Trump was elected on lies — no nation building, America First, etc but also by voters overlooking the obvious — millions of Zionist money donated by people who expect to get their monies’ worth and the banks, the pharmaceutical companies, big agriculture. The unspooling of all this corruption and incompetence and ethical collapse will play out until the end and no one knows what that will look like. The worship of money will bring the West down and if China and Russia replace values with this same golden calf, their turn will be next.
He is the King of Lies. Over 30,000 verified lies told in his first Administration and a Big Lie told in 2020 that culminated in thousands of angry MAGAs storming the Capitol.
And Americans said "Yes, we want more of THAT guy, please. That woman has a funny laugh."
the first time, the electorate chose Clinton (also a scumbag) but the slave era Electoral College overturned it. There would have been no second or third Trump run if the US were a democacy. And the legitimacy of government is not consent of the electoralte but consent of the people governed, and of 250 millin adults, Trump got about 63 million, Clinton 66 million. Trump was not chosen by the people but by the Electoral College, designed by slave owners to block democracy. Blaming the victims of tyranny of the minority is stupid.
Not sure that I can pick Trump any time around, John. My friend swears he returned from a meeting in Canada (some time last year I think) several inches shorter!
I mean you MIGHT be forgiven for thinking he was some sort of "great businessman" because his name had been slapped on properties all over the world. But it was all an illusion. And if you voted for him a second time you are most definitely NOT forgiven.
AOC came from 1% to winning over the 4th most powerful Democrat without Big Money, just many small donations.....In 2018 United States House elections, when Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez first ran for Congress in New York’s 14th district, her campaign relied heavily on small donations.
The average donation was about $18.
Roughly 62% of her campaign funding came from small donors giving $200 or less.
This was unusual for a congressional campaign. Most winning House campaigns receive less than about 8% of their funds from small donors, meaning they rely much more on large donations and PAC money.
✅ Summary
Candidate Race Avg. Donation
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez 2018 first run for Congress ≈ $18
Her campaign became widely cited as an example of a grassroots fundraising model, with many small online contributions rather than large donors......Money raised
Candidate Money Raised
Joe Crowley (incumbent) about $3.3–$3.4 million
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (challenger) about $300,000
Crowley had roughly 10× more campaign money than Ocasio-Cortez." The times, they are a changin...and it was Bernie Sanders who inspired her and Bush and Pressly and others that they could win without Big Money. "Presidential campaigns (2016 and 2020)
2016 average donation: about $27
Raised over $230 million, mostly from small donors
More than 7 million individual donations
Although he did not win the presidency, he won many primaries and caucuses using this grassroots model." Without relying on rich donors, the representative can represent the people not the big donors....and that is a critical move from plutocracy to democracy.
Dale, we’re barking at the same tree. But its roots are firmly planted in greenbacks. Money talks, barks and yells. When the power bell tolls, it tolls at the sound of money…
When we realize as a species that we need to make greenbacks a commodity as opposed to a necessity, good people may rise to the surface. Until then, power rules.
Another example of the misuse of the term "we." In any given election, in the US for insstance, those voting for the "winner" are about 80 milion at most in a nation with 250 million adults. And 38 million were not pronounced "murdered" by the Lancet study, which claimed that over 50 years, 38 million died from sanctions by all nations.
Do you think the sanctions by China, Russia, and India are at the US behest. Nations use sanctions for their own reasons. It sounds like you don't like the truth...and want to blame all sanctions on one nation, as your question implies.
That's US sanctionz on Russian Oil, dufus, not Indian sanctions. you think China puts on sanctions at behest of US. Talk of easing sacntions on Russian oil (which has nothing to do with the sanctions Russia puts on other nations) is obviously a political concept to lower gas prices. Indian sanctions on Pakistan and other nations have nothing to do with this.
Sadly Philip neither your, nor my, disavowal of our governments sins has any standing to cleanse our hands of the pain or suffering caused by the system we are both a part of.
For all his innumerable faults Our President ran on a platform of peace… turned out to be one of an almost endless number of lies… but a plurality voted for him… just as a majority of Congressional representatives voted for the military spending that funded the war….
