"To have integrity as an individual is to be the same sort of person you are at home as when you’re in public. To treat everyone with the same amount of kindness and respect regardless..."I absolutely agree with this post of yours even more than usual. Problem is that it is sometimes really difficult to be standing at a silent vigil with a sign that says "Save Gaza" and some people walking by say "save them from what" or another person says "go fuck yourselves". Or to be at a demo supporting cutting ties with Israel and have some person come up and declare that he "is a Zionist and he has killed fuckers like you and he is going to go back and kill some more". It is really difficult not to feel hatred for those people or at least disgust. Oh, I don't allow that hatred to grow and take over, but I am always afraid that it could.
So it's zionists who are the chosen ones, not the jews whom were lied to about being the chosen. So, no land was given to anyone, any time, by any god. Definitely not given to zionists 10,000 years ago, whose founder was only born in the early 1900s. It all becomes clear now as they're stories get murkier and murkier.
Hey. When you're "chosen" it means everyone else - isn't... You know?
The other 7.5 billion belong to Satan or some "other" demonic agenda.... Definition: Inversion: A situation in which something is changed so that it is the opposite of what it was before, or in which something is turned upside down.
It took 80 years of brainwashing, cajoling and threatening the public for the powers that be to create an ignorant, biased, narrow minded and petulant public who has a short attention span and is focused on melodrama, sports and Hollywood. You simply cannot discuss serious issues in the Land of the Not-so-free.
I don’t think it’s necessarily bad to feel hatred - tbh I think it’s impossible not to feel it in some circumstances. I am battling with hatred for my dead husband at present having found out that he’d been abusing our daughter since she was 8. I also hate people making money out of ecocide genocide etc, you get the picture. I think that hatred is a natural response to hateful actions and we have to break it down. Hating actions, attitudes, abusive speech and behaviour can be better than hating the people doing those things. Also reminding ourselves even the most improbable people have the potential to change.
I know this might come over as if I’m playing with words - in some ways I probably am but not completely.
If we find ourselves just stuck with hating someone because they’re a sick fuck, I think it’s ok to feel the hatred, but not to feed it and nurse it and let it grow. Reminding myself of people and things that are awe inspiring and cause me to feel love helps. I don’t think hatred can get the upper hand in the presence of love.
"It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that bling!"
That is why Our Western societies have no Integrity, we are ruled to believe Money solves everything.
And those with the most money and power (Celebs, Royal Parasites, Politicians, CEOs) are somehow "better" people than us. Maybe some have athletic or artistic gifts, but most are Corrupt and devoid of empathy for the Peasants who worship them.
We are ruled by Pedoes & WORSE, who we treat like gods. WHY are there NO Rules for the Rulers? In the USA, what laws are upheld? Only those involving the Peasants.
EPSTEIN Pals who torture/delete and worse Children, walk around Washington DC and DEMAND that Americans go Die for Israel AND be fncking happy about it!!!
Soldiers arent allowed to complain about being fed gray slime or trapped at sea for 3/4 of a year. Prez DT says US Soldiers are WHINERS - but he Thanks them for Their Services.
... and I keep wondering what it is going take to make people look up at the Epstein Class and stop blaming each other for this crap.
Maybe remind them that, "God is watching. Maybe not who they think God is, but God is definitley watching. And tell them you hope to be there when the questions start on why they did what they did?
Those are repellent things to say, for sure, but when my comrades and I get the middle finger when we're doing banner drops, some of them yell, "Free Palestine!" I don't. I yell, "Have a nice day!" or I just flash the peace sign. We're not going to win over deeply brainwashed people by proving to them that we believe they're iredeemable and that they'll never change their opinion. They CAN change their opinion; many have. I believe the vast majority of these people would never go and actually shoot up a car full of Palestinians; they spout heinous sentiments from a safe distance. We can help them overcome their attraction to authoritarians and brutal leaders and cultures, but we have to make it clear that when they do overcome them, there's a place for them next to us at the banner drop. My two cents.
I really like what you’ve said here. I’ll be honest, I think it’s hard - sometimes very hard, but it’s the right way to be and potentially much more productive than yelling hatred or beating people!
I have not had those things said to me.. I live in a very small town… but my husband and I see a lot of research for the book he is writing about world issues .. it is very hard not to feel hatred… I feel it is natural to have those feelings come up very strongly… how can it not? How can we look at the horror happening every day? And…. Not feel it? What we are seeing day in and day out affects us.. yes I believe it is a challenge v to feel happiness? Peace? What is that??
Personally, I'd wanna find Zionist pop stars like Pink, and then tie 'em up and beat them until they promise to support Palestine and denounce the existence of Israel.
Remember: the end ALWAYS justifies the means when it comes to fighting Zionism.
I cannot support beating anyone. I think it would be better to make them watch videos of Zionist Israeli soldiers shooting babies and children over and over; make them watch videos of their Zionist compatriots raping Palestinian prisoners and torturing flotilla people. Make them watch all the atrocities that are the IOF is committing until they cannot eat or drink any more because they feel too sick. And keep telling them over and over that what they are watching is what they believe in until they start screaming that they don't want to be a Zionist any more.
If only that would do the trick. Seems most of the IOF have no soul, and are completely heartless because these acts are dailly occurrences for them, acts that tape so they can show them around while repeat watching. As I said, heartless and soulless.
That may work with some of them but today’s Zionists especially the Israelis, have been so profoundly brainwashed and Palestinians have been so dehumanised that I fear some of them (many?) would enjoy it and even become aroused.
Recently I’ve been trying to realise that in some ways the Zios are victims too - having had their humanity excised. I read about an IOF who’d been ordered to drive over living Palestinians in a bulldozer. Obviously it was horrific but he had a fine old time “squishing the terrorists” with his comrades. Shortly after he became unable to eat meat at all. The sight and smell made him sick. He was able to connect this with the bulldozing incident but was unable to feel disgust or remorse for what he’d done. It was deeply sad and very horrible to read - as if his body felt the guilt and disgust that his soul was incapable of feeling.
