Game of Putin, Russia, Trump, America

Why are the Russians acting as they are? Isn't it odd how they act the victim about the recent murder attempt in the UK, how they act so "guilty" as many have observed? Is it a coincidence that Pres. Donald Trump acts the victim and guilty himself? What an odd coincidence.

Why are they doing so well, getting away with so much? I guess that refers not just to the Russians, and in the Russians let's face it, this refers to once again their newly "elected" leader, Vladimir Putin. "Vlad", what an appropriate name for Putin. It harkens back to another damaging leader from hundreds of years ago in that region of the world.

If you've read traditional Russian literature, it tells you something. As a people, Russians are traditionally a complicated people. Complex. Overly so sometimes. But it's certainly worked to their advantage in international relations. And covert operations.

We here in the west, well not so much. We're not stupid, to be sure. But neither are they. Not, by a long shot. They understand better than anyone to and how to play, the long game. At times, the very, very long game. I had learned myself when I was young and fighting tournaments in martial arts, if I played the long game, I won fights more easily. Everyone practiced "techniques". What we called, "combinations" of basic moves. You took basic moves, put them together and you had a combination, then involving in that a strategy, and you had a technique. Now some refer to a movement, a strike of some sort as a technique, too.

As a student of marital arts we learned the basics, offensive moves (and of course, defensive but they stopped the other side from scoring on you, not gaining you points (or tempo in damaging them) but made your points more valuable if you stopped them from scoring, or damaging you). A punch, a kick, whatever single movement that could score a point or damage an opponent.

What I discovered as a kid, even in grade school (and I never heard anyone else talk of it and if I mentioned it to a friend they were surprised and intrigued, which seemed unbelievable to me as it seemed so obvious), was that at that time everyone seemed to practice techniques with two movements. Say, two punches, or a punch and a kick, whatever their favored combination was.

So I started practicing three movements in my techniques. And more. NO one I came up against was doing that. They would practice how to counter, or block someone throwing a right punch, then a straight kick at them and they were prepared, but if you continued on, ready to alter as need be, it left them confused because they expected a two combination technique, then they were going to attack again. It confused many of my opponents who weren't ready for that.

When someone did happen to pull that typically in merely throwing a lot of stuff ast me, out of frustration many times, I was prepared because I practed that myself. Understand, there is a difference between practicing a technique, a combination, and throwing them in the moment. A big difference. You do have to think fast, incredibly fast in the moment, but practicing it outside of that moment over months or years, gives you a toolset others do not typically have.

That, is emblematic of the Russians over others. I also started playing chess when I was in grade school. There were a lot of similarities between martial arts and chess. Or espionage, international politics (or international politics for that matter) and chess.

And so, something came to me about this as a way to explain that difference between Russian culture and say that of Great Britain, or America.

Consider the case with who have mostly bee Chess champions over the past decades.

Mikhail Botvinnik 1948–1957 Soviet Union Vasily Smyslov 1957–1958 Soviet Union
Mikhail Botvinnik 1958–1960 Soviet Union
Mikhail Tal 1960–1961 Soviet Union
Mikhail Botvinnik 1961–1963 Soviet Union
Tigran Petrosian 1963–1969 Soviet Union
Boris Spassky 1969–1972 Soviet Union
Bobby Fischer 1972–1975 United States
Anatoly Karpov 1975–1985 Soviet Union
Garry Kasparov 1985–1993 Soviet Union/ Russia

Classical (PCA/Braingames) world champions (1993–2006)
Garry Kasparov 1993–2000 Russia
Vladimir Kramnik 2000–2006 Russia

FIDE world champions (1993–2006)
Anatoly Karpov 1993–1999 Russia
Alexander Khalifman 1999–2000 Russia
Viswanathan Anand 2000–2002 India
Ruslan Ponomariov 2002–2004 Ukraine
Rustam Kasimdzhanov 2004–2005 Uzbekistan
Veselin Topalov 2005–2006 Bulgaria
Ukraine, Uzbekistan and Bulgaria, all once part of the Soviet Union.
My point is as I said, don't think Russians are stupid. I could go on. 100 years ago Britain learned espionage from the Russians and then the Soviets. We learned from the Brits.

