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Category: Politics and Government

What the United States Government Doesn’t Say About Iran

September 17, 2019

Just did a refresher study on the exile and last year of the (second) shah of Iran. Was specifically interested in it’s effects on U.S. relations and global stability then and now.

As we already know, Great Britain and the the United States through the CIA with a little help from France perpetrate a coup d’etat in 1953 to topple the democratically elected prime minister of Iran, who had run on a platform of not giving away Iranian oil to Great Britain at below market costs anymore. These three western powers then reinstall the Shah of Iran’s son into power and reinstate monarchic rule in iran. Just what the Iranian people wanted. NOT. Great Britain, France and the US form a new big oil conglomerate from all this free oil they’re about to come into and call it BP, British Petroleum. In exchange they will prop up and support the monarchy in Iran militarily against the wishes of the people and keep down any revolts.

And so begins a renewed relatively stable alliance between Iran and western nations. Iran becomes more and more westernized. Brits move there in droves to run the oil plants. Iranian kids go to British schools and learn English. Highways and streets in Tehran are renamed Eisenhower Boulevard and Kennedy Street.

After a few decades of watching the so called “royals”, elites and western nations blow through all their wealth and natural resources the Iranian people begin to get angry. Like revolution angry. It’s the 1970s. The situation is not helped by the fact that a well educated and well spoken radical Islamic cleric named Khomeini is constantly preaching revolution from exile in France, encouraging the people to rise up against western domination. Protests in the streets begin, calling for an “end to control by America”.

In the late 70s, the presidents of the United States, Great Britain, France and Germany secretly meet in Guadalupe to discuss what they’re going to do about the Shah because their oil contracts are soon to expire and they don’t want to start paying more. Do they depose the Shah? Take him out? Support him and squash the protests and use their support to bargain their prices low for another 50 years? Before they can decide they’re informed that the Shah has cancer from one of their informants. Ah hah! Perfect! Let’s not support him during these turbulent times, we’ll force him into exile and put someone else in power who will give us even more control and lower oil prices.

It’s getting dangerous for the Shah now. He calls his US and British allies to ask for help and they inform him they won’t be able to help him. He should leave if he has to. So he does. First to Egypt. Then Morocco. Then the Bahamas. Then Mexico. By now Khomeini has returned to Iran as a revolutionary hero. Promising an end to monarchy, western rule and a return to democracy. He very quickly kills everyone ever employed by the shah’s government and names himself Supreme Leader for Life. He obviously had watched Star Wars one too many times.

By now the Shah is very sick. In his defense, US president Carter, though he ruthlessly betrayed his ally for his country’s selfish gain, did want to help the Shah in his illness. But the Iranian people were not going to tolerate the US harboring the Shah, healing his illness and then reinstating him again in a year or two. So they stormed the American embassy in Tehran and took a bunch of American hostages and demanded the Shah return to face trial and a return of all the Iranian assets that the Federal Reserve, the US Treasury, American banks and American corporations had seized during the protests. (Some of this money was eventually returned to Iran by US president Barack Obama 40 years later, who also acknowledged and apologized for the 1953 coup, which is what created the current mess the Iranian people are still in today.)

President Carter at this point just wants those American hostages back. He realizes he made a huge mistake by ousting the Shah and allowing this Islamic cleric Khomeini to waltz in and take over Iran. But he cant get enough of his colleagues to agree to give Iran all their assets back. So the hostages are stuck as pawns there in a dangerous political game. The Rockefellers, who are holding billions of Iranian assets in their banks, don’t want to let go of all that money but they do offer to provide doctors and medical support to try to save the Shah’s life. So they secretly fly him to New York. An operation is performed. It’s botched. He gets sicker. They then become fearful the American hostages will be endangered if they continue to help the Shah. So they fly him to Texas and then force him on Panama, using the recently completed Panama Canal deal as a bargaining chip. But Panama too is afraid of retaliation by this crazy mad Khomeini. So they cut a secret deal with Khomeini to extradite the Shah back to Iran to stand trial and be executed.

But Egypt’s Sadat swoops In to rescue his old friend and offers him sanctuary in Egypt. So off they fly to Egypt. The Carter administration calls Khomeini and says “we’ve put the Shah on a CIA plane to Egypt. We’ll trade you the Shah for our hostages. Do what you want with him.” Obviously getting cheap oil is no longer a priority. And neither is loyalty to longtime allies.

The US suddenly brings the plane down on some Portuguese islands in order to secretly hand the Shah over to Iran without telling him (they tell him they have to refuel. They dont), but Khomeini doesn’t trust the U.S. so the deal gets broken at the last minute. The Shah ends up back in Egypt. He very soon dies from complications from his botched American surgeries. The Ayatollah Khomeini does eventually release the American hostages but waits to do it until Carter is ousted from Washington just to twist the knife a little and make his point clear.

