Darkness 110624

Years ago some political philosopher stated that, “People deserve the government they voted for.”  He did not mean that in a nice way, many hated oppressive regimes were initially voted into office.  What can America look forward too?  Ukraine is toast with Eastern Europe not far behind.  Surviving Palestinians will be forced to wander hopelessly in the desert as towering hotels rise from the ashes of their beachfront homes.  Taiwan without promised support disappears into Greater China.  The Pacific increasingly becomes a Chinese lake as other island nations join South Korea’s struggle to maintain their independence.  China is already moving into Africa and South America as the United States turns inward.

The United States has lost all claims to a moral high ground, which was the basic of its “soft power” to influence world events.  Foreign nations look on gleefully as the nation enters into the melt down phase to third world status.  While Americans ignored Trump’s first term record of international blunders, the global community seeks ways to work around America during his second term and the country may never regain world respect. The world has studied and assessed Trump’s leadership abilities and find he is not to be trusted, is easily manipulated or outright bought.  Trump and by extenuation America is responsible for instability in the world order.  Under Trump’s inability to understand realities made America complicit in Putin’s colonial land grab as well as Netanyahu’s ethnic cleansing and massacre of thousands.  Trump is also responsible for the fall of Afghanistan and the return of the Taliban leaving his blunders for Biden to save as much as possible.   His rejection of the standing agreement with Iran pushed that nation clearly into Russia’s orbit and freed up its resources to oppose the United States.  Trump empowered China and North Korea’s global ambitions.  He attempted to withdraw Treaty alliances (ratified treaties are equal to U.S. Constitutional law) meeting with legal restrictions but he is now sworn to ignore the Constitution.  Internationally America can now be considered an outlaw nation.  While MAGA seeks isolationism reminiscent of the 1920s, we should remember how that turned out, and it is a much smaller and interdependent world today.  There is a military maxim, “Lead, follow or get the hell out of the way,” Trump can’t lead, won’t follow or get out of the way so the country will be bulldozed out of the way as the world moves past.

Domestically, Trump was able to run a campaign of deception and cover up.  Voters were entertained by his outrageous claims, the more absurd the more exciting for the mobs’ entertainment.  Straight out of Cult 101, an excited mob is beyond reason and unable to think for themselves.  Trump was able to paint his first term as a political “Garden of Eden” while the reality was closer to the last bite of apple.  Presidential scholars have concluded that his administration was and abject failure with Trump rated as the worst president in history.  Independent researchers have uncovered over 4000 cases of open corruption with Trump as the “King of Kickbacks.”  A totally unqualified contractor won the infamous border wall with a significant campaign contribution (the wall was never built).  Trump’s son-in-law advisor charged with resolving Middle Eastern tensions walked away with several Billion dollars of Saudi money while region erupted into genocidal warfare.  Trump himself demanded what amounted to open bribes from foreign governments as the price of doing business in America.  He established a number of campaign Public Action Committees (PAC) soliciting nickels and dime contributions from lower class ‘rabble’ and billions from the rich, diverting much of the funds to pay his personal expenses.  Accountants may still be trying to unravel Trump’s financial “Gordian knot” in the 22nd century.

The election is over and blinded by smoke the people have voted and now have to live with their choice.  The smoke refuses to clear, in fact is becoming denser as MAGA goes into the cover up mode.  MAGA calls for election fraud investigations are now silenced to hide its fraudulent operations.  The MAGA leader, an admitted sexual predator has endorsed other sexual predators for cabinet positions to distract, cover up and bury crimes that may embarrass or lead to new charges.  Is there a rule of don’t change behavior, change the Law?  It would seem so as Congressional MAGA stalwarts attempt to bury their own investigations.

Trump spreads chaos under the old adage that in chaos there is profit and he is never one to pass up a profit.  His promised “Golden Age” is more gold for himself, extracted from his faithful.  There will be no trickle down from this administration.

