The Day of Wonder Woman

   

The Day of Wonder Woman
  
by Jean Claire Dy 

  

  

Now that the dust of the entertainment that is Wonder Woman has settled, I'm posting some thoughts... 
  

What I think ails our society is the constant competition that is hoisted on women.  Some fag hag used to say to me "everyday is a beauty pageant."  And it is true, a woman is considered great if she can be EVERYTHING:  Beautiful, strong, smart, and on top of that a womb bearer who can raise beautiful progeny.  She has to be first and foremost a mother and not just one but the best one.  All these other criteria and gender roles are important to follow lest you be judged as lacking. 

  

So I understand that for some, the amazon or the real wonder woman is an image of Diana Prince in warrior attire and weapons and carrying babies.  But there is a reason why the amazons never had babies.  They were warriors.  And they fulfilled that role to the best of their abilities sans men, sans children.  And that is okay. 
  

Child birth is a CHOICE.  Motherhood is a choice.  And all other roles should be choices.  But MULTIPLE BURDEN isn't.  In feminist and gender sensitivity talk, multiple burden is best imaged by exactly that picture of a female warrior carrying babies and possibly having more than one arm to do other things at the same time.  All that reproductive and domestic and social work that's unpaid labor.  Including other work and community management to ensure the survival of a family.  Emotional labor as well. 

  

What feminism tries to change is our own demands from women.  To erase multiple burden, what is encourage is a sharing of load.  So it is okay if say a woman is taking care of a baby, and the man does the household chores.  Labor in all forms must be shared even fighting to save the world.  

And you can still be called A WONDER.  

 

Note about the author:  Jean Claire Dy learned the craft of writing at the New School New York City.  She has lived and travelled all over Asia and Europe and the Americas.  Now she calls Mindanao, Philippines her base camp.  

The Tomahawk War

19th Century Native American Tomahawk 

The Tomahawk War 

by

Mick Kleber

Our federal legislators should be up in arms about Trump's un-Constitutional authorization of Tomahawk missile airstrikes against Syria without Congressional approval. While the strikes may have been morally justifiable, they were indisputably an act of war. But in our nation only Congress has the power to authorize such acts. The strikes were also in direct violation of the prohibition of unilateral attacks under the United Nations charter.

Granted, Presidents Truman (Korea), Clinton (Kosovo), Obama (Libya) and others have also violated the Constitutional process, but repeated violation does not make these acts legal. When the Assad regime used chemical weapons in 2013, President Obama followed the rules, asking Congress to authorize a U.S. military response. Congress demurred. Ironically, Donald Trump tweeted at the time: "The President must get Congressional approval before attacking Syria -- big mistake if he does not!" Yet Trump sought no Congressional approval and claimed that Obama's inaction was in part to blame for Assad's atrocities. Of course, self-serving hypocrisy is a sickening Trump trademark that now passes for business as usual.

Unfortunately, the majority of our Congressional "leaders" have given Trump a dangerously irresponsible pass on the un-Constitutional bombings because the general public believes Assad should be punished (no argument here). But the $80 million dollars worth of airstrikes failed without question to achieve that purpose. 

Within hours the military airfield was back in operation because the strikes intentionally avoided damaging the runways. Secretary of State Tillerson confirmed that the attacks specifically targeted only Syrian aircraft -- 20 were destroyed, most of them non-operational -- and refueling capability, and that the timing of the strikes was intended to avoid human casualties. Of the 15 reported fatalities, nine were civilians in nearby villages, four of them children. The Pentagon confirmed that the Russians were warned an hour in advance of the strikes, and no Russian aircraft or personnel were at the airfield when the strikes took place. Syrian intelligence also received prior warning, and much of the facility's equipment was relocated prior to the attack.

Thus, the missile strikes were a totally symbolic show of force with no significant damage to Syria's airstrike capability and no other discernible tactical or strategic military effect. The White House and Tillerson subsequently stated that our national policy with regard to Syria remains unchanged. 

Last week, Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross jokingly characterized the strikes as free after-dinner entertainment at Trump's Mar-a-Lago summit with China's president Xi Jinping. Xi reportedly told Trump he understood the rationale for the airstrikes because children had been killed or injured by Assad's heinous indulgence in chemical warfare. 

But the Chinese media immediately pegged the strikes as a blatant attempt by Trump to distance him from mounting accusations of a cozy bromance with Putin's regime. Subsequent statements by Trump and Tillerson that US-Russian relations are "probably at an all-time low" appeared to be an extension of this tactic. Many world leaders, as well as Congressional figures from both sides of the aisle, applauded the strikes, and media pundits have largely agreed that Trump succeeded in positioning himself as "more Presidential" and less pro-Russian.

