Kennedy’s challenge remains relevant
This week in 1963 America lost a hero, our President John F. Kennedy.
But his legacy lives on in the lives of those who remember his famed inaugural sentence: “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.”
From that challenge to the youth of America, many of us joined the Peace Corps and always thought of ways of giving back to the nation that had given us so much. If America is ever to be great again, we must re-establish the Kennedy notion that no one is beholden to the government for their well-being, but all should try to contribute to make America a better place than we found it.
Rep. Gene Ward
Former Peace Corps volunteer
Bannon’s new post is cause for alarm
President-elect Donald Trump’s appointment of Stephen Bannon as senior adviser and chief strategist is very, very worrisome.
Bannon presided over Breitbart News, an online news site, where he provided a platform for racist, anti-Semitic, homophobic, Islamophobic and misogynistic views. These views are not the views of most Americans.
I am shocked that he will have an office steps away from the Oval Office. His appointment is a step toward normalizing these harmful, provocative and outrageous views. The Southern Poverty Law Center, the Anti-Defama- tion League, and the Council on American Islamic Relations all expressed concern about his appointment.
We and our elected officials should protest Bannon’s appointment until Trump rescinds it.
Allan Willinger
Manoa
As on Dec. 7, 1941, America is in peril
Seventy-five years after Pearl Harbor, it seems we have not learned from it.
About Pearl Harbor, we said that it would never happen again, that we would never be caught flat-footed again, that we would not allow ourselves to be surprised.
Then 9/11 happened despite the earlier unsuccessful attack on the same towers and public warnings from the perpetrators.
Thousands died at Pearl Harbor. Thousands died when the twin towers came crashing down. Mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters died; lives crushed, nearly all of them our beloved Americans.
Now our leaders are afraid to even name our enemies and our military is degraded. Surprise has been and is our enemies’ greatest weapon. When will lost lives, our tears and the blood of patriots steel our resolve?
This Dec. 7 will be an opportunity to pick ourselves up and recognize that our nation and our children are in mortal danger. God help us if we fail.
Nelson S.W. Chang
Kaneohe
Political pessimists should cheer up
Donald Trump’s election was not a James Bond movie. Since when did our public lose sight of reality because of selfishness and ignorance?
The last time I checked we have a Bill of Rights, a Constitution and a establishment called Congress. How do all these anti- Trump protesters know the future, when the polls were all wrong for this election?
If we had more positive people instead of negative pessimists in this world, maybe our country would be a better place. The end of our country is not here despite what the media tells you or you choose to believe. Remember who President Ronald Reagan was — an actor.
We need more people to embrace positive energy to move forward, instead of using violence and destruction to get their message across.
Garrick Kashiwa
Kaneohe
Trump deepened our national divide
Donald Trump created division through his words and actions. Falsehoods and bigotry were out front throughout his campaign. He thus exposed the bad and often hidden side of America. Now he is saying he will be president for all and asks for unity?
Colin Powell reportedly told George W. Bush that you start the war, you own it. Disunity is on Trump — he needs to fix it.
The Republican Congress was my way or the highway — make President Barack Obama fail. That is not unity. That is not making America great. That is not serving America.
Is Trump going to be part of the problem or part of the solution? We shall see. I don’t like the looks of things, and it hasn’t even started.
Richard Abe
Punchbowl
Balmy temperature in Arctic is ominous
As of Nov. 17, the temperature in the Arctic was 36 degrees above the average for this time of year. Also, the extent of sea ice covering the Arctic Ocean at this time of year is at an all-time low.
Is anybody concerned? Oil companies? Politicians? News media? Americans?
President-elect Donald Trump, are you paying attention?
Jan Pappas
Aiea
E-sports offer youth new playing fields
A small community of E-sports players and fanatics have recently emerged from Hawaii’s high schools, resulting in several high school E-sports teams appearing across the islands.
E-sports are, put simply, video games played at a competitive level. Some of these games, like League of Legends, have even been implemented into the athletic programs of many mainland colleges.
Across the world, E-sports has been a growing community and continues to evolve, even receiving the same coverage as traditional sports in some places.
Many professional E-sports talents came from Hawaii and moved on into some of the most successful E-sports organizations, inspiring students to excel at these video games.
Many E-sports teams have appeared across the island, including Damien Memorial School’s Monarch eSports and Roosevelt’s eSports Club. In Hawaii, this E-sports community will alter the face of Hawaii’s high schools forever.
