American Psychopathy
John Steppling
Not only are we not going to have wars between major powers in this era of fascist upsurge (of course, as will be discussed, we shall have other wars), but, by the same token, this fascist upsurge will not burn out through any cataclysmic war. What we are likely to see is a lingering fascism of less murderous intensity, which, when in power, does not necessarily do away with all the forms of bourgeois democracy, does not necessarily physically annihilate the opposition, and may even allow itself to get voted out of power occasionally. But since its successor government, as long as it remains within the confines of the neoliberal strategy, will also be incapable of alleviating the crisis, the fascist elements are likely to return to power as well. And whether the fascist elements are in or out of power, they will remain a potent force working toward the fascification of the society and the polity, even while promoting corporate interests within a regime of globalization of finance, and hence permanently maintaining the “partnership between big business and fascist upstarts.”
Utsa Patnaik and Prabhat Patnaik (Monthly Review, July 1st, 2019)
The poor shall inherit the earth or there will be no earth left to inherit.”
John Bellamy Foster (Monthly Review, 2019)
The people want wholesome dread. They want to fear something. They want someone to frighten them and make them shudderingly submissive.”
Ernst Rohm (Hitler’s chief of the SA)
There seems to be two branches of what I see as a drive toward global domination, global hegemony, by the ruling class. One is the Trump phenomenon and the narratives and political actions that accompany his presidency (often in the background). Second is the new ruling corporate control of environmentalism.
I quote Cory Morningstar a lot and that is with good reason. Its nearly impossible to pull quotes from her work because there are too many choices. Read the entirety of it.
There is a lot to read and it might be useful to start at the end, with the most recent material, and work backwards. But I will return to this.
The linkage between Trump’s cartoon presidency and the corporate takeover of environmentalism is anchored in recognizing the magic thinking involved, but more, to stop and recognize that the manufacturing of narratives here is really about a manufacturing of obedience to authority.
Especially in our post modern (sic) epoch, *institutional authority*. And to see that Trump is only carrying out policy sanctioned and supported by the ruling class (and perfectly amenable to the DNC).
Now one need look no further than Hollywood to see the outlines of narrative change. The rehabilitation of fascism is everywhere. In everything. The normalizing of fascist style helps normalize and make coherent the presidency of Don Trump.
Much has been written about the CIA and Department of Defense infiltration of Hollywood. There are numerous obvious storytelling staples; the problems in any global situation are the result of a few bad apples or rogue agents. It is never that the institution is corrupt or intentionally causing death and suffering.
The content of film and television is directly, regularly, and secretly determined by the US government, led by the CIA and Pentagon. More visible since the 1980s is what we identify as a distinct genre: ‘national security cinema’—namely, those films that follow self-serving official histories and exalt in the righteousness of US foreign policy. ( ) National security entertainment promotes violent, self-regarding, American-centric solutions to international problems based on twisted readings of history. However, even those products that don’t meet such a lamentable yardstick are still to some degree designed to recruit personnel and, in doing so, must adhere to the desired self-image of the national security state.”
Matthew Alford, Tom Secker (National Security Cinema – Government Control in Hollywood)
There is a constant pro war slant to nearly all films that even indirectly touch on US politics and/or the government. The first given is that war is inevitable and when involving the US military it is a necessary and beneficent activity. There is a tacit and often openly direct support and praise of mass surveillance — even on ordinary citizens or citizens of friendly nations.
The world is depicted as if threat existed on every corner and such trifles as torture or political manipulations are both routine and absolutely crucial to keep you, the viewer, safe.
The message is always that new dangers are unprecedented and unique. Civil liberties are treated with the same contempt Obama showed for them. The exaggeration of threat, in fact, runs through nearly everything in mass media. There is also an exaggeration of the abilities of the surveillance industry (one aspect of the new magical thinking).
But the really pernicious aspect of government influence in media comes in more subtle forms. The most prominent of which is the normalizing of not just illegal military or CIA activity, but the normalizing of and encouragement to fawn before authority, to trust said authority, and to feel OK about one’s own attraction to those knee high Nazi jack boots, or the shiny nickel plated Sig Sauer 9mm the hero is fondling.
So routine is the seduction of the audience with technologies of violence that it passes without comment. Directors and DPs automatically default to having the camera caress the gun, tank, rifle, or uniform. This extends to domestic US police forces, too.
It is allowable to show sadistic cops on occasion because sadism itself is acceptable, and even sort of sexy.
It is allowable to show the US interfering in the political elections of foreign sovereign states because any nation not the United States (and UK) will benefit from said interference. And here another branch of this propaganda should be noted ( which will segue nicely back to Trump and environmentalism) and that is white supremacism.
The single constant in narratives from Hollywood is that of American exceptionalism. And really, the examples are just too numerous to list. The ideological footprint of ruling class values is indelible and unchanging. Wealth is a virtue and the rich are responsible, and when they are not they are punished by others in the 1%. Just like the new corporate environmentalism, the message is, let the ruling class decide.
The values of the ruling classes in the US and UK are always evident if one only looks. (So much has changed since those emigre German Jewish directors fled to Hollywood in the 40s). And of course lip service is, to a degree, paid to fairness and equality, but never to any idea of economic equality or social influence. That is the province of the very rich and aristocratic.
Which is why I find it so curious that many of the left (pseudo or soft left) don’t even blink when those with honorifics before their name, with royal titles, issue proclamations about climate change or overpopulation or new Green corporate solutions.
These are always white people, mind you. I mean African Kings don’t count. Tribal elders don’t count. The British aristocracy are very big on preserving their privileges at game preserves and France remains a colonial administrator in its former African holdings (see Uranium mining).
But more than that, of course, the ruling class is the face of the new environmentalism. Unless its an Asperger’s fifteen year old who increasingly (and painfully) appears in distress and cognitive confusion. This is not an attack on Greta, that attack is being carried out by the white billionaire faces of western capital. But I will be accused of attacking her, and that in itself is an aspect of how the new propaganda works.
Which reminds me, where are all the black (African or otherwise) climate experts? The only one, really, is Warren Washington. The new Green feels very white.
Facing monumental problems of pollution, both on land and perhaps especially in oceans, people have retreated to very non political positions that are either a kind of Hollywood disaster apocalypse fantasy, or new age smart phone Gaia anthropomorphism.
I wrote before about the demand that everyone submit to the consensus – meaning not that the earth is getting warmer or even why, but the moral hand wringing and outrage at those not submitting. The demand is that one join in the outrage and alarmism. The very term “denialism” suggests the typical bourgeois response to anything disruptive of their privilege. The constant outpouring of articles, in mainstream glossy magazines (and their cyber equivalents) and news outlets are always framed a certain way.
