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THE POWER OF NEGATIVE THINKING

Posted on December 19, 2016 by halviv

Two shopkeepers, each across the street from the other, are discussing how poorly the sales markets have been recently and how their stores have been suffering accordingly. After the first store owner goes through a whole litany of his problems and financial losses, he asks the second store owner: “And how’s your business doing?” “The worst its been in the last 30 years” replies the second man. “Its been that good?” exclaims the first store owner in startled disbelief. Welcome to the world of how negative thinking powers a sense of peacefulness and adds serenity if not huge accomplishments to people’s lives. We’ve all been indoctrinated, or brain-washed if you will, to focus on positive thinking as the ultimate method of achieving success and happiness. But positive thinking can be the ultimate betrayer of one’s hopes and dreams, should they fail to be achieved. Its far more positive to focus on all the negatives that lay in one’s path as a means of anticipating, preparing for, and coping with all the obstacles one will almost certainly face during a lifetime.

The power of negative thinking begins with the belief that the worst possible out-come will occur in any of life’s situations. Your boss will hate your output and you’ll likely get fired; your teen-age daughter who just got her driver’s license and is out driving her car at night for the first time will almost certainly smash into a telephone poll and get herself killed; all your investments will ultimately turn to shit and you’ll be financially ruined, etc. When in almost all cases the worst fails to materialize, the ensuing feelings of relief will be absolutely euphoric. And in those very few cases where the worst does actually occur, at least you will be mentally prepared for the outcome. Which, of course, will likely be of small comfort. As I’m writing this, I’m remembering an event that occurred in my development many years ago. A senior-aged couple had emigrated from South Africa and bought a house in our community. The husband had all their money tied up in investments back in his old country. For some unfortunate political reason, everyone of these investments went belly-up at the same time, and the couple was left virtually penniless. The husband was at home when the bad news came. He called his wife who was out shopping to tell her what had happened, and that he could not live with the shame and grief of losing everything, and was going to kill himself. His wife pleaded and begged him not to do this…. until she heard the gun shot go off. Sometimes no type of thinking can fix an ugly situation.

The contrast between the benefits derived from the power of negative versus positive thinking is no better illustrated than in the just concluded presidential election. Trump employed negative thinking in his march to the White House versus Clinton’s positive thinking in her march to defeat. First, almost all pollsters and political pundits predicted that Clinton would coast to an easy victory while Trump was certain to lose. This led the Clinton camp to run a lackadaisical campaign, believing success was a foregone conclusion. She would barely make one campaign stop a day, if that, and made no stops in some states such as Wisconsin which she lost by a whisker. Positive thinking would lead to over-confidence and ultimately to defeat. Trump, on the other hand, was in a panic of negative thinking since everyone was saying how he would lose. This drove him into a frenzy of campaigning making at least 5 or 6 stops day-in and day-out. The potential shame of coming all this way only to lose at the end was more than his ego could bear. On the Monday night before the election, he made an appearance at one A.M. in Michigan to an estimated crowd of 20 thousand people, while Clinton was home safely in bed. The power of his negative thinking eventually turned the tide of the election in his favor.

A recent movie out, which is sure to be an Academy Award nominee, if not winner, called “Manchester By The Sea” points to an excellent illustration of the tragedy that can occur when the worst scenario is not anticipated. It’s a deeply sad movie about the loss that can result from even the smallest of unanticipated careless acts. A loss from which there is no recovery. A man who is happily married with 2 small children that he lovingly adores, is sitting in front of his fireplace one Saturday night drinking beer, while his wife and children are upstairs asleep. He runs out of beer and decides to walk to a nearby convince store to buy more. Half-way there he can’t remember if he put the fireplace screen back in front of the open fire. He plows on anyhow, but when he returns he finds his house being consumed by a blazing fire. His wife has escaped, but his 2 children are trapped inside and burnt to death. Apparently he had not put the screen back in its place and a flaming log had rolled out onto the floor and caused the fire. It’s a tragic sequence of events that he can never forgive himself for. When his now ex-wife meets him one day, and tearfully tells him she’s willing to forgive and take him back, he runs away saying “there’s nothing left” inside of him. He goes through the rest of his life doing odd-jobs as a handyman, in a zombie-like state. All from the simple failure to foresee the worst possible out-come.

One can hope for the best but should always anticipate the worst. At least that’s my take on what the universe has to offer as as we plow through our time on this planet. Steve Jobs once proclaimed that all our worries can be minimized when we know that death awaits us in the end. That’s generally true-except when the event is the loss of one’s child.

Categories: A malfunctioning psche, Brexit, Donald Trump, Alan Greenspan, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Ted Cruz, John Kasich, presidential polls,, Economics, ELVIS PRESLY, MARILYN MONROE, MICHAEL JACKSON, WHITNEY HOUSTON, THE STATE OF HAPPINESS VS. UNHAPPINESS, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

G-MEN IN YOUR BEDROOM

Posted on December 12, 2016 by halviv

Ever wonder why so many evangelicals voted for President-Elect Trump. It’s estimated that as many as 80% of those considered bible thumpers voted for Donald Trump. For a self-professed serial philanderer; for someone who was openly sleeping with his mistress while still-married to his first wife; for a person who over the years has made the most vulgar, disparaging and lewd remarks concerning women and then chalked it up to “locker-room talk;” for someone who has never displayed the slightest sign of compassion or empathy toward anyone or anything besides his own ego; and on and on. Yet those supposedly immersed in religiousness, by huge margins, chose him to be leader of the country. I believe the reason lies in 2 primarily contentious issues- abortion and gay marriage.

In the 45 years since Roe V. Wade become the law of the land thanks to a ruling by the Supreme Court, and women were allowed to legally terminate unwanted pregnancies in safe medical facilities, there have been an estimated 60 million abortions performed in those facilities. But holier-than-thou bible thumpers, primarily throughout the South and most of the Mid-West have never relented in their opposition to abortion on demand. They have managed to have state legislatures slowly but surely chip away at these freedoms to the point that in some states, such as Texas, women seeking a legal abortion are having increasingly difficult time. Almost to the point of impossibility. But that’s still not enough. The holy grail of the bible-thumpers would be to have the Supreme Court overturn Roe V. Wade so that these states could flat-out criminalize the option of any woman to abort her fetus. Supposedly, a woman that elects to have an abortion, and any doctor that performs this procedure, plus the nurse assisting that doctor, could all be sent to jail for felony murder. Think of almost 60 million women over the last 45 years that could be charged. They couldn’t build jails fast enough to house this growing felonious population.

