A valuable and refreshing essay that encourages the younger generations of USA to seek the root reasons why the US's current maniacal quest for hegemony is doomed to failure. It is important for them because they will be negatively impacted by the social disharmony that is about to be unleashed within their own communities.
A great article. Bravo. I quoted it in part on Larry Johnso's blog. It is my pertinent comment here at the same time. So I'm copying it 1:1 here.
———
I still don't know his real name, but here karlof hit exactly the middle of the black dot at a distance of 1000 m. (Warning: metaphor.)
"Empire making is a very bloody business; there's nothing altruistic about it at all. Indeed, the blood and suffering needs to be covered up. The savage settlers who massacred the natives and kept their scalps needed to reverse the immoral/sinful psychology of their deeds and used projection as solace by calling all natives savages, a trait that survives to the present. But as most US-based readers will note, none of that truth is taught in schools or to be found in general textbooks. Essentially, savage behavior is condoned and promoted as a virtue."
For the spirited among us, the following is also phrased metaphorically. Don't take it literally. Look in the mirror and you will see the ugliness and evil.
Just imagine that you have been a Palestinian in Gaza for 80 years and you have had to live through all the horrors, up to the point where they finally wipe out your people, from the unborn, to your children and grandchildren, to you. How would you feel? Always look in the mirror.
27 million dead people, many thousands of destroyed towns and villages, a declared and practiced genocide against your Slavic ethnic group, in order to wipe out your entire people, from the unborn, to your children and grandchildren, to you. How would you feel? Always look in the mirror. Organized, staged, financed and equipped with vast amounts of deadly weapons by the USA, ideologically manipulated Ukrainians are taking action: "Russians on the knives!"
What the USA has been doing since its existence is nothing other than the Nazism of Hitler, Mussolini & Co. and I am not interested in comparing the Third Reich and its specific crimes with the USA, but rather in the self-image of a US oligarch and elite class with that of the Third Reich.
Whether economic war or military war, the USA can still invest many trillions of USD in its war armaments, the time of dictatorship is over and "the emperor is naked".
Now there is once again a "great" leader behind whom we can march. ("Heil Dir Trump!") How convenient, because the "leader" will solve the problems for us. This is the messianic expectation of the frustrated. The end will be as dramatic as that of every previous empire in human history. Except that we now have nuclear weapons, space weapons, weather weapons and, most horrific of all, biological weapons.
How can you believe in Jesus Christ if you feel that is positive?
Thanks for your feedback and excellent writing at SONAR21. IMO, Putin should refuse a person-to-person with Trump and in tell him over the phone: The only thing you respect are our missiles as you refuse to conform to any law and thus nothing you say or agree to can be believed.
The American problem is seemingly at odds with its Constitution which is full of lofty statements, subverted by oligarchy using the tools of banksterism. Little Britain has its City which has covertly run the nation even before the formation of the Bank of England. The unaccountable corporate brigands populate the collective west so while this claque remains in power I can't see any other resolution than capitulation by one or the other side, which looks like the PRC and Russian Federation vs US (and various combined west). Japan quit the League of Nations, and we know how petulant Trump can be...
"I can't see any other resolution than capitulation by one or the other side," - I can & you've seen it already; the world divided like during the cold-war - the Orwellian "1984" scenario.
You're referring to the "Garrison State" strategy. It's like the "freeze" of the Ukraine conflict, a moment to gather forces before resuming hostilities. In the meantime the US and its vassals have to re-start industries to scale production that matches capital investment. Take a look at the stats of where market size is largest and it's not the "combined west". For insights I suggest reading Inside China Business by Kevin Walmsly. China is by far the worlds largest economy and US wishful thinking won't change that. The political degeneration of the west will more likely look like Japan's Sengoku Jidai-Tokugawa Shogunate periods. The west's predatory financial/economic predation model is unstable and can't be saved by techno-feudalism.
I've never encountered the (obscurant) "Garrison State" strategy (Japan pre-1945 when not invading somewhere & NK since birth, I suppose, or any sovereign entity which greatly "garrisons" itself) - I see this SMO and the RU's broader objectives as unprecedented in history, not simply because they could turn really offensive-like in the blink of an eye and blow-up the world and maybe the moon too..."The west's predatory financial/economic predation model is unstable and can't be saved by techno-feudalism." Right - this spells the end of USA-led global neo-lib "end-of-history". For us in the west, poverty and techno-feudalism here-we-come. For the rest, who knows?..I believe "China is by far the world's largest (REAL) economy and US wishful thinking won't change that." also.
