Pay For Your Own Wars, Big Oil!

 

Pay For Your Own Wars, Big Oil!

by C.A. Matthews

Did you get a chance to read Pulitzer Prize-winner Seymour Hersh’s excellent exposé on who and how and when the Nord Stream LNG pipelines were blown up? If you haven’t read his article yet, you really owe it to yourself to do so now. Go on, click on the blue link. We’ll wait. 

Here’s a quick excerpt from it for those in a rush:

Last June, the Navy divers, operating under the cover of a widely publicized mid-summer NATO exercise known as BALTOPS22, planted the remotely triggered explosives that, three months later, destroyed three of the four Nord Stream pipelines, according to a source with direct knowledge of the operational planning.

Two of the pipelines, which were known collectively as Nord Stream 1, had been providing Germany and much of Western Europe with cheap Russian natural gas for more than a decade. A second pair of pipelines, called Nord Stream 2, had been built but were not yet operational. (…)

Biden’s decision to sabotage the pipelines came after more than nine months of highly secret back and forth debate inside Washington’s national security community about how to best achieve that goal. For much of that time, the issue was not whether to do the mission, but how to get it done with no overt clue as to who was responsible. – Seymour Hersch, How America Took Out the Nord Stream Pipeline

And for clarification, in case you've come across persons attempting to besmirch Mr. Hersh’s distinguished career:

[Hersh] went to Vietnam and covered the war as a freelance reporter. In 1969, he heard about an Army lieutenant, William Calley, who had been secretly court martialed for his role in a massacre of Vietnamese civilians, and, after investigating it as a freelance reporter, he broke the news of what became widely known as the My Lai massacre, in which he wrote, “The Army says Lieutenant Calley deliberately murdered at least 109 Vietnamese civilians during a search and destroy mission in March 1968, in a Viet Cong stronghold known as Painesville.” Hersh 's story was picked up by 33 newspapers through the wire service. He was working as a freelance reporter when he revealed that. 

That incident took place in March 1968. It involved the deliberate killing by company Sea First Battalion, 20th Infantry, of South Vietnamese civilians. The U.S. Army originally denied all of his claims, insisting that they were all made up and were all fiction but they ultimately ended up admitting most of his revelations, including the fact that Lieutenant Calley was convicted of murder of 22 civilians and was sentenced to life in prison, though he was pardoned in 1974. For that reporting, which prompted not mean tweets, but threats of all kinds of violence from many serious sectors, Hersh won the 1970 Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting.—Glenn Greenwald, Who Blew Up the Nord Stream Pipeline? System Update #39 (February 10, 2023)

Seymour Hersh is one of the most highly respected journalists in the world. He won the Pulitzer Prize, the top award in Western journalism, for his reporting on US war crimes in Vietnam.

He has spent decades building up sources inside the US government. Hersh has also earned accolades for exposing US atrocities and cover-ups targeting Iraq, Iran, and Syria. —Ben Norton, US blew up Nord Stream pipelines connecting Russia to Germany, journalist Seymour Hersh reports

Things are making a whole lot more sense now—at least they should to those who have been watching and/or reading mainstream media outlets and fell for the “Russia blew up its own pipeline!” nonsense. The rest of us who regularly follow independent journalists online and nurse a healthy sense of skepticism toward anything coming out of the mouths of US government spokespersons weren’t surprised at all by Hersh’s reporting. But I realize that there is still a lot of head scratching in the “Vote Blue No Matter Who” crowd. Some of these heavily propagandized folks are willing to admit that they couldn’t fathom why any country would destroy its own profitable pipeline, even if they are ruled by “Bad Man (not Orange) Putin,” a man portrayed in the mainstream media as a combination of Trump and Stalin.

The most surprising thing to me in Hersh's article was the Norwegians’ uncontained enthusiasm for the sabotage plan. They were happy to go along with planting the concrete-covered C4 explosives on the Nord Stream liquefied natural gas (LNG) pipelines. No one had to twist the Norwegians’ arms to drop the sea buoy that boosted the signal from the US to detonate the bombs three months after they were planted. The bombs then exploded and destroyed three out of four of the pipelines. (Hey, nobody’s perfect, and the surviving pipeline has since been turned off. Mission accomplished!)

I wonder if the Norwegians realized that by helping the United States destroy property belonging to oil companies from the EU, Germany, France, and several others (49%), and Russia (51%) that they were, to all intents and purposes, participating in an act of war. Think about it. Blowing up a liquefied natural gas pipeline that doesn’t belong to you is a very aggressive act. It’s not something one country should do to another without expecting to experience some serious consequences in return.

In the past, as soon as one country discovered their property had been destroyed by another country, a call for war was issued and fighting ensued. Perhaps we should count ourselves lucky that nowadays the Big Oil companies sit down at the boardroom table and discuss how they’ll proceed from this point onward before they come to blows.

Big Oil companies? Did you actually think I meant to type “the US, Germany, Russia, and Norway need to sit down and talk things over” in regard to blowing up the Nord Stream pipelines? No, I meant to type Big Oil, and you'll see why in a moment.

We’re intelligent adults here, so I feel I can speak frankly with you about this matter. We both know that the US government wasn't ultimately in charge of this pipeline sabotage operation. Oh no. Whenever human beings are discussing anything to do with the largest multinational corporations on the planet like Big Oil, we have to admit that they, the corporations, are the ones exercising all the power. Simply put, it is the corporations who are calling all the shots. Big Oil is our ultimate ruler.

