Turnip Trucks
"They don't mind being caught. They mind being punished."
“I may have fallen off the turnip truck, but it wasn't last night.”
Ask any of my rafting buddies, that is one of my favorite expressions. It’s a mash up of a couple of expressions - “I didn’t fall off a turnip truck” and “I may have been born at night, but it wasn’t last night” - but it suits me to a “T”.
Which is appropriate because I want to talk about the “T” word - treason - as it relates to the current occupant of the White House.
In United States law, treason is the crime of a citizen of the United States betraying his or her country. The crime of treason is often described as giving "aid and comfort" to enemies either on U.S. or foreign soil; it is an act punishable by death.
The filing of treason charges is rare in modern history. There have been fewer than 30 cases in U.S. history. A conviction on charges of treason requires a confession by the accused in open court or testimony from two witnesses.
Because in this morning’s news there were more revelations from the bipartisan (which means both liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans) Senate Intelligence committee’s findings as to whether POTUS’ 2016 campaign was aided and abetted by a foreign adversary, namely Russia.
Guess what? Their conclusion was “Yes” - even with the public redactions - and several Intelligence committee members admitted to being horrified at the findings.
As a reminder, seventeen different intelligence assessments came to the same conclusion four years ago.
The only reason more people are not shouting “Treason!” is that we elected the bastard president and the political elite are loath to admit it came under their watch. In addition, they are loath to admit that our entire system of government could be so easily duped and undermined.
Add to that, just as so-called patriots rally around water-boarding, drone strikes, the militarization of the police, extrajudicial kidnappings, and I could go on and on, they have rallied around getting in bed with Russia because it’s a means to an end. Our chief executive is Russia’s useful idiot, simultaneously, all of the wannabe oligarchs and the thousands of bit players who can live large on the scraps want to follow Russia’s lead.
I mean, think of how much graft and grift you can get away with in the United States as it currently exists and then imagine what you could do - as someone in the Beltway power strata - if lawlessness was codified as it is in Russia! The United States is the honeypot, the crown jewel for what I, my friend Steve Laboff and Sarah Kendzior, Missouri author and expert on authoritarianism, have been calling a transnational crime syndicate.
The dots are connected but those who control the government - conservatives - will not throw their ‘imperfect vessel’ to the dogs. He’s the pied piper for America’s authoritarian lovers and every coherent sentence he is able to mutter is red meat for those who feel beaten down by a system they associate with the liberal elite. (Here is where the QAnon conspiracy theories and the QAnon wing nuts come in, but that is for another rant.)
The GOP are staring into the abyss of having to wander the political wilderness for the next forty years if the authoritarian and his handlers in Russia can’t “cheat the house” twice.
There is no other way to explain what is going on. Is there?
They know that we know that they know but it doesn’t matter. Because Democrats can’t bring them to justice while out of power. Conservatives would never use the word treason because they view it, in this particular case, as ‘patriotism’ - doing what is best for the country. Remember, conservatives love the ‘strong father’ rule.
Meanwhile, most politicians who aren’t conservative, shy from the “T” word because it is ‘unthinkable’ under normal circumstances and they are afraid it will label them as extremists.
The Crime Family in the White House probably don’t waste a second thinking of it as treason either, since they are purely transactional creatures. And, because they were woefully indebted to Russia via the comically corrupt Deutsche Bank, they are programmed to think transactionally.
What was the expression Ilhan Omar got in trouble for? “It’s all about the Benjamins.”
Yet another explanation is that this global web’s so entangled that a majority of the players in America’s political power stratosphere don’t really want the skeletons to emerge from the closet. Is it corruption if everybody who’s anybody has a hand in it? Not everybody is a player and thus we get these herky jerky lurches seemingly toward justice. It keeps us clinging to the notion that the rule of law will - eventually - succeed.
We’re Americans. Watching what is - essentially - an elaborate kabuki dance. Completely in the dark as to what is going on even though it is happening in real time right before our eyes.
Sarah Kendzior wrote a book, which I have yet to read called, Hiding in Plain Sight. In reference to those who profit from corruption, she’s quoted as saying, “They don’t mind being caught. They mind being punished.”
Here is the foreword to that book:
The story of Donald Trump’s rise to power is the story of a buried American history—buried because powerful people liked it that way. It was visible without being seen, influential without being named, ubiquitous without being overt.
The Trump administration is like a reality show featuring villains from every major political scandal of the past forty years—Watergate, Iran-Contra, 9/11, the Iraq War, the 2008 financial collapse—in recurring roles and revivals, despite the widespread desire of the public for the show to be canceled. From Roger Stone to Paul Manafort to William Barr, it is a Celebrity Apprentice of federal felons and disgraced operatives dragged out of the shadows and thrust back into the spotlight—with Donald Trump, yet again, at the helm.
The crises of political corruption, organized crime, and endemic racism are all connected, and they shape everyday American life. But in addition to these structural problems, we contend with specific powerful individuals who have acted against the public good for their entire careers. We see the same old men, again and again, vampires feeding on a nation and draining the lifeblood from words like “treason” and “trauma” and “tragedy.” They are buffered by backers who prefer to operate in silence, free from the consequences of scrutiny. There is a reason they call it a criminal underground: you walk over it every day, unaware it exists until the earth shakes below your feet.
In the eyes of autocrats and plutocrats, the future is not a right but a commodity. As climate change brings unparalleled crises, the future becomes a rare asset, meant to be hoarded like diamonds or gold. To millionaire elites, many of whom already had an apocalyptic bent, a depopulated world is not a tragedy but an opportunity—and certainly easier to manage as they insulate themselves from the ravages of a literally scorched earth. The last four decades have led to the hoarding of resources on a heretofore unimaginable scale by people who have neither baseline respect for human life nor a traditional sense of the future. Their destructive actions have programmed a desperate generation to settle for scraps instead of settling the score.
Unless we were part of the opportunity-hoarding elite—the Ivankas and Jareds of the world—my generation did not get to have choices. Instead we had reactions. We fought to hold on to what we had before it was stolen, while thieves demanded our gratitude and supplication. The opportunity-hoarding elite told us we were imagining the permanence of our plight and sold us survival as an aspiration.
This book tells the story of how they cornered that market.
And with that, I am going to go order it, and leave you with this. . .
“I may have been born last night, but I didn’t fall off the turnip truck!”
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Let’s see what Morgan Freeman has to say:
Also, because I know my sister, Pam, looks at my musings and it can’t just all be doom and gloom:
