MCViewPoint

Opinion from a Libertarian ViewPoint

Posts Tagged ‘US Empire’

The US Empire’s PR Crisis In Gaza

Posted by M. C. on October 23, 2023

It should be clear to everyone by now that a huge percentage of the right wingers who criticized US proxy warfare via Ukraine did so only because they were worried it might take away from US proxy warfare via Israel.

https://substack.com/inbox/post/138185398

Caitlin Johnstone

The US-centralized empire is a giant network of allies, partners and assets spanning the entire globe. Many of the nations in this network, such as Israel, have strong ideologies and values systems that the empire must cooperate with to obtain their loyalty. But the empire itself has no ideology or values — it values nothing but planetary domination. The empire’s motives are no more ideological than the motives of a mugger are ideological.

So the empire has no ideology, but it is held together by cooperation with individual governments who do. The problem this creates is that sometimes the ideologies of those states cause them to do things that go against the interests of the empire as a whole. Israel can just up and decide to commit a genocidal massacre in front of everyone. Saudi Arabia can decide it’s going to dismember a Washington Post reporter with a bone saw. Proxies in Ukraine can keep saying Nazi things and sporting Nazi insignia in public. They do these things because unlike the top brass in the imperial power structure they are guided by ideology, with no regard for the need to preserve the empire’s image as a “rules-based international order”.

This often creates a PR crisis for the empire, because the public will cease consenting to the network of alliances, partners and assets if it becomes sufficiently aware of the depravity needed to hold it all together. This is typically easy to resolve because the US empire has the most sophisticated propaganda machine in the history of civilization, but that propaganda machine is operated by individuals — individuals who may have learned about Palestinian rights at university, or who were disgusted about the way their employer ran cover for Israel’s murder of Shireen Abu Akleh only to find out Israel did it and was lying. So they don’t always play along with the imperial machine in their reporting, thereby exacerbating the empire’s PR crisis.

The worst thing that could possibly happen, from the empire’s point of view, is for the public to start opening their eyes to its criminality. With Israel on a genocidal rampage as pro-Palestinian protesters flood the streets worldwide, we may be certain that the manipulators who are responsible for imperial perception management are in full crisis mode, because if a critical mass of people can pick apart this one lie, it opens up the possibility of their unplugging themselves from the whole propaganda matrix that keeps the empire operational.

The empire managers are standing by Israel’s side and doing everything they can to pretend its actions are right and just, but they are fidgeting uncomfortably, and behind the scenes we may be sure they’re in total damage control. That’s why we’re being slammed with such a mad deluge of propaganda right now, and that’s why they’re doing everything they can to censor and suppress and shut down voices who are critical of Israel’s actions in Gaza.

See the rest here

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Celebrities Protect The Interests Of The Empire: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix

Posted by M. C. on January 31, 2023

Even if you believe that all this nuclear brinkmanship is justified and good, you still need to fully acknowledge the reality of the risk and the unfathomable horrors that it would unleash upon our world. And you need to do it with all the respect and solemnity the subject deserves.

Caitlin Johnstone

https://open.substack.com/pub/caitlinjohnstone/p/celebrities-protect-the-interests?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android

If you say you oppose Russia because you’re an anti-imperialist but you don’t oppose the US empire for its role in starting and perpetuating this war, then you’re a liar. You don’t oppose Russia because you’re an anti-imperialist, you oppose Russia because you’re an imperialist.

The only people who say “Putin can end this war at any time by withdrawing” are those who deny the US empire’s aggressions which led to this conflict, which is just a nonsense garbage position based on lies. They don’t actually want peace, they just want victory for the empire. The real unbiased position which supports peace is wanting both Russia and the western empire to begin engaging in diplomacy, de-escalation and detente to end this war. But empire simps will call you treasonously biased if you support anything other than total Russian defeat.

This dopey propaganda-addled notion that the west did nothing wrong and Putin attacked Ukraine solely because he is evil and hates freedom actually prevents peace from happening. If one side only acknowledges the reality of the aggressions of the other side, peace is impossible. If you don’t understand how a war was started and perpetuated, then you can’t understand how peace can be started and perpetuated. The empire deliberately works to prevent the public from obtaining this understanding, because the empire wants war.

It’s not okay for grown adults to act like Putin is just running around invading countries willy nilly because he’s a crazed madman. You’ve got a whole internet of information at your fingertips. Use it.

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It’s impossible to overstate how much our society is shaped by the fact that those who are given the most influence and the largest platforms will experience our status quo systems as working very nicely and have a vested interest in preserving those systems which benefit them. The media-owning, culture-manufacturing class of the super-wealthy elevates people to wealth and celebrity who look like they will be good protectors of their class interests. Those people will necessarily speak fondly of the status quo political systems which let them be rich.

These are the people who put on all the shows, movies and music almost everyone consumes, thereby engineering mainstream culture to the benefit of the super wealthy. It shapes the way the people think, speak, act and vote. What they feel entitled to. What they think is possible.

