by Ramin Mazaheri and cross-posted with PressTV
As this article is on the verge of publication the United States Capitol has been occupied by protesters on the day of Electoral College’s presidential vote. It’s very exciting stuff, certainly, but an insatiable craving for excitement seems to have long been a major flaw of Western culture.
Few people are as guilty of greedily loving the short-term sugar high of daily news as I am – being a longtime hack reporter – but whether the immediate outcomes of this historic election week in the United States give you rushes or drops it’s important to remember that what’s really historic is just how far the US has truly fallen and will keep falling.
We all agree America on January 6, 2020, is certainly not an apex, but it’s only via constant spin, rationalisation and deflection that one cannot see that the US has so very far to go – this is not the nadir.
No matter what happens this is not even really over.
In my reporting from here it turns out the wisest and most pleasant of the “never Trumpers” – normally a very disagreeable lot – were right to say that they are not assuming anything about Joe Biden’s projected victory until after inauguration day, January 20th. Maybe the Proud Boys are going to blow up the Washington Monument next week – who really knows what will happen over here?
I have to add a last minute modification to that hyperbolic exaggeration: Maybe a peaceful “Occupy Capitol Hill” is a real thing?
If you want to read more Trump-obsessed hysteria you can always go to Politico’s “Trumpology” section, where everything before 2016 never was, but this column is trying to establish exactly where America as a whole really is: What should the globe’s global assessment be of the country which in 1991 seemed poised for a century of global superiority?
There is no doubt that there was a time when the US was really at the forefront of global political thought; when they were successfully enjoining many people to do good and forbidding a lot of bad – I am referring to 1776, the birth year of modern anti-imperialism.
The calendar has just turned to 2021. You would have to be so jacked up on Western Mainstream Media sugar spin to believe that – whatever happens this week – the US is somehow doing well, or looking well, or acting well, or was anything else but a society in decline, dispute, degradation and maybe even dissolution.
I think the latter goes too far but I include it to point out: this is not a country like France or Iran or China in that it’s still debatable whether the US has enough years under its belt to really consider that they have a unified sense of nationhood/culture given that this was never really a country but a unity of separate, self-involved, self-serving states inside America (which used to be the term used for the entire Western Hemisphere). This is the United States of America, after all, and Scotland is awfully close to breaking up the United Kingdom – so why couldn’t their over-the-sea brethren go in the same direction.
A short but exciting list of things US media would like you to ignore this week
– Their United Kingdom brethren/clients finally admitted they cannot hand over Julian Assange, the greatest journalist of my generation, not because the US will execute him but because they essentially fear that American prisons are so atrocious that he won’t be killed but that he will be tortured without end.
(Things like this are, of course, why the US and UK are the unquestionable arbiters of what “human rights” and “political prisoners” are.)
– Have money, join the duopoly, you will get elected: The Georgia elections were the most expensive congressional seats in history – they spent an estimated $900 million dollars, say the early returns. The only presidential candidate who ever exceeded that in their campaign was brand change golden boy Barack Obama, in a testament to what a huge role the rich, the 1% and corporations play in manipulating American elections.
(You have to have rocks in your head the size of Gibraltar if you are an average American and you give a single greenback to either of the duopoly – just so people like Kamala Harris and the Clintons can fund their lavish lifestyles.)
- The Electoral College emphatically does not have majority democratic support, as years of polls have shown that 60% of the US wants it abolished. Is it so shocking that as I type this the voting of this body has been stopped by upset Americans?
(However, my bosses and Iranian taxpayers are not entitled to ask for a refund on all my reporting on the fundamentally useless and incredibly disputed General Election presidential vote – I repeatedly warned that the US General Election vote totals are just a meaningless statistic and diversion.)
- The American intelligentsia is so unpersuasive, so ineffective, so overpaid and so distrusted that even if Democrats do capture both Georgia Senate seats – and thus the Senate – the anti-Trump “Blue Wave” they almost universally rammed down American throats for four years merely goes from a total failure to a major failure: In this decentralised country local states control local matters and conservatives captured the local legislative, executive and judicial branches. In a redistricting year, no less. The reason it was rejected, of course: the “Blue Wave” was fake-leftism and not real leftism – why would American lower classes get excited about that?
(And how many Congressional Democrats are so right-leaning and so desirous only of winning their own re-election that Republicans won’t be able to swing this very definition of “tenuous majority” by buying Democrat Congressmen off on countless key votes via things like promising to build more Northrop Grumman bombers in their home state?)
