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America Can Still Win World War IV: Harris Helps

August 12, 2020
by Peter Feinman
It Looks Like the Borg Will Win but in the End the Federation Triumphs

America can still win World War IV.

America was on the winning side in World War I which may have ended due to the flu pandemic of 1917 causing no soldiers being able to fight according to the most ignorant President in American history.

America was on the winning side in World War II which may have ended after the flu pandemic of 1917 according to the most ignorant President in American history and who actually participated in a D-Day commemoration.

America was on the winning side of World War III (the Cold War) although Putin considers that loss to be the worst day in Russian history.

America could win World War III.02 if it had an adult President who was not an alpha male wannabee subordinate to alpha male Putin.

World War IV is different. China may not have the nuclear arsenal of the Soviet Union or Russia but it does have formidable economic power. It is quite focused on becoming the leader of the world befitting its heritage as the Middle Kingdom.

KOBE AND CORONAVIRUS: MEANING FOR WORLD WAR IV (February 4, 2020)

This blog was the first one I wrote this year on this topic. At that time, China seemed to be on a roll in its quest for world leadership…just as it is now. The blog cited various articles written about this quest and noted some problems:

1. demographics
2. world reaction to its treatment of Moslem Uighurs
3. Hong Kong’s desire to be free
4. the coronavirus.

China also was aided by the United States. It had wreak havoc with its alliances, abandoned being the City on a Hill and had no interest in being the last best hope of humanity.

The one positive note from an American point of view was soft power. The global reaction to the unexpected death of Kobe Bryant was a dramatic if tragic example that the eyes of the world still were on the United States.  The world pays attention to what is happening in America more so than it does in China.

What has happened since then?

HONG KONG

Last August, I wrote a blog, When Will the Borg Assimilate Hong Kong?: Is Resistance Futile? At that point in time, the situation seemed fluid and it was possible to imagine a positive outcome. By this year, that optimism was silly.  Instead, the new circumstances were Borg to Hong Kong: Resistance Is Futile (Not in America), June 2, 2020. The situation now is more bleak. China is rounding up dissidents in Hong Kong the way the American authoritarian leader would love to be able to do in the United States.

CORONAVIRUS

What can you say about the Chinese and American handling of the coronavirus? Despite the horrid start back in February, China successfully has controlled the spread of the virus. The example of the United States is an embarrassment by contrast. America has shown the world that it is led by a simple-minded incompetent person who is out of his league in coping with the disease. For the first time in American history, other countries pity us. Yet 41% of the American public still accept the American President as their Lord and Savior, the Chosen One, Blessed Be his Name. After all, there is no coronavirus on Fox. Problem solved. Meanwhile, the world laughs at us as it quarantines us.

GEORGE FLOYD

At first glance, one might think the murder of George Floyd and the subsequent demonstrations reflect poorly on America in the global arena. There is no doubt that Floyd and Corvid-19 have exposed an ugly underbelly of the American Dream and way of life. Nothing is hidden. Everything is revealed. The shortcomings and problems of the country are there for all the world to see.

That is exactly the point. This ugly America is also an example of America’s soft power. The ugliness is not hidden now but shown on American media and the internet which has no government firewall to prohibit it. It has sparked events in other countries as well. People in other countries would like the opportunity to protest freely. People in other countries also have issues with statues, monuments, memorials, and race. So while China is busy showing the world that it is just another authoritarian thug (with a lot of power), America has shown the world the right of the people to express themselves, rights which people in many countries do not have. America does not only mean the President of the United States, it also means the people throughout the country.

KAMALA HARRIS   

 Joe Biden’s selection of Kamala Harris to be his Vice Presidential candidate and possible successor as President is another example of America’s soft power. There is more to the country than the white racist in the White House. This is not to deny his strong support for being a bigot, but to point out for all the world to see that he does not dominate the country as if it was limited to Lafayette Square. Harris immediately connects the presidential election to two other countries: India and Jamaica. Those ancestral ties link America to the world in a way that could never happen in China. She shows that immigrants to the United States really can live the American dream. From this point forward, her very existence becomes a continually shining soft power symbol of America that China cannot match.

