Month: August 2018

Enemy of the People

The Fake News hates me saying that they are the Enemy of the People only because they know it’s TRUE. I am providing a great service by explaining this to the American People. They purposely cause great division & distrust. They can also cause War! They are very dangerous & sick!

Donald J Trump, President of the United States, 8/5/18

They are “…sick, dangerous, an enemy of the people.”  They are so dangerous that the President of the United States, using his “bully pulpit,” has made them the primary target of his attacks.  In our reality show political world, he has cast himself as the “hero” facing the massive attack of lies and hate.

Many Presidents have set up “alternative enemies” to their “good guy” images:  George W. Bush and the “axis of evil,” Ronald Reagan and the “evil empire.”  And every President has had conflicts with the press.  But, other than Richard Nixon, none have tried to establish the press as his personal enemy.  And even Nixon did not try to incite this level of hatred towards them.

President Trump has made his administration’s primary goal to attack the “MSM” (mainstream media), trying to make them seem the evil enemy threatening to destroy the United States. And, with one very notable exception, Fox News, he has claimed that the press is willing to lie, steal, create stories out of nothing, and in fact are willing to do anything to “destroy” the Trump Administration.

It is normal for a President to find domestic “rivals” to contrast his views and programs.  In Bill Clinton’s Democratic administration, the first two years with a Congress of his own party was deemed a failure, most notably with healthcare.  The Congress was more “progressive” than the President, and Republicans weren’t supporting him.  It made Clinton look weak.

It wasn’t until the “Revolution of 1994,” when Congress swung to the right with the Republican Newt Gingrich as the new Speaker, that Clinton began to find success.  It was in contrasting with the Gingrich’s House of Representatives that Clinton was seen as becoming a more effective executive. The government was shut down, and Clinton “won” the exchange.  He was able to “compromise” and achieve some legislative action.

Trump is in a similar position, starting from when he entered office in 2016.  His Republican Congress provided little contrast, but an immense amount of frustration.  Trump was the “leader” of the party, but, even as the “great deal maker” he was unable to negotiate many of his legislative programs, notably immigration and health care.  He needed to find a contrast, “bête noire” to rail against, and one that wasn’t a war hero and tragically ill.

The “liberal, corrupt, and dishonest” media became the perfect foil.  Jim Acosta and Don Lemmon of CNN are constant targets of the Presidential “tweets,” and Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski at MSNBC are “personal friends” who have “turned against him.”  The “failing New York Times” and the “Amazon/Bezo’s Washington Post” are both under constant attack.

This use of the media as his foil has two major values for Trump.   First: it gives his base something to focus on, an enemy that can be vilified and insulted.  While that is apparent at more recent Trump rallies, with signs, middle-finger salutes, and shouted profanities; it has been going on almost from the beginning.  The only slightly veiled contempt that Press Secretary Sarah Sanders uses when addressing the press conferences; and the unbridled hatred shown by senior advisor Stephen Miller; all set the tone that encourages more public attacks.  Trump needs to be seen as “winning.”  It’s not happening:  not on the world stage, not in the courts, and even not in Congress. So he can win against the press.

As a long time coach I learned something early:  to have a winning record, schedule losing opponents.  But I also soon learned something else:  to get the best out of my athletes, I needed to test them against the best opponents.  We might lose, but we would become better.  Trump has picked an opponent, the press, that generally doesn’t fight back. He wins, but he doesn’t get better, or in this case, achieve a lot of his goals.

Should the Democrats take back the House, the Senate, or both; it is likely that Trump, like Clinton, will focus his attacks on the Democrats instead of the media.  It’s a healthier target, and one that he can more effectively defeat, getting “more wins.”

The second value of attacking the media is more insidious.  If the President can get a large portion of the American people believing that the “facts” as reported are lies, then when the truth of his campaigns corruption and alignment with Russian intelligence is revealed, it will be more difficult to believe.  If he can establish that the press is in fact, “…the enemy of the people;” then when the press reports the reality of the Mueller results, the President can brush them off as, well, “fake news.”

Twenty-five percent of Americans still approved of Richard Nixon the day he resigned from office. That was in an era when most trusted in the press.  In our much more fragmented news environment today, especially one with  Fox News as the Presidential spokesman; there will be a much higher percentage of Americans who will not believe in Mueller’s truths.  Whether that number will be so high as to prevent action against the President, it’s hard to know.  But what we do know is that the President is doing everything he can to bolster that group,  by making the press the “enemy of the people.”

