World War III

So, 2020 is off to an exciting start. It’s barely the middle of January, and we’ve already made it through World War III, which was slightly less apocalyptic than expected. Forensic teams are still sifting through the ashes, but preliminary reports suggest that the global capitalist empire has emerged from the carnage largely intact.

It started in the Middle East, of course, when Donald Trump (a “Russian-asset”) ordered the murder of Iranian general Qasem Soleimani outside the Baghdad Airport, presumably after clearing it with Putin, which, given Iran and Russia’s relationship, doesn’t really make much sense.

But whatever. According to the U.S. government and the corporate media, Soleimani was a “terrorist,” who had been working with Assad (another “terrorist”) to destroy ISIS (who are also “terrorists”) and elements of Al-Qaeda (who used to be “terrorists”) with the support of the Russians (who are kind of “terrorists”) and doing all sorts of other unspecified but allegedly imminent “terrorist” things.

Apparently, Soleimani had flown to Baghdad on a secret commercial “terrorist” flight and was on his way to some kind of covert “terrorist” diplomatic meeting to respond to a de-escalation proposal from Saudi Arabia (who are definitely not “terrorists”) when the U.S. military preventatively murdered him with a General Atomics Aeronautical Systems MQ-9B Reaper drone.

Iran (officially a “terrorist” country since January 1979, when they overthrew the brutal Western puppet that the CIA and MI6 had installed as their “Shah” in 1953, after they regime-changed the Iranian prime minister, after he nationalized the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, later to be known as British Petroleum) reacted to the preventative murder of their “terrorist” general like a bunch of “terrorists.”

The Ayatollah Khamenei (you guessed it, a “terrorist”) issued a series of “terrorist” threats against the 50,000 U.S. military personnel more or less completely surrounding his country on bases all across the Middle East. Millions of Iranians (currently “terrorists,” except for members of MeK), who, according to the U.S. officials, hated Soleimani, took to the streets of Tehran and other cities to mourn his death, burn American flags, and chant “death to America” and other “terrorist” slogans.

The empire went to DEFCON 1. The 82nd Airborne was activated. The State Department advised Americans vacationing in Iraq to get the hell out of there. #worldwar3 started trending on Twitter.

Freedom-loving countries throughout the region stood by to be annihilated. Saudi Arabia postponed its previously scheduled weekend edition of public head-chopping. Israel dialed up its non-existent nukes. The Kuwaitis posted armed guards on their incubators. The Qataris, Bahrainians, United Arab Emiratis, and other loyal empire outposts did whatever those folks do when they’re facing nuclear Armageddon.

In the U.S.A., it was mass hysteria. The corporate media starting pumping out stories about Soleimani having “blood on his hands,” and being “the number one terrorist in the world,” and having ruthlessly genocided hundreds of American soldiers, who, back in 2003, had preventatively invaded and destroyed Iraq and were preventatively slaughtering and torturing its people to keep them from attacking America with their non-existent WMDs.

Americans (most of whom had never even heard of Soleimani until their government murdered him, and many of whom can’t find Iran on a map) took to Twitter to call for the immediate nuking of Iran from orbit. Mayor Bill de Blasio ordered a division of heavily-armed anti-“terror” forces to stand around in New York City with their rifles in the classic “sling-ready” position to prevent the Iranians from swimming the Atlantic (along with their communist killer dolphins), crawling up onto East Hampton Beach, taking the LIRR into town, and committing some devastating “terrorist” atrocity that would be commemorated throughout eternity on key rings, T-shirts, and jumbo coffee mugs.

Trump, disciplined Russian agent that he is, held his nerve and maintained his cover, performing his “total moron” act as only a seasoned Russian operative can. While Iran was still mourning, he started publicly jabbering about Soleimani’s dismembered corpse, bombing Iranian cultural sites, and otherwise bombastically taunting Iran like an emotionally-challenged street-corner drunk. His strategy was clearly to convince the Iranians (and the rest of the world) that he is a dangerous imbecile who will murder the officials of any foreign government that Mike Pompeo tells him to, and then incinerate their museums and mosques, and presumably the rest of their “shithole” countries, if they even think about retaliating.

