Barack Obama has given his perfunctory speech about the Black Lives Matter protests taking place in America today, and it was every bit as full of pretty words and empty of actual substance as you’d expect from a president who spent eight years stagnating the progressive movement with empty hope narrative while advancing the same murderous oppressive agendas as his predecessors.
The former president talked about changes that need to be made as though he wasn’t the most powerful politician in America for two full terms, praised the nation’s police officers saying “the vast majority” of them protect and serve the people, and encouraged them to continue making empty gestures of solidarity with the protesters to calm them down.
“I want to acknowledge the folks in law enforcement that share the goals of re-imagining policing,” Obama said. “Because there are folks out there who took their oath to serve your communities to your countries [who] have a tough job, and I know you’re just as outraged about the tragedies in the recent weeks as are many of the protesters. So we’re grateful for the vast majority of you who protect and serve. I’ve been heartened to see those in law enforcement who recognize, ‘Let me march along with these protestors. Let me stand side by side and recognize that I want to be part of the solution,’ and have shown restraint and volunteered and engaged and listened because you’re a vital part of the conversation, and change is going to require everyone’s participation.”
George W Bush also weighed in on the protests, with the “compassionate conservative” who murdered a million Iraqis sending liberals throughout the Twitterverse into fits of ecstasy with his emotional plea for “empathy, and shared commitment, and bold action, and a peace rooted in justice.”
https://twitter.com/GMPaiella/status/1267933028036345857
Establishment narrative managers on both sides of America’s imaginary partisan divide have been saturating the mass media with gushing praise for the two former presidents and their wonderful words of healing and unity, and indeed, the words are quite nice. They will change exactly nothing, but they sound nice.
And that is exactly what a US president’s real job is. Not to end police brutality and systemic racism, not to make changes which benefit the American people, and certainly not to make the world a less violent and murderous place, but to say pretty words which lull the public into a pleasant propaganda-induced coma while the sociopathic oligarchs who really run things rob them blind.
This is not accomplished by tweeting obnoxious things about shooting “thugs” and getting censored by Twitter. It is not accomplished by threatening to implement martial law against the will of the states. It is not accomplished by using the military to brutalize protesters so you can pose in front of a burnt church with an upside-down Bible. It is not accomplished by calling the brother of George Floyd and being curt, uninterested and dismissive. It is not accomplished by first mismanaging a pandemic, then mismanaging a response to an incendiary police murder, then having nothing soothing or sympathetic to say that makes people feel like you’re listening and you care. It is not accomplished by creating an environment which allows photos to circulate of the nation’s capital burning.
And that, right there, is the one and only reason why certain elements of the establishment do not like President Trump.
President Obama: "I want to acknowledge the folks in law enforcement that share the goals of reimagining policing." pic.twitter.com/al3Jt5l6N3
— The Hill (@thehill) June 4, 2020
Whenever I point out the many, many evil establishment agendas that have been advanced by the current US president, I always get Trump supporters asking me “Well if he’s serving the establishment, how come establishment media and politicians attack him so hysterically, huh?”
This is why. At first glance it might seem strange to see Democrats and their aligned media shrieking about Trump with such an unprecedented degree of vitriol, but they aren’t doing this because Trump resists the establishment in any meaningful way on domestic or foreign policy; he provides no significant resistance to toxic establishment agendas at all. The reason there’s been such shrill, hysterical rhetoric about this president from establishment narrative managers is because unlike his predecessors, Trump puts an ugly face on the empire.
People who have dedicated their lives to advancing the interests of the oligarchic empire see Trump as an incompetent manager whose oafish, ham-fisted approach to his role risks drawing attention to the evil things the empire does. The US police force, for example, hasn’t gotten any more brutal or racist since Trump has been in office, he just hasn’t been able to manage events and narratives competently to keep the peasants from waking up and revolting.
Establishment narrative managers understand how to skilfully manipulate public perception without being obvious about it, and they understand how easily an incompetent steward of empire can snap people out of their propaganda trance. They therefore dislike Trump for the same reason a new mother dislikes a noisy neighbor: they’ll wake the baby. They don’t dislike Trump because he does good things, and they certainly don’t dislike Trump because he does bad things. They dislike Trump because he does bad things in a way that startles the people out of their sleep.
That’s the real reason the political/media class has been behaving so weird the last four years. It isn’t because Trump’s not a loyal empire lackey (he is), it isn’t because he’s a Russian secret agent (he’s not), and it isn’t because he’s a uniquely depraved president (he’s not). It’s because he allows people to see the perverse mechanics of a globe-sprawling murderous empire for the sick, evil thing that it actually is. That and nothing more.
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76 responses to “The Establishment Only Dislikes Trump Because He Puts An Ugly Face On The Empire”
Maybe there is nothing more as you say, but there is more to it.
The ability to hurt others with impunity for profit can be gained through hatred, not just through greed. With greed, the requirement is indifference, not hate.
A slave owner does not need to promote racism until there are politicians who want to ban slavery; then the owner profits by promoting racism/hate. A politician who wants to ban slavery is not greedy enough, and they are defeated by promoting racism/hate.
The difference between the establishment and Trump, is that the establishment relies on greed and indifference, and they generate hate only as necessary, whereas Trump makes hate the plan from the beginning, which adds unnecessary ugliness.
The establishment doesn’t like Trump because they know it is unprofitable to generate hate and unnecessary ugliness where greed suffices, and they think he is a dangerous fool that will ruin their game; but Trump can ruin a lot of other games/lives besides theirs.
Trump is no different if you believe there is no difference between hating and not caring; but getting people to see and care is harder starting from hate.
From the perspective of outsiders who are victims of the empire, a Democrat is an American who does not care that you are dead, and a Republican is an American who is glad that you are dead. From an insider’s perspective, the choice presented is between not caring and hating.
Granted, the choices are not that inspiring, but there is the question of whether the world needs more hate than is required to maximize profits.
Insightful.
