The Anti-Empire Report #159

Reading the below email exchange between Bill Blum and Post reporter Michael Birnbaum, I was left shaking my head. How is it that smart people can be so incredibly stupid?, was the question that formed in my mind.

Well, that's human nature I guess. A prestigious job, a great salary, an expense account, foreign travel, health insurance a good home, a great car etc., --- and all you need do in exchange is sell your soul (assuming that is intact in the first place?). Or is it simply group-think overruling credulity? I'm not sure, but my guess is the former.

But group-think and crazed and fragmented thinking plays its role too. In the last few weeks on this forum, I've crossed swords with a poster who maintains that there have been 3 World Wars, by counting the Cold War as a World War, thus defying the definition of a world war; another poster maintains, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that the US isn't an "empire" when by any measure it is the most powerful empire that has existed... ever.

And there are any number of members here who are so politically partisan in their views that it knowingly blinds them, but even in their knowledge of their obvious prejudice they can't (or don't care to) break out of the magical incantation that binds them to their self imposed and wilful myopia.

That's the world we're currently living through. As the Swiss psychologist, Carl Jung, once observed sticking his head through his knees: "the world is upside down".

Yep, it sure is.

 

"Our aim is to be fair without picking sides" - referring to NY-Post reporting.

Talk about platitude speak - touting "necessary illusions". I am not sure if this guy is a complete idiot or a disingenuous liar but - its one or the other.

The NY-Post is a tabloid rag and shill for the Establishment propaganda machine.

It took but a few minutes to prove the above claim. All I had to do was go find an article from the NY-post on the so called "moderate rebels" in the Syrian Conflict. https://nypost.com/2014/07/06/to-stop-isis-help-the-syrian-rebels-that-america-has-forsaken/

Pure propaganda and completely one sided

 

What nations does our empire consists of?

 

All except russia, China and few others. Mind you, this is the 21 century, the typical medieval empire does not apply but it's still a global empire in a modern shape.

 

Lets hear from any Canadians or Europeans. Are your countries under the supreme authority of the US?
Would seem you people simply view any level of influence over other countries as an authority over those countries.

 

Whatever influence the U.S. once had on Europe and many other parts of the world has been washed away with the administration of the current occupant of the White House.

 

We are semi autonomous regions, some local decisions must meet expectations and be approved by the head power. You can think of examples, I'm sure. Plus, military controlled. Seems like a textbook empire and will be written in history books as one. The global empire masquerading as world police, lol

I don't mean it in a bad way, it's the way it is.

 

Utter nonsense.

 

This exchange strikes me as typical of what happens when an internet kook contacts someone with a lot more knowledge of the facts and no ideological bias informing their opinions.

 

It seems to me the thread issue regards humans in denial, or cognitive dissonance, or willful ignorance, however one chooses to describe the phenomenon.

Some humans simply cannot help themselves from denying unpleasant facts. Yes, semantics play too (what actually IS empire), but mostly it's just humans not wanting to recognize facts that contradict their world view.

 

Of course the U.S. was directly involved in formenting the coup in Ukraine.

From November 2013:

 

Question. What would be the American response if some foreign government announced it was going to arm, train and fund a faction to overthrow the US Government?

 

The fact is that empires don't rule in the way you suggest they do, which is exceedingly childish and naive in its conception.

Traditionally, empires effect control through the appointment of someone (or an elite grouping) who are nationals of the nation they run on behalf of the controlling nation - usually in exchange for a reward, for example, fleecing their fellow citizens with impunity and the pleasure of exercising power.

This form of control or influence is as old as the Roman empire, probably older.

 

Yours is uneducated. Mine is from the dictionary.

em·pire
ˈemˌpī(ə)r/
noun
noun: empire; plural noun: empires

1. 
   an extensive group of states or countries under a single supreme authority, formerly especially an emperor or empress.

 

What would happen if Russia or any other country announced it was going to locate an infantry battalion in Mexico. What if it announced it was going to place missiles in Cuba?

Oh wait, that already happened and we had a conniption fit.

 

I don't actually disagree with the definition per se, although the one you present is far too narrow compared to, for example, this one:

So the question remains what is it you're actually claiming?

My argument is that some posters on this forum point-blank refuse to accept that the US is an empire - albeit a crumbling one now. Given what we can see with our own eyes, this is the most ludicrous and ill informed argument I have seen on this forum -- and there have been some real doozies to chose from.

Placing countries under the control of a given nation state (Rome, Britain, the USA, for example) doesn't mean it has to be simply militarily occupation. There are any number of methods to impose one's will: the use of a cat's paw to run the nation on your behalf (the Shah of Iran being one example), the use of an oligarchy that is permitted to enrich itself so long as it remains loyal to the empire's aims, the use of blackmail, control of the media narrative, application of financial pressure when deemed necessary, plus developing friendships/loyalties in foreign domestic military and intelligence circles to create internal strife in the event of disobedience, and regime change when disobedience cannot be otherwise curbed. Having military bases in-country (as in Germany and Japan, for example) is merely one strand of a much larger tapestry of control and influence.

