How should we react to Trump as President?

My first reaction to Trump's election as President was that all liberal/progressive Americans should start a movement to keep him from taking office, even if this meant having a Second American Revolution and adopting a new Constitution.

However, over the last 2 hours, both Hillary Clinton and Barrack Obama have essentially kissed Trump's ass and said they wanted to be friends with him. The Stock Market dropped by about 1700 points immediately after Trump's victory was announced, but has since returned to its pre-election level. There have been large peaceful protests against Trump's election in many parts of the USA, but equally large demonstrations by his supporters. And of course the Republicans now have solid control over both Houses of Congress and will most likely be able to pass right-wing measures into law quite freely, as well as appointing conservative Justices to the SCOTUS.

My first reaction to this was, "I'm 74 years old and in poor health, so maybe I should just commit suicide and watch earthly events from the astral plane as I prepare for my next incarnation." But my Spirit Guides saw no reason why I should do this, and advised me to just continue living as I have for the last ten years, spending eight to ten hours a day on line and the rest of the time on household chores and the like. I'm able to live on my Social Security pension, and my medical expenses are taken care of by Medicare and Medicaid, and I have no social obligations to dirt side family or close friends. And most important, I'm emotionally satisfied with this lifestyle practically all of the time.

For many months now, I've been putting most of my time and energy into on-line political discussions intended to support liberal/progressive candidates and causes, but now I'm wondering if there's any reason to continue doing so. If a serious movement to stage a Second American Revolution starts, I'll certainly join it, but I don't expect this to happen. So I'm going to concentrate on being a radical left-wing occultist and futurist, which has been the main focus of my life for more than forty years. This includes expressing my political opinions on line, but only within the context I just described.

I'm going to start this thread on a number of different Web discussion venues, hoping to get opinions on the course of action I just described from a wide variety of perspectives.

My first reaction was something like yours. Sounds like game over.
Plus I was literally very surprised - as I was at the Brexit event. But this is bigger and humanity should have had time to react.

My second reaction was:
This will lead to a revolution. Not instantly, but it will. I wish a new Gandhi would appear to lead us out - and many shall not survive.
We have to go underground.

UNINSTALL TRUMP!

My fourteen-year-old in America is desperate at the nasty energies she saw at class the first day after the elections. Most of her life she tried to avoid day-to-day politics (Fox news etc.) as much as she could - all I could say was that indeed, there are decent folks among Republicans too, some have been personally very helpful to me, and that there was no reason why discrimination should enter a classroom.
Then I saw the tweet posted on Huffingtonpost by a young black student. Huffpost. People in America are using the N-word for innocent African-Americans, telling them to go to the back of the bus, or get off the sidewalk, like in the stories told in Roll My Thunder, Hear My Cry, others say to Hispanics that they should go back to Mexico and...

I really think if we are like an intelligent computer network, we should try to find a cleaner program, and
Uninstall Trump.

Plus Putin and Orban and LePen and Wilders and the recent colonel in Bulgaria and the far-right trying to unseat Merkel in 2017 and so on. And we will.
It wil take some spiritual force, because at this point, aggressive paranoia and rage dealt humanity a serious blow. I just trust that our planet is more intelligent collectively and it will still recover after this blow. Perhaps we needed this, to bring out some sort of really different power.

We also need to rethink our sacred cow of believing in money and "private property." There is no going around this. I am living in Hungary which has been far darker already, a canary in the mine which actually fell off the bar singing, but at least it is a small country. Let it be a warning.

I think we are living in a time which is like the Reformation and our beliefs towards money are very unenlightened to say the least. I am positive that in a few hundred years, if earthly civilization survives, practices like putting a family out on the cold streets merely because they haven't got enough money will be seen pretty similar to us looking back to the Dark Ages - when the Inquisition discovered that someone had Jewish ancestors or Cathar beliefs, it was enough to have the entire family tortured to death publicly.
Back in those times too, there could be people who said to themselves, I know that this is wrong, but after all, they are Jewish (Cathar etc.), there is nothing I can do.
Well, maybe you and I do not know what the next step is in our rational minds, but there is something in us that knows.

11:00 am pst 11/11/16: I just awoke from my mid-morning nap with an important message from my Spirit Guides coursing through my mind. Like all my channelled messages, this didn't come through in words but in what I call "pre-verbal symbols" that I can then translate into verbal and/or visual images. The basic message was: I and everyone one else who voted for Hillary Clinton on 11/08/16 should turn 11/24/16 into a day devoted to mourning, not giving thanks. The American Republic as we have known it is now dead, and we need to hold a funeral for it so we can prepare for its next incarnation with a movement that will eventually result in the creation of a new Constitution.

One very specific set of symbols I channeled involved the usual family feast being prepared and served, but instead of offering a prayer giving thanks, we simply chant loudly in unison, "God Help America", and then dump all the food into the garbage. The prayer and trashing of the food should be video taped and the footage immediately posted on line. Then we all leave home and go to join the nearest public demonstration mourning the death of the American Republic as we have always known it. A possible name for this "Anti-Thanksgiving" would be "Conspicuous Waste Day".

And right now, I'm also channeling a message that 12/25/16 should be devoted to forming a movement to put the actual teachings of the Jewish Prophet Jesus of Nazareth as described in the New Testament into practice by all Americans, no matter what their spiritual beliefs. These include the Golden Rule (Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.", the Law of Karma (As you sow, so also shall you reap.", and the Law of Love, "Love one another as much as I have loved you."

I'm going to post this message on line immediately in forms appropriate to the different venues I'm now active on.

What my Indian astrology based random oracle says about our reaction now:
1. We must own up to our strength. We have been victims collectively far too long.
2. We must own our homeland (the US) and we have the power to do so. Extremely powerful we are now.
3. We must look for positive male authority figures (father in a horoscope, a Shiva principle) for strength.
4. Our willpower is going to go towards executing the will of traditional female figures (Shakti principle but also female equality and even an exalted quality). I could say female role models as well.
5. The situation is developing towards the freedom of the masses from those who have inherited power. We are not used to organize without male authority figures leading us all the way through.
Timing: when the North Node goes into Dhanishtha (from April 15 on).
6. Intelligence: a global thinking must be used, with experience as well as foreign correspondence and other languages. Mercury exalted means great organizing skills.

reg, #2:

reg said: My first reaction was something like yours. Sounds like game over. Plus I was literally very surprised - as I was at the Brexit event. But this is bigger and humanity should have had time to react.
RR's response: I was surprised because ALL of the polls were predicting Clinton to win. Trump said in advance that the polls weren't counting the working class white people who formed his main support, but I didn't believe the pollsters were actually that incompetant. And I also downplayed the fact that Trump was just a spectacular figurehead for a well-organized movement led by the Tea Party which made Pence the VP candidate and passed an extremely conservative platform.

reg said: My second reaction was: This will lead to a revolution. Not instantly, but it will. I wish a new Gandhi would appear to lead us out - and many shall not survive. We have to go underground. UNINSTALL TRUMP!"
RR's response: This was also my second reaction, and I'd already posted lot of messages, mostly on Twitter, about how a Second American Revolution could be accomplished on both the political and economic levels.

reg, #3:

reg said: My fourteen-year-old in America is desperate at the nasty energies she saw at class the first day after the elections. Most of her life she tried to avoid day-to-day politics (Fox news etc.) as much as she could - all I could say was that indeed, there are decent folks among Republicans too, some have been personally very helpful to me, and that there was no reason why discrimination should enter a classroom. Then I saw the tweet posted on Huffingtonpost by a young black student. Huffpost. People in America are using the N-word for innocent African-Americans, telling them to go to the back of the bus, or get off the sidewalk, like in the stories told in Roll My Thunder, Hear My Cry, others say to Hispanics that they should go back to Mexico and... I really think if we are like an intelligent computer network, we should try to find a cleaner program, and Uninstall Trump.
RR's response: Lots of incidents like these got reported on the local news here in Northern California, though they were virtually ignored by the mainstream media, who were concentrating on the large peaceful protests, most by young white liberals, that were taking place all over the country. However, lots of people were posting about the need for a revoluton on Twitter, and I assume still are, though I haven't visited that venue snce I started channeling about the IC's strategy for solving this problem, which sent me into major breakthrough in personal consciousness similar to the mone I had in 1983 which I started the WiH channelings.

reg said: Plus Putin and Orban and LePen and Wilders and the recent colonel in Bulgaria and the far-right trying to unseat Merkel in 2017 and so on. And we will. It wil take some spiritual force, because at this point, aggressive paranoia and rage dealt humanity a serious blow. I just trust that our planet is more intelligent collectively and it will still recover after this blow. Perhaps we needed this, to bring out some sort of really different power.
RR's response: I didn't realize it until after I made my "Breakthrough of 2011", but comparing Trump to Putin, Orban, LePen, et al was actually faulty reasoning. He's been called a fascist with ambitions of making himself dictator all through his campaign, but there's never been evidence that he really is one. He's mostly just a showman trying to get free media publicity. And I'm now reasonably certain that all he really wanted was a Tea Party GOP regime like the one that's already in place. This is bad on the level of human rights and economic opportunity for the have-not, but it's a far cry from actual fascist totalitarianism.

