CONTROL! China CCP = American Conservative GOP

The thought just hit me and reminded me of a story in the NYT, (China May Ban Clothes That Hurt People’s Feelings. People Are Outraged) back in September. Please be aware, this piece will take a bit of time to read – 5 pages in Word.

Note: USA is not used because we are not a united country, we are a divided country that will continue to be so until more Americans in the conservative grouping wake up and see that we are in the 21^st century and no longer in the 20^th (or 19^th) century… And coming together ‘only’ in times of turmoil and disasters is not how we should be coming together. We should be together – all the time. It only makes us stronger…

CHINA

Xi JinPing and the Chinese CCP want to control everything and everyone that is Chinese and everywhere near the Chinese borders… Or even those Chinese citizens who are living and working in other countries such as America — listen for and check out information regarding illegal secret Chinese Police Stations located here and there around the globe who’s purported reason for being is to assist those Chinese who need passport assistance…

It reminds me of how the American GOP want to control Americans. Yes, they do. Abortions anyone – does that ring a bell – set off an alarm maybe…?

There are so many American conservatives here in our country, TODAY, that wants EVERYONE to return to a backwards period of time where:

• Women are secondhand parties, chattel if you will. And yet, there are many women who simply do not seem to see that and still continue to back conservative political parties. It was not that long ago when women started to get on the road to equality and their fair share of everything in life – especially free will. The suffragist platform fought long and hard to get into making the voices of women heard.
  • Or, these women want to return to that “simple” life where the men control everything…
• People of non-white genetic makeup are secondhand as well, where, again, not long ago – folks all over America of a non-white color had no voice, no equality, no power.
  • And again, here, we have so many people of color who seem not to notice that they are not wanted as equals to many of these conservatives…
• If you were gay (imagine being transgender), you would likely be killed because the conservatives in power did not want what they call abnormal. Ask Mike Johnson, new speaker of the house about abnormal individuals…. Here is something, from Johnson for you to read: Speaker Mike Johnson wanted to criminalize sodomy & called gay marriage the “harbinger of chaos”
  • He also said that gay people should not be a protected class because they “are capable of changing their abnormal lifestyles.”
• Folks who wear nose rings or die their hair a brilliant green or blue are looked down upon as an affront to the conservative “American looks”.

AMERICA

Oh yeah, I could keep going but everyone in America should already know about these areas and many others.

Right now, we have a national crisis on Abortion where, thanks to Trump packing the Supreme Court with three members who explicitly lied to the Senate / Judiciary on this very topic. These three members, they were the primary reason Roe v Wade was overturned, let there be no doubt about that – of course they had help from Alito and Thomas as well.

Many political conservative GOP members want to put in place; 15-week bans, 6 week bans or complete bans with no exceptions to the woman carrying the fetus nor pay any regard to the age of the woman who was raped by a relative or a criminal – “12-Year-Old Incest Victims Should Birth Dad’s Child, House Speaker Gunn Says” – Mississippi, Jun 29, 2022

• “Mississippi House Speaker Philip Gunn says abortion should be illegal even for a 12-year-old rape victim carrying her father or uncle’s child. He made the remark to reporters in the hours after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, allowing state abortion bans to take effect.”  

CHINA

• nose rings
• dyed hair jobs
• pants with holes in the knees
• flamboyant, flashy trendy clothing that individuals like and want to wear
• women wearing shaved heads, on the sides (or one side)
• anyone showing tattoos on TV
• folks wearing costumes in public, as in Cosplay in America
• wearing clothing styles from another country (i.e.: Japanese Kimonos)
• wearing gay pride colors

Xi JinPing wants the Chinese citizen to continue looking like the same, every day, conservative with no room for looking different (or better). Xi wants Chinese to appear in public without:

Xi wants to control the Chinese citizen to where the citizens appear in line with the Chinese CCP, looking alike without deviation of any kind. Everyone in China should be part of a cookie cutter mold with no room for personalization – no afros, no long hair (mainly men), no stylized haircuts. Kind of like getting the Chinese citizens to become more like N. Korean citizens, maybe, hmmm….

AMERICA

Those kinds of things listed above are somewhat like many conservative political members (and ‘many’ conservative American citizens) want all Americans to be like. Not to be out of line with American conservative values – not to be different from the conservative brand.

Conservatives want Americans to believe in “THEIR” God and not believe in anything else, such as:

• Atheism
• Islamic beliefs
• Jewish beliefs (not sure on this one, as there are a lot of Jewish conservatives)
• Humanist beliefs
• Etc., etc., etc…..

Now we have conservative GOP members, after being beaten back by the Americans who want control back for women to make their own decisions about their bodies, who are walking back their absolute and complete bans or short 6/15-week abortion bans. Now they are saying, well, we can work on a compromise.

The problem with these conservative GOP members is that, “who can trust them…?” hmmm…. They might very well put in place what folks believe is something good but then yank it away when conservative GOP members regain power again. And I am quite sure that most of you out there, are aware of conservative GOP members at the state and national level, those who voted against anything positive for LBGTQ+ members and voted for restrictive bans – that there were/are members who later, years later, came out of the closet because they were/are gay. You can do a search on that as well…

Then, not to forget – there are the members who had family members or lovers go and do secret abortions so the public would not be aware.

This is the funny, stupid, sad part – there are people who continue to say that Trump was the right president that we needed at the right time and they believed in Trump. The problem is, it is not true about Trump being the right president – he was not. And if they believed in Trump, then those who stated so – they are definitely NOT the ones to follow today.

Trump caused more damage at home and internationally than any other American president in history. Our national and international standing.

Which other American president has ever elbowed aside a Prime Minister (Montenegro) in public at a NATO meeting (May 2017), just so ‘he’ could move up to the front as if ‘he’ were the almighty, ahem, ‘god’ over all others…

Trump caused more debt because he believed in passing a Tax break, which really helped the rich more than the middle- and lower-class Americans. That tax break without a means to offset what it cost the American public – just added another huge chunk of money to the national debt.

Same as what Ronald Reagan did when he was president. Massive tax breaks, added to the national debt…

Trump has just caused so, so many problems that it will take years to recover. 

Does white supremacy ring a bell, about how it is surging across America?

No, what about white nationalism being the primary way America should be…? Rise of hate crimes since Trump was president and after leaving office with Election Denialism is just running rampant across the conservative GOP hemisphere – does that ring any bells, alarms in your brain regarding Trump…???

Here, here is another aspect of Trump ‘not’ being effective as an American president – CoViD, how long did it take Trump to get the Defense Production Act up and running…? If he had simply pushed that to the forefront, many, MANY American lives would have been spared instead of being doomed to die, due to lack of American products being produced here in America…

Look at one of the front runners for the 2024 GOP candidates – DeSantis. He wants WOKE to die and go away but it is likely he does not even know what WOKE is for. Here is a quick take for those who do not know what WOKE is all about (there is more content out there but I am quite sure you can look it up, to ensure that you are getting unbiased information).

