Wednesday, April 20, 2016

The Elections


Here is my assessment of the candidates running for the office of the Presidency.

Personally I like Bernie Sanders.a lot.  I have followed him for years on the Ed Schultz show where he offered his comments.  And I agree with him about the status quo in our government right now.  But I blame the Republican Senate and the Republican Congress for constantly undermining the president. 
When President Obama was running for President the majority of the country wanted us out of Iraq
So he got us out. 
But the big wigs in the Senate and the House are plain jealous that they don't have a Republican in the office and therefore they undermine everything the President wants to do.
Do we want Cruz, or worse, Trump in the oval office?  God, do I feel sorry for us if this happens!  Kasich is a good and decent man for the office, but unfortunately he does not do well in the polls.
This brings me to Hillary.  In my opinion she is a woman who has the gumption, the smarts, and the patience to put up with her opponents.  In the general election she can whip all of her opponents.  Remember, she is a lawyer by profession and she has a record for helping the poor and helping other groups.  So Bernie is attacking her for her speech to Lehman Brothers.  Doesn't he know that she was not in office when she gave that speech?  Over the weekend she held a fundraiser together with George Clooney, the actor.  This fundraiser was not for her own campaign; it was for the Democratic Party who wants to take back the Congress and finally get things done,
What can Bernie achieve?  He is looking for a revolution which will never happen.  There is an old rule; if you want to change something big, do it according to the appropriate bylaws fro within the organization.  And Hillary is just right for this because she knows how to bring about change and she also knows how to negotiate.  Remember she was Bill's private counselor.

Red Beans and Ricely yours
Effey

If you find this blog interesting or challenging or even educational, then please forward this blog to your friends.  Just forward this URL to them:

http://oldmanmoe.blogspot.com/

Thursday, April 14, 2016

HOW LIFE HAS CHANGED

We live in a fast changing world.  Some people have referred to it as the "Jet-Age" because things change as fast as the speed of light or a jet plane breaking the sound barrier.
I tried calling God the other day to elicit some help for our country.  With all the terrorism going on in Europe there is valid reason for fear of us being next in line for one of those terrorist attacks.  So, I wanted God to protect us from this scourge.
When I called God on my special 800 exclusive line, a machine answered my call.
"Your call is very important to God, but God is busy right now with other folks who need his help.  All of our angels are also busy but please don't go away.  We are here to help you.  There are 28 callers ahead of you, but please don't hang up.  If this is an emergency cal 911 right away.
I hung up in frustration.  I guess that is why the churches and synagogues are losing members.
Have a good one.
Red Beans and Ricely yours

