So Don't Vote, Ignore Politics, I'm Sure It Will All Be Just Fine....

This...yes. I didn't write this, but this one was once me. Until I started to see my responsibilities as a citizen. In being a writer I had even more responsibility to speak out, to give others insight into what is going on and to offer them counters to the wrongful and the bad agenda based ideologies out there hammering down on America. 

Now that we have things like Russians (under Putin's orders) and Cambridge Analytica hacking us and altering our perceptions to their desires, we now really have to pay attention. That makes what I'm trying to say here, even more paramount and important. 

This is true for other countries to be sure. But so many of them, not having the benefits of being who we are in our positives of prestige, wealth and history, seem to fight even harder for their lives in their countries. Not infrequently as we're seeing in recent years, to the point of their government murdering them in their streets. Or as in Russia, their leader in Putin murdering people who disagree with him and his actions. 

The meme in question:

This was me, full on. Until the 90s when I merely started paying attention. I had gone through life, marriage, the military. I joined the OSI, the Air Force version of the FBI. I was headed into an interesting career fully supported by those in intelligence who met me. I was looking for the covert.

Now, please do not misunderstand what I'm about to say. Because I'm saying this, offering a bit of my history, for two good reasons.

First, I finally realized that I had shirked my duties as a citizen, as so many of us do. We live here, enjoy this life, this country and do so very little to deserve it. Being born here simply isn't enough. Immigrants know that, they have seen what like can and can't be and to live here, they feel, is a gift.

Even though I was in the military, was planning to go into a difficult if not dangerous career, was that even enough? Look, don't be intimated. Doing your duty as a citizen can mean only to vote. But to vote wisely, to take some amount of time anyway, to know what you're talking about, to make good decisions, to share those with our fellow citizens.

Speak out against what is wrong, incorrect, or ignorant as you see fit. But to do something. It's really not that much effort. But to neglect it, that's not earning or paying our way as citizens. And again, it's not really that much effort, so don't be intimated. Just do your part.

Secondly, I'm uniquely qualified most than the average citizen, to see much of what is going through the same information most of us can get. It's all about how you go about it, what and how you vet (verify) things and how you assimilate it with a history of what has gone before and where those things have led.

And so my first assignment was to be Berlin, Germany, where the agent I was to replace, had been killed getting into his car, due to an alleged, KGB bomb. The position had been opened for a year. No one else wanted it, for obvious reasons. I wanted to learn, to get my hands dirty, so I asked for it.

My point in mentioning all that is more than it sounds and I was more devoted to that career than most who would go into a career. I had a background in that kind of a job since grade school. I won't bore you here about it but between activities and studies, I was very, very well prepared for that kind of a lifestyle and career.

And the Commander of the OSI who interviewed me repeatedly, fully agreed, saying I had the highest score he'd ever seen on an OSI entrance exam. Which honestly, gave me concerns about support when in the field. I agreed that I was uniquely qualified before even going into training for the position, and others I planned beyond that which I had shared with him. As the OSI was only a stepping stone to where I was headed.

He aid he appreciated that and fully supported me in it. not because he was only focused as so many are anymore, on his department, or the military but for our country. The bigger picture. I'm just saying in all this, I'm uniquely situated from an outsider's point of view, and from what I hear from other citizens, to have a deeper understanding of many things that are going on in the world and in our country.

This, unlike our president Trump's proclivity, isn't about braggadocio, it's just an honest statement of fact. I had been practicing, studying and researching things uniquely situated for my selected future for years, and then....

My personal life took an unexpected change. A crisis of life, of conscience happened upon me. My career in espionage, that I had planned on since high school...gone, overnight. It took me two decades to completely reorient myself.

I got divorced. I lost nearly everything. I was adrift, until my older brother talked me into considering higher education.

I started at a two year college. Got an Associated Arts degree. I thought that was it. But then I ended up getting accept by and attending a university. I got another degree, a B.A. in Psychology, Awareness and Reasoning division, focusing in Phenomenology.

Having nearly enough credits to get a second degree, instead I opted for a minor in creative writing, focusing on fiction and then mostly screenwriting. I hadn't realized it until later, but I was being trained as a researcher. If only many more had only a few decent research or journalistic skills, our country would be more cohesives and intelligent, today.

Later I worked at the University of Washington for nearly a decade. Pretty much all the time uninterested in politics. Just living my life. Minding my own business. Putting all that previous understanding of government and world politics in my back pocket.

Constantly wondering why things seemed so messed up from a distance. But it wasn't about me, I figured. Other's could handle it. I didn't care. It wasn't, my thing. I think that may have been an over reaction to abandoning my planned career. It hurt. It took me an entire decade to let it go and become whomever it was I had become instead.

Then... Al Gore won the 2000 election and yet, Bush was the one inaugurated into office.

