Democracy

Distract and Divide . . . Focus and Unite

JD

Distractions divide us and guarantee we’ll never talk about essential core challenges. The egregious, central obstacles to “promoting the general welfare” are never mentioned by the talking heads, the pundits or politicians, to whom we look for guidance and leadership.

Distract and divide promises catastrophe, even to those who use it to further their sinister agenda. It’s astonishing how myopic most of the people at the top are, eh?

The control of everything by a tiny, short-sighted ruling elite is now total and the consequences are apocalyptic. We helplessly watch as their pursuit of wealth and consolidation of power has resulted in a merciless war being waged against the 99.999%, the trashing of the ecosystem, and destruction of any prospects for humans ever living in harmony with either — that is, co-existing cooperatively and constructively with one another and living sustainably on the only planet we can call home.

There are three major battlefields for this amoral and sociopathic assault and we rarely have meaningful discussions about them, are forced to wade through a swamp of deceit and disinformation to even identify and try to address them, or are consigned to having non-sensical discussions which have no possible impact on outcomes.

Wealth Inequality:  The funneling of wealth upwards has accelerated and long ago passed the threshold of irreversibility. 24,000 people die a day from starvation, while guys like Bezos, Gates and Musk have so much money they couldn’t spend it all in a million lifetimes. Corporations continue to consolidate and a handful of investment firms literally own everything. The system rewards monomaniacal pursuit of obscene levels of riches and opulence, the media lionizes self-aggrandizement. Every major religion has posted the warnings. Maybe they’re onto something.

War and Peace:  War has become a religion and ‘peace’ an expletive. The U.S. economy is now built around and defended by endless wars and requires world conquest to continue satisfying its rapacious appetite. Arrogance and hubris have replaced civility and common sense. We are now confronting two major nuclear powers at the same time, Russia and China. The U.S. won’t back off and Russia and China will not bow down. Total war would be the last chapter in human history. No need to return the book to the library. Books and libraries would be radioactive dust.

Ecological Destruction: Notice I didn’t say ‘climate change’ and this is intentional. Because this exemplifies precisely how the cabal uses a worthy topic to defeat any hope for real reform. Climate change is one component of a war on the entire ecosystem which supports all life, which includes ocean depletion, toxicity of air and water, species extinction, soil depletion, desertification, deforestation, promotion of monoculture, not to mention the assault on the human organism with poorly tested medicinal drugs, chemicals, herbicides, pesticides, food additives, industrial and agricultural pollution, manmade radiation, the intensification of exposure to electromagnetic waves, gene “therapies” and genetic modification of foods, on and on. We are directed to focus all of our attention on climate change, a battle we might at best win — likely will not win at all — over the next five decades, at the expense of all other perilous policies and undertakings, working in sync to compromise and probably destroy the prospects for survival of life on Earth. Pretty clever, eh?

Distract and divide assures that these three destructive trends work synergistically. Wealth inequality is created and sustained by war, war itself makes the rich richer, the military is the number one institutional source of ecological destruction, ecological destruction drives desperation and creates the conditions for war over resources and resource-rich territory, wealth inequality puts the decisions about the health of ecosystems in the hands of those who are incentivized to externalize the damages their pursuit of wealth creates — dumping it in the laps of the 99.999% — likewise with the decisions to go to war. It’s an endless, accelerating, self-reinforcing, negative feedback loop — a race to the bottom in terms of quality of life and a hopeful or even survivable future for the masses of humanity. We are too distracted to assess and discuss them rationally and constructively, too divided to put up even a weak fight.

All three of these globalized pathologies likewise reinforce political control, as power is in parallel funneled and concentrated upwards.

Reversing any and all of this can only be achieved with focus and unity by a huge percentage of the global population: unwavering focus and unassailable unity directly targeting those responsible for the unfolding catastrophe.

There are two courses of action with the potential to break and defeat this skewed, oppressive, top-heavy, hierarchical system.

1) Imprisoning or killing the rich and powerful.

. . . and/or . . .

2) Vanquishing their control of all private and government institutions, then restructuring the entire system.

Neither is pleasant or easy. It seems, however, these two options are still on the table.

But let’s be clear. They won’t be for very long. Historical opportunity never arrives at a convenient time or when we expect it to. And it can disappear in a flash.

