Posted on 09/07/2018 10:40:36 AM PDT by Ohioan
You need some help finding it?
In 1965, LBJ masked the effect by the studied way he "fought" the Viet Nam war--with pre-announced build up, and continuing both "guns & butter" simultaneously. It was obvious at the time, but the media managed not to put the behavior in a fuller context, thus covering the scoundrel, much as they did Clinton & Obama, later.
Dane-geldIT IS always a temptation to an armed and agile nation To call upon a neighbour and to say: – "We invaded you last night – we are quite prepared to fight, Unless you pay us cash to go away."
And that is called asking for Dane-geld, And the people who ask it explain That you've only to pay 'em the Dane-geld And then you'll get rid of the Dane!
It is always a temptation for a rich and lazy nation, To puff and look important and to say: – "Though we know we should defeat you, we have not the time to meet you. We will therefore pay you cash to go away."
And that is called paying the Dane-geld; But we've proved it again and again, That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld You never get rid of the Dane.
It is wrong to put temptation in the path of any nation, For fear they should succumb and go astray; So when you are requested to pay up or be molested, You will find it better policy to say: --
"We never pay any-one Dane-geld, No matter how trifling the cost; For the end of that game is oppression and shame, And the nation that plays it is lost!"
Till a voice, as bad as Conscience, rang interminable changes
On one everlasting Whisper day and night repeated--so:
"Something hidden. Go and find it. Go and look behind the Ranges--
"Something lost behind the Ranges. Lost and waiting for you. Go!"
So I went, worn out of patience; never told my nearest neighbours--
Stole away with pack and ponies--left 'em drinking in the town;
And the faith that moveth mountains didn't seem to help my labours
As I faced the sheer main-ranges, whipping up and leading down.
March by march I puzzled through em, turning flanks and dodging shoulders,
Hurried on in hope of water, headed back for lack of grass;
Till I camped above the tree-line--drifted snow and naked boulders--
Felt free air astir to windward--knew I'd stumbled on the Pass.
'Thought to name it for the finder; but that night the Norther found me--
Froze and killed the plains-bred ponies; so I called the camp Despair
(It's the Railway Gap to-day, though). Then my Whisper waked to hound me:--
"Something lost behind the Ranges. Over yonder! Go you there!"
Then I knew, the while I doubted--knew His Hand was certain o'er me.
Still--it might be self-delusion--scores of better men had died--
I could reach the township living, but . . . He knows what terror tore me . . . But I didn't . . . but I didn't. I went down the other side.
Till the snow ran out in flowers, and the flowers turned to aloes,
And the aloes sprung to thickets and a brimming stream ran by;
But the thickets dwined to thorn-scrub, and the water drained to shallows,
And I dropped again on desert--blasted earth, and blasting sky. . . .
I remember lighting fires; I remember sitting by 'em;
I remember seeing faces, hearing voices, through the smoke;
I remember they were fancy--for I threw a stone to try 'em.
"Something lost behind the Ranges" was the only word they spoke.
I remember going crazy. I remember that I knew it
When I heard myself hallooing to the funny folk I saw.
'Very full of dreams that desert, but my two legs took me through it . . .
And I used to watch 'em moving with the toes all black and raw.
But at last the country altered--White Man's country past disputing--
Rolling grass and open timber, with a hint of hills behind--
There I found me food and water, and I lay a week recruiting.
Got my strength and lost my nightmares. Then I entered on my find.
Thence I ran my first rough survey--chose my trees and blazed and ringed 'em--
Week by week I pried and sampled--week by week my findings grew.
Saul he went to look for donkeys, and by God he found a kingdom!
But by God, who sent His Whisper, I had struck the worth of two!
Up along the hostile mountains, where the hair-poised snowslide shivers--
Down and through the big fat marshes that the virgin ore-bed stains,
Till I heard the mile-wide mutterings of unimagined rivers,
And beyond the nameless timber saw illimitable plains!
'Plotted sites of future cities, traced the easy grades between 'em;
Watched unharnassed rapids wasting fifty thousand head an hour;
Counted leagues of water-frontage through the axe-ripe woods that screen 'em--
Saw the plant to feed a people--up and waiting for the power!
Well I know who'll take the credit--all the clever chaps that followed-- Came, a dozen men together--never knew my desert-fears;
Tracked me by the camps I'd quitted, used the water-holes I'd hollowed.
They'll go back and do the talking. They'll be called the Pioneers!
They will find my sites of townships--not the cities that I set there.
They will rediscover rivers--not my rivers heard at night.
By my own old marks and bearings they will show me how to get there,
By the lonely cairns I builded they will guide my feet aright.
Have I named one single river? Have I claimed one single acre?
Have I kept one single nugget--(barring samples)? No, not I!
Because my price was paid me ten times over by my Maker.
But your wouldn't understand it. You go up and occupy.
Ores you'll find there; wood and cattle; water-transit sure and steady
(That should keep the railway-rates down), coal and iron at your doors.
God took care to hide that country till He judged His people ready,
Then He chose me for His Whisper, and I've found it, and it's yours!
Yes, your "Never-never country"--yes, your "edge of cultivation"
And "no sense in going further"--till I crossed the range to see.
God forgive me! No, I didn't. It's God's present to our nation.
Anybody might have found it, but--His Whisper came to Me!
I remember that one. Yes, that one is also very good. Another one I like is “The White Man’s Burden”, though it’s certainly not politically correct nowadays.
I will admit that I would have been waving the flag when we took over the Philippines. (And the Spanish/American War--at the time--helped accelerate a healing process between the North & South.) But "nation building" really should be done by the locals involved, not self-styled do-gooders.
