Ever since November third the American political/media class have been keeping Democrats fixated on Trump’s post-election shenanigans with garment-rending urgency, now going so far as to call for yet another oxygen-sucking impeachment as he’s on his way out the door while millions of Americans are struggling just to meet their basic needs.
You wouldn’t know it from the dominant chatter, but Trump’s impotent attempts to reverse the election results don’t rank anywhere remotely near the top ten worst things this president has done while in office, which include vetoing attempts to end the world’s worst mass atrocity in Yemen, escalating world-threatening cold wars with both Russia and China, murdering untold tens of thousands of Venezuelans with starvation sanctions, pushing Iran to the brink of war by assassinating its top military commander, expanding the “war on terror” and rolling back airstrike regulations designed to protect civilians.
US political discourse hasn’t reflected the fact that Trump’s foreign policy has been far more atrocious than anything he’s done domestically–and certainly anything he’s done since November–because news media coverage does not reflect this fact. News media coverage does not reflect this fact because western news media regard imperialism and mass military slaughter as normal US presidential stuff, and do not regard brown-skinned foreigners as human.
I point this out because it’s good to note, as Trump leaves office, that he spent his entire administration advancing murderous imperialist agendas which spilled very real blood from very real human beings while mainstream America barely even noticed. Their attention was drawn instead to endless narrative theater which had no impact whatsoever on the concrete actions taken by the US government’s executive branch. Their gaze was kept fixated on meaningless political drama while the war machine marched on unseen.
BREAKING: Kanye West and Kim Kardashian are getting a divorce. (via @nypost) pic.twitter.com/cPqgweLszS
— SAINT (@saint) January 5, 2021
Americans are famously uninterested in the rest of the world, to such an extent that you can only get them to watch a British sitcom if it’s remade with American actors and they don’t know that having your nation’s flag flying all over your neighborhood isn’t normal. The story of Kanye and Kim’s divorce is going to generate more news media views than the entirety of the Yemen war since it began. This lack of interest in war and foreign policy is mighty peculiar, seeing how the people who run their country make it their primary focus.
Americans only care about America while their rulers only care about the rest of the world. This is entirely by design.
Americans fixate on America while ignoring the rest of the world not because they are genetically prone to self-obsessed navel gazing, but because their attention is being constantly and deliberately manipulated away from the stage upon which their government is perpetrating monstrous acts.
The nationless alliance of plutocrats and government agencies who drive the US government’s foreign policy cannot have the common riff raff interfering in their affairs. Immense amounts of energy have gone into preventing the rise of an antiwar movement in the hub of the empire like the one which began shaking the earth in the sixties and seventies, with propaganda playing a leading role in this suppression. The US is far too important in the operation of the empire-like power alliance which sprawls across the earth to permit its inhabitants to interfere in its operations by using the power of their numbers to force their nation’s wealth and resources to be used at home. So propaganda is used to hold their attention inside America’s borders.
“The danger for American elites is not that the U.S. may become less able to accomplish geopolitical objectives. Rather, it is that more Americans might begin to question the logic of U.S. global hegemony,” writes @RichardHanania: https://t.co/VagDuHnUFw
— Stephen Wertheim (@stephenwertheim) January 1, 2021
In an excellent Palladium essay published last month titled “China’s Real Threat Is to America’s Ruling Ideology“, Richard Hanania argues that the example China sets as a nation rising to superpower status by relatively peaceful and lawful means is deeply threatening to the orthodoxy promoted by western imperialists. If the world in general and Americans in particular were to become more conscious of how a civilization can succeed and thrive without waging endless wars in the name of “freedom” and “democracy”, they might begin calling for such an order themselves.
“While most Americans will never experience a ride on a Chinese bullet train and remain oblivious in differences in areas like infrastructure quality, major accomplishments in highly visible frontiers like space travel or cancer treatment could drive home the extent to which the U.S. has fallen behind,” Hanania concludes. “Under such conditions, the best case scenario for most Americans would be a nightmare for many national security and bureaucratic elites: for the U.S. to give up on policing the world and instead turn inward and focus on finding out where exactly our institutions have gone wrong.”
