This media function has been going on since Vietnam, and quite as virulently. But judging by the comments here, after Caitlin’s excellent dissection of the issue, the media doesn’t have to work very hard to bullshit us—we’ll be happy to do it to ourselves. I never saw so many stupid comments from benighted self regarding self pitying self aggrandizing nincompoops as I see here. We have met the enemy and it is us.
If there are just a few things that I've learned this year, it's that I live in the Matrix.
* My "free country" isn't free.
* The CIA killed JFK.
* They probably removed Nixon.
* They removed Trump.
* Any leader who tries to give this nation back to the people and says, "The American people come first!" and "These wars are pointless!" gets removed.
* Our media can't be called news; they are propaganda outlets.
* In history class, we condemn Joseph Goebbels put we embrace his methods.
* Large corporations act like communist dictatorships: if you work for one, they end your freedom of speech, and they want to monitor you 24/7. I have a friend who managed several Target stores, and even though she made $250,000 a year, they had a camera on her and everyone else all the time.
* The boss in the corporate monopoly or communist dictatorship is always a humorless, angry, personally miserable, shallow control freak
* Without a spiritual side, people are shallow, brutish, and cruel;
* And all of the above means any truth teller--or person striving to be honest, like Tucker Carlson, Tulsi Gabbard, etc.--will get endlessly targeted.
I've studied a lot about communism, fascism, and monopolies, and they are all the same. You can call one left wing or right wing or "that's just business," but they all suck.
If I founded a political party, it would support:
* Families
* Nature (I believe in evolutionary psychology)
and
*Freedom.
Anything that supports families and human nature, I am in favor of. Anything that undermines families and goes against evolutionary psychology, I think makes people mentally unhealthy.
The best resource to learn as much as possible is a site like Caitlin Johnstone's, Yuri Bezmenov's, and The Academy of Ideas YouTube channel.
You might want to do some more thinking on your "families" imperative. US right wing christian nationalist fascists see a lot of "freedom" as undermining or destroying "families" and, among other things, burn books to preserve "families" and patriarchy and authoritarian conformisms.
Similar problems with the "freedom" thing - corporations love it and use it to avoid government regulation and maximize profit.
I don't view families as an imperative--more as an ideal, with love and respect given to all 8+ billion people on earth. No second class citizens in my world. I realize everyone is not religious, but I see everyone as my spiritual equal. I aim to love every person 100%. To the degree that I don't, I have failed my own ideals.
'Human nature' is a term that is thrown around pretty loosely by some to support the idea of nuclear families and patriarchy as the basis of their society. Human beings have organized themselves in very interesting ways over the couple hundred thousand years of our existence, and I assure you that what you may consider to be 'human nature' or 'evolutionary psychology' might need a broader examination.
Freud fell into the trap of reductive materialism, although he realized the efficacy of the unconscious. Carl Jung observed teleological phenomena in the unconscious (which Freud in his final years acknowledged to some degree), which implies evolutionary adaptation is not only driven by a deterministic past, but a possible future. I agree with you regarding "broader examination".
Don’t forget union leadership they represent union leadership not hardworking union workers. All hierarchical leadership structures suffer from the potential for corruption including religious organizations. My faith is in the spirit of knowing how little we know and appreciating the miracle of consciousness and the beauty of the earth.
To be fair, Trump could invent a cure for cancer, and the MSM would insist that it doesn't work and besides, the cure that doesn't work will leave millions of hardworking doctors without jobs.
Edit: also, lRussians get cancer. The MSM will duly note this.
When your society is surfeit with lies dominating your airwaves and your governance, where war is all they scream out at you in their 1984 Orwell loud speakers, day in and day out, while you yourself labor away, every day, in the so-called meritocracy of freedom they call corporate capitalism - being paid slave wages in a daily job you were forced to take because you really had no other good choices available ... working like the sheep did in Charlie Chaplin's "Modern Times" while the crooks in charge conspire to steal your retirement pension by making you work more years, and privatizing your social security, and conspiring to pay you even less by replacing your labor with more robots, and by bribing the politicians to not raise the minimum wage for decades - even while corporations make billions year after year after year ...
well - you're right, Trump could invent a cure for cancer and these same motherfuckers running our lives right now would make us think that it's better for cancer to keep on existing so profits can continue for their HMOs and pharmaceutical billion dollar businesses - which they will argue, will make all our lives much better and freer in the years ahead.
It's a vicious circle, but I think psychologists have shown that ordinary people tend to be non-sociopathic, while the Dark Tetrad types end up running nations and corporations.
Actually the psychological summary is that ordinary people very easily shift to view sociopathic behaviour as normal. All you need to for powerful to say “ this is how we do things”.
Thank you for citing the Milgram experiments. I used to teach "Perils of Obedience," which discusses these experiments. Obedience has killed far far far far far more people than disobedience ever will.
Exactly. Disobedience is liberating. Sadly, most people don’t really want liberation, they want safety. And as Big Ben Franklin said, if you take safety over liberation, you’ll have neither.
I am having a hard time blaming the citizens, given the level of propaganda that starts right off the bat in public schools. I highly recommend that everyone read "Dumbing Us Down," by John Gatto, a 30-year teacher who won teacher of the year multiple times before turning 100% against our system, whose real lessons are: obedience, boredom, conformity, and to make us never take the initiative, but instead to wait for the authorities to tax us, make us take the shot, lock us down, lie to us, surveil us, and empty our heads of freedom and knowledge.
Yes. I was a teacher for 18 years before I ran away screaming!!! These highly educated and competent people willingly surrender their autonomy to the system and politely ignore anyone who calls them on it. They may do it for good reason—money, love or ambition- -but mostly they and others like them do it out of fear. And fear engenders all kinds of surrender. And surrender engenders a victim state that the citizens wallow in. And then some choose T-rump so they can keep their guns and yell at the other victims, and some choose cops and war (fought by others) because their Resident says to and around and around we go. You can’t have a democracy without courage. And Americans of the Yuppie Era don’t have any. Chomsky calls them the most frightened people on Earth with the least reason. And as to propaganda: it only works if you buy it. Fear based victim types buy it by the fists full!
