Why the 2016 Election Treason Bothers Me so Much
I make no bones about it. There is enough evidence, real and circumstantial, to make me believe that an American running for high elective office knowingly colluded with a foreign power intent on preventing his opponent from being elected.
That is treason.
It would be treason even had it failed.
But it didn't.
And that has put a high elected official of the United States under the influence of a foreign power, compounding the treason further.
I use the term "treason" with measured care, because although we are not at war with Russia, that power is not only actively opposing American interests in economic, political, and cultural spheres throughout the world, but it has historically regarded itself as as opposed to American influence and actions on the world stage. And the foreign leader most involved in this shameful betrayal started his own career in espionage against NATO, and against America and its allies.
This morning, January 7th, only two weeks before he is due to be sworn into America's highest office with an oath to "preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States," this traitor took to the netwaves. He did not apologize for his treason, nor renounce the office obtained by lies, collusion, and betrayal to a foreign power, nor did he repudiate his Russian masters. No, he took to the netwaves to tell Americans that only "stupid people" don't want a better relationship with the foreign power that has perpetrated malignant and criminal espionage against us.
The Betrayer of the United States has made his choice. Doubtless he would have to catapult such propaganda to keep his Russian master happy, in any case. But the terms he's chosen also reveal a profound and shameful ignorance of history.
And not "history" in the sense of long-past events involving dead-and-gone people, but "history" that falls within his own lifespan. The Betrayer of the United States apparently doesn't even feel it's important to understand that history and how it affects the nation and the people he aspires to control.
There's a profound irony here, because I spent a considerable part of the 1970s and 1980s making the case against reflexive enmity with the Soviet Union, and pleading to open channels of communication and cooperation with Russia and its people.
As a Democrat, a progressive liberal, anti-war activist, anti-nuclear proliferation protester, I regarded the whole paranoid "Reds under the bed" mentality as an artifact of hard-line Cold Warrior psychosis.
But even then I never denied the very real threat to American interests represented by the USSR and its oligarchy of political bosses.
Even then I understood their pragmatic need to have America be their enemy. I did not dismiss their genuine frustration with America's technological and economic hegemony, their fear of American ideological influence, and their determination to compete, control, and win a dominant position on the world stage at the explicit expense of America, her prestige, her prosperity, and her arrogant assumption of superiority.
When communism crumbled in upon itself, I admit I cherished some naive hopes that Russians would seize the moment, reinvent their governmental structure, and forge new relationships with their former satrapies based on mutual respect and independent alliances. And perhaps, eventually, re-negotiate the rules of the "spheres of influence" games that had dominated East/West conflict for so long, to render the balance more stable and less toxic.
I said they were naive hopes.
They didn't last long. The West did little, if anything, in the way of bold or visionary outreach to restructure the channels of economic and political opportunity. The brief heyday of possibility ended with the same formerly-communist oligarchs, now transformed into burgeoning predator capitalist oligarchs, back in control.
The "Soviet" labels have been painted over. The economic tyranny of authoritarian Stalinist "communism" has been replaced with the economic tyranny of predator capitalist oligarchy, but the same people are in charge, and essentially the same rules apply.
Russian culture is rich and beautiful. The Russian language is sonorous and inspiring. Russian writers, philosophers, and artists have made amazing contributions to human evolution and the wealth of the spirit. Russian parents love their children and want the best possible futures for them. When you cut Russians, they bleed the same red blood Americans do. They suffer, they love, they laugh, they aspire, just as we do.
I don't hate Russians, and I would love to have better relationships with Russian people.
But not with Russia, the nation, and Vladimir Putin, its President. Not with the relentlessly ambitious cabal who have decades of hostility, deception, malice, and treachery towards America to fulfill. Not with a predator capitalist oligarchy that can operate only in terms of a zero-sum game where they can win only by defeating, degrading, and destroying my country.
I've lived through too much, seen too much history in my lifetime, and, unlike the Betrayer of the United States, the soon to be Traitor-in-Chief and his cowardly, unpatriotic followers, I have paid attention.
I'm not letting this one go.
I'm not dropping this.
Treason it is. Treason it remains.
adamantly,
Bright
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