Supporting Turkiye

Over the past month, the country of Turkiye in Asia Minor is in great distress from repeated earthquakes. Up to 7.8 on the Richter scale, with many aftershocks. The most recent follow up earthquakes was two days ago, 6.4 and 5.8 on the Richter scale.

Due to the connection with the plate and fault, Syria is also an affected region, with serious building collapses in northwest Syria.

The deathtoll from the quake is now expected to rise to over 100,000 people, with so far at least 50,000 deaths in Turkiye and Syria altogether.

Early on, international rescue teams pitched in from all around the world, with teams even from Russia and China shown donating supplies and equipment. One structural engineer from China told the news agency that many reinforced concrete building may have failed due to lack of properly sized columns, using improper reinforcing bar, and not adequately testing the concrete quality while pouring.

The coverage in the United States has been sparse. If even the war in Ukraine is covered from an official standpoint, then it is also certain that the other critical news will reflect a state-media perspective as well. Instead of reports about the largest train derailment accident in history in East Palestine, Ohio in early February, the establishment press was talking about “Chinese balloons.”

The “Chinese balloon” story dominated so hugely that it was the only story exciting news discussions probably in order to also censor the ground-breaking revelation by Seymour Hersch (https://seymourhersh.substack.com/), a well-respected retired journalist from the New York Times, about the Nord Stream pipeline having been a U.S. covert sea operation.

Thankfully numerous alternative news media picked the story up, even if the establishment media now question Hersch’s journalistic credibility.

The “Chinese balloon” story was debunked eventually (after the Super Bowl, another big media distraction—practically like a holiday in the U.S.). For instance The Common Sense Show with Dave Hodges stated that the balloons were part of a joint weather program run by the U.S. and China, but that it had come under fire because the weather balloon(s) blew off course.

Our media also has no time for the big speech by President Putin on February 21, 2023. I watched the translation by Michael Rossi Poli Sci (YT channel) not because I am pro-Putin, but because he promised he had a big announcement. I was worried about some kind of nuclear time-table. Well, nothing was exactly forthcoming that had not already been hinted at by RT.com. (Maybe the biggest news is that the Russian business class is being warned that they should invest more with their Asian neighbors now.)

One cannot expect a Commander-in-Chief to disclose his battlefield plans outright, and this might be why U.S. President Biden made an unannounced visit to Ukraine on President’s Day Weekend—to make sure that his buddy Ukrainian President Zelensky receives yet more aid, and to coordinate the delivery of arms and weaponry from Poland.

No one knows the details for sure, of course, since from the beginning, one had the belief that Biden was conducting a personal business crusade. A recent piece at the New York Post (https://nypost.com/tag/biden-classified-documents/) relates the President’s irritation with the Attorney General, Merrick Garland, about the special investigation, since he has repeatedly asserted there is nothing there, as if those classified documents had anything to do with Ukrainian oligarchs or the now raging war.

But even the NYP is reporting about the delay and attitude by Biden officials that there is nothing to see in East Palestine, OH. Sensus Fidelium (Rumble.com/c/c-298311) broadcast a “Clown Planet New (18 February 2023): Ohio Train Disaster, Nord Stream Pipeline Update & More” news ensemble including a recent investigation by Corbett Report & Media Monarchy about the toxic chemical spill (Feb 04, 2023). According to independent scientists, the detonation is the chemical equivalent of a Chernobyl nuclear disaster, maybe more so. People should abandon town; it is unsafe to live there or anywhere where the water is polluted.

According to Corbett Report, the danger lies in the combination of chemicals (after combustion as a catalyst for the formation of new toxins), the previous undisclosed chemicals, the reaction after soil deposition, and its potential spread over swathes of the Corn Belt. Think about the implication for farm growers and dairy products over the next several years to decades.

But the Norfolk-Southern, in which Blackrock and Vanguard own the biggest shares (https://www.climatedepot.com/2023/02/20/theyre-all-in-this-together-vanguard-blackrock-are-top-2-shareholders-of-norfolk-southern-of-abc-nbc-parent-companies-2-4-owners-of-cbs-parent/), is already tasked with being in charge of its own cleanup—including lab-testing–which pundits say is like putting the ‘fox in charge of the henhouse.’ According to alt-news sources, it will be too easy for the company to offer the residents buyouts while forcing them to sign nondisclosure agreements. (They might even force blanket NDA legislation…)

So this is how life is when the country is so divided up in its interests in war, that it cannot or simply does not have the funds to invest in peace. The $140 billion or so invested in Ukraine would win the United States the premier philanthropist of the world if it chose to redirect funds to help with the earthquake recovery in Turkiye and Syria. The Build Back Better Infrastructure Investment Act is in name only, while all the focus is on aid and recovery for Ukraine (which should just become a 51st state). The decimation of the states in Europe (according to the classified documents) may even envision a crippling of the commonwealth of the U.K.

And in terms of media wars, the American public is much more preoccupied with the rift between black and white, between focusing on Russia or China, between rich or poor, between LGBTQ or straight, etc. As one psychologist observed, for a marginally academic student, it can be very self-empowering to suddenly be able to call the shots on the teacher, and even more so if it is captured on smartphone camera, and which if it goes viral, will soon win the student social-influencer status.

On the other hand, if the public were kept in the dark on so many hot news topics, it must be because the legislators are not so much afraid of accountability, but because they are worried that the public will be traumatized by so much real news.

Even LifeSiteNews, which I thought I would support because of their pro-Life views on euthanasia, have lately covered nothing except the pro-Life (anti-abortion) fight, as well as the “targeting of conservative Catholics by the FBI.” Over the last few weeks, there has been practically nothing regarding Ohio train derailment, Nord Stream, and especially it seems, Turkiye.

How very sad that the Church is so troubled by spiritual morass that cannot look beyond its sphere to see the afflicted in Turkiye or Syria. It may or may not have to do with general Christian prejudice against Muslims, but Turkiye has also always been a pretty secular manufacturing country, and it has been a home especially set aside by the United Nations for the resettlement of Syrian refugees. Now where will all those people go?

For someone to be investigating or interested in the Turkiye and Syria earthquakes issues definitely goes against the grain right now in the United States. Because we are still a rich and powerful nation, undoubtedly through our NGOs and through the United Nations, we will be pouring aid money there. But the aid that the people need is not just money. It requires constant attention and focus, and of the type that is hard to watch and especially to absorb.

Afterall, as Americans, we are used to watching a tragedy unfold in a couple hours on T.V., and then it’s over. Well, even I can only watch the best coverage about Turkiye only a little bit at a time, and that best coverage now happens to be TRT World online. Unsurprisingly since the English-speaking channel is based in Turkiye (and other locations around the world), it has been covering the Turkiye recovery operations non-stop. Here, you can see President Erdogan and his cabinet visiting earthquake stricken sites, learn about national heritage sites which are damaged, learn about what the extent of need is, and understand how officials are trying to cope by developing redevelopment plans within reasonable time-frames. It has been especially humbling to watch how dedicated rescue teams are to recover even one nearly suffocated victim or another at a time, irregardless of ‘who they are.’

