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

FEINSTEIN

FEINSTEIN

 

 

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears.

I have come to bury Caesar, not to praise her.

The evil that women & men do lives after them;

The good occurs when society is relieved of them & oft interrèd with their bones.

 

-      With full apologies to William Shakespeare 

 

 

By Gregg Wall (9-30-2023)

 

Senator Feinstein is gone now.  

 

At age 90, she was longest serving woman Senator and was groundbreaking only to the extent that she best exemplified what identity politics has come to mean in the United States, a dead end.  That is, women and minority officeholders who only serve donors, power, and themselves … rather than serve their disenfranchised women and minority constituents and advance their cause. 

 

Feinstein was not a tireless advocate for women, and hopefully, not even an aspirational symbol for American women.  But rather, was another icon of greed, worshipping power for power’s sake, using her office to enrich herself (being vested in stock trading, based upon her privileged perch), and a full-time supporter of America’s bankrupting war machine and deadly colonial empire.

 

Her thirty-year career in the Senate spanned the fall of the Soviet Union to, arguably, the fall of the United States, today (America’s national debt was just over $4 trillion in ’92, today it’s in excess of $36 trillion).  Like the Soviet Union, America has a gerontocracy problem.  And perhaps, due to her tenure, nobody stood for the collegial corruption in the Senate, the dry rot and decay of arcane rules & Senate norms that only serve the privileged & powerful (and are used to crush labor & the poor), quite like Senator Feinstein.  Even Republicans praise Feinstein, for she was one of them.

 

The canonization and hagiography have already begun, from the establishment, the transnational crime syndicate in the Senate, and the hacks and losers in America’s corporate MSM.  Absolutely deplorable.  And the more elites heap praise on a day trader, a warmonger, a queen of the surveillance state & the destruction of civil liberties, a senator that voted for Wall St bailouts…  that greedily snapped up campaign contributions from cartels, monopolies, Silicon Valley and Wall St… the more the establishment fully discredits & smears themselves. 

 

Their praise, the establishment’s praise, for a Senator so corrupt defines them, does it not?  Praise on Senators.  Praise on donors, multinationals, and their mouthpiece, the MSM. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the end, Feinstein, indeed, the Senate… have come to exemplify the very thing American revolutionaries and patriots fought against: the insolence and tyranny of an unresponsive government, despotic economic & government power in the hands of a very few, taxation (private & public) without representation, and the greatest evil under the sun, monopoly & untrammeled corporate power. 

 

Thomas Paine, American patriot, said it best: 

 

Every age and generation must be free to act for itself in all cases as the age and generations which preceded it.  The vanity and presumption of governing beyond the grave is the most ridiculous and insolent of all tyrannies.  Man has no property in man; neither has any generation a property in the generations which are to follow.  

 

Every generation is, and must be, competent to all the purposes which its occasions require.  It is the living, and not the dead, that are to be accommodated. 

 

And just as the dead should not rule over the living, neither should the ancient zombies in the Senate… several generations removed from America’s youngest voters… be allowed to rule indefinitely and to the complete detriment of the generations that follow.  The individuals in today’s Senate, the privileged & the powerful, have absolutely no clue as to what today’s younger generations of Americans face and will face.  And the majority of today’s Senators will not be around to see the outcome of their cancerous & malign rule. 

 

In parting, nothing quite defines Senator Feinstein like the arrogance, hubris, and insolence with which she told off a younger generation of women & girls, who merely asked the Senator to support a Green New Deal.  At the moment, these children, these young women are chained to the decision making of the senator from California, that now, rules from beyond the grave.  These young ladies & women are governed by a U.S. Senate that rule from the vantage point of greed & complete contempt for younger generations of Americans.  It is the Senate’s myopic vision, their support for monopolies, and dedication to the accumulation of wealth that has destroyed the nation. 

 

Nobody personifies that failure better than Feinstein.

 

 

Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2023

 

A License to Steal

A License to Steal

 

The state of California sued several of the world’s biggest oil companies on Friday, claiming their actions have caused tens of billions of dollars in damage and that they deceived the public by downplaying the risks posed by fossil fuels.

The civil case, filed in superior court in San Francisco, is the latest and most significant lawsuit to target oil, gas and coal companies over their role in causing climate change. It seeks creation of an abatement fund to pay for the future damages caused by climate related disasters in the state.

The lawsuit targets five companies: Exxon Mobil, Shell, BP, ConocoPhillips, and Chevron, which is headquartered in San Ramon, Calif. The American Petroleum Institute, an industry trade group based in Washington, is also listed as a defendant.

Seven other states and dozens of municipalities have filed similar lawsuits in recent years. But the California lawsuit immediately becomes one of the most significant legal challenges facing the fossil fuel industry.