America  has gotten fat and lazy, in certain areas.

Back in the 1980s for instance, military might and new advances in electronics meant we didn't need as many good intelligence people. Or so we mistakenly believed. Much to the horror of our intelligence community who clearly knew better. Not just to retain their jobs, but out of reality, sanity and...intelligence. In ever sense of the word.

What's cheapest we asked? And some managers in intelligence who mistakenly believed and agreed with civilian leadership in Congress.  We  had gotten perhaps a somewhat inflated ego. We believed that satellites and computers would, could, replace real people on the ground in foreign counties. We didn't need foreign nationals to help us spy. That was so stupid, that now it almost hurts in just thinking about it.

All too often we have exchanged intelligence for profit or "saving" money in the short term, over how much we ended up losing in the long term, later, and in reality. How much money, and lives we could have saved over decades if we only had not thought to save a few dollars during one or two presidential terms. In this case it was Ronald Reagan who damaged America, and in so many ways, both externally and within.

As the current Pres. Trump, as ignorant as he is in so very many areas, he has no clue how he is internally damaging America from his international actions. Many of which may not play out completely until long after he is gone from office.

Now with Mr. Trump, in his fear of office because of his lack of ability to manage well, with his lips so far up Putin's backside he's not acting properly in relation to the Russian leader. An, if not illegal, then illiberal leader, a criminal much like Trump, and a con man. Though a far better con "artist" than Trump could ever be.

Putin relies on our good intentions and nature. Not unlike Hitler with Chamberlain.

So finally this past week we  have acted, mostly because we have to with long standing agreements with other countries who are our friends. Not that Trump is treating our friends like friends, but as a bully in so many ways. And too often an ignorant bully, as so many are. Putin too is a bully, but a wise one nonetheless, in part because he is Russian but in larger part because he is KGB trained.

And he has the backing of both Russian and other oligarchs, and the Russian Mafia contingent. Criminals working with the State and the  State as criminals, working with professional criminals. But it is difficult too tell in this case, who are the true professionals.

Perhaps, as they have so long been tied together, it is both. Similar in a much less organic and professional level to the American political Republican party and corporations. America is a far less pungent example of  the workings together of criminal organizations and State, or church and State as in Russia and as we're seeing today in Putin's moves. As some have said, Putin looks for an unlocked door in Eurasia and just walks in when he can. Therefore, we need to be vigilant, aware and know where the doors are "unlocked" and be sure to secure them, and our futures.

We need to help to guide Russia in the right ways to be able eventually tu join the world in positive advancements and a free and open world citizenry. Elections as he has been manipulating to date, are not allowing for free and open elections and therefore for free and open citizens. It's a miserable travesty of government and governing citizens, as well as aggressions against other countries.

This isn't mere diatribe against Putin, or Trump for that matter, though both have some bad things about them, and both need to go, ASAP. However, for something substantive on Putin....

The Great Soviet broke in 1989. Later Yeltsin passed power to Putin, partially in order to protect Yeltsin and family for his criminal activities. Putin appears now to be in that same position of being unable to leave power until there is someone to protect him, as he protected Yeltsin. But in Putin taking over, the effort to reconstitute the Soviet Union under a new banner, began.

As US Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI, Chairman, Homeland Security Committee) said the day I wrote this blog, if instead it had been Boris Nemtsov (assassinated as so many Putin opponents have been in 2015, and I'd suggest, indirectly by Putin) taking over rather than Putin, we may have had a Russia who was much more interested in taking the time and effort to join the world in a more open and welcomed situation.

Boris was as Wikipedia put it, "a Russian physicist and liberal politician. Nemtsov was one of the most important figures in the introduction of capitalism into the Russian post-Soviet economy." Russian state news Pravda (which rather sadly translates as "Truth") claimed anything but what the reality appears to be about Nemtsov in report after slanderous report.

