12 III 2022: The anti-American Right

It has now become fashionable among American oligarchs, rightwing entertainers, and conspiracy fans to accept and repeat the claim of the Russian propaganda mill that attacking Ukraine was necessary because, with American help, the Ukrainians are manufacturing bio-weapons. 

Putin is a hero to our oligarchs. They consider him to be a kindred spirit who shares their enchantment with autocracy and disdain for democracy. Rightwing entertainers, like Tucker Carlson, know what it is to be part of a propaganda mill. They are paid to tell whatever lies their owners want circulated. The conspiracy fans can never get enough of new conspiracies and they will wolf down any garbage that comes along without even tasting it. 

All of these are providing support and comfort to America’s enemy. 

Are they not a security risk?

7 III 2022: Could Alvin Bragg also be a crook?

NYC District Attorney Alvin Bragg has shut down the investigation of Trump & Co.’s financial crimes. He has been very secretive about this, thus failing to explain behavior that even charity would have to call questionable. My ever-suspicious mind grasps for an explanation. Did somebody get to Mr. Bragg. Who talked to whom? Who was promised what? What was used to threaten or entice and whom? Does Bragg care nothing at all for his credibility as a DA and as a lawyer? A District Attorney’s decision not to prosecute might in different circumstances be unremarkable. But this is about Trump who corrupts anyone he touches.

7 III 2022: Russian re-runs

There is nothing novel about the current Russian drive to annex Ukraine. They have been doing this sort of thing for centuries. The several Russian Empires came to include virtually all the one-time nations on its borders. These seizures were most extensive and intense in the later 19th-early 20th centuries under the First Russian Empire of the Tsars: Siberia, Caucasus, Central Asia, etc., etc. The Bolsheviks of the Second Russian Empire continued grabbing up neighbors property, particularly through the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact with the Nazis that gave them half of Poland and the Balkan countries and then through the creation of the Iron Curtain that as good as absorbed all neighbors into the Russian Empire. Russian rapacity seemed to have eased up with the fall of the Second Empire, but that was only an interlude while the Third Empire under Putin I was tooling up. Putin I has now resumed traditional Russian foreign policy: Conquer and annex, conquer and subjugate, conquer and control completely. 

This is bad enough. But what if we describe Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in less refined terms. Again, Asia is belching a host of barbarians against the West. Putin’s army is following in the footsteps of the Huns, the Mongols, the Cossacks, the Red Army. “But surely, Russia is too civilized, too sophisticated to sponsor an army of barbarians.” Well, we must recall accounts of Russian atrocities in countries it annexed, e.g., the Katyn Massacre in Poland, and the atrocities of the Red Army raping and butchering its way through civilian populations whom it was “liberating” at the end of WWII. We must realize that Molotov’s criticism of the West for being too sentimental about the loss of human life is not only a Bolshevik criticism, but a Russian criticism as well.

4 III 2022: How do you follow up that?

I could have predicted the behavior of Michelle Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Green at the State of the Union address is not surprising. They couldn’t have forgiven themselves if they failed to act out outrageous before so large a television audience. The rest of Congress booed them, but that was part of the plan. These are two cheerleaders playing to “the base,” and the base loves disrespectful behavior, hence part the appeal of the militant boor, Trump. 

These people, Michelle & Marjorie, Trump and his base, were never taught the conventions of good manners and common courtesy, and they are to a surprising degree embarrassed because they are ill-prepared to behave as adults, because they do not know the correct way to act. Rising up from the disadvantaged base is an animosity towards adults and the educated that is far more intense than we thought. Trump, with his 5th-grade vocabulary and play-ground insults, is, for his base, the public figure of their dreams. And Michelle, Marjory, Matt, the Capitol insurrectionists, et al., with their proclivity to hillbilly gags, guns, and violence, are heroes to the base, not because they irritate the libs, but because they have no respect for the adults.

What will M&M do to follow up heckling during the State of the Union address? Mooning the Congress, sending a box of dog poop to the President, putting cellophane wrap on the toilets in congressional wash rooms, setting off fire-crackers during opening prayers — who can say. All I can say is that to surpass themselves, they will have to come up with some really gross shtick.

26 II 2022: We’ll always have Moscow …

Trump is boasting that he knows Putin as well as almost anybody. Maybe he’s thinking of the happy times they had in Trump’s hotel room in Moscow. Getting physical might be a way for people who are ignorant of one another’s language and culture to get to know one another.

Trump has been cheering for Putin and denouncing Biden. So has Trump’s monkey, R. Giuliani. Mike Pompeio is mouthing the Trump line as well, as are many other Trumpublicans. Is this only a bit of routine ass kissing, or could it suggest that alliance with Putin is something to which the Trumpists aspire? The Republican right wing has more in common with an amoral authoritarian like Putin than with those Americans who are still offended by deceit, despotism, and brutal sleaze.

25 II 2022: Confluence of sewers in Orlando

I see that the OPAC meeting of aspirational oligarchs in Orlando will be featuring Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, and Ron De Santis. 

