January 8, 2021 by gudguy1a

Another Day of Infamy, A Day of National Shame during the Electoral Certification at the Capitol

This is a long post – it did not start out to be one but, anger and embarrassment of how the world sees American kicked in, and, well, it now TL;DR (if you are one of the ones who only want short writings)…. (original paper written Jan 6th that night)

Yes, FDR had the Day of Infamy on Dec 7, 1941 when Pearl Harbor was sneak attacked – along with the massive number of resultant American deaths, in this country and abroad.

Well, we (Americans) have another president who now has a Day of Infamy, one that the F’ing individual does not deserve to be associated with. Yes, the F word is protected speech (First Amendment – just have to be careful how you use it) but I chose not to use it due to Twitter or Facebook WILL flag it as vulgar speech and ban the posting (on my web site it will be used).

Today, Wednesday, January 6, 2021, will go down in history as the ultimate capstone on American President 45’s term in office – one of lunacy and mental instability, incompetency, ignorance and lack of education – did we neglect to add lack of integrity, diversity, collaboration, corruption and greed…?

This day has brought National shame to America and what was / is supposed to be a bastion of global democracy that other countries and millions of people looked up to and admired.

We cannot say that now.

At least not while this F’ing individual continues to sit at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

We have a MASSIVE swab of embarrassment spread over us. We have the eyes of the world looking at us as ignorant, conspiracy minded and probably uneducated individuals breaching the American Capitol – believing it is the right thing to do.

My heart instantly shattered when my wife came to get me to see what was happening (I was teleworking and just signing off) at the Capitol. I was heart-broken to see the scenes unfold across the tv (on CNN, MSNBC, BBC, CNBC, Bloomberg, and yes, even Fox).

The thing is, many of these individuals are being led by other craftier individuals ever so gently guiding these tunnel-visioned sheep down illogical and well, crazy paths according to their own byzantine plans of “glory”. And the sheep (sorry for the term but living beings acting in herd mentality, doing things they know they should not be doing are like sheep – not doing their own thinking, sooo, it appears very apt to use that term) seem to have no inclination

We now have so many individuals in filter bubbles and silos believing that their worlds are the only right world and everyone else is wrong. These individuals incredulously and deeply believe in conspiracy (and if you do not know this – go check out the Pizza-gate situation that put Hilary Clinton in the spotlight – then come back). These folks believe in:

non-facts, or rather – as Kellyanne Conway so elegantly put it, “alternative facts”.
non-science – look at the anti-vaxxers who followed the ill-minded doctor who put out untrue content about vaccines and autism (go read up on Andrew Wakefield and the bogus writings he created that many people desperately latched onto – the UK basically disowned this person as a medical professional)
- you could also check out old clips of people like Alex Jones and others of that ilk – then tell us what you think…

We have a day of national shame where a mob, a mob of terrorists (yes, the word ‘terrorists’ was used, don’t blink too hard…) illegally breached the American Capitol. Now, if that were a group of Blacks or Muslims – there would have been multiple fatalities, of Black and Brown people, lying all over the Capitol grounds…. This is very hypocritical of the law enforcement arena and points out quite clearly whose lives matter most – does it not?

The problem is not just with the people, it is with the government leaders who are supposed to be doing a better job in helping the people of the land – not just certain groups of people.

Look at the following 13 individuals, I would call them Pigs but I cannot really do that – I do not want to spend my time disparaging them. Many of us “really, really” do wish to call them a derisive term. All they seem to want, is to line their own pockets at all costs. Add more pork here and add a little there please.

What does Hawley believe he is gaining by challenging something ‘super-legal’, which really cannot be overturned or ignored? What does any of these people believe they are gaining…? Fame? Notoriety? Future glory to stand upon for future endeavors…? And, boy, look at the 140 republican congress-people – what the heck are they going for? Gohmert believes he can un-do democracy….

