Sebastian Junger - "Everyone's against war, any sane person's against war, and yet everyone goes to see war movies..."

An acquaintence of mine from Middleboro, MA recently inquired about the "tone" of my comments here, especially regarding my rather spirited bashing of POTUS & his administration, The Governor of Massachusetts and many of those held dear by the Left. He stated that I was regurgitating Fox News.

In my defense, I rarely, if ever have cited FOX News on this blog....I read many different sources and try to gain a multi-faceted view. Hate to say it, our Nobel Prize Winner in the White House and his lefty ilk were the ones spouting " Protest is Patriotic" for years....seems a little hypocritical for any Lefty Leaning person to now say it is uncalled for as the shoe is on the other foot... Can't take the "heat", stay out of the kitchen.

For the record, I am "unenrolled" and follow neither party as I vote the Man/Woman and NOT the party.

Actually, I digress. Enclosed is a copy of an article written about a person whom I have much respect and admiration for, Massachusetts native and War Correspondant Sebastian Junger.

He admits to being a Lefty politics wise but supports the Afghanistan War. He has felt the heat of battle and understands what most of the Lefties back stateside have no clue on....Do He & I agree on all things ?? NOPE. Then again, I disagree with one of my Heroes in life, US Senator John McCain but that doesn't stop me from supporting him either. The difference is Sebastian Junger & John McCain both make intelligent arguements and have HONOR. They are thinking and caring passionately about what they are espousing.

OBAMA, Pelosi, Deval Patrick, Geitner, Napolitano, Biden ??? NOPE....None of them are worthy to stand next to Sebastian Junger or Senator McCain as the only thing they care about is controlling your life and your money. They are devoid of honor and integrity as a group. My opinion, and solely based on my observations. Many agree with me and many disagree. If I had to go somewhere "hot", I'd trust John McCain & Seabstian Junger long before I would consider trusting any of the aforementioned bunch.


OK - I digressed a 2nd time. Now the words from Sebastian Junger. Read on as it is worth your time to hear what he says. I hope one day to meet Sebastian just as I have met John McCain. I would really like to get to know him better.

Sebastian Junger reflects on friendship, war and peace

After the death of photojournalist and friend Tim Hetherington in Libya, Junger resolves to cease front-line reporting. But war, he says, remains one of humanity's master narratives.

By Reed Johnson, Los Angeles Times
June 9, 2011


Last Oscar season, author Sebastian Junger and photojournalist Tim Hetherington walked the red carpet together.

Their documentary "Restrepo," recorded while they were embedded with a U.S. Army platoon in Afghanistan's remote and dangerous Korengal Valley, was nominated for an Academy Award. For months the two men had lived with the troops, sharing the same food, the same stifling quarters, and the same long stretches of boredom punctuated by moments of adrenaline-fueled terror.

Barely two months after the Oscars, on April 20, Hetherington was killed in a mortar attack in Misurata, Libya, where he was covering the rebel uprising against Moammar Kadafi's regime. In the months since, Junger has resolved to pull back from combat journalism.

"I'm not going to do any more front-line reporting, because I don't want to put my wife through what I went through with Tim," he said during a recent stopover in Los Angeles to promote the new paperback edition of his 2010 book "War," which Junger was compiling while he and Hetherington were filming "Restrepo."

"It was a very obvious thought to come to in the wake of all this. Tim's death made war reporting feel like a selfish endeavor."

It's a startling concession from an author whose eyewitness accounts from Liberia, Afghanistan and other global hot spots can make readers imagine they're inches away from the mortar blasts and AK-47 rounds.

Written in sinewy, stripped-to-the-waist prose, "War" not only paints vivid profiles of the U.S. soldiers Junger met, and the harrowing conditions they endured, it also penetrates deeply into the strange, terrifying allure of combat and the motivations of the young men who mostly wage it. The book has drawn critical comparisons with such canonical literature as Michael Herr's Vietnam-era "Dispatches" and the World War I and Spanish Civil War reflections of Ernest Hemingway and George Orwell.

In this month's Vanity Fair magazine, Junger eulogizes Hetherington's valor and vision in conveying the world's suffering to others. Another photojournalist, Chris Hondros, was fatally wounded in the same Libyan attack that killed Hetherington, and two other photojournalists were injured.

Before Hetherington's death, Junger said, the perils of war reporting had always felt abstract. He's not judging other journalists' decisions to place themselves in harm's way, but he's had enough.

