Caitlin Johnstone

China Threatens The US Empire, Not The US Itself: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix

Listen to a reading of this article: ❖ So many empire apologist arguments depend on pretending the US empire doesn’t exist; pretending the US is just a normal country sitting there minding its own business. If you do that, it really does look like Russia and China are picking on Ukraine and Taiwan completely unprovoked.…

Caitlin Johnstone
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Listen to a reading of this article:

❖

So many empire apologist arguments depend on pretending the US empire doesn’t exist; pretending the US is just a normal country sitting there minding its own business. If you do that, it really does look like Russia and China are picking on Ukraine and Taiwan completely unprovoked.

If you act like the US isn’t the hub of an empire that is projecting power all over the globe, then the fact that it has a hand in every major international conflict becomes obscured and it just looks like evil barbaric foreigners doing evil things for no good reason. Take the empire out of the equation and Assad wasn’t reacting to a western-backed regime change proxy war, he was just killing his own people because he likes killing people. China isn’t responding to US encirclement, it’s just being aggressive to its neighbors because it is evil.

Because the globe-spanning power structure loosely centralized around the United States is an unacknowledged, unofficial empire that doesn’t look like the empires of old, its apologists can just insist that it doesn’t exist, like mob lawyers used to do with the mafia. By doing that, they can assign others responsibility for the empire’s crimes.

❖

A large amount of empire apologia in 2022 is also built around pretending that provocation just isn’t a thing. That this concept we’ve all lived our entire lives knowing about and understanding is suddenly a freakish and ridiculous invention of Moscow and Beijing.

If I provoke someone into doing something bad, then they’re guilty of doing the bad thing, but I am also guilty of provoking them. This is the plot behind any movie or show with a sneaky or manipulative villain. It’s the subject of entire Shakespearean plays. I’m not saying anything new here. This notion wasn’t just invented.

Most of us learn this as children with siblings kicking the other under the table or whatever to provoke a loud outburst, and we’ve understood it ever since. But in 2022 everyone’s pretending that this extremely basic, kindergarten-level concept is some kind of bizarre alien gibberish.

❖

 

China poses no threat to the United States of America, the country. What China poses a threat to is the US empire and the hegemonic unipolarist ambitions thereof. That’s what various government agencies are talking about when they describe China as the number one “threat”.

❖

Talking about China’s territorial disputes with its neighbors without talking about the US empire’s efforts to establish strategic domination of those areas is the same as lying.

❖

Normal person: China’s misdeeds have been greatly exaggerated by western propaganda and the US is quantifiably far more murderous and destructive.

Crazy person: Oh so you think China is a perfect communist utopia and the CCP never does anything wrong?? Why don’t you MOVE there??

❖

❖

Pretending the US government has been taken over by Marxists lets the “populist right” feel as though their shrieking about communism is punching up and fighting the power, when really they’re just facilitating longstanding neocon agendas against China and longstanding CIA/FBI agendas against western socialists.

❖

It was scary when Russiagate first started and liberals began turning into cold war zombies. You could just tell the brainwashing was going to be used to get them to consent to ugly, dangerous things. The brainwashing about China is even scarier, and it’s just getting started.

❖

If your government is showing a clear interest in the outcome of a foreign war, and your first response isn’t to do some rigorous and intellectually honest investigation as to whether your government played a role in starting that war, then there’s something wrong with your mind.

If this is you, don’t feel bad: there’s something wrong with most people’s minds. What’s wrong with most people’s minds is that the powerful pour a vast amount of energy into manipulating them toward their advantage. This has been known about and studied for a long time.

❖

There really is a widespread, mainstream belief that it is the job of the news media and watchdog organizations to help Ukraine win a propaganda war against Russia:

Image

Do people really not understand that wanting the media and watchdog organizations to tell the truth and wanting them to help Ukraine win an information war are two mutually exclusive concepts? You cannot have both. You either want to be lied to or you want to be told the truth.

❖

Americans are the most propagandized population on earth, and US military personnel are the most propagandized Americans.

❖

Liberals spent the entire Trump administration yelling about the looming threat of fascism only to wind up cheerleading for the fucking Espionage Act.

❖

After awhile you start to notice that people who only support healthy agendas for partisan reasons don’t really support healthy agendas. Democrats didn’t really oppose the Iraq war, they just opposed Bush. Republicans don’t really oppose the FBI, they just support Trump.

If you only oppose something because it’s politically convenient, then you will cease opposing it as soon as it ceases to be politically convenient. All those “anti-war Democrats” from the Bush era provided zero opposition to Obama’s warmongering and fully support Biden’s warmongering. I used to get hopeful when I’d see things like mainstream Republicans expressing skepticism of the CIA or whatever, but then I’d notice that skepticism completely evaporate when the CIA targeted governments they don’t like and see them cheering for Mike Pompeo. It’s just fake bullshit.

I’ve found it’s a lot more helpful to just work to sow healthy ideas around so they can take root than try to make use of apparently healthy sentiments that only arise from partisanship. If it’s partisan, it’s fake. It won’t last a minute beyond its political usefulness.