reg said: We also need to rethink our sacred cow of believing in money and "private property." There is no going around this. I am living in Hungary which has been far darker already, a canary in the mine which actually fell off the bar singing, but at least it is a small country. Let it be a warning. I think we are living in a time which is like the Reformation and our beliefs towards money are very unenlightened to say the least. I am positive that in a few hundred years, if earthly civilization survives, practices like putting a family out on the cold streets merely because they haven't got enough money will be seen pretty similar to us looking back to the Dark Ages - when the Inquisition discovered that someone had Jewish ancestors or Cathar beliefs, it was enough to have the entire family tortured to death publicly. Back in those times too, there could be people who said to themselves, I know that this is wrong, but after all, they are Jewish (Cathar etc.), there is nothing I can do. Well, maybe you and I do not know what the next step is in our rational minds, but there is something in us that knows.
RR's response: IMO, there's a qualitative difference between economic exploitation of the majority of the population by a tiny plutocratic elite and total despotism imposed by a Fourth or Fifth Stage theocratic regime like the Catholic Church of the Middle ages, the Prtotestant witch burners of the early modern era, or the Fascists and Communists of the twentieth century. It looks to me like the Trump regime even at its worst is in the former category, not the latter. Some of Trump's street-level followers are preaching and practicing hard core hate against minorities, but this is not being pushed from above the way people like Hitler, Stalin, and Chairman Mao did.

re: "IMO, there's a qualitative difference between economic exploitation of the majority of the population by a tiny plutocratic elite and total despotism imposed by a Fourth or Fifth Stage theocratic regime like the Catholic Church of the Middle ages, the Prtotestant witch burners of the early modern era, or the Fascists and Communists of the twentieth century. It looks to me like the Trump regime even at its worst is in the former category, not the latter. Some of Trump's street-level followers are preaching and practicing hard core hate against minorities, but this is not being pushed from above the way people like Hitler, Stalin, and Chairman Mao did."

and

re: "I didn't realize it until after I made my "Breakthrough of 2011", but comparing Trump to Putin, Orban, LePen, et al was actually faulty reasoning. He's been called a fascist with ambitions of making himself dictator all through his campaign, but there's never been evidence that he really is one. He's mostly just a showman trying to get free media publicity. And I'm now reasonably certain that all he really wanted was a Tea Party GOP regime like the one that's already in place. This is bad on the level of human rights and economic opportunity for the have-not, but it's a far cry from actual fascist totalitarianism."

No doubt there is a qualitative difference between a real totalitarian regime confined to a small Lebensraum - you can't have that with the open space in the US. It is difficult not to take into account the unconscious effect of having open spaces further out to the West.

Perhaps we are looking at a new phenomenon - the New Right, at least in two shades, which cooperated nicely towards the end of this election. One is plutocratic, the other is a version of national socialism with strong collective shadow projection (Muslims, the Jewish elite, LGBT etc.) Few people realize over here in Europe that in addition to the vast spaces which make tyranny impractical, the political system of the US does have some checks and balances and traditions most countries over here do not have - just take the different roles of the executive branch and the legislative branch. Trump could not do as he pleased except by abolishing the Constitution (and a TV star is not enough to do that). However, he can aid and abet tyrants and the violent right to come in power in other places - due to the very globalization he swore to dismantle or curb.

Looking at the economic exploitation of the majority of the population imposed by a tiny plutocracy, does not totally explain the global extremist and racist rhymes which IMHO have a spiritual background. In her own way, Clinton would have helped the same plutocrats stay in power by letting off the steam by allowing some amount of redistribution and promoting a more normal, reasonable form of communication. Today we hear that Trump would keep some elements of Obamacare. Good. However, neither the problem nor its solution lie in America.

The extremist movements in other parts of the world towards nativism go hand in hand with movements like the Tea Party. No wonder that many leaders of states and extremist parties greeted and promoted Trump openly, including LePen, Wilders and our own excellent specimen Mr Orban, who went as far as to say after the elections that traditional Western liberalism was dead and the world needed to wake up to the "reality of the people." And by that he meant the raging white nativists reacting to globalism. Yes, over here it also means ethnicism (against Gypsies etc.) and generally being against all people of color.

Perhaps I am somewhat biased because not only I live in a country which teeters on the border of becoming an irreversible dictatorship, and is haunted by the spirits of true Nazism. And I've also heard this Tea Party stuff close up from my relatives in the US. Although one central motivating force is economic chauvinism, in their case as well as the case of Trump voters sociologically, a strong projected enemy image is also there. I've heard stuff like "Negroes are inferior in intellect" (though they readily admit the Chinese are not), together with remarks on people of color from the third world - washed together with Muslims. "Those kind of people."

To them, schools teach Communist doctrine and teachers live on milking the state, psychology is superfluous because you've got to pray. Tea Party people actually drive hours to go out protesting against immigrants, believe that LGBT people are the results of the abuse of liberalism and so on.

I do not see real Nazism coming to the US - but, as the joke says, there is surely a demand for it. And as far as the spiritual roots go - we only have to recall that the Tea Party would not exist without the Koch brothers, whose father, the founder of the family wealth, Fred Koch was an open admirer of Hitler, and bitterly decried the policies of Roosevelt. He also admired Imperial Japan and Italy. The oil refinery he built for the Nazis was still before the war, and we must assume that the man was severely underinformed - as most people were at the time - about what really went on in Europe. But the rhymes are there in his thinking.

So perhaps we are looking at a two-step problem and a giant question mark.

1. Trump cannot and probably does not want to install the most violent new right branch, but the New Right is a world phenomenon, and he will actively help it. He hints at the US backing out from the leadership of NATO, and becoming more of an isolationist, and has a great trouble with the UN too. That is the gap some tyrants have been waiting for. Under normal circumstances, a power like the Russian empire could not go ahead and wreak havoc in a dozen countries, and while, as you pointed out in other threads, Russia is economically weak, in recent months its alliance with China is stronger and stronger both economically and in politics. And China is by no means a weak player.

2. It will come back to the US - it is only a question of time. So far the game seemed to be that China has US state bonds, basically irredeemable, in exchange for the giant trade surplus and the merciless exploitation of its own people, with the US providing the largest market and also doing its world military policing, which is mostly in accord with China.

3. Question mark: Trump effectively promised to a large majority of his voters that he would roll back some of the effects of globalization, starting with China and Mexico. He will be unable to do so however, unless the US becomes a non-capitalist country - which is highly unlikely. Plus he would act against his own class - should he strike down off-shore business and the tax breaks of the rich. In short, he cannot bring tens of millions of jobs back to the former white working class. I differ from some economists who say that robotization is the most direct cause of the economic crisis - I think it is only a meager part of it so far, the lack of decent employment is still due to Chinese, Indian and other low-paid workers, plus the unbelievable enrichment of the top layer of rich investors in the West.

That means there will be a large amount of Trump voters who will be severely disappointed in latest two years. In other words, there is a built-in problem with the entire phenomenon, but much can happen before the masses will wake up. If they ever will. And when they will, will they cooperate with urban left thinkers who can think in complex sentences?

reg, #7:

reg said: No doubt there is a qualitative difference between a real totalitarian regime confined to a small Lebensraum - you can't have that with the open space in the US. It is difficult not to take into account the unconscious effect of having open spaces further out to the West.
RR's response: It looks to me like all of the totalitarian regimes I mentioned had about the same amount of lebansraum as the USA had when it was expanding Westward in the 1800's. The Roman Catholic Church of the Middle Ages was bounded on the Southeast by the Orthodox Catholic Church, but was free to expand into Pagan countries to the West, North, and East. The Protestant Churches after the Reformation expanded into approximately the same areas, though jumping over France into Britain and leaping into North America when most of Eastern Europe remained Catholic. The Axis Powers in WW2 just "bit the bullet" and conquored both Western and Eastern Europe by force of arms and the Japanese doing the same in Asia. And the Communists did the same after WW2, spreading from Russia into Eastern Europe on the West and China on the East. IMO, the US lebansraum you're referring to is simply sparsely-populated domestic territory that has sufficient resources to support a larger population. And it looks to me from my interpretations of history that most of Europe had similar areas until the last couple of centuries.

reg said: Perhaps we are looking at a new phenomenon - the New Right, at least in two shades, which cooperated nicely towards the end of this election. One is plutocratic, the other is a version of national socialism with strong collective shadow projection (Muslims, the Jewish elite, LGBT etc.) Few people realize over here in Europe that in addition to the vast spaces which make tyranny impractical, the political system of the US does have some checks and balances and traditions most countries over here do not have - just take the different roles of the executive branch and the legislative branch. Trump could not do as he pleased except by abolishing the Constitution (and a TV star is not enough to do that). However, he can aid and abet tyrants and the violent right to come in power in other places - due to the very globalization he swore to dismantle or curb.
RR's response: The US Constitution was deliberately written to create the checks and balances you mention. It was based on the (unwritten) British Constitution which had evolved over centuries to included some of them, but carried them much further. And the Civil War created even more checks and balances, as could have been an outgrowth of international wars in Europe, but this hasn't happened to anything approaching the same degree.

