John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY MIKE WHITNEY
"Putin Says 'The Rich Must Pay' for the Corona-Virus
"He’s going to tax the rich.
"It’s a remedy that most Americans would support if they were given the choice, but they weren’t asked"
Indeed.
This is just one of many matters which help define genuine leadership.
Putin always seems to keep in mind the wider interests of his society - whether in military matters or foreign policy or economic projects or a natural disaster.
He has a completely different style, but with the gifts and instincts and vision of an FDR.
Trump is just a fumbling pretender, a carnival barker, a noisy infomercial salesman.The wider interests of society never cross his mind. He just keeps selling himself as of central importance, pretending he has command over affairs, regularly claiming achievements where none exist.
He serves America’s plutocracy and its power establishment, unfailingly, while mouthing outlandish clichés and slogans about the people.
He serves the establishment in war and empire, and he serves it in domestic policies which do not consider the public good, whether in matters of taxation or healthcare or compassion or attention to important infrastructure.
What ordinary American benefits from trying to destroy the government of Venezuela or Iran or Cuba? What benefits come from aggression towards China and Russia? None.
Huge sums are squandered just to hurt others and tell them how they should run their societies. Ordinary Americans are burdened with tens of billions in costs to achieve nothing of worth.
As if the world doesn’t have enough pain and misery already, American leadership is dedicated to creating still more.
The rather bad joke of America telling others how to run their affairs is that America cannot run its own.
Look at the record of response to the pandemic. Russia has produced remarkable results so far and shows every promise of continued success. And a relatively poor country like Cuba has given a great deal of expert assistance to others. Much-maligned China is emerging as a world-class model of how these things should be done.
America has a rapidly growing chaos of disease, finance, economy, aggression, and fear. The government is ineffectual and noisy.
It looks stupid constantly trying to blame and label others, as with its ceaseless accusations against China.
You do not build a future that way, and it could well be that the terrible set of problems in which America finds itself may produce long-lasting disastrous results and instability in much of what Americans regard as normal society.