Justice Cabantangan
Founder and president of Monarch eSports
27 responses to “Kennedy’s challenge remains relevant”
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Rep. Gene Ward mistakenly refers to President John F. Kennedy as a hero, primarily because – – like the current occupant of the White House – – he could talk pretty and made w h o r e s out of our so called “news” media who constantly had to go the distance to cover for him.
In point of fact JFK was the worst president we ever had, worse even than the current occupant.
Winning a razor thin “victory” in 1960 – – which Nixon should have contested – – was due to his rich bootlegger daddy’s liberal spreading of walking around money in Texas, West Virginia and Chicago.
Not three months after all that fancy inaugural hooey about support any friend, oppose any foe, Kennedy revealed his yellow streak when he turned cur and ran away from a bunch of Cubans with tail between legs at Bay of Pigs.
At that instant Krushchev was ecstatic: after having slugged it out with a real cold warrior, Ike, Big K was thrilled to discover the new, wet behind the ears POTUS was a smart alec, loud mouth, punk kid in WAY over his head – – like ripe fruit ready to be plucked. Soon there after in Vienna, Krushchev confirmed this when he took Kennedy’s measure face to face and realized it was time to increase the reach of his strategic force by putting nuclear armed MRBMs in Cuba, thereby dramatically expanding his target coverage of continental US.
In order to placate a slobbering, overindulgent “news” media – – that covered up for this degenerate sicko – – by deflecting public attention away from his serial foreign policy debacles in Cuba (twice), Vienna, Berlin (the wall), Laos and Tibet, he – – and his miserable misfit SecDef MacNamara – – spooled up a “splendid little war” in Vietnam that it turned out neither one of them had the first clue how to wage, let alone win.
In what can only be described as an instance of supreme irony, it would fall to Nixon almost a decade later to fight and win that war, bring our POWs home with honor, using tactics that JFK could have – – AND SHOULD HAVE – – employed at the outset had he not been so timid.
The cost of JFK’s reckless mis-adventure (and thus his REAL legacy) can be found etched in series of vertical black granite slabs on the Mall: almost 60,000 American lives (and literally millions of lives of Vietnamese and Cambodians consumed in a roaring holocaust).
It should not be forgotten JFK came within a whisker of getting us all incinerated in a full up arsenal exchange with the Soviets less than 21 months after he took the oath and made with all the fancy talk. In full on panic mode this gutless wonder had his brother (the AG!) cut a secret deal with Krushchev: in exchange for not publicly gloating over JFK’s abject surrender of American interests and an unverified promise to remove the Cuba missiles, America would PUBLICLY pull ITS missiles out of Turkey and Italy and guarantee the Soviets permanent basing rights 90 miles offshore so they could establish a world class intelligence collection center (to vacuum up all electronic traffic all along our eastern seaboard) and from which they could deploy Communist agitators throughout Central and South America with impunity. The Soviets complied with the silent treatment so JKF could swoon the slobbering “news” media with phony tales about how “the other guy blinked”.
Bottom line: we are all very lucky to have survived the wretched thousand days this gutless wonder spent as POTUS.
Baloney…. Kennedy was disrupting to the establishment. It’s no wonder President Johnson sealed the records of Kennedy’s assasination.
Kennedy sacrificed his life for his principals.
He did NOT believe that direct use of American power was justified in the case of the Cuban invasion. If the brutal Cuban dictators supporters believed that their cause was just, then Kennedy believed that they should fight for their own beliefs as well. The US was not going to intervene directory for them.
This carried over into the Vietnam War.
If Kennedy had survived the assassination then most likely the Vietnam dictator working for us would have had to convince his people to fight hard enough to defeat the North. The north was under the leadership of the savior of the Vietnam people in World War II from the Japanese. We would have not brought our troops in to fight their war.
Our troops in Vietnam were there to assist the people as they are currently doing in Iraq. The battle for Mosul will be won by the Iraqis themselves and not the Americans.
Regarding Khruschef, Kennedy’s mistake was that believing that, since the US and Europeans did not recognize sphere of influence of Russia, Russia did not have to recognize the sphere of influence of the US extending to Cuba.
It’s a credit to both Khrushchev and Kennedy that there never was a nuclear holocaust that killed humanity.
williki–let’s check out history and you will see that JFK, thought he knew more than the military and made those horrible decisions on the Cuban invasion–and Thos is right, history tells us he was one of the worst–but most popular president–good looks and a gorgeous first lady.
Baloney… it wasn’t the military. It was the state department that thought they knew better than the president.
IIRC the state department was very aggressive in pursuing covert action and in spying all over Southeast Asia. They had their own domino theory in Southeast Asia that led to the debacle of the Vietnam War.
Jack and Bobby had their number and would have succeeding in reining them in if they both had not been assasinated. Congress should take action to re-open the investigation of the Kennedy assasinations.
You poor sap. You really have been taken in with all the ex post facto ‘camelot’ bull [redacted]. For example:
Kennedy was disrupting to the establishment. It’s no wonder President Johnson sealed the records of Kennedy’s assassination.
So you believe that LBJ, as part of ‘the establishment’ lured JFK to Dallas so he could be gunned down?
Kennedy sacrificed his life for his principals.
The only ‘principal’ he ever followed was his rich bootlegger daddy’s advice to get laid as often as possible. And once the FBI learned he was bedding an attractive Nazi spy, he was hustled out of his cushy DC staff job as far away and as fast as possible – – to a motor torpedo squadron in far off South Pacific where is lousy tactical judgment allowed a slower moving Japanese destroy to ram and sink his highly maneuverable, high speed, low silhouette PT at night when all the conditions favored the PT.
He did NOT believe that direct use of American power was justified in the case of the Cuban invasion.
BULL FEATHERS! He was OK with months of mission planning, but once he had to make a tough call to deliver the air support HIS administration had promised, this gutless weasel chickened out and let “our” Cubans perish on the beach.
If the brutal Cuban dictators supporters believed that their cause was just, then Kennedy believed that they should fight for their own beliefs as well. The US was not going to intervene directory for them.
Nonsense. If he had these kinds of reservations then why didn’t he cancel the mission before it was executed? He had the time, but not the nerve.
This carried over into the Vietnam War.
Which KENNEDY ignited gratuitously to divert public attention from the dog’s breakfast he was making of foreign policy in so many OTHER areas.
If Kennedy had survived the assassination then most likely the Vietnam dictator working for us would have had to convince his people to fight hard enough to defeat the North.
What fatuous hogwash! JFK had “the Vietnam dictator working for us” assassinated just weeks before he himself was killed. Indeed Madam Nhu (aka ‘dragon lady’) furiously denounced JFK and promised he would pay the price for his treachery. The assassination of Ngo Dinh Diem at Kennedy’s behest could not have come at a worse time: at the very moment the Hanoi politburo was ramping up their strategic trail ops, our RVN ally was thrown into political , leaderless chaos.
The north was under the leadership of the savior of the Vietnam people in World War II from the Japanese. We would have not brought our troops in to fight their war.
So now you are going to bad mouth Ike? You might want to recall that under Ike, America did not suffer even ONE combat related death for EIGHT years.
Our troops in Vietnam were there to assist the people as they are currently doing in Iraq.
Are you wise to call attention to the current occupant of the White House decision making that [1] re-ignited the war Bush 43 had won and [2] caused said occupant to re-deploy thousands of American troops to combat what he called “the JV team” aka ISIS?
Regarding Khruschef, Kennedy’s mistake was that believing that, since the US and Europeans did not recognize sphere of influence of Russia, Russia did not have to recognize the sphere of influence of the US extending to Cuba.
Convulse yourself like a pretzel but this contrived lie will not stand. Krushchev took JFK’s measure, outsmarted him and treated him like the punk kid he was – – and as a reward for his daring Big K was given uncontested basing rights NINETY MILES offshore. Krushchev did to Kennedy what Trump just did to Felony-Shrillary.
It’s a credit to both Khrushchev and Kennedy that there never was a nuclear holocaust that killed humanity.
Had Kennedy not backed down and sacrificed American strategic interests around the globe in a panic – – and all in a carefully concealed deal so that Kennedy would not look bad to the press – – his reckless approach to foreign policy might well have incinerated us all. Krushchev is the one who deserves the credit for his combination of steadfast resolve and 11th hour restraint.
Allan Willinger actually seems to believe
President-elect Donald Trump’s appointment of Stephen Bannon as senior adviser and chief strategist is very, very worrisome . . .[because he] . . .
presided over Breitbart News, an online news site, where he provided a platform for racist, anti-Semitic, homophobic, Islamophobic and misogynistic views.
