Well I did say that I only somewhat disagreed with what you said.
In my opinion the US propaganda machine never stops running. the only thing that changes is the political party it favors as propagandists. During the run up to the 2nd Iraq War Fox, specifically Hannity & O'Reilly, were constantly labeling anyone against the war as being …
Well I did say that I only somewhat disagreed with what you said.
In my opinion the US propaganda machine never stops running. the only thing that changes is the political party it favors as propagandists. During the run up to the 2nd Iraq War Fox, specifically Hannity & O'Reilly, were constantly labeling anyone against the war as being un-American, terrorist lovers, terrorist enablers, in bed with terrorists or just outright terrorists.
Take out the terrorist & insert Russia & you have the Democrat MSNBC CNN response to Trump. Same shit different day.
If you asked most diehard Trump hating liberal Democrats if they knew they were essentially following the same script that Republicans used against them a few short years ago, they would deny it. I think they would be entirely incapable of seeing it because they, much like the right in 2003, think they're morally justified. "The right spews hate while we spew facts" would probably be a good description of their mindset.
I think that the people that run this machine are quite smart. They understand what motivates each group & that understanding lets them manipulate so successfully.
With the right they wrap everything in the flag. That flag, whether the right admits it or not, puts most of them in a trance.
With the left they couch everything in social justice terms or PC terms because they know that your average liberal is so completely terrified of being labeled racist or homophobic or transphobic that the easiest way to get them to shut the fuck up is by labeling the guy you want them to hate as a racist or homophobe or transphobe.
What I would be curious to be able to see is an alternate reality where the populist who won in 2016 was Sanders. Would the attacks be rightward led by people blathering on about the America hating Socialist? Would Hillary be the Dem version of Liz Cheney turning on her own party's president?
As Matt has pointed out Hillary & crew were already accusing the Bernie Bros. of racist, sexist behavior & he hadn't even won the election or even the nomination.
In the end, this is globalists feverishly defending their own, very lucrative for them, agenda against any and all critics & opponents.
You’re not wrong, but there is arguably more nuance there. This becomes clear if we zoom out a bit more. Forget the Western unipolar outlook, forget the US is the Center of the world assumption.
The unipolar world is dead.
This propaganda machine and oligarchical financial establishment has largely destroyed itself by destroying its own population. They are presiding over a hoard of zombie banks, staring into a hundred trillion dollar financial black hole, and running a painfully bloated and corrupt military. The more the Western oligarchical establishment tries to encircle Russia and China and try to subvert these nations, the more they will expend the very little free energy they have left. The military is completely bloated and overextended. Their domestic industrial and manufacturing base is gone.
Meanwhile, China has lifted 600,000 people out of poverty. That’s not a minor detail in the world stare gif situation. But again, for the average Western-centric viewpoint, these strategic sea-changes are completely lost on them. They believe US and European unipolar dominance is like a law of nature or something. They couldn’t be more wrong.
So the emergence of a new Eurasian economic paradigm, overtaking the last 3000+ years of Trans-Atlantic cantered civilization is a new reality. Most people in the West don’t even know how to think about this, especially the ruling and “expert” class.
Have you looked at the leaders of the Western military powers. General Milley? These guys are total incompetent jarheads. They are dangerous, but most of that dangerous comes from their incompetence, the belief among some that the Us can win a first strike or limited nuclear war against China or Russia.
The Eurasian powers have largely rejected this decrepit speculative Trans-Atlantic system. Despite whatever individual problems countries like Russia and China have, they are not suicidal and they are committed to the survival of their nations and populations.
Those running the current American system are if anything intent on dismantling the US, and European nations. They are committed to a new technocratic feudal age where in the words of Klaus Schwab, “you will own nothing and you will be happy.”
These powers have spent their lives trying to dismantle the US industrial and scientific base, but the Eurasian nations have largely done the opposite. So don’t kid yourself, the Western establishment is in big trouble, and nothing short of outright fascism will allow them to control the situation for much longer. And a million things could go wrong there.
I don't think you're wrong either and I don't think the US is the center of anything other than its own warped fantasies about being the center of everything. But these fantasies are the fantasies of a ruling class who have been the ruling class for a very long while. Old money, in my opinion, creates generation after generation of people who get farther & farther away from the reality that I know & farther into their own warped fantasies of their own "greatness." When Hillary called the flyover states "deplorables" I think that was a case of the servant identifying with her masters. And I do believe very rich people look at the rest of us as beneath them & very much in need of their guidance.
I remember a Hunter S. article I read years back where he went to some uber wealthy enclave in Florida(?) with the idea of discovering why the children of incredibly rich people aren't doing incredible things. What he found was a group of young wealthy males who were only concerned with getting wasted while using their wealth to con local girls into bed. They knew that, no matter what they did, they'd one day inherit daddy's kingdom.
I think that's called hubris.
I think it's that hubris, that born to rule idea that has transformed America from a nation state into an empire. Nation states can have long lives. Empires, not so much.
