The US is Already an Authoritarian Regime

2018-09-17 by White Nettle

Or at the very least, an incipient monarchy: the only problem is that the monarch — while having plenty of clothes — has no head.

The most famous twentieth century American journalist, Bob Woodward, who together with his buddy Carl Bernstein broke the Watergate story that forced President Richard Nixon to resign, has written a book that reveals White House palace intrigues worthy of any European king — although it is the French President, Emanuel Macron, who calls himself Jupiter.

Under the ominous title Fear, Woodward quotes high-ranking members of the White House staff as well as the heads of crucial departments affirming that, for the good of the country, they work to prevent Trump from signing dangerous documents. And like the proverbial cherry on the cake, in finely tuned coordination, on the day the book was released to the press, the New York Times broke with tradition to publish an anonymous op-ed by one of those senior White House officials whose first sentence is “I am part of the Resistance”, a phrase Americans know from watching World War II movies featuring European partisans fighting Germans in the woods.

Last year, a group of psychiatrists issued a book-length report on Donald Trump’s mental health, and recently a participant in the former Trump TV show THE APPRENTICE, who eventually made it into the White House, released a memoir of her time there. Biased against the flamboyant woman who wrote it, the press failed to take Manigault Newman’s book Unhinged seriously, however Bernstein’s book presents strikingly similar testimonies. Unless the political class is totally feckless — and that is not to be excluded — these revelations should bring down the presidency, because it details actions taken by senior cabinet members, such as Pentagon Secretary Jim Mattis removing from Trump’s desk a document that could have dire consequences if he signed it, knowing he will forget about it…. The news hunt is on to discover who actually wrote the oped, while vast part of the world continue in turmoil, totally ignored by the hourly newscasts. In fact, nothing better illustrates the state of the US media than the fact that twenty-four hour news (literally!) is devoted to detailed analyses and opinions about the ‘state of the Union’, down to a analyses of state candidates in nation-wide elections, rather than information about the rest of the world

The United States has the dubious honor of throwing up more scandals than any other ‘democracy’, their accelerating pace suggesting that the end of the current presidency is near. In an ominous sign, these events are taking place at the same time as the president’s latest pick for the Supreme Court is being evaluated by a Congress aware of his backing for a unitary — or ‘imperial’ presidency — but seemingly powerless to deny him their approval.

The decline of the American ‘system of checks and balances’ has been under way for decades, and is now terminal, demonstrating if need be that when all is said and done, a democracy is only as good as its ethics. The election of a brazen liar and proven cheat to the ‘highest office of the land’ is laid at Russian President Vladimir Putin’s door. However, pundits do not accuse Putin of actually tipping the election to a feckless ‘idiot’, knowing this would be impossible to prove, but of ‘dividing’ Americans. As if Americans are not already traditionally divided among Democrats and Republicans, elections serving to determine whose desires will prevail (while those of the minority are ‘protected’…). No one has asked in what way ‘Russian interference’ further divided Americans.

In response to a growing wave of interest in Bernie Sanders’ socialist ideas, the Democratic Party dug its own grave by manipulating obscure rules in order to prevent him from becoming its candidate, thanks to the Clinton political ‘machine’ (the ominous synonym for a political party). These maneuvers, which would make front page headlines in any other democratic country, are business as usual in Washington, while the recently revealed $50,000 Russian ’contribution’ that bought four tickets to President Trump’s inauguration, is denounced as ‘interference’ — as if by the mere fact of being a spectator at the event a Russian could influence his presidency.

After two years, the election of Donald Trump has become a brilliant illustration of the limits of ‘ballot-box’ democracy: more often than by outside entities, it can be manipulated by unethical national actors, whether presidents, other elected officials, or private interests whose money has been determined by the Supreme Court to be ‘free speech’. The reluctance of both Democrats and Republicans in Congress to initiate impeachment proceedings — or even invoke Article 25 on presidential incapacity, is the final straw: give me a good King any day!

Originally published on 2018-09-12

About the author:

Source: New Eastern Outlook

Origins of images: Facebook, Twitter, Wikimedia, Wikipedia, Flickr, Google, Imageinjection & Pinterest.

