The Debate Over Kaepernick Is Over

I attended the Green Bay Packer game this past Monday night. Yes, the Pack got their asses handed to them by the lowly Detroit Lions, and the Lions won their first game at Lambeau field in something like a quarter of a century. That part sucked. But otherwise, my family and I had a blast getting drunk and watching football.

The four of us, myself, my wife, my sister and her boyfriend, were all given little American flags in observance of Veterans' Day when we entered Lambeau. Fans everywhere in the stadium got to wave those little flags around for the entire game, which they did, especially in the beginning during the controversial national anthem. Players locked arms, and fans removed hats and covered hearts. With their other hands, they waved their little flags.

My wife, ever being the social justice warrior she is, was wearing a red Kaepernick jersey. In a sea of green, gold, and the occasional blue and silver, she stood out. She knelt on the bench in front of her as the anthem was played, making a stand by not standing.

No one said anything to her.

But that's not the point. The point is what happened after the game. After the Packers lost. After the Detroit fans, scattered here and there throughout the stands, were done screaming themselves hoarse. After the Packer fans started leaving with eight minutes to go on the game clock because the Lions had just scored another touchdown, and there was simply no hope of a Packer comeback.

What happened was that the little flags, handed out to every fan, were left on the concrete floors of the stands, strewn about along with spilled beer, bratwurst wrappers, cardboard drink trays, discarded tubs of pretzel-bread cheese dip, and who knows what else. Everywhere, all over the stadium, those flags of our great nation were ruthlessly disrespected by at least half the fans.

I came in with two, the ones given to my wife and myself. I left with five. Because I had the common courtesy to pick up the three that were near me that other fans had left on the goddamned ground!

I could make an argument here about the need to sign Colin Kaepernick, but I won't. I could point out that Bret Conway is not a great talent at quarterback, but I obviously shouldn't have to. I could argue for Joe Callahan to be given a shot at starting, but there was a reason he was only on the practice squad two months ago. No, instead I will simply point out that, amidst the controversy surrounding Kaepernick being the best veteran fit for the Packers system, he used to be a political liability with the fans.

That's right, I said "used to be."

Because the controversy with Colin Kaepernick is over! I saw it die along with the Packers' chances at a postseason without Kaepernick at the helm.

The fans ended it. When they left their little flags on the concrete floors of Lambeau field like so much refuse.

No one can ever say again that players should be fired for disrespecting the flag. Not when fans were too lazy to bother picking up the discarded flags left behind by others. And who will fire those fans, I wonder? No one can ever say that Kaepernick committed an act that was anywhere even remotely close to that level of disrespect. And if Lambeau fans could do such a thing, it's a sure bet that the fans at all the other NFL stadiums, who doubtlessly were handed flags just like at Lambeau in honor of our nation's veterans, discarded them just as carelessly. More so, since Lambeau fans are famously more friendly, more courteous, and more patriotic.

Where are the outraged veterans who screamed assent with Donald Trump now? Where did their outrage go?

Whatever Kaepernick has done, Lambeau fans committed crimes a thousand times worse, and roughly 37,500 times over! The more so because it wasn't a statement in protest. It wasn't even a statement at all! It was simply dropping a flag and forgetting about it, discarding it, pretending it didn't count or wasn't even there. And being collectively blind to a flag lying in the trash on the floor is far worse a crime than openly protesting in front of one.

At least the kneeling NFL player is aware of the flag's goddamned presence!

So let's not pretend we can't sign Kaepernick already! And anyone who has a complaint about his protests can jolly well trample those complaints underfoot, along with the little flags they so carelessly stepped on while they were at Lambeau!

Oh, and by the way, nobody yelled at my wife during the entire game. And there were a few who congratulated her. One even said, "Represent!"

Damn straight she did!


Eric

*

An End To Sexual Harassment. Maybe

Okay, this one's just for the guys.

We love looking at scantily clad women, don't we? We love this sort of beauty that goes through our eyeballs and straight to the pleasure centers of our male brains, right?

So on some level, while we totally condemn the behavior of Harvey Weinstein, we can slightly relate to the thoughts that went through his sick, demented mind. I mean, we've all fantasized about doing what he's done, except in our fantasies, the women don't say, "Ewww!" No, in our fantasies, women actually want us, while in Harvey's fantasies, he fantasized that talented actresses weren't actually acting while in his presence.

