<\/a>[by Madonna Gauding<\/em>]<\/p>\n

In the windowless rooms of American corporate media, the assumption of U.S. hegemony is echoed on the alphabet TV channels and in the main U.S. government propaganda source\u2014the New York Times.<\/em><\/p>\n

We are an \u201cexceptional\u201d nation\u2014the underlying narrative goes, repeated recently by President Obama and Vice President Biden at their respective West Point and Naval Academy graduation speeches. We have an obligation to dominate the world because we are the most humanitarian people on Earth. We are the only true<\/em> defenders of freedom and democracy. Therefore, when we invade a country we live out our destiny. We depose \u201cevildoers,\u201d liberate nations, and generously gift them with our superior way of life.<\/p>\n

America\u2019s right to world hegemony is assumed in every foreign policy article in the New York Times,<\/em> because total economic and military domination is the core mission of American foreign policy. The current administration\u2019s overt and covert military actions\u2014in Africa, Ukraine, Russia, Europe, South America, the Middle East, and now the Far East, in at least 134 countries\u2014are supported without question, mostly because there\u2019s not a lot of journalism going on in corporate media.<\/p>\n

The world is jealous of us<\/strong><\/p>\n

As proof\u00a0of our consummate narcissism and sense of national superiority many of us bought the absurd idea that terrorists attacked us on 9\/11 because they were \u201cjealous of our way of life.\u201d The Bush cabal surely laughed themselves sick at how easy it was to manipulate the gullible American public. Of course it\u2019s easy when most Americans, deep down, believe we are the envy of the world\u2014even those of us dwelling\u00a0in doublewides and living on food stamps.<\/p>\n

What is frightening to me is not the jingoistic narcissism, which is bad enough, but that most of us have a seriously distorted and deluded view of our country. We don\u2019t have a clue what our government is doing in the shadows, in our name\u2014and on our dime\u2014and we don\u2019t really care. We are happy to go to air shows and watch a thundering display of military might. We feel good to be associated with, and to be part of, such raw power\u2014the largest and most lethal military in the world. If presented with a detailed history of the violence and bloodshed perpetrated by the United States since the end of World War II, most of us will reject it because it doesn\u2019t support\u00a0our\u00a0fantasy of our innate goodness and moral superiority. If we are killing someone somewhere in\u00a0the world, we argue, it must be for a good reason. Because we are good people\u2014the best.<\/p>\n

Our faith based politics<\/strong><\/p>\n

Most Americans have, what I call a \u201cfaith-based\u201d politics. They \u201cbelieve\u201d in their country, and they \u201cbelieve\u201d in President Reagan, President Clinton, President Bush(s), or President Obama\u2014fill in the blank. When liberal Democrats are faced with the reality that President Obama is using drones to bomb the shit out of adults and children in the Middle East and Africa, including American citizens, they believe he is \u201cprotecting us from terrorists,\u201d \u201cterrorists\u201d being the anonymous, politically useful\u00a0bogeymen invented by the Bush administration and the CIA. Those unlucky children and adults who were attending a\u00a0wedding are unfortunate \u201ccollateral damage.\u201d We ponder for a second and conclude that Obama has made a wise and\u00a0rational decision. It\u2019s \u201cworth it,\u201d we decide, if we can be comfortable and safe at home, and we don\u2019t have to \u201cput our troops in harms way.\u201d We remain comfortable because we never have to look at a\u00a0gruesome image of\u00a0a shellshocked mother holding the bleeding, mutilated body of her child who was alive just minutes ago.<\/p>\n

When it is revealed (not in mainstream media) that Obama is backing an illegal, Nazi infested, Neocon inspired coup in Ukraine, and providing the newly installed U.S. puppet government with money and weapons with which to kill its own people, the administration falsely justifies its actions\u00a0(in the mainstream media) as necessary to thwart\u00a0Vladimir\u00a0Putin who is depicted\u00a0as\u00a0a madman, threatening to overrun Ukraine and possibly even Europe itself.<\/p>\n

The New York Times<\/em> is the main reporter of these fabrications which depict Putin as an evil cartoon character. The public generally buys these lies because they \u201cbelieve\u201d in Obama, or they “believe” Russians and Putin are evil, or both. Those who believe in Obama\u00a0decide\u00a0\u201cHe must have a good reason.\u201d \u201cI believe in his wisdom and judgment,\u201d they say. It\u2019s super easy to sell Americans on the existence of \u201cevildoers\u201d as Bush liked to call them. For White House spin-doctors, it\u2019s like shooting fish in a barrel.<\/p>\n