(Not that I think Kipling ever pretended to be such. My third favorite Kipling Poem was An Imperial Rescript, also in the Literary Corner at my website, which clearly shows what a younger Kipling (1890) thought of "do gooders."
I think this was before anyone realized that. I think that at the time, they believed people only needed to be shown how to be civilized. It did not occur to them that there were cultural reasons why people might not adopt western ideas.
Not that I think Kipling ever pretended to be such. My third favorite Kipling Poem was An Imperial Rescript, also in the Literary Corner at my website, which clearly shows what a younger Kipling (1890) thought of "do gooders."
I hadn't read that one before, but I am quite pleased with it. It clearly is of a set with other things Kipling had written. The man could go straight to the underlying point of it!
His point reminds me of something that Thomas Paine said about guns.
The same balance would be preserved were all the world destitute of arms, for all would be alike; but since some will not, others dare not lay them aside.
On the "nation building" subject, I have been advised that there were two schools of thought in the British colonial Office--those who respected the natural cultures of other nations, and those who like our post World War II globalists, pursued the fantasy that you could (and should) try to remake others.
Unfortunately the latter school seemed to prevail, when the Colonial powers yielded to pressure from our State Department and pulled out without protecting the diverse tribal structures--a move as stupid as it was insensitive to the cultural heritages involved. ["Democracy" In The Third World]
A better name for Democracy in the Third World has been 'genocide.'
Too many people went into the State Department with heads full of Leftist fantasy--they didn't really understand or respect the American experience.
Our Last Chance? [Can Donald Trump Revive The "Spirit of '76?].
To all who recognize that President Trump is a true Blessing, this is a now or never moment.
Or how else can one identify a motive for the theater of the absurd the Left has concocted.
It's about power, and they are utterly shameless about doing what it takes to gain and keep it.
Someone on another website (Instapundit) has put forth the theory that the real concern about a sane Supreme Court is they will allow the scaling back of Federal Bureaucracy, and the entrenched power structure does not want to lose power or influence.
I just saw a Mencken quote the other day with which I had been unfamiliar.
When somebody says it’s not about the money, it’s about the money.’
I have been fighting those people for 66 years, and you really do not understand them if you will not observe their compulsion driven egalitarian collectivism.
It is not an article I link to here very often, but it will illustrate the dichotomy between a reasoned and a compulsive approach: Reason Or Compulsion?
And again, what is critical in this election is not confined to anyone's purely economic interest: Our Last Chance? [Can Donald Trump Revive The "Spirit of '76?]
And that has the ring of truth to it. Yes, not all of them are motivated by money, but the ones who are motivated by money hold the reins of those who are not, I think.
The attack dogs of the left are nuts. Those who are sane are just amoral opportunists.
Our Last Chance? [Can Donald Trump Revive The "Spirit of '76?]
Look, normal business analytic tools would totally discredit the absurd guilt complexes that intimidate successful Capitalists into all sorts of nonsensical guilt trips. If we could simply reintroduce common sense into the Academic world, the crooked business types would start to fear us, rather than the false grievance merchants.
So that's Western culture, and you are on the other side with "everyone else"?
Good luck with that.
The hour was late, in 2015, when Donald Trump stepped into the breach to preserve what was left of the American Heritage. When he boldly rejected a spastic "politically correct" mantra that was stifling honest debate throughout the West, we rallied to his banner with a sense of elation. Yet we did not, not until 2018, appreciate how truly late was the hour--how truly great, the personal peril to this wise, brave & good man;--nor how great the potential benefit to each of us, were he to succeed; how great the disaster to our children & grandchildren, were he to fail.
The ever more bizarre attacks on Judge Kavanaugh demonstrate hw late the hour. We dare not falter in our efforts to rally all patriots for the fall election.
Our Last Chance? [Can Donald Trump Revive The "Spirit of '76?]
The little “dillup” of the 1920-21 Depression was a road sign for the decade a warning of what would follow the Roaring 20s. For one thing, Prohibition was the result of Congress overriding Wilson’s veto. And it was Silent Cal Coolidge who was Prez from 1923-1929.
Nevertheless, the pent up manufacturing restricted in WWI broke loose to fuel the Roaring 20s, installment payment plans and all the rest. An illegal underground trade in hooch, to offset the Pure Food and Drug Act which dealt with cocaine,heroin/opiates etc— was in the background of this “roaring” and what Greenspan would call ‘unnatural exuberance”.... and the Crash of 1929 presaged the next decade with Repeal of 18 (so the losers could lose even more for less money and stay drunk).
The Tavern Democrats took over with Repeal, and FDR’s ridiculous “New” Deal of recycled govt. intrusion. Intentional driving of his political manipulation stifled the recovery— inevitably leading to FDR’s monumental failure into WWII. Govt. was the problem through all of this. And, as before it was the great wealthy (and world socialists) who made money with their partners in Govt.
This may well be America's Now or Never moment. God Willing we will win the day. At issue is a return to an America with self-respect, firmly endowed with an adventuresome & aspiratory spirit, ready to achieve & honor the "exceptional." An America, where we celebrate, rather than disparage, high achievement--whether material, cultural or spiritual;--where men & women are mated allies, not rivals; where each generation seeks to build on an ever richer foundation, rather than tear down monuments from a once honored past. An America, which rejects to its very core the hate driven culture of envy & resentment, which has come to dominate a not at all loyal opposition.
Even the worst antics in the FDR & LBJ eras pale before the compulsive attacks on elemental decency, so evident in each day's news.
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