The Surrender of the Fortress of Singapore

This one still amazed, how a numerically superior force surrendered to a numerically inferior force, the humiliation of the British was complete.  I still had a hard time understanding this because the total ineptness of the British in fighting the Japanese.  I also remembered reading that the Flying Tigers tried to tell the British how to fight the Japanese successfully and they were blown off, the  British believed that the Japanese were an inferior foe and that the Japanese were crappy pilots and that their Zero fighters were unable to handle the British fighters.  The end results were the beginning of the end of the British Empire that didn't survive long after the War.

The Japanese celebrating with one of the captured British Cannons at Singapore

There are certain matters that must be adhered to if a battle is to be successful. These include a well-trained army and a good military strategy which can be the difference between success and failure. However, even when a military council drafts out an excellent plan, there are no guarantees in war. Things do not always play out the way they are expected to.
In the past, many military engagements have been quite organized. They have followed a conventional chain of events: one force meets the other, and one army wins either due to better positioning, military strategy, advanced weaponry, or the simple fact of numbers. Sometimes the battle ends at a stalemate where there is no victor. In contrast, there are battles which have been total disasters where one army is completely taken apart by the other.

One of the most bewildering to all was the Fall of Singapore in 1942 during the Second World War. The battle is now regarded as one of the greatest military defeats of the British Army, but it did not look poised to take such a humiliating turn when it began.

The British stronghold in Singapore was deemed to be an impregnable fortress. Their air and naval bases commissioned in 1939 and 1941 respectively were impressive and intimidating. The King George VI Graving Dock at the naval base was the largest dry dock in the world, scaling a full 300 meters to show the capacity of the British Malayan Navy.

The British Army in Malaya 1942. A launch returning from an island in Keppel Harbour at Singapore after Royal Engineers had set fire to oil storage tanks there, January 1942.

In March 1941, the British intercepted a message from Adolf Hitler to the Japanese Foreign Minister, Yosuke Matsuoka. In this message, the Nazi leader urged Matsuoka to attack the British stronghold in the Far East. Hitler stated that conquering the British in Malaya would be fundamental to the overthrow of England. There was little doubt as to the importance of Singapore to the British Empire, as their naval base was placed there to protect other Commonwealth assets.
However, the British were undaunted by this discovery and feared little for the British troops stationed at the island. He was confident that the fortress was impenetrable. The island had two major attack areas of concern. The first was the sea, but the British naval base there was more than capable of defending attacks from that direction. The second was miles and miles of jungle terrain which were assumed to be too arduous even to be considered by the Japanese.

A Type 97 Chi Ha Tank of the IJA 1st Tank Regiment During the invasion of Singapore, 1942.

Newspapers carried news of Churchill’s statement referring to the fortress as the “Gibraltar of the Far East.” There was an air of overconfidence around the British forces. The British considered the Japanese army to be weak, often referring to them as “Little Japs.” However, although the Japanese believed the myth of the British fortress being impregnable, they were nevertheless resolved to take it in their quest to conquer Southeast Asia and the East Indies.
Japan had few mineral resources and, as such, sought to acquire them by force from other regions. Japan had conquered most of China and Manchuria in the 1930s for the rich iron and coal resources which the Japanese then employed in producing steel. They had one important resource left to acquire and that was oil. As such, the East Indies, including Singapore, was a major target for them.

“Dispositions, 22nd Brigade, 10 p.m. 8th February” – the positions of Australian forces around Sarimbun, Singapore, 8 February 1942. The arrows indicate attacks by Japanese forces.

Despite the fortress’s naval capacity, it was seriously lacking in ships. Most of the British fleet had been committed to Europe and the Middle East where the British felt they were more needed. The Singapore campaign kicked off on December 8, 1941, when two Japanese convoys landed at Patani in Southern Thailand, Singora, and northern Malaya. By the end of that day, some 27,000 Japanese soldiers, well-trained in jungle combat and under the command of General Yamashita Tomoyuki, had secured their position in Malaya and captured the British air base at Kota Baharu.
After that, air bombings of Singapore began. Unaware that their air base had been captured, the Prince of Wales and the Repulse sailed for northern Malaya in an attempt to put off any Japanese ships that were yet to land. The ships were sunk on 10th December by Japanese aircraft.

One of Singapore’s 15-inch coastal defense guns elevated for firing.8 December 1941

 

The Japanese were very swift, employing bicycles as a means of movement across the jungle terrain. Using a combination of bicycles and collapsible boats, they outflanked and encircled the British army in North Malaya, cutting off their supply lines. The British army in the region was led by Lieutenant General Arthur Ernest Percival who was only promoted to this command position in April, so it was his first time in command of an army corps.

Procession in celebration of “Fall of Singapore” by Keijo(Seoul) citizen.

On January 31, 1942, the causeway at Johore Baharu which linked Malaya and Singapore was blown up by the Japanese, resulting in a fifty-meter gap. The battle that ended in the surrender of the British took place from 8th to 15th February, by which time half of Singapore was already occupied by the Japanese.
After a week of fighting, Percival was informed that ammunition and water would run out the following day. He thereafter agreed to surrender to the Japanese who insisted that Percival marched with the white flag of truce to negotiate the terms of surrender.

Lieutenant-General Arthur Ernest Percival, (right), led by a Japanese officer, walks under a flag of truce to negotiate the capitulation of Allied forces in Singapore, on February 15, 1942. It was the largest surrender of British-led forces in history.

The 36,000 Japanese troops had done what was thought by many as impossible: gained a decisive victory over the British Malayan Army, with 90 percent of the 90,000 men taken as prisoners of war. This defeat was a crushing blow to the British Empire, and one that signaled the start of the defection of Australia’s foreign policy away from the United Kingdom.

Yamashita (seated, center) thumps the table with his fist to emphasize his terms – unconditional surrender. Percival sits between his officers, his clenched hand to his mouth.

