EMAIL SIGN UP!
Most Popular This Week
- Corporate Win: Supreme Court Says Monsanto Has 'Control Over Product of Life'
- How the US Turned Three Pacifists into Violent Terrorists
- Cornel West: Obama 'Is a War Criminal'
- Revealed: How US State Department 'Twists Arms' on Monsanto's Behalf
- Victory in Seattle as Teachers Win Battle in Standardized Test Boycott
Popular content
Today's Top News
America's Real Quagmire
Take the war in Afghanistan, which has been subject to major debate here lately, as Barack Obama has to decide whether to take the advice of his commanding officer in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, and send tens of thousands more troops there, or heed public opinion, which actually favours an end to the war.
This month, one of America's most important and most-watched TV news programmes, NBC's Meet the Press, took up the issue. The lineup:
Retired General Barry McCaffrey, former army general and drug tsar (under Bill Clinton) turned defence industry lobbyist. In a news article on McCaffrey titled "One man's military-industrial-media complex", the New York Times reported that McCaffrey had "earned at least $500,000 from his work for Veritas Capital, a private equity firm in New York that has grown into a defence industry powerhouse by buying contractors whose profits soared from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq." McCaffrey has appeared on NBC more than 1000 times since 11 September 2001.
Retired General Richard Myers, former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff under George Bush (2002-2005). He is currently on the board of directors of Northrop Grumman Corporation, one of the largest military contractors in the world, and also of United Technologies Corporation, another large military contractor.
Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican from South Carolina, a pro-war spokesperson that is one of the most regular guests on the Sunday talkshows.
Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, a Democrat, was apparently intended to represent the "other side" of the debate. Here is what he said: "Clearly we should keep the number of forces that we have. No one's talking about removing forces."
"No one" in the above sentence refers to the American people, whom Levin understandably sees as nobody in the eyes of the US media and political leaders. According to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll, 32% of those polled wanted US troops out of Afghanistan within one year or right now. That was the largest group. Another 24% wants the troops "removed within one to two years". For comparison, the leadership of the Taliban is willing to grant foreign troops 18 months to get out of their country.
In other words, a majority of 56% of Americans wants US troops out of Afghanistan about as soon as is practically feasible or even sooner. Yet Meet the Press – a mainstream network news talkshow since 1947 – does not see fit to find one person to represent that point of view. The other major TV and radio talkshows that the right also labels "liberal" in the US make similar choices almost every day.
When asked whether the US should set a timeline for withdrawal, Levin answered "no".
I know, if you have enough time you can still find an anti-war, public-interest viewpoint and the facts to support it – on the internet and even among some of the news stories in major media publications. But most Americans have other full-time jobs.
If the media's influence stopped there, the damage would be limited. After all, Americans can often still overcome the tutelage of the media's opinion leaders, as the above poll demonstrates. But the media also defines the debate for politicians. And that is where the life-and-death consequences really kick in.
If you want to know why Obama has not fought for a public option for healthcare reform, why he has caved to Wall Street on financial reform, why he has been Awol on the most important labour law reform legislation in 75 years (despite his campaign promises), just look at the major media. Think for a moment of how they would treat him if he did what his voters wanted him to do. You can be sure that Obama has thought it through very carefully.
Obama's whole political persona is based on media strategy, and on not taking any risk that the major media would turn against him. That is how he got where he is today and how he hopes to be re-elected. Many analysts confuse this with a strategy based on public opinion polling. But as we can see, these are often two different things.
Seventy-five percent of Americans support a public option for healthcare reform. (A majority would support expanding Medicare to cover everyone, but over the years the media, insurance and pharmaceutical companies made sure that this option didn't make it to the current debate.)
Obama has the bully pulpit. He could say to the rightwing Democrats in the Senate: "Look, you can vote against my proposals, but if you do not allow your president to even have a vote on this reform, you are not a Democrat." In other words, you can't join the Republicans in blocking the vote procedurally.
He could probably force Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader, to join him in enforcing this minimal party discipline that would come naturally to Republicans, which would allow the healthcare bill to pass the Senate even if conservative Democrats voted against it.
But to do that would risk losing some of Obama's post-partisan, non-ideological aura that guarantees his media support. Of course, the media is not the only influence that hobbles healthcare reform. The insurance, pharmaceutical and other business lobbies obviously have more representation in Congress than does the majority of the electorate. But Obama does not feel this direct corporate pressure nearly as much. After all, he was the first president in recent decades to get 48% of his campaign contributions from donations of less than $200 – a very significant change in American politics, made possible though internet organising.
There are other powerful elite groupings, such as the foreign policy establishment – which is more ideologically driven, like the medieval church, than a collection of lobbying interests – that thwart reform on issues of war and peace. But the major media remain one of the biggest challenges to progressive reform in the 21st century.
Comments
Note: Disqus 2012 is best viewed on an up to date browser. Click here for information. Instructions for how to sign up to comment can be viewed here. Our Comment Policy can be viewed here. Please follow the guidelines. Note to Readers: Spam Filter May Capture Legitimate Comments...
56 Comments so far
Show AllAmerica's "REAL QUAGMIRE?"
oh that is easy:
all you have to do is come up with things such as:
"empire, hubris and arrogance, general ignorance of the world, torture, genocide, xenophobia, paranoia, racism, supernationalistic captitalism, propaganda posing as news, "virtual reality", war hysteria, state-santioned kidnapping and secret detention, "lawful conquest", bombs, bombs, and more bombs, "civilized" mass murder, corporate gangsterism, Banking Bunkum (i love that from Henry CK Liu), confused populace, population in a state of permanent catatonia, BAD health "care", corrupt leadership CULTURE, two-party WAR culture, exploitation, manipulation, secrecy, spy and assassination and torture organizations, religious fanaticism, moral hypocrisy, advanced killing industry, profitable incarceration industry, theft of other countries' resources, drive to the bottom, the bigger the crime, the bigger the bailout, pretend "free market", pretend "democracy", democracy spreading at the point of a gun, causing population displacements, Katrina new orleans, "all white only" neighborhoods posing as "desirable communities", incarcerating lost "illegal" immigrant CHILDREN, ignorance and denial about ITS own dastardly history, whitewashing skeletons in the closet and substituting HALLOWEEN to celebrate, lack of responsibility for its LEADING role in global warming and pollution, BIG CARS, BIG Football stadiums to watch overgrown boys break bones, supersensitivity to criticism for things that are TRUE, patriotism that its own people don't even really understand what it is except to FLY THE FLAG in every corner..hating anything that's "unamerican" EVEN if it might actually be good for them coz it's "foreign", loving anything that's "american" even if it harms them, socially masochistic, Murder in Uniform (which goes all the way from police, to state, to federal and army level), Lying Polished to a State of Art, Bait and Switch Schemes, abrogation of signed treaties, exceptionalism, land grabbing, preaching but not following its own preaching, state terrorism, terrorising its own population, making up enemies where there were none, paranoia about small countries "threatening our way of life and the world", invading and occupying deep in the foreign neighborhoods, meddling for "national interest" in every corner of the globe, coercing, Crowning Presidents, Supreme court made up largely of Supreme Whores, Currency Manipulation , monstrous debt to keep up its High-living "great nation" status, inventing useless things and occupations, prospering at the expense of others as National Philosophy, a habit of warmaking , addiction to wasteful behavior, intellectual shallowness, people who don't even know or care about their own constitution, and if they DID....they wouldn't follow it anyway BUT claim they're GREAT because "we have the best constitution"...etc."