They are also enlisting the help of some of the best seismic experts from around the world who come from earthquake prone countries, as well as medical help. But it is the day-to-day human-interest stories that are educational to watch. We learn that this is not about ‘who you are’ in the Western schismatic sense of race, income, and identity, but rather what your values are and what you can do. Even from far away, if you cannot give like a billionaire can afford to, one can give one’s time in thought and prayer. One can hold up as a hero and heroine those on the ground who are patiently picking through the rubble, clearing out an area for a cooking kiln, hauling water in no matter the pain or bruising, and putting up with minimal shelter and blankets.

Now I urge you, brothers, through the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you should all speak in agreement and that there should be no divisions among you, but that you may be completely united in the same mind and in the same line of thought.

Bible, 1 Corinthians 1:10

It’s clear that for the tens of thousands of residents currently forced to live in makeshift camps that the need for reconstruction is urgent: these are middle-class citizens who were the producers in the economy and who earned their own keep in the houses or apartments they owned or leased. They need to be helped up on their feet as soon as possible.

If nothing else you can pray for Turkiye and Syria, and especially for the spiritually bereft institutions that cannot find neither the time nor attention to prioritize all of human life first, rather than the need to fulfill or prioritize its own ideological needs.

TRT World (https://www.youtube.com/live/AEZa1BtbPok?feature=share) live coverage on the earthquake-disaster-response

Peace Marches Facade

There is a great anti-war rally and demonstration scheduled for February 19th, President’s Day Weekend in Washington, D.C. and many other cities around the globe. RageAgainstWar.com displays a growing list of speakers, spoken performance artists, and much more. Many are name-brand anti-war activists, leaders of think-tanks, and grassroots lobbies. The hope is that world leaders may take notice and do their duty in initiating an immediate ceasefire and inviting all parties to the table for peace talks with no preconditions on Russia or Ukraine.

However the February Rally at the National Mall is not without risk. There is certain to be a heightened security any time prominent anti-war spokespersons are present, for instance. Several of their multi-million dollar organizations can surely afford lawyers, even private security, to insulate them from the risks of arrest and false flag events, but the ordinary masses of demonstrators cannot. This is why the entire setup may very well be an elaborate honey-trap that will be profitable for the data-gathering experts from the security agencies who will be eager to create a new generation of profiles to follow for decades, and create new blacklists.

AAPI and nonblack minorities will be particularly prone due to the present culture of hostility. On the other hand, because it is black history month, and because dark color pigment and more uniform racial features may be confusing for facial recognition systems, it may be safer for black and brown protesters to be present. Shortly after the January 6, 2021 protests, new cameras with sophisticated tracking capabilities were installed. Even for the DREAM rally in January 2018, a SWAT team was perched atop the Lincoln Memorial rooftop, while quite a few park rangers also were about.

Since the Covid-19 lockdowns and the ushering in of increasingly visible martial law and censorship, and with all indications of intensification due to multiple-pronged crises, practicing the First Amendment is now undertaken at great personal risk. This is why the allure of political front organizations at the February 19th rally appears so attractive. For sure for college and high school students, for a new generation of protesters, and comfortable retirees, there is less to lose attending such a march. The exposure to a credible lineup of speakers and rubbing shoulders with fellow protesters may be a great learning opportunity—although surely most of it will be video-taped—and their speeches and positions are already online.

For instance, Green Party Presidential hopeful Jill Stein did give a talk with acTVism Munich on her stance against support for the Ukraine-Russia War on January 1, 2023. This stance is relatively bold as the Green Party has its roots in Germany where the present German Green Party is very much pro-war, as seen by statement from Annalena Baerbock, the German Foreign Minister, and of Robert Habeck, Vice Chancellor of Germany. As WSWS.org has noted, the German Greens play the historical role of pseudo-leftists, caving in to the interests of the elites and corporate capitalist class, while playing on the hopes and dreams of socialists and independents.

Unfortunately, for today’s recession-prone working professionals, it is well-known fact that employers do keep track and monitor their employees off-hours, even when it is unlawful to do so. Certain kinds of managers are always eager to look for an excuse to dock their employees for any nonconformist issue. From personal and other experience, it is not advisable for AAPI to attend these rallies in person, unless you are willing to bear the risks to yourself, your future livelihood, and your family. Unfortunately, this reporter also experienced this personally in the leadup to the war in Iraq twenty years ago, which still led to a prolonged war that lasted through several administrations.

The fact that these front political organizations and think tanks can lead such rallies is a testimony to their courage and willingness to step up to the plate, however, they also are doing a significant amount of fund-raising. Although it is far from grand-standing, these kinds of crowds and rallies are always a future guarantor for greater exposure at least in the alt-media world and perhaps even at university lecturns. (Seriously, an even more noble gesture is if such funds are donated to the refugees in Ukraine or to help victims of war.)

Beyond photo-ops, this is absolutely very rarely the case for the rest of us. The antiwar crowd has always been led by a certain segment of self-appointed and actually annointed privileged few who form a very effective clique insofar as networking and interconnections and media exposure go. Whereas the rest of us are now expected to pretty much act as their cheerleaders.

One’s disappointment with the current leadership and administration can only proceed so far however. We would hope for some solid protest action that would be more effective than a vocal global shockwave. For instance, what would a global stay-at-home day look like? If everyone boycotted the workplace and shopping and traveling for at least one day, that would definitely alarm the stockmarket and globalists. Letter writing is also effective, although it will most likely only be processed by an aide (or someone who is their political handler). Silent prayer and petition can also be helpful, although forming or joining a prayer group would send a stronger message. (But some of the visible handlers at these ngos are probably not going to allow their leaders to propose such radical action, particularly if they are capitalizing on YouTube monetization.)

Most Americans who remember Vietnam will be disappointed at the apathy within their churches today many of whom coordinate their agenda with the World Council of Churches. For instance, the ideology today is more focused on identity politics and acceptance of underrepresented populations (at least officially). The Catholic Church, which the Schiller Institute believes will step up to the plate in offering negotiations between Ukraine and Russia, has been mired in the pro-Life (anti-abortion) politics forever. Their political apparatus for the people are centered around reactionary politics, while their most radical leftist priests and nuns (think the Plowshares movement) have been left to rot in jail.