And this is frustrating for the rest of us, isn't it? Because this dick, Weinstein, and everyone like him, ruin things for the rest of us. Because we're nice guys. We don't grab tits when uninvited, we don't creep women out, and we don't cross "that line."

Which means that when the Weinsteins of the world do, whether rich or poor, they make women more defensive, less approachable, less friendly, and more likely to cover their sexy selves.

But herein lies a lesson for all of us, and even the would-be Weinsteins should take note: If we want women to be more open, more approachable, and wear things that are more revealing...

We have to make them feel safe!

Women who feel safe are all those things we like most in women. And herein lies a means to ending sexual harassment: If you want to feast your eyes....

Keep your hands to yourself!

It sounds odd, but denying hands in order to improve the view is language that even the lowest pervert can understand. Don't touch, and women will feel safe. And you'll get to see more. Great deal, huh?

Starve your hands so you can feast your eyes.


Okay, did all you pervs get that?


Eric

*

Freedom Or Fabric?

When it comes to NFL players kneeling during the national anthem, the issue isn't difficult to understand. Yet some work very hard to do so anyway. During the anthem, should one honor the freedom, or the fabric?

If you believe in what the fabric stands for, the answer should be freedom. That begins with freedom of speech. But the same First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution which guarantees freedom of speech also gives citizens the right to "petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

Which is exactly what the NFL players are doing when they kneel.

It couldn't possibly be more American. It couldn't honor our nation's freedom more. It's simple, it's pure, and it it every citizens' right.

"Wait!" says the average simpleton, "You mean the flag stands for the freedom of people to disrespect the flag?!"

You damn right it does! Not only does the flag stand for those who disrespect the flag, but the constitution guarantees such disrespect! It's part of freedom of speech, and redressing the government of grievances.

"You mean the flag stands for the freedom to burn the flag?!"

Yes! The flag especially stands for the freedom to burn the flag!

If someone marches up to the Capital steps, and lights a flag on fire because he's upset at his government, that is the truest expression of America there is. It's enshrined in the first amendment that he has the right to do this. And if you put on a uniform and fight for America, you fight to protect exactly that. If you disagree, then you oughtn't put on the uniform in the first place.

So those who truly dishonor the flag are those who dishonor the freedom. Because it's all about the freedom, not the fabric. And those who honor fabric over freedom are the ones who truly dishonor America.

For example, Mike Pence walking out after the national anthem at a Colt's game as a publicity stunt.

Fuck you, Mr. Vice President. You shat on the Constitution you swore to protect and defend!

So let's honor the freedom. Never mind the fabric.

Because the NFL players who kneel are not wrong. Police officers in urban areas shoot to kill black people when a shot to the leg will do just fine. And this truly is a problem that needs a "redress of grievance."

Freedom. Not fabric. Let's try to keep our eye on the ball.


Eric

*

London Bombings

Once again, a bomb has gone off in London. Once again, ISIS has claimed responsibility. Whether or not a faction of the so-called Islamic State carried out the attack almost doesn't matter anymore. People are convinced that Muslims simply do this sort of thing.

Which leads to the defining debate of our generation, especially in light of the humanitarian crisis involving Syrian refugees and others who will undoubtedly come after them from elsewhere in the Muslim world.

On the one side, how do we call ourselves civilized if we will not take in those who just want to live in freedom? How can we insist that nations like Syria, Egypt, Iraq or Afghanistan embrace democracy over there when we refuse to let them get a taste of it over here in the West? Don't people have a right to flee for their very lives? Shouldn't Europe and the United States be the destinations for freedom-seekers they have always been? And isn't the granting of freedom for refugees a fundamental value?

On the flip side, how can any Western democracy accept hordes of refugees who are irreparably tainted with a small but persistent minority of those who want to destroy the very democracy they are fleeing to? How can any economy take in so many people when most of them are unskilled and don't speak the local language? Why should indigenous residents have to flee for their lives from those who are fleeing for their lives? Why should one humanitarian crisis abroad lead to a domino effect that will create even more crises at home?

At the root of all of this is religion. Specifically, Islam. Many of my fellow atheists have pointed out that Islam is inherently evil, and they are far from unjustified in this accusation. But isn't religious freedom one of our core values? Isn't tolerance towards those whose creed differs from our own the very thing which defines us? Especially for us atheists, isn't it our duty to protect others from religious-based prejudice?