Sociopaths don’t “tend to lead”. The masses tend to voluntarily coalesce around authoritarians.
That’s the problem with bind ideological faith in democracy. You can’t just namecheck eldctions or whatever. For democracy to function, you also have to support it annd defend it, by: employing active tools to block ALL authoritarians of all disguises, and by neutralise the tactics that authoritarian figures and demagogues always use to manipulate people, shut down DISSENTING views and manufacture consent.
But our societies don’t do that.
In fact it’s worse: we pretend we have democracies and we leave people to be completely manipulated on the most effective distraction, mind-corrosion, demagoguery and group-think machine that the world has ever created:
Exactly, Kudjoe! I read Commondreams this morning with a story about protesters at the fukking correspondents gala (where our press get their butts buffed for the crowning of the Shinny Hinny) and a big ass black urban assault vehicle tried to push its intimidating way thru the people but a young smiling man held up his hand in a stop gesture and stood his ground. And eventually the big ass black vehicle backed away and then of course, the cops intervened to stop protesters from chasing the damn thing, while a young angry woman gave the cops hell for not arresting the car. It was great. And then the article said that Ro Khanna supported the protesters on his way in. On his way in!!!! To the most self regarding pointless gathering of assholes in all of DC, save the meetings of the Supreme Court. So why are we ruled by asshokes? Because we let them. We’d much rather go to the Corespondents dinner and sniff condescendingly at them than join the protesters and stand for something. We have met the enemy and it is us.
`A proxy war against Russia on Ukraine soil isn't enough for the West- it wants to go full spectrum proxy, or no-holds barred crazy, so long as it doesn't involve "the homeland". Does anyone care what ordinary Taiwanese -the majority -think? Last I heard they're fine with China, and want American proxies - I think I spelled that word wrong - out.
At best, they'll be allowed to choose one of two carefully vetted pro-American muppets, whereupon the trumpets shall flourish and we shall be duly assured that The Voice Of The People Has Spoken.
Between vassal states, bases, muppets, puppets and trumpets and proxies, the battle environment is getting even more confusing. The one thing that remains constant, however, is that the US is likely to try and remain detached from all the fighting, the military complex will make even more profits than before and yet another part of the globe will become seriously damaged, with millions dead.
BUT NOT IN OR CLOSE TO THE USA.
This time the battle shifts to South East Asia, a very complicated and different set of countries, where allegiances can change weekly, governments able to be brought and sold, potential vassal states aplenty, B-52 aerodromes for nuclear weapons already in the vassal state of Australia, with many more islands for even more bases to add to the 800 already armed …..and all raring to go.
But the key point....once again…..as said before by many….. is that it is a long way from mainland USA, as is Ukraine, as was Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. But remember when it got so close, like the island of Cuba in 1962, the game was seen to be a little more serious. This time, should it ever get that close, no JFK to bring about some reasoning, just pathetic mouthpieces like Biden to do the military / industrialist's bidding......or a frightening Clinton, an emerging DeSantis, or a 'make America great again' Trump, one as bad as the other and all targets for an assassins bullet if they don't toe the line. What an environment!
Not a very reassuring thought.
Almost the whole world accepts the fact that Taiwan is a part of China, even the Taiwanese themselves. They have known it since 1949 when the people fled the mainland as a refuge from communism. That same peasant based communist China is in 2023 the world's most successful trading nation having had an absolutely amazing transformation during those years. But should that change anything?
An alternative to war? Do you give the Taiwanese a vote for independence based on the condition that should any hegemonic power try to influence, takeover, corrupt, bribe the Taiwan government into accepting any military bases on their country, the country will revert to China's control?
History has shown that he UN can manage / supervise that sort of thing so well. After all, it has a track record like Palestine since 1967, still unresolved; large and small totally neglected confrontations all over the globe like Kashmir, Cambodia, Somalia, Rwanda, Srebrenica, Sudan, Iraq, Syria, Sudan South, Yemen, Myanmar, US torture in Abu Ghraib and CIA drug crops and trafficking in Afghanistan, accepting the US solution of wars and more wars with absolutely no UN control or apparent interest or interference. An organisation that bows to no pressure from any country at all….except Israel and the USA, apparently.
Does this have the same trappings as present day Ukraine?
Russia gave Ukraine its independence without such conditions and in strides the arrogant USA and surrounds Russia with NATO puppets (US controlled, naturally) following a bunch of lies and the discarding of the Minsk agreement by the USA. History repeating itself.
So off we go on yet another war as with Ukraine, by proxy. A serious one this time.
Now in South East Asia off the coast of China with 30+ US military bases all within striking distance....already. More to come. in the Philippines.
The one common feature is the USA and its need for power and control, at any price.
Unquestionably the source of all of the problems in the world today.
We Don't need all these hi tech chippies and their technology. We can't even feed, cure, house or govern ourselves and it's 2023. The Elitists are the ones that need all this hi tech cyber shit in your food, medicine, airwaves, and brains, the rest of us can easily live without it and get back to the Basics that the Elitists have destroyed. Cancer, diabetes, polio, etc. cures were at a high time roll in the 50s and 60s { written about in the medical journals even } until the big Pharma shut down the simple medicines to cure much of it. Does Ivermestin come to mind. Does hi tech cure anything that the common man needs to live - yes , some of it does, but not most. They want you to think like we can't go on without Taiwan , or Ukraine, or your next nRNA jab. Sabe' ?
Your reporting in this post is a perfect example of the American Propaganda Industrial Complex doing its job of covering for the American Military Industrial Complex.
So very weary of the continuing stupidity in US Foreign Policy. And other countries actions. Enemies are a choice. Whatever happened to the Formosan people? I have no wish for the US to go to war with anyone. I don’t know any American that does. I do know that many of us would like to see a leadership change in America, neither Democrat or Republican Party offer moral credible candidates, sad to say. Sorry world!
Neither Democrat not Republican; and in Australia, neither Liberal nor Labor; and in the UK neither Conservative or Labor.
Yes, Patricia, but how do you do this? The number of years and elections it would rake to make such radical changes away from just these three 'two party' systems, through the promotion of decent candidates and the public's acceptance of enough new members who are entirely worthy and totally new, is just too long. It cannot be done in those three countries in time to produce a worldwide peace. These countries just three examples.
