50 Comments

Happy New Year Tom, and thanks for an excellent call to arms to begin the campaign. While none of us can do everything, we need not, because each of us can do something, like sending postcards and talking to our neighbors, and, together, we can do anything we choose to, like sending the failed insurrectionist and his clique to the fate they so richly deserve.

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It's a small world after all - the Bride memorized this speech, and impressed me no end with her memory. I started reading your post to her and we finished in tandem, me reading and she reciting the speech from memory. That did make it special.....special enough that the Bride just subscribed to your Substack, with money..... We are both damn tired of living in interesting times.....

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I saw that new subscription. I thank both of you for the support and friendship.

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Elaine, aka The Bride here. I first saw this quotation during my sophomore year in college. It was typed (dating myself) and taped to the door of a professor in the language department of then-Newcomb College of Tulane University. I went to the library, made a copy, and memorized it. Every October 25 I refresh my memory of it and quote it. This past November Bruce and I were in London for a few days, and I got to see the room in Westminster Abbey where Henry IV died and Henry V became king. I'll forward your column to the gracious lady who showed me that room and other fascinating parts of the Abbey. Thank you for bringing back fond memories, and for expressing so eloquently the issue facing us. A better choice could not have been made.

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Thanks, Elaine. I'm glad you're here.

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Lucky two you are

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Thank you for sharing your wisdom Tom, and Happy New Year to you.🥂

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Well said, TC. I stand with that band, even though my battle these days be mostly behind the scenes, I am full prepared to go forward in whatever means necessary.

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On it, Tom. Usually we choose our fights, but this one chose us, and we must go on offense, which includes defeating all the fascist foot soldiers and enablers at the local level.

Thank you for including Shakespeare here because I'm confident that in this era he'd be in his humble home furiously penning away about all the current Iago types (Bannon, Miller, Carlson, et. al.) podcasting into the ears of the maga gullible. One can imagine his take on Trump, a man bereft of redeeming qualities.

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Bereft of redeeming qualities, best description ever

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I'm with you all the way, Brother as we reignite the flame of freedom empowered by the love of liberty that inspired the oath we swore nearly 60 years ago.

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It will require the Rise Against Propaganda Movement

Nothing feeds the empty mind like professions of fantasy made palatable by the anticipation of Id Confirmation. When the mind is weak via laziness, the void is easily filled

Slaying this Middle Earth Dragon is incumbent upon us all

Truth is a more sinewy mouthful, hard to swallow at times, but most nutritious as opposed to the gruel that is currently accepted as sustenance

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Rise AgaInst Propaganda Movement. Can I join

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But of course, are now 2 strong

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Propaganda should choke us all, instead it seems to slide down like ice cream.we need more RAPMs

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Lets concentrate on defiling propaganda at every turn. Identify it. Make it a pariah

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While I became aware of that speech after I served, it absolutely animated why I was in my “band of brothers”, a phrase that I have used for over 50 years. Now I know the source of that phrase, that was a nice new year’s gift. Happy New Year to all, as long as there is life in me, I’m up for this fight, better we straighten this shit out than force our grandchildren to have to do it down the road. While the choice’s couldn’t be more clear, it will be up to us with vision to lead the way, “I’ve got your back” really does mean something. We can do this!

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Right there with you Dick. Happy and seriously better New Year!

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A rousing speech indeed! Onward and upward! Happy New Year Tom 🍾🥂

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Happy New Year, Tom! Let’s do this!!!

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Thanks so much, Tom, for sharing this. Somehow, we seem to consistently become complacent and forget about "We the People" and our responsibilities as citizens. We complain about taxes, and turn around and gripe about school systems, and roads and other infrastructure, without making the connection that taxes fund these public resources. We don't vote, we don't keep up on local, state and federal news, yet somehow we expect those governing to be magicians to make us happy, happy, happy (picture a toddler clapping hands in glee).

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My idiot brother said yesterday, “I don’t want to know about all that.” I said, but you are a smart man. His response, Ignorance is bliss. I said, ignorance is artificial bliss. He didn’t care. What next…

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Family... the gift that keeps on *living*!! :-)

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Sigh...if he has kids or grandkids, or plans to, you can ask him (out of curiosity) what are his thoughts are about WWlll, as in "so do you think woman will be drafted along with the men, or be left back in the US to run the businesses?"

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He has kids and grands. He also was named after a cousin who was killed in WW2. He has changed in recent years. May be depressed, since health has suffered. Anyway, he is pretty shut down. Will keep trying, as long as he will talk with me.

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Getting older is tough. My Dad is 97, and when Trump started on the autocratic reign, my Dad (liberal, protested the Vietnam War, fought gor Civil rights) got very sad and just said,"I thought we were successful in getting rid of the Nazi stuff." Since hearing is an issue, hard to have conversation about it. But he's still engaged and will vote for Biden. I think one of the hardest thing is for people who always voted R are finding out so much was a lie. That's a lot of decades spent in delusion. Very sad.

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If he reads, get him a copy of Stuart Stevens' book, "It Was All A Lie."

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Excellent book

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Thank you— that speech is truly heartening!

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Let's do this!

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Thanks TC. I’m ready to join up for whatever but the sad thing is that in past elections, Dems have won the popular vote but lost the Electoral. 🤯 it just occurred to me that maybe the fake electors have been done before and that’s what Cheseboro’s secrecy is all about.

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I think we'll do ourselves a favor if we just concentrate on getting out more over-performance, like 2020 and 2022.

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I think a BIG thing will be a new voter registration drive to re-up all the voters immorally (and often Illegally) purged from the rolls by Republican state gubmints..... If we win, by God, the Dems had better reform our entire federal election system, or we will go through this unholy mess again and again.....

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Well --- last night I sat & watched Amerigeddon (sp?) with Christopher Titus a comedian, if you never have heard of him. I recommend it - sort of on the order of TC, actually. At the start I was a little in doubt as to where he was going but then he got there. It was really good. And he did the same show in Alabama - which took guts.

And I finally finished Flowers of a Killer Moon. The criminality and corruptiveness (word?) of way too much of our "governmental guardianship" of Osage Indians is almost beyond belief. I say almost because currently looking at one of our political parties does make it believable.

It wasnt enough to move an entire tribe of people away from their original home, nope - apparently, once the "whites" realized the mistake in forcing them onto a place that they didnt want - horrors! It turned out the place was worth a fortune. They managed to correct that problem.

I guess there was no end to what was done to America's indigenous people - or for that matter, to Canada's or Australia's - or anyplace that was "colonized".

Seems not much has changed.

Now to finish Oath and Honor!

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Thank you for recommendations. Hope to follow up.

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What a wonderful and optimistic column to start this new year! Yes, we will win on St. Crispin Day! Happy New Year!

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