In 1950 US forces shelled a refugee column trying to enter its line because it was feared North Koreans were infiltrating. That incident was deep holed for decades.
Imagine expecting to deep hole US gifts of lethal gear, shooting up thousands of civilians for endless months in the digital age!
IMO, the question to ask is Has the US changed for the better since 1898? And IMO a distinction needs to be made between progressed and changed. My answer would require an essay.
I would choose 1845, and statehood for Texas. Precipitated a war!
Just after the American war between the states 1865, Gen Sheridan took command of 50000 mostly veteran troops in Texas to get the French out of Mexico. The French soon left!
US imperialism was heady long before grabbing Spain's possessions.
Do you mean the Spanish Floridas that Jefferson was all for grabbing? And then there's the story of Louisiana, which was Spanish from 1762 to 1801 when France stole it back via secret treaty. Contrary to most US History texts, Jefferson was quite the Imperialist.
Crookes article today is excellent until he goes into what he sees as the root philosophy of our ruling class.
"This is the deceit concealed in classical Liberalism’s language of freedom and individualism – ‘freedom’ nonetheless being hailed as the major contribution of the French Revolution to western civilisation."
He's wide of the mark here. Just obliterates the class aspect of the revolution, the economic transition it ushered in and the political rights it gave birth too, which are now long gone.
Biden, Nuland, Blinken, Macron, etc are not basing themselves on classical liberalism, they are responding barbarically to the pressures imposed on them by a moribund imperialism. They are fascist totalitarian lunatics that move at the behest of billionaire oligarchs. The first tragedy was WW1 and this time around it's repeated as a farce.
To lay the blame on Rousseau or the French Revolution reminds me of the Frankfurt school post WW2. They felt passionately that the war and holocaust we're rooted in, wait for it, the enlightenment!
He's a good analyst of the here and now, but philosophically he is an articulate novice imo.
The authors he cited for Mills and Rousseau also revealed their agendas. In Gray's essay, he says "For latter-day hyper-liberals, free speech is useful only so long as it advances a progressive project," and then makes this connection "At bottom, the liberal assault on free speech is a bid for unchecked power." But again, these people are miscategorized as Liberals when they're Fascists, while the term "progressive project" should be project at hand, for what's happening isn't Progressive at all. The other writer cited, Jabob Howland at <i>Unherd</i>, again conflates Progressivism with Reaction. IMO, Crooke is correct to expose the decidedly illiberal within what's supposedly Liberal. For me, the ultimate, highest value within Liberalism is tolerance of most everything within the Moral Sphere. Frank Furedi 's substack essay, however, is very though provoking as is reviewing Polanyi again.
Someone long ago intoned that buried within every Liberal was a Fascist, which I always thought of as painting with too wide a brush. But the more I look at all that have appeared since 1945, most seem to be lifeless automatons in service to corrupted power and nothing's been allowed to break the surface to challenge that power until very recently.
What distinction? Are you arguing that socialists and liberals are the same, despite believing in opposite and contradictory ways of organising socio-economically?
Are you suggesting that Polanyi was a liberal, as well as a socialist and therefore a 'red totalitarian' ?
Nothing is easier or more acceptable in capitalist society than this sort of all men are evil, change is impossible, a plague on all their houses nonsense.
Here is an interesting fact about Polanyi: he spent the end of his ife in Toronto. He taught in New York city but he couldn't live there because his wife refused to renounce communism.
That was in the era of McCarthy, which corrupted the United States and the cultural sphere that it dominated for decades. What Crooke sees in the response to peaceful protest in the "west" is just the latest iteration of the suffocating conformity that has always been an important part of American culture- it goes back to the Puritans, but it is much broader based. It is a recurring phenomenon not because 'men are evil' but because the ruling class has come to regard racism and other divisive ideologies as necessary to the preservation of its power.
Thank you Karl. As the tempo gains and the occupations rise we might remember Kent State back in May 4 1970 when the establishment made an exemplary punishment and murdered four university students at that protest. Intolerance is their mind and murder is their game.
The USA is sure going to have an interesting election campaign this time round. I can see some yellow stars of david echoing Germany in the 30's being bandied about on various candidate placards and campaign offices. The memes will be thick and fast and no wonder there is a terrified dash to bring in 'hate' legislation to silence the unruly. Can the USA throw off the shackles one more time?
Maybe your substack page can have a sub page wherein a monthly meme/cartoon contest is run and we gymnasium barflies can vote for some small set of categories ;))
Occupy is reborn and much wiser and organised this time round.
I think that the excessive individuality is the problem. It seems that one lone psychopath has more pull than the thousands of other individuals who join together to resist this psychopathy.
One individual equals a noble ideal, thousands of individuals joined in common cause are seen as a seething uncontrolled and dangerous mob that has to be stopped.
Yeah, sort of dealing with that issue in the MoA discussion about the impending attack on Rafah. I compiled some thoughts I've accumulated into a thought piece I'm about to publish.
