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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on October 22, 2019 at 12:05 am
Since taking office as President on January 20, 2017, Donald Trump has continued to hurl threats of violence against those he hates.
“Trump’s language of violence started with immigrants when he launched his presidential campaign in 2015,” wrote Washington Post Reporter Eugene Scott. “There is a direct line from his language to real violence against immigrants and other innocent Americans caught in the maniacal mass shootings of the past year.
“And this cancer is spreading: to Congress, to the media, to the intelligence community, to foreign allies. There is no end in sight as Trump becomes increasingly unhinged and the GOP remains frozen in abject silence.”
On October 2, 2019, Journalist Nina Burleigh wrote: “Since 2015, TV-watching Americans have been subject to the deimatic spectacle of more than 400 rallies (at least 80 since his election) in which Trump sometimes openly and more often coyly urged supporters to violence. These spectacles have conditioned many Americans to fear him and his more enthusiastic supporters.”

Supporters giving the “Seig Heil” salute to Donald Trump
“Over the last few days, the President’s rhetoric of violence and hate has spread,” stated an October 3, 2019 press release by America’s Voice, a liberal immigration group.
“As Jamelle Bouie noted yesterday, ‘Over the weekend, in a rage over impeachment, President Trump accused Representative Adam Schiff of ‘treason,’ promised ‘Big Consequences’ for the whistle-blower who sounded the alarm about his phone call with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine and shared a warning — from a Baptist pastor in Dallas — that impeachment ‘will cause a Civil War like fracture in this Nation from which our Country will never heal.’”
Trump’s opponents have good reason to fear. And not simply the public demonstrations by the President’s fanatical base. They should fear the secret fantasies of the Right.
Those secret fantasies have been revealed in a series of Right-wing videos featuring graphic acts of violence against those whom the Right—and Trump—hate.
From October 10 to 12, 2019, attendees of the American Priority Conference at the Trump National Doral Miami resort enjoyed many of those videos.
One of these, “The Trumpsman,” featured a digitized Trump shooting, stabbing and setting fire to such liberals—and even conservatives—as:
- Former President Bill Clinton
- Former Vice President Joe Biden
- Former Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton
- Democratic Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi
- Former President Barack Obama
- Vermont United States Senator Bernie Sanders
- Utah Senator Mitt Romney
- The late Arizona Senator John McCain
And legitimate news media—such as CBS, BBC, ABC, CNN, The New York Times and The Washington Post—were also depicted as among Trump’s victims.

The video was produced by Rightists who believed it reflected what Donald Trump would do to his enemies if only he could get away with it. And given his near-constant calls for violence against his critics, they were absolutely correct.
But the video’s critics are wrong to call for its suppression.
On the contrary—it should be widely seen for what it is: The Mein Kampf of Donald Trump and his fanatical followers, in and outside the Republican party.
Like Adolf Hitler’s autobiography, it depicts the future America can expect if the Right gains the power to live out its murderous fantasies. And the fantasy Right-wingers prize most: The brutal extermination of everyone who refuses to submit to their Fascistic tyranny.
“The Trumpsman” is part of a growing genre of pro-Trump memes that routinely earn thousands of views on sites like YouTube and Twitter. Many superimpose the faces of Trump and his chief supporters slaughtering Democrats, liberal celebrities and/or members of the media.
The event’s organizer, Alex Phillips, hurriedly claimed that the “unauthorized video” was shown “in a side room” at the American Priority Conference.
But there is an upside to this exercise in Right-wing porn. Democrats could easily run TV ads showing limited clips from “The Trumpsman” video.
Unfortunately, the majority of Democrats lack the courage to attack their Right-wing enemies with the same ruthlessness used against them. That’s why they lost most Presidential elections of the 20th century.
Americans should be constantly warned: These videos were not made by liberals to parody the values and goals of the Republican party and its Right-wing supporters.
These videos were made by Right-wingers—and reflect the true values and intentions of the Republican party and its Right-wing supporters.
The boiler-plate rhetoric that gushes out of Republican conventions—about love of family, God and flag—is the public mask of the Right.
The videos that depict Right-wingers ruthlessly slaughtering anyone who dares to disagree with them reflect the real face of the Right.
Of course, most Americans never imagined that a President would:
- Fire an FBI director for investigating Russian subversion of a Presidential election.
- Openly call on a foreign enemy nation—China—to investigate his political rival for the White House.
- Accuse his Congressional critics of treason—a crime punishable by death.
Trump’s opponents should stop deluding themselves that: “Surely he’ll never do that.”
Whatever it is they fear he will do, he will do.
Like all predators, he will stop only when he meets a stronger opponent.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on October 21, 2019 at 12:14 am
On November 9, 1923, Nazi Party Fuhrer Adolf Hitler tried to overthrow the government in Munich, Bavaria.
About 2,000 Nazis marched to the center of Munich, where they confronted heavily-armed police. A shootout erupted, killing 16 Nazis and four policemen.
Hitler was injured during the clash, but managed to escape. Two days later, he was arrested and charged with treason.
Put on trial, he found himself treated as a celebrity by a judge sympathetic to Right-wing groups. He was allowed to brutally cross-examine witnesses and even make inflammatory speeches.
At the end of the trial, he was convicted of treason and sentenced to five years’ imprisonment. Of this he served only nine months before being pardoned.
Hitler used his time in Landsberg Prison, in Bavaria, to write his infamous book, Mein Kampf-–“My Struggle.” Part autobiography, part political treatise, it laid out his future plans—for a revitalized Germany and the conquest of other nations.

Adolf Hitler leaving Landsberg Prison, December, 20, 1924
Published in 1925, it was long ignored by all but the most fanatical Nazis. But as Hitler gained increasing numbers of votes in a series of elections, many people—inside and outside Germany—began paying attention to its contents.
By 1939 it had sold 5,200,000 copies and had been translated into 11 languages.
Most of those who bought the book never read it. Its style was bombastic, repetitious and illogical. The first edition contained grammatical errors, reflecting a self-educated man.
Few who read it took Hitler’s intentions seriously. Comedians portrayed him as a wildly gesturing crank who screamed constantly.
Hitler made no effort to hide his program for Germany under his rule. His candor led many people to believe he was a lunatic who could be safely ignored.
He was especially insistent on the need for eliminating world Jewry and conquering the Soviet Union.
On the former topic he wrote: “The nationalization of our masses will succeed only when, aside from all the positive struggle for the soul of our people, their international poisoners are exterminated.
“If at the beginning of the war and during the war twelve or fifteen thousand of these Hebrew corrupters of the nation had been subjected to poison gas, such as had to be endured in the field by hundreds of thousands of our very best German workers of all classes and professions, then the sacrifice of millions at the front would not have been in vain.”
A mere 17 years later, Hitler’s “Thousand-Year Reich” would translate those words into horrific action in a series of extermination camps equipped with gas chambers.

