Emanuel Leutze ‘Westward the Course of Empire’
From the Inauguration Day letter Obomba left for Herr Trump:
“Second, American leadership in this world really is indispensable. It’s up to us, through action and example, to sustain the international order that’s expanded steadily since the end of the Cold War, and upon which our own wealth and safety depend.”
Alternately, one might tweak the title as ‘The Empire that Mistook Itself as Manifesting God’s Will to Rule the World’, or ‘…Mistook Itself as Divinely Ordered Judge, Jury, and Executioner’.
The notion came to mind after one of our neighbors had a stroke, and when released to his own abode, tried to drink from a flashlight. Aha! I told his sister: that’s known as ‘visual agnosia’; this is the simplest explanation:
Freud coined the term “visual agnosia” in 1891, using it to distinguish between perception and recognition. Freud’s term is still used today to refer to a neurologically based inability to recognize or identify familiar objects in the absence of a primary visual problem (i.e., acuity, brightness discrimination and visual fields are all intact), a psychiatric disorder, or other serious cognitive or intellectual loss (e.g., aphasia, alexia). Typically, agnosias are acquired disorders due to brain lesions (e.g., trauma, stroke, tumor, or carbon monoxide poisoning) that impair functioning of one or more higher order visual centers.
As for the bolded underlying causes, the collective ruling elites of the Western hegemon could easily be considered to be under the dictates and spells of any number of psychological disorders, including: narcissistic personality disorder with attendant God complex, delusional paranoia flavored with socio/psychopathy, etc.
Our Rulers have no inner lives they check in with, i.e. consciences, because: they know they were destined to rule, so there is no need to look inward, is there? Pax Americana™ ended with Herr Trump’s rule, according to the New York Times. (Sorry for the non sequitur.)
Many modern historians believe that the roots of the Imperium actually began in 1776 with a major aim of the Revolution being to keep slavery alive. But let’s look at the present threats of the Empires’ war on so many fronts, shall we?
Nikki Haley at the UN: “North Korea is begging for war!” Never mind, Nikki, that you might consider ‘Why North Korea needs nukes and how to end it’, from b at MoA, but in the end, it’s more pleasurable to try to drink from a flashlight powered by Bombastic War Drums. No, it’s far better to say “We’ve talked enough, now all options are on the table!” It seems that even South Korea has followed your lead…for now and of course Japan and other allies flying in intimidation formations over the Korean Peninsula.
But there’s clear evidence that both Russia and Iran want war…
…including with their proxies in Syria, but ooopsie, didn’t the NYT just utter that Assad in Syria has won…something? Maybe the astroturf ‘civil war’ will end soon? Cuz hell, there any number of ‘security threats to Amerika to move on toward, including WTF, Venezuela? So chug a few mouthfuls, Nikki, and take another selfie with your BFF tax scofflaw Bono, then see if George Clooney of the Council on Foreign Relations board might stop by for a selfie, too. Because there’s always South Sudan to liberate from Amerikan Hegemony gone…juuuust wrong enough.
Consider ‘The cynicism of Nestle frontman George Clooney; A “human rights advocate” at the intersection of imperialism and greed’ by Club des Cordeliers a year ago’; it’s seriously worth the time to consider his Tweeted history. If memory serves, he’d done his dissertation on the many evils of Nestle.
At the beginning of September, the Head Cheese of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg, announced that “…the world is at its most dangerous point in a generation’ and warned of converging threats as Russia mobilises estimated 100,000 troops on EU’s borders, as a nuclear crisis grows on the Korean peninsula.” Never mind the militarized ‘readiness’ exercises (read: threats and warnings) afoot in the South China and Black Seas, over the Korean Peninsula, nossir. Those nations are threatening war on the Imperium, one revanchist, one simply maniacally nuts, two threatening a unipolar world, and must be stopped; all options are on that Increasingly Large Table, as Our Rulers and their lackeys slurp from that same flashlight of bellicosity, white phosphorus, depleted uranium, but surely not really…nukes?
