If the US really was what it pretends to be, history would be re-written, too. Exactly 50 years ago today the democratically elected president of Chile's government was overthrown at the behest of the US/ CIA and untold lives were destroyed. I listened to a report on NPR today about these events and NOT ONE WORD was said about the US's role in all this. Not one. Shameful.
Well it’s not just about the U.S. All tyrants have lackeys and enablers. All of Europe from Van der leyen to all the national “lleaders” have revealed itself to be lackeys for example. The “independent” Britain is anything but.
And a great many “liberals” around the world from Podemos in Spain to the German Greens and the “labour” parties of the UK, Norway, Germany etc, are just fascists under cover. The U.S. flicks its fingers and they are all embracing nazis in Ukraine and authoritarians in Poland and begging for Saudi tyrants to partner with them.. Just like that.
Real nazis. Like murderers. What an immense amount of power is wielded by our government, the one that is supposed to be the most in check writes the most checks. May they get what they deserve.
I am afraid it is not just the soft power narrative that prevails, it is mainly good old passivity and people have been inured to this status quo for too long and come to accept it as the norm. People my age have the seen the better times and watched the incremental degeneration of politics and democracy over too many decades.
I see the growing fascism as a defeatist ideology where the status quo has given up and resorting to pure authoritarianism, but of course, it is more complicated more than that.
Canada as a colony of the empire, and the US as the empire have been living the pretense for too long and may be well beyond recovery, it appears a race to the bottom for the West.
The question is how much damage is going to be inflicted on the rest of the world and can they survive the self -immolation of the West?
The West has refused to the acknowledge the moment an empire is created the seeds of its destruction are sown, its over, we are dancing in the ruins.
I happen to believe that way more people are aware of the American penchant for fraud and war, than aren’t, but their minds are trained to focus on what they personally can lose if the status quo changes. Or what they believe they can lose. And they’re comfortable suppressing their moral conscience in favor of a dim numbness.
My own opinion is that Americans under 30 years old know full well that “the greatest generation” is full of shit. They are drunk on the imperial koolaid that has long been sour. And the reckoning may favor demagoguery and fascism and lots of violence. Americans love violence.
Who do you mean by "the greatest generation"? According to Tom Brokaw, the "greatest generation" was my parents generation, those who were young during the 1940s and experienced WWII. If you are talking about the baby boomers, YOU are the one who is full of shit because WE were the first to alert the world to environmental disaster, WE were the ones who protested the Vietnam war, WE were the ones who made Nixon resign, WE were the ones who fought for abortion rights.
The hippies were the children of the children who were the last generation that understood that collective bargaining was to be treasured and that was not to be knowledge passed on.
Pat yourself on your back all you want, but our elders were, by my own reckoning, naive authority-addicts who chose to believe the hype, stay in their lane, and trust the hucksters who sold the idea of having your cake and eating it too.
The hippies turned on and tuned out just long enough to fracture a sleeping public over a grotesque imperialist invasion of rice farmers. Then they shaved and put away their bongs and became wealthier versions of their parents. Empty suits that don’t want to know what’s true, only what confirms their parochial perspectives.
Also, as I noted just above, the case of resolving the disputes of foreigners through force was ambiguous and was vigorously debated during the earlier part of the century. T. Roosevelt intervened diplomatically to end the Russo-Japanese war, with the result (I have heard) of earning the resentment of bigdeals in both countries who thought they were cheated by the settlement.
I believe he was attributing that phrase to our parents, who joined World War Ii for pretty clear reasons, but somehow considered that process the way to continue (and used the advantage of our standing in profit to exploit the world.
