Some of the prototypes. Though I am not a construction engineer, it seems to me that 2,000 miles of any of these is more of a job than their proponents are telling us.
With regard to Mr. Trump’s Border Wall, I am skeptical. Now, I freely concede that I am not an authority on Border Walls. In fact, I have never built a Border Wall. This may surprise readers. Yet it is true. So all that follows is in the nature of speculation. Be warned.
Still, though I may be horrifically wrong, and different numbers can be obtained by assuming different types of wall, I suggest that the following represent the kinds of questions that need to be answered. Further, it should be incumbent on those promoting the Wall to produce prices and times that make sense.
During the campaign, Donald J. Trump made lots of promises—he’d be the greatest jobs president that God ever created, he’d cut taxes, he’d balance the budget, he’d give all Americans fantastic health care, he’d renegotiate NAFTA, he’d scotch the Iran deal and so on.
Either Trump understood the urgency of our border crisis, as his every campaign speech suggested, or it was just meaningless boilerplate to get himself elected. If it was the latter, then our search continues for one politician who won’t lie to us.
You might enjoy my Periscope playback from this morning in which I describe the several persuasion techniques President Trump is using on the topic of The Wall and DACA.
Here’s the quick summary.
Visual Persuasion: President Trump describes border security (a concept) with the word “wall” because you can visualize it. Our visual sense is our most persuasive path for influence. It would be weak persuasion to talk about border security as a concept without a visual.
Axios is reporting that President Trump suggested putting solar panels on the new Wall with Mexico. The article wonders where the idea came from:
Where this idea might come from: A proposal to cover the wall with solar panels was among those submitted when the U.S. requested designs earlier this year, according to the AP. Companies winning contracts and asked to build prototypes may be announced this month.
That’s one place it might have come from. But I consider it an obvious idea, which means the President might have come up with it himself. And when I say “obvious,” I mean it is obvious to people who understand the power of persuasion.
Why can’t brain dead liberals understand the need for a wall after seeing these statistics? How can we have an unsecured border with a failed third world state, where murder and drugs are the two biggest imports? Why hasn’t Trump done anything about building this wall yet?
Mexico was second deadliest country in 2016
(CNN)It was the second deadliest conflict in the world last year, but it hardly registered in the international headlines.
As Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan dominated the news agenda, Mexico’s drug wars claimed 23,000 lives during 2016 — second only to Syria, where 50,000 people died as a result of the civil war.
“This is all the more surprising, considering that the conflict deaths [in Mexico] are nearly all attributable to small arms,” said John Chipman, chief executive and director-general of the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), which issued its annual survey of armed conflict on Tuesday.
Fake News’ question of the week: Will Trump risk a government shutdown over the wall?
The media flip back and forth on who’s to blame for a government shutdown depending on which branch is controlled by Republicans. But the “shutdown” hypothetical in this case is a trick question.
A failure to build the wall IS a government shutdown.
Of course it would be unfortunate if schoolchildren couldn’t visit national parks and welfare checks didn’t get mailed on time. But arranging White House tours isn’t the primary function of the government.
The government’s No. 1 job is to protect the nation.
Following Mr. Trump’s kaleidosopically shifting policies isn’t easy. He was going to declare China a currency manipulator on day one, but didn’t, going to impose a forty-five percent tariff on Chinese goods but apparently won’t, was going to shift the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem but isn’t, going to tear up the Iran treaty but hasn’t, going to end the wars but isn’t, and going to rid the country of illegal aliens within two years. Now it seems he has backed off this too, and there is in the air the merest whiff of…amnesty?
Oh well. Mass deportation was a loony idea to begin with. Consider:
For years there have been said to be 11 million illegals, a number having a suspicious stability. Foes of immigration have put it at thirteen or fourteen. Call it at least 12 million. To deport them in two years, Trump would have to deport 500,000 a month. For twenty-four months. To deport a tenth as many, he would need to expel 50,000 a month.
In Part One of this article I documented the populist administration of Andrew Jackson and similarities to Donald Trump’s populist victory in the recent election. I’ll now try to assess the chances of a Trump presidency accomplishing its populist agenda.
