Tales Of Intrigue

Photo courtesy Vice.com

Events here in Jakarta have stirred up quite a bit of interest, with a ton-and-a-half of email and well over 500 readers all trying to get a handle on what happened yesterday.  The questions and hits have come from every continent but Antarctica asking what happened and what next?

Well, let's see if I can boil this down to the marrow.

Jakarta's Governor Ahok, a man of Chinese descent and Christian - only the second in history to hold the office - was found guilty of blasphemy against al-Qur'an and sentenced to two years in jail, to start immediately despite his intention to appeal.  He was taken into custody and sent to Cipinang prison in East Jakarta, but later last night was moved to the custody of TNI - the Indonesian army - for "safety" reasons.

Vice Governor Djarot was advanced to acting governor until the end of the term in October, when the governor-elect, Anies, will be sworn in.

The blasphemy charge was based on a speech Ahok gave back in September to a group of supporters.  The speech was recorded on video, then edited out of context and mistranscribed to mangle the Governor's words and meaning.

The actual verse in question is from the book Al Maidan 51, and is translated into English (only Arabic is considered the true Word of Allah) as:

"O you who have faith!  Do not take the Jews and the Christians as masters; they are master of each other/  Any of you who submit to them is indeed one of them.  Indeed, Allah does not guide the wrongdoing lot.

Setting aside the long historic antagonism between Christians and Jews, this has frequently, especially by hardliners, been interpreted to mean that Muslims may not have any non-Muslim over them, whether it be political, social or religious in nature.

Thus, it has been interpreted to mean that even in a secular republic, such as Indonesia, where the Constitution recognizes five religions on equal footing (Judaism not among them), Muslims may not allow a non-Muslim to be elected to a government office.  Never mind the concept of a public servant being below the common citizen, not above.

In any event, Ahok was reported to have said to the crowd that they shouldn't be "deceived" into thinking that this verse refers to office holders in a republican form of government.  It only means that a Muslim should not serve a master who is non-Muslim, nor should he accept religious instruction from a non-Muslim.

Well, the choice of the word "deceived" set off a shit storm.  Ahok was accused of insulting al-Quran by misinterpreting the words and using scripture for political purposes.  I don't know.  I wasn't there.  All I can say it what was reported in a video that I know is not an actual representation of the moment (it was edited) and a transcript that even the man who did it admitted was not accurate.

At any rate, one of the most honest and hard-working politicians, certainly in my memory, who did an amazing amount of good for the city of Jakarta in the four years he served, is now in jail for two years under highly questionable circumstances.

First of all, the documentation is suspect.  That much has already been stated.  Second is the question of whether a non-Muslim can be said to blaspheme a book that is not sacred to his own religion?  Blasphemy is typically limited to believers.  Third, what are the motivations behind the conviction?

It is this last question that has caused so much consternation.  You see, Ahok was originally elected Vice Governor under the current president Jokowi.  They were a team who came riding into town on a populist/reformist wave in 2012, from the city of Yogyakarta, where they were widely heralded as having cleaned up local government and ridding the city of entrenched corruption.

They were elected governor and vice governor together in Jakarta.  Two years later, Jokowi won the presidency and Ahok took over as governor.  During his tenure, the city buses actually started running on a schedule, the mass transit system was overhauled and an MRT system was inaugurated, city employees were made to show up on time and work full days, and corruption declined precipitously.

When Jokowi ran for president, he was opposed by a man named Prabowo.  Prabowo is widely considered to be part of the Establishment: a former general in the army and one of the deep crony insiders.  One could think of this match-up as similar to Donald Trump vs. Hillary Clinton.

Prabowo was so sure that he would win that the loss led to court battles and media slurs and all kinds of political maneuvering behind the scenes.  In short, the Establishment had lost a major battle and were on the outs, but that didn't stop them.  The lay in wait for a hole in the Jokowi/Ahok armor, which came in the form of a highly questionable comment back in September.

Ahok was recently defeated for re-election by a man named Anies, who is supported by Prabowo and the Establishment.  Many consider the election to have been rigged, but in the interest of stability, no one stood up to challenge the vote, least of all Ahok, who was under trial at the time for blasphemy.

The trial, too, is suspected of being rigged.  Even some of the people involved in the trial have said the judges need to be investigated for accepting bribes, since the prosecution asked for two years' probation, but in a highly irregular move, the court (five judges) threw the book at Ahok.

At any rate, this leaves President Jokowi completely isolated without any powerful allies.  He is under relentless attack by Prabowo and the Establishment, and rumors have gone around that Jokowi has been directly threatened since the Ahok result.  Jokowi stands for re-election in 2019, if he makes it that long.

In what could hardly be considered a coincidence, Agung - the son of the former president, Yudhoyno - has announced his intent to run for president, and he is openly allied with Prabowo and possibly with Anies.

In other words, the whole sordid affair has all the hallmarks of a subtle but distinct coup.  The reforms and constant attacks on corruption in government have taken a toll on the Establishment, which is widely known to use the State Treasury for political activities.

Knowing this, Ahok is reported to have placed a triple password on city accounts, with one of them being in the hands of the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), meaning that even if the Establishment regains power, they may have a difficult time dipping into public funds.

It should also be noted that Djarot, the new acting governor of Jakarta, is openly antagonistic to Jokowi.

Whatever the truth is, the appearances are suspicious to a lot of folks in these parts.  Apparently, investors feel the same way, as the Jakarta Composite Index dropped precipitously after the verdict, and is continuing the down trend as I write.  A bill in Parliament banning alcohol across the country would further undermine the economy by killing tourism, and the general uncertainty is surely causing a lot of foreign investors to think twice about committing funds in the country.

