. . ."quantifiably the most evil and destructive government in today's world." My only question would be this: in consideration of the U.S.'s continual and unabated economic and military-nuclear threats to the rest of the planet and the biosphere, should we say "in the history of the world?" After all, America is exceptional, right?
And yet US policy makers are on the record saying that “spheres of influence” is an outdated concept that does not have meaning in today’s world. Evidently, that applies to every nation except the US. Really, the hypocrisy is simply stunning.
The hypocrisy of the United States since 9/11 has gone from merely criminal to unapologetically ludicrous. It takes a very active kind of stupidity to pretend not to see this.
Like I always say; war is American as apple pie and violence in general. I was born in '54 and can't recall when the US was NOT at war. Maybe a few days in the '90's? Maybe? The Cold War was still over half my entire life. I'll have to live to age 74 for the Cold war to be less than half my life. 1954-1991, 37 years.
So now the 24/7 news, including the W Post, which I get daily, is a call to arms. Fuck that. I'm sure 95% of American would be against a war IF they knew all the real details about US hegemony and imperialism. It's vile, wicked, and depraved. In round numbers about 25 million total deaths since I was born. In SE Asia, courtesy of Ol' Henry Kissinger himself(still living!?), was well over 10 million. And like Obama Buddy, he also got a Nobel Peace Prize??!! I'd hate to see what would happen to the prize if a real peace-nick happened to be a world leader. Or more than a few days of real peace came to fruition. I'd die happy. Yeah, right! Peace, The Ol' Hippy
Not that it is a huge marker, but I graduated in '73 and was in the Air Force until '85. There were no "wars". Just a few years on either side of that, I would have been dropping bombs on someone.
There are two ways to make a slave. The old-fashioned way is to take a people away from their land. But the new and improved model is to take the land away from a people. They become slaves to their own stomachs, and rather than rebelling they compete to find a master. The resources are just the cherry on top.
"Unlike the man reduced by disease or slavery, the people dehumanized a la Brave New World are not miserable, don’t know that they are dehumanized, and, what is worse, would not care if they knew. They are indeed happy slaves with a slavish happiness.”
If the high number is reached, six million people, mostly Muslims...aren't we of the mindset to now call this a genocide? An ethnic cleansing similar to that of the Holocaust? Perhaps even I, at my most anti-war fervor, need to start calling this a genocide.
Speaking of Adolph, we must recall that one of the charges against the Nazis at Nuremberg was committing "wars of aggression" which led to the creation of the International Criminal Court, whose judgments both the US and Israel delight in ignoring.
If I had my druthers, Germany would politely withdraw from NATO, eject the US military from German soil, and actively pursue the integration of Russia with Western Europe that Gorbachev started way back when. Actually, a lot of Germans feel this way.
FACT: all the drum beat in US news is completely at odds with Elysee agreement signed on the 26th WEDNESDAY (that's just 2 days ago for those math challenged!). SIGNED. Ceasefire along Minsk framework. The US refuses to acknowledge this because it was not invited to the agreement between Germany, France, Ukraine and Russia. I can not believe the hype going on. I don't think Putin will be international pariah by violating a ceasefire he himself just signed 2 days earlier. Zelensky himself is saying the panic is out of control.
Caitlin, you're right that part of the motivation is profits for MIC. But the Deep Dems have another goal: re-election of globalist rather than MAGA types. When Russia does NOT invade Ukraine, Biden and the Deep Dems will claim victory. "See? Without Biden's tough talk, Russia might have invaded. Then where would we be? Biden's tough talk made sure that wouldn't happen." Biden's approval ratings will soar, and the midterms won't be a total blowout with Republicans securing a veto-proof majority.
Wrong. Both want empire, but globalists want an empire controlled in Davos and London, while MAGA types want one controlled in DC and Wall Street. That's why the globalists didn't like Trump. I don't like either of them, but it's important to understand there is a real difference between them or you'll never understand what's going on in the world.
