America and its Fears

What are we so afraid of, we Americans?  Everything it seems. Everything is too dangerous, nothing is nearly safe enough now that life is safer in America than it ever has been. We live longer than Americans ever have. We're less likely do be murdered, to die in a car accident or shot in a robbery. Sure, the progress isn't smooth and it affects us erratically, but the things certain to kill us are heart disease, Cancer, organ failure and complications of Diabetes. We're making progress on those things, but yet we have Americans terrified of  the very remote chance of  a pressure cooker bomb but who smoke, text while driving and are 150 pounds overweight.  We are now and always have been irrational creatures, reluctant and even afraid to base our actions and opinions on objectivity. On that fact are our political passions based.

A survey by Chapman University results in a list of what Americans fear most and by far, the largest concern is corrupt government officials. Nearly 61% tagged this as their biggest fear.  Is government so much more trustworthy than it was in my childhood when nearly everyone trusted the government?  Does it correlate to any actual increase in corruption over the days of Nixon and Agnew?  It's easy to dredge up lists of the worst presidents using Google, but basically any premise can be supported with Google searches and any president shown to be corrupt, but so much of it is motivated by political objectives.  Near the top of the list of the search I just did is titled Obama: The Most Corrupt and America-Hating President in US History  That's seriously untrue and there also seems to be an odd correlation between popularity and the reality of a president's term in office. What you blame them for or credit them with says more about your prejudices than their principles.

But next on the fear list is "terrorist attack," fear of which seems loosely linked to risk statistics. more than 40% of are afraid of swarthy invaders with bombs. Should I suspect that people a hundred years ago were just as afraid of Bolsheviks  and Wobblies and Anarchists with just as little reason? But of course nearly as many are afraid or very afraid of Obamacare. 38 1/2% are afraid of gun control. 37 1/2 % are very afraid of economic collapse.

Not all fears are unwarranted at all, more than a third of us are afraid of losing a loved one, of not having enough money in the future. These are real possibilities, but fear of irrecoverable economic collapse seems less so and our record of predicting such things seems laughable. We've had 8 years of panic about the imminent collapse and before that 8 years of denial of the probability and at present, we can't agree whether we're in a bull or bear market even if the Dow has gone from 7000 to over 18000 in 92 months of increase.

To fear is human and animal too, for that matter, and evolution has predisposed us to worry too much than too little, but so much of what we fear and the degree to which we fear it is the result of deliberate action and the actions of opinion makers and fear mongers; scam artists and profiteers. On the internet we find as much support for a flat earth, a 7 day creation and the fraud behind the Pythagorean Theorem as we do for   Obama: The Most Corrupt and America-Hating President in US History or for Hillary Clinton as liar, thief and murderer and like the cowards we are and are trained to be, we select the scariest, not the most plausible or the most supported by facts. We do the same with the promises of politicians.  Ask yourself whether you really believe your candidate can hope to do more than give lip service to the Utopian visions he describes or whether in fact anyone could given the complexities of government. Do you really?  Do you think your 4 door Nissan sedan is a race car like the commercial says it is or whether women will swoon over your "crossover?"  And if we elect politicians on such a basis and we look at or overlook their performance with the same selective eye, whose fault is it?

The Numbers Don't Lie

Watching Bloomberg TV this morning as I do on weekdays, I heard mentioned that we're in the 92nd consecutive month of the current bull market. But what do they know? Uncle Donald says it's a disaaaaaster.

That's consistent with the TV ad I saw a few days ago talking about the current bear market and maybe with all those ads of a few weeks back urging me to buy gold at more than $100 an ounce higher than it is today.

Of course unemployment is a disaaaaaaster too, hovering around 4.9 to 5 percent although Trump has assured us it's really over 30% and anything you read to the contrary is a lie, but like oil and gasoline and coal prices the numbers are set, not by the free market, but by Hillary Clinton just as John McCain assured us they were set by Barack Obama when he was a candidate. Laws of supply and demand? Market forces? What? When Trump becomes Führ - I mean President, that will change, let me tell you!

Locker Room Talk, misogyny and Cover-Ups

It's evidently difficult for Americans to tell an unsupported assertion from a hypothesis based on evidence. That's more true than it ever has been because we have the Internet to support anything no matter how insupportable.  All it takes to launch a cult is a plausible assertion and an anecdote, neither of which has to have any basis in reality at all as long as it satisfies that old human passion for conspiracy, bigotry and the hunting of witches.

Normally I avoid dressing conjecture up as a campaign, but the gloves have been off for quite a while and it's hard to take too much more of Hillary-Killary-Shillary who flies around on a broom and has been making all major policy decisions for the Federal government for 30 years. The search for things to attack her with is so desperate that when the supply wanes, the demand for fiction will bring creative results. No exoneration no matter how rigorous or lengthy or hostile can overcome the certainty of her universal guilt of something and everything.