Moreover, while totalitarianism, oppression, abuse of power, class warfare, enslavement certainly never arrive at a convenient time, even a superficial glance at human history tells us these are what we can always expect.

Google ‘sociopaths’.

History also teaches us that the more ennobling, inspiring periods of history, those occasional surges that we deem progress, result from substantial numbers of people focusing on the challenges and uniting their energies, dedication, determination, creativity and time.

Focus and unite . . . the only solution.

Of course, often there have been violent revolutions — refer to #1 above — which create the conditions for comprehensive legal, systemic reform and restructuring — refer to #2 above. While nothing dictates that they are inseparable, again referring to history, we usually see them conjoined when the battle is in full swing.

I regret having to conclude with this, but there is a third possible course, the product of unprecedented technological advances, the direct result of humankind’s incredible ingenuity. Both our capacity to 1) generate life-terminating levels of toxicity in the environment and 2) produce weapons of war with total lethality for life on earth, puts the ultimate spanner in the works. We are in a race against time. If we continue to poison the planet and/or unleash the fury of nuclear war, other options become moot considerations. The end of the end game will be the end. Period. No sequel. No do overs.

Focus and unite . . . the only sane and possible solution.

January 6 Gave Revolution A Bad Name

JD

Even a broken clock is correct twice a day.

Likewise, an incompetent, historically ignorant, politically naive, diplomatically challenged, shallow, impulsive, narcissistic reality show host elected by a conned citizenry to the highest office in the land can occasionally get a few things right as well.

I won’t get into a spitting contest over whether the election was rigged to an extent necessary to “steal” it from Trump. Every election is rigged, to varying degrees. To deny that is to be out of touch with how fundamentally corrupt our electoral system is at all levels, and what an abysmal state our last-gasp democracy is in. Recall that on occasion, election rigging wasn’t up to the task, so a president was elected by judicial fiat.

Nor will I come anywhere near Trump’s motives or level of involvement in the shambolic insurrection that took place on January 6.

The important thing he got right was this: We should throw every last bum out of our legislative branch, both House and Senate. I didn’t say assassinate or torture them, although a good case could be made for “disappearing” the entire lot . . . for good! And for the good of the nation. At least barring them from public life. I include everyone, even Sanders, AOC, the rest of the squad, all of the virtue-signaling mannikins now in Congress who spend more time raising money for their reelection campaigns and their corrupt corporate-oligarchy political parties, than taking care of the business of governing and caring for the people.

A clean sweep.

A fresh start.

Yes, there have been a few promising initiatives. But overall, there is no evidence that any of the people in power, and I also include Biden, Harris, and just about everyone in the collection of self-serving mediocrities which populate this and past administrations, know or care the first thing about serving everyday citizens and “promoting the general welfare”.

I’m sure I’ll get a barrage of comments defending these lackluster sock puppets of the ruling elite. Let me just recommend in advance: I’m not talking about measuring these phonies by the vapid standards we become accustomed to. The bar has been lowered so many times, it’s not a bar anymore. It’s a broken pipe laying in the mud. Reach deep inside, folks. Use your imagination. Recall the dreams and idealism of your youth. Imagine what the U.S. could be instead of trying to decide how much humiliation and misery we should tolerate.

I don’t have to defend the necessity of an occasional revolution. As you can see from the above quote, Thomas Jefferson did it for me. By his measure we’re about 12 revolutions overdue.

Even John F. Kennedy recognized that when confronted with extreme abuse of power, we are left with no alternative.

What he said was unambiguous. If the system isn’t able to self-correct, then the system gets a big bloody nose. In extreme cases, we skip the left hook to the nose and go right for a decapitation. I hear Chanel makes a nice line of designer guillotines. How timely.

Let’s be clear. At no time in recent history has the need to replace those in power been so urgent and obvious. Real democracy is dead in the U.S. and the country is ruled by oligarchs. Not very smart oligarchs. Not oligarchs with a shred of decency. But money talks. The ruling elite have the money. Most everyday people are scrambling to survive. There’s no contest.

As much as many of us prefer to ignore or deny, Donald Trump got a few things right. Unfortunately, he suffered from a debilitating case of ADHD. He’d say the right thing, then either contradict himself in action or appoint opponents of his ideas to key positions, who then went on to sabotage whatever occasional flash of brilliance he had. Plus he was an unbroken stallion, and the Deep State realizing they couldn’t control him, deep-sixed his presidency. Most of us are grateful for that but we have to keep in mind that the cure in the long term might be worse than the disease. Turning more power over — perhaps the entire control of our nation — to the invisible autocrats of our intelligence agencies and the untouchable puppet masters of technocratic tyranny is not a very smart idea. If that’s our strategy, we might as well just get it over with and take a blow torch the Constitution. How about during half-time at the next Super Bowl.

