Monthly Archives: January 2019

Abortion–The Third Rail

Published / by Lee Kessler / 1 Comment on Abortion–The Third Rail

It’s taken me a while to write about this because of the highly sensitive, career-destroying nature of the topic.   Just the word brings about stimulus-response reactions on both sides of the issue.  The word alone engenders divisiveness.   But, before any of you hyperventilate, feel your blood pressure rise, or your stomach sink, relax.   This is not going to be what you think.

It is my hope to examine something from a different perspective, and in so doing, I hope to ease your spirit and mind, and open up a possibility not addressed.  This piece is not judgmental; it is not political; it is not incendiary.   It is to help you navigate past the “Third Rail.”

In an earlier Blog (Guidelines for Living) I spoke of a friend who expressed to me what he had taught his children regarding how to live:   Do as much good as you can.  Do as little harm as you can.  Those simple sentences hold, I believe, an answer for women and men who may be in anguish on this subject–torn, and suffering emotionally.

Let’s begin by using those rules as guidelines.   Abortion is legal in the US, and will remain so. Though one has that choice, It may not be the best option.   So, let’s calmly, and rationally, look at another option.

Do as little harm as you can.   If a woman is pregnant and does not want the child whether because of  money, being unmarried, fear, career, circumstances of conception, or health, she is often encouraged to abort the child.  So, she “harms” the child in order to “help” herself and her future.   There are, however, three things in play:   The mother, the child, and a couple who is childless somewhere in America who pray nightly for a child, and who would love to adopt.

Therefore, a decision to abort no doubt allows the woman to go on with her life without the child and all that comes with that baby.  But, harm is done to the baby.   It is not really debatable that the fetus is a separate entity, with separate DNA.   It is not a tumor.   It is a human being, with a DNA blueprint, growing in what is supposed to be the nurturing and protecting womb of the mother until birth.  To destroy the fetus is to harm the child and whatever potential exists with that being. It also harms a couple in their quest for a child they would love and care for the remainder of their lives.   The decision to abort then helps one, and harms two.

The decision to deliver the baby and give it up for adoption is an alternative.   Let’s take the other rule.   Do as much good as you can.   Giving it up allows the mother to be free and to move on.   That’s good for her.   It allows the child to live and have a chance to laugh, to squeal, to learn to walk, run, read and BE.   it allows a desiring and deserving couple to have and cherish a dream.  It helps all three, and harms none.

Put it all together now.   Do as much good as you can; do as little harm as you can.  It is not a sin, and you are not a bad person to want to protect yourself from perceived harm or disaster. But, isn’t it worth looking at this:  to free yourself in such a way as to do good for the baby, and for others?   Why can’t everyone win?  I’d like to suggest that peace of mind, and emotional calm are more likely here.  My experience in life has taught me that any time we can do more good than harm, we prosper as an individual.  We feel strong, empowered, and confident in ourselves–not in our perfection (which is unattainable), but in our meeting a potentially devastating challenge and surmounting it for the good of many.  In that we attain a degree of wisdom.

Sadly, my experience in life has also taught me that when we act in our own self-interest–no matter how justified–but harm others in doing it, we are less empowered, less confident.   We know, somehow, that we are better than that.

I encourage everyone to slow down, ruminate on this a bit.   Because in the coming days you are going to be confronted by your elected lawmakers with laws that will require more than the Wisdom of Solomon.   They will require a sanity that no psychiatrist or psychologist has even a glimmer of understanding, let alone accomplishing for themselves.  Those two simple rules are sane.   They open a window to the light.  They lead to physical and psychological freedom.

I leave you with this.   Today, I heard the Governor of Virginia defend a lawmaker who is proposing abortion of the child during childbirth, including after birth potentially.  This is America.   How did we come to this?   Where is it going to end?

We are better than this.

A Man Named Samir

Published / by Lee Kessler / 2 Comments on A Man Named Samir

Years ago,  a business mentor made a very shocking statement to me.   Looking at what he viewed as a declining education system, disintegrating family values, rising immorality, and group think dominating the young, he suggested there might actually be a group determined to bring America down from within, by gradually turning right into wrong, and wrong into right.

