As monkeys see, I find that monkeys will do…

 

Strong personalities rule the world. What do I mean by “strong personalities”?  I mean “leader types” versus “follower types.”  Without follower types, leader types would be up the infamous creek without a paddle, and with no one to follow them. Leaders need willing followers to, for better or worse, get their positive/negative agendas passed. 

This phenomenon can be seen in all walks of life. From office politics to world stage politics, strong personalities set the tone for the rest of us. In every office I’ve ever worked in, and I’ve worked in many, I’ve seen it in action. If our office had a positive influential (strong personality) leader, things ran smoothly. If we had a negative influential (strong personality) leader, hardly anyone got along, and everyone pretty much hated their job. Just as the media can, I believe strong personalities can “make or break” any system, in that way.

Let’s look at the world stage now. Take the last five-ish (I’d call them hellish) years. What’s happened to the U.S. society with the strong negative influential leadership in Trump?  (When I say "negative," I believe I speak for the bulk of the world here, according to international polls.)  What’s happened is that we’ve devolved; taken those “two steps back” versus any single steps we’ve managed to take forward up until now. And why?  Because of a negative influential strong personality leader in one Donald J. Trump.  

Like the dysfunctional office, we are not happy campers.  Everyone is suspicious of everyone else.  No one wants to work together toward common goals. We all “want out” from the “opposing thumb” of the other.  But we can’t get out (of the world). It’s our permanent “office.”  

So where am I going with all this?  Well, I want to know what YOU think is the fix to our status quo:

First, do you think the status quo even needs fixing?  If yes, where do we find positive strong personalities to lead us out of the dysfunction?  

Do you see Biden, now, as the strong Yin to counter Trump's ongoing nasty Yang?  Or, has Biden no hope of undoing the influence of a heretofore strong negative personality leader?  

Has the cement now hardened and any “positive influence ship” has sailed, never to return back to port?  Where is our Roy Cohn Hundredth Monkey to save us?  If s/he exists, who is that influential positive leader?

Thanks for posting and recommending.

The Cost of the Reset

As I build and write code for little smart gadgets I wonder how much of this work will become swept up and destroyed along with all the rest of everything in the wake of what is coming.

My little Library of Alexandria, yours, your family's - they're about to burn.

We're staring down the business end of catastrophic social upheaval and the possible end of democracy in the United States as we know it. That doesn't come without cost.

All of the stupid, hidebound and relentlessly paternal white supremacy, pretending to be complacent when it is coddled, will destroy everything the minute it is threatened. 

And it is threatened. Demographics is a dragon no ideology can slay. 

And here we are, as awful and frustrating as it is inevitable, the backlash of white power against the threat of a multiracial dominant order is determined to destroy everything rather than cede any ground.

You. Me. And not just us, but anything we create. Because when they want to destroy what you represent, they won't just come for you, but they'll come for everything that in any way reflects you.

We're going to let it happen because we must. What we see as stupid and willful ignoring of an existential threat by the powers that be (such as the Biden admin and Merrick Garland in particular) is just them hopelessly following the math of it. We need the reset, as much as a volcano eventually needs the eruption. We can't contain it forever, and we're at the point now where the center doesn't hold. 

We all have a role to play. Theirs is to play the part of the Weimar Republican leaders, ours the German citizens some of whom can see what's coming, but are no better for it, and the opposition fascists to be played by the the GQP.

It's all going to burn. We're well past votes fixing anything.

An update: The fall of the rule of law

The Biden administration is making it clear that it will not take the rule of law seriously. It is now actively protecting the ex-president from prosecution for his crimes. The Washington Post writes:

For Donald Trump’s entire presidency, top congressional Democrats used every tool at their disposal to investigate the Washington hotel he leased from the federal government, issuing subpoenas, holding hearings and filing a lawsuit to try to bring the inner workings of Trump’s luxury property to light.

