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

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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.

Tuesday, March 29, 2016

I Worry about Trump

If you have followed me and my blog, you will have noticed that I do not think very highly of Pinocchio.  In fact, I have stated before that he is a Neo Fascist and that he displays all the behaviors normally displayed by future dictators.

Recently Michael Hayden, the former director of the CIA has recently said: "Donald Trump's statements on national security have made the United States less safe."

"Trump is a bigger threat to national security than Hillary Clinton", said Hayden in an interview with Glenn Thrush on Politico's  podcast last Friday,  adding that he views Trump's current statements as erratic. "I just don't know what he's going to do."

Hayden said Trump's national security talk "is not so much wrong or overly certain.  It's incoherent and his call to ban Muslims from entering the U.S. "has made the United States less safe than it has to be."

Hayden said out of the remaining Republican candidates for president, he would trust Ohio Gov. John Kasich the most on national security.

However, in the "narrowly defined national security lane," behind Kasich, Hayden praised Clinton as the "best prepared from day one." Noting she was "a quick study," when he briefed her while she was secretary of state. 

"This is an experienced diplomat, an experienced woman, who seems to have taken these questions seriously," said Hayden.

Other experts agree with Hayden's views on Trump

MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell told NBC's "Meet the Press" Sunday that Trump is "completely uneducated about any part of the world" and "when he doesn't know something, he just changes the subject."

Former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta also agreed with Hayden, noting Trump and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz are both delivering, "irresponsible and dangerous proposals," according to ABC News

Columnist Eugene Robinson in a Washington Post article said Trump's "ignorance of government policy, foreign and domestic, is breathtaking."

Adding: "I'm appalled at how little he knows — and truly frightened."


So, you see, I was right on target.  Remember I said it first!!

Monday, March 21, 2016

I Stand Corrected.

First of all, I want to apologize to all my followers for the typos and incorrect grammar in the last two posts.  I was in the hospital and dictated the last two blogs over the phone.  I never saw them before they were posted.  Again, my apologies!
In fact, I love the English language and I hate to see people mangle it, either by wrong spelling or typos.  But this time I myself have to take the blame.
Now to one of the most important subject matters during the next few weeks - Pinocchio.
In my post of March 3rd, I said that "The Donald" is a fascist and acts like a dictator in disguise.  I stand corrected.  Carl Bernstein, the award winning investigative journalist, who together with Bob Woodward exposed the Watergate scandal in 1973, which eventually led President Richard Nixon to resign, said that Trump is a Neo-fascist.  He was right!  Neo means "new".  So, I modify my statement to "Neo fascist". 
Why is this important to know?  Why am I harping on this subject?
Because I have lived overseas, under 2 totalitarian governments at different times.  My family was a victim of Fascism.  I have lost a thirteen year old brother, my paternal grandparents and two of my father's brothers to Fascism.  And if Donald Trump gets the nomination or even worse, becomes our president, we are in deep doody! 
There are certain patterns which totalitarians share in common.
They come to power when the lower income classes feel abandoned by their government, when they have lost their jobs and can not find new jobs.  They feel that the government in power does not hear their painful cries for changes.
The dictators come along and ridicule their opponents, make inflammatory speeches and sound like "saviors" sent from heaven.  They promise the people changes which will bring back the former glories of their nation and provide jobs for the people.  They will say everything the masses want to hear.  Good times are acomin!  Just trust me!  We will fix their wagons!
Potential dictators rarely have any detailed plans on how they will bring about the changes they promise.  All they have is a child-like demeanor that they can do it, whatever that "it" is.  But almost all the time the first thing they do is divide the country and pit their followers against the establishment class. 
They (the dictators) themselves never give orders for violent changes but they ratchet up their rhetoric to a feverish pitch which encourages their followers to use violence to rid the dictator of his opponents.  Generally the dictator's followers do not have very much of an education.  The "savior" promises his followers jobs and always finds someone to be the scapegoat for all the ills of the country.
Usually dictators engage in large construction projects, which actually create some jobs.  But most of the time the construction projects are monuments, usually to their own glory.
But when the time comes to pay for these projects the government coffers are dry.  They turn on their opponents and steal the money from the rich and distribute it to the poor, but not in Robin Hood fashion!  The takeover is usually violent and to justify their actions they use trumped up charges.  (via. Atalin, Mao-Tse-Tung, Hitler, etc.)
In this case, Trump and some of the other Republican candidates and, in fact, the entire Republican Party blame Barack Obama, of course for all the country's problems!    And let's not forget Hillary Clinton!  They do not want to admit that they undermined the President in every possible way.  They want to trash Obamacare because they are jealous.  They do not realize that Obamacare finally gave millions of people a chance to have healthcare. 
And Benghazi!  How many hearings have there been about Benghazi, trying to pin the blame on Hillary Clinton?  What nobody talks about is that the Republicans slashed the budget for the defense of all our embassies two years earlier.  They are trying to purge themselves!  They feel guilty.
And quite frankly, in my opinion they are!


