A basic premise of my understanding of war and warfare is that Clausewitz and Sun Tzu are basically telling you that war is the dumbest possible way in which to resolve any dispute. The problem is that it takes 2 to make a peace while only 1 is needed to start a war.
Megalomania has clearly infected the entire ruling class in this country, in fact the entire MICIMATT complex. It just may turn out to be a fatal disease that proves to be the undoing of US global dominance. That would be the best outcome. A far worse outcome would result in nuclear Armageddon. Meanwhile, isn't it a bit curious that, since the Israeli genocide was unleashed back in October 2023, the neocons no longer use the phrase "rules-based order." I suppose even they realize that to utter such ridiculous nonsense now would be laughable.
You may be right (or not), but it is unclear what will come next. I fear a dystopian future in this country that looks like the worlds described by the likes of Orwell, Huxley and Kafka. Nothing is inevitable. How the future unfolds will be the result of a multitude of factors, and for that reason it is often messy and unpredictable. Assumptions are easily made but just as easily dispelled. The outcome cannot be known in advance. There is no predetermined script. I believe we are entering very dangerous times. There has never been a global empire with such massive firepower like the US. Desperate empires are like wounded animals. We are in uncharted territory.
My guess is that the people in DC ~ and more specifically, their owners, operators, commanders, and controllers ~ know EXACTLY what they want to happen next. And are doing everything in their power to make exactly that happen.
The bottom line is that They All would LOVE a world based on Orwell, Huxley, and Kafka; as long as it includes THEM in the position of complete and total Power and Rule.
And my belief is that it has been like that ever since 9/11 and then The COVID Event.
And that it will continue to be like that until either this Nation [and its Empire] are assigned to the Shit Can of History; probably be being replaced by an even more totalitarian, dictatorial system of government, governance, the economy, and Civil Society.
Or it will be discontinued by being replaced completely with systems that are completely new and different.
I posted this comment to Julian Macfalane's piece today, but it seems to fit with here as well.
As pathetic as our octogenarian leaders are, there is no hope in sight from the younger leaders in the US, Canada and Europe who are absolute, arrogant, blithering idiots. I never quite imagined how so many leaders from so many Western countries could coalesce into one blob of hubris so vast, none have any interest in actual statecraft and diplomacy. It's all about the "rules-based order," baby!
It's about careerism. Much better for one's career to just go along with the policies set by the prevailing elite. Standing up to them will get you ostracized. Of course the country suffers, but it's the elites who hand out the jobs. I wonder what institute Macron will go to when he finishes his second term.
One reason I have such an intense dislike for a majority of U.S. politicians is the extremely blatant dishonesty with which they are so comfortable. They can repeat false narratives without so much as a blink- as if they actually believed what they are saying. Thus, Putin can be a modern-day "Hitler", out to roll over Europe en route to taking over the noble U.S. of A; and we must stop him NOW (at the expense of actual national security, the slaughter of hundreds of 1000s of Ukrainians and Russians, and the growing risks of nuclear war.
So they smilingly tell lies, hiding the real causes of the war, the facts that the so-called 'enemy' had pleaded for a diplomatic settlement to avoid war and that they not only dismissed those calls but actively blocked them. And to boot, as you write here, Bill, they crow about the good investment that the war represents - though again, they don't tell the truth about who the beneficiaries are or who is paying the costs.
I contrast this deceitfulness with Ralph Nader (for good example), who was interviewed on Democracy Now yesterday on his 90th birthday. It's a durn shame that the shallow neoliberal tool Al Gore spoiled Ralph's chances for the Presidency in 2000, thereby handing the election to Shrub. Had that not happened, neither would have the Iraq invasion; nor quite possibly, 9/11; nor perhaps, the 9/11-justified Patriot Act (though the authoritarian turns of both Parties were possibly already pre-ordained). Maybe we wouldn't have coup'd Ukrainian Pres. Yanukovych; the 8-year long war against ethnic Russians wouldn't have happened nor the Russian invasion of the Donbass, etc. Oh, if wishes were horses, and 'if only' could happen, I'd have a stable.