It’s natural for the victims of abuse (us) to be suspicious, angry, paranoid and fearful of anyone who tries to help us. But honestly, the nature and content of attacks on Trump are pure stupidity. Many point and accuse him of the militarism the last half dozen administrations displayed. But there hasn’t been any.
Others call him racist simply because the corrupt and fake media cartel do so. But there is no evidence for that and in fact much evidence he simply isn’t. I could go through dozens more.
The fact is Trump is the circuit breaker. He is ending the abuse, the corruption, the centralizing of power with unelected people. If you opened your eyes and stopped the FEAR, HURT, ANGER, PARANOIA and, CYNICISM you will see it as plain day. Trump is giving us our freedom back. Whatsmore he has been under constant relentless attack for this by those who oppose individual freedoms.
It’s not cool to come out in support of Trump. But in fact by opposing him you are supporting those who intend on removing your individual freedoms. These people see China as their utopia. A globalists wet dream – a slave surveillance state.
“The Establishment Only Dislikes Trump Because He Puts An Ugly Face On The Empire?” Uh-uh. Do you not remember this? https://petras.lahaine.org/?p=2124
This is what was happening before Trump was inaugurated. It’s way more complex, way more real, than you are now willing to allow.
Caitlin, a great article, but I think the majority of people who criticise trump are missing an important point.
That, for me, is the way Trump actually sounds reasonable at his pressers-if you don’t question what he is saying. Just like Hitler. He sounds authentic.
Caitlin Johnstone wrote:
> It’s because he allows people to see the perverse mechanics of a globe-sprawling murderous empire for the sick, evil thing that it actually is.
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Yes, sometimes Trump is surprisingly open about it…
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“So I’ve watched the politicians. I’ve dealt with them all my life. If you can’t make a good deal with a politician, then there’s something wrong with you. You’re certainly not very good. And that’s what we have representing us. They will never make America great again. They don’t even have a chance. They’re controlled fully — they’re controlled fully by the lobbyists, by the donors, and by the special interests, fully. Yes, they control them. Hey, I have lobbyists. I have to tell you. I have lobbyists that can produce anything for me. They’re great.”
— Presidential candidate Trump on the politicians, Jun 2015
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“The Washington establishment and the financial and media corporations that fund it exist for only one reason: to protect and enrich itself. . . . Let’s be clear on one thing, the corporate media in our country is no longer involved in journalism. They’re a political special interest no different than any lobbyist or other financial entity with a total political agenda, and the agenda is not for you, it’s for themselves. . . . we have only the illusion of democracy, but are in fact controlled by a small handful of global special interests rigging the system, and our system is rigged. This is reality, you know it, they know it, I know it, and pretty much the whole world knows it. . . . But, the central base of world political power is right here in America, and it is our corrupt political establishment that is the greatest power behind the efforts at radical globalization and the disenfranchisement of working people. Their financial resources are virtually unlimited, their political resources are unlimited, their media resources are unmatched, and most importantly, the depths of their immorality is absolutely unlimited. . . . In my former life, I was an insider as much as anybody else. And I knew what it’s like, and I still know what it’s like to be an insider. It’s not bad. It’s not bad. Now I’m being punished for leaving the special club and revealing to you the terrible things that are going on having to do with our country.”
— Presidential candidate Trump on the establishment, Oct 2016
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“But one of the things I noticed tonight, and I’ve known Hillary for a long time, is this is the first time ever that Hillary Clinton is sitting down and speaking to major corporate leaders and not getting paid for it.”
— Presidential candidate Trump at an elite dinner, Oct 2016
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“These are the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.”
— President-Elect Trump on the CIA, Dec 2016
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“You are fake news.”
— President-Elect Trump to CNN, Jan 2017
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“There are a lot of killers. We have a lot of killers. Well, you think our country is so innocent?”
— President Trump on Russia and US, Feb 2017
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“I say, ‘I want to bring our troops back home,’ the place went crazy. They want to keep — you have people here in Washington — They never want to leave. I say, ‘You know what I’ll do? I’ll leave a couple of hundred soldiers behind,’ but if it was up to them they’d bring thousands of soldiers in. Someday people will explain it — but you do have — you do have a group. And they call it the Military-Industrial Complex, they never want to leave they always want to fight.”
— President Trump after ISIS’ defeat, May 2019
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“I have two groups of people, I have doves and I have hawks. I have some hawks… Yeah, John Bolton is absolutely a hawk. If it was up to him he’d take on the whole world at one time, okay?”
— President Trump on hawks, Jun 2019
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“Where’s my favorite dictator?”
— President Trump asking for Egyptian President Sisi, Aug 2019
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“We’re keeping the oil.”
— President Trump on Syria’s war, Oct 2019
Finally someone said it in plain english. They hate him because he is GIVING AWAY THE GAME.
No! Lame duck Donald Trump is the Deep State’s controlled opposition. He is part of the game but trying to pretend he is not!
This will be the first-ever credible, or “historical,” but brief, account of how the Cold War actually began, and of why it started, and of why it continues today (even though it started on the basis of lies which have long-since become exposed but – for reasons which will become obvious – the exposing of which lies remains hidden from the public, so that “history” can be preserved, and the public thus remains deceived). This very relevant article can be read here:
How the Cold War, Which Never Actually Stopped, Actually Started by Eric Zuesse!
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2020/06/04/how-cold-war-which-never-actually-stopped-actually-started/
WE have standards… We expect Our Abusers to talk the King’s English and wear nice suits. We want him (yes, still “him” so far) to have his dutiful and fashionable and very robotic wife standing by his side Supporting-Her-Man-no-matter-what-he-does-or-says with her mouth shut and ethics missing in action. We want Our Abusers to wrap himself literally and figuratively in The Bible even though we know in our heart he never read it or understood it. We want Our Abusers to steal from us but do it with CLASS. That is, steal away all you like (and all your friends can, too) but don’t rub it in our faces. Just do it quietly and without fanfare. And we will continue to promise not to notice a thing.
