America’s secret wars w/Norman Solomon | The Marc Steiner Show

1. For more on Norman Solomon's new book, check out this recent review: https://fair.org/home/how-to-ignore-4-5-million-deaths/

2. The last thing the US needs is a military be realistic.

3. Two things can be true at the same time; America's military industrial complex has purposely contributed to the destabilization of the world order AND China's commitment to a totalitarian society is dangerous, especially considering the fact that the world is in debt to the CCP.
   Obviously, the USA is the current major threat to world peace BUT if America was to recede from the south Pacific China would not become a benevolent force. China will continue to take the place of America as the global hegemonic power.
   Sadly, america has squandered its good will from WW2 and is in no position to push for a global rules based order. Still, that being said, China IS a threat to world peace as well.
   I'm not sure how to deal with this grim reality but it has to be addressed in order to convince anyone about how to move forward together for a better world.
   Ugh. The system works.

4. The USA runs on "war machine profiteerin". 🎉❤🎉

5. Yemeni, Palestine, Iraq. Lybia, Syria, Lebanon, let alone sourh and central America or Asia

6. Norman talks about the need to organize resistance against war. There are groups resisting war, and some have been around for a long time. War Resisters League is the oldest I’m aware of. Others are World Beyond War, Veterans For Peace, United National Anti-War Coalition. There are other international, national and local groups. These groups have two main challenges – money and media coverage. There is no profit in peace (for the industry) and there is no guts, glory, fear and hate in peace (there items the US media thrives on).

7. America is made up of many nations, so any war would mean that they are attacking their own ancestors and communities, even sharing the same names.

8. I bailed after he characterized the war in Ukraine as caused by Russian aggression, completely ignoring the history of the Minsk Agreements and the American installation of of a pro American stooge as President which led to the full on expansion of NATO installations right up against Russia’s borders. He fails again by pushing the false narrative that the blame for these wars is strictly at the feet of “the Right” when the Democrats have clearly become the war party. BTW, I’m a registered Democrat.

9. Solomon's book sounds interesting. For 1-2 minutes. Up until he says the conflict in Ukraine is the fault of Russians, and not the USA.

   If he writes about "hidden wars" or "hidden wars in plain sight" – it raises the question what else does he not understand?

10. House Thud committee voted for 60 percent cut to Amtrak annual appropriations

11. We US-Americans been at war for most of our history. Norman Solomon asks, "why is that? Who are we?" We are Anglo-Saxons, and so, like our mother country, England, we see it as our historical-civilisational destiny to prevent any one country in the Eurasian mainland from getting powerful enough to exercise hegemony in Europe or east Asia. That's who we are. That's why. The apple hasn't fallen far from the tree. If we're ever to have peace, if we're ever to have a chance of being a normal country with a normal life, we must learn to be more American and less European – specifically, British.

12. Is this an anti Russia, pro Ukraine, propaganda session?
    USAINC military, pounces around planet Earth doing the actual "terrorism", to people, places, and things, and as the author points out, nearly during the entire time since 1776 to the present, 2023, and then, when the people of Earth try to fight back against the evil they have endured, at the hands of the U.S., the U.S. tries to turn the tables and call it's victims "terrorists"! It's obnoxious and nauseating, and most of all, this behavior is absolutely demonic. USAINC has earned its reputation now, as "the evil empire". My days as a zombie false patriot, flag waver, were over decades ago! The author wants us to figure out how to organize against the war pigs, but then we insight the war against the "domestic terrorists" , who
    then is, you and I. We all know that particular war, is going on anyway, also since 1776. Our founders implored us to redress our rogue government, as the enemy from within. It has become an entangled matrix, and I have a sense, that this matrix was always the objective. When the author speaks to the hypocrisy of reverse racism, by the military industrial complex, as that monster which kills races of humans around the planet, I can't help but think of this as evidence aligned with supposition by those who say the U.S. is indeed the 4th Nazi Reich?