Sorry, Roger. But there is no basis whatsoever for assuming that 9/11 ~ or "The Forever War" it spawned ~would not have happened had somebody besides Cheney/Bush the Lesser occupied the White House after Gore cost Nader Election2000.
9/11 was already well-planned out when Cheney took the throne, and had anybody sitting in the Oval Office objected to it ~ including specifically Nader ~ they would have been replaced.
But who REALLY made sure that that Forever War happened ~ and the seeds of America's destruction were planted, rooted, and bloomed ~ were all those "liberals," "progressives," "democratic socialists," and "socialistic democrats" who voted for Gore instead of Nader.
Here are some of what President Bozo liked to call “Inconvenient Facts,” originally posted on 2 July 2004, just as John Kerry’s campaign for the Oval Office was kicking in big time back then:
CONTRA MICHAEL MOORE: Resurrecting The Biggest Lie of Election2000
It’s no secret that Michael Moore is a Kerry Regime Insider Wannabe. So, it was no surprise when he turned the MoveOn.org June 28, 2004 live webcast about his new movie FAHRENHEIT 9/11 into a Kerry Love-Fest. But when he attacked Ralph Nader, he went a bridge too far.
In so doing, he resurrected once again The Biggest Lie About Election 2000: that Ralph Nader, the Green Party, and the people who voted for Nader cost Al Gore and the Democrats the election, and are thus directly responsible for all the evil unleashed by the Cheney White House on the planet and on this nation, in general, and on liberals, progressives, and the victims they champion, in particular.
As uncomfortable as i know it is for Michael and the rest of these people, let us consider one simple, incontestable FACT first. [Who was it that said “facts are such unpleasant things”?]
IF YOU TOOK EVERY VOTE THAT NADER GOT IN EITHER TENNESSEE (GORE’S HOME STATE) OR ARKANSAS (CLINTON’S HOME STATE), AND GAVE THEM TO GORE, GORE WOULD HAVE STILL LOST THEM BOTH. THIS WOULD MAKE HIM THE ONLY CANDIDATE IN HISTORY TO LOSE THE STATE OF HIS OWN PARTY’S INCUMBENT PRESIDENT, AND ONLY THE SECOND CANDIDATE IN HISTORY (AFTER MCGOVERN IN 1972) TO LOSE HIS OWN STATE. IF GORE HAD WON EITHER OF THOSE TWO STATES -- HIS OWN HOME STATE OR THE STATE OF HIS BOSS AND TITULAR HEAD OF HIS OWN PARTY -- GORE WOULD HAVE WON THE ELECTION, REGARDLESS OF WHAT HAPPENED IN FLORIDA.
To ignore this FACT and to instead focus blame for Gore’s loss on Nader and the people who voted for him in Florida is to deny an uncomfortable but undeniable reality. However, if Michael and his gang want to focus on Florida, then consider another, final, simple, incontestable FACT.
The Gore challenge to the election results in Florida deserved -- and in fact looks like it was intended -- to fail. Instead of demanding a STATEWIDE recount, the Gore braintrust chose only to demand recounts in those areas they thought they would win. But even more important than that, the Gore folks apparently had neither the balls nor brains to challenge the legality of the removal of more than 50,000 voters from the registered voters lists.
Then let’s consider another simple, incontestable fact.
Because liberals, progressives, and radicals did not have the balls to vote their conscience, but instead voted for what they thought was a sure-fire way to win, GORE COST NADER THE ELECTION.
Because these people voted for one of the biggest thugs, liars, hypocrites, and thieves in Washington DC, they turned their backs on the ONLY true liberal, progressive, and radical in the campaign…the ONLY candidate with a life history consistent with true alleged Democratic, liberal, and progressive values, principles, and ideals.
And, they got what they voted for. And what they deserved.
How is that?
My guess is that it was understood by all concerned that the Clinton/Gore wing of The Party had had its time in power (eight years to be exact), and that they had accomplished what they had been sent there to do: keep the Sanctions Going against the Peoples of Iraq; facilitate globalization (on whose watch did NAFTA, GATT, and the WTO come into being?); facilitate the corporatization of medical care in the U.S.; de-regulate the media and communications industry; start letting people learn more and more about the evils of fundamentalist, radical Muslim terrorism; continue the tradition of un-declared, un-challenged, un-controlled War (Yugoslavia, Sudan, Afghanistan, Iraq, etc etc etc); run a couple of 9/11 dress rehearsals (WTC bombing, Oklahoma City bombing); normalize post-Tiananmen Square relations with crypto-capitalistic Communist China; and piss off enough people with a President dumb enough to get caught getting a blowjob in the Oval Office from a woman young enough to be his daughter and then get caught lying about it. But how else could something like MoveOn.org be spawned?
And that it was thus now time for the other guys in The Party to have their time at the helm, and to continue The Long March. You know….. The 8-On-8-Off Deal: “you guys take the Executive Branch for eight years and get your fair share of the loot, and then we’ll take it for our eight and get our fair share.”
Thus, while The Cheney Regime has accomplished just about everything that they were sent there to do (except perhaps to more totally and effectively rape, pillage, and plunder the U.S. Treasury), it’s unlikely that Kerry is anything more than a dutifully sacrificial Burning Bunny in the tradition of Bob Dole and Walter Mondale.
In any event, Michael Moore should stick to movie making, and leave the King-Making to people who have a lot more experience and expertise than he does in that realm.
Do the national defense authorization acts (NDAA) of whatever years say the US raised armies (limited to 2 years funds worth of stuff to give away?
Presidential depletion of US war stocks for Ukraine is both unusual and likely extra legal.
I find nothing in the US constitution about donating arms to other countries, we raise an army and maintain a navy. There is nothing in there about giving away parts of the unauthorized standing army.
It seems the US constitution also did not foresee the republic would have "American (national?) interests" 6000 miles away, or that "world security" would be part of the "common defense". It might be if the founding fathers had decided the republic should morph to a world spanning empire.
But George Washington....
All the above is nothing as US funds genocide in another 6000 mile away "world securit"y operation.
I grew up in Boston. My very first protest letter was to the Globe's editor! I was 17. They are an Israeli apologist rag with rabid Zionists infesting their staff reporters. They are also war mongers!
The problem with War is that as soon as we go Nuclear it will simply be Game over for most species on Earth. CS suggests that in the natural order and scheme of things that extinction is common, meaning many species disappear over time. On the other hand survival , or the continuation of a species, is less common and considered an exception. It reflects the idea that life on Earth has faced numerous challenges, and the ability to survive and persist is truly remarkable and rare in and of itself when it occurs in the grand scheme of evolution and the Cosmos..!
At this stage of The Game, Fireman1110, i don't see any reason whatsoever to believe that "Life" ~ even relatively "intelligent Life" like Human Beings ~ is "remarkable or rare" in that Cosmos, or in that "grand scheme of evolution."
And i also believe that if Humans ~ with all their "intelligence" ~ destroy themselves and even all of Life on this Planet ~ that that will not be the end of either Life or of Intelligent Life in the Universe.
Not that that will do any good for all the Species ~ starting with Humans ~ that will get exterminated here on Earth. But it's a Very Big Universe out there, and no doubt other manifestations of Experiments in Consciousness, Intelligence, and Political, Economic, and Social Organization are proceeding even as we Humans screw up this Experiment here on our Home Planet.
Yes.., millions, billions, trillions, and Quadrillions of Light Years away on an Exoplanet larger than any in our Solar System I'm sure aliens more advanced & civil society's members consider us if they ever give us a caring thought a much violent and primitive Race... if they even bother to Contact will be up to us not them. This is how I feel. We have to save ourselves I think. I'm all out of faith too...! But, yes I believe there are Lifeforms out there in an environment beyond human comprehension...
A basic premise of my understanding of war and warfare is that Clausewitz and Sun Tzu are basically telling you that war is the dumbest possible way in which to resolve any dispute. The problem is that it takes 2 to make a peace while only 1 is needed to start a war.
