Listen to a reading of this article: During the furor over Nancy Pelosi's incendiary Taiwan visit last week, I was watching an appearance by Antiwar's Dave DeCamp on the show Rising which brought up the under-discussed point that US officials going to Taipei is actually a continuation of a trend that had already been happening under the Trump administration.
Caitlin expressed exactly what I've maintained for a long time. Illusion of freedom that rules over the western population makes them fun to observe but also is the cause of great concern as they are essentially the enablers of the empire's deeds.
To any prospective challenger - when you tell me you're freer than someone in China or Russia I expect you to enumerate those "freedoms", especially the ones that matter, and specifically the one that empowers you to influence your rulers. I don't care to hear about one that allows you to show your naked butt during pride parades. Monkeys have those freedoms for free.
What are you talking about? You want me to “enumerate” my American freedoms? Well here’s just a partial list, Russian.
- My American government ensures I’m free to vote in any election, so long as it’s for a Democrat or Republican (and those mail-in ballots and unhackable voting machines make it so easy).
- Here in the U.S.A, the First Amendment protects my absolute right to free speech. (It’s the big tech corporations not the government that deplatformed me, deleted my posts, and seized my accounts, so that's not the government's fault).
- Sure, I’m no longer free to walk into the Capitol building and visit my senator (unless I'm delivering a campaign donation), but hey, that’s because of the coup by Trump and a tattooed shaman. Besides, I don’t need to visit my senator because I’m totally free to send her a note—you should see the fine collection of form-letter responses I get in return.
- And here’s something they don’t let you do in Russia: I’m totally free to go demonstrate for what I believe in (so long as I purchase all the necessary permits and stay in the designated “demonstration zone” and am courteous to the armored police who are there to protect me).
- Finally--and this may be the greatest American freedom of all--I am totally free to protect freedom and democracy everywhere in the entire world! We Americans were totally free to send $54 billion to President Zelensky (and his good friends and our defense contractors) to defeat Pitler and to support the most democratic and uncorrupt country in Eastern Europe where there are no nazis in that totally unprovoked invasion by war criminals, because we Americans know we need to fight them (you) over there so we don’t have to fight them (you) over here.
What you describe can be summarized as the "Deep State".
Every winning candidate since arguably Bush 1.0 (“Kinder, gentler America”) has run for office as a non-interventionist, and then morphed into John McCain immediately upon taking the Oath of Office. Not only that, but each president has arguably been a more reckless imperialist than his predecessor.
I don’t pretend to know how the process works, or even if it is the same for every president, but the results speak for themselves. I suspect without any real evidence that what actually happens isn't a fat bribe or being locked in a room.and forced to watch the Zapruder Film over and over in a continuous loop. Rather, it is much more prosaic, like something out of "Yes, Minister".
Hell, look at Obama, who was elected in large part on a platform of ending the stupid wars. He not only failed to end a single war, he gave us a bunch of new and stupider ones.
And then there's Trump. He was arguably an even more explicit non-interventionist than 2008 Obama, and he also hasn't ended anything and has brought us into new conflicts in Venezuela and Niger, as well as expanded our wars on Ukraine and Yemen.
About Biden’s slavish take, the less said, the better.
TL:DR: unless and until the Deep State is eradicated root and branch, it matters not who is elected.
Permanent State is more appropriate, sometimes they are even quite shallow. It was set up by a soft coop run by the monied interest which had bought up all of the war debt of the new US government. The procedures to establish the new Constitution violated the procedures set out in Articles of Confederation, and even the procedures for amending the constitution itself. The coop had to have all sorts of force of violence by the same behind it, sometimes as primitive as hitting people with bags of gold, to get it going. Madison, et al, wrote it all right out in the open, mafia style. Again it's all shallow, nothing deep at all. I guess this nation of shallow people find reading is too deep, or they use the words to cover their embarrassment.
Charles A. Beard's "An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States"
It's been obvious for some time - if not forever -that the Democratic and Republican parties have always supported each other and their common donor base on key matters - war- internationally, and domestically, keeping the minimum wage and social programs at a minimum. They're Siamese twins joined at the hip, but wear different colour booties, red or blue, -just to keep the populace hopeful and confused. The inanities coming out of their mouths are staggering: Pelosi offered up as a sign of unbiased good will, that as a child playing with children, they'd dig holes in the sand and say they were making roads to China, or some such absurd malapropism. This she said gave her a feeling of kinship with China. What can you say? China is used to this US shit, and they have a keen sense of humour, but what does it say about the West? About us?