For these three Christian, white and anglo-oriented countries, then adding in all the NATO countries with their warlike management and control (besides the US virtual control, that is) the task is impossible. The current climate will produce a war well before any radical change for the better could be implemented, one country after another.
An internal rebellion needs to happen so that the opinion of the greater majority of people ….(not Israeli corrupted politicians and Neocons)…. can implement the changes required.
Just as the US has interfered in so many countries over time in order to influence or demand a major change to match their way of thinking, or for their financial benefit, or their hegemonic ambitions or their need to rule the world by the introduction and support for internal strife, so the USA may need to see the same internal rebellion internally to bring it back to reality, to introduce the changes that are required in their now very twisted thinking about their “exceptionality" and to work for a return to the values of their forefathers as depicted in the US Constitution, having been seriously eroded by each Presidential reign, one way or another since WW2. Just look at them all , what the majority of them became….Johnson, Nixon, Clinton, Bush, Obama, Trump and Biden. How many deaths to their credit?
The old Great Britain empire had to tolerate the almost total diminution of their colonial empire and all the international controls it had before WW2, as the majority of their empire members saw what the United Kingdom had become. The same controls exist today for the USA through economic controls ( losing their strength daily), through wars, subversive actions, sanctions, criminal conspiracies and blatant interference in so many countries over time. It receives no respect these days, nothing now worth emulating because of its values, including their il-named protection of “democracy” (US-style) and soon will lose its dollar power in world economies, already happening at a fast pace..
If the American people want to see their standard of living maintained, their country accepted and respected throughout the world as a peaceful entity, then the change has to come from within the USA itself and the world cannot wait for that to occur through three or four or more electoral periods.
As well. In the current climate, a major world war will not wait that long.
The people must demand peace, close the CIA's criminal roles throughout the world, break its ties with Israel, demand the truth from the media while reducing the influence of the big economic entities such as Blackrock et al. They should clean out the FBI, demand that all the states are supportive of the return of justice for all and give priority to health and education for future generations and make very serious reduction in the 877 billion dollar Defense budget.
Right on the money! Though it is not enough just gaining control of the military away from the criminals would put a major wrench in their designs of total control or total destruction!
More likely is a “Second Sleep” scenario ala Robert Harris book on the world after the technology apocalypse. Not a great book but the premise is a real possibility.
I know quite a few democrats and republicans that do want war. They are still so brainwashed they think the US is a righteous cause for liberty and freedom around the world! Another example is every single one of the politicians (who have any type of decision making capacity) are all in with the military.
Also listen to his announcement speech. Where he preaches about "fundamentally good people" and flaunts his son's killing ruskies in Ukraine. What a guy!
That's your evidence to all someone a warmonger? Silence on other wars when he is OPPOSING a war is now considered warmongering? (check the definition: that' an active stance: "a person who encourages or advocates aggression towards other countries or groups"). His father ran to OPPOSE the Vietnam war. Jr. is paving the same path. You should just stand down and apologize and stop digging deeper.
No you look deeper. His concern is that we have the wrong lie as his reason for opposing the war in Ukraine! He was fine with the war as long as it was for the original lie of "freedom and democracy"!
For those who invest time and energy in electoral politics, the pressure on Kennedy should be to urge him to lay the foundation for leaving the Democratic Party for a third party alternative after the Dems sabotage him like they did Bernie in 2016/20.
I don't read the legacy corporate press anymore because of exactly the same kind of lies and smears and distortions I've just read in these two commenters here. This is not the place for BS and lies. So please, get real.
Go listen to what he says in long detail and read what he has written. Beyond the sound bites, Kennedy, if you listen carefully to what he has said, is NOT rid of the disease of American exceptionalism. He isnt.
And if you are an imperialist, you cannot credibly support or drive any agenda of social change and mass empowerment domestically.
So he speaks with forked tongue.
Smells to me like the usual sheepdog (Bernie, Howard Dean etc) sent around to herd in those who would otherwise refuse to engage in the farce of “primaries” at Democratic Party Inc,and thus totally deny legitimacy to the entire staged project.
I think mendacity would be a more appropriate word than stupidity. The super-rich don’t err into the atrocities, the death and misery they unleash.
We are given false historical narratives to create a perception that we are good guys. Vietnam was not an “honest mistake” as Ken Burns would have us believe. It was a calculated assault, mass murder of innocents to enrich the obscenely wealthy.
We didn’t bring freedom and autonomy to the Philippines when we chased off their Spanish colonizers. We brought genocide to the would-be indigenous independent leaders. The Spanish sought to corral the Filipino people, but we had a more efficient plan: Eliminate them. That wasn’t an error or miscalculation. Certainly not down to stupidity. Our puppet masters take what they want because they can. And we fight over the allocation of crumbs because we are convinced we must.
So good. Thanks for diving into the memory hole and dragging out these facts. As to Ken Burns. I hardly have a vocabulary to express my opinion of him. Suffice it to say that he bent over and took it from the Empire builders and enjoyed it, with all due respect to my gay brothers. That little worm was a little weasel. O look, I did find words.
If Trump had won a second term in office, would the oligarchy have decided that now was the proper time to take on China and "liberate" Taiwan once and for all from its evil clutches? Or were they waiting for a president like Biden--a clueless, possibly Alzheimered warhawk--to be the fall guy? Let's not find out what they were planning--let's just shut down all this war talk and bring all parties to the peace table. #NoMoreWar
I don’t give Biden enough credit to postulate that he’s a fall guy. Biden has been a war hawk his entire life. Right now he’s manipulating the same way he always has to get exactly what he wants. He’s also been after the FDR policies that so helped Americans during his whole career, but now he can let the Neo-cons do it and not take the blame. Why do we think he has let so many of T-rump’s executive orders stand? It’s because he LIKES those policies, always has. He makes me wanna puke!
Biden is sickening. I remember the day I watched him treat Anita Hill with such contempt... I knew he was the devil incarnate. I never trusted Obama because he picked Devil-Biden as his VP.