Now given that it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to grasp the fact that the permanent War on Terror™, ‘successful’ regime change operations, and their resultant occupations of Muslim Holy Lands is exactly what triggered the rise of Islamic fundamentalism, it would be all too easy to say that the hegemon knows exactly what it’s doing…for profit and fun, but in any event, the key principle always circles back to Gawd’s Manifest Destiny and the Export of Democracy (for the few). Do they collectively sense that this Empire is fast approaching its sell-by date, and are thus even more dangerous? The rest of the citizens of the world seem to see it so, don’t they?
From Dahr Jamail:
“Authors of a report titled “Body Count: Casualty Figures After 10 Years of the ‘War on Terror,'” told Truthout the numbers of dead in Iraq and other countries the US had waged war on since the events of September 11 had reached “genocidal dimensions” and “could also be in excess of 2 million, whereas a figure below 1 million is extremely unlikely.”
In Afghanistan alone, well over 31,000 civilians have died violent deaths from the war, and uncounted numbers have suffered — and continue to suffer — from wounds and health impacts and being unable to get treatment or assistance.
Afghanistan, already a war-ravaged country, has been made even more difficult to live in by the US occupation, which the US has just amped up again by sending nearly 4,000 more troops. Issues like lack of sanitation, extreme poverty, lack of basic healthcare, pollution and malnutrition have all grown worse, not better, with the US presence there.
So, has the so-called War on Terror succeeded? Even if we take seriously the criteria by which it was propagandistically sold to the US public, as well as the rest of the world, the answer must be a resounding “no.” The Global Terrorism Index revealed that, as of 2014, there had been a fivefold increase in global terrorism fatalities since 9/11.”
But moar from Obomba’s ‘secret’ inaugural day letter to the orange-haired one:
“First, we’ve both been blessed, in different ways, with great good fortune. Not everyone is so lucky. It’s up to us to do everything we can (to) build more ladders of success for every child and family that’s willing to work hard.”©
Ah, yes: the Capitalist Manifesto and Mantra:
“A few years from now, strange as it may sound, we might all find that we are hungry for more capitalism, not less. The simple truth is that with all its flaws, capitalism remains the most productive economic engine we have yet invented.”
~ Fareed Zakaria
Yes, more wage slaves to rob and plunder are just what Capital requires; for those unwilling to work hard enough for success, there are always debtors’ prisons, dissident prisons, or welfare and other social safety nets. Oh, wait; not any longer, hello, Bubba Clinton, but maybe just slow death by hunger, toxic water, food, and air…or addiction or suicide, of course. ‘We’re starving in a handful of gluttons; we’re drowning in their gravy spills’, ~ Buffy Sainte Marie
At the same time, socialism cannot stand! Not in See-you-in C.U.B.A., not in the global south, especially in Venezuela (will Peru be next?). Better to strangle Bolivarism with anti-government CIA-driven street protests, economic sanctions that will end up in a sincerely ‘failed state’, trigger a military response, and support of Amerikan neoliberal puppets, eh?
“Together with the nuclear madmen, they will rain poisonous death upon us all unless we stop them. Remember: to be a contemplative is to be an outlaw. Don’t divorce resistance from contemplation; they are married for life. Joy and suffering are their children.”
~ Thomas Merton
Sure, there are increasing moves to create a multi-polar world, but those burgeoning efforts are for another day.
……………………………………………………………………………………………………..
(Borrowed Stolen from ‘The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat’ by clinical neurologist Oliver Sachs, RIP, of course.) ;-)
davidly
Greyson Smythe
LeMoyne
juliania2
ohiobarbarian
stephenadavis1
wendyedavis
café babylon 
i agree; it’s one of the reasons that cordeliers is my favorite tankie. ;-)
yesterday he’d tweeted this.it’s way too long for me to read, but i did scoot down:
it’s way too long for me to read, but i did scoot down to the ‘United States’ heading; a few bits:
“The particular form of Protestantism established in New England served to legitimize the new U.S. society and its conquest of the continent in terms drawn from the Bible. The genocide of the Native Americans is a natural part of the new chosen people’s divine mission. Subsequently, the United States extended to the entire world the project of realizing the work that “God” had ordered it to accomplish. The people of the United States live as the “chosen people.”
