Check out Tomorrowland today!

Check out Tomorrowland today!

“There are two wolves who are always fighting. One is darkness and despair. The other is light and hope. The question is: which wolf wins?”

“The one you feed.”

This is the central narrative of Tomorrowland: Choice. This is expressed in a young Frank explaining that he was tired of waiting for someone else to invent something that he wanted, so he did it himself. And it is central to Casey's question of 'What is anyone doing about it?' when confronted with gloom and doom. But both Casey and Frank make a choice to act and change things for the better.

Yes, Tommowland is about jetpacks and robots and antique rocketships, and all of those things are fun, but the main thing that it is about it which future will you chose? The one where nothing is asked of you and you just sit back and let everything happen (and then moan about how you are a victim) OR will you choose the future where you get up and look around and see what is happening and then figure out a way to do something (other than just talk) about it?

The villain in the film is correct, the vast majority will choose the future when nothing is asked of them, but is that what you will choose? And today, that choice is easier than ever. People scoff at Wikipedia and YouTube, but these are great places to start learning about almost any topic when that used to require either finding a book, or a class or a person who already knows about the topic. And YouTube also is a great place to get practical knowledge on almost any topic, and they are both out there for free!

In the Sherlock Holmes stories, there are many little narratives that Doyle inserts to comment on his time, and one of those is Holmes and Watson discussion how an education that used to be expensive and difficult to get, was largely available through the encyclopedias of the day and that nearly anyone who had a mind to, could just go out and educate himself pretty well, on whatever subject he wished to know. That is even more true today, but we still operate as if the action of finding the answers is a difficult one, and it is not.

Are there valid criticisms of Tomorrowland? Sure. But they are largely about the form of the movie and less about the function. Yes, the people in Tomorrowland have a vapid look on their faces—which I attributed to two things: either the director really had no idea how the people who would populate such a place would act and played it safe by having them all just very calmly and passively going about (so as not to also detract from our heroes) OR the director thought that these should look serene and calm and secure in their fantastic setting. And yes, the very act of creating Tomorrowland actually sets up the terrible danger to the rest of the world, and at the end of the movie, the people in Tommowland are going to try again, but I took that to mean that they had learned from their mistakes and would be doing things differently this time around, not that they were insane and just going to wreck everything for a second time.

Tomorrowland is a dream. And the way it is portrayed in the movie it is an impossible one. Not that a place couldn't be found—a place could be found. One could argue that it has already happened many times over in history. In one sense, America (among other places) is Tomorrowland, where over the last couple of centuries the best and brightest have come to do, when they couldn't anywhere else (and ironically, our own media has become like the evil machine in Tomorrowland; broadcasting out an unrelenting stream of negativity and despair that is causing people to sit back and bemoan about how they are victims). But any real place, be it Tomorrowland, America or anywhere, would have the same problem which is that people have connections to their friends and their family and you can't just transplant all the smart and creative people into one place as amazing as that might be to think about—most of them wouldn't want to leave those connections behind.

Tomorrowland is a dream also because of another problem, money. Any part of the technology of Tomorrowland would be worth billions  (likely more) and we see what problems are caused by people fighting over the money that an idea is worth to others. We see it all the time.

Tomorrowland is a dream lastly because of governments. While businesses would use money to get the fruits of such a place, governments would use naked force—in the name of 'security' to get at those same fruits. We see that happen all the time too. We see a government that stumbles over itself to shut down twitter accounts of recruiting terrorists, moves with surprising speed and accuracy to stop a person distributing the data for how to instruct a 3D print from making a firearm.

Tomorrowland is a dream, yes. And while it will always remain so, that is just as well. For if Tomorrowland were real then it would paradoxically cause the real people like Frank and Casey to think that they have to get there before they can act and start to make a difference. With the advent and availability of information via the Internet, I say this:

Tomorrowland is TODAY. It is right here. All you have to do is OODA.* Observe what is around you and see what you would like to change. Orient yourself to what you know and what you need to know. Decide what you will do. Act, do it.

for more essays and for short stories, check out http://www.MHHickey.com

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* the OODA loop decision cycle theory is the product of USAF Colonel John Boyd. For more information, go here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OODA_loop

...with a side of Hypocrisy?

Hypocrisy, the gateway of sins. Who knew? Who cares, right?

Given all the different ways that people mistreat each other, a person might think that hypocrisy is so insignificant as to not be worth considering. When compared to lying, cheating and stealing, and especially when compared to assault, arson and murder; what is little old hypocrisy? But bear with me for a moment and I think you will see that what the behavior of hypocrisy lacks in apparent depth, it makes up for in breadth.

