Biden's 'Exceptionalism' Is Likely To Stay
An emphasis of U.S. exceptionalism has been a major theme throughout Joe Biden's presidency.
Remarks by President Biden on a Future Made in America - May 18 2021
This is the United States of America, for God’s sake.
60 Minutes - President Joe Biden: The 2023 60 Minutes interview transcript - Oct 15 2023
Scott Pelley: Are the wars in Israel and Ukraine more than the United States can take on at the same time?President Biden: No. We're the United States of America for God's sake, the most powerful nation in the history-- not in the world, in the history of the world. The history of the world. We can take care of both of these and still maintain our overall international defense.
Full Transcript of President Joe Biden’s Interview With TIME - Jun 5 2024
Q: Is America still able to play the role of world power that it played in World War Two, and in the Cold War?
Biden: Yes, we're planning even more. We are, we are the world power.
Talk of claimed U.S. exceptionalism is usually bi-partisan.
But finally there is a voice in U.S. foreign policy who argues against exceptionalism and calls for a different view of things.
Ben Rhodes, former National Security Advisor to President Barrack Obama, writes in the pages of Foreign Affairs magazine.
A Foreign Policy for the World as It Is
Biden and the Search for a New American Strategy
[T]he Biden administration’s mindset of restoration has occasionally struggled against the currents of our disordered times. An updated conception of U.S. leadership—one tailored to a world that has moved on from American primacy and the eccentricities of American politics—is necessary to minimize enormous risks and pursue new opportunities.
...
That seems like a well intended advice. The U.S. tends to intentionally ignore the consequences of its policies. It does not reflect on them. Should it start doing that its policies might change:
To date, Washington has failed to do the necessary audit of the ways its post–Cold War foreign policy discredited U.S. leadership. The “war on terror” emboldened autocrats, misallocated resources, fueled a global migration crisis, and contributed to an arc of instability from South Asia through North Africa. The free-market prescriptions of the so-called Washington consensus ended in a financial crisis that opened the door to populists railing against out-of-touch elites. The overuse of sanctions led to increased workarounds and global fatigue with Washington’s weaponization of the dollar’s dominance. Over the last two decades, American lectures on democracy have increasingly been tuned out.
The case of Gaza emphasizes this and has renewed a global rejection of U.S. policies:
Indeed, after Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel and the Israeli military campaign in Gaza, American rhetoric about the rules-based international order has been seen around the world on a split screen of hypocrisy, as Washington has supplied the Israeli government with weapons used to bombard Palestinian civilians with impunity. The war has created a policy challenge for an administration that criticizes Russia for the same indiscriminate tactics that Israel has used in Gaza, a political challenge for a Democratic Party with core constituencies who don’t understand why the president has supported a far-right government that ignores the United States’ advice, and a moral crisis for a country whose foreign policy purports to be driven by universal values. Put simply: Gaza should shock Washington out of the muscle memory that guides too many of its actions.
The world has moved on. If the U.S. wants to stay a part of it it will have to adopt:
Too often, the United States has appeared unable or unwilling to see itself through the eyes of most of the world’s population, particularly people in the global South who feel that the international order is not designed for their benefit. [...] Yet the overuse of sanctions, along with the prioritization of Ukraine and other U.S. geopolitical interests, misreads the room. To build better ties with developing countries, Washington needs to consistently prioritize the issues they care about: investment, technology, and clean energy.Once again, Gaza interacts with this challenge. To be blunt: for much of the world, it appears that Washington doesn’t value the lives of Palestinian children as much as it values the lives of Israelis or Ukrainians. Unconditional military aid to Israel, questioning the Palestinian death toll, vetoing cease-fire resolutions at the UN Security Council, and criticizing investigations into alleged Israeli war crimes may all feel like autopilot in Washington—but that’s precisely the problem. Much of the world now hears U.S. rhetoric about human rights and the rule of law as cynical rather than aspirational, particularly when it fails to wrestle with double standards. Total consistency is unattainable in foreign policy. But by listening and responding to more diverse voices from around the world, Washington could begin to build a reservoir of goodwill.
But would that change policies? Rhodes doesn't argue for a rejuvenation of international organizations and a U.S. subjugation to these. He still seems to see the U.S. as some kind of outstanding entity.
There is anyway little chance that Biden will adopt Rhodes' advice. During the Obama administration Biden's team had several run-ins with the Rhodes' led National Security shop.
It leaves the impression that Rhodes only wants a new rhetoric, not a really new way to do international policies. Keep doing what you are doing, he says, but sell it differently.
It fits to another piece in the current edition of Foreign Affairs in which three professors try to sell their basically neoconservative policies - do what we say or else ... - as a 'progressive' program:
The Progressive Case for American Power
Retrenchment Would Do More Harm Than Good
Today’s progressives need to get comfortable with American power, which, for all its flaws, has a crucial role to play. That doesn’t mean condoning illiberal actions to achieve just ends or cynically invoking progressive ideals to justify military adventurism. But it does mean seeking to harness power to advance the values progressives cherish—and accepting that might sometimes makes right.
It is, on its face, the opposite of what Rhodes argues for.
I applaud the idea behind Rhodes' piece but I see little chance, especially under Biden, for it to get implemented.
'The World power' - as Biden calls the U.S. of A. - will not move aside unless someone makes it do so.
Posted by b on June 19, 2024 at 13:59 UTC | Permalink
next page »The Biden administration is drunk with power and it isn't going to change anything it is doing. But then again, a new Trump administration would continue the same policies, perhaps even worse in some spheres, so there isn't any hope that change is on the near horizon. Until the deep state/MIC is contained, we aren't going to get any significant policy changes.
Posted by: John R Moffett | Jun 19 2024 14:14 utc | 2
The geo-political philosophy that still believes in American exceptionalism is the same one that believes Biden should be president again.
Posted by: JJ | Jun 19 2024 14:14 utc | 3
Rhodes (quoted above):
Once again, Gaza interacts with this challenge. To be blunt: for much of the world, it appears that Washington doesn’t value the lives of Palestinian children as much as it values the lives of Israelis or Ukrainians.
I struggle to remain interested in the words of a writer who strays so very far from reality, and from genuine human solidarity. To this fool, valuing the lives of Ukrainians means sponsoring their ongoing slaughter: half a million dead and counting.
I can only sigh, and mourn the tragic loss of another soul. Could it ever be possible for an empty-headed technocrat like Rhodes to rejoin humanity? Personally, I doubt it.
Posted by: Aleph_Null | Jun 19 2024 14:18 utc | 4
Modesty is an essential trait to understanding others points of view. Much of the west has devolved into a narcissistic society. Many females are promoting the idea that males are just a nuisance and largely unnecessary. Western society is becoming morally bankrupt. At the head of this empire we have a thoroughly corrupt egomaniacal bully who is now feeble and suffering dementia. He is 100% controlled by probably the most evil psycotic cabal to live on earth.
This is why we are on the precipice of catastrophe.
Posted by: Áobh Ó'Sheachnasaigh | Jun 19 2024 14:31 utc | 5
Posted by: Aleph_Null | Jun 19 2024 14:18 utc | 3
"sponsoring their ongoing slaughter: half a million dead and counting."
Ahem, no comment on those doing the ACTUAL slaughtering?
Ok, I know you going to praise them to high heaven for doing that soon enough :(
Posted by: Membrum Virile | Jun 19 2024 14:33 utc | 6
U.S. Citizens are "exceptional". Everyone gets a 1st place participation trophy, whether you worked for one or not.
Meanwhile, citizens of other nations are becoming better educated and have working skills.
Posted by: Retaining_H2O | Jun 19 2024 14:35 utc | 7
Thank you, b. Excellent piece.
......"The stock Western story remembers to forget"......the unsuitable story line.
https://patrickarmstrong.ca/2024/06/18/another-anniversary-nobody-remembers/
Posted by: KitaySupporter | Jun 19 2024 14:35 utc | 8
It's worth noting that this determination to remain the sole hegemon is driven by the neocons desire to see the US continue to act as a golem for Israel. (Ala the old neocon Project For A New American Century) The sheer utter madness has no other reason to it.
That's why this is all so dangerous, it's not being done for US interests or even designed by people who see America as their country.
Posted by: Altai | Jun 19 2024 14:35 utc | 9
The question to me is not if US power has come to an end. But whether the US is in deep denial or simply behaving as a very aggressive very angry Bad Loser.
Bad Loser seems to explain it all best.