A recent social media post by Keith Harmon Snow on a lay out in National Geographic laid it out this way….
With help from National Geographic and Proctor and Gamble (P&G), you can save the world. ACTIVATE. Be a good Global Citizen.
This is corporate greenwashing and corporate capitalism steering or creating “social justice” movements that will serve capitalism, while expropriating true social justice and true social justice movements, and thereby diffusing and destroying any valid legitimate meaningful POTENTIAL social movements. P&G is a nasty chemical/pharmaceutical/medical industrial giant responsible for Toxic carcinogenic products, price-fixing, palm oil monoculture plantations, child slavery, media propaganda, testing on animals, false advertising and massive pollution and other forms of destruction of the environment.
Did you know that P&G produced the first home radio and TV serials, and because P&G was known for manufacturing detergents, these became known as “Soap operas”?
This is racist white supremacist whitewashing. Using images of smiling indigenous people, in full (airbrushed) color, in their natural or unnatural environments, for malicious propaganda purposes. Propaganda = perception management. National Geographic is a racist corporate platform that cannot ever be trusted. (Pretty pictures, though; though generally and almost always decontextualized).”
The entire thrust of the new corporate and billionaire backed projects on climate action are there to preserve a hierarchical status quo. It is to rescue Capitalism itself. And the implications of much of it are near genocidal. I think it is not an accident that the grave problems of industrial pollution (just think the waste sites for cyber technology) are relatively forgotten in these narratives from the ruling class.
Those waste sites are in the poorest countries on earth, they are not outside Bethesda,Maryland or in Connecticut. And these new marketing campaigns, employing massive guilt inducing techniques of persuasion, have created a fairly safe and morally superior niche psychic space for the haute bourgeoisie to look down on the problems that their class created and attribute them to either the poor, or just the anodyne *everyone*.
The term 6th Mass Extinction gets a lot of usage. Its a marketers dream, actually. In fact the first time I heard that term I thought, wow, that is gonna have traction. If you just said oh, we’re all going to die off in a half century you would not garner this kind of following.
But give it a kind of pseudo brand, specify it, make it special — not just extinction, but SIXTH mass extinction….and the white boogie class will fall over themselves salivating. Its pure seduction. Its like a kind of generalized identification with something bigger than you. Even though its also a sort of pessimism selfie. It sounds smarty pants to say, too. Oh we’re in the SIXTH mass extinction don’t you know.
There is almost no dialogue about this stuff. There are proclamations. Public life is carried out by proclamation and twitter. Meanwhile the US election season has arrived. And never before, perhaps, has the Democratic Party put on such a pathetic show. Joe Biden can barely speak. Its senile gibberish half the time.
The other front runner — and clearly now the candidate of western capital, is Elizabeth Warren. Im wondering how those rimless spectacles will play west of the Rockies.
Not well…which is fine because the Democrats don’t want to win this one.
This is Trump time.
For only a man mentored at the feet of Roy Cohn could so effortlessly usher in the theatrical presentation of full blown fascism to America. Trump normalizes old school fascism. Everything can be blamed on Trump. And that is what the ruling class wants, you see. If Biden has an embolism and Warren turns out to be just too bookish (appearing) then there is always the black cop, Kamala Harris (whose future is likely as a federal DA) or Bernie.
Except Bernie doesn’t want the nomination. That’s not his gig. The loud mouthed and utterly opportunistic shill will be what he always was, a ballot bag man for the more telegenic DNC candidates of choice. There is also the potential for a late comer to the DRC party. Too early for AOC (who may be, actually, too dumb for national electoral politics. And that bar has been set very low. Think Dan Quayle) and Chelsea (Clinton not Manning, although…), but its not impossible to think someone out there might provide better optics than Biden or Warren.
The debates themselves are so idiotic, so inane and nearly literally infantile, that it is hard to gain a clear picture of what the public thinks they are watching. But then the sub-literacy of America is stunning to behold. And perhaps the loss of even the most basic moral coherency among the bourgeoisie is resulting in the stultifying character of the Spectacle these days.
The sordid and unsettling saga of cheerleader and killer (er…corpse abuser) Skyler Richardson is sort of the avatar for this era. A society that produces a Skyler Richardson …and one that cannot find the means to deal with her crimes…is a terribly sick place. But then this is also the era of drone assassination on order of the President (Obama) which took the life of a teenage citizen of the US.
This is the era in which Julian Assange is driven toward complete physical and mental collapse by the state, for releasing the truth to the public while Mike Pompeo brags about lying.
An era of wanton wholesale lying at the state level (think the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, Syria, Venezuela, North Korea, Iran).
Wholesale lying of a kind that the public is now utterly inured to –a lying that is expected and anticipated. A persistent assault of lies and distortions that have all but eroded the very idea of the truth. But then this an era in which transparent visible stupidity is more asset than detriment. And the problem is that crimes and viciousness of those in power …both in the UK and US is just not answered.
The Grenfell Tower fire is another avatar of class violence today. Boris Johnson (Kipling admirer and open OPEN overt racist) now is the head of state for Great Britain. But he is the shadow of Trump. A pale homunculus version of the Donald. And the hair. I mean, the hair?
But the vast militarism of the US and its proxies is polluting enormous areas of earth, killing sea mammals and indoctrinating hundreds of thousands of ill educated poor kids to the joys of shooting Arab families, the pleasures of torture, and career building bullying seems to have exceeded all limits of rationality. A military system that teaches hate and racism and xenophobia. A system that tolerates (at the very least) rape. A military that gets something like 5 billion dollars a day to play with. And all those democrats on stage this week, ALL of them signed off on more militarism.
Someone said to me this week, when I mentioned Bernies attack on Maduro and Chavez, ‘well, he has to say that, he’s trying to win an election’.
He *HAS* to say it. He is forced to lie. They have a gun to his dog’s head. Or, more likely, that bellowing fool probably believes it.
Why does anyone like Bernie? Honestly, I get Liz Warren. The college educated white liberal finds their mirror ideal image in Warren. I get Biden even. He is familiar. And shit, Reagan was senile and barely able to actually speak in complete sentences and yet he was labeled ‘the great communicator’. So senility has its charms for America it seems. But Bernie is so nakedly disingenuous and mendacious. I don’t get it.