He believes he may have found at least a frenemy in new US president Ronald Reagan, who very soon will militarily and financially support a newly American installed ruthless dictator in Iraq named Hussein who is immediately and secretly ordered by the US to attack and overtake Iran. Which he does. In the 8 year Iran-Iraq war. Of course, Reagan, not wanting to play favorites also secretly supports Iran by supplying them with weapons of war to kill the Iraqis, assuming that no matter who wins they’ll just become their ally and help them get rid of the other guy. They both have plenty of oil after all.

Eventually this plan backfires as both countries begin to realize that neither of them want to be subservient lapdogs of the wicked western imperialists. The US eventually takes Iraq out 20 years later. Along with a few other pesky Muslim nations. Only Iran remains, steadfast in their desire for self deterministic rule and autonomy, albeit under excruciatingly unhappy circumstances under a brutal authoritarian rule.

There’s more to the story. There always is. But it all goes back to ‘53 and ‘79. American greed, selfishness,

very poor judgment and ill advised strategy. And here we all are. Happy days.

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Alternative History, American Terrorism, Current Events, Human Rights, Politics and Government, Terrorism 1953, American hostage crisis, American imperialism, Ayatollah Khomeini, Barack Obama, BP, British petroleum, CIA, coup d'etat, egypt, Iran, Iran Contra Affair, Iran Iraq war, Iranian revolution, Iraq, mosadegh, president Carter, Reza Shah, ronald reagan, Saddam Hussein, Shah of Iran

Remembering September 11th Eighteen Years Later

September 11, 2019

When it first happened I was at a spanish language school for a semester down in Costa Rica. With a bunch of mainly Europeans. We watched it happening live on the news like everyone. The Euros immediately jumped at the chance to make comments like “serves them right” or “it was only a matter of time”. And though I understood the sentiment, it was too horrific for me to go down that path in that moment. I was more in shock, and worried about all my friends in NYC.

The only other American at the school, a college kid named Heath, and I got called to the American Embassy in San Jose, where we stayed with a bunch of other Americans, tourists and fishermen mostly, for a number off hours. Eventually released and told it would be a few days before we could fly back to the US. Told not to go out and cause any trouble. Keep a low profile.

So off we went to a brothel where we spent the next two days passing the time trying to drink and fuck the pain away. What the Euros at our school didn’t understand was that although we were every bit as aware of and cynical about the last two-hundred years of violent American imperialism, America was still our home. Americans were still our friends family and neighbors.

When i got back to the States we hit the studio to finish working on the Sleep With You album. But we interrupted those sessions to record a song to help donate to various 9/11 charities. That songs being “Rebuild America”. What I was taken with the most back then was how resilient the country was in the face of such a horrific event. How much it unified us. We didn’t get down or depressed. We got all flagged up, amped up and proud. At the time it felt better than going dark.

So the song ended up being more patriotic and uplifting than our normal fare. I still find it hard to believe that a song called “Rebuild America” is associated with us/me in any way. If you would have told me five to ten years before that that I’d have a single out in the future called Rebuild America i would have asked “is it ironic? Did I lose my mind? Or go mad? Did i lose my cool?” If you would have then replied “no not at all. America got attacked. Like Pearl Harbor scale attack. You did the song in earnest.” Yeah. Perhaps I would understand.

Critics used the song as easy pickings to chastise me for a few years after. Implying that it betrayed “coolness”. Perhaps it does. But I don’t regret it. Because it was real. You had to be there. I always thought that was a cheap shot. Because that event was such a viscerally upsetting moment for many of us. And we needed the release. Regardless of where we lined up on the political fence, it hurt.

There was, looking back now, such a strong subconscious react to that kind of intense shock and violence that manifested in extreme positivity and patriotism. Even for those of us who knew the dark seedy underbelly of United States foreign policy. I had never seen anything like it, that kind of avid patriotism. Maybe Rocky IV Cold War era stuff.

Of course it all went down hill quickly from there and we turned all that patriotism into more violence and empire building. Used it as an excuse to finally take over the rest of the Middle East region of the globe sans Iran, and Saudi Arabia, where the attacks actually originated from, but as they say thou dost not shit in your own backyard and the United States has had Arabia in its backyard for fifty years. Hence allowing one little family to prop up a dictatorship and add their name “Saudi” to the name of an entire country. Disgraceful. But whatever.

further on down the road we learned about the dubious nature of the events themselves… and many now believe it to be an inside job. See the documentaries called Loose Change on youtube. But for a brief moment at least we saw potential in America. It just didn’t last. Very sad.

