Post Election

Since this seems to address some of the concerns raised in my previous post, I figured I'd place it here.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/11/13/politics/donald-trump-60-minutes-first-interview/index.html?sr=fbCNN111316donald-trump-60-minutes-first-interview0809PMVODtop

Post-Election

It's now been a couple of days since the election, and the shock is wearing off.  There are a couple of different articles out there trying to understand what happened.  I've been quiet mostly because I've been reading, and lurking, and figuring out my own reaction.  I don't like to blog something when someone else has said it better, particularly when they've got data to back it up. 

So why post now?

Well, we're still seeing the after-effects.  Facebook posts from people terrified of what may come.  Or Trump supporters offended by exactly those same reactions.  Articles about horrid situations where people are harassed (and at least one where someone made up a story about being harassed, which of course some people will probably use to discredit the rest.)

I had a discussion with my Little this week, from Big Brothers Big Sisters.  A little background here - she's 12 years old.  White.  But most of her friends are black.  Her family is kind of rural, so she listens to country and rap and anything she doesn't consider 'old'.  (She made me listen to that Panda song).  After the election, she casually said that some of her friends were discussing killing themselves.  The way she said it, it didn't sound like she was actually considering it...but what the hell are 12 year old girls doing, talking about killing themselves because Trump got elected?  I don't know if the discussion was tied to the rumor of transgender teens committing suicide after his election.

People are scared. Genuinely worried about what will come.  On the one hand, it seems a little premature.  Trump hasn't even been inaugurated yet.  The hateful incidents that have occurred since the election aren't state sponsored.  It's just horrid people who are emboldened by Trump's win (and by state-sponsored, I don't just mean 'legal law enforcement'.  Regimes like Iran have sometimes used 'volunteers' to enforce behavior.  Sometimes states even pretend that they aren't behind it.)

That doesn't mean there's nothing to worry about, of course.  I think everyone will be keeping a very close eye on how Trump governs.  And will be paying close attention to anything that infringes on basic rights, or suggests rounding people up and putting them in internment camps, or suggests making people wear distinctive symbols.

At the same time - we've got a Republican president, Republican Senate, and Republican House.  If Trump proposes something illegal, will the Republican Congress really stop him?

The problem with writing this post is that I don't know how to do justice to both sides.  In a normal, run-of-the-mill situation, I would say let the Republicans run things.  They'll probably overextend, misread their support, make mistakes, and basically lose soon enough.  (Democrats and Republicans both tend to do this on a regular basis.)

And if it helps persuade people that some ideas don't work (like trickle-down economics), or that other ideas do, then so much the better.  And, of course, I could be wrong about what works and what doesn't...so maybe their proposals will actually work.

Point is, normally we have the time and strength to experiment a bit.  Go down a wrong path for a bit, and in the process prove that it's not going to get us where we want.

Only thing is, that works for policies that don't have the impact I described above.  If it's just a matter of lowering taxes on the rich and deregulating finance, well...we'll survive another financial crisis I suppose.  It'll make all the people who suffered under the Great Recession even more ticked off, and it would definitely create more suffering...but we'll survive.

But what about Muslims?  Or Mexicans?  I have a friend who married a Mexican, they have three children together.  He wrote a heart-breaking post describing some of the situations they've already faced...and she's here legally.  Here's a small excerpt:

The people supporting Trump have probably never had to justify their marriage to a DHS agent.
The people supporting Trump have never had to learn that their niece was crying because she's afraid the next President will deport her (completely legal) aunt.
The people supporting Trump will never have to explain to their children that yes, when people use those racial slurs, they are talking about mommy and they are talking about you.
The people supporting Trump don't know the bone-chilling, panic-attack inducing fear and helplessness that has consumed my family since one of the two major political parties chose as their Presidential candidate a man who has made overtly racist, unconstitutional anti-immigrant policies the cornerstone of his platform.

Can we honestly say that they have nothing to fear? 

Or what about gay marriage?  What if Congress decided to ban gay marriage again, and Trump's Supreme Court nominee ensures it's not declared unconstitutional?

As for me - I don't know what Trump is going to do.  He's been pretty unpredictable throughout the election.  He's contradicted himself and reversed policy positions so many times that I don't think we have any idea what we're truly going to get.

2016 Election

Well, I don't think we'll get the final results soon.  A couple of states are so close it wouldn't surprise me to see a recount. 

I have work tomorrow, so I'm heading to bed.  I'm sure there'll be a ton of updates when I wake up.  I wanted to say, though, that we really need a post election autopsy.  For both parties.  I don't ever want to see another election like this.

And if Hillary loses, I blame the Democratic Party.  No, not wikileaks.  Nor the FBI. 

Enough for now, I need to sleep.

Election Day

So tomorrow is the day.  It feels sort of like the reverse of Christmas.  I'm not really looking forward to it, but I'll be glad that it's over.

I'm not too interested in posting much right now and, just want to see what happens this week.

On top of the usual (I. E.  What happens when whoever wins?  How close will it be?  How will the losing side take it?) I have to admit the Russian situation also worries me.  I can't find the article I was reading earlier, it was discussing how the Russian fleet has reached Cyprus, and that they may have their alleged underwater Internet cable cutters along. 

How would this support Assad?

Well, I hope it's a boring week and that I'm just being silly.  Not really a lot I can do, regardless of what happens. 

Wait, and see, and vote tomorrow.

Russia and the US Election

I'm only going to touch on a few of the things swirling around in the news, and mostly to complain about how little I truly know.  I can't tell if I'm seeing shadows or being realistic.  Sometimes I kind of regret not being in the intelligence industry any more.


In the last 24 hours came across three really disturbing articles, when you put them all together:




First, yesterday was an article saying the Russians had asked their government officials to come back home, and bring their families with them.  Now, looking at Snopes this morning it appears it was an informal request, ostensibly because of domestic perception that officials had too many ties to the West. 




Thing is, there's a darn good reason why militaries are especially careful whenever another state is conducting 'training maneuvers' near a border.  It's hard to surprise an opponent when they know you're moving to attack, but if you can make them think something different is happening then you can gain the advantage.



So, does that mean this was something more serious than it sounds?  Who knows.  I don't have the intel access or the basic information needed to really say.  I do think that an 'informal request' from Putin would probably have the effect of a formal order, regardless of what the Russians say.  And I think the perceptions about government officials have probably been around for a while, so I don't know why this would be a major concern right now.  But who knows?  I don't know what's going on with domestic Russian politics.




So on to the second article, Russia's use of inflatable weapons and maskirovka as a strategy.  Now, the Allies used inflatable weapons during World War II to deceive the enemy, so this isn't exactly a sign that the Russians are any trickier than we are.  It does, however, mean it's wise to always look two or three times at what the Russians say they are doing.  Again, I wish I still had a clearance.  And access.




The third article is the one that really spurred writing this post...though again, it's not a direct or obvious threat.  Or rather it is...if this is Putin's roundabout and indirect way of threatening us through surrogates.  Otherwise, it's just another bit of hot air.




Basically, a Putin ally said Americans need to vote for Trump or face nuclear war.  Now, I'm not exactly a war-mongerer...but if they seriously think they can force us to vote for that jack ass all I can say is - "Bring it."

Counter-Terrorism, Oversimplification, Etc.

In college I took hapkido and tai chi.  Even a little bit of push hands.  It's been years since I've done any of it, but some of the lessons stuck with me still.

Push hands is a little bit like an old childhood game.  The one where you put your front foot next to someone else's foot, grab each other by the hand and try to unbalance the other person.  Except, of course, the stances and point of contact are different.

As for lessons learned - first of all, when you're in contact with the other person you can kind of sense where their balance is.  Where they're moving to, and from.  (In the military sense - when you're in contact with the enemy you have a sense of where they're moving to.  It's when you lose all contact that they become unpredictable.)

Second - in push hands, once someone loses balance the other person has control.  If your opponent loses their balance, you control where they go.  In order to win, you need to keep your balance while making them lose theirs.  If they're moving towards you, maybe you should go with it...even aid them in that movement.  Make them overextend.  Then they lose their balance, and you can direct them easily. 

So many people think battle is straightforward.  Attack.  Block.  Swing, block, swing.  A fight like that can easily become about brute strength, stamina, and speed.  It's comparatively simple...and makes you forget that there are other options.  Instead of blocking, just give them a little assist.  As they move farther and faster than they intended, they overextend and lose their balance.  Meeting strength with weakness can do the same thing.  (This is all situationally dependent, of course.)

So Vietnam, for example, could be seen as an overextension by the United States.  We lost our balance.  Funny enough, though, the Soviet Union then overextended in Afghanistan.

I brought this up for two reasons.  First because we all too often get locked into an 'attack/block' mentality.  It's important to remember that there are other options. 

The second reason?  We have to know when we're overextending. 

On a side note - when reading about the spy games during the Cold War it seemed that the Soviet Union regularly kicked our butts.  This may be a misleading impression, since I'm sure there are some things still classified...but the Soviets generally seemed to do better at building their spy networks.  Yet they're the ones that fell apart in the 80's...so apparently winning the spy game wasn't as critical as you'd think.

I'm part of that curious generation just old enough to remember the Cold War without being forged in it...and young enough to adapt to the internet and all the new technology that came out since then.  The logic of the Cold War was very black and white.  And during that time, we misread situations time and time again.  Focused more on communism, for example, and overlooked nationalism.  I believe our misreading the situation caused a lot of damage to our own national security. 

In the last decade or so terrorism has become the new thing...and I see some of the same mentalities.  Black vs. White.  Oversimplification of the issues.  When you see situations through that lens, you are just as likely to misread the situation and propose strategies that backfire.

This bothers me.  I think I hate terrorists as much as anyone, and I don't want them to succeed.  Yet I find, time and again, that the people who ought to be allies seem blindly determined to think in terms of attack/block...to the point where they actually make it harder to fight terrorism.

Presidential Election 2016, Cont.

In the military, you can never be too dependent on any one individual.  It's too easy for them to go missing at a critical moment in time, and so you need an entire system designed to work regardless of who is or isn't there.


