This is an incredibly informative post, from someone that clearly understands the nested nature of propaganda, lies, and social control mechanisms that are used to drive us all into the perceptual corrals that keep us delivering our substance and value to our masters.
If there is any shortcoming in this analysis, it is the failure to recognize that there is no monolithic elite that work together like a well-oiled machine to disenfranchise us to share the wealth in some sort of communist paradise.
While they have common interests, essentially exerting control over the masses and profiting therefrom, it is conducted in a setting of rabid internecine conflict, marked by savage murder, and ruthless theft from one another.
Consider the recent killing of the Getty heir by anal trauma. This is not a group of comrades, but gangs of competing thugs. When they can seize assets from another player, without jeapordizing either themselves, or the game as a whole, such seizures are conducted with the most venal violence and acquisitiveness.
We are told by their lapdog liars, the media, that Seth Rich died in a botched robbery, and that Getty died from an ulcer. Rich was assassinated for leaking the DNC emails, and Getty was anally raped to death.
China isn't the enemy of the deep state. It is the goal.
There are nationalistic power bases that cannot profit from the China Social Credit System being globally promulgated, and these parties oppose that particular means of centralizing power, but they do not oppose centralizing power, and aren't a majority, or even a significant percentage of the might in play.
Any given policy or endeavor will be opposed by those whose power base is threatened thereby, as Shell will oppose Chevron. Both will completely support the dominance of petroleum based power production, and work together in lockstep for that purpose, but will adamantly oppose each other for control of that petroleum.
This same paradigm is reflected globally, in every level and regional contest for power.
Dogs will work together to bring down a deer, and then fight tooth and nail over the carcass.
That's the best description of politics I can offer.
US corporate media aren't a failure - they are a huge success. Their job assigned to them by huge financial, military and resource extraction interests is to manufacture consent for bailouts to large banks, imperialist wars and to the aggressive seizure of foreign oil reserves to be exploited by US multinationals.
Eric Garland is always spreading unsubstantiated nonsense on Twitter about the heroic whistleblower Chelsea Manning's supposed ties to Russia. He can go fuck himself.
I disagree, pretty seriously with any viewpoint that is not alarmed about Russia's obvious deep integration with the Trump organization, campaign, and Trump's personal finances.
Anyone who overlooks these things, i.e. that our president owes shit tons of money to these Russian oligarchs, loses my credibility immediately.
You are not allowed to have secret debts to foreign powers as even an fbi agent or normal government contractor. You can't have gambling debts to get those jobs, much less have giant real estate loans to frickin alfabank and blackrock, two of the most mafioso entities on the planet.
What is going on is that the russian influence in the white house is conflicting with the israeli's outright treacherous purchasing and control in full psy-op fashion of the congress and media.
So the oval office is a sort of chess game for whose interests will be most served by Trump, who himself is a feather in a suit, blowing whicher direction will get him the money that might get him out of debt(i.e. charging the u.s. government for ridiculous things like golf cars and 24 million dollar refrigerators, to be installed probably by Putin's personal handymen, comprimising the security of the white house and air force one to the point any sane future president would have to scrap both.
Israel wants to expand, as always. China has now through subtle means said that if Israel invades syria that they would have to fight china too, that's why for now Saudi Arabia is working at the proxy war in Yemen to spread Iran's front.
The lines, at least finally, are more clearly drawn.
But ignoring that Trump is a russian traitor, and an israeli traitor, I cannot do with my intelletual self respect intact.
With this knowledge of course, Trump is guilty of treason and should not just be impeached, but at least imprisoned for a long time, with most of the republican party, for whom a post like this is ultimately shilling whether you know it or not.
If you really want something that will curl your toes... review the following https://betterdwelling.com/operation-sidewinder-csis-rcmp/ -- I have not yet figured out how to convert the document to text so it can be uploaded to the blockchain -- but it would be a good idea to grab this document... while it's still online. It's a report that was whitewashed by the Canadian Government officials about how China had infiltrated every level of Government within Canada -- according to CSIS work on the file. This report was issued in 1997 -- So it's been 20 years and the pernicious effect of China's corrupting influence on our democracy is 1000 times worse today. Journalists will not cover this story, as some who have looked into it have ended up threatened. This is a vital bit of research for those who have come to the conclusions you have about China-US geopolitical situation.
You're the best, Caitlin. Resteemed. I discovered you through your friend who Lee Camp tweeted about otherwise, don't know how lucky I'd be finding you.
