INDONESIA: VOLCANIC WONDERLAND—MT MERAPI ERUPTS!

Indonesia’s Fabulous And Deadly Volcanoes 

March 11, 2023.  Indonesia’s most active volcano, Mt Merapi, erupted on Saturday spewing ash, shattered rock, lava and hot gases that blocked out the sun and carpeted the roads and shrouded the houses in eight villages near the base of the volcano with ash. Local mines on the slopes were closed and all tourist activities were halted as the eruptions continued through Saturday.  At one point,  after the eruption spewed clouds of hot ash hundreds of feet into the air, a pyroclastic cloud of ash and hot gases poured from the vent and surged  4 miles downslope to threaten villages and residences near the base of the volcano. 

Not all of us know where Indonesia is…or that it is famous  (or infamous) for its deadly volcanism. 

Indonesia is an island-archipelago-nation lying close to the equator, north of Australia, between the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Oceans. Its southern boundary is a two-thousand mile long, east-west oriented, archipelago of volcanic islands. With a population of  nearly 300 million, Indonesia is the fourth most populous in the world.  However, with most of its 17,000 islands uninhabited and with its mix of mountainous islands, blue sea, and lush tropical forest, Indonesia ranks number one (1) out of fifty nations acclaimed for their natural beauty.  Its lovely and attractive mountainous landscape is a major part of its allure, but obscures the fact that Indonesia is also the land of the most active, most dangerous and most well-known volcanoes. Note that Meropi is erupting as I write today. 

Indonesia’s mountainous islands are almost all volcanic in origin. Of its total 128 volcanoes, 80 are actively erupting today, while five of these active ones are mostly unseen as submarine volcanoes.   Of the active volcanoes, about 40 have caused almost all of the the nearly 200 deadly eruptions in Indonesia over the past nearly 2000 years of human records.  During the historic period, a total of more than 57,000 people have died in this area as a result of earthquakes, lava flows, ash deposits, nuee ardent, pyroclastic flows, tsunamis, and other related disasters associated with these eruptions. 

Southern Indonesia, which comprises a narrow almost two thousand mile long, east-west trending arc of volcanic islands, is the site of the most frequent, powerful and well known volcanic eruptions in the world.    Mt Toba, located in western Indonesia’s North Sumatra, erupted violently some 73,000 years ago; infamous Krakatoa located about 700 miles east of Mt Toba, in the Banda Strait, famously erupted violently in 1883; and Mt. Tamboura, sited about 871 miles further to the east  on the island of  West Nousa  erupted as a “super volcano” in 1815.  This 1815 eruption is claimed to be the most violent ever recorded in world history.   And finally in the category of presently active volcanoes,  Mt Merapi in central Java, located only about  360 miles east of Krakatoa, is considered to be the most deadly active volcano in modern history, 

In fact, two of the most infamous and destructive of all known volcanic eruptions occurred in Indonesia. The best known was the well known eruption of Krakatoa in 1883. But less well known but of greater violence and more damaging was the world’s most violent and destructive historic era eruption ever recorded, which occurred when Mr. Tambora erupted on April 10 to April 15, in 1815.  

In terms of destruction of residences, financial damage, climatic impact, and human deaths the Tambora eruption is unparalleled. It  is considered the most violent eruption in human history and resulted in the direct deaths of 11,000 people. However the   long term climatic effects of the eruption had a world-wide impact  causing deadly floods, crop failures which led to famine and more hundreds of thousands of death. The year 1816 is known as the “year with no summer”. In several temperate parts of the world snow fell in the month of July, and July temperatures dropped into the low 30s. Crops failed, and famine plagued large area of the world.  The cooling effect on the celibates has been estimted to have caused 

Volcanologists have established a “violent eruption index” ( or VEI) for these exceptionally violent sometimes called “super volcanoes”. The  oils t eruption index or VEI has a 0 to (8) or 10 range based on how much material was ejected for how long the eruption lasts. 

