Category Archives: Symphony

Pacific Daily Times’ Editorials

Symphony

Encore of Revival: America, June 10, 2019

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzIdxztE1jg

One of the best-kept secrets in America is that tariffs discourage imports; if we raise tariffs, imports go down. Another best-kept secret is that if imports go down, domestic jobs go up. These two secrets are so well-kept that not even Senate Republicans know. They think that the same amount of imports will keep flowing in, even with tariffs. They think tariffs will not make consumers want to buy American-made goods again.

Even better-kept is the secret that tariffs discourage certain things in the country that makes the goods. When threatened with tariffs if "irregular" immigration wasn't stopped their side of the border, Mexico suddenly stopped illegal immigration previously said to be unstoppable. This comes as such a revolutionary surprise, perhaps we should consider that threatening tariffs on the sun could stop global warming! Tariffs seem capable of doing things no one imagined, after all.

Another well-kept secret is that America's government has its need to follow rules. Long, long ago, we all knew that the government has to play by certain rules. But, somewhere during the Obama years, we seem to have forgotten. Impeaching a president doesn't remove him from office; the House impeaches, but the Senate has to hold a trial before a president can be removed. Clinton was impeached and he stayed in office. Apparently Nancy Pelosi's voters didn't know that. So, she explained it to them. With all the well-kept secrets in the country, one has to wonder: Why didn't "Nervous Nancy" Pelosi just try to impeach Trump, then act surprised that he stayed president? She might have gotten more votes that way. Such lying theatrics wouldn't have worked ten years ago, but times are changing!

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Symphony

Cadence of Conflict: Asia, June 3, 2019

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4P54QzLZ9Mo

The "Symphony Asian Mad Scientist Theorem" continues to play out. Trump engaged North Korea in talks that led to a calm without North Korea changing its DNA. Trump eventually reminded North Korea what everyone knew would be necessary to reach an agreement and North Korea stomped off.

Now, Trump comes off a marathon of wider-scope talks with China and continues to talk about talk, while the message is sent more clearly to China every day. China already knows what will be necessary to reach an agreement, its ambitions otherwise are classic Imperial-Confucian wishful thinking.

Over the weekend, the US and China exchanged insults at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in Singapore. America isn't gonna' tip-toe around China anymore! And, China will risk any and every cost and will defeat everyone who stands in the way! They sure told each other! We can't say China didn't warn us, just like China warned the world before the victorious Korean armistice and before China's great and splendid invasion of Vietnam.

Don't think for a second that Trump doesn't care about Japan. If he really didn't care about Japan—if he truly enjoyed the missiles recently launched by "Rocket Man"—he wouldn't say so on camera. Remember, everything he says is being closely watched by a large and volatile North Korean neighbor which believes that everyone believes everything published in the press.

No matter how much anyone warns China of the dangerous pinball machine game it's bouncing around inside of, they won't change because China only ever and always remains true to its Imperial-Confucian values. Those values can and will never include "capitulating to outside demands". China just won't change, you see.

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Symphony

Encore of Revival: America, June 3, 2019

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Y_wODr_c-k

America is dividing between the "hopers" and the "doers". On the one hand, many voters look for hope through our current times. On the other hand, voters work hard and smart to push the times along.

The Left is lost in a lost hope of impeaching Trump. Their suggestions get more outrageous by the day—it's hard to keep up with. By the time one pundit offers an interpretation, the next suggestion is already in draft. The problem is with order of strength. Usually we present our strongest arguments first. Usually the first strategies used are the strategies most likely to succeed. If so many things have failed this far into Trump's term, the likelihood of success isn't exactly high.

The Right—well, some of the Right—has been working harder than ever. The boring managers who can't keep an organization from floundering always hate the people who know what they're doing—like Trump. He just discovered how effective tariffs can be against the Chinese, why not try them against Mexico too!

The abortion debate is heating up to be hotter than it's ever been. While the Right-leaning states are banning abortion, Left-leaning states are legalizing types of abortion that formerly would never have passed into law. The more controversial this gets the more likely it will rise to the strongest conservative court we have seen in over half a century.

The Left and the "establishment" Right don't know how to respond. The workers and doers keep working and doing more things faster than the Left can make suggestions on how to stop them.

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Symphony

Cadence of Conflict: Asia, May 27, 2019

President Trump's response to Kim Jong-Un's recent missile party neither shows lack of a plan nor lack of respect for Japan; it show patience and insight. Gaining and maintaining trust and respect in difficult situations requires sureness in action and slowness in harsh words. Talk is cheap. These are politics, after all.

