Good read. I especially enjoyed your attention for the way our societies have forgotten to look critically at power.
I often think about this, and the professionalization we saw from the 90s on seems to play a big part in how people view the world and themselves within it. It has become more important to fit in than to reflect.
Thanks as that sure saves me a lot of work as I was thinking of doing a review of his stuff. Keep up the good work. I am thinking of writing about Rodney Stitch and more ...
Oh, absolutely, that's just the tip of the iceberg above. Colonialism was hardly an American thing at all, and the neo-colonial structures are very much reproduced by other political actors as well.
It's just that US hegemony is almost unchallenged in spite of that.
This is why American patriotism smells phony to me. Is this what one should be proud of? Even if you don’t know the extent of it (and really, is there someone out there who truly knows the extent of it), you can feel it in your bones that you’re a part of an evil empire whose hunger is never satiated.
Such good thinking and writing. Thank you for that. I am looking forward to the next part.
There's a new novel out titled The Passenger from an American writer Cormac Mccarthy. In the book, there are the following words: "A calamity can be erased by no amount of good. It can only be erased by a worse calamity."
For me, I think it might have been Unholy Wars by John Cooley. Painstakingly researched reportage on CIAs involvement in engineering the Taliban movement. I think I read it in 2005 or so, and the hypocrisy became so utterly palpable that there was really no going back.
You're quite welcome. I think we need more comprehensive overviews of these matters. Somebody (Cory?) should put together a nice map of e.g. Blackwater's global holdings and assets under management, for instance.
Yes, so, how was ALL of this forgotten over the last 15 years ?
Among people I grew up with, all of whom knew this, or appeared to know it, today the same people are unrecognizable.
2 possibilities:
1. The system reversed/degraded everything, inverted every principle/belief that people formerly subscribed to, and nobody noticed.
OR
2. It’s always been this way; people never really held these beliefs. They were just sounds picked up from mass media, which included such ideas at the time, and parroted albeit with less interpretive reflection than is indeed evidenced by parrots 🦜
I’m leaning toward 2.
A small point about the article above: Russia does produce its own microchips. Not at 7 namometer (yet) but they have no problem producing their own chips.
And those relative valuations of countries (and companies) at dollar value are io be weighed: shareholder stock valuation in dollar reserve currency financialized economies versus material and industrial output
Here’s another list of things everyone used to “know”, or a list of officials who said outloud the same thing, which everyone knew:
Why even read beyond the first one? Well, but the list is endless, from the architect of the Cold War himself, George Kennan, to every high official in living memory, to every 12 year old kid riding a skateboard down some cul de sac, EVERYONE KNEW.
So what happened? How was the entire political/institutional establishment uprooted, set afire on the trash heap of history, and replaced by a political army of totally psychotic zombified automaton suicidal freaks, while NOBODY NOTICED. Seriously, fuck me, it’s definitely number 2.
But there’s counter evidence. Americans with a functioning brain are endangered species, but they’re not extinct, yet. Here’s one
“Prime Ministers of Ukraine, Poland, and Lithuania sign statement on need to strengthen military and financial assistance to Kiev, as well as to intensify discussions on Ukraine's accession to NATO and EU.”
They should do it. Who’s they? The entire collective west. The sooner they do it the sooner their entire shit show collapses into a black hole of their own creation. An absolute good no matter the cost
Americans are spoiled, and have little actual experience outside the US, especially in a war or conflict, so it's just head knowledge to them. And it's far, far away.
MacGregor is a fave of mine. Always love his input.
Having little experience seems true outside the US too, all over Europe wherever English language mass media infects and rots minds. The mind rot is epidemic in Sweden for example
Nothing to do with people and power is simple, because humans are complex. Very, very few people have the integrity to resist the lure of money and/or power, be they Left or Right, US or foreign. Those positions attract psychopaths, who crave power like an addict craves heroin.
There's a good reason why our Constitution specifies that only Congress can declare war. It's the sons and daughters of the lower and middle classes who go off to war, and pay the hugeprice in blood and inflation. But we haven't "declared war" since WWII, & not even Rand Paul has objected to this Ukraine debacle, nor insisted on the congressional right to declare war.
But it's never as cut and dried as you portray it, and not every war was provoked by us. Communits and leftist "revolutionaries" have done their share, especially in S. America, as have Muslims worldwide.
Good read. I especially enjoyed your attention for the way our societies have forgotten to look critically at power.
I often think about this, and the professionalization we saw from the 90s on seems to play a big part in how people view the world and themselves within it. It has become more important to fit in than to reflect.
Tough to take but true. Perkins in Confessions of an Economic Hit Man covers a lot of this too.
Yep. Excellent book, I'll get into some of his stuff for the next piece I think.
Thanks as that sure saves me a lot of work as I was thinking of doing a review of his stuff. Keep up the good work. I am thinking of writing about Rodney Stitch and more ...
Nice, will check out your work!