13. Leaders from all kinds of countries are held accountable except American, their allies and other nuclear wheeling countries. Nazis, Sadam, Gaddafi and Milosevic had to pay for their crimes against humanity. Iranian generals? Why not western leaders for carpet bombing Eastern Asia, fire bombing Tokyo, drone strikes against citizens in the Middle East and innumerable illegal wars protecting oil and multinational interests around the world.

14. Another great book by Solomon. He spoke to us at an event we had in a public library during the Iraq War via telephone. I disagree with one point he made here in that by seemingly blaming Russia for the war and the death, he overlooks how this war is 100% a US created proxy war. The death of now over 400,000 Ukrainians and possibly a fifth as many Russians is all the result of US geopolitical aims and unbridled hubris. The US is dead set on global economic dominance and hegemony, and it has first Russia-then China- in its sights. Bit the Global South and former imperial colonies reject this unipolar world put forth by the US neocons who have taken over both political parties. Russia, after of over a decade and a half trying to get a European security agreement, was forced to act to stop an existential threat. Kudos to Solomon, but do not remove the culpability of the US for this dangerous fiasco that might just lead to nuclear war.

15. Mark. I've been a listener since the WYPR days. I'm glad you're no longer under the thumb of National Propaganda Radio. We've spoken in the past and I hope we can speak again in the future about environmental issues. I'll be in touch. ❤

16. If you talk about “such things” with your friends, you will lose friends, end up on lists, be glared at by idiots, and die lonely.

    Yes, it is a nasty job, but someone has to do it, because all that is necessary for evil to triumph… is pretty much already baked in and there is value in trying to turn zombie-peer-conformists back into thinking and feeling human beings with empathy and the sudden realization they have a share of responsibility for what the US does – no matter how small that share is.

    excerpts from George Washington's farewell address:

    31 Observe good faith and justice towards all Nations;cultivate peace and harmony with all. Religion and Morality enjoin this conduct; and can it be, that good policy does not equally enjoin it? It will be worthy of a free, enlightened, and, at no distant period, a great Nation, to give to mankind the magnanimous and too novel example of a people always guided by an exalted justice and benevolence. Who can doubt, that, in the course of time and things, the fruits of such a plan would richly repay any temporary advantages, which might be lost by a steady adherence to it ? Can it be, that Providence has not connected the permanent felicity of a Nation with its Virtue? The experiment, at least, is recommended by every sentiment which ennobles human nature. Alas! is it rendered impossible by its vices ?

    continuing:

    In the execution of such a plan nothing is more essential than that permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular nations and passionate attachments for others should be excluded and that in place of them just and amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated. The nation which indulges towards another an habitual hatred, or an habitual fondness, is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest. Antipathy in one nation against another disposes each more readily to offer insult and injury, to lay hold of slight causes of umbrage, and to be haughty and intractable when accidental or trifling occasions of dispute occur. Hence frequent collisions, obstinate, envenomed, and bloody contests. The nation, prompted by ill will and resentment, sometimes impels to war the government, contrary to the best calculations of policy. The government sometimes participates in the national propensity and adopts through passion what reason would reject; at other times, it makes the animosity of the nation subservient to projects of hostility instigated by pride, ambition and other sinister and pernicious motives. The peace often, sometimes perhaps the liberty, of nations has been the victim. So likewise, a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils.

    Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter, without adequate inducement or justification. It leads also to concessions to the favorite nation of privileges denied to others, which is apt doubly to injure the nation making the concessions, by unnecessarily parting with what ought to have been retained and by exciting jealousy, ill will, and a disposition to retaliate in the parties from whom equal privileges are withheld. And it gives to ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens (who devote themselves to the favorite nation) facility to betray or sacrifice the interests of their own country without odium, sometimes even with popularity, gilding with the appearances of a virtuous sense of obligation, a commendable deference for publicopinion, or a laudable zeal for public good, the base or foolish compliances of ambition, corruption, or infatuation.

    As avenues to foreign influence in innumerable ways, such attachments are particularly alarming to the truly enlightened and independent patriot.

    How many opportunities do they afford to tamper with domestic factions, to practice the arts of seduction, to mislead public opinion, to influence or awe the public councils! Such an attachment of a small or weak towards a great and powerful nation dooms the former to be the satellite of the latter.

    Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence (I conjure you to believe me, fellow citizens) the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake, since history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of republican government.

    But that jealousy to be useful must be impartial; else it becomes the instrument of the very influence to be avoided, instead of a defense against it. Excessive partiality for one foreign nation and excessive dislike of another cause those whom they actuate to see danger only on one side, and serve to veil and even second the arts of influence on the other.

    Real patriots, who may resist the intrigues of the favorite, are liable to become suspected and odious, while its tools and dupes usurp the applause and confidence of the people to surrender their interests.

    The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is, in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible. So far as we have already formed engagements, let them be fulfilled with perfect good faith. Here let us stop.

17. "War Mongers are the biggest Racists" Caitlin Johnstone.

18. Omg , seriously so blind on Ukraine 🇺🇦 , look what they are doing in Senegal

19. Sorry but using the term racism really paints a picture that only confuses any sane conversation.

20. BS

21. I'll be happy when the whole damn Corrupt system comes down once and for all.

22. What happened with the buildup to the war against China? It’s totally off the radar it seems.

23. I was wondering where our Universal healthcare went😢

24. 29:15 "neofascist republican party on domestic policy" — what policies exactly, and who exactly

25. I am more concerned about the authoritarian government run by Democrats that we have now. They collude with corporations, lock up opponents that protest against them and support ANTFA and BLM when they need them.

26. "UH!
    
    But, UH but, UH BUT…
    
    UH! FACTS DON'T MATTER!
    
    UH! YOU'RE JUST A GUY… !
    
    UH! !!!MAN-SPLAINERS!!!
    
    UH! SUPERIOR-EQULATAAA!!!!

    – DUH!"

27. 29:48 The “liberal” Democrat Party is an authoritarian party that is subservient to the interests of military, pharmaceutical and other corporations just like the Republican Party. The elites in both parties have the same agenda and are will to persecute and lock up anyone that opposes them. The Democrats are demonstrating that now.

28. Ukrain killing in Dumbss Russia speaking OK from 2014 14000dead one side of view Us propaganda created zombies

29. Since 1776, just 247 years since America has declared itself democratic, we’ve been at war for 231 years! Primarily with darker skinned humans! This fact won’t make it into history books hence, worth repeating! As a white amerikan I recognize my undeserved privilege but feel overwhelmed with shame unclaimed, yes unacknowledged by the white society preceding me. This broadcast is not only enlightening but necessary for every thinking, conscious amerikan of all colors! I will share with everyone I know🫶🏽 Thank U. Liked & subscribed

30. I don't agree with this guy on there having a huge difference between the gop and dems. Both are neo-fascists. The supreme court just ruled against Biden in Biden vs missouri for censoring opposition and coercing social media plarforms to censor. The DNC won't hold primaries and won't even acknowledge the fact that more than 50% of dems don't want biden to run again. They did everything possible to ruin Bernie's campaign. How is that democratic?

31. Call it what it really is, the Military Industrial Congressional Financial Complex.

32. Look up War Plan Red, when the US planned a war with the UK by invading Canada.

33. Please invest more in a good microphone or you maybe don't speak into the microphone?!
    Anyways, it sounds like as you recorded while being in bed covered in blankets and pillows. (and not that's not nice to have this picture in my head while listening lol)

34. I'm sorry but if this Steiner guy was in Vietnam, his hair don't look like THAT no more

35. Thanks, Marc.

36. What about peace negotiations? The USA has no intent on pushing for peace. Because peace does not make money. The media profits off of war. War makes money. This is capitalism in action. It’s vile, disgusting how the arms manufactures are making a killing. I agree in countries where you have people of color, are ignored. We, must organize and mobilize. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel said “ We pray with our feet” We have got to organize.

37. War and death has become America's major "export". Sadly it has also become a mainstay of its economy. At a point in human history when international cooperation is needed more than ever due to ecological concerns, the United States instead uses ever-divisive tactics to divide the world for economic reasons. Greed, not wisdom leads us into oblivion.