Nevertheless, retaliate the Iranians did. In a sadistic display of cold-hearted “terrorism,” they launched a firestorm of ballistic “terror” missiles at two U.S. military bases in Iraq, killing no one and injuring no one, but damaging the hell out of some empty buildings, a helicopter, and a couple of tents. First, though, in order to maximize the “terror,” they called the Swiss embassy in Tehran and asked them to warn the U.S. military that they would be launching missiles at their bases shortly. As the Moon of Alabama website reported:

“The Swiss embassy in Tehran, which represents the U.S., was warned at least one hour before the attack happened. Around 0:00 UTC the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration issued a Notice to Airmen (NOTAM) which prohibited civil U.S. flights over Iraq, Iran, the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman.”

In the wake of the Iranians’ devastating counter-strike, and the mass-non-casualties resulting therefrom, anyone with an Internet connection or access to a television descended into their anti-terror bunkers and held their breath in anticipation of the nuclear hell Trump was sure to unleash. I confess, even I tuned into his speech, which was one of the most disturbing public spectacles I have ever witnessed.

Trump burst through the doors of the White House Grand Foyer, dramatically backlit, freshly “tanned,” scowling like a WWF wrestler, and announced that, as long as he is president, “Iran will never be allowed to have nuclear weapons” … as if any of the events of the preceding week had had anything to do with nuclear weapons (which the Iranians don’t need and do not want, except in some neoconservative fantasy wherein Iran intends to commit national suicide by nuking Israel off the face of the Earth).

I didn’t make it through his entire address, which he delivered in a breathless, robotic staccato (possibly because Putin, or Mike Pompeo, was dictating it word-for-word into his earpiece), but it was clear from the start that all-out, toe-to-toe nuclear combat with the Axis of Resistance, or the Axis of Terror, or the Axis of Evil, or the Axis of Whatever, had been averted.

But, seriously, all mass hysteria aside, despite whatever atrocities are still to come, World War III is not going to happen. Why, you ask, is it not going to happen? OK, I’ll tell you, but you’re not going to like it.

World War III is not going to happen because World War III already happened … and the global capitalist empire won. Take a look at these NATO maps (make sure to explore all the various missions). Then take a look at this Smithsonian map of where the U.S. military is “combating terrorism.” And there are plenty of other maps you can google. What you will be looking at is the global capitalist empire. Not the American empire, the global capitalist empire.

If that sounds like a distinction without a difference … well, it kind of is, and it kind of isn’t. What I mean by that is that it isn’t America (i.e., America the nation-state, which most Americans still believe they live in) that is militarily occupying much of the planet, making a mockery of international law, bombing and invading other countries, and assassinating heads of state and military officers with complete impunity. Or, rather, sure, it is America … but America is not America.

America is a simulation. It is the mask the global capitalist empire wears to conceal the fact that there is no America … that there is only the global capitalist empire.

The whole idea of “World War III,” of powerful nation-states conquering other powerful nation-states, is pure nostalgia. “America” does not want to conquer Iran. The empire wants to restructure Iran, and then absorb Iran into the empire. It doesn’t give a rat’s ass about democracy, or whether Iranian women are allowed to wear mini-skirts, or any other “human rights.” If it did, it would be restructuring Saudi Arabia and applying “maximum pressure” to Israel.

Likewise, the notion that “America” has been making a series of unfortunate “strategic mistakes” in the Middle East is a convenient illusion. Granted, its foreign policy makes no sense from the perspective of a nation-state, but it makes perfect sense from the perspective of the empire. While “America” appears to be mindlessly thrashing around like a bull in a china shop, the empire knows exactly what it’s doing, what it has been doing since the end of the Cold War, opening up formerly inaccessible markets, eliminating internal resistance, aggressively restructuring any and all territories that are not playing ball with global capitalism.

