The premise of this site is that our constitutional republic is in trouble.  This situation is usually exemplified by the signal of distress on the high seas -- the inverted national flag.  This was the situation during the Clinton/Gore years.  You will notice that the flag has been placed in its upright position as a result of the year-2000 presidential election.  This may be only a temporary reprieve.  Time will tell.  Meanwhile, there is much to be done to repair the damage.  The material presented here aims to restore our republic to the status which emboldened our Founding Fathers to sacrifice their reputations, fortunes, families, and lives for our right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

This site is dedicated to the exposition of those who would impose a new form of authoritarian control over Americans who have enjoyed and celebrated their freedom for over 225 years.  In this endeavor, books and other means of informing the public will be presented here.

Chaos Theory and Generations  Every subject addressed on this Web Site is grounded in the study of the history of America's people, the generations which come along every 22 or so years, each of which represent a different 'peer personality' which interacts with the Social Moments that are thrust upon them in their trajectory through history. The connection between this generational picture and Chaos Theory, the science of surprise, is explained at the link above. This is not some 'kooky' New Age revelation of the 'truth.' It is a reasoned factual account of the connection between America's history and the new science of Chaos Theory -- all taken within the context of the 'virtue' tradition of Christianity.
       The connections made here suggest a plausible metaphor for much of what we see unfolding around us -- the 11 September terrorist attack on America, the culture war that America has been fighting with itself over the past 30-odd years, and all of what we have been seeing on our TV screens, newspaper headlines, and popular culture during the 1990s. The metaphor is a means of explaining the three threats to America's future, as I began to see it and write about it in 1994 -- decay and dissolution from within, state sponsored terrorism, and China.
       Radical feminism, racial bigotry and affirmative action, the 'cloning of the American mind' in our public K-12 schools and universities, the 'feminization' of our politics, our military, our traditional religious establishments, indeed, our entire American civilization are 'threads' in this fabric we call American civilization. Diversity has been made our New Age religion, dressed in the language of 'multiculturalism,' an alien concept to the principles established by our Founding Fathers.
       At the link above (and directly in this paragraph) you will find access to two book reviews that have been published in my new Eternal Vigilance journal. Please read these reviews (after you have read the introductory explanation of their connection to Chaos Theory) to understand how I make the connections described above. The books reviewed are seminal histories of America's future. The books, 'Generations: the History of America's Future,' and 'The Fourth Turning, were written in the 1990s by the historians William Strauss and Neil Howe. The reviews on this Web Site introduce you to their 'generational' approach to our history. These are two very important books to read in light of recent events and the history of our last 30 years.

Eternal Vigilance: A Journal of American Culture.  Choose this link to learn what motivated Dr. G.L.Atkinson, CDR USN (Ret.) to publish a new bi-monthly journal. When the U.S. Navy sent him to a leading university to earn a postgraduate degree, he became quite familiar with the elites of a generation who 'loathed' the military -- and the norms of Western civilization. These power elites now control every institution in the land.  This new journal deals with all of the agenda issues that this power elite has foisted on America over the past three decades; radical feminism, 'cultural Marxism,' affirmative action and a host of other topics. Education, jurisprudence, religion, media, government, politics, military and other cultural institutions of our American civilization are analyzed.  View a summary of the journal at this link. For a FREE 35-page catalog of books, video and audio cassettes, and past issues of this journal, click on Free Catalog.

America is at War:  Choose this link for a series of essays dealing with the war on Jihadistan -- against Islamic terrorists in Afghanistan and against Iraq to ensure that weapons of mass destruction do not become instruments of terror in the hands of irrational fundamentalists who would use them to cause grave harm to Americans in the future. The Cold War was fought and won without an exchange of such weapons, but this is a different situation. Although a dedicated ideological enemy, the leaders of the Soviet Union were considered to be practical men who were rational and would not indiscriminately and without cause launch weapons of mass destruction against Americans and our homeland. We have no such confidence in the enemy leadership, Islamists who are dedicated to carrying out a war of terror with global reach.

Women-in-Combat:  A Series of Essays and Commentary.

Choose this link to learn the status of the current New Age social experiment with women-in-combat and the feminization of our nation's armed forces. Tailhook '91 was a signal event for opening the doors to women in our nation's combat arms. In spite of a Presidential Commission Report advising against lifting the female exclusion, President Clinton ordered it lifted in 1993 and the services rushed to comply in 1994 -- especially the U.S. Navy. How is this social engineering experiment progressing?  What has it accomplished in improving our military's combat readiness?  What internal friction has it caused?  How has it affected morale in our nation's armed forces?  What has its affect been on imbuing young men with a 'warrior spirit' required to fight and win our nation's wars?  Find the answers in the essays found at this link.

The Jessica Lynch Corner:  Choose this link for essays that provide insight into the ambush of the 507th Maintenance Company and the exploits of Pfc. Jessica Lynch, a teenage soldier in the support 'tail' of our nation's New Age all-volunteer Army. Her courage in the face of Iraqi brutality and torture while held captive has been an inspiration to all Americans. Read here how she and her comrades were trained in the Clintons' attempt to 'socialize' our armed forces. Learn of the 'fuzzy' details of her injuries, and how they are consistent with Islamic law and torture methods both as carried out on Johnny Spann in Afghanistan and on Iraqi citizens themselves by the Saddam Fedayeen in Iraq -- her captors and interrogators in the Nasiriyah hospital from which she was rescued in a daring raid by U.S. Special Operations Forces and Rangers.
   An account is provided of the strong and stalwart character of her family and the background of the region from which she came -- it has a strong connection to the American Founding through Wirt Count, WV to Patrick Henry. The Lynch family members are, indeed, Patrick Henry's people. It is a region where patriotism and prayer are fundamental core concepts.
   Read an account of how radical feminists and their accomplices in the military, the media and in our government are carrying out a campaign of disinformation to create for Jessica Lynch the aura of the Mythical Modern American War Hero. All in an attempt to use her, without her consent and without her cooperation, to champion their agenda to completely 'feminize' our armed forces.

Empire: This is a place-saver for the topic of what some have called the new American 'imperium.' America has gravitated, since the end of World War II, to the position of the world's greatest economic power -- thanks to our founding in freedom and the encouragement of entrepreneurial enterprise. At the end of the Cold War, America 'lurched' by default into what many describe as the 'world's only superpower.' The hubris of such a claim has planted the seeds for a rude awakening to reality. This attitude has led crass politicians to lead us into military intervention in places (Bosnia, Kosovo) which have absolutely no geopolitical importance to our national security. It has guided these same politicos to alter our initial 'openings' to China -- originally intended to help 'neutralize' the grasp for world power by the Soviet Union -- in order to serve their greed for monetary political contributions.  In so doing, they have simply 'given away' the American market and 'ownership' of our nation's 'means of production and national debt to the point of future insolvency. In their shortsighted greed for power, these same politicians attempt to burden future generations with an unrealistic indebtedness in order to finance the impossible social security promises made in the 1930s.
   While I have addressed this topic only from the standpoint of a cultural Marxist threat to our republic (See the Empire book review at this link), there is a growing body of thought by historians and commentators who are actively pushing for America to claim and take on the role of Empire. Niall Ferguson, the Scottish historian, encourages us to take on the role of empire on the scale and in the form of the previous British Empire. Irving Kristol, a founder of the neoconservative movement in America (and a former Trotskyite), has written of and promoted the 'Emerging American Imperium' since the mid-1990s. Kristol argues that 'like the Soviet Union of yesteryear, the United States of today has an identity that is ideological...Therefore, in addition to more material concerns and complicated geopolitical calculations of national interest, the United States inevitably has ideological interests and that is why we feel it necessary to defend Israel today when its survival is threatened.'
   This debate must be engaged by all thoughtful Americans. The current shooting war with Islamic terrorists of global reach must be won. But there is much deeper thinking to be done (for example, see the Eternal Vigilance text at this link) before America embarks on a path to Empire by conquest and military force. We must understand that the strategy of 'forward military presence' does not require America to deny its founding principles and the wise counsel of George Washington and our Founding Fathers who warned of 'foreign entanglements.'
   This section of the Web Site and the Eternal Vigilance journal will address these matters.

The Looming American Matriarchy:  Choose this link for access to a series of essays, comments, and analyses addressing the seemingly unstoppable power of a distributed network of revolutionaries who are turning American culture upside down. It is the story of the Looming American Matriarchy -- feminism gone awry. The story is told in the form of nine issues of the Eternal Vigilance journal, two published during the last half of 2006 and the rest during 2007 and 2008.  Read them here FREE of charge. They are downloadable in Adobe Acrobat pdf format and may be read and printed with software that is readily available on the Internet with no charge and comes with most PC operating systems.

    The first issue addresses the basic nature of today's feminism. Feminism is an ideology, that is, the theorizing of a visionary or impractical nature. It is so because it incorporates a political agenda which makes it impervious to empirical evidence. It, like all such ideologies (e.g. nihilism, Marxism) is very dangerous. It is based on false assumptions and supported by flawed 'studies.' It is spread by 'mythologies.' W. Edward Chynoweth's book, 'Masquerade: The Feminist Illusion,' is reviewed in this issue. His Guest Essay, entitled, 'Women at West Point,' is also featured.