Several super volcanoes in earth history have produced massive eruptions that have had global implications.  The eruption of the Yellowstone super volcano in Wyoming, USA, about 640,000 yers ago ranked an 8 on the VEI. Then 73,000 years ago, Mt Toba in Indonesia erupted with a possible VEI rank of 9.  But in historic times it is Mt Tamboura that has been the most destructive and most violent.  In 1815 Tamboura But it is  Mt. Tamboura in Indonesia which erupted in April of that year with a rank of VEI 7 which remains the most violent volcanic eruption in human history.

Prior to April 10, 1815, Mt Tamboura on the island of Sumbawa in Ιndonesia was that nation’s tallest mountain, with its vent at an elevation 14,100 feet. After the violent eruption of that date Mt. Tamboura topped at only 9350 feet.  (14,100-9,350 = 4,750 feet).  The eruption blew the top 4,750 feet of Tamboura into dust, rock fragments and fine ash. That was followed by hot ash and gas flows (pyroclastic flows) streaming down the lower slopes toward the sea. The plume of debris was blown up into the atmosphere and estimated to rise to about 21 miles above the surface. The top nearly one mile high cone of the volcano was turned to fine ash, estimated to comprise about 35 cubic miles of fine dust and rock debris which was driven high into the upper levels of the atmosphere and remained lofted for long periods of time.  The ash cloud was carried around the globe reflecting sunlight and darkening the sky .  Global temperature dropped a full degree Fahrenheit the following year. 

Why is all of this violent volcanic activity located in this linear island archipelago of southern Indonesia? As we will see below it may well be the result of the rapid rate at which the Australian plate is undergoing subduction  below the Eurasian Sunda plate…and the types of rock materials involved in the process. 

The earth’s crust is divided up into seven (7) major crustal plates that fit together like a jigsaw puzzle and are constantly moving over the earth’s surface, jostling each other, crumpling up their margins to produce mountain ranges, or colliding then driving down into the Earth mantle  to produce earthquakes and  in some places like the margins of the Pacific Ocean and Indonesia violently erupting volcanoes.  

Much of the cause of Indonesia’s intensive vulcanism lies with neighboring Australia. 

The continent of Australia is unique in that it occupies its own “Australian” crustal plate. More than 80 million years ago the Australian plate and Antartica (another crustal plate) were part of a former larger  “supercontinent”—-known as Gondwana.  About 47 million years ago, for some unknown as yet reason, the Australian plate broke away from Gondwana  and began moving northward at a rate of about three inches per year (7.8 cm).  The world wide average rate of growth (or movement) for crustal plates  is only 0.6 inches per year (1.5 cm) or the rate of fingernail growth.  Thus the Australian plate is moving five times faster than the average.

It may have taken about 40 million years for it to eventually collide with the Sunda section of the Eurasian  plate.  As the result of this collision, parts of the Australian plate has been  driven under the Eurasian plate. The thrusting continued to press the slab downward into the hot mantle, undergoing a process termed subduction. As this part of the Australian plate descended, its slope and frictional drag tended to pull  down parts of the surface of the Earth’s ocean crust to form a deep ocean trench, today known as the Java or Sunda Trench. This ocean-bottom feature is more than 2,000 miles long and in places over 4.5 miles deep.  The deep,  long curving underwater feature, located about 150 miles off the Indonesian coast, parallels the shoreline of western and southern Indonesia. See a world map.

But that is not the end of the story. As parts of the Australian plate descended into the hot mantle, the rock slab of the Australian crustal plate  began to melt.  This now molten rock material, forming a mass less dense than its surroundings, created  “blobs” of molten rock or magma. The hot molten mass tends to rise toward the surface. The process is similar to what one can observe  in a paraffin “Lava Lamp” as bubbles of melted colored paraffin rise toward the top of the lamp.  

Under Indonesia the hot magma derived from the Australian plate actually melts its way upward,  slowly rising though the earth’s crust as it approaches the surface. The massive blob or magma chamber, sometimes tens of miles in diameter or more, may incorporate other rock types into its mass as it rises.  Others may come to rest  lodged close to the surface and may remain in place for millennia. Often  these buried masses of magma  tend to under go chemical and physical alterations to their composition as they age,  sometimes the end product of these alterations  produce magma or molten rock of very viscous (rich in silica)  and charged with superheated gases such as water vapor and carbon dioxide gas.  