The Trumpian Era
“But you must remember, my fellow-citizens, that eternal vigilance by the people is the price of liberty, and that you must pay the price if you wish to secure the blessing. It is to be regretted that the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government to their own selfish purposes.” – Andrew Jackson
“For too long, a small group in our nation’s capital has reaped the rewards of government while the people have borne the cost. Washington flourished, but the people did not share in its wealth. Politicians prospered, but the jobs left and the factories closed. The establishment protected itself, but not the citizens of our country. Their victories have not been your victories. Their triumphs have not been your triumphs. And while they celebrated in our nation’s capital, there was little to celebrate for struggling families all across our land. What truly matters is not which party controls our government, but whether our government is controlled by the people. January 20th, 2017 will be remembered as the day the people became the rulers of this nation again.The forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer.” – Donald J. Trump – Inaugural Speech
It is not a coincidence the painting in the oval office behind President Trump’s desk is of Andrew Jackson. He has promoted his presidency as a Jacksonian quest to return government to the people. His chief strategist Steve Bannon, a student of history, helped mold Trump’s speech with echoes of Jacksonian populism:
“It was an unvarnished declaration of the basic principles of his populist and kind of nationalist movement. It was given, I think, in a very powerful way. I don’t think we’ve had a speech like that since Andrew Jackson came to the White House. But you could see it was very Jacksonian. It’s got a deep, deep root of patriotism there.”
Inquiring minds are taking a flashback look at the Secure Fence Act of 2006, signed by president Bush.
The Secure Fence Act of 2006’s goal is to help secure America’s borders to decrease illegal entry, drug trafficking, and security threats by building 700 miles (1,100 km) of physical barriers along the Mexico-United States border. Additionally, the law authorizes more vehicle barriers, checkpoints, and lighting as well as authorizes the Department of Homeland Security to increase the use of advanced technology like cameras, satellites, and unmanned aerial vehicles to reinforce infrastructure at the border. Congress approved $1.2 billion in a separate homeland security spending bill to bankroll the fence, though critics say this is $4.8 billion less than what’s likely needed to get it built.
Just one week in office, President Trump is already following through on his pledge to address illegal immigration. His January 25th executive order called for the construction of a wall along the entire length of the US-Mexico border. While he is right to focus on the issue, there are several reasons why his proposed solution will unfortunately not lead us anywhere closer to solving the problem.
First, the wall will not work. Texas already started building a border fence about ten years ago. It divided people from their own property across the border, it deprived people of their land through the use of eminent domain, and in the end the problem of drug and human smuggling was not solved.
“Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,” wrote poet Robert Frost in the opening line of “Mending Walls.”
And on the American left there is something like revulsion at the idea of the “beautiful wall” President Trump intends to build along the 1,900-mile border between the U.S. and Mexico.
The opposition’s arguments are usually rooted in economics or practicality. The wall is unnecessary. It will not stop people from coming illegally. It costs too much.
Yet something deeper is afoot here. The idea of a permanent barrier between our countries goes to the heart of the divide between our two Americas on the most fundamental of questions.
Who are we? What is a nation? What does America stand for?
Hey you, out there on the road
always doing what you’re told,
Can you help me?
Hey you, out there beyond the wall,
Breaking bottles in the hall,
Can you help me?
Hey you, don’t tell me there’s no hope at all
Together we stand, divided we fall.
“A really efficient totalitarian state would be one in which the all-powerful executive of political bosses and their army of managers control a population of slaves who do not have to be coerced, because they love their servitude.” – Aldous Huxley – Brave New World
The world makes less sense every day. Little children are randomly slaughtered in their schoolrooms. Predator drones roam the skies over foreign countries exterminating bad guys, along with innocent women and children (collateral damage when it occurs in a foreign country). Drugged up mentally ill kids with no hope and no future live lives of secluded quiet desperation until they snap. Ignorant, government educated, welfare dependent drones with no self respect or respect for others, assault, kill and rob within their government created urban jungles. Sociopathic criminals who committed the largest financial crime in world history walk free and continue to occupy executive suites in luxury office towers in downtown NYC, collecting millions in bonuses as compensation for crushing the American middle class.
