April 16, 2023 by gudguy1a

Samsung, Blow Up the Factories & Pre-Fabs – “IF” China….

does decide to attack and actually get into the industrial complex areas. Taiwan D-Day…

This is a significant part of what China really aspires to gain, “Technology”, “Intellectual Property (IP)” – basically the highly prized super small chip technology. In the 5 & 4 nm range, soon to be 3nm with the newly introduced Nvidia AI technology to produce better chips, faster and at smaller scales…

China cannot produce that kind of sophisticated chip yet, due to not having access to equipment such as ASML’s expensive extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography technology. As a result, China is stuck at the larger scale of 7nm for the time being.

Yes, the Chinese government ‘does’ want to claim the country of Taiwan as its own.

And please note (YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn) – not bullying China’s citizens here (nothing to do with the regular Chinese citizens – this is completely on the Chinese government). There is no possible way in Hades that individuals can bully a Dictatorial country’s leadership such as China’s. China, a country that takes by force 10’s of thousands of Uighurs (Uyghurs) at a time, put them into ‘forced re-education camps’, sorry ‘center’s’ and then demolish the Uighurs’ towns and communities to make way for non-Uighurs. Wiping out the Uighur culture and language.

Kinda reminds you of forced slavery in America, a tad bit maybe….? Hmmm… Think about it.

China wants to claim Taiwan, a free democratic country as its own. To force, gee, sorry again – to ‘guide’ the Taiwanese people into becoming better, kowtowing (blast it, sorry again) “Chinese” citizens.

In gaining control of Taiwan, the Chinese government can grab hold of the resources China has been desperately seeking to gain – Taiwan’s multiple pre-fabrication plants (or pre-fabs) – Samsung has a toe-hold there as well. High tech chip making baby…!!!!

Taiwan has it – China wants it….

Now, here, we get a bit strategic and a wee smidgen of hypothetical thinking…

All the prefabs should, after smoking / sussing out all the possible Chinese government sympathizers and, well – spies; lay out and plant explosives (covertly hidden) throughout the prefabs. This has to be a highly close-hold operation where only a very few people know of the explosives (C-4, Semtex [RDX and PETN] and whatever other efficient/effective explosives are out there on the market) being planted throughout the prefab. (Firing missiles into the country’s own pre-fabs also works…)

Just have to be sure to wipe out, completely, the chip making equipment, the databases and storage components holding that gold knowledge…

There would be even fewer individuals who know of the manner/mechanism of how the explosives go off – digital, analog (in case of frequency jamming) or set to timers. Of course, this scenario would be a great deal more complex than the very high level content I noted here. Then, once everything is planned and set up and with the Taiwanese and corporate leadership able to ensure that all personnel are able to evacuate the prefabs with enough time – it is good to go.

Lastly, and sadly – if the Chinese military “should” get to a point where they “might” gain control of the prefabs – this is when D-Day in Taiwan occurs. Destroying the corporate gold businesses of chip making (and the livelihoods of many)…

This will of course severely harm the Taiwanese economy; but I would bet that they would rather see all the pre-fabs go up in smoke, than China having them.

Now, also important, and this is a very well-known aspect, China wants to take control and claim sovereignty of the entire area to the east of China. That area is comprised of the:

South China Sea (SCS)
West China Sea (WCS)
East China Sea (ECS)

Not to forget the Spratly Islands as well….

And in this manner, taking control of those seas and Taiwan – China can strategically claim the entire region, FAR from the normalized (and world recognized) Economic Exclusion Zones (EEZ) for each country in the hemisphere – Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam. Please put the perceived allied threats of Japan and S. Korea in that grouping as well. This is because China wants to claim the vast majority of that area as their sphere of control (influence).

Within these areas of contention that the Chinese government wants control over; there are vast amounts of natural gas, oil and minerals that China is “swooning” to grab hold of and claim ALL of it as their own. Forget about the country’s in the hemisphere that has equal right to what is in their EEZ – China wants all of it.

Basically, there you have it, the Chinese government wants to:

take over a democratic country (to stretch out Chinas’ power reach),
claim control of the ECS, SCS and WCS for control of ingress and egress to the area and protect their eastern borders from all the various invaders who want to take over China, and lastly,
snap up all commodities in the sea bed

What’s that you ask, “What about the Chinese citizens and Uighurs”?

What about them?

While we, the people of the world care about them, the Chinese government does not. Those folks are pretty much stuck in kowtowing to the Chinese government forever, being super-subservient – forever.

Unless the Chinese people unite (with the Uighurs) and bring democracy to the country. However – this, this will take a very, very long time to occur…

October 17, 2022 by gudguy1a

C’mon Americans – Mid-term Elections ARE as Important as Presidential Elections — VOTE…!

TL;DR / BLUF (because this is a L-O-N-G paper, last few pages is content from another paper)

VOTE! Get out and VOTE!

You CAN;
You SHOULD;
You MUST;

get out and vote if you truly value America and the continuation of ‘better’ values. We cannot just vote in Presidential elections and THINK that is all it takes. It is NOT!!! The mid-term races are the arenas where the least or worse candidates end up in office, in power OVER YOU because you did not think it worthwhile to go vote.

Some of the results here are:

folks getting elected to implement school book bans for the few, affecting the majority, instead of leaving books on the shelves for the masses and the curious – books like “The Learning Tree” which opened my eyes a bit more.
Or getting into the state senate and putting in place repressive voting measures – limiting the number of voting places; removing early ballot voting boxes; etc…

Do you want to go back in time and revisit the 1950s…?

NO. MOST of us do not. But that means EVERYONE MUST get out and vote.

Criticality of Mid-term voting

Mid-term voting can mean voting in members for any of the following:

City Council
School Boards
State Legislatures
Mayors
Governors
Senators
Congresspersons

Mid-term voting is the primary way to make changes in America. Voting for those who care for all will eventually remove all of the repressive and backwards-thinking individuals from power. These individuals are the ones causing all the dire drama we face today. We spend so much time and money on trying to do the right thing but, because of these power-hungry individuals, we are not progressing as we should as a country… and as people…

We are now late in 2022 and most Americans still do not realize how critically important the mid-term elections are. These mid-term elections are what we need to progress instead of going through the back-and-forth stages of progress… EVERY two – four years.

Suppressing or Restricting voting – this leads to angry voters in those regions of the country where conservative parties hold power. The result – people do not see the value of voting at that point in a mid-term race and do not vote.

Think about it. If you vote in the mid-terms as well, goals, better goals can be achieved in the long run but it will take time to build upon success. Just because we vote for something today, it will not materialize in a 6-month period. It takes time. And it may take 2, 3 or 4 mid-terms to start seeing real, I mean REAL success and progress that everyone will see – things that are very TANGIBLE for the majority.

POWER

Then, we have so many individuals in America who only want to be in power and want to act like young, spoiled children.

I’m taking my ball and I’m going home, so there!

Tell the rest of us that this is not the case. Go ahead, I definitely dare you to open yourself up to honesty – that is, if you have any honor and integrity remaining in ANY part of your being…

There should be NO ONE in politics who is only there for the sake of power. These individuals ruin the future for the majority of people.

Look at what Putin is doing in Russia. Do you believe all the Russians want Putin to take over, I’m sorry, ANNEX more of Ukraine as Putin did with Crimea? Against the Ukrainian peoples’ will or without their approval….
Look at what Kemp did in Georgia, instead of recusing himself from his duties as Secretary of State while running for governor, he kept that position active – think about that, seriously and deeply – and you tell us if Kemp actually won that race legally…??? Kemp wanted to retain power, via any manner possible
What about a state in America where the majority of that state’s citizens want one thing but are overruled because of the governor or state legislators wanting something else in place to satisfy the minority, whether it is Christian (note: Church and State are SUPPOSED to be separate, not like in 1910 or 1940 as examples). Here is one example, say there are gays in that state and they want equality. The minority of the state in question wants to have a gay free environment while the majority approves of gays having a voice and equality. What do you do? That minority wishes to retain power and control the outcome, that is what they do…

WHAT DO YOU DO? If we continue to have these kinds of individuals elected to power, WE-WILL-NEVER-NEVER-NEVER get on a solid path to success for this country for the long-term.

So sure, if you want endless back-and-forth efforts of progress, vote for those individuals who want power and control the state’s outcomes for various topics.

Look at Desantis did in the Spring of 2022 with Disney World in Florida. Desantis modified Disney’s decades long charter because Disney stood up for equality (standing “in solidarity” with the LGBTQ+ ) and Desantis basically said:

“Bull shit” – there is no such thing as equality as long as I am governor (Desantis did not say that, not exactly, I am liberally paraphrasing here). This all started with Florida Senate’s passage of H.B. 1557, colloquially dubbed by critics as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill and Disney going against it.

But what Desantis did was – he took his ball and went home. Now, the surrounding county has to pay for city expenses that Disney ‘had’ been paying for out of their ‘Special Privileges’ status.

Throughout the country, we have individuals who are in power, no matter how they arrived there, and who want to retain that power – “no matter what it takes or what it costs” the rest of America and its citizens.

So, why is that? Are these individuals afraid that if they lose that power, they:

Cannot make an honest living doing something else?
Do not know how to do something else meaningful to them (or others)?
Are just flat out scared that they will fail doing something else….?

Take the current Herschel Walker for Senate situation. How is it that so many people believe he is qualified and has the integrity to become a Senator?

Sure, Trump was not qualified but became President but that was due to people NOT GETTING OUT TO VOTE!!!! And that was why we had the global embarrassment of that American president.

Do we want to continue voting in a sub-par manner? Look at Senators’ Cotton and Scott following along to boost Walker’s tour. How embarrassing that must be for these two individuals to help prop up Walker? What kind of mindset does these two Senators have? Is there any integrity?
Wait, this is a power grab, sorry about that. It has nothing to do with qualifications, integrity or equality. Maybe one day soon (hopefully sooner) they will see the folly in propping up Walker.

But this is what we are dealing with, sad, very sad….

This is where I state the obvious – remove the electoral college and be done with loop hole for some and then, work on getting rid of gerrymandering, from ALL parties and reset districts to be fair voting communities and THEN, work on re-balancing the power structure for the number of senators and congresspersons we haver around the country.

When the number of senators and congresspersons were settled on, we were in a different era – MUCH smaller population. Now, today, we are not in a state of fair elections – Wyoming having two senators holding the same amount of power as two senators from California or New York, that is a sad joke. There should be more senators in states with larger populations. This is another problematic area that needs a course correction.

VOTING – Democracy and Equality

C’mon Americans. Really. REALLY. Are so many of you going to continue to vote ONLY with your heart and the illogical thinking of returning to the days of yesterday. Yesterday where only you had power over everyone else because of skin color…?
I really did not want to go there but this is what appears to be happening IRL (in real life as so many like to say).

We still have too many people who want a neighborhood that is only inhabited with their kind, full of privilege, free of any kind of interracial mixing, free of any homosexual tendencies, free of poor, uneducated people.

Is this really what so many of you Americans want to do, go backwards in time – losing DECADES of progress.

Because this is what happens when you do not use your brain, the logical and pragmatic part of your brain. We continue to have this see-saw effect WHERE NOTHING GETS ACCOMPLISHED!!!!

We go from progress, clean air, clean water, education improving, equality then in the mid-terms, the poor/bad choices of individuals are elected and we as a country backslide because these wrong thinking individuals want to reinstitute regulations that allow pollution of air and water, better education for some while revenue for the poorly funded school systems CONTINUE to be poorly funded and equality/diversity – THAT IS ALL THROWN OUT THE WINDOW! Here is one solid example, the last administration allowed corporations to get back to dumping toxic chemicals into rivers.

Here are a couple of links:

Trump’s EPA Is Letting Power Plants Dump Toxic Waste Into Rivers and Streams

The Trump Administration Rolled Back More Than 100 Environmental Rules. Here’s the Full List

But, you will need to do your own, ‘real’ research (outside your comfort zone and silo of conspiracy) and come to your own conclusion…

Do you want to continue allowing these types of individuals to gain and retain power so they can make money? With the result being bad air & water that will significantly affect the health of your child; spouse; parents – you…???