Of course, the American ideology is not the cause of U.S. imperialist expansion. The latter follows the logic of capital accumulation and serves the interests of capital (which are quite material). But this ideology is perfectly suited to this process. It confuses the issue. The “American Revolution” was only a war of independence without social import. In their revolt against the English monarchy, the American colonists in no way wanted to transform economic and social relations, but simply no longer wanted to share the profits from those relations with the ruling class of the mother country. Their main objective was above all westward expansion. Maintaining slavery was also, in this context, unquestioned. Many of the revolution’s major leaders were slave owners, and their prejudices in this area were unshakeable.”
“The avowed objective of the United States’ new hegemonic strategy is not to tolerate the existence of any power capable of resisting Washington’s commands. To accomplish that, it seeks to break up all countries considered to be “too large” and create the maximum number of rump states, easy prey for the establishment of U.S. bases to ensure their “protection.” Only one state has the right to be “large”: the United States. Its global strategy has five objectives: neutralize and subjugate the other partners in the triad (Europe and Japan) and minimize their ability to act outside of American control; establish NATO’s military control of and “Latin Americanize” parts of the former Soviet world; assume sole control of the Middle East and Central Asia and their petroleum resources; break up China, secure the subordination of other large states (India, Brazil), and prevent the formation of regional blocs that would be able to negotiate the terms of globalization; and marginalize regions of the South with no strategic interest.
The hegemonic ambitions of the United States are ultimately based more on the outsized importance of its military power than on the “advantages” of its economic system. It can then pose as uncontested leader of the triad by making its military power and NATO, which it dominates, the “visible fist” in charge of imposing the new imperialist order on all possible recalcitrants.”
listening to the pinheads “I can’t remember nature…there was this creature that had horns…I think we called this thing a skunk…” the cordeliers’ excerpt is great.
“the future doesn’t have to be pretty” – porn mogul in “boogie nights” to burt Reynolds’ little jack horner. that the kind of control envisioned by US leaders has already been tried, on, uh, several occasions, w/all the attendant mass destruction, is irrelevant to any consideration. that that same control *requires* probably the destruction of the planet is also irrelevant. better dead than any other color. the bureaucrat, incl. the generals that, as MoA points out today, run the country now, has no relation w/the consequences of his (and hurray! now her) actions, except as it affects career ambition, personal finance & prestige, etc. I ain’t no expert on this or anything else, but I wonder if there was some intuition about this in 19th c. Russia as it struggled w/”Westernization” and the introduction of “modern gov’t” (big bureaucracies) in an essential feudal environment. Dead Souls, Notes from Underground, Death of Ivan Ilych, War & Peace to a degree, even the most despicable character in Anna Karenina, others i’m probably forgetting, all bureaucrats. I suppose that Kafka (Trial & Metamorphosis) and Orwell and maybe Camus were very influenced by this perspective which has since more fully blossomed into some serious fleurs du mal.
I suppose that’s also why these silly spectacles of people like consummate insider Robert Mueller running around subpoenaing the sunshine & sky & everything else is so appealing. It gives the aura of accountability about people & matters that will never be accountable to anyone, provided they even modestly fulfill their class “duty.”
“get yourself a pair of glass eyes [glasses], like a scurvy politician, to seem to see what is not there.”
mornin’, you brake for capital. this reflects a theme i was struggling to express: ““get yourself a pair of glass eyes [glasses], like a scurvy politician, to seem to see what is not there.” as in: are the masters of war actually as psychotic w/ their versions of visual agnosia…or not. i did peek into b’s essay, and the main place i disagree is that herr T really meant to disengage the US from increased military madness…in general.
but adding to the theme of this essay, and yours about ‘who cares about the planet?’ this morning is phil butler’s ‘The Day Of The Generals: Winning Armageddon’ is pretty sobering. oddly, he published at neo, but that site’s not answering, and i was unable to spot it at landdestroyer.whatever; they usually carry the same stories.