Stunned, I'd finally had it. I began to wake up. To look around. Not at the specifics of covert actions, of espionage, of world politics at the granular levels but at the larger scope of things. I had always been of the mindset that the government knew what I should do, they would task me, I would achieve the goal, accomplish the mission.

But now as a civilian for the rest of my life, I had to look at the bigger picture. Covert ops in intelligence need to understand the world, politics, but their orientation is different than ours. It has to be. They have to accomplish a mission, or acquire information and stay alive.

We have to see things from our perspective and that of leaders and our lives are not directly at risk. It was a paradigm shift for me. Having abandoned all the studies I had done on world covert ops and the Soviets, the KGB, now I had no use of that. But then, more recently, it all came back in a hollow echoe.

In reflecting over the 1990s at that point I realized just how ignorant I had been and how glad I was to have finally started paying attention all through the 90s.

I started hearing about this guy Putin. Ex KGB. I looked into him. I didn't like what I found. I told people. No one cared. He became Russian Premier in 1999. I was upset, and still no one would listen. Who cares, it's Russia, a weakened State, they had said.

I thought about post WWI Germany and how badly they were treated and abused. Maybe rightly so, but...it led to WWII. We won the cold war, why should we treat Russia like Germany. Because in doing so, won't we will reap the benefits of not being decent and useful? Of missing the opportunity to build them into a friend and a partner?

Again, no one would listen and besides, who am I?

I started slow. In the late 80s I tried to make it a thing simply to always watch the State of the Union address. It was an effort at first. Yet I felt more patriotic, adult, aware, at least politically. I started paying attention more to news pieces I might hear bits and pieces of. I started looking a few things up. Over time it became easier and more interesting. And disturbing. My old habits started latching onto bits of things that grew in information and concern.

Through my job in the late 90s and early 2000s, I found (I maneuvered myself) into a position of being involved with an adhoc cyber security organization. A quasi secret group of national and international cyber security experts and law enforcement going from local Seattle Police Department (our group set up their first cyber security response and monitoring team), to the FBI, to the President's Commission for Critical Infrastructures and that, was an eye  opener.  We educated ourselves and corporations as wella s laws enforcement at all levels and in our country and others.

After 2000 I started seeking out more news. We talked about Bin Laden and other groups. Through the group, I once had Bin Laden's cell phone number. Though he was no longer using it, it was still being monitored and we joked about borrowing a friend (or enemy's) cell phone and calling it, thus getting them automatically put on a "no fly" list. Not so funny, but kind of funny.

Then, 9/11. I started really paying attention. I spoke out online. Calling out and pointing out things as I discovered them. Terrorists seemed to in some cases, have legit claims of dissatisfaction and no one listening.

Years before beginning in 10th grade in 1970 I started to feel my Irish side (from my dad's family), and my interest in the Irish "Troubles", in the IRA, grew. I wanted to help them push the British out. But, I was just an ignorant, testosterone filled kid. Still my interest and studies continued.

I knew what I wanted to do, and I already had a background in martial arts and various military endeavors, guns, and so on. Like no other kid I had met, I had already flown planes before high school and taken pilot ground school. I had various other skills and certifications. I wanted to be able to at least do anything I need to for any possible situation I might one day find myself in.

Name it, I probably practiced it or had become competent at it before achieving a high school diploma. Which in part explains the veracity, the reality of my somewhat unbelievable character in a true crime screenplay I wrote, The Teenage Bodyguard (FB). The protagonist in that story is not unreal by any means. Just me.

It all started in my being a scared little kid, afraid of his stepfather, moving schools almost yearly, dealing with bully after bully, and being a kid who finally refused to be scared of the dark anymore. I faced my fears down, one after another. Someone said to me once, face your fears or run from them the rest of your life. I stopped running from them many decades ago.

Anyway, in college in the early 80s, I read about Cuba and their revolution, Che Guevara and his book, Guerrilla Warfare. Interesting book, read it sometime. His reasoning was enlightening. They fit the terrorist's issues. America had hurt others in corporate interests which we saw as national security issues. Maybe they were at one time, but not after a while. Not now that we have multinational corporations with more money than some nations.

At first that may have had legitimacy but we saw too often other's resources as ours. It was a different time, a different mindset. Nuclear weapons, the Soviets, "red" China, all made things different than the are now. We were fighting for our lives. And after the cold war? It did come back to bite us.

But terrorists and rebels can and do go easily off track. There is a fine line as they say between what is a "freedom fighter" or a terrorist. Between courage or cowardice. Between legitimate actions or terrorism or simply, being murderers.

I personally find terrorism disgusting. The IRA had it right at first. Bomb for attention, warn to save human life. But then they splintered among themselves and things went wrong. That being said, I really hate the indiscriminate nature of bombs.

I prefer someone look at a victim and kill them,  specifically, surgically and directly. The Mafia had it right, kill your enemy, leave innocents and family alone. Gangs are a bunch of animals. Drive by and spray a crowd, completely missing your enemy? That's what you get when you let children have access to guns. No responsibility.

