Yooper
Up. Identified. Lase. Fire. On the way.
Some poorly-organized thoughts regarding the saying that America loves a winner.
I.
Does America love a winner? Not sure that's true. Then again, it might be.
Turns out it depends on how one defines "America" and how one defines "winning."
That's pretty clear as it pertains to the current political back & forth. Not just Trump-Pelosi, but the greater Republican-Democrat contrast.
Trump was elected to fight for the common Deplorable. Clinton ran on a platform of privilege and status quo for The Elite. Pelosi-Schumer are now her successors (how else do you reconcile their flip-flopping on The Wall, etc.?).
Republicans are generally concerned with the rule of law and tend to act toward that goal. Winning is defined as moving closer to a society that's governed by the rule of law and that they serve at the People's pleasure (which is one way to view why you see Repubs "caving" so frequently).
Democrats, on the other hand, see winning in terms of power. Getting it, keeping it, strengthening it. Republicans also have this "will to power," but it is - philosophically - in service to the Rule of Law. For Democrats, rule of law is in the service to power. Here's a simple example showing this in action: while Republican lawmakers have term limits on their members Congressional committee participation, Democrats don't. It's the Right that is in greater favor of political office term limits. You don't see committee term limits or an interest in election term limits on the Left. Why? Because the DNA of a Democrat/Leftist is such that power is the be all end all. Just read "Alinsky's Rules"....
For Democrats, it is The People that serve at their pleasure (how else does one explain why the Dems, supposedly supporting the furloughed Fed workers, voted three times to kill a Repub bill to get them paid?).
II.
But let's take a look at something non-political to see if America agrees it loves a winner (or even who the winner is or even what we mean when we say "America").
Back in WWII who was the winningest US general? If you said Patton, you'd be correct. If you said Eisenhower, you'd be correct. If you said Bradley you'd also be correct. Why? Because each had constituencies that needed "their guy" to come out on top.
Of the three, Patton had the lowest casualty rate. Funny then that he was known as "Old Blood and Guts." (It's VERY important (see below) to understand who (the "who" = journalists) gave Patton the nickname and why.)
Bradley, on the other hand, was known as "The Soldiers' General" yet had a far higher casualty rate than Patton (Patton being the subordinate 3rd Army commander in Bradley's 12th Army Group helps lower Bradley's otherwise horrendous casualty rate). Bradley was an unimaginative commander whose sole idea in generalship was attrition warfare (i.e., pit two heavyweights against each other until one falls).
Eisenhower had no idea how to conduct a war, but was a useful tool for Churchill, Marshall, & Roosevelt. But in trying to please everyone, no one in the field was pleased. Take for, example, Eisenhower's failure to push Montgomery to take Caen after D-Day or his decision to support Montgomery in Market-Garden but failure to push Montgomery to secure the Scheldt estuary beforehand so that Market-Garden mattered. In both cases, Eisenhower failed to pick a course of action that would have ended WWII in Europe by September. We know this because German military officers and historians have said that had Eisenhower supported letting Patton loose earlier (immediately after D-Day instead of o/a 1 August) and supplying him rather than Montgomery's Market-Garden the Germans would have lost the war BY SEPTEMBER 1944! Think of how many American lives (specifically) and other lives would have been saved had we not fought Market-Garden, the Scheldt Estuary, the Battle of the Bulge, the Huertgen Forest (Bradley's largest blunder), etc.
So while Patton had in mind defeat of Germany and the saving of American lives, Eisenhower, Bradley, and interestingly, the Press had other ideas.
Bill Mauldin HATED Patton and did everything in his power to paint Patton in a bad light and Bradley in a positive one (he's the one, I believe, that coined Bradley the "Soldiers' General"). Mauldin wasn't alone among journalists in smearing Patton and these journalists had the active support of Democrat Senators/Congressmen (Patton was an independently wealthy, Republican-leaning sort of fellow, so of course he was the enemy), but interestingly Marshall, Eisenhower, and Bradley ENCOURAGED the journalistic smears.
What?! Marshall, Eisenhower, and Bradley encouraged the smears?! Yup.
Marshall was a pure establishment figure, both in the government and in his approach to Army doctrine. Patton was exactly the opposite. Marshall was all about The Plan and didn't need boat rockers upsetting The Plan.
