Robin Williams once quipped that it would do us all some good if politicians were like NASCAR drivers, and wore the names of all their sponsors. When you watch a rotund statesman rallying support for or against an invariably verbose bill, his rhetoric and verve matching Daniel Day-Lewis’ best, it is easy to fall into the trap of believing that the guy actually cares about whether or not you can afford to pay your rent and feed your family. But, once you get over the smoke and mirrors of the whole charade, you should know that there is a machine behind the lead actor/politician, not unlike the crew behind the camera of a film. Speaking of which, watching a political campaign ought to follow the same credulity arc as watching a film.

You know, it’s one thing to go see a movie and willingly get caught up in the magic of Hollywood. And so, you may allow yourself to believe, if only for an hour or two, that you are in the Wild West, say, fighting off the barbarous Red Indians, with a squinting, gun-slinging Clint Eastwood at your side. But once the credits roll and you have gotten up to extinguish a litre of Coke from your system, you should know that Clint Eastwood is in fact not that bad ass with a magnum, that Indians were actually kind of cool before they were annihilated, and the movie you just saw probably had no bearing on historical facts whatsoever. Well, the Clint Eastwood thing may be questionable.

The motivation to change the world for the better is all right by me, in fact, it deserves a complimentary tip of the hat. But, that impulse for positive, philanthropic change is not taken seriously by attempting to realize it in politics. Nothing is ever changed (for the better) from the inside of a parliament, or congress, or whatever you call your country’s cigar room for fat cat chaperons. History tells us that real political and social progress comes by way of civil revolt. Whether its French peasants or colonists of America, results tend to come from more direct exchanges between the worker bees and the major honey shareholders. Usually, insurrections do not end well for the privileged few; heads have been known to roll on French soil, constitutions and bills of rights have been set up from the US to South Africa. They are the obstacles that stave off fascism and corruption. Still, where there is a will, a multi-million dollar budget, and a charismatic front man, there will always be a way.

So it is that Ancient Alien Theory neatly dovetails with those of the Creationist and Intelligent Designer.

As discussed elsewhere, Ancient Alien Theory posits a planet of hominids being visited by extraterrestrial life forms which variously genetically engineer a slave race(using alien and hominid DNA to genetically manipulate humans into existence) to help with their mining, become mistaken for gods and are worshiped as such and who bring enlightenment and civilization, mathematics and astronomy to ancient peoples.

These alien visitors have apparently been a part of human history from prehistory!

Image via Wikipedia

Intelligent Design make the argument that the fact that the Golden Mean and Fibonacci Numbers are expressed in nature are part of a seeming design by an Intelligent Designer because such specific design elements could not be statistically reproducible in random mutation.

Of course, the word random, only makes sense to a verbalist (my word for a word specialist); to a computer programmer or a mathematician or physicist or anyone used to dealing with the concept, the word is simply an explanation for obtuse calculations that randomly turn up the same answer a certain percentage of the time. Random, for those people, is not random until you have sieved out the duplicates and triplicates, the series, the numbers related to each other as part of a progression in ordinal series and on and on.

In reality, genetic failures are at risk at the moment of conception and thus, basing conclusion on observation in this case is to be blind to missing data. Perhaps, the intelligent design may well be what survives and what survives, depends on how well their parts work. In spite of that drawback (to my mind), one can clearly see the connection with Ancient Alien Theory. In essence the Theory of Intelligent Design can be summed up in the following passage.

Beautiful poetry, if I may add.

Psalm 8 King James Version (KJV)

 1 O LORD, our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth! who hast set thy glory above the heavens.

 2 Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength because of thine enemies, that thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger.

 3 When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained;

 4 What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?

 5 For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour.

 6 Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet:

 7 All sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field;

 8 The fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas.

 9 O LORD our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth!

Creationism posits an omnipotent extraterrestrial being or beings, who creates a man from whom he then creates a woman. This being, having given man and woman a choice, whether to eat a certain fruit in a particular garden, becomes inconsolably enraged when the woman and then the man exercise the choice, they had supposedly been given. The enraged creator being, then curses the man and woman and their descendants till the end of time.

