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Longtrail's avatar

I have repeated this many times. I'm an American. Our military doesn't exist to defend us but for profit to enrich the Oligarchs who own the politicians and the media. We design weapons to line pockets instead of winning. Our nation is the world's foremost terrorist state.

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russian_bot's avatar

As Smedley Butler said in his "War Is a Racket".

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Longtrail's avatar

I've read War is a Racket and Butler's biography.

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Tony Erizia's avatar

Well said. The thing that alwaysgets me is the omnipresence of the military in US civil society. I mean, one cannot watch a big sports event - say an NBA play off-without a bunch of Maines or infantry marching around the arena waiving banners like something out of Henry V. The commentators then come out with a load of tosh about "our brave boys and girls protecting us". Protecting you from whom, I would ask? ... ....

Here in the UK it's getting as bad. Help for Heroes is a slogan and organisation that has become. ubiquitous. I have to ask: is everyone who dons the King's uniform a hero? How about the paratroopers who took part in Bloody Sunday, we're there actions heroic? Or has gunning down unarmed civilians become worthy of veneration? In theec30s George Orwell noted the general mistrust, even hostility of Britons towards militarism. What has happened since?

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Feral Finster's avatar

Make them explain how America's wars of aggression made us free. Tell us how it was necessary to destroy Libya so that Americans were free to go bankrupt from medical bills.

They won't have an answer for you.

“The point of public relations slogans like “Support our troops” is that they don’t mean anything. They mean as much as whether you support the people in Iowa. Of course, there was an issue. The issue was, Do you support our policy? But you don’t want people to think about that issue. That’s the whole point of good propaganda. You want to create a slogan that nobody’s going to be against, and everybody’s going to be for. Nobody knows what it means, because it doesn’t mean anything. Its crucial value is that it diverts your attention from a question that does mean something: Do you support our policy?”

― Noam Chomsky, Media Control: The Spectacular Achievements of Propaganda

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Ghostfromthefuture's avatar

"Or has gunning down unarmed civilians become worthy of veneration?" The short answer is 'YES!'... when it is in the interest of the ruling parasites. And before the 30s it was the general strike in Seattle in the US: https://roarmag.org/essays/seattle-general-strike-1919/ when the workers ran the city! The owner class was so distraught that the workers were bonding with Russian plebs that they had to bring in the national guard. And before that it was the scare that people like Eugene V. Des and Joseph Rutherford would be inciting too much resistance to the US entering the WWI. That is why the 1917 Espionage Act included the clauses to imprison anyone who messed up the ruling classes efforts to draft enough soldiers (people had no intention to die in a ditch on the other side of the earth for nothing).

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Longtrail's avatar

The scumbag Woodrow Wilson was a Bankster. Like Zelenski he was elected on a Peace platform. Two weeks later he asked Congress for a declaration of war against Germany. His basis was the sinking of the Lucitania. The Lucitania WAS carrying war materials to Britain so Americans were lied into the war.

Lyndon Johnson ramped up Vietnam by lying about Tonkin Gulf.

Learn about the lies of our leaders. The list is long.

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Tony Erizia's avatar

I didn't know this. Thanks for this post on a tragic little known event

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jamenta's avatar

It really started getting like that in the US starting with 9/11. From the semblance of Hot Dogs and American Pie, and the "American Dream" that you too can own a house and a 2-car garage if you just work hard enough, to: everyone driving around with a flag or some Nationalistic bumper sticker to good luck finding a doctor you can afford while you bust your ass working two sorry-ass jobs - while the boss of your company is making 50 million a year. As George Carlin used to quip, it's called the American dream because you have to be asleep to believe it.

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Belinda  H's avatar

I loved George Carlin

He’d surely be cancelled- and possibly arrested by now

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Longtrail's avatar

Your response is very good.

I'm a military veteran and believed the bullshit about defending my country. Since our countries and the rest of NATO are fighting Russia who is actually fighting an existential war, my hope is total defeat and humiliation. Taiwan is next. It'll be the next Ukraine and I hope the Anglo-Zionist Empire is defeated and humiliated there too.

I wish the Taiwanese wised up and voted to be China. The civil war has gone on too long. Same for Korea.

