THE DANGEROUS KINDERGARTEN OF WESTERN ELITE THOUGHT

Climate change is upon us. A pandemic continues to wreak havoc worldwide. Who knows what further catastrophes await humankind? Some speculate that in addition to the ravages of climate change and predicted further and perhaps even more virulent and deadly pandemics to come, we may find even more deadly threats facing us all in the years directly ahead.

It ought to be clear to all of us that in these circumstances the nations of the world, especially the most economically and technologically powerful, should be working together to find solutions and preventative measures. Yet it is clearly not at all clear to a certain section of the world’s population. A tiny percentage of humanity to be sure, but certainly one of the most powerful and influential percentages. The primary figures holding the levers of power in the West.

What are the issues gripping the minds of western elites at this moment? Certainly some of them pay lip service to the potential for human, economic and environmental catastrophe that looms in the shape of climate change. It isn’t hard to see however that they tie their hands to a great extent when it comes to agreeing to changes that would impact their economies and blunt their ambitions to see economic growth rise unhindered. This latter obsession is underpinned by a desire to compete with and outdo economic rivals along with their need to have the money to grow their capitalist and hyper-capitalist societies.

The desire to compete rather than cooperate is therefore deeply ingrained as the default mindset within western nations that have become conditioned to believe through years of indoctrination (from Chicago School economists and political activists) that competition is the universal solvent for the needs and woes of any and all societies worldwide. Western political and media elites clearly believe this in the same manner as if it were religious dogma. This has resulted in a fossilised way of thinking and reacting that is incredibly dangerous in this moment of imminent threat. A house divided cannot stand and humanity at this moment needs to stand together more than at any previous moment.

The deeply ingrained and chronically conditioned reliance on competition that informs western elite thought seems impermeable to the obvious necessities which face us as a species. It brings to mind the fate of the dinosaurs who met their end in a cataclysm that comprehensively engulfed and destroyed them.

So, if these elites are unwilling or unable to observe the situation as it is now with all the dangers inherent in it, what are they in fact focussing upon?

It is surely clear that they are focussed on an agenda which mitigates exactly against establishing good working relations between the nations of our planet. They are focussed upon confrontation, name-calling and tactics to create a mud-slinging contest that can only end in terminal misunderstanding, offence, loss of any hope of mutual respect and ultimately, war.

In particular, the elites of the USA are quite obviously locked into a mindset whereby they must be top dogs or they won’t play. The game they are playing, they insist, must be totally one-sided, they make demands and the other side or sides comply. The norms of diplomacy are ignored and in fact, in large part abandoned in this talk-down mode where a self-assed exemplary team sit on high pointing fingers at the other side unwilling to truly engage with anything approaching mutual respect. Why is this?

Though Russia has in recent times been the headline issue for these elites much of the angst created was not in essence fundamentally about Putin and Russia or their purported misdemeanours. True, there were some who appear to have believed that there was an issue of importance involved, but mostly it was simply about getting rid of Trump who had encouraged the campaign by positive statements about both Putin and Russia.

The real target of western elites, at least in terms of the elites of the USA and arguably the UK, is China. China is the rising economic powerhouse that cannot help but see its influence grow and grow significantly in the decades ahead. There can surely be no doubt on this point. And what does this mean for the elites of the USA and UK, so used to being top political and geopolitical dogs, global players, fixers, controllers and disciplinarians? Clearly, it means the loss of much if not all these facets of their significant economies and histories that serve to generate the patrician status they have held for centuries. This provides the fuel for their determination now to confront and defeat this fast-rising rival rather than cooperate with it for the sake of our and future generations.

You may say this is a madness that can only provide an extremely limited solution for these elites in the short term while putting at risk their entire enterprise along with those of all others. And if you do say so I would absolutely agree. However, though some of the elites in question may understand the factors involved and perhaps even the urgency for cooperation rather than competition that exists it is likely they are completely hamstrung by the weight of very long-term conditioning that maintains competing with adversaries or enemies as the highest possible priority.

