The Paris Climate Accord True Intent

Each person on this post has a “talent set” that is singular and individual. As such we see/perceive situations from varying viewpoints all of which are valid.  So to be clear I do not denigrate any viewpoint yet offer my perspective in hopes of having differing viewpoints considered.  I am a professional observer, which is one of my talent sets.  I am a speed reader, something I got from my father who possessed a photographic memory.  I did not get all of his talent but I can read faster than anyone I know, retain most of what I read, literally “see” it in my mind and am able to correlate data points of similarity from a lot of data.  I use this semi-photographic ability in my sales career as I evaluate the behavior of people not to manipulate them but to understand motivation and provide to them solutions quickly resulting in my being a top Realtor with 100% of my business coming from referrals, no marketing, no advertising, no cold calls.  All because of superior information, human insight and personal service which I also bring to my wellness company Your Holistic Life (Like I need another job, lol).

I ramble about this because I approach evaluating our elected leader’s actions exactly the same way.  I am not really swayed by their words but more by their repeated actions and resulting data points.  Not allowing or heavily weighing verbal influence has its advantages; you get a clearer picture of true intent.  So the action of this administration pulling out of the Paris Climate Accord is logical given the data points from day one of taking office.  This administration is building its influence on being contrary, plain and simple.  Data points: Rick Perry as secretary of Energy, Betsy Devos as Secretary of Education, Jeff Sessions as Attorney General and Ben Carson as head of HUD.  There is no discussion on the validity of these appointments; they are all contrary to the appointed rolls of advancing each of these agencies positively for the majority of Americans and American Values.  They are laughable if they weren’t so tragic in their outcome.

Which brings me to Steve Bannon; this administrations chief architect.  His intent is clear, he is a Leninist meaning that by his own words and actions: “Lenin,” he answered, “wanted to destroy the state, and that’s my goal too. I want to bring everything crashing down, and destroy all of today’s establishment.”  Well that's real American values.  To do so he employs division and contrary actions to destabilize multiple points of authority centralizing power and creating division so other actions can be made while people are distracted thereby manipulating the outcome via disinformation.  This is classic playbook from Hitler’s Mein Kempt. 

To quote an insightful recent article from October 29, 2016, Daily Kos and Tricia Sohl, “Coming from a Darwinian Survival of the Fittest mode, Hitler promoted his agenda through a propaganda approach aimed at the masses, who are “like a toy car set in motion by a superior intellect that maintains momentum”.  He asserted a leader needed to capture the heart and lift the “spirit” of the masses with ruthless and fanatical concentration on achieving one sided goals” geared to the level of least intelligence, aimed at feelings, not reason, at the extremes, not in betweens, using big lies, not small, as the masses more easily believe big lies as they themselves couldn’t conceive of anyone telling lies so big.”

The article goes on to state, “The Art of Propaganda described by Hitler suggested promoting simple noble goals with simple statements that say a lot (Make America Great Again) without diluting the message with objective reasoning as that breeds uncertainty in the masses.   It further suggested Labeling and defiling the opposition “other” with simple one-sided concepts (Lying Crooked Hillary).  He emphasized repetitive perseverance “to excite the masses to a state of intoxication” (Build a wall).  He recommended making step by step partial goals as the masses are unable to keep focused on longer goals.  He observed how control of the press can serve to push public option, catering to the masses lowest instincts… ultimately leading to coup d’état and the exercise of absolute top down authority.”

I observe these tactics are being used daily on the American People and from my observation, pulling out of the Paris Climate Accord has one purpose, to destabilize our European alliances one slight at a time.  It takes Trolling to an international level and has nothing to do with the reason’s President Trump stated that he pulled out because of the lack of enforcement for other nations or that it “disadvantaged America as it would cost us a fortune.”  That is a smokescreen and manipulation at the highest level and speaks more toward isolating America, rejecting globalism and cooperation between countries.  Is all about who “wins” and "loses", there is no shared prosperity with this world view.

