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Broken civilizations get rebuilt at the local community level as families, businesses, churches and small civil governments begin to learn what those local institutions can be. That is happening right now in the US, primarily in rural counties.

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It Was Neither Right Nor Necessary to Nuke Japan

General Dwight Eisenhower on learning of the planned bombings: “I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and voiced to [Secretary of War Stimson] my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives. It was my belief that Japan was, at that very moment, seeking some way to surrender with a minimum loss of ‘face’.”

Admiral William Leahy, Truman's Chief of Staff: “The use of this barbarous weapon…was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons.”

Major General Curtis LeMay, 21st Bomber Command: “The war would have been over in two weeks without the Russians entering and without the atomic bomb…The atomic bomb had nothing to do with the end of the war at all.”

General Hap Arnold, US Army Air Forces: “The Japanese position was hopeless even before the first atomic bomb fell, because the Japanese had lost control of their own air.” “It always appeared to us that, atomic bomb or no atomic bomb, the Japanese were already on the verge of collapse.”

Ralph Bard, Under Secretary of the Navy: “The Japanese were ready for peace, and they already had approached the Russians and the Swiss…In my opinion, the Japanese war was really won before we ever used the atom bomb.”

Brigadier General Carter Clarke, military intelligence officer who prepared summaries of intercepted cables for Truman: “When we didn’t need to do it, and we knew we didn’t need to do it…we used [Hiroshima and Nagasaki] as an experiment for two atomic bombs. Many other high-level military officers concurred.”

Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz, Pacific Fleet commander: “The use of atomic bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender.”

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Willful Denial Still Rules the Managerial Class

“Fact check; not locking down at all (like Sweden) would have saved lives in UK. Hard to believe how much money the UK spent on its sham covid inquiry.”
--Jay Bhattacharya

The UK Covid-19 Inquiry cost millions. It finally released the core political chapters of its long-awaited report. After nearly three years of hearings, millions of documents, and tens of millions of pounds spent on legal fees, the conclusion is now unmistakably clear.

They’ve learned nothing, even while watching millions suffer from lockdowns and vaccination.

Worse, they may not want to learn. The Inquiry’s structure, its analytical frame, even its carefully curated narrative all point in the same direction: away from the possibility that Britain’s pandemic response was fundamentally misguided.

Is War a Racket?

"I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested."

US Marine General Smedley Butler, reflecting on his 35-year career as a soldier

Yes, Disobey Illegal Orders

Bill Madden writes, "Refusing illegal orders in the military is difficult to do because they normally are generated high in the chain of command and very few officers in the chain really know what is or is not a legal order. Immediate superiors can be very demanding and the orders are usually given in high pressure environments. Refusing an illegal military order is tantamount to whistleblowing and, as much good as it does for the concept of truth, the whistleblower’s life is made miserable as a punishment for his honesty and a warning to others."

I watched this happen with Army Spec Michael New during the Clinton years. He disobeyed an illegal Clinton order, was arrested on base in Germany, was then given an unjust, unconstitutional trial, and then a Bad Conduct Discharge. But he stood his ground the whole time and has been proven right since.

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