisis state. The amount of materiel abandoned by the Iraq Chicken Army has made the Islamists the best armed of anyone. If they had a central command structure the area would be 100% theirs. It would take us at least a year to get that much materiel back into the theater, if we had it to get there, and we don’t. Plus we no longer have the upper command to be effective.
The three things we have in spades over everyone else: air superiority, naval power projection, and overhead intel. Nobody else has the capabilities we have, nor will they in the near term.
@Lynn, I am not trying to start an argument, but we used to have a military second to none. We are rapidly declining into that second, and maybe third, place.
Actually, I am not arguing with this except, I am wondering who you are nominating for the new number one and two.
My actual argument is the number of trained fighting men and women that could be grabbed up on short notice. Like happened in WWII, such as my son. He may be 40 lbs heavier than when he was in the USMC but he still knows how to bark out orders to raw recruits. I am talking about highly trained people in the USA who have been out of the military for less than 20 years. It is somewhere around 4 to 5 million people. Yes, the tops of the military would need to be fired but that is easily done by a new president / dictator / prophet.
Yes, I said prophet. I still believe that the USA is dangerously close to becoming a theocratic dictatorship. Things are going to get tough over the next decade and the reactions of the unwashed will become more and more desperate.
And the Rio de los Brazos de Dios is going to rise again until Friday when it will reach 42 ft gauge (70 ft above sea level). Maybe even higher. Our home levee here in Greatwood is at 84 ft and my office buildings are at 80 ft (no levee!).
http://water.weather.gov/ahps2/hydrograph.php?wfo=HGX&gage=RMOT2
And the Rio de los Brazos de Dios is going to rise again until Friday when it will reach 42 ft gauge (70 ft above sea level).
Can Vegas have some?
number of trained fighting men and women that could be grabbed up on short notice
Although highly unlikely, myself and my two brothers could be used in support positions. My older brother could operate heavy construction equipment, my younger brother could fly cargo and transport planes, myself could work in the computer systems. The nation would have to be really desperate and quite accurately hitting the bottom of the barrel. With current laws all our status for inactive reserve expired about 15 years ago. However, we are trained and would require little to no training to transition back if needed.
Can Vegas have some?
California is probably working on a design for a pipeline as they want it all.
With current laws all our status for inactive reserve expired about 15 years ago.
Since I was “Regular Army”, I can be called back at the “Pleasure of the President.” Man, that would suck since the SHTF would have happened and life expectancy for chopper pilots would be low.
I was one of those officers who was the horror of process-oriented senior officers and the fair-haired child of results-oriented senior officers, and whom enlisted men either followed to hell or fought like hell to avoid. Given the evidence-based hardening of my attitude against the Pentagon brass, the civilian leadership, and all levels of government in general, I’m virtually certain the Army doesn’t want me in any capacity even if I were willing to have anything to do with them.
A militia and I, on the other hand, might get along with each other. I’d need to knock the rust off, but I think that the principles of gathering and analyzing enemy intelligence, and of planning and conducting guerrilla operations, are the same as they have been for centuries. I wouldn’t bestir myself unless the nation were under imminent threat from within or without… which we are. Between the invasion from Mexico and the growing tyranny in DC and many statehouses, the United States of America is under severe existential threat. Hmm…
@Lynn, I know my argument is weak, I don’t have a specific number 2 or 3 on the rise, it is just them.
Both China and Russia are building submarines and aircraft carriers for just about anyone. That makes the little despots like North Korea and Iran players on the world stage. Sure they would shoot their wad in one load, but the havoc would be world wide.
We don’t have any stockpile of munitions. We don’t have a mothballed fleet. We can strike back a couple of times, but that will be it.
I tend to agree here with Mr. SteveF; although I could probably fairly easily slide right back into AF security forces/spec ops roles with a solid PT and current weapons refresher, which I’m doing now anyway, they probably wouldn’t want me; I also have a bad attitude.
