Today, after this business came out with Senator Warren and her registration with the Texas bar association years ago as an American Indian.....I sat pondered over this.
Imagine yourself standing there and needing some lawyer, and you walk into this private office area, and here are a couple of American Indian paintings, a picture of the Indian warrior gal with some chief, and a stamped certificate noting her Indian heritage. For most folks (at least from Alabama), this would have triggered you (the customer) to ask about this heritage.
Course, the lawyer gal would have told you some 3-line story about grandma such-and-such who was fifty-percent Cherokee, and how you were proud of the heritage. But then the Alabama in you....would gone on to ask how Grandma was 50-percent Cherokee. The 3-line piece simply wouldn't worked. You'd basically be asked for the two-page story, which Warren would not have prepared herself for that chat.
The problem here is that so many Americans are just plain gullible. You could make up some story that your Uncle 'Joe' ran off and joined the circus in the 1950s, and folks would believe it. You could make up a story that your dad was a Mennonite who escaped the family farm in the 1960s, and fought in Vietnam. You could make up a story about yourself, in that you took a month off in 1989....went to Alaska, and shot two grizzly bears. People are simply gullible enough to believe these stories.
In fact, the further you can take this....like in some university or US government job.....the more dramatic that the story can be. There are probably 350,000 guys walking around the US today and claiming that they earned a Medal of Honor (since the Revolutionary War, there's only been 3,522 people awarded the Medal).
You can go over to a major American public university and ask them to state how many American Indians are attending, and find out that at least 300 students from the University of Alabama.....are American Indians. Factual? It's doubtful.
But that's the thing about this whole business.....people are gullible enough to believe just about anything you make you make up. You could take two weeks of leave from the office....disappear totally, and show up in two weeks with bandages and wounds on yourself.....telling folks that you went on some safari to South Africa and got attacked by lions. Folks would be all driven to believe the story and ask you to relate the lion attack story.
There's a problem here, but we seem to really enjoy being entertained.
Wednesday, 6 February 2019
Trump and the SOTU Speech
I normally don't watch these State of the Union speeches. As a kid, I can remember two or three by Nixon, a couple by Reagan, maybe one of Clinton's eight speeches, and maybe bits and pieces out of the last twenty years.
From the Trump speech yesterday, there were three things that I kinda noticed. First, it was a direct and blunt statement to socialism.....which I think he's going to label the 2020 election about socialism. Those Democrats showing up in the primary in early 2020....have a script already written out to hype socialism....which I have doubts that the bulk of Democratic voters outside of metropolitan areas will sign up to. If Trump's team just runs ads of Venezuela and what socialism is all about.....then their candidate probably won't even cross the 60-million vote point.
Second, as much as Pelosi tried to appear focused and busy in the background.....I just kept looking at her as he spoke. I suspect a lot of people did.
Third, it just seemed like every paragraph to his speech....had some honored guest of Trump in the background and getting mentioned. An agenda to each single person? Yes. You can't help but notice that angle.
As for the short opposition speech from the Georgia candidate for governor? Meaningful....but it just wasn't as dramatic. And the forty-odd people behind her? I would avoid that in the future when you do another opposition speech.
From the Trump speech yesterday, there were three things that I kinda noticed. First, it was a direct and blunt statement to socialism.....which I think he's going to label the 2020 election about socialism. Those Democrats showing up in the primary in early 2020....have a script already written out to hype socialism....which I have doubts that the bulk of Democratic voters outside of metropolitan areas will sign up to. If Trump's team just runs ads of Venezuela and what socialism is all about.....then their candidate probably won't even cross the 60-million vote point.
Second, as much as Pelosi tried to appear focused and busy in the background.....I just kept looking at her as he spoke. I suspect a lot of people did.
Third, it just seemed like every paragraph to his speech....had some honored guest of Trump in the background and getting mentioned. An agenda to each single person? Yes. You can't help but notice that angle.
As for the short opposition speech from the Georgia candidate for governor? Meaningful....but it just wasn't as dramatic. And the forty-odd people behind her? I would avoid that in the future when you do another opposition speech.
Mass Movements and Suddenness
"It is a truism that many who join a rising revolutionary movement are attracted of the prospect of sudden and spectacular change in their conditions of life. A revolutionary movement is a conspicuous instrument of change."
