WARMONGERING FOOLS

P. GREANVILLE—Let’s get something straight: As Jimmy and Glenn discuss in these video chats, the rise of Internet censorship was initiated by the Democrats and their media shills—in their effort to protect the corporate plutocracy they serve—and not so much by the social media owners themselves,  despite the latter’s well known libertarian positions. The corporate media—notes Glenn—have now literally a legion of trolls patrolling the Internet, their chief task being to call out, shame and denounce genuine progressive voices, wherever they may be found fighting in defense of peace, the rights of oppressed peoples such as Palestinians, or to expose the fake politics and news disseminated by the establishment journos engaged in silencing true dissenting speech. To repeat: This cynical plague exists in all mainstream media now, from the august corridors of the New York Times and CBS, NBC, etc., to CNN, MSNBC, NPR, VOX and the rest of the so-called “respectable media”. 

KIM PETERSEN—Is China a paragon of virtue? No. And the US is no paragon of good either. Illegal claims? Do settler-colonialists have a legitimate legal claim to the landmass of the US? To the Hawaiian islands? To Puerto Rico? To Guam? Where is the evidence that US corporations were co-opted or coerced by the Chinese? One hears such claims over and over but never with evidence. Why? Because entry to the Chinese market was conditioned on access to technology, a decision that US corporations could have refused. This is not coercion. That a former CIA head speaks of dens of spies is risible.

MoA—The Democratic White House team Escobar describes (Clinton, Blinken, Rice, Flournoy) would be an assembly of well known war mongers who all argue for hawkish policies. The main ‘enemies’, Russia and China, would be the same as under Trump. Syria, Venezuela, Iran and others would stay on the U.S. target list. U.S. foreign policy would thereby hardly change from Trump’s version but would probably be handled with more deadly competence.

CAITLIN JOHNSTONE—And now the complex cold war escalations he kept urgently warning us about have become even more complex with the addition of nuclear-armed China to the multiple fronts the US-centralized empire has been plate-spinning its brinkmanship upon, and it is clear from the ramping up of anti-China propaganda since last year that we are being prepped for those aggressions to continue to increase. We should heed the dire warnings that Cohen spent his last breaths issuing. We should demand a walk-back of these insane imperialist aggressions which benefit nobody and call for détente with Russia and China. We should begin creating an opposition to this world-threatening flirtation with armageddon before it is too late. Every life on this planet may well depend on our doing so. Stephen Cohen is dead, and we are marching toward the death of everything. God help us all.

PATRICK ARMSTRONG—One cannot avoid asking when did the USA last win a war. You can argue about what “win” looks like but there’s no argument about a surrender ceremony in the enemy’s capital, whether Tokyo Bay or Berlin. That is victory. Helicopters off the Embassy roof is not, pool parties in a U.S. Embassy is not, “Black Hawk down” is not. Doubling the USSR’s record in Afghanistan is not. Restoring the status quo ante in Korea is not defeat exactly, but it’s pretty far from what MacArthur expected when he moved on the Yalu. When did the USA last win a war? And none of the post-1945 wars have been against first-class opponents.