I also think that a place like Europe has a fairly recent memory of how hubris almost destroyed them. Germany in particular understands how quickly hubris can turn into hell. The US, on the other hand, has been relatively unscathed by war in these last 2 centuries so it can bluster and blather on & on as if it knows shit when it really doesn't. That may change sooner than anyone wants.
This isn't sarcasm or meant to belittle your post in the least bit I think a fairly large book could be written detailing all the questions Americans appear afraid to ask.
No, indeed, I appreciate your point, and the spicy manner in which you make it. A little more irreverence, and lot more curiosity would take this country a long way !
The multi-polar alliance is a real thing, and while the degenerate establishment class is looking for a way to outsmart their enemy, they are essentially in checkmate. What they do in light of that checkmate is yet to be seen, but we are definitely in interesting times, and the Western oligarchy is definitely holding a losing hand.
What will be interesting over the coming 20-40 years is how China deals with its population collapse. Their expansionist hegemony combined with re-education is clearly an attempt to offset as much of this as possible through acquisition, much like a company with stalled growth buys up fast-growing companies to accrete earnings growth. If the Western nations can thwart that, or at least slow it down, through countering OBOR and maintaining Western values in the face of Marxist/Leninist wokism, the future does not necessarily belong to the Asian powers.
The future belongs to those who are able to see the world in strategic terms that transcend the East vs. West false binaries. The greatest progress is going to come from the cooperation among East and West powers, based on mutual development and win-win thinking. Contrary to Western narratives, the China win-win Belt and Road approach is not an East/West opposition as defined by the imperial geopoliticians.
To quote from a recent piece:
The annoying fact which such thinkers as Huntington and his followers choose to ignore is that the greatest renaissances and rates of progress recorded in the human experience never occurred by distinct cultural groups simply transforming themselves at random, or doing what ones’ ancestors did, but rather all periods of progress were shaped by the cross pollinating of the best ideas of various cultures, never just replacing one set of ideas FOR another, or adding one set of ideas TO another, but rather creating new wholes that are more than the sum of their parts and containing ever greater degrees of power to creatively discover and communicate truths of those universal principles guiding mankind and nature. This is the proper definition and purpose of “science” and “art” and their effects as technological progress as expressed across ALL cultures.”
Well I did say that I only somewhat disagreed with what you said.
In my opinion the US propaganda machine never stops running. the only thing that changes is the political party it favors as propagandists. During the run up to the 2nd Iraq War Fox, specifically Hannity & O'Reilly, were constantly labeling anyone against the war as being un-American, terrorist lovers, terrorist enablers, in bed with terrorists or just outright terrorists.
Take out the terrorist & insert Russia & you have the Democrat MSNBC CNN response to Trump. Same shit different day.
If you asked most diehard Trump hating liberal Democrats if they knew they were essentially following the same script that Republicans used against them a few short years ago, they would deny it. I think they would be entirely incapable of seeing it because they, much like the right in 2003, think they're morally justified. "The right spews hate while we spew facts" would probably be a good description of their mindset.
I think that the people that run this machine are quite smart. They understand what motivates each group & that understanding lets them manipulate so successfully.
With the right they wrap everything in the flag. That flag, whether the right admits it or not, puts most of them in a trance.
With the left they couch everything in social justice terms or PC terms because they know that your average liberal is so completely terrified of being labeled racist or homophobic or transphobic that the easiest way to get them to shut the fuck up is by labeling the guy you want them to hate as a racist or homophobe or transphobe.
What I would be curious to be able to see is an alternate reality where the populist who won in 2016 was Sanders. Would the attacks be rightward led by people blathering on about the America hating Socialist? Would Hillary be the Dem version of Liz Cheney turning on her own party's president?
As Matt has pointed out Hillary & crew were already accusing the Bernie Bros. of racist, sexist behavior & he hadn't even won the election or even the nomination.
In the end, this is globalists feverishly defending their own, very lucrative for them, agenda against any and all critics & opponents.
You’re not wrong, but there is arguably more nuance there. This becomes clear if we zoom out a bit more. Forget the Western unipolar outlook, forget the US is the Center of the world assumption.
The unipolar world is dead.
This propaganda machine and oligarchical financial establishment has largely destroyed itself by destroying its own population. They are presiding over a hoard of zombie banks, staring into a hundred trillion dollar financial black hole, and running a painfully bloated and corrupt military. The more the Western oligarchical establishment tries to encircle Russia and China and try to subvert these nations, the more they will expend the very little free energy they have left. The military is completely bloated and overextended. Their domestic industrial and manufacturing base is gone.
Meanwhile, China has lifted 600,000 people out of poverty. That’s not a minor detail in the world stare gif situation. But again, for the average Western-centric viewpoint, these strategic sea-changes are completely lost on them. They believe US and European unipolar dominance is like a law of nature or something. They couldn’t be more wrong.