Now several weeks later, has the Assad regime been weakened or chastened in any significant way by the airstrikes? No. 

And is our country any safer? Just the opposite. Dangerous threats to our national security -- such as North Korea's impetuous Kim Jong-un and cagier players like Putin -- are only emboldened to use military force with impunity by what can convincingly be deemed an unlawful act of international aggression by the United States. 

21st Century United States Navy Tomahawk 

Bashar al-Assad 

Note about the author:  Mick Kleber is a graduate of both the United States Army and Yale University.

MAD Math and the Zero Sum Nuclear Weapons Game

 

Resist

Today a political expert talking head on BBC said that President and Commander Donald Trump's attack on Bashar al-Assad's airfield in Syria was good because it shows any other opponents that Commander Trump is unpredictable.  In other words no one can tell where or when Commander Trump may attack next.  
  
This may be a good thing if a state of war existed between the United States of America and some other little nation like Syria or Iraq.  No such war is declared.  The really, really, really bad thing to consider for Commander Trump and his military is the effect of unpredictability on the mutually assured destruction strategy (MAD) still operative and current from the days of the Soviet Union.  
  
For those who chose to forget, here's an excerpt as refresher from Wiki, "The strategic balance between the United States and Russia is becoming less stable, and the objective, technical possibility of a first strike by the United States is increasing. At a time of crisis, this instability could lead to an accidental nuclear war. For example, if Russia feared a U.S. nuclear attack, Moscow might make rash moves (such as putting its forces on alert) that would provoke a U.S. preemptive strike."  Very smart scientists and mathematicians of the 1950's like RAND corporation’s Herman Kahn and MIT’s John Von Neumann engraved all the dogma of MAD.  The whimsical Von Neumann created the acronym.  
  
The whole thing is based on the zero sum game of nuclear weapons.  Say side one has two thousand fifty megaton missiles and side two has about the same.  If side one launches a first strike sending missiles at their side two opponent, side two will reply with more missiles and on and on until the missiles are all used, and thereby both sides are assured of destruction.  The entire planet would of course be put into a nuclear winter and billions would die, but side one would be declared the winner by the few hiding out in some bunker in the mountains.  Of course no sane human wants this scenario to happen… ever.  
  
First strike refers to the act of launching thermonuclear missiles first.  The dogma is math, and the math relies on perfection for a win.  Actual nuclear war must be imperfect and corrupt and messy and emotionally intolerable.  If a commander and the staff only consider the MAD math, the fog surrounding decision trees clear up.  Some things throw askew the whole MAD math calculation like the numbers and accuracy of the missiles deployed by both sides of warriors.  Notice the use of “game” for Tom Clancy who wrote about a “game changing” nuclear missile sub in his little scary book and movie called “The Hunt For Red October.”  The Red October had a new kind of engine that can’t be detected allowing for a first strike capability.  In the Wiki quote above note "instability.”  Instability can also throw the MAD math into a tizzy and commanders and staff are more prone to make a mistake.  
  
The new Trump doctrine of unpredictability is adding instability into the MAD math.  Do the MAD math.  Do we as a nation want an unstable warrior in the nuclear MAD math arena?  The Trump doctrine edges our nation closer into just such a MAD math nuclear conflict.  In the big game, the side two opponent, Russia considers a first strike as viable because of the instability of the side one commander, President Trump.  
  
The game needs to end now.  

Ground War in Vietnam as imagined by Francis Ford Coppola "Apocalypse Now" 1979
Sam Bottoms as Lance and Robert Duvall as Kilgore.   
Kilgore- Smell that? You smell that?   
Lance- What?  
Kilgore- Napalm, son. Nothing else in the world smells like that. 

Acts of War

Wait a minute, please all Trump people and all republicans. 

And here I thought the US Congress was the only way the US government and our nation could declare war? 

Just now a story came on the news that President Trump ordered cruise missile strikes in Syria. That is an act of war. 

A story was also posted that President Trump has decided to go it alone in dealing with North Korea? The North Koreans then launch a missile as President Trump meets with Xi Jinping of China. Another story came out that Assad gassed civilians in Syria! Looks like the Big Trump got conned by both Vladimir Putin and Bashar al-Assad and Kim Jong-un. So the Big Trump blamed it all on Obama. 

