Walkabout Thoughts #61

My thoughts, Stream of consciousness, rough and ready, while walking off long Covid and listening to podcasts…
August 10, 2023, Thursday

Weather for the day… 66° starting out, 68° when I got home

Podcast Pod Save the World

Here’s one way AI could help us with interviews with MAGA types who want to be presidential candidates. Game out what they will say ahead of time and have those facts at hand and ready. Because one of the things Trump and those like him have had in their favor, is just saying ridiculous lies you can’t foresee, so no one has the facts to refute them on hand. Thus in an interview be able to counter them in real time. We need to start having these facts at our fingertips, and I would say, maybe, simply put them up on the screen so that person can’t continue to lie, and will move on. While viewers will see they were lying. Part of the problem in these interviews is their ludicrous lying and illogical contentions. They cannot be foreseen because they’re just grasping anything out of the air, at times. Because it’s all transactional, to look good in the moment. Then go tell the opposite lie to a different group, right after. Which is one of Trump's main propaganda efforts.

Chris Christie on Firing Line: "I think Trump took the documents so he could continue to pretend he's still president.

Bill Barr: "If you liked the Trump agenda, he's the last person you'd want to have execute it."

With the actual war in Ukraine, and this subversive domestic enemy's ultra right conservative Trump/ MAGA style internal attacks against our democracy, and America, we need asymmetrical actions more than reactions to these things in order to start winning and neutralizing these efforts against decency, reality and humanity

The issue with the satisfying catharsis of conspiracy theories in now being Force Multiplied, weaponized by right wing conspiracy theorists as an asymmetrical problem we need to deal with overtly and...covertly. All through history, conspiracy theorists have been weird little people often with mental or social issues, greatly (and lately) on the right, who have now inadvertently stumbled upon the power of their beliefs force multiplied towards their political agenda. This is becoming an arm of the Republican Party as with criminal organizations, where that kind of thing long ago became an arm of Russian intelligence, in the Russian government. 

The continuing parallels between the GOP and Russia for over 30 years now is staggering.

I should invite Joe to Pat and son Jack Moriarity’s September annual party. Jack’s a great musician and on the rise. Joe should network with him since he was after all, a student in his rock music school program.

The Public really needs to be educated that when you hear the right wing whining about how left-wing programs have globally and historically been anti-humane, as previously in communist and socialist countries (they being NOT America, by the way), in their being abusive to their citizens, in elevating their powerful and rich… it has to be understood that we’re so steeped in capitalism here, we really can’t see how toxic THAT methodology has been, and is now. And just how abused we’re currently being under that warped capitalistic paradigm. It's' not that capitalism is warped as it has BEEN warped on purpose. It also needs to be pointed out, as I have before, that those historical socialist and communist equations were not America and they did not have our US constitution (while we're now seeing through Trump's crimes how one man, one foul entity, can subvert our government into autocracy). So fear of "extremism" is valid, although many of those fearing left-wing extremism seem quite capable of quietly observing their own right wing extremism doing most of the damage, in trying to take down this country and destroy our democracy, to cause an insurrection, and well may do so again, while remaining silent and co-dependent if not enabling in their silence and at times, aid. Especially if Trump's elected again. Repeating... Especially if Trump's elected again. One of the stupidest fucking things I can think of right now, other than maybe supporting Putin, would be supporting Donald Trump or his previous and current enablers. That being the MAGA Republicans in Congress and sprinkled about our states as Governors, or AGs.

America is at a point where we need to initiate counter intelligence/counterinsurgency and counter-terrorist actions against one of our own domestic political parties. Yeah, that’s constitutionally kind of unconstitutional. But that’s where the right wing has placed us. Placed us knowing that they've situated themselves in a protected gray area. America just needs to wash her hair of these domestic enemies who infected our government and too much of our citizenry. Last I heard, 12 million Americans think an armed insurrection is reasonable. I would assume that’s within the MAGA personality cult of Trump. Which is ironic, since his personality is so obviously toxic, illiberal and vapidly stupid.

