“Taxpayer Money” Threatens Medicare-for-All (And Every Other Social Program)

horiz-long grey

HELP ENLIGHTEN YOUR FELLOWS. BE SURE TO PASS THIS ON. SURVIVAL DEPENDS ON IT.

—Opeds—
Appearing on the author's website

Apocryphal (often spuriously attributed to Mark Twain)

Three assertions:

  • There is no such thing as “taxpayer money.”
  • Taxes do not pay for government spending. (Nor does debt. No. revenue is needed.)
  • Leftists who continue to talk as if “taxpayer dollars” must be collected to “pay for” government programs are undermining Medicare-for-all and every other progressive policy initiative.

[dropcap]I[/dropcap] know these assertions run counter to an economic ideology that has been ingrained in us as obvious and irrefutable, known for sure. And I know how easy and seemingly effective it is to say things like: “Look at all the taxpayer dollars going to the military. We should spend some of those taxpayer dollars on healthcare instead.” But I want to show, with specific examples, why using this language is a bad idea—a really bad idea.

Maggie’s Farm

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]here are two reasons why it's important to stop talking like this: 1) Because it's not true, and 2) Because it perpetuates an ideology of how money and public financing work that is not only false, but profoundly reactionary and politically damaging—that is designed to, and will, impede achieving the most basic progressive goals.

Let's deal with the second point first, since I know a lot of leftists won’t overcome their resistance to understanding and promoting an economic proposition that runs counter to the common wisdom unless they can see the political point of it.

Consider the logic of this language: If government spending depends on tax revenue, if the government—the public authority—is an empty pocket that has to be filled with dollars that originate in the private pockets of “taxpayers,” that means public wealth depends on private wealth. That means private wealth is the source, the wellspring from which the public treasury draws; It means that, without large concentrations of private wealth (which are subject to the highest rates of taxation), the public authority cannot function.

Is that not precisely the theoretical grounding of capitalist socio-economic theory in its most regressive Thatcherite form?

If that's true, we are then in a polity where those who pay more dollars in taxes have a prima facie credible claim to demand more influence on the use of those dollars by the public authority—i.e., more political power. After all, the government depends on them; they are its donors, the breadwinners of this household, the source of its wealth. In a taxpayer/donor-financed polity, you can debate whether "taxation is theft" and to what extent “winners”—i.e., meritorious taxpayers—are paying for “losers” and “moochers”—i.e., “undeserving” non-taxpayers. It’s a polity where social programs of universal benefit exist at the sufferance—whether forced or voluntary—of the wealthy, subject to constant negotiation about how far that should go.

This is the paradigm of noblesse-oblige, welfare-state capitalism, whether more or less “generous,” where the public authority—the federal government—must go hat in hand to the wealthy to pay for public services.

This paradigm exudes an ideology that valorizes the wealthy 5% and renders everybody else dependent on them. It feeds the arrogant, trickle-down, anti-social individualism which has such a tenacious and pernicious hold on the minds of working-class as well as elite Americans. It’s an ideology in which there is no such thing as society, just a collection of individual taxpayers. That ideology is a main pillar of the capitalist social order, and must be destroyed if we are ever going to move toward a socialist society.

Yes, “taxpayer money” to “pay for” federal government spending is a central support of all that. Every time we say “taxpayer dollars,” no matter in what progressive direction we are flailing, we are enmiring ourselves deeper in the quicksand of this anti-social capitalist paradigm.

And if leftists and socialists do not understand this, our class enemies damn well do:

Maggie has succinctly stated for us the foundational principle of the neo-liberal capitalist austerity paradigm: The federal government is an empty pocket that must be filled with someone else’s dollars.

Are you beginning to see now why it’s important—politically important—to know whether that’s true or not?

Let’s look at what’s happening in the current debates and proposals regarding progressive programs like Medicare-for-all, to see why a rejection of the Thatcherite paradigm is not just a matter of esoteric economic theory, but a practical-political necessity for the left; and to see how almost everybody who is arguing for those programs is actually reinforcing that paradigm in a way that threatens to undermine their important progressive goals. The left has to stop speaking Maggie’s language.

[dropcap]L[/dropcap]et's start with the Democratic Party. It’s not the left, I know, but it is the legislative horde that left activists must corral and entame to get programs like Medicare-for-all. And, pressured by its angry constituents and the bevy of self-identified “socialists” who have recently joined it, the party has even, however squeamishly, agreed to accommodate the “Medicare-for-all” demand.

As can be expected, the Democratic Party, under Nancy Pelosi’s leadership, has bought into the federal deficit and debt hysteria. It has fully committed itself to a PAYGO policy, whereby, to avoid the horror of grandchildren-destroying debt, any new spending must be “budget neutral”—offset by reductions in other spending programs or tax increases. ‘Cause, hey, the state has no source of money of its own.

A lot of left-of-Pelosi progressives see and reject the trap this represents. They understand this as part of a cat-and-mouse game the Republicans and Democrats have been playing for decades:

Republicans have made clear time and time again that they don’t care about the deficit. And Democrats shouldn’t either. Rather than fixating on the GOP’s shaky math, Democrats should highlight the cruelty of shoveling money to the rich at a time when inequality is soaring and millions languish in poverty….

Democrats should be bold and single-mindedly focus on downwardly redistributive taxing and spending. Go for Medicare-for-All, public child care, green jobs. Propose popular programs, and don’t worry about the cost. If the GOP raises deficit concerns, waive them away by predicting fabulous economic growth, just like Republicans do.
-Josh Mound  

Pay-Go is a good example of self-hating Democrats trying to be the “fiscally responsible” Republicans that the Republicans themselves never are. The GOP just passed a $3 trillion tax cut for the rich, with no offsetting revenue or budget cuts whatsoever. A Pay-Go rule means that all we’ll ever see is GOP tax cuts for the rich, never Democratic tax cuts for the middle class and seniors. The Republicans figured this out a long time ago: there are exceedingly few 'fiscal responsibility' voters, and they’re going to vote Republican no matter what.-Alan Grayson
Our families in MI-13 reside in the second poorest congressional district in the country, and they need real help from the federal government. House Democrats insisting on paying for progressive legislation that elevates working families with budget cuts elsewhere needlessly ties our hands before we even begin to fight. If Democratic leadership is going to buy into right-wing talking points and stand in the way of progress for our families, we will replace them with representatives more in touch with the families we represent." -Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) 
PAYGO is a self-imposed, economically illiterate approach to budgeting. Republicans know this. They understand that deficits pose no risk to our national solvency and that the budget can be used to improve the financial well-being of the donor class. So they have unabashedly used their power to expand deficits and, hence, deliver windfall gains for big corporations and the already well-to-do. Instead of vowing budget chastity, Democrats should be articulating an agenda that will excite voters so that-- when the time comes-- they can unleash the full power of the public purse on their behalf-- a cleaner planet, good jobs, a secure retirement, affordable child care, debt-free college, and Medicare-for-All.
 -Stephanie Kelton

The Republicans always preached balanced budgets. But, starting with Carter and cemented with Bill Clinton, the Democrats decided to win for themselves the title of “the party of fiscal responsibility.” As Bill said: “I hope you’re all aware we’re all Eisenhower Republicans…We’re Eisenhower Republicans here, and we are fighting the Reagan Republicans. We stand for lower deficits and free trade and the bond market. Isn’t that great?” Clintonism explicitly turned the Democrats into the second Republican Party.

Bill Clinton was the man who surreptitiusly killed Glass-Steagall. Wall Street abuses and disasters grew exponentially, as the law had predicted. But, hey, "he felt our pain."

So, when the Republicans come into power they balloon the deficit with tax cuts for the rich and military spending. When the Democrats are elected, their civic mission becomes pointing out the profligacy of the Republicans and doing the Republicans’ budget-slashing, deficit-reducing work for them.

You’d think someone might notice that, whatever either “Republican” party says about the deficit and the debt, the one consistent result of both parties’ policies has been increased wealth inequality.

Progressive voters like those cited above correctly presume that’s the intended result for the Republicans, and now understand that, no matter what the Republicans preach, the purpose of their spending and tax policies is not, and will never be, to eliminate the deficit; it is to relentlessly increase the wealth and power of “their” people.

A lot of progressive voters also indulgently think the increasing inequality is an unfortunate result the Democrats are forced into producing for “their” people—because somebody’s got to do something about the deficit. What they don’t notice is that it’s an inevitable result of precisely that “deficit” concern.

The Democrats, and many of their leftish progressive supporters, continue to think that shaming the Republicans for their fiscal hypocrisy and promising to enforce fiscal discipline will be the political bomb that will win over the voters. But, they’re the only party that’s actually done anything to reduce the deficit, and their political position has still weakened. Why, oh why, they wonder, are “their” people not voting for them?

"There’s no discussion like this about defense appropriations. An $80 billion increase in military spending, and nary a “how are you going to pay for it” peep from the all the Serious People. You won't find any purportedly earmarked taxes in a defense bill. All you’ll find is: “the following sums are appropriated.” That’s how it’s “paid for,” no questions asked..."
You’d think somebody might notice that what’s important here, what really matters for the people and the country, is the growing inequality of wealth, not the deficit.

And, indeed, there is a slew of sincere progressives—like the ones cited above—who have noticed this dynamic, know all about and reject the Clintonite Republicanization of the Democratic Party, and do want to change the game. At the leading edge of this, activists and insurgent Bernie-inspired candidates have turned Medicare-for-all from a “never, ever” to a great “new idea” that’s de rigueur for Democratic politicians. People are at the end of disgust with the for-profit health-insurance “market” and the half-assed attempts to patch it up (the ACA). Healthcare as a right—universal single-payer coverage under the rubric of Medicare-for-all—is a significant progressive advance, and it does seem its time has come.

Thus, Bernie Sanders has introduced a Medicare-for-all bill that’s been co-sponsored by more than a third of Democratic senators (I’ve warned about the duplicity of those Democrats here), and John Conyers has one in the House that has over 120 co-sponsors and is considered the “gold standard” by the single-payer movement. These are the kinds of plans most lefties—from New-Deal-“socialist” Democrats through harder left socialists and marxists—are counting on to bring us the social program we want and need.

But both of these plans, just like Nancy Pelosi’s PAYGO, rely on and reproduce the fundamental Thatcherite capitalist principle that public spending derives from and depends on private wealth, more blandly stated as “taxes fund government spending.” Both think it is necessary to define the new taxes that are needed to pay for Medicare-for-all.

Here’s a page from Conyers’s aptly named “gold standard” bill:

Note the new but undefined taxes in sub-sections (1) B through E. With these provisions, Conyers is honoring the “taxes pay for government spending” paradigm that he feels he must respect.

But then note sub-section (3), which authorizes the annual appropriation of any “additional sums” that will be needed to “maintain” the program, without any reference to whether that matches the undefined and unknowable amounts raised by the taxes.

Similarly, on his website, Bernie says his plan would be “fully paid for” by a 6.2% tax (“premium”) on employers and 2.2% on households (i.e., working-class families), as well as higher tax rates on high income tiers, new capital-gains and estate taxes, etc. But those taxes do not appear in his bill.

His bill establishes—“create[s] on the books of the Treasury of the United States”—a “Universal Medicare Trust Fund” that replaces the current Medicare Trust Funds, and would presumably receive all the new taxes. But, again, that Fund “shall consist of such gifts and bequests as may be made and such amounts as may be deposited in, or appropriated to, such Trust Fund as provided in this Act, including “Notwithstanding any other provision of law, there are hereby appropriated to the Trust Fund for each fiscal year … amounts that would otherwise have been appropriated to carry out the following programs:” So, whatever taxes are paid to the Trust Funds, and whatever else the law says, we’ll appropriate what we need every year to carry out the program.

It’s important to see the two things that are going on here. First, both bills, with their authorization of appropriations in every year going forward, establish what is categorized as a non-discretionary, or mandatory, budget item—as Max Mastellone puts in an excellent essay: “a more or less permanent appropriation of funds that does not have to be renewed year to year by Congress.” That’s why neither of these bills appropriates a specific sum; they authorize a continuing, variable, appropriation. They differ from a discretionary budget item, like defense spending, which requires authorization of a specific amount every year.

“Non-discretionary” is also what is meant by “entitlement”—a word we should stop hiding from.  Isn’t the whole point to make healthcare a right? Isn’t a right something we’re entitled to? An entitlement program is the category of program that we have a right to as citizens, a program the government therefore must fund every year. Whatever word we want to use, we should not retreat from, but step right into, the concept. This is exactly the concept, and the kind of program, the right is trying to discredit and destroy, and we must fight that head-on.

Secondly, however, both of these bills uphold and reinforce the “taxes-for-spending” paradigm that is a primary tool to undermine universal mandatory programs like Medicare-for-all, but which they think they can use as a support. Both politicians feel they absolutely must specify which taxes are going to pay for their program, even though their bills explicitly acknowledge they’ll be funded if the taxes don’t cover it.

The Money MacGuffin

[dropcap]W[/dropcap]hat they are doing here is repeating the Roosevelt ruse. When he established the Social Security program, FDR included separate payroll taxes going into separate Trust Funds to supposedly pay for it That was a ruse for political reasons; it had no economic rationale. The federal Trust Funds are an accounting fiction, “created on the books,” not a separate pool of money. (LBJ repeated the ruse with a dedicated Medicare payroll tax and Trust Funds.)

