Y2K still ongoing is not computer chip brains but human ones

Well, it is time for hindsight mode again (I wonder what was in mind when that word "hindsight" was coined), or "Monday morning quarterbacking," as it is called in different circles. As the smoke from the electioneering clears today, words need writing: Once again coming to the conclusion that Americans - and most likely the rest of humanity - are far from being the best long term thrivers on this planet that we can be, thinking as I arose that there ought to now be a scientific study that uses the experiences of the election yesterday, and all that led up to it, to discover the processes that were actually used to make the results happen. Especially that which influences people in making voting decisions, and other group decisions. Well, individual decisions too, and actually it all involves that, come to think of it. Then I realized that the "GOP" which was in power when the decisions were made to make war in the Middle East desert countries and then economic system decisions that all compounded to make the mess the country is in right now (but lots of other factors too, like ordinary people getting loans to live in fine houses then resell at a profit, no value added, surely knowing it just the old "pyramid" scam again but big time) are actually increasing in power, per the voting yesterday. So the forces that determine voting must be strange indeed. If they were fully explored, without bias, and made public to everybody, would that enable America to once again be the feedback-controlled country she supposedly is, the supposedly best form of government that exists? A moment's thought showed that most likely these "hidden" voting preference principles are most likely already long known (and kept hidden, for their personal power) by those who set up the GOP "wins" yesterday ... instead of the GOP having been disbanded due to the terrible mess and loss of life etc they had caused in the first eight years of this millennium. Then I recalled the decision to make war on Iraq, which we now know was based on false intelligence gathering. (Even early in the war, when it was declared that there were no hidden Iraq WMDs, why did we not immediately stop the war and begin reparations?) (and if the having of WMD's was excuse for declaring war on a country, we ourselves have the most WMD's of any nation right now as back then too; so why was that any kind of excuse to attack whatsoever?) Yesterday in the news was a brief paragraph on the Bush Jr president's memoroirs saying he "had a sinking feeling" when WMD's were not found in Iraq, as the war was still ongoing full blast against Iraq) my thoughts went back to when I had made, as a "nobody" in a small group but who had been asked my opinion, if we should go to war against Iraq: I was sitting in a cafeteria, having stressful lunch with two people; we were the last remnants of the once highly impressive L A Chapter of the ISSS - International Society for System Sciences - and were meeting at that table in a trendy cafeteria, because there was no free meeting hall for the group to meet at anymore. We had resorted to this same cafeteria several times already; all three of us had to travel a long way to meet there but it was about equal distance for all of us. One was a PhD professor of economics at Long Beach State; the other a long time bigwig non-management in high tech defense industries; and I was a college dropout, not sure why this esteemed group had continued to invite me to the meetings for so many years. But it was my rare contact with people of intelligence, and I attended the meetings and had given some talks at the meetings too over the years. And had thereby become aware of people who were of high intelligence who were concerned with "System Science" (It had been called "GSR "General Systems Research" when I first joined the LA group) but the original group founder had suddenly gone "under cover" after linking up with a very sexy lady member, and the group occasionally mentioned this odd fact; another person, the economics professor, then volunteered to keep the group alive as best he could, but he never had the ability and connections that the suddenly-secretive & missing former leader had been, and in the years since then the group had dwindled, from a couple dozen members who were able to get a free room to meet in the prestigious and secretive RAND corporation, down to these three people munching and talking at a public restaurant, about world affairs. Anyway, I was at that table - feeling quite vulnerable due to the weird phenomena of tiny things apparently being thrown sometimes into my food or drink, that resulted in me making odd decisions afterwords - we were talking about the question of whether to go to war against Iraq or not. I was mostly just listening as usual. The guy who was the defense worker excused himself to go to the restroom, and while he was gone, I asked the economics prof how could Iraq have hidden WMDs after all the inspections that had gone on. The professor had been a Jesuit of some influence and continued to be highly connected to them he said, but had wanted to do his current path and get married eventually - he quite positively told me that there were WMD's hidden in an unfinished subway tunnel in Baghdad; he seemed absolutely sure of that. The defense worker guy returned from the restroom and the conversation resumed as before; we all stated our decision as to go to war or not. Both looked at me, what would I decide, was the question. I was on the spot, pressured, and based on the data that there were hidden WMDs hidden in a subway tunnel in Bagdad, I agreed, go to war. We finished our soup-and-salad and left to live our separate ways again. War was declared and put into action by our nation. Now yesterday when I read of Bush's despair when no WMDs were found in Iraq and we had sent the mighty power of American military might to wreak havoc against that country clearly based on false information, I can see how one could get pushed into the decision. But Congress had to approve of it too before the war started; they all to had to have had their reasons to have voted to go to war. Was it all decided just like my dinner-table suddenly-asked opinion regarding that?- and in my case clearly was being deliberately manipulated by outside influences in highly uncomfortable personal ongoing situations? (Restaurants have always been a poor place for me to be. Others don't seem to have that problem.) Again, why did we not immediately halt the war against Iraq when it was found there were no WMDs there? (And again, if the having of WMDs was an excuse to go to war, we ourselves were the currently worst offenders on that parameter) I wonder. Somehow the purpose of the war had shifted from WMD possession to that of killing the country' leader, Saddam Hussein. Boom boom continued the bunker buster bombs dropped here and there, destroying the homes and lives of rich and poor alike, excused by such things as "someone said they saw Saddam go into that house." No apology given. Among the bodies in the resulting crater, no Saddam, once again. What was going on, why had we not immediately pulled out of Iraq? Thinking back, I realize that the process of American decisions could be quite illuminated by that data, and related data. The elder Bush had wisely avoided entering Baghdad in the earlier war that was justified by Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, knowing that to totally break the military might of Iraq would destabilize the Iraq-Iran impasse, resulting in turmoil of a kind we did not think desirable. We had opened up a pandora's box with the sectarianism in Iraq that was long and widely known before that. It was a really heavy thing to do. But the war continued, apparently we were hypnotized by the utter violence of it all and we were so overwhelmingly militarily powerful surely we could not lose, so we kept bashing away - this phenomenon also needs to be fully understood in its accuracy by all Americans, to learn from our mistakes, if nothing else, and hopefully be able to do better next time. Just as my pressured unexpected decision was at the restaurant, it looks like the then President also made the same wrong decision, and also Congress, were all of us suddenly getting tipped at the last instant to make the same direction wrong decision? How could that be? And then there were the causes for continuing the war, that need to be clearly found and understood and made available to all Americans, to learn from our mistakes. Well, lots of powerful people will refuse to acknowledge making mistakes, and will use their power to cover them up, and they get well prepared to do that kind of thing. In fact, I have a hunch that the present GOP push is all that phenomenon. Worse, I remember roots of this going back to the early 1960's, militant politicals still busy in the background, very cleverly and ... better not mention it. Aargh, what a mess. Although, everybody - everybody! - always does the very best they can do, based on their perception of the situation and their individual capabilities; this needs to be remembered. Yet the excitement seems to enliven the public; is it a craving for drama that is fanning the fires ... to just get relief from a boring daily routine existence? It seems that we humans could do vastly better, but something often unseen is keeping us from being that way. It would be helpful to understand it all, but that knowledge needs to be learned and known by every single person, not solely held by power-crazed groups that are puppeteering us at times while living out their own traumas.