THE TREE OF LIBERTY
HALF-FULL REPORT 07/01/22
Government Power is Devolving!
This was an amazing week for the good guys. Roe vs. Wade is no more, gun rights are returning, school prayer is now a thing, and the entire global warming, carbon credit, power grab by the Federal Government is reversed.
Astounding.
But what does it mean?
The Fourth Turning, so often discussed, is turning out to be a return to federalism and away from centralized, authoritarian government. They went too far, too fast.
Come join the Independence Day HFR. Liberty is busting out all over.
THE NDIKI DRUM
Famboun, Cameroon. This is a Ndiki Drum. It is used by the Sultan of Bamoun to call his subjects to their end-of the-year Nguon festival over which he presides. It can be heard for miles.
The carved wooden forearms and hands propped up at the drum’s end are not the original drumsticks. They are symbolic for what the real drumsticks used to be. Until the British and French put an end to the custom in the 1920s, the Ndiki drumsticks were human arms, amputated at the elbow off captured slaves. Four drummers were needed to properly pound the drum, each requiring two drumsticks: eight amputated human arms in total.
The horror of slavery in Africa was ended by Western colonialists. In its place they introduced roads, railroads, electricity, an impartial rule of law instead of law favoring one tribe over another, and other benefits of civilization. They did a lot of stupid damage to African cultures, true.
But that is vastly outweighed by getting rid of slavery – exemplified by how this drum was pounded until less than 100 years ago. If you have a child or grandchild in school with woke teachers, you might have them bring this picture to class, and explain how the benefits of Western Civilization so greatly outweighs its liabilities. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #124 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)
SKYE’S LINKS 06/30/22
Because his mind is gone; Xiden is demented now, and it’s getting worse rapidly:
Joe Biden Instructive Note Card from Staff: YOU Enter the Room, 'YOU Take YOUR Seat'
Turley on overturning Roe and its wider consequences:
The Dobbs Decision Unleashes Rage And Revisionism
The Ukraine war has shown that America is no longer capable of supplying the ammunition needed for a long war - or even for a relatively short one. Russia is even less so:
THE ROTTEN SHAM THAT IS THE PROGRESSIVE MOVEMENT
A festering rot of racial animosity exists in our society that we willfully ignore socially and politically. It is a rot that eats away at the flesh of our civil society and spoils the greatness of our multicultural nation.
Progressives continually tell us we have blinders on when it comes to racism in American society. They’ve shoved their ideological solution of anti-racism to force us to “deconstruct” what they believe is an inherently deep-seated racist nation.
I, as a black American, am supposed to rejoice in the presence of our self-appointed saviors, but I peeked behind the veil and saw who they really are.
RUSSIAS EXPERIMENT OF DE-MODERNIZATION HAS FAILED
Third World poverty on the increase in Russia
The post-Soviet transformation took Russia from a fledgling democracy to a corrupt autocracy.
But, since the start of the war against Ukraine, the Kremlin has taken a new turn, which amounts to a resolute top-down effort at reversing what progress has been achieved in modernizing the state system, economy and society.
The paradox of resorting to the old Soviet way of war based on the massive application of force, while having neither the human resources nor the industrial base necessary to carry it out, undercuts whatever small gains Russian forces are able to make in Donbas (Svoboda.org, June 24).
With every delivery of Western weapon systems, the Armed Forces of Ukraine take a step forward in modernization, while the Russian military falls back to unsustainable World War II patterns (Republic.ru, June 24).
RUSSIA’S EXPERIMENT OF DE-MODERNIZATION HAS FAILED
Third World poverty on the increase in Russia
The post-Soviet transformation took Russia from a fledgling democracy to a corrupt autocracy.
But, since the start of the war against Ukraine, the Kremlin has taken a new turn, which amounts to a resolute top-down effort at reversing what progress has been achieved in modernizing the state system, economy and society.
The paradox of resorting to the old Soviet way of war based on the massive application of force, while having neither the human resources nor the industrial base necessary to carry it out, undercuts whatever small gains Russian forces are able to make in Donbas (Svoboda.org, June 24).
With every delivery of Western weapon systems, the Armed Forces of Ukraine take a step forward in modernization, while the Russian military falls back to unsustainable World War II patterns (Republic.ru, June 24).
MAYA RUINS AND STAR WARS
This is Temple IV at the ancient Mayan capital of Tikal, now in northern Guatemala. It was from the top of Temple IV that the shot in the original 1977 Star Wars movie was filmed of the Millennium Falcon landing (at 44 seconds) near jungle temples (Temples II and III) at the Rebel Base on the moon of Yavin 4.
Built in 740 AD, at 230 feet it is the tallest pre-Columbian structure in all the Americas. While Tikal’s earliest buildings date to the 4th century BC, it was from 300 to 800 AD that Tikal flourished as one of the Mayan Empires most powerful kingdoms.
Then decline set in, with drought, deforestation, overpopulation, and constant warfare with rival kingdoms. With Tikal abandoned by the end of the 900s, it remained covered by rainforest jungle for over a thousand years. American archaeologists began excavations in the 1950s. Today with its major temples restored, Tikal is the most impressive example you can visit of Mayan civilization. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #118 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)
WE ARE THE GENERATION RONALD REAGAN WARNED US ABOUT
We are that generation. And we have an accounting with nature’s limitations, given there is always a corrective, not a nice one, but remediation nonetheless for every excess.
There is an antidote. But it seems well beyond this generation’s capacity.
ONE MORE SCOTUS BLOCKBUSTER TO COME
As TTPers have learned, overturning Roe v. Wade may not be the Supreme Court’s most dramatic decision this year.
Instead, its ruling on West Virginia v. the Environmental Protection Agency could prove far more consequential. It could literally upend how our government works.
For the better.
WV v EPA asks whether important policies that impact the lives of all Americans should be made by unelected D.C. bureaucrats or by Congress. This SCOTUS could well decide that ruling by executive agency fiat is no longer acceptable.