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Jeff Syrop's avatar

Beautiful writing, beautiful reading, and so very informative. Please watch "War Machine" starring Brad Pitt now streaming on Netflix. This excellent piece made me keep thinking of this great movie.

The US government is not only "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world" (MLK), but sometime during Clinton's presidency it became our actual enemy. The corporate owned and operated US government has COLONIZED ... us! Like Ralph Nader said in a 2000 campaign speech in Oakland, California, "You guys have less sovereignty than the American colonists had under King George".

We need to step up our activism to reflect the fact that we know that the people running our government (which is no longer OURS) are our enemies, and we need to feel that what they do to a Gazan child, they do to us! And we need to act accordingly.

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Shahid Buttar's avatar

Indeed. One quibble: the co-optation of our government long preceded Clinton. Eisenhower warned in 1961 that the military industrial complex he oversaw would destroy democracy and we all recall what happened to his successor. That said, every Democratic president since Clinton has taken dramatic steps to the right. My most recent column examines that unfortunately well-established pattern. https://shahidbuttar.substack.com/p/fears-of-a-fascist-future-overlook

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Jeff Syrop's avatar

I totally agree, Shahid, and thanks for your comment. I only meant that, as Hedges wrote in 2014, "Clinton, in exchange for corporate money, transformed the Democratic Party into the Republican Party. This was diabolically brilliant. It forced the Republican Party to shift so far to the right it became insane. But it also destroyed the last vestiges of a liberal establishment that once made incremental and piecemeal reform possible within the system." I like to think of that as a pretty neat historical line, drawn by the great Chris Hedges, showing nearly the exact moment when America "jumped the shark" and became TOTALLY dysfunctional. Prior to that "moment", we were still enjoying the "dregs" of being a "free" (LOL) country, and "piecemeal reform was still possible". Now the working class has basically been colonized like any other Third World country.

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Ingamarie's avatar

Perhaps relatively, Americans still had their democracy. But we're watching a very well done retrospective into the CIA operations in the 1950's, called WORMWOOD....and my partner's aversion for American regime change reminded me that in 1953...the year the scientist featured in the movie was likely murdered, those same boys following the Assassination documents also engineered a coup in Guatamala.

Have a look at the WORMWOOD series and ask yourself whether or not your secret service agents weren't dicking around with other people's democracies as soon as WWII was wrapped up. I'm afraid the American attention span may have a bit of trouble discovering all the undemocratic messes your deep state operatives have engineered for at least 70 years. Preserving American 'interests' abroad.

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Jeff Syrop's avatar

I hear you. I just listened to a 10-hour history of the Korean War by 2 young, intelligent, witty historians. They give the Howard Zinn version: it was a full on war crime of immense proportions. Like I said, we enjoyed the "dregs", but only the dregs. It could be argued that we've NEVER even come close to being a democracy. I get that. But still, because humans were so cruel globally and have been so for 10,000 years, America actually WAS a bastion of "freedom" for a while, simply because relative to monarchy and dictatorship, there were some good things about living here and growing up here. You can listen to the podcast for free by getting the Blowback podcast.

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Ahnaf Ibn Qais's avatar

The provisional ruling against 'Israel' (for the Crime of Genocide) by the ICJ is expected on Friday, January 26, 2024.

Regardless of the outcome- even if the Americans SHAMELESSLY Veto it at the UN or do something else to impede matters, the Future is clear:

A Causus Belli will exist to enact Blockades, Embargoes, Sanctions, etc., in a Bilateral fashion. The Beast of Zionism will be STARVED to death & implosion.

Which is why the Americans are making panicked moves (as of this writing) to withdraw forces *entirely* from Iraq & Syria.

Zionism is Moribund, & its Death approaches!

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Ahnaf Ibn Qais's avatar

(For those interested)

If you wish to read (& listen!) to more of My commentary, here is my Main Stack:

https://thefallofthewest.substack.com

Thank You Kindly to everyone!

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Melanie Cohen's avatar

#PeaceNow #ceasefire #releaseallhostages #FreePalestine

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Belinda  H's avatar

Is there any possibility of the US changing its disastrous policies -with a new President ?

Obviously not Biden - probably not Trump - and while I was hopeful maybe RFK, as he’s anti war

BUT

He seems wooed by the Israeli lobbying

Or

Afraid to buck them

What hope does America have in this?

What hope do the Palestinians have period?

