Ronald Reagan’s speech at Pointe du Hoc, Normandy, commemorating the 40th anniversary of the D-Day invasion.
Chris Ladd is a Texan living in the Chicago area. He has been involved in grassroots Republican politics for most of his life. He was a Republican precinct committeeman in suburban Chicago until he resigned from the party and his position after the 2016 Republican Convention. He can be reached at gopliferchicago at gmail dot com.
GOPLifer 
Here’s a question for all the political junkies- anyone think that Joe Biden would be up for running for Veep again? Warren gets a lot of buzz, but realistically she’s going to do the Dems more good staying right where she is. An additional problem with picking her, or other Dem Senator on the short list is that they are from states with a GOP Governor. Castro gets buzz, but he really doesn’t have the resume. Biden has all the cred. The downside is that he doesn’t help to pull in a swing state like OH or VA or FL.
At this point, I’d be more interested in Biden running for President…except that he can’t get on the ballots. What a messS!
For your Memorial Day consideration: “Remembrance Day” by Mark Knopfler. Remembrance Day is celebrated on November 11th, but the song is entirely appropriate for our Memorial Day.
Sorry, you’ll have to google it, evidently.
Thanks Creigh. I just sent the link to all my Canadian friends. I miss Dire Straights.
Straits.
Coming up on the next episode of “Party Unity”:
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/weekly-standards-bill-kristol-new-candidate-will-compete-in-presidential-race/
Donald Trump has given this episode his highest endorsement, in the form of a series of his famous invective-filled tweets! Don’t miss it, exclusive on Campaign 2016.
Pretty effective ad.
I know the polls suggest it’s close right now, I still don’t think it’s going to be. I don’t see how the average American us going to think HRC’s negatives (using the wrong email address, ancient real estate scandals, Bill Clinton having a consensual affair etc) are comparable to Trumps
Polls are always close this early. They’ll stay pretty close until about Labor Day. Then watch them open up.
If the Libertarian candidates can keep their pants on, the GOP might lose Texas. No kidding.
Hehe, yep that was funny. Did you catch the debate?
The Ls also need to reign in that “requiring driver’s licenses is gov’t overreach” crazy talk.
Loved a tweet I saw, “At least the Libertarians realize the guy on stage is naked. The GOP hasn’t caught on that the guy on their stage has no clothes.”
“If the Libertarian candidates can keep their pants on, the GOP might lose Texas. No kidding.”
If it looks like Johnson has a chance of taking TX away from the thin-skinned, short-fingered vulgarian, hell yes, I’d vote for him. It wouldn’t be the first time.
Not normally a fan of Reagan but this speech was very good and heck after Louie Gohmert’s rabidly homophobic speech today that rambled about how he wouldn’t take gays on his spaceship Reagan does look extremely impressive next to these guys.
Louie is an embarrassment to Texas like SJL. Embarrassment is actually too mild a term, but this is a holiday we should all be celebrating.
I’m spending the day missing Texas. (Well, not the heat of Houston, but I hope you appreciate my meaning.)
And BTW Griffin, I thought your post re: moral relativism the other day was very good. And I’d say, and no fan of Chomsky am I, the interview was the best stuff I’ve heard from his pinhead piehole. The “lexico-envy” of the soft ‘sciences’ is fascinating.
I brief example, and I’ll stop hijacking Chris’ blog; then our daughter was going to kindergarten, we received a questionnaire from the school. The first question was, “Describe your child’s on and off-task behavior”. I went ballistic, and responded with a screed on nonsense word salad. I don’t think Mrs. Ohm let it go out. (Probably good judgement on her part.)
Is it safe to say that Mrs. Ohm has saved you from yourself a few dozen times, Fifty?
Yup. That’s pretty safe.
In his speeches there is a personal touch, a human touch, and a warmth utterly absent from today’s Republican leaders. He talks rationally about how to do the right thing in the world. Where along the way did we loose all that? Listen to his farewell speech and compare this to today: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKVsq2daR8Q
I watched his farewell speech in a college dorm room. We all shed tears.