Whether the earmarked taxes/Trust Fund ploy was a shrewd political tactic, a poison pill, or both, we shall see. But a ruse it was. In cinematic terms, it’s a MacGuffin—something put in the plot that looks like it’s important, but really has no effect on the outcome at all. FDR’s administration admitted this in a 1937 lawsuit: “The proceeds of both [payroll] taxes are to be paid into the Treasury like internal revenue taxes generally, and are not earmarked in any way.” And FDR himself acknowledged it quite openly in 1941, when an advisor challenged him to dispense with the fiction and eliminate the payroll taxes:

“I guess you’re right on the economics. They are politics all the way through. We put those pay roll contributions there so as to give the contributors a legal, moral, and political right to collect their pensions and their unemployment benefits. With those taxes in there, no damn politician can ever scrap my social security program. Those taxes aren’t a matter of economics, they’re straight politics”.

So, the FICA payroll taxes are an economically unnecessary political device, based on pay-your-taxes-to-fund-your-benefits fiscal conservatism, that FDR thought would insulate the Social Security program from right-wing attacks.

How’s that working out? Has it stopped those right-wing attacks?

Today, Conyers and Sanders and virtually every Medicare-for-all progressive are reprising Roosevelt’s ruse: “We’ll show you how we’re going to pay for it, every penny! There, now you can’t object.” And all that’s happened is that the right, ignoring the MacGuffin, shifted the focus onto taxes and the deficit. The whole argument becomes: “Can you really pay for it without immense, continually augmented, tax increases, and without increasing the deficit?” “Yes, we can.” “No, you can’t.” “Yes, we can!” “I’ll show you my figures when you show me yours.” Yada, yada.

This is a futile and losing game. Futile, because, in reality, nobody knows what a Medicare-for-all program will cost. That’s unknowable precisely because the federal government will constitute a monopsony—a single buyer of health services that will dominate the market and radically change the price structure. Swatting imaginary numbers back and forth is beside the point.

The public controlling the cost is exactly the kind of change the right doesn’t want. Let’s be serious: The right-wing, and all the protectors of for-profit healthcare do not care about the cost of healthcare. In fact, the more expensive it is, the better for them. A main reason they oppose it is because they and everybody else know that single-payer healthcare will cost less—every year, for every person and in the aggregate. The right is not in it to win an economic argument or to cut costs; they are in it to protect material interests. The right’s objection to single-payer isn’t about high costs to the people or to the state; it’s about lost profits for health insurance and pharmaceutical companies. [AND THEY FEAR THE EXAMPLE of such a huge socialist-type program in our capitalist swamp.—Eds.]

There’s no discussion like this about defense appropriations. An $80 billion increase in military spending, and nary a “how are you going to pay for it” peep from the all the Serious People. You won't find any purportedly earmarked taxes in a defense bill. All you’ll find is: “the following sums are appropriated.” That’s how it’s “paid for,” no questions asked.

Nor did the public healthcare programs in every other advanced capitalist country come about because some party leaders produced a column of numbers proving that some designated tax would pay for it.  They came about because the power of the working class and the communist and social democratic parties that did represent them at the time—before they were zombified by Thatcherite neoliberalism—demanded it. They came about because the soldiers and their families who fought in two world wars could not be refused, and because the example of post-capitalist societies could not be ignored. Under these conditions, the ruling classes had to capitulate on socializing healthcare in some way. (Some of them even realized capitalism could get along rather nicely with it.)  The nation made a political decision, and then paid for it. That’s the way it works.

If you fight about “how are you going to pay for it,” you’re fighting on their ground, and you’ll never win, because the right will always be able to throw another numerical “projection” at you to put you back on the ropes. The rightists here are not debating; they are diverting, and there’s no end to it.

It’s a losing game, because, if you accept that progressive social programs require tax increases, you’re in a debate that will inevitably focus precisely on taxes. That’s a debate where you (the “left”) are trying to make everyone pay more tax and the rightists are trying to help everyone pay less, and saying, correctly, that you’ll end up raising taxes forever—and you lose.

Republican reactionaries will watch in delight as you become enmeshed in preaching about the need to raise the most regressive taxes on the most overtaxed people—the payroll taxes that are deducted every week from working-class paychecks. “Just a teensy bit. This is the last time, I swear. Look at my calculations.” You can write Paul Ryan’s answer.

We have to get off their ground. This fight is not about numbers; it’s about power. It’s not about a tax; it’s about a right. It’s about replacing the power of an enormous private industry to profit from healthcare services and prices with the power of a social program that manages them for everyone’s benefit.  It’s about giving all working-class people more personal health and economic security and more power over their social lives. We have to refuse their “how are you going to pay for it” numbers game, and focus relentlessly on our point that healthcare must be a non-discretionary social right.

Nowhere Man, Please Listen

[dropcap]B[/dropcap]ut if we're not going to stand on their ground, we have to stand somewhere else. We have to realize that the bedrock of their ground is the proposition that taxes fund government spending, that the federal government must get money from taxpayers—per Maggie, the money “people themselves earn”—to pay for any government program.

Not only Nancy Pelosi, with her “PAYGO,” but also Bernie Sanders and John Conyers and the growing legion of single-payer supporters, with their “raise a few taxes here and there, mostly from the rich, just a little from workers,” are standing on Maggie’s ground. And that puts them in grave danger of being cornered. (I can see the “public option” cavalry riding in to save them.)

The Medicare-for-all battle should make it clear: If you are going to get out of this trap, you have to get out of the “taxes fund spending” paradigm. You're either with Thatcher, or you're somewhere else. You either think what she said is true, or you think something else is true. You've got to find another rock to stand on.

Maybe a place that allows you to argue for Medicare-for-all while at the same time abolishing all those payroll taxes (as 77 years ago the Democratic president who levied them knew you could)? Thereby giving most American workers the biggest immediate pay raise they have ever seen? Put Paul Ryan in the position of arguing against that.

But to do that you have to understand the truth of the proposition—really get it—that taxes do not fund government spending. That is the other rock to stand on.

The whole point is to be the anti-Maggie, to reject the neoliberal austerity paradigm she so forthrightly represents. That means rejecting with equal forthrightness—as matter of knowledge, not just political expediency—the notion that taxes or “taxpayer money” “pays for” federal government programs.

As Maggie knew, there is an easy way to rhetorically avoid the trap, Whenever one is tempted to say “taxpayer,” substitute the word “public.” It is public money that pays for government programs, and the word can be seamlessly substituted in almost any current progressive discourse on the subject.

But, while changing the word is a useful way to sidestep reactionary implications, we need to go further and positively understand and step into the different concept, and the more radical and accurate paradigm that the word “public” implies.

We need to understand that we have power over money, not as taxpayers, but as members of a political community.

We have that power right now, whether we recognize it or not, because of the fact that we have a fiat currency. That is not a wish or proposal or demand, of the left or the right; it is a fact of our present economic order, indisputably true since 1971 when Nixon ended the gold standard.

It’s important to recognize what changed then.

Well, well, he ended up doing us a favor.

[dropcap]P[/dropcap]rior to 1971, a physical substance, gold, was the money-commodity—in a strong sense, the “real” money. U.S. dollars represented, and (at least internationally) were convertible to, that “real” money, gold. Issuance of dollars was constrained by that external commodity: if the number of dollars in circulation exceeded the mandated relation to the amount of gold owned by the U.S. government, it could cause big problems.

That is exactly what happened, when France and other foreign governments sought to exchange the dollars they held for gold. So Nixon took the dollar off the gold standard.

Ever since, the dollar has been a fiat currency. It means dollars do not represent, and are not constrained by, any physical commodity or any external “real” money-thing whatsoever. A dollar represents itself; it is exchangeable for (besides goods and services)…a dollar. That dollar, which is nothing more than a number in an account ledger, is the real money.

And it doesn’t come from taxpayers. A dollar is now created on the command, by a political decision, of the public authority—a decision to spend. Money is created when the Congress says: “the following sums are appropriated,” thereby commanding the Treasury to issue the dollars to make it so. The federal government creates dollars by spending them, by putting them into—which means marking up the numbers in—the accounts of individual citizens and businesses.

A fiat dollar in the modern monetary system is thus a social and political thing at its inception, and all the way through. When you trace money back to its origin, you do not arrive at a private, individual “taxpayer” who “earned” it, you arrive at a public, political authority that decided to create it. The source of the dollar is not a person; it’s a decision. It’s not an individual entity but a social act. That is precisely the fact that Thatcher & Co do not want you to see. But when you think through the logic of fiat money for a few minutes, you’ll realize that it is a fact. Kinda obvious, really. It just is so.

“Taxpayers” and taxpaying are products and effects of this thoroughly social monetary system, not its source. The federal government (including here, subsidiarily and differentially, its delegated agents, the banks) is the only creator/issuer of the dollar. Persons and businesses can get money from each other in various ways—working, earning, borrowing, stealing, profiting, etc.—and the differences among them are important, but none of those social actors create the dollars that are being passed around.

Taxpayers are users, not issuers, of the currency. They cannot and do not provide original revenue for the government to spend; they return a portion of the fiat money the federal government has already spent into the economy and wants to recoup. Fiat dollars can be thought of as interest-free loans that do not have to be fully repaid.

The idea the government needs to collect tax revenue (or revenue of any kind) to spend is a vestige of an obsolete currency system, more archaic even than Maggie. As the sole currency issuer, the US government can, and does, create as many as dollars as it wants, without “collecting” any dollars in advance from any source. And a “tax dollar” does not go to fund government spending; it cancels out a debt, turns a -1 in the government’s ledger into a 0. You can’t spend a 0.

As Ellis Winningham puts it: “All federal spending is dollar creation. All federal taxation is dollar destruction.”

All of this makes the federal government completely different from, and incommensurable to, any household, business, or state or local government, all of which do have to collect money from somewhere else—taxes, loans, or the federal government—to pay for their spending.

To be clear, and to address a misunderstanding of many progressives, the fact that taxation does not fund government spending does not mean that taxation is unnecessary. On the contrary, taxation is an indispensable condition that makes the fiat monetary system work by requiring tax payment in the fiat currency. It also serves important social functions. Economically, it’s necessary to help control the money supply, aggregate demand, and therefore inflation. Socio-politically, it’s necessary to direct where the money goes and promote or discourage specific social goals—most important for the left, to prevent wealth inequality.

I certainly think leftists should support high progressive income tax rates, estate taxes, etc., but not because we need them to fund Medicare-for-all. If you argue for higher taxes for that reason, or if you object to tax cuts for the wealthy because they increase the deficit, you have ensnared yourself in the trap. The reason to object to tax cuts for the wealthy is because they're for the wealthy, because they increase inequality—not because we need the money for healthcare or because they increase the deficit. We need to re-configure both spending and tax policies for progressive goals, based on a correct understanding of how our money system works. If we don’t, the right will continue to configure them to reactionary ends.

In saying that taxation is not a funding source for government spending, this analysis puts the focus on taxation as a matter of political and social decision—a decision made from a position of power, not dependence. It allows us to make spending decisions without asking the rich for a damn thing. Imagine we’re in a meeting to decide on a new social program (‘cause we are), and there are two possible ways to set the agenda: 1) Let’s figure out how much tax we’ll have to collect from the rich. Or, 2) Let’s ignore those fuckers and do what we want.  Which is more radical? To answer that question, you have to understand that the second agenda is possible.

The radical possibility of budgetary decision-making independent of the rich is contained in the fact that money is created by a public authority—a fact that fundamentally undermines any “taxation is theft” or “government spending is parasitic” argument. This package holds powerful potential for leftists, if they’ll open it. Right off the bat, for example, it allows you to say: “Abolish payroll taxes!” Not a bad place for progressive class politics to start.

There are two other necessary, a fortoriori, truths about the modern monetary system to note here, which foreclose the diversionary two-Republican-party deficit-chasing we discussed above. Both of them again mark the fundamental error in confusing the federal budget with a private business or household budget, because words like “deficit” and debt” do not mean the same thing for the currency issuer as they do for currency users:

1) Deficits are good. It would make no sense to retrieve in taxes all the money the government spent into the economy. The amount of the federal deficit is the amount of money the federal government has left in the economy. That’s a mathematical fact. It means the government has not zeroed out all the negative numbers in its ledger. So what? To whom does the government owe those zeros?

And

2) The federal debt will not bankrupt the country, or us, or our grandchildren. The federal government cannot default on obligations denominated in its own currency. It can and will create all the dollars needed to pay dollar-denominated debt.

Nor does the federal government have to borrow money to fund spending. The government is not required to borrow by economic necessity, but by laws and policies—political demands—that require it to borrow the difference between what’s spent in the budget and what’s collected in taxes (by selling Treasury Bonds). That’s another relic of an obsolete monetary regime, which is designed to make it seem like there’s a relation between the money in those Treasury Securities and government spending that there is not. The “borrowed” money in those securities accounts—dollars that were already in circulation—just sits there; it is not used to “pay for” government programs.

James K. Galbraith summed it up well: “Could the Treasury skip the rigamarole and pay its bills without bonds? Economically, sure. Why doesn't it? Well, the Fed has regulations governing “overdrafts” -- but apart from these, the answer is plain: to do so would expose the ‘public debt’ as a fiction, and the debt ceiling as a sham.”