    The second issue of the journal in the series addresses Chynoweth's search for a 'right order of being' between the sexes. He believes that "While the mystery of sexual right order can be daunting, the clues are everywhere. Our childhood, our parents and siblings; our school days and lessons; our adolescence and adulthood -- life's experience; our families, our work, loves, and passions; literature, daily news, science, chemistry, biology, physiology; traditions and customs: culture." He combs the historical record from the ancient Greeks to the English Enlightenment to our Founding Fathers to provide common sense reasoning to the need for a 'right order' for the sexes. This issue also contains a review of Harvey C. Mansfield's book, 'Manliness.' Mansfield attacks Simone de Beauvoir, Betty Friedan, and the current wave of feminists by revealing their Nietzschean nihilism and Marxist alienation. He concludes that "The problem of manliness is not that it does not exist. It does exist, but it is unemployed." Dr. Gerald L. Atkinson, in an Editorial Comment, leans on Ralph de Toledano ('Cry Havoc!') to explain how this alien ideology crept into American culture over the past four decades.

    The third issue of the journal in the series reveals the direct attack by radical feminists on the family via the hysterical prosecution of thousands of parents and grandparents during the late 1980s and throughout the 1990s. Overzealous prosecutors and Child Protective Services social workers, aided and abetted by phony investigators, 'experts' who planted false memories of sexual abuse in the minds of young children, colluded to indict, prosecute, and imprison completely innocent citizens. The Wenatchee witch hunt debacle is an example. The names of the falsely accused and imprisoned -- Grant Snowden, the Amirault family, and many others -- are legion. Janet Reno, the Clintons' choice for Attorney General in the 1990s, won fame with the feminists and built her resume on the backs of several of these miscarriages of justice. Dr. Gerald L. Atkinson , in an Editorial Comment, describes how these horrors came to pass. Harvey C. Mansfield's Guest Essay provides his common sense ideas for 'A New Feminism.'

     The fourth issue (a preview of which is at the link: Rempt-Rape) of this series addresses other flagrant misuses of the legal system via the feminist attack on innocent men falsely accused of rape. The now notorious Duke Lacrosse Rape Case, which did not go to trial, involved a terribly flawed prosecution by Michael Nifong of three Duke Lacrosse players. The outrageous prosecutorial errors in the handling of this case have resulted in the hatching of a new verb in our American lexicon -- 'to Nifong.' An astute columnist has proposed that we can "Nifong" someone when we want to trump up criminal charges based on flimsy evidence allegedly for political purposes. In short when we want to screw up someone's life. This issue uses the Duke Rape Case as a yardstick with which to measure the equally outrageous prosecution of Lamar Owens, a former Naval Academy football star, for the falsely alleged rape of a character-flawed female midshipman and when declared 'not guilty' by a military court martial was held in limbo for over 13 months by the Naval Academy Superintendent, VADM Rodney P. Rempt, before final disposition by the Secretary of the Navy. This case will surely result in a new verb in the American lexicon -- 'Rempt Rape.' That is, one is Rempt-Raped when his name, honor, character, and future have been destroyed by a male or female agent of the radical feminist matriarchy -- a superior officer whose position and power is used to further his or her career at the expense of justice in a case of a false sexual accusation by a female.

     The fifth issue --  May/June 2007 -- of the journal in this series addresses the question of "What Has the Feminist Movement Accomplished for the Rest of Us?" In addition, Guest Essays probe in depth into the concerns that Naval Academy alumni have with regard to the injustice visited on Midshipman Lamar Owens by the superintendent, VADM Rodney Rempt. Two commentaries give us an 'inside' look at the arrogant manner, bordering on contempt, in which he holds those alumni who graduated in the mid-1940s, who fought and won the Battle of the Pacific in World War II. Another commentary reveals that VADM Rempt has eviscerated the Honor Code at the Academy in his quest to carry out ADM Michael Mullen's New Age Navy Diversity Strategy at the Academy. Another surprising commentary reveals an attitude toward a convening authority's near dictatorial power over courts-martial in the Marine Corps by a former commandant -- one described by a reviewer as that of a CONFESSOR.

     The sixth issue --  July/August 2007 -- of the journal in this series, entitled "The Pretenders: A Failure of Admiralship," parallels a critique by Lt. Col. Paul Yingling in an Armed Forces Journal article entitled, "A failure of generalship. The situation in today's Navy is even worse than described by Lt. Col. Yingling, who presents damning evidence of the Army's failure. Although aimed at the current war in Iraq and the underlying strategy of the U.S. Army there, it has far greater implications of guilt. A similar failure of high-level leadership is apparent in the U.S. Navy -- from top to the bottom, to the Naval Academy and from there to the recently appointed commander of the U.S. Central Command, responsible for our overall military engagement in the Middle East. This admiralship has been mercilessly 'sensitivity trained,' flooded with a tsunami of 'white guilt,' 'male guilt,' and subjected to other psychological conditioning over the past two decades to the point where they are completely mentally and intellectually dominated by those same 'counter-culture' revolutionaries -- now several decades aged since their young adulthood upheaval -- who are still dedicated to carrying their revolution to completion. In this issue we learn of the new Navy Diversity Strategy that will lift 'diversity' over safety as a priority in the future. And that 'diversity' means recruitment, retention, and promotion of 'females' over 'minorities' and 'minorities' over white males. The Chief of Naval Operations, ADM Michael Mullen, has implemented this 'diversity' strategy in the U.S. Navy. And now we learn that he has been nominated to become the next Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, primarily on the basis of  his 'strategic vision' to lead America's armed forces. America's military 'Jena' looms in our future, as predicted by Lt. Col. Yingling, if ADM Mullen's strategic 'diversity' strategy comes to fruition in our Armed Forces. Read this issue and become aware. Be warned!

     The seventh issue -- September/October 2007 -- of the journal in this series addresses the origins of the modern 'diversity' movement. It traces the movement in the U.S. Navy and in our broader society as well. It attempts to tie the loose ends of this subject together as it relates to the Looming American Matriarchy and the 'counter-culture' revolution of which it is a part.Whereas the previous issue of this journal revealed the surprising depth to which the modern idea of 'diversity' has wormed its way deep into the heart and soul of the U.S. Navy, and with the appointment of ADM Michael G. Mullen to be the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff -- eventually into the entire military -- this issue attempts to understand this phenomenon -- its essence, origins, adherents, and purpose. We are fortunate to have a seminal book on this subject (see the book review on pp. 8). That book provides an in-depth treatment of 'diversity' as a modern ideology. The interesting aspect of this treatment is the striking parallel of the 'excesses' of the French Revolution with the New Age ideology of 'diversity.' One can imagine the next Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff as the counterpart of Robespierre -- the Fool as Revolutionary -- and Midshipman Lamar Owens and the hundreds of  naval officer 'warriors' who have been 'purged' over the past two decades and are still being purged as the counterpart of the innocent Catholic priests who were put to the guillotine and drowned on barges in the wake of the blood bath of the Reign of Terror in France in 1789.
    When will the modern day Robespierres find their just end? It may be likely that the same forces that are alive and boiling under the surface in America -- those forces that forced the politicians to scrap the recent seriously-flawed immigration legislation proposals -- will carry the day. We must understand the difference between the Franco-German way and the Anglo-American way if we are to survive!

     The eighth issue -- November/December 2007 -- of the journal in this series revisits the revolutionary movement that grew with the Clinton presidency during the 1990s, as described in my book, The New Totalitarians, published in 1996. The network of radical feminist activists, who used the Beijing Conference on Women in 1995, grew by leaps and bounds from that time to infect every institution in the land. Our politics, Congress, mass media, religions, judiciary, education establishment (K-12 through postgraduate), and even our military have been infected with the ideology of diversity. Patricia Schroeder, a radical feminist in the House of Representatives rejoiced and predicted at the time, 'I hear the sound of a culture cracking.' Indeed, it has been 'cracking.' But has it broken beyond repair? That question may have been answered by Lt.Col. Robert Patterson in his new book, War Crimes, which is reviewed in this issue. Patterson nails America's present day traitors by naming names, providing incontrovertible proof by their actions and their pronouncements and measures them according to the definitions of treason and sedition provided by U.S. law. Those named have formed a network which he claims is an Unholy Alliance which is 'in bed with the enemy' in our war against terrorists of global reach.

     The  ninth issue -- January/February 2008 -- of the journal in this series addresses the extraordinary (and seemingly incomprehensible) connection between the organizational nature of The Looming American Matriarchy and the world-wide al Qaeda terrorist organization. Dr. Gerald L. Atkinson reveals the results of his research on the connectivity of these distributed leadership organizations. This issue is the first in a companion series which places side by side the prospect of Two Dangerous Loomings in America's future. It is the first issue which begins the subject of the network characteristics of these two entities.  Future issues will incorporate Dr. Atkinson's previous research in the areas of Chaos Theory and Dynamical Systems applied to American civilization. That is, how can a bearded jihadist, hiding in various caves in Afghanistan/Pakistan spawn a global network of terrorists who carry out death and destruction in their locale without centralized control from afar? And how can the disciples of Simone de Beauvoir use the United Nations, world wide conferences, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and feminists in Congress and the Executive Branch to impose a Nietzchean nihilism and Marxist alienation-centered Matriarchy on America? The Starfish and the Spider analogies are relevant here.