This drone business leaves a bad taste in my mouth, not to mention and bad reputation for the US, world wide.

Killing innocents, regardless your agenda, abuse put on you, is never reasonable. And so I am staunchly anti terrorism.

My anger against bullies and terrorists became apparent. And now we have a bully in the oval office and much to my and our consternation and disgust.

After the first part of my life studying espionage, and heading into that as a career, then turning into a university life, I felt I had wasted those previous years of my life studying useless things. Who cared about the Soviet Union? Who cared about Russia? Who cared about the KGB? Who cared about various techniques of espionage, killing, altering the course of other nations?

I then started to notice some things in the years after 9/11. Over time it increased my curiosity and confusion, how there were parallels to old information I had with new information I was hearing and running across.

Then, the Arab Spring happened. I did what little I could online through finding and sharing information and sure enough, I saw Egyptians and others hit my blog to get daily updates of  hard to get and much needed and openly available to us, but hard to get information for many of those in the streets in Cairo and elsewhere.

Skip to Donald J Trump on the scene, berating Pres. Obama, a president light years beyond the previous Pres. Bush.

Obama was our last decent president and a decent man as #POTUS. More parallels. Then Trump actually and ridiculously ran for president. He couldn't win. To be sure. Everyone I talked to who should know, said he either wouldn't win, couldn't win, or certainly shouldn't win.

More parallels showed themselves. I began to realize that much of what I had studied for years since high school was suddenly useful...again. How odd that was to realize.

Then... Trump won. He was inaugurated as POTUS and much of America and the world watched with mouths agape. The #GOP swallowed him whole as candidate, regretfully. Now even more regretfully on a day by day basis.

With help from some questionable characters, like Putin in Russia through his various illegal entities dabbling in America and other countries elections. A man who situated himself yet again to be national leader of Russia in a travesty of a maneuvered and rigged election on March 18th, 2018.

I've gone on about this jackal of an ex KGB agent, before. Even his ex wife said about him that, "Unfortunately, he is a vampire." In Russia they do not have the same capability to remove a cancerous anal cyst like Putin as we do here. Russians can be forgiven for making Putin leader yet again. My condolences to Russians everywhere.

A state murdering its own citizens either at home or abroad, be they citizen or ex spy, is a disgusting practice that requires the execution of a leader who would do what Putin has done. And now in America we have our own form of cancerous cyst in Trump.

As for which of these men is worse, we'd have to look at which is more professional and functional and that would have to be the Russian leader. The American one is a travesty wrapped in an inmate's cotton gown and stuffed into a dirty clothes hamper. While the Russian one is a real bastard wrapped in a nightmare wrapped in Russian's paychecks stuffed into and falling out of his pockets.

Yet, the American's own Republican political party had spent decades setting the scene for someone like Trump to appear and become president. They did this to us. And only NOW are they realizing it and not even all of them as yet, actually realize it. Amazing. Yet, we'd been headed that direction, directed by the #Republcan party for decades. Now finally, they got what they hadn't realized they had wanted. Be careful what you wish for....

Then even more parallels through Trump's first year as president. And again, while Russians are stuck with their system and their own nightmare of a leader, we do have a chance still, before things are too late. But i wouldn't waste time screwing around thinking about it. We need to act boldly and directly.

And now, we are here.

So go on with your little life. Watch The Bachelor. Enjoy Survivor. Watch The Voice. Have fun! Ignore what is most important in your world. In all our word. Just don't complain about it later when it all starts to unravel and crumble. But then, isn't it already, now? Can't you see that?

Well? Whatever! Right? No. You are not alone....

Besides, I'm sure it will all be just fine. Right?

It's not like we're seeing any indication in America, or the world in general, that things aren't going as planned. Or that we are now headed into a direction (or already there), that we had worked so very hard for so many decades to not be in.

Right?

Again, the Meme that started this blog. Does it seem AnY different now?

Film "The Death of Stalin" Banned in Russia

Rumor has it, Steve Buscemi's new dark comedy, "The Death of Stain," by the guy who brought us the awesome Veep, and others, Armando Iannucci, has been banned in Russia of all places. Jeffrey Tambor is also in the film. Steve plays Nikita Khrushchev.

Nikita Khrushchev.

According to the director Armando, Russians have told him they loved it and one Russian man told him it only took a few minutes of the film before he felt he was right back there in those dark and brutal days of Stalin. He also said that one cinema did run it until it was shut down by the police, but at the end of each showing, the audience stood and applauded.

Armando said when they started production he made it clear he wanted to be very respectful of what actually happened in the USSR under Stalin, and that the jokes are all on the people inside the Kremlin.

Regarding Russian's availability in seeing American films, Steve Buscemi said on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert that he had once directed a film and was at a film festival where it hadn't yet shown. A Russian gentleman came up to him and said how much he liked it. Confusing Steve because it hadn't yet been shown there at the festival. The man laughed and said he had already seen it, back in the Russian homeland, on TV.

