Month: August 2017

Donald Trump Finally Comes Out of the Closet

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The firing of Steve Bannon is in my opinion the most significant event to happen during the Trump administration thus far. Moreover, it will have massive reverberations across the U.S. political spectrum for years and years to come. I wasn’t planning on writing today, but this news is so incredibly significant I find myself with little choice.

Taking a step back, part of the reason I was immediately able to see through the Trump con was due to my upbringing in New York City. The guy was constantly in the news my entire life, so I had a pretty decent understanding of where he was really coming from and what makes him tick. The mindset of your typical NYC-based billionaire real estate developer is filled with all sorts of perspectives and priorities, but thoughts of populism are not amongst them.

Trump used populism to get elected, and then as soon as he won, immediately appointed some of the most destructive oligarchs imaginable to run his administration. The reason I warned about this incessantly at the time, is because I learned the lesson from the Obama administration. People = policy, and the people Trump was elevating were almost unanimously awful. Irrespective of what you think of Bannon, him being out means Wall Street and the military-industrial complex is now 100% in control of the Trump administration. Prepare for an escalation of imperial war around the world and an expansion of brutal oligarchy.

The removal of Bannon is the end of even a facade of populism. This is now the Goldman Sachs Presidency with a thin-skinned, unthinking authoritarian as a figurehead. Meanwhile, guess who’s still there in addition to the Goldman executives? Weed obsessed, civil asset forfeiture supporting Jefferson Sessions. The Trump administration just bacame ten times more dangerous than it was before. With the coup successful, Trump no longer needs to be impeached.

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Nazi Fears and ‘Hate Speech’ Hysteria are Being Amplified to Attack Civil Liberties

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It doesn’t take courage to denounce Nazism. Moreover, it appears many of the people incessantly proclaiming how anti-Nazi they are, happen to be the same folks who have the most to answer for when it comes to all sorts of transgressions against the world over the past couple of decades. That said, I’ll give my my quick two cents on the Nazi, white supremacist hysteria currently being amplified by the corporate media.

The general proclivity to obsess about how one’s group, whether it be a nation, political tribe, or race/religion is superior to all others represents such an immature and unconscious way of seeing the world, it’s really hard for me to believe so many people still see reality through such a lens. This type of thinking tends to attract very insecure people. People who cannot look at themselves individually and be proud of the person they see. As such, they scurry around looking for a group with an established superiority myth which they can then latch themselves onto in order to feel better about themselves.

The good news when it comes to Nazism/white supremacy, at least here in the U.S., is that most people appear to be at least conscious enough not to fall for the most basic and primal type of tribalism — i.e., finding a race-based superiority cult attractive. In contrast, the more nuanced superiority cults, such as those based on mindless nationalism or political identity, are far more entrenched here at home, and present a much greater danger to our future.

Before some of you lose it, I wrote “mindless” nationalism for a reason. I think it’s completely normal and healthy for everyone to love and appreciate their own national/regional culture, this is not what I’m referring to. I’m talking about the hordes of mindless automatons who simply fly the American flag and constantly profess their super-sized patriotism, while being completely unaware of the multitude of evil and anti-American actions being done both at home and abroad in their names. It doesn’t seem to matter to these types that their government is acting in total opposition to the Constitution they ostensibly claim to uphold. These people might be less shallow than a self-professed Nazi, but they are far more dangerous to decent, ethical Americans at home, and billions of innocent people abroad. Political party tribalists represent a similar threat, as I’ve discussed on many occasions.

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Americans are Rapidly Descending Into Madness

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I don’t live in an echo chamber, partly because there aren’t enough people out there who think like me, but also because I constantly and intentionally attempt to challenge my worldview by reading stuff from all over the political map. I ingest as much as I can from a wide variety of intelligent sources, picking and choosing what makes sense to me, and then synthesizing it the best I can.

