The Soapbox View: Search results for patriotic

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Friday, July 18, 2014

Transition Who Can't Afford?

Something has been added to this essay's conclusion on CUBA. 8/7/14

Oliver Stone's Untold History of the United States

The previous essay, PATRIOTISM FOR EVERYONE? included an idea that was highlighted by two events yesterday. Israeli ground troops entering the Gaza Strip and a Malaysian Airlines Passenger Plane shot down by a surface-to-air missile over Ukraine. Reuters

3. Which is why international dispute is not about - who's wrong? 4. But whether ruthlessness is rendered impossible?

The rocket that brought down the passenger plane was a "mistake." Trigger-happy is a mistake. The passenger plane was nowhere near landing in Ukraine at that height and speed. So without the proper instruments the Ukrainian rebels couldn't take a chance? When conflict escalates the innocent are victimized. Clearly the fog of patriotic militarism entered this century as pervasive as the last. What idiotic logic made all this patriotic militarism acceptable? Freedom Fries pictured above. The buck stops with "the decider." Soapbox View Everyone knows how to hide from responsibility. Chesters just push out their chests insisting their pride is their nations'. Despite what PEACE really means?

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So perpetual war and defense are necessary evils? This essay, A Damaging Distance, in The New York Times, Sunday July 13, 2014, by Ethan Bronner focuses on what the Middle East hasn't fixed. Who in their right minds thought limiting Palestinian financial progress would be a protection when anyone with a clue knows everyone's better off when there's full financial circulation? Again both side's elites are likely duff sitters.

Again!

4. To Mideast Diplomacy Rendering Ruthlessness Impossible.

"Vengeance is mine sayith the Lord" - not mortals.

Despite war's exploitation, no one wins and maybe, just maybe, we lose our souls?

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Change is constant. Transition a longer haul. They're not the same difference if change is sudden and transition, evolution. The point? Most of the world has been relatively poor virtually all of human existence. Change has taken place, but not an actual transition. That "the poor will always be with" us is almost a dandy excuse for our destiny. Why lazy insufficient prosperity is the working poor's burden while improved circulation on their behalf is considered weak by those for whom opportunity overflows, and those that resent more hasn't rained on them - yet. Resourcefulness sure is part of the equation, and not entirely out of line to expect of people. Within reason.

Visiting home, ten years back, my wife and I swam laps in my favorite swimming pool. A nine year old African-American boy, there with his little brother, was from another nearby small town. Like paradise, not crowded, only us four and the older man in lane 6.

The kid asked to look at my goggles then popped out both lenses before I got him to give the goggles back. Sure you can re-insert the lenses as he gigglingly pointed out. But done enough the seal is never the same. He was amused playing with me and when his little brother came over and asked to do the same thing, his older brother told him he'd already done it. But before that. Alone, hanging on to the deep end's gutter. He asked if I could give him money. Reminding me of my precious summer youth collecting cold drink bottles with my friend Patrick who'd told me about the bright idea. I made the kid cry. There were adults collecting everywhere and you were in trouble disturbing their territory. Don't tell me balance didn't drop out of the bottom of our economy.

With education for the taking most everywhere on this planet? Plus all the money thrown far and wide for the denied to at least grab on to something? Yet money isn't circulating completely throughout while we have this nice basic reality used as an instrument economists can't solve. Inflation. Well, it's a fact of life the poor will never adjust to it and remain destroyed by it. Unable to tag along on the continuously replenishing financial treadmill the elite surf. The Poor rendered useless as perpetual debt. The president of the World Bank and functionaries even state that economies need some inflation so the salaried can keep up better. Considering all things equal, that's fine and dandy the relentless pursuit of inflation propelling those with the power to compete. Which does not solve the problem of economies not fully circulating. Maybe Russians fighting in Ukraine taking care of business at home would have kept Malaysian Airline Flight 17 aloft?

