THE CORONAVIRUS | NEMESIS OF THE NEOCONS

Trump did nothing to loosen the grip of the neocons on America established like a vice after 9/11. In fact, until recently he had one to either side of him, Bolton and Pompeo, with another behind him, Pence. Now there is only Pompeo. Pence is more religious nutball than neocon however, though given the chance he too would tap the same kind of warmongering ‘America First, Last & Always’ types for his people if Trump were to fall victim to Covid-19.

The thing to constantly remember about Trump is that he has no geopolitical insight to call upon.

He may have some newly acquired Fox News sound-bytes to base his latest views on, but that’s about it. He appeared to have geopolitical nous and that is very definitely the operative word, ‘appeared’. Whether it was Breitbart people, Steve Bannon himself, the result of focus groups or any other entity it was very definitely decided that Trump must appear to have a world view and a clear one and equally important it must be opposite to any expressed by Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton.

You surely know Trump is not an intellectual and not a reader, it is common knowledge at this point that he gets bored with detail at briefings and instead gets his talking points from off-the-wall sources on Fox News or Twitter. You can totally discount anything Trump has said about Putin and Russia. There is nothing behind it save some shallow notion and the knowledge that neither Clinton or Obama would have said it. The man is the living example of the old saying, “Empty Vessels Make The Most Noise”.

After the exposure of the attack upon and invasion of Iraq many thought this would discredit the neocon project. Far from it. They never even flinched. The project to eliminate each and every threat to America as perceived by them was just as vital and alive as ever. Post 9/11 this was a project that COULD never end. If it ended America would be at risk from those nations not upended and transformed. Therefore there was never going to be an end that didn’t destroy all seven nations on the initial list and any others that opposed the USA in any way whatsoever.

So, now along comes Covid-19. It decimates the nations of the West, the virtual collapse of which is only just beginning. No matter how much money those states throw at the problem it won’t stop what’s coming, the decay from within, the massive and overwhelming problems that come with mass unemployment, bankruptcies, foreclosures and endless social conflicts that are set to rip the guts out of them.

Covid-19 is the only factor that has the potential to stop the neocons in their tracks. Currently, with his rising number of attacks on China for his own reasons of attention diversion Trump is also playing into the hands of the neocons who are desperate to continue their op.

The neocons see that it is now do or die. They are now firmly on the back foot. Everything has suddenly become massively more complicated for them and they have no clear road through except via Trump’s war on China.

Pompeo, the most prominent neocon since Dick Cheney is right on board and weaponizing every possible issue regarding China. Hong Kong will be used again and again, the Uighurs, Chinese spies, copyright issues, currency manipulation, student snooping. It only needs some CIA-fomented incident in Tibet to bring that issue into play once more.

For the neocons things have become complex just when they need them to be black and white... and totally simple. Good and evil. Right and wrong. Just as they were when good old George W, Bush was president. They need believable lies. They need accusations that can be made to stick if all arms of the state including corporate media can be lined up to incessantly promote them as Biblical truths.

The coronavirus pandemic will most certainly weaken the economy of the USA. However, you will surely have seen how much new money has just been poured into the Military Industrial Complex inside the new bill ostensibly to alleviate the effects of the virus. America is being geared up for war. Even though it has a larger military and military budget than almost the combined strength of all others put together trillions more are being used, not to provide Medicare for All, but Military for Ever.

Nevertheless, as the USA and UK inevitably descend to a most remarkable penury as their incompetence regarding the virus and the impossibility of dealing with it effectively due to their loathing for planning... the neocons and those desperate to keep the West top dog are going to have one helluva job maintaining their regime change agenda as time goes on.

If China and Russia increasingly strengthen their bond combining mutually protective measures... if China rises once again and gets her economy rolling toward full speed ahead... if the West hits every bump and hole in the road as I expect... if infections and fatalities reduce the USA and UK to continual economic and societal misery... then I foresee the neocons finding it impossible to see ANY pathway toward their goals.

Nothing will stop them. They may even contemplate and recommend a tactical nuclear strike, or strikes in their desperation.

But, if trends continue as they are and if there is no vaccine found any time soon and if western economies collapse past a certain tipping point... then I expect we will indeed see the coronavirus being the potentially permanent nemesis of the neocons.

CHINA CRISIS... OR REGIME CHANGE SYNDROME?

CHINA CRISIS... OR REGIME CHANGE SYNDROME?

It’s like a cross between a shooting gallery and a merry-go round.

It’s the habitual game of western elites. Keeping the world in enough chaos to maintain them in control. Keep firing at the targets as they come round, get everyone off guard and confused by the spin, never let a good crisis go to waste.

Russia is of course a perpetual target.

For a while Syria is in the West’s cross hairs.

Then it’s Iran’s turn.

Round and round the targets go...

Currently it’s China that western elites are desperate to hit.

Communist China has been playing the capitalism game better than its western proponents. This is not seen as fair by western elites. This is not playing the game at all. It’s simply not cricket!

Or baseball...

The USA has been partially taken over by China. An array of mega-corporations and luxurious homes have been bought by the excess capital the world’s most successful economy has generated for itself. Meanwhile it has lifted tens of millions of its own citizens out of poverty over the last few decades.

According to the late, great USA this absolutely should not be allowed. Commies are supposed to be impoverished, hopeless at all things treasured in the West, wailing for a cavalry contingent of saintly westerners to come over the hill, free them and bring them democracy.

The Chinese in fact say, “Thanks but no thanks, we’re doing fine. How about you, need our help again?”

For this is the sorry truth for western elites, it was Chinese money that saved them from a complete collapse of their economies due to the ravenously selfish greed of their financial industry moguls and minions.

And now Covid-19 is wreaking chaos across a USA and UK that are unable to discipline themselves enough to deal with it. While China was... and did.

This all makes western elites angry enough to wet their knickers, and repeatedly so. This can’t be they scream, we are the great ones, the exceptional ones, the ones who are always best, most successful, most able to control Johnny Foreigner and all his wily ways!

It’s humiliating. Isn’t it?

The Masters of the Universe and the Controllers of Empire are well and truly fucked.

Who would have thunk it?

And obviously this could not have been through any fault of their own. Isn’t it well known that the West is pure as driven snow, never does anything wrong, never bribes or threatens... never uses Economic Hit Men, never tells lies about other nations to get to kill their brown-skinned citizens. No! Heaven forfend. Such innocence as displayed by the U.S. and UK elites though having a lethal quotient far higher than any other nation must certainly always be seen as virginal and innocent. And certainly not to blame for their current state of abject misery.

It must be China that did it. Or, if not China, then Russia!

Any nations except their own.

Therefore, not the West’s crisis... it’s the China Crisis.

Or... is it simply more of the same game featuring smoke and mirrors the elites of the West have been playing for almost two decades now... that same old, past its sell by date, hall of mirrors framed by a painted facade of saintly intent... the perpetual, gargoyle-grinning & venomous... Regime Change Syndrome?

THE PSEUDO IMMORTALITY OF SUPREME ARROGANCE

It was seen in Mussolini and Hitler. It has been seen in all dictators and psychopaths.

The bragging arrogance that betokens an ego conceiving itself to be immortal.

Trump and those round him not wearing masks and not adhering to social distancing are the latest examples of this practiced idiocy in the name of self-awarded superiority.

Mussolini had the head in the air and pursed lip arrogance that he thought conveyed his elevated status, his brute strength and innate superiority over others along with his self-conceived right of command.

Hitler belonged, as he saw it, to a master race and he was the highest master of all. His arrogant postures and gestures were well studied by him so that he broadcast the maximum power to his audience of lesser mortals.

Both of these fascists died ignominious deaths. Mussolini strung up upside down along with his mistress. Hitler killing himself and his mortal remains then burnt.

Trump has the same arrogant, fascistic characteristics as these vile creatures whose arrogance led ultimately to their demise. Trump is a natural born braggart and dictator, a man who conceives himself to be a genius but who those around him know as a moron.

Those who grasp power so ruthlessly as if they were born to it that they become tyrants get identified firmly and everlastingly with the evil they do. Trump is no different. He leads an army of narrow-minded racists who each individually feel themselves imbued with some of his reflected power. But there’s is the power of the oppressive, if the dominators, of those who conceive themselves superior, they are fascistic, racist, intolerant and above all supremely arrogant.

It never ends well for the supremely arrogant with their overweening self-love and sneers of hatred for others who care for others in almost equal measure to themselves. Yes, they get their moments when they rant in their self-created podiums whether in a supermarket queue, at some sport event or in a bar. They get to spit out their venom for a while. But follow the life trail of such people and you will invariably find they end up in a very bad place.

