Demagogue on Parade…

Demagogue on Parade…

Guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism.

-       George Washington

There are seasons in every country when noise and impudence pass current for worth; and in popular commotions especially, the clamors of interested and factious men are often mistaken for patriotism.

-       Alexander Hamilton

By J.M. Hamilton (2-17-2018)

The American people live in extraordinarily evil times, whereby our government has long ago stopped representing the people’s interests.

Instead, the majority of the economy’s sectors have been allowed – by our government – to metastasize into cartel and monopoly. 

In our current monopoly economy, both the consumer and labor are squeezed, via monopoly and monopsony power, respectively.  That is, w/out benefit of competition or the free movement of labor, business is able to set price – often making exceptional profits off the consumer – and able to dictate the price of labor, as they are the only game in town.  (If you think the national debt is a drag upon the economy & economic growth, think too, of the destabilizing impact a monopoly economy has upon our macro and growth fundamentals.)

Having an Oligarchy control the private sector is bad enough, but when an elite few co-opt and own the public sector as well, a safety valve is removed from the most predatory & virulent form of crony capitalism known to man.  That is, fiscal policy – in lieu of building roads and providing a safety net – has been captured to rob the Federal credit line and provide tax cuts for an elite few, or fund privatization schemes, whereby the taxpayer is scammed and robbed ad nauseam. 

Monetary policy too has been captured by the Wall Street banks, Shadow Banking, & the Private Equity barons.  And instead of being used for the common good, monetary policy has become yet another trickle-down vehicle, much like fiscal policy, whereby an elite few profit from inflated asset prices pumped up by the Federal Reserve (in the hopes that that inflated asset prices, and flush Wall Street banks, will allow a few crumbs to float down to the 99%).

Times are so grey, that entire industries - that should have already gone the way of the buggy whip – are sustained by the grace of a kleptocratic government.  JMH, of course, is writing about Big Coal & Big Oil.  U.S. government is so corrupt that antitrust laws are rarely enforced, and predatory utilities are allowed to charge outrageous fees for commodities that are anything but scarce, like Internet service providers and Big Pharma’s patented medicine trove.

But two industries, perhaps, stand above all others in the carnage and desolation that they spread: gun manufacturers and military contractors. 

The gun industry and its lobbyist, the NRA, have to answer for an ever-growing American body count, numbering in the thousands annually.  This week saw another mass killing at a Florida high school, and our purchased Congress failed the American people once again.

The reality is our Congress and President(s) – like vampires - are now bathed in countless victims' blood, cut down too early by military grade assault rifles, and in a hail of NRA sponsored lead.  And our, allegedly, democratic government, solely, is responsible for the carnage.  The Congress, which initiates legislation, is a complicit tool of the gun lobby, and continually fails to act to contain & control the death and rivers of blood.

No other country on the planet is responsible for, or suffers from, this level of mass shooting violence; no other country on the planet has a President, or Executive Branch leader, that obsesses about the stock market like ours does.  Of course, the stock market sadly explains why industries that should have already been liquidated are still around minting profits, while new technology is at the ready to render said industry obsolete.  As for guns, any leader – who had any sense of decency or knowledge of right & wrong – would demand a ban on assault rifle sales.

Crony capitalists – and Oligarchs - hate any disruptions to a never-ending stream of monopolistic profits, no matter how dated the industry, or the severity of the carnage and destruction wrought by said cartel (especially if the social costs of said deadly product are passed onto government & society).  The Oligarchy has no allegiance to nation-states, or its citizens; they only have allegiance to profits.

The ends justify the means, and the “ends” – our end – is blind idolatry of the stock market and the profits it affords the Oligarchy.

And therein lies the problem:  Our Commander in Chief is morally bankrupt, in way over his head, and entirely unfit for the job at hand.  He lies like he breathes air.  Like any demagogue he’s a great divider and superlative at stirring up his base; but when it comes to executing on his promises, he only delivers for his donors & plutocratic friends (which surprise, their interests do not align w/ the interests of: the nation, or Mr. Trump’s base, or the American people). 

Nobody believes the U.S. Chamber’s mantra anymore, that what is good for cartels, monopolies, and multinationals is good for Americans.

Scandal after scandal follows the man, and evangelicals and hanger-ons caudle our POTUS… to learn who can be the very best sycophant.  The GOP has given up any pretense of dignity and is now confirmed to be the retrograde party of homophobia, misogyny, murder, and racism (a few Dems, too, have played their part).

And so  - like the corruption surrounding ancient Rome itself -  there must be distractions, something to keep The People’s collective mind off the emperor’s ever growing list of scandals.  There must be bread and circuses to distract the vox populi from the reincarnation of Caligula, who now inhabits the Oval Office. 

And so, our Commander in Chief has called for a military parade. 

Now, military parades, generally, fall into two categories: as historically conducted in the U.S., they are often used to celebrate the conclusion of a successful military campaign or war.  Whereas in emerging markets - inhabited by authoritarian, or totalitarian dictators – military parades are often conducted out of fear… fear of the leadership’s inferiority, fear of foreign powers & outsiders, and even fear of the despot’s own people.  In the latter parades, the celebration – if any - is not about war’s end, but rather, to call attention to the preening peacock on the reviewing stand, the imperious head of state and the awesome power they wield.

