War and Empire Links July 2019

Jingoistic Military Fetishization Is As American As Bald Eagle McNuggets. Caitlin Johnstone. July 3, 2019.

The military hardware parade is taking place at the behest of President Bolton’s social media assistant Donald Trump, and critics have been vocally decrying it as alien and un-American.  

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All this parade is, actually, is just one of the many, many, many many times over the last two and a half years that Trump has shown America its true face, and Americans haven’t liked what they’ve seen. 

“That’s not my reflection!” the Americans scream at the mirror he holds up for them. “That’s Putin!” 

“That’s not my reflection!” they protest. “That’s North Korea!” 

“That’s not my reflection!” they say. “That’s a banana republic!” 

No, America. That’s you. It’s been you all along.

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This is the same country where every second house and every single McDonald’s has its flag flying over it, a cult of idolatry that’s become so ubiquitous that a football player choosing to kneel instead of stand before that stupid piece of cloth generates national outrage. The same country where simply bleating “Support the troops!” or “Freedom isn’t free!” was in and of itself seen as a be-all, end-all debate-winning argument for the rape of Iraq. The same country that spent weeks on end mourning the death of bloodthirsty psychopath John McCain on the grounds that he’s a “war hero” when they should have loaded his heartless cadaver onto a trebuchet and launched it into the nearest tire fire as part of a telethon benefit for Syria. 

All that’s considered perfectly normal by mainstream America, and liberals are getting their knickers in a knot over a few tanks 

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Americans are the most aggressively propagandized people in the world, and US service personnel are the most aggressively propagandized people in America. That’s the group that all this special reverence and fetishization has been attached to: a bunch of kids who’ve been manipulated into killing and dying for plutocratic investments and the mommy-shaped hole in John Bolton’s heart. That’s what this parade is meant to manufacture even more support for in a culture that is saturated past the brim in a relentless barrage of war propaganda. 

Face it, America. Trump’s tank parade isn’t in any way alien to anything you’ve ever stood for. The only way to make it more American would be to add a few monster trucks and a Kardashian. This parade is your reflection. This parade is you.

We’re Not the Good Guys. Why Is American Aggression Missing in Action? Tom Engelhardt. July 2, 2019.

“When it comes to Washington’s never-ending war on terror, I think I can say with reasonable confidence that, in the past, the present, and the future, the one phrase you’re not likely to find in such media coverage will be ‘American aggression,’” 

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“So here’s the strange thing, on a planet on which, in 2017, U.S. Special Operations forces deployed to 149 countries, or approximately 75% of all nations; on which the U.S. has perhaps 800 military garrisons outside its own territory; on which the U.S. Navy patrols most of its oceans and seas; on which U.S. unmanned aerial drones conduct assassination strikes across a surprising range of countries; and on which the U.S. has been fighting wars, as well as more minor conflicts, for years on end from Afghanistan to Libya, Syria to Yemen, Iraq to Niger in a century in which it chose to launch full-scale invasions of two countries (Afghanistan and Iraq), is it truly reasonable never to identify the U.S. as an ‘aggressor’ anywhere?”

US Foreign Policy Is A War On Disobedience. Caitlin Johnstone. July 6, 2019.

All nations are meant to submit to America’s use of military and economic force upon them, and if they don’t, that’s “aggression”. The official position of the political/media class is that the US is a normal nation with the same rights and status as any other, but the unofficial position is that this is an empire, and nations will either obey or be destroyed. 

It’s a machine with the same values as Napoleon or Hitler or Genghis Khan or any other imperialist conqueror from ages past; the only difference is that it pretends not to be the thing that it is. The US markets itself as an upholder of rules-based liberal democratic values, even though it consistently flouts international law, wages imperialist wars of aggression, imprisons journalists, crushes dissent and uses propaganda just as much as any totalitarian regime. The only difference is that it does so in a way that enables its supporters to pretend that that’s not what’s actually happening. 

Forget the “war on terror”. If US foreign policy were honest it would unite all its war propaganda sloganeering under a single banner: the War on Disobedience.

from Ilargi at Automatic Earth

Meanderings. Cognitive Dissonance. June 30, 2019.

Silly season is upon us. And I, for one, welcome my alien overlords. I speak, of course, of the national presidential election cycle already in progress. Every four years, in a sort of grotesque circadian rhythm, the so-called Presidential cicadas…err…candidates, pop up out of nowhere, noisy, pesky and ultimately irritating unless you happen to be mesmerized. Unfortunately, the life span of this particular species of political pest is not 14, or even 30 days, but more like 600. 

For several decades now, I have referred to this political and social phenomenon as the silly season. And for good reason I might add. At no other point in our day to day lives, except possibly Christmas, are we piled so high with such ridiculousness as when the latest pack of jabbering jackals come calling for our vote. To describe the process as political pandering would be too kind, and incorrect to boot. Essentially we are told what we want to hear and promised the moon and stars, something which speaks far more about us than it does them. 