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It is sad. Rumors of revolution gossiped about Brazil if the hosts lost the World Cup before losing to Germany. Because money hadn't instead been spent on the poor who'll rise up in anger unless massaged by a championship. Perhaps contributing to tolerance of football field violence when a referee allowed Brazilians latitude attacking Columbians leading to unintended retribution that knocked a Brazilian star out of the tournament. Paraphrasing Sam Borden's Blame for a Crushing Injury Is Spread Across the Field The New York Times, July5, 2014. Digitally titled: For Bellicose Brazil, Payback Carries Heavy Price: Loss of Neymar.

The first title worthily sums up the article's insight. While the second gauges momentum as the core of any sports story. One star makes a difference. Not easily replaced. Regardless. It's sad cultural identity is reduced to feudal rivalry.

Any learned person can point to dissatisfied people falling into further disarray. But considered logically, successful revolution against modern militaries is preposterous. As anyone can guess, throughout history, the poor have seldom relieved their stress through revolution. Possibly that great time of equality in the Soviet Union? Unfortunately elitist and when weighed with the sins of persecuting individuals - equality was not ironed out.

Statistics show Brazilians are discontent. Wikipedia notes the 2013 Confederations Cup Riots followed that tournament Brazil won. Initiated mainly by the Movimento Passe Livre (Free Fare Movement), a local entity that advocates for free public transportation. The demonstrations were initially organized to protest against increases in bus, train, and metro ticket prices in some Brazilian cities, but grew to include other issues such as the high corruption in the government and police brutality used against some demonstrators. By mid-June, 2013, the movement had grown to become Brazil's largest since the 1992 protests against former President Fernando Collor de Mello.

It's of course ridiculous for affairs of state to be tampered with through sport and vice-versa. Yet on the other hand, political leadership is the art of forming mass opinion translated from ambivalent drivel to avoid blame? Football and politics aren't just games.

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June 27

Soapbox View conjectured - Crimea, the next Monaco?

July 2nd,

The Moscow Times, Flow of Crimea Tourists Drops 35%.

July 4th,

The Moscow Times Crimea and Sochi See Futures as Gambling Centers.

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For objectiveness sake, history sinned.

Now. Relish this. It's not every day news is this close to making sense.

The National Capitol Building in Havana, Cuba, home to the Cuban Academy of Sciences. - Nigel Pacquette / Wikicommons

Russia Ratifies $35 Billion Debt Write-Off For Cuba

The Moscow Times, July 9, 2014

Huh. 90% of 35.2 billion forgiven. So it's a deal to get 3.2 billion out of Cuba. When if 35.2 billion were put into Cuba to circulate properly this debt theoretically would have never happened. I think Cuba should take this last 3.2 to U.S. Federal Court and dispute that there's any debt at all. Everyone's thumbs were on the scales. Cuba would be a better ally if that 3.2 went into itself. The whole world should be paying Cuba not to industrialize to maintain a vacation paradise. But that's the great equalizer, for funding nations, terrorizing the land. I say try for Paradise Cuba. If you asphalt the entire island it will sink under the big flood.

Señors Castro?

Friday, June 1, 2012

President Putin Publicly Covets Pawn

Touring two European capitals, Russia’s president is explaining why he’s not yet endorsing the immediate resignation of President Assad of Syria for that country’s level of violence. President Putin is quoted by The New York Times as not wanting to take sides as Reuters also reports.

Vladimir is not joking. If President Assad walked right now, where’s his refuge? Would it be as when in 1978 the Shah of Iran was chased off to Hawaii? Assad is most likely unenthused by banishment to Vladivostock nor does President Putin really want to be responsible for a poor persecuted monarch. President Putin has enough grief from other pawns. But what’s done with pawns is you trade. Chechnaya? Any nation-state ready to remedy that area’s tragic territorialism? I bet you solve Chechnaya’s position on President Putin’s chessboard, he lays a red carpet himself for commandos to swoop in and take President Assad for his ride.

