Described as "pragmatically reckless with a high tolerance for ambiguity," Dr. Cliff Kurtzman is the founder of The Domino Principle. He is also an award winning entrepreneur, speaker, trend forecaster, and M.I.T.-trained rocket-scientist. Over the past 25 years, Cliff has launched several highly successful ventures by seeing technology trends in the world before they became widely realized, figuring out how they would impact our lives and then creating businesses that leveraged those trends ahead of many others. His bio is at http://www.kurtzman.biz.
Rather than confront those in our community who are gaslighted, sometimes it is more productive to just walk away and save our voice for more important battles. Photo of author by Georgette Pierson.
With each snip of the hair stylist’s scissors, I yearn for the weight of the world to be lifted from my shoulders, but instead the burden just seems to get heavier and heavier, until finally I seem to have no choice left other than to shrug. By the time my haircut is done, I am forced to conclude that the gal who has been cutting my hair every two months or so for the past two-and-a-half years will no longer be getting my business. And that there are lessons to be learned from this experience that can help all of us take positive action to fight the darkness that pervades America today.Continue Reading >>
Donald Trump and Vladamir Putin in Helsinki, July 16, 2018. Via www.kremlin.ru and used under license.
In a disaster entirely of his own making, the President of the United States stood alongside Vladamir Putin at a press conference in Helsinki, Finland on July 16, 2018 and confirmed to the entire world what so many of us already knew: Donald John Trump has betrayed his duty to America, and acts as though he is beholden to and under undue influence of Putin in ways that constitute an extraordinary betrayal of his oath of office.
And that’s just what we know from Trump’s public statement with Putin. Because Trump has been silent on the matter, we still have virtually no specifics about what Trump discussed and promised to Putin in their private meeting. There are reports coming out of Russia that agreements were in fact reached, and given that Trump won’t say anything about them, it seems likely that they could very well constitute an even vastly greater betrayal of American interests. See: US offers no details as Russia claims Trump and Putin reached military agreements.Continue Reading >>
Donald Trump learned last week of indictments being handed down by the US Department of Justice confirming what he already knew, namely that Vladimir Putin’s military launched a coordinated cyber-attack on America in 2016. Some of these attacks appear to have taken place within hours of Trump’s direct request for Russia to undertake them.
Trump then stated this past week, publicly, “Putin’s not my enemy.”
Russia, and it’s murderous dictator, Vladimir Putin, are clearly the enemies of the United States. Yet, Trump says Putin isn’t his enemy. Why?Continue Reading >>
As we celebrate Independence Day, it is a good time to remember that we owe our heritage to those who had the courage to stand up to tyranny, and who fought for freedom and democracy. At no time, at least within my lifetime, has our country needed to remember this more than today.
Our President has declared war on Western democracy and on Western values, as he flirts with neo-fascist leaders around the world, and he gaslights to declare war on truth and the rule of law here at home.
“Like any number of us raised in the late 20th century, I have spent my life perplexed about exactly how Hitler could have come to power in Germany. Watching Donald Trump’s rise, I now understand.” — Harvard professor Danielle Allen
Social media provides a window into how our friends, neighbors and acquaintances view the world that wasn’t present when Hitler rose to power. One of the best, and, at the same time, most terrible things about the current political situation in America is that it provides a glimpse of our community that did not exist in times past. And while social media is often justifiably blamed for exacerbating how lies, distortions, and false narratives are shared and adopted in support of those promulgating nefarious agendas, it can also play a highly positive role in debunking falsehoods, in uniting people together in positive directions, and in understanding whom within our circle of friends and acquaintances does not support the basic democratic ideals that have traditionally united us as Americans.Continue Reading >>
President’s Day is a good time to reflect on where your alliances lie.
Today we celebrate President’s Day, a patriotic holiday that is normally a time when we commemorate our history and our democracy, and we honor those who have served to lead it. But this year is different… it comes as an opportunity to contemplate the horrific reality that We the People have created for ourselves, and to reflect upon how we might move forward as a nation to remedy the situation.
America had been comfortable for awhile. The country went through a golden age of sorts in the late 20th century, making significant improvements in terms of the health, education, and affluence of its citizens. That age has ended and those trends have seen dramatic reverses in recent years. Life expectancy is declining in America, and the American system of healthcare available to all but the wealthiest of Americans lags that of many other parts of the developed world. Much of America wallows in deep ignorance and embraces alternative facts and shuns science. (See: Let’s Make America SMART Again.) The income divide between the have’s and the have-not’s grows on an ongoing basis. The secular values of our founding fathers are under assault.Continue Reading >>
How can she (or he) be so blind to that which is so obvious to others?
In my previous article for The Domino Principle, The 10 Reasons People Still Support Donald Trump, I asked and answered a similar question… why do some people cling to support of a President who is so morally reprehensible and so clearly and obviously antithetical to the bests interests of themselves and of America? And in another earlier article, The Destructive Dominoes of Domestic Abuse, I looked at the signs and signals of psychologically abusive and manipulative personal relationships. This column looks at how these two issues are deeply related.Continue Reading >>
Why do so many Americans stand in such stark denial of reality?
The August 2, 2017 Quinnipiac University National Poll found that 61% of American voters disapprove of the job Trump is doing, while 33% approve. With 200 million registered voters in the United States, that means that 66 million people still approve of President Trump.
Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Six months of observation and analysis has allowed me to identify the 10 key motivational factors at play in this situation.Continue Reading >>
From Left: Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, President Donald Trump and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, the morning after the firing of FBI Director Comey. Photo via TASS. American media photographers were not allowed to take photos.
We are not making this up.
In case you were somehow off the grid for the last two weeks, let’s briefly recap just a few of the more salient and perfidious events of the past fortnight before we take a look at how the dominoes may fall in the near future.
On May 9, 2017, United States President Donald John Trump fired F.B.I. Director James Comey, who was also leading the F.B.I.’s investigation into Russian tampering in the 2016 US presidential election as well as the possibility of collusion between Russia and members of Trump’s campaign and administration. Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, reportedly urged Trump to take this action.Continue Reading >>
President Trump and Russian Ambassador Kislyak, the morning after the firing of FBI Director Comey. Photo courtesy Russian Embassy. American media photographers were not allowed to take photos.
May 15, 2017
Open letter to the Honorable Mitch McConnell 317 Russell Senate Office Building Washington, DC 20510 Fax: (202) 224-2499
Re: Termination of the Presidency of Donald John Trump
Dear Majority Leader McConnell,
We are writing to you today to discuss the pivotal and immediate role that you personally play in the very future of the American experiment in democracy, as well as the singular power you have to facilitate the possibility that the Republican Party will retain its hold on the Oval Office and Congress for more than one single term.Continue Reading >>
Strategies for taking command of our lives through seeing "deep repercussions" in world events and realizing how chain reactions can produce future outcomes.
