thegreanvillepostbiasrating--2020-05-22--The Rise of the American Idiot

The Rise of the American Idiot

Today , Donald Trump said that having one of the world ’ s worst coronavirus outbreaks was a “ badge of honor.
” What kind of idiot would think that having the highest death toll in a world pandemic would be a point of pride ?
Quick , someone give this moron a medal !
The American Idiot is a figure the world has come to know all too well — he ’ s a world famous celebrity by this point .
Brad Pitt has nothing on him .
And the world , these days , so far as I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , horrified , astonished , bewildered — asking a very simple question .
Or at least one that I think is very simple .
Only it doesn ’ t appear to be , because so far as I see , Americans of a certain kind just don ’ t even seem to get the question .
Of course , perhaps you do , and maybe I ’ m wrong .
Still , let me name it .
The chaos , death , and depression we ’ re seeing in America today are needless @ @ @ @ @ @ @ European , Asian , Canadian friends — anyone that ’ s not American — the one thing they can ’ t seem to understand is why Americans , in turn , don ’ t seem to grasp this .
Now , ‘ needless ’ means just what it implies .
None of this had to happen .
Or almost none of it .
Does that matter to Americans ?
Or is everyone , more or less , an American Idiot now ?
You see , when my European and Asian friends imagine the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ don ’ t just mean the Trumpist , the bleach-drinking shouter , the one who attends Trump rallies and rails against Mexicans , while voting against his or her own healthcare .
They also mean the other kind of American .
The one who goes to Democratic rallies , and votes against his or her own healthcare .
That , after all , is what Democrats just did…during the inception of a literal global pandemic…vote against better healthcare…not to mention everything else…rejecting Liz and Bernie for Joe .
Who wants less healthcare while @ @ @ @ @ @ @ earth ?
What everyone from around the world who ’ s not America that I talk to really means is this .
There are two kinds of American Idiot .
The dunce , and the fool .
The willful one , and the negligent one .
There ’ s the Trumpist — who doesn ’ t know any better , who ’ s only known hate , ignorance , fear , and rage : the dunce .
But there ’ s also the fool .
The Democrat who votes against healthcare , retirement @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The sophisticated elite — who doesn ’ t see that America ’ s an imploding society in every possible way right about now .
The New York Times columnist , the CNN anchor , none of whom ever really question if any of this is vaguely normal .
Now , when you understand that , you end up bewildered .
Which one of these is really the malicious one ?
Who ’ s the Bigger Idiot ?
Which one is actually the one anything can be done about ?
Hence , both @ @ @ @ @ @ @ long baffled the world — but right about now , they horrify the world .
They drop it ’ s jaw .
What the hell have Americans let themselves become ?
What kinds of people want worse lives for themselves…on both sides of the political divide..over and over again ?
What the ?
It doesn ’ t make sense , at all .
It ’ s breathtaking , especially to those who live in civilized modern societies , like , say Canada .
I tell my European and Asian and Canadian friends , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ different .
It ’ s a place where death stalks people breathing down their necks every single day of their lives .
What else do you call a thing hospital bills in the hundreds of thousands ?
“ Medical bankruptcies ” ?
A lack of healthcare is a very real form of violence , too .
What does living amidst omnipresent violence — the very real fear of death , otherwise known as trauma — do ?
It shuts your brain off .
It triggers your fight or flight response .
It fills @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
You ’ re on a hair trigger .
Rational thinking shuts down .
The frontal cortex slows to a halt .
Is it the endless brutality and cruelty of American life that ’ s made Americans Idiots , then ?
There are the other forms of violence — the more visible ones .
School shootings became just another normalized , accepted part of American life .
America is the only country — the only country — in the world where masked men burst in , pretend to shoot little kids , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ What on earth ?
This doesn ’ t happen anywhere else — not even , say , Pakistan or Iraq , places where there ’ s religious violence , sure , but not regular school shootings .
You see , America has long normalized and accepted mass death on a scale that would have ruined any other society .
Can you imagine school shootings regularly in , say , France or Canada ?
The government would have fallen in weeks .
Americans shrug — and make their kids do “ active shooter drills.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ surprise that Americans don ’ t get that this wave of mass death is needless because they live in an ultraviolent society of it anyways , and have become resigned , apathetic , blind .
They don ’ t even see , anymore , that mass death is an aberration — not a thing to be tolerated , normalized , shrugged away .
That ’ s what my European and Asian friends hint at — but can ’ t quite say .
Violence of a kind that exists nowhere else in the world @ @ @ @ @ @ @ perhaps genuinely physiologically — of rational thought , of anything but responding in kind , brutality met with brutality , cruelty with cruelty .
How else do you get to “ lunch debt ” and daily school shootings ?
Then there are my black , gay , minority friends .
Do you know what they say ?
Americans seem inured to this wave of mass death — I ’ m going to use the words they tend to — because not enough white people have died yet .
How ’ s that for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , perhaps .
America ’ s the original slave state — the only rich country left with a constitution still mired in the poison of slavery .
Did you know that black people today are in fact poorer than when segregation ended ?
That ’ s how little progress has been made in America with regards to what ’ s euphemistically called “ the race issue.
” For my black , gay , minority friends — American violence began long ago , and never ended .
That ’ s another grim characteristic of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ re racists , bigots , supremacists .
Sure , there ’ s the obnoxious kind — the Trumpist , who cheers on putting kids in cages .
But what about that Democrat — who just as reliably votes against healthcare for all , over and over again ?
Isn ’ t that , too , driven by the long shadow of racism ?
If we ’ re honest , the reason that American deny each other the things people everywhere else enjoy as basics of civilized societies , whether healthcare , retirement @ @ @ @ @ @ @ carries a certain stigma with it .
“ I won ’ t pay for those peoples ’ kids !
Those lazy people ’ s retirements !
” Even the Democrat says this indignantly enough , predictably enough that America now resembles a poor country .
Answering a question like this — why don ’ t Americans seem to care about mass death to the point the rest of the world thinks they ’ re idiots — is like trying to carry water in your hands .
You don ’ t get very far @ @ @ @ @ @ @ There are so many facets to this question that it seems almost unanswerable .
On some level , America seems like a cursed society , a place that ’ s destined to be haunted by death , and instead of exorcising the ghost , the American Idiot seems to go on living amongst the dead .
Consider yet another way mass death stalks America .
How many brave young men and women have died in the endless wars ?
I don ’ t know , but the answer is certainly : too many @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ?
Saddam didn ’ t have WMDs .
Iraq wasn ’ t behind 9/11 .
Why did the crack epidemic arise — remember that plague of yesterday ?
Because the CIA was running guns to Latin American fascists .
What the ?
Yes , really .
Did you know that most of the countries America ’ s bombed simply committed the cardinal sin of wanting to be…social democracies ?
America ’ s not liberating them .
It ’ s still fighting a world war against communism , which never ended .
But much @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to join America in predatory capitalism .
Can you blame it , looking at the plight of the average American today ?
Yet who even knows how many countries America ’ s currently bombing ?
Anyone ?
I don ’ t , and you don ’ t , because it ’ s “ classified.
” All we know is that America ’ s a country that seems to revel in violence to the point that nobody much questions : what are these wars for , and how many are there still ?
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
There ’ s the American Idiot .
Still cheering on all this violence .
If you ask him about war , he ’ ll tell you that communism is bad .
He ’ s never once understood the point above — the world didn ’ t want to join America in it ’ s capitalist empire , and that ’ s why America had to bomb nation after nation , from Latin America to Asia .
All he thinks is that America ’ s been giving people freedom for the last fifty @ @ @ @ @ @ @ or so around the world had to die — so what ?
The America Idiot thinks of death as the price of freedom .
He doesn ’ t understand maybe freedom is not having to die in the first place .
Living free from violence , brutality , cruelty , and ignorance .
So is it any surprise that the American Idiot also thinks the price of freedom — now , at home , during a pandemic — is a hundred thousand dead ?
See the resonance , the link , the logic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , if I give up on my freedom , then maybe freedom itself comes to a dead end .
Therefore , I ’ m not staying put during a pandemic .
It ’ s my constitutional right to have a beer and infect half the town !
!
So what if they get sick and some of them die ?
Free-dumb !
!
That ’ s how freedom became free-dumb in America .
It ’ s why America is one of a dismal list of nations with the highest death toll — where @ @ @ @ @ @ @ yet .
Who else is on that list ?
Britain , Brazil , and Russia .
What do these four nations now have in common ?
The American Idiot — he ’ s gone viral .
Coronavirus is one pandemic .
But so is American Idiocy .
In Britain , I saw it happen .
First the thinktanks rolled in , with their propaganda .
Then politics turned American — austerity began to rule .
Then media became American , too — and instead of all those wonderful BBC nature documentaries , now @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Aliens and police state TV .
Bang !
Brexit .
Brits turned their back on their best friends and allies — gentle and wise people who ’ d hadn ’ t harmed them .
Those dirty Europeans !
It was their fault Brits were getting poorer !
!
Just as it was Mexicans ’ fault in America .
America Idiocy spread to Britan , and the results were as disastrous as they were predictable .
Today , The British Idiot has made sure that Britain has the highest death toll in Europe , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ malice .
You can extend that example , too , to Russia and Brazil .
Who ’ s Bolsonaro ’ s biggest — only , really — fan on the International stage ?
Trump .
Who ’ s does Trump admire and want to please ?
Putin .
The idiots of the world are forming an idiot army .
Its shock troops are the American Idiot .
Its infantry and artillery , marching not too far behind , are the the idiots America ’ s helped create , with crackpot thinking , propaganda @ @ @ @ @ @ @ speak of the Indian Idiot , the Arab Idiot , and so forth .
They all adulate Trump .
The world ’ s idiot army is rising , led by the American Idiot .
What does it want ?
Who does the army of American Idiots see as the enemy ?
The press is the “ enemy of the people.
” So are minorities , intellectuals , critics .
Of course , liberals are much hated , and anyone further to the left despised .
The world ’ s idiot army wants much @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the 1930s did : purity , vengeance , supremacy , retribution .
This army is cannon fodder .
It is quite happy to die , as long as it ’ s told that it ’ s wonderful and strong and pure , like any suicide bomber .
Trump once said he could stand on Fifth Ave , shoot someone , and get away with it .
Turns out that was an understatement .
He could let a hundred thousand people die , and one kind of American Idiot would collectively shrug — and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bleach .
The world ’ s idiot army is being desensitized , habituated , to mass death , to violence on a surreal scale .
The world ’ s demagogues — Trump , Bolsonaro , etc — they aren ’ t letting death on a mass scale happen and regretting it .
They ’ re revelling in it .
Why ?
Because they know if they can get people to cross this last line , then anything is possible .
It ’ s one thing to get people to vote against their own @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , savings — as Trump , Bolsonaro , Farage all did .
It ’ s another — much greater one — to bring people to the point that mass death doesn ’ t register anymore .
Then , if you ’ re a demagogue , you can manipulate and twist a country any way you like .
Once people have accepted the level of degradation of mass death , there is no further kind of degradation left .
They have been dehumanized fully , finally .
That is why the demagogues of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Just as any abuser knows that his victim being hurt is good for him , so too the demagogues know that a pandemic is a powerful weapon , too .
That ’ s how I think of the American Idiot these days .
As a person who ’ s been fully dehumanized .
Do you know the look ?
The look of the American Idiot ?
When you say : “ But why don ’ t you vote for healthcare ?
” and their eyes go dead , their face goes blank , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
They want to kill you .
They don ’ t understand why you ’ d want that .
They can ’ t believe you ask it .
Both kinds of American Idiot — the dunce and the fool .
That is the face of a person who ’ s come to enthusiastically believe in their their own degradation .
It is the grin of someone who ’ s accepted living without dignity , worth , or purpose , and therefore thinks of everyone else as their rival , enemy , adversary , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ It is the smile of the one who , treated as an inhuman commodity for too long , exploited , has lost their humanity , too .
How do you give people back their humanity ?
Sometimes , you don ’ t .
Maybe the world ’ s Idiot Army needs to eat itself before the rest of us can breathe easy again .
Maybe that will also bring about the downfall of our civilization — just like it caused America to collapse .
One thing ’ s for certain , I think @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have formed a suicide pact .
They think they ’ re enemies , the dunce and the fool .
They ’ re more like Romeo and Juliet .
Counting down the days to the bitter end .

