January 2026 – education and deconstruction.com

I’ve Got Your Back – 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.]

Currently, this is what president Donald Trump’s handlers are singing on his behalf.

I’VE GOT YOUR BACK

sung to the tune of “I Want You Back” with apologies to the Estate of Michael Jackson, the Jackson Five, and to whomever else the rights may concern.

[whining]

Let me protect you now.

I have the White House to myself.

My messaging’s turning around.

Fox’s smears and lies always helped me, stand out in my crowd.

I gave my enemies the knockout punch when that was all it took.

Now’s the right time for me, to massage the history books.

Ooh, believe me, forget all my rants. I’ll show you I’m good.

Won’t you please help me stay, king of the world.

America, I must try, to let you know, let-you-know, believe me.

I’m still in-no-cent of everything.

I’ve got your back. I do now. I’ve got your back. Ooh believe me. I’ve got your back. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I’ve got your back. Don’t you worry.

Trying to win my base’s love was one long reckless fight.

I need to show the world, that I know wrong from right.

Only cream and SOB’s, rise to the top.

In my conquest for the world, I never, ever stop.

Let me protect-you now.

Ooh, believe me, forget all my rants. I’ll show you I’m good.

Won’t you please help me stay, king of the world.

America, I must try, to let you know, let-you-know, believe me.

I’m still in-no-cent of everything.

You-you-you-you, you-you-you-you,

I-give you a lot, you-you-you-you, all you need, you-you-you-you, all you want. You-you-you-you, all you need.

Forget all my rants.

I’ll show you I’m good.

Ooh, believe me, believe me, believe me, forget all my rants. I’ll show you I’m good.

America, I must try, to let you know.

I’m still in-no-cent of everything.

Let me protect you. Forget all my rants. Ooh, I’ll protect you…

Red Carpet

The Book of the Week is “Red Carpet, Hollywood, China, and the Global Battle for Cultural Supremacy” by Erich Schwartzel, published in 2022. In this hodgepodge of a volume, the author described the interactions between the United States and China in connection with their movie and television industries, beginning in the 1990’s.

America seeks to profit in everything it does.

The Chinese government’s number one goal is to boost its national pride when selling video entertainment to end-users. The government therefore keeps a tight rein on the optics of its products– limits the stories of its public-private partnership’s shows to:

glorifying itself and its Communist Party history;
recounting its victimization at the hands of evil, Western powers and Japan with regard to militarism and trade in the 19th century;
glorifying superheroes who convey Communist ideology.

The Chinese government gets very offended when even one movie-line or one tweet implies that Tibet or Taiwan are not part of China. It censors story-characters who challenge authority, buck established order, or shake things up. It censors disparagement of China, adult themes of vice, religion, gruesome violence, ghosts and gays. China financially punishes the perpetrators– the entertainment companies. Because it can.

Another aspect of China’s video culture is rampant pirating of Western entertainment. Further, deals made with foreign countries to screen shows in China, are always financially superior for China. Contrarily, in various ways, China will curtail revenues for all parties if it sees that the foreign entities’ shows are too influential with Chinese viewers.

November 1994 saw the first American movies (made by Warner Brothers) shown in China. Even though in the next quarter century, foreign videos shown in China became China-fied, only Chinese people watch movies made in China. Americans aren’t watching movies made in China.

Beginning around 2014, China’s dictator Xi began to punish Chinse entertainment-industry dissidents. Between 2017 and 2020, America had 17 of the fifty highest-grossing movies of all time. China had 27.

China has begun to export its movies and TV shows to Kenya at a deep discount in order to push its ideology. But viewers enjoy American shows better. The younger generation yearns for the consumer goods they see on TV. Interestingly, Disney was one of the few American content-providers that didn’t portray Africa as a “lawless land of disease and despots.”

Read the book to learn many more details of how Hollywood became experienced at dealing with China in seeking to make money, while China played Hollywood, and how China is spreading its gospel to the African continent with the goal of world domination.

Totally Unofficial

The Book of the Week is “Totally Unofficial, the Autobiography of Raphael Lemkin” edited by Donna-Lee Frieze, published in 2013.

Born in 1900 in territory that was alternately Lithuania and eastern Poland, Lemkin was raised among four peasant-farming families who grew clover and rye, and herded sheep and goats. He enjoyed an idyllic early childhood of nature and horseback-riding.

After earning a law degree, he worked for the government in Poland, obtaining higher and higher fancy titles. Even so, he was strangely obedient when, in early September, 1939, the (German occupied) government ordered all able-bodied men to leave Warsaw immediately. He got on a train, which was bombed. He walked to the forest in the countryside.

Later on, Lemkin did use his connections, however, to emigrate to a less dangerous place. In Vilnius in Lithuania, in autumn 1939, he spoke with a Russian soldier whose mentality was: The Western (Britain and France) Allies would fight the German military until they destroyed one another. Then the Russians would come and take over. Americans would sell arms to the Allies so that the Allies would have more resources than the Germans.

The German mentality was: Only the land of any territory Germany occupied, not the people, could be Germanized. So in October 1939, it (along with Russia) proceeded to deport all the Poles from Poland. This plan was written in Hitler’s 1924 book, Mein Kampf. The reason it took so long for the civil Europeans and Americans with sufficient power to head off the danger, was that they didn’t believe anyone could be so barbaric.

Earlier international agreements set out rules of engagement with regard to war. In general, destroying enemies’ military and fighting-infrastructure was believed to be justified. Nevertheless, the documents failed to mention persecuting and killing of civilians of a specific group. Lemkin felt this instance which he called genocide, needed to be codified, because early in the war, he had witnessed it in his native land. In summer 1942, he was unable to convince FDR of the urgency of making genocide an international crime.

Finally, in November 1946, Lemkin spoke with all kinds of diplomats when the world was ready to sit down at the bargaining table and form the United Nations. Panama, Cuba, India and global women’s organizations initially agreed to sign his resolution, by then called the Genocide Convention.

Still, there were years of arguments over every word, resistance and the usual political shenanigans. For, postwar, some arrogant government officials (such as French intellectuals and the British attorney general) were angry that their country had been taken down a notch in world status, so they argued that a Genocide Convention wasn’t necessary. The Nuremberg judgment had already outlawed war crimes, during times of war.

Lemkin explained that even in peacetime, human nature would dictate that a handful of evil people would acquire significant power to hate on others; thus, the need for a reminder in writing that the international community should put the kibosh on such behavior.

Read the book to learn much more about the trials and tribulations Lemkin experienced in trying to get the world to understand and commit to his ideology.