Read our Disclaimer/Legal Statement!

Donate to Support Us

We would like to ask you to consider a small donation to help our team keep working. We accept no advertising and rely only on you, our readers, to keep us digging the truth on history, global politics and international relations.

[wpedon id=”4696″ align=”left”]

READ MORE!

27 Years since the Massacre of Serbian Civilians in Bosnia

In Kukavica village near Rogatica (nowadays Bosnia and Herzegovina), today was marked 27 years since crimes against Serbian civilians committed by Bosnian Muslims, members of the so-called Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina on August 27, 1992.In an attack on a column of Serbian civilians, involving about 1,000 elderly people, women and children on tractors and passenger vehicles, Bosnian Muslim extremists killed 26 and injured 80 Serbs.Rogatica Mayor Milorad Jagodic called this a monstrous crime as among the victims are a child of 11 and 82 years old man.“This was a column of innocent people who were looking for refuge and ...

Libya: Is this Kosovo all over Аgain?

Another NATO Intervention?Less than a dozen years after NATO bombed Yugoslavia into pieces, detaching the province of Kosovo from Serbia, there are signs that the military alliance is gearing up for another victorious little “humanitarian war”, this time against Libya. The differences are, of course, enormous. But let’s look at some of the disturbing similarities.A demonized leaderAs “the new Hitler”, the man you love to hate and need to destroy, Slobodan Milosevic was a neophyte in 1999 compared to Muammar Qaddafi today. The media had less than a decade to turn Milosevic into a monster, whereas with Qaddafi, they’ve been ...

A “Greater Israel” to Control Mediterranean from Beirut to Gaza?

With the recruitment of novice French President, Emmanuel Macron, the US Israel lobby can now boast a powerful political agent inside the corridors of power of the Élysée Palace, to liaise with those agents already resident in the British Parliament and at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington. It is, of course, no small achievement to have managed to recruit half of the European Union as well as the United States Senate to support the dispossession of five million indigenous Arabs who have populated the West Bank, East Jerusalem, the Golan Heights and Gaza for over a thousand years. No small achievement of the powerful minority Zionist movement ...

The EU’s Architects: Nazis and Nazi Collaborators

There is an old adage that pertains to the founding of the European Union «If at first you don’t succeed, try, try, again». And for the Nazis and Nazi collaborators of the Second World War, viewing the post-war European death and destruction brought about by Adolf Hitler and his «Third Reich» alliance of Italian fascists, French Vichy, and others, the immediate decision was to «try again» with a European Union that would establish the same European super-state envisaged by Hitler but with a decidedly «democratic» aura.What eventually became the EU, the European Coal and Steel Community, was formed by six Western European ...

Thank You, Edward S. Herman (1925-2017) – Tireless Champion of Peace

Edward S. Herman died on November 11, 2017, at the age of 92. Fortunately, it was a peaceful death for a supremely peaceful man. In all he did, Ed Herman was a tireless champion of peace.Ed Herman could be considered the godfather of antiwar media critique, both because of his own contributions and because of the many writers he encouraged to pursue that work. Thanks to his logical mind and sense of justice, he sharply grasped the crucial role and diverse techniques of media propaganda in promoting war. He immediately saw through lies, including those so insidious that few dare ...

The Jewish Role in the Bolshevik Revolution and Russia’s Early Soviet Regime

In the night of July 16-17, 1918, a squad of Bolshevik secret police murdered Russia's last emperor, Tsar Nicholas II, along with his wife, Tsaritsa Alexandra, their 14-year-old son, Tsarevich Alexis, and their four daughters. They were cut down in a hail of gunfire in a half-cellar room of the house in Ekaterinburg, a city in the Ural mountain region, where they were being held prisoner. The daughters were finished off with bayonets. To prevent a cult for the dead Tsar, the bodies were carted away to the countryside and hastily buried in a secret grave.Bolshevik authorities at first reported ...