We have too many people in America that will gladly revert to threats and violence if they or their party does not win. It does not matter if it were a fair election, these individuals will continue to believe they were cheated out of a position of power. That the event was rigged. That Alien space rays were used to manipulate votes or that temperature regulating thermostats are rigging the votes somehow. OR that there is some kind of magnetism taking effect to alter races, enough that spoons can stick to a person’s body or face, somehow.

Why? Why are there so many people that continue to engage in silos of self-induced conspiracies. Look at Michael Flynn, former military general and Director of DIA – he completely broke and went to the far edges of a different universe.

Here are a couple of links where Flynn talked about a trail of signs leading terrorists into America:

Michael Flynn once claimed Arabic signs on southern border guide ‘radicalized Muslims’ into US

Trump’s border patrol guy calls BS on Flynn claim Arabic signs are guiding ‘radicalized Muslims’ to US

Again, you will need to do your own, ‘real’ research and come to your own conclusion on Flynn’s state of mind…

America’s Future

Americans, if you truly want America to be a Great Country, YOU HAVE TO VOTE.

You HAVE to vote with integrity, using your brain. Just because you do not want your children exposed to gays or black or brown or yellow or red people – you cannot deprive that from the majority of children in your schools.

Because you, the minority of individuals who want to continue to live in a world of those with closed mindsets, do not want gays or race mixing or better education for all to occur – IT IS GOING TO HAPPEN. At some point in the future, it is going to happen and you cannot stop progress. You will just make it take longer, causing suffering to continue for everyone, and I do mean everyone suffers as a result.

I speak, now and in the future, with and for the:

underprivileged,
undereducated,
repressed / suppressed,
gays (even if I am not) &
women (held down, glass ceiling & being seen as the inferior sex)

I stand for equality, diversity and progress, even if I AM NOT IN POWER.

America was never truly a great country. We only had a preeminent position because America had gained power, economically, socially and militarily over others, internally and externally. That is how America rose to power from the 1700s did it not? Building this country on the backs of slaves and indentured servants to have we have today…

But we CAN become a GREAT country, not really. Why aren’t there more Americans out there willing to use their brains and logic to see that we as a nation (and as humans) have to stop this back-and-forth garbage of “my party is better than your party”. STOP IT!!!!

We have to change the paradigm and grow together and make the world a better place for all – NOT FOR SOME.

Because I guarantee you that the children of those parents that want to block equality in schools, in the workplace and in politics – I guarantee you that in time, those children of yours who grow up with blocked or hampered vision WILL see the light at some point. At that point, these now adults, will be angry at YOU, the parents for holding them back, with that perpetual slogan of “I was only trying to shield / protect you from what I believed was wrong”.

You will be seen as not even giving your children a choice of deciding what is best for their own future. Yes, some of the children will be too young. But if you block everything you deem as ‘bad’ from your children instead of actually talking to them about various topics, you doom their potential and continue the perpetual cycle that later generations HAVE TO FIGHT OVER – AGAIN!

This is like German under Hitler burning books to secure the future of pure (free of Jewish or Black blood) Germans. Or here at home when books were once banned to ‘protect’ a certain racial make up in this country – yet, here we are again, having the vocal minority along with the wrong people in power in control of school boards – BANNING BOOKS, AGAIN!!!! Just to protect their child from growing.

But a good thing is happening in parts of the country, these children, they are having book clubs and READING and DISCUSSING these so-called banned books their parents wanted out of the school.

Does this remind of German’s past of racial superiority/racism? Hmmm….

Oh, how can I talk in this manner as I’ve done? It is because I have had multiple incidents in my own life, growing up and as a young adult.

I have always stood on the side of the little guy and against discrimination, of any kind, and even being affected by it – here are a few scenarios.

As a high school junior, I stood on a stage and denounced the garbage/racist spewing Communist who was there – but it turned out after I gave that impromptu speech, we found out that it was only a kind of a test for us (Young Civitan officers from across America) who gathered for an annual event
Never invited to any parties throughout high school, from black or white – I was a, how did people phrase it at the time – a mulatto/half-breed (did I become a bitter, angry person – no)
My high school prom date canceled on me, after I won the senior class raffle of a limo/dinner – because her dad was seriously racist (did I become a bitter, angry person – again, no)
(in ’86, Irving, TX) Overhearing me being called a ‘nigger’ as a guy was yelling at a woman in her hotel room, I was to have dinner with – this guy was seriously a covert racist because the next day, he tried to be buddy-buddy and it took everything to not break his jaw (did I become a bitter, angry person – still, no)

None of these incidents changed my mindset, if anything they all encouraged me to continue being better and championing better thought processes for all around me without preaching and setting an example, everywhere, all the time.

My optimistic mindset is in seeing the country, the world growing into a better society. Yes, I keep seeing disappointment in the way different people treat others, around the world. i.e.: the increase in Asian hate crimes – WHY??? Mexican-Americans railing against other Mexicans, think of the L.A. City Council President Nury Martinez recent racist incident – WHY????

Why are people NOT growing into better people to make this a better world? Are there that many people in America, around the world who STILL want to keep using repression, suppression and flat out discrimination against others so that THEY can be the top dog (use whatever term you wish)…???

From this point on, the content is a repeat of what I had in another paper and I am sure not many people read it, so, including it here – if you are still with me. Even if one or two folks read this paper and use their brain going forward, I will be happy.

The Past, Recurring Today

I really hate to say it but this current atmosphere just keeps taking me back to what happened in Tulsa, Oklahoma. You know, in 1931, where a young white female teenager screamed in the elevator because of the young black teenage male who was in the elevator. We still, to this day, do not know what actually occurred. And then, the whites of Tulsa wanted justice, not the legal kind but the restrictive, repressive (DEADLY) justice of past decades (and centuries) where the whites took control and hung or dragged a black to their death or tarred and feathered black(s) before killing them. I decline to include the ghastlier things that were done to these unfortunate souls.

And these whites thought (and believed) that what they did was righteous and fair justice. Stop the blacks from doing anything, let alone be successful as they were in Tulsa, using their power for their justice.

Remember the horrific pictures of crowds of whites, gathered around hanging (lynched) DEAD blacks, pointing and looking up at the dead or looking back at the camera man AND SMILING AND LAUGHING at the grotesque sight. Do any of you remember those images of justice? Does it bring a tear to your eye to even think this was possible in our American heritage – it should and we can also talk about the Native Americans and what happened to them as well? IT DAMN WELL SHOULD – that is, if you have an ounce of morality in you and you truly know right from wrong…

The problem is, it was not just Tulsa, IT-IS-STILL-HAPPENING-TODAY…!!!! Where we have large pockets of whites, who happen to be republicans, that want to control what goes in the various cities and counties and states in America.

These individuals who happen to be in power want to continue to rig the game so that ONLY they will continue to remain in power and reign over all the inferior and insignificant lower classes of people. Yeah, you got, those of color.

Poll taxes ring a bell to anyone?
Okay then, how about counting jelly beans in a jar?
Dang, what about the literacy tests….?

It is like these individuals in power in mostly Red states want to get us back to those days… We just have too much ongoing racism, covert racism, subconscious racism and implicit racism. Then on top of all that, we have groups of militia, sovereign citizens and even current and former military (as a former Marine, I am completely heartbroken to keep hearing this) who buy into this atmosphere of conspiracy and illogical patriotism and again, likely racism in these groups too.

So, the point of this minor diatribe of mine is to attempt togetmore, MANY MORE Americans WAKE THE HELL UP.

MORE Americans have to WAKE UP and get out and vote! YOU HAVE TO VOTE for individuals who are more progressive. VOTE for individuals who are open minded and want to see all Americans grow and prosper.

And to do this, to have a successful future – all open-minded Americans HAVE GOT TO VOTE. And we have to do so starting with ALL the 50 state legislatures (leaving D.C. out because it is on that path already). MORE Americans HAVE GOT TO VOTE out the conservative and backwards thinking individuals in mostly Red states, so we can all prosper and grow going forward.

We spend FAR too much time repeatedly fighting amongst ourselves over Red and Blue topics instead of subjects and areas that will benefit ALL OF US.

If you are young and are of voting age – YOU HAVE TO VOTE and not make an attempt because you believe it is not important to you. IT IS IMPORTANT TO YOU! It impacts your future. If you continue to sit on the sidelines and let these repressive and suppressive minded individuals stay in power – they will put in places that become like bedrock foundations that you may NEVER be able to overcome or overturn.

If you are an adult and you feel left out and as a result you sit on the sidelines – STOP DOING THAT!!!! You have to get out and VOTE as well. To have a democracy that is inclusive and brings everyone into the fold – YOU HAVE TO GET OUT AND VOTE as well. This is the only path. If you allow these backwards thinking individuals who are in power and who want to stay in power by focusing only on themselves and their families – you MUST get out and vote as well. Otherwise, this country will continue to flounder and stay behind the curve ball while other countries continue to move ahead of us in education and societal norms. You MUST get out and vote to help change the directionality of this country. Otherwise, we will continue to limp along with:

Bridges with potholes where you can see down to the river or street below the bridge
Levees and damns that are FAR past their prime but no one is upgrading them, meanwhile – these things burst apart and flood the surrounding county area
Broadband that flat out sucks for many in the rural areas of America and definitely is pathetic in low-income areas, just because they are low-income areas and too many individuals in power do not believe these folks who live there are worth it
Schools that are sub-par, horrendously sub-par – c’mon, MOLD! Lead pipes and non-functioning plumbing and HVAC systems that are not nearly adequate enough to be used
Medical facilities that need overhauling and renovating – not the facilities that have an iron grip on the country and charging exorbitant costs – I mean the ones in most communities that are barely hanging on in supporting the residents of those communities
Etc.,
Etc.,

AMERICANS! You simply must get out to vote or you will continue to see this country fall apart. We have to vote in individuals who care for all and not those individuals who only care for some subset of American areas of the country as in the mid-west or some suburban parts of the country.

As noted above, we have to start replacing state legislatures across the country with forward thinkers, those who are thinking 5, 10 and 20 years down the road.

Putting in place smaller budgets or stop gap measures to do minor patch work fixes or tweaks is not good enough. We need to do more and we can do more.

Besides getting rid of these backwards thinking individuals in state legislatures, we have to vote OUT more of these governors – ones that many of us still cannot believe they won the election their elections.

With Kemp of Georgia, we know how he won – he was the Georgia secretary of state and he refused to recuse himself from that role and was able to influence the voting process.
DeSantis of Florida, well, he won because he had a large following of individuals who want to retain a status quo and not become more progressive.
Abbott of Texas, completely unclear how he really won, unless it was along the same lines as DeSantis. But Abbott, he is dangerous. He had all information on toxic chemical locations removed from all state websites. This information was helpful to many in deciding where they wanted to live, or where to send their children to school or where to locate their elderly in nursing homes – without this information, well…. And for Abbot to say that people can ask the fire department or other agencies, that is a non-starter because they mostly will not give out that information. How would you feel if you discovered a toxic chemical storage facility was located 200-300 yards from your child’s school (and think about the blast radius of an ammonia holding facility should it go up in flames)?

We all have to vote to overcome and get rid of things like ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council) efforts. This entity is the one that really spring-boarded many, many republican legislative actions over the years since its founding in 1973 and grew to prominence under Newt Gingrich.

Basically – ALL forward-thinking individuals, those with an open-mind, those with the foresight to see that we MUST unify as a country to grow again. Not grow as in divisive groups within America but as ONE WHOLE entity – all Americans. All of us need to vote. And you have to use your brain to do so. If we want to continue to be the leader of the free world, of developed countries – we all must participate and vote!

Research who you vote for – as in, is the person going to help everyone or just selective segments of society. Think about who you vote for. STOP listening to conspiracy groups and individuals, this only leads you down the path of despair and danger because you start endangering yourselves and others by buying into these non-sensical and illogical plots that only belong in movies.

