Syria, Linda Sarsour & The Crisis of Western Discourse

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The “Stop Trump” movement lampoons figures like Alex Jones, while rallying behind figures like Samantha Power. The Anti-Trump movement stands for an arrogant defense of the failing political establishment against those isolationists, civil libertarians, and others who dare discuss Wikileaks revelations or question the unfolding global order of neoliberalism.

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[dropcap]F[/dropcap]or many people in the west, the traditional political compass seems broken, and “left” and “right” are almost indistinguishable in a confused political mess. The controversy surrounding the Arab-American figure now embraced by the Democratic Party, Linda Sarsour, illustrates this perfectly.

A Political Compass for Syria

In Syria, it is very clear who the “right” and the “left” are. The “right” is the group of Wahabbi fanatics that seek to overthrow the Syrian government. The stated goal of many, if not all, of the different groups working to overthrow the Syrian government is to end religious freedom and establish a government in Syria similar to that of Saudi Arabia. Fanatics from across the region and the world are pouring in for a fanatical crusade to bring the Syrian government down. The western capitalist powers, the USA, France, Britain, etc. have all enthusiastically backed this campaign, which would replace a Baath Socialist government rooted in the region’s anti-imperialist struggles, with a pro-western, Saudi-style regime. Weapons, funding, supplies, and propaganda from the western capitalist powers are all being unleashed to support the right-wing anti-government forces in Syria.
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The obvious “left” in the Syrian conflict are the forces who oppose this campaign of destruction, fomented by Wahabbi extremists and their backers. Syria’s ruling Baath Arab Socialist Party, the volunteers from Hezbollah and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Christian militias, the Communist Party, the trade unions, women’s rights organizations; all of them are united in defense of the Syrian government.

The campaign against Sarsour essentially consists of three arguments: “she’s an Arab”, “she’s a Muslim,” and “she’s denounced Israel, so she must hate all Jews.” The campaign is a display of right-wing bigotry and stupidity, being driven by fanatical supporters of Israel in alliance with trembling xenophobes who obsessively fear Islam.

“Left” and “Right” are basically defined by terms of historical progress. Leftists call themselves “progressive” because they strive for advances in human civilization, while the right-wing is called “reactionary” because it seeks to move toward an idealized interpretation of the past and opposes new reforms. Even one who is deeply confused about politics can understand that in Syria, the anti-government forces, fighting to drive out religious minorities and establish a government of extremists are on the “right,” while the coalition rallying around the secular socialist ruling party are on the left.

In Syria, the government ratified a new constitution in 2012 in response to the mass protests during the Arab Spring. The Syrian Arab Republic which stands for religious freedom, economic development, and political reform represents the future. At war with it are forces like Daesh (ISIS), Al-Nusra, and various other extremists who openly seek to impose a political model from thousands of years ago. They obviously represent the past.

An Extreme Rightist at the “Left Forum”

[dropcap]L[/dropcap]inda Sarsour, formerly the executive director of the Arab American Association of New York, is a right-winger, if ever. She loudly and unapologetically defends the government of Saudi Arabia, the repressive oil autocracy. Not only is Saudi Arabia right-wing in the Middle East, but it even meddles in American politics, pushing a right-wing agenda. Saudi Arabia is partial owner of News Corp, the parent company of the right-leaning news outlets FOX news and the Wall Street Journal.

While Sarsour defends the head-chopping, hand-chopping, flogging, autocracy which is currently destroying Yemen, she loudly opposes the Syrian Arab Republic.  Sarsour has repeatedly taken the stage at rallies supporting the “Syrian Revolution” led by Wahabbi fanatics.

Sarsour has done her best, not only to defend Saudi Arabia, but to present it in a positive light to leftists. Her tweets speak of maternity leave for Saudi women, ignoring the fact that the millions of female guest workers in Saudi Arabia, who live as slaves with no human rights, have no access to such things. She speaks of women holding elected office in Saudi Arabia, despite the fact that such positions are merely symbolic. Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy ruled by a royal family, and the local councils within it are almost completely irrelevant. Defending Saudi Arabia, Sarsour speaks of “Sharia law” getting rid of student debt and usury, ignoring the fact that the Saudi government has collaborated with British bankers to develop a near equally usurious industry called “Islamic Banking” for financial transactions in the region.

Sarsour with Susan Sarandon at rally opposing Trump's "islamophobic" policies. "To so many liberals, Sarsour is just a Muslim, non-white woman in a head-scarf. Her presence at events and rallies proves how 'inclusive' the white middle class organizers are. Sarsour’s pro-Saudi perspective is 'just another point of view.'  They are happy to show how 'tolerant'  and 'multi-cultural' they are by embracing her as they rally against Donald Trump."

How can Linda Sarsour be described as a leftist, or even a feminist? Sarsour seeks regime change in Syria, and has gone as far as to convene a press conference calling on Obama to topple the Syrian government. As she defends the Saudi autocracy and calls for the violent overthrow of the Syrian government, while talking up the merits of Saudi Arabia’s medieval autocracy which bans women from driving cars, she makes Donald Trump and Pat Buchanan look like extreme liberals. Yet, she is scheduled to be a keynote speaker at the annual the “Left Forum” in New York City. Furthermore, she was a key speaker and organizer of the “Women’s March” against Donald Trump on January 21st.

An Islamophobic Opposition

Now that Linda Sarsour is scheduled to give the commencement address on June 1st at CUNY’s School of Public Health & Health Policy, a widespread campaign against her has opened up. However, the opposition to Sarsour’s planned address is not based on her warmongering against Syria. Rather, it is based on her religious views and her mild opposition to Israel.

New York City local media and national news reports have been filled with allegations that Sarsour is “Anti-Semitic” for criticizing Israel and supporting children who throw rocks at Israeli soldiers. Her tweets defending Sharia law have been fitted into the crazed, paranoid narrative of certain delusional rightists, who believe that the US is in danger of somehow being seized by an Islamic government.

The campaign against Sarsour essentially consists of three arguments: “she’s an Arab”, “she’s a Muslim,” and “she’s denounced Israel, so she must hate all Jews.” The campaign is a display of right-wing bigotry and stupidity, being driven by fanatical supporters of Israel in alliance with trembling xenophobes who obsessively fear Islam.