On the other hand, Russians are not quite the servants of the Oligarchs they used to be, as they have defied the government's wishes to ban the film.

Apparently the Russian government feels it may skew the upcoming Russian election. I wonder if they think this is our push back on their hacking our election that brought us a ridiculous Donald Trump as the questionable consideration of an American president as he has turned out to be.

The best thing America could do now to send Russia down the wrong path would be to simply stay out of the way of Putin's next rigged election and allow him to become president yet again to continue his destruction of such a great nation.

I hope we don't see things that way. Russia needs oru help, just as we need theirs.

I have to say that I find it personally painful to think, even though Russia helped to give us the current travesty of a president that Trump is, that Russia should have to suffer even one more year under Putin's ridiculous charade of another of his presidential terms, as well as the oligarch and the vastly wealthy criminal that he is. That he has made himself, as leader of Russia. As the KGB thug he has always been.

At least those Russians who will get to see the film, will have a moment of catharsis over the nightmares tha have been perpetrated upon them decade after decade. It saddens me to see a great people and a great country such as Russia, or America for that matter, to be subjected to such unworthy individuals as these two losers as national leaders. As the economic rapists we have come know in reality that they have been and continue to be.

We all need a good laugh once in a while. Though sometimes just seeing that someone acknowledges our pain and suffering, is worth its weight in gold. Or polonium 210, as the case may be.

This political situation seriously disturbs me because I would like to see the Russian and American people get along and be good friends. One of the few things Donald Trump is right about. Just no in the way he intends it, in ways to not enhance the world, but his own power and wealth. Just like Putin, by the way.

There really is no reason we shouldn't be friends. Typically, when we meet we can be friends. Except for our governments. As it's nearly always been I suppose.

As for Armando, his next film will not sadly be a biting satire about a ridiculous GOP political party and their leader, now Pres. Donald Trump's rise to ludicrosity. Rather he is going to do a family costume drama period piece by Charles Dickens, David Copperfield.

It's high time. Time for a biting comedy satire movie about Donald Trump. Film titles?

The Golden Wrecking Ball?

The Great White Dope?

Hair Furher?

Too soon?

The list is seemingly endless.

On the other hand, we could also use a good film about Vladimir Putin.

We've already gotten one now about Kim Jong Un and that caused all kinds of disruption. So a film about Putin should be right up his alley of contention.

One way or another, I am looking forward to seeing, The Death of Stalin. Let the humor wash over you and cleanse your soul. Because seriously people, we all need it right about now.

The Late Alexei Devotchenko and Putin's Post Soviet Return

Week end note: Interesting. I seem to be getting no hits on this blog this week from Russia, where I had gotten quite a few last week. Why is that? Let me mention something here, a device and network. Lantern and Outernet, get access even when your government doesn't want you to.Spread the word, especially if you live in places like China, Russia or North Korea.

Now back to your normal programming and my blog for this week....

I'm writing this on the Sunday before this blog is released on the 25th anniversary of the Berlin wall coming down; a nightmare for Berliners that had gone up in 1961 to stop people fleeing the communist East. I always thought that was such a useless thing for the Soviet Union to do. It was such an obvious mark against their form of government when its own people were fleeing their nation.

That wall coming down in 1989 was a great and hopeful event for so many people, the Germans of both East and West Berlin, and really too, for the Soviet and Russian people. It's sad to see how things turned about only shortly after that monumental event. And now this last death last week is just another nail in the coffin of hope for the Russian people, and those satellite nations around that lost nation. Lost, because of it's mismanagement by its leadership. Something that has turned into a national shame and national tradition. But it doesn't have to be that way.

Russia needs to join the world, embrace the rest of humanity and stop trying to be something apart. This is a tiny planet and we all need to recognize, just how much we all need one another.

Well known Russian actor Alexei Devotchenko (49), was found dead on Nov 6, 2014.

He was well known for his outspoken criticism of Russian President Vladimir Putin, a well known ex KGB thug made leader of what was left of the old Soviet Union regime, with old KGB cronies now in the new FSB and retired. His tentacles extend into business, government and invading countries no longer a part of the old Soviet or the new Russia.

So, did Putin kill him? Probably, there's just no proof and never will be if he did. He's just that kind of guy, you see. You'll find no photo in this article of Vladimir Putin because he deserves none here. This, is all about Alexei, someone who Putin shouldn't even be allowed to cast his shadow upon this national hero's grave. 

Alexei deserves our respect and consideration and those responsible, even if indirectly, need to be brought to pay for this loss of this actor and activist. Even if that leads to the head of the Russian government.

This is very possibly a story more about President Putin than Alexei as Putin has inflamed old Soviet nationalism in the new Russia, much to its detriment and regardless of the nationalism he has spawned or the popularity of this corrupt individual. 

