Listen to a reading of this article:
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Oh cool it’s the part of the news cycle where Democrats and Republicans pretend something’s going to change about American gun laws for a few days.
“It’s a gun control problem!”
“Nuh-uh it’s a mental health problem!”
[Nothing changes about gun laws or mental health care]
[Repeat]
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There’s probably a correlation between the fact that the US is the only nation with a mass shooting epidemic and the fact that Americans are the most aggressively propagandized population on earth.
If you took any armed population and psychologically pummelled them from birth with narratives about how mass military slaughter is fine while turning them into underpaid, alienated gear-turners and giving them an artificial culture mass-produced in Los Angeles, you’d probably see some mass shootings.
There’s only so far you can warp the human psyche before it snaps. Bash hundreds of millions of people in the brain their entire lives with indoctrination programs telling them madness is sanity and sanity is madness, and eventually a few of them are going to wind up mass murderers.
Has America tried bombing the mass shootings?
— Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) May 24, 2022
It’s surely not a coincidence that the nation which serves as the hub of a globe-spanning empire that’s held together by mass murder and war propaganda and mass-scale psychological manipulation is the only nation with a mass shooting epidemic. But this will never be studied.
It will never be studied because empire is invisible to mainstream science and social psychology, in the same way it’s invisible to mainstream media, mainstream politics, and mainstream academia. The empire is not even acknowledged to exist within the spheres of mainstream thought, and this is a deliberately engineered reality. The spheres of mainstream thought which prevent people from understanding that we are dominated by an unacknowledged empire which stretches across nations and influences our lives more than virtually anything else our attention is diverted to are actively influenced by that very empire.
We are all marinating in the US-centralized empire: its influence, its propaganda, its artificially manufactured culture, its ways of thinking. We’re so immersed in it we can’t see it. It’s like water for fish to us. So we won’t see any research into its influence on the collective psyche.
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It’s weird how every US president is expected to say something after a mass shooting when US presidents are always orders of magnitude more murderous than the act they’re decrying.
“Who’s the one person we should look to after a horrific mass murder? Oh how about the head of the most murderous power structure on earth whose very existence depends on nonstop mass murder?”
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Everyone shit their guts out for weeks when Trump made some asinine tweets about North Korea but Biden repeatedly threatening direct hot war with China while waging a world-threatening proxy war against Russia is just fine normal stuff.
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In terms of contemporary analysis of conflict and strategy, Henry Kissinger hasn’t been one of the world’s worst war hawks for decades. This is true not because he has gotten less psychopathic, but because everyone else in Washington has gotten more so.
https://twitter.com/TelegraphWorld/status/1529043068875333638?s=20&t=jPbmMiLwQWE9fR16lfmsww
Yes Henry Kissinger is a war criminal. Yes Henry Kissinger is a psychopath. Yes the world will be better off when it is finally disencumbered of him. And, also, the US foreign policy establishment has grown much, much more insane than Henry Kissinger.
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The US empire has been using impoverished human beings from the Global South as testing animals and target practice for its instruments of war in preparation for much larger military confrontations that it has long been planning for.
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You’ve got to graduate from an Ivy League university and read all the latest reports from the most esteemed think tanks to get smart enough to understand why it’s a good idea to fight Russia and China at the same time.
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If there was a giant multitrillion-dollar corporation that was allowed to kill anyone it wants to secure its success, its behavior would not be functionally different from that of the US empire.
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I never give mainstream media “credit” on those rare occasions when they do something right. They’re supposed to get it right. You don’t get brownie points for not lying and propagandizing as aggressively as you normally do. You don’t give a cop credit for not shooting everyone.
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If you’re a popular comedian living under a murderous and tyrannical globe-spanning empire, it’s pretty pathetic to spend your career punching any direction but up.
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It doesn’t take much work to understand that the US government is an evil institution. It does take a fair bit of work to understand that the US government is a uniquely evil institution on the world stage, with no one else coming anywhere close. People have trouble getting this; for some reason it’s not too psychologically confrontational to acknowledge that your government is or is allied with one of many bad actors, but it often causes a lot of cognitive dissonance to grapple with the possibility that it’s the absolute worst actor, by a very large margin.
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67 responses to “Has America Tried Bombing Its Mass Shooting Problem? Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix”
Why no mention of the tapwater in Uvalde?
Part of that zip code gets 988 times the maximum recommended dosage of arsenic.
https://www.ewg.org/tapwater/system.php?pws=TX2320018
And Dibromoacetic acid is another neurotoxin pumped into potential future shooters.
https://www.ewg.org/tapwater/system.php?pws=TX2320051
A few comments.
1) This mass shooting was the same as most mass shootings. Police run and hide until they believe the killer is out of ammo, then they go in. Then they lie about almost everything.
