Tag Archives: Politics

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Failure due to lack of vision is not solved by panicked action

In Revenge of the Jedi, as the Emperor is instructing Luke in the arts of religious politics, he informs Luke that he’ll, “pay the price for your lack of vision”. And then proceeds to shock his body with computer generated electricity. Of course at that point, the Emperor had about three minutes to live. So it would appear he was the guy without vision. And just as the arrogant Emperor believed he owned everything, but actually had no vision, so it goes for the current and previous emperors of America.

Since 2003 every single American leader in major power has had a substantial lack of foresight. Please note the equal application of failure from Bush, Obama, and all their underlings. As we’ve discussed, each side is attempting to now blame the other in order to sharpen their political swords. What does this matter to the rest of the world? If America has failed, then America has failed. A refugee in Mosul does not care about the midterm elections.

Both presidents botched this war. Place blame however you want. It’s irrelevant right now. It’s just noise for the media. But what I find amusing is the various actions proposed to solve the problem at hand. The two sides that bungled their actions and created this mess are now racing toward the funeral with their various solutions. Hey assholes, you all screwed this up in the first place. Why should anybody listen to your arrogant wisdom on how you’ll sweep up your own mess?

Here is what each side would say if they were honest with themselves, the people, the planet, and reality:

– Bush, Supporters, Etc

“We’re sorry. We tried to fight war on the cheap and fast. We had no concept of history, time, and reality. Once we discovered how large the task was, we lied to the world about our power, capability, and will. Instead of mobilizing the entire might of America to save Iraq after we broke it, we asked our citizens to go shopping while 0.6% of the population carried the burden of war for over a decade. We treated them like heroes even though we were asking them to fight the war alone because we were too cowardly to tell the rest of the country what it would take to win. We failed to explain to our nation that in order to succeed, we’d have to remain in Iraq for fifty years and spend trillions. We demanded the other side continue our war even as we still were intellectually dishonest with America about just what it would entail to win said war. When the other side actually ended the war, we rightly predicted disaster, but generally kept our mouths shut because we didn’t want to alienate an electorate that fully supported an end to American participation. Now that Iraq as collapsed, for political purposes we’re going to spin it as a disaster the other side created even though no American actually cares or wants anything to do with Iraq anymore.”

– Obama, Supporters, Etc

“We’re sorry. Most of us, except for our current leader, supported this war from the start because we knew we’d win. And America loves winners. So we wanted to be winners too. But then we realized we were losing. And we discovered, like our counterparts, just how hard this was going to be. So in a wind of cynicism and hypocrisy we changed our minds and began to lie and obfuscate how much we were in favor of this fight at the beginning. When we got power, we had no choice but to end the war because we’d won power opposing its continuance and because our people asked for it. We knew we’d take the risk of breaking Iraq by leaving, but we didn’t care. We just needed to end the war. And we tried to spin it as a victory for our own political advantage even though any rational person would know it wasn’t actual victory. We gave America what it wanted, and now America is shouting at us because we lost Iraq. Well, what did you expect? We knew what we were doing when we ended it. This is what happens. Go back to shopping and shut your mouths while we attempt to blame the folks who started this war to cover ourselves. Even though we know we ended it wrong, we don’t care. And you know what, in their hearts, neither does any American.”

So now these gangs of idiots are going to solve this somehow. With what? Airstrikes, Maliki’s removal, support from Iran, space-based-death-rays? Whatever. Any solution that either side has offered this last week will fail. Because they all contain a lack of vision. You cannot fix Iraq with panicked short term actions. That kind of next sound bite leadership is what created this disaster in the first place.

Both sides are led by losers who gooned this up. The American citizen does not actually care about Iraq because they were never asked to invest anything in its future. Does that mean the best answer is to do nothing? Well, no. Very little bad can come from American jets sending the incinerated remains of ISIS members into the stratosphere. And talking to Iran, who’s the real power in Iraq right now, is probably not the worst of ideas since they’re the only country in it to win it. 

