It's The Fourth Of July--Be Very Afraid!

That’s what outgoing Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) President Richard Haass is saying to, well, to the sort of people who paid attention to the things Haass has been saying for, lo, these past 20 years. Since the CFR is ground zero for promoting American ruling class and globalist/Neoconnish ideas on all things foreign policy, that would include prominent policy makers and influencers in the highest reaches of our power elite. Haass has been saying for the past few years that, whereas in the past he saw the US as the glue that held the globe together, he now sees “political instability” in the US as the greatest source of danger in the world.

There are two new articles out that discuss Haass’ departure and his warning—which is to say, articles at two sites that I pay attention to. The first is a brief one, by Larry Johnson. Johnson, WHAT WILL NATO DO ABOUT UKRAINE?, refers to Haass in the second half of his piece, and provides us with what’s publicly available from an interview with Haass that’s otherwise behind a paywall:

Richard Haass, the soon to be former President of the Council on Foreign Relations, recently told a NY Times reporter who is the real threat. As Pogo once remarked, “I have met the enemy and he is us.”

Everywhere he has gone as president of the Council on Foreign Relations, Dr Richard Haass has been asked the same question: What keeps him up at night? He has had no shortage of options over the years: Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, climate change, international terrorism, food insecurity, the Covid-19 pandemic.

But as he steps down after two decades running America’s most storied private organisation focused on international affairs, Dr Haass has come to a disturbing conclusion. The most serious danger to the security of the world right now? The threat that costs him sleep? The United States itself.

NATO is no longer unified. Several European leaders are noting quietly that Europe cannot prosper without a relationship with Russia. In other words, isolating and shunning Moscow is no longer seen as a viable strategy.

To give credit where it’s due, Doug Macgregor has been predicting the demise of NATO as a result of America’s foolish war on Russia since the conflict went hot. As for the lack of NATO unity and the recognition that Europe can’t prosper without Russia, when a former foreign minister of Poland openly says that, you know what others are thinking.

Now, the interview that Haass gave was to the Straits Times. In addition to the snippet that was publicly available, there is also the title and subtitle, which give Haass’ game away, when you take into account his globalist credentials:

The real danger to the US is at home

Foreign policy veteran Richard Haass sees the unravelling of the US political system as posing a bigger threat than external ones.

Peter Baker

The US has become the most profound source of instability and an uncertain exemplar of democracy, says foreign policy veteran Richard Haass.

Reading between the lines, without undue strain, leads to the conclusion that Haass sees people like you and me as the real source of danger. People who voted for Trump. So, he’s not speaking to us in this interview—he’s preaching to the globalist choir, the true believers. He’s urging them to take the threat seriously and to do something about it. Peter Baker’s encomium in the NYT spells it all out. Haass was for 40 years a Bluto Barr Republican who thought that Trump could be coopted by the Deep State and DC Swamp/Establishment. In essence, Haass explains why the Barrs and McConnells of the Swamp—in conjunction with the Deep State—came to the conclusion that Trump had to go. Biden would be a return to “normal” America. Really. I’m not kidding:

To Foreign Policy Veteran, the Real Danger Is at Home

Richard N. Haass says the most serious threat to global security is the United States.

…

For more than 40 years, he was a Republican, although he sometimes voted for Democrats. But by 2020, he renounced the party that had been captured by Mr. Trump and after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol and publicly declared himself unaffiliated.

Mr. Haass, who agreed to meet with Mr. Trump in 2015 to advise him on foreign affairs, just as he would any presidential candidate, admitted that he misjudged the bombastic real estate developer.

“Where I was dead wrong is I assumed the weight of the office would moderate him or normalize him, whatever word you want to use — that he would be more respectful of traditions and inheritances,” Mr. Haass said. “And I was wrong on that. If anything, he became more radical. He doubled down.”

The question is whether America has changed for the long run. “I should have a nickel,” he said, “for every non-American, every foreign leader who said to me: I don’t know what’s the norm and what’s the exception anymore. Is the Biden administration a return to the America I took for granted and Trump will be a historical blip? Or is Biden the exception and Trump and Trumpism are the new America?”

A much longer assessment of Haass’ messaging over the past months is offered by Simplicius the Thinker:

The Sun Sets On Richard N. Haass's CFR Career

As usual, Simplicius’ reflections are lengthy but worthwhile. He doesn’t spend much time on the instability within the American political system, but he provides some valuable background for those who don’t know the role that the CFR has long played in US foreign policy. One paragraph will give you the general idea, but I do highly recommend it all:

The CFR took off when large organizations like the Ford and Carnegie Corporations, as well as the Rockefeller Foundation, began lavishing it with large yearly sums of money. David Rockefeller himself ultimately became the Council’s director, and the group was likewise formative in the early history of the CIA.

