(PM Modi of India, possibly uttering a trope. Photo voiceonline.com)

No, we are not going to turn this morning’s edition of the global gallop into a chance to flack the new book. It is, in our defense, a contributing factor that channels India’s current events across other accounts of social dysphoria. Our new book is “A Little Traveling Music.” It features an episode of travel just after the turn of the century in New Delhi’s Chandni Chok- the Moonlight Square.

On that trip we had arrived with nearly a full day of ‘comp time’ based on the rigors of travel from Dulles to Delhi. The time off was intended to permit some recuperation before official meetings commenced for a few days. Accordingly, we attempted a brief trek through the History of India in six or seven hours. Part of the rickshaw rides connecting them included a stop at what was said to be India’s oldest spice market and a visit to the Square.

It is a bustling place featuring an iron fountain that would be unremarkable in many old cities. This one is a little different, since it was where a British officer personally executed the two heirs to the Peacock Throne after the death of their father, ending the line of succession. He had their bodies displayed until they became a threat to public health.

So, contextually, on this morning some of the old Indian images are floating around. They have sparked curiosity about some of the news we have been hearing. There is a general election in progress in India- the largest one in the world. That led to a discussion on The Patio about demographics and change, and the furor over Prime Minister Modi’s purported anti-Muslim tropes uttered in the middle of the country’s election campaign.
There is a larger discussion of demographics and change in the world of humans worth having. Population trends in Asia and the West suggest that the pressures of modern life have contributed to diminish the size of families. Taken on a national basis, one by one, the nations of Europe are in decline. In North America, the US is hovering just below replacement rate. Even vast China reports a slight population decrease for the first time, the start of an immensely long downward slope. There is a dynamic inherent in these statistics. There are changes in progress that have less to do with ideologies and religious zeal and more about the impact of sheer numbers.

We think of India as a mostly Hindu nation. It was forged out of the British Raj into a subcontinental Hindu-majority nation flanked (at first) by a Mostly Muslim Pakistan divided into “East” and “West.”
The statistic of the moment in the our parade is that there are 200 million Muslims within the ostensibly unity of the subcontinent, and hence the controversy over his remarks. India is home to one sixth of the global population, and with the demographic changes, has surpassed China in size with nearly 1.5 billion inhabitants. last year. The commentary on demographic issues- notably family size and inbound migration- is taken as a trope to “other” largely Muslim groups. These include refugees from residual Imperial populations in former colonies like Burma and Bangladesh.

The details devolve rapidly, including allegations that jewelry traditionally bestowed in Hindu wedding ceremonies might be banned should PM Modi be deposed.

The Al Jazeera network reports two complaints about PM Modi’s tropes have been filed, demanding legal action, so some of the situation resonates with our own political circus. There are other similarities. Like the US Hatch Act, India’s election code bars parties and politicians from engaging in speeches and campaigns that “aim to perpetuate religious or caste differences.”

The results of the election will tell us more about centers of thought and gravity. But the visceral nature of the politics inherent in change. PM Modi is the leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). His party, and others allied in the Hindu-majoritarian ethos have characterized the country’s 200 million Muslims effectively as “outsiders” or “infiltrators” whose family size will outnumber Hindus.

Like many popular theories this is erroneous and migrant populations are subject to the same negative pressures on parenthood. Indian government data indicates the Muslim fertility rate is declining most rapidly in all communities, down almost by half since the Millennium.

In this new multi-polar world, Asia looms as a conflict area with an expansionist China. India has a capable military and direct regional interest in how things work in the zone of influence. We will be trying to keep track of that, and the demographics that drive the messaging as it unfolds. The numbers suggest there is a lot of that activity to come.

Copyright 2024 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com

(Lake Meade is resurging after record low levels. Image from The Daily Torch).

“Earth Day” is an annual event on April 22 to demonstrate support for environmental protection. It was first held on April 22, 1970, and now includes a wide range of events coordinated globally by an estimated one billion people in more than 193 countries. The official theme for 2024 is “Planet vs. Plastics” for the 55th anniversary of the global event on the only Earth we will ever know.

Back in 1969, some of us were looking forward to graduating from High School. There were some big issues in play, some of them intensely personal, like the Draft obligation to potentially carry a rifle in a place called Vietnam.

