By Ramin Mazaheri and cross posted with PressTV
Watching the incredible bias of how the US media covers this presidential election assures the world of two things:
1. The largest divide in the United States is not urban/rural, White/Black, sexual, nor the male/female divide recently brought to the fore by #MeToo. It is not even a Democrat/Republican divide, because every outsider sees that these two groups are fundamentally united on so very many issues when accurately placed on the global (not merely domestic) political spectrum. The most obvious chasm is between nation’s leader class (political, media, economic, and cultural) and the nation’s masses.
The US “leader class” – those who control the decision-making process or the preparatory opinion-making process – obviously lead lives completely divorced from the grinding, exhausting, time-clock punching, economically-precarious life of the masses. 2020 has laid this even more bare.
Because America is an evangelistic, missionary culture which has now given the cyber-means of mass communication to the masses – and this is something Lenin could never foresee, though maybe Andy Warhol did – we should also affix to this classical “leader class” a smaller subset of a “self-appointed leader class”.
This new class are exemplified by a housewife who has never punched a timeclock but who sees herself as the moral-socioeconomic-intellectual guardian of her local community. But the key here is that the Boomers’ community-shaping PTA (Parents-Teachers Association) has moved online and into sweatpants from basements: I am describing the proactive, energetic and opinionated “influencers” on social media.
These people can perhaps fairly be described as “half-informed”, because if they were fully “informed” they would likely be tapped for the “leader” class. These people also differ from the “leader class” in that – even though they get no pay at all for doing so – they post, and comment, and do much unpaid work online, just as no one got paid at the PTA or other community organisations.
This subset should be accounted for because this class is seemingly within the masses, but in thought, culture and desire they want to join the leader class. When divorced from the basics of socialism (class awareness, anti-imperialism, government guidance of the economy in non-Pentagon forms), those from this class are – at best – stagnation inducing, and at worst chaos-inducing. They know just enough to be dangerous, as the saying goes.
They should be accounted for in any analysis of the US because it is not the 1950s: the majority of Americans appear to get their “news” from Facebook in 2020. Therefore we cannot ignore the people who desire to be in the “leader class” but who settle for being the “self-appointed leader class” of their own little Facebook group – these people are shaping America greatly today, no?
However, the problem is that these loud, self-asserted leaders (housewives, internet tough guys, doctoral students who have more mouth & attitude than learned or even useful skills, seniors who think American realities are the same now as they were in 1980 that they are routinely told “Ok, Boomer….”) are so mentally evangelical (not in the Christian sense of the word) that their socio-political-cultural aims have become as remote from daily, grinding, political-economic realities as the classical “leader” class in capitalist-imperialist America.
Both leader classes care about (I would say primarily with defending their limited zone of prestige and privilege, as this is a capitalist-individualist culture) things which the masses generally do not care about, therefore, these two formal and informal leader-classes must goad and intimidate the masses into sharing the narrow, often useless concerns of the two leader classes.
Thus the huge divide, which – given the economic and cultural catastrophe of the coronavirus hysteria – has never been wider nor more obvious.
2. The United States spends so much time in combating the ultimately pernicious influence of both the leader and self-appointed leader classes that whichever candidate wins… this country has exhausted all of its resources (which includes the allotted amount of preparatory time before these bills come due/the world turns/opportunities are over/possibilities are forever lost) to somehow dramatically rejuvenate itself post-Trump, post-coronavirus hysteria, post-Great Lockdown and post-The Enormous Fundamental Problems Which Actually Existed Prior to 2016. This latter collection of problems is something which is hysterically denied by the leader & self-appointed leader classes via distraction and duplicity, and which creates a blind spot that reduces their field of vision to the size of seemingly only a tiny keyhole.
So what I am referring to is a definite declaration of irreversible American decline: there must be a decline, because the 2020 Covid-fighting success of China (entirely due to their socialist-inspired structures, which allows the blunting of economic and social catastrophes) shows a superpower in undecline; a superpower with the ability to fight off decline.
I am not a negative person and I embrace a multipolar and especially multilateral world, but I ask on behalf of Americans who are obsessed with not just status but US dominance: where is the collective energy and will for rejuvenation in the US which is necessarily required to re-surpass China?
This analysis is based upon the theory that certain regions do excel & thrive at certain points in history – for various reasons – more than others. Iran in 1965 was totally unworthy of note – in 2020 it just outlasted and outpointed the US and Israel and their “don’t give Iranians the ability to defend themselves from our war” arms embargo. In 2007 this was a unipolar world, but the past decade has seen China soar to the point that the IMF just conceded it has the biggest economy in the word.