For the most part, especially given certain sects are very much in control of the direction of the Church, they are very much pro-war (Daddy Warbucks style). They understand where their bread is buttered, and there is even rumor that they are also in close coordination with the most powerful banking cartels in the world (City of London). So while the Pope may be willing to offer a prayer and send hopeful messages, the papacy must coordinate with an apparatchik which is so stodgy that it will not even allow any form of open activism among its congregation. Any anti-war protesting priest or nun is the extremely rare exception; because of his support against nuclear deterrence, Seattle’s Archbishop Hunthausen was investigated, and his powers handed over to then aspiring Auxiliary Bishop Donald Wuerl—we were told that Hunthausen was effectively under house-arrest.

Individual actions are good, but one must rehearse for rejection. For instance, one can introduce peace-activism in the form of a proposal to a professional group, at a city or local council, to your community board or club, but it may only be noted for the record. (That would be a good check on your list). Another form may be to have available (read Underminers by Keith Farnish) slips of paper, cards, short notices, fliers on events, upcoming talks, activities, or quote with weblink to tack onto a bulletin board or public kiosk or any other open bookshelf with community leaflets.

An anecdote about this was last Sunday at my church. The foyer has a bulletin board that has some self-help leaflets and cards for people to pick up. My notice on RageAgainstWar.com lasted less than an hour (or much less) before it was taken down. And this was nicely handprinted on an index-sized card. The priest did lecture on being the “Salt of the Earth” this Sunday, but he focused on “7 Corporal Works of Mercy” and held up as a model Sister Theresa in Calcutta, India. Pardon the cynicism but these acts (feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked, shelter the homeless, visit the sick, visit the impoverished, bury the dead) are basic common decency and part of the most basic human rights.

They are at the bottom of the Maslow Hierarchy of Needs, and have not even broached on issues of self-esteem, cognition, aestheticism, let alone self-actualization or transcendance. The parish priest may believe that anyone doing all these 7 things weekly will go to heaven, but does it really address community and collective human responsibility for the welfare of our city, nation, state, or world? Humans are not like mere termites, tending to our forage; instead, we should reach higher and consider more profoundly what the responsibility to protect truly entails, such as the prevention of nuclear war, or honoring the Prohibition Against the Use of Nuclear Weapons Treaty, passed in 2017, by the United Nations.

The local minister or priest even emphasizes that the bulletin board is primarily for posting on social services, such as for the poor in our community. The envelope contains small notecards on which one can find community services for the needy, which is indeed very important in Chinatown neighborhood in Washington, D.C. However why leave it at there? One cannot reason with a pedigreed Jesuit that the fact of the matter is, if the Russian-Ukraine war expands to a war against NATO, this war may very well hit home. What then about leaflets for the community services provided? Are we supposed to not reason that there will be too many sick, dead, dying to take care of for the government to dole out any money? Are we to not contemplate the spectre of alternative regimens prepared far in advance, such as martial law and herding of the masses to the nearest stadium and emergency camps?

There will no longer be nonprofit industry sector with its well-positioned grifters for helping the poor while helping themselves; and the local minister or priest, far from being a Walt Whitman or Clara Barton attendee of the poor, sick, or dying, will probably flee as far away from D.C. as his fancy SUV can drive away.

And this is the real state of the matter on the Peace industry in Washington, D.C. The Washington Peace Center has effectively collapsed after a lawsuit alleging maltreatment or underemployment for minorities a few years ago, and there has been no resurrection of that Center since then. (We might say it was a planned take-down, but that is an opinion. It is very difficult for the ordinary protesters to divine who all else may have served to operate as observers passing information along the grapevine.)

For a city that is a fraction of the size of the new, upcoming cities in the Far East or Southern Asia today, it has been quite well-managed and remains a tourism showpiece, but increasingly the days of great demonstrations and bold fanfare may become a thing of the past. It is admittedly frustrating to see that the entire argument of human rights today is restricted to the history of the big wins from the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (such as on display at the Public Library). We are being effectively told that the past is prologue for the future, which is indeed relegated to celebrating the diversity won from the past, as seen in glasscases and touched by interactive digital displays.

Realistically, AAPI can hardly hope to be included in the RageAgainstWar.com rally, even though at least Tulsi Gabbard, Congresswoman from Hawaii, will be there. For the AAPI to even envision forming their own peace group, peace think-tank, peace organization, or peace convention in today’s combative culture of entrenched militarism?

A pipedream worthy of discussion later on, if the United States stays solvent through the end of 2023—and AAPI are not further stigmatized and marginalized from the usual banal refrain, “It’s all China’s fault!“

Wisdom is Virtue

We have been learning about Medicare Assistance in Dying ever since the story broke at Redacted.inc about social workers, healthcare professionals, and others openly suggesting to patients that they “take the plunge.” Since Canada has socialized medicine, I always thought it might be the model of what the United States should enact—a real working single-payer system. However according to various news reports about how they are now using their system to cut down on the patient load, maybe better not check into a Canadian hospital.

Canada has now become unofficially nicknamed the death-capital of the world. People who want to commit suicide know there will be no problem. They are supposed to have two doctors signatures, but the rules of enforcement need not be stringent. Maybe only one caseworker and a witness will do. They are even encouraging veterans to quit life. You know, all that fighting for one’s country and they still have to live? As for anyone deemed mentally ill, the next stage in the law will allow anyone diagnosed to opt (or be forced) out.

In the Daily Mail, an expose is offered to the heroic death-doctor champions who have euthanized hundreds of victims. They don’t mind finishing off the people who are in great pain whether real or imaginary, whether due to ameliorable factors or not. A sentence of homelessness, poverty, drug addiction, loss of job—people should not fight to survive. There are apparently no ethical hurdles once the Hippocratic Oath is permanently abandoned. In fact, Paul Craig Roberts recently wrote a column about the new law in California that forces doctors to forego the Hippocratic Oath: the better so they will follow the World Health Organization vaccine interventions—or else.

It makes me wonder how disheartening it might become for those who spent their careers helping disabled students adjust. Maybe after all those Special Education hours, the logical thing when the funding runs dry is for teachers to actively downsize their students life expectancy. If they become depressed, Canada envisions that eventually children won’t need any guardian’s permission to let the death specialists help them finish up.

As for older people? Well, many have already noticed how well New York state cared for the convalescents in nursing homes. Dr. Jane Ruby (“Malone Doctrine”) explained in detail why the intubation process is so dangerous and how easily it can be for these tubes to become clogged or infected. When patients experience choking, they cannot even communicate with the nurse because they are usually partly under sedation. The inflexibility in practice has caused many patients to die even when they should have walked out with some medicines.

Perhaps the devaluation of poor elderly people is envisioned as the easiest part in the plan for depopulation. That is why over the last twenty years, euthanization laws have gradually become enacted in North America, Columbia, Argentina, Chile, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, France, U.K., Spain, Portugual, Switzerland, Russia, India, Japan, South Korea, and Australia. The level of approval is different in the various countries: some only allow it as a very last resort, only after all other options have failed.

