A need to find common ground

   The other day in Atlanta , Elisabeth Warren stated in a speech that (and I am summarizing here) that the left needed to stay hard left and not move to the center. I respectfully disagree with that notion and in fact if the Democratic party embraces that philosophy it will almost certainly lose the next elections and ensure four more years of Trump as president. While I personally don't see that necessarily see that as a bad thing, as I am not of the school of thought that everything evil in the world revolves around Trump, it does ensure that the polarization of  American politics will continue.
      The simple fact is that both sides need to move towards the middle more if we want to move forward as a stronger country. The old saying of united we stand divided we fall still rings true.

 I am a firm believer in free speech, but to follow that principle you have to be willing to listen to things you may not agree with. You don't have to change your mind in a spirited debate on a topic, but you at least need to be open minded enough to see the other persons position. In fact , if you cannot see the opposing perspective, you cannot look at all of the angles of an issue to counter argue a point effectively to attempt to sway the others point of view. Far to often both sides generalize the other sides perspective and outwardly dismiss anything coming from the other side even though there might be valid points being made. When personal bias's  dominate an individual or groups mindset then those sides are just living in echo chambers of opposing view points.

 The media is quick to take advantage of this as they stir up the pot of dissent and amplify it to help keep the opposing sides apart. The media is controlled by the elites and part of their job task is to keep the opposing sides apart so that the masses are kept busy tearing the other side down. This is done  so the opposing sides can't find common ground in which to unify and find actual solutions to the problem at hand. In doing this the elite are given full reign amid the Chaos to control the situation despite what either side wants. The phrase "from chaos comes order" is a favorite saying of theirs. Disorder has often been used to manipulate the masses to get a desired effect many times through out history. It goes along the lines of create the problem and then step forward with the solution to the problem so that the masses will follow the person or group offering the solution.

 Take for example where in Charlottesville, Virginia,  violence erupted by opposing demonstrators of the Alt Right and Alt left. In the aftermath one innocent woman was left dead, two police officers died in a helicopter crash  and many more were injured in the ensuing chaos of the days events. It was all pretty senseless and should have been avoided. This happening was a perfect storm of what can happen when people are not willing to sit and talk and just want to shout their opinions out.  
 Personally I am no fan of white supremacists such as the KKK but I will say they have a right to talk. I do not agree with their positions and find it hard personally to let them espouse their untasteful brand of rhetoric but there is either free speech for all or free speech for nobody and who is to decide who gets to voice an opinion. The same laws that allow them to speak also allow the ultra left the right to speak their minds as well.
  The media was quick to criticize Trump for not being more forceful on his condemnation towards the Alt right groups but little was said on the Alt lefts role in the conflict.  Both sides had the few individuals that were looking to start something and both sides had people that wanted to make a peaceful point. When Trump brought that fact up, the media had a field day saying he was supporting the Alt Right when he was in fact saying both sides were partially at fault for the breakdown of order.

Lately there has been a hard press to try and erase the history of the country in the name of PC politics. The problem is you can't erase what happened in the past, but you can use it to learn from past mistakes. Getting into a mob mentality and ripping down public statues is counter productive to your cause as it stirs up resentment from the other side of the issue. A statue is not oppressing anyone but apparently in the new hyper sensitive society that is emerging they cause PTSD just from sitting there. Someone went so far as to say that the statues were on pedestals and you put gods and idols on pedestals so that the statues were idols of white supremacy. Personally I feel that is a load of psyco-babbling horse shit but they have a right to their opinion.
   I can understand if a predominantly black community wants to rename a park away from someone who once owned slaves, even though that person just happens to be the first president of the united states but going in with a mob and ripping down stuff is the wrong way to go about it. Also the wholesale destruction of every statue of every slave owner is not going to change history one bit. I even heard that someone called for Mount Rushmore to be taken down. That's getting a little extreme in my book as the people on that monument also did a lot of good for this country.