Russia has destabilizing Europe as they can only do, because they are good at it and because they're options are limited. They are gaining power in ways that shouldn't be allowed. As with the Nord Stream pipeline Germany has been trying to promote which would give Russia even more geopolitical power especially in the Balkan States.

Long term we need better relationships with Russia. But we have to take a hard line as Putin respects power and Trump has been weak. Very, very weak on Putin. NATO countries need to step up and pay their fair share to protect themselves and stop Putin's soft aggressions that seem to be working so very well so far for him.

 So we we may have stopped being lazy now, but we're still fat. When you've been fat and lazy for a while, it takes a long time to get back in shape. And Mr. Trump acts like he has an inordinately excessive amount of adipose tissues in his gray matter.

This is going to be hard, and it's going to take a while. We can't do it with Trump. Where he's strong he's most likely not being smart and vice versa. Or he wouldn't have so many bankruptcies and so many wouldn't hate him so much, fand or good reason, and for so long. He can be treacherous. But let's not forget, not as treacherous as Putin.

What am I saying? Only what I've been saying for decades now.

Don't play patty cakes with Putin. Act professionally. Be smart, be very smart. Play to win. Leave America on top at the end, as a world leader. With the world looking up to us as how to act, and how to be a leader. We need to be not just a leader of the "free" world, but the world at large.

But I don't see that starting to happen any time soon.

As a brief aside... it's probably useless putting up #VPOTUS hashtag here, in mentioning Donald Trump's chosen VP in Mike Pence, as too many wacko Christian types see a Biblical second coming as ultimately necessary which is simply and solely working against our government and our nation.Yet, it is relevant and we need also to be aware of that path we need not to tread upon. Not in America. Not in a free country. Not in a democracy and one that is adamantly not a theocracy.

We need to be smart, to act with our eyes wide open. In the most enlightened ways possible.

And treat Russia with respect, and a full understanding of who they are, and who they can be. Who we can end up being, if we don't respond to them properly, and direct them in the best ways possible.

If it wasn't for Britain so long ago having learned about the Russians in their long dealings with them over hundreds of years. If they hadn't taught us, been patient with us in our initial disbeliefs of what and who the Russian culture (Soviets back then, even scarier), we'd still be lost in our dealings with them. And yet we seem to be lately anyway? Fat and lazy? Or just stupid for profit and believing Putin's promise and promises? Like Chamberlain baring his throat for Hitler?

And yet, we still seem to play games with Russia, when they most assuredly are not simply playing game, with us.


#GOP #CIA #INTEL #Putin #POTUS #Democrat

11 11, #23, The Porus Mind, Magic, Beliefs in Unreality

One of the truly awesome marvels in life is that things out of the ordinary do happen. Way more than you think. Especially if your life is or appears to you, dark and ominous. Just open your eyes, marvels are everywhere. They happen all the time. To think they don't is to be delusional. Not the other way around.

And that, is a problem.

Patterns, occurrences, events, the porous mind, examples of the underlying formula in the universe that appear different from what you normally see day in and day out. Strange things happen all the time. Good and bad. Recognize them. Enjoy them as you can. Just do not run off like they have some vastly intense and significant meaning to you personally. They probably don't much of the time.

Don't just go off thinking there is some conspiracy, when all there is has to do with regular and random occurrences. In a vast network of processes and systems such as our life and the universe are, the fact that many of these things happen simply appear in a way, unique. When they actually happen less than one should expect.

It can be counter intuitive.

What may seem to happen all the time... to you, actually happens all the time everywhere, unseen. Yet, once you notice it it may seem to happen (even if only to you) all the time. When really, it does not. No I'm not crazy, the universe merely appears to be if you do not understand what is going on.

Once you notice them, they are everywhere. Like my last car I bought. Never noticed those before. Now I see they are everywhere. They are everywhere, and yet in reality, they aren't that big of a group compared to the  whole of all cars, or all vehicles, or all moving (even air and water and space) vehicles.

