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[dropcap]T[/dropcap]here’s so much going on in US politics right now that it’s hard to know what to write about. With all the shouting about the election, impeachment, Trump’s bogus Palestine “deal” and so many other important political issues competing for airtime with Kobe Bryant’s death and coronavirus fear porn, it feels like we’re already at white noise information saturation, and it’s not even February yet. Things are going to get a whole lot noisier next month when the Democratic presidential primaries (and all the establishment manipulations that will necessarily accompany them) get underway, and Julian Assange’s extradition trial begins.

One of the many interesting developments that I can pluck out of this cacophony to earn my keep here has been the hysterical response to Bernie Sanders’ polling bump from the Bush-era neoconservatives who’ve been rehabilitated by a weird new alliancewith the Democratic Party in the age of Trump. In just the last few days we’ve seen a deluge of smear pieces against Sanders published in mainstream news outlets by virulent “never-Trump” neocons Bret “Bedbug” Stephens, David “Axis of Evil” Frum, Jennifer “John McCain is too dovish” Rubin, and Max “The Case for American Empire” Boot.

Which has turned out to be a good thing so far, for two reasons. Firstly it has ripped off the mask of woke progressivism that these neoconservative war whores slapped on their faces three years ago to promote mass murder within the Democratic establishment’s astroturf “Resistance” to Trump. Secondly it has educated an entire new generation of young voters about the evils of the Iraq invasion, and who helped facilitate it.

"Bernie Sanders is ‘insanely consistent.’ That’s nothing to brag about."

It is always a good sign when a bunch of pundits who push for increased military aggression at every opportunity are upset about the same thing, but I’m going to single out Max Boot here because his Bernie tantrum has been especially hilarious to watch.

In an article for The Washington Post titled “Bernie Sanders is ‘insanely consistent.’ That’s nothing to brag about.“, Boot bizarrely decided to attack Sanders on the fact that he hasn’t often had to admit that he’s been wrong about things.

“But it is true that I’ve rethought my views on some important matters, such as the Iraq War, and started speaking out on issues such global warming, gun control and white privilege where reality conflicts with conservative dogma,” Boot writes, adding that he can be trusted now “precisely because I have changed my mind. Don’t trust anyone who hasn’t.”

It is fascinating that Boot should choose consistency as a line of attack against Sanders, because he himself has been remarkably consistent throughout his entire career. He’s just been consistent in the other direction.

Promoting fiendishly aggressive interventionist agendas everywhere from Iraq to Afghanistan to Libya to Syria to Iran to Russia, the former PNAC member Boot has been a leading narrative manager for some of the most catastrophically disastrous military interventions in living memory. He has not just promoted imperialist agendas which destroyed the lives of untold millions of human beings, but has also consistently promoted the pernicious underpinning philosophy of that imperialism as in his 2001 masterpiece “The Case for American Empire“.

And that is the one and only reason Boot remains gainfully employed as a famous and widely circulated mainstream foreign policy analyst. He has no redeeming characteristics. He is not smart. He is not charming. He is never, ever right about anything. He simply advocates for the deployment of expensive military equipment consistently and reliably. The oligarchic media love that in a guy.

Boot, who has been giddy with excitement that his fellow traveller John Bolton has entered his side of the impeachment debate, wrapped up his unintentional self-parody by cheerleading Trump’s regime change interventionism in Venezuela and the right-wing military coup in Bolivia. After its publication he quickly found himself under fire on Twitter by the Sanders campaign’s David Sirota, who rightly criticized his forceful promotion of the Iraq invasion. Boot responded by whining that the “Bernie Bro” should accept his admission that Iraq was a mistake and forget about the whole thing.

“Me: I was wrong and I admit it, but I learned from it. Bernie should too. He’s been wrong about some stuff. Bernie Bro: You were wrong. Why should we listen to you?”, Boot tweeted.

“LOL. Exactly,” Jennifer Rubin responded.

And that just says so much about the coddled, insulated, completely unchallenged life that these mass media pundits are accustomed to, right there. To believe that you can help pave the way for a war that kills a million people based on lies and then years later say “Oh yeah I made an oopsie with that one, I need a do-over” requires an unbelievable amount of entitlement and privilege, let alone to be able to self-righteously hold that admission up as some kind of superior virtue that is worthy of praise and deference.

You don’t get to help murder a million people and then act indignant when people bring it up. That is not a thing. Your admission of wrongdoing does not undo the wrong that you did, and only someone who has been raised in a consequence-free environment their entire life could possibly believe that it would.

Hey Max? If you ever get tired of being completely wrong about everything, here’s a hot tip for you: maybe start with crossing off the idea that murdering a bunch of people is an ideal solution to every problem. Normal people don’t think that way. That’s why you’re wrong more often than any normal person.

Nobody who promoted the unforgivable Iraq invasion should ever be listened to about anything for as long as they live. They certainly should not be elevated in prominent slots on mainstream news outlets. They should not even be able to find employment anywhere more glamorous than a McDonald’s.

