INTERESTING TIMES

Over the last few years I have been "othered" by a surprising number of Americans.  I have been called names by right-leaning folks who have mistaken me for a leftist.  They called me a statist, a snowflake, a libtard.  The leftists call me names too, especially when I reveal my libertarian sympathies.  According to them I'm a transphobe, homophobe, islamophobe.  I'm a woman so I don't get called sexist, but I do get called honey and darlin'.  I'm so tired of it all.  If you think I'm on either of those two sides, you're wrong

I believe that as humans we all should have certain rights, human rights, the most basic of those being dignity.  There is nothing dignified about name calling.  Tribalism doesn't have to go this low.

I believe that by working together, the people of a nation can achieve great things.  Working together means getting past our differences enough to team up and think about the common good.  I believe in the basic Christian values I learned as a child, that we should help out those in need, that we should be kind to all, even those who've made mistakes, even those who are different from us.  It appears to me that democracy depends on us sharing those beliefs, and that a certain selfish narcissism has overtaken our culture.  People say me mine, not us ours.

I believe in peace over profits.  Sure, war is profitable.  I did regret selling my Haliburton stock years ago, but I couldn't stand to have it in my portfolio.  I'd rather live in a time and place when I do not fear being shot just for showing up on the street.  I'd rather live in a time and place where connection is more valued than conflict.

I don't get my way.  I want my vote to count in a democracy, and because of where I live and the way this democracy is structured, my vote doesn't count.  I am building a micro-culture with me and mine, a small world where people are kind to each other, where listening happens, where compromise is possible.  It doesn't fix the problem with our government, but it helps keep me sane.

I do NOT stand with the loudmouths on either side of this culture war, especially not the fascists.  We cannot let them remain in power.  We must somehow reach the people who fear socialism and communism, because we are so far from those concerns it's not even funny.  We the people must speak up for decency, for fairness.  And we are, we will.

I am frustrated and agonized by the malfunction of our government, by the two-party paralysis, by the electoral college and all the devices by which my vote is removed from the count.  I am aggravated that I do not live in a swing state, so I don't even get to see the sneaky pac ads that musk paid for.  I am aggravated that humanity, even the richest of humans, seem to still be inadequately evolved to work together longterm.  We are too easily misled, too easily fooled.  I mourn for all that we have lost, and hope that the screaming can be stopped and reasonable, kind people will once again step up to assert that cooperation is the way, and drama and dominance make for a masculine wet dream but result in unhappiness and disaster.

Following the Axis surrender, Korea's fate, like that of Central Europe, was still to be worked out.  Officially, the victorious Allies were committed to a free, united and independent Korea.  Then in the war's last week, Stalin's Red Army penetrated far into the country's northern half.  American diplomats, their inboxes overflowing, shifted their focus from what should be done to what could be achieved most easily.  In Washington, late one night, they met with their Soviet counterparts and, tracing lines on a map from National Geographic magazine, consented to the peninsula's "temporary" division along the 38th parallel.  The people who lived there were not consulted.

In 1948, with the Cold War well under way, the U.S.-supported Republic of Korea (ROK) and the USSR-backed Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) officially declared their existence--the former in Seoul, the latter in Pyongyang.  North Korea's head of government, hand-selected by the Soviets, was Kim Il-sung, a thirty-three-year-old military officer who had spent the bulk of his life in exile and possessed little formal education.  He did, however, have big ideas.  Determined to reunify the Korean Peninsula on his terms, Kim persuaded the Soviets to underwrite an invasion of the South, boasting to Stalin that he would win easily.   He almost did prevail, but the United States surprised the DPRK by intervening, under a UN umbrella, prompting China to counter by also entering the fray.  In 1953, an amistice was signed to end the fighting, but with no victor, no formal peace, no significant change in borders, and a death toll that included more than a million and a half Koreans, 900,000 Chinese, and 54,000 Americans.

The war was a colossal waste of lives and treasure, so it matters that the DPRK has been built on a lie about who started it.  The worldview of any North Korean begins with the conviction that, in 1950, their country was attacked by sadistic murderers from America and the ROK.  If not for Kim Il-sung's brave leadership and the pluck of DPRK fighters, their homeland would have been laid waste and their ancestors enslaved.  Worse still, the story continues, Americans are evil and do not learn from their mistakes.  Given a chance, the savages will return and wreak more havoc.  Out of this sham narrative come the fear, the anger, and the yearning for revenge that Kim Il-sung harnessed to justify that world's most totalitarian regime.

