Saturday, October 31, 1936. "I welcome their hatred".

Franklin Roosevelt made his final speech of his 1936 campaign at Madison Square Garden.  The speech is one of his most famous, particularly for the line "I welcome their hatred".

Senator Wagner, Governor Lehman, ladies and gentlemen:

On the eve of a national election, it is well for us to stop for a moment and analyze calmly and without prejudice the effect on our Nation of a victory by either of the major political parties.

The problem of the electorate is far deeper, far more vital than the continuance in the Presidency of any individual. For the greater issue goes beyond units of humanity—it goes to humanity itself.

In 1932 the issue was the restoration of American democracy; and the American people were in a mood to win. They did win. In 1936 the issue is the preservation of their victory. Again they are in a mood to win. Again they will win.

More than four years ago in accepting the Democratic nomination in Chicago, I said: “Give me your help not to win votes alone, but to win in this crusade to restore America to its own people.”

The banners of that crusade still fly in the van of a Nation that is on the march.

It is needless to repeat the details of the program which this Administration has been hammering out on the anvils of experience. No amount of misrepresentation or statistical contortion can conceal or blur or smear that record. Neither the attacks of unscrupulous enemies nor the exaggerations of over-zealous friends will serve to mislead the American people.

What was our hope in 1932? Above all other things the American people wanted peace. They wanted peace of mind instead of gnawing fear.

First, they sought escape from the personal terror which had stalked them for three years. They wanted the peace that comes from security in their homes: safety for their savings, permanence in their jobs, a fair profit from their enterprise.

Next, they wanted peace in the community, the peace that springs from the ability to meet the needs of community life: schools, playgrounds, parks, sanitation, highways—those things which are expected of solvent local government. They sought escape from disintegration and bankruptcy in local and state affairs.

They also sought peace within the Nation: protection of their currency, fairer wages, the ending of long hours of toil, the abolition of child labor, the elimination of wild-cat speculation, the safety of their children from kidnappers.

And, finally, they sought peace with other Nations—peace in a world of unrest. The Nation knows that I hate war, and I know that the Nation hates war.

I submit to you a record of peace; and on that record a well-founded expectation for future peace—peace for the individual, peace for the community, peace for the Nation, and peace with the world.

Tonight I call the roll—the roll of honor of those who stood with us in 1932 and still stand with us today.

Written on it are the names of millions who never had a chance—men at starvation wages, women in sweatshops, children at looms.

Written on it are the names of those who despaired, young men and young women for whom opportunity had become a will-o’-the-wisp.

Written on it are the names of farmers whose acres yielded only bitterness, business men whose books were portents of disaster, home owners who were faced with eviction, frugal citizens whose savings were insecure.

Written there in large letters are the names of countless other Americans of all parties and all faiths, Americans who had eyes to see and hearts to understand, whose consciences were burdened because too many of their fellows were burdened, who looked on these things four years ago and said, “This can be changed. We will change it.”

We still lead that army in 1936. They stood with us then because in 1932 they believed. They stand with us today because in 1936 they know. And with them stand millions of new recruits who have come to know.

Their hopes have become our record.

We have not come this far without a struggle and I assure you we cannot go further without a struggle.

For twelve years this Nation was afflicted with hear-nothing, see-nothing, do-nothing Government. The Nation looked to Government but the Government looked away. Nine mocking years with the golden calf and three long years of the scourge! Nine crazy years at the ticker and three long years in the breadlines! Nine mad years of mirage and three long years of despair! Powerful influences strive today to restore that kind of government with its doctrine that that Government is best which is most indifferent.

For nearly four years you have had an Administration which instead of twirling its thumbs has rolled up its sleeves. We will keep our sleeves rolled up.

We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace—business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering.

They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob.

Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me—and I welcome their hatred.

I should like to have it said of my first Administration that in it the forces of selfishness and of lust for power met their match. I should like to have it said of my second Administration that in it these forces met their master.

The American people know from a four-year record that today there is only one entrance to the White House—by the front door. Since March 4, 1933, there has been only one pass-key to the White House. I have carried that key in my pocket. It is there tonight. So long as I am President, it will remain in my pocket.

Those who used to have pass-keys are not happy. Some of them are desperate. Only desperate men with their backs to the wall would descend so far below the level of decent citizenship as to foster the current pay-envelope campaign against America’s working people. Only reckless men, heedless of consequences, would risk the disruption of the hope for a new peace between worker and employer by returning to the tactics of the labor spy.

Here is an amazing paradox! The very employers and politicians and publishers who talk most loudly of class antagonism and the destruction of the American system now undermine that system by this attempt to coerce the votes of the wage earners of this country. It is the 1936 version of the old threat to close down the factory or the office if a particular candidate does not win. It is an old strategy of tyrants to delude their victims into fighting their battles for them.