2) The article mentions an intersect between psychology and the UK/U.S. imperial tactics. Psychology developed in a very clear progression up until about the 1940s. At that point there was a massive international effort by the UK/U.S. and Australia to steer psychology / psychiatry in another direction. This project has never been exposed but there is abundant evidence that projects like MKUltra were exposed mainly to throw bones to researchers who were getting close. MKUltra etc were real projects, but they were trivial compared to the real project whose secrecy persists to this day.
Some science on why those who fall for fake news & baseless conspiracy theories tend to be wired more to the “conservative” end of the spectrum than the “liberal”. Quote:
“We’ve tried to do [fake news with] liberals. It just has never worked, it never takes off. You’ll get debunked within the first two comments and then the whole thing just kind of fizzles out.”
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/5/24/2088332/-Science-has-answers-to-why-conservatives-fall-so-easily-for-COVID-19-and-Russian-propaganda
have you ever heard of Russiagate?
LMAO! You think Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election was all a baseless conspiracy theory? That it was all fake news, a “hoax”, as Trump said? A “nothingburger”? Both U.S. and Russia (and other states) have been mired in the covert interference game a long time – this is hardly fake news or conspiracy theory.
The main ludicrous conspiracy theory associated with “Russiagate” is the claim that all the evidence collected from multiple sources, a colossal amount – tons and tons of it (not just the Mueller report’s summarised compilation of all the strands – which conlcuded systemic Russian interference) – was ALL cooked up by the US Deep State, in a coup to get rid of Trump. How did that turn out? Did the Omnipowerful Deep State remove Trump, or was it an election that did that?
(And yes, there was no shortage of hysterical libs claiming Trump was a “Russian agent” or whatever, just as there is no shortage of conservatives, Republicans, alt-right, QAnon, etc, types claiming Biden is part of a Satanic pedo ring or whatever).
Not even Glenn Greenwald believes the body of evidence of Russian interference was fabricated out of whole cloth, even though he was once totally dismissive (he addressed this point in an interview with the New Yorker). Keep on believing that the Russian state has only saintly aims and means, and that Putin is just Jesus with KGB training! LOL.
do you get paid by the word?
Of course you believe I’m part of the Deep State Conspiracy. (See my original post above).
Where does that “science” come from? Leftists in America are a bunch of frothing jackbooted thugs marching to whatever tune the elites tell them to. They’ve had de facto power for YEARS and the result is MORE racial tension, the belief that men can be women and vice versa. Twisted and evil. However, if you are talking about classical liberalism I will agree that they are independent-minded, but certainly no more so than people who are classical conservatives. In America Republicans are NOT conservatives and more than Democrats are liberal.
‘mental health’ is always used in an interesting way.
For example, if a Muslim lashes out violently at society, it is not a person suffering from a ‘mental health crisis’, but it is instead a ‘terrorist’. It doesn’t matter as to the state of the person’s mental health, only that the ‘terrorist’ label is applied with super-glue.
On the other hand, when a crazy, radicalized, violent Christian lashes out violently at society, the ‘terrorist’ label is banned and verboten. Such a person can walk into an abortion clinic and kill to their hearts content, but they will never be called a ‘terrorist’. However, their ‘mental health’ can and will be called into question.
That’s just one example. The key is to understand that ‘mental health’ is used very selectively by the oligarchs who control the media and everything you see, hear and read.
Personally, I have my own questions about ‘mental health’. Can we get the mental health evaluated of the people who thought it was a good idea to pass laws such that a disturbed 18 year old can legally go and buy not only weapons, but weapons that are designed solely for the purpose of mass murder? You don’t shoot rabbits with automatic weapons. For that matter, can we get the mental health evaluated of the people who’ve made the decisions that have killed over 1,000,000 Americans from a deadly but containable disease? Can we get the mental health evaluated of people who decide to send $Billions in weapons to another country, but refuse consistently to spend money on helping the American citizens?
Can we make it so that a mental health evaluation is required for anyone who stands for public office? That seems to be sorely needed.
I find it quite interesting that people who want to own a ‘pot shop’ where it is legal have to undergo much more through background checks than people who want to buy weapons for committing mass murder.
I agree with your ‘reply’ in full, especially that on mental health checks for public office.
Being an armchair Socialist/Anarchist I am wary of those that enter parliaments on the basis that ‘they’ can represent ‘me’ better than I can.
An example is Australia’s fledgling arms industry – touted to become 10th in the world. Why can’t I vote on that? My local representative doesn’t even know I exist or has a clue about how I feel on the subject.
I’m all for Citizens Initiated Referenda on all major, or contentious issues – maybe three times a year.
Make Thinking Great Again.
You are using ‘mental health’ opportunistically, same as those you criticize.
If you look at analytical psychology, Jung etc, there is an objective progression in psychology and not really any such thing as ‘mental illness’, aside from some people are further ahead in one way, further back in another.
