Modeling himself in the image of a contemporary Joe Stalin, Vladimir Putin, now seems to be holding some twenty-percent of Ukraine. He simply bombed the hell out of it, killing thousands, and then took it you see. It’s fairly obvious he wants to take more, as the shelling of totally innocent Ukrainians continues. The man’s a butcher. A failed leader in need of a diversion.

Here at home, we continue slaughtering our own with semi-automatic rifle fire taking down grammar school kids, doctors and people out trying to buy grossly overpriced groceries. All the while, some of us are looking with fear to the upcoming election in November. An event which, we are told, certain Republican factions are prepared to try an undermine by claiming any races they lose were fraudulently conducted.

In other words, the criminal element is once again preparing to sew chaos by making the claim in court and out, that the law-abiding good guys are actually the real criminals. It’s a transference plot worthy of the KGB, and we can watch for it to be actively pursued here on American soil by Americans of uncertain loyalty – to anyone other than themselves.

I was thinking back tonight about simpler times not so very long ago when I was covering the campaigns of Ralph Nader and Ross Perot. One eventually wrote the book, “Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us.” The other, started a third party, which looked like it was going to be viable, but when the politics got too rough for his family, Perot, eventually bailed.

Thing is, unconventional though they might have been, neither Perot nor Nader supported the idea of supplanting Democracy with Fascism, which is what this current batch of toxic right-wing thugs appear to favor.

Things made so much more sense not so very long ago. Now, it’s not just the occasional unconventional politician we have to worry about, but what appears to be an ongoing and carefully planned conspiracy to destroy American Democracy from within with help from without. Unless, of course, unnamed billionaires decide to save us from a Dickensian future millions upon millions of Americans can’t seem to fathom.

As Sinclair Lewis warned us so many years ago, don’t think “It can’t happen here.” It very nearly did.

We are in dangerous third-world waters friends. There is no Ross Perot anywhere in sight and I haven’t noticed any of our many billionaires getting in line in an effort to save the Republic from imploding under the weight of thirty to thirty-five percent of our fellow citizens who appear to favor switching from Democracy to some bizarre form of strong-man rule, with God knows who at the helm. It’s not that they don’t love freedom and it isn’t that they are stupid. Truth is, they have simply been snowed into believing that what’s in their worst interest is really the best for them. Again, it’s a crazed reversal worthy of the KGB. Which, of course, no longer exists.