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Introduction
With a few notable exceptions, political leaders are chosen by political leaders, and not by electorates or community-based organizations or popular assemblies. Popular media figures and the so-called ‘pundits’, including academics and self-declared experts and ‘think-tank’ analysts reinforce and propagate these choices.
A collection of terms and pseudo concepts are essential in validating what is really an oligarchical process. These concepts are tagged onto whoever is chosen by the elite for electoral candidates or for the seizure of political power. With this framework in mind, we have to critically analyze the symbols and signs used by popular opinion-makers as they promote political elites. We will conclude by posing an alternative to the ‘propaganda of choice’, which has so far resulted in broken pre-election promises and political debacles.
Language and Pseudo-Concepts: Subterfuges for Manipulated Choices
The usual suspects in the business of mass-manipulation describe their political leaders in the same folksy or pseudo-serious terms that they attribute to themselves: Experts/intuitive improvisers/trial and error ‘muddlers’. The ‘experts’ often mean wrong-headed policymakers and advisers whose decisions usually reflect the demands of their current paymasters. Their stated or unstated assumptions are rarely questioned and almost never placed in the context of the contemporary power structures. The experts determine the future trajectory for their political choices. In this way, the views expressed by ‘experts’ are primarily ideological and not some disembodied scholarly entity floating in an indeterminate space and time.
Pundits often promote ‘experience’ in describing the ‘experienced’ leader, adviser or cabinet member. They denigrate the opposition candidate adversary as ‘lacking experience’. The obvious questions to this platitude should be: ‘What kind of experience? What were the political results of this experience? Who did this experience serve?
We know that Secretaries of Defense William Gates and Donald Rumsfeld and their leading assistants, Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith were appointed to their high positions and praised for their ‘experience’. This ‘experience’ drove the country into repeated disastrous military engagements, political debacles and unending wars. It would be better to reject officials who are highly ‘experienced’ in creating disasters and appoint those officials experienced in conciliation and reconciliation. Unfortunately the ‘experts’ never discuss these matters in any historical context.
Many political choices are adorned with ‘titles’, such as ‘successful entrepreneur’ and/or ‘prize winning journalist’. This ignores the fact that those ‘bestowing titles’ come from a narrow band of inbred organizations with financial, military or ideological interests looking for near-future rewards from their now titled, prize winning political choice.
Highly certified candidates, we are told, are those eminently qualified to lead, whether they are university academics with prestigious degrees, or doctors, lawyers, or investors who work for leading groups. The most highly vetted officials
coming from Harvard University have implemented economic policies leading to the worst crises in the shortest time in world history.
Lawrence Summers, PhD and Harvard University President-turned Treasury Secretary participated in the pillage of Russia in the 1990’s and then brought his talent for sowing international chaos home by joining Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan. These two ‘experts’ promoted enormous financial swindles, which led to the worst economic crash in the US in seven decades.
Money laundering by the big banks flourished under Princeton Summa Cum Laude and US Treasury ‘Under-Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence’, Stuart Levey. Levey concentrated on implementing brutal economic sanctions against Iran shutting US businesses out of multi-billion-dollar oil deals with Tehran, promoting a huge annual $4 billion-dollar giveaway to Israel and a granting a uniquely privileged trade status for the Jewish state – which cost the US taxpayers additional billions.
Receiving ‘prestigious awards’ does not predict a successful policymaker in contemporary US politics. The underlying ideological commitments and political allegiances determine the appointment of these ‘prize-winning’ leaders. From an objective perspective, any obscure college economics graduate, eager to increase high tech US exports and sign profitable trade agreements with Iran, would have been far more successful political choice as Secretary of Treasury.
Frequently ‘identity’ colors the choice of appointees, especially favoring an ‘oppressed’ minority, even if their field of competence and their political allegiances run counter to the real interests and political needs of the vast majority of American citizens. Some ‘ethnic’ groups wear their identity on their shirt sleeves as a point of entry into lucrative or influential appointments: “Hello, I’m a Jewish graduate of Yale Law school, which makes me the best choice for an appointment to the Supreme Court … where there are already three Jews out of the nine Justices… and only an anti-Semite would consider a fourth to be an ‘overrepresentation’ of our tiny national minority…whereas the total absence of any WASPs (white Anglo-Protestants) on ‘The Court’ only confirms their historical degeneracy…” Who could object to that?
