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Lehigh Valley
Common Sense Herald

STANDING TALL for
the public good.

Blast for Thoughtful Thinking

FIGHTING WOLVES (a great story -- a great truth)

An old Cherokee is telling his grandson about a fight that
is going on inside himself.

He said it is between two wolves. One wolf is evil:
Anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity,
guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority
and ego

The other wolf is good: Joy, peace, love, hope, serenity,
humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity,
truth, compassion and faith...

The grandson thought about it for a minute, and then
asked his grandfather, "Which wolf wins?" The old
Cherokee simply replied, "The one I feed

Blast from the Past

by Tom Nakos --- Special Reporter for The Common Sense
Herald

Editor's Note --- The following article was printed March 16, 1993 in VOLUME
12 NUMBER 1 of the Lehigh Valley Common Sense Herald...This article first
appeared in the Decatur Herald & Review under the authorship of Tom
Nakos...The article has been modified by the author for publication in the
Common Sense Herald... Dennis Pearson met the author while traveling...
The events described here refer to economic conditions at the end of the 1st
Bush Administration and the early days of the Clinton Administration.

There was a breed of characters in the dimming past known
as "hobos."

They were men who, not encumbered by family ties or past
failures, freely traveled the back roads of Middle America.
Walking, riding the freights, working their way south in the
winter and north in the summer, they would earn their food
and keep on the way by working for a friendly farmer. The
romantic life was ideal for them.

We met our first hobo trudging down a back road tired and
thirsty and hungry, looking for a sign on a gate or mailbox
post to indicate to hobos if the farmer was friendly or not.

He came upon a lonely farm house and looked for the hobo
sign. Finding none, he took his chances and walked to the
back door. He knocked and knocked and yelled, "Is anybody
home?" He waited, then realizing that no one was home, he
turned to go back to the road.

His keen sense of smell told him that there was a freshly
baked pie cooking nearby. Yep, there it was on the kitchen
windowsill. He yelled again, "Is anybody home?" Nothing.
Well being so hungry, so tired, his mind told him to grab it
and run. His heart told him it was against all the rules of the
road. His hunger got the best of it.

He took the pie (apple) and shuffled back to the road across
the railroad tracks and down the embankment. His hands
shook as he opened the blade knife and sliced into the pie.

He was down to the last slice when he saw another hobo
coming down the tracks. The hobo asked for a sliver of the
last slice, but our greedy hobo \refused.

And then the devil in him told the second hobo, "Take this
empty pie tie back to the farmhouse across the road and
they will give you another pie or something," knowing full
well something else would befall his fellow traveler.

As our pie-eating hobo sat picking at his teeth with his blade
knife, he waited to hear if anything would happen.

It did. Screams and cussing and the sound of buckshot
blasts filled the air. He brushed his tattered coat and
scurried away like a rat.

The analogy is there. The above story is a remarkable
resemblance to the greed and total lack of scruples, and the
betrayal of trust of one man to another.

I'm referring to the mess our government in Washington has
gotten us into. The S & L scandal still unfolding, the HUD
rip-off, the budget deficit, its enormity defies description,
and now recession.

What a mess. Where are the screams, the unprintable
cursing, the sounds of "buck-shot blasts?

--- their persistence has already engulfed many of the "new
faces" in Congress. "New faces" have taken advantage (with
no delay) accepting free trips, free vacations, free perks --- I
repeat who the hell is minding the store? Who is looking out
for the "little people"? Well, maybe and I repeat "maybe," H,
Ross Perot and his millions of vigilantes will become a real
force in waking up Washington. We will wait, and watch, and
hope. As the politicians say "God Bless America and God
Bless You" - Someday maybe, someday I wish, someday...

The Lehigh Valley Common Sense Herald is published in the English language in association with
the Lehigh Valley Council For Regional Livability, Inc., P.O. Box 1136, Allentown, Pa. 18105... The
Publisher is Dennis L. Pearson, 942 E. Tilghman Street, Allentown, Penna. 18109, Telephone # ---
(610) 434-1229... E-MAIL ADDRESS -- dpearson@enter.net.

Copyright (c) 2011 by Dennis L. Pearson ... All Rights Reserved...

How Many Days to America
by Dennis L. Pearson

“How many days to America,” said the little boy to his mother? The mother said: “
Hush little child, to go to America we need to avoid detection by Castro’s Policia.”

