Alabama – Separation of Church and State – Violation – Invoking “God”

It seems we have a judicial member, a very senior member who seems to have not performed well in law school.

This Alabama Judge (Tom Parker) should be removed (finally) from the bench with his IVF ruling disqualified. Why you ask?

So glad you asked. It is because, as far as many of the rest of us know, there is “supposed” to be an EXPLICITLY clear delineation between adding personal religious beliefs into political and state business, activities and laws.

Passing a law, one with ‘personal’ beliefs in a mythical god is not legal.

• Please read the entire piece before you start screaming that I am a heathen, please… While I am a heathen, I am a good person – that should be that is required to be a good human in a ‘good’ society.

Now, if you do believe in a god or another mythical figure such as Zeus, Mohammed, Shiva – that is up to you and your life forming beliefs. “You” can enjoy whatever religion you choose – you however, cannot just force the rest of us to believe in any of them. For many of us, ‘SCIENCE’ and ‘LOGIC’ is our life force and our continual path into the future.

Since centuries behind us, many humans on Earth have:

1. stopped believing that the world was flat  
2. completely denied the existence of dragons in the oceans  
3. believed that BOOKS, the printed word (science, math, logic, literature [freely expressed literature]), was a great thing and what we needed to progress – better than a bible full of beliefs
4. believed that equality, not just mouthing the word, that full blown equality for everyone – women, people of different races, from different countries – that is the path forward

Injecting religion into politics and state and law is forcing those who are:

• Humanist
• Agnostic
• Athiest
• Non-believer – well, you can add more of your own categories to the list here

to kow-tow to something they just do not believe in. That is not the way – such as forcing all non-believers to suck it up and live with the phrase “In god we trust” on American currency and in some court rooms. Laws are supposed to be in place to protect everyone, not just a subset of people on earth to make them feel good because they can say “hey, god is with us” or “god protects us” or “god saves us”. But – for an embryo, an unborn child – a non-breathing pile of tissue – a non-thinking cellular glob where everything it does is autonomic… An embryo is not a lifeform, get it – ‘not a life’ yet.

You, we, all of us – we have to start using commonsense and logic, not just belief. To refer to an embryo and state “All human beings bear the image of God” – where is the logic and science in that statement…? Parker has been referring to law and religion for most of his career (most of us do not know how long since we do not know this individual). Parker is relying on the book of Genesis.

For legal reasoning, who was the author of Genesis – someone that is an expert in law? Can that be authenticated?

Or is the Genesis author that Parker continually refers to, a definitively identified higher being with bona fides that is just out there in the cosmos stating law from his/her own mouth. Sure, people talk about changing water to wine and his prodigy waking up and coming out of a cave but that is all hearsay. And if it did happen, no one can prove that alchemy (changing lead to gold, water to wine, etc.) has ever occurred in the human lifespan.

Here is the kicker, as more people learn science and technology, they tend to believe less in religion and mythical beings. During the first couple of decades of my life, I heard nothing but this statement, “the earth is 6,000 years old.” That completely stopped being the religious mantra being put out into the public hemisphere as more and MORE science discovered older and older life on this rock we call earth. And science is ‘still’ continuing to find older civilizations and lifeforms.

So, are we starting to devolve back into a nation (world) where the religious fancy is going to take hold again and overrule science and logic.

Lastly, where was your god during the:

• Holocaust,
• Slavery,
• World War I, II, Vietnam,
• the Japanese horrific attack on Nanjing (Nanking),
• soldiers of America slaughtering Indigenous Natives.

—- where was your god then?

What about when:

• the Chinese communist party were/are wiping out the Uyghurs culture, incarcerating them, cutting their hair and beards, taking over their physical properties by imminent domain and razing them to the ground and lastly performing a mass indoctrination to force them to stop believing in their own Uyghur ways and follow the Chinese Communist Party brainwash processes
• on October 7th, Hamas terrorists invaded Israel — to kill and rape and kidnap AND gang rape and THEN kill girls and women and definitely, DEFINITELY do not forget about the babies that were decapitated…. (NOTE: All the Palestinians had to do to stop all this current conflict — give up the Hamas terrorists — the current state of Israeli soldiers in Gaza would have been over months ago).