Now with Trump some 40 odd days away from entering the Oval Office, this evangelical dream-of-dreams is about to become reality. Trump has already posted a list of potential anti-abortion judges, one of whom he will appoint to the currently open seat on the Supreme Court. After that Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who is in her mid-eighties, and a pancreatic cancer survivor, will likely retire from the Court giving Trump the ability to appoint another judge that would be willing to overturn the Court’s historic abortion ruling. The anti-abortion forces on the Court will then have sufficient numbers to reverse the evangelical despised Roe V. Wade decision. The dark forces of the middle ages will then be able to descend upon the land to snuff out any glimmer of enlightenment.

Of course, overturning RoeV.Wade won’t, in itself, criminalize a woman’s right to terminate her pregnancy. It will be left up to state legislatures to enact laws in their states that result in such action. It’s a virtual certainty, however, that such anti-abortion laws will quickly be legislated throughout the entire South and most of the Mid-West. You might think that this is not that big a deal since a woman in say Kansas, which has just outlawed abortion, can always fly to New York or California to have the procedure performed. And this is true for a woman of means. But for a poor woman, who can’t afford the air fare and other travel expenses, this is not an option. And most abortions are performed on women too poor or too broken to be able to raise a child. Welcome to post-Trump America; better known as the new dark ages.

After abortion, the item most on evangelical minds is gay rights and especially gay marriage. If the bible-thumpers had their way, homosexuals would forced to return way back into the closet. There is still a lingering hope among “God’s people” that overtly gay behavior will no longer be tolerated in American society; and that, especially, gay marriage will be banned outright. And who knows? If Trump gets to appoint enough judges to the Supreme Court, that scenario could also materialize. You could then have the anti-abortion and anti-gay rights Feds and local police entering everyone’s bedrooms to assure that no disapproved social behavior or discussion is taking place. It would go hand-in-glove with the generally white supremacist thrust of the entire Trump campaign. The “alt-right” movement as it’s so benignly called, in lieu of fascism American-style. But I think that’s a whole other topic for another blog.

Some time during the recently concluded election contest, Trump made a campaign visit to Liberty University, the evangelical college run by Jerry Falwell Jr. During his speech to students and faculty, Trump, the great biblical scholar, referred to a section of the New Testament, as “Two Corinthians.” The proper heading for that sub-section, however, is “Second Corinthians.” Soon after, social media, and especially Twitter, lit up like a Christmas tree. One person wrote-“Two Corinthians go into a bar….” To me, that short post perfectly summed up the complete mendacity and phoniness of the entire Trump campaign. And remember, you better not be discussing with your mate the possibility of having an abortion, while lying in bed at night. Or engaging in any type of homosexual behavior. Because chances are, the Feds will be peeking in, once the age of Trump pervades over the land.

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SIFTING THROUGH THE RUBBLE

Posted on November 14, 2016 by halviv

By 2011, Hosni Mubarak had been ruling Egypt for almost 30 years, by the imposition of a type of benevolent dictatorship. While he undertook certain economic reforms and initiatives that benefitted the Egyptian people, there was no question that he ruled with an iron fist. He was finally overthrown in 2011 by the Army, and then prosecuted and convicted on charges of corruption and other misdeeds, and sent to jail. The Army ruled Egypt for awhile after Mubarak’s fall, and then paved the way for that country to have its first democratically held election in ages. That election, held in 2013, pitted 2 candidates against each other. One was the Army general who had led the coup against the Mubarak regime, while the other represented the Muslim Brotherhood. It should have been a no-brainer as to which candidate was better for the Egyptian people, but it didn’t turn out that way.

For those unfamiliar with Mid-Eastern politics, the Muslim Brotherhood is an organization founded in the 1920s to promote the most fundamentalist and radical brand of Islam within Egypt. While Egypt is one of the more secular Arab states, the Brotherhood’s stated objective was to reverse this course, and create a system whereby Muslim Imams would have final rule over the everyday workings of Egyptian life. Every aspect of that life would require an Islamic litmus test. Sort of like the way those crazy kids, the Ayatollahs in Iran, despotically govern that country. Anyone not adhering to their vision of fundamental Islamic tenets is usually properly disposed of, one way or another. So this was the goal of the Muslim Brotherhood’s candidate, a fellow named Morsi. And it wasn’t as if the Brotherhood attempted to disguise or in any way alter that organization’s objectives. They were out in plain view for all to observe.

Nevertheless, when election time came, the Muslim Brotherhood’s candidate Morsi, received 53% of the popular vote, in what appeared to be an open and reasonably honest election process. Morsi became President of Egypt, and surprise, surprise, began to actually implement the Brotherhood’s agenda. When the populace viewed what was happening they entered a state of shock. How could this be, they cried, as if the facts were not well known ahead of time. In desperation the people cried out for the Army to save them from becoming a fundamentalist Islamic state like Iran. Finally the Army did intervene, and overthrew and jailed Morsi and his cohorts, and Egypt returned to its mostly secular underpinnings. But this was yet another example of how the people do it to themselves; of how “we have met the enemy and he is us” reality, as Pogo said decades ago.

I bring this up because unlike Egypt, the Army cannot save the U.S. from the folly of the just concluded election results that puts a pathological narcissist without an ounce of empathy into the White House. Nor should it. In this country we have a solid tradition of civilian control over the military, and above all else, it should just remain so. Besides, even though she conducted one of the worse campaigns ever run for the presidency, Hillary did win the election, or at least the popular vote. It was that system from the dark ages known as the electoral college that gives Trump possession of the Oval Office. The second time in 16 years that Republicans have benefitted from this archaic relic. No wonder they fight off every attempt to abolish this undemocratic and ludicrous system. So, although the missteps of the Clinton camp are almost too numerous to list, I thought I would mention just a few of the more obvious ones.