It was the hope of the mother that her son and herself would come to enjoy in
America a life they could not enjoy in Cuba. For the mother detection by the
Policia would mean jail. For the child, detection would mean separation from the
mother.

The pair would depart from Cuba in a weather worn boat.

“How many days to America,” said the little boy to his mother? The mother said: “
Hush little child, we need to avoid detection by Castro’s naval patrol’s, but I
promise it would be soon.”

Only ninety miles to America, however, it might as well been a thousand. In the
open seas the boat was swamped by heavy weather and sunk. In one of her last
acts, the mother placed her precious son in an inner tube in the hope that he
might live. And that is how a fisherman found the little boy. The little boy lay
exhausted on an inner tube desperately clinging to life.

In the distant past another mother placed her son Moses in a small floating
bassinet in the Nile River in the hope that he could be found and have a good life
among the Egyptian royal family instead of a dreary life or death among the
Hebrew slaves in Egypt.

The little boy’s mother was dead. The father who had divorced his mother was in
Cuba with a new family. He was completely in the dark in regard to the flight and
misfortune that occurred to his former family. Meanwhile, that part of the little boy’
s family that had already fled Cuba and sought and lived the American dream
would soon learn about the peril that the little boy was rescued from. Whats more,
they dreaded for personal and political reasons the long-term living conditions
that would face the little boy should the American Immigration service send him
back to Cuba.

“How many days to America,” said the little boy to his temporary guardian? The
temporary guardian said: “ Hush little child, you are in America, do not worry and
go out to play.”

In Cuba, the father soon learned of the traumatic event that had been suffered by
his son; and so did Fidel Castro.

Castro was looking for an issue to tweet the nose of the great North American
power that is still in a contest of wills against his Communist state; and amazingly,
the bearded one found one in the fate that befell this little boy. Is this not the
same Latin American Dictator who has jailed or executed many of the brave or
pathetic souls who have set themselves against his regime? Remarkably, he can
now transform himself into the gallant compassionate knight fighting for the return
of this little boy to Cuba. From the beginning he demanded of the American
government to do the right thing and return the little boy to Cuba and his father
immediately, to do otherwise would be criminal and constitute kidnapping.

Meanwhile, Bill Clinton and Janet Reno hear the cries of the Cuban expatriates in
Florida and elsewhere in the United States to let this sacred child stay. Bill Clinton
wants to apply the rule of law in this case. When it affects him more immediately,
he wants to forget the rule of law. Actions speak louder then words.

“ How many days to America,” said the little boy to his new surrogate mother in
Florida? The new surrogate mother said: “ Hush little child, it may take many days
before you may be allowed to stay in America. We fear that you may be sent back
to Cuba.” Said the little boy: “ I don’t want to go back to Cuba, Do you hear me.”

Meanwhile back in Cuba, the father asks; “ When can I get my son back?” A
question that many American men or women would ask if their divorced custodial
spouses would die suddenly in a foreign state. Therefore, despite the politics
involved in this affair, many of these people might side with the father. We cannot
argue against this position. However, the Florida family in seeking custody of the
little boy comes from another view.

The affair has become a circus as lawyers for the Florida family, the government,
and the father haggle over the fate of the little boy. Even the little boy is said to
have an attorney supposedly looking out for his interests. The Florida family
seeks to reverse the Immigration Service order that they give up the little boy so
that he could be returned to his father in Cuba. In State and/or Federal Court
they seek to gain custody and the reversal of the Immigration Service order.

How many more hours in America must I wait,” the father asks as he is brought to
Washington D.C. in anticipation of an expected reunion with his son. The
President and Janet Reno respond: “ We are working on that problem right now.”

Indeed, the President and Ms. Reno had a plan to resolve the problem. Part of
the plan was to make the family think that the government was actually
negotiating in good faith. But somehow to me the government looked as deceitful
as the Japanese visitor to the Roosevelt White House appeared to be when he
knew that the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor would begin shortly. The
Clinton/Reno plan was implemented before dawn, as the Florida family was on the
telephone in an another attempt to work out details for an agreement, which
would allow the father to see the son. The government soon resorted to trickery.
In the midst of negotiations, for some unmentioned reason, the Florida family was
put on hold. The next moment, a motorcade of heavily armed Immigration service
people rolled up to the Florida family house, plied the door open, and by gunpoint
snatched the little boy from the arms of the same fisherman who had saved him.
A female agent carried a distraught Elian Gonzalez into a waiting van and whisked
him away to meet his father in Washington D.C.

