By Ramin Mazaheri for the Saker Blog
If you had said back in May that the CARES Act would be the only fiscal stimulus in the world’s richest country surely you would have responded, “But then by October America will certainly be in pandemonium?”
Well… where’s the pandemonium?
I can best explain this American exceptionalism – that they go postal only when they should not, instead of when they should – via this October 3rd report I did for PressTV.
For those of you who don’t want to deal with the “inexplicable” glitches and stops which somehow “magically” afflict every PressTV report I try to watch from inside the US, here’s the recap: in Chicago, which is just a half-million people short of being a megacity, only about 150 people showed up for an anti-unemployment demonstration even though half the country is affected by either joblessness or under-employment.
In urban areas like San Francisco, with a metro area half the size of Chicago’s, you have 11 jobless for every one job opening, and yet… 150 people here?
As a reporter I just give the facts… and then, as I refuse to be a “useful idiot”, I also openly interpret the facts: the fact is, Americans have no idea what they are doing when it comes to politics. If you ask them whether the problem is either ignorance or apathy, they respond, “I don’t know and I don’t care.”
The problem, as I am a staunch believer in (non-Obama-related types of) hope, is not with the average Joe but with the Washington elite, who even if they came from an average Joe quite obviously do not care about the average Joe anymore.
Of course, as the currently-under-confirmation-proceedings Supreme Court Justice nominee Amy Coney Barrett proves, those tapped for the most truly elite spots are rarely from average Joe areas: Barrett would be, incredibly, the first justice who did not spend most of her life on the East Coast. To give an objective point to those in favor of the “Americans are ignorant” theory: mention “East Coast bias” to an American and they will think you are talking about how ESPN keeps talking about the Patriots and Yankees.
But the bewildering lack of any 2nd stimulus for households so emphatically proves that the Democratic leadership does not care about the average Joe (Republicans only care about an average Joe if said Joe is willing to reject all government assistance in every form) that even CNN had to hold Nancy Pelosi’s feet to the fire for the first time since Trump won the Republican primaries in 2016. Pelosi accused Wolf Blitzer and CNN of – now get ready to laugh – being “apologists for Republicans” simply because he pressed her on the bewildering and poverty-fuelling lack of a 2nd household stimulus.
LOL – maybe the Russians have flipped Wolf, eh Nancy? Putin’s power is limitless!
No, it’s just bewildering to even the CNN journalists as to why Democratic leadership refuses to alleviate massive economic suffering. I explained it here: No 2nd stimulus? Time to admit both parties want to destroy the average American, for those in the inexperienced youth class who can’t believe that Democrats could be as merciless and self-interested as those aren’t-they-just-ghastly conservatives.
Is this another boring article of me complaining about the super-failures of the super-capitalist imperialist US in 2020?
No, it’s to point out how wrong I am. Way back on May 28, in an article titled August 1: when the unemployment runs out and a new era of US labor battles begin I correctly opined, “I think there is no chance that the US 1% authorises an extension of the $600 per week extra past August 1 – it was totally out of keeping with US ideology to begin with, and yet another indicator of the hysteria which swept the US regarding coronavirus.” But – as I often can’t keep my mouth shut – I foolishly added, “Buy some popcorn and watch the show – August 1 is going to see public labor-related rage for the first time since the 1930s.”
So it’s less than three weeks until the election – where’s the labor-related rage?
I was in Kenosha, Wisconsin, again yesterday – the place is still totally boarded up, which seems rather much to me: There hasn’t been any widespread social rebellion since the end of August, anywhere. This article asks why that is?
The answer is the super-failures of the super-capitalist imperialist US that the US system produces tremendous political apathy, which has a side effect of increasing political ignorance.
As proof: I cannot express how pleas to “get out and vote” amazingly outnumber the advertisements for McDonalds, Coke and Beyonce combined – that seems like an impossibility, no? But such is the enormous political inertia here.
This apathy results in cases such as the nation’s third-largest city mustering only 150 people, 95% of whom were under 30, as the youth class has not relinquished that unique American optimism which eventually buckles under the reality encountered outside of school of the super-failures of the super-capitalist imperialist US.
If the trend of calm continues, the 2020 record will have to state that it was only Black-related issues which caused public protest despite the massive, massive societal chaos.
