Breaking the puppet strings

Submitted by Lindsay
Melbourne Australia!

"But what is Freedom? A universal license to be good."
- Hartley Coleridge, 1833

(10/2019) A lot of people believe that Donald Trump is the savior not only of America, but of the world. An equal number are sure he’s more likely to be the destroyer of America, and maybe the rest as well.

Both are wrong. Both see the surface, the media-run personality, but never ask ‘how did he organize this? How could a wheeler-dealer, showman and real estate gambler beat a well-oiled professional bureaucratic machine? A candidate despised by many Republicans, written off by the Democrats and the pollsters, and laughed at by the pundits? Scandals, cover-ups and lies that were common and widely reported.

The answer is simple. President Trump is only in the White House because the puppet master set it up. Even before the beginning of the campaign his fingerprints appeared, the Murdoch media was brought into the game, the Electoral College quietly influenced, and the coaching begun. Such a ready pupil, so obsessively ego driven that he could not see how the manipulation was being done. (Well, maybe he could and didn’t care.)

Having passed the tests, the master knew the strings could be pulled, that his creature would behave exactly as programmed, would rant and rave, bamboozle everyone with nonsense tweets, and show the world that he was unafraid of diving into the things that would get attention, such as jobs and trade, as well as the murky world of international relations - and he would never have to answer for his impossible statements.

Remember how he sometimes turns to look off into the distance? Well, that’s him channeling his controller so he can give his little puppet grin and speak with the wisdom and flamboyance of the electronic age. It shows that he is not actually mad, inept or stupid, but is making things happen for his unseen master, the evil genius named Steve Bannon.

It is why he never genuinely smiles, cannot grasp subtleties, falls back on blatant lies and treats members of his staff and cabinet with disdain. Appearance is all, genuine feeling and concern for others is foreign country.

Dear Mr. Bannon has only one declared aim: To win. To win at any cost, no matter the stakes or probably the consequences. To see the world as the biggest game in town, to pit nation against nation, undermine trust and wield ultimate power. He saw Donald as the perfect agent and today we have the results.

These are not pretty. The world is facing unprecedented problems on every front. Climate change in particular is causing more angst than the dropping of atomic bombs on Japan or the Cuban missile crisis, and will do what those problems could not – destruction of much of the world; the drift to totalitarianism is eroding freedom and Democracy pretty well everywhere; the determination of Russia and China to carve up the world to suit their own aims, irrespective of the rights of other countries, is allowed to go on unchecked, and the trade war that he introduced is trying to undo problems that were created by America decades ago.

Foreign relations are a stage show, free trade deals are ‘bad’, Europe is brushed off while Australia gets the royal treatment – we are one of the few nations who depend on the notion that America will come to their aid if things go pear shaped.

Domestically his policies are doing the opposite of the promise. Things are not great. Your opioid consumption is through the roof, the NRA goes from strength to strength and you are dying as a result. Life spans in America are declining, not because of lack of care, but because of stress, worry and feelings of hopelessness. And most of that stress comes not from any of the above, awful and all as they are, but from a much simpler problem: Neo-liberal economics.

This blight was unleashed on an unsuspecting, trusting population about 60 years ago, when the idea that those that got rich would look after those that didn’t. The top 5% of the richest knew that lies like this work if they are so big, so garbed in economic jargon that they will be seen as truth, because no one understands the reality. Very few people care about policy; they care about their ability to stay afloat in the community, but now that has diminished. And the Bannon/Trump idea is to be in the 5%. The American Dream is alive and well for the rich.

The real disappointment is that the one person who had the ability to reform the world, to make America truly great again is intent on making just himself great. He is, of course, building on a firm foundation that has been prepared by a succession of Presidents who have equated greatness with reputation, have seen America as all the world that matters, who have believed that being the biggest and strongest nation means they can dictate to the rest of the world what they will do.

That is nothing more than hubris. The world could have been saved from itself if just one person had a vision, not for America, but the world.

But not even President Obama had that, and we have descended into a race to the bottom. Steve Bannon is leading the way. Not only with his talkative puppet, but with his other love – breaking up the European Union. Cambridge Analytica was the Trojan Horse in that strategy, using the bogey man of refugee invasion to panic the uninformed in Britain to go Brexit.

You ask why would he want that? It’s a game, stupid. Big power needs big prizes, and going down in history as the most infamous manipulator, the one who sank the whole world is a prize no one else would ever be able to claim. He is the finest example of total power corrupting totally.

And he can’t be voted out. He’s less democratic the Putin or Xi Jinpin, and he makes Machiavelli look angelic. Fortunately, the forces of true Democracy have a way of overcoming such things: The big city Blues are diluting the small town Reds as they desert the rat race, and the knife edge 2020 vote will tip to the left. Just enough to restore America to its rightful place as the leader of the free world.