-- Eric Hoffer
This is the beginning of a seven-essay series I'm writing from True Believer, the 1951 book written by Eric Hoffer, which drills down into mass movements and how various agenda groups 'stage' an event or two....to captivate an audience and drum up support for sudden change.
One of the odd features of mass movements is that they typically don't involve people over the age of fifty. It's hard to convince older people of some event requiring you to stage a revolution for change. This is the crowd with a skeptical nature....questioning the need for irrational behavior or the sudden arrival of some emergency.
A chief selling point of this mass movement strategy is that people are naive enough to think that sudden change (of any type) will bring about success or good fortune. Statistically, you can't prove that statement though.
One of the great problems of this mass movement strategy is that you often find people who are in the midst of a great landscape, and they don't see a necessity to get hyped up for revolution. These are the people least likely to buy into suddenness. And on the other side of this....you have the group who are frustrated with disenchantment brewing. This is the group that would like to doors opened and problems resolved. Suddenness is easy to buy into with this group.
Oddly enough, all of this attraction involves 'sudden-change'....not something that occurs in ten to twenty years.....but in a much shorter timespan. This is usually where some individual is telling you that climate change is underway and unless you do something in ten years....the world will end. A naive guy will buy into sudden change pretty easy at that point. An older guy will be skeptical and ask questions.
So when you are confronted with some agenda and it just seems to 'tingle' or swing back and forth....with urgentness and suddenness attached, ask yourself if this is real or fake.
Tuesday, 5 February 2019
On the NFL
After the Super Bowl ended (I didn't watch, and must admit.....I haven't watched an NFL game in four years)....they got around to talking about the viewers. It was the lowest watched game in a decade.
What's really happened here?
Once the kneeling business, and continued attachment to social warrior 'tendencies' hit some serious strides.....people asked some general questions, and then departed as viewers or fans.
Here's the thing about it.....very shortly (might be here in 2019, or 2020).....the salary structures are going to be discussed with ticket sales and decreased TV viewer ratings. All of this will likely lead to a 10-percent cut in pay for the majority of players. Hostility brewing?
There's some talk about the 2021 players-owners contract and how this will go. So 2019's season is awful critical. Everyone needs to get fans back on board, and just plain stop talking social-warrior chatter. The players and teams need one season where there is no negativity for fans to talk about. The Colin Kaepernick 'saga'? It needs to end. Some team needs to just offer the guy a back-up quarterback contract, and Colin needs to accept it and move on with what is left in his career. He might be able to squeeze four more productive years out of this mess.
What happens if kneeling and social justice events continue into 2019 and 2020? I'll go ahead and predict a lock-out/strike for the summer of 2021, and players get shocked that owners aren't rushing out to resolve this mess. Yes, the entire 2021 season might not even exist. For college players aiming to arrive in 2021? They'd best start planning a plan-B type situation for that summer, and the fall.....looking for real employment to cover their bills.
What's really happened here?
Once the kneeling business, and continued attachment to social warrior 'tendencies' hit some serious strides.....people asked some general questions, and then departed as viewers or fans.
Here's the thing about it.....very shortly (might be here in 2019, or 2020).....the salary structures are going to be discussed with ticket sales and decreased TV viewer ratings. All of this will likely lead to a 10-percent cut in pay for the majority of players. Hostility brewing?
There's some talk about the 2021 players-owners contract and how this will go. So 2019's season is awful critical. Everyone needs to get fans back on board, and just plain stop talking social-warrior chatter. The players and teams need one season where there is no negativity for fans to talk about. The Colin Kaepernick 'saga'? It needs to end. Some team needs to just offer the guy a back-up quarterback contract, and Colin needs to accept it and move on with what is left in his career. He might be able to squeeze four more productive years out of this mess.
What happens if kneeling and social justice events continue into 2019 and 2020? I'll go ahead and predict a lock-out/strike for the summer of 2021, and players get shocked that owners aren't rushing out to resolve this mess. Yes, the entire 2021 season might not even exist. For college players aiming to arrive in 2021? They'd best start planning a plan-B type situation for that summer, and the fall.....looking for real employment to cover their bills.