…The money market mutual fund inside each of your 401k funds is full of the treasury bonds sold to pay for the weapons. It was never “them” - it was always us. This is why a million young people occupied the capitol for a month in the 1970’s… that’s what it takes to end an unjust war. Those young people weren’t smarter than us… they were just more motivated because of the risk of the draft for themselves, their brother, their cousin, their sweetheart…
All we can do is speak out against it and try to make as may people we can see the evil of it.
All is not lost… the far left (Bernie/AOC and the far right (Rand Paul / Tucker Carlson) are united on just one single issue… both are vocal opponents of the war...
We’re half way to the reckoning. Just a little farther until the ball starts rolling downhill.
Hate to break this to you, but Bernie/AOC are not "left" in any sense of the word. They belong with those on the "right" in your scenario and occupy the biggest party in the US--the duopoly. (If you want to learn more about true leftists, start reading Marx and Lenin. Or try my blog--I keep things simple.)
Hate to expose your rule as the useful idiot, but Bernie has been a democratic socialist, going to jail in his early 20's and promoting universal healthcare, labor rights, free education, and banning arms to Israel for decades, and AOC is left in the sense that she struggle to promote the working class, which is the core feature of the left. Your simplistic thinking actually helps the right by doing their work of trashing the alternative to war, inquality, private healthcare, and deregulation. You do no promote revolution by denoucning those leading the charge, facing death threats, speak out and voting for change.
Dale--Bernie Sanders votes for arming Israel EVERY SINGLE TIME it comes up for a vote. He's working for the elites/oligarchy and cooperates with them. He's a puppet of the duopoly. I know all about Bernie--I even worked for him in 2016. He's demonstrated time and time again that he's all for the war machine with his support for Israel for decades now. That's not "leftist". Look up "The Overton Window" and see where Bernie ends up. He's right beside Joe Biden. It's okay you still like Bernie, but don't make him into someone he isn't. (He'll never say the word "genocide" as in "Israel is committing a genocide of the Palestinian people" either if you notice and care. The duopoly supports Biden's/Trump's pro-Israel/pro-genocide agenda.)
I think it more that Musk voted for him with his tech. When it looked like a possible win for Harris, there was a sudden uprising in votes for Drumpf - hell, Musk even said he'd won the election for Drumpf.
I have read that throughout history this arrangement called "usury" leads to bigger and bigger wars to extract value to pay interest on loans to global financiers.
Even whole countries who don't want war have to pay.
For 300,000 yrs, the smartest won in communities based on sharing and equality and non-violence; then came civiliation, property and with that haves and have nots, and in this game the haves won by being not the smartest but the most ruthless.
Factually wrong. Check out Goliath's Curse by Luke Kemp. A fairly recent and exhaustively researched book about human civilization. Then you and Dale can argue like lords.
If the last 2-3 years have shown me anything then it is how deeply racist both the vast majority of Americans but also Western Europeans are. I mean really racist and most of them dont even recognize it anymore. They are so used to seeing dead muslims and the middle east on fire, it barely even registers anymore.
I will never forget the outrage over Ukraine and everyone literally saying how seeing blonde haired blue eyed people live in a war zone was so horrific to them because we are used to these kinds of images from people in the global south, not the "worthy" white race.
The same people who walk around with their BLM and pride flags yammering about equality and accepting everyone, only mean other white people. The dehumanization of thr muslims and middle easterners is complete. The entire region has been set ablaze by the West, their leaders murdered, abducted, their children incinerated, their assets stolen like we are some common pirate. they are dropping phosphorus on Lebanon, a sovereign nation that poses no threat to anyone is under siege and its citizens are being killed and threatened with existential ruin and nukes and for most it's just a Tuesday. After Iraq I expected opposition to this war to be vehement, not tepid. Yet here we are.
So true! And people in the west are mired in the bullshit, especially our political representatives. I just heard Mark Carney say he objects to Iran exporting terrorism -- wtf?!
Yes, disgusting! I just found out why these Elite leaders spout the same crap. The G-7 has a block-politic system just like before WW-I. In case of any "security crisis" (which they define), every G-7 member must make the same agreed-on statement. Was this scheme ever brought up in an election campaign? Or voted on? No, we are the doormats (or worse) for the Elites, who spend their lives flying around and entertaining each other.
