Numerous Narratives 🍁

Atomic essays, mini explorations, and a digital garden of diverse ideas – welcome! This is my space for creative experimentation, a place where fiction and reality collide. You'll find reflections on everything from economics and politics to culture and technology, alongside the development of my novel and nonfiction projects. My tools of choice? I am an advocate for Open Source Software such as Ubuntu and ZorinOS Linux working in a Gnome desktop Linux environment on all my personal laptops, Standard Notes, Signal with journalists, Manuskript, and the secure writing environment of theQuill.app. The views shared here are entirely my own and do not reflect the opinions of my employer or any organizations I am affiliated with. My perspectives may evolve over time as I strive to maintain an open mind. This blog offers a snapshot of my thoughts at specific moments, capturing ideas that resonated with me then. Please note that some older posts may no longer align with my current views. - - -

@GaryArmstrong GaryArmstrong.blog

Why American Empire – Hegemony Decline Might Be Locked In

July 8, 2025•273 words

“The collapse of empire is not a tragedy. It is an opportunity.” ~ Chris Hedges “Every war when it comes, or before it comes, is represented not as a war but as an act of self-defense against a homicidal maniac.” ~ George Orwell “The American oligarchy has perfected the art of inverted totalitarianism: rule by corporations, cloaked in democratic rituals.” ~ Sheldon S. Wolin You're living in a nation where decline isn't a fluke, it's at the very least, allowed to continue because the right p...

The Tariff Ultimatum: America’s Economic Sword Against BRICS

July 7, 2025•384 words

When you see phrases like “UNITED STATES TARIFF Letters, and/or Deals,” don’t be fooled into thinking this is diplomacy. It’s not negotiation, it’s an authoritarian style of declaration. It’s power flexed in plain sight, hidden in bureaucracy and sealed with “DONALD J. TRUMP, President,” as though the document were some royal decree from a King. This isn’t partnership, it’s domination. And everyone on the global stage sees it for what it is. For leaders in the Global South, or any nation outs...

Why Rain Hypnotizes Us

July 6, 2025•298 words

"Rain is grace; rain is the sky descending to the earth; without rain, there would be no life." ~ John Updike "In the midst of movement and chaos, keep stillness inside of you." ~ Deepak Chopra "The soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts." ~ Marcus Aurelius “Rain is the silence of heaven descending on earth.” ~ Martin Heidegger “The smell of rain can bring back memories you didn’t know you had.” ~ Paulo Coelho Rain doesn’t just fall, it silences the world. Its steady rhythm draw...

Remembering The Diplomatic Dumpster Fire, Trump Turns Global Statesmanship Into a Spectacle of Spite

July 6, 2025•655 words

“The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.” ~ Thucydides “The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.” ~ Sun Tzu “Fascism is not in itself a new order of society. It is the future refusing to be born.” ~ Aneurin Bevan “The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything.” ~ Albert Einstein What unfolded in the Oval Office wasn’t diplomacy, it was a display of ego, insecurity, and geopolitical ig...

Where is Democracy Headed?

July 5, 2025•533 words

"The end of history will be a very sad time." ~ Francis Fukuyama "The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed." ~ Steve Biko "Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains." ~ Jean-Jacques Rousseau World-Renowned Political Science Professor Fukuyama is critiquing mainly United States of America, but many Western democracies can be included. They're faltering and the possibility of going through a third wave of democratization which might be pulling t...

Two-Phase Learning Model to Develop Future Leaders and Life-Long-Learners

July 4, 2025•345 words

"The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.” ~ Alvin Toffler “You cannot teach a man anything; you can only help him find it within himself.” ~ Galileo Galilei “Confusion is the welcome mat at the door of learning.” ~ Dizzy Gillespie “A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions.” ~ Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. You learn 10 months of structured lessons, explicit instr...

