Edge of the Financial Cliff
Glenn Greenwald of Salon.com is a Constitutional lawyer and prominent member of the anti-establishment left. Where many Obama supporters are blind to the fact that Obama is a dictatorial and evil version of the man who reigned three years ago, Greenwald sees the inconsistency between The One’s rhetoric and his actions. Two of Greenwald’s columns of late show the degeneration of the American public’s standards with its government. Both are worth the read:
- Journalists ask the question, in sad earnest “Should we ever question the narrative we are given by our betters, or is our job to do what we are told?” If you are wondering why investigative journalism is in decline AND why the range of Acceptable Public Opinion is so narrow, this is the reason. Thinking is banned for journalists. Leave your brain at the door. It is perhaps this reason as well, Greenwald notes, that the common tagline after spreading that which sounds like propaganda is “an anonymous government official reported.” No one is responsible for the error in this situation, and oh! if the government says it, it must be true! See?
- As pointed out before on SNV, terrorism is a word that is used inconsistently to refer to violent acts – something is terrorism when it is violent and done by our enemies, and that same thing is not terrorism when we do it. But the American government condones, supports, and encourages terrorism against the citizens of other countries. In this case, Iranian nuclear scientists are the target. Terrorism? We support that!
The irony of the Iran conflict right now is that it is based on propaganda, just as Iraq was, to the detriment of hundreds of thousands of lives and a trillion dollars. The Iranian nuclear program is not even close to developing a nuclear weapon, and there is only one “Top Secret” source who says there is. Some other things to consider:
- Iran is reported to be attempting to enrich its uranium to 19.75% LEU —well below the 95% used for nuclear weapons, and there is no evidence Iran has the potential to reach such high enrichment any time soon;
- According to the relevant U.S. National Intelligence Estimate, agreed on by both the Bush and Obama administrations, Iran has not even sought nuclear weapons in nearly a decade;
- The Iranian military state is run by the clerics, not by President Ahmadinejad, whose statements about Israel have been taken out of context and have little bearing on actual Iranian policy;
- Even if somehow Iran did get nuclear weapons, they would not be any more dangerous than the thousands of other nuclear weapons in the world, some of which have gone missing;
- Even the head of Israel’s Mossad does not see Iran with nuclear weapons as an “existential threat” to Israel—and it certainly wouldn’t be such a threat to the United States;
- Indeed, attacking Iran, whether over alleged nuclear program or any other pretext, is a far greater threat to Israel to anything Iran is posing just being left alone (the linked interview between Scott Horton and Gareth Porter is well worth hearing in full);
- During the Cold War, the U.S. faced the Soviet Union, which was an existential threat, and was a much more belligerent and repressive regime than the one ruling Iran.
A friend believes the Iran-has-nukes story to be a farce to begin with. It is about oil, American Empire, and the dollar. It sounds plausible to me, given the underhanded motives and actions of the state in foreign affairs for the past 100 years…
I do know one thing: we are provoking war with Iran. Sanctions have been put in place (which you may remember starved over 500,000 children when done in Iraq), Iranian banks’ foreign assets have been seized (resulting in hyperinflation in the last week in Iran), and we continue to poke at the military with our ships. It is plausible that our government is trying to destabilize the Iranian government by turning Iran’s public against them, but most attempts at such things blow up in our Masters’ collective face. Something big is coming. It is probably called a war. It may even be a world war. Good job, Obama!
Did you ever read The Death of Adam by Marilynne Robinson? It's great at tearing down the dominant narrative.
Put it on my list!