• Woke (wikipedia) – basically, it is an adjective derived from African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) meaning “alert to racial prejudice and discrimination“.^[1][2] Beginning in the 2010s, it came to encompass a broader awareness of social inequalities such as racial justice, sexism and LGBT rights.  The phrase stay woke has been present in AAVE since the 1930s. In some contexts, it referred to an awareness of social and political issues affecting African Americans. The phrase was uttered in recordings from the mid-20th century by Lead Belly and, post-millennium, by Erykah Badu.
• NPR – What does the word ‘woke’ really mean, and where does it come from?

Individuals like DeSantis do not want anyone around to:

• be WOKE (first in Florida and then hopefully all across America), or
• believe in DEI (diversity, equity, inclusion) — and we ARE talking about equality here and “not” reverse racism or forced equality or some symbolic stance to put someone of any race, color, gender into a position of authority when they are not qualified — TRUE equality and diversity and inclusion (we are NOT talking about just giving lip service to some ill meaning acronym) or
• have any corporation believe in those aspects and have
  • no organization who welcomes individuals who believe in these two areas.

DeSantis wants to whitewash history books, to remove black history (you can look that up right…?).  Not even be taught in AP classes or in colleges.

DeSantis was even idiotic enough to state that slaves learned valuable lessons while being slaves or indentured servants, or rather – ‘benefited’ from slavery. Who in their right mind would state that…?
It is like many people around the world today, those who are ‘still’ stating that the holocaust did not happen… This kind of non-belief thinking is like saying WW I & WW II did not happen.

So. Are you seeing the similarities of the Chinese CCP and Xi JinPing and the American conservative GOP…? How much more information, from sources that you trust (and are reputable) do you need?

People and parties who want power to gain control of people in their state, in their country are not the ones to follow.

Democracy is the way forward for everyone. Everyone benefits when democracy is the primary avenue of fairness. You have to realize that you cannot get everything you want, all the time. You have to compromise – that is what democracy is about, give and take. EVERYONE grows when there is fairness and everyone has an equal seat at the table.

There is no place in the world for those who want to control, instead of regulations and laws. Having a state-by-state referendum on abortion is the most idiotic and painful way to enact laws. The federal law on abortion, Roe v Wade should have stayed in place but certain supreme court judges deemed otherwise – they wanted the states to make the laws. Now, women, with their husband or wife, have to take time off from work and ‘TRY’ to go to another state for an abortion and/or to save their own lives.

Look at how long it took for women to get the 19^th Amendment in place – certified in 1920 but women are STILL NOT earning equal pay.

Look at how long it took for Black Americans to gain voting rights – 1965 and we still had regions of this country where black votes were disregarded and disenfranchised.

Do you want to continually be forced to be a member of a nation where inequality continues to exist because you are a Black American or a Woman or a member of the LBGTQ+….?

In a country where conservative GOP members control what you can or what books you can read?

Yeah, remember, there are numerous book bans across America because so many parents do not want their children to be aware of the painful past of how women and slaves were treated nor be allowed to be aware of gays, lesbians, homosexuals of all age groups and of all races and male or female. Ali Velshi, an MSNBC anchor does a lot of content regarding the Book Bans across America if you truly wish to check that out.

Think about it…

Do you want equality in America or do you want to continue to have pockets across America where:

• racism, hatred, hate crimes, women (girls) to be cast aside and/or forced to carry to term and give birth to an unwanted child due to being raped by their father (that is, if the woman (girl) survived the birth)?

Or do you want to be a part of a country that is strong and proud? Strong and proud because of equality, diversity and inclusion for EVERYONE…???!!!

It is bad enough that we have to fight climate change and make the world better for everyone but as it stands, we are going to lose countries and people where ocean levels continue to rise and air pollution is becoming worse at times…

Vivek Ramaswamy republican presidential candidate – Not A Good Choice, Nor Are Others…

Wow…!! 

Vivek would have been the first Indian American to hold the office of President of America (I still refuse to say “United States of America” due to all of the craziness taking place in this country, further dividing it) and I was thrilled to hear about something like this. Until I found out more of his background…

He wants to run on the platform of fighting ‘wokefulness’. He wants to have the states dictate, sorry – determine the fate of women who want to have abortions.

This guy also ‘apparently’ paid some Wikipedia editor to modify Ramaswamy’s profile, wait, let me put this snippet below:
“In May 2023, Forbes reported Ramaswamy had paid an editor to alter his Wikipedia page to appear more favorable to political conservatives before announcing his campaign. The paid editor removed references to his involvement with the Ohio COVID-19 Response Team and his Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans postgraduate fellowship (other editors later restored the removed content, citing the report). Paul and Daisy Soros are respectively the elder brother and sister-in-law of businessman and social activist George Soros, who has been the subject of numerous right-wing conspiracy theories.

Ramaswamy’s campaign confirmed that it had paid an editor, but denied it was trying to “scrub” his Wikipedia page. A campaign spokesperson said the edits were revisions of “factual distortions” and blamed a Ron DeSantis-aligned super PAC for amplifying the story.”

—- So, take what you desire from that info, AFTER you do your own research to corroborate the info above.

Moving on. This guy wants to remove America from the Ukraine / Russia situation.

Does he not know that if Russia is ‘not stopped’ that Putin WILL continue perpetuating mass murder, ignoring sovereign powers and authority, continual corruption and killing its own citizens for speaking up. Wait, did I mention dictatorial control of all Russians and hopefully of citizens in countries surrounding Russia…? Disallowing Russian citizens from having ‘free speech’ – forcing these citizens to listen to whitewashed Russian news (from Tass and Pravda – look up the meaning of Pravda for a chuckle of your own).

Stopping Russia will help restore some small amount of peace in the world. Look, this Ukraine/Russian engagement (war) has already united NATO, forging it into a stronger alliance for peace and democracy.

We, America, also have an alliance of friends for peace in Southeast Asia – a united front to stop China from trying to take control of that hemisphere – India, Japan, Taiwan, Australia, S. Korea and even the UK.

How does pulling back from the Ukraine / Russian war in order to protect America first work…?

Allowing Russia to gain control of Ukraine makes Russia stronger and gives them an enabling thought process of “hey, we took over Ukraine, who else can we take control of…?”  It is not just about fighting in Ukraine, it is also about the global economy with Russia trying to influence it, illegally. The FSB and SVR are known to have considerable influence via hacking or killing individuals around the globe. Whether these victims are Russian or another nationality. Go look up the stories on how Russian operatives:

• hacked the country of Georgia’s electrical grid – just because Russia could, then how
• operatives killed activists and journalists with Ricin poison – or throw acid liquids in their faces.

And note for Facebook, LinkedIn and Medium – this is NOT a bully paper against China and Russia. Besides, how does an individual impugn the story and historic knowledge of China and Russia, when it is known FACTUALLY that these two countries are either causing mass murder, detaining hundreds to tens of thousands of people against their will (Uighurs, Falun Gong, Russian activists, etc.).

