Fear is the mind killer

Hello my friends,

It is time to talk about FEAR. Frank Herbert describes fear as the "mind killer" as part of the Bene Gesserit wisdom, and I wonder if he was more correct than we think. I am not only talking in a philosophical sense, but in a literal sense. I am talking about the part of the brain that cognitively thinks, that is what I call the mind.

I watch a lot of political news. A lot.

The two parties are both accusing each other of fear mongering. I am slightly biased, I will admit, against the republicans. My bias goes back to the 1990's with Newt Gengrich who said that he was impeaching Bill Clinton "because we can."  This was after failing to remove Clinton after the Monica Lewinski affair.

The Mind Killer 

The Republican party has long run on the platform of defense department and security.

One of the versions of the TALOS suit concepts

Let's start with Defense spending-

• the Bradley Fighting Vehicle. Research and development cost some $14 billion over several decades. The situation was brought to light by the book and movie "The Pentagon Wars". That is $14 billion over decades, but how bad does it get? The Heritage Foundation reviewed the waste and reclamation of the previous congressional acts.
• CNBC points to 800 bases in several different countries. 
• $125 billion in administrative waste according to U.S. News and World Report.
• "$1 billion price tag the Pentagon paid to destroy $16 billion worth of ammunition[..] "says Military.com.

and that is just a little bit of what you can find with just a quick search, but with the simple phrase "War on Terror" the Republicans can procure $150+ billion to be added to the DoD budget. No questions no worries. Many Conservatives look for the candidate that they think can stop a terrorist attack. 

I'm sorry. You cannot stop terrorists by pumping money into defense. It hasn't worked since 2001, and it will not work into 2030. Fearing a people's religion will not end terrorism, only getting to know people. Recognize that terrorists are NOT Islamic extremists, no more than the KKK are Christian extremists. The Islamic Community is one of the biggest sources of tips to FBI and enforcement agencies. 

The Democratic Party fear mongering over global warming.

The point is that this is not actually fear mongering. Some people who have Financial reasons want to tell you that it is. They lose money if it's true.

These companies can get sued if everyone realizes that these companies are behaving more recklessly than the Tobacco industry did in the 80's and 90's. Remember when RJR was getting sued left and right and people said oh, it's not smoking that causes cancer? Look we have all this data, then when we looked at the data and realized they cooked it.

Yeah, same situation, other than now you get to look at your kids and say, oops I didn't know that I was killing you and your family. I just wanted to protect our economy. 

By the way, many many businesses believe that it would only help our economy. You think our 4 times bankrupt president is a success, you should see the names that believe that slowing Climate change would help the economy. Even an Oil Company, French Total Oil is betting on solar. Chevron had a profitable renewables that it closed in 2014 according to the Motley Fool. ExxonMobil was one of the few that didn't even bother.

More comedy?

The descendants of J.D. Rockefeller (founder of Standard oil, which later became Chevron, Exxon, Mobil, Amoco, Sunco, and Marathon) were so disheartened by American oil companies, that they were removing all of their oil investments as of 2014.

Rockefeller was also one of the first philanthropists to invest in the scientific method, here in America with regards to medicine. At the time, America was full of snake oil doctors (his father was one). 

Lastly, England dominated the world under coal power. WWI saw a change. America was made economically and energy-wise strong by oil. The new, more portable, more energy dense power supply gave America an edge that made us a force to be reckoned. The next leap is coming. Oil will not keep the U.S. at the forefront, but it will make some guys rich as we go bankrupt.

Below this image is my little rant on the idea of climate scientists are fear mongering. To be fair, it is more closely aligned with what a climate fear monger could say, and still be honest

Oh No!! It's getting warmer...but it's cold outside, right? 

Sorry sunshine, you are talking about weather. When we talk about global climate, we are talking about the ability of the world we live on to sustain life.   You see the oceans rising isn't meant to scare you. it is meant to get you to recognize a potential problem. If I wanted to scare you, I would tell you everything.

The oceans rise, but they also become more acidic. Carbonic acid...oceans of carbonic acid. Where did you think the carbon dioxide went. The ocean is the biggest storage system of CO2.  Now that the ocean is acidic, there is nowhere else to store the CO2 where can we put it, how about the clouds. now it falls and kills plant life as well as stripping the paint off of your new car.  

Acid Toxicity effect on fish. this could be our oceans in a

warmer global climate. Fortunately there may be snow in some places.

Acid rain is hazardous to forests and this is one more byproduct of

Global Climate Change

Sadly, I am only talking about 1 gas- CO2. Our ecosystem is like a human body, one little thing slightly out can be disastrous. Your body can take 1% too much calcium and your respiratory system will seize, 1% too little calcium and you go into cardiac failure. 

On Scientists

Climate scientists don't actually gain a huge benefit if they are lying. Most of the climate scientists that run the data aren't U.S. citizens. They are world wide. Think about that; that means these guys aren't benefitting from our voting system swinging liberal or conservative.

Scientists aren't paid by our government. The American scientists that do seem to disagree, are at institutions like the CATO institute which is funded by oil companies; maybe not all of them, but a lot of them that have looked at the data and models.

The final thought

Fear is the mind killer. Look at the data. research. Trump was right about wasteful defense spending... of course then he went and increased it.

