What We Have Become Accustomed To
Human beings are highly adaptable to new environments, and over time we tend to normalize the new reality so that we can psychologically deal with it. In the past few decades in the West, the colossal propaganda apparatus of the oligarchy has been working overtime to get us to normalize the new realities that it is forcing upon the general population. When people start to forget what they have lost, or such knowledge is lost between generations, the propaganda machine has won. Here are some of the things that are being rapidly normalized:
An Open & Ongoing Genocide
The “ceasefire” allowed the oligarchs to remove the genocide from the mainstream media space and allow it to rumble on more quietly through ongoing lower levels of violence combined with a controlled starvation of the population; together with a lack of access to adequate healthcare and even the most basic of medicines. Karen Kwiatkowski makes the case that over a million Gazans have already been murdered, and about one hundred thousand have left; half of the previous population living on one third of the land in a bombed out hell scape. As she puts it:
Gazans – now clustered within the 42 square miles remaining to them – are surveilled, shot, bombed, and forced to arbitrarily relocate here and there as the IDF detonates already bombed-out buildings. Gaza is today geographically half the size of Caribou, Maine or Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Two years ago, Gaza was recognized at 125 square miles, had several mid-sized Mediterranean cities, 2.3 million people and an agricultural and manufacturing economy, that despite Israeli micro-management and macro-aggression, provided food and goods for local and international markets. Today, no functional cities remain, the people are being starved to death, and I believe fewer than a million Gazans have survived the past two and a half years. From decades of mowing the grass in Gaza, Israel now bulldozes the corpses, hoping to ensure no life – or record of life – exists there.
All while the boundary of Gaza has been redrawn again and again until only perhaps 30% is left, the rest having been stolen by the Israelis. One is reminded of the long squeezing out of the Amerindians on the American “frontier”, but this one is happening at a much faster pace. The US oligarchy and its military are no strangers to genocide, from the “frontier”, to the Philippines, Indonesia and East Timor. And the Western media are no strangers to covering up the horrific acts of their governments and their proxies.
In Nazi Germany the leadership considered that it needed to hide the true depth of the depravity from the general population. In the Israel of today the general population revels in its depravity. Do we really think that this is going to end with Gaza? There is still the West Bank for the Israelis to practise genocide and ethnic cleansing, and southern Lebanon and southwestern Syria. The Nazis only stopped when they were forced to by defeat.
Kidnapping & Murder of Heads of State
In his first term, Trump had the Iranian second in command murdered, in his second term he went one better and murdered the Ayatollah himself. Then of course we have the kidnapping of the president of Venezuela. This is the Israeli version of foreign policy by murder, practised by them again and again, now fully operationalized by the US.
How can states negotiate with one another if in parallel to negotiations one of the states is planning the murder of the other state’s leaders, or perhaps even the negotiating team?
A 1930s March to War Redux
Western nations are pushing to spend 5% of GDP on war making while other needs are left unmet and social and other government services (e.g. environmental regulatory oversight) are cut back. For the Western nations, excluding the US, this is higher than their war spending during the height of the post-WW2 Cold War. The US will hit 5% of GDP next year if the administration’s proposed spending increase is approved, approaching the levels of the 1980s Reagan escalation against the Soviet Union.
All the while, a Western proxy war with Russia grinds on and the US this year launched a war of aggression against Iran. This includes the support of an openly fascist regime in Ukraine. The Western politicians are increasingly stirring the pot of war with escalating rhetoric about a Russian “threat” that does not actually exist. While the Japanese leadership rattles its katanas after throwing off the post-WW2 orientation toward peace. All very good for profits of course.
A New Robber Baron Period
Within the West there are levels of corporate concentration, oligopolies, corporate collusion, regulatory capture, state corruption and looting, and financial exploitation greater than that of the Robber Baron period. The president openly trading on insider information and the Supreme Court making it even easier for oligarchs to buy and control politicians. With an obscene concentration of wealth as the administration strives to make the poorest of the poor even poorer. An active impoverishment of the poorest sections of society, from Clinton’s getting rid of “welfare as we know it” to Trump’s cuts to Medicaid and SNAP.
