April 2022 – education and deconstruction.com

Here, Right Matters

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The Book of the Week is “Here, Right Matters, An American Story” by Alexander S. Vindman, published in 2021. Some construe the word “right” in the book’s title as the political Right, which implies political power. In that regard, perhaps the author made a Freudian slip, or he got bad advice on the book’s title. By “right” he obviously meant moral. The author had particular expertise on the Soviet mentality, as his family was originally from the Ukraine. He was born there, was fluent in its language, but admitted he was never trained as an interpreter.

According to the book (which appeared to be credible although it lacks Notes, Sources, References, or Bibliography and an index), in July 2019, the author heard unethical and possibly treasonous utterances issue from the mouth of a representative of then-president Donald Trump in two separate conference calls among American and Ukrainian government officials. Pursuant to the chain of command, he informed his identical twin brother, who happened to be chief ethics counsel for the National Security Council.

The nefarious portion of the “Ukraine call” (the second conference call) whose unredacted transcript that was analyzed to death by the media circus, the American government, and every “news” junkie on the planet– consisted of the president’s asking a top leader of the Ukraine to gather any data that would smear Joseph Biden– the likely 2020 American presidential candidate, and to gather any data that would make Trump and his party look bad.

Administration officials who aided the president in this endeavor included (but were probably not limited to): the attorney general, his personal attorney, the White House chief of staff and the American ambassador to the European Union. In addition, the president withheld $400 million of American aid to Ukraine as a bargaining chip in doing his bidding.

The way the Trump administration handled foreign policy with regard to the relationship between Russia and the Ukraine obviously has raucously controversial international ramifications.

Profiteers, exploiters and human right activists would argue that military, financial and humanitarian assistance should be sent to the Ukraine. Profiteers and exploiters would trot out the age-old argument that Russia could ally with China in ways that would crush the United States. But that hasn’t happened. Activists would argue that Russian leader Putin and his military have been committing atrocities and war crimes, and theoretically they could eventually occupy Eastern Europe as the Soviets did in the 1950’s.

According to the author, in the early 2000’s, in Iraq, the Stryker brigade was used to move powerful, high-tech military equipment and supplies over long distances in record time. There is a risk that Putin could show his military might partly by using a version of the “Stryker brigade” in certain countries. But the takeover would probably occur only in those places where the older generation is resistant to change, or cannot afford to, or lacks the connections to leave their homeland to seek freedom and better living standards elsewhere. And most people who realized they had been oppressed, had a chance to leave in the last twenty-five years– if they had really wanted to.

In the 1990’s, different countries threw off their communist yoke at different speeds. People in the former Soviet Union had lived under communism for decades longer than their Eastern bloc counterparts. The older ones residing in the latter had known a better quality of life prior to Soviet takeover. Jeri Laber wrote, “They looked around them and saw corrupt, repressive governments, failing economies, contaminated water, polluted air, alcoholism, and apathy.” The more things change, the more they stay the same.

When Siberians discovered freedom and consumer goods, they became like Americans. They started riding in cars instead of walking. They ate fatty foods for lunch and the men stopped exercising. The women started going to aerobics classes at the gym.

From a purely economic standpoint (a neoconservative viewpoint)– selfish, heartless and sociopathic– the United States would benefit the most by not risking the lives of its own people to fight for the freedom and security of the peoples of whichever territories Russia decides to occupy, even if oil prices rise.

By its inaction, the United States would maintain its economic dominance in the world. It is becoming wise to Russia’s “…hybrid warfare… fake news, insincere diplomacy, intervention in elections…” drones, cyberattacks and jamming of Ukraine’s communications.

Read the book to learn more information about the author’s life, career and morals.

The Riverkeepers

PLEASE NOTE: This is not a sponsored post.

The Book of the Week is “The Riverkeepers, Two Activists Fight to Reclaim Our Environment as a Basic Human Right” by John Cronin and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., published in 1997.

Riverkeeper is an environmental organization that, over the course of decades, has brought legal actions to minimize pollution of a few major rivers across the United States. Unsurprisingly, litigation and political shenanigans perpetrated by polluters, go together.

It is always local residents who are hurt the most from egregious acts of pollution (usually spread by big corporations) because: they can’t afford expensive legal costs, and are usually dying of cancer or are suffering serious health problems (never mind what the pollution does to plants and animals) by the time they are compensated (if they ever are) for damages inflicted by the defendants.