In short, Joe Biden wasn’t the first to express a long-held desire to blow up Russia's profitable LNG pipeline. It was the Western Big Oil companies that have wanted the Nord Stream put out of commission for some time now. Chevron signed a deal and made some comments about cornering the market in Ukraine’s fossil fuel industry back in 2013, right before the US overthrew Ukraine's popularly elected president, Viktor Vanukovych, in the Maidan Coup of 2014. Unfortunately for Mr. Vanukovych, he expressed an interest in doing business with a Russian oil company over Chevron, a US oil company. (Interesting coincidence, the timing of the Maidan Coup, don’t you think? Well, it did get then Vice President Biden's son, Hunter Biden, a cushy job at Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company. Nothing to see here, move along, please.)

 Investigative journalist Ben Norton points out:

Just hours after Nord Stream was sabotaged, NATO members Norway, Denmark, and Poland announced the official opening of a new natural gas pipeline, the Baltic Pipe. (...)

Since the Nord Stream pipelines were blown up, Norway has replaced Russia as Europe’s largest supplier of pipeline gas.

Norwegian gas shipments to Germany in particular have reached record highs. In 2021, Norway had provided Germany with less then 20% of its gas supply. By 2022, that figure had shot up to 33%.

Meanwhile, the United States has also become the world’s largest liquified natural gas (LNG) exporter (tied with Qatar).

European imports made up the “lion’s share” of US LNG exports in 2022, quickly replacing Asia as the new top market.  —US blew up Nord Stream pipelines connecting Russia to Germany, journalist Seymour Hersh reports

Putting competitor oil corporations and pipelines out of business is how capitalism works. You didn’t think it was all about “sharing the market” and “friendly competition” among these mega-billion dollar corporations, did you? Competition is for suckers! Building a monopoly in a commodity market is where it’s at in the sick and twisted socioeconomic system of capitalism.

 Getting rid of your competitors forever is a good enough reason to have your favorite puppet government sabotage and blow up an LNG pipeline and risk a nuclear war by doing so. These psychopathic/sociopathic Big Oil CEOs don't seem to worry very much about the fate of humanity. If they ever did, would they have covered up fossil fuel's part in causing greenhouse gases and exacerbating the climate catastrophe for the past half century?

Helping out your fellow CEOs at Raytheon, General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin, and the rest of the military-industrial complex to make mega-profits is a good idea, too. Military equipment uses a lot of fossil fuels to run and be maintained. So helping them sell more and more armaments will help Big Oil's bottom line. And it's always a great idea to cooperate with the War Machine, that is, if we haven’t nuked the entire planet into a cinder before then.

Trillions of dollars in profit for Big Oil CEOs and their shareholders is worth the political fall out from causing what could be the largest methane leak in human history. (You didn't think blowing up the Nord Stream wouldn't have a massive environmental impact, did you?) Really, it was worth it. It’s not like the oil companies themselves deal much with the press, the irate public, the environment, and the maligned pipeline owners. That’s what their bought-off politician-puppets are for. 

That’s right. That’s why Big Oil lobbyists give so much money to politicians worldwide. Politicians are tasked with creating the circumstances where capitalists can do what capitalists do best: Create monopolies and make themselves evermore increasing profits. And if it takes a war and causing an environmental disaster... then so be it.

As the great Ralph Nader says:

No other institutions consistently Rule over as Much in the World as the Giant Global Corporations – not governments, not armies, not religions and certainly not trade unions. These fictional corporate entities have largely achieved transcendent imperial status, as they amass coordinated control over capital, labor, technology and governments because they have secured the rights bestowed upon human beings. In a confrontation or a conflict or even a contract, it is no contest: mere people don’t have a chance.

As Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis warned in 1933, we have created a “Frankenstein monster” in our midst, whose unifying lust for power and control on behalf of their profits know few limits. From How to Rescue Our Democratic Society: Constitutionally Render Corporations Unequal to Humans

I’ll venture to say that Big Oil knows zero limits on their power. These avaricious corporations dictate both domestic and foreign policy for the US government. And our paid-for politician-puppets obediently do as they're told.

There was never any question about who blew up the Nord Stream pipelines. The half-owners, Gazprom of Russia, could have just turned off a valve on the pipeline and shut it down. There was no need for them to waste expensive and dangerous explosives to stop the flow of liquefied natural gas. Any rational adult could reason that the Russians had no motive to blow up the Nord Stream. It was highly profitable. Only the owners of the new Baltic Pipe (built by Poland, Denmark, and Norway) and the US-aligned oil companies had the motive. And they're all making money hand over fist, charging four times last year's cost for LNG to heat homes in Europe.

Their motive here is greed, pure and simple—the greed of the US and EU oil companies who didn't like cheap Russian natural gas flooding the market. And who suffers? Just the people in both the Europe and the US this winter who can't afford to heat their homes. Just the people of Ukraine caught in the middle of a shooting match. Nobody really in the eyes of the multinational corporations.

It's the greedy oil corporations who are the "bad guys” in this story. They ordered their puppet, the US government, to destroy a pipeline belonging to Russia, a fellow nuclear power. The saddest thing is that sabotaging another country's pipeline (or even shooting down another country's weather balloons) could lead to a grave misunderstanding, spark World War III, and get us all killed.

You know what? Big Oil can pay for its own wars from now on. They can afford it—they make trillions of dollars in profits, and it doesn’t look like they’ll be without money anytime soon. Since they are so good at buying politicians, they can go ahead and buy mercenaries (which make up a good percentage of those fighting for Ukraine currently) to do the warring for them. Better yet, let’s tell Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk to use their private spaceships to transport all the CEOS and their mercenaries to the moon or Mars where they can fight over who gets to rule the LNG market without interruptions. We’ll all be much safer and happier here on Earth if none of them ever come back.