AR-15s are not designed for “mass murder”. Please stop eating everything leftist propaganda media feeds you, especially since it is obvious you have no knowledge, nor ever used guns. I can ram a crowd of people with a truck. Does that suddenly make it a weapon of mass murder? Maybe we should stop blaming the tool used and start blaming the psycho using it. ANYTHING can be turned into a weapon when a person wants to kill. China has had mass murder scenarios with knives. Is it the knife’s fault too?
it was the last day of school in Uvalde, Texas (not far from me), when an 18 year old man-boy shot his grandmother in the face, and took her truck, a couple AR-15 type rifles and a lot of clips of ammo, went to an elementary school 9his old school?) and barged in to lock teachers and kids in rooms and kill them all.
Was he a high school student?
Did the military recruiter let him play shooter games in the big recruiter truck in the parking lot?
I don’t know, but this might be “blowback”
Recruiters are having a really hard time making their numbers these days, and they have really good shooter-games…
story says the cops waited 40 minutes to go in. not sure what was happening there.
It’s funny you mention the US bombing its shooting problem away. For a long time now I have thought of how bombing a country, possibly with some terrorists in it, is like bombing Chicago whenever there is an organized crime problem there.
But this is why the media will never show images or videos of what our military does overseas, nor discuss any of the actual ramifications of the destruction and killing. As long as the horror of it is kept off the TV and out of print, then the public seems OK with it. Now the public cheers it on in the Ukraine, especially the Blue Team. So now the Blue Team is more war-mongery than the Red Team. All possible through selective media disclosure combined with selective media secrecy and censorship. I just hope everyone realizes this is happening as much under Blue Team leadership as it did under Red Team leadership. Maybe even worse in some ways. It is time for people to realize that the Red Team and the Blue Team work for the same people. They have the same agenda. They just use different wedge issues to get their ever diminishing bases to stay onboard. It would be so helpful for workers to unite, on the left and right. Until workers get more organized and stop fighting, the rich will eat them for breakfast.
I think that “Truck Violence” is the latest, greatest threat to The Greatenst Nation On Planet Earth.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Nice_truck_attack
From the above:
“On the evening of 14 July 2016, a 19-tonne cargo truck was deliberately driven into crowds of people celebrating Bastille Day on the Promenade des Anglais in Nice, France, resulting in the deaths of 86 people and the injury of 458 others. The driver was Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, a Tunisian living in France. The attack ended following an exchange of gunfire, during which Lahouaiej-Bouhlel was shot and killed by police.”
Yeah, when people get behind the wheel, that big truck just takes over their brains and they can’t stop themselves from mowing people down. I guess “we” just have to bite the bullet and ban truck ownership.
Lengthy, old, and largely ignored.
But worth it when time allows.
“The active shooter,” says Andre Simons, “tends more often than not to be motivated by a deeply personal grievance tinged with feelings of persecution and humiliation, real and perceived, whereas terrorists are oftentimes going to be motivated by more ideological reasons.”
Simons is the answer to the question who is trying to stop “the next one”—the next active shooter, the next act of targeted violence, the next mass killing. Within the FBI’s Critical Incident Response
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a30024/mass-shooters-1014/
If Timothy McVeigh had been back in uniform and blown up someone else’s government building under orders he would have gotten a medal for it. Which profile would that fit?
That is the conflict and confusion the “good soldier” bears.
Something like 25 veterans suicide daily in the US.
Has America tried bombing the mass shootings?
The answer is YES.
Members of the USA government, in all of its simplistic logic, called for the bombing of some undefined country in the Middle East after Timothy McVeigh bombed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in 1995.
But since the origin of the bomber was Oklahoma, and Oklahoma already had been bombed, a second bombing by the USA would have been counterproductive so the “trying” failed.
The story of the USA is a self-writing satire.
well, they set fire to the Waco compound, and Philadelphia bombed an entire neighborhood to destroy MOVE.
I remember that day. I was stuck in an office job next to a jerk who listened to Rush Limbaugh (loudly) every day. That day, he was going off on ‘arab terrorists’ and all the things we should do to them.
I remember trying to imagine the phone call, from the ‘arab terrorist’ back to some cave in the Middle East …. and the terrorist trying to explain where the heck Oklahoma City was. It wasn’t a very likely target for ‘foreigners’.
Terrorist: “I just blew up the Federal Building”.
James Bond Villain in Cave: “I was just talking to New York, they said nothing.”
Terrorist: “But I just blew up the building. It was massive. It was mega. It was huge.”
James Bond Villain in Cave: “New York says nothing …. where did you strike this blow?”
Terrorist: “Oklahoma City”
James Bond Villain in Cave: “Where?”
Terrorist: “Oklahoma City”
James Bond Villain in Cave: “Where is Oklahoma City?”
Terrorist: “Oklahoma”
James Bond Villain in Cave: “Where?”
Terrorist: “Oklahoma City, Oklahoma”
James Bond Villain in Cave: “Wait a minute. Oklahoma sounds familiar, vaguely. Do they have a football team? Boom Soon or something like that?”