The authors began with a story of how wealthy political donors took an unlikely side against a utility project (because it happened to be proposed for their neighborhood). Beginning in early 1962, Riverkeeper attempted to stop Con Edison from building an electricity-generating reservoir (the Storm King project) that would make waterfront properties an eyesore in Westchester and Putnam counties, and kill many striped bass.

In the second half of the 1960’s, propaganda wars raged on both sides, but public opinion was against Con Edison. Stakeholders included: the federal government, five utilities, two state agencies, Scenic Hudson (an environmental group), the Fishermen, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and local residents.

And the insults and injuries just kept coming, even after the first Earth Day in 1970– with offenders like Exxon and local governments responsible for pollution levels in Quassaic Creek, Croton Landfill, and three cities in Connecticut.

Even worse, there was lack of regulatory action from politically entrenched government agencies such as the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Both feared retaliation from the NRA, whose gun clubs were polluting waterways with lead and other toxins. The NRA simply closed the gun clubs rather than clean up, and remained a political powerhouse.

In another story, in 1976, the Hudson river’s commercial fisheries were closed by local politicians after General Electric dumped an excessive amount of PCB’s in the river. Not only were local residents poorer in various ways for the outrageous crime, but so were hundreds of people trying to make a living through fishing.

In the early 1990’s, environmentalists saw “joy in Mudville” as New York City Democratic mayor David Dinkins express interest in actually helping enact legislation that would protect the city’s drinking water (as testing had shown that it contained as much as 2% sewage in it– after going through a treatment plant), whose source was upstate entities that controlled the watershed.

The attendant political hostility was such that a reviewer said of Pat Robertson’s 1991 book, The New World Order, “These ravings would hardly be worth mentioning had they not played such an important role in fueling the ideological underpinnings of the antienvironmental movement and the zealotry of its followers.”

The environmentalists’ dreams were dashed by 1995, when Republican Rudy Giuliani engaged in excessive deregulation. Daily, too many sociopathic political hacks around this country are slowly, indirectly, poisoning America via the discharge of: millions of gallons of raw sewage into waterways, pesticides onto golf courses, dirty water from storms, and innumerable toxins contained in everyday products into the air, water and earth.

Nevertheless, through the years, there have been a few isolated incidents of pollution reduction of environmentally conscious philanthropists, and a few legal triumphs when defendants were actually compelled to comply with hopeful-sounding federal laws: the Coastal Zone Management Act, Migratory Bird Treaty Act, the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act, to name just a few.

Grassroots groups need the higher authority of FEDERAL LAW to minimize pollution resulting from extremely consequential egregious acts because: 1) The polluters are politically entrenched at all government levels; 2) The polluters argue vehemently that pollution should be regulated locally. BUT, the enforcement of state laws has been lax because monster corporations divide and conquer, pitting state governments against each other when, for instance– deciding where to locate a plant or keep one open– by waving an economic carrot or stick.

Those big donors claim they will create jobs and grow the tax base of the area. Or, they’ll threaten to relocate, if their wrongdoing isn’t condoned by local politicians, who are also usually greedy and power-hungry.

However, along the lines of local enforcement, the authors recounted how a law officer showed that community policing concepts can minimize pollution, and keep local areas clean, on a small scale. He arrested small business owners for illegal disposal of garbage, debris, toxins and wastewater, etc.

If law-abiding citizens look around– and entities more powerful than themselves are allowed to get away with that kind of polluting– they feel they have license to do the same. The excuse “Everybody does it” allows everyone to contribute to the lawlessness, and there goes the neighborhood.

Read the book to learn of the other main influences and people (hint: one was Rachel Carson and her scary book) that and who have shaped the regulatory environment of the environment in the United States through the decades.

In honor of Earth Day (April 22), here is a little ditty:

THINGS CAN ONLY GET WETTER

sung to the tune of “Things Can Only Get Better” with apologies to Howard Jones.

We’re on a path to LOSE it all.
Acts of pollution affect us all.
It’s compromise we have to realize.
Greedy, selfish polluters shouldn’t keep us from natURE and health, unless we tolerate their smears and lies.

And I’m sure you care. Me, too.
But laws are hard to alter.
We spew toxins and sewage all day.
Things can only get wetter.

Woe, woe, woe, woe, woe, woe
Woe, woe, woe, woe, woe, woe

Reg-u-la-tors on political STRINGS run the show,
propagandize with no regrets.
Litigation takes forever, is a minefield. Taxpayers lose every time.
Where are the ethical philanthropists?

