Retribution - Provoke, Attack, Fabricate but Don’t Communicate

Retribution

Provoke, Attack, Fabricate but Don’t Communicate

“I am your warrior. I am your justice. And for those who have been wronged and betrayed: I am your retribution.”

Donald Trump, March 4th at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).

We live in dark times. In the span of just a few days: A former US president was indicted, arrested and arraigned. An AR-15 attack at a school in Nashville, Tennessee slaughtered 6 people, including 3 9-yr-olds. Two Black Tennessee legislators (Democrats), protesting against the lack of gun control, were removed from their elected state House offices by a GOP majority. Seeking to distract an angry public outcry for his announced effort to contain and limit his entire judicial branch, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu ordered an assault on Muslim worshipers at the al Aqsa Mosque during Ramadan… and Arabs inside Israel and from nearby Arab states attacked back. China launched a major show of force against Taiwan in retaliation for a meeting between House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen at the Reagan Library in California. Tornados have ravaged the South and Mid-West as unusually warm water temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico, which have been 2-4 degrees Celsius warmer than average, created the perfect storm with a material alteration in the jet stream… one of climate change’s wonderful gifts to us. A federal judge, with a strong evangelical belief, challenged the right of the FDA to keep an abortion pill on its approval list… even after two decades of proof of its safety. Red states across the land eased gun carry restrictions. Records of the Florida Surgeon General telling younger people that COVID vaccines were an unnecessary risk somehow got “lost.” The small ultra-rightwing branch of the House GOP threatens to send the US economy into total chaos (by refusing to raise the debt ceiling) if yet unnamed but already Congressionally approved budget provisions are not reversed. Etc.

Each of the above generally involves two opposing factions who refuse to talk to each other. The entire planet seems to accept extreme and often explosive situations, polarization, that in the past has been a predictor of genuine physical conflict, without dialog or compromise. My way or the highway. Even during the height of the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, as Soviet submarines with nuclear torpedoes stalked a US carrier, a direct communication between US President John F Kennedy and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev (pictured above) defused a confrontation that pushed us to the brink of nuclear war. The infamous red phone between the US and the USSR became the safety value to prevent the mutually assured destruction (MAD) that would result from an exchange of strategic nuclear weapons.

Even as the United States hovers on the brink of a horrific economic demise to its financial stability, even as US-made and sold military grade assault weapons continue to support Mexican cartels and mass shootings in the United States, even as millions of Americans are losing the medical coverage they had during COVID’s peak, even as clearly corrupt members of the US Supreme Court continue to reward the political goals of generous rightwing donors and providers of luxury vacations, even as red states find new ways to force their rightwing restrictions across state lines into blue states… well, Republicans and Democrats in Congress almost never talk to each other and seldom find workable compromises between their positions. Gridlock. As the above quote illustrates, statements engendering retribution and rejecting compromise have risen to become core values of our major political parties. Where does that lead?

Notwithstanding the massive continuing trade, China and the United States almost never have any high-level conversations over critical issues today. China demands that Taiwan surrender its territory to the People’s Republic as a “legitimate” province of the mainland, continues to cozy up to Putin’s Russia, has militarized the seas in her region and consistently threatens any time Taiwan seeks to maintain its independence. American and PRC military ships and planes dance around each other in mutual provocation and defiance. Sanctions between the nations fly… but there is no meaning dialog to defuse a deteriorating and risky confrontation between great powers.

“China on Saturday [4/8] sent warships and dozens of fighter jets toward Taiwan, the Taiwanese government said, in retaliation for a meeting between House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield) and the president of the self-ruled island democracy, which is claimed by Beijing as part of its territory.” Associated Press, April 9th. Even as Vladimir Putin continues to attempt to seize Ukrainian territory, kidnapping Ukrainian children for “their protection,” and targeting clearly civilian targets, there is no communication between Joe Biden and Putin. Russia has also terminated it nuclear containment treaties with the United States.

In Israel, Netanyahu purposely ignited an expected Palestinian retaliation, soon jointed by rocket launches from Lebanon and Syria, in order to draw attention away from his attempt to enable his unicameral legislature to pass a law the allows a simple majority to reverse any judicial decision… including his own possible conviction in a pending criminal case. His case to the Israeli people is that a strong central leader (read: autocrat) is needed to protect Israelis from these nasty Palestinians. Jerusalem during Ramada, Passover, and Easter. Boom!

If there is no respectful dialog between opposing parties, even when it comes to defusing existential challenges, and if compromise is not possible, the outcome is almost always catastrophic. Wars and civil wars, the unraveling of once great nations throughout history were either caused or exacerbated by such failures to communicate. It is important to have excellent communications with your allies… but it is vastly more important to maintain open high-level dialog with your enemies, no matter how nasty and repulsive as they may be or seem to be.

I’m Peter Dekom, and our unwillingness to have clear and formal lines of communications between our warring factions within and our obvious enemies without could just end the United States… or result in a cataclysmic World War III.