The Force that is Ending Freedom
Eric Zuesse
Every empire is a dictatorship. No nation can be a democracy that’s either heading an empire, or a vassal-state of one. Obviously, in order to be a vassal-state within an empire, that nation is dictated-to by the nation of which it is a colony.
However, even the domestic inhabitants of the colonizing nation cannot be free and living in a democracy, because their services are needed abroad in order to impose the occupying force upon the colony or vassal-nation. This is an important burden upon the ‘citizens’ or actually the subjects of the imperial nation.
Furthermore, they need to finance, via their taxes, this occupying force abroad, to a sufficient extent so as to subdue any resistance by the residents in any colony.
Every empire is imposed, none is really voluntary. Conquest creates an empire, and the constant application of force maintains it.
Every empire is a dictatorship, not only upon its foreign populations (which goes without saying, because otherwise there can’t be any empire), but upon its domestic ones too, upon its own subjects.
Any empire needs weapons-makers, who sell to the government and whose only markets are the imperial government and its vassal-nations or ‘allies’.
By contrast, ’enemy’ nations are ones that the imperial power has placed onto its priority-list of nations that are yet to become conquered. There are two main reasons to conquer a nation.
One is in order to be enabled to extract, from the colony, oil, or gold, or some other valuable commodity. The other is in order to control it so as to be enabled to use that land as a passageway for exporting, from a vassal-nation, to other nations, that vassal-nation’s products.
International trade is the basis for any empire, and the billionaires who own controlling blocs of stock in a nation’s international corporations are the actual rulers of it, the beneficiaries of empire, the recipients of the wealth that is being extracted from the colonies and from the domestic subjects.
The idea of an empire is that the imperial nation’s rulers, its aristocracy, extract from the colonies their products, and they impose upon their domestic subjects the financial and military burdens of imposing their international dictatorship upon the foreign subjects.
Some authors say that there is a “Deep State” and that it consists of (some undefined elements within) the intelligence services, and of the military, and of the diplomatic corps, of any given dictatorship; but, actually, those employees of the State are merely employees, not the actual governing authority, over that dictatorship.
The actual Deep State are always the aristocrats, themselves, the people who run the revolving door between ‘the private sector’ (the aristocracy’s corporations) and the government.
In former times, many of the aristocrats were themselves governing officials (the titled ‘nobility’), but this is no longer common.
Nowadays, the aristocracy are the individuals who own controlling blocs of stock in international corporations (especially weapons-making firms such as Lockheed Martin and BAE, because the only markets for those corporations are the corporation’s own government and its vassal states or ‘allies’); and such individuals are usually the nation’s billionaires, and, perhaps, a few of the mere centi-millionaires.
A small number, typically less than 100, of these extremely wealthy individuals, are the biggest donors to politicians, and to think tanks, and to other non-profits (these latter being also tax-write-offs to their donors, and so are tax-drains to the general public) that are involved in the formation of the national government’s policies.
Of course, they also are owners of and/or advertisers in the propaganda-media, which sell the aristocracy’s core or most-essential viewpoints to the nation’s subjects in order to persuade those voters to vote only for the aristocracy’s selected candidates and not for any who oppose the aristocracy.
These few, mainly billionaires, are the actual Deep State — the bosses over the dictatorship, the ultimate beneficiaries in any empire.
In order to maintain this system, of international dictatorship or empire, the most essential tool is deceit, of the electorate, by the aristocracy.
The method of control is: the bought agents of the Deep State lie to the public about what their polices will be if they win, in order to be able to win power; and, then, once they have won power, they do the opposite, which is what they have always been paid by the Deep State (the aristocracy) to help them to do.
Thereby, elections aren’t “democratic” but ‘democratic’: they are mere formalities of democracy, without the substance of democracy. All of the well-financed candidates for the top offices are actually the Deep State’s representatives, and virtually none are the representatives of the public, because the voters have been deceived, and were given choices between two or more candidates, none of whom will represent the public if and when elected.
Here are some recent examples of this system — the imperial system, international dictatorship, in action:
During Donald Trump’s Presidential campaign, he said:
The approach of fighting Assad and ISIS simultaneously was madness, and idiocy. They’re fighting each other and yet we’re fighting both of them. You know, we were fighting both of them. I think that our far bigger problem than Assad is ISIS, I’ve always felt that. Assad is, you know I’m not saying Assad is a good man, ’cause he’s not, but our far greater problem is not Assad, it’s ISIS. … I think, you can’t be fighting two people that are fighting each other, and fighting them together. You have to pick one or the other.”
Assad is allied with Russia against the Sauds (who are the chief ally of the U.S. aristocracy), so the U.S. (in accord with a policy that George Herbert Walker Bush had initiated on 24 February 1990 and which has been carried out by all subsequent U.S. Presidents) was determined to overthrow Assad, but Trump said that he was strongly opposed to that policy.
Months before that, Trump had said:
I think Assad is a bad guy, a very bad guy, all right? Lots of people killed. I think we are backing people we have no idea who they are. The rebels, we call them the rebels, the patriotic rebels. We have no idea. A lot of people think, Hugh, that they are ISIS. We have to do one thing at a time. We can’t be fighting ISIS and fighting Assad. Assad is fighting ISIS. He is fighting ISIS. Russia is fighting now ISIS. And Iran is fighting ISIS.
We have to do one thing at a time. We can’t go — and I watched Lindsey Graham, he said, I have been here for 10 years fighting. Well, he will be there with that thinking for another 50 years. He won’t be able to solve the problem. We have to get rid of ISIS first. After we get rid of ISIS, we’ll start thinking about it. But we can’t be fighting Assad. And when you’re fighting Assad, you are fighting Russia, you’re fighting — you’re fighting a lot of different groups. But we can’t be fighting everybody at one time.”
