America, We Hardly Knew Ye

Tale of a Lost Country

August 22, 2022

In early June, in route to a meeting in downtown Athens, I passed the US Embassy, maneuvered onto the median of a busy street known by locals as "Embassy Row"--with cars brushing by in both directions--and pulled out my camera to snap the photo at the top of this article. ?

Absent from the photo was the American Flag flying confidently outside our embassy.?The Stars and Stripes--the Red-White-and-Blue--was missing in action. In its place was the LGBTQ Progress Flag, a compilation of two flags, one brought to life by the gay and trans community, the other by Black Lives Matter and Antifa.

What spirit remained in me from temperatures that day, was reduced to zero when I caught sight of this new cultural norm.? Having lived and moved around in the Middle East for several years, it was clear the only place to view the American Flag these days with any confidence is in the Sharia territories of Riyadh, Kuwait City or Abu Dhabi, places where sex norms and threats of anarchy are met with fixed strictures and a sure government response--albeit non-progressive--and impossible to conflate with today’s trendy politics.

For good measure, that same week the State Department in Athens announced the arrival of a new ambassador, a political designee rather than a career diplomat, a man who paid for his post, a faithful financial benefactor to the Democrat Party and, more importantly, to his leader, President Joe Biden. A bit of salt in an open wound, we might conclude.

Athens has always been a sensitive post for the US State Department; for decades the US has placed Athens high on its list of embassies for reasons of regional security, military, and intelligence gathering. Hence, it’s usually a good bet the State Department will defer to a career diplomat for the position of Ambassador.??But this time, our new generation of woke and well-heeled administrators in Washington DC opted for money and patronage over experience. ??Stuff happens, as they say… and this posting couldn't have happened at a worse time in recent memory....the region is boiling with problems (think next door to our neighbor Turkey, or to Serbia and Kosovo to the North?), and things look to grow worse in the coming months as new regional loyalties begin to forge in the aftermath of Ukraine.

Then, as if slapped into reality by our government one last time in a single summer, ten days ago I received the following overseas alert about the growing threat of Monkeypox.?Our government faithfully informed us to beware of the growing threat of this new disease.?Americans abroad receive these notices regularly, and many of them are useful, informative.?This one, however, was glaring by omission.?Use your experience playing “Where’s Waldo?” to figure out what is missing from this description.

? ?Health Alert?– U. S. Mission Greece (August 12, 2022)

Location: Worldwide

Event:?The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has?issued a Travel Health Notice for?Monkeypox in Multiple Countries.?The World Health Organization has determined the multi-country outbreak of monkeypox is a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (click here to view the WHO’s determination).

Actions to Take:

·????????Travelers should AVOID:

o???Close contact with sick people, including those with skin lesions or genital lesions.

o???Contact with dead or live wild animals?such as small mammals including rodents (rats, squirrels) and non-human primates (monkeys, apes).

o???Eating or preparing meat from wild game (bushmeat) or using products derived from wild animals from Africa (creams, lotions, powders).

o???Contact with contaminated materials used by sick people (such as clothing, bedding, or materials used in healthcare settings) or that came into contact with infected animals.

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·????????Risk to the general public is low, but you should seek medical care?immediately?if you develop new,?unexplained skin rash (lesions on any part of the body), with or without fever and chills, and?avoid contact with others.?If possible, call ahead before going to a healthcare facility.?If you are not able to call ahead, tell a staff member as soon as you arrive that you are concerned about Monkeypox.

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·????????If you are sick and could have Monkeypox, delay travel by public transportation until you have been cleared by a healthcare professional or public health officials.

?

Assistance:

U.S. Embassy Athens

Bushmeat? Really? Readers steeped in the latest news will recognize the news flash mentions nothing of the high prevalence of homosexual behavior tied to Monkeypox.??It is estimated that over 98% of all sufferers of Monkeypox are also engaged actively in homosexual behavior.? Why no mention of the leading characteristic of those with Monkeypox? Our US Embassy—clearly for political reasons—leaves this off their email.?Not a small detail when you’re trying to inform the public and keep safe those Americans living abroad.

A Tale of A Lost Country

In that famous Charles Dickens novel “A Tale of Two Cities,” a story of life in pre-French revolutionary Paris and London, we have the saga of a clash between aristocratic tyranny (The Administrative State) and revolutionary excess (The People).?Some of the mob scenes of violence are particularly vivid, and much of the story—more a novel than an accurate historical depiction—leads to a climax that finds one man’s willingness to trade his life for a prisoner.?Based on what we see today, Dickens could have been writing the story in 2020, with a lot less human sacrifice.?