Transformations in the economic base of the system and its accompanying class structures have changed the conditions for the exercise of power. Political domination is now expressed through a new-style “political class” and a media clergy, both dedicated exclusively to serving the abstract capitalism of generalized monopolies. The ideology of the “individual as king” and the illusions of the “movement” that wants to transform the world, even “change life”(!)—without posing the question of workers and peoples seizing power—only reinforce capital’s new methods of exercising power.” Samir Amin (Monthly Review, July 2019)
The above paragraph is a useful description of contemporary capitalism and a cogent comment on the various new green deals or extinction rebellions etc. And set against the surreal comedy of the US election season, the new Corporate environmentalists are paving the way for normalizing a global state of emergency. If one thinks back just a bit, the Boston Marathon bombing was the front edge for testing how compliant the population might be when their city is being shut down. Totally compliant was the answer. And this is going to be the tactic. Declare a state of emergency that is for your own good.
The sober images of Thunberg, as depicted and shared by the Climate Group, and the media at large, are very much intentional as outlined in the document “Leading the Public into Emergency Mode: A New Strategy for the Climate Movement” published by The Climate Mobilization:
‘The way we respond to threats — by entering emergency mode or by remaining in normal mode — is highly contagious. Imagine the fire alarm goes off in an office building. How seriously should you take it? How do you know if it is a drill or a real fire? Those questions will be predominantly answered by the actions and communications of the people around you, particularly people designated as leaders. If they are chatting and taking their time exiting the building, you will assume that this is a drill. If people are moving with haste, faces stern and focused, communicating with urgency and gravity, you will assume there is real danger and exit as quickly as possible.’”
Cory Morningstar (ibid)
Just the title, We Mean Business.
None of this, of course, has anything to do with saving life and protecting the planet. None has anything to do with a radical de-militarizing of the Imperialist states. Nobody is suggesting the rich change the way they live. You poor folks, well, yeah, you might have to change a little (and oh, live in a FEMA camp, but not forever…we don’t think).
Allow me to just pick one bio here, from Morningstar’s work, to illustrate the fascistic ideology of those driving so much of this new marketed environmentalism.
Executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) from 2010 to 2016, is the very privileged Christina Figueres, late of Georgetown and the London School of Economics , an anthropologist and economist who presided over the UN climate negotiations that culminated in the 2015 Paris Agreement.
Although meticulous in detail, Figueres biography on her personal website neglects to disclose her royal connection to Costa Rica. On Figueres’ lengthy Wikipedia entry, it is disclosed, in a single sentence, that her father, José Figueres Ferrer, served as President of Costa Rica on three separate occasions.
In August 1953, the Guatemalan Communist paper, Octubre, characterized the new president of Costa Rica, José “Don Pepe” Figueres, as an “unconditional servant of American imperialism” and the latest “United Fruit Company President.”
Both pro-American and anti-communist, José Figueres supported the 1954 Guatemalan coup d’état overthrowing Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán, President of Guatemala from 1951 to 1954. [Further reading: Resistance and Accommodation: The United States and the Nationalism of José Figueres, 1953–1957.]
Figueres’ mother, Karen Olsen Beck, served as Costa Rican Ambassador to Israel in 1982 and was a member of the Costa Rica Legislative Assembly. Figueres’ brother José María Figueres also served as President of Costa Rica from 1994 to 1998.
In 2013, he co-founded the Global Ocean Commission, an initiative funded by the Pew Charitable Trust, the Adessium Foundation in the Netherlands, and US philanthropic group Oceans 5. Former Greenpeace adviser Simon Reddy would serve as the commission’s executive secretary. [Source] María Figueres serves as chair to the Global Ocean Commission (since rebranded to Mission Ocean) with David Miliband (recently featured on the Global Optimism podcast series), and Trevor Manuel (one of South Africa’s longest serving Ministers of Finance, now Minister in the Presidency and head of the National Planning Commission).
The original members of the Global Ocean Commission remain unchanged in 2019 with one member having deceased. Members include John Podesta (chair of the Center for American Progress and a former White House chief of staff and member of the ClimateWorks board of directors), Sri Mulyani Indrawati (managing director and chief operating officer of the World Bank Group), Pascal Lamy (former director-general of the World Trade Organisation) and other high profile individuals.
María Figueres is also the co-founder of Ocean Unite. This is important, as the oceans are set to be privatized under the “New Deal For Nature” scheme.
– Cory Morningstar (ibid)
Again, anti-communism, and all the usual fingerprints of US imperial foreign policy. Its like six degrees of fascist separation. And yet I guarantee you will read her quotes in any number of articles on climate change and green new deals. For again, the template has always been, let the ruling class decide.
Figueres is also a “distinguished member” of Conservation International — along with chairman for Northrop Grumman, and Al Gore, and oh, a former Walmart chairman. Not to mention Figueres married Konrad Von Ritter of the World Bank.
But yeah, I’m sure Greta knew all this when she accepted the invite.
Infantile and intoxicated with an almost masochistic love of authority. That is the average American today. The problem with the new (sic) environmentalism is that it is driven by western interests, and the narrative shaped by western interests. There is more than just a residual racism involved, it is there at the very most basic level.
The narratives that are shaping today’s generation are largely the products of Langely and the DoD, and increasingly they feature a nostalgic rehabilitation of fascist style (at first) and now content. Fascism is becoming fashionable. Its cool. And the fascism of Trump is a bit like the McGuffin of this master narrative. Trump’s cartoon twitter fascism is decried while legitimate fascist principles are being more inextricably and quietly baked into daily life.
The US Imperialist state knows a global crises is coming. And probably the most acute area will be water. When there is a clear unanimity among global capitalists, one should see this as a symptom — and distrust the narrative. Whatever the exact degree of environmental harm due specifically to climate change, there is the undeniable desperation among the ruling elite. And an undeniable crises of pollution.
If royalty and billionaires are flocking to exploit the Greta phenomenon (and to help shape that narrative), one should be highly suspicious of the solutions and strategies being offered. The fact that militarism and the packaging industry are relatively ignored in the presentation of the new green movement suggests more suspicion. Instead of *everyone* not using straws or single use plastic bags, how about just stop producing them.
The ruling class today has doubled down on smearing communism and socialism. The manufacturing of new kitsch demonized bios of Mao or Ho Chi Minh or Thomas Sankara… or even the Black Panthers, suggests fear.
Substitute Ocasio-Cortez for real socialism, call Bernie a socialist, too, and then pretend much of the new faux left (infiltrated by crack pot LaRouche-ites and various forms of libertarianism) is oppositional and argue with it — the better to disappear real socialist literature (see Google and Facebook censorship).
