Given the events in America over the last two to three weeks with our January 6 Select Committee Hearings—another one today unexpectedly announced late yesterday—the Supreme Court’s extreme radical decisions into every American’s intimate privacy as well as disregard for public safety on so many levels, and finally their decision about public praying on a football field’s 50-yard line on public property at a public school’s campus, i.e. ‘favoring one religion over others,’ thus violating the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause… I thought Gary Numan’s song and lyrics below, from either side of the arguments, was terribly appropriate for this unprecedented time in U.S. government history. After reading and listening to his song, you might agree:
I could listen to you scream Pretty music to my ears I could listen to it all day If you want me to
I could talk about my world How you brought about ruin I could talk about your greed If you want me to
I could look into evil See a heart just like mine I could throw away reason If you want me to
I could walk into darkness Find the hole you crawled into I will be the intruder If you want me to
You can whisper your Lord’s prayer And pretend that it matters But don’t you wish you’d just listened more? You can hide in the shadows And pretend I won’t find you But don’t you wish you’d just listened more?
I could listen to more lies About promises you kept Will you walk on water Like you said you would?
I could make you my prisoner But you were dead man talking When you burned the oceans Like you said you would
You can beg for God’s mercy And pretend that He hears you But don’t you wish you’d just listened more? You can drown in your sorrow And pretend you were helpless But don’t you wish you’d just listened more?
This was always your one life I won’t pretend that it matters But don’t you wish you’d just listened more? This was always your one home I won’t pretend that I’ll miss you But don’t you wish you’d just listened more?
Share your thoughts and opinions below if you’d like, about Numan’s song or whatever else. I certainly have many of my own, but will reserve them, for now, unless otherwise required. Such dark days in this country now and ahead for the foreseeable future. Why are Originalists forcing us back to the 17th and 18th-centuries!? 🤦♂️
“I pledge allegiance to Lord Trump of the United Republicans of America, and to the MAGA for which He leads, one horde, under Trump, indivisible or death, in captivity or banishment, and mob-justice for all.”
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Now the previous Pledge of Allegiance, changed in 1954 by Republican President Eisenhower to include “under God,” is the pledge most of us Americans are familiar with today and memorized all through our elementary and middle school grades. Many may not know, however, that the Pledge of Allegiance went through another change in 1923 from the original pledge written by socialist minister Francis Bellamy (1855-1931).
After watching sworn testimony today by loyal, Conservative, life-long(?) Republicans who finally remembered late, late in tRump’s four-year term—too late really—their sworn oaths they vowed to uphold which includes the Constitution and its Laws, its legal, checked-and-rechecked and hence accurate elections representing our democracy in action, the eerie thought crossed my mind that the 68-year old Pledge of Allegiance might already be changed by and within the deluded tRump allies and supporters!
Admittedly, I have no proof of this claim as many loyal tRump-lawyers are testifying to the same in the seven (or more) January 6 Select Committee Hearings. Furthermore, with this blog-post I hope you found the humor in my political satire. 😁
Or in the bigger picture is it political satire? 🥺
Over the last two days or so my 82-year old Mom has been watching a steady dose of C-SPAN television. In the days leading up to these last two I have had to shut myself up in my bedroom when she ventures over to the FOXNews Channel. To me it is appalling the propaganda crap they peddle. She knows clearly how I feel about their blatant disinformation schemes. Therefore, maybe out of compassion, she feels bad about forcing her son into his room for hours as if being disciplined in time-out. 😄 Thus, I’m guessing the recent C-SPAN viewing.
This morning she was catching C-SPAN’s Washington Journal, Open Phones, Part 2. The topic was Should Mike Pence be considered not only a hero, but also a 2024 Republican Presidential Candidate. Nearly every single caller Greta Brawner took from Republicans, Democrats, and Independents—and it was some 15-16 total callers—never really called-in with their answers to those questions about Pence. They all simply wanted to vent their personal frustrations about the January 6 Committee Hearings and how atrocious life has currently become for average Americans since mid-February 2022. No surprise, the show descended into furious callers trashing either Dems or Repubs or Biden, Pence, and Trump. It is also worthy to note that all the callers sounded like they were 50–79 years of age, mostly on the elderly end of that age group.