Thursday, 31 January 2019
999 Possible Socialisms
Since going into retirement in 2013, I've spent an awful of time looking at various topics, and then pondering upon the definitions and realities of these items. One topic which I seem to go back to almost weekly....is where some college kid has gotten his 'big' lecture on socialism, and the 'gravy-train' that accompanies socialism.
I sat and watched some discussion where a 20-year old wanted to talk about Swedish socialism and how things worked there. But about two minutes into the conversation, I came to realize that he's really never been in Sweden, the Nordic countries, or Europe for that matter. A couple of months ago, I watched some discussion where Spanish socialism got mentioned but it was again someone who has never been there. In each case....they had a professor make an impact statement upon them.....but there is no real factual evidence that the professor himself has ever been in one of these socialist countries.
So what are the various Socialisms? There's Karl Marx Socialism. Friedrich Engels Socialism. Oscar Wilde Socialism. Albert Einstein Socialism. Norway Socialism. Sweden Socialism. Finland Socialism. German Socialism. DDR (old East German) Socialism. Nelson Mandela Socialism. Canadian Socialism. Icelandic Socialism. Vietnam (1960s-1970s) Socialism. Vietnam (1990 to now) Socialism. North Korean Socialism. Che Guevara Socialism. Benito Mussolini Socialism. Hitler Socialism. Lenin Socialism. Stalin Socialism. Chavez-Maduro Socialism. British Socialism.
You could spend an entire afternoon going over the 999 types of socialism that exist. The basic idea is that everything would be fair, balanced, and divided upon up among 'equals'. You would live in some utopia where everyone got a piece of the pie.
The best example that people tend to use? Norwegian Socialism. Few ever mention with the discussion that Norway has a ton of oil and natural gas.....which leads to a major flow of capital into the national treasury. When that oil and gas money runs out? There will be an eventual downward trend, and the Norwegian utopia environment will eventually disappear.
Can you have Socialism without the utopia 'dream'? This is the key question which would draw a dozen folks to sit in a pub....drink excessive amounts of alcohol....and come to no real rational conclusion.
I sat and watched some discussion where a 20-year old wanted to talk about Swedish socialism and how things worked there. But about two minutes into the conversation, I came to realize that he's really never been in Sweden, the Nordic countries, or Europe for that matter. A couple of months ago, I watched some discussion where Spanish socialism got mentioned but it was again someone who has never been there. In each case....they had a professor make an impact statement upon them.....but there is no real factual evidence that the professor himself has ever been in one of these socialist countries.
So what are the various Socialisms? There's Karl Marx Socialism. Friedrich Engels Socialism. Oscar Wilde Socialism. Albert Einstein Socialism. Norway Socialism. Sweden Socialism. Finland Socialism. German Socialism. DDR (old East German) Socialism. Nelson Mandela Socialism. Canadian Socialism. Icelandic Socialism. Vietnam (1960s-1970s) Socialism. Vietnam (1990 to now) Socialism. North Korean Socialism. Che Guevara Socialism. Benito Mussolini Socialism. Hitler Socialism. Lenin Socialism. Stalin Socialism. Chavez-Maduro Socialism. British Socialism.
You could spend an entire afternoon going over the 999 types of socialism that exist. The basic idea is that everything would be fair, balanced, and divided upon up among 'equals'. You would live in some utopia where everyone got a piece of the pie.
The best example that people tend to use? Norwegian Socialism. Few ever mention with the discussion that Norway has a ton of oil and natural gas.....which leads to a major flow of capital into the national treasury. When that oil and gas money runs out? There will be an eventual downward trend, and the Norwegian utopia environment will eventually disappear.
Can you have Socialism without the utopia 'dream'? This is the key question which would draw a dozen folks to sit in a pub....drink excessive amounts of alcohol....and come to no real rational conclusion.
Looking at Lifetstyles
At some point over the next decade, I expect around 10,000 Americans (male and female) to have enough plastic surgery done to their bodies....to self-identify as Klingons, Romulans, or Vulcans. So will start a self-identify campaign to be able to note on their license, or their status in life.....as another species. We will laugh about the effort, but there will be significant numbers to trigger some kind of public stance in support of the additional species. The odd thing here.....they are all imaginary groups, and have no logical position in reality.