If you've not thought much about hypocrisy before, let me quickly give the definition that I use when confronting it; Hypocrisy is using a double standard, or put another way, saying one thing and doing another. So what has that to do with other bad things that people do to each other?

To answer that question and show why it is important to keep an eye out for hypocritical behavior I refer you to the diagram shown.

On the diagram you can see four different areas of people:

First, there are 'Non-hypocrites'; these are people who genuinely try to be consistent and fair in their behavior. They may not always succeed, but they make a real effort to not be hypocritical. This is most likely not because they have any aversion or obsession with the idea of hypocrisy but rather because they want to treat other people they way that they would like to be treated. Does that sound familiar? I hope it does, because that is the essence of 'The Golden Rule'. 'Treating other people the way that you would like to be treated', or 'not treating other people in a way that you would not like to be treated' is a fundamental ethical principle found across cultures and throughout the world. And it is why it is worth paying attention to hypocrisy and people who behave hypocritically. Notice the second group of people:

The Hypocrites. Obviously, these are people who behave hypocritically. Again, it is most likely not because they embrace hypocrisy, but rather because they unaware of the full extent of their own behavior or it may be because they choose to behave hypocritically rather than make the effort to be more consistent and fair in how they treat others. The point here is in remembering that these people are using a double standard when they interact with other people. They are saying one thing and doing another when they are dealing with others. It is in the behavior that they exhibit in how they treat other people that is showing the inconsistency and the unfairness. And ultimately, it is calling into question if they are consistently ethical people at all. Which brings us to the clearly unethical people in the third group:

The Bad Actors. These people are the ones who lie, cheat and steal. They are the ones who destroy, assault and murder. They are people who I will call the 'Bad Actors' because their actions are clearly bad. Now, are they bad all of the time? Certainly not. Some of these people will only do a few overtly bad things a couple times out of the year, others will do bad things every day. But if the bad things that they do are examined for even a moment, one will see the connection to hypocrisy. Consider lying. Is lying to someone, treating another person in the way that the liar would like to be treated? Or cheating, would the cheater like to be treated that way? The pattern is obvious, all of the 'more serious' bad behavior has hypocrisy built into it. When a person is abusive to someone else, that are being and abuser and a hypocrite. When are person steals from another, he is a thief and a hypocrite. So it is with all of the bad things that people do to one another. So what, right? So Bad Actors are also Hypocrites. Big deal, right? It is a big deal, but not because Bad Actors are also Hypocrites, but because Non-hypocrites are not Bad Actors. Except for group number four and we will get to them in a moment.

That is really the point of this essay, people who go out of their way to treat other people in a consistent and fair manner are not people who will lie, cheat, do the other other 'more serious' bad things to other people. This is because Non-hypocrites recoil from treating other people in a way that they wouldn't want to be treated. Alright, I can hear some people saying, 'Well, duh!', so let me take all of this one tiny step further so you can see why the whole subject is so important.

People see and remember what the other people around them do. They see when that person didn't treat another person fairly. Or when someone clearly said one thing, but then did quite another. Or that time when someone paused and considered that what they were doing wouldn't be fair and then changed and did the fair thing for someone else. People see all those things and they make estimations about what the people around them will do in future based on what they have already done. Obvious and intuitive, right? Right, it is. But my point is that when a person exhibits hypocrisy then that is a clue to the other behaviors that they have done that you may not have seen. So too, when a person goes out of his or her way to not say one thing and do another, that also is a clue to what the person does –or doesn't do-- the rest of the time.

And that is my point. If you observe and sort out the people around you by whether they are hypocrites or not, you will also be sorting out those people who may be doing more serious harm to others from those who are not. To a Non-hypocrite, hypocritical behavior is something that they really do notice and recoil from. But to Bad Actors, who know the things that they have done to others, hypocrisy is 'little stuff' and they treat it as such. They know that they have done much worse things and they see hypocrisy in comparison to those other things that you may know nothing about. But the prevalence of them saying one thing but doing another, or having one standard for some people and another standard for others—hypocrisy-- is the clue that there is other 'bad stuff' that they are also doing and to be forewarned of it.

Now, I know that there are some people who are extremely adept at hiding their bad behavior and pretending to be nice the rest of the time. They know that behaving ethically most of the time will throw other people off to their 'darker side' and I don't pretend to think that what I have said here will reveal them. (but if you check out my essay: the Lamp of Diogenes, you might find a tool there) Nor am I saying that someone who is hypocritical in one area is secretly a Bad Actor that needs to be avoided. These are just some observations and comments to help others in thinking about and navigating by the people in the world around them, I hope you enjoyed it.