Much remains to be seen, but among expats there is considerable discussion of bailing out and looking for more stable digs elsewhere - like Vietnam and Singapore.  The coming days, weeks and months will tell a tale, and many folks are sitting on their wallets expecting another 1965 or 1998 blow up.

Indonesia is the largest and richest economy in Southeast Asia, and what happens here will ripple throughout the region, which has enjoyed significant stability over the past 20 years.

More to come...

Both Sides Against The Middle

The insanity continues apace.

Here in Jakarta, it has taken an especially hard twist.  In the recent governor election, incumbent Ahok lost to challenger Anies.    What makes it a highlight of global insanity is that the winner ran on a religious platform, saying that Ahok ( a Christian of Chinese descent) was unfit to govern because the Koran says that Muslims cannot be subordinate to non-Muslims.  He, of course, completely misinterprets the lines in question while at the same time accusing Ahok of blasphemy for a statement that has been categorically shown to be false.  Even the Minister of Religious Affairs said that Ahok's comments were mistranscribed - probably on purpose - to discredit the reformist governor.

Where it gets really fun is that Ahok came into office as Vice Governor to the current president, Jokowi.  When Jokowi won the presidency, Ahok ascended to Governor and subsequently won re-election.  Ahok has been roundly praised for cleaning up Jakarta, clearing out slums, upgrading the mass transit system, and rooting out corruption.  Indeed, though many people grumble about actually having to follow the law now, the city has improved quite a bit in the past five years.

Anies, on the other hand, is allied with Prabowo, a man widely seen as corrupt and desperate to take the presidency for himself (he lost to Jokowi in a hotly contested election two years ago).  In the time honored tradition, the ruling political parties raid the State treasury for funds to drive political campaigns, only Ahok has put a triple lock on the Treasury door, with one of the keys being held by the KPK, or Corruption Eradication Commission.  This means all expenditures must be approved by the use of three separate passwords, whith the governor holding only one.

Anies ran on a religious platform, but many people view him as a return to the bad old days of rampant corruption in the Regional government.  Despite Anies wearing his religion on his sleeve, photos made the rounds of social media of drunken parties following his victory - a scandal.  Anies also used a State helicopter to tour his domain, something that Ahok and Jokowi have both eschewed during their tenure, preferring to endure the same traffic issues everyone else does.

Ahok has gone one further now.  During the campaign, Anies adopted a "me too" echo chamber, saying that he would do anything Ahok promised to clean up the city.  This included shutting own one of the most notorious night spots in the city.

To understand the subtleties of this particular challenge, one must understand that the military is widely viewed as having an iron-fist grip on the country's drug trade, and Prabowo (major supporter of Anies) is a former general in the army.  Thus, the gauntlet that has been thrown is a challenge to Anies' loyalty and honesty in a very interesting and low-key manner.

In other developments, food stalls have been returning to areas previously cleared out by Ahok, who thought sidewalks should be uncluttered for pedestrian comfort and safety - a novel idea in Indonesia, where food vendors take advantage of public spaces for rent-free operations.  Also, public employees, who have been forced to punch a clock and actually perform their duties under Ahok, are starting to show up late or not at all for work.

Naturally, a great number of people, who have enjoyed the modernization and efficiency introduced under Ahok, are just a bit worried about what's to come.

There is no doubt now that Prabowo and his Gerindra party will launch another major offensive during the 2020 presidential campaign.  The governor of Jakarta is generally acknowledged as a major stepping stone to national leadership

In effect, this all appears to be a strong political assault on Indonesia's populist revolt, which began in 2010, and a return to the oligarchical rule of yesteryear.

Though this counter-revolt is dressed in all the finery of religious zealotry, it is actually the front of a major shift in Indonesia's demographic composition.  The country's middle class explosion of the past 20 years has allowed an entire generation of Indonesians to be educated overseas.  Combined with the internet and social media, they have become increasingly enamored of truly open and democratic societies elsewhere.

This new generation is much more lenient on drugs (especially marijuana), less controlled by religion, and are far more affluent than even their parents could have imagined.

In other words, it is a mirror of the 1960s, and even more so of the Millennials among their Western counterparts.  In a country where Islam has dominated the social and political landscape for centuries, this is a direct and existential threat to the Powers That Be.  The old control buttons and levers aren't working and they are trying to clamp down to retain their privileged positions.

The problem is, Indonesians are growing accustomed to having disposable income and being able to travel abroad and shop for prestigious brands and drive their own cars, as only the richest folks could do just a short time ago.

Jokowi and Ahok are the crest of a huge wave of change coming to Indonesia, and Anies and Prabowo are the breakwaters trying desperately to slow the tide.  It is the classic case of the rock and the hard spot, with a large, sparkly diamond of middle class affluence resting tenuously in between.

Though it hasn't risen to the level of prominence that the Trump and Le Pen candidacies have, Indonesia's power struggle is nonetheless significant, as it is the premier economy of Southeast Asia.  It is significantly tied to other economies, like Sourth Korea, Vietnam, Thailand, and the Philippines, all of which are on center stage in the massive tug-of-war between the East and West.  The West would obviously feel more secure with an Indonesia that is socially backward and mired in internal corruption.

If Indonesia were to become a major player in regional politics, as it easily could with its vast natural wealth, it would likely align more tightly with China - a prime trading partner - than with Western interests.

Enter Mike Pence, the US Vice President, who recently visited Indonesia.  Coincident with his visit (ahem), Freeport-Macmoran secured an export license that has been in bureaucratic limbo for years pending the outcome of various major lawsuits.  Freeport operates some of the largest gold mines in Indonesia and it isn't hard to imagine the Veep promising to buy up the exports to keep them out of Chinese hands, not to mention the silver and other strategic raw materials that are a bonus of gold mining.