Dude, the ‘greatest generation’, assuming that the youngest of them would have been 18 when they joined the service in 1944, barely enough time to have gone through basic training and then be deployed, are roughly 97 years old today. Those drafted at the end of 1941 are well into their 100s. This is not a significant demographic today. These elderly vets and their spouses have no power. This catastrophe is not a function of a new version of the ‘generation gap’ of the 1960s, which had almost entirely to do with hair length, popular music, sexual freedom, marijuana and men’s hair length, and to a lesser extent the draft and the war in Vietnam. The rebels then are the much-derided boomers of today. From 1952 on, there was nothing to vote for but the unitary war party. The propaganda of that era destroyed any possibility of an anti-militarist movement that was mainstream. Efforts were made, which included members of the ‘greatest generation, their parents, the boomers, their children, and every letter-denoted generation since. Their efforts were of no use, except (arguably) in finally ending the war in Vietnam, 30 years after the neo-colonial conflict in which France was trying to replace the Japanese occupation of Vietnam which had replaced France’s colonial rule during WW II that was already opposed by the independence movement there led by Ho Chi Minh.
Excellent, Caitlin! Once again you go to the heart of what's wrong with the world today. It is tantalising and gratifying to think, what if US hegemony didn't exist.... . what will the rest of the world look like. You set down beautifully point by point the enormous harm done and is being done by the US empire.
May I also add that the apartheid regime in Israel - occupying and denying Palestinian sovereignty - would not be so enabled if not for the empire..
That's actually the conditional. The way you know that is if there's a dependent clause, such as 'if the US really were what it pretends to be, <it would be a much better place.>'
The subjunctive takes the form of <I wish you were here> or similar constructs. No dependent clause.
That said, the definition of subjunctive in English is anything but clear, and some definitions include the conditional, so there's that.
What drives me to distraction is misuse of the auxiliary 'to have.' You constantly see <I wish she would OF been there> instead of <HAVE been there> You see this everywhere in America and I attribute it to lazy pronunciation combined with the fact that most Americans don't (or can't) read.
If you think English grammar is tough, try Russian. Six cases, with nouns, pronouns and adjectives inflected for each case, and that's just for starters...lol.
You know what else bugs me? Substack is supposed to be for writers, correct? So where's the boldface, underline and italics in the comment section? I could have used all three in the above comment.
I was taught that contrary-to-fact statements such as "If the US were X..." must use "were" to be correct. Using "were" instead of "was" is the only clue you are giving the reader that you know the statement to be false.
I speak German, and the usage of subjunctive with contrary-to-fact is identical in German: "Wenn die Vereinigten Staaten wäre X..."
You're complaining about a mere abbreviation. "Would 'of'" is actually "would've" for "would have". Given the vagaries of English spelling, pronunciation, and grammar, it's hardly surprising that people make some mistakes. Fortunately we have lots of grammar Nazis to keep us in order, until we revert to correct Latin or Sanskrit.
"Given the vagaries of English spelling, pronunciation, and grammar..."
Nothing compared to Russian, trust me. And I'm not grammar Nazi, I'm a grammar Communist. I believe we should spell words the way Stalin spelled them. Anything else and it's off to the gulag with you!
"Grammar police" is better term, I believe. That said, clarity is important. That said, in the case of the article following the title, the title conveys the author's meaning to all but the most obtuse.
Grammar police are useful in properly-sized doses.
I like Grammar Rangers myself. Or maybe Grammar Agents. What's fun about being a Grammar Troll is the predictably of the response. 100 percent certainty that someone will bring up the Nazis. Never fails:)
You missed the (grammar Nazi) point. Patrick is not talking about the past--he's saying that in correct English, rarely used except in the most formal writing, you substitute the past tense word (were) to indicate that this is the subjunctive, that is, you aren't talking about what IS but what could be, should be, would be.
What are you talking about. I was supporting his knowledge of word usage and adding that, given the facts, both usages apply. What are you, his mother or something?
You used to be correct, Patrick. And that “were” is indeed the subjunctive - one of the final remaining vestiges of it in the language.
But, English is not a prescriptive language, it is a descriptive language, grammatically speaking. This means that all the grammar books and ‘Rules’ describe how people use the language, not dictate (as for example Spanish) how people use the language.