Uh, yeah, so it's Iran that's the terrorist and not the two countries that started dropping bombs on their schools and hospitals? Political puppets can't help but twist the narrative to cover for their own sins, can they?
The populations of the vassal countries of the outlaw US empire allow themselves to be ruled by genocide-enabling psychopaths. And when I say “ruled” I’m talking about the politicians, media managers and bureaucrats who serve only the interests of the oligarchs. This is disgusting. We allow this. Well, the Iranian people are going to teach us a lesson in morality. They are going to prepare the way for us to rid our societies of this depraved oligarchy. The Iranian people are giving us the chance to reclaim our own humanity. We cannot afford to miss this opportunity because it’s probably the last one we get.
"It’s time to wake up to the reality that western civilization is a depraved dystopia where most people are sleepwalking in a propaganda-addled stupor under an empire that is fueled by human blood." When we resist, we wake up. When we refuse to be silent about how the west is a dystopia, murdering people, fomenting war; when we look at our complicity and depravity and stop blaming others, then maybe it could be the start of a turn around that has been waiting decades to happen.
When a former US spear carrier, marine Brian McGinnes challenged the regime narrative of Israel First, he received a broken arm courtesy of US Senator Tim Sheehy. The typical sort of totalitarian response by repressive governments and vassel states against their own citizens.
The USA and Israel are censoring photos and videos and amplifying war propaganda. Some footage is making its way out because the truth can not be suppressed for long. Some Chinese nationals, for example, took footage of massive bombing near the Ben Gurion Airport and it has appeared in some videos and accounts. USA bases are taking massive hits. The "eyes and ears" are being blinded methodically. Warning alarms aren't working. Most of the Strait of Hormuz is empty of ships- down to perhaps 6% traffic. The damage and loss of life is far greater than people are being told.
I'm very interested to see the response when the dam breaks and the truth escapes. Most people will demand to know why this war started if they don't already know.
"Prof. John Mearsheimer: Between 1971 and 2021, the US murdered 38 million people:" That is not what he said: he cited a Lancet study that extrapolated that sanctions, from all natoins, had led to about 550,000 excess deaths a yr so about 38 million due not to war but to the results of sanctions by all nations, such as malnutrition, disease, etc. It is likely that most were the result of US sanctions...but let's set an example of honest reporting lest we become the enemy.
Now do I like automatically conflating the people with the regimes that do murder and put on sanctions. I for one do not consider myself part of the evil WE. Most nations are ruled by elites and some sujpport them a some do not. If you do not support the regime and its policies, if you work to end them, you are not an evil We. You are us, struggling for justice.
I don't wish to appear argumentative (what's the point?), and yet must take issue with your headline premise: No- We (the people) Are Not the Villains in the Story. The most unfortunate reality is that "We" have played the Victim for far too long. One might argue that paying an unconstitutional tax which fed the MIC for the last 100 years was due to our Fears, and cowardice for not engaging a tax revolt. However, the Constitutional Republic was hijacked approximately 150 years ago, and by other accounts, slightly earlier. The fact that we are not taught how the world actually works is also another reason for our lack of participation. I did not vote for this current war, or any of the 7 wars the Obama regime green-lit. pax.
Who makes it miserable for the homeless, especially? WE do, in spades. Who makes the municipal bi-laws? We do. Who writes the rules to qualify for social assistance? We do. Who doesn’t say a word about nuclear arsenals? We do… want a few more hundred examples,,,?
As I said: 'Fear and cowardice' have prevented us from engaging a Tax Revolt. And yet 'taxation without representation' motivated this nation's founders to oppose the British Monarchy. Food for thought. Actions still speak louder than words.
Perhaps you are among the “we” that you disparage. Some of us are actively working to end homelessness and poverty. Some of us are politically active in opposing zoning regulations and laws that sustain homelessness and poverty.
Consider becoming a volunteer in that regard, especially if you can afford to do so.
Poverty and Homelessness are created and sustained by the wealthy. When you start working with the homeless, you will learn that some are military veterans suffering from physical and mental disorders, but unwilling to trust their fate to the Veterans Administration. Some are victims of abusive families, often reacting to poverty. Others are actually working people in low-wage jobs, unable to afford real housing.