But I guess my point here is don’t expect results. The guys who created this mess aren’t going to fix it with short term choices. Iraq was a basketcase before 2003, it still is now, and it’ll be so ten years from now. Accept it, calm down, and make the best of this awful situation. But don’t demand real answers. Not from these leaders. Not from either side.

In the end this is all a growing trend for the world to observe. America, under the leadership of either half of the political spectrum, with this current citizenry, is no longer a reliable power. Military and economic might is nothing if it’s not backed by a cohesive strategy, principled leadership, a distinct vision, and a population with the will to take long term action. Lots of people on the planet will favor this new world order and be glad that America’s out of effective play. But I suspect if you live in Donetsk, Tbilisi, Riga, Manila, Osaka, Tunis, or Mosul, that you don’t. Whether you admit it or not.

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Two leaders unfit for war

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This is what it looks like when history overcomes the actions of man

Sometimes what you do just doesn’t matter. Sometimes what whole countries do, or even the entire planet does, just doesn’t matter. Folks occasionally refer to this as the ‘great wheel’. History takes over or chaos reigns.

Because when people aren’t serious, lunacy gets to run wild. By any definition, Maliki, America, the UN, your next door neighbor, you, me, were not serious about Iraq. And so history got to work its magic. Enjoy it, we all own it.

At first I considered the possibility that Maliki was allowing ISIS to seize significant portions of Iraq so he could effectively divest himself of the majority Sunni lands. Then he could keep Baghdad, the majority Shiite lands, and build his own Shiite super state. What does he need the northwest for anyways? There’s hardly any oil, a bunch of Sunnis who he hates live there, and so on.

Yet today I’m confronted with the reality that Maliki isn’t playing a game. He’s actually completely powerless. The withdrawal or desertion of Iraqi forces is not part of a broader devious plan. They’re actually losing. Maliki does not have a functioning army under his command. How do I know this? Because the Kurds took Kirkuk today and didn’t fire a shot.

If you know anything about Iraq the last few years, it’s that if Iraq was going to descend into civil war, it was to be over Kirkuk. There’s oil there. And the autonomous Kurds and Baghdad were literally ready to trade tank rounds over it. One of the top three reasons everybody thought the Americans needed to stay was to ensure the Kurds and Shiites didn’t kill each other over Kirkuk. The Americans were the neutral party.

So if Maliki isn’t able to hold Kirkuk, he’s truly in trouble. Thus, observe one of history’s great lessons, once again on display. When you turn a reasonable standing army into a tribal militia where merit and training are replaced by religion and politics? Don’t be surprised when a battalion runs away from sixteen guys in four pickup trucks.

So what’s going to happen? ISIS isn’t going to seriously tangle with the Kurds because their forces are fairly good. Maliki is likely to hold Baghdad because ISIS just doesn’t have the firepower or manpower to overcome even the seriously degraded Iraqi Army. But the Shiites aren’t going to be able to retake the northwest, even if they wanted to.

So the Kurds will get their fully autonomous state in the north, with Kirkuk. Maliki will get his Shiite state in the southeast with Baghdad. And the Sunnis will get the northwest and be left to rot, under ISIS lunatics or anybody else who has enough guns to hold it.

So finally, after all these years, after all the war and death, after all the back room diplomacy, Iraq is finally divided into three parts.

In other words, every single action post 2003 is now a failure.

Who’s to blame? Well, I’ll probably write about that later. But don’t listen to idiots who are already telling you they had it figured out back in 2003 or 2005 or 2009 or 2011. It did not have to end this way even after it started or was changed. Folks who have an axe to grind are going to use this to push their politics, one side or the other. But in general, the answer for who’s to blame is:

Everybody

Everybody had a hand in this. So for right now, who cares? The question currently on offer is what’s to be done about this? I could answer that, but for right now, who cares? Why? Because the real answer is that the world’s going to do nothing. Nothing. Everybody’s going to watch Iraq burn. So since we’re going to do nothing, why even talk options. Let’s just sit back and observe the great wheel doing its thing. Enjoy it, the whole world owns it.

