It turns out the top positions are based on the honor code, and presidents can find things optional

Like taking 400 billion dollar planes from Qatar. It thought that stuff was outlawed, but it turns out it was just a norm. Nobody is interested in enforcing any of the rule, I thought we had. 

I thought he got away with emoluments the last presidency, this term is just off the charts in comparison.

 

I figured out why American "Christians" are against taxation, even though it purports to save and help the same people Jesus would want helped. Because they only want to help Christians and they want credit for it, they're into the get something for the "charity". 

It's actually a personality thing, are you greedy and selfish, or are you open hearted and want to try and level the playing field some. Not clipping the wings of the great, but not let the super rich keep all their dough because they bought the policy that they hardly are taxed at all. Now greedy selfish people tend to create more build systems (of exploitation). I think the south had a problem with slavery because when it's hot out, the first thing that comes to my mind is, what's the least amount I can get away with? That tends to support the desire to exploit others. They complain that government is rigged, but they're the ones avoiding taxes, and exploiting the system. 

What's the solution to a president erasing the constitution? The people on the left saw the signs but nobody else saw them.

There needs to be stronger mechanisms to remove him. Like I get it that right wing people are OK with it, but there are quite a lot of right wing people who are against autocracy, white supremacy, ignoring court orders, suspension of due process, sending people to random countries. 

People say education, or better media. I mean, yea that would be great, but they didn't happen in this case.

I've studied Hitler and Germany on my own. I feel like in every show Nazis were the bad guys, and somehow we've drifted into this after even blanket media condemnation about Nazis in Germany. What kind of mental gymnastics do you have to go through to imagine this isn't a horrible threat to democracy? 

Conflict

Thinking about Israel gives me a headache most times, but I found a Reddit post interesting. It was a list of all the places in the Middle East where Jews were cleansed from. Does that give Israel the right to cleanse their space? 

Iran isn't even listed there, they kicked out 60K Jews in 1979 (Wikipedia).

Nothing gives anyone a right to kill anyone in my opinion, but I'm a peace lover, I'm not going to do any killing, but I'm not the only type of person in the world, and who knows how I develop under different circumstances. What do you do with all the people who feel the urgent need to protect their kind, however they define their kind, and how they define protect?

When they launched missiles and killed over a thousand people, given the history of Israel and the Jews on this planet, you might imagine that there would be a retaliation, considering it's within their own country. They don't have to go to war with another country, there is war within their country. They want to win the war. So they smash the opponent to smithereens. You can't say the Palestinians didn't bring it on themselves, if someone punches you, you try and stop their ability to punch you. I walk away, but some people want to root out the problem, and that might be killing them. 

They say an eye for an eye leaves everyone blind. Tit for tat is what you do ethically, with occasional positive and good thrown in to try and break the patterns. Patterns of kindness can be developed. What if there was a ritual of giving your different neighbors gifts?

The people who left Iran who were Jewish, some settled in Long Island New York. Their descendents are doing well. They live in a nice affluent neighborhood. Not sure you can say life is better outside of Iran, nobody wants to be forcefully moved, they've had to switch from Farsi to English. The problems of Long Island are still problems, no place is perfect. Great Neck and Kings Point isn't a bad place to live. I have a friend in Iran and life is hard there. Parents kill their daughter once a month, the women were hanging out with a man, and they decide to murder them. There's weird violence that confuses me, and I'm not sure I understand the country. Wanting to understand a country and culture is important to learning. I don't really know the other countries on that Reddit list of places where Jews have been driven out. You can't say things aren't connected if you can see this treatment of Jewish people leads to that treatment of Palestinian people. If you want peace, don't oppress or treat anyone poorly. One problem about groupthink is that you want revenge on people who hurt your group. Tit for tat. 

People rail in America about identity politics, but show me a place in the world where identity isn't a factor in a war? Identity can form around sexuality, race, ethnicity, religion, regionalism, even a neighborhood. Who are you and what is important to you?

