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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on November 24, 2021 at 12:17 am
Republicans in past decades tried—and often won—elections on the basis of ideology and/or appeals to racism.
During the 1960s and 1970s, the “enemy” was blacks. The key to winning votes of racist whites without appearing racist lay in what Republicans called “the Southern Strategy”—stoking whites’ fears of blacks.
It was this that won Richard Nixon the Presidency in 1968 and 1972 and the White House for George H.W. Bush in 1988.
In a now-infamous 1981 interview, Right-wing political consultant Lee Atwater explained how this worked.
“You start out in 1954 by saying, ‘Nigger, nigger, nigger.’ By 1968 you can’t say ‘nigger’—that hurts you, backfires.
“So you say stuff like, uh, forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff, and you’re getting so abstract.
“Now, you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites.…
“’We want to cut this,’ is much more abstract than even the busing thing, uh, and a hell of a lot more abstract than ‘Nigger, nigger.’
“So anyway you look at it, race is coming on the back burner.”
Lee Atwater
Since the end of World War II, Republicans regularly hurled the charge of “treason” against anyone who dared to run against them for office or think other than Republican-approved thoughts.
Republicans had been locked out of the White House from 1933 to 1952, during the administrations of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman.
Determined to regain the Presidency by any means, they found that attacking the integrity of their fellow Americans a highly effective tactic.
During the 1950s, Wisconsin Senator Joseph R. McCarthy rode a wave of paranoia to national prominence—by attacking the patriotism of anyone who disagreed with him.
Joseph McCarthy
Elected to the Senate in 1946, he rose to national prominence on February 9, 1950, after giving a fiery speech in Wheeling, West Virginia:
“The State Department is infested with communists. I have here in my hand a list of 205—a list of names that were made known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party and who nevertheless are still working and shaping policy in the State Department.”
Anti-communism as a lever to political advancement sharply accelerated following McCarthy’s speech.
No American—no matter how prominent—was safe from the accusation of being a Communist or a Communist sympathizer—a “Comsymp” or “fellow traveler” in the style of the era.
Republicans rode the issue of anti-Communism to victory from 1948 to 1992.
After holding the White House for eight years under Dwight D. Eisenhower, they lost it in 1960 to John F. Kennedy and again in 1964 to Lyndon B. Johnson.
By 1968, with the nation mired in Vietnam and convulsed by antiwar demonstrations and race riots, Americans turned once more to those who preyed upon their fears and hates.
They elected Richard Nixon, who promised to end the Vietnam war and crack down on “uppity” blacks and antiwar demonstrators.
The same strategy re-elected him in 1972.
After Jimmy Carter won the Presidency in 1976 and lost it in 1980 to Ronald Reagan, Republicans held the White House until 1992.
During the 1970s and 1980s, they continued to accuse their opponents of being devious agents—or at least unwitting pawns—of “the Communist conspiracy.”
Even as late as 1992, President George H.W. Bush and the Republican establishment charged that Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton might be a KGB plant.
George H.W. Bush
Their “evidence”: During his tenure at Oxford University in 1969-70, Clinton had briefly visited Moscow.
Thus, the Republican charged that he might have been “programmed” as a real-life “Manchurian candidate” to become, first, Governor of Arkansas—one of America’s poorest states—and then President.
What made this charge all the more absurd: The Soviet Union had officially dissolved in December, 1991.
Republicans continued to accuse their opponents of being “Communists” and “traitors.” But these charges no longer carried the weight they had while the Soviet Union existed.
Then, on September 11, 2001, Republicans—-and their right-wing supporters—at last found a suitable replacement for the Red Menace.
Two highjacked jetliners slammed into the World Trade Center in New York and one struck the Pentagon in Washington, D.C.
World Trade Center on September 11, 2001
Exit The Red Bogeyman. Enter The Maniacal Muslim.
For several years, fears of Islamic terror carried Republicans to electoral victory—most importantly in 2004, when George W. Bush won re-election as President.
But after the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the killing of Osama bin Laden in 2011, Americans lost interest in The Maniacal Muslim as a surefire election tactic.
With the rise of Donald Trump to Republican standard-bearer in 2015, threats of violence entered the rhetoric—and tactics—of the Republican party.
For example:
- On March 16, 2016, he warned Republicans that if he didn’t win the GOP nomination in July, his supporters would literally riot: “I think you’d have riots. I think you would see problems like you’ve never seen before. I think bad things would happen. I really do. I wouldn’t lead it, but I think bad things would happen.”
- An NBC reporter summed it up as: “The message to Republicans was clear on [March 16]: ‘Nice convention you got there, shame if something happened to it.'”
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on November 23, 2021 at 12:27 am
It was a moment both poignant and prophetic: Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) responding to a brutal virtual attack on her by a fellow member of Congress.
Representative Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) had tweeted a doctored anime video depicting him killing Ocasio-Cortez and then turning his sword towards President Joseph Biden.
Paul Gosar
As a result, the Democratically-controlled House of Representatives was now meeting to decide if he should be censured over that video.
“What is so hard, what is so hard about saying this is wrong?” asked Ocasio-Cortez. “This is not about me. This is not about Representative Gosar. This is about what we are willing to accept. If you believe that this behavior should not be accepted, then vote yes. It’s really that simple.”
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
And the Republican response was equally telling: Of the 213 Republicans serving in the House, only two—Liz Cheney (Wyoming) and Adam Kinzinger (Illinois)—dared to support censure of Gosar.
A censure resolution is the most severe form of punishment in the House, and stripping a member of committee assignments removes a powerful platform to influence legislation and give voice to constituent priorities.
The resolution approved by the House removed Gosar from the House Oversight and Reform Committee, which Ocasio-Cortez also serves on, and the Natural Resources Committee.
“We cannot have a member joking about murdering each other or threatening the President of the United States,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a floor speech.
“Disguising death threats as a video doesn’t make it less real. It’s a sad day for the House of Representatives, but a necessary day.”
Nancy Pelosi
Before the vote which censured him, Gosar said: “I have said decisively there is no threat in the cartoon other than the threat that immigration poses to our country. And no threat was intended by my staff or me.
“I voluntarily took the cartoon down not because it was itself a threat, but because some thought it was. Out of compassion for those who generally felt offense, I self-censored.”