Though I’m certainly grounded in certain key principles, my perspective on specific issues remains malleable as I take in additional information and perspectives. I try to accept and acknowledge my own ignorance and view life as a journey of constant mental, emotionally and spiritual growth. If I’m not growing my capacity in all of those realms until the day I die, I’m doing it wrong. Life should be seen as a battle against one’s own ignorance, as opposed to an obsession with the ignorance of others. You can’t legislate morality, nor can you legislate wisdom. The only way the world will improve on a long-term sustainable basis is if more of us get wise. That’s a personal journey and it’s our individual duty to accept it.

While I’m only in control of my own behavior, this doesn’t mean that the behavior of others is irrelevant to my life. Unfortunately, what I see happening to the population of America right now seems very troublesome and foreboding. What I’m witnessing across the board is hordes of people increasingly separating themselves into weird, unthinking cults. Something appears to have snapped in our collective consciousness, and many individuals I used to respect (on both sides of the political spectrum) are becoming disturbingly polarized and hysterical. People are rapidly morphing into radicalized mental patients.

What’s worse, this environment is providing a backdrop for the most destructive people of my lifetime — neoconservatives and neo liberals — to preen around on corporate media as “the voices of reason.” This is one of the most perverse and dangerous side-effects of the current political climate. As I noted earlier today on Twitter:

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Trump Administration Targets Data on 1.3 Million Americans for Visiting a Website

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There are two points I want to hammer home in today’s piece. First, we all need to accept that Donald Trump is not some sort of crazy aberration in U.S. politics, but rather basically just the ghastly continuation of the authoritarianism and militarism which has characterized our insane society since we experienced a civilization-wide mental breakdown following the attacks of 9/11.

I’ve written about this ongoing cultural insanity on many occasions, but most passionately in my 2013 piece, How I Remember September 11, 2001:

In the days following the collapse, all I wanted was for the towers to be rebuilt just like before. I wanted the skyline back to what I had know since the day I came into this earth at a New York City hospital to be restored exactly as I had always known it. Career-wise, I felt I should leave Wall Street. I thought about going back to graduate school for political science, or maybe even join the newly created Department of Homeland Security (yes, the irony is not lost on me). I read a lengthy tome on Osama Bin Laden and al-Qaeda. I was an emotional and psychological mess, and it was when I was in this state of heightened distress that my own government and the military-industrial complex took advantage of me.

It wasn’t just me of course. It was an entire nation that was callously manipulated in the aftermath of that tragedy. The courage and generosity exhibited by so many New Yorkers and others throughout the country and indeed the world was rapidly transformed into terrifying fear. Fear that was intentionally injected repeatedly into our daily lives. Fear that translated into pointless wars and countless deaths. Fear that was used to justify the destruction of our precious civil rights. Fear that was used to initiate a gigantic power grab and the source of tremendous profits for the corporate-statists and crony-capitalsits. Unfortunately, that is the greatest legacy of 9/11.

If you take an honest look at Trump, what you’ll see is an authoritarian goon building upon the more marketable authoritarianism that came before him in the persons of George W. Bush and Barack Obama. Many people thought that by electing Trump they would break the cycle, but the cycle is continuing with reckless abandon and will probably continue on its present course until the U.S. empire collapses on itself.

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A Few Thoughts on Charlottesville

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I’m going to keep this relatively short. I’ve written thousands of articles over the years, and anyone who’s read me for any period of time knows where I stand when it comes to hatred, bigotry and violence. I find all these things repulsive, and think people who gravitate to such behavior to be operating on such a low level of awareness, it’s genuinely hard for me to believe these people exist in real life.

I published my seminal piece discussing the repulsion I feel with today’s political environment back in February in the post, Lost in the Political Wilderness. Now’s a perfect time to reread that piece, but here’s an excerpt if you’re short on time:

I think the U.S. citizenry is being afflicted by a sort of mass insanity at the moment. There are no good outcomes if this continues. As a result, I feel compelled to provide a voice for those of us lost in the political wilderness. We must persevere and not be manipulated into the obvious and nefarious divide and conquer tactics being aggressively unleashed across the societal spectrum. If we lose our grounding and our fortitude, who will be left to speak for those of us who simply don’t fit into any of the currently ascendant political ideologies?

