John Minford, #SunTzu 9: 36 "Birds gather on empty ground."
I love this verse. It is such a wonderful vision of victory. You look up to the Heaven - I imagine in the morning - and you see birds flying back and forth over your enemy's camp. You can tell by the way they're flying; the enemy has decamped. You have won. What a moment.
Have you tortured yourself by even listening to a tiny clip of HRC's recent spate of TV show appearances? Her words are like birds flying over the empty camp of her campaign. She has more and more excuses, but there's no threat or power or intellectual force in those words. None.
And what is all this stupidity about Impeachment other than birds flying over an empty camp? And who are the other birds right now? Then entire crew of Democrat Presidential contenders, none of whom are getting even a slice of airtime right now.
One the one hand, without Impeachment, the Democrats know they stand no chance against Trump, and they rightly fear loss of the House and a super-majority of MAGA supporting Senators. Their fear, their panic is palpable. Yet, they know they won't succeed with Impeachment.
That's the other hand. They're just making the caw-cawing of empty camp crows flying, hoping to suck up some news time air coverage, and maybe have Impeachment news dominate the cycle between now and when? November, 13 months from now? Give me a break!
In the first place, they just don't seem to learn. The Ukraine story destroys Biden, not Trump. The China story goes far deeper and far wider. It'll be more than just Joe and Hunter Biden who take the fall on $1.5 Billion. That's a lot of coin. They simply live in denial.
And now having tracked their PSYOPS ever since Access Hollywood in October 2016, they make the same mistakes every single time. They release them too early, too harshly, and seem to have no sense of the targets' resistance, and imperviousness to their attack.
It's as if they're playing by the same playbook from 2012, where they got away with Benghazi and defeated Romney all at the same time. They seem to think we MAGA people have not learned from our previous experiences with them. We're onto them now, but they can't admit that.
There's no one in their camp anymore. Just the marauding birds flying fearlessly over the empty space below. Let's return to Master Sun's small verse, and listen to one of his great commentators, Chen Hao.
"If the enemy has gone and left the camp empty, birds will no longer be afraid and will gather on his camp ground. . . . Master Sun is telling us how to distinguish the true and false in the enemy's situation."
I don't mind sharing that, each day as I prepare to compose this commentary, I have evolved a pattern of reading a very small number of versions, and more and more, I look for the best guidance previous commentators have given. I can't thank Chen Hao enough, today.
We've discussed before how Master Sun's smallest verses have a phenomenal tendency to pack the most punch, and to compress the greatest number of layers of truth within, waiting to be mined. Great veins of truth are there inside, within each verse.
One way to complete the mining process, after reading the great commentators of the past, is to fill out the story of the moment in mind. If the birds gather on empty ground to take their fill of leftover food, the enemy has utterly and completely given up the fight. But why?
Whatever you did yesterday, during the day, completely crushed your enemy's fighting spirit. You obviously employed The Way; Heaven was on your side as you merged with the Earth in your dispositions. Your Command and Discipline were unstoppable.
It's the rare enemy who presents with the humility to learn from such a crushing defeat. Rather, they tend to melt away in the night, in hopes of never facing so great a Dragon of War as you, ever again. They just disappear. But you must learn the lesson of your victory.
Master Sun wants you to remember what victory feels like every bit as much as he wants you to recognize it in the moment. By the way, if you go back now and read the last three verses, you'll see they're all signs of your enemy's impending defeat. This fills out the story too.
Did you notice my reference to verse 1: 2, above? The Five Fundamentals always crack open the strategic forces driving victory or defeat. It is always good to review and apply them. But if you're truly going to learn from your victory, you must be able to do more.
You must be able to answer the question: how. How did I align myself with The Way, where my enemy failed to do so? How did I observe and obey Heaven's indications and timing? How did I follow the contours of the Earth in my fighting and decisions? Linger on that one.
The Earth is the raw truth of your situation. In political activism, we often try to convert people to new beliefs, and sometimes that works. What is far more important, however, is discovering beliefs already in place, finding points of agreement, and inspiring action thereby.
Victory upon the Earth is far less an act of conversion than it is an act of converting belief - already established but weak belief - into a decision for action, a hardened decision that cannot be stopped in the flow from thought and emotion into execution.
How, exactly, did you establish the integrity of your Command, and build the flawless unity of Discipline with your men that your victory demonstrated? Do you see? These are the questions of Success Analysis, as guided and informed by Master Sun.
The very moment you see those birds gathering on your enemy's vacated empty ground, your After-Action Report on Victory should begin to take shape in your mind. One final point about that. In the world we live in in America today, it's not easy to claim and crow about victory.
I consider it an act of rebellion to do so, and I'm all in! Besides, I know Master Sun treasures every single one of his 100 victories in 100 battles, or he wouldn't have worked so hard to teach us how to do the same thing. Don't you love that sly smile of his? I sure do.
264 verses completed, 192 to go. To return to previous sections in our #WarForAmerica2020 and #SunTzuForMAGA series, don't forget to head over to @WarForAmerica21. You'll find the digital table of contents for this series, there. Please retweet each entry you enjoy.
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