While Israel supporters are among those loudly denouncing her, Sarsour has been a good friend of Israel. She works to topple the Syrian Arab Republic, one of the principle supporters of the Palestinian resistance. Israeli newspaper Haaretz ran an entire article explaining how useful Sarsour had been to Pro-Israel anti-Trump activists. The article quotes one of the organizers of the January 21st Women’s March saying: “We worked closely with Linda specifically on the messaging for this march. The concern we had had to do with Israel. She could not have been more open and reassuring that there would be no Israel bashing, and she kept her word…I didn’t see one anti-Israel sign, not one BDS sign.”

Sarsour has gone as far as to declare that she supports the existence of Israel as a state, and has even declared: “Jews are some of my biggest supporters.” Yet, the crowds of Israel supporters denouncing her are so blinded by ethnic bigotry that they cannot comprehend this. To them, she is just a Muslim, a non-white woman in a head scarf, and their gut feelings of contempt for such people over-rule any rational conversation.

Left or Right? Bigotry or Empire?

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he right-wing sees Linda Sarsour only as a Muslim Arab, and in an atmosphere stuffed with identity politics, the left sees her in the same way. To so many liberals, Sarsour is just a Muslim, non-white woman in a head-scarf. Her presence at events and rallies proves how “inclusive” the white middle class organizers are. Sarsour’s pro-Saudi perspective is “just another point of view.” They are happy to show how “tolerant” and “multi-cultural” they are by embracing her as they rally against Donald Trump.

It makes sense why Sarsour would oppose Donald Trump. During his campaign, he questioned Hillary Clinton’s support for the Syrian rebels. He announced opposition to “toppling regimes.” Trump even questioned the longstanding US-Saudi relationship. Sarsour, as a pro-Saudi, anti-Syrian fanatic, would certainly be threatened by Trump’s unfulfilled campaign rhetoric.

Sarsour’s assumption of center-stage on the American left fits a bigger pattern. While once the left was identified with centrally planned economies, class struggle, and radical ideals, it is now identified with the bland concepts of “tolerance,” “multiculturalism,” and “human rights.” In the lead up to the 2016 Presidential race, many leftists refused to criticize Saudi Arabia, and called the JASTA bill, allowing accountability for Saudi involvement in 9/11, “Islamophobic.”

At CNN’s direction, leftists cheer for the destabilization of governments deemed to be homophobic, oppressive of women, or otherwise problematic. Taking their cues from the New York Times editorial page, liberals unleash their “human rights” activism against whichever government Wall Street and the Pentagon decides to target. The supposed “radicals” that once were part of the anti-war movement, now cheer for US backed “revolutions” almost anywhere they can be found, and rally against Donald Trump, a President deemed to be an “un-American” “fascist” for his [onetime expressed] friendliness to Russia and his unfulfilled isolationist promises.

Sarsour with proud multiculturalists. They are obviously quite clueless about her politics, as all they see is a "muslim woman" deserving the warm embrace of sisterhood.

The “Stop Trump” movement that filled the streets against the Inauguration on January 20th was a display of pro-war American chauvinism. Signs and T-shirts bearing Trump’s face with hammers and sickles were abundant. Chants of “No Putin President” rung out. Images of Trump’s face adjusted to the likeness of Kim Jong-Il were present as well.

The “Stop Trump” movement unleashes its rage against Donald Trump and his supporters with a classist caricature of rural, Appalachian, and southern white workers. Their accents, their belief in Christianity, and their complaints about de-industrialization are mocked. Their observation that “regime change” makes global conditions worse, their feeling that the USA is ruled by a powerful financial oligarchy, and their fears about government surveillance are dismissed as just “conspiracy theories.” The “Stop Trump” movement lampoons figures like Alex Jones, while rallying behind figures like Samantha Power. The Anti-Trump movement stands for an arrogant defense of the failing political establishment against those isolationists, civil libertarians, and others who dare discuss Wikileaks revelations or question the unfolding global order of neoliberalism.

In Global Politics: Who is Left? Who is Right?

The concepts of Left and Right were first introduced in the aftermath of the French Revolution. The more conservative forces who wanted to accommodate with the remnants of feudalism sat on the right, while the most radical forces, who sought to fully embrace the “modern world” and march into the future, sat on the left.

Today, the most powerful right-wing force on the planet is the global economic system, where a small group of powerful financial elites based in western countries dominate the planet. This system of imperialism promotes backwardness and chaos, in the hopes of keeping a monopoly for the western, globalist-minded financial elite.

Wall Street’s oil and banking cartels, enforcing their will via the US government, happily embrace repressive regimes. In Central America, their allies are Mexico, Honduras and Guatemala, regimes where Wall Street corporations rule amid poverty and narco-chaos. The chaos fomented by these pro-Wall Street regimes has spilled over the southern US border in a crisis of crime and mass migration. While embracing the corrupt regimes that preside over poverty and chaos, the US establishment’s target in Central America is now Nicaragua. The USA works to undermine and demonize this country where the Sandinista government, under the slogan of “Christianity, Socialism & Solidarity” dares to build infrastructure and raise the standard of living in alliance with China.

In the Middle East, Wall Street embraces backward, repressive oil rich autocracies linked to terrorism, while attacking countries like Iran and Syria, led by independent governments that seek to modernize. The destruction of Iraq’s Baath Socialist government, and the continued civil war fomented against Syria, have resulted in a mass refugee crisis. Millions have also fled Yemen as the US-backed Saudi onslaught continues against this country. Thousands of have been killed by the bombing campaign, waged in the hopes of beating back the uprising against Saudi puppet Mansour Hadi.

In Africa, US leaders embrace many corrupt regimes where poverty, crime, and western economic domination are a way of life. However, in 2011, Libya, once the most prosperous country in Africa, with the highest standard of living, was destroyed with NATO missiles and reduced to chaos.

Throughout the world, various forces have sought to reject this international dictatorship of enforced poverty and chaos. Sometimes these forces are nationalists, other times Communists, other times Muslims, Baathists or Bolivarians, The rallying cry they hold in common is a fight to build their country up from poverty, establish home-rule, and bring their historically impoverished homelands closer to the 21st century.

Even within the western countries, the effects of international global capitalism are unleashing a backlash. Working class people look into the future and see the unfolding trend toward a low wage police state and rising international chaos. Among working people of different races and ethnic backgrounds, alternative narratives are increasingly being embraced. In response to the desperate anger of the working class, the political establishment is rallying the middle classes, which still have some stake in the status quo. The “Stop Trump” movement in the United States, the mobilizations against Marine Le Pen in France, the anti-Brexit protests in the UK are waged in hope to beat back these rising sentiments. These movements see the fact that the working class is in motion and alternative narratives are widespread as very dangerous, regardless of the politics. They see the rising anger simply as “ignorance” and “paranoia,” and seek to blame it on “Russian meddling,” not the global economic crisis.