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Patrick Powers's avatar

Other than that Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?

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MaryJane's avatar

I would say it endangers us. Pissing off millions of people in other countries and then bringing some of those pissed off people home sounds like a brilliant idea.

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Longtrail's avatar

It proves what idiot narcisists they are.

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Finn's avatar

And then some - the response to the 9-11 false flag served to activate PNAC - which goes against the underlying message in Caitlins writing.

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Kev's avatar

It has been that way for quite a while. The book "War is a Racket" written in 1935 by a Marine commander turned whistleblower outlines the dynamic. The "Racket" has grown steadily and is now exactly what Eisenhower warned about.

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Longtrail's avatar

Eisenhower was in the middle of it. He was spouting bs. By the way, it the CMIC and the "C" stands for Congressional.

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Sep 15, 2023
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Longtrail's avatar

Well said and I couldn't agree more.

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David's avatar

It took me a number of years to see the truth of the so called "free press" in the US and its vaunted claim of "freedom of expression". As early as the 1830's Tocqueville noticed that though Americans enjoyed freedom of expression, everyone said the same things. Whereas in foreign countries you can have an in depth discussion say on socialism, if you bring that topic up in conversation stateside it will shut off in less than five minutes. Some dork will say "it's a nice day out there" and change the topic.

The turning of a people into the so-called "silent majority" did not take place overnight but was the result of decades of indoctrination and social censure that muzzled opinion if it did not conform to the official line. Likewise press freedom means the freedom to discuss trivial issues or as a famous foreign author whose name I forget called "issues without grandeur". News media have cut down on comments, some doing without them altogether. There used to be a lively comment section on The Guardian which now only allows comments on arts and showbiz and lifestyle. The gist is we have been reduced to a silent Mob of zombies that parrots the official line. Any opinions to the contrary are greeted with a deafening silence. That is the extent of our freedom of expression.

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Starry Gordon's avatar

Speaking of the free press, I just came across a huge collection of articles blaming the presence of the opioid fentanyl in the US on China. The short form of the genre is that the Chinese Communist Party gives fentanyl (or sells it cheap) to Mexican drug cartels, who then sell it to Americans with the intent of destroying America. This story is repeated by respectable bourgeois institutions like the US government, NPR, etc. etc. I am sure I don't need to go into detail; besides, anyone can look it up by putting "fentanyl ccp" into a search engine. I suppose this has been going on for years, but sometimes the flavor of the torrent of propaganda changes significantly. "Anti-drug" operations have been used as excuses to attack various groups in Latin Ameriica for many years, so this could be a set-up for a war with China.

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Feral Finster's avatar

There would be no drug trade in Mexico if it were not for Americans' insatiable appetite for drugs.

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J M Hatch's avatar

There would be no drugs trafficker's to trade from Mexico if it wasn't for USA's CIA exporting guns and destabilizing societies in Central and South American. It's a self-licking ice-cream cone.

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Belinda  H's avatar

Yep. And it’s a deep visceral sadness and hopelessness and ever increasing poverty that helps propel drug use here

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Starry Gordon's avatar

Well, of course. Any commerce with drugs is always driven by the buyers. Obviously inanimate substances have no agency.

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Patrick Powers's avatar

Lyndsey Graham, Ron DeSantis and others have for this reason advocated strikes on Mexico.

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Starry Gordon's avatar

Now, that's an interesting idea. I thought that was just talk, but on second thought, it occurred to me that the neocons are worshipers of death and destruction, and while that has usually meant someone _else's_ death and destruction, in abstract terms there is no reason not to include the possibilities of one's own death and destruction too. Also, the neocons must be frustrated by not being able to get at the Chinese -- there is no adjoining land mass to form a staging ground for an invasion except Korea, and the last time that was tried it didn't work out well for the US. A tough country and a tough people, the Koreans. On the other hand, a war with Mexico (or Latin America in general) offers virtually limitless possibilities. Not only does Mexico offer an adjoining land mass, but it's populated by people of a different "race" who have (almost automatically) already been partially demonized. In addition, Russia and China (and possibly others) could be given the opportunity to intervene and develop quagmires of their own. Win-win-win all around!

