"their continual willingness to advocate awful things no matter how reckless or stupid." Like Vioxx, Nexium, insulin analogs, and other drugs never completely assessed by the FDA and medical journal editors who publish/endorse drug info without complete clinical-trial data (the mRNA vaccines being merely the most recent example.) The feckless idiot sociopaths are in control of the most fundamental parameter in your life: your health. How can we expect any better behavior from these other paid shills for corporate capitalism and US imperialism? If you doubt my premise, please read Dr. John Abramson's "Sickening". It will open your eyes to just how reckless and stupid are the prescribing habits of a large percentage of US physicians. Advocating for "awful things" is a fundamental characteristic of this brainwashed culture.
doctors are regularly corrupted by Big Pharma, starting at the med schools that are funded by them. Trips to the Caribbean to take a short class to get all the CEUs for the year, along with the pitch for the latest moneymaker. I have witnessed many times a pharma rep carrying large bags from the best restaurants in town for the Doctor and his staffs lunches. Doctors are often just paid extensions of the network.
....facetious, for some reason I didn't see ''H'' in USUALLY! . I can tell often (frequently) or most of the time worse then ''real' prostitution ! , I mean WdaF ''we'' call ''prrrrr''.
I have read related material and I will read Sickening: morality in practice is just a myth we like to use to our benefit against dissenters. there is such a thing, but it is rare and rarely attached to any kind of formal power or authority, religious or civil government.
Excellent commentary, CJ! I am not sure how you can "change" any of the existing power structures as they are ALL corrupt and run by the narcissists among us (all, of course, are sociopaths and many are overt psychopaths). These "people" have no ability to reform or change their characters - no empathy - no sympathy... Emotionally dead inside. Devoid of all humanity...
Never before has a giant can of Raid been needed. But like The Word Herder commented, I think we need to just ignore these people and create our own better systems in our local communities. More and more people are waking up to this rot and want no part of it, but most people are then left wondering what will take their place. We need to come together and create those better ways, whatever works in our communities: alternative education, local currency, getting our local governments on board, cooperatives, etc. We should be unafraid to experiment and be willing to adapt and change.
Yeah, I hear ya. I feel the same way. But like Big Pharma, it a huge thing, a monster, with many tenacles and a lot of power. Trying to UNDO it, or FIX it, is probably a wasted effort. I remember when I was a kid (actually still to this day), the worst punishment was to be ignored when you wanted something... I think we should ignore them and just start setting up our new, localized, Way Better Way... If we ignore them and do something better, would they not be eradicated? That said, I don't consider flipping the bird off limits... even metaphorically. My new-found motto is "Resist Not Evil-- Work Around It."
LOL. About all we can do is take care of the square foot of space that we stand on and reach out to help family and neighbors who are within reach (and, open to help!)... On the far side of collapse, I am hoping for something better and more "human:"... We shall see!
MBS will never become a moral King, lying for him is equivalent to breathing, he is a psychopathic liar, manipulator, he behaves like a machiavellian ruler, not ever giving a care how he can affect others, especially young women, divorced women, widowers, Saudis who are Shites and Saudi exiles who speak ill of the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, he is a sick narcissist, how can anyone trust this man, he will haunt and kill anyone who becomes a threat to him, the US is doing business with a sick leader, as usual, the US will do business with the Devil himself if He can serve America’s interests without ever thinking about the horrible consequences of their business transactions, such as in the brutal war and suffering in Yemen, what does that say about America?! Same thing in Ukraine, the US proxy war using their puppet leader, Zelensky, to order Ukrainian men to fight till death in order to weaken Russia, to the detriment of Ukrainian families, its economy and terrain, America doesn‘t care about Ukraine, America is lying in order to get what it really wants and the public is dumbly waving Ukrainian flags not realizing the real ugly truth behind the Ukraine war, a war between the West and the East, a war between the reserve Dollar and the expansion of a new monetary system, America is fighting to keep its hegemony over the world and for its allies (vassal states) to stick with America and not integrate with the East!
"Nothing will get better until we change those systems." You're too high on the chain. Try "Nothing will get better until human nature changes." That is the essential fact dictating the constantly repeating nature of history and it ain't about to change.
I would say we have been mislead about human nature. Right now I am reading a book called The Dawn of Everything by David Graeber and David Wengrow. Also Debt: The First 5000 Years by David Graeber is an eye-opener. I know there are many other scientists and biologists that are revising what we have been told about human nature.
