January 6, 2020’s events are part of a continuing attempt to overthrow the government by force and violence that our government is ill-equipped to resist.
The coming criminal prosecutions of those the founders of communism called “useful idiots” will have no impact on this continuing threat.
Let’s take a look at some of the features of the response to this violent insurrection.
FBI
The earnest and honest FBI director Christopher Wray does not have the necessary legislative authority nor the experience, skill and ability to fight the coup.
The agency is a domestic investigative entity whose agents prepare criminal cases as a resource of the department of justice and the various United States Attorneys but it cannot prosecute crimes.
Since it is exclusively focused on domestic crime investigations it does not have the extensive investigative power of the NSA (overhears) and the CIA (human and signals intelligence). Actually, there is no real distinction between “foreign” and “domestic” activity and communication because of the internet and its social media offspring.
Since there has been no domestic terrorism on the scale now seen, there is no reason to believe that Director Wray and his staff are equipped to fight it.
That was distinctly not the case with the justifiably reviled J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI’s first director. Along with his misdeeds (particularly memorable as we approach Martin Luther King, Jr. Day) Hoover had some remarkable achievements.
Aside from creating the professional FBI, one of Hoover’s major achievements was an all-out fight against American Nazis and domestic entities that transferred and hid money and property destined for Hitler’s Germany.
Simply put, Hoover hated Nazis and cut corners to destroy them and those that funded them including major American banks where Hoover installed or turned existing bank employees who baldly stole the evidence of bank support of Berlin at Hoover’s direction.
The guilty were prosecuted and the banks were stopped dead in fueling the Nazi regime with hard currency at the behest of bank clients.
Confusion and inability to read and flag evidence of efforts at insurrection have characterized our current FBI. There isn’t time to train FBI agents to recognize and report government overthrow efforts.
Prosecutions of Coup Perpetrators
Arresting, trying and convicting the “useful idiots” of January 6 who came to the Capitol in costume and were bent on murder and mayhem to overturn the 2020 election to give victory to Trump will not stop the continuing coup.
While punishment of these criminals is required, it is unlikely that they are in the higher echelons of the coup plotters such as Senators Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley and others unknown. Kingpins in the plot who are now unknown will not be defendants in the foreseeable future and will continue to seek to destroy our nation.
The Media
Newspapers and television, of both the right and the left, have a Trump obsession. All have developed this passion over the last four years.
At the same time it must be said that persistent media concentration on Trump’s misdeeds did play a crucial role in exposing him and in his ultimate defeat. After his election loss, however, there is no reason to act like a dog with a bone, to perseverate on such subjects as moving vans, Palm Beach county zoning rules, red carpets at Andrews and the spewings of Mike Lindell, the My Pillow guy.
It must stop. The media are in their own respective holes of outrageous “coverage.” As Bill Clinton has said, “the first rule of holes is stop digging.”
Meanwhile, as they continue to “cover” Trump, they perpetuate his rule-or-ruin inanities and thereby feed the cult that supports him.
Let Trump go to nut land without reporting his journey to the continuing aggressive stupidity that characterized his presidency.
The Army
A military “presence” in Washington with its attendant perimeters and fencing does not stop the continuing coup. Both the coup plotters and the useful idiots know that not a single military weapon will be discharged even if mob members discharge theirs.
The military presence will reduce the number of aggressors but not their fervor.
The military’s rules of engagement in Washington have not been disclosed but you can bet that the army will not fire on demonstrators.
Yes, a khaki line will deter the more timid assailants. But not the cult.
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In fact all the efforts to stop and deter the coup through law enforcement and resultant punishment are just bandaids.
A vast number of Americans disrespect our institutions, a disrespect that will continue until systemic corrections are made.
Any lasting solution will require the establishment of a just society where the one percent cannot lounge on yachts while vast numbers of Americans go to bed hungry. If a solution is not fashioned through inspired government action, our nation will not recover from the January 6th evil.
A necessary component of a just society is the education of families, a process that will take time.
Here’s hoping!