Academics, whose theories have been thoroughly disproven, continue to steer our economy into an iceberg while accelerating the money printing and debt issuance that will sink our ship of state. Corrupt, bought off politicians pander to the lowest common denominator as their votes are only dependent upon who contributed the most to their election campaigns, which never end. Delusional, materialistic, egocentric, math challenged consumers (formerly known as citizens) live for today, enslave themselves in debt, vote themselves more entitlements, and care not for future generations. The alienation and isolation created by our sprawling, automobile dependent, technology obsessed, government controlled, debt financed society has spread like a cancerous tumor, slowly killing our country.
Pink Floyd released The Wall 33 years ago. It was a concept rock opera album that explored the issues of abandonment, isolation, alienation, authoritarianism, the brutality of war, a tyrannical conformist educational system, and the walls individuals and society build to protect themselves from having to confront reality and deal with the consequences of their actions. I attended the Roger Waters Wall Concert this past summer at Citizens Bank Park with my three sons. Three decades later, the message is more powerful than ever. The government oppression and never ending wars waged by the American Empire around the world have created a society built upon fear and loathing. Roger Waters’ vision is colored by Orwell’s 1984 dystopian nightmare of lies, misinformation, propaganda and brutality. The missing piece, which Waters didn’t see coming in 1979, was the ability of the oligarchs to use their control of the credit system to entrap the masses by convincing them to love their servitude and become so consumed with material possessions and the love of money that they would become nothing more than passive egotistical consumers.
Mother, do you think they’ll drop the bomb? Mother, do you think they’ll like this song? Mother, do you think they’ll try to break my balls? Ooh ah, Mother, should I build the wall?
Mother, should I run for president? Mother, should I trust the government? Mother, will they put me in the firing line? Ooh ah, Is it just a waste of time?
The lyrics to Mother had both a literal and figurative meaning for Roger Waters. He was literally describing his overprotective single mother (his father was killed in World War II) building walls to protect him from the outside world. The figurative meaning is Big Mother sending its boys off to war and using fear to control and manipulate the masses. At the time he wrote this song in 1979, the Soviet Union was thought to be at its peak of power and the Berlin Wall represented a boundary between good and evil. Nuclear war was still a looming fear. Waters has always had a dim view of totalitarian states and institutions (English schools). Having seen his Wall Tour performance this past summer at Citizens Bank Park with a diverse crowd of 40,000, ranging in age from senior citizens to teenagers, it seems this song has gained new meaning. He sang a duet with himself from 1980 projected on the Wall and when he sang the lyric, “Mother, should I trust the government?” the entire stadium responded in unison – NO!!! This revealed a truth that is not permitted to be discussed by the corporate mainstream media acting as a mouthpiece for the ruling class. A growing legion of citizens in this country does not trust the government. This is very perceptive on their part.
In part one of this two part series – Hey You – I examined how an invisible government of wealthy, power hungry men have utilized the propaganda techniques of Edward Bernays and lured the American people into a narcissistic, techno-gadget, debt based servitude. Over the last one hundred years they have created a totalitarian state built upon egotism, material goods, and fulfilling our desires through Wall Street peddled debt and mass consumerism. It has been an incredibly effective form of control that has convinced the masses to love their servitude. The ruling oligarchs correctly chose the painless, amusement saturated, soft totalitarianism of Huxley’s Brave New World over the fearful, pain inflicting, surveillance state, house of horrors detailed in Orwell’s 1984.
The Roger Waters concert Saturday night at Citizens Bank Park was almost too spectacular to put into words. Fighter planes crashing into the stage and exploding, flying pigs, enormous hideous teachers towering over little children, Waters dressed as a Nazi and firing a machine gun into the audience, and a notable anti-corporate fascist state, anti-war theme. During the intermission literally hundreds of photos of humans killed in war since 1900 were projected onto the massive Wall with their birth date, death date and short biography. The pictures and stories were sent in by fans from all over the world. It was truly touching and personalized the human result of endless war.