you put all that and more similar things, put it all in a bowl , cover it, swig it around, sing the National Anthem, and voila -- you got it. ...a REAL QUAGMIRE
MORAL, FINANCIAL, POLITICAL, INTELLECTUAL CORRUPTION - that is America's REAL quagmire.
"....for democracy eventually arrives at tyranny"...
"...should this nation fall...it shall fall not because of foreign enemies and threats, real or imagined, it shall fall because the PEOPLE ARE CORRUPT".....
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
"What kind of a public debate can we have on the most vital issues of the day in the United States?"
None whatsoever, as long as five right wing organizations own 95 percent of this country's media. NPR and PBS have nominal, strictly very nominal, news, information and discussion on issues that divide and unite the american public, and even NPR and PBS will be encircled and threatened by foaming mouthed neocon media figures and politicians when it goes to far, as when Bill Moyers was removed from his own program, the original NOW.
The media problem is entirely the reason why someone like Kucinich hasn't a chance at nabbing the presidency, and winning the presidency is a big clue that Obama's real stripes were known by the gods behind the gods, even while he was spouting true progressive values during the primaries.
Progressive rhetoric is the sledgehammer elites use to squish progressives. Be sure that plenty of rats scrambling up the Demok organizational ladders are refining their progressive rhetoric for a new day of mass deceit. Suggestion: Set strong terms for Demoks to earn your votes, and when they fail, vote third party.
I voted for Nader last November, since a vote for either Obama or McCain would have been a wasted vote. Nader had better ballot access than McKinney, which was the whole basis of my choice. I knew so many who believed in Nader, and McKinney, yet didn't vote for either of them because they felt they couldn't win. When people discard the win or lose notion and vote with their hearts and minds, we may see some progress.
I think the fear was in the numbers itself. I can see how some who had the hearts for Nader and Mckinney like I did gave up in the end for fear that the GOP would be worse. I still remember what you told me last year on Alternet right after I confessed that I gave up on the last minute and voted Obama when I should have stuck to Nader. Oh yes, I am in trouble for opening that box but I guess it's now obvious that voting Obama turned out to be a bigger than expected liability. I thought I would have had a haunted feeling that I would have that haunted feeling of race guilt for not voting for Obama but I'm having greater regrets for having even voted for him for any reason. I know that I have gotten too angry on Obama and this party. Until I saw JenniferBedingfield continue to remind us that we need to vote with our hearts and minds and until I saw Sioux Rose's articles that would put compassion and courage together, I was still not sure how I could overcome feeling angry about the party and yet still fall into the trap of voting for them in the end. I hope that one of these days, I can be sure to break out of this once and for all and share my experience and help others overcome that last minute fear.
Hey Max, no point in dwelling on coulda woulda shoulda. I just wanted to clarify to rtdrury that I was already a third party voter.
There's at least one thing you do much better than many, which is to keep a close eye on your local and state elections for viable progressive candidates, and to talk about them in discussions like this one. I try to take example from that.
Onward.
It is a shame that there has not been a viable "third party" candidate. I am not familiar with McKinney, but I have been following Nader since the early days. He is the most flagrant megalomaniac I have ever seen. If we did have a person who is a bona fide leader to vote for, the grass roots organization that assembled to elect Obama could accomplish the same with that person. I am still waiting for one to emerge.
Listen carefully, CapnRog. Third parties are being unfairly marginalized by being blocked from getting on the air, on debates, and in some cases on the ballots by both the corporate media and both the Republican and Democratic parties. Third parties are viable but the game is purposely being rigged against them to prevent real competition. Nader is an honorable progressive and he sure as hell puts most Democrats to shame. Nader wasn't given a fair chance to compete. How many of us who could have voted Nader or Mckinney voted Obama out of fear of the Republicans and lack of information about what the parties really are? Millions I tell you. Come to think of it, JenniferB was right all along to suggest we learn to vote with hearts and minds. Sioux Rose was also right when she once told me that trying to pick between the Democratic and Republican parties is like an abused child trying to pick between both parents being abusive. In such cases, I would just run away and seek a third party as my surrogate parent until one or both of my parents actually came clean and made themselves reform. Normally, I wouldn't run away from my problems but when we've had enough of trying to solve them, it's time to ditch them and give a new party a chance for a change that might actually be worth believing in. Think about it.
I don't even trust or rely on NPR anymore. One listen of John Hockenberry on "The Takeaway" will tell you why.
Well, maybe this is how Obama got to the White House, but who needs him if he doesn't have the courage to fight for those things that would make him a leader. That's the problem. We keep electing people who think their holding office is more important than their willingness to fight the good fight. If wise and courageous people are unelectable, the experiment in democracy is over... it failed.
.
http://www.gpln.com/citizen.htm
.
Mark Goldman: "We keep electing people who think their holding office is more important than their willingness to fight the good fight" So true.
But I am also tiring of putting all the blame on President Obama. Much of the same can be said of the leadership of the churches, synagogues and universities in the U.S. This is what happens when such institutions have been intimidated and baited by the financial forces of corporate capitalism. These institutions have been sheepishly seduced by the power of money. Sadly, our houses of worship and local universities are the last bastions of community in America. Upon them rests a special responsibility to raise the consciousness of the American people, to preach the dynamic values of a vibrant democracy and to denounce the myth of war and unsustainable consumer corporate capitalism. Democracy for the common good can only be fostered from below, from the grass roots of the local community. A vibrant community is where it all begins. Local houses of worship, colleges and universities have failed for the most part in this effort. Our government is not alone in the failure of American democracy.