The biggest threat I see is the use of Prevarication (lying) to affect a desired outcome designed to weaken Democratic ideals which our elected officials are entrusted to uphold.  I wrote about this in a previous blog post that prevarication from the highest levels of our government normalize disinformation, distrust and threaten the basis of the Democratic process.  Manipulation, Control, Dictatorship, promoting Fascist principles and Prevarication all add up to the destruction of the promise of American Freedom and the messy process of Democratic rule.  Nothing is perfect, not even Democracy, but the promise and intent of our founding fathers is at least Nobel. 

The Normalization of Prevarication

Prevarication is lying, just so we are on the same page.  It can also mean in loose terms skirting around an issue in order to conceal the truth.  Either way we look at the definition I think we can agree when it comes to high stakes business or political positioning where human beings are affected, prevarication is not a tool, it is a vile weapon.

In business there are financial repercussions also known as Fiduciary Responsibilities so when something important to the representation of a business transaction is purposely fabricated, there are lawful penalties that result in financial and legal repercussions.

But in public service or politics, prevarication has little legal repercussions and has become a tool of dirty partisanship and tragically for Americans has been weaponized to distort reality and create ill will toward minorities, ethnic populations and genders.  Now we can argue till we’re blue who is using this more but when it is obvious and the electorate does not call it out and voice loudly that it is inappropriate then we have a real systemic problem.

When the electorate (you) does not call out our elected leaders for blatant lying and prevarication simply because you support that particular party or issue, then the access of evil has been accepted and endorsed.  Tolerating this blatant lying is a moral and spiritual cancer.  American’s are charged with the duty of policing our elected officials even after they are elected and especially after they are elected! 

This is critical because not doing so is unpatriotic and un-American and the damage to living breathing Americans is real and critical.  An issue dear to my heart is the privilege of being able to marry the person of my choice, in my case my partner of 30 years Steve.  When the Supreme Court ruled in 2013 that it was legal for same sex couples to Marry it carried with it 1100 rights and privileges we had no access to prior.  I have had many people say this is against their religious principles yet nowhere is anyone making these people Marry a same sex person.  It really is that simple. 

My one big example when I speak with people of faith is this; if Steve were to get hit by a car and ended up in the hospital, I could be denied access to his hospital room.  I would be outside while he was lying in dire pain, alone, afraid and then die without his life partner at his side. This is less than not acceptable, it’s inhumane.  Not likely to happen you say?  FUCK yeah it has happened!  A doctor that had a bigoted view of same sex relationships could deny access to the other partner.  Families that objected to their son of daughter’s partner would have the right to deny access to his or her's dying partner before Same Sex Marriage was legal nationwide.  To make matters worse the family could then steal all of their bank accounts, insurance policies and property leaving the partner with little or no recourse despite both having contributed equally to the joint estate.  This is merely one of the reasons that legal status for same sex marriage is so important.  From what I have seen most straight people take this privilege for granted as it is expected, but not me.

Now if you have heart felt religious objection to same sex marriage then you can exercise your 1^st Amendment Right to voice that objection BUT you don’t have the right  impose your religious objection on others who do not share your religious conviction and make them do things they do not support.  Freedom of Religion and Freedom from Religion is the implicit 1^st amendment division between church and state identifying individual and equal citizen protections and rights.  Freedom of Speech is exactly that, it is not the ability to deny another American the same rights and privileges that other American’s enjoy.  But that has come into question due to the prevarication that “Religious Freedom” should allow institutional and legislated division between American’s which is a bastardization of the concept of Freedom and is truly un-American.  But many have bit hard on the concept because it was a “manufactured concept” to manipulate the weak minded and impressionable.  Think about it, are you one of them?

The same could be said about abortion.  I fully understand the concept is horrific to many people of many faiths but enslaving a woman to carry to term a baby for whatever reason is violating her freedom to choose how she can treat her body literally strapping her down to a hospital gurney for 9 month forcing her to give birth.  I wonder how “people of faith” would react if a law were passed that said the man responsible for the pregnancy against the woman’s wishes would immediately have his balls cut off so he could not repeat the same transgression.  That would raise some eyebrows and drive home the point of not being in control of your body.  During the election debates Trump said "With what Hillary is saying, in the ninth month, you can take the baby and rip the baby out of the womb of the mother just prior to the birth of the baby."

