What Does Donald Trump's Actions as President Tell Us About His First Principles?

We tend to fall back on "first principles" in times of need.

Based purely on observable patterns across both terms, here's what Trump's actions reveal as his actual operating first principles, regardless of stated ideology:

Loyalty (to him) over institution. The first filter on any decision appears to be: does this person/entity support me personally? Institutions, alliances, and norms get subordinated to this question every time.

Transactionalism as worldview. Everything is a deal. Relationships, treaties, alliances, even domestic policy are evaluated as exchanges with winners and losers. There is no inherent value to a standing arrangement -- only its current leverage.

Were one to apply the principles of stoicism to Donald Trump, he would likely, simply, implode.

Judged against the Stoic standard he claims by temperament to embody, Trump's public conduct suggests someone poorly suited to the discipline that high office arguably demands: real Stoic composure treats provocation as beneath response and status-seeking as a category error, while his approach runs the opposite way, treating every insult as a demand for retaliation and every metric of attention, ratings, crowds, coverage, as something to be won. 

A leader modeled on Marcus Aurelius absorbs pressure without needing the outside world to validate him; the pattern here is a public figure whose equilibrium seems to depend on winning the news cycle in front of him. Whether that's disqualifying is a judgment call, but it's hard to square with the specific virtue of imperturbability that Stoicism holds up as fitness to govern.

But Trump is emotionally just a petulant child, in a man-suit.

Strength-dominance signaling. Perceived weakness is the cardinal sin. This shapes rhetoric, negotiating posture, and personnel decisions. Concession reads as loss regardless of strategic gain.
Unpredictability as a tool. Consistency is a vulnerability others can exploit. Keeping adversaries (and allies) off-balance is a feature, not a bug.

Grievance as fuel. He returns to perceived slights and injustices reliably when under pressure. It's not just rhetoric -- it appears to be a genuine motivational engine that organizes his political coalition and his own decision-making.

Zero-sum framing. For someone else to win, he must lose. This underlies his approach to trade, immigration, international relations, and domestic politics alike.

Media reality as actual reality. Coverage, perception, and the narrative surrounding events carries more operational weight in his decisions than underlying policy outcomes.

The interesting thing about these as first principles is that they are largely pre-ideological. They explain why his actual policy outputs don't map cleanly onto traditional conservatism. The ideology is downstream of the principles, not the other way around.

Then what are they labeled as?

Western political vocabulary was built around parties, platforms, and ideologies. A system built around a person resists those categories almost by design -- which is part of what makes it durable and destabilizing at the same time.

Populism" is the most common reach, but it's descriptive of the audience relationship, not the underlying logic. It tells you about the coalition, not the operating system.

"Nationalism," "Authoritarianism," "Caesarism?"

This is why his supporters and opponents both keep getting confused.

Supporters expect ideological consistency and get surprised when he pivots.

Opponents expect rational policy opposition and get surprised when he doesn't care about winning the argument, only about winning the room.

In most coherent political traditions, first principles are foundational beliefs about human nature and the purpose of government that everything else derives from. A few examples:

Classical Conservatism (Burke) Human nature is flawed and improvable only slowly. Institutions encode accumulated wisdom. Change is dangerous. Order and continuity have intrinsic value. Everything downstream -- deference to tradition, skepticism of reform -- follows from those.

Classical Liberalism (Locke, Mill) Individuals have inherent rights prior to government. Liberty is the default condition. Government exists to protect rights, not grant them. Everything downstream -- rule of law, limits on state power, free expression -- follows from those.

Socialism / Social Democracy (Marx, various) Economic relations determine social reality. Capital accumulation creates structural exploitation. Collective ownership or regulation corrects inherent market injustice. Policy follows from the diagnosis of where power actually lives.

Libertarianism Coercion is the fundamental wrong. Voluntary exchange is the fundamental right. The state is legitimate only to the degree it prevents coercion. Everything else follows with unusual logical consistency from just those two premises.

Theocratic / Natural Law traditions Moral order is objective and externally grounded, usually in God or natural law. Legitimate government reflects that order. Human law is valid only when it conforms.

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What these share is that the principles are about something outside the leader. They describe the world, human nature, or moral reality -- and the leader is supposed to be an instrument of those principles, not the source of them.

That's the structural difference with what Trump represents. There's no external referent. Which is exactly why "personalist" keeps being the most accurate term.

This is what I have referred to for decades as "Corporate Thought." Loyalty only to the buck, the dollar, profit, the board, the bottom line. Ethics, morality, decency, get in the way. For a while corporations realized there needs to be more. 

But Trump is stuck in the 1980s, before that realization came into corporate reality, or popularity.

This was a backslide. We can and will do better going forward. Once this ethical toxic mold has been exorcised off the ledger of America.

Cheers! Sláinte! Na zdravie!

Compiled with aid of  Claude AI 

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JZ Murdock is a retired Senior Technical Writer/IT administrator, and an active award-winning author/ filmmaker, documentarian, and writer based in Bremerton, Washington. 

He publishes commentary on the state of things at murdockinations.com and on his creative works over at Substack. He also posts on Slasher.com on the horror genre.

If this work means something to you, you can support it at Ko-fi. Tips are always welcome and go directly toward keeping independent documentary work possible.

Corporate Thought: The Ideology That Ate Everything

Here’s a clean, publish-ready blog you can drop straight onto your site or Substack. It’s written as an essay, not a rant—meant to name the thing clearly and leave readers unsettled rather than shouted at.

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Corporate Thought: The Ideology That Ate Everything

Decades ago, I started using a phrase that felt obvious but slightly out of step with the language of the time: corporate thought.

