Too Late for 2: CJ, PCR, Tom Murphy and un-denial

The Fact That Americans Need To Be Deceived Into War Proves Their Underlying Goodness. Caitlin Johnstone. June 22, 2019.

The US empire does indeed have an extensive and well-documented history of using lies, manipulations and distortions to manufacture consent for war from a populace that would otherwise choose peace, and a Reuters poll released last month found that only 12 percent of Americans favor attacking Iranian military interests without having been attacked first.

Watching Americans react online to the jarring report about how close they may have just come to a war which would have impacted most of the world to varying degrees, I’ve been experiencing a deep appreciation for what truly, sincerely good people they are underneath all the propaganda and deceit.

The fact that Americans have had to be tricked into every major military action since the Spanish-American War is telling in itself. If Americans were truly a war-hungry mob, the hawks wouldn’t need to do that. Notice too how these tricks almost always hinge on manipulating Americans’ desire to help others. The manipulators literally have to use people’s goodness to manufacture consent for war by making it all about a “dictator” who is harming his people or some variation of this theme. The hawks could try to play off of hatred or fear, but they know it wouldn’t work nearly as effectively as manipulating the already-installed “Save the day!” helping desire that most Americans live and breathe.

Now, these tricks are becoming more and more conscious for an increasing number of Americans. For instance, on the day of the Gulf of Oman incident, “Gulf of Tonkin” briefly trended on Twitter. As it becomes more apparent that they’ve been lied to, you could expect people to compartmentalize away from the bloodshed by arguing for exceptionalism and for strengthening the petrodollar and US geostrategic interests no matter the cost. They could simply switch gears and take their cues from Bolton and the neocons. But the large majority don’t. They are horrified. There is shame and there is palpable grief. They hate the thought that they might be the baddies, and they want to do what they can to stop the next senseless military bloodbath.

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Whenever I try to talk about this I get a lot of pushback, not from outsiders like myself but from Americans themselves. When you’re in the thick of a society that keeps seeing itself manipulated into war after war after war, it can feel like being in the middle of an endless zombie apocalypse, and it’s easy to grow impatient with one’s countrymen.

But it’s so important that the blame be placed in the right place. We must be vigilant in directing our anger at the manipulators and not the manipulated. It’s always the conman’s fault, never the victim

Be Wary of Undue Optimism. Paul Craig Roberts. June 24, 2019.

Caitlin Johnstone, one of my favorite commentators whose columns I often repost, apparently has felt some pressure from some readers for a bit of optimism. She found it in the “underlying goodness” of Americans who must be deceived into war. If Americans were really bad, she says, they would not have to be deceived and manipulated into going to war. She concludes that the fact that they are deceived and manipulated means that it is not their fault. As Caitlin puts it, “We must be vigilant in directing our anger at the manipulators and not the manipulated. It’s always the conman’s fault, never the victim.” Thus does she absolve Americans for any responsibility for the massive crimes their country has committed against other peoples.

It is always more comfortable to blame others than ourselves. Before writing this column, Caitlin might have benefitted from recalling the old adage: “Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.”

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What Caitlin overlooks is that there is something desperately wrong with Americans that they can be consistently fooled again, and again, and again, and yet again, and never catch on. Their gullibility is especially difficult to comprehend in face of the 21st century’s concentrated dose of deceptions — 9/11, Afghanistan, Saddan Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction, Assad’s use of chemical weapons, Iranian nukes, Russian invasions, MH-17, the long list of lies about Gaddafi, the bombings of Pakistan, Maduro starving his own people – one deception rapidly following the other and never does a doubt arise in the good Americans’ minds.

Before accusing me of being a male chauvinist for “attacking a woman,” rest assured that Caitlin can take care of herself.

MW: You may have a point, PCR, that Americans are too naive and credulous... but CJ did not "overlook" the fact that Americans get fooled time and again... she assigned blame to the manipulators, rather than the manipulated. I, too, like you, get seriously discouraged and annoyed that the manipulated are so susceptible to the manipulations. But as CJ has pointed out time and again, the propaganda-ists have been working on their propaganda for over a century now, and have refined their methods and tools. And tech, as foreseen by Bradbury and Huxley and Orwell, has made their jobs easier over time as well.

What I have come to recognize, and grudgingly accept, is that we are all wired differently in many ways: not just from height and shoe size to hair or eye color but in the ways we think and learn. As Tom Murphy pointed out 4 years ago on his excellent (and sadly seemingly dormant) site Do The Math, much of humanity is Programmed to Ignore.

Reinforced Resignation
As stated at the beginning, my impetus for all the Do the Math work was to lay out a rational, quantitative foundation for why we should not take future growth/wealth/happiness for granted. We could really blow this thing. Our best hope, as I saw it, was to get people to acknowledge and accept the threat and thereby endeavor to make it go away. As with any 12-step program, admitting that there is a problem is step one.

Failure to acknowledge what, to me, is a wholly plausible set of major concerns triggers a strong reaction on my part. How can we mitigate what we don’t acknowledge? Failure to acknowledge the risk serves only to solidify the likelihood of the risk, in my mind.

Perversely, calling me wrong outright probably makes me more right. Saying I might be wrong, or even that I am probably wrong while admitting some chance of my being on target and acknowledging the enormity if so is just fine by me.

This personality analysis helps me understand the scope of the challenge. It mostly serves to reinforce my concern. It seems we have a built-in impediment to preventive mitigation for unprecedented crises. At some level, it just makes me feel resigned: no hope in politicians, now no hope in human nature.

But as a cerebral type, it gives me some satisfaction to have insight into how and why we may fail. If the world falls apart before I die, at least I’ll have some inkling as to what’s going on, and won’t be as psychologically shattered by the affair. But I’ll be one of a pitifully small number, I’m afraid.