It’s difficult to study mass shooting because there is no control group and the factors are almost too many to test. It’s true that the right wing wants their guns to fight tyranny. Liberals wanting weak measures like background checks and banning large capacity magazines will not solve the problem. Mass killings are very difficult by knife or club, and guns are easy to use against the unarmed, so we know removing guns would work. It would be nice to know why Americans are shooting, it would be idyllic to provide free healthcare, housing and income to all citizens to help eliminate distress, but to reduce the continuous slaughter of innocent people, reduce the guns. Of course, we can just continue to offer thoughts and prayers, forget everything else.
Let’s get back to your “the right wing wants their guns to fight tyranny”, kind of the real life Dr. Jekyll to this site’s somewhat idyllic Mr. Hyde. It’s more or less the theme of this site that the US government doesn’t give a shit about the law, which would argue against the possibility of using the rule thereof to confine the government therein. How do you have a citizenry with sufficient force to resist the government but not sufficient force to inflict unacceptable harm upon itself? Can it be done? Numbers wise, gun people would point out that tyrants like Hitler and Stalin killed far more people than lone gunmen ever will, and both of them made a point of disarming their people.
Hitler and Stalin disarmed certain people, and heavily armed other people. You should get your facts straight. In the US, some people are disarmed, and others are heavily armed.
[T]yrants like Hitler and Stalin…killed far more people.
Don’t forget George W Bush.
Americans are mostly vicious killers outside of where it is allowed.
Trump + Biden have killed 1,000,000 + Americans.
The number of people killed by school shooters in a year is far exceeded by the number of people killed by the police in a year.
Neither number gets even close to the number of foreign civilians killed by the American military in a year.
And the number of Americans who die each year in unsafe workplaces for the profit of the owners exceeds even that number.
Not sure which end of the stick to grab here but one stat I’ll correct without googling it is I’m confident the number of people killed by police far exceeds those killed in school shootings, though I don’t know the point in comparing the two. As far as Bush killing people, yes he did. And Hitler and Stalin armed soldiers, not private citizens.
The most skillful practitioners of the psychological sciences do not work in medicine or theraputics. No, they are employed in the propaganda organs of the United $tates of America.
My view is that the tragic, traumatic, painful situations are going to continue, and probably get worse, until enough people allow themselves to feel the pain, really feel it, in their bodies, let their hearts break open. Until that happens, nothing is going to change. We can’t open up to love, compassion and empathy until we feel the pain deeply. Very deeply, individually and collectively. And until that happens, we are creating another generation of traumatized children, who grow up to be traumatized adults that traumatize other people.
America is indeed something of a death cult, dropping bombs on people from airplanes and building bombs the size of a hibachi that can destroy an entire city. The only way there will be future generations is if they look back on such things with incredulity.
Look, humanity, do the genetic math. Animals with a capacity for violent predation co-evolve a restraint against use of that capacity against its own members, lest the species wipe itself out. In contrast, humans have almost instantaneously created the capacity for mass self destruction without co-evolving the capacity to not use it. Nuclear weapons came about from the methodical application of a cumulative scientific knowledge base, an essentially non-biological evolutionary dynamic, whereas the use of those weapons occurs within the framework of hominid evolution. Frankly, it looks like we’re fucked.
America is a two party fascist state.
Or perhaps, a two-party death cult.
One political party is openly a death cult. They have consistently at every stage of the pandemic loudly argued for the policies that would kill the maximum number of human beings. Its a hoax, use quack cures, don’t get tested, don’t restrict the disease with masks, don’t get vaccinated, etc, etc. Every step they took the position to kill as many as achievable.
The other political party is a fascist party of Wall Street, the Pentagon, and the CIA ….those three great historically liberal institutions. They adopt the death cult’s position on businesses and schools. About the only thing they disagree on is on whether to begin World War III now, or would next month be better?
They have decided that the key ‘blame the other party’ feature of Two Party Fascism is a big improvement over the previous One Party Fascism. So, when we see Roger Waters; ‘two suns in the sunset’, and bend over to kiss our hiney goodbye, we’ll still be listening to the two parties both claiming that its the fault of the other.
Come the next federal elections if not sooner, the empire is going to fall apart in some form . Not because of any aggression or influence from outside. It will be simply by reason of its corruption and the rot within its own boundaries and federal systems of governance. The children of the empire themselves are now more and more getting sick of its chicanery. You can’t blame them. They have no government but a bunch of rogue elements who are all over the world causing trouble at the expense of their own people.
Gun control will come to America, but probably in the form of an authoritarian government. So long as we retain the semblance of a democracy, Republican senators and congressmen will quail at the prospect of being primaried out of office by the pro-gun faction.
Yes, it is madness. Yes, the US is an imperial power, but it will not collapse quietly.
So right on. Thank you.
Brilliant and honest, as usual. Thank you for having the courage to speak the truth. A few of us are actually conscious enough to appreciate your contribution to the world.
Are there more guns in the U.S.of A than there are people?
T o bomb the mass shooter problem they would have to bomb the nerve centre of the CIA NSA etc, but wait there was Building 7 but no change.
