Please tell me that I’m biased

Please tell me that I’m biased and that things are not as bad as I see them.

Most of the subscribers and visitors of this blog are from the USA, despite many blogposts with persistent pronounced criticism of US values, standards, social climate, and the resulting politics.

As a European I watch from the distance, I look carefully, and what I see is not pretty. The “indispensable”, “exceptional” nation, “the city upon a hill”, the “shining light”, the “leader of the free world” is instigating wars, assassinating people, bullying enemies and allies alike, and exploiting the whole world via dollar hegemony and the global financial system.

US President Donald Trump is a moron and his failure to stem the coronavirus pandemic only piles on top of other debacles like: defunding social security, public education, most other public institutions (except the military), gutting environmental laws and regulations, mismanaging relations with China, Europe, the Middle East, and Latin America. It is just one disaster after another, all leaving behind anger, resentment, and lack of trust.

But it isn’t just Trump. US’s establishment had been headed on this destructive course for years under Reagan, Clinton, Bush, and Obama. Donald Trump is the inevitable result of decades of hyper-individuality, Ayn Rand’s “greed is good” culture, superficial materialism, consumerism, and politics based not on substance or principles, but on looks, marketability, and adherence to Neoliberal fundamentalist ideologies.

There are massive bailouts for corporations and governments, dangerous authoritarian measures of surveillance, undermining of civil rights, corruption (institutionalized as “lobbying”), cronyism and nepotism, while the administration refuses to protect and adequately provide for the citizenry.

Most US-citizens have checked out of politics. It’s not that they don’t care, they just don’t believe that participating will make a difference (Mark Twain: “If voting made any difference they wouldn’t let us do it.”). People are sick and tired of voting for politicians who only answer to corporations and people are tired of the Democrat versus Republican electoral carnival.

As billions hunker down to halt the spread of the novel coronavirus, President Trump has only ramped up sanctions and other pressure against frequent targets such as Iran, Syria, Venezuela, and Cuba.

Humanitarian imports to Iran and Venezuela have effectively been blocked as few foreign banks are willing to deal with these countries due to US sanctions, leading to shortages of vital supplies such as masks and medications. The DC-based IMF (International Monetary Fund) has denied Venezuela a loan needed to fight the pandemic, citing disputes over the legitimacy of the Maduro government.

President Trump instructed the US administration to halt funding to the WHO (World Health Organization), because in his opinion the WHO has “failed in its response to the coronavirus outbreak.” He accused the UN body of mismanaging and covering up the spread of the virus after it emerged in China, and said it must be held accountable. Trump also accused the WHO of being biased towards China.

The US government has clearly seen the coronavirus outbreak not as a dangerous humanitarian crisis, but as a strategic advantage to be weaponized against governments which refuse to bow to its agendas.

The “collapsing empire” virus

The disease which torments the USA now is much bigger than the coronavirus. The political and financial systems are brittle and inflexible; inequality is rampant; physical health is awful mostly because of lifestyle but partly because of an expensive, inadequate health care system and ubiquitous exposures to toxics in air, water, food, and consumer goods. 

There are chasms of inequality, the use of virtual debt (QE, fiat money) to paper over physical world problems, ecological ignorance, addiction, obesity, fragile supply chains, mistreatment and persecution of minorities and dissidents.

It needs extraordinary measures (2.2 million people in jail, 1,000 people shot dead every year by police), to keep this system stable. 

But it’s not only the billionaires who profit, the average US-citizen gets some perks too, like the ability to waste more energy and materials than anyone else on the planet.

“So the collapse intensified, which is why America is now such a helpless giant. A crazy man is at the helm, yet the best Democrats can do is put up a candidate suffering from the early stages of senile dementia, who may be a rapist to boot. No one knows how things will play out from this point on. But two things are clear. One is that the process did not start under Trump, while the other is that it will undoubtedly continue regardless of who wins in November. Once collapse sets in, it’s impossible to stop.”

That is the closing paragraph of an article by Daniel Lazare in Strategic Culture Foundation.

Caitlin Johnstone:

All The Craziest Things About America Are Being Highlighted By This Virus

“Corona is a black light and America is a cum-stained hotel room,” comedian Megan Amram colorfully tweeted a couple of weeks ago. Her observation has only grown more accurate since.

The corporate cronyism of America’s political system has been highlighted with a massive kleptocratic multitrillion-dollar corporate bailout of which actual Americans are only receiving a tiny fraction. Instead of putting that money toward paying people a living wage to stay home during a global pandemic, the overwhelming majority of the money is going to corporations while actual human beings receive a paltry $1,200 (which they won’t even be getting until May at the earliest) at a time of record-smashing unemployment.

America’s capitalism worship has been highlighted with Wall Street Journal headline “Dow Soars More Than 11% In Biggest One-Day Jump Since 1933” running at the exact same time as “Record Rise in Unemployment Claims Halts Historic Run of Job Growth — More than 3 million workers file for jobless benefits as coronavirus hits the economy”. Stocks are booming, Amazon is surging, and mountains of wealth are being transferred to sprawling megacorporations, while actual human beings are terrified of what the future holds.