In some incredibly twisted way, Trump was the voice of the people — at least some people — probably not the kind of people anyone here would want to hang out with. But he had (and still has) a lot of fans. His campaign was the first time in a long time that it was publicly acknowledged that a lot of regular folks were tired of getting screwed by a rigged system. Yes, Trump couldn’t have been a worse bearer of this torch. But at least we got a fleeting glimpse of the flames.

Now we’re back to the default setting: Guys like Biden and gals like Harris spouting slogans that are ear candy and brain anesthetics, woke gender-blenders like Buttigieg striking poses to get a third-leg up on the next presidential election, fake progressives cheerleading their walk-in-place approach to solving the most serious problems in history, and hapless, hopeless, pathetic voters looking at fake radicals like the Squad as the flickering pilot lights for real change. What all of this screams is form without substance. We get fooled again. New boss is the old boss with a focus-group tested bumpersticker on his BMW.

The sad thing about January 6 — and everybody knows what I’m referring to because the Alice in Wonderland narratives around are still being milked by pundits and politicians alike — is that it had both sides working to make sure it flopped, that instead of representing an actual challenge to power or a wake-up call to the public or a warning label for the buffoons and criminals now holding office, it was a huge embarrassment, an unfunny joke, a reminder that politics is Pro Wrestling, only without sexy ring girls.

Joe Biden calls January 6 “The worst attack on our democracy since the Civil War.”

Liz Cheney — talk about strange bedfellows, Cheney and Biden — claimed the forces behind January 6 “represent a threat America has never seen before.” Which is certainly easy to say if you’ve never picked up a history book in your life.

The Congressional resolution which established the investigation of January 6 called the mob assault “one of the darkest days of our democracy.”

The Democratic Party elites are calling January 6 the domestic equivalent of the 911 attacks.

Did all of these people get their education watching Saturday morning cartoons?

What are these pathetic snowflakes going to do when some tech-savvy insurrectionist strolls onto the national mall carrying a suitcase nuke and turns DC into a caramelized crater?

For better or worse, the whole thing was pure spectacle — that’s the way Trump and the MAGA crowd see the world — a pathetic attempt at symbolism wrought by morons. The government was in no danger of being overthrown by such a disorganized, ragtag bunch of urban hillbillies. The real danger lay in the weaponization and politicalization of this non-event by the Democratic Party and the intelligence agencies, which had a number of embedded provocateurs, on the scene as the PR stunt devolved to its disastrous denouement.

Granted, I can’t prove this. It’s impossible in an era of fake news and fake justice to prove anything. But if a little logic and common sense are applicable here, it’s axiomatic that our internal intelligence agencies knew exactly what was going to happen, and if they didn’t actively engineer this embarrassment, then they let it unfold knowing they could use it against their current and future enemies — that would be the American people. This is a classic, well-established, and usually effective drill.

Where is this headed? A bill authored by truly one of the most lackluster congressmen in our history, Adam Schiff, will open a second war on terror, this one targeted domestic terrorism. More surveillance, more eavesdropping, more curtailing of free speech and dissent, more false flags, more fear, more anxiety, the final nails in the coffin of what was once for the world the beacon of civil liberties and respect for human rights. Yes, it’s 911 all over again. Wash, rinse, repeat. 

With friends like these, who needs enemies? With people representing us like Adam Schiff, who needs a foreign enemy to destroy our democracy and turn our citizens into slaves?

Put the right label on it: MADE IN AMERICA! The destruction from within of our country, its ideals, its constitution, its promise of government by the people, its self-anointed role in the world as defender of human rights, guardian of human dignity, promoter of democracy.

There’s only one remedy . . .

A clean sweep.   

A fresh start.

Maybe these “extreme” ideas are starting to make more sense?

But you ask: “What will happen? Congress has all sorts of protocols and procedural precedents, established rules and guidelines for committee assignment and processing of legislation. What about all that legislative infrastructure?”

