Media Suddenly Discovers Dastardly Destruction Everywhere

 

With the election victory by Donald Trump and his running mate Mike Pence the media has discovered numerous pressing situations bordering on the brink of catastrophes. Suddenly Syria has become a conundrum of crushing confrontations waiting for the President elect while the current resident of the White House faced much lesser problems and addressing this would be asking a bit much. Oddly enough they also realized that Iraq is torn with ethnic strife as well as having much of its territory either occupied or threatened by the Islamic State. They also found that the Islamic State is operating as they please in Syria. Yemen is in the midst of a civil war and threatens a vital waterway at the south end of the Red Sea called the Bab-el-Mandeb. Saudi Arabia and Egypt have split with Egypt now aligning with Russia and Bashir al-Assad while Saudi Arabia continues to fight the Yemen Houthi rebels who are backed by Iran. The Saudis are also backing terrorist groups fighting Bashir al-Assad and some suspect they are knowingly funding and arming the Islamic State through alternate avenues. Turkey’s Erdogan appears to have suddenly gone rogue demanding immediate answers for Turkey’s admittance to the European Union (EU) one day and threatening to turn away any offer from the EU and consider joining the joint trading group organized by Russia and China called the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). There are warring tribal groups contending with terrorist groups and crime families all vying for control of their slice of what was Libya. The Sudan and South Sudan are still fighting and there is a civil war of sorts in South Sudan adding to the confusion. There are terrorists plaguing Nigeria and even Europe is being overrun. Their prognosis is that the election of Donald Trump has caused the nations of the Middle East and Northern Africa (MENA) to explode suddenly and fiercely into frenzied destruction and fighting breaking out everywhere. Additionally, Russia is protecting their ports in Syria, namely in Latakia, and thus also protecting Bashir al-Assad who is ever so slowly regaining control of Syria one costly meter at a time. Wait; Russia has use of a port in the Mediterranean Sea, this is big. Oh how simple things would have stayed had only the voters in the United States had chosen wisely and elected Hillary Clinton.

 

The sudden awakening of the mainstream media to the problems throughout MENA states and beyond is almost amusing. Anyone reading news services from these effected regions have known and spoken with furrowed brows and stern hard faces often using terse terms describing ongoing events which continue to spin further and further out of control. Many have laid the problems at the feet of fecklessness in the foreign policies of the United States over the past decade emphasizing the retreat and resentment at being abandoned left to the scoundrels and other threats without any hope of rescue from those they had believed were their ally and eternal friend. As long as the United States did not have even a dog in the fight, and we mean literally not even a dog, let alone manpower or military forces, these traumatic conflagrations were unimportant as far as the media was concerned. The White House ignored these problems while making the one-off mention brushing aside concerns as if they were nothing more than a hiccup on the timeline of history as the White House was making it. The White House and especially President Obama and his Secretaries of State Hillary Clinton and John Kerry along with Samantha Powers and Susan Rice, the pair were Presidential Security Advisor and Ambassador to the United Nations and then switched positions a while after Benghazi, have all painted the Middle East as there being a situation in Syria and the Israeli-Palestinian problem and if only Israel would make nice and completely surrender to the Palestinians then miraculously Syria would become peaceful overnight as would any other disturbance anywhere in the world. It is as if the only actual disturbance in the force is Israel, so does that make Israel Yoda? Seriously, the Obama White House position has been that Israel causes unrest throughout the Middle East and beyond and it is the Jews residing beyond the 1949 Armistice Lines on lands gained in a defensive war started by Egypt and Syria and joined on day two by Jordan despite pleading from Israel for their remaining neutral. This Jordanian attack led to Israel liberating Judea and Samaria from Jordan’s illegal occupation for nineteen years including half of Jerusalem.