No matter how you slice the pie, things are getting rather interesting here in the archipelago, not just because of the imminent threat to and by North Korea, but also because of the ideological clash that is shaping up in these parts.  Witness Duterte's rather blatant threats against Islamic terrorists in recent days.

For those tracking the political tides of the world, Indonesia bears a close watch, as the incoming Anies administration in Jakarta will be a bellwether of currents in the entire region.  The major concern to Western interests is keeping a strong relgious influence over this government and preventing Indonesia from joining the Shang Hai Accord countries (BRICS).  Indonesia's wealth would greatly benefit the BRICS, and Indonesia itself would benefit from cheaper loans, better trade deals and infrastructure support from China and Russia.

That giant sucking sound is a helluva lot of people holding their breath.

Carnies And Rubes, Part 2

For Preamble and Thesis, please see Part 1)

As I stated at the end of Part 1, I prefer to substitute the terms Carny and Rube for Elders and Goyim.  I suspect, for a variety of reasons I hope to clarify, that The Protocols  were not written by International Jews (as Henry Ford called them), but as descendants of the Knights Templar, who in their Crusades and other activities not only invented the modern financial system, but came across some kind of information that made them feel superior to the rest of humanity.

My thesis is simple: The Protocols represent an actual and detailed plan to control the world, and that the proof lies in the amazing prescience with which they predict the unfolding of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century.  The predictions are so precise and correct that they belie a concerted effort on the part of a hidden group to steer the development of modern civilization.

For the sake of brevity, I will not argue all points, but select a few key elements that support my contentions.  I leave it to the reader to approach the material with an open mind and make their own conclusions.

The Protocols begin by stating their assumption that all men (other than themselves) are animalistic brutes and can only be governed by force and terror.  I don't need to reiterate the observation that the 20th century and into the 21st have been dominated by just these two concepts.

They see freedom and (classic) liberalism as a weakness, or slackened reins, which can be taken up by stronger hands to take over control of society.  Basically, the position is that humans are too stupid to handle freedom, and prefer the iron fist of control.  Any attempt to relax control only opens the door for new and stricter leaders, not real and abiding freedom.

For the most part, the introduction to the document posits that humans are brutes, might makes right, and money is the tool for subjugation.  Spoken like true predatory banksters, if you ask me.  To whit:

"10. Is it possible for any sound logical mind to hope with any success to guide crowds by the aid of reasonable counsels and arguments, when any objection or contradiction, senseless though it may be, can be made and when such objection may find more favor with the people, whose powers of reasoning are superficial? Men in masses and the men of the masses, being guided solely by petty passions, paltry beliefs, traditions and sentimental theorems, fall a prey to party dissension, which hinders any kind of agreement even on the basis of a perfectly reasonable argument. Every resolution of a crowd depends upon a chance or packed majority, which, in its ignorance of political secrets, puts forth some ridiculous resolution that lays in the administration a seed of anarchy."

Clearly, the writer believes in the basic tenets of Socialism as an antidote to both Capitalism and Democracy. He depends on the dumbing-down process to ensure the masses cannot reason clearly, and assumes, like Social Darwinists, that humans do not have an innate moral barometer.  Thus, without firm guidance from the outside, society will descend into chaos ("anarchy").  He promotes the idea of using Capitalism and Democracy as tools to ensure the decay of society and set up the climate for easy take-over.

I would argue that the writer substitutes the term "capital" for "mercantilism", a concept perfected by the Venetian Republic and exported to other parts of Europe.  Mercantilism involves control of money by a bankster class, who uses the power of government to create a regulatory environment favoring themselves...much like we see today.

The writer continues:

"14. In any State in which there is a bad organization of authority, an impersonality of laws and of the rulers who have lost their personality amid the flood of rights ever multiplying out of liberalism, I find a new right - to attack by the right of the strong, and to scatter to the winds all existing forces of order and regulation, to reconstruct all institutions and to become the sovereign lord of those who have left to us the rights of their power by laying them down voluntarily in their liberalism."

Here the writer seems to foretell the rise of Political Correctness and the Social Justice Warriors.  By corrupting the concept of "rights" from moral Natural Law to increasing demands to have any form of behavior accepted as a right is how he envisions societies eating themselves alive with further and further divisions until the entire system collapses.  Keep in mind at this point that the document is at least 120 years old, and that at best only Women's Suffrage was an ongoing political "rights" movement.

The writer further states that the political and the moral cannot coexist.  Any leader who is moral and honest will be utterly destroyed, he says, because political power is inconsistent with Truth and Knowledge.  On this score, I can agree with his assertions, since he seems to be echoing Lord Acton's famous axiom that "power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely."  Lord Acton further seems to have read this document when he warns,  “Liberty has not only enemies which it conquers, but perfidious friends, who rob the fruits of its victories: Absolute democracy, socialism.”

I will not endeavor to analyze the text line by line, as that is better left to the reader.  Suffice it to say that the introduction to The Protocols seems to clearly foreshadow current events, and indeed the entire history of the 20th century.  I have also mentioned how one contemporary of the document, Lord Acton, seems to be reacting to the tenets of this document in his many quotes on liberty and politics.

I will now move on to specific plans on the part of the writer to effect global domination, and their curious parallels to modern civilization.

(Stay tuned...)

That Dog Don't Hunt

Hate to say it, folks, but I think it's time to admit we've all been had.

Yes, I'm talking about Donald Trump.  In previous outings, I've expressed my reservations about him, and said I would reserve judgement at least until the obligatory 100 days had passed.  Well, I made it to 90 days, but that's about all I can handle.

