American Absurdism. Is America in a Period of Kultural Nihilism Like Berlin in the '20s? If So, Where is the Companion Artistic Movement (Kolwitz, Brecht, Lenya, Dietrich, etc) . Is Miley Cyrus the 'Au Courant' 'Blaue Engel'?

Is any of this making sense, anything? Wait, hold on a sec. Reboot (current lexicon). How much of all this current cultural BS is real? Is any of this stuff going on right now important(?) because the beer is still in the supermarkets, chips are still crunchy, baseball drones on, basketball still unimportant until the finals. In other words American culture seems unchanged and 'goin on'? Perhaps most importantly about America today, what would Miley Cyrus have to say about things (a sincere, if sudden stroke-of-insight, reference to MC as an American cultural pulse-indicator, a spokesperson-artist)? (Miley actually has said a lot by her insistent, intruding, pervasive but original, whole-being absurdist messaging. Is Miley the cultural call-out that some claim for her and her 'art'? Pericles21 feels she is.)

Is it possible that a nation's culture experiences disassociation with itself and laxes, not only lapses, but goes to hell with attitude? Into what? Into a mid-world of unknowing drifting such as in this new absurd-seeming, American era of blurred boundaries between truth and lies (e.g, is or is not D Trump a Russian asset, pizzagate? Butina and the National Rifle Association?? NRA, 'WhaThF' you say? Yup!

And Russian intelligence walking around America loud as daylight, enjoying our Disney World and shooting craps in Vegas and staying at Trump Towers? ...

And much more. Weirdness is now commonplace.

Yet we seem to ride above it and not be really, deeply caring in the midst of the flood of uncertainty rushing around us. Caring a lot yet uncaring enough to go to work (what's left of work and how uncertain that's become)!

This is where America now stands but a bit confused because what we used to be proud of as being uniquely American institutions, circuses, persons, streets are being revealed as long ago sold off party favors to what we thought were enemy states and demonic, God-cursed dictators who all along were drinking pals of our leaders, or at least some of them. America, meaning us citizens, remain standing somewhat still tall but feeling the dizziness creeping in.

America is where Berlin was in the 1920s when up was down, or maybe sideways, and cabarets were voicing the 3-ring circus that life had become... with barrels of money needed to buy a couple of loaves of bread. We're not at that point yet; the PTB say the economy is roaring along full steam. And unemployment is historically low (but the new jobs pay shit so you have to work two or three to support a family, which no human can do for long, so well-intentioned alt-right white former factory workers have started to die off younger).

And so it goes in the land of the free. (Aren't we free? Of course! At least we can still stockpile our own private armories, in many red states. Oh' yesss, can't let our guard. Now we're previledged to worship new Uncle Vlad who we didn't know was related until a month ago. What a lucky time to be alive and a citizen.

But back to 1920s Berlin. Berlin, then, had its artists who painted, composed and wrote of the tumultuous social whirlpool that characterized that world at that time. Isherwood, Kolwitz, Brecht, Lenya, Cabaret society. America doesn't have those 'voices but we do have other expressions of the sister of Nihilism, the current American culture of Absurdism and posturing for no real reason except that our cultural expressionists don't possess artistic talents, skills and don't want to, or can't, take the time to learn real artistic skills like painting, writing, singing, playing instruments (violins and cellos not bass rhythm guitars) because we've become instant actors on a digitalized stage.

But Miley is 'imho' one exception to the ingestion into cultural falseness: Miley is the face of comedic-tragedy American kultur which seems to be characterized by a plentitude of hero-to-zero cultural icons. But Miley is a survivor, and a thriving one too, because she has apparently surfed the absurd to remain ahead of public boredom. How, by remaining two or three steps ahead in that world of absurdity.

Is Miley's secret her skill as a performer dressed in fake fur ('Not'! to be retro)? Or, is Miley a real-in-the-flesh child of virtual, American unreality and so is genuinely absurd as reflected by her life narrative, eclectic style, dress, 'partners', gender flexibility, etc?

Pericles21 thinks the latter - that Miley is a genuine absurdism, an iconic formula for survival and thriving in the new Absurdist America. In other words, 'MC' is a character right out of 'Alice in Wonderland'. Laughable, maybe, but indicative of dark currents under the seducing clownishness of Amerikan kultur.

Does Pericles21 like Miley's art? Yes! Enthusiastically! But not as the reader of this blog might think - Pericles21 likes, tremendously, Miley's in-your-face courage and apparent insistence on 'being'...real. Miley's art is a whole-being-in-it commitment!

American culture has had, in previous history, several such iconic self-artists. Predominantly, they have been artists and writers and especially in the marginalized segments of America's art world. Jazz artists stand out in this respect. One has to mention the 'whole-being' artists such as Charlie Parker, Miles, Gillespie, Coltrane, and even Blossom. And of course the original whole-immersion, American Faustian, the blues guitarist Robert Johnson.

Our Absurdism is prevalent in the crooked-smiling, alt right, media star utterances of patent lies about far-fetched conspiracy theories. Whole movements have grown up around those conspiracy themes... such as the mysterious, cultist, tribalist 'QAnon'movement.