       The tenth issue -- March/April 2008 -- of  the journal in this series addresses the connection between the Diversity cult in American culture and the global Salafist Islamic jihad. This celebration and worship of the concept of multiculturalism has rendered us vulnerable to the jihadists who raised money in the United States and recruited young jihadis for Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda. Ayman al-Zawahiri, Ali Mohammed Abdullah Azzam and others have taken advantage of our nation's openness and naivete to travel at will on our soil, and visit and raise money at our cities Islamic mosques. Indeed, the penetration has been so deep in the past that it is being carried on now, right before our eyes -- even in the Pentagon in the person of Hesham Islam, a close advisor to the Deputy Secretary of Defense, Gordon England. This issue also provides a book review of Miller et. al's. book, 'The Cell, which details the inside story of the 9/11 plot and how the FBI and the CIA failed to stop it.

       The eleventh issue -- May/June 2008 -- of the journal in this series addresses the meaningful connections among two sets of leaders. The three candidates at this time for the 2008 presidential election; Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Hussein Obama, and John Sidney McCain III are one set in this dynamical system. Sayyid Qutb, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and Osama bin Laden are their antagonists in the current epochal war between America and the global Salafist Islamic jihad. They form the second set. The year chosen for comparison of these 'actors' on the world scene is 1966, the year that Qutb was martyred by Gamal Nasser in Egypt. Where each of these people were, what they were doing, what they believed, and how that plays out in a network analysis of the future of their world-impacting relationships are analyzed here. You will be introduced, via essays, to two Vietnam War POWs, John McCain and Ted Guy, who became antagonists after their return home. Their violent disagreements on the POW/MIA issue still resonates across the land today.

       The twelfth issue -- July/August 2008 -- of the journal in this series addresses a meaningful connection between two of the antagonists in the above list of the two sets discussed in the eleventh issue above. The connection is the concept of takfir as a tactic in the quest for power by both Ayman al-Zawahiri and Hillary Rodham Clinton. This tactic is the means by which two different revolutionary movements have been carried out to destroy an enemy in the reach for political power. Whereas this tactic is defined in the rise of al-Qaeda and its origins, it is apparent in the tactic used by Hillary Clinton during her rise to a position of power in American politics. This issue also discusses the 'Hobson's Choice' we have been given between the candidates for the presidency in the 2008 election cycle. The Guest Essay asks some very serious questions regarding Senator John McCain's worldview.

Mark Hill's Corner:   Choose this link to view essays, commentary and just plain 'sea stories' by RADM C.A. Hill, Jr., USN (Ret.).  RADM Hill is a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy class of 1944.  He served on the submarine USS Ray (SS-271) in the Battle of the Pacific during World War II.  His ship suffered every battle experience that was recorded on film for the German U-boat in the documentary film, 'Das Boot,' including a sinking to the bottom of Lingayen Gulf with a recovery due only to the courage, bravery, and skill of its crew -- except that Hill's ship was not destroyed in the end.  Mark entered flight training after the war and rose to command an A-4 Skyhawk squadron as well as the aircraft carrier USS Independence.  He was a manpower expert from the grade of LCDR to RADM and served as the Assistant Chief of Naval Operations for Manpower.  RADM Hill is a staunch opponent of women-in-combat and has forcefully, intelligently, and PUBLICLY defended his views on this subject.  He has been a strong supporter of naval aviation and has championed the concept of the Navy's large aircraft carriers for decades.  He argues for a return to teaching 'traditional' leadership and ethics at the U.S. Naval Academy -- a program based on the traditions of John Paul Jones, ADM Horatio Nelson, ADM Chester Nimitz, ADM Arleigh Burke, and ADM Thomas H. Moorer, not that of the flawed Enlightenment philosophers.

American Civilization as a Dynamical System  At this link you will find a mathematical and scientific approach to an understanding of the complex, non-linear, iterative feedback system handed down to us by our Founding Fathers - our American civilization. The attempt is to show that there is, indeed, a sound scientific basis for the essays on this Web Site and to render a 'man in the street' or 'common man' understanding of this concept. During the last half of the 1990s, multi-disciplinary research teams comprised of physicists, mathematicians, computer scientists, and social scientists have made startling advances in the modeling of dynamical systems by 'growing' networks in such a way that they model physical

and social systems. The Santa Fe Institute, 30 miles south of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, has been the center of such research. This research is an extension of the institute's primacy in studying self-organizing dyanmical systems, which often exhibit chaotic behavior.
    This research leads one to believe that Network Theory and experimental evidence in the physical world, which validates models based on this branch of science, will lead us to apply it to the social fabric of American civilization. This application will analyze the various 'communities' of people in the United States, each of which are comprised of individuals who are 'linked' in a direct way to each other via a common 'best interest.' The 'best interest' may be a belief in a common idea, a vested interest in an outcome which rewards each individual personally (political reward, economical reward, career and professional growth, a paternal or maternal interest in the 'best interest' of a son or daughter, and many other 'interests' which are a part of our human existence in a complex society).
    Usually such 'communities' are sufficiently disparate in character and makeup that they seldom ACT in concert with one another in support of a common goal. In fact, many such 'communities' oppose each other or are at best, only tolerant of the other 'communities which make up American society. But when the circumstances are just right, they can come together in an onrushing cascade to support a cause, a concept, a goal, or an idea that sweeps the nation by storm. This, of course, is the idea of a 'Tipping Point' in a Network Theory explanation of the result of social interactions in American civilization.
    Digest the tutorial at this link and you may come to understand why 'power laws' and 'scale-free' networks are stable and what we can do to assure that our American civilization - in a state of stable equilibrium over the past 400 years - remains so.

Beak's Blog - A Web Log for the Common Man  At this link will be posted (from time to time) thoughtful commentary by invited guests who share an interest in the subject of this Web Site - American Civilization as a Dynamical System. Its purpose is to stimulate thought by individuals who have an interest in the topics addressed here and who have an ability to put these experiences into such a form that it either adds to the mathematical and scientific understanding of the subject or illuminates the concepts under discussion by example - in clear, concise language devoid of jargon on a level which could be used to inform seniors in a high school honors program. Or the 'man in the street' or (Norman Rockwell's) 'common man' who instinctively understands the concepts from his personal life experiences even if not versed in the language of mathematics or science.
    The Web Master will choose from those essays submitted for presentation on this Blog Page so that everyone who wishes to read it can simply 'click' this link to read the latest accepted submission. Then, anyone who wishes to comment on, elucidate, or add to the submission may do so. In this way, we all should be able to learn something of value and add to our understanding of the subject.
    Those who wish to participate in this Web Log may do so by submitting a commentary via E-mail to the Webmaster. All those who wish to 'observe' may do so by accessing this Blog Page via the link above. Those who wish to actively participate will be invited via a list of those who have supported this Web Site over the years and for whom the Webmaster has an Email address. Participation in this Blog Page will grow 'dynamically' by 'word of mouth' choice of those who are friends, family members, neighbors, professional associates or acquaintances of those who are the initial invitees.
    This initial list of nearly one-thousand invitees will grow our little 'network' as they forward the initial offerings (via Email) to those on their personal Email lists. In this way, none of us will be the target of professional spammers since none of us will have the others' Email addresses except the Webmaster of this site. He is honor-bound not to distribute, disclose or sell this list. His communication with participants will be carried out primarily through the commentary on the Blog Page. It is expected that this dynamical Network System, including discussions based on Chaos Theory, Network Theory and Fuzzy Logic,  will become - as is American civilization - scale free.

Hot Item  At this hyperlink you will find access to the latest research carried out over the past year by Dr. Gerald L. Atkinson on the subject of Two Dangerous Loomings which we face; one at home and the other abroad. He revisits the revolutionary movement that grew with the Clinton presidency during the 1990s, as described in his book, The New Totalitarians, published in 1996. The network of radical feminist activists, who used the Beijing Conference on Women in 1995, grew by leaps and bounds from that time on to infect every institution in the land. Our politics, Congress, mass media, religions, judiciary, education establishment (K-12 through postgraduate), and even our military have been infected with the ideology of diversity. Patricia Schroeder, a radical feminist in the House of Representatives rejoiced and predicted at the time, 'I hear the sound of a culture cracking.' Indeed, it has been cracking. Dr. Atkinson describes how that movement was the vanguard of what he calls The Looming American Matriarchy. Hillary Rodham Clinton is the icon of that movement.
    In addition, Dr. Atkinson juxtaposes the other 'dangerous looming' -- this one from abroad. He starts with a history of the global Salafist Islamic jihad which is described so well in Lawrence Wright's insightful book, The Looming Tower: a l-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11, and supported by Bernard Lewis's excellent article in the Atlantic Monthly, The Roots of Muslim Rage: Why so many Muslims deeply resent the West. These and other excellent texts are used to carry out a 'network' analysis of the similarities between this external threat --  labeled The Looming Tower -- and that of the internal threat.
    You may be surprised by both the commonality of these two seemingly unrelated entities and their major differences. A network analysis begins in this essay to shed light on these network characteristics. Both are led by dangerous people with world-wide ambitions, have utopian dreams, preach 'hatred', are based on what some call 'revivals' and others call 'spiritual awakenings' in two different religious domains, act in shadowy (if not secret) ways, use Nongovernmental Organizations (NGOs) to raise money, and have been and still are supported by fundraising in the United States of America.

