Aug 202018
 
 August 20, 2018  Posted by at 1:05 pm Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,


Pablo Picasso Science and Charity 1897

 

I thought I’d make list of things we can expect to emanate from the White House over the coming year or so. I’m sure you will agree, wherever you stand on the political roller coaster, that there’s little chance things are going to be boring going forward. Here goes:

 

Trump will end the ‘monopolies’ of Facebook, Google, Twitter et al. The intelligence community will hate this, but they already hate him anyway, so why bother? And besides, it’s the only thing to do that makes any sense. The AT&T model might be useful, essentially creating Baby Bells, though the international reach of the companies may add a layer or two of complications.

But you simply can’t have a few roomfuls of boys and girls ban and shadowban people with impunity from networks that span the globe and reach half of the world’s population on the basis of opaque ‘Terms and Conditions’ that in effect trump the US constitution the way they are used and interpreted. Whether they are private companies or not will make no difference in the end.

At some point an ‘entity’ becomes a ‘utility’. Twitter and Facebook already are the most efficient way to alert people in cases of emergency. To throw people out of such systems is indefensible.

The CIA and FBI will protest like there’s no tomorrow, but they have to realize that spying on Americans the way they do at present in conjunction with Alphabet and Facebook is just as indefensible as throwing people off these services. The judicial system will at some point be forced to curtail these powers. Better for the executive power to be ahead of that. Baby Bells it is.

 

Trump will tell his people to open up to Mueller . He’s already done this, but will do it again, loudly and publicly, citing the need to wrap up the Mueller investigation ASAP. That will be the target: stop the ‘inquisition’. Mueller has talked for 30 hours over the past nine months to White House lawyer Donald McGahn II, and at some point enough is enough.

As I cited a few days ago, Trump’s legal team has given Mueller until September 1 to talk to the president, and that’s it. It doesn’t look like that’s going to happen, Giuliani again said he doesn’t want to rush Trump into a perjury trap, but Mueller has had plenty time to have that talk. The investigation risks being used as a political tool in the midterms, and that can’t happen.

 

Moreover, since US District Court Judge Amit Mehta has ruled that the FBI must release documents pertaining to what it knew about the ‘veracity’ of the Steele dossier, the most consequential reason to start the Special Counsel investigation in the first place may well soon be going going gone.

The FBI offered to pay Steele $50,000 for evidence that what was in his report was true, and they never paid that money. Ergo, it is reasonable to conclude that he never delivered the evidence. This points to huge potential problems for the FBI, the DNC -which financed the dossier-, Steele himself, and various other parties. How about James Comey?

Since the judge’s ruling was a direct effect of Trump declassifying the Nunes and Schiff memos in February, count on one thing: Trump will declassify many more documents . Judge Mehta ruled in January that the FBi didn’t have to “disclose the existence of any records containing the agency’s efforts to verify the dossier”, but now says that after Trump declassified the memos ‘the ground shifted’.

In other words, once docs are declassified, intelligence services no longer have a place to hide. Trump is thinking: why didn’t I do this much more and much sooner? Note: it still took 6 months for the judge to rule on the FBI and the memos, but next time this could go much faster. And there are thousands of files that could be de-classified.

 

Trump will revoke the security clearance of many former FBI and CIA agents whose names have come up in connection with Russiagate. He needs to do this so they can’t get in the way of the Second Special Counsel he’s going to initiate. By now, there are many more reasons for the second counsel than there ever were for the first.

Mueller is going after George Papadopoulos, a nobody, because he’s the only person who allegedly ever mentioned Russians. Everyone else he’s focused on has only ever been indirectly -at best- connected to Russia. But Papadopoulos was allegedly caught saying the R-word when he was drunk, to some never properly identified ‘professor’.

And that’s the only ‘link’ between Russia and the Trump campaign that we’ve ever seen. It is at times like this that we can see how shaky and shady the entire Mueller file was from the get-go. And why that Second Special Counsel will become reality. If you’d like to read a very long and detailed report on this, I recommend Barbara Boyd’s damning Fish Stinks From the Head Down for LaRouchePAC:

In the past week, we have learned that Steele was being paid as a human source by the FBI early in as of February 2016, if not sooner, based on a release of his highly redacted FBI file to Judicial Watch in a FOIA suit. After he was fired as an official FBI human source in October 2016, based on the obvious fact that he was using his FBI relationship as coinage in the information warfare operation he was running against Donald Trump for the British government, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton, his relationship to the FBI was continued through a back channel.