We want Our Abusers to talk a lot about our Rights, and the Constitution, and all that stuff… even though all of that big talk was effectively erased and denuded out of our lives many, many years ago. We want Our Abusers to tell us that we are Exceptional in every way. Except DON’T tell us that we are actually the most Exceptional in our ability to live in a fantasy world of nonsense narratives that fully reject and deny all the unpleasant realities right in front of our faces every day as we bury our heads looking down at a small box in our hands dispensing lies every moment while we beg for another fix.
We want Our Abusers to act as fake Counselors and Pastors to the Nation during times of crisis even though the source of most of those problems leads right back to the same Office and those he takes his marching orders from. You pretend to be our Counselor and Physician and we will pretend that we were healed. You pretend to fix our problems and we’ll pretend that our problems have gone away.
You pretend… and we pretend. That’s our Social Contract.
Accurate description of the way things work. But only 0.1% of people understand this. The rest are zombie admirers of the emperor
The reason for never-ending debt-slavery, oppression, violence, growing incidence of chronic diseases and drug use, depression and alcohol dependency is that the majority of voters and non-voting public believe their governments are honest and benevolent. Such implicit but misplaced public trust gives state officials and their puppet masters the right to do what suits them and then to convince the public that everything they do is in the best interest of everyone. Only a small minority take part in protests instigated by the Deep State to give an excuse for greater military control. I am convinced that people who work for change must share the Great Liberator’s Vision and Mission and this must become a grass-roots, social, spiritual, tactical movement, networking around the world. The revolutionary Liberator I refer to is Yeshua, a Hebrew name which means LIBERATOR. Unfortunately, His revolutionary strategy and tactics are so brilliant, exceptional and powerful that this is way above the mental abilities even for highly intelligent and well-educated people who fail to grasp what Yeshua said and meant. Read more of this here: http://www.wisdompage.com/2013%20Articles/Molyneaux%20essay.pdf Can any other commentators.
Gonna keep this short.
Caity, you nailed it! It’s amazing to me how few people get what I’ve been telling them for years now – that the divisiveness, bad mouthing and fighting is planned and supported by the oligarchs, to be comparable to a magician’s misdirection, so that the people don’t see those oligarchs stealing more and more of our country, our freedoms and the world on a daily basis. We are on a slow slide toward totalitarianism (to a degree that even Hitler would admire) – and the only way to stop it, short of a successful violent revolution, is to find a way to discard our obsolete and corrupt system in favor of a radical new one that puts the needs of the people first and creates a direct democracy that has never before existed.
Yes, it’s something ENTIRELY new, something never tried before, something along the lines of actually embodying the principles of ecology and the Preamble of America’s Declaration of Independence, OR it’s suicide by nuclear war or slower death by ecocide. People, whatever their other differences, fall into two camps: those who see this and those who don’t. And even those who do see it are themselves divided over how best to bring about the better, more beautiful world. The challenge is to keep that disagreement, until it’s resolved, “within the family,” because those who don’t see the looming existential crisis think they win if they keep us divided.
They don’t like the Trumptard because he won’t wear a mask like Sleepy Joe.
Great article Caitlin!!
Linked as usual @https://nothingnewunderthesun2016.com/
I couldn’t agree more that snivelling right-wingers like David Frum aren’t concerned with human rights or the US constitution. They are merely concerned that Trump will damage their brand. No one should forget that these are the people who betrayed Congress by deranging politics with the so-called Tea Party, these people blocked the ERA, gun control, abortion rights, and dog whistled every bigot in Amerikka. These are the ones who gerrymander Congressional districts and remove grandmothers from voting rolls like it was still Jim Crow.
Now they can’t control the monster they created.
Maybe they should have read Frankenstein before they created people who would spit virus for freedom.
US opponents go to bed drunk with the knowledge their enemy is led by a school-yard gang of arrogant, corrupt, brutally stupid bigots. It makes Iran, China and Russia look like soft beds of stability, reason and restraint to the rest of the world.
H.L. Mencken: ‘Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.’
Voltaire: “Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.”
Lol. Yea it is the evil right wing. Thank goodness we have the good and righteous left wing to keep us safe.
https://www.veteranstoday.com/2020/06/03/disclosure-the-pandemic-the-awful-secret-theyve-been-hiding-an-intel-drop/
So Donald Trump agrees with the Empire, serves the Empire, but he is a bad actor ? And that is the cause for all-out media war against him ? That explanation is much too shallow, it doesn’t explain anything much. No light has been shed on the mystery. I still don’t understand what is going on.
The all-out media war against him? All they do is show him doing what he does best, acting like the creepy clown he is. Just listen to Democrats and pay attention to the media to see that Caitlin’s point is spot on. For eight years liberals in the U.S. pretended that we lived in a post-racial society (I can’t even get my mind around such a ridiculous concept), and Trump pulled the curtain back on that! He is the extraordinarily ugly face of America that many people wanted to deny. No, the majority do not support him, but I haven’t noticed that the liberals who screech about him have done anything to end U.S. militarization of the globe. They truly want to pretend that we are bombing people for their humanitarian good!
Trump pulled the curtain back on that! He is the extraordinarily ugly face of America that many people wanted to deny.
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well yeah. But you need to remember that there are roughly an equal number of people who believe Hillary was the ugly face of America.
So they have got maybe 90% of the population believing they are opposed to the ugliness when in fact they are all supporting it.
Y E P !
“And they said to the Prophet, ‘How may we stop our ears to
the rant of the fool and yet show him charity?’ And he answered,
‘You show yourselves charity by opening wide your ears to him.
The fool in the midst of his babble shall speak truths which the
minds of the wise cannot perceive.’”
Why did we make it so long? Why does it need to be 3,700+ pages of, as one reviewer puts it, “meandering bullshit”?
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Because the right-wing’s narratives are far longer and more all-encompassing than anything the left is currently offering.
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Because any wobble without new, robust narratives will end up empowering a new bunch of misleadership that have already crafted their own.
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Because a revolt is no joke.
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Because the consequences of getting it wrong are very real. And yes, we have not forgotten people are suffering and dying now—but also remember: Death to the Tyrant King; do not lose focus.