Yep, pelosi’s sandbox analogy is so crass being buried in the sandbox is where it and US policy belongs permanently. These people excel at nothing and absolutely fail as public servants. They couldn’t negotiate their way out of wet paper bags. Politics is the art of compromise and negotiation. We all are born to utilise these skills. What does this say about these losers?
Compromise and negotiation have gone AWOL in the American and Western book. I don't believe they're even in the lexicon anymore. But that is hurting no one but ourselves in the long run, which is now the short run.
Yes, certainly at the government, corporate, and institutional level and too prevalent in society at large. But rather than beating ourselves up as Americans (which hurts us too) we must develop ways of being the changes we want to see. Most of us are all able politicians and great negotiators. We need to put this in action in our own lives, locally, nationally and internationally as effective citizens. We are the true wealth and power. To see it otherwise and act on it is self-defeating.
Russians have fun too but also are exasperated seeing how deaf and blind the so called free western society is. That it is impossible to get through since no one makes the slightest effort to listen, let alone cooperate.
"It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning."
You're so right. There's no freedom anywhere, but in the US the presidents are just actors, they want us to think they're idiots but they know exactly what they are doing. It's by design it's all a performance and they're all in on it for profit. It's a psychological game they play with our minds. It's clear to me that it's very wealthy men running the military for profit and everyone else in government is just there to keep us arguing & battling with each other. No one really knows who they are but I am pretty sure that it's a very small group really running things around the world. They want us focused on specific people as if they weren't all a part of the sham. It's one great big act, and they got most of humanity fooled into giving their power away.
Then people wonder why I've never voted nor ever will. Because the entire system is a charade and a huge farce. It was Bob Woodward who said you know 1% of what goes on in Washington. Tony Blair spent $10,000 to run for PM need we really say more about the Clown Factory in the DC? And lets not forget Bill Clintons statement about Obama being the greatest fairy tale ever told. All so very true. His entire existence is a sham just like Washington.
That seems to be roughly were we're at now. Political leaders still have power over government but we've substituted charismatic competition (how much we like someone) for competition over ideas and competence. The things/ideas our politicians argue about most of the time are immaterial to the corporations and the security/war bureaucracies.
"The things/ideas our politicians argue about most of the time are" .. the material, the fabric our gigilo undresses in to deceive the Johns (and Janes). They are the frision to stimulate the dupes to pay and pay, to enrich the pimp. They are a masterful part of the play.
Has BJG joined Rising? If so, is it now worth watching between her and Iversen, and notwithstanding Ryan Grim? (Edit: Never mind, I just looked at YouTube and saw that The Grayzone was in the middle of a livestream with Kim Iversen "...on leaving The Hill, defying corporate media censorship", so I guess it's probably not worth it.)
Also wondering if there's a piece in the works about Dick Cheney doing a campaign ad for his daughter, describing Donald Trump as the greatest threat to American democracy ever and praising Liz for trying to make sure he's never president again. Don't be so modest, Dick; you not only threatened, but actually damaged, American democracy (such as it is) WAY more than Trump. You deserve that top spot much more than him.
Yes, well I quite agree. Democracy is a sick joke.
It may be that in principle the ability we in the West have to hire and fire our "masters" every few years is a liberating one - at least to a degree. We can kid ourselves that for one day in every 4 to 5 years we escape from the unremitting powerlessness that dominates our existence.
But as you say these people we elect have only partial control over what happens in our lives. Their constituency is no longer the people (if it ever was) but the powerful vested interests, lobby groups and corporations who seduce and manipulate them.
A more pertinent question may be not who is in charge, but is there anyone in charge? There are so many people these days pointing fingers at people and organisations they hold responsible, but I'm quite often never quite convinced.
For sure, the "security" services are influential, also the MIC. They are very high on my list of unelected but powerful organisations whose (sadistic) interests predominate. But many point fingers at the WEF. Some blame the bankers. Many look at the WHO and Bill Gates. George Soros. NATO. Big Pharma. Big Oil.