Start with the Clinton campaign TV ads. They all seemed to portray Trump in his more unhinged and deranged campaign moments. That’s okay for awhile but you need a lot more diversity. No mention was ever made of the four Trump casino fiascos in Atlantic City, each of which went belly-up in short order. Trump campaigned on a platform of being a shrewd businessman that would be creating jobs, but how many thousands lost their jobs when each of Trump’s casino ventures went bankrupt. I fully expected some TV ads featuring those that lost their jobs during that period of time, but none came. There was also no mention of the Trump University scam for which he’s being sued, and which may go to trial before inauguration. In addition, Clinton never forthrightly addressed her reckless email debacles. She could have bought some TV time, and explained that while it was a mistake to set-up servers in her home, no U.S. interests were harmed or compromised by this process. Her email fiasco was probably the prime reason a chunk of the population refused to vote for her.

In the final weeks of the campaign, Trump was making 5 or more campaign stops before crowds of thousands, while Clinton made barely one or two. Clinton lost 3 states that normally vote Democratic by a combined total of less than 120 thousand votes. Had she carried those three states, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan, she would have won the election. The reason she lost those three was that the black vote did not turn out in near the numbers that voted for Obama in 2008 and 2012. In the end, it was basically a lack of hustle and energy that cost Hillary the presidency. Perhaps her campaign became way over-confident based on faulty poll projections. I could go on but you get the picture of how the Democrats snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.

So now we’re left with the rubble of watching the Republicans not only taking over the White House, but also controlling both houses of Congress. Watch for an agenda of tax cuts for the rich while slashing governmental assistance to the poor, the sick and the elderly. As well as anti-abortion (Roe V. Wade will become history once Ruth Ginsberg retires from the Supreme Court), anti-gay rights, and anti-immigration. And lets not forget that “beautiful wall” to be built on the Mexican border. As well as the deportation of millions of Hispanics from the U.S. Fun times- they are a-coming.

Categories: Ben Franklin, The Constitution, Monarchies, Brexit, Donald Trump, Alan Greenspan, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Ted Cruz, John Kasich, presidential polls,, Joe McCarthy, McCarthyism, World War II, Viet-Nam, Anti-Communist Witch Hunts, Army-McCarthy hearings, Islamic Jihadist terrorism, Soviet Union, Red China, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

THE LAST STAND OF THE WHITE VOTER

Posted on October 24, 2016 by halviv

Political conventional wisdom dictates that when individuals decide to run for president, they swing far right ( for the GOP nomination), or far left (for the Democratic nomination), in order to appeal to the base voters in their respective parties. Then, once securing the nomination, they move back toward the middle, to seek the votes of moderates, independents, and undecided voters that don’t adhere to any particular ideology. But in 2016, Donald Trump has defied this supposed political theory. He did swing very far right in order to become the Republican presidential nominee. But once the GOP convention was over, he has gone even further right during the general campaign. He has doubled down on building that hideous monstrosity on the Mexican border that will become known as the Trump Wall. ( Although he has backed away from the ludicrous notion that Mexico would pay for such a wall.) He’s still asserting the policy of throwing all undocumented individuals out of the country, and refusing to allow Muslim refugees into the country. Reversing his previous positions, he has become anti-abortion, anti-immigration, and anti-free trade. He strongly advocates for trickle-down economics, as well as tax -cuts for the rich, while slashing government assistance to the poor, the sick, and the elderly. As well as for using “nukes” when he feels it’s necessary.

This calculated decision to go as far right as humanly possible is based on the assumption that he, Trump, can garner such a heavy white vote, especially among older white males, that it would more than offset black, Latino, Asian, Moslem, and other minority voters that will undoubtably vote heavily against him in the general election. An interesting theory, as white voters still comprise a major, although shrinking share of the electorate. Consider this election to be the last stand of white voters who fell the special privileges of being Caucasian in the U.S. is slipping away from them. And they’re very unhappy about that. There’s even a new book on the market, written by an extreme right-winger, called “The Angry White Male” that espouses and solidifies this political phenomena. As I’ve written previously, this “Whites Only” political thrust became reality when Trump decided that his overall campaign chief would be a guy named Steve Bannon. Who was previously affiliated with a neo-fascist group known as Breitbart News. It’s Bannon who’s directing this white majority campaign thrust; but it was Trump who hired him and decided on this direction in the first place. Trump, who used to be pro-choice, “but now has become anti-abortion for all of 15 minutes.” That last quote was from a column written by George Will, a conservative Republican newspaper pundit.

The last time a “whites only” reality existed in the U.S. was in the early 1970s, in the Jim Crow segregated South. There were “whites only” schools, lunch counters, bathrooms, water fountains, and every other public institution and facility that existed. When the federal government tried to intervene to break down these segregated barriers, Southern states began to howl that it was a question of “states rights” and the Feds had no business interfering in such matters. Eventually, sanity and human decency did prevail, as the walls of Jim Crow segregation finally started to crumble. But not before the lives of many black people and civil rights workers were lost along the way. And keep in mind that the Ku Klux Klan, the chief advocate for the segregated South and its practices, the murderer of many civil rights members, still exists to this day. And guess which candidate the KKK is supporting, the one it says is their kind of guy.

But, to me, the most worrisome aspect of the 2016 campaign is who will have his or her fingers on the nuclear trigger. While our founding fathers wrote numerous “checks and balances” into the U.S. Constitution, it’s unfortunate that they couldn’t foresee a nuclear armed world. Hence there is no check on a U.S. president that wants to launch a nuclear attack against some perceived enemy. It is solely at his or her discretion. Bobby Knight, a former Indiana basketball coach, and an avid Trump supporter, has stated that with the election of Trump, “at least we’ll have someone in the White House that won’t be afraid to to drop a few nukes.” Trump, himself, has indicated he wouldn’t hesitate to launch nuclear missiles when called for. The world would never be the same. His election would put the nuclear trigger in the hands of an unhinged, deranged, pathological narcissist. Abuse his ego, and bammo.

Current polls show Clinton in the lead, with 2 weeks to go. But at this same time in the 2012 election, polls showed Mitt Romney headed for the winners circle, and we all know how well those predictions turned out. I prefer to check what odds the bookies are giving, because unlike the pollsters, the bookies have to put their money where their mouths are. The bookies are giving more favorable odds on Trump victory, meaning they expect Clinton to win. (One can actually bet the election on-line with bookies in England.) But there’s an unfortunate sense of over-confidence in the Clinton camp, which could prove disastrous. As it did to Mitt Romney in the last go-round.

