Donald Trump Has Assembled a “Team of Generals.” So What’s the Problem?

by Nomad

A podcast takes a look at President-elect Trump's decision to surround himself with top military officials and the problem it presents to the long-standing neutrality of the armed forces.

You might not have heard of this news source but The UN Dispatch provides in-depth commentary and coverage on the UN and UN-related issues.
Its managing editor,  Mark Leon Goldberg, also hosts a fairly interesting podcast. Recently, the podcast investigated the implications of President-elect Trump's selection of "a team of generals" to fill key posts in his national security posts.  

His guest, Alice Hunt Friend is a former official in the Pentagon and is currently both a Senior Associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and Adjunct Senior Fellow with the Center for a New American Security.

Top Brass

Most Americans (at least those with anti-fascist views) might find the idea of the former military officials dominating a presidential cabinet, a recipe for any number of disasters.That's especially true in peacetime and especially when the president refuses to support the opinions of intelligence agencies.

Indeed, Friend points out that while members of top military brass have served in civilian roles, (Colin Powell, for example) never before have so many generals been tapped to serve at once and in top positions in the government.

Among the many crumbling institutions when it comes to trust in government the military is saved from that. The American public still holds the United States military in very high regard.  

The problem comes in when  the US military is seen to approve or disapprove of a particular politician whatever his policies might be,
Trump's selection is a way of obtaining a kind of legitimacy that he could not acquire on his own merits. It implies that the United States military is de facto endorsing Trump and his policies. In effect, Trump has politicized the US military to become his private cheerleaders.

From the Archives: Fascism's First Steps: Heywood Broun's Warning From the Past

by Nomad

In June 2012, Nomadic Politics took a moment to honor an old-school reporter in the post entitled "Fascism's First Steps: Heywood Broun's Warning From the Past."

If you've never heard of the name, you are in good company. Before there was Walter Cronkite, before there was Edward R. Murrow, there was Heywood Broun. While probably not exactly in the same league, he was certainly the kind reporter that later great journalists would admire.

Broun worked at some of the most respected newspapers of the day. It was not always a happy relationship. His ideas often rubbed newspapers owners the wrong way.  Early in his career, he was described as "an extraordinary mixture of sophistication and naïveté."  

Like many of the celebrity writers of his day,  Broun was for ten years, (1919 - 1929) a member of the much-celebrated Algonquin Round Table.
That, no doubt, shaped his later witty kind of cynicism. With a professional aplomb, Broun could skewer the pompous egos in the arts and in politics.  

Sadly, one has to hunt high and low even to find a few of his quotes. But here are a few notables.

Write the news as if your very life depended on it. It does!

On people who ignore warnings:

Appeasers believe that if you keep on throwing steaks to a tiger, the tiger will become a vegetarian.

Thanks to Hoodwinked Voters, Trump is About to Ratchet Up Institutionalized Government Corruption

by Nomad

Government Doesn't Care What you Think

A couple of years ago,  Anticorruptionact.org produced a video which sought to explain why our system of representation has broken down. The question was: how did corruption become so pervasive legal in Washington and in state governments around the nation?

A Princeton University study uncovered things we all, on whatever side of the political spectrum you might be on, have long suspected.

Their study took data from nearly 2000 public opinion surveys and compared it to the policies that ended up becoming law. To put it another way, researchers compared what the public wanted to what the government actually accomplished. What they found was extremely disturbing: 

The opinions of 90% of Americans have essentially no impact at all.

The Parable of the River of Freedom

by Nomad

I found this video and thought you might find it interesting. It's narrated by Orson Welles and, according to what I could learn dates back to 1971.
Like all classic parable, it seems as if it were written for our times.

The backstory is provided by Joseph Cavella, a writer for the film.

For several years, Bosustow Productions had asked Orson Welles, then living in Paris, to narrate one of their films. He never responded. When I finished the Freedom River script, we sent it to him together with a portable reel to reel tape recorder and a sizable check and crossed our fingers. He was either desperate for money or (I would rather believe) something in it touched him because two weeks later we got the reel back with the narration word for word and we were on our way.

I hope you enjoy as much as I did.

ACA Repeal and How Trump Voters in Kentucky Threw Themselves Under the GOP Bus

by Nomad

The general interest news site, Vox, went to Whitley County, Kentucky to ask the residents there what they thought of Obamacare.
They were not at all happy.
So it's no surprise that these people overwhelmingly voted for Donald Trump. Throughout the campaign, the billionaire candidate made no secret of his vow to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

What is a surprise is that these Trump voters there are exactly the demographic that benefits the most from Obama's signature healthcare plan. Logically, they ought to be shooting off fireworks for Obamacare. They have the most to lose if Trump keeps his campaign promise about the repeal.

Vox attempts to learn what gives. How and why could voters vote against their own best interests on something as serious as health insurance?
The answers might surprise you.The video's worth watching.