Category: abuse

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“There is a Method to the Madness”: The USA, the Trump Administration and the Iran War

A house in ruins and befor it the two hands of a person held up, showing the words stop war written in red coloour on them.
Image by pvproductions from freepik.com, free license

A madhouse, one might think, when looking at some of the online messages a so-called president, that sorry excuse for a man, Trump, sends – rather lets be sent.

That he practically does everything to ‘reign’ the news is the method, part of it, I am referring to. When you start looking into some of the connections, the ‘buddies’ and the ulterior motives to actions and policies in the past that repeat – because the underlying principles stay the same – you start also realizing that the apparent madhouse is part of an image.

Because, anything sensational ‘makes the news’.

A ‘scoop’ is what the career of many journalists depends on. News are sold, that’s why they are made to look sensational, even in cases when they aren’t really.

I posted about this before. Basically, we need to look at both sides of this outrage of a war, the plain extortion by a wealthy and greedy part of society in that country, the USA:

    • The whole cruel and tragic story of that war on Iran becomes clear when looking at all the facts.
    • Analyzing news and media and developing a ‘media literacy’ is crucial, just as it was before the internet was there.

The Iran war was started at least as long ago as 2018, and when you think about how things need time to be developed it started much earlier than that.

The pattern is the same as in Iraq: “Weapons of mass destruction” seemed reason enough to attack a country whose dictator had been instated with US acquiescence and support. When he started to try and become more independent, that country was seized, including the oil wells…which burned for years afterwards. With all consequences a war can have.

Those weapons were never found. And that is a fact, officially confirmed.

Iran’s last shah had sold oil to the US for dumping prices. He was a dictator really and recieved the support of several US governments all through his reign. The hungry people started to rise at last and when he became unable to control them and guarantee cheap oil, he was ‘sent packing’.

The Islamic revolution seemed an ‘inside job’ and thus manageable – but wasn’t.
Eventually, the refusal to sell other than at market price as far as oil was concerned made the need ever more urgent to get the upper hand again, from the point of view of US governments – and the two most powerful forces there:
The weapons industry.
The public clamoring for cheap gas / petrol.

The USA to this day never has attacked any country for altruistic reasons.

In 2018, the Trump administration cancelled the working contracts on uranium enrichment control; working, as officially confirmed by the IAEA, more than once.

Now they are still offering a peace on their own terms.

What do you call that in business and private life? – Extortion. It is a punishable offence.

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Iran, War, a ‘Lame Duck’ President in the USA and the Inernational Community

Collage of images, the US flag in front of a cloudy sky, before that a drawing of a duck waddling towards the viewer, looking angry, beside that the shape of the ancient Persepolis palace gates and behind that the Iran flag in front of a sunrise and oil pumps.
Images licensed via Adobe CC, my graphics

The ‘lame duck’ effect is a comparatively old phrase: It describes the fact that due to the ending time in office a president in his second term is less effective. In other words, his power decreases just because everybody knows the end is near.

The Epstein files, Trump’s own guilt, ruled in front of a US court for corruption, bribery and molestation, his cruelty towards his own people in Minnesota or California; his international politics in regard to tariffs that have been found illegal in the USA itself.

He has ample reason to want to cover up. War is an ancient method for that, has been used by kings and dictators for centuries, if not thousands of years.

Additionally, Iran’s oil recovery industry is the largest in the world.

The uranium enrichment control contracts with Iran had been reached after 10 years of negotiation and were in full working order even according to official reports of the IAEA. Trump cancelled those contracts in 2018 without any reason.

This whole attack would be funny, if it wasn’t a cruel war; the typical Trump tantrums of an ill-mannered child: “This is my sandcastle, I’ll kick you and yours if you don’t do what I want.”

The bully, using scare tactics.

There’s no discussion necessary that the internal handling and rules as well as laws of the present Iranian government are horrible.

I still tip my hat to them for holding out against this huge machine of extortion.