—- where was your god…?

What about:

• the Africa Rwandan genocide that took place in Rwanda – where the Hutu performed their massacre of the Tutsi’s…?
• little incident in Tulsa, OK, on Black Wall Street, where the white mobs massacred/murdered ~300 progressive/successful blacks – destroyed all the black family homes and stores in the process – eh?
• Females – full rights and equality (work, pay, life)
• Blacks and Native Americans – full rights and equality – with none of the ‘one drop of colored blood makes one a #$*@*_r ‘ word?

—- where was/is your god?

And let’s not forget – where was your god during our most recent pandemic, where MILLIONS of people around the world suffered horrifically or died…?

If there is a god, an almighty, all-powerful entity – do you not believe he/she/it would have stepped up to stop the loss of life…? And please, do not go down that rosy red rabbit hole of “well, he/she/it was weaning out the weak and making it better for the rest of humanity.”

Mar 13 add-on: a woman raised a point on this article:

"If they do go by their Scripture, the quote is "the BREATH of Life". That's when Life starts per their own beatitudes: with the first breath ~ and yes
WHAT ABOUT SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE?!!!"

I had to respond but the response went longer than I planned but I could not stop, this is too serious of a topic. Here is my remark back:

Yes, that is what many of us believe in - that first breath...

We just have too many people refusing logic and science. Instead, focusing solely (or primarily) on religion and faith. Which, to me, keeps coming back to so many centuries of:
a) flat earth
b) dragons at the edge of the world
c) Aristotle being chastised for stating the Earth revolves around the Sun and not the other way around
d) being gay is an abomination (I'm not gay or bi-sexual and I see nothing wrong with that - that is up to any and ALL LBTGQ individuals to live life as they wish to enjoy it)
e) religious leaders (pastors, reverends, mega-church talkers) all saying do as their 'god' says, while in the meantime, they are in the back room with another woman (or same-sex with a 'guy') or stealing money for a mega-yacht or doing drugs...
f) forcing women (certain parts of the world) to wear clothing to cover their entire body (hijab and whatnot) or to ALWAYS have to be escorted by some male member of their family when going out in public. 

While all in all, many of these religious believers are not looking at the big picture and the future of humanity - being progressive for all and doing better. Such as:
* Helping the not well-to-do start doing better.
* Getting rid of racist, sexist discrimination... 
* Removing the taint of "my religion is better than your religion" (sunni vs the shias - catholics vs protestants, etc....)

But no, they wish to focus on and follow one of their gods out there.
Like me believing in Zeus and following his lead - but I know that the 'god' Zeus does not exist, therefore, I focus on those around me.
So, if this is what folks choose to do in their daily lives, it is up to them to how their life is dictated, not us. However, please, do not allow your belief to get 'you' to try to convince the rest of us to believe in a god, any god. Science, for many of us - moved us on to a better, clear eyed path….

Apologies for the long, little soliloquy there, I just get a bit teed off when folks try to bring religion back to the forefront in our daily lives and attempt to jam it down the throats of all the science/logical thinking members living on this now small planet...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Taiwan has it – China wants it….

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Not to forget the Spratly Islands as well….

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

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

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

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

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

What about them?

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

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

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.)

 

America & Allies Are Screwed = Trump

Well America, Allies and Friends, welcome to our current global state of affairs – “We are all screwed!”

However – If you are a follower of the “Fake News” phenomenon, it is best you stop here and go elsewhere…

 

As many Americans already knew, Trump was not the person who should have won the White House nor should he continue to be the person sitting in the White house. It is still not 100% clear why so many of Trump’s base continue to support him.  But it does appear that more people now recognize that they should not have supported him, after they have suffered economically under the stewardship of this current president.

Is this Trump support borne out of ignorance, lack of intelligence, poor ethics, bad integrity, willingness to suppress other people just so they could be (or appear) superior….?  Some combination of those items?  All of those choices?

