Compared to what? — Hysteria seems to characterize all things politically American

© 2016 Peter Free

 

18 November 2016

 

 

 A couple of post (2016) election observations

 

First, Democrats are busy running around showering themselves with new-found light. These glowing rays apparently have to do with suddenly discovering that (for decades) they didn't care about anything economically important to much of American citizenry.

 

Second, our idiot media frenetically stokes the flames of discontent, even before President-elect Trump actually does anything.

 

 

Well, duh

 

Democratic misguidedness was exceedingly evident from Bill Clinton's and immediately into the Obama Administration. Stephan Richter's take on it is accurate. That no one noticed is less a sign of concealment than it is of sheer stupidity.

 

If you are not convinced of this, Glen Ford did a nice job of summarizing the duplicitous Obama Administration's contribution to job-killing oligarchic plutocracy.

 

While Democratic Party dopes wail in long-belated self-discovery, similarly overwrought people are bemoaning President-elect Trump before he even sets anything in motion.

 

Certainly, the President-elect has some loathsome folks in his power-wielding coterie. But it is not yet clear that this group will sow any more mayhem than their Democratic and Republican predecessors already have.

 

President Obama, for example, deported more allegedly illegal immigrants than any of his predecessors. His surveillance apparatus crushed whistle-blowers right and left. Though refraining from attacking Islam as the monolith most Republicans believe it to be, President Obama nevertheless enthusiastically contributed to killing tens of thousands of Islam's adherents for no good strategic reason. What President George W. Bush set in motion (in collapsing Middle Eastern security), Obama compounded several fold. Think Libya, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Yemen.

 

 

The essential logic question is

 

Are you any less dead or maimed from my oligarchic economic and military imperialism, if I hide the fact that I hate you — as opposed to when I don't?

 

 

The moral? — When transitioning from one enemy of humanity to another . . .

 

Rationality asks us not to lose sight of the harms that we have already done under another name and in a different form.

 

I am not optimistic about President-to-be Donald Trump. But I am far from convinced that he will be noticeably worse than the decades-long string of his ultimately vicious predecessors. His probably carnivorous stripes will soon enough be apparent.

 

Putting a hold on hysteria would be a sign of unaccustomed American maturity — which by definition is probably asking too much.

 

Our Carnival of Fools continues.