But it's not just about war; it's the endless expense of preparation for war. Every Congressional district gets a piece of the pie. With a federal budget of 7.2 trillion dollars and "defense" being 10.5% of that, it's a big pie, and no other country even comes close. And incidentally that also amounts to almost half of all federal discretionary spending, so it sucks the oxygen out of what else can be done. And all this assumes no off-the-books spending too.
Naturally we need a reasonably large Pentagon establishment, but the point is that even without a shooting conflict (directly or through proxies, such as what we're doing to Yemen), the destruction of democracy can be exactly the same. It just takes longer and is more subtle. Throw in Citizens United and it's obvious where Congressional and Presidential interests lie.
Well said. There should not be such a fine, hazy line between defense and aggression; it should be a wide, clear demarcation that everyone understands and respects.
Roosevelt had Pearl Harbor. One thing Thom doesn't mention is that George Bush had The World Trade Center. Bin Laden understood the situation perfectly. His plan was for America to go crazy and bankrupt itself. Mission accomplished.
That is painfully true. Much like Timothy McVeigh trying to start a race war, Al-Qaeda sucker-punched the U.S., expecting the oil oligarchy occupying the White House at the time to rush headlong into the unwinnable Middle East religious wars, hoping to trigger a world conflagration to tear everything down and rebuild the world according to the commandments of their one and only and true God. Amen.
It's religious nihilism. Sound familiar? Along the same vein ideologically, albeit not as extreme, is the self-righteousness that animates the radical Christianists who are busily tearing down our democracy to establish their very own theocracy, which will, of course, discriminate against all heathens and heretics. Be forewarned.
The Russians attribute their prosperity to Putin. During the time they have joined the rest of the world and enjoyed the results, he is all they have known. Plus, there is a generation gap; the old ones remember the lines to purchase anything.
Politically, Russia also has a big rural/city divide just like ours. Putin isn't the only one still smarting about the break-up of the USSR. They were raised on cold war propaganda, so were we. But, here is the difference: travel and communication has been wide-open in the country we grew-up in.
I do think the Russians know a lot more in 2022 than they ever did, but many vote their pocketbook. It's kind of ugly....we would know.
Ordinary people who make the world work just want to raise their families, enjoy life, and live in peace. And then come the "leaders," the money, the power, the wars...
“Why of course the people don't want war. Why should some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally the common people don't want war: neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But after all it is the leaders of a country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or fascist dictatorship, or a parliament or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peace makers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.” Hermann Goering
The U.S. military has been involved in war crimes and genocide for more than two centuries but this is ignored whether in North or Central or South America or Vietnam or Afghanistan or Iraq or in Yemen. Nothing that the Russians are doing in Ukraine is not being done by U.S. forces and its allies in Saudi Arabia with the bombing of Yemen where a child is dying from starvation every 75 seconds. The U.S. supplies the weapons, the target locations, and even refuels the Saudi warplanes and provides maintenance for them after their missions of mass destruction.
The U.S. hegemony has a horrible history of military and economic imperialistic expansion, of which all Americans should be deeply ashamed. We are the biggest arms dealers on this planet of endless warfare and the purveyor of endless conflict.
So now what? The USA can't exactly disentangle itself from world affairs and hide within its own borders. Nowadays, no nation can. We all have to recognize and admit the huge mistakes of past human endeavor, learn that there's a better way forward, and commit to the continuing upward evolution of the mind and spirit. But there are those who are trying to drag us backward, even while the sand in humankind's hourglass is running out.
An honest comment. I agree that the better way forward is "the continuing upward evolution of the mind and spirit". And that, as you say, there are those "trying to drag us backward". Americans need to evaluate the Ideal they're striving for. At one time, that Ideal was represented by the goddess Columbia, as represented in your Statue of Liberty. Somehow, I don't think the goddess would approve of the direction of American evolution. That Ideal has been submerged by those looking for a "strongman"; someone who will exercise an iron will over them; someone like a Trump or a Putin. And they're willing to use their guns to bring it about. What they're really demonstrating is the feeling of their own weakness; many have lost that individual resolve you call spirit, the kind of resolve that existed in many of your early American heroes. Perhaps the blame for this lies in the manipulation of their minds through the television, films, public education, advertising and social media? My hope is that your nation will return to those high Ideals you once had. This will happen on an individual basis - individuals willing to stand up to those forces that wish to drag you backwards.