Hot Item  An observation on the coming presidential election, the American Idol Presidential Campaign:
     If you are as fed up, disgusted, and saddened as I am with the presidential primary campaigns paraded before us then heed the ire of the conservative talk show host, Laura Ingraham. She has labeled it 'the American Idol Presidential Campaign.' She is alluding to the popular reality entertainment show, The American Idol, which features talentless singers, who couldn't carry a tune in a basket, subjecting themselves to cruel criticism by three 'judges' who attempt to embarrass them before the audience with harsh judgments and demeaning attitudes. While some of the contestants wilt and cry under this microscope, many of them display an arrogance and hubris that defies description. They actually believe they have talent in this age of pumped up and unearned 'self esteem.'
     Ms. Ingraham decries the petty platitudes of our current presidential candidates on the late night talk shows - Letterman, Leno, et al. - with meaningless jokes about 'Huckaburgers,' 'I would chase Osama bin Laden to the gates of hell with a water pistol' and the like while Americans are faced with serious problems both at home and abroad, e.g. the uncertain economic status of the middle class, our porous borders to illegal immigration, and the global Salafist Islamic jihad against America. While Ms. Ingraham and other 'thinking' Americans expect to find out how the candidates would handle these real threats to our uncertain future, the candidates appear on these non-serious entertainment venues attempting to prove that they are 'likeable,' 'friendly,' 'humorous,' and if you are a woman, able to tear up and claim victim status resulting from male 'oppression.'
     We should all object to the obfuscation of the candidates in their refusal to answer the hard questions and their flocking to the entertainment venues where they are not expected to be asked them. This timidity in the age of Madison Avenue image-making results in a dilemma for the American people. We do not have before us any candidates of such stature that we can have confidence that they can handle these pressing problems.
     There was a day when independents could, individually and without a central leader (i.e. no spider at the center of the web - in the parlance of 'network theory') cast their votes for the party that had been out of power in the previous election or elections in the hope of denying or at least weakening the power of tyrants in our representative democracy. These independents really take to heart the wisdom of the Founding Fathers in forging a system of government with divided powers among the executive, legislative, and judiciary branches which has kept tyranny at bay for over two centuries. The independents of today have no such choice. The choices they have between the Democrats, who have been taken over by the Liberal Left Cultural Marxists, and the Republicans, who have been taken over by the Corporate Titans are not viable in the coming presidential election.
     Over the past year I have attempted to formulate the essence of two major problems facing our nation. They are the prospect of two major threats to our freedoms. One is the decay and dissolution from within - that is, the cultural Marxist revolution being carried out by the power elites of the Boomer generation. I have characterized a part of that counter-culture revolution as The Looming American Matriarchy in a series of essays on this website and in nine issues of my bi-monthly Eternal Vigilance journal of American Culture - now available for FREE here. (See the Hot Item above).
     The other major problem that must be directly addressed by our prospective leaders is the global Salafist Islamic jihad - a religious war being carried out by Islamic terrorists who have hijacked a religion in the name of 'reform' or 'revival' (labeled a 'spiritual awakening' in Christendom). These jihadis are zealots who have turned their religion into an ideological movement that has as its goals the destruction of the United States of America and bringing the past glory of the Prophet Mohammed's Islamic caliphate to the entire world - using suicide bombings, murder, butchery, torture, and assassination of innocents, including civilians - all specifically prohibited by the Quran.
     Over the past six months, I have gathered materials which expose the global Salafist Islamic jihad for what it is - a holy war carried out by the above jihadists against America. Not once have the candidates for the Democrat or Republican presidential nomination acknowledged this threat in the direct terms required to raise the understanding of Americans to it and inspire us to give our support to the means necessary to arrest its growth and defeat it. I have labeled this threat The Looming Tower in tribute to Lawrence Wright's insightful book of the same name. During 2008 this website and a series of issues of my Eternal Vigilance journal will provide a detailed understanding of this threat. The essay, Two Dangerous Loomings, and the January/February 2008 issue of the journal (see the Looming American Matriarchy link above) are the first in a series which address this major threat to American civilization.
     We must force our political process and our presidential candidates to address these two major problems faced by America. We must be sufficiently independent to cut through the strident rhetoric, the meaningless 'politics as entertainment' venue, and the dodging of hard questions by our politicians. They must quit acting as if they were contestants on the TV program, 'Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader,' and face the reality of these threats to America's future. We want direct answers to the hard questions!
     The candidates must convince us that they fully understand these two problems and that they have a realistic, hard-nosed set of plans and policies to eliminate both of these threats to America's future. Otherwise the independents will most likely 'sit out' the coming presidential election. They could simply vote for 'none of the above.' And the 'extremists' at both ends of the political spectrum will decide it. This would guarantee a tyrant of some stripe as our next president. Could it be an articulate African- American with direct links to Black Liberation Theology and the activism of Malcolm X's Black Power advocacy.
     Conversely, could it be a former Navy Vietnam War carrier pilot whose total warfare and foreign policy experience was 23 missions over the North, five and one-half years of courageous survival in the Hanoi Hilton POW camp, and more than a decade in the U.S. Senate where he provided 'cover' for then-President Clinton's disastrous support of Muslim mujahideen in our armed intervention in both Bosnia and Kosovo with a feeble 'we must support our troops' opposition to those policy disasters.

Hot Item  Connecting America's Diversity Cult to the Global Salafist Islamic Jihad

    It is fascinating to observe the phenomenon of Bill Clinton plantng the seeds of racism during the Democratic primary in South Carolina. Here we have two direct beneficiaries of America's popular but artificial diversity ideology fighting like piranha in blood-stained waters for the power of the U.S. presidency. One the beneficiary of the Looming American Matriarchy and the other a representative of the more distant slavery history of our country --  a powerful and eloquent spokesman for the 'can't we all just get along' mantra made famous by the (in)famous Rodney King during the 1990s.
    While there is not sufficient room here to go into the details of the charge and Obama's response to it, there are some very interesting questions to ask about the Clinton challenge. Future pages of my Eternal Vigilance journal, however, will be used to investigate, as far as possible, the truthfulness of both the Clintonite charges and Barack Obama's response to them.
    Until that time, however, there are serious questions that can be addressed. And these questions require a background, a foundation of knowledge, if you will, of the connections between America's 'full steam ahead' quest for diversity uber alles and the global Salafist Islamic jihad. But in order to accomplish this, we must all educate ourselves about the true character of the threat that America faces -- the threat posed by fanatics who have hijacked a religion and created an ideology based on it which motivates Muslims worldwide to answer its call to jihad.
    The March/April 2008 issue of my Eternal Vigilance journal (a copy of which resides at the Looming American Matriarchy hyperlink above) is the second in a series which appears in this journal series attempting to understand the nature of this threat, where it originated, who the principle actors are, what are its objectives, what are its strengths and weaknesses, and what are its guiding principles.
    I have gathered together a set of synopses -- a database of quotes and my observations on them -- from the five references in the Suggested Reading section (pp. 13) of the above cited journal. This set comprises over 200 pages of written material which I am posting on my auxiliary website at the this hyperlink. Essays based on these materials will appear in future issues of the Eternal Vigilance journal.
     This database is listed under the following titles: 1) The Cell: An account of the trail developed by the FBI and others that led to the Black Muslim connection to al-Qaeda; 2) Two Dangerous Loomings: Part II. A historical summary of Islam and the modern martyr, Sayyid Qutb; 3) Loom III. Ayman al-Zawahiri and Osama bin Laden: Their Early Years; 4) Loom IV. The Base: The Building of al-Qaeda and the al-Zawahiri/bin Laden Alliance; 5) Loom V. A Series of Unfortunate Events: al-Qaeda's Broad Reach in a Sleeping America; 6)Loom VI. Bin Laden's Retreat to Afghanistan and the Road to 9/11; 7) Loom VII. The Final Path to 9/11 and the Nature of the all-Qaeda Network; 8) Understanding Terror Networks -- a Dynamical Systems Analysis.
    I have spent a great deal of time researching these materials over the past twelve months and look forward to sharing them with you in future essays  on this website and in its companion -- the Eternal Vigilance journal.

