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Posts Tagged ‘2016 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION’

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GETTING BEHIND OUR PRESIDENT: PART ONE (OF TWO)

In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary on December 5, 2016 at 1:10 am

On November 8, real estate mogul and reality TV showman Donald Trump was elected as the 45th President of the United States.  

But millions of Americans are sickened that a self-confessed “pussy-grabber” will soon inherit the Oval Office.

One day after Trump’s election, thousands blocked traffic and flooded thoroughfares across the nation to protest his victory. Demonstrators clashed with police in Seattle, Berkeley, Portland, Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston and Manhattan. 

Thousands more declared on social media that Trump is “never my President” or “not my President.”

Since then, Republicans and their Right-wing allies have thundered: “He’s our President now, and we must all get behind him.”  

Another often-heard Republican demand: “We need to give President Trump a chance!”  

Of course, Republicans took exactly the opposite position after Illinois’ U.S. Senator Barack Obama won the Presidency in 2008.

Even before Obama was inaugurated, on January 20, 2009, Republican Senators agreed that they would block every legislative proposal the new President offered.

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President Barack Obama

It didn’t matter whether the proposals offered concrete solutions for America’s ills. All that mattered was that they came from a Democratic President–and, worse, a black one.

Kentucky U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell summed it up: “The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.”

Since 1945, Republicans have charged “Traitor!” against anyone who dared to run against them for office or think other than Republican-sponsored thoughts. Among the foremost members of this decades-long treason chorus:

  • Senator Joseph R. McCarthy;
  • Senator/President Richard M. Nixon;
  • Vice President Spiro Agnes;
  • Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich;
  • Broadcaster Rush Limbaugh; 

And since the 2008 election of Barack Obama, Republicans have increasingly wooed voters with subtle and outright appeals to racism.

Most Republicans refuse to acknowledge this, but author Will Bunch has not been so reticent. In his 2010 book, The Backlash, he writes:

“…The year that had [conservatives] so terrified was 2050. In that year, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, the U.S. population would grow to some 399 million people–but only 49.8% would be white….”

The Backlash: Right-Wing Radicals, High-Def Hucksters, and Paranoid Politics in the Age of Obama

This was given added weight by the 2008 election of Barack Obama:

“The Democratic upstart–and his legion of supporters among the nonwhite as well as the young–was a 9/11-sized jolt to the white masses already so worried about the cultural implications of immigration.

“The year 2050 suddenly wasn’t two generations away but right here knocking on the front door, with a dark face and that scary name: Barack Hussein Obama.

“Like a fire spreading across dry sagebrush, it took no effort for fear of The Other to leap from the Mexicans in front of the Wal-Mart to the man now inside the Oval Office.”

For Republicans, the Presidency of Barack Obama excited contempt and hatred:

  • In September, 2009, Joe Wilson (R-SC) yelled “You lie!” during Obama’s health care speech to Congress.
  • In January, 2010, an effigy of President Barack Obama was found hanging from a building in Plains, Georgia.
  • In December, 2011, Brent Bozell, who runs the right-wing Media Research Center, called Obama to “a skinny, ghetto crackhead.”
  • In December, 2011, Rep.  Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wisc.), said of Michelle Obama: “She lectures us on eating right while she has a large posterior herself.”
  • In January, 2012, Mitt Romney’s son, Matt, said his father might release his tax returns “as soon as President Obama releases his grades and birth certificate and sort of a long list of things.”
  • In February, 2012, right-wing columnist Ann Coulter offered: “Voters with forty years of politically correct education are ecstatic to have the first Black president. They just love the idea even if we did get Flavor Flav instead of Thomas Sowell.”
  • In May, 2012, a flatbed truck drove through new York holding a trailer with eight mannequin-like bodies hanging on nooses. One of the figures resembled President Obama, with a sign on the truck reading: “Obama Is Onboard, Find Out Why. Visit YouTube.com And Search Keyword PatriotPhipps.”