The list is seemingly endless. Joe and Josie Public don't get a look in. But is there anyone in overall charge?
I don't think there is anyone or any particular group in charge.
The Deep State exists, but it is an organic collection of symbiotic organisms (institutions) that has evolved and continues to mutate. The elements jostle to retain and expand their respective positions, but they rapidly come together when confronted with perceived external threats.
I'd add to your list various governmental agencies and collections of academics, including some both in the humanities and the sciences.
You're very close. The best analogy I've come across is that civilization is a vast and deep river. All of us are grinding along at the bottom, a very few of us are surfing on the surface, precariously. None of us have control over where the river is going, the speed and flow and direction of the internal currents. None of us have knowledge of how the system as a whole works, and have very few, if any, levers or surfaces of local control. The powerful elites have more control and knowledge than the working classes, poor, and plebs do, and, of course, use it to their own advantages. But nobody controls or understands the system. The system effects the entire world, to our own destruction, but we all live at the mercy of the system. The system is emergent and directionless, it is instantiated and reified by us all, but is not controlled by us. We are created to reify and instantiate the system, by the system, for its own ends. And it doesn't have any ends save directionless amoral existence and expansion. That system is "civilization". We can blame the arms industries, bankers, billionaires, creepy government spooks, politicians, celebrities, capitalism etc. But they are just the fancier ants. The system is everywhere and everything. We cannot even imagine living without the system.
There must be minions of the Empire seeking ways to silence MOA and the millions of other truth-lovers like me. Great forces scuttling about the underworld.
Ex-Austrian FM Karin Kneissl to RT: There is more freedom of speech in Lebanon than in Europe
While first in France she said:
"“I had umpteen death threats in Austria, but also here. Death threats from Austria and Germany have reached the prefecture here. Mostly in e-mails, but things were also thrown into my mailbox in Austria. And none of that was done taken seriously.”
And Kneissl lists some of them:
“The Russian sow must hang! You Putin whore! You should be slashed open and buried alive!”
Strange that neither in Austria nor at the new place of refuge in France do the authorities want to take action against the perpetrators of these threats. There is also no public support for the former Foreign Minister from society, who sums it up:
“When I’m threatened to burn down the cabin, it reminds me of Chicago in the 1930s.”
This is your best article ever! I appreciate you telling it like it is. There's no need to maintain the "farce of freedom" that is perpetuated in the West any longer.
I often feel like an alien from a '50s Sci-fi B-movie: "Take me to your leader--your REAL leader!"
I had the same discussion with a buddy who is kind of a gun nut. I support his gun ownership by the way.
He figures he could protect his land I say they wont fight you. They will simply drone you or robot dog your ass. And you wont even know who gave the order. It could be neighbor, a health official, a mayor and you dont even know.
No matter how many guns you have or how many bullets. You need a 7.5 billion person protest. That will work.
Even the idea that an American can own guns and that's a Great Freedom (Saint 2nd Amendment) is a farce. "I have guns so I'll fight the govt along with my fellow Americans" - yeah right. In the meantime get your voting pamphlet from the mailbox and get ready to go vote for some jerk. Also, don't forget to pay taxes and all those bills. Also, ...
One can think of that "gun ban" campaign as another great distraction. Along with abortion etc.
> "You can study it your whole life and at best you'll come away with a list of opaque government agencies..."
Some people have studied it for much less a whole life and came away with a lot more than that.
For example, Michael Hudson, whose Super Imperialism which is in print since 1972 and now in its 3rd edition because it's so good that the bureaucracy in question uses it as a training manual, despite that Hudson is a good and true Marxist.
Or, on the younger side, try Aaron Good, author of American Exception, Empire and the Deep State.
It's not so hard to see through. People manage it all the time. But it's a minority and those who try to educate others are kept marginal so they don't affect popular consent of the empire's citizens.
Caitlin expressed exactly what I've maintained for a long time. Illusion of freedom that rules over the western population makes them fun to observe but also is the cause of great concern as they are essentially the enablers of the empire's deeds.
