Keeping it simple

The other day, I saw in a comment thread someone mention the following quote:

“The world always makes sense.  If something doesn't make sense, you don't have enough information. “

I did a quick search and couldn’t find who the author might have been.  But this comment brings to mind something that doesn’t make sense to me.

Yesterday, DT & Co. made a comment that the American Media is the “Enemy of the American People”.  Bill Maher made a video wherein he lamented over the nonsensical fact that the GOP, the Party of Patriotism, once the Defender of America, has flipped into the Party of Critics of America, who now support our once arch nemesis, Russia.  And all without so much as a mention or a bit of regret or so much as a facial tic.

DT & Co.’s remark is a slap in the face of the Constitution and one of the most important rights enshrined in that document - so important it was placed into the First Amendment alongside the guarantees of religious freedom and the freedom to petition the government and the right to gather with like minded people - the guarantee of a free press.

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”  

There it is, right there.  Enshrined in the Constitution, in the Bill of Rights, a document supposedly sacred to the Right Wing and Republicans.  Yet, when DT & Co. denigrate the press, calling it the Enemy of the American People, do we hear a peep?  A gasp?  Something of a facial tic?  Nope. Nothing, nada, nichts, not even the slightest of peeps.

None of this makes sense.  

Here we have a man whose entire life is a stain on the American business world, whose tactics are the epitome of capitalist greed that sparked the 19th century limitations on the worst of those peoples’ practices, such as the laws against monopolies, who both woos the press on one hand yet calls them Enemy of the American People on the other.  A man whose personal life has been a prime example of the evil that christianity and Jesus’ teachings have railed against for centuries.

And yet both the GOP, as the party of the Defense of the Constitution, has voted for and backed this man fully, even as he begins the process of dismantling the democracy the Republicans have supposedly devoted its life to protecting, and a huge percentage of Evangelicals - those devotees of Christ - not only voted for, but still enthusiastically support and defend.  In spite of his flagrant violation of the values Christ supposedly preached, thus destroying Evangelical credibility in moral issues.

Forever.

Yet, why?  What makes that support for Trump worth it?  Worth in fact, condoning violations of the Constitution either group would have condemned outright not two years ago.  There may be some answers, and none of it will make you feel good.

John Podesta, Hilary Clinton’s chief of staff, said this today:

“Trump is deploying a strategy, used by autocrats, designed to completely disorient public perception,” Podesta wrote. “He’s not just trying to spin the bad news of the day; all politicians do that. He seeks nothing less than to undermine the public’s belief that any news can be trusted, that any news is true, that there is any fixed reality.” 

Podesta compared Trump’s aggressive stance toward the media to Russian President Vladimir Putin, the autocratic strongman whose government U.S. intelligence officials believe ordered the hack into Podesta’s email account during the campaign. 

“He is emulating the successful strategy of Vladimir Putin,” Podesta wrote, cautioning that Trump’s behavior puts the U.S. “in danger of experiencing an information void like Russia,” where people are so cynical that they “hear something on TV and assume it’s a lie.”

In the op-ed, Podesta urged Americans to “maintain a heightened vigilance” and be wary of things they read on social media, but also “be wary of any effort, particularly from the White House, to disorient or discredit reliable information.”

Journalists, in turn, must continue to fact-check the White House, he wrote.”

Trump has been accused of mental illness, as well as being incompetent.  This view makes the assumption that he is neither, but is working a plan.

Does the Republican party have a plan?

I don’t think so, but somebody else does.  Back on November 18th, I posted an article entitled “Once more into the breech!” in which I first noted this idea that our true enemy is the Corporatists, who are members of the 1% engaged in a long term conspiracy to turn this country into an Oligarchy.  One of the techniques in getting there is exactly what Trump is engaging in, according to Podesta.

Remember the first rule in examining something and looking for an answer:  the KISS Principle, also expressed as Occam's razor.  No need for long, complicated conspiracies, or convoluted multi-level plans.  The simplest is most likely to work, hence is more likely to be the best explanation.  The more complexity, the more likely points of failure there are.

In this atmosphere today, when the Chief Executive is doing his best to confuse, confound and create chaos, it is perfectly normal to be exactly that - its’ the intent, after all!   That;’s why we need to be alert, be aware, and on the lookout for clues to what makes all this make sense.

In the meantime, keep your other eye on the ball - the corporatist ball!

Once we have enough information, it’ll make sense.

Once more into the breech!