I am listening to your latest podcast right now and heard you were on here! I am so happy. I just got off twitter at the beginning of the year, no FB for a long time, so I have to go to medium to get your articles. I don't like that platform either, so I'm thrilled you are here!
Another absolutely brilliant article @caitlinjohnstone and thank you so much for citing my work, that is really kind of you. Looks like you're going well on Steemit congratulations!!!
Nice post. I've followed you here from fb (although suzi3d also influenced the decision) since I have been reading your posts there since last fall. We'll see where this goes . . . Just something to think about . . . What I think needs to be expanded upon is the actual nature of this oligarchy/kleptocracy that we are dealing with . . . what is specific about it, what is specific about the context/contingencies in which it has developed . . . ?
The conclusion I have come to is this: American intelligence agencies may in the course of their operations tell a lie (untruth) or they may tell a truth. Which they do is totally dependent on what they want to accomplish. To them, either is correct. They are equal. Somehow I always see the comment that they are (lying) and it always seems like an attempt to shame them back to some moral grounding. Impossible, they have no moral grounding. The basis of their operations is results, victory. Why are these agencies always seen as moral and (good) at some base level and treated like a wayward son. I am not trying to excuse them. I just want to draw a distinction between a moral society with a set of laws and a society (agencies) which is amoral, “having no moral standards, restraints, or principles; unaware of or indifferent to questions of right or wrong” who would very much like to be above and apart from the laws governing our society. If perhaps we viewed them for what they are we would address the issues surrounding them differently. Perhaps we would analyze how and why this is the case rather than treating the symptoms - Lying. My quick analysis: These are agencies tasked with “law enforcement”. Laws are formed from moral and just assumptions. Morality as a component of law introduces a good vs. evil dynamic. Good vs. Evil lends a conscious and subconscious association to conflict. Conflict leads to war. War has to rules or (laws) just win for goodness sake. See how easy it is to sucked in. How to put a stop on that whirling little tornado in a human society where morality is in perspective and dialog is chaotic and biased. First I believe we need to work on grounding and sustaining logical and reasonable dialog. Dialog that produces a product that is not perishable.
You’ve gotten yourself into a false dichotomy here, which started, by my reckoning, when you bought into this “Russia is China’s right arm” business. You really need to check with the left on this one, to see whether it knows what the right is doing. China and Russia have been civilizationally at odds for millennia. That’s not going to change overnight. Russia is busy shoring up Siberia against an onslaught of Chinese settlers. Russia goes toe-to-toe with China daily over influence in the former CIS countries, and elsewhere. Russia and China may strategically cooperate on some matters concerning the U.S., but it is a very tenuous cooperation, as the Russians have been burned and betrayed on this before, and are not keen to be seen as having been fooled twice.
Remember it was Nixon who stretched out a tricky appendage to China, both to shore up domestic sentiment and to burn Russia. And he didn’t do it by having the State Department and other relevant branches of government complete scholarly evaluations and weigh in on possible ramifications. He sent in Kissinger, then his head of National Security (not his Secretary of State, Rodgers, who was kept in the dark about this) to accomplish through skullduggery what should have been a broadly considered matter of public policy.
Henry Kissinger happily sold U.S. interests down the grand canal, and every other administration has followed suit (with some hemming and hawing). Clinton’s administration might have been the most egregious, with his allowing China to join the WTO without proper safeguards in place — essentially gutting the trade structure then in place — and certifying China as a place where working standards, environmental practices, and other aspects of human and labor rights were “essentially equivalent” to the U.S., under the ostensible premise that, as China’s market economy expanded, it would automatically become more democratic. That hasn’t happened, and China has grown more draconian with the surgical precision afforded by enhanced computerization and expanded technical sophistication.
Clinton welcomed partnership between Walmart and the guys on the other side of the Great Wall. China gained unheard of access to U.S. markets, on par with Japan, along with exchange rates fixed to be as favorable. The theory justifying this might have been that Global Corporatist Financiers would emerge mega-profitable, while the stuff just somehow got made and American coped with the results. Whatever the rationale, Clinton’s campaign was caught with their hand in the Lippo Corporation cookie jar — the same Chinese firm that increased Senate House Leader McConnell’s wealth from one to eight million in the last seven years. Contrary to your assertion that America has tried to suppress China’s rise, they’ve done very much to enable it. In addition to rescinding, curtailing, or never initiating the myriad of trade inducements, market access, and technology transfers proffered; the U.S. could have objected to China building military installations throughout the South China sea, but chose instead to look the other way. Now, as a fait accompli there’s little they can do about it other than outright war.
