Michael, “Even when we had tragic chapters in the past—Vietnam, Watergate, Jim Crow, and more—“ begins one hell of a paragraph that describes a tragic history in which we all are living.
But I have hope.
Hope because humanity has seen this type of brutalism before, has recovered from it and has held those responsible accountable for their horrible actions.
Hope because the spirit of our country is stronger than the dreams of those who seek to oppress us.
Hope because the people of the world are watching and offering their support in any way that they can help.
Hope because the infinite power of the universe tells us that our love is stronger than their hate and that love will power us to a better end.
Hope because there is no alternative - this is our destiny.
Good thoughts Michael. I also lament the polarization in our country, seeing the other side as evil. We won’t survive as a country if we don’t learn to work together.
You have described my thoughts and feelings better than I could have, with only one difference. My father came from Poland and grew up here listening to the news from Europe in the 30s. He must have followed the news of what was happening there, and later lived with the fate of the many of his relatives who were there and felt their life ended after the torture and confinement first hand. Now we watch the same forces take over our land, which was founded on what was an enlightenment ideal of the world. We never achieved it, but our founding fathers knew that it would be an ideal worth working toward. To see it so rapidly torn asunder by cruelty, bigotry and tribalism is a tragedy beyond my imagination. To realize that misinformation is the tool is my only solace. If it were not, then not only have the people pulling the levers of power no virtue but the idea of representative democracy has failed. The race between education and catastrophe may have already been lost.
Factoids: The Second Chief Directorate's General Oleg Gribanov sent KGB Major Aleksei Kulak and GRU Lt. Col. Dmitry Polyakov to the FBI's NYC field office in late 1961 and early 1962, respectively, to form CIA-and-FBI-zombifying feedback loops with moles in the CIA. Yuri Nosenko was a false defector-in-place in Geneva in June 1962, sent there by Gribanov to discredit what true defector Anatoliy Golitsyn was telling James Angleton about possible penetrations of the CIA, the FBI, and the intelligence services of our NATO allies. Golitsyn suspected in June 1964 that Angleton's confidant, mentor, and mole-hunting superior, Bruce Leonard Solie in the Office of Security, was a "mole." A planned-to-fail mole hunt tore the CIA apart in the 1960s. Oliver Stone's 1991 film, "JFK," was ultimately based on an anti-CIA / anti-Clay Shaw article published in a Communist-owned Italian newspaper (Paese Sera) in 1967, four days after overly ambitious, scandal-plagued, and revengeful New Orleans DA Jim Garrison had arrested Shaw on suspicion of having organized a homosexual "thrill-kill" assassination of JFK. Donald J. Trump was "spotted" for possible development / compromise by a KGB agent in Manhattan in 1980. Trump started laundering money for the Russian Mafia in 1984. Soviet Ambassador Dubinin and his daughter visited Trump "out of the blue" at Trump Tower in 1986. Soon after that, Trump was in Moscow, entertaining the idea of building a Trump Hotel in the Kremlin. "Former" KGB counterintelligence officer Vladimir Putin installed Trump as our president on 20 January 2017. Christopher Steele's main source for his over-the-top and mostly impossible-to-falsify Trump Dossier very likely a KGB agent. I could go on and on . . . -- Tom
My gosh!!! You've really been studying this period extensively!! Many of us followed that bit of information several months ago...but the entire "projection" was dropped...will we ever really know??? One thing's for certain...as we follow this regime...it's definitely hurting us all now..History repeats itself...and hate seems to endure..SO we fight back.
Hi...I get a bit sarcastic about all the yelling and screaming..The idea was PROJECTED by a retired KGB agent as I recall..and I apologise for not writing all the info down at the time...If I am short on information...mea culpa.. You have better retention for " facts" than I do... I'll try harder..
Thanks for your honesty, Michael. We’re all in our hearts saddened and frightened about everything and it gets scarier daily. At the same time I’m deeply optimistic because my heart is filled with our history and we Americans always rise up no matter the challenge. In the 1870’s (I think) President Grant and General Sherman were discussing how they could get the Native Americans to move from the lands where badly needed gold had been discovered at the height of our first national depression. General Sherman mentioned that it was easy, just remove all the buffalo and the Indians would follow. They proceeded to do that and they very nearly succeeded, decimating the native populations. Today, native friends of mine practice hundreds of year old spirituality. They’re still here and they’re not going anywhere.
