A high stakes game on the road to Damascus

April 15, 2018

The United States – using what President Donald J. Trumpet called its “righteous power,” which is an interesting turn of phrase from Stormy Daniels’ alleged one-night stand – has joined longtime allies Great Britain and France in launching 100 missiles at Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s chemical weapons depots and research facilities in Damascus and Homs.

Already, El Presidente – who has the attention span of a flea – has declared “Mission Accomplished.” I really wish American presidents would stop using that I’m-a-tough-guy-even-though-I-never-served-in-a-war phrase. Some 15 years after President George W. Bush declared “Mission Accomplished,” we’re still in Iraq and Afghanistan. You see where we’re going with this. ...

The myth of the strongman

March 4, 2018

Syria’s Bashar al-Assad. Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu. North Korea’s Kim Jong-un. The Philippines’ Rodrigo Duterte. Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro. Russia’s Vladimir Putin. China’s Xi Jinping. And, of course, our own Donald J. Trump.

The world is in the grips of the strongman – tough, reactionary and taking no prisoners. Part of this is a response to the terrible, fascinating transition in which we find ourselves – a backlash to the global, multicultural, digital age to which so-called “feminine” energies (communications skills, sensitivity, a sense of service) are better suited. Part of this is the envy, rage and resentment, particularly in this country, of white, blue-collar males, who lacked the courage, intelligence, industry and imagination to confront their greedy employers and, failing that, reinvent themselves when manufacturing jobs began to dry up in the 1970s. ...

The Nazi meme and the dumbing down of America

April 13, 2017

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer has apologized for saying that Adolf Hitler didn’t gas his own people and, presumably, for adding that Hitler did bring them into the “Holocaust centers” – you know, the death camps with those nifty gift shops.

Spicer, of course, was awkwardly trying to set up one of the standard ploys of his boss, President Donald J. Trump, which is to throw someone under the bus by comparing that person to someone else who represents abject evil. Apparently, Trumpet has decided that Vladdie Rootin’ Tootin’ Putin’s sell-by date has arrived and thus needs to blame Russia for backing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who has been roundly condemned for using chemical weapons on his people. ...