Listen to a reading of this article: Forcefully opposing the warmongering and imperialism of your rulers is the very first step toward political morality. It's not the only step, but it is the first step, because if you haven't taken that step then no other ostensibly moral politics you might espouse are meaningful.
Quite simply, there can be no chance of 'honest capitalism' while the incestuous 'lobbyist' status quo remains in place in our political halls of power. A system that virtually guarantees mutual back scratching and palm greasing can only have led to the system we have today.....in which the rich and powerful club together for mutual benefit while those of us out in the cold get screwed. How much worse could our governance possibly be without lobbyists? I suggest it would be way better, PERIOD.
"People defend their rulers for the same reason cultists defend their cult leader: because they've been indoctrinated. And usually by the same psychological manipulation techniques."
I'm beginning to wonder if the manipulation techniques are starting to slip... I don't want to defend our rulers ever again. Down with the US imperialist cult!!
I don't disagree with anything said here, but I have no hope that people world wide will be able to gain a global perspective, nor do I believe that governments will encourage that mindset. Interesting that if your background is in ecology one is not only interested in the survival and well being of the zoological and botanical species that reside, so to speak, in your own backyard, but your interest and concern operates on a global level. Not so when it comes to the human species. I also believe that there are too many and maybe most who are in the top eschelons of government, and in the business world that will sell their souls for money and power, and being nothing more then alpha chimps. I know it all sounds negative, but I for one have seen nothing else.
How many cultures have reconciled our competitive, violent neuro-socio-biological behavioral program with the one that is care-giving and cooperative? How large were they and how long did they last? I can think of 2 or 3 that evolved under special conditions. But in general we default to supremacy and violence in pursuit of "survival". We default to violence, over-consumption and tyranny because we have dominant predatory nervous systems. It's not a political, moral, religious or intellectual problem we face. It's a neurobiological and sociobiological dilemma; a predator paradox. Words are no antidote. Fears' subconscious inertia weaponizes them to empower Alpha manipulators and their criminal accomplices. War trumps wisdom routinely.
I would say the first step toward moral politics is to fix the money. It is no accident that the world has been in perpetual wars ever since the beginning of the 20th century when England moved heavily to fiat currency to fund WWI and the US created the Federal Reserve Bank. Countries used to need gold and silver and impose taxes or borrow to finance their wars. Now, they just print it up out of thin air. Funding war is far too easy.
"Since I am a preacher by calling, I suppose it is not surprising that I have seven major reasons for bringing Vietnam into the field of my moral vision. There is at the outset a very obvious and almost facile connection between the war in Vietnam and the struggle I and others have been waging in America. A few years ago there was a shining moment in that struggle. It seemed as if there was a real promise of hope for the poor, both black and white, through the poverty program. There were experiments, hopes, new beginnings. Then came the buildup in Vietnam, and I watched this program broken and eviscerated as if it were some idle political plaything of a society gone mad on war. And I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic, destructive suction tube. So I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such.[...]
When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being
conquered. [...]
A true revolution of values will lay hands on the world order and say of war: "This way of settling differences is not just." This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation’s homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death."
I disagree with nothing in this post, but want to focus on the way a government, culture, cult or ruling class controls the narrative and proagandizes the citizenry. I came across a narrative awhile back that talked about memes, meaning units of cultural information in the way the genes are units of genetic information. Which means they're vague--genes don't have a set number of nucleotides or codons, and memes can be a new buzzword or the Catholic church. But they survive by protecting themselves. So belief systems often block the exits for believers. Examples are the notion in many sects of Christianity that doubting the faith is a moral crime, and in Scientology that psychology and its practioners are an evil enemy (which blocks the exits because this cult draws on people with mental health issues; so the exit might." be marked by the thought: "Maybe I should try talking to a therapist." And the American empire is seeking to block the exit by rigging it with the notion that to question the latest warmongering narrative is to be an agent of the Kremlin, a Chinese dupe, or whatever. But this didn't use to work on the Left!
Well said Caitlin! Reading the part you wrote about the ruling class doing everything possible to stamp out ANY worker lead class warfare movement reminded me of the latest casualty, Peru. Frustrating to see US Imperialism claim another scalp.
You are right on so many points. The liberals who condemn the right, dare not condemn imperialism. The reason they do not condemn this evil is because so many Americans benefit from it. It is not because they are stupid although they need to be ignorant of the consequences of their their lives. In America half of the employed citizens do not provide the necessities of survival as a living which necessitates the master nation exploiting the land and labor of other nations. This nation produces little of the necessities, and when this condition exists the only way our nation can keeps its non productive ways is through violence and threats of violence. We tear the middle east apart partly to keep oil cheap, and keep Africa divided because divided subject nations is easier to control. The only way of stop the ugliness of imperialism is when the productive people organize as a class for itself meaning we organize our own collectives where no one gets paid to organize us for that is when the existence of class starts.