The above is from Alternet zine, August 1, 2018. What? In just two years?

((More To Come!)

The Rigging of the 2016 Election: Was American Intelligence Just Flummoxed by the Audacity of Trump and Russian Hacking, and Paralyzed by Jurisdictional Compartmentalizing (Self-Interest ), And/ Or Has American Democracy Operated Successfully But Against Itself

PREFACE:
Pericles21 believes that in the 2016 election process, America was attacked and conquered by a known, long term and actively detrimental declared enemy state, Russia, in a modernized, non-shooting, non-bombing war largely without America knowing of the war going on or how to respond (e.g., FBI Director Comey's seeming indecision about what to do about Apparent Russian interference and relationship with the Trump campaign the spring and summer 2016).

Pericles21 also believes that since losing that 2016 war, the American public remains confused, overwhelmed by the sophistication that requires a new vocabulary in attendance to the digital world of networks, cryptology, cyber-intelligence, second and third degree crowd-behavior influencing (cyber-social networking nudging), 'cutouts' and good old fake proxies. What a fine world we Americans have naively lived and loved in for at least 40 years. But, 'Hey' if there is one good thing we Americans do well is to continue a good thing and 'naivete' feels so good (and 'Roseanne' is on tonight so don't bother us), so we will try our best to continue to exist in a fine state of denial assisted with a little OxyContin and Beer. We will do our best to maintain behind the wall of ignorance of the sophisticated, non-traditional ways our own culture was attacked, penetrated, taken over and then weaponized against us. What a 'thing'!

BLOG PRIMARY (A little late maturing in a daily amazed and increasingly scared blogger's mind):
The above 'Preface' is a point of view reflected in John Schindler's thorough and sobering article in the 'Observer' ('Here’s How the FBI Investigation Into Russia and Trump Campaign Actually Started', May 28, 2018)
America was outclassed and outfought on a battlefield that had no soil, no water no air. America's educational priorities, or rather, 'de-emphases' away from real science, science rationality, mathematics and cyber education all combined to help defeat us. (America's commodified, comercial-prioritized culture also played a key role in 'plumping', desensitizing our national awareness to being attacked as Russian agents posing as business players walked freely in plain sight along America's streets.)

Also, that 2016 war we just lost, was an asymmetric war - America was attacked but did not (could not?) respond.
Instead of shooting bullets, America's enemy saw and used vulnerable leverage-points in America's own culture - our hugely popular (and influencing) social websites and our mostly right-wing, loud and inciting, emotionally histrionic 'news' venues that claim 'entertainment' status when confronted with factual challenges to their 'news'. In this regard, Russia's weapons of choice were signally, Facebook and Fox News (especially in the latter, the loud, emotionally strident views of Sean Hannity who has been outed as having a discarded mistress, a hook into Tump's dark shade Fixer 'Lawyer' and perhaps even a nipple at. he belly of the ever nurturing )of greedy piglets) Grand Sow, the collective group of Russian oligarchs munching and slurping on the rich far East provinces of the former USSR, all under the watchful eye of the Great Boar himself, Grand Uncle Vladimir.

In that 2016 war America just lost, our huge military budget ($700 Billion asked this year) and advanced war machines were useless. Our 'advanced', decadently expensive, evolved but still essentially traditional weapons we are so proud of sat idle and irrelevant.

COMMENTARY:
Pericles21 believes that American intelligence agencies and politicians, and a large portion of America's general population, who are still scratching their heads about the surprising 2016 election of Donald Trump (aka 'RICO Dedito'), were and remain naive about the re-shaping of warfare and the increasingly clear alliance between Russia (along with other other national interests) and Donald Trump. Americans are also in denial of how Russia used non-traditional warfare to take control of and 'guide' that election through sophisticated cyber-invasion techniques ('hacking') and equally sophisticated manipulation of American voting predispositions. And we are recently become aware of the compromising of America's right wing (Trump supporters)'entertainment' icons, e.g., Sean Hannity.

But not only America's general population were caught unaware of or frozen in the headlights of the Russian attack. America's intelligence defenders seem equally naive not to have expected that America would one day be 'attacked' with the same indirect, non-exposive 'weapons we have been using to accomplish regime change in critical foreign areas for the past 100 years (the sinking of the battleship 'Maine', the many interferences in the mid-East, Indo China, Africa, South America, etc).

When the compromising relationship between Trump and Russia apparently became clear by early 2016, it appears the FBI and the NSA were restricted or delayed in non-interfering (read 'noon-cooperative') stasis by, in retrospect, our Congress's somewhat naive imposition onto the FBI and NSA of jurisdictional hegemony and a administratively old school (Prussian?) perspective that prioritizes non-interfence if not competitive relationships between these intelligence realms.

It is not surprising, therefore, that this intelligence infrastructure of easily administrated (by un-informed elected officers), clean boundaried and separate jurisdictions should fail America in the face of not only increased vulnerabilities of electronic digital communications and networks but the accelerating expertise in penetrating (cyber-hacking) inadequately protected systems.