 

Had Syria and Egypt attacked any other nation in the world and had Jordan joined on the second day and, for example let us say they attacked Peru; if Peru in that war had gained the lands of Judea and Samaria, they would have been allowed to retain the lands and even push any non-Peruvians off the lands with minimal complaint from the world. The problem is they did not attack Peru but instead they attacked Israel. There is an effort initiated by the British when they saw that allowing the formation of the Jewish State was going to upset the Arabs they decided to do whatever they were able to prevent Israel from ever coming to fruition. They could do this as they controlled the Mandate for the geographic area called Palestine, a name derived from the Roman name for the area of southern Syria, Syria Palaestina.

 

 

The British after World War I continued to import Arabs to reside between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea with ample assistance from the Arab League and surrounding Arab nations from as far as Algeria though largely from the Sudan, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and even Turkey. This kept the Jewish population below fifty-percent thus never quite fulfilling the requirement of being capable of ruling a nation. In the aftermath of World War II the British had lost their taste for empire and simply wanted to leave the Middle East and particularly the area which was to become Israel. Ever since the British leaving and Israel being founded there have been numerous studies which have shown how the Arab world has designs to be rid of the Jewish State and how often the European nations are supportive of the Arab efforts as though they would love for Israel to fail, they do not have the will to cause such in any manner other than indirectly. Do not misunderstand as the Europeans gladly enrich their lives with the discoveries and inventions from Israeli sources and even have utilized some such as instant messenger programs to support the BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanction Israel) Movement and other injurious acts.

 

Denouncing Israel in the United Nations General Assembly and throughout the various agencies which often act in injurious ways such as when recently UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) ruled that the Temple Mount and surrounding areas have no historical ties to the Jews or Judaism which is a manner of denying the existence of the First and Second Temples and close to two-thousand years of Israelite and Jewish history. And UNESCO comes in a poor second when it comes to denunciations of Israel where the UNHRC (United Nations Human Rights Council) who have denounced Israel in virtually every meeting for the past five years. The General Assemble also has a poor record though there has recently been some small headway with Israel sponsoring resolutions which was passed by a vote of 129-30-8 to set up technical training, global entrepreneurship and sharing of technologic systems through assistance efforts where often Israel and other developed nations share technological advancements in areas such as agriculture and power generation assisting these developing nations making greater and stronger strides toward a bright future.

 

Needless to point out that all these problems, wars, conflagrations and turmoil have existed for much of the past decade and is not a reaction where the world all but exploded because of the election of Donald Trump. We can also predict some of the big news stories and special editions where a story is expounded and enlarged all passed off as news. There will be all sorts of new findings about the rampant homelessness and how people are feeling helpless and cannot seem to find any assistance for their plight. The mentally challenged living on American city streets not receiving their medications and suffering because of the difficulty in receiving proper care will be another feature story, multi-part most likely running for a week or for four straight Sunday night prime time. Unemployment stories will be big initially and the people who are now not considered to be seeking work as their unemployment insurance ran out and they have been unemployed over one year thus are not part of the computations, well, the media will now use a newer and more accurate definition which they will mention softly and in passing once and then count people who have not held a job up to five years, maybe a decade. There will be heartbreaking stories of youths dropping out of school and the United States will have a drug problem once again. There will be heart-wrenching profiles of people being deported for being illegally in the country whether that be overstaying a student visa because you found a good job and who wants to return to the Ukraine about now. There will be stories about how families are on the verge of being broken up as one or any number of the family are here illegally. Many of these stories will be about people who are using the system to press their particular case and many will remain and become legal citizens within a decade, but while they are uncertain their stories play oh so well. Let us leave you with what you may find to be an unbelievably astounding fact; President Obama has deported more people than any previous President.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Nation State or International Integration

 

The election this fall is not about Islamic State, al-Qaeda, Taliban, or other security. It will not be about most of the items the media is talking about. What it is about is the economy, jobs, employment, wages, and everything about the economy but not in the obvious ways being discussed. Where will this next Presidency balance? The main item is which way does it benefit the United States most, continuing internationalism or returning to nationalism.