I admit I’ve fantasised about torturing people like Ben Gvir on occasion but it wouldn’t help if I actually got the chance to do it. If push came to shove I honestly wouldn’t want to - I’d be making myself more like him. I think those sorts fantasies can help release pressure at times of great shock and powerless horror.
Joseph Sansone pretty much equates the "phony fucking liar" with a behavior he refers to as "psychopathic authoritarianism". He does not state this directly, but I believe the phenomenon applies to *all* strata of our current economic paradigm.
“A tyrant needs above all a tyrant-state, so he will use a million little civil servant tyrants who each have a trivial task to perform, and each will perform that task competently, and without remorse, and no one will realize that he is the millionth link in the final act.”
From: Henri Verneuil‘s film I Comme Icare (Release date: December 19, 1979)
No truer words ever printed. It's time to jettison the frauds and the phonies and concentrate on making amends and reparations to all we've harmed, pledging not to harm anyone anymore.
The root of integrity, "integrare" in Italian from the Latin, goes beyond integration to completion. Integrity completes the individual and individuals of integrity complete the society. The implicit meaning is also to complement. Individuals of integrity naturally complement one another in structuring the society.
US and European so called leaders that are only capable of producing war rhetoric crap, talk bullshit and then wipe their ass with taxpayer money and flush it all down the toilet. They are vacuous idiots not worth the air they breath. While their stupidity and arrogance results in nothing but death and destruction. They even make democracy seem like a mistake. When will humanity be rid of this toilet plague?
We have alot of work to do to achieve these goals, both individually and as a nation. I see it only getting worse but for a great awakening. Hypocrisy reigns.
Is that Pink up there? Well. I've never listened to her music, and at this point I think she can probably fuck off forever. More talent and dignity in a 10-year-old Palestinian kid.
Exactly and we need to act on these values individually, within our family, communities and support efforts by others who have the same love for Mother Earth and all creatures great and small - well almost all. I have no desire to harm a skunk, but I do not want to run into one - ditto porcupine or a snapping turtle or any other number of animals, insects or sea creatures, but I do not want to harm them either. I also do not want to harm other human beings and have no intention of doing so. I suspect I am typical of the vast majority of other humans who are trying to work and care for themselves, their family, friends, Co-workers, neighbors, and as much as possible, the rest of the World and our environment, from the air and water to the plants, trees and soil.
The kind of change you are talking about, Caitlin is not going to happen slowly or organically...it is going to take an explosion from the part of the population that wants to live in a peaceful State actually governed by the people...Which means the US will break up, with those that prefer the current corrupt tyranny separating from those who abhor it....
Nah. It's a lot easier to get anti-genocide candidates elected. A repeat of 1860. I'd like to see the D old guard swept away like the Whigs. It’s a very similar situation. Besides, if the USA broke up the resulting nations would continually be at war with one another.
One way to avoid the current realities is to make unsupported predictions about the future: just you wait and see. Even Marx foresaw that revolution could be peaceful in his 1872 speech, using the system of elections and legislation to put the workers in power with democratic rule. That option has opened up today. Ignoring it to project future certainties is what Marx called "dangerous and lethal."
Marketing is the main expertise that the USA still possesses. It's no coincidence that Mr Trump is the first salesman to become President. Their wars consist in "selling" defeat to the opposition. They have done a great job at selling defeat to USA liberals, who until recently have completely given in to learned helplessness and the lesser evil logic.
It appears to me that the tide has turned. Expect rapid changes, with at most ten years being the time frame. 2034 here we come.
Oops, forgot about him. Death Valley Days! Every time I looked at him I thought of Twenty Mule Team Borax. Well, he was an actor first and a salesman second. Most presidents are salesmen for The System, but Mr T is 100% salesman. It is the only ability he has. He is remarkably good at it.
I didn't care much for Mr. Reagan's policies but he did have integrity. He did what he said he was going to do. He was an honest man. Except of course for selling arms to an enemy nation in order to rig his election.
In my opinion marketing began with the Mitsui family of Nihon in about 1680. They invented the department store and modern style advertising. Their business is still going strong, and their advertising remains popular as classic art.
Also pitched for GE. As to integrity, yeah, Iran-Contra kinda negates that notion, but overall he was sincere in his beliefs of his fictions, can't argue with that.
Caitlin — I share a lot of the anger, disgust, and effrontery with the U.S./Western Empire that you express here (as you likely know by now). Especially watching what's happening in Gaza (and the rest of the world) right now, "empire of frauds" seems apt to me.
But your article got me stuck on a question I don't have an answer to, and I'm curious whether you do. You write that we're "as incongruent with our theoretical values as any civilization could possibly be" — and I keep turning that over. Every empire I can think of — Rome, the Ottomans, Qing China, the USSR, Imperial Japan — told itself a story where its domination was earned or moral, not just imposed, while its actual conduct violated that story badly. So when you say "Western civilization" specifically has this fraudulence, I can't tell if you mean something structural (this is just what empire does, and the West is the current example) or something about magnitude (the West's version of this gap is worse than the others). Those feel like different claims to me, and I don't know which one you're making, or how I'd even measure/judge it for myself.
What I've realized/learned about Empires is that - every sufficiently large and powerful political entity in history has this gap between "humanitarian values and actual conduct" — because stating high-minded legitimating values while pursuing power and material interest through coercive means is close to a structural feature of how large states maintain domestic and international legitimacy, not a peculiarly Western pathology.
I'd likely be one of the last people to defend the U.S./Western Empire, or any empire for that matter. But looking across the long arc of history, I genuinely don't know where to place it on that spectrum relative to others. Part of what makes this hard for me is I'm not even sure how to define "Western civilization" in the current context — the current US-led order specifically, or something continuous going back centuries? The comparison looks different depending on which one I mean.
So while I loathe and abhor the current U.S./Western Empire, I'm not entirely sure how to morally, emotionally, and structurally evaluate and compare it to empires of the past.
