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April 7, 2018

Yes, it's been five years since I've updated this site.

There's a reason for that . . .

Three reasons, in fact.

First, my time gets used up by others. I know, I hear you screaming, "Why are you letting them?" The problem is that some people don't care what you say, and that's the type of person I'm constantly dealing with. You make it crystal clear that they're doing nothing but getting in the way of whatever you're trying to do, but since it's not what they have in mind, they act like it's their job to correct you. So, you don't get away from it at all. And calling the authorities on them? Guess what. Some of those I'm dealing with are the authorities. So, no luck on that front.

Second, I've had a number of changes to my plans. I've gone from taking part in short films to trying to fund my own. The group I was a part of went to membership, so I haven't taken part in any in a while. I've been busy trying to get funding (since 2012, I have $172 out of $7,000), and it's taken up more of my time than I'd planned. And I've barely had any time to work in anything I'm writing or drawing. Almost nothing is finished, and it's driving me nucking futs.

Third, I've become more political--and so will this blog. That's what this entry is about.

I never dreamed of getting involved with politics until 1999. That was after I first paid attention to the business side of life. I saw how much profit businesses were making, and I thought, Hey, why aren't they hiring? Which, of course, is the question many are asking.

Well, I learned the answer in 2000. I was working at Blockbuster Video (for those of you still in high school, that was one of the major movie rental chains before Netflix, where you actually went inside and picked from any of up to two thousand titles on hand, including older movies. I'll discuss the problem with on-demand movies in a later blog.)

After six months, I became a manager-in-training. At this point, I'd had three store managers and too many coworkers. I specifically brought up my concern about hiring, and he showed me the "matrix". This was a table of how many man-hours were allowed, based solely on total transactions.

Let me explain about the difference between "transactions" and "revenue". Revenue is how much money you bring in. Transactions are the number of individual sales, regardless of the amount. So, let's say two stores have a total revenue for one day of $5,000. One store sells a bunch of $5 sales to 1,000 people. The other store has 100 customers who each pay $50. Both stores make the same amount, but it's distributed differently. The first store has 1,000 transactions, while the other has 100 transactions. The result is that the second store will require fewer people to make the sales, and possibly fewer to do things such as restock. That's how businesses are able to get away with minimizing labor.

Yes, this leads to crappy customer service. I'd talk about that in the future, but it's something you should already understand.

It was at this point that I realized why merchandise had become cheap crap. (That, combined with Lee Iococca's changing of the word "quality" to favor cheap crap. There was more later on, too.) So, I voted for the first time in my life--for Ralph Nadar. Ignore the accusations and the political accusations. I voted for him because I thought improving product quality would force them to hire more people; it had nothing to do with voting against either Bush or Gore.

The results of the 2000 election disheartened me. After the Supreme Court stopped the Florida recount, I went to Article III of the Constitution and looked up what is in their jurisdiction. Since the election only affected the results within the state of Florida, it should have been an internal matter. Since the issue was in internal matter that did not involve land, the Supreme Court did not have jurisdiction. (Just for the record, "internal" is not defined in this context, so I'm applying the common language rule, where there's typically no outside influence.)

Until this point, all I'd been taught were Republican values, mainly by my dad, and my sister and mom were both right-of-center. I was very uncertain because despite knowing only Republican values, I could never support a Republican candidate (I briefly considered John McCain in 2008). When Mom died in 2001, Dad and my sister started pushing conservative ideals on me. But something wasn't right. And that was when I learned to do real research--and discovered that Dad had been flat out lying to me. I mean this; in his position, he had to know exactly what was going on, and it's not what he told me. I didn't rely on commentaries, second-hand accounts, or reviews--I went to the actual source. By that, I mean reading what the commentary was about, getting first-hand accounts, finding solid evidence, or checking was the review was about. I wanted to make sure that what I read was the actual truth.