Trump is nothing but a shill.  As I said nearly a year ago, I thought it was a bit of a stretch to believe that a multi-billionaire could be an outsider, since he basically could not have achieved his wealth and status without being on some insider's Good Boy List.

Oh sure, there have been moments of intense excitement, like when gobs of Americans banded together to defeat the evil Clinton crime family despite all the lying, vote rigging and Russian blaming.  There were some hopeful moments, when populist heroes like Steve Bannon got picked for the administration.  Folks even got their hackles up when lousy federal judges kept blocking temporary travel bans.

But then came the wave of realizations that world had been given a ringer.

First, it was the healthcare reform, then delay of tax reform, then wrangling over the iconic wall promise, and then the good guys started getting booted out of the administration in favor of more bankers and NeoCons.  Finally, the bombings and saber rattling started.  There was the immediate non-prosecution of the Clintons.  The PizzaGate story got buried.  Oh, and Trump's inner-inner-circle got filled up with Daddy's Boys and Girls, including a Soros-loving slime like Jared Kushner.

Now, I've heard plenty of folks defending Trump.  Just wait, they say.  Hang in there, they say.  Don't worry, they say.  But it all sounds more like they are trying to convince themselves than anyone else.  No one likes to admit they've been taken.  That's why grifters like Trump get away with it so much.  It's like being raped, everyone's too embarrassed to report it.

Trump started losing me the moment he declined to prosecute Hillary Clinton, despite there being an open-and-shut case against her.  In fact, Trump even kept James Comey at the FBI just to make sure all the evidence was properly obfuscated and the case definitively shut down.

Once Trump started turning on Russia and using NATO instead of dismantling it, I knew we'd been had.  One of the major issues that got the man into the job was his long-standing promise to stop nation-building and start focusing on domestic issues - of which there are more than enough.

Many apologists say Trump is surrounded with bad advice, but that advice is coming from people that he deliberately installed around him.  Some folks say he's been compromised, but what, praytell, could compromise him that Clinton couldn't find and exploit during the election?  Then there are those who say, just wait he's lining up his chips for the Big Nego.  To this I say, human lives and world peace are not negotiating chips.

Which brings up the so-called sarin gas attack.  For the sake of argument, I will grant that it was an actual attack (which it wasn't), and that women and children were killed (which they weren't) and that Bashir Assad did it (which he didn't), what Trump did by unleashing his toys was in every way illegal, unwarranted and unsolicited.  No Americans were killed, nor even threatened, and the event (whatever it was) did not threaten American territory, and the US was not sanctioned by the UN or Syria to conduct military operations within Syrian borders.

In other words, this was an unprovoked attack on a sovereign country without any due process of law - much less an investigation.  Image some radical nutjob unleashes sarin gas in Detroit (not out of the question anymore), does Russia or any other country then have the right to launch cruise missiles on random targets within the US to clean up the sarin gas depots?

I didn't think so.  In fact, I'm willing to bet most Americans would bristle at such a move, even with UN blessings and a group of other nations backing up the Russians.

A couple of folks have argued that the Russians are conducting military operations in Syria, so the US is perfectly justified, as well.  Wrong.  Syria is a sovereign nation with a duly elected government that invited the Russians to help out.  None of that is true for the US forces, and regardless of what anyone thinks about Assad, he was elected in a democratic process and represents the will of Syrian nationals.

Lord knows Trump has plenty of detractors, but he was duly elected.  Just because he may end up a dictator does not give other nations the right to perform a little regime change.  That's not to say that bombing other countries or directly threatening them (as in North Korea) doesn't give those countries the right under international law to attack the US.

The thing is that Trump is behaving quite contrary to the will of the people who elected him.  They are turning on him, and rightfully so.  He was elected to clean up Washington, stop all the nation-building non-sense, and reform and resolve domestic issues like the economy, illegal immigration, absurd tax laws, and protectionist regulations that only benefit the select insider corporations.

He has failed dramatically on all fronts, and he has done so deliberately while at the same time trying to justify his actions, implying forethought.  If he ever intended to keep his campaign promises, it didn't take long for him to completely reverse himself and join the other side.

As I have stated many times in multiple fora, the System cannot be changed from the inside.  It must be completely dismantled and replaced.  Whether you still support Trump, are getting worried about him living up to his hype, or have completely been disillusioned, the lesson is quite clear - no one can be trusted to fix such a massive global System.  It can't be done.

Whether Trump is a shill (which I find credible) or has been turned to the Dark Side, he is proof positive that the System will take all necessary actions to protect itself.

The Kafwellian Dystopia

Those of us who are level-headed and clear thinking, e.g. the rest of the world, should sympathize with America right now.  That country finds itself in the unenviable position in which half the country fervently believes the Anti-Christ has just been revealed, and the other half piously believes that the Second Coming has just occurred, and both are right.  In fact, one might think of the situation as the Second Coming of the Anti-Christ.

One the one hand, the Anti-Christers are so convinced that TEOTWAWKI has arrived, that they've decided to get a head-start on the death and destruction bit.  They have spent their life savings to hire a fleet of buses to haul them around from town to town, where they can help folks get going on burning down civilization and destroying culture.

On the other hand, the Second Cominites, in their orgiastic revels, are blind to the fact that the Old Baddies they just threw out are all getting reappointed by their Savior.

It's a rather pitiable position for a nation to be in.  Not only does the left hand not know what the right hand is doing, they are both engaged in beating the living daylights out of each other, while both are wondering where the hell those attacks are coming from.  One can only assume that Kafka and Orwell have sat up in their graves and are gleefully watching the proceedings.  It is the birth of a whole new form of governance called Absurdist Kafwellian Dystopia, in which even the Elites who run the place haven't a clue what they are doing.

