By Ramin Mazaheri and cross-posted with PressTV
For four years The New York Times editorial page has been unreadable because into every column – no matter the subject – an anti-Trump diatribe was inserted. For the world’s many billions who think there actually are issues other than the president of the United States, their obsession was incredibly tedious.
It reminded me of how the World Socialist Web Site ends every column with a reminder that the only solution – no matter the subject – is Trotskyist revolution. At least they keep that at the bottom, so you can avoid it if you want.
The difference between the two is that one is openly opposed to neoliberalism and neo-imperialism, while the other censors any discussion of these enormously crucial and socially-devastating concepts.
Joe Biden recently made waves for snapping at a reporter asking a difficult question, and it reminded us of how very coddled he was during the presidential campaign. But a possible change from Sleepy Joe to Cranky Joe may or may not be a problem – that depends on if his apparent election win survives the judicial oversight of the vote, something which is supported by 46% of America (per a poll by The Economist) but 0% of their mainstream media.
The bigger potential issue – and it’s a global one, because foreign journalists often ape the US, in what Iranians have called for 75 years “Westoxification” (being intoxicated by Westernism) – is what the US media actually evolves into post-Trump (if he loses).
In one of the many positive unintended consequences of Donald Trump, the US media went from the slavish sucking up to power during the Dubya Bush era of “wars without bodybags”, to “everybody loves Obama (even though in 2012 he beat Mitt Romney just 51% to 47%), to rediscovering that the press is not actually merely the public relations team of the government.
If Biden wins, will the US mainstream media quickly revert to sucking up to power? Will it be still only softball questions for President Biden?
Or does four years of decent reporting – sadly combined with a concurrent journalistic era of hysterical fear-mongering, Russophobia, urging hatred of one’s differently-voting neighbour and a moral outrage which rested upon a wilful ignorance regarding what Trump supporters really believe – actually have an impact?
The question reminded of an ancient Chinese aphorism: “The murder of a ruler by his minister, or of a father by his son, is not the result of events of one morning or one evening.”
The radicalisation of fake-leftists into faker fake-leftists? Or will the US truly reform its imperialist ways?
The larger point of that aphorism is that actions have consequences, and that if we allow things to go too far down the wrong road an unjust ruler gets murdered, or a country becomes as incredibly internally divided as the US now is.
Journalists are supposed to be combative and even provocative, but the problem here is entirely with the never-stated ideology of Bidenism. (Please note that is entirely different from me writing: the problem is with the rabidity of the never-Trumper ideology.)
Because actions have consequences, we should grasp that Bidenism is not just a “return to (the 2015) normal” but also includes a vindictive, ever-more flaming evangelical insistence that US-led Westernism (neoliberalism and neo-imperialism) is the one true religion, which Donald Trump was heretically and treasonously wrong to even partially call into question.
Who are these unreadable new and old columnists of The New York Times? I can tell you what they are not: they are not journalists who openly denounce imperialism, the Israeli occupation of Palestine, the oppression of the Wall Street high finance class or the other key ideas which differentiate leftism from centrism and rightism.
No, the loudest Bidenites are people who are upset that Trump is now trying to pull out of Afghanistan and Iraq; are upset that Trump did not bomb Syria; could not care less about the famine in Yemen; and who would not have expressed outrage at all for the assassination of Iranian anti-terror hero Qasem Soleimani if Barack Obama had killed him.
The idea that Biden’s foreign policy is going to be less belligerent than Trump’s is something based only on hope and not on the past four years (nor Biden’s 47 years in public service). Just look at how Bidenites are preparing to deal with Trumpers and ask yourself: is the neo-imperial hegemon really going to treat foreigners – especially Muslims in oil-rich areas – better than their very own neighbors?
Bidenites essentially want to criminalise working for Trumpism, censor Trumpist analyses, and make Trump the very first president to ever be prosecuted (what happened to the outrage of Trump’s calls to prosecute “crooked Hillary”?). These are all “radical” in the very worst sense of the word. The obstacle in implementing such radical policies is that Trumpism won at every level on November 3rd except the presidency, in a total concretisation and not repudiation of Trumpism, whether one likes that or not; the problem is that Bidenites at this time in 2016 were, incredibly, already talking publicly about impeaching the then-president-elect Trump, gutting their credibility.
These do not seem like the people who are going to herald a new era of tolerance for non-American ideas because they can’t even tolerate half of America’s ideas. Bidenism may turn out to be “Western universal values” on steroids because Bidenites realise there truly is a threat to the 2015 status quo, which they are obviously hell-bent on suppressing.
These do not seem like the people who are going to become more tolerant of those who do not accept America’s fake-leftist and divisive identity politics, which are entirely based around one thing: distracting from opposition to and the discussion of both neo-imperialism and neoliberalism.
Like Obama, will Biden get a Nobel Peace Prize for his election campaign?
Many of us are old enough to have seen the failure of this idea, currently held by many non-Americans, that the switching from a Republican to a Democrat will herald an entirely new era free from American belligerence.