Yet only minutes after the House voted to censure him, Gosar retweeted the video. He also retweeted Right-wing podcaster Elijah Schaffer’s tweet of the video: “Really well done. We love @DrPaulGosar, don’t we folks?”
This marriage of violence with Right-wing ideology is not new.
Rolling Stone magazine writer Jeb Lund noted in a June 19, 2015 editorial: “The Republican Party has weaponized its supporters, made violence a virtue and, with almost every pronouncement for 50 years, given them an enemy politicized, racialized and indivisible.
“Movement conservatives have fetishized a tendentious and ahistorical reading of the Second Amendment to the point that the Constitution itself somehow paradoxically ‘legitimizes’ an armed insurrection against the government created by it. “
“This is no longer an argument about whether one party’s beliefs are beneficial or harmful, but an attitude that labels leftism so antithetical to the American idea that empowering it on any level is an act of usurpation.”
Increasingly, Republicans have repeatedly aimed violent—-and violence-arousing—-rhetoric at their Democratic opponents. This is not a case of careless language that is simply misinterpreted, with tragic results.
Republicans like Paul Gosar fully understand the constituency they are trying to reach: Those masses of alienated, uneducated Americans who live only for their guns and hardline religious beliefs—and who can be easily manipulated by perceived threats to either.
If a “nutcases” assaults a Democratic politician and misses, then the Republican establishment claims to be shocked—-shocked!—that such a thing could have happened.
And if the attempt proves successful, then Republicans weep crocodile tears for public consumption.
The difference is that, in this case, they rejoice in knowing that Democratic ranks have been thinned and their opponents are even more on the defensive, for fear of the same happening to them.
Consider the following:
- Florida GOP Congressional candidate Allen West, referring to his Democratic opponent, Representative Ron Klein, told Tea Party activists: “You’ve got to make the fellow scared to come out of his house. That’s the only way that you’re going to win. That’s the only way you’re going to get these people’s attention.”
- Representative Michelle Bachmann (R-MINN.) said she wanted her constituents “armed and dangerous” against the Obama administration.
- Former Governor (R-Alaska) Sarah Palin told her supporters: “Get in their face and argue with them. No matter how tough it gets, never retreat, instead RELOAD!”
- Right-wing pundit Ann Coulter: “My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times building.”
- Senator Phil Gramm (R-TEX.) “We’re going to keep building the party until we’re hunting Democrats with dogs.”
Republicans in past decades tried—and often won—elections on the basis of ideology and/or appeals to racism.
During the 1960s and 1970s, the “enemy” was blacks. The key to winning votes of racist whites without appearing racist lay in what Republicans called “the Southern Strategy”—stoking white fears of blacks.
It was this that won Richard Nixon the Presidency in 1968 and 1972 and the White House for George H.W. Bush in 1988.
In a now-infamous 1981 interview, Right-wing political consultant Lee Atwater explained how this worked.
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on November 15, 2021 at 1:15 am
Of the 4,385 air rage incidents reported by September 24, only one person has been criminally charged.
That is Vyvianna Quinonez, who in May punched a flight attendant in the face on a Southwest flight approaching San Diego. At the time of her arrest, she claimed she was acting in self-defense.
The airlines are under Federal jurisdiction—which means legal violations can be prosecuted by the Department of Justice (DOJ). Criminal penalties can run up to 20 years in prison if convicted of interfering with the operations of an aircraft.
As a civil authority, the FAA cannot charge anyone. The agency can fine violators up to $35,000.
Seal of the Justice Department
There are several reasons for this huge increase in air-rage incidents.
First, coach passengers are cramped into tight places with strangers, where they have little control over what’s happening to them. This can lead to nervousness, negative feelings and anger.
Second, the political polarization that marked the Donald Trump administration has taken to the skies with the imposition of mask mandates.
Surgical mask
Robert Bor, a director at the UK-based Centre for Aviation Psychology, says that most air-rage incidents are about masks.
“Most people are pretty neutral on whether they have Coke or Pepsi, but they will have very strong feelings when it comes to issues relating to health, human rights, access to air and so on; it triggers people to behave in slightly more militant ways.”
By June 29, of the 3,100 air-rage incidents thus far reported, 2,350 involved people refusing to comply with the Federal mask mandate.
Airline crew members are frightened by these attacks—and depressed at the lack of punishment for them.
“We tell them [passengers] that it is a Federal offense to not comply with crew member instructions,” said Sara Nelson, international president of the Association of Flight Attendants. “Then the plane is met by airline supervisors or airport law enforcement and the passenger gets a slap on the wrist and sent on their way.”
FAA Administrator Steve Dickson has his own complaints: “Every week, we see situations in which law enforcement was asked to meet an aircraft at the gate following an unruly passenger incident. Many of these passengers were interviewed by local police and released without criminal charges of any kind.”
Meanwhile, the Transportation Safety Administration (TSA) has had its own serious lapses in judgment.
In March, 2013, TSA Administrator John Pistole unveiled a proposal to allow passengers to bring small knives, baseball bats, golf clubs and other sports equipment onto planes.
He explained that in light of hardened cockpit doors, armed off-duty pilots traveling on planes and other preventive measures, small folding knives could not be used by terrorists to take over a plane.
TSA dropped the proposal in June, thanks to fierce opposition from passengers, Congressional leaders and airline industry officials.
By October, 2021, the TSA had seized nearly 4,500 guns at airport security checkpoints, compared with about 4,400 in all of 2019, before the pandemic caused air travel to plummet in 2020.
About 85% of the weapons caught were loaded. They were found on passengers or in carry-on bags across 248 U.S. airports, largely in Atlanta and Dallas-Fort Worth.
It’s worth remembering that for all the publicity given the TSA’s “Air Marshal” program, it’s been airline passengers—not Federal lawmen—who have repeatedly been the ones to subdue unruly fliers.
Prior to 9/11, commercial airline pilots and passengers were warned: If someone tries to highjack the plane, just stay calm and do what he says.
So many airplanes were directed by highjackers to land in Fidel Castro’s Cuba that these incidents became joke fodder for stand-up comedians.
And, up to 9/11, the advice to cooperate fully with highjackers and land the planes where they wanted worked. No planes and no lives were lost.
