The idea was to destroy all fruit from the poisoned tree.
The title of the House bill was “The Russian Reversal Act,” and it attempted as best as possible to eradicate any trace of Putin’s Puppy, as Donald Trump came to be known, from Amerikkan government or political life. Not surprisingly, it wasn’t filed until after the _ _’20 election when Donald Trump—on the ballot but already impeached—Mike Pence, Mitch McConnell and the Senate Repugnant majority were thrown out and replaced by Dumbercrats. The bill declared every Trump executive order automatically countermanded, every fired government employee automatically given a fresh job interview, and, most importantly, judges appointed by Trump NO MATTER WHAT LEVEL were temporarily suspended while undergoing a review process detailed in the bill, a provision vociferously condemned by a highly excited Judge Kavanaugh.
“Oops!”
Most importantly, the bill declared the election of Donald J. Trump to be null and void, and stipulated that on documents, signs and placques where he is listed as Amerikka’s 45thChief Potentate, the number 45 will be crossed out and replaced with an asterisk (*) which links to a footnote at the bottom that reads “Donald J. Trump was proven to be a fraud.”
Those were Shakespeare’s last words on the matter.
Except of course for this…
Trumpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Trumpty Dumpty had a big fall.
All the king’s horses and all the king’s men
Couldn’t put Trumpty back in power again.
*From The final act of Trumpty Dumpty, a play written by William Shakespeare (channeled by Paul Steven Stone) and presented as an Over-The-Cliff-Notes version of a recently discovered Shakespearean play. You can find it at: http://paulstonesthrow.com/the-tragic-comedy-of-trumpty-dumpty/
+Meant by the author to call, in the post impeachment era—for a dismantling of anything—any bill, appointment or executive order—considered Trump/Putin-tinged.
William Shakespeare’s Trumpty Dumpty takes place in the mythical island nation of Amerikka, a banana republic off the northeast coast of Central America. Amerikka proudly boasts a democratic tradition going back more than 250 years and prides itself on its honest elections and unquestioned moral authority, two items on the endangered species list in the troubled, murky waters of a Donald J. Trump administration.
Amerikka
It is Election Season _ _’19, three years after Donald Trump beats Hillary Clinton for the Chief Potentate job in the Amerikkan election.
Themes and Plotline:
The underlying themes in Trumpty Dumpty are rooted in primal conflicts. Goodness versus Greed, Truth versus Lies. Donald Trump versus Everybody Else. The play, thought to have been lost during Shakespeare’s darkest drinking days, tells of a sharpster megalomaniac, a self-styled billionaire trend setter, who stumbles, with the assistance of Russian state hackers and trolls, into the office of the Chief Potentate of Amerikka (which includes Puerto Rico).
ACT ONE, SCENE ONE
As Shakespeare’s play opens, we are in the darkened Oval Throne Room. Three years have passed since Donald J. Trump bested Hillary Clinton for the Amerikkan Potentate’s throne. Since that time, The Donald has enmeshed himself, his family and colleagues, his country and a bewildered planet in one unnecessary crisis after another. Most—if not all—of his own making.
To understand the magnitude of Donald Trump’s gloom and anxiety as Act One, Scene One opens, we must stand back in awe of the staggering forces ranged against him.
The Big Three: Donald Trump, Russia and Collusion
First, there is Robert Mueller and his Special Prosecutor’s Team dogging the Chief Potentate’s every step, past or present. Feeling uncomfortably probed, The Donald repeatedly cries “Foul,” “No collusion!” or “Witch hunt!” to anyone who will listen, while Mueller, the elder investigator and former FBI Chief, stoically remains silent through two years of Trump name-calling, derision, obfuscation and—most significant of all—10 separate attempts to obstruct justice, as dutifully detailed in Mueller’s 448-page report.