In that same debate (15 December 2015) he also said:
In my opinion, we’ve spent $4 trillion trying to topple various people that frankly, if they were there and if we could’ve spent that $4 trillion in the United States to fix our roads, our bridges, and all of the other problems; our airports and all of the other problems we’ve had, we would’ve been a lot better off.
I can tell you that right now. We have done a tremendous disservice, not only to Middle East, we’ve done a tremendous disservice to humanity. The people that have been killed, the people that have wiped away, and for what?
It’s not like we had victory. It’s a mess. The Middle East is totally destabilized. A total and complete mess. I wish we had the $4 trillion or $5 trillion. I wish it were spent right here in the United States, on our schools, hospitals, roads, airports, and everything else that are all falling apart.”
Did he do that? No. Did he instead intensify what Obama had been trying to do in Syria — overthrow Assad — yes.
As the U.S. President, after having won the 2016 Presidential campaign, has Trump followed through on his criticism there, against the super-hawk, neoconservative, Republican U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham? No. Did he instead encircle himself with precisely such super-hawks, such neoconservatives? Yes.
Did he intensify the overthrow-Assad effort as Graham and those others had advocated? Yes. Did America’s war against Syria succeed? No. Did he constantly lie to the voters? Yes, without a doubt.
Should that be grounds for impeaching him? A prior question to that one is actually: Would a President Mike Pence be any different or maybe even worse than Trump? Yes.
So: what, then, would be achieved by removing Trump from office? Maybe it would actually make things a lot worse. But how likely would the U.S. Senate be to remove Trump from office if the House did impeach Trump?
Two-thirds of the U.S. Senate would need to vote to remove the President in order for a President to be removed after being impeached by the House. A majority of U.S. Senators, 53, are Republicans.
If just 33 of them vote not to convict the President, then Trump won’t be removed. In order to remove him, not only would all 47 of the Democrats and Independents have to vote to convict, but 20 of the 53 Republicans would need to join them. That’s nearly 40% of the Republican Senators. How likely is that? Almost impossible.
What would their voters who had elected them back home think of their doing such a thing? How likely would such Senators face successful re-election challenges that would remove those Senators from office? Would 20 of the 53 be likely to take that personal risk?
Why, then, are so many Democrats in the House pressing for Trump’s impeachment, since Trump’s being forced out of the White House this way is practically impossible and would only install a President Pence, even if it could succeed? Is that Democratic Party initiative anything else than insincere political theater, lying to their own gullible voters, just being phonies who manipulate voters to vote for them instead of who are actually serving them?
Is that what democracy is, now: insincere political theater? Is that “democracy”? America’s voters are trapped, by liars, so it’s instead mere ‘democracy’. It’s just the new form of dictatorship. But it’s actually as ancient as is any empire.
There’s nothing new about this — except one thing: the U.S. regime is aiming to be the ultimate, the last, the final, empire, the ruler over the entire world; so, it is trying especially hard, ‘to defend freedom, democracy and human rights throughout the world’, as Big Brother might say.
Trump’s Democratic predecessor, Barack Obama, was just as evil, and just as insincere, as Trump, but only a far more skillful liar, who deceived his voters to think that he would fight corruption, work to improve relations with Russia, provide a public option in his health-insurance plan, and otherwise work to reduce economic inequality, to improve the economic situation for disadvantaged Americans, and to prosecute banksters.
He abandoned each one of those stated objectives as soon as he won against John McCain, on 4 November 2008, and then yet more when he defeated Mitt Romney in 2012. And aren’t some of those promises the same ones that candidate Trump had also advocated and then abandoned as soon as he too was (s)elected?
THE THREAT TO THE EMPIRE
The heroic fighters for the freedom of everyone in the world are the whistleblowers, who report to the public the corruption and evil that they see perpetrated by their superiors, their bosses, and perpetrated by people who are on the public payroll or otherwise obtaining increased income by virtue of being selected by the government to become government contractors to serve an allegedly public function.
All liars with power hate whistleblowers and want to make special examples of any part of the press that publishes their truths, their facts, their stolen documents. These documents are stolen because that’s the only way for them to become public and thereby known to the voters so that the voters can vote on the basis of truths as in a democracy, instead of be deceived as in a dictatorship.
Even if the truth is stolen from the liars, instead of being kept private (“Confidential”) for them, are the whistleblowers doing wrong to steal the truth from the liars? Or, instead, are the whistleblowers heroes: are they the authentic guardians of democracy and the precariously thin wall that separates democracy from dictatorship?
They are the latter: they are the heroes. Unfortunately, the vast majority of such heroes are also martyrs — martyrs for truth, against lies. Every dictatorship seeks to destroy its whistleblowers. That’s because any whistleblower constitutes a threat to The System — the system of control.
In all of U.S. history, the two Presidents who pursued whistleblowers and their publishers the most relentlessly have been Trump and Obama. The public are fooled to think that this is being done for ’national security’ reasons instead of to hide the government’s crimes and criminality.
However, not a single one of the Democratic Party’s many U.S. Presidential candidates is bringing this issue, of the U.S. government’s many crimes and constant lying, forward as being the central thing that must be criminalized above all else, as constituting “treason.” None of them is proposing legislation saying that it is treason, against the public — against the nation.
Every aristocracy tries to deceive its public in order to control its public; and every aristocracy uses divide-and-rule in order to do this.
But it’s not only to divide the public against each other (such as between Republicans versus Democrats, both of which are actually controlled by the aristocracy), but also to divide between nations, such as between ‘allies’ versus ‘enemies’ — even when a given ‘enemy’ (such as Iraq in 2003) has never threatened, nor invaded, the United States (or whatever the given imperial ‘us’ may happen to be), and thus clearly this was aggressive war and an international war-crime, though unpunished as such.