That channel was the Number Four attorney at the U.S. Department of Justice, Bruce Ohr, whose wife, Nellie, worked for Steele’s American employer, Fusion GPS, on the Trump Russiagate project. According to documents finally released to Congress by the Justice Department, Ohr would meet with Steele, who would convey new “information,” and then meet with the FBI to convey Steele’s findings.

This relationship lasted through May 2017, if not later. Ohr’s meetings with the FBI were meticulously recorded on formal FD 302s by the FBI agents, the Deputy Associate Attorney General of the United States having become, in effect, an FBI informant in order to circumvent Christopher Steele’s firing as an informant for egregious violations of FBI Guidelines. Steele sought Ohr’s intervention when Senators Lindsay Graham and Chuck Grassley referred him to the Department of Justice for prosecution because of lies he told the FBI. Steele also sought Ohr’s help in getting placed on Robert Mueller’s investigative team.

Boyd provides a lot of additional details of a part of the Mueller investigation that has so far barely been mentioned: the involvement of British intelligence. And on the link between Christopher Steele and Victoria Nuland.

 

Finally, Trump will push for Julian Assange to testify -with immunity- to probably the Senate Intelligence Committee (but there are alternative options) on what he knows about -potential- Russian involvement in US election meddling and hacking of DNC or RNC servers and computers. There’s no-one who know more on this than Assange, and he has evidence.

That his deal with the DOJ was killed by James Comey will be all the more impetus for Trump to hear what he has to say. For many people, it will appear ironic, but this may be Assange’s best bet to regain freedom.

The one person who can prove that there was never any collusion between Trump and Russia is locked up in a tiny embassy in London. And the one person who can get him out of there lives in the White House.

 

 

Home Forums The Shape of Trump to Come

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  • #42449

    Pablo Picasso Science and Charity 1897   I thought I’d make list of things we can expect to emanate from the White House over the coming year or
    [See the full post at: The Shape of Trump to Come]

    #42450
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    I hope you are correct Ilargi; especially regarding Assange; we’ll see…

    #42453

    Maybe I should hsve called this: “The Trump Will Set You Free”.

    #42454

    And V. Arnold, did you notice what Picasso could do when he was just 16?

    #42457
    MoFlora
    Participant

    Jeez Ilargi
    MORE Trump apologia?

    The Special Counsel will most likely find that Trump laundered many millions of Russian cash through his real estate deals. Enter the Bank of Cyprus and Wilbur Ross. Of course, this was before the campaign. Think of the Whitewater investigation of the Clintons leading to a stained blue dress years later and a thousand miles away. I do not expect Trump to be charged or impeached however.

    You may endorse Trump and his policies Ilargi, but please do not blame the deep state if the guy’s former crimes come back to bite him. He makes it so easy for them. He can’t help himself. He is still grifting, profiting from his office. Some people never have enough.

    While we wade through, and are distracted by, the Trump hero worship (or his demonization) children are suffering as a direct result of Trump policies. Just one example are the poisons released into the atmosphere that were banned previous to Trump. Black neighborhoods reach right to the chemical plant gates. How much additional child illness and premature death are you willing to trade for Assange’s freedom? The good people who stand behind Trump and truly value our democratic republic (and the First Amendment) need a real hero, not this guy.

    Yup, the elitist globalist policies of Obama and Clinton were horrible. Many children died. More spasms of a dying empire. How does that make the racist, anti-environmental,corrupt and poisonous policies of Trump acceptable?

    I’m old now, but they used to tell me two wrongs don,t make a right.

    #42459
    Mr. Jones
    Participant

    +1 MoFlora. Can we get more of Nicole Foss please? The ever more brazen pro-Trump tone on this blog over the past 18 months is getting quite unbearable.

    #42460
    davefairtex
    Participant

    > And V. Arnold, did you notice what Picasso could do when he was just 16?