America’s joke of a healthcare system is being highlighted as uninsured COVID-19 patients are racking up $35,000 medical bills and even insured COVID-19 patients are looking at out-of-pocket expenses in excess of $1,300. Combine this with the millions of Americans getting thrown off of employer-provided health insurance and you’re looking at a huge number of people who will avoid getting tested and avoid treatment as much as possible. Both heads of America’s two-headed one-party system have spent decades forcefully creating this dynamic.

America’s income and wealth inequality is being highlighted in a nation suffering from all of the above problems while most Americans were already unable to afford a mere $1,000 emergency expense. A one-time $1,200 payment to a population already stretched that thin guarantees that millions will be plunged into crushing debt and destitution in a nation with a historically unprecedented billionaire class raking in even more unearned wealth.

The insanity of America’s war machine has been highlighted as awareness grows during a global health emergency that government military spending negatively impacts government healthcare spending and the US has the most bloated military budget on the planet. Now as journalist Max Blumenthal explains this war machine’s escalating hostility toward China is causing Americans to needlessly die of the virus.

America’s fake political system has been highlighted as the Democratic Party’s presumptive nominee completely vanished for a week and then returned to deliver an embarrassing string of befuddled interviews upon his return, reminding the nation once again that the Democrats are running an actual, literal dementia patient for the most powerful elected office in the world. Biden will of course be running against an incoherent reality TV star who only last week decided that the virus is indeed a real problem which needs to be seriously addressed, and who now already wants to begin rolling back the inadequate measures his administration implemented far too late. The debates between two men who don’t understand what they’re doing and can’t string a sentence together between them will soon be broadcast around the world for all of civilization to behold.

America’s lying mass media are being highlighted with propagandistic lines that would make Kim Jong Un blush, like The New York Times claiming today that “the American medical system is unsurpassed and its public health system has a reputation as one of the finest in the world“. We can safely expect US media to get even more surreal as they expands their hysteria-inducing new cold war propaganda campaign against Russia to China as well.

America’s murderous sanctions machine has been highlighted as the US continues ramping up its economic warfare against Iranian civilians, with thousands already dead and potentially millions to follow due to Tehran’s inability to access necessary equipment, medicine and resources during the pandemic. The Trump administration has not eased the sanctions during the outbreak, and has in fact added to them, because killing Iranian civilians has always been the goal. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has gone on record to say that the objective is to make Iranian civilians so miserable and desperate that they overthrow their own government.

So basically everything crazy about America is being amplified to absurd caricatures of its own insanity and highlighted for everyone to see. There’s a lot of ugliness coming out into the light as a result of this virus, which may end up being one of its few perks for everyone. As they say of both viruses and governments, sunlight is the best disinfectant.

So, anti-imperialists, peace activists, humanists, socialists, anarchists of the world, ease up, calm down, be hopeful, cheerful, happy. The evil empire will end and it will take not too long. We may see its demise even in our lifetime.

The evil empire will collapse but there’s the danger that in its final years it will launch devastating wars which could end humanity if nuclear weapons are used. Please, tell everyone to prevent such an outcome.

Something personal

Today I got an email from Owen James, a person from whom I never have heard before, with the following text:

=============

Greetings From Syria,

Hope this emails finds you in good health. Please permit me to introduce myself as James Owen , I am a United States Army Officer, currently stationed in Syria on peace-keeping against the war going on in the middle east

It’s very hard for me to tell you this but I do not have a choice now. I am just hoping you can keep secrets.Please, read the next paragraph carefully and comment.

About ten days after I arrived here, I was attached to a special tactical unit as a command relay engineer for an operation which busted a  bunker and the troop that went for that operation looted the bunker before setting it on fire. They recovered over 150 million US dollars of the TOURIST funding. The commander agreed with the rest of the troops not to return the money to the authorities. They split the money among themselves and in other to have me keep my mouth shut; they gave me 1.5 million dollars which I rapped up among my clothing and have been hiding it since then. I knew it would never be possible for me to leave the base with the money myself as they have all kinds of security laser scans.

Right now as I am about to leave Syria, I arranged with that security courier company who brings medical supplies in and out of the base from the US to the RED CROSS without security checks to deliver it to you as my personal effects. The box I mailed to you contains 1.5 million dollars carefully wrapped up in my clothing and paintings in a luggage sealed and stamped in your name as the receiver.

There is no other way I could have been able to bring it out from Syria. I cannot bring it with me because I will be searched and scanned before I leave the base. There is no risk involved at all because the courier company is reliable and will deliver it to you safely without knowing what is contained underneath my clothes. I would also like for you to honestly and fairly tell me how much of the money you would like to have as compensation for the receipt. This is not stealing babe because the money is better in our hands than being used for guns and suicide bombers. We can give a substantial amount to charity to clear our conscience. Please, be honest with me on this and do not disclose this information to anybody else until the delivery is made.

I have few hours to be here so I am going too wait till we are able to talk before leaving the base.

I only require your

Full Names:
Telephone number
Home Address
Gender:
Email Address

once i receive your details i will forward it to delivery company to contact you about delivery time update.

Reply to my email Address owenjames1231234@gmail.com

=============

This is such a brazen scam, and it is so unintelligent and ignorant formulated that it leaves me breathless. It was already reported in March. I added it to the post to get some fun into the text and end with a humorous note.