Born and raised on Staten Island, New York, USA. I'm retired after working in the FDNY for over 31 years years. I've written freelance commentary for the past thirtyty years and have one book published "Looking Up (A Working View)," Quiet Storm Publishers. For those of you with whom my ideas resonate, we probably share a common love of Liberty. If you like anything you read here, feel free to reuse...just please add my appellation. Life's been more than fair to me and this is a part of my humble offering back. If you have any corrections, or additions, please email me (my email address is in my profile) and I’ll both appreciate and consider them all and do my best to get back to you with my thoughts on it. My ideas are always evolving and I’m open to persuasion in all areas. I thank all those who've taken some of their time to read here.
While I AM pro market (Corporatist), and Nationalist, I've also been skeptical of Trump, who won primarily because Steve Bannon's Nationalist platform resonated here the same way BREXIT resonated in England, BUT, for better, or for worse, the past three years have set a new bar.
The next POTUS, whether Democrat, or Republican must meet, or exceed the Trump economy - maintaining this extremely low unemployment, record high stock market numbers, etc., or be seen as an abject failure, no matter what else they may accomplish.
For many, the jury is already in, as it's been said that both Paul Krugman and Robert Reich, among others, advised Hugo Chavez, early on...and we've all seen where that went, just as Milton Friedman had advised Augusto Pinochet, turning Chile from Allende's Socialist basket-case into the economic "Jewel of South America," virtually overnight.
Should a self proclaimed 'Democratic Socialist' win election and preside over an economic downturn here, it will most definitely be chalked up to that ideology and NOT the incompetence of that one failed politician.
I think the goals of "Socialism," even of Marxism, "A more equitable distribution of prosperity, better working conditions with greater incentives built in, a more cooperative society," are good ones. HOWEVER, to date, NO ONE has ever delivered those goals in any of the many places they've been tried. Not in the former USSR (that now has a market economy and a 14% flat tax), not even in Communist China (which has abandoned Mao's Collectivism in favor of...the market) AND, of course, NOT in Cuba, Zimbabwe, or Venezuela.
The closest any economy has come to meeting those is probably here in the U.S., along with perhaps Germany, France and the Nordic nations, in short, "The Capitalist West."
This current administration, whether through good fortune, or sound economic policy, has delivered a powerful surging economy for all. That's created a La Brea tarpits trap for the next Left-of-Center POTUS, in fact, it's current success, undermines that ideology today.
These are very dangerous times for any of those who support the promises of the Left, as some of them have actually been delivered by someone who isn't just non Left, but anti-Leftist.
After this, the public ONLY wants results. THAT presents a major challenge for whoever and whatever comes next. .
. . . Edward Bernays was the father of modern propaganda, but Joseph Goebels was the first to truly master it.
Goebbels saw the power of radio and of images and perfected the use of the dehumanizing stereotype into a lethal art.
It's STILL being used and perfected today, although today, our mass media uses somewhat more subtle ways to shape thought and opinion...with equally lethal results.
Mel Gibson is probably the best 'Old School' propagandist around today. In his films, the "enemy," often the English, have no redeeming qualities at all.
His tour de force, "Braveheart," was basically a modern Western, in the modern "Apologist style" of Kevin Costner's "Dances With Wolves," in which the Indians, or in Gibson's case, the Celts were the "noble savages," and there wasn't a Brit on screen with a shred of human decency, or virtue.
The King (Longshanks) was a bloodthirsty, homicidal maniac with a gay son...and not gay in that, "I am who I am," kind of way, no, the King's son's homosexuality was merely a prop the script writers could use to depict him as a Nancy-boy, sissy, coward. Even his wardrobe stood out, as nebulously androgynous, even vaguely transgendered. Slap a feather boa and a pair of stilettos on that character and Kaitlyn Jenner would turn green with envy.
In Costner's "Dances With Wolves," Costner's main character, Sergeant Dunbar, a Civil War veteran, gives up his Western ways after meeting with and greatly admiring a tribe of Plains Indians and their way of life.
The film was lauded for using a mostly native American cast and depicting American Indians as actual, nuanced people, with a deep love of family, a strong sense of community as well as an actual sense of humor.
This being Hollywood, of course, Costner's character, a white guy from back east, quickly becomes a better Plains Indian than any real Plains Indian ever was! Go figure...hokey as that is, it sells popcorn AND, as a happy byproduct for the propagandists, it cements in place the inferior status of the American Indians.
