VOLPONE REDUX—No matter how we look at it (provided we have not been seduced by the pyrotechnics concocted by its creator, Julian Fellowes, a proud hidebound reactionary) Downton Abbey (DA) is and will remain an artifact to offer rancid midlebrow entertainment and effective propaganda for a rotten bourgeois status quo artfully camouflaged as a peek into the private lives of a supposedly vanished aristocracy. I say “supposed” because the aristos are still very much alive and thriving in this world. Their widely proclaimed demise one of their greatest and most successful tricks in deflecting social and political criticism in a world that abounds in gross injustices and which currently—despite the existence of “democracy”—registers one of the most outrageous levels of inequality in centuries.
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PETER KOENIG—Do they not realize that their brothers and sisters in Syria, Yemen, Palestine, Iraq, Sudan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Kashmir, and in many more places of conflict and extreme poverty, are being killed left and right by the US-NATO killing machine, by famine, by war-related diseases, and by US vassal states, the very nations from where they, the rich kids, come to protest against climate change, but NOT against war? When do they wake up to reality? Maybe never, or when it’s too late – when even they are being bombed by the never-ending neoliberal greed-driven wars.
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TONY CARTALUCCI—For comparison – the British – whose empire has long since collapsed – are still invested deeply in geopolitical machinations around the globe in a bid to claw back power and influence it had lost during the World Wars. Toward that end, the British have aided and abetted US imperialism ever since – with its troops following the US into virtually every war of aggression fought by the West over the past half century.
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RAINER SHEA—This necessity of Juche is apparent from the importance that Juche has proven to have for the survival of socialist states. Namely, it’s a way of fortifying a country’s political integrity and commitment to class struggle. Kim Jong Il assessed that the USSR and the GDR collapsed “mainly because they neglected class education and abandoned the class struggle. After assuming state power, Khrushchev weakened the function of the dictatorship of the state as a weapon of the class struggle. As a result, socialism could not be defended in the Soviet Union.”
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PETER KOENIG—If it all sounds like a big fabricated confusion, it’s because it is a big fabricated confusion. Iran is singled out; fingers pointing to Iran (except, miraculously those of Saudi Arabia), like a sledgehammer hitting Iran and Iran again – the mainstream media loves it. Today, five days after the attack, most nobody remembers the Houthis claiming responsibility – it was Iran. Period. The media blitz won.