Every message in a pay envelope, even if it is the truth, is a command to vote according to the will of the employer. But this propaganda is worse—it is deceit.

They tell the worker his wage will be reduced by a contribution to some vague form of old-age insurance. They carefully conceal from him the fact that for every dollar of premium he pays for that insurance, the employer pays another dollar. That omission is deceit.

They carefully conceal from him the fact that under the federal law, he receives another insurance policy to help him if he loses his job, and that the premium of that policy is paid 100 percent by the employer and not one cent by the worker. They do not tell him that the insurance policy that is bought for him is far more favorable to him than any policy that any private insurance company could afford to issue. That omission is deceit.

They imply to him that he pays all the cost of both forms of insurance. They carefully conceal from him the fact that for every dollar put up by him his employer puts up three dollars three for one. And that omission is deceit.

But they are guilty of more than deceit. When they imply that the reserves thus created against both these policies will be stolen by some future Congress, diverted to some wholly foreign purpose, they attack the integrity and honor of American Government itself. Those who suggest that, are already aliens to the spirit of American democracy. Let them emigrate and try their lot under some foreign flag in which they have more confidence.

The fraudulent nature of this attempt is well shown by the record of votes on the passage of the Social Security Act. In addition to an overwhelming majority of Democrats in both Houses, seventy-seven Republican Representatives voted for it and only eighteen against it and fifteen Republican Senators voted for it and only five against it. Where does this last-minute drive of the Republican leadership leave these Republican Representatives and Senators who helped enact this law?

I am sure the vast majority of law-abiding businessmen who are not parties to this propaganda fully appreciate the extent of the threat to honest business contained in this coercion.

I have expressed indignation at this form of campaigning and I am confident that the overwhelming majority of employers, workers and the general public share that indignation and will show it at the polls on Tuesday next.

Aside from this phase of it, I prefer to remember this campaign not as bitter but only as hard-fought. There should be no bitterness or hate where the sole thought is the welfare of the United States of America. No man can occupy the office of President without realizing that he is President of all the people.

It is because I have sought to think in terms of the whole Nation that I am confident that today, just as four years ago, the people want more than promises.

Our vision for the future contains more than promises.

This is our answer to those who, silent about their own plans, ask us to state our objectives.

Of course we will continue to seek to improve working conditions for the workers of America—to reduce hours over-long, to increase wages that spell starvation, to end the labor of children, to wipe out sweatshops. Of course we will continue every effort to end monopoly in business, to support collective bargaining, to stop unfair competition, to abolish dishonorable trade practices. For all these we have only just begun to fight.

Of course we will continue to work for cheaper electricity in the homes and on the farms of America, for better and cheaper transportation, for low interest rates, for sounder home financing, for better banking, for the regulation of security issues, for reciprocal trade among nations, for the wiping out of slums. For all these we have only just begun to fight.

Of course we will continue our efforts in behalf of the farmers of America. With their continued cooperation we will do all in our power to end the piling up of huge surpluses which spelled ruinous prices for their crops. We will persist in successful action for better land use, for reforestation, for the conservation of water all the way from its source to the sea, for drought and flood control, for better marketing facilities for farm commodities, for a definite reduction of farm tenancy, for encouragement of farmer cooperatives, for crop insurance and a stable food supply. For all these we have only just begun to fight.

Of course we will provide useful work for the needy unemployed; we prefer useful work to the pauperism of a dole.

Here and now I want to make myself clear about those who disparage their fellow citizens on the relief rolls. They say that those on relief are not merely jobless—that they are worthless. Their solution for the relief problem is to end relief—to purge the rolls by starvation. To use the language of the stock broker, our needy unemployed would be cared for when, as, and if some fairy godmother should happen on the scene.

You and I will continue to refuse to accept that estimate of our unemployed fellow Americans. Your Government is still on the same side of the street with the Good Samaritan and not with those who pass by on the other side.

Again—what of our objectives?

Of course we will continue our efforts for young men and women so that they may obtain an education and an opportunity to put it to use. Of course we will continue our help for the crippled, for the blind, for the mothers, our insurance for the unemployed, our security for the aged. Of course we will continue to protect the consumer against unnecessary price spreads, against the costs that are added by monopoly and speculation. We will continue our successful efforts to increase his purchasing power and to keep it constant.

For these things, too, and for a multitude of others like them, we have only just begun to fight.

All this—all these objectives—spell peace at home. All our actions, all our ideals, spell also peace with other nations.

Today there is war and rumor of war. We want none of it. But while we guard our shores against threats of war, we will continue to remove the causes of unrest and antagonism at home which might make our people easier victims to those for whom foreign war is profitable. You know well that those who stand to profit by war are not on our side in this campaign.