While it’s sometimes useful to think the world is always divided into two of everything—good/evil, left/right, Democrat/Repulican—I don’t really see the importance of dividing global capitalists or imperialists into two camps. Are you saying no Wall Streeters attend Davos? Are you saying none of the Davos crowd can be found in DC? Are you saying there are real differences between neocons and neoliberals?
I agree there are factions, likely more than just two. Even a coin has more than two sides (i.e., it’s edge). However, if there is a single major divide in the empire, isn’t, for example, working class vs. wealthy more useful and important?
They want "class" divides to be invisible. That's why race, gender, and individual rights stay in the forefront; to make divisions so class isn't discussed. It seems to be working too. I've always been poor, a working poor, as I liked to call it whilst working. I'm retired now.
This is what one of the regular posters here posted with that Brazilian politician talking about the root causes of poverty and income inequality which are never discussed, while the results are talked about endlessly. So here in the US we end up with all the woke bullshit but no mention of the oligarchy behind it, which coincidentally both parties support 100%.
Of course "working class vs. wealthy [is] more useful and important." That's why wealthy elites are constantly trying to divide the working class using identity (CRT, feminism, LGBTQ+ etc). I'm suggesting that the working class and Caitlin should get smart by recognizing that imperialists, Republicans, Trump supporters etc also have factions and divides that can be exploited or at least used to shave off a portion to our own benefit. Caitlin refuses to see that imperialists and militarists are actually divided between globalists and America firsters (MAGA types). Of course there are Wall Streeters who attend Davos, but I doubt Trump is viewed with favor among them, because he doesn't want to see the US subservient to those interests. Eg, he wants Europe to pay for its own defense, and he understands the US has been harmed by shipping jobs and technology to China and other low-wage countries. He's an imperialist, but he doesn't want to see the US involved in wars where he sees no net gain for the US. I disagree with Trump in that I think ALL US interventions and military actions during my lifetime have been morally wrong and have done long term harm to the US working class, but there is a significant difference between Trump and the globalists, who simply want one world government (under their control) regardless of ANY cost/benefit analysis. So-called "leftists" were wrong to fall for Russiagate and to criticize Trump for wanting better relations with Russia. They should have supported his efforts to withdraw from Syria rather than whining about the Kurds.
I made a mistake in implying that ALL Trump supporters (MAGA types) want empire and just want it dominated by DC rather than Davos and London. That seems to be Trump's thinking, but in truth a lot of MAGA types or Trump supporters want the US to renounce all imperial power and were very disappointed that Trump didn't withdraw from Syria and Iraq and that his administration interfered inter alia in Bolivia and Venezuela. Unfortunately, they didn't listen carefully enough to his campaign speeches, but the "left" and Caitlin should be reaching out to those people instead of assuming they're all deporables and racists.
Sometimes I think Trump Derangement Syndrome was the actual alpha variant of the current Covid Derangement Syndrome. The main symptom of both TDS and CDS is that victims lose their critical thinking skills. Then, with the help of incessant media prodding/propaganda, victims of TDS express their disease as irrational Trump haters or irrational Trump cultists.
In the case of CDS, the identitarian shitlib “left” Democrat victims view all the unvaxed as Trumper nut-job Republican QAnoners, while right-wing victims of CDS make the equally absurd assumption that all “leftists” got vaxed and are identitarian shitlib Democrats.
In fact, there is a minority of people who seem to have natural immunity to both TDS and CDS. Many of these are old-school lefties, old-school libertarian/anarchists, and all those others that don’t fit neatly within any label. The immune, whether on the “left” or “right”, have retained their critical thinking faculties. Many in this immune group neither hate nor love Trump. Many sometimes agreed with Trump, but were not his supporters. Many appreciated Trump’s savage takedowns of The System, and many (or most) certainly preferred Trump, for all his faults, over imperialistic Clinton.
More importantly, I think the immune recognize the divisiveness between the main TDS/CDS victims as having all the earmarks of a very successful psyop that intentionally keeps people at each others throats to purposely prevent them from directing their rage at the real culprits—the rulers (whoever or whatever they are) and their minions.