Said the little boy as this was happening: “ What is happening?” Said a smiling
Bill Clinton: “That was the right thing to do.” Said Fidel Castro: “ For this action, I
grant the U.S an one day truce.” Said the King Solomon, long in his grave, “ Will
the true protector of Elian Gonzalez please stand up? Said one of the Tree
Stooges: “What a revolting development this is!”

Amazingly, the screenplay of this continuing episode plays like a William
Shakespeare drama. In fact, there is a scene in the movie Titus, an adaptation of
William Shakespeare’s play Titus Andronicus, in which Titus’ son Lucias points
a weapon point blank at the Moor, Aaron, who is attempting to steel away with the
bastard baby of Tamara, the Queen of the Goths and the wife of the Roman
Emperor, which he sired. Lucias takes the baby away from the Moor with the
promise to raise it to maturity. Later Aaron, the Moor is put to death for the
intrigues he inflicted on the Roman Court

In the movie Titus Andronicus (Anthony Hopkins), the great Roman general,
returns victorious from a long war with the Goths. As part of the victory ritual,
Titus sacrifices an enemy prisoner. He chooses the eldest son of Tamora, the
Queen of the Goths (Jessica Lange), who has been brought back to Rome as a
captive with her three sons and the Moor, Aaron. Though Tamora pleads for her
son’s life, Titus continues with the ritual out of religious devotion. Tamora and her
two remaining sons, Chiron and Demetrius, vow revenge. With that, the tale of
double revenge begins; first Tamora’s, and then Titus.

An Update on How Many
Days to America
by Dennis L. Pearson

As we reported, Elian Gonzales once had asked his mother " How many
days to America? ,”

But The mother said: “ Hush little child, to go to America we need to avoid
detection by Castro’s Policia.” Of Course, upon reflection it would have
been better for her to say: "Hush little Child, to go to America we need to
to stay there avoid Clinton's Justice Department" ... But in reality she
wouldn't have known about the role of Clinton's Justice Department in the
eventual deportation of 5 year old Elian Gonzalez back to Cuba. Eleven
years ago Bill Clinton's Attorney General, Janet Reno, had ordered the
deceptive raid that forcefully removed Elian from his house in Miami,
because "the child had to be returned to his father ... And for Elian, that
had to be a scary and traumatic moment, seeing armed men with a rifle
invade what he thought was to be his new home... Thus for Elian "How
Days in America " became "The Quick Express back to Cuba.

Surely Elian's time in America was a mixture of sorrow and happiness -- a
bitter-sweet moment ... Hadn't he just lost his natural-born mother, but at
the same time he did meet extended family members who loved him and
wanted Elian to be part of their lives. But that was not to be as Elian was
sent back to Cuba to be reunited with his father John Miquel who worked
as a waiter in an Italian Restaurant some ten miles or more northwest of
Cardenas Cuba. The fate of Elian was to become a poster child, photo-op
or tool for Cuban Dictator Fidel Castro..... A cute propaganda reminder of a
political victory or gift unexpectedly provided by U.S. President Bill
Clinton. The Cuban Dictator, in fact, kept the boy on a short-leash by
setting up a monitoring station of the Cuban State Security right next door
to Elian's home. You decide, if Castro was acting like a benevolent father in
keeping his prodigy under control.

Continued interest in the fate of Elian Gonzalez in Cuba was a story line the
U.S. Press still wanted to pursue. Therefore the Castro government ever
cooperative set up meetings between Elian and the press whether it be
from the United States or elsewhere. And in addition, the benevolent father
made sure that Elian's house and other houses in the same block that he
lived in were painted and repaired before reporters came .The benevolent
father wanted good publicity .... And Elian the one who may have been
indoctrinated or briefed on what to say, did his job .... For the press
"How Many Days to America?" became "America, No Way."

Thus after 5 years of the Cuban experience Elian Gonzalez told the CBS 60
Minutes interviewer that 'he never had a good moment in Miami.' Can we
believe that? I leave that decision to you. Janet Reno said that she ordered
the raid to forcefully remove Elian from his house in Miami, because "the
child had to be returned to his father. Five years later, Elian told 60 Minutes
that he considered Castro his 'father.' We are not the first to wonder
whether Castro was the 'father' that Reno had in mind for Elian? But
again, we leave the reader to decide. Fidel Castro promised that he would
never use Elian Gonzalez for political purposes if the child was returned to
Cuba. But we wonder whether the aging Castro spoke with fork-tongue on
that issue.