Anyone with a smidgen of history under his belt knows the types and scales of violence back in Dicken’s days makes mayhem inflicted in the urban cities of America in 2020 by the likes of Black Lives Matter and Antifa, the stuff of child playgrounds, laughable by comparison.?

Even now, we are watching--real time--Ukraine warring against Russia, compliments of our State Department led by Joe Biden and our Administrative State trying to destabilize the region and grab the natural resources overseen by Mr. Putin.

If this isn't enough, consider that soldiers in Stalin’s military lost tens of millions of their own in WWII to defend the likes of---yes--- the USA and the UK, defeating Germany and Hitler.?Then consider the dross of Antifa...and chuckle at how unfair the evolution of our own history becomes by comparison. We in America are heading in the wrong direction, on so many fronts, it boggles the mind. And we're exporting just this sort of garbage to Europe.... While real men fight real wars, we Americans are fast becoming a real joke.

The death rates among Russians in that Second World War are obscene compared to what we witness today in Ukraine, even as NATO seems to enjoy employing poor Ukrainian males of fighting age as cannon fodder to score points against Putin. Meanwhile, all the players are grifting--Ukraine, Europe, the USA, its politicians, and international NGOs. War pays handsomely.

But flash forward 200 years from the days of Charles Dickens and a we witness a similar sort of revolution emerging between our elites on the political scene—the politicians, lobbyists, media, NGOs and corporate interests—and forces on the ground—The People—both struggling for control and, in the case of The People, survival.?

Today, chaos even in such charmed locations as Rodeo Drive in Hollywood, California threatens the fabric of culture and society.?My brother works as a film editor in Burbank, LA, and told me last week the city resembles a dystopian horror film, complete with crime and homelessness, looting and the absence of police and public control.? Most urban centers in the US are falling apart at the seams, food lines are lengthening, and crime is a problem for everyone, in most of America.

But from this side of the pond, where European governments still pay blind homage to the US Government, we Americans living abroad suspect a change is in the offing. Something is not quite right with our picture of the USA.? We can sense a new wave about to crash over everything we have held sacred for a generation.

Then consider this: How much more pain and agony must Europeans endure—indeed, how much pain will Ukrainian citizens endure—before someone with an ounce of intelligence starts to ask the pressing question:?Why are we listening a brain dead president and his failed tribe of leadership that has led us astray for so many years???

Our trail of destruction didn't begin in 2020. Most of it started long, long ago, with familiar characters running this Ukraine saga. One of Obama's hench-women, Susan Rice, was at the Africa Desk during the mass extermination of Rwandans in 1994, when over 500,000 were chopped to bits in mere weeks. These are the same folks that gave us the proxy war in Ukraine.

And, then, why do we still marvel at a military that hasn't won a real war in decades? Why would Europe pay the least attention to NATO and the war machine in Washington DC--a military outdated in both fighting ability and technology. While Russia is tossing untold numbers of hypersonic missiles that the USA doesn't yet possess, and cannot track, the USA proudly tells us they are sending their latest drones or half baked armaments from the days of the First Iraqi War, some 30 years ago. It's a joke for those who know about war machines.

Our last glimpse of America's failures came exactly a year ago, when news agencies broadcast images of young Afghanis dropping from landing gear of American C-135s in Kabul.

We have arrived at the first anniversary of the escape from Afghanistan, and our war games have moved closer to home, with similar results. We might have assumed an annual budget of $800 Billion USD per year would solve a few problems for our military, but no. So much for that adage about throwing more money at a problem. When will we cut our losses and come to our senses?

Europe, why keep following the USA like lemmings off a cliff? Wake up and grow a backbone. Stand up for your own continent, your own way of life. I say this as an American living among my European brethren who seem to enjoy giving away their collective futures to outdated politicians and think tanks in Washington DC.

Imagine, to my horror, turning on the television news one evening and listening to one of our leading senior Senators, and 'experts' in foreign policy--Lindsey Graham--actively encouraging the US to develop a plan to assassinate Vladimir Putin! A sitting Senator? And there are more congressmen proffering the same advice. I cringed. Why would Europe listen to this kind of nonsense--and AGREE!? But they have.....

Only in questioning those in power can we come full circle.?To do otherwise is to destroy the little good that remains. As someone in the business of finance, I have learned most of our problems lead through the door of economics. In this area in particular, watch out below.?Things could get ugly quicker than we imagine….very, very ugly. Riots in streets could take on a life of their own, with the economic system we have known since childhood unraveling before our eyes.

God Bless those standing up, and paying a price for their action. We think of Farmers in The Netherlands, Truckers in Canada and the USA, and ethnic Russians living since 2014 in Donbass, enduring the shelling of their towns with the gift of outdated arms from the US and Europe.