A rich celebrity who makes millions of dollars a year in a fun, easy and egoically gratifying job is not going to be spotlighting all the lives who are being destroyed by the status quo systems which elevated them. They’re not going to favor the revolutionary changes that are needed. They’re not going to be calling for a massive, sweeping overhaul of the systems which are crushing ordinary people to death and creating widespread misery; at most they’re going to be telling you to vote Democrat or Republican and quibbling about minor disagreements on tax rates. But these are the people with the loudest voices in our society — not just the loudest, but many orders of magnitude more amplified and influential than the voices of the ordinary people who are suffering under existing systems. These loudly-amplified rich celebrities shape and direct mainstream culture.

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Let’s Be Clear: If WW3 Happens It Will Be The Result Of Choices Made By The US Empire

Posted by M. C. on November 10, 2022

The Nuclear Family: Episode 3

https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/lets-be-clear-if-ww3-happens-it-will?r=iw8dv&utm_medium=android

Caitlin Johnstone

The commander of the US nuclear arsenal has stated unequivocally that the war in Ukraine is just a warmup exercise for a much larger conflict that’s already in the mail.

Antiwar’s Dave DeCamp reports:

The commander that oversees US nuclear forces delivered an ominous warning at a naval conference last week by calling the war in Ukraine a “warmup” for the “big one” that is to come.

“This Ukraine crisis that we’re in right now, this is just the warmup,” said Navy Adm. Charles Richard, the commander of US Strategic command. “The big one is coming. And it isn’t going to be very long before we’re going to get tested in ways that we haven’t been tested [in] a long time.”

Richard’s warning came after the US released its new Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), which reaffirms that the US doctrine allows for the first use of nuclear weapons. The review says that the purpose of the US nuclear arsenal is to “deter strategic attacks, assure allies and partners, and achieve US objectives if deterrence fails.”

Not only does Richard appear to believe that a hot war between major world powers is a foregone conclusion, he has also previously stated that a nuclear war with Russia or China is now “a very real possibility.”

Ben Norton @BenjaminNorton

The US empire really is threatening all life on Earth with potential nuclear apocalypse: The US military commander who oversees nuclear forces said, “This Ukraine crisis that we’re in right now, this is just the warmup” “The big one is coming,” he added news.antiwar.comUS Nuclear Forces Chief Says ‘the Big One Is Coming’ – News From Antiwar.comThe commander that oversees US nuclear forces delivered an ominous warning at a naval conference last week by calling the war in Ukraine a “warmup” for the “big one” that is to come. “This Ukraine crisis that we’re in right now, this is just the warmup,” said Navy Adm. Charles Richard, the commander…2:27 AM ∙ Nov 7, 2022481Likes250Retweets

Again, this is not some armchair warrior opining from his desk at a corporate newspaper or DC think tank, this is the head of STRATCOM. Richard would be personally overseeing the very warfare he is talking about.

What I find most striking about remarks like these is how passive they always make it sound. Richard talks about “The Big One” like other people talk about California earthquakes, as though a hot war with China would be some kind of natural disaster that just happened out of nowhere.

See the rest here

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China Threatens the US Empire, Not the US Itself: Notes From the Edge of the Narrative Matrix

Posted by M. C. on August 18, 2022

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

By Caitlin Johnstone
CaitlinJohnstone.com

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.

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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.

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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”.

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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.

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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??

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Caitlin Johnstone

@caitoz

CBS: Here’s an investigative report on how only 30% of the weapons we’re sending to Ukraine are getting to the frontline! Ukrainian government: No. Take it down. CBS: Okay sorry.

6:53 PM · Aug 9, 2022·Twitter Web App

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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.

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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.

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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.

See the rest here

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Conquering the Earth — The Expansion of the US Empire

Posted by M. C. on August 27, 2019

During his presidency, he did such a good job at his invasions that, in 1906, he was the first US President to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Considering the enormous head of steam that the US government is building up toward these countries, it would be surprising in the extreme if the world did not find itself in a state of world war…

https://internationalman.com/articles/conquering-the-earth/

by Jeff Thomas

The Akkadian Empire is often regarded as the world’s first empire, reaching its peak between the 24th and 22nd centuries BC, some 4,400 years ago.

It was in the Middle East, home of quite a few empires over the millennia. It began with King Sargon, who, having succeeded at conquering his neighbours in Babylonia, decided to expand further into Syria and Canaan.

King Sargon established a fad that has remained until the present day. In any era since his time, there have been those nations that, having had initial successes at conquest, couldn’t resist the temptation to “have it all.”

Each, in turn, had occasion to learn why this is not the most sensible objective for a nation to pursue.

The Roman Empire collapsed, in part, because it attempted to gobble up as much of the known world as possible and found that, once another civilisation had been conquered and looted, a military and other resources were then necessary to maintain control. Rome learned too late that, whilst conquest is often profitable, maintaining a conquered land is a liability.

Over the millennia, history has seen many empires come and go. By the time of the Spanish Empire (peaking in 1521–1643), kings had a rough idea of how very big the world was and recognized that controlling it all was quite a task.

This did not, however, stop ambitious leaders. Every century has seen its Genghis Khan or Napoleon, whose desire for conquest was insatiable. Repeatedly, such leaders came to a bad end, specifically because they tried to bite off more than they could chew.