Cruz belongs in the Guiness Book of Records as the only man in the world whom absolutely no one is able to like. Hawley, the morbidly ambitious “country boy,” is so historically naive that he raised his fist to give a traditionally communist and anarchist salute to the Trump Militia on Jan 6. De Santis is more dangerous than dumb, because he doesn’t know how dumb he is. And a number of former MAGAs who are now Make Russia Great Again zealots will gather around the Defeated Donald, their “once and future king.”

This “unite the right” assembly will be a confluence of the sewers of American politics. Their combined gas will blow sewer lids to the sky.

24 II 2022: Maybe if we give him Poland also ….

So the Russians have invaded Ukraine. They will mop up Ukrainian defense forces in no time flat, and proceed to annex Ukraine. This is standard Russian behavior from olden times. They conquered Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, and half of Poland through the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. They bit off a chunk of Finland. Earlier they had conquered Siberia, the Caucasus, and Central Asia.

And here in the U.S., the world’s bastion against Communism, the home of “Better dead than red,” Tucker and Trump are cheering Putin on — I guess Trump regards Russia’s seizure of Ukraine as manifest destiny at work. 

We should not expect Trump and his anti-rational followers to be upset over the destruction of a democracy. They are doing their best to suppress democracy in the United States, so they can only praise someone they see “doing it right.”

So will Putin be satisfied with Ukraine. Not likely at all! Rhineland, Sudetenland, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, and Norway did not satisfy Putin’s forebears.

23 II 2022: The Moscow — Mar-a-Lago Axis

It is not surprising that Trump and some of his hangers-on have lately expressed their admiration and sympathy for Vladimir Putin. For these quasi-treasonous pols, it has always been party over country. They are so keen to praise anyone who clashes with Biden, that if Biden launched a crack-down on child molesters, these Republicans would come to the molesters’ defense. 

And, of course, Trump and Putin are brothers in spirit, even if Trump’s admiration for Putin is alloyed with considerable envy. Hitler and Mussolini too were joined in a fervent mutual-admiration society. If only America would set a good example for the world by prosecuting and imprisoning our own Mussolini, Donald Trump.

17 II 2022: WW II reruns

The Gleiwitz Incident was one of a series of attacks on German installations by Nazi operatives in Polish uniforms. These phony aggressions were alleged by the Nazis, along with whatever other grievances they could dream up, to “justify” their invasion of Poland. Polish plans to mobilize and prepare for the coming German invasion were blocked repeatedly by their loyal allies, Britain and France, who wanted to leave openings for “negotiation.” As a result, when the invasion came, Poland was able to mobilize effectively only 70% of its military.

Tsar Vladimir I Putin needs a war to prop up his wobbling tyranny and he wants to annex Ukraine, just as he annexed earlier a part of Ukraine, Crimea. He has mobilized his troops, put them in positions surrounding Ukraine, and, with plenty of his operatives already positioned in Ukraine, is only waiting for a phony casus belli that needn’t even seem plausible. And what are Ukraine’s allies doing while this is going on? They are, like Britain and France long ago, making token gestures and calling for “negotiations.”

We are assembling the sets and costumes, and writing the script for WW II re-runs, starring Putin as Hitler, Ukraine as Poland, and the U.S. and E.U. as Neville Chamberlain & Co.

7 II 2020: Bi-partisan support?   Book burning in TN!   Need a new definition of freedom.

Bi-partisan support? Senator Murkowski has expressed a hope that the President will nominate for the Supreme Court someone who will gain “a level of bipartisan support.” I don’t know what bipartisan support the Senator could have mind. “Bipartisan support” is now as passé as “honesty,” “truthfulness,” and the “common good.” Every day the Republicans in Congress make it clear that they have no interest in any bipartisan cooperation. The very concept of “bipartisan” is heretical, both in the Trump-toadying Republican establishment and among the berserk MAGA rank and file. They remind me of the Nazis who refused to cooperate with other political parties because they were waiting for the day when they could seize the government for themselves. 

Book burning in TN! I read about Pastor Greg Locke and his Global Vision Bible Church in Juliet TN. Pastor Locke and his church have taken to burning books that are Satanic, Masonic, or whatever they like. The Pastor and his zealots are fanatically devoted to the idea of Biblical Inerrancy, and so books that in any way disagree with “The Book” or question its utter inerrancy have to go. I’m reminded of a tale told about another zealot, the Caliph who conquered Alexandria. This Caliph ordered the destruction of the books in the great Library of Alexandria because any book that disagrees with the Quran is impious and any book that agrees with the Quran is superfluous.

Need a new definition of freedom.America has a knack of exporting all that is worst in its culture. So I’m not surprised to learn that the ranks of the Canadian truckers who are demonstrating (rioting) against COVID restrictions have been swollen by “freedom-loving” Americans from over the border. When I saw photographs of these demonstrators, I was struck, though not surprised, by how closely they resemble in costume and demeanor the seditious mob of Jan 6. Both crowds were motivated by a monstrous resentment and a desire to “protect” their “right” to an infantile idea of freedom.