I don’t know what to make of this video, but the speaker, Steve Pieczenik, has decent credibility. Worth listening to what he has to say.
Pieczenik was Deputy Assistant Secretary of State under Henry Kissinger, Cyrus Vance and James Baker.[3] His expertise includes foreign policy, international crisis management and psychological warfare.[7] He served the presidential administrations of Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush in the capacity of deputy assistant secretary. (Source)
I am posting this because it is interesting and plausible. I think it is much more likely the leaks are coming from good people in US intel services than Russia. But this announcement could mean many other things.
Nothing brings out battling over semiotics better than a US presidential election.
Not long ago we had Hillary attacking Pepe the frog as racist.
Even the ADL weighed in on that one, giving the charge far more prominence than it deserved, though they did conclude in their last paragraph that the poor frog was only a racist symbol if someone festooned it with real racist symbols.
Still, use of the green frog meme did decline after Hillary’s claim and this slightly weakened her opposition for a day or two because Pepe was a rallying symbol (for Trump, against her). Hillary made temporary small gains in this semiotic skirmish, though a probable aftereffect was her opposition rebounded and gained ground once the vacuity of her argument was fully understood.
More recently, use of the word “globalist” by Trump and his supporters has been branded as “antisemitic.” This is so dumb it’s hardly worth analyzing, but if you care to read all about it, Jonathan Taylor has a good article: Trump, Anti-Globalism and the Anti-Semitism Slur. It surprised me to see how many people take the charge seriously.
Taylor makes the most important point—that branding someone else’s semiotics as bad is a lazy way of making them shut up. (It is very bad to do this in my book.)
When it comes to semiotics, Donald Trump has shown his moxie. His continued use of semiotics deemed bad by his opponents has weakened their ability to limit or define debates in such a shallow manner.
This shows me that Trump is a smart man. It takes brains to see those little buggers for what they are and ignore them. Much of PC culture is based on the fake inarguable rightness of shallow semiotics.
A good sign coming out of this campaign is Hillary’s overuse of semiotic hot buttons has weakened them and hollowed out arguments that use them.
Notice that her constant use of the bad Russia meme as an excuse for all her problems is falling flat because no one believes it. It’s so weak it has given rise to an answer that works well against her: “So Russia hacked the NSA and put those emails on Weiner’s computer so the FBI would find them when they investigated him for illegal sexting.” Right.
I really hope this is true. I can’t help it, but I trust Comey (or really want to) and I know that if the FBI director is corrupt, our nation is doomed.
There are many theories about what is happening with the Weiner email find and what those docs mean, and sometimes the details get in the way of a good overview.
So allow me to offer an interpretation of events that casts Comey as more of a patriot and hero than an ass-covering weasel. Compare my interpretation with whatever movie you have in your head and see which one works best for explaining and predicting.
It’s all just speculation as of this morning, but there almost certainly is something very big in the new find.
If you want the latest most up-to-date info on this issue, including plenty of speculation, go here.
EDIT 11/01: A strong counterargument to the above is that Comey did a fake investigation in the first place and in so doing has pissed off the majority of FBI people. To correct this and because explosive new evidence has been found, he sent the letter to Congress. Here is a presentation of that argument:
In Buddhist thinking, money is good if it is acquired honestly and used intelligently, morally and for good purposes.
In the USA, during this presidential campaign we often see headlines saying that Hillary has raised more money for her campaign than Donald has for his. The implication is that she is probably going to win and that her money-raising skills are better than his.
Hillary Clinton continues to dominate the money race—now having raised more than $1 billion this election—thanks in large part to a cadre of wealthy donors sending tens of millions of dollars into super-PACs. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been poured into television advertisements on her behalf as well as get-out-the-vote efforts in battleground states across the country. Even so, Clinton still has more cash in the bank heading into the final days of the campaign, giving her a significant advantage for mobilizing voters and getting her message out.
Donald Trump, on the other hand, has relied mainly on his own wealth and millions of small donations to fund his campaign. He paid for his Republican primary victory mostly out of his own pocket, and only began actively soliciting outside funds in May. Since then, he’s never closed the fundraising gap with Clinton. [emphasis added]
From an American media point of view, Hillary is winning in the money department. But from a Buddhist point of view, she is not. From a Buddhist point of view, Trump is doing much better with money than Hillary.
The reasons are:
Trump is doing as well if not better than Hillary with voters while using less money. This shows he is spending wisely.
More importantly, Trump is using “mainly his own wealth and millions of small donations to fund his campaign.” This shows he is generous and willing to give back to the country that allowed him to gain so much. Furthermore, his donations are coming from ordinary Americans while Hillary’s are coming from “a cadre of wealthy donors,” who we all know expect to receive returns on their investments.
It’s true Trump is wealthier than Hillary, but Hillary and Bill acquired a fortune of some $250 million since Bill left office, so she could easily afford to kick in $30 million if she wanted to.
Moreover, it seems clear that Hillary’s wealth was not acquired in an ethically sound manner. She neither produced nor invented anything. Instead, it appears that her fortune is based on selling government influence.
Money acquired in that way harms the American people because our assets are being sold for pennies on the dollar, and all the pennies go to Hillary. Hillary’s campaign finances are another example of this pattern of benefiting herself by catering to the wealthy at the expense of ordinary Americans.
No one is perfect, including Donald Trump, but from a Buddhist point of view his use of money is much better than Hillary’s.
“Retired senior US military pilots are increasingly alarmed that Hillary Clinton’s proposal for “no-fly zones” in Syria could lead to a military confrontation with Russia that could escalate to levels that were previously unthinkable in the post-cold war world.” (Why Clinton’s plans for no-fly zones in Syria could provoke US-Russia conflict)
Her view of war displayed below. To me, this is the laugh of a psychopath.
She voted for the Iraq war and was a principle architect and proponent of the senseless destruction of Libya and Syria. She has threatened Iran with nuclear annihilation and now wants to act aggressively toward Russia without any clear plan in sight.
None of this is wise or worthwhile. And none of it is in America’s best interest.
Michael Moore, of course, does not support Donald Trump, but this excerpt from his upcoming anti-Trump movie does portray an important segment of Trump supporters well.
To me, the people portrayed in this segment are emblematic of America as a whole, no matter the race or socioeconomic level. We all have been fucked over by terrible politics for many years and many of us can see that and are completely sick of it.
Only the very top of American society has benefited from loose borders, job exportation, and the strangle-hold of PC culture.
How did American news media and academia become 85-90% liberal? Isn’t it obvious the reason is that liberal culture in those spheres is self-serving, exclusive (not intellectually diverse) and corrupt?
It is beyond obvious that MSM overwhelmingly and dishonestly supports Hillary Clinton. You have to have enormous blinders on to fail to see that. This is how the left really operates and how a Clinton administration will govern the country.
On principle alone, I would reject another Clinton administration, which will almost certainly be worse than Obama, more bellicose even less capable and definitely more corrupt.
But Trump has more to offer than a rejection of Hillary and her unscrupulous subculture.
He is paying for his own candidacy. No one owns him. He is a real outsider. He actually stands a chance of “Draining the Swamp” in Washington DC.
Moreover, he has real skills, real business acumen. And with these he will bring fresh vision and new strengths to DC. He built real businesses in the USA through decades of hard work. He is not a one-hit Internet wonder but someone who used brains and perseverance to build his fortune over many years. He has faced many different kinds of challenges and succeeded.
We need someone like this. Our stable of “viable” national politicians have, essentially, no other skills but gaming the political system and growing their personal fiefdoms. Most of them can talk OK and make promises. But almost none of them speak the truth or deliver on what they promise.
Trump is much more likely to go the distance than any candidate we have seen in many years.
Historically, he is unprecedented. He is the first figure in world history to offer the chance of profound peaceful change within a large dying culture.
If we miss this opportunity, we may lose the USA itself.
Trump asks the black community, “What do you have to lose?” That question should be directed at all Americans.
The problem is deeper and more violent than portrayed, but this short vid gives the basics.
One very important thing that is frequently left out of our understanding of corruption of this type is American assets are being sold for pennies on the dollar every time this happens.
The trade deals, weapons sales, contracts, jobs, market access, and more that are sold by corrupt politicians have enormous value, often thousands of times the value of the bribes they receive.
They profit while the wealth and status of the USA declines due to their actions.
American Buddhist Net 