In other words, China’s rise threatens to reverse the carefully-engineered dynamic which has Americans looking inward while their government points its attention outward. If Americans begin turning their gaze internationally and use the power of their numbers to force their government to heal and nurture their crumbling nation, it would spell the end for the imperialists. But it could also be the beginning of a peaceful and harmonious world.
_____________________
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76 responses to “Americans Only Care About America. Their Rulers Only Care About World Domination.”
I’m one of your european peasant : we don’t want your nurturing. Heal your country, leave us be. We’ll meet again some time.
I am making over $9k a month working part time. I stored being attentive to different human beings inform me how much money they are able to make on line so I decided to lok into it. AMs well, it turned into all actual and has completely modified my life.
That is what I do….-!~!~!~!…. Home Profit System
Only ONE GOOD thing has come out of the stolen election. MITCH MCCONNELL WILL BE GONE on January 20th once and for all.
the entire world does NOT CARE about the USA or its people or mostly anything American, most Americans do not care about US citizens only themselves.
Any idiot know this after a few trips abroad.
Foreign AID never gets to the foreign people it is all taken by politians and other crooks first, so Americans being told they are feeding the world is a simple lie like most American charity BS. GO LOOK you idiots , America is not the best country on earth, has not been for a long long time now, Israelis live better than Americans.
MAGA was a failure from the start.
You are partially right, except that you are not going back fat enough. The US has been a failure from its inception. Any country that was founded on the spoils of genocide, such as the US, is doomed to perpetual failure. Combine that with persistent predatory capitalism and you have epic failure.
Of course, the Israeli good life is partly being funded by the US taxpayer. Not to mention all of the land and natural resources stolen from Palestinians. One thing for sure is the Palestinians, trapped in an Apartheid state, are not living better than Americans. Israel was the last colony to be established by the British Empire. So, that is a really bad comparison. Still, your basic pointr remains. The US sucks and few US citizens realize this.
“Americans only care about America while their rulers only care about the rest of the world. This is entirely by design.
Americans fixate on America while ignoring the rest of the world not because they are genetically prone to self-obsessed navel gazing, but because their attention is being constantly and deliberately manipulated away from the stage upon which their government is perpetrating monstrous acts.”
Many Americans are distraught with the US foreign policy including me…but if you keep telling me I’m not…I’ll just quite reading your goddamn articles. The fact that this country has been taken over by the Deep State is the most important situation to me.
It’s the most important situation to THE ENTIRE WORLD, Realist, but I think you’re reading Caitlin wrong. I practiced law for over three decades and tried to do so with some principle and integrity, and I was not alone. Yet I always enjoyed a good lawyer joke and told quite a few myself over the years. Why? Because of the truth in them, the same kind of truth that Caitlin tells about America’s government AND far too many of its citizens.
oh, yeah! Australia ia a bloated cattle ranch and oh don’t forget the rabbits. i love rabbit.
had hangerroo steak t’other day. great fun. i guess it was live! first live meat EVER! yum.
MerdRica is happy and healthily selfish. Ayn Rand was from Russia so that’s why you aren’t happy. no books in Aussie muscle-landia. we smile at the misfortunes of small nations with big deserts. haha. OUR god is Wealth, sucker: and it’s only begotten son is Greenspan.
we hate losers but we still need them for fodder and playthings. fun is all. loved the Kanye post, BTW. shows hipness which is EVERYthing in US. WE are always seeking cool. i give you Nicole and Naomi yeah. pretty.
but smart. haha. ya gotta get with it. write a novel like hunger games before you feel hunger–it ain’t no game. we own Oklakoma remember? those runaways were the 1st persons to settle LA. talk about bounce.
hey. i know you know i saw rabbit proof fence. you have troubles too.
but we have money!
Wanna buy a bomb? need a little austerity. we give good advise.