Neither Donald Trump nor Mike Pence nor Mitch McConnell nor Paul Ryan has ever served one day in active military service to America. They know nothing about security. No republican since George Bush, Senior or Eisenhower has had a clue about security or how to carry on a war. Look at Iraq since 9/11.  Look at Afghanistan. It is not Obama who set up the war in those places. It was republican egotists. Remember Donald Rumsfeld’s unforgettable media line “Shock and Awe!” used to describe the bombings and killings of thousands of civilians and enemy soldiers. Ike had respect for the dead. Rumsfeld and Cheney and the Bush gang did not. The Trump and Pence gang have even less integrity. In the Pay-Per-Vote™ Congress the budget for “defense” spending grows geometrically. 

Now, why is there so much anger these days? And stupidity? Sadly, blindly, millions voted their anger and their stupids. Is this the reason we have little but falsehood and fake Christian dogma coming from the White House media muppets. 

And the other day someone said, "What exactly is the 'Christian dogma?' No doubt I would prefer Christian dogma to Islamic dogma any day." 

Martin Pitts reply, "You are correct. Any fool can see it must be better to be burned at the stake than to be beheaded." 

Because of bags of money in our elections and enraptured leaders, 21st Century America is both a 20th Century Banana Republic and a bigoted human rights wasteland. Money talks and ethics walks for the republicans and all of their shills in the Pay-Per-Vote™ Congress, the Courts and in state governments! 

What would a trickle down originalist like Judge Neil Gorsuch say about this?  Syria did not attack us.  Syria and Assad are killing their own people, not ours.  The International Court of Justice (Cour internationale de justice) at the Hague in the Netherlands is empowered to prosecute war criminals like Bashar al-Assad.  Both the USA and Russia are signatories at the ICJ, since 1945.  It is treason to carry out a war without the direct declaration of the US Congress. 

The US Constitution Article I  Section. 8.   

The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

… 

To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water; To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years; To provide and maintain a Navy; To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces; To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions; To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress; 

… 

Tchoupitoulas Street Uptown New Orleans 1968
Vietnam War Military Ambulances ready for lading
Photo Copyright © 1969 Martin Pitts

Senior Chief Petty Officer William Ryan Owens and the Cruelty of Big Time Media Tactics.

Hey America, are you asleep?  Wake up and let's examine that "Presidential speech" for the joint session of our Congress the other night.  Most of the glowing reviews by print and broadcast journalists completely overlooked the fact that the speech was a cruel and heinous use of a dead soldier for media spin.  There was nothing patriotic or brave about arranging the furious applause at President Donald Trump's mention of the grieving wife of a good soldier. 

Trump's people flew wife Carryn Owens into Washington to bravely smile for the live feed C-SPAN and network video cameras in the chamber.  This little piece of reality TV was a disgusting play out of some unknown publicity manual.  The body of SCPO Owens became a shill for the Trump White House public relations strategy. 

There's something very, very wrong about hundreds of smiling people standing and cheering over the battle death of a man in uniform.  Trump intended the Yemen operation to further justify the continuing republican war to stoke fear in the people of his little banana republic of America.  SCPO Owens was the first United States combatant to die under the authority of President Donald Trump as Commander-in-Chief.  Repeat:  There's something very, very wrong about hundreds of smiling people standing and cheering over the combat death of a man in uniform. 

Only an enemy cheers the death of one of our own. 

President Eisenhower said it many years ago, "The heart of darkest America is in the mid-west."  Those dark hearts have now elected the Donald and the Pence based on the promise of stopping abortions.  Because of deviant republicans we have been in a middle east war for over thirty years.  Now the White House busboys and President Trump may want to extend the war to other borders!  

Neither Donald Trump nor Mike Pence nor Mitch McConnell nor Paul Ryan have ever served one day in active military service to America.  They know very little about real national security.  No republican since Eisenhower seems to have had a clue about national security or how to carry on a war.  Look at Iraq.  Look at Afghanistan.  It is not Obama who set up the war in those places.  It was republican egotists.  Remember Donald Rumsfeld’s unforgettable media line “Shock and Awe!” used to describe the bombings and killings of thousands of civilians and enemy soldiers.  

Ike had respect for the dead.  Rumsfeld and Cheney and the Bush gang did not.  The Trump and Pence crew have even less integrity.  For them war is a media tactic.  Even worse, in the Pay-Per-Vote™ Congress the budget for “defense” spending grows geometrically while our national security remains in peril.  Combat casualties are of little consequence compared to tithes for the Super PAC. 

Senior Chief Petty Officer William Ryan Owens
March 5, 1980 - January 29, 2017
Rest in Peace CPO Owens

Both of SCPO Owens' parents were police officers in Florida.  His Mother, Patricia Ann Treutle was a detective who died in 2013.  Owens' father, William Owens is an honored military veteran.   