I know this election has a lot of people on both sides upset. Either over the results, or other people’s reactions to the results. Democrats are fighting tooth and nail to determine who will run their party going forward, and so are the Republicans, especially now that they’ve got a President elect who they are fearful will be both unpredictable and uncontrollable.
Politically, this country is looking more and more like a third world country. The only thing missing is the entry onto the stage of armed militias shooting at each other.
Give it time, though, I’m sure that’s part of the plan.
I’ll bet a whole bunch of folks are wondering why. Why can’t our politicians get it together? They’re smart people, can’t they understand what the REAL problems facing this country are? Sure, they may have differences of opinion as to how to deal with them, but it’s always been that way. Why the chaos NOW? What’s changed?
One word: money.
No, not bribes, although there is certainly enough of that floating around the system.
No, this money is coming from people Bernie Sanders has warned us about. The 1%. The wealthiest people in this country, who control the Corporations that basically OWN most of the politicians that run this country.
You see, the 1% didn’t get there because they’re stupid. They got there because they were largely born into it. There may be a few, like Bill Gates, who wasn’t, but he doesn’t count, since he’s guiltily giving most of it away. The 1% know that if we all knew who was behind this, that they wouldn’t last past the next election, and they are determined not to give up that power. In fact, they want ALL the power.
So, how are they doing that? Simple, they’ve got you and I fighting EACH OTHER, and mostly unaware that we are fighting the wrong people. Our opponents aren’t Republicans or Democrats. Take a good long look at the policies both parties have been implementing. (forget abortion, that’s not in their playbook) Haven’t you seen and heard a lot of folks expound that both parties are “the same”? If you’re Democrat, you respond that of course not, Democrats care about the little people. If you are Republican, you respond, no, we’re nothing like those Socialist bastards!
But, if you sit back and dispassionately look at what both parties have been DOING, you can get past the rhetoric.
Years ago, Republicans began to target unions. Democrats resisted at first, but eventually gave up. Today, fewer than 15% of American workers are covered by union contracts. Republicans targeted Welfare, and in Bill Clinton’s years, they succeeded in drastically reforming that, to the dismay of a lot of Democrats who simply had failed to fight it. Then they targeted labor through NAFTA, again, with Bill’s help. Since then, jobs have fled overseas at alarming rates, thanks to that and other trade agreements that have slashed the protections for American jobs. Democrats have either failed to fight those, or actively joined in.
Don’t even get me started on tax cuts, or slashed budgets which have crippled the Federal (and State) governments’ ability to provide services.
Today, one can reasonably point to the Democratic Party and call them “Republican light”. Which was a legitimate complaint about Hillary Clinton.
But stop and think about it. Why? Why would Democrats ignore and abandon their core constituencies (labor, the working class, the middle class) in favor of Republican policies which have so harmed those groups that almost all of them had enough people angry that Hillary Clinton couldn’t get enough Electoral College votes to win? Why would they abandon their core ideology?
The answer is relatively simple, but because we’ve been lied to and mislead and misinformed for decades, we don’t know who the real enemy is, or even, what to call that enemy! You see, in order to understand anything about someone - especially if that someone is an enemy of yours - you’ve got to know who he/she is, and key to that is knowing what the characteristics are that bring them together into a group.
Then you’ve got to know what to call them so you can TALK about them. It’s gotta be catchy and short and descriptive.
Bernie Sanders calls them the 1%. That’s both short and descriptive, but it isn’t enough, because it fails to lump together the groups that are on their side and doing their bidding. Folks who follow their “ideology”, if you will.
I use the term “Corporatists”, because it describes the corporations the 1% owns and use as their primary tools. They are the entities who support with cash the PACS and SuperPACs which contribute so much cash that has corrupted the political system. It describes the politicians, of either Party, who also support them and gladly accept all that cash just to stay in power.
Since the 1% actually control the Corporations, even the publicly “owned” ones, it describes the people who are behind all this chaos.
Is Trump a Corporatist? Nope. Don’t make those rich folks laugh. He’s a tool, hoping to be allowed into the lowest echelons of the club by playing his role. He has fooled the Republican leadership. He has fooled the Republican rank and file. Hell, he was describing himself as a Democrat less than five years ago. He is neither. He is a tool of the Corporatists.
His function is to contribute further chaos and confusion into the system, in order to advance the old Republican accusation that “Government doesn’t work!” by getting in there and throwing as many wrenches into the system as he can. That will frustrate Americans even worse than they are, and eventually, the Corporatists - not the Republicans, although you may be fooled into thinking the guys who declare that are - will be able to declare government to be so bad, so non-functional, that it will be the duty of the Corporations to step in and “lend a hand” to put things back in order.
By then, we’ll all be so angry and frustrated by our representatives’ failures that we’ll grasp at any straws which promise to fix the problem.
Kinda like Republicans did with Trump.
No, Republicans and Democrats, at least the rank and file of each Party, are most certainly not enemies. We should be out there starting a third party by lending so much support, the two major Parties collapse by the sheer weight of all the folks who abandon them. We should be supporting anyone who is willing to set the goals of such a Party as fighting the corporatists in favor of the American people.
Forget all the current catchwords of our past. Forget the term conservative, or liberal, or Independent. Forget Socialism or Capitalism. None of those describe the fight we should be fighting.
We need to toss out the Corporatists, elect Representatives who will represent US, the People and not them, the Corporatists. If we manage that, then we can discuss the best ways to advance OUR welfare, OUR economic success. The best ways to fix our infrastructure, our healthcare system, our political structure for determining who best represents The People. To fix the Economy to ensure that all people will be paid enough to live on, and eventually, to retire on.
If WE can manage to define the fight, then the other side is automatically on the defense, and we have the advantage.
That should be our goal. Not letting our real enemy continue to put us at each others’ throats.
That’s the way to Oligarchy. Dictatorship. The rule of the many by the few.
Don’t let them divide us. That helps them, not us.