‘Identity’ appointees are not reluctant to employ scare tactics, including citing old historical grievances and claiming special suffering unique to their heritage, to justify their appointment to privileged, lucrative positions. Their identity also seems to insulate them from any fall-out from their policy catastrophes such as disastrous wars and economic crises, as well as providing impunity for their personal involvement in financial mega-swindles.
Race and claims of victimization often serves as a justification for being a political ‘chosen one’. We are told repeatedly that some appointee, even with a tangential link to skin color, must have suffered past indignities and is therefore uniquely qualified to represent the aspirations of an entire group, promising to eliminate all inequality, right injustices and promote peace and prosperity. Racial identity never prevented three of the worst Caribbean tyrants from robbing and torturing their people: The two Haitian dictators, ‘Papa Doc’ and ‘Baby Doc’ Duvalier murdered tens of thousands Haitians, especially among mixed race educated elites. Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista had to slaughter hundreds of Afro-Caribbean sugar workers in Santiago de Cuba before he could enter the exclusive ‘whites only’ Havana Golf and Country Club.
In the United States, it was a ‘man of color’, General Colin Powell, Secretary of State under President George W. Bush, who bombed and invaded black African Somalia and implemented the policy of invading and destroying Iraq and Afghanistan. The carefully groomed ‘First Black President-To-Be’ Barack Obama, was the protégé of a Chicago-based millionaire lobby led by the fanatical ‘Israel First’ mob, to bring ‘identity’ to its highest level. This charade culminated in the ‘First Black President’ and promoter of seven devastating wars against the poorest people of the world receiving the Nobel Peace Prize from the hands of the King of Sweden and a committee composed of mostly white Swedish Christians. Such is the power of identity. It was of little comfort to the hundreds of thousands of Libyans and South Sahara Africans murdered, pillaged, raped and forced to flee in rotting boats to Europe, that the NATO bombs destroying their country had been sent by the ‘Historic Black US President and Nobel Peace Prize Winner’. When the wounded captive President Libya Gadhafi, the greatest proponent of Pan-African integration, was brutalized and slaughtered, was he aware that his tormentors were armed and supported by ‘America’s First Black President’? A video of Gadhafi’s gruesome end became a source of gleeful entertainment for the ‘Feminist’ US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, who would go on to cite her ‘victory’ over the Libyan President in her bid to become ‘The First Female President of the US”.
The question is not about one’s race or identity, but whose interests are served by the Afro-American leader in question. US President Barack Obama served Wall Street and the Pentagon, whereas Malcolm X and Martin Luther King had a long and arduous history of leading peoples’ movements. MLK joined the striking Afro-American garbage workers in Memphis and the autoworkers in Detroit. Malcolm X organized and spoke for the Harlem community – while inspiring millions.
Gender labels covered the fact that a politically chosen woman ruled on behalf of a family-led tyranny, as in the case of Indira Gandhi in India. The financial lords of the City of London financiers, and the mining and factory bosses in Great Britain chose the very female Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who launched multiple wars abroad and smashed trade unions at home. Madame Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, who promoted seven wars resulting in the deaths, injuries, displacement and rape of 5 million African and Middle Eastern women and destruction of their families, had the unconditional support of the top 20 Wall Street banks when she ran to become the ‘First Woman President of the United States’.
In other words, political appointments chosen for their ‘gender identity’ bring no special qualities or experience that would recommend them as progressive. When political and business elites choose a female for a high political office, they do so because it serves their interests to put a progressive political gloss on their reactionary policies. The ‘gender emphasis’ is most effective on liberals and the advocates of ‘identity over class politics’. In reality it is a vacuous symbol rather than real power and highlights elite upward mobility.
