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Late Republic Politics
For years I haven't read the Post much. I no longer have the stomach. I never read it at all except for research, but then came the internet. When 9/11 befell, the Post raged for war, any war. I quit reading. A few years ago, it was -bought by Amazonian Jeff Bezos. It's a quasi-official organ of the National Security State, so glancing at it now and then, reveals an always grim picture of the belly of the beast.
The other morning I glanced and was wearied by two articles. The first is by Dan Balz, one of the deans of American political journalism. Oyyy, so much wrong with that statement, you have to be dementedly twisted to write it. Balz, proving nothing more than he's been around far too long, writes a piece titled, “The mega-rich are the new political bosses. Is that bad for democracy?” The sub-headline should be, “The owner of this rag thinks not.” The article is so trite it could only possibly be considered analysis by anything sold as politics in America.
I remember a long time ago, so much is a long time ago now brothers and sisters, warning my fellow Americans money was taking over politics. Make no mistake, money’s force was only one, but a big one, of the republic's many growing afflictions. The best opposition I used to get from the political class was the money came with no expectations of return. It started me wondering whether any specific particular foolishness spewed by any given individual was actually believed or they knew it was bullshit. Over time, I discovered if they knew it was bullshit and called out, they affected far greater offense than if it had been simple ignorance.
The real story with this piece is that they now talk so openly about money’s dominance and suggest it's not really a bad thing. In the not too distant future there will be no questioning, in fact it will be accepted by all that's how it’s always been.
The second piece is titled, “A Trump dictatorship is increasingly inevitable. We should stop pretending.” Phew, you think Trump as neo-Caesar? It would only prove that mystically destructive 19th century German was right about one thing, “History repeats, first time tragedy, second time farce.” In the end, the final blow against the republic will be delivered by those claiming to save it. At this time, no one atop the American political class have use for democracy or any real understanding of what it is, especially our new billionaire political bosses. So when they talk of saving democracy, Katie bar the door.
No better example of all this than the piece's author Robert Kagan, who has pushed and backed one bad bloody action after another by the National Security State. Kagan is part of the American empire's brain-trust, Kissinger-like in his blood lust. He is now at the Brookings Institute one of the first and still premier DC think-tanks. Back in the day, Brookings was once considered liberal, maybe it still is, though I’m not sure anyone calls themselves liberal anymore? Brookings mostly spewed bad economics, but with the ascension of Ronald Reagan, the permanent DC pinheads understood which way the wind blew, thus producing more and more bad militarism along with economics. Today, Brookings is funded by: the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, BHP Foundation, Facebook, Google, Amazon, the Walton family, and Northrup Grumman — the list is much longer and illustrious. It’s good that like other political money given, there are no expectations from Brookings, just good scholarship, otherwise it might seem quite nefarious.
Kagan should have been ostracized from power a long time ago. He was a founder in the late 90s of the Project for the New American Century. With the Soviet Union unilaterally disbanded and China on its way to democracy through the dismantling of US industry and its reestablishment in China, other reasons were needed for the continuation of the National Security State, most imperatively the gluttonous and debauched weapons spending. Signers of the founding call included, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Paul Wolfowitz. The Project’s first undertaking was the invasion and occupation of Iraq. No one was ever held accountable, but then for 75 years the National Security State's never been held accountable for one bloody thing. But then, the first step for any accountability would require understanding of what's being done and as far as the machinations of the National Security State, their daily actions are well beyond the pale of the vast majority of Americans.
It gets a lot worse. Kagan is one-half of that relatively recent fashionable political trend of power couples. The proving of the righteousness of the 19th Amendment, that women can indeed be as equally politically despicable as men. His wife is Victoria Nuland, an actual long time bureaucrat of the National Security State. Her career comprised of one catastrophe after the next, all the while she failed up.
She entered US government at the start of 1990s, same time or right before the Clintons. Her State Department bio is a profile in destruction — behold an apparatchik of the bipartisan National Security State:
“A U.S. diplomat for 33 years, Ambassador Nuland served as Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs from September 2013 until January 2017 under President Obama and Secretary Kerry. She was State Department Spokesperson during Secretary Hillary Clinton’s tenure, and U.S. Ambassador to NATO during President George W. Bush’s second term, 2005-2008. Nuland served as Special Envoy and chief negotiator on the Treaty on Conventional Arms Control in Europe from 2010-2011, and as Deputy National Security Advisor to Vice President Cheney from 2003-2005.”
She leaves out her early role in the disaster that was the Clintons’ Russian policy, directly leading to American approval of its besotted charge Boris Yeltsin's appointment of Putin as his successor. “His intentions are generally very honorable and straightforward,” Mr. Bill said of Putin to the still fluffiest of a now long line of Brit lapdogs, Tony Blair.
In 2014, as Obama’s Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, Victoria supported Ukraine’s Maiden Revolution overthrowing the duly elected president. Victoria was caught on tape commenting on tepid European support, “Fuck the EU.” Afterwards, she opposed any agreement between Ukraine and the Russians, the not very astute Ukrainians thinking she was on their side. For all her rotten work, in July this year, Biden appointed Victoria Acting Deputy Secretary of State State. As Acting Deputy, second in power at State, she hasn't been confirmed by the Senate, of course that's just legalistic detail.
So, Robert and Victoria's resume is one of failure, unless you think the National Security State is about creating chaos, something classical scholars might support. In the first century of Imperial Rome, the historian Tacitus wrote, “Long, I pray, may foreign nations persist, if not in loving us, at least in hating one another; for destiny is driving our empire upon its appointed path, and fortune can bestow on us no better gift than discord among our foes.” Tacitus would have been more truthful saying both fortune and the direct policies of Rome bestowed discord among her foes and her allies. The problem for a republic, as Rome showed a century before Tacitus, such policies eventually bring chaos home.