The Chicago Tribune reported President Trump had a conversation with SCPO Owens' "relatives."  So President Trump spoke to the Father and asked him to come up to D.C. with widow Carryn Owens for the grand meeting of Congress.  The Father realized the potential cruelty of TV cameras and the media limelight at the joint session, and he refused to meet with President Trump.  The Father asked for an investigation into his son's death.  

"We're very comfortable with how the mission was executed and we'll let the Department of Defense go through that review process and then see where that leads us," White House press officer Sean Spicer stated soon afterwards.  

When SCPO William Ryan Owens was laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetary there was only scant coverage by the media.  What more can we as a nation ask from this family?  How President Trump and his staff and the US Congress contrived to squeeze cheap publicity from this family of true patriots is criminal and treasonous betrayal of all things American.  

Secretary Betsy DeVos, "There's no free lunch!"

Secretary Betsy DeVos
of the United States Department of Education

About the state of the public schools system in the USA, Secretary of the United States Department of Education Betsy DeVos said the other day, "There's no free lunch!"  DeVos decreed that her Department of Education will erase free school lunches for poor kids.  Speaker of the United States House of Representatives Paul Ryan of Wisconsin cuts funds for food stamps.  The State of Arizona also cuts aid for kids.  Meanwhile, the State of California votes funds to help end poverty.  Thank you, California.  As for those sadistic republicans in California who just say no to this:  So you want more stupid people in your state?  Then move to Mississippi or Texas or Kentucky or Wisconsin or Kansas.  Protein deficiency in ages birth to three years old stunts mental development.  Permanently!  In the USA in the 1960s, Dr. Donald Gatch researched and proved this in South Carolina.  

Hey Secretary DeVos!  Say what you must for the White House media playbook, but remember that damaging our children is treason.  How about the real damage caused by lack of food for millions of poor American children?  

Do you understand this, Secretary DeVos and all the republican media muppets in our congress?  If you cut funding for food stamps, you will starve those kids into stupidity for life.  Their brains are damaged permanently by lack of food.  

Read this Secretary DeVos.  After all these years not much has changed for kids without a hedge fund in the USA.  Look up the title “Still Hungry in America" and read it.  The photographs were by USMC Veteran Al Clayton.  

<http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/1971/mar/11/the-hunger-doctor/> 

The brutal racist politics of the times led to Dr. Gatch being seen as a pariah in his little community in South Carolina of the late 1960s.  And he was getting noticed by the press in New York because of his work against hunger in early childhood.  Fearing the media, the plebeian Congress of the United States of America investigated Dr. Gatch and his photographer, Al Clayton in a cliched and vain attempt to discredit the findings.  

Not one to ignore a problem Dr. Gatch, "... complained of discriminatory medical practices against poor and black people:  'Well, just a typical example, a mother brought a nine-year-old girl to my office Monday. She apparently had had a ruptured appendix since Friday. We took her into the operating room. Again, I kinda snuck her in because it’s against the rules to admit a patient without money. And when we got her on the surgical table one of the surgeons said, without any comment especially,  'This child has rickets.'  And when we got in the abdomen and were doing the appendectomy we found some roundworms. And he said, 'Of course, in these colored children the closer we get up the ilium in the stomach the more worms we will find because these kids don’t have much to eat.'  And this is where they head, they get the food before the kids do, and whether the kid will live or not, I don’t know.  The mother didn’t want to bring the kid to the doctor because she didn’t have any money."

Secretary DeVos has a yacht at her winter home in Florida.  DeVos has a portfolio worth north of a billion dollars.  Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin has a Leadership Super PAC and he can use that money any way he wants.  Ryan could buy a condo in the Caymans or an apartment in Paris.  Or just fly to Tahiti for a month vacation.  Never over their entire sheltered lives have DeVos and Ryan needed food because they didn't have any money.  

 

Secretary DeVos the Seal for your Department depicts a rising sun with a giant healthy oak tree that grew from a tiny acorn.  Growth for kids can be stunted or it can be nurtured.  This is not science.  It only takes some caring by people in power and some food for kids to grow.  

 

A Tapestry of Corruption: FBI Director James Comey and Exxon Mobil CEO Rex W. Tillerson and Russia.