But during 9/11, passengers and crew—with one exception—cooperated fully with the highjackers’ demands.
And all of them died horrifically when three of those jetliners were deliberately crashed into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
World Trade Center – September 11, 2001
Only on United Flight 93 did the passengers and crew fight back.
In doing so, they accomplished what soldiers, military pilots, the CIA and the FBI could not: They thwarted the terrorists, sacrificing their own lives and preventing the fourth plane from destroying the White House or the Capitol Building.
Memorial to the passengers and crew of United Flight 93
As a result, passengers are now ordered to act as their own air marshals when danger threatens.
To put an end to these outrages against public safety:
- Violators should be taken into custody solely by the FBI.
- Bail should be denied for all violators.
- Every air-rage case should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
- If this puts a strain on Federal detention centers, the accused should be shipped off to Guantanamo and other holding facilities.
- Flight attendants and passengers should be empowered to use deadly force against anyone who poses a danger to the flight. Anyone found to have legally killed an air-rage perpetrator should be granted immunity from prosecution.
- Anyone found illegally bringing a firearm aboard a flight should be arrested, jailed without bond, and tried under the USA Patriot Act, which counters terrorism. If convicted, s/he should spend at least 10 years in prison.
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on October 28, 2021 at 12:10 am
All security systems—including those considered the best—are created by humans. And humans are and will always be imperfect creatures.
So there will inevitably be times when security agents miss the assassin or terrorist intent on mayhem. For example:
- In September, 1975, two women—Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme and Sara Jane Moore—tried to assassinate President Gerald R. Ford on two separate occasions.
- Fromme was tackled by a Secret Service agent. Moore’s aim was deflected by Oliver Sipple, a Marine and Vietnam veteran, thus saving Ford’s life.
Gerald Ford being hustled from danger by Secret Service agents
Until these incidents, the Secret Service profile of a potential assassin didn’t include a woman.
- On March 30, 1981, John W. Hinckley, a psychotic obsessed with actress Jodie Foster, gained access to a line of reporters waiting to throw questions at President Ronald Reagan.
- As Reagan got into his bulletproof Presidential limousine, Hinckley drew a pistol and opened fire. Wounded, Reagan escaped death by inches.
The Reagan Assassination attempt
The Secret Service Service had failed to prevent the attack because no one—until that moment—had attacked a President from the section reserved for reporters.
- On September 11, 2001, Islamic terrorists armed with boxcutters highjacked four American jetliners and turned them into fuel-bombs.
- Two of the airliners struck the North and South towers of the World Trade Center, destroying both structures.
- A third hit the Pentagon.
- The fourth—United Airlines Flight 93—crashed when it was diverted from its intended target (the White House or Congress) by passengers who resolved to fight back.
- Three thousand Americans died that day—in New York City, Washington, D.C., and Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
Until this day of catastrophe, no highjacker had turned a jumbo-jet into a fuel-bomb. Passengers had been advised to cooperate with highjackers, not resist them.
So how will the next 9/11 happen? In all likelihood, like this:
- A terrorist—or, more likely, several terrorists—will sign up for one or more airline “VIP screening” programs.
- They will be completely clean—no arrests, no convictions.
- They may well be respectable citizens in their communities.
- They will probably have amassed enough “frequent flier miles” to ingratiate themselves with the airlines and convince the Transportation Safety Administration (TSA) of their integrity.
- Then, one day, they will breeze through their selected airports—
- Without removing their belts and shoes;
- Without undergoing pat-down searches;
- Without being required to remove laptops and other electronic devices from their carry-ons;
- Without exposing their electronic devices to X-ray technology.
- Then they will board planes—either as part of an individual terrorist effort or a coordinated one, a la 9/11.
And then it will be too late.
Memorial to the passengers and crew of United Flight 93
The TSA/airlines’ VIP programs are based on the assumption that someone who has completed a security check in the past need not be re-checked in the future.
This assumption has proven false for American Intelligence agencies such as the FBI and CIA.
- FBI agent Robert Hanssen spied for Soviet and Russian Intelligence services for 22 years (1979-2001). He’s now serving a life sentence in Florence, Colorado.
- CIA agent Aldrich Ames betrayed American secrets—including those Russians who had shared them—to Soviet and Russian espionage agencies from 1985 to 1994. He is likewise serving a life sentence.
Even requiring an agent to undergo repeated security checks is no guarantee of trustworthiness.
When asked about how he repeatedly passed CIA polygraph tests, Ames said: “There’s no special magic. Confidence is what does it. Confidence and a friendly relationship with the examiner. Rapport, where you smile and make him think that you like him.”
Thus, as William Shakespeare warned in Hamlet, “One may smile and smile and be a villain”—or a highjacker.
The TSA introduced its Pre-Check program during the fall of 2011. By March 2, 2020, 10 million travelers had been found worthy of “expedited” status.
In early September, 2013, TSA announced that it would more than double its “expedited screening” program, Pre-Check, from 40 to 100 airports by the end of the year.
Nor is TSA the only organization giving big-spending fliers special treatment at potential risk to their country. For example:
Delta Air Lines offers Sky Priority, described as providing “privileged access through security checkpoints” at select airports.
Another private security program, Clear, collects several pieces of biometric data on well-heeled passengers. Once verified by a kiosk local to the security checkpoint, the passengers are allowed to skirt the security barriers that poor and middle-class folks must pass through.
Priority Access, set up by TSA and the airlines, provides “expedited service” to first-class and business passengers. To qualify, you need only possess certain credit cards—such as the United Mileage Plus Club Card.
Some critics blast this two-tier passenger check-in system as an affront to democratic principles.
“It’s stratifying consumers by class and wealth, because the people who travel a lot usually have higher incomes,” said Ralph Nader, consumer advocate and frequent business traveler.
But there is an even more important reason to immediately disband these programs and require everyone—rich and middle-class alike—to undergo the same level of security screening:
The 3,000 men and women who died horrifically on September 11, 2001, at the hands of airline passengers whom authorities thought could be trusted to board a plane.
Tribute to the vanished World Trade Center
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on October 27, 2021 at 12:08 am
More than 20 years after 9/11, America is now selling its Islamic enemies access to the very weapons—jet-fueled airplanes—they need to wage jihad against its citizens.
