Rules 040324

Politics
Create a crisis, promise a solution you don’t have and when caught, blame someone else.
Shout loudly to take credit for accomplishments of others.
Give the masses someone to hate, a good American tradition. Hate the Germans, Scots, Irish, Poles, Jews, Italians, Chinese, Japanese, and throw in the earlier Indian and Mexican settlers. Change the Constitution, deport them with their broods, and take the country back to the Buffalo.

Culture
Christians who eat apple pies and products containing apple cider vinegar are committing a mortal sin. It’s in the Bible; eating apples are the root of all the evil in the world.

Fundamentalists are pushing the Second Coming of Trump, as messiah. But messiah is the deliverers of Jews not white male Protestants.   In search of votes the “Don” is claiming Jesus like persecution.  Judging his behavior, he is more of an anti-Christ. Every Christian must have a Trump bible and pass them out among non-believing heathens, it’s a rule to make Trump more money, worked for Hitler.

Low finance
Just paid two and half dollars for a five cent donut with a nickel cup of coffee costing
eight bucks. Back in my day I could have gotten breakfast of a couple of day old donuts and a bottomless cup of coffee for a dime while being entertained by cafe comedy and dramas. My idea of high finance.

The point of finance is not about the amount of money but rather how low, financiers will sink.  Bernie Madoff ran a Ponzi racket that pocketed 65 billion dollars before being caught and sentenced to 105 year in the slammer. Bankmon-Fried was just sentenced to 25 years in a bit-coin scam that lost over eight billion.  Among his many scams and tax dodges Trump has set a new low.  He sold his near worthless media company to true believer, small investors for an estimated six billion dollars.  He is now suing stockholders because he is unable to loot the company for six months. There seems to be grounds for a SEC investigation.  This is the guy just found guilty of fraud in New York state and has a half billion-dollar fine pending.   Have no fear; he has already stated an intention of shutting down the IRS when elected president.  He will just add the SEC to his hate list of watchdog agencies.  This Mafia “Don” has a long history of fraud, bankruptcies and using shyster lawyers to defend his crimes.  He then fails to pay legal fees and throws the shysters under the bus of disbarment.  The “Don’s” greatest fraud is convincing poor folks to send in their nickels and dimes to bankroll his defense.

 Madoff may have made off with more money but the “Don” sinks lower.  The “Don” owns judges and makes up his own rules of connivance.  The only way to stop his crime wave is for a courageous justice system to stand up and sentence the “Don” to hard time busting big rocks into gravel.
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Sitcom  031224

The most watched sitcom in the world has been running for some time but the 2024 season will break all viewer records, except maybe in the United States. It’s really a poor show in part because it is too long and can’t decide if it’s a comedy, love story, drama, mystery or crime show. While there are a few stars, the cast is a shifting mish-mash of over 340 million. With eight billion worldwide viewers watching cameo appearances by their local big wigs.

This season is all about two old men slugging it out for free rent in a house on a very small hill.  The main characters are and incompetent “scream and shout, run about” (S&S) criminal and a relatively quite, competent workman. The main supporting characters have learned to entertain in Scream and Shout’s agitprop university. The Workman’s team is handicapped by ethics and questionable utopian visions but are reluctantly learning the new media rules for market share.

Rule one: loud is in, logic and reason are out. Hatred and violence are in while books, education and reason are out. The past is in, the future is out and science is evil. Lots screaming and shouting about how great the 1920 and 30s were in the hands of the likes of Al Capone, Mussolini and Hitler. Wealth ruled and striking labor was gunned down while political mobs roamed the streets, cops and judges were for sale to money or power. Even the divisive slogans of that period are being recycled and parroted as new thinking.

It is possible that education and books are a bad thing, they lead to independent thinking and questions. Having read a book or two questions must be asked to complete the sitcom’s 2024 scrip. At least as far back as the Russian revolution in the early 1920s, Russian intelligence services used honey traps to recruit compliant agents in the west. Both men and women visitors, especially students and the potentially influential, were caught on film in questionable situations for possible future blackmail. Is it possible that frequent visitor S&S with an admitted proclivity for young women, has star billing in Russian honey productions? Is it possible that S&S known blundering greed led to laundering Russian Mob money for a loan to save his failing real estate empire? Will the mob post the bond covering his nearly half billion dollar fines? This leads to the ultimate question, is it possible that in an acknowledged secret meeting with the Russian leader, without any American witness, that S&S agreed to degrade NATO and surrender Ukraine for the Russian dictator in return for his silence? This could explain the dictator’s surprise at Ukraine resistance and expansion of NATO.

Another foreign policy blunder must be questioned, did S&S’s green light of Netanyahu building Israeli settlements in Palestinian territory push Hamas to strike back with the only tools they knew. Which is being used by Netanyahu to justify ethnic cleansing and full occupation of Gaza and the West Bank. The Gaza war quickly became a propaganda conflict with Israel winning, ignoring the fact that thousands of real people are suffering and dying. The question is did S&S take an option on Gaza beachfront property?

Years ago there was a book written, “The rich get richer, the poor get jail,” S&S has validated that hypothesis while also demonstrating the corruption of the American legal profession.  S&S claimed a net worth of 30 billion  (independently assessed around three billion) in a self indictment he now claims he can’t afford to pay all the court order fines and legal fees and is soliciting donations from adoring fans.  The question is since these donations are to pay personal obligations of an individual, shouldn’t they considered individual income on which income tax is due?  Did he declare this income on his last three years’ tax returns?  Is this one of the reasons that Red Hat legislators are attempting to dismantle the IRS? After all the IRS did take down his hero Al Capone.

It is relative easy to incite a mob, but extremely difficult to control that mob once on the march.  This leads to another question. Did S&S’s created caravan of 400 immigrants, used to justify his border non-wall policy, gather steam along the line of march leading to the present turmoil at the border? It seems like a good political idea at the time?

History will remember S&S’s tactics that changed world politics forever: lie, deny, delay, blame, attack louder and louder until it drowns out reality.  A modernization of Herr Doctor Goebbels principles of the 1930s, he would have loved today’s communication tools.  If caught, intimidate witnesses; bribe juries and shop for pet judges.  It worked in two impeachments and is being mirrored by tin pot dictators around the world.  The Red Hats joined the ranks of Black and Brown Shirts strong-arm political bullies to over throw of legitimate governments on six January.  The Black and Brown shirts were successful but the Red Hats failed.  The question is will the Red Hats try again and have they learned to win?  The cost to America is the loss of the moral high ground and its “soft power” to influence world events.  Technological diffusion has enabled even the most extreme minor power to compete with powerful armies.  Foreign polices that flip-flop like a dying fish insure that the world can no longer trust U.S. words.  As a private citizen S&S is making commitments to foreign dictators, ordering Red Hat legislators to stonewall bills and ordering his judges to ignore the constitution and the rule of law.  Isn’t this another coup attempt, even treason?

The sitcom has become reality TV: Will the Red Hats conquer the world, Will blood run in the streets, Will the Christians throw scientist to the lions?  Stay tuned for the next episode of Scream and Shout.  That’s entertainment, but the world is real, very small and soft power may never comeback.

While cliffhangers are entertaining, this one is not about ratings but rather national survival. Pay attention, question political assertions, turn down the volume so you can look past the sitcom’s flag waving visuals to see the future national risk.

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 Endit 122523

 This has been my non-year, no writing no pictures, very depressing; it has also been a non-year for government, nothing happened.  At least nothing positive although it did validate my political philosophy: “Don’t trust the Democrats, fear the Republicans.”   The left attempts to side step into socialism, while the right jumped right over ultra conservative into pure fascism.  To paraphrase an old car ad “Today’s parties are not your grandfathers parties.” U.S. politics today are best noted for “scream and shout while running about.”  Loud is in; people, country, truth, and governance are out.  It’s all about marketing “Entertainment” to prevent us Rubes from paying attention to the goings on in the three ring clown tent on the Potomac.
 
There is general consensus among scholars analyzing Great Powers’ political life.  Great Power states live only about a century,  their demise is not necessarily from a military defeat but rather a failure to adapt to changing world dynamics and loss of the political will to risk adapting.  In short Great Powers’ commit suicide; often even failing to notice their decline until it is irreversible.   Not fully understanding it at the time I was in 1950s England as it fell from its Great Power status.  A bankrupt England was still riding the euphoric wave of WWII victory as its Empire disappeared beneath post war calls for freedom.  Young peoples’ conversation in coffee shops ranged from elites’ plans for lucrative colonial careers, condemnation of all things American, to trying to understand why the country wasn’t profiting from victory.  England struggled under new colonial wars, calling on the new Great Power, United States to preserve its Empire.

In the 19th century, even before the United States had fully conquered its internal empire Manifest Destiny was reaching out for an external empire, America wanted to play with the big boys.  At the Versailles Peace Conference (1920s) the United States officially emerged as a world power divvying up the globe along with the decaying Great Powers.  Peace was elusive and it took another war for the United States to emerge as the only remaining Great Power.  In 1945 America was the most respected country the world had ever known.  Great masses flocked in to be part of an American dream.  Americans continued to see themselves as the “Greatest Generation” of the 1940s ignoring that the technology of their victory had diffused, developed  and matured to the point where even the smallest state can now be a world power.  Greatness is no longer dependent on large armies or strong economies.  Greatness does require smart people with a comprehensive vision of an interdependent, very small, one-world future.  America does not have a monopoly on very smart people but its political vision is a return to the 19th century of book burnings, waste, patronage and exploitation.

Rome attempted to distract its citizens from its decline and fall with spectacular games. American politicians rely on that opiate of the masses, television and social media to distract the populace while staging gladiatorial games in the halls of Congress.  America’s century began in 1945,  so the end is near.  If that is not sufficient for a large “HUMBUG”, prospects of 2024 election is on the horizon.

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Justice  042723

In the United States Justice is a concept of contradictions.  It depends on perspective, even before the U.S. was a nation Justice was an iffy proposition.  Law in the colonies was primarily based on English Common Law of precedence, or what has gone before.  An unjust ruling compounded repeatedly eventually served as the law of the land.  Land itself generated much of early American law, Indians had it and settlers wanted  it, during the revolution with precedent established English loyalist’s properties were legally expropriated.  With a vast body of precedence as law Spanish/Mexican lands in the southwest was legally seized, own the courts own the land.  A guiding carpetbagger principle in the post civil war era.  The remaining Indians discover that despite Constitutional binding Treaties, they didn’t own the courts and lost not only their lands but also its mineral wealth. For over 200 years courts have applied precedent against those without political influence.

Slavery itself was justified by precedence, which despite post civil war reforms continued to serve to suppress labor movements.  Industrialist and mine owners through money, power and corruption owned the courts and strong-arm labor-busting cops.   If judicial independence was established by the Constitution, how can the courts be bought?  It’s a political process where money talks. The radicalized two party system has become the Achilles heel of democracy and judicial independence through process of appointing judges  held hostage by partisan politics.  Ideally judges should be the country’s best legal minds who will establish legal precedence by just, non-partisan decisions.   There have been some judges demonstrating the Wisdom of Solomon but many bring to the bench enough baggage to break a caravan of camels’ backs.  

Judges are increasingly appointed, not for their ethical ability to render, scholarly just decisions, but rather on making ideologically supportive decisions.  The judicial trends are attempts to stampede the country back into the 19th century dark ages of head busting, corruption and robber barons.   Increasingly the 20th century law reforms on voting, equal rights for minorities, press freedoms and protections under the law are being reversed.  These reversals are not based on judicial points of law, justice, integrity or equity, serving only the interest of the moneyed, political powerful.  If the majority can even get their day in court wealth’s lawyers manipulate the process until the case is moot or plaintiffs bankrupt.  Judge shopping is the new norm with repeated questionable appeals searching for a favorable ruling.