Today, Donald Trump said that having one of the world’s worst coronavirus outbreaks was a “badge of honor.” What kind of idiot would think that having the highest death toll in a world pandemic would be a point of pride? Quick, someone give this moron a medal!
The American Idiot is a figure the world has come to know all too well — he’s a world famous celebrity by this point. Brad Pitt has nothing on him. And the world, these days, so far as I can see, is laughing at America, horrified, astonished, bewildered — asking a very simple question. Or at least one that I think is very simple. Only it doesn’t appear to be, because so far as I see, Americans of a certain kind just don’t even seem to get the question. Of course, perhaps you do, and maybe I’m wrong. Still, let me name it.
The chaos, death, and depression we’re seeing in America today are needless.
When I sit down with my European, Asian, Canadian friends — anyone that’s not American — the one thing they can’t seem to understand is why Americans, in turn, don’t seem to grasp this. Now, ‘needless’ means just what it implies. None of this had to happen. Or almost none of it. Does that matter to Americans? Or is everyone, more or less, an American Idiot now?
You see, when my European and Asian friends imagine the figure of the American Idiot, they don’t just mean the Trumpist, the bleach-drinking shouter, the one who attends Trump rallies and rails against Mexicans, while voting against his or her own healthcare. They also mean the other kind of American. The one who goes to Democratic rallies, and votes against his or her own healthcare. That, after all, is what Democrats just did…during the inception of a literal global pandemic…vote against better healthcare…not to mention everything else…rejecting Liz and Bernie for Joe. Who wants less healthcare while a pandemic is raging? What on earth?
What everyone from around the world who’s not America that I talk to really means is this. There are two kinds of American Idiot. The dunce, and the fool. The willful one, and the negligent one. There’s the Trumpist — who doesn’t know any better, who’s only known hate, ignorance, fear, and rage: the dunce. But there’s also the fool. The Democrat who votes against healthcare, retirement, education — and should know better. The sophisticated elite — who doesn’t see that America’s an imploding society in every possible way right about now. The New York Times columnist, the CNN anchor, none of whom ever really question if any of this is vaguely normal.
Now, when you understand that, you end up bewildered. Which one of these is really the malicious one? Who’s the Bigger Idiot? Which one is actually the one anything can be done about?
Hence, both of these kinds of American Idiots have long baffled the world — but right about now, they horrify the world. They drop it’s jaw. What the hell have Americans let themselves become? What kinds of people want worse lives for themselves…on both sides of the political divide..over and over again? What the? It doesn’t make sense, at all. It’s breathtaking, especially to those who live in civilized modern societies, like, say Canada.
I tell my European and Asian and Canadian friends, in return, that America really is different. It’s a place where death stalks people breathing down their necks every single day of their lives. What else do you call a thing hospital bills in the hundreds of thousands? “Medical bankruptcies”? A lack of healthcare is a very real form of violence, too.
What does living amidst omnipresent violence — the very real fear of death, otherwise known as trauma — do? It shuts your brain off. It triggers your fight or flight response. It fills you with adrenaline, fear, anger. You’re on a hair trigger. Rational thinking shuts down. The frontal cortex slows to a halt.
Is it the endless brutality and cruelty of American life that’s made Americans Idiots, then? There are the other forms of violence — the more visible ones. School shootings became just another normalized, accepted part of American life. America is the only country — the only country — in the world where masked men burst in, pretend to shoot little kids, and they have to pretend to die. What on earth? This doesn’t happen anywhere else — not even, say, Pakistan or Iraq, places where there’s religious violence, sure, but not regular school shootings.
You see, America has long normalized and accepted mass death on a scale that would have ruined any other society. Can you imagine school shootings regularly in, say, France or Canada? The government would have fallen in weeks. Americans shrug — and make their kids do “active shooter drills.” So maybe it’s no surprise that Americans don’t get that this wave of mass death is needless because they live in an ultraviolent society of it anyways, and have become resigned, apathetic, blind. They don’t even see, anymore, that mass death is an aberration — not a thing to be tolerated, normalized, shrugged away. That’s what my European and Asian friends hint at — but can’t quite say. Violence of a kind that exists nowhere else in the world by now has left Americans incapable — perhaps genuinely physiologically — of rational thought, of anything but responding in kind, brutality met with brutality, cruelty with cruelty. How else do you get to “lunch debt” and daily school shootings?
Then there are my black, gay, minority friends. Do you know what they say? Americans seem inured to this wave of mass death — I’m going to use the words they tend to — because not enough white people have died yet. How’s that for an explanation? Painful. Too true, perhaps. America’s the original slave state — the only rich country left with a constitution still mired in the poison of slavery. Did you know that black people today are in fact poorer than when segregation ended? That’s how little progress has been made in America with regards to what’s euphemistically called “the race issue.” For my black, gay, minority friends — American violence began long ago, and never ended.
That’s another grim characteristic of both kinds of American Idiot: they’re racists, bigots, supremacists. Sure, there’s the obnoxious kind — the Trumpist, who cheers on putting kids in cages. But what about that Democrat — who just as reliably votes against healthcare for all, over and over again? Isn’t that, too, driven by the long shadow of racism? If we’re honest, the reason that American deny each other the things people everywhere else enjoy as basics of civilized societies, whether healthcare, retirement, education, is that doing so carries a certain stigma with it. “I won’t pay for those peoples’ kids! Those lazy people’s retirements!” Even the Democrat says this indignantly enough, predictably enough that America now resembles a poor country.
Answering a question like this — why don’t Americans seem to care about mass death to the point the rest of the world thinks they’re idiots — is like trying to carry water in your hands. You don’t get very far, and yet every step counts. There are so many facets to this question that it seems almost unanswerable. On some level, America seems like a cursed society, a place that’s destined to be haunted by death, and instead of exorcising the ghost, the American Idiot seems to go on living amongst the dead. Consider yet another way mass death stalks America.
How many brave young men and women have died in the endless wars? I don’t know, but the answer is certainly: too many. What have they been fighting for? Saddam didn’t have WMDs. Iraq wasn’t behind 9/11. Why did the crack epidemic arise — remember that plague of yesterday? Because the CIA was running guns to Latin American fascists. What the? Yes, really. Did you know that most of the countries America’s bombed simply committed the cardinal sin of wanting to be…social democracies? America’s not liberating them. It’s still fighting a world war against communism, which never ended. But much of the world didn’t want to join America in predatory capitalism. Can you blame it, looking at the plight of the average American today?
Yet who even knows how many countries America’s currently bombing? Anyone? I don’t, and you don’t, because it’s “classified.” All we know is that America’s a country that seems to revel in violence to the point that nobody much questions: what are these wars for, and how many are there still? The banality of mass death, yet again.
There’s the American Idiot. Still cheering on all this violence. If you ask him about war, he’ll tell you that communism is bad. He’s never once understood the point above — the world didn’t want to join America in it’s capitalist empire, and that’s why America had to bomb nation after nation, from Latin America to Asia. All he thinks is that America’s been giving people freedom for the last fifty years. And if a few million or so around the world had to die — so what? The America Idiot thinks of death as the price of freedom. He doesn’t understand maybe freedom is not having to die in the first place. Living free from violence, brutality, cruelty, and ignorance.
So is it any surprise that the American Idiot also thinks the price of freedom — now, at home, during a pandemic — is a hundred thousand dead? See the resonance, the link, the logic? Hey, shrugs the American Idiot, if I give up on my freedom, then maybe freedom itself comes to a dead end. Therefore, I’m not staying put during a pandemic. It’s my constitutional right to have a beer and infect half the town!! So what if they get sick and some of them die? Free-dumb!!
That’s how freedom became free-dumb in America. It’s why America is one of a dismal list of nations with the highest death toll — where the infection hasn’t even peaked yet. Who else is on that list? Britain, Brazil, and Russia. What do these four nations now have in common?
The American Idiot — he’s gone viral. Coronavirus is one pandemic. But so is American Idiocy. In Britain, I saw it happen. First the thinktanks rolled in, with their propaganda. Then politics turned American — austerity began to rule. Then media became American, too — and instead of all those wonderful BBC nature documentaries, now there were a hundred channels playing Ancient Aliens and police state TV. Bang! Brexit. Brits turned their back on their best friends and allies — gentle and wise people who’d hadn’t harmed them. Those dirty Europeans! It was their fault Brits were getting poorer!! Just as it was Mexicans’ fault in America. America Idiocy spread to Britan, and the results were as disastrous as they were predictable. Today, The British Idiot has made sure that Britain has the highest death toll in Europe, through indifference, stupidity, greed, malice.
You can extend that example, too, to Russia and Brazil. Who’s Bolsonaro’s biggest — only, really — fan on the International stage? Trump. Who’s does Trump admire and want to please? Putin.
The idiots of the world are forming an idiot army. Its shock troops are the American Idiot. Its infantry and artillery, marching not too far behind, are the the idiots America’s helped create, with crackpot thinking, propaganda, and brutality. I could also speak of the Indian Idiot, the Arab Idiot, and so forth. They all adulate Trump. The world’s idiot army is rising, led by the American Idiot. What does it want?
Who does the army of American Idiots see as the enemy? The press is the “enemy of the people.” So are minorities, intellectuals, critics. Of course, liberals are much hated, and anyone further to the left despised. The world’s idiot army wants much the same thing that the one of the 1930s did: purity, vengeance, supremacy, retribution. This army is cannon fodder. It is quite happy to die, as long as it’s told that it’s wonderful and strong and pure, like any suicide bomber.
Trump once said he could stand on Fifth Ave, shoot someone, and get away with it. Turns out that was an understatement. He could let a hundred thousand people die, and one kind of American Idiot would collectively shrug — and the other kind would cheer and drink bleach.
The world’s idiot army is being desensitized, habituated, to mass death, to violence on a surreal scale. The world’s demagogues — Trump, Bolsonaro, etc — they aren’t letting death on a mass scale happen and regretting it. They’re revelling in it. Why? Because they know if they can get people to cross this last line, then anything is possible.
It’s one thing to get people to vote against their own healthcare, retirement, education, income, savings — as Trump, Putin, Bolsonaro, Farage all did. It’s another — much greater one — to bring people to the point that mass death doesn’t register anymore. Then, if you’re a demagogue, you can manipulate and twist a country any way you like.
Once people have accepted the level of degradation of mass death, there is no further kind of degradation left. They have been dehumanized fully, finally. That is why the demagogues of the world are letting the pandemic rage. Just as any abuser knows that his victim being hurt is good for him, so too the demagogues know that a pandemic is a powerful weapon, too.
That’s how I think of the American Idiot these days. As a person who’s been fully dehumanized. Do you know the look? The look of the American Idiot? When you say: “But why don’t you vote for healthcare?” and their eyes go dead, their face goes blank, their jaw sets into a rictus grin. They want to kill you. They don’t understand why you’d want that. They can’t believe you ask it. Both kinds of American Idiot — the dunce and the fool.
That is the face of a person who’s come to enthusiastically believe in their their own degradation. It is the grin of someone who’s accepted living without dignity, worth, or purpose, and therefore thinks of everyone else as their rival, enemy, adversary, in an endless, brutal contest. It is the smile of the one who, treated as an inhuman commodity for too long, exploited, has lost their humanity, too.
How do you give people back their humanity? Sometimes, you don’t. Maybe the world’s Idiot Army needs to eat itself before the rest of us can breathe easy again. Maybe that will also bring about the downfall of our civilization — just like it caused America to collapse. One thing’s for certain, I think. The two kinds of American Idiots have formed a suicide pact. They think they’re enemies, the dunce and the fool. They’re more like Romeo and Juliet. Counting down the days to the bitter end.
Umair
May 2020