We can perhaps explain this by noting that the only truly successful protests in the US since nearly 1917 (the first year of socialist success) have been for Black-related issues. Stick with what works, I guess?
Indeed, the last grassroots, from-the-streets victory by White Americans was in 1920 – the year that anti-alcohol Prohibition was passed, as was women’s suffrage. Ever since socialism became a real thing it should be clear that White Americans are not about to march under anything resembling that successful banner, as it obviously opposes US domination.
Don’t tell me that Baby Boomers stopped Vietnam – the Vietnamese resistance booted out the invaders in 1975, not Western hippies. Americans didn’t flee until 8 full years after the “Summer of Love”.
2020 proves what we have known since those fun, marijuana-fuelled protests of the 1960s: White Americans simply don’t protest.
Republicans don’t protest, period. After all, they are status quo-lovers, and they aren’t about to muck up the system which they believe is the best in the world and always will be.
Democrats aren’t protesting because their elite leadership in 2020 has kept them overflowing with fear (corona), anger (Trump), identity politics (Black Lives Matter (which is not nonsense to Black people, of course, but which is inherently a minority-based movement as opposed to a broad, class-based, majority movement), and – above all – the rabid, competitive, evangelical fervor to win short-term growth via any means necessary in November’s elections.
But the bottom line is: for decades Americans have insisted on the status quo and violently rejected the call for any sort of revolutionary change in the economic and political structures upon which several centuries of Western culture has been based (bourgeois, aristocratic liberalism (for those who can afford it)). They have said to any nation or person – if you are not totally with us in maintaining these structures which preserve the status quo then we are totally against you.
Indeed, this is why I have always thought that “Civil War II is coming” worries are rather nonsense and impossible: Americans, for myriad reasons – ranging from fear of each other to smug complacency to apocalyptic apathy – simply don’t upset the apple cart. They are propagandised to always be selling apples, no matter how rotten they obviously are.
So there are no protests and I am proved wrong. But it is my job to opine, and thus to look foolish because – as a journalist – my learning is done in public.
But hope springs eternal – perhaps in the coming days Americans will indeed harness their widespread inner pandemonium against a leadership class which can’t even suggest that they eat cake amid massive hunger and shortages.
Ramin Mazaheri is currently covering the US elections. He is the chief correspondent in Paris for PressTV and has lived in France since 2009. He has been a daily newspaper reporter in the US, and has reported from Iran, Cuba, Egypt, Tunisia, South Korea and elsewhere. He is the author of ‘Socialism’s Ignored Success: Iranian Islamic Socialism’as well as ‘I’ll Ruin Everything You Are: Ending Western Propaganda on Red China’, which is also available in simplified and traditional Chinese.
The protests that you might not be considering, Ramin, are the long lines yesterday at polling stations in Georgia and Texas. Guess what, they were wearing masks, unlike the too stupid to live Trumpsters at his rallies. That tells me that they most likely were standing in line for hours, enduring massive voter suppression, to vote for Biden, not Trump.
But, Trump keeps telling his followers that COVID-19 is just a hoax and they should hit the bars and beaches like normal. We’ll see how this all shakes out in the end, but I’m thinking that Trump had better rethink his plans for the future. You know, the one that might send him to prison for his numerous crimes? He can always run off to Israel, though, like so many Kosher Nostra mobsters have done before him. That is, if the Zionists like Pompeo haven’t attacked Iran and started WWIII by then. If that happens, all bets are off.
“But, Trump keeps telling his followers that COVID-19 is just a hoax and they should hit the bars and beaches like normal.”
Covid-19 IS a hoax if you care to look a bit further.
Here some links so you can inform yourself if interested. Those scientific results are just about one single vitamin that will reduce the ICU risk for the most vulnerable by about 97%.
https://chrismasterjohnphd.com/covid-19/finally-confirmed-vitamin-d-nearly-abolishes-icu-risk-in-covid-19
https://chrismasterjohnphd.com/covid-19/five-new-vitamin-d-and-covid-19-studies
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7231123/
https://www.sott.net/article/442014-Study-Vitamin-D-sufficiency-reduces-complications-deaths-among-Covid-19-patients
Add vitamin C to that, preferably the liposomal (aka ĺipospheric) preparation that you can make at home at very low cost and if you want a whole range of other, natural and cheap, substances and your risk to fall ill of this bad joke of a ‘killer’ virus falls to 0%. Neither your doctor nor your government will tell you this, funny, ain’t it? “I’m from the government and I’m here to help you.”! NOT!