“The least likely outcome for humanity's future is that we continue along the same trajectory we've been on without having to drastically change ourselves and our behavior. That is the least likely thing to happen. We're headed for massive changes fairly soon, one way or another.”
That. Right there.
Truth can shine a light, but it can be dark, too. Very dark.
I respect your passion, and your call for basic morality, Caitlin. The US is indeed the leading purveyor of violence, oppression, robbery, and outright murder in the world, by far. Virtually every war that's ongoing, and almost every war on the planet over the past century, has the US as an instigator. And the public is so in denial that the word 'denial' just doesn't suffice.
Your description of the pervasive propaganda is accurate as well. You know the propaganda is at the level of DaVinci when the people of the world's hegemon warmonger state think there's no propaganda.
But that longtime, pervasive propaganda has shaped how we view the political spectrum (views of what is 'left' and what is 'right'), how we view 'free markets' and 'capitalism', and how we view 'democracy', 'socialism', or 'communism'. And the propaganda has shaped the history we learn and have free access to, to shape those aforementioned things. History books are written by the victors, which has always been us, and therefore we know the history that's needed to perpetuate violence and oppression.
One of the pillars of the propaganda that shapes our culture is that of collectivism. It's the ideology that the 'interests' of the collective are superior to the individual, and therefore on any issue, the minority has no rights. Whatever is deemed best for the 'collective' is the law, and those who don't agree are coerced, or even killed. We call it democracy, socialism, fascism, or communism, with the only difference being how it's decided what groups prevail and what groups get steamrolled. Any which way, it's all based on systemic oppression of minorities and the doctrine of 'might makes right', with 'might' simply being political power.
So there's quite a contradiction in your piece, because the 'left' is collectivism by definition. Collectivism is how tyrants justify tyranny to the masses, and it's become the modern American religion. It's all about coercion and violence, and while pretending there's no coercion or violence. It's no coincidence that as Americans have embraced collectivist propaganda, all over the world we've become more oppressive and violent. We're simply exporting collectivism; we have the political power to impose our will, so minorities everywhere had better obey.
So whomever is genuinely facing the violence their culture is perpetrating had better also be facing that leftist in the mirror, or they're still living by the propaganda, and fake.
The bottom line is that if we are to avoid going down in flames as a nation, we had better be willing to look at ALL of the ways we've been conned into embracing violence and oppression, not just the most obvious manifestation that is war.
10 principles of propaganda - from the book Falsehood in Wartime, by Belgian historian Anne Morelli, and taken from writings by Lord Ponsonby, who was describing the role of media in Europe, prior to WWI...
1. We do not want war.
2. The other side is solely responsible for the war.
3. The enemy has the face of the devil.
4. It is a noble cause that we defend and not particular interests.
5. The enemy commits atrocities knowingly; if we make unfortunate mistakes, it is involuntary.
6. The enemy uses unauthorized weapons.
7. We suffer very few losses, while the losses of the enemy are enormous.
8. Artists and intellectuals support our cause.
9. Our cause has a sacred nature.
10. Those who question our statements are traitors.
When legality of action is replaced by morality of it. And we know that from the two, only one can be universally accepted.
Caitlin, I am a big, longtime fan. I strongly endorse your views on imperial propaganda and the need to oppose imperial war, etc. But when it comes to the problems enabled by wokeness I think you're missing the point.
What you call “wokeness” is crushing women’s rights, gay rights, democratic rights and children’s health. Together, this has a devastating affect on working class solidarity. The right is only opposing wokeness opportunistically, because the left has vacated the entire lane to them. If the left spoke up with a principled, unified voice, the right would not be able to use anti-wokeness as a trojan horse for their other issues and the oppression that wokeness enables would be snatched from the arsenal of the ruling class. Misunderstanding this is a really, really big self own.
A big part of the failure of what is now called "the left" is not only propaganda, but very poor quality education and indoctrination.
In a reaction to the cultural, political and intellectual uprising of the 60's, the Right has both dismantled the public schools and - via control of the curriculum and suppression of all critical thought and learning - used them as an institution of indoctrination.
Very few of those born after 1970 have any grasp of history and fewer still read.
The Powell Memo lays of the corporate right wing strategy that drove all this.
