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Great overview from bevin

bevin who wanders around MoA and Off-G, no website that I know, Canadian apparently, sharp, socialist insight into geo-realpolitik; always worth a read; outstanding in this essay:

QUOTE:

The neo-cans have not “captured” Washington. They are just employed there. And they are employed to do what they are doing, which is to defend the practise of US hegemony.

The idea that the world is run by competing groups, rooted in various philosophical schools- each with its own worldview- is mistaken. It’s a crude form of idealism which finds that the sordid realities of the material world are, for a variety of reasons, best not talked about. The idea is that if you ignore embarassing reality it will eventually disappear.

The reality in the present case is not mysterious. There are no real secrets of any importance. We may not know the exact details of where the bodies are buried, but we know who kills people and who believe that they have the right-for the greater good- to lie, kill, cheat and steal anywhere, whenever the fancy takes them.

What is this reality?
It is in all the history books. The books are slanted, biassed, full of propaganda and not a few lies BUT the outline is clear enough.

To begin at an arbitrary, but justifiable ‘breaking point’, since 1492 successive western European countries have been involved in conquering, looting and colonising the American continents. By doing so they have enriched themselves to the point that their trading projects to the east-Asia and Africa- became armed raids on communities which eventually were prostrated, bound, shackled and gagged into imperial possessions.

Half a millenium later the shock of the imperialist assault having worn off, the communities in question have revived and undertaken the long and painful task of overthrowing the political, social and ideological hegemony of the imperialist system.

As is almost always the case with revolutions of any kind, the current revolution in global affairs was undertaken with the greatest reluctance- what we call the BRIC powers were perfectly prepared to increase their stature, sovereignty and power incrementally- slowly evolving from colonised victim to equal partner.

Hence, for example, the willingness with which China’s government accommodated the interests of foreign capital and reconciled itself to the inconveniences of nourishing its enemy in the form of a potentially powerful, influential and organised capitalist class.
Hence too the remarkable self control shown by Russian governments in the face of three decades of increasingly arrogant and humiliating advances by American imperialism, swallowing insults, allowing its resources to be plundered, watching ther fruits of its education systems plucked by its enemies; smiling as its neighbours were turned into enemies, imperialist bases, including torture chambers, set up on its borders, biological warfare stations established all around it. And, one by one, its old friends in the world ripped apart by imperialist subversion, their populations drowned in blood, their treasuries looted.
And all this while soothing lies were pumped out in a world in which hypocrisy and propaganda became the dominant gases composing our intellectual atmosphere.

Russia and China did not want to have to form an alliance and, once again, to dedicate treasure and energy to building war machines.
They did not want to transform neighbourly relationships into security organisations.
They did not want, particularly, to embrace the Irainan regime with its history of hostility to the imperial powers, with which both Russia and China wanted nothing more than friendly relations, or to be forced into the cauldron of emnities that the imperialists have brewed up in the ‘middle east’. They did not want to have to be the ones to tell France that its role in Africa was not just anachronistic and nasty but, increasingly, implausible.
They did not want to have to come to the rescue of the Syrian government, still less to run the risk of arousing the hostility of the Turks. They would far rather not look too closely at what the Israeli government is doing to Palestine and millions of non Jewish citizens.

But they have been forced to do all of these things and much more. They had to act, the alternative would have been to kow tow to Washington, to cede to a government with a proven record not just of malignoty but of incompetence and slovenly disregard for the basic rules of life (Rule#1: Do not Foul your Abode) the continued right to do whatever it chose anywhere, to whomsoever it wanted.

In short. What is happening is very clear. There is nothing mysterious about either the object or the process.
What you see, and hear, is what you get. The Bear and the Dragon have been woken up, they were very happy to continue their slumber. But it was impossible for them to sleep any longer. They have woken up, and most of the rest of the world is inclined to follow their example.
Most not all, apart from Europe-an exceptional case- there are many others and a few other countries where submission to the Ugly Imperium has become a habit so deep-seated as to be impossible to grow out of. Japan for example, like Europe an occupied country, allowed every freedom but that of sovereignty where the taste for american shoe leather has become a central part of elite cuisine.

Xi said it in Moscow: changes not seen in a hundred years are taking place, and Russia and China are the catalysts of this change.
As always, these were not changes that the world (a conservative place) wanted,(the world did not ask for Cortez or Clive or Admiral Dewey either). They were forced upon it, and us, by that form of stupidity mixed with strength, inertia and mass that the Greeks called hubris.
The world Xi and Putin and are building will have GW Bush’s name on its foundation stone.

Posted by: bevin | Mar 30 2023 19:15 utc | 59

UNQUOTE

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hi @RhisiartGwilym , I also liked this bit of history we rarely see:
" You would have to go backwards to 1945 with a very fine-toothed comb to discover instances of those governments actually talking truth to the Great Power. I suspect that there were a few- De Gaulle, for example, always regarded the idea that there was any power greater than him, under heaven, as silly. He was given to saying what he thought. Perhaps he was destroyed in 1968 with US help, I doubt it but…
Nehru was given to independent thinking and speach, too, though the boder war with China in 1962(?) quietened him. Then there was Sukarno and we all know what happened to him. And Tito- they didn’t get him but they certainly ripped up his country in anger to make sure that his heresies were discredited. There was Nkrumah, too.
Then there was Machel of Mozambique. Dag Hammarskjold. And- a twofer- the Presidents of Rwanda and Burundi, who made way for a man educated at Fort Leavenworth, where the flu pandemic began.
There was Mahathir of Malaysia- the guy Chumbawumba were singing about. And then there was Palme.
It’s not so much that nobody “called out” the Empire but that those who did, like Allende, got killed, in fairly short order. Take Ghadaffi, for example. Or Qasem Soleimani.
There is probably a little room in Heaven reserved for enemies of America.

Posted by: bevin | Mar 30 2023 15:48 utc | 8
"
and this excellent link :

" Is this a link?
Every Citizen a Statesman: The Dream of a Democratic Foreign Policy in the American Century
David Allen
Harvard University Press, $45 (cloth)

https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/mass-destruction/?utm_source=Boston+Review+Email+Subscribers&utm_campaign=82f1bc8b85-newsletter_3_30_23&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_2cb428c5ad-82f1bc8b85-40733801&mc_cid=82f1bc8b85&mc_eid=915815838d

Posted by: bevin | Mar 30 2023 16:28 utc | [16](MoA - Open (Not Ukraine) Thread 2023-74)
"
this review of David Allen’s book is a detailed analysis of another failed American Dream it starts off like this:
" * March 27, 2023

Every Citizen a Statesman: The Dream of a Democratic Foreign Policy in the American Century
David Allen
Harvard University Press, $45 (cloth)

Americans live in a very limited democracy. I don’t tell the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates; I don’t decide where the government puts my money; and I sure as hell didn’t vote to go to war in Iraq. Many of the most consequential decisions lie outside the purview of ordinary Americans, who have few means by which to make their voices heard in the corridors of power. This is by design. As numerous historians have shown, in the twentieth century’s second half U.S. elites constructed a state that intentionally restricts the ability of ordinary people to shape policy. Though they might disagree about a lot, the powerful in both political parties agree that, on most things, the public cannot be trusted."

cheers

1 Like