How can this not be obvious, and how can the United States’ inability to stop this decline not be more obvious?
The Joker laughs at you, but he also often tries to commit suicide from depression
This obviousness is something which was first hinted at more than a decade ago by the first class-based slogan to gain popular traction in many decades in the US: the various iterations of “we are the 99%” or “they are the 1%”. But points #1 and #2 are forcefully supported by reality when we consider just how hard the leader and self-appointed leadership classes work to suppress the sociopolitical and cultural analyses which find spontaneous, widespread support among the nation’s masses.
One will never hear Wolf Blitzer, or Paul Krugman, or Joe Biden, or Donald Trump carry into battle a banner with this popular slogan, making it their own cornerstone for their daily behavior and decisions.
Of course, modern Western culture has always viewed the world linearly and not cyclically – they especially do not want to revisit history but instead to live constantly in the memory-annihilating present. Therefore, they falsely assume a slogan from a mere 10 years ago is already obsolete, as is the most popular movie of 2019. (This is the only excellent review of Joker I have ever seen: The leftist review of Joker which you’ve been waiting for).
Take, for example, the 2019 movie Joker: We must remember how very resonant and beloved this movie was in the US and yet how intellectually assassinated it was by the US leader and self-appointed leader classes. Critics called it all sorts of absurd names – White Supremacist and “incel”-encouraging were foisted despite their absurdity. Again, the leader and self-appointed leader classes had to goad and intimidate the masses into accepting phony concerns as legitimate: I bet only 1% of readers knew what an “incel” was prior to Joker, so how could it be such a huge, worrying issue?
If we do not allow ourselves to forget the incredible resonance of this movie among the masses – if we resist changing the channel from a movie from just last year to something new, like the latest news in the US election circus – we can be reminded of how this hugely-resonating movie, which we all saw, was also incredibly depressing, alienated, tense and (in that quintessential American imperialist-capitalist fashion) homicidal.
We don’t need Slavoj Zizek to tell us that this vital culture artefact and barometer buttresses the assertion that the US has no capacity for rejuvenation anymore because: The masses are exhausted. The characteristics of Joker, which I just listed, reflect exactly that – exhaustion, not inspiration.
Joker – a critical view of modern American society, but one which had to be absurdly dressed-up as the origin story to a superhero villain, as America is so in need of fantasy that they can only be attracted to the movie theatres by childish superhero nonsense – is not notable two weeks before the presidential election because it presaged the 2020 chaos but because it correctly described the alienation and desperation of US society in 2019.
It’s certainly far worse now in 2020 no? Again – there is no capacity for rejuvenation in a culture which was already down and depressed and then embarked on a hysterical Great Lockdown without the democratic and economic safeguards which socialist-inspired, revolutionary nations have.
Therefore, no matter how much makeup is put on the pigs on TV who lead or who dream of leading, rejuvenation cannot occur without wholesale changes to American society (assuming any major changes could actually be agreed up on in America, which appears to be a big LOL). But, crucially, the resonance and popularity of Joker reminds us that the masses who must provide the backbone for implementing such changes – their wherewithal, the mines of their energies, the hours in the day they have available to spend on non-survival activities, etc. – were already depleted in 2019.
An America in 2019 – with China already scrambling up the back of the US to stand on its shoulders – they were especially unready and too depleted for a Great Lockdown to keep a leader’s necessary pace. Too bad America’s leaders and self-appointed leader class did not recognise this in spring.
The two writers behind Joker grasped this in 2019, and it’s worth noting that they are both Jewish, proof that this is a class-consciousness/intellectual issue above all: one of the writers also wrote perhaps the last “White Trash” movie before Joker which was both excellent and broadly popular with the masses, 8 Mile, the story of the rapper Eminem.
Exhausted America admires Trump not for his promises anymore, but merely for his energy
It is for this very reason – that he can still visibly muster tremendously energetic resistance, which is so very foreign in 2020 in the US – that Trump is so popular with the masses. The self-appointed leader class still cannot explain this facet of Trump’s popularity – i.e. the charisma facet.
The leader class is energetically charged by the fact of their own success; the self-appointed leader class is energetically charged by classic American evangelical hysteria, as well as dreams of dominance – neither can understand the masses’ exhaustion.
