Сделаем Америку снова великой

I'll admit, I'm old school, and in most cases I don't apologize for it.  Especially when it comes to my intense wariness concerning all things Russia.  I'm not paranoid....I don't see a Rooskie behind every tree....but my memory is still vivid enough to remember stories of Nikita Khrushchev banging his shoe on a desk back in 1956 before a gathering of Western ambassadors and telling them "We will bury you!"

Back then Russia was the Soviet Union, and their enforcers were their KGB.  They were to the Soviet Union what the Gestapo was to Nazi Germany.  Think secret police.  Nasty, evil people they were.  When the Soviet Union disintegrated and collapsed in 1991, Vladimir Putin was a proud member of that nefarious group.  For nearly 20 years now he has been the supreme authority in Russia.  The name may have changed, the flag may have changed, but Russia is just as untrustworthy today as it was back in the old Soviet days.  There's no daylight between Putin the KGB agent and Putin, the President of Russia.

Vladimir Putin desperately wants to see his Russia back on par with the United States as a world superpower.  He knows that won't happen, though, as his Russia only has an economy roughly equal to California's.  They're living hand-to-mouth.  His only hope is to saw the legs out from under the US, and the European Union, and NATO.  If he can't stand 6'4 like us, he wants us to be 5'7 like him.

Vladimir Putin is a bully, he gets what he wants, and he will do whatever it takes, legal or not, to get it.   Many psychologists say that bad boy, gang leader image is how Donald Trump sees himself, too.  They say he feels a certain kinship with Putin.  Others say it's more complicated, and commercial, than that.  They say Trump has depended on Russian money for years to keep his Trump Organization afloat.

 Vladimir Putin has been patiently cultivating Donald Trump for years.

Regardless, I can't forgive Donald Trump for not standing up to Russian evil.  With this President, I'm a one-issue citizen.  My displeasure with him is not about his foreign policy, or his economic policy, or his cabinet choices, or even his private life.  Some I agree with, some I don't.  But overriding EVERYTHING is America's security, and on this, our Commander-In-Chief has failed us.  Unless he can somehow find the courage to step up and go toe-to-toe with Vladimir Putin, I will continue to be critical of him.  Why any red-blooded American would cover for him baffles me.

S

In this corner...Vladimir Putin, and in this corner...the rest of the world

The first round of the French presidential election is this weekend, and it has the potential to be as much of a world changer as did Donald Trump's election in the US last year.  The big Wild Card will be how well National Front candidate Marine Le Pen does.

The five leading candidates are on this first-round ballot, with the top two going on to the final election ballot next month, assuming no one receives a 50% true majority in this first test.  Ms Le Pen is expected to make it to the final round, and that's why much of the western world, and Europe in particular, is holding their breath.

Their unease is because Ms Le Pen is friendly towards Russia, has received campaign financing from a bank close to Putin, and is likely to follow Britain's lead and will try to take France out of the European Union, and perhaps the Euro Zone (the common European monetary system), as well.  She isn't too keen on France's NATO participation, either.

Ms Le Pen and her party are anti-Semitic, anti-immigrant (read: anti-Muslim), and ultra-right-wing nationalist.  Many say her "France First" theme is a take-off of Donald Trump's "America First".  Both she and Candidate Trump slammed international trade agreements (harmful to their economies), NATO (outdated and too expensive), and have questioned sanctions on Russia.  Le Pen has even said quite clearly that she would end sanction on Russia if she was elected, and offered no objection to their "annexation" of Crimea.

If Le Pen ultimately becomes the French President, Russia will be the big winner.  The thing Russia / Vladimir Putin wants most is to see the West weakened.  A European Union without both Great Britain AND France might completely collapse, as might the Euro monetary scheme without the French.  Weakened trade relations might see barriers arise again between countries now held tight by their economies, and a NATO without one of its most powerful members may not have the same resolve.  

Putin knows he will likely never be able to go toe-to-toe with the power and influence of the United States and a united Europe.  He sees that his best chance to restore Russia to its previous glory is to bring his opponents one-by-one down to his level.  He likes leaders and countries that he sees as friendly or at least malleable.  That's why Putin was so interested in seeing Trump elected President, and why he wants to see Le Pen elected now in France, and a Russia-friendly German candidate win later this year, too.  He's been chip-chip-chipping away at us since the day he assumed power, and frankly, he's winning.  If he wasn't, I wouldn't be writing this.

Once again, it's an interesting world we live in, and we have a ringside seat to some amazing history in the making.

S

Unintended consequences

Have you ever pulled a loose thread on a sweater and found that instead of just breaking off, it starts a chain reaction that causes your sweater to unravel right before your eyes?

That's essentially what is happening right now around the world, particularly in Europe and the Middle East.  We've been pulling a string for some time now expecting it to break, but it hasn't.  