I was once on path to work in the field of espionage. Especially after I got my degree in psychology, I became very good at walking into a room and immediately scoping out questionable people. Back in the 80s a spec ops martial arts type said when you walk into a room, you can immediately recognize another "predator". He didn’t mean that in a bad way, but it can be recognized by someone so indoctrinated. Those trained in such skills recognize themselves more easily in others. Someone recognizing someone else also rotten to the core, even more easily. Like Donald Trump as he recognizes those he can bend to his criminal and illiberal will. I’ve never been in a room with Donald Trump but I suspect if I had been, my antenna would’ve gone up immediately. All through the 90s, when David Letterman would call Trump on his show, which led me later to watch "The Apprentice" (thanks for nothing Mark) and through most of that franchise, I had liked what Donald Trump was doing on the show. He seemed kind of cool. From a distance. It wasn’t till he started his "birtherism" crap against a black man, Barack Obama, when I started looking more into it and came to realize what a racist fuck Trump is, a bigot, and a narcissistic toxic personality. So when people started saying Trump's cool and bought into his saying to vote for him in 2016, I was in shock they couldn’t see what I was seeing by then. I would then immediately be attacked with claims of having "TDS" and how I just hated Trump so my beliefs were discounted. Which was supposed to neutralize any claim against his viability as a candidate, or a decent person. When I really never cared about what the hell his politics were, and never really listen to what they were, because I couldn’t get past what a poor example Trump was (is) as a candidate for POTUS.

Damn, I’ve had a hot/cold pack like 7“ x 15“ for maybe 15 years. I remember using it on my kids when they were younger. I’ve wondered for years since I usually fold it in half, when it would finally crack and give out. Yet it’s lasted an unbelievable time. I got my moneys worth out of it to be sure. Yesterday I was using it on my ankle and I noticed there was a sliminess to it, and found a corner was leaking. A corner, not a crack in the middle. So I found a new one for about 10 bucks. What a great deal overall (nope, smaller versions freeze solid).

I went back on antivirals yesterday, second time in a week because of long Covid. I’m feeling good today starting my 3rd mile but I don’t know if I can finish because I’m limping on my left ankle so bad. I can deal with the pain, but I want to heal and be done with. I think I might still have a small cold pack I can use until the new one arrives.

So I need to finish my last walkabout thought and post it from the other day. I need to get this one up but yesterday I finally finished my prologue to my double screenplay book on “The Teenage Bodyguard”. Which has my original version and my shorter rewritten version in better/proper screenplay format that I wrote with the consultation of producer, Robert Mitas. Took me a week to finish that prologue. So my next project's hard to finish, my academic and film companion book for "Pvt. Ravel‘s Bolero" film documentary. I’ve decided to continue on that and when I get bored with it, I’ll start on my next project which is cleaning and digitizing all my family's old home movies going back to the 1940s when my grandfather was in India. He traveled the world as a diesel engineer, working for the US military. I plan to do a documentary on him and I’m currently in the research stage. I need to do FOIA request to the US government. And then I have one other project I want to get started on.

So, apparently, China is finding left-wing activists in America who are friendly to China. Like "Project Pink" who is against the internment of Uighurs in China but are now somehow in support of the Chinese government? WTF?

To be clear, my position is, maybe let’s not have a war with China… or Russia. On the other hand, when I was a kid, my policy was let’s not have a war with the school bully who is abusing me. Interesting. I just said the word “bully “and speech to text translated it as “police “. Anyway, when I finally stood up to that bully, and I’ve done this a couple of times in my life as a kid, threatening to fight back and telling them that they could go ahead and beat the shit out of me, and I wasn’t gonna fight back. But they weren’t gonna get their way either. The latter of which I kind of don’t suggest we try against another international enemy. But I would also argue what we’re doing with China and Russia is not working very well either. We need to start acting in ways perhaps outside of the international relations, and historical political boxes to start doing things that actually do work, even if they seem a little questionable

I need to look up the relationship of herpes simplex and aspirin.

Regarding the Uighurs in China and their survivors who have reported things like physical abuse, rape, death… Yeah, I would argue Those things are bad and definitely human rights violations. Just because America has our own issues, what you could consider human rights violations, how does that mean we cannot speak out against others? Especially when they’re doing things that are far worse? For Republicans, esp., MAGA types...it doesn't.

If you want to compare China interning over 1 million Uighurs with all the abuse going on there, to any of America’s current human rights issues, you’re just being ridiculous.