None of this is to deny that the current U.S. Empire needs to be drastically altered or reconfigured, capitalism included. But in our present globalized world, I'm having trouble identifying the boundaries between the impacts of Western civilization/empire specifically, and those of the global system of capitalism more broadly — is it "the West" doing this, or is "the West" just where global capital currently happens to be centered?
I continue to ponder this (and am not sure if I'll ever be able to resolve this for myself)...
Chang, You keep on insisting on looking at the bigger picture, at the sweep of history and comparing and contrasting which empire is worse than the other. Well and good. That is the stuff of history books and political scientists, although we do need them to inform us. Or disinform us.
But the big but here is what Caitlin and most of us on these pages are concerned with. It is the present American empire and its vassal states. Their exploitation and the extraction of resources ( once again ), the planting of the empire's client states ( such as Israel )in the midst of continents to destabilise. The never ending wars, a corrupt, lying, cheating ruling class, the inhuman oligarchs, and the western compliant media. Added to all this a live-streamed genocide, the Palestinians' misery, terror, starvation ignored. Capitalism's excesses beyond limits. This is what we are concerned with, not empires past.
The more corrupt, more greedy, more violent, more uncaring the ruling class becomes, the environment become toxic and the subjects follow. That is our main concern here.
Indu, nothing in my original question was meant to relativize or minimize what's happening right now. Gaza doesn't need a history lecture to be condemned. Nothing about comparing empires makes the present less urgent, and I don't think I implied otherwise.
But here's the ISSUE with your "this is what we're concerned with, not empires past" — because I think you're smuggling in a comparative framework already, just an unexamined one.
You describe this ruling class as "more corrupt, more greedy, more violent, more uncaring" than what came before. That's a comparative claim. I'm not asking you to start comparing — I'm asking you to make the comparison honest instead of assumed. And when I look at how that comparison usually gets made in these spaces, it's rarely class-based. It's geographic: US/West bad, Russia/China/"Global South" good or at least lesser-evil, by virtue of standing against American power. That's not a materialist analysis. That's civilizational or bloc identity doing the work class analysis is supposed to do.
Here's my worry: when critique of empire becomes critique of the US specifically, without a comparative standard behind it, it becomes very easy — not inevitable, but easy — to treat whoever opposes or rivals US power as therefore less bad, or even good, by default. I see this pattern often enough in anti-imperialist spaces (like Caitlin's substack for example) that I don't think it's rare. In a sense, I'm calling this tendency out here.
Quite a few anti-imperialists (and leftists) sometimes get sucked into the logic that criticizing anti-US Empire elements (like Russia, China, etc.) somehow lets the US off the hook, or that they're lesser evils because they're rivals to American power. That's the actual black-and-white trap I'm worried about — not "history says empires are all the same, so who cares," but "the enemy of my enemy gets a pass." A comparative standard is what keeps that from happening, because it judges each power on its own conduct rather than on its position relative to the US.
A real anti-imperialist standard doesn't ask which flag a ruling class flies. It asks who extracts, who exploits, who represses labor and dissent, who wages wars of domination — and holds all of them to that standard, whether the state doing it postures as capitalist, socialist, or "anti-Western." The behavior of China/Russia/India/etc. (in this context) doesn't becomes lesser evil simply because the perpetrator opposes the US. If it does become lesser evil in the analysis, the analysis has quietly swapped class for geography as its actual organizing principle — which is the same move liberal nationalism makes, just with the flags reversed.
This isn't a call to go easier on the US empire (you know where I stand on that) — it's the opposite. A critique that holds every power to the same material standard is harder to dismiss and harder to co-opt than one that reduces to "whoever isn't the US, is on our side." The latter isn't internationalism. It's just inverted nationalism.
Chang, thank you. Your erudite comment is much appreciated. I understand how you could be impatient with (and perceive my comment as) concerning myself only with empathy. Specially, as I know that you are no Elon Musk wanting to save Western civilisation from empathy.
I think both our versions are right - as your version has validity, so does mine. Dealing with your second point ,"... it becomes very easy — not inevitable, but easy — to treat whoever opposes or rivals US power as therefore less bad, or even good, by default", I regard China and Russia and to a lesser extent Iran as the only alternative and a more ethical one to a declining US empire. And BRICS might give global south countries/people a chance to a better future. Unless global warming ( not their fault ) and AI get them first.
Who knows what the future holds... . Human kind may all go down with a rampaging western empire or the worlds' oppressed might get the chance to rise up and a create a world revolution.
Indu — I need to say something about the way you keep responding to me in your last two replies — the rhetorical moves you keep leaning on — because it's really bothering me.
You write - "Your erudite comment is much appreciated" — and then go straight into "impatient," "concerning myself only with empathy." What does that have to do with anything I actually said? And then the Elon Musk line — what the hell does that have to do with my argument? You compliment the comment and then immediately start making assumptions about my mood and lumping me in with the "save Western civilization from empathy" crowd. I never said or implied anything like that. That's an underhanded move, whether you intended it that way or not.
Then you say - "I think both our versions are right — yours has validity, so does mine." That's a false equivalence. You state it and never back it up — there's no reasoning given for HOW both versions are right, no justification at all. It's just asserted. And in the very same breath you go on to say China, Russia, and Iran are "the only alternative and a more ethical one" to a declining US empire. That's not both of us being right. That's you taking a side and calling it balance.
And going back to your first reply — "the big but here is what Caitlin and most of us on these pages are concerned with" — that one bothers me just as much. It's not a response to what I asked, it's a way of not responding to it. "Most of us" turns a disagreement about whether I'm right into a headcount, like the question gets settled by who's in the room instead of by the actual argument. And "what we're concerned with" quietly swaps "your point is wrong" for "your point isn't welcome here." That's a slimy move, Indu, and I think you know it.
