The four reasons I would vote for Trump despite my academic degree

If the choice for the president was a pig or a monkey (I mean literal animals, just like a cat was called for a jury duty) would you be enthusiastic by either, would you defend them, or merely say that you vote for the less of the two evils?

 

I could not understand anyone enthusiastically following either beast, yet this is exactly what we see in this election. Clinton followers – followers, not voters –  are just as blind of those who follow Trump.

Yet, donkey or monkey, a reluctant vote must be made, because unless you call for a revolution, not voting is giving to those you do not respect the little say you still have over who will make your life worse.

In this case, Trump would be my choice:

1. Trump is stupidly open; he can’t hide a thing. Everything he does, whether you like it or not, is visible.  Hillary is known to work behind the scenes to promote her agenda. The damage she will cause will be revealed only years later (Benghazi, Honduras, changing classification of documents post-subpoena, to name just a few).

2. Trump is blatantly incapable of representing the USA. Having him there will be so embarrassing, that it will force the congress to ensure such elections will never again happen – which just might lead to changing a corrupt system, which otherwise will keep sailing uninterrupted until it falls off the face of earth (12% of Americans still believe the earth is flat)

3.  There is a reasonable chance that Trump is not interested in being an active president, but only wants to be elected. In this case he will leave the day to day work of the president to others. He might even resign when he discovers that the job is not as glamorous as it appears on TV. America without a president, is probably better off than America with either candidate. (Japan, Australia are example of countries that run without an effective head of country for many years)

4. The biggest threat to the free world, in my opinion, is corporate control over governments and the legal system. This is not capitalism, but the reintroduction of the very nobility system the first Americans escaped from, and have now re-created. With the suggested international trade pacts, America will seal the exportation of the new nobility system back to the rest of the world. This is what Clinton stands for and the main reason I could never vote for her.

So reluctantly, with total lack of choice. I have made my choice. Don’t we miss Bush all of a sudden? He looks so good in comparison.

The Devil You Know?

Trump or Clinton, who is lesser devil?
Any democrat but Clinton would easily win against Trump; any Republican but Trump would have no problem winning against Clinton.

What a sad state of affairs.
What a broken system.

Yet, the choice is easy.

With Trump as a president the corrupt, broken, undemocratic system, under the pressure of randomness and unknown, will reveal its flaws, exposing them to everyone -- especially to those who refuse to see them already

With Clinton, the dysfunctional system will be embedded deeper, continuing the deterioration of life for the middle class America.

Sometimes you need to break a system to rebuild it afresh -- That's how America was founded. Sometimes you just want to stick your head in the sand and hope you will die of natural cause before the storm hits.

This is the difference between voting for Trump or voting for Clinton. Now make your choice.
Mine is made

American Media and the ex-Soviet Propaganda

The Way to Peace and Creation

I bet that it’s been some time since you cared about what was happening in Iraq. After all, the media has barely covered the new wave of killing, the worst bloodshed since 2008.

What about the 3,852 civilian casualties in Afghanistan in the first half of this year? When was the last time you watched, read or thought about them?

And until last week, like the media, most Americans did not care about the two and a half years of civil war in Syria that killed over 100,000 people. Not until Obama declared, “Let’s bomb them.” Suddenly, the media is discovering how immoral these Syrian are. So bad that even without strategy or objectives, we must bomb them into submission.

In the daily media, there is little discussion why the British have decided not to support the US attack, nor why the Chinese and Russian support the Syrian regime. As if the media has taken a role to rally the people of America behind their fearless leader, whatever his indecisive decision might be. With some difference – not as big as we may want to believe -- that was the role of the media in totalitarian regimes. To be more concrete, let’s look at four of the principle that guided the dreaded USSR propaganda.

1. Internationalization of Socialism: In the USA, we call for the Internationalization of Democracy. The principle, however, has not change: let brainwash our people to believe that what we have here (whether we like it or not), is the best for others. After all, we can’t trust them to know what’s good for them.

2. Peace loving: The propaganda of the communist party in the USSR emphasized their yearning for peace, unlike the military ambitions of their archenemy, the USA. Many Americans (those who bothered to know, at least) found it surprising to discover after the fall of communism, that the Russian population had feared the US military ambition just as much as the average American feared the Russians.

3. Personality Cult: It’s amazing to hear how Obama is compared, by some media, to Lincoln, if not Washington. I wonder what the US would have looked like, if he really were the first president.

4. Toe the Party Line: With some exceptions, the truth in any conflict is never simple and hardly ever one-sided. But we can’t afford any doubt if America wants to practice its right to test its weapon in foreign lands. So let’s make sure that subtlety and complexity will not interfere with our judgment and remove them from the discussion altogether. Let’s make sure that the facts are presented only in a way that supports us. After all, the purpose of truth is to support our position, and we will change it accordingly.

Propaganda has always been the cardinal tool of dark regimes. In the USA, outside short periods, independent media has been the protector of democracy. Using it to serve political agenda will risk the very way of life that generations of Americans believed in and fought to preserve, a way of life that nowadays is not guaranteed any longer. Never has it seemed so fragile.