Most of the homeless cannot afford drugs or alcohol or tobacco.
Propaganda about the poor and homeless is largely BS. That becomes apparent when you work with them, rather than avoid them.
If you want to encounter addicts and drug abusers, spend time in corporate executive suites or in the halls of Congress. They can afford the good stuff.
It doesn't matter if you don't vote. You still support the war machine by driving a POV, by shopping on Amazon, and by searching the internet with Google, to name a few. The military industrial complex is integrated into daily American life.
When we stand up and speak out and resist the fascist wars and policies,we cease to be victims, we are not villains, we are heroes. Self-hatred is not good revolutionary strategy. It is exactly what the enemy wants us to think....we all stink.
What if someone decided to bomb the US because it refuses to give its citizens healthcare, executes its poorest members of society and shoots protesters in the fac for being in the way?
Most people would find even the suggestion of this preposterous but they accept it as a given when it comes to us doing exactly that to other nations.
It is amazing how for granted Westerners take things like
their government just murdering the leadership of another country for no other reason than because we think they are bad
their government abducting the leadership of another country for no other reason than because we think they are bad
their government just stealing the assets, ships, cash, oil etc of sovereign nations like common thieves or pirates
their government attacking other countries unprovoked and then claiming in all earnestness that they may not defend themselves.
their government just marching into a sovereign country and just start bombing and murdering people
their government interfering in the internal affairs of other nations on grounds that those nations are bad
All this, of course, comes from the belief that white people and western civilization are superior so they have the right to do this. It is manifest destiny and 16th century colonial mindset all over again, only that people in the 16th century didnt know better, the people in the 21st do, which makes all this far worse.
The reaction to the completely unprovoked and unhinged attack on Iran should be much more virulent, but it is barely registering with most people. They are so racist and give so little fucks about muslims at best they are just staying quiet about it. I never thought I would encounter such obvious, blatant racism and dehumanization in my life. The degree and extent is stuff you read about in history books but to see it first hand coming out of your peers and fellow citizens has been both shocking and appalling.
We are the evil regime." No one ever asked my permission or assent. I am not in this "we." I refer to the government as "they," not "we or us" Some of us have been against imperial adventures for decades. Responsible to oppose, yes. Responsible for the actions, no! False guilt is not beneficial to the cause of opposition.
One thing I've learned to do is to stop calling it "We" or "Our" government/military.
WE did not vote for this or approve it. It is an illegitimate war waged by an illegitimate government.
I was born and live in this country. But the government and military have nothing to do with me.
They are not mine, and I refuse to lend my name to them.
Trump was elected on lies — no nation building, America First, etc but also by voters overlooking the obvious — millions of Zionist money donated by people who expect to get their monies’ worth and the banks, the pharmaceutical companies, big agriculture. The unspooling of all this corruption and incompetence and ethical collapse will play out until the end and no one knows what that will look like. The worship of money will bring the West down and if China and Russia replace values with this same golden calf, their turn will be next.
He is the King of Lies. Over 30,000 verified lies told in his first Administration and a Big Lie told in 2020 that culminated in thousands of angry MAGAs storming the Capitol.
And Americans said "Yes, we want more of THAT guy, please. That woman has a funny laugh."
Anyone can pick Trump the first time around, but the second ????!
Well, Genocide Joe was probably why Trump got MORE votes second time around.
Nice try Dale…. But it was the American electorate that sealed the deal.
the first time, the electorate chose Clinton (also a scumbag) but the slave era Electoral College overturned it. There would have been no second or third Trump run if the US were a democacy. And the legitimacy of government is not consent of the electoralte but consent of the people governed, and of 250 millin adults, Trump got about 63 million, Clinton 66 million. Trump was not chosen by the people but by the Electoral College, designed by slave owners to block democracy. Blaming the victims of tyranny of the minority is stupid.
Who voted for Trump? You did. Were there other candidates?
Are you insane? Oh, my sympathy.
Not sure that I can pick Trump any time around, John. My friend swears he returned from a meeting in Canada (some time last year I think) several inches shorter!