Posted by: Mickey Droy | Jun 19 2024 14:40 utc | 10
Completamente de acuerdo con Joe!
https://textosandroides.blogspot.com/2015/03/destino-manifiesto.html
President Biden: No. We're the United States of America for God's sake, the most powerful nation in the history-- not in the world, in the history of the world. The history of the world.This attitude is not unique to Biden, it is seen in all US politics. An this is just an extreme expression of western imperialism directed against peoples of the present and peoples of the past.
Consequently, this imperial attitude forbids accepting the mounting concrete evidence found around the world showing that an advanced world wide civilization existed 13000+ years ago, with some achievements we can't duplicate or even explain today. Therefore the repeated emphasis on "The history of the world".
Posted by: Norwegian | Jun 19 2024 14:44 utc | 12
B so glad you are back! Take good care of yourself!
Aleph_Null, you took the words from my brain! Thanks. Disgusting that he does not acknowledge the slaughter of Ukrainians as Americas doing. My brother said why don’t you leave if you hate this country so much, once again for the millionth time I hate my government not my country. I worked at every level of the political system from within the State, I gave up after Obama’s 1st month and was never convinced he or any R or D was going to do the right thing from billy boy on. We do not have a functional government or proper educational system that teaches kids anything like diplomacy and ethics, and real history.
Posted by: Susan | Jun 19 2024 14:45 utc | 13
As with all bullies, the sole purpose of the US creating thecIsraeli genocide of Palestiniains, is to appease the neuroses of the US ruling class.
Posted by: Giyane | Jun 19 2024 14:45 utc | 14
"....we are the world power"
like a has-been world class athlete or prize fighter
who no longer is world class but doesn't realize it yet,
& that it's time to retire
Rhodes: "...The war has created a policy challenge for an administration that criticizes Russia for the same indiscriminate tactics that Israel has used in Gaza..."
oh tut tut tut, Ben Rhodes. pure lying here. if I recall correctly, about 600 children have been killed in the Ukraine in 2 1/2 years of war (I don't know the breakdown and can only assume that a good number of them were in the Donbass); in Gaza, over 15,000 children killed, intentionally too, in less than 8 months. There is no comparison
fyi,
and from April 4, 2024
https://www.savethechildren.net/news/over-2-gaza-s-child-population-killed-or-injured-six-months-war
"....In the six months since the 7 October attacks in which 33 children were killed, more than 13,800 children have been killed in Gaza and 113 in the West Bank, and over 12,009 children have been injured in Gaza and at least 725 children in the West Bank, according to OCHA and the Ministry of Health in Gaza...."
Posted by: michaelj72 | Jun 19 2024 14:50 utc | 15
Utter arrogance.
"Pride, in Roman Catholic theology, one of the seven deadly sins, considered by some to be the gravest of all sins. " - by wikipedia.
It is necessary for fate to punish this sinful nation, which mistakenly believes that it is the world itself, instead of who himself as a one piece of the world.
It is time to expel this nation from his inner brain paradise, just as Lucifer .
Posted by: Nokaz | Jun 19 2024 14:53 utc | 16
Exceptionalists should be careful not to let the door hit them on their way out.
Posted by: too scents | Jun 19 2024 14:57 utc | 17
"The “world power” – as Biden calls the United States of America – will not step aside until someone makes it do so."
It will be necessary to bring the war to their home, because only in this way will they understand what they have really been doing around the world during all these decades.
Amen.
Posted by: kamma43muri | Jun 19 2024 14:59 utc | 18
Thanks b , and best wishes for your health also from my side!
You wrote: "The World power will not move aside unless someone makes it do so."
We all can help to do this, and we do not need the help of Putin oder Xi for that, neither we need 'better' politicians all around the world for such an undertaking. To 'move' the US is very simple. For that we would have to avoid completely any services like google, facebook, x etc. etc., we would have to avoid services like the dollar, US-stocks and US-bonds, American exchanges and financial services; we would make no visit to the US, we would not buy a simple product from there (like LNG, pharmaceuticals ...) and we would not make any further investition in the USA; and first we would cancel any single item of the endless (propaganda-) news coming from the US to us [You may continue this list, it is unlimited ...].
We have such a huge power to sanction (!!) the US. And if properly organized and strenghtened such a undertaking could lead to a complete isolation of the US witin a few years. The power of the US would have gone.
By the way, I think it is today not longer appropriate to write about the United States of America as a true political entity. Because the legitimation of the 'rulers' in Washington is not better than the legitimation of Zelensky in Ukraine - not taking into account that all these Washingtoners, like Zelensky's gang, are only corrupt puppets. The The World power is a power against the people of the world and against the planet earth, including the citizens and the natural ressources of North America.
I can change my above remarks into a single question: who gives the The World power its true strenght?
Its us ...
Kind regards, Gerhard
Posted by: Gerhard | Jun 19 2024 15:02 utc | 19
As Shakespeare said (slightly paraphrased) "all the world's a stage with America and idiots like Biden strutting about trying to find the way off, or until they fall off or are pushed off."
*
I tend to disagree with those that think that the US regime is in charge. Like the EU and many EU countries, it is a small group of extremists who have actually seized power. They have no morals or attachements to real accomplishments in the field of human values.
American (once British) exceptionalism is the Anglophone version of Chosenitis, so that particular pathology has been well transmitted via the early chapters of the Old Testament. Congressman Massie recently recounted in an interview with Tucker Carlson that each representative is given an AIPAC minder who recommends how they vote, what they read etc., thus revealing that the penetration by the Israelis into the inner workings of USG spending is far more extensive than has hitherto been reported.
I guess some exceptionalisms are superior to others.
You can get away with using the short-term superior but long-term inferior method of 'might making right' to impose your exceptionalist facts on the ground, but once you cannot do so, which the US is now facing, all bets are off. Fanatic exceptionalists as they may be, the Chosen have a multi-millennia long reputation for being hard-headed and persistent, so most likely they know better than anyone how the geopolitical tide is turning, how American hegemony is already a busted flush.
They will be making moves, I trow, no doubt already well under way, and well hidden beneath layers of narrative obfuscation.
Not only is Exceptionalism accepted by both major parties but the next Administration feels compelled to show up the last Administration. Trump supporters (especially on FOX and their guests) are bellowing how the Biden Administration has made the U.S. look weak to the rest of the world.
That's right, getting involved in every conflict isn't belligerent enough. We have to bring the entire world to their knees. In his heart, Trump is a bully, and will soon have the full resources of the U.S. to continue his bullying. He destroyed Venezuela as a self-esteem building exercise and cannot wait to murder more people in the Gaza Strip.
Posted by: Christian J Chuba | Jun 19 2024 15:14 utc | 22
Rhodes: "...The war has created a policy challenge for an administration that criticizes Russia for the same indiscriminate tactics that Israel has used in Gaza..."oh tut tut tut, Ben Rhodes. pure lying here. if I recall correctly, about 600 children have been killed in the Ukraine in 2 1/2 years of war (I don't know the breakdown and can only assume that a good number of them were in the Donbass); in Gaza, over 15,000 children killed, intentionally too, in less than 8 months. There is no comparison
@michael72 #14
10k civilians dead in Ukraine, 500k Ukrainian military. The most Civilian Friendly war EVER!!!!
Posted by: Mickey Droy | Jun 19 2024 15:19 utc | 23
Desperate times call for desperate measures, as the old saying goes. The West, led by Washington, is growing increasingly desperate over the dire situation now facing Kiev. Now it looks like Washington is ready to reinstate conscription for the first time since the Vietnam War. Is World War 3 now inevitable?
This and other frightening nuclear escalations with Russia are taking place at the same time that U.S. lawmakers are working to expand conscription to women and automate registration for men. Both of which would help increase the pool of available individuals the U.S. could send into a hot war with a major military power.
Edward Hasbrouck writes for Antiwar:
"The Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) has approved a version of the NDAA that would extend the draft to young women as well as young men. This version of the NDAA will now be brought to the House floor as a starting point for consideration and approval by the full Senate.
Also on June 14, the full House of Representatives passed another version of the NDAA that would provide automatic draft registration, but only for men."
Posted by: ossi | Jun 19 2024 15:29 utc | 24
Posted by: Mickey Droy | Jun 19 2024 15:19 utc | 22
Does not matter. Nafos will cry that its 510.000 civilians only after ursula fond of lying tells them so.