The younger class may not remember the intense hatred Democrats had for George W. Bush, but the proof of it is in that shocking, totally unmerited Nobel. In 2013 Obama would be credibly quoted as saying, “Turns out I’m really good at killing people. Didn’t know that was gonna be a strong suit of mine.”
If things really do change for the better if Biden wins, journalists will have to have changed as well. Of course, we cannot expect their publishers and editors to allow them to be towards Biden but a fraction of how oppositional they were with Trump, but the younger generation of reporters have now been weaned on journalistic ideas which may prove hard for neoliberal and neo-imperialist forces to rein in.
However, the problem of their essential fake-leftism – of Bidenism – remains, no?
And this is a problem for journalists worldwide, who often read the US mainstream media and are so proud that they can understand a foreign language so well that they may fail to realise they are also imbibing Biden’s latent, never-stated neoliberalism and neo-imperialism; they are so happy Trump is gone they forget the corruption and anti-“universal values” stances which got him elected in the first place.
The worry is that instead of a genuine move away from American rightism, journalists in the US and abroad only imbibe a key hallmark of Bidenism: intolerance for dissent and the refusal to engage in dispassionate conversation about vital societal issues. The worry is that they become accepting of Bidenism’s flaming insistence that Western liberalism is the only acceptable form of human society worldwide – this is all adds up to the “unradical radicalism” of Bidenism.
Journalists must be skeptical, but they must be accurate – refusing to report on the reality of American Trumpism is as bad as those Americans whose family relations who have become frozen because of their inability to tolerate their relative’s right to vote as they wish.
That’s an American problem, but the idea that Bidenism is actually an anti-imperial and anti-neoliberal movement, or that it will continue Trump’s relative drawdown of American forces worldwide – that’s something you’ve never actually heard from Bidenites.
Think you will (if Biden wins)?
*************************************************************
Results are in: Americans lose, duopoly wins, Trumpism not merely a cult (1/2) – November 5, 2020
Results are in: Americans lose, duopoly wins, Trumpism not merely a cult (2/2) – November 6, 2020
4 years of anti-Trumpism shaping MSM vote coverage, but expect long fight – November 7, 2020
US partitioned by 2 presidents: worst-case election scenario realized – November 9, 2020
A 2nd term is his if he really wants it, but how deep is Trump’s ‘Trumpism’? – November 10, 2020
CNN’s Jake Tapper: The overseer keeping all journalists in line (1/2) – November 13, 2020
‘Bidenism’ domestically: no free press, no lawyer, one-party state? (2/2) – November 15, 2020
Where’s Donald? When 40% of voters cry ‘fraud’ you’ve got a big problem – November 17, 2020
Ramin Mazaheri is currently covering the US elections. He is the chief correspondent in Paris for Press TV 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.
Trump DID bomb Syria,,kinda negates the article,,,,
Negates the article?
The bombing was a tiny fraction of what they wanted him to do, which was obviously the point.
“Unradical radicalism” – interesting concept. Can’t say I’ve read it before.
The radicalization of the US media began in the second half of the 19th century, when neocons of the day started buying up US newspapers. It continued with their control of Hollywood and electronic media. Luckily for all of us, they are at the moment incapable of controlling the whole of the Internet, although they are trying to do so through proposed legislation banning “hate speech”, which is an euphemism for censorship.
A four year radicalization of the US media ? This radicalization began in the 19th century. However, the rhetoric is increased as circumstances demand, like in the cold war and during Trumps Presidency.
“… but the idea that Bidenism is actually an anti-imperial and anti-neoliberal movement, or that it will continue Trump’s relative drawdown of American forces worldwide – that’s something you’ve never actually heard from Bidenites”. That is correct. What is strange, however, is that anybody in his right state of mind could possibly think that neocon warmonger Creepy Joe Biden would be anti-imperial, ie. anti-Military Industrial Complex. He is just a neocon puppet, clearing the way for Harris and possibly Hillary.
As for Hollywood, it has always been a neocon propaganda machine. For example, in 1998 it makes the movie ‘Deep Impact’, where Morgan Freeman plays an Afro-American President. The moment I started watching the movie, I knew what was happening, namely psychological conditioning for the arrival of the first Afro-American President. And sure enough, Barack Obama comes along, being placed into the White House, which is no surprise, bearing in mind he is a member of the Prince Hall Masonic Lodge.
Trump launched more drone strikes in 4 years than Obama did in 8. Course we can’t tell if he actually killed more than Obama because he ended the military’s policy of estimating or counting “collateral damage”. Cause you know before they at we gave the illusion those lives at least counted and now they literally do not.
He also didn’t end any of the wars/interventions, continued all of them, committed economic and actual terrorism again Iran, explanded Syria operations, gave Israel a freer hand to sow chaos, sold the most weapons of any US president in 70 years to the Arab gulf monarchies and of course gave Israel everything it dreamed of but couldn’t even get out of the other Zionist whore presidents we have had.
Domestic policy wise he fiddled while COVID decimated America, he gave the largest corporate tax cut in history and put America on an even quicker path to bankruptcy by running larger deficits than we had before, spearheaded a even bigger giveaway of tax dollars directly to the MIC, and rolled back environmental protections and regulations that had been in place since Nixon.