This is a brilliant and timely analysis; we have been lied to about the reasons behind all the war actions American presidents and their congressional leaders have drug us through since 1950. Not only has it ruined our country financially, but it has also destroyed all the good-will we deservedly had as the 'Good Guys' after WWII. Eisenhower warned us about the manipulations by the Military Industrial Industry's insidious powers to corrupt our country in 1961 (https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/eisenhower-warns-of-military-industrial-complex).
During the 1950-2022 we have tacitly allowed the executive office during both Democratic and Republican tenure to wage small and large military incursions against most of the rest of the world. During the 1970s, in the aftermath of the Vietnam war, I remember working with former UDT (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underwater_Demolition_Team) and other military specialist, and already then these young men expressed a complete loss of faith in their country going forward. This rot continued, and deepened after the draft was ended in 1973 (https://mindrightdetroit.com/about-vapes/quick-answer-when-did-the-military-draft-end.html). During the 1973-2020 period the entire US has been predominantly manned by a mix of career volunteers and young people unable to find a job and a career in other fields. Thus, unfortunately, the successive wars and war actions have been materially profitable for all these young men and women for 50+ years, and the Military Industrial manufacturing industry, with facilities in every congressional district has had an effective marketing base of civilian workers and families who needed to keep us on a perpetual war footing.
The lies surrounding all our war actions and, perhaps, even the 911 incident, thus have a tendency to, increasingly, become suspect, and become simply a continuous set of distractions that prevents us from maintaining our infra structure, invest in our neighborhoods and pay our K-12 teachers enough to graduate young people with marketable skills.
We have been lied to, we no longer have investigative journalists and we jail our whistleblowers.
Collectively, continuing to believe in the 2-party US system is almost impossible, because of the corruption and lobbying mechanism. Perhaps, just perhaps, a wave of 200 million voters simply never voting for an incumbent politician at any level ever again, may be our quickest way to quietly register our complete lack of faith in our current US political system. Would it not be a Blessing to impress new candidates with a mandate that their job will be to Serve, Listen and do their best on behalf of their home communities - and then return home to share their insights. NO MORE LIFERS IN WASHINGTON, DC.
Hartman citation:
But we’ve repeatedly failed to keep the power to make war constrained to the body that is, at least in theory, closest to the people: Congress.
Instead, for 70 years we’ve given presidents the power to make war with slick weasel words like “police action” and “Authorization to Use Military Force.”
Which makes it so hard to prevent war.
War is, on the one hand, the ultimate poison to a democracy unless its waged defensively like we last saw in WWII. The very human impulse to rally around one’s family, team, and nation is nearly irresistible, as we’ve seen here in America even when UN Weapons Inspectors are calling out the lies
The only chance to get 200 million voters to act in unison -- a nearly impossible feat -- is to organize them around unifying principles, which is what political parties do. Regardless of how the issue is sliced and diced, to gain power -- to have a say in government -- people have to "belong" to a party that has a reasonable chance of winning. Good luck trying to get 200 million Americans to start up another party from scratch that can compete with the big guys. Maybe in a century or so that might happen, if future generations can change certain basic election laws.
Meanwhile, until there's a viable alternative, the best path forward for liberal/progressives to gain power remains to be the effort to reform the Democratic Party by taking it over. It's too late for the "other" party, which is going full fascist.
Given the political reality of nearly half the country willing to give up on democracy altogether to cling to power illegitimately, what exactly would be an alternative path to power for those who still believe democracy is superior to authoritarianism? Beyond mere aspiration, what would be the actual process for achieving that goal outside the bounds of the Democratic Party?
The press is also mentioned in the constitution but has also been subverted to help lie us into war. It's happening again.
Citizen Psychosis Instead of Informed Citizens - Legacy Media
Since 2005, when I started my blog, I’ve been seeking independent news sources. After decades of donations to NPR and PBS, I even gave up on them and their growing dependence on wealthy donors. Today’s advertiser dependent legacy media are constrained by this dependence. Legacy media’s model based on entertainment and profit enriches a few while misinforming the many.
“The privileging of pro-war messages comes at the expense of useful reporting. As a result, American audiences remain largely uninformed about key issues regarding international affairs.”
“Russian President Vladimir Putin’s illegal and inexcusable invasion of Ukraine has provided a lucrative opportunity for the legacy news media to reignite and amplify more anti-Russian blather. None of this is to say that Russia or Putin should be defended in the press. Rather, American citizens, like any citizens in a supposed democracy, need context to understand global affairs, and the press is protected by the First Amendment of the Constitution for the purpose of providing that context.”