But the vigilantes of Covid-19 madness are helping spread the word when there are cases of malignant intentions and abuse. One appalling case broadcast at Rights and Freedoms (rightsfreedoms.wordpress.com) is the notice served to an 85-year old musician that she would be forcibly arrested and administered Covid-19 vaccine shots. Not only this—the notice of determination by the court includes at least a year of forced detention in a psychiatric facility and deprived of her possessions. This Ukrainian-Jew, named Inna Zhvanetskaya has won awards of recognition for her classical music compositions, and is celebrated in Ukraine and Russia.

But in Germany, Inna is being shamelessly stigmatized and targeted in Nazi-era style deathcamping. The page online includes a personal statement on video and she appears to be calm, in possession of her faculties, capable of describing why music was her inspiration, how important composition has been, and she even plays a couple of piano pieces from memory and with the style of a virtuoso.

“No more music, no more life” laments genius composer Inna Zhvanetskaya over deathcamping in Germany

Unfortunately Germany has increasingly chosen to enact medical-martial law; as described by the Corona-Investigative-Committee.com and Grand-Jury.net, the authorities have targeted doctors, professionals, and anyone with any significant clout speaking out against the Covid-vaccines. The power of the police-state has increased immeasurably due to laws passed such as the “Infection Protection Law” by the German Parliament. If the authorities decide that someone is in noncompliance against the lockdown laws and involved in Covid-19 anti-vaccine activism, an investigation can be conducted that allows police to make arrests. (Dr. Andreas Noack was assassinated by police while livestreaming in November 2021).

Thus, the case of Ukrainian-Russian musician Inna Abramovna Zhvanetskaya, even a Holocaust survivor, should come as no surprise. Why she settled in Stuttgart, Germany away from all her former musician friends in Moscow is a mystery, but reputedly she loved the open spaces and freedom and nature. Now, according to Rights and Freedoms, she has been forced to go into hiding—she has only one day to escape the country or else she will be arrested and forcibly placed into a psychiatric hospital on what appears to be trumped up charges.

This is the mold that the globalists are trying force humanity into in the 21st century. They have created a fracturable post-modern society in the West, and now they can get rid of the leaders of the resistance, public intellectuals, and preservers of traditional Christian living. The home-wreckers would love to work their fiendish fingers into the government of Eastern cultures, but there are still many barriers. Of course there are abuses happening but they are usually not the norm.

This is because in the Far East, traditional veneration for parents and elders is part of the cultural fabric and heritage. Certainly it predates Confucius, the respect for ancestors, including logs of ancestral names, village records, histories of counties, religious and year-round celebrations. China has even enacted a social-credit system that benefits the elderly and the poor who can advance their credit and reputation in society based upon their voluntary efforts. A living example of this also is seen in Tzu Chi, where tens of thousands of volunteers have been mobilized in Taiwan and around the world for all kinds of philanthropic activities. It helps the community develop bonds, while nurturing relationships.

Just one example for comparison is a musical performance by a female pianist, Elaine Wu YiLi, who is in her late-80s, playing for the Older But Wiser Forum. The “Butterfly Lovers” concerto (posted by TheVeryStudio at Youtube) has a distinctly oriental flavor, yet if when listens to it closely, one can see many paintings come to life. When musicians grow older, they may not have the speed of a younger person but they make up with flourishes they have developed from lifelong practice. And the same goes for any craftsperson, be this in farming, vintage, carpentry, painting, teaching, story-telling, science, healing, ministry, etc. Only in politics can the worst people never be gotten rid of.

If the globalists lived by their mandates, they would be forced to understand that almost every person now knows at least three people who have been affected by the gene-therapy shots who have suffered either untimely deaths or injuries. If they appreciated their own geriatric prejudices, then they would enact term limits in Congress and retire earlier. If they believed that they were representing the people, then they would be willing to have the same health plan as everyone else, including taking all the prescribed regimen.

For those who are bold and responsible, it is necessary to speak up and take a stand to defend the preservation of humanity, the sanctity of our humble clay abode, and reject the calls to wokism, hedonism, libertinism, paganism, satanism, divisionism, the dissolution of civil society and collapse of moral order. All the saints came to heal and save humankind, so reject euthanasia!

Update on updates

“True practice involves study, prayer, and reflection so action reaches perfection” —Hongyin,22

That quote block just took ten minutes to design because I kept expecting the quotation marks to appear automatically and the block to set itself apart just as in the Classic Editor. Apparently I have to now manually add the quotation marks, and the only benefit appears to be being able to use the settings in the side bar to change the color (which I was accustomed to doing using the HTML text editor in Classic).

So big deal. Blocks seems designed to ween the writer away from HTML/WYSIWYG while spending an undue amount of time fussing around with “Quote Block.” Believe me, I am not impressed!

One thing that happened which was nice was we do now have WordPress fully updated, and this allowed the Bravenet PHP to be updated to 8.0. The reason my website was crashing was because I tried to update the PHP before updating WordPress. It makes sense now because the WordPress 6.1 eliminates all the error generation in the debug file—many of which were related to PHP and outdated plugins.

Just for insurance and for potential site migration, we also invested in UpdraftPlus. UpdraftPlus even has an associate program for those who don’t mind Big Brother looking over your shoulder, sifting through your website saved in various packets in the cloud, and tracking what you do offline. (It reminds me of signing up for the DC Board of Elections database, and now my voter registration is showing up in six different places online.)

We also invested in an updated Themezee Plugin for Leeway. The lead designer had stated there was no more support, but after begging a bit, he did provide the Leeway plugin so that I can have it updated to at least WordPress 5.1. Themezee is also offering a package deal so that one license allows the customer access to multiple themes. Eventually when I have to install a new theme, it can be after test-run on an experimental WordPress site. Thanks to UpdraftPlus, that should be a cinch, opening up a test-site; however, with Bravenet, I never know what kind of obstructions the host-server may have in place.

Another great plugin is Advanced File Manager which allows SFTP file management from the front end inside WordPress. Since I couldn’t get my SFTP software (whether WinSCP or FTP Voyager) to work, that may potentially solve the SFTP challenge. But now that the PHP is updated, the gliche in the SFTP connection problem may also be solved. I just don’t want to have to file any more support tickets with Bravenet right now, since my New Year resolution is to continue having benevolent thoughts.

Anyway how was Bravenet to know that the whole problem actually was based upon an outdated WordPress version? But with UpdraftPlus, that won’t be so much a problem anymore, since with incremental saves, any new updates can be undone as quickly as a restore.

Everyone deserves a reprieve during the New Year. A few weeks ago there were several interviews conducted with Democrats or Progressives that I once admired. At RealNews.com, Reverend Chris Hedges conducted an interview with longtime Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D) who served 4-terms in Congress before he was ousted due to his antiwar stance.