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Because you can’t force enough people, you need to legitimately alter their minds. And that requires a journey.
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Because not everyone has a lifetime to discover the song. (`Not everyone has a lifetime to read this book!’ some might retort)
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Because the global stream of consciousness is deep and wide.
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Because the world is a complex place.
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Because people have been trying to get this right for millennia.
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Because it is more than just a book.
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Because we don’t want people to chase endless messiahs. And no, that does not make us the chosen one—consider us more a handy implement to beat the affluent classes about the head and shoulders with until they finally get a clue.
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Because you shouldn’t give someone a weapon without making sure they know how to use it.
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Because we had no choice.
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“Some art is worth the extra work of getting past all the impediments to its appreciation.”
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https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2020/05/30/18833392.php
http://www.mediafire.com/file/k1omyaf0r73shvk/Twenty-Twenty-four.pdf/file
http://www.johndayblog.com/2020/06/subjects-of-empire.html
The Revolution Won’t Be Televised because this is not a revolution. At least not yet. Pepe Escobar
Burning and/or looting Target or Macy’s is a minor diversion. No one is aiming at the Pentagon (or even the shops at the Pentagon Mall). The FBI. The NY Federal Reserve. The Treasury Department. The CIA in Langley. Wall Street houses.
The real looters – the ruling class – are comfortably surveying the show on their massive 4K Bravias, sipping single malt. This is a class war much more than a race war and should be approached as such. Yet it was hijacked from the start to unfold as a mere color revolution. https://www.globalresearch.ca/why-america-revolution-wont-televised/5714992
“Vaccine Sovereignty” vs “People’s Vaccine” assumes that vaccination against SARS-CoV-2 will save some lives.
Sovereignty, in its most distilled form, is the power to decide who will live and who must die. Both U.S. and U.K. heads of state have increasingly invoked sovereignty as a dominant discourse in their economic and foreign policies. President Trump used the words “sovereign” or “sovereignty” 21 times in his inaugural address to the United Nations General Assembly in September 2017. More recently, Prime Minister Boris Johnson characterized Britain’s exit from the European Union as “recaptured sovereignty.”
These invocations of sovereign power reflect a form of American and British exceptionalism that are echoed in the University of Oxford’s exclusive deal with AstraZeneca to manufacture a potential Covid-19 vaccine developed by the university. The deal prioritizes British and American access to the vaccine following significant financial investments by both governments...
While vaccine sovereignty is centered on how access to vaccines is shaped through wealth and power, it is also about recognizing those who are the subject of that power — those who must die.
https://www.statnews.com/2020/06/04/oxford-astrazeneca-covid-19-deal-reinforces-vaccine-sovereignty/comment-page-1/?unapproved=2996906&moderation-hash=7651155ae89689cb9218a768cf1cd70b#comment-2996906
I am waiting to see if I commented:
Your comment is awaiting moderation. This is a preview, your comment will be visible after it has been approved.
Yes, this is about the power of life and death over other people, their subjugation. This lab vaccine slipped out, seemingly from Ft Detrick, Maryland in June 2019, and was noticed in a retirement community near there. http://www.johndayblog.com/2020/05/answers.html
http://www.johndayblog.com/2020/05/origins-of-covid.html
It seems to have traveled to Wuhan via soldiers participating in The Wuhan Games in October, the same time Event 201 was being conducted to coordinate global governmental response to this accidentally released weapon. John Day MD
Indeed John, this latest “uprising” is a distraction from the real war. Hundreds of years after it’s invention “race” is still an immensely powerful tool to divide those who should naturally be aligned.
We’re also, like you, absolutely skeptical of the mainstream narrative regarding both the rush to vaccines and the nature and origins of the virus itself. But we’re far more certain of the manufactured mass hysteria than whether it originated in a lab or not simply because it’s a common and convenient narrative (but that doesn’t mean it’s not true too!).
Brilliant as usual Caitlin. Thank you for your SERVICE
We simply MUST make the effort to keep learning from what we see happen. We can’t just ‘change the subject’. What just happened? We have to ‘deal with it’.
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We have just been led through yet another Mass Media induced Mass Mob Hysteria. These are now well-practiced in their production. It’s very easy to choose the material that ‘goes viral’. The ‘trick’ is to choose it, rather than just let it happen. When you control ALL Mass Media, it is very easy to do.
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In the time immediately after the boiling emotions and adrenaline of the Mass Social Hysteria subsides, when the last shriek of futile rage has painfully rasped our throats, and then a calmer return to our more usual state of consciousness prevails, those are fleeting moments when we are most vulnerable to ‘see’ what we just did. (They don’t last long).
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In our hysterical release of our Rage, we had abandoned our egos, our pretenses of who we pretend to be, to indulge our ’emotional storm’. Mob Hysteria and Rage are extreme emotional spasms. They are physiological spasms of emotional ‘release’, like a version of ‘crying’, or ‘laughing’. Emotion is given full rein, (or full reign), over Reason. Mass Mob Hysteria is an exercise in large numbers of people ‘letting go’ of powerful pent up feelings, usually after restraining them for a long time.
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Mass Media have the power to ‘orchestrate’ people’s emotions. They can’t make people ‘feel’ one way or another. Temptation is their ‘baton’. Human Desire is the raw music, the random titillating melodies that can be heard as the musicians tune. A conductor does not play a single note, yet she or he turns and bows after the ‘orchestra’ performs.
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If we were swept up into this latest Mass Mob Hysteria over the George Floyd tragedy, we abandoned, for a time, our carefully constructed egos. We set aside all pretenses of Reason and/or moral principle. We snarled out our true Desire. We roared out our primal Rage of frustrated Desire. In guttural, bestial rage, we SHRIEKED, and SNARLED, and ROARED, exactly as ALL apes do when Tribal Mass Mob Hysteria prevails.
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When we return to our better senses, when the emotional storm has passed, there is a time, a short ‘window of opportunity’, before ego repairs itself, and our pretenses are once again neatly lined up in good order, when ‘seekers’ can ‘see’ things about ourselves from an ‘altered’ perspective. (Self-awareness being the goal of every ‘seeker’).
