A Feudal Overlord
by Jansen Estrup
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Walter Kirn, in a February 2018 'Easy Chair' column for Harper's Magazine, asserts that Donald Trump has a strong, 'medieval' quality about him, that he has established a feudal lordship inside our White House by creating an inner-circle of family members, Russsian mafiosas, and highly touted military officers. At least one of these officers has been charged with crimes approaching treason, but others are expected by compliant politicians and sychophants to buttress el presidente and temper his insaitiable envy, greediness for power, wealth and fame - a pandemic. Allies in the Silicone Valley and Wall Street and offshore help it move like malignant smog across the world.
Even as scandal wracks the embattled First Mansion, what Kirn calls 'Trump's reign of error', he, and probably every other American realizes that something is seriously wrong. Yes seriously wrong.
In the first year of his reign 83% of our nation's new wealth has gone to the top one percent of oligarchs and their investors. Other boxcarloads of our national treasure have gone to corporate tax breaks and inheritance tax giveaways. Still more is proposed for military waste like vanity parades, and there is no accounting for that which has slipped into the bank slots of off-shore accounts and 'washing' machines, an infectious 'cultural' microbe which replicates using technology. Like anxiety and depression, Trumpism is highly contagious, really serious! Serious historians find no crisis in our short history even close to this one.
Most disturbing of all, our Agent Orange has been pounding his chest like some anxious silverback and to confuse us has the USA seeking war with Iran, North Korea, Venezuala, even Cuba, in addition to our nation's longest conflicts in the 'everystans' of the world - and is hinting warfare with any Americans who do not stand and adore his presence. There seem to be plenty of private armies and assassination squads around to do tyrants' bidding, should the scale warrant it.
Kirn credits fellow writer Deanne Stillman with Twitters far better than Trump's when she calls Trump's 'fluid' personality luminal, the chemical spray used on crime scenes to reveal blood stains. Those lawless stains trail all down the Drumpf family history and threaten all of ours.
Three and four star military officers we imagine will buffer his excesses and ignorance seem only marginally capable of doing that, concentrating mostly on limiting his access to nuclear weapons. Appointees from civilian fields have the most radical notions about religion, education, construction, all of their schemes designed to enhance the personal privileges, power and wealth of the individual appointee, a small price to pay for the mafiosa kind of loyalty oath they are expected to pledge to a fascist brand ruler.
Sadly, those charged with our security have all too often had names like Petraeus, Flynn, Kelly and many others who've shamed themselves, not to mention scores who cannot qualify for security clearance those with lesser blots on our national record, and their own. Someimes our flag officer corps seems more concerned with their personal aircraft, lush island golf resorts and garish uniforms than national defense. Collaborating with them are the moguls of the Silicon Valley, Wall Street and Hollywood.
Where is the uniformed (or elected) hero who can (and did) save us from 'the enemy within' in by-gone days?
The last time a fascist coup was launched against the USA (1930s) a USMC general did come to our rescue. Smedley D. Butler, MajGen USMC (1881-1940), was approached by a wealthy cabal which wanted him to lead our nation into a 30's German-Italian kind of government. Already twice awarded the Medal of Honor and a Distinguished Service Medal, this hero explosed the plot and kept America from becoming yet another country lost to a cult of personality barbarism in the early years of the Twentieth Century.
This time military flag officers gather 'round the invader and set up shop in support of this il duce wannabe.
General Butler's famous speech should be required study for every high school student and politician contemplating a military or political career. It is encapsulated below for those who no longer have access to a library or Google. Entitled War is a Racket, it begins like this ...
"War is a Racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most viscious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.
A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small "inside" group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many.
Out of war a few people make huge fortunes ..."
Freedom is not free, said so often as to become trite - but it is no good to die for it; or wave a flag for it. It must be lived for, meted equally with justice for all and clear vision for the future. And democracy is not a guarantee so must be worked for diligently, honestly - without trade in dollars for lives, either of our own citizens or our neighbors. We only deceive ourselves with grandeous lies and brutal ambitiions if we do not begin with our children, wives, husbands and neighbors. None are expendable or worthy of mutilation or deserving of glory. So stop it!
Patriarchy's long reign of terror is at an end. Time's up!
Thank you Mr. Estrup!
POWERFUL provocative article
never stop writing
m
For those that don't know, the author is a veteran, the son of a major contributor to the war machine that helped United States win over Hitler and Japan in World War II, and knows war firsthand, unlike our commander-in-chief.
Ron