 If continuously fed by more moleten material  from below,  the magma chamber may grow larger.  The expansion cause the sloping rock surface of the  overlying volcano to swell and become unstable. Rock slides and down slope movement  (slumping) of the slopes of the volcano may reduce or release the confining pressure on the magma  and gases  trapped in the magma chamber. The instantaneous release of pressure, then may result in a catastrophic violent explosion of the magma and gases into the atmosphere and the eventual emptying of the magma chamber.  This process produces the  violent eruptions and the geologic features we call volcanoes.

I repeat myself here…  but perhaps to good effect.  During an eruption the molten, gas-infused magma may rise from depth to create or  fill a magma chamber within the core of the volcano. These swelling movements on the slope of the volcano may alter the stability of the sloping surface  producing mass wasting or landslides which rapidly expose the buried magma chamber to  the low pressure at the surface.  At this point the gases within the magma expand instantaneously, mix with the viscous molten magma  to form towering clouds of dust and gas, incorporating  lava bombs, coarse particles called tephra, and fine ash..as well as a frothy volcanic rock known as pumice which rise to gret hight above the volcano.  In cases of very gaseous magma, eruptions produce almost lol ash and these  materials fall back to earth, where they accumulate  in cone like geological features we know as cinder volcanoes.   Volcanoes make up the bulk of the landforms all along the Indonesian coast. All are the result of the process of subduction or driving of a h of Australian crustal plate deep into the mantle where it melts. 

The magma which flows into the vent of Mt Tambora  has intermediate levels of silica which make it more viscous. (Lavas can be basaltic (silica poor)…andesitic (intermediate silica)….rhyolitic (rich in silica) ). Tambora, like other steep sided intermediate or composite  volcanoes has periods when it erupts less gaseous magma to form flows of less viscous low gas (basaltic)  content lava. These eruptions form flows more quietly. These steep sided volcanoes have alternate eruptions, gaseous explosive (andesitic and rhyolitic)ones which produce violent explosions and huge clouds of ash and fine particulates alternating with quiet lava (basaltic) flows.  The result of this process is a  volcano with steep sides. 

ON VOLCANOES AND AWARD WINNING DOCUMENTARY FILMS

Except for professional geologists who climb around on the crunchy cinders and sinewy lava slopes  of volcanoes most of us would be unaware of the drama, excitement, danger and global significance of our planet’s volcanoes. That is until very recently.  

Volcanoes are at the center of a new documentary film “Fire of Love 2022” which won the 2023, 95^th Academy Awards.  The film documents the lives and obsession of two French vulcanologists, Karla and Maurice Kraftt. The Kraftts, two determined and perhaps daredevil vulcanologists, followed and photographed volcanic eruptions around the world.  The film follows the lives and professional work of the Kraftts and how they died in April 1991 while photographing the eruption of Mt Unzen, a steep, nearly 5,000 ft high composite cone located on the Shimabara Peninsula, east  of Nagasaki, on one of Japan’s most southern islands. 

The Kraftts and another geologist (Harry Glicken) had set their cameras at what they thought was a safe distance away from the actively erupting peak of Mt. Unzen. They set up their gear in the  flow channel  of a an earlier eruption close to a road about two miles from the belching, eruption at the summit of Unzen. They were not there long  when a massive explosion at the peak released a cloud of hot gases, mixed with fine ash and lava. Much of this material was driven skyward to darken the sky.  As the eruption proceeded, more hot gas (mostly steam and carbon dioxide gas) erupted and mixed intimately with fine ash rock fragments, and liquid spatter of  molten lava to form a very hot (400 F to 1300 F) and very dense cloud, much heavier than air. This material poured like hot molasses from the vent and carried by gravity, swept down the the steep slope at high speed (@ 40-50 miles per hour) following channels on the slope which enveloped the vulcanologists .  The massive cloud of poisonous, steam and burning hot dust cloud may have reached the site of the photographers in perhaps three minutes.  The Kraftt’s camera kept photographing, and has provided us all with the first detailed evidence of this deadly form of volcanic  activity. About 40 others also died further down the slope and in various lower locations.  (The deadly cloud is known as a pyroclastic flow (“pyro”=fiery,  plus, “clastic” = small broken pieces.) 