The was something else at least as intimate as war, and it was called out that year at the UNESCO Conference in San Francisco, once a noted city on the US West Coast. The conferees proposed designating a day to honor the Earth and the concept of peace. You can see how these two issues- there were more- played to a common theme most folks supported: a cleaner environment and a time of peace in which to enjoy it.

The first of these days honoring Mother Earth was observed on March 21, 1970. For some that was the conclusion of the first year of college and a year of remarkable freedom. UN Secretary U Thant signed off on a proclamation honoring the concept and the day. A month later, Gaylord Nelson, one of Wisconsin’s US Senator proposed the idea to hold a nationwide environmental teach-in on April 22, 1970.

He is now known as the Founder of Earth Day, an annual event to celebrate an unproven theory about the destruction of the civilization that the Senator, and others, assured was for sure going to destroy the Earth in only a decade or two. An example is the image of Lake Meade which starts this outing. There had been some concern, since the water-level in the lake behind the Hoover Dam had dropped more than 45-feet in just three years (2020-2022). Experts informed us the lake could approach ‘dead pool’ levels in the near future by ending the electricity generation from the dam to nearby population centers.

It turns out the event horizon was a little short, since whatever natural cycle had caused the drop suddenly ceased and reversed. That is why most predictions of doom are at least far enough away for careers to be secured but not so far off as to not be a factor in daily agenda planning.

The system learns. In 1970, that meant the return of the glaciers and another Ice Age. That was one of the strong points supporting Earth Day. It was remarkably flexible. The arch enemy was, of course, Mankind. The specific devil spawn was a trace element (“4 Parts per Million!”) in our atmosphere that could be accused of all sorts of nefarious activity since none can actually be proven.

A youthful activist, one filled with energy and enthusiasm named Denis Hayes was hired to coordinate national activities. His first act was to re-name the event as “Earth Day.” He was successful in harnessing the idea of “saving the planet” (which even the Salts generally support) to a political movement (which is makes us suspicious).

At the time, we noticed the real problems that accompanied unbridled industrial development and disposal of consequent waste. The original idea had been for a national event that would support constructive things. Instead of a purely American Earth Day, more than 20 million people poured out on the streets, and the first Earth Day remains the largest single-day protest in human history.

Not bad, and it was a train that has continued to run with enthusiasm for more than a half century. Any enterprise that successful has to cope with change, and it has. The Ice Age theme only lasted a few years, although it resonated with people in the Upper Midwest. There was a mild uptick in the haphazard record that was chosen as The Global Temperature, so the narrative changed to “Global Warming.”

There are reports from the deserts of Saudi Arabia that there is more greenery around than there used to be. But while the words supporting the “we are about to boil!” meme continue to be uttered, the title for them was abridged to the simpler “Climate Change,” since it does and can be used for either hotter or colder. That is how weather and religion have always got along.

On this 22nd of April, we offer a tip of the topper to Senator Nelson, a politician who knew how to use Science, or at least “Sciency sounding Things” to achieve a sort of immortality. Rest in peace, Senator!

Copyright 2024 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com

An Israeli airstrike on Iran went down yesterday. it was launched from Israel to strike an Iranian air defense system provided by Russia. That is the assessment of Western and Iranian officials as the attack radiated all sorts of messaging between the two maneuvering regional powers.

The official account of the strike claimed the Israelis damaged a defensive missile battery near Natanz, a city in central Iran. This is as much about messaging as military action, so we will extract some of yesterday’s conversation on the post-strike assessment and try to figure out who is messaging what to whom.

That is where some of the other interests come into play, including the Russians, whose military equipment is brutally abrading the Ukrainians and equipping Iran.

What was messaging intended to accomplish? The Iranian Strike was intended to demonstrate a massive capability to launch more than three hundred rockets, both drones and ballistic, directly at the Israeli homeland. The attack was billed as a failure, as the Iron Dome defensive system performed well and the US, UK and Jordanians contributed to what was billed as a “99% Success Rate” in shooting down the incoming missiles. That is part of the messaging directed as us here in Washington.

The Iranian strike was intended to demonstrate a response to the killing of several IRGC officials at an annex to the Iranian mission in Damascus, Syria, early this month. The nuance to the response was that the Israelis struck from Israel on a target that at least ostensibly was was located on “Iranian Soil,” a status granted by whoever is running Syria at this moment.

The failure of the Iranian attack was significant, in that it demonstrated the inability of the Iranians to carry it out. Was that intentional? Some claim it was a measured response, and many of the “successes” in defense were a product of launch failures on the part of the Iranians.

