SCENES FROM LEBANON AND BEYOND ........

Lebanese from all walks of life , from all regions of the country, from all religions, something hard to muster in a country like Lebanon, they all have risen collectively and instantaneously, in impressive numbers, not seen for a long time . An unprecedented sense of civility and self imposed correctness hardly observed anywhere in the area or the world .

All with practically the same core of demands, of economical and political reforms, an immediate cessation and an end to the chronic era of official and private corruption and theft of public funds and infrastructure plus public services allocations . All parties and public figures , warlords and politicians are implicated with no exception what so ever, that makes it very hard as there's practically no one side capable of addressing or accusing or pointing a finger to other guilty of corruption or theft, be it a party or individual, everyone at higher echelon is somehow implicated in a form or other.

Some believe the army, which is benefiting lately of some sympathy among most Lebanese, could take over temporarily, do the job and reestablish some real democratic order into the scene, the major problem is always, as has been for decades, the extreme vulnerability of the army, and the danger of it disintegrating on religious and sectarianism pressures from the different Lebanese political factions. That would be a greater drag and jeopardy for Lebanon and the Lebanese people.

As practically all Lebanese political personalities and parties are implicated in aggravating the population to beyond reasonable control, whereby now it looks like a free falling snowball or avalanche, my comments will hit on one aspect of it all , Hezbollah, the fastest ascending Shiite party, originally from the south of Lebanon, and now, totally inspired, funded and directed from Tehran.

Hizbollah attributed to itself through the few past decades, many important and great roles on the local Lebanese scene, starting with liberating Lebanon from the Israeli aggression of the eighties, and again in the first decade of the 21st century, and finally maintaining a considerable destructive power and precision sets of missiles to balance any new aggression by Israel, it gained the role of moderator and less corrupt among most local players, forcing itself into a powerful partnership with some or other political factions, and influencing the fragile local balance between political lordships . Yes Hizbollah is in many instances many of these aspects or all of them , according to its benefits and to the benefits of Iranian and or Syrian wishes and political tactics and interests.

But, I personally, as well as many in Lebanon and the region, still look at the Party of God suspiciously, with little sympathy or love to its agenda, tactics, affiliations and final goals, it is after all a deeply theocratic and religious institution, that was founded on these basis and continues to adhere strictly to a certain view of Islamic religious dogma and fatwas, and the higher theocratic leadership's opinions of Iran. It had always a clergyman at the top echelon, it's an essential part of its dogma and existence, it will not change, ever.

The party, its leadership and cadres will always sanctify and blindly obey Iranian wishes and interests. Will always be inspired by 1400 years of narrow Islamic views, practices and archaic religious wild imagination. No discussions no arguments about any of this. Behaving worse than anyone else in executing and complimenting the dirty work asked of them .

When the Syrian internal conflict started some 10 years ago, the Syrian regime and its various militias found themselves cornered, even defeated by local groups of rural people, mostly Sunni Muslems, who very quickly got infiltrated by all kinds of Islamic jihadist from around the world, heavily funded by many sides including America, Israel and some of their allies. Hizbollah with absolutely no special love or affinity to the Assad regime, his family, oligarchy or his secret services, had to oblige by sending tens of thousands of well armed and trained fighters to fight along side the Syrian and eventually Iranian sides, against whoever was against the Syrian regime, Israel could have taken advantage and attacked, but they refrained and restrained !!! basically all to satisfy Iran's future aspirations, interests, and the party's own Iranian arms delivery routes.

The party of Allah, fought in Syria a very dirty war against many poor and powerless rural areas and their populations, all based on blind sectarian and religious ethnic-cleansing tactics and strategies. Killing, brutalizing and displacing entire populations and villages and areas of the Syrian rural and city core fabric. They all of a sudden became the trusted heroes of the small fraction of the Syrian oligarchy, the Assad clan and its pseudo supposedly saved religious and economical minorities.