Trump has taken no action nor signed any orders giving Kim more permission. Many pundits and opinion commentators have speculated that Trump will have difficulty with Abe because of his patient words for Kim, but all of this speculation is speculation only. They are presenting a model to analyze Trump's decisions, but that model is devoid of a grid of using "kind words" in the face of betrayal. Kim's strategy has not deviated: provoke a US response. Trump's words "defuse" that strategy, so to speak. Trump is no pretentious fool, more of a patient father.

The situation in China, however is heating up, obviously for the same reasons. Trump and Xi exchange similar words as Trump gives in response to Kim's actions. They promise to prepare for talks while rallying their own citizens against each other. Rumors of peace are the surest sign that there is none just as provocation indicates a peace not easily broken.

Taiwan is gearing up for war, its war machine in full motion. Taiwan is beginning mass production of strategic strike responses. Taiwan is renaming one of its offices to include both "US" and "Taiwan" in the name, which is a first. These are not actions that have any intention of appeasing Beijing.

Then, there's Hong Kong. Responses from the American government would view the SAR as no longer capable of diplomatic ties if the extradition law on the table is passed. This extradition law would likely isolate Hong Kong from North America and Europe. We know war is close, but "how close" will be known by whether Beijing allows "Asia's World City" to internationally isolate itself.

Those promised and prepared talks between Beijing and Washington will only serve as size-ups, if they even happen.

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Symphony

Encore of Revival: America, May 27, 2019

The dark forces that have commandeered the party Andrew Jackson started are on full display. Investigation findings are being released that will purportedly prove use of politically-neutral government institutions to investigate political opponents.

In terms of pre-election analysis, Republicans win by energizing the base. Nothing will energize the Republican base like the declassification about to drop onto the other end of what Mueller was investigating, except one thing. War with China is coming.

Censorship is having a blossom effect and it is difficult to know how it will end, other than to know that public utility status is coming for any company deemed to be a social media giant. Radicals don't exist on any single end of political spectrums. When one radical end calls for censorship of the entire half of the other spectrum, boomerang and escalation effects soon kick in. But, the call for censorship from the ever self-radicalizing Left was so extreme in degree and scope, it made a monster that couldn't not grow beyond the control of its mad creator. Now, it isn't as predictable as a boomerang nor does it escalate in nice, even, measured steps.

The wars of China and Mueller are much easier to predict than the zombie war created by censorship.

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Symphony

Cadence of Conflict: Asia, May 20, 2019

Of course China wanted to "re-negotiate". Chinese culture, whether in government or business, seeks to sign a contract first, then negotiate the terms after. In America it's called "reneging". In China is called "that strange, silly, sign a contract game the Americans require that makes no sense". Trump has known that since he had his ties made in China, maybe earlier.

Now, the American provocation machine is in full-swing. An executive order banning Huawei and a DOJ prosecution of Chinese hackers—all while planning another meeting in Japan next month—this isn't failed diplomacy. In the past month, China lobbed one too many objections to US action, thus providing the telemetry the US needed for the final calibrations on the Chinese irritation machine. That machine is up and running and won't stop. It will keep producing irritation at the speed of a 5G network.

As said last week, the problem of the F-35 was already known because the US was no longer interested in searching. This week, we found out the specifics: a fuel tube. Now, we just need to wait for distribution and replacement to get set up.

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Symphony

Encore of Revival: America, May 20, 2019

The Supreme Court always sides with the courts retaining their power. Justice Kavanaugh's recent ruling with the Liberal side of the court was not any attempt to appeal to the Left. It demonstrates his knowledge of the tech world of developers and his belief that judges should be able to judge. The remaining Conservative justices on the Court sided with precedent, not with business reality. The Liberals on the Court simply ruled against business and monopoly with their activist ideals. Kavanaugh was the only justice who ruled objectively, notwithstanding that courts always rule in favor of the courts retaining their power to rule.

The Mueller investigation certainly served its double purpose. Communists in both the Democratic base and in the Chinese government held on to a delusional hope that Trump was weak. That kept them distracted and foolish long enough for them to ensnare themselves. China overreached, providing a great "election enemy", and the Leftist machine overreached, possibly incriminating themselves.