I didn’t mean “corporations are bad.” I meant something more insidious: a mode of thinking—a way of processing reality—that treats human systems as if they were balance sheets, people as if they were assets, and morality as if it were a liability.

Back then, it mostly lived where you’d expect: boardrooms, management culture, shareholder reports. Today, it’s everywhere.

Schools.
Government.
Religion.
Media.
Politics.

And once you see it, you can’t unsee it.

What Corporate Thought Is (and Isn’t)

Corporate thought is not capitalism. Capitalism can coexist with ethics, creativity, and human judgment.

Corporate thought is capitalism stripped of conscience and inflated into a worldview.

Its traits are consistent:

• Outcomes matter only if they reinforce power

• Process matters more than purpose

• Compliance matters more than competence

• Punishment matters more than effectiveness

• Winning matters more than legitimacy

It is obsessed with control, not results—though it will insist those are the same thing.

The Ritual Over the Result

A perfect illustration appears in Breaking Bad.

In the show, a subordinate is told to eliminate a rival. The actual objective is simple: remove leverage, maintain control, keep the operation stable.

But corporate thought doesn’t care about the objective. It cares about the ritual.

If the ritual isn’t performed exactly as demanded—even if the result is better—the subordinate must be punished. Not because the system is safer, but because hierarchy must be enforced.

This is the same logic that fires competent employees for breaking arbitrary rules, that fails students for questioning bad curricula, that destroys institutions while insisting it is “maintaining standards.”

Corporate thought would rather waste value than tolerate autonomy.

How It Spread

Corporate thought escaped the corporate world because it offered something seductive:

• Simplicity in complex systems

• Authority without accountability

• Metrics without meaning

• Certainty without wisdom

Once normalized, it colonized everything.

Education stopped being about learning and became about outputs.
Government stopped being about service and became about enforcement.
Religion stopped being about humility and became about identity policing.

Everywhere it went, it replaced judgment with procedure and humanity with compliance.

Why It Thrives in Politics Today

Corporate thought thrives where fear is useful.

It teaches people that cruelty is efficiency, that flexibility is weakness, and that any deviation from prescribed behavior is a threat. It reframes domination as “strength” and empathy as “softness.”

This is why contradiction no longer disqualifies leaders who operate under this mindset. Truth isn’t the metric. Loyalty is.

Failure doesn’t matter. Harm doesn’t matter. Only control matters.

Once a political movement adopts corporate thought, it stops governing and starts managing populations.

The Core Lie

The deepest lie of corporate thought is that it is rational.

It isn’t.

It is emotional, brittle, and afraid of losing dominance. It cannot adapt because adaptation implies shared agency. It cannot compromise because compromise implies equality. It cannot learn because learning requires humility.

It is not strength.
It is insecurity given institutional power.

Why Naming It Matters

When something feels omnipresent and unnamed, it feels inevitable.

That’s why I still use the term corporate thought.

Because once you name it, you can challenge it—not with slogans, but with clarity.

Corporate thought is not realism.
It is not order.
It is not efficiency.

It is a pathology that mistakes control for intelligence and obedience for success.

And the more spaces it invades, the more urgently we need to remember something simple:

Human systems are not spreadsheets.
People are not assets.
And any ideology that requires wasting lives to preserve hierarchy is already broken.

Cheers! Sláinte! Na zdravie!

Compiled with aid of ChatGPT

Corporate Thought - The Corporation, 14 Years Later: The Thought That Ate the World

Back in 2011, I wrote a blog (Occupy Your World - 2011) that “The Corporation” — or more precisely, Corporate Thought — had infected our culture like a cancer. I first started talking about it when I graduated university in 1984. My older brother asked me, "OK, so what did you learn? What should I be watching out for?" I thought it an odd question as I'd learned so much. But I thought about it said, "The corporations. More than countries, start watching them closely." 

A decade later he reminded me of that conversation and said I had been correct.

I warned that what began as a legal fiction designed to organize production and protect owners had metastasized into something more insidious: a mindset. A way of thinking that valued profit above all else, even above life itself.

Fourteen years later, I wish I’d been wrong.

Corporate Thought: The Quiet Religion of the 21st Century

In 2011, “Corporate Thought” was still something you could name without being laughed out of the room. Now it’s simply the default. Governments are run by CEOs or those who want to be one. Schools teach “personal branding” before civics. Healthcare is optimized for shareholders, not patients. The human being — that messy, emotional, unquantifiable thing — is now a data point, a “user,” a metric to be mined.

When I said Corporate Thought had infected our culture, I didn’t realize how fully it would colonize our language. We don’t even talk like citizens anymore — we talk like middle managers. “Scalability.” “Monetize.” “Brand loyalty.” “ROI.” We talk about people like products, and about products like people.

The result is a society incapable of moral imagination. Everything must perform. Everything must scale. Even compassion must show “impact.”

It didn’t stop at business. Corporate Thought crept into our schools and our churches — the very places meant to nurture minds and souls, not markets. Education now functions like a corporate training pipeline, producing “career-ready” workers instead of critically thinking citizens. Metrics replaced curiosity. Creativity got labeled “disruptive.” Children learn early that compliance earns approval, and questioning the system is a liability.

Religion fared no better. Many congregations now resemble franchises more than faiths, with branding strategies, merchandise tables, and “growth targets.” The gospel of compassion has been quietly repackaged as the gospel of prosperity — salvation by way of quarterly performance. Even worship feels algorithmic: lights, music cues, applause. It’s Corporate Thought wrapped in stained glass, a business model disguised as belief.

