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.

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.)

 

The Pulse Night Club: A Sad & Horrific Day – Worst Shooting in U.S. History – June 12, 2016

Another Black Flag day… and it happened at the Pulse night club, in Orlando, Florida, America…

49 happy people – no matter their race, gender or sexual preference – are gone now, possibly more over the following days. And all because one person disagrees with the lifestyle (possibly) and lack of Islamic faith (possibly) and decided to strike a blow in the name of ISIS (again, possibly) in the U.S. because of our western lifestyle. (UPDATE: June 13, 2015 – we definitely now know it was for ISIS/ISIL/IS)

We are all saddened and heartbroken that this happened.

What does this horrific event now mean for:

• Americans,
• Gays,
• Non-gays,
• The religious,
• The non-religious,
• The gun owners,
• Non-gun owners,
• Privacy (what’s left of it) and most of all
• Freedom

Just because ‘you’ are against gays and the non-religious and women who wear scanty clothing and anyone of a different religion from yourself; none of these things gives anyone the right or justification to kill anyone else.

It is completely wrong and not up to you to make that kind of choice.

So, what will this mean for the people of America? Are more people from the small list above going to become targets…?

As the weeks progress, will it mean an immediate and much more intense crackdown on all known and wannabe ISIS sympathizers across the country? American citizen or not?

Will this tragic event mean that it is time to finally get down to brass tacks to create and implement a national registry for automatic weapons (and any automatic hand guns – i.e. machine pistols)? Will this registry be created, even if the gun lobby and the NRA are against this kind of tracking – even if dozens of people were killed with an automatic weapon…

Will it mean a further erosion of privacy for Americans? Let’s hope that it does not erode too much more of our privacy and freedom that we hold dearly.

 

Are people finally going to come together (as they always seem to in any tragic situation) but this time, forcefully and united, demand actual enforcement of current laws or implementation of tougher laws on automatic weapons, along with that national registry for law enforcement to use before another tragic situation occurs as it did in Orlando?

This should have taken place after the Sandy Hook shootings…

 

What will transpire in the future after this shooting? Well, we – all of us – will need to come to grip with what will continue happening if nothing concrete is done about it NOW. And that could mean more mass shootings and maybe even robbing you of someone you know and love…

However, what could happen might be something meaningful. For example, having this automatic weapons’ registry means it could be cross indexed with anyone on a list such as the FBI’s list of ISIS sympathizers. We ‘will‘ need to collate as much data as possible in tracking down and stopping these individuals before they commit any kind of crime. This will mean even more usage of analytic tools such as Palantir, Analyst Notebook and the like to compile, analyze and spit out reports of likely candidates. It is clear that the FBI and other law enforcement agencies are overwhelmed with the number of suspects to track and figure out who might do damage to the people of this country. We could also enlist the aid of something like IBM’s Watson to process the huge quantity of data that should be collected, collated and analyzed.

Now if this list were put together in a decent manner, using strategy and forethought, the list should well include, wherever possible, known associates (sympathizers or not) who most likely would buy the weapons if the shooter him/herself were unable to purchase the weapons – because of that list…

Just don’t try to start going around arresting all Muslims – because they, as everyone should know by now, are not all the same… O.K.???

 

The gun lobby, the NRA, members of Congress and many of the people in the U.S. will have to realize that we will need something like this registry to aid in preventing future shootings, such as their own family members.

Otherwise America, if we cannot create some kind of system where correlations can be made, nationally – we will see more and larger body counts of the dead from shootings that could have been prevented, if we tried better.

 

And yes, there will be many who completely pooh-poohs the idea of any kind of national registry for automatic weapons so they can buy 4, 5 or a dozen of those themselves without anyone tracking that information.

On the other hand, there will be a lot more who actually want something like a registry so they can have peace of mind that law enforcement knows who has automatic weapons in case anyone plans to (social media) or goes on a killing spree. Again!

 

I hope the gist of what I am trying to say comes across because I vacillated all day whether to write anything because of my raw state of mind. The next shooter(s) may not be an ISIS sympathizer but could be an ordinary American such as Dylann Roof who shot up the church in Charleston or any other individual angry over something trivial…

Finally, and obviously, I did but I am still so wound up due to all the needless deaths, all because of one person disagreeing (likely) with the western lifestyle… Sad and Angry…

Religious Jihad… Caliphate… Putin & Crimea… Global Problems…

Global Concerns

Around the world today, we continue to face multiple global issues (only going to discuss a few here), issues large enough that the entire global community must weigh in and do more than talk. And oh yeah, we will need to provide the UN and Interpol with much more bite (punishment and enforcement) – they absolutely require it.

