A Christmas Story: Trumpian Symbol “Flynn” Rebuked by Judge
According to the news, Judge Emmet Sullivan, a Reagan appointee, told the former National Security advisor, Mike Flynn in court that the former national security advisor had “arguably sold his country out.” Flynn a three-star general, retired, had confessed to lying to the FBI but in a pre-sentence filing, whined about being entrapped, statements he walked back when questioned by the Judge. The Judge, however, had access to the nefarious blacked-out portions of the court documents, filed by Special Counsel Robert Mueller (a former eight-year director of the bureau). Judge Sullivan raised the question many of us have wondered about: “treason.”
Prosecutors claimed that Flynn’s violations didn’t rise to that level. In the United States Constitution. Article III, section 3 reads as follows: “Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.
“The Congress shall have Power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted.”
Regardless the Judge gave Flynn a 90-day continuance and hinted at the possibility of incarceration. As Flynn emerged on the sidewalk, the crowd hollered “Lock him up.” The former lobbyist for Turkey and friend of Russia, once rallied Trumpians in chants of “Lock her Up” aimed at Hilary Clinton.
“None Dare Call It Treason”
Long ago in the early 60s, I read a book pushed by the John Birch Society, called “None Dare Call It Treason.” (Birchers, right-wing extremists were funded in part by todays funders of the right, the Koch Brothers’ father). In a NYT July 17, 2018 obituary writer Neil Genzlinger discusses the death of author John A. Stormer, whose 1964 book above sold several million copies to right wing sympathizers. Basically, Stormer promoted the idea that the “American government and institutions were full of Communist sympathizers” (Genzlinger). Barry Goldwater picked up the chant but lost the 1964 election to LBJ.
The McCarthy hangover from the 50s—commie guilt by association—which roiled the country and resulted in the Hollywood Blacklist et al influenced not only the younger Koch brothers but Ronald Reagan as President of SAG, who turned on his fellows, whom he suspected of left-wing sympathies. Current USA President DJT came of age under the influence of Joseph McCarthy’s advocate, the devilish attorney, Roy Cohn.
Hence the irony of the “anti-communist” movement today as Conservatives and Republicans betray their principles and America by embracing Putin and Russia, the once and future Soviet Communist former socialist state, turned Kleptocracy. Trump wants a hotel in Moscow. So, Trump (and Flynn) ignored Putin’s subversive information war against American elections. Today, according to Mueller, DJT’s fellow travelers include a number of indicted felons at home and abroad, including Michael Flynn, often pictured at dinner with Vladimir Putin.
Stormer, according to the obit, advised people to read two newspapers a day of opposite editorial viewpoints. He also urged his readers to make God a meaningful force in their lives and to be politically active. “If Communism [Russian Kleptocracy] comes to America,” he wrote, “you will lose not only your money, but your freedom, your children, your home, and possibly your life.”
The Enemy of the People
Both Trump supporters and progressive members on the left know today who is: “the real enemy of the people.” Neither communists nor journalists but the elite war profiteers, corporate parasites, high tech brain suckers or gas or oil polluters as well as the heretics hiding among Evangelicals and at the Vatican, who would sacrifice the living to the “unborn” count as the authors of the current civil war. When SCOTUS declared a paper corporation as a “person” (in Citizens United), the court transmogrified God’s children into homo economicus.
The Fat Boys, see Tump, Koch Brothers et al, want all the money, all the assets, and want the rest of us to labor as minimum wage slaves. Trump is merely the manifestation of Capitalism turned Vendidoism (like the local greedheads at the KCEC Coop). Unbridled greed and avarice serve as motors of today’s economic system.
The establishment divides and conquers by periodically sacrificing the lives of children (Sandy Hook), teenagers (Parkland), the masses of men, women, children (Las Vegas) to the gun, or the new god of NRA divisiveness. Further, ICE agents orchestrate Trump’s mass “kidnapping” operation at the Border to divert attention as the Planet heats up and spews fire and floods in preparation to eject this plague of human vermin.
Long ago, the birth of Jesus at Christmas embodied the hopes of human beings. Though the journey ended in human sacrifice at Easter, His death exposed the guilty Romans, Israeli Scribes and Pharisees in far-away Palestine, where today’s genocidal sacrifice continues under the aegis of “God’s chosen people.”
As Nietzsche said, “The last Christian died on the Cross.” Though he also mentioned that it’s better to die young or not to have been born, I prefer the Chinese curse: “May you live in interesting times.”
Amen.