Often media moguls, publicists and corporate leaders laud the ‘social background’ of a candidate. They use such criteria to groom and coopt upwardly mobile workers, trade union officials and community militants. ‘Chosen leaders’ from minority or oppressed backgrounds are put in charge of discipline, work-place speed-ups and lay-offs. They sometimes adopt ‘workers’ language, splicing rough anti-establishment curses with their abuses as they fire workers and cut wages. One’s past social background is a far less useful criterion than current social commitments. As Karl Marx long ago noted, the ruling class is not a closed caste: It is always open to co-opting bright and influential new members among upwardly mobile labor leaders and activists.
Labor leaders receive ‘special favors’, including invitations to political inaugurations and corporate meetings with all the travel and luxury accommodations paid. Elites frequently transform past militant leaders into corporate policemen, ready to identify, exclude and expel any genuine emerging local and shop floor militants. Public and private labor relations experts frequently describe a labor militant’s ascent to the elite as an ‘up by his own bootstraps operation’ – putting a virtuous gloss on the ‘self-made worker’ ready to serve the interests of the corporate elite! The primary feature that characterizes these ‘boot-strappers’ is how their sense of ‘solidarity’ turns upward and forward toward the bosses, and not backward and downward toward the working masses, as they transform into ‘boot-lickers’.
Many examples of these ‘upward and forward’-looking political choices are found among entertainment celebrities, sports heroes, media figures and pop musicians. Rap singers become ghetto millionaires. And ‘working-class hero’ rock musicians, the well-wrinkled as well as the young, charge hundreds of dollars a seat for their rasping and grasping performances while refusing to play on behalf of striking workers…
The popular music, promoted by the elite, contain country and working class lyrics, sung with phony regional twangs to entertain mass audiences even as the successful performers flaunt their Presidential awards, luxury mansions and limos. The political and corporate elite frequently choose phony working class or ethnic identity celebrities to endorse their products, as the gullible public is encouraged to purchase useless commodities, electronic gadgets and gimmicks, and to support reactionary politicians and politics. There are a few celebrities who protest or maintain real mass solidarity but they are blacklisted, ostracized or past their peak earning power. Most celebrities prefer to shake their backsides, mouth raunchy language, snort or smoke dope and slum a bit with their bodyguards, but the political elite have chosen them to distract and depoliticize the young and discontented. They are paid well for their services.
Conclusion
The concepts, symbols and signs of the ruling class determine who will be the political ‘choices’ for leaders and officials. Political elites co-opt upwardly mobile ‘identities’, among minorities and workers, carefully assessing which of their qualities will contribute to the desired elite outcomes. This is how working class and community-based electorates are seduced into voting against their real class, national, community, gender and racial economic interests.
Renegades, demagogues, soothsayers and other charlatans of many races, ethnicities, genders and proclivities run for office and win on that basis. The elite pay a relatively small fee for procuring the services of prestigious, certified, titled and diversified candidates to elect or appoint as leaders.
Elite power only partially depends on the mass media, money and power. It also needs the services of the concept and language masters, identity promoters and propagandists of the embellished deed.
Stripping away the phony veneer of the ‘chosen’ politicians requires a forceful critique of the signs and symbols that cloak the real identity of the makers and breakers of these leaders. And it requires that they be exposed for their proven failures and disasters, especially their role in leading America into an unending series of political, military and economic debacles.
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I have not read the article yet. This comment is only to warn the site managers that the “NEW!” notification is absent, no doubt due to an oversight. Mr. Petras should get as much publicity as possible: he is a force for the good.
Good article.
All the myth-debunking by Mr. Petras is of course spot-on, but in a society as diverse, complex, and territorially encompassing as the U.S.A., Lies will alway trump Truth in public discourse. Ditto for my country, Brazil, though considerably less complex, because far more insignificant economically and geopolitically.
2017 promises to be a very interesting year for both countries. I just hope I make it alive to 2018.
I wish this comment were a bit more upbeat.
Petras always makes sense but his style is a times stilted and labored.
Señor Trump as Horatio Alger, antiexpert, and the Magic White Man as antidote to Señor Obama, Harvard-schooled, Kennedy-mouthed, Magic Negro is also apropos.
