War Is A Racket That Rots Your Brain
Biden’s State Of The Union Straw Man Sets Stage For Cuts To Social Security & Medicare
The Greatest Living Journalist Is Now A Blogger
The Ideological Attack And War On The New Deal Is Over – It’s Now Bipartisan
I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today — my own government. ….. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death. ~~~ “Beyond Vietnam – A Time To Break Silence” (Martin Luther King, Jr., 1967)
A very intelligent friend of mine – a history buff and brilliant writer – who shall remain nameless, sent me an essay this morning largely focused on his Manichean delusional World War 2 video game movie of the Ukraine disaster.
This man was demanding US and NATO boots on the ground and a no-fly zone immediately after the Russian invasion – and he’s only gotten worse since (US first strike use of tactical nukes? Take out the Russian Naval fleet? Blow up pipelines and sabotage Russian infrastructure? Everything’s on the table).
We stopped communicating for months over his insane pro-war and anti-Russian views. He’s now attacking Biden for not doing enough.
So, today, I fired back.
I’m riffing on ideas from US Marine Corps General Smedley Butler famous 1935 book “War Is A Racket” – and Randolph Bourne’s far less well know but equally powerful 1918 essay “War Is the Health of The State” – and the predatory capitalism in John Perkins’ 2004 book “Confessions of An Economic Hitman” – and George Orwell’s body of work on propaganda and the Big Lie – and Professor John Mearsheimer’s analysis – and the “bipartisan” House Resolution 9 denouncing “the horrors” of Socialism which included frontal ideological assaults on core principles of the New Deal – and most recently, Sy Hersch’s revelations on how the US blew up the Nordstream pipelines (which hugely increases corporate profits from US natural gas exports as LNG).
XXXX – as a fellow recipient, I’m astonished that you didn’t see the game Biden played on SS and Medicare in the SOTU.
Particularly after the House Resolution condemning Socialism, which included explicit ideological condemnations of the premises of SS and the entire New Deal (i.e. the anti redistribution and property rights quotes from Madison and Jefferson). I know you didn’t miss it, but here it is again, conflating grossly distorted historical catastrophes with and condemning core New Deal principles as “horrors of Socialism”:
Whereas the author of the Declaration of Independence, President Thomas Jefferson, wrote, ‘‘To take from one, because it is thought that his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, the guarantee to every one of a free exercise of his industry, and the fruits acquired by it.’’;
Whereas the ‘‘Father of the Constitution’’, President James Madison, wrote that it ‘‘is not a just government, nor is property secure under it, where the property which a man has in his personal safety and personal liberty, is violated by arbitrary seizures of one class of citizens for the service of the rest’’;
And of course you ignore, particularly after Biden’s entire 40 plus year political career where he supported cuts to SS and championed the “shared sacrifice” “grand deal” numerous times on entitlements and austerity.
By accusing the Republicans of seeking to phase out (or sunset?) SS/MC, Biden crafted a straw man that sets the stage for cuts and “reforms” that “modernize” and “put the SS Trust Fund on a sound financial footing”.
Then, after the deal is done, Biden can brag that he “saved SS” from the evil Republicans and the Republicans can claim they merely guaranteed its solvency.
Remarkable you don’t find this game worth writing about, and instead choose to fall for the transparent and repeated propaganda ratchet by the Military Industry Complex and NeoCons: ie.: Just give Ukraine canon fodder just one more billion dollar US weapons system. Just one more….
I think the Ukrainian high official who recently was quoted as guaranteeing that US would provide F-16’s” (paraphrase): “We asked for X, Biden said no. We later got X. We asked for Y. Biden said no. We later got Y. We asked for Z. Biden said no. We later got Z. We will get F-16’s:
XXXX, Ukraine is even a worse strategic and moral error than Iraq and Vietnam. (to be clear: both were US criminal wars of aggression).
But this time around, instead of showing the body bags, reporting on the My Lia’s and Tet Offensives that expose the military lies, mock the John Bircher and LBJ paranoia of the “Communist Domino Theory”, and reporting on the Pentagon Papers, the US media is engaged in pro-War big lie propaganda and replacing the RAND corporation and writing the Pentagon Papers as the news.
That Sy Hersch piece on US blowing up Nordstream was something, eh? The fact that he had to publish it on Substack and was called a “blogger” by the mainstream press tells you all you need to know. Imagine, the greatest living journalist is now a blogger. Imagine that.