I know it’s gratifying to wave the flag, or burn it, depending on your political persuasion, whenever things flare up militarily, but at some point we (i.e., we Americans, Brits, Western Europeans, et al.) are going to need to face the fact that we are living in a global empire, which is actively pursuing its global interests, and not in sovereign nation-states pursuing the interests of nation-states. (The fact that the nation-state is defunct is why we’ve been experiencing a resurgence of “nationalism.” It isn’t a return to the 1930s. It is the death throes of the nation-state, nationalism, and national sovereignty … the supernova of a dying star.)

World War III was an ideological battle, between two aspiring hegemonic systems. It is over. It’s a global capitalist world. As Mr. Jensen put it in the movie Network:

“You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples. There are no nations. There are no peoples. There are no Russians. There are no Arabs. There are no third worlds. There is no West. There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast and immane, interwoven, interacting, multivariate, multinational dominion of dollars. Petro-dollars, electro-dollars, multi-dollars, reichmarks, rins, rubles, pounds, and shekels. It is the international system of currency which determines the totality of life on this planet. That is the natural order of things today.”

That system of systems, that multivariate, multinational dominion of dollars, has us all by the short hairs, folks. All of us. And it won’t be satisfied until the world is transformed into one big, valueless, neo-feudal, privatized market … so maybe we should forget about World War III, and start focusing on World War IV.

You know the war I’m talking about, don’t you? It’s the global capitalist empire versus the “terrorists.”

#

CJ Hopkins
January 13, 2020
Photo: Wikipedia

CJ Hopkins Summer 2018 thumbnail

DISCLAIMER: The preceding essay is entirely the work of our in-house satirist and self-appointed political pundit, CJ Hopkins, and does not reflect the views and opinions of the Consent Factory, Inc., its staff, or any of its agents, subsidiaries, or assigns. If, for whatever inexplicable reason, you appreciate Mr. Hopkins’ work and would like to support it, please go to his Patreon page (where you can contribute as little $1 per month), or send your contribution to his PayPal account, so that maybe he’ll stop coming around our offices trying to hit our staff up for money. Alternatively, you could purchase his satirical dystopian novel, Zone 23, or Volume I of his Consent Factory Essays, or any of his subversive stage plays, which won some awards in Great Britain and Australia. If you do not appreciate Mr. Hopkins’ work and would like to write him an abusive email, please feel free to contact him directly.

20 thoughts on “World War III”

  1. The first half of this article is hilarious – the second half is pure brilliance. “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”

    Like

  2. I have been reading/studying current affairs in regards to the current economic conditions. CJ’s analysis pretty much sums it up…..outstanding !!!…..He cut thru all the BS with humor and concluding the article by simply telling it like it is……well done!!!

    Like

  3. I wake up every morning in the most hated, evil, and dangerous country that is running the Global Capitalist Empire. I was 13 when I watched Jack Ruby kill Lee Harvey Oswald on live TV. In my young brain, I knew that there was something very wrong with the country I lived in but I couldn’t put my finger on it. When I was in Vietnam, I didn’t think I was the enemy but I was to them. For the past 50 years I have watched as this country has bombed then droned mostly brown and black people. I have protested in the streets sometimes and I never believed in the “American Dream.” I never got married and never had children. I got rid of the two most negative influences in my life, my car and my TV. I always hated the automobile and everything it stands for. Now I walk, ride my bike and take the bus to get around. Since I don’t have a TV, I don’t have to watch or listen to the lies and propaganda. I am functionally extinct now but I do know that if someone tells me that I live in the” land of the free”, that person is my enemy.

    Liked by 3 people

  5. (“America is a simulation. It is the mask the global capitalist empire wears to conceal the fact that there is no America … that there is only the global capitalist empire.”) – Thanks C.J.