Indeed, all these years, after he was forced to return to Cuba to become
another slave, serf or citizen of the Cuban plantation , Elian Gonzalez had
to celebrate his birthday with his alleged real father, Fidel Castro. But now,
the Cuban dictator is half dead and unable to attend his young slave's
birthday party that doesn't mean that Elian would be able to celebrate his
birthday as a normal child. Not in Castro's Cuba!

Elian, now a teenager, still has to "celebrate" his birthday party in the
presence of two "viejos cagalitrosos," the new dictator-in-chief and Ricardo
"Watermellon Head" Alarcon. And what a party it is ...Will Elian again have
to endure the traditional reading of a book with the dictator's face on the
cover by someone else or do it himself? And will he have to show real
happiness or faked happiness knowing what the system is ... "What a great
birthday present! "Gracias pap!"

Can it be that Elian Gonzalez is actually thinking ..." How many Days to
America will it be after I become to a professional baseball player and
decide to pitch in the big leagues, maybe the Yankees/" ... A possibility that
can happen because many of the current Current ballplayers had their own
experience on a boat before being allowed to work and live in the United
States

A possibility that seems delusional since nobody has really observed Elian
play baseball at a level of skill that would make that possible and in fact, we
don't even know if Elian has ever played baseball at all ... But we do know
that the individual Elian called his real father still is among the living

How Many Days ---
The Sequel
by Dennis L. Pearson

Zoila Meyer from California finds herself in a predicament....
She was born in Cuba but brought to the U.S. at the age of
one ... She is 40 years old and has children born in America,,,,
She is a legalresident of the U.S., but for some reason has
not become a citizen ... Her crime is not that she is an illegal
alien. Her crime is that someone gave her bad advice or she
was too stupid or too naive to realize that she hadn't become
a citizen because for her as a foreign born she needed to go
through the citizenship process and apparently didn't ... So
she is in legal trouble and faces deportation because she
voted in an election in which she was voted in as City
Councilperson of her community .. Ultimately she resigned
from that post when someone (for political reasons,
maybe) called her out on the subject.

What a tortured web do we weave here. The Government,
headed by George W. Bush at the time rather then Bill Clinton
was pressured by problems related with illegal or
undocumented immigration. But this case was not related to
illegal immigration. Rather the case involves a non-citizen who
has legal status to reside permanently in America. Yes indeed,
if this women would have crossed the borders , the frontiers
of the U.S illegally and voted illegally then the book s ould be
thrown at her including deportation... But she was here as a
one year old and was either naive or stupid about the law...
Obviously the correct decision would be for President Bush
to grant her a pardon and allow her to stay here with her
children. Such an executive order would have given Mrs.
Meyer an opportunity to become an American citizen and thus
correct to the better her How Many Days to America status... If
she refused to become an American citizen then in good
conscience we could have sent her away... I think it was an
injustice for us to send her back to Cuba... But Fidel Castro
would have loved it... And the caretaker leaders of Cuba with
Elian Gonzales present would welcome Mrs. Meyers back to
Cuba as a propaganda photo shot even though she might not
want to go there... But if she voiced this displeasure publicly,
she may be on the Cuban Most Watched list.

Alabama Tornado Damage

Memphis

New Orleans

Washington D.C

LEGEND OF THE DREAM CATCHER

Long ago when the world was young, an old Lakota spiritual leader was on a high
mountain and had a vision.

In his vision, Iktomi, the great trickster and teacher of wisdom, appeared in the
form of a spider.

Iktomi spoke to him in a sacred language that only the spiritual leaders of the
Lakota could understand.

As he spoke Iktomi, the spider, took the elder's willow hoop which had feathers,
horse hair, beads and offerings on it and began to spin a web.

He spoke to the elder about the cycles of life... And how we begin our lives as
infants an we move to childhood, and then to adulthood. Finally, we go to old age
where we must be taken care of as infants, completing the cycle.

"But," Iktomi said as he continued to spin his web, "in each time of life there are
many forces --- some good and some bad. If you listen to the good forces, they will
steer you in the right direction. But if you listen to the bad forces, they will hurt you
and steer you in the wrong direction."