Some states turned Democratic in the recent midterm. But, things look like they're turning around for a gargantuan victory for Republicans nation-wide. Republican states are passing anti-abortion legislation that could lead to the long-waited reversal of Roe v Wade.

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Symphony

Cadence of Conflict: Asia, May 13, 2019

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9jmNHc2RqM

Trump knew the Chinese all along, all too well. The "trade war" never risked creating a real war; the "trade war" was a ploy the whole time—part of an elaborate scheme to provoke the Chinese into striking too soon. He says talks are going well with China—he can't not say that. China is indeed willing to have another talk. Trump announced tariff hikes and they still showed up. That's not exactly bad on the part of the Chinese.

Trade might never go well, but the talks certainly are for now. When has talk in politics ever looked bad?

But, don't make the mistake of thinking for even one second that negotiations aren't going exactly as Washington planned, whether with China or North Korea. The US provoked Japan through trade wars and embargoes leading up to WWII. This isn't just a strategy, it's a proven playbook tactic, and China's irritability is performing right on cue.

As Symphony said previously, the war will start when the US is ready to field-test the F-35 in an actual combat situation that we really need to win. The F-35 was made for this and, like nuclear technology at the end of WWII, if the US doesn't use its fifth-generation fighter jets before Russia and China perfect theirs, it will have failed its initial purpose. Japan is ready to buy the worlds largest non-US fifth-generation F-35 fleet. They want the Marines' vertical take-off model for their helicopter carriers. Perhaps those carriers also had a purpose all along.

Talk isn't deteriorating, not with China anyway, but trade suddenly is. That's because the F-35 is ready to make its entrance onto the world's stage. Taiwan's election could prove to be a convenient lynch pin.

Businessmen are the presidential trend. Foxconn Chair and Founder Terry Gou is running under the KMT, a political party whose platform is "Chinese-Taiwan re-unification", yet he demands that China recognize Taiwan's history of de facto existence; China never will. Moving some production from among Foxconn's twelve factories in China back to Taiwan in Kaohsiung shows that his loyalties don't reside in Beijing nor in Nanjing as KMT old-hats still pine for. He's also beefing up supply in Houston, Indianapolis, and Mexico, atop his newest plant in Wisconsin. That will make the US less dependent on China and better ready for war. As an accomplished businessman, Terry will tear up the inexperienced populist Mayor Han of Kaohsiung in the primaries. After all, he brought jobs back to Kaohsiung.

Even if Gou loses primary or presidency, his campaign rhetoric, though less unacceptable to China than others, could force all other viable candidates to sympathize with Taiwan independence, if that proves to be the only electable platform. That's more than likely. Equally likely, China will see no way to "talk" its way toward absorbing Taiwan. Talk would thus breakdown and "the military option" would be the trigger in the gas tank known as the South Sea. Then, F-35 moves to centerstage.

Trump says China has one month. If we make it that long, then China would be stupider than we thought because the F-35s would have more time to fuel up.

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Encore of Revival: America, May 13, 2019

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omi8iWgpddU

War! That's next. With 2019 oaths of office sworn, with the 2020 presidential on the horizon, and with the Democrats clinging to demagoguery long after their fake investigation proved fake, the Left has left no alternative. War is one of the best ways to seal up a second term. Because it involves democracy, that is a calculation our Communist enemies can't understand. If the Communist world wanted to defeat the US—and if the communists in the Democratic Party wanted to defeat the Republicans—they'd play "peace possum" for two years. But, Communists have the learning curve of a cat.

The US is not moving resources to the Fifth Fleet in the Middle East because of some recent Iranian rhetoric. Iran makes and poses threats more often than North Korea. If Iran's most recent threats are special, it's from the smell of blood on the horizon as the sun comes up over the South Sea. Whether for caution or concern, the Pentagon is beefing-up the Fifth Fleet because the Seventh Fleet is about to get busy with China.

We don't want anyone taking advantage of the situation.

With Trump having pulled out of Syria and Afghanistan, Russia has every reason to be nice, for now. Extra missiles might make sure Iran does too—or if Iran can't get smart, at least change Iran along with the change about to happen to China. Moscow may tell Tehran to behave. New Delhi may feel emboldened give the same advice to Beijing, but you know cats.

War is coming and victory with it, both for the US and for the Republicans.

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Symphony

Encore of Revival: America, May 6, 2019

While war brews in the Far East, the West debates social media. Populism is taking over from all sides. Even Conservatives aren't being so conservative in their rhetoric, though they still express their ideals at the election polls more than anywhere else. Liberals express their ideals everywhere they can.