The film is a tribute to the Kraftts. It should be seen to witness  and understand one of the primal forces of nature. Vulcanism has been a major factor in the formation and evolution of our planet, it’s atmosphere and the diverse organisms which live on its surface. And they continue to do so. It was the release of these hot gases from the Earth’s interior which formed the planet’s early atmosphere.  It has continued over the planet’s  4.5 billion year history…producing bursts of CO2 gas and water vapor which have altered and our plant’s temperature. Then too the dispersion of fine ash dispersed into the upper reaches of the atmosphere have operated to  cool the planet too. Sometimes these eruptions of ash clouds have caused a following year of cold weather or “year with no summer”. But longer  periods of cold conditions have been documented as a result of prolonged eruptions which may have helped to precipitate the several glacial periods which have punctuated the Earth’s long history.. 

 

EAST PALESTINE, OHIO—THE GREEN CURTAIN IS PULLED BACK

Judy Garland as Dorothy Gale, in the “Wonderful Wizard of Oz”, (1939, Frank Baum) pulled back the green curtain in the Emerald City  to expose— not a wizard — but a cranky old man working a series of metal levers and buttons with flashing lights.  When exposed, as a fraud,  the wizard attempts another  ploy.. calling out to them:  ”Pay no attention to that man behind the green curtain”.  Good advice for us all. 

For us, the terrible economic, ecological, and public health disaster of East Palestine, Ohio has “pulled back the green curtain” for us  all.  It has clearly revealed, not a wizard of democracy and fairness in our own “Emerald City” ,but  a cranky old man ineffectively working a series of levers, and flashing lights to create an illusion of being in charge, and working to serve our nation’s needs.

 The East Palestine disaster has revealed in all clarity the deceit and corruption of the present administration, which claims economic and legislative wizardry, but our very eyes and pocketbooks tell a different story, for as we watched it turned world peace into a world at war, a world threatened with nuclear exchanges, it changed our flourishing economy into recession, soaring prices for food and fuel, surging crime waves, and open our borders to uncontrolled mobs who threaten our health and welfare…..Everything it touches turns into excrement.  The old man “Oz” of Emerald City claims he supports the well-being of all Americans, the poor, the working classes, and all those who face adversity.   But in reality these denizens of Emerald City  are self-serving liars and frauds. 

Behind the curtain, our Oz— Joe Biden— pulls levers as he hoarsely whispers  into a megaphone. His amplified voice blares loudly from behind the curtain :, “ This is the real deal—our  southern border is closed”———“there is no inflation”—-“ those Black-Lives-Matter-riots were only peaceful demonstrations”— —“East Palestine water is safe to drink”— “that train derailment was caused by Trump—and it is not a disaster”.

The East Palestine disaster exposed the truth—that the Biden Administration is unconcerned about the wellfare  of all Americans, abandoning  “democracy”, fairness, or even the basic security needs of the nation as a whole. The Democrats over the last few years have morphed from a once truly national party..into one dominated by a tiny radical-left fringe.

Democrats have cobbled together a constituency of fringe minorities, incorporating socialist elements of the far left, radical feminists, pro-abortion fanatics, climate-disaster zealots, social malcontents, undocumented immigrants, and radical racial, ethnic and dysfunctional sexual and gender groups.  To remain in power,  they have  turned from advocating for the needs of the nation as a whole, to focus on empowering and fulfilling the agenda of a coalition of several tiny diverse and radical minority groups.  Thus, by attempting to govern by satisfying the perceived needs of a mere scant minority of the population, they fail miserably as a national political party.  

Why have they so horribly mismanaged the nations affairs?   Because they are making no attempt to manage the wellfare of the entire nation…they exist to advance the welfare and interests of only a tiny minority of our wide and broad nation.

Seen this way,  the chaos and disaster of millions of illegal immigrants surging  across both our southern and Canadian borders is explicable, as is the 40 year high inflation spiral, soaring fuel prices, the wide-spread incompetence of an administration which prefers and selects for “diversity” over competence, or the epidemic of crime, violence, and racial animosity which has so exemplified these two years of the Biden Administration.