If the U.S. were genuinely concerned about curtailing China’s rabid territorial expansionism; restraining Beijing’s culturally genocidal policies toward Tibetans, Uyghurs, and Mongolians; protesting internet censorship; and a myriad of human rights, environmental, and other abuses, the U.S. would partner with Russia. On the contrary, the Russophobia campaign is, if anything, an indication that the Globalist Neoliberal elites who backed Mrs. Clinton see a strong role for China as partners in the exploitation and immiseration of the masses. They seem to believe they can reign in the CCP’s hancentrism and chauvinism.
The reasons for Russia being targeted for estrangement could be considered convoluted in a way different way from the one you suggest. Partly, it’s domestic reasons. Partly, it’s convenient. Americans have been conditioned for several generations to fear and loathe Russia. Power struggles within the government, between government factions, have been won by playing the Russia card.
Thinking that concern about Chinese totalitarianism is limited to a binary axis where U.S. planetary leadership is the only factor on the other side does a great disservice to the cultures, nations, and peoples in China’s path who are concerned that their fates will not mirror those of the Tibetans, Uyghurs and Mongols who got caught within China’s ever-expanding boundaries. Keeping Russia and America at loggerheads advances the Chinese cause. Russia is not China’s right arm and would blanch at the suggestion.
There’s something deeply wrong with the way America is projecting foreign power throughout the world (albeit for a different set of reasons in disparate regions), and something deeply wrong about the way U.S. citizens are being manipulated domestically. There’s something deeply wrong about China’s foreign power projection and domestic manipulations as well. This combination of Wrong + Wrong does not add up as you suggest.
This is an incredibly informative post, from someone that clearly understands the nested nature of propaganda, lies, and social control mechanisms that are used to drive us all into the perceptual corrals that keep us delivering our substance and value to our masters.
If there is any shortcoming in this analysis, it is the failure to recognize that there is no monolithic elite that work together like a well-oiled machine to disenfranchise us to share the wealth in some sort of communist paradise.
While they have common interests, essentially exerting control over the masses and profiting therefrom, it is conducted in a setting of rabid internecine conflict, marked by savage murder, and ruthless theft from one another.
Consider the recent killing of the Getty heir by anal trauma. This is not a group of comrades, but gangs of competing thugs. When they can seize assets from another player, without jeapordizing either themselves, or the game as a whole, such seizures are conducted with the most venal violence and acquisitiveness.
We are told by their lapdog liars, the media, that Seth Rich died in a botched robbery, and that Getty died from an ulcer. Rich was assassinated for leaking the DNC emails, and Getty was anally raped to death.
China isn't the enemy of the deep state. It is the goal.
There are nationalistic power bases that cannot profit from the China Social Credit System being globally promulgated, and these parties oppose that particular means of centralizing power, but they do not oppose centralizing power, and aren't a majority, or even a significant percentage of the might in play.
Any given policy or endeavor will be opposed by those whose power base is threatened thereby, as Shell will oppose Chevron. Both will completely support the dominance of petroleum based power production, and work together in lockstep for that purpose, but will adamantly oppose each other for control of that petroleum.
This same paradigm is reflected globally, in every level and regional contest for power.
Dogs will work together to bring down a deer, and then fight tooth and nail over the carcass.
That's the best description of politics I can offer.
Thanks!
Your words are delicious. I concur.
US corporate media aren't a failure - they are a huge success. Their job assigned to them by huge financial, military and resource extraction interests is to manufacture consent for bailouts to large banks, imperialist wars and to the aggressive seizure of foreign oil reserves to be exploited by US multinationals.
They always achieve these aims.
Great article @caitlinjohnstone!
I love this description:
I'm not sure why people have slept on John Piger's China containment theory but it's really right on the mark, imho.
upvoted and resteemed!
Eric Garland is always spreading unsubstantiated nonsense on Twitter about the heroic whistleblower Chelsea Manning's supposed ties to Russia. He can go fuck himself.
Where would we have been without John Pilger?
I disagree, pretty seriously with any viewpoint that is not alarmed about Russia's obvious deep integration with the Trump organization, campaign, and Trump's personal finances.
Anyone who overlooks these things, i.e. that our president owes shit tons of money to these Russian oligarchs, loses my credibility immediately.
