This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Category: Historical

  • Guest post; John McCain and the USS Forrestal fire

    Guest post; John McCain and the USS Forrestal fire

    Atkron sends us the following, his work on John McCain and the fire on the USS Forrestal;

    I’m not a big fan of John McCain, ever since he took the side of Airbus over Boeing in the whole new Aerial Refueling Tanker fiasco from around ten years ago. I think, like many politicians, John McCain is in the pockets of special interest groups.

    All that aside, McCain did not initiate the fire that claimed 164 lives onboard USS Forrestal on July 29, 1967. The attached meme states that McCain was showing off, and caused a wet start which in turn started the fire that turned into a tragedy.

    What did cause the fire?

    Pulled ground safety pins and stray voltage in the armament system caused a Zuni Rocket to fire off from the F-4 it was loaded on, and into an A-4 (which may have been McCain’s or the aircraft directly beside his.) This first explosion released all the fuel in the stricken A-4 onto the deck underneath an entire row of Attack aircraft loaded for the days strike missions inside enemy territory. Eventually the flames started cooking off the ordnance, the first of these explosions took out Chief Ferrier, and most of the repair locker responsible for flight deck firefighting. The chief is the man shown on the PLAT footage running into the flames with a PKP Bottle that disappears when the ordnance explodes.

    Many mistakes were made that day, most of which were unknown errors until the analysis provided the cause. The US Navy, like many other organizations, write the vast majority of their safety instructions in blood. Meaning, that someone has to get injured or killed before something changes. Here is what the Navy learned:

    1) Prior to anything being loaded onto a weapons station a stray voltage check must be performed
    2) Ground safety pins will only be pulled right before taxiing (while ashore), at the runway hold short (ashore), or at the catapult (while at-sea).
    3) Repair lockers will no longer be utilized on the flight deck
    4) All personnel that work on, or around, the flight deck will be flight deck firefighting certified
    a. Certification involves actually fighting fires in a training environment
    The people spreading this lie have obviously never worked in Naval Aviation (USN/USMC), and most definitely they never worked a day on the flight deck otherwise they would realize a few glaring discrepancies in their narrative.
    A) A wet start is when the pilot applies too much throttle before igniting the engine
    a. Think of it like flooding the engine of your car
    B) A wet start would be recognized by the Plane Captain (PC) as a mist exiting the tail pipe
    a. The PC would then continue to point aft while fanning his face with his other hand
    b. The pilot will recognize this to mean wet start
    c. The pilot and PC will then windmill the engine until the tail pipe is free from vapor
    C) Wet starts do not cause fires, a wet start CAN cause a Hot Start
    a. The PC upon seeing flames come out of the tail pipe would continue to point aft, and this time draw a sideways lazy 8 in the air with his other hand
    b. The pilot would recognize this to mean Hot Start
    c. The pilot and PC will windmill the engine until the flames go away
    D) McCain’s airplane was tail over water (TOW) how would flames going out of an exhaust ejector start a huge fire if the flames were headed out over the water?
    a. This assumes he had a wet start/hot start
    E) Plane Captains are trained to recognize these scenarios, and must go to a board review in order to become qualified as a Plane Captain for their type aircraft.
    a. I was a Plane Captain for A-7E Corsair II’s and F/A-18C Hornets
    F) Not one swinging dick that was on deck that day fault McCain for the fire
    a. Question has been asked multiple times on the Forrestal Facebook Group

    I am sick and tired of this story about McCain being at fault, he may be a lot of things…but he is not responsible for killing 164 men, and injuring another 161.
    Here, watch Trial by Fire:

    We watched that film in Boot Camp, A-School, and during Flight Deck Firefighting School; part of the lessons learned by the Navy…to train new Sailors to fight the ship properly.

    I served onboard USS Forrestal during the work-ups and cruise during 1989-90 with VA-105. Our 96 man berthing was on the O3 Level right below where those explosions took place. In fact, if I were a betting man, I would bet that some of the holes in the deck on that day opened up into our berthing. That, coupled with the plaque that was displayed in Hangar bay 1 to commemorate the dead made this subject pretty near and dear to my heart.