“The minutes of this fateful meeting are top secret. Only a handful of people will ever know what was discussed. But the end result of the strategy session was revealed on September 15, 2017 before the people of the United States. The top generals of the most powerful nation on Earth advised congress that America could in fact win an all-out war with Russia and China. It must have been a scene right out of Director Stanley Kubrick’s classic Cold War film, Dr. Strangelove. I was not there, so I can only imagine the gathering of war hawks, the stoic expertise and military intellect, and the obtuse arrogance being conveyed across the congressional forum that day. The vision makes me wonder, “Who in the hell ordered such an assessment in the first place?” But I think we all know the answer.
General Milley expressed his only concern over World War III by citing the U.S. Army’s “lack of resources and training to execute America’s national security strategy without high military risk.” Admiral Richardson agreed with Milley, but his level of confidence in the U.S. Navy’s dominance seemed somehow higher. Milley told committee:
“I concur with Gen. Milley. If we get into one of those conflicts, we’ll win, but it going to take a lot longer than we’d like and it’s going to cost a lot more in terms of dollars and in casualties.”
and tra la la and OMG.
but let’s see what nikki has to say today besides ‘VZ suffering under the dicktater maduro, meeting w/ the prez of uganda on conditions in south sudan. but goddam, purrrrfect w/ the subtweets including advising her that the houthis had run hadi…out. oh, and unga meets this week, and the US has got ‘reform plans!’
…Hi wd
…That was one fine pro USian Empire war criminals seek to justify USian Empire warmongering war making and no bounds death dealing speech written by unseen hands for DeeTee to deliver at UN on Tuesday. No matter that it was woefully ignorant of facts and truths. Who cares the great stinking bulk of that speech as read by DeeTee was fully laced with Bernaysian Styled Big Lies and perfidiously told storytell untruths and deceptions of what is knowable / known USian Empire conduct and history across 19th, 20th and this 21st century. Plain to see Nikki Haley easily could have been Barack Obama’s gal at the UN and Samantha Power could have been seated next to DeeTee at the UN during Tuesday.
…DeeTee is now POTUS largely because of the multiple Big Lies and polished deceptions of war criminal Barack Obama who from Jan.20, 2009 thru Jan. 20, 2017 worked to cover up, extend and expand what the Bush/Cheney WH regime had been doing since Jan.20, 2001 and well before the Pearl Harbor like tainted FF event of 9/11/01 was set off by USian Deep State and it’s deeper still unseen masters. Bush/Cheney had shed innocents blood and Barack Obama let them get away with doing so and then fully went along with continuing and expanding on Bush/Cheney conduct.
…Plain to see and know DeeTee delivered a speech on Tuesday at the UN that Barack Obama could have just as easily delivered. Evidently what DeeTee read off the teleprompter at the UN met with the USian fascist John Bolton’s high five approval. Need one continue? I doubt it. Seems it still is1898 for USian Empire.
… As it is common USians have been deeply misled and are now being led blinded and numbed into a Bernaysian inspired false horrific propaganda fantasy that now only China, Russia and Iran can bring to it’s well deserved wooden stake to the heart Moment.
…Too bad too many USians have now fallen into the very worse of See / Not See self deception and self inflicted fact and truth denial.
…Who will call out the Big Lies / Deceptions that we USians have been told by Clinton, Bush and Obama since 1992? 2000? 2008? and now DeeTee since Jan.20,2017? Those who can and will.
… It is a terrible thing we USians have now placed upon both China and Russia as being only two other great nations capable of confronting serial lies, perfidy and death dealing of USian Empire.
…WarCriminal Innocents Killer Barack Obama should have been stopped, Bush/Cheney should have been stopped and Clinton should have been stopped by common USians. Sadly were not and that being so led to the serial cliche laden and deleted fact / truth speech delivered by DeeTee at UN on Tuesday. It did not have to be this way and really should not have been.
…Bad Choices were made and have been made and tragic and horrible consequences will and must now ensue. So many will now suffer needlessly and be forced to endure malevolent evil and death dealing. Hell hopefully awaits those who willingly led and misled so many innocents to this fate. Why should it be otherwise?
