"This struggle for US planetary hegemony is disguised by the western political/media class as something other than what it is, because you can’t allow the public in a democratic nation to understand clearly that their government is on the side of evil. They’ll frame it as a US-led international coalition to liberate a nation from a tyrannical dictator. As a humanitarian intervention to protect human rights. As support for Israel’s right to defend itself. As protection of freedom of navigation in the Red Sea. But what’s actually happening is the world’s most powerful and murderous power structure killing human beings in western Asia in order to secure control over a crucial resource.
You see this all over the world against nations which refuse to allow themselves to be absorbed into the US-centralized power structure like North Korea, Venezuela and Cuba, with China being by far the strongest of these and Russia a distant second. And you will notice that you have heard every nation I just mentioned cast in a very negative light by the western press over the years. This is not a coincidence. "
It's exactly this. I remember watching the new Star Wars Episode 1 or 2 or 3 - I can't remember which - but the evil bad alien guys had Chinese accents. Because the propaganda machine needed to make sure we knew who the 'enemy' was.
I agree with your comment with this exception. "You see this all over the world against nations which refuse to allow themselves to be absorbed into the US-centralized power structure like North Korea, Venezuela and Cuba, with China being by far the strongest of these and Russia a distant second."
China has a much better economy than Russia. But Russia is not a distant second to China. Russia has the most nuclear weapons of any country and excellent delivery systems.
Even our military is beholden to Chinese electronic components ..this came up in conversations of the military realizing that dependency on that was not smart but our corporate overloads saw cheep Chinese goods that are undermining American mom and pop business as irelivent to their bottom line..American greed machine is still plowing under mom and pop. I see it every day another place closes up unable to afford the rising cost of living and conducting buisness because the empire has to wage these endless proxy wars against nations they can't subvert or control.
“Dependency” is a hoax. Countries should trade - it helps with reasons for peace. But no sugar - the military want to wage war, not have peace.
Anytime you hear this world “dependency” the person saying it is either a warmonger or as unthinkingly accepted the premise that warmongering is desirable.
I remember listening to Col MacGregor and he said the US no longer has the power it once had either in weaponry or in army. I also believe that the US does not have economic power. Don't know where it is getting its money from because basically it is broke and the dollar apparently is going down. Maybe it's all bluster.
I would treat anything that Col MacGregor says with somewhat of a grain of salt. He says everything that I want to believe, everything that I wish happens, everything that appeals to my confirmation bias. Hence, I need to treat his words with skepticism and rigorous analysis.
Despite what I may want to happen, the US is not going anywhere anytime soon. No, the dollar is not going down. Death of the dollar has been bandied about for several decades now. Everytime some crises happens that threatens the US economy, people start talking about the demise of the dollar.
I would also disagree with his statement about "US no longer has the power it once had either in weaponry or in army". The technology gains alone in the last several decades has made the military might of the US stronger than ever before. Sure, it has logistics issues, supply chain issues, and management issues. But so too do the armies of many other countries.
Again, I disagree with his statement of "US does not have economic power". If the US did not have economic power, it would not be able to bully the rest of the world with its trade agreements. It would not be able to sanction countries and hold the future and viability of countries in limbo through debt diplomacy and control of financial institutions.
You might be right and it is hard to really believe any of them and just watch and see how it all plays out I do believe the US have been guilty of committing wars in the name of regime change for a long time I do not think they are innocent of anything. The rest I'm not sure about!! Their economy, their military strength etc. They certainly have plenty of poverty and crime for a country with a healthy economy !
When I worked for the navy I saw technology even 40 years ago that the public has no knowledge of. Talking with a guy I lnew back then he told me that he could not get specific but just know that the usa has secret technologies that are far more sophisticated than we are aware of ... That said so does Russia
No one suggested the next great powers will be benevolent, you are arguing against strawmen. Of course, it's reasonable to think they will be less warlike and bloodthirsty than the most warlike and bloodthirsty empire in human history, that has waged more wars than anyone can remember and is responsible for destroying more countries and for more coups than anyone can count. This is not hard for any power to be. What they don't and won't do is what people care about.
You are also insane if you think those who criticise modern Western nation states inherently "hate Westerners", themselves, or their own history. Of course you can find some who do, but it's a stupid assumption. Nowhere has been worse at destroying Western culture and civilisation than the United States, and the centuries where Western culture was at its strongest and most inventive and culturally rich were the centuries preceding the US even becoming a great power, and that Americans had almost nothing to do with.
They had nothing to do with the great achievements in science, literature, art, music, and so on of the Renaissance, the Victorian era, or the Industrial revolution. Nothing to do with the great achievements of Antiquity. The US is a colonial backwater settled by—objectively speaking since this isn't some kind of subjective judgement, considering I quite like Americans and American history—Europe's least fortunate and most uneducated, by its criminals and bastards. It is no wonder the most vicious amoral psychopaths have come to dominate it in place of its most enlightened citizens and founders.
As Gore Vidal once noted, the only thing Americans have really even contributed culturally speaking is advertisements, inventing propaganda, but really it's being polite to call that a contribution and not an affliction. I am not a globalist nor a nationalist, but I care deeply about human culture and traditions including my own. And as "Western" is not a culture, but the "West" as a political entity is in the form of its psychotic occidentalism, it turns out the latter has degraded the former, so why would I not celebrate? The death of the "West" is good for Westerners and Western culture, and whatever pain comes before new life is no different from childbirth.
Although people focus on the harm Western powers have done to everyone else, it is easy they have destroyed Westerners by playing their bloody games the same way with centuries of serfdom, war, and domination, sacrificing us against them in imaginary conflicts to enrich a small number of ruling elite. Do you really think you and I stand to gain from this? Or in this class struggle, are you one of the masters who view those beneath you like insects?
European culture has been slowly destroyed by empires, not only the present one, but ever since the Romans and Greeks would destroy entire cultures like that of the Gauls, with Julius and others purposefully slaughtering the old, women, and children and reducing populations to cannibalism in long sieges to break them. You know why they did this? For gold; Crassus was their debtor. "Where they make a desolation, they call it peace," as Tacitus wrote. Yet Romans saw themselves as peacekeepers, "peace unto the world" being inscribed on Roman medallions.
You are aware of some of the ways the colonials broke the Native Americans and destroyed them through purposeful separation from their families and tribes, forcing them to disperse throughout the continent? This was done by Charlemagne, who would rightfully be called something like Karl the Slaughterer rather than le magne (the Great), to the Saxons long before then, to break their spirit because they had such a strong, unified identity and close bonds, and were unwilling to accept the tyrant. Of course, such masters of empire as he are why there are no longer any "Western" or European religions, only foreign ones like Christianity, not to mention the decline of languages and everything else. Worst of all is what such evil and acquiescence to it does to our souls.
Tyranny abroad always resembles tyranny at home and vice versa. He who supports "the West" politically is an enemy of it culturally, and an enemy of all other people in both respects. And I can only infer you are no friend of mine, but must really hate all European culture, me, my family, and community for supporting it, considering the grave destruction it has wrought on it through the centuries even in recent memory, when my immediate family could not even speak our own language without being belted or talked down to or worse by the masters of so-called Western "civilisation." In the words of Tacitus, "this in their ignorance they called civilisation, whilst, in reality, it was merely a part of their slavery."
All of the above is true and more. I have been a spectator to the crimes of the empire for over half a century. Americans still don't realize their country is in a state of insurrection since the assassination J. F. Kennedy. The Empire has been slaughtering the Republic and too many others ever since.
"Do you have any idea what the world was like before the existence of the US?"
