Giant turns on its own; Americans tolerate their own warlords

Shuttered in fear: USA “Death by a thousand cuts” ─ Stanton opines

Excerpt, editing, brief bracketed comment by Carolyn Bennett

“The Globalized world is a creation of the USA that began in earnest immediately following WWII,” John Stanton writes. 

“Is this a monster that has turned on the American people?” he asks. Stanton then describes the critically dire state of this giant that has, through a succession of leaders, failed its legacy, failed to progress, failed to realize its promise and potential.

 

USA, Americans’ state of collapse ─ BREAKDOWN

Americans insecure and malleable ─ Better keep busy, don’t think about it. Employers know it’s a buyer’s market ─ Better stay in line.

Societal selfishness ─ each according to … ‘ability’; each according to ‘needs’… a communism of despair, reality avoidance is in the air. Single issues explode ─ difficult interconnected matters avoided, left to next generation.

 

Owning a gun supersedes eliminating child poverty.

Cutting taxes and letting cities like Detroit decay takes precedence over keeping people employed and out of the Hell of financial squalor, homelessness and suicidal thinking.

American leaders rhapsodize their protection of ‘critical infrastructure!’ but exclude education and human security (as they include Defense Industrial Base or Electrical Grid) from their list of ‘critical’ infrastructural systems.

Donkey and Elephant mate and live in the same house; their joint proclamation: the Dawn of the Age of Austerity for America. ….

Uncle Sam’s America cut to pieces 

The nation state is reduced to a national security mechanism to wage war and print money.
 Next up: Fire sales involving national parks and other ‘non-profit’ national treasures sold off.
 Public education system, the backbone of the nation, dismantled for profit taking.

The federal Department of the Treasury has for 30 years borrowed from the Social Security Trust Fund, the debt to Social Security beneficiaries is nearing $3 trillion and the day is coming when that money will be needed for its original purpose: paying Social Security benefits to working people who had contributed to the fund. Thus the real (self-created) crisis making the financial barons and their media collaborators anxious to cut Social Security benefits ─ they want to avoid  or evade repaying the debt, giving the money back to the people who earned it. (Stanton was referencing the journalist and author, William Greider, who also concluded three years ago that: 

The system [in the United States] is not just broken and not just injured. It is collapsed. And as long as the government continues to play putting Humpty Dumpty back together again … it will fail. That’s not an ideological statement; it is the reality. [I’ve termed it BREAKDOWN]

“Speed and usage on the Net-WWW accelerate,” Stanton says, “but the issues remain the same as they were more than 20 years ago. Orphan Nukes have been floating around the USA for many decades yet they are not discussed except within the confines of government.

Officials play the blame game, pat themselves on the back for, never hold themselves accountable; and, repeatedly, “there is the failure of security planners: on 415 (April 15, 2013) Boston” [and before that] on 911” (September 11, 2001). No is official held accountable.

Expedient pronouncements of  “terrorism” shutter the people in place, in fear

  

Once founded, ‘terrorism’ embeds in American life. In the previous century a massacre (crime) prompted no militarist, government or police demand to “shelter in place”: on October 1910, a bomb detonated at the Los Angeles Times building killing 21, injuring 100; but no ‘shelter-in-place’ was invoked. “Americans must have been sturdier,” Stanton comments.

 

“Until Americans start to look at their history and at each other,” Stanton says, “the downward spiral will continue.” Fading are the liberties inscribed and enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights.

A monster created by officials of the United States of America and  unleashed upon the world has turned on the American people, and Stanton asks rhetorically:

Where did ‘We’ go wrong?

Why do Americans let it grind them up?

What happened to critical thinking?

The article “There Is No End In Sight For The Self-Perpetuating ‘War On Terror’” quotes Alexis de Tocqueville: “No protracted war can fail to endanger the freedom of a democratic country.”

Sources and notes

“America’s Uncle Sam: Death by a thousand cuts,” (John Stanton), May 8, 2013,

http://english.pravda.ru/opinion/columnists/08-05-2013/124518-america_uncle_sam-0/

John Stanton’s latest book: Cyber Noodles, Orphan Nukes and the Failure of the U.S. National Security State, http://english.pravda.ru/opinion/columnists/08-05-2013/124518-america_uncle_sam-0/

John Stanton

John J. Stanton is a Washington, D.C. Metropolitan area teacher and an author and independent journalist and analyst. His writings have focused on national security.

The Sri Lanka Guardian and Pravda first carried Stanton’s 2010 piece discussing the internal dynamics of Turkey’s efforts to maintain democratic reforms, a free press and an open culture: “USA Undermines Democracy in Turkey: It’s Turkey Stupid, Not Israel.”

Stanton has written articles for online publications such as Pravda.ru, Sri Lanka Guardian, CounterPunch, Cryptome, The Intelligence Daily (IntelDaily), Journal of Technology Transfer, Seoul Times, and TRDEFENCE (Turkish Military & Geopolitics Portal); National Defense Magazine, Defense Daily, American Behavioral Scientist, and Convergence Magazine. Scoop (New Zealand) carried Stanton’s “American Education System: Critical Infrastructure, Ignorant Adults” (January 2013)

“The American National Security Consciousness, Culture and State: Can Other Media offer a credible alternative narrative that challenges the American national security psychology?” was book published  in April 2012based on a paper Stanton had presented at an October of 2011 International Studies Association (South Region) conference.

Other Stanton articles include

Articles “Barack Obama and Sayyid Khamenei ─Brilliant but Fools,” “United States Moving into Africa’s Nile River Basin,” and “Saudi Arabia in Charge of U.S. Policy” were published at Pravda, Cryptome, Scoop and In Depth Africa Magazine; “I Shot Bin Laden, but I Didn’t Shoot the Deputy,” “U.S. National Security Operations: Obama’s Bin Laden Kill Sets Precedent”; “General Petraeus to CIA …  Joint Civil-Military Efforts to Enhance the Kill, Pacify Chain”; “Suicide at U.S. Army Human Terrain System: General Martin Dempsey Channels Joker”; “Snatching DNA from the Dead: Agitating Iran, World War III.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Stanton_(journalist)

William Greider

William Greider is a U.S. journalist and author whose career has spanned newspapers small and large, magazines, public television and books. He writes about capitalism and about democracy and explains how these two value systems are in collision. Greider’s books include Come Home, America: The Rise and Fall (And Redeeming Promise) Of Our Country, The Soul of Capitalism: Opening Paths to a Moral Economy, One World, Ready or Not: The Manic Logic of Global Capitalism, Secrets of the Temple: How the Federal Reserve Runs the Country, Fortress America: The American Military and the Consequences of Peace, and Who Will Tell The People? : The Betrayal of American Democracy

In his long career as a journalist, William Greider has also served as on-air correspondent for six documentary films for PBS “Frontline” including “Retreat from Beirut,” a 1985 Emmy winner.

http://www.williamgreider.com/content/about-me

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Greider

War generally used to refer to a finite state, but as with the endless “War on Drugs,” the War on Terror has scattered the U.S. military around the globe to battle terrorists with no endgame. http://sagaciousnewsnetwork.com/there-is-no-end-in-sight-for-the-self-perpetuating-war-on-terror

 _______________________________________

Bennett's books are available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY] • See also: World Pulse: Global Issues through the eyes of Women: http://www.worldpulse.com/ http://www.worldpulse.com/pulsewire http://www.facebook.com/#!/bennetts2ndstudy

_______________________________________