thegreanvillepostbiasrating--2020-05-21--UK minister who approved Trump’s request to extradite Assange spoke at secretive US conferences with

UK minister who approved Trump’s request to extradite Assange spoke at secretive US conferences with people calling for him to be “neutralized”

Sajid Javid , who was Britain ’ s Home Secretary from April 2018 to July 2019 , attended “ starlight chats ” and “ after-dinner cocktails ” in a series of off-the-record conferences involving high-level US military and intelligence figures at a 5-star island resort off the coast of Georgia , USA .
Many of those attending have been exposed in WikiLeaks publications and have demanded the organisation be shut down .
Javid signed the Trump administration ’ s extradition request for Assange in June 2019 .
He was Britain ’ s Chancellor until his resignation 9 days ago .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ British Home Secretary can block extradition to the US is if “ the person could face the death penalty ” .
The month before being appointed Home Secretary in April 2018 , Javid visited Georgia for the “ world forum ” of the American Enterprise Institute ( AEI ) —an influential neoconservative US organisation with close ties to the US intelligence community .
The AEI has run a campaign against WikiLeaks and Assange since 2010 .
It can now be revealed that Javid spoke at the 2018 meeting , as did Jonah Goldberg @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has called for Assange to be “ garroted ” .
In a column publishedon the AEI website , Goldberg wrote : “ WikiLeaks is easily among the most significant and well-publicised breaches of American national security since the Rosenbergs gave the Soviets the bomb .
So again , I ask : Why wasn ’ t Assange garroted in his hotel room years ago ?
It ’ s a serious question.
” Bill Kristol , a close associate of the AEI who also spoke in Georgia with Javid , has written a column titled @ @ @ @ @ @ @ asked : “ Why can ’ t we use our various assets to harass , snatch or neutralize Julian Assange and his collaborators , wherever they are ?
Why can ’ t we disrupt and destroy WikiLeaks in both cyberspace and physical space , to the extent possible ?
” Kristol ’ s article was promoted on social media by another AEI fellow who spoke in Georgia with Javid .
Both Goldberg and Kristol spoke at all four of the AEI ’ s world fora that Javid attended from 2014 to 2018 .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ was Elliott Abrams , a key neo-conservative architect of the Iraq war of 2003 best-known for his conviction during the Iran-Contra scandal in the Reagan administration .
Abrams has lamented WikiLeaks ’ document releases .
Also on Javid ’ s panel was Fred Kagan , a senior AEI staffer who served as an advisor to the US military in Afghanistan .
Javid ’ s signing of the US extradition request was a controversial decision opposed at the time by the Shadow Home Secretary , Diane Abbott .
“ Julian Assange is not being @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he is being pursued because he has exposed wrongdoing by US administrations and their military forces , ” Abbott told the British parliament in April 2019 after Assange had been grabbed from the Ecuadorian embassy in London .
The Trump administration ’ s extradition request is unprecedented in that the UK has never extradited a journalist and publisher to a third country for prosecution .
The deliberations within the UK Home Office about Assange ’ s extradition and incarceration in Belmarsh maximum-security prison , where he is currently held , are opaque .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ to the Home Office asking for any telephone call or email mentioning Assange sent to or from Sajid Javid while he was running the department .
The Home Office replied : “ We have carried out a thorough search and we have established that the Home Office does not hold the information that you have requested.
” It is unclear if Javid only discussed the Assange extradition request in person while Home Secretary or if he used a private email or phone to do so .
The attendees , agenda and even the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a tightly-guarded secret .
But Declassified is now publishing the attendance lists and agendas—marked “ confidential ” —of the last four conferences Javid attended : in 2014 , 2015 , 2016 , and 2018 ( see end of article ) .
Declassified could not obtain information on Javid ’ s first two AEI meetings in 2011 and 2013 .
Since attending his first “ world forum ” at the AEI in 2011 , within a year of becoming an MP , Javid subsequently visited six out of eight AEI annual conferences up to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Javid ’ s parliamentary register of interests records that he has made no overseas trips paid by a third-party except those funded by the AEI .
In total , Javid has received £31,285.19 ( $ 40,800 ) in gifts from the AEI .
Javid is the most frequent British guest of the US organisation , and in most years has been one of only a few British invitees .
The only other British regular is Michael Gove , another senior figure in Boris Johnson ’ s cabinet .
The AEI has access @ @ @ @ @ @ @ intelligence community .
Guests at the events Javid attended included two former directors of the Central Intelligence Agency ( CIA ) and two sitting directors of the National Security Agency ( NSA ) .
In 2018 , President Trump ’ s then-national security adviser H.R .
McMaster spoke alongside Javid .
Any discussions between the British minister and the intelligence chiefs have remained secret .
The CIA made clear that it is “ working to take down ” WikiLeaks after the latter published the largest-ever leak of classified CIA material in 2017 .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ was provided with audio and video of Julian Assange ’ s private meetings , including privileged conversations with lawyers , in the Ecuadorian embassy by a Spanish security company .
The NSA has also been extensively exposed by WikiLeaks .
The AEI ’ s 2016 event saw Javid speaking on a panel titled , “ The Challenge Abroad and Implications for the United States ” , alongside US senator Lindsay Graham who calledfor Assange to be indicted in 2010 solely for receiving leaks .
Another panel , “ Wargaming the Next Attack on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ CIA director Michael Hayden alongside Marc Thiessen and Gary Schmitt , two AEI ’ s staffers who have written extensively on shutting down Assange and WikiLeaks .
Also speaking in 2016 was senator Mitch McConnell , who has called Assange a “ high-tech terrorist ” , and congressman Mike Rogers , who called for WikiLeaks source Chelsea Manning to be executed .
Javid spoke at the 2015 event with Paul Wolfowitz—an AEI scholar who has been extensively exposed in WikiLeaks releases—about the threat posed by the Islamic State terrorist group .
Karl Rove @ @ @ @ @ @ @ George W. Bush , also spoke at the 2015 event .
It was reported in 2010 that Rove was advising Swedish prime minister Fredrik Reinfeldt on how Sweden could help the Obama administration prosecute WikiLeaks .
Another panel at the 2015 forum was titled , “ Fighting a Cyberwar : Is Defense the Only Option ?
” and featured the former director of the NSA , Keith Alexander , the then director of the NSA , Michael S. Rogers , as well as former CIA director Michael Hayden .
“ Much talk about @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on well-publicised breaches , ” the panel briefing outlined , “ but the reality of the cyberthreat is much broader and more devastating than most assume.
” The question posed was : “ Is our only choice to bar the doors , or has the time come to take it to the enemy ?
And what will that mean ?
” David Petraeus , another former CIA director , spoke at the AEI ’ s 2014 event alongside former US vice president Dick Cheney , a member of the AEI ’ s board @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as the most belligerent pro-war figure in Washington , who was a senior fellow at the AEI before becoming Trump ’ s national security advisor .
While at the AEI , Bolton wrote ambiguously : “ As for WikiLeaks itself , and anyone cooperating with its malicious enterprise , now is the time to test our cyber-warfare capabilities .
Fire away.
” The AEI has been running a campaign against WikiLeaks—and Assange specifically— throughout the US media since 2010 .
The organisation ’ s website lists 20 articles or events tagged with “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with “ WikiLeaks ” , all of which are negative .
AEI resident fellow Marc A. Thiessen has written numerous articles demonising Assange and the work of WikiLeaks .
One article titled , “ WikiLeaks must be stopped ” , which is published on the AEI website , concludes , “ If left unmolested , Assange will become even bolder and inspire others to imitate his example.
” Another article in May 2019 , also on the AEI website , is titled , “ Assange is a spy , not a journalist .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ the same annual AEI fora as Javid from 2014-18 .
In 2012 , the AEI sponsored an event in Washington DC called “ Assange ’ s asylum in Correa ’ s Ecuador : Last refuge for scoundrels ?
” hosted by the AEI ’ s visiting fellow Roger F. Noriega , another figure critical of Assange .
The question to be answered was listed as , “ Can Ecuador ’ s president successfully whitewash his image by advancing Assange ’ s anti-American crusade ?
” Sajid Javid and the American Enterprise Institute did @ @ @ @ @ @ @ DM Matt Kennard is head of investigations and Mark Curtis editor , of Declassified UK , a media organisation investigating UK foreign , military and intelligence policies .
They tweet at @ DCKennard and @ markcurtis30 .
Follow Declassified on twitter at @ DeclassifiedUK The agenda and attendee list for the AEI World Forum 2014 The agenda and attendee list for the AEI World Forum 2015 The agenda and attendee list for the AEI World Forum 2016 The agenda and attendee list for the AEI World Forum 2018

