#WHERE IS THE FREEDOM FROM LATE-STAGE CAPITALISM? WHEN DOES THE MADNESS END | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

citrus-feline · 6 years

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going on facebook is always awful cuz ill want to share something with my dad but then see his most recent post is talking about “commie liberal shitheads” like. dad. is that what he thinks about me? he is definitely at least semi-aware of my political views. he’s accused me of being a communist in highschool back when i thought there was a point in talking to him about issues (but hes not going to change his mind). i dont get it either because he will get livid when i say that capitalism in its current state in america is ruining us despite being one of the people affected most by it. i grew up like hating late-capitalist ideals because i saw what my dad went thru and the hardship he endured trying to raise 3 kids all by himself when he was already having money issues. he grew up poor in a house with 5+ kids in it. is it just conditioning where he trusts a system that is so against him? he only just recently finally got a job that pays fairly for the amount of hardwork he does and his reaction to that isn’t being thankful to his hardwork or even his company, but making posts on facebook about how much he loves the president :/. dad... you’re opposed to raising min wage..... like....... he deserves the money for the work he does cuz hes like a genius with the machines he works but dude. go back 50 years and a job in a similar environment would be min wage. im happy he is getting more money but i wish he would like thank himself or his company instead of someone who perpetuates late-stage capitalism despite all of its harm.

generally i actually think my dad is okay but then i look at what he’s saying about people like me and it upsets me. i once made a post about how older people are so unsupportive to newer generations and he got so mad!! but im expected to see his posts that i can easily apply to myself and just be okay with it. im not gonna fight with my dad cuz like even the possibility of being told to move out will be really hard of my mental health and he takes care of me but........ i wish he was more respectful....... say what you will but the meanest i am to conservatives is when im venting about upsetting things i saw in the news on this website. when it comes to actually talking to people with different views i am really kind and understanding, and even on here i’ve experienced that. i’ve made angry posts before with keywords that attracted conservatives and have gotten angry asks about it before and my response is almost always “im sorry i upset you with that post, i was venting. but i am happy to have a conversation with you about this stuff.”..... i have only like once ever had someone take me up on discussing things in a mature way and separate from a personal post but i like to think that the way i handle it is respectful despite my own disbelief in those types of politics.

him going off on facebook is so bizarre to me because i’ve seen him fight with people in comments before. i’ve heard my sister (who is much stronger than me emotionally) address his posts before only to get into arguments where she will avoid visiting us for months aside from popping in after work or something. and she barely does that anymore. i dont get how he is so happy to keep making such rude posts on a platform that everyone he knows will see. i post on here knowing that maybe one or two people i know in real life will see it, if even that. and THAT makes me nervous! i’ve deleted plenty of posts i was typing up mid-rant because i realized i didnt want people who know me personally to see that! like i know looking at my blog it seems like “oh she doesnt have a filter” but i do!! like once a day i will start writing a vent post only to delete it all without ever posting because i realize it could cause some kind of misunderstanding or bitterness between me and the people i care about who check my blog.

all “bleh i hate capitalism” aside, i don’t understand the disrespect at all. i just dont. i can theoretically look at very conservative people as a group and be bitter about that, and i do sometimes, but i usually try to be mindful that people have opinions for their own reasons and i have to remember that everyone’s experience is different. despite people saying things i disagree with, i still respect them as people and i’m willing to talk about things gently. i much prefer a mature conversation about more heavy stuff as opposed to being yelled at. a mature conversation can lead to things being learned, on both sides. being so vocal about your disdain for people who you could potentially have an actual conversation with upsets me. i go off about politicians and stuff on here but for real if one of them talked to me, one-on-one, i would absolutely still be respectful despite everything i dislike about their policies and behavior as someone of power. the only time i wouldn’t treat someone with respect is if they not only treat me disrespectfully but reject my attempt at keeping things civil. and even then i would give multiple opportunities in an attempt to keep things calm and respectful. when i discuss stuff with people who i disagree with, i listen to them. lots of the time i feel the same about the issue at the end, but hearing a point of view is important. brushing all people who disagree with you away is just in bad taste in my opinion. because there are people who will not believe in what you do but also show respect despite that. there are people who will listen, even if they are secretly a little upset about what you’re saying. conversation is important in any kind of society and for one so polarized in political beliefs like ours i think it should be a requirement to show SOME kind of respect.