Exactly! What about it, folks? How about throwing out the babies AND the bathwater? Is any of it serving “we the people”? Sometimes you have to completely raze a building and start from scratch. YES . . . THAT IS WHAT I’M RECOMMENDING!

It’s either that or a constitutional convention or . . . uh-oh . . . we’re back to what Jefferson and Kennedy said.

Here’s a pop quiz. Do these words ring a bell? If they do, do they resonate?

“When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”

If that’s too arcane and brainy, then tune into something more street hip, if somewhat less precise.

REVOLUTION

It’s Our Money . . . It’s Our Country!

JD

Let me throw out some very basic propositions. Please correct me if I’m wrong.

Starting with a question: In a democratic country — government of the people, by the people, for the people — who “owns” the government’s money?

Either money is privately owned (people, companies, corporations, investment banks, etc) or it’s publicly owned.

If through taxes, bonds, borrowing, printing, digital creation, money is deposited in the U.S. Treasury for later disbursement, whose money is it? Who actually OWNS that money before it’s sent on its way to pay the bills?

Yes, Congress has the power and responsibility to decide where the money goes. The President has some discretion about spending money, as long as such disbursements are “legal”, that is, authorized by laws which specify the allocation of said monies and they are not in violation of the Constitution.

But Joe Biden doesn’t own it. Neither does Nancy Pelosi or Mitch McConnell or Chuck Schumer. It’s not their money.

Make no mistake about it, our leaders act as if it’s theirs. I mean this in both senses. Sometimes out of some misplaced sense of entitlement and sheer arrogance, these folks do act like the trillions that pass through the U.S. Treasury is their personal slush fund to do as they see fit.

The other is the strictly legal sense. In specific legal terms, government officials, regardless of how highly placed, are only empowered to act as trustees, to direct the disbursement of those funds, with the general understanding that such spending ultimately serves to “promote the general welfare” and to enable the functioning of the government, all of the foregoing ON BEHALF OF THE CITIZENRY.

In neither case, however, is the money actually theirs. As when we deposit money in a bank, the bank may have physical possession of it — whatever that means in a world of digital transactions and bookkeeping — but it’s still our money.

So who owns the money the government at any given time has in its coffers?

We could ask a similar question about public property and infrastructure. This might offer some guidance. Who owns the interstate highway system? Who owns the roads, ramps, bridges?

Yes, the obvious answer is the government. But as a democracy, as active participants in a system of self-government, aren’t WE the government?

I think there’s a common but valid and useful understanding which we should insist on here.

Acknowledging that some have asserted via The Act of 1871 there has been a corporate framework, a legal entity — a legalistic sham — set up to accommodate the necessity of our federal government machinery having status and standing in the vast economic environs which we call domestically the national economy, which then participates in the vaster economic environment known as the world economy, I still think the best understanding of “ownership” when it comes to the commons is that WE THE PEOPLE collectively own the physical and financial assets of the United States of America. The CITIZENS. Not those charged with representing the needs, wants and priorities of the citizens, not those doing what needs to be done to realize in real terms what we democratically decide needs to be done — i.e. the Pelosis, McConnells, and Bidens in positions of power. It is WE THE PEOPLE who confer to them the power to act on our behalf, to protect, develop, expand those assets, ON BEHALF OF THE PEOPLE, serving our interests individually and collectively. That assignment of power is not without conditions; assumes transparency and full accountability; is not permanent in the sense that officials of government are not permanent fixtures (bureaucrats tend to be more enduring but certainly elected officials have fixed terms of service); can be withdrawn or withheld, though admittedly this is a cumbersome process; is not unlimited but reflects constitutional as well as statutory limitations, and whatever limits WE THE PEOPLE decide to impose.

It is WE THE PEOPLE who have original and overriding control — ownership? — of what passes through the Treasury and where that money goes. After all, it is OUR tax dollars which are collected and pooled to fund the government, it is in OUR name that bonds are floated and it is us who are directly obligated to repay at some future time the money borrowed to fund the government. It seems reasonable to conclude that until that money is disbursed for whatever reason and is on its way to creditors or the states or government contractors or paid as salaried to federal employees or sent to anyone who has a legitimate claim for payment, the money which is in the vaults and accounts of OUR government is OURS.

In an important sense, that money is collectivized, is subject to joint and collective ownership, before it is collected, as it’s collected, when it’s collected and finally sitting in the bank.

