What ‘Democracy’ Is Under Attack?

Authored by Caitlin Johnstone via caitlinjohnstone.com,

To stop the exacerbation of Trumpism, the talking heads are recommending internet censorship, regulations on media, new domestic terror laws, literally anything they can possibly think of except changing the conditions which gave rise to Trumpism.

The most imminent threat to US democracy is not Russia, nor fascist insurrectionists, but the fact that US democracy is entirely fictional.

Saying US democracy is being threatened is like saying Grinches are a critically endangered species.

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The previous president intervened in the primary to appoint his right-hand man as his chosen successor. That successor will be installed in a five-day, star-studded celebration surrounded by a sea of barbed wire and heavily armed soldiers. What “democracy” is under attack, exactly?

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No, the Capitol riot was not “karma” for America’s international coups and regime change interventions.

Karma would be the US actually reaping what it sows.

Karma would be the US government toppled and replaced with a foreign puppet regime, and millions of Americans killed.

Karma would be tens of millions of Americans displaced by widespread violence.

Karma would be the US becoming a failed state where people are again sold as slaves.

Karma would be nuclear bombs dropped on US cities.

Karma would be Americans starved to death by crushing sanctions.

Karma would be America’s forests soaked with Agent Orange.

Karma would be mass executions of Americans in sports stadiums.

Karma would be massacres of entire towns: men, women and children.

Karma would be foreign soldiers raping and killing civilians with impunity.

Karma would be foreign-backed extremists mutilating Americans to death and publicly displaying their corpses.

Karma for US interventionism would be for America to collapse and burn in chaos and torture.

That would be “karma”.

That would be the chickens coming home to roost.

I am not saying it would be a good thing if this happened. It most definitely would not.

I am saying the US must cease brutalizing the world.

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We now know for a fact that monopolistic Silicon Valley megacorporations can be pressured by the plutocrat-controlled political/media class to silence political factions online. Good thing there’s no way this can possibly go wrong.

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When you realize that corporations are America’s real government, the whole “it isn’t censorship if it’s a private company doing it” argument is seen for the joke that it is. It’s also completely specious, because the government is directly involved in the censorship.

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Soon social media will just be an app that sends everything you say to the FBI and gives you regular notifications that the government is your friend, and then everyone will finally be happy.

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Back before he was silenced Assange tweeted “The overwhelming majority of information is classified to protect political security, not national security.”

I think of this quote often.

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The mass media have earned every bit of the contempt the public has for them. Every little bit of it.

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Rightists suck at conspiracy analysis because their worldview requires an elite cabal planning and orchestrating all evil dynamics, whereas leftists understand that many (though not all) of those dynamics will unfold on their own in a system where human behavior is driven by profit-seeking. In situations where you are ideologically prohibited from blaming the obvious culprit capitalism, you’ll come up with all kinds of other wacky explanations.

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The best most reliable way to accurately predict what will happen in a given situation is to ignore whatever laws, trends and dynamics everyone else is pointing at and just assume the most powerful people will find a way to get whatever it is they want somehow. Doesn’t mean elites always win, and it certainly doesn’t mean we should stop fighting. It’s just the most reliable way to accurately guess what will happen in a given situation, if you’re into that sort of thing.

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Sectarian feuds in the online left always boil down to “the whole system is rigged against the people” lefties versus “we can work with the oligarchic empire to advance our interests” lefties.

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The US empire has two faces: the plastic smiling one based in Hollywood, and the blood-spattered one based in DC, Arlington and Langley. If you live in wealthy western nations you’re presented with the former. If you live in the Middle East or the Global South you get the latter.

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One of the weirdest things in my life these days is watching people enthusiastically arguing that they should receive less assistance from their government. Never until I began commenting on US politics was this ever a part of my life. The brainwashing there is out of this world.

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If a political party always succeeds at advancing sick agendas and always fails at advancing healthy agendas, it’s because it only exists to advance sick agendas.

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Victory for your revolutionary political goals won’t be a victory for the ego. If you are sincere about this, you want your marginalized viewpoint to become mainstream and mundane. You want your insight and understanding to become as common as grass. You can’t be in this for you.

A lot of revolutionary-minded types get a sense of coolness and specialness from their marginalized ideology. It makes them feel good to be uniquely right about things. But that attitude will actually get in the way if your goals are attained and your views become mainstream.

If you are sincere about this stuff and not just in it for egoic masturbation (many are), you can’t keep a lot of identity wrapped up in being the underdog, in being fringe and marginalized. Because the ultimate goal is to be the exact opposite.

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