To any prospective challenger - when you tell me you're freer than someone in China or Russia I expect you to enumerate those "freedoms", especially the ones that matter, and specifically the one that empowers you to influence your rulers. I don't care to hear about one that allows you to show your naked butt during pride parades. Monkeys have those freedoms for free.
What are you talking about? You want me to “enumerate” my American freedoms? Well here’s just a partial list, Russian.
- My American government ensures I’m free to vote in any election, so long as it’s for a Democrat or Republican (and those mail-in ballots and unhackable voting machines make it so easy).
- Here in the U.S.A, the First Amendment protects my absolute right to free speech. (It’s the big tech corporations not the government that deplatformed me, deleted my posts, and seized my accounts, so that's not the government's fault).
- Sure, I’m no longer free to walk into the Capitol building and visit my senator (unless I'm delivering a campaign donation), but hey, that’s because of the coup by Trump and a tattooed shaman. Besides, I don’t need to visit my senator because I’m totally free to send her a note—you should see the fine collection of form-letter responses I get in return.
- And here’s something they don’t let you do in Russia: I’m totally free to go demonstrate for what I believe in (so long as I purchase all the necessary permits and stay in the designated “demonstration zone” and am courteous to the armored police who are there to protect me).
- Finally--and this may be the greatest American freedom of all--I am totally free to protect freedom and democracy everywhere in the entire world! We Americans were totally free to send $54 billion to President Zelensky (and his good friends and our defense contractors) to defeat Pitler and to support the most democratic and uncorrupt country in Eastern Europe where there are no nazis in that totally unprovoked invasion by war criminals, because we Americans know we need to fight them (you) over there so we don’t have to fight them (you) over here.
So, Russian, enumerate that!
Crushed! And to think that's just a partial list 😳
What you describe can be summarized as the "Deep State".
Every winning candidate since arguably Bush 1.0 (“Kinder, gentler America”) has run for office as a non-interventionist, and then morphed into John McCain immediately upon taking the Oath of Office. Not only that, but each president has arguably been a more reckless imperialist than his predecessor.
I don’t pretend to know how the process works, or even if it is the same for every president, but the results speak for themselves. I suspect without any real evidence that what actually happens isn't a fat bribe or being locked in a room.and forced to watch the Zapruder Film over and over in a continuous loop. Rather, it is much more prosaic, like something out of "Yes, Minister".
Hell, look at Obama, who was elected in large part on a platform of ending the stupid wars. He not only failed to end a single war, he gave us a bunch of new and stupider ones.
And then there's Trump. He was arguably an even more explicit non-interventionist than 2008 Obama, and he also hasn't ended anything and has brought us into new conflicts in Venezuela and Niger, as well as expanded our wars on Ukraine and Yemen.
About Biden’s slavish take, the less said, the better.
TL:DR: unless and until the Deep State is eradicated root and branch, it matters not who is elected.
Permanent State is more appropriate, sometimes they are even quite shallow. It was set up by a soft coop run by the monied interest which had bought up all of the war debt of the new US government. The procedures to establish the new Constitution violated the procedures set out in Articles of Confederation, and even the procedures for amending the constitution itself. The coop had to have all sorts of force of violence by the same behind it, sometimes as primitive as hitting people with bags of gold, to get it going. Madison, et al, wrote it all right out in the open, mafia style. Again it's all shallow, nothing deep at all. I guess this nation of shallow people find reading is too deep, or they use the words to cover their embarrassment.
Charles A. Beard's "An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States"
Love Moon of Alabama! Often gets the scoop on new and pertinent info.
It's been obvious for some time - if not forever -that the Democratic and Republican parties have always supported each other and their common donor base on key matters - war- internationally, and domestically, keeping the minimum wage and social programs at a minimum. They're Siamese twins joined at the hip, but wear different colour booties, red or blue, -just to keep the populace hopeful and confused. The inanities coming out of their mouths are staggering: Pelosi offered up as a sign of unbiased good will, that as a child playing with children, they'd dig holes in the sand and say they were making roads to China, or some such absurd malapropism. This she said gave her a feeling of kinship with China. What can you say? China is used to this US shit, and they have a keen sense of humour, but what does it say about the West? About us?