It is an erroneous generalization to say “Americans only care about America”. Which Americans? If you are talking about the ruling class of the United States, even they don’t care much about America, only their bank accounts and their stock portfolios. Witness their indifference to the thousands of deaths from Covid-19 through a lack of lockdowns, testing and contact tracing. Witness their demanding that schools and factories remain open, probably to kill as many of the working class as possible while these wealthy goniffs drink champagne on their private islands.
I am born and reared in the United States, and I hate the government of my country of birth. I have hated them since the 1960s. I am an internationalist. Nationalism is a 19th century idea that is past its prime. Ultra nationalism is fascism. All Americans do not support fascism. Many of us are Marxists.
And when you use the term “American”, you should be clear that you mean the United States, and not Canada, Mexico, Panama, Brazil or Ecuador, among others.
Perfectly stated Carolyn.
Peace be with you.
Yes. Caitlin often paints with a wide brush. Poetic license so to speak.
She’s a great poet!
I generally like Jonhstone’s articles, but this one is bullshit.
When Vladimir Putin said that the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of post WWII was the dissolution of the USSR, he was right on the button. What unraveled next was story of unparalleled greed and hubris in the United States in believing the world was its spoils for winning the Cold War.
From Eastern Europe to Asia and South America it went on a rampage like an elephant in a tea house making and breaking governments, bombing and dismembering viable states, creating chaos in order to come in and establishing its new Pax Americana. From Yugoslavia to Libya to Syria, Sudan, Yemen, Honduras…etc, it either promoted downright Coup d’États or mercilessly bombed destroying people and infrastructure to achieve its agenda unopposed by a weak Russia and a Warsaw Pact that had gone to its grave. And in so doing caused the greatest mass migration of refugees to Europe the likes of which the world had never seen since WWII.
Yet all this was conceived and effectuated not in secret rooms but openly declared as official policy. In the mid nineties a new political doctrine that would guide policy was announced in the form of “Project for a New American Century” which is nothing less than Manifest Destiny on steroids and on a global scale. This was soon followed by its military doctrine of “Full Spectrum Dominance” over all countries of the earth. Well when the drunk Boris Yeltsin realized belatedly what was afoot, he literally ceded control of the Russian Federation to Putin in 2000 who went about repairing the social, economic and military disaster his country had become,
Starting in Syria in 2014, Vladimir Putin started challenging the American Empire that can no longer project the military supremacy it enjoyed for nearly two decades and this has enraged its planners. The demonizing of Russia is for having stopped dead in its tract the military supremacy of the US and the demonizing of China for having stopped its economic one and challenging the supremacy of the dollar.
Putin was quite right. The only brake on the brazen greed for power of the United States was the huge land mass of the Soviet Union. That brake was removed when the Stalinist Gorbachev waved the white hankie and surrendered. The rest is nightmare.
WARS-R-US.
Whrn I watched the Berlin wall come down with my wife, I told her big changes were coming worldwide. Little did I know how much.
Make trade not war. Make friends not enemies. Make love not hate.
“Americans are famously uninterested in the rest of the world…Americans only care about America while their rulers only care about the rest of the world. This is entirely by design.”
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In a sense, you can’t blame Americans for being so shallow-visioned. From birth, Americans are taught that they belong to “The Exceptional Nation”. Well, if you are Exceptional, that must mean everyone else ISN’T Exceptional. So why in the world would Americans care about those unimportant outsiders?
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Add to that the fact that most people are innately selfish anyway and just naturally don’t care about anyone or anything much but themselves. The World beyond USA borders is just some kind of unimportant black hole that doesn’t count for anything. Or so the belief goes. Generation to generation.
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And add to that fact… what does any of this have to do with big shiny pickup trucks, cold beer, and American football? Those are the three dominant religions in America and have been for a long time. Why would Americans care about anything else? There’s only so many hours in the day, you know?
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“The nationless alliance of plutocrats and government agencies who drive the US government’s foreign policy cannot have the common riff raff interfering in their affairs.”