  • “This day is called the feast of Crispian”

    Today is Saint Crispin’s Day and the anniversary of the Battle of Agincourt in 1415 during the Hundred Years War and immortalized in Shakespeare’s “Henry V” who gave us the “Band of Brothers” speech.

    This day is called the feast of Crispian:
    He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
    Will stand a tip-toe when the day is named,
    And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
    He that shall live this day, and see old age,
    Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
    And say ‘To-morrow is Saint Crispian’:
    Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars.
    And say ‘These wounds I had on Crispin’s day.’
    Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot,
    But he’ll remember with advantages
    What feats he did that day: then shall our names.
    Familiar in his mouth as household words
    Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter,
    Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,
    Be in their flowing cups freshly remember’d.
    This story shall the good man teach his son;
    And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by,
    From this day to the ending of the world,
    But we in it shall be remember’d;
    We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
    For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
    Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
    This day shall gentle his condition:
    And gentlemen in England now a-bed
    Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
    And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
    That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.

    –Henry V, Act IV, Scene 3.

  • 34th Anniversary of Urgent Fury – the liberation of Grenada

    34th Anniversary of Urgent Fury – the liberation of Grenada

    URGENT FURY

    Today marks the 34th anniversary of Operation Urgent fury in which elements of the 82d Airborne Division, US Marines, 1st and 2d Ranger Battalions, Navy SEALs and others liberated the island of Grenada from Communist control.

    About 7600 US troops pried loose the relatively light Cuban and Soviet presence on the island. The Grenadan Army was about 1200 souls, they were reinforced with a rogue’s gallery of Cold War-era badies;

    Cuba: 780
    Soviet Union: 49
    North Korea: 24
    East Germany: 16
    Bulgaria: 14
    Libya: 3 or 4

    Of course, the UK and Canada complained that invasion was a flagrant violation of international law, despite the pleas to the US from Organization of American States for intervention when the prime minister of Grenada was murdered in a power struggle.

    Wiki says about the casualties;

    Nearly eight thousand soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines had participated in Operation Urgent Fury along with 353 Caribbean allies of the Caribbean Peace Forces (CPF). U.S. Forces sustained 19 killed and 116 wounded; Cuban forces sustained 25 killed, 59 wounded and 638 combatants captured. Grenadian forces casualties were 45 killed and 358 wounded; at least 24 civilians were killed, several of whom were killed in the accidental bombing of a Grenadian mental hospital.

    In Grenada, today is known as Thanksgiving Day and it’s a national holiday.

  • Happy Birthday, Dr. Johnson

    While we are contemplating the possibility of mass destruction by the pompous pompadour-coiffed popinjay in North Korea, we might take a few minutes to remind ourselves that every day is someone’s birthday.

    Today just happens to be Dr. Samuel Johnson’s 308th birthday.  And who is he, pray tell?  Why, I do thank you kindly for asking.  The esteemed Sr. Johnson was, among other things, a lexicographer, someone he defined as “a writer of dictionaries; a harmless drudge that busies himself in tracing the original, and detailing the signification of words”. He was also a poet, a critic, a satirist, an author and a dyed-in-the-wool conservative.

    In regard to his birthday, he wrote: “The return of my birthday, if I remember it, fills me with thoughts which it seems to be the general care of humanity to escape.”  A few of his somewhat sardonic definitions follow:

    Cough: A convulsion of the lungs, vellicated by some sharp serosity.

    Distiller: One who makes and sells pernicious and inflammatory spirits.

    Dull: Not exhilaterating (sic); not delightful; as, to make dictionaries is dull work.

    Excise: A hateful tax levied upon commodities, and adjudged not by the common judges of property, but by wretches hired by those to whom excise is paid.

    Far-fetch: A deep stratagem. A ludicrous word.

    Jobbernowl: Loggerhead; blockhead. (This is also spelled ‘jobbernoll’ by some Regency Romance authors.)

    Oats: A grain, which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland appears to support the people.

    Patron: One who countenances, supports or protects. Commonly, a wretch who supports with insolence, and is paid with flattery.