Why is it that with all of the content out there in the public spaces that so many people who “should” know better, do not know better…?  We have people like McConnell in the senate refusing to do the right thing, which is, removing the clear and present danger of a leader who wants to undertake illegal activities to ensure his own power. Then we have people like Giuliani who was kind of a hero when 9/11 happened – but look at him now, he ‘appears’ to be broken in so many ways and ethics seem to no longer matter to him.

If you, the reader, need to have a fact checking session here, it means you are not up to date with what is going on over the past several years or refuse to face reality with what is going on. Nothing so onerous as a bad leader (leader is purported in this case) can be ignored by a leader who constantly:

• lies on every topic,
• chooses to favor political friends instead of what is better and the right thing to do for the majority of people,
• chooses to favor authoritarian and dictatorial leaders of other countries (China, Russia, Philippines, Turkey, N. Korea – enough?) over leaders of democratic and progressive countries and the people of countries who are or trying to be democratic and progressive,
• makes outlandish claims to secure favor with many (talking about Trump’s base here) who are not thinking (or refuses to think) clearly or logically or unselfishly – and never follows through with those claims (think factories, think coal plants),
• uses foul language in public discourse,
• (we will not discuss nepotism here, okay?),
• tears down decades old trust between global allies,
• due to lack of action (or refusing to recognize it) on his part against hate crime, white supremacists and racism – allowing the hate to grow and fester and grow further,
• allows illegal activities to take place under their purview without saying a word or lifting a finger (well, okay Trump did say, “Oh this or that person did do a bad thing – I feel sorry for them and wish them well”) to put a stop to it and setting precedents for the next person who wants to attempt doing illegal activities

How does one gain or hold trust with a leader who has all of these characteristics?

How does one begin to trust a leader once someone becomes aware of those characteristics?

How does anyone want to follow a leader who should be a role model when that leader (Trump) is seen on international television shoving the Montenegro Prime Minister out of the way so he could be at the front of the crowd?

So, in going back to “being screwed”. With this current American president in place, we now have decades of global growth set back on its heels. And we appear to have opened the gates further for foreign governments doing heinous activities in multiple regions, setting the groundwork for ‘more’ nationalism and more dictatorial growth to happen.

Look at Russia’s continued attempted growth, such as setting up bases in the Arctic Circle and repression of choice and political parties (where opponents are arrested or killed). Look at China creating man-made islands in the South China Sea in order to grow their hegemony and sphere of influence and the disappearing act of Uighur villages/towns. Look at N. Koreas’ continued missile development and testing near Japan.

But what is America doing while all of this is going on? Not a bloody thing!!!!

This American president wants Turkey to be a favored friend because of Trump property in Turkey while Turkey invades Syria. Is genocide under way now in Syria – you tell us…

Trump wants Putin to best buds while Russia continues to make inroads in Ukraine and continues to with a death grip on oil into Ukraine and Europe.

Trump wants to be BFF with Mohammed bin Salman for buying weapons (and whatever else is going on between them), while bin Salman has this perpetual cloud hanging over him with the death of Jamal Khashoggi’s murder.

 

We could go on and on belaboring the following regarding Trump’s ‘lack of’:

• mental fitness,
• global awareness,
• strategic thinking capabilities,
• fiscal policy making,
• political acumen (unless it illegal then he gets an A+),
• logical thinking capabilities,
• empathy (such as with Heather Heyer, poverty in America, discrimination that is ongoing every day, genocide of Uighurs in Western China, genocide that is appearing to take place in Syria, inequality, well, the list can keep going),
• equality (alleged racist views),
• etc.,
• etc., etc…..

this list is endless but we have already lost a lot of readers already by this point.

The bottom line is, the American President (yes, a capital ‘P’ is used here because it is NOT talking about Trump) is SUPPOSED to be a global role model, someone that anyone and everyone is willing to follow and WANTS to follow. How does anyone in their right mind want to follow a person who talks about and revels in “grabbing a woman by the _ _ _ _ Y”!!!???? NO-ONE-SHOULD-BE-FOLLOWING-THAT-KIND-OF-PERSON at any time for any sane or moral reason. And all women (and most men) should have been appalled by that alone and put the person who said it on the trash heap without a second thought.