- The (apparent) demise of Trump actually does not totally destroy Trumpism, even though the chattering classes promised that voting him out for president is all it would take to end what they insisted was merely a Russian-orchestrated cult of personality.
(Four years ago the US chattering classes certainly didn’t have to accept Trumpism, but they could have at least taken Trumpism seriously. By refusing to have that honest and open conversation the US has wasted four years. The US has not progressed in this sense since 2016’s inauguration day – and, unsurprisingly, Capitol Hill is now occupied by angry citizens who feel they have been unfairly ignored and demonised.)
- It was just announced that the cops who shockingly shot Jacob Blake in Wisconsin in the back seven times will not even face a trial. Last night protests in Kenosha were calm, but what about tonight?
(My bosses have a tough decision to make soon, perhaps: Do I cover the political rebellion in Washington or the possible racial rebellions, if they break out again?)
A short, healthy conclusion to balance out this sugar high
That was not a difficult list to compile, nor an exhaustive one. I’m sure everyone wants to read about Capitol Hill but the short-term question (how much violence will they use to clear out this protest?) is not as vital as the long-term questions (how did we get here, how does the US heal from this), nor is it as vital for the world as the global question of America’s longstanding claim to global leadership.
Both sides of America have disgraced itself in the eyes of the world since 2016, with their only-low-blows cultural civil war. It’s not as if the world wasn’t already quite, quite appalled at American behavior since 2003.
2020 was indeed a woeful and unfortunate low point, but the consequences of 2020 are so very, very bad that who can say that it is over? Things were so bad a brand change or calendar change simply cannot fix things.
Who would say that America’s political cultural civil war is over? Who can say the dispute over electoral integrity is over? Who can say that 1%-rewarding, inequality-creating Quantitive Easing/Austerity is over? Who can say the endless foreign wars are over? Who can say the health care crisis over? Or the unemployment crisis, or the famine crisis, or the housing crisis, etc. and etc.?
Who is the nation which is modelling themselves on the United States and why on earth are they doing that?
Gerald Ford famously said as Richard Nixon left that, “America’s long national nightmare is over.” Less than a week into 2021 it should be dawning on the world that the American model produces an endless bad dream not only for their colonies and their clients but even for their own people. That makes sense, because that is precisely the goal of Western neo-imperialism and neoliberalism.
Whoever is the accepted winner of the Electoral College – assuming they ever meet again – is not likely to change that trajectory because American problems were not caused, and cannot be fixed, by just one man.
*************************************************************
Dispatches from the United States after the presidential election
Results are in: Americans lose, duopoly wins, Trumpism not merely a cult (1/2) – November 5, 2020
Results are in: Americans lose, duopoly wins, Trumpism not merely a cult (2/2) – November 6, 2020
4 years of anti-Trumpism shaping MSM vote coverage, but expect long fight – November 7, 2020
US partitioned by 2 presidents: worst-case election scenario realized – November 9, 2020
A 2nd term is his if he really wants it, but how deep is Trump’s ‘Trumpism’? – November 10, 2020
CNN’s Jake Tapper: The overseer keeping all journalists in line (1/2) – November 13, 2020
‘Bidenism’ domestically: no free press, no lawyer, one-party state? (2/2) – November 15, 2020
Where’s Donald? When 40% of voters cry ‘fraud’ you’ve got a big problem – November 17, 2020
The 4-year (neoliberal) radicalisation of US media & Bidenites’ ‘unradical radicalism’ – November 22, 2020
80% of US partisan losers think the last 2 elections were stolen – December 3, 2020
Trump declares civil war for voter integrity in breaking (or broken) USA – December 5, 2020
Mess with Texas via mail-in ballot? States secede from presidential vote – December 8, 2020
Biden won? 2016-2020 showed what the US does to even mild reformers – Dec 18, 2020
Alleged Nashville bomber not Muslim: Western media disappointed – January 2, 2020
Ramin Mazaheri is currently covering the US elections. He is the chief correspondent in Paris for Press TV and has lived in France since 2009. He has been a daily newspaper reporter in the US, and has reported from Iran, Cuba, Egypt, Tunisia, South Korea and elsewhere. He is the author of ‘Socialism’s Ignored Success: Iranian Islamic Socialism’ as well as ‘I’ll Ruin Everything You Are: Ending Western Propaganda on Red China’, which is also available in simplified and traditional Chinese.
