Okay, so we have hit the day when the boogeyman gets sworn in as the President of the United States. So there is big panic and big elation all over the nation. If you live in Manhattan you are loading survival food into the basement and if you live on Staten Island you are planning your celebration party for tonight. So what else is new? The fact is that this is the way things have been going in this country ever since it started. The fact is, that a new government depending on how much of the space it takes up in Washington can have a monumental effect, or none. And there is no way to tell which until the new guy gets in office and does something.
Barak Obama concluded his last press conference yesterday with a very calming and intelligent statement.
He spoke to us about the fact that this nation isn’t great because of one President or another. It’s great because of the structure based in its constitution and built by its citizens over almost two hundred and fifty years. It is strong because its people are strong and they are strong because that structure and the freedoms it bred have made it so. One President, one Congress, or one Supreme Court cannot destroy that, and in that absolute knowledge lays our strength.
But waiting in the wings is the one element that could severely damage it all. Its name is Trump. Led by him, we may witness the general political breakdown of all moral and ethical behavior in government. We watched our President elect act like a thug, a bully and a clown; lying and attacking those who opposed his disgusting behavior while still triumphing at he ballot box. We are watching as he puts together a cabinet with some excellent choices but many potential disasters. We watch the hearings, where candidates like DeVoes, Price, Pruitt, Mnuchin, Perry, Carson and Sessions are excused their stupidity, dishonesty and outright criminal behavior simply because the President who nominated them belongs to the party that holds the Congress and we see that the one hard and fast item that Trump ran on; creating honesty in government, draining the swamp, means absolutely nothing. We see that nothing he has said to this point means anything and that’s when we begin to doubt the system that has sustained this country for over two hundred fifty years. That’s when fear sets in. That’s when we begin to wonder if we really can hold it together as a country facing a world where technological evolution will change almost everything we have learned and learned to live with over our lifetimes. That evolution will happen over the next few years as this country will be led from the White House and from congress by men with no moral or ethical standards and very little regard for normal social behavior.
Where once, just having an illegal cleaning woman was grounds for dismissal from cabinet candidacy, we now find that profiting from illegal stock trading, buying the nomination by creating billions in funding for the President elect’s campaign, taking campaign donations to file lawsuits against regulations that offended the oil interests in Oklahoma and all matter of criminal and anti-social activity falls by the wayside of expediency. Nothing is wrong anymore, no behavior unacceptable, no moral degeneracy grounds for dismissal. Welcome to the Trump Presidency. Welcome to the decline and fall of the Roman Empire.
*****
The big noise yesterday was all about Chelsea Manning and what a horrible thing Obama has done in pardoning her. Yes, this traitor, this supremely dangerous threat to our society will be released from prison in May, instead of having to serve out the last 28 years of her sentence.
This move has gotten the intelligence community all bent out of shape. The far right, which has always waved the flag even as they have betrayed the people of this country is even more outraged but the fact of the matter is that Manning’s act was in no way intended to damage this country. It was, in fact, intended to right a terrible wrong that the military, because of the way it is set up, was deliberately trying to overlook.
Don’t forget, Manning was convicted by a military, not a civil court. This difference is significant, because the military court system entails no concept of justice, only that of military law. Anyone who has ever been exposed to any part of the military court system understands that its reason for being is not to decide on the guilt or innocence of the accused but to justify the military’s need for conviction.
Chelsea Manning saw a situation where American military forces massacred civilians and then joked about it. She was outraged and acted on that moral outrage because the military would not. That’s the bottom line. The military couldn’t condone her actions because in doing so they would be admitting that they had failed to control their troops and had even gone the next step in not doing anything about it. So Chelsea Manning became a scapegoat. Now she has been pardoned by a president who has been harder on whistleblowers that any other President in history. Basically Chelsea Manning did what the military was too busy protecting their asses to do. She brought the murders of innocent civilians to light. For that the military wanted her drawn and quartered… and they almost got their way. If that’s your idea of justice than you are too screwed up to be part of the discussion.
*******
Some of Donald Trump’s nominations for his cabinet have met with praise and some have not, but that of Scot Pruitt is so outlandish that if it were not so tragic, it would be almost comical. Pruitt, a District Attorney from Oklahoma and a tool of the oil industry, might be the worst choice for energy secretary ever made. Pruitt has been at the center of every move by the oil industry to eliminate all regulation on that incredibly poisonous industry. This clown doesn’t think mercury is a dangerous substance. He doesn’t believe that downwind pollution exists. In 13 of the 14 suits he has brought against regulations he has received donations from the oil industry! It’s so blatant that it defies consideration.
Of course one has to understand that up to now Pruitt’s domain has been Oklahoma, a state owned by the oil interests. It’s all about big money and greed and the hell with any kind of consideration for clean air or water.
*******
The big foreign noise this week wasn’t about Russia or China but all about Israel and the UN resolution that seeks to push for the stopping of settlement building on the West Bank. Bibi Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister is all bent out of shape because we abstained from the vote. Imagine how twisted he’d be if we’d voted our conscience and voted for the resolution.
Of course it’s an impossible situation. Israel, which I remember from when it was born just after WWII was once a shinning example of a brave people who had overcome almost insurmountable odds to create a homeland for a people that were despised and hunted down all over Europe during the Nazi occupation of most of that continent. These brave souls had created a democracy tilting toward a religious state that over the years has become a religious state veering away from democracy. Yes, they certainly have always been in a terrible situation, with the Arab nations of the Middle East all wanting to annihilate them.
They have, unfortunately chosen a solution to their security problems that will have to lead them away from stability and will expose them, as it already has, to persecution by their neighbors and a never-ending cycle of violence. This is all because of their choice of leadership. Netanyahu and his far right, almost fascist party has built a Trump-like wall around the people of the West Bank, using settlements built on land stolen from Palestinians to isolate the remaining Palestinians into small areas, inaccessible to each other.
It had always seemed that the intelligent thing to do was to give the West Bank, which is adjacent to Jordan, to the Palestinians and to take back Gaza in exchange. Of course when there is so much hatred on both sides intelligent things get lost in the ire. Most of those who have inside information claim that a two state solution is no longer possible and maybe they are right but unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be any other solution either. The Palestinians are hard-lining it, the religious Jews are hard-lining it and a nation with perhaps the most beautiful city on earth is heading for a disaster.
If it’s real, Netanyahu’s reaction to our UN stance is amazing. He came over here, dissed our President and then expects us to swallow our morals and pick up his racist cudgel. What’s really disappointing is that many American Jews seem to be more interested in the aggressive plans of Israel than they are in the fate of the United States.
I watched a prominent Jewish billionaire, who heads up one of the important Jewish organizations the other night as he spoke of the situation between Israel and the United States and frankly I wasn’t sure of which country he was a citizen.