You HAVE TO USE YOUR OWN BRAIN!!! Read and talk to and with others who have “rational” thoughts, not siloed bubbles of fellow conspirators. Educate yourselves.

Those of you want to vote for the likes of a Trump, Marjorie Greene or Matt Gaetz or Louie Gohmert or Jim Jordan – you are going down the rabbit hole of failure because the thought processes of these leaders do not appear logical and can be non-constructive.

You absolutely MUST use your own brain and your education to vote for individuals who WILL move the country forward, not give it an exercise of lip action only (while lining their own pockets with money from greed, while at the same time – lying to you). Please, those Americans with the tendency to stay in these filter bubbles (as author Eli Pariser) talked about – get out of your comfort zone and expand your mind. Grow with other Americans. You can only grow if you learn more. Talk to more people who are “not” like you.

As it is, we still have far too much many people in America who to return to the America of the 30s, 40s and 50s, where a, ahhh, certain race of people had the power.

Please – all Americans who want to see America grow – get out and vote.

And, it is not just some of the Republicans, we have to remove individuals like Joe Manchin of W. Virginia who is playing at some kind of game that only he knows in preventing or slowing down growth.

Vote, not just in the Presidential elections but in ALL of the elections that crop up in your community. This is how we as a country will grow, starting with local elections, county elections and state elections – your vote matters. Vote for those men and women who see the future as prosperous for all. Vote for those people of color who are completely inclusive of everyone around. Stop thinking about age, religion, handicaps, race and gender as the sole criteria of who you would vote for.

That old or young; Jewish or Atheist; good looking or not so good-looking person standing next to you – might just be the next President of this country. You never know, you must put your personal biases aside and vote for those who want to do public service work.

May 2, 2022 by gudguy1a

Taiwan – Continuous Allies’ Training – Year ‘Round

Simple solution to China continually invading Taiwan’s sovereign air space ADIZ (Air Defense Identification Zone) – implement a continuous (365 days / year) allied training mission on Taiwan, home of FREE Taiwanese individuals.

Have a combined – continual training mission for:

Navy – landings and sorties
Army / Marines – landings and guerrilla warfare
Air Force – landings / takeoffs, mock strafing / bombing runs

Run these side-by-side training missions with the Taiwanese military/air force/navy with multiple Allies – taking turns on the island of FREE Taiwanese or in conjunction with multiple Allies at one time. Protect the Taiwanese ADIZ.

Make landing stages out of use of existing American bases of: South Korea, Japan, Hawaii & Okinawa and allied bases in Australia and even Vietnam…

The only way China, the Authoritarian/Totalitarian, Communist (wannabe Capitalist) country will continue to back down from Taiwan – continually show “very” strong ties with Taiwan, home of those FREE Taiwanese citizens.

What with all the corruption going on in China, far more than in American – many of us are surprised the Chinese economy has not collapsed already. Military and Political leadership, stealing billions of RMB and exporting it out of country, to a safer haven and then later, emigrating from China with their family members to enjoy that largess they stole from the Chinese people.

China is supposed to be a shared prosperity country, yet – only the wealthiest Chinese (military, civilian, political) are able to partake of that “shared prosperity”. The rest (vast majority of Chinese) are basically left to their own ends and suffering through daily life. Chinese government, federal and province and local city – all end up stealing land, sorry, conducting eminent domain and taking the land for a better use for China. This means, selling the land to meet their annual budget or to line their own pockets – the government members. (No need to even consider my making this up – search for this information – focus on Ghost Cities and the taking of generational / village land.)

July 25, 2021 by gudguy1a

CHINA’s POWER & CONTROL – Tiananmen Square, Uighurs, Taiwan, SCS

TL;DR / BLUF (LinkedIn cleaner version)

Chinese government wants to control all of its citizens in everything they do; for everywhere they go; for anywhere they are. It does not matter what the average Chinese citizen wants, it is what the Chinese government wants. Control and power over everyone that they can get away with. And that even includes American citizens, of Chinese descent. At least Americans enjoy freedom of speech to say the “F U” phrase, even in a sentence aimed at the Chinese power grabbing Government”… Meanwhile, no mainland Chinese citizen who might want to expand their own personal, social, political knowledge will never see this post in mainland China due to the censoring Chinese firewall and the sycophants who work or volunteer to filter internet content.

NOTE: original post was blocked on LinkedIn because it was deemed BULLYING & Harassing (seriously, against the Chinese government… Had to remove the “F ” word and the word that rhymes with s p i-t). Additionally, there is no conspiracy content here, this is all factual content, a lot of it pulled from legitimate and transparent news / historical entities. And, there is nothing false here that would give cause to LinkedIn to believe there was Bullying & Harassment involved. Maybe folks like Rachel Maddow would weight in, or Stephen Colbert or Jon Stewart or John Oliver and add their gold mine input… Original post here —> https://tinyurl.com/4mhvanh5

China, well, at minimum – the Chinese Government (Xi JinPing and others) wants to have complete control over EVERYTHING within 1,000 miles outside of its borders. Because that is what it appears they want to do – control as much as possible as far as possible with as tight a fist as possible. Ask India and the Nepalese about some of the ‘contact’ they’ve had with Chinese forces…

This really got my dander up, after seeing the latest news on Chinese officials arresting five people in Hong Kong for sedition, over children’s books. Here is just one article for your reference, please do your research and not rely solely on one article: Five arrested in Hong Kong for sedition over children’s book about sheep. While it is a series of children’s book, it talks about: “sheep trying to hold back wolves from their village”, the Chinese government found it enough to arrest these union members for sedition. (Reminds one of Russia in the good ole days, where the “dejournaya”, a Key person, or floor door watcher, normally an elderly woman who had the keys to the rooms on their floor, would report on non-comporting Communist loyalty and behavior or non-Russians in Russia.)

This Hong Kong arrest was a couple of days ago. The Chinese are still arresting people for writing non-good things about China and its leaders… such as China installing Chinese Communist leaders loyal to China to control Hong Kong (and Taiwan) citizens and quash any kind of democratic leanings and ONLY be good little Chinese and blindly follow everything coming out of Beijing’s communistic mouth (I wonder at times if that communistic mouth has turned rotten over the decades and become depraved as well).

Okay, if that is not enough to show you how totalitarian and/or dictatorially hungry the Chinese leadership is, what about several years ago when the Chinese came to New Jersey to “persuade” a Chinese American to come back to China, leaving a note in handwritten Mandarin Chinese on the guys’ door stating “if he is willing to go back to the mainland and spend 10 years in prison, your wife and children will be all right. That’s the end of this matter!”. In the instance of another target to bring back to China, these Chinese ‘officials’ brought this other ‘target’s’ elderly father as a persuasion tool. Chinese prosecutor indicted in U.S. case targeting extralegal ‘Fox Hunt’ operation — again, one reference to get you started on your own research. Nine individuals (includes one American private investigator) were indicted this week for trying to “repatriate dissidents whom Chinese government officials wanted to lure back and punish”. The thing is, China does not give a crap at all about where the person they want is at, they will do what amounts to broad daylight kidnapping. Not being hypocritical about this, most governments do daylight grab jobs, but, heck, let me put more of the Post story here:

“carried out an illegal and clandestine campaign to harass and threaten targeted U.S. residents in order to force them to return to [China].”

Some of the targeted individuals might have violated financial laws and were legitimate targets of law enforcement investigations, officials have said. But many others were political rivals, dissidents or critics of the Chinese government. Rather than use established legal systems such as Interpol or request assistance from U.S. law enforcement, U.S. officials have said, the Chinese agents tried to intimidate people into returning to China.”

And of course, you remember Tiananmen Square right? RIGHT? The protests in Tiananmen Square, lasting from April 15 – Jun 4 1989, when a brave Chinese citizen stood up to the tank to make it stop while he was holding two bags of groceries – making the tank attempt to dance around the guy, who just kept getting in front of the tank.

This was actually called the “Tiananmen Square Massacre”, when the Chinese government wanted to do a bit of power control against its citizens who wanted to protest. But the Chinese government wanted it to stop, at any cost – including killing protestors. Check out this one site: Chinese crackdown on protests leads to Tiananmen Square Massacre – remember, do your own research to satisfy your brain and then THINK about it, do your own analysis. A million protestors and the Chinese government killed thousands, indiscriminately shooting at people.

That is a helluva government – one that Donald Trump likes and admires.

You may be asking, “what were the protests about?” Here, let me put that snippet here for you as well: “protest for greater democracy and call for the resignations of Chinese Communist Party leaders deemed too repressive.”

See, the thing is, Chinese citizens cannot vote someone out, the individual in question would have to voluntarily resign. And you would think that with a million people coming out in protests that that would be a cause for resignations. No, not in power controlling China.

And ever since 1989, China continues to white wash ANYTHING and EVERYTHING having to do with Tiananmen Square. They are attempting to delete/remove ALL content that they can from history books and web sites. BAD NEWS for Chinese leaders, there are many of us who will always remember the right of citizens to protest along with the killing and arresting of citizens by China’s government and military. We will remember this massacre forever and there are web sites that will memorialize it forever as well…

Do not get me going on Taiwan and the Chinese crackdown of forcing the Taiwanese to kowtow to everything Chinese and NOTHING Taiwanese. It is all Communist (spit) China or you are locked up or better yet (so the Chinese leadership is thinking) – you are ‘disappeared’…

Then look at the South China Sea (SCS) where China wants complete control of that maritime area, even though other countries (Malaysia, Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, etc.) in the region have claims to the SCS as well and the United Nations agrees with those nations. China claims it has historical rights to the SCS as being under its Chinese sphere of control.

So. What does China do to help bolster their claim? Why they built a man-made island and put a military installation on it – obvious solution right….???? And with that anchor point, it allows China to expand its Navy with a broader reach, expansion of China’s hegemony.

And do not forget about the Uighurs (Uyghurs). The Muslims of China. Chinese government does not want them to exist – at all. If you are a Uyghur, hide, or you will be taken to a concentration camp or an “internment camp”, sorry, a “rehabilitation center” or a “re-education center” in Xinjiang. There are somewhere in the 1 – 3 million Uighurs in these camps/centers, likely many more.

Although, you have no choice of which one but there have been MULTIPLE camps built (the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region) for this purpose, along with that fantastic razor wire at the top of those great, tall walls, with the Wall Tower Guards accessory built-in to watch over you so you do not sleep walk into the wrong area by mistake… A camp where you will be forced to cut your hair and shave your beard. Damn. Sorry, I meant, you will be allowed to cut your hair and shave with the result being – if you choose not to, to have someone else do it for you.

You will be forced, sorry, allowed to speak Mandarin Chinese and not your own native tongue and not your predominantly Turkic language.

You have the choice of clothing, as long as it is one of the camp’s uniforms (think prison garb). Here, you do not get to practice archery or horse shoes or boating, no… But you do get to become a factory worker to produce products (think sweat shop) for various Chinese companies throughout China.

At these camps, you must learn Mandarin, learn to become good CHINESE NON-Muslim citizens. You must learn to kowtow to the Chinese government and obey it no matter what they dictate. Think of it as a Marine Boot Camp but with FAR, FAR fewer choices… oh, and for a much longer re-education period of time.

In Xinjiang, the Chinese government-controlled areas, Uighurs must endure every single day of being observed by facial recognition cameras – on every street block, at every intersection and who knows where else. Uighurs must endure Chinese police checkpoints on every block (that is how many there are). But don’t be alarmed Uighurs, the Chinese police exists all throughout China, even in Beijing and Shenzhen and other cities, there are facial recognition cameras abounding in all their glory. China in totality is simply put, a Police State or a Surveillance State if they want something less incriminating…

Here is what the governor of Xinjian said in March 2019 in defense of these camps: directly dismissed comparisons to concentration camps, saying they were “the same as boarding schools.”