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What role did WE play, as individuals, as this Tribal Mass Mob Hysteria convulsed its way across the nation and around the world?
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The video ‘is what it is’. (“This is this”, said Michael about the bullet, in ‘Deer Hunter’, after the wedding, but before Viet Nam. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=io4h6iAAlrg ).
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The video is real. It is NOT reality itself, but it is a real thing we can look at and see that it is a recording, from multiple viewpoints, of a short ‘slice’ of reality. The video is not a ‘claim’, or a ‘belief’, or a ‘contention’. It is a real thing. It is not even a memory. We can rewind it and see it again, as many times as we want. What does it tell us? What degree, (if any), of truth is revealed?
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The third degree murder charge is going to be tough to prove, since it requires proving “a depraved state of mind”, ( https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/cite/609.195 ).
The manslaughter charge will be easier, but still difficult to prove, at least without destroying the morale and confidence of ‘the squads’ of men and women we send out to try to maintain at least some semblance of order and peace among the chaos of injustice, and its ugly step-child, strife. (To those who regard Social Chaos as a constructive ‘objective’, only the depraved among you will like it when, and/or ‘IF’, it ever gets here. In conditions of Social Chaos, the power of Mass Media will only increase, and may even become ‘total’).
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It appears, (at least preliminarily), that the police were called because Mr. Floyd had paid for cigarettes with a bogus $20 bill. The store clerk came out to confront Mr. Floyd to get the cigarettes back, and give Mr. Floyd back his fake $20 bill. Mr. Floyd refused. The store clerk called police, and reported his version of a crime that had just been perpetrated against the store. In the call, he reported that Mr. Floyd was “very drunk and belligerent”. (paraphrased).
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What happened in the back seat? Mr. Floyd was already under arrest, was already cuffed behind his back. He was sat down at one point, his back against the wall. They stood him up. He walked calmly toward the patrol car. He resisted getting into the back seat, from the driver’s side door. It appears that he initiated a struggle against getting into the back seat of the patrol car. It appears that he stumbles on the curb fall-off, and sort of falls into the back seat, as he is pushed that direction to break the fall, (to prevent him from face planting against the inside of the door).
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After refusing to simply sit down, under arrest, in the back seat, and after a struggle with him in the back seat, (which is blocked from the direct camera view), Mr. Floyd was dragged out the passenger side rear door, into a face down position in the street, where three officers restrained him by kneeling on him.
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The officers can be heard talking to Mr. Floyd at that point, exhorting him, in remarkably calm voice(s), to calm down and stop struggling
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Caitlin Johnstone, in her capacity as a ‘journalist’, (she presents herself as a “rogue journalist”), reported that the police “deliberately strangled the man to death”.
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The police definitely screwed up. But there is nothing to be seen in the video, no matter how many times we rewind and re-watch it, that suggests that the police “deliberately strangled the man to death”.
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Mr. Floyd should not have died. The police screwed up. The individual police must be held responsible. Did they disregard and/or violate their training? The police department will likely be forced to pay a settlement for not training the police better in how to ‘handle’ a large powerful man who is extremely drunk and goes violently berserk while already handcuffed and under arrest.
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There is nothing in the video that I can see, no matter how many times I have watched it, that suggests any racial animus or enmity on the part of the police, (at least one of whom is an ethnic minority), over the course of the entire incident.
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There is nothing in Chauvin’s demeanor that suggests that he is in a “depraved” state of mind. (He may be, but there is no evidence of it, in the video, if he is). He appears reasonably calm in the video, and even addresses Mr. Floyd in a calm manner, exhorting him to stop his violent resistance to being under arrest.
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There is nothing in the video that suggests that a large and powerfully built 46 year old white man, (or Hispanic man, or Asian man, or any large and powerful man), drunk on his ass in the middle of the day, and having acted surly toward a store employee after using a counterfeit bill, and then going berserk in resisting simply sitting in the back of a patrol car, would not have ended up in the exact same position, with his face on the pavement, and a knee on his neck.
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Geez … I was in a police choke hold once. It was in jail. It was in The Tank, the urine-reeking cage where they put arrestees while they get things sorted out. (I’ve been in a number of those). I had gained control of a weapon. One police had a pen in his shirt pocket. I flicked it out of his pocket as he applied the choke hold and brought me to the dirty stinking wood plank floor. I picked up splinters as I dragged my hand across the floor, to grab that pen in hand as I went down. I had the pen pointed up his ass, and that hand was completely free. I decided not to. It would only have made things worse for me. I lost consciousness from the choke hold, but only momentarily. I came to with my arm twisted behind my back. Another man was being dragged unconscious out the tank cell door. The police twisting my arm gave it a final and very painful wrist-cracking quick-twist, (which I’m sure was a well-practiced ‘move’). From the time the police entered the tank cell, to the time they had dragged the other guy and slammed the cell door shut behind them, was a span o0f time that was probably 10 seconds or less.
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From the time Mr. Floyd appears to have ‘gone berserk’ over getting into the squad car, to thew time he was face planted on the pavement with a knee on his neck, another on his back, and another on his legs, was a matter of seconds. ‘Things’ happen VERY fast once violence starts. Mr. Floyd appears to initiate the violence.
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We cannot have Law without Law Enforcement. In a just society, the police enforce justice. In a corrupt society, the police enforce the society’s moral and spiritual corruption.
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Nothing about this incident appears to be racially motivated. In enforcing our corrupt society’s moral corruption, the police victimize poor people of ALL races. Police reportedly cause the death of more poor white people than poor people of any other race. In 2017 and 2018, police killed nearly TWICE as many poor white people as poor black people. In 2019, the discrepancy was somewhat lower, (370 white people killed by police, to 235 Black), https://www.statista.com/statistics/585152/people-shot-to-death-by-us-police-by-race/ .
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Most minority citizens in the US are NOT poor. Even among the most disproportionately poor race, even among African Americans, only slightly less than 21% of African Americans live below the poverty line. A meaningful ‘poverty line’ would be much higher than the one we recognize as ‘official’. What is officially classified as “near poverty” looks a LOT like real poverty. But even so, fully 52% of African Americans are either upper middle class, or middle class, (and we have wealthy African American oligarchs as well). 59% of Hispanic Americans are either middle class or upper middle class.
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48% of all poor people in the US are white people, (current estimate). That number includes the tens of millions of destitute immigrants living here illegally. As of the 2000 census, (which was conducted at the height of the massive tsunami of NAFTA induced immigration), there were more poor white people in the US than poor people of all other races combined.
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Any rational thinking person can ‘see’ that it is to Corporate America’s great advantage, to ther Ruling Elite’s great advantage, to have toxic racial and gender animosities propagated among the US population. “Divide and rule” is the still the same old game. It’s worked ‘like a charm’ for 10,000 years. It works even much better today, with the modern Mass Media tools of social engineering so readily available to, (and under the total control of), the Elite Ruling Class.
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The Marionette Left is allowing its own Emotional Hysteria to comprise the very strings it dances upon. When the Marionette Left agrees to help its own Enemy ‘hype’ racial animosity, it is dancing on its own Enemy’s strings.
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“You say you want a revolution? Well … You know … We’d all love to see the plan …” (–J Lennon).
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In terms of any ‘revolutionary’ reconfiguration of the status quo power structure, the only division that matters is the division between the Elites, (and those forces loyal to them), and the Common People, (and those loyal to them).
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Race is an entirely ancillary issue. (Racial equality is a ‘given’ among our objectives of an equitable society.) But worse … Focusing on race riles up people’s irrational tribal emotions, and makes them less capable of ‘thinking straight’. It makes us less capable of rational analysis. Less capable of keeping our eye on our ‘macro’ objectives.
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If our objective be to win political power away from the Elite Ruling Class, and to have some meaningful portion of political power for the Common People, we must UNITE the Common People.
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Focusing on Racism, directing people’s attention, in real time, to thinking about racial divisions and animosities, instead of about the Common People uniting to gain power from the Elites, is EXACTLY-effing-ACTLY what the effing Elites MOST want us to do.
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Geez, people … I mean … C’mon … Fer crissakes … Is there a ‘stupid pill’ getting mixed up among the red and blue ‘matrix’ pills?
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When the Marionette Left awakens from its trance, it will ‘see’ its mistake … Hey … No hard feelings … No room or time for ‘grudges’. We’re ALL good folks here … We ALL want a more just society … Hey … Folks is jes’ folks … If we’re gonna grab that ring next time we come around, we gotta cut each other some slack. We just need to ‘wake up’ from the trance.
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Our good Ms. Johnstone ‘sees’ well. A visionary must have confidence in her or his vision. But it is only very VERY deep ‘in the mirror’ that the deepest visions are ‘seen’.
‘The People” will never come together if whites refuse to acknowledge the centuries-long history/pattern of black oppression by white America. It’s simply too goddamn obvious, and any attempt to mitigate or qualify it–for instance, by pointing out that poor whites also have been oppressed and that sometimes the victims of police brutality initiate or contribute to the horrible outcomes of the incidents–will likely strike most black people as veiled racism, even when it comes from quite a different place, as do Caliban’s observations. As an aging white boomer who lived through the exhilarating but ultimately unsuccessful rebellion of the 60s/early 70s, I just don’t get the problem with a simple two-fold acknowledgment that (1) yes, blacks, as a group, have gotten the short end of the stick in American society ever since they were brought here, as have the Native Americans who were already here, and (2) yes, cops can be quite arbitrary and brutal in dealing with black people in general as they also can be in dealing with lower class whites or similar “disposable” people of other ethnicities. Why not just make these two matter-of-fact acknowledgements and then move on to the pressing issue at hand, which, as Caliban correctly states, is whether ALL of us who long for and demand an end to neoliberal oppression and austerity, and the building of a better, more beautiful world, will join hands and hearts in this common struggle of crucial importance that has suddenly found a propitious opening? IMHO, parsing the horrendous Floyd incident by putting it under a microscope takes us in precisely the wrong direction. Indeed, it is this sort of thing, however well-intended, as opposed to the making of the two simple acknowledgments I’ve suggested, which serves to divide us rather than unite us, perhaps even more than do manipulative MSM narratives.
White supremacists everywhere thank you for defending racist cops.
Thank you for your comments. I hope you will try to realize that your frame of mind here is very primitive, and every bit as bigoted as any ‘red-neck’ bigotry coming from anywhere.
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I do not know if these particular police, these four individuals, are racists or not. It’s entirely possible they might be. Only two of the four are white. One appears to be Asian, or possibly Polynesian. The other is mixed race, possibly Asian and Hispanic. So two white cops and two ‘cops of color’ are accused of ‘racist police brutality’ against a really big string man who was drunk on his ass in the middle of the day, and went berserk in resistance to arrest while actually already handcuffed behind his back. Hmm…. Problematic in some ways? … No?
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Police brutality is what it is. I’ve known a few cops in my day. I think that having authority, and carrying a gun, are large factors in the cop mentality. They arrogate a degree of social rank that is unwarranted. Rather than arrogantly claiming status superior to that of citizens, in a True Democracy the police would exercise their authority with practiced and formal humility. Police are the people’s employees. NOT our ‘bosses’ … Authority is only given with democratic consent.
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I do believe that many cops project a grossly antidemocratic attitude and demeanor of commanding authority. Socially, I like cops OK. There’s people out there with worse general attitudes. But when I encounter them in their official capacity, I often feel that male cops enjoy projecting ‘dominance’ over male ‘civilians’. Women find it sexy. Power in males is a key attractant. I’ve learned to steer clear of them. They have all the advantage. Never mind right or wrong. They’re a ‘gang’. They’re a ‘brotherhood’ that demands loyalty. They lie without compunction on the witness stand. (Ask me how I know … LOL). They back each other up. Unless you’ve hired a high profile (i.e.:expensive) attorney, the judge always takes the cops’ word over the accused. The proceeding are rubber stamped formalities.