Praise the most innocuous apolitical philosophy (or just the Nazi metaphysics of Heidegger) of post structuralism while, again, disappearing the work of Marx or Lenin and discredit an Adorno or a Gramsci. Or, make sure such work is taken out of context. And in fine arts applaud identity based banality and then disappear the working class voice. And then keep prescribing mind numbing drugs. Reduce public education to simple training in compliance. And keep praising those in uniform. Always.
“Thus madness reappears in the very posture which pretends to fight it.”
Guy Debord (Society of the Spectacle)
Despite this opposition, neoliberal capitalism cannot ward off the challenge it is facing for long. It has no vision for reinventing itself. Interestingly, in the period after the First World War, when capitalism was on the verge of sinking into a crisis, the idea of state intervention as a way of its revival had already been mooted, though its coming into vogue only occurred at the end of the Second World War.
Today, neoliberal capitalism does not even have an idea of how it can recover and revitalize itself. And weapons like domestic fascism in the third world and direct imperialist intervention cannot for long save it from the anger of the masses that is building up against it.”
Utsa Patnaik and Prabhat Patnaik (ibid)
I keep reading about how unprecedented was Hurricane Dorian.
Well, no. The legendary Galveston hurricane of 1900 remains the single greatest natural made tragedy in US History. (and the second greatest was The Okeechobee Hurricane of 1928, and then Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Maria along with the The Chenière Caminada Hurricane of 1893). The environmental crises is real. The marketing of it is not necessary. Why then does it exist.
Once upon a time they wrote songs about human tragedies. Dylan might be the last songwriter to address tragedy.
As Sam Collins wrote on the youtube video of Sin Killer Griffin’s recording of Wasn’t it a Mighty Storm, a song about the Galveston tragedy..courtesy of John Lomax…
…there were many songs. But the one that has endured, deservingly, is called “Wasn’t That a Mighty Storm” – which, from what we know, began life as a spiritual in the black church.
At least the church seems to be the first place it surfaced into public view. Back in those days, almost every major public event inspired songs, which spread like text messages spread today, so the precise origin of songs is often hard to pin down.
But “Wasn’t That a Mighty Storm” fit perfectly into the black spiritual tradition – a tale of hardship and trouble and the sometimes inscrutable hand of God with which we troubled sinners in this hard mortal world simply had to live.
Part of it went like this:
Galveston had a seawall
To keep the water down,
But the high tide from the ocean
Washed water over the town.
Wasn’t that a mighty storm!
Oh, wasn’t that a mighty storm with water!
Wasn’t that a mighty storm
That blew all the people away!
Their trumpets gave them warning,
“You’d better leave this place.”
They never thought of leaving
Till death looked them in the face.
Death like a cruel master,
As the wind began to blow,
Rode out on a train of horses.
Death calls, you gotta go.
It was not a happy song. But then, it was not a happy event – and topical songs of the early 20th century thrived on unhappy events. There were literally hundreds of songs about the sinking of the Titanic, dozens about the killer Mississippi floods of 1927.
The song was apparently first recorded in 1934 by Library of Congress folk song collector John Lomax on a visit to Darrington State Farm, a prison in Sandy Point, Tex.
Lomax’s recording was by a preacher named Sin-Killer Griffin, with the prison inmates serving as his congregation.
Sin-Killer was a well-known preacher, with a mesmerizing delivery and full confidence in the name he had given himself. Death was a subject on which he preached frequently.
Relatively little is known about his life, which makes it all the more intriguing that back in 1889, in Denton, Tex., a “Sin-Killer Griffin” tried to organize black Americans to invade Africa.
There is some evidence this was the same Sin-Killer Griffin who resurfaced before John Lomax 45 years later, though we have no way of knowing for sure.
John Steppling is an original founding member of the Padua Hills Playwrights Festival, a two-time NEA recipient, Rockefeller Fellow in theatre, and PEN-West winner for playwrighting. His plays have been produced in LA, NYC, SF, Louisville, and throughout Europe. His works include a collection of his plays (Sea of Cortez and Other Plays), a book on aesthetics (Aesthetic Resistance and Disinterest) and the screenplay for Animal Factory (1999). He lives in Norway with his wife.
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Please change the font in the opening quotes. Almost illegible.
lIt seems like a bigger version of the UK, just more fucked up. It is ou are America, a nothing country, you have nothing to offer anymore. All your talk of greatness is delusion. I’m not fooled, and I used to love you. You just want to force your plastic, worthless, toxic shit down peoples’ throats because its’s your only option. No-one wants your shit anymore. You bring nothing positive to the world, you only take and detract from the beauty of the world. Just the dark, septic wishes of your Satanic rulers. America is a disease which has spread and infected God’s children, it is killing them and poisoning their minds. Very sad.
Ever since ww2 they needed enemies. Instil the fear of the “other”. Pick your villains, there’s so many to choose from. Keep up the good work Hollywood you’re doing a great job. What’s your latest offering then ? Oh yes it’s Rambo Last Blood where that great American hero, you know the one who stands up for family values, homeland security etc. whilst defending his right to kill all those who threaten his American dream lifestyle. This time it’s those nasty Mexican sex trafficking drug dealers with the Gaucho moustaches who are systematically annihilated by our hero in oh so many ingenious ways and all for our visual delectation. Enjoy ! It’s a very dark and unhealthy mind which promotes this trash worldwide under the guise of “entertainment”. The dividing line between this and the reality of American behaviour throughout our world is almost non existent so forget going to… Read more »
The GND would be humanities twin suicide and ecocide pact with the green neoliberal billionaires and their ‘caring’ corporatism. Everyone gets that now. The real tragedy of the GND is that it exposes the lack of any credible alternative to capitalism. We live under the involuntary subjugation of Capitalist Realism …TINA (There Is No Alternative). The reason I follow Cory, Hiroyuki, John, and Robin Monotti is that in exposing the GND – htey have never fallen into the false binary narrative trap that because it is being weaponised by the climate capitalists – that does not mean there is no emergency. There is – and it is bigger than the climate capitalists want us to know. The whole ‘climate emergency’ is an intentional character masking green neoliberal semantic frame. The climate is the least of our worries (for now: there are more proximal cogent factors). Capitalism is collapsing: and humanity… Read more »
Very sobering comment BigB, but also a truthful and realistic one. I know what’s coming, and when the economic shitstorm hits, its going to get very ugly, and dangerous. The ruling parasites have been preparing for this for years, beefing up and militarising the police forces across the globe, not to mention the vastly increased surveillance of everyone.