Sajid Javid, who was Britain’s Home Secretary from April 2018 to July 2019, attended “starlight chats” and “after-dinner cocktails” in a series of off-the-record conferences involving high-level US military and intelligence figures at a 5-star island resort off the coast of Georgia, USA. Many of those attending have been exposed in WikiLeaks publications and have demanded the organisation be shut down.
Javid signed the Trump administration’s extradition request for Assange in June 2019. He was Britain’s Chancellor until his resignation 9 days ago. One of the criteria under which a British Home Secretary can block extradition to the US is if “the person could face the death penalty”.
The month before being appointed Home Secretary in April 2018, Javid visited Georgia for the “world forum” of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI)—an influential neoconservative US organisation with close ties to the US intelligence community. The AEI has run a campaign against WikiLeaks and Assange since 2010.
It can now be revealed that Javid spoke at the 2018 meeting, as did Jonah Goldberg, a fellow at the AEI who has called for Assange to be “garroted”. In a column publishedon the AEI website, Goldberg wrote: “WikiLeaks is easily among the most significant and well-publicised breaches of American national security since the Rosenbergs gave the Soviets the bomb. So again, I ask: Why wasn’t Assange garroted in his hotel room years ago? It’s a serious question.”
Bill Kristol, a close associate of the AEI who also spoke in Georgia with Javid, has written a column titled “Whack WikiLeaks” in which he asked: “Why can’t we use our various assets to harass, snatch or neutralize Julian Assange and his collaborators, wherever they are? Why can’t we disrupt and destroy WikiLeaks in both cyberspace and physical space, to the extent possible?” Kristol’s article was promoted on social media by another AEI fellow who spoke in Georgia with Javid.
Both Goldberg and Kristol spoke at all four of the AEI’s world fora that Javid attended from 2014 to 2018.
On the panel with Javid in 2018 was Elliott Abrams, a key neo-conservative architect of the Iraq war of 2003 best-known for his conviction during the Iran-Contra scandal in the Reagan administration. Abrams has lamented WikiLeaks’ document releases. Also on Javid’s panel was Fred Kagan, a senior AEI staffer who served as an advisor to the US military in Afghanistan.
Here at @AEI World Forum. If everything weren’t strictly off the record, there would be some interesting things to report. — Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) March 7, 2015
Javid’s signing of the US extradition request was a controversial decision opposed at the time by the Shadow Home Secretary, Diane Abbott. “Julian Assange is not being pursued to protect US national security, he is being pursued because he has exposed wrongdoing by US administrations and their military forces,” Abbott told the British parliament in April 2019 after Assange had been grabbed from the Ecuadorian embassy in London.
The Trump administration’s extradition request is unprecedented in that the UK has never extradited a journalist and publisher to a third country for prosecution.
The deliberations within the UK Home Office about Assange’s extradition and incarceration in Belmarsh maximum-security prison, where he is currently held, are opaque. Declassified sent a Freedom of Information request to the Home Office asking for any telephone call or email mentioning Assange sent to or from Sajid Javid while he was running the department. The Home Office replied: “We have carried out a thorough search and we have established that the Home Office does not hold the information that you have requested.”
It is unclear if Javid only discussed the Assange extradition request in person while Home Secretary or if he used a private email or phone to do so.
Secret intelligence-linked meetings
The attendees, agenda and even the dates of the AEI world forum are a tightly-guarded secret. But Declassified is now publishing the attendance lists and agendas—marked “confidential”—of the last four conferences Javid attended: in 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2018 (see end of article). Declassified could not obtain information on Javid’s first two AEI meetings in 2011 and 2013.
Since attending his first “world forum” at the AEI in 2011, within a year of becoming an MP, Javid subsequently visited six out of eight AEI annual conferences up to 2018. From June 2012 until today, Javid’s parliamentary register of interests records that he has made no overseas trips paid by a third-party except those funded by the AEI. In total, Javid has received £31,285.19 ($40,800) in gifts from the AEI.
Javid is the most frequent British guest of the US organisation, and in most years has been one of only a few British invitees. The only other British regular is Michael Gove, another senior figure in Boris Johnson’s cabinet.
The AEI has access to the highest levels of the US intelligence community. Guests at the events Javid attended included two former directors of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and two sitting directors of the National Security Agency (NSA). In 2018, President Trump’s then-national security adviser H.R. McMaster spoke alongside Javid. Any discussions between the British minister and the intelligence chiefs have remained secret.
The CIA made clear that it is “working to take down” WikiLeaks after the latter published the largest-ever leak of classified CIA material in 2017. It was recently revealed that the CIA was provided with audio and video of Julian Assange’s private meetings, including privileged conversations with lawyers, in the Ecuadorian embassy by a Spanish security company. The NSA has also been extensively exposed by WikiLeaks.
The AEI’s 2016 event saw Javid speaking on a panel titled, “The Challenge Abroad and Implications for the United States”, alongside US senator Lindsay Graham who calledfor Assange to be indicted in 2010 solely for receiving leaks.
Another panel, “Wargaming the Next Attack on the United States”, featured former CIA director Michael Hayden alongside Marc Thiessen and Gary Schmitt, two AEI’s staffers who have written extensively on shutting down Assange and WikiLeaks. Also speaking in 2016 was senator Mitch McConnell, who has called Assange a “high-tech terrorist”, and congressman Mike Rogers, who called for WikiLeaks source Chelsea Manning to be executed.
Javid spoke at the 2015 event with Paul Wolfowitz—an AEI scholar who has been extensively exposed in WikiLeaks releases—about the threat posed by the Islamic State terrorist group. Karl Rove, a former senior adviser to President George W. Bush, also spoke at the 2015 event. It was reported in 2010 that Rove was advising Swedish prime minister Fredrik Reinfeldt on how Sweden could help the Obama administration prosecute WikiLeaks.
Another panel at the 2015 forum was titled, “Fighting a Cyberwar: Is Defense the Only Option?” and featured the former director of the NSA, Keith Alexander, the then director of the NSA, Michael S. Rogers, as well as former CIA director Michael Hayden.
“Much talk about the insecurity of the cybersphere has focused on well-publicised breaches,” the panel briefing outlined, “but the reality of the cyberthreat is much broader and more devastating than most assume.” The question posed was: “Is our only choice to bar the doors, or has the time come to take it to the enemy? And what will that mean?”
David Petraeus, another former CIA director, spoke at the AEI’s 2014 event alongside former US vice president Dick Cheney, a member of the AEI’s board, and John Bolton, often seen as the most belligerent pro-war figure in Washington, who was a senior fellow at the AEI before becoming Trump’s national security advisor. While at the AEI, Bolton wrote ambiguously: “As for WikiLeaks itself, and anyone cooperating with its malicious enterprise, now is the time to test our cyber-warfare capabilities. Fire away.”
Assange and the AEI
The AEI has been running a campaign against WikiLeaks—and Assange specifically— throughout the US media since 2010. The organisation’s website lists 20 articles or events tagged with “Julian Assange” and 43 articles tagged with “WikiLeaks”, all of which are negative.
AEI resident fellow Marc A. Thiessen has written numerous articles demonising Assange and the work of WikiLeaks. One article titled, “WikiLeaks must be stopped”, which is published on the AEI website, concludes, “If left unmolested, Assange will become even bolder and inspire others to imitate his example.” Another article in May 2019, also on the AEI website, is titled, “Assange is a spy, not a journalist. He deserves prison.” Thiessen attended all the same annual AEI fora as Javid from 2014-18.
In 2012, the AEI sponsored an event in Washington DC called “Assange’s asylum in Correa’s Ecuador: Last refuge for scoundrels?” hosted by the AEI’s visiting fellow Roger F. Noriega, another figure critical of Assange. The question to be answered was listed as, “Can Ecuador’s president successfully whitewash his image by advancing Assange’s anti-American crusade?”
Sajid Javid and the American Enterprise Institute did not respond to requests for comment. DM
Matt Kennard is head of investigations and Mark Curtis editor, of Declassified UK, a media organisation investigating UK foreign, military and intelligence policies. They tweet at @DCKennard and @markcurtis30. Follow Declassified on twitter at @DeclassifiedUK
The agenda and attendee list for the AEI World Forum 2014
2014
The agenda and attendee list for the AEI World Forum 2015
2015
The agenda and attendee list for the AEI World Forum 2016
2016
The agenda and attendee list for the AEI World Forum 2018
2018


thegreanvillepostbiasrating--2020-05-21--Xi Jinping & Chinese Communist Party are the cutting edge of Marxism