Then there is more that many global citizens are not aware of:

China has made criminal many aspects of religious practice and culture in Xinjiang, including punishment for teaching Muslim texts to children and bans on parents giving their children Uighur names

Many women have come forward, after being finally released from these camps and stated (those brave enough to do so) that they were raped in these camps but the camp officials did not do anything about the crime.

Want one more thing on the Chinese government’s actions against Uighurs, the Chinese is committing genocide (sterilization) against the Uighurs. This is a tough one to prove but if there are multiple women stating this, it is likely a true situation. China wants to curtail the growth of any future Uighur population.

And for all you newly “re-educated” Uighurs, you have lots to look forward to in your new world of Chinese control and dictatorship but. But you cannot look forward to returning home, to your old stomping grounds. Why? Did you not know?

I am so sorry to inform you that when you do finally leave those wonderful “boarding schools” with all those fantastic learning opportunities and outdoor activities – the Chinese government decided it was best to force evacuate ALL Uighur towns and raze them to the ground, wiping out centuries of Uighur history and culture. Then clearing the grounds and rebuilding new structures so the Chinese Han bloodline can flourish.

None of this is new, this has been perpetuated for many years, go back to 2009 with the Chinese government incentivizing the Han Chinese to migrate to the XinJiang or 2017 when the camps were started being built to house the detained Uighurs.

Another source of info: China’s Repression of Uyghurs in Xinjiang

So, China – CONTROL. POWER. TOTALITARIAN. DICTATORIAL??? A lot of horse manure – they want to be a power house in the world of capitalism but it has to be Communistic Capitalism, imagine that.

Think about it – in China, you cannot:

spit on public grounds for fear of being fined and public credit shaming
- and if you do obtain too many public shaming points, you CAN be banned from flying or leaving the country for any reason…
Jaywalk for the same fears above,
Have the number of children you want
Bad-mouth Chinese leaders
Enjoy western practices and habits and styles and language because they MUST follow Chinese culture and styles – not do profanity (watch some Chinese movies like the MEG and see if you see any nudity or hear any profanity – many, MANY Chinese made movies must follow explicit Chinese dictates to make movies)

You HAVE to be puritanical in the Chinese government’s eyes – no nudity in movies, no profanity on t.v. or in the movies – imagine, all lily white Church level cleanness. But I guarantee you that these same leaders do ‘NOT‘ practice both aspects in their offices and in their jobs. It is the same old “do as I say and not as I do” horse manure…

There is so much more to discuss where it concerns China and its CONTROLLING government but this should be enough to whet your appetite for some, at least for now.

Is China the kind of country you want to live, one where you cannot enjoy liberties without fear of crossing some Chinese government red line…?

Is China deserving of being a power house on the world stage when it discriminates against some of its own citizens (Uighurs) and has a lock down on any true Progressive Democracy. For example the citizens of China cannot freely:

roam the Internet from within the Chinese borders to see what is happening in the real world (unless they travel abroad) because of their great Chinese Firewall that filters, censors and blocks ANYTHING not pro-chinese or anything bad about its leaders like Honey Bear Xi Jinping (or is that Honey Poo…?)
vote for the leadership they choose but must instead follow the pre-elected leadership that comes out of the Communist Chinese Party Politburo
have their own choice, within limits of course,
- can you imagine a Chinese citizen saying “F U” to police or government – in print or vocally….?
- remember, I could not use the full descriptor on LinkedIn, even if it is protected speech…

Does ANY of you out there, living outside of China’s borders, who read this want China to be a global power house or gain further hemi-spheric control of any other country or water way? It is bad enough they are part of the UN with veto power (just like Russia) and China vetoes ANYTHING that might jeopardize any road blocks or future growth regarding China’s path forward.

And yes, we (America) already have plenty of headaches of our own to try to get our heads around and improve (racial discrimination, gender inequality, political division, chaos & insecurity [conspiracy minded individuals’ – thanks even more to Trump], better infrastructure, better education – across all grade levels and in ALL communities, poverty, etc…) – but at least we recognize them and continue to work on them and not lock up (or kill) people who protest for honesty and transparent democracy or try to extort them into arrest….

July 19, 2021 by gudguy1a

CLEAN WATER Desalination Plants – NOW! Infrastructure…

TL;DR / BLUF

Desalination plants, to produce clean water from ocean/sea salt water. Build multiple desalination plants along the West and Southern coasts of America and pipe that water across all the western states…

It is far past that time of having a GOOD infrastructure bill.

We need a LARGE new infrastructure bill, not a small, tiny one. A tiny one where, we would have to do another infrastructure bill in 3 – 4 years, then another one in another 3 – 4 years. Ad nauseum….

We need a large infrastructure bill now, RIGHT NOW, in order to deal with so many issues in this country we call America (not United States – due to so many individuals now spewing conspiracies, causing strife and tearing us apart).

We have to take care of roads and bridges to facilitate the movement of all the people who drive to/from work and not using mass transit. We need to consider all the workers who drive for a living and need better roads and bridges to make their jobs easier to navigate.

We need roads and bridges fixed, many, many roads and bridges. And that is a tall order, in getting all the OLD, FRAGILE, BUSTED, DILAPIDATED bridges repaired / replaced. If a bridge fails, such as the one between Memphis, TN and Arkansas (called the Memphis–Arkansas Bridge or the Hernando de Soto Bridge) – think about it – EVERYONE has to detour 30 minutes to 2 hours out of their way to get around this failure point. EVERYDAY!

TWICE A DAY!

Until the bridge in question is repaired. But, we (America) cannot repair or replace bridges fast enough because we have TOO MANY individuals in political power in multiple states who CRY EVERY DAY stating that we do not need large infrastructure packages to make this country better.

As a result, we have failing bridges. And these failing or failed bridges are causing detours for folks going to work and for folks who make their living driving every day on our crumbling (or rather, crumbled) infrastructure, putting their lives on the line and hoping the bridge continues to hold up while they cross it. Or that the roads are in drivable conditions so they do not end up hitting a significant pot hole that was not filled in (expertly) and break an axle, causing a massive 50 – 75 (or more if a gas hauler or toxic chemical truck are in the mix) vehicle chain-reaction collision with multiple loss of life.

None of this is new. So, why is it so hard to understand that we need a massive influx of capital to fix our roads and bridges? And we need to repair/shore up all the poorly constructed levees (those mostly made up of dirt) and all the out-of-date dams around the country.

When Eisenhower got a decent freeway system in place, it was good – now look at the state we are in. Everyone is bickering and pointing fingers at others. We need more collaboration (Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema).

We have to STOP being blue “this” and red “that” – WE HAVE TO COME TOGETHER and SEE what is going on and get beyond this nonsense of:

“Well, we don’t really need a large bill because we have the power to put a stick in the mud to hold everyone up.” Or,
“We need to have bipartisanship” which WE CANNOT HAVE if one side is completely defiant and childish about:
- losing power,
- giving up ground,
- admitting they are incorrect in their thought process or
- pick anything else you want to plug in.

It is childish and asinine in being at this point today of NOT having a very good infrastructure bill. Yes, we will have to figure out a way to pay for it but many of us would pay a tax increase instead of seeing the rich getting a TAX CUT (re: 2017) to pay for better infrastructures (road, bridges, levees, dams and this newer ‘human’ component) across the country.

Which brings us to this point, our global climate crisis.

We have an extreme climate change problem facing us, not just in America but around the world. The western half of America is in a state of DROUGHT! We need to try – NO, NOT TRY but to rectify that with a man-made solution (apologies to all the feminists out there). And that solution is:

DESALINATION PLANTS!!!!

There is no way around it or an easy fix to getting clean drinking water into the heavily hit drought-stricken states. We need a massive, emergency level TVA (Tenn. Valley Authority) fix, to clean up the salty sea water and convert it to cleaner usable (potable) water.

We need the:

Corps of Engineers
Think tanks
Innovators &
A.I. level computing power

to join forces to help with this water crisis. We can put billionaires into space, so why can we not solve this problem.

We need some kind of combination of technologies and efforts to make a fast (think in terms of months and not years) alternative to not having water at all.

We need joint efforts to build massive desalination plants up and down the west and southern coasts and then pipe it across all the western states.

We need desalination plants that:

are non-fossil fuel powered (wind turbines, underwater turbines).
can convert salt water to clean water for drinking and farming in an efficient inexpensive manner.
can convert salt water to clean water in the “FASTEST” way possible, at a mega-tonnage level or even giga-tonnage per day.
are sustainable and green – green as possible with hopefully ZERO carbon footprint.

There has to be a way and yes, there are some desalination plants out there today but they are small and expensive. And we do not want to even think about the quantity of fossil fuel being used every day.

We cannot sit around, bickering about this, water does not grow on trees. And desalination is one of the ways to get water on a massive scale into all the western states in this critical time of need. We are not likely to see snow in the quantities we desire in the next several years, not the way our climate is changing.

We need to implement a human fix to help solve this human problem.

June 3, 2021 by gudguy1a

Any Americans Out There for Democracy? Yes? Then WAKE UP & VOTE…!

TL;DR / BLUF

VOTE! Get out and VOTE! This is the only way to make changes in America. Voting for those who care for all will eventually remove all of the repressive and backwards-thinking individuals from power. These individuals are the ones causing all the drama we face today. We spend so much time and money on trying to do the right thing but, because of these power-hungry individuals, we are not progressing as we should as a country… and as people…

Here we are in 2021, where we have so many individuals in America in power but are acting like young, spoiled children.

I’m taking my ball and I’m going home, so there!

Tell the rest of us that this is not the case. Go ahead, I definitely dare you to open yourself up to honesty – that is, if you have any honor and integrity remaining in ANY part of your being… We have GOT to move past being Republican, Independent or Democrat and THINK about Democracy for all. Democracy for all to grow, prosper and succeed, not just certain sectors of this country.

Throughout the country, we have individuals who are in power, no matter how they arrived there, and want to retain that power – “no matter what it takes or what it costs” the rest of America and its citizens.

So, why is that? Are these individuals afraid that if they lose that power, they:

Cannot make an honest living doing something else?
Do not know how to do something else meaningful to them (or others)?
Are just flat out scared that they will fail doing something else….?

What is happening to so many of these Americans? And it seems to be primarily Republicans / Conservatives (yes, I said it, Republicans) who are hell bent on stamping out ANY chances whatsoever for America’s growth in future elections. These individuals appear to want to suppress any paths of progress for people of color. That seems to be the elemental effort of all the individuals in power in Red states – to put in place severely restrictive voting processes that “might” curtail voters from casting votes for others who are more progressive. Others who are more progressive and want to see this country grow and see that more Americans have an actual chance to succeed in life.

I really hate to say it but this current atmosphere just keeps taking me back to what happened in Tulsa, Oklahoma. You know, in 1931, where a young white female teenager screamed in the elevator because of the young black teenage male who was in the elevator. We still, to this day, do not know what actually occurred. And then, the whites of Tulsa wanted justice, not the legal kind but the restrictive, repressive (DEADLY) justice of past decades (and centuries) where the whites took control and hung (lynched) or dragged a black to their death or tarred and feathered black(s) before killing them. I decline to include the ghastlier things that were done to these unfortunate souls.

Poll taxes ring a bell to anyone?
Okay then, how about counting jelly beans in a jar?
Dang, what about the literacy tests….?

So, the point of this minor diatribe of mine is to attempt to get more, MANY MORE Americans WAKE THE HELL UP.

We spend FAR too much time repeatedly fighting amongst ourselves over Red and Blue topics instead of subjects and areas that will benefit ALL OF US.

Bridges with potholes where you can see down to the river or street below the bridge
Levees and damns that are FAR past their prime but no one is upgrading them, meanwhile – these things burst apart and flood the surrounding county area
Broadband that flat out sucks for many in the rural areas of America and definitely is pathetic in low-income areas, just because they are low-income areas and too many individuals in power do not believe these folks who live there are worth it
Schools that are sub-par, horrendously sub-par – c’mon, MOLD! Lead pipes and non-functioning plumbing and HVAC systems that are not nearly adequate enough to be used
Medical facilities that need overhauling and renovating – not the facilities that have an iron grip on the country and charging exorbitant costs – I mean the ones in most communities that are barely hanging on in supporting the residents of those communities
Etc.,
Etc.,

As noted above, we have to start replacing state legislatures across the country with forward thinkers, those who are thinking 5, 10 and 20 years down the road.

