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Page added on February 1, 2015
Delusional America
Robert Parry is one of my favorite columnists. He is truthful, has a sense of justice, and delivers a firm punch. He used to be a “mainstream journalist,” like me, but we were too truthful for them. They kicked us out.
I can’t say Parry has always been one of my favorite journalists. During the 1980s he spent a lot of time on Reagan’s case. Having been on corporate boards, I know that CEOs seldom know everything that is going on in the company. There are just too many people and too many programs representing too many agendas. For presidents of countries with governments as large as the US government, there is far more going on than a president has time to learn about even if he could get accurate information.
In my day Assistant Secretaries and chiefs of staff were the most important people, because they controlled the flow of information. Presidents have to focus on fund raising for their reelection and for their party. More time and energy is used up with formalities and meetings with dignitaries and media events. At the most there are two or three issues on which a president can attempt leadership. If an organized clique such as the neoconservatives get into varied positions of authority, they can actually “create the reality” and take the government away from the president.
As I have reported on many occasions, my experience with Reagan left me with the conclusion that he was interested in two big issues. He wanted to stop the stagflation for which only the supply-side economists had a solution, and he wanted to end, not win, the cold war.
Both of these agendas put Reagan at odds with two of the most powerful of the private interest groups: Wall Street and the military/security complex.
Wall Street for the most part opposed Reagan’s economic program. They opposed it because they understood it as Keynesian deficit pump-priming that would cause an already high inflation rate to explode, which would drive down bond and stock prices.
The CIA and the military opposed any ending of the Cold War because of the obvious impact on their power and budget.
Left-wing journalists never picked up on this, and neither did right-wing journalists.
The left could not get beyond Reagan’s rhetoric. For the left, Reagan was trickle-down economics, Iran/Contra, and the fired air traffic controllers.
The right-wing liked Reagan’s rhetoric and blamed him for not delivering on it.
For the left, the Reagan years were a traumatic time. Robert Parry has never recovered from them. He can scarcely write a column about events today, which are horrific in comparison, without dragging Reagan into it. Parry doesn’t realize it, but if it is all Reagan’s fault, little wonder it has been impossible to hold Clinton, Bush 1 and 2, and Obama accountable.
Having written these lines, I already detect the denunciations coming my way for again attempting to “rehabilitate Ronald Ray-Gun.” Reagan does not need rehabilitating. This column is not about Reagan, and it is not a criticism of Parry. It is praise for Parry’s column, “‘Group-thinking’ the World into a New War.” https://consortiumnews.com/2015/01/30/group-thinking-the-world-into-a-new-war/ Read it.
The pattern since Milosevic (and before) has been to demonize a foreign head of state and to take the US to war to get rid of him. That way the secret agenda is achieved under the cover of the necessity of deposing a bad or dangerous ruler.
Parry describes this well. Group-Think plays the important role of preventing any dissent, any suspicion of the case against the demonized person, and any examination of the real agenda that is being pursued.
Now it is Russian President Vladimir Putin who is being demonized. As Parry and I and Stephen F. Cohen, the most knowledgeable of the Russian experts, appreciate, Putin is not Saddam Hussein and Russia is not Iraq, Libya, Syria, Serbia, or Iran. To foment conflict with Russia that could lead to war is worse than irresponsible. Yet, as Parry writes, “from the start of the Ukraine crisis in fall 2013, the New York Times, the Washington Post and virtually every mainstream U.S. news outlet have behaved as dishonestly as they did during the run-up to war with Iraq.”
When Professor Cohen pointed out, correctly, that the lies about Russia, Ukraine, and Putin were hot and heavy, the propagandists had to get rid of the man with the facts. The New Republic, a hang-out for low IQ fools, called America’s leading Russian expert “Putin’s American toady.”
From Parry’s reporting, it appears that Group-Think has spread from the media and foreign policy community into the Association for Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies, which has decided that academic careers require adherence to the government’s propaganda line, which means the neoconservatives’ line.
As I have written on a number of occasions, facts no longer play a role in American political life. Fact-based analysis is also disappearing from academic life and no longer plays a role in official economic reporting. A matrix has been created, an artificial reality that channels the energies and resources of the country into secret agendas that serve the interests of the ruling private interest groups and neoconservative ideology.
The United States government and the American people cannot contend with reality, because they do not know what the reality is.
In America’s make-believe world, neoconservative toadies such as New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, set the Group-Think tone, while knowledgeable experts such as Stephen Cohen are tuned out.
In effect, America is both blind and deaf. It lives in delusions. Consequently, it will destroy itself and perhaps the world.
Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have attracted a worldwide following. His latest book, The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West is now available.
Paul Craig Roberts | Infowars.com
18 Comments on "Delusional America"
penury on Sun, 1st Feb 2015 3:48 pm
I admire PC Roberts attempt to remind people of the truth behind the situations which are transpiring around the world. Sadly I fear that as usual facts will be ignored for propaganda and like Europe in the 30s events will take on a life of their own.
Rodster on Sun, 1st Feb 2015 3:54 pm
Paul Craig Roberts and David Stockman both came to the same conclusion that the neocons were taking over and wanted to hijack the Govt, which they have on both sides of the aisle. You can’t tell a Republican from a Democrat. Two sides of the same coin.
J-Gav on Sun, 1st Feb 2015 5:47 pm
I understand the two comments above and share a certain interest in Mr Roberts’ insights on more than one subject.
But when it comes to covering for the Reagan years, that’s where our paths fork at about a 90° angle.