The USA and UK appear completely hooked as power-junkies controlling our planet, terminally unable to quit their habit, and unwilling to even approach the kind of cold-turkey that would come with losing their fix.

These many circumstances featured above hardly need explaining at this point, they are so very obvious. Yet the political and media elites of these nations continue to broadcast a totally false facade which they assert is reality, that they are fighting evil foes for the soul of the world in the name of ‘western liberal values’ and a ‘rules-based order’. These are the issues that they say justify waging an economic and propaganda war against those it calls ‘adversaries’ and ‘enemies’. These issues rather than the fate of the entire population of Planet Earth are those that obsess them. And lead them to ‘bring on’ the existential threats facing us all while fixing the international environment as an ultra-confrontational war of opposing systems.

Only recently Biden ramped up the economic war against Cuba. Totally ignoring the suffering caused by its previous sanctions and embargoes and that the people there are also in the midst of the Covid-19 epidemic. The same goes for Venezuela where in excess of 40,000 Venezuelans have died due to draconian U.S. sanctions and financial terrorism against the nation. Nicaragua and other nations not complying with U.S. strictures are being targeted constantly.

Verbal and economic attacks continue against Russia and the same is true to an ever-increasing and more tightly-focused degree against China.

It is almost as if the elites of the USA and UK have an utterly irresponsible and in fact quite insane death wish that includes the entire planet. Is it the case that they would rather see everything possible destroyed in an unending series of cataclysms than accept they must exercise tolerance and respect for the diverse systems of other nations with a view to cooperating to save present and future life on our planet?

You could be forgiven for thinking that the elites of the western world and in particular those of the USA and UK exist within their own mental kindergarten where the rules demand only certain thoughts be allowed, those of confrontation where all others perceived within that kindergarten must submit to them as the bigger kids, the dominating elite who brook zero resistance.

If we are being subject to the whims and demands of these kindergarten elites of the western world perhaps we need to work fast to tear down its walls and the walls in their minds and expose them to the light of day, the very real dangers to all of us that demand a quick upgrading to a very much needed higher form of education.

THE EVIL WESTERN HABIT OF WEAPONIZING EMPATHY

We all know the term ‘War Games’ and how they have a claimed reason for their existence along with the underlying reasons.

The surface gloss claims they are merely to keep an army or armies ‘up to speed’ and in a higher state of readiness.

However, as with those so-called ‘War Games’ in South Korea and the recent combined NATO/Ukraine exercises they are also used to send a direct message to those considered enemies and to intimidate and mould public opinion in regard to all "evil enemies” of the "saintly" West.

But if these are ‘War Games’ with the emphasis on ‘Games’ what could be denoted as cheating? Beyond the subtext of the messages being sent by the military exercises themselves there is also all the attendant propaganda, muscle-flexing and attempts to intimidate and influence western populations in order to draw them into a nexus of fear, a fear that can be usefully manipulated if and when the time comes for even more strident action.

The effect of the entire panoply of western elite agendas, narratives and efforts to create an effect in the public mind of western populations is greater now than at any time since the end of World War II, greater even than that seen during the entire Cold War. Of course claim after claim was made by the western elites of communist iniquity, great emphasis was laid on the great lack of freedom and democracy suffered by the populations locked behind the Iron Curtain. That economics rather than human rights was the overriding concern of western elites was understandably lost on western populations over those years, as they were pummeled relentlessly with the same variations on the same themes, freedom and democracy, over and over and over again. But I would contend that economic gain and denial of it by the regimes of the time to western elites was at least, if not even more so, the primary motivating force both on the western side of the curtain and behind it.

The above being said, the old calls for ‘Freedom’ and ‘Democracy’ which worked so well against the Warsaw Pact have been found to flag a little in the years since the demise of the communist system and all it stood for in those nations. Their last hurrah was arguably heard for these two buzz words to justify the attack upon and invasion of Iraq, and later Libya and to some degree in the war against Syria. A new device began to be seen alongside the two stalwart motivating and manipulating terms that had served the West well. It was trialled with much success in Iraq after being used to a certain extent in Afghanistan. For shorthand, I call it weaponizing empathy.