The public need to fear and hate some ‘enemy’ which is the ‘other’ or ‘alien’, in order not to fear and loathe the aristocracy itself — the actual source of (and winner from) the systemic exploitation, of the public, by the aristocracy.
The pinnacle of the U.S. regime’s totalitarianism is its ceaseless assault against Julian Assange, who is the uber-whistleblower, the strongest protector for whistleblowers, the safest publisher for the evidence that they steal from their employers and from their employers’ government.
He hides the identity of the whistleblowers even at the risk of his own continued existence. Right now, the U.S. regime is raising to a fever-pitch and twisting beyond recognition not only U.S. laws but the U.S. Constitution, so as to impose its will against him. President Trump is supported in this effort by the corrupt U.S. Congress, to either end Assange’s life, or else lock him up for the rest of his heroic life in a dungeon having no communication with the world outside, until he does finally die, in isolation, punishment for his heroic last-ditch fight for the public’s freedom and for democracy — his fight, actually, against our 1984 regime.
What Jesus of Nazareth was locally for the Roman regime in his region, Assange is for the U.S. regime throughout the world: an example to terrify anyone else who might come forth effectively to challenge the Emperor’s authority.
A key country in this operation is Ecuador, which is ruled by the dictator Lenin Moreno, who stole office by lying to the public and pretending to be a progressive who backed his democratically elected predecessor, Rafael Correa, but then as soon as he won power, he reversed Correa’s progressive initiatives, including, above all, his protection of Assange, who had sought refuge in the Ecuadoran Embassy in London.
On 11 April 2019, RT headlined “Who is Lenin Moreno and why did he hand Assange over to British police?” and reported that:
Following his 2017 election, Moreno quickly moved away from his election platform after taking office. He reversed several key pieces of legislation passed under his predecessor which targeted the wealthy and the banks. He also reversed a referendum decision on indefinite re-election while simultaneously blocking any potential for Correa to return.
He effectively purged many of Correa’s appointments to key positions in Ecuador’s judiciary and National Electoral Council via the CPCCS-T council which boasts supra-constitutional powers.
Moreno has also cozied up to the US, with whom Ecuador had a strained relationship under Correa. Following a visit from Vice President Mike Pence in June 2018, Ecuador bolstered its security cooperation with the US, including major arms deals, training exercises and intelligence sharing.
Following Assange’s arrest Correa, who granted Assange asylum in the first place, described Moreno as the “greatest traitor in Ecuadorian and Latin American history” saying he was guilty of a “crime that humanity will never forget.”
Despite his overwhelming power and influence, however, Moreno and his family are the subject of a sweeping corruption probe in the country, as he faces down accusations of money laundering in offshore accounts and shell companies in Panama, including the INA Investment Corp, which is owned by Moreno’s brother.
Damning images, purportedly hacked from Moreno’s phone, have irreparably damaged both his attempts at establishing himself as an anti-corruption champion as well as his relationship with Assange, whom he accused of coordinating the hacking efforts.
On 14 April 2019, Denis Rogatyuk at The Gray Zone headlined: “Sell Out: How Corruption, Voter Fraud and a Neoliberal Turn Led Ecuador’s Lenin to Give Up Assange Desperate to ingratiate his government with Washington and distract the public from his mounting scandals, Ecuadorian President Lenin Moreno has sacrificed Julian Assange – and his country’s independence”, and he described some of the documentation for the accusations that Moreno is corrupt.
On 12 April 2019, Zero Hedge headlined “Facebook Removes Page Of Ecuador’s Former President On Same Day As Assange’s Arrest”, and opened: “Facebook has unpublished the page of Ecuador’s former president, Rafael Correa, the social media giant confirmed on Thursday, claiming that the popular leftist leader violated the company’s security policies.”
On 16 April 2019, Jonathan Turley bannered “‘He Is Our Property’: The D.C. Establishment Awaits Assange With A Glee And Grudge”, and opened:
They will punish Assange for their sins
The key to prosecuting Assange has always been to punish him without again embarrassing the powerful figures made mockeries by his disclosures. That means to keep him from discussing how the U.S. government concealed alleged war crimes and huge civilian losses, the type of disclosures that were made in the famous Pentagon Papers case. He cannot discuss how Democratic and Republican members either were complicit or incompetent in their oversight. He cannot discuss how the public was lied to about the program.
A glimpse of that artificial scope was seen within minutes of the arrest. CNN brought on its national security analyst, James Clapper, former director of national intelligence. CNN never mentioned that Clapper was accused of perjury in denying the existence of the National Security Agency surveillance program and was personally implicated in the scandal that WikiLeaks triggered.
Clapper was asked directly before Congress, “Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?”
Clapper responded, “No, sir. … Not wittingly.” Later, Clapper said his testimony was “the least untruthful” statement he could make.
That would still make it a lie, of course, but this is Washington and people like Clapper are untouchable.
In the view of the establishment, Assange is the problem.
On 11 April 2019, the YouGov polling organization headlined “53% of Americans say Julian Assange should be extradited to America”.
On 13 April 2019, I headlined “What Public Opinion on Assange Tells Us About the US Government Direction”, and reported the only international poll that had ever been done of opinions about Assange, and its findings demonstrated that, out of the 23 nations which were surveyed, U.S. was the only one where the public are anti-Assange, and that the difference between the U.S. and all of the others was enormous and stark. The report opened:
The only extensive poll of public opinion regarding Julian Assange or Wikileaks was Reuters/Ipsos on 26 April 2011, “WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange is not a criminal: global poll”, and it sampled around a thousand individuals in each of 23 countries — a total of 18,829 respondents.