After having tried for months to inform people that their health is in their own hands, my sister recently told me not to bother any further. She said that this might well become a marvelous ‘natural’ selection. The silly dumbos listening to the medical profession and @$$holes like evil Billy Gates will risk their lifes, and those who seek for truthful information and who take care of themselves will live.
I should probably listen to her and no longer worry about the health of other people.
You’re being played, JC. COVID-19 is a bioweapon developed most likely in a lab in North Carolina. It was designed to attack the elderly, the infirm, and especially people of color, useless eaters if you will. The whole reason for it was population reduction. As Henry Kissinger said back in 2016, “Population reduction should be our primary response to the Third World.”
It was first used in Wuhan, didn’t work very well, they beat it, as did most other collectivist nations. Then it was used in the USA to provide cover for the biggest transfer of wealth in human history, trillions and trillions of free money for the banksters and the big corpse. Maybe your sister didn’t notice that. Here, it’s totally out of control because Trump has told his followers that it’s just a hoax, when in fact it’s doing its job very effectively. And, if it doesn’t they’ll go back to lab to find something that will.
Most revolutions don’t reach critical mass until the masses begin to starve…then there is nothing else for it.
Ramin Mazaheri,
Wasn’t the lock down, forced mask wearing, forced distancing, forced testing, media silence in fact primarily a
ruling class protest against being prosecuted for their economic crimes and economic fraud?
I believe that that is exactly what it was, led by Bill Gates, George Soros, the media, the tech sector, the universities, the medical community, the financial community, the government public employee sector, etc. BTW, talk about looting!
Me thinks they doth protest too much!
Andrea Iravani
“Apocalyptic apathy” is quite a striking concept.
Liberals are hoping that a Biden victory will be a silver bullet. Why cause a ruckus when Obama 2.0 will wave his Harry Potter wand and fix everything?
The real shit-show, so to speak, will start sometime after Nov 3rd.
Wanna see some protests? Cancel the NFL season and the population will foam at the mouth and attack each other. Elections? Even the most rabid partisans know they never actually change anything. The election season is our national version of Mardi Gras: an excuse to dress up, carry signs and wear buttons, and generally act a fool for a while. Some obviously enjoy it more than others. But like Thanksgiving and Christmas, which follow shortly thereafter, the day comes and goes, food, alcohol, and merriment get consumed, the next day comes and the trash goes out and hangovers are endured, and life goes on. That’s the way we’ve been conditioned and we’ve – rich and poor alike – actually grown to like it that way! There’s a perverse sort of pleasure we Americans have cultivated that no matter how bad we’ve got it, we know that somewhere in some third world shithole, or even in our own domestic ghettos, or maybe even just right down the street, someone damn sure has it worse and that’s good enough for us! We hate our plight, we hate the world, and we hate ourselves for putting up with it all, but we absolutely worship the people who are doing it to us and the wonderful system they’ve created to ensure that it never ends! We’re truly f*cked up beyond all repair!
Just so you know, that’s kinda like what LBJ told southern politicians in the USA back in the 1950s, “If you can convince the lowest white man that he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.” Haven’t we come a bit further than that in 70 years? If not, yes, we’re totally fubar.
I would answer that clearly, no we haven’t. Might very well even be worse now than it was then, as the mass media has allowed us to graphically see how truly awful it is out there beyond our four walls. And LBJ was a master politician in his time. Ugly as an old coon dog and couldn’t give an inspiring speech to save his life, but a truly masterful old-school politician.
His being ugly aside, LBJ was most likely also part of the coup that assassinated JFK, the one by which he became president. That was the beginning of our slavish devotion to Israel. After that, the coverup of the attack on the USS Liberty, the coverup of the 9/11 false-flag attack on the USA, and the gradual domination of the US government by Likudniks and Zionists, culminating in Trump openly saying that all the wars of this century were for Israel and taking Sheldon Adelson’s thirty pieces of silver to become president in 2016.
