Republican Disarray After Trump, Only if They Blow It

 

There have been numerous articles attempting to discern exactly what the Republican Party will be like after its foray with the Donald. They try to figure what effects he is going to have on the candidates for the House of Representatives and the Senate as well as State races for legislatures and governorships. There are all different levels of panic to excitement. Some are excited thinking that the increased voters may mean a stronger voter turnout which will raise all candidates as these voters are most likely to vote for the party ticket rather than only voting for Donald Trump as that is the easiest path and these are lower information voters who are more likely to just pull the single lever for the Trump party rather than voting for each office individually, an occurrence the Democrat Party is more familiar with than are the Republicans. This is a new and untested ground for the Republican Party and more so than most will ever know. Has anybody actually bothered to ask the Donald if he is really willing to surrender control of all his companies and real estate interests for four or possibly eight years placing them in a trust where he will not be managing his holdings? I mean seriously now folks, can anybody see Donald Trump walking away from his wheeling dealing which is really what he lives for. Does he in the end really want to be President, or are we watching the dog caught the car by the rear wheel and now is stuck driving the car? He will be the center of attention between now and the end of his term should he actually prevail, something looking more certain as the clock ticks down to Tuesday. There is where the drama will peak and Trump will do the unthinkable and still hold the future of the Republican Party in his hands and he will play it for maximum exposure of the Donald before he makes the final fateful step which will astound most of the pundits, the media and the entirety of the Republican Party, win the day carrying the House of Representatives comfortably and give the Republicans a minimum of fifty-seven and possibly as high as 62 in the Senate. Yes, Donald Trump could be sitting in the catbird seat with a filibuster-proof Congress if the Republicans can find their way to work with him. Not to worry, they won’t.

 

Of course all this is pure conjecture but in one manner it would be wonderful to see a true and total Republican Congress with the same theoretical license to do whatever they can agree upon just as was the case for the Democrats for the initial two years under President Obama. Thankfully the wheels came off of that cart fairly quickly and before the world ended and the destructiveness was mostly repairable with Obamacare needing the largest repair, removal and replaced with a completely open system countrywide for all insurers with take and carry benefit for all plans. There could be options for tax breaks for companies paying percentages of employee chosen plans giving everybody total control. Returning to major medical plans with a basic plan required for any insurance that would cover Emergency Room, Trauma Center and major surgeries with rate of coverage set by a board of major hospital directors chosen every five years by the top five-hundred hospitals by some pre-set formula which would include their accepting Medicare and Medicaid pricing as set by the board and approved by Health and Human Services and the Senate also voting as if this were an actual treaty requiring a super-majority. This would guarantee bipartisan agreement. This base pricing could be used for a national defined plan which all insurers could use as their guideline for a general basic coverage plan.

 

The one part of such unilateral Republican control is there would no longer be the excuse by the Republican leadership of, we did not have the complete control of the House, the Senate, power to end filibusters or, their favorite, we did not have the White House. No more excuses and just let the Congress show the world what plan the Republicans really got! Turn them loose and let the legislation fly. Not to worry folks, they will hit a log jam within weeks, more likely days and even within hours or minutes. They would, in a word, choke. The main problem the Republicans suffer is the one thing Trump offers to teach them, bravado. The Republicans are afraid to lead, timid and only comfortable pointing out what is broken in their opinion and then lamenting their inability to do anything about the problems. Given total control they would continue to shuffle their feet, looking at the ground, mumbling senselessly, wandering around lost in the wilderness of their own making. They have no dynamic leadership. They did once under Newt Gingrich and the Contract with America, a plan. Imagine that, an actual plan laid out, defined and actually almost followed. Eventually the Republicans did what they do best and shot down their leader because the media picked him apart while they watched on playing the helpless damsel in distress sobbing over her miseries as their presumed White Knight was pounded into the mud by professional muckrakers. What leadership has the Republican leadership or the rank and file shown with their control of Congress as they have handed President Obama victory after victory with budgets including every item with every dollar as requested? One would have at the very least thought they might have, at the very least, demanded more money spent investing in improved care through privatization of the Veterans’ Administration’s healthcare system changing it to an insurance plan open to any and all insurers with guaranteed rates equal to Medicare system rates. This would have freed the veterans to receive care locally, virtually anywhere other than living in a log cabin in Nowhere, Montana. They might have fought to end the downward spiral in defense spending when compared with all the increases in Welfare, Food Stamps and Unemployment costs or demanded that $15.00/hr. minimum wage for military personnel and their pay scale to be based on a forty hour week plus ten hours overtime pay (trust this infantry veteran, most soldiers, especially the privates, work at least an average of well over fifty hour weeks with extra duties such as guard duty, going to the field, weapon training plus yearly qualifying, physical training plus annual testing and a myriad other additional often busy work). These would have been easy initiatives and would have placed a spotlight on some actual problem situations and not on men who claim to be women using any bathroom that fits their life-choices.