I saw the planes crash into us

I saw the people cry

I saw the buildings come crumbling

I saw the rescuers sigh

I saw the president weep

On national TV

I saw the volunteers sweeping

To clean the New York City streets

As we try

Yes we try

To rebuild America

The land of our fathers

The land of our mothers

America

We are not alone

“Rebuild America” by Ed Hale & the Transcendence

youtu.be/sf8W8CEJaSs

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Activism, Current Events, Music, Music Videos, Politics and Government, Terrorism ed hale and the transcendence, 9/11, 9/11 tribute songs, ed hale, September 11th, songs about 9/11

A President Should Be Presidential – On China Trade War and the Federal Reserve

August 31, 2019

REALITY CHECK: While many (including myself) agree with the US president’s stance on China Trade, specifically the need to stop forced technology transfers and IP theft (the trade imbalance is not actually an issue; certainly not one that can be or ever has been solved through a race to the bottom tariff war. Trade imbalances between nations of different sizes have always and will always exist. Attempting to equalize Trade monetarily is ill advised. The US president either doesn’t know this yet or refuses to acknowledge it publicly), all who actually work in business, finance and economics wholeheartedly believe that he, and we, would be much better served if he stopped attacking and blaming Jerome Powell and the Federal Reserve for the extreme volatility in global bond and equity markets and the general economic slowdown and instead acknowledged that it is indeed the current trade war with China.

Main-streeters may be entertained by these daily twitter shenanigans (since when is a US president allowed to tweet? Didn’t President Obama have to relinquish his BlackBerry when he took office?) But Wall Street, economists and big business are shocked and horrified. There’s something palpably disturbing about having a commander and chief who knows less than you do about business and finance. Which is why markets have been headed nowhere or down for a year and half and why global bond yields are tanking.

Just because someone is standing in front of you confidently asserting they see a pink elephant doesn’t mean there’s a pink elephant in the room with you. No matter how many times they scream or tweet it. There is never a time when it’s not important to remember this.

The biggest economic conundrum the United States faces at the moment regarding interest rates is that economic conditions are doing well by all measures that The (not)Fed uses to address its dual mandate of maintaining stable inflation and keeping unemployment low. The United States is at record low unemployment. Even by the president’s own accounts… And yes this seeming disconnect in his understanding of basic economics is frustrating. And disturbing. So the (not)Fed has absolutely no realistic fundamental reasons to lower rates based on their long running mandate.

While it’s true that the global economy seems to be heading toward a recession, or worse (over 30 countries now have negative yielding interest rates — with a record 15 TRILLION dollars in global debt that is yielding negative interest! This is historically unprecedented in human civilization), and many now have inverted yield curves (including the US)), the US is still doing impressively well. Meaning lowering rates is not justifiable.

Further rate cuts by the US central bank based solely on other countries’ lowering theirs may excite markets for a day or two, but will ultimately lead to a sell off as investors lose faith in the US central bank’s normally independent, rational and clear headed process. It could also lead to a very fast race to the bottom of treasury rates globally, gut savings and retirement accounts, castrate bank’s’ ability to make money, and further exacerbate the growing global economic slowdown. At that point the world would no longer have the US economy or markets to run to. And THAT would be a major problem considering it’s the last TINA Trade left on earth right now to grow money.

Furthermore if the world does continue to shrink economically and the Federal Reserve suddenly needs to actually lower rates or resort to QE again to save us from impending doom, they’ll have no ammunition left if they lower rates now in a “booming economy”. It’s an illogical argument. And it’s sad that there are decent hardworking Americans out there who are literally learning about these issues from someone who’s either extremely ignorant about them or overtly attempting to deceive them. It’s blatantly irresponsible.

So… what to do? Because most informed people agree with the noble goal of addressing the problems with China trade, most support the president’s courageous attempt to do so at this time. Including me. Tariff wars might not be the best way to do it. Historically they’ve rarely worked. But just starting the process is a good intention. Can’t fault him for his willingness to take this bold step. He’s swimming in uncharted waters. And despite our political leanings he needs our support. Just as we need his.

What he needs to do is stop tweeting insults, attacks, false facts and conspiracy theories and instead sit down behind his desk on live TV and address the nation, to honestly and passionately tell the American people and the world how important this battle is, why we’re doing it and that we all need to pitch in and prepare for some serious pain now in order to secure a better fairer trade agreement with China for our future.

If he did this, the confusion would abate and so too might the market volatility. Hell, markets might even rally just to show support for his newfound diplomacy and honesty and the stability it portends. In addition he might even rally the American people to unify for even a brief period while we face this important challenge. Just a thought.

— Ambassador out

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Current Events, Economics, Politics and Government, Wealth Finance and Investing bond yields, China trade war, Donald Trump, Federal Reserve, global negative yielding debt, inverted yield curve, Jerome Powell, negative interest rates, POTUS, recession, treasury markets, United States president

The Most Effective Manner Of Democratic Self Governance

August 18, 2019

On a recent post on social media about US president Donald Trump one could see 376 Comments. Almost all passionately and harshly bickering with each other over their ever widening partisan divide. 376 Comments?!? That’s a lot of time, attention and energy. All so valuable. Perhaps an assessment of how we are collectively allocating our resources is in order.