So here it is: Donald J. Trump has gender issues and he's afraid you'll find out.. What he calls his love of beauty and what he calls "Locker Room" talk are ego defenses covering up the inner Donald who is afraid of and perhaps even disgusted by women.  He seems horrified by the fact that women need toilet facilities, that they menstruate. If he is indeed attracted to women, or if he just uses them as props, they must be young and beautiful in the extreme so as not to allow any question as to his machismo and of course to flatter his fragile narcissistic ego. I've never heard such exaggerated raunchiness in a locker room unless it's by 14 year old boys full of fear and lust and sexual frustration but eager to seem like men. Real men don't talk that way. Real men don't call their daughters "pieces of ass." Donald is not a real man.

Trump needs to think you see him as an icon of manhood and to him that means demonstrating dominance and control over women while asserting that women can't resist him and not just for his money. If they do, it's because they're fat and ugly and crooked and disgusting and have no judgement.  How could they if they're not fawning all over them as he gropes and grabs.  Feeling like the man for Donald means bragging and the right to feel contemptuous. It means arrogance and I suspect the roots of arrogance lie in a hidden sense of humiliation. How can I not suspect that like Hitler, a fulfilling relationship with a woman was impossible.


And speaking of Hitler- that's right, I said the gloves were off, didn't I?

The Greater Groper

Back when America was great, or at least when Humpty Trumpty suggests it was, America was about free trade and open borders, the business of America was business and laissez faire Capitalism was King. That's sort of the message I get from Clinton's "secret" speeches, you know the ones that show she's in league with the minions of free market Capitalism. How the hell did it come about that a truly rapacious freebooter who wants to destroy banks and financial institutions like a Bolshevic's wet dream, who thinks he has the right to grope your wife for sport, who doesn't believe in paying his bills and has cheated his way to the top is the champion not only of the GOP but of the people he routinely screws? So she suggests that bankers and brokers and the like know best how "Wall Street" should be regulated, that's not saying they should be given the power to self-regulate. It's saying that they know what's going on better than congress or you for that matter. The Trumpshevics hope you think so, but then they just assume you're dumb and uneducated, mad as hell and half drunk. Go ahead, scream about Killary, you idiots, you'll be first on the bread line.

Which Trump Do You Love?

Viruses like HIV that have an extremely high mutation rate, like moving targets in general,  are hard to fight.  The same thing seems to be true of Donald Trump.  Not only a moving target, he's one that jumps from quantum state to quantum state and can be at two places at one time.

Many people seem to have trouble understanding how he can make a fool of himself over and over again and suffer no adverse consequences. Trump himself has commented, with no small degree of smugness, that he can get away with anything, and indeed discussing one day's outrageous statement or act is difficult because it's so soon swamped by today's outrageous and sometimes contradictory statement. One day he's going to put millions in boxcars and send them to camps, the next day he's going to be compassionate. Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee, fade away like smoke.

My estimation of Charles Krauthammer has never included objectivity, so it's still surprising to read this morning's column saying essentially the same thing: that there is a constant stream of new Trumps emerging and evolving from the original strain. Never the Same Trump Twice.  All those expensive Clinton ads showing people being grossly insulted by Donald's angry ravings make his opponents glad at heart, but do they work on those so desperately clinging to the delusion that he's not a thug and a bully and an ignoramus and a liar pandering to the worst of the worst?  He can tell us that Hillary Clinton quite literally founded ISIS and the next day deny it and the following day repeat it and America with it's heads spinning simply forgets the details and only remembers to associate any Clinton supporter with apocalyptic disaster and the darkest of evil. He knows better than the Generals?  He's going to "carpet bomb" ISIS? He's going to change the prime rate, take direct control of the troops, invoade the Middle East and take the oil home ina bucket? He's going to fix the schools?  He's going to make the US look like some walled Sumerian city-state from 3000 BC? Is there time to mention that he can't, that no president would have the power or the funds or the time or the support from Congress or the Court?  Before you can drum that into the many-headed beast of America, he's elsewhere telling us about his heroic sacrifice for our country which consists of sleazy and illegal business deals.

Can anyone get Americans to consider the enormity of refusing to divest himself from hundreds of offshore business relationships, some in strategic countries like Turkey? Refusing to show us his sources of income, his debts and to whom he owes millions.  Can anyone get Trumpers to care that he steals from a charity with his name on it to pay his lawyers to shield him from punishment? Hell no, they're too busy braying like asses about Crooked Hillary.

The Democratic ads and essays might as well be written on water. The Trump of ten minutes ago is no more, yet the Trump goes marching on.

Back in the U.S.S.R.

In the Sunday edition of TcPalm (Sept 18), guest columnist Fay Vincent weighs his voting choices:  “Like many voters, I am trying to find a reasonable basis for voting for either of the two major party candidates this fall.”