Yes, these concerns and issues are all highly serious but we must start doing more.

The spread of one religion full of zealots is not just an issue for one region of the world – it is a significant issue for all citizens of the globe.

And a country using its military might to take land and/or to instill fear by proposing military expansion under the pretext of “to insure our citizens are not harmed” can no longer be tolerated or allowed.

 

One does not need to hold the highest security clearances to know or see what is happening around the world, there are plenty of news outlets to cull information from, using your own research efforts. But – you “HAVE TO” use your own mind and brain power to make your own informed decisions. It will mean watching portions of multiple network TV or cable news programs, radio shows and Internet news feeds. You “cannot” filter all of your news from just one or two sources; you must broaden your horizons of where you get your news. Listen to news coming from multiple political parties, not just your own.

Anyone publically disavowing science yet does not nothing about any aspect of the science they are attempting to disprove, i.e. evolution, global weather patterns, financial economies, the science of diplomacy or military arts and so on – is that the type of person you want to listen to and to follow?

Listen, if you continue to diligently listen to only a couple of sources, you are no better than the kids being brainwashed in the numerous madrasas in multiple parts of the world. And we, many of us, all know that many of these madrasas are pounding select knowledge and no more into the heads of all the impressionable men and boys (remember, girls and women are not worthy of education). Many of these impressionable men and boys are taught to dislike, disavow and hate the lifestyles and teachings of the western world.

In the end, the mass majority of individuals leaving madrasas are still ignorant and mostly uneducated… but frighteningly have their sights set on hating and killing anyone not of their religion or are from the western world.

 

One does not need to be the best National Security Intelligence SME to analyze open source (not classified) information from around the globe. You can use that significantly important organ of your body, your very own brain, to dissect and analyze the information you see and read for yourself.

YOU, you are smart enough to compare multiple news items and see which ones hold water and which ones do not, especially if you do your own research to see if what is being discussed is true or not. You are your own intelligence analyst – you’re an intelligent human being, I sure hope you are.

One just needs to open their eyes and “see,” not just look, what is occurring and extrapolate about what is happening now and onwards into the future. Extrapolate the information you’ve analyzed and see where the path ends up a week from now, a month or year from now. You have to project forward intelligently.

 

Religious Jihadists

To spread the word of Islam by killing non-believers of all other religions – that is one goal of a religious zealot or some type of Jihadist. To be very clear here, many of us know that the mass majority of Muslims are peace loving – it is the minority of dangerous zealots, who want to make the world over in their image, following Sharia law that we have to worry about.

 

A group of individuals, no matter what religion they purport to be part of or are from – no can kidnap women and girls, killing the men and boys and force those captives to follow an unwanted religion. There is no justification for it.

What zealous religious individuals around the globe have to understand (I know, I know – they may never understand) is that there is the matter of free will and expression. They cannot force others to follow a religion that was created centuries ago out of ignorance and grew over time with religious leaders evolving over that time as well. Those religious leaders, zealot or not, evolved over time, holding titles from witch doctor, shaman, priests, imam, apostle, dalai lama, swami, abbot to sun gods, etc., etc….

The choice of free will means people can choose to believe in any one of the many gods out there and to follow whatever religion they want – but it is their choice to do so, or to ‘not’ follow any god or religion. Just because a group of people spurred on by someone claiming to be their religious leader, who commands their followers to commit Jihads or Fatwas, it does not make it right. And make no mistake about it, a Jihad or Fatwa that dictates killing someone is not legal in many, many parts of the world. It is just murder.

The growth of modern day terrorists and their aims lead them to want to transit international boundaries and create fear and death by any means handy. These terrorists say it is to right the wrongs of all the years of western superiority. Unfortunately, I will say, many of our ancestors did take many, many things by force and in the process, suppressed the people who lived in those affected countries, including the U.S…

Today, we have many people following varying religions around the world, religions that rose up out of superstition and lack of education from 10s of thousands (if not 100s of thousands) years ago and then passed down through the ages to us, the descendants’ descendants.

And please, if anyone wants to follow an ancient tradition that is their right but those people cannot force others to do so, it has to be of free will, if that is desired.

   

A Caliphate?

Now, as everyone should be aware of, we have a hard core group of individuals in the mid-east who, under their leader – Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi (the piously humble man wearing a very expensive wrist watch), wish to create an Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (now calling itself, the Islamic State…). Or if you will, al-Baghdadi wants to start the beginnings of a new Caliphate.

This is still a terrorist activity even if the terrorists believe it to be some kind of holy crusade.