Numerology, phrenology, the occult, all fun stuff. Just, keep it in perspective. For your own good. But to be honest, mostly for ours.

"Robert Anton Wilson cites William S. Burroughs as the first person to believe in the "23 enigma."[1] Wilson, in an article in Fortean Times, related the following anecdote:

"I first heard of the 23 enigma from William S Burroughs, author of Naked Lunch, Nova Express, etc. According to Burroughs, he had known a certain Captain Clark, around 1960 in Tangier, who once bragged that he had been sailing 23 years without an accident. That very day, Clark’s ship had an accident that killed him and everybody else aboard. Furthermore, while Burroughs was thinking about this crude example of the irony of the gods that evening, a bulletin on the radio announced the crash of an airliner in Florida, USA. The pilot was another Captain Clark and the flight was Flight 23."[2] - Wikipedia

On the other hand, several millennia ago, had you pulled out your Bic type lighter and flicked it at another person, aside from the possibility you could be killed on the spot. You'd be thought to have some kind of magical, or god like power. You'd be seen as a witch, a subject of Satan, or a demon.

When we all know it's just a conglomeration of plastic, flint, steel and gas put together in such a way to allow the spark of a flame to sustain itself.

To think there aren't such other things on that order in our current environment is simply not rational or reasonable. Though I would argue, science has made us very aware of these types of things and we may now have the ability, at very least, not to be so easily fooled or amazed.

Special effects in films, computer graphics, magicians and stage shows have added to that awareness. As well as conmen (criminal CONfidence abusers) through dissemination of police and media awareness efforts, the complaints of friends and perhaps but hopefully not, personal experience.

And therein, as with any good conspiracy theory, lay the rub. The ability to divine, to differentiate between fact and fiction, becomes for many, easily blurred. Some therefore may find themselves trapped in a belief they should never have entertained. And yet, there they are. Stuck, entranced, captured. And that opens them up for further abuse and misuse.

Conmen depend on that element of human nature. They depends on people's decency, or greed, or even our pattern recognition skills. Conspiracy theorists depend on this, too. Some may well be heartfelt and inadvertent in their actions, not even realizing themselves what they are doing. To themselves, to others, to their country at large when they have a platform to speak from.

Too many however, especially nowadays have discovered, as it has become obvious, that one can live an extravagant life if only one can dispense with ethics and morality. Something which too many today have done and they are prevalent on TV, radio, in print and online. Even our White House.

We see it from sites like InfoWars, from Rush Limbaugh, from other alternate fact (lies) people. It broaches over into more mainstream media like the problematic and too often disingenuous, Fox News. On a lower plane there is Breitbart and the Drudge Report (someone asked if it wasn't really the grudge report, but I digress).

Arguing over the clarity or alacrity, the veracity or truth of these sorry elements is not the point.

People abuse us merely because of how we work and react as human beings. We have been hacked and it is up to us, not just the government, police, or others, but us to educate ourselves and remain vigilant. For our own protection and for the protection of all others. Especially those who can so easily fall prey to these kinds of people and dynamics. Easily preyed upon and abused. And that can affect us all.

Still, aside from the negative aspects of humanity and the dynamics of hustling, it is still easy to find oneself immersed in strange, unuseful, unproductive, or even damaging beliefs. Partly because we observe, we notice things, and they stick with us.

Our naturally obsessive compulsive and pattern recognitive nature takes over and our pattern recognition skills kick in filling in what isn't there. Our imagination goes into overdrive. Our cognitive dissonance and so many other phrases and dynamics, syndromes and conditions can and many times do engage. We need to be aware, to stay abreast of these things, to watch out for others.

Because for some things like these, we all really do need one another's help. Together, we can get to a better and more stable life. First, we have to stop seeing one another as the enemy. For we have met him, and he's not always us.

American Cyber Protection

It's both rewarding and disturbing to note that in the late 90s early 2000s, I was involved with a group made up of cyber security and law enforcement, nationally and internationally to bring us all together to be made aware and educate one another on cyber security threats. I may have mentioned this before, and I'll mention it again. Because we need good news at this point in our country.

