Tom Cotton Vies for Position in Power Elite

By Michael S. Rozeff

Tom Cotton is the senator from Arkansas who led the group of 47 Republicans who sent a letter to Iran that attempted to torpedo the current negotiations. Obama seeks to contain Iran via agreement, all the while continually forecasting that the negotiations may collapse and that he’s keeping all options on the table, while Cotton seeks to contain Iran by invasion. For him, there is no other option. The goal is the same. The means vary. Obama is high up in the power elite. As a senator, so is Cotton in the power elite, but he’s not high up in it. He’s making a bid to gain stature, however. The power elite always has this jockeying for position within the general framework of achieving the same basic goal. Cotton’s bellicose neocon positions are truly extreme.

As in any club or party, the power elite has a “central committee”, but it is informal. It does not have a membership that is either formal or is made public. We on the outside speculate about it. We can be sure such a sub-group exists by our knowledge of how organizations generally work when the entire membership begins to exceed quite a small size (like 20-50 people). Since the power elite has many hundreds of people in it, there has to be a focal point for decisions. Whoever these persons are, they hold the most power, influence and say. They guide the group.

Politicking goes on within the power elite as members vie for power. Politicians offer political menus and attempt to attract support to them. Cotton’s extreme menu is being offered as his attempt to gain stature within the Senate and the power elite. Only time will tell if he succeeds or goes down in flames by being too extreme and too bold and dangerous to be trusted with the keys of power.

Cotton is a Harvard graduate, a lawyer and a U.S. Army veteran. He fought in Iraq. He has built a vita that fits him for the power elite. He began as a Representative and quickly moved up to the Senate. At 37, he’s its youngest member. He graduated magna cum laude. He’s evidently highly intelligent. This too is attractive to the power elite.

Beyond his intensely hawkish and warmongering positions is a very interesting legal position. He wants to end the constitutional restriction on bills of attainder (Article 1, sections 9 and 10). Obama’s foreign assassinations and the impositions of sanctions are judicial judgments and punishments without due process. Cotton would extend this to domestic Americans, thereby aiding the imposition of a police state. Cotton seems to be a brazen American-style national socialist. What this means is that he will defend his positions by 100% Americanism, even though they, like neocon fantasies, are nationalist ideas that promise an unattainable worldwide Reich. Long before that is ever achieved, implementing his ideas will being ruin to America.

The above originally appeared at LewRockwell.com.