    Reminds me of the Tom Lehrer line in the lead-in to “Alma”:

    “It’s people like that who make you realize how little you’ve accomplished. It is a sobering thought, for example, that when Mozart was my age he had been dead for two years.”

    And for those who imagine a pro-Trump bias, I think rather, its an Anti-CIA-Mockingbird-Echo-Chamber bias.

    Anyone remember, for instance, when Liberals were peaceniks, and not intent on beating the war drums against “Russia”? I sure do. But then again, engineers have to have a functioning memory, or else they can’t do their jobs…we remember Operation Northwoods, Tonkin Gulf, Babies in Incubators, WMD in Iraq. All our major wars were con-jobs by … someone.

    But I’m sure it’s different this time, with Russia.

    Yeah. Ilargi is pro-Trump. Russia is the biggest threat to Western Democracy, ever. Check is in the mail. etc.

    #42461
    Stone Lodge
    Participant

    Funny. Not that I would mind more Nicole Foss, but those accusing Raul of a pro-Trump tone are sounding far more like they have their own CTCSS code running on the sideband. The offset seems to be knee-jerk liberal, meaning, far too programmed by the MSM and the memes of FB and other echo chambers to see that Raul is addressing the principal facts and issues with — in this case — a predictive guess as to what may transpire, based on his astute observations over time.

    It is ridiculous, as Caitlin Johnston recently observed re: Alex Jones, that in so much discourse we need to preface our discussions with “I don’t like/follow/believe so-and-so.” This is happening because of the severely deteriorated level of discourse focused, and based, upon facts and logic and truth. The compromised nature of our discourse is prevalent and self-evident in the vast slew of corporate media machines and the social media interface that ensures each supposition, each baseless accusation, each smear or libel or projection or lie is injected directly into the heads and psyches of those whose lives are plugged in and invested. It is Huxley’s soma and Orwell’s two minutes of hate, and it feels good!

    Raul, keep up the great work.

    One aspect of Trump that I have been interested to watch is his disestablishmentarianism. (First time I’ve used that in a sentence…) As a long-time anarchist, I have to admit my intrigue with disestablishing NATO, disestablishing numerous global structures, disestablishing the deep state structures. With those come other more deplorable disestablishments, such as environmental regulations, species protection, restrictions on heavy extractive industry, etc. But the de-centralization is necessary and inevitable, and I for one would like to see the ball get rolling.

    #42462
    bolshevikssuckeggs
    Participant

    Exactly, davefairtex–all wars are con-jobs started with false flags. Look at the event that kicked off the war on terror. It’s rich, Ilargi brings a lifetime of experience and intense study to bear on the articles he writes, and a couple of nobodies come here to tell us all how wrong he is–the arrogance!

    #42463
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    Stone Lodge

    Spot on; nailed it.

    Ilargi
    I didn’t know he was 16 for that. Amazing.
    And ditto Stone Lodge; keep up the great work.

    The gap narrows; what happened to, “I disagree with what you say, but, defend to the death your right to say it.”
    People need to revisit Woody Guthrie and his wonderful songs; they’re all about the lost America.

    #42464
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    davefairtex
    Anyone remember, for instance, when Liberals were peaceniks, and not intent on beating the war drums against “Russia”? I sure do. But then again, engineers have to have a functioning memory, or else they can’t do their jobs…

    Yep, remember it all.
    The great unraveling is upon us as the snowflakes, in their mindlessness, swarm reason and logic.
    Likewise in engineering; and old enough (73) to have the long view back. The long view looking forward doesn’t look hopeful; a lee shore and breakers ahead…

    #42465
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    Stone Lodge
    CTCSS = Continuous Tone-Coded Squelch System code running on the sideband.
    LOL, never heard that one before; mind if I use it sometimes?

    #42466
    regionswork
    Participant

    When Donald Trump was running for president, there was really no reason to expect that, as a Republican, he would be that much different than any previous Republican. Being from New York City, plus his decades of being an quasi-movie star, suggested he would be a centrist. His attacks on his opponents and Hillary were not the norm, but were entertaining. The Republican party was nearly dead.