It is another matter that the allies already had a hidden agenda, but this does not in any way diminish the enduring importance of the high statutory principles . . .
That is what is all about and you recognize that it might take a long time for the US to align itself with those principles.
'America First' and Might Makes Right are deeply infused in the American psyche. My mother, visiting from the Netherlands in 1972, asked me to explain the Pledge of Allegiance to her, after she attended an event with our host. It reminded her of the occupation by our neighbors a while back.
Fulbright, being a Senator from Arkansas, had a voting record that reflected the realities of getting re-elected in his state. People of his stature are no longer viable. America did produce a whole lot of good people in the fifties and sixties. I miss them and I am not seeing that viable any time soon.
I wrote a long reply to your MoA post that partly reflects my own frustrations over the years to come to grips with the reality I live within. Learning how it all came about has helped some, but it doesn’t resolve the conundrum. My wife is aghast at Trump/Musk but I try to remind her that Team Biden were worse. If we weren’t loyal to our families, we’d probably emigrate, although at 70 I’m getting too old for moving house. So, we live in our small town in a small state far away from big cities and live out our time.
I love your optimism but Trump/Musk will turn out to be just as evil if not more so than Team Biden, he's already bombed Somalia cuz of ISIS(LOL), is all in favor of turning
Gaza into Trump City, am guessing he gives the go ahead to letting the Zionist take over the West Bank and has sanctioned/threatened Iran w/obliteration in addition to telling them that they can't be a sovereign nation
This is only just the beginning, cuz w/Musk n charge it's all coming here to amerika
I was busy most of yesterday composing my essay and would add more to it now. Here’s my comment at MoA about Trump’s actions:
“Time for new names--Genocide Don and Genocidal US Empire. What's the status beyond Outlaw? Trump seems to be allied with Nuland, et al with destroying the Yalta-Potsdam-UN global security and international law arrangement. IMO, we can say the Neocon Trump has emerged from its closet and is being his own Pompeo. Meanwhile, Trump's domestic actions are threatening the wellbeing of small rural communities as much of their support systems are funded by grants--the ones he's suspended. And most of those places voted for Trump.”
I saw the comment about you being 70 years old and if possible you'd very much like to leave amerika. I am on that same ship Karl.
I fear that it's going to get very dark here in the next few years w/Trump thinking he's godlike. If anything yesterday showed to the world that Trump cares only about Trump
with everything including ethnic cleansing/genocide being just another real estate transaction.
What was really scary to me is his pronouncing that everyone he talked too loved his idea and that's the tiny/small club that we, the people don't belong to
Thanks for your reply, Garry. As yet, there's been no formal reaction by Russia to Trump's destructive actions, although today Lavrov spoke very powerfully about the Fact that Cancel Culture remains very strong, remarks that I'll translate and publish later today. Here's his third paragraph:
"Today we proposed to touch on the topic of "cancel culture." By and large, it is all-encompassing. This does not even apply so much to Ukraine, because the "cancel culture" of everything that the West does not like began to be applied long before the Ukrainian crisis. When the guardians of democracy and the "rule of law" did not like something, they simply "canceled" it and, instead of this inconvenient format and law, they applied their "rules" on which, as they said, the world order should be based. This is how international law was abolished. In fact, it was "sacrificed" to the very "rules" that, as we have found out more than once, no one has seen, read or presented to the international community."
Lavrov speaking is always a gem. In yesterday's 80 year anniversary speech I wonder exactly who he was speaking to at times.
I wish I could be that proverbial fly on the wall that hears the inner talking's that happen in the Kremlin, Chinese Great Hall and the talks between them. I guess I'm just looking for that confirmation that they fully know the level of evil working against them
I imagine that Albright is NOT enjoying the peace, harmony and luxury of a Christian (or Jewish, or Islamic or Buddhist, or Hindu or Calathumpian) Heaven.
They're also all white neoliberals and hanging is too good for them. Letting them rot in prison is a much better option. There are fates worse than death😈
To me, Neo-liberalism simply means laissez-faire, gilded-age capitalism. The USA has morphed from an industrial power to a financialized plutocratic political-economy - a newer variety of neo-lib.
I understand - financialization is @ worst the load with debt to extract value via dividends & fees, and then breakup and sell-off as assets, even bankrupt, industrial firms. Goes back to the "corporate raiders"of the 1980s.
