The Hollywood Happy Hi-Howdy

One of the most alarming features of the Bumbledick Left is that it requires absolute conformity, a philosophical analogy to lock-stepping military parades.  Once conformity takes over any group of people, it becomes susceptible to charismatic leaders, who despite any good intentions, always get corrupted by the perception of power.

Individuals gain power over groups by offering something that the group desires more than any other thing.  Wealth, fame, eternal redemption - these are strong motivators for many people.  When a leader promises to fulfill these desires, and is perceived to be successful at doing it, the people invest tremendous amounts of trust and authority in the leader in the hopes of attaining their ultimate dreams.

Once a leader has hundreds, thousands, even millions of people willing to do pretty much anything they are told, the temptation for the leader to fulfill his or her own desires is overwhelming.  When followers literally throw themselves at a leader, willing to do anything to obtain their desires, who among us could resist the temptation?  I aver that exactly none of us could.

Throughout history, people can, will and have surrendered even their most strongly held moral and ethical limits to obtain their deepest desires.  Literature is full of great novels and biographies of just such people.  Great films, like Treasure of the Sierra Madre, dramatize the effects of moral degradation on the souls in the face of wish fulfillment.

And speaking of great films, that brings us to the topic of today's screed.

If you've been keeping up with the tattler sheets (a,k,a. the news) or @RadioFarSide's tweets, then you know that Hollywood's soft underbelly is being exposed at a rather alarming rate, precipitated by accusations against Uber-Producer Harvey Weinstein.

Many don't realize it, but the entertainment industry has been known for its "loose" ways for centuries.  In the ancient Greek and Roman theater, women were not allowed to perform, as it was seen as degrading to the Feminine Ideal.  The European castrati are legendary as replacements for female opera performers.  Victorian England held female performers at a level just slightly above outright harlot.  And none of this is to say that the males were viewed much (if any) better.

Mae West made a name and a fortune playing on the "fallen star" image.  Madeline Khan mocked the image with great hilarity in Blazing Saddles.  Victor/Victoria was a comedic treatment of the lengths to which female performers would go to achieve stardom.  In fact, the entire long tradition of drag queens is an extension of the use of males to perform female parts, since women were castigated for even wishing to enter the second oldest profession.

Grace Kelly's aristocratic family were aghast at her choice to enter the acting profession.  Of course, all was forgiven when Prince Rainier offered to make an "honest" woman of her.

All of this is to say that anyone who is shocked by revelations of Hollywood improprieties is either ignorant of history or very naive.

Hollywood has, for nearly a century, offered the lure of great fame and fortune.  This dangling carrot has lured millions of aspiring performers from around the world to a single city in the Western United States that rather pompously calls itself the Dream Factory.

This powerful siren song of fame makes anyone in a leadership position in Hollywood almost by default a predator.  Not that they have to work very hard, because there are plenty of folks who willingly throw themselves at anyone offering the Golden Carrot of fame.  In fact, as I watch the unfolding mess, my first thought is that Harvey Weinstein did something to unleash the wrath of the Hollywood Inner Sanctum.  None of this would be coming out if it weren't first ordained and sanctioned by the Inner Sanctum.

Ask Randy Quaid.

The Global Con Game

Don't know if you've noticed, since not many folks are talking about it, but all of the major countries either having problems, or are on the US shit list are members of the BRICSA bloc of nations.

In case you are a bit behind, the BRICSA is a somewhat loose association between Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa (BRICSA).  Over the years, they have built up amenable trade and cultural ties, and have tried to synchronize policies in such a way as to benefit and promote the member countries.

The latest BRICSA efforts have centered around creating a new financial clearing system to compete with the ubiquitous SWIFT system, and the essentially Western lap-dog JSCC system in Japan.

Why is this important?  Well, SWIFT handles nearly all the major inter-nation settlements for securities, bank transfers, credit card purchases, and so forth.  Basically, SWIFT is the world's financial system.  Without it, most major economies would simply shut down, because backing the SWIFT system are, for the most part, seven major players who insure the transactions.  For instance, if the US needs to transfer a few billion bux to China on account, one of the players will insure the transaction at value for the few seconds it takes between hitting "enter" and the blips showing up at the other end.

The SWIFT system is enabled by a fleet of secure satellite transponders and the most intimidating (not really the largest and no one is sure if the strongest) military forces on Earth.  It is this system that is the fundamental underpinning of US hegemony since the last World War, and the primary reason that the US dollar is the world's reserve currency.

Along come these BRICSA upstarts who understand the power and influence exerted by the SWIFT system, and they decide they are going to take a stab at making a parallel system that is not beholden to Western power centers, specifically the seven groups who underwrite the transactions.

Well, the Western banksters ain't having none of that.

Since the moment Russia and China announced their intentions to create this new financial system (about five years ago), Russia has been on the NATO target list, China's South China Sea activities have gained increasing attention at the Pentagon, India is suddenly not as chummy as it used to be, and Brazil...well, we'll get to that in a minute.  As for South Africa, hell no one's paid any attention to them since the end of Apartheid.