    The FBI and CIA were doing their regular work of watching for intrusion by foreign governments, including Russia. When they were alerted to Trump showing up with Russian links the only fear was that, like any other American, he might be subject to undue influence/blackmail, it the Russians had anything on him. This is a decades long MO. Nothing new.

    When the security people went to inform him of same, instead of understanding that they were covering his back, he seems to have felt they were trying to get power over him.

    After the election, he didn’t want anything to delegitimize his victory, so he couldn’t admit that there was any Russian influence. The Mercers, Cambridge Analytica, etc., Bannon – mostly his own greatness, was why he defeated crooked Hillary.

    Then came the work of being President and governing, for which the campaign was not prepared, since they’d hadn’t expected to win.

    Many didn’t like the thought of him winning, particularly women. Peter Strozk’s email comment to Lisa Page about not letting it happen was pure, boyfriend bullshit bravado. Same thing you do when lost and driving through a bad neighborhood, you boldly reassure your girl/wife/passengers you know what you are doing.

    So, one in the job, President Trump wants to continue to run for office, doing so on instinct in front of the crowd, and get adulation for his stand up routine – I’m so bad. He doesn’t want to read, having never really been a reader. He goes for theatrics.

    The bar for performance is very low. He set that in the campaign saying he could go out on 5th avenue and shoot someone without losing any supporters. He’s a fighter of the WWF variety – lost of story and drama. Certain crowds love that. All that is needed is to single out an opponent who, by definition is a villain.

    TAE readers are exactly that. People who read and study the world daily, and have done it all their lives. They encounter new perspectives and may change their minds, correcting the database, or doing further research. I expect every reader has changed their mind more than once in their life, as what was once thought to be true, was found to be lacking. What really caused the Civil War? Why was the Federal Reserve established? What is money? What is debt?

    So as junkies for world information and history, please consider that President Trump would never read all the articles in a single issue of TAE, and perhaps not even one complete article.

    What is next? Of the four predictions, I only see revocation of security clearances as plausible, simply because it stirs things up in the newscycle. That’s all he cares about.

    The other three actions require some deep understanding that would only be a product of long term research and study. His advisors don’t demonstrate that and certainly he hasn’t done the research himself.

    Realizing that the President of the U.S. is considered “President of the World”, so many follow our politics and interpret them. That is their right. Looking at the G7 or G20 politics, elections and leaders, from my particular interest of regional cooperation, I wouldn’t comment or judge any of them. When I worked for a regional agency, my philosophy was to deal with whomever God sent me. It was necessary to be apolitical because whomever won was the person you had to work with..

    That might be written in a textbook somewhere, but I learned it by observation.

    Big, wealthy Republican donors are getting what they want. Most interesting today was the Guardian story: “In US, UK, People Die Early Due To ‘Shit-Life Syndrome’ ” First thing I did reading the article on my phone was to highlight “Shit-life Syndrome” and web search it. Yes, a real term. UK & US leading locations for it. There will be much more of, particularly if the incentives are to the poor are to fight over declining resources.

    Donald Trump will remain the center of attention as long as possible. That seems his single goal.

    On that figure, people project fearless leader desires or feckless leader disappointments.

    Will the President Trump show be cancelled or renewed? A simple, yet sad question.

    The independents will decide. That is the ballast which right the ship. There is no Left in the U.S. not by international standards. Religious social conservatism is not political or environmental conservatism.

    In the future there will be less. The game is in play.

    #42467
    MoFlora
    Participant

    “People need to revisit Woody Guthrie and his wonderful songs; they’re all about the lost America.”
    I agree. I first started listening to Woody’s music in 1965. I saw Pete Seeger play several times. He always played some of Woody’s songs. That was the same year I began participating in protesting the Vietnam War. I was 14. Three years later I was still too young to go to Chicago for the convention, but I did attend a speech given by Hubert Humphrey on the steps of the Federal building in Downtown Boston. We showed up to make noise. The cops kicked my skinny ass and head. (which may explain a few things)
    I obviously was not a liberal intellectual, just a blue collar kid who lost too many friends in the war. I still work with my hands in the soil every day. I’ve been working and fighting for social and environmental justice for over 50 years. I ain’t no snowflake.