Trump’s life will not end well. After his humiliation at the polls his wife will leave him and gain herself security for life by the best seller tell all she gets ghost written for her. Trump will end as a bitter figure, loathed and despised when his ego sought endless praise and validation of his status as a stable genius.

For the supremely arrogant there always comes a supremely ignominious end.

Everything about the sociopaths and psychopaths who have the compulsion to be seen as higher, better, wiser and more powerful leads them to their final tawdry end where they know their ambitions have been ground in the dust.

This is the fate of all such malignant mind-dwarf men and women. The final indignity of all their pseudo immortality based on wholly undeserved supreme arrogance is it all finally lies dead at their feet.

WORLD PEACE NEVER? | THINKING THE UNTHINKABLE

WORLD PEACE NEVER? | THINKING THE UNTHINKABLE

I am going to think the unthinkable here.

I am going to make the case for the statement that the end of the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact was the most destructive event in all of living history and certainly in the lifetimes of those who lived through it and those who live now.

With the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact nations in existence a balance existed that is now no more.

I would not attempt to describe the system of governance within these nations as ideal, nor as fair to all. Many were discriminated against and treated as potential enemies due to their views, beliefs or ties to nations inimical to the socialist principles attempted with varying degrees of success or calamity within them.

It is a fact however that these societies were not as described in the West, they had many redeeming features and, if compared to a great many nations loosely described as developing, or within the Third World, conditions were reasonably good.

Yes, there were shortages at times. Yes, there were abominable show trials at various stages. Yes, there was an intolerance toward those who advocated for greater intellectual, artistic and and other freedoms including that of speech and travel. But there was also an attempt to give all those seen as loyal citizens the fundamental basics of life, a job, a home, an education, health care and much else. Attention too was paid to those aspects of life that were not directly related to material survival, entertainment, the enjoyment of local customs, folklore and culture. Cultural houses were a common feature in towns, even small towns. Schools, polyclinics and hospitals were built, often in well-planned developments integral to housing where families had easy access. Recreational facilities were built, parks were created and a spectrum of free or very inexpensive services were available to almost all. Local industries employed local people. Factories and service industries were run and staffed by the same people who benefited from their products in the area nearby or further afield.

Conditions were not as in the West when it came to easy access regarding luxury goods. That is evidently true. But how well distributed were these luxury goods within the West at that time... or even now?

It is a mistake to see the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact countries as either wholly good or wholly bad. They existed within a spectrum, a wide range of societies across the planet. Some societies were markedly more poor to the point of destitution, many had extremely poor planning and engineering expertise. Within the socialist sphere the engineering was exemplary with much of its output still surviving until today. Where it failed it failed with the coming of greater demands, with the rise of modern desires and expectations. The basic models were no longer seen as good enough. A sizeable number had seen something of the West and wanted what they saw. Artists, actors, writers and other intellectuals longed for the total freedom of expression they saw as the norm in the West,

But the everyday worker had experienced significant benefits to full employment. He or she could safely plan a future which included a home where costs were reduced for them by the state, they could predictably raise a family knowing their employment was secure, that their children would get a good education and be assured of employment after it. They knew their health needs would be seen to and that if they needed a cure involving a health spa they would be able to go at minimal or no charge.

Compared to nations outside of either the socialist or capitalist orbits and sphere of influence the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact nations had a relatively high standard of living, of existence. The basics of a stable life were guaranteed, albeit without the frills and freedoms seen elsewhere.

I don’t mean to minimize the mental anguish of people like Vaclav Havel. He was an intellectual and like all intellectuals he found the restrictions placed on his freedom of thought and speech intolerable.

But what were the authorities to do? Their almost unique system in all the world, their singular attempt to provide the basics to all loyal citizens and end a system that largely saw the masses as potential contributors to their own fabulous wealth, was vulnerable. They knew precisely that every agency of the West almost was using each and every second that passed to undermine them and their system.

Yes, they often became overly oppressive. In their devotion to maintaining the socialist experiment for the benefit of all as they saw it, they presided over many injustices. Those who promoted Christianity were targeted as a threat, their names and those of their families listed, higher education was denied them, higher value employment also. They could be interrogated at any time of the day or night, bullied, threatened and even jailed for their beliefs and the activities they engaged in.

An entire range of intellectual, artistic and religious belief systems were seen as potential vulnerability points which could potentially widen and broaden and bring chaos if not total collapse of the project. Of course there would also be the usual criminally-minded sociopaths and psychopaths that appear in every society and bring it into disrepute, those who when they put on a uniform feel superior to all others without one.

But I digress somewhat from my main theme, that the ending of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact was a disaster for the world which has led directly to the struggle for dominance we see occurring now and for the mass deaths which have resulted from regime change wars in recent years.

With the end of these structure the U.S. and western elites clearly believed all that was necessary was to mop up the remaining outliers from their orbit. As the winners they would take all. Russia was finished. China was turning capitalist. All would be well in a new era policed by the West until all others were brought into line once and for all. There was now ‘A New World Order’. End of story.

But it hasn’t worked to plan. Not at all.

The nations to 'mop up’ remain resistant to U.S. power. Russia has proven she was not 'finished’. China may be partially capitalist but she continues to maintain a system of central planning using communist principles for the good of all loyal citizens. The dominoes western elites hoped would fall after the end of the Cold War failed to even waver. Vietnam stays communist. Cuba remains resistant to its ultra-powerful neighbour. Venezuela continues its fight against takeover. Nicaragua awaits its turn in the regime change queue. Iran bristles against any attempt to conquer it. Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Yemen remain largely devastated by western attempts to coerce them into obeying the needs of western elites denying them the promotion of their interests.

The balance of the superpowers was undone at the conclusion of the Eighties and early Nineties. The equilibrium of two powers that were able to talk with each other to the degree necessary to preserve peace was maintained (with a few hairy moments here and there).

One superpower was brought to its knees (and never for a moment believe that the fifty and more years of western efforts to bring this about had nothing to do with it and it was only the result of 'people power’.)  The balance was undone. Now the one remaining superpower would conquer all and most of the time using the same methods of partial truth, mostly lies, demonization and destabilization from within and without... propaganda, seeded misinformation and incessant pressure from political, media and military sources.

This is why the West was able to do Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and currently Yemen. This is why it still thinks it can do Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua and any others it chooses.

But the elites know time is now running out. Russia has its pride back and a degree of its strength and determination to remain independent of control, from the West or any others. China is an economic powerhouse and though temporarily weakened by the coronavirus is now cranking up its industry once again to rise ever higher as the West descends from the virus into a parlous, chaotic and internally divided state.

This is why we have the present diplomacy-free situation that is so much worse than the discourse and discussion which took place even at the height of the Cold War.

This why Vladimir Putin is savaged with accusations and China too.

The elites of the West see time running out on them. The ambition was huge but thought doable, to take over or at least be able to predictably manipulate all nations where there interests predominantly lay. The elites of the USA has an even greater goal, to attain full spectrum dominance across land, sea and space, a goal given rocket boosters after 9/11 whereby only full spectrum dominance would make America feel truly and predictably safe again.

So, this is where we are at.

A superpower was humbled by a concatenation of pressures and measures. The elites of the other superpower rejoiced... then got to work using NATO and other entities to take as many other nations into their orbit as possible with the goal of eventually encompassing them all.

The West’s goals have been thwarted. Its elites are in panic mode. A potentially terminally wounded animal is lashing out determined to kill enemies it sees all around it.

Of course this analysis is off in left-field. Almost no one will think this way. The fall of the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies was wholly good and everyone is much better off without them, free and with the maximum number of choices in the best of all possible worlds.

But increasingly I don’t think so. And I suspect an ever-increasing number are thinking the same way.

Balance is vital. It is being restored now by China.

But if China is made to fail during the war being waged by the West there will be interminable chaos, conflict, division, misery and death. And the prospects for World Peace will remain constantly, perhaps permanently, out of reach.

‘Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere  
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst  
Are full of passionate intensity.’

(From ‘The Second Coming’ by William Butler Yeats.)

THE TROUBLE WITH TRUMP

THE TROUBLE WITH TRUMP

There are many who love Trump.

There are millions who believe he is dealing well with a range of issues. They are so convinced he is doing the right thing on these issues that it is almost impossible to convince them otherwise.

Any areas where there is potential disagreement with him are almost always regarded as far less important and hardly worth paying any attention to or discussing.