“Peace on earth, good will toward men”—democracy must cling to that message. For it is my deep conviction that democracy cannot live without that true religion which gives a nation a sense of justice and of moral purpose. Above our political forums, above our market places stand the altars of our faith—altars on which burn the fires of devotion that maintain all that is best in us and all that is best in our Nation.

We have need of that devotion today. It is that which makes it possible for government to persuade those who are mentally prepared to fight each other to go on instead, to work for and to sacrifice for each other. That is why we need to say with the Prophet: “What doth the Lord require of thee—but to do justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God.” That is why the recovery we seek, the recovery we are winning, is more than economic. In it are included justice and love and humility, not for ourselves as individuals alone, but for our Nation.

That is the road to peace.

Hunger marchers from Jarrow arrived in London.

The Boy Scouts of the Philippines was formed, which is surprisingly late for the Boy Scout organizations.

Actor Michael Landon Sr. (Eugene Maurice Orowitz) was born in New York City.

Last edition:

Thursday, October 29, 1936. Battle of Seseña.

Labels: 1930s, 1936, Battle of Seseña, Personalities, Red Army, Spain, Spanish Civil War, Spanish Nationalist, Spanish Republicans, USSR

Wednesday, October 23, 1946. United Nations opens in Flushing Meadows, New York.

 The United Nations opened in Flushing Meadow, New York, where Truman delivered a speech:

Address in New York City at the Opening Session of the United Nations General Assembly

October 23, 1946

Mr. President, members of the Assembly of the United Nations:

On behalf of the Government and the people of the United States I extend a warm and hearty welcome to the delegates who have come here from all parts of the world to represent their countries at this meeting of the General Assembly of the United Nations.

I recall with great pleasure the last occasion on which I met and spoke with the representatives of the United Nations. Many of you who are here today were present then. It was the final day of the Conference at San Francisco, when the United Nations Charter was signed. On that day the constitutional foundation of the United Nations was laid.

For the people of my country this meeting today has a special historic significance. After the first world war the United States refused to join the League of Nations and our seat was empty at the first meeting of the League Assembly. This time the United States is not only a member; it is the host to the United Nations.

I can assure you that the Government and the people of the United States are deeply proud and grateful that the United Nations has chosen our country for its headquarters. We will extend the fullest measure of cooperation in making a home for the United Nations in this country. The American people welcome the delegates and the Secretariat of the United Nations as good neighbors and warm friends.

This meeting of the Assembly symbolizes the abandonment by the United States of a policy of isolation.

The overwhelming majority of the American people, regardless of party, support the United Nations.

They are resolved that the United States, to the full limit of its strength, shall contribute to the establishment and maintenance of a just and lasting peace among the nations of the world.

However, I must tell you that the American people are troubled by the failure of the Allied nations to make more progress in their common search for a lasting peace.

It is important to remember the intended place of the United Nations in moving toward this goal. The United Nations--as an organization--was not intended to settle the problems arising immediately out of the war. The United Nations was intended to provide the means for maintaining international peace in the future after just settlements have been made.

The settlement of these problems was deliberately consigned to negotiations among the Allies as distinguished from the United Nations. This was done in order to give the United Nations a better opportunity and a freer hand to carry out its long-range task of providing peaceful means for the adjustment of future differences, some of which might arise out of the settlements made as a result of this war.

The United Nations cannot, however, fulfill adequately its own responsibilities until the peace settlements have been made and unless these settlements form a solid foundation upon which to build a permanent peace.

I submit that these settlements, and our search for everlasting peace, rest upon the four essential freedoms.

These are freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom from want, and freedom from fear. These are fundamental freedoms to which all the United Nations are pledged under the Charter.

To the attainment of these freedoms-everywhere in the world--through the friendly cooperation of all nations, the Government and people of the United States are dedicated.

The fourth freedom--freedom from fear-means, above all else, freedom from fear of war.

This freedom is attainable now.

Lately we have all heard talk about the possibility of another world war. Fears have been aroused all over the world.

These fears are unwarranted and unjustified.

However, rumors of war still find willing listeners in certain places. If these rumors are not checked they are sure to impede world recovery.

I have been reading reports from many parts of the world. These reports all agree on one major point--the people of every nation are sick of war. They know its agony and its futility. No responsible government can ignore this universal feeling.

The United States of America has no wish to make war, now or in the future, upon any people anywhere in the world. The heart of our foreign policy is a sincere desire for peace. This nation will work patiently for peace by every means consistent with self-respect and security. Another world war would shatter the hopes of mankind and completely destroy civilization as we know it.

I am sure that every delegate in this hall will join me in rejecting talk of war. No nation wants war. Every nation needs peace.

To avoid war and rumors and danger of war the peoples of all countries must not only cherish peace as an ideal but they must develop means of settling conflicts between nations in accordance with the principles of law and justice.