Western populations have seen their general standard of living rise since the end of World War II through various economic innovations playing upon the already privileged economic position of western nations. A long history of exploiting weaker nations to the hilt through colonialism and the brutal reality of greater leverage available to strike great deals for them and lousy ones for all others left the West extremely rich by comparison with most of the rest of the world. Sensitivity rose alongside affluence in many. Not that it had ever been entirely absent, western populations had often suffered from pain and poverty while their elites enjoyed an entirely different experience of life. The pain and poverty of many produced its own sensitivity toward others and was expressed politically as socialism. The more poor a population was in the West the more compassion and empathy tended to be found within it. This was before the era of Thatcher and Reagan of course.

After the infamous duo above a new individualism arose where a selfish approach began to speedily erode the socialism (whether called as such or not) that had been the bedrock of poorer sections of western populations. Nevertheless, and largely despite the greed-driven decades which followed, a middle class arose that felt itself quite significantly well off. They demanded and got a sanitized life to a great degree, they left grimy inner cities behind them and created lives for themselves that generated a feeling of immunity from the many ailments of humanity. They began to feel secure and quite self-satisfied. And perhaps just a little guilty when they heard of the many dire travails of others. They eventually became quite highly sensitized to these, much as the rich Victorian benefactors to the poor must have felt centuries earlier.

Western politicians know which section of their populations have the most clout. In poll position of course are the super-rich and the owners and shareholders of highly successful corporations. Then come the wealthiest of the middle class who are most likely to be active politically. But it was those in the middle class who wielded political clout that would become the primary targets of the new device of weaponized empathy. The so-called ‘Bleeding Heart Liberals’.

In Afghanistan there were very real issues that could be brought to bear and used ultimately to justify the wreaking of death and destruction. The Taliban refused to allow females to be educated and kept them locked indoors, unable to participate in the everyday life that was the rule in the West.

This was taken a step further in Iraq after it was seen to be a very effective force tied in with the concepts of ‘Freedom’ and ‘Democracy’. A fiction was generated which helped get the support needed by the West to start wreaking havoc in Iraq. A young girl (the daughter of an Iraqi activist) presented a heartbreaking story to an elite gathering in Washington. She related how Iraqi soldiers had taken over 80 babies out of their incubators and dashed their tiny heads on the hard hospital floor. It was a carefully articulated tale and George HW Bush fell for it hook, line and sinker.

In Syria this device was taken a few steps further as the emotive power to manipulate sensitive western audiences through the power of all media including the new social media was realized. The White Helmets were the perfect set-up for pulling heartstrings on innumerable levels. Brave and selfless humanitarians risking life and limb under shining white helmets to rescue terrified little children from the evil bombardments of the Syrian tyrant. A kind of evil perfection was seen in the cold professionalism of those whose employment depended upon the framing of enemies of the West when it came to the White Helmets. In conjunction, U.S. and UK representatives at the United Nations chimed in to raise the emotional quotient to even higher levels with accusations that Assad and the Russians were waking each morning rubbing their hands with glee at the thought of killing school children and hospital patients. The weaponizing of empathy had gone into absolute overdrive.

In more recent times we have seen the treatment of the media and serried ranks of activists use demonizing of targets to the limit wherever possible. Russia and China became the next targets. Good money would be paid in large amounts for any story that could either pluck a heartstring, raise an indignant fist or envelope minds in fear and loathing. False flags played their part of course, they had in Iraq and they did also in Syria and Libya. The Humanitarian Death Industry has been going great guns throughout. All’s fair in love and war they say and weaponizing empathy is now very big business.