A lot to think about. I have to admit that while I never put much faith in American liberalism to advance modest socialist goals like taxpayer funded healthcare and college (or vocational) education for all, for example, it still stuns me to see them facilitating a genocide. Then they start (most fucking gallingly) gaslighting us (themselves?) to the point where they are criminalizing those who stand up for the very values they strut around proclaiming. Thanks Karl, great stuff.
"It is a naked bid for unchecked power..." As an anarchist - and a rabidly individualist one at that, not some socialist collective version - I've been saying that for years. People STILL cling to the state as the solution to all problems. All this stuff about "de-civilization" is just more of the same.
As individualist anarchists have pointed out for decades, the problem is human society itself. That generates the state and all its excesses.
But they don't go far enough. In fact, it's now becoming more and more obvious that it's HUMAN NATURE itself which is the problem. People who think turning back to separated "nations" and "culture" is going to solve all the problems are delusional - as usual.
As the Situationists said once, ask so-called "radicals" what of society should be preserved in their "new order" - it will turn out to be just about everything.
To quote William S. Burroughs:
"We intend to march on the police machine everywhere. We intend to destroy the police machine and all its records. We intend to destroy all dogmatic verbal systems. The family unit and its cancerous expansion into tribes, countries, nations, we will eradicate at its vegetable roots. We don't want to hear any more family talk, mother talk, father talk, cop talk, priest talk, country talk or party talk. To put it country simple, we have heard enough bullshit."
And further:
"At a time when the hope of the human race lies in space exploration and above all in biological mutation, we are threatened by a Moron Majority committed to enforcing their stupid, bestial, bigoted opinions on everybody else. To such people the very thought of mutation is the ultimate sacrifice. These are the guard dogs that will keep the human race in arrested evolution until this
experiment is quietly buried . . . until it disappears. That is what we are facing here: an extermination program. All the basic moves thought out in the turn of the century. "
Burroughs was one of the very few humans who "got it."
In 1950 US forces shelled a refugee column trying to enter its line because it was feared North Koreans were infiltrating. That incident was deep holed for decades.
Imagine expecting to deep hole US gifts of lethal gear, shooting up thousands of civilians for endless months in the digital age!
Yeah, I saw the No Gun Ri comment at MoA. Support for Zionist Terrorists is one of the continuing US policies since 1948.
What changed the US? My Lai was better covered!
Situational for Israel?
IMO, the question to ask is Has the US changed for the better since 1898? And IMO a distinction needs to be made between progressed and changed. My answer would require an essay.
I would choose 1845, and statehood for Texas. Precipitated a war!
Just after the American war between the states 1865, Gen Sheridan took command of 50000 mostly veteran troops in Texas to get the French out of Mexico. The French soon left!
US imperialism was heady long before grabbing Spain's possessions.
Do you mean the Spanish Floridas that Jefferson was all for grabbing? And then there's the story of Louisiana, which was Spanish from 1762 to 1801 when France stole it back via secret treaty. Contrary to most US History texts, Jefferson was quite the Imperialist.
Jefferson had that punitive raid in the Mediterranean as well!!! US Marines in Tripoli, foreshadowing US bombing out Qaddafi.
Crookes article today is excellent until he goes into what he sees as the root philosophy of our ruling class.
"This is the deceit concealed in classical Liberalism’s language of freedom and individualism – ‘freedom’ nonetheless being hailed as the major contribution of the French Revolution to western civilisation."
He's wide of the mark here. Just obliterates the class aspect of the revolution, the economic transition it ushered in and the political rights it gave birth too, which are now long gone.
Biden, Nuland, Blinken, Macron, etc are not basing themselves on classical liberalism, they are responding barbarically to the pressures imposed on them by a moribund imperialism. They are fascist totalitarian lunatics that move at the behest of billionaire oligarchs. The first tragedy was WW1 and this time around it's repeated as a farce.
To lay the blame on Rousseau or the French Revolution reminds me of the Frankfurt school post WW2. They felt passionately that the war and holocaust we're rooted in, wait for it, the enlightenment!
He's a good analyst of the here and now, but philosophically he is an articulate novice imo.
The authors he cited for Mills and Rousseau also revealed their agendas. In Gray's essay, he says "For latter-day hyper-liberals, free speech is useful only so long as it advances a progressive project," and then makes this connection "At bottom, the liberal assault on free speech is a bid for unchecked power." But again, these people are miscategorized as Liberals when they're Fascists, while the term "progressive project" should be project at hand, for what's happening isn't Progressive at all. The other writer cited, Jabob Howland at <i>Unherd</i>, again conflates Progressivism with Reaction. IMO, Crooke is correct to expose the decidedly illiberal within what's supposedly Liberal. For me, the ultimate, highest value within Liberalism is tolerance of most everything within the Moral Sphere. Frank Furedi 's substack essay, however, is very though provoking as is reviewing Polanyi again.