Do you? For one, it was not dominated by an elite class of ultra wealthy globalist financiers, and Americans like Edward Bernays did not even exist yet to invent propaganda or technocracy. There were no Americans to help create insane ideologies like that of the Nazis, who were taught their craft by Americans and learned almost everything from them, and without such American erudition we would be sorely lacking in great eugenicists like the Huxleys and all those other adherents to cybernetic politics as you will find running many states today, at think tanks, and at places like the WEF.
Further, global nuclear war was not a threat, nor was the global surveillance state of our Five Eyes masters. Every empire before the American one was comparatively benign and harmless, no matter if deemed more malicious or evil in morality or intent considering they had very limited ability to inflict it on others in comparison. No Mongol or British master was ever a threat to life on the entire planet, because men like Genghis Khan's people had not invented nukes, propaganda, surveillance, etc.
Typical European ignorance of history, I suppose. At least the yanks who know less are harder to lead astray, but there is no one who can ever be more deluded and detached from reality than the educated intellectual.
I do not see China as "taking over" I think there has to be a multipolar world where the great powers work in cooperation with each other--- detente and reciprocity.
My concern for the US is that it is weakening itself so much with wars and political corruption it is not going to be a major player and hold its place in the world. The world needs the US as a strong player, and honest broker not as a dissipated rogue warfare state.
You should be reading Chalmers Johnson, Michael Hudson, Paul Craig Roberts, Mike Whitney. My sources for writing are mainly US historians, journalists and political scientists. Most of what I write has been said by others much wiser and better informed than myself.
Though I am a Canadian I am also a de facto American because we are a colony of the US and I have a right to speak on these issues.
Your world view is dated as you see it in terms of hegemonic domination which is just what is destroying the world.
As it appears now the East is going East and the West is pissing itself out of existence fighting too many wars and too much corruption.
If you are reading my blogs you might follow some of the hyperlinks there in.
You might also want to make reference to Mark Twain and the Anti-Imperialist League.
Thank you for your comment. Who is naive today is a very contentious term in itself.
"If we're going towards a multipolar world that doesn't mean it's going to be peace and love; the reality will still be increasing scarcity and countries will fight for their own interests. That's not the world I want, but it's the world that is.
Competition and the quest for power are simply the inevitable result of the inherent anarchy of the international system, with no overarching authority."
Do you think states emerge in a vacuum unaffected by anything around them? States reflect the temperament of their populations, and competition emerges from the people that form such self-propagating systems as them, from the bottom up and not the top down.
"Ironically, the hegemony of the (now-ending) pax Americana brought a period of unparalleled peace. Compare it to any other time in history and tell me otherwise."
This is unnecessary when you have made the comparison yourself. You should read more Roman literature, starting with Tacitus. The Pax Romana was a peace soaked in blood, really a false peace born of treachery, tyranny, and misery without end. It is a lie.
The Roman Empire and Pax Romana itself destroyed everything worthwhile about the Romans and Roman character, whose cultural decline was in a free fall really by the first century BC, but starting with the Punic Wars, and even the ways in which they were perceived to have benefited, such as in terms of wealth and prosperity, were an illusion, because whenever an empire becomes most prosperous, that is exactly when it begins its dissolution. Prosperity is always what heralds the destruction of a civilisation or empire because of the effect it has on the population.
The "Pax Americana", an equally ridiculous and idiotic term, is no different: a false peace soaked in blood, borne of treachery and endless misery. Americans sowed the seeds of their own destruction: now, they will bear fruit. American culture and civilisation peaked early on, but by the mid-19th century it was already in decline.
I have seen the lies of the American empire for the past 50 years, although, ever hopeful, I have sometimes bought into the bullshit. "They deceived the world about Ukraine. They deceived the world about Yemen. They deceived the world about Syria, Libya and Iraq." And before that they deceived the world about Vietnam, about Cambodia, about Cuba and the list goes on.
"Most major international conflicts can be understood as either direct or indirect efforts by the US empire to shore up planetary domination, which are often met with resistance by populations who wish to retain their sovereignty”
Retired US General, Wesley Clark, revealed in 2007…".We’re going to take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran.” Didn’t mention Palestine. This has been an Israeli initiative called Step 1 of ”Eretz Israel”, after preparation for over 70 years of inhumane Palestinian occupation. But with the US " at its back" and total Israel control of the US Congress, well on its way now.
Let’s take just one country wishing to "retain its sovereignty." . Venezuela, as such, a classic example. US interest in that country and its objective to “own it, US-style” is due to one thing only. OIL…. 6 years of reserves in the USA… 1,000 years of reserves in Venezuela. I won't bother to do Syria, Iraq, Iran, Saudi. They’re on the web for all to see.
As an addition, could we mention Palestine again; untouched gas and oil reserves aplenty, plus the control of a major shipping lane, but nothing at all to do with the present Israeli genocide in Gaza though.
Of course it is another serious motivation for Israel. An important one too and one that would have the US approval as well, Israel having just five years of oil reserves and the US having just 8 years to go before they run out.
I have visited Cuba. It was a poor country, but I did not see that it had undergone a bloodbath. It suffered mostly from the sanctions of the US. I met Vietnamese people who did not talk about bloodbaths in their country, but were very disturbed by things like Agent Orange and the Mai Lai Massacre.
yeh. You have bought into the lies of the empire. Even if Russia, China, Cuba don't have clean hands they aren't as filthy and as everywhere as the lies of the US and the others that suck up to them.
I did not vote for any ot those assholes. I didn't vote for any of the assholes here in Canada either. Or haven't you heard that the US is not the only so called "democracy" in existence.
...that we know of. Gotta remember we must be ever vigilant if we are not going to be fooled like"other idiot Americans." We are fortunate that we believe only truth-tellers.
I don't think I am any less gullible or smarter or less of an idiot than anyone else. But I know that part of the "American Dream" involves telling us how terrible Russia, China, Cuba and anyone they don't agree with politically is. Who knows who is telling the whole truth. Not me. I just know that we are on the brink of a nuclear war and climate disaster and it sure looks to me that the US and followers are helping that along.
I think you did good to put quotes around mami cubans. Cubanos who are still on the island have an extremely different take and it doesnt usually involve blood. Not saying that its roses, either, for them but US actions have an awful lot to do with their unhappiness, if only by allowing their own govt to blame the us for even the problems thst are theirs. Overall though, they are A LOT closer to being a communal society of interdependsnce than we will ever be. In my humble opinion. And yes i have been there plenty so im not propagandizing.
At one time the government of Cuba let a bunch of people get on boats to go to America and at the same time the Criminal Elite were sticking their sanctions on Cuba and a lot of those people believed it was because of the government not knowing what the CIA was doing by what they always do. Infiltrate and cause riots and print lies.
While to a large extent this is true and has been since the war, but North Korea, China and Russia are brutal and repressive dictatorships that imprison, torture and kill those who are resistant. Look at what China did to Tibet. North Korea has completely subjugated its people and they live near starvation and in constant fear. Putin also has poisoned, defenestrated, arranged plane crashes for his enemies while he sits on billions in stolen cash. His invasion of Ukraine has been an extremely brutal attack on civilians and a threat to dangerous nuclear power plants there. Not to excuse at all the unforgivable acts of the US, Iraq (apart from Palestine) being the most obvious recent appalling attack. We want to clearly see the bad guys vs the good guys. It's so much simpler and seems like human nature. The atrocious probable choice of Genocide Joe vs the treasonous orange would-be dictator is an example where we can't apply a purity test. The Bernie Bros who hated Hillary helped bring us the corrupt reactionary Supreme Court that is already limiting our freedoms, and hundreds of far right judges. Third party candidates need to work their way up to running for president by winning smaller elections and growing their support, just like other candidates. Those running now haven't done that and therefore have no way of winning and voting for them is just avoiding making an awful choice. Trump would have been all in on Israel, as would nearly everyone in our government, all bought by AIPAC. Until the horrors in Israel and Gaza, Biden seemed to be doing quite a lot to rebuild the middle class through helping businesses get started in former manufacturing areas, supporting unions and promoting infrastructure repair and jobs, etc. I wish he wouldn't run again. I wish there was a popular winner ready to step up right now.