My Brother David

July 2, 2025•508 words

“When brothers agree, no fortress is so strong as their common life.” ~ Antisthenes “A brother is someone who knows there’s something wrong even when you have the biggest smile on your face.” “We came into the world like brother and brother; and now let’s go hand in hand, not one before another.” ~ William Shakespeare “Sometimes, brotherhood is stronger than friendship and deeper than blood.” ~ Don Winslow “Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!” ~ ...

Canada Day 2025

July 2, 2025•213 words

As Canada marks its 158th birthday, this year’s Canada Day celebrations resonate with a renewed and deeper sense of national reflection, unity, and identity. Traditionally a time to embrace shared values like multiculturalism, a strong sense of collectivism, and peace, Canada Day now carries additional weight... Recent comments from U.S. President Donald Trump, suggesting Canada could become the “51st state,” have sparked widespread rejection across the country, ultimately reinforcing Canad...

Understanding and Confronting Cruelty in All Its Forms

June 30, 2025•482 words

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” ~ Edmund Burke “The most dangerous creation of any society is the man who has nothing to lose.” ~ James Baldwin “Power does not corrupt. Fear corrupts... perhaps the fear of a loss of power.” ~ John Steinbeck “The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil.” ~ Hannah Arendt “To destroy a people, you must first deny them the basic means of survival. Starvation...

Political Power: How American Politics Became a Stage for Wealth

June 30, 2025•472 words

"We have two governments in Washington: one run by elected people who are not really in charge, and one run by permanent officials who control the levers of power." ~ David Talbot "The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don’t. You have no choice. You have owners." ~ George Carlin "Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power." ~ Benito Mussolini "The conscious and intelligent mani...

Why Does the US Target Iran?

June 28, 2025•915 words

"The U.S. has sought to maintain a unipolar world in which its power is unchallenged, often under the guise of promoting freedom and democracy." ~ Noam Chomsky "The three grand imperatives of imperial geostrategy are to prevent collusion and maintain security dependence among the vassals, to keep tributaries pliant and protected, and to keep the barbarians from coming together." ~ Zbigniew Brzezinski "Empires have no interest in operating within an international system; they aspire to be the ...

No One Left Behind: The Moral Test of Canada’s Prosperity

June 27, 2025•293 words

"We must ensure that the progress of one group is not purchased by the oppression of another." ~ Justice Murray Sinclair "Poverty among Indigenous peoples is not accidental—it is the direct result of deliberate policies, colonial structures, and systemic exclusion." ~ Pam Palmater "A society grows great when it builds pathways, not barriers, for all its children to thrive." ~ Cindy Blackstock "A society grows great when it builds pathways, not barriers, for all its children to thrive." ~ Cin...

The Captured Republic: How Foreign Influence Rewrote American Power

June 26, 2025•558 words

"The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society." ~ Edward Bernays "A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within." ~ Marcus Tullius Cicero "The modern dictatorship is a committee government, a government of nobody, because everybody on the committee can always blame somebody else." ~ Hannah Arendt Reading and listening to an interview of Dr. Jeffr...

A Strike on Sovereignty, The U.S. Bombing of Fordow and How the U.S. Pulled Away from the Edge of Nuclear War (Fictional)

June 25, 2025•1,084 words

“The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking, and thus we drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.” ~ Albert Einstein “In war, truth is the first casualty.” ~ Aeschylus “The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.” ~ Sun Tzu In the early hours of June 22nd, the world stood closer to the edge than it had in decades. Just three days after the surprise U.S. airstrike on Iran’s Fordow nuclear facility, intelligence briefings began circula...

When Truth Becomes a Weapon: The Rise of Narrative Competitive Authoritarian Power

June 24, 2025•677 words

“The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.” ~ George Orwell “The truth is not simply what you think it is; it is also the circumstances in which it is said, and to whom, why, and how it is said.” ~ Vaclav Havel “Propaganda is to a democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state.” ~ Noam Chomsky “The real division is not between conservatives and revolutionaries but between authoritarians and libertarians.” ~ George Orw...