 

A complete Republican victory with Donald Trump as President would not necessarily be the disaster the media has painted. Remember, this is a media which has gone step-for-step with every single idea the Democrats have suggested and even initially carried the water for Obamacare and are now backing the Democrat plan of government run healthcare exactly the same that the following countries found to be impossible to afford; Britain, France, Canada, Germany, Russia and any other where the tax rate is under 80% of income with allowances for food, housing, clothing and transportation. When the government allows refunds for food, housing, clothing and transportation; they are dictating how you live and all but defining what you are permitted to spend on food, housing, clothing and transportation. Does such a system sound good to any regular-work-hard American? That is the European Plan that President Obama and a President Hillary Clinton are targeting for America and with a European level military unable to afford ammunition to train with. When we read articles reporting that NATO national military personnel are required to run around in training exercises yelling, “Bang, I shot you, you’re dead,” and that passes for training, we worry what is wrong with these countries. What is wrong is they are not responsible for their defense, the United States is responsible because as NATO defines itself it goes something like this; from each nation as they can provide, from the United States whatever is required to complete the task any NATO nation leaves hanging in the wind. Force the United States to train yelling, “bang bang, you’re dead,” will leave the Western World vulnerable to conquest using swords as swords are a superior weapon to a rifle without bullets, and any invader will have real rifles with real bullets and will not react by claiming, “you got me,” after a NATO soldier screams, “bang bang, you’re dead.” Trust us on this one, really.

 

The choice comes Tuesday, the counting will take the rest of the week unless the victory is definitive, the lawsuits another month or two and the appeals even longer. There is a possibility that the inauguration just might take place on the perfect Saturday, April 1, 2017, April Fool’s Day, and it will be the biggest joke, bet nobody will be laughing, they will be too darned sick and tired. Sick and tired of the wasted time, money and credibility. Sick and tired as the American Representative Constitutional Republic will have been assassinated and lying next to death’s door in desperate need of some serious reckoning. So sick and tired that it is doubtful she will receive the necessary attentions and restoration of faith in the system, the leaders, the nation any time soon. That is the saddest thing about this fiasco disguised as an election. The disgust may be made more palpable by the apparent lack of decency, competence, qualifications and general revulsion one or both candidates elicit from each member of the electorate, but they are not the source of the revulsion, just one more product of the end of America.

 

This was not the original target for the end of this piece, but we rarely end where we started. The disarray coming after this election will encompass both parties. They have each been laid bare for all to see the rotted core filled with the diseases of hatred for the other, distrust of all, the required demand for the lowest expectations, the lowest denominator as the norm and the lack of desire, nay, even ability to repair that which has been left to fall into disrepair. People will ask how things got here and the answer is an easy one. Just open your eyes and look around you and for all that is holy take off the rose colored glasses, the beer goggles, the fractured lensed party glasses and put down the weed, booze, drugs, sexting, or whatever consumes you that is in that little box you so feverishly share everything that amounts to the nothing that is your current life. Too many of us are lost and are too busy becoming even further lost to notice. We started down this road when our materialism surpassed our reason and replaced our faith, well, became our religion. Hashem, The Big Guy who made all of it, or so we used to believe, was put aside for just a short while as we worked harder for that new car. After the car we moved for a bigger house, then that little vacation cottage, those new computers, stood all night in the rain for that next must have gadget, the newest i-Phone, and on and on endlessly until we forgot completely about Hashem.

