The Thick Fog Of American Deception
The Past Few Days Proves One Thing For Certain: Americas Leaders Will Never Tell The Truth Or Deal With Hard Realities
Photo By Jakob Kriz
With all the recent propaganda flowing out from the social media accounts of the Democratic Party, you would think that we’ve entered a New Age of Peace, Harmony, Health, and Prosperity.
I have been on Twitter for a few years, and this past weekend was unprecedented in my experience, as we were inundated with Tweets from The Democratic Party in a literal “all hands on deck” coordinated messaging blitz.
From the President to the Vice President, to Senate and Congressional Representatives, there was an endless, propagandistic, social media stream that had to be endured, practically by the minute. It was less informative, and more of a breathless orgy of self-congratulations and narcissistic self-promotion. Details were scarce and hopium was plentiful.
Democratic politicians were not shy with generously heaping effusive praise on themselves for staying up late, and for their “hard work.” They postured and preened as if they were working a double shift doing the heavy lifting in an Amazon warehouse, instead of merely downing take-out coffee and bagels fetched by their aides while voting and keeping their eyes open. You know, the bare minimum, doing their job for a change.
They trumpeted the “good news” with religious fervor, all to promote a heavily compromised and flawed piece of legislation in the form of the Inflation Reduction Act.
Depending on who you ask, it’s either the Holy Grail of legislative action, an unprecedented, life-changing re-order of society that finally addresses the climate, social, and economic problems that have been building for years, or, its government via capitalism’s typical move: throwing money at complex problems and calling it a “solution”.
It felt like an assault of the worst kind on the intellect and reason, a literal army of taxpayer-funded propagandists, backed up by obedient corporate media sycophants, joined in one singular hive mind like The Borg on Star Trek.
The reality, and metaphorical devil, as always, are in the details.
One of the points being loudly trumpeted, of course, is that the IRA will finally address all the problems we have been dealing with in terms of Climate Change.
Bizarre, nonsensical, purposefully vague hype is tossed out in tweet after tweet, heavily peppered with phrasing like “Investing In Climate,” (as if climate reacted to the monetary and political machinations of the government, stock market, and business) to the false and completely audacious claim that the law will “Save The Planet.”
Politics is not the realm of deep thinkers, and politicians are hoping most Americans won’t bother with the details and simply line up, grateful for their magnanimous efforts, to vote in November.
If nothing else, the IRA seems to be the last “Hail Mary Pass” the Democrats have.
Beginning with the fact that all investment in clean, renewable energy is COMPLETELY compromised by corporate and Big Oil demands that their windfall profits be first in line, the bill MANDATES that millions of acres in the Gulfs of Mexico and Alaska, along with millions more acres of public land, be available for heavy drilling, fracking, and fossil fuel extraction.
So, for every “clean source” of energy developed, there is, mandated by law, the antithesis: more fossil fuels drilled and produced and exhausted to add to the already present greenhouse gases.
No one seems to realize that the accumulated gases present in the atmosphere are already dangerously heating the planet, and future reduction just delays the inevitable. This accumulation of gases will NEVER dissipate. Tragically, there will likely be no actual reduction with this compromise, a critical detail glossed over as the party streamers envelop the room.
We have Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia to thank for the flawed nature of the climate portion of the IRA.
Manchin never met a greedy corporation he couldn’t bend over backward for, and is now lauded in the media mythmaking machine as heroic for his bipartisanship, instead of as villainous for his corporate concessions. Despite the fact that Manchin’s specific demands end up HARMING, not helping the climate, and are a huge giveaway to Big Oil.
Back to square one we go.
A few outliers, including Ralph Nader, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, and Brett Hartl, government affairs director for the Center for Biological Diversity, pointed out that the legislation, in this form, is nothing more than a “climate suicide pact.” Unfortunately, their voices are drowned out in the celebration and self-congratulations.
Hartl notes: “It’s self-defeating to handcuff renewable energy development to massive new oil and gas extraction. The new leasing required in this bill will fan the flames of the climate disasters torching our country, and it’s a slap in the face to the communities fighting to protect themselves from filthy fossil fuels.”
Also allegedly included in the IRA is another miracle: massive inflation reduction and economic relief. Details, again are scarce.
Despite the fact that many smarter economists and futurists have noted that many of the current issues we face today are due to the end of historical periods, specifically, the end of the Industrial and Technological era, Joe Biden continues to project financial capitalists’ ancient and outmoded beliefs on to the US constituency.