Regardless of what ‘voting’ might have once represented in the hearts and minds of Americans (mostly conditioned reflex and leftover belief from more than a decade of primary school propaganda) today it is little more than an exercise in national self-deception. 

Of particular interest to me was how, out of 24 Democrats running for president and of the 21 invited to the Democrat debates, only one, Tulsi Gabbard, a combat veteran and military officer, had the stones to actually question the morality of the American Empire’s war mongering global rampage. 

For this singular act of political bravery, she was promptly branded un-American. As if to say being a good and proud American means supporting bombing the shit out of second and third world countries. And why not? After all, we’re doing it for the children…right? A question naturally follows…which children are we speaking of, ours or theirs. Of course, you and I already know the answer to that. 

Obviously, the military industrial complex will make sure Gabbard is quickly squashed like a fat bug under a tank’s tread. War is a racket and most definitely big business. Besides, you don’t fool with Mother Nature nor Father War. Always remember the golden rule. One may question, even complain, about the effects of the sociopathic socioeconomic system and its supporting status quo. But one must never question the basis or validity of the system itself or the sociopaths. What passes for ‘capitalism’ these days is actually socialism for the rich and in-your-face fascism for the poor and middle class.

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I do not expect a roaring collapse, just more diseased crumble buttressed by an ever-increasing police state. The haves will not let go of their unequal share and the have-nots will no longer be ignored. The dirty little secret is there’s only one major political party in America, deliberately divided into two similar factions separated only by a few hot button issues. Divide and control is the theme of the coming decade. Expect strife and discord to accelerate into the November, 2020 Presidential election. God only knows what comes after that, regardless of who wins or loses. 

There is no magic bullet, no knight in shining armor, no one size fits all ‘fix’ to be rolled out at the last minute to save the day. Just an inexorable grinding of our bones to make their bread. Plan accordingly. Or not, as the case may be. Based upon my life experience, the vast majority of people will not seek even a smidgen of independence from the dependency promoted by the state to facilitate the capture of mind and body. Instead they will hunker down, cover their heads and hope the storm passes overhead. It will not…it will get worse before it gets even a little bit better. 

I leave you with the following short verse, which I stumbled across some time back. In four short sentences it neatly sums up the present state of affairs, what’s just around the corner and how we will eventually pull ourselves out of this mess. For those who might not fully understand, we are only now just entering hard times, pushed relentlessly forward by ever weaker men and women.

Hard times create strong men

Strong men create good times

Good times create weak men

Weak men create hard times

Opposing War Is The Best Approach To Revolution. Caitlin Johnstone. July 11, 2019.

One of the most common labels people use to describe what I do is some variation of “anti-war journalist” or “anti-imperialist blogger”, and I’m always a tiny bit surprised when I see it. Not because I disagree with it; opposition to US-centralized warmongering probably constitutes a majority of my content, so it’s a reasonable description. I’ve just never explicitly had opposing war in mind when doing what I do. It’s been the main byproduct of my journey here, but it’s never been my objective.

I got started on this gig making Facebook posts in Bernie Sanders groups after noticing that the US mass media were actively sabotaging his 2016 primary race. My goal at the time was the same as it is now: to help jailbreak Americans, and thus the rest of the world, from the nearly invisible power structures which are oppressing us all and driving us toward extinction. When I first started writing about the 2016 presidential campaign I didn’t focus nearly as much on US foreign policy as I do now.

The shift toward emphasis on US-led warmongering wasn’t something I planned, it was just the natural consequence of my staring, day after day, at the puzzle of how to free humanity from its chains. I didn’t understand the mechanics of empire all that well when I started out, so I meticulously studied the behavior of government and media structures and watched for opportunities to expose glitches in the narrative matrix so I could highlight them for my readers. As I got better at noticing these glitches, I found that the opportunities to go “Look! See? They’re lying to you!” most often presented themselves around the issues of war and imperialism.

This is because it turns out that endless war is an absolutely essential component of the globe-spanning alliance between oligarchs and government agencies which is sometimes referred to as the “deep state”. Exerting more and more control over world affairs is how the largest power structures on earth continue to expand their power, and this is impossible to do without using the carrot of US military/economic alliance and the stick of US military/economic punishment. US economic control isn’t hegemonic enough on its own to overcome the influence of growing economic powers like China, so the threat of military violence is absolutely essential for maintaining the power alliance. It’s the glue that holds the entire empire together.

US Foreign Policy Is A War On Disobedience

"So now you’ve got this weird dynamic where the US is constantly working to make sure that no other countries surpass it and gain the ability to treat America the way America treats other countries."https://t.co/AVJoxuLOSq
— Caitlin Johnstone ⏳ (@caitoz) July 6, 2019

So endless war is a 100 percent indispensable element in preserving existing power structures. The US-centralized empire cannot exist without it. The trouble for the empire, however, is that it can’t just come out and tell the public “Yeah we need to destroy everyone who opposes our resource control agendas and dominance in key geostrategic regions, so we’ll be forcibly eliminating this noncompliant government on Thursday.” The public would never go for it, because that’s a plainly sociopathic values system which we are taught since school age that our society evolved beyond many generations ago. People would lose trust in all government institutions, and revolution would quickly foment as a result.