Agreed. Which is what is so especially egregious about his running for and winning the Residency. That hearing exposed him for who he is to millions of viewers, to put in one of the most corrupt legal minds of the decade, while playing on skin color to aggrandize himself as a champion of equality. For men. It set the pattern for Supreme Court hearing from then on. Bono is just a fly on Biden’s zipper by comparison.
Taiwan once independent. As victor in First Sino-Japanese War in 1895, Taiwan became part of Imperial Japan's Empire. Taiwan was used a jump off from station for war on China. After end of World War II, in 1949, Japan's Imperial Navy in partnership with U.S.'s moved fascist Chinese war lord, Chiang Kai-Shek and entourage across China's Sea to Taiwan along with China's Treasury and state treasures. 500,000 imperial Japanese occupiers of Taiwan changed their names to Chinese and held their Taiwan ground. As Ukraine is now being used as bloody tool to reduce Russia, as N.A.T.O. created in 1949 stimulating U.S.S.R.'s creation of The Warsaw Pact, in self defense, and the big lie told to Russian government that agreed to unified Germany with verbal promise that N.A.T.O. would not expand into Eastern Europe. POTUS Nixon agreed Taiwan part of China. Following POTUS Trump's lead, current POTUS Biden, would have Taiwan as sovereign state. Useful to remember "South" Korea still under Japanese influence with renewed permission granted to U.S. Navy to port U.S. nuclear submarines there for offenses against China, from continuing role of electronic listening posts as well as launching nuclear missiles when ordered.
According to Wiki over 200,000 Taiwanese enlisted in the Japanese Imperial Army. I could find no proof of your claim that 500,000 Japanese troops were on Taiwan at the end of WWII. Do you have a source?
Brevet private billy masterson: LOL! Yeah. It's not like Japan had 500,000 troops to spare at the end of WWII and stationed them on Taiwan. The Japanese Kwantung Army did have over 700,000 troops in Manchuria, but not their best units who had been sent elsewhere to fight Americans. The Soviet Red Army defeated the Kwantung Army easily which led to the surrender of Japan.
".....incendiary provocation of extreme aggression that it self-evidently is." A highly accurate description and it's beyond my understanding that so many Australians can't see past the right wing, warmongering propaganda, to understand that. After all, if a bunch of bikies move in next door and set up 50cal. machine gun, I'm sure they would see that as an aggressive threat.
Meanwhile if Amerika loads up Taiwan with the latest in US killing tech, the Chinese might be interested in getting their hands on that - if only to find out how to defend themselves against it.
This example of media madness is a perfect validation of Orwell, who anticipated exactly these absurdist propaganda campaigns to support permanent war.
Another good one is the coverage of Nazi's in Ukraine before and after the "unprovoked invasion to restore the Soviet Union".
It is unfortunately obvious that the political delirium in which the United States has been engulfed for more than thirty years could not be maintained and even flourish as it does now without the active support of the media. The big American media (and all the opinion makers such as the stars of the show and the sport) are the accomplices of the deep state directed by the neo-cons. When we see Sean Penn going to support the Nazi Zelensky in Kiev, we can imagine Angelina Jolie (a name taken at random) going to support Ms Tsai Ing-wen in Taipei. And this, under the acclamations of the American (and Western) press. And of course, to return to her bunkerized comfort of Hollywood, well protected (temporarily) from the consequences of her warmongering vanity.
In a recent interview with Chuck Todd, Rep. Michael McCaul, who just visited Taiwan, said the quiet part out loud (https://youtu.be/Kr6DPvzZRG0, at about 5:20 into the interview):
CHUCK TODD: “Make the basic case for why Americans not only should care about what happens in Taiwan but should be willing to spill American blood and treasure to defend Taiwan.”
REP. MICHAEL MCCAUL: “The case for Taiwan, that's a very good question, about 50% of international trade goes through the international straits, but I think more important is that TSMC [Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company] manufactures 90% of the global supply of advanced semiconductor chips. If China invades and either owns or breaks up, we're in a world of hurt globally.”
TODD: “Congressman, that almost sounds like the case that would be made in the 60s, 70s, and 80s, [and 90s, 00s, and 10s] for why America was spending so much money and military resources in the middle east. Oil was so important for the economy. Is this sort of the 21st century version of that?”
[Then McCaul snaps out of his inadvertent truth-telling and spouts the usual talking points.]
MCCAUL: “You know, I personally think it is about democracy and freedom. And we need to stand up for that, like we're doing in Ukraine.“
In other words, if WWIII breaks out over Taiwan, it will be over iPhones, Xboxes, and smart TVs.
In some way, that seems like a fitting reason to end our species.
Yet another example of the mainstream media functioning as the propaganda arm of the deep state. As far from being independent as it's possible to be
This media function has been going on since Vietnam, and quite as virulently. But judging by the comments here, after Caitlin’s excellent dissection of the issue, the media doesn’t have to work very hard to bullshit us—we’ll be happy to do it to ourselves. I never saw so many stupid comments from benighted self regarding self pitying self aggrandizing nincompoops as I see here. We have met the enemy and it is us.
If there are just a few things that I've learned this year, it's that I live in the Matrix.
* My "free country" isn't free.
* The CIA killed JFK.
* They probably removed Nixon.
* They removed Trump.
* Any leader who tries to give this nation back to the people and says, "The American people come first!" and "These wars are pointless!" gets removed.
* Our media can't be called news; they are propaganda outlets.
* In history class, we condemn Joseph Goebbels put we embrace his methods.
* Large corporations act like communist dictatorships: if you work for one, they end your freedom of speech, and they want to monitor you 24/7. I have a friend who managed several Target stores, and even though she made $250,000 a year, they had a camera on her and everyone else all the time.
* The boss in the corporate monopoly or communist dictatorship is always a humorless, angry, personally miserable, shallow control freak
* Without a spiritual side, people are shallow, brutish, and cruel;
* And all of the above means any truth teller--or person striving to be honest, like Tucker Carlson, Tulsi Gabbard, etc.--will get endlessly targeted.
I've studied a lot about communism, fascism, and monopolies, and they are all the same. You can call one left wing or right wing or "that's just business," but they all suck.