Since I’m an old guy, there’s not much a Trump presidency can do to me these days. Even if the worst scenario occurs, at least I’ve had a life. (Some may view it as a so-called life.) But for you younger people out there, I would imagine that there would be oceans of worry, should the narcissist wind up sitting in the Oval Office on January 20, 2017.

POLITICAL CAMPAIGNS AS THEATER OF THE ABSURD

Posted on October 3, 2016 by halviv

In “Macbeth” Shakespeare wrote that: “Life is a tale told by an idiot…full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” Now, centuries later, the 2016 political campaign for the presidency of the U.S. is unfolding with the same absurdity as Shakespeare had described in his theater production of “Macbeth.” It has degenerated into a low art form of theater with various characters, besides the two main actors, playing out their various and highly predictable roles on center stage. For example, you have characters such as Rudy Giuliani and Chris Christie, who heretofore had fairly decent political reputations, but are now forced to pick up Trump’s dry-cleaning by twisting themselves into pretzels in trying to explain away each of Trumps incredibly moronic statements, uttered every time his ego becomes abused. Other players include the political pundits on the various TV news stations who analyze to death, every meaningless piece of drivel uttered by the theater production’s two main actors.

Of course, the highlight of this theater of the absurd is the debate performances between the two staring candidates. The first presidential debates go back to to the campaign of 1860 between Republican nominee Abraham Lincoln and Democrat Stephan Douglass. The primary topic of the day at that time was slavery. Presidential debates then fell out of favor for a century, until the advent of a television set being common in almost everyone’s home resurrected them in 1960. Now, everyone could watch the candidates perform from the comfort of their living rooms, and theater of the absurd was thus born. In 1960 the contest was between Richard Nixon and John Kennedy. Interestingly, those that watched the debate on TV felt that Kennedy had given the stronger performance; while those that listened on the radio believed that Nixon had prevailed. The reason- Kennedy’s handsome, charismatic persona had won out over Nixon’s rather drab looking appearance, while on the radio Nixon’s delivery appeared so much more reasonable than Kennedy’s. Since more people watched the debate on TV than listened to it on the radio, Kennedy won the election by the narrowest of margins. After he was sworn in Kennedy stated that if he accomplished nothing else, he had saved the country from a Richard Nixon. As it turned out, however, he had merely delayed it.

So last week we had the first of three presidential debates, with a mind-boggling 84 million people tuning in to watch this theater performance. As if they would learn anything new that hadn’t been repeated hundreds of previous times. But it was showtime, and the show must go on. Trump started off predictably strong, hurling every malady the Universe has ever known as being caused by the Obama Administration, and Hillary Clinton in particular. But somewhere during Clinton’s other wise drab performance, she managed to toss a few good zingers where it hurt Trump the most- in his ego. Being the supreme narcissist that I’ve previously written about, Trump could not let this effrontery go unanswered, and thus went off script and began to lose it. The debate then degenerated into such pressing issues as to whether Trump had called a former Miss Universe who had gotten fat, Miss Piggy. Certainly one of the most immediate and urgent problems of the day on the minds of most of the American populace. It went downhill for Trump from that point on, and Clinton was generally declared the debate winner in contest where the bar is set exceedingly low. If there is such a thing as a winner when watching the theater of the absurd.

The next day, of course, all the political pundits sallied forth to verbalize their views of what was said that shouldn’t have, and what wasn’t said that should have. There was a general consensus on the Trump side that he should have brought up Bill Clinton’s sexual proclivities, and Trump has promised to do just that for the second debate. Why bother watching when you know in advance what the main characters will pontificate on. And, as if the fact that Bill Clinton couldn’t keep his zipper shut is, in any way, germane to the world we live in in 2016. Nevertheless, the name of the game is how much mud one candidate can sling at the other, and how much of it will stick. By all means, never discuss in the theater of the absurd, the actual problems and issues affecting large numbers of people on a daily basis.

The current polls show that the election is extremely close, almost a dead heat. As I’ve written before, in such cases the outcome is usually decided by the people that don’t bother to vote versus those that do. For example, in 2008 and 2012, large numbers of Democrats were motivated to turn out to elect Barack Obama as president. But in the 2010 and 2014 congressional elections, many Democrats stayed home on election day, and Republicans overwhelmingly swept those contests. So, in the end it all comes down to who will show up at the ballot box. There is one other factor that should also be considered.

Current polls also show that about 5% of eligible voters are still undecided. Hard to believe after all the shenanigans that have already taken place. My theory is that these are the same people that wait until about 11:pm on April 15 to go rushing down to the post office to file their income tax returns. In other words, these are people who, by their very nature, hate making decisions or taking required actions until the bitter end. In the 1980 race between Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter, the polls also showed a virtual tie, until the final week when the undecideds for some inexplicable reason, broke for Reagan and he won in a landslide. A dismal viewer of the current landscape might believe the Universe has the same perverse fate in store, not only for the U.S., but the entire planet, by having the undecideds break for Trump.

Categories: A malfunctioning psche, Brexit, Donald Trump, Alan Greenspan, Economics, Huey Long, Franklin Roosevelt, Great Depression, The Kingfish,Donald Trump, human affairs, John Kennedy, politics, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

FROM CALIGULA TO TRUMP: A TALE OF NARCISSISM

Posted on September 19, 2016 by halviv

Eugene O’Neill, the famous American playwright, said that: “There is no present or future-only the past happening over and over again.” Never has the validity of this wisdom been better demonstrated than in the 2016 American political campaign unfolding before our eyes. One has to go deep into the past, back to the days shortly after the crucifixion of Jesus, to find another prominent figure whose narcissism matches that of today’s probable winner in the U.S. presidential race. I’m talking, of course, about Caligula, the emperor/tyrant that ruled the ancient Roman Empire for a brief period before he met an untimely death.

