Mundaz Wandering Political Thoughts
Disappointment
I was visiting my sister at her house. She, her husband, my wife, niece, her boyfriend, Mom, and I were chatting. All present are Democrats at the least and progressive for the most part. Liberals. Most of our previous conversation included invectives aimed right at Trump and the Trump Regime minions destroying our nation. Then, lo, sis said, “I’m okay with him destroying those boats and killing those drug dealers.”
I was so horrified.
She went on to say, “They know who those people are.”
“Really? The people we were just talking about ‘know’ who those people are in those boats? Those people we just talked about? The ones who lie about anything and everything? You trust them to correctly and intelligently inform us that the people they’re killing in those boats are drug dealers just on their word?”
That was just the opening salvo. Yeah, I ranted. I pointed out that the U.S. military isn’t supposed to be used as wholesale executioners, killing non-combatants or civilians who are not actively attacking United States troops. Pointed out that this takes a huge step around due process and justice. Depends on the single word of a single individual to declare who is a criminal and who is guilty, all without presenting any evidence. And that person who we’re trusted that process to is a well-known liar, an untrustworthy individual named Donald J. Trump. That on its own is terrible but what it does as precedence for the rule of law is monstrously worse.
Further, I added, cuz I was not done, further, haven’t we learned from history? This is the start down the same path of pseudo warfare and lawlessness we pursued before as national policy, policy which ultimately culminated with the attacks of 9/11 that killed thousands of United States citizens, attacks which were then used with manipulated evidence to attack the nations of Iraq and Afghanistan. Where did that lead us? What did we gain from attacking those nations and killing those people and sacrificing so many of our own citizens in fruitless war?
“I don’t care,” sis said. “I want those drug dealers dead.”
Yeah. Disappointed. Angry.
Sad.
Saturda’s Wandering Political Thoughts
Here it comes and here we go again.
BREAKING: Donald Trump says America’s Intelligence Community is “Wrong” on Iran From The Parnas Perspective:
When a reporter referenced U.S. intelligence findings that indicate no current evidence of Iran building a nuclear weapon, Trump responded: “My intelligence community is wrong.” When informed that this assessment came from his DNI, Tulsi Gabbard, Trump reiterated: “She is wrong.”
Gosh, it all makes me flash back to the turn of the century. Dubya Bush, asleep at the wheel, missed intelligence warnings about major terrorist attacks on the United States. We know the results of that day as 9/11. That security failure was used as a platform to attack Iraq and Afghanistan.
Iraq was attacked because the Bush Administration alleged Iraq had or were developing Weapons of Mass Destruction. WMD. Everyone remember that? Remember also that our intelligence showed that wasn’t the case. Just months after telling the world that Saddam Hussein wasn’t a threat, Colin Powell did a 180 and went on a campaign to convince everyone that he now was. As then VEEP Dick Cheney cherry-picked info to give us the rational for attacking, the United States steamrolled toward war on lies, flawed intelligence, and poor reasoning.
Now, here we are, in the wake of Israel’s surprise pre-emptive attack on Iran, contemplating joining the fray. Trump, now playing a dumber version of George Dubya Bush, thinks he knows better, as TACO always does. He can’t spell, he has a poor understanding of history, he doesn’t like to read, is a terrible negotiator, has an inflated ego and lies like a Persian rug, but this fool is insisting that he knows better.
Having just closed one disastrous chapter on war in that region, he seems hellbent on dragging the United States into another. Well, time will tell, won’t it?
Sunda’s Wandering Political Thoughts
Donald Trump declared “Liberation Day” on April 2, 2025. The phrase was used in conjunction with his ‘retaliatory tariffs’.
It reminds me of George Dubya Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” speech on the USS Abraham Lincoln. Given on May 1, 2003, six weeks after the U.S. led Iraq invasion, the Bush Administration backpedalled from the speech and the phrase. Dan Bartlett, Dubya’s communications director, said it was the ship’s banner. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld claimed that he edited the speech and removed references to “Mission Accomplished”. Bush later stated in several different interviews that “Mission Accomplished” was a mistake.