That isn't necessarily true in real life.  You can act as though people are interchangeable, and yet they really aren't.  It's a bit of a paradox, actually.  There are many different types of leaders, and what works for one won't work for another.  And yet sometimes it matters and sometimes it doesn't.  Certain stylistic differences (such as one leader who is loud and talkative versus another that is quiet and reserved) may not matter at all.  "Quiet and reserved" can come across as dignified, and heighten respect.  Or aloof, and become a negative.  Too much depends on context, and the relationship between the leader and the led.


That said, there are times when the person filling the role makes a tremendous difference.  Going back to my earlier discussion on counterinsurgency and grievances, it makes a great deal of difference if the leaders addressing those grievances argue for non-violence (i.e. Martin Luther King, Jr or Mahatma Gandhi) versus one that opens the doors to violence.


Which kind of reminds me of the Great Man theory.  Rather than take sides on this, I will say that the truth is probably more complicated than either side wants to admit.  That there are times when large social or political forces are at play (like nationalism and the fight against imperialism), and takes on a life of it's own.  And there are other times where a 'Great Man' (or 'Great Woman') living in a certain context, can somehow rise above that context and make a history-changing difference.


You can run this analysis on all sorts of situations - in war, for example, some people like to focus on the economics behind the war.  That is, during the American Civil War the north had more economic power than the South, particularly after following a strategy that minimized Southern economic strength (i.e. the Anaconda Plan and the South's failure at cotton diplomacy)...and perhaps the underlying economics did favor the North.  Yet if the North had repeatedly lost battles wouldn't the economic tides have eventually shifted?  And didn't the personalities matter?  General McClellan, President Lincoln, General (and later President) Ulysses S. Grant, wouldn't history have been different if any one of these had been a different sort of person?


You can go deeper and deeper down that rabbit hole, too.  That is, could Ulysses S. Grant have been able to make a difference if the structure of the army (and society) at the time had been different?  What if he had never had a chance to lead a charge, and remained a quartermaster all his life?  What if he was unable to gain a militia commission?  What if his drinking problem prevented him from gaining a formal promotion?


I'm not really trying to say the system at the time was better or worse than what we have today, just pointing out that there are different contexts that can make it easier (or harder) to have the right person in the right place at the right time.  And that's assuming that Ulysses S. Grant was the right person at the right time, and that no other could have filled that role quite as well.


So I got to thinking about this, because of the current presidential election and Hillary Clinton.  It's like - if our system is healthy and robust, then to a certain extent it shouldn't matter too much who fills the role of President.  Or rather, it matters in a certain sense (Democrats and Republicans have very different points of view, and even though Congress has more influence on what becomes law than the president, the power of the President is not negligible.)  Yet, in another sense, what does it matter whether it's Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden or Bernie Sanders?  Or, on the Republican side, whether it's Jeb Bush or Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio.

I bring that up, because it gets yet again at what has bothered me about the Democratic primary.  In 2008 we had a very wide field of Democratic candidates.  In addition to Obama and Hillary, there was John Edwards.  Joe Biden. Dennis Kucinich. and plenty more.


In 2016 it was Bernie Sanders.  And some minor characters that hardly had any air time, to be honest.  (The names I listed in 2008 were ones I recall seeing and hearing about significantly during the race.)  Even though I was vaguely aware that Lincoln Chafee, Lawrence Lessig and Jim Webb were running they never really gained any credibility as a candidate.  And I don't even really recognize Martin O'Malley.


I've heard mutterings about the Clinton 'coronation' almost this entire primary, and it kind of looks like someone (or a group of someones) tried to do exactly that.  Bernie Sanders was the ONLY real competition, and the Democratic Party resented him for that the entire time. 


It's...un-American.  And, frankly, disturbing.  Why Hillary?  Why should so many people be so determined to make her the next President? 


Not "why do we need a Democratic president".  No.  Why must that candidate be Hillary?  Why was this settled so early in the race? 


I say that, because it almost seems like the Democratic Party is stuck with a 'sunk cost fallacy'.  Let's go back to before the e-mail scandal grew legs, before we got deep into campaigning, and look at what we knew about Hillary.  She has always had high unfavorables.  Always.  This is something the entire party apparently thought they could work around.  (You can argue about whether it's fair or not, sexist or not, justified or not...but you can't argue that it's not there.)


Yet that apparently didn't matter.  Next - we know the Republicans go after the Clintons like a dog chasing a squirrel.  Funny how, in the last eight years at least, they didn't seem to go after the Obamas to quite the same degree.  That implies that (again - fair or not, sexist or not, justified or not) you will see the Republicans make life difficult for Hillary Clinton to a degree they probably wouldn't for any other candidate. 


On top of all of that, we have Hillary Clinton's noted preferences for privacy.  Again, her supporters say it's all justified, having survived those aforementioned attacks. (Isn't it great when you can use a word like 'aforementioned'?)  She's found a tactic that she seems to think works, and she sticks with it.  Unfortunately, her preferred tactic ends up making issues that might have been minor otherwise turn into something bigger.  See, Democrats and Republicans focus so much on each other that they forget most people don't really pay attention and hardly care.  It's kind of like in a counterinsurgency, where you're so focused on getting 'the bad guys' that you forget about the neutral farmers and workers who are just trying to make a living.


