Dan Coats, the Director of National Intelligence, recently briefed congress at a hearing on Capitol Hill. In doing so he called out Washington on two very key areas that I believe that most Americans are beginning to truly wake up to. First off, and most importantly, his rebuke was completely nonpartisan. He did not call out any side and his statements were factual and direct.
Unfortunately most Americans do not concern themselves with such mundane briefings and therefor will never hear the wisdom that he laid forth.
In his briefings he touched upon the real Russian collusion that is going on in our country. Russia has never been, and will likely never be, our ally. We have, in our history, had some fairly heated exchanges between our two countries. Most do not remember the concern of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) that we had during the great nuclear arms race. Even fewer are even aware that prior to us invading Afghanistan, we were waging war with the Russians via the CIA in that very country.
We can even go back further and look at the relationship that General Patton had with our, then, Russian Allies in World War II. Immediately following the war, he wanted us to keep pushing east into the Soviet Union and destroy the Russians before they could rebuild and strengthen. In fact, many even believe that Patton was killed by Soviet Assassins.
Their goal is simple, bring down the United States from within by sowing the seeds of distrust.
However, those days are long gone and the new threat from our Russian adversaries come from social media. As Coats stated, their attacks have been immensely successful and are very low cost. Best of all, by being subversive in their assaults they have plausible deniability with their actions. Their goal is simple, bring down the United States from within by sowing the seeds of distrust. If one thinks about it, America is truly primed for such an attack.
We have entered into a time where there can apparently no longer be political discourse with passionate debate that ends with each side having a greater understanding of the others view. While this may be surprising to many, I believe that this is happening on both sides of the aisle.
What scares me is the apparent blindness in congress to the effects that this is happening in our country. In his statements to the committee, James Risch, Republican senator from Idaho, stated that while the Russians are clearly running active campaigns within our borders through social media, the American people are smart enough to see through it.
Well Congressman, how can you expect our citizens to see it when you, our elected representatives as a whole, cannot seem to figure it out?
When our elected officials sit there and openly attack their counterparts doesn’t this simply play into the battle plans of the Russians? Congress is acting directly as agents for the enemy in increasing the anger and division within our borders. Yet most can’t see this.
I, for one, am a big fan of Donald Trump being willing to punch back at the democrats and their personal attacks on him. Yet if I am to be fair and honest I must also admit that his counterpunches are no different or less damaging to creating the political rifts in our country. Am I therefor saying that he should simply lay down and take the abuse? Absolutely not! However, I would liken our government infighting to my marriage. When my wife and I argue, it is not her fault or my fault. We are both responsible as you cannot have a one sided argument. It is difficult, during the spat to look inward and see where I have fault with my views or with my reactions.
People are going to seek outlets of information that tend to bolster their opinions and therefore validate their world views. They are not looking for the truth, simply a pat on the head.
Throughout the briefing, as the democrats and republicans each took their turn to ask questions, we could see this same thing playing out in a less volatile way as well. When the democrat representatives tended to ask their questions they would have a tone of arrogance and dismissiveness with their questions being completely jaded in attempting to spin the news towards attacking and demeaning the current administration. However, when the republican representatives asked their questions it was almost a complete 180 degree turn. They would make certain that their questions led to acknowledgement that the government was on track in keeping in good faith with the voters.
Personal attacks have always been a part of the American political system. However, with the advent of the internet and the ability for elected officials to instantly reach out to the public en masse, this dialog is directly affecting the views and attitudes of the people it reaches. The unfortunate problem with this is that the information that these individuals are receiving is one sided and misleading at best. People are going to seek outlets of information that tend to bolster their opinions and therefore validate their world views. They are not looking for the truth, simply a pat on the head.
The second point that he made was in his conclusion. He took a pause in his look externally to our borders and instead called out Congress. Coats stated directly that in regards to our national debt, “the situation is unsustainable as I believe we all know.” In doing so, he also listed all of the other current and former heads of various government defense and intelligence agencies who have also called out the Congress for their complicity in leading to eventual downfall of our nation.
If it were not such a serious matter, the objective view of our debt would be comedic. I remember reading a book many years ago called Animal Farm. This book, along with 1984, are two incredible pieces of literature which are scary in how closely they mimic the current culture in our society (yet both were written about the dangers of communism).
In the book, animals revolt to take over a farm from the farmer. After the success of their mutiny, they wrote down their version of their constitution. The pigs, who were the only ones who could read and write, became the leaders of the farm. As time went on, the words written down kept changing to allow more power to the pigs. Whenever another animal would question the change, the pigs would always assure them that they had always stated the change and that the other animals just needed to trust the pigs as they were smartest and had the best interest of the other animals at heart.
This is exactly what is happening with the government. Now that the Republicans are in power, they are all for spending, because they are doing it out of altruistic motivations. I swear that at one time the GOP actually stood for fiscal responsibility to limited government. Yet when I looked on www.gop.com, I noticed that is not the case.
What they actually call for is “Paychecks should not be wasted on poorly run government programs,” and, “Social programs should help lift people out of poverty.” This is a wonderful example of the pigs in Animal Farm. The change in position is subtle and allows the Republicans to say that they are for fiscal control, but the programs that they are funding are clearly necessary.
Our government is the most dysfunctional organization I have ever seen and does not appear to be getting any better. If you take away the titles of Republican and Democrat it becomes impossible to tell which side anyone is on. There is no longer such a thing as principle. In fact, I would go so far to say there aren’t even parties anymore. You simply have the left and right wing of the same party, the government party.