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It’s a crooked rigged system. There’s no justice except for people who can afford it, (at hundreds of dollars an hour for attorney fees). Better just steer clear, as best one can.
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Police are NOT the ‘bad guys’. Cops are just the hired help. Antagonizing and unfairly demonizing people only drives them away from you. Demonizing the cops just alienates them from you, and that makes them more willing to follow orders against you.
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Victory in most revolutions comes when the police refuse to follow orders to attack the Common People. Making the police hate you, (hate the Common People), because you unfairly and irrationally demonize them, makes them MORE likely to follow those orders … In which case any revolution will likely fail.
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A cop’s ego can be very complex. Women ARE attracted to cops, (gender doesn’t matter), even though they know that cops make notoriously bad husbands. Well … What red-blooded man or lesbian does not enjoy getting receptive attention from the fairer sex?
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Some cops are bullies. Some are indeed ‘flaming’ racists. Some are depraved. Most are just average people. A LOT of them are great guys and gals. Good people to know. Good people to have a beer and burger with, and later maybe sit ’round the fire. Cops are above average in intelligence. They’re often thoughtful people. Some are extraordinary people.
Folks is just folks. Cops too……
All I ever want to hear from “W” is: “Guilty, your honor.”
Thank you, Peter Ve.
President Donald is the “Taz”, cartoon Tasmanian Devil of US Presidents.
http://www.johndayblog.com
https://static.tumblr.com/t58bslg/mUslwhlqw/tumblr_lo2m91bo1v1qcj0s8o1_500.gif
Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice… It’s Showtime!
The symbolism currently being created, captured and disseminated is “to die for”.
The controller is the brain which operates the body. For government the president or leader is just a mask worn to hide the head. So, Caitlin you are spot on. The establishment doesnt like the mask but are temporarily unable to take it off.
Any government, aka gang of psychopaths in charge, will act exactly, or worse, as the one running the US if it acquires the power to do so. The US was simply the last one standing after WWII, and so got a head start. When it goes down, another will take its place. Seems the world requires an evil empire.
I notice that comments sometimes dissappear without notice. A shame, that particular thread was looking interesting. Feel free to delete this one.
It’ll all be over soon enough, we’ll never see it coming and we’ll never know it happened.
I can envision two totally different “its” that may be coming, and also the coming of neither but merely the continuation of more of the same. Would you care to elaborate?
It’ll all be over soon enough, we’ll never see it coming and we’ll never know it happened
I cannot listen to Obamas bullshit. He says nothing of substance. Who’s he speaking to? I can imagine in several years a smiley group photo with Clinton, Bush, Obama and Trump.
Prognostication is a risky business, even for someone as knowledgeable as Caitlin: “I think he’ll be a maker/doer president. He loves making stuff, big stuff, and he really lit up in his acceptance speech when he talked about building infrastructure. That’s his game, that’s what he loves, and that’s what he’s looking forward to. His eyes sparkled at the thought of bringing the bling to America again.” https://www.inquisitr.com/3696841/relax-progressives-its-going-to-be-okay/#ixzz6ONB3WNkK
A little more infrastructure and a little less Pentagon would have been a good thing indeed. Oh well…
Exactly!!
Obama can kiss my ass.
I reared a child on my own. I taught him/her that they could make a difference.
I encourage him/her to make a statement that they would be happy to fight for.
Then 2008 happened. Without help from me, they decided that it was a just cause to elect the first Obama.
Then they were informed that we had to look forward and forget the past.
Now, twelve years later, they have to listen to a priveledged power broker tell them what they shoud do.
It amazes me that we need one of those dirty foreigners to speak truth to americans.
Well done Caitlin.
Good article. Keep it up.
Okay neoliberal russiagater.
It’s not as if people’s opinions, knowledge and beliefs change with time, but whatever. Its not even as though hers have changed all that much, but whatever.
It’s not even as though her basic premise about Trump even changed. She never said she liked him. She just said he’s not what the establishment wanted and that they’re going to hate him. She never said she likes him. BUT WHATEVER.
OK ‘progressive’ deepstater, the issue is that Caitlin, back in the dark days of 2016 seemed overly fixated on opposing Hillary Clinton as she was apparently the most corrupt and “vile” representative of the “power establishment”, whilst soft-pedalling Donald Trump as the one who would bring change. But whatever.
And with “Russiagate”, apparently that was all a plot by the “power establishment” to bring Trump down because he was a threat or was it to bring him to heel, or maybe in this current version it was because he kept saying the quiet part out loud. But whatever.
And that was after at one stage floating the theory he was a Democrat plant based on the hacked emails. But whatever.
Sure, she never said she liked him, but she thought, no, she wrote that he’d be a “maker/doer president”, and that through “making all that stuff, he really is going to create jobs for people, real jobs doing real things, and that can only be good.” So it’s not like she was praising him before he even go started is it. All the while, people who actually understood his record, including “vile” Hillary Clinton, knew and said that he was unfit for high office. Maybe Caitlin will say that Hillary was right. One day. Perhaps not. But whatever.
Caitlin, like many others, may have been hoping that Trump, based upon a few comments he made during the campaign–like how it would be better to get along with Russia, how our regime-change wars were terrible mistakes, etc.–would try to live up to at least some of these statements and thereby be a preferable president to a proven warmonger and Wall Street lover. It turned out that Caitlin and others who were a bit hopeful back then were wrong, and that Trump was as bad as many of those, who had dealt with him in the business world, were saying he was. To her credit, Caitlin was big enough to change her mind and write like she does today, which sets her apart from those who still wish that a proven warmonger and Wall Street lover had won. Given Hillary’s call for the immediate imposition of an American no-fly zone over Syrian airspace, which at the time was being occupied, at Syria’s request, by Russian airplanes providing key support to help Syria defeat the head-choppers, it’s highly questionable whether we would even be having this conversation, or whether any human beings would be having any conversation, had she became Commander In Chief and rushed eagerly into WWIII.