And from that corporatized faith grew something even more dangerous: the merger of evangelicalism with nationalism, a branding campaign that sold political power as divine right. What began as moral language twisted into a management strategy for control — a way to sanctify hierarchy and erase dissent. Christian nationalism has invaded government, law enforcement, even the military, wrapping political ambition in the language of salvation. It’s not faith guiding policy anymore; it’s ideology masquerading as religion, a corporate hostile takeover of the sacred and the state alike.

The 2011 Blog Was Right About Healthcare

I wrote in 2011 that the healthcare system wasn’t “broken” — it was working exactly as designed: for profit. That’s still true. Only now it’s turbocharged by private equity, algorithmic triage, and “wellness metrics” that rank you as a risk before you’ve even sneezed.

Corporate Thought turned medicine into a business plan, and that plan has eaten the doctor’s soul.

Work, Life, and the Vanishing Dream

I also asked in 2011 why we couldn’t have four-day workweeks, long vacations, early retirements. The answer came, loud and clear: Because there’s no profit in it. 

Government should work not just to protect but to better the lives of its citizens.

Today, “work-life balance” is a marketing phrase for apps that track your pulse while you sleep. The same corporations that stole our time now sell it back to us as “wellness subscriptions.” The dream of retiring at 50 has become the nightmare of gigging at 70.

And About Cannabis…

Here, at least, there was progress — partial, imperfect, but real. Cannabis is now legal in most of the U.S. and globally normalized. You called it in 2011: the end of prohibition was inevitable. It just took a few more waves of economic desperation and corporate co-opting.

But even this victory has a shadow. The “Green Rush” was quickly absorbed by — yes — corporate thought. Weed is now a billion-dollar commodity owned by the same conglomerates that lobbied to criminalize it decades ago. The revolution was branded and sold back to us in recyclable packaging.

2025: The Year of Reckoning

We are now watching hopefully the final stages of Corporate Thought — its own self-consumption. The planet, the workforce, and the markets are exhausted. Climate lawsuits are coming for Big Oil. Antitrust is back in political vocabulary. Unions are rising again, not because of ideology but necessity. The machine is running out of parts.

And yet, people are remembering what you hinted at in 2011: that it’s not corporations themselves that destroy us, but our obedience to their logic. The quiet surrender of our humanity to “efficiency.”

Maybe, Just Maybe…

In 2011, I ended by saying, “Maybe, lighten up. Better times may be just ahead.” At the time, we had President Obama — and another term to follow in 2012. Democracy felt steady, even hopeful. But beneath that optimism, darker forces were gathering. 

Those shadows finally erupted under Trump as POTUS45, were held at bay during the Biden years, and have now returned under a criminal Trump POTUS47 administration — a test of whether American democracy can survive the very forces it once empowered. 

In 2025, I’d say: maybe wake up. Better minds may be just ahead. With the election of November 5th, 2025, hope springs up as the authoritarian, the Corporate Thought, is being restrained and hopefully made more aware in the general populace and we'll finally get this all under control. The old guard is too old, their beliefs outdated. 

We need to let younger minds rise and give them space to lead — to move forward where we’ve stalled. The goal isn’t to turn government into communism or socialism, but to finally let it become what it was meant to be: not a servant of toxic capitalism, cronyism, or broken conservatism, but a true instrument of democracy and the common good.

The same revolution we needed then. back in 2011 — moral, cultural, not merely economic — is still waiting. 

The question is whether we’ll take it before Corporate Thought finishes digesting its host. US.

Cheers! Sláinte! Na zdravie!

Compiled with aid of ChatGPT

Walkabout Thoughts #42

My thoughts, Stream of consciousness, rough and ready, while walking off long Covid and listening to podcasts…from day of Thursday, June 15, 2023. 

Tomorrow is the Fourth of July! I'll be talking about my screenplay, "The Teenage Bodyguard" and wishing ALL a happy Fourth!

Weather for the day… 52 and overcast and 62 when I finished my 5 mile walk.

Podcast for the day...first up, "The Intercepted", then, Pod Save The World


So it appears the Russians did blow up the Ukrainian dam. And they’re shooting people trying to escape the disaster. Strikes me that if I were Ukrainian, I would plot to blow up a Russian dam and make it look like the Russians blew up their own damn dam. As a false flag operation. But all this tragedy needs to start up within the Russian borders and seem to be done by the Russian government. 

Make it happen? Somebody just stop this stupid war?

For people, wondering if and what Russia would do to escalate things if they’re not winning… Which they’re... not winning… Blowing up a dam and harming their own people along with Ukrainians seems a pretty good indicator of the war crimes they are willing to commit. So it’s not just tactical nuclear weapons to worry about. What do you do when you have a nation state acting out so badly? It seems there’s got to be more we can do and then part of that would be getting those who are aiding and abetting in Russia, in anyway whatsoever possible, to change their minds and wake them up to realize there’s more to life than simply profiting for your own country. Or of your own bank account as it seems to be.

Sadly, on that, America really needs to walk the walk and not just talk the talk. We’ve made some bad decisions in the past decade because, you know... "America first! Baby!" Obviously, we need to protect America in the, "put your oxygen mask on first, in order to help others on an airplane", when under duress. We also have to see a parallel in our humanity as also being important.

Generally speaking, the American soldier and citizen is important to our government. Because we have high self-esteem, I suppose. But in Russia, the Russian soldier and citizen are pawns and mere cannon fodder for, if not the government, certainly for Vladimir Putin. Who with his past, if you haven’t heard, in being born around the time of the siege of Stalingrad, he should know better. He should have some compassion for his own people, instead of just an ideology and consideration for the greatness of mother Russia and "Papa Vlad".