Yea.. “Several inches shorter”. Haha! I know the feeling….
I mean you MIGHT be forgiven for thinking he was some sort of "great businessman" because his name had been slapped on properties all over the world. But it was all an illusion. And if you voted for him a second time you are most definitely NOT forgiven.
The worship of money is the only game in town. Not much you can do without it..
AOC came from 1% to winning over the 4th most powerful Democrat without Big Money, just many small donations.....In 2018 United States House elections, when Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez first ran for Congress in New York’s 14th district, her campaign relied heavily on small donations.
The average donation was about $18.
Roughly 62% of her campaign funding came from small donors giving $200 or less.
This was unusual for a congressional campaign. Most winning House campaigns receive less than about 8% of their funds from small donors, meaning they rely much more on large donations and PAC money.
✅ Summary
Candidate Race Avg. Donation
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez 2018 first run for Congress ≈ $18
Her campaign became widely cited as an example of a grassroots fundraising model, with many small online contributions rather than large donors......Money raised
Candidate Money Raised
Joe Crowley (incumbent) about $3.3–$3.4 million
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (challenger) about $300,000
Crowley had roughly 10× more campaign money than Ocasio-Cortez." The times, they are a changin...and it was Bernie Sanders who inspired her and Bush and Pressly and others that they could win without Big Money. "Presidential campaigns (2016 and 2020)
2016 average donation: about $27
Raised over $230 million, mostly from small donors
More than 7 million individual donations
Although he did not win the presidency, he won many primaries and caucuses using this grassroots model." Without relying on rich donors, the representative can represent the people not the big donors....and that is a critical move from plutocracy to democracy.
Dale, we’re barking at the same tree. But its roots are firmly planted in greenbacks. Money talks, barks and yells. When the power bell tolls, it tolls at the sound of money…
When we realize as a species that we need to make greenbacks a commodity as opposed to a necessity, good people may rise to the surface. Until then, power rules.
“We” may not have voted for this war or government, but we certainly voted for all the previous ones that murdered 38 million combined.
I have been voting for who I thought was the most honest POTUS candidate since 1976, and have not "picked a winner" yet.
;-/
I have a similar voting record..
Another example of the misuse of the term "we." In any given election, in the US for insstance, those voting for the "winner" are about 80 milion at most in a nation with 250 million adults. And 38 million were not pronounced "murdered" by the Lancet study, which claimed that over 50 years, 38 million died from sanctions by all nations.
Sanctions by “all nations” at which nation’s behest?
Do you think the sanctions by China, Russia, and India are at the US behest. Nations use sanctions for their own reasons. It sounds like you don't like the truth...and want to blame all sanctions on one nation, as your question implies.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/us-eases-sanctions-russian-oil-071130680.html
What does this look like to you?
That's US sanctionz on Russian Oil, dufus, not Indian sanctions. you think China puts on sanctions at behest of US. Talk of easing sacntions on Russian oil (which has nothing to do with the sanctions Russia puts on other nations) is obviously a political concept to lower gas prices. Indian sanctions on Pakistan and other nations have nothing to do with this.
Sadly Philip neither your, nor my, disavowal of our governments sins has any standing to cleanse our hands of the pain or suffering caused by the system we are both a part of.
For all his innumerable faults Our President ran on a platform of peace… turned out to be one of an almost endless number of lies… but a plurality voted for him… just as a majority of Congressional representatives voted for the military spending that funded the war….
…The money market mutual fund inside each of your 401k funds is full of the treasury bonds sold to pay for the weapons. It was never “them” - it was always us. This is why a million young people occupied the capitol for a month in the 1970’s… that’s what it takes to end an unjust war. Those young people weren’t smarter than us… they were just more motivated because of the risk of the draft for themselves, their brother, their cousin, their sweetheart…
All we can do is speak out against it and try to make as may people we can see the evil of it.
All is not lost… the far left (Bernie/AOC and the far right (Rand Paul / Tucker Carlson) are united on just one single issue… both are vocal opponents of the war...
We’re half way to the reckoning. Just a little farther until the ball starts rolling downhill.
Peace.