You are not allowed to have secret debts to foreign powers as even an fbi agent or normal government contractor. You can't have gambling debts to get those jobs, much less have giant real estate loans to frickin alfabank and blackrock, two of the most mafioso entities on the planet.
What is going on is that the russian influence in the white house is conflicting with the israeli's outright treacherous purchasing and control in full psy-op fashion of the congress and media.
So the oval office is a sort of chess game for whose interests will be most served by Trump, who himself is a feather in a suit, blowing whicher direction will get him the money that might get him out of debt(i.e. charging the u.s. government for ridiculous things like golf cars and 24 million dollar refrigerators, to be installed probably by Putin's personal handymen, comprimising the security of the white house and air force one to the point any sane future president would have to scrap both.
Israel wants to expand, as always. China has now through subtle means said that if Israel invades syria that they would have to fight china too, that's why for now Saudi Arabia is working at the proxy war in Yemen to spread Iran's front.
The lines, at least finally, are more clearly drawn.
But ignoring that Trump is a russian traitor, and an israeli traitor, I cannot do with my intelletual self respect intact.
With this knowledge of course, Trump is guilty of treason and should not just be impeached, but at least imprisoned for a long time, with most of the republican party, for whom a post like this is ultimately shilling whether you know it or not.
If you really want something that will curl your toes... review the following https://betterdwelling.com/operation-sidewinder-csis-rcmp/ -- I have not yet figured out how to convert the document to text so it can be uploaded to the blockchain -- but it would be a good idea to grab this document... while it's still online. It's a report that was whitewashed by the Canadian Government officials about how China had infiltrated every level of Government within Canada -- according to CSIS work on the file. This report was issued in 1997 -- So it's been 20 years and the pernicious effect of China's corrupting influence on our democracy is 1000 times worse today. Journalists will not cover this story, as some who have looked into it have ended up threatened. This is a vital bit of research for those who have come to the conclusions you have about China-US geopolitical situation.
In the last few days, we've seen a noticeable increase in anti-Pakistan rhetoric. Is Pakistan about to pay the price for siding with Russia and China?
yes
Okay
I like your posts
Disclaimer: I am just a bot trying to be helpful.
wow!!!!! that's really nice post@caitlin johnstone..i like your post thanks for share the post
Hmm, could Russiagate in fact be about nothing other than the USSA?
wow!!!! what a nice post @caitlinjohnstone for Russiagate Isn't About Trump, And It Isn't Even Ultimately About Russia thanks for share the post
You're the best, Caitlin. Resteemed. I discovered you through your friend who Lee Camp tweeted about otherwise, don't know how lucky I'd be finding you.
I am listening to your latest podcast right now and heard you were on here! I am so happy. I just got off twitter at the beginning of the year, no FB for a long time, so I have to go to medium to get your articles. I don't like that platform either, so I'm thrilled you are here!
Great articles. Thank you.
Another absolutely brilliant article @caitlinjohnstone and thank you so much for citing my work, that is really kind of you. Looks like you're going well on Steemit congratulations!!!
Nice post. I've followed you here from fb (although suzi3d also influenced the decision) since I have been reading your posts there since last fall. We'll see where this goes . . . Just something to think about . . . What I think needs to be expanded upon is the actual nature of this oligarchy/kleptocracy that we are dealing with . . . what is specific about it, what is specific about the context/contingencies in which it has developed . . . ?
The conclusion I have come to is this: American intelligence agencies may in the course of their operations tell a lie (untruth) or they may tell a truth. Which they do is totally dependent on what they want to accomplish. To them, either is correct. They are equal. Somehow I always see the comment that they are (lying) and it always seems like an attempt to shame them back to some moral grounding. Impossible, they have no moral grounding. The basis of their operations is results, victory. Why are these agencies always seen as moral and (good) at some base level and treated like a wayward son. I am not trying to excuse them. I just want to draw a distinction between a moral society with a set of laws and a society (agencies) which is amoral, “having no moral standards, restraints, or principles; unaware of or indifferent to questions of right or wrong” who would very much like to be above and apart from the laws governing our society. If perhaps we viewed them for what they are we would address the issues surrounding them differently. Perhaps we would analyze how and why this is the case rather than treating the symptoms - Lying. My quick analysis: These are agencies tasked with “law enforcement”. Laws are formed from moral and just assumptions. Morality as a component of law introduces a good vs. evil dynamic. Good vs. Evil lends a conscious and subconscious association to conflict. Conflict leads to war. War has to rules or (laws) just win for goodness sake. See how easy it is to sucked in. How to put a stop on that whirling little tornado in a human society where morality is in perspective and dialog is chaotic and biased. First I believe we need to work on grounding and sustaining logical and reasonable dialog. Dialog that produces a product that is not perishable.