Flaming Hot Item  John McCain 'Sang Like a Canary' to the North Vietnamese as a POW. In a one-hour special on 'Hannity's America, Fox News TV show (Sunday, March 16, 2008), Sean Hannity interviewed Senator John McCain. This interview produced quite an inspiring story, told on the political campaign trail to bolster support for Senator John McCain's candidacy for president of the United States of America. In text format it renders a sense of true heroism for some in the viewing audience, and at least respect for his service to our country for all of us. But when viewed on the TV screen, McCain's body language was quite revealing. During all of the talk of heroes, etc., he looked like a 'deer in the headlights.' Something was wrong. He looked as if there might be some out there in the viewing audience who would know that he was dissembling, misleading, and possibly hiding behind the 'heroism of others' by telling his story as if their 'heroism' would somehow conform to that which Hannity was attempting to attach to McCain. So I started looking for answers. I scoured the two exhaustively detailed books 'P.O.W.' and 'Honor Bound,^, on the subject, which have been written since the POWs returned home in March of 1973. Robert Timberg's book [4], 'The Nightingale's Song,' was also used as an excellent account of McCain's early years. What I found was truly astounding. Senator McCain has not been telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth!
     It is at this point that new information, heretofore privately held, but now available and previously authenticated by Department of Defense authorities at the time, documents the extent to which John McCain 'sang like a canary' while in the North Vietnamese hospital and in his 'room' during the several weeks he was at the Hoa Lo prison before being transferred to the Plantation prison complex. He revealed military information to the enemy in return for obtaining medical treatment as he had promised his interrogator, 'the Bug.' Such medical treatment was denied to many other, similarly wounded POWs.
     This new information is summarized below and is reproduced at this hyperlink:
     Within the first four days of his capture, while in his initial interrogation (26-30 October 1967) at the Hoa Lo prison in Hanoi, and while recovering from his shootdown wounds in the North Vietnamese military hospital (31 October 1967 through mid-December 1967), John McCain provided military information far beyond that which the Code of Conduct - and that which other POWs, while undergoing extreme torture - refused to divulge to the enemy. Colonel Ted Guy, McCain's Senior Ranking Officer (SRO) while they were both imprisoned at the Plantation prison complex in Hanoi, gathered information from various sources after the POWs were released in March 1973.
       This information comes from U.S. intercepts of North Vietnamese broadcasts to American servicemen in South Vietnam around 31 October 1967, as well as from dispatches by North Vietnamese and Cuban correspondents -- using material from a Nhan Dan (the central organ, the voice of the Communist Party of Vietnam, then and now) correspondent who interviewed John McCain. This material was published on 9 November 1967.  The latter were backed up by the intercepts of these messages by the Message Center of the U.S. Department of Defense National Military Command Center, dated 11 November 1967.
       A separate interview of McCain by a Soviet Union correspondent was published by Pravda in Moscow on 8 December 1967. And finally, McCain was interviewed by a French correspondent who published a series of interviews announced on 25 December 1967 and began 27 December 1967. This interview was intercepted by the Message Center of the U.S. National Command Center and disseminated via message on 1 January 1968.
       Each of these official records of John McCain's interviews with foreign correspondents, while held captive in Hanoi is reproduced at the hyperlink above. Observe that each one of these interviews contains military information -- far, far beyond the limits required by the Code of Conduct. Indeed this information is far beyond what nearly all of the POWs were severely tortured to obtain -- the insignificant 'gray area' information such as nebulous 'air pirate' signed statements. Only those few who were turncoats and anti-war sympathizers among our POWs gave up more information to the enemy than did John McCain.
       Indeed, John McCain made good on his promise to his interrogator, 'the Bug,' to provide U.S. military information in return for medical attention to his shootdown wounds. See the essay, 'John McCain as a POW' for the context of this promise. That essay also contains the contents of McCain's formal confession, under duress later, as an 'air pirate' as well as a completely unforced interview with a Cuban psychologist during 1970 when the torture had essentially ended for most of the POWs in the North Vietnamese propaganda battle with the U.S.  The latter interview gives a deep insight into the character of John McCain.
      Indeed, John McCain's gift as a 'raconteur extraordinaire'-- while both a prisoner of war in Hanoi as well as on the 'Straight Talk Express' is truly astounding.

More on John McCain  In the year 2003 Duncan J. Watts, one of the principal architects of the new science of networks, authored the book 'Six Degrees: The Science of a Connected Age.' This work pioneered the idea that '...everybody on this planet is separated by only six other people. Six degrees of separation. Between us and everybody else on this planet.' Murray Gell-Mann, a Nobel Laureate in Physics (he hypothesized the existence of Quarks before they were created in particle accelerators), and the co-founder of the Santa Fe Institute -- the center of the study of Chaos Theory -- praises Watts' book.
    Gell-Mann writes, "Here is a wonderful science book you won't want to put down...relevant to an amazing variety of subjects, including epidemics, markets, scientific collaboration, and terrorism." He might just have well have included the interactions among the 'actors' in this, the year 2008 presidential election campaign. Let me explain.
    The following is a description of the 'connection' between ADM Thomas H. Moorer, USN (Ret.) -- now deceased -- to Sen. John McCain, a candidate for President of the United States. The set of linkages through three other intermediaries is the topic of my essay -- 'Five Degrees of Separation.' It goes something like this:

    It all started with ADM Thomas H. Moorer, the legendary former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who, in direct opposition to Henry Kissinger, pursuaded President Nixon to mine Haiphong Harbor and carry out an all-out bombing of Hanoi during the stalled Paris Peace Talks. The famous 'Christmas' bombings, indeed, were the acts that brought our POWs home.
    ADM Moorer was the first 'link' in the chain of 'actors' that would culminate with Senator John McCain in the 2008 presidential election year. The 'five degrees of separation' in that chain are: ADM Moorer, CDR Robert Stumpf, CDR 'Beak' Atkinson, COL Ted Guy, and Senator John McCain.
     Bob Stumpf, former flight leader of Navy's premier Blue Angels flight demonstration team, was one of 300 such naval aviator 'warriors' who were purged during the radical feminist 'witch hunt' in the aftermath of the infamous Tailhook '91 bachannal and whose promotion to Captain was denied by then-SecNav John Dalton at the behest of President Clinton.
    In my article published in The Washington Times, 'PC problems plaguing the Navy,' dated 9/13/98, ADM Moorer described the real reason behind ADM Boorda's suicide in 1996 and revealed how that act was related to Dalton's turning down Bob Stumpf's promotion to Captain and Stumpf's decision, while under duress by the SecNav's lawyers, to simply walk away into retirement. It took him ten years to reclaim his promotion and clear his record of the false charges of wrongdoing.
    Col. Ted Guy, USAF (Ret.) read the above article, and as a result, contacted  me via Email and I sent him a copy of the unedited submission 'John Dalton's Legacy of Deceit,' dated 7/04/98 which was the basis of the 'Times' article. Ted, who was John McCain's SRO (Senior Ranking Officer) while both were imprisoned at the Plantation in Hanoi, gave me his impression of McCain's record as a POW in a return Email.
    He wrote, "I have absolutely no love or respect for Senator McCain. As far as I am concerned he is a damn liar and changes his tune to fit the occasion. For example, it has been published and he has said that after he was rescued out of the lake…in Hanoi that he was beaten and tortured. I have a DIA [Defense Intelligence Agency] message that quotes Francois Chalais, a French television reporter, on 25 through 27 December about his interview with McCain. In this interview he (McCain) states, 'They immediately took me to the hospital, in a condition two inches away from death. A doctor operated on my thigh, others at the same time dealt with my arms.' So much for the torture. Additionally, my knowledge and observance of McCain while the SRO at the Plantation clearly show me and others that he was never touched. Why then, all the talking to Foreign Press, and everyone else that wanted to talk to him? I and another senior, who I replaced as SRO in the Plantation, because he was out of communication, feel the same. JOHN McCAIN WAS NEVER TOUCHED THE ENTIRE TIME HE WAS IN NORTH VIETNAM, and I for one have and will continue to state so publicly."
    Guy's Email continued, "I have a thick file about John McCain that I have been collecting for some time. In addition, a friend of mine in Arizona has been doing likewise and the other day sent me a copy of most of the important things he has. These files/letters/conversations with McCain contain many quotes from, for example an April 23, 1986 letter of his where he says, 'I have always stated that I believe there are American servicemen alive in Southeast Asia until proven otherwise.' Guess he got proof really fast because a few weeks later there were none alive and no one was abandoned.'"
    "These files contain a rath (sic) [wealth] of information about McCain and his deliberate misrepresentation of facts. It proves to my satisfaction that he will leave no stone unturned in his quest for the White House…I firmly believe that we must do everything possible to keep McCain out of the White House." A copy of these files were sent to me on 6 July 1998.
    None of this information is contained in any of the public records - the 'P.O.W.' book, the 'Honor Bound' book, or the U.S. & World News report, or any of the books written by the POWs themselves in the aftermath of their return from captivity - referred to above. It is clear than none of the above authors knew what Ted Guy knew. Colonel Ted Guy mailed a copy of some of the above documents to the author of this essay on 6 July 1998, before the year 2000 presidential election. Guy did not mean to maliciously indict Senator John McCain publicly during his year 2000 run for the presidency. It is clear that Guy simply wanted to carry out his perceived duty to keep McCain from gaining his sought prize. Ted Guy wrote, "I would like to send you this information and maybe you can gain enough information, for another factual FORUM [Washington Times] or other article about McCain…I have one request that you hold it until we find out if he is going to run and if so, let him have both barrels just before the first primary or caucus that he is a candidate in. I assure you, you will have my back-up and full support as one who has been there and done that." George W. Bush won the South Carolina primary and was the year 2000 presidential nominee, so Ted Guy's request was honored. Colonel Ted Guy died of cancer on 23 April 1999.