Hitler was equally insistent that Germany needed to find Lebensraum—“Living space”—in the east. And by “east” he meant “Russia.”
Specifically: “And so we National Socialists consciously draw a line beneath the foreign policy tendency of our pre-War period. We take up where we broke off six hundred years ago.
“We stop the endless German movement to the south and west, and turn our gaze toward the land in the east. At long last we break off the colonial and commercial policy of the pre-War period and shift to the soil policy of the future.
“If we speak of soil in Europe today, we can primarily have in mind only Russia and her vassal border states.”
Hitler finally attained power on January 30, 1933. He realized that Germany was not yet strong enough to impose its will on other nations. So he set out on a secret crash program to make Germany the strongest military power in Europe.
In 1936, he set out on his “mission of Providence”:
- March, 1936: Ordering German troops to reoccupy the demilitarised zone between France and Germany (the Rhineland), in violation of the Versailles Treaty, which ended World War 1.
- July, 1936: Sending troops to Spain to support the Fascist army of General Francisco Franco.
- March 12, 1938: Occupying Austria and “unifying” it with Germany (the “Anschluss“).
- September 29, 1938: Bullying British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain into surrendering Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland districts to Germany.
- September 1, 1939: Ordering the invasion of Poland, which unintentionally launched World War II.
- June 22, 1941: Ordering the invasion of the Soviet Union.
- 1941: Secretly ordering “the Final Solution of the Jewish Question,” resulting in the extermination of at least six million Jews.
Only after Hitler set out to conquer, first Europe, then the Soviet Union, did his victims and intended victims realize that Mein Kampf had given them a deadly warning. A warning too many of them had refused to heed.
By the time World War II ended:
- Fifty million men, women and children were died—most of them dying in agony.
- The Soviet Union, having crushed Nazi Germany, become a world power.
- Poland and eastern Europe—once captives of Nazi Germany—now found themselves captives of the Soviet Union.
- The United States, untouched by the war, emerged as the world’s superpower—and the only country strong enough to contain the Soviet Union.
But Adolf Hitler isn’t the only would-be dictator to give ample warning of his murderous intentions.
And, like most Germans in the Weimar Republic, which preceded Nazi Germany, most Americans refuse to take that warning seriously.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on October 16, 2019 at 12:05 am
In his poem, “Conversation With an American Writer,” the Russian poet, Yevgeney Yevtushenko spoke for those Russians who managed to maintain their integrity in the face of Stalinist terror:
“You have courage,” they tell me.
It’s not true. I was never courageous.
I simply felt it unbecoming
to stoop to the cowardice of my colleagues.
Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the vast majority of Republicans in the United States Senate and House of Representatives.

Yevgeney Yevtushenko
In late September, news broke that, on July 25, President Donald Trump had tried to extort a “favor” from the president of Ukraine: Find embarrassing “dirt” on former Vice President Joseph Biden and his son, Hunter.
Hunter had had business dealings in Ukraine. And Joe Biden might be Trump’s Democratic opponent for the White House in 2020.
To underline the seriousness of his “request,” Trump had withheld $400 million in promised military aid to Ukraine, which is facing an increasingly aggressive Russia.
Since late September, reporters have repeatedly asked Congressional Republicans: “Is it appropriate for President Donald Trump to ask a foreign government to investigate his political opponent?”
And the overwhelming majority of Republicans have refused to answer—even though, on October 3, Trump said publicly on the south lawn of the White House: “China should start an investigation into the Bidens.”

Donald Trump
Among those refusing to answer:
Colorado Republican Senator Cory Gardner: “Well look, that’s what we’re going to get into. The Senate Intelligence Committee is having an investigation, a bipartisan investigation.”
Iowa Senator Joni Ernst: “We don’t have all the facts, we don’t know what is accurate. We have a picture painted by the media and we don’t know if that picture is accurate.”
Arizona Senator Martha McSally: “I think what we’ve seen out of [Speaker of the House Nancy] Pelosi and [House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam] Schiff and others in the House is quite partisan and I think people want us to take a serious look at this and not have it be just partisan bickering going on.”
North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis: “I’m going to leave it to the President to make that decision” on whether his actions were appropriate.
The reason for Republicans’ deafening silence: They don’t want to anger Trump or his fanatical supporters. Many of them face tough reelection campaigns. And they fear losing their Congressional seats and the perks that go with them.
So they’re willing to support a President who calls on hostile foreign nations to subvert an American Presidential election.
Enter Marie Yovanovitch, the former United States ambassador to Ukraine (2016 – 2019). She had joined the Foreign Service in 1986, and served as ambassador to Kyrgyzstan (2005 – 2008) and Armenia (2008 – 2011).