And, ‘if i was’ has become so common now, (from WSJ, NYT, FT, The Independent etc) that it has worked its way into officially recognised status in all modern grammar books, including up to the highest level exams of English as a foreign language - the European C2 level, as administered by Cambridge University. It now communicates the exact same idea.
I used to get walloped at school for “if i was” - but thankfully, English is flexible and adaptable in this way. American English tends to be more old-fashioned in its construction.
I love word talk. Thanks for this. The one that gets me in American English is people saying “less” when they mean “fewer”. But it’s so pervasive that I’m pretty sure “less” is now considered correct. 😱😄
Great job laying out the facts without insulting the people who have been deceived by professional criminals/politicians/bureaucrats their entire lives. I give it a 10 out of a possible 10 for exposing the painful truth, we are ruled by scumbags.
So true, and so sad. And, although the USA has the biggest military, most of the global north is essentially the same. A lot of Canadians have had their bubble burst lately about what a wonderful presence we are in the world. Not so.
When I was a child, even in grade school, we were taught that the world had gone to Hell in the 20th century because the US _failed_ to intervene in numerous international disputes. The classical case was Munich, where, if the US had strongly backed Britain and France, they would have taken a much stronger line with Hitler, who would then surely have backed down -- or not; maybe he would have started his war a year sooner. Through much of the 20th century, and still today, Munich has been cited as the case which proves that US interventionism is or would be a good thing. Because, after all, we could be at peace on our island continent (except for the occasional civil war.)
What really interests me is how the US maintains such influence, exerting itself on other countries that it calls allies, you know like Austraila(where you live) Most of Europe. It really is dragging the entire world down. The world would be a better place if the US was as advertised. It would be like asking for superman and getting Bizarro...(the antithesis) It really is the exact opposite of what it claims, but that's not what really is key. It's propaganda pollutes minds to be perceived to be what it pretends to be.
The nation that introduced the Nuremberg principles doesn't aide by them instead they threaten anyone who dares to consider investigating US war crimes all the way to runing the lives of anyone who publishes the truth about their war crimes.
Yes we are the new European based empire that arose out of the Roman empire that stole a religious franchise that opposed Roman occupation by supposedly taking its messiah hostage who blasted the temples for being center of resistance perhaps.
They wen on to become a trans national religion whose god favored various empires over time to spread its culture war. The US version is now so full of its entitlement to seize the world and bask in gods golden glow using all the old method mixed with all the new technological tricks of the trade.
The real fear is other tech giants have appeared demanding equal time and human civilization is addicted to a military dominance logic that threatens its very existence and that of a god emblazoned on its money. It turns out godless communism wasn't the only problem but a god may be..
If the US really was what it pretends to be, history would be re-written, too. Exactly 50 years ago today the democratically elected president of Chile's government was overthrown at the behest of the US/ CIA and untold lives were destroyed. I listened to a report on NPR today about these events and NOT ONE WORD was said about the US's role in all this. Not one. Shameful.
Yeah, and it’s not like it is even officially denied now - it’s just never officially mentioned without a direct question about it.
Well it’s not just about the U.S. All tyrants have lackeys and enablers. All of Europe from Van der leyen to all the national “lleaders” have revealed itself to be lackeys for example. The “independent” Britain is anything but.
And a great many “liberals” around the world from Podemos in Spain to the German Greens and the “labour” parties of the UK, Norway, Germany etc, are just fascists under cover. The U.S. flicks its fingers and they are all embracing nazis in Ukraine and authoritarians in Poland and begging for Saudi tyrants to partner with them.. Just like that.
Real nazis. Like murderers. What an immense amount of power is wielded by our government, the one that is supposed to be the most in check writes the most checks. May they get what they deserve.
I was just denied the ability to like your comment, never seen that on substack before - am I now being shadow banned ?