This most recent denouement came on February 3, 2023 as the result of an awful tragedy.  As they passed through the small town of East Palestine, Ohio, 38 tank cars of  the Norfolk Southern Railway company carrying toxic chemicals derailed and spilled a mix of volatile, flammable chemicals in the town’s  center.  The gooey liquid spill posed a disposal problem and limited the rail traffic along the tracks.   The company, faced with a costly and lengthy cleanup, which would have entailed scraping up of contaminated soil and disposing it responsibly, instead decided on a quick and dirty solution. They dug a hole in the ground into which the dangerous  material  drained (which likely seeped into the subsoil) and when full, they burned the toxic chemicals .  Thus converting  the smaller volume of liquid waste into a toxic, towering,  black cloud that rose into the atmosphere and spread over the town, county and state dispersing the noxious chemical  combustion products and dangerous particulates far and wide.  Subsequent clean-up in the burn area of the resulting dry ash and combustion products  from the earlier “controlled burn” wafted even more toxic materials in the form of fine air borne particulates into the surrounding air from which it probably settled causing more contamination.  

This “solution” is very reminiscent of the now infamous military burn pits of Iraq. That sad experience has revealed the terrible long term health consequences of these military disposal efforts by burning wastes. The US Veteran Administration is still paying Iraq veterans for their exposure to burn toxins  and to diseases resulting from exposure .

The Biden Administration, completely ignored the East Palestine disaster for weeks, only eventually going there after former President Trump arrived with sympathy, and pallets of bottled drinking water .  

These folks are white, working class Americans.  They do not belong to Biden’s  radical fringe constituency.  For that reason they have been abandoned, and left on their own to suffer the consequences of living in the land of Biden. 

But for the folks of East Palestine and the rest of the nation—the great majority of Americans — the green curtain has been drawn back to expose the inner working of “Emerald City” where if you are white, working class, tax paying citizens, you get no help, no attention, no funds, and no respect from the Democrats in DC.  

To underscore the depth of the radical-fringe left’s disdain for decent working class Americans, the parted  green curtain also exposed a hate-filled Joy Behar.  Behar a political commentator on TVs “View”revealed on national TV what leftists really think. For Behar, the suffering Ohio residents who can no longer sell their homes, or safely live there, breath the air, or drink  the local water, “got what they deserved” because they “probably voted for Trump”. 

We should all remember well this Wizard of Oz  “green curtain” event in Ohio, when next we all have the opportunity  to pull back a voting machine lever once again.  It can not come too soon. 

 

BIDEN IN KYIV-TRYING TO START WWIII

 President Biden, had a week of unprecedented scandal and disaster, in which he “Don Quixote-like” took part in shooting down a kid’s toy balloon and several weather balloons with F22s using  $400,000 rocketry. This idiotic bravado took place only after first ignoring a Chinese spy balloon—, then lying about it, then permitting the actual and real intelligence  threat to float across the nation  —giving the CCP full access to our nation’s secrets.  This  balloon was shot down only after leaving  our shores.  Biden ordered its downing at sea rather than over land. His purpose: by collecting the debris at sea, only the FBI would have access to evidence. Now, the real nature, spying potential, and perhaps national embarrassment, of the “spy balloon” will never be known.

Biden showed up in Kyiv this week to bolster his poll numbers which were crashing like the rocket-penetrated  “spy balloon”. But to do so he had to  give away another $500 million tranche of US citizen’s cash.  We are now in the hole there for more than $100 billion.  His appearance in Kyiv will not help his poll numbers. Stumbling about with his mask-like face and stiff gait he does not look “strong” or like a “world leader”.  The image of his frailty and weakness is reinforced by his stumbling as he climbs back into Air Force One.  These are definitely not images his handlers had hoped for.  Those at home are not pleased either, they can not forget he left our shores in turmoil and disaster.  