Mossad will undoubtedly be behind the upcoming “October surprise” that will be blamed on Iran that will keep Trump in the presidency. The MSM will cover up this horrible false-flag event as well.
Yep. LBJ was either part of the plot proper or knew about it and said nothing. I’d like to think that that was part of the reason he had the good sense to not seek reelection in 1968 and died in a mental and psychological funk not too long afterward. I think he was likely a basically good man who made a deal with the devil in a misguided attempt to establish a ill-considered legacy and it backfired on him, as those kind of things always do.
And I’m also on the lookout for another well timed false-flag event in conjunction with the election, although I’m not at all sure which lame candidate the powers that be prefer at this point. It would seem to be Biden, but the level of disinformation is so all pervasive now that I have to admit that I have no idea at all anymore. Safe to say that absolutely nothing could possibly surprise me anymore. I do think that more CV19 hysteria is in the cards, though, if nothing else as an insurance measure against any “extra-curricular activities,” that would-be activists on both sides might have in store. Not to mention the fact that we Americans, in general, just really love us some good old fashion authoritarian crackdown from time to time, just to prove that we’re still ‘ceptional and all that rot.
” I think he was likely a basically good man who made a deal with the devil in a misguided attempt to establish a ill-considered legacy and it backfired on him, as those kind of things always do. ”
LBJ???
Are you kidding??
LBJ left a trail of corruption, violence, and blood in Texas on his way to the top.
Amy Coney Barrett is also not from the Harvard, Yale pedigree and is an alumni of Norte Dame and it is great to see that fact that the SC is not stacked with the eastern elite law schools. The rest of the mess, can’t be fixed in 10 years without systematic overhaul of the system, which the same harvard, yale elites will fight tooth and nail to maintain. Everything is going according to plan.
A lot of the current problems in US at this time stem from the fact that the Republican Party didnt change with the times from the 1960s as most of their counterparts did in UK EU etc on social policies.
They still live in an old world mindset and hence the policy gap and polarization.
And Im not talking about Trump because he is trying to reform things, but the establishment swamp creatures there in the House & Senate and many GOP Governors and States still live in the past.
If they dont change with the times then they will be doomed.
There’s also a religious divide with Republican supporters being the church goers and the Democrats being the godless lot.
There was a lot of ferment after Trump was elected in 2016. All of the angst about Trump was directed into fraudulent issues like Russiagate, which I think Americans are now realizing was yet another con played against them. The impeachment hearing was based on bogus accusations and went nowhere. I think the Democrats co-opted and drained the life out of the seeds of a mass movement with their cynical politics.
The Republicans do protest– on the right issue. There was the Tea Party, for example, which the Republican party was able to co-opt. American protest movements tend to be absorbed by the political parties.
Americans are quiet, but they are restless, especially after the outrageous aftermath of the 2008 crash. Some issue comes along which galvanizes them to action for a while. The internet has allowed some Americans to escape the propaganda, but now the tech companies are trying to censor unofficial views. Will this matter?
Apparently people cannot see the irony in the fact that people were outraged when Senator Nasse asked Amy Coney Barrett to list the five freedoms in the first amendment and Barrett replied: religion, speech, press, assembly, am I missing something?
Nasse replied redress or protests.
I really hate splitting hairs, but to petition the government with a redress of grievances, in my opinion is expressed in the rights to free speech, press, and assembly, and mob rule violent protests cannot be miscontrued as peaceful assembly, nor can they misconstrued for petioning the government with a list of grievances. and it is good the authors added it in, but the irony in all of this is that twitter users fail to see that those posing the questions have Assange in prison for exercising freedom of the press, which they claim is not covered for non citizens, even though they have censored people, including me.
Was this a psy-op?
https://sputniknews.com/us/202010141080772344-pure-insanity-netizens-up-in-arms-after-amy-coney-barrett-forgets-first-amendment-freedom/
Andrea Iravani
It was put well above: no one in America – or Canada or Europe – is starving. It might be said that westerners do not have the social consciousness to get out and protest. Another way of looking at it is that they are smart enough to know that taking to the streets and risking their physical well being is something they will not do unless they have no choice. Like when they are starving. Instead of starving, we still have the highest standard of living anyone could hope for. That may be slipping away but until it’s gone the average person will not take to the street. Regardless of how many internet revolutionists demand they do so.