    I can remember back in the 1990’s feeling something resembling “hopefulness” that perhaps the newly formed EU would in fact act as some sort of counterbalance to U.S. militarism after the fall of the Soviet Union. Of course those “hopes” have been dashed repeatedly over the decades, to the point that now I don’t even expect the representative heads of states for the European branch of the “global capitalist empire,” to even bother to weigh in publicly on whatever the latest American military criminality might be. A truly “global capitalist empire” indeed.

    Just watched “Network” again a few months ago – what an amazing glimpse into the future that film was. Great post C.J. Thanks.

    PS – somehow Outlook email has managed to disappear your messages. I usually get an email notice of your new posts, but I found this post on OffGuardian. I’ll try to reconnect.

    Like

  6. Thankfully, the global imperialist capitalist system has fueled itself by way of an equally large debt, which upon collapsing, will bring down the house of cards. Lenin’s chickens will come home. Plus, the foolish not-terrorist Americans have allowed the always-terrorist Russians and Chinese to develop such military capabilities such as to paralyze the armies of capitalism when the proverbial shit hits the fan.

    In the wake of economic collapse, those immiserated-by-capitalism masses, being moved to settle scores with their local predators will delight by finding them demoralized, disarmed and divided against themselves.

    Now, such a state of affairs will not constitute WW4. Rather it should be termed “Bottom rail on top now massa”. [see Gen. William T. Sherman – Marching through Georgia]

    Like

    1. Russia’s Putin is no enemy of global capitalism and neither is China’s Xi. They are not going to ride in on white steeds and drop kick the Empire so we can all live happily ever after. The Empire has its knickers in a twist over these countries, but it isn’t because they are terrorists, commies or socialists (they aren’t) or want to “destroy our democracy” (can’t destroy what doesn’t exist). The “crime” committed by all the countries on the Empire’s regime change list from Russia, China and Iran to Iraq, Syria and Libya to Venezuela, Bolivia and Brazil is their desire to remain independent and sovereign nation states that control their own economies and set their own development goals.

      These countries didn’t get the memo that the sovereign nation state as an entity has been cancelled and ruled obsolete by the global capitalist oligarchy. They’e resisted being absorbed into the brave new consumer capitalist blob where central bankers and the stock market are the Supreme Rulers and the state’s function is to do the oligarchy’s bidding (e.g. tax payer funded bailouts when required, police and military to keep the system “secure”).

      The capitalists’ grand delusion is called globalization (or “globalism”), not partial globalization (or almost globalism). Therefore the hold outs must be regime changed, looted and then absorbed into the globoblob. If that fails, they must destroyed, looted and their Mad Max hellscapes left as a warning to any country that gets weird ideas about upholding heretical notions like nationhood or sovereignty or international law.

      Unfortunately most of those in the “west” who have realized that they are being robbed and played for fools are too busy getting paranoid and outraged about “the Jews”, the CIA, lizard people and “the liberal-left” running the globalized world from secret bunkers and hidden back rooms. The left, which at least used to have its eyes on the ball, has largely been co-opted by liberal individualism and identity politics and is too busy playing oppression bingo, begging the state to protect it from scary words and opinions and fighting bravely for hugely important issues, like the rights of men who claim to be women to use women’s washrooms, while “deplatforming” and “cancelling” anyone who resists their loony groupthink. In other words, the oligarchy can breathe easy.

      There are lots of places online where people and Russian spies gather to bullshit about the state of the world. Talking about how Putin in Russia and Xi in China are busy working to usurp the Empire and usher in a multipolar world is a popular pastime. Sadly, this is completely delusional thinking. Russia and China are just as enmeshed in the global neoliberal capitalist scam because it is the only economic system around. The economist Michael Hudson warns about this in an article called ‘Note to China’ (https://michael-hudson.com/2020/01/note-to-china/) and it is well worth reading.