Time passes, then the creator being regrets and impregnates a virgin, then takes her son and supposedly sacrifices him for the sins of all the man and woman’s descendants. The creator being’s son, having being resurrected from the dead, will then return to earth where he will fight a battle of all time with another extraterrestrial being, once the creator being’s most trusted lieutenant, who had a falling out with the creator being at around the time he was creating the man and the woman.

It is into this mix that the politics of the United States has cast the upstart President Obama; for he has been secretly billed as the opener in the Armageddon sweepstakes where the forces of evil will be led by a human equivalent of the creator being’s son; the dreaded Anti Christ.

End of Part 3

The complete series of articles can be found here, where you can always keep in touch with my content.

The President appears to have become the focus of all sorts of speculation connected with the “impending” 2012/end-of-the-world scenarios being touted on the net and with the “prophesied” Armageddon event of the Bible; but politically charged adverse speculation and so-called ‘negative spin’ would seem to be small grounds for a comparison.

They all, however, are simultaneously affected by, and are currently helping to drive those forces that are tugging at the integrity of the current global social order. The planet-wide lowering of living standards and the consonant increase in conflict make mockery of the very existence of the United Nations Organization which was set up to prevent a repeat of the horrors of World War II (on both sides).

This, apparently global, breakdown in governing systems and the ensuing chaos that obtains, must benefit some entities and in some cases, the beneficiaries of conflict may well be the (often) hidden instigators. Given the wealth (?) of information on the internet, a quantum possibility exists, that the subject matters are related in some theoretical conspiracy or religious prophecy that may yet be the subject of its own article.

That is not the aim of this discussion.

That said, the rise of fringe (perhaps, soon to be mainstream) theories such as Ancient Alien Theory, the increasingly fundamentalist posture of religion, pseudo-science in defense of fundamental religious dogma(intelligent design/creationism), secular theories in defense of religion and religion as a political litmus test demonstrate a real connection between each; one that is symptomatic of the state of our civilization.

There is a greater and more pressing dimension to the sum of the problems presently facing humanity, and it is that the entirety of the current precariousness of human civilization is nowhere in the consciousness of the mass of the planet’s populations..

As corporations continue to prove each day in the degrading of environments; each specific instance of an occurrence while it may be started by an individual entity with specific motives follows an entirely different logic in the range of possibilities that it creates.

You are probably, already familiar with the seemingly (just) Zen statement about the butterfly flapping its wings and causing a storm. Chaos Theory  suggests that in an evaluation of any very large system, it requires very little change (comparable to a butterfly flapping its wings) to deviate from any path predicted by earlier observation.

The flapping of a single butterfly’s wing today produces a tiny change in the state of the atmosphere. Over a period of time, [these same changes add up] So, in a month’s time, a tornado that would have devastated the Indonesian coast doesn’t happen. Or maybe one that wasn’t going to happen, does.
(Ian Stewart, Does God Play Dice? The Mathematics of Chaos, pg. 141)

End of Part 1

The complete series of articles can be found here, where you can always keep in touch with my content.

As with all new things, some of the warmth was quick to fade. The country was in the middle of an economic crisis, still recovering from the toll of a major war, and always seemingly on the brink of another. The previous leader had pursued his own agenda often times over the sake of the People, and he had left the country in shambles. Thousands were without work, and those who did work were doing more for less money. The extremely wealthy before the economy dropped remained so for the most part, but everyone else fell beneath. Far beneath. The damage was extreme, but when that green line on the economic graph didn’t begin to rise immediately, some began to wonder if this man had really had the right to promise what he did. As is human nature, people who are newly hurting are often quick to believe in the promise of recovery. But if they hurt for an extended amount of time they start to lose the ability to trust, and instead start to look for someone to blame.

