Saturday, October 13, 2018

Days Of Yawn


















I have been pointed in Comments to note the article at Kenny's blog regarding the "Days of Rage". Hot tip: I saw it when he posted it, and I saw the original some time back.

My overwhelming response to the whole tale, both times:

Yawn.

1) Some of us don't need second- and third-hand recollections for the period in question. The rest of you Baby Ducks, for whom every day is a whole new world to you, pay attention.

2) "over nineteen hundred domestic bombings in 1972" works out to one per state, every 10 days.
In reality, it works out to five or six in about five states, and none in the other 45, for months on end, or all year. And "bombings" includes everything from fireworks to actual bombs. Nota bene they don't talk about the actual body count, which probably approached single digits that year. Non-shocker: Even the author admits it was a lot of gas, but little danger. (Oh, look: I nailed it without even looking it up: total terrorist deaths in the US in 1972: ZERO . Exactly like Mr. Spock, my wild guesses are more accurate than most people's "facts".)

3) We had 54,589 traffic fatalities nationwide that same year, IOW nearly twenty-nine times the incidence of bombings, and yet
a) I never saw one of those anywhere that entire year, even amidst the most car-centric and second largest city in America, and
b) civilization did not slip into the abyss at any point, and the nation rejected Leftism by a landslide at the polls.

4) In the same year, there were about 200 meteorite impacts and 22,000,000 lightning strikes in the USA, both incidents being far more destructive on average than the "bombings" whereof the author speaks, yet the fatalities total for both was about 50 people.

5) I'm not 100% positive, but IIRC, there was some sort of minor fuss going on at the time in question, all student draft deferments had been cancelled, and the draft was taking about 50,000 formerly-deferred collegiate Special Snowflakes for the business-end of Uncle Sam's Foreign Policy Division, which was going to seriously cut into peace, love, and dope for large swaths of those who regarded their asses as some kind of too-special-too-risk. When last I looked, there is no such similar event now, nor have we had a draft since 1973, some 45 years ago, a time for most readers that is before they were even born, and thus a thing worthy of about as much note as dinosaurs, the invention of the wheel, or trench warfare at Verdun.

So take a breath, and calm the fuck down.

Figures don't lie, but liars figure. And 1972 (nor any other "days of rage" from 1965-1975, inclusive) was not The Apocalypse. But calling it Days Of Hissyfit Hippies won't sell many books, right?

The Left in those days was homicidal, yes.
They were also the Lunatic Left, then as now.
About half were killed or jailed by the authorities, and the other half went into hiding for decades.

And as a rule, they only messed with Big Corporate Entities, and The Man, because ordinary folks would have simply shot their ass, and walked away without a care, knowing they'd have done society a service.

So it's fair to observe that having that much common sense, the average Leftard Lunatic in 1972 was 20-30 IQ points ahead of his modern cousins, right off the bat.

This doesn't bode well for the chances of the current crop of historically illiterate Common Core grads, sucking around for a faceful of buckshot as they unquestionably are.

But they will get their wishes fulfilled, and go out with a surprised look - on the half of their face remaining afterwards.

I'm trying to get worked up over that, but I can't even...

In fact, the hardest part is trying to curb my enthusiasm.
Just saying.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

I could be wrong but I believe more people were killed cutting in line during the '73 gas crisis. And can you imagine the right wing now if we had a president and Vice President that no one elected! And one of them was a Rockefeller! I don't know why we didn't have a CW2 then but it would certainly spark one now.

Anonymous said...

Bought and read the book when it came out, even though I lived through those days as a young man. I think those who have/had "no idea" should become familiar with recent history, if only to understand the ramifications of not imprisoning or preferably executing ( since we still did such things even in "Cali" back then) Ayers and dorn et al ( can you believe my machine automatically capitalized the first when I didn't ?).
Boat Guy

Anonymous said...

More Clintonites died in industrial accidents at Clinton Foods in Clinton Iowa than serving the nation in the Vietnam War.

Old NFO said...

Good points, and the same reason I ignored it. I was already in the Navy and we had 'other' issues we were dealing with, like Black September in Europe and other places that really WERE a threat.

Anonymous said...

Aesop, thanks for all you do.
I don't know how you find the time.
Ned2

Anonymous said...

I simply thought it was an entertaining read, with the main point being that the left has traditionally (at least in the recent past)a well maintained institutionalized support structure.

-rightwingterrorist

Anonymous said...

1 * (3" #000) followed by 7 * (2.75" #00) is my prescription for the Obstreperous Pinheads Brigade.

Chris said...

It was an entertaining read, for the same reasons listed above. You really see how narcissistic and detached these people were. The ones who had real grievances, like the Black Liberation Army, just wanted to kill cops. The rest saw themselves as Marxist vanguards leading the proletariat in revolt, only the proletariat ignored them.

The most interesting part of the book was the coda, where he let a descendant of one of the FALN bombing victims have the last word. He was not impressed.

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