If I founded a political party, it would support:
* Families
* Nature (I believe in evolutionary psychology)
and
*Freedom.
Anything that supports families and human nature, I am in favor of. Anything that undermines families and goes against evolutionary psychology, I think makes people mentally unhealthy.
The best resource to learn as much as possible is a site like Caitlin Johnstone's, Yuri Bezmenov's, and The Academy of Ideas YouTube channel.
God bless you.
You might want to do some more thinking on your "families" imperative. US right wing christian nationalist fascists see a lot of "freedom" as undermining or destroying "families" and, among other things, burn books to preserve "families" and patriarchy and authoritarian conformisms.
Similar problems with the "freedom" thing - corporations love it and use it to avoid government regulation and maximize profit.
I don't view families as an imperative--more as an ideal, with love and respect given to all 8+ billion people on earth. No second class citizens in my world. I realize everyone is not religious, but I see everyone as my spiritual equal. I aim to love every person 100%. To the degree that I don't, I have failed my own ideals.
'Human nature' is a term that is thrown around pretty loosely by some to support the idea of nuclear families and patriarchy as the basis of their society. Human beings have organized themselves in very interesting ways over the couple hundred thousand years of our existence, and I assure you that what you may consider to be 'human nature' or 'evolutionary psychology' might need a broader examination.
Freud fell into the trap of reductive materialism, although he realized the efficacy of the unconscious. Carl Jung observed teleological phenomena in the unconscious (which Freud in his final years acknowledged to some degree), which implies evolutionary adaptation is not only driven by a deterministic past, but a possible future. I agree with you regarding "broader examination".
I study and read a lot.
You may not be the only one.
I am one of many who studies and reads a lot. I love Jung, btw.
"Thou wilt not find the boundaries of the soul even though thou searchest through all its ways - so unfathomable is its essence"
~Aniela Jaffe, 'Apparitions And Precognition' #Jung
Don’t forget union leadership they represent union leadership not hardworking union workers. All hierarchical leadership structures suffer from the potential for corruption including religious organizations. My faith is in the spirit of knowing how little we know and appreciating the miracle of consciousness and the beauty of the earth.
To be fair, Trump could invent a cure for cancer, and the MSM would insist that it doesn't work and besides, the cure that doesn't work will leave millions of hardworking doctors without jobs.
Edit: also, lRussians get cancer. The MSM will duly note this.
When your society is surfeit with lies dominating your airwaves and your governance, where war is all they scream out at you in their 1984 Orwell loud speakers, day in and day out, while you yourself labor away, every day, in the so-called meritocracy of freedom they call corporate capitalism - being paid slave wages in a daily job you were forced to take because you really had no other good choices available ... working like the sheep did in Charlie Chaplin's "Modern Times" while the crooks in charge conspire to steal your retirement pension by making you work more years, and privatizing your social security, and conspiring to pay you even less by replacing your labor with more robots, and by bribing the politicians to not raise the minimum wage for decades - even while corporations make billions year after year after year ...
well - you're right, Trump could invent a cure for cancer and these same motherfuckers running our lives right now would make us think that it's better for cancer to keep on existing so profits can continue for their HMOs and pharmaceutical billion dollar businesses - which they will argue, will make all our lives much better and freer in the years ahead.
I admit that I'd be skeptical of any purported cancer cure coming from Trump Labs.
Skepticism is health Mr. Finster.
I love your feral brain, Feral. 😸
Chirrup!
Yes, and the corollary to that is to tag anything good with the preface "woke" or "socialist".
BTW< cure for cancer kills Big Pharma, not doctors.
The problem isn’t the corrupt government or the lying media. It’s the huge numbers of people who an actually give them credibility.
It's a vicious circle, but I think psychologists have shown that ordinary people tend to be non-sociopathic, while the Dark Tetrad types end up running nations and corporations.
Actually the psychological summary is that ordinary people very easily shift to view sociopathic behaviour as normal. All you need to for powerful to say “ this is how we do things”.
See this
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment
So until humans develop themselves, to distrust and disobey power, this will keep happening.
Thank you for citing the Milgram experiments. I used to teach "Perils of Obedience," which discusses these experiments. Obedience has killed far far far far far more people than disobedience ever will.
Exactly. Disobedience is liberating. Sadly, most people don’t really want liberation, they want safety. And as Big Ben Franklin said, if you take safety over liberation, you’ll have neither.
I am having a hard time blaming the citizens, given the level of propaganda that starts right off the bat in public schools. I highly recommend that everyone read "Dumbing Us Down," by John Gatto, a 30-year teacher who won teacher of the year multiple times before turning 100% against our system, whose real lessons are: obedience, boredom, conformity, and to make us never take the initiative, but instead to wait for the authorities to tax us, make us take the shot, lock us down, lie to us, surveil us, and empty our heads of freedom and knowledge.
Yes. I was a teacher for 18 years before I ran away screaming!!! These highly educated and competent people willingly surrender their autonomy to the system and politely ignore anyone who calls them on it. They may do it for good reason—money, love or ambition- -but mostly they and others like them do it out of fear. And fear engenders all kinds of surrender. And surrender engenders a victim state that the citizens wallow in. And then some choose T-rump so they can keep their guns and yell at the other victims, and some choose cops and war (fought by others) because their Resident says to and around and around we go. You can’t have a democracy without courage. And Americans of the Yuppie Era don’t have any. Chomsky calls them the most frightened people on Earth with the least reason. And as to propaganda: it only works if you buy it. Fear based victim types buy it by the fists full!
I'd say that both you and William Paul are correct.
Born sociopaths tend to lead organizations. The rank and file sociopaths can be trained to play their respective roles.
Sociopaths don’t “tend to lead”. The masses tend to voluntarily coalesce around authoritarians.
That’s the problem with bind ideological faith in democracy. You can’t just namecheck eldctions or whatever. For democracy to function, you also have to support it annd defend it, by: employing active tools to block ALL authoritarians of all disguises, and by neutralise the tactics that authoritarian figures and demagogues always use to manipulate people, shut down DISSENTING views and manufacture consent.
But our societies don’t do that.