Nancy Pelosi already has her strategy lined up no matter the outcome of the 2016 election. "Social justice warriors" are taking over the Left to such a point that Democrats as we know them may not be a viable party much longer. The institution will survive a bit longer, but it will change. Rosie O'Donnell and Megyn Kelly learned that the hard way; Joe Biden is about to.

Most debates are no longer two-sided. More and more issues themselves belong to either the Right or the Left. Conservatives don't want to hear about the Mueller investigation at all. Liberals don't want to hear reports on the economy. The only thing Congress and the country seem to be united on is China and support for Taiwan. For now, Americans aren't finding many other reasons for unity at home—for now.

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Symphony

Cadence of Conflict: Asia, April 22, 2019

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RcUN3V9j_4

China faces more scrutiny from its own propaganda while Taiwan searches its own soul. Taiwanese elections are fast approaching. Demagoguery is in full swing. Even the founder of Foxconn says a Chinese god told him to run for president.

We could say that billionaires are the presidential trend, but Terry Gou's (郭台銘) money is largely in China, which is planning to attack Taiwan. Trump's investments were mainly in American companies with satellite projects globally. Gou can't rightly be compared to Trump. While there were proven-to-be-unsubstantiated suspicions of a connection to Russia with Trump, Gou's connection to China is both widely known and undisputed, Foxconn having 12 factories in China. Gou opposes the US selling weapons to Taiwan. I wonder why.

If business tycoon Gou were to take the de facto pro-unification KMT-Nationalist party nomination, he would need to overcome Mayor Han of Kaohsiung, a populist with little political experience who's primary vehicle of campaigning is complaint and demagoguery. Han recently accused Taiwan's military of being "eunuchs" in uniform, which stirred up the voters who don't like compulsory military service, but he failed to provide a solid path to making any improvements.

The controlling party's incumbent president will need to face a primary challenger, former Premier and Mayor William Lai, who has his own past list of non-accomplishments.

While Taiwan fights with itself, China's new best-friend-forever is Venesuala. The press highlighted China's high-pressure work culture this week with a story about Alibaba founder Jack Ma's defense of 12-hour, 6-day work weeks. Did Ma think that would make the American public more or less likely to support US military action against China? Some in China are starting to see Trump as China's savior.

So, with a seemingly unstable Taiwan and a China with something to prove, we are approaching flashpoint, where "liberators" will get the justification they need to come out of the woodwork and split up China like fire ants on a dead tiger.

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Symphony

Encore of Revival: America, April 22, 2019

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=173HMCSZBEw

Thinking about the Russianewsgategate scandal like an addictive drug explains everything. It provides a kind of fix to both sides of divided America. Mueller's report is the latest dose.

To the Right, it proves how fraudulent and one-sided the attacks on Trump were because there has been more justification for the near identical investigations into the Clintons since the 1990s. That energizes the Right to talk, persuade friends, and vote for Trump. And, the fact that Mueller failed to provide an indictment will draw some voters from the Left to the Right. To the persistent Left, the report contains enough "hopes of Easter eggs" that they can wake up yet another day thinking "this will be the day" when someone finds the "silver bullet" to get Trump impeached. And, of course, every Leftist reporter thinks, "I'll be the one to find and break the story."

The whole Mueller investigation, even the report, indicates that there never was any intention to act against Trump—not from Mueller, anyway. Rather, the purpose from the beginning was to toss doggy treats to both packs of the feuding dog pound. Even some fringe politicians will clean up the scraps by running this election. Failing in one election after another can be a well-paying job, if one loses with valor. When the voters get depressed, they always have a dose of Mueller to give them enough of a high to keep them amused and tranquilized while not a single thing changes in Washington.

Tiger Woods made a dramatic comeback that will give inspiration and hope to many people around the world. Life isn't perfect nor are the people who live it. But, that doesn't mean we should give up. Happy Easter!

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Symphony

Cadence of Conflict: Asia, April 15, 2018

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqVXfD2DliA

Events in China are playing out according to the "Pacific Daily Times Symphony Asian Mad Scientist Theorem". The experimental phase in North Korea is finished and methods are being applied throughout China on a much grander scale. This week, we see reports of expensive ghost cities, comparable to Pyongyang. The debt to build those ghost cities could be enough to break China's economy into the deprived status of northern Korea. Now, swelling human rights concern could court the West to support China's unfriendly neighbors to intervene in China as the "grand liberators".