AUTHORITARIAN LEADERS

There is one final example of soft power that can propel the United States into a position of world leadership if the country wants it. We have the opportunity to remove our authoritarian leader. We can do what China, Russia, Iran, Venezuela and others cannot do. Furthermore we have the opportunity to do so comparatively peacefully through the democratic process. It is a shock that the United States actually has an authoritarian leader in the first place. There is no doubt that American democracy has taken a beating in the last 3+ years. There also is no doubt that the American authoritarian leader will do everything he can like any dictator in a Trumphole country to preserve his power. He may even be successful. I have written before about my doubts on whether or not the United States will celebrate its 250th birthday and with the same political boundaries it has today. Regardless of what the current polls say, it’s not over until the fat lady counts every contested ballot.

Even Steven Calabresi, co-founder of the Federalist Society, has written that the American authoritarian leader’s tweet on postponing the election “is itself grounds for the president’s immediate impeachment again by the House of Representatives and his removal by the Senate” (“Trump Wants to Postpone the Election. He Can’t,” NYT, August 1, 2020, print).  The day the Flying Monkey Attorney General indicts the Deep State should be the same day the Democrats begin the second impeachment and the removal of the Attorney General. This is not a time for the weak.

Wicked Witch of the White House Dispatching His Flying Monkeys to Secure the Election

So what does all this mean for World War IV? Right now this is the sweet spot for China just as it is for Russia. True the United States is fighting back against China but it has made no effort to regain its position as world leader. It has made no effort to mend its relationship with its nominal allies as it continues to do Putin’s bidding. All that can change in a few months. Vice Presidents are known for traveling the world although generally for funerals. Look for this one to travel the world to help Make American Great Again and regain for the United States the Number #1 position in the world.

What Tucker Carlson Meant to Say

June 15, 2020
by Peter Feinman
"My function is to destroy that which is not perfect." (Words from Star Trek, Image from the Twilight Zone)

Opening narration

This is the face of Ramos Clemente, a year ago a beardless, nameless worker of the dirt who plodded behind a mule, furrowing someone else’s land. And he looked up at a hot Central American sun and he pledged the impossible. He made a vow that he would lead an avenging army against the tyranny that put the ache in his back and the anguish in his eyes, and now one year later the dream of the impossible has become a fact. In just a moment we will look deep into this mirror and see the aftermath of a rebellion in the Twilight Zone.

The Twilight Zone episode The Mirror was shown on October 20, 1961. In a Central American dictatorship, Ramos Clemente (modeled after Fidel Castro), and his four lifelong confidants, stage a successful revolution against the regime of General De Cruz. Clemente faces down De Cruz and revels in his victory, but the deposed general says that Clemente will soon learn the consequences of ruling by force. De Cruz also tells Clemente that his ornate mirror has the ability to reveal enemies in its reflection.

When Clemente begins using the same repressive tactics used by the deposed dictator De Cruz, a rift develops between him and his four friends, now the heads of the government. A particular point of contention is Clemente’s order for mass executions of prisoners he has declared to be enemies of the state. The purification of the new order requires the cleansing of the impure.

When Clemente looks into the mirror, he sees visions implying that all four of his confidantes are plotting to assassinate him. They are cleansed and the revolution is purified.

Finally, Clemente is approached by a priest who asks him to end the executions. Clemente refuses, saying that as long as he has enemies the executions will continue until the country is purified. Clemente takes one last, long look in the mirror…and sees only himself. He picks up his pistol and throws it at the mirror, smashing the glass. “The last assassin,” he says, “and they never learn…they never seem to learn.”  The country is purified at last.

Closing narration

Ramos Clemente, a would-be god in dungarees, strangled by an illusion, that will-o’-the-wisp mirage that dangles from the sky in front of the eyes of all ambitious men, all tyrants—and any resemblance to tyrants living or dead is hardly coincidental, whether it be here or in the Twilight Zone.

If there is a Twilight Zone episode about purification, then there must be a Star Trek one too. The episode is “The Changeling” first broadcast on September 29, 1967.

Plot

The Enterprise investigates a distress call. The cause of the distress is an object that identifies itself as “Nomad”, and refers to Captain Kirk as “the Creator”. It was a space probe launched from Earth during the early 21st Century. Its original mission was to explore the galaxy and seek out new life, but it had been reported destroyed.