Biden is a disgusting swamp creature as well so please don’t reply with those kind of counterpoints…
You can’t seriously compare Obama’s “surges” with Trump’s increased drone strikes?
They are not comparable.
Hornswaggler,
I agree. I don’t understand the outlandish pro-Trump stance here either. The man is one of the worst human beings in the world, with no redeeming quality, no saving grace.
Trump cast 80 million Iranians into a hell of unbelievable poverty without even blinking.
I also don’t understand the staunch pro-Putin stance of the majority on this site. I want someone here to explain why Putin rolls over every time the Zionist dogs bark at him.
Trump and Putin are both beholden to the globalist agenda. Neither man is a Caesar or a Constantine. Why are we fooling ourselves?
To Jamshyd
I have engaged with you before and I see few other people have tried as well, in various Saker’s posts and I will say this – we all have been wasting our time; it’s like bashing one’s head against a brick wall – same result, cannot make any headway and just walk away with a headache. What you display is a truly closed mind – nothing can penetrate, nothing can shed any light there. Probably something you have developed to protect yourself from the reality, but on this forum, amongs lots of very intelligent people, it is getting just a little bit tedious. For example, please explain to us as how, in your “opinion”, President Putin “rolls over every time the Zionist dogs bark at him”? We all must have missed that, so please explain what you meant by making such statement. If you cannot give us an intelligent and unquestionable explanation, then please, do not inflict your angsts on the rest of us. We absolutely do not need that at this moment in time. My advice to you would be to open your mind, that way you might actually learn something..
Whenever Israel wants to bomb Iranian targets in Syria, Putin shuts off all missile defenses and enables Israeli aggression, over and over again.
I have put forward an ironclad case for Zionist domination of Russia multiple times now, and I have invited any and all to come forward and dispute it. No argument has been forthcoming, except your personal attacks (eg. my closed mindedness), if you can even call that an argument.
Perhaps you missed it. If so, let me know and I will build my case anew, and you can have at it.
Russia is not there to start a war with Israel, Jamshyd. Russia is in Syria for one reason only – to eliminate the wahhabi terrorists before they have any chance to spread their head-chopping ideology to Southern Russia. You obviously haven’t got a grasp of that simple fact. Russia is not there to protect Iranian targets from Israelis attacks, Iran should be capable of doing that perfectly well without Russia’s help. Your “ironclad case for Zionist domination of Russia” is in your head only, and unfortunately nothing seems to convince you otherwise. As I have said before – trying to engage with you and your “set in concrete” convictions is an absolute waste of time. This will be my last response to your comments. Broaden your mind.
Obviously Putin is not in Syria to make an enemy of Israel. When most Western countries imposed sanctions on Russia, Israel did not. Furthermore Mr Putin seems to get on well with Mr Netanyahu. Why should Russia spoil relations with Israel to protect Iranian interests? That is a job for the Iranian military, Iranian intelligence apparatus and the IRGC. Also I believe that the Russians are playing a subtle geopolitical game by cleverly leveraging the Israeli attacks to reduce Iranian influence in Syria.
Jay,
I will make this very simple.
Global Zionism bad. Palestinian baby terrorizer Israelis bad.
Thus, anyone who is a friend of Israel and global Zionism, is either bad themselves, or is a puppet without a choice.
In my opinion, if Russia united with the resistance today, every Jew would have to leave Israel tomorrow.
But Russia protects Israel. And as you say, Putin is very good friends with Netanyahu the criminal psychopath.
So, we are essentially saying the same thing. The only difference is that you say Putin is a friend of Israel, which makes him bad. I say Putin has no choice but to obey the demands of global Zionism, which makes him just another wretched slave, but not necessarily bad.
Russia would not be starting a war if they defend Syria from Israel, if defending Syria is in fact why they are there. Who do you believe the Wahhabi-Salafis are working for, if not the Zionists? Russia is in Syria to protect Israel from Iran. This is what Russia’s actions say.
So, you believe that Russia is too weak to stop the Zionist regime from bombing Syria? I say Russia is too compromised.
Alexander Abramov, head of Evraz, Russia’s largest steel producer.
Petr Aven, head of Alfa-Bank, Russia’s largest commercial bank.
Mikhail Fridman, head of Alfa-Group, Russia’s largest private investment firm, ranked Russia’s most important businessman in 2017, the seventh richest man in Russian. Dual Israeli citizen, this one.
Leonid Mikhelson, CEO, Chairman and major shareholder of the second largest Russian gas company Novatek. Second richest man in Russia.
Yuri Milner, Russian entrepreneur, Russia’s most influential information technology investor. Dual Israeli citizen. (This guy is very interesting.)
How can Russia not be compromised when, “Jewish Ashkenazis represent 21% of all the billionaires in Russia, even though they comprise only 0.11% of the population.”?
Russia officially recognizes the Zionist pseudo-state as a legitimate country, and condones their oppression of Palestinians.