Megalomania has clearly infected the entire ruling class in this country, in fact the entire MICIMATT complex. It just may turn out to be a fatal disease that proves to be the undoing of US global dominance. That would be the best outcome. A far worse outcome would result in nuclear Armageddon. Meanwhile, isn't it a bit curious that, since the Israeli genocide was unleashed back in October 2023, the neocons no longer use the phrase "rules-based order." I suppose even they realize that to utter such ridiculous nonsense now would be laughable.
They disgust me.
That disease will not prove to be merely the "undoing of US global dominance"; which actually ended quite some time ago [like on 9/11].
It is well on its way to being the undoing of the existence of The American Empire AND the Nation-State of the United States of America, as well.
You may be right (or not), but it is unclear what will come next. I fear a dystopian future in this country that looks like the worlds described by the likes of Orwell, Huxley and Kafka. Nothing is inevitable. How the future unfolds will be the result of a multitude of factors, and for that reason it is often messy and unpredictable. Assumptions are easily made but just as easily dispelled. The outcome cannot be known in advance. There is no predetermined script. I believe we are entering very dangerous times. There has never been a global empire with such massive firepower like the US. Desperate empires are like wounded animals. We are in uncharted territory.
My guess is that the people in DC ~ and more specifically, their owners, operators, commanders, and controllers ~ know EXACTLY what they want to happen next. And are doing everything in their power to make exactly that happen.
The bottom line is that They All would LOVE a world based on Orwell, Huxley, and Kafka; as long as it includes THEM in the position of complete and total Power and Rule.
And my belief is that it has been like that ever since 9/11 and then The COVID Event.
And that it will continue to be like that until either this Nation [and its Empire] are assigned to the Shit Can of History; probably be being replaced by an even more totalitarian, dictatorial system of government, governance, the economy, and Civil Society.
Or it will be discontinued by being replaced completely with systems that are completely new and different.
I posted this comment to Julian Macfalane's piece today, but it seems to fit with here as well.
As pathetic as our octogenarian leaders are, there is no hope in sight from the younger leaders in the US, Canada and Europe who are absolute, arrogant, blithering idiots. I never quite imagined how so many leaders from so many Western countries could coalesce into one blob of hubris so vast, none have any interest in actual statecraft and diplomacy. It's all about the "rules-based order," baby!
It's about careerism. Much better for one's career to just go along with the policies set by the prevailing elite. Standing up to them will get you ostracized. Of course the country suffers, but it's the elites who hand out the jobs. I wonder what institute Macron will go to when he finishes his second term.
One reason I have such an intense dislike for a majority of U.S. politicians is the extremely blatant dishonesty with which they are so comfortable. They can repeat false narratives without so much as a blink- as if they actually believed what they are saying. Thus, Putin can be a modern-day "Hitler", out to roll over Europe en route to taking over the noble U.S. of A; and we must stop him NOW (at the expense of actual national security, the slaughter of hundreds of 1000s of Ukrainians and Russians, and the growing risks of nuclear war.
So they smilingly tell lies, hiding the real causes of the war, the facts that the so-called 'enemy' had pleaded for a diplomatic settlement to avoid war and that they not only dismissed those calls but actively blocked them. And to boot, as you write here, Bill, they crow about the good investment that the war represents - though again, they don't tell the truth about who the beneficiaries are or who is paying the costs.
I contrast this deceitfulness with Ralph Nader (for good example), who was interviewed on Democracy Now yesterday on his 90th birthday. It's a durn shame that the shallow neoliberal tool Al Gore spoiled Ralph's chances for the Presidency in 2000, thereby handing the election to Shrub. Had that not happened, neither would have the Iraq invasion; nor quite possibly, 9/11; nor perhaps, the 9/11-justified Patriot Act (though the authoritarian turns of both Parties were possibly already pre-ordained). Maybe we wouldn't have coup'd Ukrainian Pres. Yanukovych; the 8-year long war against ethnic Russians wouldn't have happened nor the Russian invasion of the Donbass, etc. Oh, if wishes were horses, and 'if only' could happen, I'd have a stable.
