BY DAN VALENTI

PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY

(FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, THE WEEKEND EDITION MARCH 22-25, 2018) — Much has been made about President Donald Trump‘s congratulatory call to Russian president-for-life Vlad “The Impaler” Putin. Even more of a non-story was the flash fire erupting after one of Trump’s national security staff leaked the bit about the president’s briefing notes. The bullet points reportedly included in all caps a note that read “DON’T CONGRATULATE.” THE PLANET thanks social media, the greatest communication tool of all time for dumbing down a mass audience, for these “news” stories.

Why shouldn’t presidents remain in contact, especially among major powers? Diplomacy, imperfect as it is, remains our best tool for the prevention of war, that ineradicable disease that humankind has never been able to conquer. Communication lies at the core of diplomacy. That presidents and heads of state take regular advantage of the ability to talk to one another in real time — telephonically, electronically, or face-to-face — may be all that keeps earth’s home sapiens from destroying themselves, a fate predicted by nearly every science fiction film from the Cold war 1950s. Gort didn’t amble down that silvery ramp merely to pet Aunt Millie‘s pet poodle. He came to deliver Klatuu‘s warning: “Wise up or we will wipe you out. Yes, you are that great a danger to the rest of us.”

One can argue with the assignment of Russia into “major power” category. It is a nation that has been suffering from an inferiority complex for 100 years, going back the end of the Romanov Dynasty (a period of ran nearly as long as that of the New England Patriots … fitting since Putin has a Super Bowl Ring courtesy of Robert Kraft). Lenin (not John), Trotsky (not “Hot to” let alone Klatuu), and the rest of the goateed Reds took the theoretically valid economics of Marx (not Groucho) and attempted the impossible when they tried to apply them to soiled human nature. The early Christians tried and failed at the same. What works in principle often doesn’t work in practicality, as the ruins and wreckage every attempted Utopia from Haight-Ashbury to Rajneeshpuram inform those wise enough to learn from history.

Speaking of history, with a nod to THE PLANET‘s recent series on Herbert Clark Hoover, the United States blew its chance once and for all to deal with the Soviet Union when President Franklin Delano Roosevelt ignored his predecessor’s advice and agreed to aid and ally with the USSR in World War II. The historical record makes it clear that Adolph Hitler had no designs on the West. In fact, he secretly admired most things English and nearly everything American, including our cowboy movies. If the U.S. had remained neutral, Hitler would have avoided fighting on two fronts, made peace with Great Britain, and poured everything he had into the east and the subject of his true hatred, the Soviets. He would have defeated the Russians and Communism for us. FDR, however, couldn’t resist world war, whose necessary manufacture of arms and materiel lifted the economy out of the Depression that raged during his first seven years in office.

Roosevelt compounded the mistake exponentially at Yalta, where, reduced to babbling ineffectiveness by illness, he and Churchill allowed Uncle Joe Stalin to divide the spoils of “victory” as Uncle saw fit. America’s fate was sealed.

Harry S. Truman, a product of Kansas’ corrupt machine politics and a man with zero foreign policy experience who had been vice president for all of 80 days, also fell into the Cold War trap unwittingly stepped into by his predecessor. Before doing so, “Give ’em Hell Harry” made the Presidential Mistake of the Ages, dropping two atomic bombs on a country, Japan, on the verge of surrender. The emperor didn’t want the continuance of the war, and neither did the majority of his military’s general staff. Stalin had played Roosevelt then Truman like a three-card-monty hustler on 7th Avenue and 48th Street fleecing a hayseed from the wheat fields.

The inexperienced Truman then continued the grievous blunders. In the early post-war years, Truman was complicit in doing something the United States have never done in its history. Using the Cold War the reason, a necessity called into being by Roosevelt’s disastrous dealings with the Soviets, the federal government failed to revert to a peacetime economy. The Cold War raged for nearly 50 years, handily keeping the U.S. on an ever-expanding war footing. When the Berlin Wall came down, dooming the Soviet Union, Russia fell into second-class status, leaving America with a big problem. Where would we find our next Big Bogeyman?

No problem. Enter, Sept. 11, 2001 and the crusade to bring “democracy” to Afghanistan, Iraq, and the Middle East. Nine-eleven was to George W. Bush what Pearl Harbor was to Roosevelt: their lucky day. Nearly 16 years later, Uncle Sam finds himself still stuck in the tar pits “over there.”

Bye, bye Miss American Pie. Drove the Chevy off the cliff while waving goodbye.

Before you do the same, get to Del Gallo‘s on Newell Street before April-something and hoist one in Remo‘s name. THE PLANET sends our love to Ray. He’ll no longer be serving drinks but will remain open as a “social club.” That’s a “Goodfellas” safe house for friendly politicians who continue to loot Pittsfield and rob Berkshire County. Just be careful of the empty cement bags if you use the side door to the back room. They can cause a nasty fall.

On that light note, have a great weekend, everybody.

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“Google, Facebook, and Twitter show us the Internet we think we want to see, using filters to limit and control the information it thinks we want” — Sir Tiberius Fruitjuice.

“OPEN THE WINDOW, AUNT MILLIE.”

LOVE TO ALL.

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