   Part of the recent rise and resurgence of the Alt right can be blamed squarely on the Alt left. As much as people on the left might not like hearing that, it happens to be true. There has been a high degree of lawlessness on the part of Antifa which is ironic because they are basically using some of the same tactics that they claim to be against. In doing so they are creating the very thing they claim to be fighting against as it gives the Alt right fuel to point at the lawlessness on the left as a reason to band together. The protests and small riots of the left after the election did not sit well with a large majority of Americans.  That's why the true hope is for people to find middle ground and bring the country towards the center. It's been a common tactic for the left to accuse anyone and everyone on the right as being a racist and a fascist which is utter bullshit. Every election cycle the Democrats seem to play the race card and try to also portray all Republicans as heartless and cruel to anyone who isn't rich. Often though it actually is the Republicans who seem to be more open minded at times while the Democrats ride around on their high horse claiming moral superiority and open mindedness. The last election showed that, as the behavior on the left was extremely atrocious at times.   They seemed to be taking the win by any means necessary approach even though that meant doing the exact same things they were falsely accusing the other side of. I am not trying to say that all Republicans are enlightened saints by any means, they aren't, but I didn't see any Republicans  protesting Hillary rallies and attacking her supporters like I saw the left do to trump rallies. I'm sure that in the extreme lefts minds that was all justified , but when you stop and realize that the alt right think in their minds their actions are justified due to the unlawful actions of the hard left, it causes a reason to pause and say, hold on , how about everyone pull their heads out of their asses, calm down and just be reasonable. The actions of both sides are causing a downward spiral in political relations.

 The vast amount of  Americans live in the wide middle ground and are reasonable thinkers. The media however loves to sensationalize the extreme edges and stoke the flames of discontentment and distrust as they try to polarize the people towards the extremes. "Trying to get high ratings while ripping at the fabric of the country" would be an appropriate slogan for many of the news outlets these days. Our commonalities is what should be stressed to bring people together rather than to tear people apart. Yes , there will be disagreements but shouting at each other does not produce any resolution to anything, it only makes the problem worse.
 I was pleasantly surprised when talking to one of my second cousins who is very liberal a few weeks back when he expressed the same attitude that the country needs to find a more middle approach to the issues , because as he said , it is getting to the point where people cant even reasonably discus the issues anymore. He also went on to say that as much as there is to hate about Trump , that Trump isn't wrong about everything. At the time we were talking about the immigration problems that Europe has been having and the terror attacks that have been wide spread over there with people just flooding into Europe. He had seen the issues over there first hand and he told me that the situation was out of control over there. His comments gave me hope that common ground could be found to discuss the issues that affect our own country.
 Seriously, is it such a bad idea to crack down on illegal immigration when it is bringing us groups like MS13 into the country? Is it a bad thing to deport repeat violent offenders that have no respect for any of our laws? Is it such a bad thing to make sure we have proper vetting on people coming in from middle eastern countries when many from those regions have openly expressed a hatred for the western culture and want to spread Sharia law around the globe that oppresses women and goes against the tenants of Democracy in favor of religious governance?

 One of the things that Trump did get right out of his speeches on the events of the past few weeks was that fixing the economy and getting everyone being prosperous is the best way to help heal the divides. Even those comments though fell on deaf ears as a lot of people just hate Trump and think that any thing he says or does is just evil. Its unfortunate that the media is set on stirring the pot of discontentment and dividing the masses rather than bring them together.  I still think that Trump is more of a moderate politically than the media gives him credit for. It just plays well to paint him as an out of control extremist to get ratings and it serves a purpose of distracting the masses from bigger issues like the national debt, the looming shift in world reserve currency status and the bipartisan bickering and ineptitude of the representatives in Washington DC. There are important issues to be handled in this country and the media is stirring up racial and political strife that distracts everyone from concentrating on the deeper issues the nation has. Things like the medical care issues. It was no great secrete that Obama Care aka The Affordable health care act was not working as promised. Rates were going way up , insurance providers were backing out of the plans leaving less providers to actually provide and share costs. The plan was rammed through into law with Pelosi saying we would have to pass it to find out what is in it! Seriously WTF was up with that? Then after there was issues with it , and you had the republicans screaming to repeal and replace and the democrats sticking their heads in the sand like nothing was wrong ,could nobody in Washington DC stand up and say ," You know , this program has issues and they need to be fixed, lets try and do our jobs by working together and fix this mess before the American people suffer!"