Most people are completely, hopelessly oblivious to the economic meltdown just round the corner.
I’m 57 mate. I barely know what a granny knot is let alone even basic combat skills. Its not looking good. I try and put my faith in the universe – what is, is. I appreciate what you say.
Snap: I’m 57 too. Like you, I’ve seen it coming for the most of those 57 years. From about when I was potty trained anyway. In that time I have witnessed the Guardians of the elite Outer Party – the political chatterers for the climate capitalists – atomise all resistance. Turning everyone into a free-enterprise carnivore culture capitalist. History will show that the worst offenders in removing civil liberties and preparing the deep state architecture of a police state have been the Democrats and socialists. Bush the Lesser Evil was bad: he gave us the Patriot Act paramilitary state. Obama did nothing to undo it: but added to it. He also doubled the US National Debt. We have our own mini-Patriot Act – the Civil Contingencies Bill …thanks to Tony Blair. We’ve already seen the Army on the street – Operation Temperer – in peacetime …thanks to Blair’s contrived anti-Terrorism… Read more »
No need to reply to this, but thank you for the above. Yep, have tried to warn numerous people, and yep, was asked if I’m okay, or labelled a conspiracy theorist or a Russian troll, etc etc. I sell The Big Issue mag as my only income, and the discussions on Cory Morningstar got me going back to some of her earlier articles ‘The Simulcram’. Coz I hardly look at the mag, only sell it, only just discovered one of The Big Issue ‘media partners’ is…. Res Publica. Yes, the same Res Publica behind AVAAZ, Change.org, etc. Refer to the brilliant Cory Morningstar for a takedown on these bastards. Have a good week in your neck of England.
“does not necessarily physically annihilate the opposition”
This is a seeemingly israeli strategy, applied widely now, whereby getting a slight majority above 50% is enough tip the scales in their favour while leaving the impression of a democratic process taking place.
Overtime, things change drastically because all laws and regulations are voted repeatedly in favour of the same manipulating side.
Good to see a few people on social media point out the obvious. That regardless of the merits of the arguments, the world faces a more imminent threat of extinction through creating enemies of Iran, Russia and China and recklessly escalating wars. If Greta mentions this in equal measure, she may entitled to some benefit of the doubt. Until then, looks very much like she is being ‘handled’
I am less convinced she is being overtly ‘handled’, more that they have identified someone who believes in the desired narrative without handling. The world is abig place and somwhere on it you will find the chosen messenger.
Those with Aspergers often have very strong and rigid beliefs, they often also see ‘reality’ intuitively without carrying out analysis.
Greta Thunberg will be entirely unaware of adult chicaneries, she is at the age of innocent idealism.
Pandering to her idealism overtly whilst covertly rigging the economic deck is the name of the game.
Sorry, Rhys: but you have just declared that you have not read Cory’s expose …nor do you know who her parents are. Or their parents (or grandparents (theatrics runs in the gene pool) – she’s distantly related to the guy who established the ‘greenhouse effect’). Greta has been groomed from birth and indoctrinated into her parent’s belief system. As sinister as this may seem: I would not want to jump to any snap judgment. It is entirely plausible that they fully believe in what they say. This is the story of a family led to confront a crisis they had never foreseen. Aged eleven, their eldest daughter has stopped eating and speaking. Alongside diagnoses of autism and selective mutism, her parents slowly become aware of another source for her distress: her imperilled future on a rapidly heating planet. Steered by her determination to understand the truth, the family begins to… Read more »
Someone stole my blockquotes and highlight tags! You can probably work out what was quoted.
Nice to see Steppling’s work here at OffG. He’s the only reason I EVER visit the otherwise lame Counterpuff site anymore.
Gary: great news! John Steppling has his own blog at John Steppling.com. Which I only discovered about 4 days ago. Sigh. His latest blog article is a cracker by the way. Oh, this was to let you know you don’t have to visit Counterpunch ever again! No more Jeremy St whatsit….
Gezzah – Thanks, I really enjoy Steppling’s blog posts as he typically delves into the deeper recesses of Western culture, pop culture, and our mass psychic states of crazy than does most of what he posts at CounterPuff, which I also enjoy, but which tends to be more direct and accessible. I just watched the video Steppling shared of the San Francisco school board’s plan to physically destroy murals from the 1930’s on the walls of a local high school that depict of all things George Washington as a slave holder & which acknowledge the genocide of Native Americans. Why? Because apparently the truth of this history is simply unacceptable in any format in today’s America – and is in fact “offensive” to many who consider themselves “progressive.” The latest I’ve read on this “controversy” is that the board reluctantly agreed to “permanently cover up” the murals rather than destroy… Read more »
No probs Gary. Am really impressed by Steppling and slightly annoyed I only just discovered his blog. There is so much out there to look at. And only 24 hrs in a day! I heard about the furore with the school murals a while back on other sites, and just went…. WTF? But this Orwellian PC crap is being done to censor and whitewash the truth (no pun) and to have a mind numbing mass groupthink conformity. Those who forget history…. Truly surreal World we live in, Cheers,
Excellent piece.
They tried out the child messenger meme with Little Banna backing up the White Wash Helmets in Syria. It work a treat.
The Sino/ Russo-phobic angle was developed as a reaction to the “Battle of the Oligarchs” going on across the Ruling Class World [the great cheese board]. Their only answer, the continuation of entitlement; but our historic entitlement only.
One statement among many really jumped out for me:
“This is the era in which Julian Assange is driven toward complete physical and mental collapse by the state, for releasing the truth to the public while Mike Pompeo brags about lying.”
Well said.
“worked”
Let’s pretend that the glass is half full and that the much maligned ‘Greta movement’ is the beginning of some form of awakening for the sheeple.
Otherwise, pass me that razor.
Occam’s razor says Greta is a fake:
Asperger folks are renowned for their ‘in your face’ honesty.
I should know, my son is an Aspie.
Mr Occam, by the way, ignored passion when framing his logic.
Yes, they defend fanatically what they hold for truth. This does not make their conception closer to Truth.
Blind fanaticism is never healthy, be it ISIS, Dark Green, Stalinism, etc. .
And you are above all of that Antonym?
humility
n. The quality or condition of being humble.
n. The state or character of being humble; freedom from pride and arrogance; lowliness of mind; a low estimate of one’s self; self-abasement.
I am not preaching angrily in front of the UN: quite the sum mum of being humble…..
