Dac Crossley's Western Blog

Divide And Conquer

It's attributed to Philip of Macedonia. Julius Caesar said it. Machiavelli included it in "The Prince." Divide and Conquer.

That appears to be the strategy of Vladimir Putin. The Western Alliance is coming apart and Putin is helping it to collapse. Split off a weak member (Britain). Encourage nationalism in France, in Germany. Bring down democracy. In North America wage a smear campaign against Hillary Clinton; support a divisive candidate.

And it's working. Divide the Western Alliance. Soon Putin will have no opposition when he incorporates the Balkan countries into his empire, once again.

My friends, we need to fight against our divisiveness. It's not us versus them. We are them.

Down in the Sundown Lounge, I buy a pitcher of beer and everybody's my friend. I hear the troubles of those friends. They work hard but it doesn't seem to get them anyplace. President Trump tells them it's not their fault. The government is holding them back; too any regulations. Too many foreigners driving wages down. He's gonna fix it.

At the Globe Bar on Sunday afternoon I meet with friends who despair at the government's easing of hard-fought environmental regulations. Evidence of global warming is everyplace; our President's regime rejects it. Big corporations have seized power. What next? President Trump is unpopular.

We simply gotta get over this rift. We are all Americans and the problems belong to all of us. Yes, our country has income inequality and sooner or later it will bite us all. Yes, or federal government is leading us in the wrong direction, the fox in the henhouse and that, too, will bite us.

I plead with my congressman. Reach across the aisle.

I plead with you, my friends. You, too, must reach across the divide.

Dac Crossley
November 24, 2019

"If Donald Trump isn't on Putin's payroll he ought to be. Trump had done more to divide this country than Putin ever did." -- Stephen King, in a "Time Magazine" interview.

November 11, Veterans Day

When I was a little boy it was called “Armistice Day.”

Mom the historian told me that Americans began to pray for “The War, WWI” to come to an end. Prayers were offered each and every day at eleven am. And Armistice was signed at eleven in the morning, on the eleventh day of the eleventh month. See the power of prayer? I think that was Mom’s Methodism speaking.

As a lad I remember buying a “Buddy Poppy” on Armistice Day. “In Flanders Field the poppies grow, between the crosses, row by row…” Veterans of Foreign Wars sold them. Armistice day was different from Memorial Day, which was set aside in May to honor those who gave their lives in Military Service. Armistice Day honored all those who served. And I read that in 1954 the name was officially changed to Veterans Day.

I guess there are no more veterans of WWI, no one to remind us of the trenches, no one to sing, “If the Camels don’t getcha the Fatimas must.” We look back at that War and ask ourselves, “Why?” Will my grandchildren ask that same question about WWII? Will there be anyone left to ask about WWIII?

TIME magazine tells a story of the British Ambassador who wrote of a danger in the American Constitution. The possibility that the mob might raise one of their own into the Presidency, an ignoramus loved by them, who had the power to send our country into another civil war or worse. God forbid!

Dac Crossley
November 11, 2019.

“As gravity bends light, so power bends time.” – Christopher Clark.