Between your notes to Sean and other feedback from readers, I’ve received a collection of comments on my recent articles in the Rude Awakening. I appreciate that people take the time to reply and value your feedback. Absolutely, it helps me clarify my thinking. 

Here are a couple of notes: one regarding my recent discussion of copper mining and the other concerning my views on presidential wannabe Kamala Harris:

Re: Grow Your Wealth with Copper, Aug. 28, 2024:

Gary & Jean, from Bisbee, Arizona, wrote: “Byron, thank you for the beautifully written plug for historic old Bisbee. Our tourist bureau appreciates the free media! We love how you tie together all the history, from cowboys and U.S. Army cavalry looking for outcrops to modern geophysics. This is an old mining town where the pits are long closed, and now we live off the legacy. But it’s good to be reminded, in an article like yours, of how ‘real’ wealth is created by mining ore and valuable metals from the ground. Farming (obvious reasons) and mining are the foundations of wealth and human improvement.”

Thank you, Gary and Jean. What a wonderful town, old Bisbee. Hint to readers: If you have an opportunity to go there, take it! You’ll enjoy it greatly, especially the underground mine tour.

Yes, you really can ride down into the original copper mine workings. BWK photo.

My first visit to Bisbee was in 1978, over a long summer weekend. I was working as a geologist for Gulf Oil Company, one of the original “Seven Sisters” of oil and now part of Chevron. I had heard about Bisbee's immense copper deposits and drove from Midland to Odessa in West Texas. This was just a couple of years after Phelps Dodge closed the main Bisbee works in the mid-1970s. The town was hard up with layoffs and business shutdowns. 

The mines closed not because the Bisbee mineral district ran out of ore; not at all. Then, as now, there was and still is beaucoups copper in the rocks. However, the price of that red metal was way down in the 1970s, which led to mine closures in Arizona and elsewhere. This reflects the general cyclicality of business, certainly the boom-bust aspect of the mining side. 

Beyond the enjoyable drive and geology-focused site visit, Bisbee back then offered a ringside seat at the scale and impact of deindustrialization yet to come to America. That is, in the late 1970s and into the 1980s, much of the old, long-established U.S. industrial legacy went terminal. 

At root, the cause of industrial death was a mix of both tough economics and vicious government policy. Inflation and global competition tightened the screws on most U.S. businesses. While the government delivered kill-shots via uncaring globalists and gratuitous regulators in far-off Washington, D.C. By the mid-1980s, basic industries were closing the factory gates all across the country. 

Consider the 1980s-era decline of the American steel industry, or autos, electrical and electronic equipment, textiles, and much more at a larger scale than just one copper-mining district. To borrow a line from Ernest Hemingway, it happened “gradually and then suddenly.” Mines, mills and factories closed by the tens of thousands, with millions of jobs just plain gone… poof! 

Did the U.S. government care about Americans losing out? I recall much lip service, yes; but not much else. Displaced workers received standard welfare payments, and handouts of government cheese. Meanwhile, for those federal policymakers in Washington, the paychecks came on time, right? 

Here’s one key to the problem: Beltway think tanks and policymakers have long been enamored with the tenets of their Free Trade cult, which is based on an abysmal misunderstanding of the fundamental nature of wealth and wealth creation. Somehow, goes the thinking, the ideal world offers cheap television sets and T-shirts at Walmart, while entire regions and segments of the population are economic and social write-offs. 

To illustrate this last point, recall how, by the early 1980s, corporate dismantlers and chainsaw business slashers came into cultural vogue. At the top of the list was the late Jack Welch at General Electric, aka “Neutron Jack,” celebrated for his ruthless approach to tearing the guts out of an iconic, old-line manufacturing company. 

During Welch’s first three years at GE, he laid off well over 100,000 employees, meaning about a hundred per day, every day. Per his magic touch, if not his kiss of death, entire towns and even regions were devastated by the loss of industry, jobs, and tax base. But heck, Welch beat earnings “by a penny per share” for years at a time. What a titan of business, right? 

So yes, my recent visit to Bisbee had more meaning to me than just seeing an early 20th-century main street lined with a collection of lovely old buildings, now restored and converted to a tourist-style economy. To me, Bisbee was a time machine, a way to travel back to a lost world.

Re: Kamala Is Unfit for C-in-C, Sept. 18, 2024:

Reader Rick wrote: “Thank you, Byron King, for mentioning those deployed on ‘at-war’ footing. This is particularly true of Navy vessels in harm's way. I served proudly on the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower CVN-69, down in the steam plants using nuclear power to generate electricity for the ship. Thanks for the mention of the ship's crew. Non Sibi, Sed Patriae.” [“Not for Self, but for Country” – BWK.]

Here’s a note from Reader Matt: “Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, and thank you once again Byron for today’s missive. Finally, I can say that someone has laid it flat on (the table) regarding K.H.”

There’s this from reader Bruce: “I greatly appreciate your righteous indignation regarding K.H.’s false statement about U.S. troops not being in war zones. I’m sure her consultants parsed every word before feeding it to her to memorize, but that doesn’t change the fact that it was a blatant and contemptible lie. Thank you for pointing it out.”

And Reader Yogesh sent these kind words: “Dear Mr. King, Thank you to your son and to your family for his service to our country. May God watch over him and his brothers and sisters in arms. Grateful for all of them.”

Thank you as well, Rick, Matt, Bruce, and Yogesh; thank you especially, Yogesh, for your sincere prayers. 

I’ve written newsletter articles for over twenty years. Long ago, I learned to write from the head. But I must admit that the K.H. article came from the heart, if not the gut. As I wrote, I felt like I was back in the Navy, in the North Arabian Sea. I smelled saltwater and jet exhaust, felt the vibe of power flowing through the beams and structures of a massive Navy ship, sensed the roar of aircraft being launched, and the sound of missiles away. 

In my days as a flight officer, I flew Navy S-3A “Viking” aircraft from the armored deck of the long-gone ex-USS Constellation (CV-64). And I came away with the deepest respect for every hand on that mighty ship, the engine gang below the waterline, making steam and keeping the lights on. 

Your editor’s old airplane, the Lockheed/Navy S-3A “Viking.” U.S. Navy photo (although your editor actually took this photo).

Now in this phase of life, I’m back to my geological roots. Usually, in my articles, I focus on the basics of energy, mines, minerals, metals, industry, history, etc. If you read my articles, you know where I’m coming from. 

When I color outside those industrial and investment-themed lines, such as with military commentary, I think I’m still in the proper wheelhouse based on my own 30 years of active and reserve service in the Navy. As in, I attended officer candidate school under the watchful eye of a Marine Corps gunnery sergeant drill instructor; I flew a real, combat-coded jet; I know what’s inside those green bomb casings; and I even have a degree from the U.S. Naval War College, so I can cite Clausewitz and stuff. Yeah, I know a few things. 

Generally, in my editorial role, if I mention politics, I try to keep it informed by the reality of how the country must drill for oil and gas, mine metals, have basic industry, and have trained workers who can actually do serious tasks, which requires a good education system. 

And then along came K.H. during that so-called debate on ABC News, with her ridiculous line about “no U.S. troops on active duty in war zones.” To me, that was just over-the-top dumb, compounded by how those two comically biased, talking-head moderators failed to fact-check this obviously and outrageously wrong point. 

As for K.H., what an idiot; what kinds of calculating, dumbsh!t idiots does she have advising her? Morons to the nth degree. 

In fairness, though, what if K.H. is not an idiot? What if she’s not nearly as plainly stupid and ill-informed as she comes across? Perhaps she’s just a committed, power-hungry specimen of the Modern American Marxist. Perhaps, deep down, her idea of morality encompasses bald-faced lying to achieve political dominance. Hey, it worked for Lenin. 

Okay, whether K.H. is just a little bit intelligent, or maybe-sort-of smart, or just plain dumb-as-a-rock stupid, how much does it matter? Because, as president, she’ll be a nice little puppet and under total control. (“Just sign here, please, Madame President. And no, you don’t have to read it.”)

Meanwhile, humor me and hundreds of thousands of other parents like me, with a kid in the U.S. military. Consider the thoughts of someone with a son or daughter on active duty, if not reserve of Guard. Our offspring wear full Army-grade battle-rattle that range from ballistic helmets to a bullet-proof vest because they’re in a place that takes incoming rounds on a routine basis. All because some U.S. President or senior policymaker put them there, far away on the other side of the planet and not on the border with, say, Mexico. 

Along with this comes K.H., who is running for president, and before an audience of tens of millions, she dismisses it all. Worse, she delivers her Big Lie with that trademark smug, cavalier, snotty, know-it-all smile on her face. She says, in essence, that what’s really happening isn’t happening. Nope, no U.S. troops are getting shot at, none have been wounded, and none are dead (not that she would even attend the funerals). 

Wow… K.H. is a mendacious whack-job and a danger to us all. She and her demented ideologue handlers will get the country into a real war, and then get a lot of us killed.

With that, I hope I haven’t made too many readers angry. I’ll stop here, except to thank you again, as always, for subscribing and reading, and for your kind and thoughtful notes.