Much less mass shootings under Trump.
The “ lone nut” excuse never wears out.
Guns only seem to be used for the wrong reasons according to msm.
Guns are fetish material for Americans but the second amendment does not address the “ lone nut” or irresponsible gun owner.
If America is so against guns, because they kill, then why are they so enthusiastic about sending guns to Ukraine & advocating for citizens there to engage in a suicide mission against Russian troops?
Why are we living on the fringe of a narrative matrix throwing rocks at a tsunami of deception?
Attempting to answer any of the above questions may lead to severe emotional to psychological damage.
“Are there more guns in the U.S.of A than there are people?’
Yep!! 329 million people 400 million guns (that’s the ones only in private hands) Who knows how many in military/police armories around the USA and in all the world wide military bases!
Americans will never be against guns ever. The only right they care about is the right to cary concealed weapons day and night. LOL and that isn’t even a right.
The second amendment clearly states “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
A well regulated Militia? Maybe means training in use of firearms.
It doesn’t say anything about individuals, but right-wing duffus supreme court judges decided to create a living hell for all US citizens so gun makers could reap huge profits by saying any and all can have access to guns.
Sadist part is the idiotic comments by Ted Cruz “Law abiding citizens should not be deprived of their second amendment rights”
Well Ted the shooters (in most cases) were law abiding right up until they weren’t.
The mental illness Republicans clamour about is cause by HMM?
Mainly dumb corporate controlled policies. Ethos of ‘Everyone for themselves’!! The American dream is for everyone (except those who don’t deserve it).
Day walk in Shenzhen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUP6Nzo1AsY
I’m gonna keep posting these videos so there aren’t aren’t any excuses when the shitstorm starts, and make no mistake, the shitstorm is coming.
The math was in long ago. By 2008 it was clear to anyone with half a brain that China was already the dominant economic force on the planet. They owned and operated 70 port facilities worldwide, had 3 of the 4 largest oil companies on the planet (Saudi Aramco being the other), they had three central banks that all worked for China in their various areas of expertise, energy, agriculture, and trade, and above all, they had a national plan.
What did the US have? Well, it did not have it’s own banks, did not own a port facility, it had no oil companies, and it certainly did not have plan because such things are considered an abomination. It did however, have a tremendous edge over China in one major category. It had 880 military bases worldwide.
Nothing of course has changed, other than it was right around 2008 that China began to really kick into sixth gear it’s attempt to achieve the goals of it’s main two-fold plan, to eliminate poverty, and to lift 1 billion of it’s citizens into the middle-class by 2030.
China happens to be way ahead of schedule on both of these fronts, as they always to be in this century when it comes to reaching the goals of their 5, 10, 15, 20, and 50 year plans.
Bill Belichick, the renowned (and reviled) coach of the New England Patriots, is a great admirer of the teachings of the Chinese philosopher Sun Tzu, and has Mr. Tzu’s sayings posted everywhere around the Patriots’ facility. But Coach Belichick also has his own sayings, and of them is, “one hour of film study is worth 10 hours of fucking analytics.”
In the last 85 days, I have put in 120 hours film study of every aspect of Chinese society, and I can say without hesitation after that effort, that the Chinese people are the least oppressed humans since civilization began 12,000 years ago, are the happiest and healthiest looking people I have ever seen, and above all, Chinese children of all ages; far from being psychology damaged beyond repair, which is understandable, when every Monday thru Friday you are under threat of being slaughtered in your schoolhouses; seem to do nothing but run around and engage in wild horseplay, with most of this fun being completely unchaperoned.
Perhaps for the simple reason, that closely chaperoning children in China is totally unnecessary, because they are SAFE AT ALL TIMES.
And what greater thing can be said about a civilization than that?
I’ve viewed several of your walking tour videos of China.
~
They may be neglecting to show the world their ghettoes, such as the famous one in Hong Kong that houses an incredible number of people in just a few square blocks of high rises and much of the building construction seems to be totally jury-rigged and decrepit. Oh, that’s right, Hong Kong is the “free world’s” legacy to the Chi-coms. A reminder of Western superiority. Moreover, most structures appear to be thoroughly contemporary, with very little of the old remaining for comparative purposes.
~
What I see in your clips shows mile after mile of high-rise worker residences and their office work spaces that i) were built within the past 2 or 3 decades and ii) look to be as beautifully designed, traffic engineered, and landscaped as all of the multi-million dollar condominiums along Florida’s Southeastern coast (where I live in a PB suburb), although a lot cleaner and in better repair than the streets and infrastructure of coastal Dade, Broward, the Palm Beaches and the so-called Treasure Coast where numerous billionaires, like Tiger Woods, and the merely affluent reside.