 

I was right there with many and got lost in living for the now and for the me. Sure, we all peeked up every so often, glanced around, did the traditionally right thing and then dove back in. We lost religion because we had science and a new religion, human rights, animal rights, right to anything and everything while forbidding others from deviating from our chosen things because we, our group knew better than any other group. We pressed for laws which made our cause the right, moral and now legally enforceable right. There were a few hiccups as differing views clashed. The big issues were such as but not limited to abortion, guns, marijuana, free healthcare, free college, minimum wage, military size, military weapons systems, war and peace. The eventuality due to high demand lives and higher taxes both parents worked and in some families one parent worked two jobs, had to keep up the old image, you know. Flat screen television, fifty-two inch display, 3-D, 7.1 surround sound, build on a theater room for the next party, it was never going to end and then we wondered why we had a coronary.

 

Meanwhile, who had time to assist with homework, providing we ever made time for having a family? Time and interest in the children’s schooling also fell by the wayside and the PTA became the teacher’s union more so than a shared parent-teacher relationship. The schools gave us what we wanted, good grades though often so inflated as to be meaningless. They left real schooling somewhere back a ways and replaced it with social programming of our youth who now knew of the evils of capitalism but were unable to define it, global climate change, racial inequality, gender inequality, LGBT life choices, and the new relativity, not Einstein’s but moral, gender and ethnic amongst others. Multiculturalism became the watchword where no single culture was preferable to any other and that included the tribes of cannibals and headhunters, communists and socialists, anything but that one dreadful, awful, despicable culture, Judeo-Christian culture, the old ways that built Western Civilization. No, we had to move beyond our little corner and our petty ways and go and try those other cultures which were all equal while all were preferable to the old way, that demanded far too much civility and culture need not be civil in order to have a civilization.

 

The Narrow Path

 

The new multicultural civilization would embrace everything different than our past, that civilization was built on faith and decency, or so it claimed. Faith was long dead; humiliated from the town square and who was it that got to define decency. Assuredly we could each define decency for ourselves, provided it was not defined in the morality based on that old book we had presumably discarded long ago. The children were prepared to forge that new world whose foundation was firmly planted in shifting sands which were so undefined and meaningless that everything was near collapse. We were approaching the cusp and beyond the cusp was a great and bottomless void. The edge had watched many a great civilization fall beyond the cusp to fall into the darkness never to return. This was how greatness of civilizations died, not from withering attacks but from withering within. They first hollowed out the principles upon which they were built and then with the inner structure destroyed, they simply collapsed from their own weight. They all died from their internal injuries, one after the other marching straight into the abyss awaiting their eventual arrival as they passed beyond the cusp. They all had lost their way and strayed from the narrow path turning right or left, it matters not as the cliffs of ruin line both sides and one can pass beyond the cusp going either way, right with dictatorial systems controlled by a single lunatic or left where a horde of self-proclaimed wise men act just as need of an asylum as the single loon and who rush beyond the cusp into the void with equal abandon. The path is as pictured above, narrow and perilous for any who lose their compass and stray from the good path, the narrow way.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Our Economic World is Shakier Than We’ve Been Told

 

The mainstream media, especially the European Media, are all the news all the time covering the Greek economic meltdown. Some of the more honest media has also included the crises that could be soon to topple as if dominoes all in a row of which Greece is but the first domino to be tripped to fall and they have shown how Spain and Portugal would be precariously hanging and soon toppled partly as a result of Greece’s defaulting though it might be likely they would have fallen eventually all on their own. These would trigger a crisis in Ireland and Italy as to which would be the fourth victim and which would follow as the fifth victim signaling the end of the most endangered Eurozone nations too close to default to be comforting. The real horrific effect of these five weaker economies finally tripping the default cable and snagging the economic webbing, which has held the European Union and the Euro together since 1999, doing irreparable damage to the delicate webbing, more fragile than the most slightly laced spider’s web, tearing enormous holes in its intricate weaves slashing at the most vital threads and upsetting the ever so precarious balance that underlies its supporting structures threatening to unbalance and collapse even the previously though stable economies of France, Poland and many of the other east European economies possibly pushing them right to the cliff-face and potentially tipping them beyond the cusp and into default thus lacerating the last remnants of the Eurozone and possibly taking with them Germany and the ECB (European Central Bank) causing unimaginable damage to the financial structure of Europe and beyond, the ripple effect causing a second deep recession well more serious and taking longer to tank-out and hit bottom and then begin a long sluggish scent clawing for every single Red Cent and Dollar and Euro after having taken its toll on Asia and beyond. But the Euro, Greece, and the rest of the European Union and the Eurozone is but one whirlpool looking to sink every last economic boat.