After the British surrender, the Australians began to turn to the United States for aid, no longer able to trust the British Army to protect them. Australia had sided with the British during the war and their Prime Minister at the time, John Curtin, told Churchill that Australia would regard the act of surrender as an inexcusable betrayal.   Also The British were reinforced by Australian Troops who landed and were almost immediately told to surrender and were marched to POW camps where they spent 3 years under hellish conditions

Monday Music "Got A Hold On Me" by Christine McVie

I was running an Archery range this weekend for "Spookoree" it is a cub scout campout and it is very important for the new cub scouts and gets them really excited about being a cub scout.  I then headed to an Eagle Scout Ceremony where one of my scouts was getting awarded his Eagle Rank, I was pleased that he finally made it.  He got the award and he made a speech and started handing out a few "Mentor" pins for the adults that were instrumental in he making his rank.  I was surprised that I was awarded the first one from him and it is my first "mentor" pin.

Needless I was totally surprised to get the award from him, I was not expecting that and was honored that I was even considered a good influence.


I thought I had done this song before, it is a very good song and it was briefly my favorite song until I heard Don Henley "The Boys of Summer".  But according to my blog, I never did.

Christine McVie is the second solo album by the British Fleetwood Mac vocalist / keyboardist Christine McVie, released in 1984.
It was McVie's first solo recording since her 1970 self-titled release (under her maiden name). It features two U.S. top-40 hit singles, "Got a Hold on Me" (US#10) and "Love Will Show Us How" (US#30). The album itself also achieved modest success in the United States, peaking at #26 and spending 23 weeks on the Billboard 200.In the UK, the album entered at #58 on chart.
The band on this album includes Christine McVie (keyboards, percussion and vocals), Todd Sharp (guitar and backing vocals), George Hawkins (bass and backing vocals), and Steve Ferrone (drums and percussion).

Fleetwood Mac guitarist Lindsey Buckingham sings backing vocals on tracks 2, 7 & 10, plays guitar on tracks 3 and 6, and plays lead guitar on track 10. Mick Fleetwood plays drums on track 5. Eric Clapton plays lead guitar on "The Challenge," and Steve Winwood shares lead vocals on "One in a Million" and contributes backing vocals and piano to "Ask Anybody," as well as playing synthesizer on several tracks.

The video for the song was produced and directed by Jon Roseman and premiered in February 1984. Shot in both black-and-white and color, it is a pseudo-performance video showing Christine McVie in a mansion-like room singing at her piano while a backup band appears in silhouette shadows on the walls around her.

Star Wars "Rebel Insurgency"

I was doing Boy Scout stuff this weekend, I will talk about it a bit tomorrow during my "Monday Music" segment.

I shamelessly clipped this from "Angry Staff Officer", he uses Star Wars references to make a point to the people in the Army and other lesser branches.  Star Wars is a huge cultural reference and easy to understand and is a great graphic training aid to make a point.  Like I have said many times, My buddy "Mack" turned me on to this guy...and so I blame him for it of course. 

OCTOBER 12, 2018ANGRY STAFF OFFICER

The Rebel Alliance is going to lose, not because they are outnumbered, but because they have no model on which to base plans for their campaign. There are essentially two kinds of insurgent campaigns: city-out or countryside-in; Leningrad, or Yorktown. The Rebel Alliance is fighting both of them wrongly, and has few chances left before defeat and dissolution.

The First Order, for its part, is not a foreign force; they are fighting a campaign of imperial consolidation (think: the Union side in the US Civil War, or the British side in the Boer Wars or the War of Continental Independence) not a conquest from outside. As such, they fail to seize most of the advantages of supply and maneuver their better trained, better equipped, larger force offers.

Angry Staff Officer is right: most of the strategic errors on both sides are at the level of command, top to bottom, failing to understand the nature and goals of the war. At the bottom, we see squadron Commander Dameron trying to win in decisive battle when he ought to have withdrawn his forces in good order. This is the same strategic error repeated time and again by Nathan Bedford Forrest and Benedict Arnold, tactical officers so good they often did win, at the sacrifice of resources needed elsewhere for more important objectives. In the First Order, command is so poorly integrated and joint services so insensibly divided that the overwhelming naval theater dominance of the First Order is often caught unprepared for otherwise minor tactical maneuvers by the tiny but well-coordinated Rebel military. Time and again the First Order’s fighters remain in their bays until well after the Rebel assault has taken shape. Only their numerical advantage saves them, with otherwise-unacceptably high losses, as was frequently the accusation leveled by McClellan against “Unconditional Surrender” Grant.

Alliance command seemingly mean to initiate a Mao- or Giap-style insurgency from the hinterlands of the Outer Rim, yet are stymied by broken lines of supply and communication, lack of outside assistance from the coreward worlds, and internal dissent over whether accepting defeat in the former strongholds of the Republic represents strategic defeat. A hinterlands-in campaign depends on being able to hide from concentrated forces, isolate and strike strong points, and relies on the rural populace for its supply and places to hide. Unless and until the Princess/Commanding General can quell the squabbling in her own ranks over which type of war they are fighting, the Rebel Alliance cannot possibly hope to sustain an insurgency long enough to convince non-aligned worlds and civilian populations to support or tolerate her forces’ presence, much less to recruit and supply a critical mass of fighters for Phase III of Mao’s (and Washington’s) war plan, counter-conquest of the Order’s core worlds.

The countryside-in model of insurgency offers essentially two branching variations: the classic Maoist model, with unified command lying concealed in the hinterlands of the Outer Rim until sufficient and reliable support both monetary and material flows from an Outer Rim politically united against the core worlds of the First Order to begin massing troops for larger-scale confrontation, or the Ngo Nguyen Giap/George Washington model, relying on outside support for money and materiel, with recruitment and political support coming from within both the Outer Rim and the core worlds, in hope of eventually uniting the populace politically behind the Rebel Alliance as a more legitimate government than the First Order.

