Fooled Again?

Today’s big left issue is Biden’s “collaboration” with Israel and Netanyahu’s Gaza-and-beyond expansionist war. Lots of voters, who might be Democratic voters, are abstaining or tossing their votes into the sewer for alternative “candidates” in protest. It struck me that they are likely falling for one of the oldest Republican tricks in the Treason Book.

Republican far-right politicians have been pulling off red-herring voter scams using treason as a tactic since before our involvement in WWII. The Foreign Agents Registration Act that ensnared Paul Manafort was a byproduct of that period. Disinformation was a pretty common weapon in their toolbox, too. The 1940’s America First Committee propaganda organization included several congresscritters, including Representative Hamilton Fish III (R-NY), who used congressional franking privileges to publish and mail disinformation to their constituents. Lucky for the world, they were unsuccessful; back when the US empire was likely at its intellectual peak.

Skip forward to 1968 and Republican candidate Richard Nixon sent Henry Kissinger and Anna Chennault to Paris to sabotage President Johnson’s desperate attempt to end the Vietnam War. Liberals and middle-of-the-road voters were conned into imagining that Nixon’s “Secret Peace Plan” actually existed. Back then the Soviet Union was afraid of Republicans and they were pressing North Vietnam to participate in the peace talks. Nixon’s tactic worked and he buried the nation in war debt, that is still unpaid, and corrupted the federal government. American democracy took a series of hits from Nixon’s Republican gangsters that set us up for the next treasonous Republican regime; Ronald Reagan.

Now it’s 1980, and President Carter is entangled in the Iranian Hostage Crisis; another marginally significant event that captured more attention than it was worth. There is substantial evidence that William Casey, who would become Reagan’s CIA head, and Joseph Verner Reed, who was Reagan’s ambassador to Morocco, negotiated with the Iranians to hang on to the hostages, 52 US diplomats, until after the election. Later, that turned into the Arms-for-Hostages payoff that established Reagan’s “Teflon President” credentials.

Now, it’s 2024 and President Biden, and Vice-President Harris, are tangled up in Netanyahu’s war on Gaza’s civilians and Netanyahu’s desperate attempt to stay out of jail (like his parallel in the US, Donny Trump). As Matt Brooks, executive director of the Republican Jewish Coalition, said in 2019, “There’s not much daylight between Netanyahu and Republicans, at least Republican elected leaders.” When President Obama was attempting to apply some leverage on Israel in 2015, Netanyahu’s speech to the Republican congress was both an insult to Obama but to the intelligence of the United States citizens. By 2015, US “intelligence” was in such decline that at least half of the country received the insult as a compliment.

There is absolutely nothing about the herd of Republicans, in either the House or the Senate, that should inspire confidence in their honesty, decency, or patriotism. If you don’t think that Netanyahu is talking, regularly, to Mike Johnson, Mitch McConnell, and everyone who will listen in the Trump campaign, you are a gullible fool. These clowns would sell out their own mothers for a reasonable bid. Sadly, what remains of the US investigative “press” has been co-opted by Republican billionaires and it could be a lot longer than it took to uncover the details of Reagan’s treason before we learn about today’s misdirection.

Most Americans, including the so-called “educated” left, don’t know how our government works. They imagine that the President has ultimate power to direct aid, the military, and civil service. Even Donny whined (surprise!) about how little power the President has to wreak things and get his way. If Republicans want to sabotage Biden’s attempts to end the Gaza invasion, they have a more than willing accomplice in Netanyahu. Netanyahu has zero interest in stopping his war because, if he does, he’s in the same kind of corruption legal mess as Trump. It’s a long term bet, like 10 years, but I’d bet $100 that, eventually, we’ll learn Republicans are encouraging Netanyahu to keep up his invasion and illegal war until, at least, after this election.