  • In May, 2012, Patrick Lanzo, a bar owner in Paulding County, Georgia, posted a sign reading: “I do not support the nigger in the White House.”  In 2009 he posted a sign that read, “Obama’s plan for health-care: nigger rig it.” Lanzo advertises his establishment as a “Klan bar.”
  • Throughout the 2012 Presidential campaign, Newt Gingrich repeatedly called Obama “the greatest food stamp President in American history.” 
  • Obama has been portrayed as a shoeshine man, an Islamic terrorist and a chimp. The image of his altered face has been shown on a product called Obama Waffles in the manner of Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben. He has been repeatedly depicted with a Hitler forelock and mustache.
  • Among the protest signs they have brandished by Tea Party members: “Obama’s Plan: White Slavery,” “The American Taxpayers are the Jews for Obama’s Ovens,” and “Obama was Not Bowing [to the Saudi King] He was Sucking Saudi Jewels.”
  • Other Tea Party posters: “Imam Obama Wants to Ban Pork” and “The Zoo Has An African Lion, and the White House Has a Lyin’ African.”
  • Tea Partiers have chanted at Obama: “Bye, bye, Blackbird” and “Kenyan go home!”
  • During the Republican-imposed government shutdown–October 1-17, 2013–Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Texas) told Obama: “I cannot even stand to look at you,”  The incident occurred when Obama met with lawmakers to try to find a resolution to the shutdown.

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AMERICA’S NOW IN THE DOCK WITH GERMANY

In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary on November 14, 2016 at 12:05 am

In his bestselling 1973 biography, The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler, British historian Robert Payne harshly condemned the German people for the rise of the Nazi dictator.

“[They] allowed themselves to be seduced by him and came to enjoy the experience….[They] followed him with joy and enthusiasm because he gave them license to pillage and murder to their hearts’ content. They were his servile accomplices, his willing victims….

“If he answered their suppressed desires, it was not because he shared them, but because he could make use of them. He despised the German people, for they were merely the instruments of his will.”

On November 8, millions of ignorant, hate-filled, Right-wing Americans elected Donald Trump—a man reflecting their own hate and ignorance—to the Presidency.

Yet, in some ways, Americans have fewer excuses for turning to a Fascistic style of government than the Germans did.

Adolf Hitler, joined the National Socialist German Workers (Nazi) Party in 1919—the year after World War 1 ended.

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Adolf Hitler

It took him 14 years to win appointment to Chancellor (the equivalent of Attorney General) of Germany in 1933.

In 1923, he staged a coup attempt in Bavaria—which was quickly and brutally put down by police. He was arrested and sentenced to less than a year in prison.

After that, Hitler decided that winning power through violence was no longer an option. He must win it through election—or appointment.

He repeatedly ran for the highest office in Germany—President—but never got a clear majority in a free election.

When the 1929 Depression struck Germany, the fortunes of Hitler’s Nazi party rose as the life savings of ordinary Germans fell. Streets echoed with bloody clashes between members of Hitler’s Nazi Stormtroopers and those of the German Communist Party.

Germany seemed on the verge of collapsing.

Germans desperately looked for a leader—a Fuhrer–who could somehow deliver them from the threat of financial ruin and Communist takeover.

In early 1933, members of his own cabinet persuaded aging German president, Paul von Hindenburg, that only Hitler’s appointment as Chancellor could do this.

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Paul von Hindenburg

Hindenburg was reluctant to do so. He considered Hitler a dangerous radical. But he allowed himself to be convinced that, by putting Hitler in the Cabinet, he could be “boxed in” and thus controlled.

So, on January 30, 1933, he appointed Adolf Hitler Chancellor of Germany.

On August 2, 1934, Hindenberg died, and Hitler immediately assumed the titles—and duties—of the offices of Chancellor and President. His rise to total power was now complete.

It had taken him 14 years to do so.

In 2015, Donald Trump declared his candidacy for President.