For years much of the "progressive" (Western) world has tried to either help the oppressed people under the boot of some of the most notorious dictators ever, or has tried to help themselves to the assets (oil) of those same evil Mid East dictators, depending on your degree of skepticism.  

What is now happening is the implosion of many of the institutions that we've taken for granted for the past half century.  They call it "unintended consequences".  We may have wanted to take down those evil dictators, but I doubt we wanted to destroy entire countries.  Remember what Gen. Colin Powell said:  "You break it, you own it."  Ouch!

The bad news is the world is unraveling right now, and it's going to get a lot worse.  The good news is, this is truly a battle of "good vs evil", and just as in WWII, I believe good will eventually prevail. 

Our politicians keep talking about reestablishing some degree of stability in the Mid East so that all those millions of refugees now on the move can go back home.  

HA!  Dream on!  Not gonna happen!  

There are too many competing clans and tribes and sects for [the countries formerly known as] Syria or Iraq or Libya (and probably a few others) to ever be put back together as they were.

Those Mid East countries' utter collapse appear to be the first of the unintended consequences.  Next might come the collapse of the European Union.  For decades they have welcomed oppressed refugees from vastly different cultures to their shores, then patted themselves on the back for their compassion.  Then they segregated them in essentially ethnic ghettos where their isolation led to them becoming "second class citizens".  Next came their radicalization, and now violence.

After the attacks in Paris last week, French President Fran-swa O'lon (aka Frank Holland) has invoked the European Union protocol that requires the EU to come to France's aid in their war with ISIS.  Most will, with varying degrees of enthusiasm.  

Some EU countries are worried about stirring up their own Muslim populations, and some lack the financial means to contribute very much.  All this on top of calls for each member country to accept their "fair share" of the  Muslim refugees now streaming in.  And to add even more to the Continental stress, this is also on top of the recent financial crisis that saw a massive transfer of wealth from the northern tier to the southern tier.  

The European Union is slowly but surely moving towards "every man for himself".  They simply have different fundamental national interests.  We'll see how they react to the considerable casualties likely coming their way.  Just as in WWI and WWII, Europe is going to bear the brunt of this latest war, too.

So will the United States be able to absorb the violence that will sooner or later find us, too, or will we be so "casualty averse" that we quickly throw in the towel a la Neville Chamberlain?  We talk a mean game for sure, but when we're faced with physical violence right here in our back front yard, are we going to cut and run?

I believe we still have the integrity and intestinal fortitude to see it through....barely.  The alternative will be so heinous that we'll have no real choice but to suck it up.  The war against ISIS in the Mid East is proving successful.  We're shrinking the territory they control and their casualties are mounting.  But desperate people do desperate things, and the more we hurt them there, the more they'll attack us here.  Hold on....this isn't going to be pretty.  

Just never forget....

S

Point / Counterpoint

The West, led by the United States, as well as Israel and most of the UN, are dead set against Iran developing nuclear weapons.  Of course we are.  Iran's leaders don't seem to think the way we in the West do.  They see sacrificing a few million of their own people in a counter-strike in order to wipe out Israel a fair trade.  Their idea of "national pride" is near suicidal.  The same goes for North Korea.

But what right do we have in telling them they can't pursue a nuclear program?  How can one sovereign nation, or group of nations, tell another sovereign nation what they can do internally?  As long as they don't use their nukes against others, shouldn't that be their right to have them?

It would be like the OPEC nations prohibiting the US from pursuing hydraulic fracturing to recover more domestic oil.  Of course it would be against their national interests for us to do so, but they don't have the right to prohibit us from doing it.

Seems to me we are just throwing international law out the window here.  That said, this is one area where I think Civil Disobedience is justified.

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The US and Europe are also all bent out of shape over Russia's incursion into Ukraine and their annexation of the Crimean peninsula.  It just seems like a land grab, much like what Nazi Germany did when they took over Austria and Czechoslovakia prior to WWII.  That's how we see it at least.

But the Russian psyche is much different than ours.  They have a long memory and remember how they have been invaded repeatedly from the west.  That's why after WWII they set up all their Commie proxies....E Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungry, etc....between Western Europe (read: NATO) and themselves.  

If the West attacked again, they could devastate those proxy countries before they reached The Motherland.  At least that was their plan.  Now with many of their former Warsaw Pact allies (?) actually part of NATO, and right on their border at that, they are super antsy. 

When Russia saw the overt courtship going on between the West and Ukraine, they no doubt saw full-fledged European Union and NATO membership for Ukraine on the horizon.  Their already tightly wound paranoia snapped.  I think we were a bit too "bull-in-a-china-closet"-ish.  Now it's gonna be difficult if not impossible to get that genie back into the bottle. 

As I see it, here's our dilemma:  We need to punish and marginalize Russia for their actions without actually pushing them over the edge (letting the Russian Federation dissolve).  

