…this is a whacked-out theory/conspiracy…….. Russia prefers the EU to be weaker so that it can dominate the European economy. And the middle east. Russia also wants the US weaker – same reason – but for controlling the larger world economy. And, what the hell, why not make NATO weaker, too? Get ’em all.
So, that’s the BIG plan: Destabilize. How to do it? Well, quickest, cheapest and easiest way is to get their guy as the president of the US. POTUS has the biggest shoes. Biggest lever. Get a big, bad-hair mess walking-type. In the meantime, start Brexit. Have POTUS undermine Europe with support of Brexit, be rude to Merkel and May. Get him to kill the Trans Pac trade deal. Get him to mess up NAFTA and kick Trudeau in the crotch just for the hell of it. Make the Mexicans mad. And, of course, divide the USA. Gotta divide the USA. Polarize those red-blue bastards.
“Yuri, can we make that happen?”
“We can try.”
“Where do we start?”
“I think we start with a rich, spoiled, right-winged maniac who we already have compromised some. Give him some money. Buy him. It’s like working a spy in the old days, Vlad. Remember? We’ve done it before. It’s worked before. Can you think of anyone?”
“Yeah. I have someone in mind. Call Paul Manafort. Maybe phone Mike Flynn, too. Lets see what they got.”
Crazy, right? Cheap B movie crazy……totally mad. But, but, but…..all the alt-right nuts and half the Republicans believe in conspiracy theories and this one is kinda playing out right in front of them. I mean, they had Hillary Clinton selling child sex out of a pizza shop and that was believable for the Roseannes and Fox types. Obama was a Muslim spy, not born in the US. Michelle was a man. If they can believe all that crap, why can’t they see this?
Oh, I know, I know. Just another rant. Mea culpa. My bad. It’s just that I can’t help but feel a bit disturbed by the recent ‘deconstruction’ of all that was normal. Trump wreaking havoc like some kind of horny Godzilla looking for love in all the wrong places….going ashore in Singapore….knocking over high tension lines…hugging Kim, dissing everyone else. Having a coke with Dennis Rodman……I mean….isn’t all this crazier than anyone could make up?
But here’s the point: I am NOT a doomsday prepper but I have a sense of foreboding. Mind you, I have always had a pessimistic viewpoint about the future of mankind and only meeting Sally eased that streak of dark and ugly in me. And she did good. Shines a very bright light, she does. All sunshine, all the time. I am almost a sweetheart now. ALMOST. There is still the sense that it all can (and is) coming apart. I do not see all our hoary institutions lasting especially since so many are already corrupted and weak and all things eventually get replaced.
I mean, isn’t renewal inevitable at some point at the very least? Isn’t that part of the great cosmic recipe? Yin and yang….what goes up…..?
Anyway, I kind of think it works that way. Nothing remains the same. The only constant is change…
And, here’s the punchline: no one ever really sees it coming. Change is always a surprise. Maybe not ‘surprise’ like someone yelling ‘boo’ in the dark or the volcano next door erupting but surprising and catching-us-all unprepared nevertheless. Climate change. China awakening and rising like a phoenix. The rise of technology. Crony Capitalism. Terrorism. Bloody cell phones. The oceans dying. Trump. Those are all real changes. They will add up. Maybe they have already added up. Maybe the BIG change is imminent….? Could the BIG CHANGE be this? I mean…is it all happening RIGHT NOW and I am amongst the last to see it…..?
I dunno….just a rainy day ramble, I guess.
But what else are blogs for, eh?
Our Off the Grid Home 
Over forty million Americans live in poverty. The American economy is designed to promote inequality. When the American economy is working well, it still only selectively benefits some workers. The desire to weaken post world war treaties suits many autocratic regimes. The recent G7 goal to fund education for impoverished girls and women worldwide was described by a Trump advisor as socialism. Education is not seen by many countries as a human right. The direction that many nations in the world appear to be moving is towards autocratic rule. The recent meetings with North Korea and USA, suggest that human rights matter very little. Dave, the winds of change you observe in your blog are disconcerting and disquieting.
LikeLike
Change is, by definition, changing (duh) but Trump is unlikely to succeed as a tyrant-for-life so what is the change he represents going to look like? A fractured world? An uncivil one? An international community of fascists acting like idiots? Or does his presence occur as an ugly aberration that gets an uber over reaction of political correctness and blandness? The Dems are a corrupted disunified mess. No leadership emerging yet and it is getting late. What can they bring but more of the same? And I don’t see how a nation can correct decades of institutionalized ignorance. Americans celebrate dumb, crude, violence and greed. And guns. How do you elevated that primordial soup?