Thanks for bringing up our native population...They are US!! We are the extention of that terrible holocaustic time trying to wipe out these wonderful tribes...and now to present day...the felon has NO LOVE for them now...I am so worried that some of the lands that were finally "GIVEN" ( HORRIBLE with all that was lost to them!!!) to all our tribes , our neighbors, will be stolen again... You are right on, Richard..
Totally with you on the bad stuff, as well as the optimistic side. I remember the late 60's and early 70's: anti-war protests, race riots, political assassinations, Weathermen, lynchings, more. We managed to pull ourselves together after all that. We can do it again.
Climate disruption (change) is causing unprecedented fires, floods, heat waves, droughts, loss of cropland, and loss of biodiversity around "our" Earth. Trump and his gang of dictators call climate change a hoax, chanting "drill baby drill" and even erasing the scientific reports screaming "do something!" Global investment in weapons is growing as investment in climate action is disappearing.
Governance is broken and corrupted, The breakdown is accelerating across private and civil systems.. Our global civilization is collapsing. Too few of us have the bandwith to even see this is happening.
Yet my koan is "I don't know!" May I be surprised . . .
I play with a local military band (the military part disappeared about a century ago). We play for our small town's fireworks celebration. Our audience is a mix of professors, lawyers, laborers, and farmers -- in other words, blue and red. We come together for many, many events. Don't despair.
America welcomes immigrants. America welcomes your beautiful wife and son. We welcome their youth, energy and vitality that they bring. America has always welcomed immigrants. In recent years over one million immigrants were welcomed every year. Coming in the right way. Getting in line. There are nearly 60 million immigrants in our population about 15% of the population. America welcomes more immigrants than any other country. Probably more that the top 10 immigrant counties of the world combined such as the UK, Germany, Canada, Australia, NZ, Ireland, etc. MAGA welcomes them. I welcome them.
All of our ancestors were immigrants.
In 1840’s one side of the family came to the Boom Town of Mineral Point. A city as large as Chicago and Milwaukee. They found jobs, built a little stone house, worked at newspaper, owned a newspaper, became Wisconsin assemblymen and held top jobs in the University of Wisconsin in only a couple of generations. This was better than planting potatoes In Enniskillen. On the other side of the family formed the first German school in Austin. The were educators of Math, Science, Music and Language. This was better to
than being resigned to work in the slaughterhouse, sitting in the back corner of the inn and the back of the church.
At no recent times did we say, “Open borders, anyone can come, no vetting for health or criminal backgrounds.
Yet the Democrats in their play for Power did just that. We now have an unknown number that crossed our borders was it 10 million? 12, 15, 20 million? We don’t know. The democrats don’t care. Count them in the census so we have more representatives in Congress.
Now the clean up of foolish democratic policies has begun. The party of Hollywood, Celebrities, Silicon Valkey and Elites. They feel the unbounded right to cheap labor at the expense of the right of the American worker to earn a living wage. Not true?
Then why did the working class switch to the GOP?
While all this happens, I will enjoy my retirement and next door neighbors from the Punjab, my other next door neighbors from Vietnam and across the street my Circassian neighbors from from Jorden, my neighbors from Nigeria, others from Pakistan and China, not to mention the numerous Hispanic neighbors. All living in a well to do suburb in Texas. In factmyself, a couple of other families (Black and White) are the token Americans that have been here for a few generations. The rest of my neighbors children will melt into the great crucible that is America.
A very well-put expression of the counteragument. The piece that's missing from your analysis is a critical review of how Trump is going about "cleaning up" the democrat-generated mess you describe. Mess it may be, and reasonable people can debate how we got here -- but regardless of that, the consttution is the constitution and in occupied Los Angeles today, if you look like something other than a MAGA member, you're foolish to not carry your green card because there are roving bands of ICE enforcement teams (who by the way look like deputized biker club members, but I digress) who are grabbing people who simply don't "look like us". You need to be ready for "show me your papers" -- an alien concept to most Americans and all republicans I ever knew back in the day when being republican meant small government and individual liberties. Anyway, thanks for this. Happy 4th, I hope you and your family had a good one.
Perfect sentiments and so many of us totally agree..There IS hope...and the people that give us hope are those of us who work together in so many ways....and keep the "faith". Thank you for your commitment to this country...and your continued faith. WE WILL WIN...It might take some time...We are the balance...LOVE to all of you...
Michael, “Even when we had tragic chapters in the past—Vietnam, Watergate, Jim Crow, and more—“ begins one hell of a paragraph that describes a tragic history in which we all are living.
But I have hope.
Hope because humanity has seen this type of brutalism before, has recovered from it and has held those responsible accountable for their horrible actions.
