Trump – Dennis C Merritt

DAnon 1 — Meta Conspiracy Theory

The question is, who is behind QAnon? Who supports the marketing genius that captured so many people’s hearts and souls?

We can develop a meta-conspiracy theory about QAnon by considering some of the main ideas of QAnon.

Deep State — The nefarious forces at work in our government and institutions
The Villains — Hollywood and the Democrats
The Storm — The final accounting, where the villains are brought to justice
The Savior — The individual leading to the Storm

Deep State

For any conspiracy theory to appeal, it has to have elements of truth. The idea of a Deep State, nefarious forces controlling our government and institutions, has more than just an element of truth.

It’s real and we all know it’s real. It is Big Money. It is the corporate donors and their lobbyists influencing Congress. It’s the Super PACS and the money used to get their own people elected. It’s the corporations limiting our choices and driving up prices, like for gas, or cable TV, or pharmaceuticals, or… well the list just goes on and on.

Hollywood

Consider, though, how we know it’s real. We read about it in papers, and more important, we see it in the movies and on TV all the time. Hollywood loves telling the store of corporate greed behind some dark deeds, and some hero rising up to take them down.

Hollywood is clearly an enemy of the Big Money behind the Deep State. So the Deep State is true, but Hollywood is not a force behind it, but rather a force that exposes it. Worse, for Big Money, Hollywood tends to drive people towards the Democrats.

Democrats

We have a two party system, where neither party is particularly beholden to the people. The Republicans are clearly aligned with Big Money. The Democrats also get funding from Big Money, but are more likely to put in place legislation that makes it look like they are the people’s party. They might tax the wealthy, and the corporations, and pass laws to protect the environment, or worker safety. They might try to provide social safety nets, like Medicare and Medicaid.

These all cost Big Money money. So the Democrats are clearly enemies of the Big Money behind the Deep State.

QAnon

QAnon is a brilliant conspiracy theory that does what all effective propaganda does. It takes the truth of the Deep State and turns it 180 degrees around. It says, look, it’s not not Big Money that is evil, but Hollywood and the Democrats.

Remember, the Big Money people are the ones that used doctors to advertise cigarettes, that got the government to protect us from cheap Canadian drugs saying it was for our own good, and that got Congress to use our tax dollars to bail out the big banks that caused so many to lose their homes in the mortgage crisis (and do nothing for the people who actually lost their homes).

It’s classic. Take the people’s frustration with the Deep State, and turn that anger against the very forces that fight the Deep State. A piece of cake for the manipulative marketing geniuses working for Big Money.

The Storm

Here’s the exciting part. People are frustrated, and feel powerless against the Big Money behind the Deep State. But, with QAnon, and the Deep State redefined as Hollywood types and Democrats, well then, we can rise up and defeat them.

They call them pedophiles. How much of a fight can pedophiles put up? And who would feel sorry for pedophiles going down in defeat? Much easier to fight them, than say Exxon or Goldman Sachs.

The Savior

All that’s needed is a leader, someone willing to carry the flag into battle, to take down those pedophile Hollywood types and Democrats that make Big Money look bad.

But doesn’t it tell you something that that savior, Donald Trump, leading the charge, is someone who self-identifies as Big Money? Whose signature legislation when president was tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy?

Isn’t it obvious that QAnon is a brilliant marketing effort that inspired a large number of people to, not fight against the Big Money of the Deep State, but to fight Big Money’s enemies and help it tighten its grip on our society?

DAnon Home

DAnon 3 — Op-Ed

I encourage others to uses these ideas and get them published in op-eds around the country. Here’s my letter to the local Greenfield Recorder.

Here is 169 word version that can be submitted as a letter to your local paper. Feel free to use it as is, or maybe better to modify it a bit in your own style.

Who is the Q behind QAnon? Here’s a meta-conspiracy theory. Like all propaganda, QAnon is based on a partial truth, a Deep State. We all know it exists, and we know it is Big Money behind many of the wrongs of our government and institutions. How do we know? For one, Hollywood keeps telling stories that illustrate it, making Hollywood an enemy of Big Money. Who else is an enemy? Democrats who tend to raise corporate taxes and regulate Big Money.

How can Big Money fight back? Turn the story around. These are the people who used doctors to sell cigarettes, so no problem creating QAnon that paints Hollywood and Democrats as Deep State evil.

Who will lead the Storm that overthrows them? A man who self-identifies as Big Money. A man whose signature legislation while president was tax cuts for the wealthy. Can there be any question Big Money is behind Q? And Q’s followers have been duped into fighting for, not against, the Deep State they resent?

DAnon Home

DAnon 2 — A Hollywood Story

Who’s behind QAnon? Maybe looking at a story Hollywood loves to tell can provide the answer.

It’s a story of dark conspiracies, behind evil doings, that a brave individual, or band of individuals, uncovers and battles to overcome.