The Israeli response to the Iranian Response is where the messaging went directly. The US warned Jerusalem not to over-react to the idea of hundreds of inbound missiles, and that a devastating attack, perhaps on Iran’s nuclear inventory, would be appropriate albeit escalatory. It would likely lead to another round of ‘thee strikes me” military actions, each lurching closer to a nuclear threshold.

The depth of the affair was becoming interesting. In the immediate aftermath of the Iranian attack there were demonstrations right here on our side of the Big River in Washington. They were not as big as others supporting the Hamas leadership, but their simple presence here was startling.

The messaging was muddled, since “Hamas” is the political entity that rules southern Gaze, not the Palestinian people, though they do have something in common. A look at the signage used in the demonstrations was informative. They were professionally printed and distributed, not the work of individuals. It was part of a messaging campaign to demonstrate global sympathy with the people of Gaza.

So, imagine yourself as Mr. Netanyahu meeting with his Cabinet. A natural response would have been direct retaliation on a variety of targets in Iran. Target selection could have been guided by the importance to the Iranian economy. Oil-related facilities would have represented a direct hit on the Iranian economy. That is something Washington does not support, so Israel was in an awkward position.

Striking back at iran’s nuclear infrastructure would have represented a direct strategic threat, and a day or so passed without resolution. What finally emerged was a “small strike” limited to an air defense site near Natanz.

The IDF used a fraction of the firepower Tehran had deployed in their attack. For the messaging part, it seemed to demonstrate restraint on the part of the Israelis. It was seemingly in keeping with the inability of the Iranians to successfully execute their attack and could be interpreted as a modest ‘tat’ to a failed ‘tit.’

A little deeper look revealed something else that was pretty slick in terms of the actual message to the actual leaders of Iran. The actual message being transmitted was by what target the Israelis selected. The place? Natanz, a key portion of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure. They did not touch the nukes, though. They hit the Russian S-300 air defense system provided to protect them.

Weapon used to do so? Two Iranian officials said the strike successfully hit the top-end S-300 defensive system with a hypersonic domestically-produced missile called Rampage. The Iranians added that their air defenses “had not detected intrusions into its airspace.”

So, that was the direct message between the parties. From Iran: “We can launch a bunch of rockets at you, even if most of them might not work.”

From Israel: “We just showed you the capability to eliminate your best air defense system. Should we wish to take out your nukes, we have the demonstrated capability to do so with our Rampage missiles. You cannot stop us.”

That last part is the messaging not emphasized in press reporting. This exchange has been a reflection of subtle escalation and a certain misdirection. What will be next? We had been concerned about a broader regional conflict. But the relatively limited scope of Israel’s strike and the muted response from Iranian officials seem to have eased tensions. For now, anyway.

Copyright 2024 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com

You may have heard that our Congress saw fit to pass an “Aid Bill” yesterday. It is a little complicated, since the total foreign aid package is a little south of $100 Billion bucks. the pckage includes three discrete Bills, the largest of which is destined for Ukraine, at right around $61 Billion. The remainder is going to Israel and Taiwan, with about $15 Billion to the former and just under $9 Billion to the Taiwanese.

Our Congress on the other side of the gray-brown river hs been active since they came back to town after a period of ‘District Business” back home arranging re-election finances. That is similar to what they used to do, only the money they allegedly managed was the budget of the whole government, not the little portion required for them to stay in office.

We retired from government service about two decades ago. That is the interval for revolutions once recommended by Thomas Jefferson, who observed the capability of generations to slide into corruption in the space of single working careers. We were part of a national government that was imperfect but lurched generally forward each year.

We continue to lurch, of course, but seem to require a change to the way we keep our calendars.

A look at the Fiscal 2025 President’s Budget is useful, since we are only now passing the detritus of last year’s funding now that we are seven months into it. The top of our government is contained generally in only three departments. The Department of the Treasury is nearly five trillion bucks all by itself, and is the pathway for a variety of entitlement programs largely undiscussed since they are “third rail’ fully charged issues.

Same deal for the Department of Health and Human Services, with two and a half trillion in annual expenses in things like Medicare. Third largest is the one for which there is only an entitlement for only a portion of the funding. That is the Defense Department, with around a trillion and a half in its disparate components.

If you throw in Social Security, a program designed to regurgitate money expropriated directly from the taxpayers wallets, you hit the magical amount of nearly ten trillion in annual walking around money.