All these masks are invented and promulgated by the media whose owners are the same as the owners of the political duopoly.
What the “concept and language masters… and propagandists” would destroy, they first vilify. Having demonized Assad, they detest his survival, so Obama takes a malevolent parting shot.
New Obama Executive Action Opens Door to Unlimited Arms for Salafi Terrorists in Syria
“On Tuesday, President Barack Obama issued a White House memorandum (see full text below) to both the US State and Defense departments which waives any arms export control restrictions on providing ‘military assistance’ to any and all ‘foreign forces’ in Syria, according to a White House press release issued today. Presumably, this includes not only guns and ammunition, but also lethal TOW Missiles and RPGs (and anti-aircraft units?) for tens of thousands of extremist foreign fighters and Salafi terrorists currently operating inside Syria, as well as thousands of US-trained and equipped fighters waiting in camp in both Turkey and Jordan.”
http://21stcenturywire.com/2016/12/08/breaking-new-obama-executive-order-opens-door-for-unlimited-arms-to-islamist-terrorists-in-syria/
Trump presented himself to the people as the anti-Obama and straight talking, patriotic American. But it was all a act and a brilliant one at that.
First thing he does is surround himself with the sort of corporate and political black hats that have benefited from the status quo. This does not bode well for the American people.
Already his supporters are questioning his very loathsome choices and once they dig into Carrier as Palin did, they’ll realize he didn’t really save any jobs. Just bribed Carrier not to fire them right now. And you wonder why Palin disappeared from the MSM and especially Fox.
Christy was the first to be purged and now Rudy, he just bowed out today. All the early supporters are getting a knife in the back while he anoints insiders like Romney’s daughter to head the RNC, Devos to run the Education Dept and Puzder to run DOL. All Bush cronies. Kobach has all but vanished from consideration for any top post.
Is this a man intent on making America great again? No. Just a flamboyant salesman on one final power trip.
I suspect by the end of 2017 he’ll be one of the most hated men in America.
Have we ever seen as sterling a behind-the-curtain, Wizard of Oz act, as performed by Barack Obama for the past eight years? Do we know anything at all about this man aside from the fact that he loves his wife and kids? Has he any friends? Never hear of, or see any. Aside from pickup basketball and golf, has he any interests?
We would have to go back to Richard Milhous Nixon to find a president so secretive and even RMN had Bibi Rebozo for a friend. Maybe Aaron Burr was the closest major Washington figure as cagey as Barack Obama. more
http://robertmagill.wordpress.com
I am one of those people who fell under the spell of Obama being the first elected black president and nearly had tears in my eyes when he won the presidency. Imagine my crushing disappointment to have seen him emerge as one of the most dishonorable and murderous presidents. His wars in Ukraine, Syria, Yemen, Libya, Somalia, Iraq, and Afghanistan have caused the deaths of millions. And to what end?
Follow the money. If only the media would do this. Then everybody would be able to see that there really is no choice. That there is so much money sloshing around Washington D.C. that the elites have investments in all political choices. Trump versus Hillary. Clearly the Goldman girl was their favored choice, but just as clearly, the elites are going to win with Trump, just like they would have won with Hillary. It was a nice fantasy when Obama’s hope and change campaign broke through in 2008 that the people finally had a representative who would do their bidding. We all know how that turned out. Same story only different characters on stage in 2016. Whether it was the first woman president fantasy, or the make America great again fantasy that won out, the heavily invested in results were bound to be remarkably the same.
Brilliant. Just brilliant!
The casino owning deus ex machina is the Messiah. The joke and tragic farce are on the true believers. Again.
This superb article could’ve been titled, “Duping for Dummies.” It does a positively masterful job of summarizing the main methods of duping the masses of true believers in a clear, comprehensive and incisive manner.
How a person could pack so many truths in so few words is pure genius. Unfortunately, the faithful shall remain so.
In spite of that, Bravo!
I can identify with the sentiment. I was pretty happy that Ronnie Reagan won (way back when) but was quickly disabused of any joy over it. I did learn my lesson though, which has been consistently reinforced by experience, and have consequently viewed with ever increasing disgust all people in positions of power.