In the first few months of his presidency, he pushed through legislation after legislation, but the changes were radical, risky. People could see he was working to change things, but they were leery. His choices seemed to have little to no relation to the biggest issues at all. But he knew that the bigger problem was the result of several seemingly smaller ones, and that those needed to be addressed in order to rectify the rest. If things didn’t change rapidly, the people would suffer. But the changes that had to take place would require shifts in systems that had been in place for years, something most weren’t sure they were ready to risk. When he focused on the percentage with bigger incomes, when he placed blame on the banks and financial programs for taking from people who had nothing to give and attempted to restructure, the wealthier citizens protested. Each half of the whole felt that he was not serving their needs. Not long into his first term, the power in the supporting government shifted to conservatives again, and after that he was fought on everything. Nothing seemed to pass, and they reached a stalemate. Again, the blame fell to him. He did everything he could to reach out to the people, giving regular speeches, continuing to try to bring more  legislation to the table. But still the opposing powers held strong, and held just enough of the vote to keep things from happening. Circumstances had shown improvement, but then they stalled, and people began to lose hope again. All until one cataclysmic event forced every ones attention to a central point, and at last all divisions were unified under one purpose.

This man retains chapters in the history books now as one of the greatest Presidents this country ever had, and serving his three terms while in a wheelchair are now a trivia point, not a potential character flaw. Franklin D. Roosevelt holds the credit, and rightfully so, for giving America the policies it needed to recover and become the greatest of all world powers. It is not the intent of this article to compare any of the current legislation to the New Deal and his many other achievements. Still, one must admit that things in the beginning of his Presidency sound similar to the contemporary setting. World War Two was, for all of its awfulness and resulting loss, also a major economic boon to America. Had it not occurred, how would the many debates and disagreements and stalemates have played out? Clearly it is only a matter of speculation now, but whether or not a successful compromise could have been reached among a country growing more divided daily does bear significant modern implications.

Furthering the current issues is that fact that many Americans, this author included, suffer from an unfortunate reliance on instant gratification, and an out of control need to place blame. This country has in many ways grown vicious as it has aged, quick to forget its history, but always remembering slights and ready to identify faults. Hindsight is always 20/20, but imagine how it must have been for the people living during the Depression. It won’t take much imagination. Just as now, no one could see into the future and know that FDR’s policies would take this country from its lowest point to its highest. They didn’t know that it would save them, answer their prayers, and more. Not everyone believed it him, particularly in his first term, but they stood by him because he was the President they had elected.

Division and partisanship have always existed, and no American leader has ever been elected by receiving 100% of the vote. That doesn’t change the fact that each individual party was created to serve as a checks and balances system; not to keep one side from progressing, resulting in total inaction. Once again, the People are hungry, the People are poor. They need some action, and quick, but it will have to involve major alterations to the fabric of many things they have blanketed themselves with for generations. But remember, this is not unique to these times, it has occurred before. It will require some faith and some giving, from all Americans, the seemingly powerless up to the powerful, who carry the additional requirements that pride be swallowed and people of differing opinions remember who they really work for. The rest of the citizens. One can only hope that it won’t take another world war or other travesty to bring enough unity for positive progress to continue again.

Most Americans do not see any sign of economic recovery in the near future, not mentioning about the high budget deficit. Therefore, some voters are now sending warning messages to politicians and their disciples. These messages should not be ignored. However, the question still remains: Who will be the candidate who can win the next presidential election? Candidates from Republican Party have very fierce viewpoints and it seems that only strong and extreme views can take hold.

If Bachman wins the presidency, the world will look at Iowa as a focus point. That was exactly what she meant when she said she came from the heartland of the United States. Would it also become the heartland of the world? By all means, she will have to devote a lot of time to her cause if she wants to accomplish her ultimate goal.

No one denies that Presidential politics is very cruel and not for the faint-hearted – male or female. It is more likely that every word your opponents say or plan to say is meant to hurt, and if possible, to throw you down as early as possible. With Bachman’s victory, other Republican candidates, such as Texas Governor Rick Perry, now loom large on the scene.

Sarah Palin, the former presidential candidate, might still come out and join the race later on. There will be a lot more candidates before the GOP primary election early next year. However at this stage, it is difficult to predict who will win the Republican presidential nomination.

President Barack Obama, who has been in a tough situation for the past few weeks since the decision on the debt ceiling, is now on the offensive and will become more aggressive in tackling economic issues and sending out reassuring messages to the American people. The top items on the priority list for both parties to tackle will include improving the unemployment situation and better housing and healthcare, among others. But Obama must be able to show a promising sign of a better future and the prospects for economic growth to the increasing number of frustrated Americans; otherwise, he could be punished.