And dont forget the holodomor, that was also putin! /s
Posted by: Justpassinby | Jun 19 2024 15:29 utc | 25
What the “exceptionalists” fail to consider are the three factors that made America great to begin with:
1) A large, rich geographical area that was
2) Bordered by oceans that limited European interference in development and
3) A growing population fed by family-focused immigrants whose upward mobility had been blocked for centuries by the existing social orders in the countries of their ancestors.
The latter two factors are no longer. Globalism and modern weapons have rendered the oceanic barriers meaningless, while the population now largely worships at the altars of materialism and “self-fulfillment.”
Once Mexico was subdued and the questions of slavery and tariffs were settled by the War between the States, the country chose to follow the path of world conquest began by Teddy Roosevelt. The rest was almost inevitable, as is the current and rapid decline. Such is always the case when wealth and power are worshipped.
Posted by: Ciaran | Jun 19 2024 15:40 utc | 26
Putin's visit to North Korea after 24 years! Tell us something? That Russia is preparing for war? That this war is coming and is inevitable? Chancellor Scholz in Germany stands at the lectern and announces: If the situation in Ukraine worsens, Germany will declare a state of emergency, as happened yesterday, June 18, 24. Russia has entered into an alliance with North Korea, so North Korea is now an official ally and is obliged to assist in the event of war. Kim Jong-un spoke about the details of the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership Treaty with Russia. The treaty corresponds to the strategic nature of the relations between the two countries in the new era, he said. "Times have changed. The status of North Korea and the Russian Federation in the geopolitical structure of the world has also changed," added Kim Jong-un. He said that the treaty represents an important development and envisages the expansion of cooperation between the two countries, including economic, political and military cooperation. "This is an important development. <…> With the conclusion of the North Korea-Russian Federation Comprehensive Strategic Partnership Treaty, relations between our two countries are on the way to further promising and prosperous development to achieve the progress of both countries and enhance the well-being of their peoples through active cooperation in various fields such as politics, economy, culture and military," Kim Jong-un said.
He pointed out that with the conclusion of the new treaty, Russia and North Korea "have reached a new high level of allied relations." "A legal basis has been established that makes it possible <…> to reliably protect peace and security <…> and build a strong state in line with the common interests of North Korea and the Russian Federation," Kim Jong-un stressed.
In addition, the North Korean leader promised that his government would "always faithfully fulfill its obligations under the treaty."
Translation from the Russian news agency TASS
.
Source:https://anti-spiegel.ru/2024/kim-jong-un-hat-ueber-die-einzelheiten-des-vertrags-ueber-eine-umfassende-strategische-partnerschaft-mit-russland-gesprochen/
Posted by: ossi | Jun 19 2024 15:40 utc | 27
"President Biden: No. We're the United States of America for God's sake, the most powerful nation in the history-- not in the world, in the history of the world. The history of the world. We can take care of both of these and still maintain our overall international defense."
Ask Biden what the Afghans or Yemenis with no air force/ satellites/ drones/ tanks/ navy what they think of America's power! More and more peoples and nations are waking up and saying; I can beat the "most powerful nation" too.
I shall be watching the beat downs with popcorn in hand.
Posted by: Saag | Jun 19 2024 15:48 utc | 28
Neither Joseph Biden nor any other elected official is the voice of the United States of America. Enshrined in our Constitution are its first words "We, the People..."
At some point in the future history of the United States, the people of the United States will realize what the rest of the world has realized: that the country has been deliberately misled by the oligarchical few into a state of mass hysteria -- culminating in the enforcement of supposedly necessary rules of compliance with mass inoculation with health-damaging socalled vaccinations and medications that were not scientifically supported.
The latter will be, and is now ongoing, an enlightenment which reaches into every family with proof of damage. My own family is a prime example, and it breaks my heart that I could not convince them all how dangerous this vaccine has been to them. A few like me were sceptical but even Biden was telling us we were wrong and that we would die. I can never forget that demonic speech he gave.
No, he was wrong and still is. That is a hard thing to face, and what I tell my family is, just do your best to rebuild your natural immunity by eating and exercising in moderate healthy ways. The damage is done, but it is now up to all of us to think for ourselves and to listen to our bodies. Have faith in what that is telling you. I, who have survived this hysterical perversiom period into my 84th year, say that nature CAN overcome. And it will. This cannot last. I believe the problem is that those in power are so guilt-ridden at what they have done to their own families that their power to dominate is diminishing exponentially.
We can all see it happening. And someday soon, we shall overcome.
I cannot predict when it will happen, only that it will. So, B, take heart.
Posted by: juliania | Jun 19 2024 15:49 utc | 29
Sorry, my last sentence should be: So, b, take heart. (And forgive the spelling errors in my rant. My fingers were shaking a bit.) By the way, I do believe there was a virus, and that isolating oneself from it and masking when needed are both good ideas. My masks however were always the cloth variety, several layers, in pretty patterns. I still have one I made out of an old well washed undershirt. When I shopped that was the first one I wore. It looked silly; I am old-- we don't mind looking silly, or we shouldn't.
People, have something to say when you post. We don't need to inflict garbage on b as he recuperates. Give him something to help him heal, and we will all benefit.
Posted by: juliania | Jun 19 2024 15:58 utc | 30
I shall be watching the beat downs with popcorn in hand.
Posted by: Saag | Jun 19 2024 15:48 utc | 27
.
.
Sure?
Not in the bunker if you have one?
I don't think the USA will get off scot-free..
Putin also knows that without satellite data from the USA no missile will hit, he will destroy it and he will and must do that...what will happen then? How will the USA react?
Posted by: ossi | Jun 19 2024 16:00 utc | 31
The only exceptional thing about the US these days is it's unhinged degeneracy and the catastrophic damage its foreign policy is doing across the globe.
One of these days, it will be taken out back like a rabid dog and put down
Posted by: Facekicker | Jun 19 2024 16:01 utc | 32
The geo-political philosophy that still believes in American exceptionalism is the same one that believes Biden should be president again.Posted by: JJ | Jun 19 2024 14:14 utc | 2
I don't think we'll see Biden on the ballot in November. Curious to see how they'll manage that.
The whole US election thing is getting more like a soap opera everyday. Now with the recent Trump trial we have our brave hero facing great adversity, but set to triumph, unless some other dramatic development occurs - perhaps a new, more powerful foe will emerge to give battle ...
Posted by: pessoa | Jun 19 2024 16:07 utc | 33
Yes, the US is certainly exceptional: An exceptionally violent and aggressive nation.
Posted by: Dave Pollard | Jun 19 2024 16:16 utc | 34
I don't think we'll see Biden on the ballot in November. Curious to see how they'll manage that.
The whole US election thing is getting more like a soap opera everyday. Now with the recent Trump trial we have our brave hero facing great adversity, but set to triumph, unless some other dramatic development occurs - perhaps a new, more powerful foe will emerge to give battle ...
Posted by: pessoa | Jun 19 2024 16:07 utc | 32
.
.
Now Biden and the 2024 election
Biden's party agreed to 2 TV duels against Trump in July!
Ergo...either they want to embarrass him to the core because NO notes are allowed...
In order to then withdraw him as a candidate at their party conference in August because of dementia...
Then Michel Obhama to stand against Trump, which would be a clever move.
Biden would have disqualified himself in the TV duel, so the party would not be blamed. Because he hardly had a chance, everyone sees his failures.
Oh yes, as far as I know, on July 17th
.
What surprises me is that you all apparently do NOT know that
Posted by: ossi | Jun 19 2024 16:17 utc | 35
While Putin takes a tour of Asia. Showing Russian strength and re-enforcing bonds with NK and Vietnam..
Back in the Good o'l USA Vice President Harris hosts a bunch of Queers and degenerates at the White House.
Such is the state of " The Most powerful Nation in the World".
Posted by: golddigger | Jun 19 2024 16:19 utc | 37
"I applaud the idea behind Rhodes' piece but I see little chance, especially under Biden, for it to get implemented."
Agreed, but at least, Rhodes article evinces a long missing sanity that would allow imperialism to at least recognize the condition it's in. Hitherto, amongst imperialist intellectuals, it's been left only a marginalized Mearsheimer.
It's good some can see the error, but the reality is that imperialism is a system with it's own logic, just like it's basis, Capitalism. You can change the personnel, the messaging, etc, but the system will proceed to it's logical conclusion: world war. This system has already produced two world wars. There is no sense in hoping it might produce different results today.
The point: only an end to Imperialism and the root it springs from, Capitalism, will allow for peaceful and healthy human development. Yes, doing this will require civil war in much of the west. Unfortunately, human society hasn't yet evolved a means beyond brute force to usher in a new, higher stage of social organization.
Unlike these Imperialist atrocities in Ukraine, Israel, etc, I'd be happy to fight and even die in a civil war to unseat US imperialism. I'm not alone. Millions seem to be waiting for the emergence of a vehicle to do this.
That's the fundamental question. What organization will emerge to build and direct that vehicle? Clearly neither of the two Imperialist parties of the US or any tendency within them will do this.
Posted by: Ahenobarbus | Jun 19 2024 16:26 utc | 38
It seems odd to me that no one is pointing out the obvious fact that the American political system is just theater to entertain and distract the population. America is not a Democracy, nor a Republic in any meaningful sense.
America is run by forces not shown except in shadows. The idea that Biden is in charge of anything is absurd.
Posted by: Robert | Jun 19 2024 16:30 utc | 39
"...by listening and responding to more diverse voices from around the world, Washington could begin to build a reservoir of goodwill."
Goodwill that you can then "spend" on bombing and color revolutioning the very people you pretend to listen to.
America is facing internally a parallel problem to what our host describes. The "professional/managerial class" (PMCs) and presstitute scum have been agonizing for the last couple years about loss of credibility and people not listening to them any more.
Presstitute: "Those stupid deplorables refuse to believe what we tell them to believe! How do we get them to acknowledge that we are right?"
Dr. Woketard (PhD in Unicorn Sexual Behavior): "The deplorables are just miffed because they think we don't listen to them."
Presstitute: "Well, we don't listen to them because they are wrong and we are right."
Dr. Woketard: ”Of course they are wrong. They don't believe unicorns are real. They even think it is wrong for boys to pretend to be girls and beat the living shit out of women in women-only sports. That is why they are deplorable, but we don't have to actually listen to them. They are wrong, after all. We just have to make them think we are listening to them. After pretending to listen to them we can just dismiss their point of view as deplorable and then they will acknowledge our natural superiority and believe what we tell them."
Presstitute: "Are you talking about social media? `Cuz I don't like social media. I can't control what information people are exposed to there. That's part of the problem with people not listening to us in the first place."
Dr. Woketard: "Oh, dear no! We can have feedback forms on our web portals. That way we can just discard the deplorables' concerns without even reading them!"
The possibility that they could be wrong and the deplorables could be right never even enters the vacuous PMC and presstitute heads. Exactly like how the notion that American foreign policy might be flawed at a fundamental level fails to ever even be considered by America's elites. In fact, it is the same disease.
Posted by: William Gruff | Jun 19 2024 16:33 utc | 40
Expecting global thief to say I am a thief but you must believe me I will not rob you is overly optimistic. They will push any narrative that enables them to keep robbing the world. And exceptionality is only one of them.
Posted by: Grey Cloud | Jun 19 2024 16:35 utc | 41
Posted by: michaelj72 | Jun 19 2024 14:50 utc | 14
Thanks a lot.
You said that for me and did so more thoroughly than I was planning to do. Cudos.
Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Jun 19 2024 16:35 utc | 42
"American (once British) exceptionalism is the Anglophone version of Chosenitis, so that particular pathology has been well transmitted via the early chapters of the Old Testament..."
Posted by: Scorpion | Jun 19 2024 15:13 utc | 20
Balderdash, Scorpion. Read the early chapters more carefully, and we can have a good discussion about them on one of the open threads. Not here.
Posted by: juliania | Jun 19 2024 16:38 utc | 43
A 13-part Twitter message from Rothschilds through their personal autobiographer and Harvard professor, iron clad Russophobe Niall Ferguson? He can see the rot in the heart of the Empire. Is he saying that time is running out rather quickly? Biden = Brezhnev? 1982 = 2024? Trump = Tchernenko? Robert Kennedy jun = Gorbatchov?
********
I first pointed out that we’re in Cold War II back in 2018. But it only recently struck me that in this new Cold War, we—and not the Chinese—might be the Soviets. 1/13
A chronic “soft budget constraint” in the public sector, which was a key weakness of the Soviet system? I see a version of that in the U.S. deficits forecast by the Congressional Budget Office to exceed 5% of GDP for the foreseeable future. 2/13
The insertion of the central government into the investment decision-making process? I see that too, despite the hype around the Biden administration’s “industrial policy.” 3/13
We have a military that is simultaneously expensive and unequal to the tasks it confronts, as Senator Roger Wicker’s newly published report makes clear. 4/13
The share of GDP going on interest payments on the federal debt will be double what we spend on national security by 2041, thanks partly to the fact that the rising cost of the debt will squeeze defense spending down from 3% of GDP this year to a projected 2.3% in 30 years’ time. 5/13
Even more striking to me are the political, social, and cultural resemblances I detect between the U.S. and the USSR. Gerontocratic leadership was one of the hallmarks of late Soviet leadership. 6/13
Another notable feature of late Soviet life was total public cynicism about nearly all institutions. To reread Russians’ complaints about their lives in the 1980s is to come across more than a few eerie foreshadowings of the American present. 7/13
he mass self-destruction of Americans captured in the phrase "deaths of despair" for years has been ringing a faint bell in my head. This week I remembered where I had seen it before: in late Soviet and post–Soviet Russia. 8/13
Like the Soviet system as a whole, the U.S. healthcare system has evolved so that a whole bunch of vested interests can extract rents. The bloated, dysfunctional bureaucracy is great for the nomenklatura, lousy for the proles. 9/13
As in the late Soviet Union, the hillbillies—actually the working class and a goodly slice of the middle class, too—drink and drug themselves to death even as the political and cultural elite double down on a bizarre ideology that no one really believes in. 10/13
A bogus ideology that hardly anyone really believes in, but everyone has to parrot ? Check. A population that no longer regards patriotism, religion, having children, or community involvement as important? Check. How about a massive disaster that lays bare the utter incompetence and mendacity that pervades every level of government? For Chernobyl, read Covid. 11/13
I still cling to the hope that we can avoid losing Cold War II—that the economic, demographic, and social pathologies that afflict all one-party communist regimes will ultimately doom Xi’s “China Dream.” 12/13
But the higher the toll rises of deaths of despair—and the wider the gap grows between America’s nomenklatura and everyone else—the less confident I feel that our own homegrown pathologies will be slower-acting. 13/13
Posted by: J_Schneider | Jun 19 2024 16:38 utc | 44
Don't expect a life-long grifter and war criminal to get a new outlook on life at 81.
Posted by: Perimetr | Jun 19 2024 16:39 utc | 45
Posted by: Gerhard | Jun 19 2024 15:02 utc | 18
Very good post, Gerhard; thank you.
Posted by: juliania | Jun 19 2024 16:42 utc | 46
Great piece b. This is really the heart of the matter. Can the US let go of this childish belief in its own exceptionalism and behave as a responsible nation-state? It’s a change of course that could/should have happened after the Soviet Union dissolved itself. Instead, we pissed it all away. Chalmers Johnson’s trilogy (Blowback, The Sorrows of Empire, Nemesis) was prophetic. I don’t know if there might still be some hope of dismantling the empire voluntarily, but I’m not optimistic.
Posted by: KMRIA | Jun 19 2024 16:43 utc | 47
It’s going to get very hot in moscow soon…heheheh
Posted by: Moscow Burns | Jun 19 2024 16:43 utc | 48
Posted by: Ahenobarbus | Jun 19 2024 16:26 utc | 37
Well said!
Posted by: KMRIA | Jun 19 2024 16:48 utc | 49
In the face of so much horror, the question is how to survive mentally and spiritually this final decadence of the most fanatical, colossal and deadly Empire the face of the earth has ever seen (1846-1945-2050)
This old fogey leaves you with the company of these girls from North Korea.
(Conservatives and leftists share the same fate: we have been expelled from public discussion)
https://youtu.be/rVsaOYZl3E0?si=CSKBbd_5eIKd_56T
Posted by: Simon | Jun 19 2024 16:53 utc | 50
All throughout the 2020 primary election campaign in Iowa Biden exhibited a belligerent dismissiveness to any criticism of US hegemonic policies. This attitude is replicated by many, probably most, Americans regardless of age or political affiliation. No reflection about crimes committed and the need for justice occurred after Vietnam, Nicaragua, Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan. None will occur for Ukraine and Gaza. To the contrary of any reflection of wrong doing, many Americans believe not enough killing occurred in these theaters to achieve the success America deserved, which is partly why escalation of hostilities is occurring across the globe without popular opposition. Subjects of capitalist domination are especially sympathetic to the need of recycling accumulated wealth's destruction so reconstruction can commence and restore profitability. That this cycle necessitates the concomitant mass murder of surplus labor stimulates no remorse or guilt because the needs of capitalist primitive accumulation are deemed natural. A perverse analog to the eschatology of death and renewal.