“However, when it comes to reporting, the legacy news media privileges profit over veracity. Indeed, much of the legacy media’s revenue and many of its guests originate from the defense industry, which benefits financially when Americans are supportive of war. For example, in March of 2022, the former Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson critiqued Russia on NBC’s Meet the Press, but the host, Chuck Todd, neglected to mention that Johnson sits on the board of global security and aerospace company Lockheed Martin. This is a clear conflict of interest that audiences should be made aware of when they consider Johnson’s analysis.”
"For their part, the corporate news media endorsed the [Iraq] invasion and perpetuated the fake news that legitimized it. Most politicians in the two corporate-backed political parties endorsed it as well."
" ... Just as anti-war figures like Jesse Ventura, Phil Donahue, Bill Maher, and Chris Hedges were pulled from legacy news media in 2003, corporate news and big tech have recently worked to remove content by anti-war and anti-imperialist figures such as Oliver Stone, Abby Martin, and—once again—Chris Hedges, who this time around lost his platform with Roku, DirecTV, and YouTube, which removed access to the archives of RT America, both from cable subscription services and online."
"Meanwhile, the very same people who lied to the public and got them to support the 2003 invasion of Iraq are now “informing” the public about Ukraine and Russia."
“ … If you want to stop World War III, rather than cutting out Moscow mules, remove legacy news media from your diet, and expand your news menu with broader, more independent and diverse perspectives and information. Our collective future depends upon it.”
We don’t have a Joseph Goebbel, but we do have legacy media CEOs who know what’s good for their bottom line may not be good for America.
Hi John, It would be convenient to have such a "clearing house." However, that depends on who is running it? What agenda might they have? Do I support their agenda?
I am my own clearing house. One side I see profit-driven MSM where advertisers influence what's reported. One the other are many independent, profit-free, news sources that are influenced by their individual subscribers who trust that source and will unsubscribe if reporting becomes suspect. I have become a paid subscriber to Thom Hartman and others I trust.
MSM is easily accessed but independent news takes time to find and trust. I've been vetting and filtering the independent, progressive, profit-free, media since 2005. My email Inbox includes key independent media I trust but I don't have the time to read all that is shared. One of those key resources is FAIR (Fariness & Accuracy In Reporting). FAIR provides independent views on what MSM is reporting on or ignoring. FAIR was founded by Jeff Cohen, a former MSNBC reporter who was fired for his anti-Iraq war reporting back around 2003. Jeff is just one of the several reporters fired by MSNBC for upsetting their advertisers by reporting what others don't want to hear.
Checkout my "Profit-free Media" list of news sources. Scroll down in my blog to find this list in the right-hand column: https://the-wawg-blog.org/author/admin/
NATO started as defensive, but that changed in 1997:
There is a written plan in 1997 for American dominance of Eurasia by Zbigniew Brzezinski to control Russia by controlling Ukraine after gaining control of Eastern Europe.
“Ukraine, a new and important space on the Eurasian chessboard, is a geopolitical pivot because its very existence as an independent country helps to transform Russia. Without Ukraine, Russia ceases to be a Eurasian empire.”
“However, if Moscow regains control over Ukraine, with its 52 million people and major resources as well as access to the Black Sea, Russia automatically again regains the wherewithal to become a powerful imperial state, spanning Europe and Asia.”
Brzezinski wrote that Eurasia is “the chessboard on which the struggle for global primacy continues to be played,” and that “it is imperative that no Eurasian challenger emerges, capable of dominating Eurasia and thus also of challenging America.”
More on Brzezinski Mapped Out the Battle for Ukraine in 1997:
Brzezinski was an old cold-war warrior, a man of his time describing the Russian-US-European, three-way chess game of his time. Now we live in different times with different players and a new game. And any such large and complex organization requiring a monumental influx of capital -- regardless of the players, the game, and the times -- will naturally have monumental internal corruption to root out. That's a neverending battle for internal watchdogs and external investigative journalists.
In the end, greed rules the world, and that sorely needs to change, or we're all doomed anyway. Still, NATO doesn't invade other countries and force them to join; they join willingly and gladly because they know what a bloodthirsty monster Putin is, a Stalinesque tyrant entertaining grandiose delusions of conquering Eurasia. They also know what a great deal it is to be protected from such a genocidal maniac, his globe-trotting assassins, and his warmongering war criminals.
