As We Look On In Shock, I Hear The Founder’s Words

You remem­ber when we were sup­posed to be spread­ing democ­ra­cy around the world? When nations were invad­ed and tens of thou­sands killed all in the name of spread­ing democ­ra­cy, how is that work­ing out today?
It seems to me that when you sow seeds you should have expec­ta­tions of a har­vest, that is not an alien con­cept. The thing is that the road to hell is fraught with good intentions.
When the most pow­er­ful nation in the world act it impacts the actions of oth­er nations. Those nations are look­ing on and they are learn­ing. And did Russia ever learn?
In mat­ters of style, swim with the cur­rent; in mat­ters of prin­ci­ple, stand like a rock. – Thomas Jefferson

One has to be either will­ful­ly igno­rant or just plain stu­pid to ignore the assess­ment of all of the US intel­li­gence agen­cies, that Russia inter­vened (not med­dle) in the 2016 elec­tions to aid Donald Trump at the expense of Hillary Clinton.
I am real­ly annoyed at the Media’s use of the term (med­dled), in the con­text of what the Russians did in 2016. Children med­dle in their par­en­t’s stuff.
Busy-body gos­sips med­dle in oth­er peo­ple’s busi­ness. Powerful nations do not employ active mea­sures on behalf of one can­di­date against anoth­er sim­ply because they want to meddle.
“Facts are stub­born things; and what­ev­er may be our wish­es, our incli­na­tions, or the dic­tates of our pas­sions, they can­not alter the state of facts and evi­dence.” ‑John Adams

They engage because they have designs which vast­ly out­size sim­ply putting Trump in office. Russia does not like for­mer Soviet states in their back­yard join­ing the North Atlantic Treaty Alliance(NATO).
Russia would like noth­ing more than to relive it’s for­mer Soviet glo­ry days, those designs do not include its for­mer Sattalites hav­ing alle­giances to, and being pro­tect­ed by a west­ern defense alliance.
Russia under­stands that if there are frac­tures in the world trade orga­ni­za­tion and nations can­not get along they do not have the eco­nom­ic pow­er to chal­lenge its designs in Eastern Europe and beyond.
The great­est abil­i­ty in busi­ness is to get along with oth­ers and to influ­ence their actions. – John Hancock

And so Russia is wag­ing a mul­ti-pronged attack on NATO the WTO and the entire order which emerged after the sec­ond world war. This all while reap­ing the added rewards of a dis­unit­ed America with its dif­fer­ent eth­nic groups at each oth­er’s throats and the Government dis­re­spect­ing and alien­at­ing it’s clos­est and most loy­al allies.
Men often oppose a thing mere­ly because they have had no agency in plan­ning it, or because it may have been planned by those whom they dis­like. ‑Alexander Hamilton

The American excep­tion­al­ism of which we hear much talk only exist­ed because to a large extent most American Presidents adhered to exist­ing norms. No mat­ter how close they col­ored to the lines there was an expec­ta­tion that regard­less of the reck­less­ness of their actions they act­ed on behalf of America, until now.
We are real­iz­ing shock­ing­ly, that past pres­i­dents were con­strained not so much by laws but by respect and awe for the posi­tion they held, until now.
What we thought were laws were just norms, those norms were always there to be exploited.
The lib­er­ties of a peo­ple nev­er were, nor ever will be, secure, when the trans­ac­tions of their rulers may be con­cealed from them. – Patrick Henry

It was­n’t dif­fi­cult for the Russians to exploit America’s sim­mer­ing racial divide. For four hun­dred years plus, America has exploit­ed, abused and mis­treat­ed its racial minori­ties. Regardless of the suc­cess­es of its white major­i­ty, there has always a cold indif­fer­ent lack of empa­thy for their black and native American broth­ers and sisters.
Their fail­ures and anx­i­eties, cou­pled with the pos­si­bil­i­ty of becom­ing a minor­i­ty among the nations com­bined eth­nic groups have rekin­dled old hatreds.
Those fis­sures did not need much to make them gap­ing crevices, all that was required was a divi­sive con-man with an agenda.
A per­fect storm which pre­sent­ed the per­fect open­ing for a hos­tile for­eign power.
A long habit of not think­ing a thing wrong gives it a super­fi­cial appear­ance of being right. ‑Thomas Paine

Racism has a price, hatred has a price. Unless we refuse to see what is hap­pen­ing right in front of our eyes, or we stu­pid­ly tell our­selves that it is some­thing else, we must agree that Trump is upend­ing the exist­ing order to aid Vladamir Putin’s Russia.
The strangest part of all this is that the entire Republican par­ty which always wrapped itself in the American flag[faux patriots]and parad­ed as patri­ots are in on it.
The shock­ing inevitabil­i­ty of its unfold­ing, cou­pled with the robot­ic accep­tance of the pop­u­la­tion, seems almost Biblical in proportion.
How few there are who have courage enough to own their faults, or res­o­lu­tion enough to mend them. – Benjamin Franklin