 

The Euro is what we have been led to believe is the only threat. Where previously economic ships only had to worry about rising and falling tides, now they are adrift and facing not just one whirlpool representing the Euro dying, but now there is a second even more massive whirlpool coming from deep within Asia. China has hit the road’s end and is attempting to push its enormous mountain of debt using a garden trowel while piling on fresh debt using Caterpillar 990K series front end loader shoveling an additional $19.3 billion in an effort to end their three week slide totaling $3.2 trillion downturn in the past three weeks alone. These losses were the result of a Chinese Stock Market where as many as two-thirds of the stocks were frozen in a further attempt to stem the torrents of dollars flowing from their stock market and their economy like the icy waters which flooded the lower decks of the Titanic as she slowly but inexorably fell beneath the waves, something somewhat prophetic for the Chinese markets and economy. There is actually a comparison between the situation in Greece and the downturn in China as one must remember that Greece is as socialist as a nation can be without being either fascist or Communist and Greece has retained their spirit of a democratic Parliamentary system despite it all but China has taken socialism that one final step to communism, the addition of mostly state owned corporations and central planning of the economic engines and manufacturing. Chinese leaders had been attempting to liberalize their economic sectors, though not all of them, selling a number of previously State run businesses and even permitted competition between companies in the same market hoping this would charge their economy further and it had been working but even free-market economic liberalization was unable to stave off this meltdown. The problem obviously is what will this mean for the liberalization of the Chinese economy as the leadership are still Communists who serve the Party and depend on the Party, may decide that much of their financial woes are the result of these new policies and curtail or even reverse some or all of the liberalized companies, markets and take a giant leap backwards to increased government control over every iota of the economy and the manufacturing and sales etc.

 

United States Treasury Secretary Jack Lew commented Wednesday on the current crisis in China stating at the Brookings Institution, that the economies of the United States and China are “still pretty much separated.” In further testimony Secretary Lew queried, “I think the concern … it is a real one … is what does it mean about long term growth in China?” Further in his speech he pointed to the main potential impacts which could emerge as a result to the Chinese Stock Market bleeding financially leaving the leadership seeing ‘Red’ in more ways than one. The leading question is to figure out as soon as possible what the reaction of the leaders of the Communist Party is and whether they may decide that the problem dictates such as appointing new leadership, freezing prices, injecting even more dollars into the markets through the banks and state owned businesses or closing the banks and Stock Market for a week or two cool down and reset to normalcy again; the choices and potential marrying of any two or three makes predictions near to impossible. The one thing which can be computed and predicted as long as the numbers being released and any steps taken are done so in plain view then the impact of the Stock Market freefall on the Chinese economy’s core condition and whether it appears that it will have much elasticity and dynamics when the end is finally reached and the rollercoaster slides on in to the station signaling the end of the ride, and what a ride it was with vigorous growth only to drop who knows how large a percentage of that growth in this correction, and what a correction. Secretary Lew’s closing thoughts are worthy of being repeated as he emphasized, “The question isn’t their commitment to the goal; the question is the pace at which they implemented it, and do they do it fast enough for it to be effective. I hope this is not something that slows down the pace of reform. If the reaction is to put the brakes on reforms, that will slow that process.”

