Are you feeling “Kamalove” for Kamala Harris? Are you gaga for MAGA and Donald Trump? Or maybe you’re angry J.D. Vance once made a comment about “childless cat ladies.” This is the preferred narrative being pushed by the great CON, the corporate-owned news.*
It wasn’t that long ago that, thanks to Bernie Sanders, among others, Americans were talking about real issues. Affordable health care for all. A $15 federal minimum wage. Sweeping student loan debt relief. Tax reforms that would favor the working classes rather than the richest among us. Campaign finance reform that would get “big money” out of politics.
This is the madness of war. (Mourners from the Druze minority carry the coffins of some of the 12 children and teenagers killed in the rocket strike in the village of Majdal Shams. Photograph: Léo Corrêa/AP)
Another vital issue, of course, is America’s seemingly permanent state of war and its slavish support of Israel in its ongoing demolition of Gaza. As expected, that genocidal act is beginning to spin out of control as it appears Israel is preparing to strike Hezbollah in Lebanon in the aftermath of a deadly missile strike on the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
When will the madness of war in the Middle East end? And is it the intent of the U.S. government to continue to provide all the weapons Israel needs to continue its campaign of mass killing? (Always done in the name of “defense” and “security,” naturally.)
In his recent address to America, President Biden declared that under him U.S. troops weren’t at war for the first time this century. His exact words were: “I’m the first president in this century to report to the American people that the United States is not at war anywhere in the world.” This boast came as U.S. forces were bombing Yemen in support of Israel’s operations in Gaza. Meanwhile, America leads the world in selling weapons and spends more on its military than the next ten countries combined, most of those being U.S. allies.
When does the U.S. get to become a normal country in normal times, rather than a nation permanently at war and forever preparing for it, even for nuclear Armageddon? Why are we spending possibly as much as $2 trillion on “modernizing” a nuclear triad that, if used, could easily destroy life on earth as well as several other earth-sized planets? When are we going to end this insanity?
We need to challenge Democrats and Republicans as well as the media to cover real issues, issues of life and death, rather than writing puff pieces about Kamalove and MAGA.
Soon after Joe Biden took office as president in 2021, I remember hearing that his VP, Kamala Harris, was put in charge of immigration, informally known as the “border czar.” Yesterday, the House passed a resolution condemning Harris for her handling of the border crisis. Yet I’ve also been hearing from Democrats and the media that Harris never was the border czar, even as there’s plenty of video evidence of networks like ABC, CBS, and NBC referring to her using that term.
Denying that Harris was the border czar is a fairly small lie immersed in much larger sea of lies, and of course it’s a bipartisan effort. Donald Trump exaggerates and lies just to stay in shape. Democrats love to attack Trump for lying even as they lie themselves. Truly, it’s hard to run a government and a country when lies confuse every issue.
Another lie being told about Kamala Harris is that her candidacy is the result of democracy in action. She’s the people’s choice! Except almost nobody voted for her as a presidential candidate. She’s been elevated and selected by the DNC and the donor class. She is a packaged product of the so-called elites within the party, the very opposite of a candidate chosen by the people. And yet I’m told this packaged product is going to “save democracy” from Trump, who was actually selected as a candidate in a more democratic process.
Of course, there are far bigger and more serious lies than whether Harris was the border czar or whether she’s the people’s choice as the savior of democracy. U.S. troops’ deadliest enemies, I’d argue, are most often the lies told by the U.S. government, abetted and amplified by senior officers in the military. Think here of Iraq and Afghanistan, or go back further to Vietnam.
Daniel Ellsberg, truth-teller about the Vietnam War and so many other things
Knowing (or sensing/feeling) you killed for lies, or knowing your friends died for lies, is surely a contributing cause to a rash of suicides in the U.S. military today. The sacrifices and horrors of war may be eased by a “just” war, like World War II, but they are aggravated by unjust wars. And they are further aggravated when you try to get help through the VA only to be turned away or stonewalled.
All this is prologue to a note I received from a regular reader of Bracing Views about lies in America. I’ve decided to retain the profanity because it’s more than appropriate:
I don’t know about you, but I find it quite amazing that, despite decades of bold-faced lying about US wars, all of it proven and even reported in the NYT and other mainstream media, the narrative of the each subsequent war is always accepted as true, until it too is exposed as being nothing but lies.
Let’s look at the recent record:
1) Vietnam–exposed as nothing but lies by the Pentagon Papers.
2) Iraq–exposed as lies when the infamous WMD were never found and there was nothing found to back up the claim of links to Al Qaeda.