The SAME thing is done more insidiously today with rural stereotypes, that have long been used to allow those with money to laugh comfortably at those without.
Rich Hall's excellent documentary "The Dirty South" (https://youtu.be/x_G2VOBKXxM) explains this dynamic very well.
Over the past few decades, these rural stereotypes have been used by Coastal elites to effectively wage war on traditional ("Red State") America.
The actual elites have an added inside joke to all this.
IF you work for a living, whether you're a High School math teacher, an attorney, a carpenter, an adjunct at a College, a Cop, or an Emergency Room physician, YOU are NOT a member of the "elite." YOU, in fact, are an "urban hillbilly" to the elites, whether you buy into their regional, classist hate, or not.
The true elites don't work. They run things (like media outlets and other enterprises), or live off of investments, or Trust Funds. They very definitely DON'T rely on income from work.
So, getting "urban hillbillies" to hate "rural hillbillies" is an endlessly amusing inside joke to the actual elites.
Since the late 1960s a favorite Hollywood villain has been the traditional American, depicted as a course, crude, corn pone bumpkin, prone to violence, sexism and racism, who's obsessed with religion and, of course...making their own hooch.
Ironically enough, this allows the elites in the media to project their own petty bigotries onto this nebulous "enemy," they depict as prone to jingoistic patriotism and traditional values, like monogamy, hard work, self sufficiency and thrift. If your black, Asian, or Hispanic and prone to those traditional values, then you too are a "rube," worthy of mockery, in the eyes of this elite.
The "urban hillbillies" of every background who buy into this are thus duped into a guilt-ridden angst and a crippling sense of self hate.
This particular propaganda is especially effective. Those "rubes" who are targeted and stereotyped are overwhelmingly poor and without influence - they know they're being targeted but can't do much about it. Those urban "rubes," who buy into the classist hate being packaged and sold by this media, are even worse off, as they're mostly unaware they're even being manipulated.
More recently the "news" portion of this media has joined in the fun. Perhaps the most egregious example was the Covington Catholic HATE HOAX, in which NBC and the Washington Post deliberately misreported a racist attack by a recognized hate group (The Black Hebrew Israelites/BHI) against a group of white, red state schoolchildren, in which a Native American activist (Nathan Phillips) sided with the racists, after being outraged by the schoolchildren drowning out the racist abuse of the BHI, approached the group and drummed in their faces because, as he said, "They NEEDED to hear this!"
This amounted to a fabricated, scripted event for the "newsmedia." The villains HAD TO BE the "rubes" (the white schoolchildren). The BHI had to be left out because they were so unsympathetic, being a widely recognized hate group and all, so the focus was placed on 'poor old' "Tribal Elder," Nathan Phillips.
In their reports, the victimized schoolchildren were presented as the aggressors, bullying a frail, old man.
One of the schoolchildren (Nick Sandmann) has brought suit against the media over this incident and despite a pro government-media judge ruling, "the media is allowed to make MISTAKES," a portion of that lawsuit has been allowed to go forward. (https://www.usatoday.com/…/cov-cath-judge-rules…/2489395001/)
This is the state of the U.S political-media class. The real enemies of America control the media and are embedded in government and are, ironically enough, portraying traditional Americans as "the enemy." .
Billionaire Bob Parsons recalls that he flunked 5th grade, was passed to graduate High School only because teachers felt sorry that he'd been drafted and was headed to Vietnam.
He claims that the Marine Corps installing discipline in him and his post Military Service determination to learn computer programming was what fueled his incredible success.
He says he learned it by spending 50 to 60 hours straight trying to read code and figure things out, then once he began seeing things, like dragons floating across the screen, he'd go home, sleep for 8 hours then work another 50 to 60 hours straight.
He sold his first company to Intuit for $64 MILLION and kept on starting companies. Today he's worth over $3 BILLION and runs 16 companies at age 68 and he and his wife are major philanthropists. His current focus is on Veterans groups, including support for the Semper Fi Fund with donations exceeding $8.5 million.
A Life Worth Living...is a Life Worth Losing . . I don't know who said it (I'm certain someone said it before me), but it's true that, "A LIFE worth living is a LIFE worth losing!"
WHY?
FIRST, because every life is ultimately lost anyway...
AND
SECOND, because LIFE is best lived boldly.
Life is risk.
We are forced to accept risks, both seen and unseen, daily, from genetic factors we may be unaware of that predispose us to certain conditions, or diseases, to the choices we make that may lead to either great success, or disaster, depending on how sound they are.