One simply has to look at the recent “Town Hall” meeting, which was substituted for a 2nd debate due to Trump’s coronavirus contraction/the desire to hide Biden from the limelight’s scrutiny:
A morning show talk host – no doubt informed and prodded by the producers talking to her in her earpiece – absolutely grilled Trump on NBC. Her questions were all designed to avoid the serious structural issues which affect the masses’ daily life, and instead designed to denigrate Trump in their eyes. For example, QAnon – I have never heard any average American (who was not from the two leader classes) bring this up, but I have heard many in the masses about the Democratic stonewalling for a 2nd stimulus, which deserved far more examination and explanation to the average viewer.
Over on ABC, however, was a completely concocted love-fest for Joe Biden phonily titled: “The Vice-President and the People”. (The vice-president of the United States is, of course, named Mike Pence.) This program was designed to be a hypnotic, administered to soothe rabid, evangelical (not in the Christian sense, of course) Democrats, and to bore to death thinking, active minds into voter abstention and ceasing all resistance to the establishment.
Yet what the corporate media fails to realise is that back over on NBC Trump was absolutely compelling television, even though I hardly admire him and will not vote for him (full disclosure: I will vote for Gloria La Riva of Party for Socialism and Liberation): Trump had much in common with Iran’s view since 1979 – he resisted. He refused to submit to the unexpected grilling.
He didn’t give that classic 21st American faux-apology for anything, he gave plausible-sounding answers to the often absurd charges and nonsense, and he sweated as he worked all alone – how can a good chunk of the masses, who toil daily under similar (though more anonymous) conditions, thus not find him appealing? This is not exoneration, but mere journalistic explanation for those who still can’t figure out Trump’s appeal after all these years – he may not be one of the masses but he at least he is not one of them: an establishment politician.
Trump also displays the self-loving personal dynamism always required in capitalist-imperialist culture, but this energy is absent in the US: It is not the, “Isn’t it so very bully to be a White man” era of Teddy Roosevelt, nor the “Ours will be a thousand-year reich” of 1950s America (China is the one feeling like a thousand-year reich today, expect for the fact that imperialism is totally, totally absent from China’s millennia of history) – this is an America which has continually sapped its own strength and is now literally paying to go on tours in New York City which tread the footsteps of the pitiful, downtrodden, suicidal Joker character.
The average American had already given up the ghost in 2019: they knew there is no energy – no capacity, no wherewithal – to self-correct, and thus they respect only the chaotic element: Trump, Joker, the comedian’s analyses, etc.
Even Trump’s fundamentally-dynamic “Make America Great Again” has ossified into “Keep America Great” – i.e., preserve the status quo. Trumpism has failed because it purported to be (fascistically) revolutionary, but Trump has not made enough serious changes to the point which we can say that America is either or changed or even re-invigorated.
Of course, the average American did not want a fascist (i.e. pro-corporate) revolution to begin with, but: I am getting bored with the number of PressTV reports I have done on the obstacles presented to third-parties by the duopoly-entrenching US Constitution.
The leader class, the new cyber self-appointed leader class and the masses are not at all in remote balance or in synch with what the major problems are, and the idea of a post-election reconciliation is hysterically ungrounded and unrealistic.
Thus, the world should bet on American stagnation in the short- and medium-term futures. Defying the leader and self-appointed leader class appears like the only way to achieve short-term domestic progress for Americans.
There are alternatives to investigate, but it does take a non-hysterical energy to implement them solidly.
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.
Another otherwise excellent diatribe about the USA that completely ignores Israel. What’s up with you, Ramin? Don’t you understand how the Zionist-inspired “chosenness” that moved Europeans to take over Turtle Island 500 years ago is exactly like how the Israelis are now taking over Palestine? If you don’t believe me, ask any Native American.
The author of the Scofield Reference Bible was bankrolled by the Rothschild banksters. That’s the book all these Christian Zionists use to beat everyone else over the head with. 50 million of them are Trump’s rock-solid base and will most likely be the vanguard of those who will refuse to accept the results of the November election. If they don’t get that warrior-god theocracy they pray for, they’ll be totally pissed. They all have guns and the crazy dominionists in the US military have nukes. That adds up to one hell of a next few months for the USA.
Tommy Apeiron
Commentators are stating that after November 3rd the US will see either severe social and political troubles or a civil war. A civil war in the US ? I don’t think so. Who would fight it ? How many men are prepared to leave their families to fend for themselves in order to fight under some flag ? Not many.
However, what we shall certainly see are political, social and ethnic troubles. At the moment it is impossible to fully ascertain to what extent these troubles will materialize. We shall see.
