Chris Hedges was right when he said that the military industrial complex is sucking the marrow out of this nation and that no meaningful social and economic reforms will ever be able to take root as long the military exists in its current state and funding levels. Almost a trillion dollars a year to the war machine while the American people are choking. We just gave two generation's worth of community college to Ukraine/Raytheon and not only do politicians proudly brag about it but most people have been conditioned to believe that it was the decent thing to do and applaud it. I don't know what is worse: politicians that steal and engage in corruption in plain sight and with impunity or a public that is eagerly subsidizing its own oppression.
"Chris Hedges was right when he said that the military industrial complex is sucking the marrow out of this nation and that no meaningful social and economic reforms will ever be able to take root as long the military exists in its current state and funding levels."
But the military does not exist for the sake of the military. It is the means of controlling the world. Giving up on it will mean sharing the world and I don't think it's in the rulers' plans.
Yep. Putin wants to be able to give his two-cents on things, at least in the vicinity of Russia, and we can't have that. That's what this whole disaster in Ukraine is really about.
Money laundering 101; it's really the only meaningful endeavor that Congress engages in. The rest is all BS. There does seem to be a last-minute frenzy to their efforts, though, starting from the first trillion-dollar shimmy during the covid. Since the, Congress simply can't appropriate more trillions fast enough. Wonder what they see coming that is making them so apparently desperate.
CIA. To add to your point. After Bay of Pigs, JFK kicked Dulles out, and promised to shatter the CIA into a "1000 splinters" He was assassinated not too long after. 30 days after JFK death, Truman warned us the CIA was out of control and needed to be shutdown. Dulles went to Truman to try and quiet him, then went back to DC and suppressed Truman's WAPO Ed/Op so it didn't gain national traction.* And implied Truman regretted the article. Not true, propaganda/misinformation. Years later, fall of Soviet Union, former CIA director, President HW Bush promised a "1000 points of light" New World Order. And it's never stopped. Obama made it fashionable, Biden is trying to out do PBO. *Ike's warning of MIL-INDUSTRIAL-COMPLEX common knowledge, but not Truman's warning of CIA not so much. 1000 splinters vs 1000 points of light.
I like Tucker Carlson, and any number of his guests are defined as being on the left, like Glen Greenwald, Mate, Jimmy Dore, and others who appear on his show. I don't see these people on Hannity, or Ingram. I don't see them on MSNBC, or CNN or mainstream news channels, expressing left wing ideas that Carlson agrees with, and allows to be heard, so there. He even had Tulsi Gabbard on Fox Nation being honest about why we are in Ukraine. He deserves a lot more credit then what Johnston says here. Sure there are things he says I don't agree with, but defining things solely in black and white terms, which is done here, is not playing fair.
I turned on Tucker and he had some vile anti-LGBT person on, Chaya Raichik, who apparently runs some kind of hate sight on Libs of TikTok. I didn't realize that the right wing was pushing anti-gay rights things again.
I could see your point and laud Tucker as a truth-teller except for his clear anti-China direction. There are several critics of US Russia policy besides Tucker and Mearsheimer, but most of them advocate palling up with Russia to better attack China. So, Tucker remains captive of insane American exceptional hegemony.
Well, I think Tucker is anti-war, and to see anyone on TV who is a news anchor that doesn't vilify Russia and Putin while they sing the praises of Zelensky is A Okay in my book. You have to give him credit since he is the only mainstream news anchor willing to look at the war in Ukraine with a degree of objectivity. Most are akin to that crazy SOB Linsay Graham who should be locked up until this situation is resolved, if it ever is. We sent most of our manufacturing jobs over to China decades ago, cheap labor, more money for the investors too, and China made out big time. We help make them very powerful, but we don't like competitors. I think the most destructive force operating are those damn neocons and their impact on our policies and it is their agenda that will destroy us.
Tucker's anti-war posture (and John Mearsheimer's) stops in Eastern Europe. He is well prepared to go to war with China, seeing it as America's greatest competitor. China is sure to overtake the US--after all, she has four to five times the number of people, has developed deep public infrastructure and instituted universal public education to the highest levels. Rather than emulate China, we Americans see everything as a zero-sum game, so we wish to stop her rise, to tear her down to our size (drown her in the bathtub). This policy is insane and will only accelerate America's decline.
I doubt that Carlson's rhetoric about China has anything to do with going to war with this country. From some of his commentary about China he references our many differences with this country even in terms of it's religion and that it is a communist country, with little acceptance for diversity even among it's own people. So I guess what he's saying is, if they should obtain global dominance they would enforce certain ideologies world wide which he finds unacceptable. The US wants world wide dominance and that's the neocon agenda, not good either and I've heard Tucker speak of neocons in very critical terms. Amen! Who do you think is pushing and has pushed our 21st century wars? Neocons. What I see is his concern that China is developing too much world dominance, and that's it, and he not advocating going to war with it either. Why is so much of farmland bought up by foreign countries, and a whole lot by China. Why?
I doubt Tucker has any principled criticism of China, he just fears her. I suspect you do, too.
You write, "it is a communist country, with little acceptance for diversity even among it's own people..." and I wonder how you have such a wrong-headed idea. Sadly, there is a dearth of information about how things really are in China and instead people just make up anything they please.
I worked in China as an English professor in 2000. Most notable was the immense variety of people in terms of physiognomy, culture, and beliefs. I was well acquainted with some top Party officials as well as cooks and waiters, my teaching assistants, my students and their families. They were all fine people who cared deeply for one another, just as in my hometown. I also visited a downtown Buddhist temple and a monastery on the outskirts. All were thriving and the State supported their practice.
Christianity does not enjoy the same freedom as Buddhism and Taoism, primarily because it is always accompanied by anti-communist politics, much as the heretical Buddhist sect of Falun Gong acts as an enemy of the state.