Putting in place smaller budgets or stop gap measures to do minor patch work fixes or tweaks is not good enough. We need to do more and we can do more.

With Kemp of Georgia, we know how he won – he was the Georgia secretary of state and he refused to recuse himself from that role and was able to influence the voting process.
DeSantis of Florida, well, he won because he had a large following of individuals who want to retain a status quo and not become more progressive.
Abbott of Texas, completely unclear how he really won, unless it was along the same lines as DeSantis. But Abbott, he is dangerous. He had all information on toxic chemical locations removed from all state websites. This information was helpful to many in deciding where they wanted to live, or where to send their children to school or where to locate their elderly in nursing homes – without this information, well…. And for Abbot to say that people can ask the fire department or other agencies, that is a non-starter because they mostly will not give out that information. How would you feel if you discovered a toxic chemical storage facility was located 200-300 yards from your child’s school (and think about the blast radius of an ammonia holding facility should it go up in flames)?

You HAVE TO USE YOUR OWN BRAIN!!! Read and talk to and with others who have “rational” thoughts, not siloed bubbles of fellow conspirators. Educate yourselves.

As it is, we still have far too much many people in America who to return to the America of the 30s, 40s and 50s, where a, ahhh, certain race of people had the power.

Please – all Americans who want to see America grow – get out and vote.

And, it is not just some of the Republicans, we have to remove individuals like Joe Manchin of W. Virginia who is playing at some kind of game that only he knows in preventing or slowing down growth.

That old or young; Jewish or Atheist; good looking or not so good-looking person standing next to you – might just be the future President of this country. You never know, you must put your personal biases aside and vote for those who want to do public service work.

May 31, 2020 by gudguy1a

EHT BIZARRO World of Trump in America (& a bit on China & Russia too)

Heads up, this is not short… TL;DR and is meant to be read in chunks (for those wish to read some throttled and seriously restrained comments on the, alleged, deranged and imbecilic president of America)…

(Yes, the title – ‘THE‘ is reversed…)

Part I A Strange America

So. What is happening to America and to democracy around the world? What happened to leadership that is democratic (not talking about the democratic party here)? What happened to civility between individuals of American? What happened to respect and equality?

It should be pretty darn clear there is one clearly obvious nexus point for a great deal of this. All you need to do is look at who is sitting, undeservedly, in the White House… And many of us can guarantee that if the Electoral College had to do it again, they would not vote this person into the White House again (especially when the American people decidedly voted for someone else other than Trump – I believe it was Hillary Clinton, right…).

We live in Bizarro land. Yes, that is correct, we live in a world where the opposite of everything is taking place. If you have been choking on your own bile, every morning, ever since the 2016 Presidential election, there is a good reason for it – the ‘MOST’ wrong person is sitting in the White House.

As a result of who is sitting in the White House, here is a short list of what has been making you choke and gag, every day (likely all day):

Illegal insider trading taking place on the White House grounds (corruption, right?) – and no concern from the president…
We have an American ambassador Pete Hoekstra (Trump’s choice), to the Netherlands disputing his own words (this bullet is about a lack of integrity and honor). Hoekstra had stated in a 2015 conference on terrorism hosted by the right-wing David Horowitz Freedom Center – “The Islamic movement has now gotten to a point where they have put Europe into chaos. Chaos in the Netherlands, there are cars being burnt, there are politicians that are being burnt … and yes there are no-go zones in the Netherlands.” But in a later interview (Dec 2017) with the Dutch current affairs programme Nieuwsuur, Hoekstra stated that content was fake news – even though Nieuwsuur happily rolled the clip from the 2015 interview on air for Hoekstra. And no concern from the president as to how this looks for America, its people and its leaders…
Firing of Inspector Generals for no valid reason, other than they were doing their jobs to stop/prevent illegalities, fraud and other behind the scenes shenanigans – it seems, allegedly, this president has no regard for law and order and the watchdogs looking to remove current and potential corruption and illegalities…
Members of Congress and the Senate who, before this current president was voted in by the Electoral College, called the president to be by various monikers and endlessly mocked the large bodied and clownish person. But ever since this person got into the White House, these same Congressmen and Senators are kowtowing to this president, licking his boots (not literally BUT BLOODY WELL CLOSE) and allowing corruption of the law to take place (such as the emoluments clause where many believe this president is guilty of)
This current inhabitant of the White House relentlessly lambasted Obama for going golfing but look at what is taking place. This occupant of 1600 is going golfing at something like 22% of his time in office (he has reportedly been on the grounds of his golf courses or played golf elsewhere 266 times since becoming President, and that’s as of May 24, 2020), at tax payer expense and at his own country clubs (NOTE: there was no legal divestiture for his business investments/control) – remember how he famously stated in 2016 “I’m not going to have time to go play golf.”
Installing a new State Department secretary gutting the State Dept of most of the seasoned, experience, knowledgeable and respected bureaucrats – then not filling many of those positions. Do you remember that individual, that new secretary was Rex Tillerson… the oil CEO? Tillerson’s focus was not on diplomacy…
The current White House occupant plays down, disregards or ignores calamities that have struck America – remember him throwing toilet paper to people who needed it (in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria) and he believed it to be some sort of game.
What about ensconcing his unqualified children into very senior White House roles – what did they bring to the White House – or rather, what have they achieved that is worthy of talking about (no, not getting licenses in China to sell products) – many labeled these moves as nepotism but were unable to gain any traction on the violation of nepotism laws (we will need a future unbiased federal court to rule on this but that will be a long time out)
Can we talk about the 2018 elimination of the NSC directorate for global health and security and bio-defense that would have handled the CoViD-19 problem in 2020 with speed and efficiency (it was eliminated, allegedly, because it was an Obama creation)
Sheesh, this could continue on for page after page but you get the idea – we really hope so.

We, America, have someone who is supposed to be a world leader, sitting in the White House. Yet, instead of being that leader this individual has instead usurped: leadership, decency, democracy, a global role model status for anyone who wants to grow and be respected and become a leader themselves. (Note: the United States is not used in this paper because we are not a united country – we are more divided than ever before.)

We have people who want to flaunt the old 2^nd Amendment, the right to bear arms. The 2^nd amendment was completely relevant for the militia at the time when the British were prevented from taking over the American colonies in the 1700’s.

Yet today, we have many contemporary individuals today who have gun stashes of upwards of 20, 30 and 50 different weapons (with thousands of rounds) and these folks are not weapons’ collectors. As a former Marine, I actually like weapons as well but I have no need to collect weapons for fear of an invasion. Although, in case our government ever turns dictatorial, arms collection here will become a different endeavor…

But. Who is going to invade America?

Has Russian been building up a secret army just off the coast of our country, but are so well camouflaged that we cannot locate or detect them?
Maybe it is the Chinese with their Communistic world view?
Or even worse, is it the poor hungry desperate immigrants without legal documentation invading America with their unseen deadly weapons?

Today, in 2020, we have a military, along with the National Guard. Neither of these entities were present back in the days of yore.

Do not get me wrong, as a former Marine, if this region I live in allowed weapons, I would buy a few as well – just not 20 – 50 of them or go storming some local state capital flaunting the weapons…

Part II Logic, Strategy and Diplomacy

If decent, logical, serious individuals “STILL” have to continue to convince the American public of the wrong doings or ill-conceived ideas and just bad thought processes of the current president and it is not sinking in – something is wrong with a large percentage of Americans.

We have a president who is, allegedly, illiterate, indecent, corrupt, discriminatory (okay – racist) and who’s IQ, also allegedly, is not in a very decent range of intelligence. Besides lacking leadership skills, this individual also severely lacks any real degree of communication and diplomacy skill sets. If he did, America would not be seen in the light it is across the globe.

This individual cannot string together a sentence that makes any sense. Well, hang on a moment. It may make sense if ‘you’ went to the same high school and college with this person and ‘you’ had the same classes with this person. We have no idea how well this individual did in school at any point.

So, you did not do so great in high school or college or grad school (wait, this person did not go beyond undergrad status) – so what? Grades reflect what one learns up to that point, with or without good teachers or a good educational system. What matters is if you continue to grow and do better after not doing so well at any level. What matters is if you continue to be better in your life.

Forbes magazine put out a story, as well as others, in Feb 28, 2019 where:

Michael Cohen testified to Congress that, under directions from Trump, he sent letters to Trump’s high schools, colleges and the College Board (creator of the SAT),threatening them with legal action and jail time if they ever released Trump’s academic records. Cohen provided a record of one such letter sent to the president of Fordham University, which Trump attended for two years before transferring to complete his undergraduate degree at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. Trump’s high school has confirmed receiving an identical letter, while the University of Pennsylvania and the College Board declined to comment.

What is wrong is wrong… That is not hard to see or to fathom. If someone who is supposed to be a role model states: “Grab ’em by the pussy. You can do anything.” – that is not someone you are supposed to look up to or follow. That is, unless you yourself are amongst the callous, gross, indecent minded imbecilic Cretin of the gutters. There is supposed to be something called, respect for others, no matter who they are. Wait a moment – there’s more. There is also:

decency,
equality,
honesty,
compassion,
empathy,
integrity,
ethics and
non-discrimination and
diversity

Where has all of the above disappeared to from this current administration. It is as if the mass majority of individuals the current president selects and installs into a senior office turns out to be a dishonest, greedy, corrupt individual.

Who in their right mind, in the top role position of the EPA builds a SCIF (a secure office) in their own office, when there is already an existing one, one floor away? Or has him/her chauffeured around in an armored vehicle when the position does not rate such a vehicle. Scott Pruitt wanted a ‘secure’ ‘sound-proof’ phone booth… That position does not require that kind of security.
What about taking private jet rides around the country, at tax payer expense…
What about going shopping on a federal jet, at tax payer expense (this was, allegedly, Mnuchin and his wife back in 2017 – recall Louise Linton’s extravagant and glorious exit and pose from the plane with the bags of purchased goods).
There is so much more that could go here as well and if you did not live and breathe solely in a filter bubble, then you will know that there is more. But if you isolated yourself to a safe zone of like-minded individuals, none of whom dared to grow and venture forth to look at other possibilities, at other avenues – then it is likely you only know one silo or one tunnel vision cone of information. What you believe may be completely wrong. But due to being in that filter bubble, it is difficult to convince you to expand and do better.

Part III The World

What happened to America’s global role of leadership and statesmanship? Again, a certain specific individual is what happened. America has become a laughing stock of and to the world. Our allies are alienated because of this individual. Our leadership on the world stage has eroded horridly to lower levels. It is only through the guts and leadership of certain state governors and mayors and some business leaders and numerous American citizens doing all they can to keep our head and chin up in the world.

As we can see, there are numerous leaders in other countries who want to emulate Trump and the fake news hoopla. And they have been as well as gaining incredible autocratic and dictatorial powers where the citizens of those countries (Philippines, China, Russia, Hungary, Brazil, etc.) are simply screwed and cannot seem to get out of the rut they find themselves in because those leaders have the military to back up any areas that the dictators/autocrats desire.

Look at China

There is no freedom of speech, no freedom of choice there. China forcibly removes freedom at every avenue it can, in order to “preserve the safety of people within its borders and preventing threats to a stable society” in their country from other sources. This is a complete sham and the Chinese citizens are not all aware of it – because of the Chinese leadership’s control of all media and avenues of travel.

You also have to take into consideration that the Chinese leader made himself, ahh, sorry, the Chinese National People’s Congress voted that there be no term limits on the current leader of China. How nice is that – Dictator for Life, sorry – what was meant was, President for life of a country with 1.3+ billion people. This outcome was determined as follows: Two delegates voted against the change and three abstained, out of 2,964 votes. Nice, eh…? Almost a clean sweep.