In the inverse model, the city-out campaign, exemplified by V.I. Lenin and Krim Belcacem, the Alliance lacks unity of command or internal lines of supply sufficient to sustain an independent navy adequate to protect smugglers and privateers who might convince unaligned factions (such as Incom) to sell or lease the Rebels weapons of greater magnitude than the Alliance’s small internal manufacturing base is able to produce or purchase. While Alderaan had a vibrant economy, it is as unavailable as Yavin as a base of recruitment and sustainment for the Alliance. Even Chandrila can be relied upon only to the extent that its political leadership feel safe from internal dissent or First Order suppression. Anyone suggesting (like Gen Washington) that recapturing and re-colonizing the core worlds of the Republic ought to be a primary war goal, rather than not losingfor sufficient time to convince unaligned factions and worlds that the Alliance might hold through a sustained conflict, has either to be convinced that is the wrong war model, or cashiered as quickly as practical. The critical step is internal resolution: Alliance command has to have complete buy-in for a model of campaign if the Rebellion is to succeed.

The Rebels have the advantage of a charismatic and competent political leader along the lines of Krim or Castro, but that advantage comes with the risk of internal dissolution if that leader is the only unifying center of gravity. Once they choose the hinterlands-in campaign, which they must, the Rebels may also take on the Sinn Fein/Hamas refinement, divided between public/political and covert/military divisions. It worked in Algeria for the FLN; it worked in Ireland for IRA, and it worked in Vietnam to a lesser extent. In this model, the public, political face of the Alliance treats with outside and unaligned actors while providing government and support services to Outer Rim and unaligned civilian populations gone unsupported by the First Order, whose attention (and funding) are bent on winning the military campaign against the covert military arm of the Alliance. This model enjoys the advantage of building the appearance of legitimacy to civilian populations before any overt military victories have been achieved, which makes it easier to tolerate the significant disadvantage that it relies on outside manufacturing and credit to sustain the military arm.

In brief, the Princess needs to unite the Rebel Alliance cadre behind a coherent (and achievable) model of insurgency, or be defeated by internal disunion before the First Order can manage to get its jackboots on. The Washington/Giap model offers the most practical advantages, while taking into account the disadvantages piled on the Alliance by its lack of mass popular support, internal manufacturing and finance. Adopting this insurgency model explicitly, and instructing the Rebels on its theory and tactical application, is the only plausible path to victory in war, barring a deus ex hyperspace event.

Fighting continued after the Armistice...

I have blogged about fighting that happened after the surrender of WWII, but the same thing happened in WWI, 

 "The Last Journey" of the German High Seas Fleet.

 Examined with hindsight, the end of World War I was not the slam dunk history books and popular culture implies. The Allies wanted more from Germany than mere defeat: they wanted the country to be appropriately punished for starting a war in the first place.
They wanted to make an example of it, should any European nation think of going to war again. Britain, the United States, and the other Allies wanted the world to know that starting another war would not be tolerated.





Although much about the Armistice and the subsequent Treaty of Versailles can be directly blamed for Hitler’s rise to power less than two decades later, many factors contributed to the war’s slow close. War rarely just stops. More often, it grinds to a gradual cessation, over a few days at least.

Signing of the Treaty of Versailles

The ceasefire was supposed to begin at 11/11/11 — that is: at 11 a.m. on the 11^th day of the 11^th month (November), 1918. The German Empire was in disastrous shape by then. But many in its Army and Navy did not want to accede. Instead, they wanted to carry on fighting, particularly against Britain on the open seas.
This sentiment led to the Kiel Mutiny, during which officers and some navy personnel openly defied orders to stop the battle. This refusal prompted further rebellion in the Army and even in civilian circles.

Kiel mutiny: the soldiers’ council of the Prinzregent Luitpold. Bundesarchiv – CC BY-SA 3.0 de

Finally, to quell the growing disquiet, Kaiser Willem II abdicated and shifted power to the Weimar Republic. German delegates were ordered to sign the surrender papers quickly, so the word could spread that Germany’s war was over.
The country was finished, but some of the Allies wanted it more severely punished, believing that only a “crushing” defeat could prevent another war elsewhere in Europe. Though some countries were still arguing about the terms, the papers were signed, at 5:12 a.m. on November 18, 1918.

A great deal of the Armistice was based on U.S. President Woodrow Wilson’s “14 Points” document, that outlined terms he believed reasonable. These included some things still in existence today, like the establishment of the North American Treaty Organization (NATO) and open diplomacy.

Kaiser Willem II

Germany was ordered to remove all troops from occupied regions, and the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian Empires were demolished. New countries in the Middle East were to govern themselves, but few were able to do so without outside help from America and Europe.
Germany was compelled to disarm. Submarines were turned over to the Allies. The country was also told to make substantial war reparations, which was a major reason for the country’s economic near-collapse in the 1920s.
There were other harsh conditions that Germany had to agree to in the Armistice, and while some Allied powers felt it fair, others, like France, felt the agreement was not demanding enough.

“Berlin seized by revolutionists”: The New York Times on Armistice Day, 11 November 1918.

In cities like Paris, celebrating in the streets took the place of exhaustion and war-fuelled anxiety. But for troops, things were not so clear-cut.
Most German soldiers dropped their weapons in relief, but some, who had not heard of the ceasefire, were killed after the 11 a.m. deadline because they had not received word to stop fighting.
A myth was born the day the war ended: the myth of the “stab in the back.” Many right wing people in Berlin and elsewhere began saying that Germany had not lost, that it was the Weimar Republic’s untrue claim so they could seize power.

At the corner of Avenue des Champs-Elysées and Rue Balzac in Paris, the crowd awaits the parade of 200,000 civilians and soldiers in the afternoon of Sunday, November 17 1918

It was a false narrative, but it gave rise to a certain young, failed art student who would soon wrest control of the government for himself and consolidate power under a new regime:

 the Nazis.
That young man was Adolph Hitler. He would one day return to the very rail car in which the Armistice was signed, and force French officials to sign surrender papers after the Nazis occupied their country following the outbreak of World War II. After that, he had the train car destroyed.