Hope because the spirit of our country is stronger than the dreams of those who seek to oppress us.
Hope because the people of the world are watching and offering their support in any way that they can help.
Hope because the infinite power of the universe tells us that our love is stronger than their hate and that love will power us to a better end.
Hope because there is no alternative - this is our destiny.
Happy Independence Day to you and all.
Good thoughts Michael. I also lament the polarization in our country, seeing the other side as evil. We won’t survive as a country if we don’t learn to work together.
You have described my thoughts and feelings better than I could have, with only one difference. My father came from Poland and grew up here listening to the news from Europe in the 30s. He must have followed the news of what was happening there, and later lived with the fate of the many of his relatives who were there and felt their life ended after the torture and confinement first hand. Now we watch the same forces take over our land, which was founded on what was an enlightenment ideal of the world. We never achieved it, but our founding fathers knew that it would be an ideal worth working toward. To see it so rapidly torn asunder by cruelty, bigotry and tribalism is a tragedy beyond my imagination. To realize that misinformation is the tool is my only solace. If it were not, then not only have the people pulling the levers of power no virtue but the idea of representative democracy has failed. The race between education and catastrophe may have already been lost.
As you probably know, the KGB* has been working towards this end since 1959. *Today’s SVR and FSB
Yes. I wouldn't give them all the credit by any means ,but this has been their goal consistently.
Factoids: The Second Chief Directorate's General Oleg Gribanov sent KGB Major Aleksei Kulak and GRU Lt. Col. Dmitry Polyakov to the FBI's NYC field office in late 1961 and early 1962, respectively, to form CIA-and-FBI-zombifying feedback loops with moles in the CIA. Yuri Nosenko was a false defector-in-place in Geneva in June 1962, sent there by Gribanov to discredit what true defector Anatoliy Golitsyn was telling James Angleton about possible penetrations of the CIA, the FBI, and the intelligence services of our NATO allies. Golitsyn suspected in June 1964 that Angleton's confidant, mentor, and mole-hunting superior, Bruce Leonard Solie in the Office of Security, was a "mole." A planned-to-fail mole hunt tore the CIA apart in the 1960s. Oliver Stone's 1991 film, "JFK," was ultimately based on an anti-CIA / anti-Clay Shaw article published in a Communist-owned Italian newspaper (Paese Sera) in 1967, four days after overly ambitious, scandal-plagued, and revengeful New Orleans DA Jim Garrison had arrested Shaw on suspicion of having organized a homosexual "thrill-kill" assassination of JFK. Donald J. Trump was "spotted" for possible development / compromise by a KGB agent in Manhattan in 1980. Trump started laundering money for the Russian Mafia in 1984. Soviet Ambassador Dubinin and his daughter visited Trump "out of the blue" at Trump Tower in 1986. Soon after that, Trump was in Moscow, entertaining the idea of building a Trump Hotel in the Kremlin. "Former" KGB counterintelligence officer Vladimir Putin installed Trump as our president on 20 January 2017. Christopher Steele's main source for his over-the-top and mostly impossible-to-falsify Trump Dossier very likely a KGB agent. I could go on and on . . . -- Tom
My gosh!!! You've really been studying this period extensively!! Many of us followed that bit of information several months ago...but the entire "projection" was dropped...will we ever really know??? One thing's for certain...as we follow this regime...it's definitely hurting us all now..History repeats itself...and hate seems to endure..SO we fight back.
"Bit of information"?
"Projection"?
Hi...I get a bit sarcastic about all the yelling and screaming..The idea was PROJECTED by a retired KGB agent as I recall..and I apologise for not writing all the info down at the time...If I am short on information...mea culpa.. You have better retention for " facts" than I do... I'll try harder..
Yelling and screaming by whom?
What idea was projected by a retired KGB agent?
Thanks for your honesty, Michael. We’re all in our hearts saddened and frightened about everything and it gets scarier daily. At the same time I’m deeply optimistic because my heart is filled with our history and we Americans always rise up no matter the challenge. In the 1870’s (I think) President Grant and General Sherman were discussing how they could get the Native Americans to move from the lands where badly needed gold had been discovered at the height of our first national depression. General Sherman mentioned that it was easy, just remove all the buffalo and the Indians would follow. They proceeded to do that and they very nearly succeeded, decimating the native populations. Today, native friends of mine practice hundreds of year old spirituality. They’re still here and they’re not going anywhere.