So my question is if your people were driven out of 10 places, can you drive people out of one place that is the one place you want to feel safe, within the one country where being you is more than OK? It's OK to be Palestinian in Israel, as long as you don't launch bombs. There are many Palestinians in Israel who tend to Jewish kids, that do all sorts of positive and productive things for Israel without warning, but there is external support for making problems, and launching missiles, which exaggerates a problem. It is a kind of anti-semitism to have all these attack groups surrounding Israel. The Hezbollah in Lebanon. It's not official policy to allow them there, but they don't really have the will power to root them out of there, and if you somehow lost a family member, you might be radicalized, and plot against Israel. The endless war of tit for tat goes on forever. How do you make steps towards peace if there are literally many groups that keep launching bombs at you. Iran shoots of missiles and they don't even share a border with Israel. Everyone can justify violence, because look at history and x, y and z! How do yo justify peace, it looks weak, it looks like you're ignoring provocations! Which side am I talking about? That's exactly it, you can't really stop the war if you can't stop seeing how each side is being provoked. They are locked in a cycle of wars. If you're a soldier, a killer, you're going to just keep fighting. All these stories of people suffering in Gaza, who refused to leave, how can you blame them for feeling aggrieved. You erase the ability to launch missiles within Israel, but how to you erase the revenge someone wants to get for all the family they lost? I would just move, but people don't want to move. I'd rather live on Long Island, than live in a war zone. Supposedly there are a lot of Palestinians who live in Chile. 

You move to another country and there's the same problem. In NYC the Jews and the Palestinians are in conflict. My Afghan friend follows the plight of the Palestinians and the whole Muslim against Jews thing is fueled by the religious wars. My friend doesn't shot anyone, he lives his life, but there's a conflict inside him, maybe he passes it onto his kids, maybe they secularize. My stepfather is a secular Jew, I went to a passover once, went to camp Shalom, but I don't feel Jewish. I don't feel Baptist or Episcopalian either, I'm Buddhist. Now the Buddhist have a right to be upset at the Muslims who destroyed Nalanda, but then when great Islam empire was cut into in Iran, that is what kept Rumi moving eastward from the rampaging armies of Genghis Khan who was nominally Buddhist. Genghis Khan was Tengrism, a indigenous Shamanistic religion. When you look at the history of the world, you see religions rise and fall, wax and wane. The really good religions don't really sustain themselves long, everything has to get watered down and confused.

There's still Protestant versus Catholic in America. People want to purify a country, make it all just one thing and they think that will solve all the problems. Where is the country where everyone is supposed to get along? Is it America? Right now we have a white supremacist regime. No country stays the same, things always change. America was a quite stable example of a democracy, but it's rotted from within. The open society will always be susceptible to external and internal regression. At present the Jewish people feel safe enough from two sieg heils by Musk, to keep driving their Teslas. When I go for a walk in the Jewish neighborhood, I see lots of Teslas. They admire Musk, he is a great businessman. They admire the right, they want less taxes. A nice sweet father in the park, doesn't really think Trump killed 400k people with his inaction around Covid. "Maybe" he says skeptically. 

The divide between conservative and progressive in America has led to lost friendships for me. I haven't quit being friends with anyone because of their religion, but because of their politics. I even have lots of right wing friends, but Trump has brought out something that is unacceptable to me. I quit going to a AA meeting because 5 guys talked like Trump lovers before a meeting, and I just don't feel like expressing myself in recovery in front of Trump lovers.

I knew a Serbian girl who married a Serbian soldier to perpetuate the culture. In Wisconsin. America is remote enough to not have all out war between opposing sides, but we grow cultures that cling to past grudges. Many people let go of that stuff, let go of culture, just join the great materialism scramble of capitalism in secular America. That is a vapid choice, too, doesn't have the meaning of a deep culture. I wish I had more Buddhist culture. Today is Vesak Day, and I'm just going to go about my usual day, even though it is the high holiday of Buddhism. I'll meditated for 2 hours, and read some Dharma and blog about Buddhism, but I'm not connected to a sangha, and there is no gathering ritual I will take part of. I'll text my Buddhist friend in Iran. It's a strange old world. 

I don't have a religious culture, and a group that has people killed, and is at war with others. I have a vague affinity for other Buddhists, I don't like what China did to Tibet, but I don't hate Chinese people. I don't like the Muslims destroying Nalanda, but I have a Muslim friend, have had various Muslim friends. I had a Muslim friend from Sri Lanka, who moved away. 

Honestly comparing myself to the experience of an Israeli, I have to say I'm not sure I know what it's like. I know there are many Israeli and Jewish people who don't agree with what Netanyahu is doing. It's hardly a group of people who have a uniform way of thinking.

