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Liberty Watch Episode 15: Political Division as Diversion
LMV: Hello again and welcome to another edition of Liberty Watch. I am your host Liberty Man Van. Our show for today is entitled “Political Division as Diversion” and will discuss how the differences between Republican and Democratic parties in the U.S. are minor. While on the surface and to listen to the mainstream media and debates on C-SPAN you would think the parties are worlds apart, the reality is that they are alarmingly similar. They are both for big government, fiscal irresponsibility, and the continuing rise of budget deficits and the national debt. Did I mention the national debt?
Video: National debt clock
LMV: That’s right, 20 trillion dollars and growing- more than $170,000 per taxpayer. And that does not include the so-called unfunded liabilities, costs that the government will owe in the future for items such as social security and Medicare. Including these costs adds another $127 trillion, or over $1 Million per taxpayer.
But important questions such as the national debt hardly make it to the surface of the political and news consciousness. I don’t believe this is an accident. The political elites and their willing accomplices in the press don’t want you to focus on these types of issues. Instead they divert your attention to tabloid events such as the Monika Lewinski sex scandal, the supposed hacking of the 2017 presidential election by the Russians, and the alleged use of the term “shithole countries” by Trump to refer to some third world nations in a meeting. Meanwhile the continuing U.S. involvement in a 16 year old war in Afghanistan, the starving children in Yemen caused by a naval blockade by U.S. ally Saudi Arabia, and the growing humanitarian crisis in Venezuela worsened by U.S. sanctions, and the continuing years long political imprisonment of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange go unnoticed.
It is the old Roman bread and circus treatment. Keep the dummies fed and entertained and they will not notice how they are being manipulated and robbed. But with the advent of alternative media sources on the internet we no longer have any excuses for being tricked and misinformed. Evidence the following article I found on disobedientmedia.com entitled “Political Division Is A Hysterical Charade Maintained By Corporate Press.” From the article:
Graphic: 49% of Americans believe the country is: ‘run for the benefit of a small elite.’
“ The Hill recently reported that a staggering 49% of Americans believe the country is: ‘run for the benefit of a small elite.’ In other words, a vast portion of Americans are at least superficially familiar with the concept that the media representation of US politics does not serve the public at large and it functions to a large extent as propoganda.”
LMV: Like a professional magician, one hand diverts our attention with a handkerchief while the other hand secretly performs the mechanics of the trick; our attention has been diverted from what is important. The political parties want us to think as a tribe. Whatever the other tribe does is all evil. Whatever my tribe does is all good. What they don’t want us to see is that they are just fighting over which tribe gets to control us and punish us if we are in the other tribe. The constant bickering between the parties captures our attention. Witness the recent days long coverage of if Donald Trump might have referred to some third world countries as “shithole countries” and if he did what that meant.
Video: “Shithole” comments discussed ad nauseum.
LMV: And back to the Disobedient Media article:
“Disobedient media recently reported on establishment Democrats’ subversion of the Democratic process in the 2016 Primary race, and their attempts to deflect from the revelation of their corruption by focusing exclusively on the largely discredited Russian hacking narrative. Allegations of Russian hacking, then Russian collusion, then Russian social media trolls consumed corporate media attention for what seemed like the entirety of 2017.”
LMV: It seems like about all we heard from CNN and MSNBC in 2017 was about how there was some kind of collusion between the Trump team and Russia. To hear them tell it, Trump was just a puppet of Vladimir Putin. While they were floating these stories to their loyal tribe members watching on TV no substantive evidence of malfeasance has appeared. But we do know that the chairman of the DNC during the primaries, Deborah Wasserman-Schultz was doing everything she could to ensure that Hillary Clinton rather than Bernie Sanders won the democratic nomination for President. The following from Wikipedia.org:
“Wasserman Schultz was elected chairperson of the Democratic National Committee in May 2011, replacing Virginia Senator Tim Kaine.[2][3] On July 24, 2016, Wasserman Schultz announced her resignation from her position after Wikileaks released a collection of hacked emails indicating that Wasserman Schultz and other members of the DNC staff showed bias against the presidential campaign of Senator Bernie Sanders in favor of Hillary Clinton’s campaign.[3] Her resignation was finalized on July 28 following the 2016 Democratic National Convention.[4]”
LMV: While this real life version of rigging an election only lasted in the news for a short time the unproven allegation of hacking by Russia wore on in the news for months. And this from theintercept.com:
“LEADING CONGRESSIONAL DEMOCRATS have spent the last year relentlessly accusing Donald Trump of being controlled by or treasonously loyal to a hostile foreign power. Over the last several months, they have added to those disloyalty charges a new set of alleged crimes: abusing the powers of the executive branch — including the Justice Department and FBI — to vindictively punish political opponents while corruptly protecting the serious crimes of his allies, including his own family members and possibly himself.
…One would hope, and expect, that those who genuinely view Trump as a menace of this magnitude and view themselves as #Resistance fighters would do everything within their ability to impose as many limits and safeguards as possible on the powers he is able to wield.
…Yesterday in Washington, congressional Democrats were presented with a critical opportunity to do exactly that. A proposed new amendment was scheduled to be voted on in the House of Representatives that would have imposed meaningful limits and new safeguards on Trump’s ability to exercise one of the most dangerous, invasive, and historically abused presidential powers: spying on the communications of American citizens without warrants.