As for militia, there are several burgeoning movements underway, along with reliable and excellent small-unit training conducted in various regions by experienced combat vets and they are dead-serious and not fooling around. This includes squad-level fire and movement, plus land navigation, communications, and intel. The reading lists that go along with this stuff are also solid and reliable and aren’t just crap written since 1995; much of it is 20th-C history of insurgency and counter-insurgency.
I’m too old and decrepit to keep up for very long with front-line squads in a hostile environment but I’d make the effort as much as I could; meanwhile I could handle commo, intel, computer and similar support roles.
Thanks and a tip of the boonie hat to Mr. DadCooks for the info on chicken and egg products; will act accordingly. This is good intel, by the way. Keeping track of food prices and distribution and who makes the decisions. It will become more important, like gasoline and electric power.
Can Vegas have some?
Come and get it! You can get some from Rosharson as it is coming out on the streets.
Dadgumit, the aerator on the septic tank has blowed up again. The breaker will not reset, the warning lights are on and the klaxon has been turned off. Mr. Price has been called and thousands of mosquitoes were terminated during the process.
@Lynn,
It’s coming down cats and dogs here. Lightning and thunder too.
nick
Dime sized hail and small trees down about 4 mile south of me.
Got my prepper radio monitoring test going on, have 2 scanners, the skywarn ham net, and the sdr running.
nick
Yup, I think that we had two ft tall whitecaps on the swimming pool. Which, is overflowing again so we got about 3 inches of rain. I thought about surfing it but decided that a 2X12 would not work very well.
You guys have all the fun down there; all we have is steady drizzle.
I’m getting rain at 6″ / hr rate, 100 mph wind reported 6 miles east of me. 2mph at my location.
nick
Had hail, still raining at 5-6″/hr. No big wind my place. Got 18″ of water in the street, that means 12″ at the end of the block, and 36+” at the other end.
nick
skywarn very helpful
hard to monitor 4 radios
weather underground has great maps
TXDOT good map, interactive and all, but if not updated then USELESS
funnel cloud was sighted, down sugar way, no secondary reports
no one believes the guy that reported the 100mph wind
Yes, Weather Underground has good forecasts and great radar maps:
http://www.wunderground.com/cgi-bin/findweather/getForecast?query=ksgr&MR=1
They pumped the ten ft of water out of our bayous in Greatwood this morning into the Brazos River. I am so glad as we are filling those bayous back up now. I have no idea how much rain we have gotten so far but it could be five inches and the second part of the front is getting ready to pass over us.
BTW, it is during severe rainstorms like this that DirecTV sucks. Whereas the internet is working just fine. I just renewed my drivers license over the intertubes with zero problems. I am guessing they need to somehow transfer the 6 GB/s that DirecTV is beaming over the satellites to the internet. I have no idea what the bandwidth of Netflix and Amazon video services is but I think that the stream services are in total quite a bit more bandwidth.
So here is some real life learning-
If you plan to monitor radios, or ham during a thunderstorm, it helps to have some handhelds. Otherwise, when you disconnect your big antennas to avoid frying your shack, you will have nothing. Or make sure you have antennas under roof.
I’m listening to skywarn on a HT, and have stubbies for the trunking scanner, the SDR, and my handheld scanner.
People are still committing crimes during this storm from hell too. Several calls for domestic disturbances. PD resources are stretched pretty thin. They canceled shift changes about an hour into the storm. Have been several high water rescues. I’m not monitoring FD or EMS or Houston PD. Too much traffic for too wide an area. I’m monitoring the sheriff, constables, and since I’m just inside a major ring highway, and between the major east west highway and a major spoke highway, I monitor the Tollroad cops. Working well for this weather emergency, I will probably monitor some others if there is civil disturbance or other disaster….
Rain is slowing somewhat, but in the last 2 1/2 hours we got 9.2 inches.
NOW the TXDOT website is showing road closures due to flooding. And it is basically ALL of them. All freeways, tollroads, interstates, etc except the I610 loop are shown as flooded.