Now, consider this:

  • The country was technically at war in the Middle East—but the fate of the United States was not truly threatened, as it had been during the Civil War.
  • There was no draft; if you didn’t know someone in the military, you didn’t care about the casualties taking place.
  • Nor were these conflicts—in Iraq and Afghanistan–imposing domestic shortages on Americans, as World War II had.
  • Thanks to government loans from President Barack Obama, American capitalism had been saved from its own excesses during the George W. Bush administration.
  • Employment was up. CEOs were doing extremely well.
  • In contrast to the corruption that had plagued the administration of Ronald Reagan, whom Republicans idolize, there had been no such scandals during the Obama Presidency.
  • Nor had there been any large-scale terrorist attacks on American soil—as there had on 9/11 under President George W. Bush.

Yet—not 17 months after announcing his candidacy for President—enough Americans fervently embraced Donald Trump to give him the most powerful position in the country and the world.

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Donald Trump

The message of Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign had been one of hope—“Yes, We Can!”

That of Donald Trump’s campaign was one of hatred toward everyone who was not an avid Trump supporter: “No, You Can’t!”

Whites comprised the overwhelming majority of the audiences at Trump rallies. Not all were racists, but many of those who were advertised it on T-shirts: “MAKE AMERICA WHITE AGAIN.”

They knew that demographics were steadily working against them. Birthrates among non-whites were rising. By 2045, whites would make up less than 50 percent of the American population.

The 2008 election of the first black President had shocked whites. His 2012 re-election had deprived them of the hope that 2008 had been an accident.

Then came 2016—and the possibility that a black President might actually be followed by a woman: Hillary Clinton.

And the idea of a woman dictating to men was strictly too much to bear.

Since Trump’s election, educators have reported a surge in bullying among students of all ages, from elementary- to high-school. Those doing the bullying are mostly whites, and the victims are mostly blacks, Muslims, Jews, Hispanics, Asians.

It even has a name: “The Trump Effect.”

And this is where matters stand more than two months before Trump takes the oath as President.

All of this should be remembered the next time an American blames Germans for their embrace of Adolf Hitler.

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REDS AND REPUBLICANS HATE THE SAME MAN: OBAMA

In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on August 12, 2016 at 12:22 am

Psssst!  The Republicans and Chinese Communists (“Chi-Coms”) have something in common.

They both much preferred the foreign policy of George W. Bush to that of Barack Obama.

It’s one of the many fascinating revelations offered in Confront and Conceal: Obama’s Secret Wars and Surprising Uses of America Power.  

The author is David E. Sanger, the chief Washington correspondent for The New York Times.

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Early in 2011, Sanger had lunch at the Central Party School outside Beijing. This is where the party’s leadership debates questions that are thought too controversial to air in public.

A retired general in the People’s Liberation Army sat down next to Sanger and, in a relaxed moment of candor, said:

“I sat through many meetings of the People’s Liberation Army in the 80s and 90s where we tried to imagine what your military forces would look like in 10 to 20 years.

“But frankly, we never thought that you would spend trillions of dollars and so much time tied down in Afghanistan and the Middle East. We never imagined that as a choice you would make.”

Chinese military parade 

And, writes Sanger: “Not so secretly, the Chinese were delighted by the Bush-era wars.  The longer the United States was bogged down trying to build democracies in foreign lands, the less capable it was of competing in China’s backyard.

“But now that America was emerging from a lost decade in the Middle East, the Chinese began to ask: How should China respond?  With cooperation, confrontation, or something in-between?”

And the Chinese were equally thrilled that the United States had squandered so much of its treasury during the eight-year Bush Presidency.

In the decade following 9/11, the Pentagon went on an unprecedented spending binge. The defense budget grew by 67%, to levels 50% higher than it had been per average year during the Cold War.

According to Sanger: “An estimate [the New York Times] put together for the tenth anniversary of the [9/11] attacks suggested that the United States had spent at least $3.3 trillion.”