 

Related Links:

How America Took Out The Nord Stream Pipeline
https://seymourhersh.substack.com/p/how-america-took-out-the-nord-stream

US blew up Nord Stream pipelines connecting Russia to Germany, journalist Seymour Hersh reports
https://geopoliticaleconomy.com/2023/02/08/us-nord-stream-pipelines-seymour-hersh/

My Sources Corroborate Sy Hersh's Nord Stream Report
https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/my-sources-corroborate-sy-hershs

Seymour Hersh’s exposure of the Nord Stream bombing: A lesson and a warning https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/02/10/pers-f10.html

Sen. Mike Lee ‘Can’t Rule Out’ That the US Blew Up Nord Stream
https://scheerpost.com/2023/02/10/sen-mike-lee-cant-rule-out-that-the-us-blew-up-nord-stream/

Glenn Greenwald: Who Blew Up the Nord Stream Pipeline? System Update #39 (February 10, 2023)

INSANE: US Confirmed to Be Behind Nordstream Pipeline Attacks: Seymour Hersh  https://www.youtube.com/live/DUwfPWJQ7Pc

Nord Stream pipeline & sabotaging peace w/Jeffrey Sachs
https://www.youtube.com/live/ySNyAaw4VEI

Here's How US Blew Up Nordstream Pipeline (NEW PROOF)
https://rumble.com/v28vpee-heres-how-us-blew-up-nordstream-pipeline-new-proof.html

Seymour Hersh reveals how the US blew up Nord Stream 2 https://mate.substack.com/p/seymour-hersh-reveals-how-the-us

How The United States Took Out The Nord Stream Pipeline https://youtu.be/A68z2iQHUhE

Sy Hersh and the Way We Live Now https://popularresistance.org/sy-hersh-the-way-we-live-now/

Ukraine Signs $10 Billion Shale Gas Deal with Chevron https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ukraine-chevron/ukraine-signs-10-billion-shale-gas-deal-with-chevron-idUSBRE9A40ML20131105

Sitting in the Dock at the Hague (Ukraine War Series) https://bernie2016.blogspot.com/2022/03/sitting-in-dock-at-hague.html 

Biden covers up plans for US shooting war against Russia in State of the Union address https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/02/09/pers-f09.html

How to Rescue Our Democratic Society: Constitutionally Render Corporations Unequal to Humans https://scheerpost.com/2023/02/11/how-to-rescue-our-democratic-society-constitutionally-render-corporations-unequal-to-humans/

How A Pipeline Company Paid Minnesota Millions To Police Protests https://popularresistance.org/how-a-pipeline-company-paid-minnesota-millions-to-police-protests/

Zelensky Admits He Refused to Implement Minsk Peace Deal https://popularresistance.org/zelensky-admits-he-refused-to-implement-minsk

Former Israeli PM Bennett Says US ‘Blocked’ His Attempts at a Russia-Ukraine Peace Deal https://scheerpost.com/2023/02/08/former-israeli-pm-bennett-says-us-blocked-his-attempts-at-a-russia-ukraine-peace-deal/

Why Are We Repeating History? https://continuousrev.blogspot.com/2023/02/why-are-we-repeating-history.html

Seen on Twitter:

According to the US Navy Underwater Destruction Team, the Nord Stream Pipeline committed suicide when the prison guards fell asleep.
(Pic: "Explosive Ordnance Disposal Mobile Unit (EODMU) 8, prepares mock explosives😂 for a pierside training event")https://t.co/ATwZRUaYd8

— Andy Seaward (@Beatle_Ed1) February 9, 2023

Eat The Rich, Feed The Poor (And Other Revolutionary Recipes)

 

"When the people shall have no more to eat, they will eat the rich." —Jean Jacques Rousseau, 1793

Eat The Rich, Feed The Poor (And Other Revolutionary Recipes)

by Redd Phlagg

So many depressing headlines hit my inbox this past week that they not only made my head spin, they made my entire worldview spin. It became ever more apparent to me that we can no longer afford to wait for the bought-off ruling establishment to take action to save our planet and its peoples. It's time. We the Workers, the little people, the 99% must get off our backsides and grab the reigns of our runaway climate catastrophe and social collapse before it's too late.

Americans need to feed our poor, tax our rich, and make certain that the narcissistic behavior that got us in these desperate straits in the first place doesn't ever return. We need to stop allowing ourselves to become distracted by the silly antics of the duopolists in DC who do only as they're told by their corporate masters. And we need to start yesterday.

A recent study found that 338,000 Americans died due to COVID-19 because our government couldn't take steps to implement Medicare For All or a similar universal single-payer system to provide them needed health care. That's one in every three of the one million plus Americans who contracted and died from the coronavirus and its variants. That's roughly the population of many medium-sized US metropolitan areas, including the one where I live, all gone. Needlessly.

COVID-19 has caused a million and counting deaths in the US. Since these deaths are spread across the country, you might not have noticed so many missing persons yourself but future generations most definitely will. American children will ask what happened to their parents, grandparents, cousins, aunts, uncles, teachers, friends, babysitters, and even siblings as they grow up. What will we tell them?

Out of the one million plus Americans who have died since 2020 because of the pandemic, what percentage of them could have been saved? If the public's health and safety were the main priority of the ruling establishment rather than making profits for shareholders in the health insurance industry, Big Pharma, and the like how many could have lived? I feel that almost every American who caught COVID could have been saved if they could have received immediate treatment, free of charge, and weren't forced into situations that put their health at risk. There was no scientific reason to stop the lockdowns and force workers back out into low-paying service industry jobs (such as restaurant workers and hotel maids) so soon. In doing so, the politician-puppets of the oligarchy also forced these struggling workers' children back into daycares and public schools where the virus is extremely transmissible and proven deadly for teachers and students alike.