Now Nomad’s new mission is to seek out and eliminate any “biological infestation” that it deems imperfect. The change occurred after Nomad had collided with a meteor, was severely damaged, and then wandered through space. It finally coming into contact and merged with a powerful alien probe designed to obtain and sterilize soil samples from other planets. Nomad partially integrated the agricultural mission directives, interpreting them to mean “sterilize imperfections”. When Nomad declares that its directive is to sterilize imperfections it allows no exceptions. Kirk points out that Nomad itself is imperfect, since it has mistaken Captain Kirk for its true creator Roykirk. Seconds after Nomad is transported from the ship, an explosion is detected and Nomad is no more.

In the Star Trek episode as in the Twilight Zone, the one who seeks destroy imperfections or who leads the revolution dies.

Once the purification process begins there is no real off switch. Consider the situation in the Peoples Republic of Seattle. The President of the United States had called upon people to liberate their states (from Democratic governors). He operated under the naturally short-sighted thinking that only his people would do the liberating and not the other side. Welcome to the real world.

One might think that the Seattle autonomous zone was about George Floyd. Perhaps it was at first but that is not how purification works. Moe’ Neyah Dene Holland, a Black Lives Matter activist in Seattle said:

We should focus on just this one thing first. The other things can follow suit. Because honestly, black men are dying and this is the thing we should be focusing on. 

The reference is to the expanded agenda of purifications which had been identified. First, three demands were posted on a wall. Then five were posted on a fence. Then there were 39 online. That’s the way the purification process works. Where does it end?

NEXT CONFEDERATES

The next target for purification has been the Confederates. With police reform, there has been a legal process at the local, state, and federal level to pass new laws and make changes. The same has applied to Confederates regarding the naming of military bases, the removal of statues, and the changing of street names. But some people also have taken the purification process into their own hands and acted independently of the law. Statues have been toppled. That’s the way the purification process works.

NEXT COLUMBUS

At first glance, Columbus would seem to have nothing to do with George Floyd or police reform. You are wrong. Once it is started, purification just keeps going and going and going. Columbus like the Confederates already has been under attack. Cleansing actions have been undertaken in multiple states to remove the presence of Columbus. The current situation provided an opportunity to further act to cleanse the country.

Ironically, in the village where I live, the march on May 25 to protest police brutality began in Columbus Park. The park is located not that far from Columbus Ave. The march against police brutality stayed focused on the issue of the police. To the best of my knowledge there was no call to rename the park or the street on which Spanish-speaking people live. Nor has there been any indication of traumatized people stressed out for living with the Columbus name. At some point, these people are going to have to be educated in the steps required to purify the village of Columbus. The questions of racism and genocide will be raised time and time again until every statue, every street, every building has been purified of the Columbus name. That’s the way the purification process works.

NEXT SLAVEOWNERS 

Albany, N.Y. Mayor Kathy Sheehan has announced that the city will be taking down the statue of Philip Schuyler because he was a slave owner. Dr. Alice Green, Executive Director at the Center for Law and Justice, said: “He enslaved them, he devalued them, and the lesson for young people is that: Why are we glorifying people who treated us that way?”  An objection was raised by former state legislator and city historian Jack McEneny:  “Philip Schuyler is one of the people who… if we didn’t have him, we would’ve lost the battle of Saratoga.” In response, Dr. Alice Green, said: “I don’t believe in censorship. I do believe if somebody wants to glorify Philip Schuyler… they should, but not on my government property.”

There are other examples glorifying Philip Schuyler. One is the nearby Schuyler Mansion State Historic Site located on state property and operated by the New York State Office of Parks Recreation and Historic Preservation. Another is the Schuyler House, Philip Schuyler’s country house, located near the Saratoga battlefield and owned and operated by the National Park Service.  What is the basis for removing the statue but keeping state and federal ownership of his houses? Why should taxpayer money be used to support the homes of a slave owner? Shouldn’t these houses be privatized? One thing always leads to another. That’s the way the purification process works.

What about Schuylerville, the village where the Schuyler House is located? Shouldn’t its name be changed?

What about the streets with the name of a slave owner? Just as the name “Columbus” must be purged as part of the purification process, so too must the names of all slave owners be eliminated from America’s streets and buildings. This process too is already underway especially at colleges where buildings have been renamed. However it has not yet been extended to the individual street names. Systemic racism means simply removing a statue is not enough. All vestiges of slavery need to be removed. Those street names have to go if the town is to be purified of the reminders of slavery. That’s the way the purification process works.

A reporter in Albany asked, do all the slave-owner named streets have to go along with Schuyler including those named after the founders of the city and the country.