There was a priceless moment when Donald Trump, the Anti-Savior for lack of a better term, met with Barack Obama, the outgoing Anti-Savior.  One can only assume from the look on Trump's face that the Secrets of the Universe have just been revealed to him, and it looks nothing like the world he had planned on.  He has been handed the keys to Gringott's Wizarding Bank, only to find it stuffed to the rafters with perfectly ordinary lead ingots and not a horcrux in sight.

Suddenly, as the inebriated fog of celebratory and commiserative parties slowly wears off, both sides are beginning to realize the wisdom of P. J. O'Rouke's famous satirical invective, "Don't Vote, It Just Encourages the Bastards."  As folks stumble out into the glaring sunlight, they are dazzled both by their stupidity for both having been taken for a ride, and for not having chosen a more palatable Anti-Christ.  Even Mr. Trump seems a bit overwhelmed by his own rhetoric, if that makes the reader feel better.

Trump honestly never thought he'd get elected, which some people might find rather quizzical.  He entered the race to steer the dialogue; that's it.  What he found was that he had tapped a nerve more raw than biting one's tongue while enjoying a particularly spicy bowl of Tom Yum.  At some point, he realized he was too far in to quit, though he knows the next mouthful of Tom Yum is gonna hurt something fierce.

It's an amazing crazy quilt of interests who have all been playing a game of brinkmanship, and all of them have tumbled over the cliff.  As they all plunge inexorably towards the rocks below, they are all fighting each other to be the last ones to land, thinking the leading corpses will cushion the blow just enough to claim victory.

It is nice to think that Americans have learned their lesson now, and if they make it to another election, will choose the sane option of avoiding polls altogether.  After all, if no one participated in the circus, there wouldn't be much a circus to watch.  All shows require an audience, otherwise they are just rehearsals.

When will people realize that the only viable option is to not surrender ANY personal sovereignty to ANYONE for ANY REASON?  One need only look at history to understand that, in the end, NO ONE is ultimately happy with the outcome of any election, because it always means having to bow down to some undesirable result, no matter who claims victory.

So as we watch the absurd pageant of quasi-religious fervor unfold like the legendary Corpse Flower of Sumatera.  This is an appropriate metaphor because not only does the enormous flower smell like rotting flesh, it is also a parasite, an apt metaphor in so many ways.

If you swear allegiance to an abstraction or subscribe to a creed that you did not create, then you are part of a System that cannot be reformed from the inside.  The System is so inculcated into daily life that to change any part of it ripples out into the most insignificant parts of daily life.  Like a gangrenous limb, it must be entirely cut off.  There is no curing bit by bit.  The only way forward is to bit the bullet and get it over with.

Instead, the vast majority of people with endure any amount of absurdity and indignity, rather than suffer the momentary pain of the cure.  In fact, most will come to convince themselves that the bizarre and unwieldy System is preferable to any alternative, even liberty and individual sovereignty.  Ultimately, nothing will change until the pain of the System is so unbearable that there is no alternative but to crush it and take whatever follows, which as the people of Iceland learned is actually a far better choice.

Most people are terrified of making choices and taking responsibility for them.  They would rather play the victim and have institutions that rush to their aid, but they rarely realize the enormous price they pay for such cure, choosing to pay the price of liberty for the childlike state of eternal childhood.

And so the Kawellian (to coin a term) farce proceeds apace.  The Absurdist Dystopia grows unabated, sucking the life out of people like a massive parasite that the masses willingly accept out of fear of personal responsibility.  Such is the nature of insanity.

On the plus side, though, it makes for a helluva comedy.

Spectators At The Apocalypse

Did you miss me?  Sorry for the day and a half off.  I do occasionally work at productive, paying jobs, and as a freelancer, I have to do a little selling in between to keep the work flow going.

At any rate, I was having a little conversation with Roy over on our Farcebook page about the stunning media melt-down this past year and a half.

As a career media guy who has worked in local news departments for Fox affiliates, large daily newspapers in the Rockies and the film industry, I know for a fact that everything you see on TeeVee is a complete fraud.  It is why I often rant on about turning off your media streams.

Once upon a time, we were still biased, but we were subtle.  We gave better lighting, more favorable camera angles and a few extra seconds of air time to the "preferred" candidates.  Often, we would lead with the "good guy" or focus a bit more on the "bad guy's" foibles.

Now, however, you can practically see them cashing the Hillary for Prez checks.  The late-night "comedy" shows have practically forgotten there are five candidates.  If you watch them regularly, there is only one and he is completely nuts, according to the near-incessant lambasting Trump gets.  If Hillary gets any attention at all, it is more or less an "oh yeah" mention at the end of a five-minute monologue on the evils of Trump.

The "news" organizations might as well just come out and give us a list of all the things they aren't going to cover.  It's that obvious.  I make a habit of reading news sources from all over the world on a daily basis, including a number of "alt" sites that I consider relatively trustworthy.  Frankly, if I didn't, I would have no idea what was really going on.  The Western media, and especially the US, have just gone off their rockers over this election.  Many of the media pie-holes has already blatantly admitted that they are protecting and promoting Hillary.  Since Americans, for the most part, don't believe anything until someone in authority tells them in simple English, we can safely say that the "conspiracy theories" have been put to rest.

What astounds me the most, though, is the bum's rush to demonize Russia.  Having watched several hours of MOS (man-on-the-street) interviews with "average" Americans, it is no wonder this particular piece of brainwashing is working so well.  In fact, most people have no clue about Russia, why it is being railroaded, or the very real and imminent danger that "poking the bear" brings.  The rhetoric is beyond even the more dire and propagandistic things I remember from the Cold War.