--Madeleine Albright in Fascism: A Warning, pages 189-191, published in 2018.

We might think, as we become more open, that it's going to take bigger catastrophes for us to reach our limit. The interesting thing is that, as we open more and more, it's the big ones that immediately wake us up and the little things that catch us off guard. However, no matter what the size, color, or shape is, the point is still to lean toward the discomfort of life & see it clearly, rather than to protect ourselves from it.
~Pema Chodron

I think this may be part of the reason that so many people have defaulted to supporting tRump.  At a gut level he gets it, that somehow the religion of Islam is motivating some people to kill bunches of hedonistic rich oblivious Americans.  We are The Great Satan, after all.  Our women roam around half naked.  We drink alcohol and eat so much that we can't get out of our chairs.  The Muslims who hate us find plenty to hate.  And the teachings of the religion are harsh.  Unforgiving.  Granted, most religions have some myths and stories that motivate hateful actions.  Most religions have a few fundamentalists whose simplistic interpretations lead them to extreme beliefs and behaviors.  Islam has a lot of people like that.  I am certain that the followers of ISIL think that American Muslims who don't help their cause are apostates, no better than the rest of us.  So given that there are quite a few Muslims who think we all deserve to die, and several at least who've been successful at violently killing Americans, being afraid of Muslims sounds kind of reasonable.  If the Dems don't admit to this, and begin teaching Americans about how they've been attempting to quell the fears of peaceable Muslims in order to prevent religious based warfare, they are missing the boat.  Blaming the Pulse shooting solely on easy access to guns is missing the very important point that currently there are a lot of people with this religious background who are motivated to kill.  We need to study them, to understand them.  They are not necessarily insane, they simply live in a different reality dictated by a different culture.  There are also a lot of Americans who are not Muslim who share their distaste for gays, their disrespect for loose women, and their instinctive hatred of other races.  Maybe you should be afraid.

You can always count on the Americans
to do the right thing -
after they've tried
everything else.
--Winston Churchill, first person to be made honorary US citizen

I learned how to play chess from my father who beat me until I refused to play ever again. I didn't play again for many years. Now I will play, but only quick games in which people make more mistakes. Myself included, of course, but I am OK with that. Far as I can tell this really only works against beginning players.

The nutshell of my approach to speed chess:
Think just two moves out (think while the other person is evaluating their moves)
Examine the other person's last move in terms of attack, defense, opening and closing of lanes
Examine what my possible moves are in same terms
Build and maintain open lanes of power
Keep the pressure on (attack with every move if possible)

Just yesterday I finally stopped ignoring the Middle East and looked up a few things. Like who is Shia and who is Sunni. And who has nukes and where. And what exactly an Islamist is. It was....a useful exercise. Anyone else out there taking an interest in this juncture of history? I'm ready to be educated.

It just seems to me, after one *ok a fraction of one* day of looking into it, that the majority Sunnis in most of the Middle East have been supremely frustrated trying to deal with their less conservative, more secular Shia neighbors. And it seems clear to me that America has at least attempted to enact a separation of church and state, even though those words do not appear in the constitution. It was in the First Amendment to the US Constitution that Congress was to "make no law respecting respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof". As wikipedia points out, lots of nations have this idea in their code, and there is a great range of shades of gray in its execution. Here in America we do fairly well, but nowhere near a perfect score. For one thing, the constitution has no control over the states and what local laws might be passed. Which may be how we have gigantic crosses along Interstate 5 in Washington State. Not so different from other places, where religion is supposed to guide personal and political life. Here we seem only able to elect Christian presidents. We like to think that we are above it, but we are surely not.

So I know I am rambling and I will call it quits. If you have an opinion about what is the crux of what is going on--in Syria, Turkey, Kurdistan, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Russia or any other involved party, feel free to comment and tell me! I'm building a mind map.

**Created Syria tag.

LAST SPEECH: Ron Paul's Farewell to Freedom

( Behind this cut is the transcript of Ron Paul’s farewell address to Congress, 11/14/12: )

I would have voted for Mitt if:
( hell froze over )