The war in Ukraine is a NATO war and the supporters of Ukraine are supporting Nazis. Nothing excuses anyone for invading another people, but lets keep things clear. Ukraine has a long history of supporting Nazism. I hate what China did to Tibet. Just as I hate what Americans and Canadians have done to indigenous people here. There don't seem to be any "good guys". And they are mostly guys, for sure. But we need to try to deal with what is going on RIGHT NOW under our noses. We need to not support it. We need to call out the bullshit the US and its lackeys are spouting.
Correction - the war in Ukraine is a US-Russia war, with Ukraine being the country that the war is taking place in. (NATO is by and large controlled by the US)
Ukraine is not the only country that supports Nazism. Russia has a long history of supporting Nazism and exterminating Jews. So too do France, Poland, Hungary, and many other countries.
Ideologies like Nazism, Zionism, etc. never die. There are active and passive believers of such ideologies all over the world in many countries.
In reality, the power elite don't really care about Nazism, or Jews, etc. They just pay lip service to such stuff. What they care about is money and resources. If they have to support Nazis in order to achieve their goals, they will. If they have to support Israel to achieve their goals, they will. If they have to support Palestine to achieve their goals, they will.
The US doesn't care how many bombs Israel drops on Palestinian kids, because Palestinian kids are not useful to them (financially and strategically), and Israel is - so when it comes time for them to choose between the two they're always going to choose to send Israel billions of dollars so that it can bomb those kids better. That's the sad truth of it.
"Russia has a long history of supporting Nazism and exterminating Jews" - do you care to bring up evidence supporting these claims? Like official doctrines, documents, programs, when and by whom adopted etc?
Nato was originally made up of Nazis. The reference to Nazis in Russia I find hard to believe since what happened between Russia and the Nazis was not ever forgotten. President Putin loves his country. He has been very careful and deliberate in his attack on Ukraine. Not at all like when the Criminal Elite from the US attack everyone and everything.
The war in Ukraine is a US-Russia war supported by NATO. NATO is a bunch of warmongers. Ukraine had a Nazi issue in the second war and I don't really think it has disappeared. Nazisim and Zionism will never die, but others don't need to support it. That support gives it credibility in some eyes.
They are mostly guys, indeed. And too many of the women who rose to tantamount stature happily joined that boys club. I don’t believe women among women would operate this way. Men with guns are too determined to speak first and last. Those few extra IQ points men *may* points translate to a presumption of superiority in decision making, when in fact they only confer superiority in theoretical planning as opposed to optimal reaction. And that’s why I suggest that the latter group, those who manage the fallout or unintended consequences of the theoretical plans (eg: babies, etc), should really be in charge of the big picture, while the planners focus on individual missions under that oversight. Feminism is about what comes after the boys club.
I disagree with some of the assertions that you make above:
(1) "few extra IQ points men may possess" ? There is absolutely NO scientific evidence that men have a higher IQ than women or are more intelligent than women.
(2) Again, I see no scientific evidence of men having "superiority in theoretical planning" when compared to women.
(3) "Feminism is about what comes after the boys club" ? What exactly do you mean by that?
Women among women might be better but it would have to be women who had not bought into the boys club stuff, women who did not think that emancipation is being like men: i.e. having all the same capitalistic opportunities, the same "right" to power if they had enough money. My ideal would be to see women and men able to work together without one group thinking they knew more about how things should work than the other.
not quite like here, altho I do realize they are here too. Read up on what happened during and after the second war with Ukraine. you might find some information here: http://coat.ncf.ca/ I'm sorry, but I don't have time to search for specific articles just now. I don't think that justifies Putin's invasion of Ukraine, but that got its start back in 2014 when NATO was backing out of its promise not to include Ukraine. I think anyone from anywhere who thinks that bombs, guns and killing people are the answer to any problems is wrong and dangerous.
Straight from the corporate media talking points. Good grief almost everything you said here is 180 opposite.
More Bernie Bros voted for HerHeinous than did her supporters vote for Obama. Again mainstream talking points. The reason why Trump was able to appoint 3 justices was because Hillary rigged the election against Bernie. All the polls showed that he would have beaten Trump.
Have you understood anything that Caitlin has written?
And what utter fantasy about Biden. He has never been a friend to the working class. Every damn thing he’s done has favored the parasites. You do know that Biden made it impossible for people to discharge their student loans through bankruptcy and made it harder for we little people to declare it while people like Trump can do it over and over.
Biden killed the railroad strike! He’s never been a friend to the unions.
Sheesh… I want what you are smoking to believe what you wrote.
Lisa - there are no good guys (at least when it comes to the nation-state level). There are just varying degrees of bad. Everyone (political leaders) has blood on their hands. Every country has blood on their hands. Debating who is worse - Genocide Joe or Tyrant Trump is futile and never-ending and highly polarized depending on who you ask.
When it comes to the country level, most people living in Western countries get their news from Western media sources. Western media sources propagandize the atrocities of their enemies (North Korea, China, Russia, Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, etc.) while minimizing and obfuscating their own atrocities.
Honestly, how many of us really know what is really going on in North Korea, China, etc.? We base (and form) our opinions on the information available to us - which is woefully inadequate when it comes to secretive regimes like North Korea, China, etc.
What I have learnt is that I cannot trust ANY information coming out of governments/states - irrespective of which country it is. That doesn't mean I believe the opposite of what these Governments say. It's the quandry of - who and what do you believe when everyone is lying? What do you believe when you don't have enough information to form a high-probability opinion?
In a sense, that leaves us in a state of perpetual not-knowing, of having unresolved questions floating around in our heads - with a fleeting hope of an answer to our questions.
It's very probable that I don't know enough, but based on what I do know - I can't think of any country on the planet that has committed more atrocities than the US in modern history.
There is a lot of information available about North Korea from defectors. I just saw a documentary of a family that escaped (you aren't allowed to leave for one thing!). They are fed so much propaganda. The grandmother at least believed that life in No. Korea was better than all other countries. When she actually came to So. Korea she was shocked that it wasn't like she had been told at all.
I understand what you are saying. My conundrum is in figuring out "how much" to believe defectors. A Russian defector will be biased against Russia. A cuban defector will be biased against Cuba. An Iranian defector will be biased against Iran. You get what I mean. This doesn't mean that the defectors are wrong or incorrect or untrustworthy. Not in the least. It means - I don't know what to believe when a North Korean defector defects with the help of the US and the US uses said defection to propagandize the rest of the world against North Korea - its long-time enemy.
And yes, I agree with you that the North Korean population is extremely propagandized. I have no doubts about that.
But what I have a hard time believing is whatever the US says about North Korea. Since I have zero trust in anything that the US says, unless I am personally able to verify (or think critically) about it, I would take everything that the US says about its enemies with a grain of salt.
Sounds like Americans being told that drinking polluted water, having their food poisoned with toxins, and having no right to healthcare, is “freedom”.
who told you all these things in your first few sentences? who told you there's such a thing as a 'middle class'? who suggested biden was doing allright?
"While to a large extent this is true and has been since the war, but North Korea, China and Russia are brutal and repressive dictatorships that imprison, torture and kill those who are resistant."
All are wrong. To pretend that those countries are somehow better is contrary to all evidence. Yes, the US is a death-dealing monster, no argument. It's not black and white, good vs bad. They're all bad. Corporations, AIPAC, the arms dealers, the NRA, etc are running the show.