This was a gross manipulation and a lie!  In reality 1.2% of abortions are performed after 21 weeks and most of them were for life threatening problems to the mother.  So the lie played well to the worked up Pro-lifers but it’s still a lie.  The same rhetoric about Planned Parenthood using Federal tax payer money for abortions is a blatant lie.  Federal funds by law are not used for abortions period and abortions account for only 3% of the services Planned Parenthood performs for Women, Teens and Men.  But the prevaricated rhetoric turned the public discourse to Planned Parenthood being an abortion mill.  That is a lie and a vile cancer that the public is being manipulated with, using lies to get the electorate worked into a frenzy to get the result some group wants at the expense of truth.   Reality TV has stolen our soul and reason and fed our contemptible desire to fight for some outrage at the expense of another American.  We must hold ourselves and our elected officials to a much higher standard of truth or we allow the country to be manipulated into a blind Fascist Oligarchy.

I have been vocal on what I liked and what I did not like about the Democratic Addenda and the Republican Addenda both of which were drafted at each party’s convention prior to the election.  No party has all the answers but the conversation about what and who we are as a nation and how we honor all American’s has to change.  My litmus test for a proposed law or change to a federal policy and services is as follows; does the change treat all American’s equally as well as benefit the majority.  We have to leave out the religious points of view because not all American’s share that faith.  We cannot legally cut out any one person due to gender, orientation, skin color, financial status or nation of origin for disparate treatment.

Lastly, we have to call out when our elected officials use prevarication and lies for the purpose of getting elected thru manipulation or to distort public perception and we must call it out quickly and terribly.  This was the failing of the media in this election and the failing of any American that only wants to see their party come to power at the expense of equality and fairness.  American Values have a basis in equality, fairness and freedom so anything that lessens this cannot be tolerated by us the electorate, the media or our elected officials.  It is time for a revolution of decency where all American’s are treated equally.  Women, men, gay, straight, trans, black, white, Asian, American Indian, Buddhist, Muslim, Christian, Hindi, the whole diverse pie that is America.

If you stand for only some American’s, you stand for nothing remotely American and shame on you and shame on us for letting America fail to express the promise of America’s heritage and founding principles of fairness and freedom. 

Welcome to Florida, We Hate You!

Ahh, sunny skies, gentle winds wisp through the palm trees.  Boats gliding by the coast as waves lap the shores.  Sounds like paradise where everyone is giddy with serenity huh?  Silly rabbit.

The seething human menagerie that is South Florida has been gearing up for 8 months for blatant wanton rage and abuse.  Now, South Florida is crowded even during the off season but having snow birds descend about November 1^st merely encourages the expression of pent up frustration at simple human error, complacency or even mild stupidity.  In reality the locals have been practicing rage and abuse on each other during the summer months with the idea that such vile action can be perfected prior to the snow bird’s descent.  But what is the reason?

As my partner Stephen Bertelli is fond of saying, “put too many rats in too small a space and they eat their own.”   In the case of Florida; put too many people of vastly different hemispheres, nationalities and customs in one space and you get chaos. 

Here in South Florida we practice months of off season aggression on each other due to the locals complete disregard for J walking rules, traffic regulations and a general lack of consciousness from our sun baked brains.  This results in a local population that is ready, willing and able to express their middle finger at the least provocation/innocent mistake while said finger is poised on their car horn ready for an audio assault of prolonged duration, just to make the point you are a fucking asshole.  Welcome to paradise.

So far this is merely an observation but most of you that know me also know I MUST analyze this behavior in order to understand the human condition more clearly.  In essence, my Virgo continence gives me a proclivity for mental masturbation without a happy ending.  It’s all about the mental exercise that is a circle of no return.

So my take is that even if someone is a “local”, in other words lives here in Florida full time, there still is this vacation feel that permeates life even if you have a career.  One would never raise a middle finger in a place, say like… Connecticut, "well dammit buffy that would be unseemly", but when you are here there is a temptation to behave like you are here on holiday.  Offenses evaporate, guilt erased because you’re Adios by weeks end!  Vacation empowers you to magically conjure your innermost dickhead and fire at will.  Let face it, we all have a side that normally is repressed due to social convention but go on vacation and its vodka city and a fuck you attitude.  And this can happen even if you live here full time!