Universal Basic Income (UBI) could have been given to all American families to stay home and stay safe with their children until the virus died out. In countries that implemented such policies, the spread of COVID and its variants was much less, and their death tolls practically non-existent. Putting people over profits means that people win at least another day to live.

But, once again, the establishment duopoly sat on their backsides in Washington DC and moaned about how keeping people safe at home was hurting "the economy." They said this with a straight face while spending billions on the most bloated military budget ever passed in the history of humankind. They continued saying this while starting a proxy war to flush even more money down the drain so they could get rid of a natural gas competitor in Europe (i.e., Russia). No matter what label they give themselves--Republican, Democrat, "The Squad", Bernie Sanders even--these politician-puppets demonstrate by their actions that the profits of the military-industrial complex are infinitely more important than the lives of the vast majority of Americans.

Insult upon insult is dumped upon the poor and working classes' shoulders. We're forced to suffer the consequences of the duopolists' bad decisions to take on a fellow nuclear power with oil reserves and resources the Western powers envy. We're paying for it every day at the gasoline pump, grocery store, and pharmacy. But to "red and blue" alike it's okay if the working classes grow poorer trying to survive because… well, "democracy" is at stake. Democracy in an already corrupt corner of the world ruled by fascists who took over in a coup in 2014 with the help of our CIA? What larks!

Why do We The People, the working classes continue putting up with this disgusting behavior? Why are these millionaire-idiots still in office wearing smug smiles on their faces? Could it be they've militarized our local police departments to such an extent that they know they can keep us poor folks in our place if we rise up?

I realize now that not every American realizes who is putting them through each and every fresh hell because our freedom of the press has been seriously curtailed. Revealing the dirty secrets of American war crimes put one Australian journalist, Julian Assange, into jail with a threatened 170 year sentence for treason. Yes, it's treasonous to publish news stories that reveal American politicians and officials for the war criminals they are. And if the war criminals in DC can slap an insane charge of treason on a journalist doing his job, you can imagine the charges they've cooked up to slap on us if we dare take our pitchforks to the streets in protest.

 When the French rose up at the end of the 18th century to protest numerous injustices inflicted upon them, they didn't let the fear of the militarized police stop them from punishing the aristocracy who had created the hell they were living in. Marie Antoinette said, "Let them eat cake!" while the French people couldn't even afford to buy a loaf of bread. (Sound familiar?) The commoners responded with the right idea--they built the guillotine and deployed it. Yes, it's bloody and violent, but the detached head of a obscenely wealthy sociopath made their point quite well, don't you think?

Should struggling Americans do likewise? The guillotine dispatched quite a few members of the French establishment along with Marie Antoinette, but it saved many more who saw it as a symbol of how the workers wouldn't take any more shit from those who thought themselves "superior" to the working classes. These smart aristocrats buckled down and cooperated with the common folks, and France was changed. So the guillotine doesn't have to be used indiscriminately and widely to make its point. Just the thought that the abused people have no problems getting rid of their abusers can bring about change.

It's time for Americans to let the money-grubbing, duopolistic puppet-politicians know that our patience is wearing thin. It's time to stop wasting time arguing over "the lesser evil" and being distracted by their idle rich antics that have nothing to do with us and our lives. Whatever symbol We The People choose--the guillotine, the pitchfork, tar and feathers (our founders' favorite means of singling out sociopaths)--we need to post it everywhere. We need to post it along with the message that we are not inferior to those who hoard wealth and play God with our health and safety--and the health and safety of the planet and everyone else on it.

We The People, the workers, the commoners, the 99% are, in fact, their bosses. They need to do what we say or else. And we let them know in no uncertain terms they're going to be a head shorter if they don't.

Related Articles:

UN Food Chief Says Hell on Earth Looms From Hunger Crisis Triggered By Ukraine War  https://scheerpost.com/2022/06/18/un-food-chief-says-hell-on-earth-looms-from-hunger-crisis-triggered-by-ukraine-war/

"A Chilling Message to Journalists": UK Approves Assange Extradition to US https://truthout.org/articles/a-chilling-message-to-journalists-uk-approves-assange-extradition-to-us/

Medicare For All Could Have Prevented 338,000 Deaths in the US https://truthout.org/articles/medicare-for-all-could-have-prevented-338000-covid-deaths-in-the-us/

100 Million People In America Are Saddled With Health Care Debt https://popularresistance.org/100-million-people-in-america-are-saddled-with-health-care-debt/

"No Place For A Child" (The horrors child immigrants experience when they cross the southern border.) https://scheerpost.com/2022/06/18/no-place-for-a-child/

  "Revolting": Senate Panel Raises Biden's Bloated Military Budget By 45 Billion https://truthout.org/articles/revolting-senate-panel-raises-bidens-bloated-military-budget-by-45-billion/

US Secretly Reviews and Approves Israeli Airstrikes in Syria https://scheerpost.com/2022/06/17/report-us-secretly-reviews-and-approves-many-israeli-airstrikes-in-syria 

Chris Hedges: American Empire Is Finished (video) https://youtu.be/OW52qqlQiJQ 

The State of Politics From An Anti-Establishment Perspective (Direct Left Callin podcast) https://www.callin.com/episode/the-state-of-politics-from-an-anti-gQcWTfYQHQ

The Smear Campaign Against Independent Journalism (video) https://youtu.be/nkoIfWt4Z2k

New Global Movement Against Capitalism For Socialism https://popularresistance.org/international-peoples-assembly-new-global-movement-against-capitalism-for-socialism/

Seen on Twitter:

Trump didn't save shit. Biden isn't going to save shit. Wake up already.