In the December 16, 2022 interview, the former Mayor of Cleveland spoke candidly about how the Congress is captured by the war-time economy. This is what happened to the Democratic Party in his view:

“…I think as soon as the Democratic Party made a determination, could have been 35, 40 years ago, that they were going to take corporate contributions, that wiped out any distinction between the two parties.”

Apparently throughout his career, the Congressman took guff from other Democrats for taking an antiwar stance. Kucinich refused to vote in approval for defense budgets after he realized there was so little accountability inside the Pentagon but instead trillions of dollars worth of accounts that couldn’t be reconciled:

“So, from that moment on, I just said, wait a minute. They’re not keeping track of how this money’s spent. Why in the world should I vote for this budget? So from that point on, right through to the conclusion of a 16-year service in the United States Congress, I didn’t vote for a single budget of the Pentagon or any of the supplemental appropriations to keep wars going because I knew it was a racket. I knew there would be billions of dollars thrown away. And I can cite chapter and verse, inspector generals’ reports. Once the money goes out of this country overseas, whether it’s Iraq or whatever adventure we were in, the money’s blowing….”

The former Congressman admitted that it takes rare courage to stand up to the lobbyist forces acting on Congress, promising that whether healthcare or defense, the industry will provide jobs, and most importantly, provide the legislator the votes needed to stay in power. This is also where the media wars come into play to ratchet up the perception of vast differences between the two parties when in fact:

“The government generates perceptions. And people think, well, there must be a reason for the government’s position on this war. The truth of the matter is that we’re in a heavily militarized society driven by greed, lust for profit, and wars are being created just to keep fueling that. It moves right into this idea, this old idea of a manifest destiny.”

The saddest part, Kucinich believes, is how mired America has become in living out its lies. These lies, as other foreign experts have observed, is what will kill America in an age of ruthless competition and increasing multipolarity. We cannot simply rely on the weapons, whether economic, defense, or media, to maintain American superiority; instead we must do what countries in the East are doing which is investing within.

Personally I was surprised at how open Mr. Kucinich is, but with Reverend Chris Hedges, of course he might be speaking with the choir. One thing the Democrats or Progressives won’t touch is the Covid-19 vaccine controversy—because the US Green Party is still supporting the Single-Payer Healthcare. But they are making progress, maybe forced to because Independents are making inroads in alternative media. The problem is that per InfluenceWatch.org, various private foundations, such as the Benjamin Fund, help support popular Democratic thinktanks and there doesn’t have to be as much transparency anymore. A recent exception was the FTX cryptocurrency debacle where its founder is accused of money laundering and operating a huge slush fund and virtual ponzi scheme.

The point is that if the agenda is set by a private, possibly foreign entity, then the Congress is essentially bought. The media war upon the public is so successful that many Americans still believe that America is peerless when it comes to modern society. Nothing can be further from the truth. Even as an Asian-American, I am faced with culture-shock when viewing some of China’s regional documentaries (CCTV) which demonstrates such a highly sophisticated approach to land-planning with extensive traditional to high-tech integration. As an American, it makes me feel both admiring and ashamed. Today, democratic-socialism philosophy with Chinese characteristics including respect for the land and its peoples are deeply ingrained in the consciousness—and successful. It’s just that it seemed not so long ago that many of these megacities had been viewed pretty much through the eyes of Alasdair Clayre in the picturesque Heart of the Dragon, an oversized early 1980s documentary with detailed contexts that aided me in writing my book, Gwok Choy: A Family Memoir from the Sino-Japanese War.

Believe me, many Touji today would be stunned with the immense urban changes on such a grand scale, from the transportation systems, to dramatic skyscrapers, to preserves of temples, hanging bridges, reforestation projects, virtual cartography, drone-cameras, satellite imagery, micro-macro farming, launching of space station, and so on. It is truly mind-boggling the leaps in science and still including the humanities that is taking place—done not for profit but to improve trade and opportunities so that China can continue to protect its heritage while helping the world transition or survive with less fossil fuels availability.

Actually it made me sad that I have already missed so much of the magical growth process; the unveiling of these documentaries means these projects have been successfully completed: they are ready for the world to see. In a huge mega-city I have no doubt that I would feel somewhat lost, but it also reminds me of the state of disrepair in America’s once great cities on the West Coast. A politician whose pockets and bank accounts are filled with cash will quickly deny that anything is wrong with America’s infrastructure, and that all we need to do to is allocate more money to help the planned improvements along. Will California Congressman Kevin McCarthy, who delivered such an inspiring acceptance speech, actually help create change in the Golden State? Will he prioritize much needed water reservoir and water transport improvements? How many high-speed rail miles does he plan to have finished? What about plans to reduce dependence on the “war-is-a-racket” economy? Maybe people will confuse him with Gavin Newsom, or worse, the Hunter Biden. McCarthy looks like the boy-next-door with his Valley charm and still even retains an air of idealism.

But everyone knows looks are deceptive. The third-man behind the President may very well become like Mitch McConnell, just an eager rubber stamp for warmongering as the inevitable American Dream.

PS. There are also problems selecting text in Gutenberg Blocks. I used to be able to shift-select all the way down to end of the article to change font-size or font-type; now I have to go paragraph-by-paragraph after the 600 word limit.

The hardest thing: Truth

The hardest thing at the End Kalpa (which is what various Buddhist masters believe we are living in this age) is that Truth is hard to find, difficult to discover, and moreover, even when it becomes self-evident, it is rejected.

That is what is happening now in the unfolding drama in Ukraine. Each side contends the other side is winning, can win, must win. But the truth is that each day brings us closer to nuclear war. Wisdom of the ages urges humankind to err on the side of caution, to back away from the precipice, to urge for diplomacy and enact a ceasefire.

But apparently world geopolitics is not operating in the same sphere as daily life. In this view, we would be as if allowing cars to drive at 60mph on the same road towards one another oblivious of any car-crash. Or allowing kids to fight to the death and wreck the school cafetaria. But our mainstream news shields viewers from seeing any bloodshed. We can watch all the vampire and gore movies we want, but apparently real bloodshed would expose the public to too much reality. Or truth.

War is not pretty. It’s messy, ugly stuff, and the callousness makes men develop rank hatred, and disrespect for all life. That’s why even the political pundits reporting on the war daily such as the Colonel, or Berletic, or whomever are really not welcoming of women journalists in the Q&A, or at least there is an impression of that. They are brushed off, their questions are discounted.

Because in war, men come to see women and children as merely chattel. The fighting drives them insane and what little reward comes to mean taking whatever they want, including raping and killing for the sake of grisly gloriful sense-gratification. More men are acting coarsely, more women are becoming vulgar, and the society is becoming visibly careless.