      Shooting the breeze on the internet and waiting for the system to collapse, or for Putin to ride in on his white steed and save the day, are all passive activities that threaten the capitalist class not one bit. As long as there is no realistic alternative and people willing to fight for it, global capitalism will keep ruling. If the system implodes under its own contradictions and begins to collapse, it will turn hard authoritarian as the oligarchy takes off those wimpy velvet gloves and starts punching the proles in the face with its iron fists.

      There will be no salvation, as it were, until an alternative system that can replace global capitalism captures the imagination of the masses. The new world has to be imagined before it can appear but all we’ve really got right now is people bullshitting in internet forums or, even worse, believing that electing a Corbyn or a Sanders (or a Trump) will magically make it happen. Nope, sorry that’s not how it works.

      Like

  8. I some time ago ame to a different possible scenario, which to me seems more likely observing the direction technology is heading:
    What if..another conspiracy theory based on the current state of the world
    The current situation of depletion of resources, the threat of global warming and the inability of the planetary resources to bear the demands of an ever increasing population, the unabating increase in wealth of a small group of already immensely wealthy people – all well known and factual – lead to the conclusions by a small group of oligarchs worldwide:
    The planet with the current load of population and their demands is under threat, the current model and mode of production, creating wealth and wealth distribution does neither work nor is it sustainable.
    We have at our demand available all resources and have accumulated wealth sufficient that we control almost all the worlds production
    We with the means that are available to us can radically change the current situation of over population.
    Therefore we decide:
    The vast majority of the people not of our class is superfluous.
    We do no longer need to increase our wealth with gains based on the debt slavery and production by hired labour
    We substitute any needed labour with AI sufficient to produce what we need for a sustainable life in comparable luxury with non human labour, demanding no food or space.
    We save on energy, free up space for the regrowth of forests und undisturbed wilderness and reduction of CO2 sufficiently to curb global warming to prevent the ecosystem we rely on from collapsing.
    We keep those of the population needed for research into further development of AI so it becomes ever more autonomous, research into diseases threatening the remainder of humanity and research into agricultural projects to with increasing efficiency needing ever less human interference keep food production viable and continuous for the remainders.

    What if that is the goal of talks about overpopulation being a real threat – but with different goals than those not of the oligarch class?

    I want to add that there will be some areas (I live on an Island in the Azores)left as “natural habitats” where the remaining elites and their servants will be able to visit the “natives” in their original states, where they are kept in conditions that allow them to survive as cherished specimen of times gone by…..survive only within the bounds of their allocated reserve….

    Like

  9. I can envision the global capitalist empire as described, the simulation of nations and some kind of integrated network of corporate rule or corporate sovereignty over and against nations and national sovereignty. What I come up against is an understanding of this as literally worldwide. What is the Russia-China strategic relationship and all those nations integrating with it? Is it a further expression of the global capitalist empire or is it a containment and challenge to it? The empire wants to restructure and absorb Iran into the empire but what do Russia and China want for/from Iran? To prevent that restructuring and absorption? Or what? I’ve read of an ongoing bifurcation of the world into two more or less self contained units with very little trade between – namely the two great divisions implied above. Is that real? Or are they both manifestations of the same global capitalist empire?

    I totally agree the notion of “strategic mistakes” is an illusion, that what everyone calls stupid or mistakes or disasters were actually intentional plans. I’ve accepted this because I accept Thierry Meyssan’s discussion of the Rumsfeld/Cebrowski doctrine. I now imagine that we’re past national sovereignty (save perhaps a handful of nations?) and into the realm of corporate sovereignty (corporate governance over simulated nations and their simulated governments?). I just don’t know where to put Russia, China, Iran, Venezuela and basically all those nations presumably at odds with the global capitalist empire. Inside or outside? There is still a battle or the battle is over? There is the possibility of an alternative world order to global capitalism or its down to whoever stands outside it is a terrorist to be destroyed?