Aif you sipped down through the budget, there are several accounts in the wasteland of the middle billions of dollars, but would get fairly rapidly to the equivalent of the combined air package going to a former Russian Republic in Eastern Europe, our old Mid East ally in Jerusalem and the lonely island of ambiguous parentage across the strait from the PRC.

We appear to be closing in on a circumstance that will require an adjustment larger than the one that rose in 1976. We have been spending money not appropriated since the current fiscal year began more than seven months ago.

We are not quite sure how that works, since it Congress that is supposed to control the national cash register, Instead, some other legislative slight-of-hand permits us to borrow something like a trillion dollars every hundred days. That is a budget that includes interest on a sum of dollars so vast that it is unlikely to ever be repaid without some major reallocation of the currency and the debt.

Our grandchildren are already alive. They are likely to be a little cross with us when they are old enough to figure out what we have bequeathed them,

We expect to be on our dirt nap by the time they figure it out. We suspect their response will be to bill their offspring as we did, but there is the real alternative it will do something simpler.

It is why the Founders of this nation deliberately chose only part of the Democratic principal of self-governance. The grand experiment in Constitutional Republics had a fairly good run, but we seem to have built a vast structure doomed to inevitable collapse, you know? We suspect there is going to be some muttering about this when the word gets around to what we have done.

Copyright 2024 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com

We got the above image in the morning digital traffic. It represents the near conclusion of a series of tales that stream back most of a century. Christine, the superb lay-out and format Queen at Open Book Design to fold some old pictures as a bold and dynamic cover for the new release.

Note the footwear on Mimi and Vic’s images, which is prescribed when walking the sacred precinct of the Schwedegon Temple in Rangoon- now known as “Yangon” in a state once called “Burma,” now “Myanmar.”

It is a curious book that accounts for a life in transit. It starts as a product of Mom and Dad’s ife in the Auto Age that followed the Second World War. Dad scrambled through the Pratt Institute school of industrial design. While there, he met an intelligent and attractive young Ohio woman who had decamped the river valley for a position with an old professor working in the Chrysler Building in Manhattan.

It was quite an adventure, as was the prospect of a job designing the post-war speeding world.

So, this volume commences with a trip across America, from the Motor City in Detroit to the bluffs above the vast Pacific in California. It was performed in a sleek vehicle he helped design and made faous with the characteristic ‘dip’ on the roofline that enabled significant savings on the sedan and wagon models: the 1959
Rambler Ambassador Station Wagon.

That adventure is folded into others that accounted for visits to all the fifty states, the circumference of the globe and 40-odd independent nations. The most memorable trips are recounted for in general evolution of travel over the years. “Official Travel” is what we called it, and it was fun to look back at the details of how it all unfolded.

Had it not been paid for from the public purse, we are confident we could have done it all with better and more comprehensive organization, but it was all unintentional and surprising at each turn. Accidental, in fact. But it turns out that is the way the whole thing played out and it was grand fun to see it unfold again.

You can imagine the writer’s Section was agog with the potential product almost ready for rlease. We thought we were done with this phase, having provided some 213 pages of manuscript and the details of trips around the globe. It included some of the great Hotels of some of the former Empires in states now known as “Pariahs.” Diplomacy was part of it, which is to say being nice to people around the world who in fact were not particularly nice.

Those venues included North Korea, Vietnam and others that wrapped themselves in the business of Congress and Foggy Bottom. They were grand fun.

We noted the bullet line above the title, which was “A Year in the Life of a Naval Intelligence Officer.” We will have to write back to Christine and request a change to “multiple years,” but otherwise we are delighted with her product, amalgamated from old pictures we took and thoughts that have almost dirfted away..

We have been plowing through the proofs on the interior workings of the book. You may
This is a big morning. Christine runs a small publishing company with whom I have collaborated on the last two-thirds of the Literary Trifecta- “Last Cruise” and “Voyage to the Crossroads” are the ones Christine pulled together in our joint endeavor.

“Voyage” was a product of an old family promise to my Uncle, who in turn had promised his buddy Ed, who had been drafted to serve as the last Executive Officer of the Last Battleship. Ed was part of the scientific analysis team sent to Japan to examine the status of their wartime industry and technology when a new project assumed priority: determining the effects of the atom-weapons on the great steel ships that had fought the Pacific war. Detailed notes were kept and it is a rollicking story of attempting to operate a great warship and then blowing it to pieces.