The Dumbercrats Have Some Questions
Then, of course, there are The Dumbercrats, Hillary Clinton’s pesky political party, which had the poor manners, as Trump sees it, to win a majority in the House of Representatives in the _ _’18 mid-term elections. And whereas the Repugnant Party chose to ignore Trump’s many missteps, misdeeds and malfeasances when they enjoyed their majority in the House, these nit-picking Dumbercrats are swirling around The Donald like sharks in heat, nibbling away at his greatness with a thousand bites. Subpoenas are suddenly in season like monarch butterflies, fluttering up and down the corridors of power.
(Your Caption Goes Here)
And the biggest butterfly of all, Impeachment, is casting a huge shadow across the Amerikkan landscape but as yet seems unwilling to land. The Donald sees the shadow but lies about that as he lies about everything, claiming “It’s just a cloud of gas from one of those shithole countries.”
Then, there are the questions—some of which haven’t yet been asked. Those questions are closing in around The Donald even as he commits further outrages against the American Constitution and defenseless Mexican families.
Those questions, those disturbing questions…
“Why was Russia so helpful in the _ _’16 election?” “What does Putin expect in return?” “How many women have you raped or assaulted?” “Why did Deutsche Bank bankroll you when their risk officers said to turn you down?” “Was it your idea to pay off Stormy Daniels and not report the payment?” “How much are you really worth?” “What happened to the missing millions from your Inauguration Fund?” “Who said you could treat the Trump Charitable Foundation like a personal piggy bank?” Just a few of the many questions waiting to be asked in committees crowded with sober-minded, truth-seeking politicians.
Of the opposite party.
The Biggest Q of All
Putin on horseback
And then, the biggest question of all: “Were you put in office by Vladimir Putin…to break up NATO…to create instability and chaos…to undermine our military…to construct a burden of debt Amerikka will never escape…to bring Russia back into the G8…to foment trade instability… to sow dissension with our neighbors and allies…to provoke divisions within our own people…to destroy the fabric of Amerikkan society by playing to its worst tendencies…and to leave Amerikka isolated on the world stage?”
Soliloquy Interruptus
It is this very issue of Trump’s colluding with the Russians to win the election, and the possible seismic political upheaval were it to become general knowledge, that swirls around The Donald in the dark of the oval room.
“No collusion!”
The Mueller report laid it all out for everyone to see, but the public proved too lazy to take in the magnitude of the crimes—the Trump Campaign’s questionable and numerous contacts with Russian operatives, its clear involvement in the Wikileaks theft and exposure of the Clinton emails, the sharing of campaign polling data with the Russians. What was the quid-pro-quo at the heart of the Russia-Trump axis? And what has Trump promised Putin in exchange? Whatever you call it, Trump’s treasonous collusion with America’s long-standing enemy is out there in the open for all to see.
Perhaps Mueller was acting judiciously in not charging anyone with conspiracy, but the evidence of collusion is everywhere in his report.
“Why?” Trump, sitting alone in the darkened room, hears voices asking. “Why cheat? Why lie? Why conceal your tax returns? Why verbally attack your own cities? Your own Congresswomen? Why insult Muslims everywhere? Or your own hurricane-torn territories? Why lift up Putin? Why tear down your intelligence agencies? Why kiss the asses of dictators and nuclear-fixated tyrants? Why, why, why?”
The “Whys” rise in a ghostly angelic chorus like a mist of pesky mosquitoes, their combined buzz filling the Oval Throne Room and serving as tonal background to Shakespeare’s longest, most poignant and tortured soliloquy.
Fred Trump
The start of which begins with Donald Trump on one knee facing a photo of his father, Frederick Christ Trump.
Trump intones:
“To be me? Or not to be me?
That is the question.
Whether ‘tis wiser to hide my bright light
‘Neath a basket,
And plead ignorance
For fear the rabble will feast on my brilliance.
Dare I ask it?
Do they know how great I am?
Could they know how great I am?
Do they realize I’m more popular than the Beatles?
It’s true.
How great is that, I ask you?
How great is that?”
A knock sounds at one of the darkened room’s many doors.
“Voyti!” Chief Potentate Trump shouts in response, tickled to have already learned enough Russian to answer a door. The Donald first studied Russian back when he had his Moscow Trump Tower dreams. The Russian language studies, however, collapsed with his dreams, and only restarted after a certain unnamed world leader advised him in Helsinki, through an interpreter, “Next time we meet, you better know Russian.”