At the end of the day, half of what the news reports about politics is just white noise.  It only matters to politicos (and I'll include myself here) who follow that sort of thing.  So while Hillary may think she's got a great strategy for dealing with Republican harassment, the thing outsiders tend to pick up on is that her strategy involves privacy and secrecy.  And that she will go to ridiculous lengths to keep it that way, to the point where it seems like she really must have something to hide.


Even worse, is that I suspect she thinks it's okay to do whatever it takes to defend against Republican attacks, and doesn't seem to care that her defenses make her sound like a liar or an idiot.  See my previous post about her testimony on the (C) in her e-mails.  Okay, I can see why you'd think it's okay to lie to Republicans.  But to the FBI?  And to the general public?  They're more forgiving than the Republicans, and they probably wouldn't care too much if you had just told the truth from the beginning.  It'd probably be more like the wikileaks of state department cables, where anyone actually paying attention just shrugs and says "whatever".  (I added 'from the beginning' because if you don't do it right away, everything that gets dragged out into the light is suspect.  And if you apologize after denying you did anything wrong it sounds more like you're just doing what it takes to get people to forget and move on, not because you sincerely believe you actually did something wrong.  Especially if you undermine your own apology with later statements.)


This is tied in with something else I said earlier - why did nobody in the Democratic Party pull Hillary aside and tell her that being the subject of an FBI investigation was bad news, and that maybe she should withdraw?  Why, instead, did the entire establishment somehow act as though it was no big deal?  (yeah, yeah...those of you who still think it's not a big deal will disagree with me on this, entirely.  The funny thing is, though, that the people arguing that are almost inevitably people who have never worked with classified material before.)


So anyways.  The more that the Democratic Party insisted that Hillary was their gal, the more they put resources into supporting her, the more difficult it becomes to change course when her weaknesses come to light.  And the timing gets worse and worse.  If she had withdrawn at any point in the last year, the Democratic Party probably could have found another candidate.  At this point, however, they'd be in a lot of trouble if that happened.


Same thing with the possible 'October surprise' Assange claims he has.  If he released it now, the Democratic Party would have time to deal with it.  The fact that Assange is holding on to it indicates he cares less about sharing information and more about deliberately releasing it in order to shape the course of the 2016 presidential election.


If I were the Democratic Party, I would want to know what he thinks he has.  If it truly is enough to shape the race I would either try getting it out pre-emptively (if it's not as big a deal as he thinks) or get Hillary to resign right away (if it really is).  Why wait until October? 


Anyways.  To tie this in to my beginning musings - why is the Democratic Party (and the media, and all the various other organizations who have overlooked her weaknesses as a candidate) so determined to make sure she's the next President? 

Presidential Election 2016

I haven't posted in a while, partly because I didn't feel I had much to contribute on the Clinton-Trump campaign. 


I know where I stand, and think most other people do, too.  So there's just not much room for discussion or persuasion.  I also don't want to align myself with some of the worst conspiracy theorists and mudslingers.


I find myself dwelling most on my objections to Hillary.  Not because I support Trump, or think he's somehow a better choice. He's not.  I dwell on Hillary more because I want to explain to those who generally agree with me on Trump why that doesn't automatically mean I support Hillary.  And why I consider her a more subtle danger to the American I know and love.


First, one of the key differences that has come up in discussions with friends.  Some of the Hillary supporters basically think "all politicians lie.  Lying doesn't bother me, so long as they support the policies I want."  As such, they will support Hillary no matter how many scandals the Republicans throw at her, because in their eyes those scandals are not really unusual or beyond the bounds...and Hillary supports the policies they want.  These are the ones who dismiss the e-mail scandal as a 'pseudo-scandal', and don't understand what all the fuss is about.


This really, truly, and honestly bothers me.  We excuse politicians for lying, we accept that they will do whatever it takes to cover up their mistakes, and so long as those mistakes are not really meaningful we're okay with it?!? 


And what does anyone consider 'meaningful' for a scandal, anyway?  How do you decide the severity?  Granted, we all do this to some extent...I dismiss the Benghazi hearings, for example, partly because it seems a bit much to pin the whole thing on one person.


Sure, the Lewinski scandal was kind of trashy and one could argue that it had nothing to do with how effective a president Bill Clinton was, yet is it really okay for a president to outright lie like that?  (Apparently, to not a few people, the answer is 'yes'.)  Will the person who justifies lying about an affair really act too different if the issue is even more serious?  Can you trust them to make the right call if it will get them into trouble? 


I may go on about the importance of character at some later time, but I don't want to digress right now.  The important point is that I disagree with this point of view entirely, and I think character is pretty important when picking a candidate.  (This also, btw, is not an area where Trump compares favorably.)


So, then, what next?  Well...I have seen a number of articles trying to argue that "if we only knew the real Hillary, we would like her".  As if that means she has great character, and that we should ignore the smears.  Likeability...well, truthfully it's not the greatest assessment.  There are a lot of brutal people who can be quite likeable.  There are a lot of likeable people who aren't really qualified for the jobs they are applying for.  But okay, fine...it's great that she's a good listener.  I'm sure she will work the levers of power quite capably. 


Honestly, that's where my main concern comes from.  As the middle class has shrunk, as income inequality has grown, America is poised to become an oligarchy.  Perhaps we already are.  We are becoming divided into the 'haves' and the 'have nots'.