History tells that the mission wasn’t accomplished as far as that disastrous war goes.
At the time of the president’s speech, Americans had yet to pay the main costs of the Iraq War. The years immediately following “Mission Accomplished” were the deadliest in the conflict, which has left 4,500 U.S. troops killed and over 32,000 wounded. American taxpayers can expect to pay nearly $3 trillion for the Iraq War through 2050 when factoring the costs of veterans’ care, war-related defense spending increases, and additional interest on the national debt.
On a strategic level, President Bush was even more pollyannaish. He declared that, in deposing Saddam, the U.S. had “removed an ally of al-Qaeda” and prevented terrorist networks from “gain[ing] weapons of mass destruction from the Iraqi regime.” These claims reinforced since-disproven narratives that there was a connection between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden to begin with, or that the Iraqi government had weapons of mass destruction.
The key results of the invasion were two-fold: it empowered Iran to expand its influence in Iraq and across the Middle East by removing a check, and it aided our great power competitors, Russia and China, by distracting us in counterinsurgency operations for decades, delaying modernization programs, and wearing out our all-volunteer force and its strategic assets — such as the B-1 bomber fleet — from overuse.
In the days since that Bush speech, “Misson Accomplished” has often been employed in a mocking fashion. As in, “If you were trying to prove yourself ignorant, mission accomplished.”
As the Bush Admininistration did with the war in Iraq, Trump is using misinformation to convince us this is a great idea. Trump’s tariffs have introduced huge uncertainty. His thinking defies the lessons of history and economic theory. Trump will have you believe that the experts’ opinions that he’s wrong proves that he’s right.
I have doubts. Trump has always claimed to be the greatest. Evidence proves him otherwise. He says he’s a great negotiator. Evidence shows otherwise. He claims to be a brillant businessman. Multiple bankruptcies and failed businesses undermine that claim. Trump has instead proven that he’s an inveterate con man, master of spin, and consummate liar.
I believe that “Liberation Day” will join “Mission Accomplished” as a new mocking label in history. As it happened with “Mission Accomplished”, we’ll see in a few years what “Liberation Day” means to the United States and world.
Munda’s Wandering Political Thoughts
Yes, here we go again.
Anyone remember President George Dubya Bush’s war on Iraq?
He wanted to attack it and was looking for a reason. Polls show the public divided about it. Administration officials like Colin Powell said that Iraq wasn’t a threat.
Then we had 9/11.
The Bush Administration was quick to try to connect 9/11 and Iraq, and then began painting pictures of fictional ‘weapons of mass destruction’. They worked hard to sell the need to invade Iraq because of the imminent threat Saddam Hussein posed. Intelligence was cherry picked. The press got involved. Stories were planted by journalists favorable to the administration. Then the administration would quote those newspapers and stories to convince people that even the ‘liberal mainstream press agreed’ that war was needed.
Any of this sound in any way familiar? It should. It was a marketing campaign. The Trusk Regime is doing something similar. Floating the idea. See what sticks. Repeating it, repeating it, repeating it so people become familiar to it. As using military force gains traction as an idea to ‘keep America safe’, the logic behind it becomes twisted. Intel will get cherry picked or made up completely. People not really paying attention to WTF is going on will begin agreeing, “Yes, we need to do this. We need to use military force against this growing threat.”
Use your search engines and the net’s ability to store and recall information to check the polls and reporting of the period before the invasion of Iraq. The pattern was clear then; it’s clear now. Part of the sell back then was how easy such a military adventure would be for a power like the United States. Remember them telling us how short the war would be? How they mocked people who pointed out there wasn’t an exit strategy? Recall, they told us the war would pay for itself.