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This man’s face and this scene have occurred in Iraq seventeen times since the dawn of man

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We are thankful that others are starting to learn

We’ve written about this before.  You are commanded upon pain of torture to observe and join the cause.  Or just watch the video and let Oliver help you learn.  Either way.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/fpbOEoRrHyU?rel=0

john_oliver

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Nobody is capable of fixing this mess

We can get overly focused on the man in charge.  Yes, they’re the face of an organization and the one calling the shots.  But many times, a department’s performance is beyond the capabilities and judgment of one man.

The focus now shifts to who the new boss will be.  Well, I’ve got news for you folks, it’s irrelevant.  Whoever’s next, the result is the same.  If Eric Shinseki can’t fix the VA, nobody can.  You will never find a more experienced, mature leader guided by such integrity.  The problem isn’t Shinseki, the problem is the VA.

Consider some numbers that illustrate the level of the problem:

VA

$153B for 312K employees caring for 9M patients

National Health Service

$183B for 1.7M employees caring for 63M patients

Now somebody smarter than I could probably explain why this comparison is not equivalent.  There’s probably some concept I’m missing.  But at the base level these numbers still tell the core story.  The VA is a bloated dysfunctional bureaucracy.

Just changing the person at the top won’t alter things.  Pumping more money into the budget won’t either.  Only two things can correct this situation:

a)  Completely change the VA’s organization, mandate, budget into something different

b)  Completely change the way government employees are managed

In any reasonable world the VA is a bankrupt entity that should have died and been rebuilt into something better decades ago.  But this is government and government can’t go bankrupt.  Yet without creative destruction this mess will just go on.  Kill it and then rebuild it.

Or you have to start treating government employees differently.  The folks who have ruined the VA lack integrity, efficiency, and value because they exist in a system that does not reward talent, merit, and performance.  That so many senior VA officials have turned out as corrupt, incompetent fools should not surprise anybody.  You get the people your organization generates.

Will Congress and the public even consider options (a) and (b)?  Probably not.  They’re too hard and controversial.  So don’t be surprised in a decade when everything’s the same.

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This man has to go back to the VA next month for his checkup

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Things are returning to normal, but they shouldn’t

Nobody wants to live in a state of perpetual crisis; to get pounded every single day in the head with awful reality.  So Uncle Vlad has sounded rather charitable lately.  And so do his Western counterparts.  Now that the drama’s subsided, everybody wants to get back to normal.  Vlad’s backed Ukrainian elections, pulled some troops away, and didn’t resort to screaming like the lunatic he is when Prince Charles called him exactly what he is.

By the way, you have to applaud Charles for speaking the truth and the not backing down.  When you see how the three big men of British politics responded, you affirm quite a lot of who they really are:

Cameron:  The Prince… “…everyone is entitled to their private opinions.”

Clegg:  The Prince… “…free to express himself.”

Miliband:  The Prince… “…has got a point.”

Which is to confirm that Cameron remains the hack-fraud everybody thinks he is; Clegg is still a vacuum-sealed-lifeform-in-a-suit; and Miliband, for all his many, many faults is still a democrat at heart and has the admirable quality of telling everybody what he really thinks.  Even if telling everybody what he thinks usually gets him in trouble.

But it’s okay you tart Brits.  You’re not the only ones led by a walking corpse.  Monsieur Hollande still can’t bring himself to not sell amphibious assault ships to Vladimir.  Apparently because he says that once you sign contracts, they are sacred.  Oh, I get it.  So Vlad can violate international law and multiple signed treaties but the French will be damned if they break a single contract.  This is to say that Vlad could invade Poland and burn Warsaw to the ground.  But as long as it doesn’t lead to the loss of five-hundred union jobs in Saint-Nazaire, Hollande would respond, “Meh, [French shrug] what can you do?”