Editor 's Note—Do not listen to Trotskyists who accuse China of being just another capitalist nation , `` pretending to be socialist '' .
Or worse , a latter day `` Stalinist regime '' supposedly betraying the masses around the clock .
And do not waste your time listening to liberals or the numerous hacks in the US media and political class , or academia , trying to convince you China 's government is nothing but a devious tyrannical regime bent on enslaving one-fourth of humanity .
Instead listen to a man who has and uses common sense , who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this subject inside out .
In just a few minutes Caleb provides a reliable chart to locate where true Marxist knowledge and practice reside .
Not in the abstruse formulations of existentialists like Sartre or Camus , not to mention the impenetrable narcissistic nonsense of postmodernists ; nor in the angst-riddled whining and gyrations of liberals like Susan Sontag or Gloria Steinem , or in other voices of the fashionable ( and comfortable ) `` New Left '' , but among real people , some of them leaders , like Xi Jinping , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ those working extremely hard , often risking their lives , to build socialism , in this case `` Socialism with Chinese characteristics , '' which , like all socialisms as per Marxist theory , is only the bridge to a much better future denominated communism .
—PG Caleb Maupin is a widely acclaimed speaker , writer , journalist , and political analyst .
He has traveled extensively in the Middle East and in Latin America .
He was involved with the Occupy Wall Street movement from its early planning stages , and has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
He is an outspoken advocate of international friendship and cooperation , as well 21st Century Socialism .
http : //www.calebmaupin.com

Editor's Note—Do not listen to Trotskyists who accuse China of being just another capitalist nation, "pretending to be socialist". Or worse, a latter day "Stalinist regime" supposedly betraying the masses around the clock. And do not waste your time listening to liberals or the numerous hacks in the US media and political class, or academia, trying to convince you China's government is nothing but a devious tyrannical regime bent on enslaving one-fourth of humanity. Instead listen to a man who has and uses common sense, who is impeccably objective, and who knows this subject inside out. In just a few minutes Caleb Maupin provides a reliable chart to locate where true Marxist knowledge and practice reside. Not in the abstruse formulations of existentialists like Sartre or Camus, not to mention the impenetrable narcissistic nonsense of postmodernists; not in the angst-ridden whining and gyrations of liberals like Susan Sontag or Gloria Steinem, or in other voices of the fashionable (and comfortable) "New Left", but among real people, some of them great living leaders, like Xi Jinping, who have lived in and struggled among those working extremely hard, often risking their lives, to build socialism, in this case "Socialism with Chinese characteristics," which, like all socialisms as per Marxist theory, is only the bridge to a much better future denominated communism. —PG


thegreanvillepostbiasrating--2020-05-21--How To Understand All This China Stuff

How To Understand All This China Stuff

Please make sure these dispatches reach as many readers as possible .
Share with kin , friends and workmates and ask them to do likewise .
hina is in the news every day now .
Today here in Australia we ’ re pretending to be offended because a Chinese tabloid published the accusation that our nation is a “ giant kangaroo that serves as a dog of the US ” , even though we all know that ’ s completely true and we should be flattered that at least they said “ giant ” .
Before that we were getting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ response to our facilitation of America ’ s global anti-China spin campaign , which it turns out Washington screwed us on Anti-China sentiment has been thriving in Australia , aided by our Murdoch-dominated news media , State Department-funded think tanks explicitly geared toward manipulating the China narrative , and of course our own deep-seated racism and xenophobia .
Because of its geographical location , the US military/intelligence asset conventionally known as Australia has been a major focal point for the US-centralized empire ’ s propaganda campaign against the most powerful unabsorbed nation in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ news constantly now , and it ’ s not because of any virus .
It ’ s not because of Hong Kong , it ’ s not because of Uighurs , it ’ s not because of intellectual property violations or any of the other scattershot , unrelated hodgepodge of excuses you ’ re being fed as to why the Chinese government must be regarded as the latest Actual Hitler all of a sudden .
China is in the news all the time because of imperialism .
To understand what ’ s going @ @ @ @ @ @ @ news ” media keep punching you in the face with stories about how awful it is , you really only need to grasp two basic points : Point 1 : We are in the middle of a slow-motion third world war between the US-centralized power alliance and the nations which have resisted being absorbed into it .
A loose alliance of nationless oligarchs who use governments as weapons have secured control over a large empire-like cluster of nations with economic and military might loosely centralized around the United States .
In order to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hegemony , this oligarchic empire must keep expanding by absorbing more nations and brutalizing them if they resist .
China is by far the most powerful of the unabsorbed nations , followed by Russia at a distant second and Iran at a distant third .
Nuclear weapons make another hot world war undesirable , so this one takes the form of resource control , economic warfare , staging coups , arming oppositional militias to use as proxy armies , expanding military presence in key geostrategic regions under the pretense of fighting terrorism , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ old-school full-scale ground invasions used only as a last resort , and only after manufacturing sufficient international approval to ensure the continued cohesion of the empire-like power alliance .
But the end goal is the same as that of a conventional world war : to beat the other side into submission and compliance .
And , in this case , absorption into the imperial blob .
After the fall of the Soviet Union , the prevailing orthodoxy in US power structures became that the US must maintain unipolar hegemony at all cost to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ( even if it means abandoning “ liberal ” values whenever it ’ s convenient ) .
From that point on the agenda has been global domination and the slow , suffocating subversion of anyone who gets in the way .
Point 2 : Propaganda is used to move this world war along .
In a conventional war each side has clear military objectives that everyone understands , and the weapons are naturally moved around in accordance with these objectives .
In this weird slow-motion world war , nobody understands what ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and those who are paying very close attention .
The various agendas against the governments of Iran , Venezuela , Russia , Syria , China etc appear different and unrelated when looked at individually , and indeed you will see different political factions supporting some of these agendas but not others .
The only thing unifying this slow-motion movement toward the destruction and absorption of all unabsorbed nations is carefully constructed propaganda narratives .
The way these unifying propaganda narratives operate is simple .
It would never occur to rank-and-file citizens that a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ planet that ’ s pretty much just doing its own thing needs to be sanctioned , subverted and brought to heel , so the imperialist oligarchs who own the political/media class make sure everyone is fed custom-made narratives according to their own ideological echo chamber to prevent any domestic inertia from being thrown on these agendas .
Once there ’ s sufficient agreement that Saddam/Gaddafi/Morales/Assad/Maduro/whomever must go , the campaign to subvert , sabotage and absorb that government can safely be escalated .
If you can understand points one and two , you @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with China , and everything that will continue to happen .
Propaganda narratives will be rolled out with increasing aggression which have the long-term goal of alienating China from its allies , hurting its economic interests , and preventing its rise to true superpower status and creating a multipolar world .
And the funny thing is , none of this is necessary .
Westerners have been deliberately propagandized into believing that China wants to take over the world and will do so unless kept in line by the United States , who has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ act of extreme aggression that the US itself would never tolerate from any unabsorbed government .
But if you really grill people on how they know that China wants to take over the world , you ’ ll find they don ’ t have any substantial evidence for it .
They ’ ll tell you that China has an authoritarian government which persecutes ethnic and religious minorities , wrongly claiming that this means they want to take over the world and inflict the same on everyone else .
They ’ ll tell you @ @ @ @ @ @ @ some directly adjacent territories , wrongly claiming that this means they want to dominate the planet militarily like the US currently does .
They ’ ll cite evidence which shows China is seeking to become a superpower and create a multipolar world ( something China openly admits ) and wrongly claim that this is proof that they are seeking to dominate the world with unipolar hegemony .
They won ’ t be able to produce any actual , hard evidence that China is trying to take over the world and censor your internet @ @ @ @ @ @ @ no such evidence exists .
It ’ s a completely empty belief arising from aggressive narrative manipulation .
“ One myth I think really that needs to be dispelled is that somehow China is aiming to replace America and going to run the world , and it ’ s not , ” said Chinese venture capitalist and social scientist Eric Li on the John Pilger documentary The Coming War on China .
“ First of all , the Chinese are not that stupid .
The west , with its Christian roots , are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The Chinese are not about that .
It ’ s just that–again , I ’ m not degrading the western culture , I ’ m just pointing out the inherent nature , the DNA of two different cultures–the Chinese two thousand years ago built the Great Wall to keep the barbarians out , not to invade them.
” I ’ d say this is a reasonable summary .
After European nations tried to conquer the planet just a few generations ago in the name of spreading Christianity and “ civilization ” , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ colonialist values on a nation whose culture never drove it to such madness .
Violently dominating the entire planet for all eternity on the vague suspicion that another country wants to do the same to you is not sane , and is not an option .
Unabsorbed nations should be allowed to remain unabsorbed , absorbed nations should have their sovereignty restored ( or in Australia ’ s case granted to it for the first time since its existence as a nation ) , and America should begin acting like a normal country @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is the purview of dystopian horror fiction when applied to individual people , and there ’ s no reason we should find the prospect of attacking and destroying for hypothetical future offenses any less insane on an international scale .
There was never any reason for the coronavirus to be made into an issue of international conflict when it could just as easily be an issue of international collaboration , and indeed collaborating is what we should all be doing , with this virus and with everything else .
Let ’ s end @ @ @ @ @ @ @ toward sanity .