The Pursuit of Progress in a Competitive Authoritarian American Regime

June 23, 2025•804 words

"Elections are held, but they are not fair. Rights exist, but they are violated. Institutions look democratic, but they are warped." ~ Steven Levitsky and Lucan A. Way "Democracy is not an all-or-nothing affair. Many regimes fall somewhere in between full-fledged democracy and outright dictatorship." ~ Fareed Zakaria "The erosion of democratic norms is more often a slow, quiet process than a sudden collapse." ~ Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt "Modern authoritarianism wears the mask of dem...

Empire of Lies: How Governments Manipulate Words as Weapons of Truth to Justify Bloodshed

June 22, 2025•806 words

"The people don't want war, but they can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders... All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism." ~ Hermann Göring, Nazi military leader, during the Nuremberg Trials "Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind." ~ George Orwell "The media's job is not to report the facts; it’s to maintain the illusion ...

Aid, Empire, and the Art of Coercion... When Diplomacy Deceives and Weaponizes Charm of Foreign Policy

June 21, 2025•412 words

"America’s cultural hegemony has always been a velvet glove covering the iron fist of its foreign policy." ~ Arundhati Roy "We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality... We're history’s actors... and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do." ~ Unnamed senior Bush administration official (often attributed to Karl Rove) "Aid is just another arm of foreign policy. It's not given altruistically. It's given with strings attached, to build dependency, to extract ...

From Gaza to Tehran: Mapping a Trail of Militarized Ethnic Cleansing, Funded and Supported by USA and Using Israel as the Proxy

June 20, 2025•701 words

“Israel's campaign in Gaza cannot be justified as self-defense. It has become a war of collective punishment, targeting an entire civilian population in ways that fulfill the legal definition of genocide.” ~ Nathan Thrall “There are reasonable grounds to believe that the threshold indicating the commission of the crime of genocide against Palestinians as a group in Gaza has been met.” ~ Francesca Albanese “The massacre in Gaza is not a reaction to a threat, it is a premeditated act of ethnic ...

Distinct and Contrasting Historical Narratives for Iran and Israel, Concerning Conflict and Nuclear Capabilities

June 19, 2025•723 words

“The portrayal of Iran as irrational and suicidal has served as a justification for preemptive action, while Israel’s opaque nuclear posture is tolerated, if not endorsed, by the very powers that demand transparency from Iran.” ~ Trita Parsi “Israel’s policy of nuclear opacity—never confirming, never denying—has been a cornerstone of its security doctrine, even as it condemns Iran’s nuclear ambitions as existential threats.” ~ Avner Cohen “Iran has not attacked any country in over two centuri...

A Manufactured War Demanding Surrender, Delivering Destruction: A New Era of Modern Authoritarian Imperialism

June 18, 2025•435 words

"The demand for unconditional surrender prolonged the war and multiplied the horrors inflicted on civilian populations, not to mention the justification it provided for the atomic bombings." ~ Howard Zinn “When powerful states demand unconditional surrender from weaker ones, it is not peace they are after, but submission. This has nothing to do with justice and everything to do with control.” ~ Noam Chomsky “Unconditional surrender is often less about ending war and more about annihilating th...

An American President Warning to Tehran: No Deal? Evacuate or Face Oblivion

June 17, 2025•270 words

"The deliberate targeting of civilians, whether by terror bombings or otherwise, is a war crime. No cause justifies the mass murder of non-combatants." ~ Howard Zinn "The moral to be drawn from this dangerous nightmare situation is a simple one: don't let it happen. It depends on you." ~ George Orwell "The policy of indiscriminate bombing, whatever its justifications, sows hatred, prolongs war, and creates generations of enemies." ~ Noam Chomsky "We are the inheritors of a terrifying legacy ...

Iran Targeted—the Trump Administration and the Israeli Netanyahu Administration a Secretive Treacherous Planned Surprise Attack During Peace-Talks

June 16, 2025•662 words

“In politics and war, deception is often most lethal when peace appears most likely.” ~ William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich “Pearl Harbor not only destroyed ships and lives, it shattered the illusion that diplomacy could restrain imperial ambition.” ~ Ian Toll, Pacific Crucible: War at Sea in the Pacific “To negotiate with one hand while arming the other is a timeless tactic of states that do not truly seek peace.” ~ Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy “History shows that surprise...