I agree that Caitlin does seem to direct too much vitriol at the right-wing victims of the TDS/CDS mass formation. My own view is that both factions of TDS/CDS victims deserve sympathy. Hating them does absolutely nothing to wake them up. They are captured in mass formation in a way reminiscent of the Invasion of Body Snatchers movies. They are not evil, just asleep or hypnotized, so what good is it to get angry at someone who is literally in a trance? We should reserve our righteous anger for the hidden rulers, for the oligarchs, for the unapologetic and intentional propagandists, and for all those paid masterminds who are consciously and purposely dragging us toward the totalitarian abyss.
Agree 100%. In other contexts, I too have referred to TDS as a mass formation, and both TDS and CDS provoke backlashes that are sometimes irrational. Identity politics was also a precursor.
You last paragraph presents a difficult challenge, at least for me. It's difficult to remain calm when you are labeled and assumed to be something you're not, and deal with people who get all their information from corporate media.
I'd be interested in your take on the Wall Street/CFR, Davos/WEF, Big Tech/Aspen Inst. alignments and divisions. Why not start a newsletter on sub stack?
Don't bet on it. After the Democrats delivering NOTHING of consequence to the majority of their voters, those same voters will become nonvoters in November. Democratic losses will likely by epic. Not to mention well-deserved. Most Americans don't care all that much about foreign policy, and the ones who do are mostly anti-imperialist, no matter what the corporate media tells you.
I hope you're right, but nevertheless I think that's the thinking about Ukraine. All wag the dog all the time. I agree the anti-imperialist thinking is under-estimated, though over 50% of Americans support some sort of military intervention in Ukraine. If nothing else they support advisers, though only a minority (large) support a significant deployment.
Also, the anti-imperialism is bipartisan, which much of the "left" ignores. Think Ron Paul, Pat Buchanan. Another example: https://bringourtroopshome.us/.
The only way to stop this US perpetual aggression is for true currency stability, the US prints money, so the dollar has an inflated value but if the US was a business it would be declared bankrupt. We need a new reserve currency or even a return to the gold standard. The US knows this and that's why thy want to contain Russia which in assets is the richest country in the world.
I was listening to NPR on my car radio and within five minutes, two different news caster recaps said Russia had already invaded Ukraine- one said 2014, the other 2015. So apparently our "eastern flank" has been gored and tenderized repeatedly. Wonder what Europeans think about Psaki's flank steak comment?
I wonder what Biden meant by the front yard thing. The term "back yard" has a broad meaning of "nearby", but "front yard" specifically means part of your property. I guess that's more accurate? Or was he just imaging a giant Uncle Sam standing on a map facing south, with Canada being in the back?
So much to unpack here. I'm thinking the same damaged egos which comprise so many of our political actors also account for those who so fervently choose to believe in them. I'm not seeing any separation.
Changing destructive outer structural manifestations resulting from personal inner darkness is a tall order in anyone's book. Can it be done? Has it ever?
War appears such an easy alternative when the manufactured dysfunction of our daily lives works nonstop to prime us for it.
. . ."quantifiably the most evil and destructive government in today's world." My only question would be this: in consideration of the U.S.'s continual and unabated economic and military-nuclear threats to the rest of the planet and the biosphere, should we say "in the history of the world?" After all, America is exceptional, right?
And yet US policy makers are on the record saying that “spheres of influence” is an outdated concept that does not have meaning in today’s world. Evidently, that applies to every nation except the US. Really, the hypocrisy is simply stunning.
The hypocrisy of the United States since 9/11 has gone from merely criminal to unapologetically ludicrous. It takes a very active kind of stupidity to pretend not to see this.
That is doubly rich, coming from the folks who brought us The Monroe Doctrine.
Don't forget the Roosevelt Corollary, the Carter Doctrine, maybe add in Bush the Lesser's GWOT, hard to keep track of them all.
