RW Reagan to JR Biden Era Americans abstracted, careless of smoke and mirrors

Bamboozled, hoodwinked, duped, swindled!

At least two contemporary-era U.S. presidents, Ronald Wilson Reagan (40th) and Donald John Trump (45th), were actors involved in large and small screen film; and thus, would be (or would have been) intimately familiar, in more than one sense, with act and concept of smoke and mirrors.

 

Image examined closely proves illusion

Washington and Co Powers That Be (pageantries of puppet and puppeteers) in perpetual disguise (hiding their true face, covering their unspeakable acts) draw public attention away from hard facts, unpleasant reality; high crimes and consequences; deliberate causation of social, economic, political, governmental, health and educational, human and interpersonal, global crises.

One writer reflected on the current headline-grabbing, social and traditional media madmen (madwomen) promoting spectacle of indicters and indicted (accusers and accused, proponents and opponents). 

Don’t be fooled.

Essayist Eric London warns the working class about taking sides “in the conflict within the ruling elite.” It is necessary, he advises, “that the working class elaborates a clear and independent position by refusing to take sides in this crisis between two reactionary factions of US imperialism.”

The 38-count federal criminal indictment against the forty-fifth President of the United States neither references nor upholds “democratic rights” or laws enshrined in the Constitution of the United States (or focuses on the violation of these).

This latest indictment of convenience (lodged not many years ago against U.S. soldier Chelsea Manning and Australian journalist Julian Assange, also the same section used against a U.S. National Guard intelligence officer “for disclosing classified documents related to US involvement in preparing and prosecuting [undeclared] war in Ukraine”) is harnessed to “US imperialism’s most powerful statutory tool for guarding high-level secrets”: the 1917 Espionage Act.

In its original definition, dating at least a century (long before Woodrow Wilson or World War I), Espionage meant spying: “the practice of spying or using spies to obtain information about the plans and activities especially of a foreign government.”

Espionage Act 1917

Rooted in paranoia and exploited fear of “internal threats” (left-right / red-blue / difference-dissent in today's but not only today's terms) — “posed especially by foreign-born Americans,” the 28th U.S. President more than a year before the U.S. entry into World War I pressured the Congress to pass the “Espionage Act” whose enactment in 1917 became governmental entities and individuals’ catchall for targeting almost anyone (“including pacifists, neutralists, communists, anarchists, and socialists”) “who opposed war.”

Setting aside paranoia for the moment, it would appear that the Espionage Act, in its original intent, was to be used in a time of declared war, which means a formal document (a “formal declaration” catalogued by the federal register, congressional record, national archives and other official libraries) had been issued by the Government of the United States comprised of three branches documented and including the Executive signature and advice and consent of the Legislative Branch, stating outright that a state of war exists between the USA and some other nation.

The truth is the United States has not declared war in more than 80 years (the last time in 1942 war was declared against Axis-allied Hungary, Bulgaria, and Romania).

This means that for all the years after 1942, United States entities and individuals have commanded, committed and acquiesced to criminal (extra judicial) acts of aggression against nations. 

Not only that. They have done so wantonly, recklessly and with impunity against nations, leaders, peoples, various individuals who have never (not ever) in any way shape or form attacked or threatened the United States of America or its people.

Espionage Act (Silencer) 1918-2013 Debs to Snowden

World War I ended in 1918 and prominent labor leader, five-time Socialist Party of America presidential candidate, and staunch critic of U.S. involvement in the war (including speaking out against registration for military draft) Eugene V. Debs was charged and convicted under the 1917 Espionage Act.

• 1973 RAND Corporation think tank employee and military analyst Daniel Ellsberg (who exposed to the press the 37th President’s “decision-making process in conducting and continuing the U.S. participation in the Vietnam War”) was charged under the Act.

• 2010 U.S. Army Private First Class (born Bradley Edward Manning) Chelsea Manning (concerning disclosure to the press of “classified or sensitive military documents” regarding U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan) was charged and (2013) convicted by a military tribunal under the Act.

• 2013(June) Former CIA employee and U.S. government contractor Edward Snowden (involving leaks to journalists of “classified National Security Agency (NSA) documents dealing with U.S. global surveillance programs”) was charged under the Act.
• 
  

Espionage Act Today 

Today, the Espionage Act of 1917 continues to be used to criminalize “spying” or other acts interpreted as “aiding an enemy of the United States.” In what seems to be an acceleration of serial carelessness or individual convenience, the Act is being used against people “who, for any reason, divulge or share classified government information without permission.”

The current indictment barrage “is based entirely on defending the prerogatives of the military-intelligence apparatus…,” London writes. The cast of performers—promoters and detractors (left-right-center, indicted and indicters)—are equally “ruthless imperialist politicians” differing only in their choice of “tactics.”

Exposed in the prosecutorial charging narrative—heretofore hidden from the body politic, the people of the United States, the populace, the public and deliberately ignored by complicit media and press— is “advanced-stage planning for world war, including war involving strategic nuclear weapons.”

London explains:

“Behind the backs of the population—in rooms to which the public is barred from entering and without any serious inquiry from the corporate media—leading military and intelligence officials are gaming the impact of nuclear exchanges and tallying the cost to human life of various military options being planned in American imperialism’s desperate struggle for world domination.”

 

The problem (or rather part of a multifaceted problem) we have in the United States is this.

We are trying to run (stand tall and run) with one leg amputated sans prosthesis or crutch and one arm tied behind our back. We are hampered in being Americans, in performing (and taking pride in performing) our civic duties as citizens of the United States of America Americans because of the ideology, actions, the unprincipled and indeed anti-American nature an inbred gerontocratic, kleptocratic uniparty (and friends). 

Younger Americans never having been taught the meaning of citizenship give no thought to their citizenry duty. 

Older Americans are bitter, cynical, submissive; or all three. 

Incestuous anachronistic leadership and dominating noise in various media have sucked the life blood out of otherwise able-bodied citizens. 

Narcissistic actors and dreamers of world domination show themselves to be equally contemptuous and uncaring of America and Americans as they are of other nations and peoples.

London is right. Americans must not be fooled by the pageantry. Do not succumb to smoke and mirrors. Do not take sides with the destroyers. 

Instead, work out in detail and with other workers “a clear and independent position, refusing to take sides in the crisis between two reactionary factions of US imperialism.”


Sources

London, Eric, “Justice Department indicts Trump for retaining top secret military plans.” June 10, 2023, https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/06/10/pxrz-j10.html
https://www.wsws.org/en/authors/Eric-London

Longley, Robert. “The Espionage Act of 1917: Definition, Summary, and History.” ThoughtCo, December 6, 2021, thoughtco.com/1917-espionage-act-4177012 https://www.thoughtco.com/1917-espionage-act-4177012

Related
Kishore, Joseph (perspective). “The indictment of Donald Trump: A politically bankrupt diversion.” March 31, 2023, https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/04/01/pers-a01.html
Martin, Patrick. “Trump indicted on seven federal charges in documents case.” June 9, 2023
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/06/09/gnso-j09.html

Other general reference sources

Composition and Commentary excluding quoted material and individual images

Copyright © Carolyn LaDelle Bennett

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