❖

Things you can make money out of:

  • War
  • Ecocide
  • Sickness
  • Finite commodities

Things you can’t make money out of:

  • Peace
  • A thriving biosphere
  • Health
  • Energy sources you can’t control

While we use money to value things, we will never be free.

_________________

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53 responses to “China Threatens The US Empire, Not The US Itself: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix”

  1. PASCAL Avatar
    PASCAL

    China is allied with the us empire; maybe they hate us, but i’m not even sure of that,

  2. PJ London Avatar
    PJ London

    I am not your sweetie and you are a BS artist with no credibility.

  3. Pascal Avatar
    Pascal

    Reply to Max’s post below: Of course nowadays everything’s called racist as perfectly illustrated by the Jimmy Dore v. Nina Turner piece. However the word “gringo” doesn’t appear to have racist roots. According to Wikipedia, “it originally referred to any kind of foreigner. It was first recorded in 1787 in the Spanish Diccionario castellano con las voces de Ciencias y Artes: ‘Gringos is what, in Malaga, they call foreigners who have a certain type of accent that prevents them from speaking Castillan easily and naturally; and in Madrid they give the same name, and for the same reason, in particular to the Irish’. The most likely theory is that it originates from griego (‘Greek’), used in the same way as the English phrase “it’s Greek to me”. Spanish is known to have used Greek as a stand-in for incomprehensibility, though now less common, such as in the phrase hablar en griego (lit. ‘to speak Greek’). The 1817 Nuevo diccionario francés-español, for example, gives gringo and griego as synonyms in this context.”

    Of course, it can carry a pejorative connotation from people who’ve been exposed to “gringo” mistreatment as is frequent in Latin America. I once chatted with a Mexican woman in Spain who complained that the “Americanos” treated them like dogs – “como perros”. In this case “gringo” probably doesn’t paint a nice picture but it’s the story of the hen and the egg :o)

    1. Max424 Avatar
      Max424

      What a cool history of a word always liked. Thanks for it.
      I know the word almost exclusively of course from American westerns. A Mexican bad guy, whether on his home soil or US/Texas soil, would often use the word, without any animus it seemed, if anything a kind of mutal respect, when he was negotiating with his equally deadly northern adversary.
      “Hey gringo, why don’t you throw the saddlebags down from your rocky lair, and I will let you live. It is a only small amount gold, gringo, not worth spilling blood over. What do you say my friend?”
      And a shot would ring out as a reply, and the Mexican would laugh, and the gunplay would then commence.

  4. John Knox Avatar
    John Knox

    Colin Powell helped start a war by lying to the whole world about Iraq, got caught, never got in trouble, and even after his death is still widely admired. Stuff like that is why countries like China don’t want the west to be in charge of everything.

  5. Max424 Avatar
    Max424

    ” I used to get hopeful when I’d see things like mainstream Republicans expressing skepticism of the CIA or whatever, but then I’d notice that skepticism completely evaporate when the CIA targeted governments they don’t like and see them cheering for Mike Pompeo. It’s just fake bullshit.”
    Same here. I’ve been played the fool many times. Mostly by the Democrats, but the Republicans have been known to get me on occasion.
    Right now we have the Republicans vs the FBI thing going on. This should present an exciting opportunity to see the political descendants of the KKK and the Black Panthers get together and break bread. Unfortunately, although I do think the KKK is very much alive and kickin,’ at least. in the hearts and minds – that secret place – of its political descendants, the Black Panthers are no more.
    A Black Panther today would be labeled “anti-black,” and consigned to Democratic Party hell.
    This a great Jimmy Dore episode. Nina Turner gets dumped by the corporatitists, and who does she blame? The anti-corporatists, of course, who are all ring wing rascists like Jimmy.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r00l_sLiLGE
    I used to call the Beltway shennigans I was watching Kabuki Theater, but that does a disservice to Kabuki, which is often bright and colorful and somewhat mysterious. But this shit? It is dark and ugly and in your face.
    To me, what this woke thing is all about, is one side purports to believe that all humans have a right to participate in the evil, and the other side, which had a monopoly on the evil for centuries, is not happy with this development.
    “The liberal is a fox” said Malcom X. You can see the wolf coming, but the fox is cunning, and will steal your food when you’re not looking, and is therefore the more dangerous creature, is the logic.
    Well Malcom, maybe that’s the way it was back in the day, but now, the wolves come at us in such numbers stealth is no longer a requirement.