3) Afghanistan–exposed as pure fiction as revealed by the Washington Post “Afghanistan Papers” which said that “senior U.S. officials failed to tell the truth about the war in Afghanistan throughout the 18-year campaign, making rosy pronouncements they knew to be false and hiding unmistakable evidence the war had become unwinnable.”
Add to the above list the fact that the Mueller report investigating the Russiagate hoax came up with nothing, ZERO.
Currently, there are a couple of new false narratives duly reported by the mainstream media and, for the most part, swallowed by most people. First is the false narrative about the US war in Ukraine, that NATO expansion has nothing to do with it but rather was caused by naked Russian aggression and Putin’s plans to re-create the Soviet Union and take over the rest of Eastern Europe. Second, the false narrative that Israel is just defending itself against Palestinian terrorism rather than committing grotesque war crimes, completely ignoring the fact that the Israelis have been keeping the Palestinians under illegal occupation for over 50 years, since June 1967.
Lie after lie after lie after lie. And yet none of it matters. It is all sent down the memory hole as if it never happened. And then it is on to the next war, when the official narrative spewed out by the DC blob will once again be swallowed hook, line and sinker. It appears to be never ending. No matter how much lying is exposed, it simply does not matter.
I think it is pretty fucking amazing. What will it take to get people to come out of their coma and realize what the fuck is going on?
And keep in mind…..it has nothing to do with party affiliation. The lying is endemic, it’s in the DNA of the National Security State. Presidents come and go, but the lying for war-making never stops. And no one is ever held accountable either.
It’s pretty fucking impressive, when you think about it.
Keep this is in mind……one would think that, after this abhorrent track record, the appropriate response would be to assume that the narrative justifying the new war of the moment was not true and nothing but more of the same lying. But that NEVER happens. NEVER.
How is that possible? Is it just a serious form of denial? Is it due to mental illness? Is it just some perverted form of patriotism? In what other realm is it possible to lie non-stop and never be held accountable? Even worse, to continue to have credibility despite a track record of pathological lying?
A friend of mine pointed out that, in the old USSR, people knew that the official news on their TV every night was nothing but lies.
So, this begs the question: Which system is more pernicious and has more effectively brainwashed its people? The one where people are controlled but they are aware that they are being fed nothing but lies, or the one that is constantly lied to but the people still believe they are being told the truth?
To those keen insights, I made this reply:
Our [American] system of lying is better! We have state/corporate media too, it’s just more subtle and advertised as “free.” We have our own “Pravda” except it rarely tells the truth, unless that “truth” is in the interests of the powerful.
To which our BV keen reader replied:
Exactly. But to suggest that we have our own version of “Pravda,” only worse because it has the cover of supposedly being “free,” is tantamount to treason, you realize.
This is the reason why Julian Assange/Wikileaks was such a threat…for actually challenging the right of the National Security State to lie non-stop about its war making and never be exposed for its lying or held accountable.
Of course, that is exactly why Assange was locked away in prison for so long and tortured, not because he was spreading lies but because he was revealing truths.
And we can’t have that in America!
*My hearty thanks to this Bracing Views keen reader for allowing me to cite this. I always say I learn so much from my readers, and I mean it.
These are strange times in America. Today the New York Times is telling me there’s already a movement afoot to resist Donald Trump if he wins the election, in the cause of defending democracy, naturally. Here’s the blurb:
Now, as I’ve said on numerous occasions, I won’t be voting for Trump or Biden. I’m not a Trump supporter and I hope he loses. Yet, assuming the election isn’t “rigged,” as Trump likes to say whenever he loses, I’m prepared to accept the result as an expression of democracy, or at least as much “democracy” as the electoral college in America permits us to express.
I’m glad an “emerging coalition” is planning something, apparently, to curb the worst excesses of Trump and the Republicans. I hope this coalition will act to end Israel’s genocide in Gaza, pursue diplomacy to end the Russia-Ukraine War, pursue peace wherever and whenever possible, lower the threat of nuclear war on the planet, and cut the Pentagon budget while rebuilding America. How about fighting for America’s workers, raising the minimum wage, providing affordable health care for all that’s untied to employment, and similar steps that put the health and welfare of people first.
Or, is this “emerging coalition” motivated purely by animus against Trump and his followers? Is it still going to fully fund the Pentagon and wage war across the globe? In which case I’m not so excited.