The rule of law is broken, from bias courts to corrupt law enforcement (LEA).   Not every cop on the beat steals apples or is to free with a nightstick, but enough are out there.  Still LEAs may be the most corrupt organizations in the country because honest cops know who are the problematic are but hide the corruption behind a “Blue Wall.”  There is a movement to “defund the police” not sure what that means, it is a buzzword divorced from reality.  The nation needs honest, accountable policing because there are lots of really bad people out there.  Policing is a reflection of society facing two models, beat heads or join the party, both bad choices.  If  by chance cops end up before the bar, they get a walk or slap on the wrist and celebrate in the corner bar.  The problems with the legal system are obvious to the public but oblivious to those within the justice system.

The justice system has failed to police itself and partisan legislatures add fuel to the fire by failing their duties to the people while fanning the flames incinerating the country.  There is little expectation that legislators will act in an ethical manner so voters must choose new representatives who will act in the interest of the country, not radical ideologies.  Democracy unfortunately is not a self-correcting system; it requires attention, participation and adjustments.  The founding fathers never envisioned professional politicians pandering to extremism which approaches fascism.  There is little justice in our justice system and night riders are riding. The people must not believe politicians’ self interest propaganda but judge their actions, they only change their message not their beliefs.

Local disjointed public demonstrations are a sign of systemic distrust.  It awaits only a  coordinated failure to trigger a national REVOLUTION. Despite the probable worst efforts of strong-arm mob-busting policing it’s a no win situation ending with probable removal of “U” from U.S.

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Question:
If an appointed judge is found to have committed perjury or accepted “favors” from elites will all of that judge’s rullings be reversed or at least reviewed?  If there is no oversight, no court ethical standards and the court cites the Constitution as its justification to be above the law, what prevents the court from becoming the national dictator? Time for a rewrite?

Humbug 122022

We’ve almost made it through another year but it is still a question if we will survive election 22 with its count and recount Christmas message of “I WUZ ROBBED.”

This is the season of “Peace on earth and good will toward all ‘persons’” HUMBUG. The real season message is, “hate, deception, profit, corruption, power and war.”  Might doesn’t make right, but it does spin its positive message.  Rational maximization, “What’s good for me is good for the company/government/country/world/the people.”  A good many years ago I told a freshman class that my generation had made a mess of the world but they had an opportunity to learn form our mistakes to make a better world.  Time has passed and those fresh-persons are now running the world.  They did learn, not to solve problems but how to profit from them.  

Back in my day I did a bit of traveling, discovering that despite nationally, race or gender we are a common people.  Some are smart others not so smart, some are good and others are really, really bad.  Ignoring the cultural artificially induced prejudicial perceptions, the good/bad, smart/not so are fairly equally distributed around the globe.  Orientals are noted for taking a long view of world dynamics but the long view is there for all to see.  Look at the 2020s from the perspective of 1820s and 1920s dynamics.

The 1820s were the era of slavery and colonial expansion by countries seeking greatness.   By the 1920s the resulting great powers barely survived an imperial killing war that saw the United States take a seat at the great power table divvying up the spoils.  The problem was that the war had shattered the world order and victory euphoria obscured a coherent vision of a future.  Governments were falling, inflation was rampant and nationalism gave rise to opportunist dictatorships. In 1820 the world was very large and nations had room to blunder but by 1920 the world had become much smaller and interdependent.   The smallest misstep sooner or later reverberated around the world.  Although xenophobic loud mouth politicians deny it, the 2020 world is so small and interdependent that it should be viewed as one world of one people.

The 2020 dynamics are straight out of the past: nationalist hatred, growing inflation, neo-colonialist wars of conquest, governments’ instability and political corruption.  Political self-interest is the greatest Humbug of all, threatening to drag our one people of the one world into global disorder and melt down.  The dynamics of the past are the same, the players have shuffled, rules have changed and the diffusion of technological capabilities may also dry up our blue marble.

There is little time to prevent the decline and fall of earth to the status of another celestial cinder.  It has taken centuries to reach our tripping point and it will take centuries to repair the damage.  If Earth is to survive all human resources must focus on slowing the downward spiral while searching for solutions.   The one people must ban together, pay attention, resist loud rational maximizers and seek real solutions.

We will go along following the loudest false prophets to our doom, now this is our real Bah Humbug.

The Fall 081521

 It was probably inevitable that the United States would be run out of Afghanistan.  Its incursion began with a series of flawed assumptions. The first based on a failure to understand Afghanistan and the second being no need to learn.