These monies had gone on

  • securing the country;
  • invading and trying to rebuild Afghanistan and Iraq; and
  • caring for wounded American soldiers.

“Put another way,” writes Sanger, “for every dollar al-Qaeda spent destroying the World Trade Center and attacking the Pentagon, America had spent $6.6 million in response.

“The annual Pentagon budget of $700 billion was equivalent to the combined spending of the next twenty largest military powers….

“The world had come to expect that America would underwrite global security, regardless of the cost. Obama was determined to change that mind-set.”

In short, America became financially and militarily vulnerable during the Presidency of George W. Bush.

And this flatly contradicts the standard Republican line: Obama is a weak President–and is betraying us to the (pick one or both) Muslims/Communists.

It also speaks volumes that the two most important members of the George W. Bush administration declined to attend the 2012 Republican National Convention. Just as they declined to attend the 2016 one.

That, of course, meant former President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.

George W. Bush and Dick Cheney

And why was that?  Perhaps it’s because polls show that a majority of Americans continue

  • To blame Bush for lying the country into a needless, bloody and expensive war with Iraq.
  • To blame him for presiding over the 2008 Wall Street meltdown.
  • To see Dick Cheney as the Dr. Strangelovian manipulator of George W. Bush.

Even former President George H.W. Bush said he wouldn’t attend the convention.

It’s possible that Bush, Sr., didn’t want to serve as a reminder that his son left the White House with the lowest popularity rating of any modern President.

And that was just fine with those planning to attend the convention–especially its nominee-to-be, Mitt Romney.

They wanted to do with George W. Bush what Nikita Khrushchev and his fellow Communists did with the embarrassing Joseph Stalin: Bury him far from public view.

Romney certainly didn’t want the viewing audience to be reminded that the United States sharply declined in wealth and prestige during the eight-year reign of George W. Bush and a Republican Congress.

Romney and his fellow conventioneers also didn’t  want to remind the country of something else: That Obama has spent most of his own Presidency trying to undo the harm his predecessor did, in both foreign and domestic policy.

Thus, now approaching the 2016 election, the Republican party finds itself torn.

Its leaders want Americans to believe that Barack Obama is the worst President in the history of the Republic. Donald Trump, its nominee for President, has even accused Obama of being “the founder of ISIS.”  

This ignores that ISIS didn’t join Al-Qaeda until October, 2004–more than a year after Bush invaded Iraq. And that it was Bush’s destruction of Iraqi stability under Saddam Hussein that enabled ISIS to spread like a cancer throughout Iraq and Syria.

So while Republicans rail that Obama is the worst President in American history, they know that most Americans believe that title goes to the last Republican one.

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CHARACTER AND DESTINY: PART TWO (END)

In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on August 3, 2016 at 12:05 am

Republican Presidential nominee Donald Trump recently attacked the integrity of the parents of an Army captain who died heroically in Iraq in 2004.

For this, he has taken heavy fire from Democrats, veterans organizations and even his fellow Republicans.

But an even more damning assessment comes from Niccolo Machiavelli, the 16th-century Florentine statesman whose two great works on politics–The Prince and The Discourses–remain textbooks for successful politicians more than 500 years later.  

Niccolo Machiavelli

Consider Trump’s notoriety for hurling insults at virtually everyone, including:  

  • Latinos
  • Asians
  • Muslims
  • Blacks
  • The Disabled
  • Women
  • Prisoners-of-War

These insults delight his white, under-educated followers. But they have alienated millions of other Americans who might have voted for him.

Machiavelli, on the other hand, advises leaders to refrain from gratuitous insults: 

  • “I hold it to be a proof of great prudence for men to abstain from threats and insulting words towards any one.
  • “For neither the one nor the other in any way diminishes the strength of the enemy–but the one makes him more cautious, and the other increases his hatred of you, and makes him more persevering in his efforts to injure you.”  

