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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsDonald Trump's scariest pick so far? Right-wing fruitcake Michael Flynn as national security adviser
From Heather Digby Parton at Salon:
It also turns out that Steve Bannon isnt the only close Trump associate with connections to the white nationalist alt-right. CNNs Andrew Kaczynski reported that a week after the election Flynn was praising Breitbarts odious racist provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos:
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He went on to call Yiannopoulos one of the bravest people hes ever met. Keep in mind that this is a former general who led troops into battle, praising the so-called courage of a nasty little online troll who describes Donald Trump as his daddy.
Its known that Flynn travels on the far edge of the conspiratorial extreme of neoconservative thinking, having recently written a book called The Field of Flight with Michael Ledeen, a longtime proponent of the idea that the U.S. faces an existential threat from well, pretty much everyone. (Ledeen famously speculated that even Germany and France were in cahoots with al-Qaida when they failed to back the U.S. invasion of Iraq.)
Flynn and Ledeen are heavily influenced by the late Laurent Murawiec, a French-American neocon ideologue who wrote a book they hail as a masterpiece called The Mind of Jihad. Murawiec apparently found a web of connections between radical Islamism, Bolshevism and and the Nazis that Ledeen and Flynn find convincing. Among other things, Murawiec was associated for many years with Lyndon LaRouche, one of the fringiest political figures in American life.
Curious about Flynns views of China and North Korea, about which he has said very little, the New York Times consulted The Field of Flight for clues as to his thinking. This is what they found:
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The technical term for that absurd and paranoid worldview is nutty as a fruitcake. And whats more frightening is that the man Flynn will now be working for can fit his own knowledge of world affairs in a shotglass.
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RKP5637
(67,108 posts)world wide wally
(21,743 posts)RKP5637
(67,108 posts)dixiegrrrrl
(60,010 posts)'While I deeply respect General Mattis's service, I will oppose a waiver. Civilian control of our military is a fundamental principle of American democracy,
and I will not vote for an exception to this rule' - NBC News
leftynyc
(26,060 posts)including some in Europe are also voting in right wingers. I'm sure they have zero problem with don the con.
RKP5637
(67,108 posts)go off the deep end. This is really turning into a bizarre Twilight Zone episode.
leftyladyfrommo
(18,868 posts)But the one thing about big business guys is that they will not do anything to destroy their own business. And starting a war won't help anyone.
I think the big danger with this cabinet is that these guys will just do whatever they want in order to make business even bigger and more profitable. They won't care about the other 99% at all. Except that if the economy tanks and people can't afford their products any more they will really get hurt. And they know that.
RKP5637
(67,108 posts)If there are wars, some will profit greatly, for example, the large defense contractors the US and their stock holders. ... and others.
leftyladyfrommo
(18,868 posts)I am not sure these guys will be worse than Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz. They were awful, too. Horrible, morally decrepit people.
I just hope the people that are in now will remember the mortgage crash of 2008 and what can happen even to huge companies if their greed completely runs away with them.
The Republicans get in and completely mess everything up. Then people finally vote Democrat and the Democrats get stuff pretty straightened out and then everyone goes Republican again. It's an endless, pathetic cycle.