The subject of what Mike Pence is today, what he was Jan. 4–6, 2021, and what he might be in the 2024 Elections was none of my concern or inkling of interest. What Kathleen Parker, columnist at The Washington Post opines about Pence is precisely what I personally think about his 3-days of doing his vowed Constitutional duty to protect our democratic elections compared to his dereliction of some 1,457-days of NOT doing that duty.
No, what utterly appalled and astonished me about every single caller, of all three various parties, and what they were bemoaning and ranting on and on about was how ALL of them kept singling out one man, one party, or oneoffice one branch as the sole cause of this nation’s current Constitutional threats and socioeconomic problems, mostly inflation, skyrocketed gas prices, and a stolen 2020 election.
People, elderly callers—granted most of them from the Southern states with Kentucky, California, and Maryland being outside of the Deep South—and anyone else who passed high school History & Social Studies (with state and federal government included), I have one simple question for your very simple minds:
When did our nation’s governmental system change from a Trias Politica model with Equal Separation of Powers… and into a Dictatorship ruled by One Man or Office!? When!?
For all Americans and non-Americans abroad, please, please, PLEASE read this definition of what it means to have a Trias Politica model consisting of Equal Separation of Powers with Checks and Balances on all three branches as advocated by French Renaissance philosopher Baron de Montesquieu and later ironed out by James Madison’s Federalist Papers then our six (6) Core Founding Fathers. Taken from the Bill of Rights Institute in Arlington, VA, it states:
In our system of separated powers, each branch of government is not only given a finite amount of power and authority but arrives at it through entirely different modes of election. Madison theorized that as it is the Constitution that grants each branch its power, honorable ambition that ultimately serves the highest interests of the people could work to maintain the separation. In other words, since Congress is not dependent on the presidency or the courts for either its authority or its election to office, members will jealously guard its power from encroachments by the other two branches and vice versa. For Madison, this organization of powers answered the great challenge of framing a limited government of separated powers: “first enabl[ing] the government to control the governed…and in the next place, obling[ing] it to control itself”.
James Madison,Federalist No. 51, 1788
from the Bill of Rights Institute
Now, what does the above, precisely articulated definition by Madison and Montesquieu implicitly spell out as well? Simple really. It means that if there are three branches of government with equal limited authority and responsibilities as well as commissioned to safeguard against abuse of authority or dereliction of their responsibilities, then no one branch is completely responsible for said abuses or dereliction. Nor do those three branches have the total authority or Carte Blanche to change its direction (popular or not) or its outcomes. In other words, since 1788 the successes or failures of the U.S. government has been and is ultimately shared by all three branches. There’s more.
Given the functions of the active legislative and executive branches with regard to publicly needed policies and laws or their refinements, and their intentions and outcomes, the legislative and executive bear more instant responsibility for the failures or successes, while the judicial branch merely checks, monitors, oversees, etc, on the sideline, if you will, the Constitutionality of enacted laws, orders, and policies. But never, in our 230+ years of governing history has our federal or 51-state governments been lead by a dictator, or one man! Never. To imply such an accusation or explicitly state such a rant is an erroneous, categorically wrong statement and is not based upon anything in our standing Constitution, Bill of Rights, or the 27 Amendments. Period.
The POTUS can never be fully blamed for America’s ills, nor can he or she be hoisted as the sole hero of our country’s glories and victories. He/She must have bipartisan help and support from both chambers of Congress, approval (or silence) from the Supreme Court, and more importantly… the general help and support of a good majority of the American people. Without those four components, no one man or President can accomplish great things. Furthermore, no one man or President can be entirely blamed for dismal disastrous outcomes either. As the great Benjamin Franklin once exclaimed during the birthing of our nation and its eventual Constitution:
“We must all hang together, or most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.”
benjamin franklin, philadelphia continental congress – 1776
Sadly, however, it has become glaringly obvious that America’s general population over the last 4-5 decades has been seriously deficient and undermined in learning and applying their civic educations. Rarely do I ever hear an average ordinary American—particularly in my home state of Texas—speaking, writing rants on social-media, or calling in on C-SPAN to show off their cunning expert knowledge about our Constitution and Trias Politica model as engineered by our Core Founding Fathers. Nine times out of ten they’re blabbering about what they know little or nothing about. It quickly becomes obvious when they all single out one office or one man.