And Trump’s reaction to the criticism he’s received? 

“I can be Presidential, but if I was Presidential I would only have–about 20% of you would be here because it would be boring as hell, I will say,” Trump told supporters at a rally in Superior, Wisconsin. 

For those who expect Trump to shed his propensity for constantly picking fights, Machiavelli has a stern warning: 

  • “…If it happens that time and circumstances are favorable to one who acts with caution and prudence he will be successful. But if time and circumstances change he will be ruined, because he does not change the mode of his procedure. 
  • “No man can be found so prudent as to be able to adopt himself to this, either because he cannot deviate from that to which his nature disposes him, or else because, having always prospered by walking in one path, he cannot persuade himself that it is well to leave it… 
  • “For if one could change one’s nature with time and circumstances, fortune would never change.” 

Then there is Trump’s approach to consulting advisers:

Asked on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” who he consults about foreign policy, Trump replied;

“I’m speaking with myself, number one, because I have a very good brain and I’ve said a lot of things.”

This totally contrasts with the advice given by Machiavelli:

  • “A prudent prince must [choose] for his counsel wise men, and [give] them alone full liberty to speak the truth to him, but only of those things that he asks and of nothing else. 
  • “But he must be a great asker about everything and hear their opinions, and afterwards deliberate by himself in his own way, and in these counsels…comport himself so that every one may see that the more freely he speaks, the more he will be acceptable.”

And Machiavelli offers a related warning on the advising of rulers: Unwise princes cannot be wisely advised.   

During the fifth GOP debate in the Presidential sweepstakes, host Hugh Hewitt asked Trump this question: 

“Mr. Trump, Dr. [Ben] Carson just referenced the single most important job of the president, the command and the care of our nuclear forces. And he mentioned the triad. 

“The B-52s are older than I am. The missiles are old. The submarines are aging out. It’s an executive order. It’s a commander-in-chief decision. 

“What’s your priority among our nuclear triad?” 

[The triad refers to America’s land-, sea- and air-based systems for delivering nuclear missiles and bombs.] 

Nuclear missile in silo

Trump’s reply: “Well, first of all, I think we need somebody absolutely that we can trust, who is totally responsible, who really knows what he or she is doing. That is so powerful and so important.”  

He then digressed to his having called the Iraq invasion a mistake in 2003 and 2004. Finally he came back on topic:

“But we have to be extremely vigilant and extremely careful when it comes to nuclear. Nuclear changes the whole ballgame. 

“The biggest problem we have today is nuclear–nuclear proliferation and having some maniac, having some madman go out and get a nuclear weapon. I think to me, nuclear, is just the power, the devastation is very important to me.”

Which brings us back to Machiavelli:  

  • “…Some think that a prince who gains the reputation of being prudent [owes this to] the good counselors he has about him; they are undoubtedly deceived.
  • “It is an infallible rule that a prince who is not wise himself cannot be well advised, unless by chance he leaves himself entirely in the hands of one man who rules him in everything, and happens to be a very prudent man. In this case, he may doubtless be well governed, but it would not last long, for the governor would in a short time deprive him of the state.” 

All of which would lead Niccolo Machiavelli to warn, if he could witness American politics today: “This bodes ill for your Republic.”

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CHARACTER AND DESTINY: PART ONE (OF TWO)

In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on August 2, 2016 at 12:02 am

“He appeared to need enemies the way other men need friends, and his conduct assured that he would always have plenty of them.”

So wrote William Manchester about General Douglas MacArthur in his monumental 1978 biography, American Caesar.  But he could have written just as accurately about Donald Trump, the businessman-turned-Republican-Presidential-nominee.  

Since July 28, Trump has found himself embroiled in a no-win war-of-words with the parents of an American Army captain killed in Iraq in 2004. And the battle shows no signs of ending anytime soon.

Humayun Khan served as a captain in the U.S. Army. On June 8, 2004, a vehicle packed with explosives approached his compound in Iraq.  

