| Subject: | Tuesday's Election |
|---|---|
| Date: | Mon, 03 Nov 2008 09:51:59 -0600 |
| From: | Election |
| Reply-To: | gary@surdyke.com |
| To: | xxxxxxx |
I've written and forwarded many e-mails during this election season. My interest isn't a Johnnie come lately thing. My first recollection of a Presidential election was listening to the returns come in with my father in 1948. That was the upset of the 20th century when Truman upset Thomas Dewey. Some irony here.
I was 20 year old when JFK was elected President. At that time you needed to be 21 to vote so I wasn't able to vote for him, I certainly would have. Looking back on that my support for him was totally emotional. I really had no idea what the differences were between him and Richard Nixon his opponent who was President Eisenhower's Vice President. Quite similar I believe to Obama's support today. America took a huge risk in electing Kennedy President because of his lack of leadership. America came within a whisker of getting in a nuclear war with the USSR over the placing of nuclear weapons and missiles just 90 miles off our coast in Cuba. John Mc Cain was A Navy pilot at that time on the USS Enterprise and was in his fighter armed and ready to go to war. What precipitated this is a perception of weakness JFK exhibited when he refused to support the Cuban Freedom Fighters with air support at the "Bay of Pigs". To this day we are still paying the price for this near disaster resulting to the " hands off policy of Cuba" deal we made with the USSR to remove there weapons. It was a short time after this that we began to engage in Vietnam. There is a significant opinion that Kennedy got the US involved there to prove his toughness after the Cuban debacle. The US was in a recession during Kennedy's. Presidency. To JFK's credit he drastically cut federal income tax which resulted in a period of sustained growth. He was assassinated on November 22nd 1963 by Lee Harvey Oswald who had spent time in both the USSR and Cuba prior to killing JFK. The entire country mourned.
He was succeeded by Lyndon Johnson his VP who proceeded to sent millions of our young GI's off to Vietnam including John McCain where over 50,000 were killed in action. John McCain was shot down over Hanoi, he spent 5 years as a POW. He refused early release offered by his captors for fear they would use him as a propaganda tool. His father was a Navy Admiral Commander serving off the coast of Vietnam. What do you think Obama would have been doing had he been of age at that time? Johnson served out JFK's first term and was re-elected in 1964. By the time the 1968 election came around the public had turned against the war even though we were on the threshold of victory. President Johnson decided not to run for re-election. Robert Kennedy, JFK's younger brother became a candidate and had just won the California primary when he was killed by Sirhan Sirhan who to this day is in prison in California. Incidentally William Ayers and his wife Bernadette Dorn who are admitted terrorists who bombed the Pentagon and other government facilities in the 60's wrote a book much later entitled Prairie Fire and dedicated it to Sirhan Sirhan among others. These two are friends and political supporters of Obama. On the day after the 911 attack William Ayers said he wished he had done (bombed) more in the 60's.
Richard Nixon became President in 1968 and proceeded to extricate us from Vietnam. The press proceeded to blame Nixon and the Republicans for the war in Vietnam even though I believe the blame rest solely on JFK and Lyndon Johnson. Nixon was forced to resign before completing his second term due to the Watergate scandal which was a backwater event stemming from the war. Gerald Ford who was "Speaker of the House" became President and served the remainder of Nixon's second term. Jimmie Carter became president in 1976 defeating Gerald Ford. I voted for Carter much to my regret.
Hopefully we all remember the Iran hostage crisis when the current President of Iran led a group of thugs and captured the US embassy which in itself is an act of war. Prior to this Iran was an ally of the USA under the Shah of Iran. He was overthrown by Islamic extremist when President Carter failed to come to his defense The crises continued for over 400 days and the most President Carter could do is attempt a hapless rescue which ended in disaster. Ronald Reagan defeated Carter and became President in 1980. Under Carter the US was in a severe recession, 12% national unemployment 21% interest rates, and severe inflation. When Reagan became President he was feared by the world, somewhat like John McCain is today. The American hostages were released almost to the day Reagan took the Presidential Oath. President Reagan's centerpiece proposal to help the economy was to reduce the maximum federal tax rate from 71% to 28%. The US economy roared. The US led by President Reagan won the "Cold War" with the Soviet Union by the shear strength of our Economy and President Reagan's commitment to a "Strategic defense" initiative. Recall President Reagan demanding that Gorbochev tear down the wall separating East and West Berlin, and the wall came down.
Presidents do make a difference. Early in Bill Clintons Presidency the first attack on the WorldTradeCenter took place. It was treated as a criminal matter. We were humiliated time after time by the Islamic Jihadist during Clintons years as President from Somalia to the attack on the USS Cole, US interests across the world were under attack. On January 20th 2001 George W. Bush became President. On Sept 11th 2001 we were attacked again. Linda, my wife and I were on an airplane waiting to take off in NewarkNJ at the time of the attack. We watched the TwinTowers burn thru the window of the plane. By the time we got back to the terminal the Pentagon had been hit. The image of the Towers burning is etched in my mind. I believe that image needs to be etched into the minds of every freeman on earth. Have you noticed that the media does not show that image now? It seems they want us to forget.
The future of freedom on earth will be determined not by how the current economic situation is handled or what is done about the Medical or Education policies of the USA but does America have the will to sustain the battle against Islamic Jihadists.
As Joe Biden said, a President Obama will be tested. Based upon his words of surrender in Iraq, he won't even admit the McCain Surge has worked and Victory is at hand in Iraq. Have you noticed that Obama has never used the word Victory in reference to Iraq? The only victory he seems interested is his own. I'm sure Joe Biden is correct. He will be tested and I believe with all my heart and soul he will fail the test. Just like he failed the test to defend a living baby who survived an abortion by voting against a measure that would have required abortion clinics to provide medical treatment for this most innocent of all victims.
John McCain has been tested all his life and he has passed every test.
I'm sitting here Sunday Nov 2nd watching Obama give a stump speech. Most every word out of his mouth is a lie.
It's not too late, Wake up America.
Gary M. Surdyke
St Croix Office 340-778-6342
Mobile 636-734-3443
Lake of the Ozarks 573-964-0006
No comments:
Post a Comment