At the moment, only right-wing and nationalistic forces have been able to capture the rising anger among the working class majority in western countries. The middle class new left, rooted in the upsurges of the 1960s and 70s and based on the University campuses and within the Democratic Party, is uncomfortable with the working class nature of the growing dissent. However, as the new right-wing nationalists take power, in many cases they are proving themselves unable to resolve the crisis and bring the change they have promised. Trump has already reversed his isolationist campaign promises, and escalated US military involvement across the globe.

The terms which have defined western discourse since the end of the Second World War are rapidly changing, and as the Linda Sarsour debate illustrates, the concepts of “Left & Right” are being reworked in the face of a global crisis. The 21st century is new political terrain. The old rules are being rewritten.

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Caleb Maupin
Screen Shot 2016-02-04 at 9.46.00 AMIs an American journalist and political analyst. Tasnim News Agency described him as "a native of Ohio who has campaigned against war and the U.S. financial system." His political activism began while attending Baldwin-Wallace College in Ohio. In 2010, he video recorded a confrontation between Collinwood High School students who walked out to protest teacher layoffs and the police. His video footage resulted in one of the students being acquitted in juvenile court. He was a figure within the Occupy Wall Street protests in New York City. Maupin writes on American foreign policy and other social issues. Maupin is featured as a Distinguished Collaborator with The Greanville Post.  READ MORE ABOUT CALEB MAUPIN HERE.

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Among the many progressive and left-wing on-line journals that rely on the commitment of its writers, you may wonder what makes TGP especially worth supporting.

The answer is that we pay attention to the entire world, not just to the “me-centered" US.

Our contributors have spent a good portion of their lives among other peoples—roaming the world, or reporting from Beijing, Shenzhen, Rome, Paris, London, Lima, Wroclaw, and other important venues—gaining the kind of insight that can only come from a life-long commitment to understanding ‘the Other’.

Our dispatches are therefore always focused on the other side’s story, and as unprecedented changes come to Washington, and therefrom, across the globe, you will want to know what under-reported or under-analyzed events are driving US policy. You won’t have to wait weeks to read our columnists’ take on what’s going on, by which time, sixteen other major events will have taken place.

Because they have been watching the Big Picture literally for decades, they are able to locate daily events in both time and space, making it easier for you to sort out reality from imperialist fantasy. And the world of difference between our reporting and that of the mainstream media is magnified when it comes to backstories and forecasts.

Learning what is really happening in the world today is no longer an option. Our planet’s very salvation now depends on truth reaching as many people as possible. Get the facts here and pass them on.

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THE GREANVILLE POST contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available to our readers under the provisions of "fair use" in an effort to advance a better understanding of political, economic and social issues, and the furtherance of peace and social justice, the defence of our planetary ecosystems, and the prevention and eventual elimination of human abuse, exploitation,.and cruelty toward any and all non-human species The material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving it for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material for purposes other than "fair use" you must request permission from the copyright owner.

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uza2-zombienationWhat will it take to bring America to live according to its own self image?

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Cynthia McKinney: Hillary Supporters are NOT the Left


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About the Author

Cynthia Ann McKinney (born March 17, 1955) is an American politician and activist based in Georgia. As a member of the Democratic Party, she served six terms in the United States House of Representatives. She was the first black woman elected to represent Georgia in the House.[1] She left the Democratic Party and in 2008, ran as the Presidential candidate of the Green Party of the United States.

In the 1992 election, McKinney was elected in Georgia's newly re-created 11th District,[2] and was re-elected in 1994. When her district was redrawn and renumbered due to the Supreme Court of the United States ruling in Miller v. Johnson,[1][3][4] McKinney was elected from the new 4th District in the 1996 election. She was re-elected twice more without substantive opposition.

McKinney was defeated by Denise Majette in the 2002 Democratic primary. Her defeat was attributed to some Republican crossover voting in Georgia's open primary election, which permits anyone from any party to vote in any party primary and "usually rewards moderate candidates and penalizes those outside the mainstream."[5]

After her 2002 loss, McKinney traveled and gave speeches, and served as a Commissioner in 9/11 Citizens Watch. On October 26, 2004, she was among 100 Americans and 40 family members of those who were killed on 9/11 who signed the 9/11 Truth Movement statement, calling for new investigations into unexplained aspects of the 9/11 events.[6]

McKinney was re-elected to the House in November 2004, following her successor's run for Senate. In Congress, she advocated unsealing records pertaining to the CIA's role in the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and the murder of Tupac Shakur. She continued to criticize the Bush Administration over the 9/11 attacks. She supported anti-war legislation and introduced articles of impeachment against President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Read more

 

 

Appendix

Why contributing to the Greanville Post is urgent and makes sense.

CLICK ON THIS BAR AND FIND OUT
Among the many progressive and left-wing on-line journals that rely on the commitment of its writers, you may wonder what makes TGP especially worth supporting.

The answer is that we pay attention to the entire world, not just to the “me-centered" US.

Our contributors have spent a good portion of their lives among other peoples—roaming the world, or reporting from Beijing, Shenzhen, Rome, Paris, London, Lima, Wroclaw, and other important venues—gaining the kind of insight that can only come from a life-long commitment to understanding ‘the Other’.

Our dispatches are therefore always focused on the other side’s story, and as unprecedented changes come to Washington, and therefrom, across the globe, you will want to know what under-reported or under-analyzed events are driving US policy. You won’t have to wait weeks to read our columnists’ take on what’s going on, by which time, sixteen other major events will have taken place.

Because they have been watching the Big Picture literally for decades, they are able to locate daily events in both time and space, making it easier for you to sort out reality from imperialist fantasy. And the world of difference between our reporting and that of the mainstream media is magnified when it comes to backstories and forecasts.

Learning what is really happening in the world today is no longer an option. Our planet’s very salvation now depends on truth reaching as many people as possible. Get the facts here and pass them on.

Start by supporting the Greanville Post in its vital work. Now more than ever. Use the PayPal button below.