 

The French signing the Armistice Terms in 1940 after they decisively defeated and humiliated the French at the beginning of WWII at the Railcar that the Germans signed the Armistice in 1918 ending WWI.  The Germans destroyed the Railcar after the signing to further erase the humiliation of WWI

Musings and videos...or video's and musings.....or some combination of both.....

I will have a hectic day, so I will post some musings and some video's that I like to watch over and over again.....well because I like them is a pretty good reason....

    First off a musing...apparently there was our favorite Leftists in Portland blocking traffic and damaging cars and the Police did nothing, I believe that the Mayor or Police Commissioner or both gave the stand down order for the police not to interfere....this is something to think about to those that believe in disarming because the Police will protect you.....Just saying...


Now here is a funny Video...

Yes I have put this one on my blog before...but it is a good one...


And here is another one I ran across, it is a Star Wars fan film...and it is better than the later offerings from Disney

Apparently the Media is giving the Texan senator candidate the "Obama" treatment, I know the media don't like Cruz because he is a GOPer, but the cloying sweetness handling of Beto will put most people into a diabetic coma....sheesh..

Axanar, what Star Trek could have become instead of "Star Trek  Dumpsterfire er I mean Discovery"


And Arnold"The Terminator" Schwarzenegger is backing off his "Girlie men" quote made famous during the 2004 election cycle.....I know that some men lose their testicles when they get older....but why be obvious about it..Sheesh..Have some Self respect.

And a Flight Safety Video, some of the Flight attendants from work thought this was hilarious

  And finally I this video

This would be me and my friends.....

Allied made mistakes during WWII also......

I have posted in the past about various mistakes the Axis made during WWII, but the AAllies were not totally competant either, they also screwed up.  Such is the vagaries of War, you can't always expect the enemy to screw up, they are in it to win also.

When discussing the outcome of World War II, much is made of Axis mistakes. From Hitler’s launch of Operation Barbarossa to Japan’s failure to destroy the American carrier fleet, there were plenty to be had. But the Allies made plenty of military mistakes of their own.

The Winter War

Before it joined in fighting the Germans, the USSR used the chaos of war to achieve other aims. In November 1939, while the rest of the world was reeling from the invasion of Poland, the Soviets invaded Finland.
Ironically for a nation that had once been saved from an invasion by winter, the Soviets were woefully unprepared for the cold of Finland. Guns malfunctioned. Vehicles seized up. Men froze to death amid the ice and snow.

Their dark green uniforms, which would have disguised them in the forests further south, made them stand out against the snow. Meanwhile, the Finns used skis to swiftly cross the snow and saunas to create warm, safe medical stations.

A group of Finnish soldiers in snowsuits manning a heavy machine gun in a foxhole.

Though vastly superior in numbers, the Soviets suffered huge casualties and international humiliation. When peace was made in March, they took control of 11% of Finland, but it had come at a terrible cost.

Soviet prisoners of war dressed with new clothes near the Arctic Circle at Rovaniemi in January 1940

Falling for the same trick twice is always embarrassing. In war, it can be fatal. That’s why the Allied attitude to the Ardennes Forest stands out.

 Ardennes

The Ardennes lay in the border region where Belgium, France, and Germany met. In May 1940, the French left this area weakly defended, believing it to be impassable to armored formations. Instead, they relied on the fortified Maginot Line to hold the Germans back.

The Maginot Line.Photo: Goran

The Germans proved the French wrong. Their tanks swept through the Ardennes, across previously neutral Belgium, and into France, completely ignoring the Maginot Line. France fell.
Four and a half years later, the same thing happened all over again. In his last great throw of the dice, Hitler launched an offensive through the Ardennes in December 1944. Once again, his men burst through weak Allied lines, though they were eventually thwarted by their limited resources.

German troops advancing past abandoned American equipment.18 December 1944.

 

In General Eisenhower’s defense, it has been argued that this second time it was a trap, and that the American lines were deliberately weak to draw the Germans in. But if that was the case, Eisenhower never admitted to his own clever plan.
 

The Raid on Dieppe

On 19 August 1942, the Allies launched a raid in force on the French port of Dieppe. It was a British Army operation, but the troops involved were mostly Canadian.

Dieppe’s chert beach and cliff immediately following the raid on 19 August 1942. A Dingo Scout Car has been abandoned.Photo: Bundesarchiv, Bild

The raid was meant to be a trial run for capturing a port by conducting an amphibious landing. It was a complete disaster.
Most of the troops became trapped on the beaches, where they were mercilessly battered by German machine guns and artillery. Even the tanks were mostly unable to get into town. Within a few hours, the withdrawal was called, and more men were lost getting out.
Over 4,000 Allied personnel were killed, wounded, or captured at Dieppe. It was a day that would forever color Canadian memories of the war.

Canadian prisoners being led away through Dieppe after the raid.

 

Kasserine Pass

On 19 February 1943, German and Italian troops under General Rommel launched an attack against the Americans at the Kasserine Pass in Tunisia. It was an attack that proved just how unprepared the Americans were.

Rommel in Tunisia speaking with troops riding a captured American built M3 Half-track.Photo: Bundesarchiv, Bild 146-1990-071-31

As the Axis forces stormed forward, they caught the Americans by surprise. The Americans had faced little combat, while many of their opponents were veterans of the North African theater.
The Americans made basic mistakes such as not digging in properly, bunching together, and failing to properly position their troops. They courageously held out for the first day of fighting, but on the second day they fell into a disorderly retreat.