All Trump has to do is declare a “national emergency” of some sort. This, from the Atlantic…
“The moment the president declares a “national emergency”—a decision that is entirely within his discretion—more than 100 special provisions become available to him. While many of these tee up reasonable responses to genuine emergencies, some appear dangerously suited to a leader bent on amassing or retaining power”
That said, you do realize that The Atlantic is pretty much the definition of an upper crust, east coast liberal rag, right? Not quite as effete as The New Yorker perhaps, but with even more of an pseudo-academic veneer. I think either side is liable to resort to whatever tricks are available to them to win this thing, but I’m not really sure which side I fear the most. If you believe what you read in the news these days it’s looking like a Biden blowout. We’ll see soon enough, I guess. Wake me when it’s over. Or not.
My money’s on a Covid19 lockdown. We’re already seeing a ramp up of the infection figures (largely fabricated, in my view, I still don’t know anybody personally at all who’s had it, although some old guy on the hiking trail the other day threw an absolute fit because I didn’t have a mask) in anticipation. I see a lot of pent up frustration out there, to be sure, but fewer and fewer ways to constructively express it. Throw in a lockdown on top of that, and that’s likely to mean a sharp rise in suicides, domestic assaults/homicides, and DUIs, especially in conjunction with the holidays, which are always a “fun” time of the year for many anyway. Ramin’s right, the energy, never mind money and resources, just aren’t there to do much else unless you’re completely at the end of you rope and want to go out in a blaze of glory.
Disaffected,
Yesterday Iran experienced it’s highest ever daily death toll from covid. Why would Iran ramp up figures?
My mother has had it. My brother has had it. I have had it multiple times. My best friend has been sick with it for nearly 15 days now, he says he wishes he was dead.
Hundreds of Iranians are dying in agony every day, of covid.
Take my word for it, it is real, and if it doesn’t kill you, it will make you wish you were dead.
Jamshyd, flu comes in many flavours. Many an English flu has made me feel like death warmed up. But in all my long life I have never personally known anybody who died of the flu — and that includes “officially” certified Covid-19.
So you and your friends have had several bouts of bad flu this year, and recovered. Gesundheit! But tell me, do you personally know one friend who started to sneeze, went on to cough, said after a week or two, “I can’t breathe” and died? (Con-19 symptoms).
NG Maroudas, PhD Engineering
Dr.NG Maroudas,
My mother is a medical doctor. We are perfectly capable of distinguishing between flu and covid here, I assure you.
There is no sneezing involved in covid. A headache that simply will not abate, day after day, and does not respond to morphine, is the main symptom, together with weakness and fatigue and unbearable body aches. After a couple of weeks of this, the body simply perishes under the stress.
My next door neighbor in Tehran died of covid last month. He was a man in his 60s.
My mother says that she sees 20-30 covid positive patients per day nowadays.
The symptoms you describe are not the same as in the west.
It is a different disease.
Jamshyd,
Can’t speak for Iran, just personal experience here in the U.S., where the major effect has been to make paranoid people stark raving mad and turn on each other over silly face coverings. But seeing as how this thing almost certainly came out of a U.S. bio-warfare lab, there’s almost certainly multiple strains of it out there. And what’y’a know? Iran just happens to be the current front runner on the empire’s shit list. Imagine that!
The Times of Israel reported that the US knew that the bioweapon COVID-19 was going to attack Wuhan back in November and warned Israel about it. I’m sure Trump warned his Likudnik bankster buddies that there would be free money, trillions and trillions, coming their way in the spring, which there was. Imagine that!
This article seems to support what you say – I hope they are wrong but see the way an MP asks a question about who these Gulags are for (apart from people who travelled abroad) – he is simply ignored:
https://theirishsentinel.com/2020/10/15/canada-going-tyrannical-2nd-total-lockdown-isolation-camps-for-refusers/?fbclid=IwAR3AxUR1mJCB1itl4-wHR6HUfFNc9NNNztZkpu3k9TWLiK_8PrsoGtZHGS8
Hi Tommy,
You keep asking me to talk about Israel – check out my PressTV videos and you’ll see countless anti-Zionist and 100% pro-Palestinian works.
However, maybe I don’t put the emphasis on it you want me to because talking about the pernicious influence of Israel is like talking about the salutary effects of eating healthily: there are a million other people doing it, and better than I could. The pernicious effect of Israel totally obvious, assumed and well-known to the average person everywhere; it’s not as if my anti-Zionist works could get into the MSM, which is entirely the problem. Anyone who thinks I am not totally anti-Zionist is as misled as a Zionist is – I note that you seem to be the rare commenter who seems to bring this up? You want me to talk about the necessity of anti-Zionism? How many years do you have to spare? But there are other issues as well.
I hope that clears it up.
