I hadn't wanted to write anything yet on the Texas and Ohio shooting sprees, because I was and still am trying to absorb the horror, and think about it some more before adding my own two cents to the mass outrage. I find it very hard to think clearly when I feel so mad and yes, helpless.
Watching a cardboard cutout of Donald Trump laboriously reading the platitudes written for him by a public relations flack was bad enough. Actually, I should have stopped at my first attempt to watch his statement live-streaming on the New York Times homepage. My old computer combined with slow Internet speed showed a blurry image of the president, with an endlessly rotating buffer-circle perfectly centered over his face, completely obliterating his features. It was like a cartoon rendering of our fiendishly cartoonish president suffering a bad dizzy spell.
So I switched to C-Span and unfortunately got a much clearer cartoon of the cardboard cutout Trump struggling to read in a voice so monotonous and lethargic that it was chilling.
I'd still been feeling mad and scared enough when I clicked on the Times again this morning and was hit by a sanctimonious op-ed written by Susan Rice, Barack Obama's former national security advisor and co-architect of the US's destructive Libya regime-change war, and currently a very highly-paid board member of the Netflix entertainment empire.
After expressing the outrage that we all feel at the murders and at Trump's role as a hate and violence instigator bar none, Rice bemoans what liberal interventionists and their neocon brethren usually bemoan whenever they talk about Trump: America's sudden, shocking loss of Standing in the World.
It was a dream world in which the rest of the world totally loved the United States, or at least relied on the United States to bring peace and love and democracy to it.... or at least feared the United States enough to kowtow to its awesome might. Rice opines:
When the president of the United States reveals himself to be an unabashed bigot, attacking minorities in his own country, America’s ability to stand credibly against human rights abuses, especially repression of minorities in other countries — from the Uighurs in China to Shiites in Bahrain and Christians throughout the Middle East — is thwarted in ways lasting and immeasurable. Dictators around the world encounter no opprobrium from our government and are comforted to find a fellow traveler in rhetoric and policies that demean his own people.She ignores the truth that American administrations have long propped up those corrupt dictators who enable US-based corporate plunder at the expense of their own citizens. Her idea of an "outlaw state" is Venezuela, upon whose people economic war was declared in the Obama administration. She does not mention that the US military is the biggest polluter on the planet and that the US is the largest arms manufacturer on earth.
In case anyone needs reminding: A majority of the world is populated by what we Americans call “people of color.” To fight terrorism or prevent the spread of pandemic disease, to stem weapons proliferation or organized criminal organizations, to address climate change or punish outlaw states, we need the willing cooperation of nations around the world. None of these transnational security challenges can be combated effectively by the United States alone.
She's upset because Trump has deprived the murderous Military-Industrial Complex of its precious mask of humanity and rectitude
And Susan Rice would not be a neoliberal warmonger in good standing if she didn't also blame Russia, with its nine global military bases so unfairly competing with America's thousand or so. Black people also were apparently either sanguine or comatose about police abuses until those damned Russian trolls got them all riled up and prevented them from turning out for Hillary Clinton.
Most dangerously, President Trump is serving up to our adversaries an ever more divided and weakened America, one that is animated by suspicion, rived by hatred of the “other” and increasingly incapable of uniting in the face of external threats. Russia, above all, continues to exploit and exacerbate these divisions.She counters Trump-style xenophobia and fear-mongering with Democratic Party-style xenophobia and fear-mongering.
During the 2016 presidential campaign, Russian trolls stoked American white nationalism while amplifying black anger about police brutality in an effort to suppress the African-American vote. Today, President Vladimir Putin of Russia continues to use social media to undermine our democracy and provoke internal conflict.
As a matter of fact, I would not be surprised if the Establishment now co-opts the latest gun massacres to justify even more corporatized government censorship of independent news sites and security state oppression of citizens than it does now.
My published comment to Susan Rice:
That Trump has reduced our country to a "fresh nadir" and is endangering people with his vile rhetoric is beyond question.
But to say that the US previously had "credibility" as a global human rights champion is a real stretch, given our relentless wars of aggression and regime change. These wars have unleashed an immigration crisis, most widely being felt in Europe, with its own rise in right-wing populism. Blaming the immigrant "other" for the effects of unfettered capitalism and climate change and state-sanctioned terror (bombs and drones) aimed disproportionately at dark-hued people isn't just a Trumpian conflagration, although his Twitter bully pulpit certainly pours oceans of gasoline on it.
Previous presidents have been lots more skillful and glib at spewing platitudes of love and peace to help US citizens to more easily ignore the horrors being done in our names in faraway lands.
Trump is giving tacit permission for disturbed individuals to act out their violent fantasies. It's a scorched earth policy at its most extreme and its most dangerous. That such violence has now come home to roost should come as no surprise, especially in a country that has more guns than people, where most people don't have a few hundred dollars in savings for household emergencies or retirement, where tens of millions of people lack basic medical care, and where the death rate has risen for a third straight year.
Defeating Trump is only the tiniest first baby step to cure what ails us.
3 comments:
Defeating Agent Orange is definitely a tiny step.
A really big step that would be consonant with the NRA's foaming-at-the-mouth position of "you can have my gun when you pry it from my cold, dead hands" would be this:
Eighty percent of gun homicides are committed with second-hand weapons-- ones which a left unsecured, sold, pawned, lent, given away, gifted, etc. They are used to kill some 11,000 people.
Have a law that says, "If you are the first purchaser of this weapon, you will be responsible for its use during its entire existence. To end this responsibility, you have either to destroy it or die. If for any reason it passes into hands less worth than yours, you will pay for your irresponsibility."
There is no Constitutional right to let go of your weapons, so the NRA would be fine with this. Every first purchaser would in effect become a fanatic ATF agent, and the NRA would change its slogan to, "You can have my gun when you unglue it from my cold, dead hands."
I'd like to propose three pieces of legislation: one attacking the gun culture, another attacking the corporate source of trouble; and one dealing with endpoint consumer issues.
1. The NRA would be declared a domestic terrorist organization and disbanded.
2. The government would buy out all private gun manufacturers at a price most pleasing to their stock owners; then the government would destroy the plants purchased or incorporate them into the US Armory.
3. A surrender program whereby for every gun turned in at special collection centers three things would happen on the spot:
(a) the gun would be smashed to pieces while the former owner stood by to witness the destruction; the scrap metal would be shipped to manufacturers of farm and garden tools, like pitchforks and plowshares.
(b) the former gun owner would be paid a dollar for every round turned in; and
(c) a rust-free and pointy new pitchfork––alternatively, a yard-high torch with three tar refills––would be handed over gratis to the former gun owner in case he or she ever felt the need to get the gummint's attention.
The cost and risks of the above programs would be much less than the US now pays and endures on a daily basis.
As for you honest hunters out there, really, the scoped weapons you now use are hardly sporting. How about opting for a more level playing field with the turkeys, deer and bears? I would suggest your reverting to the spears and bows-and-arrows of your forebears. In return, no licenses necessary and full-season all year.
Thank you, Karen. Just knowing that you are out there with your sensible voice and clear vision cheers me up in these dark times.
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