Oh. group number four? You remembered them? Well, they are a strange lot, if they even exist. They are the very small number of people who would are Bad Actors, but they are not hypocritical about it. They freely admit that they what they do is stuff they wouldn't want done to them (or maybe they don't care?) and do not try to hide the bad things they do. I included them, just because I have, on occasion, heard of such people and wished to be thorough in my diagram. As I said, I'm not sure if they even exist. And maybe they would still be hypocrites in any case. But there you have it.

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Anti-?

Anti-?

Antithetic: a) Of the nature of Antithesis. b)opposing, controversial. c)contrasted, directly opposite

Lately, there has been a lot of talk in the press and on social media and on the Web about 'anti-this' and 'anti-that'. Some people are said to be 'anti-vaccination', others are said to be 'anti-GMO', and of course there are the much old and more familiar groups who are 'anti-abortion' or 'anti-war'. Are these people and groups all really the same in the way in which they are 'anti-one-thing' or 'anti-another'? No. Of course not. But those who throw around the 'anti-' label when it doesn't really apply are hoping that you wouldn't notice that. But, by the time you are done reading this—you will have.

When some person or group is 'anti-something' it means that they don't just decline to participate in it, but they oppose it existing for other people as well. An example would be me: I am antithetical or 'anti-' to several things. I am antithetical to murder, so I am 'anti-murder'. Not only do I not want to be the victim of murder or commit murder, but also I am opposed to it going on any where—and I support effective measures to halt murder wherever it may be happening. I am 'anti-assault'. Not only do I not want to be involved in assaults, I don't want anyone to be. I am anti-fraud, if a person has made a promise (a contractual obligation) then I am opposed to that person not delivering on that promise. So those are clear examples of how I am antithetical to some things.

In similar a vein, other people may be 'anti-war' or 'anti-abortion'. Not only declining to participate, but also opposing other people being involved in the things that they are antithetical towards. But here is where things begin to get confusing: some people may not wish to be involved with war or involved with something like abortion, but those people may not oppose such things going on beyond their participation. Some people don't want their country to be involved in a war, but are indifferent if other countries are engaged in conflict—as long as it doesn't involve them. Also, some people may avoid having an abortion, but may not support the prevention of abortion among other people. But for both of those issues, there are still other people who don't want to participate and don't want anyone else to participate in them either. Those people are more than just declining to be involved with something, they are antithetical to it happening anywhere.

So what about the 'antivaxxers, the 'anti-vaccination' people? Are they really antithetical to vaccines happening anywhere? And what about the 'anti-GMO' people, 'anti-evolution' people or even the 'anti-science' people? Well, let's take a quick look at this and sort it out.

Do the 'anti-vaccine' people push for the halting of vaccines everywhere, by everybody? Not that I have seen. I have never heard of people who choose not to get vaccines for themselves or their families advocate that vaccine be banned. If those people had the same antithetical position as I have on murder or assault then they surely would be 'anti-vaccine'. But they don't. They don't want to halt all vaccines, they just want to not be forced to participate. So they are clearly not 'anti-vaccine'. Moving on--

Do 'anti-evolution' people want the study of evolution to be stopped? Do they demand that evolution not be taught anywhere? If you can find some that actually do want that, then you have found people who truly are 'anti-evolution', but if you cannot, then you have people who simply want to be able to decline to participate or , at most, people who want their view to get equal billing. Call it what you will, but don't call it 'anti-evolution' because it's not.

What about the 'anti-GMO' people? Are they really antithetical to Genetically Modified Organisms? Well, some are and some aren't. Some are concerned that GMO's will interact with the natural environment and escape the confines of laboratories and GMO farms and have unknown (and presumably harmful) effects on the environment. Those people are 'anti-GMO', yes. But the rest are merely wanting to be able to opt-out and not participate in the producing or consumption of GMO products when they go to the super-market. These people are not 'anti-GMO'.

And lastly, what about the people called 'anti-science'? Are there people who are really antithetical to the organized inquiry into the world around use that—when done properly—is called science? Perhaps, but you haven't met them. Not really. The people you have met have been people who didn't understand science or how it worked, or perhaps didn't accepts all of the conclusion's of science as true—but that hardly makes them 'anti-science'. The only 'anti-science' people are those such as the Luddites who would show how antithetical they were by destroying machinery. There aren't many of them around today because science is just an idea—like reasoning and mathematics—it helps you understand the world around you. And there just aren't that many people to be found anywhere who are really antithetical to trying to understand things. I imagine that there are a few—but only a few.

So what is going on here? Who is really 'anti-' here and why are so many people being misnamed?