The presidential campaign is still in its early stages, as the international agenda has yet to enter the debate. When the time comes, both Republican and Democrat candidates will have to negotiate the various minefields on key foreign policy issues, whether it is Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, South Korea or the Middle East. Relations with China and other major powers will also be crucial for the winning candidate. President Barack Obama took a vast step by appointing Gary Locke as the new US ambassador to China, who appears to be humble and is able to impress Chinese people, not only the fact that he became the first ethic governor of a US state in 1997 or the US secretary of commerce in 2009 but it also was simply that he and his family walked out of Beijing Capital International Airport on Friday night carrying their own bags. Then, the American public will be put to the test once again on whether they want to see their country living by itself, withdrawing or receding from international responsibility and commitment.

The ongoing economic crisis will encourage conservatives to come forward and put up all kinds of barriers to protect the US economy. The international community has to wait nervously until the American people make their own choice on who will lead the US into further uncertain times.

We in America have become so wrapped up in the concept of image. It’s poisoning the very well that feeds our social sanity. We have come to a point were nothing will ever get accomplished because all of those narcissistic, baby kissing, vote spongy, self-praise mongers always get in the way if it doesn’t make their teeth whiter in the constituencies. (Yes, I’m talking to you if your “Career” consists of winning votes so you can make speeches on the television and spend a large portion of your term just trying to win more votes.) I have been looking at John Boehner’s pompously plasticized smirk and Harry Reid’s empty deer in headlights stare flanking Obama in “Negotiations” for too long. As for Obama, he is yet another inspired man who came to DC to make things better…only to realize that DC will never let DC move forward. DC will only ever move along.

African Americans have long been committed to the Democratic Party, but is it time for a real change? While the mainstream media has underscored the significance of the Hip-Hop vote, young people of color turned out in record numbers in 2004 for John Kerry and Barrack Obama in 2008. You would think that after all that support, The Democratic Party would be working hard to cultivate these particular voters, but it appears that the Republican Party may be paying more attention.

In 2006 the GOP ran an unprecedented number of candidates of color, some putting in bids to be Governors or U.S. Senators. And while for the most part the Republican platform is conservative politics as usual, it’s hard to deny that the Party of Lincoln has recently made strides in promoting people of color to positions of power.

Currently, Republicans are stepping up their outreach and recruiting many of Hip-Hop’s influential figures for endorsement-namely, Russell Simmons. The mogul, who says he is not a member of either party, points out that Republicans were instrumental in making sure that the 2005 ‘Millions More March’ happened. “When we began organizing that march in 2005, it wasn’t the Democrats who opened the doors -it was the Republicans,” he says.

While Simmons’ support of the moderately minded part of the Republican Party isn’t all that surprising, it does come at a time when many working within the Democratic Party have contended that the Left isn’t doing enough to reach out to young voters of color.

For example “Cousin” Jeff Johnson has openly said he would support a Republican candidate, as he did in supporting Kenneth Blackwell’s bid for Governor of Ohio at the time. Most Hip-Hop fans know “Cousin” Jeff from Rap City, a BET sponsored program. His past endorsement shocked many, being that he is a political activist for many Left-leaning progressive voter organizations. “It’s about time that we begin coming to the table with an agenda,” says Johnson, who points out that he has yet to become a member of the Republican Party. “Democrats have taken our vote for granted. We need to start holding both parties accountable by making them earn our vote. How can we do that when we only vote for one side?”

But not everyone is ready to give up on the Democratic Party. “At the end of the day, the Republican Party is still the Party of Reagan, George Bush and the Iraq War,” says Progressive Majority’s Malia Lazu, a Hip-Hop activist whose organization recruits people of color to become legitimate political candidates. “The only way we can make sure that our vote isn’t taken for granted is by voting more regularly and holding all politicians accountable to our issues.”

