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So, the winner was Jokowi (a.k.a., the white hats)...or was it? After the July 9th election, the margin was apparently so close that the black hats made a fuss and wouldn't concede, so we all had to wait until July 22, when the KPU (national election authority) announced their final count. Well, that came down on the side of the white hats with 53% to 46%. But that didn't satisfy the black hats either, though they promised they would accept the KPU's count. So they threatened to burn down the country (like good patriots do when they lose) because of "massive fraud" in the system. Of course, they should know, they were behind a lot of it.
Anyway, the black hats announced on 22 July that they were disgusted with the KPU and were pulling out of the election, which was more or less conceding the count. Then on 23 July, the campaign announced that "quitting" wasn't really what they meant...they were pulling out of the counting process - two hours before the official announcement - because of "massive fraud and corruption". In other words, that count didn't go in their favor either. So now they are filing an appeal with the Indo Constitutional Court, the highest court in the land, alleging "massive fraud" in the system.
Oh, they also filed a police report alleging that various election agencies "lost" thousands of pages of "evidence" of that self-same "fraud". Gee, they just don't have all that "evidence" because a government agency "lost" it, your honor, but take their word for it...lots of "fraud".
What's really going on is that the ruling oligarchs and military-industrial complex that have run Indonesia for decades lost fair and square to a populist reformer furniture-maker, who grew up in the slums of Yogyakarta and rose up through the ranks to become Indonesia's seventh president. It's akin to the Bush Clan losing complete control of America, and the Bushes threatening to destroy the country because of it.
Fun to watch.
Meantime, a group named after an Egyptian goddess (Isis), who was the model for the Virgin Mary (look it up), has taken a chunk of Iraq, is trying to take Syria, has likely taken Libya, and currently has a bunch of (white) folks here in Indonesia recruiting. We mention the "white" part, because these are Europeans, not Semitics, who are recruiting for ISIS. We'll let you make up your own scenario on how all that works. We have a pretty good idea.
Also in the past month that we've been actually doing productive stuff and taking a well-earned vacation at the Far Side World Headquarters - Java Branch (FSWHJB), another Malaysian airliner went walkies. Yup, that makes TWO planes from the Malaysian national airline - a country that tried and convicted George W. Bush of war crimes in Iraq. See previous comments.
This brings up some interesting thoughts, too. We know what you are thinking, "Oh God, here he goes again."
Have you noticed over the past few years the globs of experts that seem to all die in clumps? First, there were the microbiologists, then bankers, then Chinese IT experts (Malasia 1) and finally HIV/AIDS experts (Malaysia 2). If you're one of those people that likes math and statistics, which we don't, then please calculate the odds and send us the result. Please show your work, even though we wouldn't have a clue how to check it.
The first two groups have all be suicided in rather interesting ways - nails and bullets to the back of the head and so on - while the latter two groups have all been snuffed by the same airline with one plane vanishing off the face of the Earth and the other being shot down over a war zone. Don't forget to add those events into your calculations. There also seems to be a smell of relatedness about the groups, in that microbiologists and HIV experts, and bankers and IT experts, all seem to fit into a strange looking puzzle just so.
We figure the odds are like trillions to one, or impossibly random, but we don't trust our math - that's your job, remember?
While all this was going on, there was this event called the World Cup, of which we watched all of exactly zero minutes of, as usual. It was held in Brazil and attended (conspicuously) by high-ranking officials from the BRICS nations, and their wanna-bes (Germany and Argentina). Notice too how the wanna-bes were the two finalists. More calculations from the math-savvy folks out there? The finalists also happened to be the two countries from where the last two popes were born. click-click-click on the calculator... We lump "coincidence" in with things like the Tooth Fairy, Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny.
While all this has been going on, Russia and China have been making new friends in far-away places and installing their own version of a kinder-gentler IMF and World Bank. China's also been busy making currency-swap deals with a bunch of folks, including the very hub of Western banking - Switzerland. In case you are history impaired, this is how the US dollar took over the world after WW2. First, you hand piles of your paper to other countries, then sell them vital resources to build/rebuild their infrastructure all denominated in dollars. We don't know about you, but we shifted all our two dollars in the FOREX market to renmimbi options. But don't listen to us, we aren't "certified" money advisors, and we tend to do stupid stuff like sell all our stocks in 1999, and buy gold at $270/ounce, then sell it all at $1800/ounce to buy real estate for cash in the hinterlands.
Damn kooks we are.
Oh, did we mention the real estate has appreciated 50% or more in the past three years?
Big damn kooks.
Anyway, back to the Indonesian presidential elections. Bet you hadn't noticed that WW2 is still being played out. Yes, that's right, we're still fighting it. On one side, we have the fascists who represent the very old New World Order, founded in the 1600s, and widely known as the British East India Company, symbolized by red and white stripes on their banners (look it up). On the other side are the Socialists represented by solid, blood-red banners. The former believe in corporations owning government, and the latter believe that government owns the corporations.
We, frankly, don't have truck with either side, since they both believe that own us. We reserve that right to ourselves and our God, thank you very much.
So, that pesky election thing...
The black hats have their red-and-white coalition (look it up), and the white hats are all but Socialist in name, since they want to redistribute wealth through a variety of schemes and keep government firmly planted on top of the nation's resources and the companies that want them. The two sides are at each others' throats, as they have been for the past century across multiple nations. in fact, the world seems to be dividing quite nicely along a line that more or less follows the Prime Meridian through the Pacific Ocean, then turns down the Caucasus Mountains through Europe. The Southern Hemisphere is still up for grabs, which is why the new pope is from Argentina and Africa is a corporate battleground. And why the Indonesian elections were/are so important to those with half a mind given to free thinking.
Which brings us around to the "border crisis" in the US. Bet you thought we'd never get to that, right? But hey! It took some setup to show how Indonesian elections, dying experts and financial shenanigans are all connected to Mexican/US borders...
What do you do when your Socialist ponzi scheme (commonly called Social Security) is going broke because the largest breeding festival in history is getting old and wants their money back? Furthermore, what do you do when your arch enemies in the Eastern Hemisphere are making good friends on your southern flank by treating folks decently, rather than stomping on their faces with steel-shank boots?
Why, you throw open the border and allow millions of fresh new tax-payers come running in, who just happen to be from all those countries south of the equator that you've crapped on for nearly a century. That way, they all have a vested interest in cozying up and keeping you safe from those evil BRICS folks, because - gosh - half your family lives up there, right?
Who's behind it? Why those pesky corporations who want cheap labor at home to shore up the flagging economy in their back yards, and who want to raid the pensions for capital without causing too many shooting wars at home. After all, if folks lose both their Social Security and their pensions, they're liable to get just a little irate. At least they won't bite Uncle Sugar's hand if he's handing out welfare checks. The corporations can always shift their execs to overseas offices, but it's kind of hard to move politicians.
Everybody wins!
Except us, of course.