Hate to break this to you, but Bernie/AOC are not "left" in any sense of the word. They belong with those on the "right" in your scenario and occupy the biggest party in the US--the duopoly. (If you want to learn more about true leftists, start reading Marx and Lenin. Or try my blog--I keep things simple.)
Hate to expose your rule as the useful idiot, but Bernie has been a democratic socialist, going to jail in his early 20's and promoting universal healthcare, labor rights, free education, and banning arms to Israel for decades, and AOC is left in the sense that she struggle to promote the working class, which is the core feature of the left. Your simplistic thinking actually helps the right by doing their work of trashing the alternative to war, inquality, private healthcare, and deregulation. You do no promote revolution by denoucning those leading the charge, facing death threats, speak out and voting for change.
Dale--Bernie Sanders votes for arming Israel EVERY SINGLE TIME it comes up for a vote. He's working for the elites/oligarchy and cooperates with them. He's a puppet of the duopoly. I know all about Bernie--I even worked for him in 2016. He's demonstrated time and time again that he's all for the war machine with his support for Israel for decades now. That's not "leftist". Look up "The Overton Window" and see where Bernie ends up. He's right beside Joe Biden. It's okay you still like Bernie, but don't make him into someone he isn't. (He'll never say the word "genocide" as in "Israel is committing a genocide of the Palestinian people" either if you notice and care. The duopoly supports Biden's/Trump's pro-Israel/pro-genocide agenda.)
I think it more that Musk voted for him with his tech. When it looked like a possible win for Harris, there was a sudden uprising in votes for Drumpf - hell, Musk even said he'd won the election for Drumpf.
I have read that throughout history this arrangement called "usury" leads to bigger and bigger wars to extract value to pay interest on loans to global financiers.
Even whole countries who don't want war have to pay.
Quite an arrangement, no?
Yes.. the tribe has been playing Monopoly for a long time… the Smartest members won… not much different than the conditions that exist in nature.
For 300,000 yrs, the smartest won in communities based on sharing and equality and non-violence; then came civiliation, property and with that haves and have nots, and in this game the haves won by being not the smartest but the most ruthless.
Nice try again Dale… but it has always been in a survival agenda. If there was only so much to go around, the strongest won the day.. then and now..
Factually wrong. Check out Goliath's Curse by Luke Kemp. A fairly recent and exhaustively researched book about human civilization. Then you and Dale can argue like lords.
Exactly....
“They are not mine.” So how can you survive without serving the empire?
If the last 2-3 years have shown me anything then it is how deeply racist both the vast majority of Americans but also Western Europeans are. I mean really racist and most of them dont even recognize it anymore. They are so used to seeing dead muslims and the middle east on fire, it barely even registers anymore.
I will never forget the outrage over Ukraine and everyone literally saying how seeing blonde haired blue eyed people live in a war zone was so horrific to them because we are used to these kinds of images from people in the global south, not the "worthy" white race.
The same people who walk around with their BLM and pride flags yammering about equality and accepting everyone, only mean other white people. The dehumanization of thr muslims and middle easterners is complete. The entire region has been set ablaze by the West, their leaders murdered, abducted, their children incinerated, their assets stolen like we are some common pirate. they are dropping phosphorus on Lebanon, a sovereign nation that poses no threat to anyone is under siege and its citizens are being killed and threatened with existential ruin and nukes and for most it's just a Tuesday. After Iraq I expected opposition to this war to be vehement, not tepid. Yet here we are.
Exactly right. I just wrote my own response in nearly identical terms, then saw your post! Solidarity!
So true! And people in the west are mired in the bullshit, especially our political representatives. I just heard Mark Carney say he objects to Iran exporting terrorism -- wtf?!
Yes, disgusting! I just found out why these Elite leaders spout the same crap. The G-7 has a block-politic system just like before WW-I. In case of any "security crisis" (which they define), every G-7 member must make the same agreed-on statement. Was this scheme ever brought up in an election campaign? Or voted on? No, we are the doormats (or worse) for the Elites, who spend their lives flying around and entertaining each other.
Uh, yeah, so it's Iran that's the terrorist and not the two countries that started dropping bombs on their schools and hospitals? Political puppets can't help but twist the narrative to cover for their own sins, can they?
