Symphony – Page 34 – Pacific Daily Times Editorials

There is more likely to be death in America from the shortages caused by hoarding than from what should be called the “pneumoniavirus”. Americans have too often harbored a love for drama. They don’t want to listen when told to wash their hands or wear a mask to the supermarket when they feel sick, but when they actually realize that they can’t ignore a thing, it’s time to turn every home into a survival bunker. There’s little sense for calm and order.

That was the deeper weakness in the societal immune system of America. Love for bad news will be the undoing of many Americans. Once this is over, the toilet paper hoarders will become known to their friends, scorned by their friends, then feel foolish. Theatrics and drama are far from over.

The economy is taking a hit—everyone is taking a hit. People will have to forgive those who overreacted, otherwise they will be the ones who overreact next.

The economic problem in America has roots deeper than the virus, but in society. And, society’s problem is rooted in the spiritual. Like Lincoln during the Civil War, Trump called a day for nation-wide prayer. Anyone who so chooses will come through this better off. Read More

In Cadence

Cadence of Conflict: Asia, March 9, 2020

SymphonyMarch 8, 2020March 9, 2020

Things are fairing worse and worse for China, but better and better for Taiwan.

The KMT-Nationalist party is abandoning its long-standing agreement to cooperate with the Chinese Communists, much how the American Democratic party is abandoning socialism within its ranks. Taiwan’s handling of the 2019-nCoV Wuhan virus is top notch, possibly the best in the world. The irony is that Taiwan is not a member of the WHO, for mere reasons of political pressure from China. The world will interpret Taiwan’s absence from the WHO through the poor response to the virus from WHO members. And the world will, accordingly, blame China not only for the virus, but for the lack of Taiwan’s valued input in the WHO.

This week, when things seemed as though they couldn’t get worse in China, a hotel collapsed, which housed many people being observed for the virus. Not all had been diagnosed, but at least 10 are dead from the collapse.

Interestingly, this does not fair well for Taiwan. The more respect Taiwan earns from the international community, and the more spite China earns from the international community, the more envy will boil and bubble as China froths with rage against Taiwan. China’s government is not functioning with any trace of sobriety. Recent events are pushing the Chinese government over the edge in their ancient desire to invade Taiwan. While that would leave them vulnerable at home and hated even more throughout the world, such things never stopped them before and certainly aren’t stopping them now. Read More

In Encore

Encore of Revival: America, March 9, 2020

SymphonyMarch 8, 2020March 9, 2020

Though he still would have lost, Sanders would have been the best candidate against Trump because he represents everything Trump is not. But, either the DNC establishment or the country doesn’t side with Sanders’s socialist values. In all likelihood, the DNC move away from Bernie is related to its move away from other hardline socialists in their ranks. In other words, the battle of ideologies might already be over.

The 2020 election is now in full swing. Even the Wuhan 2019-nCoV coronavirus demands a response to please November. Perhaps that’s why Democrats defended Joe Biden so avidly during the impeachment process. Perhaps they always planned to have him as their front runner and nominee. Perhaps they know that socialism loses elections, even more since capitalism has been given an extra try over the last three years.

In Cadence

Cadence of Conflict: Asia, March 2, 2020

SymphonyMarch 2, 2020March 2, 2020

Wuhan 2019-nCoV will not end the world. But, it is throwing the world into panic. The long-time NIAID director steps out of lock with the president and gives a sobering warning about how viruses actually spread. Bad as the truth is, the stock market is drastically overreacting and Trump is trying to prevent a panic—or that’s at least what we’re all supposed to think. We can’t have the truth of both bad and good news told to a public that dwells on the bad and ignores the good. Presidents know that, disease directors not so much. So, the director should get the muzzle, right?

That will cause more panic. Where panic and fear of China weren’t enough to keep Americans from making China rich at Walmart for decades, fear of China’s virus spreading at Walmart is making up for lost panic.

This is the perfect storm for those who chose not to prepare. The virus won’t kill the world, but the world is panicking and will carry a grudge for what a Chinese virus did to the stock market. Once the virus passes, the world will have time to clean house. China will be blamed, as it should for it’s mismatched priorities, then the world will cut China down to the size it never should have been allowed to grow past.

But in the meantime, the Chinese people are re-evaluating their own priorities, deciding whether their president has his own priorities in order. We could be looking at more killing fields, where citizens who fell for the games of self-censorship and spreading Communist propaganda are executed as cowards. Hopefully it won’t come to that. But, China will face the enemies that it made on the inside while it also faces the enemies that made it big from the outside.

In Encore

Encore of Revival: America, March 2, 2020

SymphonyMarch 2, 2020March 2, 2020

Tom Steyer doesn’t seem to know which party he’s running for. Recommending private sector solutions to the voter base that wanted Sanders v Trump in 2016 is, in a word, nutty. But, he shares one thing in common with Bloomberg: they think Trump’s deep pockets bought him the election, so they could copy-cat the same victory. But, Trump’s deep pockets didn’t buy him the election; Trump earned it through a life in the office rather than a private palace and over a decade of experience watching the public respond to him on camera.

While the Democratic party is being commandeered by radicals, the base is shifting from “help us -ists” to “socialists”. Sanders would have probably won the 2016 nomination were it not for the Democratic party’s non-democratic system of superdelegates throwing their minority support to Hillary. Unlike the professional campaign organizers (including Biden), and unlike the lazy rich guys (including Biden), Sanders is the real deal. He’s in it because he believes in it. And, his base respects him for the same two reasons Trump’s base respects him: hard work and personal connection to the crowd. To boot, it’s about ideology.

Part of the schism forming between the evermore so apparent “two Americas” is about how we view money. Some view money as having an ethereal source—once a country or company is “rich”, money just grows on trees or something. Others view money as having to be generated from a combination of work and savvy, no matter how rich a country or company gets. The “ethereals” believe the economy grows because government injects money from the imaginary hole in space through which money pours without end, and this is good because rich companies are purportedly rich because they have access to a similar money hole in space. The “savvyists” believe government can only give what government already took away and that companies can only make what they continue to think and work for.

The test of the 2020 election is a battle of ideals. Whichever voter base sees the universe correctly will have the strength to muster an election victory. So, you see, 2020 is about clear vision.

In Cadence

Cadence of Conflict: Asia, February 24, 2020

SymphonyFebruary 24, 2020February 24, 2020

There isn’t news this week. More countries hate China. More people are sick with Wuhan nCoV. Cases rise in the Far East. Taiwan is one of the safest places to be—in terms of the virus, that is. Friends of Taiwan continue to be punished; this week regarded Czech in particular with the Senate chair planning a visit to one of the safest places to be in the Far East—in terms of the virus, that is.

The trend in Western journalism is to look down the nose toward China. Media censorship, mismanagement, discontent, and incompetence are part of the narrative. The US president has a different take.

Satellite-based data has been used to suggest that China may be burning thousands of bodies in Wuhan. The site that aggregated the data that was separately used to make this suggestion was windy.com—a Czech company. Go figure. Windy.com did not make the suggestion; it visually animates data already available to the public. There is no news here, only everyone’s data and someone else’s speculation. The interesting part is how quick the Western public is to jump on any excuse to think something bad about China.

Certainly, cynicism toward China is not without cited history. China remains indignant. Nothing is new, except Czech’s name in the headlines. China’s spite for Taiwan and friends only grows as spite for China and friends snowballs all the more. Perhaps next week will yield something new in the news. But, when so many people are so bound to make history repeat, there just might not be much to report—except for those who only read what repeats.