Sorry, Roger. But there is no basis whatsoever for assuming that 9/11 ~ or "The Forever War" it spawned ~would not have happened had somebody besides Cheney/Bush the Lesser occupied the White House after Gore cost Nader Election2000.
9/11 was already well-planned out when Cheney took the throne, and had anybody sitting in the Oval Office objected to it ~ including specifically Nader ~ they would have been replaced.
But who REALLY made sure that that Forever War happened ~ and the seeds of America's destruction were planted, rooted, and bloomed ~ were all those "liberals," "progressives," "democratic socialists," and "socialistic democrats" who voted for Gore instead of Nader.
Here are some of what President Bozo liked to call “Inconvenient Facts,” originally posted on 2 July 2004, just as John Kerry’s campaign for the Oval Office was kicking in big time back then:
CONTRA MICHAEL MOORE: Resurrecting The Biggest Lie of Election2000
It’s no secret that Michael Moore is a Kerry Regime Insider Wannabe. So, it was no surprise when he turned the MoveOn.org June 28, 2004 live webcast about his new movie FAHRENHEIT 9/11 into a Kerry Love-Fest. But when he attacked Ralph Nader, he went a bridge too far.
In so doing, he resurrected once again The Biggest Lie About Election 2000: that Ralph Nader, the Green Party, and the people who voted for Nader cost Al Gore and the Democrats the election, and are thus directly responsible for all the evil unleashed by the Cheney White House on the planet and on this nation, in general, and on liberals, progressives, and the victims they champion, in particular.
As uncomfortable as i know it is for Michael and the rest of these people, let us consider one simple, incontestable FACT first. [Who was it that said “facts are such unpleasant things”?]
IF YOU TOOK EVERY VOTE THAT NADER GOT IN EITHER TENNESSEE (GORE’S HOME STATE) OR ARKANSAS (CLINTON’S HOME STATE), AND GAVE THEM TO GORE, GORE WOULD HAVE STILL LOST THEM BOTH. THIS WOULD MAKE HIM THE ONLY CANDIDATE IN HISTORY TO LOSE THE STATE OF HIS OWN PARTY’S INCUMBENT PRESIDENT, AND ONLY THE SECOND CANDIDATE IN HISTORY (AFTER MCGOVERN IN 1972) TO LOSE HIS OWN STATE. IF GORE HAD WON EITHER OF THOSE TWO STATES -- HIS OWN HOME STATE OR THE STATE OF HIS BOSS AND TITULAR HEAD OF HIS OWN PARTY -- GORE WOULD HAVE WON THE ELECTION, REGARDLESS OF WHAT HAPPENED IN FLORIDA.
To ignore this FACT and to instead focus blame for Gore’s loss on Nader and the people who voted for him in Florida is to deny an uncomfortable but undeniable reality. However, if Michael and his gang want to focus on Florida, then consider another, final, simple, incontestable FACT.
The Gore challenge to the election results in Florida deserved -- and in fact looks like it was intended -- to fail. Instead of demanding a STATEWIDE recount, the Gore braintrust chose only to demand recounts in those areas they thought they would win. But even more important than that, the Gore folks apparently had neither the balls nor brains to challenge the legality of the removal of more than 50,000 voters from the registered voters lists.
Then let’s consider another simple, incontestable fact.
Because liberals, progressives, and radicals did not have the balls to vote their conscience, but instead voted for what they thought was a sure-fire way to win, GORE COST NADER THE ELECTION.
Because these people voted for one of the biggest thugs, liars, hypocrites, and thieves in Washington DC, they turned their backs on the ONLY true liberal, progressive, and radical in the campaign…the ONLY candidate with a life history consistent with true alleged Democratic, liberal, and progressive values, principles, and ideals.
And, they got what they voted for. And what they deserved.
How is that?