Please make sure these dispatches reach as many readers as possible. Share with kin, friends and workmates and ask them to do likewise.
Caitlin Johnstone
C
hina is in the news every day now. Today here in Australia we’re pretending to be offended because a Chinese tabloid published the accusation that our nation is a “giant kangaroo that serves as a dog of the US”, even though we all know that’s completely true and we should be flattered that at least they said “giant”. Before that we were getting indignant over a hefty barley tariff in response to our facilitation of America’s global anti-China spin campaign, which it turns out Washington screwed us on
Anti-China sentiment has been thriving in Australia, aided by our Murdoch-dominated news media, State Department-funded think tanks explicitly geared toward manipulating the China narrative, and of course our own deep-seated racism and xenophobia. Because of its geographical location, the US military/intelligence asset conventionally known as Australia has been a major focal point for the US-centralized empire’s propaganda campaign against the most powerful unabsorbed nation in the world.
China is in the news constantly now, and it’s not because of any virus. It’s not because of Hong Kong, it’s not because of Uighurs, it’s not because of intellectual property violations or any of the other scattershot, unrelated hodgepodge of excuses you’re being fed as to why the Chinese government must be regarded as the latest Actual Hitler all of a sudden.
China is in the news all the time because of imperialism.
Imperialist Russia hysteria had a hard time finding serious purchase in Australia, but sinophobia has had plenty of propaganda primer here and there's a State Department-funded think tank in Canberra dedicated to inflaming China hysteria
(https://t.co/kCgp0J0FEG). https://t.co/2Ib0nkxdqM — Caitlin Johnstone ⏳ (@caitoz) April 23, 2020
To understand what’s going on with China and why the “news” media keep punching you in the face with stories about how awful it is, you really only need to grasp two basic points:
Point 1: We are in the middle of a slow-motion third world war between the US-centralized power alliance and the nations which have resisted being absorbed into it.
A loose alliance of nationless oligarchs who use governments as weapons have secured control over a large empire-like cluster of nations with economic and military might loosely centralized around the United States. In order to gain more power and ensure its ongoing hegemony, this oligarchic empire must keep expanding by absorbing more nations and brutalizing them if they resist. China is by far the most powerful of the unabsorbed nations, followed by Russia at a distant second and Iran at a distant third.
Nuclear weapons make another hot world war undesirable, so this one takes the form of resource control, economic warfare, staging coups, arming oppositional militias to use as proxy armies, expanding military presence in key geostrategic regions under the pretense of fighting terrorism, and “humanitarian interventionism”, with old-school full-scale ground invasions used only as a last resort, and only after manufacturing sufficient international approval to ensure the continued cohesion of the empire-like power alliance.
But the end goal is the same as that of a conventional world war: to beat the other side into submission and compliance. And, in this case, absorption into the imperial blob. After the fall of the Soviet Union, the prevailing orthodoxy in US power structures became that the US must maintain unipolar hegemony at all cost to maintain a “liberal world order” (even if it means abandoning “liberal” values whenever it’s convenient). From that point on the agenda has been global domination and the slow, suffocating subversion of anyone who gets in the way.
Point 2: Propaganda is used to move this world war along.
In a conventional war each side has clear military objectives that everyone understands, and the weapons are naturally moved around in accordance with these objectives. In this weird slow-motion world war, nobody understands what’s going on besides the major power players and those who are paying very close attention. The various agendas against the governments of Iran, Venezuela, Russia, Syria, China etc appear different and unrelated when looked at individually, and indeed you will see different political factions supporting some of these agendas but not others. The only thing unifying this slow-motion movement toward the destruction and absorption of all unabsorbed nations is carefully constructed propaganda narratives.
The way these unifying propaganda narratives operate is simple. It would never occur to rank-and-file citizens that a nation on the other side of the planet that’s pretty much just doing its own thing needs to be sanctioned, subverted and brought to heel, so the imperialist oligarchs who own the political/media class make sure everyone is fed custom-made narratives according to their own ideological echo chamber to prevent any domestic inertia from being thrown on these agendas. Once there’s sufficient agreement that Saddam/Gaddafi/Morales/Assad/Maduro/whomever must go, the campaign to subvert, sabotage and absorb that government can safely be escalated.
If you can understand points one and two, you can understand everything that’s happening with China, and everything that will continue to happen. Propaganda narratives will be rolled out with increasing aggression which have the long-term goal of alienating China from its allies, hurting its economic interests, and preventing its rise to true superpower status and creating a multipolar world.
And the funny thing is, none of this is necessary. Westerners have been deliberately propagandized into believing that China wants to take over the world and will do so unless kept in line by the United States, who has surrounded China with military bases in an act of extreme aggression that the US itself would never tolerate from any unabsorbed government. But if you really grill people on how they know that China wants to take over the world, you’ll find they don’t have any substantial evidence for it.
They’ll tell you that China has an authoritarian government which persecutes ethnic and religious minorities, wrongly claiming that this means they want to take over the world and inflict the same on everyone else. They’ll tell you China has sought to expand control over some directly adjacent territories, wrongly claiming that this means they want to dominate the planet militarily like the US currently does. They’ll cite evidence which shows China is seeking to become a superpower and create a multipolar world (something China openly admits) and wrongly claim that this is proof that they are seeking to dominate the world with unipolar hegemony. They won’t be able to produce any actual, hard evidence that China is trying to take over the world and censor your internet and take away your rights, because no such evidence exists. It’s a completely empty belief arising from aggressive narrative manipulation.
“One myth I think really that needs to be dispelled is that somehow China is aiming to replace America and going to run the world, and it’s not,” said Chinese venture capitalist and social scientist Eric Li on the John Pilger documentary The Coming War on China. “First of all, the Chinese are not that stupid. The west, with its Christian roots, are about converting other people into their beliefs. The Chinese are not about that. It’s just that–again, I’m not degrading the western culture, I’m just pointing out the inherent nature, the DNA of two different cultures–the Chinese two thousand years ago built the Great Wall to keep the barbarians out, not to invade them.”
I’d say this is a reasonable summary. After European nations tried to conquer the planet just a few generations ago in the name of spreading Christianity and “civilization”, we’re projecting our sick vestigial colonialist values on a nation whose culture never drove it to such madness.
Violently dominating the entire planet for all eternity on the vague suspicion that another country wants to do the same to you is not sane, and is not an option. Unabsorbed nations should be allowed to remain unabsorbed, absorbed nations should have their sovereignty restored (or in Australia’s case granted to it for the first time since its existence as a nation), and America should begin acting like a normal country. The notion of “pre-crime” is the purview of dystopian horror fiction when applied to individual people, and there’s no reason we should find the prospect of attacking and destroying for hypothetical future offenses any less insane on an international scale.
There was never any reason for the coronavirus to be made into an issue of international conflict when it could just as easily be an issue of international collaboration, and indeed collaborating is what we should all be doing, with this virus and with everything else. Let’s end this weird slow-motion world war and move toward sanity.


thegreanvillepostbiasrating--2020-05-21--Brave New Normal (Part 2)

Brave New Normal (Part 2)