38. Sad. There is not an economic thinking in the Left about War that is solid.
    Capital at home profits from the mass displacement of people in war ravaged countries through immigration that helps the middle classes with a fresh supply of cheap migrant labor for their kitchens and plantation farms, workshops and crews and then, in turn, the corporations as the larger businesses profit when the middle classes are buying the stuff designed for their businesses to keep the whole she-bang going. I doubt the middle classes will cut off the hand that feeds them in the next election.
    To cut off this supply of cheap labor on the grounds they are Cartel mules is patently absurd but that is the level of awareness the working classes have about the situation. This ignorance enables them to embrace a complete hostile as their choice of person to represent their rage and anger at migrant labor taking over their jobs. And what does the intellectual left do? Talk about theoretical abstracts of war. Sad. And what does the Biden Establishment do observing these political cretans, they take notes on how to extract them from the political process. The working masses never get out of the position they are perpetually stuck with as losers surrounded by middle class merchants, landlords, bankers, courts and cops, and employers, who they owe.

39. It's all practice for the false flag interstellar war with people who have no word for war. Smh.

40. Great discussion, but het your record straight – Putin has made several peace offers even before the SMO, nut the U.S. has ignored them all. The U.S. also torpedoed the peace treaty between Russia and Ukraine that had already been signed by the both negotiation teams in March 2022 in Ankara, but then the U.S. sent their vassal Boris Johnson to tell Zelensky that he must not sign the peace agreement. So the U.S. is responsible for all the deaths in their proxy war against Russia since March 2022.
    P.S. There's also irrefutable evidence that 9/11 was a false flag operation by the CIA, Pentagon & the State Department to promote public support for all the illegal U.S. wars on terror that followed. Just watch e.g. these two videoa on YouTube:
    1. Redacted Presents: Peace, War and 9/11
    2. The Shocking Masterminds Behind 9/11 | A Conversation with Kevin Ryan

41. The Ukraine flags dont mean empathy with Ukraine. They might as well be bellamy salutes.

42. 12:50 There was a lot that wasn't exposed, or was dismissed as conspiracy theories. The US bombed cambodia while holding their government hostage economically, and that led to the rise in popularity of Pol Pot, who otherwise would have remained mostly anonymous, and after Pot's rise to power the US protected him. There are also arguments for how he was funded by the US, but regardless of Pol Pot's evils, the US continued to bomb Cambodia after the war ended. The war crimes ordered under Kissinger are incredible, yet he won a Nobel Peace Prize.

    Then there was the Korean war. During WWII the Koreans put up their own resistance to the Japanese, but some conservative elements sided with them. After WWII the US managed to kick out the left-leaning government in favor of those same conservatives, and in the process installed a brutal dictator who did public executions of people who were "suspicious" WHILE US FORCES WERE STILL THERE AND WITH FULL KNOWLEDGE. During the Korean war the US sent bombers into China to strike various targets BEFORE China had ever gotten involved.

    Then there were the various cases of the US using literal Nazis convicted during the Nuremburg trials, whose sentences got reduced and commuted, and even Nazis that had been protected by the government, both DURING AND AFTER WWII, to help destabilize and attack leftist revolutionary groups and militias that were trying to fight the fascists. Hollywood actors like Cary Grant got involved in spreading propaganda against any government that didn't lean far enough to the right, and the US government even used its propaganda power to get CIVILIAN FAMILIES here in the US to send letters to their families back in Europe to either vote out their leftist governments or get disowned.

    Read "Killing Hope" by William Blum. It's incredible the legnths the US has gone to in order to establish dominance and snuff out any competition to capitalism and US hegemony. That book is just a short list of stuff since WWII. And remember, all of the coups and proxy wars and economic terrorism is to protect your freedom and democracy from the bad guys. You know, your freedom and democracy to have no say in anything and pay for it all with your blood and coin so that businessmen can make more dollars. Like Smedley Butler wrote about in his book "War is a Racket."

