Open Thread - 12-08-23 - Impirium Parasitus
Empires are parasites.
Impirium Parasitus (U.S. Empire) lives upon two hosts, the internal host and the external host. The citizens as the internal hosts and the victim as the external host country or state. Sometimes the relationship is symbiotic, but most times it's only beneficial for the parasite. In end stages when the host/s are no longer to be found or have been depleted, the Impirium Parasitus may turn exclusively on its citizens.
Impirium Parasitus has learned and adapted from past hosts. The Vietnam War or The War in Southeast Asian taught the parasite many valuable lessons that are presently applied to contemporary conflicts.
- The hoi polloi (common people, the masses) must not discern caskets draped in American flags.
- The hoi polloi must not hear anti-empirical words that emanate from the popular music of the day.
- Protest must be hidden from the citizens as much as possible.
- The use of censorship and propaganda to obfuscate the motivation for parasitical exploitation.
- The use of political intimidation to keep the hoi polloi in line.
- The use of a proxy army.
Attribution:"American Progress" (Manifest Destiny) by John Gast Wikimedia
The war in Vietnam was brought home almost everyday on the nightly news. Pictures and film footage had a great influence on the common man. The flag draped coffins were a grim reminder of the cost of American lives as a medium of exchange to pay for ambiguous domino effect.
Scenes of Ia Drang, My Lai, Khe Sahn, Hue, and the 68 Tet Offensive drove the war home into the consciousness of the hoi polloi and turned them against the blood thirsty incursion.
Walter Conkrite's admissions were the coup de grâce, and the Impirium reluctantly acquiesced, notwithstanding a lesson well learned. A lesson manifest in the illusion of pristine 21st century warfare devoid of combatant body bags and funeraries.
The fire of change was razed in the cauldron of the 60s. We* danced, we sang, we marched. We said no. No more.
With World War II, Korea, and Vietnam stuck in our near term memory, we saw it for what it was. A racket, A racket at our expense. We were young, but yet, tired. Tired of the death and destruction. The message was undeniable to those that would listen. War was the reason for the time of change. Music was the catalyst that drove that reason of change.
The airways were full of it like a drummer marching to battle, it was the heartbeat of our generation. The music told our story of a new consciousness, it drove our narrative of peace and love. The consciousness grew to include new horizons and widened the scope of a new awareness, that of civil rights, that of human rights, that of stewardship of our biome, that of justice, for all.
Music is a powerful messenger. We stood up and they took notice.
We no longer hear protest music on contemporary pop music airwaves. Disco killed it. Protest music is still with us, to a certain degree, but one must search to find it.
* I use the pronoun "we" as it was my generation, I became politically aware in 1967.
Free Speech Zones are the practice of penning protestors in certain fenced areas so that they may be out of sight and out of mind of of those vulnerable to the message/s the protest may be pointed at.
The main stream media has all but abandoned any coverage of protests across the nation, and the world as well. The cost was too high to allow the citizens to view how many people were against their programs. There was also more diversity among media outlets during the Vietnam War as the industry has congealed between five or six corporations today. And that's not to mention that there was real journalism back then. Now-a-days we have nodding talking heads that all receive their copy from one central outlet.
Censorship and propaganda are the de riguer de jour tactics of the modern empire. There has been much insight in the last few years in regards to the lengths that an empire may resort to so as to limit unwanted messaging from reaching the minds of the unaware.
Today, this is greatly exacerbated by the online censorship and propaganda so prevalent in the not so secret marriage of the US federal government and big tech.
Jailing dissidents and threatened lawfare are strong tactics deployed by empires fueled by paranoia. Historically it happened during the Vietnam War but has been taken to another level ever since the imposition of the Patriot Act. If one steps out of line the chances are that a weaponized federal agency will investigate.
Another form of intimidation is online deplatforming and shadow banning and outright censorship that has a tendency to force people to self censor their thoughts expressed on various internet outlets that work hand in glove behind the scenes with the government.
The use of an all volunteer armed services has solved the problems with morale and public sentiment that plagued the military during the Vietnam War. That alone has reshaped the image of modern warfare as it pertains to the US.
Proxy armies and proxy wars blind the country to the horrors of war and provide the empire cover from the unwanted scrutiny of caskets covered by flags. When it's the proxy's soldiers coming home in coffins and body bags to their own country there's less emotional stress on the citizens of the US empire. The hoi polloi are more willing to go along with the war when it's kept from the TV news, again, out of sight out of mind.
The US government learned its lessons well from the Vietnam War and have for the most part implemented policies that tamp down any push back from the common folk.