Silent Game of Shadows: Power, Preemption, and the Art of Strategic Imperialistic Backstabbing

June 15, 2025•429 words

Israel’s strikes and covert operations within Iran over the past 25 years are strategic ruthlessness. These actions, targeted assassinations and pinpoint airstrikes with Ai drones, missiles, and F-35s fighter jets, may seem, at first glance, to violate international treaties and United Nations moral codes that govern the conduct of war and peace. But to view them through a purely legal or ethical lens is to misunderstand the nature of imperialistic power itself. Imperialistic power is rarely cl...

Everyday Bball Training For My Son, My Kid, My Student Athlete, My Youngest

June 14, 2025•720 words

PARKER and his parents.... For years! Since Parker was 8 years old... And his older brother trained everyday for years... We do weights or "strength training", EVERYDAY! Plyometrics twice a week for years. We do BASKETBALL TRAINING, EVERYDAY! We get him to do speed track Sprint training twice a week at the University Butterdome during the winter and at Scona and at St. Albert through the spring-summer-fall year for the past 5 years. Everyday, minimum of 420 makes from layups, floaters and r...

Two Sons: One Emotional Chaos & One Emotional Calm

June 13, 2025•581 words

“One man is a storm, quick to thunder. The other, a still pond — dangerous only when disturbed.” ~ Rudyard Kipling “Temper is the only thing you can’t get rid of by losing it.” ~ Jack Nicholson “He who controls others may be powerful, but he who has mastered himself is mightier still.” ~ Lao Tzu “The strong man is not the one who can use force, but the one who can control himself when angry.” ~ Prophet Muhammad “In the clash of brothers, one burns like wildfire, the other freezes like stone...

The Sleek, Modern, Fast, Linux GNOME Desktop Environment

June 12, 2025•443 words

"GNOME is designed to be streamlined and distraction-free, helping users focus on their tasks rather than managing their desktop." ~ Allan Day, GNOME Design Team "GNOME offers a clean, modern user experience that emphasizes simplicity, speed, and getting out of the user's way." ~ Jim Hall, FreeDOS Project Founder and Linux Writer "GNOME might very well be the most efficient desktop interface available, especially for those who prefer keyboard-driven workflows." ~ Jack Wallen, TechRepublic "G...

Christian Leaders Respond in Writing to Trump’s Travel Ban and Immoral Immigration Crackdown

June 12, 2025•453 words

"We follow Jesus, who was himself a refugee, and we will resist any policy that denies others the refuge he and his family were given." ~ Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde (Episcopal Diocese of Washington) "This ban is not about safety. It’s about hate. It’s about scapegoating Muslims and immigrants for political gain. And religious leaders must call it what it is—immoral." ~ Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II (President, Repairers of the Breach) "These actions go against the values we hold as a nation a...

When Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Are Banned

June 10, 2025•575 words

"To be anti-racist is to recognize that policies not only reflect inequality—they create it. Banning equity initiatives doesn't remove bias, it reinforces it." ~ Ibram X. Kendi "When you strike down diversity programs, you strike down the very tools we use to confront structural inequality. Silencing DEI is silencing progress." ~ Kimberlé Crenshaw "A society that bans equity and inclusion initiatives reveals its deep commitment to maintaining the status quo of injustice." ~ Cornel West "With...

Amnesty International Has Condemned the Measure As ‘Discriminatory, Racist, and Downright Cruel’

June 9, 2025•256 words

In response to President Trump imposing a new discriminatory travel ban on visitors from Afghanistan, Chad, the Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Myanmar, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen, and a partial travel ban on people from Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan, and Venezuela By endorsing Trump's travel ban, you are committing to policies that are seen as unfair, racist, and discriminatory. Those from Black, Brown, or Muslim-majority countries...