The Democratic Face of Necrophilia

Egypt turned a democracy, and the newly elected Islamic-dominated parliament, has already introduced new laws – democratically, of course

According to the new proposal, Egyptian husbands will soon be legally allowed to have sex with their dead wives - for up to six hours after their death. It will also see the minimum age of marriage lowered to 14 and the ridding of women's rights of getting education and employment.

Thank you America for relentlessly sowing the seeds for new democracies.

The financial industry and value destruction

In this book, Simon Lack exposes what many in the industry has known all along, but preferred never to let out. The financial industry creates value for the manager of the financial industry, but destroys value for  investors. That is, 84% of all profits of the hedge fund industry, as a whole, went to the pockets of a few hundred hedge fund managers. They were not the investors.

This is a must book for anyone who wants to understand how distorted a system have we created. It is also a must for any politician who wants to make things better, and not only for themselves. But do such people exist?

The latest from Dad (Dictators against discrimination)

UN Flags flew at Half-Mast for Kim Jong-il's Funeral, followed by a moment of silence for the North Korean Dictator, who killed, tortured and starved millions of his own people. The UN spokeswoman said it was merely following the customary protocol upon the deaths of state leaders.

Lawyers for the Dad (Dictators against discrimination) are now suing the the UN for discrimination against the deceased leaders of Iraq and Iran. “The fact that the N. Korean dictator was not killed in the hand of the UN forces, cannot be considered relevant, and will not be accepted as a valid excuse to justify the discrimination against Kim's his Libyan and Iraqi peers,” said the spokesman for the organization.

Human right legal experts believe that an out-of court settlement, which will include the permanent placement of the dictators' statues in the UN assembly hall, is likely to be reached soon.

When liberal views go unchecked

Unchecked liberalism eventually goes out of control and destroy itself: Hitler, rose to power democratically; Until recently, unchecked liberal views allowed undemocratic movements to flourish in Europe. What does it mean to the US today?

9/11 and the American Education

I asked my two children, one in primary school, the other in middle school, what they had learned at school about 9/11.  Both said that they had a moment of silence and that was all. There was no lesson devoted to it, no discussion or debate. My primary school child, was not even sure what 9/11 was all about.  I was shocked.

Even if it is not part of the formal curriculum (shouldn't it be?), can there be a justification for such educational negligence? How deep can our democratic ignorance go, and still call US a democracy?

Thank you President Obama

President Obama called for Bashar al-Assad to step down for the sake of the Syrian people. President Assad wishes to thank Obama for his good advice, and apologizes that his busy schedule, killing his people, has prevented him from looking after their welfare. For the sake of his people and the pleasure of facing an international tribunal, he promises to consider Obama proposition seriously.

The Legal Face of Evil

Image by: blog.camera.org

Once I had a friend who was a farmer. He is not a farmer any more. He is barely alive. The legal system nearly killed him.

He had a dream. He wanted to treat animals right, he wanted to treat customers right. He did not believe that diseased meat cleaned with ammonia was appropriate for human consumption. He had not had any experience as a farmer, so he abounded a successful engineering career and went to school again. Four years later he borrowed money from family, friends and the bank and started his own little farm.

He built a few raws of chicken coops, with enough space for chicken to move, and enough windows for them to see the light. He planted a few acres of vegetables, which he tried to grow without chemicals, and he started planting his first orchard.

But as small and insignificant as he was, he was a threat to the big corporates. After all, if they let him – and others like him – grow, who knows where it might lead. Maybe consumers would even start demanding quality and responsibility? This would have hurt large corporates' bottom lines, and cannot be just. Like vultures they circled above, waiting for the opportunity to shove him down the cliff. “Kill him young before he grew,” said the CEO of a big corporate.

And so they did. Hangmen, who have never worked a day on a farm – some would say they had never worked a day – would appear in their expensive outfits, holding death warrants. My friends tried to fight, after all they had no claim, but they had money.

The court dismissed their case, so they came with a new one, and my friend fought again. The court dismissed again, and they kept coming back. There was no respite. They knew how the system worked; they knew that no one could stop them from coming after my friend's farm over and again.

My friend never lost a case, but behind him stretched a long a trail of blood and money. And the corporates, smelling the blood, licked their lips, knowing that his end was near. By now, he was in debt, debt he could never repay. His farm was not the happy place any it used to be, as he would spend his time in court and not in the field.

What could have been a successful enterprise, the type that once built America and its economy has turned into a feeding frenzy for the winners.

“Kill them young they said,” their eyes already set on their next target.

The vicory of al-Qaeda

At a Wednesday meeting of the D.C. Taxicab Commission (DCTC), two journalists were arrested by Park Police for taking photos at the public meeting. During the meeting, a taxi inspector approached the Journalists and told them that they couldn’t take photographs of commission members seated at the front of the room.

It's not only the arrest. The very idea that a person in power, here in America, can even think he can force anyone to stop taking photos in a public gathering is mind shuddering. It was unthinkable only a decade ago. But since new rules and codes of behavior had been adopted after the September 11 attack, our path to no-freedom has been established. Unless we stop it now, al-Qaeda has won the war.