🫤

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Alan MacDonald's avatar

Chris, there certainly must be a link between her eminence, Victoria “eff the EU”, PNAC, Kagan/Nuland and the insidious combination in the nexus of the entire inflaming of the Middle-East, Ukraine, Russia, and trying to lure Xi into “The Quiet American” duopoly Empire trap.

While the ‘ending’ is a zinger, the ‘starting point’ is the real underlying trick.

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the suck of sorrow's avatar

We had a lovely country. The knock-on effects of corporate capitalism have degraded our environment, and our commitment to ideals that foster cooperation and sharing.

Our capitalists are not satisfied with just ravaging North America because there are huge profits available for the purpose of ravaging the world. Our reckless overseers want Russia, also China, and what they don't want is any resistance from us.

The results of our resisting and overcoming these gluttons will be far less catastrophic than the not so subtle resistance provided by other entities in our little world.

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Jim KABLE's avatar

Comprehensive shredding of the reputations of names with which I was only peripherally aware. Incompetence shrouded by cleverness and ideological intent. Thanks for the reading EW and for the intelligence CH.

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Boris Petrov's avatar

Rand Paul “Never Vikki” Web site -- https://nevernikki.net/

Note: Google YouTube is cleverly hiding it with many fake sites

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Ann's avatar

Is it true that the CIA is now involved in the genocide?

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Jim KABLE's avatar

Sounds like reading the Old Testament for Christians - with the Lord smiting enemies right, left and centre!

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Reynold R's avatar

Thank you for helping this Canadian understand the regime of Genocidal Joe. I knew he was a war monger but didn't realize he was an extreme Zionist.

Many American foreign policies are incomprehensible unless one assumes the worst possible motives. E.g. Bush the Lessor's comment about war being good for the economy. And the everlasting persecution of Cuba.

As one who has relatives in Cuba, I thought things were improving when Obama made some conciliatory gestures. But nearly a decade has passed and Cubans are still being starved. If the reason for that is to please the Cuban exiles in the U.S,, it's not worth it. People are dying and some are fleeing the island. If it's because of chagrin over the fact that Cuba won't bend to imperialism, It would be better to hand the state department over to a gaggle of nine year olds.

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Ingamarie's avatar

Many thanks for this Chris. As Canadians, we are often gob struck as to what America thinks she is achieving by backing the obvious genocide in Gaza......a few short months since many western commentators blithely accused Russia of genocide in the snailmate that is the Ukrainian war.

If at all literate, we can't help but conclude that the term 'genocide' is just one more propaganda piece in the American arsenal....not to be used against allies. Still it seems inconceivable that the American government can be so stupid as to imagine the rest of the world doesn't see what's happening in he hell hole that is present day Gaza.

This piece helps expose the ideologues and bureaucrats behind the last three decades of American interference in the oil rich Middle East. That the wealthiest country on earth would send bureaucrats who don't even speak Arabic....or have any interest in listening to it in translation......to regime change a country like Iraq.........gives western arrogance a whole new dimension.

America has a lot of blood on her hands. And yes, she could stop the bleeding by refusing to arm genocidal maniacs like Neten Yahoo. By the sound of this report, she's too far into hubris to consider such a foreign policy reboot.

So sad for all the good Americans forced to choose between Biden and Trump.

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Jan 24, 2024Edited
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Jim KABLE's avatar

Here you go again - all negativity over some pet peeve which you will not let go of... Go and write your own blog and cover the areas you delight in taking CH to task over. You are like the Evil Fairy at SnowWhite's christening! Fair dinkum.

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Jan 24, 2024
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Ingamarie's avatar

Fascism. In THE CULTURE OF MAKE BELIEVE...Derrick Jenson has a great many stories of American 'lurches to the right' going back to the last years of the 19th C.

It's why you don't have single payer health care, why you still have the death penalty, why child poverty is so great in your country....at its core, fascism is so horrific that most of us are repelled by it. But soft fascism....the worship of military elites, the fear of the other, the religious bigotry that posits only two ideas, one of them wrong......a life lived for competition, material success and luxury perks....but for your kind of folks only.......

A majority of Americans likely subscribe to that soft fascism almost without knowing it. We blame the poor for their poverty, the addict for his/her addiction, and we spend more time defending what we have than using our advantages to make anything better. I'm Canadian, so we have it here also. Most of us are not bad people..........but we're miles away from being the good people we like to see ourselves as...

Many westerners are passive aggressive fascists. Most of the time, we do nothing. But we do that nothing with more fierceness than would be necessary if we actually lived in a social democracy.

And oh yes...!!! SOCIAL democracy???? Even using that term raises the hackles of the soft fascist.

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