Politics is one thing, but until these institutions of great public influence recognize the intrinsic evil of corporate capitalism and that the corporate mainstream media is merely the propaganda arm of corporate capitalism, there will never be an informed citizenry of sufficient force to demand radical social change. Obama has not only failed America, the institutions of higher education and religion in the U.S. have also failed the American people. Without their critical analysis of American culture, Americans will remain ill-informed and not ready to demand radical social change for the common good. Until then, American democracy is dead.
Note that "We The People" only managed to postpone the bank bailout for a few days. It didn't take long for those in power to arrange otherwise. We, the people, don't stand much of a chance of stopping this war either.
"They sell us the President the same way
They sell us our clothes and our cars
They sell us everything from youth to religion
The same way they sell us our wars"
Jackson Browne, "Lives in the Balance"
The same media is also responsible for keeping third parties from being known. I couldn't get most people to give Nader a look when I campaigned for him in 2000. In 2004 and 2008, the "Nader cost Gore" disease from the media and the Democratic Party was repeated even from some of the Nader voters of 2000. Every four years, it's always another red team vs blue team contest. As soon as one of the teams feels threatened by an independent party, the media teams up to keep the independent party from being heard.
Three generations ago Upton Sinclair wrote The Brass Check to document and prove that, "Journalism is one of the devices whereby industrial autocracy keeps its control over political democracy... Not hyperbolically and contemptuously, but literally and with scientific precision, we define Journalism in America as the business and practice of presenting the news of the day in the interest of economic privilege." Contemporary corporate mass media is the industry built upon this bastardization of journalism.
This article correctly points out that "INFORMATION" is the real problem. A democracy requires that the people be informed in order to make decisions critical to the country. When that information is skewed, or missing all together, the decisions must be biased.
The government relies upon commercial media to promulgate necessary information to the general public. The commercial media in turn report, or rather editorializes that information based upon what is in the best interrest of their stock holders and advertisers. MOST of the other problems of our society are secondary, and rely upon the infromation censors.
There are a few rays of sunlight in this system. The internet does provide alternative viewpoints, but the individual is still left to decide for himself what is accurate. A couple of spokespersons are considered truthful, but again, they are marginalized and maligned by most media. Going directly to the source for each issue is cumbersome and not really realistic.
There are no short answers to this problem. We NEED to have "truth in reporting" legislation along with "truth in advertising" legislation. Neither exists at this point.
"if you have enough time you can still find an anti-war, public-interest viewpoint and the facts to support it... But most Americans have other full-time jobs."
Most USans are so very busy generating unnecessary stuff that is beyond their real needs, they don't have time to uphold their civic duties. This is exactly the cage that elites wish to keep them in, blind to their real needs, and enslaved to destructive luxuries/conveniences. The social/environmental impacts continue to escalate along with the Pentagon's resource demands.
Well said. This integral part of pubic behavior control (keep them busy) is clever because it constantly implies that we, who are working like mad to survive, are "really lazy" because we suffer from "apathy" and "uninvolvement" in the "issues" while the rich elite, that sit on their ass and do nothing productive whatsoever, bask in the media glow of admiration for the "great industriousness" and "high productivity" of the upper classes. Only rich men provide jobs, don'tcha know? It's infuriating.
I hope R.L. Love is paying attention. He is one of those that blame the masses for the systemic inequality, claims we contributed to our stock market woes and that a corporatocracy is not conspiratorial. What a hoot.
EXACTLY!
this is the non-too subliminal message promoted primarily THROUGH the US Chamber of Commerce...and down through the Corporate culture's beaurocracy consisting of supposedly
"efficient organization", namely:
in this order:
"investors"
"board of directors"
"Administration"
"CEO"
"assistant to CEO/personnel manager"
"Departments"
"head of departments"
"floor supervisors"
and below that - the mass of laborers with their various fancy titles .
if one took the example of what is considered one of the most "dangerous and demanding jobs in the USA" today--
the health provider industry of nursing homes..
you have what are legally allowed "overwork", "understaffing", "low pay", intimidation from higher ups in the name of 'service to our clients',
and so - from DOWN below you have this:
in reverse order:
"Certified nursing assistants" - mostly women who must do such things as :
Lift very heavy , fat , old people who can't bend over anymore...wipe them, bathe them, feed them (as they scratch and bite, etc.) fill in forms to show work every minute of the day, watch 20 people in a room, with different degrees of screaming, eloping, wandering off, undressing themselves, BUT also required to "immediately serve a resident upon demand" should one wish to go pee for the third time in five minutes all day and produce nothing...YET be responsible for the ones that were supposed to be WATCHED
and THEN be written UP by "supervisors" for "leaving the room" or "failing to ask for assistance" from a fellow CNA
who just happens to be bathing the 6th resident unable to stand up or walk and fights back in ONE MORNING alone that normally takes 45 minutes - IF one is FAST - before one's own lunchtime is GONE before Lunch for Residents who must each be dressed properly, prepared for their Medication given by nurses prior to lunch.......
and one is "written up" for ANSWERING back to the supervisor that one couldnt' do everything because the facility only had 5 CNAs on hand to take care of 40 people in one floor and one of them called in SICK and the facility has a "policy" of
"make do -- what 5 can do , 4 MUST do or ELSE"..and it goes on week after week,
no wonder - one of the first things that Dr Martin Luther King, JR marched for -- was about NURSING HOMES - for better staffing , better wages, more division of labor.
because it is even worse TODAY than ever before
behind the Disguise of "improved customer service" by
who ELSE?
the Board Members, the "directors" of facilities. etc. etc. etc.
who then COERCE the CNA's or other low-level employees in "mandatory" meetings for "improved service" - that
it is "against policy to talk about UNDERSTAFFING"
EVEN if it's true and EVEN if families themselves NOTICE and often understand the plight but have no recourse, due to the american system of
WORK WORK WORK -
, but to leave their own loved ones in such places...where they are at the mercy or compassion of the ONLY people , really, that become their "families" the CNA's or workers who work directly with them (including usually, the nurses)....
but who are merely the "foot soldiers"
in reverse upwards again:
of the CEO's (who often have outside businesses such as providing "nurses and CNA's" to the facility at a profit to themselves)
- the Personnel deparment directors -
the Board Members and the Investors who could care less about PEOPLE - whether the residents, their fmailies or the workers
so long as their facility doesn't get SHUT DOWN by the state if they can get away with covering up their
mistakes because of , once again, UNDERSTAFFING , poor pay, overwork and intimidation of workers who
happen to know that the economy being as bad as it is - with work so scarce- they have to BEAR being WAGE SLAVES...
even if most of them are actually dedicated to trying their best to BE the family and friends of the poor old residents.