My first day of class, a group of students visited my office. They asked, "Why do the Americans hate us so?" I have never had a group of American students ask me why the Chinese hate us so (George Bush answered that question, "because of our freedoms").
I am well aware of neocons, and I agree that they are global troublemakers, but there is no equivalent in China. The Chinese do not seek the kind of imperial hegemony that US neocons do. Theirs is a different vision, but since Americans do not understand China, just project whatever onto it. The finance capitalists of the West buy up land in Africa as a speculative investment. If Chinese bought land there, it would be for a productive enterprise. The Chinese are not saints, but they don't mess around trying to create a rentier economy where they are landlord.
I don't hate or fear the Chinese. I teach, and now part time, and many of my students through the years were Chinese. You are making a very prejudicial assumption. I didn't voice my opinion but what I thought Carlson's was, and I don't believe he is someone who wants to go to war with China, as you stated. I didn't say there was any global equivalent to neocons in China, and to be honest I'm more afraid of us then I am of them. That being said, what about those Uyghurs? I doubt China is without prejudice, like all countries.
Greenwald is certainly no longer of “the left.” He is a good critic of the MIC but has lost his moorings on economics:
“I would describe a lot of people on the right as being socialist. I would consider Steve Bannon to be socialist. I would consider the 2016 iteration of Donald Trump the candidate to be a socialist, based on what he was saying. I would consider Tucker Carlson to be a socialist.”
I haven't heard Greenwald on Tucker, or on sub-stack discuss economics. As far an Greenwald not being on the left. well, I guess that can only be determined how one defines what the left is since it's almost taken on a whole new meaning in recent years. How do you define a socialist since I would not apply that term to any people you mentioned.
Greenwald claims all of those people as socialists. They are not socialists. Leftism hasn’t really changed its definitions much, though tensions between the socialists who want more state control and the anarchists who prefer more individual freedom goes back and forth, with the statists being more popular currently.
From Wikipedia, which is as good a source as any:
“Left-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy.[1][2][3][4] Left-wing politics typically involve a concern for those in society whom its adherents perceive as disadvantaged relative to others as well as a belief that there are unjustified inequalities that need to be reduced or abolished.[1] Left-wing politics are also associated with popular or state control of major political and economic institutions.[5] According to emeritus professor of economics Barry Clark, left-wing supporters "claim that human development flourishes when individuals engage in cooperative, mutually respectful relations that can thrive only when excessive differences in status, power, and wealth are eliminated."[6]
A socialist is someone who wants more or exclusive control of the means of production in the hands of the state and supports policies that push in that direction. Tax cuts for the rich do not qualify as socialist programs.
Greenwald was on Tucker Carlson tonight and what was discussed was all the money we're sending to Ukraine, which is no democracy at all, and never was. We're sending all this money to enrich the military industrial complex, and to follow through on a neocon agenda hoping to weaken Russia and oust Putin, and all the while not giving a good god damn about the people of this country, many of whom could use what where sending to Ukraine. There will always be a hierarchy in this country, but we have to work toward creating less of a divide so that all people will have a place to live, food, medical coverage and an opportunity for upward mobility. You are playing with labels. I don't care socialist, left-wing-supporters, leftist.
Being anti-imperialism and anti-war are things that I like about him. Him supporting Trump? Not so much.
I am literally quoting the definition of leftism here. Greenwald is no socialist, very far from it. I don't dislike that about him but I am being honest here.
I don't think Greenwald really fits into a neat box.
I agree that everyone should have a place to live, food, medical coverage and upward mobility! It sounds like we have a lot in common politically.
I didn't support a number of Trump's policies but I did support him in the sense that I thought the democrats came across like a bunch of autocrats in thinking they had every right to lie him out of office. They used every dirty trick in the book to do it. Their Jan 6 comm is a total joke. They acted in a way I perceived was far more dangerous then anything Trump did, and too bad we didn't listen when he said, "What's wrong with getting along with Russia." They thought they could use any means necessary, legal or not, to oust him from office, and operated in complicity with the deep state to do it. The degree to which the media was in complicity with them put on display that they are nothing more then money making rag sheets.
Glenn has a new show on Rumble and has covered free speech constantly. If you consider free speech a right wing issue like many so called leftists, i guess you're onto something. But Glenn is more into anti war and civil liberties. Taking a quote out of context does not speak much unless you're on a smear campaign.
I like his support of free speech and being anti-war. Lots of libertarians are both of those things and I agree with them on it. It doesn't make them "leftists" unless you are playing footsie with the definition.
I'm not making claims to his team membership... just the issues he deals in.. and unlike right wing libertarians he has no free market ideologies.. in fact he was a Bernie bro like many of us..
you are a distraction. Wikipedia? really? for definitions? name-calling is very kindergarten as are your comments. Socialist, communist etc. in the media no longer has any meaning except to be off putting - such name-calling serves the same purpose as "conspiracy theoriest.> I suspect someone is paying you to spout this nonsense. the CIA perhaps?
Don't know, but I have always liked him. He maintains, unlike most in the field of journalism, journalistic standards. They are few and far between. Too often they let their biases slip in and distort reality.
I think the vision is, you know, you have this kind of right-wing populism, which really is socialism, that says we should close our borders, not allow unconstrained immigration, and then take better care of our own working-class people and not allow this kind of transnational, global, corporatist elite to take everything for themselves under the guise of neoliberalism.”
Well, then I'm a socialist. We don't have to close our borders. We didn't close them along our coastal borders, but we did implement requirements in order for people to come into this country, not to mention ask questions. What Biden is doing now is reckless, and no doubt his intent is not one derived from good will. I'm unclear as to what you are trying to say in regard to my response to Ms Johnston's article.
But yeah I should give Tucker Carlson a listen. His constant berating of mainstream Democrats as “socialists” is a little hard to stomach. He is bombastic and hyperbolic in general. I will give him another listen and try to be more open to what he is trying to say.