None of this has actually answered what I said: that opposing the US doesn't automatically make you the good guy. What's at issue is that twice in one short comment, you turned a disagreement about consistency into something about my character, my mood, or my motives — and never once engaged my actual claim, which is - 'a standard which grants automatic ethical credit to whoever opposes the US isn't a consistent standard'. If you think that's wrong, make the case. Don't tell me who I remind you of. Don't tell me we're both right when your own comment shows you don't believe that.
It does make me want to dissect "capital accumulation" down to its cellular spiritual level. Is it what all former teachers have warned us not to play with--the apple in the Garden of Eden/suffering defined by the Buddha etc./taking more than you need to live by the early native animists? I don't know either, Chang but it is a gift that we even think about it, because most do not bother
Yeah, what I find interesting/worth-researching further about this is the relationship of the political economy of Capitalism to a critique of the U.S./Western Empire. How much of the West in 'unique' to it being 'the West' and how much of it is due to the 'system of Capitalism'? i.e. is the West what it is because of some inherent differences (civilizational/cultural/geographic/historical-contingent) that's specific to 'the West' as an entity OR is it more likely due to the way Capitalism evolved? If we were to create a Venn Diagram of what makes the West 'the West', what kind of intersections would there be with other factors (such as Capitalism, for instance)?
The reason this matters (more than others think that it does, IMHO) is that if most of what I/others find objectionable about "Western civilization" turns out to be explainable by capitalism as a system, then "the West" isn't really the right unit of moral analysis at all - Capitalism is, and the West is just capitalism's historically first and currently most powerful host. This would change/impact how an anti-imperialist (and anti-Capitalist) would/should think about "the West".
Keep me posted on what you discover in this perhaps important field of political anthropology. My gut says its an independent force of culture and can surface anywhere. How it flourishes(and surfaces), is your quest. Is it the synergy of power and greed? Is it easy access to "natural capital" resources? Competition? Outside independent variables? I compliment and encourage you for seek! The only thing I can add is that I lived in a tribal society in SE Asia for 2.5 years and did not see it there. I empirically concluded it was learned behavior. That was the early 80's and my socialist curiosity(bias) was looking for it. Afterall, it is the "holy grail" for those of us sick and tired of capitalism and its empty promises.
There is no such thing as Western Civilization; it is a concept that masks a battle ground and the proof of that is the violence between Western nations.....WWII?
We are not Western Civiization, not the violence, not the lack of integrity, based on opposing the violence of the European-based nations. We are free to decouple our idenity and our lives from nationalism, patriotism, all that bullshit. We are free to identify and live as citizens of the world.
It is not just this facade of Western Civilization; civilization itself is based on replacing the shared commons of equality with private property and the resulting conflicting world of haves and have-nots. We are free to reject the concept of a monolith culture and take up the struggles of the have nots not to replace the haves but to replace a concept of civilization based on the divisive concept of private property and its effects of inequality, hierarchy, centralized top down rule, religion, and war, all invented together to cement the power of the haves. We are free to rejec that and work for a world of reclaiming the shared commons during which for 300,000 yrs there was no lethal group conflict. We are free to rebel and work to replace the world of violence, which is not only Western civilization but all civiizations, and create a world free of inequality and thus free of the motives for crime and war. In that rebellion, we reclaim our own integrity as a process of working together to dismantle the existing concept of civilization and create a new one of shared prosperity among equals. And only in that freedom will we find others who are also in rebellion and thus feel the existential freedom to be ourselves, which is only possible with those we trust, with those who share our rejection of a world of haves and have-nots and the desire to reclaim oru evolutionary legacy as equals sharing the world as comrades.
Government is a retarded organization of goofball idiots. IGNORE THEM ALL and find your own life, happiness, peace and prosperity. You do not have to participate in all this nonsense.
Or as Marx said in 1872, not participating in politics is "dangerous and lethal." Two years before, a wise American said: "“The punishment which the wise suffer who refuse to take part in the government, is, to live under the government of worse men” (noted by Ralph Waldo Emerson in 1870)
I absolutely agree, Caitlin. The root cause is structural: it stems from competition. We live in a dualistic way. Just as good and evil coexist within each of us, so too do emotions, feelings, and the need to adapt to our environment. And so, on one side there is love, and on the other, money. To bring about change, we must necessarily change how money is managed.
Break up ALL Bond and Trust markets, and *criminalize* all forms of corporate syndication and franchise. The corporate system is the invisible "god" no one ever sees, yet they believe corporate bullshit will save them...
"To have integrity as an individual is to be the same sort of person you are at home as when you’re in public. To treat everyone with the same amount of kindness and respect regardless..."I absolutely agree with this post of yours even more than usual. Problem is that it is sometimes really difficult to be standing at a silent vigil with a sign that says "Save Gaza" and some people walking by say "save them from what" or another person says "go fuck yourselves". Or to be at a demo supporting cutting ties with Israel and have some person come up and declare that he "is a Zionist and he has killed fuckers like you and he is going to go back and kill some more". It is really difficult not to feel hatred for those people or at least disgust. Oh, I don't allow that hatred to grow and take over, but I am always afraid that it could.
zionists are bottom-feeding parasites, prone to warped visions of their false grandeur....the "chosen ones". Really! As if.
So it's zionists who are the chosen ones, not the jews whom were lied to about being the chosen. So, no land was given to anyone, any time, by any god. Definitely not given to zionists 10,000 years ago, whose founder was only born in the early 1900s. It all becomes clear now as they're stories get murkier and murkier.
Zionism is but a specific case of Imperialism.
***
Too many ppl still prefer to remain willfully ignorant of the fact that Zionism/Israel has always been an Anglo-American Imperialist colonial project
http://youtube.com/watch?v=IZjSVkkAjVk
http://youtube.com/watch?v=vEGVSvL6yQU
Hey. When you're "chosen" it means everyone else - isn't... You know?
The other 7.5 billion belong to Satan or some "other" demonic agenda.... Definition: Inversion: A situation in which something is changed so that it is the opposite of what it was before, or in which something is turned upside down.