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CarbonCopy's avatar

I saw this blatant lie for what it is meant to be and man does it get passed around! Prepare for war in every turn of the globe!

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Toma's avatar

The people I know find "it's a nice day out there" a reason to start an argument. Thank Rx opioids. You're lucky if they just change the subject. And why pick on just the WSJ? The WSJ was always a facist Corp capitalistic paper. NPR is now at least as bad if not worse. Are the midnight globe or national enquirer still available? Better news than what's out there now.

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JohnOnKaui's avatar

12. Osama bin Laden was solely responsible for the WTC bombing

13. Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in the murder of JFK.

14. Sirhan Sirhan acted alone in the murder of RFK

15. James Earl Ray acted alone in the murder of MLK

16. Obama was an amazing President and a credit to American Blacks

17. Bernie Sanders didn't sell out

18. The USA doesn't torture people.

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Belinda  H's avatar

Ain’t that the dammed TRUTH

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Ghostfromthefuture's avatar

And in 1883 it was put in book form, why the press was all writing the same. Every newspaper was beholden to and owned by the same class. Plus a solution was proposed as well: support the small independent press. Read pages 122-124.

https://archive.org/details/newrepublicfound00scherich/page/122/mode/2up

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Robert Billyard's avatar

The WSJ conveniently forgets the Wolfowitz Doctrine of 1992-- America reserves the right to wage preemptive war against any country that sees fit to challenge its dominance. .... along with tons of other US history.

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Bluehead's avatar

It doesn't matter what the topic or who is affected, if the rationale for a government or mainstream media position professes benevolence or some humanitarian motive, rest assured you are being lied to and manipulated. The single focused drives for money and power permeate every single decision the government and most high powered corporations make. Anything that smacks of compassion or altruism is a sure fire giveaway there are hidden motives at stake, and only the ruling class stands to benefit. Question everything.

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Belinda  H's avatar

BINGO

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Dan O’Neill's avatar

I’m in the UK and was thankfully disillusioned with the mainstream media back in 2002. I was an organiser in the anti war effort opposing the looting and murder proposed for Iraq. Nightly I’d come back from peaceful protests to turn on the news to hear about violence and drunken protests- just plain cold lies. Then we failed and the media kicked in with their sickening ‘shock and awe’ production motif. Next it was the nauseating ‘hearts and minds’. I’ll never forget the disgrace we bought on ourselves and I can never forgive the media. Anyone who believes they’re getting facts and not stories is just an imbecile beyond redemption. Because there are many of them these rags still linger like filthy laundry long neglected.

Caitlin I really enjoy your writing even as I writhe in the injustices it portrays x

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Lew A (Lincoln) Welge's avatar

British Imperialism fostered Judaism’s NEARLY complete cooption by the fascistic AshkaNAZI Kazarian Zionist Movement beginning in the mid 19th c..

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Longtrail's avatar

Point taken. Zionism arise in Germany at the same time as Naziism. Each considered the other useful. The Nazis considered the Zionists useful because of their common supremacist attitude and considered it useful to destroy them in the end. The Zionists considered the Nazis useful to help them achieve their goal of regaining their ancestral homeland.

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Patrick Powers's avatar

Back in the year 2000 I heard Ralph Nader say, "listen to my opponents. Each will say he will spend more on defense than the other." So I listened, and that's what Bush and Gore indeed said.

And that was when the world was more or less at peace.

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Belinda  H's avatar

I love Nader

He never stood a chance 🥲

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Nancy in NC's avatar

Exactly from who and what are these bottom dwellers protecting us from? Big Pharma and their poison? Or the poison in and on our food? An education system that teaches lies? A government that sells out to the highest bidder, devalues our money, and destroys our blood and treasure?

Seems other countries need protection from the US, and Americans need protection from their own fascist government and cohorts.

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denmla's avatar

...''who cares, I am American , I have my games, my beer''...................oops something happened over there......? per G. Carlin : 'Education in America'....

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User's avatar
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Sep 15, 2023
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Feral Finster's avatar

The United States has more people in prisons and jails today than the Soviet Union did under Stalin.

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Contrarian 33's avatar

Is that possible, Feral?