    1. Max424 Avatar
      Max424

      I have a question. The Russians are shelling a monster sized nuclear power plant on the Dnieper, which they control, and they are also shelling their own positions elsewhere, including civilian controlled territory that is predominantly loyal to them, apparently just for shits and giggles. Ok fine, who am I to disagree with the NYT?
      But why on earth would Zelensky shell the Russians while they shell themselves?
      I mean, if you were in an existential knife fight to the death (is their any other kind?), and your opponent suddenly paused mid-fight, and began to repeatedly stab himself, would you interrupt him?
      Attempt to harry and harras every aspect of his self-defeating behavior? Does this make sense to anyone?
      Moon of Alabama weighs in on these multifaceted conundrums.
      https://www.moonofalabama.org/2022/08/varoius-points-on-ukraine-and-media.html#more
      Moon also discusses the mystery Marine who dared to express his opinion on a military matter, and was promptly censored into silence for his lunacy.
      My god, in what world would we ever allow a Marine to express his thoughts on a subject that includes, amongst other things, killing folks on a battlefield?
      It’s not a world I would want to live in!
      Lmao …
      Note: Hey Grey Lady, if your reporting gets any more nonsensical, I am no longer going to use your paper to line my birdcage, instead I will send it to the Looney Bin up the road, as perhaps they can make better use of it.

      1. Pascal Avatar
        Pascal

        Well, it comes out pretty clear to me that:
        1/ Zelensky’s convoluted mind (probably with CIA help) has given birth to the notion that the Russians shell the nuclear plant and say it’s the Uktainians to make the latter look bad. Does that make any sense at all considering the Russians probably have better things to do and know that Western media will report what they want anyway? The guy who asked this question has just won himself six months in a SBU facility with a 24/7 torture and interrogation program.
        2/ The Ukrainians shell the place saying it’s the Russians to get the “international community” to declare a de-militarized zone in and around the plant. This is obviously at the behest of Washington and gives us an idea of how stupid delusional Blinken thinks Putin is.
        As for the New York Times, they definitely deserve a Pulitzer Prize in the category fiction :o)

  6. John Day Avatar
    John Day

    There is a power struggle going on globally, well, a lot of power struggles in the world, because of the declining carbon-based economy, gamed by corrupt skimming, and the loss of control by the corrupt skimmers, largely the globalist faction, but the rest of them, too.
    The globalists need to take the skim from trade between nations, which is what nations used to do with taxes on imports. They do this to hollow out national economies and impoverish workers and industries, not beef them up like Teddy Roosevelt did.
    You can see the trajectories.
    The globalists need to put on the turbo boost as the productive economies, especially food producers speed downward into oblivion.
    Getting rid of most of the people slowly, in a controlled-cull, is the new quiet globalist imperative.
    Save the planet and their jet fuel.
    There sure is a problem with unlimited growth, but turning Holland and Ireland into Sri Lanka (fertilizer-free agriculture experiment) will do what it did in Sri Lanka.
    One must assume this is intentional at this point.
    I am growing veggies, driving a 24 year old 4 cylinder Ford Ranger pick-up when I eed to haul thins, and we have a couple of little economy cars 13 and 14 years old that we can use.
    I’ve been a bike-commuter for 16 years.
    None of this was forced upon me.
    Your mileage may vary, but we need to openly face our problems and work on a lot of local and personal and family strategies to use less stuff.
    Everything else pertains to this. drjohnsblog.substack.com

  7. Glenn Avatar
    Glenn

    American news never covers American aggressions until there is a response, which because of American ignorance, makes it look like Country X is just being mean to America.

    It’s like the stupid bully in school who defends his overt action by saying “I’m innocent! He hit me back first”.

    The stupid bully is easily seen to be the aggressor, unless his only witnesses are stupid Americans.

    1. Parmenides Avatar
      Parmenides

      This American privilege is under the threat of the Mariupol nazi prisoners willing to give the names at the CIA, FBI and White House involved in all ops where the nazi soldiers where deployed in East Europe and Middle East. Ukraine using HIMARS to hit prisons where these prisoners are is to make certain. they can at least hit the ones they know they are legit in their allegations against the “good” guys. Such thing happening can even benefit Julian Assange to get free from the empire prison.

  8. Starry Gordon Avatar
    Starry Gordon

    It seems to me a very considerable part of the internal structure of the US, especially of its ruling class, depends on its previously unique position of hegemon (or whatever you want to call it — “last man standing” might be another term, referring to the period after the grand shootouts of 1914-1945). For instance, the US could never have deindustrialized if it were a “normal country” like, say, Sweden or Argentina, without causing great internal political and economic problems for them. The US economy, internal politics, and culture were almost seamlessly adapted to this role and are now deeply embedded in it. Hence an independent China _is_ a threat to the US — pushing the US off its role would require deep and ongoing changes to domestic as well as foreign policies, activities, and business which its r.c. is not prepared for — is, indeed, perhaps incompetent to bring about without disaster.

    1. Glenn Avatar
      Glenn

      The semiconductor industry got lazy profits by importing chips and so did not keep up with technical developments.

      Government money was fed into SEMATECH in the nineties to compensate for the vulnerabilities of depending on foreign governments for “national security”.

      https://www.gao.gov/assets/rced-91-139fs.pdf

      Biden is now dishing out more money to the industry again.

      China is also a major exporter of pharmaceuticals to the US.

      The “private sector” keeps on making these “mistakes” and big money on it too.

