January 12, 2020
It’s nice to know that our government is now ‘back to work’ after its’ ten day Holiday Recess. Given another few days alone, our ‘Perfect’ President would have been able to start World War III— all by himself!
If Donald Trump isn’t the perfect example of a ‘Loose Cannon’, I’ll apologize to Henry Kingsley, Victor Hugo, and Teddy Roosevelt who were, in that order, the originator, developer and the person of fame who first said, “I don’t want to be charged with that moniker”, descriptive phrase. Henry Kingsley wrote, in the early 18th century, about the danger that a cannon coming loose from its’ restraining halyards could and did cause aboard sailing warships in turbulent seas. Victor Hugo, in 1874, provided the definition of a ‘loose cannon’ as—a dangerous thing or person cut loose from reality and capable of causing horrendous damage, unless it or he is immediately restrained—and Teddy Roosevelt was quoted as saying in 1910 that he didn’t want to ever be accused of being a ‘Loose Cannon’. All three of those phrase ‘originators/definers/users’ could not even conceive of the possibility that a person like Donald J. Trump would ever become President of the United States! According to trustworthy sources, even Donald Trump didn’t think he had a chance to be elected. And, I doubt that our Founding Fathers ever expected such a damaged personality would inhabit the Oval Office, or they would have been more careful about defining the ‘impeachment’ process to get rid of an abhorrent, and dangerous, ‘President’—if ever such a person was elected to that office. And then, about one-hundred years later, along came Andrew Johnson—the ‘spitting image’ precursor of the future Donald J. Trump— who was impeached in 1876 but, because of the protection his political affiliates offered, was not removed from office. I expect that Donald Trump will benefit from the same type of crony protectionism his Republican cronies will provide as Andrew Johnson got from his Democrat cronies. In Andrew Johnson’s era, ‘Reconstruction’ was really the destruction of the rights given to former slaves by Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. Like Johnson did to destroy the rights and protections given to former slaves by Lincoln, Trump is doing his best to reverse what little good his predecessors had done in the areas of climate change, environmental pollution, consumer protection and the restraining of vulture capitalism.
It would seem to me that the broad electorate provided by Lyndon Johnson’s Voting Rights Act of 1965, would lead to better government than worse. The only problem with that ‘wishful thinking’ is that our Founding Fathers and Lyndon Baines Johnson didn’t ever consider what happens to a Republic when it is in the process of transitioning to a Democracy. In the 2016 Presidential election, a great majority of the electorate didn’t pay a ‘wit’ of attention to the corruption that was going on in their government. My summary of the 2016 election is simple, the Democrats put up a piece of totally ‘damaged goods’ against the Republican’s candidate, who was a relatively unknown. However, his antics and actions as President have revealed him to be a totally worthless—and a very dangerous—piece of goods. In the 2016 election our electorate didn’t know who to vote for or against. Hillary was a ‘suspected’ corrupt person. Donald was an ‘unknown’. But, as he has now revealed, he is a confirmed liar, and a totally corrupt person. The lesson, for anyone who has hope for our future as a Democracy, is that an un-educated electorate is a very dangerous factor and a serious handicap in trying to achieve that goal. A corollary to that statement is that the United States education system would get a failing grade when measured against other industrialized countries of our present world. That’s a scary fact!
So what happened when our government came out of ‘Recess’? Not much. The Pelosi-McConnell standoff is still, sort of, in place. John Bolton is a new ‘wild card’ possible witness in the potential Impeachment trial. Bolton is also a ‘Loose Cannon’ and the Dems had better be careful of what they wish for. He might not like Trump for having fired him as Secretary of Defense but Bolton is more a real ‘hawk’ and eager for war anywhere and everywhere than Trump has ever been.
However, with my feeling a bit of relief, Trump seems to have been severely restrained by his elders in his ‘go-it-alone’ management of foreign policy. If any of you readers of this blog happened to have your televisions on when Trump delivered his ‘statement of restraint’, regarding the future use of military power in the Iran/Iraq situation, with a background of military brass about three feet thick behind and around him, you should have immediately realized that it wasn’t Donald Trump talking. It was Donald Trump, reading from a tele-prompter, exactly what he was told to say by the grown-ups in his administration. From the look on Trump’s face, it was obvious that he had been taken to the woodshed for his unauthorized decision to assassinate one of Iraq’s top military leaders. That just might give pause to some of the Republican Senators who praise his every action. The fact that Major General Qassim Soleimani was a proven director of terrorist organizations and responsible for the deaths of perhaps hundreds of our military and thousands of our allies didn’t excuse Trump from his responsibility to get full staff and congressional approval for an act of war! Trump’s ordered assignation of Soleimani was the direct cause of the Iranian missile that downed, by explosion, the Ukrainian Airlines 737-800 Boeing aircraft, killing 176 people, many of them Canadians and Iranian citizens. This was the ‘Perfect’ example of having a ‘Loose Cannon’ as President of the United States, who in all ways, considers himself absolutely “Perfect”. That was his self-description! Let’s see what our ‘soon to be infamous’ Republican Senators say about this. We should learn more, much more, next week.
So, I filled my back pocket with carrots and my jacket pocket with a small flask full of Uncle Jack’s finest and headed for the corral. When the political ‘crap’ gets deeper than the horse biscuits in Hubris’ corral, it’s time for Hubris and I to go for a ride. Out I went, gave a carrot to Hubris, saddled up and took a big swig out of the flask. I told Hubris that I have had enough of corrupt, inept politicians for a while and I’m going to go to the Yucatan with my Sweetheart for a week, hang out on the beach and watch the girls go by. I promised Hubris that I would not listen to the TV news or read any newspaper, even one written in Spanish while I’m gone. He knows that I can read Spanish but can’t speak it well enough to be understood. I also told him I’ve arranged for a good friend to come feed him while I’m gone. With any luck, the Impeachment trial will still be going on when we get back from the beach. Then, I gave Hubris another carrot, took another swig of Uncle Jack’s finest, and with a hearty shout of Hi Ho Hubris, Aawaay! we were off to the ditch banks for another early evening ride. God willing and if the creeks don’t rise, I’ll be back next week?
Lou
Copyright, January 12, 2020, Louis J. Christen