Reminds me of "The Holodomor" in 1932-1933 in The Ukraine, part of Russia then and a frightening example of mass murder on a grand scale, even beating the holocaust for numbers of deaths. Sad deaths too, from starvation. He was a beast.

Dear 'Uncle Joe' as he was known here in Australia.

In Stalin's environment, it was due to his determination to get his way backed up by a cruel and totally subservient bureaucracy.

But in the USA today, what is the reason for the prison numbers?

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denmla's avatar

..yes! Ron Unz iz Jewish, I mean real educated person> part of his Pravda in America>https://www.globalresearch.ca/why-everything-you-know-about-world-war-ii-wrong/5822188....just for beginning, unreal!

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denmla's avatar

...yes! Ron Unz iz Jewish, I mean real educated person> part of his Pravda in America>https://www.globalresearch.ca/why-everything-you-know-about-world-war-ii-wrong/5822188....just for beginning, unreal!

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GabeReal's avatar

It’s not the “Jews”, it’s the Zionists. They are the problem. Not sure how Caitlin could miss that.

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Feral Finster's avatar

I am no fan of Israel as it is presently constructed, but I also am NO antisemite.

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JohnOnKaui's avatar

"Most of the world’s worst empire managers are not Jewish,"

I am not saying they are, but it is always at least "interesting" that when I find some particularly deceitful bankster, it alway seems that he's a Jew. Larry Fink, head of Black Rock is a Jew. George Soros is a Jew. Sergy Brin is a Jew. Larry Page is a Jew. (Doesn't it seem important that a company with a motto of "Don't be Evil" so easily violated that oath? Maybe they are "combatting evil"?) Larry Ellison is a Jew. He owns the island of Lanai -- the one on the other side of the channel from Maui, where Hawaii's "second city" will now be built since Lahaina has burned to the ground. (yes there are dozens of conspiracy theories about how the fire started and other's conspiracy theories that only care about how gross the incompetence -- verging on purposeful -- was that didn't put it out. They rival JFK's assassination and WTC bldg 7.) Michael Bloomberg is a Jew. Mark Zuckerberg is a Jew. Sean Penn is a Jew. (He rabidly supports the proxy war Ukraine.) Victoria Nuland is a Jew. Anthony Blinken is a Jew.

Jamie Dimon is not a Jew. Elon Musk is not a Jew. Charles Koch is not a Jew. Jake Sullivan is not a Jew.

"and the overwhelming majority of Jews have nothing to do with the world’s problems"

But do and "overwhelming majority of Jews" support Israel? Isn't Israel the tail that wags the dog? Do we acknowledge their role in the invasion of Iraq and the murders of Iranian scientists and political leadership? When one declares "Israel is an apartheid state" do the "overwhelming majority of Jews" agree?

"I always just block people who try to tell me Jews rule the world and are the source of our problems, because I know I’ll never hear anything worthwhile from them. "

Isn't this what Snowden warns against in his column on Apophenia? https://edwardsnowden.substack.com/p/conspiracy-pt2

Yes, blaming the Jews for everything is a rabbit hole of its own, but refusing to look down that rabbit hole to understand how it was dug and where it leads certainly doesn't help convince a huge number of voters that they need to "come to the light" because you "can't speak their language." How do we even begin to address the Ukrainian Nazis?

Perhaps an obscure reference... This is the same problem Caleb Maupin of the CPI (Center for Political Innovation, but it really is just a play on the TLA that used to stand for Communist Party International). He's a communist so no one will listen to him. Except Scott Ritter did. You know, the same Scott Ritter who was banned from participating in the "Rage Against the War Machine" rally by the "woke" even though Nick Brana, one of the main organizers wanted him there.

Maupin isn't as good at being a Commie (or maybe I should say Marxist, if there is, in fact a difference) as Richard Wolff or Michael Hudson. But he is very open to talking to anyone. It is at least "interesting" that his group supports universal health care, free education, and a living wage -- like some supposedly "real progressives" like AOC claim to do. It seems talk is cheap.

For what its worth "true Marxists" -- at least those who claim to be "true Marxists (and not Commies I guess) -- totally despise Maupin and accuse him of the same sex crimes that are hurled against Scott Ritter and Shahid Buttar. Neither do they appreciate the economic insights of Hudson and Wolff.

