1109

 Wednesday, November 9, 2022

In bed at 10:30, up at 6:30, wondering how bad the election results are.  Overcast skies, 49 degrees, expecting high of 66, warmer day than the cities I track: Alexandria, Phoenix, Munich, and Sherman Oaks.

Wisconsin

Voters split tickets: Evers won, Barnes lost.  Ron Johnson outpolled Tim Michaels.  As I predicted a couple of months ago over TSJ's remonstrances, Barnes never had a chance of winning a statewide race in Wisconsin because he is Black and hardly charismatic.  Obama won but Mandela Barnes is no Barack Obama.  Attorney General.  Ron Johnson had huge negative numbers going into the race, defending the January 6 rioters, disparaging public health efforts to curb Covid, approval ratings down to about 1/3, and Barnes still couldn't beat him. No surprise.  I was right on Barnes, wrong on Evers, thankfully.  AG race still hasn't been called though incumbent Democrat Josh Kaulhas narrow lead, 50.6 to 49.4.  Important Secretary of State race is uncalled and even closer, incumbent Democrat LaFollette 48.3, Republican challenger Louderback 48.1  If these numbers hold up, the only Democrat who will not have prevailed, will be the Black candidate, though also the only one challenging an wildly unpopular incumbent.  (Wrong on Evers, right on Barnes)

National

At 7 a.m., control of House and Senate still not certain.

Pennsylvania: Fetterman won, Mastraiano lost. (Right on Mastraiano, wrong on Fetterman)

Georgia: likely heading to runoff, neither Warnock nor Walker reaching 50% (No guess hazarded on this race)

Colorado: Michael Bennett held onto seat against O'Dea

N. Hampshire: Maggie Hassan won (Right on Hassan)

Ohio: J. D. Vance beat Tim Ryan (Right on Vance)

Florida: Ron DeSantis and Marco Rubio beat Christ and Val Demings solidly (Right on both)

Arizona: all too early to call

Nevada: too early to call

Notes from Far From Vietnam (cont'd)

Michelle Ray segment:  "Every day a hundred tons of napalm and two hundred bombs of all sorts are dropped on South Vietnam alone, and just by the Air Force. . .In other zones, particularly in the province of BinhDinh, because of the incessant bombing, the population has been evacuated into camps. But the fields are far away, and there are too few bikes.  So every morning, Koreans from the Tiger Division take them under armed protection to harvest their crops.  The Vietnamese don't like the Korean soldiers.  They don't forget  either that under Japanese occupation, the Koreans were in charge of prison camps. Every week the number of refugees increases.  When I see them I can't help thinking about what a Viet Long companion said to me: "The land the American's won means good inhabitants put into camps that we call concentration camps.  Imperialist say they have rallied to them, but they are with us, and provide us with information.  To them, the enemy is the Americans that bomb them and force them out of the villages leaving everything."

Ann Uyen: On November 2, 1965, Norman Morrison, a Baltimore Quaker, killed himself outside the Pentagon, the American headquarters citadel, by setting fire to his paraffin impregnated clothes.

April 15, 1967 Huge demonstrations for peace.  May 1, 1967, huge demonstration in support of war effort

. . . . . Hard to watch this film because it hits too close to home for an Irish Catholic American boy brought up to be respectful of authority and obedient, who served at least voluntarily in the Marines and voluntarily in Vietnam during the 2 years before this virulent antiwar film was made by leftist filmmakers.   It brings home the effects of the bombs we dropped, high explosives,  napalm, white phosphorous, Agent Orange and other defoliants.  The forced relocation of Vietnamese from their homes to "strategic hamlets" a/k/a concentration camps.  "Free fire zones." The way we military guys really felt about the Vietnamese ('zipperheads, the zips) and especially the ARVINs, and their fancy officers.  The hypocrisy of it all.  The stupidity of it all.  The death and destruction of it all.  The grotesque hideousness of the 'America Love It or Leave It', "My country, right or wrong' crowd, the cops siding with the Establishment, the Power Structure, against the protesters, (hints of the Democratic convention in  Chicago in the summer of 1968), all the lies and all the dead, all the lives altered and/or destroyed forever.  Shame, guilt, embarrassment, 'not a day but something is recalled, my conscience or my vanity appalled.'

Russia:Ukraine::US:Vietnam

The bombing of North Vietnam surpassed the total tonnage of bombs dropped on Germany, Italy and Japan in World War II.  8,744,000 - Total number of US Troops that served worldwide during Vietnam,  3,403,000 served in Southeast Asia,   2,594,000 served in South Vietnam.  The total of American servicemen listed as POW/MIA at the end of the war was 2,646.  As of April 27, 2021, 1,584 soldiers remain unaccounted for.

US Deaths: Battle: 47,434,  Non-Battle: 10,786, Total In-Theatre: 58,220

1.3 million - Total military deaths for all countries involved;  1 million - Total civilian deaths///

Economic Cost:  The Department of Defense (DOD) reports that the United States spent about $168 billion (worth around $950 billion in 2011 dollars) in the entire war including $111 billion on military operations (1965 – 1972) and $28.5 billion on economic and military aid to Saigon regime (1953 – 1975). At that rate, the United States spent approximately $168,000 for an “enemy” killed. However, $168 billion was only the direct cost. According to Indochina Newsletter of Asia Resource Center, the United States spent from $350 billion to $900 billion in total including veterans’ benefits and interest.