Sunday, October 30, 2016
The Fourth Revolution
Sometimes when I buy a book I get lucky. A couple
of months ago I was purchasing a book on Amazon and needed to buy something else to qualify for free shipping.
I picked out a book I thought might be interesting. It turned out that the “filler”
book was a better choice than my original target. I recommend that anyone interested in government policy,
budgets, rights and privileges of people and government programs read The Fourth Revolution – The Global Race to
Reinvent the State by John Micklethwait and Adrian Woolridge. This book was published in 2014 and
therefore is very current. It is a very unusual circumstance when I read a book of this type and say that
I don’t disagree with anything the authors have said or their conclusions.
I wish our Presidential candidates had read this book and debated the authors’ thoughts that are presented
in Chapter 9 and the Conclusion (the last 50 pages). It would certainly been much more productive for the
US citizenry than what we watched. After watching the political analysts, commentators and advocates speak
pabulum on TV for month after month and year after year it is nice to read some intelligent thoughts on the critical issues
facing the US for change.
The early chapters
of the book explain how the nation state evolved from the 1600s to the present day. The impact of great
thinkers like Thomas Hobbes and John Stuart Mill are discussed. The evolution of “Democracy”
and the establishment of the welfare state in western nations are reviewed. There is an analysis of modern
states of different types and how they are dealing with their issues. For example, Singapore was become
a model that many other world leaders are attempting to learn from as they deal with a variety of issues. It
was very interesting to learn that some “socialist” European states have determined that they need a balance of
socialism and capitalism or their economies don’t function well.
There are many wonderful quotes in the book that I would like to add to this blog. Instead
of picking out one or two I have decided to present none of them. I highly recommend you read this book
if you care about these issues and you can get the full impact of the quotes without me presenting them out of context.
The US and Western Europe badly need a fourth revolution in the development of its nation states.
Micklethwait and Wooldridge have given us a wonderful tool to help point the way forward. We need
to force our politicians to adapt this line of thinking and start solving our fundamental problems.
TPM
10:54 pm
Tuesday, October 11, 2016
Clinton's Credibility
On August 10, 2011 I wrote a blog, Hillary Clinton's Time.
This blog was very complementary to Hillary Clinton. I wrote the blog because I and a high percentage of Americans
were completely frustrated by Barrack Obama's inability to lead the nation forward. My blog closed with the following
sentence "We need Hillary Clinton to unify the country, an outcome that Barrack Obama will never be able to achieve."
I made this comment even though I also said this "I know Mrs. Clinton and I would not agree on a lot of issues."
There was no doubt in my mind at the time that Clinton could bring together moderate Democrats, moderate Republicans and independents
and get the country moving n the right direction. Go to my history at the end of the current blogs and click on
the August 2011 section to read the entire August 10, 2011 blog.
So what has happened in the past five years? I won't vote for Hillary Clinton for President now. I will
vote for Donald Trump even though he is a very flawed person and candidate. How could my opinion of Hillary Clinton
have changed so dramatically during this period?
It all began with the attack on two US government facilities in Benghazi, Libya on September 11 and 12,
2012 which resulted in the murder of four Americans. The Obama administration invented a story that the attack
was a spontaneous protest triggered by a recently released anti-Muslim video. The Obama administration tried to sell
this story to the all of us in support of the narrative they were selling as part of the 2012 election campaign. This
event occurred on Hillary Clinton's watch as Secretary of State. She fully supported this false story with statements
of her own. Subsequent investigation revealed that this was a premeditated attack, not a spontaneous protest, and the
Obama Administration made every effort to not tell the truth about the events at Benghazi. There are many different
aspects to Bengahazi that I won't rehash here. But the bottom line is that I believe Hillary Clinton purposely
lied to the American people to protect Obama. In her position of Secretary of State this was inexcusable.
The Benghazi investigation led to the discovery
of Hillary Clinton's private email server, her extremely careless handling of very sensitive, highly classified information
and a series of acts directed by Clinton that had the purpose of preventing the disclosure of her communications during her
time as Secretary of State. The fact that she has faced no legal consequences for her actions is inexcusable.
Others that have done far less have faced severe legal consequences. This is unacceptable to me.
The email server investigation led to an understanding of the connections between
the Clinton Foundation and the State Department led by Hillary Clinton. During Hillary Clinton's tenure as Secretary
of State, Bill and Hillary Clinton built tremendous wealth. It appears highly likely there was a version of pay-to-play
activity occurring during this period with Bill and Hillary Clinton as the beneficiaries. A lot of this activity was
disguised in part by the positive work done by the Clinton Foundation. Since Clinton had her server erased to the point
that it is impossible to recover all the destroyed emails it is unlikely that we will ever find out the extent of the pay-to-play
activity. Pay-to-play activity is inexcusable.
During the Presidential election cycle Hillary Clinton was challenged by by Bernie Sanders. In order to stave
off Sanders Clinton moved her positions on many issues to the left, abandoning moderate views she had supported a few years
earlier. It now appears that Clinton has abandoned any moderate positions and is committed to a purely liberal
progressive approach to governing which is unacceptable to me. This was clearly a political move since Sanders ran an
unexpected strong campaign. It took a coordinated effort by Clinton and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) to
defeat Sanders. The DNC Chair and other senior people had to resign their positions as a result. Perhaps Clinton
would have won the nomination without the help of the DNC. Why would a highly favored candidate have to resort to "cheating"
her opponent in order to ensure her victory?
There are many specific issues or details of the various investigations that has taken place that I could discuss.
But that is not the point. From my perspective Hillary Clinton has lost all of her credibility over the past five years.
I am one example as to why her negative poll numbers are so high. I no longer believe she can lead our country anywhere
in a productive fashion. It should be noted that Secretary of State was the only executive position Hillary Clinton
ever had in her life up to now. It is clear now that Clinton didn't appreciate what it meant to be an
executive, particularly a senior government executive. During her time as Secretary of State and in the aftermath of
the investigations Hillary Clinton totally violated the public trust.
Our country is in a box. We desperately need effective executive leadership. We need to address fundamental
issues in a very direct manner. Our government needs to tell the people the truth so it can restore its lost credibility.
Otherwise we are headed nowhere.
TPM
Monday, October 10, 2016
The Second Debate
I just finished watching the second presidential debate between
Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. After the debacle this weekend over his taped discussion with Billy Bush
of NBC eleven years ago, it appeared that Trump's campaign was about to go down in flames. There was and is no
excuse for Trump's comments concerning women that were on the tape. I listened to Trump a few times on Howard Stern's
radio show many years ago. I wasn't surprised that he engaged in what some people call "locker room" talk
with other men. The tape may be the final straw that breaks Trump's attempt to become President of the United States.
After the second debate began with a rehash
of the tape, they finally got to some discussion of real issues. Trump hit Clinton very hard on many points during
the discussion and scored a lot of points. I don't think Clinton scored many points during this debate. A lot
of what she said was repetitive of her speeches. Trump showed a great sense of humor and had some laugh lines.
Clinton was humorless. Trump clearly made the point that Clinton was the representative of the elites and he was running
as the alternative on behalf of the American people. The two candidates are apples and oranges at so many levels. Every
voter can make there own determination of which candidate they think will best serve our country.
In reality this election may be effectively over. At this point it
is very hard to see how Trump can win after the tape debacle and his issues with women and minority groups. It will
take some very big new negative about Clinton to change the direction of the election. Who knows if
something will appear? But one thing was clearly on display tonight. When Trump is backed into a corner he
can rise to the occasion and move forward. He has done this a number of times during his business career and he did
it again tonight to advance his political career. Trump wrote a book in 1997 called Trump: The Art of the
Comeback. Tonight he made a comeback to some degree. It may not do him any good in the end, but
it was interesting to watch.
TPM
Thursday, October 6, 2016
James Bond - 007 Part 1
Back in ancient history, 1964/1965, I starting
buying adult fiction books other than science fiction. I was in the ninth grade, a freshman at a California High
School. The first books of this type that I bought were the James Bond novels by Ian Fleming. By the end of the
1960s my family had moved to the Washington, DC area and I had acquired paperback editions of all of Fleming's fourteen
books about James Bond, twelve novels and two books of short stories. I kept those books over the decades.
I recently decided to take a break from reading current fiction and non-fiction and reread Fleming's books.
I have also seen all 24 of the James Bond films produced by EON Productions
(Broccoli Family) and own VHS tapes of the first eight. Since the films have been produced for over 50 years and shown
repeatedly on various TV channels it is hard sometimes to separate Ian Fleming's James Bond from EON's version of Bond.
One of my objectives in rereading Fleming's books was to contrast them with early movies. I have completed part one
of my two part effort and below are my comments about James Bond - 007.
The first seven James Bond novels were written by Fleming between 1952
and 1958. The books and their publication dates are:
Casino Royale - 1953 - One can make the case that Fleming's novel was more of a love story than
an action based novel. Bond falls in love with Vesper Lynd, a SMERSH double agent that commits suicide at the conclusion
of the novel.
Live
and Let Die - 1954 - The action takes place in New York and Jamaica as Bond takes on Mr. Big and rescues Solitaire.
Felix Leiter of the CIA is attacked by sharks and loses an arm and leg.
Moonraker - 1955 - An early derivative of the V2 rocket is test
launched in the UK and Bond averts a disaster. He falls for Gala Brand and she marries another man.
Diamonds Are Forever - 1956 - Bond goes to Las Vegas
to track down diamond smugglers bringing in stolen diamonds from Africa. Felix Leiter, now working for Pinkerton,
saves the day. Tiffany Case becomes Bond's live-in girl friend in London.
From Russia With Love - 1957 - Tiffany Case leaves Bond for
an American military officer and returns to the US to get married. Bond is targeted for assassination by SMERSH.
A beautiful spy is used as bait. Lots of action in Istanbul and on the Orient Express. Bond is poisoned by SMERSH's Rosa
Klebb at the end of the book.
Doctor
No - 1958 - After recovering from the poisoning Bond heads to Jamaica to find two missing British government employees.
In the process of discovering Dr. No's base for interfering with US missile testing, Bond finds a young innocent girl, Honeychile
Rider, that needs his help and support.
Goldfinger - 1959 - Gold was the underlying asset of all monetary systems during
this era. Nations carefully controlled the ownership of gold and the transfer of gold between countries due
to the impact on their currencies. Bond prevents Goldfinger from stealing US gold from Fort Knox, Kentucky. During
Bond's interactions with Goldfinger, two Bond women, Jill and Tilly Masterson, are killed. Bond develops a
relationship with Pussy Galore, a lesbian criminal that ends up saving Bond at the end of the novel.
In all seven of these books the bad guys are Russian or others affiliated
with SMERSH, Fleming's fictional Soviet counterintelligence agency which resembled the KGB.
Some of the interesting elements of the books relate to scene setting commentary
by Fleming. For example, there are many discussions about the cars of the day, all of which are now classics.
There is commentary about different models of hand guns. People could live adequately in the UK on a salary of GBP 2,000
per year when the novels were written. At the exchange rate of about US$3 per GBP during this period, this is equivalent
to $6,000 per year. It should be noted that the current exchange rate is $1.26 per GBP over 40 years after the gold
standard was abandoned.
I
thought I remembered that the movie screenplays for early films closely followed the story presented in the novels.
After watching the first three films, Dr. No (released in 1962), From Russia With Love (released in 1963) and Goldfinger
(released in 1964), I realized that the screenplays departed significantly from Fleming's novels from the very beginning.
While there are scenes in each film that are almost exactly the same as the novels, the screenplays account for a lot
of the technology changes over the ten years or so from the time the novels were written to the time the movies were produced.
From the beginning the movies included action sequences that aren't in the novels. Characters that have important
roles in the books aren't in the movies and some characters in the movies aren't in the books. The bad guys in the early
films don't work for SMERSH, they work for SPECTRE.
Since far more people have seen the movies then ever read the books, the film Bond has become our lasting
memory of the character. Sean Connery became our enduring image of James Bond - 007. If you want to
revisit the 1950s and experience Ian Fleming's original version of James Bond, enjoy reading the books.
Coming in the months ahead: James Bond - 007 will return for Part 2.
TPM