Remember the Hong Kong citizenry acting to retain its freedom in late 2019 and the Houston Rockets manager Daryl Morey tweeted an image that read “Fight for Freedom. Stand with Hong Kong.” (By the by – EVERYONE should stand with Hong Kong as they lose their right to total freedom; loss of a free press, free speech, free movement, facial recognition surveillance {even more than what we have in America} and become a more communistic country – for those that choose to stay in Hong Kong – many will find some way out of that island country over the next several years – an exodus.) Before he deleted due to comments and stress from various avenues of contention. But – NBA Commissioner Adam Silver finally came around and supports Morey’s right to free speech. Of course, in return, China was appalled and had the gall to come back with:

The Chinese-run television network said it was “strongly dissatisfied” with Silver’s remarks.
“We oppose Silver’s claim to support Morey’s right of free expression. We believe that any speech that challenges national sovereignty and social stability is not within the scope of freedom of speech,” CCTV said in its statement in Chinese, which was translated by CNBC.

In reality, how in the heck can China, a Communistic society (but they really want to be Capitalistic, don’t they…) DARE to say that free expression that challenges ‘anything’ is not within the scope of freedom of speech???!!!! Not when the Chinese government does not allow its own citizenry to any of it. China controls the media. China controls the countries internet access and continues to tweak their ‘Chinese Firewall’ in order to censor everything that travels over the air or via cables.

People are not allowed to talk about leaders in a bad light, as other countries do.
Any word that the Chinese government deems to worthy of censorship is blocked from the internet and not allowed on any media. Here is a fairly good article on “68 Things You Cannot Say on China’s Internet” https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/24/world/asia/china-internet-censorship.html or this other article “In China, you can’t say these words” https://share.america.gov/in-china-you-cant-say-these-words/
Take the Uighur (or Uyghur) situation in the XinJiang region. The Chinese government deems them to be dangerous and has razed many of the Uighur towns to the ground and put the people who once lived there, into camps (imagine something, kind of like a concentration camp – just not as horrific). Yet the Chinese calls them re-education camps where the Uighurs are required to shave their beards, removing that identity aspect. All movement is controlled by surveillance cameras (everywhere in Uighur inhabited areas, not just the camps) and identities. Uighurs are not even allowed to have certain tools because they could be construed as weapons. The Chinese have even gone so far as to engrave certain cutting tools with the owner’s identities on the tool AND then are required to check it out and return it like a library book (complete control of those tools) – controlled by the police.
People of China face public shaming for spitting in the streets (it can be caught on camera and put up on a large billboard – live video) – but wait, it does not end there. The citizens can be assessed points in the Chinese “Social Point System”, which started in 2014. It is about regulating individual and group behavior for activities such as: bad driving, smoking in non-smoking areas, not paying bills on time, spending too much on video games. Now, if you acquire too many points, you can be: banned from flying or catching a train; banned from luxury options (like 1^st class seats); throttling internet speeds; being banned from the best schools (including your children). Think about that kind of restriction in the western world.
China wants to own the SCS (South China Seas) instead of sharing, stating that territorial waters belongs to China and not shared amongst, the Philippines, Taiwan, Malaysia, Indonesia, South Korea, and says, basically that
- there is no ‘freedom of navigation’ in that area to foreign military/navies
- and going as far as building man-made islands and militarizing them to support the Chinese claim, even though the Hague is on the side of the Philippines as to the waterways is not owned by China

So, for a leader of one country to put their Big Brother restrictions on citizens of another country and expect other nations to kowtow “their own” draconian methods of “lack of freedom of speech” or “lack of freedom of action” – what does that does mean, hmmm…?

How can the leader of a country with all these restrictions say they have a stable society when the society is controlled by the government and military?

The people:

do not have any true freedom
cannot congregate
cannot vote bad leaders out either (so it seems)

What do you believe, does China have a ‘stable society’ or that free speech threatens another country’s national sovereignty?

Chinese citizens will never see this paper within the borders of China because of the content of this paper.

Russian president – Putin. What can you make of this other president for life? He basically owns Russia and the people are somewhat locked into a state of hopelessness and are unable to do anything. It is somewhat hard to figure out how the people just do not create a national up-rising force Putin out, so we will not see that happen.

But how does a country’s President become a billionaire? It has been reported by several sources, one of which is the CIA that Putin has anywhere from $70 – $200 billion stashed away – yes, BILLION. Reportedly, he is at the $22 Billion mark. How does that happen, legally?

And do not get your hopes up to run against Putin because competition against him appear to have bad josh, bad luck. They die. They get poisoned. They gain criminal charges and if you have criminal charges in Russia, you cannot run for top offices, so they say. And let’s not forget the military and the underworld henchmen who just might, out of their love for Putin (yeah, right) take out the competition and it then becomes complete deniability for Putin and his party.

There is just so much more to be said about Putin, Xi, Maduro (Venezuela), János Áder (Hungary), Duterte (Philippines) and even more about Trump.

But where do we go from here? How do we do it? Well, education is one of the first steps – educating everyone and allowing everyone to vote is a second step. Ensuring EQUALITY is flat out the foundation and cornerstone of EVERYTHING from henceforth! We all have to do better, not just in America but around the globe.

At the same time, we have to prevent other countries from interfering our countries elections. We have to prevent fake news from gaining ground (yes, the real fake news where there is no basis in reality and not ‘alternate facts’ as Kellyanne Conway stated it), while at the same time barring harmful and dangerous conspiracy individuals/groups.

All we can do is – TRY.

Be better than others and lift them up in turn. Stop stepping on the backs of others just so you can put your face in the spotlight. Just do the right thing. Most of all, it takes courage – courage to stand up and be counted and help make everyone accountable. Take U, she is a child and look at what she has accomplished and it was not out of wanting to be in the spotlight, it was due to making people aware that the world has to change regarding climate change.

But, individuals like the one in the White House, he has no courage whatsoever. He does not stand up for inequality. He does not stand up with empathy for those going through disastrous changes in their lives. He for sure does not have the courage to stand up and face America’s lack of true justice.

The American president does even have the backbone and courage to stand up and fight, internationally and collaboratively on CoViD-19 instead of finger-pointing. What individual in their right mind cuts out the World Health Organization and throttles the CDC…?

And not least, where is the courage to stand up against Police injustice in America, specifically against Brown, Yellow and Black people of this country…

But he does have an affinity, allegedly, for reneging on promises, greed and alleged corruption (*Ask the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York back back in 1979-1980 about Trump’s promise to give them the Bonwit Teller’s sculpture.)

We have to ensure respect, diversity, non-discrimination and equality are the bedrock of this country – maybe then we will actually be a United States.

*Bonwit Teller and the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Bonwit Teller closed its flagship store in 1979 and sold the property for $15 million to a Long Island real estate developer. Despite his plans to demolish the old Bonwit Teller building, the buyer promised to preserve the Deco grillwork and bas reliefs at the request of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The buyer was none other than Donald Trump. In 1980, Trump demolished Warren & Westmore’s elegant Art Deco emporium to make way for his $100 million Trump Tower. In what became a sadly typical turn of events, Trump cut corners everywhere he could and bullied those who stood in his way. To pour the foundations, Trump enlisted S&A Concrete, a known mob front for Paul Castellano and “Fat Tony” Salerno. He paid 200 illegal Polish immigrants as little as $4 an hour to work 12-hour days, 7 days a week. The so-called “Polish Brigade” worked without benefits, hard hats, and sometimes even homes – during the 1980 transit strike, many were forced to sleep at the construction site. Then there were the lawsuits. He sued the city for a tax abatement on the property. He sued one contractor for “total incompetence” and threatened to sue a labor lawyer for $100 million.

The reasoning:

John Baron, a spokesman for the Trump Organization—who, the New York Daily News discovered, turned out to be Donald Trump himself in disguise—told the Times that “the merit of these stones was not great enough to justify the effort to save them.” He said it would have cost $32,000 to remove the sculptures and cited appraisals by three independent appraisers that found them to be “without artistic merit” and worth less than $9,000. Their removal, he said, would also have delayed demolition work by at least a week and a half. (Trump, as himself, later estimated the cost of preserving the panels at $500,000.)

October 6, 2018 by gudguy1a

The Voices of Women – Meaningless? And the Erosion of Democracy…

Apologies to the length of this writing (this is TL;DR for some) but Trump, Kavanaugh, McConnell, Flake, Collins, Hatch, Graham, Manchin and injustice is making life, well, Topsy-turvy to be polite…

Well. It appears that the voices of women mean nothing where it is most important – in sexual assaults (and in every day life to be fair). Even if an event happened 30+ years ago, the voice and statements of a woman are still important.

As of today, Saturday – Oct 6, 2018, America has voted onto the Supreme Court an individual with more divisiveness; with a more controversial background than Clarence Thomas had.

I’m a guy and what women say IS important, always!

That is, until it is proven it is not true. But, where it is ambiguous and no concrete evidence can be found, many of us will side with the woman – not just give lip service and say ‘we believe her’ as certain members of Congress have done (so the congressional members can retain their positions of power in their home state/district). What a woman says can make a difference. In many of the sexual assaults it is primarily a crime not witnessed by others and that is why the victim does not come forth and the guy gets away with it. (Sometimes, sometimes, yes indeed – there are women who also commit sexual assaults, it is just not that many.) And Trump – making an outlandish tweet that young men should be scared is ridiculous. No young men should be assaulting women in the first place (that goes for older men as well).

In America, or rather parts of America – certain Americans have decided that a man with a blemished background and temperament can be put into a position of significant influence and power. Certain Americans have placed an individual with what appears to be a highly tainted past onto the highest court, a court which now will be looked at for every decision it makes for the next 30 years with a jaundiced eye.

All because an individual who was put into the White House due to many electoral college members deciding that this person was the best choice for America in 2016. Trump.

If this Supreme Court vote turned your stomach, you had best “get your butt off the couch and go vote” in the NEXT SEVERAL voting turnouts, for the next couple of decades! The mid-terms, primaries, all of them. This will be the only way to restore some semblance of sanity to America.

Because if you do not, we, America, will be doomed and damned! Are you one of the people looking to return to the ‘Dark Days’ of yesterday when only the males of one race had the power to lord over everyone else of a different color and all women? Do you really want to return to the days of suppression and repression…?

More and more pieces of democracy (not talking about the democratic party here, just democracy) will be chipped away as they are being done today. More “socialist” programs will be lost for years, if not decades until we can return to the path of growth and equality that we were on until Trump was put into the White House. And what I mean by socialist programs are:

fire departments (think you don’t need this socialist program when your home catches fire)
libraries (not everyone has high speed internet or even computers at home)
police departments (what happens when your local police department is gone and you need law enforcement)
schools (everyone needs to seriously consider removing Betsy D. from the dept of education…)
hospitals
social security (what are you going to do when you are older and have no money to rely on)
should I go on….?

Socialist programs, today, in 2018, are meant to help everyone, not just the poor and downtrodden – the programs are meant to make the lives of everyone easier, better and safer.

This is how Hitler grew into power. Think about that – think long and hard – do your ‘own’ thinking. Over several years, Hitler and the people around him whittled away at more and more programs until they gained power – a vise grip on EVERYTHING! (There are some who say this erosion actually started right before Hitler came into the picture – but we all know for fact, Hitler destroyed democracy in Germany.) And what was the result of that, guess! Extermination of massive numbers of the Jewish race, in multiple countries (Poland, Germany, France, Austria and more). The Holocaust was the ultimate disgrace to democracy. Things started out small in Germany and many of the Germanic race were happy and fine that Hitler was looking out for them. Hitler was going to “Make Germany Great Again!” But then when it was too late to do anything, such as removing Hitler, Himmler, Goering and others of the SS and the Nazi party – it was far, far too late.