A president or prime minister is put simply a reflection of the sentiment of a majority of any given population in a nation state at the time. It is important to remember that. There are others. No one party or platform or group of people has a monopoly on being right. This “rightness” usually exists somewhere in between both extremes. It strikes one as odd how few people seem to realize this when it comes to politics and religion. Especially in the context of everything we have learned and know from a study of our shared human history. It is this forgetting of such a basic truth that has been causing wars amongst human civilizations for thousands of years.

In reality there are both noble and harmful goals being aspired to and enacted by almost every country’s leader in every administration. The people’s’ primary goal should not be to choose sides and defend their candidate’s agenda in its entirety to the death, but rather to step back and monitor the leader’s actions individually as a concerned citizen and protector of their country and its constitution, irrespective of partisan politics. Upon doing so the individual will quickly see that the job of that person is so mammoth and overreaching that the partisan bickering of the populace does nothing but

distract that leader from being able to do their job effectively.

Donald Trump may be one of the most adored and despised presidents in US history, but precisely because of that he is also surely one of the most challenged when it comes to being able to effectively govern. This is never a good thing for a people, lest those people forget that the world is watching and the world is a very competitive place with plenty of bad actors who harbor no good will towards other countries they perceive as competitors.

Instead each individual has an obligation to rise above their emotional partisan leanings and objectively voice their viewpoint to their elected government officials in agreement or dissension of said agenda and actions to help guide and steer the ship of their country’s path forward, That is how a people can most effectively help govern their country of residence.

If for a moment we assume that most people are simply incapable of this high-wire act of both agreeing with some goals of their president and disagreeing with others, due to their impassioned emotions creating an inability to see the bigger picture importance of effectively governing a nation, it still behooves these same people to minimize the effort they put into complaining and bickering amongst themselves and instead focus their attention and energy on actions that help sway the direction of their own governance by said elected officials.

Even simple actions of some substance — a letter a phone call an email a petition starting a non profit or NGO or PAC or a Thoughtstorm group — are better than arguing in the public square. This is the keen understanding that people who lead have had for thousands of years of human history. This is why they are the leaders. There are a multitude of effective substantive actions that every individual in the United States can be taking right now. All vastly more valuable than arguing on social media.

Many in a country’s populace have big juicy noble goals. Though sometimes those goals directly conflict with those of their fellow citizens. This is where democracy and compromise come into play. A mutual respect for civility and democratic ideas that continues long eras of peace and sustainability in a civilization.

Laws can always be overturned or amended. (Think the abolition of slavery in the US.) Disrespect for the law, such as dismissing the validity of the results of an electoral process, or lawlessness most often leads to chaos self-destruction and fascist or communist overthrow. [study the Napoleonic overthrow of France and half of Europe after their alleged people’s revolution on Bastille Day — a still-shocking and vital lesson in the importance of and need for respect civility organization and democratic principles and infrastructure.]

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Superbacana

July 3, 2019

Three days ago I heard the song “Superbacana” by Caetano Veloso for the first time… or at least it was the first time that I “heard” it, really listened to it. It blow me away. It’s off his Tropicalia album, the one that really shook the earth beneath all of Brasil and started the whole Tropicalismo or Tropicalia social and political movement there. (Along with equal contributions from Gilberto Gil and Os Mutantes and Tom Ze and Gal Costa and others.

Anyway, I do what I always do. I listen to the song ten to twenty times in a row, analyzing the lyrics and the poetry of the beautifully perfect Portuguese language, still in my opinion the most poetic of them all (and yes, being Italian and speaking Italian and French and Spanish etc. I know what a betrayal that may sound like… but there’s just something transcendent about this language, both in how it sounds to the ear and in how the words and phrases are strung together…. Obviously a subjective thing. I’ll give you that.) I then do a quick translation to English to see if I missed anything. Wow, what a fucking song that is. Simple. Fun. Light-hearted. On the surface. And yet still a Dylanesque social protest song. And the way he spits the lyrics out so fast. Truly genius.

Then I spend three days transcribing the chords, listening to it over and over again. Searching the internet for anyone who has ever transcribed the chords to just get some help with it. But no one has. And this song is 50 years old! I WhatsApp a friend of mine in Brasil to ask him about the song. He tells me “yeah bro, not many people know that song. Not even here in Brasil. It’s only hip with super hip people. It’s not like a popular song, like so many of his….Good luck with that. But I really hope you figure it out, because I can’t wait to hear you sing it with your strong funny Portuguese accent!”

I’m going to include some links below so you can listen to the song on YouTube. Because it’s just that good. Bear in mind, it’s 1967, so it still has elements of that orchestrated pop of the sixties, plus elements of the popular bossa nova style happening in Brasil at the time (think Tom Jobim) and yet it also has this frantic rock ‘n’ roll vibe to it and a sort of folky protest theme to it as well. A very hip tune. The whole Tropicalia album by Caetano is brilliant. A definite must-have.