Caligula’s bloodline was that of the Caesars that so despotically governed Rome when it was at its acme of power, around the time that Jesus was preaching his sermon on the Mount. He thus inherited the throne in 37 A.D. but only ruled for 4 years. For the first few months of his reign, Caligula was considered almost a breath of fresh air by the Roman populace because they had been treated so cruelly by previous despots. But there was one problem. Caligula was a total narcissist who could not by abide having his ego bruised. He lashed out at those that offended him. After those first few months of goodwill, he became known for his focus on cruelty, sadism, extravagance, and sexual perversity, and as a person who would kill his perceived opponents, often on a whim. He unconstitutionally further concentrated the political power of the emperor to the point where his proclamations became absolute law. He was described by scribes of that era as an insane, power hungry emperor, constantly angry and self-absorbed, who treated any criticism as treasonous that subjected the critic to execution. His despotic reign became so poisonous that even his inner circle could no longer tolerate his erratic behavior. He was finally murdered in 41 A.D. by his own guards, after 4 years of tyrannical rule.

But, if, as Eugene O’Neill said, the past keeps repeating itself, we see it happening in the U.S. 2000 years later when another total narcissist is just weeks away from becoming the most powerful figure on the planet. That Trump’s narcissism was established early on during this presidential campaign is beyond dispute. That he lashed out at Megyn Kelly, Ted Cruz, the parents of a dead soldier who died in Iraq fighting for the U.S., a sitting judge because of his Hispanic heritage, and many, many others, is beyond dispute. That, once in office, he intends to concentrate all political power in the office of the presidency, the way Caligula did as emperor, is also quite evident. How do I know this? Just look at the people Trump has surrounded himself with.

His new campaign manager is a man named Steve Bannon who has a history of spousal abuse and anti-semitism. He was hired from an extreme right-wing fringe group known as Breitbart News. Years ago when his wife, (now his ex-wife) wanted to send their children to a certain private school, he refused saying the school had “too many fucking Jews.” She also claims he was physically abusive toward her. Trump’s second in command is a fellow named David Bossie who made his extreme right-wing chops by singularly pursuing and publicizing the extra-marital affairs that Bill Clinton supposedly had over the years. Some were true, some were pure fiction. Previously, Trump’s campaign manager was Corey Lewandowski, whose ties with Trump goes back to the 2012 campaign, when he advised Trump to seek the White House by becoming a “birther,” i.e. someone who believed that Barack Obama was born in Kenya rather than in the U.S. When that effort fizzled, Lewandowski was back in 2015 urging Trump that his path to the presidency lay in demonizing undocumented Mexicans as “rapists and murderers.” In that, he appears to have hit the nail squarely on the head. Taking the lowest possible mud-slinging road finally paid off for Trump. Although Lewandowski was ostensibly released from the Trump campaign after the primaries were over, he is said to still provide input and advice.

You think that men such as those, once they’ve acquired the taste of power inherent in the Oval Office, would ever agree to relinquish such power? Look for 2016 to be the last ostensibly democratic election to occur in the U.S. Once Trump plops his body down on the bed in the Lincoln bedroom, even the faux democracy we live under now in the U.S. will come to an end. Rather Trump will emulate his buddy, Vladimir Putin, that I’ve written about earlier in a piece called “A Fine Bromance.” As I’ve stated before, Putin rules Russia Mafia-style, where he’s the godfather or boss of bosses. He runs a system of crony capitalism, where his cronies get all the capital and the rest of the populace is left to drown their sorrows in Russian vodka. He’s responsible for the deaths of thousands in the Ukraine, and outright took the Crimea from that hapless country through military adventurism. Just last week, Putin also threw into jail a blogger that was critical of his actions. Yet, Trump, on several occasions has expressed his admiration of Putin’s leadership style. To reciprocate, Putin has also expressed his fondness for Trump.

Russia does have presidential elections, but they are so fixed that it’s a forgone conclusion that Putin will be re-elected each time. Look for that same system of phony, rigged elections to be incorporated into the American electoral process once Trump becomes president. After all, he has to reserve access to the “throne” for sons Eric and Donnie Jr. when he decides to finally retire. Hence the Trump dynasty will begin.

Of course, the Democrats are making easy for Trump’s ascendency, as they seem to be coming apart at the seams. Hillary Clinton is probably the worst political campaigner of all time. Mired in a bundle of political scandals and health issues, which she has failed to properly address, she also is lackluster on the campaign trail. She totally lacks husband Bill’s easy-going facility in connecting with masses of people at political rallies. That she’s even remotely in the game thus far is a minor miracle in itself. But in the end, the total narcissist will probably win. And remember, like Caligula, he really, really hates to allow his ego to be bruised.

Categories: A malfunctioning psche, Ben Franklin, The Constitution, Monarchies, Brexit, Donald Trump, Alan Greenspan, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Ted Cruz, John Kasich, presidential polls,, human affairs, Isis terrorist attack in Paris,, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

THE DICTATORS CLUB

Posted on August 29, 2016 by halviv

It has come to pass that tyrannical dictatorships that have sprung up in many parts of the world have two things in common. They are all enemies of the United States and its western allies, and most of them have become more powerful militarily. To an increasingly large degree, they have become an existential threat to the world’s functioning democracies as they seek to continually expand their powers and reach. And because of a very tepid response by the U.S. and its NATO allies, the dictators club keeps increasing while democracy and decency on this planet is in a shrinkage mode.

Lets start with that giant concentration camp known as North Korea. The current, unhinged tyrant ruling that unfortunate country is Kim Jong-Un, who now represents the third generation of a dictatorship started in the early 1950s by his grandfather, and then passed on to his father. The country is in a perpetual starvation mode because it can’t produce enough food to feed its population. Thousands die each year from malnutrition or diseases that are easily preventable in more civilized societies. It relies on Communist China for virtually all its basic needs. It’s an automatic death sentence for anyone caught seeking to escape this tyranny by fleeing the country. But the one area where North Korea spends a vast amount of resources is the military and its weaponry. It has huge military force which perpetually threatens to invade South Korea and make the Korean Peninsula “whole” again. And it has developed a sizable nuclear weapons arsenal that threatens the U.S. west coast, and blatantly boasts about its ability to take out cities such as Los Angles with its nuclear missiles. Previous Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush allowed food supplies to be sent to North Korea as an humanitarian gesture, based on the dictator’s promises that nuclear weapons would not be developed. But, as they say, the road to Hell is paved with good intentions, guarantees not to develop nuclear weapons evaporated with the morning mist, and the U.S. now faces a most potent nuclear armed enemy that despises western values.