So the emergence of a new Eurasian economic paradigm, overtaking the last 3000+ years of Trans-Atlantic cantered civilization is a new reality. Most people in the West don’t even know how to think about this, especially the ruling and “expert” class.
Have you looked at the leaders of the Western military powers. General Milley? These guys are total incompetent jarheads. They are dangerous, but most of that dangerous comes from their incompetence, the belief among some that the Us can win a first strike or limited nuclear war against China or Russia.
The Eurasian powers have largely rejected this decrepit speculative Trans-Atlantic system. Despite whatever individual problems countries like Russia and China have, they are not suicidal and they are committed to the survival of their nations and populations.
Those running the current American system are if anything intent on dismantling the US, and European nations. They are committed to a new technocratic feudal age where in the words of Klaus Schwab, “you will own nothing and you will be happy.”
These powers have spent their lives trying to dismantle the US industrial and scientific base, but the Eurasian nations have largely done the opposite. So don’t kid yourself, the Western establishment is in big trouble, and nothing short of outright fascism will allow them to control the situation for much longer. And a million things could go wrong there.
I don't think you're wrong either and I don't think the US is the center of anything other than its own warped fantasies about being the center of everything. But these fantasies are the fantasies of a ruling class who have been the ruling class for a very long while. Old money, in my opinion, creates generation after generation of people who get farther & farther away from the reality that I know & farther into their own warped fantasies of their own "greatness." When Hillary called the flyover states "deplorables" I think that was a case of the servant identifying with her masters. And I do believe very rich people look at the rest of us as beneath them & very much in need of their guidance.
I remember a Hunter S. article I read years back where he went to some uber wealthy enclave in Florida(?) with the idea of discovering why the children of incredibly rich people aren't doing incredible things. What he found was a group of young wealthy males who were only concerned with getting wasted while using their wealth to con local girls into bed. They knew that, no matter what they did, they'd one day inherit daddy's kingdom.
I think that's called hubris.
I think it's that hubris, that born to rule idea that has transformed America from a nation state into an empire. Nation states can have long lives. Empires, not so much.
I also think that a place like Europe has a fairly recent memory of how hubris almost destroyed them. Germany in particular understands how quickly hubris can turn into hell. The US, on the other hand, has been relatively unscathed by war in these last 2 centuries so it can bluster and blather on & on as if it knows shit when it really doesn't. That may change sooner than anyone wants.
@Spyderbaby
If the "Watcher" goes into denial, the children run amok.
The U.S. has no less than 800 Military Bases around the
Globe. That *fact alone puts the U.S. in the "center" of *something, and the U.S. Taxpayer is footing the bill.
Do we *need 800 Military Bases ? Nobody ever asks that question if we falsely believe that they are not out there.
And that is not a "conspiracy-generated" set of facts. The 800 Bases are a matter of public record.
This isn't sarcasm or meant to belittle your post in the least bit I think a fairly large book could be written detailing all the questions Americans appear afraid to ask.
@Spiderbaby
No, indeed, I appreciate your point, and the spicy manner in which you make it. A little more irreverence, and lot more curiosity would take this country a long way !
The multi-polar alliance is a real thing, and while the degenerate establishment class is looking for a way to outsmart their enemy, they are essentially in checkmate. What they do in light of that checkmate is yet to be seen, but we are definitely in interesting times, and the Western oligarchy is definitely holding a losing hand.
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2021/06/25/russia-wants-to-be-relevant-feels-squeezed-by-china-and-other-popular-delusions-of-a-dying-technocracy/
What will be interesting over the coming 20-40 years is how China deals with its population collapse. Their expansionist hegemony combined with re-education is clearly an attempt to offset as much of this as possible through acquisition, much like a company with stalled growth buys up fast-growing companies to accrete earnings growth. If the Western nations can thwart that, or at least slow it down, through countering OBOR and maintaining Western values in the face of Marxist/Leninist wokism, the future does not necessarily belong to the Asian powers.
The future belongs to those who are able to see the world in strategic terms that transcend the East vs. West false binaries. The greatest progress is going to come from the cooperation among East and West powers, based on mutual development and win-win thinking. Contrary to Western narratives, the China win-win Belt and Road approach is not an East/West opposition as defined by the imperial geopoliticians.
To quote from a recent piece:
The annoying fact which such thinkers as Huntington and his followers choose to ignore is that the greatest renaissances and rates of progress recorded in the human experience never occurred by distinct cultural groups simply transforming themselves at random, or doing what ones’ ancestors did, but rather all periods of progress were shaped by the cross pollinating of the best ideas of various cultures, never just replacing one set of ideas FOR another, or adding one set of ideas TO another, but rather creating new wholes that are more than the sum of their parts and containing ever greater degrees of power to creatively discover and communicate truths of those universal principles guiding mankind and nature. This is the proper definition and purpose of “science” and “art” and their effects as technological progress as expressed across ALL cultures.”
https://risingtidefoundation.net/2021/07/17/the-brics-as-an-antidote-to-the-intellectual-nothingness-of-cultural-relativism/
Excellent observations!