Cleveland, America's "glasnost" moment?

Thoughts for the day:

“A Republic, if you can keep it.”

Benjamin Franklin

 "And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."

John 8:32 - King James Version

"Freedom? For whom? To do what?"
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov

"To whom much was given, of him much will be required"
‎Luke 12:49 · ‎Luke 12:47 · ‎King James Bible

Understanding the world today would be much simpler if we conceded that gradually after WWII and picking up speed dramatically after 9-11, the United States has evolved into a corporate-military-security state... in short a "regime";  and like our old,  Cold War opponents, the Soviet Union, (which was also a corporate-military-security state-regime), we need to wrap our realpolitik in millenarian ideology... "We are building global democratic capitalism comrades". The "end of history" and all that... while we force-feed political prisoners in our Guantanamo gulag, kill American citizens without trial, etc, etc.

America’s post-September 11th national-security state has become so well financed, so divided into secret compartments, so technically capable, so self-perpetuating, and so captured by profit-seeking contractors bidding on the next big idea about big-data mining that intelligence leaders seem to have lost their facility to think independently. Who is deciding what spying projects matter most and why? The New Yorker 

Here are two examples of who we say we are: 

Foreign Operations, Export Financing, and Related Programs Appropriations Act, 2006 "None of the funds appropriated or otherwise made available pursuant to this act shall be obligated or expended to finance directly any assistance to any country whose duly elected head of government is deposed by military coup or decree."  109th Congress Public Law 102

So we face a historic opportunity.  We have the chance to show that America values the dignity of the street vendor in Tunisia more than the raw power of the dictator.  There must be no doubt that the United States of America welcomes change that advances self-determination and opportunity.(...) And now we cannot hesitate to stand squarely on the side of those who are reaching for their rights, knowing that their success will bring about a world that is more peaceful, more stable, and more just. Barack Obama - May 19, 2011

Followed by an example of who we really are:

On 3 July 2013, Egyptian army chief General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi led a coalition to remove the only democratically elected President of Egypt, Mohamed Morsi, from power and suspended the Egyptian constitution.(...) The US refused to describe the action as a coup.(...) Ensuing protests in favour of Morsi were violently suppressed with the dispersal and massacre of pro-Morsi sit-ins on 14 August 2013, amid ongoing unrest; journalists, and several hundred to a few thousand protestors were killed by police and military force. Wikipedia

A clear example of our reality might be the contrast between Obama's Cairo speech in 2009 or the public encouragement of the "Arab Spring" and then supporting the military coup d'état in Egypt, that soon followed their first free elections in history (while because of 109th Congress Public Law 102, denying it was a coup) where an army that literally lives off American aid (in exchange for not troubling Israel) massacres the supporters of a legitimate, democratically elected government that they have overthrown manu militari, without the White House even giving them a sharp tug on their leash... impossible for anyone, anywhere, to believe that the USA hadn't colluded in it...  Perfectly comparable to the Soviets invading Prague in 1968  to "defend 'real existing socialism'"... All of this brings us face to face with our hypocrisy... rubs our noses in it really.

Perhaps hypocrisy is to be preferred to cynicism though, because as La Rochefoucauld famously said, "Hypocrisy is the homage which vice pays to virtue", which means that if good didn't exist, bad people wouldn't have to pretend to be good... Which is probably the best you can say about America's present performance on the world stage.

Sort of the "Soviet Union Light".

What was it that brought the mastodonic Soviet superpower crashing to oblivion, the straw that broke the camel's back?

What finally caused the USSR to unravel was the simple free movement of information, it was merely allowing Soviet citizens full, free access to the ordinary photocopying machine. That is what brought down the Soviet system.

Could it be a vulnerability that both superpowers might have somehow in common?

What could be America's version of the USSR's Xerox-Achilles heel.

Today facing the security state we have the ubiquitous cellphone video camera connected to Facebook and Twitter, plus a population armed to the teeth, in a country where in many places "open carry" is legal. This is a combination whose dissolvent effects on public order we are just beginning to sample.

In Dallas, the police's use of an exploding robot also gives a sinister hint of the militarization of America's police forces that the establishment feels might be "necessary" if that public order were to be severely endangered. 

What sort of endangerment? Where could this be leading? 

We might find out very soon.

How about this for a possibly historic clusterfuck? Armed to the teeth Black Panther activists slipstreaming the Black Lives Matter movement go to the Republican convention is Cleveland Ohio, to protest Donald Trump's racism, where they will meet white power Trump supporters also armed to the teeth. This in a state (Ohio) where a black child carrying a toy rifle could be shot by the police. 

The New Black Panther Party, a "black power" movement, will carry firearms for self-defense during rallies in Cleveland ahead of next week's Republican convention (...) Several other groups, including some supporters of presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, have said they will carry weapons in Cleveland.(...) Officials in Ohio have said it will be legal for protesters to carry weapons at demonstrations outside the convention under that state’s "open carry" law, which allows civilians to carry guns in public. Reuters

The ingredients for anarchy are all there. If not now, when?

If something dreadful doesn't happen, we might take it as a sign that America's famous luck has not quite run out... yet

Where could the combination of all of these ingredients be heading?

A wise old fellow once said something to the effect that the present cannot judge itself, anymore than we can judge a person by what he thinks of himself... that time alone will be the judge of our present affairs, but that old man also said that the present is always pregnant with the future and in time it will be clear that everything that is to come tomorrow was present in some form today, right now, under our noses waiting to come to fruition. 