The Reuters news-report was vague, and not linked to any detailed presentation of the poll-findings, but it did say that “US respondents had a far more critical view” against Wikileaks than in any other country, and that the view by Americans was 69% “believing Assange should be charged and 61 percent opposing WikiLeaks’ mission.” Buried elsewhere on the Web was this detailed presentation of Ipsos’s findings in that poll:
Oppose Wikileaks:
61% US
38% UK
33% Canada
32% Poland
32% Belgium
31% Saudi Arabia
30% Japan
30% France
27% Indonesia
26% Italy
25% Germany
24% Sweden
24% Australia
22% Hungary
22% Brazil
21% Turkey
21% S. Korea
16% Mexico
16% Argentina
15% Spain
15% Russia
15% India
12% S. Africa
Is the US a democracy if the regime is so effective in gripping the minds of its public as to make them hostile to the strongest fighter for their freedom and democracy?
On 13 April 2019, washingtonsblog headlined “4 Myths About Julian Assange DEBUNKED”, and here was one of them:
Myth #2: Assange Will Get a Fair Trial In the US
14-year CIA officer John Kiriakou notes: Assange has been charged in the Eastern District of Virginia — the so-called “Espionage Court.” That is just what many of us have feared. Remember, no national security defendant has ever been found not guilty in the Eastern District of Virginia. The Eastern District is also known as the “rocket docket” for the swiftness with which cases are heard and decided. Not ready to mount a defense? Need more time? Haven’t received all of your discovery? Tough luck. See you in court.
… I have long predicted that Assange would face Judge Leonie Brinkema were he to be charged in the Eastern District. Brinkema handled my case, as well as CIA whistleblower Jeffrey Sterling’s. She also has reserved the Ed Snowden case for herself. Brinkema is a hanging judge.
On 20 May 2019, former British Ambassador Craig Murray (who had quit so that he could blow the whistle) headlined “The Missing Step” and argued that the only chance that Assange now has is if Sweden refuses to extradite Assange to the US in the event that Britain honors the Swedish request to extradite him to Sweden instead of to the US (The decision on that will now probably be made by the US agent Boris Johnson instead of by the regular Tory Theresa May.)
How can it reasonably be denied that the US is, in fact (though not nominally) a dictatorship? All of its allies are thus vassal-nations in its empire. This means acquiescence (if not joining) in some of the US regime’s frequent foreign coups and invasions; and this means their assisting in the spread of the US regime’s control beyond themselves, to include additional other countries.
It reduces the freedom, and the democracy, throughout the world; it spreads the US dictatorship internationally. That is what is evil about what in America is called “neoconservatism” and in other countries is called simply “imperialism.” Under American reign, it is now a spreading curse, a political plague, to peoples throughout the world. Even an American whistleblower about Ukraine who lives in the former Ukraine is being targeted by the US regime.
This is how the freedom of everyone is severely threatened, by the US empire — the most deceitful empire that the world has ever experienced. The martyrs to its lies are the canaries in its coal mine. They are the first to be eliminated.
Looking again at that rank-ordered list of 23 countries, one sees the US and eight of its main allies (or vassal-nations), in order: US, UK, Canada, Poland, Belgium, Saudi Arabia, Japan, France, Indonesia. These are countries where the subjects are already well-controlled by the empire. They already are vassals, and so are ordained as being ‘allies’.
At the opposite end, starting with the most anti-US-regime, are: S. Africa, India, Russia, Spain, Argentina, Mexico, S. Korea, Turkey. These are countries where the subjects are not yet well-controlled by the empire, even though the current government in some of them is trying to change its subjects’ minds so that the country will accept US rule.
Wherever the subjects reject US rule, there exists a strong possibility that the nation will become placed on the US regime’s list of ‘enemies’. Consequently, wherever the residents are the most opposed to US rule, the likelihood of an American coup or invasion is real.
The first step toward a coup or invasion is the imposition of sanctions against the nation. Any such nation that is already subject to them is therefore already in danger. Any such nation that refuses to cooperate with the US regime’s existing sanctions — such as against trading with Russia, China, Iran, or Venezuela — is in danger of becoming itself a US-sanctioned nation, and therefore officially an ‘enemy’.
And this is why freedom and democracy are ending.
Unless and until the US regime itself becomes conquered — either domestically by a second successful American Revolution (this one to eliminate the domestic aristocracy instead of to eliminate a foreign one), or else by a World War III in which the US regime becomes destroyed even worse than the opposing alliance will — the existing insatiable empire will continue to be on the war-path to impose its dictatorship to everyone on this planet.
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Another angle on this mind-trap’ is to recognize the ‘deceiver’ as the lie AND the father of it – and put it behind you – so as to wholly attend the Living. This is always regardless of the forms that it takes. Sweeping the Temple or the personal and collective template of what is illegitimate and has no true belonging, is effected by releasing all conflicted and conflicted purpose to receive of Life anew as a living presence and not as a complex instrument of concealed toxic debt. The idea of not ‘feeding the troll’ is the recognition that any attempt at engaging or establishing communication OR attempt to deny or invalidate the ‘purpose of deceit’ is always and only feeding it or reinforcing its underlying premise – in both yourself and the other. Power is given to that which is believed to protect or strengthen a position under threat.… Read more »
Public opinion that “Oppose Wikileaks .. 24% Australia”
24% of the Australian population. But among politicians it is different, those who have no sympathy to the genuis Assange must be around 99% of government officials.