    Finally, if we accept this view of a global capitalist empire and of the simulation of nations and national sovereignty, would it be correct to state that one of our problems is the extent to which we fail at using or lack the vocabulary to speak of this world, using instead the archaic vocabulary of nation states? In which case are there any writers out there (journalists, novelists, sci-fi writers, whoever …) who speak of our world using the vocabulary that best describes it? For example, how are we to speak of what is transpiring now in the middle-east in Iraq and Iran, the United States etc.? I presume we dispense with the talk of nations and replace it with the talk of corporations and networks of oligarchs or something like that? Tell me more …

    Liked by 1 person

  10. […] So, 2020 is off to an exciting start. It’s barely the middle of January, and we’ve already made it through World War III, which was slightly less apocalyptic than expected. Forensic teams are still sifting through the ashes, but preliminary reports suggest that the global capitalist empire has emerged from the carnage largely intact. It… — Read on consentfactory.org/2020/01/13/world-war-iii/ […]

    Like

  12. “Some 6,000 Iranians live in Scotland, including those who fled during the revolution”

    https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/unrest-simmers-scotlands-iranian-diaspora-180221064508292.html

    I knew a lot of Iranians in Glasgow University around 1984/85. The original anti Shah (secular) revolutionaries were rounded up and shot (if they didn’t get out). What happened is that BBC/MI6 created a counter revolution based around Ayatollah Khomeini who was staying in a 5 star hotel in Paris courtesy of MI6.

    An astonishing BBC radio programme from 2009. Amazing it’s still online

    The BBC admitted supporting Khomeini by broadcasting his speeches and organising demonstrations for him in 1979. They claim two of their journalists went native and changed the course of history. LOL!

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00j6lfk

    The reason the BBC made that programme is that their interference was common knowledge.

    Wikipedia

    Worse for the Shah, the Western media, especially the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), immediately put Khomeini into the spotlight.[20][134] Khomeini rapidly became a household name in the West, portraying himself as an “Eastern mystic” who did not seek power, but instead sought to “free” his people from “oppression”. The normally critical Western media rapidly became a docile tool in Khomeini’s hands.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_Revolution#Khomeini_moves_to_the_West

    Summary: Islamic Iran was a creation of MI6/CIA. It didn’t exist before.

    Like

  13. Iraq has had an Iranian backed Shia government since the end of the Gulf war. With clear American approval. This article goes into the details of current Iraq and its problems. It’s worth remembering that Iran also has ongoing civil unrest (since before the assassination).

    ‘How Trump handed victory to Qasem Soleimani

    The killing of the Iranian general has polarised the Iraqi Shia against America — and ceded martyrdom to a murderer

    Things were going badly for Qasem Soleimani. The Iranian general’s goal of building a continuous block of Shia power from the Caspian to the Mediterranean Seas was being challenged by Iran’s most important ally and neighbour, Iraq. The protests that began in Baghdad at the beginning of October had changed the political dynamics, as the Arab Shia of Iraq rebelled against Persian domination.

    The protests started over corruption, the uselessness of public services, the fact that there is no electricity for half the day and the water runs a sandy brown from the taps in Basra. There were no jobs in a country where 60% of the country is under 25

    https://unherd.com/2020/01/how-trump-handed-victory-to-qasem-soleimani/?=frbottom

    Like

  14. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jun/10/ayatollah-khomeini-jimmy-carter-administration-iran-revolution

    “It was previously known that Ruhollah Khomeini, the charismatic leader of the Iranian revolution, had exchanged some messages with the US through an intermediary while living in exile in Paris. But new documents seen by the BBC’s Persian service show he went to a great lengths to ensure the Americans would not jeopardise his plans to return to Iran – and even personally wrote to US officials.