From an Arab versus Israeli perspective, Hizbollah is maintaining the same policies of the Assad's, with an undeclared semi truce and a mutual non aggression policy throughout the long and often disputed common borders, Israel is slowly and surely acquiring the Arab territories, like the Golan heights, and the Chab'aa farms in Lebanon, plus its own occupied Palestinian territories, with the others bragging about their deterrent forces. Iran of course is the biggest and major winner till now in the game,smartly exploiting it all, with its crescent from Iran, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, what a powerful strategic combination !!! all the way to the Mediterranean warm waters. No wonder Israel's Netanyahu and America's Trump are dog like panicky about it all .

No educated or learned person has any doubts,that Hizbollah is the perfect Iranian tool, tactically for Lebanon, eventually to keeping Syria in check and under leach, and subduing this entire portion of the Middle-East, a very efficient tool indeed for Iranian theocracy and Farsi strategic and hegemonic long goals. In fact , and I know many who could be offended by my opinions, I'd say what's the difference between Israeli and Iranian future hegemonic and expansionary visions. This is the reason, I and many, can not and will never tolerate Hizbollah's take-over, even partially of Lebanon, Syria or any part of the very diversified and rich Middle-Eastern fantastic and unique cobweb .
          My usual many thanks to everyone around our small glob......                                     

A SLOW AND SURE DEATH OF DEMOCRACY, AS WE KNOW IT ......

Just about to enter our third decade of the 21st century, we live new realities, at least in the political and economical sense, our new breed of aggressive politicians/dictators/fascist/Capitalists, are the new realities of our modern times. Their tactics and demagoguery are almost identical, all using the same umbrella, the same greedy excessive profiteering to achieve personal and national gains, using the full scope of Orwellian "parallel reality" to achieve their purposes and goals. Leaders who are devoid of any philosophy or strategy, only a collage of impoverished vocabulary contradictions and empty rhetoric.

Orwellian "New speak and parallel realities" was a fictional language, it's used today to mirror and satirize what we used to call "Wooden language", or "langue de bois" wherby the object is avoidance of concrete facts and realities, " My theories and strategies are true because they are correct" !!!. The world has only things good,or things evil. Nothing in between. These leader's power lie in giving themselves the ability to say what they want, when they want, regardless of the facts or the reality, they are leaders of their countries and masters of reality.

Most of these leaders are open and clear deceivers, whereby they knowingly know they are lying and deceiving their followers, and masses and the world, few are convinced they have the truth and nothing but the truth, the rest is invariably fake news and blatant media and opposition intentional aggression. Mr. Trump of America is obviously a leader in this domain, and is helping many around the world establish their false reigns, they are all hiding behind his ways , demagoguery, lies and pseudo aggressiveness.

Mr. Trump denies and confirms, he refutes the most prominent scientific opinions, he is against all State Department veterans, and most senior army generals, all for his own ego and parallel convictions and immediate benefits, be it financial or electoral. He appointed some of the most inexperienced people to major key internal and foreign affairs, including his beloved young puppet son in law as the chief architect for one of the most delicate and volatile spots of the world, the Middle-East and its Israeli impossible dilemma.       

Like all dictators nowadays, they work against the advise of all senior professional advisers, as well as cabinet's appointees, who are mostly there to carry specific tasks, of destroying and vilifying the existing and inherited previous departments and legislation. and trying to find meanings and suitable explanations to their leader's erratic tweets and press statements and policies, only reflecting their parallel and singular understanding of realities and weird agendas.

Mr. Netanyahu is already paying a dear price for his autocracy, personal profiteering and crazy dreams of absolute hegemony, plunging his country in a bizarre, to say the least, situation and political impasse. All based on a decade of parallel realities and lies, fake assumptions, dreams and demagoguery. At least , over there it could be a temporarily recess for the Palestinians and their close neighbors.

Syria has been living for decades under the same false parallel realities, and truth denial, pretentious and false aspirations by the ruling Assad regime and his profiteering oligarchy, it all ended in a total massacre and destruction of Syria. Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, now Yemen and Sudan, are all as well as their Latin American banana entities, with great help from the U.S. are all paying a dear price for their illusions, their adventures, and their reliance on the great Allie, with his parallel imaginary realities,  and his fake one way Democracy.