It took 80 years of brainwashing, cajoling and threatening the public for the powers that be to create an ignorant, biased, narrow minded and petulant public who has a short attention span and is focused on melodrama, sports and Hollywood. You simply cannot discuss serious issues in the Land of the Not-so-free.
G. Carlin: America is one big lie and you are a fool for believing in it:
youtube.com/watch?v=YqdsNxS_fk8&t=153s
***
How CIA/MIC Took over Hollywood:
youtube.com/watch?v=8Xp9jTdJ4Ys
I don’t think it’s necessarily bad to feel hatred - tbh I think it’s impossible not to feel it in some circumstances. I am battling with hatred for my dead husband at present having found out that he’d been abusing our daughter since she was 8. I also hate people making money out of ecocide genocide etc, you get the picture. I think that hatred is a natural response to hateful actions and we have to break it down. Hating actions, attitudes, abusive speech and behaviour can be better than hating the people doing those things. Also reminding ourselves even the most improbable people have the potential to change.
I know this might come over as if I’m playing with words - in some ways I probably am but not completely.
If we find ourselves just stuck with hating someone because they’re a sick fuck, I think it’s ok to feel the hatred, but not to feed it and nurse it and let it grow. Reminding myself of people and things that are awe inspiring and cause me to feel love helps. I don’t think hatred can get the upper hand in the presence of love.
I agree with you (and how you feel) Francesca Heather-Hayes! Too many people use black-and-white thinking (especially when it comes to moral issues).
I think a good way to think about it is - "hate what is evil without allowing hatred to determine how you treat people/persons".
What does the West value really?
MONEY. Greed is Good!
"It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that bling!"
That is why Our Western societies have no Integrity, we are ruled to believe Money solves everything.
And those with the most money and power (Celebs, Royal Parasites, Politicians, CEOs) are somehow "better" people than us. Maybe some have athletic or artistic gifts, but most are Corrupt and devoid of empathy for the Peasants who worship them.
We are ruled by Pedoes & WORSE, who we treat like gods. WHY are there NO Rules for the Rulers? In the USA, what laws are upheld? Only those involving the Peasants.
EPSTEIN Pals who torture/delete and worse Children, walk around Washington DC and DEMAND that Americans go Die for Israel AND be fncking happy about it!!!
Soldiers arent allowed to complain about being fed gray slime or trapped at sea for 3/4 of a year. Prez DT says US Soldiers are WHINERS - but he Thanks them for Their Services.
... and I keep wondering what it is going take to make people look up at the Epstein Class and stop blaming each other for this crap.
Jeebus this country is fncked.
🚫ALL DATA CENTERS ✌️
🚫
Maybe remind them that, "God is watching. Maybe not who they think God is, but God is definitley watching. And tell them you hope to be there when the questions start on why they did what they did?
Thank you for your service, Susan!
I don't protest as a service, I protest because I see injustice and I want that injustice to stop. Go away. Stop happening.
Those are repellent things to say, for sure, but when my comrades and I get the middle finger when we're doing banner drops, some of them yell, "Free Palestine!" I don't. I yell, "Have a nice day!" or I just flash the peace sign. We're not going to win over deeply brainwashed people by proving to them that we believe they're iredeemable and that they'll never change their opinion. They CAN change their opinion; many have. I believe the vast majority of these people would never go and actually shoot up a car full of Palestinians; they spout heinous sentiments from a safe distance. We can help them overcome their attraction to authoritarians and brutal leaders and cultures, but we have to make it clear that when they do overcome them, there's a place for them next to us at the banner drop. My two cents.
I really like what you’ve said here. I’ll be honest, I think it’s hard - sometimes very hard, but it’s the right way to be and potentially much more productive than yelling hatred or beating people!
I have not had those things said to me.. I live in a very small town… but my husband and I see a lot of research for the book he is writing about world issues .. it is very hard not to feel hatred… I feel it is natural to have those feelings come up very strongly… how can it not? How can we look at the horror happening every day? And…. Not feel it? What we are seeing day in and day out affects us.. yes I believe it is a challenge v to feel happiness? Peace? What is that??
Personally, I'd wanna find Zionist pop stars like Pink, and then tie 'em up and beat them until they promise to support Palestine and denounce the existence of Israel.
Remember: the end ALWAYS justifies the means when it comes to fighting Zionism.
I cannot support beating anyone. I think it would be better to make them watch videos of Zionist Israeli soldiers shooting babies and children over and over; make them watch videos of their Zionist compatriots raping Palestinian prisoners and torturing flotilla people. Make them watch all the atrocities that are the IOF is committing until they cannot eat or drink any more because they feel too sick. And keep telling them over and over that what they are watching is what they believe in until they start screaming that they don't want to be a Zionist any more.
If only that would do the trick. Seems most of the IOF have no soul, and are completely heartless because these acts are dailly occurrences for them, acts that tape so they can show them around while repeat watching. As I said, heartless and soulless.
That may work with some of them but today’s Zionists especially the Israelis, have been so profoundly brainwashed and Palestinians have been so dehumanised that I fear some of them (many?) would enjoy it and even become aroused.
Recently I’ve been trying to realise that in some ways the Zios are victims too - having had their humanity excised. I read about an IOF who’d been ordered to drive over living Palestinians in a bulldozer. Obviously it was horrific but he had a fine old time “squishing the terrorists” with his comrades. Shortly after he became unable to eat meat at all. The sight and smell made him sick. He was able to connect this with the bulldozing incident but was unable to feel disgust or remorse for what he’d done. It was deeply sad and very horrible to read - as if his body felt the guilt and disgust that his soul was incapable of feeling.
I admit I’ve fantasised about torturing people like Ben Gvir on occasion but it wouldn’t help if I actually got the chance to do it. If push came to shove I honestly wouldn’t want to - I’d be making myself more like him. I think those sorts fantasies can help release pressure at times of great shock and powerless horror.
The "west" is full of phony fucking liars at every level of our societies. We’re going to need a bigger mop to clean this mess.