For this reason, propaganda is necessary. Because America is where the empire has centralized most of its military firepower and billionaires, Americans are the most propagandized people on earth. There are thousands of people whose whole entire job is to convince Americans that it is good and desirable to keep trillions of dollars in military hardware moving around the planet and killing complete strangers who pose no threat to any American.

The challenge for the propagandists is that this is plainly bat shit crazy. It’s an assignment that is both absolutely necessary and extremely difficult. When the entire world order depends on convincing millions of people that something transparently insane and ridiculous is perfectly sane and rational, you’re naturally going to have difficulty smoothing over all the plot holes in the narratives you’re selling. That’s why you’re always seeing glaring discrepancies in the narratives used to promote US foreign policy agendas. In retrospect I’ve pretty much built my career on highlighting these discrepancies.

The primary role US-led warmongering plays in maintaining existing power structures, which I first started to notice during the 2016 Democratic primaries, is on even clearer display during the 2020 Democratic primaries. You see candidates like Bernie Sanders being frowned upon by hardline centrists for promoting domestic policies which would hurt the profit margins of the oligarchs, but overall he’s being treated as a legitimate candidate and receiving reluctant coverage on mainstream media networks. Then you look at the treatment of a candidate like Tulsi Gabbard, who is campaigning on a major overhaul of US foreign policy, and she’s treated as a raving lunatic and a traitor.

“Challenging domestic policy status quo in Washington can be controversial and subject you to some attacks. But those who dissent from DC’s foreign policy addiction to imperialism, militarism and support for repression are those who are always most smeared and maligned,” Glenn Greenwald tweeted a while back.

You can get away with promoting things like universal healthcare or student debt forgiveness with only moderate pushback from the establishment, but wanting to scale back the forever war will quickly see you branded a Russian asset or an antisemite and canceled. The empire won’t even tolerate you interfering with their narratives, let alone getting elected. Your voice will be targeted with an aggressive smear campaign until they make sure that hardly anyone is listening to what you have to say.

The fact that we’re so strictly forbidden from pursuing this line of attack is a clear sign that warmongering is the weakest point in the empire’s armor. It’s the most essential component of the oppression machine, and its narratives are the weakest and most plot hole-riddled. If you’re interested in taking down the oligarchic machine which keeps ordinary people poor, sick and stupid, then attacking war propaganda is the most useful expenditure of energy.

American leftists and progressives have not been great at this; even those who identify as “anti-imperialist” tend to mostly stay focused on domestic issues. This is perfectly understandable, since Americans are the victims of the empire’s soul-crushing neoliberal exploitation and it is therefore the thing that is staring them in the face most often.

But the drivers of empire do not fear a push for domestic policy reform nearly as much as they fear a push for foreign policy reform. They know that the plebs can be kept poor and stupid enough to pose no threat to the oligarchs controlling all the money (and therefore all the power) by simply manipulating the system and herding everyone into controlled political opposition groups who will end up telling them “Ohh, sorry, we couldn’t get the congressional votes. Those damn Republicans!” A large public demand to end warmongering would be a much tougher challenge to manipulate around.

The Forever War Is So Normalized That Opposing It Is “Isolationism”

"Under our current Orwellian doublespeak paradigm where forever war is the new normal, the opposite of war is no longer peace, but isolationism." #war #peace #TulsiGabbardhttps://t.co/dLbW6O2bRV
— Caitlin Johnstone ⏳ (@caitoz) June 29, 2019

It’s actually the same agenda anyway; the plutocratic class, which is incentivized to keep everyone else poor in a system wherein money equals power and power is relative, is the driving force behind both neoliberal exploitation and the forever war, and if you can end either of these things you will end the whole empire. It just happens that when you look at the whole picture, warmongering turns out to be the far easier and far more efficacious line of attack.

There are plenty of moral arguments against imperialism, but you don’t even need to enter into morality to see that it’s smart to make opposing war your foremost priority. The kingdom of the bastards who are grinding us all down and trying to make us poorer, sicker and stupider so we can’t muster the chutzpah to toss them out on their asses is fed by an umbilical cord of endless war, and we have the power to cut that cord by opposing war and attacking war propaganda together.

Change that, and we change everything. Ordinary humans can finally begin to make the world their own, guided not by sociopathic oligarchs but by an enlightened self-interest which realizes that the only way we can continue to survive is if we learn to collaborate with each other and with our ecosystem for the common good. This is all I’ve ever been pushing toward here. Deep down, it’s all any of us want