Vlad is not happy with Charles.  For once he almost seems to whine just a little.  He doesn’t like being compared to one of history’s greatest monsters.  But they’re essentially the same kind of guy.  Except that Vlad has a much lower body count and is in the end rather less successful in achieving his goals up front.  But Charles is right and both Vlad and Hitler see Europe the same way.  Unfortunately for us all, there’s no Churchill or de Gaulle waiting in the wings to turn things around.  And so this will go on and on.

Everybody in our blessed Western establishment governments and businesses want things to go back to normal.  The West needs Russia for gas, for oil, for cash, on Syria, Iran, Afghanistan transport links, nuclear proliferation, and about sixteen other major actions.  But to push Ukraine to the side and get back to normal in the pursuit of these goals misses the gravity of the damage Putin has recently wrought to the West and the world order it claims to represent.  This one you can’t let slide.

In two weeks Vlad shows up to the Normandy commemorations of 06 June.  Oh, yeah, if you didn’t know, Hollande has not withdrawn the invitation.  So in two weeks all the “leaders” of the West are going to stand side-by-side with a leader who’s just recently gone against everything those who fought at Normandy stood for.

They’re going to let him get away with it because they think they need him.  They require his Russia so they can get back to normal.  They might as well kidnap five Ukrainians off the street, take them to Sword Beach, and urinate on them atop an old Nazi coastal gun box.  And while they’re at it, walk over to the cemetery and spit on the graves of the fallen.  It’s the same as standing next to Putin after what’s happened.  It’s a disgrace.

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“Well Vlad, you have to know, you’re a filthy Hitler shit.”

“Yeah, and what are you going to do about it, pig?!”

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Trust the gun wielding goon with your freedom, what could go wrong?

I have this idea of a bunch of drunk cavemen leaders discussing whether or not to establish an army to liquidate the residents of a neighboring cave. They vote to do it. Then the next morning the leaders all wake up to find the general they elected to command their new cave army has launched a coup. He beheads them all and then doesn’t attack the neighboring cave after all.

Who needs an army anyways? Well, I guess Ukraine, probably Vietnam, and all those Baltic states who will soon become Russian provinces while NATO discusses what minor tool of Putin to sanction. But mostly, I think the planet’s countries don’t need armies. Throughout history, most armies only battle their own people. I’m certain we’ve got more coups than wars on the books.

Why has Thailand needed an army since 1932? They’ve had twelve coups. But the only times it was really needed against say Imperial Japan or to hedge Communist Vietnam, they never really fought. So by my count the only battle the Thai army has ever truly engaged in was against its own people. Maybe the Thai should only have cops instead. It’d be safer that way.

But it was rather comical to see the fools at the US State Department twist their words in a manner befitting a hack of Putin. As they walked around whether or not the army’s actions earlier this week amounted to a coup. I guess thousands of guys on the city streets with machine-guns is a training exercise?

Whatever. Don’t be too hard on them. They’re interested in preserving US influence in Thailand, regardless of who’s in charge. We don’t possess a US State Department interested in supporting US values. That’s weak ass stuff. Imposing your values across the world by any means is for jerks like Putin who actually care about things.

But fortunately those seeking clarity of the situation when clarity already existed were nicely assisted by history’s latest caveman asshole: General Prayuth Chan-ocha, Self-Appointed Dictator & Overlord of the Thai People. When in doubt, as always, trust the guy who’s serious enough to put guns on the street.

But it’s okay, the US is on the case. Secretary Kerry has warned of “negative implications for the U.S.-Thai relationship”. Ah, I see. I once again refer Secretary Kerry to his outstanding performance with the Ukraine crisis and remind him that people generally look at what you’ve done to determine whether you’re a serious man. If I was the good general, would take any threat Kerry offers seriously?

One Shirt, Two Shirt, Red Shirt, Yellow Shirt, whatever. Both sides are at fault in why Thai governance has been a basket case for a decade. These guys make Africa’s best kleptocrats look like freaking masters of the human race. Hey, at least Mugabe can keep things somewhat moving, even if he’s still having folks beat in back alleys. I’m pretty sure Mugabe’s got less automatic weapons on the streets of Harare today than Bangkok does.