Quite simply, there can be no chance of 'honest capitalism' while the incestuous 'lobbyist' status quo remains in place in our political halls of power. A system that virtually guarantees mutual back scratching and palm greasing can only have led to the system we have today.....in which the rich and powerful club together for mutual benefit while those of us out in the cold get screwed. How much worse could our governance possibly be without lobbyists? I suggest it would be way better, PERIOD.
"People defend their rulers for the same reason cultists defend their cult leader: because they've been indoctrinated. And usually by the same psychological manipulation techniques."
I'm beginning to wonder if the manipulation techniques are starting to slip... I don't want to defend our rulers ever again. Down with the US imperialist cult!!
I don't disagree with anything said here, but I have no hope that people world wide will be able to gain a global perspective, nor do I believe that governments will encourage that mindset. Interesting that if your background is in ecology one is not only interested in the survival and well being of the zoological and botanical species that reside, so to speak, in your own backyard, but your interest and concern operates on a global level. Not so when it comes to the human species. I also believe that there are too many and maybe most who are in the top eschelons of government, and in the business world that will sell their souls for money and power, and being nothing more then alpha chimps. I know it all sounds negative, but I for one have seen nothing else.
"All tyrannies rule through fraud and force, but once the fraud is exposed they must rely exclusively on force." ~George Orwell
How many cultures have reconciled our competitive, violent neuro-socio-biological behavioral program with the one that is care-giving and cooperative? How large were they and how long did they last? I can think of 2 or 3 that evolved under special conditions. But in general we default to supremacy and violence in pursuit of "survival". We default to violence, over-consumption and tyranny because we have dominant predatory nervous systems. It's not a political, moral, religious or intellectual problem we face. It's a neurobiological and sociobiological dilemma; a predator paradox. Words are no antidote. Fears' subconscious inertia weaponizes them to empower Alpha manipulators and their criminal accomplices. War trumps wisdom routinely.
I would say the first step toward moral politics is to fix the money. It is no accident that the world has been in perpetual wars ever since the beginning of the 20th century when England moved heavily to fiat currency to fund WWI and the US created the Federal Reserve Bank. Countries used to need gold and silver and impose taxes or borrow to finance their wars. Now, they just print it up out of thin air. Funding war is far too easy.
This is why they killed him:
"Since I am a preacher by calling, I suppose it is not surprising that I have seven major reasons for bringing Vietnam into the field of my moral vision. There is at the outset a very obvious and almost facile connection between the war in Vietnam and the struggle I and others have been waging in America. A few years ago there was a shining moment in that struggle. It seemed as if there was a real promise of hope for the poor, both black and white, through the poverty program. There were experiments, hopes, new beginnings. Then came the buildup in Vietnam, and I watched this program broken and eviscerated as if it were some idle political plaything of a society gone mad on war. And I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic, destructive suction tube. So I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such.[...]
When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being
conquered. [...]
A true revolution of values will lay hands on the world order and say of war: "This way of settling differences is not just." This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation’s homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death."
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr (Beyond Vietnam, 1967)
https://www2.hawaii.edu/~freeman/courses/phil100/17.%20MLK%20Beyond%20Vietnam.pdf
We didn't listen and we are now spiritually dead.
I disagree with nothing in this post, but want to focus on the way a government, culture, cult or ruling class controls the narrative and proagandizes the citizenry. I came across a narrative awhile back that talked about memes, meaning units of cultural information in the way the genes are units of genetic information. Which means they're vague--genes don't have a set number of nucleotides or codons, and memes can be a new buzzword or the Catholic church. But they survive by protecting themselves. So belief systems often block the exits for believers. Examples are the notion in many sects of Christianity that doubting the faith is a moral crime, and in Scientology that psychology and its practioners are an evil enemy (which blocks the exits because this cult draws on people with mental health issues; so the exit might." be marked by the thought: "Maybe I should try talking to a therapist." And the American empire is seeking to block the exit by rigging it with the notion that to question the latest warmongering narrative is to be an agent of the Kremlin, a Chinese dupe, or whatever. But this didn't use to work on the Left!
Well said Caitlin! Reading the part you wrote about the ruling class doing everything possible to stamp out ANY worker lead class warfare movement reminded me of the latest casualty, Peru. Frustrating to see US Imperialism claim another scalp.
You are right on so many points. The liberals who condemn the right, dare not condemn imperialism. The reason they do not condemn this evil is because so many Americans benefit from it. It is not because they are stupid although they need to be ignorant of the consequences of their their lives. In America half of the employed citizens do not provide the necessities of survival as a living which necessitates the master nation exploiting the land and labor of other nations. This nation produces little of the necessities, and when this condition exists the only way our nation can keeps its non productive ways is through violence and threats of violence. We tear the middle east apart partly to keep oil cheap, and keep Africa divided because divided subject nations is easier to control. The only way of stop the ugliness of imperialism is when the productive people organize as a class for itself meaning we organize our own collectives where no one gets paid to organize us for that is when the existence of class starts.
