For the first 30 years of my life, I was a “David Barton” American Christian … raised as a Baptist YEC … Air Force pilot “defending America against Communism” … etc etc. Beginning at about Age 30, I began to question the policy of making the US Military into “The World’s Globocop” and in 1996, I separated from the military. I was happy to see “The Fall of Communism” in 1989 but I continued to be discontent with the US Govt but couldn’t put my finger on the problem. Finally — just a few months ago — I’ve figured it out, thanks to Prof. Michael Hudson and long story short, things have never been more clear for me. The fog has lifted.
I now understand that Fascism did not die with Hitler and Mussolini — it moved — to Washington DC — to the Pentagon / US State Dept and it became more powerful and sophisticated and tricky than Hitler and Goebbels could have ever dreamed possible. Prof. Hudson was an unwitting enabler of this New Fascism with his book “Super Imperialism” originally published back in the seventies (I think) while Hudson was employed by Herman Kahn at the massively influential Hudson Institute. Hudson is an “Adam Smith / John Stuart Mill / Karl Marx” type Economist in favor of “Good Socialism” and he now believes that the best example of this in the world is China and he teaches “Good Marxism” at a university in China. He observes that the Fascist US / NATO Global Empire is now dying and this death is being accelerated by NATO’s stupid proxy was in Ukraine in which the actual Nazis running things in Ukraine are finally being dealt with by Putin. If you want a quick intro to Prof. Hudson — who I now think is the only Economist worth listening to — I recommend as a starting point his interviews by Chris Hedges of which I’m aware of 3. This one (2016) is the first … https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4ylSG54i-A … Here’s the second (also 2016 I believe) … https://youtu.be/cMuIoIidVWI … and here’s a more recent one (2022) … https://youtu.be/RqaSOyFauhk … Enjoy!
Yesterday morning I said I was going to continue working through Flint’s post, but after reading everyone’s interesting comments, I’m not sure that’s the best approach. Instead I’m gonna try something different. There are some excellent points being made by several people and one good point made which I feel is one of the biggest issues in our world today — and perhaps for all of time — is THE ISSUE OF LYING. Someone up there pointed out that the Nazis were Masterful Liars and one of their “best” lies was to take the (then popular) word “Socialism” and attach different meaning to it than what had been intended by earlier proponents of “Good Socialism” — like Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill and Karl Marx. For me, it was Prof. Hudson who connected these writers — Hudson calls them “Industrial Capitalists” and says that all 3 believed that “Industrial Capitalism” would evolve naturally into “Socialism.” I assume that Rosa Luxemburg could be grouped with these three also because Hudson quotes her often where she says that there are only two choices … “Socialism or Barbarism.” When I first heard Hudson say this, I was like “Wait, I thought Socialism IS Barbarism … look at Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol-Pot, Castro … et. al.” but then as I continued to listen to Hudson’s other talks, I realized that all these despots were not implementing Socialism as “Hudson’s Key Three” (Smith, Mill, Marx) intended. IOW … they were LYING. Twisting the very meaning of words to trick people into giving them power. And of course the Nazis were good at this — Goebbels was a notorious propagandist, but I for one think that propaganda has gotten even more sophisticated in the 7 decades since Goebbels. Much much more. And for me Hudson runs circles around every other writer (I like his videos more than his books … he’s prolific with both) and I think the reason for this is because (a) he was not only a top tier Economist, paid by the Hudson Institute by Herman Kahn (Dr. Strangelove) to understand / explain “Balance of Payments of Third World Countries”, he later was hired by the Harvard Peabody Museum to write an Economic History of the World, which had never been done before. These two areas of study equipped him like no one else to write his 1972 book “Super Imperialism” which is now in it’s 3rd Ed. Hudson says he wrote it to expose the impossible situation that 3rd world countries would inevitably get themselves into with the goal of trying to solve the problem. But what actually happened — Hudson says — is that would-be despots in the US State Dept / DoD / IMF / World Bank read his book with evil glee and the book ended up being a How To Manual for a New and More Sophisticated Imperialism than the British Empire had ever dreamed of. Hudson even has an entire book “J is for Junk Economics” in which he focuses on the modern (Orwellian) system of LYING which involves attaching new meanings to words without telling the public so the public can be duped. Which brings me full circle to Alan’s succinct comments — Alan must be old because he seems wise — he’s seen a lot I think.