Despite no evidence and multiple reports to show there is no evidence, certain centres of activism with excellent connections to western elite entities in both political and media spheres are able to make immense, tear-making, heartstring-pulling tragedies out of thin air. To date, Russia has seemed to be the primary target. But the ultimate target for the West, the target the elites of the West are aiming for with all their empathy weapons is undoubtedly China. And the province of Xinjiang where the new Silk Road has a hub has been chosen as the weakest point to attack. And of course, these days, the attack is led by weaponizing the empathy of sensitized elite populations in the West. Tales of genocide, forced labour and sterilization have been hitting the airwaves and newsprint in an all-out assault of western emotional vulnerability. Despite multiple reports by respected institutions that nothing of the kind can be found in Xinjiang, the powers-that-be of the West don’t let that stop them for a second.

This is arguably the sickest “game” that can be played in war short of a Hiroshima or Nagasaki. And it is a war, despite much of it involving mere words. The callousness is quite breathtaking when wealthy western elites attempt to throw thousands of Uighur workers on the breadline where they may be tempted to join the terrorist groups in their midst. Yes, it’s as sick as that. These are not ‘War Games’ but are treated as such. Men and women with high salaries in designer suits sit in well-appointed rooms in Washington and Whitehall to skillfully arrange these fabricated realities for maximum effect.

It’s all part of the new ways the West has found to fight the dirtiest wars in its history and just as it appears to be on the verge of having its powers eclipsed it is playing as dirty as it gets. By the black arts of demonizing, of projecting its own crimes on others, of torturing, of false flag operations and incorporating, arguably the most powerful device of all, the callous and utterly cynical weaponizing of empathy.

THE CONVENIENT CONDEMNATION OF RUSSIA AND CHINA

The mass murdering elites of the western world who laid waste to the Middle East predicated upon a series of lies, find it convenient to forget this historical fact.

The wars where hundreds of thousands died due to the spreading of half-truths, lies and propaganda were a convenient means of sending a message after the attack on western power of 9/11.

 

These were convenient wars for an elite fearing they would look weak otherwise.

Now they wage a different kind of war against Russia and China though it again is a convenient way to assert their power and lessen that of others.

This pattern of what is convenient for the West is endemic to the western elite mind, it has been laid down through the genocide of the native population in what is now the USA, deepened by the use made of slavery and the wealth gained thereby and reinforced endlessly by the colonisation of weaker nations who were then heartlessly oppressed and exploited.

These are the elites who now claim moral superiority over all others along with the right to judge, condemn and punish with a view to correcting their behaviour and making it a mirror image of their own.

A mirror image of murderous oppression and exploitation equating to higher moral and ethical values? Somehow I don’t think so.

Russia and China, the targets of current volleys of accusation, were the nations that stood against the planning for mass slaughter in Iraq. They warned that such murderous intent would not end well. They stood for the inviolate nature of sovereignty and international law while western nations paraded an obvious intent to violate both.

What right do western elites have to claim the moral high ground currently with such a bloody recent history of violent aggression toward nations that never lifted a finger against them?

They have none.

Yet in the absence of a mainstream news media in the West willing to criticise them and hold them to account and who instead support them in their latest claims against others, there can be little surprise that recent history has been erased for the majority of western populations.

The elites of the West have used this ability to constantly create year zeroes to obliterate their crimes in the eyes of many westerners. They have been treated to a dose of media-created amnesia after which the tabula rasa can be written upon with more believable lies and blank minds told to focus in fear of those ‘others’ over there.

It’s a neat trick if you can manage it. And the political and media elites of the West have managed it very well.

The news media of the mainstream are now in such a parlous condition, threatened constantly by the move of many online that they are more than willing to go along with the propaganda their governments invest millions in. Entities such as CNN and the BBC have become willing presstitutes to the geopolitical agendas of western states as they feel they have nowhere else to go except cling to Big Momma’s apron strings.

It’s all so very convenient.

An enemy or better still, two, for the USA has always been a must. And now its elites have even expanded their active wars against Russia, China and Venezuela to include Cuba. 

As the West’s economic power declines in the face of the rise of China it has become fixed in its determination to weaken and crush all opposition to its continued murderous dominance. China will eclipse the power and influence of the West within the next decade. This is what current western aggression is all about. And it is what all the condemnation of those opposing its continued murderous dominance is all about.

