Few, if any, believe what they hear and read from leaders and media publicists. Most people choose to ignore the cacophony of voices, vices and virtues.
This paper provides a set of theses which purports to lay-out the basis for a dialogue between and among those who choose to abstain from elections with the intent to engage them in political struggle.
Thesis 1
US empire builders of all colors and persuasion practice donkey tactics; waving the carrot and wielding the whip to move the target government on the chosen path.
In the same way, Washington offers dubious concessions and threatens reprisals, in order to move them into the imperial orbit.
Washington applied the tactic successfully in several recent encounters. In 2003 the US offered Libyan government of Muammar Gaddafi an accommodation in exchange for disarmament, abandonment of allies in Africa and Asia. In 2011, the US with its European allies applied the whip – bombed Libya, financed and armed retrograde tribal and terrorist forces, destroyed the infrastructure, murdered Gaddafi and uprooted millions of Africans and Libyans who fled to Europe. Washington recruited mercenaries for their subsequent war against Syria in order to destroy Bashar Assad. Washington did not succeed in establishing a puppet regime in the midst of perpetual war it launched and supported.
The empire’s carrot weakened its adversary, but the stick failed to recolonize Libya. Moreover, its European allies are obligated to pay the multi-billion Euro cost of absorbing millions of uprooted immigrants and the ensuing domestic political turmoil.
Thesis 2
Empire builders’ proposal to reconfigure the economy in order to regain imperial supremacy provokes domestic and overseas enemies. President Trump launched a global trade war, replaced political accommodation with economic sanctions against Russia and a domestic protectionist agenda and sharply reduced corporate taxes. He provoked a two-front conflict. Overseas, he provoked opposition from European allies and China, while facing perpetual harassment from domestic free market globalists and Russo-phobic political elites and ideologues.
Thesis 3
Leftists frequently reverse course: they are radicals out of office and reactionaries in government, eventually falling between both chairs. Shrewd but discredited elites frequently recognize the opportunism of the Left, and in time of distress, have no problem in temporarily putting up with Left rhetoric and reforms as long as their economic interests are not jeopardized. The elite know that the Left signal left and turn right.
Thesis 4
Elections, even ones won by progressives or leftists, frequently become springboards for imperial backed coups. Over the past decade newly elected presidents, who are not aligned with Washington, face congressional and/or judicial impeachment on spurious charges. The elections provide a veneer of legitimacy which a straight-out military-coup lacks.
In Brazil, Paraguay and Venezuela, ‘legislatures’ under US tutelage attempted to ouster popular President. They succeeded in the former and failed in the latter.
When electoral machinery fails, the judicial system intervenes to impose restraints on progressives, based on tortuous and convoluted interpretation of the law.
Thesis 5
Even crazy leaders speak truth to power. There is no question that President Trump suffers a serious mental disorder, with midnight outbursts. Yet in his lunacy, President Trump has denounced and exposed the repeated deceits and ongoing fabrications of the mass media. Never before has a President so forcefully identified the lies of the leading print and TV outlets. The NY Times, Washington Post, the Financial Times, NBC, CNN, ABC and CBS have been thoroughly discredited in the eyes of the larger public. They have lost legitimacy and trust.
Thesis 6
When a bark turns into a bite, Trump proves the homely truth that fear invites aggression. Trump has implemented or threatened severe sanctions against the EU, China, Iran, Russia, Venezuela, North Korea and any country that does not submit to his dictates. At first, it was bombast and bluster which secured concessions.
Concessions were interpreted as weakness and invited greater threats. Disunity of opponents encouraged imperial tacticians to divide and conquer. But by attacking all adversaries simultaneously he undermines that tactic. Threats everywhere limits choices to dangerous options at home and abroad.
Thesis 7
The master meddlers, of all times, into the politics of sovereign states are the Anglo-American empire builders. But what is most revealing is the current ploy of accusing the victims of the crimes that are committed against them. After the overthrow of the Soviet Union, the US and its European acolytes ‘meddled’ on a world-historic scale, pillaging over two trillion dollars of Soviet wealth.
With Russia’s revival under President Putin, Washington financed a large army of self-styled ‘non-governmental organizations’ (NGO) to organize electoral campaigns, recruited moguls in the mass media and instigated ethnic rebellions.
Moreover, the Israelis have perfected meddling on a grand scale – they intervene successfully in Congress, the White House and the Pentagon. They set the West Asia agenda, budget and priorities, and secure the biggest military handouts on a per-capita basis in US history! Apparently, some meddlers meddle by invitation and are paid to do it.
Thesis 8
Corruption is endemic in the US where it has legal status and where tens of millions of dollars change hands and buy Congress people, Presidents and judges.
In the US the buyers and brokers are called ‘lobbyists’ – everywhere else they are called fraudsters. Corruption greases the wheels of billion dollars military spending, technological subsidies, tax evading corporations and every facet of government – out in the open, all the time and place of the US regime.
Corruption as lobbying never evokes the least criticism from the mass media.
When corruption is punished in China, the US media claim it is merely a ‘political purge’ even if it directly reduces elite conspicuous consumption.
Thesis 9
Bread and circuses are integral parts of empire building – especially in promoting urban street mobs to overthrow independent and elected governments.
Imperial financed mobs – provided the cover for CIA backed coups in Iran (1954), Ukraine (2014), Brazil (1964), Venezuela (2003, 2014 and 2017), Argentina (1956), Nicaragua (2018), Syria (2011) and Libya (2011) among other places and other times.
Masses for empire draw paid and voluntary street fighters who serve the elite. The “mass cover” is especially effective in recruiting leftists who look to the street for opinion and ignore the suites which call the shots.
Thesis 10
The empire is like a three-legged stool it promotes genocide, to secure magnicide and to rule by homicide. Invasion kills millions, capture and kill rulers and then rule by homicide – police assassinating dissenting citizens.
The cases are readily available: Iraq and Libya come to mind. The US and its accomplices invaded, bombed and killed over a million Iraqis, captured and assassinated its leaders. A similar pattern occurred in Libya: the US and EU bombed, killed and uprooted several million people, assassinated Gadhafi and fomented a lawless terrorist war of clans, tribes and western puppets.
“Western values” reveal the inhumanity of empires built to murder “a la carte” – stripping the victim nations of their defenders, leaders and citizens.
The ten theses define the nature of 21st century imperialism – its continuities and novelties. The mass media systematically write and speak lies to power: their message is to disarm their adversaries and to arouse their patrons to continue to plunder the world.
You have just read excerpts of a feature authored by James Petras, a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.
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