I thought Cuba was taken over by actual Cubans who threw out the Criminal Elite from the US who were busy stealing from the people? Seems the Bush family was and still is involved with the continued attacks by the CIA and off the coast from an island Bush Jr. owns.
once you see through the lies you can not unsee it. Thats when you realize you live in a corrupt state run by chicken hawk war pigs. i guess I've been black pilled at this point. I question everything I thought I knew or was told about my country since I was a kid. The war machine rolling on is all this governemnt cares about, and they will lie, cheat and steal to make sure of it.
I’ve long believed that the U.S. was evil; genocide of tribes when colonial settlers crossed the nation, slavery, ethnic prejudices, child labor, women’s rights, settling issues by violence is a great part of the history. It’s inbred and, of course, there is the indoctrination in the military of “ protecting our freedom” by every action. People are not taught to question, but to obey. I’ve long been questioning, over 50 years, but the ignorance is great in the American people.
We've been peddled ersatz Freedom and Democracy for decades. In reality they are nothing more than mind control and Fascism and I doubt the zombies will ever wake up to reality.
Yes David, and Caitlin is saying wake up! Wake up! To the lies; to the conditioning. Refuse to be deluded. Do not look away.
The world is at a watershed as never before. The crimes of empire - past and present - and its vassal states stand naked and exposed in the graveyard of Gaza. A Global South country is urging the rest to break away from the malevolent hypnotic embrace of empire.
It is time that we did away with the economic, geopolitical systems of a disordered world which not only enslaved humankind but has brought the earth to the brink of disaster. It is such a cliché but Power to the People.
"Wherever that movement (of desired resources) is hindered, diverted, threatened or inconvenienced, you will see western war machinery moving southward and eastward to get it back on the desired track."
Probably the most succinct answer you can give to someone who asks, "Why are we bombing a little country like Yemen that's already been bombed to bits by the Saudis?" We can't have some little yahoos like the Houthis keep our cheap goods from being shipped to the West via the Suez Canal. We can't pay more than $1.25 for these items from The "Dollar" Store. The CEO of The Dollar Store can't take a cut in pay now can he?
We are programmed to buy useless junk that we don’t need.
Reminds me of a friend with Ukrainian ancestry. Her cousin came to visit from Ukraine and said friend took her to the local mall. When the cousin admired a certain necklace, my friend wanted to buy it for her. The cousin said, What for? I already have five necklaces.
My friend said her cousin couldn’t wait to go home. This was pre-war, of course.
Another example of the giant lies and hypocrisy, is the US executing a coup in Ukraine, then funnelling weapons into Ukraine to attack Russia….and China……while declaring that they own “our hemisphere”:
Panel 3: OVERLOOKING MONROE? PROTECTING OUR HEMISPHERE AND HOMELAND
Moderator: Courtney Kube, NBC News
Panelists:
- Mr. Joseph T. Lonsdale, Co-Founder and Managing Partner, 8VC
- Gen. Paul M. Nakasone, Commander, U.S. Cyber Command
- Gen. Laura J. Richardson, Commander, U.S. Southern Command
- Rep. Mike Waltz, U.S. House of Representatives, Florida
And just in case anyone missed it: YES that is a member of the the “independent commercial media” moderating a panel on that grotesque premise….and getting paid for it by the military industrial complex. Now guess what kind of “indpendent” narrative that Ms Kube and NBC are going to put into their news?
Caitlin > I thank you sincerely for the courage and determination to write as you are doing, I am in New Zealand. The television watching imbeciles here have put down their blue and yellow flags and are now cheering ion the ZIonist holocaust, I never realised I live in a country of such stupidity arrogance and compliance. They are almost ready for their next vaxxines
Essential reading: Jeff Halper, War Against the People: Israel, the Palestinians and Global Pacification, Pluto Press, 2015. available as paperpack and e-book.
MLK described the federal government as the largest purveyor of violence in the world, and he was right. No surprise then that through the efforts of Francis Boyle in 2012, Bush, Cheney & Co were convicted of war crimes in Malaysia. Biden voted in favor of war and military aggression at every opportunity through 40 years in Congress.
Most western governments today are criminal organizations.
I did not know that those fuckers killed Gonzalo Lira! So sick of hearing about the continual killing of real journalists. It has to be reckoned with across the world. These human scum gotta go.
Yes. These vile people are run by Mossad and CIA Central. Listen to the vile and lies and racism of the Jews laughing at South Africans (the blacks, that is since Jews live Apartheid managers). Go in Twitter and watch the pure Jews have for any group doubting them. There are very few trustworthy Jews, unfortunately. They'd see a writer like me in chains or as chum for the white tip sharks of the Red Sea.
Many of you will have seen this. It summarizes Blum from his work cited below.
The secret to understanding US foreign policy is that THERE IS NO SECRET. Principally, one must come to the realization that the United States strives to dominate the world, for which end it is prepared to use any means necessary. Once one understands that, much of the apparent confusion, contradiction, and ambiguity surrounding Washington’s policies fades away. To express this striving for dominance numerically, one can consider that since the end of World War II the United States has:
1) Endeavored to overthrow more than 50 foreign governments, most of which were democratically elected;
2) Grossly interfered in democratic elections in at least 30 countries;
3) Attempted to assassinate more than 50 foreign leaders;
4) Dropped bombs on the people of more than 30 countries;
5) Attempted to suppress a populist or nationalist movement in 20 countries.”
― William Blum, America’s Deadliest Export: Democracy – The Truth About US Foreign Policy and Everything Else
This is so true. I really started to open my eyes in 2022 after Russia’s SMO got really going. My first inkling of something just not passing the smell test, so to speak, was our invasion of Iraq in March 2003. I was sickened by this. I was against it from the get go. I felt like crap knowing my country was bombing another country, seeing the sky lid up over Baghdad with U.S. bombs, knowing civilians,children, were on the receiving end of those bombs and being murdered as far as I was concerned. I decided never again would I support another war instigated by the U.S. and its allies. And this was a fucking war based on lies by the Bush Jr. administration.😢☮️
"This struggle for US planetary hegemony is disguised by the western political/media class as something other than what it is, because you can’t allow the public in a democratic nation to understand clearly that their government is on the side of evil. They’ll frame it as a US-led international coalition to liberate a nation from a tyrannical dictator. As a humanitarian intervention to protect human rights. As support for Israel’s right to defend itself. As protection of freedom of navigation in the Red Sea. But what’s actually happening is the world’s most powerful and murderous power structure killing human beings in western Asia in order to secure control over a crucial resource.
You see this all over the world against nations which refuse to allow themselves to be absorbed into the US-centralized power structure like North Korea, Venezuela and Cuba, with China being by far the strongest of these and Russia a distant second. And you will notice that you have heard every nation I just mentioned cast in a very negative light by the western press over the years. This is not a coincidence. "
It's exactly this. I remember watching the new Star Wars Episode 1 or 2 or 3 - I can't remember which - but the evil bad alien guys had Chinese accents. Because the propaganda machine needed to make sure we knew who the 'enemy' was.
I agree with your comment with this exception. "You see this all over the world against nations which refuse to allow themselves to be absorbed into the US-centralized power structure like North Korea, Venezuela and Cuba, with China being by far the strongest of these and Russia a distant second."
China has a much better economy than Russia. But Russia is not a distant second to China. Russia has the most nuclear weapons of any country and excellent delivery systems.
I believe she is talking about "economic strength" and not "military strength".
Even our military is beholden to Chinese electronic components ..this came up in conversations of the military realizing that dependency on that was not smart but our corporate overloads saw cheep Chinese goods that are undermining American mom and pop business as irelivent to their bottom line..American greed machine is still plowing under mom and pop. I see it every day another place closes up unable to afford the rising cost of living and conducting buisness because the empire has to wage these endless proxy wars against nations they can't subvert or control.