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Where things seem to headed… the nationless alliance of plutocrats and government agencies who drive the US government’s foreign policy cannot have the common riff raff…AROUND AT ALL. Various scenarios in play for that outcome.
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We need to live each day as if it is our last. Because one way or another, The Last One is getting closer. Do cattle at the stockyards realize that they are in a stockyards and their brothers and sisters go into that big building and don’t seem to come out? Will we?
You have completely summed up the central points of American thinking. Don’t wear a mask or social distance because that interferes with my right to be an idiot.
We get the best government money can buy. When will we stop electing celebrities and old white men? Someday there will be a book called “The Decline and Fall of America”. I hope someone is around to read it.
And the slaughterhouse workers wear suits.
True. Good comment.
We’ve become sheep and the only choice is which chute to go down but even then we are herded.
Great comment. Very well expressed!
Dear Caitlin (with typos fixed),
I’m afraid I must take offense when you paint things with a broad brush–which is almost invariably a no-no, the stuff of which prejudice is made–and say “Americans care only about America.” While our media may encourage an ethnocentric, myopic viewpoint of the world, the cure is to A. explore the viewpoints of other countries, and B. get out there—both of which I’ve done, spending > 11 years in Third World or developing countries, an experience that has been equal parts broadening and humbling. I consider myself first and foremost a child of God, secondly a child of the world–including LOVING such Brit shows as Line of Duty, Bodyguard, and Downton Abbey–and only thirdly a child of America.
A word about China: While I refuse to demonize the Chinese as the MSM conditions Americans to do, I also refuse to hold them up as some benevolent, humanitarian ideal. China is THE most blatant economic colonizer in the world, AEB their widespread and systematic exploitation of Africa. Talk to some Africans and see how many of them like the Chinese!
Sincerely,
horror/thriller author S.A. Hogan
You have sommething I want. You are too weak to resist me. First I try to figure out a way that you will give it to me. If that fails, I just take it. i e. resources in Africa.
I like your point. Blanket statements are never accurate.
Dear Caitlin,
I’m afraid I must take offense when you paint things with a broad brush–which is almost invariably a no-no, the stuff of which prejudice is made–and say “Americans care only about America.” While our media may encourage an ethnocentric, myopic viewpoint of the world, the cure is to A. explore the viewpoints of other countries, and B. get out there—both of which I’ve done, spending > 11 years in Third World or developing countries, an experience that has been equal parts broadening and humbling. I consider myself first and foremost a child of God, secondly a child of the world–including LOVING such Brit shows as Line of Duty, Bodyguard, and Downtown Abbey–and only thirdly an American.
A word about China: While I refuse to demonize the Chinese as the MSM conditions Americans to do, I also refuse to hold them up as some benevolent, humanitarian ideal. China is THE most blatant economic colonizer in the world, AEB their widespread and systematic exploitation of Africa. Talk to some Africans and see how many of them like the Chinese!
Sincerely,
horror/thriller author S.A. Hogan
“Americans fixate on America while ignoring the rest of the world not because they are genetically prone to self-obsessed navel gazing, but because their attention is being constantly and deliberately manipulated away from the stage upon which their government is perpetrating monstrous acts.” Not entirely correct. Because of the basic decency of the American people, their imperial government is compelled to use its MSM mouthpiece to sell wars to them in explicitly moral terms. First, their attention is relentlessly focused ON a specific foreign stage. Then, the leader of that foreign country is demonized as a new Hitler. Finally, the responsibility of the exceptional nation is asserted to protect the citizens of that foreign country from their demonic leader. This longstanding propaganda strategy of R2P (responsibility to protect), previously described by Caitlin and Diana (the other Johnstone), provides strong evidence that the character of the American people, as Caitlin indicates, is no worse than that of other nations. Indeed, is it not precisely the morality and decency of American citizens which are manipulated by their government and MSM to provide sanction and support for evil deeds?
Looks to me like a bad case of Great Wall Envy – and the relentless pursuit of the equally anachronistic foreign policy of Attila the Hun. I’ll start to feel better when we get a history major as Secretary of State. Hey, a guy can always dream.