Yes, said Derek Johnson, who is black and represents the South End on the Albany Common Council. “If we’re going to be consistent, all of them should be changed,” Johnson told [reporter Chris Churchill]. “Right is right.”

NEXT ALEXANDER HAMILTON

A bigger problem is Schuyler’s daughters. They appear in the musical Hamilton as one of them married Alexander Hamilton. The daughters were all beneficiaries of white privilege. What are they doing on Broadway in positive roles? Shouldn’t they be removed from the musical? If seeing a statue is traumatic what does that make seeing living examples of these daughters of white privilege singing and dancing before an appreciative audience? What does that make the people who pay to see them? “Who will the story?” the musical famously asks. The real story is one of slavery and not that of Hamilton. That’s the way the purification process works.

NEXT THE FOUNDING FATHERS

Then what about Thomas Jefferson and George Washington who also appear in the musical. Imagine the trauma experienced by the black actors performing in the role of an author of the Declaration of Independence and the father of the country. Doesn’t that qualify as cruel and unusual punishment? Both founding fathers already have been under attack. Seventy-five-per-cent-white Sally Hemmings has become a cause célèbre as a black person in the life of Jefferson. Washington has been attacked for tracking Ona Judge Staines. How can the country be purified if slave owners are the people who founded it? They and the country they created have to go. That’s the way the purification process works.

NEXT JULY 4

The birthday of the slave country is July 4. The Declaration of Independence was written by people who owned people. The purification of the United States demands that the people be liberated from a country based on racism. Indeed, The New York Times received a Pulitzer Prize for showing that America is a slave-based country. The newspaper also identified the birthday of the new country to be created: 1619.

NEXT THE CONSTITUTION

Just as the birthday of the country needs to be changed, so too the governing document needs to be scrapped. It is the product of racist slave owners. The purification of the United States demands that the people be liberated from a governing document based on race.

Systemic racism cannot be eliminated as long as the birthday and governing document of the country are based on racism. Instead of celebrating the 250th anniversary of the United States, the country needs to be cleansed of its sin. A new country based on 400 years should be created. Only then will the purification be completed. That’s the way the purification process works.

I am not saying this scenario will happen. I am not saying that people in Politically Correct Command Central have a plan and are deploying the politically correct people (PCPs) to implement it. I am not saying there even is such a command center. I am not saying that the people protesting for police reform [a subject to be addressed in a future blog] aren’t patriotic Americans who want the country they love to live up to its ideals. I am saying the purification process described here is a logical conclusion to the forces that now have been unleashed. There really is no way to tell where this process will stop. We need a new national narrative for the 21st century.

 

8:46 AM 9/11 to 8 minutes 46 seconds, 2020: What Happened?

June 11, 2020
by Peter Feinman
From 9/11 to May 25, 2020 (https://knowyourmeme.com/)

The numbers 8:46 may become bookend numbers for a transitional period in American history. The first is the time when a jet plane commandeered by Islamic terrorists crashed into one of the World Trade Towers in Manhattan. The second is the amount of time a Minneapolis cop knelt on the neck and back of black man who then died. Each event set off chain reactions. The worlds of these two incidents of death are very different.

9/11 8:46

The attack on the World Trade Center lead to responses which are not possible today. In France the headline of the newspaper Le Monde was “Nous sommes tous américains — We Are All Americans.” Parisians gathered at Notre Dame to sing “The Star-Spangled Banner” [how did they know the words?]. The French built 82-foot-tall scaffolding replicas of the now collapsed buildings. The sign on the buildings read: “Les Français N’oublieront Jaimais. The French Will Never Forget.”

Nineteen years later the French may still remember but it is a different United States they see today. The eyes of the world are still upon us but what do they see now.

1. They see a simple-minded immature child president who is a buffoon and laughing stock.

2. They see a country that has abandoned of its own free will its position of leadership in the world.

3. They see a country which failed to manage the coronavirus in a spectacular display of ineptitude, declare victory, and move on content to have 800-1,000 deaths a day forever.

4. They see a country divided by racism preparing to refight the Second American Civil War.

At times like this they must wonder what happened to America or have their eyes been opened to longstanding but buried truths?

At home, the situation has changed as well. After 9/11, the members of Congress, meaning of both parties, stood together on the steps of the Capitol to sing God Bless America. That could not happen today.

The coronavirus clearly shows that even when faced with a deadly attack that far exceeds the death totals from 9/11, Vietnam, and Korea combined, that We the People that cannot come together. We can’t because we aren’t really one people, we are two houses.