Thank you for the thoughtful reply. The thing about Zionism in the USA is that most Zionists here are Christian, not Jewish. Pastor John Hagee claims that there are 50 million of them that all stand with Israel. And, they all will vote for Trump in November. Their end times theology is all about vengeance and wrath. Their hope for the USA is that it will become some kind of Zionist theocracy.
Pompeo and all the Likudniks who surround Trump are hot on finding some way to attack Iran to take the political heat off Trump. This is not an insignificant part of his campaign strategy. That, and the thirty pieces of silver that Sheldon Adelson passes out like candy to most Republicans and especially Trump. Again thanks for the reply and I have no doubt that you understand the pernicious influence of Christian Zionism on the USA.
I can’t speak for Tommy, but I think what he might mean is:
That you don’t seem to incorporate the Zionsist/Jewish influence and impact on the general picture, even though your presentations on the USA have been very broad-brush.
For example, we have just seen or are continuing to see a total crackdown and censorship by social media platforms of both information harmful to Biden and info harmful to the covid hysteria. This clampdown is a booster of the distortions and lies presented by the NYT, WaPo, the New AYorker, etc. since 2016. Virtually all of these (not sure about Twitter) are run and controlled by Jews.
You devoted a lot fo time in your current essay to the role of would-be leaders who deploy on FB and other social media. So how do these two trends intersect?
That is just one area where Jewish influence is a big part of the mix.
You seem to assume that “Zionist” means only Israel. Again, not speaking for Tommy, but in my book “Zionist” in the North American context means a whole lot more than Israel.
Katherine.
Katherine has nailed it.
Half the American oligarchy is Jewish, and they have gleefully treated the American people like toilet paper. This cannot and will not long endure, especially since their obvious hatred of the goyim has been paraded on social media for the past four years.
Talking about “Zionism” is a way to dance around this inconvenient truth, which is now understood by millions of Americans, most of them armed, whose patience is running out.
Just to add a point…. I don’t know of any other “ethnic” group that constantly goes out of its way to clearly label those who are not part of the tribe. But for the Jews, we are “Goyam”….
or “Gentiles” and not just Americans, but every living person who is not Jewish, every living person in the whole world. Really, how is that for an “us and them?” Do the Irish do that, the Germans, the Greeks, the Samoans, ……….. anyone…. ?
And, how long has it been like that? And how long will it go on?
Seems to be a very enduring trait of the tribe members…. a desire to want to be not a part of the human race?
When I did my hospital placement here in Toronto – they told us that every patient who dies is placed in the hospital morgue – apart from jews. They don’t want to mix with others even after death.
Yeah, and a lot of the hawkish military brass have German names. Does that mean that the “German race” is excessively predisposed to military grandeur & conquest.
Merica is a land of immigrants. Jews, Germans, Anglo-Saxons, Irish, Polish, Italians, you name it.
ad hominem removed … mod
I am glad Ramin doesn’t fall for this BS.
Anonymous,
Jewish people make up under 2% of the US population. They account for over a quarter of the billionaires, conservative rough estimate.
Do you know what they say when confronted with this statistic?
They say “the IQ of our race is higher, we are smarter than the rest of you, and that is why we are successful.”
And according to ynetnews, “Jewish Ashkenazis represent 21% of all the billionaires in Russia, even though they comprise only 0.11% of the population.”
Do you agree with them, Anonymous? Are they smarter than the rest of us? Do you know how many black billionaires there are in the US, and how many black people in total? Do you agree with the Jews’ logic that the black people must be dumb? Or are they oppressed and not allowed to get ahead?
Only an idiot would deny that there is systemic racist discrimination against black people in the USA. And only an idiot would claim that there isn’t systemic racist favoritism of Jews in the USA, and Russia, in the face of the statistics.
Do you know that there are Iranian-Jewish billionaires out there? I kid you not. There’s even Brazilian-Jewish billionaires.
And just for my benefit, could you list some of those “a lot of hawkish military brass with German names.”
Thank you.
It was certainly my intent to “blame it all on the Jews.” Like I said, Zionism in the USA is mostly Christian. They represent a sect that most of Christianity believe is outright heresy. Again, the author of the Scofield Reference Bible was bankrolled by the Rothschild banksters. They are using the Jews being returned to Jerusalem as the pretext for turning the USA into some kind of pseudo-Christian theocracy. May Heaven save us all from the wrath of the so-called Christians.