I do want to quote one extended portion.

Simplicius begins this section by quoting from the NYT article linked above. Haass’ is concerned that the US political system is “unraveling”. Then:

He goes on to lament that America’s domestic political developments are no longer cause for emulation by the rest of the world. The sheer unpredictability and “unreliability” now endemic to American political culture is what Haass calls ‘poisonous’, and a big turn off for longtime allies.

…

Now, alarmed by what’s become of the country his own outfit contributed to destabilizing, Haass declares that the next phase of his life will be devoted to spreading awareness of ‘civic virtues’. He intends to become a sort of itinerant prophet, ...

Strangely, Simplicius speculates that this is “a sort of pilgrimage of the penitent” on Haass’ part. In reality it’s nothing of the sort, as we’ve seen.

… this is the man who campaigned for the dissolution of national sovereignties, in the name of ‘protecting [nations’] own interests’—whatever that means. In 2006 he essentially argued to abolish the Westphalian system altogether:

State sovereignty must be altered in globalized era

For 350 years, sovereignty -- the notion that states are the central actors on the world stage and that governments are essentially free to do what they want within their own territory but not within the territory of other states -- has provided the organizing principle of international relations. The time has come to rethink this notion.

…

As a result, new mechanisms are needed for regional and global governance that include actors other than states. This is not to argue that Microsoft, Amnesty International, or Goldman Sachs be given seats in the UN General Assembly, but it does mean including representatives of such organizations in regional and global deliberations when they have the capacity to affect whether and how regional and global challenges are met.

Yes, in the third paragraph above, he actually argues for Goldman Sachs and other corporations to be given a seat at the table of global governance. ... His argument is that it’s merely pragmatic—after all, if all-powerful global organs like BlackRock wield such vast influence in effecting ‘change’ (for better or worse), then why not give them a say, so that their power can be recruited for beneficial action?

It all sounds so idealistically reasonable on the surface. But alas, no—humanity does not want or need to have unelected all-powerful banking cabal titans as their ‘beneficent rulers’, or even spokesmen.

For a slightly different perspective on banking cabals than Haass’:

In reality, of course, the source of instability within the American polity can be found in much of what was espoused by the Ruling Class that Haass served for so many years. The end of America as a cultural entity and unity. The deconstruction of our constitutional order in the name of “diversity” (yes, Haass is a proponent of that, as Simplicius notes). The subordination of ordinary Americans and their welfare to the obsessions of a globalist elite at the head of an American Empire. The subornation of the American political class to give us the best government money could buy. The undermining of our electoral system—such as it is. And there’s much more, of course.

For a taste of the intellectual bankruptcy of Haass and his class, turn to the Neo-Kantian ideas he intends to propagate on his “pilgrimage”—as expounded in an interview with, of course, NPR:

INSKEEP: So his latest book explores problems at home. It's called "The Bill Of Obligations." The title plays on the Bill of Rights, the Constitution's first 10 amendments. Richard Haass offers 10 obligations that he says go along with those rights.

HAASS: If everybody just focuses on his or her rights, then there's no room for compromise because rights very quickly become absolute. Your right to hold guns as opposed to someone else's right to safety. Your right not to get vaccinated or wear a mask, someone else's right for public health. A woman's right to choose. The rights of the unborn. And I also thought we were losing the idea that we had some obligations both to one another as citizens and to our country.

INSKEEP: I've heard the idea that rights come along with responsibilities. But you choose this, perhaps, slightly different word, obligations. What's on your mind?

HAASS: I thought hard about it. It's not requirements. The idea of obligations are things we should do rather than have to do. These are not matters of legality. But this is in the realm of should or ought. And it's the things that we need to do in order to make the political system work, for the society to remain peaceful, to get things done.

The idea that our rights as citizens come to us from the Constitution is a corruption of the ideas that formed the basis for that Constitution. The framers of the Constitution, knowing better, explicitly rejected the idea that “rights” come from anywhere except from God. They also were explicit in recognizing that only a common moral culture could ensure the health of our republic. Rights that derive from our rulers are empty—as we see every day. They are only permissions for the time being. But Haass’ concept of “obligations” is equally empty. As he expresses “obligation”, it is not a moral obligation derived from a universal law of human nature. Rather, it is only a practical consideration that allows us to “get things done.” It is empty of any substance. This is the fundamental problem with American—and to be fair, all Western liberal democratic—politics. Form over substance. The lack of substance is the crisis of our society.