“Voyti!” The Donald repeats, then adds with irritation, “Enter, for Godsakes, enter!”
William Barr, United States Attorney General, sticks his head through the door, and says, “Mr. President. You sent for me?”
Amerikka’s Attorney General
“Did I?” The Donald questions, totally forgetting why, then says, “Oh right! Yes, yes, I did send for you.” The Donald, as a reward for Barr’s faithful service has installed the Attorney General in a room off the Oval Throne Room. The room had previously been a closet.
He looks around the office, as if assuring himself they are alone. “How are you William?” he asks softly, as he often does in seductions or when setting up a con job, switching on the personal charm and the overhead light at the same time and beckoning Barr in.
As he does with everyone, Trump uses his handshake to pull his unwitting participant into a virtual locked embrace, his large frame hovering over and close to his quarry, gripping tightly, almost like a threat. With his hand tightly grasping Barr’s, he asks, “Tell me, Bill, is your limousine large enough?” as if he had personally selected it. “The color suit your taste? What about your office? Are you happy with your office…?”
Fidgety and uncomfortable, Barr smiles awkwardly and suggests, “Perhaps if I had a window…?”
Clearly distracted and unable to hear anything but the voices in his head, Trump says, “Yes, I see” as if he doesn’t see a thing, then looks up at his Attorney General and says, “Oh Bill, I’m glad you’re here.” He puts his hand in his pocket and pulls out a five-dollar bill. Handing the bill to the Attorney General, Trump says, “This time of night, I’d go crazy for a genuine corn beef Reuben. Sadly, there are no good delicatessens here in Washington, but Katz And Jammer’s near Dupont Circle is as good as any.”
Taking the money from the president, William Barr looks at the five-dollar bill and slowly it dawns on him what is being asked.
As the Attorney General opens the door, a voice behind him says ominously, “And I expect to see some change.”
As he often does, The Chief Potentate ruminates fondly upon his Attorney-General who, Shakespeare reminds us, pulled The Donald’s ass out of the fire just before the bomb went off, so to speak, when he stood before the nation and totally mischaracterized the Mueller Report and its conclusions before anyone had a chance to see it. In essence, pouring a blanket of water on the Flame of Truth Bob Mueller was charged to ignite.
He briefly wonders how far his Attorney General would go to follow his orders…? “Would he kill for me,” Trump idly asks himself, then makes a face of pleasant surprise at the answer.
Then his fantasies, which are never far away, take over the soliloquy.
“Just imagine,” he declares.
“If I could order my enemies rounded up.
Gently, you understand.
Gently thrown in prison,
Gently disappeared.
Their presses and their news networks gently closed down,
Their fortunes gently sacrificed to the state
Just like Vladimir does.
A real gentleman.”
The Donald pauses to pull out a money roll and count it out, bill by bill. Then looks up and throws the money into the air as an interesting thought comes to him…
“But maybe if I was King…
Isn’t that how the song goes?
If I was Amerikka’s
Potentate-For-Life…
I’d quickly outlaw strife,
Grant divorces to those men
Who married an ugly wife.
Put two chickens in every pot,
Outlaw poverty from the start.
If only they could see
How much I deserve to be
Their lifelong “majesty”
More than Obama who cooled you,
More than Hillary who fooled you.
Born in the USA and hung like a stallion
Who else but…The Donald!
If only…For life!
Trump’s Psychological Profile
At Over-The-Cliff-Notes we debated whether to include the above conversation between Chief Potentate Trump and his Attorney General, but eventually decided to include it since it clearly illustrates what many have already concluded: that Shakespeare believed Donald Trump psychologically unfit to hold high office. It’s so obvious the Donald has only the most tenuous hold on reality. Notice how vaguely he acts, as if sleepwalking. Then watch his sudden surprise at seeing the man whose hand he just shook moments before!
