May 20
GUEST: Ron Jacobs, writer for Counterpunch Magazine and author of Daydream Sunset: Sixties Counterculture in the Seventies, talks about his latest article on Blinken-Biden foreign policy, entitled "Biden, Blinken and DOD."
Biden, Blinken and DOD
How is it that US citizens are so completely unaware of their own empire?
The British were always proud of the fact that the "sun never set" on English soil. But most of our fellow Americans simply don't know the extent of US occupied territory. The less educated they are, the more likely that their sons and daughters have fought in some Third World country, and have come home to share their PTSD nightmares.
But even the educated are clueless about what the US really does with all its economic and military power. That's because if you have learned the extent of US dominance, you have also been taught the propaganda of why we have left so many countries torn and blasted.
Lesson number one is that any bad outcome (Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Haiti, Somalia and so many more) were just good intentions gone astray. Invasions were always done for the benefit of the people. Maybe it was to bring education and freedom to women. Or to restore democracy to an oppressed population. All pure bullshit by the way. How can educated people be so stupid?
Lesson number two is that all bad outcomes (like killing 2 - 3 million Vietnamese) will be turned into noble failures by our educational system and our media. Many war torn countries will be judged "not ready for democracy," after all that red white and blue sacrifice. You would think that those war torn nations would show a little gratitude.
Lesson number three. The weapons industry, the oil industry, the mining companies, etc. have nothing to do with America's serial invasions of other countries. No respectable media outlet would ever even hint at the basic truth that endless wars bring endless profits, and that US imperialism is mostly motivated by the greed of the very richest of our citizens.
So ignorance is learned from a finely tuned propaganda machine. One that puts us in a fairy tale world, like Wynken, Blynken, and Nod.