Joseph Sansone pretty much equates the "phony fucking liar" with a behavior he refers to as "psychopathic authoritarianism". He does not state this directly, but I believe the phenomenon applies to *all* strata of our current economic paradigm.
“A tyrant needs above all a tyrant-state, so he will use a million little civil servant tyrants who each have a trivial task to perform, and each will perform that task competently, and without remorse, and no one will realize that he is the millionth link in the final act.”
From: Henri Verneuil‘s film I Comme Icare (Release date: December 19, 1979)
Thank you. I’ll add it to my canon.
You are most welcome Magic. I discovered this quote years ago, and it's so right on the money (so to speak) I post it quite often. Best regards.
I have a feeling that it will be like the dark ending of the Randall Jarrell poem. "...with a hose."
Exactly, and a bucket to put all the bullshit in.
A much, much bigger mop.
"We are an empire of frauds."
No truer words ever printed. It's time to jettison the frauds and the phonies and concentrate on making amends and reparations to all we've harmed, pledging not to harm anyone anymore.
The root of integrity, "integrare" in Italian from the Latin, goes beyond integration to completion. Integrity completes the individual and individuals of integrity complete the society. The implicit meaning is also to complement. Individuals of integrity naturally complement one another in structuring the society.
THE DEFINITIVE WASTE
US and European so called leaders that are only capable of producing war rhetoric crap, talk bullshit and then wipe their ass with taxpayer money and flush it all down the toilet. They are vacuous idiots not worth the air they breath. While their stupidity and arrogance results in nothing but death and destruction. They even make democracy seem like a mistake. When will humanity be rid of this toilet plague?
It’s time for the masses to flush that toilet .
We have alot of work to do to achieve these goals, both individually and as a nation. I see it only getting worse but for a great awakening. Hypocrisy reigns.
Thank you! 💐
Is that Pink up there? Well. I've never listened to her music, and at this point I think she can probably fuck off forever. More talent and dignity in a 10-year-old Palestinian kid.
It is indeed. And she just got her arse handed to her and potentially ended her career.
https://youtu.be/mqj0i54Uc6w?si=LAcCkdHuZZxjzgZp
Outstanding. Pink is the new chartreuse.
The Palestinian holocaust will determine the future course of humanity.
Yes. I believe you are correct. Loam. When all the Palestinians are dead or moved how is the west going to FEEL knowing they could have stopped this.
That's already the case so they'll feel about the same as they now do.
Not only the West, but also other nations, such as India, will bear the blame.
Exactly and we need to act on these values individually, within our family, communities and support efforts by others who have the same love for Mother Earth and all creatures great and small - well almost all. I have no desire to harm a skunk, but I do not want to run into one - ditto porcupine or a snapping turtle or any other number of animals, insects or sea creatures, but I do not want to harm them either. I also do not want to harm other human beings and have no intention of doing so. I suspect I am typical of the vast majority of other humans who are trying to work and care for themselves, their family, friends, Co-workers, neighbors, and as much as possible, the rest of the World and our environment, from the air and water to the plants, trees and soil.
The kind of change you are talking about, Caitlin is not going to happen slowly or organically...it is going to take an explosion from the part of the population that wants to live in a peaceful State actually governed by the people...Which means the US will break up, with those that prefer the current corrupt tyranny separating from those who abhor it....
Nah. It's a lot easier to get anti-genocide candidates elected. A repeat of 1860. I'd like to see the D old guard swept away like the Whigs. It’s a very similar situation. Besides, if the USA broke up the resulting nations would continually be at war with one another.
BS
Pleased to meet you Mr. BS.
One way to avoid the current realities is to make unsupported predictions about the future: just you wait and see. Even Marx foresaw that revolution could be peaceful in his 1872 speech, using the system of elections and legislation to put the workers in power with democratic rule. That option has opened up today. Ignoring it to project future certainties is what Marx called "dangerous and lethal."
"Our society isn’t what it pretends to be."
I suppose it's no surprise then that marketing figures so prominently in it.
Marketing is the main expertise that the USA still possesses. It's no coincidence that Mr Trump is the first salesman to become President. Their wars consist in "selling" defeat to the opposition. They have done a great job at selling defeat to USA liberals, who until recently have completely given in to learned helplessness and the lesser evil logic.
It appears to me that the tide has turned. Expect rapid changes, with at most ten years being the time frame. 2034 here we come.
Marketing my ass. It’s called propaganda.
Yeah, 'cept you can't call it that in the course catalogs.
"Marketing is the main expertise that the USA still possesses."
I believe it all started with Edward Bernays, nephew of Freud.
"It's no coincidence that Mr Trump is the first salesman to become President."
Well, of course there was Reagan before him...
Oops, forgot about him. Death Valley Days! Every time I looked at him I thought of Twenty Mule Team Borax. Well, he was an actor first and a salesman second. Most presidents are salesmen for The System, but Mr T is 100% salesman. It is the only ability he has. He is remarkably good at it.
I didn't care much for Mr. Reagan's policies but he did have integrity. He did what he said he was going to do. He was an honest man. Except of course for selling arms to an enemy nation in order to rig his election.
In my opinion marketing began with the Mitsui family of Nihon in about 1680. They invented the department store and modern style advertising. Their business is still going strong, and their advertising remains popular as classic art.
Also pitched for GE. As to integrity, yeah, Iran-Contra kinda negates that notion, but overall he was sincere in his beliefs of his fictions, can't argue with that.
Caitlin — I share a lot of the anger, disgust, and effrontery with the U.S./Western Empire that you express here (as you likely know by now). Especially watching what's happening in Gaza (and the rest of the world) right now, "empire of frauds" seems apt to me.