 

With China making a long overdue correction which will be far more severe than it should or could have been if the leadership was not so intent on what numbers they released to the world and on making their predicted economic increase and meet all targets set within the government as to fail was unthinkable and would have been a terrible loss of face thus undermining faith in the economy. This has caused the Chinese to follow the example first used by President George W. Bush and turbocharged by President Barack Hussein Obama which was in the old school simply called a ‘stimulus package’ but is now known by a more enigmatic phrase of ‘Quantitative Easing,’ either of which hides the actual result and method being implemented as who would stand for the government announcing they were devaluing the money supply and taxing every single American by a minimum percentage directly proportional to the percentage increase the total added funding was doled out in stacks of hundred dollar bills, literally thousands of such stacks in the United States and unknown amounts though what is known is the Chinese leadership pumped close to twice the percentage of GDP as did the United States. Just as the United States took their hit starting back in late 2008 and continuing through 2011 and briefly relieved with another round of ‘Quantitative Easing,’ this was like the third pitcher of beer at a table trying to drink their way sober. The economic burst from that mid and late 2011 ‘Quantitative Easing’ gave the economy a burst of hope which appeared to continue due to lowered interest rates and the paring down and mostly neutering of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act gave the economy the needed push for President Obama’s reelection as he could run his campaign claiming to have turned the economy around and that great times lie ahead. Well, as far as that goes I’ll point to Greece and China and point out that the United States has followed similar patterns of fueling the economy and especially the Stock Market with borrowed monies and when loans were unavailable the Federal Reserve would electronically buy Treasury Bonds with funds they imagined into existence as a few strokes on a Federal Reserve keyboard and one produces and completed sale with funny money in that the receipt for the Treasury Bonds was used to balance the books as it represented the electronically derived cash used. This is a very convenient way to purchase items this way when you are the government or a very clever fraudster as just try using the sales slip from one register, say men’s clothing from a department store as cash at the Jewelry Counter and see how far that takes you. The catch, and there is always a catch, to ‘Quantitative Easing’ is that eventually you either have to pay back the money that was invented which can only be done some combination of these three methods, first is retire actual money from circulation which can also be done electronically by retiring any electronic payment made on credit cards, second is to remove the funds through higher taxes taking the money directly from the supply, and lastly one could raise the interest rates and siphon off a percentage of each loan to pay the Piper so to speak. The problem is that each of these methods actually hurt the consumer the most; it is the public that pays the price for the economic and financial misdeeds and ill-advised policies.

 

There are but a few redeeming features out of all of this and one serious and potentially unavoidable problem, and it is a big one. So, we will leave the bad news for last and the good news which will cause doom’s day to come and come quickly first. The best of news is that the meltdown in China is most likely to be relatively unfelt even amongst their Asian markets as China does not purchase many goods from outside and the few major needs she has will continue even if slightly abated, things essential like coal and petroleum. Further, the only nation carrying a trade deficit of any note is the United States and even should quotas be placed on any goods currently purchased from China will very likely have ten other sources with some popping up due to China cutting production. The European crisis is more likely to hit the United States harder than anything else on the economic horizon. Should the Eurozone break apart due to the collapse of several of their nations having financial difficulties and teetering at the edge of financial Armageddon plus one, Greece, which has in all honesty gone beyond the cusp and is currently running with his feet well away from solid ground just hanging there for that brief Wiley Coyote moment before collapsing into the darkness below only to make a small puff of dust rising depicting his hitting bottom. Even should the entire Eurozone collapse it may actually serve to keep a lid on inflation and allow for low interests rates, a necessity for the United States. That brings us back to the one thing that at first everyone would be glad to see, a real recovery with rising workforce participation which in the United States is down to approximately 63%, one of the lowest figures since the mid-1970s. This would also bring jobs, especially higher end job market opening up once again which would allow for a ripple effect. As the overqualified people working at menial or minimum wage jobs would leave those as jobs in their field became available and they gain employment thus making room for these other positions to employ more of the nations’ work force and soon inflation will return, something there has been no worry about as even the few months where such measurements showed a possibility for inflation to develop only for indicators to slide back the next couple of months with it often seeming like one big step forward and all promise breaking out only to be followed by three or four months of small to moderate steps backwards and everything gained to be lost and often more. When inflation does finally return for real then there will be a really bad situation. Once inflation starts to threaten then the interest rates will rise as a counter to inflation. Rising inflation takes a bigger bite out of people’s pockets all but actual theft. Inflation also helps with making the national debt somewhat more manageable by deflating the value of the currency taking the currency to new lows and the lessening to of the value of the debt and the purchasing power of that coinage. This was where Greece and the other nations in the Eurozone faced; they no longer had control over their coinage, their monetary worth so they were unable to simply lessen the value in order to get a handle on their debts and also make their nation more attractive to investors and new businesses. Perhaps leaving the Eurozone for a set period of possibly not less than two years and no longer than a decade or quarter century at which point they can reapply at the short end or must face a permanent decision at the longer end. Granted, this will possibly make some nations more reckless but the consequence is the only alternative to having the Eurozone nations turn their entire control of monetary and fiscal planning over to Brussels, they already control the monetary which is part of the problem, and most nations will refuse to be relieved of the power of the purse even if they are no longer able to control the coinage of said purse. Perhaps even a rotating schedule where every nation has to spend a decade using their own coinage would be another compromise. Until the Eurozone finds the answer they will be facing little impossible challenges as is Greece right now and others down the line. Let’s just hope their mistakes don’t become global economic-mines blowing the world markets haywire.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Can the World be Defused?