“The American people have good common sense;” that’s what Chet Huntley said as he left the NBC Huntley-Brinkley report for the last time in 1970.  It was a time of crisis and tumult too, Vietnam and Civil Rights and Nixon as President.  We will need all of the “good common sense” we can muster in the next several months.  I believe America will find it.

 

 

 

The World Turned Upside Down

(thanks Hamilton, I’ll see you next week!!!!)

The American Revolutionary forces defeated the British at Yorktown, forcing them to surrender their entire army.  Shocked at being defeated by the “ragtag rebels;” they marched out of the town towards the American lines, their band playing “The World Turned Upside Down.”

Ever since Donald J. Trump came down the golden escalator in Trump Tower and declared his candidacy for President, he has engaged in hyperbole, propaganda, and outright lies. There have been so many “falsehoods” or “inaccuracies,” that the media stopped calling them lies and has created new categories, from inadvertent, to unwitting, to outright whoppers.  There are multiple news agencies keeping count (well into the three-thousands) and an entire website dedicated to cataloging those since he became President (well over two thousand) by the Toronto Star.

The master propagandist of history, Joseph Goebbels, said the following about “the big lie:”

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”

There is always danger in quoting Goebbels, especially in our present political climate, but his eminently practical view of lying is absolutely on point.  A great example is the President’s view of MS-13, the gang he continually cites as a threat to America.  He uses MS-13 to justify the extreme expense of building “the wall,” and for his draconian measures at the Southern Border.

MS-13 is a gang that originated in Los Angeles, California, USA; mostly made up of El Salvadoran migrants.  The Clinton Administration rounded many of them up and sent them back to El Salvador, where the gang grew in power.  While most of the MS-13 members in the United States are here illegally, their numbers represent only 13% of gang arrests in the US.  And at the border, where the President claims that MS-13 is coming in under the guise of families, there were NO documented casesof that happening.

But it doesn’t matter.  Under the Goebbels theory:

• the lie is big and repeated
• the State is shielding us from the consequences (or reality) of the lie
• the Administration is using its power to repress dissent (and truth).

So, the great “boogie man” of immigration, MS-13, is out to “get us.” And anyone who disagrees with that thesis, must be in league with them.   Pelosi, Schumer, and many other Democrats who argue against the current border policy must all be “cooperating” with MS-13.

The President also takes the actual facts, and turns them upside down to his own advantage.  The most obvious example of this, is his pre-election claim that the voting would be rigged against him.  This was made famous in his debate with Hillary Clinton, where he refused to accept the eventual outcome of the voting if he were to lose.  What we now know, is that the election process (and potentially voting itself) was in fact rigged by Russia, and that Mr. Trump may well have had fore-knowledge of it.  So what he was claiming for the Democrats and Hillary Clinton, was in fact occurring, but to his benefit.

Currently emerging in the President’s “pep rallies” is the “Qanon” phenomena.   This internet based conspiracy sees the United States in the throes of a battle between the evil “Deepstate” and those few heroic leaders who stand “for the people.”  The “Deepstate” criminals of course include Bill and Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, but also both Presidents Bush, the FBI and the CIA.   And of course Hollywood and the media are included.  Arrayed against them are the “good;” Presidents Kennedy and Reagan, the US military, former General Mike Flynn, the NSA and DIA. and of course, President Donald J Trump.

The evil criminals have caused world turmoil, war and destruction. Thus both Iraq Wars were unnecessary, means of advancing the power of not only the Bushs, but the powerful economic forces behind them (such as Halliburton.)  This puts enough truth into the conspiracy to make it feel “real.”  And Donald Trump now offers a new path, one where the great leaders of the world (like Putin) unify to stand against the criminals.

It goes on and on, but given the evidence about the Trump Organization’s dealings with Russia, and the sordid Cabinet members from Price to Pruitt to Ross to Zinke, it’s hard to picture that these are the “good guys.” And while many see this as foolish internet nonsense, the President himself gave a “wink and a nod” to the movement in his Florida rally, where he mentioned the “sacred” number seventeen to the Q sign bearers (“…I went to Washington maybe seventeen times before I became President, you know what I mean…)

According to the President, Russia didn’t interfere, no matter how many times National Intelligence Director Coats, or Homeland Security Secretary Nielsen, or FBI Director Wray say they did.  And the vast majority of the media is “fake news,” making up stories to make the President look bad.  Who needs Nancy Pelosi to attack, when you can go after CNN’s Jim Acosta as Goebbel’s “enemy of the people.”