THAT , in a nutshell is what has become of america .
the dehumanization of people
for the sake of the UPPER "moneyed class"...
and those that think they belong there or wish to belong there so they can look down on others as "only deserving to serve"..while THEY count their dividends and special privileges and wonderful pay packages and benefits....as they fleece both america and its workers.
that's america .
and the mantra they repeat again and again?
"you are not working HARD ENOUGH" .
A.G.,
I would not worry whether R.L. Love is "paying attention" or not. It would be wasted on him and his ilk. I think you probably know all too well why this is. So there is no need for me to affix an appropriate label to him or to his politics. Consider the following:
In Robespierre's immortal words one does not argue or discourse with them, 'one drops them back into the void.'
A general political principle can be abstracted from the following, historically specific quotation:
"The dictatorship is necessary because it is a case, not of partial changes, but of the very EXISTENCE of the bourgeoisie. No agreement is possible on this ground. Only force can be the deciding factor" –(Leon Trotsky)
I hope there is no equivocation here as to what the writer 'means.'
–(Jill Bains)
Poor Obama, the media has made him into Bush III, at least according to Mark Weisbrot. This is complete drivel, Weisbrot knows it, and he knows that everyone who reads it will know it. It doesn't make any difference. We are conditioned to accept the charade as reality, even recognizing that it's pure fantasy. There is some sort of complete psychic disconnect in the US between rhetoric, even the rhetoric of 'left' critics like Weisbrot, and reality.
Wasn't there an article to this effect recently? Maybe we should make a list of the CD article that demonstrate it.
It was exactly the same thing with the WMD in Iraq. No one with half a brain believed that idiocy for a minute, and yet, the 'debate' raged on, the angst, the recriminations, the reconsideration, etc. It's all just a show for the hoi polloi, who don't give a damn anyhow.
The media didn't make Obama into Bush III, Obama managed that alone. He has followed in Bush footsteps since day one and hasn't fulfilled one single campaign promise. Like Bush I and II, Obama's a now a War Criminal and a traitor to the US Constitution.
I agree.
"that thwart reform on issues of war and peace"
You don't reform a monster. You destroy it.
There is a coordinated effort, which includes the major media, aimed at manipulating public opinion for the sake of elite profits.
The CIA has more than 20,000 employees of which only about 2,000 are supposedly doing the "humint" (dirty work). So what do you think those 18,000 people in the so-called "geek squad" are doing here in the US if it's not PR and media asset feeding?
There is a long artcle in Counterpunch on the CIA. I don't agree with all of it but it sheds light on the constant conspiracy our elite is involved in for the sake of profits but disguised as national security and wrapped up in the flag:
Congress under the direction of Sen. Frank Church in 1975-76 issued a devastating series of reports on the criminality of the agency. The CIA had sponsored coups and fixed elections in Greece, Italy, Burma, Indonesia and dozens of other nations. It had smuggled Nazi war criminals out of Germany to fight communism in Eastern Europe; it worked arm in arm with narcotics traffickers in Asia, Europe, the Middle East (and always seemed to leave behind a thriving drug nexus wherever it intervened); it supplied security forces worldwide with torture equipment, torture manuals, torture training. In Vietnam, its massive Saigon Station oversaw the kidnapping and killing of tens of thousands of suspected Vietcong, many of them innocents, doing a good job of turning the peasant population against the US. The rot came out almost daily as the Church Committee dug it up. By the late 1970s, the CIA had planned or carried out the assassination of leaders in more than a dozen countries; CIA jokers called this “suicide involuntarily administered,” courtesy of the Agency’s “Health Alteration Committee.” The agency’s work disrupting governments was often in service of corporations with close ties to Congress and the White House and whose business interests were threatened by anything that smelled of socialism. The agency had been busy too on the homefront, in violation of domestic law, overseeing mind control programs in which unwitting Americans were poisoned with drugs, experimented upon, effectively tortured; opening the mail of US citizens; surveilling the political activity of Americans; infiltrating the media with disinformation; lying habitually to elected officials. The CIA appeared in this light as a threat to the republic itself.
"The agency had been busy too on the homefront"
HAD? What's this "had" shit?
"infiltrating the media with disinformation"
So the CIA no longer does this but the pentagoons do? Bullshit!
"lying habitually to elected officials"
NO, really?
"The CIA appeared in this light as a threat to the republic itself." APPEARED TO BE A THREAT?
How about the MAIN CAUSE of the republic being replaced by a corporatocry. I guess the CIA is no longer a threat to the republic because we no longer HAVE a republic.
of course the underlying reason that the USA has to have CIA, NSA, MEDIA as arm of "Corporate Statehood" capitalism . ...is really in order to "make the world safe for Capitalism"...
in order to suppress or destroy ANY alternative to US model "economics".
that is the reason why "economic hitmen" such as John Perkins - in his "confessions of an economic hitman" - go abroad to "fix" economies, political structures, cultural structures - to undermine them and ANY attempt or evolution towards prosperity for their own people through their own means and systems
that might DEMONSTRATE to the world that there ARE altnernatives TO capitalism.
Kennedy over "castro and cuba?"
the true reasons were - in internal documents and conversations that anyone can find online or by stumbling on them -
because "castro is a trouble maker" in terms of showing that SOUTH AMERICA had alternatives in which PEOPLE take matters into their own hands and NOT allow the oligarchs, the rich moneyed classes to DICTATE what an economy ought to be.
but the USA dictates that the economy must be left in the hands of the powerful, moneyed classes and only through that can an economy even exist, much less "prosper".
the USA is the worst country in terms of actually following its own dictates about"competition"
when COMPETITION comes to having altneratives for economic betterment of entire countries comes - (take what russia was able to do to modernize so quickly DESPITE stalinism or the communist difficulties - it was - for a "noncapitalist" actually quite successful, contrary to what common knowledge says and what happened to it AFTER "capitalist reform in the 1990s? it went straight back to PRE-communist THIRD WORLD economy..only today being reorganized under less "communist OR capitalist" systems) ....
the USA can't take it for real..and then resorts to what are in effect "socialism" for the moneyed classes...
but again -- without ADMITTING it - while promoting its "capitalism"
which in the end RELIES on rigged , "socialism for the rich" structures in order to SURVIVE at all!
it's greatest fear is REAL COMPETITION left unmolested - from socialist systems that truly represent the PEOPLE from whom the moneyed capitalist class takes its "capital"..supposedly to "create" prosperity without "peer".
it's all bunkum and pure lying through the teeth.
in a real FAIR global economy of DIFFERENT cultural and political systems where economies of national scale have to correspond with fairness if they are to prosper in truth - because not every single country has everything it might need while having things other countries might need - but traded in fairness - such as under a global system of fair wages and fair exchange of values for resources to benefit all --
SOCIALISM , in other words --
capitalism wouldn't SURVIVE A DAY!
that's why it has to operate through the destruction of other systems ...because it can't TAKE IT when real "competition" for ideas and systems really comes.
that's why it has to rely - as the USA does - on TONS of gangsterlike organizations like the CIA , NSA , its national propaganda which they call "news".
on top of wars, assassinations, economic undermining, sanctions, etc. etc. etc.
the USA "capitalist" hypocrisy can be summed up by the words of a fine writer:L
HENRY CK LIU...covering ALL its polciies: monetary, industrial, market, business, privatization, etc...