 People forget about the principles of pendulum politics. It goes like this, the farther you pull the pendulum to one side , the farther it will swing to the other side in response. For eight years under Obama the pendulum was drawn far to the left as "Social Justice" issues were pushed harder than fixing the over all issues with the country. Special interests groups such as the LGBT and BLM were coddled at the expense of conservative groups and the police and a lot of people resented that. The white house would be lit up in rainbow colors to celebrate gay marriage  or lit up in purple to pay tribute to Prince when he overdosed and died, but  when six police officers were assassinated protecting a crowd of protesters that were protesting against the police, the white house refused to show support to the police by lighting up the white house in blue. That didn't go unnoticed by a large percentage of the population. When the doors were kicked open to illegal immigrants in violation to existing laws on the books that stuff didn't go unnoticed. It wasn't unnoticed just by the right but also by the African American community who watched an influx of low wage workers flooding into the country that were going after jobs that many people born here could have used.
  Now after the pendulum had been pushed far to the left, it swung back towards the right. Granted , this country does not need a hard right swing that's for sure but it certainly does need to get back towards a more middle position. The left is desperately trying to prevent the pendulum from swinging the other direction but the hard left positions are not going to prevent that from happening , they will only accelerate the momentum.The problem with a group like Antifa is that they just indiscriminately declare whomever they want  to be a Fascist. If you don't agree with them - your a Fascist, You voted for Trump because you wanted a business man in the drivers seat instead of a career politician who has enriched their own wallet in the name of serving the country  - your a Fascist, You support the police and the military - your a Fascist, You are walking down the street minding your own business and happen to be in the path of an angry out of control mob - well - you might be a Fascist , especially if your white so its not innocent until proven guilty , its guilt by association and your a fascist. The point is , the majority of the people that Antifa claims to be fascists , probably are not! There might be a few fascists out there but they are a very small minority of the people in this country.

  Extreme leanings to either side is dangerous. When those leanings are pushed on by the media , they become volatile. Its ironic that a lot of evil things are done in the name of "Doing what's right" or " Doing what needs to be done" without regard to asking - "is this really right to do and does this really need to be done in this manner?"  The media has also pushed the concept  of vigilante , do it by any means necessary justice in movies and television for decades so is it any surprise that people take that position?    
  We need less extremes and more middle ground. In fact, we don't just need that in this country but the world at large. While I am a supporter of a strong military , I also realize just how much money gets pissed away globally because the human race bickers and argues and generally distrusts one another. The base elements of why that money is pissed away every year can be broken down to the same dynamics seen in the hard right and hard left butting heads. It comes down to opposing sides not willing to sit down and talk rationally and just try accepting the differences of the multitude of people in the world. It comes down to differing opinions hell bent on making others conform to how they think rather than seeing how the other side thinks and feels. Basically it boils down to greed and ignorance on all sides and a stubbornness to not change for the betterment of all. The really sad thing is , its the minority on the extreme sides leading the masses into conflict. Most people want to live in peace, get along with others and really don't want to mess with any one or be messed with.
  I sincerely hope that calmer heads prevail , not only on the streets and in government here in the USA but around the world at large. We are living in a volatile time where mankind can either get together and reach for the stars for a better future for everyone , or send the world crashing back several hundred or thousand years as we tear the planet apart. Lets just hope we chose to get along, drop the ego BS and stop the senseless arguing before it becomes to late.

   Until next time
       Lasco X

Media or Propiganda, the line is just a big blur now.

  If you look at the media / supposed news information being disseminated to the mass populace you see that more and more its nothing but propaganda and mental manipulation.
   6 major companies now control 90% of the media outlets with roughly 232 media executives controlling the information diet of 277 million Americans.  (Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/these-6-corporations-control-90-of-the-media-in-america-2012-6)

 The implications of that are staggering when you contemplate the ramifications of those numbers. Is it a real surprise when you flip channels and see all the commentators using the exact same terms and words to describe what is going on in the world. It's that way because they are reading off the same script that has been written to shape public opinion,  In all reality , the free press no longer exists and has been replaced by a massive media propaganda machine designed to social engineer the mass populace. This is a dangerous situation as most people pay absolutely no attention to the manipulation going on around them. The medias job now is to shape public opinion rather than report on the news of the world. This was on full display in the last presidential election cycle as the media tried to install Hillary Clinton as the president of the USA.  In the early days of the campaign the media helped to tear down good potential candidates on the Republican side and helped build up Trump , figuring he would be an easy target to take out in the general election. Then after the primary's were over they turned the focus on tearing down Trump and building up Hillary.                    
There was a mind set in the media that Hillary had already won going into election night in November. Polls had been manipulated and rigged so they reported Hillary to be the projected winner. This was meant to discourage voters from voting for Trump by projecting it as a futile effort. The media was sure that Hillary had the election in the bag , it was blatantly obvious of that in the early hours of the election by their demeanor. Then the unthinkable happened, the plan did not work as expected. It was obvious by the expressions and change in demeanor of the reporters that things were not going per script midway through the evening. The plan to install Hillary had backfired and Trump was now looking like the projected winner. The demeanor of the reporters changed to a visibly shaken state and then media went silent around 12 am EST as it tried to regroup and desperately wait for a last minute manipulation that would make Hillary win but it didn't happen.  After that the media went into full blown shock for the next day that morphed into anti Trump mode.

  Four and eight years before , President Obama was given a free pass and a long honeymoon period by the press. Actually they gave that to him for the bulk of his presidency even as he put up the most opaque wall from the press after promising to be the most transparent president ever , the press still gave him a pass.  Now though the media was out for blood and was encouraging the left from day one to not accept the outcome of the election.  Basically from the very start of the final election results there has been an ongoing manipulation by the media to effect the mindset of the populous against Trump.  I am not going to try and defend Trump or his action in office as its off point on this subject. While I don't think the media is giving him a fair shot , it is also fair to say that Trump can be his own worst enemy at times.  In my opinion America had no good options in the last election and a lot of the blame for that boils down to media manipulation of the political process. I have to admit that I enjoyed seeing the shocked expressions on the face of the media stooges when they realized that things had back fired and blew up in their faces. They had made the fatal mistake of believing their own hype and thinking that they controlled the American people. Fortunately enough people were not buying what they were selling and were thinking for themselves.

 Will that always be the case though? The media does have a lot of stroke when it comes to swaying people minds. Propaganda is used by all governments and power bases. Unfortunately no populous under a governmental system is immune to it as it is present across the globe. Its just more blatant in some countries over others. While the propaganda machine is more masked in the USA it is still present. In countries like North Korea, the loyalty to the state and the anti American propaganda machine is obvious. In America however the propaganda machine is so glossed up many people take it for granted and don't even recognize it for what it is. In the USA and most of the developed world we are inundated with propaganda. We just call it advertising but its still a form of propaganda. We also have the a spin on the traditional propaganda machine as Oligarchs  who own the media guide the masses in the direction they want to lead them. These are the same Oligarchs who back politicians and play chess with  companies and power bases.

 Often these days people get their news off of the headlines and just assume that what is emblazoned in bold letters is true but the actual facts are hidden deep in the article. The media will spend paragraphs telling you how and what to think but will only spend a few lines letting you know the actual facts of the situation. When this happens you are not reading the news , you are reading a propaganda piece.

 Propaganda is a tool used to unite and divide. It is the medium of group think that pits one group against the other. Its used for social engineering which is not always a bad thing but it certainly can be. The biggest factor to counteracting propaganda is an educated and freethinking populous. Blind loyalties by any group is a dangerous thing and when that group is fueled by propaganda it can be very dangerous. Propaganda has been used throughout the history of civilization. It's the whisper in the streets going around at its smallest form to high profile glossy campaigns that rally whole nations and ideology's at it's greatest.

  Paul Joseph Goebbels who was Hitler's Propaganda Minister in Nazi Germany had this to say....

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”

 Propaganda is a dangerous tool. The consolidation of the media is sharpening that tool so that it is highly effective as it appears that the same idea is coming from many sources while in fact it is coming from the same source. Its a very short stretch from propaganda being a tool to becoming weaponized in the wrong hands. The same powers of persuasion that get you to buy one brand of diapers or soda are the same powers that get you to accept one Ideology , Theology  or one of the many Ism's in the world. The best thing to do is not to believe everything you hear. Question everything and look at it with a good deal of skepticism. Just because your hearing the same thing over and over does not make it true. Often you are hearing it over and over because that is exactly what someone else wants you to believe is true. 

 Always think for yourself and don't rely on one type of news source or view point to shape your opinion. Your opinion should be your opinion, not just a regurgitation of the media machines view point and flavor of the day media spin. It is dangerous to live in an echo chamber. For those who don't know , that is where you are only hearing what you want to hear , you hear your own views and opinions only and never want to hear an opposing thought. Some people get mad when they hear the other voice say an opposing view point but if you aren't willing to look both ways then there is a good chance you will walk out in front of oncoming  traffic. Its said there is three sides to every story... Yours ... mine ... and the truth!  I have found that the truth generally lays somewhere in the middle and that it is rarely just black or white. Most often its found in the many shades of grey that there is in the world. 

Just food for free thought

   Until next time

      Lasco X

The Left is getting out of controll

The events since the election have really spiraled out of control. To the  shock and dismay of many , Donald Trump was elected president. The left and the cult of Clinton were left rattled to the bone as the election turned in favor of Trump. Immediately those to the left started casting blame on backwards uneducated racist misogynistic males and self hating women whom ignorantly voted in favor of Trump. Maybe though the left should have looked in the mirror to see the reason that Trump won the election.

 First,  look at the media that was firmly, even blatantly biased towards Clinton from the very beginning. They eagerly glossed over the many issues with Clinton such as the Private Email server, the bleach bit erasing of the mass Emails that were under congressional order to be turned over. The media served Hillary up as the smartest , most qualified woman in the world and then allowed her to give a bimbo like answer of " You mean like, with a cloth" when asked if she had her personal sever wiped down. The bias of the media was obvious in the debates as the media outlets lobbed softballs to the Democrats and then went after the Republicans and tried to get them to turn on each other. It was the media that helped build up Trump over the more qualified candidates in the primary elections. The media offered up a bunch of free coverage to Trump in the primaries and help tear down the other more qualified republican candidates as it was reasoned that Trump would be easy to take out in the General election. The media figured that Trump would easily self implode or that they would be able to manipulate a media bombshells to defeat him.
 The media manipulation was blatant to anyone objectively looking at it. Things like the meeting with Bill Clinton and Loretta Lynch were glossed over.   It didn't matter that within days of that meeting , all Emails related to the Clinton Foundation were sealed for roughly two years. Evidence that might have exposed a pay for play scheme would not see the light of day until well after the election. As the WikiLeaks papers came streaming out, the media downplayed the revelations coming forth. Things like the DNC swaying thing towards Clinton and away from Bernie Sanders were downplayed. The media chose more to focus on the leak and blaming the Russians rather than the information coming out. The funny thing was , we didn't hear any denials about the information coming out, just the outrage that the information saw the light of day.
 Going into election night the media was certain that the winner would be Hillary. After all , they had done their due diligence to ensure that she was going to win. As the election night wore on and it became apparent that Trump was going to take the election their whole demeanor changed as their plan to push Clinton into the White house blew up in their face. The media looked shell shocked as the results came in and Trump was declared to be the winner of the electoral collage. Had camp Clinton not ignored the rust belt and had not just assumed that the Blue wall would hold in the union controlled industrial belt she would have won. The simple fact that the Democrats had left that region  ignored, not just during the election but for the past eight years as employment languished and withered away, was totally lost on the Democratic powers that be. Instead it was blamed on FBI director Comey bringing up the fact that other evidence had surfaced close to the election. In fact everyone was blamed except for the candidate herself. It wasn't Comeys fault there was evidence there to look at in the first place, that fault lay in Clintons lap. To the Democrats and the cult of Clinton the long list of baggage their candidate carried was nothing. To the rest of America it mattered.