So hey, if folks in America want to use their votes to vote for someone like Ramaswamy who wants America to turn inwards and THEN have the states dictate individual state laws such as abortion or getting rid of woke culture – go for it.

But, WE have a problem with that line of thought. How many Americans are there out there who learned history in high school and college and then forgot about it?  How many Americans are there who learned whitewashed history of America.  For basis, I know quite a few younger Americans and some of my own generation who learned history that was MISSING a great deal of history for which they discovered years or decades later what they missed in school because the school system failed them. Just look at Florida’s push to whitewash books in the school system and even rig colleges. Racism and the history of racial discrimination was not taught in MANY schools across this country.

How does one stop abhorrent, disgraceful activities if it is not taught in school so students can learn from it? Want to repeat those crimes, do you really want to repeat history? Well, if folks like Ramaswamy are elected into any kind of power, this is what is going to happen because he wishes to stop wokefullness.

Ramaswamy also wants to raise the voting age to 25. Will he also raise the enlistment age to join the military to 25…? Hmmm…. What he is stating is:
“unless a person serves the nation in the military or as a first responder or can pass the civics test immigrants take when becoming citizens.”

Then there are a couple more of actions that Ramaswamy wants to implement – removing the Department of Education and abolishing the IRS.  Sounds wonderful huh…?  Think about it if you agree with Ramaswamy, then think about it again, deeper this time.

Here may be something you have not heard, Ramaswamy considers Tucker Carlson ‘worthy’ of entering the Republican primary, believing that Carlson is a smart and sharp individual… Wow.

States will continue to devolve into individual fiefdoms, if more of us do NOT stand up and vote for the better candidate. We will return to states having inchoate, non-inclusive and discordant laws from those of its neighbors.

We will return to having (I pulled this from Wikipedia for a better description than what I could pass on here) Sundown towns, also known as sunset towns, gray towns, or sundowner towns, were all-white municipalities or neighborhoods in America that practiced a form of racial segregation by excluding non-whites via some combination of discriminatory local laws, intimidation or violence. The term came from signs posted that “colored people” had to leave town by sundown.

And yeah, we will definitely make a return to back-alley abortions because of the conservative, religious groups who want to talk control of couples, specifically women, bodies.

This is if, IF, we allow individuals like Ramaswamy to consume the taste of power. Life will turn negative, for MANY of us in this country.

IF more people like Ramaswamy get into power because more Americans did not stand up and vote for better people (consider George Santos from New York) – America will devolve into a has been power, fading into the pages of history as a once glorious space where so many people from around the globe wanted to come to.

We will spiral down into a, ummm, haven of pathetic, tribal zones of autocratic, dictators. Dystopia anyone…. Whites only here. Blacks only here. Asians only here. Gays only here.  You know I could go on and on for that line of thinking.  But I am not.

You, YOU have to do some serious soul searching, deep, far reaching and heavy soul searching. And then talk about it with others, outside of your close hold circle – having CONVERSATIONS and not fighting arguments to see where things actually stand and ‘hopefully’ learn something better.

YOU will have to open your eyes and watch and listen to other news outlets for truth. I had a shocking moment with a co-worker a few months ago who made the comment of “oh, that communist news outlet.” Another co-worker and I were talking about CNN and this other co-worker with that salacious comment walked up, heard CNN, then made the comment.

Going back to Ramaswamy, he is a prime example of someone who is doing narrow thinking and not national and international thinking and extrapolating down the road, like, ohhh, say a decade or two.

So, consider the consequences of voting Ramaswamy into power.

• More, much more restrictive control over women’s bodies and back-alley abortion deaths because of possibly contaminated surgical environments, all because the women could not obtain a better environment legally.
• COMPLETELY whitewashed history of America being taught in all schools. With most of the schools having funds diverted to them because of, you know, racial skin tones instead of divvied up amongst all schools. Leaving many schools of people with, you know, skin tones of a different color. Educational deserts…
• Crime. Please. There will be even more heavy handed, jack boot thugs running around the country doing “law enforcement” work because they have a badge and a gun – and NO body cam to record their work.
• Here, chew on this one where Ramaswamy talks about discrimination and affirmative action:
  “If elected, Mr. Ramaswamy said in an interview with The New York Times on Tuesday (Feb 21, 2023), his first action would be to repeal Executive Order 11246, which has banned discrimination and required affirmative action for federal contractors since 1965.”

Talking about skin tone colors. Does many of the people in America NOT see that there will MORE racial diversity than ever as each year passes. More people are discovering that just because a person is of a different skin color, IT-DOES-NOT-MAKE them a hands-off creature of ill repute or repulsiveness. Diversity is a wonder and it is wonderful. Diversity can make the lives of so many people SO MUCH BETTER.  And improve those around them as that diversity spreads.

What matters is what is that other’s nature. The character of the person is EVERYTHING.

When it comes down to it SKIN COLOR IS NOTHING! It is what that person has in their heart, in their mind, in their character and in their ethics as you look into their eyes…

Personally, I prefer to be around “Woke” individuals who have open mindsets… What do we have to be fearful of?

• Gays? Worried about turning gay if you’re around an LGBTQ person?
• Race? Are you really worried about someone else’s skin color affecting you – or maybe changing ‘your’ skin color due to their presence…?
• Women in power? Really? Afraid of smarter women…..??

And yes, “ALL LIVES MATTER!” So again, start doing some heavy thinking and make better use of your voting power. Please pass on folks such as Ramaswamy. Or Trump. Or DeSantis. They only want to take us back, no, SET US BACK decades. All the gains we as a country have attained – it will all be for naught.

This is not naivety, just pragmatic thinking. 

Having ‘national’ standards is far better than having 20 – 30 wildly differing standards to adhere to in order to not go to jail in the state that is being offended…

Diversity and the Rooney Rule (Purpose Rule)

This writing came about due to a link Danny Brier sent my way – which references the Rooney Rule and their own company Purpose Rule  (LinkedIn posting)

That is spot on – the Rooney Rule (via the National Football League [NFL]) or any forked version of it.

Diversity, Collaboration, Successful growth for all and not just specific categories of people on earth. This is a no-brainer for anyone with an open and progressive mind.

Why have discrimination against race, gender, age or any of the other big ones? You never know what that ‘other’ person knows until you talk ‘to’ and with that person and not ‘at’ that person.

These discriminated individuals may know something that is key or can spark a synergistic change which is successful for all (sorry for the ‘buzzwords’ but they convey certain aspects very, VERY well). And another key driver is that you have to listen to that other person, not just give lip service to it, such as paying only superficial attention while sub-consciously dismissing them. So what if the other is older or younger or a different gender – what have you got to lose by listening to them (and yep, of course you need to know when it is actually a waste of time).

This is why I’ve written papers highlighting this area, to highlight, specifically, COGNITIVE DIVERSITY. Encourage it, because it can only grow and pay huge dividends. And yes, I am biased on this count because it is something anyone and everyone can see and believe in adopting.

