JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: COMEY'S BOOK A PLEA FOR DECENCY? - A SIMPLISTIC STATEMENT - NATURE OF AMERICA'S POLITICAL ESTABLISHMENT ALLOWS LITTLE OF THAT - WHAT COMEY REVEALS ABOUT HIMSELF - ALL WRAPPED UP IN THE GUARDIAN'S USUAL CENSORSHIP AND ITS OWN BAD TASTE

John Chuckman


EXPANSION OF A COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY JILL ABRAMSON IN THE GUARDIAN (AND PROMPTLY REMOVED BY EDITORS)



"James Comey has issued a plea for decency. When will Republicans listen?"



First, I'm not sure that James Comey is, or has ever been, in a position to plea for decency.

He's a political animal, a Washington operator, and former head of an agency with a terrible record, quite literally, America's Stasi.

I don’t like Trump’s comic-book term for Washington, the swamp, but there is, undeniably, a big truth in it. People who’ve made their careers there, really should be assumed as not being able to pass the smell test. It is that bad.

If you doubt that statement about the history of the FBI, read this essay:

https://chuckmanwords.wordpress.com/2009/05/26/the-dreadful-record-of-the-fbi/

But even in Comey’s book, where he does strive to give an overall impression of being a Sunday School teacher, we find some remarkably petty, ugly observations. As of Trump’s hair or the size of Trump’s hands. That last is in almost unbelievably bad taste, but I’m a reader who recalls The Guardian, during Trump’s campaign, running a number of ugly, suggestive articles on that very topic. Anything to stop someone you didn’t like. So perhaps back in your shop, that is regarded as decent?

Second, why would you ask about Republicans listening, as though Democrats were free of any nastiness you can cite for Republicans?

I won't go through the long list, but, believe me, as a lifelong follower of events, there is not a lot good to say along the lines of decency for the Democrats.

The progressive world - especially outside the United States - likes to believe that America's Democrats still have real values. But that view is simply not accurate.

FDR, a gigantic figure, still colors memories, but his legacy in America disappeared decades ago.

And even his legacy had its dark areas, as in his refusing to speak out against lynchings in the South - where families sometimes organized picnics to watch a lynching still in the 1930s - for fear of losing the support of Southern Democrats. Eleanor even pleaded with him, but he disagreed with her.

FDR also was a pretty big consumer of the political dirt J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI used to collect voluminously. It could be used to twist the arms of opponents, whether in his own party or the opposition.

Both the major parties of the United States are in fact branches of the same American Imperial Party. They differ only with regard to a limited number domestic social issues, things the Deep State could care less about, but when it comes to wars and the military and the 17 national security agencies and major lobbying groups, they are as one.

Most of the awful wars in which America has involved itself since WWII were with Democrats in the driver's seat, and none of those wars had anything to do with national threats or even matters of principle, although they were all lied about to justify them to ordinary Americans. They were all wars of aggression. Imperial wars, and, maybe, it’s only me, but imperial wars are about as far as you can get from decency.

A conservative estimate for the United States in the post WWII period would be killing 8 million people. I’m pretty sure it’s higher than that, but when you add in all the destruction and refugees and wounded left behind, it is a massive horror.

And, what few realize, is that because the poorer societies who have been targets of these wars have younger age structures - higher numbers of children in proportion to adults than found in advanced societies – a great fraction of that awful toll has been children. You can’t carpet bomb or cluster bomb or napalm such countries without killing many, many children.

Democrats also have a long history of fairly cozy relations with the American Mafia. That is not an accusation, it is simply a fact. Hardly a decent association. Even John Kennedy was contaminated with that. There have been many other genuinely sleazy associations for Democrats, as that of Bill Clinton with a notorious convicted pedophile billionaire who helped him set up the Clinton Foundation, itself a subject of many legitimate questions around corruption. There are 26 logged trips aboard that man’s private airplane, widely referred to as ‘the Lolita Express.”

The bottom line, as Americans are quite fond of saying, is that America’s leadership, virtually all of it, is corrupt, as corrupt as a literally money-drenched political system can make them. Ever see a modern President not leave office as a multi-multi-millionaire, even if he entered in somewhat humble circumstances?  Obama very much comes to mind. A second-tier university lecturer and a junior United States Senator for half a term left the Presidency with a vast fortune.

As a very wise man said, “Power tends to corrupt. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.”