It is good that these people are exposing themselves, and it is good that more people are learning about the Iraq invasion. Nothing has ever been done to make right the unfathomable evils which were inflicted upon our species by that one horrific act, let alone the many other disastrous interventions which have been endorsed by Max Boot.

Let’s all hope for a sane world where mass military slaughter is seen for what it is, and where war whores like Max Boot are seen for what they are, and where both of these things fade into obsolescence forever.

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Addendum
Caitlin Johnstone's wisdom

#Resistance Hero John Bolton: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix

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Liberals should definitely get their hopes up very, very high that John Bolton is going to provide the information needed to bring down the Trump administration and restore order to the universe. Definitely put all your eggs in that basket and invest all of your emotions in it.

Friendly reminder that you aren’t actually required to care about the impeachment show or have any opinions about it whatsoever. ~

The difference between the totalitarianism of dictatorships and the inverted totalitarianism of “free” societies is that in totalitarianism they allow one ideology which supports the status quo, while inverted totalitarianism allows two ideologies which support the status quo. ~

Mike Pompeo lies so reliably and so significantly that in a very real way you would gain a more accurate picture of reality by believing the exact opposite of all his public statements than you would by believing them. ~

The establishment which runs the empire is not afraid of Trump, and it is not afraid of Bernie. It’s afraid of you. They can handle one man in the White House who is less than ideal. What they absolutely cannot handle is ordinary people using their numbers to effect real change. ~

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has moved the Doomsday Clock to 100 seconds to midnight, largely due to senseless recent escalations between the US and Russia. But hey, nuclear armageddon is a small price to pay if we get to retaliate for even a single one of those $46,000 worth of Russian Facebook memes. ~

Fixing the world’s problems and fixing your own inner dysfunction are inseparably unified objectives. It’s okay to emphasize one more than the other at different stages in your life, but valuing one without valuing the other is a contradictory, intellectually dishonest position. ~

Some people who learn a bit about what’s really going on in the world start believing society’s problems are being driven by otherworldly forces like reptilians or Satanism because it’s more comfortable than grappling with the reality that our ills are very, very, very human. ~

Reading The New York Times to learn about what’s happening in the world is like reading Calvin and Hobbes to learn about tigers.~

Step 1: Launch vicious smear against Sanders.
Step 2: Shout “DON’T FIGHT! WE NEED TO STICK TOGETHER! DO YOU WANT TRUMP TO WIN???” at anyone who objects.
Step 3: Repeat steps 1-3 until Sanders is neutralized.

The 2016 Democratic presidential primary was rigged. It was useful not because it offered any real opportunity to elect a good candidate, but because trying to do so and watching what happened woke people up to establishment corruption. The same will be true of the 2020 primary.

If you don’t push against the will of the establishment manipulators, you’ll never force them to expose themselves. Let them install Biden/Warren/Buttigeig without opposition and they won’t be forced to sabotage democracy. Force them to provide proof of their own corruption.

This is not to say Americans shouldn’t try to nominate a true progressive candidate; it’s to say that they should. Try very, very hard to nominate your favorite candidate. Try your very hardest. And then, watch what happens. Watch what they do to you. And never, ever forget. ~

If you’re a grown adult making an angsty public spectacle about receiving angry online comments from supporters of a politician you just smeared, you should feel ashamed of yourself. If you’re a professional news reporter doing the same, you should immediately change careers. ~

Hillary Clinton has become another David Duke. In the same way being “endorsed” by Duke gets a progressive politician cancelled, being attacked by Hillary gives them a boost. ~

Biden debating Trump would look like a geriatric squirrel with glaucoma fighting a rabid wolverine.~

Every single day I get extreme vitriol directed at me for expressing skepticism of The Official Narrative Of The Day. This vitriol never causes me the slightest flicker of self-doubt, because I distinctly remember seeing the exact same vitriol in the lead-up to the Iraq invasion.~

The existence of some opposition to the Iranian government within Iran doesn’t legitimize attempts to foment civil war there. There were grassroots elements to US-sponsored uprisings in Libya, Syria and Ukraine too, but they wouldn’t have occurred without western interventionism. ~

Don’t babble about the need to “support” anti-government protesters in unabsorbed nations. “Support” is too conveniently vague. Specify what you want them to receive. Weapons? Money? Retweets? Prayers? At the very least be forthright and honest about what it is you’re advocating.~

“Trump doesn’t want war! He’s just using sanctions and CIA ops to encourage the Iranian people to rise up and oust the regime!”
“Yeah that’s civil war. That’s the thing that civil war is.”
“Well okay but the people doing it will look different from me so it doesn’t count.”

Trump supporters are George W Bush supporters LARPing as Ron Paul supporters.~

The many have been propagandized into supporting the interests of the few. But it’s worse than that: the many have also been propagandized into believing that those few among them who advocate for the interests of the many are the real enemy. This whole dynamic must reverse.