As in every preceding case, the use of lies by western elites and the creation of needless fear predominates. Misinformation, disinformation, scare stories, propaganda, bare-faced lies and social engineering are being made use of to condition western populations into acceptance of further western elite crimes against humanity.

With a captive audience, constantly fed a diet of deceitful allegations, western elites indulge in the totally cynical and very convenient condemnation of Russia and China.

THE NEW GLOBAL VISION: ALL THAT DIVIDES US MAY YET UNITE US

Vive la différence!

The French who coined the phrase above knew well the positives to be found in the unfamiliar and unusual.

In international relations however, there has been less pleasure than the potential for misunderstanding and subsequent aggression in differences between nations. In particular, the elites of the USA and other western nations in its orbit have recently fallen in line with a greater degree of intolerance when it comes to cultures other than that of the West.

A new meme arose out of 9/11 and the alignment known as the ‘Coalition of the Willing’, the group of nations who swallowed the lies told concerning Iraq and the supposed dangers it posed for the western world. Several more disastrous interventions took place all reinforcing and re-emphasizing that those of the West were one thing and they, another. Hundreds of thousands of lives were sacrificed and in an infamous phrase this was ‘a price worth paying’, mainly due to the fact that they were ‘not like us’, they were different, expendable, so different in mentality that those of the West need not be too concerned at their demise.

The regime change mentality along with that which embraced the concept of a ‘clash of civilizations’ and an extremely heightened sense that it was down to the survival of ‘them or us’ is exemplified in the phrase used by so-called Christians who almost exclusively viewed life through the Old Testament, “Kill Them All and Let God Sort Them Out’. This kind of mentality requires the complete demonization of a complete category of other humans in exactly the same mental state as the Nazis viewed all Jews.

The memes of the USA and UK preceding the recent additional concepts arriving after 9/11 formed the groundwork for the heightened sense of difference and intolerance with which much of the rest of the world was viewed. These earlier memes are well known and continue to wield a strong influence that creates a continuing intolerance for difference across the western world. These are of course the memes of exceptionalism, of superiority and of having the ‘correct values’. The mentality involved sets the western individual on high, looking down from his or her ivory tower of exquisite purity on the rest of humanity. It requires a permanent state of master and servant where those not willing to be servants must necessarily be punished sufficiently until they acquiesce. 

Holding all those who do not agree and agree also to bow down before the “perfection” of the western way of life and the ‘western liberal values’ it espouses as ‘beyond the pale’ of so-called western civilization, creates an environment where war of one kind or another is inevitable. This is the future that faces the world now due to the fixed intransigence of the West, wholly transfixed by its concepts of self-awarded perfection and “holy” duty to deliver it to others, whether they express any desire for it, or not.

The attitudes of western elites can deliver only a global environment of intolerance for differences, attitudes wholly in conflict with the phrase with which I began this commentary. 

So, does there exist an alternate vision of the world that may augur a world where stability and peace prevail based upon not only a tolerance of differences but indeed a delight in tem? I believe so and in my estimation we can see that future of mutual respect and tolerance for diversity being laid out for us consistently by two main actors upon the world stage currently.

Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping have, in their many speeches, long exemplified their desire to usher in this future world where tolerance is prioritized over the aggressive intolerance and interference displayed by the West. Their vision is one where national sovereignty is inviolate and differences between nations are opportunities for mutual benefit in terms of cultural exchange, tourism, commerce and trade. Non-interference by nations in the affairs of others is a policy long held by both Russia and China. This was seen at its most public expression at the United Nations when both refused to sign off on the ambition of the USA and UK to attack and invade Iraq. Their view on these interventions has remained constant from that time to this.

China is building the most ambitious project ever seen in its ‘Belt and Road Initiative’ which will exemplify the notion that diverse nations can come together in cooperation and move ever forward to enhance their cultural and commercial interests in a spirit of mutual respect.

The USA and UK show no such inclination and much of Europe, though not as extreme in their view, is tending still to add support to interventionist policies of intolerance and demands for adherence to so-called western values.