Iran is more than just a few wild mullahs and a revolution gone wrong. It’s an ancient and beautiful culture and society in many respects of the customs and traditions that are thousands of years old.

Shame on someone like that US-criminal at the helm of a country still fighting for its own culture and sometimes having a hard time of it… Where still far too often money is the ‘sole mover’…

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“Weapons of Mass Destruction” – The Trump-Bush Similarity – Then Iraq and Now Iran: There’s Oil There…

Image of the three flags of the US, Israel and Iran
Image licensed via Adobe CC

When you look at some of the news in relation to the recent strikes from Israel into Iran, at recent Trump ‘messages’ – you cannot help but wonder…

Who is using whom here?

When in the early 1990s the 2nd Gulf war started – and when finally in 2003 more strikes against Iraq led to Saddam Hussein’s capture and death, it was clear already that contrary to US-interests Hussein after decades of support from the US and oil prices to their advantage started to cut loose.

So, to the world the US announced that there were “weapons of mass destruction” in Iraq to be taken care of. And thus they went in. The results can be seen to this day: Iraq after more than 20 years is still struggling to get to its feet.

For Hussein in Iraq it was his ‘Swan song’: Iraq has too much oil for the US to ‘let him go’.

The same holds true for Iran.

The whole of these operations and war have been at least partly prepared for during the first stay in office of that sorry excuse for a man called Trump.

He cancelled the contracts with Iran that had been reached after 10 years of negotiation to control Uranium enrichment.

Netanyahu is proven to have needed support to stay in office in Israel. He has for many years driven the situation in Gaza to breaking point  – the age-old method of kings as well as dictators and other leaders of state to cover up internal problems with a war in foreign countries; in order to try and ‘unite’ people behind them again.

Not only does the Israeli people not want all of it!
All the cruelty and killing could have been prevented. Long ago!
And still, my greetings also to all the good people in the US, because there are more against Trump’s politics every day! And they protest, loudly and consistently.

But, here comes the ‘scoop’:

Should this war lead to the downfall of the present regime in Iran, the ‘olden times’ of suppression of Iran by the US will return:
Because, just as during the regime of the last Shah in Iran, the US received the lowest possible prices for oil and gas in return for their support.

Blackmail. Extortion. That’s what this is. Shame on Trump, Netanyahu and also Putin, should he support them.

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There’s a Method to the Madness – Or: When Male Life Runs Berserk – Or: When Business Meets Cruelty

Image by Bárbara Cascão from Pixabay

It can be one of those dark days in life when you face real evil in your own life for the first time. I have read so many books and ‘digested’ so many stories, those that were told in person and those that you see on the big screen; yet, to see real evil is new to me, even.

A few patterns emerge:

I. The Patriarchal Hierarchy and Willfulness in Play Again

    • Patriarchy not for decades but for thousands of years has enforced the stereotypes:
      Man is the ‘hunter’ – and not just for game (deer, wild boar, etc.); women are the ‘hunted’, the ‘booty’.
    • Any man who is really interested to be counted among ‘the guys’ will do what he can to ‘get it’ as often as possible.
    • If it should so surface, the management power in business can be used to ‘serve’ the ‘booty’, the ‘dish’, right up – nice and ‘easy’:
      • *Women, single and apparently easy to fool into believing they did something wrong can be used in order to ‘try one’s luck’:
      • Hire them under a pretense then do your best to get them into the ‘prone position’.
      • Should that not work legally, in a manner of a certain time, fire them under those pretenses.
      • Repeat from *.
      • And so turns the merry-go-round of jobs and people who seem to be job hopping – when in effect they are part of that secret game of ‘push and shove’…