    Pointing,out that Trump almost certainly laundered Russian oligarch money and lied about it on his taxes is not exactly beating the war drums against Russia. C’mon. It may also be shown that he laundered money from the Middle East and Latin America. It’s called crime.

    By all means, poke holes in the MSM narrative and point out the rampant hypocrisy on the intellectual left. Rightly vilify the military-industrial-financial-government complex. But face it. Trump is a crook. When you run for President on a platform of breaking the current system and if you have shady finances in your immediate past you really shouldn’t be shocked when the establishment comes after you.

    Trump’s policies are a disaster when it come to the environment. I realize that few, if any, who read this really care about this topic so I will not go into detail. Enjoy that new SUV.

    I am old enough to remember Daniel Ellsburg. I empathize with Assange. I hope things go well for him. He knew the risks. When you fight a murderous system there are obviously deadly serious risks. Unfortunately many environmental journalists are murdered in Brazil, Congo and elsewhere. The same is true for journalists who fight corruption in Russia, Mexico, Central America, and the list goes on.

    It is a dangerous thing to stereotype people. You will often be wrong.

    Must go close in the chickens. The smoke is very thick here. The few songbirds that remain are silent. The sun set blood red.

    #42468
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    MoFlora
    Enjoyed your comment.
    I was living in Boise in ’68 and made it a point to go see Seeger live in a park after the radio station said if you want to see all the communists in Boise, go to his concert.
    By god, there must have been 6,000 communists there… 😉
    Moved back to Portland and marched against the war in Vietnam and stayed active.
    I self exiled in 2003 and to this day; best thing I ever did. Enough was too damned much.

    #42477
    Dr. D
    Participant

    MoFlora somehow Raul has commented on Global Warming or Monsanto or extinction or the seas in nearly every post for 2 years. Somehow I think that qualifies as concern about the environment.

    So do the readers I expect, but if you’re really in the soil, you know that growing, living simply, is at this point in America, nearly a death warrant. Death for shit life syndrome, living in a poor rural area, with no health care, no income, no opportunities, and no help from neighbors, the rural ways having been erased with a 50 year social genocide. So it’s difficult to cut some slack for people who have to drive to where there is work, or buy food on Styrofoam wrapped in plastic. You can do that or die, and I’m sure WalMart would be happy to join Monsanto and General Mills and help us all along. Most people do what they must, what they’re capable of. They don’t mean ill. You get what you incentivize, and none of us are in a position to radically change the incentive structure.

    If there is such wide evidence of Trump money laundering and worldwide corruption, why hasn’t it been used by his enemies in three years? Did they intend to hold back so he could win the election? Is the Mueller investigation a scam? Does the FBI and other agencies not really dislike him? If so, why don’t they obey him and congress? If they’re for him, why do most Judges rule against? They’re investigating and tying him down because…? While they don’t actually arrest or lambast him for evidence they do have because…? It’s a difficult worldview, because so many things would have to be the opposite of their appearance. Surely SOME of what we see must be true.

    #42478
    rapier
    Participant

    Since AE’s deflation prediction was negated by vast monetary and credit expansion and there is no reason to believe such will not be deployed again, and then again, as long as the biosphere cooperates, the entire project has lost it’s meaning. IM like huge swaths of what I call the alt economic community have turned towards fascism to get clicks. Repeating it’s narratives, endlessly, as here in today’s post.

    Life under fascism will not be so bad for those who know their place. The ‘conservative’ dream of a perfect society is that people know their place. I am actually agnostic on this point, that liberal democracy can work in any culture that is not uniform culturally, if not racially.The post Great Depression Liberal dream just an historic oddity perhaps.

    #42483
    neoh
    Participant

    I never got the impression that TAE was pro Trump. Sad the way we tend to get labeled “pro” because you happen to write or say something that is critical of something. Being against abuse of power by the intelligence community does not mean that you support Trump’s policies.
    Although Ilargi has posted countless articles and commentary criticizing current US immigration policy, policies that Trump wants to make harsher, Ilargi is suddenly accused of being “pro” Trump because he is critical of the lies and abuse of power by the intelligence community. As far as Ilargi’s feelings on immigration, he was accused on another board of being against any policy!
    Hard to take a stand on something without being pigeon holed by faulty logic. Since you are for (or against) this then you must also be for (or against) thousands of other things that have been conveniently labeled (falsely) conservative, liberal, or moderate. The never ending game played by politicians, clergy, and the MSM. A good strategy since the masses always fall for it.