    The point he's making around 16:20 is an important one. So important that not doing something about it amounts to doing nothing meaningful. The best thing to do isn't to "vote harder" or join this or that third party, but to work on de-atomizing your community so that you can rebuild it to be democratic; a democratic community is can take collective action and influence local politics whereas an individual going to rallies is just an individual. We need collective action on a large scale to counter the tiny number of elites that are in control, and the evidence for that claim is pretty much all of US history where concessions granted to the masses such as civil rights were only attained after decades of struggle. To that end, even if you're not a socialist or want socialism, consider this generalized guide for rebuilding your local community as a common worker without lots of time or money to spare (spaces added to prevent a link because YT):
    https: //samuellrosander. wixsite. com/buildingsocialism/blog

    30:20 It's not, though. Yes, Republicans are neo-fascist and Democrats are neo-liberal, but the thing is that they BOTH SERVE THE SAME INTERESTS. It isn't that there's NO difference between them, because it's better to have a neoliberal capitalist than a fascist (just another brand of capitalist. Ludwig von Mises called fascism a "necessary evil" to protect capitalism from the rise of socialism) in charge, but that the the one ENABLES the other; Democrats ENABLE Republicans to be neo-fascist by normalizing a lot of the policies that help shift the Overton window further right BECAUSE they serve the same interests. Capitalist interests. Scratch a liberal and a fascist bleeds. Democrats will 100% side with the fascist Republicans if there's a leftist movement that threatens capital, just like Biden did when rail strikers threatened "the economy" that their bosses refused to protect by fair wages and other issues.

    It's not insane to say that parties are both real bad and voting Democrat is only a little less disgusting than voting Republican. Heck, a lot of people who voted for Obama gave up on the Democrats because they kept refusing to follow through with promises, and others gave up because they kept sabotaging good candidates like Bernie. Doesn't mean siding with fascists is justified, just that Democrats did that to themselves IN SERVICE TO THE SAME INTERESTS AS REPUBLICANS.

43. Excellent

44. Congrats on getting 2,000 views. This show is irrelevant and Steiner isn't cool. also what the guest described did happen. not in US media but in English language Russian media. They showed the victims of US violence Which is why they need to be banned. and nah. The Russian invasion of Ukraine was 100% defensive action and totally justified and they aren't intentionally attacking anything other than the military assets arrayed against them and their people, which includes millions of Ukranian nations with the wrong ethnicity targeted by their own government, the one the US installed. So lets get real.

45. Norman Solomon is the embodiment of a false prophet. Whenever there has been an opportunity; whenever there was some reason to be hopeful that there might be the seeds of a mass anti-war, pro peace, anti-imperialist movement afoot, Solomon has shilled for the Democratic faction of the UniParty of War.

    His utterings against the 3rd party candidacy of Ralph Nader were obscene and pointedly un Democratic. His denunciations of Nader were so shrill, at the time, it was as if he was trying to convince whomever would listen, that the interests of the country would be best served if, perhaps, regrettably, no doubt, that Nader was assassinated.

    If there is any hyperbole in the comment above, someone who was following US politics at that time, who had the unfortunate opportunity to hear Solomon's rantings, might be forgiven for thinking that.

    Solomon helped found the media criticism organization, Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting, decades ago. I remember a quote from an article explaining the lack of diversity of opinion among main stream talking heads and scribblers. Some people were offered up as "Left". Of course, these establishment endorsed Lefties, invariably, hewed very closely to the MSM talking points. The writer of the article dismissed the MSM endorsed "Lefties" with the following comment: Talking Head X is not really a Leftist, but he gets to play one on MS national TV.

    The observation from FAIR, decades ago, sums up who Solomon is today, when one peels underneath a layer or two.

46. Since the Great Recession of ‘08 the Fed balance sheet has expanded by some $16,000 billion dollars (= 16 Trillion $USD) under QE it’s speculated. The funds lent to Too-big-to-fail banks & a handful of private equity firms. How is it we have unlimited billions for refloating a bubble of bubbles but none for other discretionary programs and Main Street economics?

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