My guess is that it was understood by all concerned that the Clinton/Gore wing of The Party had had its time in power (eight years to be exact), and that they had accomplished what they had been sent there to do: keep the Sanctions Going against the Peoples of Iraq; facilitate globalization (on whose watch did NAFTA, GATT, and the WTO come into being?); facilitate the corporatization of medical care in the U.S.; de-regulate the media and communications industry; start letting people learn more and more about the evils of fundamentalist, radical Muslim terrorism; continue the tradition of un-declared, un-challenged, un-controlled War (Yugoslavia, Sudan, Afghanistan, Iraq, etc etc etc); run a couple of 9/11 dress rehearsals (WTC bombing, Oklahoma City bombing); normalize post-Tiananmen Square relations with crypto-capitalistic Communist China; and piss off enough people with a President dumb enough to get caught getting a blowjob in the Oval Office from a woman young enough to be his daughter and then get caught lying about it. But how else could something like MoveOn.org be spawned?
And that it was thus now time for the other guys in The Party to have their time at the helm, and to continue The Long March. You know….. The 8-On-8-Off Deal: “you guys take the Executive Branch for eight years and get your fair share of the loot, and then we’ll take it for our eight and get our fair share.”
Thus, while The Cheney Regime has accomplished just about everything that they were sent there to do (except perhaps to more totally and effectively rape, pillage, and plunder the U.S. Treasury), it’s unlikely that Kerry is anything more than a dutifully sacrificial Burning Bunny in the tradition of Bob Dole and Walter Mondale.
In any event, Michael Moore should stick to movie making, and leave the King-Making to people who have a lot more experience and expertise than he does in that realm.
Do the national defense authorization acts (NDAA) of whatever years say the US raised armies (limited to 2 years funds worth of stuff to give away?
Presidential depletion of US war stocks for Ukraine is both unusual and likely extra legal.
I find nothing in the US constitution about donating arms to other countries, we raise an army and maintain a navy. There is nothing in there about giving away parts of the unauthorized standing army.
It seems the US constitution also did not foresee the republic would have "American (national?) interests" 6000 miles away, or that "world security" would be part of the "common defense". It might be if the founding fathers had decided the republic should morph to a world spanning empire.
But George Washington....
All the above is nothing as US funds genocide in another 6000 mile away "world securit"y operation.
I just found out that our "defense" secretary, Lloyd Austin, came from the board at Raytheon.
Revolving door? What revolving door?
I grew up in Boston. My very first protest letter was to the Globe's editor! I was 17. They are an Israeli apologist rag with rabid Zionists infesting their staff reporters. They are also war mongers!
The problem with War is that as soon as we go Nuclear it will simply be Game over for most species on Earth. CS suggests that in the natural order and scheme of things that extinction is common, meaning many species disappear over time. On the other hand survival , or the continuation of a species, is less common and considered an exception. It reflects the idea that life on Earth has faced numerous challenges, and the ability to survive and persist is truly remarkable and rare in and of itself when it occurs in the grand scheme of evolution and the Cosmos..!
At this stage of The Game, Fireman1110, i don't see any reason whatsoever to believe that "Life" ~ even relatively "intelligent Life" like Human Beings ~ is "remarkable or rare" in that Cosmos, or in that "grand scheme of evolution."
And i also believe that if Humans ~ with all their "intelligence" ~ destroy themselves and even all of Life on this Planet ~ that that will not be the end of either Life or of Intelligent Life in the Universe.
Not that that will do any good for all the Species ~ starting with Humans ~ that will get exterminated here on Earth. But it's a Very Big Universe out there, and no doubt other manifestations of Experiments in Consciousness, Intelligence, and Political, Economic, and Social Organization are proceeding even as we Humans screw up this Experiment here on our Home Planet.
Yes.., millions, billions, trillions, and Quadrillions of Light Years away on an Exoplanet larger than any in our Solar System I'm sure aliens more advanced & civil society's members consider us if they ever give us a caring thought a much violent and primitive Race... if they even bother to Contact will be up to us not them. This is how I feel. We have to save ourselves I think. I'm all out of faith too...! But, yes I believe there are Lifeforms out there in an environment beyond human comprehension...