Sorry mate, went to vote up and hit down button by mistake. Had just woken up. Australian politicians are full blown jellified apparatchiks of the Empire with rare exceptions. Look what happened to Melissa Parke in WA, and the full blown attack on Lee Rhiannon, even from within the Greens. Vast bulk of Aussie politicians just chinless servants of Corporations and the AZ Empire
This should be taught in schools’
I will get my coat
“Our only hope is to organize the overthrow of the corporate state that vomited up Trump. Our democratic institutions, including the legislative bodies, the courts and the media, are hostage to corporate power. They are no longer democratic. We must, like liberation movements of the past, engage in acts of sustained mass civil disobedience and non-cooperation. By turning our ire on the corporate state, we name the true sources of power and abuse. We expose the absurdity of blaming our demise on demonized groups such as undocumented workers, Muslims, African-Americans, Latinos, liberals, feminists, gays and others. We give people an alternative to a Democratic Party that refuses to confront the corporate forces of oppression and cannot be rehabilitated. We make possible the restoration of an open society. If we fail to embrace this militancy, which alone has the ability to destroy cult leaders, we will continue the march toward tyranny.”… Read more »
Surely, as well as some billionaires and centi-millionaires, there are other perhaps more institutionalised individuals with power to dispose of much even more clandestine wealth hidden in black budgets operated by and for the interests of unaccountable military and intelligence services in the putative empire, and there is also ‘organised crime’ and there are wealthy religious organisations, and these too can strongly influence politicians and the public opinion-forming ‘narrative’ shaping this false ‘democracy’ in the name of an elitist, highly hierarchical, socially as well as environmentally destructive global empire under full spectrum dominance. At the global level the most viable alternative to this, I suggest, and barring destructive world war (but perhaps following a US and even a UK civil war, unfortunately), will be a world federation or confederation with a high council at which all cultures and social interest-groups, great and small, of this world are properly, and preferably… Read more »
Rockefellers and Rothschilds are trillionaires, and so are others of the same tribe.
Trillionaires are never mentioned publicly.
Spell check does not like “trillionaire”.
These people never appear on lists of the world’s richest people.
200+ families hold 99.9999% of global wealth and they have no intention of sharing, ever.
They own and operate the World through corporations.
“So: what, then, would be achieved by removing Trump from office? Maybe it would actually make things a lot worse.”
See: Saddam Hussein
We could get President Pocahontas or President Buttplug instead.
President silence of the pestilent
The President of the USA is just the “Organ-grinder’s Monkey”….He’s just there to make it look like a Democracy. Example A…. George Dubya Bush was/is a Moron, Trump is a Buffoon, Ronny Reagan was a ‘B’ grade actor, but he was able to look Presidential….Just Imagine what Pence will be like……. “if anything happens to Trump”…….
We see a merger today between Raytheon and United Technologies. Here one para from 0hedge:
“Of course, there is a simpler way to boost profit margins that avoids cutting costs – just boost revenue, which of course would require war. Luckily, the Trump admin’s neocon hawks are doing everything in their power to make sure that that’s precisely what happens as the stock of the combined company will continue its relentless levitation.”
Don’t let them use you – don’t enlist. Freedom might still be ended, but less profitable for them.
As another man at another time asked, “What is to be done?” The power of the billionaires, their bought and paid for politicians, and their servile media need to be broken. In living memory, tax rates in the UK and US reached 98% and 91% respectively. There’s no need to go back anywhere near those confiscatory levels, just ensure those people do actually pay SOME taxes. Last year, Amazon and Netflix should have paid over $16 billion in taxes. They paid nothing – they were actually given rebates of over $4 billion. Boeing hasn’t paid a cent in taxes for 15 years. The same applies to a rogues’ gallery of all the big boys, Google, Starbucks, General Electric, Boots, to name but a few. Profits are made to disappear and turned into losses by financial sleight of hand. An inflated level of debt is incurred to finance share buy backs… Read more »
“The elites have a very tenuous grip on power, which can be broken quite easily. All of the above characteristics of our present system can be changed by public pressure. It can be done.” Easily? Sorry Mark, I agree with your sentiments but there’s nothing easy about it whatsoever, and you must be living on a different planet to me, sorry to say – let’s examine each of your examples – MPs expenses scandal: minimal effect, the buggers carry on, and with a self-appointed overseer. Gilets Jaunes: smashed, sadly. Brexit: this is not democracy, it’s a US / neocon hijack of Britain. Trump: Enriching the rich even more. Political chaos in the EU: it’s a US tactic to “shake the tree” and knock the confidence in the EU, it became too strong a competitor for the US. Divide and conquer is their game with the EU. Tariffs will follow, and… Read more »
Pfff, what happened to the new OffG function to be able to edit one’s posts, it’s disappeared!
It vanished during our DoS attack – we haven’t managed to get it back yet. Infuriating, I know.
You’re right about some of the outcomes. The point I was trying to make is that it’s not possible to paper over the cracks any more. People realise that they have been lied to and the system does not work for them, if it ever did. This may sound nebulous, but it has an effect. The credibility and influence of the MSM has been shredded by its own mendacity and lack of integrity. This has far reaching consequences which may not be readily apparent on a day to day basis. But it is important. The same applies to all the institutions and organs of the state. The world is becoming increasingly turbulent and unstable, and support for elites and the systems they represent is dwindling rapidly. The whole economic and financial system is like a house of cards. At such times, change that had previously been inconceivable becomes inevitable. Of… Read more »
Clearly explained analysis of the deep shit we’re all in. Unfortunately tho I don’t see a second American revolution breaking out anytime soon. I think the large majority have been too crushed by the system; many working 2 or 3 jobs just to survive, many a couple paychecks away from being homeless, many living in cars or under bridges, and sadly, the large large majority lap up the propaganda spewed out by the stenographers. And believe it. Which leaves us with the next option for stopping this evil blood drenched Empire. And that is probably where we’re heading. Scary times Eric.