It is sad there isn't more of an outcry in Russian about Putin, yet quite understandable when one of his vocal dissidents is found dead. Fear has always had too much to do with Russian life. There is no need for it, however. Perhaps Putin didn't directly order the killing of Alexei. Perhaps the FSB acted alone. Perhaps merely a Putin supporter did this. Perhaps it was just someone who didn't like Alexei. Perhaps it wasn't suspicious at all or perhaps it was suicide. 

"There is reason to suppose that the artist's death is of a criminal character," said a law enforcement source. It is the Telegraph's contention that Devotchenko’s criticism of Putin might be a motive.

Alexei participated in numerous anti-Kremlin protests and has rightfully condemned Russia’s aggression towards the Ukraine. But it doesn't really matter because of the position he held in Russian society. The actor's death in Moscow seems suspicious and even if he killed himself, it still sheds a red light upon Putin and his personality and his actions in the world of late.

From Wikidpedia:

"Born in Leningrad, {Alexei Devotchenko} studied at the school number 179 of the Kalinin district (1973-1983). At school started playing TYuZe Leningrad Palace of Pioneers. In 1990 he graduated from the Leningrad State Institute of Theatre, Music and Cinematography named after Nikolai Cherkasov, workshop Arkady Katzman and Lev Dodin.

"[Alexei] was a member of the United Civil Front in St. Petersburg, the participant Dissenters. March 10, 2010 signed the appeal of the Russian opposition "Putin must go". Participated in other political actions liberal direction. On 18 November 2011, in his blog in the "Live Journal" Devotchenko announced that [refusing] the title "Honored Artist of Russia" and the two State Prizes of Russia,were strongly against the policies of President Putin."

In 2011 Alexei disowned the Russian acting awards he held because he was ashamed of them having come from Putin. He urged others in the entertainment industry to follow suit. He signed a letter in March 2014 saying, "We are with you!"

“I've had enough of all this tsar-state stuff,” he wrote in a blog post. “With its lies, its cover-ups, its legalised theft, its bribe-taking and its other triumphs.” Alexei Devotchenko said that, a prominent Russian actor and anti Putin dissident, found dead under questionable circumstances this week. I'm with him on his anti-Putin thoughts. Whenever a fellow artist goes down, possibly for sharing his beliefs and speaking out against perceived wrongs, it hurts all of us." - Variety

This once again brings up the need for Russia to see that Putin is removed from office, from politics, from power, he needs to be put down and with prejudice. Not simply eliminated from national office, not simply jailed though he deserves it, but in jail he can still pull strings, like some mustache Pete Mafiaso in prison, running his "family" from lock up. But removed from Russian existence entirely, stripped of his Russian-ness, wiped out. 

Perhaps there is a proud Russian Army sniper still in the Russian army who realizes what needs to be done and with a powerful desire to return his country into the vast embrace of the world citizenry, removes him on his own cognition. When you are building for yourself, a legacy such as Putin has and continues to be allowed, to do, these things happen. 

These things happen....

For another power, another country, be it British, American, Ukranian, or any other nation to remove the leader of a nation, is wrong. It is dangerous. But for a Russian citizen to take into his own hands what needs to be done, is an issue within that nation.

We don't however, need a bottom feeder like Putin, martyred. It is wrong, however one can savor the thought if only for a moment. But even an attempt on Putin's life would exemplify the true nature and beliefs of the Russian people.

Putin has earned this kind of an end and it's certainly within the realm of possibility; for one lone gunman to give his own life to save the history and reputation of a once great Russia that is on the road to becoming great no longer or ever again in any form. And that, is just sad. The Russian people deserve better.

That was all that Alexei wanted. And he is dead now. We, I should say, the Russian people and the world, need more Alexei's and fewer Putins. 

We can only hope that the Russian people can find it within themselves, through voting booths, or very possibly some kind of coup, to remove one who we really have to ask ourselves, when an artist is killed such as Alexei, whether the leader of the Russian people, had him murdered, over ego, or fear. And we ALL know about Putin's ego, it is as vast as the Russian landscape.

Pussy Riot

We need (we, being the Russian people, countries near and around Russia, and the rest of the world), we need more people in Russia to speak out. 

Groups like Pussy Riot, who received nominations: NME Award for Hero of the Year, NME Award for Greatest Music Moment of the Year. They deserve your and all of our support. Those who will speak out deserve the support, protection, and respect they earn every time they leave their home, appear in public, or become imprisoned. They, are the heroes of today. Not, Putin.

From a May 2014 article in The Washington Times:

"As a result, Russia’s “white ribbon” protest movement, which was once able to attract more than 100,000 people to anti-Putin rallies, has been brought to its knees. Two of its most high-profile leaders, the anti-corruption activist Alexei Navalny and the leftist Sergei Udaltsov, are under house arrest, and many rank-and-file activists are behind bars. Others have been forced to flee the country."

This, is a free Russia?