y columns haven ’ t been very funny recently .
This one isn ’ t going to be any funnier .
Sorry .
Fascism makes me cranky .
I don ’ t mean the kind of fascism the corporate media and the fake Resistance have been desperately hyping for the last four years .
God help me , but I ’ m not terribly worried about a few hundred white-supremacist morons marching around with tiki torches hollering Nazi slogans at each other , or Jewish-Mexican-American law clerks flashing “ OK ” signs on TV , or smirking schoolkids in MAGA @ @ @ @ @ @ @ actual , bona fide fascism , or totalitarianism , if you want to get technical .
The kind where governments declare a global “ state of emergency ” on account of a virus with a 0.2 % to 0.6 % lethality ( and that causes mild , flu-like symptoms , or absolutely no symptoms whatsoever , in over 97 % of those infected ) , locks everyone down inside their homes , suspends their constitutional rights , terrorizes them with propaganda , and unleashes uniformed goon squads on anyone who doesn ’ t @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ m talking about the kind of totalitarianism where the police track you down with your smartphone data and then come to your house to personally harass you for attending a political protest , or attack you for challenging their illegitimate authority , and then charge you with “ assault ” for fighting back , and then get the media to publish a story accusing you of having “ set up ” the cops .
I ’ m talking about the kind of totalitarianism where the secret police are given carte blanche to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and to scan you with their “ surveillance helmets , ” and dictate how close you can sit to your friends , and menace you with drones and robot dogs , and violently pry your kids out of your arms and arrest you if you dare to protest .
I ’ m talking about the kind of totalitarianism that psychologically tortures children with authoritarian loyalty rituals designed to condition them to live in fear , and respond to absurd Pavlovian stimuli , and that encourages the masses to turn off their brains and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wear a mask ” and “ flatten the curve , ” and to report their neighbors to the police for having an “ illegal ” private party … and to otherwise reify the manufactured mass hysteria the authorities need to “ justify ” their totalitarianism .
Yeah , that kind of stuff makes me cranky .
And you know what makes me really cranky ?
I ’ ll tell you what makes me really cranky .
It is people who publicly project themselves as “ anti-authoritarians ” and “ anti-fascists , ” or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ brands and “ dissident ” personas on social media , or even in the corporate media , either zealously cheerleading this totalitarianism or looking away and saying nothing as it is rolled out by the very authorities and media propagandists they pretend to oppose .
I don ’ t know exactly why , but that stuff makes me particularly cranky .
I ’ ll provide you with a few examples .
The militant “ Portland anti-fascists ” who the corporate media fell in love with and made famous for bravely fighting off the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the last four years , as soon as the Corona-Totalitarianism began , did what all true anti-fascists do when the state goes full-blown fascist … no , they did not “ smash the state , ” or “ occupy the streets , ” or anything like that .
They masked-up and started making vegan hand sanitizer .
Popular Internet “ anti-imperialists ” started accusing everyone opposing the lockdown of being part of some far-right Republican plot to “ promote mass death under the banner of freedom ” or to “ normalize death ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ members of a “ death cult , ” or something .
Celebrity socialists took to Twitter to warn that we would “ shortly have the blood of thousands of people on our hands , ” and call us “ anti-vaxxers ” and “ flat earth fucks.
” Indie political and military analysts patiently explained why governments needed to be able to pull people out of their homes against their will and quarantine them .
Anarchist anthropologists averred that the lockdown wasn ’ t damaging the productive economy ; it was only damaging the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ complaining about being out of work were people whose work is “ largely useless.
” Others simply looked away or sat there in silence as we were confined to our homes , and made to carry “ permission papers ” to walk to work or the corner grocery store , and were beaten and arrested for not “ social-distancing , ” and were otherwise bullied and humiliated for no justifiable reason whatsoever .
( We are talking about a virus , after all , that even the official medical experts , e.g.
, @ @ @ @ @ @ @ admit is more or less harmless to the vast majority of us , not the Bubonic Fucking Plague or some sort of Alien-Terrorist-Death-Flu … so spare me the “ we-had-no-choice-but-to-go-totalitarian ” rationalization . )
My intent is not merely to mock these people ( i.e.
, these “ radical , ” “ anti-establishment ” types who fell into formation and started goose-stepping because the media told them we were all going to die ) , but also to use them as a clear example of how official narratives are born and take hold @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the moment , because the “ Brave New Normal ” official narrative has been born , but it has not yet taken hold .
What happens next will determine whether it does .
In order to understand how this works , imagine for a moment that you ’ re one of these people who are normally skeptical of the government and the media , and that you consider yourself an anti-authoritarian , or at least a friend of the working classes , and now you are beginning to realize that there is no @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ WMDs , ” no “ Russian hackers , ” no “ pee-tape , ” etc . )
, and so it dawns on you that you ’ ve been behaving like a hysterical , brainwashed , fascist minion of the very establishment you supposedly oppose … or at the very least like an abject coward .
Imagine how you might feel right now .
You would probably feel pretty foolish , right ?
And more than a little ashamed of yourself .
So … OK , what would do about that ?
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ of options .
Option Number One would be admit what you did , apologize to whomever you have to , and try like hell not to do it again .
Not many people are going to choose this option .
Most people are going to choose Option Number Two , which is to desperately try to deny what they did , or to desperately rationalize what they did ( and in many cases are still actively doing ) .
Now , this is not as easy at it sounds , because doing that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ believe ( or at least pretend to believe ) that there is an Alien-Terrorist-Death-Flu which is going to kill hundreds of millions of people the moment we stop locking everyone down , and forcing them to “ social distance , ” and so on .
They will have to continue to pretend to believe that this Alien-Terrorist-Death-Flu exists , even though they know it doesn ’ t .
And this is where that Orwellian “ doublethink ” comes in .
People ( i.e.
, these “ anti-authoritarians , ” not to mention the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ) are not going to want to face the fact that they ’ ve been behaving like a bunch of fascists ( or cowards ) for no justifiable reason whatsoever .
So , what they are going to do instead is desperately pretend that their behavior was justified and that the propaganda they have been swallowing , and regurgitating , was not propaganda , but rather , “ the Truth.
” In other words , in order to avoid their shame , they are going to do everything in their power to reify @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to expose it as the fiction that it is .
They are going to join in with the corporate media that are calling us “ extremists , ” “ conspiracy theorists , ” “ anti-vaxxers , ” and other such epithets .
They ’ re going to accuse those of us on the Left of aligning with “ far-Right Republican militias , ” and “ Boogaloo accelerationists , ” and of being members of the Russian-backed “ Querfront , ” and assorted other horrible things meant to scare errant leftists into line .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ continue to insist , despite all the evidence to the contrary , that we are “ under attack ” by a “ killer virus ” which could “ strike again at any time , ” and so we have to maintain at least some level of totalitarianism and paranoia , or else … well , you know , the terrorists win .
It is this reification of the official narrative by those too ashamed to admit what they did ( and try to determine why they did it ) , and not the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ will eventually establish the “ Brave New Normal ” as “ reality ” ( assuming the process works as smoothly as it did with the “ War on Terror , ” the “ War on Populism , ” and the “ Cold War ” narratives ) .
The facts , the data , the “ science ” won ’ t matter .
Reality is consensus reality … and a new consensus is being formed at the moment .
There is still a chance ( right now , not months from now ) for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rather influential ) to stand up and say , “ Whoops !
I screwed up and went all Nazi there for a bit.
” But I seriously doubt that is going to happen .
It ’ s much more likely that the Brave New Normal ( or some intermittent , scaled-down version of it ) will gradually become our new reality .
People will get used to being occasionally “ locked down , ” and being ordered to wear masks , and not to touch each other , and to standing in designated @ @ @ @ @ @ @ used to the “ anti-Terrorism measures , ” and believing that Trump is a “ Russian asset.
” The coming economic depression will be blamed on the Alien-Terrorist-Death-Flu , rather than on the lockdown that caused it .
Millions of people will be condemned to extreme poverty , or debt-enslaved for the rest of their lives , but they ’ ll be too busy trying to survive to mount any kind of broad resistance .
The children , of course , won ’ t know any better .
They will grow up with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ protective barriers , ” and “ contact tracing , ” and they will live in constant low-grade fear of another killer virus , or terrorist attack , or Russian-backed white supremacist uprising , or whatever boogeyman might next appear to menace the global capitalist empire , which , it goes without saying , will be just fine .
Me , I ’ ll probably remain kind of cranky , but I will try to find the humor in it all .
Bear with me … that might take a while .

C.J. Hopkins
[dropcap]M[/dropcap]y columns haven’t been very funny recently. This one isn’t going to be any funnier. Sorry. Fascism makes me cranky.
I don’t mean the kind of fascism the corporate media and the fake Resistance have been desperately hyping for the last four years. God help me, but I’m not terribly worried about a few hundred white-supremacist morons marching around with tiki torches hollering Nazi slogans at each other, or Jewish-Mexican-American law clerks flashing “OK” signs on TV, or smirking schoolkids in MAGA hats.
I’m talking about actual, bona fide fascism, or totalitarianism, if you want to get technical. The kind where governments declare a global “state of emergency” on account of a virus with a 0.2% to 0.6% lethality (and that causes mild, flu-like symptoms, or absolutely no symptoms whatsoever, in over 97% of those infected), locks everyone down inside their homes, suspends their constitutional rights, terrorizes them with propaganda, and unleashes uniformed goon squads on anyone who doesn’t comply with their despotic decrees.
I’m talking about the kind of totalitarianism where the police track you down with your smartphone data and then come to your house to personally harass you for attending a political protest, or attack you for challenging their illegitimate authority, and then charge you with “assault” for fighting back, and then get the media to publish a story accusing you of having “set up” the cops.
I’m talking about the kind of totalitarianism where the secret police are given carte blanche to monitor everyone’s Internet activity, and to scan you with their “surveillance helmets,” and dictate how close you can sit to your friends, and menace you with drones and robot dogs, and violently pry your kids out of your arms and arrest you if you dare to protest.
I’m talking about the kind of totalitarianism that psychologically tortures children with authoritarian loyalty rituals designed to condition them to live in fear, and respond to absurd Pavlovian stimuli, and that encourages the masses to turn off their brains and mechanically repeat propaganda slogans, like “wear a mask” and “flatten the curve,” and to report their neighbors to the police for having an “illegal” private party … and to otherwise reify the manufactured mass hysteria the authorities need to “justify” their totalitarianism.
Yeah, that kind of stuff makes me cranky.
And you know what makes me really cranky? I’ll tell you what makes me really cranky. It is people who publicly project themselves as “anti-authoritarians” and “anti-fascists,” or who have established their “anti-establishment” brands and “dissident” personas on social media, or even in the corporate media, either zealously cheerleading this totalitarianism or looking away and saying nothing as it is rolled out by the very authorities and media propagandists they pretend to oppose. I don’t know exactly why, but that stuff makes me particularly cranky.
I’ll provide you with a few examples.
The militant “Portland anti-fascists” who the corporate media fell in love with and made famous for bravely fighting off the Trump-loving Putin-Nazi Menace over the course of the last four years, as soon as the Corona-Totalitarianism began, did what all true anti-fascists do when the state goes full-blown fascist … no, they did not “smash the state,” or “occupy the streets,” or anything like that. They masked-up and started making vegan hand sanitizer.
Popular Internet “anti-imperialists” started accusing everyone opposing the lockdown of being part of some far-right Republican plot to “promote mass death under the banner of freedom” or to “normalize death” to benefit rich people, or being members of a “death cult,” or something. Celebrity socialists took to Twitter to warn that we would “shortly have the blood of thousands of people on our hands,” and call us “anti-vaxxers” and “flat earth fucks.” Indie political and military analysts patiently explained why governments needed to be able to pull people out of their homes against their will and quarantine them. Anarchist anthropologists averred that the lockdown wasn’t damaging the productive economy; it was only damaging the “bullshit economy,” and those complaining about being out of work were people whose work is “largely useless.”
Others simply looked away or sat there in silence as we were confined to our homes, and made to carry “permission papers” to walk to work or the corner grocery store, and were beaten and arrested for not “social-distancing,” and were otherwise bullied and humiliated for no justifiable reason whatsoever. (We are talking about a virus, after all, that even the official medical experts, e.g., the U.K.’s Chief Medic, admit is more or less harmless to the vast majority of us, not the Bubonic Fucking Plague or some sort of Alien-Terrorist-Death-Flu … so spare me the “we-had-no-choice-but-to-go-totalitarian” rationalization.)
My intent is not merely to mock these people (i.e., these “radical,” “anti-establishment” types who fell into formation and started goose-stepping because the media told them we were all going to die), but also to use them as a clear example of how official narratives are born and take hold.
That’s somewhat pertinent at the moment, because the “Brave New Normal” official narrative has been born, but it has not yet taken hold. What happens next will determine whether it does.
In order to understand how this works, imagine for a moment that you’re one of these people who are normally skeptical of the government and the media, and that you consider yourself an anti-authoritarian, or at least a friend of the working classes, and now you are beginning to realize that there is no Alien-Terrorist-Death-Flu (just as there were no “WMDs,” no “Russian hackers,” no “pee-tape,” etc.), and so it dawns on you that you’ve been behaving like a hysterical, brainwashed, fascist minion of the very establishment you supposedly oppose … or at the very least like an abject coward.
Imagine how you might feel right now.
You would probably feel pretty foolish, right? And more than a little ashamed of yourself. So … OK, what would do about that? Well, you would have a couple of options.
Option Number One would be admit what you did, apologize to whomever you have to, and try like hell not to do it again. Not many people are going to choose this option.
Most people are going to choose Option Number Two, which is to desperately try to deny what they did, or to desperately rationalize what they did (and in many cases are still actively doing). Now, this is not as easy at it sounds, because doing that means they will have to continue to believe (or at least pretend to believe) that there is an Alien-Terrorist-Death-Flu which is going to kill hundreds of millions of people the moment we stop locking everyone down, and forcing them to “social distance,” and so on. They will have to continue to pretend to believe that this Alien-Terrorist-Death-Flu exists, even though they know it doesn’t.
And this is where that Orwellian “doublethink” comes in. People (i.e., these “anti-authoritarians,” not to mention the majority of the “normal” public) are not going to want to face the fact that they’ve been behaving like a bunch of fascists (or cowards) for no justifiable reason whatsoever. So, what they are going to do instead is desperately pretend that their behavior was justified and that the propaganda they have been swallowing, and regurgitating, was not propaganda, but rather, “the Truth.”
In other words, in order to avoid their shame, they are going to do everything in their power to reify the official narrative and delegitimize anyone attempting to expose it as the fiction that it is. They are going to join in with the corporate media that are calling us “extremists,” “conspiracy theorists,” “anti-vaxxers,” and other such epithets. They’re going to accuse those of us on the Left of aligning with “far-Right Republican militias,” and “Boogaloo accelerationists,” and of being members of the Russian-backed “Querfront,” and assorted other horrible things meant to scare errant leftists into line.
Above all, they are going to continue to insist, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that we are “under attack” by a “killer virus” which could “strike again at any time,” and so we have to maintain at least some level of totalitarianism and paranoia, or else … well, you know, the terrorists win.
It is this reification of the official narrative by those too ashamed to admit what they did (and try to determine why they did it), and not the narrative or the propaganda itself, that will eventually establish the “Brave New Normal” as “reality” (assuming the process works as smoothly as it did with the “War on Terror,” the “War on Populism,” and the “Cold War” narratives). The facts, the data, the “science” won’t matter. Reality is consensus reality … and a new consensus is being formed at the moment.
There is still a chance (right now, not months from now) for these people (some of whom are rather influential) to stand up and say, “Whoops! I screwed up and went all Nazi there for a bit.” But I seriously doubt that is going to happen.
It’s much more likely that the Brave New Normal (or some intermittent, scaled-down version of it) will gradually become our new reality. People will get used to being occasionally “locked down,” and being ordered to wear masks, and not to touch each other, and to standing in designated circles and boxes, like they got used to the “anti-Terrorism measures,” and believing that Trump is a “Russian asset.” The coming economic depression will be blamed on the Alien-Terrorist-Death-Flu, rather than on the lockdown that caused it. Millions of people will be condemned to extreme poverty, or debt-enslaved for the rest of their lives, but they’ll be too busy trying to survive to mount any kind of broad resistance.
The children, of course, won’t know any better. They will grow up with their “isolation boxes,” and “protective barriers,” and “contact tracing,” and they will live in constant low-grade fear of another killer virus, or terrorist attack, or Russian-backed white supremacist uprising, or whatever boogeyman might next appear to menace the global capitalist empire, which, it goes without saying, will be just fine.
Me, I’ll probably remain kind of cranky, but I will try to find the humor in it all. Bear with me … that might take a while.
#
CJ Hopkins
May 20, 2020
Photo: Twitter – Vanessa Beeley