It depends on which history you read. I am not saying humans are perfect, but by truly examining myself and people I encounter on a daily basis, I have come to find that most people are decent. Why does it feel good to be generous? To hold your loved ones? To smile, laugh, play? To smell the roses? We are not biologically designed for selfishness or doing good would not feel good and people would never do generous and heroic acts unless "forced" to. Ironically, we are forced to do heinous things to each other in the name of making a living and surviving. And then human nature is used: well, it is just in our nature. It actually sounds like an excuse. Just my thoughts.
I don't disagree with anything you said but the course of human history still is what it is. There is an inference from that which says those who most control history ARE different. That's another way of saying that who focus on acquiring and are able to obtain positions of power are the least qualified to hold them while most of us have no interest at all in doing so. Regards.
Idk if idiot is the right word for it. If the hustle pays, if one stands to be well rewarded in $s and status to help MBS lie more like a Western politician does, what idiot turns that down? (Rhetorical question.)
Or put it another way: Future Investment Initiative was a nice money spinner until the Western press made all that noise about Khashoggi. We just need to teach MBS to punish dissenting journalists the way *we* do it so as to manage the noise.
I think that they're really not expecting to be successful, their job is to just look like they're doing something. I suppose it's a good gig if you have absolutely no morals.
It all depends how we define success. The possibility exists that Fontenrose can get paid for polishing that turd. If the purpose of the exercise is to land the polishing gig, add it to her CV, and take home the dough then her chance of success is probably real.
Clearly the very idea is morally repulsive to a healthy person but in contemporary neo-liberalism that's beside the point.
While this article is generally correct, I must correct a significant detail. Caitlin writes, "Generally speaking, think tanks are institutions wherein academics are paid by the worst people in the world to come up with intelligent-sounding reasons why it would be good and smart to do something evil and stupid." Unfortunately, Caitlin has endorsed the "intelligent-sounding" opinion that the US has the "most powerful" military force ever assembled when it has "won" only 2 of its 7 major conflicts in the last 75 years.
It's time to stop submitting to the narrative that the US has "most powerful" military force ever assembled. It's not the "most powerful," just the "most expensive," and even that statistic is overblown when you account for "purchasing power parity."
This aspect of the narrative is one of the reasons Merkins are so easily enticed into war. It's time to dump it, though the Russians may have already dumped it for us.
Oh, you're right. I forgot how major that one was. Far more important than our long contra war against Nicaragua, which we eventually lost. I was thinking Korea, Vietnam, Gulf Wars 1&2, Somalia, Yemen, Syria, winning only Gulf Wars 1&2. Come to think of it, only Gulf War 1 was a clear victory, and only because we didn't try to occupy Iraq. Seems I also forgot Afghanistan.
OK, let's change those systems. Let's go! Oh, wait, everybody is still wearing a mask while walking outside, alone, on a sunny day, with chem trails slowly wafting down on them. Okay, right after they cure Covid, then! Oh, and Monkeypox, and Dolphinpox, and Giraffepox, and mangopox.... Once we're POX-FREE, we can breathe freely and take down the Evil Ones. Yeah, yeah! I'll just be over here, waiting for that moment...
Big Pharmas are diabolical in every respect, but what empowers them is the root of the evil: government that grants patent protection of drugs researched in public facilities at public expense and then subsidized by taxpayer money, and laws that allow for big Pharma immunity from prosecution. what really grates is that this is called "democracy", misspelled of course, they mean "demockracy."
Too bad the Atlantic Council didn't have its "young leaders" seminars back in the early 2000s, when Vladimir Putin would have met its age-related requirements to attend.
In that case, the US Empire would now be dealing with Russia Man Good, instead of Russia Man Bad, and all its tentacles would be freely slithering through Russia, undoubtedly working in the humanitarian interests of the Russian people.
Yep, the Russian people are very much like the American people meaning, damned one way or another. They're damned under Putin and they would be damned under Western-influenced rule although I will add, they are indirectly ruled by Western influences considering Putin's rule is a reaction to the West.
Rehabilitation for powerful psychopaths, in the public mind at least, has been the way of the world since civilization. That's what Fontenrose really means by "mentoring, monitoring and shaping": she isn't referring to MBS's mind and attitude, and perhaps, soul, or even lessons in common etiquette and discretion, but public perception. All powerful people, all economically privileged, pampered, elitist people tend towards moral "eccentricity"? Yeah. We overlooked George W Bush's propensity for mass murder with the imprimatur of God Himself: Bush is a has been, whereas MBS is the key to power and wealth. You figure it out.