World Trade Center on September 11, 2001
This danger is brought to you by IdentoGO, the private security company chosen by the Transportation Safety Administration (TSA) to screen airline passengers.
Consider this ad it posts:
“How many times have you stood in line at the airport watching others breeze through security with no hassle? By enrolling in TSA Pre✓® , you too can breeze through security.
“Keep your shoes, jacket and belt on; your laptop in its case; 3-1-1 compliant liquids in your bag; and enjoy a better overall travel experience.
“TSA Pre✓® allows low-risk travelers to experience faster, more efficient screening at participating U.S. airport checkpoints for domestic and international travel.”
Yes, for a one-time payment of $149.95, you, too, can apply to receive such preferential treatment. Even if it means putting the Nation’s security at risk. Travelers that are eligible for TSA Pre✓® include:
- U.S. citizens of frequent flyer programs who meet TSA-mandated criteria and who have been invited by a participating airline;
- U.S. citizen, U.S. national or Lawful Permanent Residents who are members of the TSA Pre✓® Application Program;
- U.S. citizens who are members of a U.S. Customs and Border Protection Trusted Traveler program, such as Global Entry, SENTRI, and NEXUS and Canadian citizens who are members of NEXUS; and
- Members of the U.S. Armed Forces.
- Find an IdentoGO Center near you, including a growing number of airport locations, offering TSA Pre✓® and pre-enroll online.
- Schedule an appointment to come in for fingerprinting.
- Pay the $85 applications fee and show your proof-of-identity documents from the approved list of valid government IDs.
- A Known Traveler Number (KTN) will be mailed to you or can be obtained online.
- Once enrolled, your KTN is used when booking travel and your TSA Pre✓® approval is printed on your boarding passes.
- Be sure to update your airline member profile to have the number automatically sent to the TSA when making reservations.
Among the credit cards that will buy you such preferential treatment:
If you’re accepted, you don’t need to undergo another background check for the next five years.
In September 2021, 96% of TSA PreCheck passengers waited less than five minutes to board.
So what difference does it make that some passengers must submit to close inspection while others do not?
- If you’re trying to carry a metallic firearm aboard a plane, the magnetometer will likely pick it up. But if you’ve filled your computer with plastic explosive, the magnetometer won’t pick it up.
Advanced imaging technology
- Or maybe you want to be a shoe-bomber like Richard Reid, who tried to blow up an American Airlines flight in 2001. Being allowed to skip the requirement to remove your shoes will certainly take you a long way toward reaching your goal.
Why is America being placed at such risk? Three reasons:
- The greed of American airline corporations and the TSA.
- Wealthy, self-entitled Americans hate waiting in long airport security lines—like ordinary citizens.
- The Calvinistic belief—shared by most Americans—that wealth is a sign of God’s favor, and thus proof that its holder is worthy of deference, if not awe.
On September 11, 2001, 2,996 people were killed and more than 6,000 others wounded as three highjacked airliners slammed into:
- The North Tower of the World Trade Center;
- The South Tower of the World Trade Center;
- The Pentagon; and
- A field in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, after passengers and crew on United Flight 93 tried to regain control.
The attacks inflicted the worst shock and grief on America since the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
So think about how easy it is to qualify as a TSA Pre-Check passenger the next time you board an airliner.
According to Yelp! reviews of thoroughly satisfied IdentoGO customers:
- “My TSA precheck appointment was done in 10 minutes! Plenty of free parking in their parking lot. The staff was friendly and courteous. I made an appointment thru the TSA precheck website. When I arrived, there was no wait. The office was clean, and the staff member who I met was friendly and courteous. Be sure to bring in your proper documents. $85 fee collected at the end of appointment. TSA precheck works for domestic flights only.”
- “The friendly agent took me in right away and he proceeded to go through my application with me, just to double check that all the information in the application is correct. He took my fingerprints (all fingers) and I was pretty much done in about 10 minutes.”
- “Going here for TSA precheck is a no-brainer. Super easy to get an appointment, free parking, and no waiting. Staff was friendly and efficient, explained what to expect after they submitted my information, and within less than 10 minutes I was on my way. Went in on a Friday afternoon and by Monday evening (ok, late evening really), I had my KTN. So, so easy.”
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on September 22, 2021 at 12:12 am
On January 8, 2021, General Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, calls a secret meeting in his Pentagon office to review the process for military action, including launching nuclear weapons.
It’s two days since President Donald Trump incited an attack on the United States Capitol Building to stop the certifying of Joe Biden as the next President of the United States. And Milley fears Trump intends to launch a full-fledged coup to remain in power.
He instructs his senior military officials to not take orders from anyone unless he is involved: “No matter what you are told, you do the procedure. You do the process. And I’m part of that procedure.”
He looks each officer in the eye, and asks him to verbally confirm that he understands.
Mark Milley
Fearful of Trump’s actions in his final weeks as President, Milley twice calls China’s top general, Li Zuocheng, of the People’s Liberation Army.
China is on high alert because of the chaos in the United States.
Milley assures Zuocheng there is no cause to fear an American attack, despite Trump’s provocative rhetoric against China. He promises that he will warn Zuocheng in the event of an American attack.
Donald Trump, in a September 14, 2021 interview on Newsmax, says Milley’s calls to the Chinese could amount to treason: “If it is actually true, which is hard to believe, that he would have called China and done these things and was willing to advise them of an attack, or in advance of an attack, that’s treason.
“For him to say that I was going to attack China is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.”
Donald Trump
At least three Republican Senators and nine members of the House of Representatives have demanded that Milley resign or be fired.
“He should be court-martialled if true,” Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky) writes on Twitter.
“(Milley) worked to actively undermine the sitting commander in chief of the U.S. armed forces,” Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) posts on Twitter.
Senator Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) disagrees. He tells reporters that Democratic lawmakers “were circumspect in our language [to Milley] but many of us made it clear that we were counting on him to avoid the disaster which we knew could happen at any moment.”
Nazi defendants at Nuremberg had reacted with similar outrage upon learning that former Minister of Armaments Albert Speer had considered assassinating Adolf Hitler. Hitler had given orders for the total destruction of Germany when he realized he had lost World War II.