For the next members in good standing in the dictators club, we have to look no further that the Americas. The Castro brothers, first Fidel, and now Raul, have destroyed the Cuban economy since the late 1950s, and have driven just about every Cuban into dire poverty. Everyone, that is, except the ruling elite. When Fidel Castro, after taking over the country, decided to ally Cuba to the old Soviet Union instead of the United States, it became the death knell for decent living conditions and freedom of expression in that unfortunate country. To this day, anyone protesting the Castro regime in Cuba, is routinely jailed, tortured or murdered outright. Moving on, slightly south is the sad plight of Venezuela, which until 2013 was ruled by another deranged dictator named Hugo Chavez. This tyrant came to power through what passed as the democratic process in Venezuela; but once in office ended any semblance of democracy that may have remained. Chavez did the world a favor by dying of cancer in 2013, but he was succeeded by his favorite henchman named Nicolas Maduro. Like the Castro brothers, the Chavez/Maduro regime in Venezuela has managed to destroy the economy to the point where the average citizen has to cross over into Columbia to obtain life’s basic supplies such as food, drink, toilet paper, etc. because Venezuelan stores are often barren of such items. Along with empty shelves and empty promises, this dictatorship has also pretty much emptied out any semblance of a democratic promise.

Moving on to Europe, we find one of my most favorite tyrants who despotically rules Russia with all the finesse of the Godfather of Mafia fame. I’m talking, of course, about Vladimir Putin who is the boss of bosses in Russia. He also came to power thru a supposedly democratic election process which he has now done away with. He operates a system of crony capitalism, whereby his cronies get all the capital, and the rest of the populace is left to drown their sorrows in Russian-made vodka. Like a prominent figure currently on the American political stage, Putin is a bloviating bully who, in order to maintain his popularity among the Russian masses, invaded and militarily annexed the Crimea which belonged to the Ukraine. Next, he has sent Russian forces and military supplies into the Eastern Ukraine in an attempt to further carve up that luckless country. Thousands have already died in the Ukraine due to Putin’s adventurism. Next, Putin has sent Russian troops and planes into Syria in to further roil all the horrors going on in the Mid-East. Average Russians may not have enough to eat, but they can enjoy the spectacle of seeing Russia spread its military wings as they watch thru a stupor induced by cheap vodka.

And, of course, prominent membership in the dictators club would not be complete without mentioning those crazy kids that rule Iran with an iron fist-the Ayatollahs. Tens of thousands of Iranians have already been put to death for opposing the fanatical type of Islam that the Ayatollahs have imposed on the populace. Iran has now built a powerful military, and is inches away from having a nuclear weapons capability. The Ayatollahs routinely threaten, almost on a weekly basis, to wipe a despised Israel off the map, and they possess the military capabilities of achieving that goal. Their funding supports terrorist organizations, not only in the Mid-East, but all over the globe. And Iran and Russia have now entered into an unholy alliance to further damage Western interests in the Mid-East and elsewhere. All this has been allowed to flourish and expand primarily because of a weak-kneed response by the U.S. and its NATO allies.

Of course, there are dozens of other tyrannical regimes around the world, but I think I’ve covered the more prominent ones. But before we get too judgmental, bear in mind that the U.S. is just weeks away from putting another bloviating bully into the most powerful position in the world. One who will also likely do away with the democratic process and Constitutional rights once he has achieved that power. The way Hugo Chavez or Vladimir Putin did once they reached their ultimate goal. And as it occurred in North Korea, a Trump dynasty can then be formed, with eager sons ready to grab the reins of power once the old man decides to retire.

THE HATRED TOWARDS JEWS

Posted on August 22, 2016 by halviv

When a friend informed the late comedian Alan King, that he had converted to Judaism, King characteristically replied-“Congratulations. You’re now entitled to 2000 years of retroactive persecution.” This was illustrated just last week by a little reported incident that occurred at the recently concluded Olympics. A weight lifting competition in the first round pitted an Israeli athlete against an Egyptian. The Israeli won, and extended his arm to shake the Egyptian’s hand, as is customary in all Olympic competitions, but the Egyptian refused to shake the hand of a Jew. Even though Israel has diplomatic relations with Egypt, and even though the professed Olympics goal is to promote peace, harmony, goodwill and friendship among all participating nations through sports competition. It further illustrates how an all-consuming hatred toward Jews among all Arab counties and citizens in the Mid-East is virtually universal, and largely accounts for the reason that almost all Arab countries are such a basket case upon the world stage. As I’ve stated before, hate hollows out the container it’s kept in, from the inside out.

Hatred in the Mid-East, not only toward Israel, but also toward fellow Arabs through sectarian rivalries is as common as sand in Saudi Arabia. All Arab nations (with the possible exception of the Emirates and Saudi Arabia) are total economic and social disaster areas. A place where Islamic Jihadist terror groups thrive like weeds in an unkempt garden. Where economic living conditions are barely sustainable, and yet, are on an unstoppable downhill slide. Where ideological obsessions trump all standards of decency and rationality. For not only is there an all-consuming hatred toward Jews, but a similar type of bigotry exists between the Shia and Sunni factions of Islam, even though there are only minor ideological differences between the two sects. And, of course, you have Iran, a non-Arab but fanatical Moslem state whose ayatollahs routinely threaten to wipe Israel off the map. Which is a distinct possibility since Iran has supposedly armed Hezbollah, a devoutly terrorist organization located in Lebanon, with as many as 100 thousand missiles, all aimed at Israel.