reg said: Looking at the economic exploitation of the majority of the population imposed by a tiny plutocracy, does not totally explain the global extremist and racist rhymes which IMHO have a spiritual background. In her own way, Clinton would have helped the same plutocrats stay in power by letting off the steam by allowing some amount of redistribution and promoting a more normal, reasonable form of communication. Today we hear that Trump would keep some elements of Obamacare. Good. However, neither the problem nor its solution lie in America.
SR's response: IMO, this is true because the USA started with separation of church and state, so newly-settled territories have always included Americans of all religious backgrounds. And the same applies to political ideology as a belief system: we've never had lots of political parties, each with a specific ideology, but rather two big parties whose members represented a variety of ideologies. Even when you think of the Republicans being the "right" and the Democrats being the "left" today, it's important to realize that the opposite was true between the Civil War and about 1900.

reg said: The extremist movements in other parts of the world towards nativism go hand in hand with movements like the Tea Party. No wonder that many leaders of states and extremist parties greeted and promoted Trump openly, including LePen, Wilders and our own excellent specimen Mr Orban, who went as far as to say after the elections that traditional Western liberalism was dead and the world needed to wake up to the "reality of the people." And by that he meant the raging white nativists reacting to globalism. Yes, over here it also means ethnicism (against Gypsies etc.) and generally being against all people of color. Perhaps I am somewhat biased because not only I live in a country which teeters on the border of becoming an irreversible dictatorship, and is haunted by the spirits of true Nazism. And I've also heard this Tea Party stuff close up from my relatives in the US. Although one central motivating force is economic chauvinism, in their case as well as the case of Trump voters sociologically, a strong projected enemy image is also there. I've heard stuff like "Negroes are inferior in intellect" (though they readily admit the Chinese are not), together with remarks on people of color from the third world - washed together with Muslims. "Those kind of people." To them, schools teach Communist doctrine and teachers live on milking the state, psychology is superfluous because you've got to pray. Tea Party people actually drive hours to go out protesting against immigrants, believe that LGBT people are the results of the abuse of liberalism and so on."
RR's response: IMO, it's important to realize that the fascist-like mentality represented by the Tea Party has existed thoughout most of American history in both the North and South, but until very recently, it's been confined to small, isolated groups of bigots that never tried to combine into a national movement. The majority of Americans have always thought of themselves as liberals or conservatives within one of the two major parties. There used to be "Liberal Republicans" and "Conservative Democrats" in both the US Congress and in state governments.

reg said: I do not see real Nazism coming to the US - but, as the joke says, there is surely a demand for it. And as far as the spiritual roots go - we only have to recall that the Tea Party would not exist without the Koch brothers, whose father, the founder of the family wealth, Fred Koch was an open admirer of Hitler, and bitterly decried the policies of Roosevelt. He also admired Imperial Japan and Italy. The oil refinery he built for the Nazis was still before the war, and we must assume that the man was severely underinformed - as most people were at the time - about what really went on in Europe. But the rhymes are there in his thinking. So perhaps we are looking at a two-step problem and a giant question mark.
RR's response: This was not only true of the Koch's but also of the Kennedys, Rockefellars, and even the Roosevelts. All these families had members who supported fascist in form or another all over the world, citing economic reasons if challenged on the political or legal level.

reg said: 1. Trump cannot and probably does not want to install the most violent new right branch, but the New Right is a world phenomenon, and he will actively help it. He hints at the US backing out from the leadership of NATO, and becoming more of an isolationist, and has a great trouble with the UN too. That is the gap some tyrants have been waiting for. Under normal circumstances, a power like the Russian empire could not go ahead and wreak havoc in a dozen countries, and while, as you pointed out in other threads, Russia is economically weak, in recent months its alliance with China is stronger and stronger both economically and in politics. And China is by no means a weak player.
RR's response: The more I learn about Trump from his words and actions in real time, the less I believe he's the driving force behind the movement that just took control of the White House and both Houses of Congress. The real leaders are far-right Republicans that first got a lot of publicity during the "Tea Party" movement a few years back, and as Trump stole the Republican nomination by winning lots of votes with his alleged "populism", they helped him divide and disempower the liberal and moderate Republicans and take their place as the leaders of the GOP.

reg said: 2. It will come back to the US - it is only a question of time. So far the game seemed to be that China has US state bonds, basically irredeemable, in exchange for the giant trade surplus and the merciless exploitation of its own people, with the US providing the largest market and also doing its world military policing, which is mostly in accord with China.
RR's response: I get the impression that China is still the "Communist Dictatorship" founded by Mao after WW2, except that it no longer has either Communism or a Dictator. There is no longer a single coherent political ideology or a single strong leader, but a whole bunch of conflicting policies being implemented by many regional and specialized bureaucratic establishments.

reg said: 3. Question mark: Trump effectively promised to a large majority of his voters that he would roll back some of the effects of globalization, starting with China and Mexico. He will be unable to do so however, unless the US becomes a non-capitalist country - which is highly unlikely. Plus he would act against his own class - should he strike down off-shore business and the tax breaks of the rich. In short, he cannot bring tens of millions of jobs back to the former white working class. I differ from some economists who say that robotization is the most direct cause of the economic crisis - I think it is only a meager part of it so far, the lack of decent employment is still due to Chinese, Indian and other low-paid workers, plus the unbelievable enrichment of the top layer of rich investors in the West."
RR's response: I agree with everything you said about China and India, which still operate through the exploitation of huge, often highly skilled but poorly paid, labor forces. But the USA is relying more every year on automation and robotization. This is certainly true of the California agricultural industry and of the new industry in the "Rust Belt" states.

reg said: That means there will be a large amount of Trump voters who will be severely disappointed in latest two years. In other words, there is a built-in problem with the entire phenomenon, but much can happen before the masses will wake up. If they ever will. And when they will, will they cooperate with urban left thinkers who can think in complex sentences?
RR's reply: I have no idea what will happen next. IMO, there's still a possibility that Clinton will end up as POTUS instead of Trump, and an actual probability that Trump will be either pushed out turned into a figurehead by the Tea Partiers, whom I suspect are neither fascist in political ideology or particularly puritanical on social issues. I have posted over on Artie's "Tyranny Watch" Community that I intend to commit suicide if Trump ends up as defacto dicator over the USA, but my actuall guess right now is that this won't happen. Trump will either back off as soon as he finds out that being POTUS is NOT being "an elected dictator" but rather just another official in a complex power-brokering network, or else he'll stay in power officially, but his decisions will actually be made "by committee" with lots of Tea Partiers involved.

If you haven't already read the OP of my "Everybody Knows" thread, I suggest you go up to the top of the General Forum menu and read it.

It now looks like I'll be posting here again as normally as I can. I still feel, as Ed Sanders so aptly put it back in the mid-Sixties, "like home-made shit", but I assume I'll gradually start feeling better as I return to normal on-line activities.

Dearest Kyle,

I keep on mulling over this and I add the everyday reflections of progressive papers such as the Guardian in the UK, Truthout and Huffington Post among others in the US. I also look at Vedic astro frameworks, but I agree with you over the years that many things cannot be predicted specifically plus interventions of novelty are always a wild card - on many levels for humanity. It must be pointed out that conventional astrologers all agreed at a US conference that Hillary would be President, and the only participating US astrologer who disagreed was Vedic astrologer Joni Patry from Texas. She did not say specifically that Trump would be President but a few things she was saying over the past few months are worth mentioning - for me especially because I am aware of the specific reasoning behind this which is deeply based in Indian mythology: 1. that we are all set for a big surprise, perhaps the most important change while we are alive as far as the US and the modern West is concerned, 2. things are not what they seem, what we took for granted for years will not stand the test of truth, and generally these times (Vedic transit Scorpio Saturn) are full of uncertainty, upsets and more and more revelations, for example, about both candidates, 3. she hinted at more surprises before the inauguration.

Practically speaking, there are two or three more areas that could still block Trump - e.g. someone may decide to leak his tax papers and it could be possible that he would legally not be able to take the seat of the presidency. Race relations and relations to minorities as I read every day are tense in the US - the precedents of race riots even under the Obama administration are there. If there is an explosive case of white supremacist authorities committing another atrocity, rioting could break out at a mass scale.

As I said before, I am not committed to a particular map of human reality but I am open to the possibility that such a corrected system with built-in uncertainty windows works as far as the general archetypes, naturally not describing every novelty and innovation just the scheme of things. Wrapping up the theme of astrology, the solar eclipse on Jan. 1 is a dangerous time, as is the Dec 27 constellation of lunar nodes with Mars - a similar constellation could be observed around the 911 event, for example.