Russian trade volume with tiny Israel dwarfs its trade volume with Iran, which is Russia’s immediate neighbor, and a huge and highly populated developing country.
Russia has complied with all Zionist sanctions against Iran.
Russia is complicit in the US-Saudi-Zionist blockade of Yemen, where people are starving right now.
Vladimir Putin has never made any anti Zionist remarks, as far as I know. Just like Western politicians, he is forbidden from criticizing Israel.
Russia has a privately owned Central Bank, just like every other Zionist puppet state.
If Russia was against global Zionism, they would be under Iran-style sanctions, which means no Russian could buy anything with their bank card outside of Russia, for one, and no country would buy Russian goods. No international financial transaction would be possible for Russians, and Russian citizens would be refused service in banks worldwide. The majority of Russians would not be able to travel abroad because of very harsh travel restrictions. Etc, etc. (Everyone should research and discover for themselves the scope of international sanctions against Iran, to fully appreciate the power of global Zionism.)
Russia is part of the global Zionist banking cartel, as just another client state.
This is not the first time you have said that you won’t reply to me again. That is quite fitting, as you never have anything interesting to say anyway.
Cheers, and Toodaloo! (BTW, I’m curious, why don’t you live in Russia, if you believe Russia is so great?)
Jamshyd,
Sometimes people don’t want to hear the truth because they don’t want their illusions destroyed.
– Friedrich Nietzsche
gavishti,
/moveable-feast-cafe-2020-11-25/#comment-877975
Cheers
@Jamshyd
One “stating the obvious” fact:(“Israel wants to bomb Iranian targets in Syria”), two innuendos: (“Putin shuts off all missile defences” and “enables Israeli aggression”).
You forgot to squeeze in a little bit of Novichok, for a good measure.
Now seriously…doing bombing runs that cost tens of millions of dollars to destroy barracks worth tens of thousands…you must be really desperate to wage war that way.
Here’s one much more viable accusation of Putin, just for you. He surely pays Israel to attack Syrians just to fine-tune air defence against the real US aircraft.
Win-win situation. Sheckels for Israel, best military exercise possible for Russians. Gullible Americans cheers from the bleachers, oblivious.
Are you suggesting that Russia does not turn off their S-400s when Israeli F-35s violate Syrian airspace?
What has Novichok got to do with anything?
First of all, do you actually know what targets the Israelis are bombing in Syria? Secondly, obviously the destruction of those targets is worth more to the Zionist regime than the price of a missile. And what is the price of a missile when you are printing money in practically every country in the world?
If Putin is shutting off air defenses, how does that improve their performance?
But you are right about one thing, Russia and Israel are working together. And when the USA eventually collapses, the Zionists will be there to bring Russian imperialist ambitions to fruition.
But this time they are going about it smarter. Separate the economic power from the imperialist military power; China and Russia will take the place of the USA together, so that excessive military power projection will not bring down the economic power center, I assume.
To Hornswaggler
O God, I hope you are an American – we so much need more like you there! You have just described Trump’s Presidency to a T! Couldn’t have put it better. The man is a charlatan and an ego driven baffoon – very much so. If there is no-one to massage his massive ego, he will do it himself – you know, “the stable genius” kind of garbage comes to mind! Absolute snake oil salesman and a con-artist, totally beholden to Israhell. (Sorry to dissapoint, Bro 93). Well, the dual citizens have paid for his election campaign after all, and his supporters are obviously not asking for much. The Biden is a defunct wreck with a rapidly advancing dementia, totally controlled by the various war-mongering, delusional neocons. What a choice! I feel truly sorry for those Americans who still have the functioning brains left and can clearly see the unfolding and unescapable horror in front of them. God help them..
Actually they cant see a thing until it smacks daddy’s them square in the face, wait till they find out that their gvt has mislead them and like a corporation going out of business, they are now out of a job. Now they see the horror.
Katherine, thank you and yes I am indeed an American.
I guess what puzzles me about this site lately where I see a lot of people cry about trumps loss is this:
Trump is a complete tool of Israeli American billionaires. As such he is no crusader for the common man or a drainer of any swamp. That is populist campaign rhetoric and nothing more..
In fact the creatures he does business with are ones even the swamp holds their nose to deal with.
Let me breakdown just one of these aspects. Marcus, adelson, and singer were the 3 largest individual donors to trump by a country mile. These 3 are all ULTRA Zionists.
Let’s look at just Adelson: Adelson has been estimated to give 200+ million to Trump PAC: (and conservative PACs supporting trump) between 2016 and 2020. That’s not a made up number, that’s publicly available info. Don’t believe me? Please look it up. It’s out in the open. Respectfully to readers of this post, educate yourself.
And that 200 million is JUST the publicly available figure. I m sure there is more behind the scenes. So do we think Adelson is a stupid man? That he doesn’t get what he pays for? Well if we look at his actions in the Middle East we know the truth of that answer.
People retort back with something like “hey trump didn’t start a war with Iran so he isn’t completely in the Zionist pocket!!” Guys it’s very simple the only reason Trump did not go further than just Solemani (which was an act of war in any case) is that his own generals recognize that a war with Iran would bog down America for a generation and would set the Middle East on fire. It would have disastrous consequences for America’s geo political interests.