Yep, pelosi’s sandbox analogy is so crass being buried in the sandbox is where it and US policy belongs permanently. These people excel at nothing and absolutely fail as public servants. They couldn’t negotiate their way out of wet paper bags. Politics is the art of compromise and negotiation. We all are born to utilise these skills. What does this say about these losers?
Compromise and negotiation have gone AWOL in the American and Western book. I don't believe they're even in the lexicon anymore. But that is hurting no one but ourselves in the long run, which is now the short run.
Yes, certainly at the government, corporate, and institutional level and too prevalent in society at large. But rather than beating ourselves up as Americans (which hurts us too) we must develop ways of being the changes we want to see. Most of us are all able politicians and great negotiators. We need to put this in action in our own lives, locally, nationally and internationally as effective citizens. We are the true wealth and power. To see it otherwise and act on it is self-defeating.
Russians have fun too but also are exasperated seeing how deaf and blind the so called free western society is. That it is impossible to get through since no one makes the slightest effort to listen, let alone cooperate.
Those that create the money make the rules
"It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning."
- Henry Ford
You're so right. There's no freedom anywhere, but in the US the presidents are just actors, they want us to think they're idiots but they know exactly what they are doing. It's by design it's all a performance and they're all in on it for profit. It's a psychological game they play with our minds. It's clear to me that it's very wealthy men running the military for profit and everyone else in government is just there to keep us arguing & battling with each other. No one really knows who they are but I am pretty sure that it's a very small group really running things around the world. They want us focused on specific people as if they weren't all a part of the sham. It's one great big act, and they got most of humanity fooled into giving their power away.
Then people wonder why I've never voted nor ever will. Because the entire system is a charade and a huge farce. It was Bob Woodward who said you know 1% of what goes on in Washington. Tony Blair spent $10,000 to run for PM need we really say more about the Clown Factory in the DC? And lets not forget Bill Clintons statement about Obama being the greatest fairy tale ever told. All so very true. His entire existence is a sham just like Washington.
That bureaucracy that Putin refers to is the deep state, the thing some weirdos claim doesn't exist.
Permanent State: elections are just about changing the clothing, like the latest Paris fashion. It's still a centuries old gigilo under the clothing.
That seems to be roughly were we're at now. Political leaders still have power over government but we've substituted charismatic competition (how much we like someone) for competition over ideas and competence. The things/ideas our politicians argue about most of the time are immaterial to the corporations and the security/war bureaucracies.
"The things/ideas our politicians argue about most of the time are" .. the material, the fabric our gigilo undresses in to deceive the Johns (and Janes). They are the frision to stimulate the dupes to pay and pay, to enrich the pimp. They are a masterful part of the play.
Had to read that over slowly but, finally, ... yes they are.
Has BJG joined Rising? If so, is it now worth watching between her and Iversen, and notwithstanding Ryan Grim? (Edit: Never mind, I just looked at YouTube and saw that The Grayzone was in the middle of a livestream with Kim Iversen "...on leaving The Hill, defying corporate media censorship", so I guess it's probably not worth it.)
Also wondering if there's a piece in the works about Dick Cheney doing a campaign ad for his daughter, describing Donald Trump as the greatest threat to American democracy ever and praising Liz for trying to make sure he's never president again. Don't be so modest, Dick; you not only threatened, but actually damaged, American democracy (such as it is) WAY more than Trump. You deserve that top spot much more than him.
Yes, well I quite agree. Democracy is a sick joke.
It may be that in principle the ability we in the West have to hire and fire our "masters" every few years is a liberating one - at least to a degree. We can kid ourselves that for one day in every 4 to 5 years we escape from the unremitting powerlessness that dominates our existence.
But as you say these people we elect have only partial control over what happens in our lives. Their constituency is no longer the people (if it ever was) but the powerful vested interests, lobby groups and corporations who seduce and manipulate them.
A more pertinent question may be not who is in charge, but is there anyone in charge? There are so many people these days pointing fingers at people and organisations they hold responsible, but I'm quite often never quite convinced.
For sure, the "security" services are influential, also the MIC. They are very high on my list of unelected but powerful organisations whose (sadistic) interests predominate. But many point fingers at the WEF. Some blame the bankers. Many look at the WHO and Bill Gates. George Soros. NATO. Big Pharma. Big Oil.