I studied with jews at several universities (one was voted 2nd best in the world a few years ago)>
They were never the best in anything – despite working hard and being the geekest
That IQ argument is pure propaganda as are most other lies they like to repeat (especially via jewish controlled Hollywood)
Jamshyd
I read about the effect and spread covid-19 in Iran, it has been a real pain and the sanctions is another layer that compound this grieve.
I hope and pray that the Imam of the age (as) will intercede on behalf of your brother and friend and healed them ameen.
May Allah heal the IR of Iran.
Yk,
The covid situation in Iran is very bad. But the government cannot afford to place any part of the country under lockdown or quarantine, nor restrict people’s movements, because, as you are well aware, the economic situation is dire, and no one can afford to stay at home and not work.
Thank you for the well wishes.
And I apologize to the mod for always being off-topic.
The US is a private fief of private bankers. In 1776 the North American colonies changed hands, from being run by the English Crown to being run by the Rothschild’s, whose five pointed star is on the American flag. The country was created by freemasons and slave owners on behalf of the Rothschild’s, who financed them. The US Federal Reserve, a private central bank, controls US finances, while the HQ of the freemasons, situated in Washington DC, controls politicians and Government institutions. The commander in chief of all freemasons is Prince Philip, husband to the Queen of England. Barack Obama, for example, is a member of the Prince Hall Masonic Lodge, created for Afro-Americans.
The US has been at war during 93 % of it’s existence, fighting for banker interests. The two political parties in the US are basically entertainers, who exist to ‘prove’ to the population that they live in a ‘democracy’. The President of the US is an actor who plays the role of ‘President’. Any disobedience to the bankers and corporations is punishable by death, as proven by the case of JFK. Historians are not sure how many US presidents were assassinated. The ones killed by fire arms are well known. However, those that were poisoned are not so well known, as historians cannot prove that the were indeed poisoned, although they suspect it.
The US has run the largest foreign and domestic debt in the world, and even American university professors cannot fully ascertain it’s size. The dollar is printed backed by nothing. The US elite has been buying up real estate outside the US for years, preparing getaways in case of a financial crash or severe social and political troubles. To the US elite America is just a place where they live. They have no loyalty towards it. Their loyalty is directed towards their wealth. In the year 476, before ancient Rome fell, the first who fled the city was the Roman elite. The US elite will do the same.
Except the elite can remain irrational longer than you can remain financially solvent.
So glad to find out that I’m not the only person voting for Gloria La Riva!
High five!
I interviewed her last week – after our interview she got on a GREYHOUND bus to travel to Champaign, Illinois. to keep campaigning. LOL, she is clearly not in politics to line her pockets.
She is the real deal and a dear, warm, super-smart, committed leftist. I’m so glad I met her and that she lived up to expectations, and I’m so glad there is a person I am confident in voting for. Of course, PSL’s platform is 2nd to none. People who hold their nose and vote – I’m sorry for them, and wish they would check out PSL and La Riva.
http://www.presstv.com/Detail/2020/10/12/636206/US-presidential-election-Democrats-Republican-Party-Donald-Trump-?fbclid=IwAR36fdjsE8KcTRhyKZyxgwru-5nbBFglN8Htgny7P8lYsrO_JR2Aw-Pi_AM
Are you an American citizen??!!
Since when?
Why?
Katheirine
Umm…Have you ever heard Ramin speak? His American-English sticks out a mile.
No, I have not heard him speak.
As for writing, there are many who master a second language, or even more than two.
So, I guess Ramin in an American citizen.
I thought from his writings that he was Iranian (not Iranian American) and lives in Paris.
Katherine
Iranian-Americans are Iranian – Iran doesn’t recognise dual citizenship.
Who cares? All analyses must stand on their own, regardless of provenance.
I love this article: it treats politics as actually subject to a sense of time which is longer than an election cycle. It also realises that culture can’t be turned off and on like a switch, though the “leader classes” assume it’s just that easy.
America is exhausted, for sure.
In which case Irish Americans are by definition citizens of Ireland? and African Americans . . . what are they?
No, Ali, just the opposite is the case. “X Americans” are Americans, whereby X denotes ethnic origin. To the extent that the term has anything at all to say about citizenship, the latter word is the operative one.
Thanks for the link! I would just argue that your closing statement about the Greens’ role in Florida 2000 is a bit misleading. The number of Floridians voting for Greens was dwarfed by the number of Florida Democrats who voted for Dubya Bush — estimates are usually in the 300K-400K range versus the few tens of thousands who voted Green. Furthermore, it’s the Democrats who threw the Florida election in no small part by botching their own litigation to get votes counted, namely by insisting on recounting only certain counties rather than the entire state. To the extent that the Greens played a role in Florida 2000, it was to offer — unintentionally of course — the Democrats a convenient scapegoat for the Democrats’ own failures.