The make up of an individual is the sum of their lives – the richer, the better:

• where they live / lived,
  
• what kind of school they went to
  • (note: just because a person went to a top level Ivy school does not necessarily make for a better person than one who went to a public college in Oklahoma).
• what kind of social, economic, etc. environments they grew up in
  
• did they learn to play any kind of instrument or
  • learn another language
• are they ambidextrous (allows for GREAT brain hemispheric activity)
• etc., etc., etc. (I had to stop here…)

So what that other person talks slower than you – it does not mean they are mentally slower.

So what that other person has a droopy/sleepy look – it does not mean they are sleepy and slow – it is just a misfortune of their physical characteristics.

Diversity is a great thing. You never know what you can learn from another, no matter who that other person is… Why be afraid of change and growth…

China, A Dictatorial Country – Worried about National Security Threats – REALLY?

Okay, okay, maybe China is not officially a Dictatorial country – but they are very bloody close to it! Ask the democratic citizens of Hong Kong….

NOTE: For those who desire quick/fast reading – this paper will take more than a few minutes...

China threatens everyone it can to instill fear of talking about China in any non-harmonious, non-democratic or non-progressive (negative) manner.

China captures, obtains, hell fire – they arrest ANYONE who says anything negative about the country or its leaders. When the country’s leaders are the ones who should arrested and removed from society.

For example, recently (Mon. Dec 7^th), China’s authorities ‘detained’ a Beijing based Bloomberg journalist. If you are unable to do your own research to verify the results, here is a snippet from the Guardian (Dec 11, 2020) – “Haze Fan was escorted from her apartment by officials on suspicion of endangering national security”. You can also check out the Wall Street Journal if you need more information (I would mention CNN but then some of the readers might start commenting on Fake News and the other garbage/waste talk they like to use).

Here is another clip from the Guardian: “China now ranks near the[y] very bottom in the World Press Freedom Index compiled by Reporters Without Borders (RSF), above only North Korea, Turkmenistan and Eritrea.

However, here is a bit of news I was not aware of – “Chinese nationals are prohibited from working as credentialed reporters for foreign news organizations in China but are allowed to aid foreign correspondents as producers and research assistants.”

Another thing, pay no heed to Daniel Ratcliffe (current U.S. Dir. National Intelligence) or Nikki Haley (former US Ambassador to the UN) – neither one of them are credible enough.  Ratcliffe is unqualified to even be put in that position of authority and Haley, well, make your own determination about her. You, the reader, should be making your own thoughtful conclusions after reading multiple sources of information and determining what makes sense, logical sense – not conspiratorial filter bubble garbage.  Are you afraid to expand your own mind and areas of knowledge? Or do you want to stay within your own claustrophobic silos of fellow conspirators, where you ‘believe’ you are safe and everyone in that silo is right?  While the rest of the world around you moves on…

China’s governmental leadership wants the world to believe all the talk coming out of that government’s mouth pieces about being an open society and that negative talk from other countries and individuals endangers China’s national security.

What the damnation are they talking about? China has no freedom of speech! Ask anyone who spoke negatively in public or online about China and its leaders – that is, if you can find those who have not already been arrested.

There is no freedom of religion in China! Ask the Uighurs (Uyghurs) who have been collected and placed in detainment prisons – sorry, my bad, I meant re-education centers. That is where the incarcerated Uighurs are detained, damn, sorry again – are enjoying re-education to learn the Chinese Communist Party ways. Where the Uighurs are forced to:

• have their beards shaved off
• have all of their workshop / home implements that are considered as dangerous weapons
  • be engraved with that Uighur’s identification information (image, address & id #)
  • turned in at the end of the business day to the neighborhood police station and next day have it checked out again
• learn the life style and culture the Chinese government requires – damn, sorry again – what the Chinese government desires.

In the meantime, once the Uighurs, the domestic terrorists that China has labeled them, are apprehended (corralled) – the Uighurs’ neighborhood/towns are demolished!!!!  Those areas are razed to the ground, removing ALL Uighur landmarks, dwellings so that there are no more reminders of Uighurs ever being there, as well as no longer being an area for Uighurs to return to. That is, once they are released from the detainment, blast it – re-education camps with a new mindset and ALL Muslim teachings / learning’s cleansed from the Uighur soul.

As if the Chinese government can force anyone to renounce the religion the individual wants to follow.

China continues to talk about becoming a world power place of harmony. This is after China has built man-made islands in the South China Seas (SCS) to expand the Chinese hemisphere of power. This, even though the UN and the Maritime Authorities have repeatedly stated that the area China has proclaimed sovereign powers over was NOT China’s property to control. Ask Thailand, the Philippines, Malaysia and others how they feel about China taking over the SCS by force (kinda like Russia taking over Crimea from Ukraine, right, right – tell me you see the similarities).

How can China be a place of harmony when their citizens cannot be honest and open in a democratic manner? When the people are forced to never talk negatively about China or else face arrests! When the Chinese government continues doing massive purges and collecting all negative newspapers (forcing the papers to close down if they do not toe the party line and become a prisoner)! When the Chinese government forces all semblances of religion to go underground in order to practice the religion in question! (I am not religious and never will be but I always say that people have a right to whatever religion they choose – as long as they do not try to force it on others.)

Do you remember when Daryl Morey (Houston Rockets basketball General Manager) was jumped on and denounced by China in Oct. 2019 for Morey’s tweet for standing with the Hong Kong protestors. China wants to control what other countries say and what the citizens of other countries say.  How can a country try to force censorship on another country? Is that democratic? Is that fair that another country can censor a citizen of another country if that citizen made an honest statement from their own individual personal belief. This is FREE SPEECH!

China wanted to cut out all American basketball activities in China (games, goods, shows) as a result of the NBA commissioner (Adam Silver) ‘not’ firing Morey. So what does China do, cancel broadcasting of American basketball games and other events.

Then, look at Hong Kong. China wants to absolutely control a formerly democratic country where the citizens were happy in going about their business of being an open, social, democratic and progressive country. Hong Kong would have worked with China if China would have allowed them to continue to be open. But now, now, China just wants to put an iron clamp over Hong Kong so that the citizens there are forced to toe the party line – where Hong Kong citizens are forced to no longer think on their own but to think like the Beijing government wants them to think. To eventually be forced to: ‘not’ have religion; ‘not’ be able to spit on the streets (I don’t do it but I am also not going to force someone not to); ‘not’ jaywalk; ‘not’ talk negatively about the government or its leaders; on and on and on……

— Now, tell me that is not scary about any kind of freedom in China.

The Chinese government is a load of bull pucky, they want to be capitalistic society while remaining a Communist Party – how do you reconcile that? How can you be both? There are a lot of good people in China – it is just the Chinese government that is the problem (just like the outgoing American president – the one with the orange skin – is a problem for progressive Americans).

People are evolving as time marches on, yet China wants to retain an iron grip on ALL of its people and all the territory it can get its hands on. And yes, the U.S. stole land nearly 200 hundred years ago and MANY of us regret that happened as we, America and other western, developed countries continue to evolve in the 21^st century and going forward.