There are two problems:

The first is linguistic. Just as there wasn't a word to describe the first two decades of the twenty-first century (as the other decades were called the 'eighties' or the 'nineties') there isn't a word to use in place of 'anti-' to create a hybrid that would convey that a person isn't antithetical to something but is merely skeptical or simply doesn't wish to participate. Calling someone 'anti-vaccine' or 'anti-science' is easy and has an immediate understanding within our language. Calling someone 'skepti-science' or 'skepti-vaccine' doesn't have as quick of an 'in' to being easily understood (or misunderstood) in our language. And there is no readily available alternative to 'anti-', so we are left with calling people something that they are not.

The second problem is one of social politics. Calling someone 'anti-vaccine' or 'anti-evolution' is a quick-and-dirty way of mislabeling their position (also called a 'Straw Man Argument') and thus makes it easy to deride the person or group for something they haven't done or said. This may be done because of sloppiness or it may be done intentionally.

When done intentionally, it is something I take particular offense towards because it represents a fundamental ethical failure to treat people in this way. Would the people doing this like to be slandered and mislabeled by others? I think not. But some will do use the word 'anti-' knowing full well that it isn't really what the other people believe because it makes those other people easier to vilify. And those are the real 'anti-'s here.

The people who intentionally vilify those who just want to opt-out of believing in something or doing something are the real 'anti-'s. And what are the antithetical of? Tolerance.

People who cannot allow others to have their own beliefs and behaviors are intolerant of the beliefs and behaviors that are not their own. They are anti-tolerance. And the people who just want to be allowed the space to have their own believes and conduct their own behavior need to stop encouraging these bullies to continue their attack on them. They need to stand up and call out these bullies as the anti-tolerant.....'people' that they are.

I know that some may be clever enough to say that they are 'anti-measles' and that such a position makes it alright for them to bully others into getting a measles vaccine. I don't necessarily accept that argument, BUT if a person truly were 'anti-measles' and was only concerned with preventing the disease, then the way to do it isn't but becoming a tyrant or a bully but by respecting other people and understanding their concerns and skepticism as well as a person understands his own position. Then a person who is only 'anti-measles' will be able to work with those other people instead of against them.

And that is my conclusion and advice. Don't let something that you really are antithetical towards make you become antithetical towards other people. I know that requires a lot more work, but I think you will find the extra effort worth it. At least, I hope so.

for more essays and for short stories, check out MHHickey.com

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The Lamp of Diogenes: Inquiry and Transparency

The Lamp of Diogenes: Inquiry and Transparency

“What are you doing with your lamp out, Diogenes? It's the middle of the day”

“I am looking for an honest man.”

That is how the story of Diogenes was related to me by my mother when I was young and it has stuck with me ever since. At first, it was because of the curious actions of the man and that they indicated a deeper truth—though I was too young at the time to fully grasp it. Having a basic familiarity with Bible stories as well, I naturally drew parallels to the story of Lot and the Angels telling him that they would spare his city, if he could but find a single righteous man. Of course, he couldn't and the city was destroyed, but the notion of the scarcity of honest men or of righteous men was something that stuck with me. But, as I have learned some of the deeper truths of human nature I have realized that there may be much more to the legend of Diogenes that I could have ever guessed at the time. What I share with you now may have been a secret, original doctrine to accompany the story of Diogenes and his Lamp, or it may be more of a function of the truth that 'when the student is ready, the teacher appears'. You may judge this for yourself.

Diogenes is looking for an honest man, we are told. And he is using a lamp to find one? What a curious idea. Why a lamp? Because a Lamp illuminates darkness. So Diogenes is seeking to penetrate some darkness with a kind of light. What is it that shines forth from his Lamp, what is this light? It is the Light of Inquiry.

By asking questions, Diogenes will find out if a man that he encounters is transparent or opaque. If the man is transparent, the man is open to revealing the truth that is within himself and the man is honest—to the degree that he is transparent. If the man is opaque, the man is hiding the truth within himself and the man is not honest.

The answers to the questions are important, but it is the openness to giving up answers—the transparency-- that is most important and is the key to whether he is an honest man or not. I will not say that the content of the answers is of no matter, only that the content of the answers is secondary to the willingness to yield those answers. The content of the answers is important in understand the truths within the man being questioned, but also in whether the man is of a particularly dishonest sort. Some men are adept at pretending to be open and honest and will give answers that are not reflective of the truth within them. But even a casual examination of the content of the answers given will reveal the inconsistencies and eventually, the Light of Inquiry will reach to a depth where the deceiver cannot keep up the deception any longer.

So what are the questions that fuel the Light of Inquiry? They are numerous and unspecific, they are almost unimportant. But regardless of their specific form they will be the most pertinent questions that come to mind when confronted with a man that you do not know—or even a man that you may think you know. Socrates was a person who would have been able to fuel the Lamp of Diogenes quite well. Any time one begins with asking 'Why?' in relation to a person's behavior, the Lamp will begin to shine. The rest of the questions flow from that.