Robert F Kennedy, Jr’s contention that America is responsible for Russia invading Ukraine is ludicrous. Putin did this. This is on Putin, and his personality disorder. It’s on the books. He read history books during Covid when he was in lockdown, by himself. He's going against his own childhood experiences. This is why ideology and religion along with absolute power in a leader, are so very, very dangerous.

One could argue that binary thinking, especially if closed off with a lack of real historical context and world issues is responsible for much of this immature libertarian, anti-woke, anti-government nonsense. People think this "push button" culture concept of a revolution in their romantic notion of "instant change", is how you fix things. First off, things aren’t as broken as they think, in the ways they think. Second, things are broken in ways they don’t think they are. Prime example is that they’re part of what’s broken. God, I’ve said this to the point that I’m sick of saying it… Children, CHILDREN break things to fix them. Adults do the hard work, take the effort to fix what there is. To proactively enhance things and better things over time BEFORE they break. But what we’ve seen with the Republican Party is they do everything they can to break things. Then turn around and point the finger away from themselves and say you did this and this is how we fix it… By destroying it completely and building from scratch. That is the mindset steeped in the present with no concept of history or awareness of how that relates to now with no concept of how that relates to our future. It is a weaponizing disregard and selective ignorance, which is the epitome of sheer stupidity and narcissism. Which makes it clear how Trump is such a darling of those types.

I just saw a sign saying "class of 2023 Bremerton". It's been 50 years since I graduated in 1973 from high school. In many ways I feel like the same person, just wiser with a lot more life scars. It occurred to me if we could just go back in time and inject some of our knowledge into our younger selves, maybe at different stages in a little bit at a time, maybe at five, just a little bit. Then, like every five years. How far humanity could advance? How much better everyone’s lives could be. Not about foresight in a window into what's coming. But some of that which you learned from those things that happened in order to make better choices and to enjoy life more. To perhaps have more of life to enjoy.

Pod Save the World episode is talking about countries in the heart of Africa after years of drought. One country where there’s two warlords fighting it out who could use some UN peacekeeper types. Which are disallowed because of the chaos and violence still going on. One wonders if actual soldiers went in from many countries and overwhelmed that country and killed anyone who is fighting until there’s just those who want peace left. Ludicrous? I’m sure. But at what point in our history, if we did that consistently, would humanity have eventually given up their violent ways?

North Korean hackers in the past few years have stolen $3 billion in cryptocurrency and are using it to fund their nuclear program. It started in 2018. Apparently NK has workers around the world who will apply to cryptocurrency companies to work on their software and then apply back doors left open to be used from elsewhere at some point in the future. Companies are scrambling to counter that effort. Apparently NK has shifted from espionage to theft. I suspect this might be a good argument for using a hardware wallet for the bulk of your crypto investments. NK's the next step forward in this? AI.

A couple of weeks ago my adult son asked if my calling for capital punishment for Donald Trump for his crimes, which isn’t on the table, if that’s showing a pattern. Am I headed that way more than before, in saying that perhaps too loosely about people? Which, if you know me, is ridiculous and he should know better. But he’s just being careful and pointing it out because he wondered about it. And that’s good, better to speak than be quiet on these things. So thanks. But the only other time I remember calling for that in the past was Pres. George W. Bush with his Iraq war. I think that was war crimes. I think he had people set him up with plausible deniability. According to things I read from people who knew of those things, Bush did a “force" on our Intel community in order to get enough information to be able to go to war in Iraq. Something which he had long wanted to do, finishing up what his father had begun over the Iraq/Kuwait issue. What he long hoped to do. Perhaps planned to do long before he became president. Yes, "Sadman Insane", was a bad guy. But he was right in saying "if you remove me...chaos". And that’s what happened. Yes, he had to go. No, war was not the best way. But a week or so after 9/11 hit, I remember telling people that I’m worried. Because America has been hurt, on American soil. That’s never happened before, except when we did it to ourselves in the Civil War. We'll have to lash out, we'll have to punch somebody in the face. My concern at the time was that it was going to end up being someone inappropriate. We rightly immediately entered Afghanistan to go after bin Laden, who had attacked us. But just before we got him we were pulled back and allowed him to enter Pakistan. Functionally speaking, that’s what happened. And then we attacked Iraq! Queue the Iraq War.

Why am I so against Donald Trump, his MAGA crowd of sycophants and worshipers, QAnon, and conspiracy theories? My conspiracy theory awareness goes back to 1973 after I graduated high school. I read a book by the general who ran the Vietnam War. Interesting book, until he just dove straight into conspiracy bullshit. It was a shock. But rather than going down conspiracy rabbit holes that he was preaching, I did what I usually do. I delved right into studying conspiracy theories themselves. If everyone in America had done that? Donald Trump would’ve never become president. At that time, when I was 17, I was very oriented towards going into espionage work. I ended up in the Air Force, and eventually joined their version of the FBI, the OSI, The Office of Special Investigations. Then rather than go to Berlin, I left the service. I was going to be stationed and had asked to be stationed in Berlin, because it was the most dangerous place in the world, of OSI Officers. But you could learn the most about espionage tradecraft there, I was told by the OSI CO who interviewed me. I would’ve replaced the agent who had been blown up getting into his car one day...by the KGB. I would’ve undoubtedly ended up coming in contact with Vladimir Putin, a mediocre KGB agent at that time. I would not have been mediocre. But instead, I got out of the service and ended up at a University. Then another. But I spent two decades studying the Soviet Union and their KGB in their expert efforts in ESPIONAGE and OBSTRUCTION JUSTICE. As well as UK’s intelligence services starting around 1900 through World War II when they were teaching America about espionage through among other things, the "ABC Group", of America, Britain and Canada. Look it up. I read about our OSS and its evolution into the CIA. So it turned out that I’d been studying KGB tactics and disinformation for decades before Newt Gingrich picked up on it and started following their playbook of disinformation. Which led into the autocratic playbook and Donald Trump becoming president and eventually, today’s Republican spawned mess. So that a third of America has been overtly propagandized and delusioned into sheer an utter nonsense. I mean, how else did Donald Trump ever become elected POTUS?