There are other signs of reality slipping from The Donald’s grasp. Notice he mentions “This time of night,” in explaining his hunger. Fact is it is only 3:23 in the afternoon when he says those words. Also, Shakespeare has Trump handing Attorney General Barr a five-dollar bill to buy a “genuine corn beef Reuben” sandwich (which at the time Shakespeare wrote his play cost $23.95 at Katz’s Delicatessen in NYC) and expects to see change!
Send a salami to your boy in the army!
The scene also offers some insight into the Donald’s use of his personal power. The handshake pulling in his victim, then the over-arching embrace that holds the man captive in his grasp. Then the gentle reminders of just who the founder of William Barr’s feast might be. “Is your limousine large enough?” he asks, as if he could give a good goddamn. “Do you like the color?” he probes almost mechanically, even though he is clearly lost at the moment to the voices in his head.
Not since The Merchant of Venice has Shakespeare imbued a character with so much passion to make a buck. No, that’s not right. Trump’s passion is not to make a buck, but to make more bucks than anyone else! And to make them
with precious little effort. Perhaps bending a few rules, telling a few lies. You know, having some fun. Selling steaks, selling neckties made in China, selling wine, selling bottled water, selling a Trump autobiography written by somebody else, essentially selling as much gilded bullshit to as many suckers as will buy it.
There is one person you know did NOT write this book. Guess who!
There are two phrases Shakespeare repeatedly puts in The Donald’s mouth, at times when the Chief Potentate is showing off his grifter’s skills to sycophants. They’re both four letters, for efficiency and impact one suspects. When Donald shouts “The con is on!” you know he’s about to pull the trigger on some bold, hopefully unexpected move. When he needs to create a diversion from a self-created crises, he merely throws another bomb into the mix, usually explaining, “Let’s stir things up.”
Shakespeare’s Trumpty Dumpty stands apart from the cannon of the Bard’s work for the outsized, anti-social behavior of its protagonist, a liar who can out-lie Iago, a king who can act more blindly than Lear, a fraud who, like Richard The Third, can out-dazzle aggrieved widows, even those whose widowhood he himself caused. The Donald is a con man with a silver tongue that never stumbles over a lie. An egomaniac who has deadened the nerve endings of half the world’s population by his constant barrage of bizarre behavior and dishonest words, Trump can do and say almost anything without risk of shocking anyone. A frequently cited symptom of chronic TFS (Trump Fatigue Syndrome).
See the series by myself and Bill Dahlgren, elsewhere on this blog. Go to: http://paulstonesthrow.com/tales-from-an-overheated-planet-a-poster-series/
Could this really be the man Amerikkans have entrusted with the levers of power, Shakespeare asks? A man who can see no further than his own financial well-being? A man smart enough to know the planet is overheating, but greedy enough to choose immediate economic benefit over the health and survival of the Earth itself.
What does Shakespeare mean for us to believe when his play’s eponymous character, and single most important voice, steps onto the world stage and immediately begins telling…we hate to say it, but, well…lies? An endless stream of lies, in fact. Thousands and thousands of lies, as one newspaper inventoried. More than 12,000 in the first two years alone.
A Wall of Lies or Black Steel Slats?
Historians and literary analysts have long agreed Shakespeare intended the title Trumpty Dumpty to refer metaphorically to the ultimate fall of Donald Trump. From power. From grace. From Amerikka’s good opinion. Whether Shakespeare implies The Donald’s fall relates to the actual wall he promised to build (at Mexican expense) or to the eventual crumbling of the Wall of Lies he incautiously constructed to keep out the Truth, we may never know. Whichever wall he meant, however, Trumpty Dumpty climaxes with one of the most dramatic endings ever seen in a Shakespearean Play. Drama critics have termed it “the Great Man’s Great Fall.”
The Great Man’s Great Fall:
“Oops!”
The idea was to destroy all fruit from the poisoned tree.