It would cost America too much and only have tangible potential long term benefit for Israel. Israel wants Iran taken out and if America dies to it Israel and can then no longer be Israel’s sugar daddy, it will just shift alliances to other world powers.
Thank God there is still enough top brass and generals in our military who first have loyalty to their country and second recognize these facts and know the Israeli first rats in the room have a different goal. As much as it pains me to say this these murderous generals have stopped Trump from even bigger folly.
Do you know what all these last minute “peace” deals for israel were about and why there is such a huge slate of sanctions announced on Iran before the election? Because that was the deal Adelson gave him… do more for Israel and I ll give you more to try and win re-election. It was reported by the Guardian that Adelson injected over 60 million in the last month to the Trump campaign.. again do we think Adelson is a stupid man? That he just gives tens and hundreds of millions for nothing? That he doesn’t get what he pays for? Trump like every other politician is a whore. He must do favors and take money from very powerful interests to get to his position and these are not people you can cross easily.
Besides trump has been comfortably in bed with ultra Zionists since his early days in New York doing business with them and getting loans from them for his projects and casinos.
This is all publicly available info. Please don’t take my word for it. Do your own research.
Please.
So if you want to have an honest discussion about Trump then you must acknowledge that he completely whored out US foreign policy to an oligarch Israeli billionaire and start from there.
Hey, at least we played him by the book. With Biden its throw the book(s) out, and its anything goes.
Thank you for this comment, Hornswaggler.
What does Adelson’s massive resort-hotel-casino establishment in Macau say about Chinese-Zionist relations?
“Since the opening of the Sands Macao, Adelson’s personal wealth has multiplied more than fourteen times.”
Thank you, China, for multiplying the wealth of ultra Zionists?
Covid did nothing. Except on TV, maybe.
“Agree 100% with “The worry is that instead of a genuine move away from American rightism, journalists in the US and abroad only imbibe a key hallmark of Bidenism: intolerance for dissent and the refusal to engage in dispassionate conversation about vital societal issues.”
The author has said it so well; all that I wish to add is to highlight INTOLERANCE for DISSENT. This is America’s new gift to itself and the world. But perhaps it may not come to pass fully if all sorts of squabbles break out in American society, marking its descent into chaos faster.
An apparent mistake that the author makes is to assume that just because the media attacked Trump during his 4-years there was (finally) some resistance to power.
The current power structure of what can only be described in historical terms as the latter day Western Empire and its satrapies, centers not necessarily on the POTUS – who is often crowned in the media/punditry as the “leader of the Free World” but in a network of power brokers mostly in the Anglo-Western hub of the Empire but extending deeply into other nations as well. The Atlantic Council is a good visible proxy for the network but it includes career politicians and a cross-section of every major industry from military, finance to media, entertainment backed by a powerful bureaucracy most notably the powerful CIA/MI6 combination along with domestic agencies in each country.
This network is the real power and every POTUS has either come from that power structure or has (like Obama) smoothly aligned and subsumed by that structure. The enemies of the Empire are any who don’t submit to their diktats/ideologies which are predicated on endless expansion, wars and domination and include both unabsorbed countries like Russia, China, Iran, Cuba et al as well as internal dissidents and anti-Imperial nationalists.
Trump became a threat as his ego, narcissism and long standing nationalism threatened the cohesion of the Empire. But it was not just Trump but all those who voted for him.
All this led to a demonization of not just Trump but the people who voted for Trump for all sorts of disparate reasons. Anyone familiar with the way the Empire operates could recognize the ferocity and unhinged propaganda as it normally is directed towards external enemies, but for the first time was directed towards the Emperor and those who supported him. (Other internal enemies of the Empire include those like Tulsi Gabbard, Jeremy Corbyn, Julian Assange).
In doing so, the Empire, specifically the players and institutions who like to normally operate behind the scenes, fully exposed itself. Corporations like Big Tech (who wield greater power than the commodity-based global corporations that were the key power brokers till recently), and the media have become central to the propaganda wars backed by intelligence agencies who are no longer shy of remaining in the shadows.
In doing so, Big Media has shed the last vestiges of its pretense to objectivity and rationality, attacking even other media who do not align with their propaganda. It started with media not controlled by the Empire like RT, Press TV but has now extended to even dissident media and journalists within the US which are labeled in a classic gaslighting move as “propaganda” and “conspiracy theory” outlets/personnel.
This would be the time for non-Imperial outlets to strengthen their investigative reporting (and budgets) to meet the increasing hunger for the masses for actual information not filtered through Imperial Gatekeepers.
Why do you say Obama didn’t emerge from the existing power structure? His mother was an intelligence asset. Why else would she have been in Indonesia at the time? She was a consultant there to USAID and the Ford Foundation. In my view, like mother like son, Obama has been an intelligence asset pretty much all of his life.
While anything is possible, I discount theories that Obama was groomed as an agent from birth just like theories that Trump was groomed as a Russian agent to attack the Empire from within. Both require a complex series of calculations from handlers well beyond any meaningful probability.