We shouldn't shy away from risk, as that amounts to shying away from life itself.
It used to be BDS (Bush Derangement Syndrome), proving it would've been CDS (Cruz Derangement Syndrome), or FDS (Fiorina Derangement Syndrome), etc. had any of the other leading 2016 GOP Primary candidates won that general election.
Trump, a lifelong NY Democrat is governing precisely like a traditional Democrat...a JFK Democrat - a tax cutting, Nationalist & anti Collectivist President.
It's not as though Leftists seem to have any specific issues with the Trump results; a booming economy, renegotiated trade deals, massive deregulation, etc., just red hot ANGER and...DERANGEMENT!
Take this one example. In response to an innocuous tweet by Ivanka Trump:
"It is an honor to serve our great Country and fight for America’s workers!🇺🇸" (Ivanka Trump)
The immediate response from the Left was offered by a "freelance journalist," Lesley Abravanel:
"How have you served this country and fought for American workers, you fauxminist fraudulent, sweatshop owning, shoe design stealing, Chinese trademarking shanda spawn of the leader of the #TurdReich? #TrumpCrimeFamilyForPrison#ImpeachAndRemoveTrump" (Lesley Abravanel)
Only that there is little decency, nor tolerance, let alone actual policy ideas on the Left today.
There is no legitimate answer in displays of personal animus. What's needed are RESULTS.
Let us see and compare the RESULTS of Blue locales (ie. California, New York) to Red locales (ie. Texas, Florida). SAME thing nationally. Inconveniently for Leftist Democrats, the Trump economy surged immediately, more than doubling the Bush/Obama recovery rate. The DJIA increased by nearly as much in Donald Trump's first 3 years (appx. +9,800) as it did over Barack Obama's 8 full years (appx. +10,300). Unemployment is at historic lows, record lows for blacks and Hispanics and real wages have increased by 2.5% after remaining stagnant for most of the past 20 years.
Moreover, there was no lag. The economy surged as soon as Trump was elected.
The next Democrat, whoever and whenever that might be, MUST BE judged relative to those results! There is no other acceptable standard. The next Democrat must exceed the Trump results or be deemed a failure, just as California and New York are currently judged failures compared to Texas and Florida.
Righteous indignation, outrage and anger count for NOTHING.
RESULTS are the ONLY thing that count.
It's time we surrender Party politics and just look at outcomes. Those outcomes are driven by policies. They're why Oklahoma City and San Diego are much better places to live than San Francisco and New York City.
OKC & S.D. happen to have Republican mayors, both San Fran & NYC have failed Democrat mayors.
Failed policies render failed results. Sound policies deliver positive results. It's really just about as simple as that.
World War I was called "The War to End All Wars," but it was nothing close to that. It also PROVED that politicians, no matter where they come from, have no respect for the lives of those who fight their wars.
America's entry into that war had NOTHING to do with "right," or "wrong," it was engineered by bankers, many of them members of the newly formed Federal Reserve getting the massive amounts of money lent to England and France paid back. The reason for America's entry into that conflict was about little more than that.
It certainly WASN'T because England and France were "the good guys" in that conflict.
They were not.
Perhaps the worst lie was the Armistice, signed at 5:45AM on November 11th, but the signatories had it go into effect more than 5 HOURS later, at 11AM, for no better reason than to have it fall on "the 11th hour, of the 11th day of the 11th month."
Hundreds of soldiers on both sides were killed in the intervening 6+ hours for that bit of historical vanity. They let hundreds more die, just to get to the hour they wanted. They let hundreds die over an optic.
No matter where they come from, politicians don't hold the lives of those who fight and die for their countries in high regard.
The WWI Amistice, also known as the Armistice of Compiègne for the place it was signed, came into effect at 11AM Paris time on November 11th, 1918.
The November 11th Armistice, was just that, an Armistice, an agreement made by opposing sides in a war to cease hostilities, in other words, a truce. Germany never formally a surrender.
Far from being "The War to End All Wars," WWI and its Armistice virtually assured its continuation of those unsettled hostilities, which would resume just 21 years later. Once again proving that no matter where they come from, politicians have no regard for the lives of those in their own Militaries. .
. . The publisher of Trends Forecasting, a business consultant says we're already in "Stage 1" of the biggest Depression ever.
He sees both major political Parties in America as part of the problem and the Marriage of the political and media into a single political-media class has delivered what Celente describes as, "Fake News + Shit News = American News."
