"Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free." - President Ronald Reagan
Monday, December 02, 2024
Hug a South Korean
Hug a South Korean - American Thinker https://t.co/rfQkBkfB3Z
— Silvio Canto. Jr. (@silvio_canto) December 2, 2024
Over the Thanksgiving break, I didn’t think a lot about politics. Nevertheless, I found this story fascinating. After all, we are talking about South Korea, a country that we’ve been protecting for decades. Check this out:
South Korea’s fertility rate, already the world’s lowest, continued its dramatic decline in 2023, as women concerned about their career advancement and the financial cost of raising children decided to delay childbirth or to not have babies.
The average number of expected babies for a South Korean woman during her reproductive life fell to a record low of 0.72 from 0.78 in 2022.
As they say, I didn’t see that one coming. I had no idea that South Korea was doing this to itself. At this rate, we may have more troops on their border than South Koreans to protect.
It gets more interesting. Check this out:
South Korea’s leader on Thursday said he plans to create a new government ministry to tackle the “national emergency” of the country’s infamously low birth rate as it grapples with a deepening demographic crisis.
In a televised address, President Yoon Suk Yeol said he would ask for parliament’s cooperation to establish the Ministry of Low Birth Rate Counter-planning.
“We will mobilize all of the nation’s capabilities to overcome the low birth rate, which can be considered a national emergency,” he said.
Not sure how you mobilize people to have more babies. Tax credits or something like that?
So hug a South Korean and tell them how much you appreciate them. Truthfully there may not be a lot of them to hug in a few decades.
P.S. Check out my blog for posts, podcasts and videos.
We remember Alexander Haig (1924-2010)
We remember former Secretary of State Alexander Haig who was born on this in 1924 and died in 2010. He lived a very consequential life in the military and later in government.
In 1981, Haig was named Secretary of State by President Reagan. I remember being very happy about the selection.
Secretary Haig will also be remembered for his comments on the day that President Reagan was shot and rushed to the hospital. His remarks about "being in charge" were misunderstood but he never recovered from the incident.
Overall, a very good man and public servant.
We remember Alexander Haig (1924-2010) and how he tried to deal with Castro
In 1981, he was named Secretary of State by President Reagan. I remember being very happy about the selection.
In the summer of 1981, the US and Cuba had talks in Mexico City, as James Chace wrote in a review of Secretary Haig's memoirs.
President Reagan was hoping to persuade the Castro regime to take back some of the criminals that sailed into Florida during the Mariel Boatlift in the spring of 1980.
This is the account of those meetings:
At one point in early 1981 the National Security Council even tried to arrange a meeting with Fidel Castro through the good offices of the columnist Jack Anderson.
Naturally when Mr. Haig got word of this, he was upset at seeing such a maneuver undermine his military efforts to put ''fear into the hearts of the Cubans.''
Though he was reluctant to ease the pressure at so early a date, Mr. Haig felt it necessary to follow up on a suggestion from the Mexican President to mediate between Havana and Washington.
It is hard to see what Mr. Haig hoped to gain by this, since ''there could be no talk about normalization, no relief of the pressure, no conversations on any subject except the return to Havana of the Cuban criminals (in the United States) and the termination of Cuba's interventionism.''
Indeed, he may well have gone ahead because of the President's desire to see if Cuba would receive the some 4,000 criminals who had left Cuba along with 120,000 other refugees in the 1980 Mariel boatlift who were now in American prisons.
Deciding to test the waters, as he puts it, he met in November 1981 in Mexico City with Carlos Rafael Rodriguez, the vice premier and the man who, after Fidel Castro, is the most authoritative spokesman of Cuban foreign policy.
The conversations were amiable. The Cuban denied that Havana was sending arms to El Salvador but did not want a confrontation with the United States.
Mr. Haig did not appear eager for another meeting, but, at the President's request, he dispatched Gen. Vernon Walters to meet with Mr. Castro and Mr. Rodriguez in March 1982.
At this meeting, Mr. Castro said that the return of the Cuban criminals was ''a solvable problem''; nor did he deny Cuban involvement in Central America.
Although the President continued to press for a solution to the criminal question, Mr. Haig recommended that Mr. Castro be given an ultimatum to receive the criminals or ''we would simply load them aboard an expendable ship, sail it into a Cuban anchorage under escort of the U.S. Navy and inform Castro that we had returned his citizens to him.''
At this point, Mr. Haig's report over possible negotiations with Havana breaks off.
Unfortunately, Secretary Haig will always be associated with the day that President Reagan was shot.
It clearly hurt his image with a lot of Americans and led to his removal as Secretary of State in June 1982.
1973: The day that Gerald Ford became VP
"For myself and for our Nation, I want to thank my predecessor for all he has done to heal our land.."
World War II: The great military leaders with Barry Jacobsen
World War II: The great military leaders with Barry Jacobsen 07/23 by Silvio Canto Jr | History Podcasts:
Guest: Barry Jacobsen, military historian and blogger.......we will remember the Allied and Axis commanders: Ike, MacArthur, Nimitz, Monty, Zukov; and on the Axis side, Von Manstein, Guderian, Rommel, Kesselring, Adm. Yamamoto, General Yamashita.......and other stories of the war............