The Social Network

[dropcap]A[/dropcap]ll in all, this is a thoroughly social system, which, if operated well, can facilitate and encourage productive economic activity and the welfare of society. And, which, if operated regressively, as it is in our society, exacerbates hoarding, financial speculation, and inequality. Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) is the current descriptive (not prescriptive) account of how this modern fiat money system actually works, and is consistent with what the managers of that system have known and acknowledged for decades.

Understanding it means knowing that the relevant questions are not “Where are we going to get the money to spend?” or “Are we spending more than we collect in taxes?” but “What do we want to create/spend money for? and “How much money can we create/spend to fully utilize, and respect the limits of, the productive resources of the economy?”

Regarding Medicare-for-all, it is evident that there are abundant healthcare goods and services—doctors, hospitals, medicines, etc.—available for purchase for all the dollars Bernie’s or Conyers’s bill might create. That is all we need to say.

Understanding MMT means dismissing the fear-mongering about the deficit and the debt as the canard that it is. It concentrates the mind right where it should be for leftists, on the political character of the public authority or government doing the money creation via spending: Who controls it? Whom does it serve? What does it spend for? In whose pockets does the money left in the economy end up?

MMT doesn’t answer those questions. It “just” directs our attention to them, and away from the diversions. It “just” replaces the taxation-to-fund-spending paradigm, which liberals portray as (enforced) altruism and wealthy conservatives call theft, with a paradigm in which spending is a public exercise of rightfully-held financial power in the service of social solidarity. Like single-payer healthcare, understanding MMT will not bring socialism; it will “just” enable us to take more conscious, democratic control of the public monetary system and fund social programs without apology or mystification.

Dream Team

I’ve explored MMT in greater depth in a previous essay, and googling Stephanie Kelton, Ellis Winningham, Randall Wray, Michael Hudson, or visiting New Economic Perspectives or Modern Monetary Theory for Real Progressives will provide a plethora of information on it. There’s a learning curve, not so much because it’s complicated—the premises are in fact quite simple and the conclusions therefrom evident—but because it takes some psychological and intellectual doing to let go of what you know for sure. Speaking from personal experience, the MMT analysis is one of those things you don’t want to waste your time on, until you get annoyed and intrigued by the mention of it so many times that you take a deeper look.

But, among an increasing number of leftists who have followed that trajectory, it is sinking in that the “taxes fund spending” paradigm of the federal budgetary and monetary system, which the left has insouciantly shared with right-wing analysts for so long, is factually wrong; it just ain’t so. That’s going to become a critical mass in the left that those who are promoting universal social programs like Medicare-for-all won’t be able to ignore.

The Roosevelt ruse does not need to be repeated; it needs to be rectified. To those who think Bernie, Conyers, et. al., have no choice but to adopt FDR’s ploy of 83 years ago, because, really, it’s just too complicated to explain all this, and the American working-class is too stupid to get it people will never listen, I ask: Do we really have time, after 83 years of letting that poison pill fester, to postpone, yet again, a decisive reckoning with what is necessary and really possible? Isn’t reinforcing the wrong economic premises among the populace and expecting to get support for expansive social programs as foolish as reinforcing American exceptionalism and expecting to get opposition to imperialist wars?

I’ll pursue that analogy. Remember how leftists pointed out how the outpouring of worshipful encomia to John McCain reinforced the worst kind of militarism and exceptionalism, and demonstrated that the entire bipartisan political and media establishment was on the same imperialist team? Well, the idol of debt/deficit/”taxpayer-money” is the John McCain of domestic politics. Here’s the bipartisan establishment, and more, praising and preaching it:

Whose team is that? Maggie’s all-stars? Is this where leftists want to be? Well, you’re either on that team, or you’re on another.

Don’t wanna play on Maggie’s team no more? Get off it, and get on one that starts tomorrow with this slogan: “Medicare-for-all and abolish payroll taxes!” I guarantee: People, all working-class people, will listen.

The problem right now isn’t whether people will listen. It’s whether left activists will learn for themselves. and develop sincere and effective ways of explaining what they know to be true.

There is one simple answer to the question “How are you going to pay for it?” That answer is: “With money.”

You know, the kind of money that’s created for everything else, with: “the following sums are appropriated.” Let’s make it so.

 

Related post: Behind the Money Curtain: A Left Take on Taxes, Spending, and Modern Monetary Theory

About the Author
Jim Kavanagh, a native and denizen of New York City, is a former cab driver and college professor. His articles have appeared on Counterpunch, The Greanville Post, The Unz Review, Z, and other sites around the net. He blogs at his website, thepolemicist.net, from a left-socialist perspective.

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XI JINPING’S SPEECH AT THE CEREMONY COMMEMORATING THE BICENTENARY OF THE BIRTH OF MARX. CHINA RISING RADIO SINOLAND

 

Pictured above: The ceremony to commemorate the bicentenary of the birth of Marx was held in Beijing, May 4, 2018. PHOTO BY XINHUA REPORTER JU PENG

XI JINPING’S SPEECH AT THE CEREMONY COMMEMORATING THE BICENTENARY OF THE BIRTH OF MARX. CHINA RISING RADIO SINOLAND 180920

This edition carries as usual a downloadable SoundCloud podcast (also at the bottom of this page), YouTube video, as well as being syndicated on iTunes, Stitcher Radio, RUvid and Ivoox (links below),

Introduction: all my life, when growing up in America and into my professional life into the 21st century, I comfortably lived in a cocoon of Western Big Lie Propaganda. It wasn’t until I came back to China to live and work for the second time, starting in 2010, that I was able to step out of the Matrix and into the pure, white light of truth and reality. If you have read The China Trilogy  (http://chinarising.puntopress.com/2017/05/19/the-china-trilogy/), then you have learned as much as I have, as well as traced the steps of my long and at times painful journey to enlightenment.

One of the shibboleths implanted in my brainwashed head from birth was that everything Karl Marx wrote was bullshit bunkum, far-fetched phooey and pie-in-the-sky panaceas. Now, I realize that this was all just psychological deflection. It is capitalism that is bullshit bunkum, far-fetched phooey and pie-in-the-sky panaceas, and Marxism gets it right about 95% of the time.

Eurangloland’s owners are scared to death that their subservient subjects may go through the same arc of awareness as I have, and start demanding socialism for the 99%, instead of capitalism for the 1%. The Chinese people did just that in 1949, which Ramin Mazaheri sums up very well, speaking from a Westerner’s viewpoint (https://chinarising.puntopress.com/2018/09/15/do-you-prefer-the-1-or-the-party-or-why-china-wins-ramin-mazaheris-new-china-scholarship-series-part-7-of-8/),

The Chinese communists kicked out the Japanese, then the Europeans, held off the American neo-imperialists at Korea and then Vietnam, provided spectacular economic growth during all that time, ended rampant drug abuse, forbade ethnic quarrelling, and became the economic envy of the world in 2018.

Maybe you don’t want to live there, but you certainly wish your country was doing as well for itself as China is.

Every Third-Worlder would agree with that in a nanosecond, and only a French-style superiority/inferiority complex could cause a Westerner to deny it (or perhaps total ignorance of modern politics).

How did we get here? Divine intervention? Cultural superiority? The dumb luck of an electron’s random path?

Reading original, technical 19th century texts like Karl Marx and Charles Darwin can be laborious for many people, including me, so it is always nice to have a modern writer put it into up-to-date language. For Marxism, who better to do that than the President of China, Xi Jinping? While governor of Zhejiang Province (1998-2002) Xi got his PhD in Marxist Ideology, so he has the authority to expound on the subject. Xi calls Karl Marx the greatest thinker in the modern era and in human history, which means we all ought to take a few minutes to at least get an introduction to the man and his vision.

When Xi’s speech came out on May 4th, 2018, commemorating Karl Marx’s 200th birthday, it was only available in excerpted form, even in the Chinese press. Fans were contacting me asking how to get a copy of it in English. It was and is available on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EN58Cl35xQQ), which does a rough job at machine translating it, along with an English overdub. I called Xinhua Book store and learned that it was published in Chinese booklet form for sale at ¥2, but not available in English. In the meantime, it was quietly released on the Communist Party of China’s (CPC) website in Chinese (http://cpc.people.com.cn/n1/2018/0504/c64094-29966126.html). Now, Qiushi (meaning Practical Approach), a multilingual quarterly CPC journal, has released Xi’s speech in English. A big shout out to the editorial team at Marxism-Leninism Today (https://mltoday.com/) for sending me this text.

Thus, in 6,362 English words – the following half-hour investment  in your time is critical understanding about humanity and how the world works. This is your chance to read, watch and/or listen to and learn what your owners desperately don’t want you to know, in order to keep you on your mainstream leash. Heck, what would happen if Western and world citizens took to the streets to demand real social and economic justice for the 99%, and not credit-card-consumer-debt + bubble-bust-capitalism + global-imperial-war + colonial-occupation serfdom, which benefits only the 1%?

Can’t have that!…

Hey! Look at those evil Muslims and Russians and Koreans and Iranians and Venezuelans and Chinese and Transgenders are trying to destroy our way of life! Hurry, go buy something on credit! Look! Another blatant false flag! Run for unnecessary cover! Be afraid, be VERY afraid!

Meanwhile…

Normally, footnotes are at the end of an article. So that you can get the most out of President Xi’s speech, here they are as “headnotes”…

My notes for your better understanding:

Mass Line: This is part of Maoist Thought and is basically community outreach from the CPC to the citizens, to ask them what needs fixing and doing, i.e., the lines of communication from the masses. The mass line has never stopped being used, as the Chinese government is probably the largest polling and surveying entity on the planet. But, the term lost favor starting in the 1980-1990s. When Xi was elected Party Secretary and President of China, he purposely began using mass line in communicating with the people and still is.

Official “Thoughts and Theories”: Every top Chinese leader since liberation in 1949 is expected to develop a line of thought or theory to promote Marxism-Leninism towards China’s drive to eventually become a fully communist socioeconmic nation. Thus, many people have heard of Mao Zedong Thought and Deng Xiaoping Theory. After Deng retired, the next top leader was President Jiang Zemin. He wrote the Theory of Three Represents. The next president was Hu Jintao and his contribution to China’s continual progress forward is the Scientific Outlook on Development. Now that Xi Jinping has been in office for five years, he wrote and contributed the Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era. Along with Marxism-Leninism, they are all considered a seamless game plan to maintain China’s modern version of the Heavenly Mandate, which Mao Zedong stated most succinctly:

SERVE THE PEOPLE!

1 “Five-in-One” is an organic whole, in which economic construction is the fundamental, political construction is the guarantee, cultural construction is the soul, social construction is the condition, and ecological civilization construction is the foundation (http://theory.people.com.cn/n1/2017/0210/c148980-29072607.html).

This is to achieve China’s Year 2049 goals of becoming a wealthy, powerful, safe, secure, integral and technologically advanced socialist country. When the Chinese nation has all that, then the goal is to transition back into a purely communist socioeconomic system, like the Mao Era: spiritually andmaterially rich Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, as it were, for all citizens, rural and urban. This is the celebrated Confucian Datong society.

The interim goal is to have a Xiaokang society by 2020 (another millennial Chinese ideal), meaning that all citizens are moderately prosperous and no one is living in extreme poverty (https://chinarising.puntopress.com/2018/08/31/once-china-got-off-drugs-the-link-between-opium-and-liberal-strongman-macron-ramin-mazaheris-new-china-scholarship-series-part-6-of-8/). Incredibly, the Chinese people are realizing this ambitious plan (https://chinarising.puntopress.com/2016/03/13/why-chinas-centrally-planned-communist-economy-runs-circles-around-capitalism-china-rising-radio-sinoland-16-3-13/), a socioeconomic goal never before achieved in a large country.

2My article on the Four Comprehensives was published in the All China Review(http://chinarising.puntopress.com/2016/02/12/chinese-president-xi-jinpings-new-four-comprehensives-are-a-rebuke-of-the-west/). In spite of its importance, reports on it in the West were almost nil, because so-called “China experts” were in severe denial. After Xi was elected president, they went through a period of self-delusion, still hoping that Xi and the CPC were going to sell out to Western capitalism, and eventually become a balkanized, continent-sized group of Libya’s, Syria’s, Iraq’s, Yemen’s and Afghanistan’s, ripe for plunder and rape, like what happened here 1839-1949, during China’s historical nadir, its Century of Humiliation.

Western mainstream media has been living this fantasy since Mao Zedong’s death and Deng Xiaoping’s opening up and reforms. But, it was Marxist-Leninist-Maoist Deng who talked about Xiaokang, in order to later transition into pure communism. These so-called experts, with their ideological hatred of socialism and communism, were and continue to be zealously blind to the truth. All this time, since 1949, Baba Beijing has been moving 180 degrees in the opposite direction towards Xiaokang and Datong. Mao talked about Xiaokang and Datong. Every leader in China has been striving and planning for them, going back thousands of years.

Mao gave China its freedom and independence from Western imperialism and capitalism, secured the country’s main borders and laid the foundations for civilizational communism. Deng added Xiaokang’s material wealth and socialism with Chinese characteristics, while getting back Hong Kong and Macau. Now, Xi plans to realize spiritual and communal Datong by 2049 and work with the people to have a true communist society, while launching the global Belt and Road Initiative, securing the South China Sea and bringing Taiwan back to the Motherland.

However, going back 5,000 years, none of this was ever achievable without Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. As Xi states below, the Chinese people have that now.