And I’m sure you care. Me, too.
But laws are hard to alter.
We spew toxins and sewage all day.
Things can only get wetter.

Woe, woe, woe, woe, woe, woe
Woe, woe, woe, woe, woe, woe

And I’m sure you care. Me, too.
But laws are hard to alter.
We spew toxins and sewage all day.
Things can only get wetter.

Woe, woe, woe, woe, woe, woe
Woe, woe, woe, woe, woe, woe

Woe, woe, woe, woe, woe, woe
Woe, woe, woe, woe, woe, woe…

Free – BONUS POST

[Please note: The word “Featured” on the left side above was NOT inserted by this blogger, but apparently was inserted by WordPress, and it cannot be removed. NO post in this blog is sponsored.]

The Bonus Book of the Week is “Free: A Child and A Country at the End of History” by Lea Ypi, published in 2021.

According to the book (which appears to be credible although it lacks Notes, Sources, References, or Bibliography and an index), Albania’s monarchist government and business leaders threw in with their Italian invaders in 1939. In 1944, the Italians retreated and Albania’s occupation by the Soviets resulted in one-Party rule. The practice of organized, monotheistic religions was banned, but Albanians worshiped a real person– a founding-father and WWII military hero named “Uncle Enver.” He severed Albania’s diplomatic relations with Yugoslavia after the war.

The Albanian author, born in September 1979, was indoctrinated to believe that her country was one of the freest on earth. Never mind that the common people had to stand in line for hours and hours daily or sometimes longer (they were allowed placeholders) to obtain such basic necessities as milk, cheese, kerosene, etc. through a voucher system. In addition, her childhood was fraught with lies about her great-grandfather and others in her family’s social circles.

Ironically, just as pedigree among the wealthy in the United States denotes social status, so the “biography” among ordinary Albanians determined whether one would be allowed to join the socialist (political) Party, and determined one’s reputation, and thus one’s work and social activities in daily life. It was guilt by association; one was guilty just by having politically unpopular ancestors, as had the author. Albanians were required, however, to attend meetings at their local civic associations.

In December 1990, there occurred a major political turning point in Albania’s history: free and fair multi-party elections; a turning point in its economics too, as its government heeded bad financial advice it received from Western powers, that invited corruption similar to that of Bolivia’s (See this blog’s post, “Jeffrey Sachs”). In the early 1990’s, for the first time (!), the author found out about or experienced: air conditioning, bananas, traffic lights, jeans, chewing gum, Mickey Mouse, AIDS, anorexia and plenty of other cultural givens the democratic peoples of the world took for granted.

Read the book to learn of the trials and tribulations specific to Albania’s people when they saw how the other half lived (hint: World Bank meddling, a civil war, education shenanigans and more).

Gunfight

[Please note: The word “Featured” on the left side above was NOT inserted by this blogger, but apparently was inserted by WordPress, and it cannot be removed. NO post in this blog is sponsored.]

The Book of the Week is “Gunfight, My Battle Against the Industry that Radicalized America” by Ryan Busse, published in 2021.

The author’s grandfather’s generation of gun enthusiasts embraced Depression-Era values: “Principles. Safety. Camaraderie. Pride.” He believed in the New Deal, and the then-culture of the National Rifle Association: admiring the craftsmanship and power of firearms, using them safely for hunting, and the challenge of shooting targets consisting of inanimate objects; not the current goal of amassing money and power for the firearms industry and its trade organizations, human lives be damned.

Additionally, every incident is milked for funding demands from law enforcement agencies across the country. And most politicians insincerely grandstand “enough is enough!” but do nothing until dissatisfaction with the status quo reaches critical mass– until there’s a real threat to their reelection. Then, in their campaign, they promise to make relevant legislation a priority.

Anyway, in 1995, the author, born in 1970 and raised out West, began working for the tiny Portland, Oregon rifle company, Kimber. It made and sold high-quality guns to be used for collecting and hunting. Kimber had a checkered past because the big boss was a psycho but nevertheless he truly believed in the product.

The author quickly learned that gun sales have assumed a certain pattern in the United States of the last few decades. Whenever the political climate changes from conservative to liberal or when another unbalanced individual kills people in a highly publicized incident, the firearms industry propaganda machine generates phobia and fury among gun enthusiasts in convincing them that the government is going to take away their instruments of power and masculinity. These impressionable, mostly young males, have the mentality of cultists. They rush out and add to their collections, just in case the vicious rumors are true. The buying frenzy lasts a year or two.

