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The Gala Report's avatar

According to UN and various NGO accountings of civilian casualties abroad resulting from US “interventions”, US backed coups, US wars abroad (e.g. Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Lebanon, Syria), and US sanctions (e.g. Cuba, Venezuela, Iran) since WW2, TENS of millions of innocent human beings have been killed in service of “fighting communism”, "spreading democracy", conducting a “war on terror”, “wars on drugs”, and creating a “new world order”, when in reality we were (and are) spreading death, destruction, disease, poverty, and forced migration in the Middle East and Latin America.

Korean War deaths: 5 million. General Curtis Lemay bragged that “we killed 20% of their population." 'The war in the air, however, was never a "stalemate". North Korea was subject to a massive US bombing campaign. The Korean War was among the most destructive conflicts of the modern era, with approximately 3 million war fatalities and a larger proportional civilian death toll than World War II or the Vietnam War. It incurred the destruction of virtually all of Korea's major cities, thousands of massacres, including the mass killing of tens of thousands of suspected communists by the South Korean government, and the torture and starvation of prisoners of war by the North Koreans. North Korea became among the most heavily bombed countries in history." —Wikipedia (of all places)

May 12, 1996 CBS interview with Madeline Albright: https://youtu.be/FbCAOdNRp_4 Approximately a total of 880,000 civilians died as a result of the sanctions alone.

"The idea that America is a defender of democracy, liberty and human rights would come as a surprise to those who saw their democratically elected governments subverted and overthrown by the United States in Panama (1941), Syria (1949), Iran (1953), Guatemala (1954), Congo (1960), Brazil (1964), Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos (1964–1975), Chile (1973), Iraq (2003), Honduras (2009), Syria (2010), and Egypt (2013). And this list does not include a host of other governments that were viewed as inimical to American interests and destroyed, in each case making life for the inhabitants of these countries even more miserable."

Our booming stock market is largely based on the burgeoning profits of weapons manufacturers, Wall Street banks, insurance companies, government contracted mass surveillance provided by Silicon Valley giants, and bears no resemblance the declining physical and financial health of our domestic economy, our diminished manufacturing sector, and crumbling infrastructure. Focusing on the real domestic economy could have created millions of jobs for American citizens in manufacturing, construction, green energy, and health care, all of which would have greatly improved America’s real economy and (ironically) our national security.

The bipartisan utter lack of concern let alone guilt for the countless millions of innocent human beings killed, maimed, and displaced in US "interventionist wars" and coup d'états subsequently proven to be based on lies is astounding. The sociopathic zeitgeist that describes current US foreign and domestic policy is unconscionable. Republican president Eisenhower, whose credentials and military experience surpassed all other US presidents, warned of a military-industrial- complex coup in his critically important farewell speech, and no one listened —especially our most “respected journalists”.

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Robin Males's avatar

"It is easier to imagine an end to the world than an end to capitalism” Yea, It's like saying "Throw the baby out with the bathwater.”

I think we should realistically reevaluate how we define ourselves, and our place in the world. And then ask ourselves the question: Where should we go?

The whole basis of Capitalist Economics is the idea, accepted as fact, that man acts out of self-interest. Yet, why should self-interest be accepted as that which should guide everyone’s behavior? The second assumption is the idea that growth should be the precondition of macro and microeconomic policy in order to bring about prosperity. But how do we define prosperity?

Ending growth for its own sake would be a great start. I think Ecomonic Growth has become this behemoth, out of control elephant in the room, Machine on auto-pilot, that no one thinks is possible to reign in.

The idea of “productivity” has been hammered into us for generations as a remnant of the industrial revolution and the christian work ethic. But how do we even define human productivity now? It is not assembling widgets on a treadmill anymore. Yet we are still on that treadmill and it has been without purpose for a long long time already.

I firmly agree, We cannot consume our way out of this. We’ve got to stop buying shit that we don’t need. We’ve got to see that our actions have consequences that destroy our ecosystem. For example by boycotting plastics we would make a huge difference in everyone’s health including the health of the planet. We’ve got to end BIgPharma and BigAg. We’ve got to support each other on a local level and help form decentralized local economies to prosper in ways that encourage human health, happiness and interdependence. And the answer is NOT communism or centralized control by elites; even elites running things who are claiming to be benevolent is a very dangerous precedent.

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