Lament for anno Domini 2022, a Rotten Year for Marines and Merit, Good Year for Visigoths

This Blogger hated the year 2022, anno Domini 2022; it was a tawdry, demeaning, depressing year, burdened with all the earmarks of a society, culture in decline, decay and entropy.  

2022 was revelatory in that anyone could see the driving philosophy behind the tawdriness, degradation and depression. And that driving philosophy is demented modernity; the dementia is identified  by hubris. The generations ruling America grew up on very special episodes of BLOSSOM and DISNEY inclusive cartoons.

From those two fountainheads of knowledge, the modern generations came to the conclusions that they, en toto, were the smartest generations ever to exist on Earth; because they could take pictures of their breakfasts and selfies of themselves eating said  breakfasts. 

They consider themselves not only more clever than all the prior generations; but above the folk lore and tradition which uplifted Mankind from barbarism. They indulge in the self satisfying belief system, that  their diversity and inclusiveness makes them more substantial than all the proceeding generations.

Dear God, does any person, reasonable or mad, think this crop of moderns could build a pyramid which could last five thousand years?  Or produce a society which gave future generations Homer,  Socrates, Plato, Euripides or Aristotle?

What modernity has given America in 2022 is an acceleration of its decline, nothing more, nothing less.

Because of the demented modernity of the DISNEY CARTOON generations, America has allowed its civilization to watch impotently, as the Visigoths have ascended the seventh hill of Rome.

In the sci-fi television series, STAR TREK -TNG, the lead character CAPTAIN PICARD intones: “..... I wonder if the Emperor Honorius watching the Visigoths coming over the seventh hill truly realized that the Roman Empire was about to fall. This is just another page in history, isn't it? Will this be the end of *our* civilization? Turn the page.” 

Before and after this Blogger’s trip to the Soviet Union, he had lunch with the towering intellectual/stevedore/philosopher, Eric Hoffer. Hoffer had a belief that a survey of entropic aka paranoid details could alert one to whether one’s civilization was in peril. 

2022 was awash with entropic details. 

Mr. Hoffer was a great fan of Don Siegel films; before our scheduled lunch, before this Blogger's trek to the Soviet Union; he called and asked this Blogger to go watch the Don Siegel film, TELEFON, playing at a downtown seedy theater. 

This Blogger went. 

At lunch, this Blogger was asked what did he think of the film. 

The Blogger responded: " Loved it, but paranoid as hell.” 

Hoffer replied: "Precisely. Before you leave, try and go back and see it again, and this time pay close attention to Tyne Daly’s paranoid CIA agent. She is a queen of paranoid detail.” 

This Blogger went back; and Maestro Hoffer was right; Tyne Daly ,in a brilliant performance, was the queen of paranoid detail. That is what this Blogger went looking for in the Soviet Union, the paranoid detail of decay. He found it there, and in 2022 finds it again in America.

The following is Ms. Daly dialog, as CIA operative, DOROTHY PUTTERMAN, in Siegel’s TELEFON. 

“Six auto crashes: one due to faulty brakes......two by collision with runaway trucks,three by tire failure.Your typicaI assorted plane crashes,all with multiple-passenger loss.Two military, one Sovietflot.A sudden rash of skiing accidents,one disappearance on an ice floe......one drowning in the Black Sea,one sailing mishap......plus five simple fataI cardiac arrests,two terminaI cancers....four massive brain hemorrhages. 

Twenty-four high-ranking party members in scattered parts of the USSR......all deceased within the past 13 days.Aside from their demise,they had one other thing in common.They were all avowed hard-line Stalinists.all opposed to detente with us. 

PUTTERMAN’S BOSS- a purge? 

PUTTERMAN-well, the probability factor of 24 top-brass communists......dying almost simultaneously is,give or take a point or two......just under a billion to one….TELEFON.” 

If DOROTHY PUTTERMAN was evaluating the American Military in 2022, would she be alerted to the paranoid detail, in the probability factor of recent deaths of SEAL TEAM commanders? 

