Monday, October 15, 2018

The Final Solution: Towards a Value Free Politics


Value free politics means, it doesn’t matter what any regime does as long as they’re on your side. Of course the US has a long history of this kind of realpolitik. In Chile, the right wing dictator Augusto Pinochet became our choice over the democratic socialist Salvador Allende when the “domino theory” and “spheres of influences” were still important catchphrases of US foreign policy. Remember a Secretary of State named John Foster Dulles? The United States would depose Mossadegh and replace him with the Shah. Now the Trumpocracy is  selling us to the selfsame "Russkies" Colonel Buck Turgidson (George C. Scott) warned against in Dr. Strangelove.The president has called Kim Jong-un who has yet to promise anything and who likely ordered the murder of his own half-brother (and who the hell else) “a funny guy” “a great negotiator” and “very smart” while still sending the Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin to a conference in Saudi Arabia. This latter is occurring despite the apparent ordering of the grisly murder of the muckraking journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi born US resident on Turkish soil. With friends like these who needs enemies? In the light of Mike Pompeo returning from a recent stopover in North Korea where he discussed a second summit, it’s as good a time as any to remember Neville Chamberlain’s famous words: "My good friends, for the second time in our history, a British Prime Minister has returned from Germany bringing peace with honour. I believe it is peace for our time. We thank you from the bottom of our hearts. Go home and get a nice quiet sleep.

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