it just upsets me how i wont even be heard with some people, like my dad. people who are so stuck in their beliefs that they refuse to even consider looking at them critically. i know the stuff i align myself with isn’t perfect. i know some things people who are head-speakers for in the political groups i openly say i agree with aren’t always exactly what i think. and i know that lots of things won’t be treated as serious as i want them to be. focus can easily be put on things that i think should come later compared to what i care about. i know that “liberals” aren’t perfect. a lot of kids i went to school with were heavily and openly liberal and generally i agreed with them but now and then they would go too far with something, or even just be one of those people who are so up in arms about political stuff that they don’t have any real personal experience with (which is fine, i just wish they wouldn’t act like it was them being attacked instead of the actual people suffering from the real-life issues). i know my beliefs, MY personally beliefs, aren’t perfect. i used to have a lot of trouble realizing something i believed in was not what i thought it was, but now its kinda normal for me. my beliefs for lots of stuff is fluid, but of course because its me, i usually end up aligning with most “liberal” ideals (but, again, theres stuff i disagree with in those groups too). i will ride in my dad’s car where the radio is still on a political station he listens to and some of the stuff they say makes me sick because i disagree with it so much. and i like to think that my dad doesn’t believe all of that. but i dont know because whenever i’ve tried to figure out i’ve just been called a communist who hates freedom, lol. he’s not open to conversation which is really weird to me. cuz like. things change?? opinions aren’t static? people are able to look at things from different angles. its not that hard imo? maybe its just cuz im overly-empathetic but like. i dont... get how its so hard for people to put themselves in others shoes... thats what i primarily do when talking to people about stuff where theres any sort of disagreement. lots of the time ill put myself in their shoes and still come out feeling the same about the topic, but its still important to do that kind of thing to at least get SOME kind of grasp to why they believe what they do.

im not sure why im making so many long political posts lately compared to usual but i feel like this is important stuff to talk about... i dont expect anyone to change their views on shit just reading a post where im getting my frustrations out, but if anything is questionable, i want people to know that i AM open to talking about it personally. if you approach me with respect, i’d be happy to talk to you about stuff. it’s something i practice regularly with non-political stuff in my relationship and with close-friends when something touchy comes up. lots of the times core ideas aren’t changed but we all come out of that stuff with a bit more understanding of the other person and why they think what they do. people aren’t perfect and you will disagree about things. that’s why it should be handled respectfully. if i reacted the way my dad does to people trying to make conversation about more serious things, im pretty sure i wouldn’t have nearly as many friends, lol.

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omginstantpaperbouquetblr · 7 years

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By David William Pear, September 24, 2017

["if you have nukes, never give them up - if you don’t have them, get them". - Dan Coats, Director of National Intelligence.]

Those were the words of President Trump’s Director of National Intelligence, about the lessons taught from the U.S. destruction of Libya and the assassination of Muammar Gaddafi.

That is why North Korea is a nuclear power. That is the reality and eventually the U.S. will have to accept “Mutually Assured Madness“. The U.S. has nobody to blame for its self-inflected wounds. It is called Blowback.

If there is any comfort in living with a nuclear armed North Korea, then be thankful that it is not even close to the dangers of the Cold War. The propaganda mill and the mainstream media greatly exaggerate the US national security risk to the American people, and it is for their own greedy self-interest to spread panic and paranoia among the American people.

If Kim Jong-un wanted to kill Americans out of insane hatred, he has that capability now with conventional weapons. There are over a quarter of a million American citizens living in Seoul, 100 miles from Pyongyang. Kim Jong-un has not attacked Seoul to kill Americans because he is not insane or suicidal, and that is according to experts on North Korea such as Dan Coats and Donald Gregg, and others.

Forget the propaganda, it is nonsense aimed at selling extremely expensive Thermal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missiles and further encircle and threaten China and Russia . THAAD’s installed in South Korea at a cost of $1 billion are ineffective and useless against North Korean missiles in the early stage of launching. Professor of Government and Public Policy Lawrence, and former Chief of Staff for Secretary of State Colin Powell has spoken in interviews extensively on this subject. Wilkerson's last positions in government were as Secretary of State Colin Powell's Chief of Staff (2002-05),

It is the U.S. that is the most dangerous country and threat to the world, not North Korea. The U.S. has beaten its own world record as a serial mass murderer of the 21stcentury. That does not go unnoticed by small vulnerable countries, which is the kind that the U.S. likes to destroy for its own sick reasons. For North Korea to fear the U.S. is reality. To want a nuclear deterrent is sanity.

President Trump’s Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats spoke truth publicly. Speaking at the Aspen Institute on July 21, 2017, Coats said he does not think that Kim Jong-un is insane, and that he would have to be insane to surrender his nuclear weapons. He told his audience that the lesson of Libya is that:

“if you have nukes, never give them up–if you don’t have them, get them“.

This week’s performance at the United Nations by Trump raises more questions of his sanity. We won’t know until he is kept under further observation. It is not looking good. Without knowing it, Trump gave the same message that Coats did. His raving has sent any vulnerable country back to the nuclear weapons-planning drawing board, if they know what is good for them. Trump’s speech has done more for nuclear proliferation than Iran and North Korea combined could ever do.

Trump should have listened to Steve Bannon when he said:

“There’s no military solution, forget it. Until somebody solves the part of the equation that shows me that ten million people in Seoul don’t die in the first 30 minutes from conventional weapons, I don’t know what you’re talking about, there’s no military solution here, and they got us.”

North Korea is not playing “gotcha”. For them it is not a game, like it is to the US planners. North Korea rightly fears for its life and its existence. We may not like the way they live, but that is not for us to decide. It is for the North Koreans to determine.

This is the 21st century not the 19th century of Kipling’s “white man’s burden” (which Theodore Roosevelt said “made good sense, from the expansionists point of view“). If the U.S. wants to do something good (instead of expansionism) for human rights it should start with its own cabal of right-wing dictators and their death squads.

Trump says he is going to succeed where Obama and Bush failed. He should take a page from President Bill Clinton who successfully negotiated with North Korea, until Bush destroyed the agreement. Trump talks big and the mainstream media and Trump backers love it. It is the cowboy image that so many Americans think they are in their own mind.

Trump says he is going to kick down Kim Jong-un’s door, take away his rockets and free his people. That is insanity, cowboy insanity. But it is nothing new for America. U.S. history is a history of wars of aggression, sold to the public as “making the world safe for democracy“, but really for the profits of tycoons.

When the Euro-American migrants followed their Manifest Destiny and hit the Pacific Ocean, they just kept on going until they got to Asia. When they got there they started kicking down doors. They discovered civilizations that did not know they were lost, and then kicked their doors down to sell them trinkets for treasures, and steal their resources of natural and human capital.

The Euro-Americans justified kicking down doors in order to teach the ‘heathens’ Christianity, free-trade (at the point of a gun) and table manners. It is now called nation building. First the U.S. destroys a nation, then sends in the contractors to rebuild, and turn a tidy profit too. It is war profiteering insanity and leaves a pile of human corpses in the rubble.

When America discovered the 5,000 year civilization of Korea in the late 1800’s, the Koreans wanted nothing to do with the foreigners. So the Americans sent the gunboats to Korea’s Ganghwa Island and took it hostage. When the Koreans defended it, President Ulysses S. Grant sent the U.S. Korean Expeditionary Force in 1871. Night raids and kicking down doors followed until they changed their behavior. All the Koreans wanted were to be left alone. During their long history they had learned from experience that no matter how friendly foreigners seemed at first, eventually they brought war, conquest and subjugation. North Korea is simply remembering the lessons inflicted on the nation over centuries by abject invaders and aggressors.

Skip forward to 1945. There is a lot of U.S. history in between, and most of it is repetitions. Only the names and dates change, but not the plot. Invasions followed by invasion.

During the early 20th century, the U.S. proxy Japan had bitten off more of Asia than the U.S. thought they should chew, the U.S. wanted to chew on it themselves. The U.S. appetite for empire did not end in 1945’s end of WW2. It was just getting its second wind.

At the end of WW2, both the U.S. and Soviet Russia had liberated Korea from Japan. So the Americans and the Russians split the difference at the 38th parallel.

In the north half of Korea the Soviets established Kim Jong-un’s grandfather, Kim Il-sung to head the communist government. The Grandfather Kim had been a communist revolutionary and freedom fighter against Japanese occupation. Later he fought in China with Mao Zedong’s communist against the U.S. backed Nationalists of Chiang Kai-shek. After Chiang’s defeat, the deposed autocrat fled to the Chinese island of Formosa, along with his entourage of Chinese wealthy, businessmen and intellectuals. With U.S. blessing, Chiang ruled as a brutal military dictator, committing hundreds of massacres of his own people. He imprisoned, tortured and executed thousands; anybody that he suspected of being a dissident to his dictates. Today Formosa is Taiwan; it is not a member of the UN and has formal diplomatic relations with few countries, not even the U.S.

If Trump is so concerned about “Rocket Man’s” human rights record, then Trump would make a good start by reading U.S. history, and correcting the behavior of the dozens of U.S. backed right-wing dictators. He could learn from history about the military dictatorships and human rights violations of U.S. backed military dictatorships of South Korea. After the U.S. military rule from 1945 to 1948, the U.S. installed the military dictatorship of Syngman Rhee, and later Park Chung-hee. You won’t hear about it from “Hair Man” Trump or Fox News.

Nor will you hear much about the new progressive president of South Korea Moon Jae-in. He ran on a popular campaign of bettering relations with North Korea, much like the “Sunshine Policy” of former president Kim Dae Jung (1998 to 2003), for which he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2000.

Better relations between South Korea and North Korea is not what the U.S. wants. Bush killed it, Obama embalmed it, and Trump is trying to bury it. The U.S. neocons could not be happier. Better relations, normalization, a peace treaty and eventual reunification are against the U.S. Empire’s interest. That is why South Korea’s wishes are never mentioned, except in rare staged events. Strange, since Koreans are said to be our thankful beneficiaries.

The U.S. is undermining and pressuring Moon to drop his efforts at better relations. Putting in THAAD’s before Moon could take office was an embarrassment and a loss of “face”. U.S. domineering is not unnoticed by the South Korean people, and anti-Americanism is on the rise again.

Most Americans believe that South Korea became an economic miracle by following the U.S. mythological example of democracy and free-market competition. The propagandists and repeaters never get tired of waxing eloquent that fairytale, singing the praises of capitalism and U.S.-style democracy. South Korea did not develop economically under democracy, free-trade and free-markets. It developed under military dictators, state-corporate monopolies and free-flowing U.S. economic aid. Ditto Taiwan.

Trump talks about “fire and fury”. Both North and South Korea know what U.S. fire and fury are from the 3 years of the Korean War (1950 to 1953). The history of the Korean War would be enough for the Nuremberg Tribunal to hang President Truman and all of his generals. Air Force Curtis LeMay and the State Department’s Dean Rusk tell the gores of the war. LeMay was in command of the bombing of Korea, and said about U.S. fire and fury:

LeMay: We went over there and fought the war and eventually burned down every town in North Korea anyway, someway or another, and some in South Korea too.” Over a period of three years or so, we killed off — what — twenty percent of the population of Korea as direct casualties of war, or from starvation and exposure?

Dean Rusk was the Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs during the Korean War and later he was the Secretary of State. Here is what Dean Rusk had to say:

“The United States bombed “everything that moved in North Korea, every brick standing on top of another.” After running low on urban targets, U.S. bombers destroyed hydroelectric and irrigation dams in the later stages of the war, flooding farmland and destroying crops . (VOX.co)”

Kim Jong-un does not need teaching on fire and fury. In the past 30 years the U.S. has taught North Korea and anybody else about fire and fury. The U.S. has committed military aggression against approximately 20 countries in the past 30 years, (not including covert operations and support of proxies) and none of those countries had a nuclear deterrent.

The North Koreans especially observed Libya, as Bush advised them to. The North Koreans saw what happened to Muammar Gaddafi when he gave up his nuclear project. They saw the glee it brought Hillary. U.S. agreements are meaningless. How could they have missed George W. Bush’s message to listen up? It was specifically addressed to them:

“If a country like Libya was to show transparency and active cooperation, that can open the doors, a complete change of face, it is a lesson for North Korea to observe.”–Bush 2003

The mainstream media cannot stop saying that Kim Jong-un is “irrational, unstable, unpredictable and paranoid”. And that he refuses to come to the negotiation table. Many experts say that the former is not so, and the U.S. State Department confirms that it is the U.S. that refuses to negotiate. On August 15, 2017 a press conference at the State Department must be a record for insanity.

Here is a partial transcript of one of the strangest press conferences at the State Department, August 15, 2017. The spokesperson for the State Department is Heather Nauert:

Question: Is it still the position of the administration that the North Koreans have to do something other than just say “we want to talk” before you’ll sit down with them?