Trump wants to attack places. Maybe Greenland. Maybe Canada. Perhaps somewhere else. Putting the nation on a war footing will improve his popularity and strengthen his hold. Because if we’re ‘at war’, then criticizing or challenging him can be called out as detrimental to the war effort. Look back at how popular Dubya became for a while. And that was done without AI and bots. Ponder how effectively bots and AI can be used to sell a war on social media these days. Think of DOGE and Elon Reeve Musk’s potential role.
Yemen was a trial balloon to let his military advisors and senior officials a taste of it. More will come.
Tick, tick, tick.
Saturda’s Wandering Political Thoughts
I caught up on reading several posts by Heather Cox Richardson that I’d missed. I appreciate the historic angle she brings to news about Truskzilla’s destruction of the United States. Reading her, I belatedly realized, gosh, I’ve been normalizing Trump and his supporters.
I thought they cared about the United States and its founding principles. Wrong.
Or that the history and heritage of this nation matters. Nope.
That they worry about the Federal deficit and trade imbalances and the stock market. No way.
That usual barometers such as court rulings, disastrous economic results, or opinion polls would have an impact. No fucking way.
That the usual things like how history will judge them matters. It doesn’t; they believe, winners write history. We’ll be the winners. We will write the history.
I did understand that they didn’t care about democracy or voter rights. I did understand that they’re racist, sexist, misogynists, and reactionary. But that was mostly to unite people and put them in office. They needed racist, sexist, reactionary misogynists as their voting base to get them in through the front door.
Those are all normal terms about the normal course of events. Using them in terms of what Trump and the Trusk Regime is doing is normalizing them.
They are not normal. Nor can what they’re doing be called normal.
The Trusk Regime is interested solely in being in power. This is a coup. They’re interested in remaking the United States as an imperial power under a dictatorship. They suggest to each other, why build that mighty military if you’re not going to use it?
Like many dictatorships, the Trusk Regime and GOTP will put up window dressing as a democracy and a republic. But they are setting up the nation to be a military force. Cutting away the things we depend upon as a society — a working and reliable Federal government, healthcare, a safe and healthy environment, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, to point out some — destabilizes us. Growing unemployment increases people’s desperation. Rising prices limits their options and undermines food and shelter security. Sending children back to work breaks family. Ripping apart the education system reduces the nation’s collective intelligence, and with it, its will. All of these actions, taken in blitzkrieg fashion, demoralizes a growing number of people and spreads an increasing sense of helplessness.
That makes the people ripe for propaganda.
With the economy in shambles, other nations can and will be blamed for the growing poverty and starvation. Trade wars and political differences will be magnified and amplified. Trump, a prolific liar, has perfected the arts of projecting, deflecting, and blaming. That’s why he’s been boosted into position as the head of this monster.
They have X to help spread their misinformation. AI bots. Facebook. Threads. A weakening, capitulating media, itself owned by corporations and oligarchs, has already begun joining the effort.
A frustrated, starving population provides ample troops. And just as we saw with the Cheney/Dubya Iraq and Afghanistan wars, marketing can sell false causes. Helpless people hungry for someone to blame other than themselves will be served other nations as targets.
The clock is ticking. And the war drums have already begun beating.
Saturday’s Theme Music
After reading the news updates yesterday, I mourned the patterns, the things we keep doing and won’t change. Haven’t we seen this show before? Assassinating leaders and promoting greater violence while claiming to be de-escalating. We’ve changed centuries; shouldn’t we change our tactics and strategy. No; they continue to fight the last war and run the last political campaign. Of course, there are some that lap it up and beg for more.
The timing was impeccable for this murder. Australia burning, glaciers melting, people fleeing wars and droughts as other nations turn refugees away, but hey, let’s de-escalate by killing others.
Out of that, I started singing Steve Winwood’s “Freedom Overspill” (1986).
Keep on talking all you want
Well you don’t waste a minute of time
Who cares, who knows what’s true
Coffee and tears the whole night through
Burning up on midnight oil
And it’s come right back on you
Freedom Overspill
Freedom Overspill
Force of habit, you could say
The way they talk you’re talking away
Who cares, who knows what’s true
Your wounded pride is burning you up
Burning up on midnight oil
And it’s come right back on you
h/t to Metrolyrics.com cuz’ cutting and pasting song lyrics is easier.
