Re.: "Why are we so stuck on warmongers, thieves, and vainglorious simps of empire?"
- I know this is a purely rhetorical question , whose answer we know; but it's a hard-to-accept, potentially discouraging truth especially for those of us who still choose to retain some seeds of hope for humanity.
That answer being, of course, that the most aggressively self-serving, greedy and predatory of humans seem to be inexorably attracted to positions of power where they can follow those instincts and capitalize on them. The political-economic system has itself (d)evolved to one which self-selects for that type, as they came to dominate it and change it to reflect their drives.
Aided by the 'Siamese twin' that is capitalistic commerce conjoined with technology, they have lulled the rest of the population (whom I suspect to be the vast majority) into accepting their leadership under the illusion that they are fulfilling their responsibilities in a democratic republic.
Most people I know seem to recognize that something has not only gone wrong in their society, but also that they continue to get worse.
And yet they seem content nonetheless. There seems to be far too few asking just why this sense persists, why they're expected (and likely will soon choose) to select between two of the most horribly unfit characters to 'lead' their nation- two men who will merely continue the downward trajectory towards collapse of the nation and very possibly global human civilization as we know it.
There have likely always been soulless predators among us; but humanity has (at least in places like the U.S.) gradually allowed them to rule and to reshape the world in their own inhumane image and for their benefit at the cost to all the rest.
Those who understand this are of course, refusing to further play along with at least the political games they've rigged; but will enough step back from their comfortably simplistic and narrow partisan perspectives to look squarely at the deeper system, and challenge it?
We need a mass movement, and so far sufficient mass just isn't there. I suppose the big question is whether we can mobilize for true system reform before it's too late. I just don't know the answer to that.
Nor do I, Bill. I believe it is theoretically possible, but the trend lines don't suggest high odds for it. More likely, unfortunately, is that changes will be forged out of chaos... with a lot higher degree of pain for a lot more people and other critters.
It's the pain for the other critters that's the real tragedy and travesty, Roger, IMO. There isn't a single non-human creature that contributes to the rape and pillage of this planet.
I get it and lean that same way, Denise. Yet I've seen more than enough beauty, kindness, generosity and love in humans so as to be unable to write us off. Perhaps we humans can raise our mass consciousness so as to be able to live in sustained harmony will all?
I take your point, Roger. However, as Bill said, there isn't enough "mass" among the kind, generous people. At least, not now. It would take some kind of universal raising of consciousness, a complete do-over among mankind. Other than the destruction of most of our species, I can't imagine sufficient impetus.
The first big question, Bill, is with what would the current system be “reformed” to? And my guess is that if it comes to that, “reforming” that system will fail. What is required is for that system to be replaced.
So the real question is: What does America’s current system of Government and Governance need to be replaced with and by?
"If you have selfish ignorant citizens, you are going to get selfish ignorant leaders."
Surely the same could be said about the system, eh Jeff?
How about it's not America’s current system of Government and Governance that needs to be changed. Maybe it's the America citizens who need to take a good hard look into the mirror!
After all the "System" does not decide on Domestic and Foreign Policy. It's the people!
Which “people” is it, Dennis, that “decide on Domestic and Foreign Policy”? Can You cite any specific examples?
Re Foreign Policy: How much did the American Peoples have to say about:
1. America’s War in Vietnam under Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, and Ford?
2. America’s War on Central America under Bush I and Bozo?
3. Bush I’s “liberation” of Kuwait and his Sanctions against the Iraqi Peoples?
4. Cheney/Bush II’s launching of America’s “Forever War” in Afghanistan and Pakistan in reaction and response to 9/11?
5. Cheney/Bush II’s invasion and occupation of Iraq and all of Saddam’s “WMDs,” and the expansion of the Forever War into Libya, Syria, Somalia, and so forth?
6. First Obama’s and then Trump’s, and now Biden’s policies and actions as regards America’s planned proxy War with Russia in Ukraine?
7. America’s bankrolling, arming, and equipping Israel’s Genocide in Gaza?
And looking ahead, how much will the American Peoples have to say about the planned, programmed, and in-process War with China?
Re Domestic Policy: How much did the American Peoples have to say about:
1. Their federal, state, and local Governments’ handling of The COVID Event when, with 4.2% of the World’s Total Population, the US has suffered 16% of the Total COVID Cases and 17% of the Total COVID Deaths?
2. How the federal Government handled the 2008 “Too Big To Let Fail” financial “¢risi$”?
And how much do the American Peoples have to say about America’s growing by leaps and bounds national, sovereign Debt [currently at $34.8 TRILLION and counting]? Or their Government’s Unfunded Liabilities [currently at $216.6 TRILLION and growing]?