May the world have compassion upon the people of the US when the Empire comes to an end. May they realize that, yes, the people vote in politicians to represent them, but after being elected said politicians forget about the people and represent power and control and themselves.
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Comments
Good morning Free Rangers...
I hate the descriptors "the elite" or "the oligarchs" so for what's it worth, heretofore I will refer to them as the parasite class.
Going down together
is so much better than going down all alone, or something like that.
Anyway, it was great to see my WWII vet relatives and my Viet Nam vet schoolmates become staunch pacifists.
I would rather fight to protect my neighbor than Raytheon's profit margin.
The parasite hasn't sucked everything I have from me. I still have some principles, and I will die with them, possibly because of them.
Enjoy your weekend, Master Blog Owner Guy, thanks for the music and opinions.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
Right on sister...
as generations die off they take the lessons they learned with them. It's the younger generations that haven't lived through a war where friends and family are conscripted and many come home in body bags, that have no idea what a war looks like and what it means to them personally. Let's hope they don't have to learn that lesson.
They can censor us, intimidate us, blacklist us, but they can't control our minds or principles, yet.
Keep on thinking free.
Today's sales-pitch for war:
Simplicius tells us:
Establishment Alarmism in Overdrive as Raytheon Lloyd Threatens Congress with War
So it's not just some National Review writer. Simplicius displays a video in which:
And, from Breitbart (yeah, I know, not exactly an objective source):
Now, I said something about this phenomenon in an earlier comment. The obvious problem is in their explanation of "what do we do about it." They don't, you know, put NATO on a total war footing. They don't even put the US on a total war footing. But that's what they would do if such a threat were real. Instead they cajole Congress into having a few billions encoded before Winter Break.
I don't really have the time right now, but it would be amusing to see a study of the history of US sales-pitches for the proxy war in Ukraine. At first the US was going to overthrow Putin. Then the war was a "good investment." Now it's "OMIGOD THEY'RE GOING TO INVADE!" Never mind that the progression of sales-pitches reveals the complete inadequacy of actual strategy to ostensive aims.
“One of the things I love about the American people is that we can hold many thoughts at once” - Kamala Harris
A country...
whose main industry and export is death and weaponry, and is on its last economic legs, will pitch for more war and destruction and profits. It's basically a money laundering operation as that money spent on war materiel and to prop up the puppet regime comes back to the pols and war machine via new weapons manufacturing and graft. It's diabolical the way they have spread the weapons manufacturing throughout every state of the union discouraging any dissent from the politicians who fear losing jobs in their respective states or districts.
Threatening American blood letting in Ukraine is bluster and intimidation. They know full well that if they implement a draft that it will be game over. I double dog dare them to do it.
Wouldn't it be great if our esteemed politicians would open their books so we can see who owns what defense stocks?
If we weren't armed to the teeth with nukes, this empire would have already collapsed. The nukes are basically what is propping up this paper tiger. The threat of nuclear annihilation allows us to bully the world.
It has been obvious for quite some time
The proxy war in Ukraine was doomed to failure. Saw one of the conditions for
authorizing more war funding is an accounting of how the money will be spent
and a concrete plan of the objectives toward a settlement of this charade.
In other news:
White House security found Biden digging his grave in the rose garden.
B-Bee I think?
Thanks for the OT!
Wars-R-US
That depends
on your definition of failure. It was doomed to failure as a strategic gambit, but very successful at lining the pockets of weapons manufacturers, stock holders and politicians as evidenced by the FTX and Sam Bankman-Fried money laundering scheme. Keeping books on Ukraine monies spent is for the little people, don't ya' know.
Way true
Capitalism has no honour or boundaries, and lately few rules. While it's blah blah about free markets, it leaves off the part about the captive consumers. We have choices? Sure, just like we have choices in elections.
Capitalism...
worked very well back in the 50s and 60s when America's richest paid a 90 percent tax rate on their income. It lead to the greatest middle class the world has ever seen. That middle class is now being dismantled at the behest of greedy corporate lobbying and corrupt politicians at the behest of the filthy rich.
Political candidate choice is one of the biggest scams ever perpetrated on an electorate. It's an illusion that we get to pick our representatives when our choices are determined by corrupt organizations like the DNC and the RNC. Third parties don't have a chance, by design. It's a rigged system in a rigged country.
Was it capitalism
or government that worked well back in the 1950's? I think maybe one protected us from the other. Was there ever a time when capitalism didn't work well? After all, it always gets bailed out by us one way or another. We always pay the price.
Mostly, I think, the middle class has been dismantled. It only looks ok because credit and debt gives it that patina. Kinda like those heart pump machines they use before they harvest the organs.
Also, thanks for the OT.