All these systems are, I am ready to admit, tools of intuition regarding the collective mind and much is uncertain. When I asked my astro cards (under development) a day or two before the elections, the main element of the message was a continuing struggle and the importance of communications. I did not understand this as consciously I was basically convinced that Hillary would win by default - and I was partially right since she did get millions more of votes. Now that the Trump win came about as a result of the antiquated electoral college system, I feel that the expression of a continued, unceasing struggle holds a lot more meaning, for example. (As I noted before, this system works with the elements of Vedic astrology but it is more based on random things at the time like the I Ching or the Tarot). As does the other planet that was chosen as the omen of the time, Mercury, which shows the importance of exposing lies for example.

My point in all this is that Trump and his people are now on the side of the conscious self, it is a revolution from the top down, though they are good at grassroots organization (as far as I gather, he did not get more votes than other GOP candidates recently, though his supporters keep on referring to the "silent majority"), and meaningful resistance must proceed from the unconscious and from the bottom up.

The time for truth will come, no matter how many lies they weave. And come it will quite soon - in the next couple of years.

reg, #10:

reg said: "I keep on mulling over this and I add the everyday reflections of progressive papers such as the Guardian in the UK, Truthout and Huffington Post among others in the US. I also look at Vedic astro frameworks, but I agree with you over the years that many things cannot be predicted specifically plus interventions of novelty are always a wild card - on many levels for humanity. It must be pointed out that conventional astrologers all agreed at a US conference that Hillary would be President, and the only participating US astrologer who disagreed was Vedic astrologer Joni Patry from Texas. She did not say specifically that Trump would be President but a few things she was saying over the past few months are worth mentioning - for me especially because I am aware of the specific reasoning behind this which is deeply based in Indian mythology: 1. that we are all set for a big surprise, perhaps the most important change while we are alive as far as the US and the modern West is concerned, 2. things are not what they seem, what we took for granted for years will not stand the test of truth, and generally these times (Vedic transit Scorpio Saturn) are full of uncertainty, upsets and more and more revelations, for example, about both candidates, 3. she hinted at more surprises before the inauguration."

RR's response: Right now, it looks to like hard information is surfacing that the election was indeed "rigged" by the Plutocrats to put Trump in the White House and the extreme right wing of the GOP in control of Congress. I assume the incoming federal government will try to sweep this evidence under the rug, but it's blatant enough that they may not be able to without totally dismantling the criminal justice system. However, my Guides tell me that this is not the "big surprise" you just mentioned. They too expect "more surprises before the inauguration", but on the world stage, not here in the USA. There may be a major military confrontation between US forces and foreign forces, or an outbreak of warfare overseas that doesn't directly involve the US.

reg said: Practically speaking, there are two or three more areas that could still block Trump - e.g. someone may decide to leak his tax papers and it could be possible that he would legally not be able to take the seat of the presidency. Race relations and relations to minorities as I read every day are tense in the US - the precedents of race riots even under the Obama administration are there. If there is an explosive case of white supremacist authorities committing another atrocity, rioting could break out at a mass scale.
SR's response: I don't believe that Obama would be willing to have Trump arrested instead of handing over power to him, and I don't expect major race riots to break out, because small ones won't get enough media coverage to escalate into big ones.

reg said: As I said before, I am not committed to a particular map of human reality but I am open to the possibility that such a corrected system with built-in uncertainty windows works as far as the general archetypes, naturally not describing every novelty and innovation just the scheme of things. Wrapping up the theme of astrology, the solar eclipse on Jan. 1 is a dangerous time, as is the Dec 27 constellation of lunar nodes with Mars - a similar constellation could be observed around the 911 event, for example.
RR's response: A lot of people are worried that there will be 911-scale terrorist around Christmas or New Years, but my Guides say it is unlikely.

reg said: All these systems are, I am ready to admit, tools of intuition regarding the collective mind and much is uncertain. When I asked my astro cards (under development) a day or two before the elections, the main element of the message was a continuing struggle and the importance of communications. I did not understand this as consciously I was basically convinced that Hillary would win by default - and I was partially right since she did get millions more of votes. Now that the Trump win came about as a result of the antiquated electoral college system, I feel that the expression of a continued, unceasing struggle holds a lot more meaning, for example. (As I noted before, this system works with the elements of Vedic astrology but it is more based on random things at the time like the I Ching or the Tarot). As does the other planet that was chosen as the omen of the time, Mercury, which shows the importance of exposing lies for example.
RR's response: IMO, the "continuing struggle" is primarily economic rather than social or political, and both the Trump Admin and the Tea Party Congress are totally unqualified to hold their own in it.

reg said: My point in all this is that Trump and his people are now on the side of the conscious self, it is a revolution from the top down, though they are good at grassroots organization (as far as I gather, he did not get more votes than other GOP candidates recently, though his supporters keep on referring to the "silent majority"), and meaningful resistance must proceed from the unconscious and from the bottom up. The time for truth will come, no matter how many lies they weave. And come it will quite soon - in the next couple of years.
RR's response: I totally agree with everything you just said, and it looks like this resistence "from the unconscious and from the bottom up" is already underway. For example, I predict that this year's Christmas shopping will be extremely light, and there will also be much less holiday travel than usual.

I'm quite surprised that a movement to challenge the Nov 8th election as rigged seems to be taking shape as more and more evidence surfaces that supports this may have actually happened. The fact that Clinton got almost two million more votes than Trump and still lost the Electoral College majority seems to be the driving force right now, and I have no idea what will happen next. It's far from clear who has the right to initiate such a challenge or what court or other body would hear the evidence, and right now, I'm just waiting for more information and hoping this will get out of the talking stage before it's too late and Trump actually takes office. But Obama remains President until January 20th, and should be able to do something if he takes the risk. And I'm also asking, "What does he have to lose if he tries and fails? Since an ex-POTUS has no formal power or prestige, the answer is, very little."

As an outsider, I am less surprised that people would want a revision of the electoral college system. I have to point out though that it is probably too late to do that now. At least in my understanding, the rules - no matter how unjust - were agreed by both major parties. Democrats would have to fight that from the opposition.

Two principles stick out to me here: playing by the existing rules is one thing. If two opposing blocks of people do not agree upon mutually understood rules, it's an all-out war and Mad Max world. Perhaps both of us (RR and I) look at this like well, maybe Reps tend to try to either transgress these rules or rewrite them easier. That may be the case, but unless we keep the agreed rules ourselves, we cannot demand the other side to keep existing or later rules, either. Psychology showed at least in outline - and your posting is parallel a few years ago, though I cannot show you exactly where it was - that what we associate with the predator or hunter mentality is closer to most modern right-wing movements and the so-called "masculine mentality". It follows from that that they are a notch readier to abandon rules when it fits them. Psychologists studying male and female leadership styles and metaphors say that male leadership types (in North America) are usually closer to a win-lose mentality, competition, and transgressing rules at times if it serves the leaders' interest - or the perceived interests of the organization -, while girls in schools, and later women leaders are more prone to "play by the rules" and demand that others would do too. I am sorry to write such generalities instead of specific references but one source at least I can quote is a book on language and gender by NLP linguist Susan Elgin.
All the same, if a tribe disagrees on the most basic rules, it is like several alien hordes ready to annihilate each other.

The second principle is non-partisanship. I would say if a rule is to be revised, like the odd and antiquated electoral college, maybe some Republicans would also look at it from the point of view of the entire American electorate instead of simply agreeing their party dictates. These days, however, both in Hungary and in the US, a partisan herd mentality is supposed to exist in politics everywhere, without questioning. The constant presupposition that parties would automatically swing votes on issues in the Senate, the House and also the Supreme Court deepens the divide. I think in much of history, rights were won when some people of the supposed "other side" were won over at least partially. Civil rights is an example, the case of the closing of the Vietnam war is another. If we constantly presuppose that no Republican will act against the perceived group interest of their party (and within that, the most partisan part of it), I won't be surprised if that is all we will get, open and unceasing enmity instead of any common ground.

Additionally, today and yesterday I read articles that in key swing states such as Michigan and Ohio, the electronic counting of votes is disputed - or called into question by key Democratic advisers, who urge Hillary to take steps - to which so far she did not react. The reason is that electronic voting is said to be in the hands of Russian companies. They hastened to add that all the Dems want is to reexamine some states' results - and each state has a deadline to submit a request for that, one is to expire this Friday, that is, tomorrow - and that the Russian companies (using servers in Russia...??) have no ties with the Russian government. The papers (e.g. the Guardian, Guardian article todayindex.hu). The earlier claim was mentioned that the damaging email problem of Clinton during the elections was dug out by Russian hackers connected to their government - but also state that hard evidence of this has not been found so far.

It looks very bad though, from the PR point of view to have swing states vote count in the hands of any Russian company (unnamed in articles), because it is very difficutl in these days for anyone connected to Russia to be independent of the mafia state, also that this came out after the election count of one of the most extreme campaigns of modern history.

I don't know why this isn't a huge piece of news today in America, and why people aren't out on the streets now at least demanding how exactly and why. Russia is not exactly an ally of the US as Israel or the UK.

If I were an honest conservative Republican I would have openly discouraged my party from using servers operated by a Russian company in such a controversial case - latest before the closing of the elections. Especially if my opponents have already accused our "side" with Russian hacking.