The American Peoples need to examine, inspect, and investigate their nation’s system of Government and Governance that is owned, operated, commanded, and controlled by America’s Ruling Political Class and its designated Vested Special Interests, and realize, understand, acknowledge, and accept that that is the ONLY way any of these things did happen. And could have happened.
t'is unlikely, hoff; only if they can no longer watch TV, pay their rent and thus become homeless, feed their families, buy their coveted next-gen electronic devices, purchase tickets to their favourite football stadium's games, and 'egads, the equipollent spirits forbid!' that their neighbourhood pub dissolves into bankruptcy. the dissolution of their comfort zones might catalyze aforementioned challenge.
Well said, Roger. Let’s hope that that question about “warmongers, thieves, and vainglorious simps of empire” is not merely “rhetorical,” eh?
You concluded with: “Will enough [Americans] step back from their comfortably simplistic and narrow partisan perspectives to look squarely at the deeper system, and challenge it?”
So one question is: Is the actual, real Problem NOT the particular people running that “Deeper System”? Or rather, is the Problem the “Deeper System” itself, which enables all those self-serving, greedy, and predatory humans to HAVE all that Power that they are so attracted to?
And my answer is: The Problem is the system of Government and Governance that enables select Vested Special Interests ~ especially all those self-serving, greedy, and predatory ones ~ to bid for and gain ready, easy, and available access to that Government’s legal power, administrative authority, and, above all, its spending capacity and capability, so as to advance the agendas of those individual, group, organizational, and institutional VSIs. And the highest bidders thus own, operate, command, and control the elected politicians, entrenched bureaucrats, and anointed appointees in Washington, and get very adequate returns on their investments.
And the “Siamese twins” at work here are not “CAPITALISM and technology,” but CORPORATISM and technology [EMPHASIS added]. And unless and until people understand, acknowledge, and accept that there is a massive, unbridgeable difference between “Capitalism,” on the one hand, and “Corporatism” on the other, nothing is going to change except to get worse than it already is.
And while many, perhaps even most Americans may agree that something seems to have gone very seriously wrong in and with America, is getting worse, and that, under the current Rules and Rulers of America’s Ruling Political Class, can and will only continue to get worse, what real choice do they have BUT to accept one of those two scumbags as their only choice at this moment?
And more importantly: Where is any alternative to Brump and Tiden as that choice? An actual, real Alternative who could actually, really bring about real, actual Change? Especially if they don’t have a Congress that is focused on and dedicated to the same principles and values, and bringing about the same necessary CHANGES to this nation’s system of Government and Governance?
And throughout all of Human History, humanity has indeed Always had those “soulless predators” hanging around, ruling, and thus reshaping the world in their own image. That’s what Humans invented Government to most efficiently, effectively, and efficaciously do. Especially when allied with some organized Religion.
And finally: What alternative is Anybody offering that looks squarely at that “Deeper System” [aka the Deep State] and would be able to in fact challenge it? And then defeat, dismantle, and destroy it?
Amos Oz was a gifted Israeli writer. In his autobiographical book "A Tale of Love and Darkness" that I highly recommend, he describes a scene where he is picking apples on a kibbutz with another resident. They are talking about Menachem Begin, a fanatical Zionist, long before he became an Israeli Prime Minister. The coworker says to Oz...
"They, Begin and his chums, talk from morning to evening about power, but they haven't the first idea what power is, what it's made of, what the weaknesses of power are. After all, power has an element of terrible danger for those that wield it. Didn't that bastard Stalin once say that religion is the opiate of the masses? Well, just listen to little old me. I tell you power is the opium of the ruling classes. And not only the ruling classes. Power is the opium of the whole of humanity."
A clarification is needed. Stalin was referring to the opium of the masses as a sedative to keep them compliant with the wishes of the powerful. For the powerful, the reference to opium is as an addiction with a craving for more of it, always for more. We see it again and again in history. The downtrodden rise up and overthrow the rulers and before long those formerly without power are abusing the power they have gained.
In the US we see the power of money and how those who hold astronomical amounts of money want more and are obsessed with their place on the Fortune 500 list, a competition that drags all of us along. The opium of the American people is entertainment and distractions for one and all, custom tailored via smartphones and big flat screens.
In the trenchant movie, "Network" the crazy anchorman has the public shouting from the windows - "We've had enough and we're not going to take it any more!" But what do they want? Their wish is to be left alone in their living rooms and with their steel belted radial tires (that is, unlimited consumption).