When you research, look at the number of credible sources that agree with what you want vs the sources that disagree.  We may not reach a consensus, but we can see who is disagreeing and question their motives. Who is going to profit? Follow the money.

Don't let fear blind you.

The Donald out does himself

In the news today, Donald J. Trump, the 45th president of the US has made a step that Adolf Hitler would have been proud of and I'm sure Putin is going to send him a box of chocolates.

I must admit that Trump MAY have had nothing to do with the debacle in question, but the fact is the White House press refused only those publications that are kind to the president. I don't care if Brietbart gets a special spot and gets to ask questions that are of little or no importance, but blatant disregard for First Amendment rights is an out rage.

Let's start with some basic thoughts before liberals start chanting "off with her head" and conservatives cry about how the press never treats The Donald fairly. Let's start by laughing at ourselves.

Every president since "Slick Willy" Clinton has been likened to Adolf Hitler by the competing press, which on the face of it is silly. Hitler hated the Bolsheviks and communism. Communists were sent with the Jews to concentration camps and so calling Hitler a communist is way off. Furthermore, He ran under the socialist movement, but he actually didn't like them very much. You know who he liked- himself; this is actually questionable according to a book by Ian Kershaw. Adolf Hitler was a Fascist Dictator. He wasn't a socialist or a communist. He wanted a dictatorship where he was close to the top and then figured out he could be the top. The joke is on us because we call every conservative Hitler because they spend on defense, and every liberal is Hitler because he wants to create social safety packages.

No president in my memory has truly been like Adolf Hitler, but it is a great scare tactic. No one has actually behaved as a fascist. I think that the closest that any president has come is when they overwhelm the minority congressional party. There are questionable act from congress that one may call fascist, but those were not done without a majority of congress. This is a fact to the best of my short research. I am not going to argue about Obama's executive orders, because those are worthless if there is no law to support that order.

The Donald has written executive orders that he says are based on existing laws, but that has been tenuous at best. I have concerns on some of these but I don't know if they actually are too far from the "supporting law". The Donald has focused on fear of Muslims and immigrants. Seriously, if you replace the word Muslim with Jew and his stance would be exactly Hitler's stance.

Hitler forced his party to stand behind him 100% or he would threaten to quit. His party was weak and terrified of losing their best speaker. <--does this sound familiar? It should, because that was The Donald's stance during the election, before he was nominated, when he threatened to start his own party.

Hitler loved to give speeches to his party, and actually preferred rallies because of mob psychology. He felt that people are more open to suggestion in groups and their faculties are actually impaired. The larger the crowd, the more suggestable the individuals became. The Donald is still campaigning passing truly "Fake News" to his followers that then regurgitate it. Then when they are caught in a lie they deflect and bring up something unrelated. He complains about the media to his crowds and demands that he is a victim and those people go out and argue for him.

The Donald is a full moustache Hitler cut out in this regard. A fascist dictator wannabe,  from what I can see. He may change but that is what has caused today's outrage. He is now cutting out any media outlet that doesn't paint him in a good light according to reports from the WSJ and NYTimes.

The Donald is actually what conservatives and liberals have accused each other of electing as long as I can remember. The Donald actually has many frightening similarities to Hitler and if he is not checked by congress he may, in an act that happened in a democratic Germany, dismiss the congress.

images taken from here

Charleston SC Town Hall Meeting 2017

Rep. Mark Sanford and Sen Tim Scott

"You're our last hope[...]" This is a statement to Rep. Mark Sanford (SC) about dealing with The Donald.

Town hall meetings that have been a big part of the news lately. There have been some great questions and statements that have been posed to the Republican representatives.

A person must be disheartened when the Charleston SC crowd groans over a woman asking about ACA issues and then screams "Change of subject!" and then attacks Sen. Tim Scott about The Donald. Tim Scott is then questioned about the nomination of Betsy Devos.

Tim Scott stated that he has always supported "school choice" as part of his platform. The problem is Senator, that just because you have a platform that a person generally supports it doesn't mean that the person supports all the parts of your platform. My question is "if your constituency disagrees with a part of your platform ,but not your whole platform, are they required to accept the faulty part of your platform or do you demand that they remove you, Senator Scott?"

The questions, from the video available, centered on Donald Trump impeachment, Betsy Devos and congress' lack of listening to constituency, and the ACA repeal.

I must say that Rep. Mark Sanford and Sen. Tim Scott carried themselves very well in the face of a hostile crowd. 

Senators and Representatives, I must agree that you are our last hope and we NEED you to be impartial. Republicans impeached Bill Clinton over adultery and said it was because he didn't represent the US citizens properly. Republicans said they WOULD impeach Hillary Clinton, if she were elected over her server. Now they have a Republican President that has an unsecured server and uses his unsecured phone, looks at official documents at an unsecured location, and has many implications of connections to a foreign country and uses his office to profit from the American people*.  Any one of these issues would stop a Republican congress in it's Tracks for a Democratic President, but congress is not willing to even probe a Republican President who has done so much to require a second look.


Friends, write your congressperson and let them know that it is important to you,if you agree. Let them know if you disagree.



*The secret service has to pay for rooms wherever the president or his family goes, in this case it is a Trump resort. Even if he has given up all his claim to the Trump empire, his family does profit from the American Public due to his office which is illegal according to the Justice Department