Just heard, the major bayou that runs thru downtown is 2 ft over its banks and ready to flood I10. This hasn’t happened since tropical storm Allison.
nick
My 75 year old uncle just posted a picture on facebook of him placing a confederate battle flag on his great-grandfather’s grave today. His great-grandfather was a 2nd Lt in Co K of the 2nd Texas Infintry, CSA. The Company K of the 2nd Texas was formed in Texana, Jackson County and was known as the Texana Guards. They fought in the Western campaigns, including Shiloh and Corinth battles and were also at Vicksburg, where they surrendered to the yankees. E.A. told his grandchildren that they had to eat the mules – and they tasted good.
And people say that the War of Northern Aggression has no effect on modern times.
Looks like the storm is coming straight up 59 and we have a few more hours of this. All the significant bayous are at flood or over. Brays is almost overtop, with all the detention ponds full. Greens and Keegan are ready to flood too.
The official hydrological sites are lagging 30minutes to 1 hour behind which is a huge difference when the flood is coming. Makes me wonder how the EMgmt folks can make decisions with data that old.
nick
And here comes the Brazos River:
http://water.weather.gov/ahps2/hydrograph.php?wfo=HGX&gage=RMOT2
The peak forecast for the Brazos River has risen 6 ft since earlier today. We are now going to get a 48.2 ft (76 ft above sea level) peak next Sunday. The last time this happened in the 1990s, the neighbors told me that the FM 2759 road going to my office was barricaded just east of my property due to high water. My office buildings are at 80 ft above sea level. 76 ft of water will probably back fill the ditches on my property.
I do not even want to see the Trinity River forecast. Especially since it is at the top of the levees in downtown Dallas. The east side of Houston will need to be evacuated, maybe 100,000 to 200,000 people. That water will take three weeks to get here.
http://www.wfaa.com/story/weather/2015/05/25/trinity-river-levels-become-spectacle-in-dallas/27914341/
Yikes.
Well, they just ended the skywarn net.
almost all the cops are out blocking flooded roads, and yet, “man with a gun” call just came in.
Even during a natural disaster, some folks will want to get their crime on.
My rain gauge just reset (is behind 1 hour) but we got approx 11 inches in 4 hours with 8 of that in the first 2. Even at 1″ / hr our local drains can’t keep up.
Tomorrow is going to dawn ugly for anyone who wasn’t paying attention tonight. I think I’ll have the kids at home, and maybe the wife too.
Time for bed.
Stay safe, stay dry.
nick
Hope y’all came through the storms ok…
Re military capability: The US has the best military technology around, no question. I do wonder about the actual deployability, though. A military that focuses on making male cadets march in high heels, that has turned too many bases into single-mother child-care centers, that drops standards so that women have a chance to pass basic training – that is a military with some seriously screwed up priorities. Playing around in the sandbox is one thing; if the shit actually hit the fan, I expect there would be a whole lot of unfortunate surprises.
Anyway, it shouldn’t matter. As y’all said: the US needs to close most foreign bases, call the troops home, and stop spending such outrageous amounts of money on the military. There is no current military threat to the US, except for what it creates itself by poking hornets’ nests.
I usually agree with JEP, but his recent columns give ISIS way too much credit – he goes so far as to call it an “existential threat” to the US. That’s just nonsense. ISIS has no reach outside of its territory, and has its hands plenty full there. Lots of donations and assistance flow to ISIS because of the attention lavished on it by the West; remove the West from the picture, and lots of support for ISIS will dry up. Let the threatened Middle Eastern countries do something about it. They have enough money and military power to handle the situation.
Meanwhile, Russia is playing around within the borders of the old USSR. Putin would undoubtedly love to have the power of the old USSR, but he hasn’t got it, and hasn’t got the economic base to create it. So Russia beats up on its impoverished neighbors. China has learned that economics make a better weapon than guns. North Korea is a joke, except maybe to the South Koreans. There really ain’t nobody else.
@Brad
You’re forgetting the Duchy of Grand Fenwick, which has presented an existential threat to the US ever since it roared in 1959.