DeNiro for president? I would pay my life savings to be in attendance at his inauguration where he established his integrity by punching Trump in the face. That’s only about $80.00 today. Oh, what hell…. I’d borrow and pay $500. Worth every penny. My heart would sing!
LikeLike
The decline of civility in Social discourse more and more is revealing the perilous slippery slope. The giving of the rhetorical back of the hand, to our Prime Minister, portends a further decline in civility.
LikeLike
I agree. On the one hand I see Trudeau as a weak, duplicitous opportunist trading on his name but I am very much used to the diplomatic speech structure of most politicians. I kinda like it when someone speaks a blunt truth. But, Trump? The galactic liar, the narcissist of New York? I prefer my truth to come from Robt. DeNiro.
LikeLike
Exactly! Boo! Hoo!
LikeLike
I take ‘exactly’ as a statement of support for my observation that we may be on the cusp of massive change. But, ‘boo! hoo!’ confused me. What do you mean? Am I just being sily? Prescient? Nutty?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Absolute support. “Boo” was also in agreement: scary-ish. “Hoo” just naturally followed “Boo”, but I think it means that I am crying because I think we are not only on the cusp of massive change, but fully engulfed in it. You may remember that I don’t care for change all that much, so I find all of this stuff rather diabolical. I like the idea of musing on a rainy day though; trying to jump start my musing muscle; perhaps you have inspired me…so thanks in advance!
LikeLike
You are welcome. Glad I hit an exposed synapse. Hindsight is so much easier than foresight and so much of what I think and say is simply feelings coloured by bias and age. No real knowing. I simply do not know much of anything, actually. But I know my feelings. I know my ‘senses’. I trust my gut. And my gut is twitching. My ears are piqued. I think the game is afoot!
LikeLike
If I hadn’t just started reading your first book, Dave, I might have agreed with you. But your’re nuts!
LikeLike
you’re
LikeLike
That seems to be the consensus. Had a visitor from Maine yesterday. He read the first chapters and declared me insane. By the midpoint, he acknowledged I was at least learning and he admired my ability to heal. By the 3/4 mark he opined I might survive and that my wife was a saint. By the end, he decided to come visit. He and his wife had a great time here yesterday. Literature,eh? Who knew?
LikeLiked by 1 person
🙂
LikeLike
Seriously though, it’s frightening.
LikeLike
In Singapore, Kim is praised as “talented” and “tough,” where is the moral compass? Not need in a state moving deeper into totalitarianism.
LikeLike
Trump don’t need no stinkin moral compass! Trump don’t got no stinkin morals! Can’t lose whatcha don’t got. Trump got money instead. The Golden calf sits on his head and he obviously worships it. Gold isn’t complicated. Ya got it or you don’t. If you got it, you rule. If you don’t, you get ruled. Simple. Like Trump.
LikeLike
No moral compass eh! Manafort was sent to jail today charged with witness tampering. Manafort’s Compass is pointing to a black hole. In jail till his trial. The judge said, “Give your wife your wallet and watch, you are going to jail.”
LikeLike
Trump has no moral compass and neither, it seems, do his friends. But the court seems to. Good. Could portend towards a desirable outcome but don’t be surprised if the Donald doesn’t pardon him and it’s all for nought. It ain’t over til Melania sings.
LikeLike
Trump can pardon some federal crimes but if Manafort is pardoned federally, he may be charged with state crimes. No way out for Manafort unless he flips. He faces the rest of his life in prison. Manafort is in his early seventies.
LikeLike
WOW!!! A serious case of ‘Trump Derangment Syndrome”, and in a Canadian (supposedly).
Was there any railing about Kinder-Morgan in this blog, or did i not read that part?
LikeLike
Good point. I missed saying something about Kinder Morgan. My bad. So much evil, so little time.
C’mon! I said it was all crazy…c’mon!
You DOUBT I am Canadian? God Almighty! That’s the nicest thing anyone has ever said about me! I think. I speak. I don’t drink beer and think hockey has been corrupted by money. I AM NOT Canadian. You outer me! I am OUT of the closet! Thank you, John.
LikeLike
I knew it the bots are on the rise. The shrill chorus of we don’t need no rules, no treaties too, civility is down the drain and the monotonous simpering refrain, sung far and wide, it’s all the same, America first, America.now. Oh the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, in the morning, in the evening ain’t we got Trumped.
LikeLike
When asked about children as young as ten taken by ICE agents, the USA Attorney General made a biblical reference to the injunction to obey God’s law.
LikeLike
I know. Maybe the theory is NOT so whacked……?