What is the harm of allowing citizens speak up and gaining equality, better diversity and progress moving forward?

The harm is, well, against leaders who want to retain power at whatever cost! America is seeing that right now, where leaders of the wrong mindset want to de-legitimize American votes – to invalidate legal votes. Fortunately, America has a better legal system with better checks and balances than China has (for those who do not remember or did not know – China’s legal system was a bullet to the back of the head of the offender, WITH the offenders’ families paying for the bullet – and this MAY be happening still but there is no way to verify/confirm that).

America’s legal system of checks and balances, democracy for all is finally starting to show its power, when some leaders and the ill-formed followers want to do things illegally.

Who is threatening China’s national security anyway?

Where are the forces preparing to breach the shores of China? Who are the countries that want to take over Chinese territories? The U.K.? America? No one wants to march on China and take over its lands.

What people of the free world, the developed and developing countries want is harmony. We want freedom of:

• Movement
• Speech
• Religion
• Press

We want to be able to legally and democratically remove bad leaders from power before those bad leaders continue on the path of corruption, to gain more power, to force honest citizens to become disenfranchised (look at what some of the nonsensical people in America are trying to do in various states and groups). People want to be free, not to be forced to look over their shoulders all the time as to whether they crossed the line or not (ask the Blacks of America about that one – we {Americans} are still working making this something better).

China is a land of FORCED AUTHORITARIANISM! China is a land of AUTOCRATIC AUTHORITARIANISM! However, in the eyes of a great many people around the world, China is a Dictatorial country. What else do you call a country where you are required to have facial recognition and register for every single thing you do. You cannot enjoy the internet as much as you want for fear of typing in the wrong thing and the CHINESE CENSORSHIP Authorities start tracking everything you (YOU specifically) do online – because for those not aware, the Chinese Firewall (a figurative term on how China controls the Chinese internet and its citizens usage of it) was built and designed (and continues to be) to try to block/stop negative speech, non-Chinese attitudes towards the country and its leaders. The people of China do not even see the same TV shows or documentaries or books or newspapers from other open, democratic countries because China states that the shows are corrupting or ‘threatens China’s national security’.  What the restrictive Chinese government is saying is that these are items that might put bad thoughts into the heads of its citizens.  Such as freedom, honesty & truth – yeah, yeah, I know, even open countries do not always state truths but we try, do we not}. Chinese leadership wants China to retain the culture of Chinese citizens being extremely compliant to everything that comes out of the Chinese Politburo…

Do you want to go to a country like China for tourism? Why? When a country like China wants to control EVERY SINGLE THING said about the country and its leaders, no matter who says it or where it is said… Is that realistic? Is that fair?  Is that a progressive country?

Do you want to go to Hong Kong with what China is forcing on Hong Kong as China continues on with its 5-year and 10-year plans for how the government wants China and its territories to be in the present and in the future?

Do you want to do business with a country like China when you can do business with countries who are better than China (Japan, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam, S. Korea, Spain, Italy, etc., etc., etc.)?

It is just too bad that we cannot just bypass China for everything we do in the world socially and economically and let the Chinese government wall off all of its citizens from the rest of us. The ‘good‘, ‘free-thinking‘ and ‘progressive‘ people of China would suffer from not having a dynamic interaction with others who are very open-minded. But, the Chinese leadership wants to force its people to retain specific Chinese culture at all costs (i.e. blowing the Uighur culture out of the water and erasing as much of that society/culture as possible) as well as attempting to force other global citizens to “not” try to influence Chinese citizens with any Western or democratic values. 

Tell me I am wrong on that count, I dare you.

SHAME! Working Mothers DESERVE BETTER Support from Employers

I am a working male.

I am not a parent but I have been a step-parent for new-borne twins to teenagers.

I have multiple degrees – and there are many, MANY women out there with NO degrees or more degrees who are smarter than me (I’m also a former Marine so I am not afraid of making that kind of statement.)

But yet, even I do not understand why is it SO DIFFICULT for employers to support their employees better – specifically working mothers.

YES. We get it that customers are number one.

But, companies, businesses, agencies, organizations, whatever they call themselves – companies HAVE TO treat working mothers BETTER in this time of a pandemic. There is just no better recourse. It is the RIGHT THING TO DO!

And jiminy crickets here – I do not mean to get on a high horse or anything but how many times are any of us going to live through a pandemic…??

This pandemic might take a year or two and businesses will have to support their employees working from home (or even maybe bringing a child in to work).

Working mothers already suffer from ignorant, or non-diverse, or sexist male employees – why would any business want to tack on another enormous burden that a woman cannot work from home taking care of children…????

Why would any:

• employer want to punish or fire a working mom who is/was doing a GREAT job?
• forward-thinking company want to remove a working mom, causing her and her family to lose that income and rely on the city/state
  • which in turn causes more budgetary problems for that city/state
  • which in turn causes more businesses to fail because there are more individuals out of work, specifically WORKING MOMS
    • You can extrapolate and work out the direction this is going
• employer choose to be unempathetic and tell a working mom, she cannot take work now, at this time, because she is taking care of a child?

We have had working mothers do FANTASTIC jobs for decades (and much more) in other pandemics and Great War and World Wars!!!

So, employers, what are you going to do?  Are you going to:

• hire another woman without children (which is discrimination) to take over the job the working mom was doing…? 
  • And then cross your fingers and hope that the “new” employee will not get pregnant and have children….
• NOT hire women (which is also discrimination) during the pandemic and only hire men…? (I would hope other ‘men’ out there would also stand up and against this kind of practice.)

Employers, why can’t you support your already hard working successful working moms and tell customers AND business partners that YOU CARE for your working moms…?

Or better yet, be positive and make your customers and partners allies in this time of CoViD and urge them to support YOUR support of working moms?

• This could be a magic bullet in growing more business when customers see that you ACTUALLY do care about topics like supporting working moms.

How hard is this?

HOW HARD IS IT? Wake up, please…

This pandemic is likely to take another year for the world to get into any kind of semblance of control.

What happened to diversity, equality and successful collaboration between all individuals of a business?

What happened to the strategy and strategic outlook for any business at this time – especially if you cause attrition and turnover (which is expensive) by belittling, humiliating and firing working mothers…?

We, as members of humanity, were supposed to be on a better path of greatness and growth at the start of this century, or better yet, at the start of this decade…

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.)

 

New U.S. Tax Plan: I’ll Be Spending My Retirement Paying Down The Increased National Deficit

Yes, you heard right. Someone had asked the question “Hey, what are you going to do in your retirement? “

Yes, now that American House and Senate passed the new “Tax Reform (Tax Plan)”, this unfortunately is going to be the fate of many, many Americans.

This is for the Electoral College and the people who voted for this current president, who is causing a ripple effect of greed, pigs feeding at that swamp trough (the so-called swamp draining that was to take place, yeah, that never took place – it expanded in a somewhat vicious and explosive manner). Folks, you sure picked a winner, one who is causing some real pain and angst to spread across the country, now and over the next decade… Lovely, isn’t it…

 

Here, let’s take a look at an example of another individual who believed a “wonderful new tax plan” would change the state. That individual is, the wonderful Kansas governor (just being facetious here), Brownback, as he tried to impress and win the hearts of all those wonderful Kansans. Brownback, back in 2012, started putting in place a massive tax cut scam, err, scheme to show the country that he could do that successfully and grow his state.

That did not happen. Many of the steep tax cuts put in place, ahhh, they were repealed already or are in the process of going the way of the DoDo bird (last seen sometime in the mid-17th century). After the tax cuts started hitting, you know (well, many of the logical and long-term thinkers knew) that school budgets were going to be cut. They were.

Also, city employee staffing (fire fighters, police and housing budgets) was also cut to help make up shortfalls. Here are a few more ‘fiscal policy’ victims that hit Kansas (http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/zorn/ct-kansas-brownback-trickle-down-tax-fail-zorn-perspec-0621-md-20170620-column.html):

Public schools were planning to close early for lack of operating revenue. Kansas was shorting pension funds, skimping on road improvements, cutting Medicaid and slashing outlays for state universities.

Here is another quote from the article that is simply brilliant:

“It absolutely should put an end to the theory that tax cuts for the rich end up helping everybody, but you can’t kill it. It’s a vampire idea. No matter how many times it’s proven wrong, it keeps coming back.”

 

So, what is the lesson with these so called “tax cut plans” that will grow the economy?  And if you wish, ask the successors to Reagan and then even Bush (41) how they might feel about tax cuts. If the former was alive and the latter was allowed to answer.

The lesson is, which I am quite sure you already know the answer. When you cut taxes, the state and the nation take in less revenue. Then, how does the country or state make up for that shortfall – well, of course, you cut services everywhere. Cutting services makes for an excellent model of spending less money. However, when services are cut, the average citizens start getting hurt, big time.

• Needed services see reduced hours and/or reduced staff (which in turn puts an extreme workload on the remaining staff members).
• Fire in your neighborhood, hmmm, let’s see how many trucks are available since they took a hit in staffing (and if you need EMS, well…. they may be understaffed as well)
• Hospitals, doctors and nurses – well…. You might want to bring some aspirin with you because, as the tax cuts kick in, there is no mandate to have individuals have medical coverage – and when many of these who do not want medical coverage all of a sudden have an emergency, where do the go? Yes, they go to the emergency room. And what does that do, why, yes, the young man with the blue baseball cap, needed services get sucked into the emergency rooms along with the need for more funding and it has to come from somewhere. So be warned – do not get sick, there may not be enough regular medical coverage to handle the mundane, day to day medical issues (tax cut sucked up any extra cash lying around).
• Nice, serviceable roads to drive on, forgeddaboutit, they fall into disrepair – causing you to suffer car / truck damage. Be sure to up your vehicle insurance as you’re likely to have more bent wheel axles from bad roads (and yes, failing bridges).
• And do not forget about national and state parks and other areas – they may be closed or have reduced hours as immediate victims of revenue shortfalls due to this ‘grand tax plan’… You might have to re-think your vacation/week-end plans.

Then, what is the result of multiple services being cut, wait – why, yes, the older guy in the Hawaiian shirt – you hit it bang on, states start imposing cost hikes on many things in the state. And, oh yes, the young woman in the brilliant teal blouse, you are correct – the states start begging, dang, sorry, requesting the federal government for hand-outs, errr, more funding relief.

So, yes, again, so – what are you going to be doing over the next decade as this ‘grand’ tax cut plan starts biting while the national deficit continues to balloon with that purported $1.5 Trillion figure (which I am fairly certain it will swell far beyond that) is tacked on to the CURRENT national deficit.

It simply has not happened wherever and whenever tax cuts, to help corporations and the “middle/lower” class citizens, are put into law. Tax cuts end up being repealed with taxes going up again by another administration. Most corporations and wealthy individuals do what I (joe citizen) do, reinvest that money in myself (maybe in a savings or, gulp, a ‘401k’ account) for my own future. The majority of the companies who were “supposed” to be re-investing in its workforce to grow the company and those workers and by extension, the country – it just does not happen.

Do you think it is going to happen with this new, ‘grand’ tax plan? An expansion of growth across all American sectors…  Hmmm…. Think long and hard and most of all – do your own research (move away from the conspiracy theorists and hate mongers), then make that determination.

Your retirement may be in jeopardy because many states are going to be going hat in hand to the federal government for those hand-outs for the average citizens – us. And who will be looking out for you, guess who – it is going to be up to you to ensure you have enough salted away in your nest egg. That or continue working until you’re in your 70’s and 80’s…

 

What happened to strategic thinking in our government?  Where did it go? Where are all the forward thinkers? There are supposed to be adults in the American Congress, Senate and White House. Wait, I forgot, many of them were pushed out of many federal entities because they were smart and they used science-based as well as evidence-based data to drive new ideas and to disprove invalid/incorrect viewpoints. (Golly, I really hope I won’t get into any trouble for using words the HHS is attempting to ban from scientific and other professional use in HHS & CDC – Fetus, Transgender, Diversity, Vulnerable, Entitlement and the two I mentioned {that is, if this actually is a true situation…***}.)

We, Americans, cannot even put in place a decent equitable number of women and other ethnic groups of people in these institutions. This is because so many people are only thinking “right now, right here and for me only” – instead of what is ahead, down the road, 5, 10 or 20 years to be who we can truly be.

Leaders of the free world, hmmm, not sure about that anymore, it appears the best and brightest gave up and left a lot of the slower thinking, short-term thinkers and less savvy individuals in charge, those who appear to only want to line their pockets.

Our future of growth looks bleak, very bleak and it will take quite some time to recover to where we, Americans, are great again. It’s the people, all the people, not just any one party over the other – it is not Conservatives or Liberals or Libertarians or Green Party or Religious groups or Atheists or gays or transgender or old or young or women or men – it is the people who come together for common good.

What we have right now is: “Me, me, me – gimme, gimme – I don’t want to share. I don’t want diversity. I want people to be like me and that’s it.”  That is what is scary, the lack of diversity – those not willing to embrace diversity in all of its wonderful possibilities.

*** A Seven-Word Mystery at the CDC https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-12-19/a-seven-word-mystery-at-the-cdc

 

Our Society… Our People… Our Country… Our World… Are We Doomed or are we treading on thin, dirty ice…?

Even though I am an eternal optimist, I am nevertheless heartbroken and wearily saddened of so many things unjust and wrong in our society, here in the “United” States and around the world. Also, this piece is for those who want to read a somewhat serious discourse on various topics.

The few things (of ever so many) that I write about here are nothing new. Many thousands and tens of thousands of others have written and are writing about some or all of the same things. I only want to add my voice and hope that maybe just one person will read this and hear, clearly, what I say. Maybe that one person will be an even better carrier to spread the message, the message of equality and fairness and respect to and of others.