Hope all you guys down Texas way are getting through this okay.
Lots of donations and assistance flow to ISIS
I wonder which line you report that on your 1040? Charitable donations? Gambling losses?
Good morning all.
We’re fine here. Only a few small dead branches down. Flood waters never got to the house.
Many neighbors not so lucky with the water. Even 1/2 ” can cost you 10s of thousands in damaged flooring. 1 1/2 inch will require removal of all flooring and opening walls at least a foot. Any flooding in the house is a big deal.
Some freeways still closed. All schools off today and daycares. Most daycare follows the schedule of their local school district. That is the normally unaccounted for aspect of a disaster. Planning usually only counts it during a pandemic. When kids can’t go to school, workers stay home to care for them.
Does your business have a continuation plan that works if all your parents stay home?
Speaking of kids, gotta get mine fed.
nick
No kids, but if we had them they’d be home-schooled and I’d be at home all day with them.
Glad to know y’all are OK today down there in the Great Lone Star State. Wow. More wottuh than y’all wanted. Lots more. And naturally the goblins come out to play; they should be simply shot on sight.
“And people say that the War of Northern Aggression has no effect on modern times.”
Not me. It sho nuff DOES have a continuing effect to this day; been sayin’ that for many years; The Great Eliminator set in motion a train of events that have done grievous damage to the entire country, 150 years of it. Yet he is revered as the Second Coming. An obscene and damnable historical blasphemy.
Yep, you gotta wonder what the racial makeup of detroit, for example, would be like. Much of the migration was driven by the desire for low wage workers in the rust belt, but oh how different things would be if the south wasn’t prevented from industrializing.
funny that NOW most everyone in manufacture is moving to the south.
nick
Slavery would have collapsed of its own weight. It’s simply too inefficient to compete in a modern society, and I count the last half of the 19th century as modern. Slave labor simply cannot compete against free labor, as quickly became obvious during 1861 through 1865 and thereafter. I actually had an interesting argument decades ago against someone who actually believed that the UK abolished slavery for humanitarian or philosophical reasons, rather than simple economic ones. What an idiot. The Brits could not have cared less about the slaves. What they cared about was continuing and extending their mercantile dominance. Slaves had no role in such an economy, as was obvious to anyone who thought it through.
Harvesters and other agricultural machinery would have killed slavery dead by perhaps 1875 just as motor vehicles killed horse-drawn vehicles. The problem with slaves and horses is that you have to feed them whether or not they’re working. And, relative to mechanized equipment, you get a lot less work out of either than the cost of keeping them.
“funny that NOW most everyone in manufacture is moving to the south.”
That’s been going on as long as I’ve been alive. As a young kid my dad would take me with him sometimes on his insurance inspection trips to factories and mills in Maffachufetts and Rhode Island, where he did his boiler and machinery gig. Those places are all gone now, or given over to collections of small businesses and stores, at best. They went South first, and then overseas. My dad was probably among the last of the steam boiler engineers/insurance inspectors. And my next two younger brothers and I have been be-bopping our way through similar circumstances for decades as glorified machine operators. Ironically, my youngest brother has been in the insurance biz for decades and done quite well, in the same job. Real estate insurance.
Agreed that slavery would have fallen apart under its own inertia and the general disgust most, if not all, Murkans had with it by then. But Honest Abe just had to have his war, and his railroad and bankster buddies told him to jump-start it and keep it going, while their other corporate buddies got rich stiffing the Union troops with their clothing, equipment and munitions. And the Yankee moms told their sons to do like unto the Spartans: come home with your shield or on it. Calvinist militancy run wild. As in northern Ireland and Scotland and earlier with Cromwell’s Roundhead scum.
Honest Abe and his thug war criminal generals destroyed the South, with malice aforethought, sowed the wind, and we are continuing to reap the whirlwind. And if anything, black-white relations are worse than ever, despite trillions spent and mountains of rhetoric and a string of martyrs.