Bring the GWOT Home

Silverfiddle Rant!

Trump’s Opposition to ‘Endless Wars’ Appeals to Those Who Fought Them

Tyler Wade was awarded the Purple Heart while serving in Afghanistan, and says he is “proud of everything” he did during his service. He also believes the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan were a mistake, as do a growing number of veterans — from retired generals to those who served across the enlisted ranks...

The Nations In America’s Backyard Are Falling Apart While The U.S. Remains Stuck In The Middle East

While we play Sisyphus in the Middle East, Mexico and Central America are wracked with violence. It cannot help but spill over into the US.  In some ways, it already has.  Mexican drug gangs are operating in the US, as are Central American gangs, preying on the very people who came here to escape them.

Is Mexico a Failed State?

A more important question:

What happens if the Mexican government loses control and we end up with a Somalia on our southern border?

That is when we will see a real refugee crisis.  By the millions.  Up-armored drug cartels routed the Mexican Army in a failed raid and forced the Mexican government to hand over El Chapo's son who they had just captured, and this week we learned of the horrific murder of Americans just south of our border.

Is it time to militarize our border? Should we consider treating violent US, Mexican and Central American gangs like the terrorists they are? Special Ops raids? Attack by drones?  Targeted assassinations?

Does Western Civilization even have the brains and the balls anymore to defeat this terrorism?

The Danger Of AOC

Worth a few moments of your time, and please watch the entire video before commenting:

"There's a darker side to AOC... she's an unapologetic bigot."

Tucker Carlson explains why AOC is so famous: she's authentic. And that's why she's so dangerous. She has bigoted views and yet she's still popular and enabled by the media. pic.twitter.com/aK4VB6HRsE

— (((Jason Rantz))) on KTTH Radio (@jasonrantz) October 31, 2019

Do you agree with Tucker Carlson that AOC's agenda and rhetoric are indeed the future of America?

Open Thread Weekend

So, what's on your mind?

Two links to get this thread started:

1) University Students Need ‘Trigger Warning’ to Study Grimm’s Fairy Tales [AOW rolls eyes]

and

2) Mid-Week in Pictures: Hero Dog Edition [Something on the lighter side].

Here is your chance to opine within the parameters listed below:

We welcome civil dialogue at Always on Watch. Comments that include any of the following are subject to deletion:
1. Any use of profanity or abusive language
2. Off topic comments and spam
3. Use of personal invective

Note: comments consisting of blog gossip will be deleted as soon as an administrator of this blog becomes aware of such comments.

Boo!

(For politics, please scroll down)

I wish that the narrator of the video below didn't talk fast as a speeding freight train. Even so, the stories are quite interesting:



A little spooky music and animation (Danse Macabre by Camille Saint-Saëns, 1835-1921):


About the above piece:

According to legend, Death appears at midnight every year on Halloween. Death calls forth the dead from their graves to dance for him while he plays his fiddle (here represented by a solo violin). His skeletons dance for him until the rooster crows at dawn, when they must return to their graves until the next year.

The piece opens with a harp playing a single note, D, twelve times (the twelve strokes of midnight) which is accompanied by soft chords from the string section. The solo violin enters playing the tritone, which was known as the diabolus in musica ("the Devil in music") during the Medieval and Baroque eras, consisting of an A and an E♭—in an example of scordatura tuning, the violinist's E string has actually been tuned down to an E♭ to create the dissonant tritone.

The first theme is heard on a solo flute, followed by the second theme, a descending scale on the solo violin which is accompanied by soft chords from the string section. The first and second themes, or fragments of them, are then heard throughout the various sections of the orchestra. The piece becomes more energetic and at its midpoint, right after a contrapuntal section based on the second theme, there is a direct quote played by the woodwinds of Dies irae, a Gregorian chant from the Requiem that is melodically related to the work's second theme. The Dies irae is presented unusually in a major key. After this section the piece returns to the first and second themes and climaxes with the full orchestra playing very strong dynamics. Then there is an abrupt break in the texture and the coda represents the dawn breaking (a cockerel's crow, played by the oboe) and the skeletons returning to their graves.

The piece makes particular use of the xylophone to imitate the sounds of rattling bones.

Read more HERE.

Here's another: "In the Hall of the Mountain King" from Peer Gynt, Suite No. 1, Op. 46 by Edvard Grieg (1843-1907):


About the above piece:

The piece is played as the title character Peer Gynt, in a dream-like fantasy, enters "Dovregubbens (the troll Mountain King's) hall". The scene's introduction continues: "There is a great crowd of troll courtiers, gnomes and goblins. Dovregubben sits on his throne, with crown and sceptre, surrounded by his children and relatives. Peer Gynt stands before him. There is a tremendous uproar in the hall." The lines sung are the first lines in the scene.

Grieg himself wrote "For the Hall of the Mountain King I have written something that so reeks of cowpats, ultra-Norwegianism, and 'to-thyself-be-enough-ness' that I can't bear to hear it, though I hope that the irony will make itself felt." The theme of "to thyself be... enough" – avoiding the commitment implicit in the phrase "To thine own self be true" and just doing enough – is central to Peer Gynt's satire, and the phrase is discussed by Peer and the mountain king in the scene which follows the piece.

Read more HERE.

And from the best-selling album of all time (performed by Michael Jackson and produced by Quincy Jones) :


The entire album is HERE (15,838,789 views as of the time of this posting). But not everyone's cup of tea, I know.

Famous Washington Post Obituaries

Silverfiddle Rant!

The election of President Donald J. Trump has driven Democrats batshite crazy, to include the 95% of the Infotainment Media Complex that shamelessly acts as a blaring propaganda outlet for the Democrat Party.