“Dependency” is a hoax. Countries should trade - it helps with reasons for peace. But no sugar - the military want to wage war, not have peace.
Anytime you hear this world “dependency” the person saying it is either a warmonger or as unthinkingly accepted the premise that warmongering is desirable.
I used it here but I agree and I'm not a war monger
I remember listening to Col MacGregor and he said the US no longer has the power it once had either in weaponry or in army. I also believe that the US does not have economic power. Don't know where it is getting its money from because basically it is broke and the dollar apparently is going down. Maybe it's all bluster.
I would treat anything that Col MacGregor says with somewhat of a grain of salt. He says everything that I want to believe, everything that I wish happens, everything that appeals to my confirmation bias. Hence, I need to treat his words with skepticism and rigorous analysis.
Despite what I may want to happen, the US is not going anywhere anytime soon. No, the dollar is not going down. Death of the dollar has been bandied about for several decades now. Everytime some crises happens that threatens the US economy, people start talking about the demise of the dollar.
I would also disagree with his statement about "US no longer has the power it once had either in weaponry or in army". The technology gains alone in the last several decades has made the military might of the US stronger than ever before. Sure, it has logistics issues, supply chain issues, and management issues. But so too do the armies of many other countries.
Again, I disagree with his statement of "US does not have economic power". If the US did not have economic power, it would not be able to bully the rest of the world with its trade agreements. It would not be able to sanction countries and hold the future and viability of countries in limbo through debt diplomacy and control of financial institutions.
You might be right and it is hard to really believe any of them and just watch and see how it all plays out I do believe the US have been guilty of committing wars in the name of regime change for a long time I do not think they are innocent of anything. The rest I'm not sure about!! Their economy, their military strength etc. They certainly have plenty of poverty and crime for a country with a healthy economy !
When I worked for the navy I saw technology even 40 years ago that the public has no knowledge of. Talking with a guy I lnew back then he told me that he could not get specific but just know that the usa has secret technologies that are far more sophisticated than we are aware of ... That said so does Russia
Perhaps.
No one suggested the next great powers will be benevolent, you are arguing against strawmen. Of course, it's reasonable to think they will be less warlike and bloodthirsty than the most warlike and bloodthirsty empire in human history, that has waged more wars than anyone can remember and is responsible for destroying more countries and for more coups than anyone can count. This is not hard for any power to be. What they don't and won't do is what people care about.
You are also insane if you think those who criticise modern Western nation states inherently "hate Westerners", themselves, or their own history. Of course you can find some who do, but it's a stupid assumption. Nowhere has been worse at destroying Western culture and civilisation than the United States, and the centuries where Western culture was at its strongest and most inventive and culturally rich were the centuries preceding the US even becoming a great power, and that Americans had almost nothing to do with.
They had nothing to do with the great achievements in science, literature, art, music, and so on of the Renaissance, the Victorian era, or the Industrial revolution. Nothing to do with the great achievements of Antiquity. The US is a colonial backwater settled by—objectively speaking since this isn't some kind of subjective judgement, considering I quite like Americans and American history—Europe's least fortunate and most uneducated, by its criminals and bastards. It is no wonder the most vicious amoral psychopaths have come to dominate it in place of its most enlightened citizens and founders.
As Gore Vidal once noted, the only thing Americans have really even contributed culturally speaking is advertisements, inventing propaganda, but really it's being polite to call that a contribution and not an affliction. I am not a globalist nor a nationalist, but I care deeply about human culture and traditions including my own. And as "Western" is not a culture, but the "West" as a political entity is in the form of its psychotic occidentalism, it turns out the latter has degraded the former, so why would I not celebrate? The death of the "West" is good for Westerners and Western culture, and whatever pain comes before new life is no different from childbirth.
Although people focus on the harm Western powers have done to everyone else, it is easy they have destroyed Westerners by playing their bloody games the same way with centuries of serfdom, war, and domination, sacrificing us against them in imaginary conflicts to enrich a small number of ruling elite. Do you really think you and I stand to gain from this? Or in this class struggle, are you one of the masters who view those beneath you like insects?
European culture has been slowly destroyed by empires, not only the present one, but ever since the Romans and Greeks would destroy entire cultures like that of the Gauls, with Julius and others purposefully slaughtering the old, women, and children and reducing populations to cannibalism in long sieges to break them. You know why they did this? For gold; Crassus was their debtor. "Where they make a desolation, they call it peace," as Tacitus wrote. Yet Romans saw themselves as peacekeepers, "peace unto the world" being inscribed on Roman medallions.
You are aware of some of the ways the colonials broke the Native Americans and destroyed them through purposeful separation from their families and tribes, forcing them to disperse throughout the continent? This was done by Charlemagne, who would rightfully be called something like Karl the Slaughterer rather than le magne (the Great), to the Saxons long before then, to break their spirit because they had such a strong, unified identity and close bonds, and were unwilling to accept the tyrant. Of course, such masters of empire as he are why there are no longer any "Western" or European religions, only foreign ones like Christianity, not to mention the decline of languages and everything else. Worst of all is what such evil and acquiescence to it does to our souls.
Tyranny abroad always resembles tyranny at home and vice versa. He who supports "the West" politically is an enemy of it culturally, and an enemy of all other people in both respects. And I can only infer you are no friend of mine, but must really hate all European culture, me, my family, and community for supporting it, considering the grave destruction it has wrought on it through the centuries even in recent memory, when my immediate family could not even speak our own language without being belted or talked down to or worse by the masters of so-called Western "civilisation." In the words of Tacitus, "this in their ignorance they called civilisation, whilst, in reality, it was merely a part of their slavery."
All of the above is true and more. I have been a spectator to the crimes of the empire for over half a century. Americans still don't realize their country is in a state of insurrection since the assassination J. F. Kennedy. The Empire has been slaughtering the Republic and too many others ever since.
That insurrection started not later than 1913. The murder of JFK was just a very noticeable action.
Well, Aaron Good makes a good case that the "American Exception" began before the American Revolution. He has a fascinating series of the history of corruption in America https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDAi0NdlN8hNArLl765PXe8tsTKmOciGL
And his web site: https://americanexception.com/podcast/
which discusses in great depth many conspiracy theories we all "know" but "don't know we know".
"Do you have any idea what the world was like before the existence of the US?"
Do you? For one, it was not dominated by an elite class of ultra wealthy globalist financiers, and Americans like Edward Bernays did not even exist yet to invent propaganda or technocracy. There were no Americans to help create insane ideologies like that of the Nazis, who were taught their craft by Americans and learned almost everything from them, and without such American erudition we would be sorely lacking in great eugenicists like the Huxleys and all those other adherents to cybernetic politics as you will find running many states today, at think tanks, and at places like the WEF.
Further, global nuclear war was not a threat, nor was the global surveillance state of our Five Eyes masters. Every empire before the American one was comparatively benign and harmless, no matter if deemed more malicious or evil in morality or intent considering they had very limited ability to inflict it on others in comparison. No Mongol or British master was ever a threat to life on the entire planet, because men like Genghis Khan's people had not invented nukes, propaganda, surveillance, etc.
Typical European ignorance of history, I suppose. At least the yanks who know less are harder to lead astray, but there is no one who can ever be more deluded and detached from reality than the educated intellectual.
I do not see China as "taking over" I think there has to be a multipolar world where the great powers work in cooperation with each other--- detente and reciprocity.
My concern for the US is that it is weakening itself so much with wars and political corruption it is not going to be a major player and hold its place in the world. The world needs the US as a strong player, and honest broker not as a dissipated rogue warfare state.