 

The media and most politicians are pushing this global economy, global integration, global cooperation, global solutions while hiding a dirty little secret, they are selling global as the solution while having the United States and the advanced nations pay for everything while equalizing the global playing field, whatever that means. We had a debate last night and we heard more of the same. Clinton claimed more globalism and taxes on the rich and Trump tried and may have meant to sound like Reagan. What they were not telling the people is that Clinton was using the same internationalism where the world matters more than the United States so in order to equalize the world the United States and the advanced world has to bleed to allow the rest of the world to catch up and then all will be well and how wonderful the world can be. Trump is actually claiming that every nation take their own and put them first and attempt to allow the nations who are leading the world to continue to be the leaders and then assist other nations in making gains and follow and give them access to advances as they are able to implement these advances. So, which way will work best. That depends on which nations one decides should be permitted to advance their own interests than to share with the world.

 

Internationalism is wonderful if your country is on the receiving end and not so wonderful if you are being bled to bring the other nations up to their level. The problem with that are many of these nations that are presumably being given advances in order to raise them to the same level are led by dictators who are enriching themselves and not making their nations any closer to the advanced world as that does not directly benefit them. What these dictators are not being intelligent about is that had they advanced their nation they would have enriched themselves in the process. They are not even thinking nationally rather than internationally. Internationally is a recipe for disaster as it inhibits the leaders from leading and demands that the least efficient be granted the largess while the leaders are placed in financial straight-jackets. Internationalists place a stop sign where all nations must park their own business and park their nation by the side of the highway and wait for the rest of the world to reach an equal position. The problem is that many of these nations, which they are waiting for to reach the same point, are themselves broken and not gaining and will never catch up as they are not even making any effort to reach the next level. Internationalism believes that making all nations equal will solve the world’s problems and inequalities, despite it not ever bringing the rest of the nations to first world status.

 

 

World Map with Borders Deemphasized

 

Nationalism is the opposite view which allows each nation to advance at their own rate and still demands that the first world assist the developing nation but does not demand they try to make equal those nations so dysfunctional that they are the closest thing to an economic black hole as can be found. Nationalism rewards each nation for their efforts and allows each nation to gain at their own speed. Allowing the leaders to lead gives other nations a target and proven path they can emulate but without national gain by the wealthiest nations to blaze the trail for the others to follow. The basis for nationalism is it allows each nation to set their own monetary policies and is against unifying monetary policies as such a system is flawed and destroys the lesser productive nations which has been proven by the European Union Euro which has benefited Germany while leaving Greece behind. Nationalism allows each country to do the best for their own people and society. That does not mean that nations which are developing should not be aided and it is in the interest of the most advanced nations to assist those nations who are developing and making the right choices and allowing them to benefit from the experiences of those nations who have traveled those roads before them. But those nations which are completely dysfunctional cannot be assisted as long as their governance is broken and until the nation decides to change their dysfunctions there is no reason to throw good money after bad.

 

Internationalism is a wonderful, feel-good policy filled of kind words and low on actual results. Internationalism demands that all nations be made to give according to their ability and the funds are granted to countries according to their needs. Internationalism demands open borders allowing free immigration with no limits or criminal and other background checks or other limits or restrictions. The policies sound as if they will allow all nations equal opportunities in word while defining this policy as bringing all nations up to the same level and making things fair for all nations. The truth is that this is accomplished by tearing down the greater nations while benefitting some of the least deserving nations who are corrupt criminal enterprises more than they are actual functional nations. Rewarding the worst while impeding the best prevents progress and will constantly restrict progress and the discoveries of new technologies and new systems which would result in assisting those nations seeking a better future to implement the proven methods. To get an idea on the difficulties caused by internationalism there is a perfect example which we can observe, the European Union. How has that equal currency been working for over half of Europe who are not Germany or Britain but are Greece, Spain, Italy and even France and many of the former Warsaw Nations. The common currency has taken the small differences of economic production where the agrarian economies which work on a different production level having to survive with the same policies of the industrial and other highly developed nations.