      1. Max424 Avatar
        Max424

        “The “private sector” keeps on making these “mistakes” and big money on it too.”
        Lmao … Neo-liberalism is treason, by definition.
        No one understands this concept better than China. They are a nation-state functioning as a nation-state, and versus the privatized West, that makes them a lion amongst lambs.

      2. Pascal Avatar
        Pascal

        Yet the writing is on the wall:
        https://www.zerohedge.com/economics/its-game-over-fed-expect-monetary-rug-pull-soon?

        1. Glenn Avatar
          Glenn

          Obama bank bailouts, trillions of dollars.

          https://www.politico.com/story/2009/07/bailouts-could-cost-us-23-trillion-025164

          Peter Pan money. Stop believing in it and it disappears.

        2. Glenn Avatar
          Glenn

          The US also does the reverse of of an Armed Robbery.

          The US forces an Armed Purchase: take this money as legal tender or we’ll kill you.

          Once everyone is holding enough US dollars no one wants the dollar to collapse before they can push it off on someone else.

          This is why Russia and China are such threats to the US domination of the global economy.

          China was recently holding 3 trillion US dollars, a sum too big to write off.

          And why Putin will accept only rubles in exchange for the real value of natural gas.

          1. Max424 Avatar
            Max424

            ” … take this money as legal tender or we’ll kill you.”
            Love it.
            “China was recently holding 3 trillion US dollars … ”
            Down to 1.2 last I checked. China is refusing to play the US debt service game. The question now is, what can the US do about it, other than to send Pelosi to Taiwan every other month?

  9. Parmenides Avatar
    Parmenides

    Trump when president started the economic war against China imposing unilateral sanctions.
    Biden started his presidency focusing in a war against Russia while Obama in the background was sending a tweet where he was teaching Biden how to speak with Putin pointing his finger towards Putin’s noose. I guess the political relationship between Bill Clinton and Boris Yeltsin gave birth to something else inside the Deep State.
    The US empire standoff against China is a political move. Biden is showing to the American people “Hey guys, you don’t need Trump to fight China because I’m doing this as we speak”.
    What we see on the news is more like Hollywood movies showing the “powerful” Australian air force showing off its power to China. The American pacific fleet showing its teeth like a chihuahua from afar towards a dragon sleeping. It is a brave attitude to impress mommy and dad but the dragon must keep it easy not reacting. You know, it is the American freedom to make jokes not navigation. Besides America is the only country on the planet sending military ships for Hollywood purposes. Yet, if the dragon decides to put an end to the American right to make jokes around Taiwan, America will not do anything to show its real power to the world. Its a theatrical military force. No army general would recommend someone 9000 miles away from home to fight from the sea against someone who is at home. What the American congress is advocating It is no different from Pelosi paying a visit to the Brazilian governor of the state of Amazonia (Amazonia jungle is shared by Venezuela, Suriname, Ecuador, Peru, Colombia, Guyana) and promising American military support just in case if they want to become independent. What should the Brazilian president do about this? MSM will not listen nor publish a single line from the Brazilian side to be read worldwide but plenty from the American side.
    I hope China can solve this thing once and for all. America must definitely grow up and start to take care of American policies. The country is broken and lacking heavy investment to renew its own infrastructure which is rotting and abandoned because you cannot spend almost a trillion of dollars every year in the military and keep things up at home.

    ***Ukraine is gone. Bankrupt. Probably Zelensky will flee from there but the MSM will hold the front war against Russia till the moment the Ukrainian gestapo is gone and one Russian general is addressing the Ukrainian people announcing victory.

  10. Roy booher Avatar
    Roy booher

    Over the course of some one million years a dumb animal, a primate, aquired three genetic mutations that gave it enhanced intelligence to become more successful killers, but it never changed the fact that it was still a dumb animal. What percentage of the population is truly capable of introspection? I’ve seen so-called wild animals display much higher moral values than most humans are capable of. In many parts of Africa, albino humans are chopped up to make medicine. In the more industrialized nations we have websites like; kidneykidney.com
    Which is basically about chopping up kids for body parts to keep murderous old men alive. I once thought that the University of Chicago was something nice and something to be proud of, but it was the school that gave the world the economic theory that stealing from the poor and giving to the wealthy was a good thing, it also gave us the White Hats, which is also all about chopping up kids for body parts to give to nasty old men who know damn well where those parts came from.
    Obviously, intelligence isn’t everything; I’ve even seen dogs appogize for winning a dog fight. Humans?
    I know for a fact that even the Pope reads Caitlin’s website, so I wonder; is this it? Are these really the only true humans on Earth?
    I think I know, but there’s no sense in giving away the plot to the dumb animals who jump on the bandwagon and claim, “me too”.

    1. Pascal Avatar
      Pascal

      Must be a refreshing change for the Pope from the tall tales he has to peddle for a living.