Really?
The populations of the vassal countries of the outlaw US empire allow themselves to be ruled by genocide-enabling psychopaths. And when I say “ruled” I’m talking about the politicians, media managers and bureaucrats who serve only the interests of the oligarchs. This is disgusting. We allow this. Well, the Iranian people are going to teach us a lesson in morality. They are going to prepare the way for us to rid our societies of this depraved oligarchy. The Iranian people are giving us the chance to reclaim our own humanity. We cannot afford to miss this opportunity because it’s probably the last one we get.
"It’s time to wake up to the reality that western civilization is a depraved dystopia where most people are sleepwalking in a propaganda-addled stupor under an empire that is fueled by human blood." When we resist, we wake up. When we refuse to be silent about how the west is a dystopia, murdering people, fomenting war; when we look at our complicity and depravity and stop blaming others, then maybe it could be the start of a turn around that has been waiting decades to happen.
Yep.. if we can start looking in the mirror to find the culprits, we’ll be half-way there
When a former US spear carrier, marine Brian McGinnes challenged the regime narrative of Israel First, he received a broken arm courtesy of US Senator Tim Sheehy. The typical sort of totalitarian response by repressive governments and vassel states against their own citizens.
Surprise! Sheehy has received $640000
from AIPAC.
The USA and Israel are censoring photos and videos and amplifying war propaganda. Some footage is making its way out because the truth can not be suppressed for long. Some Chinese nationals, for example, took footage of massive bombing near the Ben Gurion Airport and it has appeared in some videos and accounts. USA bases are taking massive hits. The "eyes and ears" are being blinded methodically. Warning alarms aren't working. Most of the Strait of Hormuz is empty of ships- down to perhaps 6% traffic. The damage and loss of life is far greater than people are being told.
I'm very interested to see the response when the dam breaks and the truth escapes. Most people will demand to know why this war started if they don't already know.
"Prof. John Mearsheimer: Between 1971 and 2021, the US murdered 38 million people:" That is not what he said: he cited a Lancet study that extrapolated that sanctions, from all natoins, had led to about 550,000 excess deaths a yr so about 38 million due not to war but to the results of sanctions by all nations, such as malnutrition, disease, etc. It is likely that most were the result of US sanctions...but let's set an example of honest reporting lest we become the enemy.
Now do I like automatically conflating the people with the regimes that do murder and put on sanctions. I for one do not consider myself part of the evil WE. Most nations are ruled by elites and some sujpport them a some do not. If you do not support the regime and its policies, if you work to end them, you are not an evil We. You are us, struggling for justice.
Devastatingly excellent column. All excruciatingly painful in every way.
Thank you, Caitlin! But to convince Americans, you need to learn to speak Sheep.
The West has never truly been civilized.
I don't wish to appear argumentative (what's the point?), and yet must take issue with your headline premise: No- We (the people) Are Not the Villains in the Story. The most unfortunate reality is that "We" have played the Victim for far too long. One might argue that paying an unconstitutional tax which fed the MIC for the last 100 years was due to our Fears, and cowardice for not engaging a tax revolt. However, the Constitutional Republic was hijacked approximately 150 years ago, and by other accounts, slightly earlier. The fact that we are not taught how the world actually works is also another reason for our lack of participation. I did not vote for this current war, or any of the 7 wars the Obama regime green-lit. pax.
We the people are the victims in regimes that ignore the people and serve the oligarchs.
When we choose to transmute our legacy as victims, what a glorious day this will be.
Nope?
Who makes it miserable for the homeless, especially? WE do, in spades. Who makes the municipal bi-laws? We do. Who writes the rules to qualify for social assistance? We do. Who doesn’t say a word about nuclear arsenals? We do… want a few more hundred examples,,,?
As I said: 'Fear and cowardice' have prevented us from engaging a Tax Revolt. And yet 'taxation without representation' motivated this nation's founders to oppose the British Monarchy. Food for thought. Actions still speak louder than words.
Perhaps you are among the “we” that you disparage. Some of us are actively working to end homelessness and poverty. Some of us are politically active in opposing zoning regulations and laws that sustain homelessness and poverty.
Consider becoming a volunteer in that regard, especially if you can afford to do so.
