PI sans Pirates...

Let's face it, America is suffering a serious identity crisis.  No one knows why the old labels don't fit anymore, but the fact is they don't.  Not for most of us.  We used to be conservatives or liberals, Democrats or Republicans, we used to be Catholics or Protestants or maybe Mormon.  But now?  Now we're just confused. America desperately needs a couple of new words to define the debate of democracy, words that haven't been polluted by the corrosion and erosion of political time and tide.  For my nickel the words "Pragmatic" and "Idealist" would be fine candidates for the job.  Pragmatic Idealism as America's guiding philosophy.

Allow me to give an example of what I would consider Pragmatic Idealism. It involves a fully righteous work for the Department of Defense.  Yes, that is possible in a PI environment. Not likely under the current misuse of the military, but possible if some fluke of luck set the government both pragmatic and idealistic at the same time.

To make it happen I think Congress should commission the construction of five new capital ships to join the United State's navy, one for each fleet.  They'll be thousand footers, state of the art nuke powered and the absolute fastest thing afloat. But that's not what makes them PI.  What makes them PI is that these ships are to be designed from the keel up to be dual purpose vessels right from the beginning.  

In times of conflict, times of war, their mission is to pick up the army's heavy equipment that can't be airlifted (the largest strategic hole in America's military… we can't get the heavy stuff there in a hurry) and move it across the water.  In such configuration I want her to carry a double complement of the Aegis fleet air defense system, anti-sub weaponry, a brace of launchers for surface to surface rockets and provisions to cleat down say eight of the army's big turreted 155's to the deck with their fire control linked to the mother ship.  In other words, if shove turns into a shooting match the lady is nobodies lightweight, she fights heavy cruiser class.  

And of course, of course, this is the mission we hope she never has to take, that she never has to turn a screw in anger because it's in times of peace when the lady shows her true worth. 

I want her holds pre-configured, piped and plumbed and planned so that when she is unloaded she can serve as a five hundred bed triage hospital.  Give the corpsmen and the MASH crew someplace already set up for them to work.  Arrange the passageways to be convenient for the helicopter decks to go in service moving the injured instead of hunting submarines.  Emphasize all things humanitarian: build her with fresh water abilities fifty times her compliment, where she is there will be clean water to drink… load communications gear out the wazoo, when she lights up the antennas I want her to walk and talk the world on every frequency and format known to man, where she is there will be communication… design in the ability for those massive engines to provide power beyond herself, to bring up the region around her as the healing moves ashore so there can be light, and refrigeration.  You get the picture.  An empowered angel of mercy when the typhoon or the tidal wave just shut down civilization.

And perhaps most important of all I want her to be the flagship of a military fleet that is not named after some warrior of great renown, no.  I want them named after the  great humanitarian leaders of history as befits her main mission.

Speaking for myself?  I do not ever again want to be embarrassed by seeing the United States offer paltry money to the survivors of some disaster when there is nothing for that money to buy. I do not want to be any part of such a sterile and bitter façade of false compassion.

No. I want to be proud to be an American, I want my President to go on TV and say "The USS Gandhi is in Pearl Harbor being loaded with all haste, and eighteen hours hence she will part the wave at a rate no vessel on earth can match to carry aid and relief to our brothers and sisters in God whose need is known…"  

I started out a conservative in the old sense of the word… I was proud to be an American.  I would like to have that pride restored, restored by my nation understanding and acting on the fact that where the military can suppress violent aggression it cannot truly make peace, not unless that military is, like the ships described above, redesigned from the bottom up for the same duality of purpose… to be the most formidable force on the planet against those who use violent aggression against the innocent, and from that same strength be the most competent men and women to walk the earth in terms of understanding and nurturing all things that truly build peace so violence is no longer a needed thing.  Our tour as the world's policeman is pretty well over, and it should be.  But there's nothing to say we shouldn't open a fire department and ambulance service in that place. You know, Pragmatic Idealism. I'd love to see it take root in the United States.  But I'm not sure I'll live that long.

Avoiding Sunburn...

The woman of my world has found a new focus for her contemplations.  She’s thinking in the realms where ideas do battle for control of the human imagination, and her focus is a group of folks who propose to challenge one of the oldest and most established of thought monsters to ever migrate from literature into the common psyche… the dystopian vision of the future.   

They call themselves “solarPunk," and they're dedicated to an idea I tend to support: the idea that you must be able to dream something before you will be able to translate that something from dream into reality.  Kind of a no brainer, really.  It’s pretty obvious if you can't wrap your head around an idea while it's still a fantasy, a fiction, you'll have trouble dealing on it as a matter of reality.  On that point they and I are very much on a parallel course.  

There are other points though where they are, apparently quite unwittingly, making themselves terribly vulnerable to the very things that have been allowing the dystopian vision to shape the modern world.  These are elements of the modern culture that are so subtly contradictory as to have become weapons of the covert cultural warfare currently raging for control of freedom where freedom actually begins... which is between the ears of the electorate.  