When you analyze the lyrics, basically Caetano is saying “You all act like you don’t even know I exist, but I believe you’re pretending. Not only do you know I was born, but you also know that I am super fucking cool. (Superbacana literally translates to “super-cool”). And he uses the song to rally against the bourgeois class currently occupying Copacabana and the government with all their big spending on technology and other things that he doesn’t believe help him or the people of the country. But in the end he and his people are still super-cool regardless.

When I first discovered it, it reminded me of the song “ManChildWoman”, the way he’s just overtly bragging, very rock ‘n’ roll swagger… Which I admit I do a lot of from time to time in certain songs… It’s all in fun…. Just to catch a groove and ride it. But after studying the song more, I believe there’s more to Caetano’s “Superbacana” than just empty bragging like “ManChildWoman”. Truly. It’s more Dylan. The bragging is more asserting his existence against an authoritarian regime that refused to acknowledge their existence for so long. It’s a life or death kind of “I believe in me” type of thing. Whereas I was there when I wrote “ManChildWoman” (at least I think I was…as much as I could be considering…) and there was no life or death vibe in my mind. I remember. It was more just “I believe in me mother fucker yeah!” They both have their place. It’s rock ‘n’ roll. It’s all important. As important as rock ‘n’ roll can be.

I’m still trying to figure it out. Learning the chords. Trying to learn the phrasing of how he spits out those lyrics so fast. It’s a brilliant piece of work.

Anyway, check it out. It’s a hip tune. Truly special.

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Activism, Music, Personal Life, Politics and Government Caetano Veloso, ed hale, ManChildWoman, social protest songs, superbacana, Tropicalia

Making Sense of the First Democratic Debates – Proposals and Policies – Part 1

June 29, 2019

Before we dive in to the specific platforms and policies that we heard proposed in the first Democratic Debates over the last two nights, let us address a few things that may have been left out or only alluded to in the last piece I wrote about the candidates yesterday [Read that here if you missed it].

Prologue

I’ve given this some thought over the years…. So from the start I’d like to attempt to share it with you. It’s no secret that I have often been accused of being “wishy washy”, i.e. refusing to take a position on a variety of subjects, not decidedly having an opinion, as most people seem to. On a whole host of matters. This is something I share with a very good friend you’ve heard me reference here in the Diaries many times, Matthew Sabatella (occasionally referred to as Toad in earlier years when these Diaries were more a workshop for the novel The Adventures of Fishy. And with Madeline O’Ryan. We spent our youth teens and twenties often ruminating and philosophizing on a whole host of subjects, finding it very difficult to understand the consciousness of those who could readily just make up their mind on something and give it no more thought. We found, and still do I believe, that important matters often have multiple facets that affect many people.

Despite what you may think you believe, research it a bit more or give it some more thought and you’ll find that it’s deeper and trickier than you first were led to believe. As a Philosophy major and a recording artist this way of being served me well, certainly didn’t hurt me, and in fact led to the whole “Ambassador” ideology that helped shape who I am today. I truly subscribe to the Will Rogers “I never met a person I didn’t like” mentality. Of course this infuriates both my liberal and my conservative friends. But it’s just how I was genetically spun. It’s how I came out. It serves The Ambassador very well. Ed Hale, maybe not so much sometimes. But I just happen to love people, and can usually find it pretty easy to see their side of things… and I just happen to be able to see all sides to almost any issue. They’re all just beliefs after all. Beliefs that we make up in each present moment. Whether we know it or not. (That’s really the secret. But that’s not what this post is about.)

Some people decide to be leaders. They want to be leaders. Some of them choose politics as their way of leading. In the old days, throughout our short history here on earth, these political leaders usually started out as corrupt thieves, conquerors, murderers and warriors. That’s human history in a nutshell. Study it. Royalty is a fancy way of attempting to legitimize being a heartless and corrupt thief and murderer. So too are most major religions. And most of human history’s most famous political leaders. Whether you start at the very very beginning with humanity’s first known “king” Sargon the Great, or the Egyptian Pharoes, through to the Akkadian, Babylonian and Persian kings or Alexander the not so Great, Attilla the Hun, Gengis Khan, Julius Caesar, all the Popes, the Sultans, the Ottomons, the English kings and Queens, etc etc on down the line what you find is a very bloody list of horrible human beings. more “Making Sense of the First Democratic Debates – Proposals and Policies – Part 1”

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Ancient History, Business and Entrepreneurship, Consciousness Exploration and Expansion, Current Events, Economics, New World Order, Politics and Government, Psychology and Human Behavior, Wealth Finance and Investing American imperialism, China Trade Tariffs, conquerors, democratic debates, Democratic Platform Policies, Donald Trump, issues, kings, North Korea, platforms, policies, political leaders