Syria’s Assad’s real problem is where to retire hence his down with the ship mentality. Problem is the country’s management was a toy. Success was doled out by government so it’s also those around Assad who don’t want to give up their nest now. Really there’s only one way out for him, which is of course the best lawyer the world has seen. Except apparently you just can’t buy that result anymore, as Liberia’s Charles Taylor recently found out from a world court that sentenced him to fifty years in Great Britain.

Ah well, rulers do their best. President Assad never really lived among the people anyway. He was raised a prince and only became President to compromise. Probably has no clue what to do outside his palace. The pleasure dome is collapsing, what the hell. He’s in check and probably mated and doesn’t get it. There’s no return to the better police state. A couple hundred more civilians die and nations are poised as Assad doesn’t realize he’s just taking pawns while lawyers have him cornered. The United States’ Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is practically publicly telling President Putin to do the right thing here. There’s no walking away from this for President Assad.

Vladimir Putin is not just not taking sides in a civil struggle, he’s also not stepping in to clean up a mess that might eventually be a lot easier than getting this particular fish in the boat at this time. Then again it is a fomenting disaster, who’s call? Assad’s father stifled social progress for decades to live in the cocoon. It’s probably the old man’s fault. But no amount of understanding seems to protect the world’s innocent from the shrewd calculations of the significant players. So what is Putin asking for to trade for Assad after all?

6/1/2012

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George W. Bush Apology Clock

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PRESIDENT PUTIN PUBLICLY COVETS PAWN

6/1/2012 concluded: But no amount of understanding seems to protect the world’s innocent from the shrewd calculations of the significant players. So what is Putin asking for to trade for Assad after all?

April 21 - May 18, 2016
MOVE

Well. Time's passed, Mr. President. What's different? What could have changed that would have really leveraged a difference between the world's opponents? While children still suckle on revenge. Still. Modernity's a reward the elite mostly reap an American presidential candidate is portrayed representing. But what's been thought through other than the necessity of bandwagons success to even face the absurd thinking war brings peace? That's actually, even justified, just jousting, for the commercial upper hand, so to speak. This is utopia for some of us alright. Though we're all, more or less, perpetually caught up in the principality feuds that have shadowed human history since the dawn of organized man from which we descend and have yet to thoroughly progress past. No?

Now we're even shown, plus told, how there's commercially too much oil. An abundance. Meaning however much else is exploited will be gotten away with if only those pesky people not in on our end of the deal would get out of the way of economic success. A car in every pot? Yes. Saudi Arabia recently announced refocusing their commercial interests on alternate fuels. As Russia will/is. While every country eludes responsibility for the present.

Inflationary Enterprise System

So the new Saudi Oil etc. Minister Khaled al-Falih announced their doubling down on their profits from Mother Earth's oil. A business deal as one American presidential candidate proves. They want a bribe just as we've failed to provide for the world's forests that are the backbone of our ability too breathe.

Yes, Mr. President. Big Money rules the world and you're no fool either. The only way to stay ahead is more. So important that the world's economic structure's as stuck as ever. Accruing, yet nonetheless stuck. We're lost thinking charity's benevolence. Where it's really just making up for commercial socialism's shortcomings. Donating time when people and work of every kind should be paid for. Wall Street's just a scapegoat when you look deeper and see capitalism's reach not being stretched to the socialism that capitalism either is or has nothing to do with but greed. Which is hardly the case. We're supposed to be better than gouging the customer to the extreme.

Capitalism is give and take. But running properly should be a smoother machine than the current lopsided monstrosity. Hey. I get it. No one can just stick in a wrench and tune the world economy so the responsibility's no one's fault. Clear, but not perfectly.

Ah, Mr. President. Wasn't that so nice a poll affirmed Russians prefer having been a super power to how the country's identified now? Gorbachev demonstrated super-power. Everything since just affirms leaders capacity for self-aggrandizement.