Waters dedicated the show to Jean Charles de Menezes, a Brazilian man shot in the head seven times at Stockwell tube station on the London Underground by the London Metropolitan police after he was misidentified as one of the fugitives involved in the previous day’s failed bombing attempts. These events took place two weeks after the London bombings of 7 July 2005, in which 52 people were killed. On the day of the shooting, the police were hunting four men believed to be involved in the failed bombing attempts the day before. Intelligence had linked the men to a block of flats in Tulse Hill, south London, the same building in which Menezes was living. Police put the communal entrance under surveillance, and on the morning of the shooting, saw Menezes leave the building. Plain clothes officers, armed with pistols, followed him as he took a bus to Brixton tube station, before boarding another to Stockwell tube station because the tube station at Brixton was closed. Specialist firearms officers were called to Stockwell. Just after Menezes entered a train, several officers wrestled him to the ground and fired seven bullets into his head at point blank range. The train was still at the platform with its doors open, having just been evacuated by officers.
NO ONE WAS EVER CHARGED OR HELD ACCOUNTABLE FOR HIS WRONGFUL DEATH.
The entire show was visually overwhelming and a powerful statement. Roger Waters is the ultimate showman. He said that he hated performing live in his youth. He seems to have grown into it. He plays the evil dictator with panash.
The band he assembled was stellar. David Gilmour is irreplaceable, but the combination of G.E. Smith, David Kilminster, and Snowy White on guitar and Robbie Wyckoff handling Gilmour’s vocals was just fine as you will see in the videos taken by my son Kevin. The stage and Wall was immense, taking up the entire outfield. The gates opened at 7:00 for the 8:45 show. We arrived at 7:15. I wanted to soak in as much as possible, plus I wanted a Tony Lukes cheesesteak before the show. We chowed down on fine Philly fare and then bought four overpriced concert shirts. I wore my BurningPlatform.com shirt to the show. I didn’t run into anyone else with a TBP shirt.
The show opens with Outside the Wall and I was immediately amused by the graphic on the wall. It said:
If at first you don’t succeed, call in an airstrike.
I knew I was going to like this show. While the show progresses the roadies are building the wall.
The local children brought on stage to perform Another Brick in the Wall with Waters and fight back against the 50 foot teacher were thanked by Waters in one of his more sedate moments.
http://youtu.be/NNBFKXM0hEw
The show is a combination of concert and movie. The visuals and symbolism are stunning.
The Wall becomes a canvas for Waters’ art and visionary view of the world.
Waters is able to get his anti-war message across through the use of music, images, film, quotes and cartoons. His use of film showing soldiers hugging their children, interspersed with the words of a general and pictures of starving children is powerful, as you can see.
“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.” – Dwight D. Eisenhower
Goodbye Blue Sky is a haunting song with visuals of birds flying and being replaced with thousands of bombers dropping blood red symbols like dollar signs, the hammer & sickle, Chinese star, Shell Oil sign, Mercedes sign, crosses and the Jewish star. The message was that our corporate fascist military state kills for profit.
One of the highlights of the concert for me was Waters performing a duet with himself from 1980 on the song Mother. As you can see from the video, people are losing faith in governments across the globe. The crowd was a mixture of old farts like myself, people in their 20’s and 30’s, and teens dragged to the concert by their old man. When Waters sings the line, “Do you trust the government?”, the stadium erupted with a thunderous NOOOOO!!!! See for yourself.
The guitar work by GE Smith on Comfortably Numb and Hey You is phenomenal. Waters doesn’t have much to do except strike the Wall near the end of this piece with the predictable outcome.
http://youtu.be/GGS63DEPAGo
The imposing fully built Wall stays in place for all of Act 2, which opens with Hey You.
http://youtu.be/Ct37LF6wgBY
At the end of the concert during the finale of Outside the Wall, the entire wall comes crashing down. The message I took away from the concert was that our civilization is under the control of corporate fascist warmongers. Profits at any human price is the mantra. The fact that Waters is still free to use his artistry to reaveal the truth to 40,000 people gives me hope. The fact that I can write about it and have thousands read the message gives me hope. The fact that my three Millenial sons get the message about government tyranny and corporate malfeasance gives me hope. If enough people see the light and begin to resist, we can tear down that wall.
Most of the videos and pictures were taken by my sons Kevin & Jimmy. Michael, my youngest, is now a Pink Floyd superfan.
Here is a link to the complete setlist, with accompanying videos:
