What follows is from a man long warred, I do not mean internet or meme wars, who is sick of cleaning up messes caused by others, such as the appropriately named Ms. Slaughter [not that she'd do such dirty work herself]. In answer to your question they are both deeply cynical, fabulously corrupt, and true believers in a sort of Inner Party Orwellian sense in their own self serving bullshit.
The good news for the world is they're not going to get very far against the world, because they've realized they have to crush opposition at home, meaning...whites. Non elite whites, and that's most of us, and that's over 214 million people. To paraphrase Luttwak if you make enemies of your neighbors you'll never become a world power [he was speaking of China] in the American case a purge of the majority of Kulaks will keep the American madness largely confined within our own borders.
The truth is we're going through what Europe and Russia went through, and Fascism - proper Right wing fascism - is at least as likely the winner as Neo-liberal Holy Secular Christian Communism [without Christ of course].
I'm definitely in the USA as mercantilist from the beginning camp. One driver of the revolution was that the British had banned non-British trade. North vs South conflict was driven by varying economic interests as well as the moral question of slavery. The nullification crisis during Andrew Jackson's time was a precursor to the civil war over whether South Carolina would abide by a tariff made to protect Northern manufacturers.
I think that the ideological US state has been present in some proportion for the last century at least, probably beginning with the Spanish-American war. USS Maine was sent to Cuba because they were committing proto-war crimes against rebels, and when it exploded the government declared war without evidence of Spanish wrongdoing.
Like you/Greenwald said, since the end of the cold war it's metastasized, and now an entire generation which has only known the ability to control the entire world is at the helm. God help their servants and their enemies.
Is the USA completing this transformation: yes. The 40 year olds that are in power now were marinated in critical theory during their formative years and in post secondary education. They believe, this is not cynicism. Also cynicism is a weak force, true belief is almost infinitely powerful. We are at the beginning of a new epoch, we’ve traded Christ for Stalin.
America's early success in assimilation, with the American Dream and so on, was never based on immigrants converting to Protestantism, or even Christianity, or on their replacing their own ethnic traditions with American ones. It was basically an Enlightenment, secular state, not one based on ethnicity. This article adopts the narrative of American reactionaries and fascists claiming that this was once the case and that, moreover, this was good for America, while the fact that it no longer is is bad for America. The suggestion that Christians are oppressed by 'the tyranny of individual rights' is an oxymoron that 'makes sense' only in the heads of reactionaries and fascists.
I have read the geopolitical analysis with interest, but I would like to speak on a few points.
1) The US has always been the largest mercantilist economy from 1800 to 1977, when under the Carter administration it opened up to "free trade" to facilitate the needs of the American multinationals to expand the capital enhancement cycle. With Trump they began to return to protectionist mercantilism. This is shown by the economic history statistics.
2) Inside, American society is still deeply racist, and economic and political power is always managed by the WASP (white and Christian Protestant) elite.
3) The Ukrayna proxy war on Russia aims to destroy the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative, of which Russia is a strategic player between Asia and Europe. If the US weakens Russia, China will no longer be able to consolidate the Central Asian cooperation network, and it will emerge downsized as a global geo-economic power.
4) The US remains a great world power, but is also in decline at the military level. Suffice it to say that, after the Vietnam blow, they no longer fought wars alone (except against the micro-states of Nicaragua and San Salvador). US have always needed its vassal states of NATO to bear the economic and military costs of all subsequent military interventions around the world.
The thing is, these new immigrants are not the ones leading the left in the culture wars. They cultural left is led by upper middle class white people in coastal cities. I have my concerns about this multicultural immigration, but the immigrants won’t join the left in the culture war unless we push them to it. This was demonstrated by the famous Proposition 8 in California in 2008. The concept of marriage as between one man and one woman was upheld by blacks and Latinos and failed to carry the whites and, by a lesser margin, the Asians. And now the blacks are the RIGHT wing of the Democratic Party!
Fascism seems an inevitable feature of democracy. No matter the ideological standpoint it will at some point turn to fascism. Pseudo-science is democratic science and pseudo-science is pure fascism.
Truth is anti-democratic, at some point the politicians leave it completely by the wayside and fascism takes hold.
Have you considered that the elites were originally cynical, and the new generation of dumber elites are true believers because no one ever told them it was a cynical ploy? A cynical manipulator of the levers of power can't exactly say openly that advocating the Current Thing is purely self-serving, as the benefits of being seen to support the Current Thing mostly come from one's apparent sincerity.
So the old elites cynically promoted democracy in the Middle East as a way to maintain control over petro-kleptocrats (give oil or else we'll stir up some street protests) and now the new elites honestly promote democracy in the Middle East because they don't know any better (stop giving oil or else we'll stir up street protests).
There's a long list of (mostly progressive) policies that started from ulterior motives that now seem to be motivated by near-religous conviction
The US has been fundamentally ideological before this. Participation in WW1 and WW2 is best understood as a consequence of Wilson and Roosevelt being true believers in the creed of liberal democracy.
What follows is from a man long warred, I do not mean internet or meme wars, who is sick of cleaning up messes caused by others, such as the appropriately named Ms. Slaughter [not that she'd do such dirty work herself]. In answer to your question they are both deeply cynical, fabulously corrupt, and true believers in a sort of Inner Party Orwellian sense in their own self serving bullshit.
