Asleep at the wheel

We now know for a fact that we're being played by Russia.  The special counsel has documented in detail how Russian agents have been active in the US since at least 2014.  For years they've used various means to sow discontent here.  They've used social media to foment unrest and divisiveness between the races....look at Ferguson and Baltimore and Charlottesville for examples.  At the same time, they've fired up both the "Build The Wall" movement and the "Save the Dreamers" movement.  They want to radicalize us.

In our recent election they were, behind-the-scenes, supporting both Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump, thinking they were both destined to fail.  They're no doubt right now actively stirring up the Gun Control movement, while telling the 2nd Amendment supporters they're about to lose their guns.  In all these examples they probably don't care who wins, so long as we're fighting among ourselves.

The same is happening in Europe.  I'm sure they were heartened by the UK's Brexit vote to leave the EU.  They've supported Marine Le Pen in France, and other nationalist movements elsewhere in Europe.  Their hope is to weaken the European Union with the ultimate goal of seeing it break apart.  Driving a wedge between the US and our European allies would just be icing on the cake for them.

To be polite, through all this President Trump has been asleep at the wheel.  The closest he's come to pointing a finger at what the Russians are doing is to say, "I think the Russians did it, BUT I ALSO THINK IT COULD HAVE BEEN CHINA, OR A 400 LB GUY SITTING ON HIS BED."  Not exactly a ringing endorsement of our intelligence community analysis, is it? 

To be less generous, you could say our President has been derelict in his sworn duty to protect us "from all enemies, foreign and domestic."  And make no mistake, RUSSIA IS OUR ENEMY.    Eight of the 10 men Vladimir Putin depends on to hold power are former KGB men, just like him.  We're solidly in the midst of Cold War 2.0.

It's crunch time, President Trump.  Our Congress has stepped up and voted overwhelmingly to punish Russia by imposing more sanctions.   (I can't believe I'm praising Congress!)  Now it's your turn.  If you don't act, if you don't aggressively implement Congress's will, I'm prepared to take the drastic step of labeling you a traitor.  

Yeah, that's pretty extreme.  Please don't make me say it.

S  

Our unraveling world

Let me just throw out some random observations regarding what's going on in the world today and then let you connect the dots:

Donald Trump campaigned on "America First", and for better or worse, he's delivering on it.  Among his demands is that NATO members should start pulling their weight financially.  They had previously agreed to each spend 2% of their GDP on defense, collectively strengthening NATO, but so far all but the US, Greece, the UK, Poland, and Estonia have reneged.  The German Foreign Minister recently said it was "quite unreasonable to believe Germany would spend 2% of its economic output on the military."

Last year the United Kingdom voted to separate themselves from the European Union, aka Brexit.  And now Scotland is again making noises about separating itself from the UK.

Marine Le Pen, the leader of the French National Front Party, who vows to follow the UK's Brexit lead and get France out of the EU (Frexit?), is on the short list to become the next President of France.  She also says she will strengthen French relations with Russia.   

Speaking of:  The Russia of Vladimir Putin is punching above its weight class.  It's expanding militarily, although still for now exhibiting more bluster than true power.  At home it's an economic basket case, but Putin still has visions of Russia regaining the glory and prestige it had back in the days of the old Soviet Union.  They meddled in the recent US election (fact), and right now are meddling in the upcoming elections of France and Germany.  Their cyber-warfare capabilities are immense and expanding, and we don't seem (?) to have a way to counter them.

Russia is leaning heavily on some of their former Soviet Republic neighbors, occupying Crimea, and now actively stirring things up in the Balkans (south-eastern Europe).  Meanwhile, back at home, the Putin regime is under pressure to reform, which he isn't about to let happen.  Although it's seldom reported in the press, there is considerable public discontent with Putin.  And what often happens when a leader wants to deflect attention away from discontent at home?

The leader of Turkey, Recip Erdogan, an avowed Islamist, is consolidating power, slowly but surely dismantling the secular state established there after WWI.  He is rapidly filling the power vacuum left by crumbling neighbors Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, and others.   Turkey is a long-time member of NATO (another eventual nail in NATO's coffin?) , but not a member of the European Union. (They applied, but so far have been rebuffed).

North Korea is perfecting their nuclear arms at a steady pace.  So far no one has been able to convince them to cease and desist, not even their benefactor communist neighbor, China.  North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has shown nothing but contempt for the rest of the world and seems hellbent on seating himself at the Big Table with the major powers.  He doesn't seem frightened by the concept of "Mutually Assured Destruction", which for 40 years kept the US and the USSR from attacking each other.  We don't seem to have any feasible way to dissuade North Korea.

The United States, traditionally the most stable country in the world, is still stable, but feeling some tremors.  We need some truly dependable allies, but they seem to be few and far between (see above).

Our climate is changing.  It's getting warmer almost everywhere.  Whether this is due to natural cycles or man-made factors, who knows?  But instead of playing it safe and being pro-active, we're looking the other way and just chasing the Almighty $$$.

Folks, we need to get our shit together.  Look back through history and you'll see we've been in hellacious messes before and gotten ourselves out, and we can now, too, assuming it's part of God's Grand Plan.  But just like in those past situations there will be a serious price to pay.  

The soft life we've been living for many generations may be coming to an end, which actually isn't a bad thing.  To eventually prevail we'll need to stop thinking in terms of "me, me, me" and start thinking of the common good for a change.

And as a personal request, can we please get all this worked out before next football season?  *wink*  

S
aka Chuckles :)

In the long run we are all dead.