I am afraid it is not just the soft power narrative that prevails, it is mainly good old passivity and people have been inured to this status quo for too long and come to accept it as the norm. People my age have the seen the better times and watched the incremental degeneration of politics and democracy over too many decades.
I see the growing fascism as a defeatist ideology where the status quo has given up and resorting to pure authoritarianism, but of course, it is more complicated more than that.
Canada as a colony of the empire, and the US as the empire have been living the pretense for too long and may be well beyond recovery, it appears a race to the bottom for the West.
The question is how much damage is going to be inflicted on the rest of the world and can they survive the self -immolation of the West?
The West has refused to the acknowledge the moment an empire is created the seeds of its destruction are sown, its over, we are dancing in the ruins.
I can faintly hear Neros violin playing in the background !
Especially with the oligarchs clearing land by fire to build their new palaces.
I happen to believe that way more people are aware of the American penchant for fraud and war, than aren’t, but their minds are trained to focus on what they personally can lose if the status quo changes. Or what they believe they can lose. And they’re comfortable suppressing their moral conscience in favor of a dim numbness.
My own opinion is that Americans under 30 years old know full well that “the greatest generation” is full of shit. They are drunk on the imperial koolaid that has long been sour. And the reckoning may favor demagoguery and fascism and lots of violence. Americans love violence.
"Americans love violence." - you mean when they get to apply it. I don't think they like it applied to them. Bully behavior.
"Americans under 30 years old know "?
hahahahahahahaha!
They read and think in tweets and memes and Instagram video.
Many over-30s do too.
Who do you mean by "the greatest generation"? According to Tom Brokaw, the "greatest generation" was my parents generation, those who were young during the 1940s and experienced WWII. If you are talking about the baby boomers, YOU are the one who is full of shit because WE were the first to alert the world to environmental disaster, WE were the ones who protested the Vietnam war, WE were the ones who made Nixon resign, WE were the ones who fought for abortion rights.
Abortion is not a right. Nixon, while having done wrong, is a saint compared to those your "we" empowered.
Every generation is/was imperfect, but we are imperfect at the speed of electronics, now. God help us.
The hippies were the children of the children who were the last generation that understood that collective bargaining was to be treasured and that was not to be knowledge passed on.
Pat yourself on your back all you want, but our elders were, by my own reckoning, naive authority-addicts who chose to believe the hype, stay in their lane, and trust the hucksters who sold the idea of having your cake and eating it too.
The hippies turned on and tuned out just long enough to fracture a sleeping public over a grotesque imperialist invasion of rice farmers. Then they shaved and put away their bongs and became wealthier versions of their parents. Empty suits that don’t want to know what’s true, only what confirms their parochial perspectives.
You're both wrong--because you can't really attribute anything to a whole generation. Which doesn't have clear endpoints anyway.
Also, as I noted just above, the case of resolving the disputes of foreigners through force was ambiguous and was vigorously debated during the earlier part of the century. T. Roosevelt intervened diplomatically to end the Russo-Japanese war, with the result (I have heard) of earning the resentment of bigdeals in both countries who thought they were cheated by the settlement.
I believe he was attributing that phrase to our parents, who joined World War Ii for pretty clear reasons, but somehow considered that process the way to continue (and used the advantage of our standing in profit to exploit the world.
Dude, the ‘greatest generation’, assuming that the youngest of them would have been 18 when they joined the service in 1944, barely enough time to have gone through basic training and then be deployed, are roughly 97 years old today. Those drafted at the end of 1941 are well into their 100s. This is not a significant demographic today. These elderly vets and their spouses have no power. This catastrophe is not a function of a new version of the ‘generation gap’ of the 1960s, which had almost entirely to do with hair length, popular music, sexual freedom, marijuana and men’s hair length, and to a lesser extent the draft and the war in Vietnam. The rebels then are the much-derided boomers of today. From 1952 on, there was nothing to vote for but the unitary war party. The propaganda of that era destroyed any possibility of an anti-militarist movement that was mainstream. Efforts were made, which included members of the ‘greatest generation, their parents, the boomers, their children, and every letter-denoted generation since. Their efforts were of no use, except (arguably) in finally ending the war in Vietnam, 30 years after the neo-colonial conflict in which France was trying to replace the Japanese occupation of Vietnam which had replaced France’s colonial rule during WW II that was already opposed by the independence movement there led by Ho Chi Minh.