Sandwiched between the Roaring Twenties of the 1920s
....and the Raging Twenties or the 2020s, there existed a period of time when capitalism was not allowed to exploit and destroy the lives of the underclass. This occurred in the years following FDR, when capitalism was tightly regulated and the underclass was able to become prosperous. These regulations were systematically revoked — the last of them under Bill Clinton, which signaled the dismantling of the Middle class and the rise of the billionaires.
The first of the Boomers are present here, but the boomers as a whole betrayed everything they learned and experienced. The huge number of voters in this self-centered demographic supported the militant, ignorant, anti-social policies that ruled the nation. History will ultimately regard the period that this generation was politically active as the moral dead zone that enabled the self-destruction of the West.
Capitalism is not the opposite of socialism, it's the opposite of Democracy. People will slowly realize this truth after it is too late.
ymmv
IMAGINE if you woke up the day after a US Presidential Election and headlines around the the world blared, "The Majority of Americans Refused to Vote in US Presidential Election! What Does this Mean?"
The fingerprints of propaganda
are all over this notion of associating capitalism with democracy.
For the non-critical thinkers (not just boomers) the lovely weaving
in the tapestry of the mind of holy freedom, democracy and gawd
conveniently leave out subjugation, conquering and colonialism
which is the hidden part of this western dream.
Exterminate All The Brutes,
the documentary by Raoul Peck, posits that the history of the West, which is a history of European colonialism; is a history which is, at its core, a policy of slaughtering the indigenous peoples from around the world in order to claim their land. It is a policy that includes the determination to exterminate ALL the brutes. Not some, not just a few, but all. That is it in a nutshell. The "sales pitch" [h/t Cass] for this ambitious project, was white supremacy coupled with Christianity.
It is a bleak view and makes a mockery of the Enlightenment ideals of Western culture, but it is hard to argue with Peck's point of view. An antidote to this situation [seeing that it is ongoing in our own time] is for people to question the sales pitch, the advertisement, the propaganda. Then possibly people would reject this sort of a policy but who knows?
Thanks JtC, hope all is well in your neck of the woods.
Manifest Destiny...
provided the justification for slaughtering the American indigenous peoples. After that was rolled up eyes were cast upon the rest of the world. It was an easy jump of privilege to extend our way of life to every nation that was not enlightened enough to accommodate our ideals and, ahem, savagery.
I do hope that we as a nation can turn this ship around rather than have that done for us when the world finally has enough of our bullshit.
Things are well here in east Texas, I hope the same for you and yours.
Thanks for stopping in rand.
Political intimidation @ work
Imagine living in a country that openly supports genocide
while those that are against have to live in fear, well hear
we are
If this is truly the definition of anti-semetic than yes
I'm anti-semetic.....the nerve of this asshole
I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish
"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"
Heard from Margaret Kimberley
He,
Bibi, is just applying the principles manifested in our Manifest Destiny proclamation. How hypocritical to not allow him to use that twisted philosophy to his own benefit, (that's snark by the way).
Oh wait, after rethinking that thought, maybe it's the Old Testament he's basing his genocidal tendencies on. That is after all, the manual for genocide and its apologists. It's the imprimatur for many wannabe genocidal maniacs. And if he needs to intimidate some folks along the way, well that's just God's will. So let it be written, so let it be done.
good morning JtC. "Free Speech Zones" are proof that we don't
have free speech in this country anymore. If one is permitted to have free speech only within some circumscribed locus, then one does not have it elsewhere, which is essentially everywhere. The courts have gone along with this travesty in a great many circumstances, finding various excuses to justify them in various circumstances. When they haven't, nothing has changed all the same. When GWB campaigned in CA they were set up in such a fashion that the courts said they were prohibited, but they were set up and enforced all the same. Since there were no penalties imposed they went from venue to venue setting them up only to have them declared illegal, but so what, they were imposed and enforced time after time after time.
Similarly, permits are proof that one does not really have a right to engage in the permitted activity. Tom Hayden once said:
That may well be, but laws requiring permits for this, that and the other are routinely imposed and enforced and generally allowed by the court system.
Now they've made censorship and propaganda the norm. The fight has to start there because people are somewhat like AI, if they are trained on an endless stream of fallacy, lies and delusion then that becomes their default intellectual reaction to things. The front lines are no longer the streets, but places like this and guerrilla poster and graffiti campaigns challenging the purported facts and the fallacies and illogic.
be well and have a good one
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
They've...
corralled our physical bodies into free speech zones and are now working diligently to corral our minds as well.