    The above is an interesting example of Duncan Watts' research, as it relates to information that is applicable to the 2008 presidential election. A more interesting example, however, is in the essay that was published in the May/June 2008 issue of my Eternal Vigilance journal. That essay -- a copy of which is at this hyperlink -- reveals the connections among the three presidential primary candidates [Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Hussein Obama, and John Sidney McCain III] and their antagonists, the leaders of the epochal battle between America and the global Salafist Islamic jihad [Sayyid Qutb, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and Osama bin Laden]. We, indeed, are living in interesting -- and dangerous -- times!

Beak's in  *** During the flyover of a military 'Missing Man' formation, aircraft #3 pulls abruptly out of the formation, zooming straight upward, to signify the 'missing man.' This blog is a page for those of us who fought in the air or on the ground in the Vietnam War, all were shot at -- some hit, some not -- but neither shot down nor captured, and came home to a 'disillusioned,' 'misinformed,' and 'dispirited' America. Some unfortunates were 'spat upon' by bearded anti-war North Vietnam sympathizers as they disembarked from their transports. Others were ordered not to wear their uniforms on the civilian airliners homeward bound.
    Nearly all of us looked inward and found the strength to disregard such distractions and 'got on with our lives.' By and large, we worked hard and prospered -- leaving 'politics' to the politicians. Until this coming election -- where we were given the Hobson's choice among three potentially dangerous politicians; those described in the hot items above. In this election the 'Missing Man' is back in the formation. Hence 'Beak's In.'  The inspiration for such a claim is taken from CDR Paul Galanti's brilliant 'Three's In' for the NAM-POW website (Sorry Paul for the long-winded extension) -- but now we are all covered!

The Mythical John McCain: A Conversation with the Leadership of the Vietnam War POWs
     The first step in this conversation occurred when I posted the 'John McCain Sang Like a Canary' essay as described in a Hot Item above and sent an Email to a list of over 1,000 folks -- many of whom are Naval Academy graduates and fellow naval aviators -- across the country who have been with me over the past decade on matters of national importance. That 1,000-or-so then spread the word to a broader audience. One group that further 'spread the word' was the Board of Directors of the Tailhook Association -- even though they had opposed much of my previous effort with regard to opposing the 'feminization' of the U.S. Navy after the Tailhook '91 episode.
     The second step was to harvest the rapid, strong response by the leadership of the NAM-POW organization, most of whom are associated with the candidacy of Senator John McCain for the presidency in the 2008 election cycle. All told, eight NAM-POWs responded: Dick Stratton, Paul Galanti, Bud Day, Orson Swindle, and Mike Cronin -- along with three others (Fred Purrington, Ed Shuman, and Bob Shumaker) who were cc: addressees on an Email from CAPT Bob Stumpf, USN (Ret.), a former Blue Angel leader and a victim of the 'witch hunt' in the aftermath of the Tailhook '91 bacchanal. All of the six who responded directly had very strong words of disapproval for my accusation.

     Although all of these responses had substantive objections, one stands out, that of Richard Stratton. Each of the others are recorded at this hyperlink. They will be addressed in future posts. For those of you who are not acquainted with Stratton, an essay entitled 'The Boat School Boys' provides the details of his superb leadership while held prisoner in the Hanoi prison complex. CAPT Richard Stratton, USN (Ret.) writes:     Subject: Were You There?

"I read with amazement and surprise an Email allegedly from you: [----- Original Message  -----
From: Gerald L.  Atkinson
To: Tailhook Board of  Directors
Sent: Saturday, April 26, 2008 2:02 PM
Subject: John McCain]."

"I was startled, given the subject matter, that you had not contacted me in researching your material. For, as you well know, I was an Acting Senior Ranking Officer [SRO] at the Plantation at a time when Senator McCain was incarcerated there and later on, I  was a cellmate of his at various times in the Hoa Lo prison."

"Had you contacted me I possibly could of saved you from some of the distortions, out of context facts and  outright lies concerning Senator McCain that found their way into your material.  I could have given you some insight into some of the personalities involved in the web of lies and deceit that have been woven around the subject since the 2000 campaign and even earlier. Since you did not contact me, I have to assume that you are more comfortable with fiction than with fact."

"If you were in Hanoi, DRV during the Vietnam War - specifically the Plantation and Hoa  Lo -- and I missed your presence, I will defer to your perceptions and  intelligence. For, Lord knows it was difficult communicating under the threat of torture with our primitive means of tapping, peeping, hand signals, coughing, hacking, sweeping and exchanging notes in manure buckets. Misunderstandings in  such situations and confusion can arise. However, Beak, I do not believe that you were there.

"I was there and will attest 'that your fundamental thesis and slander' regarding Senator McCain's performance of duty while a  POW are in error. As I read your message, it brought to my mind the sad and solemn African American Spiritual: "Were You There When They Crucified My Lord." Maybe this spiritual 'resonated in my mind as I read your material because I was observing your crucifixion of an honorable and honest man - John McCain."

"Beak, you were not there and I was.  Instead of 'the diatribe attributed to you,' I choose to take the testimony of a real man and warrior who was there -- James Bond Stockdale (MOH).  In his succinct summation of Commander John McCain's Vietnam prison 'performance before the captains selection board,' Admiral  Stockdale was unequivocal. He declared: 'John McCain was the bravest of the brave.' Commander McCain was selected for promotion to Captain by this board of senior officers. These senior officers 'examined his entire military career and Vietnam experience in excruciating detail and voted their 'approval' in secret session. I will defend to my death your right as an American to publicly and privately disagree with the politics and programs of Senator John McCain. However, as an American and a Catholic Christian I wholeheartedly condemn the calumny that you have perpetrated against him in this message. I pray that this is some kind of a mistake and that the subject matter is wrongly attributed to you. If not, Beak: Were You There?

GBU,

Richard A. Stratton
AB, MA, MSW RPOW - Vietnam 

Were you there when they crucified my Lord?
Were you there when they crucified my  Lord?
_______________________________________________
End of CAPT Stratton's Response.

Beak Atkinson's Answer: It is simple. No, I was not there! But neither were you! Nor was Bud Day. Nor was Paul Galanti. Nor was Orson Swindle. Nor was Mike Cronin. Not even James Stockdale was there. In fact, the official record shows that not one POW was there. You see, John McCain 'Sang Like a Canary' and gave military information to the North Vietnamese when he was in the Hanoi hospital which treated their officers for wartime injuries. The official record ['Honor Bound: American Prisoners of War 1961-1973'] reveals the facts. It takes a bit of time to ascertain this truth, but it exists if one looks for it. There were no POW SROs in the North Vietnamese hospital where McCain was treated for his wounds. There were no other POWs in the hospital. Yet it was in that hospital and his recovery room during the period from four days after he was captured until around mid-December 1967 that John McCain gave interviews to the communist correspondents listed in my previous posting.
     In that posting I provided the details of these facts -- available to anyone who has the time to dig them out of the official records and McCain's article in the U.S. News & World Report article. So you see, I didn't really have to 'contact you'  or anyone else to find the truth on this matter. I have documented the truth in the three essays at the hyperlinks above. It is clear that neither you nor any of the other NAM-POW leaders took the time to read those essays -- engaging only in an immediate, emotional, lock-step response. Only one, Bud Day, even mentions that he "...googled up some of [my] writings, and recognize that [I] have been deceived." More on that below.
     So, the answer to the question, 'Where you there?' I will respond in kind. [Same hymnal lyrics, different verses.]

Were you there when they interviewed McCain?
Were you there when they interviewed McCain?
Were you there, were you there, were you there, were you there
Were you there when they interviewed McCain?

And, of course the answer is the same. No you weren't!

     If you but read my essay, 'John McCain as a POW,' and pay attention to the footnotes (mostly from the 'Honor Bound' book) you will find the context within which his behavior was described. Initially, while alone in the North Vietnamese hospital -- without 'adult supervision' -- McCain behaved in his own best self-interest, trading military information for medical treatment. In that essay, I leave it for the reader to ascertain whether or not the reader would have made such a tradeoff. I did not provide a judgment. Later on, with 'adult supervision' McCain partially redeemed himself by joining the resister leadership exhibited by you and others at the Plantation, and still others even later on at the Hoa Lo complex. But then, completely without duress and essentially on his own again (during the 1970 period of essentially torture-free confinement), he inexplicably blabbed all sorts of self-aggrandizing information (far, far outside the bounds of the Code of Conduct) to the Cuban psychologist, Dr. Fernando Barral. The record shows that this interview prompted McCain's SRO at the time, Jeremiah Denton, to issue a directive to the POWs -- no more interviews!