That's the American dilemma - we see the corruption, we see power running wild, but we have the opiate of unlimited and cheap things to sedate any desire to get out in the streets. I see no end to this situation regardless of which of the two repulsive candidates wins the election in November. We are locked in to the comfort of consumption and our spending on it directly feeds the wealth of the powerful who dominate us.
P.S. I heard that Hillary is being pushed as a replacement for Kamala Harris. OMG!
Holocaust survivor, Primo Levi, recounted a letter from a Nazi writing to defend himself well after World War II.
The man’s wife placed a note into the letter that read, “When the devil is loose in the village, a few people try to resist and are overcome, many bow their heads, and the majority follow him with enthusiasm.”
Kennedy's speech wanting a peaceful dialogue with the Soviet Russians is what got him killed. Those forces still active in America are determined to go to War with Russia, spurning all of Putin's Peaceful overtures for a new tone and attitude in US-Russia relations.
US brinkmanship in Ukraine can lead this Material World to the unthinkable happening, with 1 ignorant move. That's how close this World is to the most DESTRUCTIVE War to End all Wars a Century late.
US NATO MSM being propagandists for the POWER, not speaking TRUTH to it, are blind and oblivious to US Actions that brought this World to the precipice of self-destruction.
In June of 1787, James Madison addressed the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia on the dangers of a permanent army. “A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty,” he argued. “The means of defense against foreign danger, have been always the instruments of tyranny at home. Among the Romans it was a standing maxim to excite a war, whenever a revolt was apprehended. Throughout all Europe, the armies kept up under the pretext of defending, have enslaved the people.”
Sounds like a rephrasing of Gen Groves head of the Manhattan project "The American taxpayers want to see where their money went." when discussing whether to use the bomb. Nothing much has changed except the fact that the policy maker was advocating war and destruction rather than the general.
Outstanding piece, Bill. Definitely to be included in “The BEST of BV,”
But i gotta ask a question or two. The first question is: WHEN did that “different, less militaristic and bellicose” America exist? In Your [or my, being born in 1946] lifetime?
And when has America ~ once it became a Nation-State ~ had any “triumphs of wisdom and goodness”? Especially since Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
And re General Butler’s proclamations, the third question is: Does that make everybody in ~ or who has ever been in ~ American national defense, homeland security, secrecy, and surveillance rackets a “gangster for capitalism”? Including You and me as retired “gangsters for capitalism”?
Also, i wonder if anybody running for office this November would consider adding the promise of a Nye Committee for examining and exposing America’s post-World War II ~ and especially post-9/11 ~ “Merchants of Death” to their campaign platform.
The biggest problem with that whole thing is that the findings of that Committee were completly ignored by everybody, and, as a result, accomplished absolutely nothing in the real world. Especially when it came to eliminating the Profit Motive as a major, core Cause of War. Hence, World War II and virtually every War on this Planet since. At least the ones that America was involved in.
And Thankee for sharing Calvin’s perspective on the whole thing. That Kid's pretty wise for one so young, eh? And his Tigger seems even wiser.
WWII and the "arsenal of democracy" myth really did a number on us, Jeff. We emerged victorious and virtually unscathed from that devastating war, uniquely powerful, so we occupied the power vacuum that existed, establishing an empire on which the sun never sets.
The vision of global reach, global power, of dominance everywhere, led us to military adventurism and wildly destructive wars like Vietnam. No rivals, e.g. the Soviet Union, could be tolerated. We'd even destroy the world (via nuclear weapons) to save it from Communism. Better red than dead!
But there have always been American fighting against this, as I noted. Indeed, you yourself fought against the Iraq War. Most Americans, indeed most people, don't want war. They are coerced into it by a lying government.
I return to the platform of George McGovern in 1972: "Come home, America." Stop the wars. Dismantle the empire.
The problem is that our government is led by two war parties, the Democrats and Republicans, both essentially controlled by the MI Complex, and, in some cases, by foreign powers, e.g. Israel. I think a mass protest movement is the only thing that might change this for the better, otherwise we'll just have to wait for the empire to collapse under its own considerable weight and corruption, and that'll truly be "interesting times."
The US Air Force is spending heavily on developing the 6th Generation Air Dominance fighter (NGAD). According to AviationWeek, the Air Force intends to spend $2.81-billion on its development in 2025. ( I'm losing track! Wasn't the 5th Generation F-35, which has still not fired a shot in combat but dropped lots of bombs on refugee camps and hospitals, a mere US$1.7-trillion? A Billion here - a Trillion there - whose counting, eh?)