Unfortunately most humans seem to have a critical need to believe in pretty much anything that makes them feel secure and superior , and I doubt that’ll change anytime soon.
Petras writes:
It is 110 % true. I probably would not come here, to my new home, USA,
if not for the consequences of that pillage.
“Privatization” of almost all national property into the hands of those,
who are nowadays called “oligarchs”,
with considerable “let-outs” to American “advisers” like Summers !
Lovely article by James Petras
There are a couple of typos/errors that should be corrected.
““Hello, I’m a Jewish graduate of Yale Law school, which makes me the best choice for an appointment to the Supreme Court … where there are already three Jews out of the ten Justices… ”
The Supreme Court is composed (when full), of 9 Justices.
Petras’ conclusion was a bit weak, after such a thunderous essay.
Petras even (almost), identified the unmentionable elephant in the room, ” “Hello, I’m a Jewish graduate of Yale Law school, which makes me the best choice for an appointment to the Supreme Court … ”
The truth is – the Zionist (Jewish Oligarchs) controlled New World Order since, at least, 1898, and likely a tad before that. Orwell also missed that point.
Petras needed to dot the I’s and clarify 2 points.
1. Who control the entire planet (with some power fissures in China and Russia).
2. Suggestions for Resistance to the New World order – Oligarchs, are absent. These suggestions are always absent. Discuss the Hollywood Circus phony elections, whine about Casino Trump’s choices for Zionist bureaucrats to run the government, (Trump chooses nothing and no one). Did you enjoy Johnson‘s role, and Steins‘ challenges?
Our Inconvenient Truth:
Oh! in our beloved Country, we need to Restore our Democratic Republic, which was murdered, along with our last constitutional President, John F. Kennedy, in Dallas on November 22, 1963. And the subsequent liquidations of JF Kennedys’ brother, Robert, ML King, Malcolm X, Fred Hampton, John Lennon (the musical Lenin), and millions of others, from Vietnam to Indonesia, to Guatemala, Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya; You complete the list). And don’t forget our martyred Middle/Working Class; they knew not what hit them.
Durruti
And they don’t want to hear about it, either.
Out of honest curiosity, Id like to ask you to elaborate on that point.
“And they don’t want to hear about it, either.”
People who have been ‘played,’ as we say in Brooklyn, hate to admit it.
Orwell wrote nothing, as I recall about Zionists, and their imperialist/colonialist occupation of Palestine(‘Israel’ recognized by Soviet Union, USA, Britain, United Nations, etc., in 1947). I do not recall him discussing the power of the Jewish Financial Oligarchs – in any of his books.
His 1984 remains the finest (though light on the Jewish Financial Oligarchs’ march to power), prediction of the sad trajectory/decline of world political & anti-human culture.
His Animal Farm is a creative adaptation of Trotsky’s The Revolution Betrayed.
Orwell’s non-fictional autobiographical history, Homage to Catalonia, (Catalonia is the homeland of Durruti and the Spanish Anarchists), is a moving account of his own experiences in fighting to save the Spanish Republic. Orwell was seriously wounded in the fighting, and when the Divisions Orwell fought with, organized by the Partido Obrero Unida Marxista – POUM, were repressed by the late Spanish Republic, (now under the control of Stalin), Orwell & wife had to flee. Durruti’s Anarchists were repressed in the same operations, amidst the Civil War within the Spanish Civil War.
Orwell spent the remainder of WW II, working within the Churchill Government.
We have the advantage of 20-20 hindsight, surviving into 2016, and may more easily view the masterwork of the Totalitarian Imperialist Financial Oligarchs. The 1984 was finished in 1949, and Orwell died in 1950.
Read/peruse Orwell for yourself; well worth reading – rereading. If I am in error, advise me, and I will apologize.
I liked this piece real good, he made a good argument there, coulda’ been shorter but you have to be prolific in articles, there has to be a certain heft in no. of words or, it might just fall in the cracks.
