BILLY BOB—Dr. Aaron Good, joins the Blowback roundtable for a wide ranging discussion focusing on the myths of American exceptionalism. Aaron summarizes the last 75 years of US imperialism with a focus on the Kennedy family and their rocky relationship with the deep state. Aaron is an expert on the subject matter and he effortlessly articulates the most salient points while providing solid analysis about the West’s inevitable decline and prospects for a peaceful and prosperous future.
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PATRICE GREANVILLE—Capitalism has always drowned and faltered on its unjust social relations. The outrageously lopsided way it distributes income, the product of society, continually augmented by advances in technology, is a contradiction that has no economic answers because it is really a question of power, a question of politics. The constant elimination of jobs by automation, and their hemorrhage toward cheap-labor zones cannot be “cured” by job training programs or even better education for all (as Clinton cabinet member Robert Reich, the main evangelist for this pseudo-solution, still preaches).
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PAUL EDWARDS—The idiotic bind that The Empire is in is one they chose by their long, duplicitous, two-faced vaudeville act in the Middle East. This Gaza slaughter has drawn the curtain exposing The Great Oz, and made starkly obvious the payoff for playing both ends against the middle. If it backs the murderous Zionist Reich, it must see its cringing romancing of previously wholly-owned tyrannies such as Saudi Arabia and Turkey end forever. There is no clean, or even dirty way—as in Afghanistan—out of this political iron maiden in which it has sealed itself. Official America backs wholesale murder of children and no spin can hide that.
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CHRIS HEDGES—Israel was founded on lies. The lie that Palestinian land was largely unoccupied. The lie that 750,000 Palestinians fled their homes and villages during their ethnic cleansing by Zionist militias in 1948 because they were told to do so by Arab leaders. The lie that it was Arab armies that started the 1948 war that saw Israel seize 78 percent of historic Palestine. The lie that Israel facedannihilation in 1967, forcing it to invade and occupy the remaining 22 percent of Palestine, as well as land belonging to Egypt and Syria.
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GILBERT DOCTOROW—In her ten minutes at the microphone, Margarita Simonyan gave a more detailed answer, saying that indeed many men who left Russia a year ago following the mobilization orders did so because the mobilization was not conducted with uniform professionalism. In some cases, the local mobilization personnel ignored the legal exemptions from service that reservists may have had for reasons of their profession, for reasons of health or family circumstances. As far as the Russian government is concerned, it stood ready to leave in place IT specialists who were more useful to the nation sitting at home by their computers with a latte at their side than if they were sent to the front.