For a long time I have been calling it the Arrogant Aggressive West.
Too bad Mom stopped speaking Russian to me. Tis hard to relearn, plus I don't have a friend in the world here in scAmerica, let alone one who gavarit parusskiye....
If I ever have a way to move back to Russia, the most important thing is to bring her ashes back home.
My dead mother and my self would love to not have to be hated as Russians anymore, harasho
Your mother would be proud of today’s Russia. Today’s most fortunate babies are born in Russia and China. IMO, if you listened and read Russian, you would relearn the grammar rules and recognize more as you moved ahead. I know that’s what’s happening with me. Try it and see.
Excellent essay. Only thing I would add is that you can't fully understand modern American imperialism without taking into account the role of the largely Jewish neocon movement (which included Albright) in revitalizing, leading and shaping the strategy for American imperialism after Vietnam.
Blast from the past reading the words of Fulbright in your essay. Hard these days imaging that someone like Fulbright was a power broker. Not only was he against the Vietnam War, he had this to say on TV:
"Israel controls the U.S. Senate. The Senate is subservient to Israel, in my opinion much too much. We should be more concerned about the United States interest rather than doing the bidding of Israel."
Nowadays AIPAC would defeat him. So there is a big plus domestically of the idea of America first rather than Israel first.
Trump isn’t putting America First; he’s putting Trump first.
One indicator about the effectiveness of Fulbright’s book is that there was no second edition, and it’s now becoming a rare book at $20+/copy and no online version.
A valuable and refreshing essay that encourages the younger generations of USA to seek the root reasons why the US's current maniacal quest for hegemony is doomed to failure. It is important for them because they will be negatively impacted by the social disharmony that is about to be unleashed within their own communities.
A great article. Bravo. I quoted it in part on Larry Johnso's blog. It is my pertinent comment here at the same time. So I'm copying it 1:1 here.
———
I still don't know his real name, but here karlof hit exactly the middle of the black dot at a distance of 1000 m. (Warning: metaphor.)
"Empire making is a very bloody business; there's nothing altruistic about it at all. Indeed, the blood and suffering needs to be covered up. The savage settlers who massacred the natives and kept their scalps needed to reverse the immoral/sinful psychology of their deeds and used projection as solace by calling all natives savages, a trait that survives to the present. But as most US-based readers will note, none of that truth is taught in schools or to be found in general textbooks. Essentially, savage behavior is condoned and promoted as a virtue."
https://karlof1.substack.com/p/revisiting-the-arrogance-of-power
For the spirited among us, the following is also phrased metaphorically. Don't take it literally. Look in the mirror and you will see the ugliness and evil.
Just imagine that you have been a Palestinian in Gaza for 80 years and you have had to live through all the horrors, up to the point where they finally wipe out your people, from the unborn, to your children and grandchildren, to you. How would you feel? Always look in the mirror.
27 million dead people, many thousands of destroyed towns and villages, a declared and practiced genocide against your Slavic ethnic group, in order to wipe out your entire people, from the unborn, to your children and grandchildren, to you. How would you feel? Always look in the mirror. Organized, staged, financed and equipped with vast amounts of deadly weapons by the USA, ideologically manipulated Ukrainians are taking action: "Russians on the knives!"
What the USA has been doing since its existence is nothing other than the Nazism of Hitler, Mussolini & Co. and I am not interested in comparing the Third Reich and its specific crimes with the USA, but rather in the self-image of a US oligarch and elite class with that of the Third Reich.
Whether economic war or military war, the USA can still invest many trillions of USD in its war armaments, the time of dictatorship is over and "the emperor is naked".
Now there is once again a "great" leader behind whom we can march. ("Heil Dir Trump!") How convenient, because the "leader" will solve the problems for us. This is the messianic expectation of the frustrated. The end will be as dramatic as that of every previous empire in human history. Except that we now have nuclear weapons, space weapons, weather weapons and, most horrific of all, biological weapons.
How can you believe in Jesus Christ if you feel that is positive?
Thanks for your feedback and excellent writing at SONAR21. IMO, Putin should refuse a person-to-person with Trump and in tell him over the phone: The only thing you respect are our missiles as you refuse to conform to any law and thus nothing you say or agree to can be believed.