If the anti-Russian rhetoric proves anything, it is that Hillary has absolutely zero problems with starting wars and killing thousands, if not millions of people to hide her corruption.  Can you imagine the depravity of a mind that can conceive of such things, much less act on them on a global scale?  Though I cannot in good conscience bring myself to vote for any of the candidates, it is quite clear that Hillary should not even be considered a serious contender at this point.  Anyone who can proudly say they are voting for her has got to be under the most exigent spells ever witnessed.

In yet another layer of amazement, one has to wonder what these people think they will get in exchange for selling their profession and their souls to the devil.

Is there some well-hidden pot of gold waiting somewhere enticing these balloon-headed hair-spray catchers into destroying any semblance of professionalism?  Of course, at this point Hillary must win, because there is no other exit than to have the gratitude of the queen.  Any other outcome will leave these padded wallets in the cold with no credibility and only the most brain-dead audiences.  They have literally cashed in centuries of media development on this election.

The only real winners that I can see are the alt media.  As the depraved Hillary implodes on stage, it will become increasingly obvious, even to the most fried of couch potatoes, that the alt media were the only ones accurately reporting the news.  On way or the other, we are witnessing the greatest shift in power since the fall of Rome.

I have no love lost for the alt media.  For the most part, they are illiterate slime diggers, but folks like Julian Assange get my greatest respect.  He is literate and he has quite literally put his life on the line to let all the poisons in the mud hatch out.  He is a journalist in the great tradition, and a patriot of rare constitution.

Regardless of how all this shakes out in the near term, we are witnessing one of the most profound moments in history.  The repercussions from Election 2016 will touch nearly every life on the planet, and I do not resort to hyperbole in saying this.  If Hillary wins, the resulting destruction of Western civilization will shake the world for the next 100 years.  If Trump wins, the collapse of the media and whatever follows from his administration will have equally earthshaking consequences.

I admit that I have prepared for, and in many ways hoped for this moment, but now that it is upon us, I can hardly comprehend the way it has come about.  It is one thing to image such historic moments, but another entirely to witness it.  I cannot say that I am sorry, because my disgust with the political and media establishments is acute.  What is regretable, though, is the numbers of people that will suffer because it has gone this far, having built up for well over a century now.  However painful it will get - and it looks as if it will hurt quite a bit - we must all take responsibility for having allowed ourselves to be led so far down the garden path.

The collapse of the media is only the most visible and remarkable of the changes occurring, but certainly not the only one.  We can be sure that at every level of the establishment, the ground is heaving and the sky is falling.  They have painted themselves into a very tight corner from which there is only one escape, and that is to put Hillary in the White House in order to complete the take-over.

The blow-dried nincompoops have bought the promise of great power and wealth if they jump onto the establishment lap like a good dog.  What they apparently fail to realize is that either way, they have already lost everything, it's only a matter of gallows or guns as to how they are dispatched.  At some level, I feel sorry for them, because they bought the same siren song that we all did, they just had better seats and the feeling that they were part of the inner circle.

As for the rest of us, the best thing we can do to save our sanity at this point, is to become dispassionate and remove ourselves as far as we can from the emotional destruction that is heading our way like a light-speed freight train.  Panic is self-defeating and fear prevents clarity.  This has been inevitable since it began.  Nothing lasts forever, even the best laid plans of mice and men.  We can choose to be victims, or take control of the situation and, as the Chinese say, find the opportunity in the chaos.

The rather amazing run of relative stability we've enjoyed since WW2 is at an end, and the scale of the collapse ensures that at least the next three generations will find the world little resembles what they were told to expect.  Ultimately, this is a good thing, but like a good roller coaster, there will be many hair-raising moments getting to the other side.

Turn off the TeeVee, tune in reality and prepare yourself to witness something that will be the stuff of legends long after we are gone.

Kabuki Apocalypse

I really enjoy writing about politics, because no matter what I say or which side I appear to be on, it always elicits a lot of responses that span the range of human emotions.  It's no wonder the Reader Survey had politics as being the number one topic that people loved to hate.

I get accused of shilling for this party or that, or being a "fence sitter" for declaring myself to be a political atheist.  I should mention, for those confused by the term, that a political atheist refers to a complete disbelief in establishment politics and has little or nothing to do with religion.  That's a completely different conflict.  In the end, I get accused of being everything, since I believe in nothing, is the way I read it.

But how does one get to be a political atheist, you ask.

As I've mentioned before, my father was a politician.  He was first elected in 1960, as a Democrat from Houston.  He served three terms in the Texas House before switching parties, due in large part to the corruption and pure evil of the Johnson Machine.  For those unfamiliar with this term, Lyndon Baines Johnson (LBJ) was a Texas politician who became president upon the death of John F. Kennedy (in Texas, but there are books on that connection).  Johnson's network ran Texas politics with a platinum fist, fed by oil money and raw lust for power.

In 1966, Dad jumped parties and was elected to the Texas Senate as a Goldwater Republican, and in 1972, ran for governor, coming within 200,000 votes of becoming the first Republican to hold that office since the Civil War.  Of course, the jump came just in time for the corruption and paranoia of the Nixon years, which ultimately resulted in Nixon's impeachment and resignation in 1974.

Watching all this as an impressionable kid, I grew disgusted with politics, having seen that there were no sides with clean hands.  I also saw the toll it took on my father - the frustration, anger and ultimate withdrawal from the process, since one could never get a message directly to the voters.  There were always layers upon layers of control in between that had their hands out - ass, gas or grass, nobody rides for free.