Now, this is not saying Trump is a Nazi but – he is providing a helping hand in the destruction of the American way of life and all of its democracies. Trump has enabled the worse of the worst to come forth (recall the nighttime ‘Tiki Torch’ parade). Trump has unleashed the hounds of hell, to put it mildly, to come out of the wood-works and raise pure hell. Look at:

early February 2017 where the House and Senate voted to repeal the so-called “stream protection rule”- Coal companies now have a freer hand in dumping mining pollutants into streams
the white nationalist rally incident in Charlottesville, VA where Heather Heyer was killed
Chris Collins and his insider trading on the lawn of the White House – how brazen was that?
Many of the cabinet members Trump installed and the self-aggrandizement these individuals did while in power – sound-proof phone booth in his office (guess who that was);
Expensive furniture, what was it, ~$31,000 for his office – you know who this was, the man qualified to run HUD because he grew up in the projects (I grew up in the projects too)…
Zinke of the Interior Department and his sell off of federal lands
The black protestor who was sucker-punched by a white man in the stands at a Trump rally in Fayetteville (and trump said he would pay the legal fees for the puncher)
we could go on and on with this list…

The point is, if Americans do not come to their senses and stop this extreme political partisanship, we will continue going down the rabbit hole of more:

hate crimes – racially & religiously motivated
individuals like Michael Gerard Grimm, former congressman & former FBI, who threatened to throw a reporter off the balcony – a reporter who was doing his job (after his prison term for that, Grimm had the audacity to try running again for public office)
corruption – how can people follow the law when the law makers and peace keepers are the ones causing this corruption and excess to continue – so they can feel powerful and make money in many cases for doing so
erosion of public lands for corporate revenue – oil exploitation, so that oil companies can continue to make large pools of revenue before the clean energy wave really kicks in and fossil fuel use will be a money pit
inequalities – women and racial – women and those of different skin colors doing the same job as men of a certain color “SHOULD BE PAID EQUALLY” for doing the same job
anti-discrimination against new immigrants to America – and we all know this is how America started
to name a few….

What do we need to do people? You all have to use your head and think!!!!

You have to perform research and think and talk about your actions before you do them! You cannot just listen to unqualified individuals who spout hate and conspiracy theories. You must do your own thinking, it is what makes you “you”!

So, what are you thinking? Are you thinking things in the political environment are going in the right direction?

Are you thinking Trump is making America great – when he raises tariffs, the ultimate cost is on you, the American citizen because you will be the one paying more for the products with the tariffs.

Do you think the tax cut he instituted was wonderful? Well – continue thinking about that when your local services (any or all of them) are cut or eliminated due to your city budget does not have enough revenue – ‘because of that tax cut’.

What about clean air and clean water? Think your kids are going to be able to run around as you did years ago but now the air and water are more polluted (remember, the coal mine dumping above and the Trump administrations’ attempt to relax car emissions letting car makers off the hook…)

Use your brains. Think about the future. You cannot just think about yourself because you do not like gays or dark skinned people. You cannot say “hey, my religion is the foremost important thing in the world” when other people believe in a different religion. Do not make a mistake, as an American and a global citizen – I. DO. NOT. WANT Sharia Law anywhere near America.

Ultimately, what is being stated here is that Americans need to be better.

Give women their voices – it is hard enough to come forward publicly as it is
Think about unity, amongst all Americans (i.e. why do we still have Sundown towns in parts of America? Why do we still have so many skinhead/white nationalist/white supremacist groups around the country?)

Because America has to come together again and be a “United States” and grow stronger and be better as a country for itself. As well as in the face of rising problems with:

Russia’s Putin doing the meddling he is doing globally and
China doing what they are doing – attempting to force people / countries to kowtow to them; giving China hemispheric power to do what they wish, such as build man-made islands in the South China Seas and claim more of the region as belonging to them (we could discuss the Uighurs and the police state they are living under as well as the great firewall of China as well as internet and public censorship so the Chinese citizens have no voice and are unable to vote politicians out of power – these are big stories on their own…)

We are losing the luster of being a world leader because we do not have any serious diplomatic power. Who do we have that is a shining star in the world of diplomacy? Our ‘leader’ in the White House is not one who has great powers of diplomacy. He is continually causing America to devolve into a laughing stock of the world every time he utters a sentence or disseminates a tweet.

We are a country where it is now up to the states to institute clean air and clean water and equality for all. That is, those states with a forward looking mindset for the next 10 – 30 years…

June 12, 2017 by gudguy1a

Part 2 – Donald Trump: Taking America Backwards & Laughing Stock…. Very Sad

Continued from Part 1 @ https://patrick642nu.wordpress.com/2017/06/04/part-1-donald-trump-taking-america-backwards-laughing-stock-very-sad/

Medical Care – Universal Health Care[1]

For decades, there have been individuals who wanted to put something like Universal Health Care (UHC) into play, people such as; Theodore (Teddy) Roosevelt (1901-1909), FDR (1935 & 1939), Harry S. Truman in 1949 as part of the Fair Deal to our last president (Obama). You can also check Wikipedia[2] if you wish but do your own reading and thoughtful introspection.

So, what’s the big deal about UHC, our future – that is what is at stake? At stake is a future of healthier individuals, across the country. It is a future where costs will actually be lower because early care will preclude major medical disasters later and there will be no monstrous medical bills to be picked up by the families involved and tax payers due to an escalation of emergency room visits…

My thoughts on what these past presidents and current UHC (or Affordable Care) leaders thinking is that we need to cover everyone to bring down emergency room visits; to bring down the costs of catastrophic medical situations so that down the road, we Americans, will not have such significant numbers of people across the country without coverage. We would have in the future, a greatly reduced number of Americans without serious medical problems because the medical problems would have been caught very early in life and prevented. And the problems would have been prevented at a significantly fraction of the cost, instead of letting it go festering on for decades, with each year seeing more of that families (and tax payers – think emergency rooms) money going down the drain when it could have been prevented due to long-term thinkers who have been trying to get UHC instilled into the American psyche.

Just imagine more people:

With healthy looking teeth so they can go and gain better jobs instead of being automatically assigned as a person of low income and low intellect and passed over for someone else who simply looks better
Walking around on healthy legs or prostheses instead of a stump and a crutch(es) or obsolete decrepit wheel chair
With the ability to see rather than being blinded due to malnutrition or bad school lunch plans and more

Do you not believe UHC would better everyone? Okay, think about an event occurring where you lose your high paying job and you were the primary bread winner with a great insurance plan. Well, your plan is gone and you suddenly find yourself in a medical catastrophic situation and it is going to be hugely expensive. What are you going to do? Bemoan the fact that you have UHC at that point.

Grow up people, stop thinking about yourselves because you have a better life – think about others out there who are not as fortunate as you.

Wouldn’t you want to see:

Every American in this country reaping the benefits of great health care 10 years from now? {That 10 year number is only an educated guess as to we could start seeing better health care efficacy…}
A dramatic reduction of emergency room visits 10 years from now, while at the same time – a significant reduction of tax payers paying for so many unnecessary ER visits?
No more prohibitively expensive and labor sapping hospital visits 10 years from now because preventive UHC took care of problems before they exploded into the problems they are today?

We can do that!!!! But we have to agree to do this now, as a country. We cannot just provide UHC for the elite and better paid Americans and continue arguing and kicking this can down the road, EVERY SINGLE BLOODY YEAR as we are doing now!!!! We can change that paradigm!

Laughing Stock?

Back to the U.S. becoming the laughing stock country. Is that true, what do you think? Remember, do your own research and analysis; do not rely solely on news folks (TV or radio), or talk shows, or conspiracy theorists and only your inner circle – expand your horizons.

Why can’t the U.S. spend more money, evenly, on all levels of education to ratchet up the education and knowledge of American students? Why can’t the U.S. be like Canada, Great Britain and Germany[3]? Education goes a long way in making for a better citizenry… And we, the U.S., we need to do better if we want to be ‘the’ world leader – we need better education to get there. Check out a Pew article[4] for some info on where we stand.

What about international diplomacy? You too must think this is a laughing stock situation, right? Look at the current secretary of state, Tillerson – a person who does not grant interviews and press conferences. He wants to do mostly behind the scene affairs. Do you believe that is an open and transparent way to handle diplomacy, not sharing information with the country he represents?

Oh wait-a-minute that does not really matter. Our president and OMB person (Mick Mulvaney) want to cut the budget for State Department and USAID because we do not require or need this kind of effort around the world. Surely you believe this is laughable too… Right?

What about cleaner air, well, no? Apparently we not require or need this either. Our latest president and EPA head seem to believe their own knowledge on climate change and disregard what scientists who have been studying this for years. We should let companies dump waste in rivers and pollute the air, sure why not…? That is quite laughable, the president and EPA head that is, oh and include Bannon in that lot.

What about all the extraordinarily significant amount of time the U.S. is spending on the current president, his family, inner circle of administration officials and business cronies staying at Mar-a-Lago and at Trump Tower? Do you not believe this is laughable enough? Why yes, it is. The U.S. is spending far too much time on illicit activities, ummm – excuse me, alleged illicit activities. And we are spending far too much money on all of this as a result.

And the end result is that, most of the other hard stuff is not getting accomplished. Here are some of the things not getting done like; infrastructure (roads, bridges, dams, levees, power grid, water, etc.) across the country, all of which need attention. Then there is the tax reform; there is equality in the work place which needs more attention.

Take a look at the rampant, vitriolic, unvarnished display of outright racism being displayed across this once great nation. This is worse than when the last president was in office. And remember, that last president did not spew nonsense and idiotic content such as “knock ‘em out,” or “grab ‘em by the p_ _ _ y” or even using 7^th grade language for that matter – sometimes, just sometimes, using ‘plain spoken language’ can mean talking down to someone and insult that person’s intelligence….

What is going on? What is happening to this once great country? Why are so many people willing to condone this current president? Why condone someone who continues to willingly lie to the country, to the world – on multiple topics? And many people were (and are still) willing to continue listening to and believe in this individual even though what this current president promised will never happen again (think coal and massive manual manufacturing)…

More people in this country need to start thinking of each other, no matter their race, religion, age, gender, sexual preferences or what part of the country they live in. We are all here together, right now. Look at each other, deeply look at each other and consider the travels and hardship they may have endured to get to where they are now (of course I’m talking about honest, hard work and legal efforts). And remember that no matter whom you see in front of you, or whether they live 2,500 miles away, that other person may be smarter than you and have better cognitive skills than you. These are people who are walking around right now – with or without:

a college degree (that other person who ‘looks’ unintelligent may hold several degrees including a doctorate for all that you are aware)
a family trust fund
the best looks
the best smile or
the best speech abilities / speaking mannerisms.

So take note, that other person just may be a better person than you – rich or poor though they may be…

[1] “A Brief History: Universal Health Care Efforts in the US,” 1999, www.pnhp.org/facts/a-brief-history-universal-health-care-efforts-in-the-us

[2] “History of health care reform in the U.S.,” retrieved June 3, 2017, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_health_care_reform_in_the_United_States

[3] “Best Countries for Education,” March 7, 2017, https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/best-education

[4] “U.S. students’ academic achievement still lags that of their peers in many other countries,” February 15, 2017, www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/02/15/u-s-students-internationally-math-science/

June 4, 2017 by gudguy1a

Part 1 – Donald Trump: Taking America Backwards & Laughing Stock…. Very Sad

Part 2 continues @ https://patrick642nu.wordpress.com/2017/06/12/part-2-donald-trump-taking-america-backwards-laughing-stock-very-sad/

To Be An American

Let’s be clear up front here. If you wish to live in America and/or become an American, you have to follow the laws, rules and regulations in place to ensure we are all adhering to a basic foundation of governance. (Meaning = you’re not doing anything illegal or trying to take advantage of the system.)

It does not matter if you are a green card immigrant living in New Jersey or Dearborn, MI. It does not matter if you are a Militia member in Montana or Utah. It does not matter if you are a Sovereign Citizen. Nor does it matter if you are a citizen in Houston.