To do something unheard of at the time. To bring good hackers and law enforcement in all its forms, together. To share knowledge and be made aware of things out of the scope of law enforcement and many business entities.

We had speakers like Richard Clarke, I believe Gen. Michael Hayden, the President's Commission on Critical Infrastructure, and many others. Attendees included law enforcement from FBI, Secret Service,NSA and other "no such agencies", as well as local state and city police, Royal Canadian Mounties, even some from Australia showed up. Our group set up the first cyber crime team for our local city police department which they then took over.

We discussed avenues of corrections, how to address those in power to rectify situations, and we had a strong concern for our situation at the time . Not enough was being done.

Corporations weren't putting more than a single percentage point of their budget into cyber security concerns at the time (and the government wasn't much better). When it could cost them a lot more and has from time to time. Some of our efforts did save a lot of money, time and resources.

We worried. But our efforts did a great deal in making people aware all the way up to the president. Things did change, but not enough. Still to date we've been effective if not lucky.

Russia has been testing our systems, in event of an all out war. We had discussed our electric grids, black hats, white hats, the Chinese Red Hackers, their China Eagles who were supported by their military who were a problem at the time.

Now it is more Russia who is the problem. And North Korea.

There is one great man in particular whom I worked with, who deserves the credit for this group, for thinking of it, for pulling things together, for having beers with those who would never talk together and then, bringing their knowledge, if not themselves all together in the same room to help one another.

And even we were all surprised how well that worked out. Not a little of it because of that one man and his big heart and his big brain. They were each entity, hackers and law enforcement, both surprised by their overall lack of paranoia toward one another and the understanding each had toward the other, once they had a common goal, to protect America and actually sat down and talked together, easily becoming fascinated by the subject matter and the intricacies of the technologies and dynamics of both cyber and national security.

I will not name him. You will not find him on the internet. I could not, not in this context. I was able to "find" him mentioned, but hat was it and there is no connection to anyo fthis. Nor will you most likely find anything about this group.

Though he may very well end up seeing this post himself, or though someone mentioning it to him. But I thank him now for all his efforts (I have thanked him personally more than once in the past), and for you all and always and again from myself.

Many are unnamed and always will be in this work.

But we were then at a time we needed to be and much was done to help our country and our neighboring countries and friends. And they helped others.

I'm glad to have been involved at that time, I miss those meetings which may still be going on. I've left that business for artistic pursuits.

But there are people out there, working hard, day and night to protect us. And I know our efforts back then and possibly still now, paid off.

I just thought you should know.

Cheers!

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?

Putin's Dictatorial Attacks While Holding Russia Hostage

This March 15, 2018 interview by Christiane Amanpour from London, was a VERY important and interesting one. I hadn't thought about polling in Russia in this way. I hadn't thought about Russian actions as not the actions of a State, but of Putin. I knew it as Putin, but through the State. A very interesting set of issues were brought up in this interview.

I've said this many times having studied USSR, their State apparatus, Russia, their people, their leaders. I have great respect for the Russian people, but in a way as we are with Trump, only for them it is far, far worse, they are held hostage by Putin and his criminal elements in the Russian State secret services, their oligarchs and mafia.

Ex world chess champion and activist Kasparov had run for president in Russia and well, they didn't let him. Another ran and was simply shot. Murdered. He murdered an ex spy in the UK just before his election. Why? REALLY? Why? Seriously. It's quite obvious, isn't it?

Life in Russia under Putin, right? That's what you get in an ex KGB operative becoming leader of a long abused culture, the freedom to continue to abuse it, only in using Soviet and KGB tactics to run it. Like murdering political opponents and ex spies as allegedly just happened in the UK.