“The commanding officer of SEAL Team 1, Robert Ramirez, was found dead in his San Diego County, California, home Monday, the Navy has revealed. 

Foul play is not suspected ….He took command of SEAL Team 1 last month and arrived to the unit in June, according to his releasable service record and command officials. 

His awards and decorations accrued over nearly 27 years of service include five Bronze Star Medals, two with the Combat “V” device denoting valor and acts of heroism. Ramirez also has three Combat Action ribbons and medals for the Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns, among many others. 

He is the second SEAL team commander to die in roughly the past year. Cmdr. Brian Bourgeois, the commanding officer of the Navy's elite SEAL Team 8, died in December 2021 after falling during helicopter rope training in Virginia…NAVY TIMES.” 

 

That bland  reportage  begs the question: were the deaths coincidental, bad luck or a by product of a purge? Paranoid minds want to know. 

A purge? Or a deadly push back? 

Commanders, Ramirez and Bourgeois were  dedicated to imposing the new sensitive centric  world view on the American Military. 

It is an academic, sociological world view, which dismisses martial traditions as being antediluvian, not worthy of a DISNEY  cartoon based society. 

This world view wants to ban YES  SIRS and YES MA’AMS from Marine Corps usage 

“ No more “Yes, sir!” 

The US Marines may ban recruits from respectfully addressing senior members as “sir” or “ma’am” to avoid “misgendering” and offending them. 

The woke recommendation was made in a new $2 million report commissioned by the Corps from the University of Pittsburgh. The exhaustive, 738-page study that the Marines first commissioned in 2020 said traditional ways of addressing superiors were holding back gender integration. 

“Employing gender-neutral identifiers eliminates the possibility of misgendering drill instructors, which can unintentionally offend or cause discord,” the study said.

“By teaching recruits to use gender-neutral identifiers for their drill instructors, Services underscore the importance of respecting authoritative figures regardless of gender.”

The two-year study by the University of Pittsburgh’s Warrior Human Performance Research Center also said that “the Army, Navy, and Coast Guard effectively de-emphasize gender in an integrated environment.”….. “Gendered identifiers prime recruits to think about or visually search for a drill instructor’s gender first, before their rank or role.” 

Col. Howard Hall, chief of staff for Marine Corps Training and Education Command, told the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services this month that the radical shift was being considered by leadership — albeit with some pushback, the Marine Corps Times said.” 

Did Ramirez and Bourgeois fall victim to a pushback from the ranks, for their implementation of a radical shift in the zeitgeist of elite warriors? Their deaths beg that question.

This trashing of tradition, in one of the finest, fiercest military units in the history of the world, in order not to offend anyone, is a significant milestone on the road to  the collapse of American culture and Western civilization. 

We know from History that an elite military unit, for a wobbly Republic, MUST respect something; and if that something is not sirs and ma’ams, it will be brutality and coups.  YES SIRS and YES MA'AMS appeal to the better angels of elite warriors; honoring the pronouns they and them does not appeal to the better angels of the warriors, who risk the full measure for the Republic. 

It is the measuring up to honored traditions, which binds the elite warrior to his oath. Experimentation does not bind any warrior to any oath.

Since before the Republic was a Republic, the  Marine Corps has killed the enemies of the Republic, with alacrity; now the Republic wants to discard that elan, that expertise, that higher calling, in order to demand respect for the pronouns they/them. If that wasn't such a suicidal impulse, it would rank as an insightful joke, like Mark Twain's remark concerning Wagner's music: "Wagner's music is better than it sounds."

Seemingly all the academics and policy makers in America are so fixated on THERMIDOR  experimentation, they have failed to appreciate that the US Marine is an unicorn among warrior elites. For the Marine, is not only willing to kill for the Republic when necessary, the Marine can cease killing when ordered.  No other elite warrior  unit in History has mastered the art of blood lust cessation as well as Marine training and  tradition. This Blogger firmly believes that the humility instilled, fostered and nurtured  by YES SIRS and YES MA'AMS contribute significantly to making a Marine that unicorn. 