In comments regarding Crimea, considering the positive praise of the nationalistic bully Putin, Mr. Shenderovich, the writer, said that such sentiments are indicative of what he called the “sickness of imperial greatness” infecting many in Russia. “Unfortunately, many intelligent, educated people in our country are susceptible to the idea of Russian greatness,” he said. “This is our sickness, one that we have not yet been able to cure.”

Russia needs the world and the world, needs Russia. But not in on it's current path.

This east versus west nonsense from the old Cold War days needs to be laid to rest, finally and once and for all. It needs to be shot in the head and buried. Or it's testicles cut off an left in a glass of water next to the victim's bed, as in the old KGB affectation.

The west needs to accept Russia, to help them heal after a hundred unbelievable years and be their trading partners. But Russia needs to allow the west to embrace them as comrade and friend, and no longer the enemy. 

It is a two sided partnership that needs to be forged, openly and honestly and it falls on the west to treat Russia with the respect it deserves, something they may failed to do properly after the Berlin wall came down. But that wasn't out of disdain, but ignorance and a desire to let Russia find its own way, perhaps, when it most needed the west's help to heal and grow strong. 

But decades of Cold War confused sentiments and understanding, on both sides. We have our own issues with our right wing conservatives with their own confusion and our left wing liberals too afraid of their own shadows to stand and fight for what is right, so that in the end we have the moderate, functional government we need most. We have our own issues to fight through. 

We are however where we now are and at this point, it is in the lap of Putin, and in the best interests of the Russian people to embrace the world and stop this aggressive, old style Soviet attempts at returning to greatness, 

Doing it the right way will bring Russia back, perhaps for he first time really, into a greatness it has never seen. 

This will never happen with Putin as head however, at the controls, stumbling around like the ex-KGB drone that is all he has really ever been. It will not be easy, but we would welcome a free and open Russia. 

At some point, there will be a functional world type government on this tiny planet and, Russia, China and North Korea, can either be on the inside or the outside of it. 

It's your choice. But we'd love to help.

Seeing, what is really there

This blog came up because of my trying to fathom the minds of extreme conservatives, Republicans of late, the Tea Party, Fox News, and well, that whole entire mess. In talking to conservative acquaintances, many things have come up. Not a few of which have left us both feeling in the end, frustrated.

I can't convince them to see my point of view, they can't convince me to see theirs. But, I have a few things on my side that tend to validate my views and opinions, more than theirs. That is to say, their mindset has a few downsides.

For one they watch Fox News, a notoriously questionable network due to their ridiculous concern of market share over news facts. They also don't try to verify facts very well, if at all. Instead they have a mindset that tries to verify their mindset. Not a bad thing per se, with the correct checks and balances, but they usually don't have those.

For myself, I'm not that attached to my view points. I'm attached to whatever verifiable reality actually is. Actuality over reality. I approach achieving my beliefs in a completely different manner, from what I can gather, than how they do. But enough of them and their intellectual down sides.

On my side I do have a few things going for me. Allow me to try and clarify....

When I was younger, I was very interested in the Cold War as I was on a path back then to a job within that insanity. I have now a certificate on my wall, signed by a government agency, thanking me for my efforts during that mostly behind the scenes, war of the wills, that from time to time left cold bodies along dark road sides. Sometimes bullet ridden, blown up in cars, or even as in one extreme example, poisoned by a signature plutonium micro-pellet riddled with microscopic holes delivered by the end of an umbrella device carried by a Soviet agent.

Even before that, my youth was a path straight into the field of espionage.

I had studied Martial Arts beginning in grade school. This was my primary orientation for the first part of my life. I was the one new kids got stuck with because I was a good trainer with novices and a good leader. I had to see what was, what they had, what they could handle, interpret that back to the ignorant, in a way that would move them quickly along. That laid a foundation for me throughout my life where I was a good team leader, accurate and effective. Bruce Lee, in this video (at 5:35) says that Martial Arts are a way to "express oneself honestly. Not lying to oneself...that my friend, is what you do." This was the foundation for who I was then and who I still am now.

In Junior High I was a Flight Commander in Civil Air Patrol (Wikipedia article) where we studied aerospace history as well as physically performing search and rescue missions finding downed aircraft in the Cascade mountains. I got my RadioTelegraph Operator's license, instructed cadets in my Flight in military march and drill and served (believe it or not), as a role model. I flew in small planes and landed my first plane in eighth grade at Tacoma Industrial Airport by Gig Harbor, Washington. I also took pilot ground school through our squadron. We were taught how to rely on what actually is, not what we believed in, but what we knew to be true in order to save and protect lives.

I was also on a private youth rifle team in junior high sanctioned by our local police department. I got my High School sports letter from three years on the Rifle Team. I was an illegal street racer. I got my SCUBA diving license (NAUI) in 10th grade. I took my first sky diving jump at seventeen, the only one to land on the LZ (landing zone) that day.

At eighteen I spent my first time with someone for a week, armed, acting as her bodyguard until she could leave town to avoid local organized crime related to a murder at the time and which I'm currently working on a screenplay about.