Remember what happened the last time we took down evil (Iraq, Libya, and soon Syria)?  What we got was dramatically more dangerous than what we dismantled. Of course we (the West) could collectively take Russia down, but would that necessarily be a smart thing to do?

S

Public Enemy No. 1....yep, that's me!

Last week K bought a new, comfy upholstered chair.  One afternoon I was sitting in my chair reading and out of the corner of my eye I saw one of those little white tags showing underneath her new ottoman.  You know, the ones that certify that the stuffing in the chair meets all fire safety standards, etc, then goes on to say "DO NOT REMOVE UNDER PENALTY OF LAW".

Being just slightly OCD I couldn't read for looking at that damn label.  It was just taunting me, I swear.  I couldn't help my bad self....I flipped the ottoman over, whipped out my trusty pocket knife, and cut it off.

Within seconds there was a rather forceful knock at my door.  I thought, "Holy crap!  There really IS a Label Police!"  Should I try and make a run for it?  Plea bargain?  Is it true I only get one phone call?  So who should it be to?  K?  A lawyer?  My 63 year clean record, pffffft...gone...over a label!  DOH!

I had visions of being Bubba's girlfriend in The Big House.

Turns out it was just the UPS guy.  *whew*

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True....ridiculous, but true:  The European Union has a rule, EC2257/94, that regulates the allowable curvature of elongated produce such as bananas and cucumbers.  It says that to be graded Class 1 it must be "practically straight and bent by no more than a gradient of 1/10."  

So is there a Banana/Cucumber Police that goes from farmers market to farmers market looking for bent produce?  Do they have Department of Bananas specialists and  Department of Cucumbers specialists?

Do they have special identifying uniforms?

Is this all they have to do in Europe....put people on the government payroll to go around policing rules like EC2257/94?   

Bureaucracy at its finest.  I wonder if they got the idea from our Label Police or if we got ours from their Banana/Cucumber Police?  Either way I can't believe such rules exist for me to write about in a blog post.  

What a waste of time.  I'm pretty sure consumers can figure out that a banana that's tied in a knot isn't something they want to buy for their families.

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Speaking of a waste of time:  You've heard about the law passed by the Arizona Legislature that allows service to be denied to gays by those who are offended by homosexuality on religious grounds?  Why are they even bothering with such a law?

If the Governor signs it someone will simply trot across the street to the Federal Courthouse where a Federal Judge will immediately issue a restraining order and shortly thereafter declare it unconstitutional.  Duh!  Talk about chasing a windmill.

Is this what happens when politicians stop taking their medicine?

S

This isn't going to end well

For those of you who have been napping for the past month, let me update you on world events:

The folks in Ukraine (formerly one of the Soviet Socialist Republics before the USSR went belly-up) are in full-fledge revolt.  They want to align themselves with the European Union as they see that as the surest way for them to grow and prosper.  As it is now they're a sneeze away from bankruptcy.  Russia doesn't want to let go of their influence there, and is pulling the strings of the current Ukraine leader.

Vladimir Putin (aka Pootie-Pooh), the Russian President, is about to blow a gasket thinking about one of "his" neighbors rejecting him and taking up with their neighbors on the other side. He's very possessive, a man scorned, and he's an old school KGB'er at heart....not a good combination.  

Meanwhile back in Sochi, the showcase Olympics that Pootie has spent the equivalent of $50B on is turning out to be a laughable mess.  These Olympics are to Russia today what the 1936 Berlin Olympics were to Nazi Germany; a way to show the world how advanced, modern, and powerful they are.  

So far that isn't working out well.  Their facilities are woefully crude and crumbling and many of the venues themselves are simply inferior.  The Russians are hockey obsessed and care about little else but their team winning the hockey Gold Medal.  Yesterday they were knocked out....humiliated even....in a quarterfinal round.  

Home-grown terrorists are somewhere in the Sochi shadows right now, hoping to cause mayhem.  They have so far been kept at bay only because Russia has stationed a not-so-small army there (for now) to step on them.  All this is taking its toll.  The Russian (read: Vladimir Putin's) psyche has been severely wounded.  

Remember the old joke...."What's worse than shooting at a charging bear and missing?  Shooting at a charging bear and only wounding him."

If the protesters in Ukraine succeed in putting in place a new government that turns it's back on Russia, don't be surprised if Putin does something violent in response.  Or maybe he'll even devise an excuse to physically go into Ukraine before it gets to that to "restore calm".   

Of course the west will respond with a meaningless statement of condemnation, the Russians will curtail natural gas deliveries to Europe (they provide the majority of Europe's natural gas) as pipelines go down for "routine maintenance", and from there....?

Most catastrophes don't start out with one gigantic "boom".  They're usually the result of a number of small things that go wrong and build on each other, culminating in one gigantic boom.  Nobody, least of all little 'ol me, knows yet what's going to happen.  But considering the crude, violent nature of politics in that part of the world, I'm guessing things aren't going to end well.

S