COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN RUSSIA INSIDER
It's Been a Very Good
Year for Israel and Her Friends
"Congress is to a certain extent the source of all
evil."
Not quite right.
Money for campaign costs plus laxity in lobbying laws are
the sources of all evil.
And that same money buys the pathetic Congress we see in
America.
But Americans, many of them, are adamant about private financing
of campaigns.
It's a ridiculous prejudice, and it has become enshrined in
law by a Supreme Court decision that equates money and free speech.
If that doesn't make sense to you, don't worry, it makes
little sense to an thinking person who is not involved in the receiving or
giving of campaign contributions.
And elections are costly in the US. You see, if your
opponent can spend unlimited amounts, then you must do so too.
Hillary Clinton, for example, burned through at least 1.2
billion dollars in her failed campaign.
It took a billionaire to beat her.
Anyway, that billionaire is also not immune to the effects
of unlimited campaign spending. His party's chances in Congress (Congressional
elections in 2018) depend on it.
Well, you can just imagine the pressure to give Israel
whatever it wants in the current situation, and that's just what Trump is
doing.
The money and good publicity (The simple fact is that Jewish
Americans do own most of the high-end press and broadcasting in the US - it's a
powerful political tool) will flow from the Israel Lobby owing to his stunt in
giving away someone else's capital.
The history of this kind of thing goes back to Harry Truman
in 1948. He was immensely pressured to recognize Israel despite his personal
doubts about doing so.
Truman was losing to the Republicans' Thomas Dewey, but
after his decision for the Israel Lobby, things turned around and he won what was
an unexpected victory.
Well, that event set a political precedent, a very poor one.
Since then, all American Presidents have, to one degree or
another, pandered to Israel.
Perhaps the worst of them was Lyndon Johnson who both began
the massive annual subsidy in foreign aid to Israel, but who also secretly
colluded with Israel on the Six Day War.
We do not know the details of Johnson's collusion, but he
was perfectly ready to see an American intelligence ship, the Liberty, sunk
with all hands by Israel.
The Israel attack was deadly serious, killing many, but it failed
to sink the ship.
Now, wouldn't you expect a ferociously-tempered Johnson to
make Israel pay for that?
No, he meekly called back all forces going to help the
Liberty and never in public said a harsh word about Israel, despite its
deliberate act of war. One former senior American naval officer who was
dispatching assistance has written, long afterwards, that he had received a
direct communication from Johnson saying he wanted that ship to go to the
bottom.
Why? Israel may have known of his collusion in the
assassination of John Kennedy, and, undoubtedly, Israel's Lobby made sure
Johnson would be rewarded.
It's all a vicious business with the affairs of a tremendously
powerful state deeply affected by a tiny one and ending up often doing things
against its own long-term interests.
But it is a self-inflicted wound.
Congress set the standards for campaign financing and for
lobbying activities, and it is married to the corrupt situation which has
evolved.
NOTE: For background on recent events around this topic, see:
Note especially the footnote there, written about three
weeks after the essay.