If true, this would be a propaganda victory of historic proportions.   Can you imagine the disinformation, misinformation, and misdirection campaign it would take to cause an ethical and moral people to reverse their thinking and actions?   What would it take to have them abandon the things they held righteous and true, to have them think that things which they held to be “right” are now “wrong” and things which they held to be “wrong” are now “right?”

What a challenge that would be to an enemy of freedom!  What a coup!   From the point of view of evil, flipping the entire Western Civilization and its values on its head would certainly write you into the history books of infamy on this planet.   Does such a person or group exist?

Yes, they do.   When I wrote the White King Trilogy I was attempting to reveal through fiction what seemed to be a plausible approach to causing us to dismantle our own form of government, to kill our young with deadly and addictive drugs, to render our education system nothing more than indoctrination centers, and to turn over power to financial interests outside our country–allowing them to dictate and control us.

Though fiction, the books have seemed prophetic, if not indeed true.   The headlines you read today manifest the exact line of attack laid out in the novels.   The exact line and substance.  The good news is that to defeat this enemy, you need to read the books for yourself.   Once you do, you spot how they are operating, and once you spot it, the strategy and tactics lose all power over you.   There’s a challenge for you.

I took the challenge for myself.   I asked myself, “Was it possible that someone had inserted a Fifth Column (see earlier Blogs) into the US, under cover of a Free Press?   Would our very Constitution provide sanctuary for the enemy, and would their skillful propaganda undermine the members of the Press themselves?  You can answer that yourselves, if you are honest.  We need an honest free press.   But, suppose it got flipped, is now upside down, and has become a dishonest free press.    That threatens us all.

In “White King and the Doctor,” Ayman Al-Zawahiri–the real life mastermind of Al Qaeda–dispatched a Public Relations/Propaganda Chief to hypnotize Americans so that he could then implant commands which would be followed without questioning.  That is mind control on a mass level.

And before you scoff, you should understand this had been done before.   Stalin knew this technology, Mao knew this technology.  They mastered indoctrination in order to control a population otherwise too large to control.

The technology was passed to a man named “Samir.”   He was assigned the take-down of the American Free Press.   He was assigned to get us to turn our strengths as a nation into weaknesses.   If he succeeded, we would implode, feeding on ourselves.  If you dare, read that book, and see if you can see Samir’s fingerprints on current events.  And, then, after that, ask yourself, “Have I been ‘Samirized’?”   Did he get to me?

Samir is a fictitious name for someone–or several people–but he does exist.   I believe I have located him, and know who he has been using to make right wrong, and wrong right.   Your mission is to locate him and his Fifth Column, before he gets to you.  The good news is that evil can not thrive in the light of day.   It hides in the darkness–in the shadows of fear.   So, assuming you have some ability to confront evil, just your eyes gazing at evil causes it to wither.

I will give you a HINT:  if you hear one credible news agency make a statement, and then all other agencies blindly repeat it, using almost the exact same wording, you are looking at victims of Information Warfare.  Their thinking, discerning minds compromised, they are now going over a cliff.   Samir is there.   He planted the first statement.   He threw the bait into the water.  The others, who were dim and lazy, just turned a lie into the truth, and smashed the truth down into a lie.   Remember, a lie told often  enough becomes the truth.  Here’s the kicker.   He preceded all that by getting the Press to first have an agenda.  Once members have an agenda, their own agenda blinds them from truth, and makes it possible for Samir to plant all manner of outrageous material.   Samir knows that if the “lie” conforms with their agenda, or can be perverted to conform with their agenda, he now has an “unwitting” accomplice.

Until a truly righteous person stands up.  Is that you?  I hope so.

Stay tuned for more of Samir’s tactics and strategies.

“The Plural of Anecdote is not Data”–Wrong!

Published / by Lee Kessler / Leave a Comment

Two or three days ago the Speaker of the House was pressed by a journalist about those who had lost loved ones to crimes committed by people who had come here illegally.  She responded, (and this is very nearly an exact quote) “The Plural of Anecdote is not Data.”  And with that short sentence she not only misstated a fact, she dismissed thousands of true, painful stories of her countrymen.