  11. david outa bolelwang Avatar
    david outa bolelwang

    It isn’t about being highly propagandized in my view. We all are prone to deifying our governments. The problem is the proneness to cultist mentality which the American systems inculcates in its populations. Everything American to them is divinely-ordained to belong to them/controlled by them or to benefit only them and those of their ilk. Thanks for clarifying it that China doesn’t appear to be an overt threat to the security of the US. It is neurotic for Americans to believe that China’s military formations are on the march towards them. It is annoying to hear even on alternative American news platforms that China poses a military threat to the US. This is dangerous fear mongering that’s not helping the American people.

    1. Pascal Avatar
      Pascal

      Most Americans think that the fact that they’re geopolitically paranoid by tradition doesn’t mean that China, Russia, Iran, Venezuela, North Korea and Cuba are not out to get them.

  12. peter mcloughlin Avatar
    peter mcloughlin

    Every empire in history has eventually faced the war it was trying to avoid: its own defeat. Every war is about power: but power is an illusion. Unless that is accepted there is no possibility of preventing WW III.
    https://patternofhistory.wordpress.com/

    1. Pascal Avatar
      Pascal

      Does Caitlin charge for daily ads?

  13. Max424 Avatar
    Max424

    “But in 2022 everyone’s pretending that this extremely basic, kindergarten-level concept is some kind of bizarre alien gibberish.” Got me again!
    Brilliant on all levels. I could pull literally any paragraph out at random and it would be … “yup, yup,yup, agree completely, can confirm, yes indeed, you go girl!,” and so on.
    But because I am a petty and contrarian son-of-bitch* type, and I can’t help myself, I will nitpick this one for no good reason:
    “Americans are the most propagandized population on earth, and US military personnel are the most propagandized Americans.”
    The most “radical” thoughts I’ve been exposed to since this ESMO (Extra! Special Military Operation) began, outside of your own, and really just a handful of other civilians, that have questioned the endless stream of idiotic Official Narratives as relentlessly as anyone, have come from ex US military personnel. Macgregor and Ritter being the most well known, but Brian Berletic is an ex-Marine, Jacob Dreizen is ex-Army I believe, Larry Johnson is ex-CIA, and the list after them isn’t endless, but it does go on.
    Lambert Strether has post up today about a Marine that is being censored for his objective take on the Russian military’s performance these past six months.
    https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2022/08/a-marines-assessment-of-russias-military-operation-in-ukraine-a-profound-appreciation-of-all-three-realms-in-which-wars-are-waged.html
    Before the war began, back in December I think it was, a retired US Colonel that had worked for both Bush and Trump, in an interview with Aaron Mate, told him point blank that he considered Washington DC “occupied territory,” and he wasn’t talking about commies and liberals, but private capital interests.
    He also predicted Russia had had enough of our bullshit, and would invade, and take whatever part of Ukraine made the most sense to them.
    I’ve believed for long time a military coup is coming to my country Ms. Johnstone, it is inevitable, and what it will look like and what will bring, holy shit, who can even begin to say?
    I kept asking in the beginning of this war, “what is with the deafening silence coming from the brass in the Pentagon.” I found it eerie, but now it seems, they have all boarded the suicide train and are willing follow wherever this leaderless(?) choo choo takes them.
    But I don’t believe it. My gut is telling there enough professionals left in my country’s officer corp, that they will not allow the politicians to lead them into a war, conventional or otherwise, when they are clearly not ready.
    And as the US continues its descent in total madness and/or insanity (take your pick), some power center is going to make a move, and the power center my bet is on is the one with the best chance to pull it off.
    And by a wide margin.
    Note: Another theory I’m considering, is it possible embarrasment will play a role? The entire US military apparutus is in a not-so-subtle way, being called out by their civilian counter-parts. What do you mean General, you can’t take on Russia in the skies over Ukraine? Are you telling me Admiral, the Navy can’t, all by itself, bend China to our will? Why on earth then do we lavish all these trillions on you, and talk you up as the greatest military the world had ever seen, if you can’t perfrom these simple tasks we are paying you to perform
    Confusing times. Lmao … to say the least. And complicated!
    *Son-of-a-bitch. Is that neo-rascist? If it is, I apologize.

    1. Pascal Avatar
      Pascal

      It sounds better than son of a… gun if you ask me (which is optional :o) or of a nuclear warhead for that matter.
      I’d like to add to your list of admirable dissenters indeed, a marine writing in the United States Marine Corps Gazette (!) under the pen name Marinus to express his admiration of the Russian strategy in Ukraine. Can’t make that stuff up!
      https://southfront.org/us-marine-corps-officer-expresses-admiration/
      Yet I think Caitlin’s proposition remains valid because these guys are a tiny minority only tolerated – as token of the respect of freedom and democracy (TM) by its worldwide wholesaler (the MIC) by appointment to HM King Brandon of Wall Street & Delaware Inc. – inasmuch as they’re pushed to the fringes by the system which then makes sure that a vast majority of American citizens and a quasi-totality of American soldiers (who aren’t paid to think but, like the cops, to be tools of the political system) are onboard.
      I’m looking forward to more transparency though, like they do with Big Pharma and all these programs “brought to you by Pfizer”, with stuff like “this coverage of the Ukraine war” on CNN “is brought to you by Boeing, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman” & Co.
      It would add credibility too! Imagine the prestige Boeing (who take you on business and vacation trips and to the funeral of your grandma) would add to those news!
      However, It’s only fair to say that the propaganda machine is just as bad in Europe and that people fall for it just the same.
      https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2022/06/16/europeans-divided-over-how-ukraine-war-should-play-out-reveals-poll
      Then again, it’s American propaganda translated and “brought to us” submissive vassals (not to say masochistic slaves which might sound offensive to some in that era of treading on eggs freedom of fucking speech) by McKinsey, Boston Consulting and Bain and nobody can beat that. Even Hitler was admirative in his days and it only got exponentially worse!