Nevertheless, the basic concept of strengthening NATO is still a clear defensive move despite Russian paranoia and projection. Expanding a multi-nation defensive organization against a militaristic superpower that is forever preparing to invade its sovereign neighbors to reclaim its defeated empire, cannot and should not be misconstrued as coercive aggression. Russia's expansion, on the other hand, is at the point of a goddamn gun because no one wants to join Putin's ruthless gang of thieves and murderers raping even their own country!
Some things never change. The necessity of warding off bullies is one of them.
I would say NATO has been passively agreesive. It has expanded even with the end of the USSR, as Brzezinski described it should. Expansion is expansion regardless of voluntary methods. I just wonder what will keep NATO from becoming tyrannical and acting like Russia against Russia or China. Yes, Brzezinski is gone, but the war mongering neocons, who agree with him, are still here and impacting our foreign policy, i.e. Iraq.
Speaking of agressive, war-mongering, neocons from the west, here are some recent quotes:
Speaking to Bloomberg News on March 17, Leon Panetta, the former CIA director and defense secretary under Barack Obama, laid out the U.S. strategy: “Make no mistake about it: Diplomacy is going nowhere unless we have leverage, unless the Ukrainians have leverage, and the way you get leverage is by, frankly, going in and killing Russians. That’s what the Ukrainians have to do. We’ve got to continue the war effort. This is a power game. Putin understands power; he doesn’t really understand diplomacy very much.”
In her recent essay for The Atlantic, Anne Applebaum, a prominent Russia hawk, argued that now is the time for the U.S. and its allies to embrace a new Cold War. “As long as Russia is ruled by Putin, then Russia is at war with us too. So are Belarus, North Korea, Venezuela, Iran, Nicaragua, Hungary, and potentially many others,” she wrote. “There is no natural liberal world order, and there are no rules without someone to enforce them.”
“Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is today’s Churchill, and President Biden is today’s FDR,” wrote the notorious war promoter Max Boot in the Washington Post. “A Russian defeat,” Boot argued, “is essential to save Ukraine and safeguard the liberal international order. The Ukrainians are willing to fight on despite their heartbreaking losses. We just need to give them the tools to finish the job.”
"Ukraine is ground zero for the expansion of the U.S.-Russia proxy war."
I completely agree with all of the above. Ukrainians are literally fighting for their lives against a tyrannical mass murderer and major war criminal who only understands military power and dominance. But I get it; ubiquiteous Russian propaganda is flooding the social media markets trying to reverse the narrative. It's too bad Trumplicans, and other Putin apologists, are on the wrong side of history -- too full of themselves to realize they're aiding and abetting one of our most dangerous enemies. In my book, that's fucking treason!
What a punchline! Yep, if Tsar to horror (they hanged the aristocrats' horses, for cripes sake) to Stalin is your standard.... I visited USSR in 1968. Aeroflot jet tires were bald. Old ladies were trudging with wooden buckets across their shoulders along road to Moscow: power lines, but no connecting lines to hovels along the way. Elevator in our hotel got stuck six feet short. Lenin's beard was still growing. Intourist guide had obvious "minders" and met my mom (and me) in middle of Moscow bridge to ask to be sent "For Whom the Bell Tolls." Seriously! If that's your lifestyle comparison, what can they (whoever says they are) do to you? George Orwell is, like, my book should have been titled "Paradise." No. Just Russia.
Yeah, for a world-class mass murderer destroying his own country and his own people as well as neighboring sovereignties, he ain't such a bad guy.
The Russian people have been lied to so badly that it doesn't really matter what they think, except for those brave souls who dare to resist. Ditto for most Republicans in the US. It's like asking a mental patient to self-evaluate and self-medicate. Why should NATO, the US, or anyone else give any weight at all to such ridiculous and destructive falsehoods and delusions in their decision-making processes?
NATO remains a necessary defensive force regardless of enemy propaganda. And Putin has proven in the past and is once again proving in spades why a robust defense is so vital for maintaining peace and stability in the region. Notice he won't attack NATO countries. It's not complicated.
But it's not just about war; it's the endless expense of preparation for war. Every Congressional district gets a piece of the pie. With a federal budget of 7.2 trillion dollars and "defense" being 10.5% of that, it's a big pie, and no other country even comes close. And incidentally that also amounts to almost half of all federal discretionary spending, so it sucks the oxygen out of what else can be done. And all this assumes no off-the-books spending too.
Naturally we need a reasonably large Pentagon establishment, but the point is that even without a shooting conflict (directly or through proxies, such as what we're doing to Yemen), the destruction of democracy can be exactly the same. It just takes longer and is more subtle. Throw in Citizens United and it's obvious where Congressional and Presidential interests lie.
