Forget About the Last War – It’s Time to Get Excited about the Next War

Many of the people who read this cheer-led the Ukraine war, decorating their timelines, homes and cars with gold and blue flags. Do they feel betrayed by the corporate media yet? Do they understand how you've been played by Iraq neocons (including Joe Biden, Anthony Blinken and Victoria Nuland)? We're off to the next war, once again, leaving devastated families (Russian and Ukrainian) and cities in our wake. Not giving a shit and none the wiser. In the meantime, the corporate news doubles down on bomb holing. 

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Where Did All of Those Blue and Gold Flags Go?

Those blue and gold flags used to be all over social media, on front porches and on car bumpers. Where did they go? It demonstrates the shallowness of our reasons and the strength of our tribalism.

Next time we are thinking about going to war, we should keep in mind the U.S. track record for "success" through war:

The near hysterical calls to support Ukraine as a bulwark of liberty and democracy by the mandarins in Washington are a response to the palpable rot and decline of the U.S. empire. America’s global authority has been decimated by well-publicized war crimes, torture, economic decline, social disintegration — including the assault on the capital on January 6, the botched response to the pandemic, declining life expectancies and the plague of mass shootings — and a series of military debacles from Vietnam to Afghanistan. The coups, political assassinations, election fraud, black propaganda, blackmail, kidnapping, brutal counter-insurgency campaigns, U.S. sanctioned massacres, torture in global black sites, proxy wars and military interventions carried out by the United States around the globe since the end of World War II have never resulted in the establishment of a democratic government. Instead, these interventions have led to over 20 million killed and spawned a global revulsion for U.S. imperialism.

Also from Chris Hedges: The biggest problem with war it that it generates an illusion that war provides its own meaning:

The enduring attraction of war is this: Even with its destruction and carnage it can give us what we long for in life. It can give us purpose, meaning, a reason for living. Only when we are in the midst of conflict does the shallowness and vapidness of much of our lives become apparent. Trivia dominates our conversations and increasingly our airwaves. And war is an enticing elixir. It gives us resolve, a cause. It allows us to be noble. And those who have the least meaning in their lives, the impoverished refugees in Gaza, the disenfranchised North African immigrants in France, even the legions of young who live in the splendid indolence and safety of the industrialized world, are all susceptible to war’s appeal.

Many of us, restless and unfulfilled, see no supreme worth in our lives. We want more out of life. And war, at least, gives a sense that we can rise above our smallness and divisiveness.

It is part of war’s perversity that we lionize those who make great warriors and excuse their excesses in the name of self-defense

As war gives meaning to sterile lives, it also promotes killers and racists.

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The Extremely Low Bar of War Reporting

“In war, truth is the first casualty.”

― Aeschylus

Remember the 500 who died at a Gaza hospital? But then we learned that wasn't true. And it was an Israeli attack that caused it--until it wasn't. David Zweig was suspicious about that nice round number of 500. It turns out that, yes, this is more extremely slipshod reporting by dozens of corporate media outlets.

This reporting debacle is very bad for several reasons pointed out by Zweig:

  1. One, None of the outlets credited Al Jazeera as the source of the interview.
  2. Two: No reporters replied to Zweig's request for the source.
  3. Third, "Important quotes or citations should always be linked or sourced."
  4. Fourth: "Newsrooms composed of dozens or hundreds of staff members, including teams of editors and foreign correspondents, and so on, backed by billion-dollar corporate owners still published a claim that was never fact-checked at its source."

The epilogue of Zweig's article is that lover of corporate media Michelle Goldberg, who has been one of the corporate media people who claims that Twitter ("X") is a "cesspool of misinformation," admitted that she got it wrong about the 500 deaths because she relied on this massively shoddy reporting by the corporate "news.".

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Darryl Cooper’s Nuanced Analysis Regarding Israel – Gaza

I appreciate the nuanced analysis of Israel - Gaza offered by Darryl Cooper on Breaking Points.. He offers, "This is a political conflict over disputed territory. That's it. We can bring all the religious considerations into that, and maybe that intensifies the complexity of the emotions relative to other disputes. But at the end of the day, it's a dispute between two groups of people laying claim to the same piece of land. That's it. . . . . 99% of the people on both sides are just regular people."

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Neocon PR 101

From David Sachs:

The neocon press cycle:

1) New threat to American Democracy in country X! 2) Anyone who questions this narrative is unpatriotic/traitor. 3) Victory is imminent and guaranteed. 4) Victory will take time but is worth it. 5) If we don’t redouble our efforts, we will lose. 6) Setbacks were inevitable. 7) Internal doubts and a lack of staying power cost us the war. 8) Press blackout on country X. (Never that important.)

Wait 6 months. Repeat with country Y.

In case you are looking for a detailed definition for "neocon."

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