There are those I used to agree with, like the British video-blogger Pat Condell, who believe that taking in Muslim refugees is killing Europe. Oddly, these left-wing warriors find themselves in agreement with radicals on the right, who want the influx of Muslims stemmed in an effort to preserve cultural identity. Yet on the other hand, there are those who take an opposing view, insisting that speaking out against Muslim terrorism is somehow tantamount to "Islamophobia," xenophobia or even outright racism. And while it is surely wise to condemn Islam while not condemning Muslims, and to embrace individual Muslims as friends while damning minority Muslims who turn out to be terrorists, we do so at our own risk. Muslims consistently fail to blame their fellow Muslims for this, and there are those on the left who play along with this touchy-feely kind of myopia.

How does one square this circle?

I think I know how. It takes a form of wisdom which we are not prepared to hear, and which we may not be mature enough for as a culture, but we must embrace it if Western democracy is to survive. And it is simply this:

Religious freedom is not an absolute.

No, really! One cannot scream "fire" in a crowded theater. One also cannot commit libel, and cost another his or her fortune by spreading untrue slander. Freedom of speech is not an absolute. We have the freedom to scorn our leaders and poke fun at them, but we cannot use curse words on family programming. In like manner, freedom of religion has its limits too. If a Satanist wanted to sacrifice a baby, he would not be allowed to do so. The baby is a non-consenting person with rights. Laws against murder would override any claim of religious freedom. If a prison inmate wanted to file a lawsuit claiming that not getting chunky peanut-butter instead of creamy is a violation of his religious freedom (as once famously happened back in the early 90's), too bad. Religious freedoms don't extend to those who invent one-member-cults in order to try to game the system. By similar reasoning, if a Muslim father wants to kill a child for becoming an apostate, tough shit! The child has its own set of rights which cannot be violated.

Individual freedom outranks religious freedom.

In short, is there room for Islam within democracy? Yes. But is there also room for Sharia? Hell, no!

Sharia runs contrary to everything freedom stands for. It insists upon enforcing what is thought to be "God's laws" over and above laws which protect an individual's rights. To be perfectly blunt, fuck that bullshit!

It's a tricky line to take for an atheist, because here in the U.S., most Christians still struggle with the stupidly simple concept that putting up a nativity scene in front of a city hall is a clear-cut case of religious favoritism. When confronted with this sort of common sense, Christians actually still dare to scream "oppression!" What, then, will we do when the day comes where we must say the same sort of thing to Muslims? Where will we find the fortitude? What will we do when some of them want to force girls who are not their own daughters to stop wearing tight clothes in public schools? Or only serve halal meat in the cafeteria? What will we say when they threaten violence if they don't get their way? When they want to interrupt their work schedules five times per day when their secular coworkers must continue working until their regular break times? How will we have the strength to deny them undue favoritism if we cannot even understand the concept of denying undue favoritism to the relatively more benign and pacifist religion of Christianity?

We'd better figure it out soon. Because if we don't, Europe and the U.S. really are in trouble.

Am I saying Islam must water itself down or be outlawed? You bet your ass I am! Because religion is a drug, and drugs should be regulated. The softer drugs, alcohol or cannabis, can and should be legal. People need their recreational toxins.

But the hard shit can kill you.


Eric

*

Change. Now!

Everyone is shocked and horrified at the terrible realities taking place in Charlottesville, North Carolina. Yes, people are actually defending a statue of Robert E. Lee which is being moved, not destroyed, to a location which no longer endorses our nations Antebellum slavery past. People are actually marching in KKK rallies, openly. And our president is actually being mute on how wrong all this is.

And yes, these neo-Nazis have just killed a counter-protester with a vehicle. Yes, Nazis have just killed an American on American soil.

In the midst of this is Peter Cvjetanovic, an undergraduate student at the University of Nevada, Reno, who got identified as one of the attendees there.

"I am not the racist you see in the images," he is telling the world. After all, he wants the world to know that just because he marched and yelled and screamed racist shit, that doesn't mean he's a racist.

No, really.

Well, here's a thought, Peter. You're trying to put your ideas out there, and are frustrated that people won't listen. You want the world to understand your point of view, but people just aren't interested in seeing your side of things.

Frustrating, isn't it?

And maybe this underscores what I've been saying for years, that when one is confronted with contrary evidence, the thing to do is change one's own position first. Don't like that the overwhelming majority hates you? Maybe the overwhelming majority is right, for once!

Maybe, the person whose mind needs changing is you!