"I thought it couldn't happen to me, and I'd never known anyone who had got killed — couple guys that got shot. You know, there's a lot of denial. I mean, denial works."

A trim 49-year-old with intense storm-gray eyes, Junger has the demeanor of a youthful college English professor who moonlights as the track coach — an Ivy League mind outfitted in solid blue-collar principles. He projects a restless curiosity, a touch of rah-rah adventurism, a dash of low-key machismo.

The author and his wife of six years, Daniela, a Bulgarian native to whom "War" is dedicated, have no children but are discussing starting a family.

Junger said that his father, a theoretical physicist, opened his mind to science and the idea that the physical and human worlds "can be understood and should be understood." His mother, a painter, gave to her son a more aesthetic and spiritual mode of understanding. Journalism merged his left- and right-brain tendencies "in kind of a nice way."

Despite his own vow to pull back from the trenches, Junger still not only considers war to be a great journalistic subject, he regards it as one of the three or four master narratives of human life — or, at least, guys' lives.

"Look at the cave paintings in France. What do they show? They show the game animals that they've hunted — a form of warfare, in a way, violence. They show warfare, they show men fighting each other. They show fertile females. I mean, what topics preoccupy men? You want to look into the male brain? It's like, OK, I need to kill game, I need to sustain myself — basically, career. Conflict and combat, manliness and proving yourself. Hot chicks. And the final one is shamanism, connection to the divine. That comprises the entirety of what's on the walls of the caves in France. That's the male brain, that's human society in a lot of ways."

Stories of violent conflict and men acting gracefully (or otherwise) under duress have been the alpha and omega of Junger's writing career, in books such as "The Perfect Storm" (1997), about a fishing boat disaster, and "Fire," about men who earn their living, and sometimes their deaths, by doing perilous jobs in places like Sierra Leone and Kosovo.

As a writer, Junger credits Hetherington with "opening my eyes up" to the rich complexity of visual experience. When he was trying to organize "War" around a unifying principle, Junger asked himself, "What would Tim do and how would Tim think about this material?"

Junger concluded that his friend "wouldn't be organizing it in an event-driven, linear way, he'd be looking for some deeper structure that reflects the human experience." That helped Junger eventually build "War" around three thematic blocks. "Fear" elucidates the primal emotions and human frailties that combat unleashes. "Killing" illuminates military tactics, political gamesmanship and the grotesque seductiveness of high-tech weaponry.

The book's final section, "Love," explores the ties of loyalty and affection that bind soldiers to one another far above any mere ideology.

"Everyone's against war, any sane person's against war, and yet everyone goes to see war movies," Junger said. "All my lefty friends — and in case you hadn't picked up on it I'm pretty left-wing — went to see 'Saving Private Ryan.' They're going to see 'Saving Private Ryan' because war is dramatic and compelling and important and reveals tremendous things about the human soul. And you get it on oil rigs, you get it in logging camps, you get it on fishing boats, you get it in platoons."

If all war is insane, and yet horribly compelling, in Junger's view there are good wars and bad wars. Afghanistan, which he has reported on since the 1990s, is among the former, he believes. Even before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, drew the U.S. deeper into the country, he said, it was clear that only the international community could end Afghanistan's endless civil wars.

Junger believes that if the U.S. and its allies can ever pressure Hamid Karzai's corrupt government to reform so that the people will support it, U.S. forces can withdraw and Afghanistan can achieve peace, security and at least a form of "middle-ground" democracy between the failed state it was in the 1990s and "democracy like we see it in Iowa."

By contrast, invading Iraq was an error, he thinks, and he refused to cover it because "I don't want to risk my life covering a mistake."

There's one other dangerous assignment that Junger shuns: writing fiction. In his early 20s, inspired by the brainy tough-guy holy trinity of Raymond Carver, Richard Ford and Tobias Wolff, Junger tried his hand at a few short stories, but they rightfully ended up buried in a closet, he said.

"I mean, a bad novel is hard to write," he said. "A brilliant novel, like I don't even know how that happens. So that's why I don't do it. Writing fiction feels like it would be like going off the diving board into a swimming pool that has no water in it.

"Maybe one day I will, and the pool will be filled with water and it'll be nice, but right now it doesn't feel that way."

Pulling back the curtain on the arrogance of our Imperial President.....

The conventional wisdom is that we will see an Arse-Kicking of epic proportion this Tuesday...I have been writing about it based on going back to the election of Scott Brown into the Senate from my home state, Massachusetts. The "2nd Shot Heard Round The World" gave us an inkling into how people felt back at the beginning of 2010 regarding POTUS and his Presidency.