Also for Latin America, Eduardo Galeano, _Las Venas Abiertas de Latinoamerica_
Not only US, but UK, France, Canada, etc.
Oh, absolutely, that's just the tip of the iceberg above. Colonialism was hardly an American thing at all, and the neo-colonial structures are very much reproduced by other political actors as well.
It's just that US hegemony is almost unchallenged in spite of that.
This is why American patriotism smells phony to me. Is this what one should be proud of? Even if you don’t know the extent of it (and really, is there someone out there who truly knows the extent of it), you can feel it in your bones that you’re a part of an evil empire whose hunger is never satiated.
Such good thinking and writing. Thank you for that. I am looking forward to the next part.
There's a new novel out titled The Passenger from an American writer Cormac Mccarthy. In the book, there are the following words: "A calamity can be erased by no amount of good. It can only be erased by a worse calamity."
Killing Hope by William Blum was a wake up call for me in the late 90's. Excellent piece, looking forward to the next installment.
Thanks!
For me, I think it might have been Unholy Wars by John Cooley. Painstakingly researched reportage on CIAs involvement in engineering the Taliban movement. I think I read it in 2005 or so, and the hypocrisy became so utterly palpable that there was really no going back.
Fantastic, thank you.
You're quite welcome. I think we need more comprehensive overviews of these matters. Somebody (Cory?) should put together a nice map of e.g. Blackwater's global holdings and assets under management, for instance.
Yes, so, how was ALL of this forgotten over the last 15 years ?
Among people I grew up with, all of whom knew this, or appeared to know it, today the same people are unrecognizable.
2 possibilities:
1. The system reversed/degraded everything, inverted every principle/belief that people formerly subscribed to, and nobody noticed.
OR
2. It’s always been this way; people never really held these beliefs. They were just sounds picked up from mass media, which included such ideas at the time, and parroted albeit with less interpretive reflection than is indeed evidenced by parrots 🦜
I’m leaning toward 2.
A small point about the article above: Russia does produce its own microchips. Not at 7 namometer (yet) but they have no problem producing their own chips.
And those relative valuations of countries (and companies) at dollar value are io be weighed: shareholder stock valuation in dollar reserve currency financialized economies versus material and industrial output
Here’s another list of things everyone used to “know”, or a list of officials who said outloud the same thing, which everyone knew:
https://whileican.substack.com/p/jeffrey-sachs-must-be-a-deranged
Why even read beyond the first one? Well, but the list is endless, from the architect of the Cold War himself, George Kennan, to every high official in living memory, to every 12 year old kid riding a skateboard down some cul de sac, EVERYONE KNEW.
So what happened? How was the entire political/institutional establishment uprooted, set afire on the trash heap of history, and replaced by a political army of totally psychotic zombified automaton suicidal freaks, while NOBODY NOTICED. Seriously, fuck me, it’s definitely number 2.
But there’s counter evidence. Americans with a functioning brain are endangered species, but they’re not extinct, yet. Here’s one
https://youtu.be/QOfF-lgd9jA
Douglas Macgregor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Macgregor
…same in Sweden; I know at least two
“Prime Ministers of Ukraine, Poland, and Lithuania sign statement on need to strengthen military and financial assistance to Kiev, as well as to intensify discussions on Ukraine's accession to NATO and EU.”
They should do it. Who’s they? The entire collective west. The sooner they do it the sooner their entire shit show collapses into a black hole of their own creation. An absolute good no matter the cost
Americans are spoiled, and have little actual experience outside the US, especially in a war or conflict, so it's just head knowledge to them. And it's far, far away.
MacGregor is a fave of mine. Always love his input.
Having little experience seems true outside the US too, all over Europe wherever English language mass media infects and rots minds. The mind rot is epidemic in Sweden for example
The Reuters-like control infects Swedish language media too of course
I have been asking myself this same question day in and day out! Sadly, number 2 is the only reasonable explanation.
This will play itself out and functioning brains will be sorely stressed.
Thanks for stating it so succinctly.
Your description of the Chile/Pinochet ascension doesn't mention the horrors of Allende and his Castro-imported thugs that "disappeared" many Chileans, and ruined Chile's economy. (https://www.adamsmith.org/blog/when-chile-chose-a-marxist-leader).
Nothing to do with people and power is simple, because humans are complex. Very, very few people have the integrity to resist the lure of money and/or power, be they Left or Right, US or foreign. Those positions attract psychopaths, who crave power like an addict craves heroin.
There's a good reason why our Constitution specifies that only Congress can declare war. It's the sons and daughters of the lower and middle classes who go off to war, and pay the hugeprice in blood and inflation. But we haven't "declared war" since WWII, & not even Rand Paul has objected to this Ukraine debacle, nor insisted on the congressional right to declare war.
But it's never as cut and dried as you portray it, and not every war was provoked by us. Communits and leftist "revolutionaries" have done their share, especially in S. America, as have Muslims worldwide.
It's just not that simple.