Look at them – and yeah, their names are all in lowercase because they do not deserve anything better:

josh Hawley, ted cruz, ron johnson, mike braun, Cynthia lummis, roger marshall, bill Hagerty, tommy Tuberville, Kelly Loeffler, marsha blackburn, john kennedy, steve daines, james lankford

If these are individuals who went to Washington DC to make a difference in the world, to make the world a better place – they are all missing the mark. They have shown their true colors – we now know where they stand – they are all willing to follow the lead of a dunce (as Mary Trump can attest, as far as we know but it is good enough) who is cheerfully leading them off the cliff… All in fear of a bad tweet. And we can successfully write them off in the future for anything they say or do.

What does it take for people to see democracy work and when it does not work?

So many people are like:

Pigs – that only want to root around in the mud and grub up whatever they can stick their snouts into… As long ‘they’ got it (it is anything they are going after), no matter how they got it or at what cost. And because of that, it is of no consequence how much or what damage is done to others around them – that made them satisfied (hey, I’m going to sell some stock on the White House grounds to make a profit — sound familiar, it should be, it happened in June 2017 – Chris Collins). It works when they come out on top, ahead of everyone else – it does not matter if it is illegal or unethical…
Little babies. Primarily this is about many in the Senate and Congress but it also applies to the people who follow these ‘leaders’… These babies are like the generation of children who were spoiled at every chance and because of that and to make these children (at the time they were children) feel ever so much better, they were all given trophies to feel good. To know that they were the best because they had a trophy, no matter that all of them in the race or they group they were in – they all received trophies. Or, in current times – these individuals seem to somehow magically become multi-millionaires while in Congress or the Senate – on a government salary… normally only corrupt, authoritarian and dictatorial leaders like Putin, Erdogan, and others become millionaires and billionaires…

We, Americans, most of us, are hugely embarrassed and shameful of what has happened this day, Wednesday, January 6, 2021 – a day that should have shown the world what a peaceful transition of power should look like. But because of a mob of terrorists, and mainly due to this current president and political party followers – we are another notch lower (among the many we have dropped over the past four years) in the eyes of the world.

This is something that will take years to recover from… But the blemish will remain, forever on America.

January 6, 2021 by gudguy1a

Another Day of Infamy, A Day of National Shame during the Electoral Certification at the Capitol

Yes, FDR had the Day of Infamy on Dec 7, 1941 when Pearl Harbor was sneak attacked – along with the massive number of resultant American deaths, in this country and abroad.

This day has brought National shame to America and what was / is supposed to be a bastion of global democracy that other countries and millions of people looked up to and admired.

We cannot say that now.

At least not while this F’ing individual continues to sit at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

non-facts, or rather – as Kellyanne Conway so elegantly put it, “alternative facts”.
non-science – look at the anti-vaxxers who followed the ill-minded doctor who put out untrue content about vaccines and autism (go read up on Andrew Wakefield and the bogus writings he created that many people desperately latched onto – the UK basically disowned this person as a medical professional)
- you could also check out old clips of people like Alex Jones and others of that ilk – then tell us what you think…

The problem is not just with the people, it is with the government leaders who are supposed to be doing a better job in helping the people of the land – not just certain groups of people.

Look at them – and yeah, their names are all in lowercase because they do not deserve anything better:

josh Hawley, ted cruz, ron johnson, mike braun, Cynthia lummis, roger marshall, bill Hagerty, tommy Tuberville, Kelly Loeffler, marsha blackburn, john kennedy, steve daines, james lankford

What does it take for people to see democracy work and when it does not work?

So many people are like:

Pigs – that only want to root around in the mud and grub up whatever they can stick their snouts into… As long ‘they’ got it (it is anything they are going after), no matter how they got it or at what cost. And because of that, it is of no consequence how much or what damage is done to others around them – that made them satisfied (hey, I’m going to sell some stock on the White House grounds to make a profit — sound familiar, it should be, it happened in June 2017 – Chris Collins). It works when they come out on top, ahead of everyone else – it does not matter if it is illegal or unethical…
Little babies. Primarily this is about many in the Senate and Congress but it also applies to the people who follow these ‘leaders’… These babies are like the generation of children who were spoiled at every chance and because of that and to make these children (at the time they were children) feel ever so much better, they were all given trophies to feel good. To know that they were the best because they had a trophy, no matter that all of them in the race or they group they were in – they all received trophies. Or, in current times – these individuals seem to somehow magically become multi-millionaires while in Congress or the Senate – on a government salary… normally only corrupt, authoritarian and dictatorial leaders like Putin, Erdogan, and others become millionaires and billionaires…

This is something that will take years to recover from… But the blemish will remain, forever on America.