When lies become the truth, and good becomes evil, it becomes difficult to know what to believe.  When there is no single “arbiter” of the truth, then everyone is free to choose their own reality.  And with the internet giving us all direct access to the wise,  or the foolish and crazed; many are choosing the latter.  It’s The World Turned Upside Down.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Orange Tips

They called it the “replicator” on Star Trek.  It was the device they went to for food and drink, and for spare parts for the ship. It was a box in the wall, and all you had to do was say “Saurian Brandy” and a glass with the liquid appeared. Mr. Scott was pleased.

Back then it was in some distant future.  Now you can buy one on Amazon, ranging in price from a couple hundred to several thousand dollars.  3D printers that can “replicate” devices in a plastic form are here (though we haven’t gotten to Saurian Brandy yet.)  At first it was a “model” builder:  turning two-dimensional architectural plans into full models.

Like every item “of the future” it has both positives and negatives.   The cell phone, only thirty years ago a big box, is now our life in our pocket.  It’s a computer, camera, social life, calendar, email, pulse recorder, entertainment, text contact; and oh yeah, the way to call someone.  It’s made our life more convenient, and mobile, and made it incredibly difficult to “disconnect” from the rest of the world, or be “in the moment.”  3D Printers have similar ups and downs.

This week’s crisis, buried under all the Russiagate noise made by the President, is about 3D printers.  They make whatever a computer “blueprint” can be designed to make, and this week we found that Cody Walker and his company in Texas have designed blueprints for multiple styles of guns:  from hand guns to fully automatic assault weapons (they don’t claim the fully automatic part, but in their videos they show one.)  The entire gun is made from plastic, piece by piece created by a 3D printer.

In 1988, President Reagan and Congress passed a law requiring any “plastic” gun to have identifiable metallic pieces in the structure, in order to be detectable to security scanners.  The new “3D” guns have those pieces as well, but they are simply non-functional additions specifically to meet the laws requirements.  You don’t need the metal parts to fire the gun.

So we now are arguing whether the company should be allowed to market their blueprints on the internet, downloadable for immediate gun making use.  These guns will be untraceable (no serial numbers) and undetectable by any security device other than actual hand or visual searches.  Every part of the gun is plastic, including the magazine.  The only metal needed:  the bullets.

The NRA has tacitly given its blessing to this, which struck me as strange.  The NRA is widely supported by the gun making industry; at first glance the 3D guns would seem to be competition they don’t need.  But a statement by Cody Wilson, the blueprint developer, revealed the NRA’s reasoning.  Wilson said that; “gun control is undead.”  With the publication of his blueprints, everyone can now have a gun, undetectable or traceable.  He, and I suspect the NRA, believe they have fundamentally changed the argument.

Wilson believes that his blueprints resolve the gun control debate, making it “dead.”  In an interview on CBS This Morning, he stated:

“What’s going to make me comfortable… is when people stop coming into this office and acting like there’s a debate about it. The debate is over,” Wilson said, adding, “The guns are downloadable. The files are in the public domain. You cannot take them back. You can adjust your politics to this reality. You will not ask me to adjust mine.” 

A Federal judge has blocked further publication of the blueprints, but the files are out there.  And the Trump Administration, who settled a federal lawsuit that was blocking the blueprint release, are sitting on their hands.

So the future is here.  Cody Wilson has made the decision for all of us.  And while the Federal Courts and the State Attorney Generals will fight a rear-guard action to try to put the “genie back in the bottle,” the reality is that plastic guns that fire real lead bullets are with us.  Security will now have to find a new way to detect guns – maybe full body searches at the airport will be standard.  Or maybe, like the toy guns they resemble, we can legislate that real plastic guns need orange tips.  That way we can tell.

 

 

Falling in the Ice Hole

Reading the “Trump Media,” also called Fox News; my Democratic Party is on the verge of schism. We are torn, divided between the “old line” progressives; Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi; and the “new Socialist-Democrats,” Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and the newest, new poster person, twenty-eight year old Congressional candidate Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez!