“Traitor!” they shouted at Speer in the courtroom.
Former Reichmarshall Herman Goring—who had himself been condemned to death by Hitler in the closing days of the war—vowed: “If we ever get into power again, we’ll execute you for treason!”
Herman Goring
Adding to the pressures on Milley is a blunt phone call from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi: “What I’m saying to you is that if they couldn’t even stop him from an assault on the Capitol, who even knows what else he may do? And is there anybody in charge at the White House who was doing anything but kissing his fat butt all over this?
“You know he’s crazy. He’s been crazy for a long time.”
Milley replied: “Madam Speaker, I agree with you on everything.”
After that call, Milley:
- Orders his top service chiefs to watch everything “all the time.”
- Tells the director of the National Security Agency: “Needles up. Keep watching, scan.”
- Tells then-CIA Director Gina Haspel: “Aggressively watch everything, 360.”
Write Bob Woodward and Robert Costa in their forthcoming book, Peril: “Milley was overseeing the mobilization of America’s national security state without the knowledge of the American people or the rest of the world.
“Some might contend that Milley had overstepped his authority and taken extraordinary power for himself, but he believed his actions were a good faith precaution to ensure there was no historic rupture in the international order, no accidental war with China or others, and no use of nuclear weapons.”
Milley has been shocked when, immediately after losing the 2020 election, Trump signs a secret military order withdrawing all America troops from Afghanistan by January 15, 2021—five days before he is scheduled to leave the White House.
After Trump incites the January 6 attack on the Capitol, write Woodward and Costa, Milley “felt no absolute certainty that the military could control or trust Trump and believed it was his job as the senior military officer to think the unthinkable and take any and all necessary precautions.”
Nor is Milley the only high-ranking national security official who fears Trump’s vindictiveness: CIA Director Gina Haspel warns Milley, “We are on the way to a right-wing coup. The whole thing is insanity. He is acting out like a six-year-old with a tantrum.”
Haspel also worries that Trump will try to attack Iran.
Milley intends above all to ensure a peaceful transfer of power from Donald Trump to Joe Biden on January 20:
“We’ve got a plane with four engines and three of them are out. We’ve got no landing gear. But we’re going to land this plane and we’re going to land it safely,” he tells Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
On January 20, 2021, that plane lands safely.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on September 21, 2021 at 12:07 am
On November 3, 2020, 81,255,933 Democratic voters elect former Vice President Joseph Biden the 46th President of the United States.
President Donald J. Trump, running for a second term, gets 74,196,153 votes. Biden also wins decisively in the Electoral College: 306 votes to 232 for Trump.
Facing the end of his Presidency, Trump desperately seeks to remain in power. Having “joked” about being “President-for-Life,” he’s now fighting to make that a reality.
He spreads The Big Lie that he has been robbed by fraud. He summons his Stormtrumper followers to Washington, D.C. for a massive “Stop the Steal” rally set for January 6.
It is on that day that members of the House and Senate will meet in the United States Capitol Building to officially count the Electoral College votes. Since that total is known, it’s a foregone conclusion that Biden will be officially pronounced President-Elect.
Unwilling to accept this verdict, Trump demands that his vice president, Mike Pence, refuse to certify the election of Joe Biden as America’s next President.
When Pence refuses to break the law, Trump incites his followers in Washington, D.C., to storm the Capitol building on January 6 to stop the certification.
Donald Trump addresses his Stormtrumpers
The Stormtrumpers march to the United States Capitol—and quickly brush aside Capitol Police.
- Members of the mob attack police with chemical agents, metal poles and lead pipes.
- At least 140 police officers suffer injuries, including concussions, broken ribs, smashed spinal discs, a lost eye.
- Many of the lawmakers’ offices are occupied and vandalized—including that of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a favorite Right-wing target.
- Lawmakers huddle under desks and behind locked doors, expecting to die any minute.
- More than three hours pass before police—using riot gear, shields and batons—retake control of the Capitol.
And Trump? After giving his inflammatory speech, he returns to the White House—to watch his handiwork on television. He initially rebuffs requests to mobilize the National Guard.
With the United States seemingly on the brink of a Trumpian coup, General Mark Milley—Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff—steps forward to save his country from a President he distrusts.
Appointed to that position by Trump in 2018, his career includes assignments with the 82nd Airborne Division, 5th Special Forces Group, Joint Readiness Training Center, Operations Staff of the Joint Staff, and Military Assistant to the Secretary of Defense.
Mark Milley
Two days after the treasonous January 6 attack, Milley single-handedly takes secret action to prevent Trump from potentially ordering a dangerous military strike or launching nuclear weapons.
That’s one of a series of startling revelations in Peril, a new book by legendary journalist Bob Woodward and veteran Washington Post reporter Robert Costa.
Milley, deeply shaken by the Capitol assault, “was certain that Trump had gone into a serious mental decline in the aftermath of the election, with Trump now all but manic, screaming at officials and constructing his own alternate reality about endless election conspiracies.”
“You never know what a president’s trigger point is,” Milley tells his senior staff.
On January 8, Milley calls a secret meeting in his Pentagon office to review the process for military action, including launching nuclear weapons.
The Pentagon
Touch Of Light, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
He instructs his senior military officials to not take orders from anyone unless he is involved: “No matter what you are told, you do the procedure. You do the process. And I’m part of that procedure.”
He looks each officer in the eye, and asks him to verbally confirm that he understands.
Fearful of Trump’s actions in his final weeks as President, Milley twice calls China’s top general, Li Zuocheng of the People’s Liberation Army to assure him that the two nations will not suddenly go to war.
China is on high alert because of the chaos in the United States.
Milley assures him there is no cause to fear an American attack, despite Trump’s provocative rhetoric against that country. He promises Zuocheng that he will warn him in the event of an upcoming American attack:
“General Li, I want to assure you that the American government is stable and everything is going to be okay,” Milley says in the first call on October 30, 2020. “We are not going to attack or conduct any kinetic operations against you.
“If we’re going to attack, I’m going to call you ahead of time. It’s not going to be a surprise,” Milley reportedly says.
The second call is on January 8, 2021, to assure Zuocheng the United States isn’t on the brink of collapse.