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NOTE:
As a very young man I often sat in 50s Oxford (England) coffee shops listening to elite students attempting to come to terms with Britain’s collapse as world leader.  I didn’t understand much of the discussions at the time.  Over the years with much analysis that experience continues to haunt.  In short the students were caught up in cultural debates.  They were the products of generations that ruled over a quarter of the world.  Upon graduations their expectations had been to spend a few years running the colonies, make their pile before coming home as lords of manors.  The reality was: the country was bankrupt, colonies were declaring independence, and worst of all returning soldiers were demanding the pie, not just a piece.  Taxes were destroying estates and grand manors falling into disrepair to be snapped up by foreign money.  The debates centered on how do we stop the rot, how are we to survive, we might have to get jobs, and plaintive pleas of what kind of job are we qualified.  America propped up Britain for years but75 years on Britain still hasn’t adjusted to its diminished status.  Rejecting the European Union it faces a final breakup of Great Britain, with stiff upper lip England may have to go it alone. Faced with similar dynamics disunited states may be back to the original thirteen.

looking in 103124

 
The thing about being on the outside looking in, with no hope of influencing affairs, is that one has the freedom objectively question events.

One event worth noting is MAGA’s recent attempt to whitewash Trump’s Russian patron as a misunderstood mister nice guy.  Make no mistake Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin is an international criminal of the highest order.  His invasion of the Ukraine was a pure and simple attempt at an 18th/19th century colonial empire.  In the process he has committed multiple crimes against humanity, condoned rape, torture and mass murder.  He is following the Great powers’ grab of colonial empires that employed similar tactics.  Colonial empires came crashing down in the 20th century with post World War Two nationalist movements.  The United Nations even recognized the legitimacy of independence movements.  Putin has no legitimate claim to the Ukraine, which has historically resisted Russian domination.  Possibly on a secret sell out promise Putin invaded Ukraine expecting a quick annexation of the independent country, after all Russia is 28 times the size of the Ukraine.  Here is an overlooked twist to his illegal war, despite it size Russia with a reported over whelming military power the land grab is in a prolonged near stalemate.  Russia is forced to buy foreign weapons and hire foreign mercenary armies to continue the battle.  This has not deterred Putin’s plans, he continues to push Russian “settlers” into surrounding countries as a future “fifth column” for invasion.  He is also militarily buzzing around the former Russian territory of Alaska.  This may be a distraction or part of a plan to annex the state, he would probably demand reperations for all the gold and oil America has extracted form the state.  Depending who becomes the U.S. president, he might get it.  There could be a large domestic contract for flags with 49 stars.

America might keep its flag or maybe become a continuing Trump flag monopoly as several MAGA states flirt with succession.   Of more immediate concern is growing war in the Middle East, which includes a land grab with ethnic cleansing.  Understand first that this is not a religious war between Judaism and Islam.  It is purely a political war fought in a 21st century propaganda arena, and Israel  is winning by playing its historical “victim” card.  Trump as president empowered fellow criminal Benjamin Netanyahu to oppress Israel’s Palestinian minority as way to remain in power avoiding his corruption trial.  Netanyahu attempted to follow Trump’s lead in packing his courts with partisan ideologues but the Israeli people counter marched in mass.  Netanyahu was still oppressing Palestinian when elements of Hamas staged a supposed “surprise” raid into Israeli territory and seize hostages.  This allowed Netanyahu to claim self-defense when he launched surgical strikes with a meat ax into Gaza.  So far Israeli strikes have killed over 40 thousand men, women with over 14 thousand preteen children. Israel has extended it strikes into Lebanon, Iran and Syria with possible clandestine operations elsewhere.  Private citizen Trump has been in illegal negotiations with both Putin and Netanyahu with the message of, “do what you have to do,” implying that for their support he will support them when reelected.