For example, in his 2016 presidential campaign he said this:

“We will pursue a new foreign policy that finally learns from the past. We will stop looking to topple regimes and overthrow governments. Our goal is stability, not chaos. In our dealings with other countries we will seek shared interests wherever possible and pursue a new era of peace, understanding and goodwill.”

The text above is so far from what has transpired. The words were clearly written for Trump, they are not in his style of speaking at all. But he apparently spoke them at some point in 2016.

This is one aspect of the many troubles with Trump.

I’ll call this aspect being economic with the truth.

In business at certain levels you find people who have used everything in their arsenal of techniques to survive. They feel that honest dealing is not enough to ensure they gain enough success to be safe from predators in the dog-eat-dog milieu of ultra-competitive near war of day to day business life. Double dealing, crafty maneuvers, underhand activities and constant sleight of hand are considered vital lest they get blind-sided and taken out by these same methodologies used against them.

I have worse to say about Trump, an analysis that may shock some, but for the moment let’s just call him a typical hard-nosed businessman who has somehow and by any means necessary survived in a cutthroat environment where he has taken many hard knocks but has somehow survived. In this process he has become the man, and president he is now.

Telling the truth and nothing but the truth in the U.S. business environment has perhaps worked for some. But in the ruthless business world of New York where Trump had his start with his father’s real estate empire telling the truth or anywhere near it could easily have been fatal.

Let’s say that Trump has merely learned some bad habits and has lost any and all faith in the simple telling of truths long ago in any naive youthful condition he may have had. he has long since known the power of lies or at least the power that comes with never having to stick to the truth. For Trump in his roller coaster business life those who stick to the truth make themselves as standing target. If you allow yourself the widest possible spectrum concerning what’s true, what’s false and what’s somewhere in between then you are an always moving target that’s almost impossible to hit.

Moving on to the next trouble with Trump it’s the one that scares me the most should he be re-elected in November.

I’ll call it the pretense of being a peacenik.

It harks back once more to his words above:

 “We will pursue a new foreign policy that finally learns from the past. We will stop looking to topple regimes and overthrow governments. Our goal is stability, not chaos. In our dealings with other countries we will seek shared interests wherever possible and pursue a new era of peace, understanding and goodwill.”

Compare these words with what actually transpired once Trump became president.

In attempting to walk the talk on what he said did he search for people for his cabinet who might help him with these laudable goals?

If he did search that search came up fruitless.

He tapped people like John Bolton, Mike Pompeo and Nikki Haley for some of the most important positions in government that provided the most clear definition of that government’s goals regarding foreign policy. You will I am sure know exactly what each of these people stand for and it bears no relation whatsoever to the intent behind the text above.

Each one is a hawk. And to the nth degree. These are rabid hawks, bloodthirsty hawks, insatiable neocons with a single doubt in their minds that Russia and China are enemies to be attacked with presidents to be overthrown. They all agree on the continued attempt to overthrow presidents and governments in Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua. they are all happy to assist the Saudis in its war in Yemen.

Does it sound like Trump was attempting to fulfill the words above about learning lessons from the past and abandoning the regime change policies of the USA by giving these people his blessing?

This augurs continuing efforts to attack and undermine the nations singled out above after November if Trump is re-elected. There is no knowing what additional means he will use against most of those nations with the continuing assistance of Mike Pompeo and an even further cowed Republican Party supporting him all the way.

The third trouble with Trump I’ll call the wannabe dictator syndrome.

Trump believes he is in command. He demands to be in command. He wants to be seen to be the Chief Executive of the USA in the same way he was Chief Executive of the Trump empire. He doesn’t recognize the benefit of the democratic system of America where presidents are constrained in their acts by two houses of elected officials there to temper the activities of any potential radical in the White House.

The wannabe dictator syndrome ties in with another trouble with Trump. His unbounded ego, his sense of himself as hugely wise above and beyond anyone around him and indeed beyond anyone at all. He clearly considers himself to have risen above those who deal with issues by dint of their intellects or though experience or long hours of study. He believes in himself and his gut instinct on issues. And he acts on those and from what we have heard from ex-employees in the White House he is largely dismissive of all else.

Trump, love him, hate him or merely fear him is a typical candidate for total power that we call a dictator. Full of himself, reliant only on his own instincts and 100% sure he is right 100% of the time. And if anyone says otherwise they are a liar and his enemy from that moment on.

My own views on Trump take me beyond even these criticisms which it seems to me are enough to raise disquiet at the very least.

I consider Trump to be an obvious sociopath, what’s known in psychiatric jargon as a ‘socialized psychopath’. I see him as a textbook example in fact.

A socialized psychopath should not be thought of as having a killer instinct, a socialized psychopath as the term implies is one that shares certain characteristics with the serial killer type of psychopath as seen in movies such as ‘Psycho’ or in real life embodied in people like Jeffrey Dahmer. What is shared however are certain characters of mind. No conscience. No empathy. A grandiose sense of being always right. An almost complete lack of empathy for others. An overwhelming ego, extremely narcissistic. And a willingness to lie at the drop of a hat in a self-interest that is all-consuming.

For me this is the central reality concerning Trump. And, it could be said it is not even his fault. He simply is that way and was always driven by his mentality to do the things he does. And he will continue. He won’t have a moment of catharsis wherein he realizes he hasn’t been doing things quite right. That is not possible for a sociopath. They are that way and have no way out. Trump will continue to act as he does in all respects, right to whatever bitter end awaits him and us.

And that is true whether you love him, hate him or merely fear him.

The sickening truth for all those vitally interested in furthering the possibility for world peace and ending the awful, divisive and destructive intent behind America’s regime change wars is that the alternative choice to Trump, Biden, is unlikely to be any better on that score than Trump and may even in fact be worse.

Currently a significant minority in America are revolting against a range of issues that began with one particular incident of police brutality against a man of color. It is surely clear to most that this revolutionary spirit is also directed at Trump and the direction he is taking the USA. His response in sending in federal troops is controversial at the very least and in my view indicative of his desire to be seen as a strong leader.

Rightly or wrongly Trump is dividing America into two camps, his supporters and his enemies.

So, we will undoubtedly see two enemies functioning as potential supporting issues for his campaign leading up to the November vote, the inner and outer enemies. And you will know I’m sure just how much leverage is gained in the USA in having enemies to point to when you need to strengthen your base. When you can point at believable foes over there rather than have evidence of your own failures inspected right here you have pulled off one of the most potent political tricks of all.

So, business thug, smart guy who can play 4D chess, a sexual abuser, a wannabe dictator, a stable genius, Putin’s Puppet, a serial liar, a tyrant, a traitor? Or a sociopath, a socialized psychopath?

These and more are the options when taking a view on this quixotic man.

And this inability to pin him down precisely is perhaps the final... ‘Trouble With Trump’.

THE USA | BELIEVING BULLSHIT | LIVING WITH BRAINWASHING & BIAS

The people of the United States are victims of the most wall-to-wall cradle to grave propaganda program ever seen and ever likely to be seen.

Their reactions are conditioned, their minds molded, their views determined and their brains addled... daily and nightly for their entire lives.

Naturally and thankfully there are those who miraculously escape this conditioning... but sadly a very sizeable number, most likely the majority, do not.

The mythologies used to create a compliant population are many and they are so prevalent they almost seem to permeate the very air itself. Symbols like the ubiquitous flag are used along with words to constantly reinforce the messages of the state and corporate mainstream. It is both subtle and insidious. The end result is not only deep internal programming that keeps out any interfering realities, it also serves to castigate and denigrate all those attempting to enlighten the brainwashed, categorizing them as traitors and puppets of some state-chosen enemy.

It starts early. Saluting the flag. It continues with a sanitized history of the USA. Bold pilgrims, founding fathers of impeccable integrity. The genocide of the native population and the evils of slavery are given passing lip-service. The happy smile, we are lucky Americans living in the greatest society, higher and better and more just, more Godly and with the best of everything... these are the memes, narratives and constant teachings that permeate nascent American brains.

Later, the not quite bright but youthfully enthusiastic college students get offered patriotic careers in the U.S. military, a chance to serve, to go to interesting foreign nations and kill brown-faced people there... or simply monitor them for any anti-American thoughts or deeds.

But the main culprits in the propaganda soup America swims in are the politicians and the mass media news broadcasters. In combination and separately these two deliver direct hand-crafted bullshit direct to American eyes and ears, daily, nightly 24/7.