Image by John Levanen via Flickr

Dead or Alive is the most recent Tom Clancy political suspense thriller, continuing the Jack Ryan series begun nearly three decades ago.  Co-authored by Grant Blackwood, Dead or Alive serves up much of the same appeal found in most of Clancy’s books; expectant energy, intensity, and multiple layers building a story that is a blend of fiction and present-day alternate realities.  This one centered around the capture of an international terrorist named Emir, who bore a striking resemblance to one perception of Osama Bin Laden.

I must admit that my timing lent particular interest to the book.  Halfway through my first reading of the fictional Emir’s exploits – and the efforts of the military and informational groups chasing him – Osama bin Laden was actually killed by United States Navy Seals.  I remember thinking, “Let’s see how what actually occurred stacks up against Clancy’s imagination”.  One thing that has always intrigued me with Clancy’s books is how utterly conceivable – and thus inherently terrifying – his stories are.

I was actually a bit disappointed with this book.  Multiple story lines are carefully woven; suspense is masterfully held throughout; and yet the book felt a bit contrived, somehow, as if Clancy rested on his laurels somewhat.   Perhaps I’m just tired of Jack Ryan’s unwilling assumption of the role of world savior yet again.  Perhaps this book, more than any other, reads like a personal political platform rather than just a story.  In any event Dead or Alive, in my estimation, did not meet the high standards set in previous books. 

The problem may have been the incredible amount of technical detail found on every single page.  An amazing amount of research went into the book, and I’d be willing to bet techno-geeks – and possibly terrorists in the making – could easily treat this book as a how-to resource.  For me, though, whole sections lent themselves to skimming exercises as I searched for the continuing threads of the story.  For the first time, I was disappointed with a Tom Clancy novel.

I expect I’ll read this book again, as Clancy is a favored author and I am frankly surprised that Dead or Alive didn’t wow me.  Here’s hoping I was just having a bad week.

You might be wondering as to why I am poking my nose into anyone’s writing style, might be most of you’d take it personally to defend Ulsterman. Believe me my suggestions that I am going to put it down has nothing to do with criticizing Ulsterman. In fact I do like his writing style, the way he jot down his analysis is unique and every unique thing possess the capability to capture the attention of millions of readers and it won’t be wrong to say that he has all the guts to teach junior writers how to carve out the best of writing styles!

Many would like to enquire as what has driven me nuts to make out suggestions to Ulsterman. I am not a paparazzi neither I am self-imposing myself and I don’t have the need to, my first published works on global politics is on its way and seriously I don’t have any need to criticize on anyone’s work either, because what I believe is that we all are learners here! These are just some simple suggestions to what I feel would make Ulsterman’s report better while at the same time expose him to a larger audience.

1)      It sounds when one read his articles that he is focused on niche blogging. Well, to be honest, niche blogging is good thing where on one hand it drives traffic to your circle on the other it exposes you too. Ulsterman is focused on ‘niche politics’ and in that one can easily say that his political analysis is not one we could claim as ‘sky is the limit’. It is the one to which I can say it as ‘Obama is the limit’.

2)      Certainly, he is so obsessed with the local political landscape, that he is least bothered to write about the ‘global politics’.

3)      It is good to analyze your target audience who works best in niche blogging, but as far as Ulsterman’s work is concerned, it is not only about the ‘niche politics’ but it also makes you feel pariah. Let me tell you how? Since I am not a native speaker, whenever I read him it sounds he is addressing the locals only by using the local language. So, am I wrong at this stance?

I hope Ulsterman and those who fan him won’t mind this small candid note of analyzing his writings. After all, I do read his articles and analysis is my job, so there’s no need to take it personally, even then if any of my friend is mulling over it right now, excuse me please!

• William Howard Taft was the heaviest president, weighing over 300 pounds.

• Richard Nixon was the first president to visit all 50 states, and Andrew Jackson was the first president to ride on a train. Andrew Jackson was also known as ‘Old Hickory’.

• Thomas Jefferson invented the swivel chair.

• Herbert Hoover had a pet alligator. Theodore Rossevelt kept a pet badger named Josiah.

• John Adams was older than any other president at his death, at the age of 90 years and 247 days.

• Zachary Taylor served in the army for 40 years, and had never shown an interest in politics until he was 62. Before this he had never voted, or been a member of a political party.