Khan ordered his men to seek cover as he ran toward it. Suddenly, the car exploded, killing Khan instantly. He was awarded the Bronze Star posthumously.  

On July 28, his father, Khizr, was a featured speaker at the Democratic National Convention. With his wife, Ghazala, standing at his side, he made a blistering attack on Trump: 

“We are honored to stand here as the parents of Captain Humayun Khan, and as patriotic American Muslims with undivided loyalty to our country.  

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Khizr Khan

“If it was up to Donald Trump, [Humayun] never would have been in America,” Khan said. “Donald Trump consistently smears the character of Muslims. He disrespects other minorities, women, judges, even his own party leadership. He vows to build walls and ban us from this country. 

“Donald Trump, you are asking Americans to trust you with our future. Let me ask you: Have you even read the U.S. Constitution? I will gladly lend you my copy.”

Pulling a copy of the Constitution from his pocket he said: “In this document, look for the words ‘liberty’ and ‘equal protection of law.’  

“You have sacrificed nothing and no one.”  

On July 29, the Khans appeared in an interview on MSNBC’s The Last Word. Khan appealed to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) and House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin) to “repudiate Trump.”

Trump predictably responded during a July 30 interview with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos. 

“Who wrote that?” he demanded of Khan’s speech. “Did Hillary’s script writers write it?” 

(According to Politico, Khan declined the use of a speechwriter.)

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Donald Trump

“I think I’ve made a lot of sacrifices,” said Trump. “I work very, very hard. I’ve created thousands and thousands of jobs, tens of thousands of jobs.”  

“Those are sacrifices?” Stephanopoulos asked. 

“Sure. I think they’re sacrifices. I think when I can employ thousands and thousands of people, take care of their education, take care of so many things.”

Trump implied that Khan’s wife may not have been allowed to speak because of her religion. 

Ghazala Khan subsequently retorted in an interview that she had been invited to speak but was too upset to do so.  

On July 31, Khizr Khan said on CNN’s State of the Union that Trump had a “black soul.”  

That same day, Trump took to Twitter:  

“Captain Khan, killed 12 years ago, was a hero, but this is about RADICAL ISLAMIC TERROR and the weakness of our ‘leaders’ to eradicate it!”  

And: “I was viciously attacked by Mr. Khan at the Democratic Convention. Am I not allowed to respond? Hillary voted for the Iraq war, not me!”  

On August 1, Khan appeared on NBC’s Today Show: “This candidate amazes me. His ignorance–he can get up and malign the entire nation, the religions, the communities, the minorities, the judges and yet a private citizen in this political process. … I cannot say what I feel?”  

The same day, Trump responded on Twitter: 

“Mr. Khan, who does not know me, viciously attacked me from the stage of the DNC and is now all over T.V. doing the same – Nice!”

And again: “This story is not about Mr. Khan, who is all over the place doing interviews, but rather RADICAL ISLAMIC TERRORISM and the U.S. Get smart!”  

The exchange hasn’t hurt the Khans. But it has inflicted heavy damage on Trump.  

Arizona U.S. Senator John McCain–himself a seven-year prisoner of North Vietnam during the Vietnam war–said: 

“In recent days, Donald Trump disparaged a fallen soldier’s parents. He has suggested that the likes of their son should not be allowed in the United States–to say nothing of entering its service.

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John McCain

“I cannot emphasize enough how deeply I disagree with Mr. Trump’s statement. I hope Americans understand that the remarks do not represent the views of our Republican Party, its officers, or candidates.”   

The Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW), one of the largest and oldest veterans organizations in the country, released its own statement: 

“Election year or not, the VFW will not tolerate anyone berating a Gold Star family member for exercising his or her right of speech or expression. There are certain sacrosanct subjects that no amount of wordsmithing can repair once crossed.

“Giving one’s life to nation is the greatest sacrifice, followed closely by Gold Star families, who have a right to make their voices heard.”