Posted by: Keme | Jun 19 2024 16:54 utc | 51
It’s going to get very hot in moscow soon…heheheh
Posted by: Moscow Burns | Jun 19 2024 16:43 utc | 47
.
.
Now it should get very hot in Moscow, I guarantee you as someone who knows the Russians, it will get a little hotter in New York or Boston. In practice there is no longer any missile shield in the face of hypersonics... and there will never be a world without Russia!
Anyone who celebrates the downfall of Moscow here should celebrate their own at the same time
.
It seems to me that no matter which block, YOU STILL HAVEN'T GET IT
Russia gone, your own ass gone.
I hope you didn't mean it like that, your popcorn wouldn't be enough to watch from afar
Posted by: ossi | Jun 19 2024 16:56 utc | 52
Posted by: Susan | Jun 19 2024 14:45 utc | 12
Good post, Susan. I think even Putin did not at first realize how bad things had become for US citizens. We did not realize it ourselves. I voted for Obama and was thrilled that he brought so many young people back into politics with their vote clinching his election. He actually had a website for contributions - remember that? And how quickly it became disassembled! There were warnings, but we so hoped he was the answer to the Bush crimes.
He wasn't; he continued them. Not only that but he took 'democratic ideals' right along with him. And he betrayed his young supporters. I was fooled. Many were.
But at the same time, he opened our eyes. We started reasssessing what had gone before. How could this have happened to the Democratic Party we had put our faith in as citizens? There was a lot to learn, and we are still learning how deep that rot goes, even to the point of supporting genocide.
I would never have believed this country would do that. Education is a fearful thing; one cannot escape seeing. We are at present looking into the abyss, and we must at least say: Not in Our Name.
And say it loudly and as long as we are able to do so. Thank you for your post.
Posted by: juliania | Jun 19 2024 16:56 utc | 53
Profesor Chalmers Johnson
https://youtu.be/sZwFm64_uXA?si=cHw3RRBzHBwoFjJ8
Posted by: Simon | Jun 19 2024 17:02 utc | 54
How come no talk yet about the power behind the exceptionalism?
The power behind hegemony has always been global private finance, the God Of Mammon cult is my name for the international folks behind the curtain.
Lets talk for a minute about those international folk behind the curtain. I have posited all along that America has become the face of empire, just like the UK was before 1945. While there may be many Americans in the God Of Mammon cult, I posit that Pope Frank and King Chuck are members as well.
It seems obvious to me and others that government politicians in all Western nations are highly corrupted by the God Of Mammon cult. The concept of "We the people..." has become a myth like the original motto of the US, Out Of Many, One (E Pluribus Unum).
The China/Russia axis, with China as the core nation treating finance as a public utility, is challenging the God Of Mammon cult and we are watching proxy wars dancing around that core social construct, who controls finance?
Is the God Of Mammon cult exceptional?
They think they are.
Posted by: psychohistorian | Jun 19 2024 17:06 utc | 55
"'The World power' - as Biden calls the U.S. of A. - will not move aside unless someone makes it do so."
Someone is doing precisely that these days. Currently, he is visiting North Korea.
Posted by: Jack Gordon | Jun 19 2024 17:12 utc | 56
43
"...[t]he mass self-destruction of Americans captured in the phrase "deaths of despair" for years has been ringing a faint bell in my head. This week I remembered where I had seen it before: in late Soviet and post–Soviet Russia. 8/13
Like the Soviet system as a whole, the U.S. healthcare system has evolved so that a whole bunch of vested interests can extract rents. The bloated, dysfunctional bureaucracy is great for the nomenklatura, lousy for the proles. 9/13
As in the late Soviet Union, the hillbillies—actually the working class and a goodly slice of the middle class, too—drink and drug themselves to death even as the political and cultural elite double down on a bizarre ideology that no one really believes in. 10/13..."
Posted by: J_Schneider | Jun 19 2024 16:38 utc | 43
It is exactly this history, J_Schneider, that is my great hope for the future US of A.
Thank you for reminding me of it! I have used it as a beacon lighting the way forward, since out of that earlier collapse (I can only describe it as spiritual; it has all the marks) Russia like the phoenix has been reborn. We should never forget that.
The way down, completely down into hell itself, is as Dante described it, the way UP.
Not only for individuals but for nations as well.
Thank you.
Posted by: juliania | Jun 19 2024 17:17 utc | 57
The US account at the Bank Of Exceptionalism is looking seriously overdrawn: https://www.usdebtclock.org/
Posted by: Jeremy Rhymings-Lang | Jun 19 2024 17:17 utc | 58
IMO, it's really rather simple: The Outlaw US Empire must cease being an outlaw and thus cease its megalomania, while weaning itself from its pleonexia. But to do that a vast sea change in thinking particularly in the area of world view is required across the entire policy making spectrum. And at present I don't see that happening anywhere within those required spaces. So, something of a rather large magnitude will need to occur to instigate that sea change--the death of Dollar Hegemony likely being that event.
47
.
.
Now it should get very hot in Moscow, I guarantee you as someone who knows the Russians, it will get a little hotter in New York or Boston. In practice there is no longer any missile shield in the face of hypersonics... and there will never be a world without Russia!
Posted by: ossi | Jun 19 2024 16:56 utc | 51
Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson recently said on a podcast with Nima at Dialogue Works that there are enough nukes on the submarines alone, never mind the ICBMs and bombers, just the submarines alone, to end the human race. As far as I know once the submarines leave port and enter into the ocean then they can't be tracked. This, if true, would render the idea that we could deal a nuclear first strike to Russia and not be annihilated in return absurd.
Posted by: Steven Hines | Jun 19 2024 17:24 utc | 60
b who wrote
"
'The World power' - as Biden calls the U.S. of A. - will not move aside unless someone makes it do so.
"
I don't see people getting the nuance that this is not a new King of the mountain civilization war but one where better examples of social organization band together to defend themselves against the God Of Mammon hegemony until it collapses of its own internal contradictions....which we are watching.
Is force being used in this process? Yes, as well of threat of additional force if necessary to defend existential existence..........here is where we get down to the nut
Does the God Of Mammon cult represent any Western nation or instead, the jackboot to rule them all? As the jackboot can they force the subject nations to defend the existence of the jackboot cult?
We are watching that question play out, eh?
Posted by: psychohistorian | Jun 19 2024 17:28 utc | 61
At this late stage of US decay, the result of this exceptionalist mindset and military adventurism in foreign policy is further domestic inequality and degradation of living standards for all but the wealthiest, whose good fortune depends on the continued dominance of the petrodollar which is rapidly coming to an end. US leaders and their elite minders are stuck in the past, expecting the gravy train to keep running when in reality the locomotive is breaking down.
Posted by: norecovery | Jun 19 2024 17:31 utc | 62
Ahenobarbus @1626
Perhaps you should consider delving more deeply. Somewhat analogous to hate being merely a derivative of fear; capitalism is not the undergirding rootstock of the current decline of the West. We need to do some historical retroprojection here and consider the 18th Century rise of both materialist, rationalist philosophy and concurrently the developments of industrialism and urbanization. In essence, the rise of finance capitalism was a derivative of these prior historical trends
Centralization is the core element within the current demise of so-called "civilized" values of the Collective Wa$te. As we look around us to the realization that this singular factor is the leitmotif for the accelerating devolutionary trends which now characterize both the Five Eyes and their accomplices across most of Europe and a few outliers such as Japan. Centralization is a power-trip. Power in all fields of culture, economics, education, mass-media has fallen into fewer and fewer hands...those of the ruling psychopaths and sociopaths.
Could be that the Mayans, with their world-class calendar and understandings of astronomy, astrology and Cosmic time cycles. who abandoned their amazing cities some hundreds of years ago; had simply come to the realization that centralization of all factors of life are toxic to the human spirit.
Posted by: aristodemos | Jun 19 2024 17:36 utc | 63
Posted by: james | Jun 19 2024 14:12 utc | 1
Let’s cut away the pretense that an addled, barely sentient diseased shell of a man who is just as likely to crap himself as exhibit any free will is determining US Foreign policy.
The fact that such a situation is tolerated and even celebrated is evidence that Dalio’s thesis is a good one.
Posted by: Ghost of Zanon | Jun 19 2024 17:39 utc | 64
After Ukraine, no one will be able to say "We thought that choosing America's side would bring victory and prosperity".