Opinion. America's inattention to, and/or lack of committed (loyal), deeply trained, expertise to develop cyber defenses and protect America's potential, 'Multi-Front vulnerabilities in our culture as well as our digital systems, has led to a gross vulnerability of American social and cyber systems to penetration, take over and psychological manipulations. We saw that happen in the 2016 election.

-------
Work in progress but the above had to come out or be next week (July 10, 2018)irrelevant

that outcome, were and remain naive about world political realities and the non-traditional forms of warfare that have been written on for centuries (e.g., Lao Tsu's and Mao's 'Little Red Book')

A clear, if not concise article by John Schindler in the Observer [May 28, 2018,'Here’s How the FBI Investigation Into Russia and Trump Campaign Actually Started', May 28, 2018]
https://observer.com/2018/05/what-did-the-fbi-do-in-2016-about-russian-connections-to-donald-trump/

[Personal: Comey (FBI Director) and NSA couldn’t grasp how Trump, a candidate for President, could do such a thing?]

SUMMY: (NSA & FBI: ““ By mid-July 2016 We knew we had a Russian agent on our hands,”

The FBI-NSA investigation of Donald Trump was kicked off by …routine SIGINT reports..from America’s foreign friends before 2016.

2015: Britain’s NSA’s routine surveillance detected suspicious ‘interactions’ between Trump associates and Russian agents.
Britain passed this info to the U.S. as part of their routine exchange of information.”
Late 2015 and into 2016: NSA’s other intell friends ( Australia, Germany, Estonia, and Poland) all reported interactions between Trump and Moscow.
So, too, did the French and the Dutch—the latter being an especially savvy SIGINT partner of NSA’s.
2016: different foreign agencies targeting the same people began to see a pattern of connections that were given to U.S. FBI
2016: In response to FBI urgency, NSA rose to the occasion, and
by mid-July 2016, “We knew we had a Russian agent on our hands,”

America's Loss of Jobs, Working Against Self-Interest and Economic Decline of the Working Class

With much respect for the always wise and insightful views of Robert Reich, Pericles21 adds two cents to Professor Reich's article, 'How to Prevent Future Trumps', in his July 3, 2018, blog site.

In that article, Prof. Reich gives his analysis that the cause of the economic woes of the American worker class is the three or more decades of wage declines superimposed on the standard worker class (at least white workers) guilt of racism.

While racism and wage decline are undeniable in their presence, they are not universal to every white worker personal profile or loss of lifestyle. Rather, Pericles21 maintains that racism and wage decline are really resultant fallouts from a primary economic dynamic that has promoted them into the spotlight.

And that primary economic dynamic has been the decades-ongoing disappearance of 'meaningful' (lifestyle sustaining) jobs either from 'jobs flight', being outcompeted in the technical worker marketplace and other factors not at all stemming from the personal blemishes of the American worker. This is something that few analysts, writers and pundit observers of American socio-economics have commented on, much less apparently even looked at directly.
-----------

Pericles21's perspective is the economic wage and prospect "stagnation" Reich refers to are really descriptors of the effects of job disappearance which has happened largely as the result of a fundamental American 'Lack' at the national policy level.

America has simply not developed a national look-to-the-future industrial-jobs development policy for the future. And that 'future' is now at least 35 years from first appearing in the late 1970s.
------------------------------

And let's not forget that lifestyle sustaining jobs mean stability of a national culture! Which translates to a population capable of a secure, critical thinking base able to see through the demagogue's camouflage!

In his article, Dr. Reich focuses on the ever-present American social mystery of why the white worker and needy classes have so readily and consistently embraced policies and especially persons that operate against their self-interests without even these actors bothering to hide their true natures.

In 2009, at the early history of this blog, and at the start of the first Obama term, Pericles wrote about the phenomenon of the white disaffected, poor and just anxious bloc appearing to knowingly decide against self-interest in voting. Pericles21 noted how in 2009, the southern white bloc, characterized and pre-historied by the South Carolina white antagonists of Reconstruction, voted for political candidates who were, to most of 'us' who claim to possess a rational thinking ability, in 1870, in 2009 and again today in 2018 transparently hollow and false prophets who invariably fail to help their wishful and gullible supporters and usually leave them worse off than before to suffer from economic collapse, industry closings and overall job disappearance.

Once again, under Trump, the gullible but hopeful supporters of the demagogue (the white evangelicals, struggling, jobless and poor) are seeing they have wasted blood and flesh sacrifices to a false idol. 'We', the rational minded, think in wonderment that 'they' must have sensed somewhere in their hearts the Trump glitter was a veneer that would sooner or later rub off revealing base metal. But, the base drabness and disappointing ugliness were probably not expected to be so...ugly.

So once more we are seeing how shallow the demagogue's (Trump's) promises are. Job flight is recurring, and disappointed American workers (white) are again experiencing being the marketplace outliers going hungry as the con-man hero-that-wasn't-but-what-every-sign-predicted and his fellow thieves take their turn at raping America.

Dr. Reich succinctly summarizes his well-stated analysis of the racism and wage-decline factors:

Why did so many working class voters choose a selfish, thin-skinned, petulant, lying, narcissistic, boastful, megalomaniac for president?

It’s important to know, because we need to stop more Trumps in the future.

Reich further analyses:

The answer lies in the interplay between deep-seated racism and stagnant and declining wages. Both must be addressed.