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THE GREANVILLE POST

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THE GREANVILLE POST contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available to our readers under the provisions of "fair use" in an effort to advance a better understanding of political, economic and social issues, and the furtherance of peace and social justice, the defence of our planetary ecosystems, and the prevention and eventual elimination of human abuse, exploitation,.and cruelty toward any and all non-human species The material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving it for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material for purposes other than "fair use" you must request permission from the copyright owner.

For media inquiries contact us at greanville@gmail.com

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Cotton Mather’s Rolex


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by JOHN STEPPLING

“Only the liberation of the natural capacity for love in human beings can master their sadistic destructiveness.”

— Wilhelm Reich

I“…there is no culture, anywhere on Earth, so banal and so obedient as that which is now regulating the West. Lately, nothing of revolutionary intellectual significance is flowing from Europe and North America, as there are hardly any detectable unorthodox ways of thinking or perceptions of the world there.
The dialogues and debates are flowing only through fully anticipated and well-regulated channels, and needless to say they fluctuate only marginally and through the fully ‘pre-approved’ frequencies.”

Andre Vltchek

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he average white American, that educated thirty percent who cling, ever more tenuously, to what passes for middle class life, is seemingly motivated most by hatred. Propaganda works because it grants permission to hate. Now, Trump provides the perfect figure to hate right here at home. His appointments are horrible, no question. But as I’ve written before, Obama’s were horrible, too. Only just a bit less horrible. Tim Geithner? Rahm Emanuel? Hillary Clinton? Joe Biden? Scott O’Malia or William Lynn? I mean Hillary Clinton’s under secretary Victoria Nuland is married to arch neo con Robert Kagan. How can one hate Bush and the neocons but heap praise on Hillary Clinton? But as much as Trump is hated, the figure of the Muslim terrorist is even more hated. And even more than Muslims, Vladimir Putin is hated. But where does this sense of entitlement to meddle in the affairs of other countries come from? It is remarkable how little questioned is the practice of involving the U.S. state in the matters of other countries. Russia elected Putin. Syria elected Assad. And even if, EVEN IF, the elections were fraudulent (they weren’t, but this is a thought experiment) what concern is that of the United States? (Not to mention U.S. elections were not exactly models of probity of late). The U.S. has 800 plus military bases around the world. There is no corner of the globe where you will not find the U.S. military. Do Americans think other countries WANT the U.S.military on their soil? I suppose some do, the fascistic current regime in Poland probably does. And even here in Norway, a nation of inestimable achievements and daily sanity, the general feeling is that having U.S. and NATO around serves as protection. But protection from what? This is really the question, or rather two questions. Who can possibly be thinking of invading Poland or Norway or Japan? The U.S. has bases in Italy, South Korea, Djibouti, Spain, Bahrain, Kuwait, Greece, it has 38 bases in Germany, and bases in the Bahamas, and in Brazil and Honduras and Singapore and Belgium. The list just goes on and on and on. Why does the U.S. have a base in Bulgaria? The answer is, global hegemony. Total and absolute control of the world. That is the goal. And yet this topic is never ever raised in electoral debates or in mainstream media. Never ever.

Why did the U.S. go into Haiti to remove Aristide? Why was there a coup in Honduras? Why was Qadaffi murdered again? Does anyone care?

The recent press conference Trump called, hastily, with King Abdullah (of Jordan) resembled Shakespearian parody. It was America’s own Mad King Ludwig. But the take away from this train wreck appearance was that Trump is not likely to last. Bannon being yanked off the NSC probably means less than some think but it also reads as loss of face. One thing seems clear in this palace shake up and that is that HR McMaster and the anti-Iranian hardliners are exerting influence. And in general that the old entrenched intelligence and military guys are getting tough. Nature abhors a vacuum and all that. And this was inevitable. Trump, as with any even vaguely out of step National level politician, will be made to heel. The Pentagon was done screwing around with this rube. The shadow of the military state is never too far away. And they don’t play around. (think Michael Hastings).

One might think there would be less terrorism if the U.S. built schools or clean water plants or hospitals in places like Djibouti or Greece. But then there would be less terrorism if the U.S. stopped helping arm terrorists. And stopped helping countries like Saudi Arabia arm and supply terrorists. The entire marketing of Saudi Arabia as an ally is something to wonder at, really. I mean here is a country that beheads apostates and homosexuals. Where a woman can’t drive. And yet, we sell them billions upon billions in armaments and help train their military in how to use them. U.S. presidents visit Riyadh [deferentially, as do the Brits], and have Saudi leaders visit Washington. It is breathtaking, really, to think how demonized Chavez was and how NOT demonized was King Abdullah (Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud..the Custodian of the two Holy Mosques, which I believe was his full name and title). They behead people in public in the Kingdom, a lot of them. But see, the U.S. is a punishment state, too. To deny that is to deny reality. The U.S. prison system is a national disgrace, but more, it is a sign, a kind of living metaphor for the madness of American society. Is *Old Sparky* any less morally bankrupt than chopping off heads in the town square? (As Lenny Bruce said…”If Jesus had been killed twenty years ago, Catholic school children would be wearing little electric chairs around their necks instead of crosses”.) Two million people are in prison in the U.S.. All of them poor. And most black or brown. The U.S. penal system is the most draconian and sadistic in the world, quite possibly. There are occasional news programs, news magazines, that examine prison conditions, but they are token examples that justify the idea of free speech and reform. The nationwide prison strike recently was utterly invisible in corporate media.

By the way, the evil Russian empire has all of 9 foreign military bases, all of them in former Soviet countries. How do such facts jive with the propaganda? Oh, and China has ONE foreign military base. One. North Korea of course has none. For an overview on North and South Korea read Keith Harmon Snow here.

The fickle and smoothly opportunistic Elizabeth Warren, along with Cuomo and Cory Booker are all being groomed as “the Next Great Liberal Hope” for the masses of liberal idiots who never learn. In their peerless indecency the Democrat managers cover all the bases. The co-optation machine is already in place.

Or take the other essential U.S. ally and recipient of aid, Israel. A nation that is operating as an apartheid state, openly and even proudly. And whose political leaders are the most openly racist in the world. But again, this is not a topic in electoral political debate. Is the subject of Israel ever raised in Presidential debate? Is Israeli policy in Gaza ever questioned? No, of course not. And to add a last note on this idea of *terrorism*, a word that has undergone quite a semiotic adjustment over the last decade, the U.S. state does not want an end to terrorism. This is their job description, really, those in intelligence and the military; foment conflict, bomb and rebuild, foment again, bomb and rebuild again. And during this process Defense and contractors like Halliburton and Bechtel reap obscene profits. Terrorism is useful. It makes money. It sustains jobs.