Later on Greta reads from the radical script given to her by her handlers.
I suspect you’re a tad green Antonym.
With envy.
FD
I’m still with you. I saw a glimmer of hope in Greta, particularly early on. She is being tightly perception managed, scripted, and probably doesn’t write anything she says (see her rehearsing her ‘unrehearsed’ impromptu ‘house of fire’ speech at the WEF Davos).
Above all: Greta is a victim of child abuse. If we can find no compassion for her …pass the razor.
Greta claims to have no handlers. I believe her.
Asperger folks are, in general, unable to lie. They simply can’t see the point in lying.
Even ‘impromptu’ speeches require some rehearsal. I’ll bet professional speech makers keep a head file of witticisms and off the cuff remarks.
You believe what you’re told? Wrong forum.
I gave up ‘believing’ a long time ago.
Asperger folks may be incapable of lying but they can be lied to – and believe it.
In my experience they are less gullible than most of the sheeple.
I’m Asperger myself…and I can attest on my own experience, that yes we can be lied to, yes we can be handle….We might realize it later…but nonetheless…
Then you learn that we are not handled by anyone but ourselves, by our own uninformed beliefs, romantic views, the twisted delusional perception of permanence, desirability and satisfaction of a passing existence in a temporary world …but this delusion is widespread and shared by 99% of the human race.
Only because we are educated on this delusion plus this romantic view about honesty and sincerity, we tend to believe that everyone is honest and sincere (naivete) just to later find out that no one was….
same might be happening to her.
‘might’
*_*
“Sheeple” is a term of contempt that blinds the user to the actual dynamics taking place. We are all gullible to a degree and acknowledgement of that makes you a better critic. What Greta believes isn’t the issue. The issue is how credible her stance is. And when I see her embossing the cover of the latest GQ mag with her finger pointed like an Old Testament prophet and a title calling her “gamechanger of the year” then I see someone clearly being manipulated.
A few more unattractve, angry outbursts like yesterday and Ms Thunberg will be yesterday’s news.
Trajectory up,trajectory flat,trajectory down,the corporate media will play her for what she’s worth to them (and to their masters)!And she seems like she’d be cognizant of that from the the time she hit the big time.
Works for Trump.
When it comes to climate catastrophe, any publicity is acceptable. She is using them.
In my experience, they are obsessive, wear the same clothes every day, have no sense of humour and believe themselves to be savants, great at mathematics and understanding computers, when in reality they just like playing video games all day.
All generalisations.
I defer to Tony Atwood.
FD
Her ‘handlers’ would be her parents (see above). She is not lying. But she has had her parents belief system heavily imprinted on her. We all do. Mostly we rebel and kick it off – to find ourselves. In our late teens or early twenties. An age she is fast approaching.
People are looking at this now, as if circumstance will never change. I take a more ‘inter-temporal’ view. What if the climate capitalists mobilise the youth – hoping to indoctrinate and control the new ‘climate leaders’. What if capitalism enters a deep dark recession (it is: see above)?
Instead of a recuperated generation of capitalists: might we have a pre-mobilised generation of anti-capitalists? Who have been authorised to act to save the world?
I seriously hope so!
BB.
A belief system is no longer a belief system when it is KNOWN as Truth.
No one ‘believes’ they are hungry, in physical pain or in Love.
They simply KNOW it.
Greta is in that place.
They aren’t ‘mobilised’ any more than someone going to a rock concert is mobilised. They were told when to turn up and what slogans to use by those corporate-sponsored NGOs organising the event.
What they are is an example of collective manipulation being presented as a popular movement.
In this they are presages of the darkest potential future. Where fake ‘collectivism’ controls lives from cradle to grave and people have indeed been persuaded to love their servitude.
Soma is definitely being served up in a Green box.
Those endorsing this claptrap are effectively endorsing one of the greatest current threats to humanity and the planet.
Admin: You might want to expose some of Zach Exley, Jeremy Heimans et al methodologies. Because there are plenty of people who think they are making up their own minds. You missed my point. They are being mobilised in the sense that they are growing up with activism. My generation were actively discouraged from doing so by the riot batons of Thatcher’s goon squads …like the SPG. If circumstances change, as they will, we have a pre-mobilised activist youth who may potentially turn against a failing capitalism. Let’s face it. The older generations did fuck all. Fascism is capitalism in a crisis: and capitalism is in a crisis. The green soma is the ‘wrong kind of green’. It could easily become the right kind of green. It won’t go away. It needs everyone to subvert the wrong to the right. As I said months ago: everyone is an ecologist now.… Read more »
Or the cynicism of world weary journalists?
Her direct daily handler is Luisa-Marie Neubauer, 23 year old German Dark Green fanatic connected to Soros ‘ One foundation.
https://web.archive.org/web/20190209123959/https://bv.antrag.gruene-jugend.de/buko51/Luisa_Neubauer-46919/pdf
That’s exactly what the Brexit remain campaign is attempting to do with the next generation of middle-class would-be voters.
I have a nephew who has AS. He is in his twenties and throws constant tantrums if anyone disagrees with him, to the point where he gets violent and smashes up furniture.
Maybe he’s always right Andy.
His behaviour is not relevant to Greta because AS is a spectrum disorder.
The brutal rape of the Earth is enough reason to get angry as far as I’m concerned.
FD, I totally agree with you on climate change, but I would suggest that Greta and her ilk try preaching to India and China and see how far that gets them, because if those two countries do not stop building and using fossil fuel power stations, then quite frankly it doesn’t matter what the rest of us do.
China is taking giant steps with alternative energy sources, not sure about India.
The thing is, we in the West can’t preach to them as long as we are coal addicted.
I like to imagine that Greta and my one grandchild will both die of old age, on a healing planet.