Excellent, Caitlin! Once again you go to the heart of what's wrong with the world today. It is tantalising and gratifying to think, what if US hegemony didn't exist.... . what will the rest of the world look like. You set down beautifully point by point the enormous harm done and is being done by the US empire.
May I also add that the apartheid regime in Israel - occupying and denying Palestinian sovereignty - would not be so enabled if not for the empire..
s/If The US Really Was/If The US Really Were/
Subjunctive "were" should be used when you are saying that something is not true, rather than saying that something happened in the past.
Grammar matters a lot, both for clarity and for legitimacy.
That's actually the conditional. The way you know that is if there's a dependent clause, such as 'if the US really were what it pretends to be, <it would be a much better place.>'
The subjunctive takes the form of <I wish you were here> or similar constructs. No dependent clause.
That said, the definition of subjunctive in English is anything but clear, and some definitions include the conditional, so there's that.
What drives me to distraction is misuse of the auxiliary 'to have.' You constantly see <I wish she would OF been there> instead of <HAVE been there> You see this everywhere in America and I attribute it to lazy pronunciation combined with the fact that most Americans don't (or can't) read.
If you think English grammar is tough, try Russian. Six cases, with nouns, pronouns and adjectives inflected for each case, and that's just for starters...lol.
You know what else bugs me? Substack is supposed to be for writers, correct? So where's the boldface, underline and italics in the comment section? I could have used all three in the above comment.
I was taught that contrary-to-fact statements such as "If the US were X..." must use "were" to be correct. Using "were" instead of "was" is the only clue you are giving the reader that you know the statement to be false.
I speak German, and the usage of subjunctive with contrary-to-fact is identical in German: "Wenn die Vereinigten Staaten wäre X..."
You're complaining about a mere abbreviation. "Would 'of'" is actually "would've" for "would have". Given the vagaries of English spelling, pronunciation, and grammar, it's hardly surprising that people make some mistakes. Fortunately we have lots of grammar Nazis to keep us in order, until we revert to correct Latin or Sanskrit.
"Given the vagaries of English spelling, pronunciation, and grammar..."
Nothing compared to Russian, trust me. And I'm not grammar Nazi, I'm a grammar Communist. I believe we should spell words the way Stalin spelled them. Anything else and it's off to the gulag with you!
(I will not abbreviate; your comment is too eloquent.)
ROLLING ON THE FLOOR LAUGHING MY A$$ OFF!!!
"Grammar police" is better term, I believe. That said, clarity is important. That said, in the case of the article following the title, the title conveys the author's meaning to all but the most obtuse.
Grammar police are useful in properly-sized doses.
I like Grammar Rangers myself. Or maybe Grammar Agents. What's fun about being a Grammar Troll is the predictably of the response. 100 percent certainty that someone will bring up the Nazis. Never fails:)
Kind've weird that. ;-)
(I crack myself up.)
The derogatory term is correct, grammar Nazi is a valid description. Sorry if it offends your political correctness organ, i,e, your anus.
No need to apologize. We all have opinions.
(But, really, leave my anus alone.)
You’re both correct. If i were - the were here is the subjunctive form of the verb ‘to be’.
But as you point out, it always forms part of a larger conditional structure.
Seems like both apply. Was horrifying and still is. 🤓
You missed the (grammar Nazi) point. Patrick is not talking about the past--he's saying that in correct English, rarely used except in the most formal writing, you substitute the past tense word (were) to indicate that this is the subjunctive, that is, you aren't talking about what IS but what could be, should be, would be.