Much of the output of U.S. mass media is on the basis of creations by the fully conditioned. As Noam Chomsky has pointed out, these so-called journalists are not necessarily knowingly spreading lies, they don’t consciously spread propagandizing narratives... they are simply the people whose minds were found to fit. Those with truly inquiring minds that would have done real objective-style journalism were rejected at interview... too much potential trouble for the corporate sponsors and owners... too likely to rock the boat. So, you have CNN, MSNBC and others who generate the kind of reinforcing pap with their talking heads toeing the usual line where all that America’s elites do is done with the noblest intentions possible and that if thousands die in the process and nations fractured reducing their populations to abject misery then it must have been a mistake and we’ll do better next time.

The USA with its population held within a consent-giving uniformity to its military ambitions and interventions is like a constantly primed missile ready and waiting for the command to “Fire!” Those who suggest the U.S. stand down are looked at askance as possible enemy agents. Anyone anti-war, opposed to the USA strutting the world stage killing perceived enemies, undermining, invading and infiltrating other nations must surely be a traitor to his or her country. Who could POSSIBLY criticize America?

Well, the people of Vietnam, Korea, Latin America, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen might have something to whisper in American ears about that.

But would those Americans completely sold on the concept of America doing good in the world hear them?

What are the chances... in a nation so overwhelmingly living within and believing in its environment of bullshit, brainwashing and bias?

IS A HOT WAR COMING?

IS A HOT WAR COMING?

The elites of the western world have as their target the retention of their patrician levers of power. No rivals allowed. No challengers to be countenanced.

To date they have used somewhat covert means, i.e. economic war, using fake reasons as justification. They point fingers at Russia & China saying they spy & interfere in their nations. Of course the only ones allowed to spy & interfere are western nations via the CIA & MI6. But you will never hear a word about their activities. We are to assume they don’t exist or perhaps that they are concerned with knitting socks or some other totally innocent occupation.

Make no mistake, western elites have been at war with Russia and China for many years. Russia has been the primary target, though China is a far greater threat to the economic and therefore military dominance of the West.

The various subterfuges claimed as reasons for verbal attacks (& sanctions) on Russia and China are all baloney. The one overriding reason for all the attacks, sanctions and the entire war of words being waged is the dwindling status of the USA and UK as world powers acting as global police in their own self-interest.

But now, with the advent of the novel corona virus the entire geopolitical balance has slipped to the point where western elites have been put into frantic panic mode. They were worried before as China rose inexorably with an economy rising by significant percentage points year on year. Their fears rose to even greater heights as China’s 'Belt & Road’ initiative inexorably headed toward completion, making Europe a much easier market to reach for China. But it has taken the decimation of the West during the Covid-19 pandemic and early rise from it by China to get western elites wetting their underwear in truly copious style.

Now Trump orders the closure of a Chinese consulate while both UK and USA mount endless campaigns of propaganda against China on spurious grounds, aided and abetted by a compliant mainstream media and a chorus of easily duped bleeding hearts who echo their fake narratives for them on Facebook, Twitter & comment sections of their favorite western viewspapers.

The fever pitch of lies, half-truths and outright propaganda is building inexorably.

The war so far is unannounced, waged by acts of a thousand cuts using any issue to hand, exploding the negatives and failing to mention all contrary views or context.

Naturally China along with Russia protest this. But their protests are negated as “They would say that, wouldn’t they?’ The populations of the West by majority have been primed to disbelieve everyone except their own politicians and terminally biased mainstream media.

It all feeds the machines of western states cowering in their fear of loss of status and power to dominate. It is not China and Russia per se that they fear, it is the loss of their long-held empire of power, their weapons of threat, their bullying gunboat diplomacy and racist views on all humans save themselves.

The end result of all this fear and hatred emanating from western elites & their country men & women duped into believing their lies is the manufacture of consent for war.

And not a another Cold War. A new Hot War.

That is unless some sense finally invades the minds of those among these insane western elites. Currently they are hell bent on creating ever more division & conflict leading ultimately to war... simply to hold onto their malignant dominance which has plagued our world for far too long now.

THE WEST + ALLIES = ARCHETYPAL BULLIES

THE WEST + ALLIES = ARCHETYPAL BULLIES

Most of us have experienced one at some time or another. Either in our school days, in work, the military or in vocational training. Those individuals who, for some internal reason find it necessary to express their power over others. The Bullies.

Some just go right into it, pushing, prodding, getting in your face... looking for a reaction.

Others try to get to you through denigrating you in front of others, calling you names, looking for buttons to push to make you react.

It can be almost impossible to react in a way that resolves the situation other than violence... but most of us are either loath to resort to that for various reasons or we feel ourselves to weak.

The worst is of course a whole gang of bullies surrounding you, poking and prodding you, looking for you to react, either by breaking down and submitting, pleading for them to stop or, if you simply lose it, lashing out... at which point you get pummeled by the entire gang.

There was only one comedian to my knowledge who made the link between this kind of scenario and the USA’s approach to its regime change targets (such as Iraq) and that was Bill Hicks. You can see the clip below but basically he mimics the part of Jack Palance in the movie 'Shane'. A young sheep-herder has come into town for some candy for his kids and gingham for his wife. For some reason Palance has taken a dislike to him. He throws down a gun at the young farmer’s feet and tells him to pick it up. The hapless guy tries to get out of it pleading this and that to no avail. Palance simply keeps saying “Pick up the gun”. Eventually the guy starts to reach down for the gun and Palance shoots him. He then turns to the crowd watching saying, “You saw him, he had a gun.”

Now observe what’s been happening in Iran in the past few weeks... explosions here, there and everywhere including at a nuclear energy installation. Observe too what has been happening to China in recent weeks and months with a variety of accusations, name-calling and tactics to undermine the nation. Look also at the litany of economic attacks upon Russia and all the name-calling that has gone on and which continues unabated until today.

Is the archetypal bully’s game that’s being played here?

Is the USA and its allies looking to generate a reaction that will allow the justification of even greater attacks, perhaps even protracted campaigns of bombing as we saw in the decimation of Yugoslavia and later Iraq and Libya? It certainly looks like it.

The USA, United Kingdom, Israel and Saudi Arabia along with NATO and European allies of the USA have huge fire power, logistical and technological range to them along with a combined utterly massive military presence. U.S. bases span the world. Collectively they are the equivalent of a mob of bullies surrounding far weaker nations.

However... this situation will not last. China has been rising fast in recent decades and will do so again. She is rising to face the bullies. She will no longer be kept cowed and submissive. Russia too to a lesser degree is stepping forward saying she won’t be bullied into toeing any foreign nation’s line.

The collective bullies of the West don’t like any of this.

That, in my opinion, is why they are doing everything possible now, while they still have overwhelming might to come down hard on the rising powers expressing their independence above.

We are in the end game war my friends, this is truly the final world war. I know the previous world wars were supposed to be the wars that ended all wars but no... there is the one we are in now, the end game war. There ultimately will be one victor and only one victor.

Either the United States and its allies will subjugate all now independent states not toeing the U.S. line and a virtual prison planet ensues. Or, China and all non-U.S. compliant states will rise economically to quarantine the USA and its allies to allow the emergence of a planet where different systems are celebrated and not used as regime change justifications.

This is the challenge facing us. This is the war that is upon us.

Will the bullies win? This hangs in the balance and will be determined by how smart the at present weaker nations play their hand. Right now Iran is being pushed toward breaking point by Israel. China is being pushed toward breaking point primarily by the USA. And Russia is being abused using endless lies by the UK and USA both.

Bullies push for a reaction they can then exploit.

Clever individuals turn the other cheek if no other option is available.

It’s the same old game from micro to macro. You’ve seen it in countless films. The baddie seems destined to win, he lands all the blows. The hero seems out for the count. In the movies against all odds the hero invariably surmounts his difficulties, defeats the bullies and the audience goes home reassured all's right with the world.

Unfortunately for all of us life is not so predictable and in the theatre of geopolitical ambitions there hero is not always going to be the good guy. In that theatre of the damned the bullies and their power all too often win out then use western movies to dupe audiences into believing they really were the good guys.

(So anyway, here’s Bill with one of his most telling skits.)

(R.I.P. Bill... you left us far, far too soon, as did George (Carlin).

THERE’S A NEW GRADUATE AT GESTAPO HQ

Donald J. Trump doesn’t care what he has to do to get re-elected. His ego demands this and there is nothing he won’t do to assuage that galaxy-sized ego of his.

Donald Trump is a sociopath. He has no fixed views on anything. Not right, left or center. He doesn't care about anything except his own ambitions. Those ambitions are centered on power and status and he will do whatever he conceives he has to, to gain more of both.