The title of the original House bill was “The Russian Reversal Act,” and it attempted, as best as possible, to eradicate any trace of Putin’s Puppy, as Donald Trump came to be known, from Amerikkan government or political life. Not surprisingly, it wasn’t filed until after the _ _’20 election when Donald Trump—on the ballot but already impeached—Mike Pence, Mitch McConnell and the Senate Repugnant majority were thrown out and replaced by Dumbercrats. The bill declared every Trump executive order rescinded, every Trump-signed bill reviewed and re-voted, every fired government employee given a fresh interview, and, most importantly, every judge appointed by Trump, NO MATTER WHAT LEVEL, was temporarily suspended while undergoing a review process detailed in the bill, a provision heatedly condemned by a highly excited Judge Kavanaugh.
Most importantly, the bill declared the election of Donald J. Trump to be null and void, and stipulated that on documents, signs and placques where he is listed as Amerikka’s 45thChief Potentate, the number 45 will be crossed out and replaced with an asterisk (*) which links to a footnote at the bottom that reads “Donald J. Trump was proven to be a fraud.”
I’ve been very vocal about my outrage concerning Hillary and the DNC, much to the concern and consternation of many, even those who love me. Allow me to further illuminate what this is all about, since many seem so confused and worried about my mental state.
The American Media at work during the Democratic primaries.
Anyone who closely watched the 2016 electoral process found themselves witnessing a shamefully blatant collusion between the government, the DNC and the media (which ignored and buried any positive news about the Sanders’ campaign). What most shocked me was the media’s role in elevating Hillary and burying Bernie. The fact that 700 delegates walked out of the Democratic convention without getting any notice in the national press is a great example of how the media controlled the message we were all fed. And how they took their direction from the Clinton campaign, ignoring the many signs of voter suppression and election fraud in the primaries, pretending the Democrats were unified at the convention, which was a real joke. There’s a video that shows Jake Tapper of CNN hastily cutting to Boyz 2 Men on the convention stage to prevent CNN reporters from covering the delegate walkout.
The Federal government at work protecting our democratic process.
700 delegates walk out of the Democratic Convention and the Mainstream Mediocrity doesn’t find that newsworthy! For me—and this is key to my stand on Hillary—the cabal behind Hillary was essentially attempting a non-violent coup d’etat. If you drop polite terms, conspiring to steal an election, and nullifying millions of votes, is tantamount to Treason. I appreciate the concern many have shown about my frequently expressed outrage. That has led to a lot of misunderstanding, people assuming I was supporting Trump because I was against Hillary, or that I had gone over the edge.
Let me be clear, my first priority was to protect and defend the Constitution, something Obama failed to do in allowing the Democratic nomination to be stolen. What did Obama say? Democracy is hard work? Obviously, defending democracy was equally difficult for him.
At times I feel like the little Dutch boy who discovered a leak in the dike. Even if nobody believes me, should I shut up and walk away? Or should I stick my finger in the hole and start shouting for help?
Even if people don’t wish to hear the truth about their favorite candidate?
Thankfully, there’s no longer any need to fight Hillary and her cabal. Through some ironic twist of fate, she and her fellow conspirators lost the election, leaving us to deal with someone in the White House seemingly not worthy of leading the country. Or the world! For myself, I will continue to disseminate the Truth about the 2016 election, as I see it, and to fight anything Trump does to threaten the welfare of the planet and the people who live upon it.
If you’re angry about Trump becoming our president, don’t blame me; blame Hillary and the Democratic Party whose grab for power set all manner of bad outcomes into play.
If you’re worried about me because I refuse to quietly accept the theft of our democracy, or the leadership of a failed and corrupt Democratic Party, worry first about yourself or anyone else who quietly accepts it.
And lastly, to relive those glorious days of the Bernie campaign, check out mine and Bill Dahlgren’s .“CHANNELING BERNIE,” ad campaign. 51 glorious ads in pursuit of the real American Dream.
In honor of our recent snow storm, an excerpt from “Or So It Seems” by Paul Steven Stone
Yesterday here in Boston it was supposed to snow. The weather forecasters had predicted eight to ten inches with a foot more expected up north. What we actually experienced when everything was said and done was an unseasonably warm day in the upper fifties with the sun shining through high wispy clouds. A day as it turned out where thousands of snow shovels were sold in what was possibly the year’s last frenzy of winter storm panic shopping.