Parry was right to denounce the ‘October Surprise,’ Reagan’s lying through his teeth about Iran-Contra on national television, the pathetic (but deadly) farce of the Granada invasion and the ridiculous pretense of the ‘trickle-down’ economic “theory.”
On subjects such as these, Roberts come across as trying to cover his ass as a former member of that administration.
Richard on Sun, 1st Feb 2015 6:02 pm
Afterall the SU was bankrupted by a low price of crude, not a conspiracy to cause a war.
Makati1 on Sun, 1st Feb 2015 6:54 pm
The headline says it all…
“Delusional America”
And this line shows cause and effect…
“In effect, America is both blind and deaf. It lives in delusions. Consequently, it will destroy itself and perhaps the world.”
Buckle up!
JuanP on Sun, 1st Feb 2015 7:37 pm
I spent the first thirty years of my life fighting against Group Think. I now completely ignore it, and will continue to do so for as long as I live. Other people’s thoughts are other people’s problems. I am only responsible for my mind and my thoughts because that is all I control.
Professor Stephen Cohen, IMHO, is the best Russia specialist living in the USA today, and I recommend reading his articles and watching his interviews. He is obviously brilliant, sane, and very well educated and informed. There are few people left that satisfy all three requirements for me to care about their thoughts, and Stephen Cohen is one of them.
GregT on Sun, 1st Feb 2015 7:39 pm
“Afterall the SU was bankrupted by a low price of crude, not a conspiracy to cause a war.”
A large contributing factor to the collapse of the former Soviet Union was the Soviet/Afghan war. The US, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan provided training, arms, and billions of dollars in funding to the Mujahideen.
From Wikipeadia;
National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, known for his hardline policies on the Soviet Union, initiated in 1979 a campaign supporting mujaheddin in Pakistan and Afghanistan, which was run by Pakistani security services with financial support from the Central Intelligence Agency and Britain’s MI6.
The supplying of billions of dollars in arms to the Afghan mujahideen militants was one of the CIA’s longest and most expensive covert operations.[120] The CIA provided assistance to the fundamentalist insurgents through the Pakistani secret services, Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), in a program called Operation Cyclone. At least 3 billion in U.S. dollars were funneled into the country to train and equip troops with weapons. Together with similar programs by Saudi Arabia, Britain’s MI6 and SAS, Egypt, Iran, and the People’s Republic of China,[6] the arms included FIM-43 Redeye, shoulder-fired, antiaircraft weapons that they used against Soviet helicopters. Pakistan’s secret service, Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), was used as an intermediary for most of these activities to disguise the sources of support for the resistance.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_war_in_Afghanistan
Plantagenet on Sun, 1st Feb 2015 10:44 pm
I laughed at the description of Nobel Laureate Paul Friedman as a “neoconservative toady” but I thought the characterization of Colbert as a “knowledgable expert” was even funner.
GregT on Mon, 2nd Feb 2015 12:03 am
Plant,
I believe the article was referring to Thomas Friedman? None the less, Nobel Laureate’s do deserve our utmost respect……..
theedrich on Mon, 2nd Feb 2015 3:49 am
GregT claims that “Nobel Laureate’s do deserve our utmost respect……”
(Let us overlook GT’s undeserved apostrophe with a plural noun.) Like Mr. Ø and his “peace” prize from a deranged Nobel committee?
Davy on Mon, 2nd Feb 2015 6:41 am
Greg, concerning “Nobel Laureates deserve our utmost respect” I have a problem with that. I don’t have a problem with the idea of the best and brightest being given recognition. I have a problem with what is considered the best and brightest. How the hell did we get to where were we are at other than the best and brightest towing us along with what they think is the best for humans.
It is obvious these best and brightest ideas were exactly the wrong things for humans. We are now the best and brightest bottleneck people. What kind of compliment is that? I see the progression of the very sustainable Native Americans or other global seminomadic peoples as much more highly advanced per evolutionary success. We are an evolutionary dead end with technology, knowledge, and exceptionalism thought.
We have substituted our way to a dead end of a complexity train wreck that will cause huge pain, suffering, and death. All this because of our best and brightest. We are a horrible species of death and destruction but I guess Nature finds us useful in the evolutionary process of ensuring extinctions and ecosystem destruction. This is a necessary part of evolution so I guess in the grand scheme of things we humans have value in nature.
ghung on Mon, 2nd Feb 2015 8:01 am
Sure Mad Mak. It’s your delusional species, which you so aptly represent. That America has been a bit better at it is purely an accident of history.
Dredd on Mon, 2nd Feb 2015 8:54 am
Delusion has its consequences (Choose Your Trances Carefully, 2).
GregT on Mon, 2nd Feb 2015 9:14 am
My Nobel Laureates’ comment was a jab back at Planter guys. Think abut it.
baptised on Mon, 2nd Feb 2015 2:01 pm
So GregT is it possible that the Russians put the thermite in the WTC towers? Maybe Bin Laden being an engineer and him wanting them absolutely to fall completely? Or Israel? Or New World planning Neo-Cons.? I just know some group put thermite in those towers.
Davy on Mon, 2nd Feb 2015 2:07 pm
Baptist, there never were towers silly, that was all stage back in Hollywood similar to the moon landing which were actually in the Mojave desert on a full moon but the moon was painted to look like the earth.
GregT on Mon, 2nd Feb 2015 2:59 pm
Baptised,
What thermite? Everyone knows that those buildings collapsed due to structural failure caused by the impacts of the planes and the heat generated by all of that jet fuel. Except of course for the collapse of WT7. That was caused by gremlins.
baptised on Tue, 3rd Feb 2015 2:17 am
I wonder if we will ever know? But They did not fall by those airplane hits.