Speaking of celebrities: Springsteen or Muhammed Ali—take your pick

You gotta wonder why. But no one has yet figured out how people who normally have far more money, education, and leisure time than ordinary working stiffs don't seem to "get it".  Some Americans, of course, manage to see the light.  They manage to climb out of the bubble. Jimmy Dore—who claims a working class background— did it. He's still not what some might call a "formulated Marxist", but he's a solid anti-imperialist socialist. A man of decency and principle.  And he's rightfully angry at the ugliness he sees. The stuff that revolutionaries are made. But most, however frustrated and dissatisfied, never do. Never shake the indoctrination.

Granted, Americans are easily the most heavily propagandised, indeed brainwashed, population on earth, almost a breed apart.  Having drunk the kool-aid of US exceptionalism from the cradle on up, and inhabiting a nation that is almost a perfect storm of factors protecting the predatory plutocrat, Americans at all social levels are bombarded day in and day out with endless justifications for a rotten (and worsening) status quo. It's clear that capitalism, like feudalism and other systems before them, has succeeded in creating the tools and circumstances to manufacture consent on an industrial scale.  Thus, what was once, say, 75 or 100 years ago, an "organically and thereby only quasi-consciously produced distraction", simply the outcome of media and entertainment in the hands of multimillionaires who generally had no great appetite for truths that might threaten their capitalist privilege, has now become a deliberate and wholly professional exercise in massive mendacity, a machine of global disinformation that clearly exceeds Orwell's most dystopic visions. 

The upshot of all this manipulation is not pretty. The US and the UK have infected their own people, and much of "the West", especially this privileged sector of the upper-middle class, with a malign "woke" ideology that is almost equal parts idpol, obsessive hatred for Russia, China and Iran, and at best, crass indifference to the suffering of other victims of US imperialism, especially Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, and yes, North Korea, perhaps the country that has suffered the most at the hands of Washington's sociopathic self-righteous exceptionalism.  Many of these proudly illiberal liberals are also zealous Zionists, so no real criticism of Israel is normally allowed, lest the speaker be accused of rank anti-semitism.  This repulsive inverted liberalism, which now includes a ludicrous late-blooming love for the CIA, the FBI, and other tools of international mayhem previously seen as despicable instruments of imperial policy, is now fortified with a tacit and at times enthusiastic approval for warmongering and censorship, whenever solicited by the Democrats' media and political leadership. 

Rich pickings
In any case, because most famous actors and entertainers are lightweights, at best single-issue obsessives (e.g., Richard Gere, a decades-long p.r. crusader for the Dalai Lama and "Tibetan freedom"), they make perfect "marks" for the ever-ready propaganda machine that constantly scours the celebrity landscape in search of people that can be used to fuel the imperial message.

An eloquent example of what it means to be terribly popular while lacking a basic understanding of social and historical reality, or the courage to speak morally to power (assuming they know what's going on, a rarity), was offered last Sunday on CBS Sunday Morning when Bruce Springsteen provided the latest CBS-facilitated Obama tongue-bath (albeit less abject than Steven Colbert's, "let me drink you in..." exhibition, back in Nov. 2020), in the form of a "man-bonding" celebration of the simple things in life—like the love of cars, music and so on. Who can disagree with that, you may ask? Well, call me a killjoy, but seems like Springsteen is not aware, or doesn't care, that he's also being used to once again burnish the creds of Barack Obama, a war criminal and mass betrayer of popular aspirations who continues to pass for one of America's most outstanding and compassionate statesmen. In this cynical segment aired by CBS, the chief conceit is the men's talk about their fathers, always an emotional thing with decent folk. Problem here is that CBS doesn't tell us much about what Obama's father —or family—did. Maybe there are some sordid skeletons in the closet, and the corporate media, always dependable accomplices of the oligarchy, are not about to tell us about that.  If they had, they would have had to account for some strange biographical details (not the idiotic and ultimately superficial Trump persecution of Obama about his actual birthplace), but far more unpleasant matters. Here's what New Zealander Sherwood Ross has to say about this topic, basing himself on the research done by radical journalist Wayne Madsen:

Obama and His Family Tied to CIA for Years

Friday, 3 September 2010, 10:59 am
Opinion: Sherwood Ross

By Sherwood Ross
SCOOP INDEPENDENT NEWS

President Obama---as well as his mother, father, step-father and grandmother---all were connected to the Central Intelligence Agency---possibly explaining why the President praises the “Agency” and declines to prosecute its officials for their crimes.
According to a published report in the September “Rock Creek Free Press” of Washington, D.C., investigative reporter Wayne Madsen says Obama's mother Ann Dunham worked “on behalf of a number of CIA front operations, including the East-West Center at the University of Hawaii, the U.S. Agency for International Development(USAID), and the Ford Foundation.” The East-West Center had long been affiliated with CIA activities in the Asia-Pacific region, Madsen says.

Ms. Dunham traveled to Ghana, Nepal, Bangladesh, India and Thailand “working on micro-financing projects” for the CIA, Madsen reports. And Ms. Dunham's mother, Madelyn Dunham---who raised Obama while his mother was on assignment in Indonesia---acted as vice president of the Bank of Hawaii in Honolulu, which Madsen says was used by various CIA front entities. She handled escrow accounts used to make CIA payments “to U.S.-supported Asian dictators” including Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos, South Vietnamese President Nguyen van Thieu, and President Suharto in Indonesia, Madsen says. “In effect, the bank was engaged in money laundering for the CIA to prop up covertly its favored leaders in the Asia-Pacific region,” Madsen writes. “It is clear that Dunham Soetoro and her Indonesian husband, President Obama's step-father, were closely involved in the CIA's operations to steer Indonesia away from the Sino-Soviet orbit after the overthrow of Sukarno.”

CBS Sunday Morning • Oct 24, 2021

Truth spoils all the fun
Operation Djakarta), was one of the bloodiest—genocidal, some have rightly called it—anti-communist coups in the 20th century, with upwards of 3/4 of million people killed by the army supported by millions of mobilised fanatics, a coup that put ecologically and strategically precious Indonesia firmly in the exploitative basket of the corporatised West. Even today, Indonesia is a disgraceful, utterly corrupt and backward Western satrapy that remains a multinationals' playground.  Obama himself, of course, not only betrayed the public by NOT pushing for single-payer healthcare when he had the votes and a clear mandate, selling us instead "Obamacare", a charlatan's dream concocted by libertarian think tanks. Internationally, he expanded the Bush wars, helping to destroy Libya and Syria, the horrors in both creating one of the 21st century's largest waves of refugees still threatening the stability of Washington's pathetic vassals in the EU. Not content with that, Obama also gave the green light to the neocons' plan for another coup attempt in Ukraine in 2014 (the first CIA-organised  "orange revolution" had failed in 2004), which still constitutes a major risk of war in that sensitive region, and has already cost the lives of thousands of innocent people. So much for a man who continues to be soaked in grotesquely undeserved praise.

So, to keep things nice and neat, let's call Springsteen and his ilk, the "pseudo woke." Or, if you prefer, unwitting fools.  Let's look now at an example of a man that really incarnates the idea of human decency and courage. 

The Truly Woke: Accept No Substitutes
 Lang, a person I assume to be a genuine progressive.  I reproduce it below, in toto, with no further comment.

“I ain't got no quarrel with those Vietcong.”

“I ain’t draft dodging. I ain’t burning no flag. I ain’t running to Canada. I’m staying right here. You want to send me to jail? Fine, you go right ahead. I’ve been in jail for 400 years. I could be there for four or five more, but I ain’t going no 10,000 miles to help murder and kill other poor people. 

"If I want to die, I’ll die right here, right now, fightin' you, if I want to die. You my enemy, not no Chinese, no Vietcong, no Japanese. You my opposer when I want freedom. You my opposer when I want justice. You my opposer when I want equality. Want me to go somewhere and fight for you? You won’t even stand up for me right here in America, for my rights and my religious beliefs. You won’t even stand up for me right here at home. “— Muhammad Ali