I spent the first part of my life studying, reading, watching, and talking to people about espionage, the Soviet KGB, our own CIA, and so on. Those studies included world wars, spy craft, history in general, and the rest that would entail.

At eighteen, I took Criminal Evidence for Police from a veteran cop at Tacoma Community College. For many years, that teacher had been the partner of famous retired LAPD officer turned novelist, Joeseph Wambaugh of The Blue Knight novel fame (and others), which lead to the seminal TV show. That class was the beginning of giving me a way to order up my thoughts that meshed well with how I naturally thought since I first began reading the classics, like Aristotle, in fifth grade.

None of that is bragging. I merely mention it as foundation for what I am about to say next.

I used to read only non-fiction espionage books by ex-spies and defectors, ex-spy leaders and ex-government officials from our government and others, both friend and foe. I refused to read spy books back then out of fear of it contaminating my catalog of information. A catalog that one day could save my life. I applied to the Tacoma Police Department at nineteen but they gave the available jobs to only minorities that year due to a new law that had just come into effect.

I went into the Air Force at twenty the next year as a Law Enforcement Specialist. Before I got out four years later, I applied to join the USAF Office of Special Investigations. When the OSI CO at that base asked me why I wanted to join them, I said that it was just a step in a path I was on and that all through my life, it was almost as if someone were directing me into this field (which is why I mentioned all that previously above). In the end, that Commanding Officer said that I had the highest score he had ever seen on an OSI entrance exam. Before and after the testing, I had many "interviews" with him until finally, I was accepted and given my papers.

In picking a base to be stationed to, when he asked what I wanted out of that career, I said I was hoping at some point to get into being a courier, or some other job like that which I might not at that time even know about. I said that while I am in the OSI I wanted to learn all I could about the job. So he suggested for me request being assigned to the base (now closed) in the Philippines called, Clark AFB.

That surprised me as I'd expected (hoped for) Europe or Asia, thereby closer to our primary foe, the KGB. I asked him why. He said that I if really wanted to learn all about the job, that was the place to go, because that base had the highest amount of theft of any of our air bases in the world. That was the place, he said, where I would have to fill out a lot of forms and in fact would learn all the forms in the catalog there. I just frowned.

I told him that although I appreciated that, it wasn't what I had meant. When he asked for me to clarify, I explained that I was more interested in field work than paperwork. I explained a little more and his eyes lit up with understanding.

"In that case," he said, "you'll want to go to Berlin." He said that in fact there was currently a job available there that no one seemed to want to fill, as the job has been open for a while.

I asked why. He said that the agent who had vacated the position, had been leaving work at the end of a work day, had gotten into his car, and it exploded, killing him. When I asked who did that, he just gave me an odd look. I shook my head not understanding but started to get the clue. He nodded as in, "you know". So I said, "KGB?" He tilted his head slightly, then nodded, which I took to mean that there was no knowing for sure, but that was the reasonable, accepted conclusion. So, no one wanted that job as no one wanted to get blown up.

Then he said, "If you want to learn how to deal with other agencies like that, then Berlin [in 1979], would be the number one place to go." Immediately, I said, "Sign me up." He said okay, and to come back the next day. I returned the next day and got my paperwork which I still have.

My life took a turn that winter and as it turned out, I got out instead, got divorced, and ended up going to college. Eventually, I got a degree from Western Washington University in Psychology in their Awareness and Reasoning division, and Phenomenology, with a minor in Creative Writing and script and screenwriting.

Now at this point, let me point something out.

I just said that I was initially vetted over a few months and accepted into the USAFOSI. But before that, I never did get to be a Law Enforcement Specialist. I was cut from that in Basic Training due to issues around my having flat feet.

The reason I am telling you this now is that disinformation, and misinformation, the manipulation of information without being fully untrue, is running rampant in our media and news media, our party platforms and political organizations, today. I could have told you when I mentioned my situation with USAF Law Enforcement, but in not doing so, I set that into your mind, to give myself more authority, even though I later took it back. This may sound like hogwash, but it does work when dealing with masses of people, in statistical relevance. We are being bombarded with this kind of thing, being manipulated like this, constantly.

Even though I never was a cop, an OSI agent, or a spy, up until the time (and after) that I got out of the Air Force and decided not to go into that career area, I had focused, studied and oriented my life toward that lifestyle.

Spies are scenario builders. They have to be, their lives depends on it. Even in the back of one's mind in that field, one has to consider all possible scenarios and play them out ahead of time, so that when whatever might happen, happens, you have hopefully previously considered it and have a plan of action set in mind. Sometimes what makes someone seem like a genius, is simply pre-planning or at very least, pre-consideration. That leaves you more time in not being surprised by unexpected elements and with more options available in a smaller amount of time, in a possibly deadly situation.