He continued, "There are many forces and different directions that can help or
interfere with the harmony of nature, and also with the great spirit and all of his
wonderful teachings."

All the while the spider spoke, he continued to weave his web starting from the
outside and working towards the center.

When Iktomi finished speaking, he gave the Lakota elder the web and said... "See,
the web is a perfect circle but there is a hole in the center of the circle."

He said, "Use the web to help yourself and your people to reach your goals and
make good use of your people's ideas, dreams and visions.

"If you believe in the great spirit, the web will catch your good ideas --- and the bad
ones will go through the hole."

The Lakota elder passed on his vision to his people and now the Sioux Indians
use the dream catcher as the web of their life.

It is hung above their beds or in their home to shift their dreams and visions.

The good in their dreams are captured in the web of life and carried with them...
but the evil in their dreams escapes through the hole in the center of the web and
are no longer a part of them.

They believe that the dream catcher holds the destiny of their future.

                             CITIZENS OF SYBARIS

                  by Gordon D. Sharp, Jr. of The Common Sense Herald
(Editor's Note - Originally run in the Common Sense Herald August 10, 1993)

Sometimes we learn from the past, sometimes we don't...

Sybaris was a wealthy Greek city-state founded about 720 B.C. in southern
Italy by colonists from the Achaea region of mainland Greece. It was
conquered and destroyed some 200 years later when its decadent and
divided citizens were overwhelmed by nearby Croton under the leadership of
followers of the philosopher and mathematician, Pythagoras, a Croton citizen.

The word "Sybarite" or "citizen of Sybaris" has passed into modern language
to describe "a lover of luxury, voluptuary," (Merriam-Webster Dictionary) what
some today might call a"Yuppy" or "Baby Boomer," or worse. And once
again, they are divided; there are Sybaritesof the Left and Sybarites of the
Right. ; there are Sybarites of the Left and Sybarites of the Right. We might call
the latter "Sybarights" for short, although both camps are concerned about
their rights (a sort of Syb Lib).

The Sybarites generally break down into Republicans on the right and
Democrats on the Left, but since the Sybarites of the Left claim more affinity
with the poor and downtrodden of society ( and therefore to be most like
them) let's examine them more closely:

Perhaps the Queen of the Sybarite Left is columnist Anna Quindlen of the New
York Times,although Ellen Goodman of the Boston Globe and Barbara
Ehrenreich of TIME Magazine run a close second. Quindlen, however, takes
the crown by writing about a subject she knows nothing about --- war
veterans, in particular Vietnam veterans who turned their backs on Willy the
Slick at the Vietnam Memorial. Her June 3 article was only part of The Morning
Call's veteran-bashing since Memorial Day, but we'll return to that in a
moment. For a person married to a well-heeled New York criminal lawyer,
Quindlen's article is one long string of non-sequitors and contradictions,
near-hysterical in tone. You'd think those Nam vets had mugged poor Anna's
favorite Cabbage Patch Doll. The entire piece ( and the Sybarite Left mindset)
can be summed up in just one of her sentences: "Why did they fight for the
freedom of South Vietnam, if it was not to best the perceived lockstep of
communism, to permit exactly that sort of dissent that enabled honorable men
and women to oppose U.S. involvement in Southeast Asia?" Think about that
for a moment, because in one statement Ms. Quindlen precisely demonstrates
why some folks refer to the Left as the "Loony Left," and completely justifies
the Veterans' actions against her fellow Boomer in the White House. I have
one question for Ms. Quisling, whoops, Quindlen: "If, as you admit, you
opposed the war, and yet you also admit that the veterans fought for the
freedom of Vietnam and 'to best the perceived lockstep of communism' and to
protect the right to dissent, why did you oppose their effort, why favor
lockstep communism as an option, why did William Jefferson Blythe Clinton
avoid military service and your generation find anything 'honorable' in
betraying these young Americans who were sincerely sacrificing the best
years of their lives and in over 50,000 cases life itself for these goals?Their
names are on the wall. And yes, I know that's four questions, but the Sybarite
Left has a lot more to answer for. People such as Ms. Quindlen and her Slick
friend ought to be ashamed of themselves, and they might think about sliding
on down to that wall and apologize. That was the very appropriate message
the aggrieved veterans tried to give that guy on Memorial Day, but when he
said "I heard you, now you hear me," its obvious he was telling one more
Arkansas lie, especially since he'd had the vets moved so far back he clearly
wasn't interested in hearing them. It was one more insult in a life filled with
insolence.