And the 'haves' are quite buddy-buddy with each other.  We are seeing the development of a global elite, one that may go shopping in New York one day and Tokyo the next.  One that may give a nod and a wink to the idealists who value human rights, while behind the scenes they do what needs to be done.  Or so they think.  These are the people that will put a Karzai in charge of Afghanistan, who will argue that realpolitik means that we must support Saudi Arabia.  And perhaps, in some cases, there's some truth to their claims.  (Maybe.)


This is where I believe the public and hidden transcript comes into play.  Because there are things we all know and suspect these elite do, behind the scenes, that never comes out in the light.  Is that bad, in and of itself?  Or is that just the nature of power?  Should we be concerned?  Or is it business as usual?


The internet has given us this capability for transparency that is amazing, sometimes.  And the responses to that transparency show that fears the public wouldn't understand may sometimes be overblown.  Wikileaks released thousands of state department e-mails, and most people just shrugged.


Which is why I was disappointed in Colin Powell when his e-mails to Hillary were released. For pretty much the same reason I think Hillary was wrong to have her private server in the first place.  What are you saying or doing, that you are worried would become part of the official record and subject to the law?  Do you think the public would misunderstand something?  If you truly believed it was the right thing to do, why can't you argue and explain that?  Why are you so afraid of public scrutiny?  (Public scrutiny.  Yes, I get why you'd be afraid that your political enemies would use whatever is public against you...and you may face pressure in the news and at home...but those things are actually really rather different, and distant from, the public.)


So anyways.  What bothers me with Hillary is that there seem to be so many, many, many people trying to make her the next president.  And they are willing to overlook so much, in order to do so.  It worries me, because it shows the elite manipulating the system to get the result they want, and in the process they are closing that system out to alternatives.  Not only that, but they seem to think that Hillary really hasn't done anything wrong. Nothing different from what everyone else is doing.  Which, rather than saying what Hillary does was okay, rather implies that the whole system is so screwed up that the elite no longer even know what's right and what's wrong any more.


This article, btw, captures some of my own perspective watching the political election this year.  She didn't know what the (C) meant?  She's either lying through her teeth or too stupid to believe. 


I keep thinking this election is a false dilemma, one unfortunately aided and abetted by the elite...so that out of a nation of 300 million we are left with these two horrible options.  Why didn't the Democratic Party quietly pressure Hillary to bow out when she was under investigation?  Why, instead, did the DNC support her so much? 

Too True

http://www.wired.com/2016/08/no-world-wont-go-back-normal-trump/

Wither Now?

https://praxis.ink/2016/08/after-trump-gop-elites-havent-realize-they-cant-return-to-the-status-quo/

I have no idea who I'll vote for, can we have a do over?

Sometimes, on occasion, one of my employees will tell me about something another employee did.  Responding to that is kind of tricky, though some supervisors say you should discourage this entirely.  Too much tattletelling can create a work environment where everyone is suspicious of everyone else, and people may only tell on those they dislike...which lets personal issues get in the way of it.

On the flip side, I (as a supervisor) can not be everywhere at once.  And my people generally know when I'm around, and aren't stupid enough to do something wrong where I will see it.  So I won't really know there's an issue to address if I'm not told...

Stepping aside from those sorts of questions, however, is what happens if I do decide to address it.  First, I have learned to space things out from when someone talks to me and when I address it.  That's because one of the first things the employee does is to try and figure out who told on them.  To me, that's missing the point.  I'm addressing you because you did something wrong.  Something you should fix.  Who told me that you did something wrong is beside the point, and makes me feel like you don't really think you did anything wrong.  And probably aren't going to do anything to fix it or change it in the future.  (Or, at best, that you'll just try not to do it where you might get caught). 

Even worse, of course, is that whoever I'm addressing might try to take revenge or get back at someone if they figure out who did it.  And may even mistake the source, and make life difficult for someone who is completely uninvolved.  (I had someone at our mid-year review mention that she was mad at the HR person and me for a little while, because one of her co-workers claimed we had told the co-worker she'd said something.)

So anyways.  I generally try not to fill this blog up with work stuff.  I brought all that up more because I want readers to understand where I'm coming from when I say that I'm pretty disgusted with how the Democratic Party has handled a variety of issues over the last year.  Some of their arguments sound like something a five year old would say (i.e. "But everyone else is doing it!!!"), some of it is the response of my less mature associates (i.e. "Who gave you that information?!?  Was it the Russians?)...

and none of it actually addresses the wrong that was done.  It makes me think that they really don't see a problem with it, assume that this is just 'business as usual', and are more upset at having to deal with a media scandal than that they have any real belief that wrong was done.

One of my employees likes to talk politics, and he claims that the Democratic Party has always been corrupt, and that it's only this past year that's made it obvious to everyone.  Note: I am not looking for a "Republicans are just as bad" response, because that's just another way of looking away from the problem.