Nobody, including all those phony Euranglolander “China experts” can say that I haven’t been trying to warn them (http://chinarising.puntopress.com/2017/10/25/how-can-western-capitalism-beat-this-thats-the-rub-it-cant-china-rising-radio-sinoland-171022/ and http://chinarising.puntopress.com/2017/12/27/china-has-democracy-and-the-west-has-dictatorship-171227/).

Xi Jinping’s Speech at the Ceremony Commemorating the Bicentenary of the Birth of Marx


By Xi Jinping

From: English Edition of Qiushi Journal

July-September 2018|Vol.10,No.3,Issue No.36 | Updated: 2018-Sep-7 17:36

Comrades,

Today, we gather here filled with reverence to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the birth of Karl Marx, remember his strong character and historical achievements, and review his eminent spirit and brilliant ideas.

Marx is the revolutionary leader of the proletariat and the working people the world over, the principal founder of Marxism, the founder of Marxist parties and of the international communist movement, and the greatest thinker of the modern era. Two centuries have passed, during which human society has undergone massive and profound changes. However, Marx’s name continues to be met with respect around the world, and Marx’s theories continue to emanate their brilliant rays of truth.

On May 5, 1818, Marx was born in Trier, Germany, into a lawyer’s household. As early as his middle school years, Marx aspired to work toward human happiness. During his university years, Marx undertook extensive and intensive studies into philosophy, history, and law in pursuit of the secrets underlying the development of human society. When he was working for the Rheinische Zeitungnewspaper, Marx wrote incisive articles attacking the autocratic rule of the Prussian government and defending the rights of the people. In 1843, after he moved to Paris, Marx became an active participant in the workers’ movement. In the course of his participation he brought together revolutionary practice with theoretical inquiry, thus completing his shift from idealist to materialist and from revolutionary democrat to communist. In 1845, Marx and Engels coauthored The German Ideology, which was the first relatively systematic elaboration of the basic principles of historical materialism. In 1848, Marx and Engels coauthored Manifesto of the Communist Party – which, once published, immediately shook the world. Of Manifesto of the Communist Party, Engels said that it is “the most widespread, the most international production of all socialist literature, the common platform acknowledged by millions of workingmen from Siberia to California.”

In 1848, as the bourgeois democratic revolution sweeping across Europe erupted, Marx threw himself into and guided this struggle. Following the failure of the revolution, Marx reviewed the lessons learned from the revolution and subjected them to a systematic politico-economic analysis, thus revealing the nature and patterns governing capitalism. In 1867, Capital was published, which is his most profound and fecund work, and which has been honored as the “Bible of the working class.” In his later years, Marx continued to closely watch new trends in global development and new events in the workers’ movement, making great efforts at reflecting on issues concerning human development from an even greater viewpoint.

Marx’s life was a life of harboring lofty ideals and of dedication to the struggle for the emancipation of humankind. In 1835, a 17-year-old Marx wrote a high-school graduation composition entitled “Reflections of a Young Man on the Choice of a Profession” in which he wrote, “If we have chosen the position in life in which we can most of all work for mankind, no burdens can bow us down, because they are sacrifices for the benefit of all; then we shall experience no petty, limited, selfish joy, but our happiness will belong to millions, our deeds will live on quietly but perpetually be at work, and over our ashes will be shed the hot tears of noble people.” Throughout his life, Marx encountered hardships from an errant life and suffered poverty and illness, yet he stayed the course, never swayed from his original aspiration, dedicated himself to the lofty ideal of the emancipation of humankind, and accomplished a life of greatness.

Marx’s life was a life of defiance in the face of hardships and of bravely scaling new intellectual heights in search of truth. Marx once wrote that, “There is no royal road to science, and only those who do not dread the fatiguing climb of its steep paths have a chance of gaining its luminous summits.” In founding his scientific theoretical system, Marx endured hardships unimaginable to most ordinary people until ultimately arriving at the luminous summit. Being well-read and erudite, he not only thoroughly understood and studied the scholarship of all disciplines of philosophy and the social sciences, but also that of a range of natural sciences, diligently working to draw pabulum from the civilizational achievements of all of humankind. Throughout his life, Marx selflessly dedicated himself to his work, regularly working sixteen hours a day. Of his work Capital, Marx once wrote a letter to his friend saying that, “I was perpetually hovering on the verge of the grave. Therefore I had to use every moment in which I was capable of work in order that I might finish the task.” Despite constant illness in his later years, Marx still continued to stride toward new scientific fields and objectives, and he wrote an immense number of scientific manuscripts in the fields of history, humanities, and mathematics. Just as Engels said, “In every single field which Marx investigated – and he investigated very many fields, none of them superficially – in every field, even in that of mathematics, he made independent discoveries.”

Marx’s life was a life of ceaseless fighting to topple the old world and create it anew. As Engels said, “Marx was before all else a revolutionist… Fighting was his element. And he fought with a passion, a tenacity, and a success such as few could rival.” Marx’s lifelong mission was to struggle for the emancipation of humankind. In order to change the people’s lot of suffering exploitation and oppression, Marx threw himself without hesitation into the dynamic worker’s movement, always standing at the vanguard of the revolutionary fight. Under his leadership, the Communist League was founded in 1847, which was the world’s first proletarian party, and he led the International Workingmen’s Association which was the world’s first international workers’ organization. He also zealously supported the Commune of Paris, the first revolution in which the working class seized political power, and fervently and unrelentingly drove the development of the workers’ movement across the world.

Marx was a great man of indomitable spirit, yet he was also a man of flesh and blood. He loved life, and was sincere, honest, sentimental, and fair-minded. Marx and Engels’ revolutionary friendship lasted for 40 years. Just as Lenin once said that, “Old legends contain various moving instances of friendship,” but that Marx and Engel’s friendship “surpasses the most moving stories of the ancients about human friendship.” Marx unselfishly financed the revolutionary cause; even during the most difficult times of his life he gave his utmost to help his revolutionary comrades-in-arms. Marx and his wife, Jenny, endured these hardships together, composing a providential symphony of ideals and love.

Comrades,

The most valuable and influential legacy which Marx left for us is the theory that has been named after him – Marxism. This theory is just like a magnificent sunrise, illuminating the road on which humankind explores the patterns of history and seeks its own emancipation.

Marx and Engels—the fathers of scientific socialism.

As Marx once famously noted, “The weapon of criticism cannot, of course, replace criticism of the weapon, material force must be overthrown by material force; but theory also becomes a material force as soon as it has gripped the masses.” Marxism is chiefly composed of three parts: philosophy, political economy, and scientific socialism. Taken separately, these parts originate from German classical philosophy, British classical political economy, and French utopian socialism. However, the fundamental reason these ultimately sublimated into Marxism was due to Marx’s penetrating observations of the world and age in which he lived, and his profound ken [range of knowledge] of the patterns underlying the development of human society. As Marx wrote, “The theoretical conclusions of the Communists are in no way based on ideas or principles that have been invented, or discovered, by this or that would-be universal reformer. They merely express, in general terms, actual relations springing from an existing class struggle, from a historical movement going on under our very eyes.”

It is only by considering the long course of human history that we can gain a perspective on the essence of historical movements and the direction of contemporary developments. Marx’s scientific research was just as Lenin described, “He critically reshaped everything that had been created by human society, without ignoring a single detail. He reconsidered, subjected to criticism, and verified on the working-class movement everything that human thinking had created, and therefrom formulated conclusions which people hemmed in by bourgeois limitations or bound by bourgeois prejudices could not draw.” Marx’s ideas and theories originated from those times and also transcended them; his ideas and theories were both the apotheosis of the spirit of the times and the epitome of the spirit of the people.

Marxism is a scientific theory; it artfully reveals the patterns underlying the development of human society. Utopian socialists had existed long prior to the time in which Marx raised his ideas on scientific socialism; they bemoaned society’s ills and had many fine ideas concerning the ideal society. However, as they did not grasp the patterns underlying the development of society, they had not found an effective way to realize their ideals, and consequently their ideas had no real impact on the development of society. Historical materialism and the theory of surplus value which originated from Marx brought to light the general patterns underlying the development of human society, and revealed the particular laws governing capitalist operations. These discoveries lit the way for humankind to move from the realm of necessity to the realm of freedom, and illuminated the path for humankind to realize liberty and emancipation.

Marxism is a people-oriented theory; it was the first system of thought to be founded so that people may achieve self-emancipation. Marxism, though wide-ranging and profound, can be summed up in a sentence – the pursuit of the emancipation of humankind. Prior to Marx, the dominant theories in society were those which served the ruling class. Marxism was the first theory to seek the way to liberty and emancipation for humankind from the perspective of the people; it uses scientific theories to demonstrate the way to the ultimate creation of an ideal society in which there is no oppression or exploitation and in which people are equal and free. The influence of Marxism spans time and borders because it is rooted in the people, and demonstrates that the right path for humankind is the path on which the people drive forward the advance of history.

Marxism is a practical theory; it guides the people in their actions to change the world. Marx once wrote that, “All social life is essentially practical,” and that, “The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it.” Practice and existence are the basic standpoints of Marxist epistemology, and its practicality is the distinguishing feature that sets Marxist theory apart from other theories. Marxism is not scholarship to be confined to a study, but rather it was founded so as to change the people’s lot in history. Marxism was formed, refined, and developed in practice through the pursuit of the emancipation of humankind, and it has provided a powerful source of inspiration for the people to understand and remold the world.

Marxism is an open-ended and continually developing theory; it is always at the forefront of the times. Marx admonished people over and over that Marxism is not dogma, but a guide to action that must be developed with changes in practice. The history of the development of Marxism is the history of its continued development at the hands of Marx, Engels, and their successors in accordance with developments in time, practice, and knowledge. This history is one of continued self-refinement through the absorption of all of the redoubtable cultural and intellectual achievements of human history. Therefore, Marxism is able to forever maintain its appealing youthfulness, and continue to explore new problems in contemporary developments and respond to new challenges facing humanity.

Comrades,

It has been 170 years since Manifesto of the Communist Party was published, during which time Marxism has spread extensively across the globe. In human intellectual history, there has been no other body of thought which has produced such a profound and wide-reaching influence on humankind as has Marxism.

Under Marx’s personal leadership, and under the guidance of Marxism, the “First International” and other international workers’ associations were founded and developed one after another, and which at various times guided and advanced the unity and struggles of the international workers’ movement. Under the influence of Marxism, Marxist political parties were established and developed, springing up like mushrooms across the world. This marked the first time that the people became the masters of their own destiny, that they became the fundamental political force for realizing their own emancipation and indeed that of all of humankind.

When Lenin led the October Revolution (1917) to victory, socialism transformed from theory to reality, thus breaking the global capitalist order which dominated the world. Following the close of World War II, a number of socialist countries emerged, in particular the People’s Republic of China, which greatly boosted the strength of international socialism. Even though international socialism has encountered complications in its development, the overall trend in human development has not changed, nor will it change.

Marx and Engels actively supported the struggle for the emancipation of oppressed nations and people. Since the beginning of the 20th century, Marxists, as represented by Lenin, built on and further developed Marxist ethnicity theories, which guided and supported the national liberation movements in colonial and semi-colonial countries. Following the close of World War II, a great many independent and emancipated nation-states were established, thoroughly dismantling the imperialist colonial system. These events showed forth promising prospects for equal association and common development between the nations of the world.

Today, Marxism firmly advances the progress of human civilization; to this day it continues to provide theoretical and discursive systems of major international influence, and Marx to this day continues to be acknowledged as the “number one thinker of the millennium.”

Comrades,

Marxism has not only profoundly transformed the world, it has also profoundly transformed China. Over the course of several thousand years of history, the Chinese nation has produced the magnificent Chinese culture, making a weighty contribution to the progress of human civilization. Following the Opium War of 1840, the Western powers savagely blasted open China’s doors with their warships and cannons, miring the Chinese nation in the tragic circumstances of domestic turmoil and foreign aggression.

The barbarous imperialist invasion and the grave suffering of the Chinese people greatly roused the interest of Marx. During the Second Opium War (1856-1860), Marx wrote over a dozen articles concerning China, exposing to the world the facts about the invasion of China at the hands of Western powers, and serving as a champion of justice for the Chinese people. To a high degree, Marx and Engels affirmed the Chinese civilization’s contribution to human civilization and through scientific determination foresaw the emergence of “Chinese socialism.” In their minds, they even gave an elegant name to this ideal new China – “the Chinese republic.”

With the advent of modern times, the historic mission of the Chinese people became the pursuit of national independence and liberation, of a stronger and more prosperous country, and of their own happiness. Old-style peasant wars were carried out to no avail, self-improvement and reformist movements which did not touch the foundation of feudal rule were repeatedly rebuffed, and bourgeois-led revolutions and other attempts to copy Western capitalism one after another came to naught. After all this, it was the salvoes of the October Revolution that brought Marxism-Leninism to China, demonstrating the way forward and offering a new choice for the Chinese people who were seeking a way to save China from subjugation.

On this great tide of history, a Marxist political party which would heroically undertake the task of national rejuvenation and surely lead the Chinese people in creating a miracle for humankind came into being – the Communist Party of China.

Following the emergence of the Communist Party of China, Chinese Communists brought together the tenets of Marxism with the practical realities of China’s revolution and development. Chinese Communists united the people and led them through a protracted struggle, completed the new democratic revolution and socialist revolution, founded the People’s Republic of China and the basic socialist system, and carried out challenging explorations in developing socialism. Thus, they brought about the tremendous transformation of China from being the “sick man of East Asia” to gaining independence. This transformation provided rock-solid proof that it was only socialism that could save China.

