Wars Foreign And Domestic--What Is To Be Done?

The phrase usually runs, Enemies foreign and domestic. However, the third and final video of the discussion between Michael Vlahos and Douglas Macgregor ends with reflections on the wars at home and abroad, and the relationship between the two. I’ve transcribed—not summarized—the final 5 minutes of a 30 minute video. It’s all interesting, but the last 5 minutes really get to the heart of The Way We Live Now here in America.

Just a minute ago I noted a comment by SMH that began:

They don’t really consider us “fellow citizens”, we’re pretty much the riff raff that they have to put up with against their wishes.

It reminded me of Bill Kristol’s revealing statement about us deplorables, to the effect that America—meaning the elites, including himself—needs to come up with new citizens to replace the worthless bunch out in the hustings. That, of course, is the meaning of the open borders.

This is what Vlahos and Macgregor—mostly Vlahos—get into in the final few minutes. It won’t surprise you, but it’s well expressed. And he ties it into the war on Russia.

Michael Vlahos & Douglas Macgregor What is to be done? Can a corrupted US military be renewed? Pt.3

In Part 3, we explore the many pathways to American military defeat and strategic failure, and how these have worked in concert, as they are now culminating in Ukraine.

VLAHOS [25:21] You [Macgregor] were close to and advised [President Trump], and in effect--whatever opinions you hold of him--he did represent a mass of Americans who are increasingly being ignored and made marginal in political life. Where do we get our leaders? We traditionally got them from elites, but elites who A) were often local elites. Sure, a lot of them came from the Ivy League to the State Department, but in terms of running the country there was still that elite connected to people locally. It was a network, it was a mesh.

Now, increasingly, you have these separate, mostly Blue and some Red, elite communities that essentially own the process. From start to finish. They own the universities, they own the media, they own all of the non-profits that are so important--and they have the money. And they have the two parties, and the organizational structure and the institutional authority of the two parties. So they're building what amounts to a hermetic, separate political system--something far less sensitive to the people, even, that British society in the mid-18th century, which no one would argue was a democracy. But that elite still had the capacity for upward social mobility, and it still took the pulse of the people.

Now, increasingly, you have a stern and unforgiving--what Orwell would call the Inner Party and the Outer Party. They are the thing that owns our political system, and so you ask the question: Where do we get our leaders? That leads you back to the conundrum that I posed about ever being able to see things, because the entire prime directive of this elite is to preserve and extend its power and control. And it is engaged in doing that. We saw that during the pandemic and we see it now in the conduct of the war, which is a wholly owned franchise of the Washington elite. And so I worry about this--and you're totally right when you say that the war of decision is at home--because you can't permanently marginalize and reduce to a kind of serfdom the majority of Americans. And I include there all of the Blue constituencies who have essentially been marginalized already. They form the majority of Americans and there is no pathway for the voice of this majority to be heard in America today.

MacG: Unless the current elites are replaced by a different elite. That emerges from a different milieu. And that's all tied up with 'What happens next?'

VLAHOS: Revolution.

MacG: Its' also about, 'What happens when this narrative about Ukraine collapses?'

VLAHOS: This is a great sort of final point for us to make, and you've raised that really nicely, is that the connection between the domestic conflict and the foreign conflict is indissoluble. And just as has happened so many times, the foreign conflict can prise open, turn over the barrel, and let it all spill out.

MacG: I think that's where we're headin'.

VLAHOS: Yeah.