Again, I come back to this question: If an “emerging coalition” is so worried about a Trump victory, why not put forward a candidate more fit to beat Trump than Joe Biden? Don’t “resist” Trump after he’s already won again—defeat him at the polls by putting forth a dynamic candidate with a populist worker-first platform.
I’m with James Madison that the biggest threat to liberty and freedom in America is perpetual war. War breeds authoritarianism and weapons built in the name of war represent, as Dwight D. Eisenhower famously said in 1953, a theft from the people. Weapons do not represent an “investment”; quite the reverse. And incessant preparations for war are not a recipe for peace.
If you truly want to defend democracy, resist war and the authoritarianism it breeds. Make major cuts to the Pentagon budget and invest in education and health rather than death and destruction. That’s the “emerging coalition” I’d like to see.
Checking my daily email from Reuters this past Thursday revealed these two stories:
US President Joe Biden is expected to sign a new security agreement with Ukraine to pledge America’s long-term support, while British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak will announce up to $310 million in bilateral assistance to the country.
“Diplomacy falters” is one of the sub-headings, which is assuredly the case, assuming diplomacy was even tried.
The BLUF, or bottom-line upfront, to use an Army acronym, is more death, dying, and destruction in Ukraine and Gaza.
Reuters still refers to Israeli ethnic cleaning in Gaza as the “Gaza war,” but only one side has tanks, combat aircraft, 2000-pound bombs, heavy artillery, bulldozers, and even nuclear weapons. It’s not exactly a fair fight, is it? The Israeli government says it’s out to destroy Hamas, but what it’s really after is the destruction of Gaza and the forced relocation of Palestinians there, after which Gaza will be annexed and assimilated into Israel.
What Israel has done and is doing to Gaza
Turning to the Ukraine War, the longer it lasts, the greater the suffering, and the higher the risk of further escalation. Yet the focus is always on deterring Russia and defeating Putin, as if it’s 1938 yet again, with Putin as Hitler and Ukraine as Czechoslovakia. Any diplomatic settlement with Russia will be the equivalent of appeasement, another Munich Agreement, so the war must go on, I guess until one side or the other collapses from the strain. Perhaps 1918 and the chaotic end of World War I is a better year to think about than 1938.
Meanwhile, Reuters tells me there are “challenges” in Africa and that China must be corralled and contained. Poor Africa. European nations (and the United States) are always offering answers to Africa’s “challenges,” but those answers address the interests of the West, not of African peoples. The U.S. has a whole military command, AFRICOM, to address those “challenges,” mainly in the form of U.S. weapons sales and “security assistance.”
Finally, resurrecting the racist “yellow peril” trope with regards to China is only driving that country into closer contact with Russia, which has the added benefit of justifying immense Pentagon spending due to the dual threat of Russia-China. (Democrats tend to stress Russia as the big threat; Republicans prefer China.). Thus we hear of a new Cold War, which of course necessitates colossal military spending, because do you want China and Russia to rule the world?
There will be wars and rumors of wars: And so it goes with U.S. foreign relations, in perpetuity, seemingly.
If you have to kill 274 people to free four others being held hostage, is that a “successful” military operation? According to the Israeli and U.S. governments, it is.
Israel, apparently with some U.S. help, attacked the Nuseirat Camp in Gaza and freed four hostages seized by Hamas. In doing so, however, Israeli forces killed and wounded hundreds of unarmed men, women, and children.
It’s a brutal calculus that sees Palestinians as being “in the way” and essentially worthless and therefore expendable. Put differently, Israel sees all Palestinians in Gaza as “guilty,” as “terrorists,” therefore there are no innocent Palestinians and Israel can kill as many as they need to, without guilt or remorse, to achieve a desired end.
Coverage by the mainstream media in the West generally has been glowing, praising Israel for rescuing four hostages while downplaying the Palestinian dead as collateral damage that’s hardly worth noticing.
Here’s an example from the BBC:
You see a happy young woman freed by Israeli forces, but you don’t see any images of the more than 200 Palestinians killed by Israel in this “special military operation.” And note how the Palestinian dead are consigned to a sub-heading and a smaller font, using the passive voice (“were killed”), as if it’s unclear who killed them and why.
Yes, it’s good to see four hostages freed. But if hundreds of other innocent people must die or suffer grievous wounds in the process, that’s not a “successful” operation. It’s a massacre.
Even as the Military-Industrial Complex Becomes Ever Stronger and More Dangerous, We Must Keep Fighting Against It
In today’s article, I’d like to feature insights from friends and colleagues.