It’s not a new story. It’s Robin Hood and his Merry Men fighting the Sheriff of Nottingham, stealing from the rich (this is key point) and giving to the poor. The back story there was that the Sheriff had stolen lands from individuals, like Robin Hood, while they were away at war in the Crusades.

It’s James Bond fighting dark hidden international crime syndicates, it’s Batman and Robin against, yes more crime syndicates, it’s countless TV and movie detectives working some case only to discover there’s some powerful politicians and money interests behind the evil doings.

It’s the lovable Sully in Monsters Inc., up against the evil CEO, Waternoose, who will kidnap children to make a profit. Here’s how Hollywood (Disney in this case) pictures Waternoose:

It’s not very flattering.

Not all the movies are fiction. It’s “The Big Short” uncovering the financial institutions behind the sub-prime mortgage crisis (which, on a personal note, caused me to lose about 1/3 of my retirement funds), it’s “Erin Brockovich” taking down the PG&E utility company hiding the health risks it caused, and more recently “No Sudden Moves,” an excellent Netflix flic based on a true story of a consortium of car companies suppressing fuel efficient technology for it’s own financial gain.

These stories are so common, they are ingrained in our consciousness. We all know of the influence of money in our politics. How the military-industrial complex made all that money in Iraq (our tax dollars), how the financial companies were too big to fail in the mortgage crisis (but not the people who lost their homes), and how Congress continually protects the financial interests of the health care industry as it remains the largest cause of personal bankruptcies.

These are not well-kept secrets.

So when QAnon says there is a Deep State running our government and other institutions, it rings true. In fact, it is true if you consider that the ultra-wealthy and large corporations are the ones behind a government that does NOT work for the people. Let’s call them Big Money.

Do you see the problem? Big Money does not like Hollywood telling the story, over and over, of its corrupting influence on our institutions. It is bad PR.

Worse, it gets people to want to vote for Democrats. I’m not saying the Democrats work for the people, they are just as much bought and controlled by Big Money. It was, after all, the Democrats who failed to give us nationalized health as they catered to the world’s most profitable health-care industry.

But they do give more back to the people. The Democrats are more likely than the Republicans to raise taxes on Big Money, and put in government regulations protecting the environment, ensuring work place safety, and providing safety nets like Medicare and Social Security. All of these programs cost Big Money money.

So there’s the problem for Big Money. There is a Deep State, and it is Big Money. And people know about it because of Hollywood, and government reacts to it because of Democrats. How can poor, unfairly treated, Big Money fight back? To get Hollywood and the Democrats off its back?

QAnon. It’s absolutely brilliant. It takes that story that is so ingrained in our psyches and turns it upside down. It tells the powerless that there is a Deep State and that they can fight it.

It says there are powerful interests at work, but it’s not Big Money, it’s despicable sex offenders. And who are these sex offenders secretly controlling our institutions? Hollywood types and Democrats.

And who is going to root them out? And bring them to justice? Yup, Big Money.

It’s brilliant! The Deep State isn’t Big Money, but despicable sex offenders. And it’s not brave individuals who battle them, it’s, yes, Big Money!

The Sheriff of Nottingham is the good guy! Fighting that bandit Robin Hood (and his Merry? wink-wink men!) The Joker is the good guy, taking down the evil Batman (and what’s with him and Robin?)

Can there be any doubt that Big Money is behind QAnon? That it’s a brilliant spin to get Hollywood and the Democrats off its back? To let the Sheriff of Nottingham keep the land he stole from the people, to protect the Joker’s criminal enterprises? To bail out the big investment banks, the car companies, to protect the drug companies, to….

Consider their savior. The man who will lead QAnon’s “The Storm.”

A man who self identifies as the epitome of Big Money. The man behind the Trump Tower (which kind of looks like a Hollywood prop for an evil corporate headquarters.)

Readers, if this rings true, spread the idea, let your QAnon friends know that they’ve been had, that they’ve been tricked into fighting, not against, but FOR the very Deep State / Big Money conspiracy they fear.

DAnon Home

Trump-like Legal Strategy

This lawsuit has been quite an education for me. I’ve heard that Trump’s standard business strategy was to stiff his subcontractors, and then, when they sued, bury them in legal costs. I now find myself in exactly that scenario going up against the new management of Office Practicum, with its backing of the $3+ billion dollar investment company, Pamlico.

I am the individual who wrote the immunization module, VacLogic, that set them apart from other pediatric practice vendors. It is built on top of my software tool, ARulesXL, which is used to make updates to VacLogic as new vaccines, such as Covid-19, appear, and which is used to distribute VacLogic to their pediatric practice customers.

Step one of the Trump strategy: stiff the subcontractor. That’s what they did. They informed me that, despite paying an annual license fee for ARulesXL for the past ten years, they would no longer pay that annual license fee. That would be OK, except they also informed me that they would continue to use it.