The American problem is seemingly at odds with its Constitution which is full of lofty statements, subverted by oligarchy using the tools of banksterism. Little Britain has its City which has covertly run the nation even before the formation of the Bank of England. The unaccountable corporate brigands populate the collective west so while this claque remains in power I can't see any other resolution than capitulation by one or the other side, which looks like the PRC and Russian Federation vs US (and various combined west). Japan quit the League of Nations, and we know how petulant Trump can be...
"I can't see any other resolution than capitulation by one or the other side," - I can & you've seen it already; the world divided like during the cold-war - the Orwellian "1984" scenario.
You're referring to the "Garrison State" strategy. It's like the "freeze" of the Ukraine conflict, a moment to gather forces before resuming hostilities. In the meantime the US and its vassals have to re-start industries to scale production that matches capital investment. Take a look at the stats of where market size is largest and it's not the "combined west". For insights I suggest reading Inside China Business by Kevin Walmsly. China is by far the worlds largest economy and US wishful thinking won't change that. The political degeneration of the west will more likely look like Japan's Sengoku Jidai-Tokugawa Shogunate periods. The west's predatory financial/economic predation model is unstable and can't be saved by techno-feudalism.
I've never encountered the (obscurant) "Garrison State" strategy (Japan pre-1945 when not invading somewhere & NK since birth, I suppose, or any sovereign entity which greatly "garrisons" itself) - I see this SMO and the RU's broader objectives as unprecedented in history, not simply because they could turn really offensive-like in the blink of an eye and blow-up the world and maybe the moon too..."The west's predatory financial/economic predation model is unstable and can't be saved by techno-feudalism." Right - this spells the end of USA-led global neo-lib "end-of-history". For us in the west, poverty and techno-feudalism here-we-come. For the rest, who knows?..I believe "China is by far the world's largest (REAL) economy and US wishful thinking won't change that." also.
It is another matter that the allies already had a hidden agenda, but this does not in any way diminish the enduring importance of the high statutory principles . . .
That is what is all about and you recognize that it might take a long time for the US to align itself with those principles.
'America First' and Might Makes Right are deeply infused in the American psyche. My mother, visiting from the Netherlands in 1972, asked me to explain the Pledge of Allegiance to her, after she attended an event with our host. It reminded her of the occupation by our neighbors a while back.
Fulbright, being a Senator from Arkansas, had a voting record that reflected the realities of getting re-elected in his state. People of his stature are no longer viable. America did produce a whole lot of good people in the fifties and sixties. I miss them and I am not seeing that viable any time soon.
I wrote a long reply to your MoA post that partly reflects my own frustrations over the years to come to grips with the reality I live within. Learning how it all came about has helped some, but it doesn’t resolve the conundrum. My wife is aghast at Trump/Musk but I try to remind her that Team Biden were worse. If we weren’t loyal to our families, we’d probably emigrate, although at 70 I’m getting too old for moving house. So, we live in our small town in a small state far away from big cities and live out our time.
I love your optimism but Trump/Musk will turn out to be just as evil if not more so than Team Biden, he's already bombed Somalia cuz of ISIS(LOL), is all in favor of turning
Gaza into Trump City, am guessing he gives the go ahead to letting the Zionist take over the West Bank and has sanctioned/threatened Iran w/obliteration in addition to telling them that they can't be a sovereign nation
This is only just the beginning, cuz w/Musk n charge it's all coming here to amerika
I was busy most of yesterday composing my essay and would add more to it now. Here’s my comment at MoA about Trump’s actions:
“Time for new names--Genocide Don and Genocidal US Empire. What's the status beyond Outlaw? Trump seems to be allied with Nuland, et al with destroying the Yalta-Potsdam-UN global security and international law arrangement. IMO, we can say the Neocon Trump has emerged from its closet and is being his own Pompeo. Meanwhile, Trump's domestic actions are threatening the wellbeing of small rural communities as much of their support systems are funded by grants--the ones he's suspended. And most of those places voted for Trump.”
I saw the comment about you being 70 years old and if possible you'd very much like to leave amerika. I am on that same ship Karl.
I fear that it's going to get very dark here in the next few years w/Trump thinking he's godlike. If anything yesterday showed to the world that Trump cares only about Trump
with everything including ethnic cleansing/genocide being just another real estate transaction.