America got shot with an animal tranquilizer dart in November 1963.
I’m praying for her to wake up and stand.
If she does, or rather, if we do, we’ll have to overcome other injectables on the ready.
As is always the case, governments being the ideal environment for psychopaths, they eventually are saturated with them. The longer they are around, and the more resources they have, the worse they get. America is peaking, I wonder what nation takes their place?
Excellent, Caitlin!
Good discussion Caitlin. I only add that America could never do the things you suggest it needs to do with Trump and his goons in charge. With the Democrats we have a slim chance. I did not support Clinton in 2016 as I saw her a a hawk, and I found Biden to be a weak choice, but at least one we could work with, just barely. We have a lot of work ahead of us.
The one and only difference between Democrats and Republicans is that one or the other, depending on the circumstance, prefers to drive the handcart to hell we are riding on a little slower, or faster if you prefer. The destination remains the same. They both use the same gang of armed goons to enforce their insanity.
That doesn’t appear to be a difference to me – just fighting over the wheel that they’ve already pulled off the steering column, with all four feet still standing on the gas pedal.
Again, this “America” to which you refer. Which America? North or South or Central America? Canada or Mexico? And pardon me, but I am a citizen of the United States and we are not all one lump of ignorant xenophobic brainwashed yahoos. I support the Socialist Equality Party and have not voted for a mainstream party since 1992. We are Marxists. We are internationalists. Marx said “Workers of the WORLD” unite, not “Workers of Cleveland” or “Workers of Bogota” or “Workers of Tierra del Fuego”.
Biden is a doddering puppet. You aren’t going to “work with” any of those who are pulling the strings. Systemic tyranny gives you toys to play with and distractions.
They are all puppets. Mouthpieces for the small sect JFK warned us about in one of his speeches.
” For we are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies on covert means for expanding its sphere of influence–on infiltration instead of invasion, on subversion instead of elections, on intimidation instead of free choice, on guerrillas by night instead of armies by day. It is a system which has conscripted vast human and material resources into the building of a tightly knit, highly efficient machine that combines military, diplomatic, intelligence, economic, scientific and political operations. Its preparations are concealed, not published. Its mistakes are buried not headlined. Its dissenters are silenced, not praised. No expenditure is questioned, no rumor is printed, no secret is revealed. … ” JFK
Coming back by plane in the 1960s to the US from France and nearing Idlewild Airport a young American sailor shouted out to to rest of the passengers, ‘Back to the real world!’
Ignorance knows no bounds.
His joy was returning to a familiar culture and language.
Perhaps America polices the world so China doesn’t have to. If America didn’t, in their fashion, China wouldn’t bother either and would let the ‘turbulent’ spots just rip. They only police their own ‘trouble’ spots like H. K. and Sinjiang and next Taiwan perhaps.
Excuse me, in which “turbulent” spots isn’t the turbulence due to US action?
Hear, hear.
How could things be any worse than the US coming in and bomb you back to the stone age killing millions. Let people take care of their own problems or at least have them solved regionally. The number one problem today is people determined on telling others how to live their lives.
BRAVO!!!
Much of what you say about America’s lack of involvement with foreign affairs is correct. If you asked the average American citizen where is Yemen? You would get a blank stare. But ask them about some Hollywood celebrity or sports figure and you’ll get a long reply. There are many reasons for this, but I would start with our school systems that don’t teach much in the way of geography, but plenty to do with sports.
When it comes to your comments about China, you are overlooking some very disturbing trends. The repression of the Chinese people is best exemplified by the sheer number of cameras watching the public at all times and the use of artificial intelligence to pick out people the government feels are a threat. This technology can and will be used around the world as more governments become increasingly totalitarian.
BTW, there are a large number of Americans, myself included, that enjoy watching British programs and have no need to have the actors replaced by American actors. I watch on our Public Television network and I thoroughly enjoy the programs. Especially the mystery stories, as I find them to be more thoughtful and less action-oriented than American mysteries.