Edward Luttwak is not a nice man, but his insight on CIA is dead on and can be extended to every organ of the US state, both national and local. https://youtu.be/7vz1BpRf3Lc?t=1272
The reason why it is allowed to go on in this way is the over-powering brute strength has allowed every sort of corruption the bubble space to grow without challenge. The problem comes when the bubble pops and all these organs and physical instruments now have to interface with a hostile reality, hostile because they made it so.
The NGOs are just as incompetent, or rather they are not fit for stated purpose of creating a unipolar happy land of PMC control. They instead manufacture facades that have already crumbled ("Russia is just as gas station") or are crumbling as their protective bubbles pop and then reality rushes in ("SE Asia nations are allies").
Due to reduced fear of US Military direct intervention, nations in Asia, South America, and even some in Africa are enacting disclosure laws that make transparent the funding and therefore the agendas of NGOs, and some, like Thailand now move to outlaw them having "hidden" agendas.
"their continual willingness to advocate awful things no matter how reckless or stupid." Like Vioxx, Nexium, insulin analogs, and other drugs never completely assessed by the FDA and medical journal editors who publish/endorse drug info without complete clinical-trial data (the mRNA vaccines being merely the most recent example.) The feckless idiot sociopaths are in control of the most fundamental parameter in your life: your health. How can we expect any better behavior from these other paid shills for corporate capitalism and US imperialism? If you doubt my premise, please read Dr. John Abramson's "Sickening". It will open your eyes to just how reckless and stupid are the prescribing habits of a large percentage of US physicians. Advocating for "awful things" is a fundamental characteristic of this brainwashed culture.
doctors are regularly corrupted by Big Pharma, starting at the med schools that are funded by them. Trips to the Caribbean to take a short class to get all the CEUs for the year, along with the pitch for the latest moneymaker. I have witnessed many times a pharma rep carrying large bags from the best restaurants in town for the Doctor and his staffs lunches. Doctors are often just paid extensions of the network.
I disagree!!!!!!!!!! Doctors are USUALLY just paid extensions of the network. :P
https://freeworldnews.tv/watch?id=61ddd7e6eb995c694b261fdd
OK, so? Did you misunderstand my comment above? I was being facetious.
....facetious, for some reason I didn't see ''H'' in USUALLY! . I can tell often (frequently) or most of the time worse then ''real' prostitution ! , I mean WdaF ''we'' call ''prrrrr''.
dont forget the most diabolical of all...big pharmas vaccines scam...https://live.childrenshealthdefense.org/shows/chd-friday-roundtable?utm_source=salsa&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=chd_tv&eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=8208d3d5-808a-436c-93af-a437da70ba72&eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=09e316d0-6364-47f5-aab5-f6fcb93585be
I have read related material and I will read Sickening: morality in practice is just a myth we like to use to our benefit against dissenters. there is such a thing, but it is rare and rarely attached to any kind of formal power or authority, religious or civil government.
Coming soon to a headline in the Onion or the National Inquirer: "MBS to receive 'sensitivity' training from Gina Haspel"
.... coming to headlines in Washington Post (and Cornel Daily Sun, favorite NED recruiting grounds).
She is probably not even be the most stupid or foam-brained there... the "average evil" is truly upon us
Average = banal.
Excellent commentary, CJ! I am not sure how you can "change" any of the existing power structures as they are ALL corrupt and run by the narcissists among us (all, of course, are sociopaths and many are overt psychopaths). These "people" have no ability to reform or change their characters - no empathy - no sympathy... Emotionally dead inside. Devoid of all humanity...
That's what I've noticed. I have no medical background but I do have a brain, these people are psychopaths.
Maybe we don't "change" them. Maybe we replace them....
"Eliminate" resonates more with me at this point... Or, maybe "eradicate" as in pest control...
Never before has a giant can of Raid been needed. But like The Word Herder commented, I think we need to just ignore these people and create our own better systems in our local communities. More and more people are waking up to this rot and want no part of it, but most people are then left wondering what will take their place. We need to come together and create those better ways, whatever works in our communities: alternative education, local currency, getting our local governments on board, cooperatives, etc. We should be unafraid to experiment and be willing to adapt and change.
Absolutely. The best revenge is to have a good life!
Hear, hear. I totally agree.