At TomDispatch, Tom Engelhardt takes on man’s seemingly endless addiction to war, an addiction most certainly manifested by the US of A, where bumper stickers tell me peace comes through superior firepower. Check out Tom’s article here. Not only do we wage war on each other, Tom notes, we wage war on the planet. In fact, few things degrade the environment more than war and all the destruction it brings with it.
John Rachel, a peace activist, has a telling theme: War is making us poor. He’s been making short punchy videos to hammer home the point. Check out his latest here:
Why are wars so persistent in the U.S., despite their stupidity, their destruction, their waste? One of my readers put it well in a comment to me:
The endless wars without a traditional definition of success have not been failures to those who have profited. For them, the only war that is lost, is the one that ends. God forbid one should be won under the standard definition and profits then ended.
Cynical? Not when you measure that statement against the U.S. experience of war since 1945.
Finally, also at TomDispatch, David Vine and Theresa Arriola have an article: “The Military-Industrial Complex Is Killing Us All,” which is what Ike warned us about in 1961 if we refused to act as alert and knowledgeable citizens to keep that complex in check. Their article features clear and insightful charts on the basic features of the MIC and the dangers it poses. Here’s an example:
Vine and Arriola are part of an effort whose goal it is to dismantle, or very much to downsize, that complex. (I’ve been involved in their efforts.) Here’s the website:
Meanwhile, last week the “liberal” New York Times posted an article ostensibly written by Senator Roger Wicker calling for even more military spending by the U.S.
Here’s how The New York Times introduced Wicker’s op-ed on May 29th:
In a guest essay today, Senator Roger Wicker writes that we are approaching a version of that moment [a major war crisis] “faster than most Americans think.” Worse, he argues, the U.S. military is unprepared to meet the moment. After decades of underfunding, the American military lacks the strength or the equipment to deal with the wide range of new threats coming from our nation’s adversaries, including Iran, China, Russia and North Korea, he writes.
The answer to this problem, Wicker says, is a short-term “generational investment” in the U.S. military — and a national conversation on how to create a safer future for America. In a new white paper, he lays out a road map to “rebuild” the military, starting with an additional $55 billion in military spending in the 2025 fiscal year and an increase of annual military G.D.P. spending from its current projected level of around 3 percent to 5 percent over the next five to seven years.
That’s a serious amount of money that will inevitably raise big questions about where it will come from — and at the expense of what — at a moment when voices all along the political spectrum are questioning both U.S. military spending overseas and the role of the American military in the world today.
Wicker makes the case that the cost of a war with an increasingly powerful adversary like China would be far higher. “Regaining American strength will be expensive,” he writes. “But fighting a war — and worse, losing one — is far more costly.”
Readers, isn’t that inspiring? A “generational investment” in more guns, more bombs, and, as likely as not, more war? What a great idea!
Apparently, the only way to prevent a war is to prepare mightily for one, according to Senator Wicker. Wicker has apparently never heard, or read, or understood the words of Ike.
Senator Wicker is a shining example of the military-industrial-congressional complex that perpetuates war to the detriment of us all, indeed to all life on our planet. But it’s his words that are amplified by the “liberal” New York Times, not the wise words of my friends and colleagues here.
And so it goes, unless we act to put an end to it. We must be the alert and knowledgeable citizens that Ike implored us to be.
Finally a bit of truth from the New York Times, but for what reason, and why now?
Remember when Barack Obama claimed in 2007-09 the Afghan War was the right war, the good one, as opposed to the wrong and bad Iraq War prosecuted by Bush/Cheney? Of course, they were both disastrous wars, but until the Biden administration finally pulled out, chaotically so, in 2021, the mainstream media was still supporting the idea that America was doing good in Afghanistan.
I suppose enough time has passed for the New York Times to allow for a measure of honesty, if only to support Joe Biden’s reelection this year. See, Biden made the rightdecision to withdraw because now we finally can admit the war was a disaster. Naturally, it wasn’t entirely or even mainly the U.S. government’s fault …
Of course, plenty of people knew the Afghan War was a disaster; my colleague Matthew Hoh resigned from the State Department in 2009 in protest against Obama’s “surge” there and counterproductive U.S. policy decisions. Democrats in Congress listened to Hoh and a few wanted to change course, but they were brought to heel by Nancy Pelosi, who said no dissent on the Afghan War was permissible when Obama was fighting so hard for health care reform in America. Hoh heard those words straight from Pelosi’s mouth. So we got twelve more years of disastrous war and Obamacare.