— Brutal Regime Apocalyptic Dreams (@brutal_regime) June 18, 2022

Capitalism's instability hits us. Over centuries, crashes and inflations follow each other. No reforms, monetary or fiscal policies ever ended them. System change: now we need it more than ever.

— Richard D. Wolff (@profwolff) June 18, 2022

Some of the most dangerous and corrupt organizations in the world, like the DOD, the CDC, the IMF, the World Bank, the CIA and the FBI are hailed as pillars of safety and justice.

War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.

— Just.A.Thought 💭 (@e_galv) June 18, 2022

Governments will do anything to preserve themselves in power.

— Just a communist who lives in Outer Space (@LizzieCosmos) June 18, 2022

We're cutting school lunches while expanding the military budget.

Make it make sense. https://t.co/VrKNEhBW2e

— Peter Daou (@peterdaou) June 18, 2022

This is the United States without any embargoes or sanctions. pic.twitter.com/7PaBEM9fQK

— 🅹🅾️🅴🆈աrecκ ☭ (@joeywreck) June 16, 2022

Poverty wages are violence.

— Communist Special Agent Dana Scully (@CommunistScully) June 19, 2022

*** 

In a near-future dystopian world, hope blossoms where mutual aid and democracy begins...

Zonta’s world is turned upside down when Jake arrives at the commune to investigate the disappearance of agents of the Authority. Can she persuade him to switch sides before the Protectors (antifascist fighters) take action?

Available now from Extasy Books: https://www.extasybooks.com/Where-the-Bodies-Lie 

Please buy direct from the small publisher and not via Amazon. Why? Amazon takes a huge percentage of the book's price and leaves very little for the publisher and author to share. Thanks.

 

Brother, Can You Spare $7 Billion?

Brother, Can You Spare $7 Billion?

by Coast Watcher

Once they sent some missiles to Ukraine
Thanks to the folks on the Hill
Once they sent some missiles, now we're done
Brother, can you spare seven bill'?

Joe Biden’s continuing in office as POTUS is verging on elder abuse.

His performances during press conferences lack coherence. How can anyone not see his advancing senility? Neoliberal attempts to explain away his decrepit behavior as a "speech impediment" are failing in credence.

Knowing this man has control over nuclear weapons makes thinking people uncomfortable, especially since NATO seems determined to provoke Vladimir Putin by expanding up to Russia’s border. Putin has warned what will happen if NATO does so, yet we see Sweden and Finland proposing to join the outdated Cold War organization. Putin has also warned that shipments of military gear to Ukraine by Western powers will be considered legitimate targets of war, yet those shipments continue at an incredible rate.

This US proxy war in Ukraine is merely the latest example of how this senile president is still useful to the oligarchy. The US government is funneling literally billions of dollars into Ukraine—one of the most corrupt countries on Earth according to the Panama Papers—to prop up its failing war effort against Russia. Most of those billions pass through the coffers of the military-industrial complex to the complete satisfaction of their boards of directors and shareholders. 

And why? Supposedly so the West can utterly destroy the Russian economy and grab their resources and then move on to conquer the King of Global Capitalism, a.k.a. China. Nothing new there.

It’s not only Biden’s decline in cognitive function that’s concerning people. He's sending $33 billion to Ukraine so the folks there can “have something in their pockets.” Fortunately for the Ukrainians, they already enjoy universal healthcare while many US citizens have to make do with GoFundMe.  

You have to give it to the Democrat Party--there’s no pretense made that Biden is working for the good of ordinary Americans. $33 billion could end many injustices that Americans suffer with a stroke of the president's pen. He could easily end student loan debt, institute Medicare For All, send out stimulus checks or start UBI. It's estimated that it would take a mere $20 billion to end homelessness, for instance. Yet Biden gladly sends all that money into a proxy war. Ukraine gets plenty of money for weaponry while American infrastructure disintegrates all around us. 

It makes one wonder who really is at war and with whom. Could it be that struggling Americans are being bombarded by the mindless, selfish destructiveness of capitalism? Is our tax money simply disappearing into a war zone in the form of weapon drops so these arms can be bought and sold later at a discount by other interested parties?

Just think of all the profits to be made from selling drones and missiles after "cleaning up" all that money... Can't you just picture all those Congress members buying new mansions and yachts with those ill-gotten gains? Hey, they worked hard for it!

Meanwhile across the globe, there is no unity of sanctions against Russia. Hungary is refusing to enact any sanctions, partly because Hungarian President Orbán is getting payback against the EU for penalizing his country over its anti-LGBTQIA laws, and partly because Orbán isn’t stupid enough to deprive his people of cheap Russian fuel. India also refuses to go along with the drive to sanction Russia, its leadership resisting blandishments and threats from Western powers to do so.

Pakistan wasn’t so fortunate. A US-instigated coup against Imran Khan ousted that pro-neutral leader in favor of one more pliable to Western interests. The message is clear: Nothing personal, but if you're a leader of a country who doesn't go along with NATO's sanctions against Russia, you're going to be out of a job soon.

I can only conclude that Biden is still a useful fool for the one-percent. Any comprehension he might still possess on the nature of politics and capitalism as a whole are more the product of ingrained habit than specific thought. But as long as the American oligarchy thinks he can talk the talk—after a drooling fashion—the more likely he'll keep cutting those big checks for that plucky Ukrainian comedian/puppet-president.

BIO: Coast Watcher is tired of watching the working classes get shafted by the greed and evil manipulations of the billionaires invested heavily in the military industrial complex. Isn't it about time we kick all their politician-puppets to the curb and see how they like begging for small change?