Since the launch of reform and opening up in the late 1970s, Chinese Communists have been bringing together the tenets of Marxism with the practical realities of reform and opening up. Chinese Communists brought together the people in developing the great new endeavor of socialism with Chinese characteristics, enabling China to take big strides to catch up with the times. Thus, they brought about the tremendous transformation of China from having gained independence to growing wealthy. This transformation provided rock-solid proof that only socialism with Chinese characteristics could develop China.

Today, Chinese Communists bring together the tenets of Marxism with the practical realities of China’s new era. Chinese Communists are leading the people in carrying out our great struggle, developing our great project, advancing our great cause, and realizing our great dream, advancing the undertakings of the Party and the country so as to prompt historic achievements that are all-encompassing and groundbreaking and to bring about historic changes that are profound and fundamental. The Chinese people are moving into a tremendous transformation from having grown prosperous to becoming strong. This process provides solid proof that it is only by upholding and developing socialism with Chinese characteristics that we can realize the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.

Experience has proven that the fate of Marxism has long been closely intertwined with that of the Communist Party of China, the Chinese people, and the Chinese nation. In our country, Marxism’s scientific and truthful nature has been fully tested, its humane and practical nature has been fully implemented, and its open-ended and contemporary nature has been fully demonstrated.

Experience has also proven that Marxism has provided China’s revolution, development, and reform with a strong theoretical tool which has enabled China, this ancient nation of the East, to produce a development miracle unprecedented in human history. It is entirely proper that history and the people have chosen Marxism, and it is entirely proper that the Communist Party of China has inscribed Marxism on its banner. It is also entirely proper that we continue to bring together the tenets of Marxism with China’s practical realities, and continue to adapt Marxism to China’s conditions and keep it current.

Marx would be comforted to know that Marxism has successfully guided China down the path toward fully developing into a great modern socialist country. As loyal believers in and staunch practitioners of Marxism, Chinese Communists are making persistent efforts to uphold and develop Marxism.

Comrades,

Engels once said that “A nation that wants to climb the pinnacles of science cannot possibly manage without theoretical thought.” If we Chinese are to realize national rejuvenation, we likewise cannot possibly manage without theoretical thought. Marxism is and will continue to be the guiding theory for our Party and nation. It is the formidable theoretical tool which we use to understand the world, grasp its underlying patterns, search for its truth, and effect change.

Marxist ideas and theories are wide-ranging and profound and maintain relevance even with repeated study. In the new era, Chinese Communists still need to study Marx, study and practice Marxism, and continually draw on its powerful knowledge and theories. In this way, we will uphold and develop Chinese socialism in the new era with more resolve, confidence, and wisdom in our efforts at carrying out the coordinated advancement of the “five-pronged” overall plan1 and the “Four Comprehensives” strategy2, thus ensuring that we always stay the course toward national rejuvenation as we break the waves and sail ahead.

Studying Marx requires the study and practice of Marxist thought on the patterns underlying the development of human society. Marx revealed through his research the inexorable trend that human society would ultimately move toward Communism. Marx and Engels firmly believed that in the society of the future “we shall have an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all,” and that “the proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win.” Marx firmly believed that the tide of history would only surge forward once the people became the masters of themselves, society, and human development, and with this the ideal of Communism would necessarily be realized by degrees through the extant conditions of continuous change. Marxism established the theoretical foundation for the unwavering ideals and convictions of Communists. We need to have a complete mastery of the worldviews and methodologies of dialectical and historical materialism, and fully understand that realizing Communism is a historical process involving the step-by-step achievement of milestones. We need to bring together the noble ideal of Communism with the shared ideal of Chinese socialism and the endeavors in which we are currently engaged, remain confident in the path, theory, system, and culture of Chinese socialism, and adhere to the ideals and beliefs of Chinese Communists. We need to be like Marx, and strive for Communism throughout our lives.

Studying Marx requires the study and practice of Marxist thought on upholding the position of the people. An affinity with the people is Marxism’s most distinctive character. According to Marx, historical action is the action of the masses. Enabling the people to gain their emancipation was Marx’s life pursuit. We must always ensure that our basic position is that of the people, and that we strive for the wellbeing of the people as our fundamental mission, remain committed to the fundamental principle of wholeheartedly serving the people, and carry out the mass line. We must also respect the principal position of the people and the creativity of the people, forever maintain close ties with them, channel our strength into an impenetrable great wall, and unite the people and lead them in moving history forward. This is the inevitable choice which respects the patterns of history, and it is the responsibility undertaken by communists on our own initiative in staying true to our founding mission.

Studying Marx requires the study and practice of Marxist thought on the forces and relations of production. Marxism holds that the material forces of production form the material prerequisites for all social existence, and that the totality of these relations of production appropriate to a given stage in the development of the material forces of production constitutes the economic foundation of society. The forces of production are the most dynamic and revolutionary factors driving social progress. “The multitude of productive forces accessible to men determines the nature of society.” The mutual interactions and constraints between the forces and relations of production and between the economic foundation and the superstructure govern the whole course of social development. Unleashing and developing the national forces of production is a fundamental task of socialism; it is also a major concern which Chinese Communists continue to explore and work hard to resolve. Since the founding of the People’s Republic of China, and especially since reform and opening up, within 70 years our Party has led the people in resolute efforts at unleashing and developing national forces of production and completed a process of development that took the West several centuries to complete, thus propelling our country’s high-speed rise to become the world’s second largest economy. We need to have the courage to deepen reform in all areas, rouse the vitality of the national forces of production via balancing the relations of production, and adapt to the requirements of developing the economic foundation via improving the superstructure. By doing so, we will ensure that the development of Chinese socialism better conforms with the patterns governing the forces and relations of production.

Studying Marx requires the study and practice of Marxist thought on the people’s democracy. As Marx and Engels noted, “The proletarian movement is the self-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority, in the interest of the immense majority,” “that the working class, once come to power, could not go on managing with the old state machine,” it must “[shatter]…the former state power and…[replace it with] a new and truly democratic one.” State organs must change from controlling the public to serving them, and accept public oversight. We need to keep to the socialist path of political advancement with Chinese characteristics, and drive the development of China’s socialist democracy while remaining committed to the smooth integration of Party leadership, the running of the country by the people, and law-based governance. We also need to strengthen institutional guarantees for the running of the country by the people, hasten the modernization of China’s governance system and capacity, give full play to the people’s enthusiasm, initiative, and creativity, and more firmly and effectively implement a people’s democracy.

Studying Marx requires the study and practice of Marxist thought on cultural advancement. Marx believed that, given different economic and social environments, the people would produce different ideas and culture. Even though ideas and culture are determined by the economic foundation, they also react with it. Once advanced ideas and culture are apprehended by the masses, they transform into a formidable material force; conversely, if outmoded or erroneous ideas are not done away with, they become fetters on social development. Theoretical awareness and cultural confidence are a force for national progress; advanced values and a free mind are the source of social vitality. Culture both transforms and fashions the spirit of a nation. While remaining grounded in China’s realities, our nation must embrace modernization, the world, and the future. We must consolidate the position of Marxism as our guiding thought, develop an advanced socialist culture, and strengthen observance of socialist cultural and ethical standards. We must also see that all areas of social development are imbued with core socialist values, promote the creative transformation and innovative development of our fine traditional culture, help our people raise their political awareness and moral standards, and foster appreciation of fine culture. By doing so, we will continue to add new luster to Chinese culture.

Studying Marx requires us to study and practice Marxist thought on social advancement. Marx and Engels envisaged that in the society of the future “production will be calculated to provide wealth for all,” and it would feature “the participation of all in the enjoyments provided by all.” Engels integrated a series of views raised by Marx in Manifesto of the Communist Party, Critique of the Gotha Program, Capital, and other works, clarifying how, under the conditions of socialism, society should “give healthy and useful labor to all, ample wealth and leisure to all, and the truest and fullest freedom to all.” The people yearn for a better life, and our goal is to help them achieve it. We need to remain committed to our people-centered philosophy of development, focus on the most pressing and most immediate issues that concern the people the most, and constantly secure and improve standards of living for the people. We need to promote social fairness and justice, ensure access to a higher level of childcare, education, employment, medical services, elderly care, housing, and social assistance, and see that the gains of reform and development benefit all our people in a fair way. By doing so, we will promote well-rounded human development and achieve shared prosperity for everyone.

Studying Marx requires us to study and practice Marxist thought on the relationship between people and nature. Marx understood that “Man lives from nature,” that nature not only provides humans with the source of the means of existence such as soils which are fertile, and rivers, lakes, and oceans which are teeming with fish, but it also provides humans with the source of the means of production. The natural world constitutes the natural conditions in which humans exist. If we humans treat nature well as we produce, live, and develop alongside it, nature will bestow its gifts upon us; however, “if man, by dint of his knowledge and inventive genius, has subdued the forces of nature, the latter avenge themselves upon him.” Nature is the mother of life, humans and nature form a biotic community, and humanity must revere and respect nature, follow its ways, and protect it. We need to ensure harmony between humans and nature, firmly realize that lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets and conscientiously act on this understanding, mobilize all sectors of society to build an ecological civilization, and build a beautiful China together. By doing so, we will ensure that the people appreciate the beauty of nature, life, and existence as they live among lucid waters and lush mountains, and pursue a model of sustainable development featuring increased production, higher living standards, and healthy ecosystems.

Studying Marx requires us to study and practice Marxist thought on world history. Marx and Engels once said that, “The more the original isolation of separate nationalities is destroyed by the developed mode of production, commerce, and division of labor between various nations naturally brought forth by these, the more does history become world history.” Marx and Engels’ prediction of those years has since become a reality; history and reality increasingly prove the scientific value of this prediction. Today, the global nature of human association is more profound and extensive than ever before, and the interlinking and interdependence between countries are more frequent and intimate than ever before. We live in a united world; whoever rejects this world will also be rejected by it. Living things that are nourished will not injure one another; roads that run parallel will not interfere with one another. We need to stand at the perspective of world history and examine the development trends and the problems we face in the world today, continue to pursue a path of peaceful development, an independent foreign policy of peace, and a mutually beneficial strategy of opening up. We need to continue to expand cooperation with all other countries, take an active part in the global governance system, and realize mutually beneficial cooperation and shared development in more fields and to a higher level, and we must not submit to others and even less so plunder others. In this way, we can work with the people of all other countries to build a community with a shared future for humanity and create a more beautiful world.

Studying Marx requires us to study and practice Marxist thought on developing a Marxist political party. Marx recognized that, “In the various stages of development which the struggle of the working class against the bourgeoisie has to pass through, they always and everywhere represent the interests of the movement as a whole,” and that “they have no interests separate and apart from those of the proletariat as a whole,” but instead work “in the interest of the immense majority,” and strive to build a communist society. A communist party must “set up before the whole world landmarks by which it measures the level of the Party movement.” The basic difference between a Marxist political party and other political parties is that the former always stands with the people and fights for their interests. We need to coordinate our great struggle, great project, great cause, and great dream, and strengthen our consciousness of the need to maintain political integrity, think in big-picture terms, follow the leadership core, and keep in alignment. We need to continue to drive ahead full and strict governance over the Party, give top priority to consolidating the Party politically, uphold and strengthen overall Party leadership, and uphold the authority of the Central Committee and its centralized, unified leadership. We need to uphold truth and correct errors, forever preserve the political character of Communists, and build the Party into a vibrant Marxist governing party that is always at the forefront of the times, enjoys the wholehearted support of the people, has the courage to reform itself, and is able to withstand all tests.

Comrades,

The Communist Party of China is a party which arms itself with Marxism; Marxism is the soul of the ideals and convictions of Chinese Communists. In 1938, Mao noted that, “Our Party’s fighting capacity will be much greater if there are one or two hundred comrades with a grasp of Marxism-Leninism which is systematic and not fragmentary, genuine and not hollow.”

Reflecting on the course of the Party’s struggles reveals that one of the important reasons that the Communist Party of China has been able to continue to grow in the face of difficulties and hardships is that our Party continues to highly value being well-grounded in both thinking and theory. This has ensured that the whole Party is united in thought, steadfast of will, coordinated in action, and formidable in strength.

At present, the importance of reform, development, and stability, the number of contradictions, risks, and challenges, and the tests of our capacity to govern are all at an unprecedented level. It is essential that we continually improve our ability to utilize Marxism to analyze and resolve practical problems, and continually improve our ability to utilize scientific theories to guide us in responding to major challenges, withstanding major risks, overcoming major obstacles, addressing major contradictions, and resolving major problems; doing so will enable us to gain the upper hand, seize the initiative, and secure our future. In this way, we can reflect on and fully grasp a range of major issues facing China’s future development from a broader and longer-term perspective, and continually strengthen belief in Marxism and the ideals of communism.

It has been 170 years since the publication of Manifesto of the Communist Party, during which time earthshaking changes have occurred in human society. However, on the whole, the general principles which Marxism sets forth are still entirely valid. We need to uphold and apply the worldviews and methodologies of dialectical and historical materialism, Marxist standpoints, viewpoints, and methods, and Marxist views on the materiality of the world and the patterns underlying development. We must also heed the principles such as the natural and historic significance of the development of human society and related laws, the laws governing human emancipation and the full and free development of every individual, and the essence of knowledge and the laws governing its development. In this light, we need to uphold and apply Marxist views on practice, the people, class, development, and contradiction, and truly master and apply well these key skills.