Which brings us back to South Florida.  In places like Haiti or Manhattan, using a legal crosswalk is not contemplated.  Cross Federal Hwy Rt. 1 in front of the Pompano Mall and it’s a gleeful dash for survival.  It’s like a blood sport narrated by Brian Gumbel where your pride is tested if you can make it past that speeding BMW 3 series that is piloted by a 16 year old blond girl from Boca who is applying her makeup AND taking a selfie to show her gal pals she’s on her way to meet them shopping at the Boca Town Center Mall.

The last nail in the coffin are the retirees that due to their years of bitter cold in places like Michigan, Montreal or Vermont have permanent attitude-itis.  So they make believe they still have some modicum of testosterone and vow to make sure you know they still have a spine.  Add to the attitude a deadly combination of hearing and sight loss, glaucoma glasses that cover their entire field of vision plus 4-8 prescriptions competing to make aching joints less painful but with atrocious side effects ranging from uncontrolled aggression, burning hemorrhoids and vaginitis and the result is drivers that exhibit little to no reason or desire to accommodate your presence while they are behind the wheel of a 20 year old Lincoln Continental.  It’s a battering ram with anger issues.

Now the rest of us, we strive to control our anger and rage merely for sanity.  Transcendental Meditation, The Sedona Method releasing technique, even prayer is no match for this gestalt of sun fueled vile contempt that hangs over Miami and Fort Lauderdale.  But ahhh, isn’t the sun lovely today.  Welcome to Florida!

The Death of Media

This year I found election news had changed dramatically.  In the past the media reported each parties differing positions, highlighted how the Presidential candidates differed in their vision of their parties official position and then analyzed how each might affect America.  This year, none of this happened.

I had discussions with people that supported both the Republicans and Democrats to see what each person felt about the OFFICIAL agenda which is laid out at each party’s convention in documents named The Republican Platform and The Democratic Platform.  In reality this is what the election is about, what each party intends to accomplish when in power.  Who becomes President, although important is more of a sideline as it is the party that dictates where the country will go.

Now this is striking.  I asked each person what they liked about each party platform and 100% HAD NOT READ ANY OF IT!  100%..... this is more than astonishing, its unfathomable!  Voters cast their sovereign choice for who will lead this country and NONE of them knew what they were really voting for.  This is an unprecedented outbreak of willful ignorance!  But what caused this systemic rash of idiocy in our electorate?  Although I personally feel we, as Americans must take responsibility for being informed, powerful forces were at work.

It was the Media and who really is behind the Media that is calling the shots, plain and simple.  Rather than do their job and report on the “meat” of each party’s intent, the Media was manipulated into covering the “personalities” of the presidential candidates OR they knowingly chose to chase ratings by adopting a Reality Show attitude toward sound bites and Breaking News.  Which is true?  I do not know, maybe it is a bit of both.  Practically it is both and we bit hard into intellectual destruction by being seduced by the shiny light of Reality TV Election 2016.

The bottom line is that most of the Media proved itself to be staggeringly gullible to manipulation.  It was a combination of the highly skilled candidates, other countries, fake news outlets, powerful PAC’s etc.  that used the Media like I have never imagined.  Never have I seen the Media line up to kiss the ass or stab the back of the candidates and their blatant PR machines RATHER than report on what each party actually stood for then correlate if it related to the candidates rhetoric.  This is the real “fact checking”.  Did the presidential candidate really support the party line or were they just coming up with stuff that whipped people into a frenzy to grab more Media attention and better coverage.  That is what proved irresistible to the impressionable reality show Americans and the media took notice.

So it got worse.  The Media found that it was MUCH more profitable to over-report on “potential” problems for the presidential candidates and contribute to the media circus which played into the hands of each party’s PR department.  OMG, did he really pussy grab, did she know about Bengazi, did he really think we’re being overrun by Islamic terrorists and did she email something traitorous about America?  It was a rabid desire for sensationalism WE CHOSE so the Media in their quest for cash and ratings complied and changed forever the landscape of a former Free Nation.  As of today, I do mean former. Let’s see what America has up its sleeve.  Will it allow the destruction of our Democratic principles?  Or is this truly the Death of Media, and our nation.