YOUR MOVE, MR. PRESIDENT?

In Assad's case check's limits meant lashing out. All too classic if you catch my drift? Мистер Президент, you adroitly blocked pawns. Gaining contemplation time and imagery. Shrouding the contest in patriotic defense wrapped with still more ribbon for appearance's sake in the grand charade.

My feeling of what's happening is war, and its threat, is an addiction. Sure everyone's offended by senseless dying. Yet here, there we are. Historically built to carry out peace once war's won as Orwell parodied in 1984. Ya know, in America, President Obama is portrayed as too timid. Though convinced to use drones? Give me a break. It's common sense the world's feuds are driven by profit along the bottom line. Pragmatism's not an excuse.

War is more propaganda than the actual finite movements of chess that obligate both winners and losers to those fates. When there's really just so many more losers in war, the symbolism of victory has yet to realize favorable outcomes. Unless you count the British in the United States, who it's said are still doing quite well I hear. But war's no bargain. Allah/God's people should start realizing revenge isn't holy.

George W. Bush Apology Clock

An American Presidential Candidate has boasted of doubling down on the drug war. Intensifying the public relationship with a police state and protecting the profits of the Criminal Enterprise System. No, he didn't say it quite like that. But bending the truth is not this political review's intention. Ultimately the wars will continue as long as the propaganda, huh Mr. President?

May Day's for symbolizing liberation. Not exalting military prowess as the most patriotic thing to feel.

Ah. Something else that, of course, from your vantage can be shrugged off as Stalin always had since most problems aren't yours to personally solve. Well. So it was a Sunday, Mr. President. May 1st I'm watching New York City's TD FIVE BORO BIKE TOUR where people come from all over the world to ride New York City's streets without car traffic. A nice event. But obviously inconvenient for drivers, hindered by traffic changes, sitting at lights watching bikes go by. Not their fault the augmentations the transportation system should have always had still aren't in place. Drive and ride civilized.
But the sight of all the bikes, as happens every year, got me thinking the fee paid to enter and support the tour is the same for both sexes. Now I'm sure Russia has the same problem as the United States, Mr. President. Where women are paid less for doing the same job. Or chauvinistically excluded from the profit chain. So it would be proper for all fees paid by females to be less than those paid by males to at least symbolically offset the actual social disparity.
Yeah, yeah, I know. But I've also seen where women are sought out as bargains and whatever equality is demanded in the workplace is dominated by the custom of male hierarchy without the actual proof men are a lick smarter. Reducing women's fees until overall parity is reached would be a start. Hey at least this challenges more than you and your complacent self-re-rewarding elite. Huh Mr. President?

Yes I just fill space with content. Basically curious what'll be come up with next.

Lunch? Мистер Президент? You name the spot. Havana? Talk about geopolitical quagmire. We could invite Bukharin's ghost for Molotov cocktails and drink to the Possessive Enterprise System's 800 pound gorilla in the room. No one really promises Socialism anymore nor truly faces its capitalist instrumentation. Castro? The Cuban Elite can't prove Cubans in general eat and travel that much better than North Koreans. Stalin's excuse too was that he'd never admit to having anything to do with what went wrong. For which a lot of innocent witnesses were executed/ murdered and punished totally disproportionate to the reality of claiming to end bourgeois abuse with authoritarian. Well. Yes. If we have lunch we should also drink to reality's bad dreams.

Ya know. If you, Mr. President, really had any influence with Assad, I think you should talk to him. Sit down over tea and look each other straight in the eyes on your big screens. Right. No public relations cakewalk like speaking to Elton John was. Any news on your taking your shirt off with Bruce Springsteen? Because for things to get better we need huge starts. Ask your Mobile Throne driver to slow down enough for you to look outside to see and think about what having your legacy bought for you really says about you. What your legacy could mean versus someone who really didn't try to make a difference to not just be another czar.