Israel has played it anti-Semitic card repeatedly in America’s national election pinning the Biden administration to supporting Israel’s continued war crimes.  It is probable that Netanyahu does not want to recover any remaining hostages in order to prolong his political survival.  MAGA quickly rallied to the Israeli calls to punish anti-Semitism in “liberal” institutions.  The reality is that Palestinian Arabs have as many, if not more, Semitic roots than Israelis.  Both Judaism and Arabs venerate Abraham as the beginning of their lineage but not ever Jew can be considered Semitic.  (NOTE: While Turkey took its name from the people, Palestinians took their name from an ancient land (Greek for land of the Phoenicians).)  What Netanyahu’s war is doing is guaranteeing that the Mid-east conflict will go on for generations.  It is probable that every Palestinian has lost someone to Israeli strikes and surviving children will flock to militant recruitment in the future.

America faces the prospect of government by Trump for Trump, and despite MAGA’s expectations there will be no trickle down unless there are massive kickbacks to the TRUMP.  Trump inadvertently told one truth, election 24 will be the most corrupt national election, ever.  What he is not saying is most of the fraud is being perpetrated by MAGA loyalist.  In his last year in office Trump imbedded loyalist in key government position and corrupted the judiciary with judges appointed for political loyalty rather than constitutional jurisprudence skills.  It is interesting that Trump has spent the last four years building a MAGA private army of Trump Storm Troopers (TST) now unleaseshed on the election.  Across the country TST are burning ballots, seized control of polling places, threaten bodily harm to poll workers and voters.  In numerous instances local MAGA officials have released the names potential opposition voters and purged others after the polls have opened.  Win or lose expect TST to run amok for the shear joy of violent freedom. Is that a constitutional right?  Maybe, Trump has promised to do away with the American constitution and advocates violence against all opposition.  Another interesting point is that Trump has spent 12 years campaigning while Harris has only been running for three months and is now neck and neck with the Trump machine.

As the 20th centuries last standing great power America led the world down the dark path of mass marketing.  There is little difference from selling soap to selling politicians.  If a product doesn’t sell, change the message.  It is cheaper to change the package than improve the product.  Anything can be sold if presented long enough and loud enough even the most odious of products.  Conditioned by years of entertaining but misleading advertising 21st century Americans’ fell easy prey to long and loud entertaining political disinformation, read that as out and out lies.  The surge in so called social media provides screaming voices to every propaganda agenda obliterating thought and truths.  Dr. Joseph Goebbels would have loved the new tools for mislead and conditioning a populace.

Trump has validated one American myth; anyone can become U.S. president, even a maniacal, criminal slipping into senility. A keystone to democracy, everyone deserves representation.

Outside 100524

It’s another American election cycle unlike any before or hopefully any in the future. This cycle is long on sound and fury, short on truths with abundant hatred seasoned by fear. That’s only the domestic dynamics. Technology has facilitated international dynamics reminiscent of the “Cold War” when America and Russia played checkers in small national elections. There was no chess like strategy; it was who grabbed off the most checkers. American elections are now the target with not only Russia playing but also China, Israel, Islamic states as well radical NGOs with their own agendas.

An early victim of sound and fury politics is the establishment of 80 as the age of political incompetence. Following that logic, if 80 is the limit for one elected office then why not also the limit all over 80 government officials? Why not also senators, representatives, judges even business leaders? Extending the argument, age limits also limit views of history and national identity.

The over 80s set was born at the end of the depression as the progeny of America’s greatest generation. Socialized by that generation, their cultural values may seem out of step in the 21st century. They saw their fathers march off to war, while the KKK still marched across our land. Lynching was common, as was minority discrimination, organized and disorganized crime. Local governments were often corrupt and the 3d degree ruled police departments. When fathers returned they instilled a love of freedom and reform in their children. As the kids matured they fought a number of wars, foreign and domestic, to defend freedom. They saw the battles for civil rights. As the only great power left standing they understood the economic and power benefits of being American as well as its obligations.  America held a moral high ground.

