Posts Tagged ‘militarism’
*95+ Artists Boycott SXSW Over Militarism #BDS
Posted: March 15, 2024 in -Tags: BDS, boycott, concert, empire, Gaza, genocide, Israel, MIC, militarism, SXSW, war crimes
Top Gun 2: Endless Propaganda Of Course
Posted: May 30, 2022 in -Tags: cinema, empire, Hollywood, imperialism, militarism, movies, Navy, pentagon, propaganda, recruiting, Top Gun, US
Top Gun for hire: why Hollywood is the US military’s best wingman
“Productions love us because we provide authenticity and credibility. And also, they get substantial cost savings. …Applicants must submit their entire script for approval, and accept any changes required.”
Also:
Propaganda in the Cinema
And, they ARE recruitng in movie theaters now (just like in my book!)
Rethinking Memorial Day
Posted: May 26, 2020 in -Tags: casualties, imperialism, Jimmy Dore, Memorial Day, militarism, war
NBC Reporter Quits Over Endless War Propaganda
Posted: July 13, 2019 in -Tags: analysts, empire, Jimmy Dore, Lies, militarism, MSNBC, NBC, open letter, propaganda, resignation, war, war propaganda
Cornell West on Neoliberalism
Posted: July 10, 2019 in -Tags: Cornell West, financiliaation, militarism, neoliberalism, privatizing
Trump’s Syria Deception & War Crimes
Posted: January 14, 2019 in -Tags: Abby Martin, bombing, control, deception, empire, Empire Files, Israel, Lies, militarism, Syria, Trump, war
“Center for American Progress” (sic) #Corruption
Posted: December 24, 2018 in -Tags: Center for American Progress, Democratic Party, empire, fake opposition, Intercept, militarism, neoliberals, Nerra Tandem, The Resistance, think tanks, votes, warmongers, Yemen war
Not your neighborhood.
Yep, the people who love Shillary et al. get money from Gulf tyrants. Shocker.
MAJOR LIBERAL GROUPS SAT ON SIDELINES AS SENATE PASSED HISTORIC RESOLUTION ON YEMEN WAR
Which side are these assholes on?
Center for American Progress, the most prominent Democratic think tank in D.C., has been criticized for accepting significant funding from the UAE, one of the Gulf countries leading the war on Yemen. The UAE gave CAP between $500,000 to $999,000 in 2017.
The politics of war and peace in Washington are being reoriented.
War School #Documentary #Militarism
Posted: November 14, 2018 in -Tags: children, documentary, free film, full film, militarism, military, programming, propaganda, UK, war school
Trailer
Those Permanent War “Progressives” #Democrats
Posted: September 15, 2018 in -, Joe GiambroneTags: Alexandria Cortez, Audrey Denney, Bernie Sanders, Democratic Party, empire, John McCain, militarism, politics, progressives, war
Featured at Off-Guardian and Oped News.
“Get out of here, you lowlife scum!”
-Sen. John McCain to anti-war protesters,
January 29, 2015
by Joe Giambrone
One unexpected revelation, that John McCain’s death has shown us, is that we completely misjudged some notable players on the national stage. Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and even Audrey Denney in Northern California have praised the serial warmonger as some kind of national treasure. Real progressives, on the ground, expect those people to fight against John McCain’s imperial agenda of mass murder for mass profits.
What do these representatives stand for in reality? When did imperial wars of aggression become the norm and beyond criticism? What alternatives do we now have in America to this Nazi-styled, industrial-scale barbarism and an ongoing domestic propaganda victory, which Goebbels would have been proud of concocting? Belligerence is now heroism.
(So did Joseph Stalin, Audrey.)
The right-wing knew for years that McCain was on his way out, and they planned their massive PR offensive, which still unfolds all around us. It’s a sickening nationalism with a fake martyr who isn’t supposed to be criticized.
For fifty years, John McCain was elevated by the right-wing because of his victim status. Being a captured prisoner of war made him a solid, reliable commodity. His “patriotism” was beyond question. This allowed McCain, or “McNasty” as he was known to his military peers, to rise through the ranks and become one of the most malignant politicians of our lives, selling war after war, supporting any and all blood-drenched tyrants, terrorists, or Nazis who would do business with America. McCain’s agenda was the problem, the main problem in the world today. Millions of innocent civilians perished in part due to John McCain’s tireless efforts to launch more US wars of aggression, both overt and covert.
John McCain and Lindsey Graham with the head of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, Abdelhakim Beladj, who has both Al Qaeda and ISIS links.
Your Empire at Work
Empires persist because of several principles which aren’t taught in American K-12 schools. No public school, to my knowledge, dares call America an empire at all, despite it keeping military bases and active soldiers in the overwhelming majority of foreign lands on this planet. It is an invisible empire then, and the less the general public knows about it the easier it is to manage. Good guys and bad guys are assigned on the fly, minor bit parts to sell the latest news cycle, nothing more. Often the good guys pop up later as bad guys or vice-versa.
Osama bin Laden in 1993 – “Good” Guy?
One principle that is obvious and common to every empire since Rome is “bread and circuses.” The domestic population is kept at a slightly elevated standard of living–that’s the bread–but distracted with entertainment as much as possible, a devil’s bargain. Your morals for a wide-screen TV, now shut up and watch it. The people therefore have something to lose, and they aren’t educated enough about current global situations to mount any kind of organized challenge to the powers that be. That’s the game.