In short he doesn’t give a flying fuck about anyone or anything in the pursuit of further glory for himself. If you were hoping for something positive regarding your own hopes and dreams in the realm of geopolitics well, the roulette wheel of his random floating decision-making might mean you get lucky. But it won’t be due to Trump being a thinker. As far as geopolitics is concerned he is a moronic thug.

Right now in the USA Donald Trump is showing just how much of a thug he can really be. No U.S. president of the past, not even the monkey man Bush would have unleashed federal troops onto the streets of U.S. cities kidnapping people off the sidewalk and marching them to unmarked cars. This is the act of a wannabe dictator with a mental health problem, the type seen so often in extremist right-wing regimes in Latin America.

Sociopaths have no conscience and are totally self-interested. The most commonly thought of sociopath is the confidence trickster, the con-artist. No conscience whatsoever. All others are marks to dupe. No empathy, no fellow feeling, simply a desire to use others, take from them and dispose of them when they are of no further use.

Make no mistake, Donald Trump is the stuff of nightmares. He is a total monster with a coldly calculating, alien brain. Like all sociopaths he calculates how to abuse others successfully. Lies are nothing to them but a useful tool. On wider issues requiring intellect they are totally uninterested as they see nothing in it for them. They have no curiosity except in terms of a snake-like focus on how to win out in any given circumstance. No one else matters. No. One.

On the corona virus Trump was and is a mess. He was a mess because in truth he doesn’t give a fuck about anyone or anything but himself. His sole concern was to keep looking good. This is the level of his self interest and lack of interest in others. He was completely unable to hide this noxious facet of himself. He is a stereotypical heartless dictator and complete stranger to principle, integrity or truth.

Yes, the Democrats may be worse than Trump when it comes to foreign policy. Biden may attack Russia and China and all their allies even more than Trump has done. He will without doubt provide Ukraine with many more lethal weapons to kill pro-Russians in the east of the country and provide even more money to the warmongers in Kiev. But we can’t ONLY think of China, Russia and their allies. Trump is too insane and too ruthless to support wholeheartedly.

To support Trump wholeheartedly would be like saluting the Nazis as they took Paris, like patting members of the Gestapo and SS on the back for their atrocities.
There should be no cheers for the new graduate emerging from Gestapo HQ.

Only a deathly silence... showing we know full well the depth of Donald J. Trump’s depravity of spirit and constant, toxic insanity.

THIS IS THE BLACK NEXUS AGE

THIS IS THE BLACK NEXUS AGE

Even without Trump we would already have been in deep trouble.

The fundamental principles of free market capitalism would have led us here with or without him.

The main factors fueling the situation we are now in and that are going to rapidly become worse revolve around the following, the availability or scarcity of resources of every kind, the attitude of the majority of global populations to consuming and wasting, the divisive and self-interested attitude and motivation of nation states, the willingness of populations to support regime change wars and the free fall of societies into anarchy, degradation and violent competition / confrontation.

Each factor will feed on the others to produce a black nexus of negativity from which escape will be almost impossible.

Even as these factors increase the net effect on the majority of humans will be to exacerbate the situation by further individuation, acts of self-preservation and the perception of all others as enemies fighting for what they need to survive in a time of growing shortage.

We are at the start of this age, on its edge. The pandemic has foreshortened the time of relative tranquility we gauge as normality albeit the stresses and strains are already here to see. They are nothing compared to what is coming.

The chief danger is the inability or unwillingness of our elites to work together. Currently they confront each other in increasingly violent fashion, making threats, enforcing sanctions, talking over each other and seeking advantage of perceived weaknesses, spreading propaganda and in general growing wider and wider apart.

Just at the very moment unity is needed beyond all else.

Once the forces of the black nexus hit with maximum power it will be too late. Attempts to find international unity at that terminally late stage will be futile, the elites will fail to agree any fundamentally significant response and each nation will be left to sink or swim dependent on its own limited resources.

I am sure you can feel this coming. You feel it in the air. You see it on your TV screen. You detect the signs that we are on the wrong road. You perceive accurately that the elites of this world are not capable of protecting you from what’s coming, indeed they have consistently brought this moment of massive danger closer and closer over time, sometimes by their actions, others through their inaction.

You can feel the rumbling of the wheels of this black ride under you. The rollercoaster you are on has been relatively gentle to this point. Hold on tight however, you are about to be swept to places where you will scream for some control... but in vain. There will be no help once the maelstrom of forces hit.

Unless we find unity in this time of increasing division humanity has no decent future, definitely not the one the marketing people try to sell us where its safe to spend without limit in a world of stable, comfortable certainty.

The brief spell when they could be believed on that score is fast ending.

For this is the black nexus age... and a wild ride is about to begin.

THE BIDEN PRESIDENCY | WHAT TO EXPECT

If the polls stay as they are Joe Biden has a very good chance of beating the present psychopathic incumbent in the White House.

What might a Biden presidency look like? What might its policies look like.

First, foreign policy:

It is clear that those who favour Biden and who also favour a highly liberal agenda (as seen in pronouncements by Democrats for years now) will continue a regime change policy albeit framed with greater subtlety than before.

He and they will talk up the merits of their so-called “free world” and how it must be defended. They will talk in patronising terms about those nations that have chosen not to be regulated by the USA and its allies. The entire narrative they will use will attempt to convince the world to give them consent to engage in continued global interference.

They will talk of the many threats to the “free world”, to democracy, freedom of speech and the freedom of the press. They will remain blind and blinkered to the results of past interventions in Vietnam, Korea, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen. They will remain blind and blinkered to the fact that corporations run America and its foreign policy through the agency of their lobbyists. They will remain blind and blinkered to the fact that there is no free mainstream media in the USA, it is all corporate-owned and covers world events only within a narrow, state-friendly spectrum and narrative.

Biden will look avuncular... a doddery old uncle who means well... even when he is touching up your sister. He will receive constant coaching and there will be extensive use of teleprompters. Speech-writers, as always will deliver the necessary words for him to mouth for best effect. It will all be 'America First’ re-branded. The usual public enemies of America will be castigated for their “interference” while actual U.S. interference will reach new peaks (if that is even possible). Military budgets will probably go to 75% of GDP with an enthusiastic Democratic Party dominating both houses applauded by the elites who fund them, most notably by those within the Military Industrial Complex.

What about back home?

Biden will talk of bringing all Americans together in unity. You have to question if this will have any success as Trump’s base will not have gone away, nor will have the tooled up militias or hate-fuelled White Nationalists. They will find something to hate in Biden soon enough and it must be extremely doubtful that they will be snowed by a few mild phrases from him talking of all Americans being one big family through good times and bad.

Though the elites will continue to run the show there will be a few more scraps for the great unwashed here and there. Social programs will be upped somewhat. Environmental issues will receive token support and warm words (and little action) will be voiced on Climate Change.

Biden will talk of healing. He will talk of working together again. He will resurrect the old catch phrases about the USA being the greatest nation on Earth. He will say “God Bless America” a LOT.

Biden’s presidency will be all about smoke and mirrors in a nation in near economic penury from the coronavirus pandemic, with unemployment remaining a massive problem, with foreclosures, redundancies, bankruptcies and the closure of shops and businesses still ongoing. But he will do his best to gloss it all over with the help of an able team of speech-writers.

For us out in the wider world we will hope for better things from the new presidency. But we will be disappointed. The same old rhetoric and condescending references will be made regarding those of us not regulated by the West in strict enough terms for it. The U.S. presence in Europe, Japan and elsewhere across hundreds of bases, and other dual-operated installations in myriad lands, will be boosted. NATO will feel safe and be rewarded with additional verbal support and most likely financial support also.

Russia will remain the boogie man, the scapegoat, the evil reincarnation of Nazi Germany and all things bad in the world including Uncle Joe’s penchant for running his hands over the bodies of any nearby women or children.

That’s about the size of it by my lights.

We will go from an obvious sociopath to a less obvious warmongering racist sex abuser.

Little will change of note... until Biden is replaced due to health issues.

That’s when Hillary Clinton’s surrogate takes over.

But that’s a topic for another time entirely...

BERNIE | BENDING THE KNEE FOR BIDEN

BERNIE | BENDING THE KNEE FOR BIDEN

Bernie Sanders is quite something.

He's very good at marching his army to the top of the hill.

Then turning round and marching them down again without engaging the enemy.

Political contests parallel the rules of war. In this day and age even those ethical strictures are bypassed and abused. But Bernie in his “wisdom” declines to fight. He clearly hopes kind words about his political enemy will work for him. Of course they didn’t. This is not the ideal world of the Queensbury Rules where opponents respect each other and behave almost as if they are at some event where they have to mind their p’s and q’s.