On these points I must stand aloof from their endeavor, to embrace the main thesis of solarPunk without addressing these issues first is to guarantee the ultimate failure of the hope.  

Gentle reader, allow me to elaborate a bit and hopefully fully illuminate my concerns. As I said, these are subtle things that can become a bit… chewy…on a first encounter; these are subtle things where those doing battle for control of belief, of perception and imagination, have for several generations worked with deep dedication to set taboo the lines of approach needed to understand and defeat these weapons imbedded within the  common culture that gives shape to the common psyche.  Fair warning:  this will be very  politically  incorrect.

Filler for fun... Ballerina

“Sir, there is one asset available that isn’t in this plan.”  The lieutenant had that look on his face, the one heroes and dead men wear going into battle.

The General, a weary man weary of the war took in the look, processed, and decided what the hell.  At this stage of things a little insanity might be comic relief.  It had been a long time since he’d properly roasted a junior officer.  He scrunched his face into the look he’d spent a career refining to mean this had damn well better be good.

“So educate us,” he said, nodding to either side at the fifteen senior officers gathered around the planning table.  “Just what have we all overlooked?”  For two weeks he and his staff had been laying plans to mount a desperation counter attack over-hull to open a path through the K’chaing to a dock, hold it open long enough for a supply ship to unload and relieve the siege.  Both rations and ammunition were in desperately short supply.

The lieutenant drew a deep breath and to the confusion of all smiled.  He definitely had the element of surprise on his side.  “Sir, the ballet was aboard when we were attacked.”

Nobody really meant to but every man in the room laughed, the General loudest of all.

As the chuckles subsided the General actually smiled for the first time in recent memory.  “Son,” he said around the last chuckle, “enlighten us here.  Just how in the hell are twenty little girls who are overweight at 45 kilo going to help us make war on 250 kilo monsters who grow their own armor?”

The lieutenant walked forward, picked up a holopointer on his way to the planning table. The others moved aside as he approached.  Honor among the warriors, those in the process of career suicide deserved the chance to make it a clean kill.

“Sir, like this.  Have you ever seen how fast those little girls can fly when they’re not dancing?  I found out they’ve been practicing in the core, that’s where they’ve been hiding.  Sir, they can fly the tubes and we still control the grav generators.  Knock those off line and the whole sphere will be zero-g for a minimum of fifteen minutes before the emergencies can charge up to come on line.  That’s fifteen minutes they’ll have unopposed access between the core and the hull.  The K’chaing ignore the tubes, when we’re geared up they’re to small for us much less them.”

The lieutenant paused for a moment to let what he’d said sink in, was rewarded with a cumulative gasp.  Instantly he had the full attention of every man in the room.

“Interesting that you mention 45kilo sir because that’s exactly the maximum mass their dance belts are designed for and the girls average just a shade under 42kilo.  That’s two  kilo of explosives for payload.”  He lit the pointer, began highlighting locations in the holomap of the station.  “Charges here and here and most importantly here and when they detonate it will vent radian KK to space.  The K’chaing are monsters sir but they’re still air breathers and we’ll still be suited.  Once back in hull we’ll be unopposed.”

“Oh hell yes,” the General said, his grin gone feral.  This was manna from heaven.  “Bring me whichever of the girls is in charge of that crew of sweet creatures, tell her she just got drafted into the Space Marine as a full captain!”

“Yes sir,” the lieutenant said, and chuckled as he turned to go.

“Ok, so now what in the slam fucking hell is so damn funny?”  the General asked.

When the lieutenant turned to face his superior the look on his face was priceless.  “Sir, that means my pacifist daughter is going to outrank me.”

Practical Pirates of an Improbable Penzance …

==originally published 5/22/16==

My mother, with whom I had a totally lousy relationship, always swore that half of my problem (refusing to adopt her paranoid and superstition driven “Tail Gunner Joe” mentality about things) was that she’d “allowed” me to read Atlas Shrugged at to young an age. Sorry mom, but no, that wasn’t what blew your cover (it was your panic over the US and the USSR standardizing the docking rings on their spacecraft did that, but that’s another story). Anyway.

Those who’ve read Atlas Shrugged might remember the name Ragnar Danneskjold from the cast of characters: John Galt’s third roommate in his college days and the least seen of the three lads through the bulk of the tale; Ragnar, the philosopher who turned pirate of the high seas in support of John Galt’s strike-of-the-mind against the parasitic of the political persuasion. He was the one who refunded the personal income taxes (yes, back when the story was written rich people actually paid income tax!) of those whose industries were essentially robbed at gunpoint by the “lib-tard” politicians of their world line,  a refund paid in illegally gotten gold acquired by hijacking “relief” shipments and then selling those shipments to the black markets of those very regions they were headed for in the first place to make sure the goods ended up in the hands of those who needed them rather than in the hands of the political parasites running that part of the globe. Ragnar,  a bit of an anti-hero to most folks’ understanding.