In the US, the population has been lied to about the real level of inflation for three decades now as they are immiserated year after year while being told that their incomes are not falling in real terms. Such statistical manipulation had lead to the utter silliness of some claiming that the average inhabitant of US states like Alabama or Louisiana is better off than the average inhabitant of Europe or Canada! A recent analysis by the New York Times found that the math “no longer worked” even for the basics for a family of four earning US$130,000.
The reality is that the level of income and wealth inequality is perhaps greater than in the depths of the earlier Robber Baron period.
Mass Surveillance
Big Brother would be envious of the scale of mass surveillance that the state now has access to, from the vast trawling facilitated by the telephone companies, to the seemingly ever present cameras; now including the door bell and Flock camera systems. With private businesses such as Google and Microsoft working to capture our every key stroke online, and how much of that information really stays within those private businesses?
Mass Censorship
There have already been waves of demonetizing, de-platforming and even de-banking of those saying things unacceptable to the oligarchy. Intensified by the reaction of the ruling classes to those that dare to complain about the open genocide, with jobs and even educations lost. With the EU going one step further by sanctioning its own citizens.
Extreme Violence Against Citizens
A few years ago we already witnessed the brutality with which the “yellow vest” protestors were dealt with by the French state, intentionally under-reported by the establishment media. Now we can add to that the beatings and murders of US protestors by ICE, and the brutality of the German police toward anyone daring to openly support the Palestinians.
A Colossal US Carceral State
The US prison population has increased from 500,000 in the 1980s to 1.8 million in the 2020s while the US population only grew by 50%. This is several times higher than in other Western nation per capita, and is much more about social control and private profits than actual crime rates.
Being added to this now is a vast new predominantly non-criminal immigrant detention infrastructure, with a planned capacity of up to 100,000 (processing approximately 700,000 per year). Designed to scare immigrants into greater societal compliance and allow greater depths employer exploitation.
A Media Controlled by a Tiny Group of People
The Trump administration has allowed both Paramount and Warner Brothers Discovery to be purchased by the Zionist Ellison family which also holds a 15% share in the US version of TikTok (with a private equity firm and the UAE also having 15% stakes). One family controlling CBS, CNN and two major Hollywood film studios as well as having a say at TikTok US. With what used to be called Twitter owned by Elon Musk. Now an even tinier group of people control the media landscape.
The Wanton Ignorance of Impending Ecological Crises
As this years “Super” El Nino roils one part of the globe after another, politicians spend even less time talking about climate change and much more talking about war. All the while, insect populations crash and seas acidify.
These are only some of the things that have become normalized, which are so very different to a 1980s and 1990s that were only a few decades ago. This is a bi-partisan thing in the US, as the oligarchy controls both parties. The same in most other Western nations, as “democracy” is purely performative. The only major party that is not quite “on message” is the German AfD that is still opposed to the proxy war against Russia, while being fully behind Israel; although being against the attack on Iran. This shows a possible split in the German oligarchy (the AfD is an oligarch funded party) with at least a partial move away from US comprador status as the German manufacturing sector continues to decline in the face of higher energy costs, the loss of the Russian market and increased Chinese competition. It is only a chink though in the darkness that seems to be enveloping Germany, and the AfD is still a ready and willing fascist tool of the oligarchy.
The Western propaganda machine has also thankfully not been able to stop a very significant fall in support for Israel among the general population, as shown below. But this is but a small step when the country should be subject to a UN occupation and an enforced re-education on the scale of Germany post-WW2.
This is the new normal that the Western oligarchs want the general population to normalize, followed by further drives to snuff out any opposition as they increase their rates of exploitation. The change of sentiment against Israel provides some hope, but the oligarchs are already moving to sidestep that through embedding support for Israel deeply within the structure of the armed forces, and hidden within the security services.
The hope for the world resides outside the West, with the future dependent on the insight and calm decision-making of the nations of the Safe Asian Space; especially Russia, Iran and China.