Middle East Problems 2, and Other Thoughts

So, they have some kind of peace agreement brewing in the Middle East. Big deal! This isn’t the first shot they’ve had at peace in the region, and it won’t be the last. But none of them will be successful because the element in Israel that has slowed all former peace moves is now stronger than ever. I’m talking about the ”religious far Right,” the people who have been stealing land on the West Bank for the last three decades, and who have no intention of giving any of it back. They want even more and haven’t a care about what’s good for Israel as long as they get what they want. These are the same people who have painted all Jews with the unfair reputation of being greedy money grubbers. This evil slime must be stopped or there is no hope of ever attaining real peace in the Middle East. And even if the Israeli Right Wing capitulated on the West Bank. there is still no one to negotiate with. The Arab nations are no longer representative of the Arab people. National governments in the region have given way to rebel armies like Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and whoever will replace Bashar al-Assad in Syria. Where once Syria, Iran, Lebanon, and the like ruled the roost and gave Israel someone to deal with, they have given up the ghost to religious armies that lost the battle. and now there is no one in charge of the henhouse. No one for Israel or anyone else to deal with. King Abdullah of Jordan is the only example of real royalty in the region. He maintains the prestige and moral stature otherwise absent but he is alone and his area of power is limited.

Maybe stability will come from Saudi Arabia, the UAE, or Qatar, but that is still to be seen. Will they step in and give the Israelis someone to negotiate with? Will they offer a partnership willing to invest in the replacement of the infrastructure in Gaza and buy-outs for the three quarters of a million Jewish settlers in the West Bank?

There are enough players and there is enough money. The question is, just how functional can they be?

*****

Steve Bannon sits in front of a huge sign that identifies his location as the “War Room,” and babbles about supplicants who have come to kneel before Trump. He’s talking about the three richest men in America, the oligarchs who bought Trump the Presidency. Can he really think that these men, who were invited to the inauguration by Trump, are really subservient to him?

Would these men like to run the country? Sure, but if they don’t, they still have pretty good lives, enviable lives. Bannon sits in front of his sign, rambling on about people he can never understand and who don’t care to understand him because as exalted as he sees his place in the world to be, it actually represents nothing more important than a cockroach to them.

These billionaires have supported Trump because they realize that just a couple of moves can make their immediate goals become instantly achievable and their profits soar.

They are most likely aware that they can’t sell their program to the Left, which is why they went with Trump in the first place. Their problem is now they have to keep Trump on message, which is like trying to keep a two-year-old focused. Their goals are achievable but only if they can manage to adjust Trump’s mercurial changes of direction.

*****

Speaker Johnson took some time off last week to tell us what a horrendous act it was by Biden to pardon his family and other significant Democrats and how Biden was being hypocritical by doing the same thing he had attacked Trump for when he said he was going to pardon his buddies at the end of his administration. Of course. Biden has no history of threatening to avenge himself on anyone in the Trump family. Part of our stance in this country is to protect the innocent and so far, none of the Biden family has been convicted of anything, even if Hunter is coming awfully close. That certainly can’t be said of Donald Trump. Trump has stated on any number of occasions, that he will set his justice department on Biden and his family as soon as he was sworn in. Biden would be remiss not to protect his family from the threats of this sociopath.

*****

Just to establish what a lame clown he is, Donald Trump took the occasion of the horrifying plane crash in Washington to attack the Democrats, claiming that it’s their fault the planes struck each other because they pushed diversity hiring, thereby insinuating that the plane and chopper crashed because the air traffic controller wasn’t a straight white male. I don’t believe it’s been publicly established what the air traffic controller’s ethnicity, sex, or skin color is, but what has been established is that there hasn’t been a mid-air crash in this country in decades, while hundreds of thousands of flights have been safely concluded. So why did Trump go there? Because he’s an asshole, completely lacking in self-control and judgment. Again, he’s like a two-year-old who just spits out the first thing that comes to his mind without considering the truth or the consequences of what he is blabbering.

*****

Donald Trump has decided that he has a mandate from the American people to blow up the democracy. That may not be so easy when it comes to the reality of the House and the Senate majorities being very small. Therefore he has, decided to begin his changes by a series of Presidential edicts that are, for the most part unconstitutional. This, of course, doesn’t bother Trump who has developed strategy during his first term of changing the system by uprooting the civil servants and replacing them with his own political supporters. He did it first with judgeships, replacing them all over the country with his own choices, whether they were qualified or not. Then, as soon as they were available, he followed with Supreme Court seats. It’s obvious how successful that was by he 6-3 majority his flunkies now enjoy on the court.

Now he is looking at the entire civil service, the organization, if you want to call it that, that runs the business of the nation, and which has traditionally been a non-political entity. Trump has already stated plans to replace those non-political elements of the civil service, regardless of qualification, with his loyal followers. Does anyone doubt that they will be picked from the dregs of those criminals who attacked the capital on Jan. 6?

Don’t snicker. This is a strategy that will work if not actively repulsed.

The problem is that everyone seems to think that because he was elected everyone is backing all his hare-brained policies. This is far from true. Take a look at some of Trump’s executive orders and the kind of non-support they have.

• Ending requirements that Government employees report gifts: 77% against.
• Renaming the Gulf of Mexico: 70% against.
• Pardoning Jan 6th protestors: 62% against.
• New tariffs or taxes on imports from Canada: 60% against.
• Ending birthright citizenship: 59% against.
• Ending Federal efforts to hire women or minorities: 59% against.
• Withdrawing US from Paris Climate Accords: 58% against.

There are more of these, but it only gets boring. The point is, Trump hasn’t delivered yet and he’s not going to in the future. He can be stopped, but it’s going to take a concerted effort by all his opposition. Remember, the Constitution is on our side.