NOW, 10 months later, the anger has simmered to a full boil. People are fed up with his arrogance, Obamacare, Pelosi, Gietner, Napolitano, Biden and the attitude that they have all displayed towards the American Public who has rejected their views.

The arrogant smug attitude displayed by POTUS was never more on display than when he came to Boston to support his buddy, Deval "Spend-it-all" Patrick.

The enclosed article highlights what he said while in Boston:

In Boston on Oct. 16, Mr. Obama said, "People out there are still hurting very badly, and they are still scared. And so part of the reason that our politics seems so tough right now, and facts and science and argument does not seem to be winning the day all the time, is because we're hard-wired not to always think clearly when we're scared."

No, Mr. President, we are thinking VERY CLEARLY about what you say and how you treat the majority of Americans who want to tell you where to go, and will do so with their votes on Tuesday.

As an aside, the fact that POTUS will be heading overseas for an extended trip immediately after the election to escape the onslaught of "change" that will be arriving at his front door shows the character of an insolent spoiled teenager. When confronted with challenges, he would rather stamp his feet, take a powder and turn tail than stand and take the medicine he richly deserves. What a joke.

Whoever advised him that going overseas right after the mid-term elections would be a good political move is sadly mistaken or maybe it was the decision of a inadequate President deluding himself further.....

You can run, Mr. President, but you cannot hide.

KNIGHT: Pulling back the curtain on Obama's audacity
Americans are witnessing an imperial presidency
By Robert Knight
-
The Washington Times
6:59 p.m., Friday, October 29, 2010

One of the most memorable scenes in "The Wizard of Oz" is when Toto yanks on the curtain to reveal the bogus wizard faking a larger-than-life image. In 2008, the media played the role of the curtain, shielding Barack Obama. Not enough Americans saw his thin resume, lifelong radical connections, sealed college records or brief U.S. Senate voting record, which the National Journalpegged to the left of socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders, Vermont Democrat.

At the time, the terrier gamely pulling the curtain was the conservative media, including talk radio, websites, magazines and a few editorial pages.

Now, the curtain is nearly open, with President Obama himself pulling the cord. Facing an almost certain king-sized rebuke tomorrow, he has abandoned any pretense of the moderation that fooled so many in 2008.

Proverbs 16:18 says, "Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall." Judge for yourself whether these recent statements meet the haughtiness test:

In Boston on Oct. 16, Mr. Obama said, "People out there are still hurting very badly, and they are still scared. And so part of the reason that our politics seems so tough right now, and facts and science and argument does not seem to be winning the day all the time, is because we're hard-wired not to always think clearly when we're scared."

If he keeps this up, he might get real good at talking down to us, especially those of us "clinging" to our guns and religion.

Speaking on the Spanish-language TV network Univision on Oct. 25, Mr. Obama urged viewers to "punish our enemies."

On Oct. 23, he warned Republicans not to get in his way. Speaking at the University of Minnesota, he blamed the GOP for driving the nation's "car" into a ditch:

"And all the time the Republicans have been standing on the sidelines. They've been looking down, fanning themselves, sipping on a Slurpee [read: mint julep], kicking dirt down into the ditch, kicking dirt in our faces. But we kept pushing. ... And now we get the Republicans tapping us on the shoulder, saying, 'We want the keys back.' You can't have the keys back - you don't know how to drive. You can ride with us if you want, but you've got to sit in the back seat."

Not everyone thinks the car is being fixed, however. The Associated Press reports that Mr. Obama's approval rating even among college students is 44 percent, down from 60 percent a year ago.

When he's not demonizing the opposition, Mr. Obama is working on his imperious image. His trip to India on Nov. 6 should finish that job. His entourage will spend enough to bankrupt a small nation, which might be a nice change from his bankrupting our large nation. Wait - it's all our money.

"[T]he president's team has booked the entire Taj Mahal Hotel, including 570 rooms, all banquets and restaurants," the Economic Times reports. ". . . 125 rooms at the Taj President have also been booked, apart from 80 to 90 rooms each in Grand Hyatt and the Oberoi hotels."

Add to that Air Force One, two more jumbo jets, security jets, 45 cars and several U.S. Navy vessels, and the cost of this vacation, oops, state visit, will soar into the tens of millions. For a president who says he's looking out for the little guy, it must be hard to see him from those mighty heights.