Some white working class men and women were – and still are – receptive to Trump’s bigotry. But what made them receptive? Racism and xenophobia aren’t exactly new to American life. Fears of blacks and immigrants have been with us since the founding of the Republic.

What changed was the economy. Since the 1980s, the wages and economic prospects of the typical American worker have stagnated. Nearly 80 percent now live paycheck to paycheck, and those paychecks have grown less secure.

And after this is where Pericles21 tosses his pennies into the pot. (It's so easy to 'Monday-Morning', respectfully even a 'Reich', without whose insightful and convenient analyses this blog would not have been written.

America has sat idlely in the face of global technical-industry and lifestyle changes while watching wide-eyed and with jealousy (sometimes) as other nations stepped smartly ahead to cope with these changes. America lost the steel industry because we myopically refused to 'violate' quarterly profit traditions to retool that industry. Likewise we lost leadership in consumer electronics because we couldn't/wouldn't violate comic-book bootstrap fantasies of the poor garage-base American-kid intrepeneur (keep American ingenuity classically poor and less dependent on R&D funding), i.e., we forgot the reason for R&D in the face of a relatively few nickels and dimes saved to short-term P&L statements. From this policy shortsightedness, America has suffered long term loss of competiveness, failure to dream up new industries and above all failed to create new, lifestyle sustaining jobs in a substantial way.

And, to repeat, let's not forget that jobs that sustain a meaningful, comfortable lifestyle equates to a stable national culture respected internationally!

Please Media, Stop Using the Word 'Deal'...Already

PREFACE:
This post was motivated by Cody Fenwick's May 9, 2018, article in the 'Alternet' website (Here's the Most Frightening Part of the Trump's Speech on the Iran Deal)
America has sunk so low,...but worse('ly', a clue) America sank so quickly and thoroughly as if our own Constitution has operated aginst its own best interests, or saw it's fabled broad-stroke genius dissipate like morning dew when faced with a coarse thief come into the Oval Office. As bad as the slimy scum dragged behind the tails of Trump and his henchmen that Special Counsel Mueller (DOJ) is now revealing almost daily is how easy were the con jobs. Or, as we are finding out, the cons were made easy by the wide participation of nearly every venal and greedy 'wise guy' across all areas of government, media and nations...and the Mother-con was seeded almost a decade ago by our boy Trump's escapades in Moscow...so thoroughly scripted, baited and filmed.

COMMENTARY:
What is it with this 'Deal' bizness? Even the mainstream media now often use the term as if 'Deal' somehow marks the newspaper or blogsite or speaker as 'au courant' and kind of 'MayFair-ish' in a kind of deliberate declasse' slang as if in sly reverse adoption but in reality probably simply youngish writers or reporters or television face people looking to make bank by appealing to what they think are the crass and 'easy' American masses who gobble up that junk. In fact, 'Deal' is so trivializing of the work of real experts who think very hard about not only immediate but secondary (of course) and often tertiary (third level) and higher level consequences and interpretations of legitimate Treaties, Pacts, Acts and legislation.

'Deal' is so depressing when applied to professional diplomacy and governing. 'Deal' lacks the mark of intelligence and expertise (notice who uses the term the most?). 'Deal signifies 'quick toss-offs' not deep thought and suggest an inability to think deeply. "Deal' is quick and whimsical impermanence, a 'that was then, this is now' adolescent illogic spoken by people one has by often bad experience learned to avoid.

'Deal' denotes back alley trades in hot and/or defective goods among thieves, con men and dark corner rascals of the 1940's and '50-ish era... and, of course, 'Deal' aptly describes the slippery, low life ways of the current occupier of the White House...and his crew of ruffians, thugs, and cutpurses.

America has sunk so low,...but worse (ly )America appears paralyzed in the headlights of the unbelievable chicanery of an illegitimate chief executive whose phony cries and whimpers before the 2016 election, that he might lose because of an election rigging conspiracy, were telling us like a lit-up billboard that he was deep in conspiracy to rig the election in his favor. But America couldn't bring ourselves to believe what our eyes saw and our ears heard.


FULL 'ALTERNET' WEBSITE COMMENT BY PERICLES21! 
First, the media world needs to stop using the word 'deal' to describe serious, grown-up nations' 'Treaties' or 'Agreements' or 'Acts'., such as with Iran. 'Deal' has no place in modern diplomacy and reeks of chicanery and falseness...but look who has brought 'deal' into mainstream use. 'Deal' equates to America joining the crowd of yesteryear's'carnival hawkers of rigged shooting galleries and sellers of stolen-or-defective goods (horse traders of drugged up lame horses were hung). 'Deal' is just so 'de-classe' with no place in the vocabulary of a global leading nation...has America sunk so low?
Second, Trump's obsession against everything Obama accomplished is scary. Trump needs intervention but the craven GOP keeps him floating just a little bit longer for his usefulness in continuing/disguising home-district corruption and manipulating the emotions of backwater voters.
Third, Trump seems now to blatantly further the interests of Russia and we know now (House Intell Committee bipartisan report of May 8, 2018) that Trump has been on the payroll, through Michael Cohen, of Kremlin money. Iran's nuclear potential was comfortably under control and Trump tried but has been unsuccessful in destabilizing the Iran situation...largely through the common sense and savvy of America's European allies who have caught on to Trump's tricks (and personal instability, phoniness and being a puppet). Harsh words but the fog is lifting as high noon approaches.

