GORDON DUFF: REMEMBERING REAL AMERICA

THE PRIORITY OF GETTING GOVERNMENT OUT OF OUR LIVES

AND MOVING ON AS AMERICANS

By Gordon Duff STAFF WRITER

This was the week of the State of the Union address from President Obama, a mixture of straight talk, economic lies and rehashed campaign rhetoric delivered with style Reagan would admire.  Gov. Bobby Jindahl responded, proving himself to be a curious and confused individual.  I am certain he is a wonderful person, though.  I wouldn’t ask him for directions to the corner, however.  He is governor of Louisiana.  Things are prettymuch like that down there, like a piece of France that escaped.

I have spent most of my life wanting my family to be healthy, kids to do well in school and for the people around me to have enough money, and not to be dying of something.  On and off for years, nearly everyone got divorced, got cancer, strokes, many died and some of the kids didn’t do that well, one of mine died.

90% of what government actually did had nothing to do with any of this.  That is wrong.  They could have changed a few things.  Lets look at my list:

• Health Care:  Most of my friends who are veterans have gotten bad health care, most, but not all.  Some had private insurance and got vital treatments that the VA had refused.  Some had no insurance.  Some had diseases tied to military service, PTSD and such or Agent Orange cancers.  Private healthcare is a joke.  The VA is a mess.  The entire system needs bulldozing and only the government owns bulldozers.  I am ready to let them try to screw it up.  Nurses are underpaid and do most of the work while many in medicine are little more than gangsters.  If you don’t see something wrong here you are certainly not “right thinking.”
• Jobs and the Economy:  Over the past few decades, we watched jobs go away.  If you are sitting on the internet, you may have a pension, maybe 2, financial security and time on your hands.  What do we know about Americans who can’t pay their bills or who the people are who are losing their homes.  Go to a Walmart, Lowes, Home Depot or an auto parts store.  Look at who works there.  They are people exactly like you and me but aren’t making enough money to live.  There are millions who would die to have those jobs.  Why doesn’t anyone talk about this? How did we end up a country where people who work hard can barely live at all?  Pretend you are unemployed (maybe you really are) and start looking for a job.  Be prepared for an unpleasant challenge.
• Politics:  I write on politics and have lived in that world, mostly with the Republican Party, for many years.  Extremists who talk about “liberals and conservatives” are little more than damned fools.  People who call themselves “conservatives” build huge bureaucracies and spend like drunken sailors.  Real “liberals” may not exist.  There are “anti-gun” people and conservationists.  I can’t really find the other liberals we are told about.  I have looked.  All I find is Americans.  Maybe I don’t listen to enough radio and my brain has rotted.

• Gun Control:  I have seen several pieces of gun and ammunition control legislation flow around the internet in the last few days.  All of it is stupid.  However, these bills are introduced around the country every day and always have been.  They are now being sent around only to help lobbyists raise money and scare gun owners into shelling out dough.  Few lobbyists own a gun.  Nobody supports these stupid bills, nobody sane anyway.  They will always be out there and need to be watched, opposed and crushed.  The people who introduce them are in 2 groups.  Some are sucking up to “rich liberals,” a pretty small but dumb group.  Some are sucking up to GOP based companies that want to make money branding ammo, counting guns, etc.  Some are supported by the real “right,” the police organizations, and folks who don’t like the idea of armed Americans.
• War in Iraq.:  Where do I start.  I was a Marine grunt (infantryman) and know war well.  War is bullshit and anyone who tells you different needs to be selling underwater real estate.  Google: Smedley Butler Iraq was a huge screwup.  We lost many of our own freedoms by creating the lies our government used to go to war.  Between 500k and 1m Iraqis have died in the war.  80% of them were not combatants.  Bush Sr., after Desert Storm, let Saddam slaughter the Kurds.  Clinton inherited the problem and sat on it.  Bush “the lesser” went in but with the worst military advice on the planet.  His “handpicked” Iraq friends were the scum of the Earth.  He made terrible mistakes. Cheney, Rumsfeld and the generals Bush didn’t fire were morons.  Laws were broken, mistakes made.  We can clean up the mess, take care of the veterans and move on with life.  End of story.
• War in Afghanistan:  This is a country that really helped people who attacked the US.  They have been at war there since the invention of paper, maybe longer.  They, the “nutcase” Taliban and their terrorist friends can move the war in and out of Pakistan, protect themselves there pretty well, and keep this going until all of us are dead.  The government is not respected by anyone there, is thought of as a “US puppet” but hates us.  Our warlords have done little but expand opium production to record levels.  I suspect many Americans are involved in this.  No surprise there.  Unless we learn the real tribal nature of Afghanistan and help them build a real government that they want, we are totally screwed.