The only kind of person that follows a ‘leader’ like that is if that person already has a decrepit sense of self, with poor moral compasses and where lying, self-aggrandizement, selfishness and corruption are already the person’s bed rock foundation. To top that off, the person who is following that kind of leader may be highly educated as well, who should know better – yet they continue to follow that kind of leader out of a poor sense of direction, by becoming lost somewhere along the lines of their lives.

Because of this current president, in the past few years, how much time and money have we as a country spent trying to prove illegalities and uncover cover ups?

 

America, Allies and Friends – WE ARE SCREWED allowing leaders like Trump to remain in place. We are doomed to going backwards, reversing DECADES of hard-fought victories against racism and sexism and equality and growth.

We are screwed in lost opportunities of building better and even stronger alliances with partners around the world. Yet MONEY is becoming the driving force with leaders in position who care less about their people and more with lining their own pockets with GOLD.  Look at Erdogan, Putin and Xi – how does a country’s leader become that insanely rich in any legal and logical fashion?

We are screwed in lifting up people from the bottom rungs of society and helping to make them better and crucial members of society but we cannot seem to make health care an affordable staple of their lives – OH, WAIT. We “DID” have that but certain members of our government parties (national to state level) want to continue to whittle away at it until it too is gone.

 

So, how much longer are people of America going to continue to side with people that only want to have power for themselves and their ‘buds’ while the majority of America continues to suffer with, well, everything…?

This is where you, fellow Americans have to raise your eyes in looking to the future and your voice to bring everyone along for the growth we should have already continued with after 2016.

Now is the time to put a stop to all of the illegal nonsense taking place in America’s government, bring back America’s allies, block and stop the growth of dictators and authoritarian leaders and invest in America’s future (infrastructure, education, the poor, the sickly, the folks of America’s mid-west who feel left out).  We, America, could have infrastructure projects like the old Tennessee Valley Authority to put people to work – roads, bridges, schools, society – if we come together with the same purpose and goal of growing EVERYBODY!!!

 

Otherwise, well, WE-ARE-SCREWED as a society if we continue to allow individuals like Trump, McConnell (he is added here due to his willingness to block anything and not speak up for what is right), Putin, Xi, Erdogan, Kim Jong Un, and on and on… That is, unless you are one of the “Fake News” followers (or purveyors).

    

July 4th – Tanks & planes & lions, oh my!!!! The Nerve

Tanks and planes and lions, oh my!!!! 

The Nerve of the current American president to usurp the position he obtained illegitimately (sure, the electoral college voted him in but the people did not). As many Americans who use their brain and their logic, they know by this point that this person primarily got into that office due to illegal Russian interference, on facebook and other sites, along with the significant number of internet botnets…

Well. It seems the 4th of July is going to be perverted this year because of one person and one person alone. For those who are against this “parade of America’s might” – show your protest in a way that would really matter:

• Go to the original location for the fireworks, you will still be able to see the works in the sky –  or
• Simply do not go
  

Simple as that, two choices.

Do not go to the area where he is “holding court” for this July 4th festivities for the people. What could be more annoying and aggravating than most of the people ‘not’ appearing at the location of where he is…

We are not celebrating a return of our fellow Americans who went overseas to fight for us.  Turn this trump’s 4th of July into a non-event…

We are not China! We are not Russia! And we are certainly not France having a Bastille Day celebration!!!

(added July 4^th to help clarify the above for some individuals who appeared to be incapable of thinking for themselves)

It turns out, I needed to add a bit more content to help some folks out there.

This is TL;DR for many impatient, narrow focused, selfish individuals out there. BLUF (bottom line up front) – no good country needs to put their military might on display that is, if it is a strong country.

Currently, we have too many individuals in America who are not looking at the future, they are stuck looking at right here, right now and being selfish. This is because they are either stuck in navel gazing mode or head is stuck in the sand OR they long for the past where people of a certain race were supreme and whatever they said was the law of the land. People of other colors were suppressed – in jobs, education and freedom. And do not forget about women, women were also second-class citizens in not being equal to men – there was no freedom for the vast majority of women and women for bloody sure were not allowed the opportunities of getting into leading roles or powerful positions (glass ceiling, which we still have).

We need more people using their brain and using them to extrapolate out into the future of society and of humanity.