…sta🏹
mornin’, arrow. i’m sooo glad you stopped by, and in fact had rued the fact that i don’t have your actual-factual e-address, thus couldn’t send it to you. i’d reckoned it would be right in your wheelhouse…er…arrowhouse. just in case, i’m at wendyedavisATmsn.com
now i didn’t listen to the speech, just read a few quotes, but yes, nikki is simply a more stupid sister of sammie. now both clinton and obomba could have delivered the same messages in Herr Hair’s speech, but they would have delivered it far more smoothly, *reasonably*, and w/o the fire and fury, no? guess i’d have to factor into the T win for the oval office obomba’s totally bailing out wall street, not main street, to use the cliché again. but yeppers, the duopoly is totally down w/ militarism, both in FP and in the police state in the streets.
the scribes to the empire’s agitprop has worked so well that in some recent poll, 58% of amerikans favor bombing north korea. lemme go grab a tweet.
“When the US decides to attack a nation or government that it finds inconvenient, there’s a particular style of propaganda that invariably appears willy-nilly in the US press, now amplified by social media. Call the the Scary Brown Clown. Propagandists fabricate a comic-book enemy who is meant to be simultaneously terrifying, savage and ridiculous. This was done with Noriega, Chavez, Saddam, Gaddafi, et al. Latest Crazy Brown Clown is of course Kim Jong Un. The fact that an entirely fictional caricature of Kim is all but universally accepted as truth by Americans – even those who claim to oppose aggression against DPRK – shows how effective Washington’s propaganda apparatus is.”
@cordeliers “the shopworn trope with even more warmth, because it’s a familiar and therefore comforting substitute for thought. Just like TV reruns.”
“… It is a terrible thing we USians have now placed upon both China and Russia as being only two other great nations capable of confronting serial lies, perfidy and death dealing of USian Empire.” and beleaguered venezuela, a few other at least almost-socialist nations, i’d add. but of course, they don’t have the Power that china and russia do.
on edit: christ on a crutch; thought i’d check in w’ nato on twitter. this makes me want to weep and scream alternately.
Oana LungescuVerified account @NATOpress 5h5 hours ago “A nuclear ban treaty not engaging any state possessing nuclear weapons is not effective.” Full #NATO NAC statement: https://goo.gl/EZovFG
“Ahmet Bozer, president of Coca-Cola International, described [his firm’s commodification efforts] to investors in 2014. “Half the world’s population has not had a Coke in the last 30 days,” he said. “There’s 600 million teenagers who have not had a Coke in the last week. So the opportunity for that is huge.” from today’s consumertrap.com.
maybe our collective id in its thirst for the nuclear thing is tired of coke being it? it is just too difficult to contemplate any further how awful this co-cola asshole and his whole class is. so maybe we smash the capitalist global lab by any means necessary since what Bezos & Apple & Toyota have planned is incomprehensible in how grotesque, stupid, etc., it is? be a capitalist functionary whose whims, desires & fears are played upon by advertisers (& “journalists” and politicians) OR we’ll bomb the fuck out of your country? the nukular subconscious desiring to destroy the awfulness the ego has created? maybe. I bet Ahmet Bozer is president of a temperance society.
well done, slurper! but did coke ahmet make sure to send cokes to areas hard hit by the last several hurricanes like nestle did? yanno, to prove how much they care? of course their water sources was a lie, but hell, it was wet! and now they’re bullish on breast-feeding babbies, so it’s all good!
how about a new song? ♫ “we’d like to buy…the world a nuke…to keep it strong and free…it’s the real thing!©” ♪♪
‘Senate overwhelmingly approves record $700 billion military budget’, wsws.org
“Demonstrating the bipartisan support of Democrats and Republicans for militarism and war, the US Senate voted 89 to nine on Monday to authorize $700 billion in spending for the military and intelligence agencies, an $80 billion increase from 2016 and $54 billion more than President Donald Trump requested earlier this year.”
“On the initiative of the Democratic Party, the budget measure was sharpened to target Russia. The bill authorizes millions of dollars to militarize Russia’s western border, including $500 million to provide weapons to the Ukrainian government and $100 million to “deter Russian aggression” in the Balkans. In all, the bill mentions Russia 72 times.”
