Trump Tedium Revisited

 
So, what the fuck. I'll finish off my critique about this neo-con's (or whatever) of Donald Trump. My point being that while Trump is undeniably disgusting, the US-imperialist world order that Michael Cohen celebrates is also undeniably disgusting. That Cohen displays brazen hypocrisy throughout his essay and that focusing on Trump is actually really convenient for liars and hypocrites such as himself. By pointing to Trump's putrid and boorish corruption, Cohen hopes to distract from a Repugnican and Democratic tradition of murder and theft.

Recently, the president tweeted: "With all of the Fake News coming out of NBC and the Networks, at what point is it appropriate to challenge their License? Bad for country!"
This is Putin territory. This is Erdogan territory. 

Putin is a thug. But I am sick and tired of his being trotted out as the Great Satan. On foreign policy, Putin is a calm, rational actor, reacting with tact and circumspection to repeated US provocations and crimes. He does this not because he is a nice guy, but because Russia is far weaker than the USA, but not so weak as to suffer multiple attacks and humiliations in silence. Domestically, Putin has allied himself with the most reactionary elements of Russian society and he is no democrat. But he is no worse, and in many cases, better, than some of the tyrants and killers that the USA has supported and continues to support.

We don't know yet how far the president is prepared to go in silencing critics who do not meet his test of patriotism, while inviting his supporters to give free rein to their inner bigot. But Mueller and, eventually, a reelection campaign will tempt Trump to go a long way.

As opposed to Obama who gave himself the right to assassinate US citizens without due process of law.  A power that Trump now has because right-wingers were chasing phantoms about gun seizures and FEMA camps and most "progressives" decided that a Democrat in the White House meant they could all safely shove their heads up their asses for four to eight years.

I lived in Berlin a couple of decades ago and saw the capital return after the Rhineland sojourn in bland Bonn. The city was a construction site. Cranes hoisted the new but the past - a constant admonition to a united Germany - was not erased. This was the consummation of the miracle: Germany unified, within NATO, its borders no longer contested. The German problem that over decades had caused sleepless nights to thousands of American diplomats and agents had been resolved.
I would cross the Polish border sometimes. Poland is close to Berlin, as Poles know well. I had to pinch myself, with the border near invisible, to recall that these were "Bloodlands," in Timothy Snyder's phrase, the last resting place of millions. Yet here, only decades later, there stretched before me the tranquility that NATO, the European Union and statesmanship had brought. 

I thought this guy wasn't a liberal. Now he's talking about international cooperation? Anyhoo, ... neo-liberalism is tearing Europe apart. NATO has oozed its way to the Russian border. The "tranquility" that Cohen is rhapsodizing about might soon be blasted to smithereens because of US hubris.

None of this would have happened without the trans-Atlantic alliance, without the Berlin airlift and the Marshall Plan, without America as a European power - without everything Trump appears to hold in contempt. Constancy and strength in pursuit of strategy are wearing on their opponents. Chaos, on the other hand, gives foes a sense of opportunity.

I beg to differ. Because I believe that the world system that Cohen praises is actually a vile, stupid thing. Needless confrontation. Putin doesn't want to conquer Europe. Russia is too weak and poor to even consider it. More of Cohen's self-deluded stupidity.

Cannot Be Fixed in Stone
It was not only Germans who enjoyed what Helmut Kohl once called "the blessing of late birth." In some way, every post-war European did. We succumb at our peril to amnesia. It is for the young to forge the 21st century. That is right and natural. The precepts of the last century, and its power structure, cannot be forever fixed in stone.
Yet we should not forget from what horror Pax Americana emerged. As Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron flesh out a distinct European destiny - as they should in this era of Trump - they must be mindful of preserving the American bond, in the hope of better days. They must also speak out strongly for the values Trump's America has forsaken.

It's already been established that the "values" Cohen speaks of refer to the right of a US-dominated corporate system to exploit and brutalize anyone who opposes it.

It is lunatics such as Cohen, who cheer on the encirclement and provocation of military powers like Russia and China, who are threatening to bring new horrors down upon humanity. If he genuinely believes this drivel he's written then I pity him.

Perhaps Senator John McCain, a great friend of Europe now battling brain cancer, has offered the best rebuke to Trump:
"To refuse the obligations of international leadership and our duty to remain 'the last best hope of earth' for the sake of some half-baked, spurious nationalism cooked up by people who would rather find scapegoats than solve problems is as unpatriotic as an attachment to any other tired dogma of the past that Americans consigned to the ash heap of history.
"We live in a land made of ideals, not blood and soil. We are the custodians of those ideals at home, and their champion abroad. We have done great good in the world. That leadership has had its costs, but we have become incomparably powerful and wealthy as we did. We have a moral obligation to continue in our just cause, and we would bring more than shame on ourselves if we don't. We will not thrive in a world where our leadership and ideals are absent. We wouldn't deserve to."
Amen.

John McCain is a disgusting, hypocritical, war-mongering asshole. These pompous, deluded ravings make me sick. The United States is not a "Shining city upon a hill"for the world. It is a racist oligarchy run by and for the selfish interests of a predatory capitalist class.