When the time came for me to receive my enfranchisement, I didn't want it.  There was nothing there that I found appealing or desirable.  What I did learn, though, was the power of the media.  I had already spent my entire life to that point on stage.  I was a political prop, rolled out at the appropriate moment to enhance the "family man" image.  I instinctively understood this.  I saw how it all worked, and I liked the power of controlling people without ever being seen.

I spent many hours in TeeVee studios and back stage.  I was agog at the technology and machinations that turned into programs and productions.  I loved listening to the production meetings - throwing out ideas, anticipating responses, calculating demographics.  It reminded me of all those WW2 movies my father loved and forced me to watch.  The generals in dimly lit rooms, smoking furiously, moving pieces around on a map.

I knew what I wanted to do with my life - and what I didn't want.

What I didn't want was to be in the political system. I preferred the position of being on the outside, watching the rubes argue and lambaste each other.  When they were done, they came to me to polish and present the results of their bloody in-fighting.  I enjoyed being above them, looking down with mild distaste at their grubby faces as I bestowed my talent, knowledge and skill upon their message.

Through all of it, politics and politicians were potential clients.  I never invested any importance or meaning in their system.  All I wanted was their money, and all I gave them was a product.

Eventually, I came to realize that I was deceiving innocent people in the process.  Sure, they donated to the parties and were active in campaigns, but they honestly had no idea what went on behind the scenes - the cynicism, corruption, greed and lust.  The masses truly believed that they were doing some good by supporting this or that cause, party or politician.  They were completely unsuspecting of the blackness that sucked their money and passion away and spit it back at them.

The other day, I posted a link to an Infowars video on my private Facebook account.  It was a hidden camera recording of a DNC delegate saying Hillary would ban all guns and destroy the Second Amendment (right to own guns).  Almost immediately, I got a response from a good friend and the person I interned with lo, these many years ago:

"Stop posting these links to bullshit sources.  Can't you see what he's doing?  He's leading that poor idiot to get her to give the answers he wants."

Incredulous, I replied, "Really?  You and I have done that exact thing to elicit the response we wanted from an interview hundreds of times.  And Infowars has more followers than many cable news hosts.  What makes them less legitimate than any other source, especially given the revelations in the past two weeks concerning Fox, CNN, MSNBC, Reuters, and Politico?"

I thought about it for a few minutes, then added, "You know as well as I do that there is no such thing as an objective reporter.  Every story has at least seven people injecting their personal views into every story that goes on the air.."  I was referring to the producer, reporter, editor, news chief, owner, sponsor, and viewer.  Each places their prejudices and assumptions into a story at every step of the process.

There was no response, and there can be none.  It is true.  Because I grant more credibility to one source over another does not change the process itself, which is the same for any media outlet.  For every form of communication, there is a standardized process for encoding and decoding information.  Regardless of who or what is communicating, the process is the same.  In any given language, the rules of grammar must be followed or the message is scrambled and unintelligible.

Ultimately, I have withdrawn from politics, media and as much of the bullshit as I can.  I prefer pure entertainment now, like the stage and film.  The reason is that at some level, everyone in the audience understands that the actors and scenery are a lie.  TeeVee crosses that line by pretending to reveal reality - but whose reality?

As I disucssed previously, it is all magic.  It invokes spirits and presents possession as a mirror of reality, however distorted.  As a professional in "show biz," I have come to see media as either benign (theater, film) or malignant (TeeVee, especially "news").  In the benign form, the audience is aware that they are being manipulated, so they have a fighting chance.  In the malignant form, the audience believes what they are seeing is at least some form of truth, which of course, none of it is.

In the end, I have washed my hands of politics and mass media, and have tried in some small way to absolve my sins.  Generally, though, people don't want to hear it.  During election season they dive in, regardless of how much distance they keep during the "off" years, and most people reach for the TeeVee remote almost immediately upon coming home from another day as corporate drone.

We have all been so conditioned that we can't imagine, much less remember a time when life wasn't like this.  It seems quaint to think of days when TeeVee didn't exist and campaigns rode around in trains, giving stump speeches along the route.  We have pulled the wool over our own eyes, seemingly as a choice, but really what choices do you consciously make?

When you vote for a candidate, do you think, "I can't choose a third party because they will lose.  I want to go with a winner."  Ask yourself this: regardless of which party won, have you ever won?  Have you ever been happy with the choice you made?

Remember back when Obama was first elected?  There was a kind of religious aura about it.  None one could say a cross word about him.  It was a sacred moment.  Now, it is hard to find someone who will admit to voting for him.

That's why I'm a political atheist.

The Trump Card

For some reason, a number of readers have asked me to expand my thoughts on Donald Trump.  Apparently, the subtle jabs I've taken in past articles have led some to believe I don't like Trump, and others to believe I do like Trump.  Either way, I'm going to get hate mail on this one, I think.

Que sera.

Basically, I score candidates on three main issues: statesmanship, leadership and economics.  I will say right up front that NONE of the candidates for US president rise to the top in any of these categories.

To give an example of someone who does score high in all three categories, I would point to Vladimir Putin.  In terms of statesmanship, he knows history, diplomacy and politics.  As far as leadership, he is circumspect, cautious and flexible.  When it comes to economics, he has proven able to guide his country through some tough times and still manage to keep the economy growing.  The economics part relies heavily on the first two categories to formulate the proper policies and implement them correctly.  In short, I admire his skills, though I can say nothing about him personally.

That said, I can evaluate what I see of Donald Trump.  Since I do not know him personally, I can only do as I would with Vladimir Putin and look at the publicly available information.

When it comes to statesmanship, I will use the dictionary definition of the term in order to remain objective.  Statesmanship means "the ability, qualifications, or practice of a statesman; wisdom and skill in the management of public affairs."  In this category, I include knowledge of history and law, as well as the legal processes that make government work.