And if I were an honest Democrat today, I would take to the streets demanding a recount or even repeated elections in all states where a Russian tie exists. The minimum I would demand is the disclosing of exact names, numbers and company owner relationships, plus declarations that can be evidenced by proofs both by the involved company and the Government of the Russian Federation about their non-involvement with each other.
Why on earth should a sensitive federal state function such as vote counting be outsourced to any non-US company is not clear, first of all. At least if it had been one of the staunchest military and social allies of the US such as Israel or the UK...
Didn't the President of Russia openly express - as did many of his allies - his open preference of one party and one candidate over the other?

Wouldn't any Republican think that this looks bad?

As Joseph Stalin said:

"It is enough that the people know there was an election. The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything." Brainy quote

reg, #13:

reg: As an outsider, I am less surprised that people would want a revision of the electoral college system. I have to point out though that it is probably too late to do that now. At least in my understanding, the rules - no matter how unjust - were agreed by both major parties. Democrats would have to fight that from the opposition.
RR: I agree this is not the time to question the electoral college system, but it looks like there is evidence that Hillary actually won a majority in the EC and various forms of fraud by the GOP kept votes for her being counted. However, I doubt this will be proven in time to keep the EC from electing Trump.

reg: Two principles stick out to me here: playing by the existing rules is one thing. If two opposing blocks of people do not agree upon mutually understood rules, it's an all-out war and Mad Max world. Perhaps both of us (RR and I) look at this like well, maybe Reps tend to try to either transgress these rules or rewrite them easier. That may be the case, but unless we keep the agreed rules ourselves, we cannot demand the other side to keep existing or later rules, either. Psychology showed at least in outline - and your posting is parallel a few years ago, though I cannot show you exactly where it was - that what we associate with the predator or hunter mentality is closer to most modern right-wing movements and the so-called "masculine mentality". It follows from that that they are a notch readier to abandon rules when it fits them. Psychologists studying male and female leadership styles and metaphors say that male leadership types (in North America) are usually closer to a win-lose mentality, competition, and transgressing rules at times if it serves the leaders' interest - or the perceived interests of the organization -, while girls in schools, and later women leaders are more prone to "play by the rules" and demand that others would do too. I am sorry to write such generalities instead of specific references but one source at least I can quote is a book on language and gender by NLP linguist Susan Elgin. All the same, if a tribe disagrees on the most basic rules, it is like several alien hordes ready to annihilate each other.
RR: I agree with everything you just said, but I would put election tampering by overt, legal political activity such as gerrymandering or making it easier for some special interest groups to register and vote than for others in a "marginally acceptable" category, and actual hiding or changing of during the counting process in a "never allowed" category.

reg: The second principle is non-partisanship. I would say if a rule is to be revised, like the odd and antiquated electoral college, maybe some Republicans would also look at it from the point of view of the entire American electorate instead of simply agreeing their party dictates. These days, however, both in Hungary and in the US, a partisan herd mentality is supposed to exist in politics everywhere, without questioning. The constant presupposition that parties would automatically swing votes on issues in the Senate, the House and also the Supreme Court deepens the divide. I think in much of history, rights were won when some people of the supposed "other side" were won over at least partially. Civil rights is an example, the case of the closing of the Vietnam war is another. If we constantly presuppose that no Republican will act against the perceived group interest of their party (and within that, the most partisan part of it), I won't be surprised if that is all we will get, open and unceasing enmity instead of any common ground.
RR: Again I agree with everything you just said. However, throughout most of American history, the two party system produced passage of laws by bi-partisan compromise, because both parties contain voters and officials with liberal, moderate, and conservative views. This is what I would most like to see the US federal government return to, but I have no idea how it can be done.

re: Additionally, today and yesterday I read articles that in key swing states such as Michigan and Ohio, the electronic counting of votes is disputed - or called into question by key Democratic advisers, who urge Hillary to take steps - to which so far she did not react. The reason is that electronic voting is said to be in the hands of Russian companies. They hastened to add that all the Dems want is to reexamine some states' results - and each state has a deadline to submit a request for that, one is to expire this Friday, that is, tomorrow - and that the Russian companies (using servers in Russia...??) have no ties with the Russian government. The papers (e.g. the Guardian, Guardian article todayindex.hu). The earlier claim was mentioned that the damaging email problem of Clinton during the elections was dug out by Russian hackers connected to their government - but also state that hard evidence of this has not been found so far. It looks very bad though, from the PR point of view to have swing states vote count in the hands of any Russian company (unnamed in articles), because it is very difficult in these days for anyone connected to Russia to be independent of the mafia state, also that this came out after the election count of one of the most extreme campaigns of modern history. I don't know why this isn't a huge piece of news today in America, and why people aren't out on the streets now at least demanding how exactly and why. Russia is not exactly an ally of the US as Israel or the UK. If I were an honest conservative Republican I would have openly discouraged my party from using servers operated by a Russian company in such a controversial case - latest before the closing of the elections. Especially if my opponents have already accused our "side" with Russian hacking. And if I were an honest Democrat today, I would take to the streets demanding a recount or even repeated elections in all states where a Russian tie exists. The minimum I would demand is the disclosing of exact names, numbers and company owner relationships, plus declarations that can be evidenced by proofs both by the involved company and the Government of the Russian Federation about their non-involvement with each other. Why on earth should a sensitive federal state function such as vote counting be outsourced to any non-US company is not clear, first of all. At least if it had been one of the staunchest military and social allies of the US such as Israel or the UK... Didn't the President of Russia openly express - as did many of his allies - his open preference of one party and one candidate over the other? Wouldn't any Republican think that this looks bad? As Joseph Stalin said: "It is enough that the people know there was an election. The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything." Brainy quote
RR: The only news about this I've seen so far has been in the foreign press and postings by individual on Web venues such as Twitter. My guess is that the out-sourcing was done in ways subtle enough that it would be very difficult or even impossible to prove in court here in the USA. So my best guess right now is that the EC will vote for Trump and he will be inaugurated in January, but the world-wide reaction to this will be devastating to the USA on both the political and economic level.

BTW the OP Everybody knows is great!
I knew no matter how hard it is, there is some interesting truth that will come out from this forum.

My next thought is that there was a New York Times interview with Trump NYT transcript
It is interesting... this man is highly adaptable. Funny thing is that as egomaniac as he is, backed by the poisonous ideologies of Fundies and Teabaggers, he sounds not at all ideological.

One huge question remains after reading the transcript - though I am sure there will be points you and other readers will raise: what happens in the minutes off the record?

He basically says that Obama revealed to him the most pressing problems of Americans and that he was surprised and the NYT should ask this from Obama. And later he says a couple of things that are off the record... I think the NYT journalists turned the recorder off and then he spoke and they turned it on again and continued as before.

So what is your guess? What can be the greatest problem(s) that would actually surprise Trump?

Here's what he says: "TRUMP: He told me what he thought his, what the biggest problems of the country were, which I don’t think I should reveal, I don’t mind if he reveals them. But I was actually surprised a little bit. But he told me the problems, he told me things that he considered assets, but he did tell me what he thought were the biggest problems, in particular one problem that he thought was a big problem for the country, which I’d rather have you ask him."

So what could it be?

1. Freshwater availability
2. Russian meddling and threats
3. Chinese debts of US
4. Climate (No matter how ideological his followers are, Trump said he would keep an open mind... which is already a concession. And if Obama told him the polar cap was melting now I think he would note it...)


It can't be a few things he already talked about extensively in his campaign. Otherwise how could he be surprised? It can't be a hot political subject many Reps see differently than Dems or he would have argued about it. What remains is the economy (excuding coal and oils about which the two men voice different views), nature, geopolitics and seven-legged UFO's having landed in suburban Michigan.

The grey field is that it could be a geo subjet that is somewhat poiticized but not completely - like the inept young Saudi ruler or the readiness of some rulers or leaders to wage war. Israel comes to mind, and today's Turkish statements.
(Turkey would unleash millions of refugees upon the West should the EU vote down their visa requests. Which is fair but dangerous.)

What is your guess?
My first guess would be water.