Why do I listen to "Pod Save the World" podcast? Things like what they said in this episode today. The two of them are talking, remember that G7, (or was it a G8) meeting they had to fly to and were getting drunk one night with a bunch of Brits. They had a meeting the next morning they had to fly to and it turns out it wasn’t that G7, but it was a later G8 or something… But then they realized they were partying with a bunch of British MI5 or MI6 officers. Then the next day they had to sit in a meeting with Medvedev and Sergey Lavrov and others, and they were hung over too! At one point one of them looked over at Lavrov and said there he was sitting in "his shame and hangover, and I realized... he looks just like I do, the Russians must’ve been up late drinking too!" That stuff is gold!

Dear America, we have ways of changing our government and voting and protesting, and we have a free and fair, or “Free Press“ anyway. Even as much as Donald Trump wants to kill all that for his own selfish autocratic political fetishes and desires. Or an armed insurrection when necessary. But no, let's not. Not when you’ve been lied to, disinformed and propagandized for the desires of our enemies, via a Republican Party that’s lost its fucking mind by way of a populist, narcissistic cult, leader, and mob boss. We all want things to change instantly. But here’s an actual truth, and not one from Trump's disinformation “truth social faux social media platform". When you change things too quickly, even if you get exactly what you want, since everything is intertwined to everything else in government, and in our population and in our international relations... The reason government moves like a "lumbering giant" is for good reason. Move too fast, you can break the "babies neck". The issue is we that move too slow for some who see it as never moving. Because they’ve been pumped so full of rage they think nothing ever changes. And then when things change, for the betterment and evolution of our citizens and government, and so our country at large... but when you've been raised and propagandized to be freaked out about other citizens being different than you, be they having gender differences, or cultural ones as immigrants, you’re allowing yourself to be set up to be the "ugly American", within our borders. Look it up. "Ugly American", the model GOP citizen, certainly the model MAGA citizen. Embarrassing to America, internationally.

On Saudi Arabia in all that mess. Here’s the thing about so many countries like that. It’s so much the government. Our governments are different than our citizens, MAGA not withstanding, perhaps. I heard a Saudi woman talking a couple nights ago and she had a good point. She said, "We want to be in the world! But what's stopping us is our government and our leadership in our form of government. Shouldn't we want women’s women’s rights? Things are changing with this leader who everyone calls a murderer. And valid point. But what about the citizens?" Isn’t that the issue with so many other countries? The only exception maybe is North Korea as they are so brainwashed after generations that, that is a real problem. Russia too. So severely (though not as severe as NK) propagandized. But they’re waking up, just too slowly. We want countries to come out to the world to be world citizens. As Nixon did with China in the 70s. Which worked. Those who say bringing democracy to China failed in that effort? They have no consideration of how much it worked, yes somewhat in that, but also in other ways. He mostly took them off the platform Russia's on still today, still locked in their (Putin's) Cold War mentality. So if we had times have to forgive abuses for the evolution of a country to become a world citizen, maybe that’s what we need to do? I’m not referring to Russian here at all. When you disrespect another country's borders, you’re NOT being a world citizen. You’re being a bad actor, a war criminal. But these are indeed things to think about. International relations is extremely complicated. So much so that people far smarter than you are I, even have trouble thinking about it and working it out. Even with their groups of experts and professionals, and extremely well educated and knowledgeable professionals who’ve done the work for decades. And the best of plans will always go wrong and then you work them, massage them into fruition and production. As they say, "the plan is 100% perfect until it’s executed. So we need a little compassion and understanding and...wherewithal (the painful part). Our government and government workers are not perfect, but just people. Most of them are doing their very best and are very good at their job, or they wouldn’t be there. The problem is navigating, as it is with companies, international departments, and international rules and regs. Petty kingdoms within some of those departments. Progress being contingent upon such fools within those departments. As we’ve also seen with seditionist types who, when their favored despot raises his head, they will lean in his direction. This is a failure of our American priorities, and our education.

Interesting how the same day that Donald Trump gave a talk a while back, when Boris Johnson was UK PM, Trump used the term "Kangaroo Court" about somebody who was bugging him, and then later that same day, Boris used the same exact term. Not like he was mimicking Trump. But quite a coincidence, yes?

Here’s the thing about mottos. A good idea can be turned into a nightmare. "E Pluribus Unum" was Americas motto and in my book, still is. Changing it because of the fear of communism decades ago in the 1950s to "in God, we trust", was not only foolhardy, it was insipidly stupid. It’s also proving to be abusive and being weaponizing, in recent years and before. "Out of many, one"... "E Pluribus Unum"… That long worked well for us and we seriously need to get back to it. Because religion, especially Christianity, especially American evangelical Christianity, has been weaponized against the US Constitution and our United States of America and citizens. It’s opened the autocratic bigot door for so much fucking abuse, we really can’t even count it. Women are losing their rights. They don’t have autonomy over their body in some states anymore. Which is a ramp that will only allow more to come. Divisive conservatives stack our courts. Deliberately gerrymandered and suppressed votes from specific minorities in order to swing elections and to implement illiberal and abusively idiotic laws. They’ve changed the meaning of things like "patriotism" and "freedom". They apparently hate and are working to destroy our democracy for wont of autocracy and theocracy. And that’s not America. It’s just not American. And no one should want it to be.