Well said. There should not be such a fine, hazy line between defense and aggression; it should be a wide, clear demarcation that everyone understands and respects.
Roosevelt had Pearl Harbor. One thing Thom doesn't mention is that George Bush had The World Trade Center. Bin Laden understood the situation perfectly. His plan was for America to go crazy and bankrupt itself. Mission accomplished.
That is painfully true. Much like Timothy McVeigh trying to start a race war, Al-Qaeda sucker-punched the U.S., expecting the oil oligarchy occupying the White House at the time to rush headlong into the unwinnable Middle East religious wars, hoping to trigger a world conflagration to tear everything down and rebuild the world according to the commandments of their one and only and true God. Amen.
It's religious nihilism. Sound familiar? Along the same vein ideologically, albeit not as extreme, is the self-righteousness that animates the radical Christianists who are busily tearing down our democracy to establish their very own theocracy, which will, of course, discriminate against all heathens and heretics. Be forewarned.
Which interestingly returns us full circle to Thom's theme: everything old is new again.
The Russians attribute their prosperity to Putin. During the time they have joined the rest of the world and enjoyed the results, he is all they have known. Plus, there is a generation gap; the old ones remember the lines to purchase anything.
Politically, Russia also has a big rural/city divide just like ours. Putin isn't the only one still smarting about the break-up of the USSR. They were raised on cold war propaganda, so were we. But, here is the difference: travel and communication has been wide-open in the country we grew-up in.
I do think the Russians know a lot more in 2022 than they ever did, but many vote their pocketbook. It's kind of ugly....we would know.
Ordinary people who make the world work just want to raise their families, enjoy life, and live in peace. And then come the "leaders," the money, the power, the wars...
“Why of course the people don't want war. Why should some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally the common people don't want war: neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But after all it is the leaders of a country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or fascist dictatorship, or a parliament or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peace makers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.” Hermann Goering
The U.S. military has been involved in war crimes and genocide for more than two centuries but this is ignored whether in North or Central or South America or Vietnam or Afghanistan or Iraq or in Yemen. Nothing that the Russians are doing in Ukraine is not being done by U.S. forces and its allies in Saudi Arabia with the bombing of Yemen where a child is dying from starvation every 75 seconds. The U.S. supplies the weapons, the target locations, and even refuels the Saudi warplanes and provides maintenance for them after their missions of mass destruction.
The U.S. hegemony has a horrible history of military and economic imperialistic expansion, of which all Americans should be deeply ashamed. We are the biggest arms dealers on this planet of endless warfare and the purveyor of endless conflict.
So now what? The USA can't exactly disentangle itself from world affairs and hide within its own borders. Nowadays, no nation can. We all have to recognize and admit the huge mistakes of past human endeavor, learn that there's a better way forward, and commit to the continuing upward evolution of the mind and spirit. But there are those who are trying to drag us backward, even while the sand in humankind's hourglass is running out.
An honest comment. I agree that the better way forward is "the continuing upward evolution of the mind and spirit". And that, as you say, there are those "trying to drag us backward". Americans need to evaluate the Ideal they're striving for. At one time, that Ideal was represented by the goddess Columbia, as represented in your Statue of Liberty. Somehow, I don't think the goddess would approve of the direction of American evolution. That Ideal has been submerged by those looking for a "strongman"; someone who will exercise an iron will over them; someone like a Trump or a Putin. And they're willing to use their guns to bring it about. What they're really demonstrating is the feeling of their own weakness; many have lost that individual resolve you call spirit, the kind of resolve that existed in many of your early American heroes. Perhaps the blame for this lies in the manipulation of their minds through the television, films, public education, advertising and social media? My hope is that your nation will return to those high Ideals you once had. This will happen on an individual basis - individuals willing to stand up to those forces that wish to drag you backwards.
Each person IS the world and the hope for a better world.
This is a brilliant and timely analysis; we have been lied to about the reasons behind all the war actions American presidents and their congressional leaders have drug us through since 1950. Not only has it ruined our country financially, but it has also destroyed all the good-will we deservedly had as the 'Good Guys' after WWII. Eisenhower warned us about the manipulations by the Military Industrial Industry's insidious powers to corrupt our country in 1961 (https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/eisenhower-warns-of-military-industrial-complex).