Maybe this bloke (see link) is on the right track. I really don’t know.
https://newmatilda.com/2019/08/13/radiation-chernobyl-and-the-scientific-mumbo-jumbo-inexorably-attached-to-it/
Sadly, China are looking to build between 300 – 500 new, coal fired power plants by 2030.
https://unearthed.greenpeace.org/2019/03/28/china-new-coal-plants-2030-climate/
Actually, andyoldlabour, what we, in the US-UK and NATO, need to stop doing is forever building up our military and illegally invading, bombing and destroying via weapons of war and economic sanctions other countries and their peoples. It is indeed very interesting that this GND and Greta do NOT mention at all the reality that the US military industrial complex and its hundreds of bases and its war materiel producing companies are, in fact, one of, if not *the*major polluters of this planet, particularly but not only with regard to carbon footprints (and then there’s the US use of Depleted Uranium in its weaponry – bullets etc. – and the dreadful “fall-out” from that on, for instance, Iraqis). No hint at all in this whole kerfuffle about reducing the US military to a small force, purely defensive, on its own country’s soil only. And one might ask – where, if… Read more »
Exactly, well said. When Extinction Rebellion comes out all guns blazing, denouncing the military, exposing the MIC for the what it truly is, calling out states and naming those most guilty, then I will listen. Until then, they can fuck off
So fake it is hard to believe anyone buys her. Remember this fake…….https://youtu.be/LmfVs3WaE9Y
The Manufacturing of Greta Thunberg – for Consent: The Political Economy of the Non-Profit Industrial Complex
Act 1 http://www.wrongkindofgreen.org/2019/01/17/the-manufacturing-of-greta-thunberg-for-consent-the-political-economy-of-the-non-profit-industrial-complex/
Act 2 http://www.wrongkindofgreen.org/2019/09/11/the-manufacturing-of-greta-thunberg-for-consent-volume-ii-act-i-a-design-to-win-a-multi-billion-dollar-investment/
James Lovelock isn’t seen as ‘newsworthy’ anymore, perhaps Greta has become his proxy
Read this excellent well written article few days ago on another site, and noted John Steppling also has written an earlier peice defending Cory Morningstar, as Hiroyuki Hamada did at OffGuardian a few days ago.
Have only very belatedly realised John Steppling also has a most thought provoking blogspot which I’ve been looking at last few days. Highly recommended by the way.
I saw no particular reason to knock AOC (at this moment),esp. not with some undisclosed yardstick: whose-brain-is-(either)-bigger-or- better-adapted?!” sort of thing!John seems better at picking the brains of the elites;still,I don’t get out much,maybe he wanted merely to suggest that she got snookered,now and then?And his description of average Americans is out of date,if not actively ill-informed.Which is not to say that he didn’t make many fine points in this piece of work!
Remember the Human League from the eighties? AOC is a ‘Justice Democrat’. She was working as a waitress in a cocktail bar, when Cenk Uygur found her. Actually, her brother out her forward for the audition. There is no conspiracy about this: she has self-admitted the fact. At around 10.00min in this (from the Young Turks): AOC thanks Brand New Congress (JD = Justice Democrats; BNC = JD affiliate) saying: “They were the ones that called me a year and a half ago”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7SIHsPWYEs&feature=youtu.be AOC is a corporate front and a cynical billionaire ploy to colonise Congress with (predominantly) female. non-white, ethnic minority ‘progressive grassroots’, candidates – chosen for their roles, ultimately by billionaires. Soros is heavily implicated (though Jeremy Corbyn made this specifically ‘antisemitic’ to say). The rest of the JD “Squad” include Rashida Tlaib, Ayanna Pressley as well as Ilhan Omar …that Trump had a little Twitter spat… Read more »
I’m pleased to see Cory Morningstar get the favorable mention she did. You can be damn sure that corporate media wishes no ever learns about her research into the fakey Green New Deal.
How can I change my ‘troll’ avatar to a fractal like you have, Arby? Note to Editor: Why is there a two tiered system for avatars on OFF-G? The underclass has to suffer the indignity of having a ‘troll’ avatar instead of a nice fractal like Arby is utilizing. What is the point of having an underclass of troll avatars on OFF-G? Is it to make all the dissidents look like Trolls instead of individuals? Is the admin willing to look like an underclass Troll when posting to OFF-G, and if so why are you not sporting an unoriginal underclass Troll avatar like the majority of posters here on OFF-G? Frankly, what website does this sort of thing where they make their respondents to articles look like a Troll instead of an individual human being with an individual identity? Did the CIA set this website up to make the dissident… Read more »
I don’t know what Admin will make of your rant. I don’t know what to make of it. But, by way of explanation, my avatar is set up through some org called Gravatar or something. I’m not technical so bear with me. You see my avatar, which others on all sorts of websites see, because I have a blog, I believe. WordPress utilizes Gravatar or whatever it’s called. It’s all automatic. I think you need a blog. As for the fractal, it’s one of many I ‘stole’ from online. Just out of curiosity I downloaded a whack of them, because they were cool. I used to burn CDs and they sometimes made great covers. When I needed an avatar, I just pick the frosty twist. You can’t find great images online anymore. Everything’s become uptight. I was curious about mine and did a search for it. It’s creator called it… Read more »
I’m into Behavioural Finance so I am a Mandelbrot fan from way back. And, as you know, Professor Emeritus Benoit Mandelbrot was the grandfather of Fractal Geometry.
I get the Gravitar thingy as I read James Howard Kunstler’s blog Clusterfuck Nation and he has that Gravitar thing too. Now I get it, thanks, Arby.
Cheers, MOU
Dave McGowan (sadly missed) published a book about this in 2001 before 9/11 https://centerforaninformedamerica.com/ “Understanding the F-Word: American Fascism and the Politics of Illusion Paperback – 21 Jun 2001 by David McGowan (Author)” Precis “By offering a radical review of the last one hundred years of US history, this work is intended as a counterpoint to the rampant revisionism of the flurry of books glorifying the “American Century”. Beginning with the rather bold and decidedly controversial assertion that the current political system in place in the United States at the dawn of the twenty-first century is fascism, the first part of this book attempts to justify that claim by first defining exactly what fascism iscorrecting various widely-held misconceptionsand then analyzing how closely we as a nation conform to that definition. Also included is a review of some of the hidden history and key events of World War II. Part II… Read more »
It is actually quite simple. Western societies have been conditioned that none of its actions that fit the description of ‘fascist’ are fascist. Even when living in a fascist society, they will argue that it is a democracy and not fascism. One of the single greatest contributions to this paradox is the McCarthy era. Not only did it wholesomely brainwash the American population, it also affected the entire Western hemisphere. In order to distract the population from the ever rising fascism in the U.S. and its vassal states, fear of the ‘Red Menace’, ‘the Commies’ was vaccinated into every Westerner. The only grave danger to ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy’ came from the Bolsheviks, the Commies – the Russians. With all eyes pointed towards the East, the West was able to install a fascist system Hitler could have only have wet dreamed about. Another anachronism is the fact that the notion still… Read more »
Yes, Jack London’s ‘Iron Heel’ I got it on kindle. It was really vicious stuff. Class struggle with the gloves off. I wonder how much of it were true and how much was London’s literary imagination? But it fits into the dystopian literary genre along with Orwell’s ‘Animal Farm’ and ‘1984’, Yevgeny Zamyatin’s ‘We’ Aldous Huxley’s ‘Brave New World’ and Arthur Koestler’s ‘Darkness at Noon’. I think we can assume that Koestler’s novel was factually based. The central character, Rubashov, was arrested and held in prison awaiting his predetermined fate. Of course this character was none other than Nikolai Bukharin who was arrested and executed in 1938. There’s a good article in here sometime in the near future.