~
China’s 1.4 billion population seems to have made quite a socio-economic leap from the mostly primitive and provincial to the modern cutting edge of urban living on 21st century Earth. Moreover, they seem not to have had to undergo the widespread and generations-long depredations that late 19th century and early 20th century immigrants to America had to endure in the slums of NYC, Chicago, Philly and other manufacturing centers which consumed their labor. China did experience something functionally equivalent (long hours, regimentation, dormitory living, low pay–which is why America moved all of its factories there!) but not for as prolonged an era, and not without some government protections and opportunities for investment in their own future including housing ownership. In sweatshop America everyone was left to deal individually with his own rapacious landlord and robber baron employer.
~
Really, it seems like the Chi-coms actually gave their people quite a better deal which didn’t really kick in until after Tiananmen Square in 1989 based on the vision of Deng Xiaoping–so all in 30 short years! I’ll bet they receive much greater (and sincere) support from their citizens than any American pol or any of the remaining employers that haven’t yet replaced live workers with robotic devices would ever deserve.
~
Now all China has to do to cement their success is to persuade the youth not to be taken in by all the clubs, night life, recreational pharmaceuticals, virtual realities and other Western temptations they are now affluent enough to afford. If not, they will replicate the cycle of decadence we’ve seen infect and bring down America. Once the extended family vanishes as a cultural feature, the nation and its people will change just as they did in the West where the worst extreme is single mother households in black urban centers. People merely in it for themselves lose their motivation to achieve. I wish the Chinese all good luck. Just stay alert as Uncle Sam is always looking to clock anyone who gets a leg up on him.
~
祝你好運
The Guardian – The Rise of bai lan.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/may/26/the-rise-of-bai-lan-why-chinas-frustrated-youth-are-ready-to-let-it-rot
Good stuff, Realist.
Yup, China basically condensed 100 years or more of industrialization into 20, committed some but certainly not all of the usual heinous acts associated with such a period, and is now out the other side.
A ex-pat China vlogger that showed up in my TubeFeed (thanks Algo!) about a year ago. Katherine, from North Carolina, finishing her Ph.D in Environmental Biology, wants to specialize in wastewater treatment.
Recently moved from her “beloved” Nanjing to Chengdu. A tour of her new apartment complex, which includes of course the obligatory residential mini-park, but also has a river, an outdoor pool, and a Yeuzi Center – a tyrannical attempt by the Chinese government to pamper new mothers with same kind of treatment they would’ve received from elders in their villages, back in the day.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uK5SJ-PIjE&t=309s
The middle-class in China are going have to live vertical. That’s just the how it is. It will be their fate that most of them will never know the joys of mowing lawns and snowblowing driveways, or being forced to get in a car and drive a mile or ten everytime they run out of milk.
For modern China of the lofty goals, it has to big cities with 40, 50, and 60 story apartment complex clusters, with the rest of land used for churning out the goods, the energy and the crops. There’s just no other way. You can’t have endless surburban sprawl, that once you factor in the mountians to the south and deserts to north, is at best a medium-sized nation with a population of 1.4 billion. The math simply doesn’t add up.
So yeah, good luck China. My back of the envelope calculations have you more than halfway home, but as alluded to above, be wary. The second half of the journey will be rife with pitfalls, chief among them being the ultimate “clock” cleaner that bears a grudge and has a fistful of nuclear first strike weapon systems.*
*Some of the which they are trying to pack into that obscure little island just 80 miles off your coast, called Taiwan.
That’s the bait, and my advice is to remember what the great Sun Tsu-nami said, “When your enemy offers you bait, don’t take it, and if he tries to jam it down your throat, spit it out.”
‘In the last 85 days, I have put in 120 hours film study of every aspect of Chinese society, and I can say without hesitation after that effort, that the Chinese people are the least oppressed humans’
Does this non-oppression include the ‘one child policy’ where folks were limited to a single child by government decree?
Whenever a (D) ‘President’ is in freefall, these tragic news events have a way of popping up – turning attention from his failures to heartless politics and soulless virtue signalers…
Not all of us are blinded by such tactics.
So many Americans asking why mass shootings happen in their own country are fine with sending guns to places like Ukraine and Syria. I say it’s two sides of the same coin. If you want the killing to stop in America, you have to stop sending weapons to killers overseas. I don’t see any other way.
Consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds?
Perhaps, but they have a very long way to go to catch up with the US. Also, they don’t think like Americans, so their version if/when they get there will be quite different. Not better or worse, just different.
One way to get a glimpse of what it might be like is to watch Chinese sci-fi. Just as Western sci-fi has long been a good predictor of dystopian and totalitarian futures, Chinese sci-fi is too.
You forgot to mention that the US is the most medicated populace on earth. Sure there is a correlation in there with mass shootings.