We might also consider that much protest energy has been diverted by the racists BLM rioting. Also protests have been preempted by the Covid 1984 lockdowns. Plus you always have the endless “divide and conquer” over meaningless culture issues. This has been an unqualified success for the elites. Conservatives and Liberals are too busy hating each other to hate anyone else. Finally, many people still believe elections matter. Thus they can put off any type of protest until after November 3rd. Does it explode in November? Even if it does, it will likely be similar to the senseless violence we’ve seen for months now.
BTW thanks for the article. As usual, a quality read.
I don’t think there is any evidence to support the notion that most black people support BLM, which is a bizarre extreme-left ideology that is at odds with African American culture, which is very conservative and Christian. BLM promotes homosexuality, the destruction of the nuclear family unit (the BLM leadership is complete anti-family), brutalist feminism (white feminists, fueled by Zionist puppeteers, are the principal backers of BLM and related “movements”), transsexuality, etc.
Most white liberals are unaware of what BLM is really all about and don’t bother to research who is actually behind BLM and what they say and do that doesn’t get reported in the mainstream press, but black Americans aren’t as gullible. It is an anti-white, anti-Christian cult of violence and sexual depravity.
Without the absurd lockdowns, BLM violence would likely not have occurred. Notice how nothing has gotten fixed as a result of BLM riots and protests, but actually is getting worse. The average American is being brutalized into apathy and silence and this should come as no surprise: the American people have no power or control whatsoever and their nation is being led by a gang of Zionist psychopaths and warmongers.
Nothing in America (and the EU) will ever get fixed so long as it remains a Zionist regime. The fact that Christian Evangelicals are the most hardcore base of support in America for the jinn-worshiping slave state of Israel tells you all you need to know about what is going on here.
Unless Americans wake up en masse (I’m not holding my breath) America is headed for the same fate as Sodom and Gomorrah. It’s already halfway there.
Ramin waiting for “mass protests” – like all clueless teenagers do…
Donald Trump gives a hard hitting election speech on Twitter, but I have no doubt that the MSM will not air it.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1314798633171050497
The population in the US, & elsewhere, is plagued by apathy – & as one smart intellectual once said: apathy is the inverse of powerlessness. People feel powerless, they do not believe that any kind of action or activity, much less protests, can change anything, & then why care about what you can not change? Of course they care, saying they don’t is just another expression of the feeling there is nothing they can do to alter the situation. Some will say look at the Yellow Vests in France, they are fighting the good fight – yes, & in over 2 years where has it got them? They have not mobilised the critical mass required to force a change. People, generally, do not act as a mass until they are pushed to the very edge – all should look at Montenegro & what happened there since the start of the year, a barely reported spiritual revolution which will have a shock wave effect in the longer term, throughout the Balkans & through out Europe. But it took along time for our Serbian brothers in Montenegro to stand up & do what needed to be done, & do it in the most beautiful & peaceful way. Unfortunately, the US is governed by a completely different history, the populace is forever in fear & at war with the ghosts of the indigenous people that were exterminated to make North America a home for North Europeans. That chicken is coming home to roost, the ghosts of the slaughtered will have justice, one way or another, Anglo-America must fall, & it will.
americans believe that jfk was on the peoples side, that they’ve been to the moon and back , that they won world war 2 single handed ( with a little help from the brits), in ufos, in “god we trust” on the dollar, that their country is the best in the world, that commies want to invade the usa, in the war against drugs or the war against terrorism, that journalism is about reporting “the facts”, that “truth” will always prevail etc, etc ….
i believe they are still very far from awareness. after all , in the usa , if you’re poor it’s your fault, you didn’t work hard enough or you are not a good person. many would more likely be in some sort of apocalyptical secte than be in an anti-capitalist mouvement.
the usa , more so than other capitalist countries, prefers charity to solidarity.
Took me a long time to get my mind around the fact that the Moon Landing was a complete hoax, even though I never doubted for a second that our government would stoop to that sort of thing, but once I did it was just so painfully obvious. This guy nailed it down airtight for me.
http://centerforaninformedamerica.com/moondoggie/
same here. i’m still laughing at myself for having believed that hoax for so long. i had a friend back in those days who’s mother didn’t believe that we americans had made it to the moon. at that time we thought that that was completely over the top and we’re sure she was raving nuts. he was very embarrassed but should have been proud of her insight.