Opportunity cost is the phenomenon that prompts an empire to promote distraction and entertainment. If the people spend their lives watching football, television, or video games, or just fighting with each other over race and religion, then they are not learning about flash points across the globe. The average citizen cannot do both. Few Americans today could locate Syria on a blank map, despite it being the target of US belligerence since at least 2011.
A second principle of running an empire is to outsource your dirty work to your vassals, your “friends.” This is about creating a false perception of ethics and morals. Your foreign henchmen serve as proxies to enforce your will on the periphery. You ship them high-tech arms, intelligence, money if need be, in order to exercise control beyond your own borders. Thus, America is in bed with the leaders of countries such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, UAE, Uzbekistan, Israel, and too many “human rights” abusers to list.
“Progressive” Voices
The problem with political labels is that they don’t actually mean much. They cover a wide range of people, views, and agendas.
In the context of this article, we see “Progressive” voices supporting an agenda of widespread atrocities against foreign lands which they would never–in a million years–condone against people at home. There’s a rift, a dichotomy, a split-personality disorder of sorts. What we do to them versus what we do to us, that’s the distinction. The domestic population is slightly elevated, more important, deserving of some human rights vs. their enemies around the world, who are fair game.
So, what can we expect from the most “Progressive” Democratic Party options alive today? They have endorsed McCain without qualifying in any way the immoral criminality of his lifelong agenda of war and more war. No recollection of his Beach Boys parody, “Bomb bomb Iran.” Certainly no talk of his meeting with Al Qaeda and other Jihadist elements in both Libya and Syria! His selling Jihad as “freedom” on US television. Nothing about his supporting the ranting, raving neo-Nazis in Ukraine, nor the violent illegal coup there, which McCain was a part of.
Jihadist kidnappers meet with US senator McCain, exposed in Lebanese newspaper The Daily Star.
Bernie Sanders voted to bomb Serbia in 1999 and to invade Afghanistan in 2001. It was well known that the Taliban had offered to turn over Osama bin Laden to a legitimate international court if evidence was produced to implicate him in the 9/11 attacks. Instead of pursuing this diplomatic solution, it was instead the start of an endless war that continues to this day, the longest war in America’s history. Sanders cast a vote in favor of the attack and against a peaceful diplomatic solution, against justice.
Bernie Sanders also supported:
“Israeli onslaughts against the Gaza Strip, most recently the savage bombardment of July-August 2014 which killed nearly 2,000 Palestinians, including more than 500 children. At an August 2014 town hall meeting, Sanders notoriously demanded that audience members “shut up” when they questioned his support for Israel’s criminal actions.”
Further, Bernie Sanders was right on John McCain’s side in backing the 2014 fascist coup in Ukraine. “The entire world has got to stand up to Putin,” he argued, ignoring that US/EU support to a completely undemocratic seizure of power in Ukraine prompted the Russian response. So who was the real aggressor?
Are these new “Progressive” kids on the block more of the same? Did we get fooled again? With the country lurching toward a Robber Baron kakistocracy, these alternatives may seem like rays of sunshine. Perhaps they are, but the devil is in the details.
How many more wars, “Progressives?” How many?
#
Joe Giambrone is an author and filmmaker.
Oliver Stone vs. McCain
Posted: August 31, 2018 in -Tags: death, John McCain, media, militarism, Oliver Stone, propaganda, war
Here is further evidence that our country has gone off its rocker — into the hell of militarism. No one since Reagan, Bush, and the Neocons has so embraced war and ‘regime change’ as the departed Senator John McCain. The MSM praise for him has churned up my mind and heart into ignoring the principle of ‘de mortuis nil nisi bonum.’ The tragic results of his recent warmongering in Libya, Syria, and Ukraine, as detailed by Max Blumenthal below, has brought chaos to both the Middle East and all of Europe in the form of mass refugees and the empowerment of the far-right.
In Vietnam as an infantryman, I saw the horror at ground level. Apparently McCain, dropping his bombs, learned nothing of the suffering he imposed on others, and when he finally tasted his own medicine, the damage only resulted in the crackpot that rose to such power in our benighted political circles. I regret the economic downfall of 2008 coming when it did, as it entirely took over the national debate. It would have been a resounding defeat for the Bush program had Obama trounced McCain on the merits of our ‘national security’ phobia.
See below for what an honest journalist can accomplish with truth and perspective.
“The Other Side of John McCain” by Max Blumenthal — https://bit.ly/2MzqOs2
The Other Side of John McCain
Sweden Goes War Crazy?
Posted: June 13, 2018 in David SwansonTags: conscription, draft, escalation, government, militarism, military, paranoia, Sweden, war
NRA/Military Training for Mass Killer Cruz #insaneempire
Posted: February 17, 2018 in -Tags: children, Florida, GUN TRAINING, killer, MARKSMANSHIP, militarism, NRA, PARKLAND, ROTC
The NRA Donated $10,000 to Help Train the Parkland Shooting Suspect to Use a Rifle
ikolas Cruz, the 19-year-old who charged with murdering 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High, honed his marksmanship skills in a school program supported by the NRA. Cruz was, according to the Associated Press, a member of the school’s four-person varsity marksmanship team, which received a $10,000 grant from the NRA in 2016.