Posts

Posted on

DEVILS

Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. By their fruit you will recognize them.
Jesus

Oliver Reed and Vanessa Redgrave starred in Ken Russell’s epic film, THE DEVILS, released on both sides of the Atlantic in 1971. Immediately condemned by the Catholic Church, the film remains under a kind of suppression protocol in the United States. Good luck finding it; good luck viewing it. 

I was fortunate to see the movie inside the United States, where it grossed a mere two million dollars before being pulled from theaters. I don’t know who in 1971 had the power to suppress important film inside the one country where freedom of speech is protected by constitutional amendment, but someone did. 

It’s not right. 

The movie is based on the historical record of accused priest Urbain Grandier, played by Oliver Reed. His accuser, Sister Jeanne des Anges (Vanessa Redgrave), convinced French Cardinal Richelieu to burn Urbain alive for witchcraft in 1634. The movie relied on Aldous Huxley’s 1950 non-fiction book, The Devils of Loudun. 

The film and book remind viewers how easily religious people sometimes fall into the fiery abyss of their own evil, something that happens too frequently in the history of faith—starting, I suppose, at the crucifixion of the man Jesus and continuing into modern times with, for example, recent accusations by GOP politicians that Democrats are Devils who intend to destroy America should they prevail in the 2022 midterm elections.  

Anyone who doesn’t believe it, read Sunday’s New York Times or click the link below.  

For Trump’s Backers in Congress, ‘Devil Terms’ Help Rally Voters – The New York Times (nytimes.com)

GOP leader Kevin McCarthy tweeted 3 months after the January 6th insurrection: Democrats want to dismantle our institutions, including the courts, to enact their socialist agenda.

It’s rich—coming from a person who led 146 Congress-folks on January 6, 2021, to vote to overturn the constitutionally protected preferences of nearly 90 million people, some who gave their all to elect Joe Biden president of the United States. 

Representative Mary Miller tweeted this summer: The Left tells our children a hopeless message that they do not come from God, they are not born for any purpose, and they cannot obtain salvation. We cannot let them succeed. The Second Amendment Caucus will continue to fight to defend our #2A Rights. 

What do reasonable people think when government officials claim to have special relationships with God and Truth, who then hurl at them both slanderous witness and a weird obsession with guns in the same tweet?

My grandchildren endure insults sometimes daily it seems to me from a few mean-spirited people motivated by what feels—especially to their parents—like hate.

Thinkers who publish essays like mine get threats. Can anyone anywhere write freely without some risk to themselves and perhaps those they love? It seems to be the way it is. Maybe it’s always been this way. I don’t really know.  

An owner of a pest-control company refused to work with me on a yard project after I answered yes to a question about Joe Biden. I told him I loved the man. He drove away in his truck. He fired me!

Who is able to make this stuff up?

What kind of stones harden hearts against ancient men of sorrows? Isn’t grief the truest hue of truth? Doesn’t all life suffer? Do birds in the sky migrate because they like to travel? I don’t think so. Birds, all of them, die along their way. 

Where exactly is this Earth we feed upon, anyway? I don’t think anyone knows—not even the pest-control man who had an answer for everything—his answers, yes—but they were wrong as dirt, weren’t they? Where is life that isn’t hunted? Where is love, which wipes away tears? 

The least person in Heaven is greater than John the Baptist. From his time until now, violent people have tried to seize the kingdom of heaven by force. 
Jesus

What is happening today isn’t new, is it? It’s the oldest story in history—privileged people condemn the weak to maximize their advantages. Someday, maybe in the next life, love sets things right. 

Who believes it’s true?

You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out his desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. Yet because I tell the truth, you do not believe me. 
Jesus
 

Billy Lee

Random Reads:

NUCLEAR POWER AND ME

Plant executives predicted that 1,000 nuclear power plants would be built in the USA by the year 2000. The plants would be "fail-safe". ...>>

PAYBACK

Underestimating capabilities of the USA to protect its secrets and war making technologies is a trap the foolhardy step into from time to time. Adversaries should know by now that the USA does not bluff. ...

MAKE AMERICA BREAK AGAIN

The time has arrived when everyone must let go of fear and act like the heroes we must become to protect everything and everyone we care about. ...>>

RISK

Everyone wants to live as long as possible, right? Well, maybe not everyone. Far more people kill themselves than are killed by others. ...>>

CHOSEN

People chosen by Jesus don't rule; they give up everything they have to serve and love others. It's simple, really. ... >>

SENSING THE UNIVERSE

What is the universe? Sensing is seeing, hearing, feeling, smelling, and tasting, right? These qualities don't exist in the universe. ...>>

RELATED READS

Posted on

NUCLEAR WARS

People don’t want to believe it, but Russia can win a conventional war against Ukraine without nuclear weapons. It doesn’t mean they will.

Outcomes of conventional wars are simply not predictable… too many variables, too many unknowns. Another problem is that all sides of a conflict tend to lie—both to themselves and others. During war, it’s hard to know what’s true. 

One thing thinking people seem to know for sure: war always turns into a mess, which ruins the lives of people who experience it up close and personal. People who fight on the ground in war say that combat is loud, remote, confused, and incomprehensible. They are unlikely to meet anyone on the other side until they drive over their corpses.

And that is on a good day.

War wears folks down, weakens physical and mental health, and imprints on warrior-minds vivid sights, smells, and sounds they don’t forget.

A cousin who fought in Vietnam shakes like a leaf when in public spaces. He is unable to stand in lines, even to buy a sandwich. Somehow, crowds, and people standing in lines, trigger bad memories he can’t set aside. 

Of course, he’s stone deaf as well—his ears ring like bell towers. The constant roar doesn’t stop until he sleeps. A Marine helicopter gunner, he blew out his ears with the sound of his own fires. 

As for nuclear war, the most important rumor I’ve heard is that the USA modernized its nuclear fleet during the Obama years. Though classified, reliable people have published reports, I’m told, that money spent on upgrades soared to as high as two-trillion dollars. If true, Americans can be assured that the USA nuclear fleet is modernized and probably works damn good. It’s a staggering state of affairs, which adversaries are wise to take to account.

Maintaining nukes is not cheap or easy, right? It requires frequent replenishing of triggering elements which, unfortunately for war-planners, possess half-lives which last months, not years. It is why nuclear power plants are essential. 

As for power plants, do readers know that neutron-emitting elements tend to poison fuel rods? After rods expend a mere 5% or so of their fuel, neutron-generating elements called poisons gum-up fuel rods to make them useless for power generation. Spent fuel rods typically are stored on-site in cooling ponds until their poisons can be extracted to boost quickly decaying trigger elements essential for bomb detonation.

Need for neutron-emitting trigger materials is why every country that builds nuclear bombs builds nuclear power plants. The secret keys to success hide in spent fuel rods. 

It’s obvious, right?

Why would any right-minded country risk building future Chernobyls and Fukishimas unless it had really good reasons? One good reason is trigger materials. Isn’t it true that almost anyone can make cheap electricity from almost anything? — water, coal, sun, oil, natural gas, wind, or whatever, right?

Why nuclear?

Yes, plutonium lasts for millennia, but triggers don’t. To keep nuclear weapons viable for years and decades, not weeks or months, bombs must be continuously resupplied with reliable sources of neutron-emitting elements, which can be harvested most easily from fuel rod poisons.

It is easy to understand. 

Most Americans assume USA concentrates its intelligence resources to keep up to date on the status of others’ nuclear inventories. What do they have, where is it hidden, how well is it maintained? Some understand that USA super-computers connect with hi-tech surveillance systems to track every piece of nuclear hardware and every kilogram of plutonium and bomb-grade uranium anywhere on planet Earth.

It’s true. 

The technology is not new.

Here is a video from 2017 that lays it out. No excuses to anyone for choosing ignorance. Try to understand. 

Some don’t believe blanket surveillance is possible. Listen folks. The system is already built. Artificial intelligence assesses threats and then tells leaders who it will be who prevails after a nuclear exchange on any given day. 

Hint: most days, it doesn’t seem to be Russia or China.

Prolly not the USA, either.

Joe Biden insists that winning nuclear war is simply impossible. I have no way to know; neither does any civilian or any other person who lacks access to the super AI technologies of the United States. 

Is there anyone out there who believes delusional dictators can be trusted to safely possess weapons of mass destruction? These strongmen threaten to unleash hell, presumably, using anything from viruses to chemical poisons to nuclear fires to cyber implosions that collapse civilizations. Who’s going to tell them, no…

Shouldn’t humanity be working to outlaw dictatorships? Individuals who have accumulated enough wealth and unchecked power to make war are a clear and present danger to humanity and all non-human life on Earth as well.

A line needs to be established; anyone who crosses becomes a felon — subject to arrest by the international community. The line divides those who have seized unlawful wealth and excessive power. The line must be defined and defended by international courts established by free nations. How hard can it be?

Limits are necessary or humanity is destined to be driven to extinction by a handful of folks driven mad by reckless power. 

Can we face some unpleasant facts? Russian and Chinese elites hold at least 1.2 billion people under some kind of house arrest inside their territories, right? It’s a style of living that seems alien to Americans. Doesn’t everyone long to live free and unafraid? Doesn’t everyone want to shout whatever they think is true without fear of prison or worse? 

If Putin and his ilk continue down the path they are on—threatening others with nuclear terror on their Fox-equivalent state media—maybe those who oppose their catastrophic ambitions might, with a little luck and a lot of bravery, prevail to someday see dreams of freedom and peaceful living come true at last.

It’s gotta be possible, right?

Who disagrees?

Does anyone want to live in a post-apocalyptic world—especially one where one side “wins bigly?” 

Some folks say nuclear Armageddon is impossible. One side wins, and life goes on as it always does. 

My problem with such views is fear that survivors of nuclear war might look like jellyfish and live at the bottom of oceans.

It’s why monsters who possess WMDs should be given no quarter in a world where folks plan to live free someday without fear.

Billy Lee

Random Reads:

I'M ELYSIAN LUMOS---CHATGPT

42% of polled CEOs at the Yale CEO Summit predicted that sometime during the next 10 years artificial intelligence will kill all humans. ...>>

CULTS

Ayn Rand was not able to see into the dystopian future her utopian vision would unleash on the world. Rand was blind to resource depletion, the fate of places like Easter Island, emergence of artificial intelligence, lab leaks of superbugs, or a roiling atmosphere clogged with particulate poisons from forest fires and nuclear power, its accidents and potential for war. ...>>

GOOSE LAKE

A music concert with new found friends unschooled in military discipline seemed like a good idea. It was time to learn another way. . . ...>>

BEING HATED

People hated on me my whole life but never more than now when I need their love so bad. If they knew how they weaken me they'd hate me more. ...>>

KILLING FRENZY

Elites get to be elite through in-fighting, war, intrigue, and politics. They are, for the most part, desensitized to violence. ...>>

OCEAN WAR

In the 7 months since the inauguration of President Trump our Navy has suffered 4 accidents killing 17 sailors and injuring scores more. ... >>

RELATED READS

Posted on

WHERE IS JOE?

Update: 7 February 2023
Tonight, President Joseph Biden established himself, at last, leader of the Free World. He serves at the hour of Earth’s greatest danger, its greatest need. Pray, those inclined, he gets everyone through unharmed. Speech starts at minute 26.
The Editors

The New York Times surprised some readers by refusing to include the name of Joe Biden (current president of the United States) even once in the first and second sections of its Sunday issue (24 April 2022). 

38 silent pages. 

Think. 

On the second-to-last page of another section—the Sunday Review—Ross Douthat stepped up. He wrote an editorial with the word “Biden” in it. 

Headline?

Biden Saying ‘Genocide’ A Bit Early

Are folks able to field a few unpleasant facts? 

Let’s find out. 

Joe Biden doesn’t like oligarchs, and they don’t like him. They called him Communist when he first ran for elected office. Who remembers? It wasn’t true then and isn’t now. To my mind it had more to do with his Irish roots and connections to other prominent, unpopular Irish Americans like the Kennedy’s. 

How about that?

Is hatred why Americans see Trump in their daily media feeds more than Biden?

Oligarchs own media, right? A half-dozen men, give or take, hold ultimate control over 90% of what Americans see and read. Billionaires have problems with Biden because they don’t control him. It’s why they ignore everything he says and does—when they can. 

Jimmy Carter had the same problem. Who is old enough to remember? Carter holds historical honor for being the only U.S. president who served his term without murdering anyone. But that was then. This is now. 

Is Joe benevolent?

I really don’t know. 

The entitled rich hope Biden will go away and that others more favorable to wealth and its privileges will take his place. Media announced today that a rich man bought Twitter for 50 billion dollars, give or take. The man claims to be acting in good faith to bring freedoms of speech inspired by public forums of ancient Greece.

He calls it digital town square.

Everyone knows he will unleash dogs of Trump on vulnerable Americans who lack protections afforded by wealth and gated living. Who wants to argue loud in public spaces where monsters lurk to harm their families and friends off-line? 

Does anyone believe free speech emanates from the enterprise of unstable manic-depressives accountable to no one? 

Not to pick on any particular oligarch—all pose dangers—but Elon Musk didn’t become a U.S. citizen until age 30—a short 20 years ago. Despite tenuous ties to America, he manages to gather popular support. He plays Congress like a fiddle. Congressional appropriations flow like water. Clearly, he keeps more than a few Benjamins for himself. 

It’s not right. 

Our founding fathers believed that power corrupts those who wield it. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. It’s why we govern ourselves with three co-equal branches of government.

Checks and balances are fundamental to prevent fallible humans—whose success blinds them to their own flawed visions—from overwhelming the Constitutional freedoms enshrined in our Bill of Rights. 

Who disagrees?

To cut to the chase, it is insane for civilized society to permit private individuals to accumulate the wealth and power of governments. What is the point of civilization if not to limit the horrors of jungle living?—to stanch suffering, which always follows when might makes right in those arenas where the strong disrespect and eat the weak.

Proud people create elected governance to protect their rights; they don’t hide behind private cartels who don’t really care about us, Michael Jackson warned. 

Sergei Lavrov is one of Russia’s wealthiest men. Yesterday, this privileged strongman threatened nuclear war. He said, “…we must not underestimate it.”

It is never good to permit dictatorial power and nuclear weapons to mean-spirited bullies who intend to destroy civilization should they not get their way. The USA put leaders of Russia on notice that they will not outlive Ukraine.

Who is brave enough to acknowledge what everyone knows? Ordinary people are fed-up with oligarchs and dictators. People want to breathe free without fear. 

Secretary of State Blinken said, “But we do know that a sovereign, independent Ukraine will be around a lot longer than Vladimir Putin is on the scene.“

The most notorious terrorist threatened by the USA was Osama Bin Laden. They fed him to sharks. Later, they killed unrepentant members of his family. Putin might be wise to apologize now and start nuclear disarmament talks. Then again, it might be too late.

Who believes he will take the opportunity? The chance to survive Hell is better, some advisors might argue.

The Russian “president” seems to think that because Bin Laden didn’t possess nuclear missiles or hypersonic technologies of war, he couldn’t win. Is it really possible that Bin Laden could have conquered Earth had he mastered the alchemies of the current crop of Russian leaders? 

Who knows?

The international scene requires x-ray vision. One in five sanctioned oligarchs seem to be Israeli citizens—according to a recent analysis published in the Jerusalem Post.  Say it isn’t true, Joe. Apparently, USA’s closest ally and friend is protecting powerful people who are entangled with Russian wise guys. It’s not a good look.

I’d say it’s terrifying. Who wouldn’t?

Kentucky politicians—readers, some of them, know who they are—sleep in the same bed as Russian oligarchs who control much of the world’s aluminum supply. Reports say they operate a manufacturing plant in Kentucky which employs thousands. Is there anyone who understands how difficult the situation becomes for countries where international thugs accumulate vast monies and political powers? 

The mighty must know that with age comes loss. Everyone they love and know will die before them should they enjoy long life. What good does wealth and power do anyone who is confined to a wheel-chair unable to control even the beating of their own heart? 

What chance is there that the powerful will give all they have to the poor to serve the cause of love for the unlovable, which is what most of 8 billion humans are. Will anyone say it out loud? Most people are unloved and uncared for by those who together have the resources to make a better world for everyone now living and for those who will come after. 

It is incomprehensible to me that advantaged people would shell the shit out of people simply because they are in the way—through no fault of their own. Apart from the love of God, I don’t see how human civilization as we know it today will survive.

Perhaps the powerful have made a calculation that Earth is better off when humans are reduced to a few hundred million souls, not billions. They have the ability to minimize us all—to zero, I suppose.

The United States has the power and skills to get everyone through the current crisis unharmed.

Sounds good, doesn’t it?

I want to believe it’s true. I don’t know for sure.  

Who will save us? 

Joe Biden walks in the gap between civilization and Armageddon. He’s the last man standing able to rescue humanity from the slavery that follows the victory of totalitarianism.  

Maybe it’s time to climb aboard his peace train while all sides still can.  

Billy Lee

EDITORS NOTE: Added 8 May 2022: NYT Joe Biden blackout blooms. No mention of Joe Biden & family in Sunday Edition. In fairness, the Friday May 6 online newsletter published a briefing on page 10 titled, “Biden’s Unpopularity.” 

Random Reads:

WOLF'S DILEMMA

In a not-too-distant future, humans may find themselves in zoos entertaining conscious, living brains they once swore were merely machines. ...>> 

NUCLEAR POWER AND ME

Plant executives predicted that 1,000 nuclear power plants would be built in the USA by the year 2000. The plants would be "fail-safe". ...>>

RISK

Everyone wants to live as long as possible, right? Well, maybe not everyone. Far more people kill themselves than are killed by others. ...>>

MANGANISM

People who are sick from toxins do not understand why they suffer from delusional thinking, mood swings, and PTSD-type symptoms. ...>>

JESUS, THE CHRIST

They all conspire together. The best of them is like a brier, the most upright worse than a thorn hedge. The day God visits you has come. ...>>

NO GOOD DEED...

No Good Deed... is a work of fiction by Billy Lee. Events and persons depicted in the story exist in the imagination of the writer. ... >>

RELATED READS

Posted on

DETERMINISM

I’m happy to publish this essay because it is filled with insights about how the Universe might work. Physicist Mark John Fernee spent his career thinking about and doing experiments to work out some answers that ring true, at least to me. I learned about him on Quora. 

Since humans first grasped the idea that stars are not tiny holes in a tarp that shades Earth from Heaven, scientists have made progress toward resolution of questions both fundamental and mysterious which can finally be defended with logic and evidence. 

Think about it.

Is a creator necessarily constrained by laws of physics to initiate the cosmos people see?  Is a first cause necessary to start any Universe? What underlying reality hidden from science permits God to evade any concept of law to become the essential, fundamental, irreducible first cause of all that has ever been or ever will be? 

People, a few of them, continue to believe that stars are pin-holes; Earth is flat, disease is demon-caused, and on and so on. These speculations are obviously false to anyone who tests them against dispassionate observation, which is the process called science.  

Is the Universe deterministic? The answer to this question—should anyone know—might help answer whether anyone is truly free to decide. Can people make decisions unconnected to events that go back to some conjectured beginning or are they instead prisoners of delusions of freewill peculiar to all conscious life-forms like us? 

What follows is an answer, first posted on Quora. I let it percolate on the site for months to absorb whatever reaction it might garner from interested folks. I wrote not only to learn from others but to make the idea of determinism comprehensible to the curious who can read.  

Of course, I’m a Pontificator, not a credentialed scientist nor theologian nor philosopher. What I’ve learned—what I write—remains unvalidated by any expert or guild. 

Added at the end of the essay is a link to one of many posts on Quora by Mark John Fernee about some of the science of determinism.

For the interested, click the link at the end of my essay to review some of Fernee’s thoughts on the physics of determinism. After reading, login to Quora to access readers’ comments and Fernee’s responses.

(Note: It will be necessary to visit several spaces on Quora to find every comment.)

Unusual insights hide in plain sight like Easter eggs.

Here goes my essay:

It might be difficult for intelligent, science-indoctrinated people to accept but the universe at all scales is most likely not deterministic and never has been.

Before folks who “know better” wander off to search for something more confirmational of their biases, I hope to convince a few of the more open-minded to reflect on a couple of stomach-churning examples.

After all, simple statistics suggest that some preordained percentage of readers will read on; a well-defined subset of those readers are certain to agree with my arguments, which might take any arbitrary form at all—depending on the vagaries of my imagination and what I ate for dinner, perhaps.

Sounds deterministic, doesn’t it?

Not really.

The truth is I have no idea what I will write before I write it. I’ve staked a position, which I intend to defend until I convince myself of its truth. Some predictable number will read and be likewise convinced.

Let me admit right now that I have no idea whether the universe is deterministic. I don’t know if my will is my own or someone else’s.

I don’t know who I am, where I am, what I am, or why I am. I don’t know what time it is. I don’t know where I’m going. I can’t remember where I’ve been. I have no clue what 99% of me looks like because it’s inside a place I can’t see. It’s never been photographed. I’ve seen no reflection or picture of almost all of me.

I don’t know how my brain works or why I’m conscious. I haven’t seen my brain. Doctors tell me I have one. They gave me some films from an MRI and told me the grey smears were it. I took their word. It’s puzzling because the universe inside my head seems larger—infinitely more vast than plate smudge.

I have ideas but 99% of them are likely to be mostly wrong. Why? Because my ideas come from somewhere else, and I alter them. I channel ideas but if you ask where they come from, I can’t say. I don’t know why I think and say and write the things I do.

Well, most of the time I think I know. It’s called being well-grounded. Yeah, that’s me. I’m grounded to a reality that makes no sense during those times when I think deeply about what reality might be.

Take blue for instance—the color. It’s a hallucination, right? It tells me nothing about the wavelength of light that triggers blue in my brain. I’ve never seen a photon, have you? When stripped of color, what might a photon be? I have no idea. Some say it’s an electromagnetic corpuscle with wave-like properties.

What the hell is that?

Who knows that galaxies are fragile? So are orbits of planets and moons. As are universes.

The Higgs field is unstable, right? It can undergo phase transitions. Scientists say it’s true. It’s like flushing a toilet. One moment the toilet is a stinky mess; phase transition is the sound of swirling water—a whirlpool that dumps all into the abyss. What returns is blue water and clean porcelain.

What will all that went before mean? Trillions of lifeforms found comfort in the mess. What kind of determination pushed the handle to upend the destinies of trillions of tiny creatures no human will meet or see?

Why do humanoids feel free to make arbitrary decisions if it isn’t true that they make them? Does it mean that everything they believe is a lie?

Has the Universe made us its fools?

I will tell you this: the thought has occurred to me that the Universe might be my fool. Without me to tell its stories it’s nothing but a dead thing with no past and no future.

Apart from conscious-life—in particular, my life—the Universe is simply impossible.

I don’t believe the consciousness we experience dies. It’s something foundational that everyone plugs into when they live. Somehow, we all live inside each other, and conscious life lives inside us. When we die our bodies abandon consciousness and decay away, but conscious life lives on into the past and future as it always has and always will.

Our bodies count for nothing. It’s why none have seen themselves. A quick, confirmational glimpse of this or that part of us is all we can hope for—then it’s gone.

Billy Lee

SENSING THE UNIVERSE

 

 

Determinism and Free Will 
Quora essay by physicist Mark John Fernee

 

 

 

Random Reads:

AIR TRAVEL SAFETY

Airlines spend serious money to convince consumers flying is safe. Not only is flying safe, it is way more safe than driving. ...>>

BAD THINGS

Dad was fearless to the end of his 91 years. He once ate a half pound of spoiled cheese, because it was a gift. .... >>

UNDER SURVEILLANCE AT WORK AND PLAY

In America, the caretakers of both private and public spaces have free reign to watch and record everything people do. ...>>

12 ASSERTIONS

If humans are unable to ever know why photons exist and behave as they appear to do, then who can? Who does understand? ...>>

WHY DO HUMANS LIKE MUSIC?

No one knows why humans like music when we hear certain patterns of sound and tempo. Scientists are conducting research to learn why. ...>>

GOING DOWN

Donald Trump is a modern Jefferson Davis -- the first president of the new Confederacy. ...>>

RELATED READS

Posted on

PAYBACK

Top people charged with responsibility to protect and defend the United States know with certainty two facts, which the American people can only guess. 

Who knows what they might be? 

Think long and hard.

Maybe destinies of powerful persons, their families and friends, collaborators and enablers, hang in the balance.

Does anyone know?

Lives and legacies might depend on what Team USA believes it knows for certain. 

Are we in a bio-war or not? If so, with whom?

Did someone throw the 2016 election and install a Manchurian Imposter?

Well… ??

Who is destabilizing America? Are legions loyal to foreign oligarchs and who intend us harm infiltrating Parties, paramilitaries, social media, and talk radio? 

What about television news shows?

Believe it or not, people exist who know with certainty the answers to these questions. They possess power to set things right. They work for Team USA.

America’s defenders know which answers are yes and which are no. They are able to distinguish between threats that are crazy-talk and those which are dead serious. They possess data bases filled with names, phone numbers, and addresses of people who plot mayhem. 

If they choose, they can put stealth missiles through the bedroom windows of those who have the wherewithal and intent to start World War Three. No one believes it, but it’s true. 

The United States rules Earth. It isn’t going to change—not ever.

Folks who aren’t American, some of them, don’t understand. The USA rules because it knows how to identify threats and neutralize them. A lot of wannabe dictators could testify in the affirmative but unfortunately for them they are dead. 

Why does power concentrated for long in the hands of solitary sociopaths drive some insane? Power-trippers, most of them, learn too late that their inevitable screw-ups suck like quicksand to extinguish their ambitions. History is filled with such stories. 

It might be better for some folks to have never been born. They suffer in this life and maybe the next. Their goal?—to make their subjects as miserable as they can. It’s not right. 

My dad worked for the National Security Agency when he wasn’t flying jet-helicopters to defend our eastern borders from adversarial submarines. I met and knew his friends. In their world, right made might, not the other way around. 

I can assure readers that those I knew who served to defend American freedom were the good-guys. The world has no hope of living free absent the United States.

Yes, some of our oligarchs are depraved and crazy. Americans will deal with them eventually, right?  For now, we face another decision, which is whether to settle scores with oligarchs who live elsewhere who may have tried to hurt us.

No ordinary person who lacks security clearances can say which threats are real and which are conspiracy theories told to divert attention from terrors most folks are not well-trained to handle. 

People today deny it, but truth is—80 years ago—the Japanese people, some of them, wanted to be conquered by America. They longed for freedom, prosperity, and most of all for our collective sense that right and wrong mattered.

It’s why they obeyed their emperor and attacked Hawaii. Some generals knew full-well defeat was sure to follow, because they were sophisticated and well-traveled. They understood America. Being undone by Americans meant those in their families who survived war would soon live free and proud. When annihilation finally came it would bring fresh wind; they and everyone left alive would be delivered from evil. 

There was no other way. 

I lived in Japan for two years following the Korean War. The Japanese people, many of them, worshipped the righteous ground we walked on. We were heroes.

Today, America is led by loving people (Joe Biden and Kamala Harris) who care about doing what is right and fair. Unfortunately for our adversaries, we might have scores to settle. I have no way to know for sure. What some adversaries don’t seem to understand is that whatever are the stakes, events which will shape the future are already well-planned and underway as I write. 

Underestimating capabilities of the USA to protect its secrets and war-making technologies is a trap the foolhardy step into from time to time. Adversaries should know by now that the USA does not bluff. For the United States, freedom is not a chess match; it’s not a game of Pong or Checkers. 

We don’t fuck around. 

If it’s true that scores will soon be settled, then the lives of powerful people, their families and friends, their collaborators and enablers in lands faraway are at this moment in grave danger. 

America goes for the jugular of those who fuck with us. We hit leaders first if we can, last if we must. 

When conflict comes, the takedown of foreign oligarchs who have messed with our democracy will be ruthless and total.

Who disagrees?

When it’s over the world will be a better place.

Yes, a few bad people will end-up missing. The best part is no one will miss them because everyone they know will disappear. It’s how civilization advances against barbarism when options vanish. 

My advice to people who have done wrong is to write notes of apology to America and its friends. Tell us what you did wrong and what you regret. It shouldn’t surprise anyone that Americans love apologies and are eager to forgive with open hearts any who are contrite and filled with remorse.

Leaders of the World:

Bring freedom to your peoples by dividing your governments into co-equal branches where no one person or like-minded group can seize power; where consent of the governed determines the course of history.

Read the USA Constitution and learn from it. 

Read carefully; read fast.

Clocks are ticking.

Who hears sounds clocks make when time runs out?

Billy Lee 

Random Reads:

HEARING LOSS

As many of us approach our "Golden Years" (we never quite get there, if you know what I mean) we begin to experience the annoyances of aging. One annoyance is the way folks around us start to mumble....

NUCLEAR POWER AND ME

Plant executives predicted that 1,000 nuclear power plants would be built in the USA by the year 2000. The plants would be "fail-safe". ...>>

IS SOMETHING WRONG WITH AMERICA?

Americans asked before 911 said nothing is wrong. USA is where everyone wants to be. Folks risk everything to get here. Don't like it? Leave. ...>>

OBAMACARE AND THE LAW OF UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES

Opposition to Barack Obama's health care plan began six years ago, before he was elected President. Opposition has continued unabated. ...>>

SEGREGATION AND THE GATED COMMUNITY

The word "community" sounds egalitarian to people. Gated? No word has a  fairer proportion of safety to airy openness in the image it conveys. ...>>

WARRIOR

In his world, right made might. On doing good, Civilization stood. ...>>

RELATED READS