Bravo!
“The least likely outcome for humanity's future is that we continue along the same trajectory we've been on without having to drastically change ourselves and our behavior. That is the least likely thing to happen. We're headed for massive changes fairly soon, one way or another.”
That. Right there.
Truth can shine a light, but it can be dark, too. Very dark.
I respect your passion, and your call for basic morality, Caitlin. The US is indeed the leading purveyor of violence, oppression, robbery, and outright murder in the world, by far. Virtually every war that's ongoing, and almost every war on the planet over the past century, has the US as an instigator. And the public is so in denial that the word 'denial' just doesn't suffice.
Your description of the pervasive propaganda is accurate as well. You know the propaganda is at the level of DaVinci when the people of the world's hegemon warmonger state think there's no propaganda.
But that longtime, pervasive propaganda has shaped how we view the political spectrum (views of what is 'left' and what is 'right'), how we view 'free markets' and 'capitalism', and how we view 'democracy', 'socialism', or 'communism'. And the propaganda has shaped the history we learn and have free access to, to shape those aforementioned things. History books are written by the victors, which has always been us, and therefore we know the history that's needed to perpetuate violence and oppression.
One of the pillars of the propaganda that shapes our culture is that of collectivism. It's the ideology that the 'interests' of the collective are superior to the individual, and therefore on any issue, the minority has no rights. Whatever is deemed best for the 'collective' is the law, and those who don't agree are coerced, or even killed. We call it democracy, socialism, fascism, or communism, with the only difference being how it's decided what groups prevail and what groups get steamrolled. Any which way, it's all based on systemic oppression of minorities and the doctrine of 'might makes right', with 'might' simply being political power.
So there's quite a contradiction in your piece, because the 'left' is collectivism by definition. Collectivism is how tyrants justify tyranny to the masses, and it's become the modern American religion. It's all about coercion and violence, and while pretending there's no coercion or violence. It's no coincidence that as Americans have embraced collectivist propaganda, all over the world we've become more oppressive and violent. We're simply exporting collectivism; we have the political power to impose our will, so minorities everywhere had better obey.
So whomever is genuinely facing the violence their culture is perpetrating had better also be facing that leftist in the mirror, or they're still living by the propaganda, and fake.
The bottom line is that if we are to avoid going down in flames as a nation, we had better be willing to look at ALL of the ways we've been conned into embracing violence and oppression, not just the most obvious manifestation that is war.
10 principles of propaganda - from the book Falsehood in Wartime, by Belgian historian Anne Morelli, and taken from writings by Lord Ponsonby, who was describing the role of media in Europe, prior to WWI...
1. We do not want war.
2. The other side is solely responsible for the war.
3. The enemy has the face of the devil.
4. It is a noble cause that we defend and not particular interests.
5. The enemy commits atrocities knowingly; if we make unfortunate mistakes, it is involuntary.
6. The enemy uses unauthorized weapons.
7. We suffer very few losses, while the losses of the enemy are enormous.
8. Artists and intellectuals support our cause.
9. Our cause has a sacred nature.
10. Those who question our statements are traitors.
When legality of action is replaced by morality of it. And we know that from the two, only one can be universally accepted.
Caitlin, I am a big, longtime fan. I strongly endorse your views on imperial propaganda and the need to oppose imperial war, etc. But when it comes to the problems enabled by wokeness I think you're missing the point.
What you call “wokeness” is crushing women’s rights, gay rights, democratic rights and children’s health. Together, this has a devastating affect on working class solidarity. The right is only opposing wokeness opportunistically, because the left has vacated the entire lane to them. If the left spoke up with a principled, unified voice, the right would not be able to use anti-wokeness as a trojan horse for their other issues and the oppression that wokeness enables would be snatched from the arsenal of the ruling class. Misunderstanding this is a really, really big self own.
For more see https://brucelesnick.substack.com/p/with-gender-ideology-the-left-is
A big part of the failure of what is now called "the left" is not only propaganda, but very poor quality education and indoctrination.
In a reaction to the cultural, political and intellectual uprising of the 60's, the Right has both dismantled the public schools and - via control of the curriculum and suppression of all critical thought and learning - used them as an institution of indoctrination.
Very few of those born after 1970 have any grasp of history and fewer still read.
The Powell Memo lays of the corporate right wing strategy that drove all this.