Eisenhower wanted early on to run for President (by mid-1943 it was clear to many around him this was so) and he didn't want anything to get in the way. Eisenhower was worried Patton would get in the way (Patton was a scrupulous diary writer/record keeper and had prodigious amounts of documentation showing how incompetent Eisenhower was in the conduct of the war in the ETO (North Africa, Italy, & France/Germany)) so he employed a carrot/stick approach, re: Patton: promise him higher command but threaten to keep it from him if he didn't toe the line (what Patton didn't know (wasn't known until later) was that the senior military leaders (Marshall, Eisenhower, Bradley) had already decided Patton would never rise above Army command). So Eisenhower not only conducted illegal eavesdropping/surveillance* on Patton after the war's end when Patton was military governor of Bavaria, but encouraged journalists to continue attacking Patton to bait him and keep him on the defensive in order to provide, if necessary, Eisenhower an excuse to discredit Patton. Patton dying in the car accident was fortuitous for Eisenhower: his biggest critic no longer had an active voice. (This is why the conspiracy theories about Patton being murdered were so strong back then and linger on today: Eisenhower had real motive to keep Patton quiet and out of the way.)
Why Bradley? Simple here. Bradley was an insecure, incompetent general who rode Patton's tail to stardom. Bradley didn't want that known and loyalty to Eisenhower ("lap dog")/common enemy (he and journalists against Patton) were a means to keep his dirty secret safe.
These "establishment players" allied with so-called objective, non-biased, politically-unaffiliated journalists in a mutually beneficial arrangement to get what each wanted. The "boat rocker" (Patton) served as a useful idiot and was cast aside once his services were no longer needed.
That Marshall, Eisenhower, and Bradley were successful is evidenced by where they ended up. Not only positionally, but literally immaculate saints in the common hagiography of WWII and the Cold War. Clearly, WINNERS! And we are told to love them.
For the families of the tens of thousands of casualties (KIA, WIA, MIA, etc.) of WWII, Korea, and Vietnam, however, I wonder if the wrong folks were anointed "The Winners." Seems to me that if America really loved a winner America would have picked Patton and his way of war. But "Patton as winner" didn't fit the goals of a select few so that select few chose to mislead America, give us fakes for winners, and provide an opportunity to have more markers in cemeteries.
III.
Sort of like what we're seeing today.
Banks, capitalists, industry all make useful and convenient scapegoats for those who will do anything to keep controlling the narrative. Eisenhower railed against the "Military-Industrial Complex." But that was disingenuous and self-serving. The real problem was the Elite-Journalist Complex. And it still is today. Fight the good fight. Fight these vested interests.
*More than a bit ironic as Churchill used Kay Summersby as his agent-in-place to get intel on Eisenhower! What an absolute tool Eisenhower was; he considered Patton a useful idiot and yet he himself turned out to be a bigger one!
--- End of line (MCP)
I.
Does America love a winner? Not sure that's true. Then again, it might be.
Turns out it depends on how one defines "America" and how one defines "winning."
That's pretty clear as it pertains to the current political back & forth. Not just Trump-Pelosi, but the greater Republican-Democrat contrast.
Trump was elected to fight for the common Deplorable. Clinton ran on a platform of privilege and status quo for The Elite. Pelosi-Schumer are now her successors (how else do you reconcile their flip-flopping on The Wall, etc.?).
Republicans are generally concerned with the rule of law and tend to act toward that goal. Winning is defined as moving closer to a society that's governed by the rule of law and that they serve at the People's pleasure (which is one way to view why you see Repubs "caving" so frequently).
Democrats, on the other hand, see winning in terms of power. Getting it, keeping it, strengthening it. Republicans also have this "will to power," but it is - philosophically - in service to the Rule of Law. For Democrats, rule of law is in the service to power. Here's a simple example showing this in action: while Republican lawmakers have term limits on their members Congressional committee participation, Democrats don't. It's the Right that is in greater favor of political office term limits. You don't see committee term limits or an interest in election term limits on the Left. Why? Because the DNA of a Democrat/Leftist is such that power is the be all end all. Just read "Alinsky's Rules"....
For Democrats, it is The People that serve at their pleasure (how else does one explain why the Dems, supposedly supporting the furloughed Fed workers, voted three times to kill a Repub bill to get them paid?).
II.
But let's take a look at something non-political to see if America agrees it loves a winner (or even who the winner is or even what we mean when we say "America").
Back in WWII who was the winningest US general? If you said Patton, you'd be correct. If you said Eisenhower, you'd be correct. If you said Bradley you'd also be correct. Why? Because each had constituencies that needed "their guy" to come out on top.
Of the three, Patton had the lowest casualty rate. Funny then that he was known as "Old Blood and Guts." (It's VERY important (see below) to understand who (the "who" = journalists) gave Patton the nickname and why.)
Bradley, on the other hand, was known as "The Soldiers' General" yet had a far higher casualty rate than Patton (Patton being the subordinate 3rd Army commander in Bradley's 12th Army Group helps lower Bradley's otherwise horrendous casualty rate). Bradley was an unimaginative commander whose sole idea in generalship was attrition warfare (i.e., pit two heavyweights against each other until one falls).