He sneaked into Kyiv bearing gifts, while he completely  ignored the social, economic and ecological disasters at home. He left behind a nation suffering a raging forty-year high inflation-rate spiral, an ecological disaster in East Palestine Ohio, and an 800% surge of  illegals trudging through the snow over our northern Canadian border.   We are being invaded now in all directions, with all our borders under attack.  The Mexican border has been overrun by a two year long swarm of millions of illegals. The massive crowds of undocumented have become a commonplace occurrences that the Bidenworld has worked diligently  to hide. They regularly sweep these illegals under the rug (and some into 84 former swanky hotels in Manhattan ).  These domestic  disasters and scandals are studiously ignored by Joe and the his “progressive” media co-conspirators propagandists who hide his incompetence, corruption, faux pas  and exaggerate his supposed abilities. 

Biden has lavished a hundred  billion dollars (of borrowed US money) in Ukraine,  to widen, intensify and prolong a vicious deadly war in Central Europe. His acts of escalation threaten a wider war…perhaps WWIII.  Biden has no mandate from Congress for war.  He has no end plan for this war, or even faint idea of an exit strategy.  Appearances suggest he has largely given decision making over war and peace decisions there  to a corrupt former TV comedian and Ukrainian leader who clearly has his own self aggrandizing agenda.  

The conflict is largely the end-result of Biden’s own post-Afghanistan withdrawal weakness, his failed foreign policy and his total rejection of any diplomatic solutions. Biden marches around in Central Kyiv,  arm in arm with Zelenskyy as fake sirens blare,  while giving the proverbial finger to the desperate needs of our own citizens. 

 Shame on you Joe, you were never the top of your class, or sharpest knife in the drawer, but at least your incompetence, nepotism, and corruption was somewhat limited as “Senator from Delaware”,  but as “President”, you have become a threat not only to the peace and security of  the USA but to the entire  world at large.  In short, you are a national and international disgrace. 

POLICE REFORM—QUALIFIED IMMUNITY or VIGILANTISM ?

 As American citizens we face a grave problem. Crime is rampant, guns are commonplace, violence threatens us all.  We desperately need a strong, well trained, confident and physically capable police force to enforce laws. Remember these are the laws we citizens and our representatives debate and then  pass into legislation.  We make the laws and then send police officers out onto the streets and byways to enforce these laws. We can not task these men and women with this difficult job, then, when opposition and violence erupts —as they attempt to follow our dictates,—we remove our support and charge the police— with criminality.  

Qualified immunity (legal principle that grants officials of government qualified immunity from criminal or civil suit while in the performance of their duty) is an essential component of any police reform program. Without this there is no hope for effective policing.  Police officers are not automatons.  They react to circumstances as the rest of us do.  They are tasked with dealing with the most difficult and violent situations in society. 

When community support is weakened or withdrawn police respond. Faced with the potential loss of their job, their income and the real threat of criminal charges, and perhaps jail….they react logically.  Yes, they will daily burnish their badge, but when conflict looms, they will, perhaps with regrets, turn away.   Potential violence and conflicts, are avoided,  particularly in circumstances where these representatives of the law are most needed—in the black and brown communities —where too often crime is rampant .  Functional policing disappears when qualified immunity for officers is weakened or removed. Law abiding citizens are left bereft of protection and must fend for themselves. Vigilantism, chaos and violence result. 

Our police must be well trained, both legally and physically.  A police officer should be well versed in the law, have the physical confidence to enforce the law, subdue a perpetrator or felon, and ability to de-escalate confrontations. But at the most basic the job requires an officer to be physically capable of subduing and arresting those who are breaking the law.  They must enforce the laws. Yes, police officers, must be trained in those physical skills that, at minimum, permit the officer to restrain and subdue and arrest a violent perpetrator who is danger to him or herself or the community at large.  The officer should be able to make an arrested  without having to resort to deadly force.  Yes, size and physical strength are a factor. 

Let us not ignore that the primary responsibility of state and municipal authorities is to insure the safety of its law abiding citizens so they can carry on their lives and businesses in safety.

The alternative is chaos, rising crime, vigilantism, an armed citizenry and decline of our cities. 

USA MEDIA CENSORSHIP—-LIKE EAST GERMANY?

 The former German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, and I are contemporaries, though we never met and both lived in very different worlds. I was raised in Brooklyn, New York while she lived in Communist East, Germany, behind the great concrete Berlin Wall dividing her nation at the time.  What we did have in common was German heritage, and as youngsters we both liked to read newspapers and were interested in politics and current events.  In  Brooklyn, New York, in the 1960s I lived in the world’s most freethinking               free nation.  I was able to read the (formerly great) “Gray Lady” of Times Square, NY (NYT), as well as the NY Daily News, the NY Post and even the Brooklyn Eagle. These news papers did have their Opinion and Editorial sections, but by and large the news they printed existed to inform rather than “conform” and control reader’s thinking.  On the other side of the Atlantic, Angela resided in a very different controlled and censored world.  For her, she had only heavily censored  propaganda sheets ( viz. Russian Pravda, and Neue  Deutschland which functioned to control, and mold her thoughts, rather than inform.  Ms Merkel famously described how in her youth, aware what she was reading was propaganda, had to learn to “read between the lines” to get at the truth about what was actually happening in Germany and the wider world.

In Angela’s East Germany, the communist government applied an informal form of censorship, practiced through a powerful apparatus controlled by the dominant political party.  The goal was to ensure that all forms of art, culture, literature and public communication, “news” and public discourse was controlled so as to support one cause, or political point of view. Rumors, half truths or actual lies might be used to promote a cause or influence public opinion.    Content was controlled so as to forbid any reports harmful to the GDR. Negative portrayals  of GDR were censored  as well. Censorship was never admitted as such and remained as “unofficial”. But all artists and authors knew that GDR censors would review  their work.  If they stayed from acceptable materials their manuscripts would simply never  be published.  In effect to insure publication ( and remuneration) of their work they simply self censored and complied.  To avoid being rejected  or punished for straying from “acceptable” work authors conformed and in this way unofficial censorship functioned and controlled information. Aware of this,  authors, artists, musicians journalists and creators,  simply worked to fit their production  into the accepted guidelines.    Journalists were seen as functionaries of the the state and the communist party.  Accepted journalists belonged to a journalist’s collective . The institutionalized informal manner  of censorship made official censorship unnecessary.  Does this sound familiar? 

Over the last five or more decades Angela’s world and mine seems to have changed places.  The USA, formerly the land of free speech, of our cherished First Amendment, has silently and in a sinister way morphed into Angela’s old censored world of now defunct East Germany.  Our journalists of the left have in large part become  agents of the establishment state.  Our mainstream media (NYT) have morphed into the likes of Neues Deutschland and Pravda-like propaganda sheets.  Our TV programs, entertainment, movies, and especially so-called  “news casts” exist (with few exceptions) to propagandize, to alter and straight-jacket our thought, rather than functioning to inform voting citizens.  

There are no official censors in the the USA, but like former East Germany, authors and performers fearful of becoming outcasts— self-censor to protect their positions and incomes. The “establishment” media, newspapers and TV programs, exist to mold  the thinking of their readers, listeners, or subscribers to their own particular political and social dogma, such as: the nation’s history, political issues, foreign policy,  economics, and social issues like gender, race, or religion.  And they will stoop to deceit, lies, half truths and even obfuscation of science to control informationn and influence public opinion.   

No longer do they respect  the concept of democracy…that the majority rules. That  “all the people” even the unwashed masses have rights.  To these folks…the elites, the government officials, the over educated, the few, believe that they can—must— decide what is “good” for the nation. Others simply are to be ignored.   

The left respects only those views that they themselves hold.  Like the communists of the now defunct East German government —they think their view is the only valid truth and will use the  consequentialist’s Machiavelli philosophy of the“ends justify the means” to undermine our nation’s values and freedoms to reach their immoral goals.  

Now like Angela, who spent her youth behind the Berlin Wall, we face that same problem and have to learn to read “between the lines” to understand the harsh reality of a censored world. 

BIDEN’S “ACCOMPLISHMENTS” —FIRST TO SINGLEHANDEDLY CAUSE INFLATION SPIRAL

PRESIDENT JOE’S “ACCOMPLISHMENTS”.  

The oldest President to ever serve in the White House.

