Tora! Tora! Tora!

Date that will live in infamy just passed, and Schlubster did his usual watching of Tora!Tora!Tora!. I watch The Longest Day (or, more recently, Saving Private Ryan) on 6 June, and listen to Springsteen’s The Rising on Sep 11 (which, IMHO, captures the tragedy and loss of that day better than the 9/11 movies and documentaries). But this year I inadvertently caught a portion of FDR’s “Day of Infamy” speech playing on the radio and was struck by this phrase:

“No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory.” http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/fdrpearlharbor.htm

Righteous might. Absolute victory. Wow.

I can’t think of any one sentence, or phrases, that more starkly contrasts the America of a mere 40 years ago, and the present one. Back that mere 40, in the 1960’s when Schlubster was a bald-faced boy, you put your hand on an American, anywhere, under any circumstances, and you got slapped down. Missiles in Cuba? No friggin’ way, Jose. That was a time period when the good, old fashioned punch-in-the-nose was the main method of dealing with obnoxious twits, not law suits and charges of simple assault. Obnoxious twit countries knew that America would give them the international equivalent of said punch should they undertake any other kind of Pearl Harbor type action, and would keep punching until their Emperor was brought on deck of an American destroyer and made to sign surrender documents while their cities glowed.

We don’t seem to have that attitude anymore.

But Schlub! We got that bin Ladin guy and reduced a stone-age country to pre-stone age and Saddam got a necktie party!

Yeah, and Iran’s about to get a nuke, we sold out Egypt to the radical Islamists, we admonish Israel for defending themselves against Hizbollah, we excuse shariah law creeping in everywhere and we are still subject to jihadist attacks against our cities and people.

Doesn’t sound like absolute victory to me.