 

One of the photos captured during the raid on Bin Laden's compound

Middle East Democracy

America tells Mubark what he needs to do.

America wants democracy in Egypt. Democracy is good America says, forgetting Afghanistan, Iraq and Gaza to which it brought democracy. Even Iran is democratic. America does not like it.

America thinks it has democracy at home because people vote. People voting, however, is not sufficient for a democracy. A democracy needs voting of informed and knowledgeable people. Voting out of ignorance, voting out of greed, voting to get paid for are non-democratic.

When people who cared about abortion voted for a president who did not care about the world, but found himself decimating Iraq, hence helping Iran to start its nuclear program this is not a democracy, this is simply stupid.

Let people who care and know about abortion vote about abortion. Let those who understand the world vote about foreign policy. Any other arrangement is simply ludicrous.

America is in a position in which its own democracy is making it dysfunctional. This is not a position to advise others. Humble yourself America. Show the world that you can manage your own affairs. Then the world may listen once more to what you have to say.

The Supreme Court Decision – Do We Have the Knowledge To Withstand?

About three years ago, well before the financial crisis, I wrote an article and gave a speech about the predatory deceptive practices of banks and other the financial institutions and why regulators should step in to regulate transparency of financial products sold to the public. The credit crisis was mostly the result of banks telling regulators what the banking regulation should be.

It is incomprehensible that the new supreme court ruling is taking place during the aftermath of the credit crisis. I find it fascination that many still feel so strongly that we should put our personal and political interest in the hands of corporates (see discussion).

Below are excerpts from this article, which I called Can We Trust Them?

Financial products are something I should know about. At least I hope I should, as this has been my living for most of my professional life. But even I got surprised when I recently discovered the level of deception that banks and financial institutions go to lure uninformed clients to buy their products. 

It all started when my mother called to tell me that her bank advisor had suggested a low-risk high-return investment. ‘You can’t go wrong,’ he’d told her. But having been my mother for some time, she remembered me reiterating that there was no return without risk, so she sought my opinion before committing her funds. 

I opened my spreadsheet and started working out the suggested financial investment. It was a very deceiving proposition: …  In professional terms it was a highly leveraged structured product, one of the riskiest financial instruments out there that was meant for highly skilled professionals only. Banks were selling it to uninformed customers. 

… 

So I decided to go around and find out what else banks were selling out there. I picked up brochures from banks in the neighborhood and worked them out one by one. It was nothing short of mass deception. Some of those financial instruments, although seemed simple to the unprofessional, were so complicated that it took me many hours to figure out. Other instruments were plain risky. These were the instruments that banks got stuck with, and could not sell to other professional investors without a huge risk-premium, so they decided to flog them into the retail market. After all, it was legal. 

… 

So my mother was spared the losses, but many of her friends that had listened to the financial advisor, and bought into this investment have suffered tremendous losses when market conditions changed. 

Without regulation and supervision we will all be at the mercy of the legitimate con artists, who will always know about their trade more than we do. But without regulation to protect us, what choice do we have? 

The financial crisis was a big slap, but not yet a knock out. Shouldn’t we do all in our power to increase our chance to avoid the knockout? The new ruling is just a big step in the opposite direction. It shows us that a full blown knock out is the only way we learn.

The Supreme Court’s Decision -- Risk to Democracy

This week’s Supreme Court's interpretation of the First Amendment that will allow corporates spend as much as they want on funding politicians is most sinister It will, no doubt, make politicians hostage to the big corporates, and will accelerate the erosion of democracy.

There are many examples where corporate power is already limiting freedom and democracy. For example, ex-executives from the food industry are directing the food administration, ensuring that policies protect the industry rather than consumers. This has led to the erosion of the quality of food, the obesity epidemic and many of the food-related diseases that have proliferated in recent decades.

Health care policies catering for the Insurance companies rather than the sick, has made the US the only developed country where people die because they can’t afford medical care. US is also the only developed country where medical bills bankrupt people.

The banking is another example of an industry protected by regulators with a vested interest to keep their friends and ex-colleagues successful, regardless of the cost to the country and society.

Although the above examples are merely the tip of the iceberg, so far citizens of this democracy had the option to vote out representative who did not support their cause. But the new ruling will make this last resort obsolete, as information about these representatives will, no doubt, be manipulated to serve corporate interests.

After all, when unlimited money is involved, professional spin doctors will ensure that you will elect whoever they want you to. The richer the corporate, the better it will be able to manipulate your information and decisions. For example, it’s only for the health insurer’s PR money that, despite all hard evidence, so many Americans still believe that their dysfunctional health system is the best in the world. Providing misleading information to manipulate vote, is not true democracy.

With unlimited funds flowing to manipulate public opinion, independent representative stand no chance, and soon, all our representatives will hold corporate interests at the top of their agendas.

I am sure that having corporate-paid-politicians was never the spirit of the first amendment. Once this becomes the norm there is no way back.

Hitler was elected in democratic Germany only to destroy the very law that made it possible for him to be elected in the first place. Should we allow the very corporate that built America destroy its democracy?