Thanks for bringing up our native population...They are US!! We are the extention of that terrible holocaustic time trying to wipe out these wonderful tribes...and now to present day...the felon has NO LOVE for them now...I am so worried that some of the lands that were finally "GIVEN" ( HORRIBLE with all that was lost to them!!!) to all our tribes , our neighbors, will be stolen again... You are right on, Richard..
Totally with you on the bad stuff, as well as the optimistic side. I remember the late 60's and early 70's: anti-war protests, race riots, political assassinations, Weathermen, lynchings, more. We managed to pull ourselves together after all that. We can do it again.
Thank you!! Yes we can!!
We the people did it once we the people can do it again we the people
We the people brother! 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸
Zoom out a level or two!
Climate disruption (change) is causing unprecedented fires, floods, heat waves, droughts, loss of cropland, and loss of biodiversity around "our" Earth. Trump and his gang of dictators call climate change a hoax, chanting "drill baby drill" and even erasing the scientific reports screaming "do something!" Global investment in weapons is growing as investment in climate action is disappearing.
Governance is broken and corrupted, The breakdown is accelerating across private and civil systems.. Our global civilization is collapsing. Too few of us have the bandwith to even see this is happening.
Yet my koan is "I don't know!" May I be surprised . . .
I play with a local military band (the military part disappeared about a century ago). We play for our small town's fireworks celebration. Our audience is a mix of professors, lawyers, laborers, and farmers -- in other words, blue and red. We come together for many, many events. Don't despair.
America welcomes immigrants. America welcomes your beautiful wife and son. We welcome their youth, energy and vitality that they bring. America has always welcomed immigrants. In recent years over one million immigrants were welcomed every year. Coming in the right way. Getting in line. There are nearly 60 million immigrants in our population about 15% of the population. America welcomes more immigrants than any other country. Probably more that the top 10 immigrant counties of the world combined such as the UK, Germany, Canada, Australia, NZ, Ireland, etc. MAGA welcomes them. I welcome them.
All of our ancestors were immigrants.
In 1840’s one side of the family came to the Boom Town of Mineral Point. A city as large as Chicago and Milwaukee. They found jobs, built a little stone house, worked at newspaper, owned a newspaper, became Wisconsin assemblymen and held top jobs in the University of Wisconsin in only a couple of generations. This was better than planting potatoes In Enniskillen. On the other side of the family formed the first German school in Austin. The were educators of Math, Science, Music and Language. This was better to
than being resigned to work in the slaughterhouse, sitting in the back corner of the inn and the back of the church.
At no recent times did we say, “Open borders, anyone can come, no vetting for health or criminal backgrounds.
Yet the Democrats in their play for Power did just that. We now have an unknown number that crossed our borders was it 10 million? 12, 15, 20 million? We don’t know. The democrats don’t care. Count them in the census so we have more representatives in Congress.
Now the clean up of foolish democratic policies has begun. The party of Hollywood, Celebrities, Silicon Valkey and Elites. They feel the unbounded right to cheap labor at the expense of the right of the American worker to earn a living wage. Not true?
Then why did the working class switch to the GOP?
While all this happens, I will enjoy my retirement and next door neighbors from the Punjab, my other next door neighbors from Vietnam and across the street my Circassian neighbors from from Jorden, my neighbors from Nigeria, others from Pakistan and China, not to mention the numerous Hispanic neighbors. All living in a well to do suburb in Texas. In factmyself, a couple of other families (Black and White) are the token Americans that have been here for a few generations. The rest of my neighbors children will melt into the great crucible that is America.
A very well-put expression of the counteragument. The piece that's missing from your analysis is a critical review of how Trump is going about "cleaning up" the democrat-generated mess you describe. Mess it may be, and reasonable people can debate how we got here -- but regardless of that, the consttution is the constitution and in occupied Los Angeles today, if you look like something other than a MAGA member, you're foolish to not carry your green card because there are roving bands of ICE enforcement teams (who by the way look like deputized biker club members, but I digress) who are grabbing people who simply don't "look like us". You need to be ready for "show me your papers" -- an alien concept to most Americans and all republicans I ever knew back in the day when being republican meant small government and individual liberties. Anyway, thanks for this. Happy 4th, I hope you and your family had a good one.
Thank you for your words. For me, they are like the calm in the sea of noise
Delusional.
You're welcome to share why. The bar is open. ;-)
Perfect sentiments and so many of us totally agree..There IS hope...and the people that give us hope are those of us who work together in so many ways....and keep the "faith". Thank you for your commitment to this country...and your continued faith. WE WILL WIN...It might take some time...We are the balance...LOVE to all of you...
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