Todd,
What Caitlin is absolutely spot-on correct about is not the points she's trying to make, though some are ancillary at least.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________-It is that the American Empire is not, as Walt and Mearsheimer have claimed, driven to what it does with respect to Israel by AIPAC or more specifically by "The Jewish Lobby". That is a convenient propaganda ploy. In fact, Israel is doing the Empire's bidding.Lindsay Graham let it slip out one day on the floor of the Senate. He said "If it were not for Israel's doing all the killing in the Middle East, we [the U.S.] would have to do it..."The Senator, reprehensible as he is, is so far the only one telling the truth. The Empire uses Israel to do its bidding. AIPAC or the Jewish Lobby, is a subterfuge, a very effective one.lw
On Dec 30, 2024, at 9:04 AM, Todd Pierce <todd.e.pierce@icloud.com> wrote:My apologies for my quickly written, typo filled, criticism of David Stockman just now, but this is to finish this sentence:"But this stands as incontrovertible evidence that one should never believe an economist writing history, especially a libertarian economist, and more particularly, one published on LewRockwell.com, a notorious purveyor of false information, doing more harm ultimately to the antiwar cause, by lending legitimacy to the U.S. allies of the Israeli fascists most ideologically committed to, and leaders of, Israeli genocide currently underway in high gear, Trump's/Vance's National Conservatives."My only criticism of Johnstone's article below is that like those ignoramuses who continue to call "Israel Firsters" and the "War Party," NeoCons, while omitting the openly fascist, mostly non-Jewish, National Conservatives from discussion, Johnstone too is living in the past, with this statement:
It is not a coincidence that the tendency to blame all society’s ills on the Jews is much more prevalent on the far right than anywhere else.
The "far right" of today, the New Right, as Post-Liberals, National Conservatives, Trump's Traditional Conservatives, and Libertarians of the Koch Network and its subsidiary media platforms, are fully intertwined with the Israeli fascists, as Trump/Vance, and their promoters are openly part of the Israeli Fascist Coalition, as Miriam Adelson and Donald Trump celebrated as part of his campaign. They "own" this genocide more than anyone else in the U.S., even more than Biden's Goldwater Democrats and Republican NeoCons, with Trump's/Vance's continuous "Incitement of Genocide" and denunciations of Biden (Wilson) for "not doing enough" to support the genocide (get us into WW I). Same repetitious theme of Republicans from WW I: kill more, faster!Saying that not as a Democrat partisan, or to defend Democrats, but as a historian concerned with historical reality, as we all should be!Begin forwarded message:From: Caitlin Johnstone from Caitlin’s Newsletter <caitlinjohnstone@substack.com>Subject: All Of Western Civilization Owns This GenocideDate: December 30, 2024 at 2:55:01 AM GMT+1To: todd.e.pierce@icloud.comReply-To: Caitlin Johnstone from Caitlin’s Newsletter <reply+2jk3l2&28x6gk&&fdfd039f1417444421ab9f5760b668982fb686116092cc7e1d9164367b43436a@mg1.substack.com>
Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley):
It’s wrong to blame the Gaza genocide on Jews. It isn’t wrong because antisemitism is a major danger in our society (it’s not), nor because there’s a risk that people will start loading Jews onto trains again (there isn’t), nor because Jewish Israelis and their supporters are blameless (they obviously are not).
It’s wrong to blame this whole thing on Jews because it lets the rest of us off the hook.
This is our genocide. This is our crime. To blame it all on the Jews is to say that our society is perfectly fine and healthy and that none of this would be happening if not for the Machiavellian manipulations of a small Abrahamic religion. It’s to deny the reality that the middle east is on fire right now because of everything this perverse civilization is and always has been.
It is not a coincidence that the tendency to blame all society’s ills on the Jews is much more prevalent on the far right than anywhere else. Rightists are ideologically inhibited from seeing western civilization as a uniquely pernicious blight on this world, and from seeing capitalism and imperialism as the driving force behind the injustices and abuses it inflicts. If you have an ideological need to view all those things as fine and good, then you need to come up with some other explanation for why everything is shitty and evil. So they buy into this infantile narrative that western civilization would be just peachy if it weren’t for those darn Jews.
But western civilization is not peachy. It is a profoundly sick dystopia built by genocide and slavery and fueled by human blood. This would be true with or without Israel, and with or without Judaism.
The genocide in Gaza is happening because the western empire wants it to happen. Biden could have ended this with a phone call at any time. Our leaders are not being reluctantly pushed into this. They’re slaughtering innocent human beings as casually as they slaughtered them in past western military interventions which had nothing to do with Israel, and for the same reasons.
The western empire is constantly working to bludgeon the world into obedience and submission, aggressively targeting any population which insists on its own sovereignty. We’ve seen it in Latin America, we’ve seen it throughout Europe and Asia, we’ve seen it in Africa, and we’ve seen it in the middle east in the same way. Israel is a member state of the western empire and plays a pivotal role in helping to beat down disobedient populations like Iran, Ansar Allah, Hezbollah and Hamas who don’t submit to the will of the empire. I used to list Syria among those who stand against the empire, but the west and Israel have succeeded in smashing it down and absorbing it into the imperial blob.
The empire uses Zionism as one of many tools for enacting its will in the middle east, but if it wasn’t Zionism it would be something else. The violence would play out in different ways under different narratives, but there would still be a continuous violent bludgeoning of disobedient populations in this crucial strategic region which is rich in resources and critical trade routes.
This is just what we are as a civilization. A murderous, thieving, tyrannical empire constantly bullying and abusing the earth’s population into obedience and submission. Some people try to make Jews into the problem because they don’t want to face reality. And the reality is that the problem is us.
Look at Gaza. Really look at it. Watch the videos. Listen to the screams. Read the harrowing stories. This is who we are. This is what we have become. Not because of the Jews. Because of us. The sooner we own this, the sooner we can move toward healing all the entirely home-grown illnesses within us which gave rise to it. And the sooner we can start becoming something better.
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