In their drive to create this Caliphate, suppose these individuals, who are hell bent (pardon the pun) on doing whatever they can to demolish, destroy and flat out create massive deaths around the world, suppose these terrorists start using hidden explosives (and vastly improved miniaturization techniques) in wearable’s such as FitBits, packed into the frames of many pairs of glasses or even within the handles of suitcases…?

Suppose they actually get more American’s or visitors to the U.S. here on a Visa to successfully cause deaths by poisoning the water supplies of small towns (or larger cities) or other such dastardly acts of violence…?

What do we do, start doing even more pervasive and extensive searches of citizens around the globe to prevent the spread of terrorist activities…?

For all we know, in the future, Boko Haram may want to become of that group, growing their own list of horrific acts…

In any regard, a Caliphate led by religious zealot(s) is a dangerous thing for the world to deal with.

 

Putin, Russia, Crimea, etc…

Okay, we have the mid-east as a very hot spot, what about in Eurasian? Look at Putin of the Soviet Union, errr sorry, of Russia. It really appears as if he wants to pull the Soviet Union of yore back together again. What else can explain the inextricably odd actions that the man is doing?

Or is he simply off his noggin in annexing a portion of Ukraine – Crimea, to grow Russia back into its former self – the U.S.S.R…? Is he seriously looking at Georgia, Moldova and others? Has he absolutely gone wacko in threatening Finland? If you do not recall or did not know:

• Putin in 2012 [1] stated, “Saying that Finland will surrender its right to act independently in the event it joins the western military alliance, Putin added that Moscow will respond to deployment of any NATO attack missiles based in the Nordic country.”
• Then in 2013, he threatened Finland with reoccupation [2] and
• In 2014 [3], “According to Andrej Illarionov, the President’s chief economic adviser from 2000 to 2005, Mr Putin seeks to create “historical justice” with a return to the days of the last Tsar, Nicholas II, and the Soviet Union under Stalin.” Also from the 2014 story: “Parts of Georgia, Ukraine, Belarus, the Baltic States and Finland are states where Putin claims to have ownership.”

So what does the world do with an individual who has delusions of grandeur, which is what it appears to me? Does the global community stand by twiddling its collective thumbs waiting to see what Putin does? Or does the world come together in sending a clear and definitive statement to Putin that he cannot cavalierly move his military into other countries with the belief that his predecessors were wrong in granting sovereignty and land to other countries – Ukraine, Finland, Belarus, etc.

Yes, the EU does get a large amount of fossil fuel from Russia but at some point, the world, especially the EU and its neighbors must put the pedal to the metal and show Putin how much solidarity there is in that hemisphere and that he cannot continue bullying countries because he has a larger military.

 

There will be some initial pain in putting up a strong cohesive front towards Putin but a bit of sacrifice early will likely quell any future problems – such as another military incursion into places like Georgia or Crimea.

 

Then too, it’s likely that Putin is desirous in occupying those areas of Ukraine for the vast energy reserves (gas and oil) below ground, within the Ukrainian eastern borders. He took Crimea for the naval base infrastructure currently in place.

 

And as for the U.S., no, we are not exempt from problems. We know that we have a good number of individuals in the U.S. that want to create problems like not paying taxes, attempts at secession in the state they live in and on and on (i.e. militia, sovereign citizens – for which their numbers grew when someone of a different color became President). There are multiple issues of a long list of problems in the U.S., such as gun violence, racial disparity (still), educational woes and on and on…

 

Our Global Future…

Education

We have to set a goal, one primary overarching goal – that of providing better, much better education to everyone around the globe. Yes, the education will have to be modified for whatever country but everyone should be educated, to learn to read and write and think for themselves. In providing ‘quality’ education, it will allow more people the chance to grow their own choices and make better choices for them and their families.

Of course this is not an easy task, we are still working on in many of the developed countries but we have to spread education and the tools to gain that education. If we do not, we will all have a bleak future. If people grow up ignorant and only see, hear and read selected teachings from their country’s education system or from a religious group, they do not grow and these people only see things through a possibly much distorted lens, lenses which could continue to cause anger and hatred and jealousy.

A lack of education amplifies ignorance and ill will.

Communication

We all need to make better efforts in communicating – “talking” – to each other. We need to find acceptable common grounds to meet on (such as peaceful coexistence). We need to talk to each other, not attempting to force one country’s belief on another or one’s religion on others.

We need to talk to each other and in doing so, we “must compromise” – no one can have everything they want. It is just not possible, without engendering hatred and violence.