You should be reading Chalmers Johnson, Michael Hudson, Paul Craig Roberts, Mike Whitney. My sources for writing are mainly US historians, journalists and political scientists. Most of what I write has been said by others much wiser and better informed than myself.
Though I am a Canadian I am also a de facto American because we are a colony of the US and I have a right to speak on these issues.
Your world view is dated as you see it in terms of hegemonic domination which is just what is destroying the world.
As it appears now the East is going East and the West is pissing itself out of existence fighting too many wars and too much corruption.
If you are reading my blogs you might follow some of the hyperlinks there in.
You might also want to make reference to Mark Twain and the Anti-Imperialist League.
Thank you for your comment. Who is naive today is a very contentious term in itself.
"If we're going towards a multipolar world that doesn't mean it's going to be peace and love; the reality will still be increasing scarcity and countries will fight for their own interests. That's not the world I want, but it's the world that is.
Competition and the quest for power are simply the inevitable result of the inherent anarchy of the international system, with no overarching authority."
Do you think states emerge in a vacuum unaffected by anything around them? States reflect the temperament of their populations, and competition emerges from the people that form such self-propagating systems as them, from the bottom up and not the top down.
"Ironically, the hegemony of the (now-ending) pax Americana brought a period of unparalleled peace. Compare it to any other time in history and tell me otherwise."
This is unnecessary when you have made the comparison yourself. You should read more Roman literature, starting with Tacitus. The Pax Romana was a peace soaked in blood, really a false peace born of treachery, tyranny, and misery without end. It is a lie.
The Roman Empire and Pax Romana itself destroyed everything worthwhile about the Romans and Roman character, whose cultural decline was in a free fall really by the first century BC, but starting with the Punic Wars, and even the ways in which they were perceived to have benefited, such as in terms of wealth and prosperity, were an illusion, because whenever an empire becomes most prosperous, that is exactly when it begins its dissolution. Prosperity is always what heralds the destruction of a civilisation or empire because of the effect it has on the population.
The "Pax Americana", an equally ridiculous and idiotic term, is no different: a false peace soaked in blood, borne of treachery and endless misery. Americans sowed the seeds of their own destruction: now, they will bear fruit. American culture and civilisation peaked early on, but by the mid-19th century it was already in decline.
"Your world view is dated as you see it in terms of hegemonic domination which is just what is destroying the world."
I have seen the lies of the American empire for the past 50 years, although, ever hopeful, I have sometimes bought into the bullshit. "They deceived the world about Ukraine. They deceived the world about Yemen. They deceived the world about Syria, Libya and Iraq." And before that they deceived the world about Vietnam, about Cambodia, about Cuba and the list goes on.
Caitlin….
"Most major international conflicts can be understood as either direct or indirect efforts by the US empire to shore up planetary domination, which are often met with resistance by populations who wish to retain their sovereignty”
Retired US General, Wesley Clark, revealed in 2007…".We’re going to take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran.” Didn’t mention Palestine. This has been an Israeli initiative called Step 1 of ”Eretz Israel”, after preparation for over 70 years of inhumane Palestinian occupation. But with the US " at its back" and total Israel control of the US Congress, well on its way now.
Let’s take just one country wishing to "retain its sovereignty." . Venezuela, as such, a classic example. US interest in that country and its objective to “own it, US-style” is due to one thing only. OIL…. 6 years of reserves in the USA… 1,000 years of reserves in Venezuela. I won't bother to do Syria, Iraq, Iran, Saudi. They’re on the web for all to see.
As an addition, could we mention Palestine again; untouched gas and oil reserves aplenty, plus the control of a major shipping lane, but nothing at all to do with the present Israeli genocide in Gaza though.
What a stupid suggestion.
Though I agree with what you said, I don't understand what suggestion you are referring to when you say "what a stupid suggestion".
. Sorry Chang.
I was being sarcastic.
Of course it is another serious motivation for Israel. An important one too and one that would have the US approval as well, Israel having just five years of oil reserves and the US having just 8 years to go before they run out.
No more sarcasm.
Not that Vietnam, Cambodia, and Cuba had anything but typical Communist bloodbaths upon assuming power, until the peoples Accepted their fates.
No country has clean handsas Tyrants usually gain power over governments.
I have visited Cuba. It was a poor country, but I did not see that it had undergone a bloodbath. It suffered mostly from the sanctions of the US. I met Vietnamese people who did not talk about bloodbaths in their country, but were very disturbed by things like Agent Orange and the Mai Lai Massacre.
Potemkin Village ??? Walter Duranty style, comrade. I don't buy it, too many "Cubans" in Miami say otherwise.
That The USA has dirty hands doesn't mean They/Them have clean hands.
yeh. You have bought into the lies of the empire. Even if Russia, China, Cuba don't have clean hands they aren't as filthy and as everywhere as the lies of the US and the others that suck up to them.
So tell me you didn't vote for Obamy, Clintoon and Biden.......
I did not vote for any ot those assholes. I didn't vote for any of the assholes here in Canada either. Or haven't you heard that the US is not the only so called "democracy" in existence.
...that we know of. Gotta remember we must be ever vigilant if we are not going to be fooled like"other idiot Americans." We are fortunate that we believe only truth-tellers.
I don't think I am any less gullible or smarter or less of an idiot than anyone else. But I know that part of the "American Dream" involves telling us how terrible Russia, China, Cuba and anyone they don't agree with politically is. Who knows who is telling the whole truth. Not me. I just know that we are on the brink of a nuclear war and climate disaster and it sure looks to me that the US and followers are helping that along.
I think you did good to put quotes around mami cubans. Cubanos who are still on the island have an extremely different take and it doesnt usually involve blood. Not saying that its roses, either, for them but US actions have an awful lot to do with their unhappiness, if only by allowing their own govt to blame the us for even the problems thst are theirs. Overall though, they are A LOT closer to being a communal society of interdependsnce than we will ever be. In my humble opinion. And yes i have been there plenty so im not propagandizing.
At one time the government of Cuba let a bunch of people get on boats to go to America and at the same time the Criminal Elite were sticking their sanctions on Cuba and a lot of those people believed it was because of the government not knowing what the CIA was doing by what they always do. Infiltrate and cause riots and print lies.
While to a large extent this is true and has been since the war, but North Korea, China and Russia are brutal and repressive dictatorships that imprison, torture and kill those who are resistant. Look at what China did to Tibet. North Korea has completely subjugated its people and they live near starvation and in constant fear. Putin also has poisoned, defenestrated, arranged plane crashes for his enemies while he sits on billions in stolen cash. His invasion of Ukraine has been an extremely brutal attack on civilians and a threat to dangerous nuclear power plants there. Not to excuse at all the unforgivable acts of the US, Iraq (apart from Palestine) being the most obvious recent appalling attack. We want to clearly see the bad guys vs the good guys. It's so much simpler and seems like human nature. The atrocious probable choice of Genocide Joe vs the treasonous orange would-be dictator is an example where we can't apply a purity test. The Bernie Bros who hated Hillary helped bring us the corrupt reactionary Supreme Court that is already limiting our freedoms, and hundreds of far right judges. Third party candidates need to work their way up to running for president by winning smaller elections and growing their support, just like other candidates. Those running now haven't done that and therefore have no way of winning and voting for them is just avoiding making an awful choice. Trump would have been all in on Israel, as would nearly everyone in our government, all bought by AIPAC. Until the horrors in Israel and Gaza, Biden seemed to be doing quite a lot to rebuild the middle class through helping businesses get started in former manufacturing areas, supporting unions and promoting infrastructure repair and jobs, etc. I wish he wouldn't run again. I wish there was a popular winner ready to step up right now.
