Your Crap

In my recent "Rush to the Middle" post I decried agendas of the far left and far right in the USA. Though my views haven't changed much over the years, because of shifts in national politics my views have gone from being moderate-libertarian to far left to now center left (and are epitomized by capitalism-saving policies such as universal health care and universal income.) When I called the agendas "your crap" in the above post, I insinuated that the far left and far right agendas were basically the same thing. And that's exactly what I meant. 

 First let me define what I mean by far left and far right. If you can't vote for Biden because he's "republican lite", then you are far left. If you hold your nose and reluctantly vote for Biden your are moderate enough to be considered center left. If you hold your nose and vote for Trump because you can't handle what the left has been up to lately, you are center right. However, if you enthusiastically support Trump, or think that Trump should have more than two terms, you are far right. In other words you don't have to be a full blown communist or white separatist to be far right or far left, you just have to be really enthusiastic about Trump or so enthusiastic about Sanders that you are threatening within a month of the election to not vote for Biden. Let's look at what is the crap flowing from the far right, and then the crap flowing from the far left, so that I can tell you exactly why it is the same crap. 

First the far right bemoans the loss of a Christian America. But this specific brand of Christianity isn't the Black Church, it isn't Catholicism as is practiced by most Latinos, and contrary to popular belief it is most definitely not LDS. The Christianity they are talking about is primarily White and mostly North American, and has historically been very hostile towards other religions such as Catholicism, LDS, Islam and eastern religions. The white separatists I have talked to aren't anti-people-of-color, what they want is white-affirmation, "we want a world safe for white children." The so called loss of Christianity on the right is not much different.

Second the far left seeks for the English language to change in order to affirm minority groups, especially African American and LGBT. This is startling at first to those like me who are extremely concerned for our heterosexual male black friends who are at high risk to be brutalized or killed by law enforcement, because most of those black victims are straight and male. But now with a scortched earth victories in the supreme court on both abortion and gay marriage, where else is the far left to go with their culture war? 

But as one of my center left friends has pointed out, "equal rights for _______ is not _________ affirming." So for example, "equal rights for White Christians is not White Christian affirming." As we can see with this example, this affirmation seeking is essentially asking for a form of supremacy. If American Christianity needs to be preserved through legislation, that is clearly legislating white supremacy. This is the problem with the "your truth/my truth" or "your lived experience" verses "my lived experience" of post modernism, is it validates personal prejudices based on personal experiences, and thus validates racism in general. This is evident in both the far right and the far left right now.

The right was infiltrated by the cancer of post modernism in the George W. Bush years through that president's total reliance on Orwellian language, or what he called "truthiness." But now the far left seems infiltrated by the same mentality, unable to commit to vocabulary needed to form coherent policy. If "toxic masculinity for her may be different than what toxic masculinity for me," then toxic masculinity isn't really anything at all, because for words to be meaningful, they have to mean something. Policy is built on words, no words = no policy.

All of this extremism is very destructive for our democracy, and empowers villains like Trump who thrive in these chaotic circumstances. The far left is perfectly fine with Sanders branding himself as a "socialist," a word the far left fully understands alarms over 50% of the voters in the USA, and distinctly calls for a different form of government than what we have now. Likewise the far right sees the safety of fetuses as more important than a stable democracy. What they both fail to understand is their extremist views are only possible because of our democracy they have such contempt for. If the constitution fails, it is likely that whatever follows will not support the freedom of speech that make their extremist views possible.

Rush to the Middle

My politics haven't changed much in the last 4 years, but COVID-19 pandemic politics have taken my favored policies from being considered radical left to being main stream or moderate left: universal health care and universal income. My views didn't change, the world's views did.

And I am starting to consider a 3rd issue as important as these two, and that is the 1st Amendment, freedom of speech. Radical groups in the USA seem to be attacking this key requirement to making democracy function. On the left we have "cancel culture" seeking to demonize anyone who doesn't comply with the latest post modern jargon and slang. On the right we have Trump supporters endorsing a war against the media, journalism and anything even remotely like politically independent fact checking. The radicals in the USA are becoming incredibly information resistant and extremist.