My, my, my and goodness sakes alive.
But wait.
Let’s take arf a mo and look at an actual article to see if this hysterical henny penny sky is falling tumult is warranted, for example:
http://www.breitbart.com/2016-presidential-race/2016/11/24/trump-wins-michigan-first-republican-since-1988/
Here’s how it begins: Donald Trump has officially won the state of Michigan, making him the first Republican to do so since George H. W. Bush in 1988.
In the tightest race in Michigan’s electoral history, Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton by 10,704 votes after results from all 83 of the state’s county clerks were counted and certified.
This brings Donald Trump’s electoral vote total to 306. Hillary Clinton’s is 232.
“Many people have asked about Michigan’s process for counting ballots and certifying election results. Please be aware that all 1,521 Michigan cities and townships completed ballot counting and reported unofficial results by the morning of Wednesday, Nov. 9,” a statement on the Michigan Secretary of State website reads.
“The county canvassing boards, as they do after every election, then began their work to review and certify the results from each precinct,” it continued.
So now we see the REAL reason why Willinger and those of his ilk are so exercised and it has nothing to do with all those alleged phobias. What they actually find objectionable is a news media outlet that publishes the TRUTH – – and it is the TRUTH that rouses such fury in these puerile, cognitively challenged snowflake losers.
Question: And what is the TRUTH?
Answer: Felony-Shrillary, the worst candidate the thin talent bench Democrat Party has put forth in more than a century, got her clock cleaned by a guy who never held office in his life. Unlike Felony-Shrillary who has all the personality of a dead tree stump and even worse judgment, Trump did his market research and CONNECTED with an electoral majority of voters by BRANDING himself as their champion.
E-sports ? Really, wow get outside and live life. We have the best weather, beaches and outdoor activities. Playing video games is a waste of time and your life !
Totally agree!
Yeah, if there’s some benefit to these e-sports other than getting really good at playing video games, I’d understand, but the whole idea of making this a school program is just ridiculous.
lol, for once I agree with you.
Punchbowl contributor Richard Abe would have us believe Trump deepened our national divide [by having] created division through his words and actions. Falsehoods and bigotry were out front throughout his campaign. … Disunity is on Trump — he needs to fix it. The Republican Congress was [out to] make President Barack Obama fail. …I don’t like the looks of things, and it hasn’t even started.
Heavens to Betsy
and
/TSK/
/TSK/
/TSK/ !!
But wait!
Ain’t it rum?
Ain’t it grand?
Ain’t it positively OR – f r I g g I n’ – WELLIAN how these sore losers convulse themselves like pretzels in their vain attempts to turn everything upside down?
Truth be told the current occupant of the White House IS INDEED an historic first. He is he very first POTUS we ever had who actually hates and despises America and has done all in his ‘transformative’ power to bring America to her knees both at home and abroad. We should have tipped wise when his esteemed pastor of two decades cursed America and asked God Almighty to damn America. But we did not want to see, so we listened to all his pretty boy exculpatory bull [redacted] and gave him a pass.
And boy howdy did we pay the price for THAT mistake.
Not even in office a full year when he – – without knowing ANY of the facts – – took up for his pal Skip Gates and condemned the entire [mostly white] Cambridge police force as “s t u p I d” . And that was just the beginning of his war on cops. Since then he has used the “Ferguson effect” like a club to bludgeon the cops – – time after time, siding with the lawbreaking scum and attributing their conduct to all manner of imaginary police brutality.
Talk about DIVISIVE!
Why do you think that day after day we read about cops being ambushed and killed by a fiery new cohort of violent criminals who have caused the crime stats to skyrocket in major urban areas all across the fruited plain?
So, NO, Mr. Abe, this premeditated, ‘transformative’ divisiveness of the last 8 years is most assuredly NOT the fault of the guy who has not yet taken office but whom you are nonetheless so eager to pin the blame on before hand.
That dog won’t hunt.
Aiea contributor Jan Pappas is exercised about an alleged rise in Arctic temperature and asks if anyone else – – Oil companies? Politicians? News media? Americans? President-elect Donald Trump?
– – is also concerned.
So, Pappas, what would you have ANY of them do?
Sprinkle some magic, man-made global-ony warming hoax fairy dust on the Arctic so you can FEEEEL good about your precious good intentions and so others will appreciate how much you CAAAAAARE?