    Pension: An allowance made to any one without an equivalent. In England it is generally understood to mean pay given to a state hireling for treason to his country.

    (N.B.: He might define it even more wittily and acerbically now.)

    Politician: 1. One versed in the arts of government; one skilled in politicks. 2. A man of artifice; one of deep contrivance.

    Rant:  high sounding language unsupported by dignity of thought.

    Tory: One who adheres to the ancient constitution of the state, and the apostolical hierarchy of the church of England; opposed to a Whig.

    Whig: The name of a faction; one of our unhappy terms of disunion. (He left out that Whig stands for We Hope In God, but did include the history of the term.)

    To worm: To deprive a dog of something, nobody knows what, under his tongue, which is said to prevent him, nobody knows why, from running mad.

    The meanings of some words have changed since 1755. For example, in Johnson’s time a cruise was “a small cup”, a high-flier was someone who “carries his opinions to extravagance,” a recipe was “a medical prescription”, and a urinator was “a diver; one who searches under water.”

    When Dr. Johnson decided to catalog and define the English language, it was not the first attempt by anyone to do so. More than twenty dictionaries had appeared over the previous two hundred years, thanks to the use of movable type. The French (“immortals” of l’Académie Francaise) had spent 55 years compiling their four volume edition of the French language. Since Dr. Johnson took a dim view of the French, he stated firmly that he could do better, and in less time. It took him about eight years and six assistants, spent collecting and defining a vocabulary of words that were in common use in the 18th century, but some of which are now obscure. His stated goal was to standardize the English language which was as much in flux in the 18th century as it is now.

    In his efforts to comprise his compendium of common and sometimes not so common words, he left us with a near-complete version of that tome of our recorded language, the dictionary of the English language, first published in 1755. His goal was to standardize the language. He also addressed grammar and spelling.

    There are several versions of Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary available on Amazon, if you’re interested.  Jack Lynch has compiled a compendium of acerbic observations by Mr. Johnson, titled “Samuel Johnson’s Insults: A Compendium of Snubs, Sneers, Slights and Effronteries from the Eighteenth-Century Master”, if you’re thinking of a need to expand your insult vocabulary.

    There is also available a reproduction of the 1828 American Dictionary of English, compiled by Noah Webster, which may contain words which are now obscure and out of common use. In a hopefully brief age of political correctness, its contents may be a breath of fresh air.

    I tend to prefer print books, in case I have no electronic resource engine available. Print books can be read by candlelight or oil lamp, whereas the electronic versions of everything require electricity when their batteries run down.

    There is available online, Phrontistery, a website devoted to acquiring, defining and saving for future use, archaic, obscure and sometimes infrequently used words in the English language, for those who need a quick click option to find something useful. It should be considered  as valuable a resource for a writer as any dictionary.

    The original version of Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary in print form weighed 22 pounds. The Oxford Unabridged Dictionary, which is updated every year, weighs 137.2 pounds in the hardcover print edition, requires 6,243 pounds of ink (3.25 tons) to print. It’s a good thing that the Oxford Unabridged is available online.

    Those Oxford Unabridged people give you everything, including the language of origin for words, as did Dr. Johnson, but some of his definitions, as quoted above, simply amuse us. It appears that Dr. Johnson’s lexicon might provide more laughter and less of a load on your back. It is not that he indulged in endless witticisms. He waxed rhapsodic, for example, over the various varieties of cabbages available for consumption, when defining cabbage. He was nothing if not thorough.

    So do join me in lifting a glass of your favorite beverage to Samuel Johnson and wish him a happy 308th birthday. Even Google gave him a Google icon today. We should all hope to carry on for so long.

  • 9-11 Timeline

    The following was written by MCPO USN NYC (Ret) and posted at his request;

    Lest we forget 16 years ago today . . .

     

    7:59 am – American Airlines Flight 11, a Boeing 767 with 92 people aboard, takes off from Boston’s Logan International Airport en route to Los Angeles.

    8:14 am – United Airlines Flight 175, a Boeing 767 with 65 people aboard, takes off from Boston; it is also headed to Los Angeles.