Then it is just a matter of observing what one sees by the light of the Lamp. Is the man open, does he reveal his motives and intentions? Or does he conceal them? Does he try to distract or get angry as the light of the Lamp shines in his dishonest eyes? One must be very careful with a tool as powerful as the Lamp of Diogenes. Inquiry has been the death of many a decent man. Just ask Socrates.

As for the finding a righteous man...I will have to get back to you on that.

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An Insidious False Choice: Left to Right

An Insidious False Dichotomy

Take a look at this graph:

It purports to represent the choices that we have in our politics. You can chose communism on the one side, or fascism on the other, or you can try for some more 'moderate' form of collectivism such as socialism in the middle. But look again, this graph is deceitful.

In the same way that you might trick a child by offering a choice of 'a drink of water before going to bed' or 'a story before going to bed' the child is still going to bed-- which is, of course, the real goal in offering the choice at all. In choosing one or the other the child is also choosing to do what you want.

This graph is exactly such a trick, but it's motives are not so benign as getting a child to rest. This graph is saying 'would you like collectivism delivered as communism or delivered as fascism?' And it further deceives students learning about social sciences by diverting attention to the 'red herring' of socialism as a more 'moderate' form of collectivism.

The real choice isn't what form of collectivism that you want to have the real choice is between collectivism and individualism. But this is not a choice presented to students, as the teacher would have a difficult time getting students to swallow collectivist ideology is a choice other than collectivism were presented. Everyone starts out as an individualist. Parents know that every child goes through a period of asserting his or her individuality and slowly learning—not that he or she is not an individual but that—there are other individuals are the child who the child must learn to get along with.

Collectivism is not presented as a choice to be compared to individualism, but rather it is presented as a 'false choice'-- what is called a false dichotomy—where students are tricked into learning about how one form of collectivism compares to another instead of learning how collectivism compares to individualism. This is insidious. And this is wrong.

The greatness of the idea of America is the idea of the individual, not the collective. The rights protected by the Constitution are rights of individuals—not of the group. But the elitists have turned classroom instruction into collectivist propaganda in order to indoctrinate students into accepting that they are not individuals but are rather only members of various groups. And it has worked surprisingly-- shockingly-- well.

This is particularly evident when any attempt is made to contrast political conservatism against political liberalism. Since liberalism is identified as either socialist or communist, and since students are taught that the opposite of communism is fascism, they erroneously think that conservatism must identify with fascism. Conservatism identifies with individualism. It doesn't identify with fascism or socialism or communism because these are all collectivist views. The word 'Fascism' comes from the idea that a bundle of stick –a fascista—is stronger than an individual stick. Fascism is not a conservative idea because it is a form of collectivism, if anything it would be a politically liberal idea—just like communism and socialism.

Young people today commonly see themselves and others through the lens of what group they belong to, whether that is defined by race, age, wealth, activities, gender, religion or a thousand other means-- instead of seeing themselves and others as unique individuals. Oh, the elites will give lip-service to the uniqueness of the individual, but they will turn right around and target those who do not fit into one group or another –particularly when those individuals do not belong to their group-- for ridicule and exclusion.

What can be done? Start by refusing to play their game. Start by making sure to inoculate young people against this trickery by that they are first individuals and that they don't have to be just a part of a group. I would advocate getting involved at the local level and demanding that collectivism not be assumed and that it be taught as a contrast to individualism—but I don't know if anyone would even listen. The obvious course of action is simply to be aware of this deception and to be aware of what your children are learning and when they reach the point of being given collectivist propaganda, to simply counter it by pointing out that we are all individuals first. It is such a simple notion and intuitively understood that I would hope all it takes to knock over this deceptive 'house of cards' is the breath of just one word, one word that only an individualist will truly understand: Freedom.

That is my hope.

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Barry Soetoro had a Great Fall...

Barry Soetoro had a Great Fall...
(--with 2020 Addendum)

Do you remember where you were 10 years ago? Do you remember who was president? Who was governor? More to the point, had you ever heard of Barry Soetoro, or should I say Barack Obama? Technically, maybe you had. 10 years ago, Mr. Obama had just been sworn in as a Senator and had been the Keynote speaker at the DNC convention the previous November, but you get my point. Bush had been a Governor for 6 years be becoming President, Clinton for 10 years, Bush Sr. had been a been a Vice-President for 8 years, Reagan had been Governor for 8 years, Carter had been for 4 years, Ford had been Nixon's Vice-President and Nixon and been in politics at the nation level for a very long time before gaining the highest office in the land. I can go back further, but the world becomes less and less recognizable through the lens of mass media and each instance of a person's rise to President becomes less similar than a rise is today. So my point is that Mr. Obama has had a meteoric rise to become President of the United States.