While USAID is a tool of the Empire, it doesn’t mean everyone who works there is an asset. Indeed what makes it excellent as an infiltration tool is that the vast majority who work there are indeed idealists who want to “make a difference” in improving the lives of poorer countries and oblivious to the root cause of such dispossession which is closer home among the various imperialist institutions like the World Bank and the IMF.
Obama himself got elected on a platform which was ironically not dissimilar to Trump’s in many (but not all) foreign policy respects: being anti-war/withdrawing troops from Iraq/better relations with Russia/with communist countries like Cuba/with the Muslim world which were in free fall under Bush/shutting down Guantanamo (a project that has dropped off the radar). He ran against two committed Imperialists – Hillary and then McCain – and won. During his first term he called out as torture the “enhanced interrogations” by the CIA and relations with the intelligence community were tense (like with Trump).
But unlike Trump who mostly stuck to his campaign promises (good or bad), Obama compromised: while he withdrew troops from Iraq, and after Libya (which was a Clinton project), withdrew from overt wars despite pressure from Imperialists (for example to get directly involved in Syria) but accelerated covert ones (for example by funding weapons to anti-Assad forces via both the Pentagon and the CIA). Obama towards the end became more consumed with playing the game and built his own network with various power brokers, rather than changing it. While there was no love lost between him and Clinton (and there still isn’t), he backed her over the nominally progressive Bernie Sanders in the assumption she would win and at least carry much of his “legacy” (for what it counted).
I can’t say amen because AFAIK we don’t have proof of this.
But it certainly seems *likely.*
Katherine
The US media, almost all of it, is pure unadulterated shit. They have prostituted themselves for ratings, clicks, and dollars and simply parrot whatever talking points they are given by those in power. The two political parties would not be political parties in any other country because both of them stand for the same things and both use the emotional appeal of identity politics to differentiate themselves and deceive the American public. Within both parties, there are strong undercurrents opposed to the party’s leadership. For the Democrats, it’s the fake left, typified by MSNBC, CNN, and the NY Times and politicians like Bernie Sanders. For the Republicans, it’s the Tea Party faux-libertarians who elect such non-entities as Ted Cruz and Jim Inhofe.
Both parties have an elite that supports the neoliberal, interventionist agenda. The Democratic Party elite has tight control of their party apparatus, and any insurgent ideas or candidates get quashed or neutered, e.g. Sanders or AOC. The Republicans don’t have that kind of control, so they were vulnerable to the anti-establishment message of Trump. His emotional appeal and his recognition of the very real problems suffered by the working class gave him the nomination in 2016. The rank and file of the Republican Party wanted the changes he promised to bring, much like the rank and file of the Democratic Party wanted the changes Obama promised in 2008. Neither was able to deliver.
Ramin is right that the “left” of the Democratic Party is a fake left. These people want socialized medicine, free college, a $15 minimum wage, and various other “progressive” policies, but they are not willing to do the thinking or the work needed to understand why they don’t get them. Virtually all this fake left bought into the Russiagate hoax, they supported the Iraq War, they see Russia, China, and Iraq as enemies, etc., having been fed this propaganda nonstop by their favorite “progressive” TV personalities and newspaper columnists. These are the Sanders voters who voted for Biden, being taken in once again by the nonsense that they only have 2 choices and the Republican choice is anathema to everything they claim to believe in. (Of course, Biden is too, but they have hope, and they will “push him to the left” – at least in their fantasies.)
Trump, unfortunately, had fatal flaws which made him more vulnerable to the Deep State/Liberal Media blitzkrieg that began before he took office. If it is humanly possible to turn the US away from neoliberal economic policy and/or imperialist foreign policy, it would require a leader with great intelligence, excellent political skills, a wide knowledge of world affairs, a deeply held ideological foundation, and a level of bravery and perseverance that is beyond most mortal men. Trump had exactly none of those things. He was a sitting duck. To make matters worse, he surrounded himself with “Yes Men” and creatures from the depths of the swamp he intended to drain. He managed to eke out some minor wins, like not starting any new wars (not for lack of trying) and slightly improving the NAFTA deal. On domestic policy, he followed lockstep with the standard Republican ideology of emasculating government and handing the cost savings to the wealthiest Americans.
The Democrats, you will notice, did not attack Trump’s policy positions, they attacked him personally or they simply made up shit. He was an awful pussy grabber who was a tool of Putin and other such ridiculous nonsense. The controllers of the Dems haven’t had any problem with Trump’s policies other than his penchant for removing Obama’s name and putting his own in its place. They would bitch about Bolton or Pompeo, not because they disagreed, but because they wanted those policies implemented by Tony Blinken and Susan Rice. The two-party system is a Coke vs Pepsi competition.
There is no socialist party in the US and certainly no anti-imperialist party, although there are some very small, disorganized bands of activists who call themselves a party but have no real support and no real plan to gain support. The US political system is at a dead end. It is a dead man walking. It is a zombie nation. But it’s a zombie nation with an arsenal of nuclear weapons. It’s like a wounded tiger. It cannot be fixed from within. It needs to be dissolved before it destroys itself and the rest of the world.