Eisenhower had no idea how to conduct a war, but was a useful tool for Churchill, Marshall, & Roosevelt. But in trying to please everyone, no one in the field was pleased. Take for, example, Eisenhower's failure to push Montgomery to take Caen after D-Day or his decision to support Montgomery in Market-Garden but failure to push Montgomery to secure the Scheldt estuary beforehand so that Market-Garden mattered. In both cases, Eisenhower failed to pick a course of action that would have ended WWII in Europe by September. We know this because German military officers and historians have said that had Eisenhower supported letting Patton loose earlier (immediately after D-Day instead of o/a 1 August) and supplying him rather than Montgomery's Market-Garden the Germans would have lost the war BY SEPTEMBER 1944! Think of how many American lives (specifically) and other lives would have been saved had we not fought Market-Garden, the Scheldt Estuary, the Battle of the Bulge, the Huertgen Forest (Bradley's largest blunder), etc.
So while Patton had in mind defeat of Germany and the saving of American lives, Eisenhower, Bradley, and interestingly, the Press had other ideas.
Bill Mauldin HATED Patton and did everything in his power to paint Patton in a bad light and Bradley in a positive one (he's the one, I believe, that coined Bradley the "Soldiers' General"). Mauldin wasn't alone among journalists in smearing Patton and these journalists had the active support of Democrat Senators/Congressmen (Patton was an independently wealthy, Republican-leaning sort of fellow, so of course he was the enemy), but interestingly Marshall, Eisenhower, and Bradley ENCOURAGED the journalistic smears.
What?! Marshall, Eisenhower, and Bradley encouraged the smears?! Yup.
Marshall was a pure establishment figure, both in the government and in his approach to Army doctrine. Patton was exactly the opposite. Marshall was all about The Plan and didn't need boat rockers upsetting The Plan.
Eisenhower wanted early on to run for President (by mid-1943 it was clear to many around him this was so) and he didn't want anything to get in the way. Eisenhower was worried Patton would get in the way (Patton was a scrupulous diary writer/record keeper and had prodigious amounts of documentation showing how incompetent Eisenhower was in the conduct of the war in the ETO (North Africa, Italy, & France/Germany)) so he employed a carrot/stick approach, re: Patton: promise him higher command but threaten to keep it from him if he didn't toe the line (what Patton didn't know (wasn't known until later) was that the senior military leaders (Marshall, Eisenhower, Bradley) had already decided Patton would never rise above Army command). So Eisenhower not only conducted illegal eavesdropping/surveillance* on Patton after the war's end when Patton was military governor of Bavaria, but encouraged journalists to continue attacking Patton to bait him and keep him on the defensive in order to provide, if necessary, Eisenhower an excuse to discredit Patton. Patton dying in the car accident was fortuitous for Eisenhower: his biggest critic no longer had an active voice. (This is why the conspiracy theories about Patton being murdered were so strong back then and linger on today: Eisenhower had real motive to keep Patton quiet and out of the way.)
Why Bradley? Simple here. Bradley was an insecure, incompetent general who rode Patton's tail to stardom. Bradley didn't want that known and loyalty to Eisenhower ("lap dog")/common enemy (he and journalists against Patton) were a means to keep his dirty secret safe.
These "establishment players" allied with so-called objective, non-biased, politically-unaffiliated journalists in a mutually beneficial arrangement to get what each wanted. The "boat rocker" (Patton) served as a useful idiot and was cast aside once his services were no longer needed.
That Marshall, Eisenhower, and Bradley were successful is evidenced by where they ended up. Not only positionally, but literally immaculate saints in the common hagiography of WWII and the Cold War. Clearly, WINNERS! And we are told to love them.
For the families of the tens of thousands of casualties (KIA, WIA, MIA, etc.) of WWII, Korea, and Vietnam, however, I wonder if the wrong folks were anointed "The Winners." Seems to me that if America really loved a winner America would have picked Patton and his way of war. But "Patton as winner" didn't fit the goals of a select few so that select few chose to mislead America, give us fakes for winners, and provide an opportunity to have more markers in cemeteries.
III.
Sort of like what we're seeing today.
Banks, capitalists, industry all make useful and convenient scapegoats for those who will do anything to keep controlling the narrative. Eisenhower railed against the "Military-Industrial Complex." But that was disingenuous and self-serving. The real problem was the Elite-Journalist Complex. And it still is today. Fight the good fight. Fight these vested interests.
*More than a bit ironic as Churchill used Kay Summersby as his agent-in-place to get intel on Eisenhower! What an absolute tool Eisenhower was; he considered Patton a useful idiot and yet he himself turned out to be a bigger one!
--- End of line (MCP)
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