You’re right though:
Labored: Because, those who get it, already know it, the rest are never going to read past a couple a paragraphs. Too much of a wet blanket on their personal ambitions to SELL OUT! Up by the Bootstraps or Bust.
Stilted: sure, could have been more understated, since he’s singin’ to the choir, in the main.
Aah, how I’m tempted to offer a bet!*
Dec. 2017: If Trump survives in a non-comatose state, he’ll be a positive surprise.
Do you ever check Bill Mitchell? Paul C. Roberts? It’s not that they are great persuaders. It’s just that I think along the same lines, so instead of explaining myself, I’ll refer to them.
(* betting is a bad habit, alas.)
Bashir al Assad has fought off the full night of the United States, Israel and numerous Arab factions for 16 years.
He certainly can hold off Obama’s latest onslaught for the next few weeks.
Good for Assad! The media is against him, therefore he must be the good guy in this fight.
The author should have mentioned the homicidal dictator Castro who murdered tens of thousands more in his 56 years in power than Batista ever did. Author seems to dislike the White race. He could have mentioned that Batista was so obviously mulatto that he was known as the handsome mulatto while Castro was the son of White, not mixed race parents. Batista was the epitome of the Carribean proverb, “The more money you have, the Whiter you are. ”
But since the author believes that any dictator who is an enemy of the US is good, he neglected to mention Castro.
The article is too sweeping. It’s basically a superficial hop skip and jump through America’s misdeeds since WW2. It’s the kind of thing one reads in the Jewish press.
By 1935 the Spanish socialist/republicans were either murdered by the Jewish Russian communist “advisors” or had fled Spain for their lives
Orwell and the rest of the useful idiot incredibly naive liberals were fighting to keep the Russian Jewish communist spetnatz special forces in power in Spain.
After 1935 the term Spanish Republicans is wrong. The proper term would Russian Jewish communists. The story of Spain in the 1930s is a real triumph of the Jewish leftist pro communist propaganda machine. Only the naive believe it.
Your date is incorrect.
Spanish Conservative Parties/Coalition wan the Nationwide election of 1933, and controlled Spain until the elections of 1936.
The Leftish coalition of Socialist & Anarchists won the election in 1936. The so-called ‘Communist Party’ of spain was miniscule & even as late as 1936, there were fewer than 5000 ‘communists’ in all of Spain.
It was during the Civil war of 1936-1939, that the Communists increased their strength – thanks to the Soviet support/suborning of the desperate Republican Government. The Stalinist controlled government in 1938, expelled the International Brigades (as a gift to the imperialists in America, France, & Britain), andin 1939, surrendered to the Spanish Military Government (Franco), that during the Civil Conflict had been supported by Roosevelt, Churchill, Blum, and Mussolini & Hitler.
The Anarchists were the largest Political Force in the coalition that supported the Spanish Republic, followed by the smaller Socialist, and Liberal parties. The Stalinists were useful as Judas Goats who infiltrated and led the Coalition to failure.
As Arthur Koestler parodied the Stalinists, he declared that they advanced from defeat to defeat.
If you wish to know what the Anarchists fought for, here is a link to a message from Durruti to the Russian Workers. His message was buried by Stalin, and never published in the Soviet media (also it has never been published in the Zionist American MSM media).
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjMmdLn4urQAhWTZiYKHViXDXsQFggaMAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.katesharpleylibrary.net%2Fbcc3dq&usg=AFQjCNGnFKQT8fRtt1hlhvpEk6qW3OF0KQ&sig2=SqXkQ2TNARkeTAD7bfwPFQ
The safest place in regard to Señor Obama was to be his enemy.
Prisons and cemeteries are full of people who helped him get elected.
Friends? Not exactly friends but he had sponsors in the CIA, which explains why Robert Gates stayed around so long as Secretary of Defense.
What nonsense about Stalin and the Spanish Civil War.
The only thing you have right is that the Soviet Communists rightly considered the anarchists fools and incompetent, which they were.
Georgi Plekhanov had the last word on Anarchists–they are the logical extension of the disenchanted, romanticized bourgeoisie.