In due course, Vincent offers us this thought experiment:  

“Suppose Clinton — while holding an official government position — were to receive a document with no markings or other stamping to indicate it contains classified material. Yet the document contained the names of the top American secret agents or spies serving in Moscow. She would immediately know those names are classified. The law states that information is classified because the government official knows, or is expected to know, the dissemination of that data would harm the national security interests of this country.”

How can we be sure Clinton, or anyone, would know those names are classified?  Is this expectation realistic?  Is Vincent trying to be fair and open minded, or is he rigging his own thought experiment?  A Google search keeps this game in play.  Consider: 

The intelligence establishment is spread among 1,271 government agencies; an estimated 854,000 people have top-secret clearance. 

How can any Secretary of State reasonably know every Boris and Natasha inside this massive bureaucracy? The more practical approach is to rely on paper markings to determine the security status of any document.

Were national security interests actually harmed?  Here is the ‘gotcha’ question underlying Vincent’s argument. We should base decisions on facts, not suppositions without proof. Heated political rhetoric repeated often enough may convince some folks; I see a swing and a miss.

One of my closest personal friends is a former CIA field agent, now retired. Recently, I asked him about the DNC hacking case; of telltale fingerprints left by Russian hackers; of Russian efforts to influence public opinion in the West; and Russia's bankrolling of national front group in Europe.  Most of all, I asked about the Putin connection. Here is my friend’s reply via email (quoted with permission):

“Absolutely. It's hybrid warfare from an old Kremlin playbook with yet another twist.  What really disturbs me is my former friends of the right cozying up to Putin via Putin-funded Trump.  Exactly what you alluded to is terrifying to me. The Russians have disinformation honed to a science at all levels, troll-farms to work on Joe Six-Pack as he reads FaceBook, and the very sophisticated FSB/GRU types leaking timely emails. Russia is not a country ... it's a mafia disguised as a country. If Trump wins we're [expletive deleted].”

I have no reason to doubt my friend. What are the implications?  Two years ago, Russian troops without uniforms or insignia annexed Crimea. Periodically, Russian fighter jets harass American naval vessels in the region. Putin’s next goal is to destabilize Europe, undermine NATO, and dismantle the EU.  Yes, folks, the Cold War is back.

Which candidate has the requisite experience and skills to meet this challenge?  Madam Secretary, or the Reality TV guy with financial ties to Russia?  For me, the choice is clear.

WhatsHisName?

His name is on the tip of my tongue, but I can’t bring myself to mention it. I refer to a certain presidential candidate who is so ‘deplorable’ and unethical, his name should be unspeakable.

Shameless bully, braggart, egotist, and liar, this man is deeply disturbed beyond measure. ‘Human black hole’ [Tony Schwartz], ‘human leech’ [Harry Reid] and ‘flaming eye of Sauron’ [Kathleen Parker] are some of my favorite appellations.

Anthropologist Jane Goodall describes him as a male chimpanzee engaged in stereotypic dominance behaviors — “stamping, slapping the ground, dragging branches, throwing rocks.” In other words, a man more animal than human.

The best way to experience this 'unmentionable' is to watch him on TV with the sound turned off.  Which is precisely my point.  Why should we listen to him!  And why utter his name!

His bizarre antics have dominated mainstream media for years, and his signature bombast has won him far more notoriety than he deserves.  Why play this game?  Hereafter, I will no longer refer to the candidate by name but only by epithet. Without a name, the man is nothing.

Hillary, Pillory, Schlock

As the clock runs down on this election year, I put myself in the shoes of a highly visible public figure and well understand the desire to protect one’s privacy.

Every aspect of your life is on display. How you wear your hair; your nails and emails; your pallor. It’s a boundary issue. What you chose to reveal (or keep under your collar).

A clamoring public demands to know all. You must appear heroic and stoic and hold nothing back. Yet Paparazzi eyes are everywhere — waiting in ambush to catch any momentary surprise or compromise.

Your foe wages war with words. You hear crescendos of innuendos, projections and deceptions. Politics is such a dirty business. You can pander and slander anyone, while a faithful lynch mob slips the knot.

Theater of the Absurd starring the Crook, the Thief, a Lowlife, and Liar, there’s entertainment for all ... but no smoking gun. Even Colin Powell says Benghazi Banzai was a "stupid witch hunt."

When the clock strikes one, you give it your best shot. Put on your high-heal sneakers and your bullet-proof vest. Hillary, pillory, schlock.