During the 1950-2022 we have tacitly allowed the executive office during both Democratic and Republican tenure to wage small and large military incursions against most of the rest of the world. During the 1970s, in the aftermath of the Vietnam war, I remember working with former UDT (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underwater_Demolition_Team) and other military specialist, and already then these young men expressed a complete loss of faith in their country going forward. This rot continued, and deepened after the draft was ended in 1973 (https://mindrightdetroit.com/about-vapes/quick-answer-when-did-the-military-draft-end.html). During the 1973-2020 period the entire US has been predominantly manned by a mix of career volunteers and young people unable to find a job and a career in other fields. Thus, unfortunately, the successive wars and war actions have been materially profitable for all these young men and women for 50+ years, and the Military Industrial manufacturing industry, with facilities in every congressional district has had an effective marketing base of civilian workers and families who needed to keep us on a perpetual war footing.
The lies surrounding all our war actions and, perhaps, even the 911 incident, thus have a tendency to, increasingly, become suspect, and become simply a continuous set of distractions that prevents us from maintaining our infra structure, invest in our neighborhoods and pay our K-12 teachers enough to graduate young people with marketable skills.
We have been lied to, we no longer have investigative journalists and we jail our whistleblowers.
Collectively, continuing to believe in the 2-party US system is almost impossible, because of the corruption and lobbying mechanism. Perhaps, just perhaps, a wave of 200 million voters simply never voting for an incumbent politician at any level ever again, may be our quickest way to quietly register our complete lack of faith in our current US political system. Would it not be a Blessing to impress new candidates with a mandate that their job will be to Serve, Listen and do their best on behalf of their home communities - and then return home to share their insights. NO MORE LIFERS IN WASHINGTON, DC.
Hartman citation:
But we’ve repeatedly failed to keep the power to make war constrained to the body that is, at least in theory, closest to the people: Congress.
Instead, for 70 years we’ve given presidents the power to make war with slick weasel words like “police action” and “Authorization to Use Military Force.”
Which makes it so hard to prevent war.
War is, on the one hand, the ultimate poison to a democracy unless its waged defensively like we last saw in WWII. The very human impulse to rally around one’s family, team, and nation is nearly irresistible, as we’ve seen here in America even when UN Weapons Inspectors are calling out the lies
The only chance to get 200 million voters to act in unison -- a nearly impossible feat -- is to organize them around unifying principles, which is what political parties do. Regardless of how the issue is sliced and diced, to gain power -- to have a say in government -- people have to "belong" to a party that has a reasonable chance of winning. Good luck trying to get 200 million Americans to start up another party from scratch that can compete with the big guys. Maybe in a century or so that might happen, if future generations can change certain basic election laws.
Meanwhile, until there's a viable alternative, the best path forward for liberal/progressives to gain power remains to be the effort to reform the Democratic Party by taking it over. It's too late for the "other" party, which is going full fascist.
Given the political reality of nearly half the country willing to give up on democracy altogether to cling to power illegitimately, what exactly would be an alternative path to power for those who still believe democracy is superior to authoritarianism? Beyond mere aspiration, what would be the actual process for achieving that goal outside the bounds of the Democratic Party?
Brilliant...
The press is also mentioned in the constitution but has also been subverted to help lie us into war. It's happening again.
Citizen Psychosis Instead of Informed Citizens - Legacy Media
Since 2005, when I started my blog, I’ve been seeking independent news sources. After decades of donations to NPR and PBS, I even gave up on them and their growing dependence on wealthy donors. Today’s advertiser dependent legacy media are constrained by this dependence. Legacy media’s model based on entertainment and profit enriches a few while misinforming the many.
“The privileging of pro-war messages comes at the expense of useful reporting. As a result, American audiences remain largely uninformed about key issues regarding international affairs.”
“Russian President Vladimir Putin’s illegal and inexcusable invasion of Ukraine has provided a lucrative opportunity for the legacy news media to reignite and amplify more anti-Russian blather. None of this is to say that Russia or Putin should be defended in the press. Rather, American citizens, like any citizens in a supposed democracy, need context to understand global affairs, and the press is protected by the First Amendment of the Constitution for the purpose of providing that context.”
“However, when it comes to reporting, the legacy news media privileges profit over veracity. Indeed, much of the legacy media’s revenue and many of its guests originate from the defense industry, which benefits financially when Americans are supportive of war. For example, in March of 2022, the former Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson critiqued Russia on NBC’s Meet the Press, but the host, Chuck Todd, neglected to mention that Johnson sits on the board of global security and aerospace company Lockheed Martin. This is a clear conflict of interest that audiences should be made aware of when they consider Johnson’s analysis.”