 

-      California Sues Giant Oil Companies, Citing Decades of Deception, NY Times

 

By Gregg Wall (9-16-2023)

 

Vulgarian Peter Thiel once famously quipped, ‘Competition is for losers.’  However, what has become increasingly clear to the majority of North Americans is that cartels and monopolies are for thieves.  Per a recent Bloomberg piece, some 82% of Canadians believe greed is behind sky-high food prices.  The food industry in Canada is dominated by three major retailers, who are raking in record profits.  Canadians are also savvy enough to figure out that a suppressed Canadian dollar, held down by the Bank of Canada, maybe good for exporters and for multinationals repatriating foreign earnings (from say, fossil fuels); but a weakened CAD (Canadian dollar) does serious damage to Canadians’ purchasing power (particularly on food imports). 

 

And that isn’t the half of it.  The prices of essentials are through the roof throughout North America: food, fuel, housing, rents, and in the United States medicine and doctor visits.  Monopolies & Cartels not only damage consumers, they crush & squeeze labor, and do irreparable harm to ‘democratic’ governments (by buying out our elected officials and often unelected judges).  Some industries are so repugnant they commit serious loss of life, significant property damage, and egregious harm to the economy … here, I’m pointing directly at you, fossil fuels industry.  

 

This summer has been replete with an endless stream of news stories about record temperatures, burning forests, flood after flood, waves of human migration, and tremendous loss of life.  The link to all these events has come down to fossil fuels, the OPEC cartel, and the oil majors.  This nefarious cartel, Big Oil & Gas, with unprecedented pricing power, backed by Wall St banks (yet another nasty cartel with unprecedented power) & shadow banking… these cartels are directly responsible for trillions in damages to property, life, the economy, and the steady erosion of faith in democratic government.  And don’t forget wars.  The O&G industry’s link to rising gas & fuel prices, during wars sponsored & curated by the United States government, is indisputable.  

 

That’s why it was completely refreshing to read about the State of California’s lawsuit against the Oil & Gas majors in this morning’s news flow.  The stated aim of the litigation is to recover billions and billions in property losses and damages to the environment.  But why stop there?  What about litigation over the significant loss of life, damages to the economy, damages to democracy and sound government, as the JM Hamilton blog called for.  Politicians are now allegedly scrambling (or is it more foot dragging), in some instances, to tighten up competition language and antitrust wording.  

 

But why not use the laws already in place?  Where’s the criminal charges?  If we consider that one in five dies early, due to fossil fuels, why not arrest and prosecute entire boardrooms, C-suites, and politicians that accepted bribe money (ahem, campaign donations) from this industry?  (The WSJ just did another piece about how the industry has been lying since the 1950s, on the lethality of its products and the catastrophic damage its products cause to the environment.)  Does anybody, allegedly, in charge know what a lift that would give to democracy and the public to see the high and mighty brought low and cooling their heels in a prison cell?   All this is to say, sure tighten up antitrust and competition laws, if you must… but there are far simpler laws already in place, concerning murder and theft, that will do just fine.  The fact that politicians and prosecutors have done so very little, in this regard, speaks to the power the Oil & Gas industry holds over Western government, politicians, and judges.  It gives credence to the belief, increasingly prevalent, that so-called Western democracy is merely a front for oligarchy & multinationals, entirely captured, and politicians and heads of state merely run interference and stall on desperately needed reforms & justice (reforms & justice necessary to rein in cartels and monopolies). 

 

Remember, cartels & monopolies, concentrated economic power is a license to steal, from children, consumers, families, government, and labor.  And stealing, last I checked, is illegal. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And that was the other good news this week.  The UAW is taking on the auto majors, the auto cartel that has been stealing from labor for years.  The auto workers gave concession after concession to keep the big three automakers afloat, during the 2008 financial crisis.  Now, the UAW and union workers are just looking for long, long overdue payback.  

 

Which begs the question, why didn’t management preemptively step up to the plate and offer increased pay, benefits, and retirement pay?   Why is the solution, from billionaires, multimillionaires, and C-suite crime lords always antagonistic?  What’s with the layoffs, the plant closings, the threats to offshore yet more jobs?  Why hasn’t congress - or parliament - stepped up and created a floating tariff that immediately offsets any labor, regulatory, or tax arbitrage play executed upon by shipping yet more jobs & plants offshore?  That is to say, a tariff that immediately eliminates any and all incentives to crush North American workers.  To wit: Management & ownership can send another plant offshore, but any savings by exploiting foreign labor will be directly offset - dollar for dollar - by an increase in taxes. Why are such tariffs not already in place?  Why does it take a crisis to get governments to act?  Why is the presumption or government favoritism always in capital’s and management’s favor?   In favor of the failed neoliberal paradigm? 

 

Why? 

 

The verdict is in: CEOs are worthless (their exclusive value appears to be to manipulate stock prices), management is worthless… Wall St execs add no value, and as is increasingly apparent, the same can be said of the Congress of the United States.  They add no value.  They are overhead. 

 

That’s why it’s extremely important for all Americans to support labor during this strike because it’s abundantly clear that Western governments are entirely captured and operated solely for the benefit of cartels, monopolies, utilities, and the oligarchy that owns all. 

 

And what is concentrated economic power and monopolies, but a license to steal. 

 

Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2023