~by George Naylor, Churdan farmer
I’ve been an independent voter for some time because I’ve been disgusted with both parties and how party leaders and big money determine who appears on our ballots. I thought Donald Trump would take the high road this time and serve to make voters optimistic about the future of our country. He said all Americans would have health care, but where’s Trump Care?
But what disturbs me most is he said he would end the forever wars that have not achieved anything, but now he has unilaterally started another war with Iran with a population over 90 million and sophisticated weapons our intelligence agencies weren’t even aware of. He wants to raise the military budget from $1 trillion to $1.5 trillion. Since there is no country wanting to invade us, why would we want to increase the federal deficit which is predicted to be over $1.9 trillion? It seems like letting the richest man in the world, Elon Musk, pick and choose which federal programs to cut was a charade.
According to US News and World Report, Trump plans on selling Israel 40,000 two-thousand-pound bombs for $2.8 billion—but the money will first be sent to Israel by US taxpayers. This is after 35,000 bombs were sent last year. According to US News and WR, “The administration then approved a new series of arms sales to Israel totaling $6.67 billion in January.” I can’t believe my country can aid and abet genocide right before our very eyes and keep sending the perpetrator more and more bombs.
According to various polls, the US and Israel are now the most hated countries in the world. Seventy-seven delegates walked out from the UN General assembly in protest when Israel’s prime minister Netanyahu came to the podium to address the leaders of the world. The Trump administration is such a disappointment! In fact, his foreign policy is the same as that of Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama—another war for regime change to make the Middle East safe for Israel’s plans for a Greater Israel.
What’s going on? For many years I avoided criticizing the state of Israel because I didn’t want to seem anti-Semitic or condoning the genocide of the Jews in Europe by Adolph Hitler. It should be evident that anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism are not the same. Zionism is based on the idea that it’s OK to violently take over the homeland of Palestinians to create a “homeland” for white Jewish people from Europe. In fact, I’ve read there are more Zionist Christians than Jews. Some very well respected Jews, like world renowned economist Jeffrey Sachs, Professor Norman Finklestein, Code Pink founder Media Benjamin, and journalist Max Blumenthal openly refer to Israel as a fascist state—not a democracy at all. Norman Finklestein lost ancestors in Hitler’s reign of terror and says his parents would never condone Israel’s ethnic cleansing or even its existence. In 1948, Albert Einstein and other well-respected Jews wrote an open letter to the New York Times warning Americans not make donations to the political party of Menachem Begin, Israel’s future prime minister, because his party was a fascist party. Netanyahu’s Likud party is a descendant of that party.
Thousands of Ukraine and Russian soldiers and civilians have been killed in Ukraine and Russia in a war that Jeffrey Sachs and other respected geopolitical experts say was instigated by the West (Europe and the US—please look up Sach’s articles and speeches at the UN). The Maidan demonstrations in Kieve in 2014 were egged on by US Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland where the demonstrators became a violent mob and overthrew the president who had been elected by citizens of both Ukrainian-speaking and Russian-speaking districts (called oblasts). European countries on Russia’s borders had been allowed to join NATO contrary to the promise US officials made to Gorbachev during the dissolution of the USSR. It’s been admitted by Biden’s Secretary of State that NATO’s goal was to wear down Russia’s economy so that it could be dismembered into many ethnic-based states. This would allow our oligarchs rape Eastern Eurasia much like Trump’s claim on the resources of the Western Hemisphere. Ukraine couldn’t possibly resist Russia’s attempt to regain the eastern Russian-speaking oblasts without Europe, NATO, and the US pouring in billions of dollars’ worth of sophisticated weapons to Ukraine.
The current wars fueled by the US supply of incredibly expensive weapons threatens even wider conflicts including a world war. Iran, Israel, and Russia will do anything to preserve their sovereignty—including launching nuclear weapons. Extinguishing normal energy distribution is leading to higher inflation and maybe even a devastating economic worldwide depression.
So while Trump destroys the East Wing of the White House, puts his name on the Kennedy Center, renames giant bodies of water, and plans to build the largest “triumphal arch” in the world in DC housing drones and snipers, Congress acts powerless to stop this nonsense. The Republican leadership rarely utters an objection. Most Democrats are beholden to Israel because of huge campaign contributions from billionaires and the Israel lobby.
We rarely have the opportunity to vote for courageous candidates that think independently and prioritize the long-range quality of life in America. There’s little we can do to stop the madness in Washington, DC, but we can this time vote to elect a congress person that truly represents us—Sarah Trone Garriott. She’s an Iowa state senator and Lutheran pastor with values many of us inherited from previous Iowa generations. I’m so glad I will feel good this election when I walk into the voting booth and vote for Sarah! George Naylor
