Do you know where the words “disaster” and “catastrophe”
came from? They both contain the word “astra” which is Latin for star. And so,
when someone cries out disaster or catastrophe, they use a single word to recreate
the English expression “the sky is falling.” Now, let's play a little game:
The sky is falling, the sky is falling!
Where? Where?
Here, it's falling here.
But there is nothing here.
Yes there is; rain is dropping.
The sky does not fall because rain is dropping.
In this case, I conned you, I conned you.
That's exactly the sort of game that John Bolton and people
like him are playing. The exception is that they will not admit they conned
you. They believe in what they do because they have an agenda that depends on
the American people believing the sky is falling on the country. The trouble,
they say, is that the political leadership in America is not mobilizing the
resources that the country still has to do what it was doing before (when it
was wealthier) and got kicked in the butt doing it.
This time, Bolton is repeating his refrain in an article
that came under the title: “Ukraine 's
drama, Obama's weakness” and the subtitle: “It's the job of U.S. leaders to
see beyond today's domestic issues to protect larger national interests well
into the future.” It was published in the Los Angeles Times on December 12,
2013.
To make the readers believe they see something that is
different from what they are looking at, Bolton
gives them a literary goggle to wear. He wants the readers to look at a natural
phenomenon such as rain, and believe they witness the mythological story of the
world coming to an end because they see not rain drops but stars falling to
Earth – they see a disaster.
And the way he does that is by dreaming up a false
comparison between President Obama and his predecessors. It is this: “Unlike
them, his first thought every morning seems to be not the international threats
facing the United States and
its allies; rather his aim is to transform America . Only when international
affairs cannot be avoided does Obama emerge from his domestic policy bubble.”
This is one magical goggle that allows him and his readers
to see what goes on inside the head of Obama, first thing in the morning, and
what used to go on inside the heads of his predecessors. Not only that, but the
goggle has the ability to make you believe that the first priority of an
American President is not domestic issues but the conflict of foreigners in far
away places such as Ukraine whose disputes strike the American public as being
“hardly connected to their daily lives.”
But that's not all because the story gets worse, believe it
or not. It is that the “Republicans also ignore Obama's indifference … Perhaps
they are uncomfortable with the issues … Nor do the media help, giving limited
coverage to a stunning shift in Asia 's balance
of power.” How outrageous! All of these man-made catastrophes happening in one
place at one time!
Breathless, isn't it? Everybody is screwed up in America
except John Bolton and his lucky readers “perhaps because of the [country's]
focus on economic recovery since 2008.” But what's the solution, John? You
asked what's the solution? I'll give you a solution. Here it is: “If America lacks
such leaders, we face no higher priority than finding new ones, and quickly.”
Get it? Let's throw the existing rascals out, and get new ones in. But what
will the new ones do, John? You asked what they will do? I'll tell you what
they'll do. Here is my long answer:
Remember me telling you about the shift in Asia 's
balance of power? It is happening because China has built a powerful economy.
Remember how we bankrupted the Soviet Union ?
We did it because we had a powerful economy. Do you know what happened to the Soviet Union after bankruptcy? It became today's Russia – Putin's Russia . And do you know what Putin
is doing now? He is swallowing Ukraine .
So you want to know what we can do? We can get into an arms race with China and lose like the Soviet
Union did. We then snatch victory from the Jaws of defeat like
Putin did. And we snatch Ukraine
from his jaws.
Get it? We repeat history, we get to wear the shoes of
Vladimir Putin and we become winners like him. Devilish, isn't it? Call me what
you wish but I am John Bolton, grandest strategist of all time, and I move in
mysterious ways like even the gods cannot imagine.