In a wonderful new book by the late constitutional attorney John Armor, "These Are the Times That Try Men's Souls," Thomas Paine's works are uniquely arranged by topic with Mr. Armor's commentaries in the margin. In the "On Tyranny" section, Mr. Armor notes that Paine was well ahead of "The Wizard of Oz" in skewering executive privilege. Writing in free verse, Paine targeted King George III. But listen to his words while imagining the Obama junket:

"What is called monarchy, always appears to me

A Silly, contemptible thing. I compare it to something

Kept behind a curtain, about which there is a great deal of bustle and fuss, and a wonderful air of seeming solemnity;

But when, by any accident, the curtain happens

To be open - and the company see what it is,

They burst into laughter."

If only it were that funny. Paine, who first used the term "the United States of America," could not abide tyrants of any kind, no matter how they came to power. He warned, too, about the possibility of an imperial Congress.

If Paine had been asked what he thought of Nancy Pelosi and company tucking into Obamacare a provision forbidding future Congresses from overturning portions of the law, he might have responded with a quote from his essay "The Rights of Man": "The vanity and presumption of governing beyond the grave is the most ridiculous and insolent of all tyrannies."

Unless tomorrow's election begins a serious rollback, our grandchildren will be paying for Mr. Obama's and Mrs. Pelosi's extravagant spending well beyond the grave. And it could be curtains for our self-governing republic.

Robert Knight is senior fellow for the American Civil Rights Union and author of the newly updated "Radical Rulers: The White House Elites Who Are Pushing America Toward Socialism" (radicalrulers.com, 2010).

© Copyright 2010 The Washington Times, LLC.

The American Economy is on DOUBLE SECRET PROBATION....The DEMS Fraternity is in charge and they are wrecking the American Dream...

The scene is back at the home of Mr. Average Joe/Flounder with the gang - Mr. Average Joe gave the keys to his shiny American Dream to the DEMS and it seems as those he trusted have lied to him and wrecked it....Let's look in to see what they have to say to him about it.....

OBAMA/Otter: Mr. Average Joe/Flounder, you can't spend your whole life worrying about your mistakes! You f*#&ed up... you trusted us! Hey, make the best of it! Maybe we can help.

Mr. Average Joe/Flounder: [crying] That's easy for you to say! What am I going to tell my Family?

OBAMA/Otter: I'll tell you what. We'll tell the family you were doing a great job taking care of their American Dream, but you parked it out back last night and this morning... it was gone. We report it as stolen to the police. Bernanke/D-Day takes care of the covering up the wreck of the economy. The insurance companies & Banks get bailed out by the TARP. We'll just print up some new money.....

Mr. Average Joe/Flounder: Will that work?

OBAMA/Otter: Hey, it's gotta work better than the truth.

Geitner/Bluto: [thrusting six-pack into Mr. Average Joe/Flounder's hands] My advice to you is to start drinking heavily.

OBAMA/Otter: Better listen to him, Mr. Average Joe/Flounder, he's been on Wall Street a long time and we feel he knows it all.

Bernanke/D-Day: [firing up blow-torch] There you go now, just leave everything to me....


God help us if these Morons have another two years in control of our country and the economy - The damage they have done will make the wreckage at the end of Animal House look like a walk in the park......We need to get the morons outta there and restore some measure of fiscal sanity to our country.... Election Day November 2nd, 2010 is coming and none too soon......Let us hope that the Americans who got hurt the most in the last two years turn out in force to send a message to Washington DC.

It's all the fault of the American Voters, because you're stupid, uneducated, bigoted, greedy racists....

THIS is the message that the Democrats are sending the voters, if not directly, through their proxies in the media.....columnists and Op-ed writers who support the agenda of the DEMS have been sending this message to us for months....." You just don't get it - you're not sophisticated enough - you're bigoted, etc., etc.

WELL let me clue them in - WE, the American Voters GET IT alright - and from what I have seen of the polls for the upcoming November Elections, the DEMS are really going to get it - In Spades.

I for one, am tired for being lectured by POTUS, FLOTUS, BIDEN, PELOSI, REED, GEITNER, POLITANO, HOLDER and the whole group of pin-heads who think they are the smartest people in the world when I wouldn't put them in charge of a bake sale. They are not only NOT the smartest, they have underestimated the intelligence of the voters along with not being in tune with American Voters values.

Get over yourself Mr. President & Madam Speaker - You aren't doing what the American people want and all the name-calling in the world will not change our opinion of your lame agendas...you'll get the message when the voters make the President a "lame-duck" for the last two years of his term and send Ms. Pelosi out of her lofty perch.....and none too soon.