Billy Bob's Dispatches
Logo art by Alexander Zavaly*
The West & The Rest
Blowback: Exposing Imperial Decline / Episode 13 with special guests Regis Tremblay and Ian Kummer
A word of introduction: Why we value this program
There are simply not too many world affairs roundtables like this on the Internet or any other platform. The collective West's near universal censorship under various pretexts, and the whorish, suffocating commercial nature of most of its media, impose stingy parameters for the breadth and depth of any discussion of the important topics that humanity should be focusing on. The corporate media, in fulfilling their role as chief political pacifiers in a system riddled with incurable vices—grotesque inequality, absence of real democracy, constant wars, pervasive economic insecurity—is the main conduit for a veritable torrent of filthy lies and usually inane entertainment 24/7 designed to distract, divide and politically disarm the public in the face of rapidly intensifying ruling class assaults.
In this context, it is vital to locate sane and wise voices capable of sorting out what is truly happening in the world, people capable of empowering the mass public with the insights necessary to organise an effective self-defence. It hardly needs saying, but intelligence does not guarantee integrity and morality in social and political affairs, virtues which are today indispensable for our survival. The US, particularly, true to its cancerous capitalist ethos, is choke-full with ambitious figures in almost all realms of importance—the political class, academia, the corporate suites, the professions, the media, and, naturally, the largely invisible ruling elites. The vast majority of these think nothing of putting their careers, power, property and privileges well ahead of the public interest or the overall well-being of society and the planet at large. Indeed, most of these sectors have a downright parasitic and criminal posture in regard to the rest of society. Massive hypocrisy aside, the US has always been an overwhelmingly individualistic and selfish nation. Endemic corruption, reality avoidance, pervasive stupidity, privatism, hucksterism, and short-term thinking rule the culture. All of these traits inhere in unbridled US corporatism, the matrix of US imperialism, whose multitude of excesses, crimes and contradictions are finally catching up with it. Ironically, for more than a hundred years US imperialism's enormous muscle, narcissism and aggressiveness, concealed its weaknesses. Now it has reached the tipping point. As a result, riddled with a criminally inept and indifferent leadership, a political class that could care less about the lives and fate of the population in their care, America, the pathetic host to this awful parasite, is disintegrating right before our eyes. Even a casual stroll in a major American city offers ample proof of that. Unfortunately, the downfall of this society also threatens the survival of the world. As the Ukraine War grinds on, a conflict born of Washington's malice combined with appalling arrogance and stupidity, as the Hegemon and its Neocon crews flail around hoping to restore subservience through punishment and intimidation,
nuclear Armageddon is no longer just a remote possibility but a very real prospect in our lives.In Blowback, Billy Bob has created a platform where current events can be analysed in their rich and complex reality. Besides himself, his regular team of social critics, visionaries, and observers includes people like the passionate Carlo Parcelli (poet and lifelong iconoclast); Ben Tóth (Peace Land and Bread. 3rd generation Hungarian Communist); Regis Tremblay, (a dedicated anti-imperialist activist and documentarian now residing in Crimea); Ian Kummer (former Public Affairs Specialist at U.S. Army (2012-2021). living in Moscow, often traveling around the RF, a lover of animals, and blogging at The Reading Junkie). Plus other equally engaging voices that may join the roundtable as the topics of their interest and qualification arise.
I close this long-winded intro to say that am grateful to Billy Bob for putting this platform together, and for persisting despite the many pestiferous obstacles and underhanded attacks that always attend genuinely anti-capitalist information projects. (I personally know a great deal about that).
In Blowback he has gathered people of impressive intellect and political acuity who have the added merit of being totally accessible and unpretentious.—PG
ALSO RECOMMENDED: Garland Nixon, Jimmy Dore, The New Atlas (Brian Berletic), The Grayzone, Caleb Maupin, Sabby Sabs, Danny Haiphong, Scott Ritter, George Galloway, and The Revolutionary Blackout Network.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR / SOURCEBilly Bob is a dedicated anti-imperialist activist and blogger. You can reach him at his Facebook page HERE.
Print this article [bws_pdfprint display=’print’]
The views expressed herein are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of The Greanville Post. However, we do think they are important enough to be transmitted to a wider audience.
Unfortunately, most people take this site for granted.
DONATIONS HAVE ALMOST DRIED UP…
PLEASE send what you can today!
JUST USE THE BUTTON BELOW
| Did you sign up yet for our FREE bulletin? It’s super easy! Sign up to receive our FREE bulletin. Get TGP selections in your mailbox. No obligation of any kind. All addresses secure and never sold or commercialised. [newsletter_form] |
[premium_newsticker id=”211406″]
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
4 comments
“The battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton”, a British saying which is in fact very true. Rugby is a very aggressive sport whereby little is spared of one’s body or that of one’s opponent. The battle of Waterloo was won by the early British empire against Napoleon who occupied most of Europe. And Eton is an elite boarding school for young boys who were trained in not showing emotion and maintaining persistent aggression, both tools for empire.
Just so American boys are trained in US football, also a very aggressive sport that teaches endurance and a direct attack on one’s adversaries. The US empire displays both of these elements (the training works in corporate settings as well), but it lacks the conformant immersion in subtle power relationships that existed in schools such as Eton.
The result is that US foreign policy makers are devoid of diplomacy and often fail because of the direct attacks on real or presumed antagonists. That this kind of approach has never been understood is quite clear from what still goes on in Washington, despite the easily readable results of failure. Subtlety there is definitely not a virtue.
Most impressive program! Really spot on. The panel easily outruns and outclasses similar round tables staffed by left liberals, or fake leftoids, not to mention the repugnant MSM, or yahoo RW media. Great addition toTGP!
I’m beginning to learn some Marxist analysis, and found this discussion a great illustration of Marx’s way of understanding history. I hope to deepen my knwoledge despite the fact I’m already 62.
I’m done with liberalism, the Bernie treachery and the Dems and the SD’s lies. Useless and dangerous people. The GOP of course is just as bad, since both parties represent only the super rich. And the media turn my stomach.
Thanks again to this group and look forward to more.
PS
The traffic of currency over the Internet is already deeply ingrained in stock trading, which moves at the speed of mini-seconds.
As for the resistance to what I described as the aggression of US politics which is clear of diplomacy, it is to be understood that BRIC must adapt to the aggression by developing strong countermeasures which to be effective have to use similar methods.
Discussed is the taste for mechanical man. That goes back many years indeed, to the Egyptian Pharaoh’s armies where every soldier is identical and a small part of the whole (and there think of the Chinese diseased emperor’s terra-cotta army). Mechanical man is always the dream of every elite, because such a human can be programmed and indeed this was studied in the 1950’s (Behaviorism and human engineering). Silicon Valley would love such a population (and they almost are getting it) where they can make and direct pseudo-humans. Lots of little Frankensteiners, Mary Shelley ! Even with its masses, China due to its Confucianism did not lose this humanity. Neither did Russia.