Today I meditate on compassion. Compassion might be an ingredient for peace. Not compassion for who, but a universal compassion. Maybe religion and spirituality were meant to be a private thing. Trying to present a public facing spirituality that can be used in the machines of war is just a capitalist creation. Any religion worth its salt would be all about peace.

Fighting the regime

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders have been raising lots of money for future elections, and going all over the west, campaigning against rule of the oligarchy. 

Cory Booker broke the record for filibustering, previously held by someone trying to block civil rights legislation. 

Maine Gov. Janet Mills beats Donald Trump, gets school meal funds restored while defending trans kids. She said she would see him in court. She did. She won. 

Heather Cox Richardson keeps writing about what is really going on. She's just a historian who reads the paper. 

JD Pritzker is fighting the regime as a governor in many ways, countering virtually every move. Protecting autism data, inviting Canadians to visit, criticizing enshitification in federal government with flunky cabinet choices. 

Annie Andrews is running against Lindsey Graham! (Source).

Capitalist enshitification list

My grocery store stocks items, one is popular, but there are 6 flavors. My daughter likes the white bag of potato chips, but there's 5 others. I like the amish kafir, but there's 5 other that are always in stock, and the amish runs out.

Netflix got your used to online streaming without commercials, and then cuts into password sharing and adds commercials. 

Food, retail, and other desserts. I live next to a grocery store, which is lucky, but it's not well stocked up on vegan products, it doesn't pay in my neighborhood. I walk 30 minutes to my ex's and her grocery store is filled with vegan expensive items. Richer neighborhood. You can get nooch there, not in mine. 

Apple used to be a great product. No so much any more, switching cords, not sending the bit that plugs into the wall, and on and on. 

Idiot voters through a reboot of the current regime was a good idea. 

Whatever election interference by purging voter registration and offering a million dollar prize, China and Russia's social media troll farms undermining America, I'm not aware of any election corruption yet. America voted for this regime.

He was impeached twice but it was followed through, there are enablers in government. They could write a law today that say no exporting prisoners, or they could have some noble lawyer sue the administration.

The supreme court could have allowed Colorado to take him off the ballot, and others could have followed. 

The biggest disappointment are 2 guys I know saying there's no difference in the corruption of Obama and the corruption of Trump. The otherwise nice retired school bus driver, who thinks they're hounding Trump with all his prosecution of real crimes. They don't see his convicted felonies are real. I can't wait for this fever dream to be over. 

I said Trump killed 400K by his inaction to covid to someone in the park and they could only just say maybe. I pointed out Musk's 2 sieg heils to a woman in the park, she said not to think about that. The Jewish people in my neighborhood who drive Teslas. 

Why does the right have moral clarity when it comes to the murder of abortion, but not the murder of inaction of federal government. Why are they so willing to stoke fear of communism then drive on roads we all own, have their banks protected, and trash taken away for the common good? 

Boring

It's boring to go over the current regime leader's rap sheet: Pedophelia, rapist, he's a felon, he killed people by his inaction with Covid, and not taking proper steps. He's destroying democracy, the rule of law, destroying the environment, sending immigrants and indeed citizens out of the country to concentration camps without due process. He should be in jail right now. He threatens every institution that he doesn't like, and he's enriching himself (remember the emoluments clause in the constitution?). He constantly lies, imagines himself as the pope, and he's the least spiritual, most transactional person ever. His white supremacy and othering of immigrants, destroying of democracy isn't a deal maker for some of his followers. It's old hat. The people who don't see him as any different than Democratic presidents is willful ignorance, and also a lie. That is crushes aware and woke people is a bonus to sadists and people who like harming others. He's not lowering taxes, he didn't fix egg prices or gas, and he blames Biden, lies or whatever for any attempt to make him accountable. The civics lesson everyone is learning has too high a price, and they're probably not learning it. The enablers in legislature who blocked rehiring veterans, the court not following through with it's decisions, and on and on. We now know how Hitler got away with what he did in real time, people are blind about the horrors of what he's doing until it happens to them, and then they get it, but it's too late, too little. He's a elderly ball of vengeance, and he's stocked his administration with dead eyed liars and crooks like himself. America's reputation has been ruined, American exceptionalism is over, Democracy died. The persecution of marginalized groups is horrible. The tanking of the economy, the killing of tourism. It's just boring at this point. We're heading into a depression where the only solution is socialism, he's creating the very thing he rails against, which is communism.