So months will pass, as the logical folks among us (myself included) will basically deny that you can identify in some official sense as Klingons or Vulcans. Some 'experts' will begin to appear on CBS and NPR, to speak to the idea that you can change and become whatever you desire. It'll reach some stage where the self-identified Romulans have a national parade, a weekend of Romulan lust, and perhaps even get into Romanian-style politics.
The problem with this is that some end-game ought to occur, where people wake up from this fantasy lifestyle, and maneuver back to some logical mind, but it WON'T occur.
Is there any limit to this illusion in life? No.
You can already see people maneuvering around with fictional series....fictional religions....and even fictional lifestyles.
In some ways, we are seeking to find entertainment, and escape our discontent. This illusion....works.
So months will pass, as the logical folks among us (myself included) will basically deny that you can identify in some official sense as Klingons or Vulcans. Some 'experts' will begin to appear on CBS and NPR, to speak to the idea that you can change and become whatever you desire. It'll reach some stage where the self-identified Romulans have a national parade, a weekend of Romulan lust, and perhaps even get into Romanian-style politics.
The problem with this is that some end-game ought to occur, where people wake up from this fantasy lifestyle, and maneuver back to some logical mind, but it WON'T occur.
Is there any limit to this illusion in life? No.
You can already see people maneuvering around with fictional series....fictional religions....and even fictional lifestyles.
In some ways, we are seeking to find entertainment, and escape our discontent. This illusion....works.
Wednesday, 30 January 2019
A Russian Story
Over the past month or two, I've spent a fair amount of time looking at Soviet/Russian history, and different historical events that occurred. A lot of these events rarely, if ever, get discussed.
So I came this week to a Soviet creation of division (it was always important in the Communist thinking....to split people up into groups....in essene to divide them). After the 1917 Communist Revolution, and the Czar is fired (later executed with his family)....the Communists come to this odd situation.
They decide that out beyond urbanized areas....there exists farms and ruralized folks. One could suggest that they were not as sophisticated or smart as the intellectual folks....but that wasn't really enough to divide folks up (against each other).
So three groupings were created.
At the top level of this rural business....were the Kulak folks. They were the ones who'd be given farm land and opportunities since 1904....to pursue commerce at their own level. Their allotment of land was set at roughly 8 acres of land per male in the family. So if you were the father, and you had four sons among the 8 members of the family....you were entitled to 40 acres minimum. You can do the math (in this pre-tractor period) and realize their agricultural production level. These weren't cattlemen or ranch owners. They probably had forty hogs....a chicken house....some pear or apple trees, and land for corn or garden-style vegetables. What was considered excess....sold via their local cooperative operation, and made it's way into cities and towns.
The Kulaks, for all practical discussions....were pursuing profits. Most writings of the period indicate that the Kulak folks had farming tasks that were beyond their manpower, and they hired folks on, to help with the work. Unfortunately, this hiring business is what helped to undermine the Kulaks in the 1920s. These folks left as the employees of the Kulak group were disgruntled, and had the frustration of being 'left-behind'.
If WW I had never occurred and the Communists never took control? One might suspect that their significance in commerce would have multiplied in the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s. They would have pursued tractors, advanced planting practices, and been a major part of Russian society.
One step down from the Kulaks were the Serednyak. The Serednyak were termed as middle-class 'poor'. They weren't making the money that the Kulaks were making.
Then you come to the bottom dirt-level group.....bednyak folks.
There's not a lot to explain how and why three groups came to exist, or to explain why you needed to have a dirt-poor group and a better-than-dirt-poor group. This is one of those mysteries which historians don't really talk much about.
Having grown up in the south....in a rural environment, I would readily agree that there were the successful and the unsuccessful farmers. A lot of this division though led back to three central factors:
1. Educational levels (even in rural regions) differed greatly. So you could have a hundred young men, and twenty of them might be fairly educated, asking questions, and pursuing new ideas. The other eighty might be people with no interest in education, or assembling a better master plan for their 'dream-farm'.
2. Risk taking. There are generally individuals who are willing to review priorities, assign risk factors, and take steps which most avoid. Risk takers in a commerce environment....are the type who usually advance, and accumulate wealth (even if meager in terms of amounts). The non-risk takers? They stay at a stagnant level.
