Congressman John Rutherford's Chinese Paranoia
A Response To My Representatives Unhinged Paranoia, And Thoughts On MAGAS New Global Prison Industrial Complex
If you want to know how sad, and ultimately, hopeless it is to turn to any of the state-level or Federal representatives from Florida, my representative, Republican John Rutherford, is one of the best examples.
This "new, glorious, MAGA Reich", which seemed based mostly on bluster and bullshit during Trump's first term, (and which I didn't take seriously enough as an emerging threat in Biden's first term) is defined by a combination of constant fearmongering, and the smear tactics used by Senator Joseph McCarthy during the "red scare" of the early 1950s. America in 2025 is history repeating itself from the template of 1954 established by McCarthy.
Fearmongering was at a peak, daily televised tribunals (hearings) disgraced the halls of Congress, and careers and reputations were ruined, in some cases irreparably, from coast to coast.
So IMHO, MAGA seems to be, in general, stealing liberally from the "Tail Gunner Joe" McCarthy playbook by exaggerating the alleged "threat" posed by foreigners simply because of their existence alone, and any foreign, legal resident that resides within these shores who isn't quite white, clean, or neat enough, and who has the audacity to think freely and openly express their opinion.
FYI: The nickname 'Tail Gunner Joe' is a derisive term for the Senator that originated from his false claim to have been a tail gunner on American bombers during World War II.
All that to say I'm thinking of composing a letter in response to the following propaganda, disguised as Rutherford's bi-weekly update, "The Rutherford Roundup."
The recurrent theme, of course is: "Look how hard I'm working for the plebeians to defend and protect them, a favored trope of the 2025 bipartisan political class.
It continues to be sent to me because I made the mistake, during desperate COVID times, of contacting Rutherford's office about problems with activating unemployment insurance, a DeSantis-engineered Florida debacle during that time.
Just listen to this garbage:
"Our foreign adversaries are using our colleges and universities to advance their nefarious goals, steal intellectual property, push propaganda, censor free speech, and more. Just look at what the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has done. They’ve increased their influence in the U.S., pushed their ideals, and stolen millions of dollars’ worth of taxpayer-funded research from American academic institutions. Every unreported dollar that goes to an educational institution from a foreign adversary has strings attached and undermines our national interest. It must be stopped.
That’s why I was proud to vote for the DETERRENT Act on the House floor this week to tighten reporting requirements, close loopholes, and enforce consequences for universities and colleges that fail to report foreign money they accepted. This is a crucial step towards transparency and protecting American education from malign foreign influence."
The only thing "nefarious" are the lies perpetrated here, and most people, just like they did under the spell of McCarthy, won't question a single premise made here.
The only free speech that has been censored, under threat of expulsion to Gulag El Salvador, is Pro-Palestinian protest, and Rutherford knows this.
China is (according to numerous video lectures I've watched from economist and Professor Richard Wolff) only committing the "sin" of rejecting the petrodollar, joining/forming BRICS, and raising the Chinese people's standard of living.
The rise of the Chinese people from a ratio of mostly starvation poverty to a decent standard of living is astounding, but American politicians like Rutherford, (and to be fair this is bipartisan) don't want Americans to focus on the rising cost of living, lack of healthcare, and prolific spending on a military-industrial complex to keep American "interests" in foreign countries, otherwise know as stolen resources, under the threat of annihilation, nuclear or otherwise.
China isn't YOUR enemy or mine.
They simply had the audacity to make a better quality electric car than Elon Musk, have constructed efficient high-speed rail lines for mass transport of people, goods, and services,(in less than a decade) and China, unlike America, isn't focused on inflating the stock values of parasitic corporations and expanding GDP while ignoring a struggling working class, but genuinely improving peoples standard of living.
This brings up a thought I had that the entire celebration of the newly minted El Salvadoran gulag is just the corporate/military-industrial, prison-industrial alliance flailing and beating on their chests making loud noises.
The vile enthusiasm Kristi Noem exhibited on her tour of the El Salvadoran gulag could only come from the mind of someone who murders errant puppies, and notoriously lied about meeting with North Korean Kim Jong Un in her "autobiography".
Oops, I guess even "bestselling authors" make mistakes about events that never occurred to them in reality.
Noem, as a proxy for Trump, was dog-whistling to her corporate masters, just doing Trump's (and corporations') bidding: PR work for the new prison industrial warehouse complex, which, I predict, will be the new source of free labor for corporations and tech companies across the planet.
Why else would you stack human beings in a massive concrete bunker, one on top of the other, without a motive to make it profitable?
But back to Rutherford's China diatribe.
My suggestion to Congressman Rutherford: Stop misinforming and infantilizing your constituents, YOU take money YOURSELF from AIPAC, as do multiple members of Congress, current and former Presidents, on a bipartisan basis. How about closing the loopholes that grease the pathways to an in-person office visit?
How's that for a "Roundup" cowboy?
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