Zuocheng isn’t easily convinced, even after Milley promises him: “We are 100 percent steady. Everything’s fine. But democracy can be sloppy sometimes.”
According to the Woodward-Costa book, Milley calls the admiral overseeing the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, the military unit responsible for Asia and the Pacific region, and recommends postponing upcoming military exercises.
He also asks senior officers to swear that Milley will be involved if Trump orders the launch of nuclear weapons.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on September 20, 2021 at 12:05 am
Albert Speer, Minister of Armaments for the Third Reich, is appalled.
His Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler—the man he had idolized for 14 years—has just passed a death sentence on Germany, the nation he claimed to love above all others.
On March 19, 1945, facing certain defeat, Hitler had ordered a massive “scorched-earth” campaign throughout Germany.
All German agriculture, industry, ships, communications, roads, food stuffs, mines, bridges, stores and utility plants are to be destroyed.
If implemented, it will deprive the entire German population of even the barest necessities after the war.
Now living in a bunker 50 feet below bomb-shattered Berlin, Hitler gives full vent to his most destructive impulses.
Adolf Hitler addressing boy soldiers as the Third Reich crumbles
“If the war is lost,” Hitler tells Speer, “the nation will also perish. This fate is inevitable. There is no necessity to take into consideration the basis which the people will need to continue even a most primitive existence.
“On the contrary, it will be better to destroy these things ourselves, because this nation will have proved to be the weaker one and the future will belong solely to the stronger eastern nation.
“Besides, those who will remain after the battle are only the inferior ones, for the good ones have all been killed.”
His attitude is: “If I can’t rule Germany, then there won’t be a Germany.”
Speer argues in vain that there must be a future for the German people. But Hitler refuses to back down. He gives Speer 24 hours to reconsider his opposition to the order.
The next day, Speer tells Hitler: “My Fuhrer, I stand unconditionally behind you!”
“Then all is well,” says Hitler, suddenly with tears in his eyes.
Albert Speer
“If I stand unreservedly behind you,” says Speer, “then you must entrust me rather than the Gauleiters [district Party leaders serving as provincial governors] with the implementation of your decree.”
Filled with gratitude, Hitler signs the decree Speer has thoughtfully prepared before their fateful meeting.
By doing so, Hitler unintentionally gives Speer the power to thwart his “scorched earth” decree.
Speer has been the closest thing to a friend in Hitler’s life. Trained as an architect, he joined the Nazi Party in 1931.
He met Hitler in 1933, when he presented the Fuhrer with architectural designs for the Nuremberg Rally scheduled for that year.
From then on, Speer became Hitler’s “genius architect” assigned to create buildings meant to last for a thousand years.
In 1943, Hitler appointed him Minister of Armaments, charged with revitalizing the German war effort.
Nevertheless, Speer now crisscrosses Germany, persuading military leaders and district governors to not destroy the vital facilities that would be needed after the war.
“No other senior National Socialist could have done the job,” writes Randall Hanson, author of Disobeying Hitler: German Resistance After Valkyrie.
Risking death, Speer refuses to carry out Hitler’s “scorched earth” order. Even more important, he successfully blocks such destruction and persuades influential military and civilian leaders to disobey the order as well.
As a result, those targets slated for destruction are spared.
Despite his later conviction for war crimes at Nuremberg, Speer never regrets his efforts to save Germany from total destruction at the hands of Adolf Hitler.
Fast forward 75 years: On November 3, 2020, 81,255,933 Democratic voters elect former Vice President Joseph Biden the 46th President of the United States.
President Donald J. Trump, running for a second term, gets 74,196,153 votes. Biden also wins decisively in the Electoral College: 306 votes to 232 for Trump.
Facing the end of his Presidency, Trump desperately seeks to remain in power. Having “joked” about being “President-for-Life,” he’s now fighting to make that a reality.
Unlike his 44 predecessors, he refuses to concede. For almost three weeks he denies his successor access to the resources he needs to launch a smooth transition.
Donald Trump
Even worse: Instead of showing concern for the country he claims to love, Trump is now relentlessly destroying those institutions that guarantee American freedom and safety:
- The Pentagon
- The CIA
- The FBI
- The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency
Trump spreads The Big Lie that the election had been stolen. He repeatedly presses his vice president, Mike Pence, to refuse to certify the election results at the Capitol on January 6. When Pence refuses to break the law, Trump incites his followers to storm the building to stop the vote counting.
His attitude clearly is: “If I can’t rule America, there won’t be an America.”
Meanwhile, House and Senate Republicans have embraced his most outrageous lies—or refused to openly refute them—as the COVID-19 pandemic slaughters about 1,000 Americans a day.
Even Republicans who privately admit the Trump era is ending realize that 74 million hate-filled Americans voted for him in 2020. And eagerly await the coming of the next would-be Fuhrer.
They will also eagerly vote out of office any Republican who dares break with the man they worship like a cult leader.
For Congressional Republicans, staying in office—and keeping their power and perks—is their top priority.
It is at this moment that one man—General Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff—steps forward to save his country from a President he distrusts.
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on September 15, 2021 at 12:20 am
A September 10 CNN headline said it all: “As Covid-19 hospitalizations spike, some overwhelmed, some hospitals are rationing care.”
Its opening paragraphs read:
“Once again, Americans who don’t even have coronavirus are suffering the consequences of Covid-19 patients filling up hospitals.
“More than 101,000 people are currently hospitalized with Covid-19, according to data Thursday from the United States Department of Health and Human Services.
“Now, some patients wanting urgent care won’t get it because so many beds are occupied by Covid-19 patients.”
In short, tens of thousands of men and women who could have gotten vaccinated against a deadly virus refused to do so. They claimed they didn’t trust the medical establishment generally or the vaccines in particular.
But now they demand that the medical establishment save them from a possible death sentence they brought on themselves. Many of them have said, while taking up space in ICU beds, that they should have gotten the vaccine but, for unexplained reasons, kept putting it off.
That means victims of heart attacks, strokes, car accidents and crimes must now go without desperately-needed medical attention owing to the egotism, ignorance and/or arrogance of anti-vaxxers and/or Stormtrumper followers of former President Donald Trump.
Covid-19
In West Virginia, hospitals are “overwhelmingly inundated with cases of people that are not vaccinated,” Governor Jim Justice said.