But your article got me stuck on a question I don't have an answer to, and I'm curious whether you do. You write that we're "as incongruent with our theoretical values as any civilization could possibly be" — and I keep turning that over. Every empire I can think of — Rome, the Ottomans, Qing China, the USSR, Imperial Japan — told itself a story where its domination was earned or moral, not just imposed, while its actual conduct violated that story badly. So when you say "Western civilization" specifically has this fraudulence, I can't tell if you mean something structural (this is just what empire does, and the West is the current example) or something about magnitude (the West's version of this gap is worse than the others). Those feel like different claims to me, and I don't know which one you're making, or how I'd even measure/judge it for myself.
What I've realized/learned about Empires is that - every sufficiently large and powerful political entity in history has this gap between "humanitarian values and actual conduct" — because stating high-minded legitimating values while pursuing power and material interest through coercive means is close to a structural feature of how large states maintain domestic and international legitimacy, not a peculiarly Western pathology.
I'd likely be one of the last people to defend the U.S./Western Empire, or any empire for that matter. But looking across the long arc of history, I genuinely don't know where to place it on that spectrum relative to others. Part of what makes this hard for me is I'm not even sure how to define "Western civilization" in the current context — the current US-led order specifically, or something continuous going back centuries? The comparison looks different depending on which one I mean.
So while I loathe and abhor the current U.S./Western Empire, I'm not entirely sure how to morally, emotionally, and structurally evaluate and compare it to empires of the past.
None of this is to deny that the current U.S. Empire needs to be drastically altered or reconfigured, capitalism included. But in our present globalized world, I'm having trouble identifying the boundaries between the impacts of Western civilization/empire specifically, and those of the global system of capitalism more broadly — is it "the West" doing this, or is "the West" just where global capital currently happens to be centered?
I continue to ponder this (and am not sure if I'll ever be able to resolve this for myself)...
Chang, You keep on insisting on looking at the bigger picture, at the sweep of history and comparing and contrasting which empire is worse than the other. Well and good. That is the stuff of history books and political scientists, although we do need them to inform us. Or disinform us.
But the big but here is what Caitlin and most of us on these pages are concerned with. It is the present American empire and its vassal states. Their exploitation and the extraction of resources ( once again ), the planting of the empire's client states ( such as Israel )in the midst of continents to destabilise. The never ending wars, a corrupt, lying, cheating ruling class, the inhuman oligarchs, and the western compliant media. Added to all this a live-streamed genocide, the Palestinians' misery, terror, starvation ignored. Capitalism's excesses beyond limits. This is what we are concerned with, not empires past.
The more corrupt, more greedy, more violent, more uncaring the ruling class becomes, the environment become toxic and the subjects follow. That is our main concern here.
[Indu, in addition to the following reply, see my comment to Joseph here -> https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/western-civilization-is-a-phony-pop/comment/336414487 on WHY it is important to suss out and examine the relationships/comparison parameters involved].
Indu, nothing in my original question was meant to relativize or minimize what's happening right now. Gaza doesn't need a history lecture to be condemned. Nothing about comparing empires makes the present less urgent, and I don't think I implied otherwise.
But here's the ISSUE with your "this is what we're concerned with, not empires past" — because I think you're smuggling in a comparative framework already, just an unexamined one.
You describe this ruling class as "more corrupt, more greedy, more violent, more uncaring" than what came before. That's a comparative claim. I'm not asking you to start comparing — I'm asking you to make the comparison honest instead of assumed. And when I look at how that comparison usually gets made in these spaces, it's rarely class-based. It's geographic: US/West bad, Russia/China/"Global South" good or at least lesser-evil, by virtue of standing against American power. That's not a materialist analysis. That's civilizational or bloc identity doing the work class analysis is supposed to do.
Here's my worry: when critique of empire becomes critique of the US specifically, without a comparative standard behind it, it becomes very easy — not inevitable, but easy — to treat whoever opposes or rivals US power as therefore less bad, or even good, by default. I see this pattern often enough in anti-imperialist spaces (like Caitlin's substack for example) that I don't think it's rare. In a sense, I'm calling this tendency out here.
Quite a few anti-imperialists (and leftists) sometimes get sucked into the logic that criticizing anti-US Empire elements (like Russia, China, etc.) somehow lets the US off the hook, or that they're lesser evils because they're rivals to American power. That's the actual black-and-white trap I'm worried about — not "history says empires are all the same, so who cares," but "the enemy of my enemy gets a pass." A comparative standard is what keeps that from happening, because it judges each power on its own conduct rather than on its position relative to the US.
A real anti-imperialist standard doesn't ask which flag a ruling class flies. It asks who extracts, who exploits, who represses labor and dissent, who wages wars of domination — and holds all of them to that standard, whether the state doing it postures as capitalist, socialist, or "anti-Western." The behavior of China/Russia/India/etc. (in this context) doesn't becomes lesser evil simply because the perpetrator opposes the US. If it does become lesser evil in the analysis, the analysis has quietly swapped class for geography as its actual organizing principle — which is the same move liberal nationalism makes, just with the flags reversed.
This isn't a call to go easier on the US empire (you know where I stand on that) — it's the opposite. A critique that holds every power to the same material standard is harder to dismiss and harder to co-opt than one that reduces to "whoever isn't the US, is on our side." The latter isn't internationalism. It's just inverted nationalism.
Chang, thank you. Your erudite comment is much appreciated. I understand how you could be impatient with (and perceive my comment as) concerning myself only with empathy. Specially, as I know that you are no Elon Musk wanting to save Western civilisation from empathy.
I think both our versions are right - as your version has validity, so does mine. Dealing with your second point ,"... it becomes very easy — not inevitable, but easy — to treat whoever opposes or rivals US power as therefore less bad, or even good, by default", I regard China and Russia and to a lesser extent Iran as the only alternative and a more ethical one to a declining US empire. And BRICS might give global south countries/people a chance to a better future. Unless global warming ( not their fault ) and AI get them first.
Who knows what the future holds... . Human kind may all go down with a rampaging western empire or the worlds' oppressed might get the chance to rise up and a create a world revolution.
Indu — I need to say something about the way you keep responding to me in your last two replies — the rhetorical moves you keep leaning on — because it's really bothering me.