The information and adventure captured in the notes was “classified” at the time, and the participants were unable to publish or disseminate the story until the Clinton Administration, by which time the participants had run out of their time on this planet.

Here is the old advertising for what came before:

These form a casual approach to the history of the Cold War, told partly as bookends from Admiral “Mac” Showers who was there at the start and our circle of Salts who helped to close it out.

“Traveling Music” fills in some of the details of the places and people along the way. The nature of the writing business means that by the time readers first get to see the new product, all the work on it has been completed. It is therefore “Old News” here and “New Product” for you. We are already some 70-pages into the next product, which is an attempt to depict the events of this chaotic year that contains the longest General Election cycle in American history, leading to an election that some say may not be required.

We will see about that. But one thing we are confident about is that the resolution of this chapter will have some surprises. And unlike travel of an Official nature, we are all going to contribute to paying the tab!

Copyright 2024 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com

Juror 4 was the one yesterday. He/they became momentarily famous on his departure from the “accepted” status on the New York Trump legal proceeding.

We now know all sorts of things about his circumstance. We don’t recall ever knowing this much about participants selected for individual juries. We are sure there have been some, but we watched in wonder as resumes of the selected jurors were discussed in some detail. The table above demonstrates the detail, and captures some of the aura of fame has penetrated another and deeper aspect of the attention flooded into deliberations.

We don’t claim it “started” with the George Floyd Trial in Minneapolis. We do claim that was the first time the personal accounts of how the jurors felt about the reactions in the street to the discussions in the court. The debate erupted in front of Judge Merchen not only about Juror 4 but also Juror 2. Grounds were alleged to be about the impartiality of one and the truthfulness of the other.

(Judge Juan Merchen- L- and former Chief Executive Trump- R. Photo NY Times).

The pair had been selected Tuesday in the matter of the City versus Trump, the so-far most successful of the four proceedings intended to hamstring the former Chief’s campaign to return to the Oval Office. Coordination between the White House and prosecutors in places as disparate as Atlanta, DC and Manhattan. Here is how that activity lines up with the national calendar:

There has never been anything quite like this legal circus before. The strategy appears to be a unified Defense of Democracy by the deliberate coordination of disruption to a political opponent’s public affairs.

The woman identified as Juror #2 raised concerns after Wednesday’s period of contemplation. According to reports in the legacy media, she had been contacted by friends who thought they had identified her due to the plethora of information disclosed in the resume information in the summary that starts this brief account. Judge Merchan was becoming uneasy about the information identifying the panelists and the fact that they were diverting attention from himself to otherwise anonymous citizens.

The Judge has been liberal with his improbable rulings. Mr. Trump has been cited with seven breaches of the Gag order imposed on him. The threat is of a jail term for “contempt” prior to any jury decision. It is part of a litany of previously unseen offenses. He has to be physically present in the courtroom throughout, but is prohibited from commenting in his own defense or the conduct of the proceedings against him.

Mr. Trump is not the only one subject to novel treatment. The Judge summed it up with his instruction to non-participants in the official part of the trial. He asked reporters to “limit their descriptions of potential jurors” after the dismissal of Juror 2. The man identified as Juror #4 possibly answered questions untruthfully about whether he or a close relative had been accused of a crime. Clearly, he should be identified, humiliated and dismissed.

New York Prosecutor Alvin Bragg has been a lightning rod as public face of what was an inappropriate local prosecution of an international figure. This development has enable the transfer of that heat and lightning to a previously unknown deputy. We will doubtless be treated to his moment of fame, just as we will to relacement Jurors 2 and 4. And the others, as they deliberate in the shadow of a nearing national event in which their personal opinion should assume national significance. .

We could probably ask former Officer Derrick Chauvin about that, but we will travel this road to fame or ignomy together. It could have some moments of amusement, you know? We don’t know if Democracy can be saved, since this nation was not set up to be one. We are- or at least were- a Republic governed by a written Constitution. We think that has largely already been overthrown, but we should be able to see why the Founders of the Republic put the popular vote as a secondary means of choosing our leaders.

Judge Merchen will doubtless show us the way!

– Vic

Copyright 2024 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com

We looked around out on The Patio this morning and there were no lumps of steaming, unexplainable phenomena strewn about. The matter of the impeachment of DHS Secretary Mayorkas seems to have passed without event late yesterday. Senator Schumer, forthright Majority Leader, did not permit the matter to get to a “trial.”