And then, of course, there is the Palestinian problem. The Palestinians want their own nation consisting of the West Bank and Gaza. The problem is how to exist side-by-side with a people seeking your total destruction. The Gaza Strip is now all Palestinian, but is ruled by the terrorist organization known as Hamas. There have been at least 3 wars between Israel and Hamas, who is quite willing to sacrifice the lives of their people by the thousands, if it leads to resultant Israeli deaths. And a fourth war seems to be on the horizon. In the supposedly more moderate West Bank, Arab “martyrs” are given special places of honor in Palestinian society. “Martyrs” who have stabbed to death unarmed Israeli civilians peacefully going about their business. Who have murdered babies in their cribs, and recently stabbed to death a 13 year old Israeli girl sleeping in her bed. Whose very charter calls for the total destruction of the nation of Israel. Yes, Israeli settlements on the West Bank have dramatically complicated the task of those seeking a two state solution. My feeling is, however, that you cannot have a two-state solution when there is such huge enmity on both sides of the fence. Only a one state solution is possible, but that won’t happen until the level of hatred among both Jews and Moslems subsides. It will probably take another couple of hundred years or so through the evolutionary process for all this hate to run its course.

When Israel was first formed shortly after WWII, surrounding Arab nations immediately declared war and sought destruction of the Jewish state, but Israel prevailed. In the years after, while Israel began to thrive, while most surrounding Arab nations saw their economies and cultures go steadily downhill. In the past 70 years, the Arab world rid itself of over 900,000 of its Jewish citizens, but still held onto its hatred of them. Over that period this hatred has proved fatal to Arab society. A combination of lost human capital, ruinously expensive wars, and mis-directed ideological obsessions have taken a huge toll on most Arab nations in the Mid-East. And yet the beat goes on, unabated, with no end in sight.

Of course, the entire spectacle of anti-semitism began in Europe, shortly after the death of Jesus, when the Roman Empire drove most Jews out of their homeland, with many migrating to various European countries. It wasn’t long after, that the Catholic Church in Rome began labeling Jews as “Christ killers” thereby setting off a wave of pogroms and bigotry against a small minority of each country’s inhabitants. Never mind the irony of the fact that Jesus was a Hebrew Rabbi, and that all his disciples were Jews, and that Christianity didn’t exist when Jesus strode this planet. And it wasn’t just Catholic bigotry. Martin Luther, who launched the Protestant movement in the 15th century, was rabidly anti-semitic, and posted many writings on church doors, expressing his virulent hatred toward Jews. And, of course, the hit parade of violence against Jews would not be complete without mention of the Spanish Inquisition, during which Jews were burned at the stake in order to purify their souls for entrance into Heaven. One could even make a cogent argument that the Holocaust could never have taken place if Europeans had not been injected with the anti-semitic virus over nearly 2000 years. After all, it took hundreds of thousands of European bureaucrats to provide the logistics, trains and bodies that enabled Nazi death camps to function so efficiently.

After WWII, anti-semitism in Europe was pretty much forced to retreat into the shadows but never really disappeared. Today, Jew haters in Europe now feel free to come out into the open, and express their enmity toward “Zionists” as if that was any different than anti-semitism. The United States is probably the only friend Israel has left in the world today. One can only wonder how long that will likely last.

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FOREIGN POLICY DISARRAY

Posted on August 8, 2016 by halviv

George Washington, the first president of the United States, was also the last president to preside over a fairly unified country. Washington ruled for two complete terms during an era of general goodwill, but when he left office fierce bickering and character assassinations began occurring among the rest of our founding fathers, such as John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr, and others. The attacks on John Adams, our second president, became so virulent that Adams pushed through Congress a series of anti-sedition laws that were in direct violation of the freedom of speech and press provisions of the Bill of Rights. These laws made criticism of the presidency an act of treason with severe penalties attached. Thomas Jefferson, our third president, who co-wrote the Declaration of Independence with Adams, became a fierce critic of Adams and his anti-sedition laws, and to Jefferson’s credit, he managed to have them repealed during his term in the White house. He accomplished little else after that, however. But amid all the back-biting going on among our leaders in those early days of the Republic, there was one concept that they apparently all agreed upon. And that was George Washington’s admonition that the U.S. should not become entangled in the affairs of foreign nations. In other words the U.S. should follow a policy of isolationism.

Protected by huge oceans to our east and west, and mostly friendly countries to our north and south, the U.S. with a few exceptions during the 19th and early 20th centuries adhered fairly strictly to to the Washingtonian concept of non-interference with other nations internal affairs. After all, it wasn’t as if foreign countries could launch bomber or missile attacks on U.S. soil. This policy of isolationism received a severe setback however, as the U.S. became militarily involved in WWI shortly after the election of 1916. With U.S. allies including Britain, France and Russia bogged down in a trench warfare stalemate with Germany that neither side seemed capable of breaking, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson deemed that it was necessary for U.S. intervention to break that stand-off. As a side note, more soldiers on both sides died from disease caused by the filthy, disgusting conditions of the trenches they occupied, than from the opposing side’s bullets. In any event, U.S. involvement quickly broke the stalemate, and, of course, the Allies went on to defeat Germany and end the war. To help change the American mindset from isolationism to intervention, composers such as George M. Cohan wrote patriotic songs in support of the war effort. You can still hear theses tunes, such as “Over There” on YouTube.

With WWI, “the war to end all wars” concluded, the U.S. populace believed it was safe, once again, to retreat back into a comfy, cozy state of isolationism. But the 20 year respite between the conclusion of WWI and the outbreak of WWII showed otherwise. The U.S. was so militarily unprepared for war in 1941 because of isolationist policies, that if Japan could had invaded our West Coast right after bombing Pearl Harbor, the Roosevelt Administration was prepared to cede all U.S. land west of Chicago before attempting to take a military stand. With the unbelievable horrors, atrocities and just pure evil emanating from WWII, and with new threats to world peace on the horizon from Communist Russia and China, a policy of non-intervention in world affairs seemed unthinkable to the American public. Isolationism appeared to be dead as a doornail, (as Ebenezer Scrooge might have put it.) Of course, a subsequent policy of global interventionism has not turned out to be all that terrific either.

It led to the Korean War in which we only able to save half of the Korean peninsula from tyrannical despotism, and then to that fiasco known as Viet-Nam where nearly 60 thousand American lives perished as well as hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese, in a jungle war we eventually lost anyhow. And then on to the first Gulf War which let tyrant dictator Saddam Hussein remain in power, and then to the second gulf war which removed him from power at considerable cost in lives and treasure, and which also left chaos in its place. Also along the way during the 50 years after WWII, an anti-communist, “better dead than red” mentality sprung up in the U.S which cost us needless trillions of dollars that were spent beefing up our military-industrial complex in preparation for war against the old USSR which then collapsed under the weight of its own despotism.