Bernie battled his way and gained a massive following only to bend the knee to Biden when the time came to cross swords with him. Complimenting Biden and saying Biden could beat Trump while still in the game were Bernie’s short verbal suicide note to all watching and listening.

His war was over without firing a shot in what ought to have been the deciding duel.

His supporters could only look on in disbelief, turn round and go home.

Bernie calls himself an independent. But his ties to the Democratic Party are lifelong and super strong. And of course the controlling elite of the Democratic Party, the DNC, despise him and do all in their power to trip him up and his progressive agenda. But will Bernie fight them tooth and nail as he needs to? He will not.

The issues are important. Free health care. An end to regime change wars. Calling a halt to Wall Street’s lobbyists deciding policy in Washington, ending the dominance of all authoritarian elites overall... getting rid of the most insane president that ever held office.

But instead of fighting his hardest to see those issues dealt with and after delivering the massive base he needed and the funds to fight... he capitulates to a man who will ensure the status quo remains just as it is. He bows down to a man who actively called for the incarceration of ever more Americans, a man who was a leading advocate for the regime change war against Iraq, a man who is without doubt a serial sexual abuser and a man who will continue to enable the same ‘America First’ agenda that creates the current plague of American exceptionalism upon the world.

‘Way to go Bernie. You did it again. You delivered the rhetoric then delivered your resignation. Your base was kicked in the teeth once again. You are some strategist Bernie... but in fact ultimately you are a craven coward and capitulating mouse of a man.

Now we have two possibilities come November.

Either the current vicious psychopathic thug presently in the White House will remain to further tear the USA and the world apart... or Biden will take office and the hate-driven foreign policy of the Democrats will hold sway.

‘Way to go once again Bernie.

All because you failed to fight for what you said you believed in so strongly and knew were crucial for the USA and indeed for those the USA regularly crushes in the wider world. You walked up that political hill and you walked the talk to some degree, but you couldn’t find it in you to fight for what you believed in the that was needed. Your politeness subsequently allowed the evils you fought to triumph.

The polls show the secondary monster is leading the primary monster by quite a margin.

Either way, in November America gets a monster as president.

It could have been so different Bernie. But you failed to fight, you failed your base. And you failed those of us looking on hoping America would become a better place.

All because Bernie Sanders is a man without killer political instinct who capitulated and bent his knee to Biden.

FROM DETENTE TO PERMANENT DIVISION

FROM DETENTE TO PERMANENT DIVISION

Who gains from a world divided into warring camps? Who would want such a thing with all its attendant dangers? Surely no one truly sane.

What happened to our world?

Only a few decades ago it seemed that significant differences had been reconciled and that we had learned to work together for the common good. Where did that vision, that hope, that fervent desire for the good of all go?

Why, after such a watershed moment are we where we are now?

It cannot be any one factor as geopolitical changes of these magnitudes are inherently complex. But it cannot be denied that we are in a far more fear-ridden, accusatory and aggression-laden place than we were in recent memory. Why?

The Factors Denying Tolerance and any Hope for Future Peace:

That Fateful Day - 9/11

It is too simplistic to say 9/11 made all the difference but the events of that day certainly created waves of change that we still feel today and which show no sign of breaking to leave a new space for something more healing and unifying.

The Theater of Economic Warfare

Every nation is doing what it can to increase its economic growth. Many nations have little to play with, are poor and will doubtless remain poor. But others are making steady progress and whereas before they were extremely reliant upon western goods and services this is changing. The main change however has been the economic rise and rise of China with its command form of governance whereby many areas of potential red tape and planning restrictions simply do not exist. It can move quickly and, using huge cash resources it can plan for and initiate huge projects in prime industries and infrastructure to guarantee future success. This has come to a point where in the near future China will overtake the western world and the USA as the world’s primary economic driving force.

The Administrative Pushback Against Peace

An extremely large proportion of monetary and material resources are claimed by the intelligence, security and military echelons. Vast numbers of extremely well paid individuals depend upon continuing high levels of threat to maintain their jobs, status and career structures going forward. A coming together of nations to face the monumental challenges of humankind in years to come in an atmosphere of cooperation, compromise and peaceful coexistence endangers every aspect of their livelihoods. In addition it endangers the future income of those who own corporations within each nation’s military industrial complex. It cannot be a coincidence that the generation of fear has become an industry in and of itself... though those within that industry will claim they have no thought of self-interest.

Political Expediency, Elite Protection and Self-Interest

Politicians in the USA require funding. This funding comes mostly from U.S. corporations, many of them high fliers on Wall Street within the Banking, Pharmaceutical and Defense industries. There is an incestuous relationship within Washington between these corporations, their lobbyists and both the permanent and transient elites within the U.S. governance establishment. The people of North America are largely left out of the equation due to having undefinable wishes in anything like certain terms. Both major parties pay lip service to what they think the U.S. population wants by majority but they know with a great deal of certainty what corporations and their lobbyists want. And, due to their financial symbiosis with those corporations it is in their self-interest to provide it while putting on a certain show for the general public based on their guess about the majority view.

Mass Media and its Self-Inflicted Limitations

The bought media, i.e. that which is owned by corporations and billionaires has a vested interest in keeping its owners happy. The censorship applied is self-censorship and will hardly ever be vocalized, it needn’t be... it is in the air, it is taken for granted. Certain myths, attitudes, beliefs and narratives are subsumed within its central ethos and the milieu within which the staffs of its organizations reside. True journalism is almost never seen due to the restrictions of the subconscious and barely conscious group thought agreement that exists within these entities. Almost no attention of any geopolitical nature is directed inward, only outward. Therefore, the controversies must be found overseas where geopolitics is concerned and so the inclination builds inexorably to find objections to other nations generating fears to fever pitch while the home team stays pure as driven snow in relation to its geopolitical intent.

The Self-Serving Inclinations of Intelligence Agencies

Due to the secrecy at the very heart and nature of their industry entities such as the CIA and MI6 have enormous power. To manipulate information that only increases their value, status and continuing expansion is child’s play for them. They can hardly be gainsaid as only they have the access required and all others have extremely limited oversight into any aspect of their structure, methods and data-gathering function or the analysis which filters it. What is known and known without any doubt is that the creation of lies (misinformation, propaganda, psychological operation narratives) are a primary part of any intelligence agency’s day to day work. All empires seek to maintain themselves. The empire of each intelligence agency is no different.

The Might of the Military Industrial Complex

Eisenhower was brave enough to speak his mind about the M.I.C. as he left office. No doubt while in office he found it impossible to do so and it is interesting to speculate on why not. The M.I.C. is hugely powerful. It employs hundreds of thousands and generates vast wealth for what must be a sizeable number of others. It’s highest ranking individuals are often given equally high positions within consecutive U.S. administrations. Its donations to politicians are the most reliable along with the banks and pharmaceutical companies of the USA. The M.I.C. is an integral part of the deepest structure of the U.S. state and what it wants would be extremely hard to resist if any politician wished to maintain his or her position, career path and hopes of still higher office. The M.I.C. needs war and the threat of war like any company selling a product. Both desire an ever-greater number of customers imbued with the unassailable conviction that the products on offer are a must-have accessory to life without which they would be subject to a mournful longing tinged with an abiding fear. The M.I.C. knows exactly how to ensure their products are always in demand. Along with all others above it generates the ever abiding fear of enemies and there must always be enemies. If not real, then imagined.

All of the factors above combine and conjoin to create the self-serving fear matrix that keeps all of its diverse individuals and entities cruising along in their upwardly mobile status, all working toward the same end of goal of self-interest above all else. It is exceedingly effective in this. From the Oval Office to the office of the lowliest clerical officer in Raytheon the self-serving, thoroughly cynical fear industry continues to thrive 24/7, all the while smoothed over with a facade of rectitude and patriotic myth duly channeled subliminally by its political and mass media mouthpieces.

 

 

PAVLOV’S PUPPETS

It isn’t as if they have an excuse.

The scandal of all the half-truths, blatant efforts at misinformation and downright propaganda delivered day after day with scant rebuttal about the certainty of western states concerning Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction was revealed to the entire world.

But Pavlov’s Puppets continue to believe those same sources implicitly.

Isn’t it remarkable?

Whatever unnamed sources within the intelligence community say is reported as a ‘scoop’ and channeled to an open-mouthed western public who compliantly start tweeting how ghastly it is and how “something must be done”.

It is as if their brains had all been wiped entirely clean and their minds were tabula rasa on anything related to current regime change targets compared to past ones.