The difficulty is that it is easier to get people to agree upon peace as an ideal than to agree upon principles of law and justice or to agree to subject their own acts to the collective judgment of mankind.

But difficult as the task may be, the path along which agreement may be sought is clearly defined. We expect to follow that path with success.

In the first place, every member of the United Nations is legally and morally bound by the Charter to keep the peace. More specifically, every member is bound to refrain in its international relations from the threat, or use, of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.

In the second place, I remind you that 23 members of the United Nations have bound themselves by the Charter of the Nuremberg Tribunal to the principle that planning, initiating or waging a war of aggression is a crime against humanity for which individuals as well as states shall be tried before the bar of international justice.

The basic principles upon which we are agreed go far, but not far enough, in removing the fear of war from the world. There must be agreement upon a positive, constructive course of action as well.

The peoples of the world know that there can be no real peace unless it is peace with justice for all--justice for small nations and for large nations and justice for individuals without distinction as to race, creed or color--a peace that will advance, not retard, the attainment of the four freedoms.

We shall attain freedom from fear when every act of every nation, in its dealings with every other nation, brings closer to realization the other freedoms-freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and freedom from want. Along this path we can find justice for all, without distinction between the strong and the weak among nations, and without discrimination among individuals.

After the peace has been made, I am convinced that the United Nations can and will prevent war between nations and remove the fear of war that distracts the peoples of the world and interferes with their progress toward a better life.

The war has left many parts of the world in turmoil. Differences have arisen among the Allies. It will not help us to pretend that
this is not the case. But it is not necessary to exaggerate these differences.

For my part, I believe there is no difference of interest that need stand in the way of settling these problems and settling them in accordance with the principles of the United Nations Charter. Above all, we must not permit differences in economic and social systems to stand in the way of peace, either now or in the future. To permit the United Nations to be broken into irreconcilable parts by different political philosophies would bring disaster to the world.

So far as Germany and Japan are concerned, the United States is resolved that neither shall again become a cause for war. We shall continue to seek agreement upon peace terms which ensure that both Germany and Japan remain disarmed, that Nazi influence in Germany be destroyed and that the power of the war lords in Japan be eliminated forever.

The United States will continue to seek settlements arising from the war that are just to all states, large and small, that uphold the human rights and fundamental freedoms to which the Charter pledges all its members, and that do not contain the seeds of new conflicts.

A peace between the nations based upon justice will make possible an early improvement in living conditions throughout the world and a quick recovery from the ravages of war. The world is crying for a just and durable peace with an intensity that must force its attainment at the earliest possible date.

If the members of the United Nations are to act together to remove the fear of war, the first requirement is for the Allied Nations to reach agreement on the peace settlements.

Propaganda that promotes distrust and misunderstanding among the Allies will not help us. Agreements designed to remove the fear of war can be reached only by the cooperation of nations to respect the legitimate interests of all states and act as good neighbors toward each other.

And lasting agreements between allies cannot be imposed by one nation nor can they be reached at the expense of the security, independence or integrity of any nation. There must be accommodation by all the Allied Nations in which mutual adjustments of lesser national interests are made in order to serve the greater interest of all in peace, security and justice.

This Assembly can do much toward recreating the spirit of friendly cooperation and toward reaffirming these principles of the United Nations which must be applied to the peace settlements. It must also prepare and strengthen the United Nations for the tasks that lie ahead after the settlements have been made.

All member nations, large and small, are represented here as equals. Wisdom is not the monopoly of strength or size. Small nations can contribute equally with the large nations toward bringing constructive thought and wise judgment to bear upon the formation of collective policy.

This Assembly is the world's supreme deliberative body.

The highest obligation of this Assembly is to speak for all mankind in such a way as to promote the unity of all members in behalf of a peace that will be lasting because it is rounded upon justice.

In seeking unity we should not be concerned about expressing differences freely. The United States believes that this Assembly should demonstrate the importance of freedom of speech to the cause of peace. I do not share the view of those who are fearful of the effects of free and frank discussions in the United Nations.

The United States attaches great importance to the principle of free discussion in this Assembly and in this Security Council. Free and direct exchange of arguments and information promotes understanding and therefore contributes in the long run to the removal of the fear of war and some of the causes of war.

The United States believes that the rule of unanimous accord among the five permanent members of the Security Council imposes upon these members a special obligation. This obligation is to seek and reach agreements that will enable them and the Security Council to fulfill their responsibilities under the Charter toward their fellow members of the United Nations and toward the maintenance of peace.

It is essential to the future of the United Nations that the members should use the Council as a means of promoting settlement of disputes as well as for airing them. The exercise of neither veto rights nor majority rights can make peace secure. There is no substitute for agreements that are universally acceptable because they are just to all concerned. The Security Council is intended to promote that kind of agreement and it is fully qualified for that purpose.