Now before you get your underwear in a twist, this is not a Blog about Ms. Pelosi.   Like Hillary Clinton’s “deplorable” comment, which I believe cost her the election, Nancy Pelosi will have to live with the consequences of that one simple statement.   That is between her and the people of the United States.

But it caused me to examine it, since it seemed preposterous to me.   Sometimes we all spout off about something, without stopping to really make sure we understand the words that make up the idea we are espousing.   And, if we don’t understand a word properly, we can make a HUGE mistake in calculation or evaluation.    So, I was inspired to look up a few words here.

Using my trusty American Heritage Dictionary, let’s examine the dismissive comment:   “The Plural of Anecdote is not Data.”

The definition of anecdote is: a short account of an interesting or humorous incident.   The Speaker was in trouble right there, as I doubt any of us would consider the death by murder of a family member, and the description of the event, to be humorous.   But, all of us make mistakes.  I am reminding myself right now to remember that, the next time I might be tempted to hurl out the word bigot, racist, xenophobe, sexist, misogynist, etc. So, let’s press on.   The second definition is: hitherto undiscovered particulars of history or biography.

Let’s just say an anecdote is an account of an incident.   It is a story.

So, what is a datum.   According to the dictionary, it is: a fact or proposition used to draw a conclusion or make a decision.   That certainly sounds like something we would always want to have as we are drawing conclusions–a factual datum, or its plural, data.   The dictionary further defines data as: factual information, especially information used for analysis.

So, what is a fact?   The dictionary defines it as: a real occurrence or event, something having real demonstrable existence.

Putting it all together now: Data are real occurrences or events that are analyzed and used for reaching conclusions, and making decisions.   The real occurrences are the “anecdotes” or stories.  They are actual, and the truth of the story allows one to reach a conclusion.

Statistically, we eventually take multiple stories of the same type and distil them into a numerical measurement.   The story and the people in the story now are reduced to a number, and we look at the number to make our decision.   70,000 drug overdose deaths per year in the US is a datum.   300 per week dying in the US of heroin overdoes is a datum.   Whatever the quantity is of rapes committed in this country or on route to this country are datums.   Whatever the number is of Al Qaeda terrorists who make their way from Brazil up a corridor and into the US is a datum.

We can look at these numbers and hear talking heads evaluating and arguing about the significance and relevance of the data, arguing about the solutions, or even if there is a need for a solution.   But, one inescapable fact remains:  The numbers were derived from actual human stories, and the humanity was removed because to tell 70,000 stories would be too bulky and take too much time.   So, instead we distil it.   We can look at it.   But, if we are not careful, we can also “dodge” it.  Someone lived that death.  You know exactly what I am talking about if you are one of the ones who has lived that story.

Take for example the “plural anecdotes” which were not considered “data” worthy of evaluation this past week.  Take the 300 deaths per week of our countrymen to heroin  overdoses that they were stupid enough to take.  Stupidity is one thing, but I think we all agree that death is a pretty severe penalty for it.  I personally have an “anecdote” for the Speaker about a young friend of mine who died a little over a year ago.   His mother is a close friend, and I know the devastation and loss that the family experienced.   But, I also lost a young friend whom I liked very much and enjoyed talking with about the world.  I think of him often. This is true.   It is actual.   It was a real event, and he is now in the statistical data which was derived from the other stories like his. His anecdote is now in a category with others who died the same way.

The Speaker was wrong.   The plural of anecdote IS data.   She can be forgiven her poor choice of the word anecdote.   Let’s see if she and others, and we ourselves, will be willing to look at the data–which is factual–and render a conclusion and decision that honors and respects those who have suffered through their own “anecdote.”  If we lose sight of the fact that the numbers we read represent actual countrymen and their stories, then we do not deserve to be forgiven.

