Miami, city of vice, Breezy just put me on the game, and told me my new girl was running the import export trade from Istanbul to Miami, says I’ve got to go undercover and bring her in, before I do that, I’ve got to read that game plan, and I’ve got to have fun in Miami, ha, ha ha … naughty …..
Minus the Istanbul bit, strictly speaking, and while Pitbull won’t change his lyrics for me, he might agree it fits in rather neatly. Both cities have reputations that precede them, and often feature as locations for big movies that involve criminal activity, and there’s a wannabe gangster in all us goody goody entrepreneurs isn’t there? If only life depicted on Pitbull’s music videos was available somewhere other than on his music videos, for real, as a reward for being a straight dealing sort of a guy, relatively speaking. But it isn’t, is it? Unless you’re Pitbull.
And I like import export, especially when you make a thing in one place and sell it another, but that’s not why I’m here this time, I just took a wrong turn in a city I’d never driven in before, and got lost in the massive Miami Port complex at dawn fresh off an overnight flight, and got followed doing it!
I’m actually here to take advantage of a once in a lifetime opportunity.
Everyone thinks they know better when it comes to policy choices, and I’m no different. I’ve learnt it’s best not to expect anything more than inconsistency and incompetence from a bunch of people elected to spend other people’s money.
You don’t expect them to prioritise outcomes over intentions, or bring the law of unintended consequences, or even human nature, into the equation. Why should they? And a little bit of corruption comes as a relief, frankly, if the attitude is right ….. and a sign of humanity.
So I set the bar pretty low, even when it comes to free market capitalism, which is the healthy kernel of modern life. Where socialism is concerned, or any of its strains, I expect nothing at all but misery and division.
Mostly you agree with 50% of what a person or party says, then if they win they go off on another tack and you get 25% of what you voted for if you’re lucky.
The type of people who might stick to principles they profess, and manifestos they promise, aren’t suited to the political world. Politics, more than most other sectors or disciplines, is dominated by career politicians. They are the hungry wolves that keep the sheep in the fold, mostly for their fleece and skins. It’s almost impossible for an outsider, a good shepherd, to break into the fold. And even less likely, once there, that shepherd could hold position and rule effectively. Boy would the wolves howl if they did, and gnash their teeth, and wait to take revenge when exit time came. So the poor shepherd would certainly have to fight his way out.
Who is equipped with the experience and qualities to pull off a heist like that, except in their dreams?
I’ve come to Miami to support a man who I think can. His name is Donald Trump. He’s a New York real estate developer, and a reality TV host, and he’s got Tiger type A blood in his veins. He’s survived two divorces and bankruptcy, which means an emotional mauling and debt rescheduling in his world. He has a sense of humour, a turn of expression, and a down to earth attitude that connects him to the working class, especially blue collar workers. Most importantly, years cutting his teeth in one of the toughest business environments has created inner instincts that can detect a con artist, scam, hoax or phoney, a mile off. And where instincts boldly go, evidence so often follows. Simple business pride will prevent him being ripped off like a shameless politician.
In short, he’s nuclear bomb proof, and fit for purpose.
From my humble observatory in Istanbul, with closeups of local ruffians running rings around gullible Western leaders, Trump looked like he was made of the right stuff to change the dynamic. I lobbied him to run, for my selfish reasons, like so many others in America did for theirs.
And when he accepted the challenge, I felt obliged to play my part, as far as opportunities arose.
So the flight from Istanbul to Miami is predatory rather than migratory, I’m moved more by give than take, and I’m not dropping bombs or drugs or guns, I’m delivering what in the right hands can do real damage, and that is leverage. You won’t hear Pitbull singing about that, though he uses leverage every day of his life like we all do. The only difference is in the aim. This leverage has been designed with an extra long lever to shift an extra heavy weight.
This leverage has been designed to help get an outsider into the White House.
Now I like Bernie Saunders. He reminds me of Doc Brown in Back To The Future. But he’s an insider who looks like an outsider because he’s not much good, he’s a journeyman who spent his 20 something years in the Congress to no great effect, he harks back to the bygone age of hippies and hope and Woodstock and smoke, and many young people yearn for the simple radicalism of those times, when a CND tattoo, a kaleidoscope, a Hendrix poster and a water bed was all you needed to get laid.
It’s so complicated now, because Old School Socialism doesn’t work. And there is something suspicious about its successor Progressive Socialism that seeks to take from capitalism what it rather likes, mostly the money, while ignoring what it doesn’t, like competition and risk. As if capitalism cheated, and deprived socialism of the startup capital it needed, so it went bust first time around. But hey, let’s pony up and go again.
I’d have so much more fun if I called this migration ‘Journey For Bernie’ and went off in search of some decent company and a party or two. I could even have squared it with my conscience on the basis that Bernie gives his successors the Progressive Socialists a run for their money.
Unfortunately when Donald Trump entered the race last year, all those nice, cosy possibilities disappeared. According to my calculations, he was the only political outsider in America who stood a realistic chance of upsetting the status quo, getting into the White House, and fixing things.
It’s shoulder to the mill for me because I’ve suffered from the side-effects of political insiders as a neo-colonial prospector in Istanbul. If it was just ending up on the wrong side of the law of unintended consequences, I’d be more tolerant, but at times it appeared to be the deliberate application of cause and effect to further some dark agenda. Who throws radical petrol on a revolutionary fire to put it out? Perhaps the surprise when it burned out of control was genuine. Or little Barry is as disparaged by his detractors, a big student revolutionary trying to climb out of a little community activist.
I’m after his general attitude, and I thought he was taking Third Party leverage too lightly.
In fact, from the outset, I thought he had the potential with the right running partner to win as an Independent. If he had enough money at his disposal. And under certain conditions to win with a landslide unprecedented in American political history. And I still think that, despite the And thinking in this context is an objective comprehensive process that is nearly always right.
Which is why old school Archimedes styled third party leverage, dropped at the right moment in the right places by the right hand, had potential to move weights it had no right to. As time ran out, and the math suggested a Cruz and Kasich rearguard action would see the GOP Primary contest through to a brokered convention, Trump’s Third Party leverage bluff was losing its leverage power. And his winning streak didn’t look like it was going to be enough. That was the moment to strike.
A week after the Miami Drop, Cruz and Kasich capitulated, and the RNC chairman Reince Priebus declared Trump presumptive nominee. The establishment, even Trump and his team, are still shaking their heads in disbelief. Only Archimedes has that knowing smile. And maybe a casino magnate in Vegas, or an oil baron in Dallas. And of course Pitbull.
That required some hasty media repositioning of the campaign away from Trump leverage towards the other half on the proposed campaign ticket. And, as Tarantino would have it in his storytelling style, that will be revealed in the next Chapter of the gruesome Win Back The White House campaign, the Manhattan Transfer.
But before that, it’s rubber to tarmac, I’m in a big rig, heading to a small gig. See ya.
Arrived just another Gringo, first stop a Motel run down by Amigo, spoke more Spanish than he spoke English, 5am alarm, to catch the drop on Ocean Drive, wrong bridge, made circles in Miami Port, they must have thought I was in the game, there was this stationary car at a crossroads, made a right, it followed, to a dead end. I guess we were both lost, ashamed, I tried to stay cool, soft on the pedals, keep off the kerbs, if anyone was watching on satellite or drone, I’d made the drop while he was on the phone, after that, back on track, got to have fun in Miami …….. ha ha, ha …….. Chris Brown you set it off …….