JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: YES, TRUMP IS DREADFUL – BUT HE IS NOT THE CENTRAL PROBLEM – NOT NEARLY – AMERICAN PROGRESSIVES ALMOST WELCOME TREATING HIM AS A PRIEST TREATS SATAN – AS A CONVENIENCE ON WHICH TO BLAME ALL OF AMERICA’S SINS

John Chuckman

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY BEN NORTON IN CONSORTIUM NEWS

 

“Operation Condor 2.0: After Bolivia Coup, Trump Dubs Nicaragua ‘National Security Threat’ & Targets Mexico

“Left-wing forces in Latin America are warning of a revival of a Cold War era campaign by the U.S. of violent subterfuge and support for right-wing dictatorships across the region”

 

America’s establishment is literally sick and choking on the corruption of power.

It isn’t just Trump. Not at all.

Eight years of Obama was eight years of the same with slight variations.

The American establishment responsible for all of it includes both political parties and both Houses of Congress, plus the lobbyists and wealthy interests who get them elected and hold their loyalties captive in a money-driven politics.

All of it is served and supported by a massive and almost unaccountable (to the people, that is) military/security establishment.

And please note, both military and security organizations are hierarchies of authority and about as far from the values of democracy and human rights as you can possibly go. The larger the role they play in your society, the unhealthier is your situation.

That is the formula for America’s endless violence abroad, its wars and coups and torture and abusive interventions. It all has no origin in party or individual politician.

It also just happens to be the formula for a state with only the window-dressing of democracy and broad rights. A state which daydreams of itself being some kind of benevolent democratic republic when it is in fact a plutocracy running a brutal global empire.

America, whatever fantasy notions it yet retains of itself as an honest and true force in the world, as “a shinning city on a hill,” is in fact the largest dark force at work on the planet at this time. In America, opposing Trump does not mean opposing darkness.

I do get the impression from progressive Americans – what few of them there are – that they almost welcome having Trump around. He serves the same purpose Satan does for a priest, a figure upon which to heap the blame for countless sins. It is definitely an exercise in avoiding truth.