This applies to infrastructure and physical assets as well. Granted, we individually have no right to claim a chunk of asphalt from an interstate highway or one of the fingers from the statue of Abraham Lincoln overlooking the Capitol Mall. We collectively own such items and consent to leave it in trust so that we collectively can enjoy our common property, whatever its agreed purpose.

Why would we look at the hard cold cash inside the Treasury vaults or Fort Knox any differently?

On occasion we do, but we merely hint at the idea that it’s “our money”. Usually as submissive supplicants, grateful for some token generosity by our elected officials. For example, with the lockdowns, shutdowns, and shutouts incurred by the overreaction to the Covid-19 “pandemic”, it was decided by THOSE WE SENT TO WASHINGTON DC TO REPRESENT OUR INTERESTS — not by them as kings or princesses or queens or Führers — that we would get some Covid-19 relief checks. They were paltry but an example of WE THE PEOPLE benefitting individually as citizens, members of the collective whole, by having some of OUR MONEY SENT BACK TO US from the pool of collectively-owned money in the Treasury, in order to help us through the crisis.

What is my point?

Citizens cower before the federal government. Yes, it’s an awesome and frightening institution. It is massive in size and an imposing, all-encompassing presence in every aspect of our lives. And around the world. The overwhelming temptation is to see it 1) as some frightening, unapproachable, all-powerful, omnipotent behemoth, and 2) as an adversary, a separate entity, a force to be reckoned with.

It is not necessarily either. It’s only humbling, intimidating, incapacitating, oppressive, tyrannical, if we view it that way. To consider our government, at least within the theoretical framework of even our highly-compromised democracy, as “them” and we citizens as “us” is a self-fulfilling, self-sabotaging prophecy and a guarantee that those we do assign stewardship of our public affairs to, most certainly WILL misuse their power, WILL abuse us, WILL act like they “own it”, and DO A LOT OF THINGS which are contrary to our interests, if not ultimately destructive to the historic promise made to the world with the founding of our experiment in “self-rule”.

Does this sound like I’m talking some abstract principle? The stuff of academic or high-sounding rhetoric but not of the real world?

In practice, the impact of ignoring this idea is far from abstract. There are many very severe real world consequences.

Our timidity and imagined powerlessness has created the monster the federal government has become. Our accepting the false narrative of a two-party system has all but destroyed democracy. Our letting our leaders feed us lies without retribution, in fact our REWARDING our leaders for misleading and abusing us, is putting nails in our own coffins. Our letting the DOD use us as an ATM machine for endless wars and shopping sprees is bankrupting the country. Our sitting by idly while the Fed prints trillions of dollars and feeds it directly into accounts of the already appallingly rich, our accepting and swallowing the idiotic fairy tales of Make America Great Again and Build Back Better when these phony grand visions are just more vehicles for the strip mining of our economy and the destruction of the middle class, is immersing us in crippling delusions and willful ignorance. Our electing officials who enable and incentivize the ruin of our industrial and manufacturing base, and subsidize the export of good jobs is hiring criminals to rob us. Our willful ignorance about the havoc the U.S. wreaks around the world, creating the immigrant crisis we now face is poisoning us with racist nonsense and blinding us to the class war being waged on us. These and many more habits of laziness, cowardice, and neglect are coming home to roost. The mess we see ourselves in right now with the meltdown of the economy, the health crises (and there are many more beyond Covid-19), and the coming major conflicts with Russia and China, are just previews of coming attractions. This is not going to end well for ‘we the people’.

It’s our money.

It’s our country.

We better start acting like it.

Trust Our Brilliant Leaders? Are You Joking?

JD

We are now being treated to a predictable deluge of hand-wringing, grandstanding, virtue signaling, gaslighting, hysteria, pontificating and snide told-you-so commentary, most of it stating the obvious, most of it just repeating what we’ve known all along. Attacking Afghanistan was a big mistake. What a disaster! What an embarrassment! Our arrogant aggression and illegal retaliation against Afghanistan for 911 was WRONG WRONG WRONG!

Do you somehow feel more enlightened by this bilious bloviating?

I say: Enough with the smug finger-wagging, the weepy whining, the self-aggrandizing bellowing, the 24/7 autopsy of our disastrous 20 years in Afghanistan!

Here’s the real question we should be asking ourselves:  With what predictably unfolded there, why do we for even a split second trust the knuckleheads in charge of our military and foreign policy to handle anything going forward? Handle anything at all!