Hannity as Today's Goebbels?

The recent (April 16, 2018) unveiling (here , here, here, and my favorite, Rachel Maddow's analysis and readings of court proceedings that unveiled Hannity) of Sean Hannity as the previously 'cloaked' (hidden) 3rd Client of mob-connected, Trump (and RNC) Fixer of embarrassing situations is highly embarrassing to Dedito (Trump) and the Republican Party whose national deputy chairs all are now seen to be linked by a common thread. That common thread looks to be confined to making relations with former porn stars and models go way ...by payoffs perhaps with political campaign money, suspect non-disclosure agreements and thuggish night-visitations with threats of bodily harm.

This is surreal comedy on one hand, but the descent into the murk gets really dark when Russian intelligence (the Fixer-Lawyer Cohen's cigar buddies) join the scene. And to take it all to the bottom, Dedito's (slavish bootlicking of Russia and especially Putin's ego) looks really like not only does Dedito know Putin more than what America, or Trump's wife, would like, but it's becoming more clear by the day that Putin has Dedito not only by his little twisted fingers but his little cojones.

The picture coming out, to this blogger, is of a masterful scheme to break America by gaining control of America's constitutional estates - the chief executive by Constitution (but which has morphed into an infallible kingship in the minds of many Americans especially the religious right), the courts (the obstructions of Obama appointees by the Republican Congressional majority), the press (thru the 'hard-right' media with entertainers like Sean Hannity, and with hard right media entertainment 'news' like Fox News), and ultimately a completely clueless, amoral, profiteer con artist President, Trump ('Rico Dedito' aka 'Little Fingers Going Down on Racketeering'.

How did this crew gain the White House? By Collusion...but the colluding parties get more numerous and ominous in extent, influence and total subjugation to a master scheme probably set in motion 20 years ago and controlled at least largely by Russian leader, shadow-not-really-defunct KGB master, GRU boss, Mafioso Don, Vladimir Putin. And there are probably more, but less visible mega-players at work. And everything at play is dancing to the script of a master playright (s) whose identity may never see sunlight.

And Hannity's role? He claims not to have used Cohen (Trump's off-and-on Fixer and a guy with 3 clients) and says he might have thrown "ten bucks" now and then to Cohen...and knowing how the chief wise guy, Trump, telegraphs his moves, Hannity probably did give ten bucks to Cohen to satisfy a legal 'show', 'see, I paid him for telling me where to buy the best lawnmower'...for my condo high rise apartment. Meaning? The conversation was all about transfer of communication having nothing to do with legal SERVICE... but much to do with passing instructions and coordinating messages to and from Hannity and his world of hard-right Putin-puppets, and Trump's camp. How else was/is Trump to know what to say, when and how? Think about it, 'Ten Bucks' keeps things nice and friendly ...'don't it Mr Mueller, please'?

https://pics.me.me/onali-rump-trump-can-gra-there-its-fixed-trump-hannity-7939732.png

American Culture - A Modern Ship of Fools

Note, the following words are not those of this blogger but they reflect what this blogger also sees.

"The Cognitive Dissonance We Feel Because Of Matt Lauer, Charlie Rose, And Kevin Spacey, Weinstein, ...DT". And let's add 'Cosby', Levine and many more.

"The TV personalities are just that - marketable masks and the smartest, most fluid self-diguisers (and very likely the most sociopathic) are the ones most likely to vanquish all other competitors by whatever means and reach the 'king of the hill'. Unfortunately this is the 'universal' of American culture; it's a daily lesson imprinted with force and through the talents of our best writers and artists who have been diverted from grand art and literature into generating luridly violent and sex-filled media extravaganzas which will crown 'kings of the hill' for a few weeks or months of short-attention-span popularity. But even in America's transistory popularity cycles, immense amounts of money can be made. Thus we have the ascent of the Lauers and Spaceys, assisted through co-partners like the Hollywood producers...it's all a ship of fools captained by grinning death masks. And there seem to be no pure Angels. "

As posted previously several times in this blog, America seems to have sunk morally (but ascended commercially)to nearly unretrievable depths of commercialization of nearly all aspects of American culture, for prurient purpose. Much money has been made of our American journey through Hell.

Something Wonderful Is Happening in Kenya (but not in America)

PREFACE TO THE 'PREFACE'.
This post was started to inform the 'PerchedEye' followers of the author's personal sense from his outreach activities (notably remote video interviewing of international youth for admissions to american colleges) that the youth of developing (and underdeveloped) nations were on to something big that may/will soon explode into a political-economic, cultural revolution enabled by a new technology, the blockchain concept (Satoshi Nakamoto, 1994). The 'Nakamoto' concept became the Bitcoin phenomenon, etc...but is applicable to many other areas! The point: while youth in developing regions have entered into an exciting self-potentializing era, American youth are being forced into fighting their citizen-parents for literal survival...against the American market model that gives higher priority to gun sales than controlling guns to help save the lives of American school kids murdered at their desks,... in American schools.