True enough Plekhanov disagreed with Lenin and left Russia, but the Soviets continued to hold his work on the anarchists in high esteem.
The ace fifth columnist among the Spanish Republicans, of course, was George Orwell, pseudo-Socialist and elephant gun runner.
I was not writing about the communist party of Spain. I wrote about the Jewish Russian communists special forces who invaded Spain as soon as the socialist/ republicans won the election and killed all the republicans who did not go along with the Jewish Russian communist invaders
By the middle of 1935 the Spanish republicans had either gone over to the Russian Jews, fled or been murdered.
The Spanish republican government was seized by the Russian in 1935 after 2 years of murdering Spanish Republicans
You need to remember that the conventional histories of Spain in the 1930s are basically Jewish communist liberal anti Catholic anti western civilization propaganda.
Anyone who believes the Jewish communist version of 20th century history is hopelessly naive.
I think part of the problem around the world is due to Century Thinking.
We are used to the idea of one part of the world dominating the entire world.
For most of human history, there were regional powers but no world power, though maybe Mongols came close at one time.
But beginning with the Spanish Conquest of the New World, we could talk of a new kind of power. The Spanish Century.
But Spain eventually faced decline, and the Brits were on the rise. 19th century could be called the British Century, as its empire grew vast and it spearheaded the Industrial Revolution.
The 20th century was seen as the American Century. Soviets and Germans were contenders. And British and French power remained considerable up to first half of 20th century, but US became the predominant power for most of the century.
So, we have this way of thinking: Some great power dominates the entire world and owns the Century.
This is why Americans are so worried about the ‘Next Century’. If American Century is over, will it be the Chinese Century? Or maybe an Indian Century down the line?
But such thinking is no longer be viable.
In the past, one part of the world could indeed conquer and control so much of the world because its technological advantage was so much greater. Whites with science and technology had tremendous advantage over non-white folks.
Also, imperialism wasn’t seen as a moral wrong. It was seen as spreading the light of Jesus, superior folks ruling over inferior folks, spreading civilization, discovering the world, etc.
But this is no longer doable. The entire world has been discovered and conquered and settled. And even non-white nations have technology. Even if they can be conquered militarily, their bombs and guns can cause tremendous headache to the occupiers, as US found out in Vietnam and Soviets did in Afghanistan. (Sadly, mass migrations and immigration are creating grounds for new conquests that can only lead to disaster, especially for modern nations with low birth rates.)
Even the mighty US found out in Iraq that it is very difficult to maintain control over foreign peoples.
So, if the American Century passes, it doesn’t mean that another power has to necessarily fill the shoes of the ‘Next Century’.
I don’t think the Chinese, Russians, Indians, Iranians, Brazilians, and etc are thinking in Century-terms. They don’t want to own the world, inherit the world, and control the world. They just wanna do business. Politically and militarily, they just want to focus on regional power. Chinese don’t want to dominate the US coastline like the US navy still dominates much of Asian coastline.
Indeed, even most Americans think in post-Century terms.
The only groups that still obsessively think globally are the Anglos and Jews. Anglos still have residue of world domination mentality, and Jews, with their worldwide networking, think globally than nationally, not least because they don’t feel much national or tribal affinity with most people of the gentile nations in which they’ve prospered. Jewish-Americans don’t feel much love for fellow Americans and prefer the global game of interconnecting Jewish diaspora in North America, South America, Europe, and Middle East(and even in cuck nations in Middle East and Asia, the satellite puppets of the Zionist-ruled US). Jews often use homos and ‘human-rights’ as their proxies since they won’t win over many fans by nakedly declaring tribal interests.
Anglos and Jews still think in terms of Whose Century.
But the world would be better if we go into Post-Century thinking. No more idea of one nation or great power dominating the whole world.
So, if US departs from such thinking, the role will not be filled by a new power seeking to dominate the Next Century.
Instead, what will likely result is a multi-polar world that seeks better business relations with other parts of the world but has no ambition for global domination.