Like I always say; war is American as apple pie and violence in general. I was born in '54 and can't recall when the US was NOT at war. Maybe a few days in the '90's? Maybe? The Cold War was still over half my entire life. I'll have to live to age 74 for the Cold war to be less than half my life. 1954-1991, 37 years.
So now the 24/7 news, including the W Post, which I get daily, is a call to arms. Fuck that. I'm sure 95% of American would be against a war IF they knew all the real details about US hegemony and imperialism. It's vile, wicked, and depraved. In round numbers about 25 million total deaths since I was born. In SE Asia, courtesy of Ol' Henry Kissinger himself(still living!?), was well over 10 million. And like Obama Buddy, he also got a Nobel Peace Prize??!! I'd hate to see what would happen to the prize if a real peace-nick happened to be a world leader. Or more than a few days of real peace came to fruition. I'd die happy. Yeah, right! Peace, The Ol' Hippy
Not that it is a huge marker, but I graduated in '73 and was in the Air Force until '85. There were no "wars". Just a few years on either side of that, I would have been dropping bombs on someone.
Don't forget the Carter Doctrine and its Reagan Corollary. The other day they were protecting "our Emirati partners" from missiles.
There are two ways to make a slave. The old-fashioned way is to take a people away from their land. But the new and improved model is to take the land away from a people. They become slaves to their own stomachs, and rather than rebelling they compete to find a master. The resources are just the cherry on top.
Leon Kass,
"Unlike the man reduced by disease or slavery, the people dehumanized a la Brave New World are not miserable, don’t know that they are dehumanized, and, what is worse, would not care if they knew. They are indeed happy slaves with a slavish happiness.”
The Matrix
So I just read the linked story (https://bylinetimes.com/2021/09/15/up-to-six-million-people-the-unrecorded-fatalities-of-the-war-on-terror/) that Caity put up.
If the high number is reached, six million people, mostly Muslims...aren't we of the mindset to now call this a genocide? An ethnic cleansing similar to that of the Holocaust? Perhaps even I, at my most anti-war fervor, need to start calling this a genocide.
It is no secret that our crimes are on a Hitlerian scale.
Speaking of Adolph, we must recall that one of the charges against the Nazis at Nuremberg was committing "wars of aggression" which led to the creation of the International Criminal Court, whose judgments both the US and Israel delight in ignoring.
Nah! In 1945 the world's population wasn't even 3B, now it is close to 9B. The murders would have to be 18M to be equivalent. /s
Actually, James Monroe was the first president to say that everything south of the Mexican border is our front yard, that's the Monroe Doctrine.
Challenging the BS narrative fomented by WaPo on its threads is hugely informative. But it doesn’t take much much to enfeeble the claims.
Start with the preposterous claims of genocide in Xingjiang. Ask for evidence of that and mutism is the only reply you get most times.
If I had my druthers, Germany would politely withdraw from NATO, eject the US military from German soil, and actively pursue the integration of Russia with Western Europe that Gorbachev started way back when. Actually, a lot of Germans feel this way.
FACT: all the drum beat in US news is completely at odds with Elysee agreement signed on the 26th WEDNESDAY (that's just 2 days ago for those math challenged!). SIGNED. Ceasefire along Minsk framework. The US refuses to acknowledge this because it was not invited to the agreement between Germany, France, Ukraine and Russia. I can not believe the hype going on. I don't think Putin will be international pariah by violating a ceasefire he himself just signed 2 days earlier. Zelensky himself is saying the panic is out of control.
https://www.dw.com/en/russia-ukraine-agree-to-uphold-cease-fire-in-normandy-talks/a-60556387
News to me! And I follow this stuff on an hourly basis! Thanks.
Caitlin, you're right that part of the motivation is profits for MIC. But the Deep Dems have another goal: re-election of globalist rather than MAGA types. When Russia does NOT invade Ukraine, Biden and the Deep Dems will claim victory. "See? Without Biden's tough talk, Russia might have invaded. Then where would we be? Biden's tough talk made sure that wouldn't happen." Biden's approval ratings will soar, and the midterms won't be a total blowout with Republicans securing a veto-proof majority.