These are the enduring tropes of the U.S. political system. Militarism is good, necessary, and almost always heroic. That belief translates domestically to the sadistic occupation of poor black neighborhoods throughout the U.S. The militarization of the U.S. police establishment is stunning, and yet rarely discussed, really. The shooting of unarmed black men hasn’t decreased by the way (The death of Sabin Marcus Jones, a 45 year old schizophrenic is a typical case. His mother called 911 for help because Marcus was off his meds and highly agitated. The police came and Tasered him to death. Marcus weighed about 140 lbs. Six police answered that call.) The destruction of much of the Middle East is mirrored exactly in the police destruction of poor black communities in the U.S.

Ajamu Baraka wrote recently…

“After almost three decades of pro-war conditioning by both corporate parties and the corporate media coupled with cultural desensitization from almost two decades of unrelenting war, opposition to militarism and war is negligible among the general population.”

This is the real story today. Not that a white nationalist is President, or that his new budget is cutting already shrunken social services. No, it is the callous indifference of Americans to their own country’s military violence globally. And it is the nearly psychotic addiction to the consumption of entertainment that is itself a form of egregious propaganda. An addiction to narratives that glorify American society and demonize the rest of the world, or the rest of the world not cravenly subservient to U.S. policy.

The real issue is why are so many in such need in the supposedly most powerful and rich country in the world?

Baraka ends his essay with this…

“There must be an alternative to the neoliberalism of the Democrats and the nationalist-populism of Trump. We need an independent movement to address both the economic needs of poor and working people and the escalating attacks on the Black community, immigrants, women, unions, the LGBTQ community, refugees, Muslims, the physically and mentally challenged, youth, students, the elderly, Mother Earth – all of us.”

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he issue is not that Trump is a racist gangster misogynist bent on further brutalizing the working class and enriching his family and friends. The issue is that America is a nation that has stopped questioning authority. The adoration of wealth is itself a sign of collective derangement. So deep is the demonizing of socialism and communism that even many barely hanging on economically will express affection and admiration for the very rich. Why was Trump such a popular TV host? It certainly wasn’t his riveting personality or scintillating wit. He was RICH. And the rich are the anointed in America. Why does Hollywood (and the UK) keep producing stories about Kings and Queens? Why are settings always the playgrounds of the rich? The answer is complicated but a good part of it is the introjection of some kind of reverse Puritan/Calvinist guilt. A kind of resentment, too, simply. Did Cotton Mather secretly want a Beemer and Rolex? In American mythology, he most certainly did.

The pathology of white patriarchy is so nakedly revealed in Hollywood entertainments that it is rather amazing it is so rarely discussed. One hears much about adding more women or people of color to TV shows, both as actors and directors, but rarely does one hear a discussion about the Orientalism and xenophobia of Hollywood. One rarely asks why almost all crime shows demonize the poor, especially black and brown poor, and why soldiers are so fawned over. Why Arabs are always terrorists. Find me a single show that suggests the U.S. occupation of the middle east is wrong. Just one. One show that addresses the idea of American Imperialism. And, just one show where the very idea of volunteering for the military is seen as either an act of desperation born of poverty, or just a sign of nascent mental illness or a propensity for violence. That maybe, MAYBE, the desire to shoot people and play with weapons signaled a psychological problem. Not heroism but insanity. Not sacrifice but sadism. There may be one somewhere, but it will only the prove the point of the overriding uniformity of opinions expressed. And of course, why is it the working class are not participating in the creation of mass culture? Mostly the creativity of the underclass is simply appropriated and stolen.

The reality of Trump and his backers is that they could only have won this election because of three or four decades of the destruction of public education and the monopoly of media and the constant saturation of information highway with the most naked Imperialist propaganda. No sane and emotionally stable person would vote for Trump or for Hillary Clinton. To endorse either, unless you yourself are a millionaire, is a sign of pathology. A sign of self loathing. Whatever the justifications, whatever version of less evilism, or whatever other cliche that has been fed to you — the inability to see the horrors of both these candidates is suggestive of mass regression. This is where I am reminded yet again of Wilhelm Reich. A man driven from the establishment and eventually into madness. But one who most clearly understood the direction of Western society.

“The Little Man does not know that he is little, and he is afraid of knowing it. He covers up his smallness and narrowness with illusions of strength and greatness.”

— Wilhelm Reich

America cannot examine its own littleness. Its own failures and crimes. It cannot. I do not expect that to change. In fact I expect an increasing prosecution of those who suggest this, an increasing prosecution of dissent. It was Obama, remember, who launched the fake news meme. Who introduced that idea into discourse. America continues to express an historical revisionism that excludes the genocide of Native Americans, that erases the wilful destruction of unions and socialist movements, and that glorifies the Westward expansion of Manifest Destiny. Mainstream media today is so narrow that any opinion not clearly in line with the prevailing mythology is either castigated or simply made invisible.

— Eric Fromm

This is a society of great unhappiness. But more, it is a society of conformity. They go together. America is far more conformist than it was in the 1950s. The little men and women of corporate life, in politics, in media and the arts, everywhere; these are the gatekeepers to an establishment narrative that allows no questioning of its legitimacy. Capitalism is good, socialism is bad. This last month in Arkansas, the state decided to fast track executions because they didn’t want to waste the chemicals used in lethal injection, many of which were soon to be past their sell by date. Human life is that unimportant. Punishment is the highest virtue. Americans enjoy punishment. American football is so popular because it is gladiatorial and damaging to the players. Life threatening in fact. So much the better. Or take factory farming. Again, most Americans are aware of the brutality of factory farming. The cruelty of the mass industrial abattoir. It’s not a secret. And yet, most people continue consuming these products. Meats so adulterated with hormones and chemicals that 100 years ago nobody would feed this stuff to their dogs. The cruelty to our fellow creatures is astounding. There is a sort of symbolic compensation in the form of over pampering household pets. But such contradictions are to be expected. Again, if people cared, if compassion had not been eroded to this degree, we would not have Trump or Hillary. I mean look at the national political figures today from both parties. Mike Pence and Betsy DeVos, Chuck Schurmer and Mitch McConnell. If we lived in anything resembling a rational society John McCain would be in a mental hospital getting the help he obviously needs. Look at the leading figures for the 2020 elections on the Democratic side. Andrew Cuomo and Elizabeth Warren. Both have consistently voted for war. Warren is a particularly unsavoury figure, opportunistic and smug, a woman who enthusiastically supported Obama’s drone assassinations and voted FOR sanctions against Iran. You really think a President Warren would do anything different from Obama? Less drone assassination or less muscular foreign policy? Of course not. She and Cuomo and Cory Booker and all the rest of the establishment creeps in the Democratic Party are part of the problem. NOT the solution. They are the solution to nothing.