Cut your cable\u2014rock your world<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s amazing how irrational we are. We filter\u00a0reality through\u00a0our belief systems, and reject out of hand any information that contradicts the myths we cling to. Obama understood this well, noting that some rural folks \u201ccling to their guns and their religion.\u201d He was vilified for having this truthful insight. We all, at times, find ourselves clinging to something instead of facing reality, because, often, reality is too overwhelming, too frightening, too difficult to handle.<\/p>\n

Our ignorance and myopic view of the world exists in an era when\u00a0there is a massive amount of alternative, independent, and non-corporate\u00a0media available online, both within this country and without. If you like to read books, no problem, you can find alternative views\u00a0at your local library where left leaning librarians still stock the shelves with good stuff.<\/p>\n

I cut my cable (best thing I ever did) and have been spending a lot of time learning about current events outside the echo chamber of U.S. mainstream media. I\u2019ve read and watched left-leaning news accounts from within the United States and Canada, and from many other countries, including Russia, France, Australia, Iran and the UK. I\u2019ve been enlightened by credible reporting from scholars, independent journalists, and news sources from areas of the world where the United States is trying to dominate and control. It\u2019s not surprising that they often radically contradict the reporting and analysis\u00a0in U.S. corporate media.<\/p>\n

In corporate media, the massive U.S. military budget, and blanket domestic surveillance is sold to the exceedingly gullible American public as necessary to KEEP YOU SAFE\u2122. The\u00a0bloated military industrial complex is enriching corporations, and that massive surveillance is being used to keep corporations and banks safe from you\u2014<\/em>as potentially desperate, angry, unemployed citizens or an anti-corporate, anti-Wall Street, anti-war political activists. Wall-to-wall,\u00a0domestic\u00a0surveillance exists to quell domestic unrest, as does the increasingly disturbing militarization of the police. No doubt, with Too-Big-To-Fail,\u00a0\u00a0insolvent banks still running amok, DHS is getting ready for the next Big One\u2014a\u00a0financial meltdown that will dwarf that of 2008.<\/p>\n

R2P<\/strong><\/p>\n

If we invade other countries, the official line goes, it is because we have a \u201cResponsibility to Protect (R2P)\u201d those who are being oppressed by evil \u201cbogeymen.\u201d The \u201chumanitarian\u201d R2P is to liberal democrats what the Project for the New American Century is to Neocon Republicans. Both are cover stories for attacking another country to achieve economic and geopolitical hegemony.<\/p>\n

We\u00a0label these countries\u00a0\u201crogue nations” because they refuse to accept U.S. corporate and military dominance, and\u2014more importantly\u2014they refuse to accept the dollar as their reserve currency. And of course it doesn\u2019t hurt that those \u201crogue nations” may be sitting on a shitload of oil or natural gas. Up until its recent failed attempt to eject Russia out of Crimea, the US has invaded, raped and pillaged and taken what it wants around the world\u2014in Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America. Now we have our\u00a0sights set on Africa, Eurasia and China.<\/p>\n

That the current rogue dictator du jour<\/em> might oppress his\u00a0own people is really of no concern to this administration or any other, whether Republican or Democrat. But it provides good cover and plays well at home. In reality, there\u2019s never been a compliant dictator that the U.S. didn\u2019t like\u2014Suharto in Indonesia, Saddam Hussein (before he was non-compliant), both Duvaliers in Haiti, Noriega in Panama, Pinochet in Chile, Marcos in the Phillipines, King Abdullah of Saudia Arabia, Karimov of Uzbekistan, Berdimuhamedow of Turkmenistan, D\u00e9by of Chad, Hosni Mutbarak in Egypt\u2014you get the idea. The big secret is that the United States government really doesn\u2019t like democracy. We prefer iron fists who keep the people in line, while\u00a0the nation’s\u00a0wealth is\u00a0siphoned off for the price of a generous monthly deposit in a Swiss or London bank account.<\/p>\n

We are told we have a massive military and hundreds of bases around the world, because we have to protect \u201cAmerican interests.\u201d But, we are never quite sure what those interests are, so we mentally fill in the blanks. But it\u2019s not our<\/em> interests that are being protected, it\u2019s their<\/em> interests\u2014the tiny fraction of the population, the elites, who choose our presidents, and run our country (and often, as we have experienced, run it into the ground).<\/p>\n