The state has 813 people hospitalized with Covid-19 and set a new record for Covid-19 patients in ICUs—252 on September 8.
A record 132 Covid-19 patients are on ventilators.
In Idaho, the Department of Health and Welfare activated its Crisis Standards of Care in the northern part of the state due to “a massive increase in patients with Covid-19 who require hospitalization.”
Governor Brad Little pleaded for eligible Idahoans to get vaccinated.
Only 23 ICU beds are available In Arkansas.
As of September 11, 660,000 Americans have died of COVID-19.
By contrast, on that day 20 years ago, nearly 3,000 Americans died at the hands of Islamic terrorists at the Pentagon, the World Trade Center and in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
The World Trade Center on September 11, 2001
That works out to the equivalent of 220 9/11’s from January 1, 2020 to September 11, 2021.
So while Americans publicly mourned the victims of 9/11, those who have needlessly died from Covid-19 remain forgotten—except by those who knew and loved them.
But this situation may soon—at last—be changing.
On September 9, President Joe Biden announced six measures to increase coronavirus vaccination rates, which have slowed in recent months, allowing the Delta variant to spread. Among these:
- All federal employees and contractors must get vaccinated, without exemptions.
- Companies with more than 100 employees must require their employees to get vaccinated, with some exceptions, or face weekly testing.
- Hospitals that participate in the federal Medicaid and Medicare programs must also vaccinate their estimated 17 million employees.
“We’ve been patient, but our patience is wearing thin,” Biden said in a speech from the White House, making clear that he blamed the unvaccinated for the current surge in the country. “And your refusal has cost all of us.”
President Joe Biden
On the Fourth of July, Biden held a party on the South Lawn of the White House, declaring that the country was on the cusp of “independence” from the virus.
But the refusal of about 80 million Americans to get vaccinated against Covid-19 has thoroughly sabotaged that goal.
The Delta variant has surged through Florida and Texas, whose governors have taken a hardline stand against mask mandates. The vast majority of the people who have become seriously ill have not been vaccinated.
Schools are closed once again. The economic recovery is faltering.
But for the Right, this means nothing.
Fox News—which supported four years of Donald Trump’s dictatorial rule—attacked Biden as an “authoritarian.” Republican officials vowed to fight his new mandates in court.
And former Vice President Mike Pence—who similarly supported Trump’s tyranny—said: “I mean, to have the president of the United States say that he has been patient but his patience is wearing thin—that’s not how the American people expect to be spoken to by our elected leaders.”
There are solid reasons for this.
Governors such as Ron DeSantis (Florida) Greg Abbott (Texas) and Kristi Noem (South Dakota) are trying to inherit the constituency of former President Donald Trump.
Trump attacked public health experts such as Dr. Anthony Fauci—especially when they recommended mask mandates to stop the spread of the virus. And he urged his followers to storm state capitols of Democratic governors who were desperately trying to keep hospitals and morgues from overflowing with Covid-19 victims.
The result: 75 million militant Right-wingers ignored the Covid-19-related deaths of 400,000 Americans and the rising ride of the pandemic and almost re-elected him President.
Republicans believe that by opposing mask and vaccination mandates, they can keep the virus going. This will depress the economy—and give them a potent issue to use against Biden in 2024.
Thus, Republicans want to look tough and champion a demented version of freedom—even as it kills huge numbers of their own constituents.
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on August 30, 2021 at 12:05 am
The United States had been fighting in Afghanistan for almost 16 years—and between 2001 and 2017 had spent an estimated $714 billion.
Still, there was no end in sight.
Then Erik Prince suggested a remedy: Mercenaries—via his private company, Academi.
For $3.5 billion in taxpayer monies, he claimed that he could vin a victory that had eluded the United States Air Force, Army (including Green Berets) and Navy SEALs.
Erik Prince
By Miller Center [CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons
In 1997, Prince created Blackwater, a private security company providing support to military and police agencies.
In August, 2003, Blackwater got the first of a series of Federal contracts to deploy its forces in Iraq. For $21 million, it safeguarded Paul Bremer, America’s proconsul running the occupation.
Ultimately, Blackwater got $1 billion to provide security for American officials and soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.
According to human rights organizations, Blackwater abused Iraqis and engaged in torture to obtain information.
In September, 2007, Blackwater guards killed 17 Iraqi civilians and injured 20 more in a Baghdad traffic circle.
Five guards were charged with murder. Three were convicted in October, 2014, of 14 manslaughter charges and in April 2015 sentenced to 30 years in prison. These sentences were deemed unfair upon appeal and await re-sentencing.
Owing to its highly controversial activities in Iraq, Prince renamed the company Xe Services in 2009 and then Academi in 2011.
By 2018, against opposition by the Pentagon, Prince lobbied President Donald Trump to let Academi privatize the war in Afghanistan.
Ultimately, his company did not become the sole American military force in Afghanistan—despite his sister, Betsy Devos, being the Secretary of Education.
Since the end of the Cold War, the American military and Intelligence communities have grown increasingly dependent on private contractors.
In his 2007 bestseller, Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA, Tim Weiner writes:
“Patriotism for profit became a $50-billion-a-year business….The [CIA] began contracting out thousands of jobs to fill the perceived void by the budget cuts that began in 1992.
“A CIA officer could file his retirement papers, turn in his blue identification badge, go to work for a much better salary at a military contractor such as Lockheed Martin or Booz Allen Hamilton, then return to the CIA the next day, wearing a green badge….”
Much of the CIA became totally dependent on mercenaries. They appeared to work for the agency, but their loyalty was actually to their private–and higher-paying—companies.
Writes Weiner: “Legions of CIA veterans quit their posts to sell their services to the agency by writing analyses, creating cover for overseas officers, setting up communications networks, and running clandestine operations.”
One such company was Total Intelligence Solutions, founded in 2007 by Cofer Black, who had been the chief of the CIA’s counter-terrorism center on 9/11. His partners were Robert Richer, formerly the associate deputy director of operations at the CIA, and Enrique Prado, who had been Black’s chief of counter-terror operations at the agency.
Future CIA hires followed suit: Serve for five years, win that prized CIA “credential” and sign up with a private security company to enrich yourself.