The lesson today is that it is now on the U.S. populace to wake up. It’s time. Stop accepting the official narrative and stop watching mainstream propaganda and stop turning away from the crimes of your own country. Stop the unquestioning acceptance of U.S. hagiography. Thanksgiving was not friendly Pilgrims inviting happy tribes to turkey dinner. Columbus was a psyc

hopathic mass murderer. The founding fathers were slave owners. The U.S. revolution was economic.

Here is Howard Zinn on the American Revolution…

” The Continental Congress, which governed the colonies through the war, was dominated by rich men, linked together in factions and compacts by business and family connections. These links connected North and South, East and West. ( ) 
It seemed that the majority of white colonists, who had a bit of land, or no property at all, were still better off than slaves or indentured servants or Indians, and could be wooed into the coalition of the Revolution. But when the sacrifices of war became more bitter, the privileges and safety of the rich became harder to accept. About 10 percent of the white population (an estimate of Jackson Main in The Social Structure of Revolutionary America), large landholders and merchants, held 1,000 pounds or more in personal property and 1,000 pounds in land, at the least, and these men owned nearly half the wealth of the country and held as slaves one-seventh of the country’s people.( ) The American Revolution is sometimes said to have brought about the separation of church and state. The northern states made such declarations, but after 1776 they adopted taxes that forced everyone to support Christian teachings. William G. McLoughlin, quoting Supreme Court Justice David Brewer in 1892 that “this is a Christian nation,” says of the separation of church and state in the Revolution that it “was neither conceived of nor carried out. .,. Far from being left to itself, religion was imbedded into every aspect and institution of American life.”

A loss of curiosity, of reading, and a near complete submission to authority marks the American people today.

This is not a recommendation to anything other than a genuine intellectual resistance. Of some kind, any kind. Resistance to the prevailing narratives of the system, of the ruling class. That is all. I feel the suffocating narrowness of American society today, and it is awful. It is numbing and its habitual repetitiveness in all aspects of the culture is a sign of dementia. A resistance is needed, too, to the aesthetics of domination. Neurotic white people are not the only suitable topic for drama. Nor are the caricatured portraits of the working class manufactured by white liberals (American Crime, anyone?). Aesthetic and intellectual resistance. Empty activism is counter productive. Working for Elizabeth Warren is really worse than pointless. Check your own privilege, too, white man.

Lenny Bruce said something else:

“The liberals can understand everything but people who don’t understand them.”

He wrote that a half century ago. Think about that.

About the author
John Steppling is an original founding member of the Padua Hills Playwrights Festival, a two-time NEA recipient, Rockefeller Fellow in theatre, and PEN-West winner for playwriting. Plays produced in LA, NYC, SF, Louisville, and at universities across the US, as well in Warsaw, Lodz, Paris, London and Krakow. Taught screenwriting and curated the cinematheque for five years at the Polish National Film School in Lodz, Poland. A collection of plays, Sea of Cortez & Other Plays was published in 1999, and his book on aesthetics, Aesthetic Resistance and Dis-Interest was published this year by Mimesis International.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: No material by this author or any other author published on this site should be read as a defense of Donald Trump and his policies. Trump, the GOP and the Democrats are all part of the same malignant threat to World peace, all life on this planet, democracy, and truth in public affairs afflicting the US and the rest of the world, and emanating from the irrepressible dynamics of global capitalism, protected by the political, media, cultural, and military power of the United States of America.

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A Socialist Strategy to Defeat Trump 


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by KSHAMA SAWANT

Escalate the resistance towards shutdowns on March 8 and May 1!

Donald Trump and his bigoted, billionaires-club administration have ignited a social explosion unlike any that has ever greeted an incoming US president.

The White House’s series of reactionary diktats have been met by three weeks of energetic and sometimes massive resistance. The historic Women’s Marches, perhaps the largest single day of protest in American history, were soon followed by tens of thousands of people shutting down airports with mass civil disobedience, and in the two weeks following waves of protests have continued across the country.

Already social movements have won some victories, including the temporary reversal of the administration’s bigoted immigration ban, demonstrating in action that Trump and the billionaire class are not immune to upheaval by the 99%.

We have also seen strategically important developments like the New York Taxi Drivers Alliance going on strike in solidarity with protesters, and Comcast workers walking off the job in Philadelphia last week. While only small initial steps, the sleeping giant of the American working class is stirring.

The pace of events has been stunning. Calls to escalate the resistance have grown, with strike action and mass civil disobedience being widely discussed. Now the organizers of the January Women’s Marches, joined by Angela Davis, have called for a “Women’s Strike” on March 8, International Women’s Day, in concert with a global call to action by socialists and others. This followed on the heels of a series of proposals for massive protests on Earth Day, and a growing discussion about strikes on May 1, International Workers’ Day.

At the same time a debate has been opening up on the left: What is the strategy necessary to defeat the Predator in Chief, the far right elements stirred up behind his attacks, and the broader neoliberal agenda of the billionaire class? How can we mobilize and where should we focus the enormous potential power of social movements and the working class?

We should be clear about the political terrain: Trump has no mandate and heads a weak government. He entered office with historically low approval ratings, which have fallen further since inauguration day. No president in modern American history has seen majority disapproval levels in the first year in office, yet Trump managed it within 8 days.

But Trump and the Billionaire Class only understand one thing: power. It is already clear this administration plans to brutally attack one section of the 99% after another, and will not be easily deterred from its bigoted, misogynist, and anti-worker assault.

Fighting Trump and the Billionaire Class

[dropcap]O[/dropcap]ur task is a historic one. We must shut down Donald Trump’s agenda, or else drive him out of office.

As a socialist, I believe we must base ourselves on the broadest unity in action of all those forces prepared to seriously fight this dangerous administration. This should include unions, immigrants, women, black lives matter activists, LGBTQ people, environmental organizations, Greens, Sanders supporters, socialists and progressive Democrats. We should also appeal to draw in sections of the 99% who were conned into voting for Trump, but on a firmly anti-racist, anti-sexist basis.