Britain owned the nineteenth century, with colonies worldwide, but today, we British eat humble pie, as we were eclipsed due to excessive warfare and government spending.

Then the US owned the twentieth century, not only colonizing parts of the world, but seeking to police the rest of it.

This began in 1899. Future President Theodore Roosevelt stated publicly that “Peace may come only through war.” …

And to maintain a geographic balance, the US government dispenses weekly notices to the media of the growing need for aggression in Venezuela and North Korea.

Why? Well, just like King Sargon, the US military interests are ever-conscious that there are still a few countries out there that are not US-dominated. As can be seen in the map above, the US has a military presence in all the countries that are coloured pink.

The US has some 800 military bases and has military personnel deployed in 177 countries – a total of 1.3 million troops. In addition to these bases, there are numerous “lily pads,” or mini-military bases. Such bases generally house weaponry and supplies, at the ready for larger troop deployments.

Further, the US has a host of “militarily active advisors” and “peacekeeping forces” deployed across the globe.

No surprise then, that the US tends to work towards the day when 100% of the world has US military boots on the ground.

For example, that grey collection of islands on the map, just above Norway, are the Svalbard and Jan Mayen islands. Although they’re presently inhabited by Russians and Norwegians, are in the Arctic Circle and have virtually no value, when US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis visited Svalbard in 2018, he saw it as a good site for a US base, saying, “Certainly America’s got to up its game in the arctic. There’s no doubt about that.”…

Considering the enormous head of steam that the US government is building up toward these countries, it would be surprising in the extreme if the world did not find itself in a state of world war in the not-too-distant future.

The US Empire, like its predecessors throughout history, is about to bite off more than it can chew and the world will pay the price.

Editor’s Note: The US government is overextending itself by interfering in every corner of the globe. It’s all financed by massive amounts of money printing. However, the next financial crisis could end the whole charade soon.

The truth is, we’re on the cusp of a global economic crisis that could eclipse anything we’ve seen before. That’s exactly why Doug Casey and his team just released this urgent video. Click here to watch it now.

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war-is-peace

 

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My Speech For The Melbourne Free Assange Rally – Caitlin Johnstone

Posted by M. C. on April 13, 2019

https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/04/12/my-speech-for-the-melbourne-free-assange-rally/

author: Caitlin Johnstone

I gave a speech for the Socialist Equality Party Australia rally for Julian Assange today, and I figure I may as well share the transcript for those who weren’t able to be there:

Today is the day when the rubber meets the road.

Today is the day when the nice guy mask has been ripped from the face of the inverted totalitarian state under whose boot we live.

We were told, concern trolled, that it was all about his cat, his body odour, his love affair for Trump or Putin or the Catalan people, Nazis, rape, transistor radios, and his hatred of truth, justice and the American way.

A thousand different stories about what this was all about, all created to confuse the casual viewer as to what was going on. 

In the end, it was about what any clear-eyed rebel could see from day one. It was the reason he was granted asylum in the first place. The powerful people he embarrassed with his leaks want to punish him. He is being bullied by the power whose wrongdoings he exposed. And those powerful people want to make an example of him and send a message to all of us.

Now I’ve heard it said, and I’m sure you’ve heard this too, that this sting was timed in part so that it occurred within the timeframe of the caretaker government given our forthcoming federal election here in Australia on May 18th. They reckon this’ll be good for them. They reckon this’ll mean that nothing can be done!

Ha, yeah well I don’t think so mate. I know that I will bailing up every politician I see on every street corner and demanding to know what their position on Julian Assange is.

I know that I will be making this a core election issue from which they cannot sheepishly demur as they have done til now.

I know that this will be the election issue that will be the decider on who I vote for, and who I do not.

And I know that I am joined by many of my fellow Australians in my outrage.

Australians are pretty easy-going, but only to a point, and that point has been reached.

Australian politicians and the Australian media have been put on notice as of today – we will not lie down quietly and utter that infamous Aussie phrase of the defeated – “Aww well whatever you reckon’s a fair thing…”

Because this not a fair thing.

We will not let this rest.

We will not let a son of ours be made a precedent for the death of the free press everywhere.

That will not happen on our watch.

Because that’s what’s happening. He is the thin edge of the wedge for the death of press freedoms all around the world. 

Think about it – this is an Australian, wrenched from the Ecuadorian embassy, being held by the UK, for journalism via WikiLeaks which has no office or affiliation in the US at all.

The long arm of the US empire has shown that it can nab any journalist, anywhere in the world, if it doesn’t like what you’re revealing, whether you’re a citizen of theirs or not.

Read the rest of this entry »

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Heaven Forbid Peace Should Break Out Between the US and North Korea!

Posted by M. C. on December 5, 2017

https://antoniusaquinas.com/

As long as the US Empire can be funded and maintained on the backs of its taxpaying public, the chance of de-escalation of tensions not only on the Korean peninsula, but throughout the world are practically nil.  And, as long as the nation’s current interventionist ideology holds sway, it will only be through a financial meltdown that the US’s role as global policeman will come to a much-needed end. Read the rest of this entry »

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