Because it is able to function continuously, the Security Council represents a most significant development in international
relations--the continued application of the public and peaceful methods of a council chamber to the settlement of disputes between nations.

Two of the greatest obligations undertaken by the United Nations toward the removal of the fear of war remain to be fulfilled.

First, we must reach an agreement establishing international controls of atomic energy that will ensure its use for peaceful purposes only, in accordance with the Assembly's unanimous resolution last winter.

Second, we must reach agreements that will remove the deadly fear of other weapons of mass destruction, in accordance with that same resolution.

Each of these obligations is going to be difficult to fulfill. Their fulfillment will require the utmost in perseverance and good faith,
and we cannot succeed without setting fundamental precedents in the law of nations. Each will be worth everything in perseverance and good faith that we can give to it. The future safety of the United Nations, and of every member nation, depends upon the outcome.

On behalf of the United States I can say we are not discouraged. We shall continue to seek agreement by every possible means.

At the same time we shall also press for preparation of agreements in order that the Security Council may have at its disposal
peace forces adequate to prevent acts of aggression.

The United Nations will not be able to remove the fear of war from the world unless substantial progress can be made in the next few years toward the realization of another of the four freedoms--freedom from want.

The Charter pledges the members of the United Nations to work together toward this end. The structure of the United Nations in this field is now nearing completion, with the Economic and Social Council, its commissions and related specialized agencies. It provides more complete and effective institutions through which to work than the world has ever had before.

A great opportunity lies before us.

In these constructive tasks which concern directly the lives and welfare of human beings throughout the world, humanity and
self-interest alike demand of all of us the fullest cooperation.

The United States has already demonstrated in many ways its grave concern about economic reconstruction that will repair the damage done by war.

We have participated actively in every measure taken by the United Nations toward this end. We have in addition taken such separate national action as the granting of large loans and credits and renewal of our reciprocal trade-agreements program.

Through the establishment of the Food and Agriculture Organization, the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the International Monetary Fund, members of the United Nations have proved their capacity for constructive cooperation toward common economic objectives. In addition, the International Labor Organization is being brought into relationship with the United Nations.

Now we must complete that structure. The United States attaches the highest importance to the creation of the International Trade Organization now being discussed in London by a Preparatory Committee.

This country wants to see not only the rapid restoration of devastated areas but the industrial and agricultural progress of the less
well-developed areas of the world.

We believe that all nations should be able to develop a healthy economic life of their own. We believe that all peoples should be able to reap the benefits of their own labor and of their own natural resources.

There are immense possibilities in many parts of the world for industrial development and agricultural modernization.

These possibilities can be realized only by the cooperation of members of the United Nations, helping each other on a basis of equal rights.

In the field of social reconstruction and advancement the completion of the Charter for a World Health Organization is an important step forward.

The Assembly now has before it for adoption the constitution of another specialized agency in this field--the International Refugee
Organization. It is essential that this Organization be created in time to take over from UNRRA as early as possible in the new year the tasks of caring for and repatriating or resettling the refugees and displaced persons of Europe. There will be similar tasks, of great magnitude, in the Far East.

The United States considers this a matter of great urgency in the cause of restoring peace and in the cause of humanity itself.

I intend to urge the Congress of the United States to authorize this country to do its full part, both in financial support of the
International Refugee Organization and in joining with other nations to receive those refugees who do not wish to return to their former homes for reasons of political or religious belief.

The United States believes a concerted effort must be made to break down the barriers to a free flow of information among the nations of the world.

We regard freedom of expression and freedom to receive information--the right of the people to know--as among the most important of those human rights and fundamental freedoms to which we are pledged under the United Nations Charter.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, which is meeting in November, is a recognition of this fact.
That Organization is built upon the premise that since wars begin in the minds of men, the defense of peace must be constructed in the minds of men, and that a free exchange of ideas and knowledge among peoples is necessary to this task. The United States therefore attaches great importance to all activities designed to break down barriers to mutual understanding and to wider tolerance.

The United States will support the United Nations with all the resources that we possess.

The use of force or the threat of force anywhere in the world to break the peace is of direct concern to the American people.

The course of history has made us one of the stronger nations of the world. It has therefore placed upon us special responsibilities to conserve our strength and to use it rightly in a world so interdependent as our world today.

The American people recognize these special responsibilities. We shall do our best to meet them, both in the making of the peace settlements and in the fulfillment of the long-range tasks of the United Nations.

The American people look upon the United Nations not as a temporary expedient but as a permanent partnership--a partnership among the peoples of the world for their common peace and common well-being.

It must be the determined purpose of all of us to see that the United Nations lives and grows in the minds and the hearts of all people.