The war in Ukraine is a NATO war and the supporters of Ukraine are supporting Nazis. Nothing excuses anyone for invading another people, but lets keep things clear. Ukraine has a long history of supporting Nazism. I hate what China did to Tibet. Just as I hate what Americans and Canadians have done to indigenous people here. There don't seem to be any "good guys". And they are mostly guys, for sure. But we need to try to deal with what is going on RIGHT NOW under our noses. We need to not support it. We need to call out the bullshit the US and its lackeys are spouting.
Correction - the war in Ukraine is a US-Russia war, with Ukraine being the country that the war is taking place in. (NATO is by and large controlled by the US)
Ukraine is not the only country that supports Nazism. Russia has a long history of supporting Nazism and exterminating Jews. So too do France, Poland, Hungary, and many other countries.
Ideologies like Nazism, Zionism, etc. never die. There are active and passive believers of such ideologies all over the world in many countries.
In reality, the power elite don't really care about Nazism, or Jews, etc. They just pay lip service to such stuff. What they care about is money and resources. If they have to support Nazis in order to achieve their goals, they will. If they have to support Israel to achieve their goals, they will. If they have to support Palestine to achieve their goals, they will.
The US doesn't care how many bombs Israel drops on Palestinian kids, because Palestinian kids are not useful to them (financially and strategically), and Israel is - so when it comes time for them to choose between the two they're always going to choose to send Israel billions of dollars so that it can bomb those kids better. That's the sad truth of it.
"Russia has a long history of supporting Nazism and exterminating Jews" - do you care to bring up evidence supporting these claims? Like official doctrines, documents, programs, when and by whom adopted etc?
Nato was originally made up of Nazis. The reference to Nazis in Russia I find hard to believe since what happened between Russia and the Nazis was not ever forgotten. President Putin loves his country. He has been very careful and deliberate in his attack on Ukraine. Not at all like when the Criminal Elite from the US attack everyone and everything.
The war in Ukraine is a US-Russia war supported by NATO. NATO is a bunch of warmongers. Ukraine had a Nazi issue in the second war and I don't really think it has disappeared. Nazisim and Zionism will never die, but others don't need to support it. That support gives it credibility in some eyes.
I am living in France I do not see any support of Naziism!
Take a trip to other countries it may make you aware!
They are mostly guys, indeed. And too many of the women who rose to tantamount stature happily joined that boys club. I don’t believe women among women would operate this way. Men with guns are too determined to speak first and last. Those few extra IQ points men *may* points translate to a presumption of superiority in decision making, when in fact they only confer superiority in theoretical planning as opposed to optimal reaction. And that’s why I suggest that the latter group, those who manage the fallout or unintended consequences of the theoretical plans (eg: babies, etc), should really be in charge of the big picture, while the planners focus on individual missions under that oversight. Feminism is about what comes after the boys club.
I disagree with some of the assertions that you make above:
(1) "few extra IQ points men may possess" ? There is absolutely NO scientific evidence that men have a higher IQ than women or are more intelligent than women.
(2) Again, I see no scientific evidence of men having "superiority in theoretical planning" when compared to women.
(3) "Feminism is about what comes after the boys club" ? What exactly do you mean by that?
Edit: men *may* possess
Women among women might be better but it would have to be women who had not bought into the boys club stuff, women who did not think that emancipation is being like men: i.e. having all the same capitalistic opportunities, the same "right" to power if they had enough money. My ideal would be to see women and men able to work together without one group thinking they knew more about how things should work than the other.
There are some Nazis there they have to deal with just like we do here.
not quite like here, altho I do realize they are here too. Read up on what happened during and after the second war with Ukraine. you might find some information here: http://coat.ncf.ca/ I'm sorry, but I don't have time to search for specific articles just now. I don't think that justifies Putin's invasion of Ukraine, but that got its start back in 2014 when NATO was backing out of its promise not to include Ukraine. I think anyone from anywhere who thinks that bombs, guns and killing people are the answer to any problems is wrong and dangerous.
Straight from the corporate media talking points. Good grief almost everything you said here is 180 opposite.
More Bernie Bros voted for HerHeinous than did her supporters vote for Obama. Again mainstream talking points. The reason why Trump was able to appoint 3 justices was because Hillary rigged the election against Bernie. All the polls showed that he would have beaten Trump.
Have you understood anything that Caitlin has written?
And what utter fantasy about Biden. He has never been a friend to the working class. Every damn thing he’s done has favored the parasites. You do know that Biden made it impossible for people to discharge their student loans through bankruptcy and made it harder for we little people to declare it while people like Trump can do it over and over.
Biden killed the railroad strike! He’s never been a friend to the unions.
Sheesh… I want what you are smoking to believe what you wrote.
Have you read about Project 2025?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_2025#:~:text=Heritage%20Foundation%20president%20Kevin%20Roberts,to%20install%20a%20new%20attorney
Lisa - there are no good guys (at least when it comes to the nation-state level). There are just varying degrees of bad. Everyone (political leaders) has blood on their hands. Every country has blood on their hands. Debating who is worse - Genocide Joe or Tyrant Trump is futile and never-ending and highly polarized depending on who you ask.
When it comes to the country level, most people living in Western countries get their news from Western media sources. Western media sources propagandize the atrocities of their enemies (North Korea, China, Russia, Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, etc.) while minimizing and obfuscating their own atrocities.
Honestly, how many of us really know what is really going on in North Korea, China, etc.? We base (and form) our opinions on the information available to us - which is woefully inadequate when it comes to secretive regimes like North Korea, China, etc.
What I have learnt is that I cannot trust ANY information coming out of governments/states - irrespective of which country it is. That doesn't mean I believe the opposite of what these Governments say. It's the quandry of - who and what do you believe when everyone is lying? What do you believe when you don't have enough information to form a high-probability opinion?
In a sense, that leaves us in a state of perpetual not-knowing, of having unresolved questions floating around in our heads - with a fleeting hope of an answer to our questions.
It's very probable that I don't know enough, but based on what I do know - I can't think of any country on the planet that has committed more atrocities than the US in modern history.
There is a lot of information available about North Korea from defectors. I just saw a documentary of a family that escaped (you aren't allowed to leave for one thing!). They are fed so much propaganda. The grandmother at least believed that life in No. Korea was better than all other countries. When she actually came to So. Korea she was shocked that it wasn't like she had been told at all.
I understand what you are saying. My conundrum is in figuring out "how much" to believe defectors. A Russian defector will be biased against Russia. A cuban defector will be biased against Cuba. An Iranian defector will be biased against Iran. You get what I mean. This doesn't mean that the defectors are wrong or incorrect or untrustworthy. Not in the least. It means - I don't know what to believe when a North Korean defector defects with the help of the US and the US uses said defection to propagandize the rest of the world against North Korea - its long-time enemy.
And yes, I agree with you that the North Korean population is extremely propagandized. I have no doubts about that.
But what I have a hard time believing is whatever the US says about North Korea. Since I have zero trust in anything that the US says, unless I am personally able to verify (or think critically) about it, I would take everything that the US says about its enemies with a grain of salt.
Sounds like Americans being told that drinking polluted water, having their food poisoned with toxins, and having no right to healthcare, is “freedom”.
who told you all these things in your first few sentences? who told you there's such a thing as a 'middle class'? who suggested biden was doing allright?
A number of sources, including historian Heather Cox Richardson, who writes Substack Letters from an American.
oh, dear...
You are wrong on so many points I don’t even know where to start addressing them.
your post starts with straight up propaganda.
"While to a large extent this is true and has been since the war, but North Korea, China and Russia are brutal and repressive dictatorships that imprison, torture and kill those who are resistant."
that is where i stopped reading it.
This is undisputed. They are bad, we are bad, each in our own ways.
they are bad in the the way that they are paid to like about Russia, China and North Korea.