The Air Force is requesting $1.3 billion over the next three years to complete the development of NGAD's new advanced engine. According to Air and Space Forces Magazine, the effort to develop the engine is already well underway and is continuing where the Adaptive Engine Transition Program for the 5th generation F-35 left off. The engine is planned to be ready by around 2028.
As defense maniac YouTuber Perun put it, the US doesn't want merely a better jet; it wants a jet that can "wipe the floor and dominate".
That's if the US does not bankrupt itself with military spending first like the USSR did eh Alex?
'Why Won't the US Help Negotiate a Peaceful End to the War in Ukraine?'
For goodness' sake, negotiate!
For the fifth time since 2008, Russia has proposed to negotiate with the U.S. over security arrangements, this time in proposals made by President Vladimir Putin on June 14, 2024. Four previous times, the U.S. rejected the offer of negotiations in favor of a neocon strategy to weaken or dismember Russia through war and covert operations. The U.S. neocon tactics have failed disastrously, devastating Ukraine in the process, and endangering the whole world. After all the warmongering, it’s time for Biden to open negotiations for peace with Russia.
Since the end of the Cold War, the U.S. grand strategy has been to weaken Russia. As early as 1992, then Defense Secretary Richard Cheney opined that following the 1991 demise of the Soviet Union, Russia too should be dismembered. Zbigniew Brzezinski opined in 1997 that Russia should be divided into three loosely confederated entities in Russian Europe, Siberia, and the far east. In 1999, the U.S.-led NATO alliance bombed Russia’s ally, Serbia, for 78 days in order to break Serbia apart and install a massive NATO military base in breakaway Kosovo. Leaders of the U.S. military-industrial complex vociferously supported the Chechen war against Russia in the early 2000s.
To secure these U.S. advances against Russia, Washington aggressively pushed NATO enlargement, despite promises to Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin that NATO would not move one inch eastward from Germany. Most tendentiously, the U.S. pushed NATO enlargement to Ukraine and Georgia, with the idea of surrounding Russia’s naval fleet in Sevastopol, Crimea with NATO states: Ukraine, Romania (NATO member 2004), Bulgaria (NATO member 2004), Turkey (NATO member 1952), and Georgia, an idea straight from the playbook of the British Empire in the Crimean War (1853-6).
Brzezinski spelled out a chronology of NATO enlargement in 1997, including NATO membership of Ukraine during 2005-2010. The U.S. in fact proposed NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia at the 2008 NATO Bucharest Summit. By 2020, NATO had in fact enlarged by 14 countries in Central Europe, Eastern Europe, and the former Soviet Union (Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland in 1999; Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia in 2004; Albania and Croatia, 2009; Montenegro, 2017; and Northern Macedonia, 2020), while promising future membership to Ukraine and Georgia.
The White House is dead wrong to evade negotiations just because of disagreements with Russia’s proposals. It should put up its own proposals and get down to the business of negotiating an end to the war.
In short, the 30-year U.S. project, hatched originally by Cheney and the neocons, and carried forward consistently since then, has been to weaken or even dismember Russia, surround Russia with NATO forces, and depict Russia as the belligerent power.
It is against this grim backdrop that Russian leaders have repeatedly proposed to negotiate security arrangements with Europe and the U.S. that would provide security for all countries concerned, not just the NATO bloc. Guided by the neocon game plan, the U.S. has refused to negotiate on every occasion, while trying to pin the blame on Russia for the lack of negotiations...................................
Calvin almost a little too intelligent for his age, but my fave Comic Strip evah!!! Dick Watterson is a Genius... The books are even better! The Holy Grail of Comic Strips though wish it was never discontinued.
... is it all just the greed & power-grabbing of 'gangster-capitalism' ... are we locked into this continuing-inferno of conflict-war ... is his how lots-ends
Re.: "Why are we so stuck on warmongers, thieves, and vainglorious simps of empire?"
- I know this is a purely rhetorical question , whose answer we know; but it's a hard-to-accept, potentially discouraging truth especially for those of us who still choose to retain some seeds of hope for humanity.
That answer being, of course, that the most aggressively self-serving, greedy and predatory of humans seem to be inexorably attracted to positions of power where they can follow those instincts and capitalize on them. The political-economic system has itself (d)evolved to one which self-selects for that type, as they came to dominate it and change it to reflect their drives.
Aided by the 'Siamese twin' that is capitalistic commerce conjoined with technology, they have lulled the rest of the population (whom I suspect to be the vast majority) into accepting their leadership under the illusion that they are fulfilling their responsibilities in a democratic republic.