And is there a problem?  I think so.  The wikileaks e-mail dump about the DNC shows that Debbie Wasserman Shultz was playing favorites.  Howard Dean, who I presume ought to know as he was a DNC Chair himself, believed the DNC was supposed to be impartial.  If the Democratic Party can show that these e-mails were forged, then I would care more about Russian involvement.  (Their attempt to influence the election is disturbing, but it wouldn't have been possible if the DNC wasn't doing something wrong in the first place.  So to me this is a lesser problem than what the e-mails revealed.  Wikileaks allegations that there is more to leak is somewhat more disturbing, mainly because if they're going to leak it they should just get on with it.  This attempt to time when you release info shows that they aren't really about freedom of information so much as using an information  I get that loyalty is a prized trait in political circles.  So much so that they will value the loyal supporter over someone more talented (and this brings it's own issues, and has it's own implications, but that's a post for another time).  If Hillary wanted to take care of a loyal supporter - someone who wasn't supposed to act like a loyal supporter in the role she was in - than I'm sure she could have found an ally to hire Debbie.  The fact that Hillary felt no need to distance herself from Debbie, and hired her on (even if it's a token role), shows that Hillary really doesn't see anything wrong with what Debbie did.

All my arguments hold true, as well, for what I find disturbing about those defending Hillary's use of a private server. 

And the total lack of concern about this, the attitude that nothing wrong was done and it's all just conservative witch-hunting, kind of makes me mad.  I still think Trump is worse, but I just can't bring myself to say I would actually vote for Hillary.  Not when she, her staff, and the entire Democratic Party doesn't seem to realize that they're doing anything wrong.  In some ways I have more respect for the Republicans who are speaking out against Trump than for the Democrats who are willing to look the other way so long as their candidate wins.

And this ties in to another article I read, Politico's article discussing how Barack Obama decided Hillary should be his successor.  See, I get why he would want his legacy to continue.  I suppose there's reason to think Hillary's most likely to succeed.  Hell, according to a site I go to Hillary most closely matches my own views...and I guess I'm supposed to be a supporter.

But here's the thing.  How you get somewhere matters.  It's part of that whole "do the ends justify the means?" debate.  If the only way you can make your policies continue, if the only way to secure your legacy, is to do things that subvert the democratic process and basically take away our right to choose...

Than that's a pretty big problem.  Almost, but perhaps not quite, as big as Trump taking office.  It's presents a very different sort of problem, one not quite as big and bombastic, one that is perhaps even scarier in how quiet and subtle it is.

After all, nobody seems to think there's anything wrong with Hillary hiring the former DNC chair.

Election 2016

This is very close to my beliefs, though I have a few quibbles.

http://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-07-25/democratic-machine-chose-clinton-long-ago-but-why

I will eventually write more, but I'm playing a lot of pokemon go and get tired of railing about things people either already know or refuse to get. 

Hey, I caught a (low powered) Pikachu yesterday! 

2016 Presidential Election

I've had a couple posts circulating around in my head, but finding the time to solidify it and type it out has been hard.  I can't let myself get sucked into my writing headspace too much...if I do that, then I start thinking about it too much at work.  And then I'm not doing what I actually am paid to do.  So I try to figure out what I want to type in the evenings. When I'm not unwinding from work, or reading something new, or taking my Little to go swimming, or whatever.  Point is, life gets in the way....which is only to be expected in a hobby like this. :)

The downside to this is that I occasionally come across some really, really good articles and I have to either do a quick link (that may not do the article justice), or shift some of my other posts aside to cover the new material (still got one I'd call 'Step 2' on Making America Great Again, focused more on foreign policy and strategy), or forget it entirely.

This article was one of them, and I want to discuss what it means to me.  I think I've made it clear I'm not a Hillary fan.  I want to go into that a little bit first, actually.  I was talking to an aunt of mine about the election a few months back, and she asked me when I first started disliking Hillary. I originally said it was when she chose to 'stand by her man' after the Lewinsky scandal, but that's not quite right.  (I never really understood why that was considered a good move.  Some politician does some bone-headed and idiotic thing and gets caught, and next thing you know they're trotting out his wife - who privately might feel or think anything, and probably hasn't had time to really get through their own anger and shock.  If it was a shock.  Anyways, they trot her out to give some line about how she forgives him and we all should forgive him too.  But hey, their marriage is not actually my business.  Any of them.  I just think most of the public speeches are lies meant to smooth the political waters, and I have more respect for wives like Jenny Sanford than for any of the ones that put on the standard show.)  In thinking about it, however, that wasn't quite right.

Or rather, I had picked the moment but not the real reason.  The reason had to do with how both Clintons reacted to the affair.  Deny, deny, deny.  Deny until you absolutely can't deny any more, and then when you have to, admit to some sort of failing...but not anything like what your opponents are accusing you of.  This is, apparently, good politics.  I think it's absolutely atrocious leadership.  I suppose that comes from the military, or my own upbringing.  Where you respect people for owning their mistakes, taking responsibility, and working to fix things.  In many ways, it isn't even the scandal itself (which is sometimes extremely stupid).  It's the way they respond to it.