You may be right, GP. When I lived in America I was quite shocked by the low standard of living of very many people. Working 2 or 3 jobs, unable to run a car, health care completely out of their reach, living in houses like wooden shacks. Even buying food a problem. Completely ignorant of the outside world.
Half a million are now homeless, with third world shanty towns next to the gated developments of the rich, the streets covered with human faeces, TB, typhoid and tapeworm becoming major problems.
What I see is this becoming worse and forming a critical mass, when it can no longer be ignored. As such, there are grounds for optimism. Things becoming so bad that they can no longer be tolerated. Perhaps that is unrealistic, I don’t know.
“Things becoming so bad that they can no longer be tolerated” ?
Nothing a couple more wars couldn’t fix, Mark…
You may be right, but the outcome of any wars that are currently being threatened, Iran, Venezuela, DPRK, Russia, China, would be the final nail in the coffin of the AngloZionist Empire.
My greatest worry is that this AngloZionist Empire doesn’t care about anything at all – not even the nails in their own coffin.
They fondly imagine some kind of capitalistic “rapture” is going to whisk them off to “Money Heaven” and we will be left with their crap and their puke all over our planet.
I no longer think it’s exaggerated to talk of demonic beings here, and if they are not demonic, then why are they acting as if they were?
A lot of their options have been closed down now.
Money printing. They have already printed off tens of trillions of toilet paper money to keep the zombie economy on life support. They’ve fired off all their bullets and can’t do it again.
Negative interest rates. Already done it. Can’t do it again.
More wars. Maybe, they are deranged enough. Perhaps God will tell Bolton, Trump, Pompeo and Co. to bomb Iran, like the Almighty did with Iraq and Yugoslavia. But even they may realise by now it’s another blind alley.
Appreciate both your comments Mark, and yes, the Gilets Jaunes are probably the best current example of people fighting back against the system and saying Enough. I’ve never been to the UK so can’t really judge from first hand experience, know the situation in United States by a fair bit of reading on the levels of poverty and precariousness state many live in, tho here in Australia the levels of cognitive dissonance, apathy and groupthink (derived from mainstream media) seem very high, and I speak to lots of people while out selling The Big Issue mag. About the angriest people get here is griping about Aussie politicians. I don’t get any sense of anger or disgust at the Actual economic system.
“Working 2 or 3 jobs, unable to run a car, health care completely out of their reach, living in houses like wooden shacks. Even buying food a problem. Completely ignorant of the outside world.”
Hey – but haven’t you heard? That’s FREEDOM!
FWIW, Tulsi Gabbard uttered a full-throated defense of both Assange and Manning.
She won’t last long then, unfortunately.
No, I am hoping that the DNC doesn’t change the rules in order to block her from at least the first round of televised debate. But I’m not holding my breath.
BTW, I read somewhere that DNC intends to split the first (D) debate into two groups, ostensibly because of the ridiculous number of candidates, which stands at 24, last I looked.
DNC is going to make certain that only centrist liberals are on the same debate stage with Joe Biden, “the only real progressive in the race” (in his own words).
Bernie and Tulsi will probably be dining at the kids table, if at all.
Yes this is true. Tulsi Gabbard is the real deal and a bellwether of the current corrupt system and its stupefying echo chambers. She has no chance at the moment, but that’s not the point. She exposes the corruption of the aristocracies and their corrupt system and shills.
As we are here. Take the Fruadian Tulsi ticks all their supposed PC boxes and yet their is no mention of her anywhere. But “Creepy Joe” Biden who epitomises the corrupt entitlement the system offers is reported on add nauseum.
As the Fraud, can’t attack her it appears they can’t report on her either. So her good campaign work is reported on the alt media, you know where the fake stuff is!
So there you have it, a perfect example of a faux feedback loop…
Oh, and excellent article by Eric as well.
It has to be remembered that Assange is an Australian and Manning was born in West Wales to a UK mother. These countries must stand up for their citizens.
Given the recent federal police raids on Australian journalists, it seems unlikely that Australia will be coming to the aid of Julian Assange any time soon.
She sings from the same Zionist hymn sheet as all the rest.
Good point, I agree with you.
If these sentences of Mr. Eric are true
the rest of Assange is a lie
What Mr. Mossange did in these media which promoted him? Who he worked for? for Arab Springs? for Rothschilds? What he did on tea in The Economics, Guardian, NYT, The Bild etc.? What?
Excellent piece.
JA is a thorn in their side.
JC is a stake through their heart.
The v’empires fear is palpable.
Neither the throwing of the book or the kitchen sinks full of shit at their nemesises is working, as these polls demonstrate.
Hillarious. Bring on the much delayed GE.
Sorry to be a wet blanket, but, frankly, it’s been a long time since a GE fixed anything…
Elections, as I think George Carlin said, are only there to make us think we have a voice.
If the UK elect Jeremy Corbyn all bets are off, he will expose ALL corrupt politicians media and foreign powers. Why do you think there is such a concerted effort to prevent him gaining office, even Pompeo has said “the US will prevent him becoming PM”
I think there is a misunderstanding here, Steve.
I couldn’t agree with you more, especially about the concerted efforts (which I noticed a long time ago) to prevent Corbyn from gaining office.
My “wet-blanket” point is really only connected with your last quote from Pompeo, “The US will prevent him becoming PM”.
Surely no one today is under any illusions as to whether Pompeo means what he says, much as I would love to throw a spanner in his works.
Nothing would please me more, either, than to learn that I had been overly pessimistic.
But I still have no doubts that Pompeo could and would fix any election that suited him.
He has already admitted, in another context, to lying, cheating, stealing and killing.