Most likely. See this:
https://thenewamerican.com/from-prozac-to-parkland-are-psychiatric-drugs-causing-mass-shootings/
From Prozac to Parkland: Are Psychiatric Drugs Causing Mass Shootings?
by Selwyn Duke February 18, 2018
And here’s some more to investigate:
https://amidwesterndoctor.substack.com/p/the-evidence-for-antidepressants?s=r
The Evidence for Antidepressants Causing Mass Shootings
A Midwestern Doctor
May 27
https://ssristories.org
SSRI Stories
about – https://ssristories.org/about-us/
https://naturalnews.com/055403_psychiatric_drugs_SSRIs_chemical_lobotomy.html
Prescription drugs giving many people chemical lobotomies
Friday, September 23, 2016 by: David Gutierrez, staff writer
https://www.madinamerica.com/2018/02/more-psychiatry-means-more-shootings/
Psychiatrist Says: More Psychiatry Means More Shootings
By Peter Breggin, MD – February 26, 2018
https://www.ammoland.com/2013/04/every-mass-shooting-in-the-last-20-years-shares-psychotropic-drugs/#axzz7UWrqpeit
Every Mass Shooting Shares One Thing In Common & It’s NOT Weapons
Ammoland Inc. Posted on April 1, 2013 by Dan Roberts
https://ammo.com/articles/ssri-antidepressants-mass-shootings-violent-side-effects
Prescription For Violence: The Corresponding Rise of Antidepressants, SSRIs & Mass Shootings
Written by Molly Carter
https://www.wnd.com/2015/06/big-list-of-drug-induced-killers/
Big list of drug-induced killers
Charleston church shooter may be just the latest
By Leo Hohmann
Published June 18, 2015 at 11:13pm
https://www.cchr.org/documentaries/marketing-of-madness/
THERE IS NO MONEY IN “NORMAL”
THE MARKETING OF MADNESS: ARE WE ALL INSANE?
https://www.cchr.org/documentaries/dead-wrong/
ONE CHILD’S STORY, TELLING THE TALE OF 20 MILLION MORE …
“Had we been told the truth about the dangerous effects of the psychiatric drug our son was given, he would be alive today.”
—Celeste Steubing
DEAD WRONG: HOW PSYCHIATRIC DRUGS CAN KILL YOUR CHILD
Web site of Dr. Peter Breggin:
https://breggin.com
His bio – https://breggin.com/article-detail/post_detail/brief-bio
https://uncoverdc.com/2022/05/25/school-shootings-in-order-to-fix-it-we-must-focus-on-the-cause/
School Shootings: In Order to Fix It We Must Focus on the Cause
By Gigi Bowman – May 25, 2022
You (& some others posting here) may be interested in looking into Thomas Szasz. He was a Psychiatrist, academic, and champion of individual rights. He devoted much of his life to campaigning against many aspects of conventional psychiatry, in particular involuntary psychiatric treatment and commitment.
http://www.szasz.com
The Thomas S. Szasz, M.D. Cybercenter for Liberty and Responsibility
https://www.independent.org/pdf/tir/tir_05_4_szasz.pdf
The Therapeutic State
The Tyranny of Pharmacracy
THOMAS S. SZASZ
from The Independent Review, v.V, n.4, Spring 2001, ISSN 1086-1653, Copyright © 2001, pp. 485–521.
There are also many videos on-line featuring him.
Food for thought!
https://thenewamerican.com/the-passing-of-dr-thomas-szasz/
The Passing of Dr. Thomas Szasz
by Bob Adelmann September 13, 2012
Some articles written by him can also be found here:
https://fee.org/people/thomas-s-szasz/
Dr. Thomas Szasz (1920-2012)
It is NRA terrorism, but gun mass murder is also the most popular entertainment in the U.S. These gun punks are not mentally ill, they are acting out in reality the endless hours of video games they have been playing and the insane culture they have absorbed for years. Hollywood blockbusters & TV horror shows, video games, pop music, etc. glorify all imaginable atrocities.
U.S. culture is focused on death, revenge, skulls, gangs, crime, and makes rock stars out of the angry little punks itching to prove themselves as monsters. No, we don’t need censorship of this garbage, but we need to stop promoting gun murder and violence as fun. It is U.S. militarism / CIA running the show to keep the nation terrorized. And it well serves the war machine as you say.
Most Americans want background checks, and a healthy percentage would like assault rifles back off the market. We’re tired of war and sick of senseless killings, but I only equate the two from the standpoint of the influence of the arms manufacturers and a much-too-convenient misreading of the Second Amendment.
Yes, that’s correct – no other country comes close, yet. However, the powers that be in the CCP seem to have their sites set on taking that crown over the next few generations. Sure, they’re only really starting out but their early templates send a shocking message to the world – read:
* Draconian citizen tracking, categorizing, punishing etc
* The control, re-imagining and re-writing of history (Tienanmen Square) means early control of opinions and world views
* Horrendous floutings of human rights (Uyghurs especially)
* Their debt-diplomacy foreign relations approach to controlling small pacific and African nations
* Brazen theft of the disputed China Sea territories
* Subsequent installations of massive military bases in said same locals
* Petulant and one-eyed ‘punishment’ trade tariffs in response to other nations not saying/doing/thinking whatever the CCP wants/expects etc etc
Yea, they’ve followed the US playbook and it sure sets the stage for a special brand of the same thing. Their turn will come and I pity the hard working Chinese people.