Most of the world's big geo-political problems can be traced back to this one thing: replacing SWIFT.  If you have any doubts about who runs the Western powers, just look at the Western militaries and their behaviors since the SWIFT system came under close scrutiny.

NATO has suddenly gotten all up in Russia's face.  US covert operations stirred up the Ukraine.  The US navy and air assets have been buzzing around the South China Sea like disturbed hornets and sea lice.  India is suddenly not the hot IT paradise it once was.  And Brazil...well...

Brazil was given the Olympics a few years back as reward for being such good boys and girls and playing nice in the US sandbox.  But, when Brazil started getting uppity and electing people like Dilma Rouseffe, who dared to think her country could be a little more independent, POOF!  Along comes the Zika virus, which first made headlines in Brazil, and where most of the severe cases (so we are told) are at the moment.  Next thing you know, Rouseffe is impeached, folks start pulling out of the Olympics and Brazil is close to being stuck with a huge bill if the games are cancelled due to...um, Zika, yeah Zika.

This whole mess is quite obvious from a certain point of view. Of course the media won't connect the dots because the wizard doesn't want you peeking behind the curtain.

Brazil is receiving special attention because, 1) it is over a barrel with the Olympics, and 2) it is in the US backyard, where other powers are not allowed to play.  You see, the US has this thing about keeping South America and Europe tied tightly to its apron strings.  That's why Venezuela was dealt with so harshly, and Obama made a hurried trip to Argentina for the first time in his administration (the Chinese are making big investments there), and why a bankster (there is no former) is in the lead for president of Peru.

Of course, the BRICSA are fighting back.  All this immigration mess?  Yup, you guessed it.  Just turn the US' and EU's lax immigration laws and policies back on them.  Quiet.  Subtle.

As for the US, we have Killary, whom everyone knows is in the bankster pocket, but Trump?  Well, guess what?  All those billions he brags about?  Gosh, they could all vanish with a keystroke, and he still has to use the SWIFT system to move his bux around, no matter how independent he thinks he is.

In the end, nearly every single problem in the world for the past five years can be traced back to competing financial systems.  The Western oligarchs have gotten used to controlling to world's money, and they won't give up easily.  Think Al Capone, but on a far grander scale.

We are witnessing turf wars, plain and simple, though played out on a global scale, with a game of Risk thrown in for good measure.  Armies move around and deploy, satellite ground stations get built over here, man-made islands appear over there, national economies rise and fall based on whose turf they want to play in.

On the one hand, it's a ridiculous mobster game, but on the other, there are a lot of innocent folks who will get caught in the St. Valentine's Day Massacre.

Remember the shakedown of 2008-9?  Now, imagine this: a couple of well-heeled guys walk into your shop and say, "Pay us some protection money, 'cause I wouldn't want to see your business fall apart or nuttin'."  Same thing.  Gee, Congress, don't wanna pay up?  Ooh, did you feel the economic earthquake just now?  Better hurry or we won't be able to protect you much longer.

It's all one big alphabet soup: SWIFT, JSCC, US, EU, TPP, TTIP, BRICSA...

But it all boils down to one thing: it's an international game of gangsters and mafia, and we are all pawns.  They have the power to destroy nations who don't play along - on either side.  The Big Question is, who will win?  The next question is: how many of us will get crushed in the stampede?

Gonna Go 'Round In Circles

Cue Billy Preston.

In our last exciting episode, we talked about the silly little game that the Western oligarchs are playing that is dragging the whole world down the toilet.  In summary, we discovered that because they don't want to stop being king of the hill, even for just a moment, they are flapping their arms deperately trying to keep from riding the inevitable economic cycles.

In other words, we can sum up all the Bilerburgers, Masons, Club of Romes, Trilateral Commissions, ad nauseum, in one simple concept...Wile E. Coyote.

Wile E., in his relentless pursuit of the Roadrunner (wealth) has yet again run off a cliff and is momentarily suspended in mid-air flapping and panicking as he tries desperately to defy gravity.  It's really all that simple.  Doesn't make the pain any less here at the Real Life level, but it helps to put things in perspective a bit.

To visualize the situation, let's call on a guy names Evel Knievel.  Younger or foreign folks may not rememver this guy, but us old codgers certainly do.  People politely called him a daredevil or motorcycle stuntman.  I think of him as just crazy, as he devised ever more spectacular ways to splatter his guts all over the place on national TeeVee back in the 60s, 70s and 80s.

Evel's whole gig was to run his motorcycle as fast as he could at a ramp and try to suspend himself as long and far as he could, hoping to land on the opposite ramp in a controlled sort of way.  In short, he became a hero of spectacular failure.  He holds the world record for most number of bones broken in a lifetime...433.  The human body only has 200 and some total bones.