These are the two great thrusts of history evident on the world stage currently and which show no sign of being modified until one gains greater influence than the other. Currently, there is near balance between the two with the West, the long time most dominant, still holding most sway. China however is fast rising to fully balance the effect of western power and within the next decade to eclipse it. With Russia by her side and a strong alliance with all others threatened currently by western intolerance, China will have sufficient influence within Europe, Africa and elsewhere to ensure the new paradigm of respect for differences within the context of inviolate national sovereignty prevails.

We face a clear choice.

A virtually endless future of war against different national cultures and beliefs by a West itself riven by conflicting attitudes within its own populations.

A future of increasing stability where nations are no longer subject to destabilizing by others, nor attacked by military means, but through trade and tolerance for inviolate sovereignty, they are encouraged to connect with and move forward with their global neighbours.

The choice is stark and is coming ever more into focus as the West continues to ramp up its efforts to ensure it remains the dominant power and continue its project to mould the world into a mirror image of its unstable self.

THE WEST IS TARGETING CHINA TO MAINTAIN ITS EVIL REIGN

China threatens the malign empire of the West, the empire that has ruled the world without authority, extorting, exploiting and ruthlessly suppressing it, for a hundred years and more.

China is rising fast to stymie the continued regime of mass murder and robbery that has characterized the activities of western elites for generations.

China will push back the malignant western influence that it has remorselessly inflicted on weaker nations unable to resist it.

There is nothing more important to western elites than the retention of their power over others, the maintenance of their ability to manipulate events and the continued ability to safeguard the resulting wealth flowing to them from their criminal abuse of others.

Any lie or cynical distortion that can serve western elite narratives will be deployed both by governmental figures and mainstream news entities. All elite elements with a channel to public opinion are working overtime to deliver a war of words against China. Governments of the western orbit will increasingly use these lies and distortions to “justify” economic warfare against China.

No agency of government will maintain integrity in the face of the unified desire to weaken China in the war to maintain western dominance and dictatorship.

This war is the final world war by totally self-interested elites who will use all past ruses to attack and undermine China and Chinese interests worldwide. Not one word of the campaign to denigrate and weaken China will be the undisputed truth, it will instead be a matrix of knowingly created untruths, exaggerations and downright lies. The so-called justifications using whatever buzz words western elite institutes use will not remotely be the true motivations of the western elites using them. We are familiar with those of ‘Freedom’ and ‘Democracy’ which have been used and abused in the past. But allegations such as ‘genocide’, ‘forced labour’, ‘cyber warfare’ and ‘forced sterilization’ have been added as button-pushing motifs to use on headline surfing western populations.

This is all out war. It is a fight to the death for elites in the West who have themselves fully convinced of their goodness even in the face of all we know of their disgusting activities and mass murder of hundreds of thousands based on lies. The attempt being made now by the West to wage war against China by other means that the kind of military attack used previously will use false concepts to hoodwink their populations one last time.

The lies used against previous regime change targets are to be wiped from public memory if possible. Agencies such as the CIA and MI6 who have actively indulged in known assassination attempts, coups, murders, torture and cynical and constant use of propaganda are to be set on a pedestal as totally trustworthy.

Governments of abject liars in the West are going to continually set themselves up as exemplars of probity, honest to the core, 'wouldn’t hurt a fly' saints.

And those who refuse to continue to bow down to their malignant power but are rising now to face them down and replace their murderous rule with an alternate geopolitical reality will be attacked to the death, even to the point where their actions threaten the very survival of life on Earth. This is the extent of their lust to retain power, to dominate, dictate, manipulate and hold the power of life and death over others for their own benefit and no other reason.

This is the reality being revealed today by a united front of self-serving western elites in their struggle to preserve their empire of pure evil.

This is the final world war, a war between the West and China, Russia and all their allies that now stand strong against a malignant regime whose time of murderous domination is at an end.

LIVING IN THE USA (THE USUAL SEMANTIC ASSESSMENT)

There are no godlike journalists who span the world with their minds and eyes reporting universally and objectively.