The Washington Post went full leftwing loon wackadoo and posted this headline:

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, austere religious scholar at helm of Islamic State, dies at 48

This demented idiocy launched a thousand parodies.

Here are a few of my favorites:

Charles Manson, noted family man, charismatic singer/songwriter and aspiring Hollywood socialite, passes away at 83.

11/28/94: Jeffrey Dahmer, who pushed the boundaries of culinary innovation, died today at the age of 34. Dahmer's murder makes him yet the latest victim of the rampant homophobia that transpires in Newt Gingrich's America

John Wilkes Booth, acclaimed actor, entrepreneur and Democrat Party activist, dies at 26.

Osama bin Laden, father of 23, killed in home invasion

Saddam Hussein, successful politician, oil baron and noted tough boss, dead at 69.

Adolph Hitler, humble artist turned passionate leader, Time Magazine’s ‘Man of the Year 1938, talented orator, animal lover and vegetarian, dies at the age of 56.

Recommended Reading

See The USA PATRIOT Act: The Story of an Impulsive Bill that Eviscerated America's Civil Liberties at Ammo.com.

First two paragraphs:

The USA PATRIOT Act provides a textbook example of how the United States federal government expands its power. An emergency happens, legitimate or otherwise. The media, playing its dutiful role as goad for greater government oversight, demands "something must be done." Government power is massively expanded, with little regard for whether or not what is being done is efficacious, to say nothing of the overall impact on our nation's civil liberties.

No goals are posted, because if targets are hit, this would necessitate the ending or scaling back of the program. Instead, the program becomes normalized. There are no questions asked about whether the program is accomplishing what it set out to do. It is now simply a part of American life and there is no going back....

Read the rest HERE.

Musical Interlude

(For politics, please scroll down)

Enjoy In the Steppes of Central Asia by Alexander Borodin (1833-1887):

[about the above piece]

Syria

Silverfiddle Rant!

Our political discourse is a bedlam of concern trolls, ignorami, partisan rage addicts, and yellow journalists with tankers of gasoline fanning the flames.

President Trump's precipitous withdrawal from Syria was a blotch-stained end to ten years of US policy incoherence.  Our strategery, such as it is, was a congeries of mutually-exclusive goals and conflicting aspirations sitting heavily on a shoddy framework of criminal ignorance, venal Do-Something-ism, and cynical, fatalistic diplomatic puffery and posturing.

We wanted to topple Assad, while also protecting the minorities he was protecting, while also defeating the jihadis who were trying to topple him, while keeping the Russians and Iranians out (who were already in), while being buddies with both the Kurds (our fighting partners) and Turkey (a NATO ally), despite the fact they have a hateful, murderous feud going back centuries.

Anyway, here is a good article on the subject. If you're interested, please read it and tell us what you think. Despite the title, the authors do not like President Trump and make no defense of his actions.

What Trump Actually Gets Right About Syria

To This We Have Come?

(hat tip to Infidel Bloggers Alliance)

Video of less than two minutes (Oak Park, Illinois):

According to the YouTube blurb:

Oak Park trustee Susan Buchanan berated fellow trustees for speaking on equity during a recent meeting.

See excerpts of her comments below:

• I don't want to hear what you have to say.

• You shouldn't have an opinion on that. That is the point. Why do you have an opinion on equity.

• You have been white from birth. Why are you arguing what is a system of oppression? You've never experienced one so shut up! I don't want to hear from you! Just stop Dan, just stop Deno. You are not oppressed and people in Oak Park and we are trying to recognize that as a community. This mayor and this board is obviously not willing to face history. We have a chance to make history. It is time for this community to face equity. Enough! And you stop it! You are a white male! You stop it, you are a white male! You skin is light enough. Stop it!

On a larger scale, is America going to throw onto the trash heap every achievement because those achievements were largely accomplished by "old white men"?

Musical Interlude

(For politics, please scroll down)

Enjoy this peaceful music and the accompanying images:

Open Thread

So, what's on your mind?

A flashback that caught my eye yesterday...FLASHBACK: Biden Lied for Years About the Driver Involved in His Wife & Daughter's Death.

Here is your chance to opine within the parameters listed below:

We welcome civil dialogue at Always on Watch. Comments that include any of the following are subject to deletion:
1. Any use of profanity or abusive language
2. Off topic comments and spam
3. Use of personal invective

Note: comments consisting of blog gossip will be deleted as soon as an administrator of this blog becomes aware of such comments.

Good News!

From Legal Insurrection (October 10, 2019)...

United Nations Could Run Out of Money by End of October: The secretary-general needs to answer a lot of questions before whining about a lack of money.

Do read the above link before watching the video below.

Recommended Reading

See The gilded rage: why is America so angry? Most Americans now believe it is ‘healthier’ to unleash their negative feelings than to bottle them up at Spectator USA.

Excerpt:

...Throughout most of American cultural history, uncontrolled anger was regarded as a personal weakness, and public expression of anger outside some limited circumstances was regarded as shameful. The high regard in which his countrymen regarded George Washington drew in part from his mastery of his own explosive temper. Washington’s famous ‘dignity’ was achieved by quelling his overtowering anger. What was good for George was good for everyone else. All through the 19th century, the nation’s presses poured out manuals for married couples on how to manage domestic disagreements without descending into anger. Books on childrearing emphasized teaching the young emotional self-discipline. The nation’s literary culture grew up on stories about the destructiveness of uncontrolled anger. Ahab’s quest for vengeance against the great white whale isn’t intended as praise for the captain’s virtuosity in expressing his passion....

Read the entire essay HERE.

Musical Interlude

(For politics, please scroll down)

Peace.

[about composer Ernesto Cortázar (1940-2004)]

Candace Owens On The Democrat Party

Worth a few moments of your time: