Republics Collapse When The Main Opponent Is Criminally Charged. Consider Senegal…

Criminally indicting the opponent in chief when the next elections are looming is what banana republics do. Criminally charging the Main opponent Figure (MOF) is the first sign of imploding democracy. It just happened in Senegal, on a sex charge. Shame, protests, and 16 to 26 people dead. Senegal had been, historically, and for a long time the one and only democracy in the 50 or so states of Africa. As we will see below, and in a similar way, a threat now hangs over the US itself, chronologically the first republic in the Americas.

Criminally indicting the main opponent is how to transit from democratic debate to the addiction of squashed banana brains demonizing the democratic debate. A milder form happened in Rome with the Gracchi: the pure political debate was abandonned and unsavory methods were used to block passage, and then implementation of a law. That, ultimately brought civil war and the collapse of the republic and ultimately much of Roman civilization.

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Meg Ferrell Ramos, a veterinarian and relative, now big time researcher in a major US drug company, publicly objected: “Seriously? You equate these scenarios??”

Tyranosopher: Funny I did not mention “scenarios”… In my initial version I talked only about Senegal, where I grew up. Now I have added the US, where I have impotently festered, for decades…

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History will equate all scenarios where the main opponent was criminally charged, because history always does. The details are irrelevant: the big picture is clear. There is not one case of a democracy where treating the main opponent as a criminal found a future as a democracy.

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Tiberius Gracchus, a tribune, tried to Make A Great Republic Again (MAGRA). Instead an avalanche of violence swept the Republic when Tiberius faced accusations from his wealthy opponents nearly as bad as those hurled at Trump, 2,156 years later. (Tiberius was called a tyrant, but not a racist… True, Rome didn’t have racism per se…)

Tiberius Gracchus  was an aristocrat from the most famous family in Rome and a military hero (he had saved a Roman army in Spain). Struck by the impoverishment of the middle class,Tiberius.campaigned to change that and was elected tribune of the plebs. Tribunes led the organizations of the legislature in the Roman direct democracy. 

In 133 BC, Tiberius passed a land law called the Lex Sempronia Agraria. It redistributed public land (Ager publicus) to landless Roman citizens and limited the amount of land that individual families could hold. The senatorial plutocracy viewed the Lex Agraria as a threat, and went ballistic trying all and any trick to prevent its passage. Thus the ambiance of Roman politics became deleterious to a point not seen since the last king of Rome, Tarquinius Superbus (who was ejected and defeated on the battlefield).

Tiberius Gracchus was accused of acting unconstitutionally and seeking to establish himself as a tyrant (notice the analogy with Trump). Ultimately, a mob of his opponents, led by senators, attacked and killed him along with thousands of his supporters in 133 BCE. Notice: Tiberius was not formally criminally charged (in other words, not like Trump.

The law passed by Tiberius was never withdrawn, it stayed on the books, and the machinery to apply it was set-up, but the plutocrats made sure that it didn’t work; in 59 BCE, Consul Caesar accomplished a land redistribution, by ignoring the Senate, earning its eternal hatred…

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Senegal is the oldest democracy in Africa (there were older states, such as Morocco and Ethiopia god-given dictatorships, or apartheid South Africa… But none democratic). Senegal was plagued from June 1 to 3 2023 with severe unrest after the condemnation of opponent Ousmane Sonko to two years in prison in a sex scandal. The announcement of the sentence sparked violence which officially claimed 16 lives (but the opposition said 26 dead).A young woman who had filed a complaint against Sonko for rape. 

Adji Sarr, a full grown masseuse with lots of sexy videos in plain sight, officiated at the Sweet Beauty massage parlour, probably providing sexual services. She said Sonko raped her (as if Sonko was dumb enough to go rape masseuses in their offices). Sonko says he never went to the place, nor ever met with any employees of that massage place. 

Notice the similarities with recent rape accusations, against Trump, on alleged facts around 30 years old, give or take a few years; Trump also denied going to that department store, let alone to the ladies’ changing room, and even knowing the pseudo-victim.

The charges against Sonko were reclassified as “corruption” of a person under 23. And Trump got exonerated of rape, just like Sonko, but found guilty of nebulous “abuse”… by a New York jury. 

The court decision makes Songo ineligible for the presidential election of February 2024. Songo is popular with the young and underprivileged.

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The gentleman who is the present elected and ruling Prime Minister of Malaysia spent two decades charged with sodomy charges, and sometimes was in prison for years. At some point he got a condemnation for 20 years or so. The details provided by his accusers were extremely explicit.

To the credit of Malaysia, the accusation scheme finally unraveled after the enormous crime of the Malaysia fund. Interestingly, the politically entangled US celebrities involved in that fund were at most interviewed, not indicted…

It is always a mark of collapsing democracy when the main opponent is criminally charged. OK, debate can be difficult… But criminal charges can be too destructive.

It happened with Caesar: the plutocratic Roman Senate used the pretext of alleged war crimes charges in… Gaul, of all places… Now Caesar’s work in Gaul, launched to stop the invasion by the Swiss (Helvetiae) had been to the huge advantage of Rome, and Caesar had mainly responded to, but not instigated, great mayhem. Caesar, once a Consul, pro-Consul, and imperator, was ordered to surrender himself to the Senate. Instead, he crossed the Rubicon with a legion…

In a situation where the main opponent gets criminally charged, the democratic alternative becomes impossible. 

Trump was the US president. He has been charged by the Biden administration with dozens of crimes, some sexual, some having to do with… spying: Trump got 31 charges under the Espionage Act… Penalty, historically, sometimes has been death..Who is Trump supposed to spy for?

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Does Biden Confuse Trump And Marie-Antoinette?

In nine centuries of English monarchy, and 15 centuries of French history, not one leader was charged with spying… Although two kings were condemned to death by Parliament, one in England (17C), one in France (18C)… for treason, they were not accused of spying..

A possible exception is Marie-Antoinette, who was accused of spying for Austria-Hungary. But two things: she was not the monarch, and it was her husband the king who enabled her to sit on the war cabinet. Second, and more importantly, she did indeed reveal to her birth country, which had attacked France, where the main French armies were (by revealing where the top generals were, among other things). 

The bottom line with Trump is that Biden adopted most of his policies (on China, Ukraine, Afghanistan, computer chips, reindustrialization… even immigration). Some will say no, because they only hear the rhetoric, instead of looking at the facts). In particular the plutocracy is left alone, and does well. So why the hatred? Because it’s fake. Trump Derangement Syndrome prevents a genuine debate on the plutocracy, it’s a cover-up by being a distraction.

No details are needed. The sketch of what happened is enough is enough. A president criminally indicted a president. For spying. The verdict of history will be pitiless.

Patrice Ayme

The strong, self-satisfied woman in red claims to have been raped by the meek ex-tax inspector anti-corruption Sonko to the right. I know Senegalese women well: they don’t just fight, they readily attack (and that’s very good). So the repeated “abuse of the youth” inflicted by Sonko on her looks unlikely.

Separately, and once again quite a bit like Trump, Sonko is appealing against a six-month suspended prison sentence for libel – an offence he also denies. Sonko portrays the two term Senegalese president Macky Sall as corrupt and a would-be dictator, while the president’s supporters call Sonko a rabble-rouser who has sown instability.

Why Didn’t Roman Emperors Reestablish The Republic In Full?

Augustus won the last Civil War. But then he didn’t bring back the Republic in full, but only partially, and not at the top. Why not? Because of a particular web of complex causalities. One doesn’t choose history, history chooses you.

The prominent Roman historian Suetonius (who died around 125 CE) said the following of Augustus on his book De Vita Caesarum:

“He twice thought of restoring the republic; first immediately after the overthrow of Antony, remembering that his rival had often made the charge that it was his fault that it was not restored; and again in the weariness of a lingering illness, when he went so far as to summon the magistrates and the senate to his house, and submit an account of the general condition of the empire. Reflecting, however, that as he himself would not be free from danger if he should retire, so too it would be hazardous to trust the State to the control of more than one, he continued to keep it in his hands; and it is not easy to say whether his intentions or their results were the better. His good intentions he not only expressed from time to time, but put them on record as well in an edict in the following words: “May it be my privilege to establish the State in a firm and secure position, and reap from that act the fruit that I desire; but only if I may be called the author of the best possible government, and bear with me the hope when I die that the foundations which I have laid for the State will remain unshaken.” And he realized his hope by making every effort to prevent any dissatisfaction with the new régime.”

A first problem with internal constitutional reform was that the Roman empire was at war to secure a safety zone around itself after 29 BCE, when Augustus became “Senatus Princeps“. In other words, Augustus augmented (hence his title of Augustus) the empire, pursuing his great uncle and adoptive father’s work. Marius and Sulla had saved Rome from annihilation at the hands of a coalition determined, hell-bound Germanic tribes, not even a century earlier… by the skin of their teeth.

Extent and expansion of the Roman Empire under Augustus; the yellow legend represents the extent of the Empire in 31 BC, the shades of green represent gradually conquered territories under the reign of Augustus, and pink areas on the map represent client states. (High Resolution!)

Basically, if Augustus had given up power, to whom, or what would the power have gone? The Roman oligarchy, its global, international plutocracy, was immensely more influential, because of its wealth and patronage, than the Roman People. Augustus knew it would have gone back to them. This is basically what happened after Sulla.

To reestablish the Republic, Augustus would have had to weaken both the prerogatives of the military and of the plutocracy, simultaneously, and delicately, while restoring the powers of the Roman People… which, after a century of butchery, had become more interested in pax rather than libertas. All the more as Augustus profited from the aura of populism of Caesar. And, considering what had happened to Caesar, a good bodyguard was in order, everybody had to admit. Under Tiberius a new actor came on the scene, a powerful Praetorian guard, strong enough to rule the City of Rome all by itself (as the guard got used to kill and install emperors, or sell the throne, it got dissolved by emperor Septimius Severus, 200 years later…)

Indeed, there was a precedent for the restoration of the Republic: after a horrendous civil war, with more than 100,000 young men killed in combat, Sulla exerted his dictatorship. However, still middle aged, he retired from public life, without any protection, after reestablishing the powers of the Tribunate of the People. Sulla died, from natural causes, soon after getting to enjoy his country estate. He was given a national funeral (although so many had been his victims, in the end most celebrated him after his death!)

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So what of Augustus? Why didn’t Augustus, such a learned young man, with much philosophical inclination, reestablish the Respublica, as Sulla had done? It was a question of character and convenience, or maybe simply the flow of history, the sum of all histories, just as in Quantum Mechanics (Feynman way). Octavian/Augustus life was incredibly adventurous and bold… But Sulla’s life, which was quite comparable, was even more so. Appian said Sulla renounced power, because, after his astounding adventures, from Africa to Gallia, to Asia, and conducting a civil war in Italy he was sated with power.

Augustus may have thought that to renounce power, and reestablish the Respublica as Sulla had done would just relaunch the civil wars. Also Sulla renounced power, soon after having acquired absolute power. Sulla was middle aged. Augustus instead acquired absolute power when he was in his twenties. By the time Augustus was middle aged, he had been in absolute, not to say outrageous, power, for thirty years: he was used to it.

Another event happened. Once after Sulla became an ordinary citizen without any bodyguard a young man followed him all day, ostensibly bombarding him with insults, and provocations. However the once hyper violent special ops agent, general, imperator and dictator passively received the abuse all day long and then pointed out, “This bully will ensure that no-one else will ever relinquish supreme power.”

Also Octavian/Augustus was immensely shocked by the death of his adoptive father Gaius Caesar. It was not just that he loved and admired Caesar, who was launching his military career, and treated him as a son. After Caesar’s death, Octavian himself had to fight back, not just to save his inheritance, but his life. It’s likely that, if he had done nothing, and had never risen to the occasion, he would have lost his life.

Caesar had tried to pull a trick similar to Sulla… Dictating, but then acting normal (except Sulla didn’t mix both genres: when he ruled, he ruled, when he retired, he retired). Although dictator, Caesar was going about Rome and attending dinner parties as if he were an ordinary citizen. Caesar ostensibly trusted the Senate, entered it all alone, unarmed… And was stabbed in return… After what had happened to Caesar, all could only be understanding of the precautions taken by Augustus. Besides, nobody could seriously disagree, those who had agreed to assassinate Caesar were dead.

Augustus awarded himself with the tribunicia potestas, or tribunician power, which enabled him to: propose laws to the Senate whenever he wanted, veto any laws he wanted, grant amnesty to any citizen accused of crime… There were other tribunes, but because Augustus was Senatus Princeps (First in the Senate), had stuffed the Senate only with obedient Senators, and because Augustus was endowed with the most powerful imperium, other tribunes were of no consequence.

Overall, both the Roman elite and the Roman People were exhausted of the horrendous civil wars which had killed so many. The wars became a memory under Augustus, and economic prosperity came back, as never before, while local elections were held in the quasi confederacy which was the empire.

The fundamental reason for the civil wars had been the rise of a hyper powerful plutocracy. Although Augustus and his fellow triumvirs had killed thousands of their prominent opponents, the plutocratic system was still in place. Only some names had changed and some families had been eradicated. The Republic couldn’t come back, because the plutocracy was still in power.

Moreover, as the Civil Wars developed, because of the military reforms of Caesar’s uncle Marius, men without property to go back to, as in old times, became soldiers. Those soldiers made their careers as followers of their own generals. Their careers was their generals, it was not the farms they didn’t have. Starting with Caesar, the army realized its powers, and developed political acumen. What the army understood is that it had only one interlocutor: the plutocracy.

By the time of Diocletian, an Illyrian native, the army had deprived the Senate of much of its power, and reduced the non-military plutocracy to being its own instrument…

In any case, the empire became a dialogue between plutocrats and the military, and then god was added to the mix, to justify the rule of a “Dominus”, Diocletian’s practice of “Domination”.

Sulla’s restoration of the Republic failed soon after his death, because the Roman plutocracy was the enemy of the Roman Republic and its once all-powerful Plebs. Just re establishing the Republic was not enough. Plutocracy was a cancer. The patient, the Republic, had passed out because of its cancer. Reanimating the patient , without operating on the cancer, could only have an ephemeral effect. So Augustus would have had to reestablish the old Absolute Wealth Limit of the Republic and its “Sumptuary” laws, which prevented the top families to become too powerful, and too vile.

By the time of Augustus, nobody in the elite wanted to see such limits to their power and debauchery to be erected again. Everybody in the elite wanted a good time, et, as French king Louis XV put it:”Après moi, le déluge!” Besides there independent military powers a few hundred miles from Rome and her delicate trading communication networks…

When too few people, their families, descendants, followers, helpers and hanger-ons, in particular if military, have too much power, the only thing which can divest this power from them is foreign invasions. And this is exactly what happened to Rome.

Could it have been different? Those who understood the situation best were a handful of extremely well educated and intelligent courageous aristocrats, most prominent among them the Gracchi and the leader of the “Populares”, Caesar. They understood the need to redistribute wealth, at least to soldiers (they passed wealth redistribution laws; Caesar’s was in 59 BCE, when he was Consul; the Senate never forgave that). The plutocrats (who called themselves the “Optimates”) hated the Populares optimally, assassinating them as well as they could, but not enough (some of the progressive laws survived the assassinations of the reformers).

The Gracchi and Caesar were too isolated from the rest of the elite (although thousands of followers of the Gracchi were assassinated with them). What was missing in the Roman intelligentsia was an understanding of how debilitating the plutocracy would prove to the society in all ways. To achieve that understanding, the Greco-Roman society had to fail first. Now, two thousand years later, we have recovered in all ways… and we should be endowed with that understanding.

Patrice Ayme

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P/S: The causal system which made Augustus act as he did relative to the Republic is an example of a CAUSAL WEB… complete with nonlinear self-acting, exponential loops…

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P/P/S: Quora, in its latest harassment, informed me (6/20/2020) that they removed a version of the essay above for “plagiarism” (without telling me what was “plagiarized”… just the usual threat that I may be banned). There was no plagiarism, whatsoever, and the main anti-plutocratic drift is clearly mine. But somehow Quora has decided that I better be “banned” (as they threatened me of this for various reasons). All I see is one more entitled monopolistic corporation out of the SF Bay Area with secret black lists…

 

French Republic Wins World Cup, Because It’s A Republic

France beat the excellent Croat team 4-2. The Croat captain, Luka Modric, who seems to be a very nice person, and seems never to have seen a ball not to run after, got the reward for best player, the Belgian goalie, Courtois, got the reward for best goalie, and 19-year-old Kylian Mbappé, of unmatched skill and speed, got the cup for best young player. This is a philosophical event. Both for what happened on the fields, and in analyzing (meta-analyzing) what has been said. Ah, also my old adversary Putin was at the finale, next to the very blonde and social Croat president. Macron was further right and jumped up on the table in front of Putin, fists in the air, when the (black as charcoal) Pogba (a very funny guy who talks a mile a minute) made a spectacular goal, two seconds after his first attempted goal rebounded… Putin looked up, impressed, learning something about the furia francese…

Some of the usual racists have grumbled that the French team was an African team. In 1998, racists felt it was also a Maghrebin team. Others sneered that the French team is a “legacy of colonialism”. France, a world country/ Since when is that new? There are other world countries: much of Western Europe now (including Brexiting Britain), or the USA. But France, more so.

Imagine someone says:’Oh, I can see from your appearance, your skin color, you know, that you are a legacy of colonialism’. How more racist can one be? Truth: the French are French, not ‘Black French’ like there are ‘Black American’. Some famous French writers or thinkers would be called ‘Black’ in the US, true: truly, an American problem, why don’t the beholders of US racist semantics count the number of blue eyes in the French team (more than eight: from Giroud, Thauvin, Grietzman, etc.). Mbappé, for example, was born in Paris. He is a Parisian, not an African. (Someone who has lived in Africa, for real, is, to some, small, or big, extent, an African. Not the case of Mbappé… but mine!) 

MOSCOW, RUSSIA – JULY 15: Captain and Goalie Hugo Lloris of France lifts the World Cup trophy to celebrate with his teammates after the 2018 FIFA World Cup Final between France and Croatia at Luzhniki Stadium on July 15, 2018 in Moscow, Russia. (Photo by Shaun Botterill/Getty Images) Not a legacy of colonialism, but a legacy of anti-racism.

US citizens deform their ability to see the past of the USA, when they accuse countries such as France of colonialism: where are the French colons today? Nowhere. If one wants to see colonial regimes, regimes spawned by colons, one has to look at Australia, North America. If one looks at France, one sees a loved French soccer team… One does not see a land where the French killed all the Natives to establish their own regime! Want to do philosophy, love wisdom? Starting with the facts will help. Speaking of “colonialism”, where, in the end, something else happened, an entanglement of populations, not a holocaust, is important.

So France is Africa, as I have long said. Nothing wrong with this. Nothing better for a French, a European to get to know Africa, and reciprocally. Indeed, I am African educated. The education of Africa is not restricted to what is taught in school, but what the continent teaches: diversity, difficulty, distraction, even dislocation and disintegration. I felt there the strongest emotions, confronted to total, mystifying desert, mountain jutting in the air, without a blade of grass, forest so thick one can’t see a thing. The elation of observing 10,000 years of human, and planetary evolution, within a few feet, sometimes.

So I am major part African educated. What does “French” means, anyway? France is atop the three routes, the only three easy land routes, between the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, and in between the Mediterranean and Northern Europe. (Other lands routes go over the Alps, the Tatras, and other high mountains are difficult; mountain ranges were typically occupied by extremely fierce tribes: Hannibal lost half of his army crossing what is now the French Alps.) France was always multiethnic, and the land known as France was massively multiethnic more than a millennium before the Frankish Confederation called itself “Frank” (Free and, or ferocious). Look at the Basque: their language is so old, it’s older than the Celts and Germans.

Pertinent is the persistent lack of performance of the USA in soccer (a world sport, the world sport, watched by more than two billions). The US, in spite of all the money and a giant population didn’t make the cut of the 32 better teams selected for the world cup. The Economist made a computer model which showed that the US is underperforming (while Croatia is way overperforming).

Some say that US underperformance has to do with the fact minorities are poorly treated in the USA; as, in some states, such as the largest of them all, California, minorities are the majority: mistreating minorities, especially when they are the majority, would go a long way to explain the USA’s dismal result in soccer.

Others claim that US football underperforms because so-called American football, baseball and basketball occupy the US obsessively. American football is an armored version of rugby breaking bones, with short bouts of “play” broken up by advertising. Clearly, those A-football players, just the way they look, are full of hormones and other synthetic drugs. Also, the sport is uninteresting to watch, as little “play” occur.

The same roughly holds for the other two. Baseball symbolically involves a bone breaking bat, and weird rules where occasionally an overweight guy runs. Actually, the most overweight the baseball player, the better. A perfect sport for the overweight USA.

Basketball is also an excellent game for those who condone discrimination on the basis of genes. Basketball is biased towards height. If the basket in basketball, went up or down according to the size of the player(s) approaching said basket, the activity would be more just (there are good short soccer players, example Argentina’s Maradona, 1.64 m. or Lionel Messi, 1.7 m or Poland’s Marcin Garuch, just 5 feet tall).

So what gives? The US drug problem shows up in sport, I reckon. The ultimately disastrous many wins of drugged out US cyclists speaks for itself.   

Macron, first French leader to triumph in Moscow… In front of Putin himself (immediately down left off image) France should have won either the World or Euro cups many other times in the past when she barely missed. This presidential, African style dance, is happening in front of the Croat president who came to Moscow in a charter plane, speaks perfect French, and was totally classy in victory, as in defeat!

The Croatian Republic has been a member of the European Union since July i, 2013.

Soccer can be unifying. Worldwide. Once one has seen enough football matches from different national teams, one can get attached to various individuals. This way, what is superficially a nationalistic contest becomes conducive to supranational appreciation.

For example I found some individuals in the Croat and French teams attaching, a few games ago. Rewardingly, they were all in the final… More generally, the beauty of the gesture comes to be overall appreciated for itself.

Soccer players are drug controlled (the French team was, after its win). US American-football players die like flies, from all the abuse.

The French coach was captain when France won the world cup in 1998. Didier Deschamps said he didn’t select the best French players (Benzema was notably shunned) but those who could make a team. When asked if he could put the whole thing in a few words, he replied:”As the French president said it:’Vive la République!’” A true republic is a meritocracy, thus it is the power of those with highest merit (which means worth).

So is the French team an “African” team, racist ladies and gentlemen? Well, the French team a world team, for a world cup. On September 3, 1939, the French Republic declared war to Adolf Hitler’s racist regime. Hitler had earlier sterilized thousands of German children of French troops who had German lovers and wives. One result of this declaration of war? Crushing infamy!  A result is this sort of much less racist world we are living in, this sort of French team, multi-ethnic countries, such as France, or California. Another result? A German team where some players too are of the same skin color which revolted pale little degenerates such as Goebbels so much.

Racism, and other ultimate evils can’t be just frowned upon, they have to be, forcefully, eradicated.

Patrice Ayme

FAITH: BORN FROM BRAINS, NECESSARY FOR INTELLIGENCE, Disastrously Hijacked By Tyrants. AI Take Heed!

“If one decides it’s true, it’s true“… is a necessary trick the brain has to use. A key to intelligence, or how to answer the question ‘why’!

For example, a child touches fire, it hurts. Real bad. So child decides,  that, every time fire will be touched, fire will hurt: empirical (from experience), but not statistical: the evidence is not firm, or numerous, just significant (pain). This is the foundation of FAITH. Thus the faith instinct is crucial to advanced brain function. We all have, and use, faith.

Giordano Bruno Thought a lot, and very pertinently about Faith. Both to trash it, as Catholicism, and be guided by it, as Truth. The Vatican and Catholicism showed clearly its real nature and fundamental essence when torturing horribly Bruno for seven years. To suggest EXOPLANETS (now we have found 4,000 of them; I hope the first habitable one be called “BRUNO”). The way the Pope treated Bruno was worse than the worst Jihadism enjoyed today! Really.

Those who believe, and have faith in thoroughly grotesque superstitions (such as “Jesus existed, flew like a helicopter, Muhammad flew on a winged horse to Jerusalem, etc..”) as a foundation for the most important system of ideas, aren’t serious. They are debasing reason, truth, and they know it, and that’s why they push the most ridiculous and grotesque notions. Those clowns therefore are distracting us… from their true purpose, which is, typically to serve their true masters, and their bloody, sadistic passions (Catholicism killed horribly millions of Cathars (circa 1200 CE)… and that was just one of its many exploits in the realm of mass horror and atrocious murder). This is clear with Christianism, or Islamism: the founders (emperors Constantine, Theodosius I, Muhammad the Rophet, Ali the Fourth Caliph, and don’t ask me what a rophet is, etc…) were real life tyrants, capable of killing thousands, whenever it caught their fancy, and it often caught their fancy: by the time of Ali, it was the Fitna, civil war, and it never really stopped since… Thus the superstitions they promoted were just distractions… crucially based on the FAITH INSTINCT (necessary for thinking)!

Indeed, one has to understand the tyrants who hijacked civilization, and keep on hijacking civilization, do this by using a very old instinct necessary for the proper functioning of intelligence… One can even see the faith instinct at work in all the hatred, grouping on the Internet (for example with anti Trump Derangement Syndrome, “Anti-Fa”, etc., as we saw it with Nazism, Stalinism, Maoism, Pol Potism, etc…)

This is a short essay, but it has a key idea: to master Artificial Intelligence, FAITH will have to be programmed, as it is, with biological intelligence! At some point, intelligence has to decide what is true, and what is not true. It can’t decide truth on probabilities alone (Bayesian mumbo-jumbo).

Saint Peters, Rome, greatly built with Roman monuments’ stones. A faith building another. Also US Congress to be built in that image: the principle of faith building the Republic (even if, in Washington, the idea, long brandished in the Middle Ages of Christian Republic was resurrected… with “Christian” dropped). Out of the faith for the “Christian Republic”, as early as 400 CE, was born, in the long run, faith for the return of real large Republics (France and USA, late 18 C). Faith morphs…

Indeed, it does not stop here. The fundamental problem at this point with steering civilization is the… lack of faith, in the the right things, thus intelligence! By this the philosopher does not meant of course to a myth like Jesus or a nightmare like the analphabetic, genocidal caravan raider. And Political Correctness is a faith too, into something only founded on a small, partial set of feel-good-about-oneself emotions, and thus just as false: as it is, Truth is not Politically Correct, Yet Political Correctness should be true.

Proper intelligence has faith in only what seems genuinely to be true, to the best of one’s sincere knowledge. (Often intellectual fascists advocate publicly to NOT read what could disturb their mono-thinking. For example Muslims will kill you for “insulting the prophet”, meaning evoking, or reading something incompatible with all what the “prophet” is supposed to have “recited”; the point is that refusing data is one diagnostic of lack of sincerity).

When Giordano Bruno said: “I beg you, reject antiquity, tradition, faith, and authority! Let us begin anew by doubting everything we assume has been proven!”… He was talking about those erroneous faith. Verily to believe in error is more popular than believing in the truth, because the tyrants want you to believe in these errors, precisely, and you will ingratiate yourself with them by embracing the faith(s) they want you to have: thus Augustus wanted to be called “Son of God”, and Late Roman emperors a similar doctrine (“Catholicism”)

The same Giordano Bruno fought courageously the viciously mass criminal organization known as the greatly homosexual, pedophilic Vatican (represented above)… because he had faith in the truth: “I fought, and therefore, believed in my victory. There is more to the fact that I didn’t fear death and preferred a brave death instead of a life of an idiot.”

Giordano Bruno, condemned to a particularly horrible death by the viciously criminal mass murdering Pope and his goons said:”It may be that you are more afraid passing judgment upon me, than I am receiving it. The time will come when all believe as I do.” And what did Bruno believe? What had been suspected by the brightest minds for millennia, namely that the Sun was a star and that other stars had (inhabited) planets, like around the Sun…

Thus, let’s not be people of little faith! Great intelligence means great faith in the truth, little faith in idiocy. The will to truth needs enough will to power for embracing it.

Faith is at the core of least effort logic (variational calculus applied to logics!) Faith based logic, which present AI doesn’t have enough of, doesn’t contradict probability based logic. It reinforces it. Both are needed, one to establish, the other to implement.

Faith we have, because think we do.

Patrice Ayme

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Note: For more of what I think about superstition based tyrannical faith, in particular Catholicism, from its inventor, Constantine, to what happened to Bruno:

EMPEROR CONSTANTINE CHRISTIAN TERRORIST 325 CE (Fall Of Rome Part X)

So the preceding essay is not about celebrating that sort of faith!

Need For Civilizing Planet Stronger Than Ever, As African Population Explodes, Planet Fries

Colonialism, as practiced by the Europeans powers, was sometimes, and all too often, atrocious, and, or, grotesquely exploitative. Famously the worst case was Belgian Congo; now the Republic of Congo, managed as personal property of a plutocrat, the king of Belgium. There were “incontestable crimes” in many other places. In Algeria (where half of my family is from) the part of the population which was both Native and Muslim, didn’t have access to the same educational level as those of Jewish or French descent. That was clearly a violation of basic human rights, and a stupidity (although it started from a concession to leave Muslims alone!) In India, the English applied a vicious and deadly salt tax, while importing food from a subcontinent which was partially starving. And so on.

President Macron of France, camped in front of the Faso, French and European flags, just said that he belonged to a generation which had not known “colonial” Africa (whatever “colonial” meant; it varied considerably: French colonial America was in most ways the opposite of English colonial America, for example). Macron spoke bold, new and direct (and for three hours, nearly half of it answering questions!) The French language has become more African than French, he correctly observed. Macron added that “Africa was engraved in the memory, culture and identity of France” (as a child brought up in Africa I am pleasantly surprised that this is said at last: long time coming; the reciprocal is also true, hence the massive attempted illegal emigration from Africa to France; I will argue here that it should neither be necessary, nor illegal… The way it used to be under the so-called “colonial” regime).

Macron’s visit was rather courageous: a grenade was launched against a French military vehicle shortly before his arrival, wounding bystanders, among other unpleasantness. Macon said there was “no more African policy of France”, but just a desire to look at a “continent of 54 countries… where the past and traumatisms vary”. The “past must passed”. Macron insisted that “his generation” was not giving lessons, or telling what Africa should do but, instead simply encouraged those who want “liberty and emancipation” (the usual neoliberal lecture). Macron correctly identified Africa as the place where all challenges of the world collide. A tipping point of climate and economy.

What does Macron proposes to Africans trying desperately to get to Europe? To return them where they come from. That won’t do. Macron brandishes globalization (“mondialisation”) as this great church, forum, market and future we have together. But, as it is, globalization can’t work, since it is globally lawless. Yes, being ruled by globalization is being ruled by a state of lawlessness. No great civilization ever survived, let alone, rose, through lawlessness. Quite the opposite. As we will see below, such is the lesson of all the civilizations forebears to the present one (in other words, such is the lesson given by the most successful civilizations).

However decried, “colonization” knew also many successes, as revealed in comparison with what is going on today, in all too many countries. Surely the Cambodian holocaust, when 25% of the population was murdered by its crazed leadership, would not have happened if France has remained the overlord of Cambodia (similarly for Rwanda, if Belgium had stayed in power). Empire and military force have their merits: the Cambodian genocide ended when the Republic of Vietnam’s experienced military invaded, and re-established civilization throughout Cambodia, by executing or arresting the savages (known for their human liver soup).

When Mauritanie was controlled by the French, even after independence, the respect of law didn’t differ significantly from that of the French Republic (I knew the desert as a child there; the giant land was perfectly peaceful and safe, even far out in the wildest wastes). However in 1985, Islam was declared state religion and sharia, the grotesque set of rules from Qur’an and Hadith, was declared law of the land of the Islamist “Republic” of Mauritania. Conclusion? 5% to 20% of the population is enslaved, and sharia is used to terrorize critics into submission.

Ideally, some imperial masters would come, and tell the Mauritanian leadership that they have to enforce UN law, effective promptly, or they would be dismissed. But then the next problem would be that the economy of Mauretania would be destroyed: slaves would have to be employed, ex-masters would have to learn to work. More money would also have to get through the country, namely it would have to be integrated to the world economy.

Baobab forest, Senegal. It used to be that the understory below Baobabs was thick, green, rich with life. Now, no more: the increased drought and heat from the greenhouse is desiccating the land.

Once Republican law is added to a vast economy, one has an empire. We have a vast world economy, we need a vast world empire; it even exists, to a great extent, and is called the United Nations. It’s just an insufficient extent. These ruminations were fostered by a comment from Eugen R [after some English corrections and enumerated remarks from PA]. Here is Eugen R’s comment:

“I just spent few weeks in Eastern Africa, touring villages, as well as the bush. The villagers live according to their ancient customs selling girls at their fourteenth birthday even if educated in schools managed by missionaries, for 6-10 cows, to give birth to children. [[1]] They live out of nature, or what it produces, while destroying it [[2]].

The village headmasters have dictatorial authority. For example they decide who will get land to build houses in the village and who do not. The alternative is to leave for the cities, directly to the slums, where the unemployment is close to 100%. [[3]]

The only positive development is, that the villagers understand how important for them is conservation of wildlife, that brings tourists, who are the only source of cash money for them, even if most of the income from tourists is collected by the white or Indian lounge owners. [[4]]

In 1970’s when Mugabe took over the power, Zimbabwe’s population was about 6 million, now it is close to 17. [[5]] The economy grew zero so the problems grew three times. This is an example of decolonisation in one African country. But the others, with less violent governments, are not doing much better. This is what I call the cultural trap [[6]]. On one hand it is romantic, fashionable and valuable to try to preserve the unique cultures, on the other hand it is not sustainable, and Europe will pay for the necessary expected collapse, either by mass immigration or by extreme nationalistic regimes. I don’t know what is worse.”

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An enlightening comment. Here are my remarks:

[[1]] Selling and buying girls should be strictly outlawed, and terminated by imposing extremely severe penalties (many years of prison for the buyers, and even for the sellers, while their families would get some government support while they are meditating in incarceration). Among other benefits, it would be to diminish the birthrate. (Otherwise, the population will be diminished, holocaust style, as happened in Rwanda when it was Africa’s most densely populated country). 

[[2]] Where there is access to the sea, factory fleets from distant countries (say Korea) have ravaged the African fisheries. That should be repressed and the perpetrators should do prison and hard labor for a very long time, and their boats should be confiscated. In other places, dams have ruined the environment by preventing seasonal flooding on dozens of thousands of square kilometers or more. Senegal is an unfortunate example for both. Although Senegal gets some help from French military aviation to detect illegal high sea fishing, the repression should be considerably augmented. (There is evidence that Korean factory fleets were allowed to hug the Senegalese coastline while, and because the son of pseudo-socialist president was busy becoming a billionaire; lack of international law, order and discovery has prevented Senegalese justice to recover all the stolen money.)

In many places in Africa, natives are not aware that cutting trees dessicate the land. Something that girls who study much longer should be made aware of.

[[3]] Ideally, an imperial organization, under UN supervision, would be re-installed: once Africans get to cities, work would be provided to them by European companies (and also American firms, secondarily, especially in the Anglosphere). Thus, instead of doing nothing, and being incarcerated in their own cities, Africans would get to partake in the construction of the world. That would cut mass illegal desperate immigration to basically zero.

As the Europeans and Africans would mix more freely on African territory, more natural relations, less master to slave would develop. Because of the presence of an “imperial” administration (itself under close democratic watch), corruption would collapse, and European investors, now protected by strong laws which would be extensions of European laws, would invest massively (as they used to… in the colonial era).    

[[4]]. I detest “trickle down economy”… except when the alternative is no economy at all. As is all too much the case, in all too much of Africa. No economy at all means, actually, obscurantism, war, holocaust, even cannibalism. As observed.

[[5]] The Maoists were perfectly conscious of the problem of overpopulation. So they instituted the one child policy (with exception for minorities, such as Tibetans). Thus China has now *only* 1.38 billion people (with a slowly increasing population. India’s population is increasing at a fast linear clip and will soon pass China (give or take nuclear war). if Mao and his able underlings and successors had not instituted the one child policy, China would have four billion people, and would be desperately poor, deprived, invaded, at war, and lawless, as much of Africa is. Instead, the People Republic of China is becoming one of the planet’s guiding lights, on a trajectory to become quickly the world’s richest country, and already one of the smartest.

Overpopulation is a disaster for Africa, but it’s not PC to say this. It’s even less PC to observe that overpopulation is an invitation to destruction, war and abomination.

Many African countries  Kenya’s population was 8 million in 1960, now it’s 48 million (600% augmentation). Niger went from 3 million to 21 million, more than 71% of the population can’t read. However, women have more than seven children in Niger, and parents there want always more. The planet can’t take it, and Niger should be forced to cut its population explosion. Niger population is expected to be 42 million within 17 years: should they all come to France? Except for the south and a big river, most of the country is Sahara desert).

Africa is not alone. This is one world, one planet. Africa’s problems are our problems, even if we live in Kamchatka, or Bolivia. Work is a human right. Having hundreds of millions of Africans without work is a violation of human rights worse than some forms of slavery (history show many types of slavery; slavery in Babylon, 4,000 years ago, was not slavery in the USA, in 1850, or traditional slavery in Mauritania in 2017).

New technology has brought new crimes, thus necessitates new laws, indeed!

The attempted illegal massive African immigration into Europe is the symptom of massive human rights violation, which forces the refugees to take life threatening risks, so desperate they are. Europe cannot say it didn’t create the problem. It did, as much as it did create colonialism. Under colonialism, this problem didn’t exist (subsaharan Africans have been coming to Europe for millennia, records and archeology show).  Solution? Send, work, investment to Africa, but that can happen only if imperium, imperium of the LAW is extended there. It’s not a question of giving Africans lessons.

The state of Qin became supreme in China within a few generations of having adopted as official policy “LEGALISM” (also called “rationalism”). This was no coincidence: the rise of the most famous states of civilization are a direct consequence to their being “STATES OF LAW”: Egypt, Sumer Cities, Babylon, Sparta, Athens, the Roman Republic, Qin, and the Frankish Empire>>Europe>>”Renovated Roman Empire”>>European Middle Ages>>USA + United Nations + European Union, are examples of the power of legalism.

Indeed the Republic of China is, philosophically speaking, a direct descendant from the “LEGALIST” state of Qin. Qin in official pan-Chinese imperial form, led by Shi Huangdi, lasted only a decade. However Qin was already supreme before the birth of Shi Huangdi. Moreover, Qin was succeeded by the Han dynasty, which adopted the “legalist” system of Qin. “Legalist” may sound like an obscure concept, but it was highly practical. Legalism was opposed to the systems of fiefs, land grants given to mighty plutocrats, which had festered before under the Zhou dynasty (for 8 centuries!), and which brought the notorious Warring States period (to which the Qin empire put an end, through direct conquest).

Instead of land granting to mighty plutocrats, Qin guo used state officials to administer regions… This is the exact same system which was adopted by the Carolingian Franks to “renovate the Roman Empire”… 11 centuries after Qin. Charlemagne covered the Renovated Roman empire with 300 “counties” headed by nominated officials (those would degenerate two centuries into fiefs, launching the messy plutocracy known as the feudal system)

We now need to renovate the world, and it includes Africa, under the command (imperium) of law. Yes, an empire of law, not just a globalization of feudalism. That, of course is not just something that France alone can impose. When France, helped by her vast empire, opposed Nazism in the 1930s, alone, she ended invaded in May-June 1940 (while US plutocrats, who had fueled, fed and helped Hitler in all ways, laughed).

A sense of history, and civilization, is not enough. One has to have the means.

And this brings me to the “cultural trap” Eugen R spoke of above. [[6]] Cultures are nice, but there is only one law. The one and only law compatible with human nature. In particular the “obscurantism” Macron talked about is incompatible with human nature. Enlightenment is not a modern thing: it is the nature of humanity.

However, when Macron claims that “religious extremism” is not religion, he understood nothing to superstitious religions. (Not to say he didn’t have to say that to the primitives!) Admiring local cultures should never extend to admire local superstitions (including various Christianisms and Islamisms).

It is rare that I approve of a president’s discourse (I approved of roughly none of my friend’s Obama’s discourse, and especially not his ridiculous discourse on Islam in Cairo). It actually never happened. I have also called Macon a Trojan Rothschild Horse, or the like. However, Macron’s discourse in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, was very courageous, and nearly perfect. Africa found a president.

Now it remains for France to find the means, and that means financement, and that, in turns, means submitting plutocrats to the imperium of law, and pay taxes, instead of evading them, thanks to small criminal states such as Malta, Luxembourg, ireland, etc. Yes, when Ireland refuses to let Apple pay tax, it is criminal, and yes, it’s killing Africa.

When Ireland supported Hitler (under the guise of “neutrality”, like Switzerland) during World War Two, it was already catastrophic: the small neutral states were crucial in the defeat of France in May-June 1940 (hence Auschwitz). Switzerland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands and Belgium, all of them “neutral” in 1939, and early in 1940, all made the (momentary, but very bloody) defeat of civilization possible.  

We have the same situation now: the plutocratic order is the real world government we have now. To switch to a “legalist” system as Rome (26 centuries ago) and Qin (around 350 BCE) did, is what the planet needs. Now.

Immigration to rich countries is a form of colonialism: nothing wrong with it, as long as it enriches all, overall. However, it shouldn’t turn, as it has, into an exploitation of misery. To reduce the misery, investments have to go the other way. But not just financial investments (as Macron sing-songs). Ideological, legal investments too. The trade of ideas is the most important trade. 

Yes, Macron, we are orphan of a common imaginary. Not that some of this imaginary was always correct: some African students accused Macron and France to incite the catastrophic, illegal immigration across the Mediterranean. Macron retorted that :”Who are the traffickers [of human beings]. But they are Africans, my friend! They are Africans! Ask yourself also that question! It’s not French people who are doing human trafficking in Libya! It’s Africans! We must all seize our responsibilities! We have started to dismantle the networks. But stop this discourse which consists in saying:’the problem it’s the other!’ You are incredible!”

Here Macron, correctly came close to one of the great lies of the Politically Correct: the slavery of Africans is organized by Africans. What Macron didn’t say explicitly, but may have meant implicitly, is that African slavery was organized by Africans, even way back when (contrarily to the lies of the PC). I have argued that slavery out of Africa actually saved African lives (the evidence is overwhelming; however it’s also overwhelmingly suppressed, because it’s so un-PC; an Indian friend begged on her knees that I removed that essay, claiming it would destroy my reputation… Instead i put the title in capital letters, emphasizing importance!) It’s pretty clear that millions of Africans who try to emigrate to Europe right now believe that emigration may well save their lives, or may make them worth living.

In a sense, colonization of Africa didn’t really, durably happen: with the exception of South Africa, where a few million descendants of Europeans cling, where are the Europeans? Colonization of America (or Australia) did happen: Europeans are all over, the Natives were mostly wiped out, notwithstanding parodies such as the tall blonde ex-Harvard professor, Senator Elizabeth Warren, who claimed to be an American Native to get prestigious teaching position.

What we need now is to counterbalance immigration of Africa to Europe by an immigration of Europe to Africa. And don’t decry those colons, one way, or the other. Yes, it all has to be made legal.

We are orphan from the best of a common imaginary we need to recover, while, and for the same reason, we need to destroy the worst of same said common imaginary. Building a better world starts with building a better truth.

Patrice Ayme’

ETHICS ARISE FROM NATURE, THROUGH LIFE, And Its SPONSOR, REASON (Rise & Collapse of Rome, Part IV.)

 

The ancient Greek word êthikos means “relating to one’s character“. Stoicism was an important characteristic of the Roman Republic and its citizens, individually. King Pyrrhus observed that his victories against Rome would lead of the annihilation of his army (as they did), because the Romans took their defeats stoically, and kept on coming, destroying Pyrrhus’ officer corps.

Stoicism is a Republican virtue, all Roman soldiers and officers shared, because it was drilled in them, whereas Pyrrhus’ officer corps was held together by greed.

So how come did I savage old fashion “Stoicism” (and Buddhism, and I should have included Confucianism, as I was at it)? As in many behaviors, the problem with Stoicism arise if it abused.

Greek cities, at the time of their greatest greatness, knew Stoicism (although it had not been formally invented). Certainly, Athens pursuing the Peloponnesian War, in spite of horrendous losses in population and army (up to 50%), was stoic. But, after Stoicism was made into a religion (also known as a philosophical movement), it became a submission (at least in Greece; arguably, Athens had submitted earlier to the Macedonian Pluto-fascists).  

My argument in “WHY ROME COLLAPSED Part II: Stoicism, Fascism, Death Of Humor & Senses”  was that basically Stoicism in Antiquity (and India, and China) became a way hypocrites, weaklings, creeps, opportunists, and gangsters on the make found to accommodate themselves with plutocratic fascism of the oligarchies which ruled those countries.

Thus, I reckon, Stoicism contributed to the Collapse of Roman Civilization: instead of resisting with force, even violence, Stoics went with the flow, as plutocratic tyranny took over the Greek world, and then the Roman democracy. Sure enough, Stoicism merged smoothly with Christian theofascism in the Fourth Century. As Nietzsche, and others, yours truly included, there are few behaviors more unnatural than the noble Stoics’ insistence to follow what they call “Nature” by laying prone and submissive. 

Here is Nietzsche on Stoicism: 

Nietzsche should be mandatory reading for would-be “progressives”, “Antifa”, and those who claim to “resist” the established order.

I go a bit further, as I observed that “Noble” Stoics could be quite ignoble (see Seneca, Marcus Aurelius). And stupid besides: Stoicists are living according to “Nature”, we all are, so why are they trying so hard to promote what we all already do? I gave the answer: to occupy their minds, and those they preach to, away from criticizing the masters too harshly, and having emotions conducive to that. However, in the present essay I rescue “New Stoicism” from the fascist abyss and Nietzsche’s scathing critique.

***

New Stoicism: De Rerum Natura, Including Ethics?

However, there are more modern ways to claim a “New Stoicism”. Massimo Pigliucci’s analysis of  Becker’s A New Stoicism, II: the way things stand, part 1 is quite interesting. I sent a comment, which Massimo generously published. It’s reproduced here in an expanded form:.

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Most of the texts we have from Greco-Roman Antiquity were preserved by Christian monasteries (150 out of 160, roughly). That does not mean that Christians saved us, it means that most of them killed us, while robbing us of our own civilization, whereas a few braves saved some remnants to tease us with (critical texts, say on Constantine, often went conveniently missing, although secondary works from the same historians were preserved).

Considering that, starting in 363 CE, under emperor Jovian, Christians burned books and libraries, and considering that, after 391 CE, thanks to Theodosius’ law, it was open season on intellectuals judged to be “heretic“, while the Roman imperial government merged with Christian “saints” and bishops, one can be sure that only texts and authors which pleased the Christians in charge, survived.

Greco-Roman civilization if far from us, and, for the longest time, we have looked at it with a telescope equipped with a Christian filter. (Now things are changing, because we have independent means to know antiquity, such as archeology.)

Thus all the big names and their big books and the big philosophical movements of Antiquity which were known or popular in the Middle Ages, bear a Christian stamp of approval. The rest of the gigantic intellectual production of the Greco-Romans mostly disappeared, and can only be found out, or inferred, with exquisite difficulty (such as fragments, or partly erased parchments).

For example we know the Greeks developed Non-Euclidean geometry, more than a century before Euclid, because there are six non-Euclidean geometry theorems in… Aristotle (the Christian fascists loved Aristotle, because Aristotle destroyed democracy, so they preserved him). Aristotle was not a mathematician, the survival of this mathematical activity (rediscovered 22 centuries later) was entirely accidental.

We suspected the Greeks had mechanical computers, because Cicero said so. Then one was found at the bottom of the sea. Thus we know that old arriviste Cicero, who early in his career bought himself a $100 million house (constant 2017 dollars), didn’t make that one up (how could he?)

A text such as Lucretius’ De  Rerum Natura was found by the personal secretary of several Popes, Poggio Bracciolini, in January 1417, in an obscure monastery (Fulda?). There was just one copy (and it got lost after having been copied; there were fragments in other places). Poggio loved to search for old books hidden in secret places; he found several.

The average Christian in charge of the empire around 400 CE, was busy destroying anyway to look at the world not thoroughly compatible with their apocalyptic Jihad. The Book of the Apocalypse promise the Final Judgement, once civilization had been destroyed, so they destroyed civilization. Christians detested physics. They detested Epicurus’ philosophy, inspired by Democritus’ atomism. (Lucretius is centered around atomism, the most important scientific discovery.)

Theology assumed that the universe was in some way a living being (“God”, or “Gods”). All the laws there were, were laws of God, not physics. So books with laws of physics therein, had to be destroyed.

However, we are way smarter (more exactly, we are not intellectual fascists, we just one idea, in their case “God”). Before rejecting that idea outright, that idea that the universe is in some way a living being, we need to inquire all what is meant by “living”. Nobody knows, and this is a question exobiologists, or now Quantum theorists, would like to answer. So, indeed, the search for a modern version of the deity, or deities, is incomplete. So, at first sight, it looks as if we couldn’t anchor ethics upwards.

But ethics can certainly be anchored downwards, as we are chained by the long anchor of billions of years of evolution. Indeed…

“Living according to Nature” faces the problem that, on Earth, “Nature” is life. Indeed, although “Natural”, “Nature” is an art onto itself: what is more artificial than life?

Life evolved, as it is, in part from chance and necessity, and other factors science is barely scratching at as we speak (see the mighty struggles of Quantum Computer engineers, mathematicians and physicists, to get a glimpse of the possibilities q-bits are starting to offer).

So life is an anchor for ethics, but it seems an arbitrary one. If two themes dominate it, they seem to be collaboration and predation. Yes, good and evil, light and dark. One can fairly assume that so it is throughout the galaxies. (And let the vegans recoil in horror, as we reveal to their uncouth selves that the animal most feared by African children when walking around is the elephant, a most clever herbivore…)

If life means mayhem, what is the wise to do? Well, precisely, a discourse, wisdom. And wisdom is central to life: wisdom is basically intelligence, and life is intelligence. (I maintain here a distinction between consciousness, and intelligence!)

Thus, indeed, one should follow reason, as reason (however happenstance it may seem sometimes) is the skeleton of life. (interestingly, the Gospel of John starts by saying “God” is the “Logos”, that is, Reason, a thesis obviously planted to seduce Neo-Platonists and Stoicists (because Bible-God doesn’t seem very rational most of the time). But may be the author of the idea God = Logos really believe it; certainly many did, then…)

Building character according to reason does not mean just controlling reason, but the emotions, and the circumstances giving rise to the emotions. For example, it means inspecting, controlling, even rejecting, the emotional circumstances which mold most people’s minds, while encouraging others (for example don’t expose children to team sports on TV, but expose them to “Nature”).

Ethics, according to “Nature” encompasses much more than what moderns value as “moral” (most ancient religions had human sacrifices; Carthage found ethical to crucify poorly performing generals, while Athens and 18C Britain executed admirals for the same reason).

Thus an ethical system embracing “Nature” will come to embrace much that is considered “immoral” today (therein Seneca’s amazing moral limberness).

An ethics embracing “Nature” is not just correct, it’s eminently practical. Experts consider that the risk of nuclear weapon conflict is the highest ever, and the world’s ethical system is not ready for this. It is actually because it’s not ready for this, that we got into the present predicament.

Embracing “Nature” ethically shows that no quarters shall be given by the hand of fate: “Nature” is an indifferent master. Nuclear Armageddon could kill seven billions, and “Nature” would breathe a sigh of relief. “Nature” is realistic, our masters, too, as they secretly plot our demise, consciously or not, hubristically or not…

We humans are the top predator, to the point of preying onto ourselves (something bears do). A fact & a warning. I disagree with defining as “Stoicism” as the full embrace of reason, human or otherwise, whatever “human” means.

Why? A stoic attitude, and by “stoic” I mean “stoic” in the usual sense, is, all too often, the only reasonable attitude to adopt. However, sometimes, absolute rage and fury, for example, is more appropriate. It’s so very true, many advanced species have these behaviors as completely natural outcomes (“instincts”). Including, of course, humans, and nobody does this rage and fury trick better than humans (something conventional humanism has neglected, to its eternal shame and impotence. That’s how Neanderthals extinguished Cave Bears, and Native Americans kept at bay, and destroyed the formidable galloping giant carnivorous bear, Arctodus.  

Yes, “human” may just be a qualificative for the survival of the fittest. Those at the receiving end will embrace Stoicism as the Romans of the Republic did, but they embraced much more: reason, with its full metal jacket, passion, with all the love and cruelty it implied, and fitness as certified by survival.

When Rome went down, and down, and down, plunging into the abyss of ever more functionality, the upper classes had rejected stoicism, and embraced luxury and corruption instead: Seneca, a multi-billionaire from influence trafficking alone, or even Cicero are examples of this (Cicero bought a mansion in Rome worth 100 million 2017 dollars). Yet Stoicism took ever more importance in Roman society, below the elite, as most of the Roman People had  to submit to emperors and their infernal cortege and of plutocrats.

Stoicism was the behavioral trap the best of the SPQR, Senatus PopulusQue Romanus, fell into. Sometimes one needs a revolution, and it better be violent.

Patrice Ayme’

Why Absolute Power Corrupts Outrageously

The Clintons, their friends the plutocrats, and their greedy servants have behaved ever more outrageously, ever since they outrigged, out-performed and outreached Reagan himself. This is part of a general pattern: absolute power brings absolute outrage, and that’s the only way to get rid of it.

Why are all too powerful individuals inclined to outrageous acts? Caligula fed his horse gold flakes while visiting serious tortures on many. French king Louis XIV honored the mightiest in his kingdom by pooping while they watched.. Then, naturally enough, the self-described Sun King pooped on French civilization, by pooping on his grandfather foremost achievement (peace with Protestantism). The end result was a weakening of France, thus Europe, which persists, to this day.

Kaiser Wilhelm II, self-described greatest lover of Great Britain, launched a world war in July 1914, mostly because he could. It was certainly an outrageous, gratuitous act, from a man with absolute power. 

Huma Abedin, Clinton’s “Daughter” & Business Woman Extraordinaire Will Say, Or Do, Whatever To Cling To Power

[While chief of staff at the State Department, Abedin was officially allowed to pile up other jobs outside, with her own consultancy, and, of course, the Clinton Foundation. Don’t worry: she is now 40 years old, and a multimillionaire. Brought up in Saudi Arabia and connected to Muslim Fundamentalists, Abedin looks like an agent of the Saudi government of sorts. Remember that Obama was just overruled by Congress and the Senate to enable the prosecution of Saudi Arabia for 9/11… The elites of Wahington-Wall Street have long been entangled with the monster they created, Saudi Arabia.]

Adolf Hitler went on a succession of quasi-suicidal, outrageous acts, starting in 1939. In 1939, Hitler allied himself with Stalin to invade Poland, facing a world war with France and Britain (a war which clearly Hitler could not win). Then Hitler went on, invading all sorts of countries, all the way to attacking the USSR and declaring war to the USA (hey, why not, since Hitler felt he had lost in 1939). The result of all these outrages was that Europe lost the leadership of the civilization it had created (which has passed to start-ups such as Russia and the USA).

***

Beyond The Will To Power, The Will To Outrage:

Clearly, from their own words, the behavior of many of the mighty, from Caesar to Napoleon, is explained by an obsessive “Will to Power”. Nietzsche explained much human behavior that way. However, what happens when people have already all the power? Well, folly happens.

Think about it. How does a human being demonstrate power over another human being?    

More recent examples? US government officials (like Rumsfeld, US Sec. of Defense) declaring the Geneva Convention “quaint”, and violating it, for the whole world to see, in all possible ways, while invading and devastating Iraq (at least the Nazis tried to hide the evil they were doing). Or Obama conducting “signature strikes” (using the US military for deadly strikes within countries the US is not at war with, just because some gathering had the ‘signature’ of possible gathering of whom some secret organization in the US as possible malefactors).

Outrage can be profitable: Clinton was told of debate questions in advance. As I listened carefully (recording and re-listening to the debates), it seems clear to me, at least for the first debate with Trump, that Clinton knew of the coming questions. The questions were so ridiculous, Trump was surprised, even baffled, but Clinton came up with slick, rehearsed answers. That’s how I know. Since then, Wikileaks has revealed that knowing the questions in advance, in excruciating detail, is how Clinton defeated Sanders. It’s not just because it was advantageous, but also because it was dangerous, outrageous. That made it exciting.

Why did Bill Clinton officiate at the Abedin-Weiner wedding? (He actually did not have any authority to do so.) Weiner, long a “Democratic” congressman, is an obsessive-compulsive serial adulterer and pedophile who loves to publish his feats on the Internet. Weiner called himself “Carlos Danger” on the Internet.

So Weiner married to Clinton’s “second daughter”. Speaking of daughter, Chelsea Clinton travels around the world with the best accommodations, thanks to the “Clinton Foundation”. Clinton, a presidential candidate, travelled free of personal charge, thanks to said Foundation. All this costs a lot to the Foundation. Right, Bill Gates does the same (using the private airline he owns with Buffet to do so; thus double-billing taxpayers).

The Foundation Law was passed within minutes, and to compensate for, the creation of Income Tax Law. So the wealthiest Americans, like the Clinton or Gates, give millions to a Foundation (the Clintons have actually two entangled Foundations). Then those millions are deduced from the taxes they have to pay. Then as officers of the Foundation they need “first class, or private jet travel because of security and other requirements” as the Clinton Foundation explains. In other words, they live like aristocrats.

According to Roman historians (Suetonius, Cassius Dio), Caligula intended to make his prefered stallion, Incitatus, Consul. That was too much, and the head of the Praetorian guard decided to plant his sword in Caligula’s groin, and other crucial places, bringing his demise.

How did Caligula’s mood grow? As the preceding commander-in-chief (“imperator”) Tiberius sank into melancholy and increasing depravity, his influence rubbed off on the young Caligula. (see the case of Sextus Marius who was charged with incest with his daughter on the pretext of seizing his Spanish gold mines even that could have been done in the name of the state). As Tacitus puts it: “It was it probable that, when Tiberius with his long experience of affairs was, under the influence of absolute power, wholly perverted and changed, Caius Caesar [nickname: Little Boots, Caligula], who had hardly completed his boyhood, was thoroughly ignorant and bred under the vilest training, would enter on a better course, with Macro for his guide.

As I hinted above, the Will to Power is not everything: those at the top have to feel themselves exerting it. In the case of baboons, the subordinate has to offer his, or her bottom for the superior to consider (doing whatever it please with). But what of the case of one of our baboon-leaders, in the age of the Internet? Or in the age of the Roman empire, for that matter? The superiors, those with absolute power have to feel the subjugation and submission, of their inferior subordinates. They feel it, when they commit obvious outrages, and the miserable subordinates can only deplore the outrages deep inside, and do nothing about them.

The Roman empire, at least until Diocletian (circa 300 CE) was, formally, a Republic, SPQR, The Senate and People of Rome. The (now so-called) “emperors” were just commander in chief (“imperators”) and “first”, or “principal” in the Senate (“Princeps” from which “Prince” was evolved). In practice, they had absolute power.

After Tiberius, the principle that the Republic would be led by a imperator-princeps was more accepted. Thus, for the individuals at the top to feel that power, to be rewarded by that feeling, to compensate the risks they took, outrages had to be performed. The mood of committing outrages started discreetly under Tiberius (who performed tortures in Capri, but, overall, ordered at most a handful of executions, arguably less than Obama (I explained this in the past: of the 36 or so executions under Tiberius most were ordered by the Senate, and fully justified, because of very serious lethal conspiracies, which killed his sons, without him knowing!)

***

The More Powerful One Is, The More One Seeks Outrage:

For years Hillary has been hanging around the outrageous Bill Clinton (bad enough! Clinton apparently used the power of the offices he held for various sexual favors with many women, and lied about it under oath, leading to his quasi-impeachment). Apparently unsatisfied by these puny scandals, Hillary pushed onto her apparent closest friend and collaborator, Huma Abedin, her “second daughter”, a sex maniac (initially Abedin resisted). Weiner the Wiener, a sex addicted Congressman, sent unlawful material to, or in the presence of children, from 4 to 15-year-old.

Thanks to his Clinton connection Weiner is not yet in prison. However, the FBI just came into possession of a device of containing 650,000 emails, some of them (probably) classified Clinton emails. (A crude approach to insurance, if you want my opinion.)

As Weiner’s monicker, “Carlos Danger”  indicates, people who already have power do not want just power, as they already have it, but danger. But what happens when they have had it for a very long time, and got away with it, and did all outrageous things they could dream of? Well, they get new dreams, even more outrageous that the preceding ones. For Clinton to flaunt her relationship with lovers of pedophiles qualifies.

So does considering Bill Gates, or Tim Cook, the Apple chief, as Hillary did, for Vice President. Many people around the world consider Bill Gates to be a criminal. No, not because of the way he founded Microsoft (mostly from appropriating others’ property, thank in part to his mother, an IBM director). But rather in the way he co-opted local government official to push for Genetically Modified Organisms made by Monsanto, a Gates investment vehicle and collaborator of its Gates Foundation. Monsanto GMOs turned out to be a disaster for African peasant who were ruined and devastated. Countries such as Burkina Fasso just made them unlawful.

Caligula wanted to make his horse a Consul, because he wanted to get away with outrage greater than any he had visited on We The People before. The equally endowed from birth Commodus would get away with even greater outrages than those Caligula wrought (who reigned only 4 years).

So it was with many Roman emperors: ever greater outrages. Diocletian proclaimed himself god, and his quasi-successor Constantine, proclaimed himself to be the Thirteenth Apostle…. Until the entire grotesque show became so dysfunctional, the semi-barbarian Germans, the Franks took over, and started the slow process of re-establishing civilization (starting around 400 CE), by reducing the power of the oligarchs and plutocrats.

The present leaders of the USA have been so powerful as to be arrogantly outrageous. They treated the state as their private property. That the same holds for Russia, China, North Korea, or Zimbabwe, or Venezuela, is besides the point: the US is supposed to be a democracy. And so is the West (although, as the West is more united than it looks, the rest of the West has become as democratic as the US, by obeying Washington-Wall Street orders).

Time for a flood, to clean the mess.

Patrice Ayme’

Obama “Lack Of Supermajority” Lie

The simplest, and most efficient, way of thinking is by not lying. Lying consistently requires to know both some elements of reality and the lies one adorned them with. Lying is neurologically taxing.

The so-called “Democrats” lied about why they did nothing in the early part of Obama’s reign. They claimed it was because of the Republicans, a nebulous reason. Indeed, the so-called Democrats are Republicans in disguise, and they did not do anything for “We The People“, because they identify as “We The Plutocrats” (“WE”, as Hillary Clinton admitted to Goldman Sachs partners, as she talked to them, admitting she was as good as a Goldman Sachs partner).

The main difference between Republicans and Democrats seems to be that the Democrats lie better, so they can afford to foster more regressive policies.

Diane Feinstein, one of Hillary Clinton’s main support, was a pure politician her entire life. Feinstein claims to be worth around 50 million dollars. She will conveniently forget to tell you her husband is at least a billionaire. We are demoncrats, and the demon, the devil, Pluto, made us lie, so please forget it. (And how come, as a pure politician earning no more than $160,000, she made 50 million dollars?) These people rule the world, not just the USA: Feinstein’s husband, Richard Blum, was a major investor in China… while his wife prepared and reigned, over pertinent legislation.

Sometimes, of course, one should lie. Say, if a dying child is anxious, full care requires lying with no limits whatsoever. Just tell the child she better sleep and will be refreshed when she wakes up.

However, in a politico-social context, lying is never a good idea. If one is on the side of We The People. Reciprocally, lying is how plutocrats rule. And they go all the way, inventing religions to justify their horrors (the most famous cases being Christianism and Islam, both set-up by dictators, respectively Saint Constantine, Roman emperor, self-described “13th Apostle“, and Prophet Muhammad, self-described “Messenger of God“; the latter imitating the former).

Obama was the do-nothing president. OK, Obama did a lot for plutocrats, transferring trillions of federal debt to the richest people and corporations in the world. As I called it ironically, TARP, Transferin Assets To the Richest People. But Obama did nothing much for “We The People“, besides very effective lip service. To justify doing nothing, to his supporters, from day one, Obama accused the “Republicans”. He just could not convince them, Republicans, he said. That was true, but it was also a lie. A true lie. Obama did not need to convince any Republicans. Not a single one. He was in control. In total control. (But is a child in control? Of course not: a child does not know enough. A fortiori a puppet of Goldman Sachs, Gates, Apple, etc. )

Lying Has Helped Rulers For Millennia, But It Does Not Help Civilization

The Nazis used, and advertised, the big lie technique because they believed they had achieved a superior understanding of the human condition, so it did not matter what ways they used to implement their rule. There were enormous lies implemented by self-described “democrats” in the last 24 years. Passing laws in the service of what turned out to be plutocrats who have names: Hillary Clinton considered major plutocrats (Gates, Cook, etc.) as potential Vice Presidential choices (before she realized that would compromise her chances too much) .

While Obama claimed he could not do anything without the Republicans, the democrats had a majority in the House of Representatives, and the democrats had a majority in the US Senate. So was Obama lying? (Silly question, sorry.)

No, say demoncrats. US Senate tradition (since 1993!) is that one can talk and talk and talk and talk in the Senate, and block any bill. Once Democratic Senator Byrd talked around 24 hours. Continuously.

However, filibusters can be overruled when one has 60 votes in the US Senate, a SUPERMAJORITY. Obama had such a supermajority, for many months perhaps six months. He could have also forced a 12 months bullet proof supermajority by forcing two ailing democratic  senators to resign

In January 2009, there were 56 Senate Democrats and two independent senators who caucused with Democrats. This combined total of 58 included Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.), whose health was failing and was unable to be at the Senate everyday. As a practical matter, in the early months of Obama’s presidency, the Senate Democratic caucus had 57 members on the floor for day-to-day legislating.

In April 2009, Pennsylvania’s Arlen Specter switched parties. This meant there were 57 Democrats, and two independents who caucused with Democrats, for a caucus of 59.

On June 30 2009, Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) was sworn in, after a lengthy recount and legal fight. At that point, the Democratic caucus reached 60, but two of its members, Kennedy and Byrd, were SOMETIMES unavailable for votes.

In August 2009, Kennedy died, and Democratic caucus again stood at 59.

In September 2009, Sen. Paul Kirk (D-Mass.) filled up Kennedy’s vacancy, bringing the caucus back to 60. At this point, the democrats were back with a SUPERMAJORITY. Senator Byrd’s health continued to deteriorate. A forceful president with a progressive agenda could have made him resign. But Obama had no progressive agenda whatsoever. Neither did his helpers and sycophants. The leading ones are all establishment, they are happy wioth the establishment.

In January 2010, Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) replaced Kirk on January 19, 2010, bringing the Democratic caucus back down to 59 again.

In June 2010, Sen. Byrd died. Byrd’s replacement, a Democrat, Carte Goodwin, was sworn two weeks later. So the caucus stayed at 59.

Obama said, it’s all the fault of the Republicans, and here is this Obamacare, my “signature achievement“, plutocrats will take care of you, as long as I send them your tax dollars.

When FDR became president, he enforced a progressive agenda on his first day. In the first month, Obama did just one progressive thing: sign, with great fanfare, the evacuation of arbitrary detention at Guantanamo. Well, not really. Guantanamo is still in operation, eight years later, with people inside, arbitrarily detained. The Do-Nothing president really did nothing. His true signature achievement. (Except for arbitrary drone lethal strikes, for all to see, a new judicial precedent, and savagely hunting those who reveal some bad actions of the US government, some of them unlawful.)

A progressive president needs a supermajority only for a couple of hours. In the early twentieth century, one morning, in a couple of hours, two laws passed: one set-up the Income Tax Law, setting up the IRS. The other law passed within the hour was the Foundation Law.  

The reigning democrats are lying. They are Republicans in disguise. Republicans brought up on a Reagan psychological diet.

In the last debate Hillary Clinton attacked Trump, because Trump had attacked then reigning president Ronald Reagan in 1987… with exactly the same position Trump has today.

Need I say more?

Yes, I do. I pointed out the preceding, at the time, in 2009, as it happened. Much later, the “Tea Party” was created later. So I got to be called “Tea Party”. Last week, some people on the Internet, in public, called me a “liar, racist, xenophobe”, and added even more flattering qualifiers, for daring to say that Obama had a supermajority, for many months, in the beginning of his presidency. Some added that I reiterated “Republican talking points“. Whatever. (If politicians adopt my ideas, i am not going to complain.)

I follow the truth, an attempt to espouse reality. Politically I am somewhat on the left of Bernie Sanders, but also in the future, and that means, on the side of Mother Earth. I know Obama, and wish this will help him to stop lying. The truth is that Obama wanted more progress than he got, because most “Democrats” are rather “Demoncrats”: just ask how come some of them made hundreds of millions during their strictly political careers. Say ask the two top California democrats, Nancy Pelosi, who headed Congress for six years, and Diane Feinstein, the Senior Senator of California. Pelosi is the richest US representative. She is married to an investment banker, Paul Pelosi, the sort of people Obama helped, Clinton breathe with (Goldman Sachs). Obama will say he did a lot to crack down on bankers. Right. And another lie. Another true lie: the Obama administration cracked down on commercial banking, and on banking for “We The People”. (Worldwide, it turned out, as American jurisdiction is brandished that way.)  Meanwhile, investment banking was helped, thanks to the pernicious pretext that banking needed help (yes, commercial banking needed help as Quantitative Easing made it unprofitable, while derivatives were allowed to run amok, same as before, profiting investment bankers…)

“Democrats” never envisioned any progressive law under Obama-Biden. Obama passed several laws that were such a give-away to the wealthiest families, through their banks, that the GOP would never have dreamed to try to pass them before, so outrageously pro-wealth those laws were.
Later, when asked what happened, the Obama administration claimed it was all the fault of the GOP, because Obama did not have a “supermajority”. The retort was not only besides the point and a red herring, but it was also a lie. But it transformed Democrat public opinion into anger against the GOP.

There are system of lies, just like there are systems of thought, and the least plutocracy can do, is to lie systematically. To lie, or not to be, that is the existential question which defines plutocracy.

The road to hell is paved with lies.

Patrice Ayme’

Between Friends: Donald, Hillary, & Angry Plutocrats

Trump Hatred Originates With The Average Plutocrat, Not The Clintons:

The Clintons and Trumps have long been friends, their children are great friends, especially Chelsea and Ivanka, and it shows. So why all the hatred? Well, it’s manufactured, It is part of a distraction show, kabuki theater. And a genuine worry, among most plutocrats, that Trump is a traitor who plays apprentice sorcerer. The figure of the rogue plutocrat turning treacherously against plutocracy, his alma mater, his nourishing mother, is a familiar one in history. 

Roughly all Main Stream Media, worldwide, are owned, held, or otherwise controlled by plutocrats (yes, including the public NPR and PBS in the USA). Those plutocrats hate Trump, because Trump has dared to say, and has been saying as loudly as possible, since at least 1987 (when he attacked Reagan in writing) that globalization, as practiced, does not work for We The People. That has been proven aplenty, and now angry voters are discovering that Trump was right all along.

Amusingly, Sanders’ final success in 2016 was forged by Donald’s iconoclastic work, from way back when he fought Reagan with the exact same idea he rolls out today again (whereas the ever more popular Obama lauds Reagan; that, and not racism, is the source of the antipathy between Trump and Obama: Obama was born half white and educated by 100% whites). When crafty Bill Clinton called Obamacare the “craziest thing in the world“, he was craftily following Donald Trump too (and thus neutralizing the Donald: no need to vote for Trump to put Obamacare out of its misery, Bill will do it for you…)

***

The Ill Informed Sing The Praises Of The Clintons, but the Clintons are followers of Goldman Sachs, establishers of  the financial plutocracy. One, of course, has to be educated enough, and curious enough, to understand the following graph. As rabidly pro-Clinton minorities are in general not graced with as much discernment, they are rather obdurate: they suffer you know. Thus it is that the victim elect their torturers, a generalization of the Stockholm Syndrome (the feelings of trust or affection felt in certain cases of kidnapping or hostage-taking by a victim towards captors). It is a case of capture-bonding. 

The Clinton System Destroyed FDR’s Banking Act of 1933 and Re-established The Vicious Financial System Of 1929, On Steroids

 Since the Clinton economy affected income, median GDP per capita has lost 40% relative to the GDP of the USA. How come? The 40% went to the top, and mostly the .1%. 

***

We Are Friends, And Long Have Been:

Trump and Clinton roasted  each other in a funny way at the annual roast and Catholic fundraiser. Trump said he was delighted that Hillary was nominating him ambassador to Iraq or Afghanistan, and he got to choose which one. Hillary said Donald said she did not have stamina, but she had spent 4.5 hours with him, debating, and that was longer than any of his campaign managers ever did (an allusion to the fact Donald’s managers keep on resigning, or being resigned).

The host, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, said the candidates had “nice things” to say offstage.

“I was very moved by the obvious attempt on behalf of both Secretary Clinton and Mr. Trump to kind of be courteous, to get along, to say nice things privately to one another,” Dolan said on NBC’s “Today.” “I was very moved by that. That was pleasant.”

Dolan, who sat between Trump and Clinton at the dinner, acknowledged the two were, like President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney in 2012, “kind of awkward together.”

“But the purpose of the evening is to break some of that ice, and thanks be to God, it works. The Al Smith Dinner by its nature literally tries to — I’m sitting there between the two — and literally,I’m supposed to be kind of a bridge to bring these two people together. And I try my best, and there were some very touching moments.”

The three of them prayed together. “And after the little prayer, Mr. Trump turned to Secretary Clinton and said, ‘You know, you are one tough and talented woman…This has been a good experience in this whole campaign, as tough as it’s been” She replied “And Donald, whatever happens, we need to work together afterwards.”  

Trump: Sometimes Vulgar Below The Belt. Clinton: All Too Often An Awfully Vulgar Laughter Which Looks Like Something A Donkey Would Do. Made For Each Other

So much love! Not like the “arrogant” Dylan who, members of the Nobel committee loudly whine, has refused to acknowledge their glorious, yet most generous existence. Well, what do they think? It is embarrassing, that Nobel is embarrassing and Dylan knows it. (At least he did not get it just because he received power and brown skin!) If I were me, i would accept the Nobel, if i were Dylan, I would refuse it. The Nobel should be used to reward what, and, or, whom, deserves to be discovered, not one of the planet super stars. (Salman Rushdie was supposed to be a runner-up for the literature Nobel, Rushdie is a martyr of the struggle against fanatical, lethal theology, yet how come I get bored to death reading a few pages of his books? At least Dylan, I appreciate, and not just the music.)

So who hates Trump, if not the Clintons? Well, in the last presidential debate, Hillary accused Donald to be a “puppet” and he angrily retorted:”No, you are the puppet“. She meant he was a caricature, he meant she was something whose strings were pulled by multi billionaires (Soros, Buffet, the Gates, etc…) They both knew that they were right, and in which different ways. (Clinton may have enough of a temper to break a few strings, though…)

***

Hatred Against Trump Is Self Interested Among the Mighty:

Typical is the hatred of the (light weight, yet courageous) billionaire-intellectual-charming corruptocrat,  Bernard-Henri Lévy who nebulously accuses Trump of “possible infidelity to America itself. The party of Eisenhower and Reagan has been commandeered by a corrupt demagogue…”

To put Eisenhower and Reagan in the same category is embarrassingly ignorant: Eisenhower launched FDR New Deal style massive programs (for example the construction of a continental size FREE freeway system, all the way to Hawaii! Or several massive defense programs reminiscent of FDR again). To pay for them, Eisenhower brought up the tax on the wealthiest up to 93%. Free, highest quality public university system went up in the USA, for example the University of California. In shocking contrast, Reagan, an enemy of cognition, established a tuition at the PUBLIC University of California, starting the great movement of making it so that only the wealthiest are fully human (Thatcher would pursue it much later) 

By comparison, in 1981, Reagan significantly reduced the maximum tax rate, which affected the highest income earners, and lowered the top marginal tax rate from 70% to 50%; in 1986 he further reduced the rate to 28%.

The result was pandemonium (see the second graph in https://patriceayme.wordpress.com/2016/08/02/trump-a-traitor/: that’s when the rich started to get ever richer, and the poor, poorer). Reagan was the anti-Eisenhower (but Reagan’s followers were even worse! All those who laud Reagan in any way are just ignorant, Neoconservatives, or worse, clueless clowns. And most probably, all the preceding. Logically enough, as Trump blasted Reagan during his presidency, Trump hatred and Reagan loving are two sides of the same coin (many of Trump partisans, or their parents actually believed in Reagan, before realizing later that they had been had… hence their indignation).

***

Plutocracy strikes aging societies. Just like metastatic cancer strikes older individuals, and for similar reasons: the corruption of entrenched nefarious mutations. When a society is struck by plutocracy, it needs a revolution. That is why France, the core of the European civilization, went through so many revolutions: precisely to rejuvenate itself, from revolution to revolution (and France implemented a revolution machine in England, which worked for many centuries; even Brexit is a form of revolution, however flawed and misguided…)

Trump, by lashing back against plutocratic globalization, is refreshing. He is also sincere: his mood against some aspect of globalization can be found in a campaign he made against Reagan. Trump’s campaign against the “Politically Correct”dates from the early 1970s. It is not clear what Hillary will do against corrupting globalization, as she did a 180 degrees on the Trans Pacific Partnership (she said the details changed, she didn’t). The Democratic platform adopted several of Sanders’ propositions.

In any case, the differences between Hillary and the Donald are less great than feared by the young and naive. The difference of either of them with Obama, will be more marked: the impulsive Donald and the Hilarious One have lots of experience with the system, and do not really need said system, to become somebody: they are already superstars, and they think highly of themselves. But progressives have to understand they have to exert continual pressure if they want progress, be it Donald, or Hillary. Just making a blind Hillary cult after 8 years of blind Obama worship will mean ever more plutocratization, same as what we have been going through.

And keep in mind that the grotesque racist campaign against Trump is an example of how much manipulation is going out there. After a visit with John Kerry, the US Secretary of State, the Ecuadorean president, Correa, cut Wikileaks’ Assange his Internet access. Assange had been revealing various Clinton manipulations all over. The strident accusations of the US administration against Russia in the US electoral process, mean, precisely, that it takes one to known one. 

Hillary is a monster: a good sign. Devils know best how to fight evil. Maybe she will gobble Bill and his financial puppet masters too.

Patrice Ayme’

No Force, No Republic

Humanity is force. This is what vegetarians, often, want to forget. It is no coincidence that Adolf Hitler was a fanatical vegetarian, at the cost of his health (too much pea soup, I am not kidding). Hitler was out to project a sensitive image of himself. Thus the Nazis passed laws against cruelty to animals, and instituted a policy of strict protection of nature.

When the Public goes together to form a republic, a Public Thing, force is what that thing is made around, just as in a baboon troop.

Forgetting force is forgetting the Republic. Marcus Aurelius, chosen future emperor when he was just 17, outright taught stoic philosophy (some thought it was conduct unbecoming an emperor).

However, Marcus Aurelius went over the Dark Side when he forgot that’s;

Stoicism without force is only ruin of the Republic.

This has always been true, and is truer now than ever before, because, now, it’s not just a matter of nations, religions and civilizations going down in flames. It’s a matter of the biosphere going down.

It will take some getting used to: the drought in California in 2014 was the greatest in at least 1,200 years. The latest modelling is much worse.

Eradication, Final Solution to Abomination

Israel used force to prevent the construction of nuclear reactors: in 1981, a raid by eight F16s and eight F15s, dropped 16 tons of high explosives on Osirak, a French made reactor (the site was flattened again by the Americans, ten years later). Israel repeated the performance in 2007, annihilating the Syrian nuclear reactor.

If Israel does not use force, Israel will die. Rome was so strong that it could afford to go catatonic on fascism, theocracy and terminal plutocracy… And still not die. (Rome is very much not dead, as all historians who have paid attention will tell you).

The Roman Republic grew, for five centuries not so much because it was greedy, but because it had to react to exterior aggression (I basically do not know a case where Rome really instigated the aggression, the war… Except for the Third Punic war, the Carthago Delenda Est war… But, when the Roman Republic went to war, it won’t let go.)

Marcus Aurelius poisoned the empire, because he did not use force where it mattered, close and personal.

True, Marcus Aurelius spent eight year on the battlefield, trying to prevent the Marcomanni and other German savages to cu the Roman empire in two.

However Marcus Aurelius was weak in more important respects.

He forgot that emperor Hadrian, the predecessor of his predecessor, decided to choose him and Antonius Pius as future emperors, while passing over his own two sons.

Instead, Marcus Aurelius would heap all possible honors, including Consul and Emperor on his own son, before he reached the age of 16.

Instead, Marcus Aurelius would have not enough money to pay for the army, and decisively defeat the savages. Why? Because the plutocrats, heavily taxed under the great emperor (an ex-general) Trajan, were not taxed enough under Marcus.

First the Republic has to be strong.

At this point if one is on the danger list of Israel, France, or the USA, one gets disposed of.

That does not rile up my democratic instinct. Our leaders should be elected mostly to execute the “basses besognes” (= )

In the past, determined assassins and the like could only kill a few, although, as most societies wee organized according to the fascist model, there was such a thing as striking the head, and changing it.

In Switzerland, with a rotating presidency of seven (soon to nine), there is no great change to be expected by killing one (but for augmenting an ambiance of terror).

The Islamic State does more by destroying antiquities which prove that their religion is junk.

So the only justification for so much power in so few hands in the leading democracies is that they do what is necessary.

One thing they did not do was to change the financial system. There is certainty (in the case of Obama) and a high probability (in the case of Hollande) that the gentlemen will be out of power in two years. So they need them, and all their cohorts of camp followers, to make sure that they ingratiated themselves with the powers that be.

Obama was again in San Francisco, begging for money and making deals, a week ago. Some of the most influential locals (such as Brown, an African American long mayor of San Francisco) are begging him not to come anymore (the ambiance of corruption is not improved by the traffic jams Obama causes).

Obama should stick to assassination, like Hollande, or Netanyahu.

Meanwhile, the Greeks won an important victory. Although it was more symbolic than anything else, as France (still protecting her giant banks) had been forced to win the battle for the Greeks, earlier.

***

AUSTERITY IS SYNONYMOUS WITH PLUTOCRACY:

When he ran for his presidency, Hollande, the present French president declared that “Mon enemi, c’est la finance” (My enemy is High finance). People elected him on this basis, instead of voting for the other one, whose obvious friend was High Finance.

However, Hollande behaved just the opposite, deciding, after all, not to tax the hyper rich, and finally choosing a hyper wealthy young 30 something investment banker as finance minister.

Hollande went down ever more in the polls, while the French economy kept on diving from being, to nothingness. Hollande’s polls approval reached 11%, the lowest ever for a French president.

Finally France reversed course.

The mighty French Republic finally decided to declare in advance that it would run a deficit fifty percent higher than the limit imposed by the law instituting the Euro, and this for two years in a row.

This had a number of consequences: bringing the Euro down, and also solving the Greek problem: if France was going to run a 4.5% deficit, why would Greece have to run a 4.5% SURPLUS?

(The greater demand imposed by France can be qualitatively evaluated, considering the relative sizes of economies and deficits: it is as if France was going to run (15)x(1.5) above the limit, when Greece was looking only for 2x(1.5) relief. So the French violation is much greater… and was agreed to… a day or so after the Greeks won).

Paul Krugman agrees that the Greeks won. In “What Greece Won”.

As Krugman explains:

“Well, if you were to believe many of the news reports and opinion pieces of the past few days, you’d think that it was a disaster — that it was a “surrender” on the part of Syriza, the new ruling coalition in Athens. Some factions within Syriza apparently think so, too. But it wasn’t. On the contrary, Greece came out of the negotiations pretty well, although the big fights are still to come. And by doing O.K., Greece has done the rest of Europe a favor.

To make sense of what happened, you need to understand that the main issue of contention involves just one number: the size of the Greek primary surplus, the difference between government revenues and government expenditures not counting interest on the debt. The primary surplus measures the resources that Greece is actually transferring to its creditors… If you are angry that the negotiations didn’t make room for a full reversal of austerity, a turn toward Keynesian fiscal stimulus, you weren’t paying attention.

The question instead was whether Greece would be forced to impose still more austerity. The previous Greek government had agreed to a program under which the primary surplus would triple over the next few years, at immense cost to the nation’s economy and people.

Why would any government agree to such a thing? Fear. Essentially, successive leaders in Greece and other debtor nations haven’t dared to challenge extreme creditor demands, for fear that they would be punished…“

Let’s not forget greed, either…

Plutocrats are those who use power, generally through the money they command, to achieve satanic aims. Generally self–aggrandizement by commanding more is a primary obsession.

Central to this strategy is the tactic of making money ever more expensive, and reserved to the hyper wealthy. The less money We The People have, the richer plutocrats have.

Instead, to operate an economy effectively, one needs enough money to conduct all and any transaction that benefits the society at large. That’s a necessity.

Rome failed in that respect in the Third Century, because it ran out of precious metals, and also of enough internal force to impose a FIAT currency. The Franks remedied both problems.

The Franks  got the precious metals in Eastern Europe (a place the Romans had not conquered, per order from Augustus, and lack of oomph from not taxing plutocrats enough, thus having too small an army).

The Franks mixed the silver they mined with less valuable metals. and enforced the value of money: faux-monaieurs, the counterfeiters, were boiled. Alive.

Who are today’s counterfeiters? Who else but the money changers? The banksters.

All this because those who have power abuse it. And not using it is also abusing it. So when the inheritance of humanity is destroyed by Islamists, and nothing is done to stop it, not enough violence is used. Obviously.

So surrendering to the austerity is not just a weakness and a madness, it is a system of thought to submit societies ever more to the plutocratic madness, a much worse prospect.

Patrice Ayme’