All comrades of our Party, especially officials at all levels, must do more and work harder at studying Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought, Deng Xiaoping Theory, the Theory of Three Represents, the Scientific Outlook on Development, and the Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era. All comrades must study these thoroughly, painstakingly, and assiduously, apply their studies to problems, and link their studies to reality so as to better transform scientific ideas and theories into a material force for understanding and changing the world. We Communists must read Marxist classics and understand Marxist principles as a way of life and a spiritual pursuit, and apply the classics to foster our integrity, temper our intellects, expand our horizons, and guide our practice.

Approaching scientific theories requires a scientific attitude. Engels once made the profound point that, “Marx’s whole way of thinking is not so much a doctrine as a method. It provides not so much ready-made dogmas, as aids to further investigation and the method for such investigation.” Engels also noted that theories “[are] a historical product, which at different times assumes very different forms and, therewith, very different contents.” The basic principles of scientific socialism cannot be discarded; once discarded it would cease to be socialism. Likewise, scientific socialism is not an immutable dogma. I once said that China’s great social transformation is not a masterplate from which we simply continue our history and culture, nor a pattern from which we mechanically apply the ideas of classic Marxist authors, nor a reprint of the practice of socialism in other countries, nor a duplicate of modernization from abroad. There is no orthodox, immutable version of socialism. It is only by closely linking the basic principles of scientific socialism with a country’s specific realities, history, cultural traditions, and contemporary needs, and by continually conducting inquiries and reviews in the practice of socialism, that a blueprint can become a bright reality.

The vitality of theory is in its continued innovation, and promoting the continued development of Marxism is the sacred duty of Chinese Communists. We need to be persistent in wielding Marxism to observe and decipher the world today and lead us through it, applying the lively and plentiful experiences drawn from contemporary China to drive the development of Marxism, and utilizing an extensive worldview to draw on the civilizational achievements of all of humankind. We need to be persistent in protecting our foundations while constantly innovating to continually outdo ourselves, and learning widely from the strengths of others to continually improve ourselves. Finally, we need to continually further our understanding of the laws that underlie governance by a communist party, the development of socialism, and the evolution of human society, and open up new prospects for the development of Marxism in today’s China and the 21st century.

Comrades,

Today, we are commemorating Marx to pay our respects to the greatest thinker in human history, and to proclaim our firm belief in the scientific truth of Marxism.

Engels once said that, “The prospect of a gigantic revolution, the most gigantic revolution that has ever taken place, accordingly presents itself to us as soon as we pursue our materialist thesis further and apply it to the present time.” On the road ahead, we must continue to uphold Marxism, and ensure that the wondrous prospects which Marx and Engels envisaged for human society perpetually unfold across China.

(Originally issued in Chinese by Xinhua News Agency, Beijing, May 4, 2018)

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ABOUT JEFF BROWN

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Punto Press released China Rising - Capitalist Roads, Socialist Destinations (2016); and for Badak Merah, Jeff authored China Is Communist, Dammit! – Dawn of the Red Dynasty (2017).

Jeff can be reached at China Rising, jeff@brownlanglois.com, Facebook, Twitter and Wechat/Whatsapp: +86-13823544196.


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The Russian Peace Threat examines Russophobia, American Exceptionalism and other urgent topics



Imperial Mind Tricks: “Remember Pearl Harbor”, “Never Forget 9/11”, “Putin Did It”

 

horiz-long grey

HELP ENLIGHTEN YOUR FELLOWS. BE SURE TO PASS THIS ON. SURVIVAL DEPENDS ON IT.

Pearl Harbor: The USS Virginia foundering. One of several capital ships attacked by Japanese aviation on 7 December 1941. US policy had made the attack almost certain.

“Remember Pearl Harbor” was the mantra used to enlist the US population in the imperial war in the Pacific.  The US triumphantly succeeded in bringing out the Japanese imperial force in the military conflict by squeezing Japan with trade embargo, war propaganda and military provocations when it became obvious that the interests of the Japanese empire collided with its own.  

There were many common threads between the Japanese empire and the US empire.  Both were vehemently anti-communist, colonial and militaristic. There just couldn’t be two capitalist empires in the Pacific. The immediate US actions after the war—the war which was supposed to fight off the imperial Japanese—clearly indicate that the US was there to dominate the Pacific:  the devastating Korean War aimed to kill off communist forces from the peninsula resulted in the deaths of 1/4 of the Korean population, US colonial policies against Pacific nations and beyond, and commencement of the Cold War with USSR and its allies.

Hollywood has made many movies about Pearl Harbor. From Here to Eternity, a famous book, taken to the screen with a stellar cast, provided the plot for one of the industry's biggest blockbusters. This is the poster for the French market. A prestigious film, the real backdrop for the story is the American soldiers' reaction to "Japanese treachery."  This is the way the culture absorbs and replicates the official narratives.

The US nuked Japan to state who was the top dog in the Pacific and beyond.  After the war the two empires became one.  The US establishment utilized willing Japanese war criminals in shaping the trajectory of post WW2 Japan within the US imperial framework.  Today,  the phrase “remember Pearl Harbor” is used to keep the US Pacific ally under control, while justifying its imperial trajectory across the globe.

Now, such an angle also helps us see 9/11 from a fresh perspective.  All the unanswered questions surrounding the event, the use of the event to start a string of colonial wars against the Middle East, the use of the event to introduce draconian laws against the US population and so on delineate the nature of the imperial trajectory.

Most of us avoid talking about 9/11 without following the narratives provided by the establishment because the topic has been stigmatized as “conspiracy” and it has become an industry independent from the historical context of colonial wars, capitalist expansion and loss of civil liberties.  However, it is clear that the world is suffering as a result of actions that followed the event—as 1 out of 100 people become refugees, while millions are killed by the US backed colonial wars, which have destroyed many countries in the name of “democracy”, “freedom” and “justice”.

I mentioned “remember Pearl Harbor” because recently I was told to remember it when I mentioned the dropping of nuclear bombs on the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  One would like to hope that nuclear incineration of a few hundred thousand innocent civilians would be condemned without any attempt for a justification.  However, the US school system still teaches the children that the decision to massacre so many people was necessary to end the war.  Of course, such a position represents racism, American exceptionalism and colonial mentality, and it is successfully refuted by many reputable scholars and journalists as well as testimonies by US military officials at the time of the events.  By the time nuclear bombs were dropped, the Japanese government was seeking ways to end the war.  It was totally unnecessary for the stated purpose, however, it functioned as an unimaginably gruesome live human experiment, a threat against communist powers and collective punishment against any imperial competitor which gets in the way of the US empire building.  If you or your family members are not familiar with the accurate  version of the event,  I highly recommend reading works by Gar Alperovitz and others (1).

FROM HERE TO ETERNITY CARRIED THE NARROW AMERICAN VERSION OF HISTORY, WRAPPED IN PERSONAL DRAMA. The film's poster for the Italian market. Every region had its own marketing program, and the film was widely distributed throughout Asia, too. Many other Hollywod films presented the same poit of view. Only by the 1980s and 1990s, when Japan was seen as a reliable vassal state well integrated into the American imperialist system and expected to help contain China, were films permitted to incorporate a more balanced view of events, in some cases even presenting the Japanese in a sympathetic light.

But to say the least, I was not alive in 1941.  By the time I was born (1968) Japan was firmly in the hands of the US empire, violently repressing the segment of the Japanese population which stood against Japan’s complicity in the US militarism.  So can you see where those people stand when they tell you to “remember Pearl Harbor”?  It is the voice of the US empire chastising any element that goes outside of the imperial framework of colonialism, corporatism and militarism.

In the same way, I see people saying “remember 9/11”, “never forget 9/11” and so on.  But 9/11 regularly happens in Yemen today at the hands of the US led coalition (2).  Countless 9/11s have happened in Syria, which have killed 1/2 million Syrians, inflicted by the US backed terrorists (3).  Incidentally, those terror groups include associates of Al Qaeda, the original 9/11 attackers.  The US establishment is breaking its law in giving material support to terror groups, turning its own military forces into an auxiliary of Al Qaeda forces (4)(5).  And speaking of the origin, Osama Bin Ladin was a US backed “freedom fighter” in Afghanistan.  The US embarked on a deadly proxy war against socialist Afghanistan, and in the process, they created a justification for the the highly lucrative war on terror as well.  In that sense, no matter where the truth lies, there is something to the claim that 9/11 was an inside job.  One can observe that the US capitalist hegemony is actively shaping the imperial hierarchy by any means necessary.

But there is much more.  There have been over 10,000 victims of many 9/11s inflicted by the US backed Ukrainian coup government in the Russian-speaking eastern region of Ukraine. Those who are still parroting the US propaganda lies about Ukraine, or Crimea (6), please do watch Oliver Stone’s excellent documentary Ukraine On Fire (7).  It meticulously describes how the CIA fomented Nazi forces in the region, which had become vital in the US backed coup against the democratically elected deposed government.  Furthermore, in 2017, details of protester killings—which were quickly blamed on the elected Ukraine government by the media—were revealed by Georgian snipers (8).  In the testimonies, they claimed that they were ordered to shoot anyone to cause chaos at the scene (8).  Shockingly, they also stated that they were under command of an American military officer (8).  The US has been arming and training Ukraine military, continuing to add numbers of victims in Ukraine.  Those people who have contracted the Putin panic, an epidemic spewing hatred against anything Russian, need to recognize the gravity of the matter.  Our species has suffered deaths and destruction of imperial violence for some time.

[dropcap]N[/dropcap]ow, we have those same people in the west who have promoted the colonial savageries of murder and destruction against “others” telling us that Russians are destroying our “democracy”.  For those who do not know the history, Russia was subjected to political and economic intervention by the US in the 90s.  The US backed Boris Yeltsin—the US establishment openly bragged about him being their agent—even attacked his own parliament with tanks killing many officials.  Swarmed by the US neoliberal restructuring forces, the country’s socialist fabric was ripped apart to be sold away.  A prominent anti-imperial historian Luciana Bohne summarizes the era succinctly:

“The Neoliberal Great Terror," known as economic “shock therapy.” Between 1992 and 2000, there were between five and six million “surplus deaths,” 170,000 people were murdered, the GDP fell by 50% (more than during German occupation in WW II), 70 million fell into poverty, death rates increased by 60%, like countries at war, life expectancy decreased in males to 57, abortions increased spectacularly, birth rates fell , , , suicides, tuberculosis, measles, diphtheria (eradicated in the 1930s) . . . In short (and this was supposed to be a short post) Russia, under “shock-therapy” “reforms” became the site of an economic genocide.”

It's worth reading about what Luciana has to say about the century long US intervention against Russia (9).

The moral bankruptcy of the imperial media —mirroring the DNA of the capitalist system itself at its most malignant—is evident to anyone who understand even a bit of history.

Let’s put the dynamics in a perspective here regarding the “Evil Russian Empire”.  Russia’s economy is about the size of South Korea.  Its military spending is about 1/12 of the NATO forces.  The US continues to encroach on Russia with hundreds of military bases.  The US has been supporting right-wing coups around Russia despite its promise not to expand NATO forces.  It continues to economically pressure Russia with embargoes.  Russia is a geographically huge country with rich natural resources.  It is a strategic ally of the emerging economic giant China.  What is the US doing here?  The empire has been waiting for Russia to jump on its Pearl Harbor or a 9/11, isn’t it?  But after seeing what the US hegemony does to a country like Russia, why would anyone bite the bait?

Then we've got this insane Putin panic epidemic, which is nothing more than a product of psychopathic delusional projection by the establishment that has been hacking, intervening, destroying, hijacking and stealing other countries’ political processes for generations.  Two years of allegations, accusations and speculations have not provided any proof of the Russian President stealing the election.  The same thing can be said about the 12 Russians indicted recently (10), (11).  The government’s own intelligence officer, former CIA analyst Ray MacGovern, is warning the people that the alleged “Russian hacking” is unfounded while speculating that it is most likely the work of its own agency (12).

In any case, I am rather surprised that many people are buying such an obvious scheme of imperialism.  What the US establishment is concocting is a classic momentum heading toward a war described eloquently by Smedley Butler in War is a Racket (13).  It is a tactic of fascist manipulation described by Nazi war criminal Herman Goering:

“the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger.”

According to how history has unfolded what comes next are millions of horrible deaths and destruction.

We have been living in an empire that requires great sacrifices among the oppressed.  There isn’t a future for such a scheme that stands on a pile of lies and deceptions.  Every action to cover up a lie confirms the lie. The empire has been attempting to keep order by force.  They’ve hired hitmen, many of them.  But there is a time when the interests of the armed forces and the rich men collide in propping up the hierarchy.  The late stage capitalism, as gruesome and atrocious as it is, isn’t entirely about protection racket, extortion, murder and theft.  At some point, capitalists must fight among themselves for their own survival as their economic sphere suffers from their own violence and greed.  This is what we are facing today.  We are looking at the empire disintegrating as its economic sphere is losing its power and legitimacy while "enemies" of the empire are gaining a sphere of influence.  Corporate political parties, war industry, government agencies and the rest of the imperialists are struggling to assert their own interests within the imperial framework of corporatism, colonialism and militarism, while picking fights with Russia, China, Iran and any country that defies the imperial hegemony, desperately seeking ways to matastasize for their survival.  But the entire imperial order is collapsing.