Will the European Union impose sanctions on the USA? I hope so.
Just joking.
Not even Russia or China will use the momentum, Lukashenko will make a half-clever remark, that is all.
Trump must go and Assad stays……..
It is another win-win situation for Israel,
coincidence?
Not. Rather well orchestrated, again. Respect to Mossad, well done boys.
“… 1776, the birth year of modern anti-imperialism”.
What a shame it took them a mere 72 years – at most – to become the world’s leading imperialists themselves.
Do you think there might be a lesson there?
their power is much older than 72 years
in the US it started ariund 1820 slowly but steadily….
https://www.simpletoremember.com/articles/a/jewish_life_in_america/?gclid=CjwKCAiA_9r_BRBZEiwAHZ_v1zfXt5EiPZtJ5CnzJfx9gPMrMq8uP0E8YinsicpitQOLszxaHDxopBoCaRAQAvD_BwE
But as you said correctly the leading imperialists now – but nothing lasts forever
Their judgement day may be closer than they could ever imagine
I think you misunderstood me, Mike. By 1776 plus 72 I meant 1848 – the year of the unprovoked attack on Mexico, which ended by stealing nearly half of its territory.
What a great time for a redo of 9/11, this time blamed on Iran. No doubt, Mossad is working on it, Ramin. I’m amazed that you haven’t concluded that this is almost inevitable at this point, being as how you are Iranian.
The resulting attack on Iran would inevitably lead to a cataclysmic apocalyptic war involving Russia and China. Trump’s rock-solid base, including Pompeo and Pence, is mostly Christian Zionist, so they’d be all for it. It would be their ticket to the Rapture and the return of their warrior messiah to vanquish everyone but them in a nuclear holocaust. Millions of Americans actually believe this stuff, Ramin. It says so right in the Scofield Reference Bible right along with how the Earth is exactly 6024 years old because they’ve counted up the “begats” going right back to Adam and Eve.
For Trump, it would be the ultimate Sampson Option, although I’m certain he isn’t planning to be raptured up to Heaven with his base. Sheldon Adelson would spirit him off to some “well-stocked” bunker where he could snort Adderall and abuse little boys and girls until he croaks. He would be in Heaven until he ultimately goes to Hell.
The crisis is only starting, the U.S still enjoys the reserve dollar status, they print worthless coupons and in return get goods and services from countries that work hard to produce them.
The U.S dollar is declining at a steady rate, so the pinch has started, suddenly all those cheap imported goods are costing more.
Soon, the decline in the dollar will pick up pace and inflation will start to take hold, a death spiral of more and more money printing to try and suppress interest rates, which leads to more money printing. It will be like fire fighting fire.
Sound shit, because it is and will be for ordinary Americans.
The like of Pelosi, Schumer and McDonnell don’t know what’s coming, because they are the indispensable nation, well they are no more.
By end of 2022, the U.S will be a total mess, and Gold will be at a price few imagine possible.
I’ve had the opportunity to visit 33 of the 50 united States over the last nine months (a “farewell tour” of sorts), and must agree with your conclusions: by the end of 2022, the USA will indeed be a mess. Politically motivated violence will increase, and persist.
A small but encouraging note is that, increasingly, even the “conservative” Republican base seems to realize that there is nothing “exceptional” about the American System, and that its endless undeclared foreign wars are leading inexorably toward the USA’s own demise. Nevertheless, I do expect the US to initiate another war in the near future, with Venezuela being a likely target. If such a war happens, one hopes it will be the USA’s final adventure before it is (somehow) restructured into a less arrogant and less dangerous entity.
bifurcation in the consciousness of humanity is on ,reality versus actuality.,reality is what the talking heads inform we the sheeps weather from left, right or of any shade, what the situation is, the main narrative is not lost which is ,”this is not a prison planet big brother is here to cover our asses”
Actuality is when the screen is off and you have dismissed all the talking heads narrative and taken out the rubbish .,than you can live as a human being not identifying yourself as THIS or THAT .,but an individual who is not afraid to stand alone, in love for the rest;-
who are still trapped in the echo chambers maintained by reality setters being the mass media and their elite controllers.Leaders elected by sheeps don’t stand a chance look at assad or 45’s troubles..