In fact it’s worse: we pretend we have democracies and we leave people to be completely manipulated on the most effective distraction, mind-corrosion, demagoguery and group-think machine that the world has ever created:
the internet.
That’s why things are broken right now.
We can argue chicken and egg later, but there is a great deal of truth in this.
Learn well The Iron Law Of Oligarchy.
Exactly, Kudjoe! I read Commondreams this morning with a story about protesters at the fukking correspondents gala (where our press get their butts buffed for the crowning of the Shinny Hinny) and a big ass black urban assault vehicle tried to push its intimidating way thru the people but a young smiling man held up his hand in a stop gesture and stood his ground. And eventually the big ass black vehicle backed away and then of course, the cops intervened to stop protesters from chasing the damn thing, while a young angry woman gave the cops hell for not arresting the car. It was great. And then the article said that Ro Khanna supported the protesters on his way in. On his way in!!!! To the most self regarding pointless gathering of assholes in all of DC, save the meetings of the Supreme Court. So why are we ruled by asshokes? Because we let them. We’d much rather go to the Corespondents dinner and sniff condescendingly at them than join the protesters and stand for something. We have met the enemy and it is us.
`A proxy war against Russia on Ukraine soil isn't enough for the West- it wants to go full spectrum proxy, or no-holds barred crazy, so long as it doesn't involve "the homeland". Does anyone care what ordinary Taiwanese -the majority -think? Last I heard they're fine with China, and want American proxies - I think I spelled that word wrong - out.
Ordinary Taiwanese won't be given a real choice.
At best, they'll be allowed to choose one of two carefully vetted pro-American muppets, whereupon the trumpets shall flourish and we shall be duly assured that The Voice Of The People Has Spoken.
Feral,
Between vassal states, bases, muppets, puppets and trumpets and proxies, the battle environment is getting even more confusing. The one thing that remains constant, however, is that the US is likely to try and remain detached from all the fighting, the military complex will make even more profits than before and yet another part of the globe will become seriously damaged, with millions dead.
BUT NOT IN OR CLOSE TO THE USA.
This time the battle shifts to South East Asia, a very complicated and different set of countries, where allegiances can change weekly, governments able to be brought and sold, potential vassal states aplenty, B-52 aerodromes for nuclear weapons already in the vassal state of Australia, with many more islands for even more bases to add to the 800 already armed …..and all raring to go.
But the key point....once again…..as said before by many….. is that it is a long way from mainland USA, as is Ukraine, as was Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. But remember when it got so close, like the island of Cuba in 1962, the game was seen to be a little more serious. This time, should it ever get that close, no JFK to bring about some reasoning, just pathetic mouthpieces like Biden to do the military / industrialist's bidding......or a frightening Clinton, an emerging DeSantis, or a 'make America great again' Trump, one as bad as the other and all targets for an assassins bullet if they don't toe the line. What an environment!
Not a very reassuring thought.
Almost the whole world accepts the fact that Taiwan is a part of China, even the Taiwanese themselves. They have known it since 1949 when the people fled the mainland as a refuge from communism. That same peasant based communist China is in 2023 the world's most successful trading nation having had an absolutely amazing transformation during those years. But should that change anything?
An alternative to war? Do you give the Taiwanese a vote for independence based on the condition that should any hegemonic power try to influence, takeover, corrupt, bribe the Taiwan government into accepting any military bases on their country, the country will revert to China's control?
History has shown that he UN can manage / supervise that sort of thing so well. After all, it has a track record like Palestine since 1967, still unresolved; large and small totally neglected confrontations all over the globe like Kashmir, Cambodia, Somalia, Rwanda, Srebrenica, Sudan, Iraq, Syria, Sudan South, Yemen, Myanmar, US torture in Abu Ghraib and CIA drug crops and trafficking in Afghanistan, accepting the US solution of wars and more wars with absolutely no UN control or apparent interest or interference. An organisation that bows to no pressure from any country at all….except Israel and the USA, apparently.
Does this have the same trappings as present day Ukraine?
Russia gave Ukraine its independence without such conditions and in strides the arrogant USA and surrounds Russia with NATO puppets (US controlled, naturally) following a bunch of lies and the discarding of the Minsk agreement by the USA. History repeating itself.
So off we go on yet another war as with Ukraine, by proxy. A serious one this time.
Now in South East Asia off the coast of China with 30+ US military bases all within striking distance....already. More to come. in the Philippines.
The one common feature is the USA and its need for power and control, at any price.
Unquestionably the source of all of the problems in the world today.
Look at the geography of the United States.
We Don't need all these hi tech chippies and their technology. We can't even feed, cure, house or govern ourselves and it's 2023. The Elitists are the ones that need all this hi tech cyber shit in your food, medicine, airwaves, and brains, the rest of us can easily live without it and get back to the Basics that the Elitists have destroyed. Cancer, diabetes, polio, etc. cures were at a high time roll in the 50s and 60s { written about in the medical journals even } until the big Pharma shut down the simple medicines to cure much of it. Does Ivermestin come to mind. Does hi tech cure anything that the common man needs to live - yes , some of it does, but not most. They want you to think like we can't go on without Taiwan , or Ukraine, or your next nRNA jab. Sabe' ?
Your reporting in this post is a perfect example of the American Propaganda Industrial Complex doing its job of covering for the American Military Industrial Complex.
So very weary of the continuing stupidity in US Foreign Policy. And other countries actions. Enemies are a choice. Whatever happened to the Formosan people? I have no wish for the US to go to war with anyone. I don’t know any American that does. I do know that many of us would like to see a leadership change in America, neither Democrat or Republican Party offer moral credible candidates, sad to say. Sorry world!
Neither Democrat not Republican; and in Australia, neither Liberal nor Labor; and in the UK neither Conservative or Labor.
Yes, Patricia, but how do you do this? The number of years and elections it would rake to make such radical changes away from just these three 'two party' systems, through the promotion of decent candidates and the public's acceptance of enough new members who are entirely worthy and totally new, is just too long. It cannot be done in those three countries in time to produce a worldwide peace. These countries just three examples.