Effey

Friday, April 8, 2016

Ominous Patterns

I have written a 400 page book: "Shanghai Before and After the Fall-Caught Between Two Chairs".  The book is about my life in the Shanghai Jewish Ghetto in the 1940's.  The book will be published by IUniverse next summer. 
In part this book is an autobiography.  But it is really much, much more.  It is an analysis of the different historical events which brought about World War II and with it various dictatorships.
I have done something which I believe no other author of an autobiography has ever done before.  I have analyzed the patterns which lead potential leaders or revolutionaries to become dictators or totalitarians and how these revolutionaries gained power without any previous political experience.  I have gone even one step further by showing what happens once they are in power and eventually their power is ended by external forces.  
These observations are based on the fact that I have grown up in China because of a ruthless dictator who persecuted my parents and millions of other Jews in Germany, namely Adolf Hitler.  
Then, once World War II ended, another dictator ruled China with an iron fist - Mao Zedong.  
I have also analyzed a number of other dictatorships.
Here, without going into much detail, as I do in the book, is a list of patterns which brings revolutionaries into power.
Frustration by the people with the status quo of their government's rule.
Usually there is high unemployment, as well as high inflation, followed by a breakdown of the prevalent culture.
The revolutionaries implore the people to trust them and their rule.
They claim, without being specific, to know what to do to rescue the country from the abyss.
They promise to abrogate previous agreements and contracts.
The State takes control over the individual's lives and promises jobs to the unemployed.
These dictators engage in major construction projects, largely statutes or monuments to their own glory.
They engage in a big build up of the military and subsequently once built up engage in foreign wars.
They silence or even remove the opposition by force.
They promise a better life to the masses.
They censor the press and largely silence the press.
They make some minority group the scapegoat for the countries' problems.
Once they have identified such a minority they persecute many of its members, imprison or make them disappear altogether and confiscate their wealth and assets to pay for the expenses of the construction and the build up of the military and the cost of the wars they have now engaged in.
In the end, the countries which they rule pay a high price for listening to these knights on a white horse in shining armor.
Look at what happened to the lives of Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Mao-Zedong, Saddam Hussein of Iraq, Juan Peron, Augosto Pinochet, Marshall Tito, Joseph Stalin just to name a few and how their lives ended!
Hitler's Germany got decimated by the Allies and Hitler himself, never willing to listen to his generals as well as the generals being afraid to voice their opinions, at the end committed suicide in a bunker in Northwest Berlin, when Soviet troops entered Berlin!
Benito Mussolini tried to flee to Switzerland when the American troops under General George S. Patton and the British troops under Field Marshall Bernard Law Montgomery landed in Sicily.  Mussolini was captured by partisans, shot and his corpse was subsequently hung upside down from the roof of a Gas Station.
Mao-Zedong killed thousands of bureaucrats who had worked for the previous Kuomintang government of Chiang Kai-shek, before the fall of China.  While still under communist party rule, millions of Chinese starved but had no choice but to accept their fate until Deng Xiaoping (1978–1992), put down the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 and opened China to new far-reaching market-economy reforms.  Mao himself was reviled and fell into disrepute by the party.
Saddam Hussein ruled Iraq with an iron fist but was overthrown by the United States forces when they invaded Iraq in 2003.  He was subsequently captured in December of 2003 and sentenced to death by hanging for the murder of thousands of Iraqis.
I am not claiming that Pinocchio (The Donald) will do all of the things mentioned above, but I do fear that the man is dangerous like hell!!!
Let me tell you what I see in him that might have escaped you.
A large part of our population is frustrated with our government's inability to stop American manufacturers from shipping their jobs overseas where the cost of labor is infinitely cheaper than here at home. 
Do you know how the Donald wants to bring back the jobs?  He wants to lower the minimum wage back to $7.25!!!  You heard right!!!  He wants to bring the minimum wage back to $7.25.  Just think of what it would do to his empire if he got to lower the minimum wage again!
President Obama has brought the number of unemployed down quite substantially from what it was but there are still a large number of people who no longer qualify for unemployment benefits and therefore fall between the cracks.  They are still unemployed and struggling to pay their bills.
Conventional jobs have given way to computers and robots.
But Donald still promises the people that he can fix the system, while he knows absolutely nothing about politics.  He forgets that, if elected to be President, he will still have to deal with Congress and the Senate who is very much opposed to him as they were to President Obama because of the Congress trying to act as if the members of Congress were the Commanders in Chief.  Instead of cooperating with the President, Mitch McConnell and John Boehner have done everything they could possibly think of to undermine the President.
Donald talks big, as if he were in the gutter or even the sewer, but when it comes to specifics he doesn't explain how he will accomplish all his goals.  "Just trust" him he says.
He promises to abrogate the Iran Nuclear Deal and Obamacare.  He forgets that it took two years to negotiate the Nuclear Deal and that Iran was more or less in the driver's seat.  America did not give anything to Iran which wasn't theirs to begin with.  The money which Iran got was its own money which was frozen in American Banks!
And Obamacare has helped over 12 million people so far to get health insurance coverage.  Maybe the program needs to be tweaked a little bit, but it should not be torn to shreds.
He wants to build a 10 foot wall on the border of Mexico and the United States and Mexico will pay for it.  Happy Dreaming, Donald!
He wants to rebuild the Military.  It was Congress that refused to pay for a bigger Military.
When Meagan Kelly was scheduled to interview Donald in a Fox Debate he refused to attend, because she "didn't treat him nicely".  What about how he treated her?
She quoted him in his own words in the first debate when he shot back at her.
According to Pinocchio it is the illegal Immigrants from Mexico which are responsible for all of our ills, not Congress!
Gimme a break!
So he will round up 11 million illegal immigrants.  What happens to the Statue of Liberty?  Do we keep its torch burning?
In many ways he reminds me of a snake oil salesman.

But the people who believe in him trust him.  That's what they want to hear.  God help us.