Don't get me wrong, it's hard to change one's ways, believe me, I know. I lost everything when I gave up my faith in Christianity. My career, my circle of friends, my standing among those in my community. It was a rough patch. So I can relate to you feeling daunted about the prospect of you giving up your bigotry. I can understand how you might pale (pardon the pun) at possibly losing your fellow David-Duke-supporting friends. I can see why you would want to retain your rank as a junior lieutenant in a small (very small!) army, rather than become a mere private in the army of what you mistakenly presume to be your (much larger!) enemy. Yeah, I get why you hesitate to throw that away.

But likewise, I can also not understand why you don't! I did it, and I'm a wuss. What the hell's your excuse?

However, I'm not just talking about you. I'm talking about everyone. Yes, everyone. We all, ALL, hold onto beliefs which we shouldn't, myself included. (Okay, I've gotten the major ones out of the way, but the minor ones I'm still working on.) We all do stupid shit, like mistake real news for fake, listen to Alex Jones (instead of me!), prefer the evil to the good, and attack people for exercising their own private freedom in a way that we don't like, as if that were at all our business. We all have our pet demons.

Well, I say kill your pet. Because it's not a pet, it's a leech. And it's sucking your brain dry.

This doesn't excuse you. Just because we're all in the same boat doesn't mean you and your misguided buddies aren't drilling holes in the bottom.

Knock it off!


Eric

*

What About The REAL Thieves?

Many people are glad at the recent news story that Special Prosecutor Mueller brought in a grand jury several weeks ago as art of his Investigations into Russia hacking the 2016 presidential election. It shows that Mueller will not be gotten rid of easily, and that's a good thing. But in this development, I wonder, is anyone really going to go after the REAL election thieves?

Is anyone going to hold the media accountable?

Don't get me wrong. The Russia-Trump connection is huge. A foreign power attempting to interfere with our election process is something we can never tolerate. But Russia didn't cost us the election. Russia didn't give us Trump. No, Hillary had it in the bag 12 days out, so much so that Republicans feared losing the House and Senate.

Then the James Comey non-scandal hit.

The media, like a cat with a laser pointer, pounced upon thin air. The mouse, which was the reality that Huma Abedin, not Hillary Clinton, was the one in trouble, went unreported. To this day, I believe this fucking blog was the only news outlet to point this out! The media reported that the FBI was re-opening its investigation into Hillary's emails, even though this was not quite true. And then, three days out, Hillary was cleared again. But that's not how the media reported it, either. Instead, they reported, "Hillary cleared, but is it too late?" Well, fuck, it is if you report it like that! Seriously?

And the conservative media machine saw its chance. They kept up their ads which said Hillary was being re-investigated. This was where the media had a moral obligation to report this as flat-out lying! But they kept quiet. The public was fooled. The pro-Hillary bounce which should have happened, never came.

And where is our Special Prosecutor for this? Who will hold the media accountable for putting a headline-generating photo-finish ahead of the will and betterment of the American people?

Who watches the Watchmen?

Th Russia connection will eventually take Trump down. But let's not forget who the real thieves were. It wasn't Putin and his cronies. It is everyone from Hannity to Maddow who just plain dropped the ball. Then picked up the bat and hit us over the head with it!

Let's not get fooled next time.

Eric

*

The Foxconn Standard

So Republicans are busy breaking their arms while patting themselves on their own backs over their major deal with Foxconn, bringing a major LCD manufacturing plant to Paul Ryan's district. It's a win, I'll grant. When the other team makes a great play, all you can do is tip the cap and say, "well one." But not everything is quite so rosy.

First, let's understand that most of these new jobs will not go to Wisconsinites. The brain-drain caused by Walker's slash-and-burn approach to education has created a dearth of marketable skills within the state, and Foxconn will have to bring qualified workers in from outside Wisconsin, or even the U.S., to fill their openings. The employees laid off by Chrysler in Kenosha will not find much here. Thywill remain stuck at Amazon, filling orders for $11.25 an hour, and pining for the glory days when an honest days work was something you could live off of. That's not to say that these jobs won't have a positive impact. Those people who come to Wisconsin from India or elsewhere will shop at local stores, buy valuable real estate, and eat at local restaurants, all of which will increase the overall well-being of Southeastern Wisconsin. But it won't be the boon that Ryan, Johnson and Trump claim it will be.

That being said, there is one additional positive effect, and that is the valuable lesson in economics this presents to us. You see, Republicans have now demonstrated that government spending to create jobs works - which is exactly what Democrats have been saying for decades. The only difference between the two parties on this one is that one party says government programs and education creates jobs, while the other says that corporate welfare creates jobs. Both are correct, as it turns out. The only question is whether you agree with lining the pockets of a foreign corporation to create those jobs or not.

Republicans are now forced to answer a fundamental question: If one believes that this government spending to create jobs is acceptable, what is the difference between this corporate welfare and more traditional welfare? In both cases government money is doled out to improve the economy. But who is the bigger deadbeat? The local citizen, or the foreign corporation who profits off our tax dollars? The answer is simple: if one believes in corporate welfare, one must also believe in traditional welfare.

I'll bet all the CEO's of this corporation play golf with a handicap.

We could have lured jobs here by having the best engineers and highest quality workers in the state. Instead, we chose to preach water and drink wine when it comes to believing in the "free market."

Because these jobs were anything but free.


Eric

*

Bill Maher

Well,  my last post was a bit far-fetched. I was convinced I was on to something, but there was a big hole in my argument. If Trump were really willing to kill Comey rather than allow him to testify, why then was he allowed to testify? Perhaps Comey only thought his life were imperiled, but it's just as likely that writing things down immediately when they are still fresh in one's mind is a good way to ensure accuracy. And, as my wife put it, I may have been "hearing zebras."

But I digress.

Today I want to discuss Bill Maher, and for once I'm not talking about vaccines and autism.

Bill Maher slipped up a week ago. While interviewing Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska, the Senator told Bill he would "like to see you work in the fields," by which he meant he wanted Bill to come visit Nebraska sometime. Bill responded by saying "Work in the fields? Senator, I'm a house nigger." When his audience groaned, he said, "It's a joke."

Yes, it was a joke, and a bad one. The Senator was from Nebraska, not Alabama. What made Bill think of southern plantations instead of giant tractors?

I'm in the habit of watching Real Time on the Saturday morning after the show. Usually HBO GO has the episode available by then. But that weekend, they didn't. I only knew there was even an episode of Real Time because of the news stories covering Bill's faux pas. I checked again Saturday night, and again Sunday. Still nothing. Finally by Monday, it was available. I didn't get around to watching it until Tuesday. When my wife and I did, we saw the segment where Bill made his well-publicized use of the n-word. But HBO had edited out the audio for those few seconds.

Let me say that again: HBO censored it!

Bill apologized, and rightly so. But that hasn't  made it go away. He spent much of yesterday's show trying to make up for the mistake. It didn't work. Rapper Ice-T tried to school Maher by telling him, "It's our word now, you can't have it back."

And here's where I draw the line. Bullshit! It's nobody's word, Mr. T. Or should I call you Ice? Because America is all about freedom of speech, and therefore it's illegal to take any word and say "You can't say that." (Although the FCC still needs to learn this important lesson.) If nobody gave a damn about Quentin Terantino saying "dead nigger storage" in the movie Pulp Fiction, and if conservatives readily forgave Don Imus for referring to some black female college basketball players as "nappy headed ho's," then nobody has much of a case against Bill Maher, especially when he spoke off the cuff and then apologized after. No one should be calling for him to be fired, and the whole damned world needs to lighten up.

Here's the real problem: It's racial segregation of a word. And if racial segregation of people is wrong, it is equally so for language. Yes, "nigger" is a racially charged word, and rightly so, but if whites are not allowed to say it, even in jest, why do they want rebellious white teenagers to buy the rap music that uses it? It's a double standard (and bad art - an insult to the black gods of music who came before).

Frank Zappa said it best. "Any word may be used by anyone, anytime. Period." I'm paraphrasing, but he did say something very much like that. And he was right. Censorship is evil. Censorship based on racism, whether it be Afro-centric or Euro-centric, is even more evil. And such evil should not result in the firing of a man like Bill Maher.

Bill fights against conservibullies week after week, interview after interview. Even an expert swordsman can't avoid getting nicked all the time. Bill Maher is one of our best warriors, and we can't afford to lose him now, just as we couldn't afford to lose General Patton after he struck a private across the face before the invasion of Normandy. When even the Reverend Al Sharpton has to reach all the way back to Bill's days on Politically Incorrect to find another clip where Bill made a similar mistake, we have to be impressed with Bill's overall batting average.

If we don't fire sports heroes for beating up their spouses, then we can't fire Bill Maher for having one honest slip of the tongue.