He never was on "the left". I got into a debate with him when he had his blog - he supported Citizen's United and the whole concept of corporate free speech. He also attacked government regulation of corporate power on related legal and political grounds.
Thank you for continuing to be one of the leading voices in telling the truth about the war in Ukraine. “The phoniest, most PR-intensive war of all time.” Indeed.
We'll probably know in the next few weeks whether the fools are leading us into a nuclear conflagration. All they need do now is get NATO directly involved in Ukraine.
It's not that there is probably more than just this reality, since there probably is. It's just that, we could have achieved so much more.
I agree with your analogy and I suspect a lot of history-savvy Europeans are having similar thoughts.
On the other hand, in the 1930s Europe was still composed of mainly independent sovereign nation states with their own unique cultures and languages. Now, with the EU and NATO and the U.S. unified into a western empire and calling the collective shots, it’s like phase one of Hitler’s strategy to unify Western Europe has already occurred and all the military attention can be aimed at Russia. So there are also shades of 1941 when Germany launched Operation Barbarossa. But of course that is an inexact analogy, too, since history doesn’t repeat, it only rhymes.
Still, as in the 1930s, if I had friends or family in Europe now, I’d be tempted to tell them to flee. Of course the problem is there are few places to go where they could escape the carnage that may be coming.
Indirectly. The point of no return will come when there is a direct (official) involvement. Maybe it won't happen. I'm hearing some say that direct intervention may be coming - just hope they're wrong. Because if it does happen, that pretty much means we're fucked for the rest of our lives - assuming you're lucky enough (or unlucky enough) to survive the inevitable nuclear escalation.
Well, how would the "official" involvement announcement look like? What if they never announce or admit anything but increase an already significant presence? Who is going to determine the de facto official involvement since no verbal one is forthcoming?
This is where the real danger is. It's up for somebody to say that's it, we're done. And it looks like it'll have to be Putin no matter how hard he seems to try to avoid it.
I'm unclear about where a proxy war ends and a direct conflict begins.
How much "assistance" in making sure explosives end up on top of Russians or Russian allies is allowed for a proxy war? How many people from your and allied countries fighting on behalf of the proxy?
Does it even fucking matter at this point? The West currently claims it's open to negotiations, fooling the public through the corrupt iron grip the deep state has on mass media - so that many Americans will think Biden and Blinken want to negotiate, when instead, Putin is being presented with a list of nutjob demands that we all know can never be accepted. The cold war obviously has already ignited that will be disastrous for the world for the next few decades, igniting yet another arms race that will fuck over poor people all over the world, including the already screwed American public - who are now bearing witness to their own government acting like a Mafia family that extorts more and more money from its citizenry only to feed the war machine, and the unaccountable CIA/NSA/Homeland and its corrupt FBI deep state mafia henchmen.
We've all seen this script before. In Vietnam. Even as JFK was trying to get us out of that war - they killed him. And Johnson immediately reversed direction - and we saw bloodshed continue on for another decade. We've seen the script again with Iraq, and all those WMDs we were told we're ready to turn Manhattan into a molten ball. It's always blood based on being told a deliberate lie, as if that is what the country stands for.
Let's just admit it: Eisenhower was right. The Military Industrial Complex in the United States has become the most dangerous institution on the fucking planet. It, along with a CIA that murdered a sitting US president who was promising to smash it into a thousand pieces - these are the real powers that now govern the United States. It isn't the acting stooges like Nancy Poshittyfuck or Joe McBiden fondling young women zombie creepso man - who are running our country. It's Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grunman, Raytheon Technologies and the right-wing fanatics who will do whatever it fucking takes, kill whoever they can, bomb whomever they must - to remain in power.
Will they stop themselves from escalating NATO into Ukraine? So far, they're sending everything they can to Ukraine - including billions of taxpayer dollars that could have been spent on US healthcare or US transportation or US education - but instead are being sent to Ukraine - a war that like Vietnam - did not need to happen and is based on a BALD FACED LIE by these right-wing neocon fuckers running this country right now. These same fuckers hell bent on turning this unofficial war into an official war between NATO and Russia because they either think a NUCLEAR conflagration Russia won't risk, or that a Nuclear war between Russia and the US is survivable. The same fucks who told us we could win in Vietnam, we could win in Afghanistan, we could win in North Korea. These same fucks who are always right until they are wrong. But this time it's nuclear weapons they want to play with. Does it really matter at this point given how far we now are down the rabbit hole - on this supposedly "unofficial" suicidal military course being pushed upon us all - because of the arrogance, idiocy of those in charge of the deep state and the American craptocracy of right-wing, mass surveillance US, 1000+ bases militarism?
If NATO gets directly involved, it will likely be via Poland sending troops in. Poland is mobilizing quite a bit right now. All the neocons/warmongering nutjobs need do - is insert an actual (sizeable) unit of NATO troops in - as opposed to "advisors". Once that starts, such as Poland sending in a number of brigades - it's all she wrote.
Keep in mind that the whole nuclear "threat" could very well simply be fear porn. We simply don't know, and as well, they may have intentions for something but change their plans midflight for PR reasons, either propaganda or avoidance, or possibly both.
Your distaste for Tucker Carlson is kind of odd. You have mentioned him frequently and yet he mostly speaks truth. One of the only people who actually do in the MSM.
Last week he exposed the Great Satan for the absolute lie it is. Not a peep out of the MSM. He exposed COVID, the vaccines, Fauci, Ukraine and most of the recent lies on National television. He has been very accurate. That is simple in any case because anything opposite of the MSM is usually right on.
You allude to the fact that few take him seriously. That is not true. The helpless voters take his show very seriously. He is the top rated news anchor in the country. The congressmen and women on his show are given respect and questioned on his show mercilessly. Go ahead, say something stupid or lie and he has exposed R or D with equal ferocity.
Yet, because he put a Fox tie clip on and he is ignored.
If he is a government operative there is nothing left of the USA.