I don’t recall GW Bush’s farewell speech.
“I don’t recall GW Bush’s farewell address…”
That’s because you were out celebrating………..like most of us.
Tears of joy?
I don’t recall GWB’s farewell, but I distinctly remember thinking at O’s inaugural, “Finally, a President who talks to us like we’re adults.”
For many years now, friends and I have visited Houston’s National Cemetery on the Sunday before Memorial Day. I find it to be a slightly odd, bittersweet event.
The grave markers include the area/war/conflict in which the interred served; spouses are included in some burial sites (stacked like cordwood, said my veteran friend).
Members of scouting and church organizations swarm the place, tasked with planting an American flag on each grave. I wonder what the children are learning. That fighting a war is romantic? That a service member’s contribution will always be remembered? Ha! I say. Name a WWI vet other than Sergeant York — and that’s likely only if you’ve seen the movie. Korea? Forgitaboutit.
Memorial Day is complicated. War is complicated. Our country’s role in war is complicated.
(I can’t watch Ronald Reagan. I regard him as a dishonest man, even though I really liked him as a kid, when he hosted a TV program sponsored by General Electric. Ketchup as a vegetable killed any possible appeal for me.)
This afternoon, I watched a Houston Ballet performance of Gloria. The male dancers wear hats reminiscent of WWI helmets and make-up that suggests the recently dead. It broke my heart to see them march up the embankment only to disappear.
My dad was a radar operator in the Army Air Corps in WWII. He was in northern Africa, Libya, Italy and France. Four years away home and his new baby.
He didn’t talk about it, but one Saturday afternoon I was watching a documentary about the battle of the bulge, when German tanks broke through the line of Allied armies. He volunteered that he was there. I asked him what he did. He said hell, I ran, like everybody else. So complicated.
I have not toured Normandy, but I have been to Pearl Harbor, which evoked feelings in me much like those you describe. Those were “principled” times with people sacrificing self for something greater than themselves….Much to remember and learn from these times, if we would.
I toured Pearl Harbor twice. Once in the late ’70s and much later in 2011. Since my initial visit the Park Service had built an impressive visitor center with museums covering various aspects of the attack. I was especially impressed with how respectful the exhibits were to both sides of the conflict. No American triumphalism or denigration of the Japanese. There was also a table where veterans who survived the attack could speak with visitors.
My Dad served in the Pacific during WWII so he was very familiar with Pearl Harbor. He had a good time reminiscing about how things looked back then compared with today.
Viking, I believe that part of the disconnect we see today is that people have lost a sense of history – of the sacrifices made by people who came before. We have become so focused on meeting our individual needs that we are losing sight of the “common good”. This is obvious (to me) in our politics and in the social disarray that is “accepted” as rugged individualism. If America is unable to get out of its “I,me,my” mindset and instead embrace a broader sense of community and responsibility, we could begin to find the common ground necessary to deal with the problems that exist. This would mean we would have to accept that equality is a fundamental tenet of a morally responsible people, and that agreement over contentious, difficult issues have workable solutions reached through consensus. The concept that each of us is more important than the community, state, nation and world we share, is dangerously eroding our ability to see and understand those who are different than we are.
Visiting historical monuments is an important step in that direction. My hope is that it is not just those of us who are older who are curious and interested, but that our young be exposed and taught the importance of peace and the tragedy of war.
They didn’t call the guy “The Great Communicator” for nothing, did they?
An inspiring address. My concern with it, like so many of this nature, is the invocation of and thanks given to a deity.
Worship to begin with is an odd idea which is compounded by the concept of the supernatural. I can understand the idea of grovelling under some circumstance, but only if it would stop someone about to squeeze the trigger whereas paying homage to an unproven myth without the same gun at my head is an impossible sell.
It is surprising that those who believe in a god of some sort actually consider their belief to be superior to another. Believe what you will, but I do not believe, do not think the point should be argued and will not defend the point. No unproven concept should be touted as “true”. If religious belief has a place in this world it is within the believer.
