The Republican Debate was "Fear Incorporated"

The entire debate last night was whipping up Fear in the American people.  This is the plan of despots through the ages.  They say that Trump has the support of 36% or 28% of the population.  There weren’t that many die hard members of the Nazi party in Germany.  And there were few true Bolshivicks when Vladimir Lenin took over.  They happened to catch the Russian government at a weak, dispirited point.  Only the most diehard of American Communists, and I don’t know any personally- - would say that the Russian revolution was a good thing.  They say even the mafia doesn’t go after families of targets of vendettas.  I guess it’s just the Columbian drug cartels that chop the ear or a little finger of a leader’s son and mail it back to the object of blackmail or whatever.  It’s a coward who says “Maybe I can’t defeat you on your own but I can sure make it hell on your teenage daughter and I can torture the daylights out of her to make you do what I want.  Muslim families live with death and they are psychologically prepared for it.  I question the judgement of anyone who says that we’re going to start World War III with a no fly zone in Syria all because fourteen people were gunned down in San Bernardino.  I guestion the judgement and perportionality of such a decision.  Bush made a bad decision in getting rid of Saddam Hussein in 2003.  Trump astutely recognizes this fact.  We don’t close down the internet in order to bag a few more terrorists.  I also draw a firm line on government encroachment when it comes to this required “back door incryption” for government that they want to require for all manufactures of software.   I would repeat that all of this sounds like Communist China.  What’s the use of fighting for American values if they are gone?  And I was happy to see Trump repeat my long held assertion that “We need to deal with one enemy at a time”.  First we need to rally all our forces and allies against ISIS.  This will involve Iran and the Iraq Shiite government and hopefully even Russia.  As Washington’s blog points out, “Putin is bad, and Assad is bad, but if we went after governments that abused their own citizens we’d be fighting a different war every day for as far as the eye can see.  We don’t install a No Fly Zone in Syria to start World War III.   Remember how the US got into World War I.  Germany had a no shipping zone in the Atlantic saying any ship in this roped off area will be sunk.  And the Lucitania was torpedoes and that got us into World War I in April of 1914.  That didn’t work out too well, especially for Germany.  So why should the United States repeat Germany’s mistake?

CNN had the coverage.  They were just finishing up with Huckibee, Santorum,  Pataki, and Lindsey Graham- - - mostly closing statements.  Lindsey’s was the most detailed and scarey of the speeches.  A lot of the candidates appeared self conscious tonight.  Huckibee gave the briefest speech.  But it was fear incorporated, just as predicted by the left.  It’s not an approach to pleasure and a better, brighter tomorrow, but getting out the verbal taser and torturing the audience with it.  There was a scare about a terrorist threat from Austria on the LA Unified School District.  The thing turned out to be a total hoax.  New York’s schools got a similar threatening E mail but they pegged it as a hoax right off and kept their schools open. 

The nine candidates in the big league are Rand Paul, Chris Christy, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Donald Trump, Ben Carson, Carley Feurina, John Kasech, and Jeb Bush.  Each candidate was allowed to make an opening statement- - and most of these were fear oriented.   A lot of the debate was balanced between all of the candidates this time with a lot of skirmishes between unexpected candidates.  Rand Paul is against “closing down the internet”.  Paul and Cruz are against bulk data collection and Marco Rubio is for it.  There was a lot of stuff about immigration and whose policy makes the most sense.  Carly Feurina and Trump want private businesses to “be asked” to participate in this war.  It sounds to me like we’re heading toward Communist China when it comes to incryption and banning data incryption between private parties.  But Ben Carson hit a low note as did Trump when they talked about “going after the families” like slaughtering women and children in the Viet Nam war.  Ben Carson likened the slaughter of thousands of innocent children in a bombing raid like cutting out a brain tumor where the child who receives the operation doesn’t like you very much when informed of what it entails.  The whole thing is becoming a bit “much” and is just too difficult to watch.  Well now they are talking about Assad.  Ted Cruz is against getting in the middle of a civil war.  Trump has said, astutely, that we have spent trillions - -of dollars on war better spent at home.

Terry Hill knocked on the door seconds after I dialed his number and let it ring.  Terry was in good humor with a lot of jokes on the way over.  His car was warm.  We only had a three and not a four hour pass and ended up not using all of that.  We walked under the roller coaster, which was shut down till next summer for repair.  We tried to get into Ghost Town but the entrance was closed off and finally we went to the information center where she said I could get a discount “shopper’s admission” for $35.00.  That was ludicris.  So we decided to go to the chicken restaurant.  They informed us that the restrooms weren’t working there and we’d have to go elsewhere if- - - .  A lot of the time Terry was walking ahead of me in a really fast stride.  There weren’t that many people in there- - and lots of empty tables.  [material left out here at the request of Mal Evans]  Terry had trouble signaling for the check, and I looked at it, wondering if the math was honest.  Then we got moving on to other areas.  We went in Virginia’s gift shop where there used to be a lot of antique china, and where I thought Mom had tried to sell some of Grandma’s stuff.  But it was all changed now.  There were three compartments to the store.  One section had a lot of history of Knott’s Berry farm stuff, and it used to be called “Berry Place” and not “farm”.  Then the third segment had a lot of Star Wars stuff in it where there were these two guys that called each other “dude” all the time.  They were either on drugs, or gay.  Terry Hill shared with them his interesting theory about the movie.  We went on to the emporium or something.  There were Dickens Village and Santa’s Village and a lot of Santa Clauses from around the world, all created by one artist.  We went on across Grand Avenue to a store with Lakers jerseys but mostly there was Peanuts stuff in this other segment.  After a while Terry had seen enough and we figured it was time to leave.  We left at just past a quarter till two, and I got back here in time for refreshments break.  Dora offered us corn dogs I turned down because I was still full.  But we were limited to one cup of iced tea.  The weather seems to have warmed up a little. 

We have quite an impressive list of songs I remember first hand from Rhapsody in Black.  I don’t mean from an oldies station but first hand.  “Don’t Say Nothing Bad About My Baby” by the Cookies, whom I always thought were white.   “Pop Eye” is it one word or two- - the other version – not the Orlons.   “Please Release Me” is an earlier version I have a vague memory of.  We have “Loopty Loop” by Johnny Thunder, and “Don’t Hang Up” by the Orlons, and “Got My Mind Made Up To Love You” by Marvyn Gaye.  These songs played are within a month or two of the target date either way.  “I’m Checking Out of Hotel Loneliness”  “Strings of my Heart” I have a fleeting but definite memory of.  We have “Zippidy Doo Dah” featuring Darlene Love, and there were two Sam Cooke songs I didn’t recognize, and a version of “Bring It On Home” by another artist.  There was a mystery “Marvolettes” song.  “Don’t Make Me Over” is a Dion Warwick classic you never hear.  Then we have “Two Lovers” and “You Really Got a Hold on Me” and “Limbo Rock” and “Up On the Roof”.   “I’m Gona Get On My Pony and Ride” I think is Dee Dee Sharp, but I’m not absolutely positive.  “You’re The Boy I Love” is a Crystals song with Darlene Love still in the group I remember from KRTH days.