“In the US, $700 billion could provide each homeless person with a $500,000 home, cover the annual health care costs of 70 million Americans, pay off the student loan debt of 19 million borrowers, or finance the total rebuilding cost for every hurricane over the past 20 years. $700 billion could be used to create a high-speed rail network, provide flood and earthquake protection to every region in danger, or fund planning for safe and comfortable emergency evacuation in case of natural disasters.”
can’t have that now, can we? gotta make war on VZ, cuba, iran, and ‘rocket man’.
Oh wow, Thomas Merton, one of my favorite dead, Jesuit, mystics…
The empire; there’s just no accounting for it; time will tell…
merton was most sincerely a remarkable man, wasn’t he v? when i was first introduced to him, i got lost in time reading his philosophical musings, and am more cautious now. ;-) but to say the truth, the quote had also referenced ‘geo-engineering’, which theory i don’t subscribe to as former café author nomad most strongly did before he’d departed. but i did get a boot out of some one as ian welsh’s place positing that the reason cuba survived irma relatively well was down to the fact that…cuba was geo-engineering! of course it couldn’t be that a socialist nation actually prepared for hurricanes, oh, no.
and hit again by maria, puerto rico has NO electricity, and it’s forecast that it might be six months until it’s restored.
i’ll add: ‘The Empire’s Hustle: Why Anti-Trumpism Doesn’t Include Anti-War’, Ajamu Baraka, counterpunch. he writes well, i think. but i wish he’d choose a new banner for for his twit account.
oh, and if anyone cares to read the transcript of herr cheeto at the UNGA, i’d grabbed the link.
Merton was a most exceptional human; a Christian mystic of the first order.
He taught me that true mysticism crossed all boundaries of religion; which is to say that true knowledge has no boundaries…
and mystics aren’t always religious either, are they? but yes: submersion into the infinite?
Many well-known mystics were in a religious order (or two) and quit or got expelled for heresy sooner or later.
Speaking of heresy and a near infinity of notes, here is what Irish folk has become in our modern age..
ha! re-reading your comment helped. i’d thunk at first that you’d meant that KAN’s song was emblematic of breakaway irish catholic mystics. ooof, kinda frantic, isn’t it?
but ooo-la-la; let’s hear from van!
By far the most interesting parts of the Ken Burns “Vietnam” documentary so far are the recordings of the conversations between LBJ and McNamara (of the 1964-1967 period of escalation thus far). LBJ generally comes out with “this is not going to do shit but if I don’t escalate, I won’t get re-elected.” The internal talk is devoid of the “indispensable nation” bullshit. The best analogy I have is the emotions of a raptor who dives and sinks his talons into a large sea creature that begins to dive with the raptor’s talons locked an unable to release and escape. Quite the difference between French attitudes about Vietnam in 1954 and French attitudes in 1967 as Operation Rolling Thunder starts delivering up civilian casualties — as planned (no “collateral damage” bullshit in the Vietnam War).
World War II set the image of the indispensable (and reluctant warrior) nation. And the illusion of “unconditional surrender” (completely ignoring Clausewitz’s understanding of the politics of war and separating military action from political restraint.)
What would Obama not act like every other President who sought membership in the ex-President’s social club?
And why would a settler colony of an aspirational empire (Elizabethan England) not be in it for the land or a early capitalist empire that pioneered the slave trade and plantation management as the largest-scale enterprises of the age not be extending plantations and seizing land without mental restraint? Bartolome de la Casa was only a little critical of Spanish settler colonialism under the conquistadors. There was no other major voice of conscience until Wilberforce in the late 1700s. The settler colonial states have had an absence of conscience mostly for over 100 years (Israel excepted).
Eleanor Roosevelt and the UN Declaration of Human Rights did more in the past century to normalize expectations of human rights than anything else. The cognitive dissonance of the Cold War and “peace” recruited more to the vision. National liberation was anti-imperial reaction to the continuing waves of Western European imperialism, of which the major powers now are paying the price in immigration at home. The people who have Geert Wilders so exercised are those Dutch subjects from Indonesia, Dutch West Indies, and Suriname who migrated to Netherlands for economic opportunity (and because “guest workers” were a big thing several decades ago). That is to pick the most obscure example instead of hammering on the cut-rate agricultural workers that were the subject of “Harvest of Shame”, Edward R. Murrow’s expose of fifty-some years ago.