The US military are one of the few with a clear sensible head in this whole situation and they know who the enemies are – domestic and abroad – and they will be dealt with..
Santiago: Who exactly are the enemies of the US abroad? Only the nations the US has itself designated as enemies and methodically demonized in the media. There is no nation that poses a military threat to the USA and the military should not be used for other purposes.
Dear Ramin. An acute article, as always. Thank you. I hope your journalist colleagues are paying attention. But you say: “Will it be still only softball questions for President Biden?”. Let me assure you, if I need to, that there is nothing soft and ‘girly’ about softball. I once had a fat lip for a week after collecting a softball in my face from a very competitive and assertive female batter on the opposing side. She seemed mildly concerned at the time. Can I humbly suggest a better games metaphor: “Will it be still only earthball questions for President Biden?”. Best wishes.
Wow, the author completely forgot the fact that trump assassinated General Soleimani in January. Anyone supporting the racist Trump regime is not too bright.
You seem to be so bright that you missed this – Soleimani was mentioned, and aptly:
“and who would not have expressed outrage at all for the assassination of Iranian anti-terror hero Qasem Soleimani if Barack Obama had killed him.”
In terms of policies, there will be little – if any- to distinguish the Biden Administration from the Trump Administration.
Trump’s abrasive personality was what set him apart from his predecessors.
His crudeness and unpolished demeanour and pronouncements was a graphic departure from the diplomatic slickness and snake oil of
Clinton and Obama.
Expect Biden to maintain or ratchet up where Trump has left off especially where Iran is concerned:
“Netanyahu’s message to Biden: Don’t rejoin Iran deal”
As you can see from the headline above, (((those))) who really call the shots on how the US operates have spoken, and they’re are not the least interested in “bringing home the troops” or leaving the Middle East.
https://m.jpost.com/middle-east/netanyahus-message-to-biden-dont-rejoin-iran-deal-649885/amp?__twitter_impression=true
Hawks will be placed at the State, Treasury and Defense Departments and dispatched to the UN to continue the failed policies of hysteria, sanctions and war-posturing.
The media will, to a large extent, give Biden a free pass but there will be no substantive change in how he operates from Trump.
Russia, China, Iran, Syria, Cuba
Lebanon, Venezuela, Bolivia and North Korea, i.e. the “usual suspects” who refuse to tow the Empire’s line, will continue to be harrassed, demonized threatened and sanctioned.
Accordingly, the US will continue its Imperial overstretch, which will in turn, continue to speed up the decline of the US.
Everyone knows what is wrong with US policies and the vast majority of US citizens want them changed, but the political will to make the necessary changes is lacking.
Who will stop the wars?
Who will close the bases?
Who will bring home the troops?
Who will cease the sanctions?
Who will stop the money printing press?
Who will put US interests above that of Israel?
Not Clinton.
Not Bush.
Not Obama.
Not Trump.
And not Biden.
Selah
Never were truer words spoken. Your analysis is spot on
The US Empire is a tiered structure. At the top is Israel of course, they are the chosen people of and they call the shots. Next is the United States who are controlled by the zionists; next level are the Western European quislings, after that the next level are the Eastern European quislings. Then the global south of what are called ‘developing countries’ in Latin America, South East Asia and South West Asia make the next tier. At the bottom of the heap comes the African continent and its millions of starving benighted souls.
It all looks so invincible and unchallenging, but it is also riven with deep structural economic and political flaws. As Lenin once remarked, it is ”A colossus with feet of clay.” …
This pattern of birth, maturity, and decay has proven to be inescapable. Where is the glory of Babylonia now? Or that of Egypt, Ancient China, India, Greece, Rome. Gone – all gone- that is the historical record. Why then should America escape this fate. It wont.
It was John Bagehot Glubb who recognised the rise and fall of Empires.
He was born in 1897, his father being a regular officer in the Royal Engineers.
At the age of four he left England for Mauritius, where his father was posted for a three-year
tour of duty. At the age of ten he was sent to school for a year in Switzerland. These youthful
travels may have opened his mind to the outside world at an early age.
He entered the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich in September 1914, and was
commissioned in the Royal Engineers in April 1915. He served throughout the first World War
in France and Belgium, being wounded three times and awarded the Military Cross. In 1920 he
volunteered for service in Iraq, as a regular officer, but in 1926 resigned his commission and
accepted an administrative post under the Iraq Government.
He postulated the following stages of empire and imperial decline and death.
1. The Age of Pioneers.
2. The Age of Conquest.
3. The Age of Commerce
4. The Age of Affluence.
5. The Age of Intellect.
6. The Age of Decadence
It looks to me as though we are somewhere between stages 5 and 6 or even fully more at stage 6. The process has reached an unstoppable momentum. It is just a matter of time really. The fact that two absolute dolts were the best that the Americans could put up in the Presidential contest said it all really.