I've come across a couple of articles that, if not exactly reconciling me to it, at least make me understand better why they'd make a choice that reflects so poorly on their characters.  I could write an entire post about why character matters in a president, and I might do that some other time.  At this point I think a quote from The American President is appropriate -

"For the last couple of months, Senator Rumson has suggested that being president of this country was, to a certain extent, about character, and although I have not been willing to engage in his attacks on me, I've been here three years and three days, and I can tell you without hesitation: Being President of this country is entirely about character" (emphasis mine)

I have a friend who follows politics, and one of the things that bothers me in our discussions is how little she cares about character.  To her, all politicians are corrupt.  All politicians are liars.  So it doesn't matter what scandal you catch them doing, since they all are doing it anyway.  (Some just got caught, that's all).  And so she focuses only on the issues.  To me, you can't separate them out like that.  Character is what drives your reactions to the things that aren't pre-planned and vetted out.  Character is what makes you decide what to fight for, and when to follow the crowd.  (Though this, too, can be open to debate.  Do we elect politicians to do what we voted them in for?  Or because we expect them to use their judgment and make wise decisions?  If the former, than following the political winds makes sense.)

So anyways.  This article discussing the racial divide revealed by the Bernie/Hillary primary seemed important and enlightening for entirely different reasons.  I remember when the OJ trial occurred, and how most every (white) person considered it a travesty of justice.  We're almost certain he was the murderer, though of course you can't convict someone based on public opinion.  Yet it seemed like he did it, and he got away with it.  And murder!  One of the most horrific crimes out there!  And yet to African Americans, this was important for an entirely different reason.  It showed that a rich black man could get the same justice as a rich white man...what mattered was having the money to afford that slick lawyer.

And as I've been reading about modern slavery, I decided to pick up a book that my friend (mentioned above) gave me when she was clearing off her bookshelf.  It's called Dwelling Place, and it's about life on a plantation in the slave-owning south.  And the thing of it is - when decisions were so very arbitrary, and justice a pipe dream, can you blame the southern slaves for not caring so much about the points I just made?  And when you have a culture that knows justice is a joke, that life isn't fair, and that the people who claim to have 'character' are the same ones that enslaved your ancestors, can you really blame them for deciding to support someone who stands for the issues they care about?  Regardless of their character?

I still don't like Hillary, I still think she's an awful choice, and I'm pretty disappointed at how much the Democratic Party (and the media) appears to have pushed her through as a candidate.  If the Republicans could have come up with a decent candidate she'd have been in real trouble.  But I get, to a certain extent, why she has some of the support she has.

Election 2016

As the news about Hillary clinching the nomination circulates, all I can say is that I'm disappointed.  In the Democratic party, in the media, and in the American public.

I haven't really said much of late because I could see it coming.  Bernie just wasn't winning enough to get there.

I actually was paying attention to Bill Kristol's attempt to find an independent, but anyone paying attention knows how that turned out.

I do admire the Republicans speaking out against Trump, and I'm kind of sickened by all the ones jumping on his bandwagon.  

Trump vs Hillary.  Ugh.

The Presidential Race Part II - Clinton

The Democratic primaries concern me a bit more than Trump, mostly because Trump probably doesn't have enough support to actually win.  (Seems crazy how, over and over again, the political parties seem to be doing their best to lose the election.  Poll after poll shows Hillary is viewed unfavorably by many people.  Not just 'not liked', but actively disliked.  She could have been easy to beat, if the Republicans had put out a decent candidate.  Instead we get Trump?!?)


Again, full disclosure. I have never been a Hillary fan.  I hadn't rabidly disliked her the way some Republicans do.  It's funny, but when she first ran for President part of me disliked the idea of her candidacy simply because I didn't want to deal with that level of drama again.  She has so many enemies that any action will probably get drowned out in 'scandals'.  I know it's not fair to hold it against her, but if she stays in the political limelight Republicans will continue to look for issues (like Benghazi, or Whitewater, or whatever).  I find it somewhat ironic that I say this, because I find the classified e-mails on her server a real problem.  You can see my previous post if you want more detail. 


So.  I studied political science in college, and one of my classes explored psychology in politics.  The professor felt the easiest way to identify whether personality made a difference was to look at presidential candidates.  When I assess a political candidate, I try to consider the whole person.  It's not enough to know what issues they stand for, I want to know how they make decisions in general.  What their likely reactions are.  After all, politicians regularly deal with the unexpected.  How they will handle a Cuban Missile Crisis matters as much as whether or not they support free trade.  (Besides, the President can't create legislation all on their own.  Whatever agenda they have has to get through Congress first, so in a sense the character and personality of the President matters even more than their political agenda).


So, for example, back in 2000 I vaguely recall reading an article about Gore.  It basically said he was obsessed with reading all the details of every report.  Which sounds kind of impressive, except I imagine the President is so busy that he wouldn't have time for that...I want someone who knows how to build a great team and delegate, not someone who will get bogged down trying to understand everything first. 


George W. Bush had a team.  I don't really want to call it 'great', though I suppose it's very typical of elite opinion.  Probably not enough diversity of thought, and not enough safeguards against groupthink. 


So anyways.  Since I used to have a security clearance and worked in a SCIF I've been following the Hillary e-mail scandal pretty closely.  And part of what disturbs me is a sense that her staff really does feel they are above it all.  The NSA rejected a request for a secure smartphone, so she and her staff just decided to find a way around it to get what they want. 


I feel like she lives in a bubble, her staff supports her in that bubble, and it means that she's probably not in touch enough to make good decisions.  She's got some sort of feedback loop encouraging her to do whatever she wants, and nobody who can put a brake on it and say 'wait a minute, should we really be doing that?" 