The Afghans are history's greatest resistance fighters.  They drove out the Persians, Alexander the Great, the great Khan, the British three times, the Soviets and now the Americans and their allies.  In the 19th and 20th century it was the center of the Great Game between great powers. The American failure is not from lack of knowledge.  There were many, in and out of government who knew the Afghan mujahidin that drove out the Soviets.  Some of the present Taliban leadership fought with the mujahidin and used U.S. instruction to train its new generation of Taliban fighters.

The Taliban grew from a small group of fundamentalist students who overthrew a local corrupt and brutal administration.  Other oppressed communities requested their assistance and by 1996 the movement governed over three-quarters of the country by conquest or negotiations.  America de-facto recognized the Taliban government and was in negotiations with it on two main points: eject UBL from Afghanistan and allow an oil pipeline across the country from the Central Asian States to American tankers in the Persian Gulf.  The sticking points were: asking a guest, particularly one that had fought with the mujahidin, to leave went against Muslim honor.  The pipeline floundered because the Taliban wanted a larger piece of the action. The American 2000 election ushered in a petroleum triumvirate of Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld focused on pipelines and controlling oil fields. (Strategic Energy Initiative)

Following the 9-11 attacks the triumvirate declared all political opposition as terrorist activity and began a series of political wars.  One thing the military does well is move fast, shoot faster and ask no questions.  When the military is sent in expect military solutions. Its invasion of Afghanistan was no exception.  Everyone with a beard was either shot or captured.  It was some time before the military noticed that most of the men had beards but by that time the concentration camps were overflowing with poor dirt farmers.  Almost every family knew someone that had been imprisoned or brutalized by the invaders.  The Taliban gained a giant pool of potential recruits.  The invaders' quick victories were the result of local political leaders switching sides for profit. Where the Taliban originated in opposition to corruption, Americans fed corruption.  The powerful profited, villagers were targeted and the invaders developed a bunker mentality.

The military remained in charge of the conflict but its rotating leadership never had a clue.  It attempted to establish an old style British colonial government that the Afghans recognized, rejected, but paid lip service so the money would keep flowing.  Out to pick up a combat medal, colonels on 30-day visits attempted to establish a little America and kept the money flowing.  A high tech Army was established for a low-tech environment.  History's great warriors were trained for 20 years to be a western style army that ultimately fell apart.  The training wasn't wasted however, possibly half of the trainees deserted, with their weapons, and fought with the Taliban.  The Afghan Army along with the American Army was completely penetrated by Taliban agents, so much for any secret planning or operations.

I spent a number of years observing central and south Asia, discovering that Americans are easily hoodwinked.  When I finally left Afghanistan at the end of 2007 the one question I was unable to answer was, "Why is our military so dead set that Afghanistan should become a failed state?"

It took another 14 years of high cost blundering before the fall with a cost of over two trillion dollars and untold casualties. Military bodies are easy to count but the civilian and Taliban casualties may never be accurately known.  The effects of the war will continue as the wounded suffer and buried munitions explode.  

Eventually America seized on the British and Soviet solutions to their Afghan incursions, "Declare victory and leave."  Western politicians are scrambling to deny or defend their part in the disaster but there is enough blame to go around.  The GOP started the war, the Democrats gave it another go and finally the GOP sold out the Afghan government it created.  The Democrats are now left with a no win situation to clean up.  Biden was faced by Congressional Trumpers threatening impeachment when he extended the pull out by four months. Political deniability must point a finger somewhere so it is probable that much of the blame will fall on individual soldiers who fought, suffered and died rather than leadership that sent them to war without a strategy.  Once the allies allowed the Afghan Army to engage the enemy it suffered a loss of over 50,000 troops (US 2,500). Betrayed by its own corrupt political leadership the Afghan Army finally melted away.  Armies must be paid but more importantly given a rational reason to fight.