The good news for the world is they're not going to get very far against the world, because they've realized they have to crush opposition at home, meaning...whites. Non elite whites, and that's most of us, and that's over 214 million people. To paraphrase Luttwak if you make enemies of your neighbors you'll never become a world power [he was speaking of China] in the American case a purge of the majority of Kulaks will keep the American madness largely confined within our own borders.
The truth is we're going through what Europe and Russia went through, and Fascism - proper Right wing fascism - is at least as likely the winner as Neo-liberal Holy Secular Christian Communism [without Christ of course].
Wait until SECDEF Austin finds out the worse White Supremacists in the Army are....The Spanish.
Finally and from the spirit of resigned but tired, and hopeless benevolence:
Dear Diversity: The Day may Come when there are Nazis and Hitler's from Seattle to Stockholm, and you bought it all on yourselves.
We will in the end choose to live, and if Bad Uncles are the price then we'll get Bad Uncles.
That deserved 3 separate posts and not one long TL:DR...admin.
These are some initial thoughts from myself on the subject. I should think more and make a more coherent and longer argument.
I'm definitely in the USA as mercantilist from the beginning camp. One driver of the revolution was that the British had banned non-British trade. North vs South conflict was driven by varying economic interests as well as the moral question of slavery. The nullification crisis during Andrew Jackson's time was a precursor to the civil war over whether South Carolina would abide by a tariff made to protect Northern manufacturers.
I think that the ideological US state has been present in some proportion for the last century at least, probably beginning with the Spanish-American war. USS Maine was sent to Cuba because they were committing proto-war crimes against rebels, and when it exploded the government declared war without evidence of Spanish wrongdoing.
Like you/Greenwald said, since the end of the cold war it's metastasized, and now an entire generation which has only known the ability to control the entire world is at the helm. God help their servants and their enemies.
America is a communist state
? why shouldn’t domestic crusades become international ones?
Late entry; you have the power relationship backwards- the foreign policy apparatus shall crusade domestically.
Is the USA completing this transformation: yes. The 40 year olds that are in power now were marinated in critical theory during their formative years and in post secondary education. They believe, this is not cynicism. Also cynicism is a weak force, true belief is almost infinitely powerful. We are at the beginning of a new epoch, we’ve traded Christ for Stalin.
America's early success in assimilation, with the American Dream and so on, was never based on immigrants converting to Protestantism, or even Christianity, or on their replacing their own ethnic traditions with American ones. It was basically an Enlightenment, secular state, not one based on ethnicity. This article adopts the narrative of American reactionaries and fascists claiming that this was once the case and that, moreover, this was good for America, while the fact that it no longer is is bad for America. The suggestion that Christians are oppressed by 'the tyranny of individual rights' is an oxymoron that 'makes sense' only in the heads of reactionaries and fascists.
I have read the geopolitical analysis with interest, but I would like to speak on a few points.
1) The US has always been the largest mercantilist economy from 1800 to 1977, when under the Carter administration it opened up to "free trade" to facilitate the needs of the American multinationals to expand the capital enhancement cycle. With Trump they began to return to protectionist mercantilism. This is shown by the economic history statistics.
2) Inside, American society is still deeply racist, and economic and political power is always managed by the WASP (white and Christian Protestant) elite.
3) The Ukrayna proxy war on Russia aims to destroy the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative, of which Russia is a strategic player between Asia and Europe. If the US weakens Russia, China will no longer be able to consolidate the Central Asian cooperation network, and it will emerge downsized as a global geo-economic power.
4) The US remains a great world power, but is also in decline at the military level. Suffice it to say that, after the Vietnam blow, they no longer fought wars alone (except against the micro-states of Nicaragua and San Salvador). US have always needed its vassal states of NATO to bear the economic and military costs of all subsequent military interventions around the world.
The thing is, these new immigrants are not the ones leading the left in the culture wars. They cultural left is led by upper middle class white people in coastal cities. I have my concerns about this multicultural immigration, but the immigrants won’t join the left in the culture war unless we push them to it. This was demonstrated by the famous Proposition 8 in California in 2008. The concept of marriage as between one man and one woman was upheld by blacks and Latinos and failed to carry the whites and, by a lesser margin, the Asians. And now the blacks are the RIGHT wing of the Democratic Party!
Fascism seems an inevitable feature of democracy. No matter the ideological standpoint it will at some point turn to fascism. Pseudo-science is democratic science and pseudo-science is pure fascism.
Truth is anti-democratic, at some point the politicians leave it completely by the wayside and fascism takes hold.
Have you considered that the elites were originally cynical, and the new generation of dumber elites are true believers because no one ever told them it was a cynical ploy? A cynical manipulator of the levers of power can't exactly say openly that advocating the Current Thing is purely self-serving, as the benefits of being seen to support the Current Thing mostly come from one's apparent sincerity.
So the old elites cynically promoted democracy in the Middle East as a way to maintain control over petro-kleptocrats (give oil or else we'll stir up some street protests) and now the new elites honestly promote democracy in the Middle East because they don't know any better (stop giving oil or else we'll stir up street protests).
There's a long list of (mostly progressive) policies that started from ulterior motives that now seem to be motivated by near-religous conviction
The US has been fundamentally ideological before this. Participation in WW1 and WW2 is best understood as a consequence of Wilson and Roosevelt being true believers in the creed of liberal democracy.
Please don't capitalize words like mercantilism. Mercantilism is not a proper noun.