I would like to see you address the issue of Australia’s exporting of large quantities of coal to China. It seems that money has a great deal of power in your country as well as in mine.
No need for a long essay on the subject. Americans are violent, egotistic, egoistic, ignorant and greedy.
In many cases you are correct, but I think that analysis applies more to our governing class than to the man in the street. The average American is consumed with earning a living and watching TV. They have little knowledge of the world at large nor do they have any interest in learning about the greater world.
Many of your criticisms could be directed to people around the world. We Americans don’t have a corner on your listed qualities but we are certainly in the top 10 of those that share our worst qualities.
Ahem! Not all of us, pal. How many Americans (and which American country are you thinking of?) do you actually know? I am a citizen of the United States and I am none of the things on your list, nor are the majority of people I call friends. I have also many friends in other countries around the world. I am sure that violent, egotistic, ignorant, and greedy people can be found all over the world. See Brexit, for instance.
Naaaah, you just don’t like Citizens of the U.S. right?
The World is full of angels, right?
Bigot!
We are a empire in decline riding on power and might derived from the WW2 victory and addicted to a system that is totally inadequate for the present. Like any dying behemoth do not get close as the thrashing around is extremely dangerous. We will change if modern civilization is so fortunate to survive.
That is an excellent short assessment!
‘A nation with a collective, room-temp IQ’
“No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public” ~ H.L. Mencken
left（ZOG）right =Divide and Conquer
Of course, Mencken was a cynical old bugger, but he obviously had reached the exasperation point when he said it.
There’s THREE kinds of Americans;
Traitors; MSM, politicians, doctors, nurses, security, cops, banks, sheep wearing masks, etc., who promote or hide the truth of the covid lie, ‘monetized’ on YouTube for not speaking the truth (ex-military, ex-Special Forces, etc), and the current US military, who sits idly by while the country is systematically destroyed.
‘Patriots’ who stand with Trump who puts Israel before America, thanking them for the USS Liberty and 9/11 with their stolen tax-dollars.
American patriots. Those who think America and Americans should come before everything else (the small, sad, tiny, tiny minority).
Thought provoking as usual, if somewhat off base on various items as perceived from a different biases and experience directed perspective. I must wonder which way the wind blows across various identity assumptions witnessed in progression through original article and various response comments in order to develop and ultimately reach the far shores of some often somewhat exotic islands of opinion.. Conclusion, madness in humans is directly proportional to the degree of logic they attempt to apply when trying to explain illogical realities. Pinball comes to mind, yes, shiny silver balls of steel beating rapidly between bells and rubber thumper bumpers working for that bonus “pop”!
Caitlin,
I agree with most of what you said. You just missed one part. That is, mainstream America doesn’t hate just brown-skinned foreigners, it also hates brown-skinned Americans. This country was founded on genocide and slavery of brown-skinned people, both foreign and domestic. That foundation is still there, informing all kinds of government and corporate (actually, the same thing) actions, both foreign and domestic.
You recognize that we here in the US are distracted by propaganda, but I don’t think you realize just how extensive and hermetically sealed the propaganda bubble really is. Pretty much the only mention of the military in the MSM is someone thanking them for their “service” or tear-jerking commercials featuring happy, healthy, intact soldiers coming home to happy, healthy, intact, and overjoyed families. Genocide, torture, and destruction of people in foreign countries have never been my idea of service. Any mention of what the happy soldiers were coming home from is strictly forbidden unless it is to say what a great thing they were doing there.
If you get your information about the world from the MSM in this country, you might hardly be aware that other countries exist except when the oligarchs want to incite fear, hatred, contempt, or pity depending on their agenda for the country in question.