Let me take a moment to stress that meteoric rise. In 2005, Mr. Obama was sworn in as a Senator from Illinois and just 4 years later he was being sworn in as President, having not even served a complete term as a US Senator. He catapulted from being a State Senator—one of about 2400 nation-wide—to being a US Senator, and then quickly catapulted further to become the United States President. Now, making the jump from State Senator to US Senator is not that unusual. And the jump from Senator to President has happened before, Nixon and Kennedy are examples of that. But to jump from State Senator to US Senator and then right on to the Presidency, without pause? That is unheard of. Everyone who advances up the ranks in leadership has a pause while he or she learns how to handle the new roles and responsibilities and then build a track-record to demonstrate that he or she is ready for the next step. But not Mr. Obama. So I assert that Mr. Obama's rise, is a rise most unusual.

'But', some may argue, 'If a person is of extraordinary ability, then he will have an extraordinary rise'. That is true, look at the meteoric rise in the business world of Mr. Zuckerburg. He built Facebook into a platform that others could use and has virtually defined Social Media, he was in the right place, at the right time, with the right ambition and the right skills—much like Mr. Gates and Mr. Jobs (read Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers for more on them). But is Mr. Obama one of these 'extraordinary' people? Was he in the right place at the right time, with the right ambition and the right skills? I expect that depends on that you mean by 'right'. Clearly, he did get elected, so he must have been at the right time and place. Also, it is just as clear that he had the right ambition, or at least that he had the ambition to go after what he wanted—whatever that was. But did he have the 'right' skills? Again, since he did get elected—and re-elected—he clearly has the skills needed to win elections.

So we know he can get the job, but can he do the job? Let the evidence speak for itself: IRS targeting and 'missing' emails, Benghazi, Veterans Administration scandal, trading 5 Taliban leaders for 1 American deserter in violation of law and under false pretenses of poor health of the deserter, spying on the Associated Press, ATF 'Fast and Furious', Eric Holder refusal to turn over emails and contempt of Congress charges, the Healthcare.gov failed rollout, giving 500 million in government money to Solyndra—the company that donated 500 thousand to Mr. Obama's election, Holder's explanation of his refusal to prosecute Black Panthers for voter intimidation, promising but failing to close Gitmo, refusing to defend laws that Mr. Obama doesn't agree with-- in spite of his oath of office, changing the definitions of measurements to create false figures—such as counting people turned away at the border as 'deportations' when that wasn't counted in the past and using Executive 'Memorandum' in place of Executive Orders to claim that he doesn't use Executive Orders very frequently, granting Executive Amnesty to people in the country illegally—in spite of repeatedly claiming to lack the authority to do so, repeatedly lying to the American people about the ACA and telling then that they 'could keep their insurance' and that they 'could keep their doctors', the Secret Service prostitution scandal, the Secret Service failure to stop intruders into the White House, the political imprisonment of a man for making a film offensive to Muslims....gosh, you know, I can go on and on with this, but I think I have presented enough to make my point.

And the point is this: if Mr. Obama was the man with the 'right' skills, these things and these kinds of things just wouldn't have happened with such frequency. They have happened with such frequency that before a scandal has even left the news, another one emerged to supplant it, and then another one after that. And what has been Mr. Obama's response to such scandals? All too often it has been to claim ignorance, or to declare some future action and then just never follow through. Mr. Obama has a staff of nearly 2000 people to assist him in his job as President—admittedly a difficult job—yet he is constantly blindsided. Whether it was knowing about the IRS targeting, the VA scandal, or the formidability of ISIS, he claims to has been mis-informed. Sorry, but either he is lying, or he does not have the 'right' skills to justify his meteoric rise to power. His rise to power is a rise unearned.