Century-Thinking is the legacy of the last several centuries when it was possible, even inevitable, for a great power to gain considerable dominance over the entire world. It began as imperialism and then justified itself in the name of anti-imperialism. US and USSR expanded their power in the name of spreading justice and ‘progress’ all over the world. They were officially anti-imperial empires. After the Cold War, the US has been seeking global dominance in the name of spreading prosperity, peace, and liberty. But the results have been lousy wherever the US overplayed its hands, especially in the Middle East that has undergone WWII-level destruction since the end of the Cold War.
Future centuries should belong to no single power. As the American Century finally comes to a close, it won’t be replaced by the Chinese century, Russian century, Indian century, Brazilian century, and etc. The whole idea of the Japanese Century in the 80s turned out to be a joke.
The future can be a peaceful multi-polar century with several important regions and economic zones. The US need not fear that if the American Century passes, a new power will dominate the world and fill America’s shoes. The fact is no power wants to fill those shoes which are too big for walking, even for America. Just look at US debacles all over the Middle East and North Africa. Look how the US messed up relations all over EU and Russia. Look how US needlessly ramps up tensions in Asia.
True. To be fair, so were the Soviets much of the time.
The elections the left won were in Feb. of ’36. Which elections are you talking about?
Not a bad assessment here:
http://www.gutenberg-e.org/kod01/frames/fkod23.html
(Conclusion section)
That was a hell of a line… I really meant it… Petras should come down from the Castle tip his hat.
” I am one of those people who fell under the spell of O”
Okay so you are admitting that you were a fool so maybe there is hope for you, as anyone with a modicum of common sense and wisdom would be able to see through his BS, and would be able to recognize the phoneyness and dishonesty permeating the ranks of his democrat comrades.
Authenticjazzman “Mensa” member of forty-plus years, and pro jazz artist.
“…Trump presented himself to the people as the anti-Obama and straight talking, patriotic American. But it was all a act and a brilliant one at that…”
I’m afraid you’re correct.
“…I suspect by the end of 2017 he’ll be one of the most hated men in America…”
I’ve started now to avoid the rush.
Media = Fake Media
Trump = Fake President
Immigrant from former USSR, you came to the wrong place as we’re next.
But he is being faulted and even threatened with impeachment already by something that has no validity or relevance and is neither unprecedented .
Robert Kuttner in Huffinghtonpost http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-kuttner/the-containment-of-trump-_b_13574018.html
No body believes in Trump win Russia WeekiLeaks myth and the national intelligence many times been shattered shredded and altered by sitting President .Intelligence Officers have been punished for telling the truth and whistle blowers have not merited anything better either.
Thank you.
Any suggestions, where my 3 grand-kids should move ?
” Trump = fake president”
Okay so what was your solution to this ( your ) dilema : voting for HC, the most dissolute individual being ever to persue political office in the US.
Authenticjazzman, “Mensa” society member of forty-plus years and pro jazz artist.
“t’s now clear that Donald Trump is far more severely impaired than even his worst critics imagined. And the cracks in his presumed governing coalition are starting to show, before he even takes office.
For starters, leading Republicans are pushing back on his insistence that he knows intelligence better than the CIA and challenging the idea that the U.S. should be a puppet of Vladimir Putin.
The best outcome, of course, would be for some constitutional Hail Mary pass to prevent Trump from becoming president:”
This is outrageous. I am very upset that Kuttner should write something like this.
Kuttner is advocating some or any kind of maneuver to prevent Trump from becoming president. This is OK with his readers?
Kuttner has bought into the “fake” news that Putin is Trump’s puppeteer. Shame on him!
And what does he have to say of Clinton as a Saudi puppet? There is actual evidence of that.
Seems like Kuttner is no longer of sound judgment and needs some public personality adjusting.
Get over it, RK. You give the left such as it is in the USA not a bad but a ridiculous name.
Trump won the election. I live in a blue state so it doesn’t matter how I voted. But Trump played by the rules in place and he played a better game than Clinton. And now Kuttner is talking about “Hail Marys”? Message to planet Earth (Kuttner and his anti-democratic ilk): The USA dodged a huge bullet when Clinton went down. Now we’ll see what Trump does.
correction: dilemma