"THE USA is really the world's main currency manipulator while accusing others of it......it is also the world's Main Protectionist Nation.......pretending to be *free market*"
So true.
"Obama's whole political persona is based upon media strategy, and on not taking any risk that the major media would turn against him. That is how he got where he is today and how he hopes to be reelected. Many analysts confuse this with a strategy based on public opinion polling. But as we can see, these are two different things."
A source or two - named or unnamed - would be very nice concerning this rather sweeping declaration about how Barack Obama won the primaries and the general election in 2008, and how he intends to run for reelection three years from now. Elsewhere, I've read similar claims Barack is who he is, and does what he does, solely based upon subservient ties to vested special financial interests, or because of an ideological addiction to broad based bipartisan compromise, or due to hidden ties to the Cook county machine, or as a result of the personalities of the right centrist leaning top official "team of rivals" he picked, not to mention other, even less flattering explanations. I would like to see Mark Weisbrot's theory sourced, and fleshed out a wee bit with some facts, even if anecdotal.
However, if Mr. Weisbrot is correct, an equally interesting question arises.
Karl Rove is gone. What is the identity of the advisor or advisors in the White House inner circle who Barack Obama believes are able to glean (apparently without opinion polling) just what supposedly the pariah, hot button political stands are that would assuredly send CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, Fox News, the DC beltway press corps, and the other "major media" conglomerates screaming for his blood in unison. Who are the new gurus behind the curtain? If they really do exist, how could they (and by implication, America's media moguls) have fucked up big ticket issues like meaningful health care reform, regulation of Wall Street excess, global climate change, and refocusing US guns versus butter economic policy so badly?
I wholeheartedly agree that the marginalization of progressive voices from programs like "Meet the Press" artificially skews the nation's political discourse and is very depressing. I also agree that all electoral politicians have to take heed of what the likely media spin will be as they go about the business of politicking.
I just don't quite buy the claim that this explains what makes Barack Obama tick.
Bill from Saginaw
How do you "win" elective wars? Both governments have been overthrown and their leaders lynched. Both contries have been bombed back to the stone age. Now what? There is no one left in power to surrender. Eternally killing women and children cannot make America safe, it can only bankrupt a criminal nation. The flower of our youth are returning in an endless stream of maimed, mindless heroin addicts. Only the Merchants of Death profit. Only the Devils Dance demanding ever greater human sacrifices. In another decade or two will we have any children left to shove into this cauldren of death?
Very morbid but well said!
Oh listen to the rhythm of those drums of war as they get louder and louder!!!!
I Obama had any balls, he'd fire McChrystal(sp)!!!!!
But I could be wrong !
I just have to add this for the sake of irony:
From the CounterPunch CIA article:
By the late 1970s, the CIA had planned or carried out the assassination of leaders in more than a dozen countries; CIA jokers called this “SUICIDE INVOLUNTARILY ADMINISTERED” courtesy of the Agency’s “Health Alteration Committee.”
That's ha, ha, hillarious (as in Hillary or a basketfull of dead babies).
HEALTH ALTERATION COMMITTEE! Now you know what the repub/democratic corporate party health insurance reform is REALLY all about.
THE USA CHAMBER OF COMMERCE is nothing more than a fancy term for SLAVE DRIVERS.
America's problem is the Federal Reserve.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4675077383139148549#
Guess MW missed the memo:
"Frankly, they own the place." Not they 'the media,' they the Big Banksters and their Big Everything Else partners, like, Big Health Insurance and Really F@#king Big Military.
Which, obviously, moots this entire piece. The Owners of The Place did not hire managers to run The Place They Own and task them to reform their bosses, AKA, The Owners.
The managers have been tasked to continue to enhance the bottom lines of as many Big Everything Else partners as possible, morals and humanity be damned, like any other corporation.
BO's real problem is this: he knew he'd have to sell us out, he avoided facing this fact during his campaign, and now he has no choice but to do what he's being paid to do, most of which is diametrically opposed to the Will of The People. Inside, he hates part of himself now, which is why he's turning gray so quickly...
first of -- would anyone BET AGAINST the possibility that the Terrorism Jundullah attack (sunnis against shiites of iran) - in IRAN - has the fingers of the USA in it?.
going on:
please read the article below:
its title might as well be expanded to be :
"FOR THE WORLD - US is the Country that always cries WOLF" - except that the biggest WOLF in Sheep's clothing IS the USA.
===============
by William Pfaff, October 23, 2009
PARIS — Philip Gordon, the American assistant secretary of state for Europe and Eurasia, visited his European clients earlier this month in order to ask for more European cooperation. The United States has elected a president all but universally admired in Western Europe’s most influential circles. If they like the man so much, why is there not more enthusiasm for the Obama administration’s foreign policy? Where are more European NATO troops to fight the Taliban and keep al-Qaeda from making a return? "Europe," Gordon said, "is as vulnerable as we are, if not more so."
At this point, most of his European auditors are likely to have tuned out. Vulnerable to what? He said that "since the 11th of September (2001) Europe has been struck more often than the United States by terrorists who have their refuge in Pakistan and Afghanistan."
It is true that there have been more bombings or attempted bombings in Western Europe since 9/11 than in the United States (where there have been none). But it has not been al-Qaeda, or Taliban from Afghanistan, who have committed them. They have mostly been the work of estranged Muslims who live in Europe, with grievances of their own.
The only successful terrorist bombings in France during the past quarter-century were carried out by Algerian Islamist sympathizers to punish France for keeping up relations with an Algerian military government then attempting — by brutal measures — to put down an even more brutal Islamic fundamentalist campaign indiscriminately killing Algerian civilians. This was long before anyone outside security circles had ever heard of al-Qaeda.
The Madrid train bombings and the attacks on the London Underground were copycat affairs inspired by 9/11, but according to security and police sources were local affairs having nothing to do with Osama bin Laden and his friends residing in the Afghanistan badlands.