There aren't many absolutes, but one of them is freedom of speech. And freedom of speech means freedom to misspeak, both accidentally, as in Bill's case, or even on purpose.


Eric

*

Why Did Comey Write Notes?

Ah, so many things I've wanted to blog about lately. I've had so little time. But this time I've found a few minutes, and I can't help but make a simple observation that I think everyone ought to know about.

By now, many of you have been listening and/or watching the testimony of former FBI Director James Comey to Congress. Lots of interesting things can be found in what he's saying. But one thing stands out, and as usual, nobody but me seems to have noticed it. After Trump clearly told Comey to ease off on the investigations into his campaign's possible connections with Russia, Comey wrote down notes regarding what Trump said.

How interesting. He wrote down notes afterward?

Why on earth would he think that would do any good? If such written records were produced, it would still be hearsay, and he's smart enough to know that. So why write it down?

There's only one reason to write notes down after the fact. The notes can be hidden away and produced in evidence after one is killed.

Yes, James Comey was in fear of his life after his meetings with Trump.

Why wouldn't he be? After all, here was the president clearly breaking the law by telling Comey to break the law. Comey, as a smart FBI man, knew what that meant. It meant that he had just witnessed an impeachable offense, and that the best way for Trump to avoid the consequences was to kill the witness!

The fact that Comey felt the need to make immediate written records, I think, is the most damning part of his entire testimony. He feels that Trump will kill people, even FBI people, if it means staying in office.

You can't kill us all, Donald. You can't kill us all.


Eric

*

MORE Military Spending? Really?

So, it appears that The Big Joke (read our current non-president), has released a wish-list budget outline. In it are funding slashes for every government program that does any good, and an increase in only one government program - military spending. In his words, he wants to "rebuild our military."

Now, the U.S. already spends more on its military than the next 8 nations combined. China, the second-largest military, spends roughly one third of what America does, and Russia one sixth. If we want to improve our military, the solution is not additional spending, but rather cutting the waste of what we spend now.

Eisenhower warned us about the dangers of the Military Industrial Complex, and he was eerily prophetic. Congressmen who want to create jobs in their district have always blindly approved appropriations for government contracts to build more planes we don't need, more tanks we will never use, and more jarheads that we will never deploy. The problem with our military isn't the amount of money we're spending. It's that our military is a fat, bloated, inefficient sauropod. And what's worse, it's obsolete.

The old saying goes that generals spend decades preparing for the previous war, and that's true with America's military. The next war will not be fought with planes, bombs and aircraft carriers. These things have their place, but there's a new front which has opened up. The age of nuclear weapons has imposed an uneasy truce among all nations when it comes to conventional warfare. Instead, wars are reduced to third-world skirmishes and Islamic turf-wars. But there's a new kind of warfare now, and the next true war will be fought in this way. I am speaking, of course, of cyber warfare.

This past election might have been the first battle fought on that front. And guess what? We lost! Our asses got kicked by Russia, a nation with an economy roughly half the size of France. We are woefully unprepared to deal with the realities of a tech war, and we are vulnerable. Truly vulnerable!

It is useless to build more missiles when hackers could potentially turn those additional missiles against us! What our military needs now is not more nuts and bolts - we're just fine there! What it needs are more cyber warriors! It needs the best hackers and counter-hackers that are trainable! And it needs them to protect not just military assets, but civilian ones as well. There needs to be a fifth branch of the service launched. Perhaps we can call it the Cyber Corps. And its mission must be to protect our power grids, our data systems, even our elections from outside cyber attack. Right now. Because at the moment, if an enemy wants to attack us, that's where to do it. The soft underbelly of our nation lies in its over-dependence upon technology which it only barely knows how to use.

How do we achieve getting the best hackers? There is only one way: education, education, education! Because the best hackers are also the best programmers, and the best programmers are the best students in math and science. We need to not only have an entire branch of the military devoted to cyber warfare, we need the personnel to staff it. And we cannot get that by slashing education funding or farting around with voucher programs that have been proven not to work in the field.

The biggest threat to our national security is Betsy DeVos!

Besides, if we really want to increase military spending, we could better do so by supporting the veterans of the wars we've already fought. We could actually fund our military hospitals and hire more doctors and nurses to care for our soldiers. We could clear the backlog of veterans waiting for medical services. We could train them for new occupations after they get home so that they are not unemployed after they set the uniform aside.