I left out Syria because he says something off the record obviously connected to that. But my guess that isn't the issue and the world is somewhat relieved that we aren't going to war with the Russians over Syria soon. (But later ... wait it out. Stalin and Hitler concluded a non-aggression treaty - the Molotov-Ribbentropp pact, which was suppressed for a long time.)

reg, #15:

reg: BTW the OP Everybody knows is great! I knew no matter how hard it is, there is some interesting truth that will come out from this forum.
RR: Whether I'm starting a thread or contributing to an on-going discussion, each one of my messages represents my ideas and opinions at that particular point in time: no more and no less. So I realize there are lots of contradictions if you compare a bunch of my messages with one another, and I'm comfortable with this.

reg: My next thought is that there was a New York Times interview with Trump. It is interesting... this man is highly adaptable. Funny thing is that as egomaniac as he is, backed by the poisonous ideologies of Fundies and Teabaggers, he sounds not at all ideological. One huge question remains after reading the transcript - though I am sure there will be points you and other readers will raise: what happens in the minutes off the record?
RR: I just read the entire article, and my general impression is: "Everything Trump said to the NYT reporters was a crock of bullshit. He made no effort whatsoever to tell the truth, and they were completely aware of this the whole time. I have no idea what he said off the record, but it's impossible for me to believe that he suddenly turned from lying to telling the truth.

reg: He basically says that Obama revealed to him the most pressing problems of Americans and that he was surprised and the NYT should ask this from Obama. And later he says a couple of things that are off the record... I think the NYT journalists turned the recorder off and then he spoke and they turned it on again and continued as before. So what is your guess? What can be the greatest problem(s) that would actually surprise Trump?
RR: IMO, Obama and Trump privately agreed that the USA, with its high standard of living for almost everyone, CANNOT COMPETE with countries whose citizens have much lower standard of living. That's the "elephant in the corner of the room" that can be ignored but cannot be made to go away.

reg: Here's what he says: "TRUMP: He told me what he thought his, what the biggest problems of the country were, which I don’t think I should reveal, I don’t mind if he reveals them. But I was actually surprised a little bit. But he told me the problems, he told me things that he considered assets, but he did tell me what he thought were the biggest problems, in particular one problem that he thought was a big problem for the country, which I’d rather have you ask him." So what could it be? 1. Freshwater availability 2. Russian meddling and threats3. Chinese debts of US 4. Climate (No matter how ideological his followers are, Trump said he would keep an open mind... which is already a concession. And if Obama told him the polar cap was melting now I think he would note it...) It can't be a few things he already talked about extensively in his campaign. Otherwise how could he be surprised? It can't be a hot political subject many Reps see differently than Dems or he would have argued about it. What remains is the economy (excuding coal and oils about which the two men voice different views), nature, geopolitics and seven-legged UFO's having landed in suburban Michigan. The grey field is that it could be a geo subjet that is somewhat poiticized but not completely - like the inept young Saudi ruler or the readiness of some rulers or leaders to wage war. Israel comes to mind, and today's Turkish statements. (Turkey would unleash millions of refugees upon the West should the EU vote down their visa requests. Which is fair but dangerous.) What is your guess? My first guess would be water.
RR: My first guess would be what I said above: competition between a rich America and countries with much poorer populations is NEVER going to work to our advantage. And if you reread all of Trump's comments in the interview, he actually hints at this several times without mentioning it explicitly.

reg, #16:

reg: I left out Syria because he says something off the record obviously connected to that. But my guess that isn't the issue and the world is somewhat relieved that we aren't going to war with the Russians over Syria soon. (But later ... wait it out. Stalin and Hitler concluded a non-aggression treaty - the Molotov-Ribbentropp pact, which was suppressed for a long time.)
RR: I'm pretty sure that Trump and Putin secretly made an agreement similar to the Molotov-Ribbentropp Pact some time ago, meaning a "gentlemen's agreement" for the USA and Russia not to go to war over Syria/Iraq/ISIS. But both of them know it's just the 21st century equivalent of that old agreement Hitler and Stalin made and will be broken if the general political situation in the Middle East requires it.

I agree on the general conclusion about the elephant in the living room - let me refer back to Milanovic. The global conclusion seems that at a yielding point in the late seventies, instead of the military competition with the 5ST Soviet system, neoliberal economy was introduced with selective deregulation, and the largest Western economies were gradually outsourcing manufacturing and assembly to poorer countries. Post-Mao China was an indispensable player in this - Deng realized there was no road to a modern China without this, there was no alternative, any change from this roadmap leads to a horrible annihilation of a several thousand year-old culture with the highest number of people on Earth. While the West gradually gave up post-Depression measures of equalization, China in effect changed from a partially equalized peasant's and workers' state. The Chinese Party embraced the worst side of Dickensian capitalism while keeping the authoritarian rule and intervention in everyone's private life and beliefs - thus embodying something like an essential 5ST system totally independent of ideology.

Nevertheless, my intuition is that China holds interesting inclusions or bubbles which are quite promising for the post-globalistic future of humanity.
Many other countries joined, Mexico and India being the most important, but without the manufacturing capacity gradually assumed by China, the global drive would not have happened. India joined primarily with the information society and outsourcing. IMHO there is some polarization in this regard, with China producing far more tangible object, parts, plastics etc. and India more Information Society outsourcing base. Mexico is a mix but I think it is a partial democracy like India.
All three of China, India and Mexico do assembly work, India the least. (Malaysia and other regional countries do more per capita I am sure.) It is possible that this difference can be explained by climatic reasons as well as social structure - India is a democracy with all its imperfections, as is Mexico, whereas post-Maoist China does not pass the basic standards.
As this neocolonialist drive was going on (full power since the Reagan-Thatcher times), the Soviet threat gradually lost its meaning for Europe and the US. All Reagan had to do was to make a few stronger steps in terms of weapons a few years ahead of time and the Soviets were forced to realize they would never catch up. It was a piece of luck - or perhaps partly due to an intervention by the IC-related powers - that a more malleable, liberal person (Gorbachev) was appointed at a crucial time, but even a close-minded, warlike Soviet ruler would have had to retreat sooner or later. Only, they could have taken a sizeable amount of the worlds in between with them in passing.

One cannot emphasize the effects of Chernobyl enough. I recently read the Nobel-prize winner documentary novel by Belarus author Svetlana Alexijevich. It is important to realize that although the nuclear blowup was technically an accident, it was coded into the system - it was simply bound to happen sooner or later. Somewhere at a densely populated area a nuclear reaction would have blown up in the East within a few years. Perhaps the most important conclusion is that it was the direct result of a 5ST style of following chains of orders and commands, and not a monkey wrench event. Its handling - from the inane attempts of digging topsoil and covering grazing cattle with foil and selling radioactive goods around wide areas - greatly contributed to the total disillusionment of masses of party people, as well as simple peasants, workers and intellectuals in the European part of the Soviet empire with the system. Clearly, Gorbachev had no options but to let the empire fall apart, other than killing over half of his own people, which he was neither willing to do, as he was a far more decent person that Stalin or even Brezhniev, nor would it be in line with any of the utopian thinking sold to the Soviet world for decades.

Added to this, Western neoliberal capital was strengthened by several years of a neocolonial adventure already. The result were the 1989 revolutions, which were in essence nationalist revolutions against the weakening 5ST empire of the Soviets. (Read this witty summary by Milanovic: Milanovic blog on 1989)
Now let us return to Trump. Obviously, he cannot do what he promised - to upset the neocolonialist balance primarily with China, secondarily with Mexico and India for the US worker. Anyone fantasizing that Trump would lead a social revolution entertains a pipe dream disregarding both the long history of the Chinese and other manufacturing drive and deregulation. In exchange, more wealth and Enlightenment type social freedoms are no doubt enjoyed by these societies - China bearing the biggest burden of all these globo-colonized worlds and producing the least amount of social progress. Trump rides on a nationalist wave and it is worth while to look at what happened in China in 1989 - Tiananmen Square.

China as the new slave colony of the world, facing unique surplus of people simply could not afford to follow the suit of the freedom wave - it would have totally upset the agreement by the West and China (with more parties) on establishing a neoliberal global-capitalist world. Even with the recent opening of the Information Society, China remains a closed system though that cannot be maintained indefinitely.

The whole thing happened too quickly from the POV of the entire world, and now there is a swing back. It is probable that Trumpism will produce a restriction of some freedom - in cooperation with the more authoritarian, nationalist leaders of the West and its allies. Germany now has a conflict with Turkey which has some similarities with the US-Chinese conflict. And China will gradually relax some of its authoritarianism because its leaders know I think that the mere existence of over one billion people is threatened by any aggressive steps.

Why the world order of globalism happened so quickly though in the eighties and nineties though is a question worthy of examination from several points of view, with mass strategies of reincarnation taken into account.

An unknown factor is the effect of the environmental considerations. I think there will be - if we survive as a species at all - some sort of environmental dictatorship, to put it in stronger terms. I cannot claim any expertise about this, only about 3-some decades of deep thinking and digesting my experience as a recycling consumer and most of my friends are environmental activists at some level.

What that means is that least amount of tangible goods should be transported for a carbon footprint to the least distance. That effectively annuls the maintenance of the present role of China as an exporter of things made of solid matter which can be easily produced elsewhere merely because labor is cheap over there. The Chinese I think have been aware of this, and they are opting for a peaceful transition from this colony status to simnply remaining alive as a modern nation.

Trumpism may not seem to serve the interests of the other side of this trade network but at a deeper look, if there is any long-term rationality in Xi, and other leaders, and I suppose there is, it swings the balance back a bit which is to be expected. The only question that remains is whether the Chinese leadership - deeply steeped in Confucianism and the strategies of the Art of War etc. - is aware of the coming global die-off, and what steps are taken, and how much they recognize that the only end result would be a more individualistic society in China - which given its present size cannot afford to go through a French Revolution style adaptation to Enlightenment levels.