    #42484
    MoFlora
    Participant

    Ah Dr D.
    Indeed there can be evidence of money laundering that has not been made public. The special Counsel has seen documents and records that others have not had access to – like the tax returns. And, if talking about the Russian money gives you hives, you can examine Lula’s connection or the money from the Gulf States and Israel.

    The New York and Miami real estate booms were very much about laundering money. Colombian money, Mexican money, Russian, Saudi, Kuwaiti and more all wound up in these markets. Trump is by no means the only player. It was common. Trump, however, is the one who ran for President against the ruling system – vowing to break it up. If he had any skeletons in his closet they were going to be exposed by the people he declared to be his enemies. If he didn’t see all of this mess coming he really isn’t very bright. Reformers have to be clean or they are instantly called out for hypocrisy – at least.

    And it goes on. He inflates the “membership dues” at the resorts where he vacations. The very wealthy get access. No one else. The Washington hotel is another example. Money for access. The guy can’t help himself. Trump is just a crook.

    Of course there are articles posted about the poisoners on TAE. But as Trump rolls back yet more air pollution regulations today, sickening more children, how can you support Trump and yet claim the environment is an important issue for you? It’s obviously not as big a deal as Mueller, the FBI and Russian bedwetters.

    As regards your subtle insult, I believe I know as much about what has transpired in rural America over the last 40 -50 years as anyone who frequents this site. I’m inside the house now because of the very heavy smoke. After years of fighting wildfire as a volunteer firefighter and EMT I have a sensitivity to it. I’m not able to get the ox to his pasture or run the chainsaw to cut firewood, I will however weed the onions – I’ll just wear a mask.

    We work every day to grow the alternative to an unsustainable system. This year our small raspberry patch yielded 22 gallons of berries – just one indicator of the hundreds of species we have planted here over the years.

    Several species of insects are missing this year. ALL the songbirds are gone along with most of the bats. Two of our main native tree species are dying from the warmer winters and drier summers. Because of that, we are engaged in enhancing phytomigration by starting tree, shrub and grass seedlings that are native far to the south. We are engaged in forest restoration on a large local scale and we bury carbon by the ton. We use about 20 -25% of the hydrocarbons we used ten years ago. And you?

    The important climate and environmental work is being done at the individual and community level. All the elitists in their limos in Paris don’t do shit.

    Pick up a shovel.

    #42487
    Mr. Jones
    Participant

    “The Shape of Trump to Come” – I’d say whatever shape impeached is.

    #42488
    regionswork
    Participant

    Dr. D writes as though he’s only read about rural America, never been there: “Death for shit life syndrome, living in a poor rural area, with no health care, no income, no opportunities, and no help from neighbors, the rural ways having been erased with a 50 year social genocide”. Rural people are quite resilient. I’ve worked on rural development since 1973 in Virginia’s Northern Shenandoah Valley. They qualified for inclusion under the Appalachian Regional Commission in the 1960s, but chose not to participate. Some Virginia counties did. In 1968, the Commonwealth extended its history of promoting local and regional planning as a means to foster economic development. The encouragement of sub-state planning district commissions, and later mandate for local planning commission, a subdivision ordinance, and by 1980, a local comprehensive plan has proven to be very effective, though the work is never done. A 1972 Executive Order by Governor Linwood Holton provided that State agencies align their sub-state districts to the Planning District regions, using single or multiple districts. This simple alignment made for an ability for regional analysis and coordination to support planning and subsequent investment long term. While most states have some variation of this, I’m not aware of any that did this at all.

    Very little research is done in this area because the data set does not exist. American has a Metropolitan Obsession. Economists and policy people study the way that the data is presented. They have very little sense of geography. FIPS codes of the 1960s are alphabetic, so that’s the way data is organized. Alphabetical lists of places, cities, States don’t convey much location data. Consider Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas – FIPS-ANSI codes 1, 2, 4,,5.