These are those Interesting Times

I think it's OK for me to call these interesting times. It may be that hackers with no intent to do so may allow historians to write a more accurate history of the 8 years of George Bush, that period that seems to have changed  the world for the worse is so many ways, taking the US from a thriving economy of surplus to nearly bankrupt, causing the deaths of hundreds of thousands at least, destroying countries, societies, cities and thousands of years of history. Reading the emails from Powel's private server is like opening doors and windows and file cabinets that have been locked for decades. How would we know that Rudy Guiliani actually admits that Obama is a decent man or that Powell thinks the Benghazi thing is a stupid "witch hunt" and she's not to blame? Of course deplorable Trumpsters won't read that, but we will and historians will.

Amongst the national noisemakers, the editors, disguisers, redactors and inventors of history, there may be consternation in reading the letters of Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice that excoriate Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld and Paul  Wolfowitz -- names we're not hearing much about any more. In fact we're not hearing much about W any more either, now that the zombiemakers in the media and the GOP have hidden them behind a wall of denial that Donald can only feel jealous of.  It's all about pathological Hillaryhate as it once was all about pathological Clintonhate. All the bad things of the GWB administration have become Hillary things, Obama things.

Anyway, it's nice to hear those in the know - and Rice and Powell certainly in the know call HRC qualified, with a long "track record" and a respected friend, even if the General is a bit miffed at the attempt to compare his private email server to her email server and Rice's private email server.

I don't imagine he will come out and endorse her, but if there are historians left after the Trumpocalypse, to write about what happened after the GOP destroyed America, becaus perhaps two thousand years from now people will have some idea that the howling, smoking, radioactive remains of America once was and who destroyed it.

Bewitched, Botched and Bewildered on Mid East Policy

Have decades of Middle Eastern conflict made us safe or wise? Last week in back-to-back interviews, the consequences of political pandering and slipshod journalism converged.

Matt Lauer’s bungled interview of Donald Trump failed to reveal this flip-flop: Trump was for the war before he was against it.

“And what is Aleppo?” asked Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson, fudging a question from Mike Barnicle on MSNBC. ”You're kidding,” replied Barnicle incredulously.

Which is worse? Our slovenly state of partisan debate, or failures of journalism to properly frame the news?

Daily soundbites never capture the broader context of history. A headline never tells a complete story: Every intervention in the Middle East by a Western power has upped the ante on radicalism and violence.

Let’s speak of provincialism starting with this quote from the 1960s film, Lawrence of Arabia: “So long as the Arabs fight tribe against tribe, so long will they be a little people, a silly people - greedy, barbarous, and cruel.”

Who then are the little people, the silly people? As a global power, we have become a meddlesome people, yet clueless on matters of Middle Eastern history.

Who remembers the overthrow of Mohammed Moseddegh, the first democratically elected leader of Iran? In 1953, our own CIA conspired with Britain to topple a nascent democracy for control over Persian oil.

“A cruel and imperialistic country” stealing from a “needy and naked people” were the words spoken by Mosaddegh at the International Court of Justice in the Hague. His words echo the animus of Middle Easterners for more than half a century.

Does terrorism represent the face of Islam? Not according to the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia who said: “Extremist and militant ideas … are not in any way part of Islam, but are enemy number one of Islam, and Muslims are their first victims.”

Not according to 70,000 Muslim clerics who issued a fatwa condemning al Qaeda, the Taliban, and the Islamic State. Yet, how many news outlets featured these stories?

Consider the impact of Western interventions over time starting with European colonialism. As empires crumbled in the aftermath of world wars, European powers gave little thought to the demographics of the region. In forming the modern nation states of Iraq and Syria, Britain drew artificial borders around rival ethnic enclaves, thus sowing the seeds of future volatility.

Failing to account for history, the American occupation of Iraq unleashed long simmering resentments. Regime change under the regency of Paul Bremer swept away an established order as the new Shia-dominated government disenfranchised the formerly dominant Sunnis. In short order, ethnic militias, insurgencies, and reprisal murders escalated the conflict.

Follow the trail of duplicity among our allies in the region. Jihadi groups have moved money, munitions, and personnel across the Turkish border. Our military maintains strategic air capabilities in Qatar, Kuwait, and United Arab Emirates even as the wealthy citizens of these countries fund militant groups throughout the region.

How can the enemy of your enemy be your friend when you can no longer distinguish enemies from friends?

We broke it, but Donald Trump has a secret plan to fix it. Is this the same secret plan promised by Richard Nixon in 1968 to end the war in Vietnam? The same non-existent plan that prolonged the war by six more years?

Despite years of conflict and countless casualties, what have we accomplished or learned? If anything, we still live in a dangerous world shaped by blunder and bluster. Buyer, beware!

On Sunday, I mourned the loss of my beloved cousin who died in the World Trade Center on 9/11. Just past midnight on Monday morning, an arsonist set fire to the Islamic Center of Fort Pierce, FL.

Guilt by association. Guilt by religion. Guilt by headline de jour. Endless cycles of blood libel and retribution. When will we finally learn to stop the senseless hatred! Reprisal crimes hurt only the innocent … and eventually someone we love.

(c) 2016