Yeah, I hear ya. I feel the same way. But like Big Pharma, it a huge thing, a monster, with many tenacles and a lot of power. Trying to UNDO it, or FIX it, is probably a wasted effort. I remember when I was a kid (actually still to this day), the worst punishment was to be ignored when you wanted something... I think we should ignore them and just start setting up our new, localized, Way Better Way... If we ignore them and do something better, would they not be eradicated? That said, I don't consider flipping the bird off limits... even metaphorically. My new-found motto is "Resist Not Evil-- Work Around It."
Yes. Time for state and local governments to simply nullify federal power.
I think that's a good step. The more local we go, the more accountability.
https://tenthamendmentcenter.com/
Excellent. Agree!
Now we just need to figure out WHAT TO DO. ^_^
LOL. About all we can do is take care of the square foot of space that we stand on and reach out to help family and neighbors who are within reach (and, open to help!)... On the far side of collapse, I am hoping for something better and more "human:"... We shall see!
https://freeworldnews.tv/watch?id=61ddd7e6eb995c694b261fdd ooh yes , change see this IQ 36 pea brain ...
Can you imagine being made in ("edited") the image of creatures like Bourla, Schwab, Gates, Fauci, or one of our other would-be "gods". OML.
We'd own nothing and be happy!
MBS will never become a moral King, lying for him is equivalent to breathing, he is a psychopathic liar, manipulator, he behaves like a machiavellian ruler, not ever giving a care how he can affect others, especially young women, divorced women, widowers, Saudis who are Shites and Saudi exiles who speak ill of the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, he is a sick narcissist, how can anyone trust this man, he will haunt and kill anyone who becomes a threat to him, the US is doing business with a sick leader, as usual, the US will do business with the Devil himself if He can serve America’s interests without ever thinking about the horrible consequences of their business transactions, such as in the brutal war and suffering in Yemen, what does that say about America?! Same thing in Ukraine, the US proxy war using their puppet leader, Zelensky, to order Ukrainian men to fight till death in order to weaken Russia, to the detriment of Ukrainian families, its economy and terrain, America doesn‘t care about Ukraine, America is lying in order to get what it really wants and the public is dumbly waving Ukrainian flags not realizing the real ugly truth behind the Ukraine war, a war between the West and the East, a war between the reserve Dollar and the expansion of a new monetary system, America is fighting to keep its hegemony over the world and for its allies (vassal states) to stick with America and not integrate with the East!
Even if MBS were to suddenly change, he would quickly be replaced by someone more sociopathic.
For power is to sociopaths, well, what catnip is to cats.
A psychopathic leopard doesn't change his spots!
A "moral king?' As if there could ever be such a thing.
"Nothing will get better until we change those systems." You're too high on the chain. Try "Nothing will get better until human nature changes." That is the essential fact dictating the constantly repeating nature of history and it ain't about to change.
I would say we have been mislead about human nature. Right now I am reading a book called The Dawn of Everything by David Graeber and David Wengrow. Also Debt: The First 5000 Years by David Graeber is an eye-opener. I know there are many other scientists and biologists that are revising what we have been told about human nature.
It seems to me that human history is the best evidence of human nature.
It depends on which history you read. I am not saying humans are perfect, but by truly examining myself and people I encounter on a daily basis, I have come to find that most people are decent. Why does it feel good to be generous? To hold your loved ones? To smile, laugh, play? To smell the roses? We are not biologically designed for selfishness or doing good would not feel good and people would never do generous and heroic acts unless "forced" to. Ironically, we are forced to do heinous things to each other in the name of making a living and surviving. And then human nature is used: well, it is just in our nature. It actually sounds like an excuse. Just my thoughts.
I don't disagree with anything you said but the course of human history still is what it is. There is an inference from that which says those who most control history ARE different. That's another way of saying that who focus on acquiring and are able to obtain positions of power are the least qualified to hold them while most of us have no interest at all in doing so. Regards.
Idk if idiot is the right word for it. If the hustle pays, if one stands to be well rewarded in $s and status to help MBS lie more like a Western politician does, what idiot turns that down? (Rhetorical question.)
Or put it another way: Future Investment Initiative was a nice money spinner until the Western press made all that noise about Khashoggi. We just need to teach MBS to punish dissenting journalists the way *we* do it so as to manage the noise.
I think that they're really not expecting to be successful, their job is to just look like they're doing something. I suppose it's a good gig if you have absolutely no morals.
It all depends how we define success. The possibility exists that Fontenrose can get paid for polishing that turd. If the purpose of the exercise is to land the polishing gig, add it to her CV, and take home the dough then her chance of success is probably real.
Clearly the very idea is morally repulsive to a healthy person but in contemporary neo-liberalism that's beside the point.
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/03/neo-liberalism-expressed-simple-rules.html
my only question, is Fontenrose another acolyte of the WEF, or just emulating tactics?
And proxy murderers.
While this article is generally correct, I must correct a significant detail. Caitlin writes, "Generally speaking, think tanks are institutions wherein academics are paid by the worst people in the world to come up with intelligent-sounding reasons why it would be good and smart to do something evil and stupid." Unfortunately, Caitlin has endorsed the "intelligent-sounding" opinion that the US has the "most powerful" military force ever assembled when it has "won" only 2 of its 7 major conflicts in the last 75 years.
It's time to stop submitting to the narrative that the US has "most powerful" military force ever assembled. It's not the "most powerful," just the "most expensive," and even that statistic is overblown when you account for "purchasing power parity."
This aspect of the narrative is one of the reasons Merkins are so easily enticed into war. It's time to dump it, though the Russians may have already dumped it for us.
<I>"won" only 2 of its 7 major conflicts in the last 75 years.</I>
I think you forgot Grenada! :-)
Oh, you're right. I forgot how major that one was. Far more important than our long contra war against Nicaragua, which we eventually lost. I was thinking Korea, Vietnam, Gulf Wars 1&2, Somalia, Yemen, Syria, winning only Gulf Wars 1&2. Come to think of it, only Gulf War 1 was a clear victory, and only because we didn't try to occupy Iraq. Seems I also forgot Afghanistan.
Winning is getting rich or richer, so what you consider to be a loss is actually a win or I should say a win for some — the few.
OK, let's change those systems. Let's go! Oh, wait, everybody is still wearing a mask while walking outside, alone, on a sunny day, with chem trails slowly wafting down on them. Okay, right after they cure Covid, then! Oh, and Monkeypox, and Dolphinpox, and Giraffepox, and mangopox.... Once we're POX-FREE, we can breathe freely and take down the Evil Ones. Yeah, yeah! I'll just be over here, waiting for that moment...
Big Pharmas are diabolical in every respect, but what empowers them is the root of the evil: government that grants patent protection of drugs researched in public facilities at public expense and then subsidized by taxpayer money, and laws that allow for big Pharma immunity from prosecution. what really grates is that this is called "democracy", misspelled of course, they mean "demockracy."
Too bad the Atlantic Council didn't have its "young leaders" seminars back in the early 2000s, when Vladimir Putin would have met its age-related requirements to attend.
In that case, the US Empire would now be dealing with Russia Man Good, instead of Russia Man Bad, and all its tentacles would be freely slithering through Russia, undoubtedly working in the humanitarian interests of the Russian people.
Yep, the Russian people are very much like the American people meaning, damned one way or another. They're damned under Putin and they would be damned under Western-influenced rule although I will add, they are indirectly ruled by Western influences considering Putin's rule is a reaction to the West.
Rehabilitation for powerful psychopaths, in the public mind at least, has been the way of the world since civilization. That's what Fontenrose really means by "mentoring, monitoring and shaping": she isn't referring to MBS's mind and attitude, and perhaps, soul, or even lessons in common etiquette and discretion, but public perception. All powerful people, all economically privileged, pampered, elitist people tend towards moral "eccentricity"? Yeah. We overlooked George W Bush's propensity for mass murder with the imprimatur of God Himself: Bush is a has been, whereas MBS is the key to power and wealth. You figure it out.
Edward Luttwak is not a nice man, but his insight on CIA is dead on and can be extended to every organ of the US state, both national and local. https://youtu.be/7vz1BpRf3Lc?t=1272
The reason why it is allowed to go on in this way is the over-powering brute strength has allowed every sort of corruption the bubble space to grow without challenge. The problem comes when the bubble pops and all these organs and physical instruments now have to interface with a hostile reality, hostile because they made it so.
Epistemic Viciousness just posted by Lira explains how this anti-robustness / pro-fragile came to flourish in USA PMC.
The NGOs are just as incompetent, or rather they are not fit for stated purpose of creating a unipolar happy land of PMC control. They instead manufacture facades that have already crumbled ("Russia is just as gas station") or are crumbling as their protective bubbles pop and then reality rushes in ("SE Asia nations are allies").
Due to reduced fear of US Military direct intervention, nations in Asia, South America, and even some in Africa are enacting disclosure laws that make transparent the funding and therefore the agendas of NGOs, and some, like Thailand now move to outlaw them having "hidden" agendas.
Evil, certainly. Stupid, I have yet to be convinced. Presuming they aim to embetter the world is unwise