We need people using their brain to think, to think long and hard about what is happening, not just here but around the world. We now have FAR more world leaders trying to emulate other leaders. Normally that is a good thing but when you have AUTHORITARIAN leaders emulating other Authoritarian leaders of today and those from the past, it is a bad thing. When you have leaders talking about ‘showing off’ their country’s military might (and expressing joy in doing so) – then we have a problem.

It should not be about military might. The use of military might is a very, very slippery slope. Look at China, they are using their military might to suppress (and obliterate) things such as free and open speech – there is no dissent allowed in China. Ask the Uighurs (or Uyghurs for some) – they are losing their past as Chinese leadership continues on the path of destroying entire Uighur neighborhoods (and towns). In China, you cannot express discontent – you cannot share your discontent with other like-minded souls across China – you cannot talk negatively about political leaders – you cannot even jaywalk. Because if you do things “Chinese leaders” believe are contrary to Chinese leaders, that Chinese citizen can be barred from flying anywhere or have his/her freedoms curtailed. In China, they want to control power and continue to make the people – workers, workers of the Communist system even as China wants to be a Capitalistic powerhouse. By using military might and police to force people to kowtow to the political party line – not individual freedom.

In Russia, journalists are being killed (or disappeared) for being vocal or expressing true stories about their political leaders. In Russia, they, no – scratch that, he (Putin) wants to control and contain power and exert it across the Slavic countries in order to TRY to make Russia a Soviet Union again, while keeping the people as controlled pawns of the Communist system even as Russia attempts to be a Capitalistic powerhouse again… By using military might to expand the sphere of Russian influence (do “you” recall the Crimean takeover and take away???).

In Brazil, they now have a hard, far right President – Jair Bolsonaro. Keep an eye on that leader and that country and how extreme the daily life of its citizens is going to become.

In America, yes, this country – we have an appalling lack of leadership across all spectrum’s of government. But we have a president WHO WANTS TO SHOW OFF AMERICA’S MILITARY MIGHT! Now, why does any sane and competent leader need to show off its military might – if you have it, you do not need to show it off – military might should be the last thing any good governing country.

Why do we still have so many people in America wanting to Make America Great Again when it was already great (even if WE STILL HAVE WORK TO DO in areas of equality and freedom AND diplomacy). We have too many people today, not willing to sacrifice in the here and now in order to improve the entire country and the lives of all Americans.

We have too many ‘Americans’ who want to use force to make things in America bend to their way of life. Let me give a few examples of those individuals: Militia Groups, Sovereign Citizens, neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups and I really dislike even thinking about it – we have some members of the various police forces around the country, some members (actually a very high number as we are discovering) of the American DHS (CBP) who want to use force to control people who are of a different race than their own (even if, a large number of these people at this point in time, have mixed genes in their own bloodlines).

The only way to make America GREATER is to all come together and do things that benefit everyone, not just for a select portion of society. We should not have portions of America rejoicing in things like companies now being allowed to dump toxic waste into rivers again or to let other companies pollute the air with reduced restrictions on what they pump into the air. There is no joy in more people becoming gravely ill due to dirty air or dirty water.

It really is up to you, if you want to go down the dark and negative path of a chaotic government who wants to do the militaristic display bit (fyi – I am a Vietnam era Marine) OR if you want to pursue a path that of growth that will help and benefit all Americans… Think about it, do you want to be one of the people calling everything you do not believe (because you do not know) fake news or do you want to be one who thinks for him or herself to dig and search for answers and broadening your own sphere of knowledge in the process…

And if you got to this point – I commend you and thank you for having an open mind and willing to be a thinker.

Authoritarian Leadership, Quest for Power & Discrimination – China, Russia, Turkey (America?)

This is a food for thought article that will be TL;DR for many out there…

The world of leaders, today – 2019!

Russia, China, Turkey – these are countries that want to and are actively banning dissenting voices. These countries want to control their societies so there are no threats to the government’s strong arm of control over their citizens.

This is when you know leaders of various countries are in trouble. The government starts implementing more control over the press. These governments start controlling what their citizens can say, when they can say it and where they can say anything.