…a substantial minority of GOP lawmakers have long opposed warrantless surveillance of Americans and thus, announced their intention to support new safeguards. Indeed, the primary sponsor and advocate of the amendment to provide new domestic spying safeguards was the conservative Republican from Michigan, Justin Amash…
…To secure enactment of these safeguards, Amash needed support from a majority of House Democrats. That meant that House Democrats held the power in their hands to decide whether Trump — the president they have been vocally vilifying as a lawless tyrant threatening American democracy — would be subjected to serious limits and safeguards on how his FBI could spy on the conversations of American citizens.
…Debate on the bill and the amendments began on the House floor yesterday afternoon, and it became quickly apparent that leading Democrats intended to side with Trump and against those within their own party who favored imposing safeguards on the Trump administration’s ability to engage in domestic surveillance.
…LEADING THE CHARGE against reforms of the FBI’s domestic spying powers was Rep. Adam Schiff of California, the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee who, in countless TV appearances, has strongly insinuated, if not outright stated, that Trump is controlled by and loyal to Russian President Vladimir Putin.”
LMV: Here is some video of this same Adam Schiff criticizing Trump for foreign influence.
Video: Adam Schiff
LMV: That’s right, Adam Schiff voted to continue to give Trump’s FBI to illegally spy on American citizens. The two tribes will argue with each other because they each want to control the coercive force in D.C. but they never vote to curtail that force or its ability to spy on Americans. By the way, among the numerous Democrats who voted in favor of giving Trump such unprecedented surveillance ability was infamous former DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz.
Disobedient media continues:
“The vote ripped the mask from the pretense of differentiation between the Democratic party and Republicans, and highlighted instead the troubling bipartisan support among lawmakers for increasing the power of the American deep state.”
LMV: When it comes to increasing state power, the Republican and Democratic tribes are no different. Likewise, they both agree to continue supporting the carnage in the middle east. That brings us to another story that has continued for years and has been shielded from public view, the civil war in Yemen and our support of one of the main players in that conflict- Saudi Arabia. As a part of the war effort, Saudi Arabia has conducted a blockage of Yemen’s ports. This has prevented sufficient food, water, and medical supplies from reaching the people of Yemen. It is the weak, the very young and very old, that have suffered the most death from this blockade. It was started under the Obama administration but has continued with President Trump. Meanwhile, Trump has signed off on a hundred billion dollar arms deal with Saudi Arabia. Thousands of lives lost to hunger and cholera have underscored the complete lack of difference in foreign policy between two presidents, Trump and Obama, who could not seem more different.
LMV: There was a time in America when we could point to the antiwar left. During the Vietnam war there was widespread protest against the war. As more U.S. soldiers came back in body bags the protests grew louder. Yes, some of the protesters were simply opportunistic thugs and communist sympathizers who wanted to tear the country apart. But others were protesting what they saw as a pointless war in a far-away country and were looking out for the young men conscripted to fight in the jungles of southeast Asia; they wanted to bring the boys home alive.
But the days of a solid anti-war sentiment from the left or right side of the political spectrum have vanished. Neither party, for example, has spoken out about our continued 16 year occupation of Afghanistan. Politicians don’t speak of ending the war, only of how we should conduct it. It started under Bush, was continued under Obama, and has continued under Trump. No matter which party is in power we get the same policy- more war.
Any sane person looking at U.S. military involvement in the middle east since 9/11 can see that it has been an unmitigated disaster. Since the invasion in Afghanistan over 30,000 civilians have died. Over 2300 U.S. soldiers have died and more than 20,000 have been wounded. An estimated 150,000 total humans have died in Afghanistan and Pakistan since 2001 as a result of the war. No end is in sight.
And how about the 2003 invasion of Iraq? Americans were told that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and must be toppled from power. Iraq was defeated, its leader slain, and a new government was installed after elections. But the continued occupation of Iraq led to an insurgency and after the U.S. military withdrew chaos reigned. The new power vacuum in Iraq destroyed what had been a counterbalance to Iran in the region. Iran’s influence in the region has been augmented thanks to the U.S. invasion. And what to show for it? 500,000 Iraqi civilians are dead, more than 4500 U.S. soldiers are dead and more than 32,000 wounded.
And let’s not forget Libya. After taking one secular ruler out in Iraq and creating chaos the U.S. president, this time Obama, thought it would a good idea to take out another secular ruler. This time the victim was Muammar Gaddafi and the result was the same- more bloodshed and civil war. The result for has been a massive influx of migrants from Africa pouring through Libya and crossing the Mediterranean Sea into Western European countries.
We are given the illusion in the U.S. that because we elect our representatives we have control of the government. Nothing could be further from the truth. President Bush, Jr. ran as the anti-war candidate. Obama ran as the anti-war candidate and for closing Guantanamo bay. President Trump in his campaign signaled that we should decrease our footprint in the middle east. Americans vote for less war but only get more war. Every few years a new puppet is placed in the oval office but nothing changes. We only have the illusion of control. As long as we agree to be taxed without our consent our tax dollars will continue to be spent on warfare, domestic spying, and increasing the federal leviathan.
But not everyone has been fooled. We will end the episode today with a clip from the premiere political sage of our age, George Carlin.
Video: George Carlin
LMV: That’s the show for today. See you next time on Liberty Watch where we don’t believe you need some guy with a bullhorn to tell you what to do.