"Many people have grown tired of waiting for the benefits of a vastly interconnected world to trickle down. As the world whizzes by them, their wages remain flat and jobs become scarcer. Then it becomes convenient to blame their straits on the immigrant speaking a strange tongue and taking their employment opportunities."

"These people are not studying demographic charts and complex economic models to understand why their country needs immigrants in the long run, nor are they lying awake at night fretting over a Moody's [credit] downgrade. The more sophisticated rhetoric they hear about the benefits to come — and the fewer benefits they actually see — the more distrustful they become. As John Maynard Keynes said, '"In the long run we are all dead.'"  Stratfor analysis, 6/28/16

You thought this was referring to Donald Trump supporters, didn't you? You were wrong.  This was what the "experts" said as they tried to explain why the UK voted to exit the European Union.  It would be an easy mistake to make as there is a strong correlation with what's happening in the US this election season.

The status quo is difficult to sell today.  The "interconnected world" is not trickling down for many people, particularly middle-aged white guys....and young people who are concerned about their future (hello Bernie Sanders supporters).  

Trade agreements between first-world countries (who want to buy cheap stuff) and poor countries (who have willing, cheap labor) are increasingly difficult to sell to Americans, and apparently to Brits, too, as by nature trade agreements are "equalizers".  The people in poor countries see their incomes rise, while the people in wealthy countries see their incomes fall (or at least become stagnant) until eventually an equilibrium is reached.  In the rich countries (the UK, the US, etc) a select few (the 1%) do very well, while everyone else is left in the dust wondering what happened to the long term benefits they were promised.  

The 60-year-old Trump supporters today were the ones who bought into that when they were 40-somethings, and they're still waiting.  The 20-something Sanders supporters today look at their parents and wonder if that will be their fate, too.

The status quo, ironically now represented by the Democratic Party and Hillary Clinton, is being squeezed from both sides.  They might splinter the vote enough for Clinton to be elected President, but then IMO she's going to have a tough time bringing these two different demographics together to govern effectively.

I'm thinking dysfunction might be here to stay.  "Long term plans" might need to be re-defined to mean anything not to exceed 90 days in the future.  If you disagree, please 'splain yourself.  I hope you're right.

 Personally, I'm no longer buying green bananas.  *wink*

S

Quick! Lock the door....the Muslims are coming!

Question....what do the United Kingdom Independence Party, the National Front in France, the Alternative For Germany, the Party For Freedom in The Netherlands, the Danish Peoples Party, the Progress Party of Norway, the Sweden Democrats, the Freedom Party of Austria, the Finns Party of Finland, the Congress Of The New Right in Poland, and even the Republican Party in the United States all have in common?

Answer....they all make anti-immigration a central policy.  I'm not going to suggest they're right, or they're wrong, but just that they're powerful and they have a message that is gaining strength.

Yesterday the United Kingdom voted to divorce themselves from the European Union.  Much of the reason for that was simply that they felt the European Union was not working for them, that they would be better of without having to get approval from Brussels (the EU HQ) to conduct much of their everyday business.  It's called "Euro-skepticism".  

But a good deal of the impetus to opt-out was due to their increasing unease with the new wave of Muslim refugees entering their country daily.  The other national movements mentioned above are also looking to slam the door on their open borders, too.

In Europe Muslim immigrants are not generally integrated into mainstream society.  They are strictly segregated, practically speaking if not by any actual government edict.  Too often the natives don't mix well with their new neighbors.  Suspicion is rampant and tensions are high.  Reports of violence committed by Muslim youths is just fuel on the fire, even though, as is usually the case, the majority are peacefully just trying to get by.  And with every act of radical Islamic terror, the division grows wider.

Things are a bit better, for the time being, here in the US.  America's 3.3 million Muslim residents are fairly well integrated, but say they're feeling eyes on them from every direction, while the natives see an Islamic terrorist behind almost every rock.  Enter first the Tea Party, and now Donald Trump.  With President Obama proposing to admit 10,000 Syrian refugees into the US, Trump is riding high in the polls with his promise to "Keep 'em out". 

I think it's safe to say that Muslims generally don't play well with others....Sunni's fight Shia, Saudi's fight Yemenis, Iranians fight pretty much everyone, etc.  In fairness Muslims can say the West started this latest wave of unrest (let's not go back and re-fight the Crusades, OK?) by getting involved in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, and elsewhere, trying to foist on them our "dastardly, un-Islamic democracy".  That in effect just stirred the ant pile, sending those inside scurrying in every direction looking for safety.  I think it fair to say our efforts to "nation build" have been a flop.

As I see it we're just different peoples with different cultures that are hard for the other to get their heads around.  I don't see the wedge between us getting anything but wider in the near future.  It just seems like we're caught up in a vicious circle. 

What do you think?  Do you think we'll just walk wide of each other for decades to come, or will it deteriorate into something more violent?  With the head start Europe has on us regarding anti-immigrant nationalism, how nasty will it get there, and will we be far behind?   In all honesty, with the paranoia that exists today, I'm concerned that things could get out of hand very easily.  It's easy to escalate things, but quite difficult to de-escalate tensions once they build.

Remember a couple years ago when two Islamic terrorists were intercepted and killed by a Garland, TX policeman as they were trying to shoot up a Mohammad cartoon contest?  The Garland PD never released the name of the officer, and it was only at the trial of an accomplice in Phoenix that the officer's name came out.  Now the Garland PD is having to provide him special protection.  That's how toxic its become.

As Walter Cronkite used to say, "And that's the way it is."

S