May Almighty God, in His infinite wisdom and mercy, guide and sustain us as we seek to bring peace everlasting to the world.

With His help we shall succeed.

SS officer, Kurt Daluege, age 49, who had ordered the massacre of all residents in the village of Lidice, was sentenced to death.  He'd be hung the following day.

Helpful advertisement from the Toronto Daily Star, published on this day.

English born Ernest Thompson Seton, Canadian and American author, wildlife artist, founder of the Woodcraft Indians (Woodcraft League of America), and one of the founding pioneers of the Boy Scouts of America died on this day at age 86.

Last edition:

Tuesday, October 22, 1946. Operation Osoaviakhim

Labels: 1940s, 1946, 1950s, 1953, Corfu Incident, Food, hunting, It was because of World War Two, Nazi Germany, Operation Osoaviakhim, Railroads, Subsistence Hunting, technology, USSR, Weapons

CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 121st Edition and Wars and Rumors of War, 2026. Part 3. The War against Iran Edition and other Military Topics.

Alexander Mosaic, House of the Faun, Pompeii.  Alexander the Great fighting the Persians.

You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.

Matthew, Chapter 24.

Give me the money that has been spent in war, and I will purchase every foot of land upon the globe. I will clothe every man, woman, and child in an attire that kings and queens would be proud of; I will build a school-house upon every valley over the whole habitable earth; I will supply that school house with a competent teacher; I will build an academy in every town, and endow it; a college in every state, and fill it with able Professors; I will crown every hill with a church consecrated to the promulgation of the gospel of peace; I will support in its pulpit an able teacher of righteousness, so that on every Sabbath morning the chime on one hill should answer to the chime on another, around the earth's broad circumference; and the voice of prayer and the song of praise should ascend like a universal holocaust to heaven. 

Charles Sumner, c.1840

Quand les riches font la guerre, ce sont les pauvres qui meurent.

Jean Paul Sartre

March 2, 2026

The US and Israel v. Iran War.

Even before the weekend news show hits, the Administration and its GOP proxies were trying to form a theory of why the US, in concert with Israel, had attacked Iran.

Why Israel did it is fairly clear.  The Islamic Republic of Iran is a mortal enemy of Israel and an existential threat.  The fact that the US was going to war with Iran gave it a great opportunity.  And not just Israel, according to some information that seems fairly credible, at least Saudi Arabia saw things the exact same way, sort of. 

In both instances, those conflicts were religious in nature, at least form Iran's prospective.  Iran sees the world in apocalyptic terms and a struggle against Israel is a part of that weltanschauung.  Iran sees Saudi Arabia as representing Sunni Islam, and a virulent variant of it at that.  In fact, Saudi Arabia was in fact allied internally with Wahhabism, although that's long ceased to be the case.  Be that as it may, Sunni Islam and Shia Islam depart from each other radically and have been enemies since the latter first formed.  For that matter, Persia and the Arabs have been enemies for ever.  Persia was a major civilized empire before Islam, and it knows it.  Persia, Iran, could be a great nation without Islam, and it knows that.

But what about the United States?

According to the befuddled Donald Trump we attacked Iran, because, well it was a big honking monster threat to us.  The thing is, that dog didn't really hunt.

Two Salukis, Persian hounds, painted by the Xuande Emperor of China (1399–1435)

They were going to have a nuclear weapons, Donny told us, with in the next two weeks.  But then, it was realized, that would mean the befuddled Donny, dressed like a toddler in his trucker's cap, had been wrong when he told us that we'd bombed Iran back to the nuclear stone age in what is now being called the Twelve Day War.  

Oops.

Well, explanations for that being wrong, other than Trump Is Always Wrong, needed to be found, as the GOP mantra worships Trump almost as much as Trump worships Trump.

They were fibbing in negotiations over the nuclear weapons program we destroyed was tried next, was the next thing.

They were going to have missiles that could hit the US was tried, but it was pretty quickly revealed that at some point they might, but it would be years from now, plenty of time to go to Congress and ask for a declaration of war.  Well, they were going to have missiles that could hit Europe, which is much more credible, but the problem is that the Europeans, whom we've been telling need to fend for themselves, have had a "m'eh" reaction to that.  The country that really can hit Europe with missiles, and has a demonstrated ability to do it, Russia, which Trump has a crush on so large that it probably looms larger in his nighttime dreams than Melania, who of course is mostly in New York, helicoptering over Barron, whom we might note will not be joining the Armed Forces to serve in this war, putting him in good company with the ancestral Trumps.  Since Frederick Trump first set foot in the United States, the Trumps have missed the Spanish American War, the Philippine Insurrection, World War One, World War Two, the Korean war and the Vietnam War, a record few American families could match, including my own.*

Anyhow, that dog wasn't going to hunt either, so a new one had to be developed. 