What was Mr. Gordon talking about? The Bush administration liked to admonish the Europeans that they were in greater danger than the United States from attack by Iranian nuclear missiles — if there were any. This was in the context of the Polish-Czech anti-missile systems that also, at the time, did not exist and were planned to counter Iranian nuclear missiles. This was assuming that one day there would be Iranian nuclear missiles that the Iranians would be disposed to use to attack Europe, for reasons presently unknown.
This is the problem people like Philip Gordon meet during these thankless missions to Europe to urge the Europeans to send more troops to support the United States in Iraq (yesterday), Afghanistan (today), and (I fear) Pakistan or Somalia or Kashmir tomorrow. They are working inside Never-Neverland strategic schemes based on implausible assumptions and hypothetical threats and responses.
First after 9/11 it was invasion of Afghanistan the allies were supposed to support. To attack al-Qaeda’s base, and try to seize its leaders and members, was perfectly justified. But why did the Taliban regime and army have to be subjected to slaughter by B-52s, and Afghanistan’s government handed back, amidst profuse international professions of goodwill, to what proved to be essentially the same conditions of disorder and warlordism that prevailed after the Soviet defeat?
Next, everyone was supposed to join in the invasion of Iraq to seize the weapons of mass destruction with which it threatened international peace, which proved not to exist. There is no need to go on. But it doesn’t require great perspicacity to understand why the European allies have tired of the cries of "wolf! wolf!" regularly heard from Washington.
The British respond because since 1944 such has been the cold and calculated policy of the Foreign Office: Humor the Americans. Susceptible prime ministers like Tony Blair fall for White House glamour. The Foreign Office doesn’t, nor does the War Office (now politically corrected to Ministry of Defense), responsible for supplying the human price that has to be paid. The Danes and the Dutch usually step up to the plate (to use the idiom increasingly heard from Europeans). Other West Europeans are inclined to think twice, or thrice.
The "new Europeans" have gone along because they have an engrained fear of Russia, and the United States seems the only source of available protection. They don’t trust Western Europe.
Officials such as Philip Gordon regularly travel to Europe to ask for support for American initiatives. The Europeans reply that they have not been consulted in making these policies. The Americans say we will be happy to discuss them, but we are putting up most of the men and money, so it’s too late to change anything. Maybe next time.
(c) 2009 Tribune Media Services, Inc.
__________________
Πάντες οι Άνθρωποι του ειδέναι ορέγονται Φύσει
ΝΙΨΟΝ ΑΝΟΜΗΜΑΤΑ ΜΗ ΜΟΝΑΝ ΟΨΙΝ
The only usefully discussed question for me is: how can average people who live under this collapsed, brazen fraud of a people's govenment, begin to organize to transform it into something good?
Ah dear me!
Yawn! And yawn again.
This all here does not even have to be written.
What needs to be said is that as things stand, the article and the comments are an expression of private acceptance coupled with a public denial of personal responsibility, the awful and Oh, so old twist in the tail of American individualism.
Ah---Godzilla's tail.
Find the head! CUT IF OFF! Attack those neurons sitting in the monsters skull; those senators and lobbyists so easily and ineffectually castigated here. Get in their way. Dog their footsteps. There will be pain and shit and blood but non-Americans are dying horrifying deaths out here. It is a terrible and unfortunate situation but millions in America and many more out here could see this happening a long time ago. The many millions out here are not necessarily with the American individualism but our thoughts are with you. We need a focus and you are in sight of the Godzilla's eye. Tough, but that is it!
IS THIS FORUM THE ONE?
I think it can be seen as in the neck, or better as On the Nose and it can be used to capture and coordinate the truth so hated in the head. But still, people who can see the target need to administer it. Poor, terrified, sometimes desperately confused but totally determined Afghans, Pakistanis, Arabs, Palestinians, Lebanese (the list is too long) and their women and children are, and they do score painful hits but they are being cruelly trampled under the armoured heel that you pay for monetarily and sometimes with your misdirected lives.
Excellent article. Opinions like these are never a part of the US media. It never reveals the men behind the curtains and who they represent and get fat checks from. What an absurdity that these people have anything to offer on Meet the Press in the way of unbiased opinion. Meet the Press by the way is sponsored by Boeing an armaments manufacturer if I'm not mistaken. And the only press is one guy. what a joke.
In the words of Bob Dylan
'look out kid, they keep it all hid". well they TRY and keep these things hid from the masses of Americans who watch television for their information and it does work, propaganda that is. But it's so plain as day as to be laughable in a dark way.
in the meantime...while New York Times and most american media , or even mainstream EUROPEAN media report that McChrystal has persuaded "European DEFENSE ministers" for "ENLARGING the afghanistan commitment" (as opposed , supposedly, to Biden's preference of "more focused , limited commitment") --
and while BIDEN visits ROMANIA which abuts the CASPIAN sea of natural gas "great game" routes (bears thinking) -
what is going on in less Obvious ways is the continuing collapse of the American Empire -- read on: written by an writer that would KNOW what's going on in the eastern "bloc"...
====================
The Edifice Crumbles
Balkans Spurn Empire
by Nebojsa Malic, October 24, 2009
Email This | Print This | Share This | Comment | Antiwar Forum
The American Empire of today was born in the Balkans, during the 1990s interventions in Bosnia and Serbia. It was there that the concept of "benevolent global hegemony" was tested and cloaked in the rhetoric of "humanitarian intervention" and "preventing genocide." Last year, starting with the establishment of the "Independent state of Kosovo" and culminating with the installation of a client regime in Serbia, was the pinnacle of Empire’s success, a "victory" that stood out from the colossal failures of Iraq and Afghanistan.
Yet the only actual victory was that of wishful thinking over reality. No amount of American force, bribes or propaganda has sufficed to conjure into being a Bosnian nation-state, while the quisling regime in Serbia, slavishly devoted to its foreign masters, nonetheless began to look elsewhere when it became blindingly obvious that Uncle Sam’s coffers were oh so very empty.
On October 20, Russian president Dimitry Medvedev visited Belgrade. The occasion was the anniversary of the Soviet Army’s liberation of Belgrade during World War Two, but Medvedev’s visit was only partly ceremonial. He brought money, a military cooperation deal, and an offer of friendship — all of which have so far been the exclusive prerogative of Serbia’s Western overlords.
Meanwhile, over in Bosnia, the U.S.-EU initiative to fundamentally change the Dayton Peace Agreement ended in a fiasco, with all three ethnic communities rejecting the proposals presented, albeit for different reasons. Although Washington and Brussels theoretically have near-absolute power in Bosnia, through their "High Representative" and de facto viceroy, the improvised and half-baked nature of the Butmir proposals illustrated the very real limitations of that power.