The dangers of psychological projection<\/strong><\/p>\n

We have a human impulse to belong to a family, a community, or a tribe in which we feel safe and secure. We long for benevolent, wise leaders. If we like our president, if he or she is in the right political party, and says the\u00a0things we want to hear, we project those qualities on him or her. Because we have a psychological need to be loyal to our president and our party, we deny the massive evidence, including recent academic studies, that both parties<\/em> serve, not us<\/em>, but the elite.<\/em><\/p>\n

All presidents in the past decades have been more or less, \u201cManchurian Candidates,\u201d vetted and chosen by a collection of multi-billionaire Wall Street and corporate elites. Citibank\u2019s Robert Rubin and his friends chose and groomed Obama for the job. Presidents are never independent actors, even if they are billionaires themselves. They are primarily beholden to a relatively small cadre of\u00a0extremely wealthy and powerful individuals and financial cartels. They are personally comfortable with serving those individuals and groups, or otherwise they wouldn\u2019t be chosen, and they wouldn\u2019t get elected.<\/p>\n

When you finally figure this out, it\u2019s kind of like realizing your partner is having an affair. It\u2019s a punch in the gut. You feel like a fool because you believed his lies about how much he loves you and is devoted to you. But the good news is that, come the next election, you will be less likely to be taken in by\u00a0the smooth talk of campaign rhetoric, and to project qualities and motivations onto that person that simply aren\u2019t there. You will have a reality-based understanding of the candidate and of the deeply corrupt Madison Avenue packaged, American political system.<\/p>\n

The old, venerable rock band \u201cThe Who\u201d said it best: \u201cMeet the new boss, same as the old boss\u201d \u201cI\u2019ll get on my knees and pray, we don\u2019t get fooled again.\u201d Words to contemplate as you enter the voting booth.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s time to grow up<\/strong><\/p>\n

By staying in that windowless room of mainstream media, all of which is now owned by just five mega-corporations, we have a highly distorted view of the\u00a0United States and what we are doing around the world. Given the very dangerous times we are living in, it\u2019s important to have a truly three-dimensional view, and a more truthful and nuanced perspective derived from a wide variety of credible non-corporate sources of information and analysis, even if the reality they depict is unsettling and disturbing, shatters our treasured identities, and the comfortable fairy tales we\u2019ve told ourselves.<\/p>\n

Abandoning our adolescent assumption of our innate superiority will help cure us, as a nation, of our insufferable, and ultimately dangerous narcissism\u2014and that can\u2019t be a bad thing on a personal and collective level. For the health of our country and the rest of the world, we also must abandon our equally adolescent desire for U.S. hegemony\u2014for world domination.<\/p>\n

Like the bully it is, the United States is currently trying to isolate Russia, intimidate Europe, and threaten nuclear war by beefing up weapons on Russia\u2019s border\u2014 but it is the United States that will end up isolated. The world has had it with us\u2014with our bloody sanctions, punishing IMF-sponsored austerity, and our newly sophisticated, Obama-style \u201csoft wars.\u201d As a result, many nations, including the BRICS and its over 80 associate countries, are collectively working to dump the dollar as reserve currency. Russia and China just signed a $400 billion dollar energy deal to be settled in Yuan.<\/p>\n

All empires must end. The era of U.S. hegemony is coming to a close, and with it will go our cheap goods. Whether we like it or not, we will be humbled by the joint powerhouses of China and Russia.\u00a0It’s not unlikely that Germany and Saudi Arabia will soon join them\u00a0in abandoning the Petrodollar. Frankfurt is already\u00a0setting up\u00a0to become the global Yuan (RMB) hub for Asia and Europe. The United States\/NATO clumsy and desperate attempt to disrupt the growing Eurasian alliance by fomenting a violent coup d’\u00e9tat<\/em> in Ukriane will fail. The party is over. We can go down in flames and take the world with us in one big deadly temper tantrum by starting a nuclear war with Russia, or we can\u00a0learn to coexist, and be grownups in what will be an increasingly multi-polar, and perhaps healthier,\u00a0more stable world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[by Madonna Gauding] In the windowless rooms of American corporate media, the assumption of U.S. hegemony is echoed on the alphabet TV channels and<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":28877,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1514,162,869,661,1575,1383,10,16,265],"tags":[698,603,229,152],"yoast_head":"\n