Back in the dark days of the 2016 election I also thought Hillary Clinton was the most corrupt and “vile” representative of the “power establishment”, in a word evil. Deplorable. I also was heartened to hear Trump talking about pulling out of the endless wars, and having a conversation with Russia. It didn’t take long to change my mind about Trump, but I have not changed my mind about Clinton. And I am still truly grateful that Clinton wasn’t elected. The world dodged a bullet there.
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The most encouraging thing for me was the way that Trump’s behaviour exposed the awfulness of the US system for the whole world to see. And the world has taken notice. The rest of the world (remember the rest of the world?) is truly sick and tired of US interference, the never-ending looting and destruction and desecration of entire countries, with as little thoughtfulness or decency as the looters in Manhattan. With Hillary rubbing her hands together in glee and cackling about it.
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Back in 2016, with Clinton and Trump running against each other, I was thinking “can the USA really find nobody better than these two abysmal losers for Presidential candidacy? Clearly they are both unfit for high office” In 2020 we have Trump vs Biden. and the question remains the same.
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What does Russiagate, the Flat Earth Theory and Loch Ness Monster have in common? There are still people who take it seriously. Russiagate was never plausible. It was debunked almost immediately. By facts and reasoning. Alexander Downer for goodness sake!! On and on it goes, a merry dance, a spectacle for the sleepwalkers.
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..which brings us back to Caitlin’s point.
Yes, Ms Johnstone, Donald Trump is a slimeball and he is the head of a slimeball country that deserves to be finally recognized as the greatest charade in human history. We murder and brutalize millions of people for ” their own good ” as we spread ” our ” democracy ” over the entire earth. We Are Exceptional! Truly disgusting, deplorable, and evil personified.
What you said.
YEAH. I had the same vison when he took over: lotsa ballyhoo and little action: currently the fleet near Caracas, that did not stop the Iranian tankers. then other fleet in the China Sea, if it is there, not doing anything to piss off China more than a fly on the t-rump.
I use the Hindu trilogy to explain more than Christ can: in it Krishna is the creator, that would be maybe Wilhelm Reich, and Vishnu his one and only son, unless you wanna count all man-kind, the Preserver. who is a darling and has lotsa girlfriends. that would be JFK, Or Bobby or MLK. The Beatles.
finally, Trump himself as Shiva, the Destroyer of Ignorance. Showing us that the best way to do that is by being ignorance as loud and clear as he can, so the peephole can see it. And the lessonis not lost due to so many distractions. He makes .GOV important again. WE FEEL something akin to fear, instead of our usual Oblivia, Oblama. WE feel and see the power they have enough to make us cower in a Pandemic of 20% of 1%
that terrifies so many young mothers.
still the crowds now are blooming and the system is quaking…at least we are making, or the yong ones are, making the elites sqirm and think a bit. This is the Gatesian Dream tho’ This is the Cull.
Anybody who rapes and kills kids by the hundreds can’t be all bad; cut our politicians and federal and state justices some slack.
This was so good! Nice work, Caity!
“It’s because he allows people to see the perverse mechanics of a globe-sprawling murderous empire for the sick, evil thing that it actually is.” — and what the fuck is wrong with that? Humanity needs the 2×4 whack on the head or it is doomed to borg-dom
Agree
What’s wrong with it is that Trump also pushes those perverse and murderous mechanics forward.
https://www.alt-market.com/index.php/articles/3949-trump-cannot-be-anti-globalist-while-working-with-global-elites
Nailed it again, Caito! No doubt many folks will find this hard to accept. Again. Still.
Why then did the Establishment HATE Trump BEFORE he was elected President? They had foreknowledge of his ineptitude? Your argument falls a little short. I’m not writing this to defend Trump, but the last three years of subversion surely isn’t based on his ugliness.
You say that as though Trump was behaving like a gentlemanly diplomat prior to being elected.
I think it has more to do with the utter disdain that the Establishment has for the great unwashed, I mean ,”deplorables”. That disdain is nothing new culturally or politically. A so-called intellectual class needs to believe in their superior education and appointment over the mere peasant. You exhibited that bias in your use of the term “gentlemanly”. The average American is considered vulgar and uncouth by the ruling class and their running dogs.
Correct me if need be; I think C.J.’s point is that this matter is exquisitely aesthetic and not political.
Naturally, anyone who uses the word ‘gentlemanly’ obviously thinks they’re superior to everyone else.
Thanks for proving my point.
Perhaps they thought it was obvious they would not be able to control him and therefore the narrative?
Actually before he was elected, the Establishment found him rather amusing and entertaining as they had in his media days. No one expected him to win. He won due to the electoral college against the most dislikeable and dishonest candidate the Demos could have come up with. At this point the agenda of compensating for their mistake by trashing Trump coincided nicely with the long time agenda of hostility to Russia, at this point an agenda well over a century old. The rest is history.
Maybe they knew that he had a habit of raping little girls and figured it would spell trouble down the road. Guess they underestimated the depravity of the average American.
The endless struggle of self against others (and nature) to gain advantage over them is the capitalist worldview in a nutshell. Small wonder that it depraves to some extent all of us Americans, who, as Caitlin has pointed out, live in the most capitalist of nations, now morphed into its culminating plutocratic imperial form. That there is any vestige left of the genuine left in this country borders on the miraculous and provides strong evidence of the strength, endurance, and tenacity of the human spirit. Only there does hope reside.
Exactly. And it’s only the 3rd here in F’edupville. No time travel required. 🙂
Big Bush killed half million in Iraq
Slick Willy killed 500,000 in Rwanda and 200,000 in Bosnia….
Baby Bush killed a million in Iraq and Afghanistan
Obombie & Reptillary killed 250,000 in Libya, half million in Syria
Trump is behind on the three decade death count
It seems the neo-cons that have been within the White House for the last couple of decades want Trump to up his numbers.
And it certainly looks at this point like he is ready, willing, and able to comply.
1) Bring troops home.
2) Increase body count.
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What comes next?
Troops are still deployed, and his latest body count is 100k Americans.