It's pretty clear that allowing your country to be the proxy in one of the US' proxy wars brings ruin.
What is not clear yet is what happens to the leader of the proxy country.
Posted by: Passerby | Jun 19 2024 17:41 utc | 65
This, if true, would render the idea that we could deal a nuclear first strike to Russia and not be annihilated in return absurd.
It's already absurd. SARMATs are mobile and Kinzhal's are nuclear capable with 1500m+ range.
That bridge was crossed years ago, it's only the US/EU leaders that don't seem to grasp it.
Posted by: TJandTheBear | Jun 19 2024 17:44 utc | 66
The fate of the United States has been "baked into the cake" since 1776. The country was founded wrongly, ideologically corrupted from inception, yet covered in a wickedly deceptive but attractive gloss, and so it simply follows the natural arc of history despite any pleas or protests from those along for the ride. Now is the time for sinking, and sink it shall.
Posted by: Matthew | Jun 19 2024 17:45 utc | 67
Posted by: juliania | Jun 19 2024 16:38 utc | 42"American (once British) exceptionalism is the Anglophone version of Chosenitis, so that particular pathology has been well transmitted via the early chapters of the Old Testament..."
Posted by: Scorpion | Jun 19 2024 15:13 utc | 20
Balderdash, Scorpion. Read the early chapters more carefully, and we can have a good discussion about them on one of the open threads. Not here.
I see your ‘Balderdash’ and raise, Juliania. Surely a fine thread to discuss the origins of exceptionalism is one entitled 'Biden's Exceptionalism is Likely to Stay'. No? So am staying put!
How many times in the Old Testament does the God therein exhort his followers to murder their enemies, including their infants? More importantly, perhaps, how many times does that old desert War God insist He is the highest one and 'thou shalt put no other gods before me'? Dozens if not hundreds, no?
If you don't find that exceptionalist, then perhaps the word has many different usages - quite possible in English - and we are using different ones. In any case, I believe you are going to be hard pressed to make a case against such a basic, not even controversial, point.
Second: if not from the Old Testament, then where do both the Jews and the Goyim get their extremely similar exceptionalism? Or does the one have nothing to do with the other and it's mere coincidence the Goyim use an old Jewish Bible and, for unrelated reasons, just so happen to share pretty much the same exceptionalist cultural pathogen?
Posted by: psychohistorian | Jun 19 2024 17:28 utc | 60
In the pursuit of the quarterly bonus, the manufacture of jackboots was off-shored. However the off-shore entities have decided “This is a crap way to try and run the world” and are looking askance at these strange, green-printed pieces of paper; far too many are needed to make up a troy ounce...
Posted by: Jeremy Rhymings-Lang | Jun 19 2024 17:48 utc | 69
Posted by: juliania | Jun 19 2024 15:58 utc | 29
words of wisdom, thank you Juliania.
Your take on the virus is the same as mine. It was real and hurt mostly those whose immune system was weakened by poor diet, bad air, bad life style, probably made worse by the vaccine (I think, not sure). Lots of cancers in my rural neighborhood. Lots of confusion. One shift: blue teamers aren't happy about Biden and red teamers aren't as excited about Trump but they'll probably vote with their team anyway.
bottom line, i see cracks in the belief system from both reds and blues but no one is clear eyed enough to take action. November election will trigger wider break-up as our collapse accelerates.
Posted by: migueljose | Jun 19 2024 17:50 utc | 70
Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson recently said on a podcast with Nima at Dialogue Works that there are enough nukes on the submarines alone, never mind the ICBMs and bombers, just the submarines alone, to end the human race. As far as I know once the submarines leave port and enter into the ocean then they can't be tracked. This, if true, would render the idea that we could deal a nuclear first strike to Russia and not be annihilated in return absurd.
Posted by: Steven Hines | Jun 19 2024 17:24 utc | 59
.
.
Now, when the Russian submarine visited Cuba, CNN reported that the American Navy did not know where it was.
Until the submarine appeared about 45 nautical miles from the Cuban port.
Which reinforces their suspicion that modern submarines are rarely found anymore.
Posted by: ossi | Jun 19 2024 17:55 utc | 71
Psychohistorian@1728
You nailed it. Highest finance capital pulls the strings for the entirety of the Collective Wa$te. Curious, that the oh so subtle International Bank of Settlements, based in Switzerland, of course; just happens to be the Central Banking headquarters for the Central Bank$ters with their post-Babylonian funny-money empowerment. So who the hell OWNS that IB$? One should first consider a certain private bank in the independent realm known as City of London and secondly to Wall $treet, which is essentially under control of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York...a 54% majority holding by the dominant crime clan here in our ruptured republic.
The rabbit hole grows even deeper than that precis. However, the deliberate dumbing down of the American people has rendered even many insightful people into mere shadows of our human potential. Most people simply do not wanna know who pulls the strings. Diligent searchers and seekers, however, are still on the scent. It is wise to commence by realizing that highest finance capital is target #1.
Posted by: aristodemos | Jun 19 2024 17:55 utc | 72
Posted by: Matthew | Jun 19 2024 17:45 utc | 66The fate of the United States has been "baked into the cake" since 1776. The country was founded wrongly, ideologically corrupted from inception, yet covered in a wickedly deceptive but attractive gloss, and so it simply follows the natural arc of history despite any pleas or protests from those along for the ride. Now is the time for sinking, and sink it shall.
At first blush, agree wholeheartedly and well said. But on further consideration:
No nation ever lives up to its own hype and all nations have such. The trick is to blend non-material principles with all too real practical exigency. Easy to say, hard to do. America isn't that much worse than most other nations or civilizations; a rich, variegated blend of good and evil. They can find a way through but only by connecting to bedrock principles aligned with the Good, The True, The Beautiful - or however you like to reference them. This is the case with each and every individual and/or society in Human Being Time.
So, yes, all the crap unfolding is as natural as night following day, the inevitable ripening of karma. But at any given moment, different choices can be made and different destinies made inevitable. This also is always the case.
The story of the fallen jinn/angel , Shaytan or Iblees , is the same human story as Fallen Empires.
Biden is extremely aware of the USA's opportunity at WW2 to seize Empire from the fallen empires of the past, the Mughals, Persians, Ottomans, Germans French Belgian Brits Roman Greek etc..
Of course he understands the process of Empires' rise and wane. How could he not? If he is a he, that is. They give the masses bread and circuses, or gender politics , or feeding Christians to lions , or Ukrainians to Russians, or Palestinians to US bombs, etc purely to distract from their acquisition of Wealth, which is their principle ambition.
I think we are wrong to obsess with the distraction circus that has been thrown out to distract us. We should rather be focusing on the Spiritual reality that material wealth is a deception of the life of this world , while spiritual actions, like prayer and remembrance of Allah, are only things that will count in the hereafter.
Posted by: Giyane | Jun 19 2024 17:59 utc | 74
We are at present looking into the abyss, and we must at least say: Not in Our Name.And say it loudly and as long as we are able to do so.
Very lucid and powerful! Thank you for your post, juliana | Wed, 19 Jun 2024 16:56:00 GMT | 52
Posted by: persiflo | Jun 19 2024 18:02 utc | 75
73, sorry:
Spiritual deeds are the only things that will count in the Hereafter.
Posted by: Giyane | Jun 19 2024 18:02 utc | 76
Now, when the Russian submarine was visited in Cuba, CNN reported that the American Navy does not know where it is.
Until the submarine appeared about 45 nautical miles from the Cuban port.
Which reinforces their suspicion that modern submarines are hardly ever found anymore.
Whereas 45 nautical miles plus land distance from New York would be about 5 minutes flight time for a Zyrcon.
As already mentioned above, the USA's missile shield is history.
By the way, a missile from Germany's most modern air defense system, the IRIS-T SLM, is reported missing on its way to Ukraine.
Is probably already on the homing table in Moscow.
Perhaps one reason why NATO is now taking over the logistics for arms deliveries in Europe. They no longer trust Sylenski because too many weapons have disappeared on the way to the front.
It is therefore nicely packaged as help
.
Posted by: ossi | Jun 19 2024 18:06 utc | 77
Every diagnosis of the US exceptionalism as some sort of mental disorder or simply immorality is wrong. Every attempt to redbait the US is out of touch with reality. The OP's concluding that somebody has to make the US "move aside" is sort of correct. But that means making the US lose. That will not be done by moral reformation or even by unpopularity with the governments of the rest of the world. The US military has to be defeated.