The lie is the media. The war hawks at CNN are the worst no matter right or left government.
America is the Great Satan and the pied piper of death and destruction. Build what we say or die or die anyway in an ugly coup or get droned in the bathroom. Just give us what we want.
As a socialist/communist, Caitlin takes issue with Carlson on China.
China and Russia are distinct in countless ways, so there is nothing unreasonable about Carlson having different takes on each. However, at least on this point, Caitlin requires someone to line up with her point-by-point or they are tossed into the group of "the other side".
“Even very left wing empire critics like me get called right wing for criticizing US proxy warfare in Ukraine, just because Carlson does.”
Yes it’s irritating. I hope that you can get over it.
Carlson should be welcomed for the positive things he has done, and condemned for the negative. This shouldn’t be hard. If the idiots who make up the majority of the population think they can have an impact by bullshit name-calling and guilt by association, let’s not indulge them. Ignore them.
Even if Tucker serves as a backfire to some extent, by allowing the snickering class to laugh off some exposure, those who watch him (and there are many) are each on the path to awakening. One day each of them will start to get that jarring sense that Tucker is not telling or cannot tell the whole truth and they will turn him off and look further.
Bottom line is it doesn't matter who it is - right or left, Carlson or some Maddow - they've succeeded in achieving the state when blasting some major legitimate story over a a major network makes absolutely no difference.
The West must truly be threatened by Russias successes In Ukraine or they wouldn’t throw everything but the kitchen sink at them. On second thought they’re runnning a proclamation through Congress, so this will be forthcoming!!,
Superb piece! Truly this McProxy War is the crux of our destiny. Do we wake up everyone and make them smell the propaganda and shut it all down, or do we allow ourselves to get into a hot war with Russia and/or China? Let's hope for the former and not the latter outcome. In the meantime, I guess I will lose more old friends and family members who believe in the "plucky little comedian president" and think billions of dollars spent on sending him weapons (that mostly go missing) is a good thing to do while so many Americans go hungry or homeless. Happy Holidays y'all! (Check out our holiday card to you at therevolutioncontinues.substack.com)
Sorry Caitlin, you made a VERY WEAK case that Tucker does more harm than good. The Right and Left should come together in condemning the Ukraine/US war but the so-called Left, totally captured by the deep state, is not showing up. Last night Tucker came out swinging against Zelensky and the Congressional prostitutes who slobbered all over him in the House chamber, as the little comedian made fun of proper protocol by wearing his omnipresent green fatigues for the occasion. Zelensky must have been laughing all the way home in his Air Force provided jumbo jet.
Far more likely that the reality is behind door #1: (a great sentence too!)
"It's possible that the empire's violent shutdown of the awakenings of the 1960s was the mortal wound that would ultimately kill our species, and the last few decades have just been humanity lying on the ground bleeding out and waiting to die of ecocide or nuclear armageddon."
The communes of the nineteen-sixties, while being derided by many, fell mainly because of human nature. Many, but not all, fell prey to the things that tears the broader society apart. Crime, theft, violence, underhandedness in general, and petty tyrannies. Community, or at least the notion of it, primarily began its rather swift unwinding with the election of Ronald Reagan. Homes were no longer homes, they became investments. Pensions went from defined benefit (a person knew what they got after a certain number of years of service), to defined contribution, subject to the vagaries of the market. Medicine became less a profession and more of a business. And, nearly every American was convinced they were a mini-capitalist, just one idea or paycheck away from financial glory. Schools were no longer places where one went to learn to learn more on your own. They became businesses with the sole purpose (at exorbitant cost) of churning out people with lots of credentials but very little in the way of actual education. Where your neighbor didn’t spend their time worrying about the bush in your front yard and whether or not it might bring down property values. This, though, is the America that people voted for. Time and time again. Agreeing to go along as long as they got theirs, and minor woe to those who failed to do so (with no influence, of course), from the overall degradation of societal opportunities. Americans are the greediest, most selfish, self-centered, self-absorbed, self-referential, self-aggrandizing, people on the face of the Earth. Forty plus years have brought America to this point. And now, it’s time for the American experiment to end. Because it has failed.
Chris Hedges was right when he said that the military industrial complex is sucking the marrow out of this nation and that no meaningful social and economic reforms will ever be able to take root as long the military exists in its current state and funding levels. Almost a trillion dollars a year to the war machine while the American people are choking. We just gave two generation's worth of community college to Ukraine/Raytheon and not only do politicians proudly brag about it but most people have been conditioned to believe that it was the decent thing to do and applaud it. I don't know what is worse: politicians that steal and engage in corruption in plain sight and with impunity or a public that is eagerly subsidizing its own oppression.
"Chris Hedges was right when he said that the military industrial complex is sucking the marrow out of this nation and that no meaningful social and economic reforms will ever be able to take root as long the military exists in its current state and funding levels."
This is entirely intentional.
But the military does not exist for the sake of the military. It is the means of controlling the world. Giving up on it will mean sharing the world and I don't think it's in the rulers' plans.
Yep. Putin wants to be able to give his two-cents on things, at least in the vicinity of Russia, and we can't have that. That's what this whole disaster in Ukraine is really about.
Money laundering 101; it's really the only meaningful endeavor that Congress engages in. The rest is all BS. There does seem to be a last-minute frenzy to their efforts, though, starting from the first trillion-dollar shimmy during the covid. Since the, Congress simply can't appropriate more trillions fast enough. Wonder what they see coming that is making them so apparently desperate.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr said that in 1967 ("A Time To Break Silence- Beyond Vietnam")
https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkatimetobreaksilence.htm
That why they killed him, exactly 1 year later, to the day.
CIA. To add to your point. After Bay of Pigs, JFK kicked Dulles out, and promised to shatter the CIA into a "1000 splinters" He was assassinated not too long after. 30 days after JFK death, Truman warned us the CIA was out of control and needed to be shutdown. Dulles went to Truman to try and quiet him, then went back to DC and suppressed Truman's WAPO Ed/Op so it didn't gain national traction.* And implied Truman regretted the article. Not true, propaganda/misinformation. Years later, fall of Soviet Union, former CIA director, President HW Bush promised a "1000 points of light" New World Order. And it's never stopped. Obama made it fashionable, Biden is trying to out do PBO. *Ike's warning of MIL-INDUSTRIAL-COMPLEX common knowledge, but not Truman's warning of CIA not so much. 1000 splinters vs 1000 points of light.
Good summary.
I like Tucker Carlson, and any number of his guests are defined as being on the left, like Glen Greenwald, Mate, Jimmy Dore, and others who appear on his show. I don't see these people on Hannity, or Ingram. I don't see them on MSNBC, or CNN or mainstream news channels, expressing left wing ideas that Carlson agrees with, and allows to be heard, so there. He even had Tulsi Gabbard on Fox Nation being honest about why we are in Ukraine. He deserves a lot more credit then what Johnston says here. Sure there are things he says I don't agree with, but defining things solely in black and white terms, which is done here, is not playing fair.
I turned on Tucker and he had some vile anti-LGBT person on, Chaya Raichik, who apparently runs some kind of hate sight on Libs of TikTok. I didn't realize that the right wing was pushing anti-gay rights things again.
My brother was gay and died of AIDS and if Tucker were anti-gay and pushing anti anti-gay agenda I wouldn't watch him. You are mistaken..
https://twitter.com/Esqueer_/status/1607741993089892353?s=20&t=7p2t_23d6KFxYA9EiPM-Rw
I really have to look her up. Interesting.
I could see your point and laud Tucker as a truth-teller except for his clear anti-China direction. There are several critics of US Russia policy besides Tucker and Mearsheimer, but most of them advocate palling up with Russia to better attack China. So, Tucker remains captive of insane American exceptional hegemony.
Well, I think Tucker is anti-war, and to see anyone on TV who is a news anchor that doesn't vilify Russia and Putin while they sing the praises of Zelensky is A Okay in my book. You have to give him credit since he is the only mainstream news anchor willing to look at the war in Ukraine with a degree of objectivity. Most are akin to that crazy SOB Linsay Graham who should be locked up until this situation is resolved, if it ever is. We sent most of our manufacturing jobs over to China decades ago, cheap labor, more money for the investors too, and China made out big time. We help make them very powerful, but we don't like competitors. I think the most destructive force operating are those damn neocons and their impact on our policies and it is their agenda that will destroy us.
Tucker's anti-war posture (and John Mearsheimer's) stops in Eastern Europe. He is well prepared to go to war with China, seeing it as America's greatest competitor. China is sure to overtake the US--after all, she has four to five times the number of people, has developed deep public infrastructure and instituted universal public education to the highest levels. Rather than emulate China, we Americans see everything as a zero-sum game, so we wish to stop her rise, to tear her down to our size (drown her in the bathtub). This policy is insane and will only accelerate America's decline.
I doubt that Carlson's rhetoric about China has anything to do with going to war with this country. From some of his commentary about China he references our many differences with this country even in terms of it's religion and that it is a communist country, with little acceptance for diversity even among it's own people. So I guess what he's saying is, if they should obtain global dominance they would enforce certain ideologies world wide which he finds unacceptable. The US wants world wide dominance and that's the neocon agenda, not good either and I've heard Tucker speak of neocons in very critical terms. Amen! Who do you think is pushing and has pushed our 21st century wars? Neocons. What I see is his concern that China is developing too much world dominance, and that's it, and he not advocating going to war with it either. Why is so much of farmland bought up by foreign countries, and a whole lot by China. Why?
I doubt Tucker has any principled criticism of China, he just fears her. I suspect you do, too.
You write, "it is a communist country, with little acceptance for diversity even among it's own people..." and I wonder how you have such a wrong-headed idea. Sadly, there is a dearth of information about how things really are in China and instead people just make up anything they please.
I worked in China as an English professor in 2000. Most notable was the immense variety of people in terms of physiognomy, culture, and beliefs. I was well acquainted with some top Party officials as well as cooks and waiters, my teaching assistants, my students and their families. They were all fine people who cared deeply for one another, just as in my hometown. I also visited a downtown Buddhist temple and a monastery on the outskirts. All were thriving and the State supported their practice.
Christianity does not enjoy the same freedom as Buddhism and Taoism, primarily because it is always accompanied by anti-communist politics, much as the heretical Buddhist sect of Falun Gong acts as an enemy of the state.
My first day of class, a group of students visited my office. They asked, "Why do the Americans hate us so?" I have never had a group of American students ask me why the Chinese hate us so (George Bush answered that question, "because of our freedoms").
I am well aware of neocons, and I agree that they are global troublemakers, but there is no equivalent in China. The Chinese do not seek the kind of imperial hegemony that US neocons do. Theirs is a different vision, but since Americans do not understand China, just project whatever onto it. The finance capitalists of the West buy up land in Africa as a speculative investment. If Chinese bought land there, it would be for a productive enterprise. The Chinese are not saints, but they don't mess around trying to create a rentier economy where they are landlord.
I don't hate or fear the Chinese. I teach, and now part time, and many of my students through the years were Chinese. You are making a very prejudicial assumption. I didn't voice my opinion but what I thought Carlson's was, and I don't believe he is someone who wants to go to war with China, as you stated. I didn't say there was any global equivalent to neocons in China, and to be honest I'm more afraid of us then I am of them. That being said, what about those Uyghurs? I doubt China is without prejudice, like all countries.
Seems I've found someone who shares my loathing of Lindsey Graham.
I would be really surprised if there were not a whole lot of us.
Greenwald is certainly no longer of “the left.” He is a good critic of the MIC but has lost his moorings on economics:
“I would describe a lot of people on the right as being socialist. I would consider Steve Bannon to be socialist. I would consider the 2016 iteration of Donald Trump the candidate to be a socialist, based on what he was saying. I would consider Tucker Carlson to be a socialist.”
I haven't heard Greenwald on Tucker, or on sub-stack discuss economics. As far an Greenwald not being on the left. well, I guess that can only be determined how one defines what the left is since it's almost taken on a whole new meaning in recent years. How do you define a socialist since I would not apply that term to any people you mentioned.
Greenwald claims all of those people as socialists. They are not socialists. Leftism hasn’t really changed its definitions much, though tensions between the socialists who want more state control and the anarchists who prefer more individual freedom goes back and forth, with the statists being more popular currently.
From Wikipedia, which is as good a source as any:
“Left-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy.[1][2][3][4] Left-wing politics typically involve a concern for those in society whom its adherents perceive as disadvantaged relative to others as well as a belief that there are unjustified inequalities that need to be reduced or abolished.[1] Left-wing politics are also associated with popular or state control of major political and economic institutions.[5] According to emeritus professor of economics Barry Clark, left-wing supporters "claim that human development flourishes when individuals engage in cooperative, mutually respectful relations that can thrive only when excessive differences in status, power, and wealth are eliminated."[6]
A socialist is someone who wants more or exclusive control of the means of production in the hands of the state and supports policies that push in that direction. Tax cuts for the rich do not qualify as socialist programs.
Greenwald was on Tucker Carlson tonight and what was discussed was all the money we're sending to Ukraine, which is no democracy at all, and never was. We're sending all this money to enrich the military industrial complex, and to follow through on a neocon agenda hoping to weaken Russia and oust Putin, and all the while not giving a good god damn about the people of this country, many of whom could use what where sending to Ukraine. There will always be a hierarchy in this country, but we have to work toward creating less of a divide so that all people will have a place to live, food, medical coverage and an opportunity for upward mobility. You are playing with labels. I don't care socialist, left-wing-supporters, leftist.
Being anti-imperialism and anti-war are things that I like about him. Him supporting Trump? Not so much.
I am literally quoting the definition of leftism here. Greenwald is no socialist, very far from it. I don't dislike that about him but I am being honest here.
I don't think Greenwald really fits into a neat box.
I agree that everyone should have a place to live, food, medical coverage and upward mobility! It sounds like we have a lot in common politically.
I didn't support a number of Trump's policies but I did support him in the sense that I thought the democrats came across like a bunch of autocrats in thinking they had every right to lie him out of office. They used every dirty trick in the book to do it. Their Jan 6 comm is a total joke. They acted in a way I perceived was far more dangerous then anything Trump did, and too bad we didn't listen when he said, "What's wrong with getting along with Russia." They thought they could use any means necessary, legal or not, to oust him from office, and operated in complicity with the deep state to do it. The degree to which the media was in complicity with them put on display that they are nothing more then money making rag sheets.
“I don't think Greenwald really fits into a neat box.”
Fitting into a neat box is only for the dead, including the intellectually dead.
IMO, the left/right political spectrum may have had real meaning in the past, but now it is just another imperial psyop meant to divide us.
Glenn has a new show on Rumble and has covered free speech constantly. If you consider free speech a right wing issue like many so called leftists, i guess you're onto something. But Glenn is more into anti war and civil liberties. Taking a quote out of context does not speak much unless you're on a smear campaign.
I like his support of free speech and being anti-war. Lots of libertarians are both of those things and I agree with them on it. It doesn't make them "leftists" unless you are playing footsie with the definition.
I'm not making claims to his team membership... just the issues he deals in.. and unlike right wing libertarians he has no free market ideologies.. in fact he was a Bernie bro like many of us..
you are a distraction. Wikipedia? really? for definitions? name-calling is very kindergarten as are your comments. Socialist, communist etc. in the media no longer has any meaning except to be off putting - such name-calling serves the same purpose as "conspiracy theoriest.> I suspect someone is paying you to spout this nonsense. the CIA perhaps?
I think Greenwald was always a fiscal libertarian. But that’s kinda irrelevant considering that he never espouses opinions on fiscal policy.
Don't know, but I have always liked him. He maintains, unlike most in the field of journalism, journalistic standards. They are few and far between. Too often they let their biases slip in and distort reality.
Agreed.
I think the vision is, you know, you have this kind of right-wing populism, which really is socialism, that says we should close our borders, not allow unconstrained immigration, and then take better care of our own working-class people and not allow this kind of transnational, global, corporatist elite to take everything for themselves under the guise of neoliberalism.”
Well, then I'm a socialist. We don't have to close our borders. We didn't close them along our coastal borders, but we did implement requirements in order for people to come into this country, not to mention ask questions. What Biden is doing now is reckless, and no doubt his intent is not one derived from good will. I'm unclear as to what you are trying to say in regard to my response to Ms Johnston's article.
I look forward to your support in nationalizing health care and transportation!
But yeah I should give Tucker Carlson a listen. His constant berating of mainstream Democrats as “socialists” is a little hard to stomach. He is bombastic and hyperbolic in general. I will give him another listen and try to be more open to what he is trying to say.
He never was on "the left". I got into a debate with him when he had his blog - he supported Citizen's United and the whole concept of corporate free speech. He also attacked government regulation of corporate power on related legal and political grounds.
Thank you for continuing to be one of the leading voices in telling the truth about the war in Ukraine. “The phoniest, most PR-intensive war of all time.” Indeed.
We'll probably know in the next few weeks whether the fools are leading us into a nuclear conflagration. All they need do now is get NATO directly involved in Ukraine.
It's not that there is probably more than just this reality, since there probably is. It's just that, we could have achieved so much more.
For some time I've been feeling like I'm in Europe in 1930's. With the only problem not knowing which specific year.
Yes. There is a surreal unreality to it all. You don't want to see what is obvious before your eyes.
Lately I've been reliving it through reading the literature from or about that period. Feels more than real.
