Symphony – Page 58 – Pacific Daily Times Editorials

Saudi leadership is deeply entrenched in an attempt to make the world a better place. Just as Trump has his enemies, so do the Saudis. The Saudi Crowned Prince did not visit Turkey and personally dismember and murder a news reporter, no matter how many anti- fake news activists might have liked him to. There are many alibis in defense of the Saudi royal family, among them that they have many enemies who want violence to continue, who are even willing to engage in violence and blame it on the royal family to stir dissent against the royal family that wants to end violence.

Trump pulled out of the INF treaty, prohibiting medium-range ground-based nukes. Gorbachev doesn’t want Trump to pull out, but he hasn’t seemed so outspoken about Putin violating the treaty. Trump’s defense will be that the treaty has already ended, the US is merely jumping ship from the boat Russia has poked holes in for a long time. Putin’s argument is that missile defense in Europe violates attack missile treaties, though that argument needs further explaining before the American public will agree. By having argued that NATO defense violated treaties restricting attack protocols, Putin is more or less acknowledging that he already has a good excuse to violate the INF treaty, but Trump does not. Either way, Russia has nothing to complain about at this point because both parties seem to think the treaty no longer applies.

When your enemy argues that violating a treaty is fair, it’s stupid not to pull out of that treaty. Signed documents don’t cause missiles to freeze in mid air. Tension between the US rises and lowers based on how much the superpowers want to get along—and signed documents trail after the ebb and flow of the greater tide.

In Cadence

Cadence of Conflict: Asia, October 15, 2018

SymphonyOctober 15, 2018October 15, 2018

It happened this week. The US finally said outright exactly what Cadence has been saying for years, the strategy in play. According to a Reuters article via Yahoo News, US security adviser John Bolton said, “If they’re put back in the proper place they would be if they weren’t allowed to steal our technology, their military capabilities would be substantially reduced. And a lot of the tensions we see caused by China would be reduced.”

The US wants to put China “back in the proper place”. If it weren’t for one-sided trade deals over the last to decades and an accumulation of technology that China neither researched, conceptualized, nor paid for, Bolton thinks China would be as friendly as a cute, little house cat, not the bossy tiger it has grown into.

Specifically, the US would need to humble the diesel-powered aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, from which China’s other aircraft carriers in the making were reverse-engineered. Taiwan held rehearsals against the Liaoning this week. In other areas, Taiwan isn’t backing down, but announced 30 new international flight destinations this week.

Looking at things in this broader context, the escalating military conflict will not result from a trade war gone awry. Rather, the trade war was but a small part of a much larger scheme to provoke China into a military conflict sooner than it wanted. Tech and money has already been cut off. New weapons have been developed and prepared. Now, the US hopes to put China “back in the proper place”. In Beijing culture, that means an attempt from the US to shame China on the seas.

We should be preparing for an insulted, post-defeat China and long-term strategists should being their review of the psychological atmosphere in pre-WWII Germany.

In Encore

Encore of Revival: America, October 15, 2018

SymphonyOctober 15, 2018October 15, 2018

Trump hosted several guests in the Oval Office this week, including Kanye West, Pastor Andrew Brunson, and Nikki Haley.

Haley is resigning from the United Nations. A likely successor could be Jared Kushner. If Jared is not named her successor, then he will continue to rise in respect behind the scenes elsewhere. Haley mentioned his effective negotiation work with the new NAFTA deal in her resignation.

Andrew Brunson was released from captivity in Turkey relating to imprisonment of Christians in a clash with Middle Eastern religion, law, and culture. His return home was thought to be a lost cause when Trump took office. The president mentioned that North Korea had also been a lost cause by the previous administration, with war being immanent. He pointed out that many supposed “lost causes” had turned around since he took office, Brunson’s return being only one of them with many more yet to come.

Inviting Kanye West into the Oval Office gave Kanye a platform to be heard. Apparently he had many things to say that had only been distorted by the media. Being heard from across the desk of the president he supports allowed him to be heard clearly and accurately. He’s not the only one with such a need.

Faith Goldy is running for mayor in Toronto. She is surrounded by opposition, including questions about advertising contracts that were not honored and possible lawsuit cases in her favor. She is up against a comfortable incumbent and an establishment comfortable with the incumbent’s comfort. Being in the top three candidates she was still rejected from participating in an election debate.

From the look of things, along with the ever-swelling #WalkAway movement, it seems that an election fraud effort may be in effect and over-optimism from the Left is the attempt to persuade public opinion otherwise. Considering that Canada has similar issues, the effort against Trump seems to be part of something both greater and international.