This seems a little familiar, since something similar occurred a couple times in a previous Administration. We thought the Senate Rules dealing with such measures forwarded from the House required consideration. There is apparently a lot of “known to us stuff” that is rather situational in application.

Some say the Secretary has ignored US Code regarding Border apprehensions. He says there are only near a dozen million offenses, so everything is fine and secure.

That was not the only regional matter at issue, of course, nor even the one we understand to have a direct legal impact on the election. A former President- you know which one- has been- has been indicted in New York City in the big trial that criminalizes formerly expired and uncharged misdemeanors to multiple felonies in an attempt to alter the Fall election. We tried reding that sentence a couple times in an attempt to make sense of it.

For the former President’s part, he has been castigated for apparently nodding off during Jury Selection and then marching down the Manhattan Streetscape to visit the bodega of the shop-keeper assaulted by a street thug.

All the rest of that stuff on the slide? It too is happening. The most interesting has been discussion of what the Israelis might do to respond to the massive Iranian missile strike last Sunday. There have been reports that the White House has urged Jerusalem to relax and accept the victory on what has been termed a “failed” military operation. That is an arguable if flawed approach, which had been followed by some domestic disruption here in the United States with demonstrations in major cities on Monday, our Tax Day.

There was some pro-Hamas signage that accompanied the blockage of historic places like the Golden Gate Bridge, but part of the well-organized operation included cities world-wide and one just down the boulevard in Crystal City, Virginia.

The organization responsible for the latter calls themselves the “A15 Action” organization. The name of the group refers to action taken on 15 April all over. Apparently, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards organization is at least partly responsible for organization and funding of the A15 activities, which is almost as startling as the rocket attack the day before.

Large scale disruptions in thirty world cities were claimed, including several in America. It included traffic and commerce conducted by Iranians allied with Hamas are almost as curious as massive missile strikes on the only world state associated with the smallest of the three Faiths of their Books.

That brings us around to the question that left us stumped. The looks on the faces of The Salts around the circle on the Patio were muddled. We had thought the rocket assault threatened the outbreak of a potentially catastrophic regional conflict led by the geriatric Mullahs in Tehran.

Instead, it turns out the conflict is already well underway, happening in the next neighborhood to us here in Virginia. Along with Gaza. We are attempting to adjust to the idea that the regional conflict is already underway.

Copyright 2024 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com

Ugh. We have to start with the disclaimer this morning. We have been waiting for the Israeli response to Iran’s startling weekend rocket assault. Part of the discussion echoed the mumbling on the other side of the River here in Your Nation’s Capital. Like many others, we are a little unclear as to who is responding to what in this emotional and kinetic matter. We will drill a bit deeper into that in a moment, but the Legal Section reminds us to be even-handed in our treatment of the players and issues, to respect religious integrity and the role of Directed Experts in World Affairs.

Is that enough to ensure this is intended as mild irony? It is not intended as a castigation of ancient religious figures. It is directed more at our ideas of the role of “Experts” and “Unintended Consequences.”

A certain cognitive bias is to be expected. We Salts are a small community of former experts in kinetic operations in a maritime context. Naturally, by training, we had lurched to the worst possible outcome when the word was flashing around about the massive size of the Iranian rocket assault. What was the likely response?

See? Three paragraphs into it and we have not even mentioned the first part while starting to consider the third or fourth path of the branches and sequels that spill out in the “consequences phase. Here is what struck the members of the circle, which includes members who by happenstance had once been blessed by the Holy Father in Rome.

That interjected thoughts of the resolution of today’s crisis response with some previous ones of even greater magnitude. In our shared history, the devastating impact of the nuclear demonstration in Japan in 1945 had the same sort of social impact as the awful scourge of another weapon of mass destruction:

The Black Death was the event most analogous in horror. It was a plague pandemic that erupted in Europe in the Mid-14th century and killed as many as 50 million people, or nearly half the population of the continent.

That is where we came to the modest revelation about the role of messaging and Experts in one of the most significant events in European history. The plague created religious, social and economic upheavals and changed the course of European history.

The discussion about who has atomic weapons today and who may be close to having them is a sidebar to the startling story that emerged with some cursory research. The outbreak of the plague was accompanied with pleas for an answer, a solution that could come only from Heaven. The response is what led directly to the second and even deadlier outbreak.