      1. Max424 Avatar
        Max424

        “Yet I think Caitlin’s proposition remains valid … ”
        Like I said, I was only nitpicking, and at the the edges of the margins at that.
        I could also be wrong, their could be no vestiges of professionalism left in the US Armed Forces, or loyaty to anything ‘cept neo-liberal greed.
        Still, my gut is telling there is enough pride left in the institution, that they will never accept being on a losing team, unfornately for them, the truth is they are getting slapped around* by everyone at moment, including their own politicians.
        ” … not to say masochistic slaves which might sound offensive to some in that era of treading on eggs freedom of fucking speech …”
        I’m perfectly fine with “masochistic slaves,” because it is readily apparent to me, that’s what we’ve become.
        The woke-anti-woke shit gets complicated. Some of the wokester stuff I’m all for, and some it seems a tad bit over top.
        For instance, I learned just yesterday that the woke folk on the “other side” feel the term America is offensive. There are X amount of countries in the Americas, what right does the US have to claim exclusivity, to being the only Americans?
        There is some logic in the argument I guess, on the other hand, I believe we are the only country that has America in it’s name?
        I don’t know, I have think upon it.
        *Slapped around. Is that considered sexist? If it is, it shouldn’t be. All humans have the capicity to use an open hand to repeatedly strike other humans, but not necessarily the right.

        1. Pascal Avatar
          Pascal

          I wrote a post about that recently here. It’s not so much that the country calls itself America because the real name is United States of America and as you say, it’s got America in its name. But from there, the people of that country pick up just that one word and call themselves Americans, which is where it is a wrongful appropriation because the people of 35 other countries are just as American. It’s like if the people of one country in Europe decided to call themselves exclusively Europeans. Worst still if it was the largest country in Europe, i.e. Russia and it called itself Europe and its inhabitants Europeans.
          The US is the only country in the world whose people don’t have a specific name and squat that of the continent they are part of as if they owned it – which was the idea behind the Monroe doctrine anyway.
          The Hispanophones have found a way out and call the Americans “estadounidenses” but nobody will have any of that north of the Rio Grande.
          With their heads on the chopping block, I guess they’d rather go for “gringos” :o)

          1. Max424 Avatar
            Max424

            Gringos? Is that rascist?
            Ok, how ’bout my country changes its name to the United States of Vespucci.
            The US of V. I kinda like it. Although calling myself a Vespuccian would take some getting used to.
            It has a Star Trek vibe to it, methinks.

            1. Gregory Herr Avatar
              Gregory Herr

              no, no ,no…
              United States of Desperadoes it is!

              1. Pascal Avatar
                Pascal

                @Max: Reply up there for space

  14. noplacebo Avatar
    noplacebo

    A bigger problem is the excessive fungibility of money. It is the medium through which:
    – basic human needs are provisioned
    – international trade is conducted
    – mega yachts and private airliners are bought
    – wages are paid
    – mortgage repayments are made

    One unit of account is used to mediate all of these and a million other use cases, most of which serve wildly different purposes. They are qualitatively as different as basically anything can be. You should not need money to live in a modern, developed economy. Requiring money to satisfy the minimum requirements for life will always create a ‘race to the bottom’ of trying to maximize the cheapest way to do things, and poverty will inevitbly be the result.
    No amount of money should be ‘exchangable’ for a mega yacht. There is no rational reason for a single human to own such an object. It is an obscene concentration of wealth that is unacceptable for any price. These kind of inhuman privileges should require inhuman feats of dedication to humanity and development of society to obtain. Not all money should be created equal, I’ve got much more respect for the laborer who builds things with his hands than for a smug PMC to push numbers around on a screen and find a loophole that gets them bank. These two activities do not deserve to be measured in the same way. THey are fundamentally different and the unit of account to quantify should reflect it.

    And i’m not even getting into the problems of fiat currency, especially concerning debt being issued by decree, and rates of inflation being targetted based on human population growth and more. Money does so many jobs at the moment that you could spend a lifetime systematically disentangling them. It is a bloated, antiquated, unfit for purpose technology that doesn’t even pretend to be a product of ‘science’ anymore (i’m looking at you modern economics). Just completely broken. A thing that exists because of the power interests which have controlled and accumulated it. A demonic gestalt which has intrumentalized humanity much more than the reverse.