More great insight into the why of spending so much on warfare:

The masters of war require an enemy. When an enemy cannot be found, as George Orwell understood in Nineteen Eighty-Four, an enemy is manufactured. That enemy can become an ally overnight – we allied ourselves with Iran in the Middle East to fight the Taliban and later the Caliphate – before instantly reinstated Iran as the incarnation of evil. The enemy is not about logic or geopolitical necessity. It is about stoking the fear and hatred that fuels perpetual war. 

In 1989, I covered the revolutions that toppled the communist dictatorships in Central and Eastern Europe.  President Mikhail Gorbachev, like his successor Boris Yeltsin and Vladimir Putin in the early stages of his rule, hoped to integrate Russia into the western alliance. But the war industry places profits before national defense. It needed an antagonistic Russia to push the expansion of NATO beyond the borders of a unified Germany in violation of a promise made to Moscow. There were billions of dollars to be made from a Russian enemy, as there are billions more to be made from the proxy war in Ukraine. There would be no “peace dividend” at the end of the Cold War. The war industry was determined to continue to bleed the US dry and amass its obscene profits. They provoked and antagonized Russia until Russia filled its preordained role. --Chris Hedges, The Age of Self-Delusion

Related article links:

The Age of Self-Delusion  https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/the-age-of-self-delusion?s=r

An Intellectual No-Fly Zone  https://popularresistance.org/an-intellectual-no-fly-zone-online-censorship-of-ukraine-dissent-is-becoming-the-new-norm/

Ex-General Pushing for NATO Troops in Ukraine Has Weapons Industry Ties https://popularresistance.org/surprise-ex-general-pushing-for-nato-troops-in-ukraine-has-weapons-industry-ties/ 

UN Chief Slams Fossil Fuel Industry for Using Ukraine War to Boost Profits https://truthout.org/articles/un-chief-slams-fossil-fuel-industry-for-using-ukraine-war-to-boost-profits/

On Ukraine, the World Majority Sides with Russia Over US https://popularresistance.org/on-ukraine-the-world-majority-sides-with-russia-over-us/

US/NATO Wants War With Russia  https://popularresistance.org/us-nato-wants-war-with-russia/

Ukraine: How the US Empire Uses Propaganda To Turn People Into Monsters https://rainershea.substack.com/p/ukraine-how-the-us-empire-uses-propaganda

PayPal Blocks Multiple Alternative  Media Figures Critical of US Empire Narratives  https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/paypal-blocks-multiple-alternative?s=r 

Americans Believe Nothing Is Getting Better. Biden Feeds That Disillusionment https://www.rsn.org/001/americans-believe-nothing-is-getting-better-biden-feeds-that-disillusionment.html

"Disinformation Governance Board" Chief is Huge Spreader of Disinformation https://youtu.be/0ac_q8Z9SQk  (video)

 Seen on Twitter:

Biden’s request of $33 billion in aid for Ukraine is more than twice the size of a previously approved package, underscoring how the U.S is preparing for a sustained conflict in Ukraine. ABSURD COST.
FUELS THE WAR & DRAWS IT OUT UNTIL FINAL NUCLEAR CONFRONTATION.

— Andronicus (@Andronicus50) April 28, 2022

There's always a magic money tree to pay for arms. None for feeding children or housing people, but always money available to pay international arms dealers. #peace #feckcapitalism

— AngryinMayo (@angryinmayo) April 28, 2022

"God created war so that Americans would learn geography."

Mark Twain

— Beastie Roy 🏳️🛵⚒ (@beastie_roy) April 30, 2022

Anyways welcome to the United States pic.twitter.com/JdXP6o5xm4

— 🅹🅾🅴🆈աrecκ ☭ (@joeywreck) April 29, 2022

What would 33 billion to 🇺🇦 mean for you and your family?

— PAUL HAROUTUNIAN (@PAULHTALK) April 30, 2022

It's crazy, that we could send another $33 billion to Ukraine but that we refuse to provide safe housing for the homeless when it would only cost $20 Billion.

— Radical Jesus (@RadicalJesus4) April 30, 2022

Ukraine has received more stimulus checks from the U.S. government than citizens of the United States.

— 🅹🅾🅴🆈աrecκ ☭ (@joeywreck) May 1, 2022

Hilarious that it's been controversial to say there's a US proxy war in a country where the US is sending weapons to be used by CIA-trained fighters backed by US intelligence against a longtime US rival in a conflict the US knowingly provoked. https://t.co/Go2AE8moHE

— Caitlin Johnstone ⏳ (@caitoz) May 2, 2022

The Business Model of Empire

 

If you've been following the news about Ukraine but still don't understand that it's the single most aggressively narrative managed and psyop-intensive war in human history, there is a 100 percent chance you believe false things about what's happening there.         --Caitlin Johnstone

The Business Model of Empire

by C.A. Matthews

The United States of America is an empire. It has imperialistic intentions. It seeks out resources, lands, and peoples to further its own purposes. You don't have to agree with its intentions to agree with the fact that it displays all the characteristics of an empire.

In order to build an empire, you must have a business plan of sorts. In my opinion, the US has a pretty simple business model when it comes to empire building. I call it "The Three Cs" or "Capitalism, Conflict, and Competition."

Capitalism is the "religion" or the belief system of US Empire. Capitalists are the billionaires (soon becoming trillionaires) who essentially own a controlling share of everything--and I mean everything.  They own politicians, who are essentially their paid-off servants who do everything to keep capitalists and fellow politicians from ever going to jail for the crimes they regularly commit. 

Capitalists own our mainstream media outlets--television, radio, cable and newspapers/periodicals--as well as our social platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. They own our communication devices such as internet connections and cell towers. They own almost every morsel Americans put into their mouths through their massive agribusinesss, food processing plants and franchised restaurants. They own our military and profit well on the constant purchasing of armaments and related instruments of destruction.