 

Once a while ago there were three leaders who defused the terrors and monsters of their day. There work took a while longer and they may never get the credit they deserve. They were the magic combination which comes around only when things seem darkest. In a much earlier time the combination of leaders need not all be present on the world’s fields of battle at the same time, but the world moves at a different pace these days. The old team which between them staved off Europe falling, thus eventually led to our modern age as we have known it, consisted of one hero in the west of Europe, The Battle of Tours pitting Charles the Hammer Martel defeating the Umayyad Caliphate led by ‘Abdul Rahman Al Ghafiqi, which halted the Islamic threat from advancing further eastward and eventually led to the forced retreat of Islam from the Iberian Peninsula under the reign of terror known as the Spanish Inquisition established in 1478 by Catholic Monarchs Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile, a retrograde purge for which Spain would never quite recover as that evil, or is as some might claim the purification, left Spain without a curious mind in all the realm as the Inquisition allowed not such stray thoughts other than those found in the ‘Good Book’. A few hundred years later the Ottoman Turks were prevented from further adventures in Europe being turned back at the Battle of Vienna by a somewhat unusual hero, King John III Sobieski of Poland who struck a deal whereby his lands would be left untouched by the greedy hands of the other barons and monarchs while he and his entire army would cross to the southern end of Europe and free Vienna breaking the Ottoman siege. This would stall and lead to the end of Ottoman expansion into Europe.

 

Between these two battles was a smaller battle that gained a larger than life share of attention from historians but was still none-the-less of great importance by what it avoided. The battle of which so much is made was the almost war that King Philip II of Spain decided to bring to a conclusive end and forever rid England of its Church, which followed not the Pope in Rome, restoring the rightful ruler of Christendom, Pope Clement VIII. The Armada was assembled and sailed on its historic mission which failed as it was made up of large and cumbersome ships of the old technology which favored the retrograde habits left over from the Inquisition and the purification of thought within the rule of Rome where science would become as close to defined as sin and as a threat to the sanctified rule of a Pope. The defeat of the Spanish Armada allowed the Church of England to prevail and their more open attitudes and the advantage of a strong political royalty which ruled alongside the Church of England but separate when decision of State were decided and the rule of law endured while the Church of England was to content itself with matters of faith. This partial separation between Church and the State had its periods of difficulty but it also permitted great strides in science which eventually spread through Europe beyond where the Pope had extended the Church’s strangling long reach from Rome. Eventually Rome too saw the light of the reformation and the separation between religion and government became the supreme and crowning achievement which was a long time coming with the many fits, starts and backtracks that make history fascinating. The ancient Israelites (or Hebrews) had achieved a form of separation between religious influences and the rule of a king as the limitations of each were delineated in Torah leaving certain powers to the King, others to the Clergy and the freedom to override either, though solely through admonition and persuasion, went the Prophets during their era. The one unfortunate result of the separation of Church from the matters of the ruling elites was that Europe no longer had a single overseeing power structure that the Pope provided when all prayed in the manner instructed out of Rome. This would eventually lead to many wars between the many states in Europe culminating in World War II. With these conflicts came technology which placed Europe as the crowning achievement of its time.