For these three Christian, white and anglo-oriented countries, then adding in all the NATO countries with their warlike management and control (besides the US virtual control, that is) the task is impossible. The current climate will produce a war well before any radical change for the better could be implemented, one country after another.
An internal rebellion needs to happen so that the opinion of the greater majority of people ….(not Israeli corrupted politicians and Neocons)…. can implement the changes required.
Just as the US has interfered in so many countries over time in order to influence or demand a major change to match their way of thinking, or for their financial benefit, or their hegemonic ambitions or their need to rule the world by the introduction and support for internal strife, so the USA may need to see the same internal rebellion internally to bring it back to reality, to introduce the changes that are required in their now very twisted thinking about their “exceptionality" and to work for a return to the values of their forefathers as depicted in the US Constitution, having been seriously eroded by each Presidential reign, one way or another since WW2. Just look at them all , what the majority of them became….Johnson, Nixon, Clinton, Bush, Obama, Trump and Biden. How many deaths to their credit?
The old Great Britain empire had to tolerate the almost total diminution of their colonial empire and all the international controls it had before WW2, as the majority of their empire members saw what the United Kingdom had become. The same controls exist today for the USA through economic controls ( losing their strength daily), through wars, subversive actions, sanctions, criminal conspiracies and blatant interference in so many countries over time. It receives no respect these days, nothing now worth emulating because of its values, including their il-named protection of “democracy” (US-style) and soon will lose its dollar power in world economies, already happening at a fast pace..
If the American people want to see their standard of living maintained, their country accepted and respected throughout the world as a peaceful entity, then the change has to come from within the USA itself and the world cannot wait for that to occur through three or four or more electoral periods.
As well. In the current climate, a major world war will not wait that long.
The people must demand peace, close the CIA's criminal roles throughout the world, break its ties with Israel, demand the truth from the media while reducing the influence of the big economic entities such as Blackrock et al. They should clean out the FBI, demand that all the states are supportive of the return of justice for all and give priority to health and education for future generations and make very serious reduction in the 877 billion dollar Defense budget.
But be quick.
I did forget to add that the US should close its 800 military bases world-wide, in a peaceful world, of no further use.
Imagine what those trillions of dollars could do for health and social benefits.
Right on the money! Though it is not enough just gaining control of the military away from the criminals would put a major wrench in their designs of total control or total destruction!
More likely is a “Second Sleep” scenario ala Robert Harris book on the world after the technology apocalypse. Not a great book but the premise is a real possibility.
I know quite a few democrats and republicans that do want war. They are still so brainwashed they think the US is a righteous cause for liberty and freedom around the world! Another example is every single one of the politicians (who have any type of decision making capacity) are all in with the military.
Kennedy is credible - that's why he's being invisibilized and/or smeared by US media.
He still has warmongering tendencies. He does not come out and say no war just the Ukraine war is bad.
Absurd statement. Evidence? Name one war he supported, please. One example of those "warmongering tendencies". Educate me.
I think you are referring to the Democratic Party.
Also listen to his announcement speech. Where he preaches about "fundamentally good people" and flaunts his son's killing ruskies in Ukraine. What a guy!
Kennedy used his son's expedition as an example of DISAGREEMENTS within his family.
His "good people" comment is true of the large majority of American people.
You are completely misinterpreting and misconstruing his comments and apparently know nothing of his politics, career, or integrity.
Yes, I refuse to salivate over a politician. What a novel idea!
As to his "fundamentally good people" - is this as opposed to some other nations/races? That the Americans are still somehow the "exceptional" nation?
If he said that fundamentally all people are good, I'd agree. Otherwise he's pandering to the American jingoism.
But keep batting for the "lesser of quite a few evils" guy.
Watch his interview with Tucker. His statements clearly are only directed towards Ukraine.
That's your evidence to all someone a warmonger? Silence on other wars when he is OPPOSING a war is now considered warmongering? (check the definition: that' an active stance: "a person who encourages or advocates aggression towards other countries or groups"). His father ran to OPPOSE the Vietnam war. Jr. is paving the same path. You should just stand down and apologize and stop digging deeper.
No you look deeper. His concern is that we have the wrong lie as his reason for opposing the war in Ukraine! He was fine with the war as long as it was for the original lie of "freedom and democracy"!
As a Democrat saying anything beyond the current war would be politically disastrous!
For those who invest time and energy in electoral politics, the pressure on Kennedy should be to urge him to lay the foundation for leaving the Democratic Party for a third party alternative after the Dems sabotage him like they did Bernie in 2016/20.
I don't read the legacy corporate press anymore because of exactly the same kind of lies and smears and distortions I've just read in these two commenters here. This is not the place for BS and lies. So please, get real.
Go listen to what he says in long detail and read what he has written. Beyond the sound bites, Kennedy, if you listen carefully to what he has said, is NOT rid of the disease of American exceptionalism. He isnt.
And if you are an imperialist, you cannot credibly support or drive any agenda of social change and mass empowerment domestically.
So he speaks with forked tongue.
Smells to me like the usual sheepdog (Bernie, Howard Dean etc) sent around to herd in those who would otherwise refuse to engage in the farce of “primaries” at Democratic Party Inc,and thus totally deny legitimacy to the entire staged project.
I think mendacity would be a more appropriate word than stupidity. The super-rich don’t err into the atrocities, the death and misery they unleash.
We are given false historical narratives to create a perception that we are good guys. Vietnam was not an “honest mistake” as Ken Burns would have us believe. It was a calculated assault, mass murder of innocents to enrich the obscenely wealthy.
We didn’t bring freedom and autonomy to the Philippines when we chased off their Spanish colonizers. We brought genocide to the would-be indigenous independent leaders. The Spanish sought to corral the Filipino people, but we had a more efficient plan: Eliminate them. That wasn’t an error or miscalculation. Certainly not down to stupidity. Our puppet masters take what they want because they can. And we fight over the allocation of crumbs because we are convinced we must.
So good. Thanks for diving into the memory hole and dragging out these facts. As to Ken Burns. I hardly have a vocabulary to express my opinion of him. Suffice it to say that he bent over and took it from the Empire builders and enjoyed it, with all due respect to my gay brothers. That little worm was a little weasel. O look, I did find words.