     My original inflammatory message was meant to anger the high-level NAM-POW leadership currently involved in promoting McCain for the presidency. It got their attention, and they responded. Dick, I apologize if my 'blast out of the blue' gave you or any of your colleagues anguish or distress. I detect some of that in your response and some of the other responses I have received. As I said to Bob Stumpf in a previous Email, "I intend to carry on a conversation with the POWs who responded to my Email in due time and reveal why I am 'dead sure' that I am right about this. I will not give it away now because I want to give the POW responses time to mature. And I want to make sure that I respond in a way that I don't add to their anguish and memories of what they endured -- I know that some of them still have nightmares regarding their torture. And for God's sake, who wouldn't -- it is very difficult to even read about it, much less have endured it. In fact, I described Jim Kasler's torture under Fidel as an example of the horror that occurred in the torture chambers in Hanoi. Just to make that point."

     On to Bud Day's response -- "I googled up some of your writings, and recognize that you have been deceived." Beak Atkinson's reply is as follows: Anyone who reads the stuff on this website should understand its central message. That is, While we (you POWs and those of us who were shot at and some hit, some not, but neither shot down nor captured) were overseas fighting (and 'winning' by the way) the war in Vietnam, America's 'enemies within' were winning the war at home -- a culture war, the nature of which its leaders predicted could not be countered even by the use of force. That is what my website is all about. In over a decade of  researching, learning and writing on this subject -- the cultural Marxist marriage of the writings of Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud -- I came to realize that the Clintons' presidency intended to continue this culture war via a 'march through our institutions.' This website contains over 170 pages (essays, some themselves over twenty five eight-and one-half by 11 inches of paper long) illuminating this subject.

     That introduction leads me to reveal an event that occurred 15 years ago this 2008 Memorial Day. It is related to this discussion with the NAM-POW Leadership. Soon after assuming the presidency, Bill Clinton's administration induced the son of the heroic Korean War Marine General Chesty Puller, himself a severely wounded Marine in combat in Vietnam, to introduce the president at a speech he was to give at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall in Washington, D.C. Upon hearing of this blasphemy, a retired member of the 82nd Airborne Division organized a demonstration of Vietnam War veterans to be spontaneously assembled to protest the president's presence and speech at the wall that day.

     Over one thousand of us assembled on the 'grassy knoll' east of the wall and lined up in military formation -- rank by rank. This was to be a peaceful demonstration monitored by leaders who verbally cautioned 'no disrespect to the president,' 'no threat of violence.' Nevertheless, the authorities barricaded us behind a wire/wooden picket fence with mounted police officers patrolling the endpoints. Bill Clinton could not trust those of us who fought in the war to keep our heads, given the knowledge that he, the president, had spoken out against the war when he was a student at Oxford University in England during the war.

     After Chesty Puller's son, from his wheelchair, gave a courteous introduction, President Clinton stepped to the podium. At that point a single voice on the 'grassy knoll' (obviously a retired senior sergeant veteran of the 82nd Airborne) gave a loud, resounding, deep voiced command -- Attenhut! Over 1,000 of us snapped to attention. Then came the command, About Face! At that second, over 1,000 of us turned our backs on the President of the United States of America. And remained so for the duration of his speech. One demonstrator waved a huge cardboard placard on a four foot wooden pole which read 'Where was Bill?' That demonstrator (you can guess who it was) started singing out 'Where was bill?' A few more voices joined in. Then more, and more, and more. Finally, over a thousand voices were chanting in unison, 'Where was bill?' On the 'grassy knoll' the singing chorus of 'Where was Bill?' drowned out the president's address. The 82nd Airborne had won! Unfortunately, several months or years later, I forget which, Chesty Puller's son, who introduced Bill Clinton that day committed suicide -- the ultimate fate of one who was tricked into introducing the seriously flawed president.

     What relevance does this story have in our discussion with the NAM-POW leadership? Let me see. Oh, yes. You know the lyrics, here are the words: They are addressed to all of those who are critical of my exposition of Senator John McCain's behavior as a POW.

Where were you when we turned our backs on Bill?
Where were you when we turned our backs on Bill?
Where were you, where were you, where were you, where were you
Where were you when we turned our backs on Bill?

     Now on to the response by CAPT Bob Stumpf USN (Ret.). Stumpf is not a NAM-POW, but he enters the conversation as one I have known for some years -- during his fight with the radical feminists who wanted his scalp via the 'witch hunt' in the wake of the Tailhook '91 bacchanal. Admiral Thomas H. Moorer, USN (Ret.), RADM C.A. Hill Jr., USN (Ret.) and I publicly backed him in his fight against SecNav Dalton's infamous attempt to dishonor him. See the essays on the Mark Hill Corner of this website for the details. Bob Stumpf writes (the entirety of his response is accessible at this hyperlink): "I will continue to rely on the current testimony of dozens of former POWs who praise McCain's performance over the decade old ramblings of one deceased former POW. If you prefer dead POWs' comments, how about that of the late Medal of Honor winner VADM James Stockdale? "John McCain was the bravest of the brave."

    Stumpf in further defense of McCain adds, "What kind of a friend would I be to turn against the 'ONLY ONE of 535 congress people to take a fervent, vocal, conspicuous and politically dangerous stand on my behalf' twelve years ago? Let me remind you that John McCain took on the Senate and the Administration to right a terrible injustice, and doggedly pursued justice until it was done more than six years later. I owe him what's worth more than anything, my personal and professional reputation."

    OK, that is his opinion. But then comes an ominous sounding part -- something reminiscent of the Clintons' scurrilous 'War Room' mentality. Stumpf writes "My colleagues on the campaign and I will do everything possible to discredit any further slanderous treatment of John McCain, and by association, your credibility and good  name. Be very careful.

Beak's answer. Great balls afire! Bob Stumpf should know that you shouldn't threaten an old fighter pilot that way. That is just the kind of stuff that gets old 'Beak's' dander up. You have just sparked the juices that lit the fire of Beak's In! So here it is. There is absolutely nothing you, or any of the NAM-POWs, could ever do to 'discredit my credibility and good name.' You see, I march to the drumbeat of ADM Thomas H. Moorer, not that of ADM James Stockdale. ADM Moorer was responsible for convincing President  Nixon, in spite of the opposition of Henry Kissinger, to bomb Hanoi in order to bring our POWs home. The famous 'Christmas' bombing of Hanoi and the mining of Haiphong Harbor during December 1972 brought the enemy back to the Paris bargaining table and agreement to return all of our POWs. During early 1973 you came home. Thanks to ADM Moorer.

     ADM Moorer supported every one of the initiatives that I took in exposing the threat of the 'enemies within' as described above.  You might wish to read his article in The Washington Times in which he lauded my book, The New Totalitarians.' A quote from that article states, "Although Gerald Atkinson in "The New Totalitarians" stops short of saying the Republic will be in jeopardy if Mr. Clinton is re-elected, he does make the case that many traditional American institutions, in particular the Navy, will be irreparably damaged by a second Clinton term -- due in large measure to his policies of placing women aboard ships and in combat roles." Of course, no politician has been more instrumental in 'placing women aboard ships and in combat roles' than Senator John McCain. Senator McCain, as an honorary member of the USNA Board of visitors, supported his old Academy roommate, ADM Charles Larson USN (Ret.) as superintendent of the Naval Academy when the latter invited members of our 'enemies within' to teach a New Age 'ethics' at the Academy. This is treated at the hyperlink 'Leadership and Ethics Training' and 'Anatomy of a Closet Leftist.' The damage wrought at the Naval Academy is dealt with at the hyperlink 'The Stockdale Dilemma.' There will be more on this subject later on in our 'conversation.'

     In my second book, 'From Trust to Terror: Radical Feminism is Destroying the U.S. Navy,' ADM Moorer gave the following praise, "[This book] presents solid evidence of what we have long suspected. The Clintons and their Boomer elitists are irreparably damaging the U.S. Navy. If the radical feminists are allowed to continue their agenda, the proud fighting Navy which won the war of the Pacific will no longer be capable of similar victory." This prediction is borne out by the recent TV series, 'Carrier' a 10-hour documentary of life aboard the USS Nimitz, which shows male and female sailors/marines dancing on the hangar deck (both married to spouses back home) and a female sailor/aircrew-member stating 'I wish we were back home dropping practice 'smoke bombs' on the range rather than killing people on the ground.' As Stephanie Guttman observed in her book, 'The Kinder, Gentler Military: Can America's Gender-Neutral Fighting Force Still Win Wars?' "On the smoking sponson, just off the Hangar Bay...it feels very much like your average sports bar on 'Ladies Night': ...one can pick out clusters of anxious males tracking the movements of one or two female seamen who have wandered in and bestowed themselves on a few lucky men...You have to remember says a female sailor, that a majority of the ship are men, so a new female is 'fresh meat' so to speak. 'But that's why they hang around the Hangar Bay. Period. I knew a girl who came the same time I did. She would go, put full makeup on, do up her hair, and then put on her jogging clothes to go exercise in the Hangar Bay, and after running she would walk around. That's how she met most of her boyfriends.' I can report that, yes, as a general rule...men and women and girls and boys (and a combination thereof) in gender-integrated units have plenty of sex." In that same book, Guttman reveals [page 148] that during the summer of 1991, Senator John McCain was helping prepare a bill that would kill the 1948 Combat Exclusion Law, which kept women of the Navy and the Air Force off combat ships and from combat aircraft squadrons.