What there are, are paid observers within the mainstream who have a lens with ‘West’ painted all over it.

Apart from those above, we have independent observers who attempt to counter the distortion caused by their corporate or state-paid counterparts.

To say that the West is soaked in a perpetual rain of propaganda is to mischaracterize the situation however. Though ‘Operation Mockingbird’, the CIA program to ensure mainstream media news mirrored U.S. state narratives no doubt continues to some extent, the problem is wider in extent than this.

There is an unwritten consensus across western mainstream news on certain geopolitical issues which if any journalist, editor or owner does not adhere to they will soon find themselves the subject of enormous controversy.

The geopolitical consensus in place across the West has a number of specific facets to it:

1. Western elites never act badly by design or in their own self-interest.

2. Any deaths or disasters caused by the West are due solely to well-meant mistakes.

3. Neither of the two factors above should be applied to target nations of the West.

4. Due to 3. Above both China and Russia can be portrayed in a wholly negative light.

5. Russia, China, Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and others are fair game for all.

A feature writer or invited observer will be given a brief or have one accepted only if the above facets are adhered to in one way or another. This needn’t and indeed should not be glaringly obvious to the average reader. The article ought to seem reasonably even-handed and written with good explanatory, simply a cogent analysis to enlighten the publication or network’s readership. Nevertheless, it will act at the most potent level merely to reinforce points 1 to 5 above.

To some this may seem perfectly reasonable. However, what this repetition of certain west-centric narratives does is fix in ever more permanent form a single set of narratives that maintain what appears to be a desired status quo. This status quo is a fixed division across our world just at the very moment it desperately requires to find unity of purpose.

There can surely be no doubt that 1 to 5 above can and does do this. What other effect could there be when article after article reiterates the same message? The subliminal effect on those who continue to use western mainstream news as their primary choice of information on the world cannot help but be enormous.

This conditioning effect comes not only from mainstream media news, it emanates from every major figure in every political party wielding a significant degree of power across the western world.  

In recent days, after their meeting, Biden and Merkel have agreed that it is very important to stand against “Russian Aggression”. That is to stand against the president and nation which refused to go along with western adventurism in Iraq, Syria, Libya and elsewhere. Is it not a curious phenomenon when the no previous acts of illegal attacks and invasions by western elites are relevant in the context of “aggression”. I would argue that the non-coverage of these activities in this context are due to the self-censorship involved in 1 and 2 above.

The acceptable behavior within the orbits of western mainstream media news and western mainstream political circles totally mitigates against any negativity regarding western aggression, indeed it would never be labeled as such. Only those outside the saintly western world could be labeled as behaving this way and are, constantly.

At its most banal it reflects a simplistic black versus white scenario. A very unpleasant harmonic of the semantic dualism George W. Bush invoked. We are the good guys, they are the bad. Therefore if you are not one of us you are one of them. This reflects the kind of kindergarten level of Hollywood movie scripts also indelibly placed in western minds. The good guys fight the good fight and ultimately, always win. Westerners are endlessly encouraged to be with the good guys and to accept the view (as expressed through 3 to 5 above) that the ‘others’ are the bad guys.

These techniques are hardly new, yet they conflict rather glaringly with the relatively modern concept that those in the West are now in a new world of unhindered access to accurate information. In what seems to be a further attempt to establish narratives 1 through 5 all else is increasingly deemed fake news or the product of ‘Russian Agents’, Putin’s Puppets’, ‘Assad Apologists’ and other traitors to the righteous western cause. 

Hopefully an ever-increasing number of those living in the western world are realizing that half the story on any issue is arguably also half lies, it is at the very least a deception, an attempt to mislead and deepen an already very deep misapprehension of reality. Figures such as Max Blumenthal, Ben Norton, Aaron Mate and many others are accessed on YouTube increasingly for listeners to access the complete picture and the full story. Unfortunately the majority appears to still implicitly trust those who are handsomely paid to endlessly reinforce points 1 to 5 above. Delivering the Usual Semantic Assessment.

HOW IS THE USA DOING AS “GLOBAL LEADER”?