Someone long ago intoned that buried within every Liberal was a Fascist, which I always thought of as painting with too wide a brush. But the more I look at all that have appeared since 1945, most seem to be lifeless automatons in service to corrupted power and nothing's been allowed to break the surface to challenge that power until very recently.
Liberals / Socialists / Greens - all are watermelons: green on the outside, red on the inside.... (Totalitarian red, if I may make a distinction.)
What distinction? Are you arguing that socialists and liberals are the same, despite believing in opposite and contradictory ways of organising socio-economically?
Are you suggesting that Polanyi was a liberal, as well as a socialist and therefore a 'red totalitarian' ?
Nothing is easier or more acceptable in capitalist society than this sort of all men are evil, change is impossible, a plague on all their houses nonsense.
Here is an interesting fact about Polanyi: he spent the end of his ife in Toronto. He taught in New York city but he couldn't live there because his wife refused to renounce communism.
That was in the era of McCarthy, which corrupted the United States and the cultural sphere that it dominated for decades. What Crooke sees in the response to peaceful protest in the "west" is just the latest iteration of the suffocating conformity that has always been an important part of American culture- it goes back to the Puritans, but it is much broader based. It is a recurring phenomenon not because 'men are evil' but because the ruling class has come to regard racism and other divisive ideologies as necessary to the preservation of its power.
Thank you Karl. As the tempo gains and the occupations rise we might remember Kent State back in May 4 1970 when the establishment made an exemplary punishment and murdered four university students at that protest. Intolerance is their mind and murder is their game.
The USA is sure going to have an interesting election campaign this time round. I can see some yellow stars of david echoing Germany in the 30's being bandied about on various candidate placards and campaign offices. The memes will be thick and fast and no wonder there is a terrified dash to bring in 'hate' legislation to silence the unruly. Can the USA throw off the shackles one more time?
Maybe your substack page can have a sub page wherein a monthly meme/cartoon contest is run and we gymnasium barflies can vote for some small set of categories ;))
Occupy is reborn and much wiser and organised this time round.
Jill Stein--Anti-War, Pro-Humanity, Pro Palestinian, and Jewish--the only worthy POTUS candidate.
Thanks Karl, much to think about here.
I think that the excessive individuality is the problem. It seems that one lone psychopath has more pull than the thousands of other individuals who join together to resist this psychopathy.
One individual equals a noble ideal, thousands of individuals joined in common cause are seen as a seething uncontrolled and dangerous mob that has to be stopped.
Yeah, sort of dealing with that issue in the MoA discussion about the impending attack on Rafah. I compiled some thoughts I've accumulated into a thought piece I'm about to publish.
"I think that the excessive individuality is the problem."
It's the exact opposite. But then all the betas insist on having an alpha...
A lot to think about. I have to admit that while I never put much faith in American liberalism to advance modest socialist goals like taxpayer funded healthcare and college (or vocational) education for all, for example, it still stuns me to see them facilitating a genocide. Then they start (most fucking gallingly) gaslighting us (themselves?) to the point where they are criminalizing those who stand up for the very values they strut around proclaiming. Thanks Karl, great stuff.
Not long ago I characterized the Outlaw US Empire as a caduceus--a snake that's eating its tail thinking it's an excellent morsel.
There was a great deal of very thought provoking material in that essay. Cheers, Karl! That was absolutely worth the read.
Thanks. The two other substacks were also quite good.
"It is a naked bid for unchecked power..." As an anarchist - and a rabidly individualist one at that, not some socialist collective version - I've been saying that for years. People STILL cling to the state as the solution to all problems. All this stuff about "de-civilization" is just more of the same.
As individualist anarchists have pointed out for decades, the problem is human society itself. That generates the state and all its excesses.
But they don't go far enough. In fact, it's now becoming more and more obvious that it's HUMAN NATURE itself which is the problem. People who think turning back to separated "nations" and "culture" is going to solve all the problems are delusional - as usual.
As the Situationists said once, ask so-called "radicals" what of society should be preserved in their "new order" - it will turn out to be just about everything.
To quote William S. Burroughs:
"We intend to march on the police machine everywhere. We intend to destroy the police machine and all its records. We intend to destroy all dogmatic verbal systems. The family unit and its cancerous expansion into tribes, countries, nations, we will eradicate at its vegetable roots. We don't want to hear any more family talk, mother talk, father talk, cop talk, priest talk, country talk or party talk. To put it country simple, we have heard enough bullshit."
And further:
"At a time when the hope of the human race lies in space exploration and above all in biological mutation, we are threatened by a Moron Majority committed to enforcing their stupid, bestial, bigoted opinions on everybody else. To such people the very thought of mutation is the ultimate sacrifice. These are the guard dogs that will keep the human race in arrested evolution until this
experiment is quietly buried . . . until it disappears. That is what we are facing here: an extermination program. All the basic moves thought out in the turn of the century. "
Burroughs was one of the very few humans who "got it."