Despite all of this, some of us are aware, but trying to change the minds of the MSM brain-washed is nearly impossible. Believe me, I have tried. They just get angry. I have even had a former friend tell me that I need to stop reading and stop thinking and go along with everyone else. Further, with all of the covidian nonsense going on now, people are so terrified that they’ll drop dead if they set foot outside their front door without a full hazmat suit and respirator that they are thinking even less clearly than normal, exacerbated by hypoxia and hypercapnia induced by face coverings. This is just a new and even more effective way to keep the propaganda bubble sealed. Next, they’ll have to worry about whether their whole family will be hauled off to an internment camp if someone gets the sniffles. This is not an exaggeration:
https://te.legra.ph/Draconian-NY-Police-State-Assembly-Bill-Indefinite-Detainment-of-Disease-Carriers—Global-Research-01-05
This happened in Canada but could be happening in New York very soon:
https://twitter.com/ezralevant/status/1345409909932888064?s=09
People living in existential terror don’t have time to worry about the atrocities their government is committing outside of their sphere of experience. The oligarchs are counting on that.
The country was NOT founded on genocide, idiot. You have obviously been brainwashed by the 1619 Project, a mass of unbridled historical falsification.
Here is one of the most insightful recent conversations on the rise of China and the decline of the US empire which will never reach the mainstream, between Michael Hudson and Pepe Escobar:
I think Caitlin’s post on the current state of American society was a Curate’s egg : good in parts only. She is absolutely correct to draw attention to US capitalism’s desire to impose its dominion over the entire world by ANY means, including war, if necessary.
Trump has confined himself to launching trade wars against US capitalism’s rivals – Russia, China, and the EU trading bloc. But the US military has kept up its murderous blood-letting in the Middle East and in Yemen, where the prize is control over the region’s oil and gas reserves.
Caitlin is, however, way off beam in her assessment of the “average” American, who, she believes, is only interested in American affairs, flag-waving, and TV. This pessimism simply does not correspond with reality. American cities have been ablaze with revolt for the last 2 years, in response to US police murders of innocent people, and especially black people. These mass demonstrations reflect a revolutionary state of mind amongst wide layers of American working class people, especially the youth of America who correctly see no future for themselves in capitalist America. What these mass revolts lack is POLITICAL LEADERSHIP, ORGANISATION, AND DISCIPLINE, in the form of a Revolutionary Socialist Party. This is the key unresolved task, not only in the US, but all over the world, which has also seen mass demonstrations in support of their American brothers and sisters.
Caitlin is also seriously misguided in regarding Stalinist China as a “role model” for the world’s working class. It most certainly is not. This corrupt, totalitarian military/police dictatorship is built upon cheap labour, and close collaboration with international capital in ruthlessly exploiting the Chinese working class. Chinese capital is, of course, now spread around the world, exploiting the working classes of the world too.
The so-called Chinese “Communist” Party is an ugly charade. The country is run by billionaires, who draw the red cloak of “Communism” over their rotten corruption, unaccountable powers, and rigid, bureaucratic control over all aspects of Chinese society. The “model” for this regime, and its completely degenerate and corrupt leaders, is Stalin’s Soviet Union from 1924 – 1953, when the psychopath, mass murderer, and tyrant expired, to the relief of the bulk of the Soviet people, groaning under his military/police dictatorship.
A Stalinist China is most definitely not to be admired, or emulated. I can assure Caitlin that she would not be allowed to run her platform in Beijing. On the contrary, she would probably be put in jail for “deviationism,” which is Stalinist doublespeak for refusing to repeat, parrot fashion, every word that emanates from the mouths of the Chinese billionaire, fake “Communist” leaders. Did she not learn anything from the Tianamen Square massacre in Beijing in 1989?
The Chinese masses face the same political task as their brothers and sisters elsewhere in the world, namely, building a Revolutionary Socialist Party to usher in a genuine Socialist society, free of capitalists, Stalinists, and fatcat bureaucrats, who are living like Kings in a country where the vast majority of Chinese people, especially those in the countryside, live an impoverished, hand-to-mouth existence.
Only world Socialist Revolution, along the lines laid out by the October Socialist Revolution in Russia in 1917, led by Lenin and Trotsky, can save the world from all the horrors of modern capitalism, and its inexorable drift towards a third, and final, nuclear World War.