Answer: I think so. I mean, the Secretary, I think, was pretty clear about that today. Just a couple days ago he spoke about this as well. He said, look, we’ll talk, but they have to take some serious steps. Susan Thornton, our acting assistant secretary for East Asia Pacific, who’s been very engaged with the Secretary on this issue, has said the same thing. Look, we’re willing to sit down and talk with them, but it appears that that’s not — that’s not going to happen imminently. They have to take some serious steps before we get there. — So just to be clear, not launching ballistic missiles towards Guam is not enough— the Secretary has been clear about we will see it — they know what they need to do to get us to come to the negotiating table

Question: Okay. So just to put the finest point on it possible, you’re not going to go and sit down with them then unless they take steps that they know that they have to do? That’s — just them saying we’re open or we’re not — we’re going to hold off on sending missiles towards Guam is not going to get you interested in having a dialogue; that is correct?

Answer: I think they would have to do quite a bit more

Question: So if they know what they have to do and our allies in South Korea and Japan know what they have to do, it’s only the U.S. people and our readers who don’t know what they have to do?

Amazing! Outrageous! It shows how low the public is held in the U.S. government’s esteem. It also shows how the mainstream does not report inconvenient facts. It is called contempt for the public. North Korea is willing to negotiate. They have negotiated in the past. They have made offers to negotiate. They have no preconditions. They want a peace treaty. The U.S. knows it. The mainstream media knows it. They are lying.

Kim Jong-un is not the insane one, Trump may be, but it is too soon to say. We will know for sure that he is if he uses the military option, which is called aggression and war.

Realistically, the most that the U.S. can hope for in negotiations is that North Korea agrees to freeze its nuclear program, accepts inspection, and signs the Non-Proliferation Treaty. The holdup is that the U.S. does not know what it is willing to give up in return, and is holding out for as little as possible. Or they do not know. If Trump is sane, which nobody is sure about, then all the outrageous rhetoric is to gain time so that the U.S. can negotiate from maximum strength. Trump’s top advisors know that North Korea will not agree to give up their nukes.

Donald Gregg is one of the best experts America has on North Korea (bio here). According to an interview reported in Time Magazine July 24, 2017 he said, “We can’t deal with them if we don’t understand them, and we won’t understand them if we aren’t talking to each other”. He says to forget preconditions. Gregg also says that Kim Jong-un is “smart, tough, and a risk taker” who sees his nuclear arsenal as protection against a U.S. attack. “The North Koreans aren’t suicidal. They don’t want a war—North Korea’s leaders are “thoughtful, well-educated pragmatists.” Like Coats, Gregg does not believe that North Korea will give up its nuclear weapons.

The other alternative to negotiations, the military option, “fire and fury”; that would be insane.

If the U.S. tries to wipe North Korea off the face of the earth with “fire and furry” not only will it kill tens of millions of North Koreans, but before they go they will take millions of South Koreans, hundreds of thousands of U.S. expats living in Seoul, and 25,000 U.S. troops with them. It could also lead to war with China, Russia and a nuclear holocaust which will take us all.

Whether the U.S. agrees to negotiations or not, North Korea is keeping its nukes. The old Cold War policy of mutually assured destruction is now Mutually Assured Madness.

Bio:

David William Pear is a Senior Editor for OpEdNews.com and a Senior Contributing Editor for The Greanville Post. All of his articles and comments are his own, and are not the responsibility of, or speak for the editorial opinion of anyone but himself. David is a progressive columnist writing on economic, political and social issues. His articles have been published by OpEdNews, The Greanville Post, The Real News Network, Truth Out, Consortium News, Global Research, Russia Insider, Pravda,and many other publications. David is active in social issues relating to peace, race relations, homelessness and equal justice. David is a member of Veterans for Peace, St Pete for Peace, CodePink, and International Solidarity Movement. In 2016 David spent 10 weeks in Palestine with the Palestinian lead non-violent resistance group International Solidarity Movement. In November of 2015 he was a delegate with CodePink to Palestine to show solidarity with Palestinians. In February of 2015 he was part of a people-to-people delegation to Cuba with CodePink. David frequently makes extended people-to-people trips to Russia as a private citizen. After retiring from finance in 2009, David earned a certification as an Emergency Medical Technician. He has volunteered for public health service, humanitarian assistance, disaster relief, emergency medicine and needs of the homeless. David has a Bachelor of Science degree in economics from the University of Maryland and attended classes at George Washington University to receive his Certified Financial Planner certification. He also attended courses at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania for his certification as a Certified Investment Management Analyst (CIMA). David is a Vietnam veteran having served as a member of the 5th Special Forces Group as a combat advisor to the Army of the Republic of (South) Viet Nam. David resides with his wife and three cats in Clearwater Beach, Florida. His hobbies include boating, fishing and motorcycle touring. He is also a licensed skydiver (USPA-inactive)

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