So let's rally around this theme: Less hardware! More cyber personnel! Because this is one area of over-bloated government spending where we really could get a lot more done for a lot less cash!


Eric

*

GOLD!

If you want to see where the insecurities are, follow the gold market.

Back when the Obama administration was in full swing, I would occasionally foray out into conservative media, just to hear what they were lying about lately. What I noticed wasn't so much what they were saying on their program as who was advertising on their shows. There were various fraudulent weight loss products and international star registry scams - things long since debunked on other media. (Where there are gullible people...) And gold. Lots and lots of advertisements for investing in gold.

Why gold? Because gold remains steady when other forms of currency fluctuate. And because conservatives were convinced that Obama would be a complete disaster, the gold market was hyped up to an irrational degree. Now, gold is a great hedge against inflation, don't get me wrong, but inflation was never a real threat during Obama's entire eight years in office. So the over-marketing of gold was all due to one thing: conservative media frenzy.

Between March of 2008 and August of 2011, the price of gold nearly doubled, fueled almost entirely by irrational Tea-Party fears of an Obama crash. At its peak, gold had gone from trading at $1000 per ounce to $1900 per ounce, and it didn't look to be coming down any time soon.

Then it all simmered down. Gradually, people began realizing that they were just fine. After Romney lost the 2012 election, and four more years of Obama were secured, the bubble finally burst. Between March of 2013 and June of 2013, gold prices crashed from $1600 per ounce all the way down to $1200 per ounce. It has remained roughly around that price ever since. Oh, it went up as high as $1380 per ounce during the 2016 election frenzy, and then sank down below $1200 per ounce again once it was all over.

Here is the official gold price chart.

Of course, I saw through all this. I saw how the conservative robber-barons had invested in gold beforehand, and were now artificially driving up the price in order to cash in. This is part of why the price fell so dramatically after 2012 - they divested and took their profits, leaving the middle-class with a loss in their investment portfolio in a few gold coins - perhaps kept hidden behind the family portrait. It was a cruel way to punish concerned citizens who just wanted to protect their family nest-egg.

But they'd been sold a bill of goods that said Obama was evil, and they bought it. Then they bought gold. And they were wrong both times. They lost out both times.

But now gold is ticking up again, trading at $1210 per ounce and climbing. Why? Because it's becoming obvious that Trump is ever bit the disaster we all feared he would be. Investors are again turning to the security of gold to protect themselves against a weakening dollar and the horrors of inflation, or worse, defaulting on the national debt - which Trump does not seem to care much about.

And where is gold advertising for investors? Why, on liberal media!

Thanks in large part to the brand-new WRRD radio station, 1510 in Milwaukee, we can easily listen to shows like the Thom Hartmann program. Sure enough, gold is advertising on that show like gangbusters!

It's not hard to see why. The conservatives think Trump will be great, so gold investors can't play off their fears. But they can certainly play off the fears of the liberals! And that's exactly what they're doing.

I'm not going to say that gold is a bad investment this time. It was before, but unlike back then, this time there's a real threat. Our back is against the wall with a national debt Republicans refused to let Obama do anything about, and now Trump is the one who has to pay that bill. But Trump sucks at paying what is owed. He prefers to simply ignore debt and default into bankruptcy.

And who will bail out the U.S.? The International Monetary Fund? Get real!

Gold may be a smart bet this time around. But not because people want to hedge against a falling dollar.

This time, they may want to divest themselves of gold later - and buy Yen, Yuen, Rubels, Pounds, or Euros - depending upon where they have to flee the Trump regime.


Eric

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It's All Falling Apart. Big Shock.

It's barely his third week in office, and Donald Trump has already fucked things up royally. What a surprise. In response to his sudden ban on all arrivals from key foreign countries - and by "key" I mean those whom Donald Trump does not have a business interest in, such as the biggest harbor of terrorism, Saudi Arabia - people are protesting at airports, just as they did in city streets the day of Trump's inauguration.

So far, it's been one long protest march.

As heartening as that is, I'm very tempted to tell many of the protest marchers to fuck off. Where the fuck were you all before the election? You know, when your passion counted? Was this your plan all along? Let Trump get into office, fuck up the Supreme Court, and then try to take advantage of the backlash? Do you really think that justifies deliberately fumbling the football on the 1 yard line? First you let Trump win, and now you're pissed at what he's doing now that he's won. And all for irrational hatred of Hillary. Fuck you.