If you’re going to try and compare what Putin’s doing in Ukraine, with what American did in Iraq, for instance...and I was against that before we even announced we were going to go into Iraq, back when I had warned that 9/11 was a punch in our American face, on our home turf, and we were going to have to punch somebody else in the face, even if they weren’t involved (this really worried me back then as, who would it be? Probably Iraq) and potentially against someone who was not involved… And that’s what we did. The Bush administration abused its intelligence community until they finally just fed back to them exactly what they wanted to hear, so they could go to war with Pres. George W Bush's dad's nemesis in Iraq. But you can’t conflate those two things then and now. You cannot compare Saddam Hussein to Volodymyr Zelenskyy, regardless of whatever fantasies Putin dreams up with his propaganda wing in his criminal Endeavors.

I’ve been for universal basic income for years. AI may very well force that into being. I started reading science fiction books in the early 60s and they talked about how technology would one day free "Man" up and yes, back then they said "man" and "mankind", but though I do think "humankind" is a better term, even though it still has "MAN" in it, so how much does that really matter? But yeah, I’m all for neutral terms and rectifying the tyranny of the patriarchy, etc., or toxic capitalism/industry or military industrial complex, or whatever. But this is why I keep saying that we were aware of what’s happening today, in people losing jobs to technology. We knew it was coming and did nothing to prepare for it. So who should we feel bad for? We should just stop feeling bad and rectify the situation and start fixing the issues. But the concept was that human kind of thing, beast of burden and one day they will be relieved of all that through technology. Then we can spend our time on the Arts and Humanities And space exploration, which includes time in two dimensional considerations (read your physics). And yet we see Republicans doing what? Doing their best to disrupt or destroy our educational and government systems. Defund the arts and humanities, whenever they get the opportunity. Distance themselves from paying taxes to allow things to be functional or paying for higher levels of being, such as...in the arts and humanities. Mental health has always been a poorly understood and poorly funded environment. And with all those things considered, you wonder how we became as insane as we are today, with one right wing party extremist beyond the point of idiocy.

So have you heard about "world coin"? A biometric cryptocurrency that requires proof of identity and that I guess, that you’re a human and not a bot. They sent these shiny metallic globes all over the world that you can look at and it’ll scan your iris. So, if you let them scan your iris, they’ll give you some crypto. This all sounds great, but you have to worry about who you’re giving your personal identifiers to. Somebody’s gonna have to be that entity. The government or a private company, or something else. And that’s scary to people. It shouldn’t be scary but it should be concerning. We have to stop this knee-jerk paranoia, scared of our own shadow shit and intelligently deal with it all. Be aware and proactive. Something America is really pretty bad about. Especially on the right wing of the crazy. There’s been a lot of deceptive marketing about this, offering iPods and all kinds of nonsense. They say they wanna do all this in coming to help poor people and not just make massive profits. OK. Well, I’m sure we all believe them…

So, I started on my 4th mile for today and my left ankle is shot. Therefore 3 miles for today. Dammit. But you got to take care of yourself and I've got to heal this ankle so I can get back to my 5 miles a day. I’d love to ride my bicycle, but, Bremerton’s kind of your higher level ride with so many hills. At least in the beginning, I just need to do like five or 6 miles on a flat. For a while. 

And the guys on the podcast both say they would rather trust the government for something like world coin to back a currency and I would argue to retain our personal information. Because if the governments not the best entity for that, like Winston Churchill said about democracy, it’s the best we’ve got, for now. And trusting private capitalistic entities or corporations is a good way to invest in toxic capitalism and self-abuse, essentially. And besides, if anyone has most of our personal information it's the government, because it’s our government (it's not our corporation, trust me) and we’ve set them up to do that over the entire history of this country. They both agree on the podcast that Sam Altman (not Sam Bankman Freed) is probably one of the better people who is suggesting world coin, but still, if we don’t build things with good checks and balances, we’re setting ourselves up for failure and abuse. We thought we had an American government worked out and then Donald Trump, and the Republican party show up and proved how easy it is to subvert all that and turn this country into an Autocracy. Which isn’t that big of a Leap from a kleptocracy I suppose.

Cheers! Sláinte!