Red Beans and Ricely Yours.

Tuesday, March 8, 2016

Red Beans And Ricely Yours

The race for the Republican nomination is now beginning to look like a real horse race. Mr. Trump is still the front runner, but the field of other competitors is quickly starting to close in on him.

Finally people are realizing that he has nothing to offer the American electorate but pump, bluster , insults, gutter talk, narc-ism. And empty promises. Both, words and promises, are cheap! He claims that he is self funding his campaign, not true! He may be paying his staffers out of his own pocket, but in the end you and I will be paying for them all. He will claim every expense associated with the campaign as a tax deduction. All ready he is reaching the plateau. Maybe he is starting to lose ground.

Now he is asking hs supporters to pledge that they will support him all the way, by having them raise their right hand and reciting the pledge. Hello Hitler! Viva Il Duce! Viva Fidel Castro! "Long live Fascism!"

It sounds like he is a supremacists, not and elitists.

The only one in the Republican party who sounds real is John Kasich.

I Doubt that Kasich can win the nomination by ether pledges or super delegates. But we haven't seen the entire results for all the states yet.

In a contested or brokered convention Kasich may turn out to be the best choice. 

Red Beans Ricely Yours, effey[1]





[1]  One of the worlds most popular jazz musicians, Louis (Satchmo) Armstrong use to sign his name with this epigram .

Thursday, March 3, 2016

God.  Please save us from Donald (Pinocchio)Trump!
If you are thinking of voting for Donald Trump, think again. But first, read this blog!

The Donald sounds real good when he is campaigning.  But has he actually put forth any specifics about his plans?  Does he really think that our opponents are stupid?  If so, he might find out that he got more than he bargained for!

Cases in point.  The Iran Nuclear Deal. 

All the Republicans are speaking from hindsight.  They claim that the deal which John Kerry and Hillary Clinton negotiated is a bad deal.  Oh Yeah?  It took the US almost two years to come up with this kind of a deal.  Why?  Because the Iranians were stubborn and were really in the driver's seat.  They have the nuclear missiles and bombs.  Do we want to risk not having any dialogue at all with them?

The Illegal Immigrants.

He wants to build an impenetrable wall.  In 1960 East Germany built a wall 97 miles long.  At the time it cost $200 Million. In Today's economy it would cost $1.2 Billion.  But that would only be for a wall that is 97 miles long.  The wall we would need would be 3000 miles long.  How much would that cost? 

And what do we do with our Statue of Liberty?  Would we take that down?  And don't kid yourself, the jobs the illegal immigrants would do for very small wages, no American would want to do, because we are too spoiled.  So that would almost inevitably put many restaurants as well as many other businesses out of business.

Bringing back jobs from overseas?  No manufacturer would be that stupid.  The wages American workers would demand are five times as high as the wages workers get in some third world countries.  So scratch that off the record.

In fact, Donald himself is looking to lower the wages again, back to $7.50/hr. 

What about freedom of speech.  You saw recently that he doesn't allow anybody except himself to say what is on their mind.  He proved it a couple of times by forcefully removing demonstrators, he also tried to censor Fox News, when he boycotted a debate where he didn't like one of the journalists doing the interview.

He keeps interrupting the other candidates when they speak, but he tells them to be quiet when they speak.

Politifact the publication rated 76% of what Trump said in 77 statements as varying degrees of false, from “Mostly False” to “Pants on Fire.”

He also claims that he can do whatever he wants, and he will be successful.  Supposedly he has the Midas Touch.  Oh Yeah?  If so, then why did the Trump Shuttle, Trump Vodka, Trump Magazine, Trump University, GoTrump.com, Trump Mortgage, and Trump Steak fail?

Women have strive'd for decades to have equal rights and get equal pay for the same work men do.  From the disparaging way he talks about women do you think he will seek to get for women whatever rights they seek?  I seriously doubt it.

George W. Busch spoke very much like The Donald does.  He promised us a greater America.  He inherited a surplus from President Bill Clinton, he got us into the Iran War and he left us with a huge deficit plus the Great Recession.  I foresee the The Donald will do even worse.  He will alienate our allies and start wars with our enemies.  Do we really need such an egotist and liar as President?


Most dictators throughout history have promised the people whatever they wanted to hear (as Donald does).  The people elected them into office and when the dictators committed suicide or were killed by their opponents, they left a big mess behind.  Watch out for the Donald!