Threats to World Peace and America’s Imperial Wars: Syria, Afghanistan, North Korea

Afghanistan has gained lead story status in the western corporate and government-sponsored media outlets again for the wrong reasons. This Central Asia state has been at war since the late 1970s when the United States under the then President Jimmy Carter developed a counter-insurgency program to remove the socialist-oriented administration ruling from Kabul. Of course today there is largely no mention in these same press agencies about the organization, training, funding and diplomatic cover provided by Washington through the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Pentagon and State Department for al-Qaeda (the core) which facilitated the armed struggle waged against the Soviet-backed system ...

Edward S. Herman: The Srebrenica Massacre was a Gigantic Political Fraud

Eleven Years ago: 11 July 1995, The Srebrenica MassacreFirst published by GR in February 2013.Renowned author Dr. Edward Herman spoke with John Robles of the Voice of Russia regarding the facts surrounding the Srebrenica Massacre, the pretext for the “humanitarian” invasion of the former Yugoslavia, and takes apart the “official” ; version that has always been promoted by the West. Dr. Herman reveals that there were in fact multiple massacres at Srebrenica, and that the killing of Bosnian-Muslim soldiers at Srebrenica (the West’s pretext) was in response to the killing of over 2,000 Serb civilians, mostly women and children, at ...

How Turkey Destroyed or Disposed of Its Historical Archives and Documents

For several decades, the Turkish government and its propagandists have been announcing that the state documents, particularly the Ottoman archives, are fully open and available to any researcher from around the world.What Turkish officials and their supporters do not say is that many documents of the Ottoman archives have been removed, destroyed, sold, or otherwise disposed of. In addition, some of the most sensitive archives are still closed to outsiders.Last month, Turkish journalist Uzay Bulut wrote a revealing article, “Turkey Uncensored: A History of Censorship and Bans,” published on the Philos Project website, regarding the status of Turkish archives and ...

America’s “Long War” Against Humanity

America’s hegemonic project in the post 9/11 era is the “Globalization of War” whereby the U.S.-NATO military machine –coupled with covert intelligence operations, economic sanctions and the thrust of “regime change”— is deployed in all major regions of the world. The threat of pre-emptive nuclear war is also used to black-mail countries into submission.This “Long War against Humanity” is carried out at the height of the most serious economic crisis in modern history. It is intimately related to a process of global financial restructuring, which has resulted in the collapse of national economies and the impoverishment of large sectors of ...

Selective Amnesia: Croatia’s Holocaust Deniers

The mugshots show Ivo Goldstein, a Jewish librarian and book dealer, looking bright-eyed and calm — even after nine days of confinement in a Croatian police cell. One of the prints bears the number 28888 and a date: April 21, 1941. Seventy-six years after they were taken by a police photographer, the photos hang as a triptych on the bedroom wall of Goldstein’s son, Daniel, in a drab apartment block in Zagreb’s Zaprudje neighborhood. Daniel, 85, is a historian and human rights activist. He was nine when his childhood was shattered by his father’s arrest in the newly created Independent State of ...

The Ghosts of World War I Circle Over Ukraine

We don’t yet know the details behind the tragic downing of the Malaysia Airlines jetliner over eastern Ukraine on July 17, but in one sense, the details aren’t going to matter very much in the global scheme of things. The geopolitical outcome is already known. World outrage has focused on Russian president Vladimir Putin to such an extent that Putin has suffered a huge loss of moral authority. That, in turn, lessens his range of actions in his ongoing confrontation with the West over Ukraine and increases the likelihood that Russia will lose its traditional dominance over that split country ...

Al Qaeda: The Data Base

Shortly before his untimely death, former British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook told the House of Commons that “Al Qaeda” is not really a terrorist group but a database of international mujaheddin and arms smugglers used by the CIA and Saudis to funnel guerrillas, arms, and money into Soviet-occupied Afghanistan. Courtesy of World Affairs, a journal based in New Delhi, WMR can bring you an important excerpt from an Apr.-Jun. 2004 article by Pierre-Henry Bunel, a former agent for French military intelligence. “I first heard about Al-Qaida while I was attending the Command and Staff course in Jordan. I was a French ...