Most people I know seem to recognize that something has not only gone wrong in their society, but also that they continue to get worse.
And yet they seem content nonetheless. There seems to be far too few asking just why this sense persists, why they're expected (and likely will soon choose) to select between two of the most horribly unfit characters to 'lead' their nation- two men who will merely continue the downward trajectory towards collapse of the nation and very possibly global human civilization as we know it.
There have likely always been soulless predators among us; but humanity has (at least in places like the U.S.) gradually allowed them to rule and to reshape the world in their own inhumane image and for their benefit at the cost to all the rest.
Those who understand this are of course, refusing to further play along with at least the political games they've rigged; but will enough step back from their comfortably simplistic and narrow partisan perspectives to look squarely at the deeper system, and challenge it?
Well put, Roger.
We need a mass movement, and so far sufficient mass just isn't there. I suppose the big question is whether we can mobilize for true system reform before it's too late. I just don't know the answer to that.
Nor do I, Bill. I believe it is theoretically possible, but the trend lines don't suggest high odds for it. More likely, unfortunately, is that changes will be forged out of chaos... with a lot higher degree of pain for a lot more people and other critters.
It's the pain for the other critters that's the real tragedy and travesty, Roger, IMO. There isn't a single non-human creature that contributes to the rape and pillage of this planet.
I get it and lean that same way, Denise. Yet I've seen more than enough beauty, kindness, generosity and love in humans so as to be unable to write us off. Perhaps we humans can raise our mass consciousness so as to be able to live in sustained harmony will all?
I take your point, Roger. However, as Bill said, there isn't enough "mass" among the kind, generous people. At least, not now. It would take some kind of universal raising of consciousness, a complete do-over among mankind. Other than the destruction of most of our species, I can't imagine sufficient impetus.
Nor do I as yet, Roger & Bill!
The first big question, Bill, is with what would the current system be “reformed” to? And my guess is that if it comes to that, “reforming” that system will fail. What is required is for that system to be replaced.
So the real question is: What does America’s current system of Government and Governance need to be replaced with and by?
George Carlin - Maybe it's not the politicians who suck?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9etoocgcWm8
"If you have selfish ignorant citizens, you are going to get selfish ignorant leaders."
Surely the same could be said about the system, eh Jeff?
How about it's not America’s current system of Government and Governance that needs to be changed. Maybe it's the America citizens who need to take a good hard look into the mirror!
After all the "System" does not decide on Domestic and Foreign Policy. It's the people!
Did that answer Your question?
Which “people” is it, Dennis, that “decide on Domestic and Foreign Policy”? Can You cite any specific examples?
Re Foreign Policy: How much did the American Peoples have to say about:
1. America’s War in Vietnam under Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, and Ford?
2. America’s War on Central America under Bush I and Bozo?
3. Bush I’s “liberation” of Kuwait and his Sanctions against the Iraqi Peoples?
4. Cheney/Bush II’s launching of America’s “Forever War” in Afghanistan and Pakistan in reaction and response to 9/11?
5. Cheney/Bush II’s invasion and occupation of Iraq and all of Saddam’s “WMDs,” and the expansion of the Forever War into Libya, Syria, Somalia, and so forth?
6. First Obama’s and then Trump’s, and now Biden’s policies and actions as regards America’s planned proxy War with Russia in Ukraine?
7. America’s bankrolling, arming, and equipping Israel’s Genocide in Gaza?
And looking ahead, how much will the American Peoples have to say about the planned, programmed, and in-process War with China?
Re Domestic Policy: How much did the American Peoples have to say about:
1. Their federal, state, and local Governments’ handling of The COVID Event when, with 4.2% of the World’s Total Population, the US has suffered 16% of the Total COVID Cases and 17% of the Total COVID Deaths?
2. How the federal Government handled the 2008 “Too Big To Let Fail” financial “¢risi$”?
And how much do the American Peoples have to say about America’s growing by leaps and bounds national, sovereign Debt [currently at $34.8 TRILLION and counting]? Or their Government’s Unfunded Liabilities [currently at $216.6 TRILLION and growing]?
The American Peoples need to examine, inspect, and investigate their nation’s system of Government and Governance that is owned, operated, commanded, and controlled by America’s Ruling Political Class and its designated Vested Special Interests, and realize, understand, acknowledge, and accept that that is the ONLY way any of these things did happen. And could have happened.
t'is unlikely, hoff; only if they can no longer watch TV, pay their rent and thus become homeless, feed their families, buy their coveted next-gen electronic devices, purchase tickets to their favourite football stadium's games, and 'egads, the equipollent spirits forbid!' that their neighbourhood pub dissolves into bankruptcy. the dissolution of their comfort zones might catalyze aforementioned challenge.