The bad thing is, Biden is correct in his assessment that the US is the dominant military power. It is the prospect of losing that superiority that is driving hybrid WWIII. Even more, the implicit assumption that the ability to destroy enemy states who get too uppity is sufficient so long the military is not whipped badly enough to discredit them. Sure, military force has it political and even more economic limits. That doesn't matter much, not until the US is beaten enough. The problem for humanity is structural forces that impel imperialism to embark on futile adventures. The system is irrational and all attempts to reform it will ultimately fail. Unfortunately, there is no radioactive mode of production. The choice really is socialism or barbarism. The problem is not the sexual habit and mores of the population at large, especially since the militant prudes are already likely enough a minority losing ground especially among the young. You can call it "woke" but all these ravings are just a different brand of "deplorables." Real politics is about who gets what, who the government serves. Out of the boardrooms, into the bedrooms! is not the liberation of the people, but a diversion, a swindle opposed to that.
Not so incidentally so far as electoral politics is concerned, Trump is just as exceptionalist as Biden, except he seems to be crazy enough to think US economic power, via tariffs and ordering other people to pay tribute, as in commanding the EU to spend more on US-controlled NATO wars, is going to work!
By the way, the deplorables are not the working class, not even in the words of Clinton or Obama. Their "deplorables" are committed racists and misogynists and cryptofascists. Their smug assumption that people in their own social milieu, much less themselves, couldn't be anything like that is preposterous. And their condescension to the working class as frustrated ill-informed losers is pretty galling too. But that's the same thing as before: The so called woke are the deplorables with distasteful sexual habits and manners. The working class is actually the majority, thus the majority of so-called woke is working class. The murderous hostility to immigrants is to an extent (how much I don't know, and especially not who, I'm not a mind reader) despised because anti-immigrant people despise poor immigrants because they are...working class. Brain drain immigrants with advanced skills are welcomed, to undercut their competition. Engineer and physicians by the way are PMC if the acronym means anything (it doesn't really) and the H-1B visa is classic example of how the imaginary PMC is not a ruling class. Again, it's not even a class in any rational sense.
Posted by: steven t johnson | Jun 19 2024 18:06 utc | 78
Scorpion @ 1746
For sure you are on the trail. This now devolving rapidly Age of Pisces has been dominated in the West by a phenomenon I have long regarded as the JudieChristieMagickMindfuck. We have long been a thoroughly deracinated people and by becoming impositionally infused by the Old Testicles, a compound created by the Septuagint rabbinical scholars by researching various mythologies and histories. Their creation of the Old Testicles occurred in relatively recent times in the then largest city in the Mediterranean world, Alexandria, Egypt...the site of the largest reference library in the world.
Abraham and Sarah, were coopted from Hindu mythology. Moses was a reiteration of Akhenaton. David, Solomon and the Temple never existed. The entire concraption was made-up mythologizing. But ensuing from the Roman Emperor Constantine's CREATION of the "Holy" Bible and the assumption of the powers of the Empire by the Church of Rome; the collective West devolved culturally into the Dark Ages due to the deracinatory severing of European tribal nations by centralized power and its deliberate destruction of all narratives which did not fit the agenda.
Keep up the research. Discover true history. Share your growing knowledge...and keep using the stinger in your tail to demolish their tales.
Posted by: aristodemos | Jun 19 2024 18:07 utc | 79
Posted by: Moscow Burns | Jun 19 2024 16:43 utc | 47
Go back to southfront little nafo shooting gallery.
Posted by: Justpassinby | Jun 19 2024 18:09 utc | 80
The US is just posturing, Biden more so.
Thinking about Putin's offer - that there would be immediate ceasefire if Ukraine would agree to and act to withdrawal from Donbas. I think that was a bluff as well - ether Putin is incredibly naive/in denial or he was confident that the west would not accept the offer and even constructed the offer in a way that the west could not accept it. Ukraine does not even have a legitimate representative and the west can only be trusted to lie and break contracts.
There will be no settlement.
US having to pivot to China - more chaos.
It smacks of desperation - not the kind of behavior one would see from a healthy country.
Posted by: jared | Jun 19 2024 18:15 utc | 81
Jake Sullivan is becoming predictable:
"F-16 warplanes transferred to Kiev by Washington will be stationed on Ukrainian territory, US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said."
This means those F-16s stationed outside Ukraine will be from Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Norway...
Posted by: Passerby | Jun 19 2024 18:18 utc | 82
The US is just posturing, Biden more so.
Thinking about Putin's offer - that there would be immediate ceasefire if Ukraine would agree to and act to withdrawal from Donbas. I think that was a bluff as well - ether Putin is incredibly naive/in denial or he was confident that the west would not accept the offer and even constructed the offer in a way that the west could not accept it. Ukraine does not even have a legitimate representative and the west can only be trusted to lie and break contracts.
There will be no settlement.
.
.
Well not naive...absolutely clever.
He offers negotiations at the moment when everyone in Switzerland is claiming Putin doesn't want any...
Ergo, everyone is embarrassed by the South, Russia wants it.
The West doesn't want it.
Although Sylenski has banned negotiations with Putin by law, making it a criminal offense for himself.
Posted by: ossi | Jun 19 2024 18:20 utc | 83
Well, I should say:
My theory is that the Ukrainians will tire of all the b/s from the west and re-take control of the country and work-out terms with Russia. Lack of electricity, money, men and sewage in the streets should expedite that.
Alternately, they would be waiting for US to select their next leader.
Posted by: jared | Jun 19 2024 18:20 utc | 84
If there ever was anything exceptional about America it was the system of government that was conceived and implemented by the founders. Too bad that system died at least a century ago.
Early American presidents did a good job in not allowing standing armies to be built, warning about foreign entanglements, creating an independent judiciary, ehecks & balances, etc. Certainly, there was a lot of "unexceptionalism" in early America - racism, residual colonialism in Latin America, and the granddaddy of 'em all: genocide of indigenous peoples. However, there were some good things including the Bill of Rights, rugged individualism, and isolationism. To this day, US governments can not get away with the kind of violations of freedom of expression and speech that are tolerated in Canada and the UK. However, big Tech has stepped up to the plate in that regard.
The belief that "we're special" traces back to Manifest Destiny and the good luck of geography. Until the airplane was invented, America was only reachable from Europe by days of travel at sea. All well-meaning systems of government devised by man eventually fall to corruption, it's as inevitable as the laws of thermodynamics. Because man himself is corrupt and venal and will slaughter his neighbor without checks and balances.
Posted by: Ghost of Zanon | Jun 19 2024 18:32 utc | 85
It will be necessary to bring the war to their home
Posted by: kamma43muri | Jun 19 2024 14:59 utc | 17
Full ack, their citizens need to feel the heat. Every time I meet an American nowadays I tell them that I despise them and that they need to be eradicated from this world. Sure, doesn’t help but it makes them uncomfortable to be hated. That’s a first step, especially when it comes from a white westerner.
Posted by: Zet | Jun 19 2024 18:35 utc | 86
Exceptionalism is a mental disorder brought about by poor parenting and education.
The break up of the family unit and deteriorating education from primary school to university witnessed in the US over a relatively short period has resulted in the total breakdown of its society. Alarmingly, most European countries have followed suit, however, there is some hope as Europe was late to the party and so has some chance of returning to traditional values. The US is a lost cause, a lost cause with thousands of nukes!
Posted by: Eoin Clancy | Jun 19 2024 18:37 utc | 87
@Scorpion | Wed, 19 Jun 2024 17:46:00 GMT | 67 poses a profound question above; one which is not only well fitting to this thread, but most relevant to the ethical big picture that ties in all ongoings on our small and lucky Moon of Alabama:
if not from the Old Testament, then where do both the Jews and the Goyim get their extremely similar exceptionalism? Or does the one have nothing to do with the other and it's mere coincidence the Goyim use an old Jewish Bible and, for unrelated reasons, just so happen to share pretty much the same exceptionalist cultural pathogen?
I shall say that we can hardly overstate its importance, and hence return to it often enough.
To outline my most general thought on this, I'd posit that 'exceptionalism' in the sense of Chosenitis is more than just a cultural pathogen - it seems very much to be THE essential crime of the mind, if you allow me to say so. - Why?
Because all instances of Chosenitis take the form of an unargued, derived from might-makes-right worldview (necessarily instated by people) which claims "me yes, but you not". This may manifest in access to worldly belongings, rights to personhood in any group, society or civilization, and, crucially, in all day-to-day encounters between people, not just among themselves, but also with others (foreigners; Étrangeres), with animals, with nature in general, and also with God, not withstanding how exactly one likes to imagine him.