Abdul Aziq in 2015 (Bryan Denton for the New York Times)
Anyhow, in my NYT news feed this AM, the “hidden history” of America’s “savage campaign” is finally being covered, though the savageness is largely ascribed to an Afghan ally of the U.S., General Abdul Aziq. As usual, American “advisers” tried to curb his worst instincts, apparently without success. Well, what can you do with such “savages”?
Here’s how the NYT puts it:
But his [Aziq’s] success, until his 2018 assassination, was built on torture, extrajudicial killing and abduction. In the name of security, he transformed the Kandahar police into a combat force without constraints. His officers, who were trained, armed and paid by the United States, took no note of human rights or due process, according to a New York Times investigation into thousands of cases that published this morning. Most of his victims were never seen again.
Washington’s strategy in Afghanistan aimed to beat the Taliban by winning the hearts and minds of the people it was supposedly fighting for. But Raziq embodied a flaw in that plan. The Americans empowered warlords, corrupt politicians and outright criminals in the name of military expediency. It picked proxies for whom the ends often justified the means.
The NYT is shocked, shocked!, that there was a “flaw” in the U.S. plan that “empowered warlords, corrupt politicians and outright criminals” in the cause of military “progress.” Hmm…sounds more like a feature of U.S. policy than a flaw.
What about all those U.S. generals testifying to Congress under oath about the progress we were allegedly making in Afghanistan? Are any of them going to be called to account? You can bet your sweet combat boots that they’re not.
After Aziq, matters grew even worse in Afghanistan, as the NYT puts it here: “What they [new warlords and supposed U.S. allies] brought under the name of democracy was a system in the hands of a few mafia groups,” said one resident of Kandahar who initially supported the government. “The people came to hate democracy.”
So, instead of Operation Enduring Freedom, America brought Operation Endemic Corruption to Afghanistan. That latter operation most definitely succeeded.
Here’s how the NYT summarizes its new study of the Afghan War:
Historians and scholars will spend years arguing whether the United States could have ever succeeded. The world’s wealthiest nation had invaded one of its poorest and attempted to remake it by installing a new government. Such efforts elsewhere have failed.
But U.S. mistakes — empowering ruthless killers, turning allies into enemies, enabling rampant corruption — made the loss of its longest war at least partly self-inflicted. This is a story Matthieu [Aikins] and I [Azam Ahmed] will spend the coming months telling, from across Afghanistan.
Echoes of the Vietnam War here. The world’s wealthiest nation invading a much poorer one in the name of “democracy,” then spreading corruption and devastation ending in a chaotic withdrawal. And now grudging admission that maybe, just maybe, the U.S. loss in Afghanistan was “at least partly self-inflicted.”
Ya think? Or maybe we can just blame the Afghan people, just as we blamed our “allies” in South Vietnam.
Nothing against Aikins and Ahmed here. I’m sure their “hidden history” of America’s war in Afghanistan will be revelatory. Yet why was it “hidden” for so long? And why are the “hiders” never called to account?
And was it really “hidden”? Matthew Hoh wasn’t the only truth-teller willing to blow a whistle. Why was his honest voice suppressed while worm-tongued generals like David Petraeus and Stanley McChrystal were celebrated?
I wonder when we’ll get the “hidden history” of America’s “savage” involvement in Gaza and Ukraine? Perhaps in 2030?
Suella Braverman is a Tory MP in Britain. Here she debates a student about Gaza and the ongoing genocide there.
Watching this interview exposes the playbook of Western politicians and the media. It’s about accusing student protesters of antisemitism; of getting them to denounce Hamas; of asking them about Israel’s “right to exist”; of starting the debate with the Hamas attacks on October 7th. Those are the “facts” that matter to the Western media and politicians like Suella Braverman.
Fiona Lali, the student here, does a superb job of focusing on the facts that matter: the roughly 40,000 Palestinians already killed by Israel, the more than 100,000 wounded, the millions displaced from their homes, together with the Western policy of covering for Israel while sending them more weaponry to kill more Palestinians. Those facts don’t seem to matter to the mainstream media, and politicians are careful to ignore them or to dismiss them as “necessary” since Israel has “a right to defend itself.”
Apparently, Fiona Lali is associated with “the revolutionary communist party” and is a critic of capitalism. Perhaps the British establishment believed that she’d come across as a crazy radical. As you watch the interview, you realize Lali is the rational “conservative” in that she’s trying to conserve the lives of Palestinians while arguing for free speech and a system that doesn’t exploit the many for the benefit of a few.