    8:19 am – Flight attendants aboard Flight 11 alert ground personnel that the plane has been hijacked; American Airlines notifies the FBI.

    8:20 am – American Airlines Flight 77 takes off from Dulles International Airport outside of Washington, D.C. The Boeing 757 is headed to Los Angeles with 64 people aboard.

    8:24 am – Hijacker Mohammed Atta makes the first of two accidental transmissions from Flight 11 to ground control (apparently in an attempt to communicate with the plane’s cabin).

    8:41 am – United Airlines Flight 93, a Boeing 757 with 44 people aboard, takes off from Newark International Airport en route to San Francisco. It had been scheduled to depart at 8:00 am, around the time of the other hijacked flights.

    8:46 am – Mohammed Atta and the other hijackers aboard American Airlines Flight 11 crash the plane into floors 93-99 of the North Tower of the World Trade Center, killing everyone on board and hundreds inside the building.

    8:47 am – Within seconds, NYPD and FDNY forces dispatch units to the World Trade Center, while Port Authority Police Department officers on site begin immediate evacuation of the North Tower.

    9:03 am – Hijackers crash United Airlines Flight 175 into floors 75-85 of the WTC’s South Tower, killing everyone on board and hundreds inside the building

    9:08 am – The FAA bans all takeoffs of flights going to New York City or through the airspace around the city.

    9:21 am – The Port Authority closes all bridges and tunnels in the New York City area.

    9:24 am – The FAA notified NEADS of the suspected hijacking of Flight 77 after some passengers and crew aboard are able to alert family members on the ground.

    9:37 am – Hijackers aboard Flight 77 crash the plane into the western façade of the

    Pentagon in Washington, D.C., killing 59 aboard the plane and 125 military and civilian personnel inside the building.

    9:59 am – The South Tower of the World Trade Center collapses.

    10:07 am – After passengers and crew members aboard the hijacked Flight 93 contact friends and family and learn about the attacks in New York and Washington, they mount an attempt to retake the plane. In response, hijackers deliberately crash the plane into a field in Somerset County,

    Pennsylvania, killing all 40 passengers and crew aboard.

    10:28 am – The World Trade Center’s North Tower collapses, 102 minutes after being struck by Flight 11.

    5:20 pm – The 47-story Seven World Trade Center collapses after burning for hours; the building had been evacuated in the morning, and there are no casualties, though the collapse forces rescue workers to flee for their lives.

    8:30 pm – President Bush addresses the nation, calling the attacks “evil, despicable acts of terror” and declaring that America, its friends and allies would “stand together to win the war against terrorism.”

    . . .

    Editorial Note: At approximately 0100 on May 2, 2011, a 79 member joint team, including MWD Cairo, delivered by the Night Stalkers and operating with Naval Special Warfare Development Group (DEVGRU aka SEAL Team SIX) RED Squadron raided a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan and killed Osama bin Laden with one shot to the head followed by another shot to the chest. Mission Commander of OPERATION NEPTUNE SPEAR and DEVGRU RED Squadron OIC on scene reported, “for God and country … Geronimo, Geronimo, Geronimo”, and then, after being prompted for confirmation, “Geronimo E.K.I.A.” (enemy killed in action). Within 24 hours of his death, the lifeless and soulless body of bin Laden was unceremoniously dumped in to the Indian Ocean by a lone junior Sailor from the USS Carl Vincent for the sharks and sea snakes to feed upon.

  • Post-Combat Drunken Orgies Okay

    Image result for pictures of ancient roman armor

    6th Victrix Tribune (Ret.) Fabius Flatulus Maximus was kind enough to give me some of his time in retirement for another interview. He’s been fascinated by the game of golf, but can’t imagine anyone chasing a little white ball around a mowed lawn with holes in it.

    I did explain to him that it was a game invented by the Scots, who used to be known as the Pictish tribes.

    “Oh! Those birdbrains! Why didn’t you say so!” He laughed. “Yeah, we just called all of them Gauls or Galicians and ignored their tribal cacaisms. Pissed them off no end. We built the Antonine Wall under Antoninus Pius, after ol’ Hadrian built his wall to keep them on their side of the fence. Ours was bigger. And longer. Kept the troops busy, too. How can I help you?”