While making the refreshing and heart-warming observations about how youth in less privileged areas of the world were 'catching fire' from the internet and blockchain potential, this blogger almost as quickly became aware of a disheartening comparison that American youth were not experiencing an intellectual 'catching fire' but contrastingly, it seems American youth have entered into a dark valley.... of frightening non-importsnce...wherein the American culture, led by, driven by and shaped by market modeling, has cast aside its youth as almost a foreign species or annoying insects to be ignored and, most tragically for our American culture, un-mourned after too-normal mass-school-kid killings except for pro-forma fortnight 'condolences' followed by a quick look away and search for the next, big profit news broadcast opportunity.

America's youth are ritually, and in reality, sacrificed and cannibalized in obeisance to the market-god and deprived of services to promote their health and education as if they are some parasitical, non-human burden on America, whatever America is these days. That this makes no sense, not to invest in the education and health of each generation in order to assure American capability to compete with other nations, appears some alien concept to our government.

But there are signs this apparent American mal-interest in its youth is changing, although not by the efforts of its 'adults', but by forceful insistence from its youth to 'have a heart', change, stop the BS. Just like the blockchain =excited youth in Africa, Myanmar,India, and elsewhere, America's youth have realized that if their adult protectors can't get it together to change things, the 'kids' will do it for them and themselves. Hence, in America, in reaction to the February 14, 2018, mass-school-shooting in Parkland, Florida, the survivor students have spoken out that the now-American-normal-condolences from politicians (instead of serious gun control) just will not do.

Unbelievable! America's children have to speak up for themselves in such a situation. They are, admirably but so sadly, forced to speak out in their vulnerable, young, still learning what it's all about, as youthful as fifth grade, ...they are forced to, and are, speaking out (and eloquently) that 'Hey, guys (adults in Congress), we're being murdered out here, literally, no joke, throw a bone, do something about these guns, please..motherf..kers!!

America has come to this?!! Our kids have to scuffle and scrape, even in their 5th grade state of not-yet-weaned, to find the words they haven't yet been taught,...to plead for their own lives and safety. SHAME AMERICA!!

The point is that the youth in developing areas (and in the dirt floor villages) have used what internet resource available to 'learn how to learn' by picking up new knowledge on their own to gain new insights (and uber-perspectives) on their lives, their goals, the challenges to their goals and above all...to acquire new intellectual skills to formulate workable solution options for them and their conditions.

"Learning to Learn". Pericles21 has observed exciting examples of this 'movement'of self-learning for change. A youth in east Africa needs some basic Japanese ability to study Japanese graphic arts to create graphic representations of traditional lore and moral lessons from the past?? Simply get some basic vocabulary off the internet and practice in real utility-time chat, or video conferencing, with a youthful compatriot in Japan. No need anymore to wait for Western teachers (European or American) to drop from the sky.

The phenomenon at the root of this coming (maybe now) revolution is the youthful creativity of the human spirit that is ever-present, extends across all races and conditions and is always ready and curious to pick up a new tool. (Another example of the miracle of human evolution, the youthful human brain).

Perhaps most significant for the political-economic playing fields in these areas, these youth see a way to use the blockchain concept of ultra-fast communication turnaround to finally to resolve the intertribal 'frictions' which historically and consistently have prevented developing and underdeveloped areas...especially in, but not limited to, Africa, from achieving their on-paper potential.


PREFACE. (the original)
This blog, "Something wonderful is happening in Kenya (but not in America)" was drafted before the movie, 'Black Panther' was released to American theaters in February 2018. I was much surprised when I saw it, for several reasons - one, it is a broadly appealing work that does not indulge in racial jingoism (supremacy, boasting, etc) but presents a flavorful taste of a human-oriented culture; two, it highlights the role of tradition as sanity-preserving; three, it highlights youth as the bubbling up of hope and optimism; four, it is above all hopeful for humanity in general, globally, where there is respect for everyone. And lastly, five, 'Black Panther' shows us a path for humanity to live with, and purposefully control and guide, advanced technology. That 'Way' is through community, mutual respect, and above all nurturing our young. Africa, and many other superficially 'less developed' global regions have not the degree (currently) of technical advancement America has, but Africa, like many other superficially less developed global regions, has retained its perhaps most important resource for the future - a fundamental base of tradition and social ethics that will serve as glue to hold together community and individual social sanity. This theme of 'tradition' is at the foremost in 'Black Panther' and it is the foremost theme of this post and in previous posts written by this blogger about his experiences in Africa and other so-called 'underdeveloped' tribal cultures around America and internationally, around this planet.