This detrimental, lethal deficiency of civic education over the last 4-5 decades culminated on January 6th, 2021 with the seditious attack and coup on the Capitol, members of Congress, and democracy itself took place. It is appalling to listen to and read. It is incredibly dangerous to the survival of our Constitutional democratic Republic. Not only is this ignorance by too many ordinary (moderate?) Americans a ticking time-bomb, but when a Cult of Personality (dictator) uses that unfettered, emblazoned ignorance and channels it into continuous disinformation, lies, mob-rule or mafia-rule by its cult leader, followed by insurrection(?)… then Judge Michael Luttig’s stern warning about Trump, his allies, and his fanatical ignorant supporters as ‘a very real, clear and present danger‘ only scratches the surface of what precisely has been and is at risk. It is…
The dismantling, destruction, and total loss of our country’s democracy, maybe forever if ordinary Americans don’t get better educated and wise up fast to cultish subversions by the “one man” and his fanatical allies and supporters. Texas is likely too far gone by now due to multiple decades of apathy and shitty K-12 educations here.
Sunday, April 24th, I caught an exceptional interview on a global, international news-station that I found utterly resounding and spot-on with America’s recent dumbing-down of internet consumers. The interviewee was Johnathan Haidt, an American social psychologist, author, and Professor of Ethical Leadership at New York University Stern School of Business. Haidt also wrote an exceptional article on this subject for The Atlantic Magazine which I found poignantly true called, Why the Past 10 Years of American Life Have Been Uniquely Stupid: It’s not just a phase. He examines the uncanny similarity of an ancient Jewish biblical story with what James Madison, in 1786-1787 in Federalist No. 10, feared most about our Republic Democracy’s vulnerable, fragile Achilles’ Heel:
The story of Babel is the best metaphor I have found for what happened to America in the 2010s, and for the fractured country we now inhabit. […]
Babel is a metaphor for what some forms of social media have done to nearly all of the groups and institutions most important to the country’s future—and to us as a people.
jonathan haidt – The atlantic, april 2022
Jonathan Haidt further explains, the top five behemoth ‘Social-media companies [at the time] brought web-connected Americans into enhanced virality by 2009 to 2012 and deep into Madison’s nightmare.’ Madison’s prophetic knowledge of human nature was:
…the innate human proclivity toward “faction,” by which he meant our tendency to divide ourselves into teams or parties that are so inflamed with “mutual animosity” that they are “much more disposed to vex and oppress each other than to cooperate for their common good.”
jonathan haidt – the atlantic, april 2022
I have written a few blog-posts about this very topic and how it is a mystery to me, that ordinary internet-browsers seem to contract all too often Critical-thinking Amnesia once they get on social-media sites or the sensationalizing tabloid-news platforms known for conspiracy-theories and ill-repute, let alone spreading blatant misinformation. Suddenly their ability to think independently, question opinions or claimed facts or ideologies, or to do necessary fact-checking… just vanishes! Is it because we all desire confirmation bias? Are we afraid of what the real facts will be, challenging our tiny comfort-zones? Where did our U.S role-models and 1776 motto of E Pluribis Unum go?
A quick list of those posts before I continue to The Atlantic’s link to Jonathan Haidt’s article…
QAnon & Mass Digital Radicalization (borrowed from Lisa Schirch, a Senior Research Fellow for the Toda Peace Institute, Senior Fellow with the Alliance For Peacebuilding)
In a November 2019 issue of The Atlantic, Haidt wrote another equally exceptional article with Tobias Rose-Stockwell called The Dark Psychology of Social Networks: Why it feels like everything is going haywire. There is a link from the first Haidt webpage to this one with Rose-Stockwell. I highly recommend both articles, in any order.
But gradually, social-media users became more comfortable sharing intimate details of their lives with strangers and corporations. As I wrote in a 2019 Atlantic article with Tobias Rose-Stockwell, they became more adept at putting on performances and managing their personal brand—activities that might impress others but that do not deepen friendships in the way that a private phone conversation will.
Once social-media platforms had trained users to spend more time performing and less time connecting, the stage was set for the major transformation, which began in 2009: the intensification of viral dynamics.
jonathan haidt – the atlantic, april 2022
So here’s the link to Jonathan Haidt’s Why the Past 10 Years of American Life Have Been Uniquely Stupid. When you’ve read it, or both articles, feel free to share your own thoughts, point-of-view, or questions to startup a discussion. Hopefully a discussion of how we can better manage these private social-internet platforms without violating our Constitution’s First Amendment of free-speech—that is…while simultaneously upholding (in the public sectors) the legal accountability and any criminal/civic Accessory charges upon the (free-)speaker or writer. These are called Speech Crimes. After all, it is the latter case that most Americans forget or are ignorant of their own Constitutional laws.