We know basics but are uncomfortable feeling the truth. That's best done. There's just too much ambivalent destruction in its escaping.

8 Heartbreaking Cases Where Land Was Stolen From Black Americans Through Racism, Violence and Murder

Holmes County, Mississippi and Sweetwater, Alabama

The Ocoee, Flor ida Mass acre and Hickman, Kentucky

Birmingham, Kentucky and Pierce City, Missouri

Lincoln and Jasper Counties, Mississippi

I'd prefer Eleanor were next to Franklin (FDR) on everything. Ditto Martha. Put Harriet Tubman on the penny and make 1 cent worth what 1 cent says again. We don't even know what minimum wage chases anymore.

Harriet Tubman: Still the solution.

Thursday, July 11, 2013

The Diminishing Art Of Enlivening The News?

The ratings façade behind broadcasted news is, theoretically, common knowledge? Naturally there's at least a minimal public awareness of a war for popularity.

Elizabeth Hasselbeck
Not Pictured, Jenny McCarthy

Audience appeal comes first, as described in the book below by New York broadcaster, Bob Teague pictured above with Malcolm. But what better place for cheerful people than delivering bad news? Mr. Teague's book was written in an era ratings ruled. When the escalation of viewer camaraderie hit a peak just before Internet Society found more specific consumer information as invaluable as amusement. Reporter Bob Teague wasn't the first to notice a discrepancy between clarity and flash in packaging journalism. Where the roots of mediocrity are bred from the primary purpose of becoming The Show. Still expected to conform, stationed before screens, today's Flash Gordon existence implies anything's possible when it comes to how well we're uninformed, or not.

Things could be a lot worse and are if political voices can be so well organized not to listen, that the counter-weight of opposing opinion can't prevail over speech polished complacency while maneuvering behind the scenes still rules the world. Therefore the business of delivering news should be less taken for granted, and less lamented over because there was always the question of who owns the Point-of-View?

Amy Goodman

Alternative Star?

January 2, 1929 - March 28, 2013

The ENLIVENING NBC, 23 second, and WNBC 2:34 & 47 second Bob Teague adieus to the man who criticized shortened stories and cameras beautifully described as pointed at nothing.

"This was the story of Howard Beale, the first known instance of a man
who was killed because he had lousy ratings."

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The Appearances Are And Aren't Everything Presidency of President Mohamed Morsi

There's no question people would argue till kingdom come. Nor doubt solutions are opponents accommodating separate points of view. Making Egypt's Army replacing their elected president, the most troubling aspect of Egypt's Army replacing their elected president. In The New York Times, July 4th, 6th, and 9th, Thomas Friedman eloquently describes the, now mainly jailed, Muslim Brotherhood as Egyptian too. Mr. Friedman points out the economic chain is what everyone should be worried about. Here's wishing calm heads prevail. Politics, whew. Egypt is in the thick of it.

The Legacy, The Nile

Last Tuesday morning when the New York news announced the Egyptian Army planned to depose President Morsi before the end of the day, my initial sense was - oh come on, that's a Public Relations nightmare. But the relative ease with which a president was forced out corroborates the Egyptian Army is in the Economic Drivers' Seat. Obviously the military's centrality to the economy grants them control. Fascinating when throughout history military elites have had military intentions. But in this case the hope is as Anwar Sadat was a Military Colonel, fighting is considered immature since this military is trained for business? For Everybody?

Another point over which to fashion some judicious fear is how now twice, pointing crowds has removed presidents in Egypt. Though while these manifestations are laudable as citizens finally having a popular voice, only a fool would think crowd control won't be ratcheted up. The next new government ignoring the bases for hostility and maybe focusing on hiring their own souped-up American Consulting Firm, or another, to design crowd controls that will enable people to appreciate their patriotic options while leaving the satisfied class alone? It's not about rich and poor but fully functioning economies as crowd control remains the big economic trend.

Obviously people are misled to participate in violence?