According to Fox News, we are forced into a terrible choice:  become a true European Socialist party, abolishing ICE to open the borders, and granting free college and health care; or stay with a geriatric leadership that offers the “failed Liberal ideas” of the 1960’s.  How can we ever have a chance to govern, we are either revolutionaries or fools lost in the past.  We are told that while Trump may make mistakes, the biggest mistake we can make is to choose a different course.

Just as Fox News doesn’t accept my view of the Republican Party and President Trump, I don’t buy their characterization of my political party.  We are a “big tent” party and always have been, ever since Franklin Roosevelt put together the Depression Era coalition.  We are the political party that had a Southern segregationist, Lyndon Johnson, as the President who lead the nation to new civil rights laws and a war on poverty.  You think we can’t handle some diversity in political views?

The Democratic Party is faced not with a schism of ideas, but with a difference in degree.  Ask any Democrat whether health care should be available to all, and they will all answer yes.  Some will see a compromise path through the private market, which is exactly what the Affordable Care Act offered.  Some will see some form of single payer system, which is exactly what Medicare “for all” would be.  Both know that the United States as a nation pays some $3.3 trillion per year for health care, one of the highest costs in the world, for a system great for some, but failing others.  Every Democrat knows there is no such thing as “free” health care; even Bernie’s plan would transfer private health insurance costs into public funds – that’s called taxes.

All plans transfer costs: the plan we should select is the one that gets the best care to the most people with the lowest possible cost.  That’s the Democratic Party’s goal, and it should be the Republican Party’s goal too, if they would ever offer a plan that wasn’t just status-quo, private insurance, if you can’t afford it, tough.

Ask any Democrat whether anyone who works full time should make enough money to live, and they will all answer yes.  Whether that means a minimum wage adjusted to the realities of where it is earned ($15/hour might be OK for Ohio, but not enough for New York City) or some other form of supporting income; the reality is that the American “dream” should not mean working two or three jobs to try to make ends meet, and maybe still not making it.

Ask any Democrat whether twelve years of public education is enough, and they’ll say no.  All Democrats think we need to do more:  more to encourage education beyond high school, more to reduce the cost of college education, more to control predatory student loan practices.  For example: an investment of extending free public education two more years would have a huge return in income earned and taxes paid.  Education is a “pay me now or pay me later” deal, especially when it comes to crime. Keeping kids in school and getting them the education they need to get a job with a living wage, will reduce the soaring numbers in our prisons; numbers that cost many thousands of dollars per prisoner per year.

Ask almost any Democrat whether we should have completely open and uncontrolled borders, and they will say no.  Ask any Democrat (and hopefully anyone) whether the “zero tolerance, child separation” program enforced by the current Administration is acceptable, and that answer is no as well.  Some Democrats have reacted to those abuses by calling for the abolition of ICE, but abolishing ICE doesn’t mean open borders.  It means if an agency of the US government can enforce such a punitive and inhumane program, then we need to look at whether we should have such an agency, or should we abolish and replace it.  Does “repeal and replace” sound familiar to my Republican friends who didn’t like the Affordable Care Act?  Many Democrats feel the same about ICE.

Democrats are agreed on the goals, where we differ are the means to achieve those goals.  And we differ on whether we think the current leadership is effective or whether we need new Party leaders who can lead us to power and achieving those goals.  That’s not a schism:  it’s a generational change, and a matter of degree.

There is an old story of the Arctic.  There are two kinds of dog sled harnesses:  one has a single line, each dog harnessed to the line, pulling together. The other is each dog on a single line, with all of the lines attached to the front of the sled.  The first harness has more power, and less tangles, but is also prone to disaster.  If the single line breaks, or if the lead dogs falls into an ice hole, then the entire team and sled goes with him.

The second harness is less efficient, with dogs pulling at somewhat different angles, and more prone to tangling.  But if one dog falters, or falls into the ice hole, the rest can pull on and the sled isn’t at risk.  That’s my Democratic Party, pulling in different ways but going in the same general direction.  And we all still believe in the same goals, even if sometimes we get tangled, and even if we pull in different ways to get to the same place.

Sorry Fox News, we aren’t breaking up, or falling in the ice hole.