Of course weather prediction is far from an exact science, especially in New England, but there is still something dramatic and momentous about a predicted snowstorm that never arrives.
When I was a child growing up in Brooklyn and would watch snow falling I can remember thinking that snow was some physical substance that collected in the clouds until there was so much accumulated it finally broke through. Almost like a mathematical formula describing the inevitable result of supply exceeding storage capacity.
One time when I was in elementary school we were told a major snowstorm was on the way but like yesterday’s storm it never materialized. I recall wondering if someone might have made a mistake about the amount of snow that had accumulated in the clouds?
Maybe enough snow had not yet collected, I reasoned?
Or maybe they were right about the amount of snow piled up
but wrong about how much the clouds could hold…?
Well whatever the reason, I was certain that the snow which had been predicted—the snow that did not fall—was still up there, high in the clouds…waiting. Waiting for more snow to collect. Waiting until the clouds were so full and sodden with snow they had no choice but to burst open.
Then of course all the snow would fall down and cover the asphalt streets of Brooklyn in a numbingly soft and pure whiteness.
As a child such simple ideas were the foundation of my understanding about the way things worked. No different, I would guess, from the assumptions and beliefs of most children.
Today when I wander through memories of my father, my mind approaches the subject with that same childlike innocence. And somehow I believe that the love I never received from my father was like the snow that never fell from the clouds. It did not vaporize or cease to exist but was merely held over. Waiting for enough love to collect. Waiting until so much love accumulated it would break through all restraints and finally—freed at last—fall like a gentle snow upon my life and the lives of my children.
As childish as it sounds something in me wants to believe that love builds up in the course of human experience so that if it fails to shower down in one life it will inevitably find release in another.
That same inner part of me knows that the love I share with my children has been made large and overwhelming by the love that never fell from my father’s heart.
That hunger for a father’s love must have colored Dad’s childhood as well, since his father—my grandfather Izzy—was notorious for being a stern and distant parent. Is it any wonder then that Dad, being so unfamiliar with love and how to get it, searched for it so relentlessly outside the boundaries of his family?
Searching for it in his work, his friends, even in the company of strange women.
My father’s tragedy was that he never saw the abundance lying nearby for the treasure that was always beyond his reach.
I believe we are all waiting for snow that never fell. Some of us, the lucky ones, learn to create that snow for ourselves while others only learn to imitate the loveless behavior of their parents.
“Dad,” Mickey mutters, squirming under the covers, “would you turn out the light!”
“In a few moments,” I promise softly. “Turn over now and close your eyes.”
He makes an angry noise and turns over as instructed.
“Thank you, sweetie,” I whisper, tapping him softly on the shoulder.
“Grrr!” he answers.
“I love you,” I tell him softly, almost singing the words.
“I love you, too,” he grunts back with a testy shake of his body.
In scarcely a moment my little boy will be sound asleep again.
I was in a fog, which was quite an ordinary event in these extraordinary times.
But out of the fog came the frightening realization the United States of America was gearing up for war. And it was the Russians who were squarely in our cross-hairs.
The Russians can hear drums as well as we can.
For months during the campaign I had listened to Hillary Clinton pugnaciously rattle her saber in Vladamir Putin’s face, as if she somehow held the secret to surviving a nuclear confrontation.
Then three months ago, up stepped the Army’s Chief of Staff, high enough in the chain of command that his public words usually reflected administration views. And there he was threatening that America would destroy the Russians and Chinese on the battlefield. In his arrogance, he sounded more like Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un than an American Army General.
This in a video!
I was incredulous when I first heard the Chief of Staff’s menacing words. They reflected a deterioration of relations with Russia that had clearly reached a tipping point. When had conditions gotten this bad between the two countries, I wondered? Had I missed something? Something big…?
Something so big it was worth going to war with a nuclear Russia?
Why else would Obama throw down the gauntlet in retaliation for some crime he can’t be sure the Russians committed. His intelligence agencies have produced reports claiming Russian interference in our election, but they still fail to produce evidence.