Perhaps, but they have a very long way to go to catch up with the US. Also, they don’t think like Americans, so their version if/when they get there will be quite different. Not better or worse, just different.
One way to get a glimpse of what it might be like is to watch Chinese sci-fi. Just as Western sci-fi has long been a good predictor of dystopian and totalitarian futures, Chinese sci-fi is too.
I was wondering when you people were going to show up here. Kind of weird timing though, a rather mundane post about yet another mass slaughter of children in the US and this is deemed the right moment to begin to hammer the Caitlin Johnstone blog with the preparation?
In this opening phase we get … The Seven Primary Reasons Why China is the Enemy.
Forgot Taiwan by the way, but perhaps that goes without saying.
And so it begins.
No, uninformed, knee-jerk reaction – you didn’t read my post in its context correctly, try again.
Caitlin correctly states that the US is a, “uniquely evil institution on the world stage, with no one else coming anywhere close”.
I did NOT list Seven Primary Reasons Why China is the enemy, China is NOT the enemy and I did not say that – you did – stop re-framing things to garner anger and yet more partisan division.
I mention and spell out some aspects of China’s decision making in the context of world history of the last 2 – 3 thousand years. The details differ but the broad sweep never does. Do some reading. Grown up people know that there is ALWAYS some other country, individual waiting in the wings to take over that ‘uniquely evil’ title and always will be. The US has been manipulating things since the Constitution was signed, with some individuals before even that, and since WW2 it’s gone full axe-murderer mode. But really, it’s nothing in the context of history – a mere 200+ years, or only 70+ if you prefer the later. Rome dominated and did over all of the known world (multiple times) for almost 1,000 years. Great engineering, good art but what a bunch of nasty wankers.
China happens to be very well suited with it’s track record (since the invasion of Tibet) to stand ready to take it’s place in history as a possible new evil institution all of it’s own special design – don’t be so stupid to think it can never happen. I’m not saying it’s a dead certainty – it might not, but If it’s not China it will be someone else, somewhere in time. The world is NOT a safe, happy place, never has been.
In a relative historical context, were the Romans really as bad as all that?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qc7HmhrgTuQ
China steals everything from everybody, past and present, and best I can tell, they have stolen as almost as many of their ideas from ancient Rome as they have from modern day Bhutan, the only nation-state that is both carbon nuetral and officially dedicated to the pursuit of Gross National Happiness (GNH), and not Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
Could China turn out to be the Death Star? Unlikely in my opinion, for the simple reason I believe the fate of this planet is already sealed.
I think China’s role in all this will be the last major nation-state to be waging honorable battle with the inevitable.
But I could wrong. Maybe nobody will.
There are other empires waiting in the wings, as always. I guess there’s some heroism of criticizing the current one, and then criticizing the next when they’re inevitably oppressing worse. (At least the British Empire had some conscience, for example. Nowadays, CIA might just headshot Ghandi.)
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We have to build better systems if we want better results.
Always into the outfield if not over the wall and into the parking lot. I would like to add a couple things:
1) too many Americans behave as though they’re right all the time, not because they’ve given any consideration or done any reading/research on the subject at hand, but because there’s no incentive to admit ignorance-deflect&pivot might be the new national pastime.
2) the lack of humility afforded by the above erodes a basic aspect of humanity [empathy] and the lack thereof is an obvious characteristic of psychopathy.
Joke du jour: what happens when people are too arrogant to consider their actions from another perspective and too ignorant to recognize what they don’t know? They empower an entity that makes them look bad around the world, misinforms and impoverishes their children….Oh, you’ve heard this one?
No one trusts anyone. It appears to me that after this last group of shootings, everyone is busy grandstanding and politicking about it, the little cogs going in their little minds of how this will help them build a power coalition, get re-elected, get consulting and speaking gigs, etc.
~
So, which idiot would trust any of them?
~
I spent most of my adult life between Taiwan and India, then I moved here (Atlanta GA) to help aging and sick parents. You know what I notice most in this country? Yeah, people aren’t happy, the food sucks, etc. But the biggest thing? The one biggest thing? This place is FUCKING LONELY.
~
And I say that as someone who lived alone as an expat in some remote places for a lot of years. America is lonely town everywhere you go. Even most people’s families are cold enough to drop each other if their political hair gets blown the wrong way. It’s terrible. No wonder so many people amok. As every sensible observer of this culture has ever said, “Americans are totally atomized.”
just think about what would happen if a shooter murdered 20 schoolkids in one of the numerous US embassies and compounds in other countries.
The whole population is always divided over guns or mental health being the source of the problem. You are the only one I know who brings it home to the US government being the hands down most violent country on earth. When mass violence is propagandized and condoned on the highest levels of government, violence trickles down everywhere. Harping on gun control is a red herring the exact same way that drugs are considered the cause of our drug war. War is the cause of our violence problem.