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NEO – Duff – America, Erased from the World Stage
5
August, 2017
During
July 2017, President Trump made two very odd public addresses. One
was to the Boys Scout Jamboree in West Virginia and the other to a
police audience on Long Island, New York. One thing was made clear
during both addresses. President Trump is, at best, emotionally
immature, highly insecure and just not very bright.
The
media jumped on these speeches, pulling dozens of childish quotes, so
many things, bitter angry statements, sophomoric whining, even a call
for police to engage in extra-legal vigilante justice.
Trump
has forgotten that the 100 million military assault rifles owned by
those that voted for him were purchased out of fear of “out of
control” police rather than terrorists or minority gangs. Anyone
who doesn’t know this, knows nothing about America and its history.
The
underlying problem is that Trump is exactly what he appears to be, a
childish and unstable individual devoid of talent, be it physical or
intellectual, an accident of nature, a victim of a “perfect storm”
as it were, now the most powerful man on earth. It was going to
happen eventually, perhaps we were all due.
Summers
in Washington are miserable, hot and muggy. The city should never
have been built, certainly not as the capitol of a would-be major
nation. Though those who believe they rule the world from Washington
believe they are surrounded by majesty and are the awe of the world,
the Washington DC of Andrew Jackson’s time is still alive and well,
mosquitoes, the smell of garbage and the armies of sycophants and
petty hucksters drawn to the public trough to feed on public revenue.
This
is the Washington occasionally visited by President Trump between
golf outings, one he understands little of and one that understands
even less of him. You see, both are broken, perhaps equally so.
The
Trump presidency came at a time when America had reached a
constitutional impasse. In 2000, the Supreme Court had chosen a
president, something expressly prohibited through both separation of
powers and equal protections provisions of the American constitution.
Then
in 2005, the court, in a decision in the case of Citizens United v.
U.S., overturned all campaign finance limitations and, in one fell
swoop, made corporations full citizens with all inherent rights but
with one glaring exception. Corporations don’t die and they can’t
go to jail.
The
same court had already allowed race based redistricting of congress
guaranteeing the Republican party permanent control no matter how few
votes they got.
Thus,
with a controlled Supreme Court willing to overrule the constitution
at will and a rigged congress guaranteeing that no president could
change the makeup of the court, as we saw with Obama, an oligarchical
system was permanently enthroned in Washington, renting out
government to special interests.
When
the Obama presidency is examined, its caretaker nature, it must be
taken into account that congress and the Supreme Court, both now
above the electoral process permanently, could nullify any
presidential initiative.
When
we look at the Affordable Care Act, or “Obamacare” as it is often
termed, the flawed compromise that mandates insurance for most
Americans and also simultaneously enriches the powerful insurance
companies we have to admit it was only enacted because it enriches
the powerful insurance company lobby. This is why republicans
supported it and why it still survives. President Trump failed to
note that his plans to scrap the Act in actuality placed him in
direct opposition to some of his largest backers, the powerful
insurance lobby.
The
other issue that needs addressing is election rigging. When examining
any conspiratorial event, and in today’s world “conspiracies”
are everywhere, real or imagined, we always first look at who
benefits most. In the 2016 election, Russia stands accused of helping
rig the election for Trump, though the source of the evidence used to
support this supposition is not so clear.
In
fact, a closer examination tends to point the finger at others, the
military industrial complex, the major financial institutions or even
the powerful Israelo-Saudi lobby in Washington. Russia’s gains
under Trump are minimal at best and the risks to Russia’s security
with an uncertain and weak leader who has turned his defense policy
over to the hawkish Pentagon, are very high.
In
fact, there is much to be examined in the degree Washington has
overlooked Trump’s extreme ineptitude. Might it well be that while
Trump “tweets” and buffoons his days away, the looting of America
is hitting high gear?
The
“special interest” disease in Washington is more than climate
denialism and minority bashing. Public lands are being given to
powerful interests at a record rate, protections against poisoned
food, water, air and drugs are dissolving as well as are protections
from the financial scamsters that crashed the economy in 2007.
While
Russia is supposedly benefiting, new sanctions have hit that nation
and America’s military is threatening war with Russia’s key
allies, China and Iran. If the Trump presidency was a boon to Russia,
the payoff is a scanty one at best.
Let
us juxtapose Obama and Trump for a second. If Obama was a “caretaker”
what can we call Trump? Is America in freefall? Is it a ship adrift
as many have inferred, with no one at the helm?
To
this we might add a short note on reality and perception. If reality
is defined by perception and all perception is controlled through
media, then those who control media control reality. This means, of
course, that with a “reality TV” star in the White House, the
media darling of America’s intellectual underclass, the concept of
reality itself fails.
This
accounts for the Fox
News “Seth Rich” scam,
a fabricated story of murder and mayhem invented to confound and
confuse and the endless stream of “alternative facts” emanating
from the White House, an open challenge to the long-biased media.
Let’s
take a second here. If the media is controlled by the same powerful
corporations that enrich themselves from Washington corruption, now
rampant under Trump “de-regulation,” then why is the media at war
with Trump? Is the media really at war or is the media war on Trump a
“place-holder” struggle or “sitzkrieg?”
The
more the media focuses on Trumps buffoonery, the more buffoonish he
becomes. What isn’t reported is how what is going on behind the
scenes is eroding the lives of everyday Americans. Nothing is
reported of newly allowed power plant emissions or loosened meat
inspection guidelines.
These
areas are where the billions are made when an incompetent president
shares power with a “bought and paid for” congress. And the media
circus is very much a part of it all, playing side against side,
easing off when told, heating one thing up when another needs to be
watched. Those assuming otherwise are fools.
Gordon
Duff is a Marine combat veteran of the Vietnam War that has worked on
veterans and POW issues for decades and consulted with governments
challenged by security issues. He’s a senior editor and chairman of
the board of Veterans
Today,
especially for the online magazine “New
Eastern
Outlook.”
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