Now, if someone tells me something's the case, I track down the evidence. I've done that since 2002. And guess what? I know know it's the liberals who are telling the truth. Progressives are not liberals, and liberals are not progressives; progressives make an assumption and ignore evidence to the contrary. (This is evident every time they claim the Gulf War or Afghanistan was about oil; it was actually about something that was barely reported on in the U.S. independent media.) I learned that socialism and Communism are two completely different things; socialism taxes the excess in private property for the purpose of equalization, while in Communism, there's no private property to tax. I found Justice John Paul Stephens' interpretation of the Second Amendment, which today’s gun nuts ignore; quotes that are false, out-of-context, or attributed to the wrong person; video clips taken completely out of context to accuse people of inciting violence; but most importantly, speech designed to make people afraid and start arguing when they hear something in disagreement.

I didn't vote in 2004 because I didn't see any point after Florida. In fact, I was right when I said if there would be a controversy, it would be in Ohio. That was the first time voting machines were used--and complained about.

In 2008, I voted for Barack Obama, the first time in my life I'd ever supported a major party candidate, and no matter what anyone says, I don't regret it. The problem wasn't Obama; it was the racists who went nuts for the next eight years. And that is where the current problem starts. You see, after eight years of dealing with an African-American in the Oval Office, the racists made up their minds they would decide the next President.

Of course, those of you on the left are saying that racists supported a racist. Unfortunately, this is where I must agree with the right. There is plenty of evidence against it that the right has presented, and which I've verified. (And no, I'm not about to declare support for his time in the Oval Office.) The one I remember is that Donald Trump was close friends with Mohammed Ali. I've seen photos and a video. (Yes, it exists. Sorry, fellow Democrats.)

The truth is this: Donald Trump is a master manipulator who played both sides against the other. And if there's anyone easiest to manipulate, it's the American voter because (and I admit I'm going out on a limb by saying this) American's tend to jump to conclusions and stick to their decision. The voting booth is where it's worst.

Why did they choose Trump? Well, I have racists in my family, and they actually wanted Rick Perry, at first. But Trump presented himself as someone who couldn't be controlled (which, to an extent, is true), while Perry was manageable, so they went with the one the RNC wouldn't be able to contain.

The Democrats didn't think Trump had any chance. And they were right--until someone in Chicago decided to hold a rally against "racist Trump" in Chicago. The result was not that Trump's campain was hurt; exactly the opposite. As a CEO, he considers something like this free publicity--and he knew how to use it. I didn't want to admit it, and couldn't before it actually happened, but in the span of about half a second from when I heard about the rally, my mind went from, "Thank God he won't be in it for long," to "Oh, shit."

How did he manipulate the left? No, it wasn't the feminists. It was African-Americans. Everyone wonders why Bernie Sanders couldn't get through to black voters despite having the better platform for them? Well, it's because, like the feminists, they just wanted to stick it to Trump with a nominee who was a physical antithesis to him. And since he was perceived as mysogynistic, they went for Hillary Clinton.

You read it here for the first time. Bernie Sanders lost the Democratic nomination because Donald Trump tricked African-American and feminist Democrats into nominating someone whom experts on the left knew, long before the first debate was even scheduled, had no chance of beating him. He had plenty of females supporting him, and more women voted for Trump than Clinton, but African-Americans sided with Clinton out of anger at Trump.

Rule #1: Never made important decisions while in an emotional state.

How did so many as early as April 2015, including myself that July, realize Hillary Clinton would not win the general election? Simple. Millenials know how to do research. They found information from as far back as 2001 that told them she would make a bad President. The most telling was Elizabeth Warren's 2004 interview with Bill Moyers, in which she talked about teaching Hillary about bankruptcy when she was First Lady, after which Hillary convinced Bill to veto a key bill, but as Senator, the lobbyists went to work on her and she voted for the exact same bill.

This was the kind of information Millenials found--not Russian propaganda. In fact, as a Bernie supporter, I heard about trolls and bots from Eastern Europe as early as summer 2015. They were quickly blocked from Bernie groups, and we knew who they were and what they were peddling. That left the good information--which was largely against her.

(By the way, very few of the trolls and bots were from Russia. They were actually from all over Eastern Europe, and most were from Bulgaria.)