But you know who’s not going to improve Thailand’s situation? The army. So whatever their motives, they’ve now further sent their country into the drink. The good general says he’s there to “return peace and order to the country as soon as possible”. They all say that. Some of them might even mean it. Maybe the general actually means it? But even if he does, he clearly doesn’t know anything about history. If you know history, you can already call how well this one’s going to work out. Bet money on it.

normal street corner

Well, at least the guy on the right isn’t laying a pool of blood; I guess that’s something; I guess

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Want to keep schoolgirls safe? Shoot them in the head.

We all want girls everywhere to receive extensive education. The problem is some men (not real men) are in the business of ending girl’s education because they want to live in the year 300. If you’re reading this blog, you probably think this is a bad idea. And so you desire a fair and equitable solution to ensure girls everywhere get what’s their right. Well, here’s your answer:

Shoot them in the head.

Either those men (not real men). Or the girls. Your choice. You have to pick one. Sorry.

Malala Yousafzai was shot in the head by the Pakistani Taliban for the unconscionable crime of promoting literacy. She now tours the world advancing this cause. She’s got more balls than 95% of the male politicians in Pakistan. But unfortunately, what she’s doing barely matters.

There are millions of girls in Pakistan that wake up every day with the reality that their school could end before sundown. Yousafzai is an international star, but the Pakistani Taliban remains. The situation is the same across the border in Afghanistan. A resilient Taliban has among its broad goals a return to their enlightened days where learning how to conduct basic math was an insult to their honor (not real honor).

And in keeping with these delightful themes is Boko Haram. They have an equally emphatic goal to burn down schools and eliminate knowledge. It’s even their name. Like Yousafzai, the abducted girls of Nigeria are now a global cause. Like Yousafzai, nothing substantial is going to come from it.

The various Taliban factions, Boko Haram, and so on, all have one thing in common. They are all lunatics. You can negotiate with them all you want, but they’re not going to change their minds. When a belligerent psychopath produces a moral and physical threat to your values, and is beyond reason, you’re left with two options:

a) Ignore them

b) Shoot them in the head

For years, the world chose option (a) with regards to Boko Haram. Despite all the noise of the last week, I assure you, the planet is still choosing option (a). Want to save these girls? Don’t login to a computer program unless you’re prepared to advocate for option (b). Want to support Yousafzai’s cause? Lobby for option (b).

You hate the idea of Western “boots on the ground”. You despise war. You are the first to shout at the West when it throws its weight around in the world like a “bully”. You wouldn’t pay $4 a year in extra taxes if it meant funding a UN force in Nigeria. But you’ll get onto Twitter and tweet your support for the girls all day. Sorry, you can’t have it both ways.

If you do not choose option (b), you are accepting that you don’t really care. In this case, don’t bother speaking your mind about “your girls”. You’re just a hypocrite who likes to support causes for a while. Until you don’t care anymore, or move onto the next trendy cause that has your support for exactly twelve calendar days.

1) Push your local representative to get a UN or AU force on the ground in northeastern Nigeria. Then push for them to establish an international offensive force to comb the bush until every Boko Haram zealot is shot in the face.

2) Push your local representative to keep a small Western footprint in Afghanistan. Then push for them to make sure that Western footprint enables the Afghani security forces to comb the mountains until every Taliban is shot in the face.

3) Push your local representative to pressure Pakistan to mount offensives into Yousafzai’s homeland until every Pakistani Taliban is shot in the face.

Or, do nothing. Or, don’t care. Or, login to a social media program and generate a bunch of pointless words or hashtags. Any of these will result in more girls getting abducted or shot in the head.

Your call.

girl-school_full_600

Afghanistan circa 2012; a man with a gun will either burn down this school or another man with a gun will keep it safe

#shootevilmenintheface

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Uncle Vladimir is a winner

We want to be led by a wise & just person right? Somebody who is smart, honest, and has a sense of duty? Maybe we’re on the wrong track. Maybe we need to vote for the asshole that has the power to get things done.