Sobering thought that. DS

The Trump voters' message

The Trump voters' message to America and the world could possibly be contained in the two words: "Fuck + You", or then again their message might be described as "nihilism".

Nihilism: a doctrine or belief that conditions in the social organization are so bad as to make destruction desirable for its own sake independent of any constructive program or possibility. Merriam-Webster

I'm sure I'm not alone in not finding Trump interesting, but I have to admit that I am fascinated by the people who are fascinated by Trump.

When you come down to it, what is truly amazing is that Trump's speech is so contradictory as to be utterly meaningless... and that is the message and the key to his success. The only constant is his aggressiveness, his offensiveness. 

Nate Silver, one of America's most insightful political analysts, who admits having constantly "misunderestimated" the Donald, in analyzing his own puzzlement, sums up the heart of Trump's success.

Trump’s main differentiator was doubling down on cultural grievance: grievances against immigrants, against Muslims, against political correctness, against the media, and sometimes against black people and women. And the strategy worked. Nate Silver - FiveThirtyEight

Who is moved by this? Who is it working for? Where will it lead?

I know I shouldn't quote myself, but a couple of months ago I wrote:

We are looking at exasperated, paranoiac, xenophobic, racist nastiness, in short a fascistic mentality of crippled personalities in reaction to changing mores and a failing economy. All the unhappiness and frustration are searching for moral absolutes. Moral absolutes are what allow people to kill each other... if only in their imagination. All this hateful speech and dippy ideas are pregnant with death, they are about to give birth to a monster, but the Republicans are only the midwives... They are helpless in the face of the spirits they have invoked from the country's inner darkness. It is that darkness not any individual like Trump that should worry us, something very, very nasty is cooking in it.

In short I'm saying that if Donald Trump is not the genuine old Nick, could he be some sort of dark mirror "John the Baptist" for the very Devil himself? 

That what is really important is not Trump himself but the forces he invokes.

But returning to the present, aside from Trump's aggressiveness his only other constant is "making deals". At this he is an acknowledged master. 

Something that has been rolling around my mind for some time. Does he really want to be President of the United States or is he putting together the deal to end all deals?

For at this moment, for a deal maker, the Donald is in a very sweet if dangerous spot. 

Back in February I wrote:

Lets look at what's on the table. 

The Republican Party controls both houses of Congress... for the moment, and a Supreme Court that could mark the ideological slant for a generation is up for grabs. 

If Trump runs as either the Republican candidate or as an independent, all poll projections predict an Armageddon for the Republicans, with not only the loss of the presidency, but loss of majorities in both houses  of Congress, perhaps even in state houses too. 

Has the moment finally come for doing a "deal"?
It seems to me that Donald Trump is now holding the family jewels of some of the most powerful people in the world in his tiny warm hands and is squeezing them rather hard. We are talking about a political party that now controls both houses of Congress and represents the interests of the top 0.01% of the American economy. What laws could they write for him (which I'm sure Obama, as a patriot, would be quick to sign)? Or how much would, say the Koch brothers, or all the conservative super-PACs, be willing to cough up to kiss him goodbye 

The shape of a deal?
What are the Republicans still in a position to offer Donald Trump between now and the convention, something which would be more attractive for him than losing the presidential race by a historic margin and destroying the Republican Party in the process... in which case they could give him nothing?

I should have said "in which case they could give him the same medicine as was given to Jimmy Hoffa". 

Donald Trump has already made some of the most powerful people in America his blood enemies in exchange for what seems to be a slim chance of winning the White House.  

Is he insane? 

Is he not insane? 

I admit I don't know which of the two is the worse alternative. DS

Hand of God?

David Seaton's News Links

“I was just thinking, this Gustav is proof that there is a God in heaven,” (Michael) Moore said, laughing. “To have it planned at the same time – that it would actually be on its way to New Orleans for day one of the Republican Convention, up in the Twin Cities – at the top of the Mississippi River.” Business & Media Institute

That's one way of looking at it, but I just read this over on CNN:

President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney will not attend the GOP convention in St. Paul, Minnesota, because of Hurricane Gustav, White House press secretary Dana Perino said Sunday.(...) A senior McCain source said Saturday that officials were considering turning the convention into a massive telethon to raise money for the Red Cross and other agencies to help with hurricane aid. "He wants to do something service oriented if and when the storm hits and it's as bad as it's expected to be now," the McCain source said. They are also hoping to get McCain himself to a storm-affected area as soon as possible. McCain had suggested to a Fox News interviewer that the convention could be suspended if it seemed that a festive gathering was inappropriate in light of the destruction the storm may bring.

So, it turns out that the hand of God will keep both Bush and Cheney from attending the convention... Don't you think that keeping those two politically poisonous individuals away from the convention is something McCain would have been down on his knees praying for?

You bet!

And wouldn't you say having the entire media fixed both on Gustav and the Republican convention 24/7, that this is a God given opportunity for McCain be all over the news cycle and to look, proactive, competent, compassionate and presidential?

A chance for McCain at the scene of one of Bush's greatest disasters, to be "McDifferent" and not McSame?

If I were an Evangelical, which thank God I'm not, I would gather from all this that our Father in heaven is mightily pleased with McCain's Veep pick. DS