I agree with your analogy and I suspect a lot of history-savvy Europeans are having similar thoughts.
On the other hand, in the 1930s Europe was still composed of mainly independent sovereign nation states with their own unique cultures and languages. Now, with the EU and NATO and the U.S. unified into a western empire and calling the collective shots, it’s like phase one of Hitler’s strategy to unify Western Europe has already occurred and all the military attention can be aimed at Russia. So there are also shades of 1941 when Germany launched Operation Barbarossa. But of course that is an inexact analogy, too, since history doesn’t repeat, it only rhymes.
Still, as in the 1930s, if I had friends or family in Europe now, I’d be tempted to tell them to flee. Of course the problem is there are few places to go where they could escape the carnage that may be coming.
Or the 50's in Eastern Europe.
Sure, but with nukes.. could be '39
I think NATO is heavily involved already.
Indirectly. The point of no return will come when there is a direct (official) involvement. Maybe it won't happen. I'm hearing some say that direct intervention may be coming - just hope they're wrong. Because if it does happen, that pretty much means we're fucked for the rest of our lives - assuming you're lucky enough (or unlucky enough) to survive the inevitable nuclear escalation.
Well, how would the "official" involvement announcement look like? What if they never announce or admit anything but increase an already significant presence? Who is going to determine the de facto official involvement since no verbal one is forthcoming?
This is where the real danger is. It's up for somebody to say that's it, we're done. And it looks like it'll have to be Putin no matter how hard he seems to try to avoid it.
I'm unclear about where a proxy war ends and a direct conflict begins.
How much "assistance" in making sure explosives end up on top of Russians or Russian allies is allowed for a proxy war? How many people from your and allied countries fighting on behalf of the proxy?
Does it even fucking matter at this point? The West currently claims it's open to negotiations, fooling the public through the corrupt iron grip the deep state has on mass media - so that many Americans will think Biden and Blinken want to negotiate, when instead, Putin is being presented with a list of nutjob demands that we all know can never be accepted. The cold war obviously has already ignited that will be disastrous for the world for the next few decades, igniting yet another arms race that will fuck over poor people all over the world, including the already screwed American public - who are now bearing witness to their own government acting like a Mafia family that extorts more and more money from its citizenry only to feed the war machine, and the unaccountable CIA/NSA/Homeland and its corrupt FBI deep state mafia henchmen.
We've all seen this script before. In Vietnam. Even as JFK was trying to get us out of that war - they killed him. And Johnson immediately reversed direction - and we saw bloodshed continue on for another decade. We've seen the script again with Iraq, and all those WMDs we were told we're ready to turn Manhattan into a molten ball. It's always blood based on being told a deliberate lie, as if that is what the country stands for.
Let's just admit it: Eisenhower was right. The Military Industrial Complex in the United States has become the most dangerous institution on the fucking planet. It, along with a CIA that murdered a sitting US president who was promising to smash it into a thousand pieces - these are the real powers that now govern the United States. It isn't the acting stooges like Nancy Poshittyfuck or Joe McBiden fondling young women zombie creepso man - who are running our country. It's Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grunman, Raytheon Technologies and the right-wing fanatics who will do whatever it fucking takes, kill whoever they can, bomb whomever they must - to remain in power.
Will they stop themselves from escalating NATO into Ukraine? So far, they're sending everything they can to Ukraine - including billions of taxpayer dollars that could have been spent on US healthcare or US transportation or US education - but instead are being sent to Ukraine - a war that like Vietnam - did not need to happen and is based on a BALD FACED LIE by these right-wing neocon fuckers running this country right now. These same fuckers hell bent on turning this unofficial war into an official war between NATO and Russia because they either think a NUCLEAR conflagration Russia won't risk, or that a Nuclear war between Russia and the US is survivable. The same fucks who told us we could win in Vietnam, we could win in Afghanistan, we could win in North Korea. These same fucks who are always right until they are wrong. But this time it's nuclear weapons they want to play with. Does it really matter at this point given how far we now are down the rabbit hole - on this supposedly "unofficial" suicidal military course being pushed upon us all - because of the arrogance, idiocy of those in charge of the deep state and the American craptocracy of right-wing, mass surveillance US, 1000+ bases militarism?
If NATO gets directly involved, it will likely be via Poland sending troops in. Poland is mobilizing quite a bit right now. All the neocons/warmongering nutjobs need do - is insert an actual (sizeable) unit of NATO troops in - as opposed to "advisors". Once that starts, such as Poland sending in a number of brigades - it's all she wrote.
Keep in mind that the whole nuclear "threat" could very well simply be fear porn. We simply don't know, and as well, they may have intentions for something but change their plans midflight for PR reasons, either propaganda or avoidance, or possibly both.
Yeah, one can hope that is all they intend. But the stupidity of where we're at right now - how we've gotten here, seems to have no bounds.
Your distaste for Tucker Carlson is kind of odd. You have mentioned him frequently and yet he mostly speaks truth. One of the only people who actually do in the MSM.
Last week he exposed the Great Satan for the absolute lie it is. Not a peep out of the MSM. He exposed COVID, the vaccines, Fauci, Ukraine and most of the recent lies on National television. He has been very accurate. That is simple in any case because anything opposite of the MSM is usually right on.
You allude to the fact that few take him seriously. That is not true. The helpless voters take his show very seriously. He is the top rated news anchor in the country. The congressmen and women on his show are given respect and questioned on his show mercilessly. Go ahead, say something stupid or lie and he has exposed R or D with equal ferocity.
Yet, because he put a Fox tie clip on and he is ignored.
If he is a government operative there is nothing left of the USA.
The lie is the media. The war hawks at CNN are the worst no matter right or left government.
America is the Great Satan and the pied piper of death and destruction. Build what we say or die or die anyway in an ugly coup or get droned in the bathroom. Just give us what we want.
Satan has nothing on the USA.
