CALEB MAUPIN—At the Feb 25th Democratic Presidential Debate, Bernie Sanders responded to his critics saying: “Occasionally it might be good to be honest about American foreign policy, and that includes acknowledging the fact that America has overthrown governments in Chile, in Guatemala, in Iran, and when dictators, whether it’s the Cubans or the Chinese do something good, you acknowledge that.”
RICHARD SANDERS—Such crimes are so huge that they cannot possibly be committed by just a few psychopathic individuals. To orchestrate these horrors, widescale social complicity is required. When bigotry and hatred become accepted and normalised within a culture, societies face the spectre of mass psychosis. There are of course a million shades of grey within the cultural syndromes which accept racism, apartheid, slavery, imperialism and other forms of exploitation, hatred and abuse, as the norm. Neither does such social madness happen suddenly. It is a heavily institutionalised cultural process that creeps up slowly from behind our backs.
JASON HIRTHLER—Schiff and his tentpole pals have evidently no awareness of America’s storied track record of international regime-change efforts. They’ve not watched Our Brand Is Crisis nor seen serpentine Clintonite James Carville teach amoral Bolivian careerists to massage the narrative against young Evo Morales. They succeed in planting an elite-groomed handmaiden of American capital in the presidency, leaving the riveting provocateur Morales to wait another couple of years. The cocalero with the sheaf of sable hair and the sun-warmed smile would soon be carried into power on the backs of rural campesinos.
ERIC ZUESSE—The Deep State doesn’t concern domestic issues, because virtually all of its members control international corporations, and the Deep State is almost entirely about international issues: foreign policies, diplomacy, military issues, and international spying agencies called “intelligence agencies” — extending the empire. The Deep State controls all of that, regardless of what Party is nominally in power. (The public care little about foreign policy, pay little attention to it, and believe the government when it alleges that “national security” is about protecting them, and not about expanding the power and wealth of the billionaires.)
Jimmy Dore and Dylan Ratigan discuss the state of America and the nefarious influence of the super rich on society and especially its politics and economic direction.