No question about it, there’s certainly a lot that needs handling. Serious challenges that need the immediate attention of informed, balanced, rational, honest, sane individuals, meaning thoughtful, scrupulous, patient, creative policymakers capable of finding optimal solutions which will avoid unnecessary conflict and serve the greater interests of humankind.

Instead we have no choice but to trust power-drunk, delusional, unhinged sociopaths to wrestle with new and ongoing crises. Do you really feel confident that Sleepy Joe, Kamala, our war-obsessed congressional leaders, and the rest of the buffoons in the State Department, Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security, CIA, NSA, FBI, and their mouthpieces in the media, can come up with anything sensible? Constructive? Positive? Solutions that will not further discredit our nation and humiliate us as citizens? Push the Doomsday Clock even closer to midnight? Accelerate the march to self-annihilation?

Here are some examples of what these incompetent fools are confronted with, much of it the result of their own prior and recurrent idiocy.

CRIMEA: Very recently, there was a conference called the Crimea Platform Summit. The premise, shaky at best, is that Russia forcefully annexed Crimea in 2014 and the world cannot allow this kind of thuggery to stand. The fact that in a referendum 95.5% of the people living in Crimea voted for reunification with Russia and that Crimea for most of its history was part of Russia somehow didn’t get mentioned. That Russia itself finds the whole matter non-negotiable was conveniently ignored. Ukraine must prepare for war! Save the 4.5% living under the boot heel of Putin’s tyranny! Mind you, the U.S. is supplying arms to the neo-Nazis now running the country. Gosh . . . it’s almost as if we WANT a war to start there.

POKING THE BEAR: This year has seen substantially more near incursions into Russian territory than last. These are not innocent joy rides but both reconnaissance flights and simulated bombing missions. They represent a dangerous and intimidating probing of Russian border defenses by fighter jets and nuclear bombers, as well as heavily-armed naval vessels, all “testing the defenses” of Russia. This is so brilliant, I’m tempted to find a skeet shooting range, run around with a bulls-eye painted on my chest, yelling “Na na na na na na! Go ahead, you pathetic losers, try to shoot me. Betcha can’t . . . betcha can’t!”

WAR GAMES: Such aerial and naval provocations go hand-in-hand with massive war games being conducted in countries neighboring Russia, sometimes right up to Russia’s actual borders. There’s no way to characterize these exercises other than preparation for war. If Russia were to be conducting war games in Canada and Mexico, including tens of thousands of troops, artillery, missile launchers, tanks, would the U.S. view it as innocent military exercises just to keep the boys sharp and give them something to do?

TAIWAN: Moving east — as Obama did with his Pivot to Asia — we have Taiwan. We’re arming them to the teeth, cruising battleships and aircraft carriers in The Taiwan Strait, the waters between Taiwan and mainland China, violating our own one-China policy, sending vague but portentous signals to Taiwanese separatist leaders that “We’ve got your back.” Is the U.S. seriously going to risk a world war over Taiwan? With insane, China-hating, chest-thumping, deranged exceptionalists pounding the war drums, I guess the question answers itself.

FONOPS SOUTH CHINA SEA: In the same tinderbox theater, under the pretext of freedom of navigation operations — FONOPs — we continue to taunt, dare, bluff, and browbeat China in the South China Seas. It’s arguably legal. So is jumping barefoot on a pile of broken wine bottles in the privacy of my kitchen. That doesn’t mean its prudent or in the least productive. It’s increasingly obvious that the U.S. is doing everything it can to militarily provoke China, hoping for an incident which will then be the excuse for launching the “inevitable war”. Military strategists — and with our phenomenal success in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, we know we know we can trust this brainy bunch — suggest the sooner the better. As time passes, China will be more capable of defending itself. We sure don’t want to screw this up. This is the BIG ONE! Lose to the Chinese? Inconceivable! By the way, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, who I just interviewed for an article that will also appear here soon, says that — now pay close attention — every single war game simulation of a major armed conflict with China ends up in a nuclear war!  Need I say more about this insanity?

These are just the “big power” confrontations. The U.S. is of course still in Syria, Iraq, is poised for a war with North Korea and/or Iran, and has special operations — military and CIA personnel with military assets — in countless nations, none of which seems to ever make it into mainstream reporting. We’ve got somewhere around 800 bases of all shapes and sizes, our soldiers in faraway places always on alert and ready for action.