Presumptious, but my sense is beyond one’s mind, no god worth his or her salt needs acknowledgement let alone a place of worship
I thought exactly the same thing when I watched it. Exactly. But I do think that this cultural fetish that we have with religion will pass. I am hopeful.
Happy Memorial Day to all!
That’s kind of how I feel.
Like, seriously, this God loves us soooooo much, that he created the absolute worst place imaginable to torture us for eternity, just in case we didnt ove him back?
Doesn’t it worry anyone that this God seems to have the emotional maturity if a 6 y/o and kinda seems a bit like a psychopath?
A human parents love for their child is much more pure and real then that. The vast majority would NEVER treat their child in such a way, even if the child hated them. So why are we honoring this “all good” and “all perfect” being, when his “love” can’t even compare to us flawed and sinful humans? It seems absurd to me.
And frankly, the whole “well, God works in mysterious ways, we mustn’t question it” is just an incredibly weak answer that doesn’t hold up against even the slightest scrutiny.
It is the height of human arrogance to imagine a God powerful enough to create something on such an uninaginable scale and beauty as the Universe, also sonehow cares about each and every one of u, and cares who we have sex with, and cares if we believe in him or not.
And were supposed to believe such a clearly unbelievable story (despite the fact that billions of others believe different stories about THEIR gods just as strongly) because we’re told too? Based on a 3000 y/o book with no verifiable source materiel?
Come on. There’s a reason this stuff gets shoved down our throats from the day we’re born: because if we first learned about it at, say, 13 we’d be able to see it for the obvious con job that it is.
Here’s how David Bruder (The Weekly Sift) put it regarding America’s religious values:
“All the recent complaints about “religious liberty” fall apart once you dispense with the notion that Christian sensibilities deserve more respect than non-Christian ones..”
I mean, there’s “only” America, right? No other religion anywhere else in the entire world that is as old as time, matters, or, could possibly be correct. Or, those who profess “no” religion – they’re pagans, right? “People” who are living in sin….which is exactly what? For that matter, “what is an American”?
Fine post today by Bruder…who asks that Americans focus on what our country needs, not so much what the candidates say or do. Where is the debate on climate, opportunity, world balance….A fine read.
https://weeklysift.com/2016/05/30/the-election-is-about-the-country-not-the-candidates/#comment-250281
Mime – While it is true we should not and cannot differentiate religions based on which is ‘true”, (for obvious reasons), comparisons based on *social consequences* is absolutely valid. Jainism vs. Islam, for example.
Yes, Fifty. I should have specified that point. Totally agree.
D-Day was one of a handful of days in history that we showed the world the best of who we are. (July 20, 1969 was another.) Every American should make the pilgrimage to Normandy, and tour the beaches — this should be as strong an aspiration as Muslims making the Hajj. It is impossible to walk those beaches and villages and maintain that fashionable pessimism about who Americans are, and what we mean to the world. It will wake you up to our uniqueness, our global obligations, and the hope that the world has found in us in a way that nothing else will.
Over a million people visit the American Cemetery at Omaha Beach every year. Two-thirds of these people are French. They have not forgotten — and we should not allow ourselves to forget, either.
I went to Normandy just after the 9/11 attack. I was on a business trip in Paris on 9/11, and this time I had my father in tow. Due to the airspace shutdown we were unable to fly home for several days. So we decided to rent a car and tour the Normandy area. Visiting the Cemetery so soon after the attack was particularly poignant. The site was eerily quiet because there were so few people there due to the travel restrictions. All of us were in tears the whole time. And the French people were unbelievably kind and sympathetic once they became aware we were Americans.
If you haven’t been there I strongly suggest visiting the D-Day museum in Caen before going to the beaches. The museum provides a comprehensive overview of the planning, execution and aftermath of the invasion with several big audio visual presentations. When you go to the beaches you’ll notice important things that casual observation would overlook. In addition to the incredible bravery of the soldiers, it is truly awe inspiring to appreciate the logistics that were required to accomplish such a feat.