Collaboration

We need more collaboration between all people, all nations! If the world continues on as it is with more nationalism growing in different countries, more secessionist attempts within countries, deepening of certain religious branches – we are going to end up in a world of separateness, with no one wanting to assimilate within a country’s borders. Nor will we have people looking past the ethnicity, race, religion of others, just because they are different – outsiders…

We will have a future plagued with more:

• Violence,
• Terrorists,
• Gangs – Mafia, Triads, Mafiya (Russia), Yakuza, MS13
• Nations hankering to take land from other country’s for water, mineral and energy within the other country (just because they have a bigger military),
• Etc., etc., etc. – I could go on all day 

We have to work together and help the weakest nations grow and begin to prosper. We have to do away with all the remaining dictators and corrupt President’s, in certain countries, along with their crony politicians and business leaders.

We have to do more.

 

Definitions

SME   Subject Matter Expert

 

References

1 – Finland will lose ‘sovereignty’ if joins NATO – Putin, http://rt.com/politics/putin-finland-nato-missiles-509/, 22 Jun 2012

2 – Putin threatens Finland with reoccupation, http://www.kavkazcenter.com/eng/content/2013/03/15/17466.shtml, 15 Mar 2013

3 – Vladimir Putin ‘wants to regain Finland’ for Russia, adviser says, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/vladimir-putin-wants-to-regain-finland-for-russia-adviser-says-9224273.html, 30 Mar 2014

Freedom…. or Death…..

Originally posted Aug 30, 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)

 

WMD Well, it looks as if more people of the world would rather watch the innocent Syrians continue to be massacred by Al-Assad…. The evidence continues to be clear that there are chemical weapons being used. And I am willing to bet that it is not Syrian rebels using those kinds of chemicals on other Syrians… Two years and 100,000 people killed – and counting…

Yes, America did the wrong thing in hindsight years ago when Iraq used chemical weapons and we did nothing to stop that. But that was then and today, I don’t believe any American in their right mind would condone another country using chemical weapons on their own people.

Hopefully the U.N. inspectors, even after a lengthy and diluting time period, have found some kind of chemical evidence to prove to the U.N. itself and other countries of the world that ‘yes,’ there were chemical weapons used.

Syria’s Friends Syria is a country that has had a dictatorial government, errr sorry, dictatorial leaders for decades. The people of Syria have been dead set on resolving that matter and wanting to elect, democratically, new leadership for the people (if they can avoid the religious divisions that is hurting Egypt’s elections). The Syrian people no longer want to have someone born into power to run the country and the people. And we have Al-Assad, who does not want to give up that absolute power.

As to friends of the Syrian leadership – is it any surprise they are other countries where the people are controlled, and I will say absolutely controlled, by their country’s leadership. a – China A country with no true religious freedom, no democratic freedom (despite what the leaders say because the leadership is still communistic) and no Internet freedoms because the Chinese ‘Net is monitored and censored to only allow what the Chinese government will allow and shut down when that leadership decides to… b – Iran A country where the former leader, Ahmadinejad, stated there are no gays in Iran, no religious freedom, no “true” democratically elected leadership (clerics still run the country) and no Internet freedom because the Iranian ‘Net is monitored and heavily censored AND can be shut down when their government decides to… c – Russia Another country where to be gay is to be illegal…. But where there actually is freedom on the ‘Net – even if that ‘Net is HEAVILY monitored by state/federal police for ANY kind of dissident or deviants… These are the Syrian leaders’ friends – other countries with severe and heavy handed control of the people. Oh, and countries that want to continue selling weapons to enforce controlling their people…

Uniting So then. I am not sure what is going to transpire next, Syrians continue to die while the rest of the world stands by because many of the people of the various countries do not want their government to get them involved. Instead, people of the world are hoping that: 1 – Conversations will solve the problem (two years and counting), 2 – Sanctions will solve the problem (two years and counting), 3 – Diplomacy will solve the problem (two years and 100,000 people killed and counting)…

And if we, the U.S. and other allies (if they do join us) do get involved with U.N. approval for precision (as best possible) strikes, what will be the aftermath? What will Russia and Iran do to help their ‘Friend’ Syria, a country that purchases munitions from them? Will Russia and Iran condone losing their business buddy – even if Al-Assad is killing innocents wantonly? Or are these two countries using nothing but bravado and bluster to say, “Hey, I’m important, you have to listen to me?” Or will one or both of them take some kind of retaliatory action against the U.S. and allies – kinetically (missiles, bombs), via cyberspace (some kind of debilitating virus / worm) or maybe even some kind of chemical weapon against the U.S.

Conclusion What do we do, continue to talk – or worse, let our do nothing congress engage in rabbithole approach to some kind of answer. And yes, congress is supposed to be giving approval for any kind of strike. Maybe our do nothing congress will surprise us…. While I am not a Hawk, I don’t want to turn ‘any’ cheek while people are getting massacred.