It may be the first 5ST society on Earth which aims at a peaceful transition into something else, instead of fighting it, resisting and collapsing. And Trump may actually aid that process, as funny as that may seem.

reg, #18:

reg: I agree on the general conclusion about the elephant in the living room - let me refer back to Milanovic. The global conclusion seems that at a yielding point in the late seventies, instead of the military competition with the 5ST Soviet system, neoliberal economy was introduced with selective deregulation, and the largest Western economies were gradually outsourcing manufacturing and assembly to poorer countries. Post-Mao China was an indispensable player in this - Deng realized there was no road to a modern China without this, there was no alternative, any change from this roadmap leads to a horrible annihilation of a several thousand year-old culture with the highest number of people on Earth. While the West gradually gave up post-Depression measures of equalization, China in effect changed from a partially equalized peasant's and workers' state. The Chinese Party embraced the worst side of Dickensian capitalism while keeping the authoritarian rule and intervention in everyone's private life and beliefs - thus embodying something like an essential 5ST system totally independent of ideology. Nevertheless, my intuition is that China holds interesting inclusions or bubbles which are quite promising for the post-globalistic future of humanity.
RR: IMO, the main reason Deng made this decision was that every year more and more of his subjects learned about the success of Chinese immigrants in capitalist environments all over the world. There was no way he could keep these stories from spreading by word of mouth, so he used the "carrot" of capitalism to stimulate industrialization and production for export, while continuing to rely on the "stick" of Maoist totalitarianism to keep his regime in power.

reg: Many other countries joined, Mexico and India being the most important, but without the manufacturing capacity gradually assumed by China, the global drive would not have happened. India joined primarily with the information society and outsourcing. IMHO there is some polarization in this regard, with China producing far more tangible object, parts, plastics etc. and India more Information Society outsourcing base. Mexico is a mix but I think it is a partial democracy like India.
All three of China, India and Mexico do assembly work, India the least. (Malaysia and other regional countries do more per capita I am sure.) It is possible that this difference can be explained by climatic reasons as well as social structure - India is a democracy with all its imperfections, as is Mexico, whereas post-Maoist China does not pass the basic standards.
RR: IMO, the difference between China and all the other countries you mentioned is that it is the only one where there is a concrete policy guiding most of the country's economic activities. The details of this policy are kept secret and change constantly in response to real time events, but it is always operating.

reg: As this neocolonialist drive was going on (full power since the Reagan-Thatcher times), the Soviet threat gradually lost its meaning for Europe and the US. All Reagan had to do was to make a few stronger steps in terms of weapons a few years ahead of time and the Soviets were forced to realize they would never catch up. It was a piece of luck - or perhaps partly due to an intervention by the IC-related powers - that a more malleable, liberal person (Gorbachev) was appointed at a crucial time, but even a close-minded, warlike Soviet ruler would have had to retreat sooner or later. Only, they could have taken a sizeable amount of the worlds in between with them in passing.
RR: I remember that there was a lot of talk in the world press at this time about a "thaw" in the Soviet ruling class that put Gorbacvhev in power, and I assumed that the IC was involved in this, but my Guides never gave me information about the details.

reg: One cannot emphasize the effects of Chernobyl enough. I recently read the Nobel-prize winner documentary novel by Belarus author Svetlana Alexijevich. It is important to realize that although the nuclear blowup was technically an accident, it was coded into the system - it was simply bound to happen sooner or later. Somewhere at a densely populated area a nuclear reaction would have blown up in the East within a few years. Perhaps the most important conclusion is that it was the direct result of a 5ST style of following chains of orders and commands, and not a monkey wrench event. Its handling - from the inane attempts of digging topsoil and covering grazing cattle with foil and selling radioactive goods around wide areas - greatly contributed to the total disillusionment of masses of party people, as well as simple peasants, workers and intellectuals in the European part of the Soviet empire with the system. Clearly, Gorbachev had no options but to let the empire fall apart, other than killing over half of his own people, which he was neither willing to do, as he was a far more decent person that Stalin or even Brezhniev, nor would it be in line with any of the utopian thinking sold to the Soviet world for decades.
RR: I was surprised at the time how much information about Chernobyl was allowed to leak out of the USSR, as if it were being used as an excuse to start dismantling the worst parts of the totalitarian political structure. And I aware that a much worse nuclear plant disaster had occurred by in the Fifties and been completely covered up. Was this known in Hungary at the time?

reg: Added to this, Western neoliberal capital was strengthened by several years of a neocolonial adventure already. The result were the 1989 revolutions, which were in essence nationalist revolutions against the weakening 5ST empire of the Soviets. (Read this witty summary by Milanovic: Milanovic blog on 1989)
RR: I read the whole text of the Milanovic piece and found it a simple, coherent presentation of information I already knew from other sources. It defintiely should be taught to US high school and college history students.

reg: Now let us return to Trump. Obviously, he cannot do what he promised - to upset the neocolonialist balance primarily with China, secondarily with Mexico and India for the US worker. Anyone fantasizing that Trump would lead a social revolution entertains a pipe dream disregarding both the long history of the Chinese and other manufacturing drive and deregulation. In exchange, more wealth and Enlightenment type social freedoms are no doubt enjoyed by these societies - China bearing the biggest burden of all these globo-colonized worlds and producing the least amount of social progress. Trump rides on a nationalist wave and it is worth while to look at what happened in China in 1989 - Tiananmen Square.
RR: I've never believed Trump intends to make a serious effort to keep ANY of his campaign promises, and he's already created an infrastructure that will allow him to get away with this. With Pence as the VP and Tea Party Repubicans in control of both the House and
Senate, all he has to do is ask for legislation that will enact his promises into law, and when he doesn't get it, pass any public blame on to them.

reg: China as the new slave colony of the world, facing unique surplus of people simply could not afford to follow the suit of the freedom wave - it would have totally upset the agreement by the West and China (with more parties) on establishing a neoliberal global-capitalist world. Even with the recent opening of the Information Society, China remains a closed system though that cannot be maintained indefinitely. The whole thing happened too quickly from the POV of the entire world, and now there is a swing back. It is probable that Trumpism will produce a restriction of some freedom - in cooperation with the more authoritarian, nationalist leaders of the West and its allies. Germany now has a conflict with Turkey which has some similarities with the US-Chinese conflict. And China will gradually relax some of its authoritarianism because its leaders know I think that the mere existence of over one billion people is threatened by any aggressive steps. Why the world order of globalism happened so quickly though in the eighties and nineties though is a question worthy of examination from several points of view, with mass strategies of reincarnation taken into account.
RR: Throughout the WiH channelings, I remember writing down lots of descriptions of how WW2 and the violence in its aftermath led to the incarnation of huge numbers of souls in what used to be "enemy" countries.

reg: An unknown factor is the effect of the environmental considerations. I think there will be - if we survive as a species at all - some sort of environmental dictatorship, to put it in stronger terms. I cannot claim any expertise about this, only about 3-some decades of deep thinking and digesting my experience as a recycling consumer and most of my friends are environmental activists at some level.
What that means is that least amount of tangible goods should be transported for a carbon footprint to the least distance. That effectively annuls the maintenance of the present role of China as an exporter of things made of solid matter which can be easily produced elsewhere merely because labor is cheap over there. The Chinese I think have been aware of this, and they are opting for a peaceful transition from this colony status to simnply remaining alive as a modern nation.
Trumpism may not seem to serve the interests of the other side of this trade network but at a deeper look, if there is any long-term rationality in Xi, and other leaders, and I suppose there is, it swings the balance back a bit which is to be expected. The only question that remains is whether the Chinese leadership - deeply steeped in Confucianism and the strategies of the Art of War etc. - is aware of the coming global die-off, and what steps are taken, and how much they recognize that the only end result would be a more individualistic society in China - which given its present size cannot afford to go through a French Revolution style adaptation to Enlightenment levels.
It may be the first 5ST society on Earth which aims at a peaceful transition into something else, instead of fighting it, resisting and collapsing. And Trump may actually aid that process, as funny as that may seem
RR: My Guides second everything you just wrote, and point out that the "inexorable forces of history" that Marx postulated were actually produced by the war between the IC and Theocrats throughout the modern era.

Two recent developments: the Electoral College has Republican members who do not want Trump and will not vote for him. You've probably heard this, RR.
Guardian story
Another side is that one of my all-time favorite journalists, George Monbiot wrote an excellent article a day or two ago.
Frightened by Trump? You don't know half of it.
Another relevant article by GM: Neoliberalism

regmelocco wrote:

Two recent developments: the Electoral College has Republican members who do not want Trump and will not vote for him. You've probably heard this, RR.
Guardian story
Another side is that one of my all-time favorite journalists, George Monbiot wrote an excellent article a day or two ago.
Frightened by Trump? You don't know half of it.
Another relevant article by GM: Neoliberalism

I just read both of the articles you cited, and indeed was already familiar with the material in them.

The "faithless electors" mentioned in the first article are just making a personal statement, and their actions have zero chance of affecting the outcome of the EC vote. And ironically, the majority of them are Democrats who are pledged to vote for Clinton but are going to write in the name of a Republican other than Donald Trump, which strikes me as, well, "batshit insane".