  15. John Cosmo Avatar
    John Cosmo

    I don’t know that I necessarily agree that you can’t make money out of Peace, A thriving biosphere, Health, and Energy sources you can’t control. You can, but probably not as much as the other things you list, such as war. Governments and private industry have been slow in their attempts to monetize Peace, A thriving biosphere, Health, and Energy sources. Given their greed, I’m sure they will think of something, but not until they’ve gotten all they can wring out war, and all the other things you mention.

    1. James Avatar
      James

      Good insight, but the eternal quandary is how to you get people to want less money? People tend to take as much as possible. Even rich folks, like famous actors, will do TV commercials to pad their nests. That being the case, the market can’t provide what’s really needed and everyone is afraid of a planned economy, that’s for commies. Maybe the problem, as Caitlin pointed out, the concept of money itself and it’s accumulation.

      1. Pascal Avatar
        Pascal

        The problem behind the accumulation of money is an illusion: the fear of lacking. It usually gets worse as people get older. They fear they’re gonna lack money and so they accumulate. The irony, at this point in history, as the WEF’s ambition is that nobody owns anything and the Western economy is heading for a krach for printing Monopoly money for years like it was Christmas is that… the illusion that they’ll lack might become a reality. But when everybody lacks, then nobody lacks and we just move into another perspective :o)

  16. Ted Christian Avatar
    Ted Christian

    I’m tempted to google the article about the “fairness trap” so I can find out what’s even “more disturbing” than whatever a “fairness trap” is, which actually doesn’t sound very disturbing to me but then I’m not barking mad.

    My personal favorite bit of empire provocation misdirection was Bush Jr.’s assurance that 9/11 was caused by terrorists hating Americans’ freedom, which to be fair GW probably doesn’t know much about US history so he may have actually thought that, except it doesn’t make a lot of sense anyway but then he was never too bright.

    My favorite bit of anti China shrillness is the hysteria over Chinese ships being in the China Sea, which I think a lot of Americans can actually view as a provocation. If I were running China I’d send a carrier task force to the US Pacific coast and have it sail up and down the edge of US territorial waters from Seattle to San Diego just to see how outlandish the pronouncements got.

    1. Newton Finn Avatar
      Newton Finn

      Collateral point, but I also suspect that W was kept in the dark about 9/11 and, like most U.S. citizens, bought the propaganda crammed down our collective throats—which was the whole point of the atrocity. Unlike the alleged worldwide plandemic, 9/11 needed only the core of the deep state and its media mouthpieces to pull it off. Great damage has been done IMHO by the failure to distinguish between viable, indeed obvious conspiracies like JFK or 9/11 and farfetched, virtually impossible conspiracies like the plandemic. It’s the converse of Johnny Cried Wolf, if you get my drift.

  17. chz Avatar
    chz

    “It’s just fake bullshit.” It must be true. Real bovine scatter serve a noble purpose.

    From my observation, the problems in Human history and particularly Western Human History is stems from a crisis of Adult Irresponsibility caused by emotional immaturity.

    It is ironic that it is the same so called adults who have positioned themselves to determine, define, and designate the members of society who are classified, as adults and children.

    These list of things is a small lists and indicate emotional immaturity and Adult Irresponsibility which are manipulated by applying hypocrisy:

    “Things you can make money out of:

    War
    Ecocide
    Sickness
    Finite commodities”

    These list of things is a small lists and indicate emotional maturity and Adult Responsibility which are not manipulated by applying hypocrisy, Responsible behavior requires and demands that we confront thing internal to ourselves and the truth of things external to ourselves so that we are qualified to identify and solve problems:

    “Things you can’t make money out of:

    Peace
    A thriving biosphere
    Health
    Energy sources you can’t control

    While we use money to value things, we will never be free.”

    1. BB Benderhaus Avatar
      BB Benderhaus

      Do away with money and a barter system will emerge. From the barter system a way to quantify the trade will emerge. This quantification is called money. The problem is not money but the fiat system of money. Spending more than you have.

      1. noplacebo Avatar
        noplacebo

        A bigger problem is the excessive fungibility of money. It is the medium through which:
        – basic human needs are provisioned
        – international trade is conducted
        – mega yachts and private airliners are bought
        – wages are paid
        – mortgage repayments are made

        One unit of account is used to mediate all of these and a million other use cases, most of which serve wildly different purposes. They are qualitatively as different as basically anything can be. You should not need money to live in a modern, developed economy. Requiring money to satisfy the minimum requirements for life will always create a ‘race to the bottom’ of trying to maximize the cheapest way to do things, and poverty will inevitbly be the result.
        No amount of money should be ‘exchangable’ for a mega yacht. There is no rational reason for a single human to own such an object. It is an obscene concentration of wealth that is unacceptable for any price. These kind of inhuman privileges should require inhuman feats of dedication to humanity and development of society to obtain. Not all money should be created equal, I’ve got much more respect for the laborer who builds things with his hands than for a smug PMC to push numbers around on a screen and find a loophole that gets them bank. These two activities do not deserve to be measured in the same way. THey are fundamentally different and the unit of account to quantify should reflect it.