It is something we’ve heard time and again over the years from U.S. presidents, that the USA has an inalienable right to its role of global leadership. In both the last administration and this there has been an emphasis on America being back… as if it had ever gone away. (For the USA to go away and stay away would arguably be a net positive in most instances.)

Trump’s Pompeo went round the world assuring allies that the USA was still engaged, still ready to interfere in their nations and commit its usual crimes there for their own good. Biden has a trickier task, to do much withdrawing in the Middle East while re-stating the old mantra that the USA is back and here to stay. However, no matter what the U.S. tactics of the day may be, whether the USA stays or goes, the assertion that the USA has the role of global leader is certainly here to stay. (At any rate until the economic rise of others makes this assertion untenable.)

For the time being the USA retains massive power and is, as ever, in a constant frame of mind to wield it. So how is it doing? How should we judge the world’s CEO?

If we look at leadership in general there are certain attributes I would claim the USA is showing a distinct lack in.

Imagine there is a king of a medieval walled city where an evil horde is approaching his city gates to demand the city’s surrender. Is the King uniting his people in readiness to oppose them? Is he deeply engaged in raising their morale and getting them prepared to work in a highly coordinated fashion to best ensure their survival? No. In fact this king is fighting his own internecine battle with certain factions within the city, berating them, acting to isolate them and in general spreading division in his ranks.

This is one analogy for the USA and how I see it performing as “global leader”. The evil horde approaching the city gates represents all the threats now facing us as a species on Planet Earth, the present and future pandemics, the increasing effects of Global Warming and all the climate changes to come. As these threats to all humanity loom ever larger in all our lives and have the potential to decimate us to untold degrees it would seem obvious that we must unify our efforts to combat these threats. Yet what does the USA constantly do rather than seek this unity of purpose. It acts like the king in my analogy, working to sow discord within, ever seeking to find grievances with others and greater divisions between nations, even to the extent of seeking to undermine them and their ability to contribute against all present and fast-emerging threats.

This is not global leadership. This is partisan in-fighting.

A true leader reconciles differences within the sphere of his or her influence to make an organization stronger and more able to function well for the benefit of all. Any leader, whether a head of state, corporation or mythical medieval city choosing instead to weaken the entity in question through internal division is not truly a leader but a liability.

The situation we now find ourselves in could hardly be clearer. Covid has decimated so many societies around the world and caused immense harm. It revealed which countries could coordinate well against it and in which the result of its efforts were chaotic. I would argue that recent history has shown that the way the USA responded to Covid was the most chaotic of all. Competing, not cooperating appears to be an irremovable part of the USA’s genetic code and cooperation appears to have become an almost unthinkable attribute.

The endlessly competitive and combative USA along with its colonialist allies with their concept of themselves as superior to others makes for an eternally divisive force separating them from those they disdain as inferior. Their attitude is that those they consider inferior should simply listen to them and obey. This is a familiar dictatorial style of management once accepted as the standard with an elite of ‘them’ deciding for a mass of ‘us’ who were only there to obey. Over recent decades it has been recognized that this style of management was ultimately detrimental to boss/worker relations and toxic when it came to the mutually cooperative ethos that was the true ideal where all thrived.

This exceptionalism at the heart of western elite beliefs is, I believe, the root cause of the enormous lack of true leadership potential within the United States and its allies. Their own attitudes make them incapable of the tolerance and mutual respect required for the kind of successful unity required. Instead of recognizing all we have in common nation to nation the USA and its allies continue obsessively to focus on all the differences they can find. This style of management is inherently corrosive, of trust, of willingness to engage and crucially of the willingness to work together.

China and Russia have made clear their wish and willingness to work in partnership with the West. But the elites of the West only see competitors, stuck fast in their mentality which demands they always retain superiority over others. In the situation we now find ourselves in as a species, with enormous threats to us quite clearly in view we cannot afford a leader that divides rather than unites us. In fact such a leader can only lead us into greater and greater vulnerability to the threats facing us and almost certain disaster.