    Second , a lot of Americans didn't appreciate being called an irredeemable basket of deplorables.  Basically anyone that wasn't in camp Clinton was 1- a Nazi, 2- A misogynist , 3- A racist , 4- an illiterate backwards fuck , 5- A member of the KKK , 6- An old white person clinging to the past, 7- A woman hating pussy grabber , 8- A gay hating bigot. These were just some of the names bestowed on anyone that was not a Democrat Clintonite. The fact that people just didn't like Hillary because she appeared to be totally in the pocket of big business, wall street, foreign interests and  was the epitome of establishment politics didn't matter. The left just branded anyone one disagreeing with them one of many hateful names. Just for the record , the Nazis sprang from the National Socialist German workers Party - They were socialists. Misogynists come in all Political affiliations , can you say Bill Clinton and John Kennedy. Racists come in all flavors and colors as well, people forget that the KKK was the militant wing of the Southern Democratic Party. The Democrats have done a good job of trying to affiliate the KKK with Republicans but its history is firmly in the Decorates house. There is no doubt that many people voting for Trump were white but he also polled surprisingly well with other demographics as well.  When it comes to Trumps statements regarding woman , granted they were bad, but where is the lefts outrage regarding the acts of Bill Clinton, he doesn't exactly have the cleanest record in regards to women. I am not totally clear on Trumps stance where it comes to gays, but I think its a whole lot more liberal than they give him credit for.  Bottom line is that the left did themselves no favors when they alienated the independent voters and insulted a large part of the population.

 The left simply forgot the dynamics of pendulum politics. The farther you push the pendulum one direction , the harder and farther it pushes the other direction. Project Veritas exposed the left on stirring up issues at Trumps rallies,  but you didn't need to rely on just those , the mainstream media and you tube showed the violent actions of the left. The funny thing was though is that was skewed by the media to be all Trump's and Trump supporters fault. The left was painted as innocent in all things.  Is it really a surprise that so many Americans voted in a backlash against what was perceived by many as a full on assault against traditional values from the previous 8 years.  Police have been demonized during the past administration. While I don't support the full on militarization of many of the departments , and there does need to be civil restraints and protections of personal freedoms, still Americans do need to respect the rule of law. When you think about the last administration lighting up the White house in Purple for the passing of Prince and going Rainbow colors for the passing of Gay marriage it sends a really bad message when the refusal to light the White house up in Blue to honor the assassinated officers in Dallas was reported. Would it have been such a bad thing to say , yes , we support law enforcement in light of this heinous attack .

 The left also shot themselves in the foot by the massive over reaction to everything Trump.  I haven't seen this type of Hysteria since the days of Reefer Madness. The overblown reactions to any and everything Trump does is just over the top.  A word to celebrities who feel they need to expound every chance they get to bash Trump and the Republicans, the vast amount of people really don't give a shit what you think. Yes your entitled to your opinion, I am all for free speech, but we really don't care what rich elitist people who don't live in the real world think.  Just watch as the ratings on awards shows tank this year because people don't want to hear the incessant whining and overblown rhetoric of the left. I am not in favor of everything Trump is doing, but Washington needed to be shaken up a bit and Hillary certainly wasn't the person to do it.

 The left has the right to voice decent, and protest. It doesn't have the right to shit on everyone else and disregard the law in the process. The left tends to live in an echo chamber, they only want to hear what they themselves say and think. As Churchill Said " Some peoples idea of free speech is that they are free to say what ever they like but if anyone says anything back, that is an outrage."

 We can only hope that reason will win out from all sides. America is a great country. There are many that say America was never great, they are wrong. America is a great country. Trump ran on make America great again. Personally I think it can be better and stronger but I still think the USA was already a great country. Trump is right to work to bring industry back to the USA. Our economic base has been under assault for decades and we need to reverse that. Immigration does need to be enforced , we have existing laws that are just being ignored. A short moratorium on immigration from known terrorist counties isn't the end of the world.  Securing the Southern boarder is not a bad thing. People act like its the end of the free world just because Trump was elected but its not. People are still free to disagree and say so publicly. When Obama was elected anyone saying anything against his policies was immediately branded a racist. The left loves to brand anyone disagreeing with them a Racist or Nazi. It's been my observation that often the left is actually far more intolerant at times then the right.

 This country doesn't need division, we need to work together.  There are plenty of dangers in the world without us bickering within. America will survive Trump and life will go on. What the left needs to understand is that Trump was elected because people were voting against Clinton, they were voting against a media propaganda machine and the DNC that was trying to fix an election, they were voting against the status quo of being promise the same thing every four years and nothing being done about it, they were voting against the willful ignoring of immigration laws. People were tired of politics as usual and that's what got Trump into the Whitehouse.

 People can say , "Not my President" all they want, but honestly, if you are a citizen of the USA , he is.                                         
                                Like it or not , that's the way it is.