The
Imperial Collapse Clock Ticks
Closer to Midnight
Michael
Krieger
22
August, 2016
As
I noted in last Friday’s piece, Donald Trump Finally Comes Out of
the Closet, the firing of Steve Bannon represents the most
significant event to occur during the Trump administration thus far.
For the purposes of this piece, it’s important to review some of
what I wrote:
Irrespective
of what you think of Bannon, him being out means Wall Street and the
military-industrial complex is now 100% in control of the Trump
administration. Prepare for an escalation of imperial war around the
world and an expansion of brutal oligarchy.
The
removal of Bannon is the end of even a facade of populism. This is
now the Goldman Sachs Presidency with a thin-skinned, unthinking
authoritarian as a figurehead. Meanwhile, guess who’s still there
in addition to the Goldman executives? Weed obsessed, civil asset
forfeiture supporting Jefferson Sessions. The Trump administration
just bacame ten times more dangerous than it was before. With the
coup successful, Trump no longer needs to be impeached.
Here’s
another prediction. Watch the corporate media start to lay off Trump
a bit more going forward. Rather than hysterically demonize him for
every little thing, corporate media will increasingly give him more
of the benefit of the doubt. After all, a Presidency run by Goldman
Sachs and generals is exactly what they like. Trump finally came out
of the closet as the anti-populist oligarch he is, and the results
won’t be pretty.
Of
course, his cheerleaders will remain enthusiastically in denial about
what’s happened to their hero, but Trump has been totally brought
to heel, a fact that’ll become increasingly crystal clear in the
months ahead. This is now your standard Wall Street and
military-industrial complex run Presidency.
Last
night’s announcement of a recommitment to the Afghanistan war is
the earliest evidence that Trump has been completely castrated and
will now play by status quo rules with little to no friction. This
Presidency will very quickly begin to look like the fifth George W.
Bush term (Obama was three and four), on every single issue of
genuine importance to oligarchs. Wedge cultural issues will continue
to be hyped up hysterically by the corporate media since people can’t
help themselves from taking the bait. It’s the perfect way to
divide and conquer the populace, while pushing through what they
really want. Oligarchs could care less about the outcomes of social
issues, which is why they intentionally and incessantly hype them up.
They’ll do anything to prevent the public from coming together in
opposition to war, Wall Street bailouts and elite criminality
generally, and the public is very easy to manipulate. The quicker
smart Trump voters wise up to what’s happened, the better.
If
you haven’t watched Trump’s Afghanistan speech by now you really
should. It’s not good enough to read anyone else’s summary, you
need to hear it for yourselves. It’s only 25 minutes long.
As
I started listening, I sensed myself getting angry. It was the same
empty, bullshit propaganda I’ve been hearing from U.S. Presidents
my entire life. This broken record of disingenuousness has become
simply unbearable, and even worse, I know it’s going to work on
millions upon millions of Americans. We refuse to think for
ourselves, and we refuse to admit the obvious. There will be hell to
pay for this ignorance and denial.
Trump
begins by explaining to the American public why he made a flip-flop
that would make Barack Obama blush. He claims there are three
conclusions he came to as a result of his grand introspection and
wisdom. Let’s tackle the absurdity of each of them one by one.
First,
he says he doesn’t think the U.S. should pull out because “our
nation must seek an honorable and enduring outcome.” Let’s
revisit a few facts. First, at 16 years old, this is already the
longest war in American history. It was a war started after the most
deadly terrorist attack on American soil, and near the height the
U.S. imperial power. Nevertheless, the war’s been a complete and
total failure. It was a failure under Bush, it was a failure under
Obama and it will be a failure under Trump. To believe that Trump
will usher in an “honorable and enduring outcome” in Afghanistan
is to say he will succeed where his predecessors failed merely
because…he’s Trump. Not gonna happen.
His
second conclusion is that he doesn’t want to repeat what he deems
to have been the big mistake made in Iraq; namely, that the U.S. left
too soon. This is extremely telling. He doesn’t talk about how the
war was based on a gigantic lie pushed by neocons and the “liberal”
corporate press from The Washington Post to The New York Times. The
biggest mistake in Iraq was starting the war in the first place. If
we can’t admit such an obvious lesson from Iraq, of course all the
solutions we come up will prove to be failures. The American empire
is running on empty, fueled by never-ending insanity and a drive to
vacuum in billions exporting weapons. There’s no vision, no wisdom
and absolutely no exit strategy.
His
third point revolves around how Pakistan has become a growing problem
due to its harboring terrorists. He demands a change of course and
increased cooperation. Guess which country he didn’t mention? The
greatest sponsor of Islamic radicalization the world has ever seen:
Saudi Arabia. This once again proves that Trump represents the same
old tired thinking that’s been running the U.S. economy and society
into the ground for decades. This is now a 100% establishment
Presidency, which will be completely defined by establishment
thinking. In other words, imperial collapse is coming.
Then
towards the end of the speech, Trump says the following:
In
every generation we have faced down evil, and we have always
prevailed. We prevailed because we know who we are and what we are
fighting for.
Unfortunately,
here’s the cold hard truth: We have no idea who we are, and we have
no idea what we are fighting for. We’ve become the very evil he
claims to be fighting against as the nation morphed into a
pernicious, destructive, and immoral empire. This is the heart of the
problem — we are constantly lying to ourselves. Of course, we’ll
never set things on the right track if we can’t diagnose the
disease in the first place.
We’ve
torched our national treasure and goodwill by running around the
world trying to push everybody around, and simultaneously
institutionalized a corrupt and predatory neo-feudal society at home.
We’ve ignored our own people in a foolish and self-destructive
quest to maintain and grow empire and the results will not be pretty.
Finally,
let’s end with a little something to contemplate.
Guess who's winning the war on terror.
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