We must not be a voice for the capitalist lords nor for the hitmen.  This is a time we must reach out to people like us in Russia, China, Syria, Iran, and other peoples of the planet, and people like us in our communities, with messages of peace, sharing and mutual respect.  The corporate power is already embarking on colonizing the momentum (see the work done by the Wrong Kind of Green on the non-profit industrial complex, for instance, 14).  We the people of the planet somehow must assert our desire to bring about a new era for our species beyond the sufferings and deaths of neo-feudalism.  You might feel isolated.  But we are everywhere on this planet. We want to live as brothers and sisters.  We want to live in harmony with our planet.  We share our perspectives and facts for a better tomorrow for our children and their children.  This is an urgent challenge of our time.  Peace to us all.

END NOTES

1. The War Was Won Before Hiroshima—And the Generals Who Dropped the Bomb Knew It

By Gar Alperovitz

https://www.thenation.com/article/why-the-us-really-bombed-hiroshima/

2. The US Led War on Yemen

By Stephen Gowans

https://www.greanvillepost.com/2017/11/20/the-us-led-war-on-yemen/

3. Washington’s Long War on Syria (A video from the book tour)

By Stephen Gowans

https://youtu.be/I7hWHrYdl00

4. The De Facto US/Al Qaeda Alliance

By Robert Parry

https://consortiumnews.com/2016/10/29/the-de-facto-usal-qaeda-alliance/

5. Syria - U.S. Moves To Protect Al-Qaeda And ISIS in Daraa

By Moon of Alabama

http://www.moonofalabama.org/2018/05/syria-us-moves-to-protect-al-qaeda-and-isis-in-daraa.html

6. Is it True That “Russia is Aggressive”?

by RICK STERLING

https://www.counterpunch.org/2016/07/15/is-it-true-that-russia-is-aggressive/

7. Ukraine on Fire

By Oliver Stone

https://vimeo.com/252426896

8. The Hidden Truth About Ukraine, Kiev Euromaidan Snipers Kill Demonstrators. Italian Documentary Bombshell Evidence

Cheap Dignity of the Ukrainian Revolution

By Oriental Review

https://www.globalresearch.ca/the-hidden-truth-about-ukraine-italian-documentary-bombshell-evidence-kiev-euromaidan-snipers-kill-demonstrators/5619684

9. LUCIANA BOHNE: TALK TO ME ABOUT RUSSIAGATE, ha!

https://www.greanvillepost.com/2018/07/28/luciana-bohne-talk-to-me-about-russiagate-ha/

10. Clinging to Collusion: Why Evidence Will Probably Never Be Produced in the Indictments of ‘Russian Agents’

By Joe Lauria

https://consortiumnews.com/2018/07/14/clinging-to-collusion-why-evidence-will-probably-never-be-produced-in-the-indictments-of-russian-agents/

11. No Evidence In Mueller's Indictment Of 12 Russians - Release Now May Sabotage Upcoming Summit

By Moon of Alabama

http://www.moonofalabama.org/2018/07/no-evidence-in-muellers-indictment-of-12-russians-release-now-may-sabotage-upcoming-summit.html#more

12. Did DID [CIA’s Digital Innovation Directorate) Do the ‘Russian Hacking’?  Circumstantial evidence points in that direction, as Ray explains in this 16-minute video.

https://youtu.be/q75RKjfJ18M

13. War Is A Racket

By Smedley Butler

https://archive.org/stream/WarIsARacket/WarIsARacket_djvu.txt

14. PURPOSE GOES TO LATIN AMERICA

by Cory Morningstar with Forrest Palmer

http://www.wrongkindofgreen.org/2018/08/08/purpose-goes-to-latin-america/

 

About the Author
 Hiroyuki Hamada is an artist. He has exhibited throughout the United States and in Europe and is represented by Bookstein Projects. He has been awarded various residencies including those at the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center, the Edward F. Albee Foundation/William Flanagan Memorial Creative Person’s Center, the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, and the MacDowell Colony. In 1998 Hamada was the recipient of a Pollock Krasner Foundation grant, and in 2009 and 2016 he was awarded a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship. He lives and works in New York. 

HIROYUKI HAMADA—As we face the impending risk of nightmarish nuclear wars and climate change, our predicament is as obvious as the illegitimacy of the system imposing its framework of corporatism, colonialism and militarism on peoples as colonial wars, police violence, mass incarceration, austerity measures, elimination of legal protection and human rights violations. And the ones who are domesticated in the gated communities of privilege and exceptionalism are deprived of their humanity to feel the pain of “others” and their essential capacity to explore what it is to live as humans.

 Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

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Parting shot—a word from the editors
The Best Definition of Donald Trump We Have Found

In his zeal to prove to his antagonists in the War Party that he is as bloodthirsty as their champion, Hillary Clinton, and more manly than Barack Obama, Trump seems to have gone “play-crazy” — acting like an unpredictable maniac in order to terrorize the Russians into forcing some kind of dramatic concessions from their Syrian allies, or risk Armageddon.However, the “play-crazy” gambit can only work when the leader is, in real life, a disciplined and intelligent actor, who knows precisely what actual boundaries must not be crossed. That ain’t Donald Trump — a pitifully shallow and ill-disciplined man, emotionally handicapped by obscene privilege and cognitively crippled by white American chauvinism. By pushing Trump into a corner and demanding that he display his most bellicose self, or be ceaselessly mocked as a “puppet” and minion of Russia, a lesser power, the War Party and its media and clandestine services have created a perfect storm of mayhem that may consume us all.— Glen Ford, Editor in Chief, Black Agenda Report 

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Losing Military Supremacy: The Continued Relevancy of Andrei Martyanov

Please share this article as widely as you can.

By The Saker
EDITED BY PATRICE GREANVILLE
THIS IS A REPOST. FIRST RUN ON JUL 7, 2018

[This article was written for the Unz Review]

Carriers are quintessentially power projection platforms, not designed nor suitable for home defence. Now advanced missiles in Russia and China have made them into exorbitantly expensive sitting ducks. The destruction of the US Navy is no longer a matter of an opponent's capability. It is a question of whether that opponent is ready to trigger a world-ending nuclear war. US military world posture, therefore, from a strategic standpoint, is partially based on nuclear blackmail.

The fact that the USA is facing a profound crisis, possibly the worst one in its history, is accepted by most observers, except maybe the most delusional ones. Most Americans definitely know that. In fact, if there is one thing upon which both those who supported Trump and those who hate him with a passion can agree on, it would be that his election is a clear proof of a profound crisis (I would argue that the election of Obama before also had, as one of its main causes, the very same systemic crisis). When speaking of this crisis, most people will mention the deindustrialization, the drop in real income, the lack of well-paid jobs, healthcare, crime, immigration, pollution, education, and a myriad of other contributing factors. But of all the aspects of the “American dream”, the single most resilient one has been the myth of the US military as “the finest fighting force in history”. In this new book, Andrei Martianov not only comprehensively debunks this myth, he explains step by step how this myth was created and why it is collapsing now. This is no small feat, especially in a relatively short book (225 pages) which is very well written and accessible to everyone, not just military specialists.

Martyanov takes a systematic and step-by-step approach: first, he defines military power, then he explains where the myth of US military superiority came from and how the US rewriting of the history of WWII resulted in a complete misunderstanding, especially at the top political levels, of the nature of modern warfare. He then discusses the role ideology and the Cold War played in further exacerbating the detachment of US leaders from reality. Finally, he demonstrates how a combination of delusional narcissism and outright corruption resulted in a US military capable of wasting truly phenomenal sums of money on “defense” while at the same time resulting in an actual force unable to win a war against anything but a weak and defenseless enemy.

That is not to say that the US military has not fought in many wars and won. It did, but in the words of Martyanov:

Surely when America fought against a third-rate adversary it was possible to rain death from the skies, and then roll over its forces, if any remained by that time, with very little difficulty and casualties. That will work in the future too against that type of adversary—similar in size and flimsiness of Iraqi Forces circa 2003. But Ledeen’s Doctrine had one major flaw—one adult cannot continue to go around the sandbox constantly fighting children and pretend to be good at fighting adults.

The main problem for the USA today is that there are very few of those third-rate adversaries left out there and that those who the USA is trying to bring to submission now are either near-peer or even peer adversaries. Martyanov specifically lists the factors which make that kind of adversary so different from those the USA fought in the past:

  1. Modern adversaries have command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities equal to or better than the US ones.
  2. Modern adversaries have electronic warfare capabilities equal to or better than the US ones
  3. Modern adversaries have weapon systems equal to or better than the US ones.
  4. Modern adversaries have air defenses which greatly limit the effectiveness of US airpower.
  5. Modern adversaries have long-range subsonic, supersonic and hypersonic cruise missiles which present a huge threat to the USN, bases, staging areas and even the entire US mainland.

In the book, all these points are substantiated with numerous and specific examples which I am not repeating here for the sake of brevity.

One could be forgiven for not being aware of any of these facts, at least if one considers the kind of nonsense written by the US corporate media or, for that matter, by the so-called “experts” (another interesting topic Martyanov discusses in some detail). Still, one can live in an imaginary world only as long as reality does not come crashing in, be it in the form of criminally overpriced and useless weapon systems or in the form of painful military defeats. The current hysteria about Russia as the Evil Mordor which is the culprit for everything and anything bad (real or imaginary) happening to the USA is mostly due to the fact that Russia, in total contradiction to all the “expert” opinions, not only did not crash or turn into a “gas station masquerading as a country” with her economy “in tatters”, but succeeded in developing a military which, for a small fraction of the US military budget, successfully developed armed forces which are in reality far more capable than the US forces. I realize that this last statement is quite literally “unthinkable” for many Americans and I submit that the very fact that this is so literally unthinkable greatly contributed to making this possible in the first place: when you are so damn sure that by some kind of miracle of history, or God’s will, or Manifest Destiny or any other supernatural reason, you are inherently and by definition superior and generally “better” than everybody else you are putting yourself in great danger of being defeated. This is as true for Israel as it is for the USA. I would also add that in the course of the West’s history this “crashing in of reality” in the comfy world of narcissistic delusion often came in the form of a Russian soldier defeating the putatively much superior master race of the day (from the Crusaders to the Nazis). Hence the loathing which western ruling elites always had for everything Russian.

Martyanov’s book will deeply irritate and even outrage those for whom the US narcissistic culture of axiomatic superiority has become an integral part of their identity. But for everybody else this book is an absolute must-have because the future of our entire planet is at stake here: the question is not whether the US Empire is collapsing, but what the consequences of this collapse will be for our planet...

In this book, Martyanov explains why, in spite of the absolutely catastrophic 1990s, the Russians succeeded in developing a modern and highly capable combat force in a record time. There are two main reasons for this: first, unlike their US counterparts, Russian weapons are designed to kill, not to make money and, second, Russians understand warfare because they understand what war really is. This latest argument might look circular, but it is not: Russians are all acutely aware of what war really means and, crucially, they are actually willing to make personal sacrifices to either avoid or, at least, win wars. In contrast, US Americans have no experience of real warfare (that is warfare in defense of their own land, family and friends) at all. For US Americans warfare is killing the other guy in his own country, preferably from afar or above, while making a ton of money in the process. For Russians, warfare is simply about surviving at any and all cost. The difference couldn’t be greater.

The difference in weapons systems acquisition is also simple: since US wars never really put the people of the USA at risk, the consequences of developing under-performing weapons systems were never catastrophic. The profits made, however, were immense. Hence the kind of criminally overpriced and useless weapons system like the F-35, the Littoral Combat Ship or, of course, the fantastically expensive and no less fantastically vulnerable aircraft carriers. The Russian force planners had very different priorities: not only did they fully realize that the failure to produce an excellently performing weapons system could result in their country being devastated and occupied (not to mention their families and themselves either enslaved or killed), they also realized that they could never match the Pentagon in terms of spending. So what they did was to design comparatively much cheaper weapons systems which could destroy or render useless the output of the multi-trillion dollar US military-industrial complex. This is how Russian missiles made the entire US ABM program and the US carrier-centric Navy pretty much obsolete as well as how Russian air defenses turned putatively “invisible” US aircraft into targets or how Russian diesel-electric submarines are threatening US nuclear attack subs. All that at a tiny fraction of what the US taxpayer spends on “defense”. Here again, Martyanov gives plenty of detailed examples.

Martyanov’s book will deeply irritate and even outrage those for whom the US narcissistic culture of axiomatic superiority has become an integral part of their identity. But for everybody else this book is an absolute must-have because the future of our entire planet is at stake here: the question is not whether the US Empire is collapsing, but what the consequences of this collapse will be for our planet. Right now, the US military has turned into a “hollow force” which simply cannot perform its mission, especially since that mission is, as defined by US politicians, the control of the entire planet. There is a huge discrepancy between the perceived and the actual capabilities of the US military and the only way to bridge this gap are, of course, nuclear weapons. This is why the last chapter in the book is entitled “The Threat of a Massive American Military Miscalculation”. In this chapter, Martyanov names the real enemy of both the Russian and the American people – the US political elites and, especially, the Neocons: they are destroying the USA as a country and they are putting all of mankind at risk of nuclear annihilation.

