Despite Trump’s behavioral distractions, he is accomplishing MUCH — but the WRONG stuff!

January 30, 2018 GlenAnderson Conservatism and Right Wing, Economics, Labor, Capitalism, Trade, Poverty (Also see Taxes), Energy Issues (Also see Oil, Climate, Environment), Environment, Foreign Policy (See International Affairs and specific nations and regions), Governmental Abuses, Oil (Also see Environment and Climate), Our Current Political Crisis (in addition to Trump and Trumpism), Outreach, Framing/Reframing (Also see Organizing & Activism), Peace (See Foreign Policy and specific nations and regions -- and ALSO see Military Spending and Nuclear Weapons), Political Parties and Elections (Also see Democracy ...), Trump and Trumpism (Also see Our Current Political Crisis) 0

Powerful interests run their agenda on two tracks:

1. For public consumption, they say nice propaganda, platitudes, etc., and they also put out a carnival of entertainment, scandal, eye candy, etc.

2. Meanwhile, apart from public view they do horrible things. So, for example, while LBJ and Nixon kept saying they wanted peace in Vietnam, they actually were escalating the war. Trump promised jobs, promised to “drain the swamp,” etc., but he has been doing the opposite. Both parties do this, and so does big business with “greenwashing” advertising campaigns while they hurt the environment.

We must pay attention to what is really going on and blow the whistle effectively and vigorously.

Chris Hedges writes wise, insightful articles.  On January 29, 2018, he published an article on Truthdig and Common Dreams titled “The Useful Idiocy of Donald Trump.”  The first two paragraphs provide powerful insights that should inform us and help us not get distracted by Trump’s screwy behaviors:

“”The problem with Donald Trump is not that he is imbecilic and inept—it is that he has surrendered total power to the oligarchic and military elites. They get what they want. They do what they want. Although the president is a one-man wrecking crew aimed at democratic norms and institutions, although he has turned the United States into a laughingstock around the globe, our national crisis is embodied not in Trump but the corporate state’s now unfettered pillage.

Trump, who has no inclination or ability to govern, has handed the machinery of government over to the bankers, corporate executives, right-wing think tanks, intelligence chiefs and generals. They are eradicating the few regulations and laws that inhibited a naked kleptocracy. They are dynamiting the institutions, including the State Department, that served interests other than corporate profit and are stacking the courts with right-wing, corporate-controlled ideologues. Trump provides the daily entertainment; the elites handle the business of looting, exploiting and destroying.”

I encourage you to read the entire article at https://www.commondreams.org/views/2018/01/29/useful-idiocy-donald-trump

 

 

About GlenAnderson 1514 Articles
Since the late 1960s Glen Anderson has devoted his life to working as a volunteer for peace, nonviolence, social justice, and progressive political issues. He has worked through many existing organizations and started several. Over the years he has worked especially for such wide-ranging goals as making peace with Vietnam, eliminating nuclear weapons, converting from a military economy to a peacetime economy, abolishing the death penalty, promoting nonviolence at all levels throughout society, and helping people organize and strategize for grassroots movements to solve many kinds of problems. He writes, speaks, and conducts training workshops on a wide variety of topics. Since 1987 he has produced and hosted a one-hour cable TV interview program on many kinds of issues. Since 2017 he has blogged at https://parallaxperspectives.org He lives in Lacey near Olympia WA. You can reach him at (360) 491-9093 glen@parallaxperspectives.org