"For their part, the corporate news media endorsed the [Iraq] invasion and perpetuated the fake news that legitimized it. Most politicians in the two corporate-backed political parties endorsed it as well."
" ... Just as anti-war figures like Jesse Ventura, Phil Donahue, Bill Maher, and Chris Hedges were pulled from legacy news media in 2003, corporate news and big tech have recently worked to remove content by anti-war and anti-imperialist figures such as Oliver Stone, Abby Martin, and—once again—Chris Hedges, who this time around lost his platform with Roku, DirecTV, and YouTube, which removed access to the archives of RT America, both from cable subscription services and online."
"Meanwhile, the very same people who lied to the public and got them to support the 2003 invasion of Iraq are now “informing” the public about Ukraine and Russia."
“ … If you want to stop World War III, rather than cutting out Moscow mules, remove legacy news media from your diet, and expand your news menu with broader, more independent and diverse perspectives and information. Our collective future depends upon it.”
We don’t have a Joseph Goebbel, but we do have legacy media CEOs who know what’s good for their bottom line may not be good for America.
https://www.pressenza.com/2022/04/how-corporate-media-has-put-the-american-public-in-a-state-of-ukraine-russia-psychosis/
Hi John, It would be convenient to have such a "clearing house." However, that depends on who is running it? What agenda might they have? Do I support their agenda?
I am my own clearing house. One side I see profit-driven MSM where advertisers influence what's reported. One the other are many independent, profit-free, news sources that are influenced by their individual subscribers who trust that source and will unsubscribe if reporting becomes suspect. I have become a paid subscriber to Thom Hartman and others I trust.
MSM is easily accessed but independent news takes time to find and trust. I've been vetting and filtering the independent, progressive, profit-free, media since 2005. My email Inbox includes key independent media I trust but I don't have the time to read all that is shared. One of those key resources is FAIR (Fariness & Accuracy In Reporting). FAIR provides independent views on what MSM is reporting on or ignoring. FAIR was founded by Jeff Cohen, a former MSNBC reporter who was fired for his anti-Iraq war reporting back around 2003. Jeff is just one of the several reporters fired by MSNBC for upsetting their advertisers by reporting what others don't want to hear.
Checkout my "Profit-free Media" list of news sources. Scroll down in my blog to find this list in the right-hand column: https://the-wawg-blog.org/author/admin/
NATO is a defensive alliance to counter Russian aggression. It's not some monster trying to gobble up Russia.
Putin is the aggressor; NATO is the defense. Participants in the alliance should keep that straight and not promote enemy propaganda.
NATO started as defensive, but that changed in 1997:
There is a written plan in 1997 for American dominance of Eurasia by Zbigniew Brzezinski to control Russia by controlling Ukraine after gaining control of Eastern Europe.
From page 71 of Brzezinski’s book, https://www.cia.gov/library/abbottabad-compound/36/36669B7894E857AC4F3445EA646BFFE1_Zbigniew_Brzezinski_-_The_Grand_ChessBoard.doc.pdf: “The central issue for America is how to construct a Europe that is based on the Franco- German connection, a Europe that is viable, that remains linked to the United States, and that widens the scope of the cooperative democratic international [capitalist] system on which the effective exercise of American global primacy so much depends.”
Other book quotes include:
“Ukraine, a new and important space on the Eurasian chessboard, is a geopolitical pivot because its very existence as an independent country helps to transform Russia. Without Ukraine, Russia ceases to be a Eurasian empire.”
“However, if Moscow regains control over Ukraine, with its 52 million people and major resources as well as access to the Black Sea, Russia automatically again regains the wherewithal to become a powerful imperial state, spanning Europe and Asia.”
Brzezinski wrote that Eurasia is “the chessboard on which the struggle for global primacy continues to be played,” and that “it is imperative that no Eurasian challenger emerges, capable of dominating Eurasia and thus also of challenging America.”
More on Brzezinski Mapped Out the Battle for Ukraine in 1997:
https://original.antiwar.com/chris_ernesto/2014/03/14/brzezinski-mapped-out-the-battle-for-ukraine-in-1997/
Brzezinski was an old cold-war warrior, a man of his time describing the Russian-US-European, three-way chess game of his time. Now we live in different times with different players and a new game. And any such large and complex organization requiring a monumental influx of capital -- regardless of the players, the game, and the times -- will naturally have monumental internal corruption to root out. That's a neverending battle for internal watchdogs and external investigative journalists.