Well said, Roger. Let’s hope that that question about “warmongers, thieves, and vainglorious simps of empire” is not merely “rhetorical,” eh?
You concluded with: “Will enough [Americans] step back from their comfortably simplistic and narrow partisan perspectives to look squarely at the deeper system, and challenge it?”
So one question is: Is the actual, real Problem NOT the particular people running that “Deeper System”? Or rather, is the Problem the “Deeper System” itself, which enables all those self-serving, greedy, and predatory humans to HAVE all that Power that they are so attracted to?
And my answer is: The Problem is the system of Government and Governance that enables select Vested Special Interests ~ especially all those self-serving, greedy, and predatory ones ~ to bid for and gain ready, easy, and available access to that Government’s legal power, administrative authority, and, above all, its spending capacity and capability, so as to advance the agendas of those individual, group, organizational, and institutional VSIs. And the highest bidders thus own, operate, command, and control the elected politicians, entrenched bureaucrats, and anointed appointees in Washington, and get very adequate returns on their investments.
And the “Siamese twins” at work here are not “CAPITALISM and technology,” but CORPORATISM and technology [EMPHASIS added]. And unless and until people understand, acknowledge, and accept that there is a massive, unbridgeable difference between “Capitalism,” on the one hand, and “Corporatism” on the other, nothing is going to change except to get worse than it already is.
And while many, perhaps even most Americans may agree that something seems to have gone very seriously wrong in and with America, is getting worse, and that, under the current Rules and Rulers of America’s Ruling Political Class, can and will only continue to get worse, what real choice do they have BUT to accept one of those two scumbags as their only choice at this moment?
And more importantly: Where is any alternative to Brump and Tiden as that choice? An actual, real Alternative who could actually, really bring about real, actual Change? Especially if they don’t have a Congress that is focused on and dedicated to the same principles and values, and bringing about the same necessary CHANGES to this nation’s system of Government and Governance?
And throughout all of Human History, humanity has indeed Always had those “soulless predators” hanging around, ruling, and thus reshaping the world in their own image. That’s what Humans invented Government to most efficiently, effectively, and efficaciously do. Especially when allied with some organized Religion.
And finally: What alternative is Anybody offering that looks squarely at that “Deeper System” [aka the Deep State] and would be able to in fact challenge it? And then defeat, dismantle, and destroy it?
On the subject of power.
Amos Oz was a gifted Israeli writer. In his autobiographical book "A Tale of Love and Darkness" that I highly recommend, he describes a scene where he is picking apples on a kibbutz with another resident. They are talking about Menachem Begin, a fanatical Zionist, long before he became an Israeli Prime Minister. The coworker says to Oz...
"They, Begin and his chums, talk from morning to evening about power, but they haven't the first idea what power is, what it's made of, what the weaknesses of power are. After all, power has an element of terrible danger for those that wield it. Didn't that bastard Stalin once say that religion is the opiate of the masses? Well, just listen to little old me. I tell you power is the opium of the ruling classes. And not only the ruling classes. Power is the opium of the whole of humanity."
A clarification is needed. Stalin was referring to the opium of the masses as a sedative to keep them compliant with the wishes of the powerful. For the powerful, the reference to opium is as an addiction with a craving for more of it, always for more. We see it again and again in history. The downtrodden rise up and overthrow the rulers and before long those formerly without power are abusing the power they have gained.
In the US we see the power of money and how those who hold astronomical amounts of money want more and are obsessed with their place on the Fortune 500 list, a competition that drags all of us along. The opium of the American people is entertainment and distractions for one and all, custom tailored via smartphones and big flat screens.
In the trenchant movie, "Network" the crazy anchorman has the public shouting from the windows - "We've had enough and we're not going to take it any more!" But what do they want? Their wish is to be left alone in their living rooms and with their steel belted radial tires (that is, unlimited consumption).
That's the American dilemma - we see the corruption, we see power running wild, but we have the opiate of unlimited and cheap things to sedate any desire to get out in the streets. I see no end to this situation regardless of which of the two repulsive candidates wins the election in November. We are locked in to the comfort of consumption and our spending on it directly feeds the wealth of the powerful who dominate us.
P.S. I heard that Hillary is being pushed as a replacement for Kamala Harris. OMG!