LikeLike
It seems to me that the Bible is full of stories of people escaping from persecution by fleeing from it. What Biblical Law is Jeff Sessions USA Attorney General invoking?
LikeLike
It is almost (99%) axiomatic that the Bible and Christianity are perverted by the manipulators who quote and justify by it. There is nothing in the Bible that supports hatred, bigotry and persecution. Christianity (not the religious, ordered kind) is a good thing. Christ was a great guy. But, if ever there was a fleece with which to cloak evil, Christianity is it. Beware the bible-thumper. Beware the DEVOUT Christian. For they are NOT holy. They shall NEVER dwell in the house of the Lord for they are the essence of duplicity. They are evil. So saith me, the blind, retarded, innocent seeker of truth in the garden of sewage and filth. And it is smelly, too.
LikeLike
‘’I was a stranger and you did not welcome me!”
LikeLike
Dave,
Your comments about Christanity are very interesting. I totally agree that the values of a Christian lifestyle are to be strived for.
Honesty, equality, treating people as you would want to be treated…..Is’nt that what we all want?
(and these very Christian ideas have taken hold in Communist China, much to the consternation of the leadership. There are more Christians in China than PEOPLE in Canada)
And your observations about the hippocracy of the “business” of Christianity that has perverted and driven people away from the Church in 1st world countries ( oddly enough, the US , a secular country a generation ago,( the birthplace of Playboy), is now the most religious 1st world country in the world……..bizarre.)
Italy, France, Spain….those bastions of Catholicism for hundreds of years, fed up with the corruption, hippocrasy, have turned their back on the “infallible” church of their ancestors.
While 3rd world countries have continued to “show the faith”….
Not sure where this will all lead but….I’m always careful not to say “God Dammit!” when I’m in the US.
Ya never know who you’ll offend.
LikeLike
I suppose, in a perfect world, there would be a perfect church. On the other hand, no church is required to lead a good, moral, conscious, thinking, ethical life. Christianity does not need a church, does not need a hierarchy of supported clergy administering. And it does not need teachers and leaders with rules and lectures and sermons. Mind you, some people need a bit of a slap upside the head now and then. So, tough call.
The BLOG church if Christ? The Church of Christ the blogger?
Dilemma: How do you build a church? Well, with money, of course. How do you get money? By abandoning Christian principles, of course. So what does a church really celebrate? Money, of course!
LikeLike
davidcus, did the wine come right to your threshold if not where is it left?
I have a sense that you may be about to cross into a different consciousness and we will all get to enjoy that in the next blog phase or maybe not and the blog might vanish as you have suggested of late.
LikeLike
Wine to nearest seaplane dock. Sal retrieved. But tide too low so stored at friends nearer to hand. Re: my changing consciousness? God? Or wine?
LikeLike
You raise a very complicated issue. Church Doctines vary widely. Agreement on doctrines is set aside in the name of tolerance. But as you know, Christianity over the centuries has been marked by controversy.
LikeLike
Your ranting level has gone up a “bit” more! It would appear that you have not accepted my advise and gone out and saved a dog. Not to late, you can be saved 😊
LikeLike
Some are beyond redemption. I passed beyond a long time ago. “Salvation is not yours, Dave!” So saith the lord (Sally).
LikeLike
During an interview about telling the truth, a claim was made that one only need to be truthful if one were giving a deposition in an examination for discovery! That is why the Trump administration has a tenuous attachment to truth telling.
LikeLike
The quintessential quote of our times; ‘ Truth available only before the courts. All other times optional.,”
That’s Trump. And that is the alt-right, the GOP and the Conservatives. They maybe tell the truth when CAUGHT but not until.
What should be standard – honesty and truth – is now standardly opposite.
LikeLike
Relativism reigns for some where ego triumphs. A mind concentrating example is the person who claims, ‘I could shoot someone with impunity.’ Where a rules based world can be mocked and a morals based philosophy of thousands of years of practice set aside because, “Thou shalt not kill,” is merely words.
LikeLike
Over 2000 migrant children taken from their parents apprehended crossing the USA border. Over 100 children are under the age of four, Some infants were breastfeeding. Images of the detention camp’s conditions circulating in the media.
LikeLike
Jeff Sessions was asked how the current handling of immigrants compared to that of Hitler? Sessions said, “Hitler was trying to keep people from leaving!”
LikeLike
FOX News pundit Laura Ingraham describes the tender age shelters of ICE as “essentially Summer Camps.” Pundit Ann Coulter called the children crying at the border “child actors.”
LikeLike
Trump made a decision to own the policy at the chid detention centres and writes a presidential order to end the crisis. Rewind Trump blames the Democrats for the policy but writes an order to end it.
LikeLike