It would be "interesting" to see a compiled list of the "most evil men in the world" with variations that would be "the most evil men in the USA/Russia/China" or "the most evil Bankers in the word" with similar variations. I wouldn't begin to guess how one might determine the criteria for evil. It would be fascinating to see a Venn diagram of the overlaps. Would it be similar to that diagram from seventh grade social studies that was a circle where the most extreme "leftist" and the most extreme "rightists" held views coherent with one another so they were at the "top" of a "circle of violence."

I guess my point is that "blocking" someone isn't really all that helpful. Let's face it, most of the comments made on any social media platform are just "stupid" (even on forums like Moon of Alabama where there is a "higher quality" of discussion).

The really hard thing to do, is to listen to what these people are saying so you can figure out a way of persuading them that they are "wrong" or at least "mistaken".

But then, maybe that's something to be left for the Second Coming of Jesus.

In which case, why do you write?

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Jeano's avatar

Nailed it.

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Selina Sweet's avatar

Terrifically expressive portrait of McConnell. Very well done. Love it.

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Myriad Mike's avatar

They "protect us" from what exactly? IS Cuba getting ready to invade? Maybe the Canucks? I mean, I hear there are a few million people streaming across our southern border, but they are just harmless military aged males from third world countries all over the world, under-educated impoverished migrants, and future hotel maids, lawn care specialists, and drywall contractors, so no worries there.

Apparently they "defend us" by helping effect offensive military actions all around the globe, so "we don't have to fight them here", which seems counter-intuitive, but I guess when you are holding a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail.

A more cynical person might get bogged down in the billions and sometimes trillions, that the Pentagon randomly loses track of, but I'm sure it went to killing people with bombs and missiles, and drones, so no reason to fret.

Obviously when you spend almost a trillion per year, you're going to misplace some spare change occasionally, so that's no big deal.

Supporting ~900 military bases around the world is a costly way to "defend us", but ho hum. If you want to make an omelette, you gotta break some eggs, and if most of those eggs, say 90% happen to be innocent civilians, then I guess that's just the price of freedom.

How else are we going to spread the LGBTQ+ agenda? Messaging? Nah, that's too old fashioned, and nothing says "freedom" like being blown up by a hellfire missile, launched by an unmanned drone, that's piloted by someone 5,000 miles away, because we gotta protect democracy.

Ain't war Hell!

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vinecutter's avatar

So, it's "capitalism and imperialism." are the problems. We should also add big pharma , big media.

And yes we should pull back the certain and see who's there running it.

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jews-in-the-biden-administration

. https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jews-in-donald-trump-administration

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jews-in-the-barack-obama-administration

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jews-in-the-george-w-bush-administration

Let me issue and control a nation's money and I care not who writes the laws. Mayer Amschel Rothschild

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Jeano's avatar

I read that Jews in the Biden administration link. I was appalled. The number of decision-making positions they hold is staggering. And given their numbers in the nation, they are significantly over-representated. But to be honest, I wouldn’t care so much about this if the Jews holding these positions were like the Jews of the ‘30’s, ‘40’s and ‘50’s. Very intelligent, well educated, liberal to the point of communism, civil rights supporters—they were my hero’s and shero’s Then Israel and the destruction of Palestine, and the Zionist movement and AIPAC, all funded and enabled by the US congress, grew and grew and became the monster it is today. So for Caitlin to claim that most Jews aren’t like that, is to miss the point entirely—it’s not that it’s Jews, it’s what Jews do in present day USA and Israel. And they need to be called out on it.

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notBob's avatar

Trump didn't bomb Syria, like most presidents he was only informed of events when they had already been set in motion. The DoD bombed Syria in cooperation with the CIA,. The CIA created the "gas-attack" false flag, blamed in on Assad which the DoD used as thin justification to launch the cruise missile attack. After the order had already been given Trump was informed.

The Empires war machine has a mind of its own. The president is nothing but a newscaster, a cheerleader an after the fact reporter that takes responsibility and the credit for every evil act the empire executes.

BTW: I am not defending Trump: Biden, Obama, Bush, Clinton are all the same.

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