Hence when Barack Obama moved into the Oval office in January 2009, people were generally fed up with globalism and ready to return back to a more isolationist policy. Obama appeared to comply with these sentiments by proclaiming that “America will lead from behind” when it came to military initiatives on the world stage. In other words, the U.S. would considerably lower its profile in world events. But there were serious consequences to that position. The U.S. is apparently the one indispensable nation in world affairs, and when it retreats, evil despotism seems to move into the vacuum. And so it has, as Islamic-Jihadist barbarianism has taken hold in the Mid-East countries of Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Yemen, as well as launching terror attacks in Europe, and even in the U.S. The token bombing raids that we’ve launched against these terrorists have hardly seemed to make a dent in their operations. And let us not forget the despotic tyrant of Russia, Vladimir Putin, who has launched unprovoked military action against the Ukraine, which has led to the deaths of thousands, while we’ve stood by and again did nothing. As far as foreign policy goes, “leading from behind” seems to be pretty much failure.

To top it all off, neither of our two presidential candidates, one of which will be in the Oval Office next January, seems to be offering up any new initiatives to offset Obama’s mostly failed foreign policy. Maybe the U.S. is just too worn out, too burdened by debt and fatigue, to launch any new meaningful action on the world stage. As I’ve written many times before, perhaps it’s the inevitable destiny of powerful empires like Rome before us, to reach the zenith of its strength, and then watch that strength slowly dissipate into dust.

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WHITE PRIVILEGE

Posted on August 1, 2016 by halviv

When Richard Nixon ran for presidency for the second time, 1968 had already become one of the most turbulent periods in American history. The assassinations of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy had brutally inflamed both white and minority citizens across the country. Although the walls of Jim Crow segregation had finally began to crumble, blacks and other minorities, for the most part, still found themselves confined to the rat infested ghettoes of the inner cities that were riddled with crime, drugs prostitution and other horrors. During protests over the MLK killing, these slums in most cities were set afire in protest over the horrible living conditions that blacks still had to endure after 250 years of slavery in America, followed by another 100 years of of Jim Crow semi-slavery. There were also massive marches and protests over the growing unpopularity of the Viet-Nam war which had already claimed tens of thousands of American lives in addition to the hundreds of thousands Viet-Nam dead. To say that for most Americans, the world had been turned upside down would be an understatement. But for Richard Nixon, a golden opportunity had presented itself.

During the election that year, Nixon developed two strategies that would propel him to the White House. The first was his Southern Strategy. Ever since Republican Abe Lincoln had set the slaves free during the Civil War, the South had voted solidly Democratic in election after election. Even though Southern Democrats were usually highly conservative and generally racist, especially compared to their more liberal Northern counterparts, Southerners kept pulling the levers for for the Democratic Party through Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal and into the 1940s. That began to change in 1948 when a young Democratic Senator named Hubert Humphrey induced his party to begin championing the civil rights of blacks and other minorities. (Humphrey would eventually become his Party’s nominee in 1968 and lose to Nixon.) While the black population in most southern states was significant, and would generally vote Democratic, they were no match for the white majority in these states that began to vote as a bloc for Republicans. This would give Nixon and his party an assured 200 or so electoral college votes in all future presidential elections, in a system where it takes 270 to win. Today, in the 2016 election, Nixon’s Southern Strategy is still in full blossom.

Nixon’s second strategy was to appeal to the nation’s “Silent Majority” which was primarily comprised of older white people that had become fed-up with massive anti-war demonstrations and the arson being committed in most inner city slums. Sound familiar? Today at almost all the GOP rallies, you’ll see people holding signs saying “The Silent Majority Stands With Trump.” As the song goes- “everything old is new again.” And, of course, this so-called silent majority is almost exclusively white. And why shouldn’t the majority of whites favor the GOP. It’s not whites, for the most part, that have to inhabit inner-city ghettoes. It isn’t whites that still face residual racism and discrimination in housing, employment, wages, social mobility and other areas. Hence, it’s primarily older whites that are propelling the Trump candidacy and placing a highly deranged, vulgar, obnoxious snake oil salesman peddling a neo-fascist and xenophobic elixir, within hailing distance of the Oval Office. The GOP is betting that the white majority in this country is still large enough to get The Donald the 270 electoral college votes he needs to be the next president. Even with hardly any support from minorities or younger white people. And since the Democrats have such a damaged candidate in Hillary Clinton, the Republicans are probably right.

As for Richard Nixon, he won 2 landslide elections and had many accomplishments; but his volatile and narcissistic personality, similar to Trumps, eventually did him in. He did end the Viet-Nam war to a great sigh of relief from the American public. He initiated diplomatic relations with China, which was a huge foreign policy initiative. Probably one of the top five foreign policy achievements of the 20th century. He significantly raised spending levels for health, education, and welfare. He even tried to legislate for universal health care; but, ironically, it was the Democrats that foiled him in that attempt. It didn’t go far enough, they said. But like Trump, Nixon had a fragile personality disorder. He kept an “enemies list” of people he thought were out to get him or do him in. If you were on Nixon’s enemies list, you were likely to receive a visit from an IRS agent seeking to audit your tax returns. He got involved and sought to cover up a break-in by some GOP low-level thugs of of Democratic Headquarters in the Watergate apartment complex in D.C. Nixon was re-elected in 1972 in a massive landslide, winning 49 out of 50 states. However, the Watergate scandal, as it came to be known, seemed to mushroom from petty larceny by some Republican hacks to presidential felony cover-up.

Two reporters from the Washington Post, Woodward and Bernstein, gained huge reputations for themselves by uncovering the sleazy details of the Watergate cover-up, and Nixon’s involvement. The air was steadily seeping out of the Nixon presidential balloon until, one day, Congressional members of his own party came to the White House and told him he had to resign the presidency or face impeachment. Nixon thus became the first president to resign from the Oval Office and lived out the remainder of his days in disgrace and humiliation.

Today, thanks to a majority of white voters, we’re on the verge of putting into the White House, a man that has an almost exact replica of Nixon’s personality disorder. As Yogi Berra might have put it, it’s like deja vu all over again.

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