But if you look at some of the headlines from alternative media, such as Hal Turner Radio, you can see that the Russians have seriously mobilized and will not back down, as recent headlines such as “Report: Russia to mobilize another 500,000 men” or “Russian Official: Put Zircon Hypersonic Missiles 100 miles from Potomac River” indicate.

There is world war taking place in bits and pieces. For instance, Israel has taken advantage of the situation to attack Gaza, Lebanon, or Syria. Turkey has also made excursions into Syria’s north eastern region. The U.S. makes new sanctions every month against various enemy nations. China is withholding shipping containers filled with cargo that should have landed by now on U.S. shores. (For instance, at the Walmart located a few blocks away, the frozen and refrigerated food sections are completely empty—and they have been like that for almost two weeks.)

War breeds chaos, confusion, negativity, and gives birth to more violence. That is only natural, that there is such bad Qi floating in the air all around. This, despite the strenuous efforts of the buddhist and Christian ministries to conduct extra masses and ceremonies and prayers for healing (and often unstated but including for world peace).

Schiller Institute has recently yet again called for a peace dialogue with the founder, Helga Zepp-Larouche, stating that the most viable third party would be a willing intermediary. The Vatican has volunteered to be such an intermediary for a peace dialogue with no stipulations attached. All that would be required is that the leaders of Russia and Ukraine be willing to sit and talk.

How hard can that be? The truth appears to be that humankind is mired in such materialism that the Western hegemony is willing to go for an all or none approach. It would rather drag the whole world to perdition and take everyone along with them.

But what if there is a deeper agenda, as some pundits such as Peak Prosperity suggests. We want to solve the overpopulation problem and thermonuclear war is one option. Another option are the false innoculations that the experimental vaccines have come to represent: kill shots. Another option that the elite secretly discuss using learned language and in sophisticated enclaves is “legalizing euthanasia.”

Redacted Inc with Clayton and Natalie Morris did a nice broadcast on that a few weeks ago, “Oh No, They’re really doing this in Canada and they’re not hiding it.” Most Christians are against euthanasia because it destroys the sanctity of human life. In fact, physicians are sworn to protect human life as well, but of course, in the age of Constitutional Law (an Orwellian interpretation of such), the law supercedes science.

Politicization of science and education is forcing doctors to bend their knee to accept operations for sex-change, death protocols based on the kill-shots, and encouraging the recommendation of euthanasia for patients who are chronically depressed or terminally ill. Teachers are supposed help students become addicted to sex, and the shots are supposed to disable the god-gene.

All of that sounds really kooky, but the World Economic Forum is really holding special meetings on countering disinformation, that is, alternative news media that present the news from perspectives of the harm that is caused by blindly adopting capitalist corporate policies without national debate and review of such laws or policies. For instance, the World Health Organization has a new pandemic preparedness policy that allows it to dictate that all countries must follow its pandemic protocols henceforth. They are already planning how to handle the next pandemic in order that everyone will be vaccinated, carry a vaccination pass, perhaps opt to become chipped for identity convenience, and tied to this will be drivers license and centralized bitcoin digital currency.

This kind of green totalitarianism is in various stages of development but it was blocked by world protests and uprisings in 2021, such as the truckers protests in Canada, and the various farmers protests in Germany. Nevertheless, progress has been made in conforming countries such as in Austria and Switzerland and Mexico. But too many pundits, alternative press, and politicians have spoken against the WEF agenda, so this is why they are already devising new ways to censor the public.

One way we believe they are doing this includes the recent update to WordPress. This is no ordinary update. It involves the launching of Gutenberg Blocks. That already has an eerie Orwellian evocation to it. Martin Luther liberated the world from the Catholic Church thanks to the wonders of the Gutenberg Press which allowed his thesis (and later his bible) to spread throughout Europe. Here in the United States, in the 2000s there was a Project Gutenberg which became famous (and still is) as a purveyor of free books and audio. Thus, Gutenberg is the symbol of the voice of the printed word, its convenience, and its efficacy.

Now WordPress is set to destroy that perhaps encouraged, aided, and abetted by its board. The new version of WordPress strongly encourages all users to deploy Gutenberg Blocks, a clumsy blockish publishing software whose only convenience is for the many programmers and cloud servers that develop and save the articles you hope to publish. For small publishers and bloggers, it is a headache and time-consuming as this software seems to be bent on distracting (blocking?) the writer from typing but being caught up in the prerogatives of layouts, options, pull-in media, size of boxes, and whatnot of trivia. Already there are numerous complaints and traditionalists are calling for a boycott or at the very least, enabling disabling-blocks apps.

Of course it’s always nice to learn something new, something that may be meant to universalize the blogosphere and keep many programmers happily employed. This is what happens in a country where there is no real manufacturing base anymore. People graduate and must become overspecialized in some kind of niche, and it cannot be the type that is actually integral to societal functioning anymore (such as real, physical infrastructure building). Instead it must deal with entrapping humanity into deeper and deeper layers of artificial intelligence using all manners of artifice. Meta is hopeful that we will just give up blogging and don those VR goggles and lay waste to ourselves all day until we are ready to be scraped up by the euthanasia robots.

This is not too dark a reality according to WEF Chairman Klaus Schwab. A corollary to “you will own nothing and be happy” might be “you will believe in nothing and yearn to die.” It makes no difference because they cannot even distinguish between the lives of people in one national bracket from another. In fact, typical of totalitarian leaders, the people they want to rid of most generally are those capable of challenging their ideas. So it almost makes sense they are ready to lay waste to European heritage, since these people actually had a noble culture and many vaunted ideals that they had the ambition and intelligence to bring to fruition for perpetuity.

No more of that for the proles! No, the higher truths in spiritual living and human life must be made banal. They are even happily planning now how to design new humans that will not desire to eat meat, who will be shorter in height, possibly thinner so that they will not have to consume as much of anything. Humans will become the new alien race of those Hollywood movies, if the planet lasts long enough from all the planned or incidential destruction from all those wars…

New Year Resolution: Benevolence

When a blogger is forced to reconsider their entire layout due to a defunct theme, outdated PHP, insecure plugin, it really can be frustrating. Fortunately WordPress has lots of supporters, developers, and a community that includes anything from new software creators, content creators, educational or training websites, and the diverse spectrum of users. So for the present outlay which has several complexities, there is hope.

We haven’t solved the SFTP problem yet but for a shared hosting plan it appears that there is a problem connecting with the root directory. If we had independent VPS hosting, the tree would be less complex, and the SFTP might be more immediate. The present server is Bravehost. Due to the holidays support is slow and perhaps it was upsetting because the response felt canned. It didn’t seem specific enough to the actual problem as described.