    I explained the whole business of sexual harassment and sexual misconduct in the units, and he stopped me right there.

    “Whoa! Misconduct?” He shook his head and snorted. “Sexual misconduct?”

    I nodded.

    “I did not know there was such a thing,” he remarked.

    I gave him a copy of the latest bit of tight-as-a-drumhead lecture on ‘look but don’t touch, and don’t look, either’. He let out a bellow of laughter, which went on until his eyes were watering and he finally caught his breath.

    “Who wrote this nonsense?” he asked. “What is he? Castratus? Oportet mihi te cacare!1”

    I answered ‘No, it seems that it has to do with a lack of understanding of things like the fight or flight response and human nature’s need to breed, once territory is confirmed in friendly hands. The modern military is very, very uptight about such things. They don’t like the troops patronizing prostitutes, either.”

    His response to that was quite straightforward.

    “There is nothing wrong with having a little post-combat orgy, as long as too much wine isn’t spilled and no one gets into knife fights. It’s okay if they have chest bumping contests for amusement, too,” he said, “or a javelin throw using leftover skulls as targets. Relieves stress, you know.  And no patronizing prostitutes? How are those girls supposed to make a living? About all they have is their good looks, you know.  But you’re putting women in combat?”

    I nodded.

    “Must be wretchedly mulierii ieiunio2. Carnarius sum, sed pinguiarius non sum3. If they’re really worried about this misconduct issue, they could try recruiting women from the Isle of Lesbos over near Greece. But are these Amazons any good at killing the barbarians?” he asked.

    I assured him they were trained properly for the job. But the general concern was that post-combat stress would lead to improper and inappropriate sexual conduct.

    He stared at me for a moment, then burst into more raucous laughter.

    “Inappropriate what??? Whoever comes up with this stuff,” he said, “has to be psychotic! Iignosce mihi4, but we always approved drunken orgies after a battle. Spoils of war and all that. It relieves the troops’ stress as long as no one really overdoes it. Takes the cork out of the amphora, so to speak. We let ‘em party until they pass out. Then they get to work hard the next day, doing things like armor repair and carpentry and building stone walls. In the sun. Under really bad-tempered centurions.”

    “Well, what about the rape of the Sabine women?” I asked.

    “Hey, I had nothing to do with that! It happened six hundred sixty years before I was born. My granny told me it was half and half. Some of those Sabine women were desperate for real men, so when the Romans showed up, off they went. Those flabby Etruscans like to lie their asses off about everything, you know, and they didn’t want to lose their monopoly on trade with local farmers. When we showed up, we brought competition. That, and muscles.”

    “Well, I’m glad we got that straightened out,” I said. “So Livy was wrong?”

    “Mostly. And anyway, who cooked up this nonsense? Some pig-eyed male virgin with a squint?”

    I said no, it was purported to have been the fault of some jug-eared guy with a big nose who talks to himself a lot.

    “Figures,” he said. “Sounds like something Little Boots would do. Or Commodus.”

    Rough Latin translations below:

    1 A eunuch? You gotta be shittin’ me!

    2 Bony broads

    3 I’m a meat lover, not a fat lover.

    4 Excuse me, but…

  • Harold Frank is not a D-Day veteran

    Harold Frank is not a D-Day veteran

    This is the saddest story of embellishment that I hope will ever make it to these pages.

    Harold Frank has been celebrated as the last survivor of Gulf Company, 357th Infantry Regiment of the 90th Infantry Division’s invasion of France on D-Day, June 6th, 1944. From an interview with Mr Franks;

    From the June 6 landing on D-Day until July 4, Frank said, he and his fellow soldiers fought without relief.

    From an article just late last year;

    Frank is the last living survivor from Company G 2nd Battalion 357th Infantry that landed at Utah Beach, 90th Division historians indicate.

