Caitlin Johnstone
There’s so much going on in US
politics right now that it’s hard to know what to write about. With all the
shouting about the election, impeachment, Trump’s
bogus Palestine “deal” and so many other important political issues
competing for airtime with Kobe Bryant’s death and coronavirus fear
porn, it feels like we’re already at white noise information saturation,
and it’s not even February yet. Things are going to get a whole lot noisier
next month when the Democratic presidential primaries (and all the
establishment manipulations that will necessarily accompany them) get underway,
and Julian
Assange’s extradition trial begins.
One of the many interesting
developments that I can pluck out of this cacophony to earn my keep here has
been the hysterical response to Bernie Sanders’ polling bump from the Bush-era
neoconservatives who’ve been rehabilitated by a weird new alliance with the Democratic
Party in the age of Trump. In just the last few days we’ve seen a deluge of
smear pieces against Sanders published in mainstream news outlets by virulent
“never-Trump” neocons Bret “Bedbug”
Stephens, David
“Axis of Evil” Frum, Jennifer “John
McCain is too dovish” Rubin, and Max
“The Case for American Empire” Boot.
Which has turned out to be a
good thing so far, for two reasons. Firstly it has ripped off the
mask of woke progressivism that these neoconservative war whores
slapped on their faces three years ago to promote mass murder within the
Democratic establishment’s astroturf “Resistance” to Trump. Secondly it has
educated an entire new generation of young voters about the evils of the Iraq
invasion, and who helped facilitate it.
“You can trust me now,” I
said, “precisely because I have changed my mind. Don’t trust anyone who
hasn’t.”
⁰Which brings me to Bernie Sanders, who never seems to have changed his views about anything.
.@PostOpinions: https://wapo.st/2O9ujUG
⁰Which brings me to Bernie Sanders, who never seems to have changed his views about anything.
.@PostOpinions: https://wapo.st/2O9ujUG
It is always a good sign when
a bunch of pundits who push for increased military aggression at every
opportunity are upset about the same thing, but I’m going to single out Max
Boot here because his Bernie tantrum has been especially hilarious to watch.
In an article for The
Washington Post titled “Bernie Sanders
is ‘insanely consistent.’ That’s nothing to brag about.“, Boot bizarrely
decided to attack Sanders on the fact that he hasn’t often had to admit that
he’s been wrong about things.
“But it is true that I’ve
rethought my views on some important matters, such as the Iraq War, and started
speaking out on issues such global warming, gun control and white privilege
where reality conflicts with conservative dogma,” Boot writes, adding that he
can be trusted now “precisely because I have changed my mind.
Don’t trust anyone who hasn’t.”
It is fascinating that Boot
should choose consistency as a line of attack against Sanders, because he
himself has been remarkably consistent throughout his entire career. He’s just
been consistent in the other direction.
Promoting fiendishly aggressive
interventionist agendas everywhere from Iraq to Afghanistan to Libya
to Syria to Iran to Russia, the former
PNAC member Boot has been a leading narrative manager for some of the
most catastrophically disastrous military interventions in living memory. He
has not just promoted imperialist agendas which destroyed the lives of untold
millions of human beings, but has also consistently promoted the pernicious
underpinning philosophy of that imperialism as in his 2001 masterpiece “The
Case for American Empire“.
And that is the one and only
reason Boot remains gainfully employed as a famous and widely circulated
mainstream foreign policy analyst. He has no redeeming characteristics. He is
not smart. He is not charming. He is never, ever right about anything. He
simply advocates for the deployment of expensive military equipment
consistently and reliably. The oligarchic media love that in a guy.
https://twitter.com/MaxBoot/status/1222667748896989184
Boot, who has been giddy with
excitement that his fellow traveller John Bolton has entered his side
of the impeachment debate, wrapped up his unintentional self-parody by cheerleading Trump’s
regime change interventionism in Venezuela and the right-wing military
coup in Bolivia. After its publication he quickly found himself
under fire on Twitter by the Sanders campaign’s David Sirota, who
rightly criticized his forceful promotion of the Iraq invasion. Boot responded
by whining that the “Bernie Bro” should accept his admission that Iraq was a
mistake and forget about the whole thing.
“Me: I was wrong and I admit
it, but I learned from it. Bernie should too. He’s been wrong about some stuff.
Bernie Bro: You were wrong. Why should we listen to you?”, Boot tweeted.
“LOL. Exactly,” Jennifer
Rubin responded.
And that just says so much
about the coddled, insulated, completely unchallenged life that these mass
media pundits are accustomed to, right there. To believe that you can help pave
the way for a war that kills a million people based on lies and then years
later say “Oh yeah I made an oopsie with that one, I need a do-over” requires
an unbelievable amount of entitlement and privilege, let alone to be able to
self-righteously hold that admission up as some kind of superior virtue that is
worthy of praise and deference.
You don’t get to help murder a
million human beings and then act indignant when people bring it up. That is
not a thing. Your admission of wrongdoing does not undo the wrong that you did,
and only someone who has been raised in a consequence-free environment their
entire life could possibly believe that it would.
About to go on @CNNTonight to discuss impeachment. http://wapo.st/313fSai
Striking that Trump lawyers pretend Bolton smoking-gun evidence doesn't exist. And that so many GOP senators still argue that there's no reason to hear from Bolton. The lack of GOP outrage is outrageous.
Striking that Trump lawyers pretend Bolton smoking-gun evidence doesn't exist. And that so many GOP senators still argue that there's no reason to hear from Bolton. The lack of GOP outrage is outrageous.
Hey Max? If you ever get tired
of being completely wrong about everything, here’s a hot tip for you: maybe
start with crossing off the idea that murdering a bunch of people is an ideal
solution to every problem. Normal people don’t think that way. That’s why
you’re wrong more often than any normal person. It really is that simple.
Nobody who promoted the
unforgivable Iraq invasion should ever be listened to about anything for as
long as they live. They certainly should not be elevated in prominent slots on mainstream
news outlets. They should not even be able to find employment anywhere more
glamorous than a McDonald’s.
It is good that these people
are exposing themselves, and it is good that more people are learning about the
Iraq invasion. Nothing has ever been done to make right the unfathomable evils
which were inflicted upon our species by that one horrific act, let alone the
many other disastrous interventions which have been endorsed by Max Boot.
Let’s all hope for a sane
world where mass military slaughter is seen for what it is, and where war
whores like Max Boot are seen for what they are, and where both of these things
fade into obsolescence forever.
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