Conflict is the means in which capitalism continues to exist. Capitalism needs endless resources--minerals, oil, foodstuffs, technology, plastic dollar store gadgets, etc. Capitalism demands profits, so paying too much for resources or the land or the people to produce these products they sell isn't seen as a good thing. And why pay for resources, lands, or workers at all when you can simply take them through Conflict? 

So, Conflicts--or the more accurately named "military actions," "interventions," "proxy wars," or simply "coups d'etat"--are started in order to feed the hungry monster that is Capitalism. The Capitalists aren't particularly bothered about the innocent lives forfeited in their grabs for resources. The natives are seen as so much "collateral damage."  That's what the capitalists' politician-puppets are for--to make a big noise to distract from all the needless deaths. Politicians pontificate and say things like, "The US has invaded such-and-such country in order to defend democracy," or "We are fighting to save the locals against Communism/Socialism/Any-ism that doesn't care much for Capitalism and building up the US Empire."

And, frankly, why would any country in the middle of a proxy war to cover for the US Empire's interests care about the growth of the US Empire or the success of Capitalism? The people there are seen by the US/Western powers as wage slaves or cannon fodder at best. Even George Orwell couldn't have foreseen the blatant disregard for human life.

Competition is a word that covers all sorts of manipulations that keep the world's populace off balance so that the US Empire/Capitalism can continue to grow. While conflict is necessary for the US Empire to make those land or resource grabs, how do you get the human element to cooperate with your plans? This is where competition comes into play. You seed competition among peoples by causing artificial scarcity of food and other necessary items such as medicines/vaccines worldwide. You seed competition by playing "The Race Card" and creating artificial divisions among human beings based on race, religion, gender identity, etc. at home.

Once the US Empire has seeded enough division among its own people (as well as other peoples) then it becomes fairly easy to swoop in and pick up the pieces from among the warring factions. Competition creates mini-conflicts that fuel the bigger Conflict needed for the success of Capitalism and so the billionaires can cash in and pocket all the profits they can possibly glean from a situation.

But what can one do with all the money taken in a world that has fallen apart through war (possibly nuclear war) and climate catastrophe? The US Empire builds a "Space Force" to protect the billionaires currently competing to get their spaceships into space. Once the Capitalists have traveled to other worlds they'll restart The Three Cs once more.

What a glorious future, huh?

If you still can't connect the dots between US Empire building and the current proxy war in Ukraine, don't be too hard on yourself. After all, the Capitalists who own all the mainstream media news outlets and social platforms are doing their best through the fourth "silent C" of Empire Building--Censorship. Censorship and "Cancellation Culture" keeps the public ill-informed. 

That's the way the US Empire Builders want it. It adds a fifth "C" to the equation of "Confusion" that keeps groups of people in Conflict, allowing for Competition that negates and persecutes truth-tellers such as Julian Assange and Chris Hedges. Networks and independent journalists that report on all sides of the story in Ukraine are being shut down by the Capitalists and ridiculed by their politician and media pundit-puppets, so it's difficult to learn what's really happening.

And Capitalism flourishes as the profits from the proxy war grow amid confusion and censorship. There were $800 million in arms sales to Ukraine last week alone. Raytheon and Lockheed Martin stock is soaring on Wall Street. Happy days are here again! (At least for those who own and control armament stocks.)

In order for you to see Clearly (a "C" that isn't in the Empire building business model) check out last week's blog piece on Critical Thinking Skills. That's the lucky seventh "C" for the people--Criticism or keeping a critical eye open. There's only one way for us to Continue life on this earth. We must Continually Critique Capitalism and US Empire Building or else it will kill everyone and everything in its insane quest for profits above all else.

To quote Redd Phlagg: "Remain skeptical. Read widely." And always be aware that you  and your happiness aren't a part of the US Empire's Business Model. It doesn't deserve your allegiance. It only deserves your disdain.

Some others' thoughts on the subject:

Analysts say the defense industry has spent billions of dollars lobbying Congress while quietly making much more in profit by manufacturing weapons that fuel deadly conflicts in Ukraine, Yemen and across the world under federal arms sales agreements that have little effective congressional oversight. 

There is a dangerous “feedback loop” between major weapons manufacturers in the United States that make billions in profits from arms sales, the countries that arm themselves with these weapons, and the U.S. government, which uses arms sales as “tools” to gain economic and diplomatic leverage, according to Dan Auble, a researcher at money-in-politics tracker OpenSecrets. 

“Unfortunately, it’s ultimately the human beings on the ground who suffer as a result of the prolonged wars that are fed from these arms sales abroad,” Auble told reporters on Thursday. Mike Ludwig, Ukraine and Yemen Wars Highlight US Role As Biggest Arms Dealer in the World

Capitalist enterprises seek, find, and develop foreign sources of food, raw materials, workers, and markets. As competition becomes global, competing capitalist enterprises seek help from their nations’ governments to expand. Politicians quickly learn that companies in their nations that lose in global competition will blame those politicians for insufficient support. Meanwhile, companies that win in the global competition will reward such politicians for their help. The social result of this is that capitalism entails national competition alongside enterprise competition. Wars often punctuate capitalism’s national competition. The winners in those competitions thereby often tended to build empires, historically. Richard Wolff, The Role of Capitalism in the War in Ukraine 

But what was “unprecedented” just six weeks ago has now become commonplace, even normalized. Any platform devoted to offering inconvenient-to-NATO news or alternative perspectives is guaranteed a very short lifespan. Less than two weeks after the EU's decree, Google announced that it was voluntarily banning all Russian-affiliated media worldwide, meaning Americans and all other non-Europeans were now blocked from viewing those channels on YouTube if they wished to. As so often happens with Big Tech censorship, much of the pressure on Google to more aggressively censor content about the war in Ukraine came from its own workforce: “Workers across Google had been urging YouTube to take additional punitive measures against Russian channels.”