There had been a point in time when I wanted to go visit these countries but that was prior to these control over citizens being put in place. Now, no real desire to do so any longer.

For example, Russia – I’ve written about this in the past, outside of my previous intelligence and cybersecurity work (complete separation between previous work and personal discussions). SORM, its full name is ‘System for Operative Investigative Activities’ and is basically interception of voice and data through all the various networks. It is something Russia implemented in the mid-90s, originating from the FSB (formerly the KGB). This set of regulations under SORM covers everything from credit card transactions, telephone calls, internet activity, etc. And to make it worse, the FSB and the government has been expanding this ever since. If you are an ISP (internet provider), you have to have an FSB compliant box “on your site” that all of your data goes through. Guess what else. All that data goes through an FSB entity in order to archive, cherry pick whatever is needed and to filter what is “not good” for the government, err, Russia. If businesses did not comply and install the device, they were blocked from doing business. Now we have Russia upping the ante and starting to actually block VPNs (virtual private network) who do not agree to censor traffic across/through their VPN system. There are numerous outlets to read up on this, no matter your political stance.

And China, everyone by now is aware of the Great China Firewall.  No matter where you stood in China, everything, everywhere was being filtered AND acted upon to impart the ‘great’ communist party loyalty that everyone must comply with.  Sure, China wants to be capitalistic and make money and be a power house on the world stage. But! China also STILL wants to be a communistic system and FORCE everyone to kowtow to the party line. Look at the Uighurs (Uyghurs or one of the several other ways it is being spelled) – they are being wiped out, systematically. And some would say that they are being wiped out – genocidally. Entire communities of Uighurs have been razed to the ground and replaced with more modern high rises, with many of those Uighurs being placed in “Education” camps, to, ahem, “improve the economic and education levels” of those members. You can also do your own research (which I very highly recommend you do) to find material on what is happening in those Uighur areas – there are also a lot of Uighur refugees in America and other countries. China is becoming like the movie GATTACA where you are tracked at all times and the government knows everything about you…

Turkey, what I can about Erdogan? He is a dictator, clear and through. He is making the country more religious every week. He is trying to still further strengthen his power base and be President for life, outside of the previous term limits. He too is looking to control his people.

The bottom line is that these three countries and others as well, i.e.:

• Brunei and their new Sharia laws – where gays and adulterers ‘can legally’ be stoned to death
• Malaysia and their Sharia laws – the government is looking to get tougher on gays there as well and it is already brutal
  

I happened to latch on to the gay topic above because this is a pet peeve of mine. There are many of us who are very tolerant of people enjoying the lifestyle they believe they want. It is not up to us to control someone else’s personal life – it is none of our business and should be none of yours. It is not harmful to you and please do not insult the rest of us by saying that it creates emotional and mental turmoil and distress – that will not fly. We are grownups (right?) and can handle keeping our noses out of someone else’s personal lifestyle.

But, controlling the people of a country… This has always been a disturbing path to follow. No one wants to engage with or partner with or visit a country where the citizens are dictated to as to:

• who they in turn can associate with (check out China’s ‘social credit system’) – you can be docked points for the bad people you associate with (or jay walk or spit on the streets or use too much toilet paper) and with enough docked points, you cannot take plane flights anywhere among other things
• what they can say about their leaders or their government – dissenting voices are knocked down, publicly – in Russia, people are ‘accidentally’ shot down by mysterious forces… or the dissenters can have chemicals thrown into their faces or somehow be ‘legally’ sentenced for tax fraud…
• where they can go and how many can get together at one time in one area – yeah, Russia and China put size limits and area restrictions on this for their people – and it is worse than the regulations we Americans have to deal with
  
• what the people can write, in books, magazines or newspapers – it has to all be glowing lies or B.S. (errr – dang it, sorry, personal content) commentary that those government figures/entities can smile about

No one in the free world wants to part of a society where the leaders only want to gain power, gain more power over time and grab more power – solidifying their choke hold on and over the people of the country. And it goes on. Yet the police and military forces that the leaders control just stand by. There have been instances where the military would step in wrest control from authoritarian leaders and then let the people vote for new leadership AND actually relinquish control to those democratically elected officials.  Now. Now that does not seem to be happening, it is as if the military leaders have become brain dead and, pardon the technical term, stupefied – unless these military leaders have been bought and paid for and these military leaders have no spine or morals or ethic foundation to lead from. It kind of happened in Turkey in 1980 where the military lead the country for several years.