A “free-speaker,” under our said comprehensive, federal Constitution, must be held responsible for what she/he publicly proclaims. Otherwise, defamation, threats, inciting violence, or obscenities can (and often do) run rampant without consequences. This is, in my opinion, a large untreated cancer that exacerbates our current U.S. sociopolitical stupidity, as Haidt puts it, and fuels our sinking into “factions” and severe polarization of which Haidt alludes and eerily James Madison foretold.
Live Well – Love Much – Laugh Often – Learn Always
“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”
― Sun Tzu, The Art of War
Yes, the title is correct: wordfare instead of warfare. It is intended to describe a commander’s art of non-warfare against a lethal, attacking enemy while diverting your country’s cannon-fodder by way of lies and deception to preserve your own self-interests and life. This was the true objective revealed by February 2020.
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The magnitude of Tzu’s wisdom regarding war cannot be overestimated. Nor should it be underestimated. Prior knowledge of your enemy is so advantageous, so monumental for survival, and so utterly imperative really if one can better prepare for a war you could lose, and yet cannot avoid. As a Commander, being acutely naïve, unprepared, and refusing private counsel while acting in or portraying arrogance to your people, the timeless Sun Tzu says “you will succumb in every battle.” You will cost your country dearly in lives, resources, and hasten your defeat, or at least leave your nation dangerously exposed or irreparably weak.
Imagine for a moment you are the Supreme Commander of your nation’s advanced forces. They are formidable and at your disposal. They include not only traditional, highly-trained army, naval, and aerial units equipped with the most sophisticated weaponry available, but are also supported by an equally formidable intelligence, counter-intelligence and communication groups. All of these forces are made possible by your very advanced, domestic manufacturers in science technology, materials, research and development, and their various expert staffs. A cumulative force to be reckoned with, no doubt.
Would these exceptional resources offer you a level of security, confidence, and a fighting chance? They should, especially if you already know war is coming.
“It is a matter of life and death, a road either to safety or to ruin. Hence, it is a subject of inquiry [and preparation] which can on no account be neglected.”
Sun Tzu, The Art of War
Throughout history there have been many well-known, successful strategies and proven concepts for waging war. Though Sun Tzu’s work, known as The Art of War, is over 2,500 years old, it is referenced and often utilized in today’s conflicts by the shrewdest military leaders and their cunning foreign diplomats alike. One might say The Art of War, or The Art of Avoiding War, is common knowledge within the halls of command centers and their governments.
The causes and events leading up to war can and usually do present a defendant a critical window of time to prepare. In this initial window one can mobilize domestic resources and inventories as well as organize a preliminary defense, provided no surprise attack(s) wipes out all means of your opposition. A few widely known examples of emergency readiness strategies include:
DIME(FIL) – The elements of national power diplomacy, information, military, and economics, often included are financial, intelligence, and law enforcement (see MIDLIF).
OODA loop – Decision-making occurs in a recurring cycle of observe-orient-decide-act. An entity (whether an individual or an organization) that can process this cycle quickly, observing and reacting to unfolding events more rapidly than an opponent, can thereby “get inside” the opponent’s decision cycle and gain the advantage.
Weinberger-Powell Doctrine – eight questions that must be answered affirmatively before military action can be taken by the U.S., that is if not surprise attacked. This doctrine will be referenced later.
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“If ignorant both of your enemy and yourself, you are certain to be in peril.”
Sun Tzu, The Art of War
With the above few models, concepts, and strategies for waging war introduced, I want you to return to imagining yourself as a Supreme Commander. You have just received a High-Priority Intelligence wire about an impending attack on your nation and civilians. The communique reads:
28 OCTOBER, 2019, 8:17AM EST
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENCE: INDO-PACIFIC COMMAND
By combining disparate lines of evidence, our intelligence committee and agents were able to put a time-stamp of an imminent threat of mid-October 2019 circulating and organized in the Hubei province of China and Wuhan. By December 2019 this threat will escalate into a scaled attack on the United States' Ports of Entry by mid-January 2020, progressing into a full-scale offensive of lethal, unacceptable proportions by April 2020 or earlier.
URGENT! MAKE ALL PREPARATIONS POSSIBLE IMMEDIATELY!