    The migration of population to cities has been a long term trend. Larger populations do have economies of scale, if they have the self-governance skills to manage it. City-building is the hallmark of civilization, so by the 1700s it was common knowledge that it took 300 years to build any City of substance. Rome wasn’t built in a day – they all knew and understood.

    As population moved to cities, the Metropolitanism of the early 20th Century, Benton MacKaye, architect of the Appalachian Trail, published: “The New Exploration: A Philosophy of Regional Planning”, as a call to help small/rural communities to cooperate to maintain quality of life. Trails were to keep communities connected. I live near the trail in the Shenandoah National Park. Recently I met a hiker, probably mid-30’s, that was using the trail connections to go from Warren County to Rappahannock County. Certainly a rare person. I informed him that such was the initial vision.

    Stable or declining population, there are always births, deaths, in and out migration, brings with it a diseconomies of scale. Not enough people to support a particular store, restaurant, medical specialty, course at the high school, etc. The way this can be overcome is to network regionally. The circuit-riding minister or judge is an historic adaptation when territories are sparse, but growing.

    This is also called regionalization, but that came to be a negative term. Local people want things to stay local. Cooperation may lead to their not having a reason to exist – to be consolidated out of existence, contrary to the intent of the founders of that community. Cooperation is normally considered in game theory as the prisoner’s dilemma; will people cooperate on the story to save their skin. This is one form, but local government cooperation faces what I call “the neighbor’s dilemma”. If we cooperate too much, our reason for existence will fade away. Our identity will be lost, betraying the founders whose optimism was the call “to build a shining city on a hill”. My Town, Front Royal, chartered in 1788, was note as have seven hills, just as another historic city.

    Non-metro America, rural counties not part of a multi-jurisdictional Metropolitan Statistical Area, solely based on commuting patterns, stand alone. Regional planning promoted in the 1950s and 1960s was attacked as Soviet regionalism, focusing on how Stalin had moved populations for his political purposes. You’ll still find such critiques of regionalism on the web. Each local government, whenever created, is to be inherently self-sufficient. Ronald Reagan encouraged more local government formations as the bedrock of democracy. True for sure, but small scale enterprises have a greater challenge in the world that requires more expertise. It is the people that count.

    A new hospital is of no use it it does not have doctors who practice there. People drive to get to the best doctors. Physicians are more successful where they do the highest number of procedures, getting really good at it.

    Social genocide is a new term for me and notion that is tis a 50 year program is hard to place anywhere in my life experience in the U.S. The Shit-Life Syndrome is real, primarily a consequence of the failure to educate, the greatest abuse that older generations can impose on the young, either by intent or neglect. Both types can be recognized in the U.S. and elsewhere in the world.

    The notions that you can make money with money, using other peoples’ money and faking it until you make it is just fine, are a few of the behavioral problems in the winner-take-all world. This profit motive free pass neglects the community motive that humanity has used since the plains of Africa to perpetuate itself.

    Where you to think I’m just a sermonizer, I do invite people to look at 2020 Census Challenge: A Functional Sub-State Region/Regional CouncilData Set for Research, Policy and Programming in the U.S. for my public proposal to deal with the Metropolitan Obcession and increase alignment between local, State and Federal prgramming. Federal may be the more difficult, but local and State alignment is critical. Needy, inefficient suburban areas have the population, votes and money. They know government works to their benefit. Rural people are taught the opposite, yet they are among the most cooperative people on earth.

    A good book that explained the way rural populations have been played is Joe Bageant’s “Deer Hunting with Jesus: Dispatches from America’s Class War” published June 19, 2007. Joe, a friend of mine, did not propose solutions. He simply pointed to the issues as he saw them. Too salty for political discourse at the time perhaps, it will fit the coarse language of the present.

    #42503
    steve from virginia
    Participant

    Too many errors in this sorry excuse of a blog post to take it seriously. Too many errors to respond to in a timely way.

    Sad to see Automatic Earth turn into Daily Caller.

    #42504
    regionswork
    Participant

    To identify one error would be fine.

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