The efforts were framed as a defense of democracy itself. Rep. Peter A. DeFazio (D-Ore.) said the Trump administration’s refusal to provide documents “was not just disconcerting but an affront to the democratic institutions that the United States has been founded upon.” Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney (D-N.Y.) said the lawsuit, filed in federal court, was “in pursuit of justice to make sure our committee can fulfill its duty to the American people.”

None of it worked — a testament to Trump’s willingness to fight at every turn. But now, with the Biden administration in place, Democrats’ efforts to unearth and make public the information haven’t gone much better.

Biden’s team has steadfastly defended some of the protections the Trump administration put in place to conceal Trump’s financial interests. The Justice Department under Biden is appealing a lower court judgment in favor of the congressional Democrats in their suit, another move by the agency to defend Trump-era legal positions. Biden’s General Services Administration, which holds the lease for the Trump International hotel, has provided only a portion of the documents Congress is seeking and asked that none of them be disclosed publicly.  

White House spokesman Andrew Bates declined to comment.

Since there is no explanation from Biden or the Department of Justice, one can assume that they are corrupted or subverted and maybe somehow coerced into protecting the crook. We are on the verge of the fall of democracy and the rule of law, and neither Biden nor the DoJ is willing to stand in their defense. The fascist GOP has no interest in the rule of law except to apply it to attack their political opposition. Biden and the DoJ are actively betraying us by cementing corruption and criminality as politically acceptable precedents. From here on out, a president really is above the law. A pox on Biden and the DoJ.

Afghanistan update: American incompetence, cruelty and arrogance is on display

Shoaib Walizada, who interpreted for the U.S. Army for four years, was among those turned down. “I get phone calls from the Taliban saying, ‘We will kill you’ — they know who I am and that I worked for the Americans,” he said.

Once the US is gone, there is going to be a bloodbath.  The New York Times writes:

KABUL, Afghanistan — It was an offhand comment, blurted out in frustration. It may have destroyed Shoaib Walizada’s chances of earning a cherished visa to the United States.

Mr. Walizada, who interpreted for the U.S. Army for four years until 2013, said that he had complained one day, using profanity, that his assigned combat vest was too small. When the episode came to light later that year, Mr. Walizada’s preliminary approval for a visa was revoked for “unprofessional conduct.”

Mr. Walizada, 31, is among thousands of Afghans once employed by the U.S. government, many as interpreters, whose applications for a Special Immigrant Visa, or S.I.V., through a State Department program, have been denied.

“I get phone calls from the Taliban saying, ‘We will kill you’ — they know who I am and that I worked for the Americans,” Mr. Walizada said. He has delayed marriage because he does not want to put a wife at risk, he said, and he has moved from house to house for safety.

The slightest blemish during years of otherwise stellar service can torpedo a visa application and negate glowing letters of recommendation from American commanders. In the last three months of 2020 alone, State Department statistics show, 1,646 Afghans were denied one of the special visas, which are issued to applicants satisfying demanding requirements and rigorous background checks even though interpreters would already have passed security screenings.  

Among reasons cited for denial were the failure to prove the required length of service, insufficient documentation, failure to establish “faithful and valuable service” and “derogatory information.” (emphasis added)

About 18,000 Afghans have applied for the visa they need to get out of the country. They now live in fear of being hunted down and slaughtered by the Taliban. Meanwhile, the US blithers, dithers, fumbles, stumbles and bumbles around at its arrogant, incompetent leisure. The now-inevitable tragedy just comes closer and closer.

A rot of arrogance, incompetence and mean spiritedness infests US military and State Department mindsets and operations. Apparently, fixing this is beyond the capacity of Biden and his administration. The US is projected to be fully withdrawn by mid-July. 

The fascist GOP has no interest in fixing things like this. Their priority is breaking things and establishing a fascist state, not fixing what is broken. The moral rot and the evil in American policy and operations is clear to see for anyone with the moral courage to actually look. So, a bloodbath it will be.