Now don’t get me wrong, America has some kind of leadership issues of our own that is simply baffling to understand. We have our own moral and political compass to correct and our ship really, really needs to be up-righted…

Note: I do not use the term United States any longer due to the fact that we have too much division throughout the country where a sizeable number of people just do not want to see other people in this country gain more power and more equality – those people being discriminated; non-whites, women, immigrants and gays.

This is where it is baffling to me. Instead of coming together as a whole nation and working on solving issues of (small list here):

• droughts,
• small towns dying due to young people and others leaving for better opportunities,
• loss of manufacturing & mining jobs due to technological advances,
• improving education (as long as the effort does not involve Betsy DeVos – bad choice for that role),
• improving workplace equality – many, many people know this is wrong and that if a man and a woman are doing the same job and they have the same educational/work experience – it should be a no-brainer that they should be paid equally (however, if one of them is an under-performer, man or woman – that person should be the low earner)
• having better leaders – this country does NOT need more leaders that only want to have a “good ole boys” club and exclude others (see the discriminated list above) or leaders who want to line their own pockets with ill-gotten gains (ask the congressman who was doing insider trading ON White House property) for themselves and their family and friends

So, where are we headed as a race of humans? Are we headed into a disappointingly dark future of one where leaders continue to gain power and control and lord it over others? Or those leaders who “want” to attempt to gain such power (America – Trump)… Ask:

• Venezuela’s Maduro if he gets enough to eat or if his people were/are starving during these bleak times there).
• Russia’s Putin how much money he continues to rake in as possibly the wealthiest ‘voted in’ leader in the world – how does a president become a billionaire (unless they win a huge lottery)? And how much physical force he is going to continue to exert just to remain in power (same goes for Turkey’s Erdogan)?
• China’s Xi JinPing and his attempts to reach around the eastern hemisphere and gain more power and influence, such as creating man-made islands in the South China Sea (SCS).
• Or, not to forget – the murder of Khashoggi allegedly under the direction of Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia, who, again, allegedly to silence Khashoggi…

We simply have too many people in multiple countries around the world who are somehow blinded (or fooled) by their current leader as to how really beneficial that leader is, for everyone…

What kind of future do you want to see? One where medical care is available to everyone, regardless of their social economical stance in society? One where children can go to public schools with decent and up to date system to enhance learning (books that do not have whitewashed history and technological tools) or colleges where students of all levels can get in without bribery? One where needed medicine costs a paycheck?

I am not talking about a Utopian society, just one that makes sense – where people treat each other with civility and common courtesy rather than those full of greed and low moral compasses who want to step on the backs of everyone else, just to gain a 3 second advantage at any cost. Look at the current president of America, where that individual believes that others should abide by the law, yet, yet – he should be excluded from such plebeian exercises…

We should be building upon progressive and liberal platforms that were starting to take root, platforms that also had some conservatism in them. Platforms that were and are socialist as well, which many people seem to forget and just take for granted; socialist programs such as fire departments – they help everyone. Same as with police departments and school systems and hospitals – do people really want to return to the dark days of when they were not? We live in a new time, not the old days of the pathetic class system of race, gender and money – we live in a time that should be about inclusion and growth.

Leaders have to help people and help people grow together – not be authoritarian leaders who want to control every aspect of your life; from the people you associate with, to the religion you practice (for those who believe in that higher power), to even what kind of music you can hear and what kind of movie you can watch (these leaders want to protect your soul and moral compass, right….). What is wrong with helping others to grow? Absolutely nothing at all, it should be an enriching event for everyone.

Go and check out Eli Pariser’s book – The Filter Bubble. You don’t have to read the entire book, just the first few chapters and you will have a better understanding of the filter bubble so many people find themselves. If only we could get more people out of their highly restricting personal filter bubbles and expand their enclosed ‘worldscape’, we might grow better and faster as a global community.