All are wrong. To pretend that those countries are somehow better is contrary to all evidence. Yes, the US is a death-dealing monster, no argument. It's not black and white, good vs bad. They're all bad. Corporations, AIPAC, the arms dealers, the NRA, etc are running the show.
they are not backing a genocide in Gaza. the US has killed more people and overthrown and destabilized far more governments.
Russia not so much as the others, imo but Russia is certainly less tyrannical than the former USSR; ......... and perhaps the current USSA?
TOUCHÉ, Che! 😁
Julian Assange was tortured to death!?
he is not dead, he has been tortured for decades.
I thought Cuba was taken over by actual Cubans who threw out the Criminal Elite from the US who were busy stealing from the people? Seems the Bush family was and still is involved with the continued attacks by the CIA and off the coast from an island Bush Jr. owns.
once you see through the lies you can not unsee it. Thats when you realize you live in a corrupt state run by chicken hawk war pigs. i guess I've been black pilled at this point. I question everything I thought I knew or was told about my country since I was a kid. The war machine rolling on is all this governemnt cares about, and they will lie, cheat and steal to make sure of it.
I’ve long believed that the U.S. was evil; genocide of tribes when colonial settlers crossed the nation, slavery, ethnic prejudices, child labor, women’s rights, settling issues by violence is a great part of the history. It’s inbred and, of course, there is the indoctrination in the military of “ protecting our freedom” by every action. People are not taught to question, but to obey. I’ve long been questioning, over 50 years, but the ignorance is great in the American people.
We've been peddled ersatz Freedom and Democracy for decades. In reality they are nothing more than mind control and Fascism and I doubt the zombies will ever wake up to reality.
Yes David, and Caitlin is saying wake up! Wake up! To the lies; to the conditioning. Refuse to be deluded. Do not look away.
The world is at a watershed as never before. The crimes of empire - past and present - and its vassal states stand naked and exposed in the graveyard of Gaza. A Global South country is urging the rest to break away from the malevolent hypnotic embrace of empire.
It is time that we did away with the economic, geopolitical systems of a disordered world which not only enslaved humankind but has brought the earth to the brink of disaster. It is such a cliché but Power to the People.
Well said Indu!
Since you have the worst education it is not surprising to me that people fall for propaganda.
Show me a country which has not done some evil things....?
BUT the US in it's pursuit of oil, under the name of bringing democracy to the people, has done far worse other than the British.
"Wherever that movement (of desired resources) is hindered, diverted, threatened or inconvenienced, you will see western war machinery moving southward and eastward to get it back on the desired track."
Probably the most succinct answer you can give to someone who asks, "Why are we bombing a little country like Yemen that's already been bombed to bits by the Saudis?" We can't have some little yahoos like the Houthis keep our cheap goods from being shipped to the West via the Suez Canal. We can't pay more than $1.25 for these items from The "Dollar" Store. The CEO of The Dollar Store can't take a cut in pay now can he?
Yes and I find this quite interesting..........how many 'things' can we do without?
A huge quantity is my guess.
Exactly Jenny.
We are programmed to buy useless junk that we don’t need.
Reminds me of a friend with Ukrainian ancestry. Her cousin came to visit from Ukraine and said friend took her to the local mall. When the cousin admired a certain necklace, my friend wanted to buy it for her. The cousin said, What for? I already have five necklaces.
My friend said her cousin couldn’t wait to go home. This was pre-war, of course.
Unfortunately, there are none so blind as those who will not see.
Another example of the giant lies and hypocrisy, is the US executing a coup in Ukraine, then funnelling weapons into Ukraine to attack Russia….and China……while declaring that they own “our hemisphere”:
https://www.reaganfoundation.org/media/361888/rndf-2023-panel-3-transcript.pdf
Panel 3: OVERLOOKING MONROE? PROTECTING OUR HEMISPHERE AND HOMELAND
Moderator: Courtney Kube, NBC News
Panelists:
- Mr. Joseph T. Lonsdale, Co-Founder and Managing Partner, 8VC
- Gen. Paul M. Nakasone, Commander, U.S. Cyber Command
- Gen. Laura J. Richardson, Commander, U.S. Southern Command
- Rep. Mike Waltz, U.S. House of Representatives, Florida
And just in case anyone missed it: YES that is a member of the the “independent commercial media” moderating a panel on that grotesque premise….and getting paid for it by the military industrial complex. Now guess what kind of “indpendent” narrative that Ms Kube and NBC are going to put into their news?
Disgusting…..
Caitlin > I thank you sincerely for the courage and determination to write as you are doing, I am in New Zealand. The television watching imbeciles here have put down their blue and yellow flags and are now cheering ion the ZIonist holocaust, I never realised I live in a country of such stupidity arrogance and compliance. They are almost ready for their next vaxxines
Essential reading: Jeff Halper, War Against the People: Israel, the Palestinians and Global Pacification, Pluto Press, 2015. available as paperpack and e-book.
Thank you very much for the book recommendation - seems like an interesting read!
Great book and great publishing house. Seconded !
US imperialism! Constantly at war
MLK described the federal government as the largest purveyor of violence in the world, and he was right. No surprise then that through the efforts of Francis Boyle in 2012, Bush, Cheney & Co were convicted of war crimes in Malaysia. Biden voted in favor of war and military aggression at every opportunity through 40 years in Congress.
Most western governments today are criminal organizations.
Really well said. It's high time that people realise that the US-centralized empire truly is a form of neo-colonialism.
You missed their lies about Nicaragua, El Salvator, and Colombia. Remember the Iran-Contra affair?
Complete human stain, and those wanting the spit on the grave of Gonzalo Lira, may you have chop chop chop to your vocal cords and jugulars.
https://paulokirk.substack.com/p/no-julian-no-gary-webb-no-big-time
I did not know that those fuckers killed Gonzalo Lira! So sick of hearing about the continual killing of real journalists. It has to be reckoned with across the world. These human scum gotta go.
Yes. These vile people are run by Mossad and CIA Central. Listen to the vile and lies and racism of the Jews laughing at South Africans (the blacks, that is since Jews live Apartheid managers). Go in Twitter and watch the pure Jews have for any group doubting them. There are very few trustworthy Jews, unfortunately. They'd see a writer like me in chains or as chum for the white tip sharks of the Red Sea.
Many of you will have seen this. It summarizes Blum from his work cited below.
The secret to understanding US foreign policy is that THERE IS NO SECRET. Principally, one must come to the realization that the United States strives to dominate the world, for which end it is prepared to use any means necessary. Once one understands that, much of the apparent confusion, contradiction, and ambiguity surrounding Washington’s policies fades away. To express this striving for dominance numerically, one can consider that since the end of World War II the United States has:
1) Endeavored to overthrow more than 50 foreign governments, most of which were democratically elected;
2) Grossly interfered in democratic elections in at least 30 countries;
3) Attempted to assassinate more than 50 foreign leaders;
4) Dropped bombs on the people of more than 30 countries;
5) Attempted to suppress a populist or nationalist movement in 20 countries.”
― William Blum, America’s Deadliest Export: Democracy – The Truth About US Foreign Policy and Everything Else
Not very avuncular is it?
This is so true. I really started to open my eyes in 2022 after Russia’s SMO got really going. My first inkling of something just not passing the smell test, so to speak, was our invasion of Iraq in March 2003. I was sickened by this. I was against it from the get go. I felt like crap knowing my country was bombing another country, seeing the sky lid up over Baghdad with U.S. bombs, knowing civilians,children, were on the receiving end of those bombs and being murdered as far as I was concerned. I decided never again would I support another war instigated by the U.S. and its allies. And this was a fucking war based on lies by the Bush Jr. administration.😢☮️