What happens now?  America never got its pipeline, but the Chinese are pushing one across northern Afghanistan and accessing its rich mineral deposits.  A viable Afghan resistance to the Taliban is unlikely with out massive, if improbable, foreign support.  Taliban leadership is more worldly and astute than in the nineties but it is still not a disciplined and organized movement.  Leaders may promise reforms and safety but the reality is a loose theocratic force roaming the country, seeking vengeance or their own piece of the pie.  The Taliban is now a well-equipped, well-armed force augmented by remnants of the well-trained Afghan Army.  Any future Afghan adventure will be met with a formidable foe, possibly supported by China, even Russia.

Former government supporters fled the country early in their pie wagons and will lobby American politicians for support of their fanciful vision of returning to power, keep the money flowing.   Despite the massive evacuation effort many of those who actually served allied interest will never escape to safety.  Some of those that do grab a seat on a "freedom bird" did nothing to support the government or allies, they may even be Taliban hoping to escape the coming years of turmoil and derivation.  Once the evacuation smoke dies down its probable that many will spend their days in foreign refugee camps, unable to ever go home or move forward.  Those that do make it to their promised lands will find the promise was more dream than reality.  They won't be able to integrate into society or earn a living wage. Previously Afghan immigrants who earned foreign pensions have discovered it is not enough to live on in a foreign land and may end up on the streets or in crime.  The influx of refugees on western societies will find little sympathy, support or hope.

Like Afghans of the past the Taliban will continue to resist foreign occupiers so the "Great Game" will continue with China as a new player.  It appears that China may have learned from history where America did not.  If America walks away from Central Asia again, it forfeits the game.  Rather than slinking away to lick its wounded ego the United States must remain engaged in Afghanistan for moderation of extremist influences.  The small, land locked country remains the crossroad of Asia, rich in resources and maybe ready for modernization.  The Democrats and GOP must band together striving for a foreign policy to make friends rather than resistance.  The "Win-win" scenario doesn't mean, "can't lose" in Asia, it means both sides win.

Humbug 122320

As the year nears its end it is time for my annual opus (v. 2020) on a philosophical perspective of a year happily fading into oblivion.  It's a little different this year. Despite the world being held hostage to Corona (the virus not the beer) the year in the United States is more noted for Humbug than Bah.  The year's reality is an overload of humbug as the causation for most of the bah. So here it is HUMBUG - BAH, to all with wishes of survival into a better New Year.  

When I was a working news guy I would wrap up a year with a column on the passing of the old guard.  I don't have enough ink to list all that have passed from the scene this year.  In the U.S. alone, over six times as many have died than during the 20 plus years of the Vietnam War.  That war took the cream of the country; Corona has over taken the country, which will never again be the same.  In addition to the dead, millions became very seriously ill with the forecast that they may suffer lasting after affects.

The infections couldn't have been prevented but they might have been moderated by a coordinated national response.  Instead humbug and trumpery met it in 2020 by first ignoring the growing crisis, then attempted to cover up failures to provide resources and medical assistance.  When all else failed it became a blame game with flying fingers pointing in ever direction.  By year's end the crisis was again being ignored by national leadership.  The only hope rested in the dedication of medical professionals and scientist who battled with little official support.  Despite being demonized by the government it was foreigners and immigrants, who on their own, developed the first two western vaccines that may save lives.  Now officials are tripping over each other claiming credit.

 If the virus wasn't enough, 2020 was also an election year.  The campaign that began in 2016 was finally voted on this November but it just won't end.  The world is watching in awe as the country implodes.  If the situation wasn't so serious the world could be laughing at a very bad slapstick sitcom due to be cancelled.   It has everything, a cast of thousands led by a star as an insane clown shoveling deep dark humbug out of his stables.  The clown hilariously bounces off walls while flinging humbug on friends and foes alike.  The house is on fire but the star hides under his desk striking matches.

Hospitals are packed, medical staffs exhausted, millions unemployed, millions more going hungry and at risk of being evicted for the holidays as the government is held hostage to the antics of the clown in the center ring.  Survivors will remember the year, but not as our finest hour. The only brightness of 2020 is that individuals are stepping forward to provide aid and assistance to the desperate as the government fiddles in front of the flames.

The storm has yet to abate but the humbug at least promises to subside.  Good luck to all for 2021.