Many of us who support government social programs still feel ambivalent about them — largely because we buy into, or are cowed by, the ideologies of free enterprise and militarism. The first holds that we alone determine our lot in life through competition and have no obligation toward others beyond taking care of ourselves and our families and obeying the law. The second exalts the soldier, who risks life itself in combat for God and country, who will sacrifice his own life for the sake of comrades (but who will also kill any member of an enemy population, man, woman or child, who might pose a threat).
Proponents of these seemingly incompatible but actually closely aligned ideologies — self-interest versus self-sacrifice, mercenary versus military — may pose as defenders of traditional Judeo-Christian morality when it suits their purpose, but will also abandon it without fanfare when it does not. In contests of arms or money, the categorical imperative gives way to its opposite: beggar thy neighbor, do unto others or be done by, the law of the jungle, survival of the fittest, the war of each against all, my country right or wrong, etc. This turning of traditional morality on its head is passed over in silence, leaving the morality intact to serve as bluff and intimidation but also as a sop to conscience. …
Walter Benjamin: Capitalism as Religion (1921)
WILLIAM J. ASTORE – Killing Me Softly with Militarism: The Decay of Democracy in America
Can Capitalism and Democracy Coexist?
Noam Chomsky: Internationalism or Extinction (Universalizing Resistance)
Tanya Gold – How materialism makes us sad
Noam Chomsky: Neoliberalism Is Destroying Our Democracy
Sam Kriss: ‘Neoliberalism’ isn’t a left-wing insult but a monstrous system of inequality
Zack Stanton: Violent Christian Extremism in the USA
John Pilger – The silent military coup that took over Washington
Amulya Ganguli – End of India’s “Howdy, Modi” Bonhomie with the USA
Donald Trump’s gift to America: Realizing we’ve never been a liberal democracy. By PAUL ROSENBERG
Steve Bannon Documentary, ‘The Brink’, Will Leave You Cold
Mohammed Hanif: The rest of the world has had it with US presidents, Trump or otherwise
You’re fired ! Americans taunt Trump with his own catchphrase
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez ends truce by warning ‘incompetent’ Democratic party
George Monbiot: Ayn Rand – A Manifesto for Psychopaths
Tom McTague: The Decline of the American World
Donald Trump: Democracy’s mirror image? By Philip Manow / David A. Bell – Fascism or Caesarism?
Jonathan Freedland – Donald Trump’s plot against democracy could break America apart
Debt: The first five thousand years. By DAVID GRAEBER
HARRY BLAIN: America’s Wars always Come Home
Jill Lepore A History of America’s military spending
Chauncey DeVega: Trump is mentally ill but our real sickness runs much deeper
Black and Unarmed and Killed by the Police…an incomplete list…This is America….