Claptrap (pretentious
nonsense) would appear to be a perfect one word description of what is going on
in the halls of Congress (and elsewhere, when it comes to politics and such).
One doesn’t have to look far to spot it, just listen to the news or read a
newspaper or magazine where you will find that claptrap seems to be the
distinguishing feature. Claptrap seems to be the main, perhaps only,
stock-in-trade for some (think Palin, Bachmann, Inhofe, Gohmert, King, Cruz,
Cantor, Ryan, and many other Republicans.
The primary focus of the
claptrap brigades at the moment seems to be focused on Syria President Obama
and Secretary of State John Kerry seem determined to attack Syria even though
such an attack would be a war crime, and even though there is massive
opposition to such an action on the part of the general U.S. public and most
other countries. To this end Kerry keeps insisting we must do this because
Assad has “used poison gas on his own people.”Kerry insists this is true in
spite of the fact there is no clear evidence that Assad was responsible and a
distinct possibility the rebels did it to force the U.S. into their civil war.
Kerry points out that the use of such a weapon is forbidden under international
law, it “crosses a red line,” and thus it must be punished. As such weapons
have been regularly used by other countries, including the U.S., and nothing
much has been done about it, I conclude that most of what Kerry says is little
more than claptrap.
Claptrapery (if there is such
a word) abounds and flourishes when it comes to the subject of Iran. There is
no evidence that Iran is actually attempting to make a nuclear bomb, and our
own intelligence tells us they are not, but this does not keep virtually everyone
from asserting in one form or another that they are. Indeed, the basic
assumption (speculation, if you will) seems to be that Iran is proceeding apace
even though that is not an established fact. Iran has been (and is) portrayed as
part of “an axis of evil,” a sponsor of terrorism, the mortal enemy of Israel
that it wants to see blown off the map, and, in general, a pariah in the Middle
East. That all of this is basically claptrap does not keep it from those
(Israel and the Saudis) who want to see it eliminated from promoting it at
every opportunity.
Nowhere is claptrap more
prevalent than Republican claims about President Obama. In fact, there is just
about nothing but claptrap when it comes to our 44th President. They
have tried everything: he was not born in the U.S., he has not produced a
genuine birth certificate, he is a socialist, communist, fascist, a dictator, a
Muslim, a Kenyan, an incompetent, weak, ineffective, a poor leader, he has not
produced jobs, Obamacare is the worst disaster to ever occur in the U.S., he
was responsible for Katrina, and blah, blah, blah, all absolute claptrap. I am
certain that if Republicans had cooperated with Obama in any way he would be
seen in a very different light. Their attempt to destroy him and his Presidency
has done immense harm to our nation. I don’t think it is far-fetched to say
that history will show that racism brought our country to a virtual standstill
during the Obama administration.
It seems to me that if ever
there was anything approaching “truth and beauty” in our (pretend) democracy it
met its death knell during the Bush/Cheney nightmare years when both truth and
beauty gave way to utter claptrap. This is now found its way into our
mainstream media and our national dialogue. Having embraced claptrap so eagerly
we now find ourselves devoid of credibility, devoid of moral authority, devoid
of ethics, and increasingly devoid of international respect, to say nothing of also
being devoid of infrastructure, education, jobs, decent wages, a first-rate
medical system, and even national self-esteem. Unregulated capitalism and
global warming may well destroy us, but not to worry, there’s plenty of
claptrap to go around.
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