The only President to facilitate foreign spying by allowing a Chinese spy balloon to penetrate our borders and wander across the entire nation taking pictures and listening to secret government conversations. 

But perhaps the above was to be expected, since he was also the first President to preside over and persist in maintenance of an open southern border with Mexico, through which millions of illegals have passed.  So why not open skies?

And most egregiously he was the FIRST EVER TO SINGLEHANDEDLY CAUSE AN ECONOMIC DISASTER —-raising inflation since elected by almost 14%— HIS OWN INFLATIONARY SPIRAL!! 

Bidenflation of 2021-2023

Since 1929 every inflationary spiral was caused by the scarcity, or the high price of petroleum products.  These hurtful economic hardships of the past were all caused by external events, mostly beyond the control of the government.   That is until President Biden purposely and intentionally put executive orders into effect which caused shortages of fuel oil, gasoline and natural gas which sparked an inflationary spiral

Inflation was always a terrible threat to economic security. Over the last near century, inflation was largely under control —except for times of energy scarcity. 

1929–In cheap energy and boom times of 1929 inflation was recorded at only 0.6%

1930–During the 1930s inflation remained low during the Great Depression

1940–Then in 1941-1942 inflation hit a peak of 9-10%, during the war years when fuel was rationed, when large portions of oil production were consumed by the war effort. Other factors, i.e.  shortages of consumer goods, etc. exacerbated these fuel shortage effects.

1950–Inflation returned again during the Korean War (1950-1951 at 6%) for reasons similar to those of 1941. 

1970–Then again in 1970, inflation spiked to 6% due to the Vietnam War ( high oil prices).The  massive deficit spending of the  Johnson “Great Society” also contributed. 

1973–By 1973-4 the Arab Oil Embargo drove inflation to 12%. The oil embargo was instituted by oil-producing Arab states as  retaliation for US support and resupply of the Israeli forces during the Yom Kippur War.   Arab members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting  Countries (OPEC) cut sales to the US and several of its allies. This was a time when the US was importing 82% of its oil from the Middle East.  With the majority of ME oil unavailable,  prices flared to nearly 400% of what they were before the embargo. The “oil shock” caused long lines to at gas stations,  gasoline was rationed, lights were turned off at Times Square, big gas guzzler American cars remained unsold, and inflation and unemployment spiraled out of control. 

1978–But the highest inflation ever ( almost 15% ) occurred between 1978-1979 as a result of the Iranian Revolution. In 1978 the US puppet government of Shah Pahlavi was overturned by the Iranian Revolution.  Iranian oil production declined by 5 million barrels per day, or 7% of world production at that time. At a time of high worl wide demand for oil the 7% cut in production was enough to spark an inflationary spiral that was not tamed until 1982.  To control inflation the US Fed had to raise the lending rate to an unprecedented 19%.  Inflation was beat down to about 4% but the resulting economic decline caused the Great Recession of the early 1980s. 

1980–After the mid/1980s inflation caused by oil shortages remained  under control for the next 41 years. 

2021–That is until Biden was elected.  In 2021 President Joe Biden, apparently unconcerned and  blithely unaware of a near century of economic history, imposed a series of executive orders curtailing the fossil fuel industry and caused oil shortages.  Inflation immediately spiked to about 8%. The next year, 2022 to 9% (about what it was during WWII) and falling to 6.5% in early 2023 , equal to the level experienced during Vietnam War).  But those are year over year changes. His actual impact on inflation should be measured from when he was elected to the present.     Since Biden was elected to the present time —-inflation has increased almost 13.7%.  

For the first time in history, a president singlehandedly manufactured his own inflationary spiral by unwise executive orders which in effect cut  the supply of oil and other fossil fuels in an insane attempt to satisfy the climate zealots, and extremists in the socialist left wing of his party.  To fight climate change we need, more than ever, a stable, low cost energy source…

Then not to simply happy to confine high fuel prices to the USA, Biden’s extremist handlers decided to cut the delivery of cheap, clean, natural gas to Europe too!  Recent investigations indicate the Biden Administration was behind the blowing up of the Nordstream I and II  Pipelines  insuring that Europe will have high fuel prices, and high  inflation too.