II: Intricate Business Calculations

    • Say, your branch of business is facing a severe slump. No sales, much and that due to a saturated market segment.
    • Yet, you need to take care of customer demands in a certain department.
    • But the budget doesn’t allow to hire a person or persons over a longer period of time.
    • Additionally you have found that searching these people takes time, effort and some experience to filter the really good ones.
    • What do you do?
      • *Find an agency that does the searching and finding.
      • Hire the good ones.
      • Make them work hard and almost reach the finish line.
      • Bother them and intimidate them in a tough market with ridiculous claims of misbehaviour.
      • Even invent false claims of shortcomings and spread those by and by among colleagues and the rest of the management.
      • Use the accumulated ‘reasons’ to base a lay-off on and – fire them, after a year.
      • Then pretend to be searching another, better fitting employee – for another year.
      • Finally, hire the next candidate.
      • Repeat from *.
    • What’s the result?
      • You get the agency ‘on the cheap’ because firing those employees too soon for reasons of being unfit saves the fee due to the agency – who will have to return at least part of it.
      • You save lots of money on salary, you actually pay half the price, because, in alternating years there’s an employee.
      • Then, there is not….

III: Intricate Business Calculations No 2

    • Say, you need to lend employees to other companies.
    • But the economy is slow, salaries are too high for some businesses.
    • In addition, really well-trained employees are hard or impossible to find.
    • *So, you start actively searching.
    •  Make them an offer of the appropriate high salary.
    • Hire.
    • Let them work in the actual customer’s place.
    • After a little while start bothering them, s.a., with ridiculous claims of misbehaviour, intimidate them.
    • After a few months working this method get them to sign a ‘reduced-hours-per-week’ agreement.
    • After a year, fire them.
    • Result: Cheap salary; except for the employee facing unemployment and job hunting all over again – all concerned are satisfied.
    • Repeat*…

IV: Intricate Business Calculations No 3

    • The business you have runs well, but sales are slow.
    • The economy’s contracts with trade unions rule that every four years salaries have to be raised.
    • Also, that beginners in the company or a certain job earn less than the ones already in place for more than four years.
    • What do you do?
      • *Hire employees, sign the contracts.
      • Every four years, make lay-offs appear necessary, firing the previously hired employees.
      • Fire under pretenses, also after four years.
      • Hire from other countries, even far away where knowledge of local conditions, contracts, systems, taxes and prices is nil.
      • Keep a couple of employees – perhaps even with different contracts out of trade union conditions – to make the image credible that you have employees in place for long periods of time, the ‘faithful ones’.
      • Repeat*…
      • Result: The salaries stay low and the employee turnover is not too apparent so the company’s reputation is safe.
Whatever the patterns – they are shameful to watch and cruel to suffer from.
Additionally, it’s a huge waste of resources for any country’s economy…
Make it stop. Now.
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Competition and Patriarchy – or: Manipulation as Doubtful Means to an End


Patriarchy is an old concept of society but not the oldest ever. Even older is the one about matriarchy.
What they mean? They are about power in societies and describe the fact that either the male or female aspect reigns, the eldest being the head of the family, respectively.

Patriarchy in particular has won a rather doubtful reputation over the centuries since its advent. It’s been a while, bluntly put, a couple of thousands of years. But archaeologists still find ample and unambiguous proof that matriarchy is even older as a concept and was wide-spread at one time all around the world. Some religious traditions and rites still show the roots of it to this day. Just as some rather old customs, in all cultures today.

Patriarchy employs rather doubtful means to its ends, as it were. A society model that to a great extent is based on – competition.

Some people try to tell us competition is a human impulse. I beg to differ, to my mind such people do not look closely enough and I think that the humanities agree: In many societies around the globe a basic human need is met only by winning something:

The need for attention.

Human beings need attention, actually some form of love, to survive. And the closest some lesser developed cultures seem to get to that is the attention provided when winning a competition.

And sadly, this fact also is often used between the ‘comrades’, the ‘buddies’ when trying other people to do something, get them to react, in short: Make them feel or think something.

It never was nice. And it never was really considerate. Even less ‘gentlemanly’. I find the original idea of the ‘gentle man’ rather intriguing. As opposed to some aberrations of the snob.