They have been to the moon and back, though given the technology of the time it turned out to be a pointless dead end. It did give them the excuse to boast that they “won the space race” though they lost in literally everything else except sending out the first interstellar probe (another pointless dead end since it can no longer transmit back data).
I’m not sure if this scene actually took place, but in Dicken’s a Tale of Two Cities the spark is the starving masses watching dogs of aristocrates being fed from carts full of fresh meat. Seems realistic to me.
Side effect? Mr Mazaheri, it’s by design. They’re the most deliberately ignorant people in the world. They are the only ones proud of not knowing, the only ones where a presidential candidate – Mitt Romney – was attacked for being fluent in a foreign language (French), the only people who elected a politician (George W Bush) who deliberately acted like a brainless hick (which he totally is not). They hug their ignorance to themselves, as I have often had reason to state, like a precious resource. I can’t count the number of times I’ve been blocked online by them for backing up my contentions with links and facts. To such people knowledge is like a silver bullet to the hypothetical werewolf. Their ignorance cannot tolerate it.
Absolutely correct, and the “protests”, barring a few people with ideological backbone, were primarily because the draft meant that the brothers, boyfriends, sons and husbands of the protestors – and that they themselves – were in danger of being shipped to Vietnam. The lesson was learnt well by the Warshington war criminal nest known as the Pentagon, which these days is careful to use a volunteer army (of poverty draftees) and mercenaries (known as “private contractors”) to fight its wars. The Amerikastani Ignorancy, having been removed from having any “skin in the game”, is as uninterested in opposing the wars as everything else.
as the old saying goes “when the troops stop complaining watch out” .
Dear Hr Mazaheri
The commenter “No Friend Of The Devil” ask a very very good question somewhere above, i confess my thinking is very much aligned with his/hers and that i am a bit surprised that you choose racialist supremacist blm over class and think the looting and destruction of property by them is protesting.
And if the repubocrats is so much against sending public $ why is it pelosi from the demopubs that is stopping the checks from the government?
Or are both wings attached to the same body and head? I certainly see no difference btween the 2 wings of the USA.Ltd bread and circus parties. They are owned by the same 0.1%, they both work to steal as much as they can from “useless eaters”, both support and helped hide nazis after ww2 and now, so i do not see any difference btween those wings anymore.
You are to good a reporter and intelligent to simplify it so much and you should not imho.
I know that english speaking/written Iranian media is supportive of blm bc i read most of them, that is not a good path to follow. blm is not a force for good and i am sure there is better black organisations then that which are not democRat shock troops that deserves pr and need some attention from media.
No bad intentions meant from my side Hr Mazaheri, i respect you and just strongly disagree with your blm narrative.
COV-19 IS ECO COLLAPSE STRATEGY
Full game plan outlined here – engineered eco collapse by central bankers designed to wipe out small business and workers incomes so globalist corporations can steal mkt share and control and digital currency agenda.
Time to arrest all those involved !
See banking expert’s analysis
https://banned.video/watch?id=5f8782e1284c4c12c1450d7e
“… even CNN had to hold Nancy Pelosi’s feet to the fire for the first time since Trump won the Republican primaries in 2016. Pelosi accused Wolf Blitzer and CNN of – now get ready to laugh – being “apologists for Republicans” simply because he pressed her on the bewildering and poverty-fuelling lack of a 2nd household stimulus. …”
I may be quite off here, but my own reading of this is that the Deep State (which always “pre-approves” both candidates) either (1) has a change of heart about its actual presidential preference (MSM Blitzer is merely its mouthpiece and hence a barometer of sorts), or (2) it wants to mitigate what is too obvious to everybody about Pelosi anyway, dissociating her from the Walking Dead candidate, a psychological trick.
—
As for Democratic party vs. people … my own memories bring me back to the turbulent 1968, to Democratic National Convention in Chicago. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1968_Democratic_National_Convention is Wikipedia, but still it captures quite well the events there, a fascinating reading in entirety. Certainly don’t miss the section 4.1, The Chicago Police riot! :-)