 

World Map and Relative Wealth of Nations

 

Permitting each nation to perform at their highest level and to their full potential will set target paths for other nation to follow along the proven road set by the highest performing nations. Progress is the fuel that raises all nations in turn. Progress provides the test paths and allows developing nations to benefit from their more advanced nations but only when they decide to advance. No nation could be forced to grow their economy and advance their national infrastructure and when a nation refuses to advance itself then forcing the rest of the world to wait for such a nation to reach an equative level is ridiculous and counterproductive. Internationalism is wonderful idea if it could function as promised. Nationalism is the dirty sounding word which is accused of being selfish because it benefits the wealthy nations and prevents developing nations from ever reaching the top level. The obvious fault is that accusation is completely false. If nationalism prevented up and coming nations from ever becoming the top nations were true then China would have ruled the world, Spain would be a leading nation, Greece would be the top nation in Europe, Egypt would be the most advanced nation in construction and engineering, Persia would still control East-West trade routes, Portugal would be a great power with colonies throughout the world, and the Hittites would be the great power in the norther worlds of Europe through to Turkey. Top nations change and have changed throughout the history of the world while nationalism was the rule of the world. Internationalism has caused massive stagnation as the world as a whole is not permitted to advance because the leading nations are held back presumably for the benefit of the lesser nations. This will always be a supported philosophy as there will always be more developing and undeveloped nations than leading nations as only a few nations will be in the top ten percent, which is why it is referred to as the top ten percent. Internationalism has been working so well over the past twenty to thirty years since 1979 while the rest of history was pathetic and without economic advancement advances by all nations and we are still using salt as a currency, aren’t we? The progress from salt as money to salt as something on almost every dinner table was a result from nationalism, not internationalism.

 

Compare the two with eyes open and the preferable form, open competition or controlled advancement, the choice could provide opportunity or a slow decadence and eventual decimation. Internationalism is welfare on an international scale much in the form of the Soviet Union and the initial Plymouth Rock Colony which would have starved if not for the Native Americans who grew and hunted for surplus for the winter and had sufficient to teach and feed the Pilgrims. After that experience of all get all they need, while most gave nothing in effort, they introduced a new program where each family kept a percentage of what they grew and the remainder was shared, the amounts of food skyrocketed. That is the balance which nationalism can produce, the most advanced achieve at their highest level and those developing nations learn from those leaders and in time some will replace them as they eventually falter. That is the secret of effort based economies, the people or nations at the top changes with time when another makes decisions which make them even more profitable as the other sinks under likely bureaucratic waste. You decide.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

If Only Americans Would Remember

 

It is a sad fact that the public schools and too many private schools place little if any importance on teaching history, both American and World Histories. The students do not learn about the start of democracy in Athens, one of the numerous Grecian city states before their unification by Alexander the Great. Plato lived amongst the denizens of the Athenian democracy and he saw the tyranny of the majority which he equated with mob rule and thus placed democracy just above tyranny as the worst forms of governance. The deficiencies he saw in the Athenian democratic government led to probably his greatest work on governance, “The Republic” where he devised representative government which would safeguard the minorities protecting their interests from being trampled by the majority while still empowering the majority to hold their proper place of importance in governing. It was partly this work from Plato written before the birth of Jesus that was part and parcel of the governing bodies the United States was fashioned by. There were other political philosophers who were mostly English and some French and the minds of some of the best educated persons in the United States in their day and even then they initially got the balance slightly skewed towards the states in a excessively loose federation and the Constitution was their second attempt and the solution which was decided though imperfect, as anything fashioned by man will be, they felt it was as close as they could get and the amendment process would provide the needful, and only the needful, adjustments to their work.