Vladimir Putin is a winner, which is not necessarily to say that his opponents are losers. But certainly Vlad’s adversaries are failures. But I also don’t mean winner in the sense that Vlad’s won a vodka-fueled-bar-brawl, although I’m sure he’d kick somebody ass. By winner, I mean somebody who has the power to enforce their will upon reality. A man who gets things done.

So in this context, you would call Hitler and Stalin winners too, even though they were deliciously-evil, disgusting-human-freaks who ultimately lost. And even when the winner is a Western good guy, don’t try and make them a saint. A true Abraham Lincoln is a once in a millennium occurrence. Think of a guy like Churchill. Churchill was a winner, but he also said and did some very dumb things in his day. But the point is that overall, he got things done.

Look at all of Vlad’s counterparts: Cameron, Merkel, Obama, & Hollande. Everybody’s got their opinion on these folks. In my mind, people have the broader impressions of them all wrong. Everybody wants to mark up Cameron over immigration, Merkel on the Euro crisis, Obama on health care, or Hollande on taxes. Folks, I think in general, you’re all missing the point. Any one issue obscures a singular core problem with all four of them:

They generally don’t get things done.

If you want to argue with me that any of them are getting things done, at least domestically, just comment below or e-mail me and I’ll demolish your argument. For the moment we’re just going to accept that I’m right, because I am, when I say all four of these folks just don’t have it. You could conceivably argue that all four of them are smart, honest, and are propelled by true duty. Yet, they don’t have it, they’re losers.

Vlad has it, he’s a winner. He wanted Crimea, he got it. He wanted a destabilized Ukraine, he got it. He wanted to end this crisis with him firmly in control of future events, and he most certainly has that. Friends, don’t be fooled by the empty suits in the West when they assure you they deflated this crisis via their meek actions. Ukraine does not belong to Russia this morning only because Vlad generally knows when to quit while he’s ahead.

We’ve said it before, we’ll say it again. Love Vlad or hate him (we hate him), you have to at least admire a guy who knows what he wants, generally speaks his mind, and then backs up every single word he says. When in doubt, you bet on the guy you can rely upon. Even if I was a pro-Russian separatist in Donetsk, and Vlad sold me out yesterday by somewhat endorsing national elections? Well, I’d still side with Russia. Because twenty years from now I’d still trust that Vlad, or his appointed successor, would be there for me. Whereas the West will not.

So the question then becomes why the others are such losers. Well, I have three thoughts that come to mind off the top of my head:

– The Media

Essentially, we need to destroy Western media as we know it and start over. Vlad barely cares what the media thinks, or manipulates the message to his own ends by beating the journalists at their own sick game. The era of the sound bite, twenty-four hour news, gotcha questions, and militantly partisan trash is not designed to increase voter awareness. It’s designed to sell advertising.

When one of the most basic arms of a functioning democracy is primarily focused not on keeping government honest, but on selling things, then we have a huge problem. Western leaders are trapped in this cycle. Every decision they make is funneled through the lens of how it will play in this tortured media environment. This does not make for healthy decision making. It does not encourage the kind of risk taking you occasionally require from leaders.

– Politics

More and more, the leaders of the West are professional politicians. They have never done anything else. Cameron, Merkel, Obama, & Hollande at one point did other things, but everything substantial they have ever done in life was a job for or about politics. This establishes a very narrow focus, a worldview that does not conform to reality. They can’t get things done in the real world because they’ve never lived in the real world.

If politics is a game, they are trying to lead as if they are in a game. But the world is not a game, it’s a cruel bitch and they don’t know how to play it. Vlad grew up strangling people in Dresden back alleys for a living. The other four grew up in classrooms or smoke-filled (no longer smoke filled) political back rooms. Vlad had to get things done or he’d get fired or executed. They had to please their political masters with some obscure, unknown political action that nobody cared about or got to see. Pit them against each other in the real world, and we shouldn’t have been surprised at the outcome.