Actually SFTP for the websites we created for various static pages using HTML, CSS, WYSIWYG, and a smattering of other coding doesn’t really matter too much at this point. Those pages were created and are effectively part of an archive that we would like to download for safekeeping, but it was already done more or less some time ago. It does matter for the present WordPress and for updating the company pages. But that’s just one facet of the issues.

Another more critical issue is the incompatibility with the latest PHP, the theme being deprecated, and other plugins no longer supported. These all are specific to our WordPress, which is also using an older version. Of course with regard to this any business owner has their own homework to do. For instance, regarding “gruff support” it’s a common enough complaint that it may not be worth changing a hostserver. Reviews of Bluehost, GoDaddy, even Siteground indicate some commentators are not enthused about the quality of support. If it is anything like Verizon maybe long wait times, runaround in response, or “support knows less than you do.”

Communication is such a big problem in the 21st century. People presume so much more than they used to because even with meetups and breakdancing parties, the level of association has become superficial. The role of artificial intelligence in social networking is practically invasive. A relationship will even dissolve once a former friend quits Instagram and moves to Gab.

Changing hostservers also takes a lot of time. One shouldn’t ever just change on the fly especially if you have a lot of files. According to Onlinemediamasters.com, a record amount of mergers are taking place. In his review of Bluehost, Tom Dupuis includes a graphic showing the long list of host servers now owned by Endurance International Group (EIG), now merged with Web.com to form Newfold Digital. The list includes 85 companies with recent acquisitions such as Bluehost, Typepad, Hostgater, Fatcow, iPage. Godaddy recently acquired Mediatemple.net.

Competition is fierce albeit in a seemingly friendly way. One hostserver that won my admiration is WPdeveloper.com, which is largely run by East-Indians who also are developing a host of apps and largely free betaware for testing. Another appsource is SourceForge.net which had provided a review of ASPhostportal.com, a global hostserver based in Singapore. So it is pretty much like taking a round the world tour exploring the new expanding world of cloudbased servers, data-SQL-based websites, and the recent trend towards “dynamic” pages.

For the DIY small publisher, of course keeping a few static webpages and backups are always a good idea. But they may not be able to compete with plugins that specialize in increasing one’s page rank (like Yoast). Our basic philosophy is the less plugins the better because even those with good intentions, such as PHP Compatibility Checker might not stay up to date. Then there are plugins which might not work out with your theme, such as not being able to incorporate Site Health or Health Check. In fact, we only have three plugins right now, one of which is theme. So that’s pretty much a barebones WordPress.

But the greatest recent discovery was the vaunted capabilities of UpDraftPlus. We took off WP-Staging after reading an article from dessky.com, “what-is-wrong-with-wp-staging-plugin.” It seemed to make sense when we checked the various versions saved in subdirectories as a possible source of plugin error messages. We really appreciate the variety of free, helpful articles often situated at host sites, and also web consultants such as WPBeginner, Josh Hall, Sunday Ukafia, WP Buffs, Webby Fan, and WordPress.org, who also include instructional videos on their YT channels.

There could be more women channel owners and wordpress consultants, but we probably will find more of them at Wikihow.

Anyhow with some tokens from UpdraftPlus, which also offers a premium version for store purchases, hopefully we will be able to do as they say, “test out the sandbox clone” of our wordpress without having to upload, migrate, and duplicate the wordpress for testing at a new host server. In fact, if one is pressed with issues, a package of 40 tokens can last one almost half a year in having an alternative virtual website. No need for any down time if your host server can’t help you in a timely manner.

Another app we hope to test out in the sandbox is Advanced File Manager, a new plugin which purportedly allows the operator to move and transfer files within the directory tree front-end—-that is, without having to go inside the host-server and activate SFTP. It even offers access to files outside the wordpress tree; however this may be somewhat limited or there may be some kind of obstruction by the host server. Anyway, it is good news since we really prefer not to use Filezilla. The version we downloaded would not uninstall. There was a problem discovered using it even back in 2011, and described even at Wikipedia (“Filezilla”).

Never allow anyone to force a software on you! Some of the affiliates of Bluehost and other software companies are writing glowing reviews in order to earn a commission. Even consultants and content creators will cite the same top ten host servers repeatedly as if there were not literally hundreds of competent host-server companies. On the other hand, our recent exploration reveals that “free” hostservers are not worth the cost in downtime, unpredictability, security holes, and sleazy enterprises which invite identity and credit card theft. Just like some fly-by-night free agents for sexworkers or such around this area will own many disposable smartphones, so purveyors of illicit services online will masquerade through front companies and cheap disposable websites.

The fact is that comparing all that is available, we are grateful to Bravenet for having such a relatively secure hosting platform all these years. We’ve never experienced any downtime due to the host service itself, and uploads and changes are near instantaneous. There has never been any data loss, although we recently were so disappointed about the SFTP incapability that we deleted some archival folders as if in preparation to change hostservers.

So our New Year’s Resolution in regard to Benevolence is based on the Buddhist aphorism oft repeated by Master Shih Cheng Yun of Tzu Chi: “Speak kind words, think good thoughts, do good deeds, and walk the right path.”

There is no specific order for that. My graduate school program advisor, Dr. Ernest Hamilton (who was Hindu), gave a very important handout at the beginning of each semester on the science of Communication. Essentially you must have a receptive open perception to understand what the Other is saying or trying to communicate. You must be aware of your own filters, because you are communicating even before you formulate a response, whether you realize it or not. Right thought, right word, right action, right pursuit, right perception, right interpretation, right livelihood, and right effort are all bound up with right perspective.

Your level of cultivation rarely matches someone else’s. Even when it is close, it can never be exact. That’s why there are so many misunderstandings in the world today. Ironically, in an age of endless communication based technologies, human misunderstandings have actually increased rather than decreased. We expect understanding yet insist that everyone live inside our bubble.

Cyrus Janssen, a popular Vlogger who lived in China for over a decade, made some shrewd observations in his recent video, “How I view the United States after 15 years living abroad” (https://www.youtube.com/@CyrusJanssen). Having done more than the usual amount of traveling for an American citizen, we find his observations spot on, which is especially helpful in having some perspective without all the politicization and controversy when anyone offers a social critique nowadays. Here were some of his points (simply put).

First, he is surprised at the negativity of the media and the polarization it has caused. Second, he is disappointed at the corruption of the politicians in both parties. He doesn’t believe they put the interests of the electorate first anymore. Third, he is struck by how content Americans are to stay inside the comfort zones of the “American bubble” rather than consciously work to learn about societies overseas. Fourth, Cyrus (an international PGA) is surprised at the rising influence of Big Pharma in the United States, something that contributes to the high prices in healthcare in comparison with free to low-cost healthcare in China. Fifth, he is apalled about the reach and influence of the healthcare industry which has improved globally while remaining stymied in the U.S. due to capitalist overreach. Finally, Mr. Janssen had to relearn the extent to which consumer overload dictates American societal tastes and values: “When you travel around the world, you begin to realize that there is a lot of joy and happiness with not having a lot of things.” He had seen how happiness can be based more around people rather than things. However he did say that all countries have their positives and negatives, and he could see so many positives coming back home as well.