U.S. troops taken prisoner during the battle march through a Tunisian village.Photo: Bundesarchiv, Bild 101I-557-1002-10 /

Rommel achieved his tactical goal of breaking through the pass, but he was unable to make the strategic gains he had hoped for. British and American forces regrouped beyond the pass and held up his advance.
His aim of punching through the Allied lines and seizing their supplies never came to fruition. Not every failure turned into a disaster for the Allies.

Hurtgen Forest

At the time of the second Ardennes offensive, the Allies were already bogged down in one of their biggest mistakes – the Battle of Hurtgen Forest.
From September 1944 to February 1945, the Americans attacked German positions in the Hurtgen Forest, a wooded area around the border between Germany and Belgium. The Germans were well dug in amid the dense forest, making their lines almost impossible to break.
The Americans tried again and again in a series of bloody assaults. They lost nearly 30,000 men killed or injured and thousands more to combat exhaustion.

A German heavy mortar firing in defense against a U.S. attack on 22 November 1944 in the Hürtgen forest.Photo: Bundesarchiv, Bild

By the time they broke through, the Germans had opened the floodgates on industrial dams, something the battle had supposedly been launched to avoid. The war moved on thanks to real victories elsewhere, and the bloody waste in the Hurtgen was quietly ignored.

Operation Market Garden

One of the boldest ventures of the war, Operation Market Garden was launched by General Montgomery in September 1944. By landing paratroopers at a series of key bridges, he aimed to open a route across the Low Countries and into Germany. Conventional troops would follow before the Germans could counter-attack, ensuring victory.

British POWs at Arnhem.Photo: Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-S73820 /

Unfortunately for the British and Polish paratroopers, Montgomery’s scheme proved too bold. The ground campaign didn’t advance as quickly as he had hoped. Allied paratroopers were trapped in the town of Arnhem for a week, taking heavy casualties at the hands of the Germans.
By the time they were withdrawn, 1,200 men had died. 6,600 more were left behind, injured, captured, or missing.

 I used the ending from the movie "A Bridge Too Far".  It is one of my favorite war movies and it was to me well done.

 

Why the Left likes to block roads, bridges, harass people....

I saw this article by Dennis Prager and here is the Article.  I cut and pasted it in its entirety.
It is a very good article and I was pleased to see someone that said the same thing that I have said.  The average leftist believe that they are superior due to their education, being "woke", social standing and other factors and that we "normals" are subhuman, Nazi's and other vile things.

When I was in graduate school, I learned a lot about the left.
One lesson was that while most liberals and conservatives abide by society’s rules of order and decency, most leftists do not feel bound to live by these same rules.
I watched the way leftist Vietnam War protesters treated fellow students and professors. I watched left-wing students make “nonnegotiable demands” of college administrations. I saw the Black Panthers engage in violence—including torture and murder—and be financially rewarded by leftists.
Today, we watch leftist mobs scream profanities at professors and deans, and shut down conservative and pro-Israel speakers at colleges. We routinely witness left-wing protesters block highways and bridges, scream in front of the homes of conservative business and political leaders, and surround conservatives’ tables at restaurants while shouting and chanting at them.
Conservatives don’t do these things. They don’t close highways, yell obscenities at left-wing politicians, work to ban left-wing speakers at colleges, smash the windows of businesses, etc.
Why do leftists feel entitled do all these things? Because they have thoroughly rejected middle-class, bourgeois, and Judeo-Christian religious values.
Leftists are the only source of their values. Leftists not only believe they know what is right—conservatives, too, believe they are right—but they also believe they are morally superior to all others. Leftists are Ubermenschen—people on such a high moral plane that they do not consider themselves bound by the normal conventions of civics and decency. Leftists don’t need such guidelines; only the non-left—the “deplorables”—need them.
In August 2017, University of Pennsylvania law professor Amy Wax wrote a column for the Philadelphia Inquirer in defense of middle-class values. She and her co-author cited a list of behavioral norms that, as Wax put it, “was almost universally endorsed between the end of World War II and the mid-1960s.”
They were: “Get married before you have children and strive to stay married for their sake. Get the education you need for gainful employment, work hard, and avoid idleness. Go the extra mile for your employer or client. Be a patriot, ready to serve the country. Be neighborly, civic-minded, and charitable. Avoid coarse language in public. Be respectful of authority. Eschew substance abuse and crime.”
She later wrote in The Wall Street Journal, “The fact that the ‘bourgeois culture’ these norms embodied has broken down since the 1960s largely explains today’s social pathologies—and re-embracing that culture would go a long way toward addressing those pathologies.”
For her left-wing colleagues at Penn Law School, this list was beyond the pale. About half of her fellow professors of law—33 of them—condemned her in an open letter. And Wax wrote in the Journal, “My law school dean recently asked me to take a leave of absence next year and to cease teaching a mandatory first-year course.”
The Pennsylvania chapter of the left-wing National Lawyers Guild condemned her for espousing bourgeois values and questioned “whether it is appropriate for her to continue to teach a required first-year course.”
As regards traditional Jewish and Christian codes of conduct, just read the left’s contempt for Vice President Mike Pence’s religiosity. They fear him more than President Donald Trump solely for that reason.
One would think that leftists, as sensitive as they are to sexual harassment of women, would admire Pence’s career-long policy of never dining alone with a woman other than his wife. On the contrary, they mock him for it.
With such high self-esteem and no middle-class, bourgeois, or Judeo-Christian values to guide them, many leftists are particularly vicious people.
The opening skit of “Saturday Night Live” this past weekend—Matt Damon’s mockery of Judge Brett Kavanaugh—provided a timely example.
It is unimaginable that a prominent conservative group or individual would feature a skit mocking Kavanaugh’s accuser Dr. Christine Blasey Ford. Indeed, Kavanaugh noted his 10-year-old daughter’s prayer for his accuser, and a political cartoonist promptly drew a cartoon with her praying that God forgive her “angry, lying, alcoholic father for sexually assaulting Dr. Ford.”
Is there an equally prominent conservative public figure on the right who has ever said “F— Obama!” on national television just as Robert De Niro shouted, “F— Trump!” at the recent Tony Awards?
Now, why would De Niro feel he could shout an obscenity at the president of the United States with millions of young people watching him? Because he is not constrained by middle-class or Judeo-Christian moral values.
In Nietzsche’s famous words, De Niro, like other leftists, is “beyond good and evil,” as Americans understood those terms until the 1960s.
In 2016, at a Comedy Central roast of actor Rob Lowe, the butt of the jokes was Ann Coulter, not Lowe. They mostly mocked her looks, and if there is something crueler than publicly mocking a woman’s looks, it’s hard to identify. For example, “Saturday Night Live” cast member Pete Davidson said, “Ann Coulter, if you’re here, who’s scaring the crows away from our crops?”
There surely are mean conservatives—witness some of the vile comments by anonymous conservative commenters on the internet. And it is a moral scandal that Ford has received death threats.
The difference in left-wing meanness is the meanness of known—not anonymous—people on the left. They don’t hide behind anonymity because they do not feel bound by traditional notions of civility, for which they have contempt.
Now you can understand why the left hates Pence, a man who has, by all accounts, led a thoroughly honorable life. He—and other evangelical Christians and Orthodox Jews—tries to live by a code that is higher than him.
That ethic is what Ubermenschen seek to destroy. They are succeeding

Monday Music "Thunderstruck" by AC/DC

I am continuing the group of songs that I can hear over and over again and I like them.  This is one of them.
I decided to dedicate this song to the democrats that had protested and threw a massive temper tantrum over the Kavanaugh hearings, so I dedicated this song to the whiners, activist and other bottom feeders that tried to capitalize on the hearing.

    I decided to go with AC/DC "thunderstruck"   This song hit in 1990 while I was in Germany and it was very popular, this was one song that every would play LOUD.  Something about good crunching Heavy Metal Rock and Roll.    When we were in the Gulf, we had dedicated this song to Saddam Hussain and his Republican Guard as they were "Thunderstruck" by the United States Military.

"Thunderstruck" is the first song on the 1990 album The Razors Edge by the hard rock group AC/DC.
The song was released as a single in Germany, Australia, and Japan, and peaked at No. 5 on U.S. the Billboard Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks. In 2010, "Thunderstruck" topped Triple M's Ultimate 500 Rock Countdown in Melbourne, Australia. The top five were all AC/DC songs.
With the exception of new material from an album they are touring behind, this is one of only two songs released after Back in Black that the band still regularly performs live in concert, the other being "For Those About to Rock (We Salute You)".

Hitler Reacting to the Kavanaugh hearings...

I ran across the ever popular "Hitler Parody" video's again for the Kavanaugh hearings...and the liberals are upset, I am seeing a lot of...

 I had to go looking for this one I had used it shortly after the confirmation of President Donald Trump and the inauguration. 

I was seeing the moonbats and other unhinged leftist being removed from the confirmation hearing...Even now they can't be classy.

more rants and musings...about the Kavanaugh hearings and chasing shinies and other stuff.

The circus of the Kavanaugh hearing is about to end and the democrats are predictably are changing the goalpost...

to touch on what has transpired, at the last minute before the confirmation hearing, the Senator from California came up with a sexual assault claim...

And the smear campaign started, as the process continued the left cranked more activist to harass the GOP senators in the elevators, restaurants,  and I saw this on GunFreezone, apparently this democratic staffer got information and released it to the activists so they can harass the senators.

A Democratic congressional staffer was arrested Wednesday and accused of posting the personal information of at least one Republican senator during last week’s hearing about sexual assault claims against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, authorities said.
U.S. Capitol Police said 27-year-old Jackson Cosko was charged with making public restricted personal information, witness tampering, threats in interstate communication, unauthorized access of a government computer, identity theft, second-degree burglary and unlawful entry. Police added that the investigation was continuing and more charges could be filed.
Senior congressional sources tell Fox News that Cosko most recently worked as a staffer for Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas. He also had worked with Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., and former Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer of California.

Democratic staffer arrested in doxxing of GOP senators during Kavanaugh hearing
Some enterprising soul should return the favor and even amplify it.  Hell, no bail for the guy and leave him with the regular inmates for the weekend. With that face and that complexion, he is bound to be very popular.

     Personal information of Sens. Lindsey Graham, Mike Lee and Orrin Hatch was posted on their respective Wikipedia pages Thursday as the Senate Judiciary Committee questioned Kavanaugh over allegations that he assaulted Christine Blasey Ford at a high school party in the early 1980s. All three have professed their belief that Kavanaugh is innocent of the claims brought against him by Ford, with Graham telling the federal judge "you've got nothing to apologize for" amid a fiery rant denouncing Democrats' handling of the allegations.

   Senator Ted Cruz and his wife got harassed at a restaurant by a bunch of activists..Other activist have been following the GOP senators around and harassing them on their travels and staging sitins at their office.  .Funny how stuff like this don't happen to democratic senators, I am making a supposition that the right side of the aisle has more class and realize that there is more to life than politics, something that the "Scorched Earth Democrats haven't figured out.

The Rule of law has taken a hit, and the genie can't be put back in the bottle after this.  Before this hearing,  the rule of law was supreme, there had to be a preponderance of evidence to charge a person under our criminal justice system, but now it is the rule of the mob and the mob is whoever the latest flaver of the month is and this presents a huge problem for people, especially in the future where a women can make a spurious charge against a man and wreck his career and possibly get him put in jail and he has no way to prove his innocence, this will end badly for our justice system.

   On a different note I saw this from Kenny's place,

A man who assaulted a young, female pro-life advocate Sunday in Toronto has been identified by his employer.
Noble Studio 101, a hair salon in Toronto, posted a message on Instagram Wednesday identifying the man as Jordan Hunt, one of its former employees. The business said it fired Hunt after seeing him on a now-viral video.