Koestler’s _Darkness at Noon_ is a very gripping read to be sure. I will never forget that book for as long as I live.
MOU
“The Iron Heel” has been printed as part of a Jack London collection by the Library of America. I think Penguin also had an edition of it. I don’t know if either are still in print.
It would be nice to be able to highlight detailed comments that explain some of the never-ending entrenched deceptive strategies employed by the criminal idiots, the so-called masters of the universe:
Huey Long once supposedly said, “If Fascism ever comes to America, it’ll call itself anti-Fascism.”
Jack London — The Iron Heel
Glaring omission of Tulsi Gabbard . . .
Tulsi Gabbard is the latest CENTCOM & CIA/Pentagon promotion for World War Three cohorts of GI-Janes that the Pentagon wants to dupe into joing the text book Psychopathic operations.
Tulsi Gabbard is a marketed distraction away from The Duck given his penchant for quackery and embarrassment worldwide for Americans writ large that are educated.
And it’s one, two, three, what are we fighting for?
Don’t ask me I don’t give a damn!
Next stop is Vietnam!
Whoopie, were all going to die!
MOU
I think this is a good piece (are we still allowed to ‘think’ thesedays?), but I also think that to frame this as ‘American’ psychopathy is wrong.
All we’re talking about here is capital, big money. It finds it’s natural base in a totally fascist nation like the USA, but big money is trans-national. It doesn’t care where in the world you live. All that matters is $$$ and the rape of the planet.
Any sane society knows inherently how wrong this all is; problem is, we don’t live in a sane society (cue the biggest propaganda machine in history).
Some time before the U.S. started to exist – sort of – there was a collections of stories. Lots of them.
One of them advised man not to worship mammon for various good reasons.
In another one, it was alleged that it would be easier to get a Camel through a needle oar, than a rich man into a place called heaven.
The second story is somewhat indeterminate, because certain people might attempt to get a cigarette through a needle oar.
The world is in trouble because of a number of misunderstandings and misconceptions. As long as these prevail, there is no relief in sight.
“to frame this as ‘American’ psychopathy is wrong”
OK, what are the trillions of dollars of the Pentagon and the State Separtement spent on? And which countries is behind the upheavals we’re experiencing now?
Can we have a breakdown of these budget(s) and learn how they are spent?
Who wanted and managed to place every citizen on the planet under surveillance, under false promises, and provided the tools for it to happen?
I guess the US reigns supreme in this area, supported by the intelligence cabals in the Five-Eyes countries, ideologically pushed to the limit by the Israelis.
It would not be only ‘Money and Profits’ behind this because there is a lot of money to be made doing great things that help people and the planet.
At a fraction of the cost of wars, the planet can prosper and enjoy a healthy existence.
yes, I think to suggest that the governed should rely on the governors to fix things, is like trying to squeeze oxygen out of chlorine..
I agree. And the constant harping on ‘racism’ and ‘white privilege’ aren’t at all helpful either. The issue here is class, not race.
I’m grateful to off-guardian for putting me in touch with so many websites that have been so helpful in providing explanations for the scarcely believable regression that has been underway for so many decades now. The Corey Morningstar material is simply jaw dropping as is the following link from a site which, I think, one of the comments directed me to: https://lorenzoae.wordpress.com/2014/11/11/uncritical-critics-the-death-of-political-film-criticism/ The bit that struck me was a comment from Maggie Gyllenhaal about the anti-union propaganda film Won’t Back Down: ‘There’s no world in which I would ever, EVER make an anti-union movie. My parents are left of Trotsky.’ The site owner – Lorenzo – goes on to say: “This replacement of substantive beliefs with meaningless personal signifiers—essentially, personal branding—is the result of neoliberalism, a.k.a. globalization or “capitalism with the gloves off and back on the offensive,” according to Professor Reed. His piece is a far-reaching examination of the… Read more »
Neoliberal Capitalism, and requisite adherents, all understand that without growth along the order of 6-10% there will be much fewer returns on earnings which will leave them all scrambling for yield on their rentier incomes that are not taxed. They also understand implicitly that without outsized profit margins they will be forced to work for a living which is not what the atrophied Neoliberals actually want. Bottom line is that without exponential growth the entire superstructure of Neoliberalism implodes into its own foundational footprint much like the World Trade Centers were imploded via Controlled Demolition at the guidance of the Central Intelligence Agency text book Psychopaths. Growth below 5% will render the synthetic Neoliberal system non-workable which brings us to necessity of the controlling elite and their paid propagandists that are coming out-of-the-woodwork in droves of late due to the fact that Secular Stagnation is forcing the elite to scramble… Read more »
So much here to digest.. Lol.. I’ll just throw in my two sense on the appeal of Bernie – He is the perfect salve for a guilty conscience.. He says all the right things that left minded people think will make them feel better about the Empire they continue to support through their tax donations to the “still the best country in the world!” good ol USA. While at the same time they know he’s not a true rebel, therefore he won’t upset the apple cart (ameri-pun intended), he won’t put their current situation of accumulating bright shiny toys and living lives of comfort and convenience at risk. Which although they’d never admit it, is what they really prioritize at the end of the day. That’s why I appreciate the right side of the political spectrum, although I disagree with many of their ideas and opinions, at least they are… Read more »
The American psychopathy in simple terms to me goes something like this. We are incredibly wonderful. Yes, we do “horrible” things to others, even though we are wonderful. But those others deserve it for not loving us and appreciating us for the benevolent geniuses we so obviously are. The rest of the world envies our magnificence and so they hate us, and the very fact they hate us, shows how dangerously deranged they are. They must be kept in check by all means. Yes, we do steal, lie, cheat, and pillage, but it’s what has to be done to keep the world safe. And wouldn’t you if you were wonderfully us? And don’t pretend you don’t want to be us. Did I mention we were wonderful?
Excellent summing up George. The US (Trump particularly) is the ultimate narcissist who will lash out and hurt anyone who dares to pay less than 100% homage to them. Couple this with the power they have and it means the world is in a constant state of conflict.