A salient feature of the Sybarite Left is their split personality, which my arise
from their constant attempt to be like one thing and look like another.
Quindlen, for instance, writes two distinct types of columns, often appearing
in different places. Some time ago in a profile on her by the Columbia
Journalism Review, she gushed on for several pages about her more folksy
columns on a favorite subject, her children and what it means to be a Nineties
woman with family and career. Scarcely a word, if any, of the other type -- her
waspy and bitchy political attacks on everyone that is not, in her view,
politically correct, i.e., Left. This is all an act, although it may serve some
driven, deep-seated and unresolved inner drive that also makes the Left so
sybaritic. Quindlen's veteran-bashing column was followed by a piece on her
compulsive shopping addiction, a Sybarite Leftist syndrome echoed by the
Sybarights who, however, rarely offer a cover other than respectability for
their selfishness. Like other Syblefts who pretend to be so concerned about
the world's suffering, Quindlen apparently hasn't a clue about how much her
consuming ambitions impact on the human environment, on the earth's ability
to support its human population, and on those less fortunate who are
exploited to provide her with her Yuppy goodies. Or if she does have a clue, it
only heightens her companion compulsion for a Leftist facade.

Better late than never, Quindlen has announced she's leaving newspaper
work to do the requisite women's novel for women's lib aspirants in the 90s.
Actually, she doesn't go in to work anyway, since the New York Times allows
her to write at home, a Sybarite Leftist favor from her Sybarite Leftist editors
on The Times. Perhaps the definitive Quindlen and the definitive statement on
the Sybarite Left was offered by Quindlen herself on a recent CNN talky-talk:
"I'm going to raise my son to be a feminist," she asserted. Apparently
"freedom of choice" on the Sybarite Left is available to mothers who wish to
abort their fetuses, but not\ to a child after it's born and growing.

My, my, "Mother knows best." How un-90s of Quindlen! But how typical of her
generation.The flower children of the 60s who rejected the values of their
parents are now trying to shove their own values down the nation's throat, but
as Quindlen's own lifestyle shows,underneath are basicaly the same old
materialistic, sybaritic and yes, fascist values in spades and in different guise,
reflected most graphically in the President of the United States and her
husband now in the White House. They "want it all."

This is also the basis of the "new journalism." The Sybarite Left rarely looks
for facts to bolster a story, but first forms a premise built on personal or
political bias and then spins the facts to fit the premise. Hence the headline of
Quindlen's June 3 column: "Vietnam Vets Did Disservice by Breaking Truce
At The Wall," a headline based on her last paragraph which read, "The truce
was broken on Memorial Day... by Vietnam veterans...." Indeed? What
"truce?" Any "truce" that may have existed was broken by Clinton when he
came down to the Memorial to use the power of the office he has so dubiously
usurped to bully the vets who used the right of dissent Quindlen herself
extols. And how could the vets possibly be doing a "disservice" to someone
who didn't even do his service? Quindlen, like much of the Fascist Left ever
since at least Korea, appears insensitive to the fact that for veterans, there is
never a "truce." There are always new wars and new veterans, and they are
usually sent out and turned into veterans by presidential commanders-in-chief
who have then betrayed them to the goals of the Left, as in Korea, Vietnam
and World War II in Europe. Presently all veterans, the old and the
veterans-yet-to-be, face the outrageous irony that a totally unqualified
would-be CIC who wants to play soldier but avoided being a real soldier
himself has sent 300 Americans to dangle like shark-bait in Macedonia and is
panting to send Air Force controller crews onto the ground in Bosnia.
Remember how the Left accused some non-vet Congressmen supporting
George Bush's Persian Gulf venture of being "war wimps?

Now we have a war wimp with a vengeance in the White House, and the Left,
including Quindlen, haven't let out a whimper in opposition. The strongest
objection has come from the former President of the Soviet Union, Mikhail
Gorbachev, in a recent column ("UN Peacekeeping Operations Becoming
Military Occupations," The Morning Call, Sunday, August 1, 1993). This
column puts Gorbachev in the curious position of being to the right of the
American left, which is slavishly passive as Clinton pursues the 20th century
Democratic tradition of sending American youth into a war with no clear
conclusion. Enough already!