The Israeli Attack on the USS Liberty

Fifty-one years ago today Israeli fighter aircraft and torpedo boats tried to sink the USS Liberty, a surveillance ship stationed off the coast of Egypt during Israel’s attack on Egypt and Syria. Israel was unable to sink the USS Liberty, but did manage to kill or wound almost the entire crew. Thirty-four Americans were killed and 174 were wounded. There are two explanations for the attack. As Washington has blocked every attempt at an investigation, we do not know which one is correct. Perhaps both are the reasons for the attack. One is that Israel, which was committing a war crime by ...

The Six Day War – Myth and Reality

The Six Day War of June 1967, a series of battles fought by the armed forces of the state of Israel against a combination of Arab armies, is one of manifold significance. From a military standpoint, it presented a model strategy of how to prosecute and win a war waged on several fronts.The stunning victory also created a sense of euphoria among communities in the Jewish Diaspora: Among American Jews, a segment of Jewry David Ben Gurion viewed with disdain because of their failure to migrate en masse to Israel, a new sense of commitment in both emotional and financial ...

The Historical Background of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

Part IThe historical background of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is going back to 1917 (the Balfour Declaration) and the establishment of the British protectorate over Palestine (the Palestine Mandate) after WWI with its provision for a national home for the Jews, although formally not to be at the expense of the local inhabitants – the Palestinians. Nevertheless, it became in practice the focal problem to keep an appropriate balance between these stipulations to be acceptable to both sides – the Jews and the Palestinians.The people and the landSince the time of the Enlightenment followed by the Romanticism, in West Europe emerged ...

NATO Aggression Reaches for Russian Waters

The recent Kerch Strait incident marks a new low amid the US-led expansion of NATO eastward.The intentional provocation executed by Kiev saw three Ukrainian naval vessels seized by Russia. The vessels were intentionally violating the protocol for passing through the Strait – previously agreed upon by Kiev and previously observed by Ukrainian naval vessels.The extent to which Ukraine was aware of these protocols and the 2003 agreement that put them in place includes entire events organized in Ukraine by NATO-sponsored “think tanks” discussing the necessity to “rip them up” and attempt to assert greater control over the current joint-use of the ...

The Jihadist Threat in the EU

The forthcoming USA-Russian joint action against ISIS together with Iraqi-Syrian and Turkish military advance will soon neutralize ISIS possibilities to claim a stake of a statehood in the Levant region. Nonetheless, the number of radicalized persons in Europe is increasing as also the number of Jihadist fighters returning back into the EU-thus at first glance we should see a rise in the terrorism phenomenon in the coming years. Furthermore the existence of multiple fronts where Jihadists are trained and fight nowadays such as :Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Sahel region, Nigeria, Sudan , Yemen, Sinai; brings us to the conclusion that we ...

US Meddling in Foreign Elections: A CIA Tradition since 1948

In a shocking display of relative independence from the post-Operation Mockingbird control of the media by the Central Intelligence Agency, a recent article in The New York Times broke with current conventional pack journalism and covered the long history of CIA meddling in foreign elections. A February 17, 2018, article, titled, "Russia Isn’t the Only One Meddling in Elections. We Do It, Too," authored by Scott Shane – who covered the perestroika and glasnost for The Baltimore Sun in Moscow from 1988 to 1991 during the final few years of the Soviet Union – reported the US has interfered in foreign elections for decades. However, ...

Stay Оut of Kosovo!

…When did Congress authorize Bill Clinton to go to war againsta Yugoslav army that has never attacked Americans?…This week, NATO conducted air exercises over Albania as a warning to Belgrade that its crackdown in Kosovo must end now.NATO’s demands? Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic must call off his offensive by June 16, allow monitors unimpeded access to the rebellious province, let the refugees return home, and resume talks with the Kosovan resistance. If Milosevic balks, NATO is preparing attacks on his forces and, says The New York Times, “possible air strikes against strategic military targets in Serbia.”France contends that NATO needs ...