The George Monbiot article mentions a lot of the reasons why Trump got the nomination. He's simply describing how plutocrats rigged the election by dumping tons of money into the campaigns of Trump and other GOP candidates, but stops short of pointing out what seems obvious to me: by letting Trump into the mix, they have essentially brought a giant bomb into the room and now it's sitting there going tick, tick, tick. I'm not sure exactly when it will explode, but when it does, the <1% who control >90% of the country's total wealth will left holding a popped balloon and having no idea what to do next. I'm talking about a world-wide collapse of the stock, commodities, and money markets which will destroy corporate capitalism as it now exists. I have no idea exactly what will happen after that, but since the economic infrastructure that produces the actual goods and services that we call "wealth" will still exist, and so will the hands-on workers and lower management, many of the events Marx foresaw are likely to unfold ... but in ways he couldn't imagine back in the 1800's.

I've been trying to channel information about how deal with what I imagine is the worst-case political/economic scenario the USA faces right now, short of nuclear world war. Ironically, Donald Trump is marginal in this scenario, because the Cabinet he's picked, the Tea Party Republicans who control both the House and Senate, and a Supreme Court with a conservative majority, can run the country all by themselves. If Trump doesn't go along with this, it will be very easy to impeach him. He would be replaced by Pence, who embraced the Tea Party Agenda. This scenario assumes the regime that's just been elected will manage to avoid both total economic collapse and bloody civil war, and begin actively working to turn the USA from a Democratic Republic into a Plutocracy ruled from the top down by a tiny economic elite but still retaining the Constitution. There would still be elections, but they'd be rigged to keep servants of the Plutocracy in power.

What I envision happening is that the USA would quite quickly turn into two nations: The urban areas that would vote BLUE, and the rest of the country that would vote RED. The "Blue Nation" would house a substantial majority of the total population and generate much more real wealth than the "Red Nation". Some people are already speculating about the idea of some parts of the Blue Nation, especially California, Oregon, and Washington, seceding from the Union and becoming indepedent, but the more I study this scenario, the less I like it. There would need to be thirty or more new independent countries to house most of the people in the Blue Nation, and people in the Eastern two-thirds of California are already talking about letting only the coastal area secede, which would mean the "California Republic" would have to import most of its food and water from the USA.

So what I'm proposing is that the Union be left intact, but that the Blue Nation secede on a level that's mostly economic. As the reactionary federal government drastically cuts all social services, the Blue Nation can simultaneously replace them with services paid for out of state and local taxes. This would essentially mean that urban-dwellers all over the country would have much more access to public schools, health care, pensions, unemployment and disability insurance, etc. than people who lived in small towns and rural areas. And ironically, the RED policy of cutting taxes for big corporations would mean the businesses that generate most of the Blue Nation's wealth would be able to pay state and local taxes that financed these services. Red Nation people would be able to travel freely in and out of Blue Nation areas, but wouldn't have access to the services unless they stayed long enough to establish city or county residence.

This is a very important vision and insight, it directs our attention to the long term and thus it soothes visionary nerves.

Seems like this is a larger trend - and in the long run Blue people create more and more values in tune with the modern age while Reds less and less.
Sites like Grozny and Aleppo or Detroit are tragic exceptions. There is a selection process among cities these days.

The people who start cities are often not good or virtuous, neither are their motifs altruistic - but later on, as freedom is experienced by masses, it is impossible to control things as much as in country towns and small areas. Theoretically, you could create a lot of stuff from far away online, and we are perhaps approaching a utopian age where moving materials is centered in peaceful silence treasuring the remaining natural parts... yet to me the remains of feudal society determine a lot of stuff about the human sphere. Believe me, I lived in a very small village for years.

Most of the people already quit agriculture - the younger folks got into construction and building engineering trades using soulless industrial materials. Theoretically, buses and nearby railways worked - never in practice. Cars are a necessity, just as in farms across the oceans. And while there used to be a few foreign house owners, plus about half a dozen people consciously moving out of cities, and some of them were very deep thinking people (and some still are), most were automatically shifting to an equivalent of Red Tea Party thinking in the US. Nationalism and irrational mysticism etc.

The remainders of ancestral inhabitants mostly voted for the Socialist party which is not really Socialist but a center right power approaching US Democrats, more particularly the former Southern Democrats in my experience... less and less by the year.

What I especially dislike is the rightwing rural society going more and more into the direction of cars, TV and private schools and religious and nationalistic restoration... So I moved out after years of trying to reform things. (I still keep contacts with the most valuable "city immigrant" family... but mostly they work in cities and the West including their children...)

reg, #23:

reg: This is a very important vision and insight, it directs our attention to the long term and thus it soothes visionary nerves. Seems like this is a larger trend - and in the long run Blue people create more and more values in tune with the modern age while Reds less and less.
RR: Going back to the Middle Ages in Europe, Blue was always the color of the conservatives and Red of the liberals, so I was quite surprised when the American GOP turned this customary identification upside down couple of decades ago, but the more time that passes, the closer I come to agreeing with the switch. People who proudly wear the Red label now are claiming they represent the "hard-working, tax-paying makers" and call the majority of those who wear the Blue label "takers". However, people who label themselves as Red usually produce little actual wealth and receive more tax money than pay out. And ironically enough, the Blue Nation contains most of the people who maintain and advance the automted production that could easily what Kelso labled "an economy based on abundance rather than scarcity". And fortunately enough of the wealth in urban areas trickles down to people who are left out of the circuit to keep localized demand-based economies going.

reg: Sites like Grozny and Aleppo or Detroit are tragic exceptions. There is a selection process among cities these days.
RR: I don't know much bout Grozny, but Aleppo is simply the heart of ntrual war one, and nobody but an idiot would willing remain a resident. Detroit doesn't qualify as a true urban area in the sense that Chicago does, because when the heavy industry there moved away, the Blue middle class also moved, but to other urban areas where they fit in. (A lot of them are now long-time residents of California.) The highly paid, lily-white Red industrial workers moved too, mostly to industrial suburbs of big cities, where a lot of them got jobs similar to the one's they left. As these people left, there was an influx of people belonging to a variety of different minority groups, but little political or economic infrastructure to provide them with income ever evolved. So much of Detroit is actually a "ruin" not a city, and most of the existing structures would have to be torn down and rebuilt before it could atually support a population again.

reg: The people who start cities are often not good or virtuous, neither are their motifs altruistic - but later on, as freedom is experienced by masses, it is impossible to control things as much as in country towns and small areas. Theoretically, you could create a lot of stuff from far away online, and we are perhaps approaching a utopian age where moving materials is centered in peaceful silence treasuring the remaining natural parts... yet to me the remains of feudal society determine a lot of stuff about the human sphere. Believe me, I lived in a very small village for years. Most of the people already quit agriculture - the younger folks got into construction and building engineering trades using soulless industrial materials. Theoretically, buses and nearby railways worked - never in practice. Cars are a necessity, just as in farms across the oceans. And while there used to be a few foreign house owners, plus about half a dozen people consciously moving out of cities, and some of them were very deep thinking people (and some still are), most were automatically shifting to an equivalent of Red Tea Party thinking in the US. Nationalism and irrational mysticism etc. The remainders of ancestral inhabitants mostly voted for the Socialist party which is not really Socialist but a center right power approaching US Democrats, more particularly the former Southern Democrats in my experience... less and less by the year.
RR: Something very similar has also been happening over the last few decades in small towns all over the USA. The "best and brightest" young people move to urban areas, often initially to further their education, but end up staying there permanently. And the Red Tea Party types among the highly paid urban industrial workers end up moving to small towns.

reg: What I especially dislike is the rightwing rural society going more and more into the direction of cars, TV and private schools and religious and nationalistic restoration... So I moved out after years of trying to reform things. (I still keep contacts with the most valuable "city immigrant" family... but mostly they work in cities and the West including their children...
RR: In other words, the majority of the people in such a town are like prisoners who earn priveliges by building and maintaining better jail cells, hand cuffs, and balls and chains.

I just reread the first 24 messages in this thread and was inpressed by the quantity and quality of relevant facts and opinions reg and I exchanged on the title subject of "How should we react to Trump as President", but I still have no more idea about what actually lies ahead for the USA than I did when I wrote the OP just a few days after the election. I'm writing this in the early afternoon of Chistmas Eve, and so far, nothing has happened that makes it easier to predict what either the Trump camp or its opponents will do after the Inauguration on 1/20/17.

Throughout his whole Presidential campaign, Donald Trump has never revealed any specific plans for what he intends to do in office, and his choice of Cabinet members complicates the issue even further. The government that's now coming into power in Washington, with Tea Party Republicans in solid control of both Houses of Congress and the Vice Presidency, seems ideologically to the right of Trump's usual preferences, but he doesn't seem to be adjusting to this in picking his staff. In fact, he seems to be relying only on his children and showing great reluctance to relinquish control of his economic empire. So it's not hard for me to imagine his Inauguration speech being a resignation in favor of Mike Pence, but this doesn't really make much sense either.

And at this point I'm wondering if reg or anyone else reading this will venture a guess about Trump will actually do...