What are you talking about. I was supporting his knowledge of word usage and adding that, given the facts, both usages apply. What are you, his mother or something?
Think different.
You used to be correct, Patrick. And that “were” is indeed the subjunctive - one of the final remaining vestiges of it in the language.
But, English is not a prescriptive language, it is a descriptive language, grammatically speaking. This means that all the grammar books and ‘Rules’ describe how people use the language, not dictate (as for example Spanish) how people use the language.
And, ‘if i was’ has become so common now, (from WSJ, NYT, FT, The Independent etc) that it has worked its way into officially recognised status in all modern grammar books, including up to the highest level exams of English as a foreign language - the European C2 level, as administered by Cambridge University. It now communicates the exact same idea.
I used to get walloped at school for “if i was” - but thankfully, English is flexible and adaptable in this way. American English tends to be more old-fashioned in its construction.
I love word talk. Thanks for this. The one that gets me in American English is people saying “less” when they mean “fewer”. But it’s so pervasive that I’m pretty sure “less” is now considered correct. 😱😄
Not all that important here.
Great job laying out the facts without insulting the people who have been deceived by professional criminals/politicians/bureaucrats their entire lives. I give it a 10 out of a possible 10 for exposing the painful truth, we are ruled by scumbags.
So true, and so sad. And, although the USA has the biggest military, most of the global north is essentially the same. A lot of Canadians have had their bubble burst lately about what a wonderful presence we are in the world. Not so.
When I was a child, even in grade school, we were taught that the world had gone to Hell in the 20th century because the US _failed_ to intervene in numerous international disputes. The classical case was Munich, where, if the US had strongly backed Britain and France, they would have taken a much stronger line with Hitler, who would then surely have backed down -- or not; maybe he would have started his war a year sooner. Through much of the 20th century, and still today, Munich has been cited as the case which proves that US interventionism is or would be a good thing. Because, after all, we could be at peace on our island continent (except for the occasional civil war.)
Thank god. The sanctimony was getting a bit thick.
What really interests me is how the US maintains such influence, exerting itself on other countries that it calls allies, you know like Austraila(where you live) Most of Europe. It really is dragging the entire world down. The world would be a better place if the US was as advertised. It would be like asking for superman and getting Bizarro...(the antithesis) It really is the exact opposite of what it claims, but that's not what really is key. It's propaganda pollutes minds to be perceived to be what it pretends to be.
The nation that introduced the Nuremberg principles doesn't aide by them instead they threaten anyone who dares to consider investigating US war crimes all the way to runing the lives of anyone who publishes the truth about their war crimes.
Free Julian Assange !!!
If The US Really Was What It Pretends To Be ... the people would be prospering and reaping the rewards of an immense peace dividend.
Yes we are the new European based empire that arose out of the Roman empire that stole a religious franchise that opposed Roman occupation by supposedly taking its messiah hostage who blasted the temples for being center of resistance perhaps.
They wen on to become a trans national religion whose god favored various empires over time to spread its culture war. The US version is now so full of its entitlement to seize the world and bask in gods golden glow using all the old method mixed with all the new technological tricks of the trade.
The real fear is other tech giants have appeared demanding equal time and human civilization is addicted to a military dominance logic that threatens its very existence and that of a god emblazoned on its money. It turns out godless communism wasn't the only problem but a god may be..
NATO would have ceased to exist when the USSR collapsed if it had been what it has always claimed to be.
Thank you Caitlin🙏
Excellent writing as per usual Kudos for Caitlin.
Considering the US isn't what it pretend to be then we really need to start discussing and revealing which narrative they are following and why.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=US2PQHS5tUE
Dare you to know your "Democracy" by listening to Mr Bolsen
Perhaps we mistake universal suffering for universal suffrage.