It is not just up to leaders to provide guidance and direction but it is also the individuals in our society who can lend their voices to reflect winning words of: forward thinking, encouragement, equality, respect, collaborations and moving in the right direction. With all the many, many voices out there – some of which have very little meaningful things to say, while there actually are others out there who ‘do’ have good, strong and constructive things to say but are drowned out by the mean, snidely sarcastic and ill-meaning people all around the country.

It is up to someone who is magnetic, energetic and has enough of an audience to concentrate all the good messages into a good platform.  

Are we becoming a stagnant group of people, heading in the direction of the Romans, towards a failing society? No, not in the way of being decadent but rather in the way of just, well, dissolving into a meaningless group – wait, no, into meaningless ‘bunches’ of groups of people scrabbling over things that really should not cause the conflict, ignorance and suffering we are going through as a nation.  

Yes, I will say it, I am a bleeding heart and at times I do wear it on my sleeve. At the same time, I am an eternal optimist and have been for many years. As well, I am a pessimistic pragmatist at times and because of that it causes a conundrum for some people are going to say “You can’t be all of those at the same time!” But therein lies some of the ignorance of some people – you actually can be those, it just takes some judicial balancing at various points in time.  

Look around; you don’t need me to give you specific examples of where we are failing many in this country or where things are just flat out wrong. You just need to open your eyes in your neighborhood, your workplace, your gym. You can see these things in your daily lives – if you would only remove your blinders and open your eyes and your mind.

Look at folks in wheel chairs or those who need to use crutches – those devices do not diminish their mental abilities. Some of these folks also have brilliant minds but so many firms will not hire them. This makes me angry to no end that so many handicapped (or disabled) individuals are simply blocked out of being hired. 

I am saddened that so many women are being treated as less than equal:

• In earning less than their male counterparts in doing the same job
• Not being as readily considered for leadership as their male counterparts who have the same experience
• Because they have breasts and nothing dangling between their legs
• Not being allowed to drive and/or obtain a job and/or education because they are women
• AND being raped, around the world, while large numbers of men do not place much emphasis on this as being morally, physically and legally wrong (in some parts of the world, men believe the women deserved it…) – women are NOT chattel nor cattle
• Or the coordinated moves against abortion, where many men are attempting to make decisions for pregnant women that is arduous enough as it is and for sure will drive many women to their deaths as they attempt self-abortions or those infamous ‘back alley’ abortions of years past.

Basically it is about the lack of respect that so many women should be receiving… 

I am saddened that people of different races are being treated as less than equal, solely because of the color of their skin.

This is a topic I could really go to town on because racism is still alive and well. It may not be as noticeable (overt) as it once was, it is just more covert today. But here is a tidbit on racism for some of you; many people do know they actually are racist because it is likely at their subconscious level just below their conscious awareness of how they interact with and treat others of different races. I’m not only talking about blacks and whites but all races.

Many people, not just in this country but around the globe, believe that ‘some’ races are inferior and should never have a voice in anything and are only worthwhile as cheap labor.

When a people (pick one from the past couple of centuries) are suppressed, kept ignorant (uneducated in school, politics and society) and not paid (adequately) for what they do – for what they are worth, then we should never be surprised that people of those ‘other’ races do not do as well as others who have been privileged to gain a) better educations, b) better jobs along with c) much better pay.

Massive discrimination is one result… Simmering resentment is another result…

Skin color is only skin deep. Just because your skin color and the skin color of your closest peers are the same – it does not make you and your peers the better person(s).

As well, good looks or less than good looks are only skin deep. Just because you look better than someone else, it does not make you the better person we would necessarily want to stand side by side with in moments of stress and hard times. We all sweat and bleed the same.

Repression and/or suppression of others, just to retain your place in life or your power is not the way it should be. That is wrong in all aspects.

I am saddened that people of various religious faiths treat those of different religions as somehow being inferior to them OR treating people of no religion as being flat out wrong in their view of a godless life. And yes, there are many of those kinds of persons in the different religious faiths – you know that. And yes, I do recognize that there are many in the various faiths who ‘do’ look at others as equals, so don’t get me wrong, I am not chastising all religious individuals.

Buddhists, Muslims, Catholics, Baptists, Mormons, Jehovah’s Witness’, etc… MANY in each of these groups believe their god to be the ‘one’ true god. And the more extremely religious groups/individuals wholeheartedly believe that if you disrespect or ridicule or profane or disbelieve their god (you pick the religion here) – then you deserve to be ostracized (or killed) for failing to follow their faith.

Then too, many individuals of these same extremely strong religious treat women as secondhand, as chattel, fit only to work in the kitchen and in the bedroom, all the while remaining subservient to the men, even to boys. Some (many?) religions do not allow women any positions of equality or authority within their particular band of religion – because their bible, in so many words, states it as being wrong (I don’t get that)…

Discrimination… Stupidity… Ignorance… Education…

Backward thinking

Look, here’s another sample of backward thinking, gays and gay marriage. Are people just ill-informed or undereducated and are not aware that homosexuality and bisexuality has been going on for thousands and tens of thousands of years around the world – in Africa, in Asia and in Europe, long before the U.S. became a country.

Being gay is nothing new and nothing to be afraid of. If you’re not gay, then you’re not gay but don’t try to force those people who are gay that they are wrong in believing in that lifestyle and for feeling that way. Your hatred ‘and’ fear is of your own making and of your own possible feelings of inadequacies and insecurity or whatever other label you might wish to give to that.

I am willing to bet that you likely know a neighbor / co-worker close to you whom you believe to be straight, is actually gay. And on top of that, I am also willing to bet that you believe that that person is a “great” person to boot…

Why do so, so many people in this country (and around the world), here and now in the 21^st century continue to live in the past or want to go backwards to days of unjustness, such as:

• Witch burning
• Exorcisms (because someone is epileptic)
• Crucifixion
• Separation of the races (because it is heresy for them to mix)

to name but a few…

Why aren’t more people stepping up and becoming forward thinking individuals? Is it because our education system is failing us? Is it because our political system is allowing religion to creep in where it should not and actual science be damned?

Are more people content to remain isolated in their own small self-filtered world, head ‘constantly’ down, peering into their smart phone or tablet with their earpieces inserted instead of looking up and around at those nearby?

The old ways of life are gone.

Our society and jobs

Because of the economy and confused state of employment, we need to pull together – in a much better fashion than the current state of bickering in political circles… Thanks to outsourcing and offshoring, which really started ramping up in the late 80s, it kind of took the wind out of our American sails. And so, because of that, the availability of lower cost labor in other parts of the world, we saw our jobs and old American way of life taper off, or disappear.

But today, as labor costs around the world continue to increase, as well as transportation costs, some jobs have come back to the U.S. but not nearly enough. Many have written on this topic(i.e. www.economist.com/news/special-report/21569574-offshoring-has-brought-huge-economic-benefits-heavy-political-price-story-so The story so far – Offshoring has brought huge economic benefits, but at a heavy political price Jan 19th 2013)

On top of that, automation, sophisticated computing and now robotics are taking away additional jobs, forcing more people to acquire to obtain more than high school education. And advanced education is no longer inexpensive.