In this category, I think we can say that Donald Trump has no record whatsoever.  He has never held public office and his experience with politics seems fairly limited to his ability to buy and sell politicians to get what he wants in the way of tax concessions, property easements and other things needed to run his businesses.  Knowing how to manipulate political systems says nothing about his ability to operate on the other side of the table.  He is used to buying what he wants to make his operations run smoother, not protect public interests and the commonwealth.

Furthermore, by listening to his public statements, we can conclusively say that Donald Trump has little or no knowledge of the legal and political processes that maintain government.  He does not know, or has never studied, the US Constitution.  That he promotes torture and similar remedies means that he is unfamiliar with the Enlightenment and the philosophical underpinnings of American law.  Trump promotes expedience over justice, making him rather dangerous in this area.  His stances on immigration and border control, however, don't seem out of place, since most of what he proposes is simply enforcing the current laws, which has not been done for some time under other presidents.

In the area of diplomacy, I think it is fair to say that Donald Trump is seriously lacking.  Even when he espouses ideas that are valid and/or popular, he has a way of expressing them that alienates many people.  I happen to agree with his desire to reduce globalism and bring manufacturing jobs back home, but the way he lays out his views make more than just the globalist bankers nervous.  The US trade partners are also balking, since Trump has been both blunt and has not given any basis for his proposed policies.

As for the wisdom of circumspection, it is hardly controversial to say that Donald Trump is not much of a deep thinker.  He is reactionary and unable to express his reasoning in intellectual terms.  He appeals to and plays on emotions, which given his obvious popularity, could be very dangerous in the long term.  This is precisely the kind of rhetoric that gets nations in trouble.  Again, I point at Vladimir Putin, who is most often understated and places numerous historical and legal references in his speeches.

In terms of statesmanship, we can only put a big question mark, since we know nothing about his abilities here.

In the next category, leadership, we find a rather mixed bag.  Donald Trump has a long public record of corporate leadership where his attitude appears to be one of "my way or the highway."  This attitude works fine in a business, because when people don't like "my way," they are free to change jobs.  However, when running a country, things are not so straight-forward.  Countries contain thousands of competing interests, and a republic (at least in name) has the further duty to protect certain basic rights against even majorities who would take them away.  Leading a country requires diplomacy and compromise, skills which Donald Trump has seldom displayed.

Donald Trump is charismatic and expresses things that a lot of disaffected voters feel.  On the campaign trails, this is useful and obviously successful, but with no record of statesmanship, we cannot evaluate how he would behave in the office of president.  Being emotional and unpredictable when you control one of the largest militaries on Earth and have your fingers poised on the nuclear launch button are not ideal qualifications.  They are equally undesirable for a leader whose job is to calm the anxieties of foreign leaders, who could easily be on the receiving end of military responses.  As a cut-throat real estate developer, Donald Trump is used to getting his way by using any means at his disposal.  What happens when the means include all the weight of the US military complex?

In the category of economics, it seems reasonable to assume that Donald Trump has a strong intuitive grasp of economics.  He understands interest rates and taxes, and likely can calculate large sums instantly in his head.  As a developer, he understands profits and margins for a lot of different suppliers and laborers.  He can probably generate a 5-year plan with cost-benefit analysis in his sleep.  But , government is not a business.  It is a cost-center that generates no products and is incapable of earning a profit.  Government, in other words, is the fundamental opposite of business.  Being highly successful running one does not imply success with the other.  The skill sets are completely different.

I would place Donald Trump in a much higher place, when it comes to economics, that I would any career politician.  The politician has no experience with the "real" world.  They can vote themselves a raise, and frequently do.  Their incomes are derived from threatening physical violence on the productive workers.  The only time a politician answers to anyone is when he runs for office, and it is quite easy to manipulate the constituency using well-established media tricks and a few pork-barrel projects for the home crowds.

In light of the preceding, I find it very difficult to support Donald Trump, not to mention his rather potent ego-centrism, which puts me off.  The problem is, there is no one in the rest of the field that would seriously turn the country around, or at least get it off of the current course of destroying the world and itself.  In additional, I have always supported the non-establishment (can't really call Trump anti-establishment) candidate, and in my lifetime, I have never seen such a candidate reach this level of support.  For that reason alone, I secretly admire his chutzpah.

If for no other reason, I like Donald Trump because he will, without a doubt, stir the pot, something desperately needed in the US.  I can't believe he will make it past the convention, since the entrenched powers literally cannot afford to lose control.  They will stop him, one way or another.  They have come too far down the their road to let one man derail the whole thing.

The best endorsement Donald Trump has received is the vitriol pouring out of the establishment media in the US.  That those media would try so hard to get rid of someone almost guaranteed to bring ratings, both now and in the White House, means that they are truly and profoundly scared of him.  I like that.

In the end, for anyone wanting to break the grip of the neo-cons, Donald Trump is probably the best bet.  One thing is likely under a Trump administration - the business environment would return to the heady days of the early Reagan years.  Even though the country (and the world) has suffered dearly for the wave of deregulation in the 80s, no one can deny that a lot of people made a lot of money back then.  Just look at the movies that period spawned.

You pays your money and you takes your chance.  I naturally will not vote, as I haven't for decades.  I prefer "none of the above."  In this position, I can claim to have always been right, because I have always said that no matter who gets elected, everyone will be sorry.  Go back and look at my early posts on Obama, when it was oh-so-incorrect to say such things.  Unless Trump returns the US Federal government to a size somewhere equivalent to pre-Civil War days, neither he nor anyone else offers much more than the impossible dream.