Fiasco in Butmir
When it was first announced that the Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt and the U.S. Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg would be coming to Bosnia with a super-secret proposal for constitutional reform, this was hyped as the Second Coming of Dayton. Even the location chosen for the talks — a NATO base near Sarajevo — seemed to have been chosen to echo the events of November 1995, when the Bosnian War was finally brought to an end at Wright-Patterson AFB outside Dayton, Ohio. Based on the parallels with Dayton, there were even rumors in the local media that Bildt and Steinberg would sequester the seven Bosnian politicians at the Butmir base and not let them leave until an agreement was reached.
Imagine everyone’s surprise, then, when the "talks" adjourned after just one day, when it turned out that Americans and Europeans weren’t reading from the same script.
article continued
===============
By October 20, when the talks reconvened, the supposedly revolutionary plan was revealed as a rehash of the "April package," a set of constitutional reforms that failed three years ago. Back then, the much-stronger Empire managed to coerce the Bosnian lawmakers to vote on a set of constitutional amendments changing the nature of all three branches of Bosnia’s government. At the last minute, though, a motley coalition led by the Empire’s protégé, Muslim nationalist Haris Silajdzic, put together enough votes to scuttle the bill. Though it would routinely sack or even arrest Serb and Croat officials accused of obstruction, this time around the Empire did absolutely nothing. Silajdzic went on to win the Muslim vote in the presidential elections that fall.
Though the legions of foreign do-gooders employed in Bosnian nation-building most often point at Bosnian Serb Prime Minister Milorad Dodik as their principal adversary, it was their failure to react to Silajdzic’s April adventure that fatally undermined the "international community" in Bosnia.
Not surprisingly, while the Serbs and the Croats rejected the "new" set of proposals because they would have stripped them of autonomy guaranteed by the Dayton agreement, the Muslims — Silajdzic in particular — also rejected the proposals, complaining they did not go far enough in giving them control. Not much has changed since Dayton, then. There, an American diplomat "who had devoted years of his life to the search for ways to help create a Bosnian state" declared, "These people are impossible to help."
The second round of talks adjourned on Wednesday. They will supposedly continue, and the viceroy has tried to put the best face on them, but the failure of the latest grand initiative to remake Bosnia is more than readily apparent.
Even the most devoted partisans of Bosnian nation building agree. One longtime interventionist demanded that the answer to this "clear failure" be a renewed commitment to viceroy’s personal rule — what this column has termed democratorship. To them, everything boils down to triumph of the will; yet it is far from certain that the Empire has much will left, as its political, economic and military capital continues to dwindle.
The Bear Cometh
One of the chief differences between the Butmir talks and Dayton was the glaring absence of Russians. Though Moscow had sent an ambassador to Dayton, and formally has a seat on the Peace Implementation Council — a committee run by the Empire officially overseeing the Bosnian protectorate — under Yeltsin Russia’s role in the Balkans has been that of an observer, giving legitimacy to Imperial designs but unable to affect them in any way.
That role has shifted over the past decade, first with the withdrawal of Russian troops from NATO missions in Bosnia and Kosovo, and then with Moscow’s support for Serbia regarding the status of its occupied southern province. Ironically, though the Western media have insisted on Serbia and Russia being "traditional allies" (just as they have insisted on inflating the Bosnian death tolls), the last time that was actually the case was in 1917, before the Red revolution.
The current Serbian government, a ragtag coalition of former Communist fractions re-branded as progressives, democrats, and liberals, came into being as a quisling regime of the EU and the U.S. Now, however, as the influence of both is on the wane, they have welcomed Medvedev in Belgrade.
In addition to pledges of continued support for Serbia’s territorial problem, Medvedev brought a $1 billion loan and reaffirmed Moscow’s commitment to the South Stream gas pipeline. Earlier this year, a new and pro-Washington government in Bulgaria halted its participation in South Stream in favor of the American-sponsored Nabucco. That doesn’t seem to have discouraged Moscow any.
Belgrade has also made overtures to Beijing, which President Tadic visited in August. Following the visit, he spoke of China and Russia as two of the "pillars" of Serbian diplomacy — the other two being Europe and the U.S., presumably. What has prompted this seeming departure from a policy of unconditional sycophancy to the West?
One explanation is that the EU integration, major investments and incentives the quisling government promised the voters last year have completely failed to materialize. Having promised the people a better life in exchange for Kosovo and liberty, the government is in a position where it cannot deliver. Hence the desperate search for friends (and lenders) from Beijing to Moscow. Ideologically, Tadic and his cohorts still wish to be a province of the Empire. Reality, however, demands they go with where the money is.
Devotion for Sale
The American Empire asserted itself at the end of the Cold War by the power of its consumerist economy as much as by the force of arms. Now the arms are stuck to the tar babies of Iraq and Afghanistan, while consumer dreams are sinking along the toxic assets and fictitious derivatives that made them possible. Even in the Balkans, where the Empire first asserted itself and claimed the power to change reality with mere willpower, that weakness is beginning to be felt. The downside of creating client states is that they expect their charity check on a regular basis. When the Empire can no longer pay up, it will find the friendship and devotion of its Balkans "allies" for sale to whoever can. Whether that is Moscow, Beijing or someone else, only time will tell.
if one simply keeps a WIDE perspective and see BEYOND the "main news" occupying the US public in foreign affairs:
Afghanistan, Iraq , Iran, -- and to lesser extent china, russia...
one sees the pattern arise:
the USA EMPIRE - having bombed and intimidated and manipulated its way into "projecting" power --
does NOT have merely AFghanistan as the quagmire, IN ADDITION to Iraq..nor forthcoming, if it continues, in iran..
BUT also elsehwere- such as in eastern europe and of course south america and of course if it tries to take on China for real..in asia.
what then would happen to the USA with quagmires as a result of its attempt for "Global Supreme Command" and "full spectrum dominance" whose only results - north, south, west and east and DOMESTICALLY in effect as blowbacks -
are QUAGMIRES and FAILURE?
and as a "side dish" -- creating ENEMIES where none existed or need never have been?.
questions, questions, questions, americans MUST ask of themselves. unless of course they have a death wish for eventually earning the VERY THINGS they always cry WOLF about :
"THREATS TO OUR WAY OF LIFE"
from ALL directions in ALL manner .
until the world will rid itself of what america has become:
the world's BIGGEST THREAT to PEACE and prosperity.
one begins to wonder -- how many "McChrystal" , Petraeus, and sundry other zombie manifestations of the same Imperial Caesars does the USA really have to keep churning out in its bankrupt, untrustworthy , unrespectable state --
wildly "diplomaticing" everywhere to "counter" "threats" to its "influence" as its erstwhile "allies" - most of them simply bombed into being such, or intimidated - FIND new PATRONS as they see FIT?
exactly how many more wars does the USA intend to instigate - thinking that by doing so, by destabilizing regions in order to "reshape" them to America's designs , before it runs out of FUEL , monetarily, energy-wise, industry-wise (which includes the HOME industries that maintain the main economy which are being starved of finance because of Imperial wars) - and before it runs out of BODIES to sacrifice ?
a million more american bodies? spread worldwide?
ten million maybe? 20 million?