Pompous Hippo, TIGW – The Insane Geriatric Walrus, Donny Les Tweets, Elliott Demon, Veryfew Pence and the rest of the delusional criminal inadequates of the DCSwamp may be against JC and wish to stop him, but – judging by their steadily-increasing ineffectualness on the world stage (how’re those regime changes in Syria and Venezuela going? how’s the bankrupting-Russia-with-sanctions going?) – they may not be too effective at preventing his entry to Downing Street.
I pray you’re right.
Those dull-witted thugs may indeed be increasingly ineffectual, but the fact that they are still committed to their insane agenda continues to cost the world a great deal of suffering.
People will be the good sheeple that the establishment want them to be.
They will vote who they are told to vote for.
Hate who they are told to hate.
Fear who they are told to fear.
Devoid of all independent thought. Forever sleeping. Always conforming. Always consuming.
The sheeple serve their establishment masters well. maybe a crumb will fall from the big table. They can fight each other for that. good sheep. baaa
We’re all sheeple!
Assange isn’t.
I suspect you didn’t spend long enough pondering my point. We are all sheeple and anyone who views others as such whilst evidently regarding themselves as not either thinks too badly of others or too highly of themselves. Frankly, neither viewpoint is particularly edifying.
You have to admit your scant three words don’t encourage setting aside a great deal of time for pondering, Kevin. That’s why I answered just as briefly, without expecting people to spend much time contemplating. I’m actually quite prepared to consider myself one of Jesus Christ’s sheep, but the sheeple to whom Frank refers as “serving their Establishment masters”, are not the examples which inspire us in Jesus’s parables. It has nothing to do with feeling superior, but with attempting to be better than useless. For some, being a sheeple is a comfortable, sought-after, secure and effortless life style, and I think you are wrong to say that we are all content with that. I regard my education as having been a gift and a piece of good luck, but I do not feel superior because of it. As I implied, there are things in our lives and in our… Read more »
I rarely comment on Off Grauniad nowadays because I tire of many of the judgements I see there. Frankly if things cannot be expressed succinctly, there seems little point saying anything at all. If you are really willing to be one of Jesus Christ’s sheep, then I urge you to contemplate something he said elsewhere: ‘Judge not lest ye be judged’. It is pointless claiming to be privy to the innermost thoughts of anyone-to state with confidence that he or she serves the interest of those who rule and abuse us. Frankly, it is delusional and in grave danger of leading to the worst excesses that both left and right are both capable of. With those warnings in mind I reiterate,
We’re all sheeple.
Well, for a person who tires of many of the judgements you see here, you certainly can be judgemental… I don’t think you understood a single thing I said in my last comment, although I did you the courtesy of trying to be detailed and precise. As for MY being judgemental, I went out of my way to point out that disagreeing with someone doesn’t mean you are judging them. For example, Allah may not be my god, but I refuse to judge people who were brought up to believe he was theirs. I really can’t blame them for that. You can reiterate “We’re all sheeple” as often as you like, but that doesn’t make it any less false a statement. I am not judging you, I am disagreeing with you, but I also think it is nice to be met half-way in a discussion with someone whose views are… Read more »
Frankly, I don’t want to get anywhere. Thankfully, most people don’t go around pondering how much they should choose or reject what you refer to as sheepleness. I would add that in these difficult times most people have rather more important things to worry about. I view the term as being exemplary of a rather unpleasantly supercilious viewpoint that reflects an unpleasant aspect of the left wing world view. Naturally, you are perfectly free to believe whatever you wish. As for gameplay it really doesn’t interest me at all.
Then we are in complete agreement.
I will first quote the final passage from your tract which reads “Unless and until the US regime itself becomes conquered — either domestically by a second successful American Revolution (this one to eliminate the domestic aristocracy instead of to eliminate a foreign one), or else by a World War III in which the US regime becomes destroyed even worse than the opposing alliance will — the existing insatiable empire will continue to be on the war-path to impose its dictatorship to everyone on this planet.” Whist it has not yet sunk in to the heads of the faceless perpetrators within the Hegemon, it is true to say that a much greater proportion, the greater percentage of humanity are now enlightened to the truth that should a global nuclear conflict break out, either by accident or design, there would be no living person remaining to gloat over the spoils. This… Read more »
But they won’t LET you decentralize, Annie.
It doesn’t suit them.
Millions of others do indeed share your concern, but merely imagining a better system doesn’t make it happen.
It doesn’t get through the layers and layers of entrenched investment in the current system, or through the layers and layers of ruthless militarism protecting it.
Our enemy will never step aside and voluntarily make way for something worthy of the name, “society”.
Somebody, somewhere, sometime, is going to have to insist.
Annie is absolutely right: I think we need to start looking ahead. Neoliberal capitalism is dead: it cannot be revived because there are neither the mineral or energy primary resource assets left for permanent expansionism. Monetising debt is short term firefighting – fighting fire with fire, debt with debt. We need to stop thinking like capitalists: assessing consciousness and wellbeing against fake GDP and monetised debt prosperity …and start thinking as humanists. Like Annie. By all measures: capitalism is due another crisis …Taleb’s Black Swan is in clear view …we can expect the unexpected. No one can predict the timing or severity: but the debt hangover from GFC 1 makes GFC 2 look potentially worse. Then capitalism has one more shot of adrenaline (more easing; ZIRPS; savings ‘haircuts’; going cashless; potentially a change in reserve) …then what? Fascism or socialism. Angry people make for fascism. Peaceful people make for socialism.… Read more »
Philosophically, I’m with you 100%, BigB.
But it’s also the crux of your own matter as to where the mechanisms for choosing either fascism or socialism really are in our current system.
Many of us here want to know what to DO, rather than merely pass judgement on what is wrong.
For example, by nature, I am very inclined to follow Annie’s path, but we have to know exactly what is the nature of the colossal resistance we will definitely encounter.
Will we be stuck in jail, or even “permanently disappeared”, because we can think for ourselves?