You’ve gotten yourself into a false dichotomy here, which started, by my reckoning, when you bought into this “Russia is China’s right arm” business. You really need to check with the left on this one, to see whether it knows what the right is doing. China and Russia have been civilizationally at odds for millennia. That’s not going to change overnight. Russia is busy shoring up Siberia against an onslaught of Chinese settlers. Russia goes toe-to-toe with China daily over influence in the former CIS countries, and elsewhere. Russia and China may strategically cooperate on some matters concerning the U.S., but it is a very tenuous cooperation, as the Russians have been burned and betrayed on this before, and are not keen to be seen as having been fooled twice.
Remember it was Nixon who stretched out a tricky appendage to China, both to shore up domestic sentiment and to burn Russia. And he didn’t do it by having the State Department and other relevant branches of government complete scholarly evaluations and weigh in on possible ramifications. He sent in Kissinger, then his head of National Security (not his Secretary of State, Rodgers, who was kept in the dark about this) to accomplish through skullduggery what should have been a broadly considered matter of public policy.
Henry Kissinger happily sold U.S. interests down the grand canal, and every other administration has followed suit (with some hemming and hawing). Clinton’s administration might have been the most egregious, with his allowing China to join the WTO without proper safeguards in place — essentially gutting the trade structure then in place — and certifying China as a place where working standards, environmental practices, and other aspects of human and labor rights were “essentially equivalent” to the U.S., under the ostensible premise that, as China’s market economy expanded, it would automatically become more democratic. That hasn’t happened, and China has grown more draconian with the surgical precision afforded by enhanced computerization and expanded technical sophistication.
Clinton welcomed partnership between Walmart and the guys on the other side of the Great Wall. China gained unheard of access to U.S. markets, on par with Japan, along with exchange rates fixed to be as favorable. The theory justifying this might have been that Global Corporatist Financiers would emerge mega-profitable, while the stuff just somehow got made and American coped with the results. Whatever the rationale, Clinton’s campaign was caught with their hand in the Lippo Corporation cookie jar — the same Chinese firm that increased Senate House Leader McConnell’s wealth from one to eight million in the last seven years. Contrary to your assertion that America has tried to suppress China’s rise, they’ve done very much to enable it. In addition to rescinding, curtailing, or never initiating the myriad of trade inducements, market access, and technology transfers proffered; the U.S. could have objected to China building military installations throughout the South China sea, but chose instead to look the other way. Now, as a fait accompli there’s little they can do about it other than outright war.
If the U.S. were genuinely concerned about curtailing China’s rabid territorial expansionism; restraining Beijing’s culturally genocidal policies toward Tibetans, Uyghurs, and Mongolians; protesting internet censorship; and a myriad of human rights, environmental, and other abuses, the U.S. would partner with Russia. On the contrary, the Russophobia campaign is, if anything, an indication that the Globalist Neoliberal elites who backed Mrs. Clinton see a strong role for China as partners in the exploitation and immiseration of the masses. They seem to believe they can reign in the CCP’s hancentrism and chauvinism.
The reasons for Russia being targeted for estrangement could be considered convoluted in a way different way from the one you suggest. Partly, it’s domestic reasons. Partly, it’s convenient. Americans have been conditioned for several generations to fear and loathe Russia. Power struggles within the government, between government factions, have been won by playing the Russia card.
Thinking that concern about Chinese totalitarianism is limited to a binary axis where U.S. planetary leadership is the only factor on the other side does a great disservice to the cultures, nations, and peoples in China’s path who are concerned that their fates will not mirror those of the Tibetans, Uyghurs and Mongols who got caught within China’s ever-expanding boundaries. Keeping Russia and America at loggerheads advances the Chinese cause. Russia is not China’s right arm and would blanch at the suggestion.
There’s something deeply wrong with the way America is projecting foreign power throughout the world (albeit for a different set of reasons in disparate regions), and something deeply wrong about the way U.S. citizens are being manipulated domestically. There’s something deeply wrong about China’s foreign power projection and domestic manipulations as well. This combination of Wrong + Wrong does not add up as you suggest.