I also have the ironic feeling that she really does represent the establishment.  Ironic because (as per my undergraduate political science classes) I remember that Bill Clinton campaigned as a political outsider.  I even remember someone suggesting that this hurt him, in that he probably should have had a little more experience before getting elected President.  Not in the sense of 'he needed more familiarity with legislation'...but in the sense that Washington DC, from what I can tell, runs off relationships.  And an outsider doesn't have those relationships, doesn't know who to talk to in order to get things done.  So Bill, as an outsider, was a little less effective because he didn't know who was who.  (That's what I remember from class, at least.)


Hillary's gone to the extreme other end.  She probably knows who is who for everything.  This is one of their campaign points, basically saying that she'll be able to get things done.  Yet in the process I feel she's lost any objectivity she might have had.  She's an über establishment candidate.  Which wouldn't be so bad if I didn't feel like the establishment had a serious case of groupthink.


They (and Hillary) live in a bubble of their own making, and don't even know it.

The Presidential Race Part I - Trump

I can't even begin to describe how disappointed I am in America.  I actually want to focus more on the Democratic primaries, but I figured I (like so many others) have to talk about Trump first.




Full disclosure - I've never been a fan of him.  Even when he was 'just' a wealthy celebrity, he seemed overblown and kind of ridiculous.  I also don't consider someone with four bankruptcies an example of good business acumen.  But whatever, clearly there are others who think differently.




As a celebrity, I was quite content to ignore his existence as much as possible. As a potential future president?!?  Not so much. There's one issue that captures in a nutshell why I'm concerned.




Let's start with a few facts.  The Berlin Wall was around 96 miles long and divided Berlin for 28 years.  In that time about 5,000 people successfully crossed the border despite the wall.  They crossed by "digging long tunnels under the Wall, waiting for favorable winds and taking a hot air balloon, sliding along aerial wires, flying ultralights and, in one instance, simply driving a sports car at full speed through the basic, initial fortifications. When a metal beam was placed at checkpoints to prevent this kind of defection, up to four people (two in the front seats and possibly two in the boot) drove under the bar in a sports car that had been modified to allow the roof and windscreen to come away when it made contact with the beam. They lay flat and kept driving forward. The East Germans then built zig-zagging roads at checkpoints. The sewer system predated the Wall, and some people escaped through the sewers, in a number of cases with assistance from the Unternehmen Reisebüro."(see Wikipedia article)



The Israeli West Bank barrier will be more than 272 miles long.  Israel also struggles to identify and prevent people from sneaking across the border.  Again, determined people will find a way - over, under or through.  There's a rather healthy debate about how effective this is, you can read up on it if you're interested.  Note as well, though, that the Israeli wall involves much more than just a wall.  You also have to have people patrolling along the wall in order to catch the various attempts to cross it.




Now, let's look at our own borders.  Note that I said "borders", plural.  I've lived near the Mexican border, and I heard from the border patrol there that they also get a number of illegal immigrants crossing through the Canadian border.  A wall only built on the Mexican side will probably just mean more people try crossing on the Canadian side.  If you truly believe a wall is necessary then you need to build it across both borders (and most likely you'll need to beef up the coast guard, as well).




So anyways.  Our border with Mexico is around 1,989 miles long.  That's over 20 times the size of the Berlin wall.  If and when the Israeli wall is complete, our Mexican border is still 7 times as long as that!




And Canada is far longer - 5,525 miles long!  That's twenty times as long as the Israeli/Palestinian wall, and 57 times the size of the Berlin wall.




So what does that mean?  Well, obviously if it's costing the Israelis over $2 billion to build a wall, it will cost us at least $14 billion to build the Mexican wall in a similar fashion (a lot depends on how much you're willing to spend to make it secure.  If you don't have enough security to prevent people from crossing over than you're wasting your money in the first place.) 


$14 billion, minimum, just for the Mexican side alone.  Add in the Canadian side and we're talking $54 billion.  Assuming similar costs, which is a big assumption as the terrain varies greatly.


I've driven somewhat close to the border, btw.  From Sierra Vista, AZ to San Diego, CA.  Or El Paso, TX.  And on one memorable occasion I've driven from Sierra Vista to Houston.  I can tell you from personal experience that it's a lot of empty desert.  A whole lot of nothing.


Which means that you also have to budget for regular stations, ones close enough to provide some sort of quick reaction force.  It will do you absolutely no good to have a sensor go off telling you that someone just tunneled under the wall or went over the wall or what-have-you if it takes two hours before someone checks it out.


Israel is small enough and well populated enough that it's probably not too hard to do so there...but how many people are you willing to pay to live along the 700+ miles between El Paso and Houston? 


The reason I bring this up is that I think ANY politician claiming they will build a wall between the US and Mexico to be disingenuous.  A wall on the border of Mexico, all by itself, will not stop illegal immigration.  It's almost a joke to say that it will, and if it's not going to be effective if it's a waste of money.  If you're serious about being effective, it would be a very expensive, resource intensive endeavor that will require more money than you'd think. 


Arguments to build a wall sound more like a way to make people feel like we're doing something.  Even if that something isn't particularly effective.  I think anyone arguing for such a wall is either feeding people what they want to hear or really doesn't know what they're talking about.