Genocide & the Fall of Western Credibility

Genocide & the Fall of Western Credibility 

 

“Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas,” he told a meeting of his Likud party’s Knesset members in March 2019. “This is part of our strategy – to isolate the Palestinians in Gaza from the Palestinians in the West Bank.”

 

-     Netanyahu.   Another Concept Implodes: Israel Can’t Be Managed by a Criminal Defendant, Haaretz

 

By Gregg Wall (10-28-2023)

 

The news flow is relentless but amidst all the war coverage, the American MSM continues to push colonialism, the duopoly’s agenda, faux-patriotism, endless war, and unequivocable support for Israel.  To sell this, the corporate media offers false dichotomies & simple binary narratives: good versus evil, Dem versus MAGA GOP, Israeli versus Palestinian.  

 

You won’t find any, or precious little, nuance at the nation’s pathetic papers of record.

 

Like how it came to be that the preeminent superpower in the Middle East was caught off guard by Hamas. 

 

Or how ultra-corrupt, right-winger Bibi Netanyahu’s approval rating was in the doghouse, and how wars have been known to boost the approval ratings of leaders in the cellar with the public. 

 

Almost entirely ignored by U.S. media is how the current Israeli Prime Minister has been propping up Hamas for years.  As long as, Hamas thwarted a two-state solution, Hamas was perfectly acceptable to Bibi.  Now, Hamas is an evil and implacable foe, that must be eliminated. 

 

And then, there’s the inconvenient fact, as reported in the BBC, that Israeli leadership was warned of the pending attack by Egypt.  Information that Israeli leadership mysteriously chose to ignore, costing hundreds of Israeli citizens their lives. 

 

Also omitted from American media’s problematic and simplistic news feed is the fact, that the U.S. congress was betting heavy on defense industry & energy stocks in the runup to the Hamas attack, a bellwether of a pending war if there ever was one.  (Those congressional greedsters… ain’t nothing getting in the way of front running an advantageous stock trade.)

 

And finally, reports coming out of Gaza that Israeli leadership is not only committing genocide w/ reckless abandon, fully supported by Western leadership & America… but Israeli leadership has been alleged to have killed fifty hostages kidnapped by Hamas. 

 

Gee whiz… given the West’s history of using false information to drive nations to war, and Bibi’s preternatural ability & desire to find ways to save his own political career… is it any wonder that the above information has been all but ignored and omitted from the American press coverage?  Left out of the narrative too is the fact that many Western leaders, center-left politicians (in reality, corporately owned & far-right) are in deep, deep trouble in the polls… and this war, again very opportune, swept inflation, troubled neoliberal economies, price gouging monopolies, housing crisis, health care crisis, and Big Oil burning up the planet right off the front pages.  Isn’t that wonderful?

 

It's almost as if, perhaps like the Ukraine, that this latest war was premeditated, choreographed, made to order?  Defense stocks are soaring, Big Oil & Gas are reporting record profits… the usual suspects, politicians & Wall St, are making a killing. 

 

What’s not in dispute and well known: Bibi & Israeli leadership, w/ support from the West, have been acting in bad faith for decades… only interested in a war of attrition & genocide… to achieve one end, a one-state solution with Israel’s fascist leadership in control of all of Palestine.  After all, America’s leadership looks to Israel, as its little colonial outpost in a highly troubled Middle East. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Biden is, of course, floundering, stuck in the past, behind the times, and spouting narratives that are least forty to fifty years behind the times.  Selling war, genocide, and murder as a jobs program for our failed libertarian, neoliberal economy.  A neoliberal economy that makes money for the private sector via cronyism, eliminating competition, government largesse & corporate welfare, grants of monopoly, price gouging, statism, and crushing labor, et al. 

 

So, if one is a desperate, sick misanthrope, I suppose one could see the appeal in a jobs program, predicated on America’s murderous empire of greed & profit.  Opportunistically omitted by Biden and McConnell… if the U.S. has all this money for genocide and murder, why don’t we have money to rebuild America, to create jobs & nation build right here at home?

 

Biden even trotted out ‘indispensable nation’… the idea that a bankrupt, war weary America and its empire must prevail to preserve endless for-profit wars, the unrelenting laundering of U.S. taxpayer dollars through military contractors and the stock market, prop up the eight hundred military bases around the globe, and protect & preserve the exorbitant privilege that pays for it all (aka, the almighty dollar and the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy).  This, while Americans face declining life expectancy, rising child poverty, no money for retirement, endemic price gouging, rising social inequality, the complete lack of social mobility, and an economic model that thrives on consolidation, predatory monopoly, rent seeking behavior, and crushing labor.