What matters to all of us is – we all must follow the rules. No one can live in this country and dictate their own set of rules such as:

“Well, we have been letting our cattle graze public lands without paying access fees, why should we start or continue to do so, it is public land.” Or,
“We are not going to pay taxes to the government – we have our own currency and we have our own laws.” Or,
“We have a right to bear arms, as they did in the early days of this country when there was no adequate military or police force to protect us.” Or,
“We come to America to live, to live in a country of freedom and democracy but oh, by the way, we are going to continue following our own religious laws (i.e. ‘Sharia’ and ‘Honor Killings’) and we will not work too hard on assimilating into the American culture. By the way, we want you to respect our religious tenets and cultural laws.” Or,
“Our town, yes, we are a Sundown town and we only want our kind, our race here, so, if you’re not our race and here after dark, you might want to think twice about staying the night.”

This cannot be the way of America. WE have to become the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA and in doing so, we must come together. We are supposed to be a progressive country, not devolving into olden days, days of cowboys and Indians when people of any color as well as women were treated as second class citizens. Think about Native Americans, Chinese who were forced into doing manual labor on the railroads and elsewhere and yes, even malicious treatment of Jews and Poles and other immigrants who came to America.

Think about the course of history surrounding women denied equality (and we are still not there yet on this point).

When anyone moves to America to become a citizen and pledges allegiance to America, you are bound to accept and follow the American way of life and its culture. This is not to supplant the culture, customs and traditions you bring with you but in addition. One cannot move to a new country and impose your homeland’s laws, views and aspects onto those citizens of your newly adopted country. If one does not wish to accept the new country’s laws, views, culture, traditions and all the rest, well, maybe you should return to your own country.

Reverse mode – U.S.A.?

What is going on? Are we, the American people, really going to permit this evolution of “going backwards” to continue to pick up steam?

First, remember, this current U.S. administration was not elected by the American people. The Electoral College, via whatever machination they employed, selected this current president, even though the overall number of votes was not for him.

Second, this paper is not aimed at any party in particular. It does not matter if you are liberal, conservative, independent, green party or libertarian, we are all in the same boat, floundering because of who was put in the White House.

Thirdly, this president has made the claim that he does not want foreign leaders and countries laughing at the U.S. Well, it is a tad late for that. We have become, well, on the straight and narrow in becoming the laughing stock of the world. Our fortunes are falling, from world leader to falling in line with Syria and Nicaragua (climate change).

What are you Watching & Listening to…?

Another significant thing to keep in mind, something I always ensure that everyone understands;

“No, you do not have to believe me.”

The reason I say that particular phrase is because I want you, and everyone else, to do some of your own research. Reach out to different news outlets – “do not stay in your own comfort zone, listening to the same individuals or groups of individuals.” This is because it is a dooming cycle to remain in; you only hear the same content from the same people and you start becoming brain washed by listening to the same regurgitated content from the same types of sources. Do not take the following in a spate of anger but it is like being raised from birth in the church (any religion, pick one – from Catholicism to Wahhabism). All you hear is religion until you start acquiring more areas of knowledge and start doing your own concentrated thinking and determine your own line of reasoning as to what is what – B.C./A.D. or B.C.E/C.E.

Watch and listen to other men and women on different news channels, network and cable; listen to different radio stations on FM, AM and satellite; watch or listen to news in local, national and foreign (to see how the American news comes across) news outlets; read different newspaper sources. The point is, listen to and watch different sources, do not get trapped in listening to only the folks around you or only your favorite news person – you simply must, absolutely must expand your horizon.

Then, do your own reasoning and thinking to make your own conclusions. You cannot just listen to someone, no matter how rich or famous (or how loud) they are, the onus is on you to make your own generalizations. You have to look down the road into the future to see what the possible consequences of your present decisions will engender. This is where the scenarios of; “if I make this choice, then this will happen” come into play. For non-computer folks, this is a primary programming aspect, the “if – then” statement.

You must remember, even if you believe you are the center of the universe, you have to consider what your decisions mean for jeopardizing the future of others. You must instill a better substitute to staring at your belly button; it is solely your fault in focusing in only on one source of news, such as Tweets that come out at 4am.

Leadership – Knowledge or Ulterior Motives…?

Here, let’s take a look at some of the individuals the current U.S. president wanted in office. Individuals that supposedly want to help the current president ‘make america great again.’

Scott Pruitt, here is a man that sued, or at least attempted to, the EPA multiple times as a businessman. Since taking over as the EPA Administrator, he has had the EPA web site scrubbed of all real scientific evidence relating to climate change or global warming. Does that sound like something a reasonably sound person of any decent level of intellect would do?

Betsy DeVos, a woman who wishes to bring charter schools to all states. This is a woman who made the unintelligent statement on HBCUs[1]. “DeVos said HBCUs “are living proof that when more options are provided to students, they are afforded greater access and greater quality”. “HBCUs are real pioneers when it comes to school choice,” the statement said.”

HBCUs were somewhat the only choices Blacks had to go to…

DeVos wants to help break down the national common core. This is a point that many people continue to contest, they believe it is too difficult and unachievable and that each state should have their own standard of education. Here is the problem. If the states maintained their own standards, we are going to go in reverse, again. Some states will have better standards of education while others will have very poor standards. Humor me, just imagine, if you are a parent and you were relocating for better opportunities – would you:

Go to a state that has poor standards and are near the bottom of the nation – i.e. these could be states in the mid-west and south or
States like California or New York with better standards where your children will have a much more guaranteed chance for success

Mull that over and see if you still want a willy-nilly set of mish-mash standards across the country, or a common, tougher, standard…. If you move from a state with poor standards to a state with excellent standards, your children will suffer the educational cost of catching up, meaning they may be placed in remedial classes… Education is not necessarily meant to be easy, such as all 2nd graders getting a trophy for 1st place.

Tom Price, here is another person with less than excellent standards. He wants to be a key player in getting rid of Planned Parenthood, an entity that is instrumental in many families around the country, an entity that is not solely aimed at abortions. Do we want our country to return to unplanned pregnancies and back alley abortions of the 70s? This is a person who made dubious gains in money in the stock market from insider trading, sorry, making money on various investments due to congressional bills he sponsored and voted on.

Mick Mulvaney, I do not know what to say here. Is this a real person and is he really qualified to head up the OMB? Look at what he is proposing in making budget cuts for the Affordable Care Act, he wants to cut out big chunks and state that it really will not affect those who are covered.

Ben Carson, – okay, this is a real winner. He himself said that he was qualified to head up HUD because he lived in the projects at one time. Hmmm, not sure how to take that statement? Good? Bad? What?

Steve Bannon, do we want Bannon to stay in the administration now that nearly everyone in the country knows what Breitbart is about and Bannon’s mindset while he was running the company (and likely still running that “news” outlet)? This is a mindset that is not fit for the majority of Americans.

I could go on with many, many more of trumps’ selections he put in place for our administration but I just do not have the time or patience right now…

Divisive Country, Yes! United, No!

We started seeing an uptick in negative relationships across the board when our last president (good old Barack) was elected. This was most likely because he is not white, which was/is a huge problem for many people across the 50 states (and we may have this issue when {not if} a women is elected). I did not include ‘united’ because we are not a truly united states.

Evil content, divisive content started pouring out. Militias grew in numbers, even the KKK {a.k.a. 88} started growing again and who truly wants to deal with something like the KKK in this point in our history. Now, look at all the evil hearted content that used to be dying down (or so we thought) and/or covert. The current president seemed to have opened the flood gates for racial hatred, ignorance and flat out bigotry to flow. We have much more public evilness on display in all areas of our lives now. People (white) walking up to parked cars, if the driver appears to be Muslim, and creating a scene full of diatribes. People (white) in grocery stores telling (or yelling and cursing) Muslim appearing people to get out of the U.S. and go home because there is no Muslim in the White House anymore… Recall the recent bus scene where two men were stabbed to death and another wounded because they were trying to step in and stop a guy who was clearly (allegedly) out of his mind in verbally accosting two Muslim young women.

We are back to blatant racism and it is no longer covert, it much more overt. The expansion of public racism, we can safely presume, right, sprang from the election campaign of Donald Trump. Take that infamous rally where Trump stated, “knock him out” where a person (a white guy) sucker punched a black guy in the stands – and Trump stated later for all to hear that he would cover any legal charges (yeah, right).

Trump’s outrageous manner of speech, his “plain spoken” talk and ill-mannered behavior (remember grabbing women by their ‘p _ _ _ _ _ s’ – never, NEVER forget that one) allowed many other ill-mannered, poorly behaved, ignorant individuals around the country to come forth to talk and act as if that style of behavior was acceptable. It is not! Racism continues to roar its ugly head as it ratchets up in the public, overt hemisphere around the country. This is partly to blame on the current president in the white house and a sizeable number of individuals surrounding him.

State of Affairs…?

Well, our government wants to relax fuel and emission standards for auto manufacturers instead of being stricter in what vehicles pump into the air (I used to run in L.A. and got sicker and sicker every winter due to smog – I bought a Nordic Track runner instead of running outside and within a year I was healthy again). And gaining better mileage is what everyone who drives a car or truck wants but no, our government believes this is too arduous of a manufacturing goal and hurts profits. Let me help you digest that a bit – profits over health, think about it.

Allowing the dumping of waste into rivers – in what universe is this okay? Who desires possibly toxic waste to seep into ground water tables and spread laterally? Do you want some factories waste content in your water system – remember, when storms cause waste water facilities to overflow, that contaminated water is likely going to end up in a neighborhood near you – if not directly in yours…

Relaxation of emission standards for factories, this is the direction our government to help businesses in also. Let them pump out less clean waste into the atmosphere. Is this lunacy to anyone besides me?

Climate change, possible move to more coal usage and pollution – recall that there is no clean coal solution yet. And no, you cannot continue to blame countries like China. China is shutting down coal plants and stopping production of more coal plants (China is in its 3^rd year in a row of reduced coal consumption). Between 2015 when China was still going full bore on coal, the rise of pollution throughout the country has given the country pause to move away from coal to cleaner energy alternatives. Remember, do some research on your own.

We, America, by this point in time in history should have stamped out a massive chunk (yes, good word to use here) of racism and excised it from our ‘progressive’ path forward. But, we did not. Many people still believe that only one color matters and anyone else of a different tint or hue does not belong in America. Too bad these individuals have not gone out and had a DNA test done to see what their racial/genetic makeup is composed of. Take a look at a white cop[2] in Hastings, MI who did so and discovered he has Black blood in his genetic makeup (yes, he started being on the racist end of multiple comments and situations). Ancestry.com said he was 18% black. Hastings is 97 percent white… So, take a wild guess at how many KKK or Militia members have a genetic makeup much less than that Hitlerish (88) goal of being 100% pure, of any race. And you might be right… Unfortunately, it will be a long time before we discover that kind of info. But, we are too far on the path of evolution for that many people to be 100% pure blood.

Coming together ‘only’ for holidays like Memorial Day, the 4^th of July or in times of disaster should be shameful for everyone. The time to come together is all year long, every single day. We should have everyone’s back and to be there for them when a hurricane comes their way; or when a plumbing flood snafu occurs at home; or when a neighbors’ kid is bullied because that bullied kid is gay or autistic – these everyday events are when everyone must come together, not just on some event like Rolling Thunder crossing over Memorial Bridge.

Does the above not cause a glimmer or spark of outage in your brain cells in realizing (for those of you out there who are truly thinking this through) that we are becoming a laughing stock in the world? It is not due to the American citizenry, or rather, not the majority of Americans, but to the current leadership in place…

Enough for now, I will add more to this fall from grace saga where America is becoming a laughing stock due to our current president…

[1] Historically Black Colleges And Universities

[2] “White Michigan Cop Files Racism Lawsuit After Ancestry.Com Revealed He’s Part Black,” May 10, 2017, http://www.newsweek.com/white-cop-sues-michigan-city-racism-after-ancestrycom-revealed-hes-part-black-607004

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