Mr. Putin is interfering with great success in practically every Democratic election that is going on in any spot of the world, with no apparent immediate gain to mother Russia, but surely destroying and giving a bad name to Democracy itself and proving it a failure, and amplifying its social divisions.

Finally, and with the latest pseudo invasion of major parts of Syria, Mr. Erdogan of Turkey, with his big dreams of reviving his Islamic Ottoman caliphate, under his reign of course, The man apart from his foreign ambitions, is jailing all his opposing dissidents, he is destroying books, and purging all cultural aspects since 2016, for a few years now more than 300.000 books have been confiscated and destroyed, including many text books banned for mentioning Pennsylvania where his created alleged rival Gulen is self exiled. The Turkish council for protection of minors from harmful publications knows no rest in declaring books by international renown authors, about rights of boys and girls, as bad influence and automatically banned. A truly great Islamic 1984 new world and its big brother.

No one would in her or his right mind, accept or believe that any authoritarian or absolute dictatorship, whether it's a Trump style or Netanyahu , Putin, Assad or Erdogan , care about the well being or the welfare of his people, or anyone else for that matter, only their families and their loyal entourage and oligarchies for as long as they serve and last. Their wealth and power are the main reason for tolerance. Idiocracy is surely beating all forms of Democracy, and greater times are ahead.
                                           
                                           As always , my profound gratitude for your time .....
        

         

EXPLAINING IT IN SIMPLE WORDS .......

Many Americans, from both sides of the political spectrum, and from all sides of the economical scales of society, believe nowadays that facts about Mr. Trump, his many lies and manipulations of his office and official powers as president to serve his own interests are alarming to say the least.

Americans in more numbers, consider that Mr. Trump's manipulation of what Russia did and their direct interference helping him personally win the 2016 presidential elections  unacceptable, they tend to believe that the special prosecutor Robert Muller did not exonerate Trump of his crimes and manipulations. Most Americans condemn Mr. Trump and his aids when they deny all subpoenas by Congress and disrupt all investigations.

To culminate the whole , lately his continued daily panic messages and lies, about anything and everything , finishing it with his blatant coercing of a foreign government and its leader, to give him explicit dirt on a potential Democratic adversary candidate.

It all started with a minor whistle-blower who reported a strange or according to him/her unethical phone call between Mr. Trump and his Ukrainian counterpart, whereby Trump used his power of the presidency to withhold a considerable aid to the Ukrainian military, and inviting a foreign government to interfere in American elections. Then he tried to suppress it all, then again and under pressure he reversed course and admitted the facts, sarcastically and making a joke of it all, trying to delay investigations and possible embarrassing impeachment procedures.

Now he is alluding to the spy who betrayed him , executing him , and talking continuously about a possible coup against himself and his regime. For a while the discussions were split, and some tried to shift the investigations to the Biden side and his son's dealings at the time in Ukraine, nowadays the discussions are back from Biden to Trump , and the question at hand is not if Trump is likely to be impeached , but when, and  whether or not he will be removed from office .

Many from both sides, believe that the entire affair and exercise are more theatrical, since the Senate in its present configuration of a Republican majority will not vote on it, but the whole process rely on speculation and doubtful propaganda, since many Republican Senators, especially if the vote is done behind closed doors might vote to oust Mr. Trump out.

Many Democrats like Biden and Pelosi and the old conservative section of the party, would love it if the whole process and the 2020 election, turn to be a mandate over Trump, shifting away from the new trend of progressive Sanders/ Warren , their middle to the left visions and politics, that could further alienate the Democratic party in the future.

Mr. Trump is obviously hiding plenty, whether from his past businesses or his actual with his family and oligarchy present dealings while in office, his long history of dodging taxes, his potential money laundering for foreign powers, his continuous obstruction of justice, are all above the law, even his constant signing of presidential directives and laws and policies, that no one knows exactly how he personally or his family and oligarchy benefit from .
                                     My usual many thanks for every one's time ....