But there's no such thing as "enough" for the hot-eyed, fever-brained
Sybarite Left. On Monday, July 5, a month after the action at the wall, the
suburban-dwelling SL editors of The Morning Call ran another
veteran-bashing column by one Jeff Stein ("Re-Fighting of Vietnam Ignores
Fact Few Fought In Hated War," Morning Call, Monday, July 5). Stein notes
that "only about 15 percent were regularly in combat at any one time," thereby
proving the old adage, "Figures don't lie, but liars figure." Stein should know,
as Van Cavett, the editor of the Call's editorial pages should know, that
modern armies in particular demand massive logistical support to put forces
in the field. Behind every individual in actual combat stand hundreds of
thousands of vital personnel moving munitions, spare parts, food, clothing,
equipment and making repairs to the trucks that carry it all, in addition to
repairing and maintaining huge assortments of artillery, (towed and
self-propelled) plus tanks and other armor. When an enlistee goes into the
service, he's taking the chance he may wind up in any assignment anywhere.
It's a crap shoot, and a chance Slick Willy refused to take. Either Stein and
Cavett are ignorant, or they're more invidious fantastists than Quindlen. It isn't
the Vet who are "re-fighting Vietnam," but Clinton who' preparing to re-fight
another Vietnam with American boys in Bosnia. No one has more right to
protest another waste and betrayal of young American lives than the vets who
were themselves betrayed, and I say to my fellow vets of Korea and Vietnam
and all others who still have strength to raise voice or pen, "Lay it on!"

Speaking of Sybarite Left fantastists, Dr. Gary Olson, propagandist of political
science at Moravian, weighed in with another "Another View" column in The
Call on Wednesday, July 28 ("Japanese Fear U.S. May Resort To Arms To
Restore Economy") that was little more than a thinly disguised attempt to
forment World War III between the U.S. and Japan, no doubt with his friends in
Moscow and Beijing picking up the pieces. The threat, as Olson sees it in his
inimitably paranoid way, is stated in the headline above, backed by the text of
his article. Olson's solution: "From this perspective, Japan needs and will
obtain enhanced military force, including a modest second strike nuclear
capacity to deter threats" (underscoring ours).}

Olson supports his thesis with a characteristic reference to history, as usual
leaving out nine-tenths of the facts: "Recall that in 1941 it was the oil embargo
imposed by the U.S. that compelled a desperate Japanese government to
confiscate Netherlands East Indies oil and to try to protect that indispensable
source with a pre-emptive (sic) attack on Pearl Harbor."Whatever Olson wants
us to remember, he apparently wants us to forget that for 10 years prior to
Pearl Harbor the Japanese had been waging war in East Asia, first against
China by grabbing Manchuria in 1931, again by invading China proper in 1937
(leading to the slaughter of 40,000 civilians in the infamous Rape of Nanking
alone), the brief and barely reported conflict with Russia in 1939, and the
generally belligerent preparations Japan was making for wider conquests
throughout the decade long before the U.S. imposed any oil embargo. Olson's
piece was dishonest, misleading and inaccurate, thereby in keeping with the
values of the Morning Call and, apparently, the administration of Moravian
College.

It wasn't oil or trade but the shedding of blood by Japan's victims that led to
the oil embargo. The existence on college campuses of Marxists
propagandists such as Olson and those he quotes might make one wonder
how universities award Ph.D.s and calls into question the declining
intellectual standards of American higher education and those of Moravian
College in particular, as well as the sorry standards of the media, all
over-populated by the Sybarite Left.

War is serious business and must be taken seriously, much more seriously
than leading a stolid bunch of returning Marines across the White House lawn
for a photo opportunity. The veterans of the nation's wars have not only a
right but a sacred duty to be concerned about the stark fact that the nation is
being led by an unqualified civilian who never even took basic training and
appears to be stumbling toward one more military debacle. This is serious
business, not fun and games. If, as Clinton claimed in his 1969 letter to
Colonel Eugene Holmes of the Arkansas ROTC, he "opposed and despised
(the Vietnam War with a depth of feeling.... Reserved solely for racism in
America before Vietnam," why doesn't he "oppose and despise" the prospect
of risking American lives in the Balkans? He worked actively at Oxford to
screw up the American effort in Vietnam; why, then, are the Bosnians more
important to him than the still-oppressed South Vietnamese? If he really
"opposes and despises" war, he should be leading peace marches, not
armies, nor the Sybarite Left.