     So who the heck is this prima donna 'egg head' Beak, who writes books and criticizes our hero NAM-POW, Senator John McCain? Just what operational combat experience does he have to make such a challenge? Well, Beak is a former Navy Jet Fighter Pilot who entered the Naval Aviation Cadet (NavCad) program in 1953, qualified for jets and commissioned in 1955. As a young Ensign he was assigned to VF-84 at Oceana, VA and flew Navy fighter aircraft; F9F-5 Panthers, F9F-8 Cougars, and finally the F7U-3M Cutlass.  His squadron 'shook down' the USS Forrestal out of Guantanamo Bay, Cuba in the F7U-3M on the old 'paddles' carrier approach -- 150 ft at the 180, 125 ft at the 90 and then the 'paddles' LSO to the 'cut.' The aircraft was so underpowered that you flew the entire pass at nearly 100% power, took a 'cut' by 'dipping' the nose (down/up) at full power to get aboard. The aircraft could undergo a 'post-stall gyration,' from which controlled fight was impossible, if you pulled too many g's in combat maneuvers. Section formation takeoffs were accomplished with both aircraft in afterburner, the leader with one-third speed brakes out, and the wingman holding his position totally with speed brake manipulation. The aircraft could not get off the ground without both afterburners blazing away. That aircraft was not deployable.

     The squadron then was redesignated VA-86, the Sidewinders, and took the first A4 Skyhawks off the assembly line. The primary mission was nuclear weapon delivery then. The Skyhawk and the night-fighting Banshee were the Navy's sole component of the nuclear deterrent -- along with the Air Force's B-47 medium range bomber. We were one of the first squadrons to deploy to the Med in the early version of the A4. We VA-86ers shared a ready room on the USS Randolph with VA-72. That was a time when all of the 'kinks' had not yet been worked out of the A4. We remember the days when you had to 'lock the throttle' at 100% before the cat shot (hydraulic catapult days) so that it wouldn't 'spring back' to idle when you reached up to raise the landing gear handle on becoming airborne off the bow -- if you remember the harmonic resonance problem with the fuel control cross-shaft on the J-65 engine, I had one shut down in the chocks at Gitmo without pulling the throttle around the horn, 30 seconds after a final landing (runway 09, remember the hill there). Most likely few Skyhawk drivers remember the fuel control 'hangup problem' -- night FCLP and carrier landings, back to idle at the break, gear and flaps down, throttle back up to near full throttle and the engine would 'hang up' at 80% for over 30 seconds, not enough power to maintain altitude. We lost four pilots that way during a six-month period in 1959. I understand from Herm Muller and Red Vezina that the next group of replacements lost five more pilots during their shakedown deployment on the USS Independence -- including the CO and Operations Officer. I doubt if John McCain, Paul Galanti or others of the Skyhawk community who flew the A4 and were shot down over North Vietnam ever knew of that history. Who knows? Who cares?

     From there it was U.S. Naval Postgraduate School (2 years) and the University of Michigan (1 year) and then back to the fleet. Flew the A3D during a six-month Med cruise aboard the USS Saratoga. Then transitioned to the Mach 2.0 RA5C Vigilante and completed a nine-month Med cruise aboard the Sara in 1965. I was chosen to carry out the flight demonstration of the Vigilante in the 1965 Paris Air Show -- only one of six U.S. combat aircraft demonstrated that year. I believe that I am the only pilot ever to have flight demonstrated the Vigilante in the Paris Air Show.

     After that nine-month deployment I had accumulated my allotted four years of sea duty before being ordered to another round of shore duty. But my squadron, RVAH-9, had been ordered to immediately get ready to fly to the West Coast and deploy to Vietnam. I volunteered to extend my sea duty for another year so I could make that deployment. Besides being professionally motivated to do so, my attitude was 'If my generation was going to war, I was damn well going to go fight in it.' I did not want to miss the opportunity. I made that deployment, flying the Vigilante in combat over North Vietnam during 1966. I was shot at many times, hit once, and survived.  All told, I had spent 20 out of 22 months deployed to either the Med or off Yankee Station on the USS Ranger. By the time I came home, my five children hardly knew who I was.

     Upon return home I was picked to attend the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School. I was awarded the (now defunct) 'Most Outstanding Test Pilot' award for Class 46 which graduated in June 1967. I was assigned to Flight Test at Pax River. I was in hog heaven -- doing what I loved doing, flying the world's best and hottest aircraft -- a fighter pilot's dream come true. Then, 'out of the blue, came a huge surprise. Somewhere, high up in the Navy, it was decided that they would pick six naval aviators, each with heavy operational experience and who also had the academic aptitude to obtain a PhD at a major university so that on return to the Navy they could 'do battle' with Defense Secretary McNamara and his 'whiz kids' in the Pentagon. I was skeptical, but after some assurance by BuPers officials that I would then return to operational flying, I took the offer. I went to the University of Michigan and fulfilled another lifelong dream -- earning a PhD in Nuclear Engineering at the U of M. That opened an avenue of opportunity that has also been very professionally rewarding, but not of interest to the those of you who have or will attempt to 'do everything in their power to discredit my credibility and good name.'

     Before closing, let me leave you with a single thought. Take a look at my essay, 'Who Chooses Our Heroes in the Age of Multiculturalism.' In it, I make the point that the civilians who choose to emphasize the military's choice of war heroes tells us more about America than it does about those who have become our true war heroes. A nation on the rise builds its mythical heroes from the mold of Simon Kenton (in the days of the then-Northwest Frontier), Andrew Jackson for his part in winning the battle for New Orleans, Sergeant York in WWI, and Audi Murphy in WWII. A nation which creates its mythical heroes from the mold of prisoners of war is a nation whose culture is crumbling. For God's sake, many of us would never have been motivated to join Navy carrier aviation if our only choice was the suffering of our prisoners of war in the hands of the Japanese at Cabanatuan in the Philippines during WWII.  Instead, as youngsters we were in awe of Claire Chennault of the famous 'Flying Tigers,' Butch O'Hare of the U.S. Navy, Joe Foss of the Marine Corps, and Gabby Gabreski of the Air Force.

     For God's sake you guys. Give it up. Quit thinking only of yourselves and start thinking of the future. We need to build the mythical image of heroes for the next generation -- fighters, not just courageous survivors of brutal torture and other horrors of imprisonment. We must encourage our grandsons to take up Mixed Martial Arts (ever hear of Royce, pronounced Hoyce, Gracie) -- which John McCain has tried to ban. We need to condition a generation of youth who are capable of not only defending themselves, but their family, their neighbors, and our country. Your pushing the myth of John McCain, the Vietnam War hero, is a disservice to our nation and its future ability to engage and win the current epochal war against the global Salafist Islamic jihad. We need to mythologize a kind of hero such as Sergeant Pryor, whose hand-to-hand fight to the death with a Taliban enemy in Afghanistan is described in my essay, 'Conclusion to the Lies, Lies, and More Damn Lies.' Get the hell off the stage and start contributing to the motivating of our youth to become the heroes our nation will need in the coming battle for our nation, our culture, and our civilization. It is the 13er and Millennial generations whom we must encourage by the examples of our traditional heroes. For example, please Google 'Glen Beck Ted Bell' and learn about Ted Bell's book for 12-year-olds which brings back the tradition of the epic novels like Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island in which a young boy sets out to become 'the hero of his own life.' Instead of John McCain's radical feminist supporters who have flooded our children with 'chic lit' stuff and encourages our education establishment which would rather raise our young boys as little girls with a penis.

     So, where does that leave us? You NAM-POW leaders have set in stone your own set of deceptions concerning the behavior of John McCain as a POW. John McCain knows what he did. You know what he did. And no one told the truth. Now you are stuck with it. And you have stuck our nation with it. As Sir Walter Scott wrote, "Oh what a tangled web we weave, When first we practice to deceive! Now that Carl Rove and the Republican spinmeisters are promoting the 'herohood' of John McCain, you have no one to blame but yourselves. It would have been so easy for John McCain to come clean and admit, very early on, that he gave military information to the enemy in order to obtain medical treatment for his very serious shootdown injuries, a level of treatment that essentially no other POW received.  He could then have been 'forgiven' over time by the American public. But no, you kept on generating obfuscations, allowing John McCain to hide under the truly heroic efforts of some of you, and creating the 'Mythical John McCain.'

     Each of you has demanded that I apologize to John McCain for the 'slander' that I have brought against him. That so-called 'slander' is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. It is you who should apologize. To your NAM-POW compatriots, to those of us who also fought alongside you in the Vietnam War, to your Naval Academy classmates,  and most importantly to the American people.
                                                     As I said above, Beak's In! Let the fun begin!