50 million?
for how long?
does america REALLY think that CHINA can not or is not willing, if it comes down to it, to deploy 100 million, if necessary? Russians to deploy another 20 million if they had known what it's like to lose 12 million in world war 2, and another 20 million under Stalin..and ABOVE ALL - preserve themselves against american domination if it comes to that?
Iran? afghanistan where they can hold americans Hostage?
exactly how many "troops" can america send to South America to control Latin America if it comes down to trying to disrupt South american's growing rapport and prosperity TIED to China and Asia?
does the USA REALLY think that the world and regions will PERMIT the USA to go abroad trying to dictate what is to be the state of their regions?
Hi Teddy, I like your contributions.
Have you viewed below film? It's a long, amateurish looking production, but mesmerizingly riveting and factual in it's details. It seems that it is not the American Empire but "THE EMPIRE OF "THE CITY"
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4675077383139148549
Thanks for the post, it always helps to read something that corrects in any way one's conception of the world. I think one myth has been that "our" belief in the "rightness" of a particular policy has anything to do with the outcome of a policy where everybody is just a little bit tired of US throwing our weight around. Where "Sadam was a bad guy" or "We need to liberate women" or "people are miserable there" or "We need to control these oil resources" don't really cut the mustard versus all the deaths of innocents from arial bombings and fights between foreigners. Even success by military is failure over the long term, apparently.
Thanks for the post, if only our homegrown media would provide a more realistic representation of global reality, we might actually be making the right moves.
Hey Sir, get your Geography in better order. Romania does not but on the Caspian. When I last looked on a world map it was the Black Sea.
Thank you for the correction. yes, black sea it is. my main point is that this region, with Romania abutting the black sea - is the area of what is now called "the great game" of energy conduits in which the USA - which has NO possessions of it and is from thousands of miles away =--- tries to HUSTLE its way in a region where the abutting countries or neighboring ones are either the rich sources of energy or conduits.
and what is the USA REALLY doing there?. what has it HAD to offer in all the decades except destabilization so that it can "muscle" its way IN where it really doesn't belong?
as Patrick Buchanan ,the arch conservative says correctly:
"WE DIDN'T LIKE IT WHEN THE SOVIET UNION WAS IN OUR NEIGHBORHOOD...cuba....SO.........WHAT ARE *WE* DOING IN RUSSIA'S NEIGHBORHOOD??"
so my point - as well as that article's - is that where Obama and the USA actually have the GALL to lecture the USSR about
"respecting sovereignty"...and "not meddling" and not "dominating" ....
it is the USA that has been the most habitual in doing so.
and for thsi reason as said by General Smedley Butler , US marines - in 1933:
":OUR FOREIGN POLICY has always been geared towards gathering as much of the world's resources unto ourselves at the expense of others".
THIEVERY , in other words...with NOTHING to offer in return, even for that BAD excuse ...but WAR and what BUTLER ALSO said:
"OUr CULTURAL AND ECONOMIC ASSAULT...we are gangsters for capitalism".
one can even say this: without being morally correct about it:
IF russia, for instance, tries to EXERT its influence in its "near abroad" - IT at least HAS something to OFFER in return to its own near abroad, regardless of the rivalries or any shenanigans...
Russia ALSO has energy, gas, oil, fresh water resources, plenty of land and forests. etc...in RETURN for neighbor or littoral countries to HAGGLE with russia what THEY can get out of the relationships or offer in TURN...
if ROMANIA or SERBIA were to serve as partial conduits for gas from russia, turkmenistan, azerbaijan...etc..
these , without gas or energy at least ARE situated strategically for THOSE energy rich countries to NEED serbia's or romania's cooperation, in return perhaps, for preferential treatment or discounts in gas or oil..tit for tat....
WHAT IS THE USA offering?
NOTHING! except the INTENT to MUSCLE its way in OVER ENERGY which it does NOT possess in exchange for ANY influence it wants to exert in a neighborhood far, far away from "home".
The American Empire of today was born in the Balkans, during the 1990s interventions in Bosnia and Serbia. It was there that the concept of "benevolent global hegemony" was tested and cloaked in the rhetoric of "humanitarian intervention" and "preventing genocide."
------------------
Ha ha! No offense but, the 1990s? Unless it's a typo and he meant to say 'the 1890s' - Sadly, the US became the American Empire of today the day those rotten European settlers set their stinking feet on American soil and decided that, in order to have the land, they needed to cleanse it of its indigenous population. And that, my friend, was neither in the Balkans nor in the 1990s!
As for the need to change the American way, this post by Master is a reasonable shot at a solution. The use of the word communism is a problem. Collective thinking is better but not enough. One thing we can be sure of is that the American way is in question all over the world.
The eastern way is intriguing. It is communal, not communist whatever Mao said. People in our part of the world think they are compliant, but there is no group more ready to shout its officials down. My experience is that our understanding of it is very slight and distorted.
"...this post by Master is a reasonable shot at a solution." –(James Edwards)
–As is the following quotation, a "reasonable shot at a solution."
"Communism is not love. Communism is a hammer which, we use to crush the enemy." –(Mao Tse-Tung)
This is precisely why there is a 'problem' with the word Communism; it is also precisely why there should be no problem with the word as Mao uses it here.
Most progressives do not want to 'crush' the enemy, thinking that the enemy can be 'convinced' otherwise.
Unfortunately that silly conceit will probably persist even at the point when fascist gangsters and American soldiers cave their skulls in. –(Jill Bains)
"In fact, there are literally no scenarios in which capitalism dominates, and humanity shares universal peace, sustainability, equality, or affluence. Really! It is not possible, even in theory, my friends! The only way to reach any of these goals is international and communist - period."
----------------------
Well, that theory hasn't worked all that well for the USSR...or China...or Korea...or Cuba...or East Germany...or any of the other so-called "Communist" countries. So, what next?