Weapons of Mass Delusion

 “They will overthrow the temples and soak the earth in blood.” Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

>It’s difficult to make sense of the world at this moment, particularly here in the United States, where madness has been sanctified in one of our two major political parties. That’s due to the cowardice of too many Republicans who allowed a sociopath to browbeat and cow them into submission by name-calling and mean posts on social media. I will never understand how so many people fail to see that Donald J. Trump is a quintessential coward, a braggart and blowhard who caves at the first sign of resistance. He’s also a draft dodger, a tax cheat, an adulterer, a liar, and the most incompetent and destructive man ever to sit in the White House. 

>It will not be a banner day for America when Trump becomes the first American president to be indicted for felonies. What it will show the world is that America isn’t what it has portrayed itself to be for more than a century. Not ordained by a higher power. Not exceptional or special, and certainly not better than or inherently superior to. Yet it’s absolutely necessary for Trump to be indicted and held accountable for all the crimes he committed as president -- even if that means acts of violent civil unrest on the part of Trump’s most demented followers, his neo-John Birch Society soldiers. We should fear not holding Trump accountable more than the possibility of scattered violence. 

>Trump is going to make a speech in Waco, Texas, on the 30th anniversary of the siege of the Branch Davidian complex; you can bet he’ll wrap himself in the shroud of David Koresh and proclaim that he is but another persecuted prophet. (Also batshit crazy.)

>The only way to bring Russia’s war in Ukraine to an end is through a negotiated settlement. Even with help from the West, and another $100 billion in assistance from the United States (which can always find money for war but only rarely for peace), Ukraine cannot prevail in a war of attrition. The mandarins and policy wonks of American imperialism cannot be happy that China is assuming a diplomatic role the US once thought its exclusive purview. Whether the US likes it or not, China is a global power, with growing interests and influence around the world. Brokering a diplomatic thaw between Iran and Saudi Arabia, and offering to mediate between Russia and Ukraine are two signs that the era of American hegemony is waning. This will be hard for US political and financial elites to accept; they have profited brilliantly from the American-led neoliberal world order. 

>The Republican Party loves the unborn but despises the living, as made clear by efforts underway in many red states to rollback laws and regulations that prevent exploitation of child labor. Arkansas has already acted, Iowa may follow soon. Yes, say Republican governors, 14 and 15 year old kids should toil in mines and meat packing plants, work around dangerous machinery because nothing is more important than providing cheap, expendable labor to America’s capitalists! Destroy the public schools and force children to work for the Fatherland! Heil Trump!

>America needs enemies to vanquish. Native Americans, Blacks, communists, socialists, immigrants, hippies, Yippies, feminists, suffragettes, George Soros, liberals, drag queens, gays, transgender people, poltically-correct, tree huggers and the ultra-dangerous Woke. We need bogeymen, objects to fear and hate. 

>I can’t get over the strangeness of these times. The world is a scary mess, and yet my little clan is still living a comfortable, pleasant life. How long this will last is unknown, and that’s disconcerting. What calamity waits around the bend? Without doubt we’re living at the end of one time and the beginning of another. American economic hegemony is fading as is American influence; capitalism is destroying itself as surely as cancer destroys the human body; and climate change is already wreaking havoc. 

>It’s the 20th anniversary of America’s unprovoked and entirely fabricated invasion, occupation and destruction of Iraq. Some of the architects of this massive strategic blunder have passed away, while others escaped accountability and went on with their lives. I wonder if George W. Bush has nightmares. Probably not. 

>It’s also the 50th anniversary of the standoff at Wounded Knee in South Dakota, a 71-day siege, with US Marshals on one side and members of the American Indian Movement and Oglala Lakota on the other. 

>Here’s some food for thought from the author Brian Klass: “Our social world has changed, but our brains haven’t. Humans have learned to pick leaders for reasons that no longer reflect modern realities.”