MAGA types are just globalists who call other people globalists, but other than that I agree.
Wrong. Both want empire, but globalists want an empire controlled in Davos and London, while MAGA types want one controlled in DC and Wall Street. That's why the globalists didn't like Trump. I don't like either of them, but it's important to understand there is a real difference between them or you'll never understand what's going on in the world.
While it’s sometimes useful to think the world is always divided into two of everything—good/evil, left/right, Democrat/Repulican—I don’t really see the importance of dividing global capitalists or imperialists into two camps. Are you saying no Wall Streeters attend Davos? Are you saying none of the Davos crowd can be found in DC? Are you saying there are real differences between neocons and neoliberals?
I agree there are factions, likely more than just two. Even a coin has more than two sides (i.e., it’s edge). However, if there is a single major divide in the empire, isn’t, for example, working class vs. wealthy more useful and important?
They want "class" divides to be invisible. That's why race, gender, and individual rights stay in the forefront; to make divisions so class isn't discussed. It seems to be working too. I've always been poor, a working poor, as I liked to call it whilst working. I'm retired now.
This is what one of the regular posters here posted with that Brazilian politician talking about the root causes of poverty and income inequality which are never discussed, while the results are talked about endlessly. So here in the US we end up with all the woke bullshit but no mention of the oligarchy behind it, which coincidentally both parties support 100%.
Of course "working class vs. wealthy [is] more useful and important." That's why wealthy elites are constantly trying to divide the working class using identity (CRT, feminism, LGBTQ+ etc). I'm suggesting that the working class and Caitlin should get smart by recognizing that imperialists, Republicans, Trump supporters etc also have factions and divides that can be exploited or at least used to shave off a portion to our own benefit. Caitlin refuses to see that imperialists and militarists are actually divided between globalists and America firsters (MAGA types). Of course there are Wall Streeters who attend Davos, but I doubt Trump is viewed with favor among them, because he doesn't want to see the US subservient to those interests. Eg, he wants Europe to pay for its own defense, and he understands the US has been harmed by shipping jobs and technology to China and other low-wage countries. He's an imperialist, but he doesn't want to see the US involved in wars where he sees no net gain for the US. I disagree with Trump in that I think ALL US interventions and military actions during my lifetime have been morally wrong and have done long term harm to the US working class, but there is a significant difference between Trump and the globalists, who simply want one world government (under their control) regardless of ANY cost/benefit analysis. So-called "leftists" were wrong to fall for Russiagate and to criticize Trump for wanting better relations with Russia. They should have supported his efforts to withdraw from Syria rather than whining about the Kurds.
I made a mistake in implying that ALL Trump supporters (MAGA types) want empire and just want it dominated by DC rather than Davos and London. That seems to be Trump's thinking, but in truth a lot of MAGA types or Trump supporters want the US to renounce all imperial power and were very disappointed that Trump didn't withdraw from Syria and Iraq and that his administration interfered inter alia in Bolivia and Venezuela. Unfortunately, they didn't listen carefully enough to his campaign speeches, but the "left" and Caitlin should be reaching out to those people instead of assuming they're all deporables and racists.
Sometimes I think Trump Derangement Syndrome was the actual alpha variant of the current Covid Derangement Syndrome. The main symptom of both TDS and CDS is that victims lose their critical thinking skills. Then, with the help of incessant media prodding/propaganda, victims of TDS express their disease as irrational Trump haters or irrational Trump cultists.
In the case of CDS, the identitarian shitlib “left” Democrat victims view all the unvaxed as Trumper nut-job Republican QAnoners, while right-wing victims of CDS make the equally absurd assumption that all “leftists” got vaxed and are identitarian shitlib Democrats.