Biden seems to think we are BEGINNING a new era of manufacturing, not ending one. If the past 30 or 40 years have proved nothing else, it’s that corporations will go anywhere on the planet to exploit cheap labor. The exodus to Asia, specifically, China, took DECADES. It’s not as if a factory can simply pull up stakes, reverse years of historical trends, and move back to the US, where labor is, in terms of corporate profit, prohibitively expensive.
Biden boasts, through what Ralph Nader calls “the boondoggle corruption-potential $52 billion taxpayer giveaway to profitable chip companies,” that he will bring back manufacturing here, defying the profit motive, the very reason corporations exist at all.
How could anyone with any degree of awareness or common sense think that increased corporate taxation, while bringing in needed revenue, a key provision of the IRA, will incentivize corporations to move to America? What corporation will open themselves up to making less?
(As I type this, the media is reporting that Biden has, in fact, signed the CHIPS bill, a 250 billion dollar corporate giveaway, that seems more like the trickle-down “Voodoo Economics” of Ronald Reagan than a viable economic policy in a world of depleted resources and the continued degradation of climate. Why, again, would corporations have any incentive to make less money, despite some dubious notion Biden has that we will become competitive with China? I’m waiting for the onslaught of even more “good news and happy days hopium coming down the pike.)
Due to the recent escalation in global tensions caused by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s defiant debacle in Taiwan, perhaps the grift and criminality in Ukraine’s proxy war with Russia have escaped the notice of the public.
Is there any doubt that, despite the brutal tactics of Putin’s invading forces defying the “rules” of war, the militant, Neo-Nazi-affiliated militias of Ukraine are equally culpable in the commission of atrocities and war crimes?
Amnesty International, in a recent report, without overt bias, pointed out the results of an on-the-ground investigation proving that Ukrainian soldiers were, in fact using civilians, and civilian residential locations as human shields.
“Ukrainian forces have put civilians in harm’s way by establishing bases and operating weapons systems in populated residential areas, including in schools and hospitals, as they repelled the Russian invasion that began in February, Amnesty International said today.
Such tactics violate international humanitarian law and endanger civilians, as they turn civilian objects into military targets. The ensuing Russian strikes in populated areas have killed civilians and destroyed civilian infrastructure.
“We have documented a pattern of Ukrainian forces putting civilians at risk and violating the laws of war when they operate in populated areas,” said Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s Secretary General. “
“Being in a defensive position does not exempt the Ukrainian military from respecting international humanitarian law.”
Most importantly:
Such violations in no way justify Russia’s indiscriminate attacks, which have killed and injured countless civilians
So it really comes as no surprise, due to the US and Western media’s insistence on deifying Zelensky as a superhero and mythical figure, and blessing every action Ukraine takes as a crusade in a Holy War, that there would be pushback on a fair and objective view of reality.
The mistake Amnesty made was daring to impose facts and objectivity on the consensus narrative, it’s not allowable.
A sycophantic and obedient corporate media immediately pushed back, resulting in an unwarranted “apology” from Amnesty for daring to be fair and objective.
As I have eluded to previously, Winston Smith and Goebbels themselves couldn’t have done a better job of rewriting History to suit the narrative. The cult of Ukraine is run on the fuel of billions of dollars, and they want to ensure the criminal rackets have a legitimate cover story.
In addition, a recent investigative documentary report from CBS News apparently provided strong evidence of this very criminality, a complete lack of accounting and traceability for both MONEY and WEAPONS. The report was apparently “partially retracted” so it could allegedly be “updated with new information.”
Censorship and rewriting History were never more prevalent than they are today.
Consider, that while many Americans are suffering through a continuing pandemic, with COVID spreading alongside new, emergent, diseases, and Americans on fixed incomes are crushed by inflation, the Biden administration signed off on yet ANOTHER huge package that provides Ukrainians with health and pension benefits to the tune of billions of dollars.
Spectacles, and bread and circuses distractions, are the cannon fodder for politicians and the media to assault us with.
Hopefully, the endless drama of whether Donald Trump is going to be held criminally liable for alleged treason and conspiracy will be settled, sooner rather than later, but I’m not holding my breath.
Of course, it is important, but also tiresome. It seems many Democrats and the corporate media perversely thrive on Trump, and their hatred and antagonism, whether Trump is actively in the news cycle or not, fuel a sick symbiotic relationship.
There is enough going on right in front of our faces, in the present, that demands equal attention. We need to clear the mental fog and see reality for what it is, not pretend that our problems have been solved in one compromised, unremarkable, marathon legislative session in one weekend. It’s what the adults in the room would remind us to do.
Update 08/10/2022: it appears that (for now) the retracted CBS documentary is available for viewing. Catch it while you can. See it here.