So prolific and fast-moving is this censorship regime that it is virtually impossible to count how many platforms, agencies and individuals have been banished for the crime of expressing views deemed "pro-Russian.” On Tuesday, Twitter, with no explanation as usual, suddenly banned one of the most informative, reliable and careful dissident accounts, named “Russians With Attitude.” Created in late 2020 by two English-speaking Russians, the account exploded in popularity since the start of the war, from roughly 20,000 followers before the invasion to more than 125,000 followers at the time Twitter banned it. An accompanying podcast with the same name also exploded in popularity and, at least as of now, can still be heard on Patreon. -- Glenn Greenwald, Western Dissent from US/NATO Policy is Small, Yet the Censorship Campaign is Extreme 

Bridget Moix, general secretary of the Quaker organization Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL), on Tuesday detailed various nonviolent steps the Biden administration and Congress "can take to help end the war in Ukraine and promote long-term peace." 

"While it may feel as though more weapons and punishing sanctions are the only options in Ukraine, in fact, U.S. leaders have many nonviolent policy options available to help save lives and advance peace," she wrote. 

"They need to understand that using diplomacy, working through multilateral institutions, supporting local peacebuilders, providing humanitarian aid, and protecting refugees are not 'weak' responses," Moix argued. "These are our best tools for bringing about a durable solution to the crisis."  Biden Answers Zelenskyy's Plea to Arm Ukraine with $800 Million in Weapons

The business model of Empire in one graphic.

The US has killed more than 20 million people since WW2 for “freedom and democracy”. pic.twitter.com/l9ZCNMGdib

— Mnar Adley (@MnarMuh) April 13, 2022

Related articles:

The Role of Capitalism in the War in Ukraine  https://scheerpost.com/2022/04/14/the-role-of-capitalism-in-the-war-in-ukraine/ 

Ukraine and Yemen Wars Highlight US Role As Biggest Arms Dealer in the World https://truthout.org/articles/ukraine-and-yemen-wars-highlight-uss-role-as-biggest-arms-dealer-in-the-world/

The New Gold Rush: How Pentagon Contractors Are Cashing in on the Ukraine Crisis   https://scheerpost.com/2022/04/18/the-new-gold-rush-how-pentagon-contractors-are-cashing-in-on-the-ukraine-crisis/ 

US-Backed Coup in Pakistan Overthrows PM Imran Khan https://popularresistance.org/us-backed-coup-in-pakistan-overthrows-pm-imran-khan-over-his-independent-foreign-policy/ 

The Venezuelan Coup, 20 Years Later https://scheerpost.com/2022/04/15/the-venezuelan-coup-20-years-later/  

How the US Does "Diplomacy" https://popularresistance.org/how-the-u-s-does-diplomacy/

Western Dissent from US/NATO Policy is Small, Yet the Censorship Campaign is Extreme  https://greenwald.substack.com/p/western-dissent-from-usnato-policy 

American Militarism, a  Persistent Malady https://scheerpost.com/2022/04/14/american-militarism-a-persistent-malady/

The Reasons For and Dangers Behind the War in Ukraine https://popularresistance.org/the-reasons-for-and-dangers-behind-the-war-in-ukraine/ 

Biden Answer Zelenskyy's Plea to Arm Ukraine Now With 800 Million in Weapons https://scheerpost.com/2022/04/14/biden-answers-zelenskyys-plea-to-arm-ukraine-now-with-800-million-in-weapons/

A Love Letter to All Draft Dodgers  https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/a-love-letter-to-all-draft-dodgers?s=r 

How Much Are We Prepared to Sacrifice https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/how-much-are-we-prepared-to-sacrifice

Seen on Twitter:

Again: if this is not a proxy war, then there has never been a proxy war. https://t.co/1eodev8r5x

— Caitlin Johnstone ⏳ (@caitoz) April 11, 2022

The US empire maintains our control via 2 things - truly ridiculous military power (800 military ases around the world + a $1 Trillion a year budget), and secondly controlling much of the world’s central banking system.

— Lee Camp [Redacted] (@LeeCamp) April 16, 2022

Before the US helped fund + arm the destruction of Syria, they dropped the dollar. Before the US sent a drone bomb through one of Iran's top officials, they dropped the petrodollar.

— Lee Camp [Redacted] (@LeeCamp) April 16, 2022

Now Russia + China are creating a new version of the SWIFT system to get around US-controlled finance systems. In order to stop that (among other reasons), the US is willing to fight Russia to the last Ukrainian.

— Lee Camp [Redacted] (@LeeCamp) April 16, 2022

The USA has made enemies all over the globe. Our military and/or our weapon support has stolen the lives of millions and millions of people in a few decades.

If you live in the USA, this should terrify you.

— Jory Micah, M.A. Christian Doctrine & History (@jorymicah) April 16, 2022

In spite of our propaganda machine, Ukraine is not winning, our Gov't knows that they have no chance to win, but the longer they can keep this war going, they hope they can weaken Russia, sell more weapons, and use Ukrainian dead bodies as a talking point

— Black in the Empire (@blackintheempir) April 17, 2022

 A very good thread (series) of tweets:

People often assume that capitalism is defined by "markets and trade". But markets and trade existed for thousands of years before capitalism. Capitalism is only 500 years old. So what is distinctive about this economic system? Three things (well, more, but three for now):

— Jason Hickel (@jasonhickel) April 18, 2022