Here is one of the more interesting unintended consequences of partisan politics in the United States:
https://viableopposition.blogspot.com/2021/01/a-divided-america-firearms-ownership.html
Joe Biden’s win in November 2020 has created an increasing level of fear among Americans who do not back one of his key policies.
The odious hypocrisy and double standard long practised by the US and its European friends, went into overdrive yesterday, when the US Capitol got overrun by “protestors”.
Why are these hypocrites now complaining about ” lawlessness” and “insurrection”, when this is the same type of behaviour or worst, that they have encouraged, cheered on, promoted and defended elsewhere in places like: Iran, Russia, Hong Kong, Syria, Venezuela, Ukraine, etc. etc.?
This is just one more sign that the US is crumbling under the weight of its hypocrisy.
When things that were previously thought of as impossible – or only happens in “shit hole” countries, start happening around them, the American people should take note.
After this, we will not expect anymore condescending lectures from the US, regarding other countries, about “democracy” or about how people should be free to “demonstrate and express themselves”
The next time the US try to pull that stunt about “democracy” in regards to another country, just imagine how hollow it will ring, or the embarrasing memes that will surface.
#hardrevenge
Selah
Today in America, we have a new senator from the state of Georgia. A Baptist preacher from the same pulpit as MLK. Offered to us by the party of abortion. Now, ya’ll don’t drink no beer on your way to your abortion. Hell, drinking and dancin is what got you here to start with. You’ll pass that offeren plate ya hear. The children of Melech, will get what the children of Melech deserve.
One of yesterday’s weirdos
https://twitter.com/INVESTMENTSHULK/status/1347086756278128641
And just some fun from the always present memes.
https://twitter.com/ThorHalvorssen/status/1347042144775667713/photo/1
amarynth;
That ‘viking’ weirdo seems to be a busy guy…
https://www.hangthecensors.com/487190.html
The people inside of the capitol buildings think that they have nothing to do with what was going on outside of their buildings, just like they have no clue that their actions over the last 50 years have created this crisis which will not go away. Now they are talking about the Constitution. They do not realize that when they passed the Patriot Act, they nullified the Constitution. This is what happens when you trash the Constitution and the rule of law.
This just seems a brilliant essay this morning. Thank you very much.
”Their United Kingdom brethren/clients finally admitted they cannot hand over Julian Assange, the greatest journalist of my generation, not because the US will execute him but because they essentially fear that American prisons are so atrocious that he won’t be killed but that he will be tortured without end.”
Well, I very much doubt the UK hasn’t thought about ”the Swedish option”. Nothing could be easier for Sweden’s lackey government, judiciary, and media than re-igniting the rape fiction garbage and ”humbly” demand him extradited to Sweden, to then be tortured without end at the final destination.
”Who would say that America’s political cultural civil war is over? Who can say the dispute over electoral integrity is over?”
The US political cultural civil war is George Soros in his full magnificent glory. Having been resoundingly defeated by Russia and China, he decided to break up the US instead knowing the stature of the country and its leadership and its citizenry far better plus that he is fully protected there by his very ancestry. As long as Soros stays committed, the US will keep rolling down into the gutter. I wouldn’t, however, bother too much with the electoral circus except for some refined amusement (Maduro rubbed it in splendidly).
“I am referring to 1776, the birth year of modern anti-imperialism.”
Strange that this ”anti-imperialism” hasn’t left the slightest trace except premeditated genocide, land-grabbing, and permanent warmongering. The world outlook of your average US American speaks for itself.
Anybody other than I remember “Man of the Year”?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7eHIga5RBU
Unfortunately, in the real world, the Man of the Year does not resign.
The U.S. Republic is down and now we are at war, politically and maybe martially.
Who are the main enemies of the American people?
1. Each one of the 535 members of the U.S. Congress who committed high-crimes and misdemeanors.
2. The national three-letter news media.
3. The corporate controlled social media platforms.
4. The Wall-Street banks and their casino games backed up by the U.S. taxpayer when they go bust.
5. The multi-national corporations that sent American manufacturing to China to earn greater profits.
6. Foreign State lobbyists that bribe career congressional representatives for various favors.
7. State governors and their Secretaries of State who committed federal election fraud.
8. The highest-echelons of the Department of Justice and the U.S. Military that did nothing to protect the Constitution they swore to uphold.
9. The American Communist Party whose goal is to destroy the U.S. Constitution.
10. All of us; that’s right all of us, who continue to support a corrupt system of government.
How do we redeem the Republic and reestablish our independence and liberties?