Rule #2: Learn as much as possible so you can identify the truth

With the growing evidence that Hillary didn't even deserve to be in the Democratic Party, her supporters turned to what those of us experienced with them recognized as right-wing tactics. Hillary's debate tactics were the same that I've heard from others who "pulled right to gain votes from that side", which actually loses votes. She couldn't win Pennsylvania because Trump was all for fracking, which was the key issue in that state, while Hillary's was conditional. She made her stance clear during the debate with Bernie in Flint, Michigan, at which Point I immediately said she'd lost Michigan forever. Sure enough, with Hillary's big lead in Michigan early, I said all night that Bernie would win. Nobody believed me until late in the evening, when he pulled within 4-5 points.

Hillary supporters became "Hillbots" at this point, if they weren't already. Accusations of mysogeny were thrown out just for admitting to supporting Bernie, while our presentations of the facts were met with responces that the FBI has never found anything wrong.

Then comes my research, which I found earlier. Lots of "Berners", as I named us ::insert huge smiling emoji here:: wondered if it was legal to retain the emails. Now came my research, and I uncovered the National Security Act of 1950. It states, in no uncertain terms, that the Secretary must turn all communications over to the State Department before leaving office. Having retained the server, she violated that Act. There is no question about this. The penalty is up to three years in prison and a lifetime ban from public office. And I found it. ::insert huge smiling emoji here::

I went forward with it. It caught on. Hillary supporters lost their shit. Or ignored it. But always one or the other.

Rule #3: Be willing to admit you're wrong

Then came the Democratic National Convention. This revealed that although the Berners knew much about Hillary, they never studied the history of the Party Conventions. Divison is not uncommon; in fact, it's difficult to find a convention where it was nonexistent. But since the first televised convention in 1968, the Parties have made a show of unity, keeping the disunity off camera with scripted speeches and carefully planned events. They didn't want a repeat of 1968 when a delegate actually set something on fire--and it was reported on live television! Not to mention the attempted arrest of Dan Rather--also on live television! So, what the Bernie delegates didn't understand was that the controversy wasn't simply to shut up the Berners, but to create the illusion of unity for the television audience to see. (See Rule #2)

I watched the nomination vote live on streaming video. When the first ended without the necessary number of votes for either candidate, I held hope. When I realized how many Hillary supporters had switched to Bernie for the second vote, my heart rose. When I realized the superdelegates were going solidly for Clinton, outnumbering those who switched to Bernie, the only thing I could think was, "My God, they're handing it to Trump."

So, I hoped and waited. Then came the press conference with the FBI Director, whose name I can't remember. He got to the server, and I remembered the National Security Act of 1950. ::insert huge smiling emoji here:: He talked aobut investigating the emails, which should have been turned over to the State Department. ::insert huge smiling emoji here:: And when where it reached the point where I knew he would mention the Act . . . he didn't even address it and only called her using her own server "unethical"??? ::insert exploding head emoji here::

"My God, they're handing it to Trump."

I voted. I'm in a Party position where I should be voting straight Democrat, and on every other position, I did. But on that Presidential ballot, the thought disgusted me. I was asked the proverbial question about if a gun were pointed at my head and it were just Clinton and Trump, which one I'd vote for. My answer was always to tell them, "Pull the damn trigger." Even knowing my position, I couldn't do it and voted for Jill Stein, not out of protest, but because her platform had some strong similarities to Bernie's.

Rule #4: In a conflict of interests, put your own desires aside (There's a boatload of people involved in politics who need to learn this!)

There's so much I didn't cover, especially my becoming a delegate to the Texas Democratic Convention. But that's nothing important for the blog I want to manage from now on. I'll still be talking about art and writing, along with the occassional odd topic, but my political standpoints will come into this blog, too.

And one last thing: I'm not entirely leftist. I tend to favor war in limited circumstances, and I am very anti-drugs for reasons I should explain at some point, but not without someone else's permission, which will probably never come.

"Next time, a surprise. That's because I have no clue what it will be about." --Me, March 23, 2013. Yeah, no kidding. It would have been a big surprise for me, too.

See you in the next blog.


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