    The problem is that Mr Franks wasn’t with G/357th on D-Day, he was afloat with a replacement unit, the 350th Replacement Company. In fact, according to morning reports, G/357th was still afloat in the English Channel on D-Day and they didn’t land until June 8th – Franks joined them on June 16th;

    The rest of his story is true – he was wounded and captured by Germans on July 8th at the Battle for Hill 122 – Foret de Mont Castre and held in a POW camp for the remaining ten months of the war until his release in May 1945;

    Frank’s story has become part of the history of D-Day, thanks to his collaboration with an historian, Mark Hagan, who recently learned the truth about Franks and had to pull a documentary about him because of his D-Day lie. I’m at a loss to explain why he felt the need to embellish his time in the military to include the D-Day invasion. He earned a Combat Infantryman Badge, a Purple Heart and Bronze Star, for Pete’s sake.

  • The Dazzling Brilliance of Poodle Logic

    One of our frequent commenters made a comment the other day that caught my attention. I felt compelled to respond.

    Why?  Because that comment reached a new low, even for “That Guy”, in terms of fallacious argument.  So I thought I’d point out to the individual the error of his argument, just in case he might possibly learn something from the correction. Based on past experience, I rather doubt he will; but you never know.

    The comment in question can be found here.  It purports to show, by giving examples of their behavior, that “of course the Nazis were right-wing” (or words to that effect).

    Now, people who are even passingly familiar with logic probably already see the problem with that argument.  Since That Guy often seems to have a problem grasping simple concepts, I’ll spell things out for his benefit.

    The major fallacy in that argument is that it assumes that a particular behavior by government is reliably indicative of whether that government is “right wing” or “left wing.”  That is, “If a government does a certain thing (‘X’), then it is a ‘right wing’ government.”  If that assumption is incorrect, the argument falls apart completely.

    Unfortunately, that assumption is not universally true.  Given similar circumstances both “right wing” and “left wing” governments often behave similarly.  Therefore, any argument that “because a government did “X”, it is therefore “right wing” (or “left wing”) is invalid – because here the “if” doesn’t invariably lead to the “then”.

    In order to demonstrate just how asinine this particular false argument really is, I’m going to have a bit of fun.  Below, I’m going to use literally the individual’s own bogus argument to “prove” that the government of the Soviet Union was “right wing”.  I’ll do so by making minor revisions to the individual’s comment – which will be presented in italics – but I’ll leave the original logical structure, and most of it’s original language, completely intact.

    Enjoy.

    (Note:  the grammatical errors and awkward/incomplete sentence structure in what follows are present in the original; I left them in place because I wanted to make as few changes as possible to the original.  I’ve marked many of those errors carried over from the original appropriately, but I won’t guarantee I got them all.)

    . . .

    [BEGIN RE-WRITTEN ARGUMENT]

    So lets (sic) look that (sic) the characteristic (sic) of SOVIET SOCIALISM based on what THEY ACTUALLY DID. Not merely the rhetoric of speeches made during the decades after they rose to power.  (sic)

    Powerful and Continuing Socialist Symbology: They used symbols of  Soviet Socialist unity everywhere. Flags, slogans, songs, pins, banners, and other regalia. (sic)

    Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights: The Soviets approval (sic) the use of torture, and summary executions of prisoners. Their disdain for human rights was particularly true when targeting political dissidents or ethnic minorities desiring autonomy.

    Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause: The Soviets were notorious for blaming foreign influence, capitalists, and “reactionary elements” for the problems in the nation.

    Supremacy of the Military: The Soviet military was given a disproportionate amount of government funding. Soldiers and military service were glamorized.

    (Sidebar:  there’s a very good reason the Soviet Union during the Cold War was on occasion referred to as “Upper Volta with Missiles”.  Outside the larger cities, the  infrastructure and civilian economy of the Soviet Union reputedly was closer to third-world than first-world standards during much of the Cold War.  The reason?  An absurdly huge fraction of the Soviet Union’s economic production was going towards the nation’s military.)