Thoughts After the First Democratic Party Debates

June 28, 2019

As is already known, I don’t associate as either democrat nor republican. I’m not much into exclusive clubs, Especially not ones that box you into very specific agendas of their choosing. And especially not ones whose very specific agendas contradict each other and don’t even make sense half the time but still force you to pretend you agree with them in order to be a member. It’s just not my scene. Even though, yes, it tends to be the scene I run with most of the time due to what I do for a living. But with that said, in general I lean a lot more Democrat socially and in spirit than I do republican. Just as I lean a lot more republican fiscally, financially and economically. This makes me a confusing and frustrating anomaly for most who know me personally. I refuse to not call out the corruption and contradictions I often see in the democratic party, the unfair duopoly both parties hold over the American government. And I also tend to be accused of being a “republican apologist” due to my belief in “state sovereignty”, states rights, and the freedom of the individual to create the community of their choosing without federal government intrusion. It’s a respect thing for me. This frustrates the hell out of most of the people I know, who God love them, just want me to choose a side and be done with it. (Some people call this Libertarian. I call it Ed Hale.)

The truth is that two years ago I found the republican debates horrifying on a personal level. It was as if someone had collected and marched out the absolutely most ignorant, ill-informed, close-minded and heartless people in America onto those stages in order to illustrate what the underbelly of America still looked and sounded like. The result was terrifying if you were an intelligent, compassionate liberal free thinker. Watching those debates was traumatizing. The fact that the unwashed republican masses went gaga over the most ignorant, loudest, ill-informed and rudest of them all was even more so.

(But to be fair, I had been warning for years that under the Obama administration America had become too liberal and too politically correct too quickly and was losing touch with a large majority of its citizenry who were no longer feeling the least bit represented by their government and the result was going to be a severe revolutionary backlash against this establishment. And that’s exactly what we got. In the form of Donald J. Trump. People in blue states and on the coast tend to forget that the majority of America is still largely composed of traditional conservative Christian people who view the Reagan years as much more preferable than those of Obama. Like it or not. (We had our chance to let them loose and be left with our own much smaller more intelligent and compassionate country 150 years ago, but (some could argue that) for economic reasons Lincoln wouldn’t allow it. So for better or worse we’re all stuck with each other. A living breathing highly split and polarized organism that shares very little in common and has very little that unites us. In reality, we are two very different groups of people. We’re more like two different countries who just happen to share the same continent; more like the European Union.)

Flash forward two years and the last two nights on the other hand, and the effect was entirely different. From the get go the first thing that you were taken with was how intelligent and compassionate those democratic candidates were and are. Wow. What a difference. Two years ago the democratic party was so completely sold out to the Clintons and their DC power machine that they didn’t even consider allowing anyone else to run for president, let alone debate. In reality, Bernie was their revolutionary hero, the one who could beat or at least challenge Trump. But they were too caught up in all the money and power they had collected from the Clintons — and all the promises made to collect that money — to even notice it. So they blew it. Big time.

This time is different. The democratic party, like the republicans two years ago, have shed their old skin and just want to win. So they’ve opened the flood gates and are allowing anyone and everyone into the tent to get their two cents in, regardless of how ridiculous it may seem. In Yang, we’ve got your classic Herman Cain character. More there for show and inclusionary reasons. Marianne Williamson, someone I know personally and happen to adore, was an interesting set piece for sure, but can probably step down whenever she wants to without causing too many notice. Biden, God love him, is their Jeb Bush. White, traditional and as “aw shucks folks” American as they come. And to be fair, he may be the democrats best chance of pulling in all those purple state voters who Hilary lost two years ago. But the point is, that tent is OPEN for business to anyone who wants to enter and tend their wares.

A lot of you have messaged me in the last 48 hours to ask me what I thought and who I liked from the debates we witnessed. I’ll do my best to answer that question concisely and as thoroughly as I can in the brief few minutes I have this morning.

At least half of the candidates presented in the last two nights can politely step down now. Or be removed. There’s just no need for them. The democrats don’t need to put on the show that the republicans did two years ago. Remember, the republican establishment did not want Donald Trump to be their nominee. Not even a little bit. They fought hard against him. The problem was that the republican party members, the American people who call themselves republican, did. So the party itself continued to march out every last person they could find and throw them up on those stages in hopes they could find someone the republican voters might find more appealing. But it was obvious from the start who the voters preferred. They were sick and tired of eight years of progressiveness under Obama and they wanted nothing less than revolution. Ironically the revolution they were looking for was a return to the old fashioned Americana of Ronald Reagan. And in that loud mouthed, rule breaking, non-traditional traditionalist Donald Trump they saw their man, party politics be damned. The democrats could have learned that lesson along the way… It was obvious to the rest of us from a mile away.