Predictably, I sued, asking to be compensated for the months they distributed my software without a license, and for the court to issue an injunction forcing them to stop distributing it.

Step two: bury them in legal costs. They countered with a variety of irrelevant arguments that are also right out of the Trump playbook.

The arguments repeat a big lie, over and over, saying that a 2003 Memorandum of Understanding, that has absolutely nothing to do with ARulesXL, is a license for them to use the software forever, without paying.

Change of Venue

But they also made sure none of those arguments will get heard anytime soon because they moved for a change of venue.

My daughter went to law school, and she told me one of the situations they studied was the hypothetical case where your client gets a DUI, and he was drunk as a skunk when it happened. Step one — move for a change of venue.

It is amazing how much it is costing in legal fees to deal with the change of venue motion, and how it delays the court proceedings so that the judge doesn’t rule on the injunction and they merrily continue to use and profit from my software.

I would recommend anyone studying at the Trump school of law study this case.

A Small Example

Let me give you a little blow-by-blow up to this point, showing exactly how they work on gumming up the works.

The judge decides to rule on venue, before looking at anything else. That makes sense. To that end he gives us a couple of months to gather documents from them that demonstrate they can be sued in Massachusetts.

OK, so we start that process, issuing interrogatories to that effect. There is a court ordered deadline for them to produce the documents.

But they don’t produce any. Instead, on the last day of the deadline, they come up with a list of objections as to why they won’t answer any of the requests for documents.

Let me bore you with the incredible details of this procedure. Its mind-boggling in its absurdity, and yet, awesome in its effectiveness of making it impractical for an individual to get justice in a court of law against a well funded company.

The objections are all legalese boiler plate. Some are objections to definitions of words. For example, since the judge asked us to gather information, we asked them to “identify” customers in Massachusetts. Simple? No.

They objected to the word “identify.” Now, understand, that my lawyer had already actually defined “identify.” Here was our definition:

9. The terms “identify,” “identity,” and “identification” with respect to a person that is not an individual mean to state its: full name, legal form, date of organization, state of incorporation or organization or other business or license authority, present or last known address and telephone number, and the identity of its chief executive officer, partners, owners, or persons in equivalent positions.

Here was their objection (and the same as all their other objections):

Connexin’s Objection to Definition #9:

Defendant objects to this definition as it is broader than that allowed by Local Rule 26.5. Defendant further objects on the grounds that it is overly broad, vague, ambiguous, lacking in specificity, confusing, calls for legal conclusions, asserts further terms that are not readily defined, and render the interrogatories and/or document requests in which it is used overly broad, confusing, ambiguous, and lacking in specificity. Defendant further objects to the definition to the extent it seeks to impose an obligation on Defendant to provide information or documents that are not within Defendant’s possession, custody and/or control. Defendant further objects to the extent the definition purports to seek information and/or documents that are protected by the attorney-client privilege, work product doctrine or any other applicable privilege. Defendant also objects to this definition to the extent it seeks the production of irrelevant information and/or documents and/or information and documents not proportional to the needs of the case. Defendant objects to the definition to the extent it impermissibly attempts to alter the plain meaning of the interrogatories and/or document requests in which it is used and impose duties not required under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, the Local Rules for the District of Massachusetts, any applicable Standing Orders or Court Orders, and/or any other applicable rules and/or law.

My lawyer had to answer this, explain why it was absurd, and justify our definition and ask them to agree to it. Time and expense incurred.

They likewise filed the exact same boiler plate objection about the terms:

defendant
AmziLogic, LLC (are they kidding? it’s the name of my company defined as such)
concerning
communication
date
describe
document
identify (in two other contexts than the one above)
person
relationship
reseller
customer

And then they object to each interrogatory, such as “identify your customers” with different boiler plate, complaining, among other things, that “your” is not clearly defined.

They stopped paying license fees on July 1, 2021, and now, over a year later my lawyer is busy responding to all this minutia, running up my legal bills, just to answer the question of venue. Meanwhile, Connexin continued to distribute and profit from the sale of my software between July 2021 and June 2022.

Litigation Funding

What’s amazing is that this scenario, of a large company effectively stealing intellectual property from a small entity, and burying it in legal costs when they sue, is so common that an entire field of investment has grown up around it.

It’s called litigation funding. There are so many of these cases that could easily be won, if the plaintiff had enough money, that there are companies that have now sprung up who invest in exactly this sort of suit. They provide the funding for the lawsuit in exchange for a good payout if there is a favorable outcome.

VacLogic Lawsuit

If I Were a Trump Supporter

Some one asked, how can anyone still support Trump. Fair question. This is my take on how maybe a majority of those 40% or so who support him think.