December 12, 2020 by gudguy1a

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.

August 30, 2020 by gudguy1a

Respect of and for Others and Equality (from me, the Radical Left…?)

It is unfortunate but it seems we STILL have a VERY long uphill battle, in getting people to open their minds, their hearts AND their brains. We have far too many people who are tunnel-visioned or seem to wear horse blinders or worse still – have a dominant wish to stay within their safety cone (filter bubble).

I guess I am part of the radical left, seeing as how I want – equality, diversity and progress for all men and women… I do not not want to see it happening “only” during times of disasters, emergencies or mass killings – I want to see it take place every day, EVERYWHERE.

Respect & Equality

As a posted image I saw stated, we need people to show respect.

Disagreements are part of life – not rioting or bringing AR-15s to a protest rally.

Now, take a look at inter-racial marriages, that area alone has grown SIGNIFICANTLY in America (the rest of the world has been light years ahead of us) over the past couple of decades because people refused to be cowed by those who desire for all people to remain in another era (another lifetime), where suppression and repression were the rule of law.

In those decades of repression/suppression:

where women (especially those who were ‘uppity’ and wanted equality),
people of color (again, especially those who were ‘uppity’ and wanted equality) and
those with a different sexual preference

were MOST of the time put in their place and NOT allowed to speak up. And in many parts of the world, we STILL have leaders and citizens trying to repress/suppress others and unfortunately succeeding in many places.

We NEED respect. We NEED conversations. We NEED everyone to recognize that life is evolving and WE ALL need to evolve as well.

We NEED people to talk to and with each other – not AT each other. We NEED equality between the sexes and the races – in ALL walks of life; at work and out and about in general.

We NEED people to LISTEN to each other – even if it makes you feel uncomfortable or ill at ease. You cannot grow unless you listen to AND think on other aspects that are different… You “have” to get out of your filter bubble zone and do your own research to follow up on content you have heard or read. And then you have to think about it logically. You must stretch yourself and go to reputable news / research / think tank sites to capture material from factual sources rather than solely paying attention to conspiracy theorists. That is the only way you will learn and grow – “get out of your bubble“! Please.

This long soliloquy was due to reading someone’s post (which was the image itself) and it hit a sensitive subject matter. One where I have been waiting to see something better, for many decades – to see change and improvement. Yet, because of one individual’s poor leadership, low moral standards and lack of empathy (the current president), we have SO MUCH more of these cans of worms showing the ugly sides of many around the world. And no, he is not the causation. But he, as the leader of the free world, did allow the ugliness to grow without really saying anything against it.

And yes, I do attempt to be the role model that others might want to follow, it is the only way I can get others to be better – by my being better. I will never stop on this quest; I hope others continue on this ‘Radical Left’ path as well.

You cannot force change; you have to persuade others to want to emulate and embrace change……

October 16, 2016 by gudguy1a

Trump – It’s About Leadership and Leading

NOTE: Arrrggghhhh….. I just HAD to break away from my impartiality and write about leadership again, for this election cycle. This post is about leadership, equality, fairness and progress, not to promote one specific individual over another. You must choose who you believe is the better leader for this country, to speak for you nationally and in the halls of other countries around the world. Do your own research, reach out to multiple different sources and do our own thinking. Do not let one news channel (TV, cable, paper, radio station) be your sole point of view or perspective. Broaden your horizon, then discuss and debate with others. Do not get locked into your own filter bubble (see Eli Pariser’s 2011 book on THE FILTER BUBBLE) because being in your own filter bubble will trap you and adversely affect your state of mind, on everything. Folks, please do your own deep, selfless and honest thinking.

Leadership! Yes, leadership. It is not something one can easily gain. Leadership is something one earns and this is basically what is at stake today – who deserves to be the leader of this nation… Successful leadership is one where people will want to emulate you as a successful role model.

First, yes, Hillary Clinton did create her own mess with her email situation. But do remember, other individuals before her at State Dept. also had their own private email servers. For this, if she is not going to be criminally punished as others of us would have (and others in the public eye should have), then she should be financially penalized. Then, we can move on.

Yes, she also may have previously had something going on with the foundation in question. If it is true, let the Justice Dept deal with it. Stop making allegations if they are not true. Then, we can move on.

Yes, Clinton is stiff, civil and formal but those traits actually are something that many people in this country (and around the world) want and prefer – at least she can become relaxed. Many people do not want to be associated with individuals who make it their mission in life to be:

rude/crass,
overbearing,
insincere,
name calling…,
unapologetic,
“politically INCORRECT”,
disingenuous (on an hourly basis),
divisive,
belittling (of various races, genders, religions, etc.)
inflammatory

Many people simply do not want to be engaged with individuals with these kinds of attributes ON A DAILY BASIS and NOT AT ALL if we can help it! Especially when these traits above have been a known trade mark of someone over decades…. And many people especially do not want someone with these traits to be the leader of a nation, a nation with the capacity to intentionally start a devastating and horrific war or become a police state. However, it is okay to sometimes be inflammatory, IF it is for a validly good cause and the end result is the success and/or uniting of disparate people/groups.

Lastly, on Bill Clinton – HE IS NOT THE ONE RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT! Drop this aspect. And let’s move on.

Many people in the United States (many of us wish we actually were a United people instead of all the many islands of uncompromising communities), many people want someone with at least some kind of history of working:

in politics
with the military,
with the intelligence community,
with state and local leaders and
with leaders of other countries.

Being a leader means:

working with people to obtain equality (financially or just in life), no matter the gender, age, race, religion or medical handicap.
bringing people together through a spirit of community, not through a spirit of free for all hooliganism at public events (which makes some of us believe we’re living in the U.K. during the height of hooliganism).
you have something to say and you have actual plans and methodologies to back up what you say. It does not mean saying you have something but you will not talk about it yet and then never talk about it again….
you want to enable others, from the very bottom and into the mid-levels of the economic and educational strata, to become better. To enable them to in turn become enablers – for themselves and to help others.
you are willing to improve the living and working conditions across the entire country for everyone. Conditions such as roads (think infrastructure), pay equality, working environments. It is bad enough that minimum wage is going to take 2 – 4 years in many places to reach the nationally desired goal. The problem with that is, by the time minimum wages get there, inflation and general cost increases will put many of these folks in the same spot they were in 3 – 4 years ago…
compromising, even when you are the one getting the short end of the stick, if it means success for all

One has to earn the right to be a leader…

But to be that leader, one must show they are for everyone, not just for certain sections of a country – or for certain groups of people. There is no returning back to 1960, or 1930, where many, many people in this country were/were perceived as second class (or worse) un-equal individuals. From Chinese (from what, the 1800’s to the 1940s), to Women (for all time), to Blacks (since the 1600’s), to Mexicans – no one should be looked down upon as anything less than equal.

We need someone to bring us together, not cause a nation-wide situation of ‘us’ versus ‘them’.

That is leadership!

December 23, 2013 by gudguy1a

Political parties and our future

Originally posted Aug 1, 2013 at & moved from: http://patrick642.wordpress.com/
Change. Improve. Innovate. Be better.
~ Pressing issues, from cyber security, to strategy, to innovation, to improvements (self, others, organizations)

Politics. At some point in the future, with the way things are nose diving in politics, we may wind up with a one party system for the country (maybe even one for N. American as a continent – but that is way off in the future).