If Trump had won a second term in office, would the oligarchy have decided that now was the proper time to take on China and "liberate" Taiwan once and for all from its evil clutches? Or were they waiting for a president like Biden--a clueless, possibly Alzheimered warhawk--to be the fall guy? Let's not find out what they were planning--let's just shut down all this war talk and bring all parties to the peace table. #NoMoreWar
I don’t give Biden enough credit to postulate that he’s a fall guy. Biden has been a war hawk his entire life. Right now he’s manipulating the same way he always has to get exactly what he wants. He’s also been after the FDR policies that so helped Americans during his whole career, but now he can let the Neo-cons do it and not take the blame. Why do we think he has let so many of T-rump’s executive orders stand? It’s because he LIKES those policies, always has. He makes me wanna puke!
Biden is sickening. I remember the day I watched him treat Anita Hill with such contempt... I knew he was the devil incarnate. I never trusted Obama because he picked Devil-Biden as his VP.
Agreed. Which is what is so especially egregious about his running for and winning the Residency. That hearing exposed him for who he is to millions of viewers, to put in one of the most corrupt legal minds of the decade, while playing on skin color to aggrandize himself as a champion of equality. For men. It set the pattern for Supreme Court hearing from then on. Bono is just a fly on Biden’s zipper by comparison.
POSSIBLY Alzheimered???
I tried to be kind... We don't know the exact diagnosis for Biden's cognitive challenge.
Hahahahahaha. His challenge is being born Joe Biden. Uffda!
Taiwan once independent. As victor in First Sino-Japanese War in 1895, Taiwan became part of Imperial Japan's Empire. Taiwan was used a jump off from station for war on China. After end of World War II, in 1949, Japan's Imperial Navy in partnership with U.S.'s moved fascist Chinese war lord, Chiang Kai-Shek and entourage across China's Sea to Taiwan along with China's Treasury and state treasures. 500,000 imperial Japanese occupiers of Taiwan changed their names to Chinese and held their Taiwan ground. As Ukraine is now being used as bloody tool to reduce Russia, as N.A.T.O. created in 1949 stimulating U.S.S.R.'s creation of The Warsaw Pact, in self defense, and the big lie told to Russian government that agreed to unified Germany with verbal promise that N.A.T.O. would not expand into Eastern Europe. POTUS Nixon agreed Taiwan part of China. Following POTUS Trump's lead, current POTUS Biden, would have Taiwan as sovereign state. Useful to remember "South" Korea still under Japanese influence with renewed permission granted to U.S. Navy to port U.S. nuclear submarines there for offenses against China, from continuing role of electronic listening posts as well as launching nuclear missiles when ordered.
Douglas Baker: I found this on Wikipedia (I know, not the best source) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwanese_Imperial_Japan_Serviceman
According to Wiki over 200,000 Taiwanese enlisted in the Japanese Imperial Army. I could find no proof of your claim that 500,000 Japanese troops were on Taiwan at the end of WWII. Do you have a source?
Brevet private billy masterson: LOL! Yeah. It's not like Japan had 500,000 troops to spare at the end of WWII and stationed them on Taiwan. The Japanese Kwantung Army did have over 700,000 troops in Manchuria, but not their best units who had been sent elsewhere to fight Americans. The Soviet Red Army defeated the Kwantung Army easily which led to the surrender of Japan.
But you won't find that in US History books.
".....incendiary provocation of extreme aggression that it self-evidently is." A highly accurate description and it's beyond my understanding that so many Australians can't see past the right wing, warmongering propaganda, to understand that. After all, if a bunch of bikies move in next door and set up 50cal. machine gun, I'm sure they would see that as an aggressive threat.
Meanwhile if Amerika loads up Taiwan with the latest in US killing tech, the Chinese might be interested in getting their hands on that - if only to find out how to defend themselves against it.
This example of media madness is a perfect validation of Orwell, who anticipated exactly these absurdist propaganda campaigns to support permanent war.
Another good one is the coverage of Nazi's in Ukraine before and after the "unprovoked invasion to restore the Soviet Union".
It is unfortunately obvious that the political delirium in which the United States has been engulfed for more than thirty years could not be maintained and even flourish as it does now without the active support of the media. The big American media (and all the opinion makers such as the stars of the show and the sport) are the accomplices of the deep state directed by the neo-cons. When we see Sean Penn going to support the Nazi Zelensky in Kiev, we can imagine Angelina Jolie (a name taken at random) going to support Ms Tsai Ing-wen in Taipei. And this, under the acclamations of the American (and Western) press. And of course, to return to her bunkerized comfort of Hollywood, well protected (temporarily) from the consequences of her warmongering vanity.
Dammit! Those pictures of Rachel Maddow are going to give me nightmares for the next week.
Spot on as usual Caitlin. Thank you for staying on top of this issue.
In a recent interview with Chuck Todd, Rep. Michael McCaul, who just visited Taiwan, said the quiet part out loud (https://youtu.be/Kr6DPvzZRG0, at about 5:20 into the interview):
CHUCK TODD: “Make the basic case for why Americans not only should care about what happens in Taiwan but should be willing to spill American blood and treasure to defend Taiwan.”
REP. MICHAEL MCCAUL: “The case for Taiwan, that's a very good question, about 50% of international trade goes through the international straits, but I think more important is that TSMC [Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company] manufactures 90% of the global supply of advanced semiconductor chips. If China invades and either owns or breaks up, we're in a world of hurt globally.”
TODD: “Congressman, that almost sounds like the case that would be made in the 60s, 70s, and 80s, [and 90s, 00s, and 10s] for why America was spending so much money and military resources in the middle east. Oil was so important for the economy. Is this sort of the 21st century version of that?”
[Then McCaul snaps out of his inadvertent truth-telling and spouts the usual talking points.]
MCCAUL: “You know, I personally think it is about democracy and freedom. And we need to stand up for that, like we're doing in Ukraine.“
In other words, if WWIII breaks out over Taiwan, it will be over iPhones, Xboxes, and smart TVs.
In some way, that seems like a fitting reason to end our species.
“The species has amused itself to death.” Pretty much sums it up.