As Supreme Commander of your nation and the avowed sworn protector of your people, what would you do? What would Sun Tzu do or any other of history’s greatest commanders? Act or remain lethargic? Alarm or panic your people by publicly speaking without first confirming the facts? What are the forecasted consequences of immediate action or idle inaction?
WAR WITHOUT CASUALTIES?
Let’s flip roles. Now, imagine for a moment you are the aggressor, the attacking enemy upon the United States. Become your enemy so that you can anticipate their maneuvers and objectives. Find your enemy’s worst weakness, exploit it and without being discovered in so doing. What does the 2,500+ year old treatise by Sun Tzu recommend doing to expedite victory with minimal losses to your people and forces?
“The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.”
Sun Tzu, The Art of War
Would it be possible to defeat your enemy without fighting or while fighting, sustaining no casualties from your ranks? How might a feat that remarkable be pulled off?
Quick Disclaimer: Before I continue I want to make clear that I am in no way promoting any sort of conspiracy theory from this blog-post. I am merely proposing What If’s in the historical context of warring nations while examining and inquiring how best to wage war on your enemy. But precisely what I am denouncing in real-time from actual real events, I will soon reveal below.
The history of warfare is replete with victorious tactics and methods of the most sinister kind. From the 14th-century BCE Hittites to the 4th-century BCE Scythians, the 1st-century BCE Carthaginians and the Romans, the 14th-century CE Mongols and the 18th-century CE Russians, to the 19th-century Germans in World War I, biological warfare has been employed by combatants. A host of these diabolical tactics, many known and some unknown and unconfirmed, have been used with devastating effectiveness. And they were used with minimal-to-no casualties for the attacker. For the most inhumane, immoral, and bloodthirsty tyrant, that is a blueprint for victory indeed; victory at any cost by any means.
“Attack is the secret of defense; defense is the planning of an attack. Attack him where he is unprepared, appear where you are not expected.”
Sun Tzu, The Art of War
Attack your enemy where he is most unprepared, appear where he least expects, and where he is most vulnerable. In early 1941 when Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto of the Imperial Japanese Navy designed the attack on Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Hawaii, Yamamoto followed Sun Tzu’s three principles above.
By accomplishing all three objectives in a surprise attack 11-months later, Yamamoto and Imperial Japan crippled America’s ability to stop or significantly oppose Japan’s South Asian and Pacific expansions until mid-1942. The loss of military and civilian lives on Dec. 7, 1941 were heavily lopsided: 64 Japanese personnel to 2,335 U.S. personnel and 68 American civilians lost. Over 1,100 Americans were seriously wounded.
When World War II officially ended, the total number of fatalities for the United States topped out at approximately 420,000 dead. The amount of lives lost from all involved warring nations and the civilian bystanders caught in the cross-hairs was astronomical by any standards. But I want to reiterate American losses: 420,000 killed. All of them premature, obviously. Think about that for a minute. Thousands upon many thousands killed were only teenagers, multitudes signed up without their mom’s or dad’s permission, with 60-70 more years ahead to live a life.
“When one treats people with benevolence, justice, and righteousness, and reposes confidence in them, the army will be united in mind and all will be happy to serve their leaders’.”
Sun Tzu
Imagine what Congress and President Franklin D. Roosevelt considered and knew too well would be the cost in American lives? The untold damage for families was felt for the next two or three generations to come. Children raised by one parent and perhaps the eldest sister; brothers old enough to fight were gone, many never to return.
The U.S. economy in wartime was fragile at best. There was no guarantee our Federal Reserve would hold out to the end, especially in the first two or three years of fighting, much less our civilian population. My family still has my father’s boyhood wartime rations card and stamps for all 1942 American civilians when they went to grocery, supply stores and other merchants. My Mom told me one day that Dad spoke modestly about how difficult the rationing was and on occasion he and his family of seven simply went without, sometimes for several months. But in order to win the war they had to and did it gladly.
Today, generations removed from a world war, we take for granted these American luxuries and abundance without any thought or gratitude as if we’re entitled royalty. In truth we don’t need so much lavishness to survive. In fact, when we do not or cannot get this opulent overabundance, I’d say we’ve demonstrated too often self-absorbed ugliness coming out in childish tantrums. We revolt, spit foul-mouthed insults, even become barbaric to our fellow Americans and leaders with little, if at all, civility, understanding, respect, or dignifying collaboration during national crises.