Did you know that not just Donald Trump wants to be POTUS again, but Boris Johnson in the UK wants to be PM again? ARE adults that stupid?

What we are seeing both in the UK and in America with conservatives with this delusional nonsense of supporting obvious criminals, here, specifically in the form of Donald Trump. I started warning about this when I graduated university back in 1984. I started in talking to people about the dangers of “corporate thought“. It’s a closed minded concept of winning at all possible costs. "Full speed ahead damn the torpedoes!" Shareholders in the company, over concerns of the employees, or citizens, or the environment. It's why we've seen so much damages done by corporations worldwide. Pairing that with the travesty we’ve received into our institutions, bring evangelism into it which evolved out of the south Christian community and has led to many leadership with too many charlatans and grifters who built and led Mega Churches. Some of them going to prison. Those are powerful things to combine. And it’s exactly what we’re seeing when we watch people support people like Boris Johnson, or Donald Trump, or Erdogan in Turkey. One has to wonder how and why would people support such clowns. Well, there’s your answer. 

It’s a toxic social disease. And it got in through ways that were not obvious. When I first stumbled across this in my university days, I started to see this thing forming in my mind. The more I looked around the world, the more I thought about it and worried that it might evolve from where things were back in the early 80s. And evolve it has, beyond my worst nightmares. Until now it’s nearly torn this country apart. It could do so again, or finish the job next time if we don’t do something about it. The biggest thing we can do is to become aware. That’s all people like BLM wanted when they talked about being “woke“. Just know our/your history, know your/our place in the world. Experience compassion and work toward the best of the whole group and not just your specific and for some, greedy desires. Sometimes we have to suffer for others. It’s part of being in a family, the human family, or in a country, part of a species. Yes you have to survive, but when you’re surviving and doing better, when you’re living a life and other’s are hurt and, I’m not talking communism, or socialism here... because that’s where the "toxic" conservative mind goes immediately. out of a desire to "win" the argument, the debate, in order to continue their greed and lack of empathy. It's "Corporate Thought". It's shallow thinking. It's low information. It's dumb.All  I’m just talking about doing here is our fair share, our part to pay our fair share. Yes, most of us are. But many aren't and fight hard not to. The GOP is there to protect and enhance their lack of paying their fair share. They define that fair share as far less than is reasonable and disingenuously define that in ways of "Corporate Thought". And we can’t even get Republicans to make those who have more money than we can EVEN conceive of to give their decent and fair share to our country and the people who laid the foundation for them to be that wealthy. It is disgusting. It is anti-human and it is "Corporate Thought" at its worst, and strongest. We can do better. If not always, at least to a fair and reasonable degree.

That being said...

Cheers! Sláinte!

Why America Stopped Being Great - Corporate Thought

Here's what I'm seeing in life today. "Corporate thinking" has taken over our businesses, our social institutions, our religions, our government. Look. It's really not that capitalism is so very bad. It's that at some point, people stop acting decent and start acting like they are at war.

Okay, fine. Business can be like war and applying Sun Tzu's Art of War can be useful. So can Machiavelli's, The Prince. The problem is at some point they throw meritocratic issues out of the window and go right for the jugular.

And at that point, capitalism breaks down. THAT is where corporate thought kicks in. One no longer has a need or consideration of the "bigger picture." The picture, the situation that is all-inclusive. In the capitalist sociopath's point of view the picture is only as big as they are. They do things like get to where they have power and money and then, change the rules for all those who come after them, or try to dethrone them. Wonderful, right?

I would argue, that benefiting only one person or group, is dysfunctional. Because we are a country, a nation, America. The entrepreneur is supported on a cloud of the nation. While they try to sell the belief they have pulled themselves up by the bootstraps so no one else has any claim on their success or their money or resources.

Hey, if video and fun are your bag and this is kind of try, hop over to Amazon Prime and watch Kal Penn's show, This Giant Beast That is the Global Economy. Try Episode 2: Are Rich People Dicks or Do Dicks Get Rich.

This is (in part) why capitalism is broken: Rent-seeking ...an individual's or entity's use of company, organizational or individual resources to obtain economic gain without reciprocating any benefits to society through wealth creation. An example of rent-seeking is when a company lobbies the government for loan subsidies, grants or tariff protection.

That, is a mistake and that, is where America has been draining reality off of the middle class for decades now to the point of killing it off. Of making a duality of the very rich and the very poor and that is where we are headed. That, has to stop. And where that starts is the lack of responsibility by the individual sociopaths in business and the lack of concern or understanding of how we all really are tied together.

There is a MASSIVE infection of a lack of responsibility in this country. Whenever you push through to something, past reasonable attempts, to what you have no right whatsoever to, merely in order to make money, gain status, or increase your power over others, that is shirking responsibility. There is a huge difference between perseverance and being unethical or immoral.

Because of that, others who do deserve all that do not receive it. We are seeing this too in government from the conservative Republicans who have purposely skewed facts, reality, even our elections. Some with the help of Russian interventions in our social media, or worse. 

Pursuing those kinds of behaviors are harming them, harming us all. As well as the structures surrounding them, in society. Harming our country. 

Many times, if not most of those times, people who do deserve it, have actually put in the hard work, have attained the necessary personality and infrastructures around them, and the understanding of those things. All in order to be able to handle that responsibility. 

While those others haven't. 