For a century American politics had been shared between conservatives and liberals principles under the titles of Republican (GOP) and Democratic parties. Cooperation between the parties was often reluctantly given but national governance did work for the next fifty years before government broke down in the face of self-interest over national interest. The 20th century was the American Century of great power. Scholars have postulated that great power last about 100 years before being supplanted by other rising powers. The 21st century “Me” culture may validate the great power hypothesis as America surrendered its moral high ground in the 2016-election cycle. So far the 2024 election cycle does not bode well for America’s survival as a power player.

Before political correctness an early typing exercise included the phrase, “Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country.” The American two party system is broken, no longer do liberals and conservatives debate and compromise in the interest of the country. Party politics have been captured by “winner take all” extremism to the point that the conservatives (GOP) have lost their party to MAGA disinformation. Without a vision of a future MAGA is attempting to sell a mythical past of fear, discrimination and hatred as a desired policy. The old typing exercise must be rewritten as, “Now is the time for all responsible voters to save their country.”

Donald Trump is the biggest nut in the MAGA fruit cake but he has empowered and even more extreme “nuttier butter” of extremism that “the DON” is not smart enough to notice his ego being played by other interest. Every slice of the cake exposes extremism spinning off in every direction with the rule of law the first victim.  America does owe the Don for exposing just how corrupted our justice system has become.  He has built his empire on, “money talks,” with bribery, intimidation and legal obfuscatory delay.   He carried these tactics into the Whitehouse openly applying them in his two impeachments.

MAGA partygoers hear only the words of their self appointed ‘God’ generated by a vast propaganda machine of spin-doctors, mass marketers and fake pollsters.  The reality is not the braggart’s words but rather his open and proven tawdry record.  The Don is neither Republican, Christian, honorable or trustworthy.  If he accuses an opponent of nefarious deeds he is blowing smoke to cover his own crimes and he seizes all credit for others’ accomplishments.  If he can’t pass the buck, or grab the credit he orders his decibels to obstruct legislative solution.  His character is that of no ethics, integrity or loyalty which his many loyalist and lawyers have discovered to their sorrow.  He is a party of one and that one must profit.

His admitted heroes are mob bosses and dictators seeing himself on that level.   There is no pretense of becoming even a benevolent dictator it will be all for self, the ultimate ME cultural goal.  Government is for sale; he demanded a billion dollar “donation” from tech companies with a promise of favors in the future.  His made in USA spiel is lost in his money grab with out sourced Trump souvenirs.  His over stated fortune was gained by not paying his bills, taxes or through ten cent on the dollar bankruptcies leaving economic chaos in his wake.  When he “owns” the mint he will print a greater fortune for himself leaving the country bankrupt like some banana republics.

Stripping away the wordsmith’s cover the Don has openly admitted to getting away with numerous crimes.  By his own admission he is a draft dodging, rapist, tax cheat and traitor.  His longstanding links to The Russian mob have been documented and he may in fact be a Russian agent.  In secret meetings, with no American witnesses, did he sell secrets to the Russian dictator; did he also promise the Ukraine to Russia?

In his latest claim straight out of the NAZI play book he will require the military to swear a personal loyalty to him rather than the Constitution.  There are enough mid-level officers who’ll sell their souls to become generals.  It could happen.

Harris may not be the best choice to repair the damage MAGA has inflected upon the country but she won’t sell it out for personal profit. She will be faced with a daunting task of regaining the county’s moral leadership, repairing its fault lines, and ending patronage and partisanship.  The presidency is a position above party; the president governs for all people.

Utopian goals:
Amend Constitutional requiring elected officials be truthful to the electorate.  
End billion dollar election cycles to feed the hungry.
MAGA broke the country, GOP and Democrats will come together to rebuild.

As a well over 80 outsider, I’ve seen much and studied more so I can take whatever comfort there is in the knowledge that I won’t have to survive long in a MAGA Gulag.

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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