Encouraging signs: US Secret State reform, the global power of feelgood anthems and good deeds from France to Argentina
Despite the eccentric and at times contradictory nature of Donald Trump’s Administration picks, his choice as the new CIA director – John Ratcliffe, now confirmed – looks inspired.
The new boss has clearly set out his mission as being to “drag it kicking and screaming into the 21st century, and finally drill down into the reality of Wuhan’s lab source...I’ve been on record as saying our intelligence, our science, and our common sense all dictate that COVID originated from the Wuhan Institute of Virology,” he says, adding “that’s a day-one thing for me”.
Previously, Ratcliffe was the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), and spotted the Beijing regime as by the most aggressively imperialist in the World - an observation with which I now concur, although Ratcliffe got there before most people. He continues:
“As President Trump deals with President Xi, he needs to be armed with the very best intelligence, but our community has been slow to adjust.”
Word has it that Trump may well have opted for Ratcliffe largely because he too is now firmly focused on China as the most aggressive geopolitical danger to peace
But intriguingly, Ratcliffe isn’t shying away from nailing the usual suspects within the US itself, He observes, “From Washington to Wall Street to Silicon Valley to Hollywood, there has been a desire to keep China from being labelled a bad guy, because a lot of people make a lot of money from China.”
Damn right, Mr Ratcliffe: you just might be the Good Egg we need so badly. Because in fingering these hypocrites, he is accepting a key observation here at The Slog:
THE PURSUIT OF MONIED POWER IS UTTERLY SOUL DESTROYING
Perhaps – if you are a confirmed atheist – you might prefer the word ‘psyche’ to soul, but to my mind it adds up to the same thing: many people blinded by the pursuit of money are neither sociopathic nor psycho megalomaniacs. They’re simply folks who have lost the plot, and replaced community effective empathy with concern for their money-creator at all costs.
It’s what I call the Fawlty Towers syndrome: “Look – I’m trying to run a hotel here, and you guests keep getting in the way”.
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I’ve said many times here that there really are only two global esperantos – soccer and music. Soccer having already sold its soul to the sponsors, the networks, the FIFA jerks and the kit-strip money tree, I must regrettably set it to one side.
This leaves us with music. Last night I decided to write an anthem in favour of the Do Good means Feel Good idea. I’ve christened that ‘The Science of Species Decency’ but that’s a tad too dry and egg-head on its own, I think.
I haven’t written a song in any shape or form for nearly two years, so this goal may take some time to come to fruition. However, I am friendly with one of the bands here, and if I get the right feel to a new song, they know a studio we can rent cheaply and, with luck and perseverance, put together a good take.
Along the way, it might raise money for worthy causes, but the prime objective in trying this emotional populist medium of communication is to – literally and metaphorically – give effective decency a voice….to say to those slowly waking up to the threat we face, “We did not develop on this planet in order to kill ourselves militarily, or have sex with metal people.”
Ninety-six per cent of us like having balanced brain hemispheres. It’s time to shut down the four per cent who just want more and more and more money and every last bit of the perverted power that always comes with it as a banded pack offer.
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Meanwhile, out there in the real world beyond the Website, the digital, the substack, the texting, and the smartphone distractive narcissism, the Do Good to Feel Good wave is building up into what I hope will prove to be a megalo-drowning Tsunami.
From France, Thamid Chowdry recalls howsomeone she met someone was stranded at a bus stop there, needing 20 euros to get a bus and connect with a flight to her home thousands of miles away.
She lent the person 20 euros, and you won’t be surprised to that because of bank issues [just fancy that] repayment seemed impossible. But then four years later, the borrower used Western Union to send twice as much back - which Thamid collected last Tuesday.
“I just find it remarkable that people remember a good deed you did so long ago,” she says. In fact, what both borrower and lender demonstrated was that Right Brain honesty made two people happier and more optimistic about the human condition. And yes, this is science listeners.
In Argentina, Meshal Alkhowaiter notes:
“Right after my presentation at an IPSA Conference, I felt thirsty: they had run out of water bottles but there were a few water bottles in the vending machine. I realised that the machine only took cash and the bottle cost was 300 Argentine pesos….but I only had 1000 peso bills to hand.
“An old lady approached me and said the machine didn’t give back change so I should not put in a 1000 peso note. A few minutes later, she approached me again, saying “take this water bottle.” It turned out she’d bought this bottle with her own money for me, and that she works as a humble security guard at the Catholic University of Bueno Aires. So, a person with limited financial means gave help to a foreigner when she had zero obligation to do so”.
Do you feel good just reading that? I do.