 Neapolitan Mastiff.  Indeed, the modern foundational Neapolitan Mastiff.  Mastiffs are war dogs, of the "let slip the dog's of war" type.  The only one I've been personally familiar with was enormously cowardly.

Finally, the "they've been at war with us for forty seven years" thesis was come up with.

Well, I'll give whoever came up with that some credit.  There's really something to it.  Iran's Shia clerical state has been at war with the rest of the world for more or less something like forty years.

Which raises this point.  Up until now it was just our strategy to wait that out. . . and it was working pretty well.

Cleary, things had not reached a point where all of a sudden we needed to go to war on an emergency basis with Iran.  And under the U.S. Constitution, this excuse is complete horseshit.  In order to deploy force like this, in this way, we would have had to have been suddenly attacked.

We weren't.

This was completely illegal.

Not only that, it was highly ill advised. If Iran has been plotting against us for 47 years, it's had plenty of time to prepare for this day, and so far, it's been fighting back pretty well.  Our burn rate of high tech munitions is unsustainable.  It's burn rate on missiles might frankly not be.  And its allied, for all practical purposes, with Russia.  We're allied with Israel, which frankly depends on us for military support.

This was not smart.

We're going to be hit domestically.  Iran is capable of waging an asymmetric war and will.  It may have started that, in Austin, today.  It's believed that it has targeted Trump in the past.  If so, it will now, and there's no reason to believe it'll only target Trump.

The irony is, of course, that its likely not Trump who causes this to occur.  While not meaning this to sound the way it might, Israel, knowing that Trump is a demented fool, may very well have played the sad bloated corpse of the once playboy, now hoping for redemption and to be remembered, twit. Saudi Arabia may very well have as well. And then there's Pete Hegseth and Mike Huckabee, holding variant of Christian beliefs that Apostolic Christians, back during the Crusades, would have regarded as heretical.  They may have thrown us into a holy war that we'll pay for, for decades.

At least it will be an American Evangelical Protestant Crusade.  Due to the Black Legends, a common Protestant, and then atheist, argument stopper has been "what about the Crusades".

Well, MAGA, now you are the Crusader you imagined we were, even though we were never that.

At the end of the day, nobody publicly knows why we attacked Iran.  The best guess is that it's a combination of Neo Conservatives (Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz), foreign influence (Israel and Saudi Arabia) and far right Evangelicals trying to being about the end of the world (Huckabee and Hegseth).

All brought about illegally and through influence on a very weak mind, that being Donald Trump's.

Oh, 150 Iranian school girls were murdered for this.  

May the perpetual light shine upon them. Some of them were probably Christian.

Pete Hegseth, cultural warrior.

Heavily tatted Pete Hegseth, emblazed with Crusader images, but whom the Catholics of the Crusades, and the Orthodox through whose lands the Crusaders traveled would have regarded as a weird heretic, was busy, just before Donny launched a war against Iran, in the Culture Wars.

First, he engaged in a skirmish with wokeism and the Boy Scouts.

We're not completely unsympathetic with this.  We've noted this cultural zeitgeist before.

Boy Scouts no more.

Youth organizations. Their Rise and (near) Fall, or is that a myth? And, did you join?

No place for boys. . .

Exit the Boy Scouts Stage Left. Boys, Men, the "Masculinity Crisis" and the "BSA" as an example of it.

Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist Part 7. One more won't hurt me. . .

Today In Wyoming's History: May 8. The LDS severs ties with the BSA. 

Blog Mirror: What Scouting Has Lost

It does seem to us, quite frankly, that the Boy Scouts, which we have very little personal connection, have evolved into being somewhat less than it was.  It's less manly, it seems.  And it definitely isn't the example of Muscular Christianity it once was. However, it seems to be an odd thing for Hegseth, who doesn't seem to have a sports coat that fits, to be engaged in so close in time to a major war being launched. Indeed, it seems a bit odd for the Secretary of Defense to care about this at all, but maybe Boy Scout interactions with the military are greater than I suppose.  I'd have had to have been a Boy Scout near a military post to know, I suppose.  I know a friend of mine, who was a Scout growing up in an Air Force family in the 70s related to me that all of their leaders were Air Force members and they always had Air Force tentage when they were camping.

On a related matter, Hegseth clearly wants women out of combat roles.  This war, given as its a real one, gives him the opportunity to do that.  It's going to be his last opportunity as well.  The political tides are shifting.  In November, the opportunity will be gone. 

Somebody seemed to back Hegseth down, after which he went on to picking on the Ivy League.

I frankly didn't realize that Pete's an Ivy League graduate himself.  Princeton. It really surprises me.