This highlight post focusing on the planet's youth is also a commentary on America's youth and how, with some few exceptions, America's youth seems lost in superficiality and life without substantial meaning, value and purpose. This blogger has posted on this theme of America's perpetually generation of lost youth who grow up to be even more drifting child-adults. But America's depths of shallowness are cyclic and like the 'Vietnam' revolution, there appears to be a rapidly coming early teen dispair-turning-to-disgust revolt over America's almost unique overabundance of guns and their misuse to commit mass killings which curiously, but tellingly, are focused in what America has always touted, to itself and the world, as the safest spaces on the planet, America's school rooms full of its children. For decades, America has been unsafe for its children. but in the crowded atmosphere of special interests, America's children have been crowded to the back and often just trodden under like so many unfortunate, inconvenient vermin. We have 'funded-out' our children - defunded grade school education, privatized just about all that remains of public education, come to regard entry college as not a national resource to be invested in (as the rest of the world does or wants to do) but as something seemingly to be jealously held from reach of our children unless they want to accept massive personal debt. Nowhere else in the developed nation community do we see America's cannibalist, 'resentful' attitude toward its children. That is the difference between the environments that America's children grow up in and the nurturing environments (at least in intent) of less developed nations.

The result has been quick-fix solutions to the shortage of technical workers resulting from America's regressive college cost attitude....we raid and rob the technical workforces of developing nations in particular..at lower than standard wages...our own children be damned!

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Blockchain, petaflops, distributed databases also know as a blockchained database system, convergent hybridization (of ethnic units and nation states). Are any of these familiar? I bet if 'Blockchain' were to be reframed in its popular shell as the principle behind the commercial 'BitCoin' investment phenomenon, even the moderately informed reader would quickly reference at least a few sparks of memory that it all has something to do with making money. Or at least something related to monetary wizardry (gimmickry?) ...certainly one would probably recall just enough to remember that one made a mental note to stay away from investing in BitCoin offerings - 'too good to be true', or too complex for a weekend wanna-be-trader. And one could pat oneself on the back for having found that warning memory note ...indeed the BitCoin treasure ship left port some time ago and has disappeared over the horizon with its cargo of hard-partying blockheads (Hmmm, a new meme, BLOCK-Heads). But it's frothy wake hasn't disappeared. Rather, the BitCoin waves keep growing in strength even as the specific cryptocurrency phenomenon itself appears about to fall off the edge of the earth...into oblivion as one more get rich scheme.

Yes, the BitCoin fundamental underpinning, BlockChain networks and dynamics, just keeps on growing. And we now come to understand (or to hear about, certainly) that BlockChains and blockchain digital network principles are very broadly useful and are poised to be the defining technology meme of a new cyber age where Blockchain information and systems management are spread like super-strong (read 'super-secure') spider webs throughout the web and world.

Democracy in 'underdeveloped' regions will be well served by Blockchain principles as it would allow virtually tamper-proof voting even from the 'bush' (the indigenous term for life, away from cities and towns, where the beasts run and play, and eat. With solar electric collection by individual and village cells, voting might be raised to near 100% participation and completely secure...thus removing the factor of political retribution.

How is this to make sense to the reader of this post? For starters, this blog has previous posts detailing impressions of developing areas around the world, but primarily about Africa, in 2009 and in 2017. And as a technically trained blogger and an avid follower of the computer world, one is constantly impacted with the excitement of new developments in applications and associated chip and materials technologies.

And finally, this blogger has for five years served as a volunteer adjunct interviewer of foreign applicants to an American-located 'Alma Mater' university. The interviews are performed remotely using web-based video linkups (Skype).

'Skype', this remote, wed-linked interviewing system has benefitted everyone involved. And after several years, this blogger began to sense a picture of something important going on on the international scene and especially among the outwardly looking youth in Nairobi, Seoul, Ibadan, Myanmar, etc. - the major international nexus points of the developing world. Yes, these youth are striving to go forward and upward but against heretofore impossible odds against them developing anything beyond deep frustration (and anger, viz. 'Boko Haram') which I feel is, at base, the reaction to being blocked.

The youth in these far dispersed nations dream a fantasy of going to higher education, after achieving the near-impossibility of a grade school education. Some, rarely, even dream of colleges and universities in developed countries.

But even if not winning a place in college abroad, they are not 'settling'...they are inventing new horizons without college certificates from abroad. And the web is the miraculous 'wand' that many had in their hands since eight or nine years old - village internet 'centers' (huts with intermittent web access)...but they participated on the global web-forum stage with other youth around the world; even to the point of not waiting for non-existant teachers to teach them the fundamentals of a far-distant languages they need in order to 'speak' with a web-pal on another continent...they teach themselves through internet resources.

But more to the point of this blog - our youthful cohort, let's say in Africa, have 'Learned to Learn'. Using the web. They are not waiting around hoping. The web is opening gates and they are pouring through...discoursing and creating with other youth in far distant nations. In this scenario, our young person in Nairobi, a budding genius in animation (with the intent to develop a Kenyan animation genre incorporating All-East African lore and tradition into animated graphics and web presentations) has developed a rich creative relationship with a a similarly youthful animation group in Tokyo. They burn up the web, they speak a hybrid language of Swahili-Japanese-Korean with added bits of Chinese-Samoan. They are not waiting. They have learned to learn. And they have their own national traditions and moralities to guide them...to resolve their frustration through artistic creativity which humanity has been utilizing since the cave artists of Altamira (Spain,15,000 BCE) and before in Lascaux (France, 25,000 BCE), and Bantimurung (Indonesia, 40,000 BCE).