Garrick Kashiwa, in a plea for positiveness, asks, “Since when did our public lose sight of reality because of selfishness and ignorance?”
Well, Garrick, I’d say that’s exactly what got Trump elected. Or did you pay no attention to his rhetoric or his supporters?
If Dems and the media keep crying over every little thing Trump does before he is even sworn in, no one will heed anything they have to say if/when something truly outrageous happens. Keep crying wolf and no one will bat an eye until all the sheep are gone.
Agreed, look what he’s doing right now!!! Trying to work out a deal with Carrier and another major company trying to move their manufacturing plants to Mexico with the loss of thousands of US jobs!!! Where the hell is the President, the Sec of Commerce, the senators and congressmen from these states??? They are all talk–Trump is ACTION!!!!
Rep Ward it’s offensive and troublesome that you, a so called Republican, is falling into the Progressive Democrat meme that America isn’t great or has lost her greatness, If America is ever to be great again…
I offer you the following as to why America is still and always will be great:
1. The First Amendment Constitution – It’s true that our freedom of speech and freedom of religion are under attack, yet we can still express ourselves as we wish, thanks to the First Amendment to our Constitution.
2. Self-Protection – Japan’s Admiral Yamamoto said during WWII, “You cannot invade the mainland United States. There would be a rifle behind every blade of grass.” Whether the quote is accurate or not, the idea is still true to today. And it’s all possible because our Founders placed this right in the Constitution, in the Second Amendment.
3. Sea to Shining Sea – There is no other country on the face of the Earth with the natural resources and variety of climates and land types that we have. Beaches, mountains, deserts, valleys, prairies, tundra, you name it — we’ve got it. We can travel freely to any of them without passports, papers or any other restrictions. As far as natural resources, no other landmass — let alone country — on the planet compares in the slightest to what we have here. We sit on top of the largest deposits of oil and natural gas anywhere. Our timber is practically unrivaled.
4. Opportunity and Wealth – Because of our Freedom, anyone can go from rags to riches if they have the desire and drive to do so.
We are a beacon of hope, we are a magnet for all who must have freedom, America is still Great!
Mahalo WestSideTory! 🙂
Amen!
Democrats say we are great, but Trump and the Republicans don’t think so.
Trumps promise during the campaign says this. He says that he wants to make America great AGAIN.
Forgot to mention this. Rep. Ward is a Republican and a very decent man.
Should say that it is no wonder that the Republican party is failing in Hawaii when cree*ps lik Mr WestSideTory critcize their own party members like this.
Free preschool for needy kids.
Oh thats your problem. Were you left behind? LOL
Nope… but I occasionally sub and see these kids. The teachers know them as well. Pretty sad. They’re orphans in more ways than having parents too busy to care for them.
They lost out in having a preschool education. And the DOE has no place for them.
It’s pointless in giving them standard achievement tests. But I’d rather have their scores on the books to show precisely where the schools have failed.
Thes schools or the system?
Richard Abe says “Disunity is on Trump — he needs to fix it.” Where the ..el have you been for the past eight years, Richard? Make that the past half century. “Divide and conquer” has been practiced by Obama and the Democrat Party with greater fervor than any previous administration during my long life time. The days when we all were referred to simply as Americans disappeared a long time ago by something called a hyphen. We now are divided as Asian-Americans, Mexican-Americans, Muslim-Americans and the list, created by liberals, goes on. The practice is bad because it tends to pit one group against another. President Roosevelt once said “There is no such thing as a hyphenated American who is a good American. The only man who is a good American is the man who is an American and nothing else.” I look forward to seeing that in America again.
That was President Theodore Roosevelt in a speech given in Carnegie Hall in 1915. This is the full text:
“There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism. When I refer to hyphenated Americans, I do not refer to naturalized Americans. Some of the very best Americans I have ever known were naturalized Americans, Americans born abroad. But a hyphenated American is not an American at all … The one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation to ruin, of preventing all possibility of its continuing to be a nation at all, would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities, an intricate knot of German-Americans, Irish-Americans, English-Americans, French-Americans, Scandinavian-Americans or Italian-Americans, each preserving its separate nationality, each at heart feeling more sympathy with Europeans of that nationality, than with the other citizens of the American Republic … There is no such thing as a hyphenated American who is a good American. The only man who is a good American is the man who is an American and nothing else.”