thegreanvillepostbiasrating--2020-05-21--We Put A Man on the Moon …

We Put A Man on the Moon …

In 1969 America reached the moon !
We respected science .
Many Americans were trying to end a disastrous war in Vietnam .
People marched for civil rights , they fought for equal rights , there was a sense America ’ s potential was nearly limitless .
WTF in 2020 ?
Many Americans , including our president , do n't respect science .
We fire doctors for calling out quack medical cures .
We put a breeder of labradoodles in charge of our Covid-19 pandemic response .
Wars just go on forever with little resistance .
We 're sliding backwards @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , for workers .
And the space program ?
Moribund in the USA .
We ’ re very much stuck on earth , an earth that is less hospitable to life than it was fifty years ago .
The years 1970-2020 has defined a half-century of American decline .
Perhaps we might speak of five bad `` emperors '' : Nixon , Reagan , Clinton , Shrub Bush , and Obama , now joined by Trump , our very own blend of Nero and Caligula .
He fiddles and diddles while America burns @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are hardly the answer .
Even Jesus isn ’ t the answer unless we start taking His words about the rich ( and so much else ) seriously .
The Jesus of my youth had no use for greed and money and material goods – He taught us our treasure was in heaven , gained by righteous living through faith while manifesting love .
That sacrificial message is drowned out today by the so-called prosperity gospel , preached by ministers who are cashing in even as they tell their followers that wealth is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s grace .
Back in the Catholic church of my youth , such ideas would have been blasphemous .
At my church I recall the example set by Sister Emily and Sister Jane Elizabeth – they sure weren ’ t living in luxury .
Forgive them , sisters , they know not what they do .
Here we are , in 2020 , in a land of un-truth , in a universe of alternative facts , in belief systems where money matters more than anything , where even ministers stoke conflict , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ come together and develop a clear , coherent , and coordinated response to the coronavirus crisis .
How to change this ?
How about letting experts lead us ?
You know the saying : it ain ’ t rocket science .
But Apollo was rocket science , and so we deferred to experts , and they got us to the moon and back six times and patched together an amazing rescue of Apollo 13 when it went wrong .
To beat Covid-19 , we can ’ t listen to Trump and his band @ @ @ @ @ @ @ listen to the scientists , the doctors , and act collectively based on sound medical science .
The “ rocket scientists ” will get us through this , together with the humanists and the selfless efforts of so many medical workers and ( mostly ) nameless others .
Longer term , we need to re-create our government , because it has , quite simply , betrayed most of us .
Simultaneously , we need to move beyond nationalism and think and act on a global scale to save our earth .
If Apollo @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s the wondrous value of our own planet .
The moon may be a place of magnificent desolation , but who wants to live permanently in desolation ?
We need global vision and action , not only to help prevent future pandemics , but also to preserve our planet as a viable biosphere for a global population projected to top ten billion people in the coming decades .
Nobody said it would be easy ; yet if we stay on our current course , just about anybody can guess humanity ’ s fate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ man on the moon , surely we can come together to create a better future for ourselves and our children .
The year was 1969 , and this song by the Youngbloods went gold : “ Come on people now , smile on your brother , everybody get together , try to love one another right now .
Right now .
Right now.
” It wasn ’ t – or shouldn ’ t be -- just hippie dreaming .
Indeed , it ’ s the essence of true Christianity .

In 1969 America reached the moon! We respected science. Many Americans were trying to end a disastrous war in Vietnam. People marched for civil rights, they fought for equal rights, there was a sense America’s potential was nearly limitless.
WTF in 2020? Many Americans, including our president, don't respect science. We fire doctors for calling out quack medical cures. We put a breeder of labradoodles in charge of our Covid-19 pandemic response. Wars just go on forever with little resistance. We're sliding backwards in rights for minorities, for women, for workers. And the space program? Moribund in the USA. We’re very much stuck on earth, an earth that is less hospitable to life than it was fifty years ago.
The years 1970-2020 has defined a half-century of American decline. Perhaps we might speak of five bad "emperors": Nixon, Reagan, Clinton, Shrub Bush, and Obama, now joined by Trump, our very own blend of Nero and Caligula. He fiddles and diddles while America burns.
Joe Biden and the establishment Democrats are hardly the answer. Even Jesus isn’t the answer unless we start taking His words about the rich (and so much else) seriously. The Jesus of my youth had no use for greed and money and material goods – He taught us our treasure was in heaven, gained by righteous living through faith while manifesting love. That sacrificial message is drowned out today by the so-called prosperity gospel, preached by ministers who are cashing in even as they tell their followers that wealth is the most legitimate form of God’s grace. Back in the Catholic church of my youth, such ideas would have been blasphemous. At my church I recall the example set by Sister Emily and Sister Jane Elizabeth – they sure weren’t living in luxury. Forgive them, sisters, they know not what they do.
Here we are, in 2020, in a land of un-truth, in a universe of alternative facts, in belief systems where money matters more than anything, where even ministers stoke conflict, and we wonder why we can’t come together and develop a clear, coherent, and coordinated response to the coronavirus crisis.
How to change this? How about letting experts lead us? You know the saying: it ain’t rocket science. But Apollo was rocket science, and so we deferred to experts, and they got us to the moon and back six times and patched together an amazing rescue of Apollo 13 when it went wrong. To beat Covid-19, we can’t listen to Trump and his band of grifters and losers. We must listen to the scientists, the doctors, and act collectively based on sound medical science. The “rocket scientists” will get us through this, together with the humanists and the selfless efforts of so many medical workers and (mostly) nameless others.
Longer term, we need to re-create our government, because it has, quite simply, betrayed most of us. Simultaneously, we need to move beyond nationalism and think and act on a global scale to save our earth. If Apollo taught us one thing, it’s the wondrous value of our own planet. The moon may be a place of magnificent desolation, but who wants to live permanently in desolation? We need global vision and action, not only to help prevent future pandemics, but also to preserve our planet as a viable biosphere for a global population projected to top ten billion people in the coming decades.
Nobody said it would be easy; yet if we stay on our current course, just about anybody can guess humanity’s fate. But if we can put a man on the moon, surely we can come together to create a better future for ourselves and our children.
The year was 1969, and this song by the Youngbloods went gold: “Come on people now, smile on your brother, everybody get together, try to love one another right now. Right now. Right now.” It wasn’t – or shouldn’t be -- just hippie dreaming. Indeed, it’s the essence of true Christianity.