Old Men Ruling the World

Sadly we have a world of government leaders who are old. They hold a perspective based on the past. I know. I’m old myself. It’s not just President Joe Biden (79) and King Charles III (73). Xi Jinping is 69. Vladimir Putin is also 69. Donald Trump is 76.

What new ideas can we expect from these people? Donald Trump dreams of becoming president again but we have not heard one new idea. His focus is on his loss of the 2020 election and getting even with his supposed enemies. Joe Biden has not been a uniter and has expressed no vision for the future (think JFK putting a man on the moon). Charles III says he will follow his mother’s example but what did she do other than sit on the British throne?

Leaders of the U. S. congress includes Speaker of the house Nancy Pelosi who is 82. Leader of the Senate Chuck Schumer is 71. Republican Senate leader Mitch Mitchell McConnell is 80. Some other old timers in the Senate

State	First Name	Last Name	Party	Age	Birthdate
California	Dianne	Feinstein	Democratic	87	6/22/33
Iowa	Chuck	Grassley	Republican	87	9/17/33
Alabama	Richard	Shelby	Republican	86	5/6/34

Ten of the Wealthiest Billionaires in the World

Left to right, from top: Warren Buffett, Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Steve Ballmer, Larry Ellison, Bernard Arnault, Sergey Brin, Larry Page.

How many did you recognize?

Ed Asner dies at 91, played gruff but lovable Lou Grant on ‘Mary Tyler Moore Show’

Ed Asner, whose Emmy Award-winning supporting role as the gruff but lovable Lou Grant on the 1970s situation comedy “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” led to his own Emmy Award-winning starring role in the spinoff dramatic series “Lou Grant,” has died. He was 91.

Ed Asner called Lou Grant “the greatest character I ever came across.”
(Wally Fong / Associated Press)

In a memorable, character-defining scene in the first episode during which the middle-aged Grant interviews Moore’s perky Mary Richards for a job at WJM-TV in Minneapolis, he says with an admiring twinkle in his eyes: “You know what? You’ve got spunk. I hate spunk!”

Fiery until the end, Asner unloaded on the far right in his late-in-life book “The Grouchy Historian: An Old-Time Lefty Defends Our Constitution Against Right-Wing Hypocrites and Nutjobs,” which was published in 2017. The following year, he and co-author Ed Weinberger — an award winning television writer — discussed the book at the Los Angeles Times’ Festival of Books.

Last Days in Afghanistan

For most Americans who remember it, the end of the Vietnam War is inextricably linked with images of chaos: desperate residents of Saigon climbing the walls of the U.S. embassy, sailors on navy vessels pushing helicopters overboard to make room for more refugees. Few people know the full story behind the city’s controversial mass-evacuation in April 1975. Told by survivors and key figures in the exodus, Last Days in Vietnam unearthed new footage and reexamines those events in a way that raises questions about contemporary conflicts in Irag, Afghanistan, and with ISIS.

The final 24 hours of the Vietnam War were no less ugly than all the years that preceded them. This grainy photo says it all.

It was reported repeatedly that Afghanistan’s army was four times the size of the Taliban’s fighting force. That the Afghanistan army had all of the latest weaponry. The army had 20 years of training by the United States army. Despite those facts the Afghanistan army disintegrated when confronted by Taliban forces.

The American flag has been taken down at the Kabul embassy. The president of Afghanistan has reportedly left the country. Afghan aides to the US military (translators, interpreters, and other who worked in the US embassy) fear for their lives and are searching every avenue to leave their country.

Afghanistan is a tribal tribal country that historically was governed by an Emir. An Emir is not a king. He is selected by the tribes. The population of the country consists of numerous ethnolinguistic groups: Pashtun, Tajik, Hazara, Uzbek, Aimaq, Turkmen, Baloch, Pashai, Nuristani, Gujjar, Arab, Brahui, Qizilbash, Pamiri, Kyrgyz, Sadat and others.

The Western world has tried to install democracy in Afghanistan for more than 100 years. They are happy with their way of life that is guided by the Koran.

Undoubtedly there will be a movie titled “Last Days in Afghanistan.”

A U.S. Chinook helicopter flies over the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, Sunday, Aug. 15, 2021.

Cult National Leaders

Donald Trump is not the first cult leader and he won’t be the last.

Juan Perón was a populist and authoritarian president of Argentina and founder of the Peronist movement. He set the country on a course of industrialization and state intervention in the economy in order to bring greater economic and social benefits to the growing working class, but he also suppressed opposition.

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Brazilian politician who served as president of Brazil from 2003 to 2011. In 2006, as the end of his first term approached, the economy was growing, and Brazil’s poverty rate had fallen significantly. In July 2017, Lula was convicted on charges of money laundering and corruption in a controversial trial, and sentenced to nine and a half years in prison.

“Long live our teacher, our father, our leader, Comrade Stalin!” (1946 poster, Soviet Union). Stalin was the leader about whom the expression “cult of personality” was devised in 1956 by Nikita Khrushchev.

The People’s Republic of China under Chairman Mao Zedong also developed a cult of personality, the most obvious symbol of which is his massive portrait situated on the north end of Tiananmen Square. The culture of the People’s Republic of China before 1978 was highly influenced by the personality cult of Mao Zedong^[] which reached its peak during the Cultural Revolution.

A cult of personality devoted to Colonel Muammar Gaddafi existed in Libya during his rule. His face appeared on a wide variety of items, including postage stamps, watches, and school satchels. Quotations from The Green Book appeared on a wide variety of places, from street walls to airports and even on pens, and they were also put to pop music for public release.

Donald Trump, past president of the United States, denies he lost the election in November 2020 and claims that thousands of ballots will be found in the states he lost will be found proving that he won the election. “The Fraudulent Presidential Election of 2020 will be, from this day forth, known as THE BIG LIE!” Trump said on Monday May 3, 2021. If anything the former President wields even more control of his party now as Republicans gather at rallies supporting his views.

Republican officials who once had the courage to condemn Trump’s insurrectionist rhetoric are now seeking to ingratiate themselves with his supporters — especially those who may run for President in future, including former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and ex-New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. Kevin GOP House leader, who at first said Trump bore responsibility for the January 6 riot, quickly visited the former President at his Mar-a-Lago resort and is anchoring his effort to win back the House for Republicans next year on the former President and his movement.

Some say Trump is destroying the American democracy as they pledge their support but in their hearts they know he has nothing to offer regarding the future.

The United States will survive the cult. As Ronald Reagan said in his farewell address, “For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us. So that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken, and so cause Him to withdraw His present help from us, we shall be made a story and a by-word through the world.”