Economic cycles, like pretty much all other cycles, are not circles, though they can appear to be from certain perspectives.  But if you get off to the side and look at them in 2-D, they look like waves.  There's an ascending part, a crest, a descending part, and a trough.  Pretty much the entire Universe works like this at one level or another.

What Evel Knievel did was to try to launch himself from one crest, bypass the intervening trough, and land on the next crest and survive the experience.  He failed more than he succeeded, but it was always fun to watch.  Kinda like tuning in NASCAR to watch the amazing wrecks rather than the endless loops at high speed.

Anyway, the Masters of War (thanks Bob) are little more than a bunch of Evel Knievels who have decided that they are far too rich and far too powerful to have to go through economic cycles.  So they've decided they're going to use all the magic incantations, illusions, rituals, and just sheer military force to brute their way from one economic crest to the next without having to first make a run through the trough.

Fine idea, but the reality is a bit more mundane because gravity simply sucks.  No two ways about it.

Though business cycles are infinitely complex, they can be visualized quite simply.  Think of two mating snakes entwined with each other, or another way would be the DNA double helix.  One side of the equation amasses debt, while the other side amasses wealth.  At some point, the equilibrium is disturbed (recessions, droughts, etc.) and the two sides swap places.  Then the whole things starts over.

Now, our group of oligarchs think they have amassed so much knowledge and power and other cool stuff like that, they think they can just suspend themselves in mid-air until the next crest comes and they land gracefully, still Masters of War.

The problem is that nothing, and I do mean NOTHING in Nature works like that.  There must always be a season of growth and a season of renewal.  There's simply no other way things can or do work.  All the ramps, calculations, incantations, and pure effort of will cannot stop something that is as entrenched in the fabric of the Universe as a cycle is.

Where we are now as a planet is that we have a new tooth trying to come in, but the old baby tooth refuses to fall out.  Consequently, the new one is growing right out on top of the old one, and the old will either have to fall out, or we gotta pull it.  Nothing will stop the new one.

If we go to our Wile E. Coyote metaphor, we have just run off a cliff and are suspended momentarily by momentum, until we look down and realize there ain't nothing under us.

If we were Evel Knievel, then we are at Caesar's Palace fountain, having just launched off the end of the ramp.  As we look ahead, we notice that our rear wheel just ain't gonna clear that last little tippy-top part of the fountain and nothing we can do will stop the inevitable broken bones that are about to materialize in our future.

OK, so what does knowing the current situation do for us?  I mean, after all these visualization exercises, what can we do with this knowledge?

First off, knowing the inevitable outcome allows us to prepare for what's coming.  We know economic winter is here, though we've enjoyed a bit of Indian Summer, but it's time to stock up and stack the cord wood in readiness for the cold blast about to hit us.

Second, knowing where we are and how we got here gives us important clues as to how to get out again.  Since cycles are predictable, though not exactly the same each time.  Nevertheless, we can predict with some certainly where we will land.  When you get lost, the first thing most people will do is retrace their steps to get back to the point where they got off the trail.  Unwinding this mess is both a natural part of the cycle, and the answer to solving the huge mess these greedly little worms created.

Third, it takes the mystery out of our perception of who these weasely little idiots are running the world and shows us conclusively that they are nothing more than slimy idiots who thought they were Time Lords.  Picture the bankers at Gringott's in the Harry Potter series.

Finally, we know not to let anyone do this again.  We should etch this lesson in stone monuments as immutable as the Great Pyramid - don't let the slimy bastards try to defy gravity again, at least while we are all passengers.

We need to use this lesson to keep the greasy nards in check and never let them get hold of the stunt bikes again...ever!  Now we have the playbook, identities and locations of all these maggot brains.  Now we can lock them in Arkam Asylum and pump them full of their own pharmaceuticals and never let the bastards roam freely again.  We must turn all their glorious Track and Trace toys on them and keep them under surveillance for the rest of Time.

Perhaps a well-thought out eugenics program will keep them from breeding until their bloodlines simply die off.  An appropriate punishment for what they have done to humanity and our planet.

It's time.  Time to sit back and laugh at Wile E. as he sails ever so gracelessly to the bottom.  Time to stop hoping the Evel will make it across and prepare to be entertained by the inevitable crash and burn.

Mostly, it's time to prepare for winter.  It's going to be a rough one, since it's been delayed for so long.  A lot of people are going to be hurt, and that too is a cycle.

Most of all, we need to take a page from good project management and start keeping a planetary set of Lessons Learned.  At least that way we can stop making the same mistakes and start making a whole new set of them.

It's a bitter pill to swallow, but we are partly responsible for allowing the vile, repulsive gnomes to run the world in the first place.  And which of us hasn't been distracted by all the little flashy lights in boxes?

Suck it up, boys and girls, the first big blast of winter is coming.  But always remember, there's a back side to every storm.

And while we huddle around the fire waiting for the storm to pass, be sure and start your list of Lessons Learned so our kids don't fall for the same BS.