[There] “is a third strategy that States might employ to increase their relative power. This strategy involves causing two rivals to engage into a protracted [fight or] war, so that they bleed each other white, while the Baiter remains on the sideline, its military strength intact.”
John J. Mearsheimer – The tragedy of great power politics
In November and December 2019, however, America was not in a world war per se. It was to be a different type of war, and a “war” we had already waged numerous times before. The most costly of them was from February 1918 to April 1920. Much more, our enemy today warned us they were coming and would assault us by January 2020. Even more staggering, our enemy told us how they were going to attack!
To the severe detriment and death of ordinary, hardworking Americans this early announcement of war, biological war, came during the 2020 election year. As a result, hundreds of thousands of ordinary Americans’ safety and health were ignored, jeopardized, sacrificed, dead bodies of all ages turned into a number, then tossed aside—too many unable to be with dying loved ones in ICU—merely for political, ideological gains and one Party’s election campaign.
INCOMPETENCE REDEFINED
Now for the denouncements (D-x).
(D-1) Of all the forty-six United States Presidents, there stands only one who by most standards of foreign and domestic statesmanship, failed miserably to uphold not just the Constitution, but the Executive office’s sworn duties and responsibilities (oath) to the American people: Donald J. Trump. And there is one crucial measuring stick to be first applied: How many Americans were killed by the biological enemy’s relentless attack during Trump’s Administration?
From an initial broadstroke perspective, let’s examine the numbers. As of January 20, 2021, the date Trump officially left/lost the White House Oval Office, the cumulative COVID-19 deaths were 424,401 per the CDC, typically lower, delayed numbers than reported by other health organizations like Worldometer.info and others. However, when President Joe Biden took office, after 15-months of finally fighting back against enormous odds—in several cases not able to fight back offensively as one unified nation—America was still woefully unprepared, disorganized, and dragging its feet to counter-attack the biological enemy that had invaded our ports of entry as early as Jan. 13th in Chicago, IL. Later, the enemy was confirmed in nation Jan. 21, 2020 in Snohomish, WA, then Chicago, IL, Orange Co. LA and Santa Clara Co., CA, and Maricopa County, AZ all before February 1st. Therefore, how many American deaths should be fairly attributed to Biden’s charge at the helm?
Making the preposterous claim that more Americans have been killed by COVID during Biden’s Presidency than during Trump’s is not only wrong, but does not take into account all variables and factors involved during a campaign election year. This was followed by an uncooperative, belligerent transition from the old to a wholly new Administration. In fact, suggesting this claim would be like saying President Harry Truman single-handedly lead us to victory over Japan and Nazi Germany in 1945. It’s absurd. Only incompetent fools would count Truman as our heroic WWII president or Biden the killer of 337,480+ Americans. Read the facts-checked here.
[War, or being prepared for war] is a matter of life and death, a road either to safety or to ruin. Hence it is a subject of inquiry which can on no account be neglected. […]
Sun Tzu, The Art of War
(D-2) Earlier in the post I bulleted the Weinberger-Powell Doctrine. Within this doctrine are eight Sun Tzu “deliberation questions,” if you will, that must be answered affirmatively before military action can be taken by the U.S. This doctrine of deliberations outlines how to respond to a national security threat, in this case COVID-19. It’s considerations should have taken place at the nation’s highest levels preferably by mid-November 2019 and reasonably no later than December 2019. With answers following the eight deliberations are:
Did we have a clear attainable objective? YES, it was self-evident.a) To at least slow the death-rate of Americans as significantly as possible by b) preliminary and necessary pandemic mandates, while c) researching then determining a medically safe vaccine(s), d) expediting its speedy distribution to all Americans, and e) disseminating singular, factual information about #a–d in order to stop, repel, and eradicate this biological enemy.
Were the risks and costs fully and frankly analyzed? NO.As of Jan. 31, 2020, when President Trump took his first (inadequate) action by only denying foreign nationals entry into the U.S. who had traveled to China 2-weeks prior, the risks and full costs of a prolonged biological war were in full swing and devastating, hence, not frankly or realistically analyzed.
Were all other non-violent policy means [e.g. in this case PPE’s for frontline health & emergency workers, at the very least] fully exhausted? NO.Manufacturing capacities of PPE’s would’ve easily met demand.