I tried to call the Speaker, but she is not taking calls.   I believe she is in Puerto Rico–“strategizing.”   I tried to call my newly elected representative in California. She is not taking calls either.   I tried to call Senator Kamala Harris, and the same is true for her.   I will try again.   Or, perhaps one of you will forward this to your representatives, and maybe they can reach one of these folks.   Or perhaps your favorite journalist you follow on Twitter…

 

 

It’s All About Money

Published / by Lee Kessler / 1 Comment on It’s All About Money

If current events and political discord leave you scratching your head or shouting at your TV screen, “What the hell are you fighting about?,” you are not wrong in your common sense.   Some things are so obvious that one is dismayed there is any disagreement.   Yet there seems to be a point/counter-point on every single issue facing us and our elected leaders today.

In our lives, we would have figured it out. Yet, those people on the other side of the Potomac, and the salivating media that makes money through the discord, seem stymied by it.  They pontificate, and sit in stalemate.

Our current border situation is such an issue.   No matter what you want to do with MOSTLY kind, opportunity-seeking immigrants who have chosen to jump the line and enter our country illegally, no matter what your compassionate heart strings say, I think only those in denial would choose to suggest  we are talking about LEGAL immigration to this country.   We are talking about ILLEGAL immigration.   To conflate the two is disingenuous, if not downright deceptive.   So, I am setting that aside, giving every reader here the benefit of the doubt.

Only those in denial, or complete unawareness of events around the world before and since 9/11, would ignore the obvious.   Bad guys will hide amongst good guys.  It is called infiltration.   It is called undercover operations.  It is a fact that drug cartels are moving their product and their distribution channels into the US–killing tens of thousands of Americans every year.  It is a fact that MS13 is infiltrating the US. It is a tragic fact that slave traders–otherwise known as “human traffickers”–regularly bring the slaves into the US.   It is a FACT that Al Qaeda and Isis and others infiltrate our country across that border.

Why then would anyone not want to put in a barrier system that prevents bad guys from entering, respects the legal process with people waiting in line for immigration, sorts out legitimate asylum cases, and prevents ILLEGAL entry by the decent, AND the far-from-decent, people from various parts of the world?  The question is not whether you want more people here.   The question is do you want to reward legal behavior, or reward illegal behavior?

Long ago, a business mentor of mine taught me a valuable lesson–a lesson all Americans I believe would be well off to learn right now.  He said, “Lee, it is all about money, and always about money.  So, just follow the money and you will find out the who and the why.”  Continued conflict and divisiveness will never be about principles, ideals, philosophies, humanitarianism.   They are the cover story, the camouflage. It will always be about money.

Therefore, I think we all would have a lot more peace of mind, and not be so vitriolic towards each other on this admittedly difficult problem, if we asked ourselves a question.   Every President before this one has faced that border problem, and begun a solution.   Then, mysteriously, every one of them has backed away.   The question you should have asked is, why?  Why did they change course?   Why, even now, are politicians in Washington who a few years ago wanted to have, and voted for, a barrier now reversing course and digging in for a fight?

It’s all about money.   Ask yourself:   Who benefits from drug cartels operating inside the US?   Who benefits from tens of thousands of people illegally entering and overloading the public services areas–education, law enforcement, medical, judicial etc?   Who benefits from people being dragged across our border and sold into all kinds of horrific slavery?  Who benefits from terrorists entering surreptitiously, forming cells in cities across the US?    Who benefits from the ensuing political chaos?

Someone is fighting this current President with everything they have.   His “crime?”   He did not back away.   He stayed on course.  Perhaps he was naïve, or perhaps he was bold.  But that “course” has put him on a collision course with the men and women who are the “answer” to the questions I asked above.   They are the “Who.” They are corrupt people, whose only motivation is money and power.   And We the People, the Press, and Politicians are being manipulated.

This begs another question, a really tough one:  Are those people IN the Press?   Are they IN Washington?  This should keep you up at night.   It does me.  (It is why I wrote “White King and the Doctor” and “White King Rising.”)

Follow the money.   Who stands to gain financially from this?  Who gains from us being divided? Who gains by stopping the President from fulfilling what other Presidents also promised? Look, just look.

And while you are at it, look at Reid Hoffman and his latest “project.”   He is the subject of the next Blog.