In the end, greed rules the world, and that sorely needs to change, or we're all doomed anyway. Still, NATO doesn't invade other countries and force them to join; they join willingly and gladly because they know what a bloodthirsty monster Putin is, a Stalinesque tyrant entertaining grandiose delusions of conquering Eurasia. They also know what a great deal it is to be protected from such a genocidal maniac, his globe-trotting assassins, and his warmongering war criminals.
Nevertheless, the basic concept of strengthening NATO is still a clear defensive move despite Russian paranoia and projection. Expanding a multi-nation defensive organization against a militaristic superpower that is forever preparing to invade its sovereign neighbors to reclaim its defeated empire, cannot and should not be misconstrued as coercive aggression. Russia's expansion, on the other hand, is at the point of a goddamn gun because no one wants to join Putin's ruthless gang of thieves and murderers raping even their own country!
Some things never change. The necessity of warding off bullies is one of them.
I would say NATO has been passively agreesive. It has expanded even with the end of the USSR, as Brzezinski described it should. Expansion is expansion regardless of voluntary methods. I just wonder what will keep NATO from becoming tyrannical and acting like Russia against Russia or China. Yes, Brzezinski is gone, but the war mongering neocons, who agree with him, are still here and impacting our foreign policy, i.e. Iraq.
Speaking of agressive, war-mongering, neocons from the west, here are some recent quotes:
Speaking to Bloomberg News on March 17, Leon Panetta, the former CIA director and defense secretary under Barack Obama, laid out the U.S. strategy: “Make no mistake about it: Diplomacy is going nowhere unless we have leverage, unless the Ukrainians have leverage, and the way you get leverage is by, frankly, going in and killing Russians. That’s what the Ukrainians have to do. We’ve got to continue the war effort. This is a power game. Putin understands power; he doesn’t really understand diplomacy very much.”
In her recent essay for The Atlantic, Anne Applebaum, a prominent Russia hawk, argued that now is the time for the U.S. and its allies to embrace a new Cold War. “As long as Russia is ruled by Putin, then Russia is at war with us too. So are Belarus, North Korea, Venezuela, Iran, Nicaragua, Hungary, and potentially many others,” she wrote. “There is no natural liberal world order, and there are no rules without someone to enforce them.”
“Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is today’s Churchill, and President Biden is today’s FDR,” wrote the notorious war promoter Max Boot in the Washington Post. “A Russian defeat,” Boot argued, “is essential to save Ukraine and safeguard the liberal international order. The Ukrainians are willing to fight on despite their heartbreaking losses. We just need to give them the tools to finish the job.”
"Ukraine is ground zero for the expansion of the U.S.-Russia proxy war."
https://theintercept.com/2022/04/01/russia-ukraine-proxy-war-washington-diplomacy/
I completely agree with all of the above. Ukrainians are literally fighting for their lives against a tyrannical mass murderer and major war criminal who only understands military power and dominance. But I get it; ubiquiteous Russian propaganda is flooding the social media markets trying to reverse the narrative. It's too bad Trumplicans, and other Putin apologists, are on the wrong side of history -- too full of themselves to realize they're aiding and abetting one of our most dangerous enemies. In my book, that's fucking treason!
Wait... who is the aggressor?
What a punchline! Yep, if Tsar to horror (they hanged the aristocrats' horses, for cripes sake) to Stalin is your standard.... I visited USSR in 1968. Aeroflot jet tires were bald. Old ladies were trudging with wooden buckets across their shoulders along road to Moscow: power lines, but no connecting lines to hovels along the way. Elevator in our hotel got stuck six feet short. Lenin's beard was still growing. Intourist guide had obvious "minders" and met my mom (and me) in middle of Moscow bridge to ask to be sent "For Whom the Bell Tolls." Seriously! If that's your lifestyle comparison, what can they (whoever says they are) do to you? George Orwell is, like, my book should have been titled "Paradise." No. Just Russia.
Yeah, for a world-class mass murderer destroying his own country and his own people as well as neighboring sovereignties, he ain't such a bad guy.
The Russian people have been lied to so badly that it doesn't really matter what they think, except for those brave souls who dare to resist. Ditto for most Republicans in the US. It's like asking a mental patient to self-evaluate and self-medicate. Why should NATO, the US, or anyone else give any weight at all to such ridiculous and destructive falsehoods and delusions in their decision-making processes?
NATO remains a necessary defensive force regardless of enemy propaganda. And Putin has proven in the past and is once again proving in spades why a robust defense is so vital for maintaining peace and stability in the region. Notice he won't attack NATO countries. It's not complicated.