Our young person in Africa (as an example) chats in self-taught Japanese with an a Japanese anime designer and develops a hybrid anime genre that uses African tribal traditions and lore to re-teach Africa's youth the coping lessons learned over thousands of years, but now spoken syncretically in the global meta-language of the web...in whatever language/language devices required to communicated cross-culturally, inter-linguistically and cross-artistically.

And this cross-fertilization and self-educating is working well. The dreams of the early internet champions just might come true. Pico Iyer was one of the first to observe and write about the cultural impact,absorption and syncretization of modern (Western) technology. Iyer saw how human curiosity and adaptiveness adapted 'foreign' technology and easily (usually) interwove it with traditional social systems (Video Night in Kathmandu: And Other Reports from the Not-So-Far East, 1989, Pico Iyer.

Likewise, William Gibson (cyberpunk genre) foresaw (and still sees and writes about) the importance of youthful adaptability as the vital force that will inhale technology, reshape it to personal and socially good ,or at least socially utilitarian, service thus preserving and driving humanity (Forward? But somewhere not here, for sure!).

There is a 'bubbling-up'happening, or has been happening but is ready to reshape the planet's culture - this is a new manifestation of what I believe is humanity's greatest trait - creativity born of need and/or curiosity. Maybe the latter is an anthropological truth about humanity - there is no separation between burning need and burning curiosity when it comes to human beings 'going all out' to satisfy those urges. Invention invariably bubbles up from seemingly inert soil. 'Inert soil' as portrayed by Western, advanced technology perspectives...which are increasingly being shown to be superficial, corrupt, rapist, mega-captitalist misconceptions of the planet, how not to preserve it and above all how to ignore or exploit its peoples!

"Convergent Hybridization": a natural flow of influences of disparate systems from several directions into a nexus point to form new streams and systems; in this post's context, the confluence of disparate and/or physically distant socio-political-economic systems (languages, peoples, economic systems, etc.).

This process of melding melding western technology with traditional systems in underdeveloped lands, and generating new, hybrid political,ethical, artistic (and economic) systems will be enhanced and smoothed by socio-politically-applied blockchain algorithms! Ah, thank you, Satoshi Nakamoto....whoever/whatever 'he/she/it' may be,..in actuality.

Can't translate? Can't 'Grok'(Aldous Huxley, 1932)? Well, get used to it all because a new culture is showing its face above the techno-waters and as Pico Iyer seems to have predicted, those kids 'out there' in the African villages and 3rd World dust spots where the sun shines on solar gatherers powering sat-linked laptops, the wonderful world of human 'kid-dom' is busy syncretizing a new future. While America's kids are hauling around guns and snorting meth, Africa's kids are busy like bees rigging village energy centers, racing along bandwidth expressways, self-learnng network theory and applications and not waiting for a fancy university to come into the bush and teach them in orderly rows of imported desks in expensive private schools. Yes, in the way of our very distant ancesters the ever present curiosity of the ape species has been retained and indeed strengthened over the millennia to once again shove our rears upwards and onto a new plane. Miracles have a way of happening at any time and anywhere where humans are concerned. Inventiveness, resiliency, adaptability - the trio attributes of humanity are ever ready to pop up and surprise us, assure us, give us peace and hope. We only have to find a way to get around trivial prejudices and open our minds and hearts to the unlimitednesses of human capabilities. And so it is now happening in the villages of Africa where 'untutored' kids are excited to get linked with the global internet...and they come up with WAYS to do that. Proving the best instrument on the planet is still brainpower...and tho an MIT education will be helpful, the village kid is still equipped with the fastest, quantum assisted Ai (bio-logic) system that will not be matched for some time...and he has it for free!

These kids are jumping on stage and techno-boogying with their cohorts around the globe. Hey, shy Tembe in Nairobi sees a brother or sister in spirit in Japan or China who has a neat approach to animation and mrkup? Why get to Learning Japanese or Chinese, or what ever is needed NOW to gain a speaking ability to communicate by video chat and exchange techie stuff. Tembe in 3 months is going to have a nicely functional fluency in Japanese and his Japanese techno-bro will have a similarly functional cross-speech in Swahili. And thus a global synth-speak is born. (Actually, let's now add to Huxley and Iyer, Phillip K. Dick). And little Tembe let's no grass grow under hsis feet when he must learn something that 10 years ago would have gotten him laughed at by the Euro-American tourists should Tembe have told them his dream of chatting up a techie-pal in Tokyo, or Saigon or Myanmar, or Luzon, or Beijing or even Katmandu.

This scenario may just be the future for a new Africa, and elsewhere where youthful human brains imagine without yet meeting and being swamped by 'grown up' realities of survival and dysfunctional social chains. Pico Iyer acknowledges this potential with every opportunity he has to speak at a public forum and I am fortunate to have annual catch up opportunities with him here in his second home outside Japan. Pico still has the magic of letting his audience of readers or lecture attendees see the world through his ever optimistic eyes. The time ago when quaint kids in thatched villages and mountain pass inns were crowded around VHS players have evolved to an ever solidifying reality-becoming of self-motivated, self-educated and university leaders of a hybridized humanity finally pulling together on a righteous path.