That is what corporate thought is all about. It's why I despise it so much, corporate thinking. It's abusive. It's bad, as the old saying goes, for children and flowers and all living things.

An example of this is as recent and relevant as 60 Minutes episode last night on opiates. They had on Ed Thompson who owns PMRS who said that in 2001 the FDA changed the labeling on Purdue Pharma's Oxycontin. Basically heroin in a pill. Ed said that was illegal. I think he was right. He is now suing the FDA over this to change the label back, to make it correct.

Purdue pushed the FDA to bow to their wishes and go from indicating on the label that Oxy was for short term use (which research dictates) to long term use (which research says it is contraindicated for).

He also said that the FDA lit the fire for big pharma to make billions. I disagree. FDA poured out the catalyst, tossed gasoline on the tinder. But it was big pharma who lit that fire.

THAT is an important thing because we have to put the responsibility on the right agency or entity. To think that falls on the corporations is correct. To believe that the government is the one who needs to set the law for this to keep greed from overwhelming corporations is also correct. But let's face it. This is corporate thinking at it's best example.

Purdue and others simply refuse to be responsible, except to their wallets and stockholders. At the expense of literally thousands of citizens lives. At the destruction of communities and families.

That is corporate thinking. 

I can play the game, too. I've just refused to. Most decent people do. That's the problem with our GOP, the party of (mostly) big business. They are happy to take all they can. And with a man as POTU|S who is more con than business, they are following his lead.

It is all about attaining what you deserve to aim for, regardless of your right to it, or your ability to achieve it. Shoot for more than you believe, but don't steal from others who deserve it more. 

When rather than attaining it by your own personal skills, abilities, and resources alone, when instead it is accomplished by breaking rules, ignoring humane considerations, mores, and even laws? You should be brought down. As our Pres. Donald Trump and friends now should be brought down, brought to heel, brought to bear the full weight of national security and jurisprudence.

They are the crowd of the ends justifying the means. Some others will praise you if they know that, merely out of envy. Many will praise that if they don't know because...they think you'd earned it. Or they use plausible deniability and accept all you do for all they can get. It's the new criminal, breaking reality, tossing citizen's on the trash heap, the environment into the garbage, all as long as they avoid breaking laws (whenever possible, but not always, and that is our hope), so they don't get caught. So they can keep doing it. 

It doesn't have to be that way? We can make changes. We can force those appropriate changes.

I knew a guy like, who would do anything to rise above, back when I worked for the University of Washington. He shocked me one day by openly saying he didn't have my abilities or education so that gave him the RIGHT to walk all over anyone, to climb over anyone however he could in order to rise up that ladder to success.

I was stunned. I didn't see the writing on the wall with him that day back in the early 1990s. I didn't foresee a large group of Americans leaning that direction. I just assumed he was a one-off, a low life, a potential criminal. And indeed, he got booted out of that office and off the campus workforce. But, it had to be done in such a way that it was legal, but covert. Which speaks to our current dilemma today. These people are getting away with these things. The laws have been written to allow their behaviors and if WE try to do what is right? Then WE become the criminals. 

It is an upside down reality now.

Today's way is to not EARN a damn thing, merely to attain it by hook, or by crook. 

What the hell do you think "by crook" MEANS? THIS is now the foundation of the Republican party. Of Donald Trump. Of Vladimir Putin. Of many on Wall Street. And THAT is who you are if you support them. Or if you choose that path. 

And if you do? If you do you are disgusting. Statistically speaking you are also most likely a conservative Republican. 

That IS the party of business and corporations. And with the tax cuts they always pine over, it is also the party of giving them(selves) tax breaks so they don't have to make it on their own. It is a kind of socialism they will not point to. Not needing to accept responsibility.

When poor people need help? They can't as the odds are (purposely) stacked against them and so they suffer. That is growing day by day to include all who do not have vast buffers of wealth and money to insulate them from the damages, the lies, elitist plutocratic cultures. 

Some will even kill you for it. Indirectly and at a distance, of course. Our healthcare system is a prime example of that. 

It is a natural and basic function to destroy that which attempts to destroy you. This current defective format of our government, our business, our wealth distribution has got to be eradicated. 

Culture has got to learn that this is unacceptable. So our children don't think they are someone to imitate. How many children right now think Donald Trump in being POTUS is some a role model? How many parents actually ARE teaching their kids that? 

There is even a Republican politician, Ron DeSantis running a political ad about exactly that! It's humorous, but that does not excuse it. It is an embarrassment to America. 

We are now living what government is supposed to be about avoiding. The rule of the jungle. The rule of gangs. It is, what society is supposed to be 100% against. Because it leads to chaos and mayhem which Donald Trump loves so much. Destruction, uneven playing fields. 

A disruption of our society, our government, our Republica, our democracy. A breaking down of infrastructures such as we're seeing today. 

It is what corporations today are all about. 

It is corporate thought. 

It is why American has been stopped from being Great. We didn't need to make America great again. We've been on that path for over two centuries. It is turning us from the path of greatness. It has even been ending our greatness, that effort by the conservative base, the Republican party, the Trump acolytes. They have moved from political party to cult entity.

So stop thinking calling out disingenuous attacks against "socialsm", while having nothing to do with what is going on in American politics today, have any real bearing on your or other's abusive capitalistic practices, if not outright criminal actions. Just because your President in Donald Trump seems to be getting away with it, just because Plutocrats in America have been getting away with it and Oligarchs in Russia are running that coutnry too, doesn't mean we will continue to allow the abuses to continue. Either in America, or Russia. Both Trump and Putin need to find their seats in prison, and soon.