I very much agree with most of what the author states, but I agree that holding China and it’s authoritarian regime up as anything to emulate is wrong. But that nation is indeed racing past the United States in many technological areas.
I tend to agree with her assessment of ‘most Americans,’ however, as the vast majority could not pass a basic current events quiz, don’t know who Julian Assange is, and readily welcome ever stricter controls over the populace due to their fears of – anything and everything, including CV19.
Not all, but the majority.
The Chinese living in the countryside are the fortunate ones. The poor bastards who were forced out to slave in factories in filthy cities to fuel China’s “progress” had little choice. Their offspring now know no better. This is analogous to the situation of the Appalachian people who were given the same choice years ago, migrate or starve. The system has no respect for workers of the land. It never helps them to prosper individually in their own world, always subjugating that to the efficiency of the impersonal machine which views the natural world as a resource rather than a birthright.
Thank you Caitlin for an excellent article spelling out the way it really is with the most disruptive force on the planet – the US!
j’accuse
Americans I am one but do you think I have a choice? Most of the people I know. Ok to be honest, all of them, consider themselves well informed. That perhaps only 1 in 1000 of us even know about the Ask Noway Landslide last week is not our fault. Ok maybe the other 999 could be like me and find such things out but it is hard work to be informed in America. Lets just say I found out about it on a fluke Ok? The fact is our media does not report news. It entertains and sells stuff and calls itself news because the word attracts eyeballs. Americans have no ideal about the development of European infrastructure and how far Americans have been left behind. But is that our fault? Nobody told us.
You spend a lot of time bashing Americans like it was our fault we are ignorant. Fact is serious social pressure keeps us ignorant. Do you also blame slaves for their servitude? And besides what about nerds like me who ARE YOUR FANS. And also happen to be AMERICAN.
Some of us here want to have our fellows to grow a civic conscience. It is an idle wish since all we can do is compete and consume as that is our indoctrination from birth.
You should be more sensitive. I know you have conservative assholes who don’t think and only care about appearances and looking good where you live too. Imagine if there were 10 times as many and you have to endure their stupidity every damn day. How would you like it? Walk in our shoes. Do you think we like this shit?
Dissing people who live in a cultural wasteland is not a good use of time. As a great man once said:
‘Forgive them father, they know not what they do.
I made it clear that Americans are the victims of imperialist propaganda brainwashing. My American husband who co-wrote this article says stop being so precious about your nationality.
As a Brit I hear you. This political ignorance is certainly not confined to America. I would go as far as to say it extends to all of the English speaking countries of the world. Oh, I would also suggest that you can throw in most of Europe, then add Asia into the mix. It is an affliction that affects humanity. It is borne from years of being ruled by a hierarchy. We have a slave mentality and it is only individuals who are awake. Collective groups of people usually belong to some organisation and therefore by the nature of their organisation simply follow the doctrine/dogma or ideology of that organisation.
The very smallest and most abused minority is the individual. Collectivism has secured the power to assault them at every opportunity. Which is curious, since “not like us” is the very foundation of racism, war, and an abundant other evils.
Once again Ms Johnstone hits it out of the park with an article that brings goosebumps to this old man. The United States government is completely corrupt and its world-wide killing sprees are way worse than anything that Mr. Hitler ever did. No morals and no ethics and no empathy are the hallmarks of its nature that need to be done away with ASAP. Thank You Ms Johnstone for you honest assessment of the United States Monster.
Hate DJT all you want, but what he did to significantly reduce human trafficking will never be forgotten by those of us who cared and paid attention to the victims. Watch for a sharp human trafficking increase in during the Biden/Obama/ Harris/Buttigege Administration.
Prosecution of Child-Sex Traffickers Plummeted Under Trump
https://www.courthousenews.com/prosecution-of-kiddie-traffickers-plummeted-under-trump/
Does this mean Kanye West can devote more time to his upcoming presidential campaign …
After biden steps down he is slotted as kamala harris running mate.