And now there is all this anger and outrage being generated by news stories with questionable credibility. Stories leaked and repeated by media outlets nationwide, none of them bothering to verify or check the sources of the original unsubstantiated report. Everyone shouting, “It’s The Russians!” as if we had caught Putin with his hand up our skirt.
Where was the anger and outrage when Hillary Clinton’s campaign turned our primary election into a mockery of the democratic process? Where were the cries for investigation, or the congressional outrage then? You’ll recall there was only silence. A deep silence that reaffirmed itself every time votes were stolen or suppressed in Democratic state primaries.
Now that I can step out of the storm—at least the storm in my head—I can see the connections that have become obvious with time. Too many higher-ups in the government, the establishment press, and the Democratic Party were committed to Hillary Clinton’s victory; too many for the train to slow down once it began jumping the rails. By then it was too late for them to admit, even to themselves, that they had backed a losing candidate.
Obama and his administration ignored complaint after complaint about Hillary’s election fraud; petitions with hundreds of thousands of signatures were unceremoniously dismissed. Where was the concern then, so stridently proclaimed now, to protect the integrity of America’s elections?
Yes, our democracy is in danger if foreign powers can control or manipulate our democratic processes. But the same holds true, perhaps even moreso, when the violators come from inside our country’s political and corporate elite.
Now that I’m taking a moment to put the pieces together, having hidden with my head in the sand for the last few weeks—I can see the dots coming together. I understand that when war-minded Hillary lost the election, the establishment was left militarily bereft. Not only did they no longer have a presidential candidate prepared to take us to war with the Russkies, but they ended up instead with a president ready to enjoy tea and cupcakes with them.
Think of all the weapons our armies won’t get to deplete, then resupply, because Hillary lost the election and couldn’t take us to war. Think of all the money saved by taxpayers and denied to the arms manufacturers?
Think of the oil pipeline through Syria that the Russians might get to build instead of the Americans, a deeply coveted prize that was probably the justification for our Syrian involvement. Even Obama, as he leaves office, seems ready to take his Nobel Peace Prize once again to war, only this time against a power with a nuclear arsenal to back up its geopolitical objectives.
It’s a quandry the establishment and its oligarchs must learn to live with. Somehow the Halliburtons, Lockheed Martins and Raytheons must learn to make their billions from peace with Russia instead of war.
I’ve written before why I don’t trust Obama or any of his war-minded intelligence services. “Save your outrage for Angela Merkel” I would tell them. Angela, of course, being the German Chancellor who, thanks to Edward Snowden, now knows the American government was listening in on her private cell phone calls—and probably still is!
Before we allow discredited news vendors like the Washington Post or the New York Times to get us all anxious and enraged with stories about the Russians, stories that never get sourced or validated to any extent, let us find a quiet corner and come to silence, if we can. And think.
Hmm? How many times have we been lied into war by a dishonest administration and a complicit American press?
Too often to not pay attention when it seems to be happening again.
How many lives will be lost in a war with Russia—ours as well as theirs—a cost of war that can never be recaptured once it’s spent?
Far more lives will be sacrificed than we ever anticipate. Thus is it ever so! We were supposed to be welcomed with flowers to Iraq, not IED’s. Plus we were told Iraqi oil would pay for the war.
Anyone recall how that worked out for us?
And who wants this war, anyway?
Nobody I know. And nobody intelligent enough to ignore or forget war’s unfortunate consequences. The soldiers and civilians killed and wounded, the villages destroyed, the systems corrupted, the lives shattered. Not to mention the treasure wasted; treasure that might have funded food, health and education programs for American citizens. Here in America!
How does that sound?
And if we haven’t learned we only foster terrorism, anarchy and hopelessness when we use our military power unwisely, then we deserve everything waiting for us in a war with Russia.
A war only the weapons manufacturers can hope to win.
And lastly, to relive those glorious days of the Bernie campaign, check out mine and Bill Dahlgren’s .“CHANNELING BERNIE,” ad campaign. 51 glorious ads in pursuit of the real American Dream.