    Rampant Sexism: Soviet Leadership was almost exclusively male-dominated (one member four members in Politburo history were female). While either gender was in theory free to “be all they could be”, in practice traditional gender roles remained traditional and largely unchanged. Rampant homophobia and anti-gay legislation and national policy. (sic)

    Initially Blamed and Scapegoated the Media, then Took Control of Media:  Prior to the October Revolution, “the Bolsheviks denounced the press itself as being openly hostile and protecting the ‘rotten’ regime of Nicolas II”.  And when they took control they targeted the press and immediately took control over it (e.g., during the October Revolution, by decree).

    Obsession with National Security: The Soviet government’s use of fear and the constant rhetoric of threats post (sic) domestic and international as a motivational tool by the Soviet  government over the masses was ubiquitous.

    Religion and Government were Intertwined: The Bolshevik leadership was overwhelmingly Atheist and when they took power the (sic) persecuted Orthodox Christians and Muslims. Lenin, Stalin, and later Soviet leaders attempted to substitute State Atheism as a de facto state religion and unifying force. That failed, but notions of a unified and pure Atheist Soviet Socialist State obsessed Soviet leadership. They thought religion was a corrupting and dividing influence on the purity and strength of Soviet Socialism and it (sic) needed to be replaced for the good of Soviet Socialism. Their long game was a ubiquitous state-sponsored Atheism that would replace religion and become a source of unity in the country rather than one of division.

    Labor Power was Suppressed: Because the organizing power of labor (particularly independent worker movements) was a threat to Socialist government, in the Soviet Union labor unions were either eliminated, co-opted, or controlled by the Soviet government.

    Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts: In the Soviet Union, free expression in the arts was openly attacked. Intellectuals and artists were targeted and jailed.

    Obsession with Crime and Punishment: In the Soviet Union, police and other internal security personnel were given almost limitless power to enforce laws – and if necessary, to act completely outside them. Physical abuse and violence by police and other government security agents was overlooked because it was very unwise to criticize the government because it was regarded as taking the side of “reactionary elements”. (awkward, run-on sentence structure from original)

    It is clear that in actual ACTIONS that SOVIET SOCIALISM was  a RIGHT WING movement.

    [END RE-WRITTEN ARGUMENT]

    . . .

    Astute readers will note one omission in the above.  The paragraph in the original comment beginning, “Corporate Power is Protected:  . . . .” is not addressed.

    That was by design.  I didn’t address that paragraph because it was absurd on its face.  “Central control via a combination of coercion, intimidation, appropriation, and regulation” is decidedly not the same as a “partnership”.

    A cursory review the 1931 National Socialist Program – particularly points 11-17 – clearly shows that the Nazis envisioned government control over the means of production if and when they gained political control. After they attained power, they took action to achieve this.  They were so successful that none other than Albert Speer himself opined that “a kind of state socialism seemed to be gaining more and more ground”, and further warned that Germany’s industry was becoming “the framework for a state-socialist economic order.”  In short:  the Nazis were actively working to gain central control of Germany’s means of economic production – and were succeeding.

    Oh, and starting in 1936 the Nazis also instituted “Four Year Plans” for the German economy.  Sound familiar?  It should – and it also sounds to me as if they were trying to “one-up” the Soviet Union’s well-known Five Year Plans.

    Bottom line:  that paragraph in the original comment was so absurd on its face that IMO it was already a parody of historical reality.  So I didn’t bother to even attempt to re-write it as parody.

    . . .

    As I said above, I hope most readers have enjoyed this article.  Or, if you’re a leftist tool who doesn’t like looking like an idiot . . . maybe you’ll take it’s lesson to heart, learn to think – and use logical reasoning – before you wax ignorant once again.  But I’m not holding my breath.

    Especially if you’re going to imply, inaccurately, that I’m lying the next time you wax ignorant, clown.  For that bit of mendacity, let me pass along to you a message from TG – which I heartily endorse.

     

     

    Let me know if you need that translated.

     

     

    (Author’s Note: Edited to account a minor factual error in the original article. Later research showed that three women besides Yekaterina Furtseva had briefly been members of the Soviet Politburo/Central Committee – one during the immediate post-Revolutionary period, and two others near the end of Gorbachev’s regime.)