That ‘Force of habit’ line is what hooked me. Nations, like people, fall into habits, especially as leadership and thinking diminishes. Like marketing, they think, well, this worked before. Press drumbeats follow soon. We’ve seen it happen so many times already in this young century.
It takes strength and awareness to change. Does anyone out there have it?
Makes You Think, Don’t It?
“I am not a crook.” (Nixon, on Nixon)
“I never had sex with that woman.” (Clinton, about Monica Lewinsky)
“It could last six days, six weeks. I doubt six months.” (Rumsfeld, about war in Iraq)
“I am a very stable genius.” (Trump, on Trump)
I Believe
A majority of them believe that whites suffer the most discrimination in America. They believe that Christians suffer the most persecution. They believe that Mexicans are rapists and killers, and Obamacare is destroying the economy and eroding freedom. They believe the mainstream press is spreading false news against Trump. Some believe that former President Obama is running a shadow government. Or it might be Hillary, who they call Killary, because they believe she has had so many people killed. They believe that Congress passed an act that awarded veterans of the CSA the same status as US war veterans. They miss the part of the amendment where it states, “For the purpose of this section,” which was about paying pensions, and nothing more. They believe Planned Parenthood was harvesting babies, and that all that Planned Parenthood does is abortions. They believe that a wall will protect them and Trump will save the country.
They are Trump supporters. All those things that they say they believe in interviews, social media posts, and through polls, have been established as false. They believe that the science that predicted the eclipse and its path is being faked when it comes to global warming. It’s part of a huge conspiracy to destroy the United States.
They believe he’s “draining the swamp”
I believe they’ll continue believing these myths and lies. They’ll believe we, the critics, are undermining the POTUS with our criticism. They’ll believe it’s treasonous, that the critics, like me, are liars and obstructionists, as he claims, even though they had no qualms about accusing President Obama of being born elsewhere or hating America. They don’t see the hypocrisy. Hypocrisy and irony often escapes them.
They’ll believe protesters must be shut up, for the good of the nation. They believe that the protesters against the current administration are poor losers. They don’t see the irony in their protests to keep the monuments to the war they lost, the war they fought to keep others enslaved. Because there, too, they have convinced themselves that the rebels who seceded from the Union were heroes defending America and the Constitution. They’ve convinced themselves, it was not about slavery.
They’ll believe that it’ll be for the greater good of the nation to build camps and imprison or restrict “trouble-makers.” They’ll be convinced that this is part of protecting free speech. They’ll believe that the prisoners are treated well, but even so, they deserve to be locked up. It’s their own fault. Why are they protesting these laws if they’ve done nothing wrong?
They’ll believe that if the press stops spreading the myth of climate-change and global-warming, we’ll no longer see the effects, because that was all made-up and exaggerated by the lying press (or Democrats, or scientists). They’ll believe it until the waters are rushing in through their doors.
And when, finally, the truth comes to them because the shit’s hitting them in the face, and they’re standing in the cratered ruins, they’ll say, “I didn’t know. I didn’t know what was going on in those camps. I didn’t know that all this was going on. How could we know? We trusted our leader. He was the government, and we trusted him. How could we know that he was lying?
“How could we know?”
We heard the same thing from Germans after World War II. “How could we know?”
We heard the same thing when Dubya started the war in Iraq. “How could we know?” Many of them still believe that Dubya protected America from terrorism, that the attacks of 9/11 were to be blamed on someone else, no matter when it happened. When, eventually, the results of the WMD Inspections came out, when Dubya finally came out and said, “No, Suddam Hussein had nothing to do with 9/11,” they said, “How could we know? He fooled us all.”
No. He did not fool us all.
That’s what I believe.
Michael Seidel, writer 