The above summary does not do justice to Martyanov’s truly seminal book. I can only say that I consider this book as an absolutely indispensable “must read” for every person in the USA who loves his/her country and for every person who believes that wars, especially nuclear ones, must be avoided at all costs. Just like many others (I think of Paul Craig Roberts), Martyanov is warning us that “the day of reckoning is upon us” and that the risks of war are very real, even if for most of us such an event is also unthinkable. Those in the USA who consider themselves patriots should read this book with special attention, not only because it correctly identifies the main threat to the USA, but also because it explains in detail what circumstances have resulted in the current crisis. Waving (mostly Chinese made) US flags is simply not an option anymore, neither is looking away and pretending that none of this is real. Martynov’s book will also be especially interesting to those in the US armed forces who are observing the tremendous decline of US military power from inside. Who better than a former Soviet officer could not only explain, but also understand the mechanisms which have made such a decline possible?

You can also get both versions of the book (paper & electronic) here: http://claritypress.com/Martyanov.html

The book is also available on Amazon as a pre-order here: https://www.amazon.com/Losing-Military-Supremacy-American-Strategic/dp/0998694754/

It is scheduled to become available on September 1st.

Get at least one copy and give more to your friends!

—The Saker

 

 

 

ADDENDUM

Excerpt from the book's description—

While exceptionalism is not unique to America, the intensity of this conviction and its global ramifications are. This has led the US to grossly misinterpret―sometimes deliberately―the causative factors of key events of the past two centuries, reaching the wrong conclusions and learning very wrong lessons.

Nowhere has this been more manifest than in American military thought and its actual application of military power. Time after time the American military has failed to match lofty declarations about its superiority, producing instead a mediocre record of military accomplishments. Starting from the Korean War the United States hasn’t won a single war against a technologically inferior, but mentally tough enemy.  

BELOW: THE SPECTACLE THAT KEEPS HYPNOTISING AMERICANS.  

WORDS THAT CONVINCE AMERICANS—AND DOUBTLESS MANY IN THE NAVY ITSELF—OF THEIR SERVICE'S INVINCIBLE STATUS. NOTICE THAT SIZE AND QUANTITY IS THE MAIN AND SOLE CRITERION.

ArmedForcesUpdate

Published on Aug 12, 2014

 
A large US navy formation. The United States Navy (USN) is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. It was estimated to be larger than the next 13 largest navies combined in terms of battle fleet tonnage in 2009.[5][6] The U.S. Navy also has the world's largest aircraft carrier fleet, with ten in service, two under construction,[7] eight more planned, and two in active reserve. The service has 317,054 personnel on active duty and 109,671 in the Navy Reserve. It operates 290 ships in active service and more than 3,700 aircraft.

 

J Matson Heininger

Losing Military Supremacy, here are some thoughts gleaned from the book.

 
In this book, Martyanov explains how the United States military today is more show than substance, how we have not won a war in 70 years and how we are living in a fantasy land from the perspective of real power. He compares the United States today to the Russia of the 1990s, when all Russia had to defend itself was nukes. Martyanov praises the US nuclear submarines, but says the US navy is vulnerable, and that our money spent on carriers was a waste as aircraft carrier groups represent WW2 thinking and are no longer efficacious, as they can be destroyed by hypersonics before the carrier battle group gets close enough to threaten. He adds that Russia's new, less costly and quieter, diesel submarines (they have nuclear too) are a threat to US nuclear subs. Adding that our weapons are so complicated that they are not effective, are woefully high maintenance and not user-friendly without an immense amount of training. And that in cases, like stealth, we have chosen the wrong technologies, as stealth is no longer stealthy or applicable.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Incurable capitalist values like short-term thinking, corruption, and endless greed cannot serve as a foundation for true national defence, suggests Andrei Martyanov. A private defence industry ruled by a boardroom culture is a recipe for disaster, where profits, again, are put ahead of actual quality weapons and armies. And, of course, the US military must abandon its criminal imperialist mission and dedicate itself to protecting the American people, its only really legitimate role.

Martyanov notes that we remain a leading and powerful nation, but one that is trending to paper tiger… a house of cards that would lose a war with Russia or China (let alone combined!) unless we used our nuclear weapons.

After WW1 and WW2, the United States created a fable that our manufacturing won the war, more than fighting on the battlefield. We lost 500,000… the Russians lost soldier and civilian (if anyone can be called civilian in places like Stalingrad) over 27 million. 500,000 is a horror show lot, but nothing compared to 27 million. China suffered in WW2. Russia suffered in WW2. The United States experienced overseas soldier death and rationing. From this perspective, the American psyche is, by comparison, insufficient when applied to [the prospect of]  war.

Meanwhile, even if the US fable were true, today we have destroyed our manufacturing base. We cannot make enough fast enough to fight a real war against a real [peer] enemy. Martyanov explains a long sad list of money spent and money wasted, attributing this to bad choices, a lack of understanding of war and history, and to scams, and greed, and a ruling class of poorly educated elites with no science backgrounds, and a defense industry more about getting rich than defending the nation. There is much more… For knowledge and thought, I recommend the book!

ABOUT THE AUTHORS
J. Matson Heininger is a member of The Greanville Post's Facebook group. He also maintains a substack column HERE  ••

r in Bosnia I had heard the phrase "truth is the first casualty of war" but I had never imagined that this could be quite so literally true. Frankly, this war changed my entire life and resulted in a process of soul-searching which ended up pretty much changing my politics 180 degrees. This is a long and very painful story that I do not want to discuss here, but I just want to say that this difference between what I was reading in the press and in the UNPROFOR reports ended up making a huge difference in my entire life. Again, NOT A SINGLE ASPECT OF THE OFFICIAL NARRATIVE WAS TRUE, not one. You would get much closer to the truth if you basically did a 'negative' of the official narrative.”  Like The Greanville Post, with which it is now allied in his war against official disinformation, the Saker's site, VINEYARD OF THE SAKER, is the hub of an international network of sites devoted to fighting the "billion-dollar deception machinery" supporting the empire's wars against Russia, China, Iran, Syria, Venezuela and any other independent nation opposing or standing in the way of Washington's drive for global hegemony.  The Saker is published in more than half a dozen languages. A Saker is a very large falcon, native to Europe and Asia.

 

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Anyone Promoting Regime Change In Iran Is An Evil Piece Of Shit



horiz-long grey

HELP ENLIGHTEN YOUR FELLOWS. BE SURE TO PASS THIS ON. SURVIVAL DEPENDS ON IT.

I have been saying all year that the 8chan phenomenon known as “QAnon” is bogus, and as time has gone on the evidence has become overwhelming that it is an establishment psyop designed to herd the populist right into accepting the narratives and agendas of the establishment orthodoxy. Whether they’re claiming that every capitulation the Trump administration makes to longstanding neoconservative agendas is actually brilliant 4-D chess strategy, or saying that Julian Assange isn’t really trapped in the Ecuadorian embassy, QAnon enthusiasts are constantly regurgitating talking points which just so happen to fit in very conveniently with the interests of America’s defense and intelligence agencies.

A recent “Q drop” (a fancy name for an anonymous user posting text onto a popular internet troll message board with zero accountability) makes this more abundantly clear than ever, with text reading as follows:

Free Iran!!!
Fight
Fight
Fight
Regime change.
People have the power.
We stand with you.
Q

Once you’re cheering for a longtime neoconservative agenda to be accomplished in one of George W Bush’s “Axis of Evil” countries, you are cheering for the establishment. Or, to put it more clearly to Q followers, you are cheering for the deep state.

So now you have conspiracy-minded populist right wingers being manipulated into supporting the same standard Bush administration globalist agendas that Alex Jones built his career on attacking. The support for regime change interventionism in Iran isn’t limited to the QAnon crowd, having now gone fully mainstream throughout Trump’s base, and I’d like to address a few of the arguments here that they have been bringing to me:

“Iran is nowhere near the same thing as Iraq, Libya or Syria!”

Please go look at a globe and think a little harder about your position here. Iran is a target for regime change for the exact same reasons its neighbors Iraq and Syria have been; it occupies and extremely strategically significant location in an oil-rich region that the US-centralized empire wants full control of. Thinking this one is different because its government isn’t secular is the product of many years of Islamophobic propaganda; the plutocrats and their allied intelligence and defense agencies don’t care what religion sits on top of their oil, and Saudi Arabia proves it. Any argument made against Iranian theocracy could be made even more strongly against KSA theocracy, but you don’t see Sean Hannity advocating the overthrow of the Saudi royals, do you?

“But this regime change intervention would be completely different!”

No it wouldn’t. There has never been a US-led regime change intervention in the Middle East that wasn’t disastrous. Cheering for regime change interventionism in Iran is cheering for all the destabilization, chaos, terror, death, rape and slavery that always necessarily comes with such interventions. Wanting to inflict that upon the world is monstrous.

“This is different, though! This one is led by Trump! Look at all that he’s accomplished in North Korea!”

Okay, three things:

1. All that Trump has done with North Korea is take the very first step in the most rudimentary beginnings of peace talks. I fully support him in taking that step, but you can’t legitimately treat it as an “accomplishment” which proves that he is a strategic genius capable of facilitating the impossible task of non-disastrous regime change in Iran.

2. Even if Trump does help bring abiding peace to the Korean Peninsula, it won’t legitimize regime change interventionism in Iran. Hell, even if Trump gets North Korea to denuclearize (and he won’t), it still wouldn’t legitimize regime change interventionism in Iran. US-led regime change interventionism is always disastrous, especially in the easily destabilized geopolitical region of the Middle East.

3. Neocons are always wrong about foreign policy. Always. There’s no reason to believe Trump spearheading a longstanding neocon agenda would work out any better than Bush or any other neocon.

“Well what about the Iranians in Iran who want regime change?”

What about them? The fact that some Iranians want their government changed has nothing to do with you or your government. The Fox News and Washington Post pundits who keep pointing out the fact that Iran, like America, contains people who are unhappy with its current system of government are only ever trying to galvanize the west against Tehran. There’s no good reason for you to be acting as a pro bono CIA propagandist running around telling westerners how great it would be if the Mullahs were gone.

“Well I don’t want the US to intervene, I just want the Iranians to free themselves!”

Two things:

1. This administration is already currently engaged in regime change interventionism in Iran in the form of escalated CIA covert operations and harsh economic sanctions, and its involvement with Iranian terror cult MEK suggests it may run far deeper than that in a similar way to US involvement with extremist groups in Syria, Libya and Ukraine.

2. Why say anything, then? Ever stop to ask yourself why you’re always cheering for Iranians to overthrow their government? Why constantly cheerlead for something which requires zero western involvement? Whom does that help? Do you think Iranians don’t already know that America hates their government?

All you’re doing is helping to signal boost the pro-regime change propaganda that US defense and intelligence agencies have been seeding into American public consciousness for many years. Your “Yay, free Iran!” sentiments aren’t helping Iranians, they’re helping the western propagandists target western audiences. You’re just helping the public get more okay with any actions taken against the Iranian government, in exactly the same way Russiagaters help manufacture support for escalations against Russia.

 

Come on, people. Think harder. This one isn’t difficult. It’s not a random coincidence that you’re all being paced into supporting regime change in the final target named seventeen years ago in General Wesley Clark’s famous “seven countries in five years” list of neocon regime change agendas. The only thing that has changed is the face on the agenda.

Iran is not different from the other regime change targets of Iraq, Libya or Syria. Barack Obama served George W Bush’s third and fourth terms, and Donald Trump is serving his fifth. They were strong-armed in different ways by America’s unelected power establishment into advancing different regime change agendas depending on where their political support came from and public sentiment at the time, but it’s all been pointed at the exact same region for the exact same reasons.

Leave Iran alone. Leave the Iranian people alone. There is no legitimate reason for you to be cheering for regime change in Iran, and anyone who tells you otherwise is an evil piece of shit. Reject them.

____________________________

Internet censorship is getting pretty bad, so best way to keep seeing the stuff I publish is to get on the mailing list for my website, so you’ll get an email notification for everything I publish. My articles and podcasts are entirely reader and listener-funded, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking me on Facebook, following my antics on Twitter, checking out my podcast, throwing some money into my hat on Patreon or Paypal, or buying my book Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers.

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About the Author
 
Caitlin Johnstone is a brave journalist, political junkie, relentless feminist, champion of the 99 percent. And a powerful counter-propaganda tactician. 

 Creative Commons License  This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

horiz-long grey

Parting shot—a word from the editors
The Best Definition of Donald Trump We Have Found

In his zeal to prove to his antagonists in the War Party that he is as bloodthirsty as their champion, Hillary Clinton, and more manly than Barack Obama, Trump seems to have gone “play-crazy” -- acting like an unpredictable maniac in order to terrorize the Russians into forcing some kind of dramatic concessions from their Syrian allies, or risk Armageddon.However, the “play-crazy” gambit can only work when the leader is, in real life, a disciplined and intelligent actor, who knows precisely what actual boundaries must not be crossed. That ain’t Donald Trump -- a pitifully shallow and ill-disciplined man, emotionally handicapped by obscene privilege and cognitively crippled by white American chauvinism. By pushing Trump into a corner and demanding that he display his most bellicose self, or be ceaselessly mocked as a “puppet” and minion of Russia, a lesser power, the War Party and its media and clandestine services have created a perfect storm of mayhem that may consume us all.— Glen Ford, Editor in Chief, Black Agenda Report 

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