But, on the other hand, better mobilized than not. Hillary would have had her backlash too. And if there's going to be a downfall of an entire political party, I would rather it be the Republican side. That's the positive part, and we can really benefit from it.

If Trump doesn't destroy it all first. Which is a very real possibility.

Barely his first month in office and he's already screwed things up so badly that he needed to move up the announcement of his Supreme Court nominee.

"Oh, look! A SCOTUS justice!"

There's only one rational position which can be taken regarding Trump's nomination of Neil Gorsuch. And that's one of equal measure. Republicans blocked any consideration of Merrick Garland for 11 months.

Now Republicans owe us 11 months of no hearings for Neil Gorsuch.

Fair's fair. You block Obama's nomination for 25% of his term, we get 25% of a presidential term back. The only even-handed course of action is eight Supreme Court justices for nearly two solid years! Eleven months! At least! Starting now!

Better yet, no votes for Gorsuch until we get one vote for Merrick Garland. Okay, so he'll fail the vote. But he will have been voted upon! Is that too much to ask? Apparently even that little bit is, according to today's politics of ultra-warfare.

Of course, I don't expect this will happen. I expect Republicans to exercise the nuclear option, do away with the filibuster and confirm him. But this will come back to bite them when it's our turn (just as it's biting us now because we did a nuclear option for cabinet appointees under Obama), and that may be only two years away when we (I'm certain) flip the House and Senate.

Which brings me again to the backlash. I wrote in this blog back on November 13th that we needed to focus on the electorate, and not just elections. I strongly recommended more liberal radio stations to counteract the conservative media blackout of rural and suburban America. Well, I'm glad to see that someone is doing that in the Milwaukee area. WRRD, AM 1510, is now on the air! How very awesome! I never thought I'd see the day when liberal radio would come to Milwaukee. But it's here! Almost as if someone actually listened to me for once.

Maybe I should bring back the Sacred Cow Wursthaus as a radio show.


Eric

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What Comes Next?

Yes, I'm here. I haven't been arrested. I haven't fled the country.

I've been working, and that's a good thing. It's nice to have a day job again. But that means I can't spend hours in between resume postings writing things. It's a sad trade-off. Sooner or later I had to get back on the hamster wheel, and so here I am, wasting away eight hours a day just like the rest of you.

But on this, the inauguration day of Donald Trump, I felt it necessary to put my thoughts out there again. Because the world needs to hear them, and I need to say them.

You see, with the onset of the Giant Wheel of Cheese Administration will undoubtedly come opportunity. The backlash can and will be fierce, and we can save America on the rebound with a poisoning of the Republican brand the likes of which has never been seen before. Right-wingers who have been drunk with success will have one HELL of a hangover coming! It can and should be a two-to-four year presentation of "We told you so!" to all ears who can hear, followed by the defeat of trickle-down voodoo economics once and for all. We can take full advantage of this...

If America is not destroyed first.

No, I don't think I'm using hyperbole. My approach to the Trump Misadministration is to prepare as though a hurricane were approaching. Shutter up the windows, bolt down the doors, stock up the bunker, and hunker down for the worst. Yes, it may be necessary to evacuate from any storm, but I truly don't think any of us should flee the U.S. There's just too many of us out there, and we outnumber the Trumpets by a considerable margin. They can't control us all, and it's far more likely that certain States may break away from the Union before their citizens flee elsewhere. We could see the onset of the Republic of California, or New England actually becoming the Commonwealth of New England. Washington, Oregon and greater Vancouver could fulfill their dream of establishing "Cascadia." Southeast Wisconsin would almost certainly join Northeast Illinois and Northwest Indiana to forge a new breakaway republic. We could call it "Williana." But I digress.

Perhaps the storm analogy is not so accurate. I'd say it's more of a crucible - an internal fever that will burn the craziness out of our culture. On the other hand, the refining fire may also burn us to death. Just as a body could emerge from an illness stronger, the illness could also kill the body.

Which will it be? I don't know for certain. But I  know this much: I'm going to fight to keep America going, and to make sure Trumpism goes down in flames and what passes for "conservatism" with it.

John F. Kennedy once said that the Chinese word for "crisis" was a combination of the characters for "danger" and "opportunity." This was factually wrong as far as Chinese is concerned, but danger and opportunity can often be the same thing.

That danger and opportunity is now here. Brace yourselves! It's gonna be a bumpy ride!


Eric

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