Hillary might be the one person more unpopular than Kamala.
insuperably, categorically a magesterial response, clif.
Holocaust survivor, Primo Levi, recounted a letter from a Nazi writing to defend himself well after World War II.
The man’s wife placed a note into the letter that read, “When the devil is loose in the village, a few people try to resist and are overcome, many bow their heads, and the majority follow him with enthusiasm.”
Well, here we are again….
Kennedy's speech wanting a peaceful dialogue with the Soviet Russians is what got him killed. Those forces still active in America are determined to go to War with Russia, spurning all of Putin's Peaceful overtures for a new tone and attitude in US-Russia relations.
US brinkmanship in Ukraine can lead this Material World to the unthinkable happening, with 1 ignorant move. That's how close this World is to the most DESTRUCTIVE War to End all Wars a Century late.
US NATO MSM being propagandists for the POWER, not speaking TRUTH to it, are blind and oblivious to US Actions that brought this World to the precipice of self-destruction.
And King's speech denouncing the Vietnam War is what got him killed.
How many people ~ politicians or otherwise ~ have been killed recently for denouncing War and proposing Peace?
How many people ~ especially politicians ~ have been denouncing ALL War everywhere, and proposing Peace in its place?
Don't forget George Washington's admonition about the dangers of a standing army as well. It is too tempting to use, as is the case today.
In June of 1787, James Madison addressed the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia on the dangers of a permanent army. “A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty,” he argued. “The means of defense against foreign danger, have been always the instruments of tyranny at home. Among the Romans it was a standing maxim to excite a war, whenever a revolt was apprehended. Throughout all Europe, the armies kept up under the pretext of defending, have enslaved the people.”
"What's the point of having this superb military that you're always talking about if we can't use it?" - Madeleine Albright To Colin Powell. 2003
Sounds like a rephrasing of Gen Groves head of the Manhattan project "The American taxpayers want to see where their money went." when discussing whether to use the bomb. Nothing much has changed except the fact that the policy maker was advocating war and destruction rather than the general.
Outstanding piece, Bill. Definitely to be included in “The BEST of BV,”
But i gotta ask a question or two. The first question is: WHEN did that “different, less militaristic and bellicose” America exist? In Your [or my, being born in 1946] lifetime?
And when has America ~ once it became a Nation-State ~ had any “triumphs of wisdom and goodness”? Especially since Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
And re General Butler’s proclamations, the third question is: Does that make everybody in ~ or who has ever been in ~ American national defense, homeland security, secrecy, and surveillance rackets a “gangster for capitalism”? Including You and me as retired “gangsters for capitalism”?
Also, i wonder if anybody running for office this November would consider adding the promise of a Nye Committee for examining and exposing America’s post-World War II ~ and especially post-9/11 ~ “Merchants of Death” to their campaign platform.
The biggest problem with that whole thing is that the findings of that Committee were completly ignored by everybody, and, as a result, accomplished absolutely nothing in the real world. Especially when it came to eliminating the Profit Motive as a major, core Cause of War. Hence, World War II and virtually every War on this Planet since. At least the ones that America was involved in.
And Thankee for sharing Calvin’s perspective on the whole thing. That Kid's pretty wise for one so young, eh? And his Tigger seems even wiser.
WWII and the "arsenal of democracy" myth really did a number on us, Jeff. We emerged victorious and virtually unscathed from that devastating war, uniquely powerful, so we occupied the power vacuum that existed, establishing an empire on which the sun never sets.
The vision of global reach, global power, of dominance everywhere, led us to military adventurism and wildly destructive wars like Vietnam. No rivals, e.g. the Soviet Union, could be tolerated. We'd even destroy the world (via nuclear weapons) to save it from Communism. Better red than dead!
But there have always been American fighting against this, as I noted. Indeed, you yourself fought against the Iraq War. Most Americans, indeed most people, don't want war. They are coerced into it by a lying government.
I return to the platform of George McGovern in 1972: "Come home, America." Stop the wars. Dismantle the empire.
The problem is that our government is led by two war parties, the Democrats and Republicans, both essentially controlled by the MI Complex, and, in some cases, by foreign powers, e.g. Israel. I think a mass protest movement is the only thing that might change this for the better, otherwise we'll just have to wait for the empire to collapse under its own considerable weight and corruption, and that'll truly be "interesting times."
