When is military aggression not military aggression? For the powers that be in Washington and their media lackeys, the foreign policy interests of US imperialism dictate the answer. Hence, in the August 2008 war between US-ally Georgia and Russia, the former was portrayed as the helpless victim and the latter the aggressive bully.
The televised spectacle of the January 6th hearings will not restore democracy or halt the rise of the far right. The hearings are a desperate ploy by a doomed political class.
Elon Musk’s proposed takeover of Twitter has ruffled many feathers among professional commentators. “Musk is the wrong leader for Twitter’s vital mission,” read one Bloomberg headline. The network also insisted, “Nothing in the Tesla CEO’s track record suggests he will be a careful steward of an important media property.” “Elon Musk is the last person who should take over Twitter,” wrote Max Boot in The Washington Post, explaining that “[h]e seems to believe that on social media anything goes. For democracy to survive, we need more content moderation, not less.” The irony of outlets owned by Michael Bloomberg and Jeff Bezos warning of the dangers of permitting a billionaire oligarch to control our media was barely commented upon.
Republicans will blame gun violence on mental health, psychiatric medications, or violent video games, yet they aren’t willing to support solutions, such as affordable healthcare, affordable prescriptions, or defund the military industrial complex! As for Democrats, all they will offer is banning guns!
Speaking of mental health, and psychiatric medications, Peace Labor May made some good points in her most recent YouTube video (you may have to turn your volume up).
In light of the mass shootings in Buffalo and Uvalde, and because I’m a glutton for punishment, I’m re-posting a link to my left argument for gun rights from 2017. (One among many. See links at end of article)
Some points covered in the article:
The class concept of the state. It’s not a neutral arbiter to be trusted with a monopoly of armed power. “The concentration of wealth and the concentration of armed power in the hands of a few, are both bad ideas—and the one has everything to do with the other.”
The net effect of eliminating the right of citizens to possess firearms will be to increase the power of the armed capitalist state. Whatever strict gun-control regime is instituted, ruling-class families and institutions will still have all the guns they want.
But what about horrible mass shootings? Recognize that *gun homicides have declined even as gun ownership has increased,*. that mass shootings are a small portion of gun deaths in the US & a lousy index of the social problem of gun violence. But they do grab one’s attention.
The US has again asked the UN to condemn China’s human rights record. Our nervousness over this issue is increased by the scheduled reversion of Hong Kong to Chinese rule next year. The condemnation request has been accompanied by a barrage of media stor ies about China’s treatment of orphans, the Laogai prison system, the lack of political freedom and other issues. Observers of international political developments will recognize such stories as the standard accompaniment of operations by the CIA/NED to alter or overthrow target governments. The US corporate-owned media, in league with government agencies, orchestrate media coverage to demonize states in conflict with corporate plans. (Many of the media stories seem to be generated by the “privately funded” US-based Human Rights Watch/Asia). Once and if the Chinese government is changed and serves well the corporate state, even if any abuses multiply — we will hear no protest.
However, this excuse doesn’t wash. The U.S. liberal elite order knows very well they have been supporting Nazis and that interests are more important than ideology. Tellingly, Amazon profits from selling the Azov Battalion’s merchandise, with its white-supremacist sonnenrad symbol behind a modified swastika. At least they did until it was pulled after the Buffalo shooting.
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