        And i’m not even getting into the problems of fiat currency, especially concerning debt being issued by decree, and rates of inflation being targetted based on human population growth and more. Money does so many jobs at the moment that you could spend a lifetime systematically disentangling them. It is a bloated, ancient unfit for purpose technology that doesn’t even pretend to be a product of ‘science’ anymore (i’m looking at you modern economics). Just completely broken.

        1. PJ London Avatar
          PJ London

          Whilst money has nothing to do with the article, you are so egregiously wrong that I have to reply.
          You know nothing of the subject (Banking-Finance-economics) and yet write volumes.
          ‘Money’ has been invented whenever a group raise above hand to mouth, barter society.Money is not a problem, Usury is the problem, which is why it is banned morally in every religion and why the ‘West’ hates Islam that actually practises lives without usury.
          “You see, a legitimate government can both spend and lend money into circulation, while banks can only lend significant amounts of their promissory bank notes, for they can neither give away nor spend but a tiny fraction of the money the people need. Thus, when your bankers here in England place money in circulation, there is always a debt principal to be returned and usury to be paid. The result is that you have always too little credit in circulation to give the workers full employment. You do not have too many workers, you have too little money in circulation, and that [money] which circulates all bears the endless burden of unpayable debt and usury…..In the Colonies, we issue our own money. It is called Colonial Scrip [interest-free, wealth-based money issued by The Colonies 1750-1764 before Bank of England crooks made it illegal]. We issue it in proper proportion to make the products pass easily from the producers to the consumers. In this manner, creating ourselves our own paper money, we control its purchasing power, and we have no interest to pay to no one….” –
          Benjamin Franklin (US statesman, political theorist, genius inventor), speaking at the London Parliament, 1763.

          1. Pascal Avatar
            Pascal

            “Usury is the problem”
            And the de facto abolition of the fractional reserve when Nixon unpegged the dollar from gold in 1971. The value of today’s dollar is only an illusion pushed down people’s throat by the military-backed USG – and this is not conducive to world peace.

          2. hunkerdown Avatar
            hunkerdown

            No, sweetie, that’s a capitalist myth. Read Michael Hudson on palatial credit and stop spreading neoliberal just-so stories.

      2. Newton Finn Avatar
        Newton Finn

        No, the problem is not fiat money, the only thing that makes it possible to build a better, more beautiful world, to go through our present crises instead of attempting the impossible dream of going back. The problem is that fiat money is not being used to benefit people and planet, as MMT economists counsel, but rather to serve the interests of imperial elites. To do away with fiat money and chain it to something arbitrary, like the amount of gold, would to be to cut off our nose to spite our face. The only constraint on money creation is having sufficient resources to spend it on, thereby avoiding inflation.

        1. Pascal Avatar
          Pascal

          Well the Russians and Chinese who are building the economy that will take over when the US goes bankrupt, which is imminent…
          https://www.zerohedge.com/economics/its-game-over-fed-expect-monetary-rug-pull-soon?
          … are planning to back it with gold.
          May I also remind you that Gaddafi was assassinated because he was creating a money backed by gold for Africa and the US wouldn’t have that?

          1. Newton Finn Avatar
            Newton Finn

            My understanding is that the Russians and Chinese are planning on backing their new reserve currency on a whole host of commodities, including but not limited to gold. That would be closer to the resources constraint advocated by MMT.

            1. Pascal Avatar
              Pascal

              Maybe but they’re buying gold like crazy!

          2. Ralph-Uwe Avatar
            Ralph-Uwe

            I thought Gaddafi was assassinated because he was going to sell his oil for Euros, Pesos, Rubles and Yuan, thus circumventing the U.S. petrodollar subsidy. I suppose creating a money backed by gold could be considered the same thing?

            1. Newton Finn Avatar
              Newton Finn

              The so-called petro-dollar helps to support U.S. geopolitical dominance but has little to do with domestic spending. In a fiat money world, the federal decision to spend creates the necessary dollars ex nihilo. It was the genius of MMT to point this out, which is why the neoliberals hate it. So long as there are available resources that can be marshalled to serve the public interest, we can obviously afford to do so. No need to claw back money from the filthy rich bastards…except to diminish their political clout.

            2. Pascal Avatar
              Pascal

              @Ralph Uwe: Saddam was killed for that. Gaddafi was about to create a gold dinar in which all African oil among other things would have been sold

      3. James Avatar
        James

        Right wing thinking, which has been tried over and over, we had barter and gold backed currency, we tightened our belts. Could there be a system without money that benefits every citizen in a sustainable way? Of course. However, you could never think of, or even imagine, such a possibility.

        1. Pascal Avatar
          Pascal

          Of course? I’m probably too stupid to imagine it but surely, you are clever enough to explain even though just asking is probably right wing. We used to do that kind of stuff when I was at college fifty years ago. If you asked certain questions that your interlocutor couldn’t answer, you were a “petit bourgeois” piece of shit. Life was easy then for intellectual terrorists… :o)

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