If Mr. Obama does not have the right skills to justify his meteoric rise to power, then how did he achieve it, how did it happen? I assert that he did not achieve it, but it happened nonetheless. Which can only mean that someone else—likely a lot of someone else's—assisted him in his rise to power. Why would I say that, what is the evidence? I present 2 key things that happened after Mr. Obama got elected that expose the strings of the puppeteers and suggest that some things which happened before he got elected were not accidental but were intended to happen to make him become President. The first is the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize in October of 2009 to Mr. Obama. This award stunned everyone and no one has a satisfactory explanation for how Mr. Obama had earned it. The best anyone can say is that it was awarded as a downpayment for future actions that would foster peace world-wide. The second item is the US Senate's vote to 'cut funding for the closure of Guantanamo Bay' by a vote of 90-6. This is key, if the Senate can control the military with such surgical precision, then the whole role of Mr. Obama as Commander-in-Chief is called into question. The likely explanation is much more simple: after being elected, Mr. Obama was more fully informed of the complications to American foreign policy if Gitmo were to close, and he clearly changed his mind on the matter. But he had already made very public pronouncements to the contrary, so what could he do? Obviously, he asked the Senate to cover his ass, and they did. Does this indicate a shadowy control over the government? Sure it does. Whenever you have people claiming to be diametrically opposed to each other in public who then suddenly work together on a task and then go back to public bickering, you should ask yourself if this 'bickering' is a real difference of opinion or if is just puppet theater. In this case, and the case of the passage of the NDAA, it clearly shows that the two-party system we have if really just one-party, but I digress.

Here are another couple of things to indicate that Mr. Obama's rise to power wasn't just accidental. The first is the inexplicable failure for his Republican candidates who brutally pummeled and out-maneuvered each other, but then suddenly trip and stumble when facing Mr. Obama. Take John McCain, for example, he was thought to be out of the primary races very early, but then put his resources where they would help him the most and came back to beat everyone else. But then when he faced Mr. Obama, he became a complete idiot. He had a source of ready-made material to use against his opponent—all of the things that Clinton and Biden had said about Obama-- and he refused to use it. And then the was Mrs. Clinton, an established politician and national figure who had a special meeting with Mr. Obama and then just let everything fall apart for her instead of fighting as she had been doing the entire year before. And that doesn't even touch on the Main Stream Media's 'cloak of invisibility' that it threw on things in Mr. Obama's past such as the Rev. Wright comments and the Bill Ayers connections or of his father's hatred of colonialism or his mother's love of communism. And then, in 2012, history repeated itself, with Mr. Romney's super-PACs beating up all of his Republican rivals and then him treating Obama with kid gloves—except for his first debate with Obama. I think that first debate was Romney showing what he could do even though, like Mr. McCain, he then threw the election. These things, by themselves, would not be much, certainly not enough to point out some controlling influence to our elections. But, when taken together, all of these events than happen to benefit just one person, Mr. Obama, show that his rise to power was a rise engineered.

What all of this means is that Mr. Obama's meteoric rise to power was one that was unusual, unearned and engineered, and I think that it also means that Mr. Obama is headed for a fall. I think that Obama is headed for a fall, a disaster, that will be equally meteoric in proportion to his rise—and I think that is will be in this calendar year.

The first reason that I think Mr. Obama is headed toward a fall is one of balance. When considering his rise in comparison to recent history, it is almost always the case that a person rises and then falls—and it would not be dramatic to merely suggest that Mr. Obama will have his decline, but the nature of his rise suggests that a slow decline into obscurity is not really what is ahead. This is less of a evidence-based approach and more of a common-sense one. Isn't it always the case that the man who flies to high, the Icarus who flies to close to the sun, then falls back to earth? “The flame that burns twice as bright, burns half as long—and Roy, you have burned so very, very bright.” It is just something that 'seems to make sense' when you consider someone who has been catapulted into fame and power, they will inevitably fall back down, but when considering the details of Mr. Obama's rise to power, there are other considerations as well.

One of those 'other considerations' is that those who engineered Mr. Obama's rise to power have more people to manage than just Mr. Obama, and that taking just one person and giving him everything while requiring nothing will create disloyalty 'within the ranks'. Take someone like Mr. Biden, a loyal servant of establishment politics who—while not terribly bright—at least knows how to do what he is told (most of the time). He has been working within the political establishment for decades when along comes Mr. Obama. A recently elected junior-Senator, Mr. Obama is catapulted over Mr. Biden and Mrs. Clinton and becomes President, a position that Mr. Biden had hoped for—Mrs. Clinton too. And that is just the tip of the iceberg, what of all the other people who have been following the rules and 'paying their dues' as they worked their way up within the establishment? A person like Mr. Obama, just coming along and being given everything—even a Nobel Peace Prize—for doing nothing more than they had been doing will create dissension among the ranks. On the other hand, if Mr. Obama were to face an epic catastrophe, a fall as monumental as his rise, then things will be balanced. All of the people working within the establishment will see that being the 'golden boy' comes at a price and they will be more satisfied with their positions.

The other 'consideration' is Mr. Obama's hidden history—his school records and his travel records. I don't think these will show that he isn't a US 'natural-born' citizen, rather I think they will show that while he is a US citizen, he attended school, or accepted funding, or traveled while claiming that he wasn't a US citizen. I think they will show that he lies. But I don't know—nobody does. My point is that he can't keep these things secret forever and that after he has had his disaster (whatever it is) then it won't matter what these things say—he won't matter. Or he won't matter very much.

