War is the corporate world’s ultimate Ponzi scheme.

Great article from Jonathan Cooke. Here’s a taste.

The planet cannot begin to heal until we rip the mask off the West’s war machine

Making political sense of the world can be tricky unless one understands the role of the state in capitalist societies. The state is not primarily there to represent voters or uphold democratic rights and values; it is a vehicle for facilitating and legitimating the concentration of wealth and power into fewer and fewer hands.

In a recent post, I wrote about “externalities” – the ability of companies to offset the true costs inherent in the production process. The burden of these costs are covertly shifted on to wider society: that is, on to you and me. Or on to those far from view, in foreign lands. Or on to future generations. Externalising costs means that profits can be maximised for the wealth elite in the here and now.

Our own societies must deal with the externalised costs of industries ranging from tobacco and alcohol to chemicals and vehicles. Societies abroad must deal with the costs of the bombs dropped by our “defence” industries. And future generations will have to deal with the lethal costs incurred by corporations that for decades have been allowed to pump out their waste products into every corner of the globe.

Divine right to rule

In the past, the job of the corporate media was to shield those externalities from public view. More recently, as the costs have become impossible to ignore, especially with the climate crisis looming, the media’s role has changed. Its central task now is to obscure corporate responsibility for these externalities. That is hardly surprising. After all, the corporate media’s profits depend on externalising costs too, as well as hiding the externalised costs of their parent companies, their billionaire owners and their advertisers.

Will the American people ever wake up to see how much propaganda they are exposed to daily?

War is the ultimate growth industry, limited only by our ability to be persuaded of new enemies and new threats.

The fog of war

The “fog of war” does not just describe the difficulty of knowing what is happening in the immediate heat of battle. It is also the fear, generated by claims of an existential threat, that sets aside normal thinking, normal caution, normal scepticism. It is the invoking of a phantasmagorical enemy towards which public resentments can be directed, shielding from view the real culprits – the corporations and their political cronies at home.

The “fog of war” engineers the disruption of established systems of control and protocol to cope with the national emergency, shrouding and rationalising the accumulation by corporations of more wealth and power and the further capture of organs of the state. It is the licence provided for “exceptional” changes to the rules that quickly become normalised. It is the disinformation that passes for national responsibility and patriotism.

ICYMI here is an excellent article on Obama by Greenwald.

A Long-Forgotten CIA Document From WikiLeaks Sheds Critical Light on Today's U.S. Politics and Wars

The Agency knew that their best asset for selling their wars was Barack Obama -- the same reason so many in the security state were eager to get rid of Donald Trump.

What made this document so fascinating, so revealing, is the CIA’s discussion of how to manipulate public opinion to ensure it remains at least tolerant if not supportive of Endless War and, specifically, the vital role President Obama played for the CIA in packaging and selling U.S. wars around the world. In this classified analysis, one learns a great deal about how the “military industrial complex,” also known as the “Blob” or “Deep State,” reasons; how the Agency exploits humanitarian impulses to ensure continuation of its wars; and what the real function is of the U.S. President when it comes to foreign policy.

....

But none of this would have worked, in the CIA’s estimation, without having a President who could effectively use his popularity abroad to sell the war not as a barbaric act of endless aggression but as a humanitarian gesture that — like the President himself — was benevolent, noble, and kind.

In other words, Obama was like a kind but righteous father whose nobility you believed in even when it came to bombing villages and shooting up schoolyards, and whose moral disappointment (you’re not living up to your duties as an ally) you were eager to avoid.

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snoopydawg's picture

We are claiming that Russia was the aggressor not us. The war ship John McCain sailed from our shores and went to waters off the coast Russia, but when Russia politely told us to leave we say that we’re the wronged party.

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The US Navy early this week had responded bluntly: "By conducting this operation, the United States demonstrated that these waters are not Russia's territorial sea and that the United States does not acquiesce in Russia's claim that Peter the Great is a 'historic bay' under international law."

The US 7th Fleet confirmed it was "approached aggressively" by the Russian ship and condemned the provocative behavior.

Source

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

Lookout's picture

..we don't make anything in America except trash and babies. To which I quickly responded "Oh no, we are the world's largest manufacturer and leading trader of weapons...and creators of WAR".

Blind and arrogant. As I asked the other day, suppose Russia had ships sailing on our coast? Think we would be aggressive? I sure do.

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

For once, I have time to read them thoroughly.
Russia has better sense than to patrol our water. We show no restrain, go wherever we want, and call it aggression when we are told we were not invited.
Crazy world, led by spy agencies, charged with making oligarchs even richer.

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"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

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