The last two nights were different though. What a difference two years makes. The path of destruction that Donald Trump has left in his wake in his short time in office has effectively almost completely demolished the America of old. Many are traumatized beyond repair, many more are in a constant state of fear or madness, frustration, anger, sadness, depression, shock, awed, stupefied. It is difficult to recognize the beloved republic. Not just to us, but to the rest of the world as well. People from all over the world keep thinking “surely they’ll do something…, yes?” But we don’t. We endure. Because, again, many of us forget that there is still a large majority of American people who like their president and what he stands for. The jingoistic isolationism, the no-holds-barred post-fact world of ignorant tweets. The constant barrage of blatant lies disguised as rugged truth telling. The John Wayne-like gunslinger braggadocio that reminds them of the Old West of yore.

Luckily this has set a fire beneath the feet of the democratic party. And just in time. If we as a republic can survive the next two years, and that’s a big if the way we’re headed, we stand a chance of reclaiming this once great country back and at least some of the values we and the rest of the free world once held dear.

In the first debate, the only two candidates I saw who should even bother staying in the race were Elizabeth Warren and Corey Booker. Warren of course doesn’t stand a chance against Donald Trump in the General Election. He’s too wild janky and free. He will frazzle, unravel and destroy her. It won’t be pretty. And truth be told she’s just too anti-capitalist to appeal to enough people to win the hearts and minds of a majority of Americans. People forget that America was founded on free market, do it yourself capitalism. On the idea that ANYONE can start a Microsoft or a Google or a Facebook or an Apple in their garage or college dorm room and become a billionaire. We like this idea in America. We thrive on it. It inspires us. Our laws protect and encourage it. The rest of the world envies it. We may not have the protections offered by socialism or communism, but there’s reason for that. The absence of big government in our personal business every minute is what enables us to dream up and create the next Netflix or Slack or WeWork. God bless American capitalism. Elizabeth Warren, for all her good intentions — and there is no doubt that she is full of honest and sincere good intentions, needs to learn this or she will never make it to the end of this race.

Corey Booker I have always had a soft spot for. He’s honest, sincere, well informed and smart. I could easily see him as POTUS one day. Always have. I just don’t know if this is his time yet. Not after what I saw last night. But I sure do love Booker and look forward to calling him president one day.

Last night I saw the revolution, the democratic party’s Donald Trump. And his name is Bernie Sanders. Maybe it’s his New York bred confidence and loudness. Maybe it’s the fact that he is unabashedly unafraid and unaffected by politics as usual. Maybe it’s the fact that he’s on fire with a mission that a hell of a lot of other people agree with, saying out loud what a lot of us have been thinking for decades. Who knows. But he should have been the candidate two years ago. Forget that his admitted socialist agenda stands firmly against half of what we stand for as a country…. Sanders is out to remake America. The same way Donald Trump was. If it worked for Trump, it could work for Sanders. If Trump is that cranked up half-cocked crazy cowboy who rides into town shooting first and asking questions later just for the hell of it, Sanders is that jacked-up courageous Sheriff who stands firm with his hand on his gun shouting “Don’t you DARE fella!”

And don’t worry. No president can remake America on their own. It takes a congress and a senate and a supreme court to do that, and they’ll help balance the bulldog out a bit so we don’t go full on EU overnight.

I also saw another shining light on that stage. And her name was Kamala Harris. Wow. I didn’t know much about this candidate before last night, I admit. But what I saw I really liked. There is just something about her that stands out. Call it that X factor that cannot be described with words, despite innumerable attempts. She reminds one of Barack Obama. Maybe she comes out ahead of Sanders by the end of this race. But I doubt it. The best chance the democrats have of retaking America from Trump and all his craziness — unless he ousts himself through just being himself (which there’s a damn good chance of, let’s face it…), would be a Sanders/Harris ticket. That would be something that even I could get behind. I’d be willing to jump on that whacked out revolutionary socialist bandwagon for the exact same reason so many mild mannered republicans were willing to jump on that sketched-out tweaky Trump bandwagon. Politics as usual has made me sick. And I’d do just about anything to be rid of it once and for all. I truly believe Bernie wants the same thing.

More later. We need to review the actual policies proposed over the last two nights. Because there’re a lot of problems there. And we’ll do that in the next installment here. Stay tuned.