 

The impetus for the American Revolution is another point which would be very poignant and prescient for students entering the age for voting as the colonists demanded no taxation without representation and were revolting over a tax on tea of 3%, yes, 3% and only on tea. This would seem crazy with the total tax on the average American household reaching from a low end average of 12% to an upper end average of 35%, both many multiples of a 3% tax on one product, even if it was the one product every household purchased as they were still British. That tea tax was the straw that broke the camel’s back and brought on a revolutionary war and the shot heard round the world. It really was as soon after came the French Revolution and other British colonies protesting their taxes but they did so without leaving the realm, at least not at this period of time. Still, free people in elected governments everywhere owe a great deal of thanks to the British aristocracy as they started the entire idea that people had rights. Of course their claim was barons and land owners had rights which they would wrest from the crown with the drafting and signing by the king, after a hard fought war in which he realized he could not prevail as much of his army belonged to the nobles suing for rights, of the Magna Carta. From that document was derived that a King’s power was not absolute but dependent on the advisories and consents of the principled landowners which with the centuries became citizens in good standing and are resting on a precipice teetering towards the consent of all who can claim to be affected by said governance, as an example is the position of certain universalist leftists that everyone on planet earth (for starters we can only guess) be permitted a vote in elections held in the United States as all are affected by American hegemony from which they believe evil begins and a world influence would perfect the nation and its governance. The truth be told, the barons and landowners of 1215 England were prompted by the Bible, in particular the Old Testament limitations placed on kings should the nation of the Israelites ever decide to be as other nations and choose a monarch which they eventually did. These limitations were first set in Torah, the laws given at Mount Sinai in the book of Deuteronomy 17:14-17 which placed the very first laws limiting the powers and impositions of Kings where it read:

 

14When you have come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you, and have taken possession of it and settled in it, and you say, “I will set a king over me, like all the nations that are around me,”
15you may indeed set over you a king whom the Lord your God will choose. One of your own community you may set as king over you; you are not permitted to put a foreigner over you, who is not of your own community.
16Even so, he must not acquire many horses for himself, or return the people to Egypt in order to acquire more horses, since the Lord has said to you, “You must never return that way again.”
17And he must not acquire many wives for himself, or else his heart will turn away; also silver and gold he must not acquire in great quantity for himself.

 

The Prophets went further throughout the Old Testament adding other limitations and requirements for Kings with probably the most humbling and for providing lessons in humility, not that it always had that effect, each King was required to write his own Torah in his own hand and then read the applicable verses for each day at his morning prayers. Of course enforcing this was somewhat problematic as the Prophets power was in his wisdom and the desire of a King to receive wise council but should a King be all full of themselves then they would brook no advice or limitations and would inevitably stray from Torah and the people would suffer under their rule. Should you read the Magna Carta you will see much of it places moral as well as power limitations and demands of the King in exchange for the support of the barons and landowners who also provided the knights for defense of the realm.

 

What is most interesting in the limitations of the Magna Carta was that it was not very much different than the Brexit vote in Britain and the anti-establishment movements in both of the major parties, Republican and Democrat, in the United States. Donald Trump first is not a true right wing conservative which is often the presumed candidate despite their choices since Ronald Reagan have been centrists with the occasional right wing leanings, while the Democrat race was fixed from the start as the party establishment controls close to 40% of the electors so Hillary only needed to garner ten to twelve percent of the remaining electors to win which left Bernie Sanders out of contention almost from the start needing to garner 100% of the remaining electors going into the initial super primary day of March 1, 2016. Truth was nobody was going to disturb the coronation of Hillary Clinton as this was arranged after the 2008 loss to Barack Obama in order to pacify the Clintons and not have them pull their followers and big money donors from backing President Obama in both elections. Still, Bernie made a mess of the centrist game Hillary had hoped to run on and now she is stuck so far into the left wing bleachers that it is doubtful she can find center field by election day and even if she should she will find one Donald Trump already there and not out of breath from the long run from the bleachers.