Empires by definition mistake themselves as indispensable. Britain in the nineteenth century thought of itself as the indispensable protector of the seas, the indispensable pacifying force in India, the indispensable civilizing agent in Africa (and the indispensable civilizing agent in America before then).
We learned our bad habits from some of the most self-deluded.
It ends when we decide that it ends.
Yes, indeed, who exactly is that “we”?
i do thank you for your historical syntheses, and as ever…feel the need to run to the wiki. yes, those conversations sound not so much like ‘indispensable’, save in the political electoral realm. john pilger’s take looks on the part he watched looks interesting as all giddy-up (lies, bullshit, and more lies), and i hope to do more than scan. ‘The Killing of History’, infoclearinghouse. he includes what he saw as a reporter in vietnam, segues to trump’s readiness to obliterate dprk, hillary’s similar willingness on iran, and of course speaks to
Obomba’s many wars. where are the peace movements? well, in a deep dark badger bunker.
“There is plenty of sound and fury at Trump the odious one, the “fascist”, but almost none at Trump the symptom and caricature of an enduring system of conquest and extremism.”
oh, yes, and geert ‘islam is not a religion’ wilder, i do remember him.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/47871.htm
part of it later.
“From the beaches of Europe to the deserts of the Middle East to the jungles of Asia, it is an eternal credit to the American character that even after we and our allies emerge victorious from the bloodiest war in history, we did not seek territorial expansion or attempt to oppose and impose our way of life on others. Instead, we helped build institutions such as this one to defend the sovereignty, security, and prosperity for all. For the diverse nations of the world, this is our hope. ”
For as long as the UN has existed, this refrain. His housebroken excellency laid it on as a foil to announce the continuing war against socialism and that the US still has not forgotten the Iranian hostage crisis of 1979.
But at least he neither peed on the carpet nor advocated for a world like the painting Guernica.
OMG. i had a sneaking suspicion that the passage you quoted came from his speech. jeebus: “we are not an empire w/ puppet clients!” but lordie, lordie, the hypocrisy gets worse, and i hadn’t even finished.
“And just as the founders of this body intended, we must work together and confront together those who threatens us with chaos, turmoil, and terror. The score of our planet today is small regimes that violate every principle that the United Nations is based. They respect neither their own citizens nor the sovereign rights of their countries. If the righteous many do not confront the wicked few, then evil will triumph. When decent people and nations become bystanders to history, the forces of destruction only gather power and strength.”
how many times did the speech-writers use the term ‘sovereign’, anyhoo? but as to guernica, i have seen some folks say that he did paint that picture. are you positive he didn’t pee on the carpet?
oh, thank you for this and the above, but i’m so very backed up on chores that i can’t stay for now. perhaps later this evening, lord willin’ and the creeks don’t rise. y’all do okay-ish from the hurry-canes then? still no word from bruce.
helpfully you can also find the ballad of the green berets at that link.
the issue of inertia cannot be ignored either. f=ma. it’s been a war economy for a long time. until an object of greater force (hopefully, working class revolution in the US) stops, slows, hinders, redirects, etc., the USG, we will continue to do what has been successful for the successful exploiters. this is partly why US political discourse is so tedious. it’s all about rationalizing the current course, mostly thru throwing smoke & sparkly tinsel pixie dust in people’s faces.
and as we learned from the Brits who learned from the…Persians? the Sumerians? anyway, what is the future hegemon (assuming we get that far), likely china, learning from the US? Under capitalism, the new boss will be the same as the old boss. maybe not to have quite so much faith in techno-BS in military affairs, but that some technology is great for manipulating mass opinion. China or any future hegemon prolly doesn’t need much help from the US in that area. and all eyes look eagerly to Israel for guidance in controlling & subjugating restive populations.
mornin’, your one stop drive thru gun & liquor store. (best ever, mebbe?) yes to inertia. i can see that it won’t stop until there is an equal and opposite force. it’s harder and harder to see that The Force will be from inside the US, though. amerikans (contra polling results) seem to love war even when they can’t find the nations ‘we’re’ making war on…on a map. which would seem to leave…a new hegemon. but at least a multi-polar world is on its way, which for now at least, delights me.