Let’s be clear. There’s no time out. Things are moving forward. That’s the inevitable trajectory of politics, both domestic and international. Yet the reality is, our record going back seven decades is abysmal! There is nothing positive or constructive to be found. Just countries and battlefields strewn with dead bodies, refugees, depleted uranium, land mines, and rubble.

This is what happens when you have delusional megalomaniacs making critical decisions about our place in the world and our relations with other countries.

We need to flush these war-obsessed, homicidal, demonstrably insane empire-builders out of power.

Let me start the list of people who NEED TO GO. We’re ultimately looking at numbers in the thousands. PLEASE SUBMIT YOUR SUGGESTIONS. There are so many incompetent, psychopathic fools in key positions, I’m just one guy and I can’t keep track of them all. Here we go . . .

THE HIT LIST (a work in progress)

Joe Biden

Kamala Harris

Anthony Blinken

Lloyd Austin

Mark Milley

Victoria Nuland

Jan Psaki

Mitch McConnell

Nancy Pelosi

Ted Cruz

Adam Schiff

Joe Manchin

Chuck Schumer

Tom Cotton

Tom O’Halleran

Lou Correa

Jim Costa

Mike Thompson

Charlie Crist

Stephanie Murphy

Sanford Bishop

Carolyn Bourdeaux

David Scott

Ed Case

Brad Schneider

Jared Golden

Josh Gottheimer

Mikie Sherrill

Kurt Schrader

Jim Cooper

Henry Cuellar

Vicente Gonzalez

Abigail Spanberger

Doug Jones

Richard Shelby

Lisa Murkowski

Dan Sullivan

Martha McSally

Kyrsten Sinema

John Boozman

Dianne Feinstein

Michael Bennet

Cory Gardner

Richard Blumenthal

Christopher Murphy

Thomas Carper

Christopher Coons

Marco Rubio

Rick Scott

Kelly Loeffler

David Perdue

Mazie Hirono

Brian Schatz

Mike Crapo

James Risch

Tammy Duckworth

Richard Durbin

Todd Young

Joni Ernst

Chuck Grassley

Jerry Moran

Pat Roberts

Bill Cassidy

Susan Collins

Angus King

Benjamin Cardin

Chris Van Hollen

Gary Peters

Debbie Stabenow

Amy Klobuchar

Tina Smith

Cindy Hyde-Smith

Roger Wicker

Roy Blunt

Josh Hawley

Steve Daines

Jon Tester

Deb Fischer

Ben Sasse

Catherine Cortez Masto

Jacky Rosen

Maggie Hassan

Jeanne Shaheen

Bob Menendez

Martin Heinrich

Tom Udall

Richard Burr

Thom Tillis

Kevin Cramer

John Hoeven

Rob Portman

Jim Inhofe

James Lankford

Bob Casey

Pat Toomey

John Reed

Sheldon Whitehouse

Lindsey Graham

Tim Scott

Mike Rounds

John Thune

Lamar Alexander

Marsha Blackburn

John Cornyn

Tim Kaine

Mark Warner

Maria Cantwell

Mitt Romney

Patty Murray

Shelley Capito

Tammy Baldwin

Ron Johnson

John Barrasso

Michael Enzi

John Kirby

Then there are the mutant VIPs without current official appointments, who run amok spreading propaganda, promoting their deviant, deranged world view, and infecting others with their toxic agenda, while they wait for their next cushy government assignment. Do we let confirmed, unrepentant, unrehabilitated murderers, terrorists and rapists run around free? Some people are simply too dangerous to mix with decent human beings . . .

THE LOCK UP LIST (Guantanamo? Where do they keep people pending trial or a lobotomy?)

Mike Pompeo

John Bolton

Nikki Haley

Samantha Power

Susan Rice

Donald Trump

Frank McKenzie

Arne Duncan

Wesley Clark

Michael McFaul

Robert Kagan

Jared Kushner

Steve Bannon

Then there are scores of individuals who are a mixed bag, may or may not have committed prosecutable crimes, certainly have done their share of lying and flip-flopping, perhaps have done some good but also did a lot of damage, and are always capable of building on their past failures to inflict greater setbacks to the common good. Frighteningly, many of them still have the public completely fooled. This could be a very long list!

HONORARY MENTION LOCK UP LIST (We’re keeping an eye on you!)