 

Donald Trump & Hillary Clinton

 

With taxes at record levels since the Carter Administration it is little wonder that the people are seething against the party elites. They have watched their taxes rise to support programs they did not desire and with record numbers of illegal immigrants and the back alley importation of tens if not hundreds of thousands of Middle Eastern “refugees” being hidden in small communities so as to attempt to secretly skirt the main cities and thus not upset the ignorant masses as they would never figure this out with the internet and all the other means for news to reach the people, even the most insulated voters. Their secreting the “refugees” into small communities and largely in states which vote traditionally Republican and that Hillary would not need in order to win in the Electoral College, they hope that nobody will know their little dirty secret until it is too late. Remember that Hillary is promising that the United States has not done enough and she plans on increasing the importation of “Syria refugees” by one-hundred-fold. That would mean she plans on bringing tens of millions of these so-called refugees and believe me she means to do exactly that. The Democrats want to make America failed through and through with no possibility of ever making a recovery. That is not to claim that The Donald would be any form of savior, but we are sure there are many who after researching the third party candidates who are seriously voting Donald Duck or Porky Pig, but may we suggest for amusement sake we all write in Daffy Duck as long as some of us are choosing a duck and avoiding a Donald?

 

Kidding aside, the coming elections for President of the United States and for the makeup of the Congress have never been as serious as they are this election. After eight years of “leading from behind,” the time is ripe for a resurgent America to return roaring onto the scene. Allowing Europe and the United Nations to lead the way on the world stage is tantamount to treason for endangerment of the nation and, with that, the world. Never has a nation left as large a vacuum at the top with the closest comparison being the fall of the Roman Empire which is what allowed the first Islamic Expansion and another is obviously imminent with Europe ripe for the taking if their collective trees can be shaken at their core. Eastern Europe is still emerging as they recover from their Communist Dark Ages while Western Europe teeters on the edge of liberal poised suicide as they stand frozen with fear as their nations prove as vulnerable as their flags pictured below. Their churches deserted and Mosques sprouting in every town, village and neighborhood and where the call to prayer five times each day have replaced the tolling of the church bells echoing in the countryside. Still, there is time for Europe to pull themselves together and defeat this rising hatred seething within their bellies and extinguish the fires currently spreading across Old Europe and soon to threaten New Europe.

 

 

If ever there was an election making the “None of the Above” vote we have previously suggested be adopted by Constitutional Amendment, this election is it. The way the system would work is to win the election or electors a candidate would be required to surpass 50% to gain those votes or gain office. People would have all the candidates listed plus a slot in each elected office for “None of the Above” which would count in the total to find the 50% figure. If “None of the Above” got 20% of the vote then a candidate would be required to garner at least 72% of the remaining votes to surpass the 50% threshold. Should “None of the Above” receive one-third of the vote then the needed would be a full 75% of the remaining votes. Obviously this would force the parties to come up with candidates the people truly would want to vote for as they would have an out should neither party and third party candidates really appeal and this would also make third party candidates more likely to get a second look if the main parties gave the public choices such as they have in the mind of many Americans with the Presidential race.

 

So, voter discontent ran overboard in both of the main parties. The party which valued the choice of their public ended up with a novice real estate developer and investment underwriter who often goes off the rails when unscripted and has an ego larger than Alaska and is an anathema to many of the elite in the party itself while the other party had absolutely no confidence in their public so they ensconced a near majority of their delegates under the tight-fisted control of the party elite requiring whomever the elite chose to get such a small number of delegates that Daffy Duck could have won with such support. Still, even with the elite support, their candidate came out bruised and damaged heading into their convention while the other party had few well known names support them and speak at the convention as they were likely still trying to figure out where they ran off the tracks. So we have two third party candidates either of which would be a comfortable fit with one or the other of the Democrat Party contestants for their spot on the ticket, one with Hillary and the other Bernie in our humble opinion, a Democrat who was promised her turn to try and be the first woman President, also her strongest running point, and the Republican a left of center ego whose id is probably just as attractive as that ego and perhaps if he promises to listen to his subconscious, he would appear a safer bet. That’s your choice America, have at it.

 

Beyond the Cusp