New Cold War & looming threats — Jipson John and P. M. Jitheesh interview John Pilger

Must-read, especially for the cheerleaders of war.

The post is "bipartisan." For example, documents how the Obama-Clinton  team was worse than Bush II-Cheney by providing the numbers. 

Right now, there is only the War Party in US politics, with different factions vying for power. Moreover, the US economy is dependent on military spending, so a new cold war with China and Russia is perfectly rational from the economic POV.

Follow the money. At bottom, you will find the class struggle. “There's class warfare, all right,” Mr. Buffett said, “but it's my class, the rich class, that's making war, and we're winning.” The neoliberal era began in earnest with Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, in no small measure based on Friedrich Hayek's The Road to Serfdom, which presented a black or white picture of political economy in terms of a choice between free market capitalism and socialistic communism. Echoing this, Thatcher claimed "there is no alternative." 

Neoliberalism is an extension of what used to be called monetarism, both of them exotic or extreme versions of the overarching “ism”—capitalism. In the West, led by [British Prime Minister] Margaret Thatcher and [U.S. President] Ronald Reagan and their European equivalents, a “two-thirds society” was declared. The top third would be enriched and pay minimal or no tax. The middle third would be “aspirational” with some of them “succeeding” in a ruthlessly competitive world and others falling irrevocably into debt. The bottom third would be abandoned or offered stable impoverishment in return for their obedience. The relationship between people and the state would change from benign to malign. A new buffer class of managers tutored in American corporatism, with its own “culture” and vocabulary, would supervise the conversion of social democracy to a corporate autocracy. Public “debate”, managed by a fully integrated media, would be dominated by “identity politics” with all notions of class banished as an “issue”. False foreign demons (led by Russia, closely followed by China) would be designated “necessary enemies”....

The European Union is basically a cartel. There is no “free” trade. There are exclusivity rules set down and policed by the central banks, principally the German central bank, with concessionary benefits for the weaker members, namely the movement of labour across borders, though this is now in question. The central aim of the E.U. is the protection and reinforcement of the economic power of the strongest. Brussels is a centralised bureaucracy; democracy is minimal. The “European oneness” you refer to is propaganda, promoted by those who receive most from being in the E.U. The crushing of Greece is a lesson the majority of Britons appear to have understood....

Although Thatcher presented is a false choice that ignores the middle, it gained prominence among Western elites, where it still holds sway. It provides the foundation for neoliberal globalization (really transnational corporate totalitarianism) and unipolarism. G. W. Bush's, "You are either with us or against us," which was directed at the Global War on Terror, was extended to include all that that refuse being colonized or turned into vassal states. The choice is obedience or punishment.

This is wide-ranging post that covers the world and provides numbers to detail the assertions. Even those for war should know what is at stake.

Monthly Review
New Cold War & looming threats

Jipson John and P. M. Jitheesh interview John Pilger

See also

Counterpunch
Yemen: 85,000. Dead. Kids.

Charles Pierson