Which brings me to this.  I think, that MAGA hates education in general. They Wyoming Freedom Caucus seems to. And if Hegseth, Cruz, Trump and Chuck Gray can come out of such vaunted schools and still be so blistering ignorant as they seem to be, it really backs up my long held opinion that the Ivy League and associated schools are a dumpster fire, but not for the reason that Pete and company would hold it.

Rather, they just aren't doing a good job of educating.  Look at Trump and Hegseth. It's hard to believe they have more than 5th grade education.  Or Chuck Gray.  He comes across like a 7th grade brat.

Diverting

Back on Trump, while I completely discounted it for a long time, it's getting hard to ignore that the US is getting into more and more grave matters as the Epstein files begin to hit closer and closer to home.  The thesis that some hold that Trump is creating diversions is getting a little hard to ignore.

People keep saying, even now, that there's nothing "to implicate" Trump.  Oh bull, there most certainly is. There's apparently direct testimony of his "abusing", which means screwing, a teenage girl.  No, I'm not saying he did it, but the information we already have about who he hung around with is pretty damming.  And his conduct with adult women has been less than admirable.  Even that gets ignored, however, for no good reason.  There's no reason to believe that Carol Alt is lying about being groped by Trump, for example, but people ignore it.

We've dealt with it before, but if Trump didn't have his hands in the underaged cookie jar it would have been an act of restraint for a guy who otherwise has shown no restraint. It might be time to start really looking at these claims vis a vis Epstein.

But then there's a war going on.

Speaking of underaged girls, one of the first things that happened in the war against Iran was a school was hit and 150 girls were killed.

There's always collateral damage in war, to be sure, but this war wasn't legally launched.  Killing those girls, therefore, is something akin to manslaughter, if the US did it.  It'll go unpunished however.

Noblis Oblige

Theodore Roosevelt's sons served in World War One, and World War Two, one winning the Congressional Medal of Honor.  FDR's sons served in the Second World War. Beau Biden served in Iraq.

This war gives the Trumps to finally serve the nation.  They sure haven't done so, so far.  At least Eric, Tiffany and Barron are young enough to serve.

They should.

They won't.

Americans have already died in the war.  Nobody who dies will be a Trump.

It's probably fairly safe to assume that most of the children of those who visited Epstein Island won't be serving in harms way.

Footnotes:  

*My father served in the Korean War.  One of my mother's cousins served in Vietnam and he wasn't even an American citizen.  I have uncles who served in World War Two and great uncles who served in World War One, albeit in the Canadian Army.  One of my Canadian uncles served in World War Two as well.

Last edition:

Wars and Rumors of War, 2026. Part 2. Quand les riches font la guerre, ce sont les pauvres qui meurent Edition.

Labels: Donald Trump, law, Russo Ukrainian War, Trump, United States and Israel v. Iran, War, Wars and rumors of wars, Yeoman's Fifth Law of History

CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 120th Edition. The smoke edition

Labels: Crime, Donald Trump, Ephebophilia, Epstein Scandal, John F. Kennedy, Sex, Warren G. Harding, Zeitgeist

Saturday, February 16, 1946. Potato consumption. Frozen food. Helicopters.

Frozen french fries were introduced by Maxson Food Systems of Long Island, New York.

From time to time, we'll have these a lot.

American per-capita potato consumption had interestingly declined since 1910, and was not measured at previous levels until 1962, when french fries were a fast-food restaurant staple.

I would not have guessed that, or frankly anything close to that.

Indeed a decline from 1910 to 1962 really surprises me.

I personally used to grow large volumes of potatoes, picking up where my later father had left off.  Maybe because its because I'm more Irish than most Irish, but I love them.

An item on frying fries:

Chugwater Fry-Off: Are Beef Tallow French Fries Really Better?

The first UN Security Council veto was made by the Soviet Union, killing a resolution concerning the withdrawal of British and French forces from Syria and Lebanon, while it still occupied parts of Iran.  Basically, the Soviet Union wanted the British and French out of Syria and Lebanon (which really was a French thing) while they still had their claws in Eastern Europe, North Korea, Sakhalin, and Iran.

They'd leave Iran, and with the fall of the Soviet Union, they'd leave many other places as well. With the Russo Ukrainian War, they're trying to claw their way back in, however ,and they've never left Sakahlian.

The Sikorsky S-51, the first helicopter sold for commercial rather than military use, although it received military use, was flown for the first time.

The chopper would be manufactured until the late 1950s.

By United States Navy - Scanned from Alexander, Joseph H., Fleet Operations in a Mobile War: September 1950-June 1951, Washington, D.C.: Naval Historical Center, Department of the Navy, 2001, p. 39., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=72961678

There was major news on the strike wave:

A Denver merchant noted the anniversary of Scouting:

Last edition:

Thursday, February 14, 1946. ENIAC.

Labels: 1940s, 1946, Army, Banking and finance, Computers, United Kingdom, Weapons