 

Besides, Europe needs America to preserve the peace.  The fact that Europe is united by the EU and NATO --  w/ so many of the nations neck deep in debt and ill-equipped to start a war -- was omitted from Biden’s speech.

 

It’s all very sketchy and deeply unsettling.  Americans are living through a time of great evil, a considerable amount of which emanates from our own government, the duopoly, our elected representatives, and the oligarchy.  Americans, therefore, have a duty to speak, to march and be heard.  Power concedes nothing w/out a demand. 

 

In times of great evil, we no longer have the luxury of remaining civil… in our discourse and protests.  We must call out great evil for what it is, frequently and often.  The wealthy and their henchmen, corrupt politicians addicted to power and the corporate MSM… count on & rely upon our civility, as cover and to hide their crimes of civilian genocide, mass murder of children, and endless profits from endless wars. 

Nothing less than immediate cessation of all hostilities & the immediate creation of the State of Palestine should be called for by all world leaders.

 

Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2023

Pax Romana

Pax Romana

 

 

By Gregg Wall (10-14-2023)

 

It was in the last decade that I began my failed empires tour.  My first stop was Berlin, followed by, in subsequent years, London and Paris.  This year, I visited Rome, which is a fantastic city, as is Italy an exceptionally beautiful country.  Home to the Roman empire and another empire, the Vatican, Rome has a staggering amount of history around every street corner. 

 

As an American and a Canadian, I find the history of empires fascinating, and how humanity - especially the predatory elite, down through the centuries - seems completely unable to evolve & grow.  While historians differ, and each empire is different, several general themes come up again and again surrounding the collapse of empires, among them:  overextended economically & militarily; troubled economies – ground down by taxation and debts; social unrest and poverty associated with poorly run economies and the staggering burden of the empire itself; and last but not least, unprecedented corruption & hubris surrounding government officials (in the case of the former Soviet Union, and in the United States today… a completely out-of-touch gerontocracy only heaps additional burdens, decay, & misery).  More specific to the U.S., a highly corrupt corporate MSM is a very big problem, along with government & regulatory capture.

 

The tax burden to support an empire, historically, is often catastrophic, a drag upon the economy, & a cause for social upheaval.  In the U.S. today, taxation – to a considerable degree – has been replaced by printing money and the power of exorbitant privilege.  But money printing and a free money regime, in the U.S., has also funded consolidation & monopoly.  Greed and monopoly pricing power has set off price gouging & wage suppression (that is to say, extreme private sector taxation).  And now, with congress missing in action (too corrupt to act, TCTA), the Federal Reserve is facing high debt service loads, as they raise interest rates to attack demand (to help control & contain a supply-side problem, untrammeled economic violence waged against the American people in the form of greed). 

 

The other thing about these empires is they are often overextended militarily and subjugated countries & their populations often push back against tyranny.  Double standards, nationalism, slavery, hypocrisy, pillaging and plunder… make for the foundation of rebellion. The Third Reich, engaging in a world war on two fronts, found itself caught between a hammer and an anvil.  Napoleon enraged an entire continent.  And debt finally eliminated the British empire.  We can already see the seeds of past failures firmly embedded in America’s toxic empire… can’t we?  Even beautiful Italy, today, no longer an empire, is deeply troubled by catastrophic national debt, a crony economy, and systemic corruption. 

 

When historians write the history of today’s failing American empire, there is little doubt that many of the same characteristics will show up yet again. But new items will also appear.  The new items will be the roles fiat currency and the transfer of extraordinary wealth into the hands of a few played in unravelling America’s representative democracy and desire to control the world for commercial conquest. The reliance upon private sector mercenaries (see the MIC) will also be key. 

 

In the end, hubris, gerontocracy, systemic corruption, moral degeneracy, hypocrisy, an economy that no longer works for the majority, austerity, catastrophic debt, and theft of the America’s credit line (by the entirely corrupt & powerful) … appear to be the overriding headwinds facing the American empire today. 

 

Can America get its act together before it’s too late?  Not likely, not with legalized bribery being a cornerstone of the United States government.  Not with bankers and oligarchs unwilling to address systemic corruption, a complete lack of accountability, and America’s & the West’s debt problem.  Add in a climate catastrophe and there’s precious little consolation in America, perhaps, being the last empire. 

 

So, it may come as a relief to many, Pax Americana may soon join the pantheon of failed empires, along with the immense human pain & suffering that accompanies empires.

 

Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2023