In the context of both times, then and now, the response is analogous. In the Dark Ages, the ghastly disease was assumed to have an origin in the wrath of the Almighty. Accordingly, the Christian Primate in Rome’s views were considered directly appropriate. Pope Gregory the 14th took steps to call his Experts together and provide solutions that would blunt the anger of Heaven.

The Experts took the logical approach. The felines that roamed the houses and homes of Europe were known to be familiars of the Anti-Christ and thus should be eliminated as a matter of Public Health. A campaign was begun against the cats which had some success.

That success was measured mostly in the surge of the Yersinia pestis virus which was actually carried by rodents, notably the rats whose presence was less visible than that of the felines who managed their population.

We could count several similarities in progress today. A desire to “save the planet” could actually lower the percentage of an atmospheric trace gas necessary for photosynthesis and ife. Striking nuclear installations in any nation of the Middle East, regardless of malfeasance, could prompt a use-or-lose scenario.

The Experts once recommended a war on Cats to save civilization, only to produce a dramatic upsurge in the population of rats. That will all work itself out as our government encourages the Israelis to relax after an assault by hundreds of explosive devices.

It only makes sense, right?

Copyright 2024 Vic Socotra

www.vicsocotra.com

We were bitching generally about the fact that last Monday was a day of note, and it wasn’t because it was Tax Day. There was some distraction on that matter, since there appeared to be an imminent spike of activity in the Israeli response to the Iranian rocket strike over the weekend.

It is deeper and still a little mystifying. After the morning flurry of information exchange, we saw a short answer to one of the resulting questions hanging out there. The events of Monday- April 15- were coordinated across State and International borders. The signs and placards in dozens of American cities were professionally rendered and the participants all had a certain fashion commonality and hairstyles. So, who is this new gang?

Who is responsible for the coordinated inter-state highway and commercial disruptions? The overhead for travel, feeding and lodging for the demonstrators? We have observed the arrival of a series of them lately with similar if disparate goals. “BLM,” of course, and “Antifa,” a group with less melanin in their skin but more outrage agains the fascist they claim to be protesting.

We heard this morning. The “A15 Action Group.” is claiming credit for something that is already against the law- disrupting public transportation- but which should be made really against enhanced statutory enforcement.

Here is how some of the accompanying rhetoric sounded: “Pro-Palestinian activists in 30 cities across four continents disrupted the global economy on April 15 in an attempt to destroy the Jewish state.” The announcement came from the anonymous- or at least previously anonymous- A15 Action Group.

Like Antifa and BLM, the group may be unknown but the message is one of long standing. There is much more to learn about precisely to what the name refers. Is it the date? It was Tax Day here in the US, but that would seem to be of little interest on three other continents. This one seemed more a RICO-inspired demonstration designed to cause national disruption to travel, communications and the supply chains. The coordinated nature of the activity is clearly illegal under both federal and local statutes.

We doubtless will be hearing more about the “A5 Action” reference. But the question is, “Has the FBI been so weaponized that it is no longer capable of telling their official myths of “white and evangelical terror” and ignore what is happening in their laps?

It’s not clear who was behind the A15 initiative. The group’s public face is new. It only registered its website on March 22 with an anonymous email address hosted by a Swiss service provider that guarantees privacy. That is only another layer in the public public onion. Drilling down, we find an organization called th, Community Justice Exchange, a project of the antisemitic Tides Foundation. Funding for that group, like others devoted to “social justice” derives significant funding from billionaire George Soros’s Open Society Foundation. That group provides unattributed support to A15 Action’s “Bail & Legal Defense Fund.”

The thicket of organizations is intended to be interactionable. The Soros group has also been responsible for funding the election campaigns of District Attorneys across the land who are committed to non-prosecution of urban criminal activities.

Some pundits say that ‘A15’ may just be a rubric for a struggle larger than the anti-Israel movement. Mr. David Friedman is a former U.S. Ambassador to Israel, appointed by President Trump in 2016. He posted to X his opinion that “the planned April 15 riots had “nothing to do with Israel or the Palestinians since most of the protesters are entirely ignorant of those issues.”

So, we now have a national, professionally-funded and adaptive organization that claims the ability to conduct planned and coordinated operations across the country and the world. Will A15 become the next Antifa-syle radical organization, or is it just a Momentary manifestation of something larger?

I guess we will see.

Copyright 2024 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com