The path highlighted by jettisoning yes sir is a tell; the academics, under the aegis of not offending anyone, DOES NOT WANT anyone to rise to being a cut above average. These DISNEY Cartoon generations are using Diversity and inclusion to castrate merit while worshiping mediocrity.

"For years, two administrators at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology (TJ) have been withholding notifications of National Merit awards from the school’s families, most of them Asian, thus denying students the right to use those awards to boost their college-admission prospects and earn scholarships. This episode has emerged amid the school district’s new strategy of “equal outcomes for every student, without exception.” School administrators, for instance, have implemented an “equitable grading” policy that eliminates zeros, gives students a grade of 50 percent just for showing up, and assigns a cryptic code of “NTI” for assignments not turned in. It’s a race to the bottom. 

An intrepid Thomas Jefferson parent, Shawna Yashar, a lawyer, uncovered the withholding of National Merit awards. Since starting as a freshman at the school in September 2019, her son, who is part Arab American, studied statistical analysis, literature reviews, and college-level science late into the night. 

This workload was necessary to keep him up to speed with the advanced studies at TJ, which U.S. News & World Report ranks as America’s top school. 

Last fall, along with about 1.5 million U.S. high school juniors, the Yashar teen took the PSAT, which determines whether a student qualifies as a prestigious National Merit scholar. When it came time to submit his college applications this fall, he didn’t have a National Merit honor to report—but it wasn’t because he hadn’t earned the award. The National Merit Scholarship Corporation, a nonprofit based in Evanston, Illinois, had recognized him as a Commended Student in the top 3 percent nationwide—one of about 50,000 students earning that distinction. Principals usually celebrate National Merit scholars with special breakfasts, award ceremonies, YouTube videos, press releases, and social media announcements. 

…….. it turns out that the principal, Ann Bonitatibus, and the director of student services, Brandon Kosatka, have been withholding this information from families and the public for years, affecting the lives of at least 1,200 students over the principal’s tenure of five years. Recognition by National Merit opens the door to millions of dollars in college scholarships and 800 Special Scholarships from corporate sponsors. 

I learned—two years after the fact—that National Merit had recognized my son, a graduate of TJ’s Class of 2021, as a Commended Student in a September 10, 2020, letter that National Merit sent to Bonitatibus. But the principal, who lobbied that fall to nix the school’s merit-based admission test to increase “diversity,” never told us about it. Parents from earlier years told me that she also didn’t tell them about any Commended Student awards. One former student said he learned he had won the award through a random email from the school to a school-district email account that students rarely check; the principal neither told his parents nor made a public announcement. 

….….In a call with Yashar, Kosatka admitted that the decision to withhold the information from parents and inform the students in a low-key way was intentional. “We want to recognize students for who they are as individuals, not focus on their achievements,” he told her, claiming that he and the principal didn’t want to “hurt” the feelings of students who didn’t get the award. A National Merit spokeswoman said that the organization’s officials “ 

Bonitatibus still hasn’t publicly recognized the students or told parents from earlier years that their students won the awards. And she hasn’t yet delivered the missing certificates. The war on merit is a war on our kids….news.com.au” 

In 2022, the paranoid details of decay and entropy are easy to find; they are in the war against respect, being fought in the American military, and the war against merit being waged on America’s kids by their educators. 

This Blogger can’t and won’t speak for Eric Hoffer; but he would have been dismayed that the greatest nation in the history of the world is ruining itself by embracing the Orwellian concept that some ideas are so stupid, only intellectuals believe them. A war against respect in the military; a war against merit in America’s schools systems are stupid ideas, worthy of  intellectuals; educated by weepy DISNEY cartoons. 

2022 is lamentable because all can recognize that the Visigoths are over the seventh hill.