Thank you for being there CK.. the threat of homelessness is the number one reason for nuclear arsenals. The correlation is absolute.
Poverty and Homelessness are created and sustained by the wealthy. When you start working with the homeless, you will learn that some are military veterans suffering from physical and mental disorders, but unwilling to trust their fate to the Veterans Administration. Some are victims of abusive families, often reacting to poverty. Others are actually working people in low-wage jobs, unable to afford real housing.
Most of the homeless cannot afford drugs or alcohol or tobacco.
Propaganda about the poor and homeless is largely BS. That becomes apparent when you work with them, rather than avoid them.
If you want to encounter addicts and drug abusers, spend time in corporate executive suites or in the halls of Congress. They can afford the good stuff.
I wrote: “The threat of homelessness is the
number one reason for nuclear arsenals”.
No comments?
It doesn't matter if you don't vote. You still support the war machine by driving a POV, by shopping on Amazon, and by searching the internet with Google, to name a few. The military industrial complex is integrated into daily American life.
Did you mean 'driving an SUV?' ;)
Those are worse by virtue of their fuel inefficiency. But any privately owned vehicle that relies on fossil fuels feeds the monster.
Indeed we are the villains , sad to see, sad to say! Let’s do something about it! Ideas???
When we stand up and speak out and resist the fascist wars and policies,we cease to be victims, we are not villains, we are heroes. Self-hatred is not good revolutionary strategy. It is exactly what the enemy wants us to think....we all stink.
I offer this in rebuttal....
Revolutionary Hygiene
They say we should whisper,
apologize for breathing,
confess that history itself
is a stain on our shoes.
“Admit you’re awful,” they say.
“Start every sentence with guilt.
Scrub your soul in public
until even your shadow resigns.”
Because a population convinced
it is permanently disgusting
rarely stands up straight—
it bends conveniently.
So we gather with our banners,
apparently smelling terrible,
a mob of the morally unbathed
marching through the streets.
“Look at them,” the pundits sigh.
“Such dreadful people—
refusing to hate themselves properly
while opposing perfectly respectable wars.”
We chant anyway.
Not because we’re spotless—
history is mud
and everyone tracked it inside—
but because the oddest thing happens
when people stop rehearsing their shame:
they stand up,
clear their throats,
and speak.
And suddenly the villains
who preferred us kneeling
discover a tragic development:
the supposedly rotten crowd
has begun
to smell like courage.
What if someone decided to bomb the US because it refuses to give its citizens healthcare, executes its poorest members of society and shoots protesters in the fac for being in the way?
Most people would find even the suggestion of this preposterous but they accept it as a given when it comes to us doing exactly that to other nations.
It is amazing how for granted Westerners take things like
their government just murdering the leadership of another country for no other reason than because we think they are bad
their government abducting the leadership of another country for no other reason than because we think they are bad
their government just stealing the assets, ships, cash, oil etc of sovereign nations like common thieves or pirates
their government attacking other countries unprovoked and then claiming in all earnestness that they may not defend themselves.
their government just marching into a sovereign country and just start bombing and murdering people
their government interfering in the internal affairs of other nations on grounds that those nations are bad
All this, of course, comes from the belief that white people and western civilization are superior so they have the right to do this. It is manifest destiny and 16th century colonial mindset all over again, only that people in the 16th century didnt know better, the people in the 21st do, which makes all this far worse.
The reaction to the completely unprovoked and unhinged attack on Iran should be much more virulent, but it is barely registering with most people. They are so racist and give so little fucks about muslims at best they are just staying quiet about it. I never thought I would encounter such obvious, blatant racism and dehumanization in my life. The degree and extent is stuff you read about in history books but to see it first hand coming out of your peers and fellow citizens has been both shocking and appalling.
To disagree with:
"We are the terrorists.
We are the tyrants.
We are the evil regime." No one ever asked my permission or assent. I am not in this "we." I refer to the government as "they," not "we or us" Some of us have been against imperial adventures for decades. Responsible to oppose, yes. Responsible for the actions, no! False guilt is not beneficial to the cause of opposition.
I've been saying it for years and it is proven more every year, America is the Fourth Reich.