I hope Lali is correct that the majority of Britons are against sending more weapons to Israel, though I doubt the Tories in Britain care here.
It’s rather incredible that this Tory MP argues there is no evidence of genocide in Gaza and that the real issue is antisemitism and Israel’s right to exist.
Biden denounces violence, destruction, and hate, but only in America
President Biden read a short statement today in which he stated “order must prevail” across America. Sometimes squinting at the teleprompter and occasionally slurring his words, Biden said there’s no place for violence, destruction, and hate in America. Apparently, there is a place for violence, destruction, and hate in Gaza, as his administration continues to send more bullets and bombs to Israel in its war of annihilation there, but no matter.
The best part of Biden’s statement came at the end, when he was asked if student protests had changed his mind at all. “No,” Biden replied.
Who says Joe Biden can’t speak simply, clearly, and honestly?
Biden puts a premium on order in his short statement on campus protests
An important point I was reminded of as I read Helen Benedict at TomDispatch today is how campus protests and coverage of the same in the U.S. is being used to obscure ongoing mass death and suffering in Gaza. The mainstream media here loves a good domestic “law and order” issue featuring controversy and (limited) violence, but forget about honest coverage of massive destruction in Gaza and mass murder of Palestinians.
In sum, Biden has always been a law and order man, with an emphasis on order, boasting of using police and prisons for social control. So his stance today was totally predictable—and totally retrograde and unproductive.
Biden, who in 2018 confessed he had no empathy for youth today and their complaints about tough times, is certainly showing that he indeed has no empathy for them.
Meandering Thoughts on Campus Protests against Genocide and Police Responses
College and university campuses across the USA are increasingly the sites of violence, but that violence is largely being committed by police units called in to disperse and arrest protesters. The police, I assume, are, as they say, just following orders. The question is: Who’s giving those orders? And the answer most often seems to be senior administrators at those colleges and universities. Welcome to your education in liberal values!
Police do what they’re trained to do, just as soldiers do what they’re trained to do. Soldiers aren’t freedom-bringers and diplomats: they are trained in the use of deadly force under the most violent of conditions. Police aren’t educators and negotiators: they are also trained in the use of suppressive force under violent conditions.
On campuses across America, police have done what police are armed and trained to do here. They break out their riot gear, their sniper rifles, their armored cars, their tools of behavior modification (e.g. cuffs, Tasers, truncheons, rubber bullets, tear gas and pepper spray), and they go to work. They literally kick ass and take names (and mug shots, fingerprints, and so on).
Police are here to protect and to serve, so we’re told. But to protect and to serve whom? And for what cause? Ultimately, police protect the powerful, those with property and money, because those are the ones giving them their orders. If and when police begin to refuse orders from above, that’s when the powerful will truly begin to worry.
It’s interesting that some student protesters, as at Columbia, are now being compared (as by MSNBC) to the January 6th protesters and rioters for Trump. It’s a sign of desperation by the establishment to equate anti-genocide protesters with pro-Trump rioters, but there you have it. Recall on January 6th that the police largely stepped aside and allowed protesters for Trump into the Capitol. I don’t see the police stepping aside on campuses or taking selfies with protesters, or even removing barriers, as some police did on January 6th.
In “Rollerball,” John Housemen explains to James Caan that he is not to interfere with management decisions
The overly violent and repressive responses we’re witnessing across America to largely peaceful protests reveals the imperative at the heart of America’s political system. Recalling the movie “Rollerball,” the one thing you’re never supposed to do as a corporate-citizen is to question management decisions. America’s managers have decided to support Israel’s genocide in Gaza, and YOU ARE NOT TO INTERFERE WITH THAT. If you do, your protest will be suppressed, often quickly and violently.
There’s a reason America’s managers “invest” so much in the “thin blue line” of the police. They believe in violence as the way to uphold their power and privilege. It doesn’t matter that violence hasn’t always worked, especially in foreign wars (Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, etc.). They’ll continue to use violence as long as it remains profitable to do so, whether economically or politically.
How long before people are killed or seriously injured in these police actions? How long before those who are killed or wounded are denounced as “bums,” as President Richard Nixon called the dead students of Kent State? How long before we hear that the “silent majority” supports Trump and/or Biden in their call for “law and order”?
How long before Israel renders Gaza Palestinian-free, as various U.S. police forces mobilize to render college campuses protester-free?
And how long before we’re told once again that America is the greatest, most exceptional, nation on earth because of all our freedoms?
Bracing Views 