Being able to share one’s thoughts must be cathartic at some level, since the sentiment of the returning veteran or ex-pat is often similar: “Why is nobody interested in hearing about my experiences?” Indeed the common complaint is that once you are in the States, you are supposed to just blend back into the societal woodwork; aside from an odd-story or two, let bygones be bygones.

But the best part of Cyrus Janssen (Wang De Zhong) that makes him special is his eternal optimism: “We are all healing, we have so much in common in humanity, and so many people can now interconnect all across the globe.” To paraphrase his outlook, if we live in what is increasingly a global village, should we not work at finding something to like about one another?

The times have changed

It’s been over ten years and things are wildly different now. And WordPress is not the same anymore. Although open-source and affordable, the free-version is causing my laptop to overheat. And the navigation is fraught with interferences.

But for the type of news blog of AsianGreenNews.com, it would also require more storage than a free account.

The recent upgrades are forcing a worthwhile study of WordPress.org’s many tutorials and videos. The blogger watched at least one video from https://wordpress.tv/2022/12/09/builder-basics-demystifying-theme-json-and-global-styles/ and it was neat that for once, the designer and the DIY blogger shares some accessible intersectionalities.

Besides this there are scores of resources which this blogger has tapped into time and again. Keeping a skipper’s log of what is done is necessary, just as if we were repairing a boat, so the steps can always be retraced when necessary.

Aside from this, however, the necessity of a separation between the designer and reporter is like traveling between two countries. I am a netizen in the reporters camp and there is so much research, reading, viewing, note-taking, re-reading and locating of quotes that right now it’s not usually possible to spend too much time in IT.

Like tonight we have been hearing rumors from various alternative news sources that the Russians are mobilizing from Belarus. These sources would include anything from experts to professional second-world journalists. But the most telling message came from President Putin himself in a chilling speech translated by Michael Rossi (Michael Rossi Poli Sci channel on Youtube).

In “Vladimir Putin Addresses the Russian Defense Ministry Board Dec 21, 2022” hang onto your chair as you listen to the grim details of how well the Russians are prepared for the inevitable assault which will come soon.

As Colonel Douglas Macgregor has warned, you don’t mobilize hundreds of thousands of troops so they can sit in camp and try to stay warm. The expenses for keeping them fed and armed are very expensive, but it was because the Russians had had enough of the West and it’s hypocrisies.

In fact, according to the Schiller Institute and other antiwar groups, now is the time to speak out. Speak out and wake people up if you can. If you can’t, pray for yourself and their redemption, as the journey is about to take us into extremely treacherous waters.

IF YOU CAN, one says, because around the holidays everybody is particularly walking and driving and traveling about in a daze.

Americans don’t take kindly to being woken up. They will growl very unfriendly at you. When I say the word “Putin” to my friends at the Health Club, they are aghast at the breach and look at me with wonder as if they had never heard that name before.

How dare you talk about Russia in public? How dare you mention the WAR???

But there are signs all around us that we are embroiled in this war, a war that is basically anything but proxy. Just a few days ago on Tuesday, President Zelensky came to the Congress and the White House for last-minute visit. He wanted to remind the Congress to pack it in like fudge for more dollars before the $1.7 trillion Omnibus bill was voted on. The 4200 page bill has already been passed—it was introduced earlier this week, and two days later, it is already to be signed, so that Congress can take their winter break.

That really worries the DC residents, because if the politicians are skipping town, that is the ideal time for Russia to finish off with phase three. Putin has signaled he has at least the minimum number of nuclear bombs ready to go, including hypersonic missiles and the “Satan” missile with topped with multiple warheads. The nature of their technology, per the experts, is about ten years ahead of the U.S. right now. Their missiles can dodge the U.S. interceptor missiles. The Satan missile can send missiles in three different directions.

But nobody wants to believe the truth. It is as Kishore Mahbubani writes in his book, “Has China Won?” Granted the book is about the race with China, but the crux of the matter is the same, a topic touched upon during Colonel’s interview with Dr. Michael Vlahos on December 12, 2022 at the Army-Navy Club in Washington, D.C.

America (and Americans) are accustomed to believing they are the penultimate civilized virtuous society, and American values trump the culture of any non-Western nation.

“The assumption of virtue does not just rest on the claim that America has been a benign actor on the world stage (a claim that Stephen Walt debunks). It also relies on the idea that the quality of life that the United States provides its citizens is the best in the world. In short, America is the greatest society in the world in improving the lives of its citizens.” —Kishore Mahbubani

Dr. Vlahos no doubt has studied this text, as he mentions the sense of current leadership’s hubris, and of course the complacency of the public, but he does not touch on the media and the terrible role that it plays in generating propaganda which bleats out nearly every day, how Russia is losing the war.

Working Americans don’t have much time to do much beyond view the news from T.V. They are less likely to tune into Redacted, Inc, and the Redacted channel on Youtube hosted by Clayton Morris, a former Fox News anchor. (The show has amassed 1.5 million subscribers on YT alone).

We have listened to the Vlahos-Macgregor interview twice now, and yes, some will say but I am only able to report as an arm-chair journalist. But actually very few people are traveling to Ukraine. My relative barely escaped from Ukraine alive with his wife, while her parents were left behind. My best friends growing up were German-Mennonites who lived in Ukraine in farming communities. My significant other was also German-American and lived in Germany during some of his best years.

Why mention this? Because another thing the American media has done is rob the American reader of human interest, balance, care and concern in a deeply empathetic way. Time and again, we are distracted with irrelevant stories about what deserves to be buried on page 20, about the sex-change controversies.

A disproportionate time and energy spent on trivia guarantees that the public will accept distortion for perspective, and the weight of authority as valid evidence. That’s why we have the billionaire class openly mocking the public, reminding them like Jeff Bezos does, to become a thriftier consumer. Morris pointed out recently that Bezos has purchased one of those very expensive yachts.

They expect us to worship them based on an illuminative authority as vapid as the light from a kerosene lamp. They don’t mind seeing us miss meals, forced to scrimp and save because inflation is rising, and in fact, what they do worry about is there are just “too many of us.”

Of course too many is a matter of perspective. No one person thinks he or she is one too many, even if the euthanasia enthusiasts want to convince them otherwise. Thank goodness I discovered the Schiller Institute, and the Ron Paul Institute. They may be viewed as “right wing” but as long as they are united for the need for a peace dialogue between Ukraine and Russia, it is admittedly far better than what has come out from the Green Party of Germany whose leadership has been downright treasonous to say the very least.

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