Remarkable indeed.

And so very convenient for those with an agenda to push, a narrative to get accepted and a meme to spread.

It’s as if the historical record regarding western intelligence agencies, their networks of spies & agents, all their sordid little cooked up stories seeded as fact, all their Psyop & Blackop activities... even the jolly words of Mike Pompeo talking of how in the CIA they have entire courses in lying, cheating and theft... all erased in the minds of the open-mouthed gullible accepting of all that emerges from western “intelligence”.

Iraq and its non-existent WMD ought to be the starting point regarding the verity of reports from with the western intelligence community. Add in the fabrications that enabled the attacks upon Serbia and Libya, the assistance to insurgents in Syria and so on.

But let’s just count the recent campaigns:

There’s Russiagate of course. How $90k of Facebook ads on a madcap range of diverse issues won the 2016 presidential election for sociopath Donald Trump. This is just ludicrous from the get go. The Democrats must have spent upward of $100 million on ads. But off-subject Russian ads costing a few thousand bucks outdid them by a mile. Come on!

There’s the Clinton emails leak portrayed as carried out (again) by Russia and passed to Wikileaks. (The evidence is non-existent that there was a hack. In fact it shows they were never transferred. It was a leak. And ex-UK ambassador Craig Murray will testify at Julian Assange’s hearing that he knows who the leaker was and Russia was not involved.)
https://consortiumnews.com/2020/07/22/cia-obsessed-wi..

There was the report Russia could cause an electricity blackout across North America.
Debunked.

Intelligence agencies in the USA and UK continually point to Russia as interfering in various elections but provide no evidence of this saying only it is “quite likely” or words to this effect. (This stems from the same playbook as the ‘Iraqi WMD able to be readied within 45 minutes claim in the UK.)

One of the latest campaigns clearly designed to disrupt any agreement with the Taliban to let American troops go home and not have any more killed in a lost war was for unnamed intelligence sources to claim Russia was paying bounties to the Taliban to kill U.s. troops. This again is obviously fake news seeded successfully in this case derailing the agreement.

In the last few days we have had the claim that Russia launched some potential weapon from a satellite in space. Russian authorities deny the charge but western populations have been primed to disbelieve anything they say.

‘Russian officials have repeatedly warned about the dangers of the potential militarization of space. In February, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov indicated that NATO plans to put weapons in orbit were slowly moving toward becoming a reality, and stressed that it's not too late to prevent a military confrontation in the new potential war-fighting domain by formulating general rules of conduct. Russia and China have each expressed their opposition to the deployment of weapons in outer space, and warned about the dangers of an arms race in this arena.’

It goes on and on as you will know. You get the impression that Russia and China are the combined modern version of the evil Fu Manchu in the early years of this century in America and that western elites are the saintly soldiers of freedom, the cavalry coming over the hill to save Mankind from these evil dragons.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Vietnam, Korea, Latin America, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen... the victims of western state terrorism is long, these are only a tiny proportion of the countries and regions mercilessly attacked based on lies.

But historical illiteracy is the order of the day. We live in a world where many exist in a mental universe where their attention span is not a great deal longer than a nanosecond and where the hypnotic effect of the image-laden universe they dwell within makes headline surfers of them.

These are the ever-emoting, near mindless liberals who used to be called bleeding hearts. They soak in the memes they are targeted with mindlessly, the Uighur “genocide”, “concentration camps”, “Russian interference”, “pro-democracy” rioters in Hong Kong and all else.

These are the hapless victims of propaganda-addicted western states who use them to justify their brutal wars and hate-speech, racism, fascism and narratives of eternal division and forever war.

These are Pavlov’s Puppets.

THE “FREE WORLD” MEME IS COMING BACK | BUT AS FALSE AS EVER

You know what you get with Pompeo. A litany of finely crafted hatred and xenophobia.

What would you get from Biden’s Secretary of State?

You would basically get the same but couched in nuanced phrases that sound innocent, just as finely crafted and essentially sending the same message.

He or she will talk of the West and its U.S.-compliant allies as the “Free World”. All others deigning not to be compliant and submissive in changing themselves on the orders of the “free world” will be nations non grata. They will be subject to endlessly condescending statements that COMPLETELY ignore the mass murder the West and its allies have indulged in based on lies in recent years.

He or she will encourage all nations within the U.S. orbit to align even closer against those nations that are not falling in line, i.e. Russia, China, Iran, Syria, Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua etc.

Strategies will be agreed to undermine the nations above to enable regime change. This in spite of knowing by experience the kind of chaos, death, fragmentation and destruction their past endeavors have produced. This will be nothing other than neoconservatism and 'America First’ rebranded to fox those hoping the USA will change its foreign policy under Biden.

The Permanent State of the USA will not change. Its goals were enumerated long ago with the USA as the world’s primer society, political system and economy having a mission to bring its undoubted “glories” to the rest of the world. With 9/11 steel teeth were added to the mission and the goal of Full Spectrum Dominance was set in place overarching all others.

Biden will seek global hegemony for the USA as this has been his war-mongering wish for many decades. But he will also have no choice. No president can remove the group decision made after 9/11 that in order to protect the USA it must be able to know and control everything and if possible, everyone.

The watchwords will once again be “The Free World”, “Freedom” and “Democracy” and the motives and intentions behind those watchwords will not deviate one iota from those already seen during these regime change blood-soaked years.

As Chomsky famously said in his most quoted book title, manufacturing consent will be the top priority as ever for U.S. foreign policy. Any change from now will be purely semantic and I am sure Noam, if he survives to hear it, will point this out.

The “Free World” where corporate oligarchs and business executives determine the policies of the USA through lobbyists.

The “Freedom of the Press & Media” whereby narratives in the mainstream are strictly within a certain spectrum of acceptability in grand self-censorship style watched over by corporate owners and advertisers.

The great “Democracy” of the USA, a poor facade where voters pretend they have power and in decreasing numbers deign to play out the farcical procedure of voting while their oligarchs and execs chuckle to themselves and give them a metaphorical pat on the head.

But yes, all three will once again be trotted out as justifications for intervening wherever the elites of the USA and its allies choose to. Meanwhile the same howls of protest will be heard from them about Russian and Chinese interference. The terminal levels of irony involved will float high above their heads irrelevant due to the conviction the USA is doing God’s work and seeking to achieve its glorious missions.

How many more will die for the “Free World” status the USA demands of them? How many will suffer the fragmentation of their nations due to the CIA’s dirty work in honor of its glorious mission? How much more division will be created by designating certain nations not kosher enough at a time when the world desperately needs increased unity to face its common challenges such as pandemics and climate change?

The liberal elites and redneck neocons see all deaths, destruction, fragmentation, suffering and destruction as well worth bringing all nations up to “Free World” status, happy to be surveiled from sea, land and space to ensure they stay in line.

Biden and his Secretary of State will invite all errant nations to join the wondrous U.S.-controlled “Free World”, a.k.a. Prison Planet.

Who will pay the entrance fee?

THE REVOLUTION AGAINST ALL THAT’S ROTTEN

There’s much that’s good about the United States of America.

I’ve been there several times now spending time in New York, San Francisco, Las Vegas, San Diego, traveling down the Pacific Coast Highway through Monterey, Salinas and Carmel. I’ve traveled through Arizona, Utah, Nevada and California. I’ve traveled around Florida and stayed in Miami and Clearwater.

In general American people are kind, welcoming and generous of spirit. Most have very good manners, are polite to strangers and curious to know you better. Most also have a strong belief in justice and hate to see injustice either at home or abroad. They tend to be idealistic, wishing to see people be free, the way they see themselves as being free, to speak freely and act without fear of oppression from the state. They are proud of their country and when they think of the men who founded their country and the laws they set in place they are grateful to them and for their wisdom.

I have liked Americans since I was very young and met my first few. They seemed to have bigger characters than my fellow countrymen and women, more interesting and interested somehow, and had something to say, they engaged you with warmth and curiosity, they tended to smile and laugh a lot. I liked them.

So, let me get one thing straight. In my view Americans represent some of the very best people on the planet.

All that being said, something is very rotten at the political core of the United States. There are several cancerous factors which are causing all other positive elements to be affected.

These factors stand in great contrast to all else that is so positive within the United States.

THE NATIVE POPULATION

This is one factor I start with that surprisingly perhaps does not feature highly. The reason is that the native population was reduced to such a low level and in such low circumstances that it has minimal power and almost all potential for fight back expired centuries ago. In pockets there is resistance. There was the massive protest at Wounded Knee and more recently at Standing Rock, North Dakota and there have been other protests by Native Americans over the years but the level of support though great, is not great enough to make the issues involved to the level needed for fundamental change.

SLAVERY

The widespread use of slavery to jump start the American experiment is one of those factors and specifically the failure, after all the years since its abolition to fully cleanse the American society of its stain. There are still a minority of people who continue to value the men who in part fought a war to defend the right to have slaves, although the American Civil War was about much more than one issue. However, a certain mythology continuing elements of race hatred still exist among too many.

INEQUALITY

From all I have gathered there was once a time of relative equality in the United States. I am sure the continuing economic and social effects of slavery on the prospects of people of color were just as pronounced as now, however, among the vast majority in the United States there were jobs and good prospects, decent pay and those generally in higher positions were not SO much more wealthy than those they employed. This has changed out of all recognition.

POLITICS

The founding fathers of the United States, though many of them were slave owners, did collectively produce some of the most enlightened laws and rules of governance seen across the globe and across time. In the constitution of the United States we see great wisdom and compassion, a dedication to the rule of law and order within a just society where freedom of speech, assembly and belief are sacrosanct. These men knew the history of oppression that had brought many of the first people fleeing to their country and were determined that they would create rules that obviated the possibility that such oppression would happen in their new land.

So where’s the problem with politics as I will point to this factor as being the most fundamental factor spoiling the myriad positives within U.S. society.

As I see it the problem is the intimate relationship between commerce and politics, between big business, the hugely wealthy and powerful mega-corporations and individual politicians.

This relationship I believe corrupts virtually the entirety of U.S. politics and has the net effect of destroying the system of democracy the founding fathers so carefully put in place. Of course there was a long history previous to the time of the founding fathers when only landowners had a vote and landowners were invariably men who had a business of some kind, even if it was only in farming. These latter of course owned slaves. So the tendency for businessmen to also be politicians or intimately connected to politics through having the power to vote and interest in gaining advantage for their businesses was strong.

It is a rare person indeed who ignores his own self-interest, seeking only to benefit all others even if his own prospects are reduced somewhat in the process. So, the American system of political life grew from an intimate mingling of business and politics. And in many instances where it is clear the gainful employment of all Americans was a vital goal changes to laws to make this easier and more advantageous to business seemed common sense and for the good of all.

Where politics has arrived at now comes from this relationship with enterprise and business as the primary engine for the good of all. Lobbyists influence politicians with advice where politicians cannot possibly understand the nuts and bolts of any industry they havn’t worked in themselves. It’s logical they would need expert advice and this is where the serried ranks of specialists and lobbyists come in. And those who pay them are almost always the largest businesses within those industries affected by changes in policy.

One of the largest industries of all if not the largest overall is that which is commonly referred to as the Military Industrial Complex.

And this is one of the primary entry points of rot begins.

Then there is the general pressure from the top hundred of Wall Street. Their influence is enormous in political circles. The oil industry. The pharmaceutical industry and so on.

To talk of democracy in anything approaching the ancient Greek practice of The Demos is to stretch credulity to its limits.

Politics in the USA is almost completely divorced from the people of the USA and their needs and wishes. yes, they get a chance once in every four years to vote for one of the two parties that Noam Chomsky has called the two factions of The Business Party... and in theory they could vote for independents... but in general they don’t. Why?

MAINSTREAM MEDIA

The USA has a mainstream media apart from PBS (Public Broadcasting Service) that is corporate owned and in at least one case, billionaire owned. They will claim to provide impartial news coverage but I cannot believe those with a relatively deep insight especially into world affairs can possibly agree with them on that. Mainstream media in the USA today adheres closely in general to the narratives of one or another of the main parties. In addition, and more significant to me in my argument here, they all adhere to the central myths concerning the views of America’s elites concerning their conduct in respect of interventions beyond America’s shores.

REGIME CHANGE

The USA has a mythology that states very clearly that it is special, exceptional, that it is the greatest society and the greatest nation state there has ever been with laws and a constitution that are second to none. There is also an incredibly strong Christian religious belief system that in many instances is extremely fundamentalist in its outlook. In recent years the exceptionalism of these religious beliefs has intertwined ever more closely with the general exceptionalism believed in by political figures. In total these beliefs form a mission that looks inward with pride at virtual perfection and outward at a world that looks woefully imperfect by comparison. This is where political posturing and ambition can entice breast-beating as a sign of patriotic fervor seeking to garner the power of the mythology of exceptionalism. Aggressively seeking change outside the USA can be made to seem to protect the USA as well as forward the desire to change the world to make it more like the USA and its “perfect” systems.

9/11

On 9/11 malign and deeply deluded religious extremists perpetrated one of the most horrendous terrorist acts ever seen.

On that and subsequent days the factors described immediately above got rocket boosters under them. It was decided that the borders of the USA were now across the entire planet. The commission report which was ultimately produced says this specifically. The concept of full spectrum dominance by the USA on land, sea and space was formed. In addition to the mission to bring the benefits of the “perfect” U.S. system to the world was now the absolute imperative that it MUST be done, not only that it would be ideal to be done.

ELITE DOMINANCE

This factor combines much of what has gone before and produces the overarching factor ensuring the continuance of the factors producing the constant rot with an otherwise positively-based nation of decent people. The elites of the USA now are far removed from the everyday lives of most Americans, they move in different circles entirely and are motivated and affected by issues almost entirely absent in the general population. And their powers are immense. They own the majority of politicians though they would never put it like this, they would talk of the necessity that they have the intimate relationship they do, that due to their rise to their elite positions only they and their peers can have the breadth of insight and know-how to run things well. They own virtually all press and media. This means the narratives broadcast in general dove-tail well with their interests. This is not done on a command basis but in reality everyone knows the score, from the editors to the lowliest clerk they know what the accepted narrative is and what areas to avoid. Criticism of state policies regarding regime change or pointing out the catastrophic effects of them or the criminal acts, lies or propaganda that enabled them are not areas for examination. The meme hear is that such discussion would “help our enemies” of which of course there is always a plentiful supply. The elite mandate in collective form through business and political figures now runs America as a thoroughly manipulated entity as regards the selective use of narratives with a view to making it as powerful as possible in its desire to control the world making it safe for American interests.

CONCLUSION

This, in my estimation is where we stand currently. With an edifice of power seeking de facto world dominance in one form or another, whether by political/diplomatic influence, through military bases, through a system of uninspected narratives that essentially comprise propaganda to the manipulation and destabilization of national leaders and institutions worldwide. For the benefit and safety of America (and the meme will always state, for the benefit of the entire “free world”).

SO WHY TALK OF REVOLUTION AGAINST ALL THAT’S ROTTEN?

I titled this piece ‘Revolution Against All That’s Rotten’ because I believe that the present protests generally headed under the banner of ‘Black Lives Matter’ are much more than that and likely to be much more long-lasting than previous protest movements such as the ‘Occupy’ protest movement. I believe the killing of George Floyd was simply the very last straw which broke the camel’s back and that all the disgust at the many areas of rot within the USA stretching back to its founding are finding voice in a sizeable number of the U.S. population which is now mirroring the phrase used by the character Howard Beale in the 1976 film ‘Network’, “I'm Mad As Hell and I'm Not Gonna Take This Anymore!”

The present ongoing protests which appear to be building and garnering more support not less and from a wider section of the public such as Moms and military vets are about more than one issue I believe, they are about a revulsion concerning the issues above and more such as the handling of the pandemic, the imminent possibility of bankruptcy through loss of jobs and health insurance, the imminent loss of homes, the lack of prospects, the degeneration of infrastructure, the diminution of life chances due to myriad factors... all as politicians awarded more and more billions to its Wall Street partners and the military industrial complex.

A great many Americans have simply come to the end of their tether, they see how wrong the direction they have been taken has been, they see politicians who are completely out of touch with the wishes and needs of the people and who seem focused continually on the needs of the super-rich. It appears a great many Americans have reached the limit of their endurance and with that the end of their tolerance and have decided they are not going to take this any more.

It is about more than Trump and Black Lives Matter in my view, more than about police brutality and the weaponization of an increasing number of factors mitigating against the freedoms expressed in the constitution by the founding fathers.

I believe it is a combined generalized revulsion against every last rotten aspect that is destroying a country they know can indeed be great, magnanimous and a leader in the advancement of humankind... but is being reduced to a kind of legalized fascism due to the factors producing increasing rot as listed above.

Here is the fictional Howard Beale played in brilliantly dramatic and memorable style by Peter Finch. This, from 1976 typifies for me what motivates the masses in Portland, Seattle and other American cities now.