If I were a Trump supporter I would first of all have a conservative point of view, not a nasty one, but one that seeks more free markets, smaller government. And as a conservative, I would read the main stream media and be constantly upset with the liberal bias. Yes, Yes, it’s there, but maybe hard to see if you’re aligned with it*. So all the media attacks on Trump, I’d dismiss. I’d turn to Fox news, which, like the mainstream media is NOT fake news, but real news reported with a political bias.

Next, but maybe foremost, I’d be really disturbed by our government as usual, how it appears our politicians have all been bought. That would really bug me. And I would believe Trump’s claim that he doesn’t need money, that he will drain the swamp. That he will upset the apple cart and piss off the business as usual politicians. Everytime he did something to piss them off, I’d be cheering.

I’d be concerned that Obama did sell us down the river on all sorts of deals. I’d think that his policies were trying to be global, but that we, the average citizens of America were getting screwed, and when he said he’s dropping the Paris agreement, I’d say, right on!

I might be an independent worker in the building trades. Young and healthy. I’d be really pissed I was forced to buy insurance so other’s could have cheaper insurance. If I ran a small business getting close to 50 employees I would be bullshit that I couldn’t grow my company without taking a series financial hit as I suddenly had to become a health care expert as well as a lawn service, or whatever guy. Trump said he’s going to dismantle it, great!

More on that — it was Congress, not Obama that gave us the ACA, and it has flaws. And it’s Congress that won’t fix it. I’d be cheering Trump on as he dismantles it himself. I’d be happy to have a strong leader who tells it like it is and does what he needs to do.

Immigration? racism? I have a harder time here. Although I can say that there have been times when I’ve felt like I live in a foreign country in parts of Florida. Not saying I don’t like it, but still, when everyone around me is speaking Spanish, well it just doesn’t feel like America.

The point is I know a handful of Trump supporters who are not crazy. I know some that are as well, but that’s a different point of view. I have a hard time seeing how a fundamentalist Christian thinks God has chosen him, but that’s a different story.

If I was a Trump supporter I’d think all this sensitivity regarding speach and what can and can’t be said, and the correct terms that now have to be used because the perfectly good old terms were offensive… What a pile of crap. I’d cheer everytime Trump showed he didn’t give a damn about that.

And football. I would really like to just relax and enjoy football, it’s a place to get away from all the political turmoil in this country. It’s my happy place. And now I’ve got to look at black athletes using the game to make a statement about the difficulties of being black? About police shootings. No, no wait, even if I was the most sympathetic BLM person in the stands, the media is full of non-stop coverage of the atrocities of police racist brutality. This is not some hidden issue that someone is going to say, oh wait, really! I’d say get some other forum and just play football. I wouldn’t want any other displays of any other political issues either. and I wouldn’t want them at the academy awards or any other entertainment platform. There are enough others, so yay Donald for calling them out on that one.

For me, these are not unreasonable political stands, but positions that could be fairly debated. I hate how Trump has used them to further drive us apart.

* liberal bias — here’s one small example, the media were all in arms because, according to the headline “Trump calls Hillary the Devil!” This conjures up images of Trump going even further over the line of absurdity by casting demonic aspersions on Hillary. Well I listened to what he said. He was actually making a reasonable comment about Sanders throwing his support behing Hillary. He said Sanders “sold out,” which indicates that he had respect for the other candidate in the race who was trying to change the way government works. He then used a common phrase to describe it: “he made a deal with the devil.” He then, as an afterthough, saw a clever way to dig at Hillary: “and Hillary is the devil.” If I were writing the headline, I would have said: “Trump says Sanders sold out by supporting Hillary.” That’s the essence of it. So the liberal media was factual, not fake news, but very biased in it’s cherry picking of the statement to make Trump look bad. Google “trump calls hillary the devil” to see what I mean. Read all the outraged media you know, and then read this: http://www.dailywire.com/news/8022/trump-calls-hillary-devil-media-lose-it-theyre-ben-shapiro Imagine that you were a Trump supporter, would you want to continue to get your news from a source that so twisted this incident?

Change

It’s change people yearn for.

Do you remember 8 years ago? In the Democratic primaries, Hillary Clinton was the front runner, but she was upset by, get this, a black man. A black man (in this so called racist country) beat out the establishment politician. And why? He promised change.

This year, a crazy billionaire beat out the establishment politician again. Why? Because he promised change.

The country doesn’t care — well educated black man, racist billionaire — that part is not important. People are sick of a disfunctional government controlled by corporate money.

Saying the country embraced a misogynistic, xenophobic narcissist is simply not correct. 70% of the population didn’t like him. That is not who we are. Yet, he was the candidate promising change.

For those who think the votes for Gary Johnson put Trump in office, well pay attention. Those were votes from people who wanted change.

And if everyone who voted for Clinton because it was the “smart” thing to do, had voted their conscience, we would most likely have both Libertarian and Green party candidates as part of the process next time.