The list is seemingly endless. Joe and Josie Public don't get a look in. But is there anyone in overall charge?
I don't think there is anyone or any particular group in charge.
The Deep State exists, but it is an organic collection of symbiotic organisms (institutions) that has evolved and continues to mutate. The elements jostle to retain and expand their respective positions, but they rapidly come together when confronted with perceived external threats.
I'd add to your list various governmental agencies and collections of academics, including some both in the humanities and the sciences.
You're very close. The best analogy I've come across is that civilization is a vast and deep river. All of us are grinding along at the bottom, a very few of us are surfing on the surface, precariously. None of us have control over where the river is going, the speed and flow and direction of the internal currents. None of us have knowledge of how the system as a whole works, and have very few, if any, levers or surfaces of local control. The powerful elites have more control and knowledge than the working classes, poor, and plebs do, and, of course, use it to their own advantages. But nobody controls or understands the system. The system effects the entire world, to our own destruction, but we all live at the mercy of the system. The system is emergent and directionless, it is instantiated and reified by us all, but is not controlled by us. We are created to reify and instantiate the system, by the system, for its own ends. And it doesn't have any ends save directionless amoral existence and expansion. That system is "civilization". We can blame the arms industries, bankers, billionaires, creepy government spooks, politicians, celebrities, capitalism etc. But they are just the fancier ants. The system is everywhere and everything. We cannot even imagine living without the system.
Exactly right once again Caitin.
There must be minions of the Empire seeking ways to silence MOA and the millions of other truth-lovers like me. Great forces scuttling about the underworld.
There are. Start with burying MoA and many others in search engine results, then add in MSM smear campaigns like "PropOrNot".
I think its the kangaroos who are in charge. Why else would they be so bouncy?
No, the roos would do a much better job!
Here's an example of "freedom" in the west:
Ex-Austrian FM Karin Kneissl to RT: There is more freedom of speech in Lebanon than in Europe
While first in France she said:
"“I had umpteen death threats in Austria, but also here. Death threats from Austria and Germany have reached the prefecture here. Mostly in e-mails, but things were also thrown into my mailbox in Austria. And none of that was done taken seriously.”
And Kneissl lists some of them:
“The Russian sow must hang! You Putin whore! You should be slashed open and buried alive!”
Strange that neither in Austria nor at the new place of refuge in France do the authorities want to take action against the perpetrators of these threats. There is also no public support for the former Foreign Minister from society, who sums it up:
“When I’m threatened to burn down the cabin, it reminds me of Chicago in the 1930s.”
https://www.rt.com/shows/rt-interview/560184-karin-kneissl-eu-cancellation/
This is your best article ever! I appreciate you telling it like it is. There's no need to maintain the "farce of freedom" that is perpetuated in the West any longer.
I often feel like an alien from a '50s Sci-fi B-movie: "Take me to your leader--your REAL leader!"
I had the same discussion with a buddy who is kind of a gun nut. I support his gun ownership by the way.
He figures he could protect his land I say they wont fight you. They will simply drone you or robot dog your ass. And you wont even know who gave the order. It could be neighbor, a health official, a mayor and you dont even know.
No matter how many guns you have or how many bullets. You need a 7.5 billion person protest. That will work.
Even the idea that an American can own guns and that's a Great Freedom (Saint 2nd Amendment) is a farce. "I have guns so I'll fight the govt along with my fellow Americans" - yeah right. In the meantime get your voting pamphlet from the mailbox and get ready to go vote for some jerk. Also, don't forget to pay taxes and all those bills. Also, ...
One can think of that "gun ban" campaign as another great distraction. Along with abortion etc.
> "You can study it your whole life and at best you'll come away with a list of opaque government agencies..."
Some people have studied it for much less a whole life and came away with a lot more than that.
For example, Michael Hudson, whose Super Imperialism which is in print since 1972 and now in its 3rd edition because it's so good that the bureaucracy in question uses it as a training manual, despite that Hudson is a good and true Marxist.
Or, on the younger side, try Aaron Good, author of American Exception, Empire and the Deep State.
It's not so hard to see through. People manage it all the time. But it's a minority and those who try to educate others are kept marginal so they don't affect popular consent of the empire's citizens.