 

 

 

 

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Consciousness Exploration and Expansion, Current Events, Politics and Government Bernie Sanders, corey booker, democratic debates, donald trunp, elizabeth warren, joe biden, kamala harris, Presidential Election

Occupy Seattle Rally

June 15, 2018

Ed Hale at Occupy Seattle Rally. Downtown Seattle, 2011
Ed Hale at Occupy Seattle Rally. Downtown Seattle, WA 2011
Ed Hale and Princess Little Tree Occupy Seattle, WA
Ed Hale and Princess Little Tree Occupy Seattle, WA

Today I woke up and quickly but begrudgingly remembered that there was an Occupy Seattle rally happening downtown. From where we live, way out in the rural burbs (one would be hard pressed to call this the burbs truth be told… houses are separated by blocks if not miles and the nearest store is a few miles away…) I was well aware that trekking to downtown Seattle for an early morning march would take about an hour. Besides all the prep work and getting showered and dressed. Seemed like a lot of work and honestly I just wanted to sleep in. But the thought haunted me…. Was it really okay if we just skipped this rally? More apt, would WE be okay if we just skipped it? How would we feel afterwards? It didn’t feel good.

more “Occupy Seattle Rally”

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Does the National Debt Even Matter in the Age of American Empire?

May 25, 2018

CBS News revealed today that under Trump’s watch, the U.S. national debt tops $21 trillion for first time ever. Click here to read.

Twenty-one TRILLION dollars. That’s $21,000,000,000,000. A lot of zeros. The largest national debt in the history of human civilization.

To be fair, this has very little to do with Donald Trump. That’s just CBS playing politics as usual for clickbait. Trump hasn’t been POTUS long enough. Though some might argue that the historic tax break legislation that he and the republican led congress just passed helped contribute to this staggering imbalance (and will add even more to it down the road). But many will also jump out of their SUVs to blame Obama for it. And still others will point to the fact that the George W. Bush administration and their endless “wars on terror” are what really ramped up this new trend in American over-spending. All would be right.

Not that anyone likes thinking about this topic, but what I tend to contemplate a lot regarding the mind boggling National Debt figure above and its ramifications is that statistically we know that once a country’s debt reaches 60% of its GDP, that country historically plunges into a deep depression or even falls apart into panic and chaos, unless it institutes extremely painful “austerity” measures (think cutting back on spending for the most basic of people’s everyday necessities…). Which often leads to bloody revolts and revolutions.

(People generally don’t like starving. And more apt, humanity has reached a new era where many believe that they have a right to being taken care of by very big governments and they have deliberately voted in governments who do just that. (Think Socialism or Communism). And some might even point to modern day America as well. What are commonly referred to as “Entitlements” or “social welfare spending” has reached an epic sixty-some percent of the annual budget in the U.S. It didn’t always used to be this way. It doubles how much is spent on defense, for reference. (Although the U.S. still also manages to spend more on defense (think weapons of war and Intelligence) annually than all other nations on earth combined.)

Even when a country enforces strict austerity measures on its people for years at a time in order to try to pay down its debt, it still often presents numerous challenges to ever escape the clutches of the growing interest payments, it’s currency turns near worthless and it finds itself unable to end the death cycle. more “Does the National Debt Even Matter in the Age of American Empire?”

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Current Events, New World Order, Politics and Government 8000 u.s. military bases in 80 countries, acts of atrocities since world war II, China owns more U.S. bonds and debt than any other nation, global dominance, Iran, national debt, New World Order, nuclear weapons, the age of american empire, United States

Does Noise Trump Truth In Present Day America? (And Other Revelations from the Mueller Investigation)

May 23, 2018

A new survey released today seems to imply that a majority of Americans are completely unaware of the criminal activities uncovered thus far by the Robert Mueller investigation of their 2016 presidential election. See the full story here.

Regardless of which side of the partisan fence one might reside in (even if one identifies as being firmly in the middle), these recent poll results regarding the Mueller investigation are compelling. One might conclude preliminarily that the “reality star” effect of the Trump presidency may be more powerful than anything fundamentally true, real or factual.

And that could be a trend we would surely not prefer when it comes to our government or governmental employees like Mr. Trump.

This would seemingly, and hopefully, apply despite how much one approves or disapproves of the president, his policies or his performance over the last year and a half. Pomp, bluster, controversy and noise should never outweigh a people’s ability to see and measure reality. In a perfect world at least. Though that’s certainly never seemed to sway us in the past in regards to political figures.

The question is, have we crossed over a new threshold this time? Has our national obsession with celebrity (over substance?) eclipsed our more adult senses of reason and rational judgment? And to be clear (and fair) one recognizes that Trump is not America’s first experimental “celebrity as president” or “president turned celebrity”. Think Obama or Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan or even JFK.

But with that said, is there something inherently unique or different about the cult of The Donald in terms of the office of American president? A blindness to something glaringly irrational and unreasonable that only a few can see? Or is it business as usual? That’s not a question that’s easy to answer if one stretches beyond the scope of partisan leanings or bias. more “Does Noise Trump Truth In Present Day America? (And Other Revelations from the Mueller Investigation)”

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A private little world for me… a private little world for you. The online journals and musings of singer-songwriter author and activist Ed Hale. The Transcendence Diaries have been posting regularly online since 2001. Comments are always welcomed. And so are YOU.

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