The next generation of fighters (6th) is estimated to cost $300 million each, up from $110 million for the F-35. I mean can we spend money we don't have or what? https://simpleflying.com/how-much-cost-develop-us-6-gen-fighter-jets/
The US Air Force is spending heavily on developing the 6th Generation Air Dominance fighter (NGAD). According to AviationWeek, the Air Force intends to spend $2.81-billion on its development in 2025. ( I'm losing track! Wasn't the 5th Generation F-35, which has still not fired a shot in combat but dropped lots of bombs on refugee camps and hospitals, a mere US$1.7-trillion? A Billion here - a Trillion there - whose counting, eh?)
The Air Force is requesting $1.3 billion over the next three years to complete the development of NGAD's new advanced engine. According to Air and Space Forces Magazine, the effort to develop the engine is already well underway and is continuing where the Adaptive Engine Transition Program for the 5th generation F-35 left off. The engine is planned to be ready by around 2028.
As defense maniac YouTuber Perun put it, the US doesn't want merely a better jet; it wants a jet that can "wipe the floor and dominate".
That's if the US does not bankrupt itself with military spending first like the USSR did eh Alex?
The Air Force has to mega-spend. Otherwise it might get left out and they wouldn't want that to happen.
Special thanks for this one, good man.
'Why Won't the US Help Negotiate a Peaceful End to the War in Ukraine?'
For goodness' sake, negotiate!
For the fifth time since 2008, Russia has proposed to negotiate with the U.S. over security arrangements, this time in proposals made by President Vladimir Putin on June 14, 2024. Four previous times, the U.S. rejected the offer of negotiations in favor of a neocon strategy to weaken or dismember Russia through war and covert operations. The U.S. neocon tactics have failed disastrously, devastating Ukraine in the process, and endangering the whole world. After all the warmongering, it’s time for Biden to open negotiations for peace with Russia.
Since the end of the Cold War, the U.S. grand strategy has been to weaken Russia. As early as 1992, then Defense Secretary Richard Cheney opined that following the 1991 demise of the Soviet Union, Russia too should be dismembered. Zbigniew Brzezinski opined in 1997 that Russia should be divided into three loosely confederated entities in Russian Europe, Siberia, and the far east. In 1999, the U.S.-led NATO alliance bombed Russia’s ally, Serbia, for 78 days in order to break Serbia apart and install a massive NATO military base in breakaway Kosovo. Leaders of the U.S. military-industrial complex vociferously supported the Chechen war against Russia in the early 2000s.
To secure these U.S. advances against Russia, Washington aggressively pushed NATO enlargement, despite promises to Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin that NATO would not move one inch eastward from Germany. Most tendentiously, the U.S. pushed NATO enlargement to Ukraine and Georgia, with the idea of surrounding Russia’s naval fleet in Sevastopol, Crimea with NATO states: Ukraine, Romania (NATO member 2004), Bulgaria (NATO member 2004), Turkey (NATO member 1952), and Georgia, an idea straight from the playbook of the British Empire in the Crimean War (1853-6).
Brzezinski spelled out a chronology of NATO enlargement in 1997, including NATO membership of Ukraine during 2005-2010. The U.S. in fact proposed NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia at the 2008 NATO Bucharest Summit. By 2020, NATO had in fact enlarged by 14 countries in Central Europe, Eastern Europe, and the former Soviet Union (Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland in 1999; Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia in 2004; Albania and Croatia, 2009; Montenegro, 2017; and Northern Macedonia, 2020), while promising future membership to Ukraine and Georgia.
The White House is dead wrong to evade negotiations just because of disagreements with Russia’s proposals. It should put up its own proposals and get down to the business of negotiating an end to the war.
In short, the 30-year U.S. project, hatched originally by Cheney and the neocons, and carried forward consistently since then, has been to weaken or even dismember Russia, surround Russia with NATO forces, and depict Russia as the belligerent power.
It is against this grim backdrop that Russian leaders have repeatedly proposed to negotiate security arrangements with Europe and the U.S. that would provide security for all countries concerned, not just the NATO bloc. Guided by the neocon game plan, the U.S. has refused to negotiate on every occasion, while trying to pin the blame on Russia for the lack of negotiations...................................
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/role-of-us-in-russia-ukraine-war
Calvin almost a little too intelligent for his age, but my fave Comic Strip evah!!! Dick Watterson is a Genius... The books are even better! The Holy Grail of Comic Strips though wish it was never discontinued.
I really like Dilbert as well. Unfortunately Scott Adams said a forbidden thing and got cancelled by our Soviet-style big media.
"Goodness" in America resides only in myth; America has always been in expansionist mode, always.
... is it all just the greed & power-grabbing of 'gangster-capitalism' ... are we locked into this continuing-inferno of conflict-war ... is his how lots-ends