Marie Yovanovitch
In May 2019, on Trump’s orders, the State Department recalled Yovanovitch as ambassador to Ukraine. She had earned respect from the national security community for her efforts to encourage Ukraine to tackle corruption.
But she had been criticized by Right-wing media outlets—notably Fox News Network—and by Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani.
CNN reported that Yovanovitch stopped Giuliani from interviewing witnesses in his search for politically damaging information against former Vice President Joe Biden.
On August 12, a whistleblower filed a complaint with the Intelligence community’s Inspector General, Michael Atkinson.
In it, he warned that Yovanovitch’s ousting raised red flags that Trump was abusing his office by soliciting foreign interference in the 2020 election.
From that complaint ultimately resulted the impeachment inquiry by the House of Representatives.
With so many Republicans cowering before Trump, Yovanovitch emerged as the first real hero of the Trump era.
On October 11, she appeared before the House Intelligence Committee, chaired by Representative Adam Schiff (D-CA). She did so in defiance of orders by the White House and State Department to not attend.
In response, the Committee issued a subpoena to compel her testimony—and provide her with a measure of protection against wrongful termination.
“She was a hero even before she hit the hearing room,” wrote Charles Pierce for Esquire magazine.
“She told them to stuff their directives, she would answer a congressional subpoena like a citizen is supposed to do. And she didn’t sneak in through the basement. She walked into the Capitol through the front doors, and she didn’t do so to fck around.”
Testifying for nearly 10 hours, Yovanovitch said that Trump had removed her from her post owing to “unfounded and false claims” and “a concerted campaign against me.”
She believed that associates of Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, might have believed “that their personal financial ambitions were stymied by our anti-corruption policy in Ukraine.”
And she warned that the State Department was being “attacked and hollowed out from within. State Department leadership, with Congress, needs to take action now to defend this great institution, and its thousands of loyal and effective employees.
“We need to rebuild diplomacy as the first resort to advance America’s interests and the front line of America’s defense. I fear that not doing so will harm our nation’s interest, perhaps irreparably.”
Frontier general Andrew Jackson once said: “One man with courage makes a majority.”
By courageously defying Trump, Marie Yovanovitch may lead other conscientious men and women to do the same.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on October 15, 2019 at 12:11 am
Nikolai Sergeyvich Zhilayev (pronounced Zill-lay-ev) was a Russian musicologist and the teacher of several 20th-century Russian composers.
Among these: Dimitri Shostakovich.
Among his friends—to his ultimate misfortune—was Mikhail Nikolayevich Tukhachevsky, the former military hero now falsely condemned and executed as a traitor by Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin.
In 1938, Zhilayev (November 18, 1881 – January 20, 1938) also became a casualty of what has become known as The Great Terror.
In his posthumously-published memoirs, Testimony, Shostakovich, his pupil and friend, described how Zhilayev faced his end with a calmness that awed even the NKVD (the predecessor to the KGB) secret police sent to arrest him.

Dimitri Shostakovich
“He had a large picture of Tukhachevsky in his room, and after the announcement that Tukhachevsky had been shot as a traitor to the homeland, Zhilayev did not take the picture down.
“I don’t know if I can explain how heroic a deed that was….As soon as the next poor soul was declared an enemy of the people, everyone destroyed in a panic everything connected with that person….
“And naturally, photographs flew into the fire first, because if someone informed on you, reported that you had a picture of an enemy of the people, it meant certain death.
“Zhilayev wasn’t afraid. When they came for him, Tukhachevsky’s prominently hung portrait amazed even the executioners.”
“What, it’s still up?” one of the secret police asked.
“The time will come,” Zhilayev replied, “when they’ll erect a monument to him.”
As, in fact, has happened.
Meanwhile, Stalin has been universally condemned as one of history’s greatest tyrants.

Mikhail Tukhachevsky appears on a 1963 Soviet Union postage stamp
Third hero—James Brien Comey (December 14, 1960)
Comey served as United States Attorney (federal prosecutor) for the Southern District of New York (2002-2003).
As United States Deputy Attorney General (2003-2005), he opposed the warrantless wiretapping program of the George W. Bush administration. He also argued against the use of water boarding as an interrogation method.
In 2005, he entered the private sector as General Counsel and Senior Vice President for Lockheed Martin, the biggest contractor for the Department of Defense.
On July 29, 2013, the United States Senate voted 93 -1 to confirm Comey as director of the FBI, the seventh in its history.

James B. Comey
He directed the FBI from his appointment in 2013 by President Barack Obama until his firing on May 9, 2017, by President Donald Trump.
In a move that Joseph Stalin would have admired, Trump gave no warning of his intentions. Instead, he sent Keith Schiller, his longtime bodyguard, to the FBI with a letter announcing Comey’s dismissal.
Trump had three reasons for firing Comey:
- Comey had refused to pledge his personal loyalty to Trump. Trump had made this “request” during a private dinner at the White House in January. After refusing to make that pledge, Comey told Trump that he would always be honest with him. But that didn’t satisfy Trump’s demand that the head of the FBI act as his personal secret police chief.
- Trump had tried to coerce him into dropping the FBI’s investigation into former National Security Adviser Mike Flynn, for his secret ties to Russia and Turkey. Comey had similarly resisted that demand.
- Comey had recently asked the Justice Department to fund an expanded FBI investigation into contacts between Trump’s 2016 Presidential campaign and Russian Intelligence agents.
As a Presidential candidate and President, Trump:
- Steadfastly denied those revelations;
- Repeatedly attacked the “fake news” media reporting these revelations. Chief among his targets: CNN, The New York Times and The Washington Post; and
- Attacked the Intelligence agencies responsible for America’s security.
On May 10—the day after firing Comey—Trump met in the Oval Office with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavov and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.
Kislyak was reportedly a top recruiter for Russia’s SVR foreign Intelligence agency. He has been closely linked with Jeff Sessions and Mike Flynn—respectively,, Trump’s fired Attorney General and fired National Security Adviser.
“I just fired the head of the FBI,” Trump told the two dignitaries. “He was crazy, a real nut job. I faced great pressure because of Russia. That’s taken off.”
During that meeting he gave the Russians sensitive Intelligence on ISIS that had been supplied by Israel.
Two days later, on May 12, Trump tweeted a threat to the fired FBI director: “James Comey better hope that there are no ‘tapes’ of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press.”
But shortly afterward, it appeared Trump was the one who should worry: Reports surfaced that Comey had written memos to himself immediately after his private meetings with Trump.
He had also told close aides that Trump was trying to pressure him into dropping the investigation into close ties between Russian Intelligence agents and Trump campaign staffers.
As for Trump’s threat of having tapes of his and Comey’s conversations: Like Trump’s claim that he could prove that Barack Obama wasn’t an American citizen, this, too, proved to be a lie.
And Comey’s firing led directly to a result Trump did not anticipate: Acting Attorney General Rod Rosenstein yielded to demands from Democrats and appointed former FBI Director Robert Mueller III as a special prosecutor to investigate those ties.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on October 14, 2019 at 12:09 am
…A truly great man is ever the same under all circumstances. And if his fortune varies, exalting him at one moment and oppressing him at another, he himself never varies, but always preserves a firm courage, which is so closely interwoven with his character that everyone can readily see that the fickleness of fortune has no power over him.
The conduct of weak men is very different. Made vain and intoxicated by good fortune, they attribute their success to merits which they do not possess. And this makes them odious and insupportable to all around them. And when they have afterwards to meet a reverse of fortune, they quickly fall into the other extreme, and become abject and vile.
—Niccolo Machiavelli, The Discourses
Four heroes, two villains.
Two of the heroes are Russians; two are Americans.
The villains: One Russian (actually, Georgian); one American.
First up—in order of disappearance: Mikhail Nikolayevich Tukhachevsky (pronounced too-ka-chev-sky)
Tukhachevsky (February 4, 1893 – June 12, 1937) was a leading Soviet military leader and theoretician from 1918 to 1937.
He commanded the Soviet Western Front during the Russian-Polish War (1920-21) and served as Chief of Staff of the Red Army (1925-1928).
He fought to modernize Soviet armament, as well as develop airborne, aviation and mechanized forces. Almost singlehandedly, he created the theory of deep operations for Soviet forces.

Mikhail Tukhachevsky
All of these innovations would reap huge dividends when the Soviet Union faced the lethal fury of Adolf Hitler’s Wehrmacht.
In 1936, Tukhachevsky warned Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin that Nazi Germany might attack without warning—and ignite a long and murderous war.
Stalin—the son of a Georgian cobbler—resented Tukhachevsky’s coming from a noble family. A monumental egomaniac, he also hated that Tukhachevesky’s fame rivaled his own.
Warned of the approaching German danger, Stalin shouted: “What are you trying to do—frighten Soviet authority?”

Joseph Stalin
The attack that Tukhachevsky warned against came five years later—on June 22, 1941, leaving at least 20 million Russians dead.
But Tukhachevsky wasn’t alive to command a defense.
The 1930s were a frightening and dangerous time to be alive in the Soviet Union. In 1934, Stalin, seeing imaginary enemies everywhere, ordered a series of purges that lasted right up to the German invasion.
An example of Stalin’s paranoia occurred one day while the dictator walked through the Kremlin corridors with Admiral Ivan Isakov. Officers of the NKVD (the predecessor to the KGB) stood guard at every corner.
“Every time I walk down the corridors,” said Stalin, “I think: Which one of them is it? If it’s this one, he will shoot me in the back. But if I turn the corner, the next one can shoot me in the face.”
In 1937-38, the Red Army fell prey to Stalin’s paranoia.
Its victims included:
- Three of five marshals (five-star generals);
- Thirteen of 15 army commanders (three- and four-star generals);
- Fifty of 57 army corps commanders; and
- One hundred fifty-four out of 186 division commanders.
And heading the list of those marked for death was Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky.
Arrested on May 22, 1937, he was interrogated and tortured. As a result, he “confessed” to being a German agent plotting to overthrow Stalin and seize power.
On his confession, which survives in the archives, his bloodstains can clearly be seen.
On June 11, the Soviet Supreme Court convened a special military tribunal to try Tukhachevsky and eight generals for treason.
It was a sham: The accused were denied defense attorneys, and could not appeal the verdict—-which was foregone: Death.
In a Russian version of poetic justice, five of the eight generals who served as Tukhachevsky’s judges were themselves later condemned and executed as traitors.
Within hours of the verdict, Tukhachevsky was summoned from his cell and shot once in the back of the head.
From 1937 until 1956, Tukhachevsky was officially declared a traitor and fifth-columnist.
Then, on February 25, 1956, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev delivered his bombshell “Secret Speech” to the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
In this, he denounced Stalin (who had died in 1953) as a ruthless tyrant responsible for the slaughter of millions of innocent men, women and children. He condemned Stalin for creating a “personality cult” around himself, and for so weakening the Red Army that Nazi Germany was able to easily overrun half of the Soviet Union from 1941 to 1943.
On January 31, 1957, Tukhachevsky and his co-defendants were declared innocent of all charges and were “rehabilitated.”
Today, he is once again—rightly—considered a Russian hero and military genius. And Stalin is universally—and rightly—seen as a blood-stained tyrant.
Next hero: Nikolai Sergeyvich Zhilayev (pronounced Zill-lay-ev)
Zhilayev (November 18, 1881 – January 20, 1938) was a Russian musicologist and the teacher of several 20th-century Russian composers. Among these: Dimitri Shostakovich.
Zhilayev, a member of the Russian Academy of Art-Sciences, taught at the Moscow Conservatory. Among his friends—to his ultimate misfortune—was Mikhail Tukhachevsky.
In 1938, he, too, became a casualty of what has become known as The Great Terror.
In his posthumously-published memoirs, Testimony, Shostakovich, his pupil and friend, described how Zhilayev faced his end with a calmness that awed even the NKVD (the predecessor to the KGB) secret police sent to arrest him.
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on August 6, 2019 at 12:05 am
The victims of the violence are black and white, rich and poor, young and old, famous and unknown. They are, most important of all, human beings whom other human beings loved and needed. No one—no matter where he lives or what he does—can be certain who will suffer from some senseless act of bloodshed. And yet it goes on and on.
–Robert F. Kennedy, April 4, 1968

Senator Robert F. Kennedy announcing the murder of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
What should the surviving victims of gun massacres do to seek redress?
And how can the relatives and friends of those who didn’t survive seek justice for those they loved?
Two things:
First, don’t count on politicians to support a ban on assault weapons.
Politicians—with rare exceptions—have only two goals:
- Get elected to office, and
- Stay in office.
And too many of them fear the economic and voting clout of the NRA to risk its wrath.
Consider Mitt Romney and President Barack Obama.
Both rushed to offer condolences to the surviving victims of the massacre at the Century 16 Theater in Aurora, Colorado, on July 20, 2012.
And both steadfastly refused to even discuss gun control—let alone support a ban on the type of assault weapons used by James Holmes, leaving 12 dead and 58 wounded.
Second, those who survived the massacre–and the relatives and friends of those who didn’t–should file wrongful death, class-action lawsuits against the NRA.
There is sound, legal precedent for this.
- For decades, the American tobacco industry peddled death and disability to millions and reaped billions of dollars in profits.
- The industry vigorously claimed there was no evidence that smoking caused cancer, heart disease, emphysema or any other ailment.

- Tobacco companies spent billions on slick advertising campaigns to win new smokers and attack medical warnings about the dangers of smoking.
- Tobacco companies spent millions to elect compliant politicians and block anti-smoking legislation.
- From 1954 to 1994, over 800 private lawsuits were filed against tobacco companies in state courts. But only two plaintiffs prevailed, and both of those decisions were reversed on appeal.
- In 1994, amidst great pessimism, Mississippi Attorney General Mike Moore filed a lawsuit against the tobacco industry. But other states soon followed, ultimately growing to 46.
- Their goal: To seek monetary, equitable and injunctive relief under various consumer-protection and anti-trust laws.
- The theory underlying these lawsuits was: Cigarettes produced by the tobacco industry created health problems among the population, which badly strained the states’ public healthcare systems.
- In 1998, the states settled their Medicaid lawsuits against the tobacco industry for recovery of their tobacco-related, health-care costs. In return, they exempted the companies from private lawsuits for tobacco-related injuries.
- The companies agreed to curtail or cease certain marketing practices. They also agreed to pay, forever, annual payments to the states to compensate some of the medical costs for patients with smoking-related illnesses.
The parallels with the NRA are obvious:
- For decades, the NRA has peddled deadly weapons to millions, reaped billions of dollars in profits and refused to admit the carnage those weapons have produced: “Guns don’t kill people. People kill people.” With guns.

- The NRA has bitterly fought background checks on gun-buyers, in effect granting even criminals and the mentally ill the right to own arsenals of death-dealing weaponry.
- The NRA has spent millions on slick advertising campaigns to win new members and frighten them into buying guns.

- The NRA has spent millions on political contributions to block gun-control legislation.
- The NRA has spent millions attacking political candidates and elected officials who warned about the dangers of unrestricted access to assault and/or concealed weapons.
- The NRA has spent millions pushing “Stand Your Ground” laws in more than half the states, which potentially give every citizen a “license to kill.”
- The NRA receives millions of dollars from online sales of ammunition, high-capacity ammunition magazines, and other accessories through its point-of-sale Round-Up Program—thus directly profiting by selling a product that kills about 30,288 people a year.

- Firearms made indiscriminately available through NRA lobbying have filled hospitals with casualties, and have thus badly strained the states’ public healthcare systems.
It will take a series of highly expensive and well-publicized lawsuits to significantly weaken the NRA, financially and politically.
The first ones will have to be brought by the surviving victims of gun violence—and by the friends and families of those who did not survive it. Only they will have the courage and motivation to take such a risk.
As with the cases first brought against tobacco companies, there will be losses. And the NRA will rejoice with each one.
But, in time, state Attorneys General will see the clear parallels between lawsuits filed against those who peddle death by cigarette and those who peddle death by armor-piercing bullet.
And then the NRA—like the tobacco industry—will face an adversary wealthy enough to stand up for the rights of the gun industry’s own victims.
Only then will those politicians supporting reasonable gun controls dare to stand up for the victims of these needless tragedies.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on June 21, 2019 at 12:02 am
“We will have so much winning if I get elected [President] that you may get bored with winning.”
So boasted Donald Trump at a September, 2015 Capitol Hill rally to protest President Barack Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran.
But as the 2020 Presidential race nears, President Trump is looking ever more like a loser.
Among the victims of Trump’s “winning” streak: Several pollsters whose internal polling numbers showed him lagging behind Democratic Presidential candidates in key states.

Donald Trump
When matched against Democratic contender and former Vice President Joe Biden, Trump’s numbers came to:
Trump Biden
VIRGINIA: 38% 53%
MAINE 38% 55%
MINNESOTA 40% 54%
MICHIGAN 40% 53%
In Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Florida and Michigan, Trump trails Biden by double-digits. These were states Trump won against Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.
Biden leads Trump by seven points in Iowa, by eight points in North Carolina, by 17 points in Virginia, by 14 points in Minnesota, and by 15 points in Maine.
Even worse for Trump, who cannot admit error or weakness: Some of his own pollsters dared to leak the bad news.
As a result, his Presidential campaign is cutting ties with several of his pollsters.
Predictably, Trump claimed he was doing just fine. He said his campaign had “great internal polling” and the numbers reported were from “fake polls.”
“We are winning in every single state that we’ve polled. We’re winning in Texas very big. We’re winning in Ohio very big. We’re winning in Florida very big,” he said.
Trump’s 2015 boast reflected he mindset, if not the words, of an earlier CEO whose ego carried him—and his country—to ruin: Adolf Hitler.
Among the fatal errors that led to the defeat of the Third Reich:
- Wasting hundreds of Luftwaffe [air force] pilots, fighters and bombers in a halfhearted attempt to conquer England.
- Ignoring the pleas of generals like Erwin Rommel to conquer Syria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia, which would have given Germany control of most of the world’s oil.
- Attacking his ally, the Soviet Union, while still at war with Great Britain.
- Turning millions of Russians into enemies rather than allies by his brutal and murderous policies.
- Needlessly declaring war on the United States after the Japanese attacked Pearl harbor. (Had he not done so, Americans would have focused all their attention on defeating Japan.)
- Refusing to negotiate a separate peace with Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin—thus granting Germany a large portion of captured Russian territory in exchange for letting Stalin remain in power.
- Insisting on a “not-one-step-back” military “strategy” that led to the needless surrounding, capture and/or deaths of hundreds of thousands of German servicemen.
As the war turned increasingly against him, Hitler became ever more rigid in his thinking.
He demanded absolute control over the smallest details of his forces. This, in turn, led to astonishing and unnecessary losses among their ranks.
On June 6, 1944, General Erwin Rommel ordered the Panzer tanks to drive the Allies from the Normandy beaches. But these could not be released except on direct orders of the Fuehrer.

Panzer tank
Hitler’s chief of staff, General Alfred Jodl, informed Rommel: The Fuhrer was asleep-–and was not to be awakened. By the time Hitler awoke and issued the order, it was too late.
Nor could Hitler accept responsibility for the policies that were leading Germany to certain defeat. He blamed his generals, accused them of cowardice, and relieved many of the best ones from command.
Among those sacked was Heinz Guderian, creator of the German Panzer corps—and responsible for the blitzkreig victory against France in 1940.

Heinz Guderian
Another was Erich von Manstein, designer of the strategy that defeated France in six weeks—which Germany had failed to do during four years of World War 1.

Erich von Manstein
Finally, on April 29, 1945—with the Russians only blocks from his underground Berlin bunker—Hitler dictated his “Last Political Testament.”
Once again, he refused to accept responsibility for unleashing a war that would ultimately consume 50 million lives:
“It is untrue that I or anyone else in Germany wanted war in 1939. It was desired and instigated exclusively by those international statesmen who either were of Jewish origin or worked for Jewish interests.”
Hitler had launched the invasion of Poland–and World War II—with a lie: That Poland had attacked Germany.
Fittingly, he closed the war—and his life—with a final lie.
Joachim C. Fest, author of Hitler (1973), writes of the surprise that awaited Allied soldiers occupying Nazi Germany in 1945: “Almost without exception, virtually from one moment to the next, Nazism vanished after the death of Hitler and the surrender.
“It was as if National Socialism had been nothing but the motion, the state of intoxication and the catastrophe it had caused….
“Once again it became plain that National Socialism, like Fascism in general, was dependent to the core on superior force, arrogance, triumph, and by its nature had no resources in the moment of defeat.”
The ancient Greeks believed that “a man’s character is his destiny.” For Adolf Hitler—and the nations he ravaged—that proved fatally true.
It remains to be seen whether the same will prove true for Donald Trump—and the United States.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on June 13, 2019 at 12:27 am
For most Americans, June 6th marked the 75th anniversary of D-Day. A time to remember and celebrate the more than 160,000 troops—73,000 of them Americans—who liberated France from Nazi slavery.
But for President Donald Trump, D-Day was simply another opportunity to slander men and women he considered “enemies of the people.”
On that day, President Donald Trump was to join European leaders—such as England’s Queen Elizabeth II and France’s President Emmanuel Macron—in celebratory observance.
But for Trump, honoring the dead—and a handful of D-Day survivors present at the ceremony—was a distant priority.

Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial
First must come a soft-ball “interview” with Right-wing Fox News Network—even if it meant postponing the opening of D-Day ceremonies until he deigned to show up.
And conducting that interview was Right-wing Fox News host Laura Ingraham—who gave a stiff-armed Nazi salute at the 2016 Republican National Convention that nominated Trump for President.
Laura Ingraham: What could you do to unite the country at a time of great polarization, what else could you do?
Donald Trump: So, I think success should unite the country but I will tell you the more successful we’ve come the more angry people like Nancy Pelosi, who don’t have what it takes, if they don’t know what’s going on they get angry. They should — an example is Mexico, I said we’re going to put tariffs on because we want you to help us because they won’t pass any legislation in Congress and I have Senators and others and Pelosi coming out saying how horrible.
What they’re doing is they’re hurting a deal, they should be saying we’re with the President, we’ll do whatever he wants to do and Mexico would fold like an umbrella. Now, I have these people and I’m saying there’s some republicans too,
[NOTE: Since becoming President, Trump has repeatedly tried—and failed—to curb illegal immigration from Central and South America. In May, he threatened to slap tariffs on goods from Mexico unless its government imposed strict controls over would-be immigrants traveling through its borders.]
On June 7, 2019, syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist Peter Wehners appeared on the PBS Newshour to review the week’s major political events.
Shields—a liberal, and Wehner, a conservative—reached disturbingly similar conclusions about the behavior of President Donald Trump on the 75th anniversary celebration of the D-Day landings.

Peter Wehner and Mark Shields
Peter Wehner: in terms of watching it, it reminded me of why it was the Greatest Generation. It’s been called the Greatest Generation.The more you find out about what happened 75 years ago on Normandy Beach, the more extraordinary is, the courage and the valor and selflessness…
But, for me, what was, well, frankly, sickening was this interview that Donald Trump did with Laura Ingraham on Fox News, not just what he said, but where he said it. He had thousands and thousands of gravestones behind him, these people who had been cut down in the prime of their life. And he was attacking Nancy Pelosi and Robert Mueller, who himself was a—was a war hero, in petty terms.
And to have done it then was, in my mind, a desecration at a sacred place. And it was another window into the bonfire of anger and resentments and grievances that is Donald Trump.
Mark Shields: I would just add this….that the 9,388 Americans, husbands, fathers, sons, brothers, sweethearts are buried there who either died at Normandy or in the liberation of France. And it was a time in this country, it was a we generation, not a me generation.
I mean, we had 20 million victory gardens that civilians built that provided 40 percent of the vegetables for the whole country. We rationed everything from gasoline, to liquor, to cigarettes, to butter, to meat….
And all Americans were part of the collective effort, the collective sacrifice, and it was led by those at the top….The president of the United States had four sons. Every one of them served in combat. Every one of them was awarded in combat. You take the…sickly son of a multimillionaire, who asked his father to use his contacts to get him into combat, John Kennedy, rather than stay out….
One out of four American males served in World War II. And now we have one-third—one-percent of Americans serving. And they are serving over and over and over again.
Judy Woodruff (moderator): It’s been 75 years, Peter Wehner. What remains in the American psyche from that?
Wehner: Well, we’re an angry country, a more divided country, and a more tribalistic country than we were then. It’s important to say that, in many ways, we’re a better country too, if you’re a minority or a woman, all sorts of things where we have made progress….
The thing is that the American capacity for self-renewal can be great. And sometimes, when virtues are taken from the life of the nation and an individual, you remember why they matter to begin with. And, hopefully, commemorations like this can—can remind us that there are things that are worth fighting for and worth living for.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on June 12, 2019 at 12:07 am
June 6, 2019, marked the 75th anniversary of D-Day—the Allied invasion to liberate France from Nazi Germany, which proved one of the pivotal actions of World War II.
Shortly after midnight, on June 6, 1944, 24,000 American, British, Canadian and Free French troops launched an airborne assault on German positions. This was followed at 6:30 a.m. by an amphibious landing of Allied infantry and armored divisions on the French coast.
The operation was the largest amphibious invasion in history. More than 160,000 troops landed—73,000 Americans, 61,715 British and 21,400 Canadians.
Field Marshal Erwin Rommel—the legendary “Desert Fox”—commanded the German forces. For him—and the Germans—the first 24 hours of the battle would be decisive.
Initially, the Allied assault seemed likely to be stopped at the water’s edge—where Rommel had insisted it must be.
German machine-gunners and mortarmen wreaked a fearful toll on Allied soldiers. But commanders like United States Army General Norman Cota led their men to victory through a storm of bullets and shells.

Omaha Beach – June 6, 1944
The allied casualty figures for D-Day have been estimated at 10,000, including 4,414 dead. By nationality, the D-Day casualty figures were about
- 2,700 British
- 946 Canadians
- and 6,603 Americans.
The total number of German casualties on D-Day isn’t known, but is estimated at 4,000 to 9,000.
One of those who traveled to Normandy, France, to commemorate that Allied sacrifice was President Donald J. Trump. Others included England’s Queen Elizabeth II and French President Emmanuel Macron.
On June 6, 2019, Trump granted an interview with Right-wing Fox News host Laura Ingraham.
With the crosses of fallen World War II heroes visible over his shoulder and aging veterans waiting for the D-Day commemoration ceremony to begin, Trump kept everyone waiting for him to show up.

Donald Trump’s D-Day love-fest
In fact, he bragged about it on camera: “Listen to those incredible people back there,” Trump said, motioning towards the ceremony stage. “These people are so amazing, and what they don’t realize is that, I’m holding them up because of this interview. But that’s because it’s you.”
Although Trump had admitted—on air—that he was holding up the D-Day ceremony for this interview, Ingraham later told Fox viewers: “By the way, some of you may have heard or read that President Trump supposedly held up the entire D-Day ceremony in order to do this interview with me. That is patently false. Fake news.”
Ingraham opened by asking about D-Day—whose honoring ceremonies her interview was preempting. Then she moved on to topics guaranteed to arouse Trump’s bile.
Laura Ingraham: We passed Nancy Pelosi as we were walking up to the stage earlier, she said some pretty harsh things over the last 24 hours, leaked out from her caucus, she said I don’t want to impeachment, I want him in prison, meaning you. How do you work with someone like that?
Donald Trump: I think she’s a disgrace. I actually don’t think she’s a talented person, I’ve tried to be nice to her because I would have liked to have gotten some deals done. She’s incapable of doing deals, she’s a nasty, vindictive, horrible person, the Mueller report came out, it was a disaster for them.
They thought their good friend Bobby Mueller was going to give them a great report and he came out with a report with 13 horrible, angry Democrats who are totally biased against me. A couple of them worked for Hillary Clinton, they then added five more, also Democrats, with all of that two and a half years think of it, from before I even got elected they’ve been going after me and they have nothing.
[NOTE: On a day for honoring the sacrifices of America’s soldiers. Trump savaged Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who had served as a Marine Corps infantry platoon commander during the Vietnam War.
Among the military awards he received were:
- The Bronze Star Medal with Combat “V” for heroism (for saving a wounded Marine while under enemy fire).
- The Purple Heart Medal (awarded for wounds in combat).
- Two Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medals with Combat “V”.
Trump, on the other hand, is a five-time Vietnam war draft-dodger who falsely claimed he suffered from “bone spurs” in his heels.]

Robert Mueller
Ingraham: Do you mind if he testifies still, before you said you didn’t care if Mueller testified.
Trump: Let me tell you, he made such a fool out of himself the last time she—because what people don’t report is the letter he had to do to straighten out his testimony because his testimony was wrong but Nancy Pelosi, I call her nervous Nancy, Nancy Pelosi doesn’t talk about it. Nancy Pelosi’s a disaster, OK, she’s a disaster and let her do what she wants, you know what?
[NOTE: There is a longtime tradition in American politics that no criticism is aimed at a President when he’s traveling overseas.
Nancy Pelosi, as Speaker of the House of Representatives, held to that tradition while she attended the D-Day ceremonies. Asked to respond to Trump’s attacks on her, she said: “I don’t talk about the president while I’m out of the country. That’s my principle.”
Trump, however, did not adhere to the same principle.]
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on June 11, 2019 at 12:02 am
Nazi Germany’s Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler wasn’t crazy, as many of his critics charged. He knew what he wanted to achieve—and why.
He intended to strip every potential challenger to his authority—or his version of reality—of legitimacy with the public. After he succeeded, Germany became a nation where there was:
- No independent press to reveal his failures and crimes.
- No independent law enforcement agencies to investigate his abuses of office.
- No independent judiciary to hold him accountable.
- No independent military to dissent as he recklessly hurtled toward a disastrous war that would leave Germany in ruins.
Those are exactly the priorities of President Donald J. Trump.
He has already assaulted the integrity of:
- American Intelligence agencies: By publicly blaming the FBI, CIA and National Security Agency—instead of Russian President Vladimir Putin—for Russia’s subversion of the 2016 Presidential elections.
- American law enforcement agencies: By firing FBI Director James Comey for pursuing ties between his 2016 Presidential campaign and Russian Intelligence agents.
- The press: By tweeting, on February 17, 2017: “The FAKE NEWS media (failing @nytimes, @NBCNews, @ABC, @CBS, @CNN) is not my enemy, it is the enemy of the American People!”
- The Judiciary: By repeatedly attacking Seattle U.S. District Judge James Robart, who halted Trump’s first anti-Muslim travel ban.

Donald Trump
Now he’s turning his attention to the American military.
- Trump appointed former Marine General James Mattis as Secretary of Defense. But when Trump announced his intention to withdraw American military forces from Syria, Mattis resigned in December, 2018.
- Mattis offered to stay in office until February, 2019, to ensure a smooth transition for his successor. But Trump, his ego outraged, forced Mattis to leave by the end of December.
- The military sees foreign commitments as essential to American security—whether against ISIS or the former Soviet Union.
- But Trump believes that alliances like NATO are “ripping off” the United States. And he believes he was elected to end foreign entanglements.
- Trump appointed Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster as National Security Adviser. But after Special Counsel Robert Mueller indicted 13 Russian nationals for interfering in the 2016 Presidential election, McMaster said: “With the FBI indictment, the evidence is now incontrovertible” of Russia cyber-meddling.
- This publicly contradicted Trump’s claim that reports of Russian subversion of the 2016 Presidential election were “a hoax.”
- Six weeks later, McMaster was forced out of the administration.

