There is no doubt that there is no
cohesiveness of the brain of the president of the United States and
the evidence is out there every day in everything he does or says,
from putting children in great number in concentration camps, to
declaring just about anyone or anything a “terrorist”
that only he can combat.
Where
to start? This week, he has declared that the agreement between Major
League Baseball and the Cuban professional baseball organization was
null and void. In an agreement reached last December, Cuban players
would be able to ply their trade in the U.S. without defecting, that
is, they could return home after each season and return to play
another season.
It
all would seem normal to a normal human being, but the president has
shown himself not to be a normal human being, however you ascertain
normality. There is a certain range of behavior that is considered
normal and Donald Trump goes well beyond that range, in every
direction. In nixing the baseball deal, Trump claimed that doing
business with Cuban baseball was tantamount to giving money to a
country and its government that he loathes. In his view, Cuba is part
of the “Troika of Tyranny,” consisting of Nicaragua,
Venezuela, and Cuba.
A
closer look, however, goes back to his lust for oil (any fossil fuel,
really) and Venezuela is full of oil and Trump wants it. Also, he
wants to nullify anything positive that President Obama has done and
that includes normalization of relations with Cuba. The current
president will do anything to continue to stir up chaos in
international relations, since in that way, nothing that the world's
governments have decided through the generations in their attempt to
minimize the rash impulses of nations, states, and individuals in
power will have any validity. Treaties and agreements are swept away
by the irrational decisions of one individual, Trump, and the ensuing
chaotic activities of the world's other powers make his irrationality
and impulsive decisions, in his mind, look like something approaching
normal. This is what he creates and he feels comfortable doing so,
because in the maelstrom, he thinks he can escape what he has
wrought.
Apparently,
he never knew the power of the office he accidentally fell into and
was never ready to take on the responsibility of the U.S. presidency.
He did not know that, as president, he could not function as the con
man he was, dealing with real estate in New York and in other
countries. He thought he could bully his way through, as he has done
all his life and he'll lie, cheat, and buy his way through life, just
as his father did and as he taught Donald to do.
Lashing
out at perceived enemies, and they are legion, is Trump's answer to
any adversity or any opposition. Speculation among political
observers is that he got rid of Kirstjen Neilsen as secretary of
homeland security this week because she was not vicious enough in
dealing with migrants, adults or children. He asserted that the U.S.
“is full” and can't take any more people, but no one but
him really believes that. His fear is that there will be more black
and brown people coming into the country from the south and they are
likely to fulfill the white supremacists' nightmare. Eventually, they
will outnumber the Northern European stock and make whites the
minority. It's what his slogan, “make America great again,”
is all about. They conveniently forget that there already were people
here 500 years ago, but he and his followers firmly believe the myth
that America started when whites set foot on this ground.
He
also rid his administration of a number of others, that is, the ones
who have not previously fled. He threatened to close the southern
frontier to asylum seekers, but agents there were told after the
president's visit not to pay attention to the offhand order, since it
would be a violation of both international law and U.S. law. Trump
doesn't know that asylum-seekers have rights, too. His threats and
condemnations have been emanating from the White House at a faster
and faster pace. He doesn't know who to condemn next.
Just
this week, he called Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a
“terrorist organization,” as a way to put economic and
political pressure on the Iranian regime, the first time that
Washington has so designated the military of a foreign government. It
wasn't long, however, before Iranian President Hassan Rouhani fired
back, when on Tuesday, according to Agence France Presse, asked in a
public speech, “Who are you to label revolutionary institutions
as terrorists?” He charged that the U.S. is “...the
leader of world terrorism...”
Within
a day after Trump was busy designating the IRGC as terrorists, The
Independent newspaper reported, “...reports are reemerging of
the Trump Organization's alleged participation in a scheme that
likely helped the IRGC launder money to fund its interests abroad.”
One interest was in Baku, Azerbaijan, where one of his famous towers
was to be built and the paper reported that much of the money paid to
contractors was in bags of cash, a classic sign of money laundering.
The project stalled and there was no indication that Trump himself
was involved, but his organization was.
And
it did not escape notice, either by Iran or other countries in the
crosshairs of the U.S. empire, that the U.S. has some 800 bases
around the world in more than 70 countries. They are not there to
promote democracy or bring medicine and good will to the people.
They're there for the resources and to, eventually, control as much
of the life of those countries as possible. While the U.S. complains
about “interference” in its own elections, it has
overthrown enough democratically-elected governments as to have made
it a lifelong habit. Some see that as terrorism.
The
president, within a few days, has fired the Secret Service head and
other heads reportedly are about to roll and the description by a
number of observers and pundits of a White House in chaos seems to be
deadly accurate. He flits from one crisis to another and, if there is
no crisis in some aspect of his reign, he'll create one. In chaos is
the salvation of a con man.
His
obsession with building a wall to keep out “the other,”
and his animus against “the other,” is more than strange
for someone who purportedly heads “the nation of immigrants,”
the “melting pot.” Trump has taken a few months off from
his quest to flog black athletes endlessly for daring to exercise
their First Amendment rights to protest against police brutality, but
don't worry, he'll be back.
The
program to overthrow the government of Nicolas Maduro uses an old
U.S. playbook in foreign affairs, and Trump has picked up all of the
habits of empire in the swamp that he promised to clean up, and he
seems to enjoy swimming in the brackish waters, made more toxic by
his presence. It's hard to tell whether he is treating countries like
Venezuela as he treats “loser” American citizens (they're
not as rich or white as he is), or vice versa. He does think in those
terms and he believes himself to be the winner in all things. All
others are “losers.” Wage working men and women, take
heed.
The
president doesn't seem to be able to focus on any one thing for very
long and he tries to make that seem like a positive thing, but it
might just be that his brain has more parts than it should and each
one is taking on a different rage. Trouble is, that brain of his
never seems to be able to get all of the parts to work together for
very long.
It
will be a long haul to recovery from Trump's depredations in the
nation and in the world and the people who have produced the wealth
of America are the ones who will have to do the heavy lifting. But
the 90 percent of those who produce (about 292 million) can make the
changes necessary. All it will take is to wrest the power from Trump
and the 10 percent who keep him and others like him in power. The
two-party system as it exists needs to be shaken to its core and the
money that supports it needs to be choked off. Only a united people
can do that.
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