“It has been brought to our attention that Jordan Hunt has been caught on camera assaulting an innocent bystander at a pro life rally,” the business wrote. “We don’t condone his actions and he has been let go. We believe that everyone has a right to an opinion and the right to voice their opinion without fear of physical violence.”
    I believe that he is a member of antifa and they believe that anybody that don't believe like they do is subhuman and deserved to be hit and abused because..well they are Nazi's...according to the left.
 
  This is a post that I did a while back about Antifa

ANTIFA has kinda exploded on the scene during the 2016 election cycle.  You saw them mostly attacking Trump supporters.   To an ANTIFA group, they consider us "Nazi's" and sub human.  Now where did they come from?   Well I believe that they are a continuation of the "Occupy Movement"

  Remember them in the 2012 and the 2014 election cycles, the "Occupy" group were center stage as "the Soldiers of Soros".  I have blogged about them frequently.  Now the Occupy groups have grown up into the "ANTIFA" movement.  They are still supported by the same cabal of leftist but now you have municipalities supporting them.  The ANTIFA movement counts as fellow allies, the BLM movement and the environmental groups.  They tend to band together to harass anybody that don't believe like they do.  And nobody can believe like they do because they are "True Believers" and everyone else will fail the ideological litmus test.  In their world, you can't have dissent, because if you do, than you are wrong and deserve to be punished for deviating from dogma.  The ANTIFA movement are the ideological soldiers of the modern Left.

It is easy to mock the ANTIFA movement as mostly feminist and beta males, and to a large extent that is accurate, but there is the hardcore center that well is "Hard". Those are the ones that do all the fighting and bicycling locking people. They have been demonizing their opponents and deriding them as "Nazi's" and when believe that your opponent is sub human, than you lose the "Taking human life" issue off the table because "we are evil and we deserve it." This is a dangerous mindset and the hardcore ANTIFA believe this and those are the ones you have to watch. You never underestimate people, especially since they are a fan of marxism and to use Mao's little red book as a reference "The Guerrilla can swim among the people and be one with them." What is going on is you have the early makings of a insurgency especially when a lot of city government supports them.

 Here are some definations from "Urban Dictionary" when I used the word "ANTIFA"

ANTIFA

Short for (militant) anti-fascists.

Middle-class champagne socialist/communist/anarchist white boys who don't like nationalists or fascists. They consider themselves to be rebelling against the establishment, whilst upholding all of its ultra-politically correct views.

Antifa only dislike racism when its carried out by whites, and do not have the bottle to stand up against anti-white racism; leading to many people on the right to refer to them as 'traitors'. I'd rather just call them morons.

Most are teenagers and university students who grow out of the fad when they start paying taxes.

Antifa is stupid. 

Anti-capitalistic, anti-personal freedom (unless you agree with them) anti-spiritual, anti-point. Harbors a social superiority with lack of civility or natural intelligence. These dim bulbs (at best) can be characterized by, greasy hair, basement dwellings and being totally devoid of any style or attraction. Usually spotted lurking at night in large groups of marauding retards of like mind (or lack thereof) near a large University or College, anywhere they can find safety in shear numbers (because their pussy's) but has been known to venture out in the daylight to antagonize, mace women, light garbage cans and cop cars on fire at DJT rallies for money.

We don't care if you're 80 years old, we are ANTIFA and were delivering a knuckle sandwich old man. 

Antifa

Short for antifascist

An antifascist is somebody who is usually young, upper to middle class(wo)man who sits in their parents house standing against racism on their computers while sipping expensive wine. Most of them are anarchists or far-leftists such as communists or Marxists (or any socialists for that matter.)

When they get off their computers and go into the real world, they usually flood the streets in packs waving red and black flags symbolizing anarcho-communism, or maybe they just fly black flags or red flags. Since they are too dumb to realize that anarchism and socialism were ideas written from behind a desk and not able to be used in reality.

Usually antifa groups will not fight in a one on one match with a skinhead, they always attack in packs or cells. However, most are vegans and/or hippies so this is understandable since they're all weaklings.

Even if you do not agree with half of what I said, these people are politically correct hippies who adopt the most mainstream political views and then they make it look like they're a special fucking snowflake.

To the Left it is all about emotionalism, no logic.  To the average leftist it is "I feel" and that is supposed to make everything right for them, but they don't realize that real life don't operate on "Feelingsz"  The attack and harassment of people from the right side of the aisle is increasing for the 2018 election cycle, and I believe that it will get worse and when Kavanaugh gets confirmed, it will be bad and if President Trump replaces Ginsburg, there will be absolute panic on the left.

                 

As far-flung as these incidents were, they have something crucial in common. Like the organizations that opposed the Multnomah County Republican Party’s participation in the 82nd Avenue of Roses Parade, these activists appear to be linked to a movement called “antifa,” which is short for antifascist or Anti-Fascist Action. The movement’s secrecy makes definitively cataloging its activities difficult, but this much is certain: Antifa’s power is growing. And how the rest of the activist left responds will help define its moral character in the Trump age.

 

Antifa traces its roots to the 1920s and ’30s, when militant leftists battled fascists in the streets of Germany, Italy, and Spain. When fascism withered after World War II, antifa did too. But in the ’70s and ’80s, neo-Nazi skinheads began to infiltrate Britain’s punk scene. After the Berlin Wall fell, neo-Nazism also gained prominence in Germany. In response, a cadre of young leftists, including many anarchists and punk fans, revived the tradition of street-level antifascism.

By the 2000s, as the internet facilitated more transatlantic dialogue, some American activists had adopted the name antifa. But even on the militant left, the movement didn’t occupy the spotlight. To most left-wing activists during the Clinton, Bush, and Obama years, deregulated global capitalism seemed like a greater threat than fascism.