 

The modern realms had a tripartite power structure which managed to work towards their shared goals in what resulted in a mutually supportive series of actions despite there being no treaty or visible connection where these three strong leaders actually were collaborating, instead each added to the strength and power of the others with minimal appearance of collaboration. The three leaders were the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, who presided in that office from May 4, 1979 through November 28, 1990, while Queen Elizabeth II was the supportive monarch; Pope Saint John Paul II whose Papacy began on October 16, 1978 and ended April 2, 2005 and was a strong advocate for the rule of the people and their rights to a government deserving of the people and not the reverse and strongly held to the traditional beliefs working tirelessly largely behind the scenes while making appearances often with intent to back freedom and human rights for all people; and lastly United States President Ronald Reagan whose Presidency began on January 20, 1981 lasting until January 20, 1989 and the challenging force behind the scuttling of, as he coined it, the Evil Empire which was the Soviet Union which he did as much as anyone in facilitating the sudden downfall of the Soviet system and its iron curtain fell in under one week from the inception of the collapse of Communism in Europe. These three people had as much influence in their short decade where all three stood at the pinnacle of the power that swept in a new life and vitality born of freedom and challenging the greatest tyranny which stood in opposition to all these three defenders of the people, their individual rights and their right to choose their own governance and take control of their national ship and steer it through the ballot box and supportive of human dignity and the sanctity of life.

 

The world is once again spiraling into the void that lies beyond the cusp where freedoms are forever lost and tyranny and darkness extinguish the light of hope and the dignity of the spirit. Once again a retrograde influence is oozing from every corner advancing across the plains devouring everything in its path. The seriousness of this threat can be measured in the resisting flames in the eyes of those readying to fight a battle they know they cannot win but fight it they will in the hopes that somewhere a leader will have the courage to step forth and hold the line from crossing beyond the cusp and darkness once again gripping the heart of Europe. This threat comes from every front and ignores all borders and had many masters of which not a one honors freedom, individuality and the rights of the people to choose their own destinies and those who will lead them into the light and not towards the darkness. Currently the forces of freedom sleep as their ruling head of state has little stomach for such as the struggles barking from the far frontiers. This man who leads by following knows only that the previous leadership suffered from flaws that came from striving and this leader swears not to make such mistakes and instead retreats before taking stands and charging forth as doing so may reveal his flaws as it did his predecessors, but he realizes not that timidity and failure of vision are his flaws though his slow shrinking before every challenge is his plan to avoid mistakes. This comes when Europe also means to do well by refraining from the competition and instead seeks to facilitate and placate their way to oblivion that also lie beyond the cusp where greatness fails the timid and the freedoms hard won become easily surrendered and lost as they tip beyond the cusp and fall into the night of oblivion. There are the few who have clear sight and identify the threats but can the world rely on the strength of those who previously held roles of a supportive nature and have not been leaders of the free world as is now asked of them. The leaders in some instance are up to the challenge while in other leaders we see the rage of mediocrity hoping only to hold the line as best as possible waiting for one of the historic leaders to step forward and take the helm once more. What must the few who can lead do when the majority in the world are too tired, fat and lazy to put their shoulders to the wheel and strive to remain free, to stop the mad plunge and assure that their people are not forced beyond the cusp as from there the return will take generations and may never recover as some points, once crossed, may well mean there will be no return for this will be the final fight, the final battle between freedom and all that does empower the greatness in the human effort and spreads the light of freedom giving every last soul the power of flight so as to soar to new heights and new greatness ever pressing forward the boundaries of the mind through new equations which describe the actual functions of the universe and to eventually voyage into the far unknown and visit those points of light seen in the night’s sake for as sure as there is light there is hope for the future or the death of the individual spirit and the complete surrender to darkness forever extinguishing those final glowing embers of hope and heart as we fall beyond the cusp.