The first major piece of legislation that touched off this angry cycle was the Brady Bill, signed by president Bill Clinton (who was scapegoated by Second Amendment promoters) in November 1993. Then, in September 1994, it was the assault weapons ban, sponsored by then-senator Joe Biden.

However, the bill became Swiss cheese with loopholes because the NRA exerted overwhelming political pressure on power- and donation-hungry Congress members to exempt or grandfather-in more than 650 kinds of firearms. Even so, the little regulation there was, arguably, prevented ten more shootings like “Columbine.” Unfortunately, it is impossible to prove what would have happened otherwise, but judging from what has been happening more and more and more, with almost total absence of preventive measures, some more measures might be helpful.

After 1994, the excitement died down, and gun sales plummeted for the rest of the 1990’s. Struggling financially, Kimber was forced to merge with a firearms distributor which sold cheap plastic handguns– made in South Korea, or with the name Daewoo– that were used in street crime.

The company survived. However, the author reflected on how his industry was desecrating his philosophy (which he shared with his grandfather) when, in the single-digit 2000’s, he brought an industry contact of his to a national park to share in the breathtaking beauty of Montana. The contact was apparently sociopathic because he was able to rationalize away the environmental destruction that would ensue if the land was opened up to oil drilling. The NRA, via political front groups, was aiding and abetting backroom deals as they spoke (!)

In addition, a controversy also raged over whether owners should be allowed to carry concealed weapons, instead of having the world openly see them in a holster. As is well known, in twentieth century history, the kinds of people who armed themselves openly out in public included Nazis, the Red Guard, teenage thugs in Third World countries, and in Soviet satellites after the Berlin Wall fell– during times of strife, civil wars, and genocide.

Americans have never experienced that kind of scene (except in Western or Southern states until they became urbanized and did away with “frontier justice” or Napoleonic justice), and would not expect to, either (except in isolated incidents immediately after 9/11).

The NRA’s argument for allowing people to carry concealed firearms is that they should be allowed to defend themselves, if they are attacked. But, the only reason one would need to defend against attacks, is if one has angry, violent enemies. What is the character of these people who garner such enemies?? Or, if people are targeted in a random shooting, the argument goes that if the targets are armed, they can immediately shoot the shooter to prevent more carnage. Sounds as though NRA members think life is a violent video game, if they expect bullets to fly when they go out in public.

In addition, the NRA’s fear-mongering never ends, as it scares single females into thinking they’re vulnerable to street crime from strangers, if they must pass through high-crime neighborhoods, for whatever reason. And apparently, many people are led to believe that strangers perpetrate home-invasions left and right!

Further, the NRA has whipped up a frenzy of hatred and violence. Once a taboo is broken, it’s easier to break more and more taboos. Excuse the cliche, the fish rots from the head down: when the nation’s leaders behave badly, their underlings copy them in a free-for-all.

Professional baseball discovered that players’ alcohol consumption before and during competitions was bad for revenues in the long run. And not only because it compromises judgment and coordination, but also because fans imitated the players’ behavior, and lawlessness resulted. Eventually, such a revelation will turn the firearms industry around, because profits are one of its major goals. It will be curbed of its own excesses, by allowing regulation, slowly but slowly.

Anyway, in 2008, just to make sure its smear campaign against presidential candidate Barack Obama stuck, the NRA created war-glorifying videos aimed at couch commandos. It became a “… bought-and paid-for wing of the Republican Party…” and in 2016, “The Trump and NRA operations ran identically.” There was no more reason and accountability among supporters of those two. After years of seething silently at what was happening, the author acquired sufficient courage to express his displeasure with it, and advocate against it, even though he knew full well he and his family would be subject to endless harassment for being a traitor.

Read the book to learn more about: the author’s activities; a case of industry-ostracism of a perceived traitor-company; a victim of cancel culture (hint: besides the author: an old-school gun-industry writer who dared opine in 2007, that using assault weapons for hunting, was overkill); and more on the NRA’s extremely radical behavior, that was ongoing at the book’s writing.

I’ll Take Your Questions Now – BONUS POST

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The Bonus Book of the Week is “I’ll Take Your Questions Now, What I Saw at the Trump White House” by Stephanie Grisham, published in 2021.