Rather than celebrate war's end, military parades – conducted by authoritarians & totalitarians – put The People on notice: We are on a permanent war footing; the threat is both constant & real; and the deprivations and sacrifice you suffer – citizen – is because the world (or some foreign power) is against you and your family.  In these regimes, the media is often state controlled, so that there is one official narrative or party line.

For the dictatorial regime, guns & murder always come before butter, and the people often starve as a result.

Bread & Circuses or a Fear Based Totalitarian Cult?

Hmmm.  Which type of parade might Mr. Trump have in mind?

Last JMH checked, the most powerful nation on the earth – the last remaining superpower -  hasn’t won many wars as of late.  It's been widely noted, young U.S. soldiers fighting today in Afghanistan were in disposable diapers when the war began.  What does it say that the most powerful nation on earth can’t win a war against a ragtag resistance?  What does it say that the U.S. would be foolish enough to attempt a nation building exercise w/in the graveyard of empires?

Our defense contractors are one of the clearest examples of the abuses heaped upon the U.S. economy by cartels & monopolies: manufacturing products and services that don’t work; a perennial lack of innovation w/ military products designed to fight the last war; and always and forever, the ubiquitous cost over-runs.  Will Trump’s parade celebrate the MIC’s abundant failures?

Perhaps, Mr. Trump wants to celebrate our all volunteer fighting force, who – all too often - join the military in the hopes of ultimately being able to afford a college degree, w/out suffering a debtor's existence for life.  (Note, as reported in the Military Times, the soldiers who responded to a survey voted overwhelming against Mr. Trump’s proposed carnival).

Given how poorly paid our soldiers are, I’m sure they’d prefer a raise, instead of a parade.

Maybe Mr. Trump wants to call attention to the wholesale sellout of his campaign pledge to end failed nation building?  Mr. Trump wasn’t in office a full year before he let the generals con him into another Afghanistan surge.  Heh, but this time we’re going for the Big Win.

Right.  War has become just another profit center for the Kleptocracy, and if it bankrupts the nation so be it.

I know, we are celebrating our overextended military empire, consisting of 700 to 900 military bases scattered around the globe?  (While one in five U.S. children live in poverty.)

Perhaps it’s the fact that the last two Presidents ran on campaigns of ending wars, only to ramp up existing wars once in office.  So much for the foreign policy establishment’s worries about an isolationist POTUS Trump.

No.  At the end of the day – the parade Mr. Trump wants increasingly feels like the type of military parades authoritarians and totalitarians throw, and for the aforementioned reasons that dictators throw them (mainly out of fear; as a distraction; the Dear Leader's self-aggrandizement; and a reminder that the nation and the people are now on a permanent war footing).  Hence, the need to waste at least half of discretionary Federal spending on an un-auditable DoD/MIC, while children and families suffer austerity (and are crushed by an ever concentrated monopoly economy).  

Never mind that the terrorists shooting up the U.S. are typically white, male, American, and armed w/ military grade assault rifles.

What Mr. Trump seems to have forgotten, or yet to learn – many of our foreign policy experts & military leaders haven't learned either – is that there’s more to being a superpower than spending obscene amounts of money on offensive weapons systems that do not perform.

Maintaining superpower status requires a fiscally solvent government (not one that is indebted to its enemy, China).  Retaining a strong military means not letting generals, and military contractors (or alleged allies) dictate U.S. foreign policy, or engage the U.S. military in each & every provocation around the globe (contrived or real).  It means cutting and discarding the fraud & waste surrounding weapons systems – and military contractors – who consistently fail to deliver. 

Being a superpower requires a sound currency that is not manipulated by a Federal Reserve, manned by Wall Street banksters.  It means keeping a lid on wage and wealth inequality, and making sure the economy benefits all – not just an elite few – so that our military force has a continued and vested interest in fighting for this nation and her ideals.  (Moreover, it's in our national security interest to break up cartels, monopolies, and TBTF institutions, or when a monopoly or utility is important enough to maintain, carefully regulate said monopoly or utility.)

And speaking of ideals, a superpower that fails to live by its proclaimed democratic principles will eventually be hollowed out, chewed through w/ corruption and mismanagement… until ultimately, out of desperation & frustration, the voters adopt the ideals of authoritarians and despots (see the West’s growing right-wing populist revolt).

Finally, the nation needs to make sure that our troops receive adequate pay and services, and are treated w/ the greatest admiration and respect (no matter how sordid or vacuous the wars are they are forced to fight)… not trotted out as a performing circus for a Commander in Chief, who has more ethical problems than the nation can count.

Our founding fathers warned us about such characters…  men who wrapped themselves in flags and proclaimed themselves to be the sole arbiters of national patriotism.

But given that Emperor Trump is presently buck-naked, what else is there for him to wear but a flag, a parade, and pseudo-patriotism?

Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2018