As a socialist/communist, Caitlin takes issue with Carlson on China.
China and Russia are distinct in countless ways, so there is nothing unreasonable about Carlson having different takes on each. However, at least on this point, Caitlin requires someone to line up with her point-by-point or they are tossed into the group of "the other side".
his cultural message reinforces fascist culture and politics.
“Even very left wing empire critics like me get called right wing for criticizing US proxy warfare in Ukraine, just because Carlson does.”
Yes it’s irritating. I hope that you can get over it.
Carlson should be welcomed for the positive things he has done, and condemned for the negative. This shouldn’t be hard. If the idiots who make up the majority of the population think they can have an impact by bullshit name-calling and guilt by association, let’s not indulge them. Ignore them.
If you want to know the truth about the moral and military disaster of Zelensky and Ukraine you can catch Alexander Mercouris’s daily update on Rumble or bitchute. https://rumble.com/v21racc-russia-advance-on-kupiansk-ukraine-power-shortages-zelensky-to-us-medvedev-.html
https://www.bitchute.com/video/zgcyxCRWb_k/
Even if Tucker serves as a backfire to some extent, by allowing the snickering class to laugh off some exposure, those who watch him (and there are many) are each on the path to awakening. One day each of them will start to get that jarring sense that Tucker is not telling or cannot tell the whole truth and they will turn him off and look further.
Bottom line is it doesn't matter who it is - right or left, Carlson or some Maddow - they've succeeded in achieving the state when blasting some major legitimate story over a a major network makes absolutely no difference.
The West must truly be threatened by Russias successes In Ukraine or they wouldn’t throw everything but the kitchen sink at them. On second thought they’re runnning a proclamation through Congress, so this will be forthcoming!!,
Thank you !!
Glenn Greenwald Shows Record (2022 -- ):
Dec. 21 – Ep. 8 -- US Finds Another $44 B for Ukraine, Lee Fang on the Pentagon Twitter PsyOp
https://rumble.com/v21rwcg-us-finds-another-44-billion-for-ukraine-lee-fang-on-the-pentagon-twitter-ps.html
Q & A -- https://greenwald.locals.com/upost/3243931/tonights-after-show-q-a-will-begin-at-8-20pm-et
Dec. 20 – Ep. 7 -- The FBI’s Exposed Propaganda Partnership with Big Tech
https://rumble.com/v21mfr2-the-fbis-exposed-propaganda-partnership-with-big-tech-ft.-michael-shellenbe.html
Q & A -- https://greenwald.locals.com/upost/3239302/after-show-q-a-december-20-2022
Dec. 19 – Ep. 6 – Washington Expands the War State, Miranda Devine on Democrat's Censorship Regime – Dems Feed the War Machine
https://rumble.com/v21gwui-washington-expands-the-war-state-miranda-devine-on-democrats-censorship-reg.html
Q & A -- https://greenwald.locals.com/upost/3233616/after-show-q-a-december-19-2022
Dec. 16 – Ep. 5 – Elon’s Banning Spree & The Media’s Sudden Conversion to Free Speech Absolutists – Our Unprincipled Elites
https://rumble.com/v20zsmc-system-update-5.html
Q & A -- https://greenwald.locals.com/upost/3220294/after-show-q-a-december-16-2022
Thank you for your integrity and courage
Superb piece! Truly this McProxy War is the crux of our destiny. Do we wake up everyone and make them smell the propaganda and shut it all down, or do we allow ourselves to get into a hot war with Russia and/or China? Let's hope for the former and not the latter outcome. In the meantime, I guess I will lose more old friends and family members who believe in the "plucky little comedian president" and think billions of dollars spent on sending him weapons (that mostly go missing) is a good thing to do while so many Americans go hungry or homeless. Happy Holidays y'all! (Check out our holiday card to you at therevolutioncontinues.substack.com)
Sorry Caitlin, you made a VERY WEAK case that Tucker does more harm than good. The Right and Left should come together in condemning the Ukraine/US war but the so-called Left, totally captured by the deep state, is not showing up. Last night Tucker came out swinging against Zelensky and the Congressional prostitutes who slobbered all over him in the House chamber, as the little comedian made fun of proper protocol by wearing his omnipresent green fatigues for the occasion. Zelensky must have been laughing all the way home in his Air Force provided jumbo jet.
Far more likely that the reality is behind door #1: (a great sentence too!)
"It's possible that the empire's violent shutdown of the awakenings of the 1960s was the mortal wound that would ultimately kill our species, and the last few decades have just been humanity lying on the ground bleeding out and waiting to die of ecocide or nuclear armageddon."
Let's just say "The Price Is Right!" - so "come on down!"
The communes of the nineteen-sixties, while being derided by many, fell mainly because of human nature. Many, but not all, fell prey to the things that tears the broader society apart. Crime, theft, violence, underhandedness in general, and petty tyrannies. Community, or at least the notion of it, primarily began its rather swift unwinding with the election of Ronald Reagan. Homes were no longer homes, they became investments. Pensions went from defined benefit (a person knew what they got after a certain number of years of service), to defined contribution, subject to the vagaries of the market. Medicine became less a profession and more of a business. And, nearly every American was convinced they were a mini-capitalist, just one idea or paycheck away from financial glory. Schools were no longer places where one went to learn to learn more on your own. They became businesses with the sole purpose (at exorbitant cost) of churning out people with lots of credentials but very little in the way of actual education. Where your neighbor didn’t spend their time worrying about the bush in your front yard and whether or not it might bring down property values. This, though, is the America that people voted for. Time and time again. Agreeing to go along as long as they got theirs, and minor woe to those who failed to do so (with no influence, of course), from the overall degradation of societal opportunities. Americans are the greediest, most selfish, self-centered, self-absorbed, self-referential, self-aggrandizing, people on the face of the Earth. Forty plus years have brought America to this point. And now, it’s time for the American experiment to end. Because it has failed.