 

I have been asked by some close friends why I spend anywhere from three hours to all too often more than the eight hours demanded by a regular employ to continue to write to my slowly growing field of readers. Truthfully, I write in the hopes that somewhere an individual will find something that elevates them such that it awakens within them that spark of imaginations, the boldness to fight mediocrity, the hope that the future will continue to be filled with light and just one person at a time engage more to fight against the ever increasing flow dragging mankind towards a darkness that knows it has little time before the ingenious minds make that singular breakthrough which cements the condition of mankind at the cusp of a great adventure as we spread our wings and fly out into the cosmos and forever have insured that never shall all humankind be swallowed by the darkness beyond the cusp, beyond the whirlpool that swallows all imagination, enslaves every mind, demands total and permanent surrender, insisting on complete compliance never once to again dare. The war to remain in a place where there are a plethora of alternative paths and nobody is forced into the restriction of thought or held to a permanence of class must not be lost but there is this trepidation that the youth are not made aware of the coming threats nor are they largely taught to think independently and are made to believe that there are molds into which every person must choose their mold never to expand or reach beyond the restrictions of their mind. I write to express the truth that no two people are completely alike and thus there are no molds, only self-imposed prisons of the mind and the extinguishing of every flaming spirits as the mold makers impose a correctness of thought and attempt to ridicule and intimidate any who refuse to fold before their stifling approved dictionary for acceptable terms and their definitions. Look up the word ‘discriminate’ and unless you have an unapproved and ‘outdated’ dictionary you will not find it defined as a positive trait through which one sets standards for excellence in all things and thus chooses to expand and investigate things beyond their strict education. Trust that the elite are given the lesson that discriminate is not solely an evil where people are categorized by physical, racial, religious or national traits and all else is ignored. Discriminate also means to choose wisely, something the programmers of the public school system in too many nations is not a part of their indoctrination. Resist the limitations and open your eyes and if you suspect that the teacher is not teaching you how to think but instead what to think, start your own rebellion, a rebellion of one at first as you will need to first arm yourself and then set out to change the world. Presuming you are an adequately proficient reader this list should not take more than a few summer’s free time. With these and a few other items of personal interest, yours, not mine, you may be ready to set out but remember one other item, failure is what redirects efforts towards accomplishments and may even tach us some lessons along the way. There often is more to learn when we fail than when we finally persevere and reach the necessary and inevitable conclusion after exhausting every conceivable failure along the way, or so it may seem.

 

Rebel by reading books, yes they still exist, and writings not on the approved list. Read books such as Atlas Shrugged or other Ayn Rand writings, Animal Farm and 1984 by George Orwell who was a socialist programmed by his education but who became disenchanted as he experienced life and later in his life wrote of the evils of socialism as he had witnessed it applied in his day, Brave New World by Aldous Huxley and Unintended Consequences by John Ross. Read books about history especially by those who lived in the times they wrote about starting with The Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain with special attention to his travels in what is today Israel and his commentaries on Jerusalem and Bethlehem as well as his travels through the deserted lands and remember that his writings came from a period immediately before Zionists began arriving in greater numbers. Read the Bible, both New and Old Testaments, the Quran, and the life of Confucius and Buddha for some insights into the differing religions and investigate ancient Egypt, Greece, Persia, Rome, Babylon, the Phoenicians, Hittites, Mongols, and acquaint yourself with Oriental religious and societal structures and their philosophies. Read some books on war and strategy as they are useful in life and interactions in the world even in peace times such as the writings of Sun Tzu, Carl von Clausewitz and The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli. Learn to play both checkers and chess. Learn logic both as taught in math and electronics as well as philosophy, this will arm you in debates. Arm oneself with knowledge and one will be prepared for anything life sends your way.

 

I also write for my own catharsis as it soothes the mind when one is forced to organize their thoughts so as to put them down as coherent writings, and if my writings have appeared to not be as clear as hoped and lacking in total coherence, then imagine the jumbled mess in my head and what that must be like, and then imagine living with such a racket of fighting ideas but not ideals as without ideals we wander undefined through a dark forest of frightening thoughts forever to remain lost. The world seems that way at this moment and it will take a few miracles to set things back to right, but fortunately the world is full of miracles if one only knows not only where to look but how to look and discern the hidden miracles behind so much that happened every day. Smell the roses and drink some strong coffee and find some simple pursuits in life and make then your anchor by which to have a place or item you define as normalcy. Mine is real, good and strong coffee brewed from just ground whole beans blended often with little care and allowing the mixture to give me a little bit of surprise in life. A little sweet chocolate seems to make it so much tastier and gives it a round robustness that is next to addictive. But everybody deserves one addictive vice they refuse to surrender before the demands for normalcy. Ah, normalcy, how boring a thing can be.

 

Beyond the Cusp