Or will the media simply keep up their current assault on our intelligence and education until, after a decade or two, nobody is left who could rub two coherent sentences together?
Trumps promises before the election about the trillions wasted in futile wars, and promising to redirect those trillions into US infrastructure etc, turned out to be outrageous lies. Here are some quotes from HL Mencken which in my opinion sum up the passengers in the out of control US clown car, Trump, Bolton, Pence and Pompeo. The men the American people admire most extravagantly are the most daring liars; the men they detest most violently are those who try to tell them the truth. The urge to save humanity is almost always only a false-face for the urge to rule it. The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out for himself, without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, and intolerable. Every normal man must… Read more »
How can anybody down-vote that?
Is there a Bolton family member here…?
Exactly Eric Zuesse! And thank you offGuardian brilliant presentation…
brilliant and a timely reminder to all those who are stupid enough to believe ‘what they are told’
This is a fantastic article that sums up the truth of our situation!
Problems heaped upon problems.
So what to do?
Savour every breath.
Laugh often.
Go vegan.
Minimise shopping.
Play music and sing.
Read poetry.
And let the One Per Cent run around in rings until they disappear up their own anal orifices.
Not to be depressing, but the same fake Greens pushing Extinction Rebellion are also pushing mass-conversion to veganism.
While at a personal level being vegan is an ethical choice, it’s also a covert way of promoting Big Ag to those very groups who might traditionally be opposed to it, since it fits well with monocultures, GM and non-organic farming.
Far more effective to promote small scale organic farming and animal welfare
Veganism IS the ultimate animal welfare. Anything else is tokenism.
Check out the numbers>>http://www.adaptt.org/
The ‘mass conversion’ to the omnivore diet has been going on for thousands of years.
Permaculture (minus animals) is the future of agriculture>>
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permaculture
Sorry, but this is the faux Green perspective of urbanites who have lost touch with how the earth systems really run.
Right! Permaculture without a whole range of animals participating is an oxymoron. And Wikideceivia is emphatically not – ever – a trustworthy source. Kick the toxic-JWales habit ASAP when you can.
(Hmm, maybe this thread is going to veer into dietary slanging-wars, whether we will or no. Sorry Eric!)
Indeed earth systems run on the exploitation of the weak by the powerful. Being against this only until you are the most powerful seems disingenuous and slightly hypocritical.
In effect, what ACTUALLY is the moral difference between the US dominion over ‘lesser’ nations and human dominion over ‘lesser’ species. Is it not just another itineration of the might is right doctrine? Is exploitation a relative concept?
This is how my family and I have lived on the land for twenty years.
It works.
Bullshit. You don’t live on the land chum. You might have a house on some land, but you don’t farm or have any concept of how husbandry works. If you want to protect your family go and read some stuff outside your comfort zone.
Husbandry?
Don’t you mean exploitation?
100 billion + animals slaughtered every year to produce fat saturated protein that humans don’t need.
Ignorance is a dark refuge.
The problem is your entire “philosophy” is based on a totally unreal, sheltered, uber-westernised idea of life.
You buy veggies from a supermarket in plastic wrap and think this is a clean cruelty-free lifestyle.
You know nothing.
If you want to understand the world do some research beyond your comfort zone. If you don’t, nothing I can say will impact on your determination to be smug and foolish and deluded.
What specious straws you grasp.
THEIR blood.
YOUR heart.
In more ways than One.
Kindly-managed animals are an essential part of any realistic post-fossil-hydrocarbon-era farming methods (the sort of farming that all communities still surviving will be practising within a century or so; as permaculturally as possible, if we know what’s good for us). For some of us, animals are also an essential, biologically-imperative part of diet – meat, dairy, eggs and fish. That said, it remains right that best health and best overall outcome for all sentients concerned is a diet whose main staples are vegetables, particularly foods whose main bulk is plant starch, with animal products as small, restrained condimental additions. Asian peasant food, in a word; though such diets were universal amongst we plebs until recently. (The whimsical, weather-cocking fashions in ‘healthy eating’ do keep changing, don’t they? At least amongst we briefly-bourgeoisified plebs of the world’s Pampered Twenty Percent.) Note: The two critical words in the foregoing paragraph are ‘kindly’… Read more »
‘Imperative part’ ?
Not according to the most comprehensive dietary study ever undertaken.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_China_Study
The fat from dead animals can lead to the undertaker.
Please don’t expect me to accept ANYTHING from Wikideceivia as legitimate evidence. Nothing from that source is ever trustworthy. Blanket rule, only way to deal with their known bias and dishonest editing policy.
That study is a political treatise promoting the state-sponsored drive to persuade people that chemically-extracted vegetable oils and GM monocultures are ‘healthy’. Saturated fat was demonised because the food industry wanted to persuade people to consume chemically extracted vegetable oils that were previously used solely for industrial purposes and considered unfit for human consumption. The rise of petroleum meant veg oils needed a new market – and so they were repackaged as lovely “healthy” cooking oils. And shortly after that people started dying of coronary heart disease, due to plaques of unsaturated fat sticking to the walls of their arteries. Rather than admit the new veg oils wee killing people, the food industry, its tame medics et al simply LIED and claimed it was the saturated fat people had been eating safely or years that was causing the problem In chemical terms it’s nonsense. Saturated fat is chemically stable and… Read more »
Right, Ariadne! One of John McDougall’s persistent slogans – unpopular, but unwaveringly maintained by him – is “No oils! Seriously NO oils!” And he means specifically extracted vegetable oils. (Veg. oils actually still within the plant food, such as avocados or olives are fine. It’s just the pressed, heated and chemically-extracted oils that he condemns; always, as is his constant habit, meticulously documented with numerous careful studies in good standing in the scientific litearature.)