It was damaging for me to change my life course midway as I had. It made my life difficult for years after, but I still retained that format of analyzing information with the thought that my life may depend on my having the most accurate information at hand. I've been in many situations where I had to make a snap decision to save myself or others and well, I'm still here. And so are they.

The one thing that has been a guiding light to me in all my life has been in search and support of the Truth. My attitude generally speaking, has been mercenary. When I'm paid by someone or some group, when I decide to accept a position, I fulfill that position to the best of my ability. Who within that group I am focused on serving, is a sliding rule, because the mission and the truth, are what matter. But I don't want to explain all the ins and outs of that here and now.

In Psychology we were taught how to read and write Psychology journal articles for peer reviewed magazines. These are difficult to read (and write) and have statistics in them, which you also have to understand, as it's very easy to skew stats to one's whims. I had to take a year of Psychology Statistics for that and it was very hard and quite miserable to suffer through.

What is important to me in life, is not that I prove my case so much as to prove the right case, honing that case to what is the greatest truth that is possible to discover. I have never had a problem telling someone at work that a mistake was made and it was my fault. Other people after all, matter; I'm not all important, even if it costs me.

In the beginning when I was younger, I had no problem with doing the government's bidding; even if that meant fulfilling my orders in being directed to kill someone. I would assume there was good reason behind it. This is not an unusual mindset for any young military type.

As I got older and with all my reading and learning, I started to see that life is not like in the old film Westerns. Life is grey, many and varied shades of grey. I've grown up a lot and learned the hard way that what you think is true, may have merely been set up for you to think that way; so that it may seem like one thing, but really be another.

I also dove into and swam through the conspiracy theory thing back in my late teens. Once I first ran into that, realized it was a theory (or syndrome), I studied what it was all about, the theory behind a conspiracy theory, and the people who tend to fall for them. One needs to understand about conspiracy theories before getting involved in any one conspiracy theory. To understand that, you have to have a handle on information theory, crowd theory, a whole plethora of theories. When you understand that, you can pick apart much of the bad information we hear in the media today and more easily separate out all the better, the good information. When you understand that you can all the better also disseminate your own precisely flawed, targeted information.

That is something that the Soviets, the Russian people, were expert in. We learned much from British MI6 and their knowledgebase, which they shared with us and even more so at the end of WWII when the Germans ceased to be the problem and the Soviets rapidly became one. The Brits knew about a lot about that through the centuries as they were at odds with the Russians and various other European countries throughout history. We learned a lot from the Brits about all that, and they from the Soviets and the Russians before them.

The KGB invented disinformation. Something that our national news media and politics have been picking up on of late, esp., Fox News and the Republican and Tea Parties. Others too are picking up on it.

It's been my experience however that the shadier types usually learn this first and then the other sides pick up on it sheerly out of self-defense and eventually learn to turn it into an offense. At times our own CIA has even used it inadvertently against the American people when publishing to foreign press, but then newer news media naively filtered it back home. So it has been a hard row to hoe for the CIA over the years as they are accountable to us, even though it may not seem that way at times.

It is in having gone through all these things that I have mentioned here, as to why I have a good background for what I see and hear going on all around me in the world; and why I believe I have a good orientation and background for fathoming and sussing out what the truth is much of the time; even through our own sad news media.

However, I get it wrong at times too. One's insight is only as good as whatever information can be accessed. I try to access as much accurate and disparate info as possible, in the best journalist sense by attempting to find the greatest truths and any associated "truths".

In the 1990s I was a Senior Technical Writer. That required, especially on the high level IT teams I was assigned to, a fairly high degree of accuracy and effectiveness. Otherwise, you were out the door pretty quickly.

When I finally decided to seriously go into fiction writing I realized that all that wasted and now useless information I had assimilated on the KGB and the Cold War, wasn't actually that useless. Though the Soviet KGB is no more, it is replaced now by the Russian FSB. Maybe the data I had wasn't so useful anymore, but that style of thinking, of analysis, the scenario building, the vetting of sometimes dubious or misleading information, all port over quite well into writing fiction.

This article wasn't supposed to be about me. I'm pretty much beside the point.

I just thought I could use my outlook and background to point out how it can be different than what one might consider to be the norm. My point in talking about all this was simply to show how I see things, differently. But then I've been told that I see things differently, going back as young as I can remember. Most importantly, I just wanted to try to point out a way to look at all this. To try and explain it in another way, in the hope that it may open some people up to vet their opinions differently, to re-evaluate their assumptions; to be more careful and circumspect on their beliefs. Even their deepest held and most cherished ones.

So I put it to you that all in all, through all my education, orientation and experiences, going up against conservatives who watch Fox News, I think at least in general, I have typically have a somewhat better sense of what I'm talking about. I do try and I do frequently have a more accurate view of things than they seem to have. That's not to say they are always wrong; but not infrequently they just haven't vetted their outlook very well.

In the words of Robert Reich, "...test your assumptions, shake your assumptions."

One more little tidbit....