Trump’s presidency proved that he is unfit for office. The fact of the matter is that Trump has no redeeming qualities and he lost the election because of his own personality. He is a malign conman who cares only about himself but he was somehow clever enough to instinctively tap into the anxieties of many white Americans to get himself to the White House. Many Americans where deceived by his MAGA claptrap because he was openly saying what they were all thinking.
He fraudulently cast himself as the leader of a nationalist movement who would “drain the swamp” and bring real change to America. In reality, he was a typical but inept American President who continued his country’s shameful tradition of aggression against other countries who never did anything to harm American interests. Thankfully, his administration was spectacular in its incompetence.
Trump withdrew America from Obama’s Iran deal and imposed harsh sanctions on Iran for no just reason. He recognised the Syrian Golan as Israeli territory and also occupied a third of Syria in an effort to split the country and deny the Syrians and their allies victory in the war against terrorism.
He escalated American hostility against China, Russia, Venezuela, Cuba, Yemen and other countries. He ended American participation in the INF treaty and withdrew America from the Open Skies treaty because in his petty mind he was projecting American strength and confidence. It was only due to God’s mercy and the fact that the Trump administration was so ham-handed that the world was able to avoid a major conflict on his watch.
On the domestic front, he could have united his country and created a legacy as a good President by responding with intelligence and maturity to the protests triggered by the death of George Floyd. Instead he fanned the flames of racial division with his ignorant and divisive rhetoric. He also had another chance to rise to the occasion and be a great president when the Covid-19 pandemic hit. Instead he bungled it because his narcissistic personality compelled him to make himself the centre of all attention by making ridiculous, outlandish and dangerous statements.
Obviously Trump has a lot of supporters on this blog but the fact is that his time in office has made America a global laughing stock. I think history will remember Donald Trump as a classless buffoon who was only remarkable for his arrogance, cruelty, dishonesty, ignorance, narcissism and racism.
He has made some errors but you can’t have everything in one package.
Certainly a better choice that Biden-Harris-Hillary.
Trump showed the imperial agresion without the veil of diplomacy. He showed us that the emperor is naked. His uncoordinated attacks on other nations allied and foe alike woke up a lot of people. Worst his attacks on Huawei showed to all that 99% of the software that runs our mobile phones and computers is American. And now China and Russia are developing their own operating systems. He used the swift weapon so much that the non aligned countries are accelerating the decoupling of the dollar. What could have taken more than a decade is now compressed. We should give him the peace medal because he showed us the true face of the empire. But yes if I were American and the choice was Hilly or Trumpie I go for the second anytime.
what you say is true – but Trump definitely did not do any of the above on purpose. He was just being a typical arrogant dumb wealthy American whose only skill is probably kissing ass to his parents so to inherit their ill-gotten wealth.
A pathetic, evil, selfish and sadistic psychopath however you look at him. As of course is Biden (not fat, but demented and a pedophile as is his son) . There is no hope for JUSA Mordor
It really reminds me of Yugoslavia where I am from (in late 80s) – but much, much worse and with a much dumber population.
Biden is only a temp who is there to front until they install Hillary. So why talk of Bidenism as it is a mirage ?
The mainstream media is currently losing at a rapid rate their ability to influence people as their credibility slides due to the bias being displayed and as viewers defect to other internet sources. CNN MSM NBC BBC etc… Their time is almost up and the same for their elite multinational backers.
Very serious backlash is pending in UK and EU soon and political upheavals and retribution will happen and think it will spell the end of the House of Windsor (given Charles peddling the Great Re-set rhetoric), and various banking houses. Goodbye Merkel and Macron too – which is long overdue.
Military forces enforcing the current situation should assess whether orders from these corrupt immoral politicians should be followed.
Ordinary citizens no longer trust the media so Ramin shouldnt worry about journalists ethics as their future is limited with the current media.
Trump was able to insult US NATO allies to their faces and demanded that they spend more on defence and stop relying on the US taxpayers and he was allowed to slash or eliminate US contributions to various bodies and poor countries.
Yet on Israel that officially gets $10 Million plus per day from over-burdened US taxpayers, Trump did not dare utter a single word.
This is the same Israel that continues to aggressively spy on the US, more than Russia or China combined at every turn, and when caught -red handed as they were during this administration, with the devices that were planted around the White House to vacuum up all communications going in and out of the place – the story is ignored by the MSM and US law makers who dare not even mention it, for fear of being “cancelled” by those who control them.
US politicians continue to pretend that US and Israeli national interests are the same.
They are not.
No 2 countries national interests are ever the same.
And unless and until US politicians grow spines and confront Israel the they continue to head towards the inevitable disaster that await them.
Selah
The MSM daily radicalisation – and partly demonization -against an ellected, on seat govt was also the landscape in other parts of the world.
It was like that in Peru, in Brazil and succeeded in both .
Now it was a brilliant success in the fading, declining Exceptionalistan.
The famous and worlwide trumpeted -no pun- sentence by Churchill (democracy is the worst governing system with the exception of all the others) has now int he 21st century come of age.
That s to say, turned into its exact opposite.
Accepted that the plutopress and the presstitute entities are given free hand in any country, DEMOCRACY is the most corruptible one regardless of all the others.