This situation met with full support from Right-wing “pro-business” members of Congress and President George W. Bush.
They had long championed the private sector as inherently superior to the public one. And they saw no danger that a man dedicated to enriching himself might put greed ahead of safeguarding his country.
But there are dangers to hiring men whose first love is profit. Recent examples include:
- Edward Snowden deliberately joined Booz Allen Hamilton to secure a job as a computer systems administrator at the National Security Agency (NSA). This gave him access to thousands of highly classified documents—which, in 2013, he began publicly leaking to a wide range of news organizations.
- His motive, he claimed, was to warn Americans of the privacy-invading dangers posed by their own Intelligence agencies.
- On March 7, 2017, WikiLeaks published a “data dump” of 8,761 documents codenamed “Vault 7.”
- The documents exposed that the CIA had found security flaws in software operating systems such as Microsoft Windows, Android and Apple iOS. These allowed an intruder—such as the CIA—to seize control of a computer or smartphone. The owner could then be photographed through his iPhone camera and have his text messages intercepted.
- According to anonymous U.S. Intelligence and law enforcement sources, the culprits were CIA contract employees.
But there are others who have offered a timely warning against the use of mercenaries. One of these is Niccolo Machiavelli, the Florentine statesman of the Renaissance.
Niccolo Machiavelli
In The Prince, Machiavelli writes:
“Mercenaries…are useless and dangerous. And if a prince holds on to his state by means of mercenary armies, he will never be stable or secure. For they are disunited, ambitious, without discipline, disloyal. They are brave among friends; among enemies they are cowards.
“They have neither the fear of God nor fidelity to man, and destruction is deferred only as the attack is. For in peace one is robbed by them, and in war by the enemy.
“The cause of this is that they have no love or other motive to keep them in the field beyond a trifling wage, which is not enough to make them ready to die for you.”
Centuries after Machiavelli’s warning, Americans are realizing the bitter truth of it firsthand.
Bureaucracybuster's Blog 
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VIOLENCE: IT’S THE REPUBLICAN WAY: PART TWO (OF FOUR)
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on November 24, 2021 at 12:17 amRepublicans in past decades tried—and often won—elections on the basis of ideology and/or appeals to racism.
During the 1960s and 1970s, the “enemy” was blacks. The key to winning votes of racist whites without appearing racist lay in what Republicans called “the Southern Strategy”—stoking whites’ fears of blacks.
It was this that won Richard Nixon the Presidency in 1968 and 1972 and the White House for George H.W. Bush in 1988.
In a now-infamous 1981 interview, Right-wing political consultant Lee Atwater explained how this worked.
“You start out in 1954 by saying, ‘Nigger, nigger, nigger.’ By 1968 you can’t say ‘nigger’—that hurts you, backfires.
“So you say stuff like, uh, forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff, and you’re getting so abstract.
“Now, you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites.…
“’We want to cut this,’ is much more abstract than even the busing thing, uh, and a hell of a lot more abstract than ‘Nigger, nigger.’
“So anyway you look at it, race is coming on the back burner.”
Lee Atwater
Since the end of World War II, Republicans regularly hurled the charge of “treason” against anyone who dared to run against them for office or think other than Republican-approved thoughts.
Republicans had been locked out of the White House from 1933 to 1952, during the administrations of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman.
Determined to regain the Presidency by any means, they found that attacking the integrity of their fellow Americans a highly effective tactic.
During the 1950s, Wisconsin Senator Joseph R. McCarthy rode a wave of paranoia to national prominence—by attacking the patriotism of anyone who disagreed with him.
Joseph McCarthy
Elected to the Senate in 1946, he rose to national prominence on February 9, 1950, after giving a fiery speech in Wheeling, West Virginia:
“The State Department is infested with communists. I have here in my hand a list of 205—a list of names that were made known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party and who nevertheless are still working and shaping policy in the State Department.”
Anti-communism as a lever to political advancement sharply accelerated following McCarthy’s speech.
No American—no matter how prominent—was safe from the accusation of being a Communist or a Communist sympathizer—a “Comsymp” or “fellow traveler” in the style of the era.
Republicans rode the issue of anti-Communism to victory from 1948 to 1992.
After holding the White House for eight years under Dwight D. Eisenhower, they lost it in 1960 to John F. Kennedy and again in 1964 to Lyndon B. Johnson.
By 1968, with the nation mired in Vietnam and convulsed by antiwar demonstrations and race riots, Americans turned once more to those who preyed upon their fears and hates.
They elected Richard Nixon, who promised to end the Vietnam war and crack down on “uppity” blacks and antiwar demonstrators.
The same strategy re-elected him in 1972.
After Jimmy Carter won the Presidency in 1976 and lost it in 1980 to Ronald Reagan, Republicans held the White House until 1992.
During the 1970s and 1980s, they continued to accuse their opponents of being devious agents—or at least unwitting pawns—of “the Communist conspiracy.”
Even as late as 1992, President George H.W. Bush and the Republican establishment charged that Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton might be a KGB plant.
George H.W. Bush
Their “evidence”: During his tenure at Oxford University in 1969-70, Clinton had briefly visited Moscow.
Thus, the Republican charged that he might have been “programmed” as a real-life “Manchurian candidate” to become, first, Governor of Arkansas—one of America’s poorest states—and then President.
What made this charge all the more absurd: The Soviet Union had officially dissolved in December, 1991.
Republicans continued to accuse their opponents of being “Communists” and “traitors.” But these charges no longer carried the weight they had while the Soviet Union existed.
Then, on September 11, 2001, Republicans—-and their right-wing supporters—at last found a suitable replacement for the Red Menace.
Two highjacked jetliners slammed into the World Trade Center in New York and one struck the Pentagon in Washington, D.C.
World Trade Center on September 11, 2001
Exit The Red Bogeyman. Enter The Maniacal Muslim.
For several years, fears of Islamic terror carried Republicans to electoral victory—most importantly in 2004, when George W. Bush won re-election as President.
But after the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the killing of Osama bin Laden in 2011, Americans lost interest in The Maniacal Muslim as a surefire election tactic.
With the rise of Donald Trump to Republican standard-bearer in 2015, threats of violence entered the rhetoric—and tactics—of the Republican party.
For example:
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