I was at a huge local gun show Sunday.  The local Klan had a booth there, selling memorabilia and KKK labeled products.  No protesters around as gun shows are typically 100% white affairs.  I spent a half hour talking politics with the Klan until my wife dragged me away.  All they cared about was jobs and keeping their kids ok, prettymuch like talking to my “darker” friends, friends in Iraq or Africa or anywhere else.  We had nothing we didn’t agree on, nothing we found worth discussing anyway.

Politics has absolutely nothing to do with life except government is choking the life out of us.  I grew up in Michigan on rock and roll, motorcycles, fishing and camping, shooting (not a hunter) and keeping as many friends around as possible.  Politicians (except the ones who are my friends, of course) are usually the nerds and snitches who we avoided as kids.  Now we let them run the world.

What are we thinking?  Imagine having Rush Limbaugh, Dick Cheney and Ollie North over for a BBQ.  Not my house, please!  If you have your own list with Nancy Pelosi and Henry Waxman at the top, I will accept it also.

That lifestyle, the 60’s/70’s lifestyle, the good part of it anyway,  never carried over, not really, into this new century.  Keeping that alive is more important than any of the politics.  We made that America, not Johnson, Nixon, Ford or Carter.  We all knew them to be horse’s asses.  Why were we so much smarter then than now but wore such stupid looking clothing?

The country is us, our kids, our friends.  Only crazy people believe we are defined by “liberal” or “conservative” or that the imaginary “Illuminati” is ruling anything but a men’s room in the Vatican.  The “New World Order” has been here for years.  Who do you think collapsed the world economy?

My mother talked about tough times, “the depression” and growing up in “Glomar,” a mining camp outside Hazard, Kentucky.  All this talk about money, politics, terrorism, “liberals” and “socialism” isn’t going to feed anyone or fix a kid’s teeth or get us through what we know is coming.  Believe only what you can see and feel.  Everything else, everything you read, hear or see, everything that has that stink about it, is “pimped” to you for a reason.  If you like how something you read or hear makes you feel then, chances are, you are in trouble.  Consider pulling the plug.

I don’t care if the news we get is all lies or the internet if filled with people trying to blame someone because their own lives are crap.  What if, take a second and think, people who talk about the dangers of “socialism and liberals” were really the ones duped into believing big government would take care of them?  If you think anyone in Washington has saved you or is going to, you are beyond help already.

What did invading Iraq and listening into everyone’s phone calls or rigging voting machines have to do with real conservative values, hard work, small government and self reliance?  How is fixing a kids teeth “Communism?”

Gordon Duff is a Marine combat vet and regular contributor on political and social issues.

Gordon Duff

Gordon Duff posted articles on VT from 2008 to 2022. He is a Marine combat veteran of the Vietnam War. A disabled veteran, he worked on veterans and POW issues for decades.

Gordon is an accredited diplomat and is generally accepted as one of the top global intelligence specialists. He manages the world’s largest private intelligence organization and regularly consults with governments challenged by security issues.

Duff has traveled extensively, is published around the world, and is a regular guest on TV and radio in more than “several” countries. He is also a trained chef, wine enthusiast, avid motorcyclist, and gunsmith specializing in historical weapons and restoration. Business experience and interests are in energy and defense technology.

• Gordon’s Archives:  2008-2015
• Gordon’s Archives:  2016-2022