This is yet one more volume penned by a Trump-administration insider. As is well known, president Trump’s White House embodied all of the contemporary Washington, D.C. cliches— excuse the cliche– on steroids.

It takes a certain kind of person to want to work for someone like Donald Trump. He or she is a star-struck social climber. The female especially, must have low self-esteem, and if she works closely enough with the president and endures his abuse and does not resign immediately or start looking for work elsewhere– she has a version of battered woman syndrome. The author was one such individual.

According to the book (which appeared to be credible although it lacked Notes, Sources, References, or Bibliography and an index), the hostile work environment became even moreso when chief of staff Mark Meadows came to power.

Pursuant to the way they are raised (translation: family dynamics), people gravitate toward relationships, situations and environments with which they feel comfortable. Employees in Trump’s orbit formed a dysfunctional family comfortable for them. Yet it was a place with sky-high turnover because it was full of workaholics who behaved like extremely self-absorbed, socially manipulative teenagers who thought they were starring in their own reality show; and they were– it’s called social media.

Just two of numerous episodes included:

In 2018, a top adviser to national security adviser John Bolton launched a witch hunt. It was alleged that twelve American political workers (including the author, a communications director) engaged in inappropriate sexual behavior at a social gathering abroad. After the author put out a statement saying the adviser needed to be fired because nothing happened at that gathering, “Three minutes passed, and it was all over Twitter and within ten it was on TV.”

In 2020, the president’s then-wife Melania Trump was infuriated by former communications adviser Stephanie Winston-Wolkoff, who published a tell-all book on her employment experiences, and was selling audiotapes of their conversations.

Read the book to learn how the author experienced the way the president, his daughter and son-in-law were actually running the country; and what the president’s then-wife was doing in the meantime.

Moving Water

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The Book of the Week is “Moving Water, The Everglades and Big Sugar” by Amy Green, published in 2021.

This volume discussed the people and forces that changed the Everglades (a landscape of waterways running through the central part of Florida all the way down), its vegetation, species and pollution from the 1960’s to date. The main agents of change have been (in no particular order): sugar growers, politicians of all levels of government, regulators, George and Mary Barley, Paul Tudor Jones II and grassroots groups.

After 1960, the United States began large-volume sugar-growing and processing, as it was no longer getting its sugar from Cuba. Soon, annually, 223,000 acres of land were growing 572,000 tons of sugar– half the nation’s crop– which was processed in eleven mills. This activity occupies slightly more than one quarter of the Everglades, and with a few other crops, comprises the Everglades Agricultural Area (EAA).

Beginning in 1988, the federal government sued the Florida state government for damages due to the said pollution (caused mostly by the sugar growers). Everglades regulators are diverse: EPA, NOAA, US Fish and Wildlife Service, Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, Florida Department of Environmental Protection, Florida Department of Health, local governments situated along the affected coasts of the lake and two rivers in the EAA, and the US Army Corps of Engineers. An entity that controls water levels around the whole region– pursuant to weather, environmental changes and political idiosyncrasies– is the South Florida Water Management District.

However, in previous decades, the politicians and some of the regulators (under pressure from the politicians) were besties with the sugar growers. That situation has changed with the worsening of pollution and other unexpected factors that have prompted actual action.

There is ample evidence that a large part of the pollution is caused by the operations of the sugar industry in the Lake Okeechobee area in the central part of the state. The industry uses fertilizer containing phosphorous, which gets into the vegetation; two major consequences include the poisoning of drinking water in South Florida, and river-course-changing excessive sawgrass, cattail and algae growth- at the expense of other plants, and at the expense of animals that eat those other plants.

Pollution has caused: the deaths of sponges, shrimp, seagrass and fish; turbid waters, hypersalinity and elevated temperatures. Some fish eat the aforementioned algae, which contain toxins such as cyanobacteria and red tide. Some humans used to eat such fish, but shouldn’t anymore, or they will likely get sick, at best.

Many people thought that the polluters should pay for the damage they were doing. At the book’s writing, nevertheless,TAXPAYERS, not the major polluters, were paying for cleanup. As can be seen, there are infinite complications, given the number of parties involved in the nature of the beast.

In the first half of 2016, disruption of the ecosystem by excessive algae growth, caused beach closings and a pervasive foul odor over a large territory. As recently as 2018, the aforementioned contaminants were sickening or killing beachgoers, manatees, sea turtles and tarpon.

Read the book to learn all about it.