Smoking And Sputtering

“But what does it say about our so-called leadership when they slip into nostalgia for the past when facing the rubble and ruin of their modern ideology? That neoliberalism has peaked and is accelerating toward its inglorious finale?” Jason Hirthler

What and who to believe? Ambiguous claims made by anonymous sources? Mainstream media outlets owned by corporations? Internet crackpots? The CIA?

Why would Russia want to disrupt the American election when it was absolutely clear that we had accomplished this feat all on our own? Our perverted system required no help when it puked up Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. And let’s not forget that the e-mails from the DNC -- whether leaked or hacked -- showed that the Clinton Machine wanted to face Donald Trump more than any other GOP candidate. The Machine’s polling and focus groups and experts and triangulation all pointed to a comfortable victory if Trump was the opponent. Hubris blinds absolutely.

The US establishment seems convinced that Vladimir Putin -- the latest, not-so-new world bogeyman, the reinvigorated Red Menace -- somehow tipped the presidential election in favor of Donald Trump. Why Putin would do this is speculated on but never verified with evidence. Maybe the CIA knows, but why would any American trust the pronouncements of the CIA? Hillary Clinton -- desperate to find an excuse for her failure -- believes that Putin harbored dislike for her personally. Then how to explain the fact the Clinton easily won the popular vote? Are we to believe that Putin’s operation was so sophisticated that it only influenced the vote in states that Trump won?

Now that the establishment is obsessed with Putin and Russia, does this mean an end to our war on Islam, the war that goes on and on and on, with never a declaration by Congress? We are killing people -- directly or by proxy -- in countries that never attacked us, like Pakistan, Yemen, Iraq and Syria, and never far from unleashing our military might on Iran. Of course, when the self-proclaimed indispensable nation does the killing, it is justified on the grounds that we are maintaining the peace, halting a humanitarian tragedy, or advancing democracy. The corporate media and its stenographers echo this sentiment without question. Of course the US is righteous and just.

Donald Trump is a symptom of internal gangrene. Our neoliberal, market-obsessed, financialized economy and bloated military and surveillance machine is smoking and sputtering like a 1963 VW bus ascending a steep grade, and the public is choking on lies and myths and fantasy. We are buckling under the weight of empire. Trump and his gang will accelerate this trend.