We cannot only react to Trump’s right wing assault. We will need to put forward audacious demands that can inspire with the promise of a dramatic improvement in people’s lives, like those popularized by Bernie Sanders, including: a Medicare for all, single-payer healthcare system; a federal $15 minimum wage; free higher education; taxing the rich to fund massive public works program to create jobs and rebuild our infrastructure, develop green energy, and mass transit; demanding that Black Lives Matter and for an end to the racist mass incarceration state. Bernie’s bold program energized millions, especially young people, while Hillary’s timid, corporate-friendly proposals of tinkering around the edges failed to mobilize them.

There is no avoiding that there are major political differences of strategy and social interests in this movement. While uniting in action, we need to continue to have honest and open debates about the way forward.

We must base ourselves on the needs of the struggle against Trump and the Billionaire Class. We cannot let it be subordinated or restricted to the limits of what the corporate leadership of the Democratic Party will allow. Democrats in Congress will continue to be put to the test in terms of their willingness to stand firm against Trump.

It is a welcome step that Democrats, under pressure from social movements and their own base, voted unanimously this week against Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education, forcing a historic tie-breaking vote in the Senate. They also succeeded in peeling off two Republican votes to join their opposition to her confirmation. Yet 14 Democrats, including Hillary Clinton’s former running mate Tim Kaine, had voted for every other one of Trump’s cabinet picks prior to Devos, and the party continues to fail in giving a consistent lead in the fight against Trump.

As a socialist, while I respect the genuine efforts of groups like Our Revolution to reform the Democrats, l do not think the Democratic Party will offer the kind of combative, working class, and movement-based leadership that will be needed to confront a ruthless foe like Trump. We will need to build an alternative to the right-wing Republicans and Wall Street Democrats: a new mass party of the 99%that rejects all corporate donations.

We must work to develop a powerful, united and fighting movement, with our eyes wide open to the challenges we face.

Escalate the Resistance!

[dropcap]S[/dropcap]topping Trump will require a massive escalation of our struggle.

Symbolic protest will not be enough. We will need to continue to disrupt “business as usual” as we did at the airports, engage in peaceful mass civil disobedience, and build towards strike action by the wider working class to shutdown strategic sections of the economy and infrastructure.

This week’s call by the organizers of the Women’s Marches for a “Women’s Strike” on March 8 presents a huge opportunity for our movement.

We should fully seize this potential and use it to mobilize the broadest possible forces to International Women’s Day protests, and further as a springboard for strikes and mass action by immigrants and the wider working class on May 1.

This is the most powerful tool we have: when workers withdraw their labor, shut down businesses from functioning and cut off corporate profits. A frightened Billionaire Class pushed back against Trump after the “chaos” that protests against his Muslim Ban created at the nation’s airports. This is just a hint of the enormous potential power the working class has to disrupt the administration’s agenda.

Hundreds of thousands of women (and men) calling in sick to work, collectively walking out, taking the day off, or organizing in their workplace to leave early and join mass protests (as happened in Poland last October), would itself be a huge development, even if no formal strikes take place. It would send a powerful message to the Billionaire Class that further support for Trump’s agenda could lead to even greater disruption and upheavals.

Workplace action can take different forms. A nationwide general strike, while the most powerful, is not immediately in the cards, as pointed out in a recent Jacobin article. Furthermore, activists should not leave work if there is not strong enough support to avoid them getting fired, but instead join the protests immediately after work. Our strength is in numbers and organization, which is why the labor movement and the left should urgently take up and build for broad participation.

Rank-and-file union members and left labor leaders could bring resolutions within their unions, starting now, for strike action on March 8 and May 1. These proposals can help fire up a badly needed debate within labor about the need for decisive working class struggle against Trump’s anti-worker and bigoted policies, which of course poses a life-or-death threat to the US labor movement as a whole, particularly with national “right to work” legislation on the agenda.

In some cities, resolutions could be brought forward in labor councils for citywide, one-day general strikes on Mayday.

At the same time discussion within social movements should be engaged about what will really be required to build broad strike action going forward, and using the debate to raise class consciousness.

All of those determined to resist Trump should help build toward escalating resistance in the coming weeks, including organizing now and planning for mass peaceful civil disobedience and shutdowns of highways, airports and other key infrastructure on March 8 and May 1.

We must recognize there is no simple, straightforward and escalating path to victory, that our battle will often be fought uphill, and that we will encounter setbacks.

Trump can be defeated. But to do so we must base ourselves on bold struggle, unity in action, and the enormous social power of the American working class with it’s potential to shut down the capitalist system.

There is no time to waste.

NOTE: ALL IMAGE CAPTIONS, PULL QUOTES AND COMMENTARY BY THE EDITORS, NOT THE AUTHORS • PLEASE COMMENT AND DEBATE DIRECTLY ON OUR FACEBOOK GROUP CLICK HERE

Kshama Sawant is Seattle City Council Woman and member of Socialist Alternative. 

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Symbolic Seduction: Women’s Rights, Partisan Politics, Ethnocentrism and “American Narcissism”


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By Edward Curtin
THIS IS A CROSSPOST WITH FRATERNAL SITE GLOBAL RESEARCH

Bernays—the malignant genie of Western “civilization”. His seed fructified in the neoliberal soil.

  In 1929, Edward Bernays, Sigmund Freud’s nephew, U.S./CIA war and coup propagandist, and the founder of public relations, conducted a successful mind-manipulation experiment for the tobacco industry.  In those days there was a taboo against women smoking in public, and Bernays was hired to change that. He consulted a psychiatrist, A. A. Brill, who told him that cigarettes represented the penis and were a symbol of male power.  If women could be tricked into smoking, then they would unconsciously think they “had” their own penises and feel more powerful. It was irrational, of course, but it worked. Bernays had, in his words, “engineered the consent” of women through symbolic prestidigitation. The age of the image was launched. 

He did this by having a group of women hide cigarettes under their clothes at a Big Easter parade in New York.  At a signal from Bernays, they took out and lit up what he called “torches of freedom” (based on the Statue of Liberty).

The press had been notified in advance and dutifully photographed and reported the story.  The New York Times headline for April Fool’s Day 1929 was entitled “Group of Girls Puff at Cigarettes as a Gesture of Freedom.” 

This fake news story made cigarettes socially acceptable for women, and sales and advertising to them increased dramatically.