In Cadence

Cadence of Conflict: Asia, October 8, 2018

SymphonyOctober 8, 2018October 8, 2018

China’s political, socioeconomic worldview is that of a zero-sum game. It has played its socioeconomic game that way for decades. Now, it must empty its reserve coffers to keep its zero-sum game strategy from sinking too fast. This means that it can’t use those coffers if a military conflict arose. The United States knows this.

Don’t be fooled. The US strategy is to provoke China into a conflict sooner than it wants. In the Western view, China has shown how it will behave by having shown how it has behaved more and more. This is enough to warrant preemptive agitation for the Western taxpayer. In China’s view, the world has failed to bestow on China what China deserves; because China rightly deserves what it deserves, China can’t lose.

Interpol has now gotten whatever international attention against China’s favor that Hong Kong malcontents did not. With the disappearance of Interpol’s president into China, whoever didn’t care about so-called “Chinese aggression” does now. China’s government thinks they sent a message to the world. They did, but the message received is probably not the message that was intended.

As the Pacific conflict escalates, the US-Taiwan aggravation strategy moves into more military cooperation. “Unprecedented” was the word of the week. And, everyone knows what it means just as much as everyone knows why.

In Encore

Encore of Revival: America, October 8, 2018

SymphonyOctober 8, 2018October 8, 2018

The confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh opens a new problem for Conservatives: supermajority. Any unchecked party is dangerous. Breyer and Ginsberg are aging. If one of them resigns or passes within the foreseeable election future, the Supreme Court would be packed with Conservative, Republican judges. Justice Kennedy had been a swing vote, a kind of wild card on the court. That time is gone. We live in a new era of a truly Republican court.

The path leading the country to this Republican control, however, was too bumpy to make Republican voters lazy. Had Democrats played friendly and kind, the coming wrath of the Republican voter wouldn’t have become so big as we will see in November. With polls being reported as hopeful for Democrats, we could see even more Republicans provoked to vote in 2018 than in 2016. It almost seems as if Democrats and the media are in some kind of secret cooperation to push Republican voters.

With the economy clipping along and so many kept promises from Trump, who has a 50% job approval rating, Republican progress looks likely. There are many states reportedly in play, but that amounts to 44 Senate seats secure for Democrats and 48 secure for Republicans. The reported tossup is a steeper climb for Democrats than Republicans and, with the Kavanaugh turbulence, Republican voters won’t be staying home.

In the minds of Democrat voters, a strong Republican court makes them paranoid that Republican police could come to their homes any minute now and burn them alive for flying rainbow flags. This kind of hysteria has been cultivated by Democratic propaganda, though never stated directly, being intended to get Democratic votes, though its effects will be dangerous when those votes aren’t enough to win elections.

Republican strategy went correctly. By confirming Kavanaugh, Republicans acted like Republicans, which always brings out the Republican vote. Loss has always brought out Democratic demonstration. While we may be looking at an unusual mid-term victory for the president’s party next month, we could also be looking at riots soon after. And, in America just as we see in the swelling #WalkAway movement, the aftermath of riots leads to one thing: repentance.

In Cadence

Cadence of Conflict: Asia, October 1, 2018

SymphonyOctober 1, 2018October 1, 2018

When China cancelled a meeting in Washington, the Chinese thought they were sending a message; Washington thought they wouldn’t be sending any more messages at all. The Chinese government wants mutual respect, trade that results in equal numbers, and that countries not be bullied into taking sides in a China-US disagreement. Though China lobbed this new policy in a complaint against the US, there have yet to be steps or specific commitments on how China will hold up its side of this new policy. It will be difficult to get clarification without communication.

US tariffs are unfair. It’s so obvious that it doesn’t need to be proven. China has a right, after all—and everyone should agree—to develop itself as a nation. China’s right to have any and all resources given to it from everywhere in the world, to whatever extent is needed for development, is an entitlement China has by birth and is already universally accepted around the world. Those in the US who oppose this obvious consensus are a rogue fringe not deserving of academic mention.

But, Taiwan is being a big bully—a meanie-face. By not rebuking the US for considering a third of a billion dollar arms sale to Taiwan, the Taiwanese are spitting in Beijing’s face once again. As if that bullying wasn’t enough, Taiwan is also planning a new place to park its helicopters. Of all the audacity!

Hong Kong, however, stands no chance against the great and mighty China. By banning a pro-independence party, the Hong Kong government sure showed them! There’s no possible hope for any kind of backlash or rise in sympathy, once the rightful leaders have made their all-powerful will known in the fully self-governed special administrative region of Hong Kong.