    The BBC’s reporting suggests that the Carter administration took heed of Khomeini’s pledges, and in effect paved the way for his return by holding the Iranian army back from launching a military coup……

    The 1980 CIA study says “in November 1963 Ayatollah Khomeini sent a message to the United States Government through [Tehran University professor] Haj Mirza Khalil Kamarei”, in which he explained “that he was not opposed to American interests in Iran” and that “on the contrary, he thought the American presence was necessary as a counterbalance to Soviet and possibly British influence”. Iranian leaders have vehemently denied that Khomeini ever sent such a message”

    Liked by 1 person

  16. To pay back from whence I was inspired. An attempt at viewing the world (or ‘the west’?) in terms of a global capitalist empire by implicitly critiquing a couple paragraphs from Daniel Larison’s recent article “A Mercenary Foreign Policy”:

    Larison: “Trump’s statement that he will send more troops to Saudi Arabia in exchange for payment sums up his foreign policy worldview quite well. He has no objection to sending U.S. troops to other countries, and he doesn’t mind putting them in harm’s way, as long as he thinks someone will pay for it. Trump is not interested in whether a particular mission makes the U.S. more secure, and he certainly doesn’t think strategically about what the U.S. should be trying to accomplish. …

    Oddly enough for a self-proclaimed nationalist, the president has no notion of the national interest, but sees everything in narrow terms of wealth that can be extracted from others. This is why he talks about NATO as if it were a protection racket and shakes down South Korea for more money, and it is why he thinks it is acceptable to keep U.S. forces in Syria illegally so that they can control Syrian oil fields. It is why he insists that Iraq pay us for the cost of the installations that the U.S. built during the occupation of their country.”

    https://www.theamericanconservative.com/larison/a-mercenary-foreign-policy/

    Me: I think the task before anyone trying to grasp ‘geopolitics’ is to stop thinking in terms of nation-states and governments and to start thinking in terms of corporations and networks of oligarchs. Forget national sovereignty and think corporate sovereignty. Thus we can view the above cited paragraphs as problematic when assuming nation-states and a president with national interests but entirely meaningful when viewed as corporate, oligarchical relations. So, here’s a try regarding the above article and paragraphs:

    The United States isn’t sending US troops to foreign countries but rather the global capitalist empire is doing this. The nations are simulations and the corporations and oligarchs are simply moving about their mercenaries (which can as easily be US soldiers as it can be Al-Qaeda or some other gun for hire). After all, in this case, if true, the US would be renting out US soldiers to Saudi Arabia just as it rented out from Saudi Arabia wahhabists as its boots on the ground in Syria. Next, US security interests are really the global capitalist empires security interests. It’s not about making the continental US more secure. It’s about securing the Empire overall (or perhaps, at this stage, attempting to stop the hemorrhaging of its decline). Third, there can be no ‘national interest’ when the nation is a simulation, when national sovereignty is a chimera. Its the interests of the global capitalist empire that matter because THAT is what is real (i.e., a network of corporate and oligarchical interests ranging across so-called nations).

    Thus, Trump talks about NATO as a protection racket because that is what it is (i.e., a protection racket for the interests of corporations and oligarchs). The global capitalist empire wants to control the oil to control who has access to that oil (so that they are put in a position to obey or suffer). Iraq’s restructuring is an example of the deliberate destruction of its sovereignty and its absorption into the global capitalist empire. It thus is put into the position of paying for this global capitalist restructuring via its oil resources. It’s almost as if the empire is simply paying itself but since we think of Iraq still as a nation we get this confusing way of looking at Trump’s request.

    Work in progress … see this brilliant article by CJ Hopkins and perhaps my insight gained from it (in the form of a comment to the article) into how we need to try and rethink the world along the lines above in order to understand what the f is happening.

    #CJHopkins World War III

    https://www.facebook.com/groups/461110314347228/permalink/878458019279120/

    Like

  18. Wow. This one’s really chilling. “America is a simulation.” I knew that, but somehow, maybe, I didn’t quite know it. And “That system of systems, that multivariate, multinational dominion of dollars, has us all by the short hairs, folks. All of us. And it won’t be satisfied until the world is transformed into one big, valueless, neo-feudal, privatized market.” Yeah, that does hurt. Like having your eyes yanked open.

    Like

Leave a comment