Exxon Mobil CEO Rex W. Tillerson Meets with Vladimir Putin 2012
Tillerson was awarded Russian Order of Friendship Medal
(Photo by premier.gov.ru) 

The Order of Friendship Medal
Russian Federation

This is a complex tapestry of intertwined political corruption in the United States and in the Russian Federation.  So let's follow the chain of facts and see where they lead us. It is now known that the Russians were hacking into some of the voting data for the Presidential Election of the USA this past November. What was done by the Russians with the data is not known for sure. FBI Director James Comey knew about the Russian corruption and hacking, but he kept it secret.  Apparently US Senate leader Mitch McConnell also knew of the Russian hacking. Prior to the November voting, not one reporter in any news media anywhere mentioned that FBI Director James Comey was a lawyer for the failed US Senate republican investigation into Hillary Clinton's real estate legal work in Arkansas 1996 known as the Whitewater Committee. Nothing unethical or illegal was found by the Committee after thousands of hours and millions of dollars of failed investigation just like the recent waste of money on the Benghazi murders. So FBI Director James Comey was "investigating" Hillary Clinton for more than twenty years. But FBI Director James Comey took the risk of committing a criminal violation of the Hatch Act when he went public with the old/new/Weiner emails.  So all you reporters out there, answer me this. Who got to FBI Director James Comey and with what? It looks like FBI Director James Comey may even be a mole for the Republican National Committee.  

Now look at the Republican nominee for Secretary of State, Rex W. Tillerson, CEO of Exxon Mobil the biggest American oil company. In 2012 Tillerson travelled to Moscow for a meet with Valdimir Putin, now the Russian President for his third term. The Russian connection is important because of Putin's family business in Russian oil and gas companies like Gazprom and Rosneft.  One thing to note here is the non-profit Putin Consulting Ltd. founded by Roman Putin, Vladimir's cousin and like his dear Uncle, once a KGB agent. Putin Consulting Ltd. promises businesses "special protection" while operating in Russia. Western investors do need advice navigating the sometimes arcane Russian business rules and practices. Even though it is non-profit, Putin Consulting Ltd. through Roman Putin owns an island in the Bahamas, vineyards in Napa Valley, California, other properties in Russia, a villa in London, UK, and a US$90 million yacht in Monaco. Vladimir Putin's personal wealth is unknown for sure, but has been estimated at US$ 40 billion. Even though his personal worth is less than Putin's, Tillerson as Exxon Mobil CEO controls about US$400 billion in assets.

Only on news shows this morning have reporters mentioned that in 2013 Tillerson returned to Russia and he was awarded the Russian Order of Friendship Medal by Putin and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. Not one reporter in any news media anywhere has mentioned that another historic person who got a Medal like that was a Cold War mole, George Blake (born George Behar November 11, 1922), the former British spy who worked as a double agent for the Soviet Union. Blake was discovered in 1961 and sentenced to 42 years in prison. Somehow Blake escaped from Wormwood Scrubs prison in 1966 and safely fled to Russia, then the USSR. Another winner of note was Milorad Dodik, President of the Serbian Republic. In March 2016, Dodik named a student dormitory in Pale in honor of the wartime Serb leader Radovan Karadžić. The event took place only a few days before Karadžić was convicted for genocide, other war crimes and sex slavery by International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.  

Only this morning have reporters mentioned that the actual reason for Russia getting in the middle of our election may be the economic sanctions we have in place because of Putin's Crimean take-over and Putin's invasion and continuing military operations in the Eastern Ukraine. If Putin can get those sanctions lifted then he and Tillerson can go forward on at least two separate deals with Tillerson and Exxon Mobil for drilling in the Russian Arctic and Exxon Neftegas Limited gas wells on Sakhalin Island in the Russian Far East.  

Not one reporter in any news media anywhere has mentioned that FBI Director James Comey wrote a sympathetic senior thesis paper on televangelist Jerry Falwell. Not one reporter in any news media anywhere has mentioned that maybe FBI Director James Comey was infused with Scalia law at the University of Chicago, the fountainhead for both trickle down justice and trickle down economics.  Not one reporter in any news media anywhere has mentioned that FBI Director James Comey was on the Board of Directors for HSBC Holdings PLC until July 2013. HSBC was founded in Hong Kong in 1865 to service the British opium trade. Not one reporter in any news media anywhere has mentioned that until early 2013 HSBC Holdings was under investigation for money laundering for drug smuggling operations in Mexico and aiding countries like Iran and Sudan and North Korea to evade economic sanctions. HSBC was simply carrying on the highly profitable traditions of their founders.

So our tapestry displays patterns of giant oil companies and giant banking companies. The tapestry is not transparent. The tapestry is woven with very dark threads of corruption. These threads need to be unraveled to see the truth. 

Flag of the Russian Federation

FBI Director, James Comey

Flag of the United States of America