By now it is well-known to Trumpicans that CORVID-19 is a New York medical emergency and not an American one. Real Americans don’t wear masks because real Americans aren’t infected. CORVID-19 is a disease of New Yorkers, nursing homes, prisons, and meatpacking plants operated by both legal and illegal immigrants. Why should real Americans care?

This division between the not-a-house divided but two houses played out in the relief packages to help people, businesses, and states get through the crisis.

Donald J. Trump 10:41 AM – Apr 27, 2020

Why should the people and taxpayers of America be bailing out poorly run states (like Illinois, as example) and cities, in all cases Democrat run and managed, when most of the other states are not looking for bailout help? I am open to discussing anything, but just asking?

These thoughts were echoed by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and the Senate Trumpicans who see no need to assist Democratic states like New York during this national crisis that isn’t really a national crisis. Overlooked in the debate is that New York paid $26.6 billion more in taxes in 2018 than it received back, a testament to the weakness of the New York State federal delegation compared to the Confederate federal delegations. What happens if New York State tires of subsidizing the Confederate states and decides it needs the money itself?

8 MINUTES 46 SECONDS

The death via kneeling has had a profound effect on American politics and society. We are just starting to see the impact in the polls. It still is too early to know how it will play out.

One regrettable type of response has been how to exploit the death to your own advantage.

One way has been for mostly young black males to exploit the absence of police to smash windows and loot expensive stores. Obviously these instances are the favorite of Fox.

A second way has been for the alpha-male wannabe commander in chief to demonstrate that he is a real man. He has done so with his comic-book-tough talk to governors on phone calls. He has done so by pretending he was inspecting the White House bunker. He has done so by dominating Lafayette Park in one of the greatest displays of false bravado in American history. He has done so by using his generals as props. In so doing he has learned that he can’t count on them to do his bidding for photo-ops against the American people exercising their constitutional rights. He has even learned that Bill Barr of all people has his limits in his loyalty. Despite all this, he will continue to act tough and talk up his great victories before loyal Trumpicans at his professional political wrestling arena events beginning June 19 in Tulsa.

A third way has been to ramp up efforts to purify America. Monuments will be toppled. Once the forces of purification have been unleashed, it is impossible to tell where it will end. This Columbus Day during the election countdown is sure to provide multiple battlefronts as America’s Third Civil War heats up.

A different and optimistic way also is possible. The murder of George Floyd can be a catalyst for an intense, often painful, and hopefully honest discussion about the place of Middle Passage blacks and Confederates in the United States. Remember “malice towards none.” There are too many people involved to wish away the current situation or to solve it unilaterally. A national discussion where one side simply condemns the other as inferior, terrorist thugs, or people who need to repent their sins will be destructive. Much of the discussion will be at the grassroots level which is good since it will be harder for the conversation to be hijacked. But ultimately not everything can be solved at the local level. No matter what people work out involving the local police that will still leave the damage caused by interstate highways that ripped neighborhoods to shreds.  Given the failure to develop a national solution to the coronavirus, it is impossible to imagine how we can develop national solutions to the problem of race in America with the current political environment in Washington. Someone is going to have win America’s Third Civil War and I hope it is We the People.

AMERICA’S THIRD CIVIL WAR

As stated in previous blogs, my expectation was that America’s Third Civil War would heat up after the presidential election. It appears that more people now recognize the possibility of the culture war becoming a civil war.

Thomas Friedman (May 13, 2020, NYT, print): Having a pandemic is really bad. Having a pandemic and a civil war together is really, really, bad. Welcome to Donald Trump’s America 2020 [written before the murder of George Floyd]

Paul Krugman (June 2, 2020, NYT, print): And Donald Trump, far from trying to calm the nation, is pouring gasoline on the fire; he seems very close to trying to incite a civil war.

Thomas Friedman (June 3, 2020, NYT, print): I am not at all certain that we will be able to conduct a free and fair election in November or have a peaceful transition of presidential power in January. We are edging toward a cultural civil war, only this time we are not lucky: Abraham Lincoln is not the president.

The Confederacy is back in the news big time. We see it in the conflict over the military bases with Confederate names. We see it in the conflict over Confederate statues. It’s as if the America’s Second Civil War never ended. Probably that is because it hasn’t.

No matter the election results, a battle will ensue. It is already underway.