Update no.1106

Update from the Sunland

No.1106

20.3.23 – 26.3.23

Blog version:  http://heartlandupdate.blogspot.com/

 

To all,

 

Surprise, surprise! Tuesday came and went. No arrest. No indictment. [The person who shall no longer be named] was wrong yet again. It seems he is wrong more often than he is correct. Let us be clear and honest with each other. The man is a grifter, a conman, a snake-oil salesman, who is setting the stage for the circus spectacle to come. Also let there be no doubt that he is bilking money from many donors ostensibly to defend himself in the multiple criminal and civil law cases of which he is the central subject. There should be no doubt either that he is lining his pockets. The grift continues unabated, and willing believers fall for his shtick and eagerly give him money. Let us call a spade a spade, folks.

 

Former Secretary of Labor Robert Bernard Reich gave us another poignant and accurate opinion article.

“What connects Trump’s likely arrest with the bank bailouts? – Answer: the anti-democracy movement”

by Robert Reich

Published: [06:38 [T] MST; 23.March.2023]

https://robertreich.substack.com/p/what-connects-trumps-call-to-protest?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=365422&post_id=109871279&isFreemail=true&utm_medium=email

The “anti-democracy movement” indeed! That is exactly what the MAGA bunch is. There are a variety of phrases that summarize their effort. Get it their way or burn the house down. My way or no way. They are not interested in democracy. They are only concerned with dominating the political, social, and legal arenas. The United States is not alone in facing the abandonment of democracy and the push toward authoritarianism—bondage. They must be denied in order to preserve our rights and freedoms. The MAGA bunch and their supporters call their efforts patriotism, but in reality, they seek to move us all closer to Oceania. They want to be The Party and ihr Anführer to be Big Brother. That is the anti-democracy movement precisely. We must stop that progression.

 

Seeking to sustain and refresh his on-going grift, [the person who shall no longer be named] decided to give the pot another big stir and messaged the world.

Donald J. Trump

What kind of person can charge another person, in this case a former President of the United States, who got more votes than any sitting President in history, and leading candidate (by far!) for the Republican Party nomination, with a Crime, when it is known by all that NO Crime has been committed, & also known that potential death & destruction in such a false charge could be catastrophic for our Country? Why & who would do such a thing? Only a degenerate psychopath that truely (sic) hates the USA!

2.68k ReTruths 9.88k Likes

Mar 24, 2023 at 1:08 AM

[emphasis mine]

To put things in perspective, I thought the following article sunk the nail squarely.

“Donald Trump’s Mafia Mind-Set - Listening to a legendary American mobster and hearing the president of the United States”

by Jeffrey Goldberg

The Atlantic

Published: AUGUST 23, 2018

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/08/trump-gravano-gotti-mafia/568273/

I would say, SPOT ON! And it has only gotten worse since 2018. That is exactly his mind-set, i.e., he is above the law, and the law does not apply to him. He thinks he is god on earth and can do whatever he wishes. To answer the BIC’s opening quasi-question, the kind of man who follows the law to prosecute a criminal. What is worse, just like his pre-January-6^th “Be there. Will be wild” pronouncement, he is encouraging his believers to take action without direct ordering them to do so. Staying true to form, he accuses others to distract from the reality of what he is. He is the psychopath! It is just that simple. This message is Exhibit number umpteen thousand in the trove of public statements and documents in substantiation.

 

The House Energy and Commerce Committee held a hearing on Thursday, 23.March.2023. The committee members grilled Tik Tok Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Shou Zi Chew about their security concerns. I know it is hard to imagine how the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and specifically the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) would or could use Tik Tok for nefarious purposes. Tik Tok, like other social media applications, appears to be an innocuous platform until you look beyond the façade. I shall offer a suggestion and my opinion.

I highly doubt the Chinese would be as crude and unsophisticated as the North Koreans. They would not likely use such information to simply make a few dollars more. What is more important to the CCP than money is power. They want to displace the United States of America and dominate the Western Pacific and Asia. Their currency is anything that will weaken the position of the United States. The CCP has aggressive efforts underway in Africa and the Middle East to gain support for its autocratic, near dictatorship, form of governance. Thus, from my perspective, they seek information that can be used in their propaganda campaigns to weaken the United States, to sow doubts, to exploit and expand divisions within the United States. To that end, Tik Tok gives the CCP a massive window and conduit into what America’s youth (the future) are concerned about and pre-occupied with. Used correctly, such insight can be a leveraging tool in planting seeds of division to enhance differences to the advantage of an adversary, e.g., PRC or Russia. Further, the CCP has consistently demonstrated that they have no respect for copyright or proprietary rights. They take what they want, and there is nothing inside the PRC to stop them. The CCP is the authority inside the PRC. We are having a hard enough time grappling with regulation of U.S. owned and based social media applications without the added sinister dimension of authoritarian exploitation. I see no choice here. We must break that link. We cannot help the CCP by our ignorance or complacency.