If things continue on track with the theorem, China would end up in an armistice against its own provinces—a standoff between Beijing and fragments of the soon-to-be-formerly united China.

Trump continues to prove that he knows what he's doing with Kim Jong-Un. The DPRK's Great Successor will likely wise up, still venting steam once in a while. He seems to be one of the smartest heads of state in his region—seeking more cooperation with economic policies that work, not less. But even if not, Korea will not be a border for China to ignore. Beijing and its surrounding provinces would be the likely hold-out against a liberated Northwest, Tibet, Southern Canton, and it will need to keep a 24/7 guard in the Northeast. Break-aways could form their own federation, or not. Either way, as history repeats, we look to be headed for a Cold War -style standoff between fractured Chinese regions.

The US Marines are test driving "lightning carriers"—small aircraft carriers with a potently packed punch of F-35s. Their range radius is smaller, but so is their targetable shadow. In a Pacific conflict, a smattering of lightning carriers might prove more formidable than a single, central Nimitz class group. Federated, autonomous, small attack groups tend to be wise in warfare, as the French Revolution proved on land. We'll see at sea.

These smaller carriers are said to focus on smaller tasks, putting Nimitz class carriers—now being called "super carriers"—in the spotlight against China and Russia. And, we know that the Chinese think the spotlight is an indication of "importance". While Russia knows better, the Chinese probably don't. Just because headlines read that a Nimitz class focuses on China doesn't mean US strategy would fail if China's new "anti-carrier" missiles sunk a Nimitz. Sinking a Nimitz class carrier would only enrage the American public into a war that they couldn't lose. That's how history has always played out, anyway. But, the mistakes from history don't seem to have much impact on Chinese President Xi, who is determined to revive Maoism at any cost. If Maoism is revived, it's results will follow. That won't end the standoff with Taiwan; it will add more uncontrolled lands to the standoff it was never strong enough to resolve.

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Symphony

Encore of Revival: America, April 15, 2018

With the last of Symphony's saboteur suspects being expelled from the Trump administration, establishment Republicans have their undies in a bunch. Their objections indicate two main motives. Toward the surface, they still think Trump's decisions are based on calculation of "election strategery" rather than made by an administrator who wants certain things done a certain way. But, on a deeper level, they don't want their stable, "established" world being unraveled by anyone, outsider or not. But then, there is a third, less apparent layer, more sinister—a question of whether they knew about the saboteurs and wanted them to stay there. Publicized opposition to the president of their own party certainly proves the kind of character that would undermine their own party's president by any means.

Now that Russianewsgategate nonsense is being seen for the yesterday's yesterday's tabloid newspaper it always was, the media machine is gearing up to save face: Goldman Sachs thinks Trump might be re-electable. The Left doesn't get it. The most important two things to understand about Donald Trump is that from the time he announced his candidacy, 1. he was always going to be elected and 2. he was always going to be re-elected. Those two things aren't obvious to people who don't understand Donald Trump.

Democratically-controlled "sanctuary cities" have been working, as they purport, to be a safe haven for immigrants. The kinds of immigrants they seek to protect, as they purport, will be helpful to their communities and to the nation. Now, they have a splendid and long-hoped-for hope of seeing their hard efforts pay off. They will be the beneficiaries of thousands of exactly the kinds of, as they purport, good people they have been standing up to defend. Yet, they found a way to be angry.

If the Trump administration were to send immigrants to the very cities hoping to be sanctuaries for them, wouldn't that be a good thing? One would think so, unless sanctuary city laws were known to be designed to create problems. By objecting to getting what they wanted, Democrats imply that they know something that they purport everyone else doesn't. Is there something wrong about sanctuary city laws that their Democratic leaders aren't telling us?

The rest of America—the "fly-over" counties, the rural areas that the Democratic cosmopolitans turn their noses up at, the Conservatives who grow everyone's food and cling to their "guns and religion"—they were suspicious about sanctuary city laws. They thought it might be a bad idea. If the Conservatives were right, then sending the invited immigrants to the party that invited them could create a breakdown of law, paving the way for the Federal Government to declare martial law and deal with sanctuary city policy makers that way.

Just imagine: Trump-controlled Democratic cities—and it all would have been made possible by Democrats. But, that's assuming that the Conservatives were right. We'll see.

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