For those of you who consider yourselves to largely reside in the yellow state (2nd tier consciousness), I have one key message for you. There’s a very deliberate attempt to manipulate you into devolving back into one of the lower tiers. Likewise, there is a very deliberate attempt to prevent those on the cusp of higher consciousness from ever evolving. The reason is simple. The lower tiers are very tribal and easily divided and conquered. The higher tiers are not.

Unlike most people writing articles on Charlottesville, I’m not going to spend my time getting on a pedestal to prove to everyone how much I hate neo-Nazis. My contempt for bigotry and violence has been a constant theme throughout all my writings over the years. In contrast, the purpose of this piece is to try to knock some sense into people so that we don’t lose sight of the bigger picture. Let’s start by discussing a tweet I wrote earlier today.

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Liberty Links 8/12/17

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If you appreciate my work and want to contribute to independent media, consider becoming a monthly Patron, or visit our Support Page. Must Reads Why I Was Fired by Google (James Demore op-ed in The Wall Street Journal) A New Report Raises Big Questions About Last Year’s DNC Hack (Massively important story, The Nation) From College Indoctrination to Corporate … Read more

Understanding the Hysterical Reaction to the Google Memo Using Spiral Dynamics

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Today’s post is the final installment of a four part series on the Google memo and the various issues it’s raised regarding our cultural capacity for intelligent debate. I’ve also touched upon the very serious issue of Google’s expanding position as an integral and willing tool of U.S. imperial foreign policy, as well as its defense of oligarchy and status quo thinking at home.

Here are the first three parts, in case you missed them:

Part 1 — Why the Google Memo Brings Forward an Overdue Conversation

Part 2 — ‘The Firing’

Part 3 — Google: Search Engine or Deep State Organ?

Before I get started, I want to make something clear. I am entirely sympathetic to the fact that the Google memo justifiably made many women who work in the tech industry feel uncomfortable and anxious. While I’ve never worked in that field, I worked in the highly aggressive and male-dominated environment of Wall Street for a decade. That sort of culture can definitely make women feel left-out, awkward or worse. I do not deny that such problems exist in an industry dominated by one gender. Unfortunately, that very legitimate issue has become totally swamped in the public mind due to the hysterical, dishonest and illogical reactions by many to the Google memo.

Irrespective of what you think of the memo, it’s dangerous and counterproductive to start calling people names rather than engage in calm, intelligent debate. Certainly, James Damore could’ve done some things differently in the composition of his memo, but anyone who reads it can see he was trying to be fair and open-minded. I have no doubt that he was genuinely trying to have a conversation about an issue he identified at Google and feels passionately about. He wasn’t trying to make his colleagues feel anxious or uncomfortable. For that transgression he was demonized and fired. Are we already back to burning witches?

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Google: Search Engine or Deep State Organ?

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Today’s post should be read as Part 3 of my ongoing series about the now infamous Google memo, and what it tells us about where our society is headed if a minority of extremely wealthy and powerful technocratic billionaires are permitted to fully socially engineer our culture to fit their ideological vision using coercion, force and manipulation. For some context, read Part 1 and Part 2.

I struggled with the title of this piece, because ever since the 2016 election, usage of the term “deep state” has become overly associated with Trump cheerleaders. I’m not referring to people who voted for Trump, whom I can both understand and respect, I’m talking about the Trump cultists. Like most people who mindlessly and enthusiastically attach themselves to political figures, they tend to be either morons or opportunists.