I include this segment on the economy and society because this planet is becoming ever smaller every year due to some better living standards and access to traveling anywhere at any time. We need to be better. We need to treat each other better. We need to act better. 

Forward thinking

When are ‘more’ American’s, and others around the globe, going to wake up and start judging others by the character and content of that person’s heart rather than going by anyone’s superficial outward appearance (skin color, handicap, speech)???

YOU have to look at the whole individual and value the individual in that light. YOU cannot simply judge others by their outward appearance and/or by the way they talk. You have to take into consideration the totality of that person to judge that person and of course that means you will need to get to know that person to discover that, rather than making uneducated or baseless flip / snap judgments of others. Malcolm Gladwell talks about some of this in his 2007 book “Blink,” a book in which I recommend others read. You do not need to read the whole book to gain better insights, but I would recommend that you do. But be sure to read the part discussing “unconscious prejudices.”

You should strive, in your moments of snap thinking (or “slice thinking” ala – M. Gladwell), to do a better job when thinking of others and what you think about them. Go beyond superficiality – look beneath the surface, look at the sum of the person, not at the individual component of a person’s life.

Go deeper!

Earlier I mentioned that there are some great folks in wheel chairs or on crutches, here I expand on it. There are many phenomenal people who come from multiple diverse backgrounds, whether it is with a silver spoon or from the depths of poverty. There are many strong and amazing people today who can make a difference, regardless of their gender or race or upbringing, look at past people (and a few of the present) of influence:

Women – Rosa Parks, Ida B. Wells, Harriet Tubman, Aung San Suu Kyi of Burma, Golda Mier of Israel, Joan of Arc and the young Pakistani – Malala Yousafzai

Men – Winston Churchill, Martin Luther King Jr., Mandela, Gandhi, Galileo, Booker T. Washington, Ralph Nader and Lincoln

These women and men refused to give up, they stood their ground and of course this is an incomplete list… I only hope if confronted with a difficult situation, you and I can be like them and stand our ground. And no, I do not mean like the stupidly written Florida ‘Stand Your Ground’ nonsense.  

Then too, there are the older senior citizens and the youngest amongst us – don’t just cast them off and push them to the side just because ‘you’ think they are too old or too young to offer any fulfilling and informative thoughts and/or solutions to problems and issues of the day. They have valuable input too, sometimes they do not but don’t just discount them right off the bat. Listen to them, process their info and THEN make a “conscious” decision on whether to use or not use their information.

Remember, you do not know everything. Only those who think they know everything believe that, while those around them may disagree…

Our society, the infrastructure to the air we breathe…

As it stands, some people in our country (and around the world) want to have clean air, clean water, access to better living conditions, access to better medical care and access to vastly improved transportation. But we have so many in authority (or not) who seem not to care as much. Some of these people believe that it should only be their way that should be the norm (vouchers for medical care and education is a joke, even to me).

Some of these people in authority (or not) believe that the poor or unemployed should not have as much help financially as they are (or were) receiving and hence – their support should be cut.

Some of these people in authority (or not) believe that there should be more voting restrictions (and even more rigid gerrymandering – pick your group here, I’m not singling out any one group) in order to knock out any votes that could strip them of their position.

We should be conducting free and fair elections in every city, in every state – not reducing the days of voting, or the locations of voting, or even the requirement to show birth certificates or passports to prove citizenship (which of late is popping up in some states) because the threat of voter fraud is so worrisome.

Our society and humanity and fairness

So, why does it take disasters to bring us together, albeit for a brief time? That is probably the most disheartening of all in that it takes something of such an extraordinary measure for us to come together…

You know, when Rodney King stated “Why can’t we all just get along?” – many people derided that statement then and still do to this day. But, that is a very valid statement!  

What is happening to us? For many years, I have continued on in my life trying to improve myself and becoming a worthy role model for others to emulate. As we know, you cannot make anyone follow you and what you do. You can only show them the way and hope they pick up on the good that you are doing, whether it is in the work you do, the way you handle yourself in your social life or in the way you treat others.

The way you treat others shows a great deal about what kind of person you are – and many of you know it. Do you treat a poor, undereducated person as less than your equal and become patronizing or condescending to them?

How do you actually know that person is not your equal, do you really know that person? That person may have a masters’ degree, or even a doctorate from where they came from but due to bad luck, or the U.S. not recognizing that person’s advanced degree – you ‘might’ feel that person is not of “good” caliber or breeding. Is it because:

• Of the way the ‘other’ talks?
• That person has an accent that you are not used to?
• That person just never had ample opportunities to learn better diction or oratorical skills?
• Even better, is it because that ‘other’ is not as good looking as some are fortunate to have been in life?

These are all superficial things, what about the person inside – that is what counts. Does that ‘other’ have great integrity, ethics, kindness and/or generosity that YOU do not have and are jealous of having a lack of?  

There are far too many people among us who do not really care about others around them. All they seem to concern themselves with is the lining of pockets, primarily their own. And yes, some of these individuals make noise as if they ‘really do’ care about others but covertly, they just want to keep on lining their pockets, in any manner or fashion – even if it turns out to be illegal and the rest of us can just fuggidaboutit…

Note: You can watch a piece on the CBS Sunday Morning with Nancy Giles talking about TIPS where she is talking to the cab driver on that topic. The cabbie told her of a recent fare of two guys in the back with one on his cell phone as they are leaving the airport. The guy on the phone ends his call, tells his passenger buddy “I just made $6 million.” But after arriving at the passengers’ destination, the cabbie only receives a $1 tip… [www.cbsnews.com/videos/tipping-points-when-and-when-not-to-pay-extra/ Tipping points: When and when not to pay extra (Sunday Mar 23, 2014)]

We have too many people in power and leadership positions who want to retain power, by any method possible with complete disdain and disregard for those with a less fuller and rich life. And this is inclusive of people in public firms, private corporations and in government.  

People, we/you, need to get out more and talk to others. You need to talk to others WHO ARE NOT LIKE you so you can see and understand the differences amongst all of us and what makes this country what it is today. Maybe then, we can start making progress of building up all of us and making America the leading country of the planet again and not be the schizophrenic, indecisive, squabbling country that we seemed to have become.

There are many people who have something to say but do not say it because of so many others who instead of offering serious debate, discussion and/or constructive responses, they want to shoot the other person down with snide, sarcastic, rude, insensitive, offensive and threatening language.  

Are we doomed to become a stagnant and dying society, of Americans, of humans? Or are we going to continue growing, once we lift up everyone in getting everyone the chance to get an education and access to better health care? People can no longer seek out enclaves where they can live and be with others who look like and act like them, free of any real diversity.

Diversity is what is going to make our country, our world grow. Not religious growth. Not racial exclusion. Not gender bias. Diversity, collaboration and treating each other with respect and fairness are the answers to a bright and growing future.

Otherwise, we are doomed…