Barack Obama

Bernie Sanders

Hillary Clinton

Bill Clinton

John Kerry

Liz Cheney

AOC

The Squad

George W Bush

Condoleezza Rice

Henry Kissinger

Dick Cheney

Jake Sullivan

Sidney Blumenthal

James Clapper

John Brennan

James Comey

Neera Tanden

Paul Krugman

Michael Hayden

Rachel Maddow

Chris Hayes

Bill Kristol

Bill Maher

Glenn Beck

Listen, folks. I know these lists are woefully incomplete. But I did my best on short notice. Now I’m counting on YOUR HELP! That’s why we have a comments section below. GO FOR IT!

John Rachel – September 7, 2021

Responsible Non-Adversarial Policing: Community Facilitators

JD

This proposal is a rapid response to the BLM protests, which seem to lack coherent demands with bulletproof metrics to determine if the authorities are actually complying, or just putting up another smokescreen to pacify the mob. It may not be fully formed, complete in all the details. Thus, I welcome anyone and everyone to consider its merits, then make suggestions and improvements.

There’s a lot of anger, passion, frustration, enthusiasm, pessimism, optimism, confusion, determination, disorganization, organization, chaos and hope, out there on the streets right now. Open, exuberant display of civic concern and commitment to improvements in government in the form of mass protests is not only a constitutional right, but sometimes our duty as citizens.

But many folks are rightfully asking: What do the protesters want?

I have strong opinions about what they should want, should be demanding. It’s a long list.

But these current demonstrations are essentially about police violence, abuse of police power.

So here’s an idea. A clear, unambiguous, non-negotiable demand should be put front and center from this point forward.

There are two components to the demand . . .

  1. Any cop abusing his position should be immediately taken out of circulation, then ultimately replaced, if he is too aggressive. Any officer of the law who is caught provoking peaceful protesters; attacking protesters and especially members of the press; attacking unarmed non-threatening citizens; using force, weapons, tear gas or so-called “non-lethal” armaments, restraining holds or equipment; bludgeoning, pepper spraying, tear gassing, even pushing; when such force is questionable, should be immediately put on indefinite leave pending investigation, and then dismissed if the errant behavior is confirmed.
  2. That officer’s position on the police force would be turned over to a new type of law enforcement official, called a Community Facilitator. A Community Facilitator would be hired at full pay with full benefits. Hiring a such an individual would require the approval of both the police bureau and a committee selected by the communities where that Community Facilitator would be assigned or might appear for a policing incident. Every cop would be ultimately paired with a Community Facilitator. Every Community Facilitator would be paired with a regular cop. The regular cop would handle the rough stuff. The Community Facilitator would initially handle everything else, with the regular cop at his/her side.

Understand where I’m going with this: Ultimately — as soon as humanly possible — no patrol car would show up ANYWHERE to address ANY SITUATION, unless there were at least one regular cop and one Community Facilitator.

By the way, the Community Facilitator would be in uniform, very much like a regular police uniform. But there would be some aspect, shirt color, special hat, helmet, something, which would make it immediately obvious this person was not a regular cop, but a community facilitator.

We should demand that Community Facilitators be hired and deployed as quickly as possible. Since there would be pairing of a fully-trained cop with every Community Facilitator, the training would not have to be as long and rigorous for the Community Facilitator. It could be a quick course in the basics, safety, protocol, the law, etc. They don’t have to be Navy Seals to be effective at this job.

Police now view citizens as the enemy. Regular citizens now fear, often distrust and hate the police.

We need 1) to get rid of the bad cops, and 2) encourage proper, respectful, constructive communication between the everyday citizens and law enforcement.

Bad cop behavior is not hard to identify. These guys need to be pulled out of service immediately, before they further exacerbate the tensions and escalate the violence. Seeing bad cops immediately and publicly pulled off the beat when they display anything even slightly resembling the aggression we now see repeated every day in the news will demonstrate that local governments are taking seriously the demand for reform.

Having a member of the community in every patrol car and appearing on the scene when the police are called will in the future likewise reverse the adversarial dynamic which now characterizes citizen-police encounters and hopefully reduce the potential for violent confrontation.

Let’s replace half of the cops with Community Facilitators starting NOW!

If the mayor, police commissioner, city council refuse to entertain this idea, then maybe it’s time to get out the Molotov cocktails.