The Chosenitis by the Chosen Ones is to be seen in that light. On the other hand, they are hardly the only one to exhibit this kind of intellectual defect. The Romans had their empire divided into provinces and the central capital, and as the saying goes, "all roads lead to Rome". My own country, Germany, had the Nazis claim they were the Herrenvolk, and Slavs and others the Untermenschen, to be dealt with accordingly. One might argue that all acts of violent crime, like mugging, rape and murder, are somehow born of a mind that is willingly, but perhaps almost unwittingly, denying others' humanity.
I encourage everyone to try and think for themselves of more examples to this very basic, very stark and drastic error of realizing one's own spiritual humanity. I'll be adding my own here in loose succession over time in the future.
Posted by: persiflo | Jun 19 2024 18:38 utc | 88
Rhodes writes:
"To build better ties with developing countries, Washington needs to consistently prioritize the issues they care about: investment, technology, and clean energy."
The US already prioritizes these issues, but not in the way the developing world can benefit from.
Investment through privatization of public industries to Western financial institutional benefits. Think IMF conditions.
Technology: luckily, Bill Gates and Big Pharma greed saved Africa from the fake mRNA "vaccines" pushed in the West for profit over people. That and Africa's use of HCQ for malaria gave African countries some of the lowest COVID rates of infection and deaths.
"Clean" energy technology used as a weapon, along with carbon credit schemes to slow or prevent developing nations from developing their industries.
We sure know how Western neoliberal leeches suck the life blood out of the developing world, not to mention their own citizens, through financial indebtedness.
No, the developing world does not want "investment, technology, and clean energy" the American way.
Posted by: Blue Dotterel | Jun 19 2024 18:40 utc | 89
@ Scorpion | Jun 19 2024 17:46 utc | 67
I sometimes disagree with you vehemently, but this time you hit it out of the park for sure. Only now I have that “Jerusalem” hymn on earworm autorepeat…
Let’s see if you get a meaningful response. 😉
Posted by: malenkov | Jun 19 2024 18:42 utc | 90
Posted by: aristodemos | Jun 19 2024 18:07 utc | 78Keep up the research. Discover true history. Share your growing knowledge...and keep using the stinger in your tail to demolish their tales.
Thxs for kind words. Speaking of research just received book 'How the British invented communism (and blamed it on the Jews)'. Although am not convinced that notions such as those in the Protocols are accurate, am also fairly sure there has been a strong movement spearheaded by 'Jews' pursuing their own interests often quite separate from those of their host nations whose wealth they so well manipulate; by engineering deals between different parties.
Even if indeed the British Ruling Class cooked up communism to destroy rival states and even if the book is correct that attributing this to the Jews is a deliberately seeded falsehood (as I expect to be well argued), where I suspect the book will fall short is in explaining really who or what that British Ruling Class was (just as it is hard to precisely identify the current ruling classes) behind it all.
I read Marx's rarely in print 'The Russian Loan' recently, in Chapter 11 of Peter Myers 'The Cosmopolitan Empire'. It clearly demonstrates a vast, international money-lending network of hundreds of Jewish houses and families that were clearly NOT organized by the British yet without which many of the latter's international machinations, including the East India Company, could not have existed, let alone enjoyed such, albeit short-lived, success.
Wheels within wheels, layers within layers. The realm of conspiracy and power politics follows platonic metaphysical norms!
PS: whatever the historical antecedents to bedrock narratives, the ultimate Creator is human nature itself which such narratives stimulate.
I don't think we'll see Biden on the ballot in November. Curious to see how they'll manage that.
Posted by: pessoa | Jun 19 2024 16:07 utc | 32
They will murder him and present a Russian as the perpetrator, they will tell us that they uncovered a plot by Putin and the rest will be history
Posted by: Zet | Jun 19 2024 18:52 utc | 93
Could be that the Mayans, with their world-class calendar and understandings of astronomy, astrology and Cosmic time cycles. who abandoned their amazing cities some hundreds of years ago; had simply come to the realization that centralization of all factors of life are toxic to the human spirit.
Posted by: aristodemos | Jun 19 2024 17:36 utc | 62
The Mayans! Ungh, wrong and so condescending too. Like talking to a Dem.
That says it all, folks! You can get depreso-spiritual with the appropriately named Aristo or take a look at the potentials in our material reality. Good luck out there!
Posted by: Ahenobarbus | Jun 19 2024 18:53 utc | 94
I could remember how, when Biden was running for president, a pro-Trump news outlet (can't remember what it was) ran an article claiming that Biden would undermine their beloved "American Exceptionalism". Having taken the Uniparty (the lack of any real difference between Democrats and the GOP), I dismissed it as theater then then and I still find it hard to buy today.
All I know is, to this day the US is still not on the metric system (let alone to the degree Canada is), there are still no $1 and $2 coins like in Canada, and healthcare still costs an arm and a leg (not to say Canada's is any better), among other things that have stayed the same under Biden as they have under Trump.
Frankly, the less American Exceptionalism, the better. It's time the US stops living in past glories and enters the 21st century, even if it has to be dragged kicking and screaming.
Posted by: joey_n | Jun 19 2024 18:59 utc | 95
Posted by: Scorpion | Jun 19 2024 18:44 utc | 90
Good on you, Scorpion. Juliana and Aristo are elitists. They despise the working class and cannot leave the ivory tower. Juliana is a big fan of the philosophical salon. Check it out. Tells you all you need to know.
Posted by: Ahenobarbus | Jun 19 2024 18:59 utc | 96
I don't think we'll see Biden on the ballot in November. Curious to see how they'll manage that.
Posted by: pessoa | Jun 19 2024 16:07 utc | 32
They will murder him and present a Russian as the perpetrator, they will tell us that they uncovered a plot by Putin and the rest will be history
Posted by: Zet | Jun 19 2024 18:52 utc | 92
.
.
.
Now Biden and the 2024 election
Biden's party agreed to 2 TV duels against Trump in July!
Ergo...either they want to embarrass him to the core because NO notes are allowed...
In order to then withdraw him as a candidate at their party conference in August because of dementia...
Then Michel Obhama to stand against Trump, which would be a clever move.
Biden would have disqualified himself in the TV duel, so the party would not be blamed. Because he hardly had a chance, everyone sees his failures.
Oh yes, as far as I know, on July 17th
.
What surprises me is that you all apparently do NOT know that
Posted by: ossi | Jun 19 2024 19:05 utc | 97
Speaking of psychotic exceptionalism, something really interesting is about to happen in Britain - the election.
Polls are predicting a crazy once in a century wipeout of the Tories. There's a recent poll suggesting that it could be almost 10 to one in elected MP's.
Labour will be able to do almost anything they want. What will happen to Britain's long tradition of Russophobia? Especially given that their military is the smallest its been in decades?? So, war with Russia? Who knows?
Posted by: Eighthman | Jun 19 2024 19:11 utc | 98
Posted by: malenkov | Jun 19 2024 18:42 utc | 89
You are always most welcome to disagree; only when it happens, please remember one of the posts you liked and so not attribute ill will or low motives to the one you now dislike and then argue your case clearly so we all benefit.
Am cursed with the ability to see things from different, often contradictory, points of view (might have made a good Judge), so often don't come across with a consistent thrust. Lacking many fixed conclusions, am open to no end of possible 'what ifs', which also has its disadvantages. (Basically, am a bewildered medieval person trapped in the twenty first century!)
All best.
One step away from war:
Israel prepares to attack Lebanon, Hezbollah leader threatens retaliation
▪️The Israeli army previously said that operational plans for offensive operations in Lebanon have been approved and approved.
▪️In the event of a full-scale war, Hezbollah will be destroyed, the Israeli Foreign Minister said.
▪️Hezbollah leader Nasrallah said that the organization has intelligence about Israel's plans to bomb Lebanese airports from Cyprus. In his speech, he warned that if this happens, the Mediterranean will become hell for Israel and its allies.
▪️He also warned the Cypriot government: "If you open your airfields and bases to Israel so that it can strike at Lebanon, you will be drawn into a war."
Posted by: guest | Jun 19 2024 19:17 utc | 100
The comments to this entry are closed.
thanks b...
the usa is a declining empire.. of that, there's no question... biden ought to watch this, but he won't..
Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order by Ray Dalio
Posted by: james | Jun 19 2024 14:12 utc | 1