Oct 7, 2023·edited Oct 7, 2023Liked by Clayton Craddock
Even though it's politically incorrect to state the obvious, it's because the State of Israel and its extensive lobbying and financial interests in the US official and media sectors have owned and operated them for generations. Ukraine isn't quite there yet but they're working on it. Note how Zelensky rushed to get out a statement in favor of Israel's right of self-defense, when Israel hasn't done jack-shit in all this time to help Ukraine defend itself (nor done much, ever, to benefit the USA for that matter). In neither case will Israel likely ever be required to reciprocate the sycophantic and reflexive genuflections toward its national sovereignty it has been able to count on for decades.
I said it before, months ago, if one is going to become all taxpayer-outraged at how much is being spent on Ukraine, one may as well begin to ask the same questions about Israel, along with Taiwan, the Philippines, Japan, Pakistan, the Kurds, Colombia, South Korea, and all of NATO while we're on the subject of money thrown down a hole for no good reason: what (the fuck) has any of them ever done for us?
The USA's foreign policy for over a century, since the invasion of Cuba, has been to cultivate and sustain reliable enemies around the world, in order to stoke a massive arms trade and keep combat veterans in the military forces (as the one hand washes the other). In terms of the benefits to the aristocracy that runs the American economy, the arms trade keeps the bloated standard of living Americans enjoy both marketable and morally defensible, while equating military service with sacrificial patriotism has kept Big Labor from becoming too Marxist to play ball with the aristocracy, by inviting the once-far-left-radical union movement to the table in the big house.
Defending the American people or our genuine domestic national interests has never had anything to do with any of this foreign adventurism, and the mainstream media (when Democrats are in power) plays right along, using all the proven rhetorical sleights and ideological cues we've been conditioned to respond to all our lives, to keep us hypnotically convinced that imperialism is the same thing as 'liberal democracy' (whatever that even means.)
When it's a Republican in the White House, of course, that calls for a whole different propaganda template. Remember how unglued the lefty press became when one of the first acts by the former president was to call Taiwan and treat its head of state as if the Chinese province of Formosa were an actual country of its own (which it isn't, but that's another topic....)?
And once again, this all was set in motion by the USA's first treasury secretary, name of Alexander Hamilton, who unilaterally designed the American economic future to be based not on paying off national debts, but rather on keeping them in place and continuing to borrow more, because according to one man this was better for cash flow in a country full of mostly rural and self-reliant people, who had fought a war of independence in order to enjoy being wealthy in every other way imaginable while no longer being the vassals of predatory foreign bankers, but didn't have a lot of money to seize in taxes.
If you like how you live in America, where all it takes to live like royalty is a good credit rating and a staggering ignorance of history so you don't have to know where everything comes from or who does the dirty work to get it to you, thank Al Hamilton.
Even though it's politically incorrect to state the obvious, it's because the State of Israel and its extensive lobbying and financial interests in the US official and media sectors have owned and operated them for generations. Ukraine isn't quite there yet but they're working on it. Note how Zelensky rushed to get out a statement in favor of Israel's right of self-defense, when Israel hasn't done jack-shit in all this time to help Ukraine defend itself (nor done much, ever, to benefit the USA for that matter). In neither case will Israel likely ever be required to reciprocate the sycophantic and reflexive genuflections toward its national sovereignty it has been able to count on for decades.
I said it before, months ago, if one is going to become all taxpayer-outraged at how much is being spent on Ukraine, one may as well begin to ask the same questions about Israel, along with Taiwan, the Philippines, Japan, Pakistan, the Kurds, Colombia, South Korea, and all of NATO while we're on the subject of money thrown down a hole for no good reason: what (the fuck) has any of them ever done for us?
The USA's foreign policy for over a century, since the invasion of Cuba, has been to cultivate and sustain reliable enemies around the world, in order to stoke a massive arms trade and keep combat veterans in the military forces (as the one hand washes the other). In terms of the benefits to the aristocracy that runs the American economy, the arms trade keeps the bloated standard of living Americans enjoy both marketable and morally defensible, while equating military service with sacrificial patriotism has kept Big Labor from becoming too Marxist to play ball with the aristocracy, by inviting the once-far-left-radical union movement to the table in the big house.
Defending the American people or our genuine domestic national interests has never had anything to do with any of this foreign adventurism, and the mainstream media (when Democrats are in power) plays right along, using all the proven rhetorical sleights and ideological cues we've been conditioned to respond to all our lives, to keep us hypnotically convinced that imperialism is the same thing as 'liberal democracy' (whatever that even means.)
When it's a Republican in the White House, of course, that calls for a whole different propaganda template. Remember how unglued the lefty press became when one of the first acts by the former president was to call Taiwan and treat its head of state as if the Chinese province of Formosa were an actual country of its own (which it isn't, but that's another topic....)?
And once again, this all was set in motion by the USA's first treasury secretary, name of Alexander Hamilton, who unilaterally designed the American economic future to be based not on paying off national debts, but rather on keeping them in place and continuing to borrow more, because according to one man this was better for cash flow in a country full of mostly rural and self-reliant people, who had fought a war of independence in order to enjoy being wealthy in every other way imaginable while no longer being the vassals of predatory foreign bankers, but didn't have a lot of money to seize in taxes.
If you like how you live in America, where all it takes to live like royalty is a good credit rating and a staggering ignorance of history so you don't have to know where everything comes from or who does the dirty work to get it to you, thank Al Hamilton.