Well said. I'll say it again that the recent revelations by Elon Musk about tech and government collusion in censoring the public on twitter was, in my humble opinion, done to normalize government censorship. It's been made public and now it's out there for all to see. Notice though, that nothing's been done about it. It's in your face and insidious but it's effective. It also leads to even more self censorship as it warrants the impression that there's nothing that can be done about it.
Yerp, and something that very much needs to be attacked
and made clear to the populace that it is happening and why.
be well and have a good one
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
Not only Musk
but the republicans are doing a limited hangout on the massive government censorship.
Since there were no penalties imposed they went from venue to venue setting them up only to have them declared illegal, but so what, they were imposed and enforced time after time after time.
The GOP has been holding hearings after hearings on Biden’s crackdown on free speech and what has come of them? Democrats brutality attack Taibbi and Shellenberg (?) for what they discovered in the Twit files. How long ago was it exposed? What has happened since? Musk is still censoring, shadow banning and kicking people off the site if they say the 'wrong' thing.
Too many people are in favor of censorship. We warned that it was one of the things that would come from Russia Russia way back in 2014 and it became true. It got worse during Rona Rona. One court shut Biden’s censorship down and another let him resume it, but meanwhile the government agencies team up with other groups to continue doing it. And just what will republicans do to stop it? They ain’t pure constitutionists or they would never have voted for the patriot act or reupped it every time it’s needed like right now. Asking one government agency to rule against another government agency is foolish.
Government is still combining with universities to censor messages that aren’t to be tolerated. Stanford collaborated with the government on unwelcomed Covid narratives that went against what they wanted people to believe. "You aren’t a horse so knock it off!" regarding ivermectin or other early treatments with long approved meds. The military has teamed up with Alaska university to censor something and other universities are joining in too. Kill one group and another starts up.
As I said yesterday the website that rose up as being against the Iraq war changed its tune in defense of Ukraine which was rigged as a trap for Russia and now it’s changing headlines that are pro Palestinian and in their view against Israel. Very few have a problem with this. When mainstream media says something true against Ukraine or Zelensky boy are feathers ruffled. And they have been for censorship for everyone who deviates from what their government tells them. Goes back to what you’re saying about what happened to those who fought the man during Vietnam. And look at how many Ukrainian Nazi parades people have gone to. Just stunning.
Great essay, JtC!
There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?
Thanks snoops...
kind of goes hand in hand with an essay I did a while back about both sides of any narrative being controlled.
I've been giving Elon Musk the stink eye for a while now. I'm also giving the partnership of Musk/Tucker Carlson/Alex Jones the side eye as well. Add Trump to that triumvirate too, for the same reasons as I stated in my first sentence of this comment.
Thanks for stopping in.
Venezueala is going after
their historical lands in Guyana. It is their reason. It is not because Guyana has oil, gold, and timber. Shame on you if you do not respect their ancestral claim on boundaries, just because the boundaries are fortuitous. (Guyana and the US are conducting joint naval exercises right now. This empirical parasite shit is getting closer and closer to home.)
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
In my best...
sports announcer voice, "They're going for the gold"!
The world is like the board game called Risk. It's a game of chance determined by the roll of the dice, a world made of cardboard with fake countries with fake borderlines and fake wooden game pieces that represent fake armies. The winner becomes the fake ruler of the world.
Kind of like real life, no?
Viet Nam War
Your comments about the Viet Nam War reminded me of something which happened 20 some years ago. I was working at a call center. Horrible job. I was in my 40's, co-worker who worked behind me was a young man in his 30's. He had been a manager for a video store but got laid off because they were all closing. This was during the time that Bush II wanted to invade Iraq.
He asked me if I was old enough to remember the Viet Nam War. He wanted to know if they really gave a body count during the news. I told him that yes, I remember it, although I was a child around 10 when I first found out about it. And that yes, they would announce that so many were killed in Viet Nam and then announce the total number who had died since the war began.
He said that he had always heard that but did not know if it was true. That is a large part of the problem. People can't distinguish what is real anymore and most of the propaganda is coming from the government. Never heard a body count for any "wars" after that.
I remember that
but it was more the enemy "estimated" body count. That's how the military proved we were winning. We had very lethal estimates.
If I recall correctly...
and it's been a while, that the body count was determined by enemy weapons collected and not so much by collecting bodies. That made it easier to get higher body counts to justify the killing back home for the folks in Potemkin City, USA.
Yes, we're so high and mighty about Israel
but we visited My Lai with the same results, and that 'ol propaganda machine rolls on.
Yep...
in today's world there's no flag draped coffins, no body counts, no protests, no dissent, no nothing. It's a pristine, precision conflict way overseas so nothing to worry about. Nothing to see here move along and don't forget to pay your taxes and wave the flag of the day.