Was there a plausible exit strategy to avoid endless entanglement? NO.By early 2021 the CDC and DHHS determined at least one follow-up booster shot would be required, possibly 2-3 more if the COVID virus was allowed to perpetuate and mutate into variants.
Were the consequences of our action fully considered? NO.See Trump disinformation slideshow below.
Is the action supported by the American people? MIXED.Due to inconsistent federal to individual state leadership & statesmanship regarding #2a, b, d, and e above, as well as highly polarized political rhetoric, about 163-million Americans chose indifference and/or passivity to the enemy’s invasion.
Did we have genuine broad international support? YES, OVERWHELMINGLY. However, because of #2 thru #7 it did not matter until February 2021, much too late.
The final Weinberger-Powell Doctrine scorecard for Jan. 20, 2021 and the outgoing Administration reads “An Unmitigated Disaster,” obviously. To confirm simply talk to any of the 424,400+ surviving American family-members of their premature loss(es) of loved one(s) or pandemic ER/ICU nurses to affirm this final score. The stories are gut-wrenching. One example from November 25, 2020:
Furthermore, in relation to #2-e above, these were the reports Trump was disseminating to Americans on how the biological invasion and war was progressing. From my Nov. 2020 blog-post Delusional Incompetence; notice the dates of egregious disinformation:
(D-3) This all could have been made less devastating, so less deadly had immediate action by a declaration of war been made and all available resources mobilized. Instead, the total death-toll to date of American cannon-fodder, insolent indifference, and initial inaction and continued inadequate half-measures (or less) by the former President and his Administration is in context of American lives, prematurely (to put mildly) and unnecessarily lost, unthinkable and glaring:
The unnecessary reality of inaction, incompetence, and human loss.
(D-4) Since 1884 all U.S. Presidents, Vice-Presidents, Senators, H-Representatives, and other federal employees serving Americans take this sworn oath and promise We the People to abide by and fulfill them. Most all Presidents of Crises have served Americans with honor, distinction, and statesmanship (see the C-SPAN network 2021 Lincoln Forum’s Wartime Leadership – Lincoln & FDR and Abraham Lincoln’s Statesmanship for exact definition) in accordance to this Presidential Oath of Office:
“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.”
“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
That Constitution is for the People, all Americans, is the law of the land for all U.S. citizens and its employees, and therefore by implication denotes the same protection and defense for every U.S. citizen, all ages, all ethnicities, all creeds, all socioeconomic classes without exception. By this measuring stick former President Trump also failed miserably. He was unequivocally derelict in his duties he vowed to uphold on Jan. 20, 2017 at his inauguration.
“Rouse him, and learn the principle of his activity or inactivity. Force him to reveal himself, so as to find out his vulnerable spots. […]
Sun Tzu, The Art of War
BAIT & BLEED REVISITED
(D-5) Returning finally to the military concept of what Mearsheimer coined as baiting, bleeding out, or bloodletting, imagine once again you were the enemy aggressor on the United States. According to Sun Tzu and Mearsheimer, one subtle method of collapsing or weakening your enemy with minimal losses to your forces would be to pit, to radicalize and polarize your enemy’s inner factions against each other. For a prime example, divide (extremist) Republicans and (progressive) Democrats so fiercely that the U.S. as a whole cannot be of one mind, one objective to win the war. As the popular cliché goes, a house divided against itself cannot stand.
By pitting Americans against Americans, as the enemy aggressor you win over half the battles or better, and win the war. This tactic of Americans killing Americans (via biological virology) would make Sun Tzu and any prolific general, past or present, foaming at the mouth green with envy!
For all the arrogant incompetence we’ve endured, the wordfare vs. warfare, and indifferent inaction, we the American people, who put the historically worst leader into the White House from Jan. 2017 to Jan. 2021, beyond any doubt are suffering and have suffered the worst calamity, the worst socioeconomic impacts dominoed into every sector of our lives. Thus, it is the worst ongoing defeat in our nation’s two centuries of history. We were baited and blead by our own leader. And as if it could not be any worse, today that incompetent leader still cares less about our rising death-toll and might, just might weasel back into office because some 74-million Americans cannot distinguish between or recognize the manifestations and deceit of a megalomaniac versus exceptional statesmanship.
I have zero expectation that anything I ever say will end someone’s belief in their God. Not my goal or purpose. That alone belongs to the individual. ~ Zoe
'Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it' - Terry Pratchett
The Professor's Convatorium 