A Headline That Perfectly Encapsulates Mainstream Liberalism: by Ms Caitlin Johnstone!
(2020-07-23 at 21:52:18 )

A Headline That Perfectly Encapsulates Mainstream Liberalism: by Ms Caitlin Johnstone!

"JUST IN: Senate Passes $740 Billion Defense Bill With Provision To Remove Confederate Names Off Military Bases" reads a headline from the digital news site Mediaite, which could also serve as a perfect diagnosis for everything that is sick about mainstream liberal orthodoxy.

The Democrat-led House and Republican-led Senate have now both passed versions of this bill authorizing three-quarters of a trillion dollars for a single year of military spending, both by overwhelming bipartisan majorities, on the condition that the names of Confederate Civil War leaders be removed from military bases.

Unsurprisingly, Security Policy Reform Institutes Stephen Semler found a direct relationship between how much a House Democrat has been paid by the war industry and how likely they were to have voted for the bloated military budget which also obstructs any attempts to scale down troop presence in Afghanistan.

I recorded how much each House Democrat took from the defense industry so far in the 2020 election cycle and compared it to how they voted on the #NDAA and repmarkpocans amendment.

Results are unsurprising and yes it is about class (warfare):-Stephen Semler July 22, 2020

This is everything that is horrible about the Democratic Party and the ideological position of mainstream liberals. Their leaders have figured out a way to trade hard objects for empty narrative. To get people to consent to almost limitless amounts of thievery, murder and exploitation in exchange for words and stories.

They will get rid of Confederate names on bases, but they will not even slightly reduce the vast fortunes they are stealing from an impoverished populace and pouring into global slaughter and oppression.

They will kneel wearing Kente cloth, but they will not even think about dismantling the United States police state.

They will say "I hear you, and that is something we are looking at," but they will never intervene against plutocrats funnelling money away from the needful to add to their unfathomably vast fortunes.

They will call you whatever gender pronoun you like, but they will never do anything to inconvenience the oligarchs and warmongers.

They will still make you fight tooth and claw for each empty concession, because otherwise they would be devaluing the empty, imaginary currency they are trading you in exchange for the concrete things they want.

But in the end there is no amount of narrative the powerful will not swap out for actual policy changes of substance, because narrative in and of itself has no value. Manipulators understand this distinction with crystal clear lucidity. Their victims do not.

In reality it would be a lot more truthful and authentic for the bases within the United States war machine to continue to bear the names of racists, killers and oppressors, since these embody the values of that war machine far better than anything with a more pleasant ring to it.

As long as you are robbing the United States of American people to murder brown-skinned foreigners for corporate interests and geostrategic resource control, you might as well have names which reflect such values on your war machinery.

So I say keep the Confederate names on the bases. Hell, add more of them. Add the names of Nazis, genocidal warlords and serial killers too while you are at it.

It would certainly be a lot more honest and accurate to have a Fort Jeffrey Dahmer as part of the United States of Americas murder machine than a Fort Colin Kaepernick.

Kind of weird that House passes obscene $740 billion Pentagon budget when we desperately need $ for healthcare, not warfare, and controversy just focuses on confederate names for military bases, not $ for permanent war economy.-Medea Benjamin July 22, 2020

War is the single worst thing in the world.

It is the most evil, insane, counter-productive, wasteful, damaging, kleptocratic and unsustainable thing that human beings do, by a very wide margin.

If United States of Americans could viscerally experience all of the horrors that are inflicted by the war machine their wealth and resources are being funneled into, with their perception unfiltered by propaganda and government secrecy, they would fall to their knees screaming with abject rage.

They would be in the streets immediately forcing an end to this unforgivable savagery. Which is exactly why the United States of America has so much government secrecy and propaganda.

If United States of Americans could see with their perceptions unmanipulated, their response to the news that $740 billion is being stolen from the American people by a sociopathic murder machine in exchange for removing the names of Confederate leaders from its bases would not be "Oh good, maybe we will get a Fort Harriet Tubman!"

It would be rage. Unmitigated, unforgiving rage. Which is all the status quo deserves.

Which is all the Democratic Party exists to prevent.

"This Ms Caitlin Johnstone article and its links are here:"

Thanks for reading!!
Everyone has my unconditional permission to republish or use any part of this work (or anything else I have written) in any way they like free of charge.

My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking me on Facebook, following my antics on Twitter, throwing some money into my hat on Patreon or Paypal, purchasing some of my "sweet merchandise", buying my new book "Rogue Nation: Psychonautical Adventures With Caitlin Johnstone", or my previous book "Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers". The best way to get around the internet censors and make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for "my website", which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I am trying to do with this platform, "click here".