– Apathy

You get the leader you vote for. Nothing about Cameron, Merkel, Obama, & Hollande is generally a surprise to the world. These four turned out roughly as anybody could have predicted if you knew who they were before they were elected. The voters make the call, they bought what they got. The public put four career politicians in charge of their lives. The public also lives with a dirty news media that they still watch and read. The results speak for themselves.

But look at who could replace these four? All four leaders (or big men) of the opposition are exactly the same. Miliband, Steinbruck, Boehner, and Cope are all cut from the same cloth. They all have their hard core supporters, but the overall problem is just apathy. Apathy as in the eight folks on offer to lead the West are all the same. They don’t get things done. And nobody seems to care. Put Miliband, Steinbruck, Boehner, or Cope in charge tomorrow, and nothing, I mean nothing truly changes.

As a reminder, Vlad is an elected leader. The election was rigged, but even if Russian elections were free and fair, he’d still win. The Russian people picked a winner, the West picked losers. Take that as your basis, and a lot of what’s happening in the world today really makes sense.

vlad_may_parade

One successful leader, aware of history, propelled by action, adored by his people

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For once, let’s embrace the power of cash to save us all

We’ve all heard of the American Dream. The Communist Party has recently promoted the idea of the Chinese Dream. Well, what about the Human Dream? In a better world, we’d like to believe our values are universal. That at our best, we are all mostly the same. We are unique and special in our own ways, but at our core we’re joined in the same good, basic nature.

Now contrast this with the idea of the Arcturan Dream. In their universe things are slightly different. Here, you can start with nothing and make something of yourself. There, you can start with nothing and make nothing of somebody else. Here, you can use your talent and spirit to create something new, something people really want or need and thus enrich their lives. There, you can use your talent and spirit to destroy something old, something people really wanted or needed and thus ruin their lives.

The difference between these two constructs isn’t just the brutally unhinged view of a bunch of degenerate grizzled Arcturan exiles. It’s a variation between two choices, two ways we can roll forward as a planet. Believe it or not, I know this might shock some of you, but a lot of folks on this floating rock are committed to the Arcturan view of our future.

If you read yesterday’s post, you’d think that’s where my brain usually is. I guess you’re right, but every once and a while I have hope that by 2090, we’re somehow okay. It comes from the most random of places. To give you an idea how random, and as a window into just how bizarre and unbalanced my brain is, today’s optimism comes from Alibaba’s plan to go public. Wait, what? Hold on, don’t click away just yet, allow me to explain things in a coherent (nonsensical) manner. Even though explaining anything at the moment is rather difficult. One of them has an Arcturan bolt pistol to the back of my head while I type. They do it for fun, it’s their thing. Don’t ask why, the explanation takes like six hours and you come away fearing your own shadow.

So for those of you focused on what Lady Gaga’s next pathetic attention-seeking costume is, Alibaba is a Chinese internet company similar to Amazon or EBay. Except that in terms of scale, it blows them both away combined. Now I always try and avoid sounding like one of those smart (stupid) folks who always start off a story about China by shouting just how big it is, but just so we’re clear, Alibaba’s really freaking big.

Alibaba sold $248B worth of stuff last year. Amazon did $74B. Bloomberg offers a neat comparison: “Amazon makes less than a penny for every dollar in revenue, while Alibaba makes about 43 cents.”

Friends, they have a customer base of over one-billion people and they’re already making this kind of money. Plus, Chinese consumers have only jumped into the online shopping arena in the last few years. There are hundreds-of-millions of potential online Chinese shoppers who’ve yet to try.

So Alibaba is going to take this success and list publicly in America. This share sale is likely to be among the biggest in history and raise billions. The business community is beginning to talk of Alibaba making its mark as a truly global company. But why are they listing in America? Why not Hong Kong or Shanghai? So here then, we get to the point of why I really care.