The fact is Trump is a real threat to democracy, he even says so on a regular basis, asking for more terms, openly interfering with elections, praising dictators, and so on. Trump's followers when pressed seem to believe that our republic has failed as it has legalized abortion, so that democracy is no longer their preferred form of government. 

And what does the far left do in response? The same antisocial and ineffective things they did in 2016, only 100 times worse, with their childish riots and attempts to butcher the English language. Most protests aren't riots, but the riots that have happened have completely replaced the videos of police brutality in the voting public's mind. Their justification for endangering our democracy is that maybe something more Marxist will replace it.

Regardless if you are a left wing or right wing radical, know that something better isn't coming along to save you from representative democracy. If your traitorous antagonism causes the constitution to fail, the USA is done. Power holders tolerating your post modern linguistic games? Done. People tolerating your armory of a gun collection? Over. Your radicalism is a luxury of our constitution, and without it that luxury will no longer be afforded by what follows.

And so yes, the grown ups have work to do. The never Trumpers and moderate liberals have to come together to save our country from your crap. The more you throw tantrums over it, the more you show what an incurable baby you are.

Heinkido: Aikido's Salvation

I have pleaded in the past for Aikidoka to save Aikido through sparring. I have speculated that this may require some Aikido black belt (which I am not) to:

1. Train in MMA to fill out the gaps in Aikido training.
2. Fight in a Tipon/Gathering (weapon fighting event) to find the REAL combative value of Aikido's kata.
3. Cross train in Chinese martial arts to get a sense of the sparring that has been largely lost in Aikido.

Though he didn't wait for me to make these suggestions, Aikido Fresno's Sensei Christopher Hein has done just that:

It's worth noting that Hein is a direct student of the legendary Tim Cartmell, the USA's most respected internal martial artist from an MMA perspective. Tim Cartmell studied the Chinese internal arts until he was winning Sanda tournaments in China before returning to the USA and mastering BJJ as well. He's one of the ultimate masters of that Sumo-like Push Hands sparring missing in Aikido:

And going beyond also studying combat sports, Hein actually fought in a Dog Brothers Gathering using his Aikido weapons technique! So having met all my criteria for saving Aikido (actually a good while before I made any of those suggestions,) what is the quality of Hein's Aikido?

Yes, he REALLY gets Aikido. He gets the exact niche Aikido should fill, covering blind spots missed in combat sports. He really gets live training, and he really understands and appreciates the practical application of Aikido technique:

And you can see the influence of Push Hands in that practice, which is reminiscent of Sumo. And then it becomes obvious - the real application of Aikido is with weapons standing wrist locks are almost useless against an unarmed attacker, but have a higher chance of working against an armed attacker if your goal is to get the weapon rather than to take down the attacker: 

And that's when it becomes obvious that Hein sees Aikido from the most practical view of all, as art that uses weapons:

But Hein's understanding of the unarmed application of Aikido is the most advanced I know of:

Now I don't agree with Hein on a lot of things (what appears to be some very short sparring rounds, certain aspects of knife fighting technique, etc.) but I am not primarily an Aikido practitioner anyhow. I think he's starting to make some serious contributions to the martial arts beyond Aikido. In this video we see actual, factual, legit knife grappling (something we've aspired to at Tres Espadas for years):

Social Media Fasting

At the beginning of the summer my family and I started a bathroom repainting that slowly turned into something of a remodel. It was going to take two weeks. Three months later I realized we were less than half way done, so I decided to fast from social media for until it was done. It was done a few weeks later (a few hours ago.) 

For me social media is primarily blogging, YouTube and facebook. Between the three I spend a vast amount of my spare time. When I sacrificed those until I was done with my goal, I became very focused on completing my goal, AND I had more time for working on it.

I will probably be doing more fasts soon because I am behind on various Game Arts Guild projects. But first I need to get caught up on what I have been missing on YouTube...