That much said, I voted for Nader in 2000 and am still proud of the fact, and this year I find Howie Hawkins to be a thoroughly decent man and candidate. But I like Gloria La Riva better, and since one vote counts for nothing anyway, why not vote one’s conscience until that day when at least most of the leftists agree on a candidate?
Great piece and great link to the movie review, Ramin! Really nailed the current zeitgeist, which even the poor and downtrodden seem unable to elucidate these days.
Seconded. That’s a fantastic review of Joker.
”This new class are exemplified by a housewife who has never punched a timeclock but who sees herself as the moral-socioeconomic-intellectual guardian of her local community. But the key here is that the Boomers’ community-shaping PTA (Parents-Teachers Association) has moved online and into sweatpants from basements: I am describing the proactive, energetic and opinionated “influencers” on social media.
These people can perhaps fairly be described as “half-informed”, because if they were fully “informed” they would likely be tapped for the “leader” class. These people also differ from the “leader class” in that – even though they get no pay at all for doing so – they post, and comment, and do much unpaid work online, just as no one got paid at the PTA or other community organisations.”
This subset should be accounted for because this class is seemingly within the masses, but in thought, culture and desire they want to join the leader class.”
Yes indeed these are the petit-bourgeois enrages, the storm-troopers of the counter-revolution, the strike-breakers, and the political and religious fanatics who fill the ranks of the proto-fascist movements and who believe themselves to be the defenders of Christian civilization. Led by the leader who is the light the truth and the way, Mussolini ha sempre ragione – Mussolini is always right.
These are the shock troops of counter-revolution.
Shock troops of revolution.
Very nice and eye-opening analysis. In line with David Brooks analysis “America is having a moral convulsion” and others. Bringing up this aspect of “loss of energy” of the masses is certainly very true and I would say that the leaders class doesn’t give a dam.
That bring said, where are they going to go for cover after all the very various trouble they’ve been causing around the world, at least in my case since I’ve been awakened to politics and I’m not young anymore?
Alexander Dugin does an excellent analysis of the American crisis.
https://www.geopolitica.ru/en/article/geopolitics-american-elections
warm greetings !
Thanx for the link.
Parts of Gene D. Matlock’s work detail the ancient origin of what Dugin calls “Land Power” civilization & “Sea Power” civilization.
For a short overview, I recommend “What Osama Bin Laden Doesn’t Want YOU to Know”, (strange title, I know!)
http://www.viewzone.com/phoenician.html
My Edit:
… “What Osama Bin Laden Doesn’t Want YOU to Know about the Phoenicians & the Jews” …
The Great Divide No, no! It was me in my kitchen with WD40, a white turnip maliu float and a pair of black-market red pliers that done it. What a triumph! More details following…. but I can fix it in an instant if you want. All I need is one of Hillary’s fingernails. When hubris surpasses reason an empire crumbles.
With US leaders there is no such thing a rock bottom. To quote TS Elliot:”We are the hollow men . . . Our dried voices, when … We whisper together … Are quiet and meaningless … As wind in dry grass … or rats’ feet over broken glass.” https://youtu.be/53ytiiOI6G4 http://www.cowdisley.com/videos/Adivisions2.mp4
And “election” is in mere two weeks……. :-)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUif106VC-o
America was gutted years ago – regardless the push by transnational elites = zionists to elect Biden demonstrates that the US still has much farther to fall. But you have to realize that the way the US goes so too will the rest of the world. Both Russia and China – along with Iran are riding the coronas hoax reset until the bottom falls out. With a Trump win they will gain time against the most reactionary elements within the global cabal that is intent on a western fire sale. However, I feel you under estimate America. Trump has done a lot of good exposing the true nature of US politics and its dependency on corruption at all levels. Combined with the final wasting of the MSM and the internet monopolies – even the most dense of DP voters will have an uneasy feeling about their so called democracy – a feeling that will only amplify in the coming years.
Why would they gain time, Trump is pumping the bigPharma co-nvid vaccines as much as Gates and Fauci https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2I7Upzb21c
Agree. The fact is that if most of our leaders were Trump, we would not be declining. He has some dumb opinions some time (Iran, Venezuela), but he is basically an old-fashioned American … you know, the kind that built this Country.