True. Insightful. Succinct.
In an attempt to mimick Alan’s “succinctness” I have begun posting key snippets of video I think important on various topics … here’s a 2 minute snippet of Hudson talking about this Orwellian Adulteration of the Original Word Meanings that has taken place. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CI0mINm9300
Lastly, I want to say a few words about Tucker and Elon, who in my opinion have become two of the most important voices in “The (Dying) West.” … (1) Trump was the first one to alert me to “Fake News” and I suspect Elon and Tucker also became aware (or at least more aware) because of Trump. Lizzie knows that I try to never “throw out the baby with the bathwater” and I think that Trump may not be all “bathwater” … there may be some “baby” in his character, time will tell. (2) Elon has stated that he decided to buy Twitter the day that Twitter removed the Babylon Bee from the platform and now we are becoming aware of the massive control / censorship that was put in place by the US Govt over ALL social media platforms over the past 23(?) years. (3) Tucker himself has now admitted openly that he himself WAS A PART of this “Fake News” and he says that his biggest regret was to promote the Iraq War. (There’s a viral video out there of Tucker being interviewed by a young podcast dude in a ball cap — go find it — it’s KEY to understanding “The New Tucker.”). So yes, the commenters up there ^^^^^ who say that Tucker lies do have a point. He was indeed a liar (or an honest dupe) but now he’s less of one (4) I have always knows that “Twitter is for Famous People” and it’s true. That’s really what it is and Elon confirms this when he talks about Twitter. Now that Twitter is owned by Elon … AND … now that Elon has committed himself to “Free Speech” (or at least that is his stated goal), I think Twitter will become THE GLOBAL TOWN SQUARE FOR FAMOUS PEOPLE (at least in The West) and I think Tucker recognizes this and that’s why he chose to move forward with Twitter, not with some other venue. (5) So I think Twitter will continue to improve and will become profitable and Musk’s wealth and prominence will continue to rise which is great NOW … he’s sort of a Benevolent Dictator at the moment … but the question is … will he CONTINUE to be a Benevolent Dictator? Hopefully yes, but how about when he dies? Who will carry on this benevolent legacy?
This makes me think of the account in the Hebrew Scriptures of the Ancient Israelite Kings — the Scripture recounts how some “did evil in the sight of the Lord” and some did “right in the sight of the Lord” etc.
So Alan is right when he says (yes I know I’m quoting him twice) …
Let me end with this … Lizzie and Alan run this blog and to me they are two good examples of “Benevolent Dictators” of a blog which — I am discovering — may be the best place on the Internet for actually realizing Lizzie’s founding vision of providing a place to discuss
Lizzie — like Elon — is well known for trying to be polite and fair to people even when she disagrees with them and although she was under tremendous pressure recently at TR to ban me, she never publicly advocated this and in fact, she was the one who said “Dave, we’re not trying to ban you … if you’ve been treated unfairly, bring it up in the Soapbox” so I did and here we are and now in retrospect, I’m glad they banned me (like Twitter banned Babylon Bee) because so far, I like this place better than TR.
Out of time for now … TTYL
BTW I have moved the TR stuff to Guano to keep this thread focussed on the OP.
Just my opinion, but the structure of government seems less important than the existence of effective checks on its power.
I forget if I’ve said this here, but power doesn’t usually corrupt individual people. The instruments of power attract corrupt people. Institutions will incrementally be corrupted, not because nice people get flipped to the dark side, but because people grow old, retire, die, get replaced.
There’s an adage I mostly believe, that anyone who desires powers is unqualified to have it.