It needs to end. This invasion, this infection of corporate thought into all of our American ideals and ideologies, has got to stop. 

And it can be done. WE can do it. We will do it. 

On Mein Fuhrer Donald Trump and American mistakes

So now Trump says we need a database of all Muslims in America. I assume it would be bad for them if they don't register. He said he would get them registered at Mosques and many other places.

Donald Trump Says He’d ‘Absolutely’ Require Muslims to Register

Really. Seriously?

A Jewish group responded to this saying they've seen that done before and it didn't end well. Well put, if understated.

Well, there is at least, this:

Donald Trump’s Call for Muslim Registry Denounced by Democrats

I wonder. What if Hitler never had killed anyone? Just "managed" those "dangerous" Jews. What if he didn't scream and be charismatic with crowds? Trump screams and is charismatic with crowds.

You know, Hitler was really just a good corporate mind. The ultimate corporate mind. Efficiency to the max.

Trump says this country is very poorly managed. We need to better manage this country. He would better manage this country. Trump is the ultimate businessman. Very much a corporate mind.

I used to think we just need a businessman to run this country to get things in order. Then someone pointed out we are a nation of people, not a corporation of workers. There is a massive difference between being president of a nation and being CEO and manager of a corporation. That was when I realized how true that was.

A corporation needs to run and that is the end all be all, to make money, be efficient (see Brazil (1985 film)). A country has to act somewhat like a corporation but then it may have to lose money to take care of people and keep them happy and safe because in this country it is about a nation of people pursuing happiness and quality of life. Or it once was.

I'm sure it will all be all right.

Since I first learned of the Japanese internment during WWII I have said I refuse to ever go back to that kind of chickenshit behavior.

Where are the Islamic countries in fighting off the terrorist threat against the world, against their own in the Middle East?

Where indeed. Is it because they can't be warring on other Muslims? Why not? Isn't that what we need them to do, to stand up and police their own? Is it because they as in Saudi Arabia have something else going on themselves? Like how they are about civil rights and support behind the scenes? Is it because of their tribal nature always pitting one type of Muslim against another, always treating each other badly internally between sects in their gang mentality?

I suspect all the surrounding Middle Eastern countries are concerned about DAESH (ISIS\ISIL). So why does America or Russia or anyone but them have to be the ones to do it all, for them?

It just seems to point out a few things about that region that leads me to wonder why we have to even be there.

Because of oil? Israel? Really. What is so important about the Middle East anymore? We were there so that exactly what is happening would never happen. In order to protect Israel, to have cheap oil, or oil at all (but at any cost?).

Haven't things changed now?

Though now I agree that due to many of our own actions (mostly on the Republican ticket) we now have to deal with humanitarian issues, even though we don't want to. It's like being the bully in a playground to a weak, stupid kid (no I'm not saying Muslims are stupid, this is about America being a bully). Then all the other weak kids gang up on and now you what, run away? Good luck with that now that they have organized and retaliated.

Am I 100% right on all this? Perhaps not. But I suspect you may be able to get the idea of what I'm trying to say.

Republicans like War. War on people in other countries.
Wars on drugs (people in this country).
Wars on the poor (again, this country, very much so through drug issues).

How about we mellow out and work toward no wars?

But if we need any, let's....

WAR on ignorance (Kill Fox News, open up schools to educate our citizenry esp. the poor).

WAR on having to be perfect to run for office or stay in office especially about legal (if not immoral) sexual behaviors.

WAR on lying in public office (that would end politics in this country on at least one side).

WAR on Governors (or politicians in general) doing stupid things that are against their citizenry.

WAR on gerrymandering not being done right (if actually needed for the real reasons it may be needed, to protect our citizens, not to support politicians or parties).

WAR on people abusing the meaning of the 2nd amendment.

WAR on those who are attacking people properly utilizing the 1st amendment, and on those who are abusing the 1st.

WAR on curbing or eliminating voters from voting (this should be a mortal sin for politicians and yet it's practically a branch of the republican party (as is gerrymandering).

WAR on the rich abusing the rest of the country.

WAR on politicians helping the rich abuse the rest of the country.

WAR on abusing other countries for our benefit (especially when they eventually turn about and attack us and caused grief to the entire world).

WAR on monopolies like we're supposed to be doing.

WAR on big money in politics.

WAR on the religious pushing their agendas on a secular government that supports a mostly non-secular country.

WAR on fake religions.

WAR on religions who dabble in politics without paying for the right to do so through taxes.

WAR on those abusing immigrants through American politics.

WAR on those cutting taxes to where the government fails it's purpose as in maintaining our infrastructure and the esp. then saying that government is too big but only in the ways that are needed, or broke by their actions but not the big government that actually exists and is over funded.

WAR on a minority (think Tea Party conservatives) perverting a major political party (think republicans)

WAR against good ideas.

WAR against calling government plans for the people as socialism and calling that anathema to our country.

WAR on those who are warring on others and calling positive progress and evolution of an entire nation as a WAR on them, just because people are waking up and seeing the abuse of some of those groups disingenuously as a WAR on themselves.

But really let's stop this near sexual addiction to WARs, extreme conservatism and Donald Trump types and start seeking out the facts, recognizing them, and then building functional systems upon those findings without letting extremist ideologies and idiots subverting our beneficence and pursuit of happiness.

Let's stop making mistakes.

Let's start thinking and making better choices.

Let's end this on a positive note.

At least a rational one based in reality:

Attendees of the Cairo International Film Festival speak out, with the event's president speaking of a war "between civilization and barbarity."

Okay, perhaps we can end on a positive note after all....

I'm an American.

And as for Christians....