3. Alcoholism. It's worth bringing up that in a rural environment, with little to do for excitement....you drink. Some drink excessively. Some drink to a reasonable peak. In the Russian case....I would suspect that the Bednyak folks were favored to drink excessively.
In this odd atmosphere, the Communist folks plotted this out and decided that they were better to take the two lowest groups....getting them into a frenzy of sorts, and have them blame the Kulak folks for their position in life.
So here we are in 2019, and it's kinda interesting that the division of society is going on in America, with various groups pursuing blame toward particular groups for their standing in life. Failing at educational goals, attaining false education values, refusing to take reasonable risks, and allowing drugs/alcohol to be a part of their society.....you've allowed a faction versus faction situation to develop. What comes next? It's hard to say.
So I came this week to a Soviet creation of division (it was always important in the Communist thinking....to split people up into groups....in essene to divide them). After the 1917 Communist Revolution, and the Czar is fired (later executed with his family)....the Communists come to this odd situation.
They decide that out beyond urbanized areas....there exists farms and ruralized folks. One could suggest that they were not as sophisticated or smart as the intellectual folks....but that wasn't really enough to divide folks up (against each other).
So three groupings were created.
At the top level of this rural business....were the Kulak folks. They were the ones who'd be given farm land and opportunities since 1904....to pursue commerce at their own level. Their allotment of land was set at roughly 8 acres of land per male in the family. So if you were the father, and you had four sons among the 8 members of the family....you were entitled to 40 acres minimum. You can do the math (in this pre-tractor period) and realize their agricultural production level. These weren't cattlemen or ranch owners. They probably had forty hogs....a chicken house....some pear or apple trees, and land for corn or garden-style vegetables. What was considered excess....sold via their local cooperative operation, and made it's way into cities and towns.
The Kulaks, for all practical discussions....were pursuing profits. Most writings of the period indicate that the Kulak folks had farming tasks that were beyond their manpower, and they hired folks on, to help with the work. Unfortunately, this hiring business is what helped to undermine the Kulaks in the 1920s. These folks left as the employees of the Kulak group were disgruntled, and had the frustration of being 'left-behind'.
If WW I had never occurred and the Communists never took control? One might suspect that their significance in commerce would have multiplied in the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s. They would have pursued tractors, advanced planting practices, and been a major part of Russian society.
One step down from the Kulaks were the Serednyak. The Serednyak were termed as middle-class 'poor'. They weren't making the money that the Kulaks were making.
Then you come to the bottom dirt-level group.....bednyak folks.
There's not a lot to explain how and why three groups came to exist, or to explain why you needed to have a dirt-poor group and a better-than-dirt-poor group. This is one of those mysteries which historians don't really talk much about.
Having grown up in the south....in a rural environment, I would readily agree that there were the successful and the unsuccessful farmers. A lot of this division though led back to three central factors:
1. Educational levels (even in rural regions) differed greatly. So you could have a hundred young men, and twenty of them might be fairly educated, asking questions, and pursuing new ideas. The other eighty might be people with no interest in education, or assembling a better master plan for their 'dream-farm'.
2. Risk taking. There are generally individuals who are willing to review priorities, assign risk factors, and take steps which most avoid. Risk takers in a commerce environment....are the type who usually advance, and accumulate wealth (even if meager in terms of amounts). The non-risk takers? They stay at a stagnant level.
3. Alcoholism. It's worth bringing up that in a rural environment, with little to do for excitement....you drink. Some drink excessively. Some drink to a reasonable peak. In the Russian case....I would suspect that the Bednyak folks were favored to drink excessively.
In this odd atmosphere, the Communist folks plotted this out and decided that they were better to take the two lowest groups....getting them into a frenzy of sorts, and have them blame the Kulak folks for their position in life.
So here we are in 2019, and it's kinda interesting that the division of society is going on in America, with various groups pursuing blame toward particular groups for their standing in life. Failing at educational goals, attaining false education values, refusing to take reasonable risks, and allowing drugs/alcohol to be a part of their society.....you've allowed a faction versus faction situation to develop. What comes next? It's hard to say.
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