 

Comments and contributions from Update no.1105:

Comment to the Blog:

“I read George Orwell’s 1984 (in about 1974) in a high-school class. He foresaw 2021 better than he did 1984, although the state we’re in now began with the Reagan Administration.

“There’s always a segment of the population for whom personalities are more important than principles. We shall see whether they are still powerful when “tiny” (Stormy Daniels’s name for him) is busted.

“I know well what rubes are. I grew up among them. I’m not out there anymore, so I’ll wait and see if they’re learning when 45POTUS is arrested (see above).

“When I come across one of the rubes, I’ll ask what the opposite of “woke” is.

“Perhaps we’d attract different people to politics if we took the money out of the process.”

My response to the Blog:

I read Orwell’s magnum opus in my youth as well, and I believe I am overdue for re-reading the book. I do not imagine the title is important other than as a label. The book is also not prescriptive in terms of how authoritarian regimes evolve. However, it certainly gives us a view of how extreme authoritarian governance systems can become. Oh, I think the genesis of our contemporary struggle with the forces of authoritarianism go back beyond the Reagan administration. I would peg that turning point circa the Johnson administration.

Quite so! Tiny must be busted many times for his many crimes in multiple jurisdictions. We patiently await the day.

You are way ahead of me. I am just learning of the word and its meaning. I think the point was rubes may be not capable of learning; they just believe.

Excellent question to ask. Since DeSantis seems to be the most prominent user and loudest voice, I would love to ask him that very question. I am not sure he knows or understands the implication of his usage.

I think so since money is what drives criminals like Santos to seek public office. He is not the only one. Personally, I think that was the primary personal motive for Tiny’s entry into politics . . . he saw a limitless grift. We need . . . no, we must have different, better people in Congress and the government in the main.

“That’s just my opinion, but I could be wrong.”

 . . . follow-up comment:

“Orwell’s 1984 gives an excellent picture of propaganda in our current society, including the abuse of words such as ‘woke.’ While propaganda has always been with us, I see Reagan’s access to cable TV as the beginning of a major amplification and success in using that propaganda that continues today. However, the Internet presents an alternative information source that Orwell didn’t foresee.

“Tiny’s actual arrest will be a turning point; that may be within a few days.

“I survived my childhood in an Ohio village of 1,000 people and spent another 20 years in rural Ohio or Texas. Many of the people I knew then are exactly the kind of rubes tiny uses.

“Money both motivates and enables the likes of DeSantis and tiny. (The motivation is some mix of money and power/adulation.)”

 . . . along with my follow-up response:

Oh my, yes . . . propaganda on steroids. So many pronouncements by Tiny and his MAGA believers are contemporary examples of doublethink in action. From my perspective, the MAGA bunch are trying to take us measurably closer to the terrifying dystopia of Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four. Yes, indeed, cable TV was a major milestone, but I will add that the general, broad use of the Internet was an even greater milestone on the timeline of exponential expansion of propaganda and doublethink. Correct, Orwell does not even suggest anything like the pervasiveness of the Internet. However, the omnipresence of the Party, Big Brother, and the Thought Police certainly implies the existence of some electronic means to accomplish that degree of prevalence. We have a good chunk of that surveillance network in operation today.

Yes, Tiny’s arrest will be yet another historical first. Tuesday came and went. He was wrong yet again. His indictment, arrest, and prosecution seem to be getting closer, but what matters is him in the dock. That man—a grifter, conman, and snake-oil salesman—is trying to set the stage for the chaotic circus spectacle he wants.

I would agree as a general observation of politicians. Tiny’s drive for money (the grift) and adulation (brand prominence, which also means money) is on massive dose steroids. His malignant narcissism drives him to seek the prominence (good or bad news . . . all good to him). He figured out years ago that he could take his grift to an order of magnitude greater level as president. Forty-two per centum of American voters gave him his grift, and he stayed true to form and exploited what those minority voters gave to him.

 

My very best wishes to all.  Take care of yourselves and each other.

Cheers,

Cap                  :-)