So many politicians are in office nowadays primarily looking out for themselves rather than their constituents and the country. What happened along the way to get to this point where these selfish individuals want to line their pockets while in office or once they get out of office? What happened to those folks who went to Washington to do selfless work for the people of the country rather than completely toeing the party line, even if it makes no sense to them? Yet they kowtow to their party leaders, sometimes with no self-recrimination. What happened to those bold individuals who would stick up for things that were just and right, even if it did mean they were only a one term politician? But what they stick up for just may end up paving the way for new progress and improvements for those who follow them. What they do ‘might’ break the logjam that continues to hold us back from actually being the GREATEST COUNTRY IN THE WORLD.

Is it that the allure of being in the spotlight brings out the worse candidates to public office? Or rather, maybe I should say that it brings out the worse of that candidate/political member… Or is it the allure of making buckets of money while they are in office and then after they leave office? We know that a lot of individuals go in to office with a modest bank balance but at some point along the way they seem to have millions of dollars in the bank and in investments. Is greed the factor that draws so many individuals to the highest public office now. Many individuals who should be running simply cannot afford to so, what with the steep, STEEP cost of running for office and/or remaining in office. We should not need to have candidates for president raise and spend $1,000,000,000 (billion). Neither should we be seeing candidates for mayors, governors, congress or senate now be required to raise millions of dollars for their war chest to run and compete against other candidates who might be rich or well funded. We need to somehow rejigger the methodology of how we get good and decent candidates to run for office, without all this massive amount of spending…

I favor no one party blindly but I will say that I am an independent who leans heavily to the democratic party. But, I don’t follow that party blindly just because they are democrats. So if you are of a different party that is your right, just don’t hate me or respond negatively just because of the party difference. We are supposed to be one country, one where we should be able to speak our minds – but not rabidly without commonsense and common courtesy. Be passionate but not bullheaded, stick in the mud or ostrich in the sand passionate.

We have to hear what all parties say and do “our own homework/research” to get more ground truth and complete facts. Not just one side of the story. This is what is killing us, so many people listen to just one side on a daily basis and they end up with this vicious bubble filter (actually, read Eli Pariser’s book on “The Filter Bubble ” and gain some insight from that). Then these folks stay in that filter bubble and close their minds to new, fresh, different ideas – all because they may be too unsettling for them to come across something different, even if what they come across may be more true. I would say, “to each their own” but this is too important for so many people in this country to get in and stay in those filter bubbles. It is flat out dangerous.

We have too many in the different political parties that already make it more expensive and dangerous to be involved. We have states and cities around the country that are sneaking in bills that are harmful to the people of the state. Rather than debating the topic at hand, these bill sponsors rename the bill with something esoteric and stash it in another bill and then sneak the bill in at the deadline…

Maybe we do need one party in this country, one that is for the people that treats all Americans with dignity and respect. Whether they are women, people of different races, have lower educational backgrounds – the point is, we are supposed to be helping each other, not making the “have not’s” suffer as they are. All Americans should be getting a fair shot, not because they belong to just one party (‘ours’ – not ‘theirs), because for sure if you suppress someone, you are not being fair.

Do we need to change the political party system? Because to me, this bicameral one is having far too many expensive and ineffectual issues. We have to stop all these stalemates and get things moving. We all know. sorry – I mean ‘many of us’ know that the longer we delay projects, they become more expensive. And we have to start thinking of the future, strategically and put things in place now (even if they are expensive) so we can reap the benefits and rewards down the road.

Okay, enough on this for now – I just get riled up hearing all these political fights that make no sense. Conservative or Progressive – we need to be fair and help everyone up.

Society – Change. Innovate. Improve. Be better.

~ Topics ranging from: Strategy, Intelligence, Diplomacy, Leadership, Equality, Innovation to Improvements (self, others, organizations)

filter bubble

Another Day of Infamy, A Day of National Shame during the Electoral Certification at the Capitol

Another Day of Infamy, A Day of National Shame during the Electoral Certification at the Capitol

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

Respect of and for Others and Equality (from me, the Radical Left…?)

Trump – It’s About Leadership and Leading

Political parties and our future