What was really scary to me is his pronouncing that everyone he talked too loved his idea and that's the tiny/small club that we, the people don't belong to
Thanks for your reply, Garry. As yet, there's been no formal reaction by Russia to Trump's destructive actions, although today Lavrov spoke very powerfully about the Fact that Cancel Culture remains very strong, remarks that I'll translate and publish later today. Here's his third paragraph:
"Today we proposed to touch on the topic of "cancel culture." By and large, it is all-encompassing. This does not even apply so much to Ukraine, because the "cancel culture" of everything that the West does not like began to be applied long before the Ukrainian crisis. When the guardians of democracy and the "rule of law" did not like something, they simply "canceled" it and, instead of this inconvenient format and law, they applied their "rules" on which, as they said, the world order should be based. This is how international law was abolished. In fact, it was "sacrificed" to the very "rules" that, as we have found out more than once, no one has seen, read or presented to the international community."
Lavrov speaking is always a gem. In yesterday's 80 year anniversary speech I wonder exactly who he was speaking to at times.
I wish I could be that proverbial fly on the wall that hears the inner talking's that happen in the Kremlin, Chinese Great Hall and the talks between them. I guess I'm just looking for that confirmation that they fully know the level of evil working against them
That was actually a paper, not a speech. Today’s article is based on his remarks at a conference held in Moscow.
Madeline Albright, Hillary Clinton, Victoria Nuland - do they have anything in common other than their gender (which is irrelevant to this enquiry)?
They are all arrogant War Criminals and merit a trial then a rope, although Albright escaped both.
I imagine that Albright is NOT enjoying the peace, harmony and luxury of a Christian (or Jewish, or Islamic or Buddhist, or Hindu or Calathumpian) Heaven.
They're also all white neoliberals and hanging is too good for them. Letting them rot in prison is a much better option. There are fates worse than death😈
And waste more taxpayer monies on their upkeep?
But it could be fun😈 Think about all the trauma and suffering they caused and turn about is fair play😁
They may be neo-lib, but definitely neo-con.
Neoliberalcons, a term I coined 20+ years ago.
To me, Neo-liberalism simply means laissez-faire, gilded-age capitalism. The USA has morphed from an industrial power to a financialized plutocratic political-economy - a newer variety of neo-lib.
It's actually much more. Industrial Capitalism has its issues, but isn't intrinsically parasitic.
I understand - financialization is @ worst the load with debt to extract value via dividends & fees, and then breakup and sell-off as assets, even bankrupt, industrial firms. Goes back to the "corporate raiders"of the 1980s.
It’s rent seeking, and it’s 4,000+ Years old.
The original Brit Liberals (Adam Smith for example) challenged the feudal aristocratic rentiers for the cause of commerce & industrialization..
I love Michael Hudson.
He's been very busy and is on Nima's show tomorrow with Richard Wolff.
...a return to laissez-faire...
It is apt and describes too many - neo-lib (domestic & global) political-economy & neo-con (global domination) foreign policy.
Oh yeah.
Angry, fat-arsed, striving mean-grrrl hags?
For a long time I have been calling it the Arrogant Aggressive West.
Too bad Mom stopped speaking Russian to me. Tis hard to relearn, plus I don't have a friend in the world here in scAmerica, let alone one who gavarit parusskiye....
If I ever have a way to move back to Russia, the most important thing is to bring her ashes back home.
My dead mother and my self would love to not have to be hated as Russians anymore, harasho
Your mother would be proud of today’s Russia. Today’s most fortunate babies are born in Russia and China. IMO, if you listened and read Russian, you would relearn the grammar rules and recognize more as you moved ahead. I know that’s what’s happening with me. Try it and see.
Excellent essay. Only thing I would add is that you can't fully understand modern American imperialism without taking into account the role of the largely Jewish neocon movement (which included Albright) in revitalizing, leading and shaping the strategy for American imperialism after Vietnam.
Blast from the past reading the words of Fulbright in your essay. Hard these days imaging that someone like Fulbright was a power broker. Not only was he against the Vietnam War, he had this to say on TV:
"Israel controls the U.S. Senate. The Senate is subservient to Israel, in my opinion much too much. We should be more concerned about the United States interest rather than doing the bidding of Israel."
Nowadays AIPAC would defeat him. So there is a big plus domestically of the idea of America first rather than Israel first.
Trump isn’t putting America First; he’s putting Trump first.
One indicator about the effectiveness of Fulbright’s book is that there was no second edition, and it’s now becoming a rare book at $20+/copy and no online version.
The book is on amazon. Kindle and paperback
Thank You, Karl ! I look ahead to rereading this occasionally for years to come.
Sadly, it's only going to get worse under the trumpster for the world and us on Main Street Amerika.
Thanks KS