About expelling Russian diplomats Garry said:

They're still treating them as a state. Go after those individuals, oligarchs, Putin, go after the money. THEY don't care about the State, about national interests! Don't go after the State. Go after people who actually make the difference. Make them choose between following Putin's criminal orders and their fortunes, their money, their families. Stop looking at this as there is war or no war

Not unlike putting someone like #realDonaldTrump in power as #POTUS. He's going to do what he learned to get away with as a corporate leader who had free reign and cleaned up any wrong doings he did to achieve his status and then do it again. And now, he's president.

Surely, Trump isn't smart enough to be a Putin, nor brave enough (but definitely foolish enough), nor can he have the range of actions Putin does in a Russia of today. Give him time. Do not, allow him a second term or to complete this one. The damage he already has done will take decades to rectify, or even to discover.

Garry rejected Christiane's contention that Putin is popular in Russia, saying, you cannot apply western things such as voting and polling and so on to Russia. It has no meaning there. When there is only one restaurant in town, how do you say it is the most popular one when it's the only one available?

If Putin were popular, why does he have to run for president in this fashion to guarantee a win. Why has he never once been involved in a single debate? Why did Putin clearly murder a dissident in London, other than to solidify his dictatorship control, to warn those who might go against him, to quiet dissent.

Putin believes Garry said, that "his dictatorship must be refreshed from time to time by blood and fear." Dictators and Mafia bosses, don't ask why, they ask, why not?

It's interesting and relevant to note that Garry included there, "Mafia Bosses", almost as a tossed off comment it's so entrenched in the reality of Russia.

And here we are.

Isn't that exactly what we're seeing in Donald Trump, only in an Americanized version of what HE can get away with? He has even said that, time and again.

Putin, is Russia's enemy too, not just ours.

Trump, is our American Putin.

Beware, we're beginning to see the battle we're actually fighting.

I've posted this a elsewhere.
Why?

Because it's not just about this.I realized I needed to say something. There is more to this article than I at first realized, once I started considering it more deeply. Is what's going on because of NRA money to Congress so they do their bidding? As we're seeing? Or are we not fully understanding what is going on?

Most likely, the latter. Otherwise, things would have changed by now. We're obviously fighting a different battle than we thought we were.

We need to be very careful from here on.
We are being sold a bill of goods for something that is nothing if not standard operating procedure.
But also by design or coincidence, simply basic old Soviet practices.
Espionage gone mainstream.
Marketing on steroids, using what they've learned from professionals.
Wall Street working to drain us for their benefit using enhanced business and marketing practices.

Words at this time rise to the surface like bacteria on cream. Like subliminal. Like Social Engineering. Like PsyOps (psychological operations).

WAKE UP! Pay attention. Be aware. Educate yourself in areas most vital that you know and understand. So you can see it is actually happening.

This isn't a sci fi story. It's not an action adventure, a thriller movie, a horror film. Donald Trump as president thinks it is. More importantly he wants YOU to think it is. Or at least, to reacts as if it were.

"Are You Entertained?"!

This is for real. All of it. It's not huge evil monsters. It's not just an ultra right wing conspiracy. It's not just Putin abusing Western Democracies, in protecting his vast wealth and enabling his remaining outside of Russian gulags.

It's just people, doing a job, with a boss, with an agenda, with a goal, maybe even with what they believe to be higher purposes....but where any means justifies their ends. We are the target of a lot of people holding political, social and psychological "darts" aimed at our weakest emotional and intellectual and financial spots for their most benefits.

It's the usual misdirect by magicians and conmen.
Con People.
ConGressional Confidence People.
And their cohorts outside of Congress.
Their minions in and all about Congress.
We need to look at the actual problems, not the ethereal facades painted over to look like the problem.

Focus. Learn. Push back in ways that actually move the needle for us. It can happen. We can do this. Why haven't we yet been able to affect positive change in OUR direction?

Because we just didn't know the game we were all playing, or clearly understand just who the opponents were whom we hadn't recognized, or so very often, even seen. So much has been obfuscated, obstructed from view, redirected as our attention has repeatedly been sent off into directions having no bearings on our realities.

But we see you 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.