So why does this supposed 'fall' have to happen this year? Simple, because after this year, Mr. Obama will become less and less important until he reaches the point where any 'fall' could never be equal in magnitude to his rise. Right now, he is still on the 'plateau of his power'—as he has been for the last 6 years. But starting next year, he will be coming down off that plateau. The eyes of America and of the world will shift to who is coming next. By the end of next year, all eyes will be fixed on his successor, with just an occasional glance in his direction. For there to be any great disaster, any great fall, it would have to come this year.

So there it is, I think that Mr. Obama has had a meteoric rise to power that is unusual, unearned and engineered. I think that the great heights and honors he has been given will be balanced by a great fall and that this fall will serve to bolster loyalty among the ranks of the elites and used to further the goals of the people who engineered his rise in the first place, they—whoever 'they' are—own him. And I think this will all happen in the year 2015.

A footnote: I don't actually like making predictions—who does? Reality has a perverse way of turning from it's course just to prove me wrong. When I say that we can't keep getting snowstorm after snowstorm, we get blizzards until May 2^nd (literally!). When I say that we had a bad winter last year so this one will be better, we get the worst winter ever(!). When I say that we will have 2-3 bad winters in a row and get a snow blower to be ready for them, we get very little snow at all (so far). So when I come along and say that Mr. Obama is headed for a fall....and he will likely be just fine. You Obama supporters can thank me later.

2020 Addendum:

Looks like all the Obama supports can thank me. Guess everything turned out fine and he glided from the Presidency with ease. So I was wrong, but why was I wrong?

My assumptions had been that there was (and is) a controlling organization that keeps watch over their political monopoly (there is! check out the book 'You can't be President' by John R. MacArthur) in the US and seeks to reward those who have shown service and loyalty with helping them advance in politics. Clearly there are organizations that have control over politics.

BUT, do they have an interest in rewarding loyalty and service-- as I had assumed. Apparently not. And I'm not just saying that to bash Obama.As meteoric as Obama's rise was (and I still maintain that it was), his successor --Donald Trump-- had an even more meteoric rise. Trump never served in any political office, and yet became President. Could the establishment have stopped him? Of course they could have. The RNC can change the rules and could have found a way to keep Trump out (voters would have gotten over it, what else can they do?). But they didn't. If your assumptions are wrong, then you will get poor conclusions.

Clearly my assumptions were wrong. Obama's departure proved it. Trump's Presidency confirms it. So what does it mean? It means that we are in a new place where long service and loyalty to establishment organizations does not mean those people will be rewarded with preferential treatment. An odd place to be, certainly, but here we are.

for more essays and for short stories, check out MHHickey.com
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6 More Weeks of......?

Groundhog Day

February 2^nd; “If the groundhog emerges and sees his shadow, there will be six more weeks of winter. But if he doesn't, there will be six more weeks of spring.”

Nonsense, right? Well....hold on a moment. Hear me out and see if this doesn't make sense.

Having lived, nay, survived, many winters here in the Northwoods, I can tell you that on a clear, sunny day in February, it may look nice outside, but don't believe the hype, your Tauntaun will freeze to death before you reach the first marker....or something. The wind howls and whips the snow into ever-higher drifts, cars won't start and the air hurts even to breathe. On the other hand, if we go a week without seeing the sun, while people may get crabby, we have rather mild temperatures—sometimes even above freezing—as a consolation prize. I'll take the warmer weather every time.

This past December we had almost 3 weeks of mild temperatures and it was great. When people would complain about not seeing the sun, I would immediately 'shush' them. But what has this to do with an old tradition and fat rodents? I was coming to that.

On a bright, clear, sunny and cold day, you—and any groundhogs that happen to be nearby—will easily see your shadow cast upon the ice in your driveway, unless you are snow-blinded first. Whereas, on a cloudy and warmer day you will have no shadow—and neither will your handy groundhog.

So, it is pretty easy to see what this is about, if you are having sunny days in early February and the weather pattern holds, then you will have cold weather ahead--”six more weeks of winter”. But if you are having cloudy days, then you have warm weather ahead--”six more weeks of spring”.

I know all of this is very obvious and it seems silly to even mention my little thoughts on the subject, but then again, an awful lot of times I am surprised by people telling me that 'they hadn't thought of that', so I share.

Enjoy your Groundhog Day and I hope you get six more weeks of spring!

This guy won't be seeing any shadows--6 more weeks of spring every year!

for more essays and for short stories, check out MHHickey.com

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