These are just some of the tools an empire can use to maintain control and loyalty.

 

Even more absurd. The US doesn't "rule" over Europe or anywhere else. Let alone the entire world minus a handful of countries.

 

So VIPS, that consists of retired intel folks are kooks? For what this so called kook said is being said by quite a few people who actually KNOW, from experience of working in intel. They understand reality, can discern it, and the so called experts are either ignorant or they know full well the deception that they purvey, and don't care. I will opt for them being clueless, for there are just too many incoherences involved in their OPINIONS.

You have to be a very naive person to even think for a moment that our gov't, via intel agencies had nothing to do with the coup in Ukraine. Read Confessions of an Economic Hit Man. To get an education in how this world actually in reality operates, or rather the US Gov't. If you want to remain in your safe space, then please, do not read what Perkins, an economic hit man reveals about reality.

This is like someone telling another person that many police depts have been corrupt, and then someone else denying it, calling it kooky. This is like someone telling us that all gov'ts lie to their own people, and a clueless person denying it! ha ha ha. And that is what we are seeing here. I suggest you bury your head a little deeper into the sand, for that seems to work out quite well.

That anyone would ever be so naive as to think reality comes from the Andy Griffith Show is just the ludicrous side of sh*t hitting the fan. And yet that is what some people believe. Sorry, but that isn't the world that we live in folks. I became awake, from a naive state of mind in Viet Nam long ago. And I cannot ever forget it. We, as a gov't, are not what was taught to me in public school.

There is a reality, and it isn't nice looking, and then there is what we are being taught, by gov't, by MSM, which isn't reality at all. This can be passed off, until a whistle blower reveals reality, and yet the rubes quickly forget the actual reality, for perhaps it feels better not to have to exist in what reality actually is, and we prefer it to look like a hollywood film, that paints a picture that is emotionally satisfying, but yet false.

Secrecy helps to keep this false perception of reality in place. Human nature, does the rest, helped by liars in gov't and a dead press, with dead journalism. Practice real journalism and reality is revealed. Anyone with a critical intellect has no trouble discerning that journalism is dead, no standards, no investigation, even when the incoherence in published stories looks like thick smoke coming from a fire, a fire that is denied even being there.

If not for whistle blowers, that people ignore or forget quickly, you might be able to get away with being so naive. But some of us don't forget, and will not forget.

And so, the next time MSM tells you that russia hacked this or that, and we have proof, you need to forget Vault 7 from Wilkileaks, and that a whistle blower provided the proof that our intel can now frame anyone that they want, while doing the hack ourselves! Now forget that please!!! For if you forget it, then when our gov't, intel makes a claim,, you will buy it hook, line and sinker. But then you tell me right now WHY intel would have created the hacking software that would frame another nation? I will wait for your answer. ha ha ha Did they do it for sh*ts and giggles, or did they do it so they would have the option to lie to you once again? And frame others? In order to carry out a particular agenda.

Calling those that are connected to reality, kooks, is a propaganda tactic. Question is, is this being used intentionally, or out of ignorance? I think it depends upon who is doing it.

 

Referring to the U.S. as an empire seems to me to be a justification for hating or fearing the U.S. I wish we were feared by more countries.

 

Problem with your hypothesis is America liberates countries from oppression it does not oppress. Even when attacked by other countries and even after we win the war they brought on we rebuild them and leave them in better political and economic shape than they started out in. When US companies go into third world countries for resources they provide employment and increase living standards. When other countries are invaded we step in to help. In natural disasters we are there first and provide the most help. We are the only super power in world history that didn't try to conquer the known world even though we were in position to do so when we alone had nukes. America the empire? LOL

 

I'm sure you understand the analogy of "puppet" and "puppeteer". It is appropriate for situations as discussed above.

 

Yeah, we liberated the hell out of Iraq, eh? LOL

Try reading Peter Van Buren's book "We Meant Well". He did a year in Iraq helping "rebuild" the country we had destroyed to "liberate" it.

 

Did we conquer Iraq and set up a puppet state to rob it of it's wealth and resources as empires historically do? That's the question here and the answer is no.

 

I have spent considerable time in Canada on Business. Canada is a vassal state of the US. Europe - not so much but the US welds considerable influence and - welds pretty much Supreme authority over NATO.

 

I see the US as an Economic Empire not a traditional empire. The US wields the economic power to force other countries to cower to our wishes. Traditional empires like the former USSR use physical force to conquer a country, occupy it and strip it of as much treasure as possible.