1. Revoke your allegiance to the Democratic and Republican political party system.
2. Mark all written congressional correspondence via the U.S. Mail, “Return to Sender”
3. Reply to all surveys or electronic emails from politicians as “you don’t represent me in government.”
4. File a 6 month extension to U.S. Federal or State tax returns if money is owed.
5. For federal and State elections, write in on the ballot, “the electoral system is fraudulent and a crime.”
6. Do not donate money to the two-party system. They don’t need it anyways because of super PACS.
7. Ignore all propaganda from the main-stream media.
8. Close your Facebook and Twitter accounts and other social media platforms that brainwash the masses.
9. Stay away from any of the Hollywood films that promote communist ideology.
10. If you believe in prayer then do so often because faith in God may be all we have left.
Essentially I encourage Americans to “go dark” with respect to interacting with federal and State government minions that work not for you but their own self-interests.
All of these suggestions are passive, not aggressive. If we can’t at least do this, then we might as well invite the Chinese Communists to takeover the country because we are truly a gutless and cowardly people who don’t deserve our freedoms guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.
Trumpism may continue but the problem is that it’s constituency has no money, no power, no influence and no status—and now, with the storming of Congress and Mr. Trump’s very public self-immolation, has even less. What do 80 million supporters matter if the Deep State, the media, the corporate and financial elite, the entertainment sector, the professional athlete domain (in America considered an intellectual hotbed), a shockingly large segment of the military officer corps, all of the Democratic Party and nearly all of the Republican Party hate you with a passion and will do anything to keep you down?
I don’t see how this Revolution gets off the couch.
“it’s constituency” might possibly be not stupid enough to sign up for your “Revolution”.
In the past, as empires crumbled, the useful idiots who signed up to be cannon-fodder became cannon fodder. Put another way, they didn’t survive. Those who decided to learn to survive, some of them survived. When night’s dark armies are roaming the land like swarms of locusts, it takes a great deal of luck to survive. Sometimes a great deal of skill will tip the balance.
I wish we could read this sort of open journalism in a UK MSM newspaper. We can’t so I never read them any more. That’s why I come to places like here, which still at least stimulate the brain cells of those capable of open enquiry and thought.
This could have been written by someone from almost any country in the world, but it does show those most hating of Iran-haters that even that demonic nation can produce those, whose words carry more moral weight than any US MSM hack/craven presstitute.
Dear Ramin
I think there is one other item you could have added to your list of things the media would like us to ignore from this past week. And it may be the most important one. The fact that Twitter suspended the account of the President of the United States. If free speech didn’t die in 2020, it will now definitely be put out of its misery in 2021.
You say that your bosses have a decision to make. Do you want to stay in the US to cover the no doubt continuing upheavals there? If so, let me know their email addresses and I will tell them in no uncertain terms that you are to stay put so that we can continue to have the benefit of your insight and wit.
Best wishes.
America was a model country alright–in terms of what not to become as a nation and people.
Instead of admitting that their America is a bloodthirsty deception, American “patriots” (i.e. American imperial parasites) whine like snowflakes that they have “lost their America.”
But their America has ALWAYS been a Lie.
Citizens of the American Reich cling nostalgically to a children’s fairy tale delusion of the USA as a Force for Good in the world–but one that exists only in their own heads.
The self-styled Land of the Free has in actuality always been the Evil Empire, one based upon invading, bombing, regime changing, balkanizing, and economically raping other nations (including the Native Indian nations, whose land America currently occupies) in order to maintain Americans’ parasitic capitalist way of life.
Like all parasites, Americans have an inbred sense of economic entitlement, as they whine about “outsourcing” (i.e. exploiting the workers in other nations) or “illegal immigrants stealing our jobs” (i.e. exploiting Latino undocumented workers in the USA) or other nations de-dollarizing from their precious American Dollar Imperialist system
Now, however, the USA’s capitalist way of life is deservedly imploding, and America itself is degenerating into a Shining Sh!thole on a Hill.
The Storming of the US Capitol is only symptomatic of this American implosion.
America: You deserve to reap all the misery that you have wrought on the world in the name of your fake “Freedom and Democracy. ”
It’s coming for you,(removed language,MOD) .
Uncle Sam was Born Lethal
https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/08/16/uncle-sam-was-born-lethal/