H.R. McMaster
- In November, 2018, Fox News Anchor Chris Wallace, during an interview with Trump, noted that retired Adm. William McRaven had said: “The President’s attack on the media is the greatest threat to our democracy in my lifetime.”
- Trump then dismissed McRaven—who had spearheaded the operation that killed Al-Qaedar leader Osama bin Laden—as a “Hillary fan.”
- “He was a Navy SEAL 37 years,” said Wallace. Trump, refusing to give McRaven—one of the most highly respected men in the United States military—any credit, said: “Wouldn’t it have been nice if we got Osama bin Laden a lot sooner than that?”
Some members of the military are responding favorably to Trump.
During his 2019 trip to Japan, Trump gave a Memorial Day address aboard the USS Wasp in Yokosuka. Many of the American service attending were photographed wearing patches inspired by his campaign slogan, “Make America Great Again.”

The matching patches showed the face of a man that’s presumably Trump (though notably more handsome) along with the text, “Make Aircrew Great Again.”
This may have violated the Pentagon’s strict rules barring soldiers from showing political preferences.
“All military personnel will avoid the inference that their political activities imply or appear to imply DoD sponsorship, approval or endorsement of a political candidate, campaign or cause,” the policy states.
Retired Army General Stanley McChrystal, during a December 30, 2018 interview on “This Week,” warned: “If the U.S. military becomes politicized, it will be something we’re not happy with.”
The incident on Memorial Day was not the first time active-duty service members displayed Trump-affiliated apparel.
In December, 2018, Trump engaged in campaign activities by by signing “Make America Great Again” caps for during an unannounced visit to Iraq. Dozens of troops were photographed bringing MAGA hats to the event for the president to sign.
Other members of the military are responding—carefully—to Trump’s savage attacks on its members and his erratic style of government.
According to a December 24, 2018 edition of the Palmer Report, military leaders are now going out of their way to avoid “interacting directly” with Trump. They fear that he might issue an impulsive and destructive order—which they would be legally obligated to follow.
More startling: Departing Secretary of Defense Mattis ordered them to, for the safety of the nation.
Mattis believed that Trump was dishonorable—and deranged enough to give destructive or incoherent military orders at any moment.
Columnist Bill Palmer warned that this amounted to a “soft coup.”
But then he asked: “Then again, when the ‘President’ of the United States is merely a guy who treasonously conspired with a foreign enemy to rig the election in his favor, and was not legitimately elected to anything, can you even have a coup against him?”
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DONALD TRUMP’S “MEIN KAMPF” COMES TO VIDEO: PART TWO (END)
In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on October 22, 2019 at 12:05 amSince taking office as President on January 20, 2017, Donald Trump has continued to hurl threats of violence against those he hates.
“Trump’s language of violence started with immigrants when he launched his presidential campaign in 2015,” wrote Washington Post Reporter Eugene Scott. “There is a direct line from his language to real violence against immigrants and other innocent Americans caught in the maniacal mass shootings of the past year.
“And this cancer is spreading: to Congress, to the media, to the intelligence community, to foreign allies. There is no end in sight as Trump becomes increasingly unhinged and the GOP remains frozen in abject silence.”
On October 2, 2019, Journalist Nina Burleigh wrote: “Since 2015, TV-watching Americans have been subject to the deimatic spectacle of more than 400 rallies (at least 80 since his election) in which Trump sometimes openly and more often coyly urged supporters to violence. These spectacles have conditioned many Americans to fear him and his more enthusiastic supporters.”
Supporters giving the “Seig Heil” salute to Donald Trump
“Over the last few days, the President’s rhetoric of violence and hate has spread,” stated an October 3, 2019 press release by America’s Voice, a liberal immigration group.
“As Jamelle Bouie noted yesterday, ‘Over the weekend, in a rage over impeachment, President Trump accused Representative Adam Schiff of ‘treason,’ promised ‘Big Consequences’ for the whistle-blower who sounded the alarm about his phone call with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine and shared a warning — from a Baptist pastor in Dallas — that impeachment ‘will cause a Civil War like fracture in this Nation from which our Country will never heal.’”
Trump’s opponents have good reason to fear. And not simply the public demonstrations by the President’s fanatical base. They should fear the secret fantasies of the Right.
Those secret fantasies have been revealed in a series of Right-wing videos featuring graphic acts of violence against those whom the Right—and Trump—hate.
From October 10 to 12, 2019, attendees of the American Priority Conference at the Trump National Doral Miami resort enjoyed many of those videos.
One of these, “The Trumpsman,” featured a digitized Trump shooting, stabbing and setting fire to such liberals—and even conservatives—as:
And legitimate news media—such as CBS, BBC, ABC, CNN, The New York Times and The Washington Post—were also depicted as among Trump’s victims.
The video was produced by Rightists who believed it reflected what Donald Trump would do to his enemies if only he could get away with it. And given his near-constant calls for violence against his critics, they were absolutely correct.
But the video’s critics are wrong to call for its suppression.
On the contrary—it should be widely seen for what it is: The Mein Kampf of Donald Trump and his fanatical followers, in and outside the Republican party.
Like Adolf Hitler’s autobiography, it depicts the future America can expect if the Right gains the power to live out its murderous fantasies. And the fantasy Right-wingers prize most: The brutal extermination of everyone who refuses to submit to their Fascistic tyranny.
“The Trumpsman” is part of a growing genre of pro-Trump memes that routinely earn thousands of views on sites like YouTube and Twitter. Many superimpose the faces of Trump and his chief supporters slaughtering Democrats, liberal celebrities and/or members of the media.
The event’s organizer, Alex Phillips, hurriedly claimed that the “unauthorized video” was shown “in a side room” at the American Priority Conference.
But there is an upside to this exercise in Right-wing porn. Democrats could easily run TV ads showing limited clips from “The Trumpsman” video.
Unfortunately, the majority of Democrats lack the courage to attack their Right-wing enemies with the same ruthlessness used against them. That’s why they lost most Presidential elections of the 20th century.
Americans should be constantly warned: These videos were not made by liberals to parody the values and goals of the Republican party and its Right-wing supporters.
These videos were made by Right-wingers—and reflect the true values and intentions of the Republican party and its Right-wing supporters.
The boiler-plate rhetoric that gushes out of Republican conventions—about love of family, God and flag—is the public mask of the Right.
The videos that depict Right-wingers ruthlessly slaughtering anyone who dares to disagree with them reflect the real face of the Right.
Of course, most Americans never imagined that a President would:
Trump’s opponents should stop deluding themselves that: “Surely he’ll never do that.”
Whatever it is they fear he will do, he will do.
Like all predators, he will stop only when he meets a stronger opponent.
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