Again, quite bluntly put: Manipulation is often used as a means to win an end. But as my father used to put it even more bluntly: “Do you have to sit on cr…p just because a million flies do?”

 

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‘Social’ Media, ‘Shitstorms’ or: Types of Public Recognition…

image of skewed social media icons on a smartphone surface
I think I can thank my lucky stars that I never was part myself of the so-called ‘social networks’, such as Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.

Their really ‘unsocial’ character is proven daily. I watched a documentary on a prestigious TV channel the other day and the amount of dirt used to discredit journalists or political opponents makes me shudder.

I know for a fact too, that younger and inexperienced people may suffer serious damage and pain from such hunts. That is tragic.

As a blogger and part-time writer I safely can say: If there was any shitstorm raised from some corner of those nets against me – it would be a sign only that I had hit a weak spot of such a politician:

Trump in the US, Salvini in Italy and Bolsonaro in Brazil come to mind. Each of them just interested to manipulate those that are too simple-minded to be able to know the truth.

Facts can be checked, there is no interpretation possible of facts.

That kind of recognition by reactionary representatives of an actual silent minority of too rich and too selfish groups in society would actually make me proud.

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The Church, Crime, Creation and the Freedom of Choice

The recent years brought to light something that is as disturbing and dreadful as it is tragic for many people: the Catholic church unearths more and more details about abuse that has been going on behind its walls at least for decades, if not much longer.

So far it seems, bringing to light and the first apologies by bishops and the Pope himself have been first steps to acknowledge what in fact is criminal behaviour in a religious body.

It could make people, who attribute a value to that faith as well as that particular belief, despair, of the church as well as religion or even life.

One is tempted to ask, why do we need a church at all? Or a religion, for that matter?
I think, Erich Fromm was right in stating that religion is an expression of the yearning for transcendence in man (and woman). Transcendence of life and the sometimes hard to explain pain and suffering we see every day.

I have been a Christian in my time – and in some ways where people grow up and are raised, the respective history and prominent religious orientation of a society are important for mind and thinking – the frame of mind of a human being.

In this context modern Christians could be tempted to despair because the message in the later part of the bible, the gospel is focused on neighbourly love. On goodness and on God’s grace for all that have sinned on the day of resurrection.

This made Dostoevsky in one of his great novels, “The Brothers Karamazov” ask, how it could be that a gracious and judicious God could allow suffering, and especially the suffering of innocent children.

To me, one of the most wonderful answers to this almost eternal question has been given by John Steinbeck in “East of Eden”. The main character one day realizes that his faithful Chinese servant of many years is not only highly educated but a scholar. His servant tells him that after studying the bible in its common English translation and the Hebrew original, and especially the chapter Genesis, whose interpretation modern Western society is based on to a great extent, he found one sentence particularly striking and its interpretation crucial to what was going on in a great part of mankind.
‘Thou shalt go forward into the world and rule it and subdue it…’

Quoting Steinbeck’s text from memory at this point: he goes on to say that after years of study, he found the verb ‘shalt’ had been wrongly translated from the Hebrew and instead of ‘shalt’ it should be ‘mayest’.
From this would come the realization, that God hadn’t just entrusted his creation to mankind in a sense of commandeering action and correcting human errors himself where necessary.

Rather, the term ‘mayest’ encompasses the idea, that – human beings are also entrusted with choice – the choice between good and evil – every day.

To me this is the most important answer to any wrongs, crimes, pain, cruelty and suffering we may observe or go through: there is always some choice a human being can make, in any situation.

Many people due to this special context grow up in the firm and mistaken belief that someone else is responsible for their deeds, be they good or bad.
They feel and behave even as grown-ups not much differently from childhood: a little ashamed now and again they still think, breaking the rules cannot be too bad, if no one finds out – or no one complains.

This idea of choice is also the idea of personal freedom in this sense: ultimately any choice we make, is ours. Whatever way we decide.

It is responsibility, for creation, for our neighbour, for ourselves.

Freedom of Choice.

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