In fact, there is a minority of people who seem to have natural immunity to both TDS and CDS. Many of these are old-school lefties, old-school libertarian/anarchists, and all those others that don’t fit neatly within any label. The immune, whether on the “left” or “right”, have retained their critical thinking faculties. Many in this immune group neither hate nor love Trump. Many sometimes agreed with Trump, but were not his supporters. Many appreciated Trump’s savage takedowns of The System, and many (or most) certainly preferred Trump, for all his faults, over imperialistic Clinton.
More importantly, I think the immune recognize the divisiveness between the main TDS/CDS victims as having all the earmarks of a very successful psyop that intentionally keeps people at each others throats to purposely prevent them from directing their rage at the real culprits—the rulers (whoever or whatever they are) and their minions.
I agree that Caitlin does seem to direct too much vitriol at the right-wing victims of the TDS/CDS mass formation. My own view is that both factions of TDS/CDS victims deserve sympathy. Hating them does absolutely nothing to wake them up. They are captured in mass formation in a way reminiscent of the Invasion of Body Snatchers movies. They are not evil, just asleep or hypnotized, so what good is it to get angry at someone who is literally in a trance? We should reserve our righteous anger for the hidden rulers, for the oligarchs, for the unapologetic and intentional propagandists, and for all those paid masterminds who are consciously and purposely dragging us toward the totalitarian abyss.
Agree 100%. In other contexts, I too have referred to TDS as a mass formation, and both TDS and CDS provoke backlashes that are sometimes irrational. Identity politics was also a precursor.
You last paragraph presents a difficult challenge, at least for me. It's difficult to remain calm when you are labeled and assumed to be something you're not, and deal with people who get all their information from corporate media.
It's even more complex than that, no longer binary, but like a Five Kings Game of Thrones blood fest.
Of course. My original post was brief. See my reply to Variant 23 above.
I'd be interested in your take on the Wall Street/CFR, Davos/WEF, Big Tech/Aspen Inst. alignments and divisions. Why not start a newsletter on sub stack?
Don't bet on it. After the Democrats delivering NOTHING of consequence to the majority of their voters, those same voters will become nonvoters in November. Democratic losses will likely by epic. Not to mention well-deserved. Most Americans don't care all that much about foreign policy, and the ones who do are mostly anti-imperialist, no matter what the corporate media tells you.
I hope you're right, but nevertheless I think that's the thinking about Ukraine. All wag the dog all the time. I agree the anti-imperialist thinking is under-estimated, though over 50% of Americans support some sort of military intervention in Ukraine. If nothing else they support advisers, though only a minority (large) support a significant deployment.
Also, the anti-imperialism is bipartisan, which much of the "left" ignores. Think Ron Paul, Pat Buchanan. Another example: https://bringourtroopshome.us/.
The only way to stop this US perpetual aggression is for true currency stability, the US prints money, so the dollar has an inflated value but if the US was a business it would be declared bankrupt. We need a new reserve currency or even a return to the gold standard. The US knows this and that's why thy want to contain Russia which in assets is the richest country in the world.
Dang. Glad my husband sent this. 🔥🔥🔥
I was listening to NPR on my car radio and within five minutes, two different news caster recaps said Russia had already invaded Ukraine- one said 2014, the other 2015. So apparently our "eastern flank" has been gored and tenderized repeatedly. Wonder what Europeans think about Psaki's flank steak comment?
I wonder what Biden meant by the front yard thing. The term "back yard" has a broad meaning of "nearby", but "front yard" specifically means part of your property. I guess that's more accurate? Or was he just imaging a giant Uncle Sam standing on a map facing south, with Canada being in the back?
I always thought of Florida as the U.S. appendage pissing on Cuba, so that kind of leaves Mexico as the number 2 dumping ground.
So much to unpack here. I'm thinking the same damaged egos which comprise so many of our political actors also account for those who so fervently choose to believe in them. I'm not seeing any separation.
Changing destructive outer structural manifestations resulting from personal inner darkness is a tall order in anyone's book. Can it be done? Has it ever?
War appears such an easy alternative when the manufactured dysfunction of our daily lives works nonstop to prime us for it.