Tomorrow I will get on an airplane and fly to sunny Palma de Majorca. I am going back to pay my respects to a whole lot of dead brain cells I killed in that port in various port visits during my mis-spent youth. I have not been there since 1995.

Palma was my first ever Med port visit in 1981-and one of only four we got during the Voyage of the  Damned that year. ( With Palma also being our last port visit of that God forsaken cruise).

It is also one where, a few years later,  I went out with the officers of FGS Freiburg and ended up sleeping on their ship that night. I also learned the hard way the next morning-not to let them send you back to the carrier in their whale-boat. For some reason, carrier OOD's get more than a little upset with German Whale Boats showing up uninvited to the after brow. ( This a whole post in itself-but suffice it to say I had some explaining to do).

How I convinced the SO to go was simple. She had looked at Zurich's weather and worried it would be rainy there." Fine-you want sunshine?. I'll give you some sunshine "( and women sunbathing topless). And I bought a weekend package there.

Camera at the ready-pictures to follow. Tapas and paella on the menu to be sure. Daiquiri Palace anyone?

Back in the bad old days, before cell phones, e-mail, VTC's and women on warships-people used to amuse themselves ashore with dice games in bars. I was thinking about those games, and those days tonight.

As I may have mentioned before, I love bars. All kinds of bars. Dive bars, high brow bars-in between bars. I know I shouldn't-but I just do.

And back in the day-part of the fun in bars was dice games. Games played for drinks-or played for money.

Now before the Navy went on its morality kick and out lawed fun of any kind-it used to be a time honored tradition to go to the Officers Club. There upon as beer and other spirituous beverages were consumed, at some point in the evening someone would "bring em out!". Bring out the dice that is.

It usually took a lot more booze before any thing else came out.

Now the favorite game when rolling for drinks was "Horse". Learning the ins and outs of this rolling of the dice used to be a right of passage in a squadron and it was the duty of the older members to teach it to the younger ones. We know now, of course, that does not happen-because every one is too afraid of the morality police. Ah but once upon a time…………

The object is to create the best score of the dice. The scores, ranked from high to low, are five of a kind, four of a kind, full house, three of a kind, two pair and one pair. Straights or runs do not count in the game of horse. One variation of the game has aces, one dot on the dice, as wild. This increases the scores in the game. In a proper game of horse with a lot of players-the goal was to reduce the number down to two as quick as possible. Thus the origins of the phrase, "Can't lose in a crowd". Until you do. In most bars I played in four of a kind on the roll was an "auto-out" till you got down to some pre-determined number of people. ( Usually four). Prior to the that the dice would be rolled once. You took the hand you got-if you were low, you were still in. If you went out-well, God bless you. Go order the drinks.

The finale came when it came down to you vs one other person. At that point-mano y mano-may set aside any of the dice to build his score, and continue with a second roll of the remaining dice. He may roll a total of three times but is not obligated to. He can stop after any roll if satisfied with the score. Less rolls the better. Loser bought the round-which could be a big bill ( like the $75 round I bought in AFSOUTH once).

Now if one were more sporting-you played the money games. In the Navy there were primarily two: "Ships Cabin Crew" and Klondike. Klondike was a favorite with P-3 guys for some reason and some games-such as those at the Flytyrap in Sigonella could run into serious money. I knew a guy who refurbished his living room off of his Klondike winnings.

A banker rolls the dice first and players then roll the dice in turn trying to beat the combination first thrown. Only one throw is allowed. Numbers rank high to low as 1, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2. Any die not used in a combination is ignored. If a player rolls a combination equal to the banker's the banker wins. The payoffs are made by the banker at even odds. i.e.. players get their stake back with an equal amount. Winning combinations in descending order are as follows.

• Five-of-a-kind
• Four-of-a-kind
• Full House (Three-of-a-kind and a pair)
• Three-of-a-kind
• Two pairs
• One pair

Obviously, the ability to stay and to put up a big stake were required.

The final game, I used to love was Ships Captain Crew. I played a lot of that at the Rodman O'Club in Panama in 1992. One night I walked out $150 dollars richer than I walked in-and that was in spite of buying several beers. In this game you rolled all five dice with first goal being to "qualify" . To do that you had to get a 6–5-4 in less than three rolls. You put money on the bar to place your bet-and in some games you also had to ante like in poker. In the simple 6-5-4 version you must first have the ship (6) before you have the captain (5); likewise, you must first have the captain before you have the crew (4). This can be very frustrating when you fail to roll a six, and have a score of zero. As you shoot each one of these points in order, you can pull that die out of the cup and set it aside. Alternatively, you can elective to put as many of the dice in the cup and try again (this is stupid, since it does not improve you odds, but it is legal).  Each player gets at least one and no more than three flops (toss of the dice cup) in the two player game. The score is the total of the two dice left over after the Ship, Captain and Crew have been completed. A 2 is the lowest score and is called a "minimum" while 12 is the highest score and is called a "midnight".

The highest score wins. If there is a tie in a two player game, they just play another hand and ante more money into the pot. If there is a tie in a multi-player game, then then players who tied for high score play shoot two dice again for highest score. This process continues until you have a winner.

Obviously in a more player game-the chances of a tie go up.

I have not played any of these games in years. But oh I do miss them so.

I have been keeping in touch with friends in Japan, listening to them tell all about the complete stupidity of VADM Swift:

While the specific recommendations that were developed as part of the summit are reviewed, additional, temporary measures will remain in place in addition to the U.S. Forces Japan curfew, an 11 p.m. to 5 a.m. liberty curfew for all U.S. service members in Japan. These Navy specific additional measures include: the consumption of alcohol is prohibited from 10 p.m. to 8 a.m. for all 7th Fleet assigned personnel in order to ensure all Sailors will be better able to meet the curfew requirements in Japan and all Sailors with any alcohol-related incidents within the last 3 years be placed on Class “C” liberty risk status which administratively curtails their ability to take liberty off of a U.S. installation..

 

 

Suffice it to say there are a lot of upset people. And their should be. These rules are , for one thing,  completely unenforceable-which, as I was taught early on generally makes a rule a bad one. Swift is fooling himself if he thinks that it is going to reduce liberty incidents-and it certainly is not going to prevent the consumption of alcohol after 10 PM.

Lets look at the smart persons strategy to beat this little measure, shall we?

1) Move off base. Preferably far off base and away from other Americans. Just about all of the southern Kanto plain is within a 30 minute train ride of Yokosuka, or Atsugi. Better to have a long commute in order to have some privacy over one's private life.

2) Stock up early. On cash and on beer. Lay in a good supply from the exchange and use some of the cheap supermarkets and 7-11's to keep it topped off.

3) Get an answering machine with phone forwarding. Never, Never, Never answer your phone-let it go straight to voice mail and call back as needed.

4). Learn Japanese and start going farther afield. Plenty of great bars away from Roppongi. Most with "Stay or Rest" hotels nearby. Bring cash-and don't go back to the ship till after 6AM. Talk to your buddies in Korea who have been avoiding "courtesy patrols" for years. Japan offers ten times the options that Korea does.

5) Write your Congressman and tell him-in strongest possible terms that the 7th Fleet commander has lost his mind. Then next week write him again.

6)For those of you with a Japanese girlfriend-submit a request chit making your girlfriend's apartment an approved overnight location. If they turn you down-submit another one. This has the added bonus of pissing off the American female Sailors who hate the fact that so many of their male counterparts ignore them and go after nice looking Japanese tuna.

7)Remind any khaki in sight-that his children enjoy more privileges and a later curfew than he does.

8) Non Seventh Fleet Commands should refuse to be dictated to by Seventh Fleet. This has the two fold affect of showing the powers that be that the restrictions are unnecessary-and it creates friction with the prisoners assigned to Seventh Fleet units. That kind of pushback led to easing of these stupid restrictions before and will again.

9) Take lots of 5 day leaves to Thailand. If they insist you take a buddy, get a friend to go-and then stay at hotels on the opposite ends of Sukhumvit.

Seriously, it strikes me as just an arrogant course of action. This is not acceptable in a home port. No commander could legally get away with it in Guam, San Diego, Puerto Rico or even Norfolk. Yokosuka may be on Japanese soil-but it is first and foremost a homeport. Treating it as a liberty port is not only a basic violation of the Sailors rights and American law-its unsound policy.

Oh and as an extra added benefit-better train some more rape facilitators. Because you will have more sexual incidents in the barracks and the ship. When you want it bad, you get it bad.

Clearly VADM Swift is being poorly served by his advisors-more importantly is being clearly misled about what the Japanese really want and expect. What most folks fail to realize is that most of the "outrage" by the Japanese is feigned-to produce a reaction among fellow Japanese and not with Americans. Like noise complaints-the real agenda is about squeezing the Japanese government-especially when it comes to Okinawa. I am surprised that Swift and company cannot understand that.

What the Japanese do want of Americans-is to have serious criminal offenders, like the guys accused of the Okinawa rape ( who incidentally were NOT Seventh Fleet Sailors), turned over to the Japanese criminal justice system. And for the good of the people who don't get in trouble ; the 98% of Americans assigned there-they probably should be.

Willard got this wrong in 2003, They got it wrong in 2005 and again in 2008. They are still getting it wrong. If you want your Sailors to behave like adults treat them like adults-and stop meddling in their personal lives.

Look! I'm smarter than a three star……..

There has been little free time of late-between the preparations for a fairly large meeting this week-made more complex because of the sequester and the rape of our travel money; my Hebrew classes and the general nonsense.  It has meant I have had to put together a string of electronic video conferences. That's some thing I hate-since "all day VTC" meetings never work very well, and they certainly don't accomplish the confidence building that makes for a good rapport with someone from another nation. Especially a society as complex as that of Israel.

And second, I have been fighting off  spell of birthday induced depression, conjured up by being a year older and no closer to my dream of returning to Asia. Curse the financial burdens that weigh upon me! I want to shed them all and move off to paradise. In the olden days one might have been able to do that-now with the advent of electronic banking- they can hunt you down and find your ass(ets).

I can't even celebrate St. Patrick's day in proper style-as I have to be up and gone very early tomorrow.

More to follow when I can break free.

Two weeks ago the sun actually saw fit to make an appearance here. The S.O. and I decided to take advantage of it and go walking through the woods behind our house and to the nearby town of Waldenbuch. Who, unbeknown to us, was having the festival celebrating their 650th birthday.

Here are some pictures I took along the way:

The pasture is quite open right behind our house-then it feeds into the woods:

After about 3km of walking you come out into the town of Waldenbuch

And it was festival time:

And they had the old cars out on display:

This is an interesting and small BMW:

An Early 60's Opel:

After a few bratwursts, a few beers and some ice cream-it was time to head back into the woods and home:

When I think of yesterday's events.

First of all, I hate it when someone prescribes, based on their own social conventions and biases, how exactly I am supposed to feel and react to such a horrific event. My values are not your values. So you will forgive me if I don't react in exactly the manner you-or the thousands like you think I should react.

How do I react to an event like yesterday's as an American? Fear, disgust, despair and anger.

Fear because when you look at the names of the victims-one quickly realizes that there is nothing to distinguish them from you. The went to work-to do their jobs-never expecting it would be the end. They had plans, families, dreams, a life. And it was all ended senselessly. Consider:

• Michael Arnold, 59.
• Sylvia Frasier, 53.
• Kathy Gaarde, 62.
• John Roger Johnson, 73.
• Frank Kohler, 50.
• Bernard Proctor, 46.
• Vishnu Pandit, 61.

They have a lot in common with you-and with me. I don't know their individual stories but I'll bet a couple were prior Navy or otherwise prior service. They just wanted to do their jobs. These are hardly the "moochers" that government workers are portrayed as daily in the halls of Congress and in supposedly "smart" political circles. If I had taken a job in DC ( or LA , or Washington State, or Pittsburgh, or Charlotte) -it could have been me.

Which leads to a second point. I don't understand those who say they were targeted because they were Navy. That they were Navy is actually a secondary consideration. This was a workplace shooting. Nothing more, nothing less. If they had been working for Honeywell, General Dynamics, Merrill Lynch, the Department of State-would their deaths somehow have been less tragic? The Navy was their corporation. They were randomly targeted because the shooter objected to something that had occurred connected with the corporation. This work place had extra security to be sure-but the shooter still got through.

It's disgusting to me that this happened in my own country. Its also less than thrilling to realize that in the grand scheme of things in the world-it is just a drop of water in the sea of violence that engulfs our planet. Consider, in the 24 hours of yesterday:

41 people died in Mexico yesterday due to flooding.

8 People died in Colorado for the same reason.

No one knows how many people died in Syria yesterday.

The most senior police woman in Afghanistan died in as a result of shooting injuries.

36 people died in Iraq over the weekend.

3 people died in Japan on the 16th-as a result of a Typhoon.

64 people died in the Philippines as a result of fighting in Zamboanga.

And the list goes on.

Its here that anger can and should kick in. Its all tragic. Its all unnecessary. Its all fundamentally unfair. Yet we daily see events such as these pass us by and pay no mind to it. We become numb to it-unless it happens to someone we know.

I've been a bystander to a couple of instances of work place violence. During my time as a squadron XO, a Sailor in a sister squadron, after getting a career ending piece of paper, injured another Sailor and shot himself. On another occasion a fellow officer went AWOL and committed suicide. When I was in college-a Freshman refused to come home from leave. So he shot his family in their beds.

The cycle of violence goes on.

Those who survived and were spared, in the sheer joy of being alive, attributed the fact that they did so-because "God was with them". Are we then to surmise that God was not with the dead and wounded? That's hardly fair….or just. What kind of a God just lets random, senseless acts of violence roll on unabated because its some kind of "divine plan"? If it is a plan-its not divine nor is it much of one. Its pretty goddamn twisted and unfair if you ask me.  I'm not getting into the problem of why evil exists. Or how believing people reconcile themselves with the fact that God lets bad things happen to good people. I certainly do not know the answer.

However,  I do know its unfair-that unfairness undercuts His attempts to draw people unto himself.

And, while we’re discussing things that are unfair, here’s another: how the owner of the contracting firm that hired the shooter got so damn rich. Or how he has the balls to blame what happened yesterday on the sequester. Sorry pal-as the purveyor of a product, sequester or no, you still had an obligation to do due diligence. There is more here than meets the eye-and hopefully it will come out.

And if you are not mad about that-then perhaps you should be.

There's a lot more to be angry about-and I have a right to show my anger.  Its the primary feeling I had yesterday-especially since I was pretty sure from the start it was a disgruntled employee and not a terrorist attack-and it appears I was right.

I'm going to start drinking now because here is where the despair kicks in.

Because nothing is going to change.

Oh sure there will be tighter security-and background investigations for non deluded, non shooting, non messed up people are going to get really painful. Despair that dickheads like Joe Wilson can spout off nonsense. And never get called on it. A year will come and go and he will still be Joe fucking Wilson.

Despair that the clock is ticking till the next place of workplace violence appears-because rather than do the best thing one could do to honor their memories,-namely find a way to keep that next event from happening-the country will slump back into its pit of doing nothing and accepting this kind of mindless violence as the "cost of doing business".

And of course the same government employees now being praised will be screwed when the Congress shuts the government down next month.And it will only be a matter of time until some asshole Congressman tells us that clearly, only more sequestration, more budget cuts, more tax cuts,  can make our troops safe.

Because you know….we can't make any real changes. That benefit someone besides rich people.

As I said-I have a right to be angry. 

No reason you can't set your own records while watching the Olympics. And one benefit of being able to watch the Olympics on BBC-is half these items are never said by British announcers.

For those of you stuck with Bob Costas…….well, it sucks to be you. Drink up!

Lee Kuan Yew passed away on 23 March. He was 91. For those who don’t know ( and you really should know this), he was the first Prime Minister of Singapore and was the founder of much of what we consider modern Singapore. As he himself said, Singapore is his legacy. That applies for both good and not so good.

Now the truth in advertising, I love to be in Singapore. Its where I want to live, (as well as Japan) and I have been there 18 times. I love the place. When Lee Kuan Yew became the prime minister of Singapore in 1959, he assumed control of an ethnically divided, impoverished territory lacking in natural resources. In his 31 years in office—followed by another 21 in advisory roles—Lee transformed his country into one of the world’s most prosperous societies, a major business, and transportation hub boasting a per capita GDP of $55,000.  I was often grateful for the quality of life he masterminded there.

But that quality of life came with a price and a dark side-and any eulogy of the man has to take that into account:

He will be remembered as the father of his country, a political street fighter who cut his teeth in the struggle against colonialism. Some will recall an unapologetic taskmaster — a leader more respected than loved — whose pragmatism lifted a Southeast Asian backwater into a sleek metropolis and global business hub. Others will recall the politically incorrect pundit who became an outspoken champion of “Asian values” and a sharp critic of American-style democracy. Each is correct, and captures part of the man. But to these remembrances one more should be added: Lee was the most successful dictator of the 20th century. (emphasis added-SS)

It’s a verdict that will please almost no one. For his admirers, he is a singular historic figure, not an autocratic strongman like those who eventually lorded over other former colonial outposts. He may not have been a Jeffersonian democrat, they say, but he was no dictator. On the other end of the spectrum, dissidents and democrats will take umbrage at the notion of an illiberal, authoritarian leader being remembered fondly at all. Still, Lee was one of the most universally celebrated statesmen of the last 50 years. American presidents, British prime ministers, apparatchiks from the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and European officials all lined up to heap praise on the leader of this authoritarian duchy…………..

…..When Lee retired from office in 1990, Singapore had some of the world’s busiest shipyards, cleanest streets, top schools, lowest taxes, best healthcare, and most efficient public services. The so-called “little red dot” had become one of the world’s most livable cities, a magnet for skilled foreign workers and the multinational corporations who hire them.

But the miracle wasn’t without its price. Lee kept his political project on a tight leash, dampening free speech, muzzling his critics, and squashing political opposition before it could take root. The ruling People’s Action Party is rightly considered synonymous with the government because it has won every election since 1959. Singapore didn’t have a single opposition leader in office until 1981, and until 2011 there have never been more than four opposition members serving in the parliament at one time. On one hand, Lee’s political machine was unquestionably effective at delivering results for Singapore. In most years, it’d be hard for any political party anywhere to compete against PAP’s record of accomplishment. That said, when it came to ensuring their political future, Lee and his cohort were incredibly gifted at putting their finger on the scale.

That said, there were troubling aspects to the place too and still are. Just ask this guy.

My driver, a middle-aged Chinese guy, recognizes me. For most of my working life I was forced into exile overseas. Despite graduating from Cambridge in 1983 with a first-class honors degree in economics, no one in my home country would employ me. But in 2008 I decided to return home anyway and last year I stood as candidate for the Opposition in the general elections. My driver is sneaking surreptitious glances at me in the mirror. Finally he says:“JBJ. Very good man!”

I tell him he’s right and he goes on:

“But in the end very poor. Selling his book on the street corner. I buy a copy. Very sad, lah!” Then after some thought, “That’s what happens when you go against the gahmen (government).”
He is referring to my father, Joshua Benjamin Jeyaretnam. When I was a boy growing up in Singapore my father had been one of the highest-earning lawyers. He was also the first Opposition politician to get a seat in parliament, breaking a 16-year monopoly by the PAP. He was subjected to multiple defamation suits and perverse judgments which forced him out of parliament and out of his law practice and eventually bankrupted him.

Kenneth Jeyaretnam then goes on to ask the question of Mr. Lee that we all should ask, could not the government have found a way to have prosperity, progress, and innovation without sacrificing central control and whilst not repressing freedom?  I personally think the answer is yes, especially because there are examples that prove me right, but Mr. Lee would not have agreed with that answer at all. Perhaps at the start, he needed a tight grip – for the Communists were a real and persistent threat. But later-not so much:

During his last decades in public life, the Singaporean regime became increasingly critical of the American-led notion that human rights—including democracy—had worldwide applicability. In an interview published in the Atlantic in 2013, Lee argued that “Americans believe their ideas are universal—the supremacy of the individual and free, unfettered expression. But they’re not—and never were.”?

There is one other aspect of the society he crafted that I, for one, find particularly troubling and its not unique to Singapore, the Middle East and other parts of Asia have it too-namely the fact that a part of Singapore’s success rests on the backs of an underclass of foreign workers, that will never enjoy the benefits of the prosperity that has been brought there.”Singapore cannot compete with cheap labor overseas so it brings the cheap labor to Singapore, with no minimum wage there is no bottom to how cheap this labor can be. Not surprisingly this exploitation has fueled an explosion in GDP but not in real wages, which have stagnated or fallen.” Specifically for me, and since this is women’s history month, the exploitation of so many people troubles folks a good deal.  The fact that American feminists pay ZERO attention to the plight of these women, is just grounds to shout at them repeatedly.

Singapore is a mixed bag to be sure – but its a better bag than most places, ( light years ahead of Shopping Mall USA) and a lot of that was due to the vision of Lee Kuan Yew. “People want economic development first and foremost,” he said in an interview printed in his 1998 book, The Man and His Ideas. “The leaders may talk something else. You take a poll of any people. What is it they want? The right to write an editorial as you like? They want homes, medicine, jobs, schools.”

That they got. At what price they paid-that is what will be the discussion in the years to come.

I wrote this post 4 years ago on the eve of the election. It’s truly frightening that we are here again. Nothing has really changed- and it’s worth re-reading.

That’s where the land of my birth is today. Remember this scene from the end of the movie, Wall Street?

That’s a great thought for 2016 especially as we have hordes of less than rational people screaming about e-mails again and again. All the while ignoring the really awful and totalitarian things of the man they profess to love.

Andrew Sullivan, a writer who, I have to confess, have a love/hate relationship with his writing, has penned a fairly accurate description of where my mother country is, on 5 November 2016. Titled, America, and The Abyss it is a well-written and detailed look at how America brought itself to the brink of descending into fascism and fear. It is a frightening apparition of how low the United States has sunk to in terms of political and historical awareness.

This is what we now know. Donald Trump is the first candidate for president who seems to have little understanding of or reverence for constitutional democracy and presents himself as a future strongman. This begins with his character — if that word could possibly be ascribed to his disturbed, unstable, and uncontrollable psyche. He has revealed himself incapable of treating other people as anything but instruments to his will. He seems to have no close friends, because he can tolerate no equals. He never appears to laugh, because that would cede a recognition to another’s fleeting power over him. He treats his wives and his children as mere extensions of his power, and those who have resisted the patriarch have been exiled, humiliated, or bought off.

A look at the details of Trump’s life supports this assessment-especially when you consider the number of people he has alienated.

Anyone paying attention knew this before he conquered the Republican Party. Look at what has happened since then. He sees the judicial system as entirely subordinate to his political and personal interests, and impugned a federal judge for his ethnicity. He has accused the Justice Department and FBI of a criminal conspiracy to protect Hillary Clinton. He has refused to accept in advance the results of any election in which he loses. He has openly argued for government persecution of newspapers that oppose him — pledging to open up antitrust prosecution against the Washington Post, for example. He is the first candidate in American history to subject the press pool to mob hatred — “disgusting, disgusting people” — and anti-Semitic poison from his foulest supporters. He is the first candidate in American history to pledge to imprison his election opponent if he wins power. He has mused about using nuclear weapons in regional wars. He has celebrated police powers that openly deploy racial profiling. His favorite foreign leader is a man who murders journalists, commits war crimes, uses xenophobia and warfare to cement his political standing, and believes in the dismemberment of both NATO and the European Union. Nor has he rejected any of his most odious promises during the primary — from torturing prisoners “even if it doesn’t work” to murdering the innocent family members of terror suspects to rounding up several million noncitizens to declaring war on an entire religion, proposing to create a database to monitor its adherents and bar most from entering the country.

Interestingly enough, the man and his followers seem to take great offense when you call out this phenomenon by its proper name.

We are told we cannot use the term fascist to describe this. I’m at a loss to find a more accurate alternative.

Scott Adams, you fucking hypocrite, please make a note of this. As noted previously, any political credibility you may have possessed has long been thrown out the window.

Sullivan makes a cogent argument that the GOP, through its combination of cowardice and embrace of a cruel and selfish economic agenda has put the nation in danger. He’s quite right about this as witnessed by Paul Ryan’s cowardly, “I’ll support him even though it’s distasteful because it gives me the opportunity to screw Grandma out of Social Security and gut Medicare.” That’s not exactly a principled decision to make.

The Establishments of both right and left have had many opportunities to stop him and have failed by spectacular displays of cowardice, narrow self-interest, and bewilderment. The right has been spectacularly craven. Trump has no loyalty to the party apparatus that has elevated him to a possible victory next Tuesday — declaring war on the Speaker of the House, attacking the RNC whenever it fails to toady to him, denigrating every single rival Republican candidate, even treating his own vice-presidential nominee as someone he can openly and contemptuously contradict with impunity. And yet that party, like the conservative parties in Weimar Germany, has never seen fit to anathematize him, only seeking to exploit his followers in the vain and foolish delusion that they can control him in the future in ways they have not been able to in the past.

The Republican media complex have enabled and promoted his lies and conspiracy theories and, above all, his hysteria. From the poisonous propaganda of most of Fox News to the internet madness of the alt-right, they have all made a fortune this past decade by describing the world as a hellhole of chaos and disorder and crime for which the only possible solution is a third-world strongman. The Republicans in Washington complemented this picture of crisis by a policy of calculated obstruction to every single measure a Democratic president has attempted, rendering the Congress so gridlocked that it has been incapable of even passing a budget without constitutional crisis, filling a vacant Supreme Court seat, or reforming a health-care policy in pragmatic fashion. They have risked the nation’s very credit rating to vent their rage. They have helped reduce the public support of the central democratic institution in American government, the Congress, to a consistently basement level never seen before — another disturbing analogy to the discredited democratic parliaments of the 1930s. The Republicans have thereby become a force bent less on governing than on destroying the very institutions that make democracy and the rule of law possible. They have not been conservative in any sane meaning of that term for many, many years. They are nihilist revolutionaries of the far right in search of a galvanizing revolutionary leader. And they have now found their man.

Sullivan correctly does not spare the Democrats and he should go after them. The failure of the party to develop a broader “bench” and find a reasonable candidate without so much baggage is just really, really bad. Pelosi and Reid are long past their “sell by ” dates, and the party has taken too many beatings in mid-term elections by the people who are quietly destroying Kansas, Texas, and Wisconsin. ( Not to mention my adopted state of Alabama where people continue to elect psychopaths).

For their part, the feckless Democrats decided to nominate one of the most mediocre, compromised, and Establishment figures one can imagine in a deeply restless moment of anxiety and discontent. They knew full well that Hillary Clinton is incapable of inspiring, of providing reassurance, or of persuading anyone who isn’t already in her corner, and that her self-regard and privilege and money-grubbing have led her into the petty scandals that have been exploited by the tyrant’s massive lies. The staggering decision by FBI director James Comey to violate established protocol and throw the election into chaos to preserve his credibility with the far right has ripped open her greatest vulnerability — her caginess and deviousness — while also epitomizing the endgame of the chaos that the GOP has sought to exploit. Comey made the final days of the election about her. And if this election is a referendum on Clinton, she loses.

Yes, she has shrewdly deployed fear against fear — but she is running against the master of fear. The Democrats, with the exception of Obama, have long been unable to marshal emotion as a political weapon, advancing a bloodless rationalism that has never been a match for the tribal national passions of the right. Clinton’s rallies have been pale copies of the bloodthirsty mobs Trump has marshaled and whipped into ever-higher states of frenzy. In every debate, she won on points, but I fear she failed to offer a compelling, simple, and positive reason for her candidacy.

I don’t think Bernie could have marshaled enough middle of the road and black support-but at this point I kind of wish he had been given the chance to. Nonetheless here we are, with the survival of the country at stake.

Some — including many who will be voting for Trump — will argue that even if the unstable, sleepless, vindictive tyrant wins on Tuesday, he will be restrained by the system when he seizes power. Let’s game this out for a moment. Over the last year, which forces in the GOP have been able to stand up to him? Even his closest aides have been unable to get him to concentrate before a debate. He set up a policy advisory apparatus and then completely ignored it until it was disbanded. His foreign-policy advisers can scarcely be found. He says he knows more than any general, any diplomat, and anyone with actual experience in government. He has declared his chief adviser to be himself. Even the criminal Richard Nixon was eventually restrained and dispatched by a Republican Establishment that still knew how to run the country and had a loyalty to broader American institutions. Such an Establishment no longer exists.

More to the point, if Trump wins, he will almost certainly bring with him the House, the Senate, and the Supreme Court. A President Clinton will be checked and balanced. A President Trump will be pushing through wide-open doors. Who can temper or stop him then? A Speaker who reveals the slightest inclination to resist him will be swiftly dispatched — or subjected to a very credible threat of being primaried. If the military top brass resist his belief in unpredictable or unethical or unlawful warfare, they will surely be fired. As for the administration of justice, he has openly declared his intent to use the power of the government to put his political opponent in jail. As for a free society, he has threatened to do what he can to put his media opponents into receivership.

What is so striking is that this requires no interpretation, no reading of the tea leaves. Trump has told Americans all of this — again and again — in plain English. His own temperamental instability has been displayed daily and in gory detail. From time to time, you can see his poll ratings plummet as revelations that would permanently sink any other candidate have dented his appeal. And then he resiliently and unstoppably moves back up. His bond with his supporters is absolute, total, and personal. It was months ago that he boasted that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and his supporters would still be with him. And he was right. This is not a mark of a democratic leader; it is a mark of an authoritarian cult. ?

Let me say it for the 157th time. Trump is dangerous, very dangerous and it won’t save you when he goes full fascist that you may have voted for him or supported him.

I have long had faith that some version of fascism cannot come to power in America.?……………..a catastrophic war and a financial crisis has robbed the elites of their credibility. As always in history, you still needed the spark, the unique actor who could deploy demagogic talent to drag an advanced country into violence and barbarism. In Trump, America found one for the ages. ?

Never, in my adult life have I feared and worried about an election as much as this. It is the first time I have truly feared the opponent could really hurt the Republic. Even Bush, whose economic and foreign policy I still utterly despise, I never felt like he was capable of doing the things that would destroy the Republic. And when and if that day comes, as it was 80 years ago, the same truth will exist. You were warned and you failed to pay heed to that warning.

The mission of this Allied Force was accomplished at 11:25 EST, 07 November 2020.

It’s been four LONG years. Years of misery and anger.

Years of astonishment watching the norms of American society attacked again and again.

Watching worthless slime, like Adolf Eichmann Stephen Miller, commit atrocities and crimes against humanity.

Years of watching truly evil men like William Barr, Steve Mnunchin, Mitch McConnell, Ric Grennel, and many, many, others make excuses for literally walking all over decency and the rule of law.

Years of watching America waste opportunity after opportunity to improve itself.

Years of watching the supposed leader of the United States kowtow to Russia.

Almost a year of watching people die needlessly from a pandemic that never should have died because one wretched man could not have the courage to deal with it head-on.

Years of watching the rich get still richer while ignoring the real need to fund and invest in this country and its people.

The list goes on and on and on – the road ahead is not going to be easy or simple.

But more Americans chose the right path – and unlike 2016 – that choice was honored and obeyed.

“America, it is done. You voted. He lost. He will go. No battle was more worthy than that to save the soul of this Republic. It’s been a profound honor to be in this fight.“