Now I don’t know anything about anything. And I certainly don’t know much about stocks, finance, or business. But I’m going to take a guess here when I say that it’s because Alibaba does not believe a China based exchange provides them the best circumstances to operate and expand their business. Put simply, Alibaba doesn’t trust the Chinese system.

Jack Ma lived what the Communist Party considers the Chinese Dream. He didn’t grow up in rags, but when you take a five-figure loan and turn it into one of the world’s most successful companies in a little over a decade, I think you can say he’s made it on raw talent. He’s now one of the richest guys on the planet.

Now granted, he has to play in the Chinese system, so I’m sure he’s not as clean as I’d like to believe, but broadly speaking this is a guy you can probably embrace as living the way you’d want. He isn’t a guy who earned this by stealing peasant farmland and selling it to developers. He doesn’t make knock-off products or poisoned food and then bribe corrupt officials to get away with it. He didn’t get here by having people strangled in a back alley in Hangzhou, I think.

He’s also saying and doing things you’d normally consider virtuous. Now he could just be padding his image prior to the public offering, or lying his ass off like a cutthroat politician, but when one of the richest and most powerful guys in China is offering things like this, it’s time to pay attention:

“In China, because of problems in water, air and food safety, in 10 or 20 years we will face a lot of health problems, like increased cancer … My second focus is people’s culture and education – if we don’t do this then young Chinese people will grow up with deep pockets but shallow minds.”

“The most fun part of business, at least to me, is to contribute to the future. It’s not just about making money – it’s about making healthy money, enabling people to enjoy their lives. I think the important thing is to wake people up and let them know that our environmental issues need to be addressed.”

“Somebody has to do something … Our job is to wake people up.”

Now some of this same verbiage is coming from the mouths of Communist Party officials, but what if Ma actually means it? Whereas I’m pretty sure the Communist Party does not. When you combine Ma’s background, his stated vision for the future, and such a blatant “fuck you” to the Reds by not listing his baby on their regulated exchanges? Well, friends, this gets me a little giddy.

What I hope for is that down the road, a Chinese man or woman will have the opportunity to enjoy the freedoms and liberties that I do. If you don’t believe in these universal values for all humans, I understand and respect your opinion, but you’re just flat out wrong. So in this forum, it’s about how China gets there. Not if, but when.

Most go by the assumption that if China will get to that level of freedom it’s going to be bottom-up generated. As in via a new people’s revolution or something like 1989 redux. I just don’t see this happening. The Communist Party controls the streets too tightly. Everybody remembers East Germany right? They had some insane ratio of citizens to internal security members. One of my lifelong friends once commented that the Stasi had so many folks on their pay they were “watching dogs and fire hydrants”.

It’s the same in China. The People’s Armed Police has a larger budget than the armed forces. They’re just simply not going to allow bottom-up changes in any capacity. Now you’ll say, if East Germany had that level of security, and they were destroyed from the street, why not China? Because when in doubt, the Communist Party would resort to the expenditure of ammunition before they’ll let things collapse.

The People’s Armed Police is willing to shoot folks in the streets whereas the East German forces were not. Syria has shown the dictators of the world how you solve revolutions. You exit the situation with unbridled amounts of gunfire against your own people. What’s the world going to do about it? Sanction Red China? The planet’s economy would collapse. And we can’t even do anything about Syria, let alone something dramatic in China.

If China’s going to change, it’s going to be top-down. It has to begin there, even if it does ultimately end on the street. It’s going to have to start with guys like Jack Ma. Men and women who have lived, tasted, and know what it means to be successful outside the blanket of the Party. Folks who are committed to a bright future for their country, and also have the money and power to do something about it. I truly hope he’s for real.

So here’s hoping Alibaba blows it away. That they make Facebook and Twitter’s recent offerings look like amateur hour. And more importantly, here’s hoping Ma uses the container-ship-full-of-cash and power he’s about to earn and turns it into a weapon for the light. Tools for a dream tomorrow for China. For his home.

jack-ma-alibaba

If he means what he says, he has the power to become one of the most remarkable men in history