Nevertheless, just because the term has been somewhat tainted doesn’t mean I deny the existence of a “deep state” or “shadow government.” The existence of networks of unelected powerful people who formulate and push policy behind the scenes and then get captured members of Congress to vote on it is pretty much undeniable. I don’t believe that the “deep state” is a monolithic entity by any means, but what seems to unite these various people and institutions is an almost religious belief in U.S. imperial dominance, as well as the idea that this empire should be largely governed by an unaccountable oligarchy of billionaires and assorted technocrats. We see the results of this worldview all around us with endless wars, an unconstitutional domestic surveillance state and the destruction of the middle class. These are the fruits of deep state ideology, and a clear reason why it should be dismantled and replaced by genuine governance by the people before they lead the U.S. to total disaster.

From my own personal research and observations, Google has become very much a willing part of this deep state, with Eric Schmidt being the primary driving force that has propelled the company into its contemporary role not just as a search engine monopoly, but also as a powerful and undemocratic tech arm of the shadow government.

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Why the Google Memo Brings Forward an Overdue Conversation – Part 2 (‘The Firing’)

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Today’s piece was originally supposed to be the second and last part of a short series on the Google memo, but in light of the author’s rapid termination, I’ve decided to add at least one other installment on the topic. As such, my analysis on how Spiral Dynamics fits into the whole drama will have to wait till another day.  

As everyone knows by now, Google went ahead and fired James Damore, the author of the now infamous memo on Google’s Ideological Echo Chamber. In yesterday’s piece I remarked about how shocked I was by the extraordinarily charged and hyperbolic language being used by so many of those who disagreed with what Mr. Damore wrote. Indeed, the language and mischaracterizations of the memo itself were so completely unhinged in many instances, it’s hard for me to believe that many of these people even read it in the first place.

First off, while I happen to agree with a lot of what he wrote, that’s besides the point. If you read the memo it’s obvious that the author went out of his way to avoid triggering people who are easily triggered. Whether or not you agree with the conclusions, it was written in a respectful and measured way. He goes out of his way to clarify what he’s saying so as not to be misunderstood Here are just a couple examples of what I mean:

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Why the Google Memo Brings Forward an Overdue Conversation – Part 1

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In Chinese philosophy, yin and yang describe how seemingly opposite or contrary forces may actually be complementary, interconnected, and interdependent in the natural world, and how they may give rise to each other as they interrelate to one another.

Fortunately, I spent most of the weekend blissfully unaware of the latest topics dominating the news cycle. As such, when I awoke this morning to get caught up, it became obvious that a “manifesto” written by a male Google employee had become a huge topic of conversation. Given the outrage associated with the document, I expected to read some downright awful and unconscionable things in it. That never happened.

Personally, I’m really glad this person wrote the manifesto. Not because I agree with everything he wrote and the way he delivered it, but because it hopefully will allow us to have a conversation on a topic that has spilt people into binary factions that resemble dogmatic religious sects. Before I get started, I want to make it clear that I understand how some people — particularly women in tech — many of whom unquestionably experience harassment and sexism, could feel isolated and offended by this document. I don’t work at Google, and have never worked at Google, so I have no basis on which to agree or disagree with what he wrote as it pertains to the company. Likewise, I have no informed opinion whether it’s true or false that coding at a high-level for a company at the scale of Google requires a higher concentration of masculine traits or not. For a contrary opinion to the Google document on that front, see the following: So, About This Googler’s Manifesto (for the record, I found most of that piece to be painful and preachy, but his point #2 is worth considering).

In contrast, the purpose of this post is to have a conversation about the belief that there are no observable biological differences between men and women at the population level, and that all observable differences are social constructs. I completely reject this assertion based on logic, history and life experience. That being said, the most productive way to talk about these differences is in the context of masculine and feminine energies. The acknowledgement and acceptance of these different energies has been discussed since the beginning of time, and really shouldn’t be controversial. It has always been acknowledged that feminine energies tend to be found in greater concentrations within the female population, while masculine energies tend to be more concentrated in males. These things aren’t just invented social constructs, they’ve always been a present and observable aspect of the human condition, which is why they’ve been discussed ad nauseam for thousands of years.

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