You write - "Your erudite comment is much appreciated" — and then go straight into "impatient," "concerning myself only with empathy." What does that have to do with anything I actually said? And then the Elon Musk line — what the hell does that have to do with my argument? You compliment the comment and then immediately start making assumptions about my mood and lumping me in with the "save Western civilization from empathy" crowd. I never said or implied anything like that. That's an underhanded move, whether you intended it that way or not.
Then you say - "I think both our versions are right — yours has validity, so does mine." That's a false equivalence. You state it and never back it up — there's no reasoning given for HOW both versions are right, no justification at all. It's just asserted. And in the very same breath you go on to say China, Russia, and Iran are "the only alternative and a more ethical one" to a declining US empire. That's not both of us being right. That's you taking a side and calling it balance.
And going back to your first reply — "the big but here is what Caitlin and most of us on these pages are concerned with" — that one bothers me just as much. It's not a response to what I asked, it's a way of not responding to it. "Most of us" turns a disagreement about whether I'm right into a headcount, like the question gets settled by who's in the room instead of by the actual argument. And "what we're concerned with" quietly swaps "your point is wrong" for "your point isn't welcome here." That's a slimy move, Indu, and I think you know it.
None of this has actually answered what I said: that opposing the US doesn't automatically make you the good guy. What's at issue is that twice in one short comment, you turned a disagreement about consistency into something about my character, my mood, or my motives — and never once engaged my actual claim, which is - 'a standard which grants automatic ethical credit to whoever opposes the US isn't a consistent standard'. If you think that's wrong, make the case. Don't tell me who I remind you of. Don't tell me we're both right when your own comment shows you don't believe that.
I think it is both, and there is the white supremacist component interwoven in each as well
The 'white supremacist' component FURTHER complicates all this...so many variables and relationships to consider...
It does make me want to dissect "capital accumulation" down to its cellular spiritual level. Is it what all former teachers have warned us not to play with--the apple in the Garden of Eden/suffering defined by the Buddha etc./taking more than you need to live by the early native animists? I don't know either, Chang but it is a gift that we even think about it, because most do not bother
Yeah, what I find interesting/worth-researching further about this is the relationship of the political economy of Capitalism to a critique of the U.S./Western Empire. How much of the West in 'unique' to it being 'the West' and how much of it is due to the 'system of Capitalism'? i.e. is the West what it is because of some inherent differences (civilizational/cultural/geographic/historical-contingent) that's specific to 'the West' as an entity OR is it more likely due to the way Capitalism evolved? If we were to create a Venn Diagram of what makes the West 'the West', what kind of intersections would there be with other factors (such as Capitalism, for instance)?
The reason this matters (more than others think that it does, IMHO) is that if most of what I/others find objectionable about "Western civilization" turns out to be explainable by capitalism as a system, then "the West" isn't really the right unit of moral analysis at all - Capitalism is, and the West is just capitalism's historically first and currently most powerful host. This would change/impact how an anti-imperialist (and anti-Capitalist) would/should think about "the West".
Keep me posted on what you discover in this perhaps important field of political anthropology. My gut says its an independent force of culture and can surface anywhere. How it flourishes(and surfaces), is your quest. Is it the synergy of power and greed? Is it easy access to "natural capital" resources? Competition? Outside independent variables? I compliment and encourage you for seek! The only thing I can add is that I lived in a tribal society in SE Asia for 2.5 years and did not see it there. I empirically concluded it was learned behavior. That was the early 80's and my socialist curiosity(bias) was looking for it. Afterall, it is the "holy grail" for those of us sick and tired of capitalism and its empty promises.
Such an apt analogy. And our western societies produce so many phonies.
There is no such thing as Western Civilization; it is a concept that masks a battle ground and the proof of that is the violence between Western nations.....WWII?
We are not Western Civiization, not the violence, not the lack of integrity, based on opposing the violence of the European-based nations. We are free to decouple our idenity and our lives from nationalism, patriotism, all that bullshit. We are free to identify and live as citizens of the world.
It is not just this facade of Western Civilization; civilization itself is based on replacing the shared commons of equality with private property and the resulting conflicting world of haves and have-nots. We are free to reject the concept of a monolith culture and take up the struggles of the have nots not to replace the haves but to replace a concept of civilization based on the divisive concept of private property and its effects of inequality, hierarchy, centralized top down rule, religion, and war, all invented together to cement the power of the haves. We are free to rejec that and work for a world of reclaiming the shared commons during which for 300,000 yrs there was no lethal group conflict. We are free to rebel and work to replace the world of violence, which is not only Western civilization but all civiizations, and create a world free of inequality and thus free of the motives for crime and war. In that rebellion, we reclaim our own integrity as a process of working together to dismantle the existing concept of civilization and create a new one of shared prosperity among equals. And only in that freedom will we find others who are also in rebellion and thus feel the existential freedom to be ourselves, which is only possible with those we trust, with those who share our rejection of a world of haves and have-nots and the desire to reclaim oru evolutionary legacy as equals sharing the world as comrades.
Gandhi said it would be a wonderful idea.
Government is a retarded organization of goofball idiots. IGNORE THEM ALL and find your own life, happiness, peace and prosperity. You do not have to participate in all this nonsense.
Or as Marx said in 1872, not participating in politics is "dangerous and lethal." Two years before, a wise American said: "“The punishment which the wise suffer who refuse to take part in the government, is, to live under the government of worse men” (noted by Ralph Waldo Emerson in 1870)
I absolutely agree, Caitlin. The root cause is structural: it stems from competition. We live in a dualistic way. Just as good and evil coexist within each of us, so too do emotions, feelings, and the need to adapt to our environment. And so, on one side there is love, and on the other, money. To bring about change, we must necessarily change how money is managed.
Break up the big trusts and raise corporate taxes.
Break up ALL Bond and Trust markets, and *criminalize* all forms of corporate syndication and franchise. The corporate system is the invisible "god" no one ever sees, yet they believe corporate bullshit will save them...