The institutional power structures smiled and continued on their merry way.  Women were no freer or more powerful, but they felt they were.

A symbolic taboo was breached as women were bamboozled.  Image triumphed over reality.

We have moved on from the symbol of the penis to that of the “pussy,” and now the symbol is displayed openly as an ironic postmodern spectacle in the form of a sea of pussyhats.

And the fake news stories continue apace; the mind manipulators labor on and are still successful.

Genitalia remain the rage.  In the 1920s there was no overt talk of the penis; the idea then was that there was an unconscious association that could sway women to smoke.  Today subtlety is gone.  “Pussy” power is out there, cutely symbolized by pink pussyhats (see image below), promoted by a group called the Pussyhat Project that on its website praises the Washington Post and the New York Times for their “high quality journalism” and “integrity.”  “In the midst of fake news sites,” the Pussyhat Project claims, “we need high quality journalism more than ever….newspapers that have integrity….[that] can continue reporting the truth” – i.e. the Times and the Post.

By “truth” and “integrity” do the women running the site mean that the Russians are behind Trump’s election, Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, and there are 200 or so alternative websites that repeat Russian propaganda, a few of the lies reported by these papers of “integrity”?  Or do the Pussyhat women have something else in mind?

Most women demonstrators who marched against Trump were no doubt well intentioned within their limited perspective.  At the call of organizers, they were roused from their long liberal naps.  Reacting to Trump’s gross comments about “grabbing pussy” – sick words, macho aggressive in their meaning – they donned their pink hats, made signs, and took their newly awakened outrage to the streets.  Rightly disgusted by being verbally assaulted and afraid that their reproductive rights and services were threatened, they pounced like tigers on their verbal attacker.  Massive, very well organized, media friendly marches and demonstrations followed.  It was a hit parade.

Yet as others have forcefully written, something is amiss here. During the Obama years of endless wars, drone killings, the jailing of whistleblowers, including Chelsea Manning, etc., these demonstrators were silent and off the streets.

A large number of the women (if not the vast majority) who marched against Donald Trump – and the recent women’s marches can only be described as anti-Trump marches – were Hilary Clinton supporters, whether they would describe their votes as “the lesser of two evils” or not.  Thus, opposition to Trump’s aggressive statements toward “pussy” was implicit support for Clinton’s and Obama’s “feminism.”  In other words, it was support for a man and a woman who didn’t publicly talk aggressively about women’s genitals, but committed misogynist and misandrist actions by killing  thousands of women (and men and children) all over the world, and doing it with phallic shaped weapons.  Trump will probably follow suit, but that possibility was not the impetus for the marches.  The marches centered on Trump’s misogynist, macho language, and his threats to limit women’s access to health services – i.e. family planning and abortion.

Since the women who recently marched didn’t march against Obama and his Secretary of State Clinton while they slaughtered foreigners (others) and Clinton exulted at the sodomized killing of Muammar Gaddafi, it is quite clear the focus of their anger was a sense of personal outrage at Trump’s insulting remarks.

Where were they these last eight years?

Mike Whitney recently said it perfectly.

“They were asleep. Weren’t they?  Because liberals always sleep when their man is in office, particularly if their man is a smooth-talking cosmopolitan snake-charmer like Obama who croons about personal freedom and democracy while unleashing the most unspeakable violence on civilians across the Middle East and Central Asia….No one seems to care when an articulate bi-racial mandarin kills most people of color, but when a brash and outspoken real estate magnate takes over the reigns of power, then ‘watch out’ because here comes the protesters, all three million of them!”

Obviously partisan politics, self-interest, hypocrisy, and incredible ethnocentrism are involved. Would women’s marches have occurred if Hillary Clinton had been elected?  Of course not.  She would have been applauded and regaled as the first woman president, and her war-mongering history against women and men would have been excused and supported into the future, just as Obama’s has been.

This is liberal war porn by default; complicity through silence.

“Hands off my pussy.”  “My pussy bites back.”  These are funny repartees to Trump’s comments, but they are totally ineffectual and harmless.  Trump’s objectives are larger, as were Obama’s and Clinton’s.  Symbolic protests attract attention, but result in the stasis of structural power arrangements, or worse.   Edward Bernays’  “torches of freedom” campaign resulted in more women smoking, more disease, and more profits for the tobacco companies.  He preyed on the gullible.  What was learned?

The Pussyhat Project resulted in a sea of pink adorned women and made for colorful images.  Images, Daniel Boorstin wrote in his prescient 1960 book, The Image , were the future.  That future is now.  The language of images is everywhere, and it is tied to what Boorstin termed “pseudo-events” and our “demand for the illusions with which we deceive ourselves.”

Symbolically wearing your genitals on your head is surely an arresting image, but it is misplaced and duplicitous when one has not opposed the systematic brutality of the American empire’s ravaging around the world under Obama and Clinton.

Boorstin argued that this world of images would displace our ability to think clearly and understand the ways we were being manipulated.  An image, he said, was “synthetic, believable, passive, vivid, simplified, and ambiguous.”  Contrived and appealing to the senses – there are no pink pussycats as far as I know – they side-step thought and cannot, strictly speaking, be unmasked.  “An image, like any other pseudo-event, becomes all the more interesting with our every effort to debunk it.”  The contrivance of the image and our knowledge of its ingenuity – e.g. pussyhats – convince us that we are smart to be taken in, even when we’re not.  It’s interesting to note that the word image (Latin, imago) is related to the word imitate (Latin, imatari).  It’s as though certain images can serve as mirrors (“to mirror” being cognate with “to imitate”) in which we can see and mimic ourselves, “though we like to pretend we are seeing someone else.”  And seeing our images in the images, we can imitate ourselves in an endless cycle of self-love and navel gazing.  Selfie culture has triumphed.  The society of the spectacle marches on.

The focus on genital imagery is a reflection of American narcissism, an inward gazing, while out “there,” others are being slaughtered by our masters of war.  This is the start of a pink color revolution.

Edward Bernays would be proud.

The original source of this article is Global Research

Copyright © Edward Curtin, Global Research, 2017

NOTE: ALL IMAGE CAPTIONS, PULL QUOTES AND COMMENTARY BY THE EDITORS, NOT THE AUTHORS • PLEASE COMMENT AND DEBATE DIRECTLY ON OUR FACEBOOK GROUP CLICK HERE

 Edward Curtin is a writer whose work has appeared widely.  He teaches sociology at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts. His website is http://edwardcurtin.com/    

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