Trump has changed that. For antifa, the result has been explosive growth. According to NYC Antifa, the group’s Twitter following nearly quadrupled in the first three weeks of January alone. (By summer, it exceeded 15,000.) Trump’s rise has also bred a new sympathy for antifa among some on the mainstream left. “Suddenly,” noted the antifa-aligned journal It’s Going Down, “anarchists and antifa, who have been demonized and sidelined by the wider Left have been hearing from liberals and Leftists, ‘you’ve been right all along.’ ” An article in The Nation argued that “to call Trumpism fascist” is to realize that it is “not well combated or contained by standard liberal appeals to reason.” The radical left, it said, offers “practical and serious responses in this political moment.”

Those responses sometimes spill blood. Since antifa is heavily composed of anarchists, its activists place little faith in the state, which they consider complicit in fascism and racism. They prefer direct action: They pressure venues to deny people whom they believe to be white supremacists space to meet. They pressure employers to fire them and landlords to evict them. And when people they deem racists and fascists manage to assemble, antifa’s partisans try to break up their gatherings, including by force.

 I am not sure what the future will bring, but I see all the fighting in the streets and I recall pictures of Germany in the 1920's and early 30's when the brown shirts squashed all dissent and burned books and other things to force people to conform to a certain ideology and if they didn't they went to one of these places..

I am afraid things will happen again like before.  When people forget the lessons of history, they are doomed to repeat it.  And the sad thing is that history isn't really taught anymore unless it is politically correct.    

Fehsenturm Berlin

I had posted this article back in 2012 while surfing for some Berlin stuff, the anniversary for the fall of the Berlin wall is coming soon so I figured it would be a pertinent post and I updated it a little.  

When I went to Berlin for the first time in 1987, I drove the  Helmstedt Berlin Autobahn with Check Point Alpha to Check Point Bravo.  We used "flag orders" that basically had a picture of the American Flag with our names on it in both English, French and Russian.  It gave us travel rights to Berlin through the corridor.  We had to stop at 2 Soviet Checkpoints on the autobahn and unless you "donated" a porn magazine to the Russians behind a wall, you waited exactly 45 minutes for them to stamp your flag orders all the while surrounded by Soviet propaganda for example "Why the American Pershing II missile was a threat to world peace, but somehow the Soviet  SS-20 was exempt, funny how that worked out with the protestors, but I digress.  After your flag order was stamped( I framed one of mine) so you can proceed to the next check point.

 Generic Flag orders.  I wouldn't use mine for

the pic because it has my SSN on it.

  You also had an opportunity to give the guard some money for a soviet military badge or something.( I have a couple laying around).  After you got to  West Berlin it was a 24 hour party.  I had an opportunity to go to East Berlin through the Famous Checkpoint Charlie.
     there were Other Berlin Border Crossings but we couldn't use them by the status of forces agreement and the 4 powers occupation of Berlin.  Berlin still was considered an "occupied" city outside the purview of West Germany and it was run by the Garrison commander of Berlin. 

We were not told to acknowledge the East German Guards since we considered East Germany not the "real" Germany...That was West Germany for us.  The Soviets had the same attitude toward the West Germans.  Once we crossed over to East Berlin, it was dour compared to West Berlin.  We saw scaffolding everywhere so it looked like it was under construction but I still saw the bullet holes in the walls where Marshall Zhukov 1st Bellerussian front crashed into the city in what the locals called Gotterdammerung. or the End of the battle in the east.  If we were hassled by the GDR, we were told to say "Ich Musche mit eine Soviet officer mit zum sprechen."  Here is one of the sights I saw in East Berlin
      
   One of the sights of East Berlin was the Fernsehturm

This is called the "Popes Revenge"  The reason for that was that the Church gave money to the East German government to repair and fix the churches in East Germany, well the East Germans being ardent Godless communist took the money and built this tower instead.
When the sun shines on the Fernsehturm's tiled stainless steel dome, the reflection usually appears in the form of a crucifix. This effect was neither predicted nor desired by the planners. Berliners immediately named the luminous cross Rache des Papstes, or "Pope's Revenge". For the same reasons, the structure was also called "St. Walter" (from Walter Ulbricht).
U.S. President Ronald Reagan mentioned this phenomenon in his "Tear down this wall" speech on 12 June 1987:

"Years ago, before the East Germans began rebuilding their churches, they erected a secular structure: the television tower at Alexanderplatz. Virtually ever since, the authorities have been working to correct what they view as the tower's one major flaw: treating the glass sphere at the top with paints and chemicals of every kind. Yet even today when the sun strikes that sphere, that sphere that towers over all Berlin, the light makes the sign of the cross. There in Berlin, like the city itself, symbols of love, symbols of worship, cannot be suppressed."

The Fernsehturm (German for "television tower") is a television tower in the city centre of Berlin, Germany. Close to Alexanderplatz and part of the World Federation of Great Towers (WFGT), the tower was constructed between 1965 and 1969 by the former German Democratic Republic (GDR) administration who intended it as a symbol of Berlin, which it remains today, as it is easily visible throughout the central and some suburban districts of Berlin. The Fernsehturm is the tallest structure in Germany.

In 1964, Walter Ulbricht, leader of the Socialist Unity Party which governed East Germany, decided to allow the construction of a television tower on Alexanderplatz, modelled on the Fernsehturm Stuttgart. IT was intended as a show of the GDR's strength, while its location is thought to have been deliberately chosen so that it would impose on views of West Berlin's Reichstag building (when viewed from the front). The architecture traces back to an idea from Hermann Henselmann, and Jörg Streitparth. Walter Herzog and Herbert Aust later also took part in the planning. Construction began on 4 August 1965. After four years of construction, the Fernsehturm began test broadcasts on 3 October 1969, and it was officially inaugurated four days later on the GDR's National Day. It is among the best known sights in Berlin, and has around a million visitors every year.

Construction of the tower had initially begun at a site in southeast Berlin's Müggelberg. However, the project was stopped because such a tall tower in that location would have obstructed aircraft entering and leaving from the nearby Schönefeld International Airport