What is this nonsense about Donald “Daddy Kushner” Trump being somehow anti-Zionist? He packed his cabinet with ultra-Zionist evangelicals like Pompeo, who has been joined at the hip with Bibi. Pulling out of Obama’s JCPOA, assassinating Soleimani, bogus “peace” deals with UAE, Bahrain, and so on. Trump is 101% a Likud lackey.
Meanwhile, in the Biden camp there is dogwhistling about “reevaluating foreign policy goals” and “deemphasizing relationships with low RoI”–all of which points to moving away from Israel and towards “great power” conflict with China & Russia. Of course, they are going to star in the AIPAC circus for short-term electoral reasons. But please read between the lines.
Trump is playing to the crowd (aipac followers) and keeping the usual neocon suspects close. Hillary was always the first/only choice of the zionist transnationals trajectory. War with against Syria = Russia = Iran was guaranteed under the clinton witch. None of that has happened with Trump and will not happen. JCPOA is nothing more than a carrot for Iran to pull it away from Russia and China – why Iran even bothered demonstrates that there are powerful treacherous forces within Persia aligned with global zionism.
War – a big war is ultimately the only goal of the globalist cabal. A war that will consume the US and once and for all conquer Russia.
China is just a cover – the US corporate state has no issues with Asian cheap labour.
Russia is the only real threat to global hegemony – Trump and his billionaire backers are not on board with the end game of the death cult because they believe the price is too high.
“..why Iran even bothered demonstrates that there are powerful treacherous forces within Persia aligned with global zionism.”
Yeah. They are the Iranian people, watching too much Persian language ziomedia. Any one of them would kill to go be a slave in the West nowadays. The Iranians’ hatred of their own country is a shocking phenomena of the modern age. Just about any one of them would sell out their whole country to Israel for two pennies.
Disaffected,
I’m sure it came out of a lab somewhere. But what I find strange is how China, with over a billion people, has completely and utterly stopped this thing in its tracks, whereas Iran, has had absolutely zero success.
We must be very incompetent over here, or China knows something we don’t. Either way, the covid situation in Iran is starting to turn into a great tragedy.
Covid has changed twice now.
The first wave, there was a lot of coughing and phlegm, very thick phlegm. Dire fatigue, weakness, shortness of breath, weight loss, loss of smell, conjunctivitis, and a sensation of heartburn. I developed pneumonia as a result and suffered mild lung damage. I had to take co-amoxiclav to clear up the secondary lung infection. My wife was asymptomatic.
Second wave, stomach ache, diarrhea, lack of appetite, fatigue, and weakness, weight loss. My wife caught it. I was asymptomatic.
Third wave, chronic headache, fatigue and weakness, lack of appetite, weight loss, stomach discomfort and a sensation of heartburn. Both my wife and I have had this, but our symptoms were rather mild compared to some others here.
I feel fairly confident saying that pretty much everyone in Iran has had covid at least once by now. Many have had it multiple times.
Jamshyd
I think Iran is under some form of attack, but with the sanctions Iran is being handicapped and cannot afford to lockdown the country. But I read in the news that Iran covid-19 vaccine have passed the animal stage and will move to human stage in the middle of next month.
I pray that the Imam (as) will intercede and grant Iran success in the nearest future ameen.
I think Trump dislikes the leader class of both parties and wants to create a new movement.
I still do not rule out him going independent if the Republicans in Congress fail to back him.
The Democrats have become a corrupt mad drug addicted group controlled by people well over 60 who only crave power and money. Swing voters realized that in 2016.
The establishment Republicans are not much different being corrupt and living in the past.
Things will come to head soon anyway.
The use-by date for both parties establishments has arrived.
Can you imagine if Biden-Harris got elected then failed to deliver on economy by continuing to pander to China oriented globalism (which is what will happen) ? They’d get rolled in 2024. Be like Carter in 1977–81. And it might be by Trump again winning or him setting up another movement.
If Trump wins then there will be another 4 years of reform but after that what happens ? Will he select another to be President ? What state will the House and Senate parties be in by then ? Dems reeling and the gerriatrics over 80 out (Pelosi) and GOP ones seeing the writing on that wall ?
Will Trump or his people organize a new third party who will take most of the Republicans and also bleed the Democrats as well, leaving the GOP a memory and the Dems weakened ?
One thing should be clear that the failure to deliver on eco issues will result in a change in voters support.
This time frame is the pivotal period for this century for the US and other countries who don’t want globalists interfering with their national status.
The globalists live under the illusion they can permanently control countries and run them and their people into the ground but every action results in an equal and opposition reaction. The reaction mode is on and has been since 2016. 45 years of globalist damage to 2016 will result in multi decades of reversal. And the effects of it will see change to the political structure.