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Caitlin Johnstone ⏳ Profile picture
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8 Dec, 14 tweets, 4 min read
Biden Picks Raytheon Board Member To Lead The US War Machine

"The only difference between the US war machine and a band of armed crooks murdering people for money is that the US war machine does it at a far greater scale."
caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/biden-picks-…
The mass media are reporting that the Biden camp has selected former general Lloyd J. Austin III to be the next secretary of defense, assuaging fears among antiwar activists that the position would go to bloodthirsty psychopath Michele Flournoy as commonly predicted.
As has become the standard ritual for Biden's cabinet picks, the MSM are holding a parade to celebrate the fact that Austin would be the first Black chief of the US war machine while ignoring the murderous agendas he has facilitated throughout his career.
As head of Central Command Austin actively campaigned to resurrect the Pentagon's spectacularly failed program of trying to arm "rebels" in Syria to fight ISIS, and in 2014 he backed immunity for US troops from war crimes prosecutions in Afghanistan.
Austin helped spearhead the Iraq invasion, and he is a member of the same private equity fund which invests in defense contractors as Flournoy and Biden's warmongering pick for Secretary of State Tony Blinken.
Austin is also a member of the board of directors for the war profiteering corporation Raytheon, where he went immediately after his military career.
Raytheon spends millions of dollars a year actively lobbying the US government to advance policies which are beneficial to the multibillion-dollar arms manufacturing giant, which of course means lobbying for military expansionism and interventionism.
opensecrets.org/orgs/raytheon-…
The previous Secretary of Defense Mark Esper also worked for Raytheon, working for years as one of the top corporate lobbyists in DC under the position "Vice President for Government Relations".
opensecrets.org/news/2019/06/r…
And you know what? I say why not.

Seriously, why not? Why shouldn't the head of the US murder machine come from a corporation which has made billions of dollars facilitating war crimes in Yemen?
Hell, why stop there? Why not make Raytheon itself the Secretary of Defense? Didn't the Supreme Court rule that corporations are people anyway? Make Raytheon the Secretary of Defense, make Boeing Secretary of State, make Goldman Sachs the Secretary Treasurer,
make ExxonMobil the head of the EPA, make Amazon the CIA Director and Google the Director of National Intelligence. Then you'd have a completely honest face on the head of the US empire.
It's absolutely insane that our world is being dominated by war profiteers who actively push for more violence and bloodshed because they make money selling the weapons used to perpetrate it.
The only difference between the US war machine and a band of armed crooks murdering people for money is that the US war machine does it at a far greater scale. As long as that's going on there's no reason to pretend otherwise.
Hopefully people start looking past the smiley faced mask of the empire and begin opening their eyes to the blood-spattered face beneath it.

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More from @caitoz

Caitlin Johnstone ⏳ Profile picture
7 Dec
In An Insane World, Revolution Is The Moderate Position

It should not be considered radical or extremist to oppose mass murder for profit and power, or to oppose the power alliance that is perpetrating most of that mass murder on the world stage today.
caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/in-an-insane…
It should not be considered radical or extremist to oppose the existence of secretive government agencies which have extensive histories of committing horrific crimes.
It should not be considered radical or extremist to say that everyone ought to have a basic standard of living instead of being deprived of food, shelter and medicine if they have the wrong imaginary numbers in their bank account.
Read 15 tweets
Caitlin Johnstone ⏳ Profile picture
5 Dec
So We're Already At The 'Chinese Super Soldiers' Part Of The Propaganda Campaign

"Truth, as they say, is the first casualty in war. With its emphasis on global narrative control in lieu of conventional military tactics, this is doubly true of cold war."
caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/so-were-alre…
"What we know is that the nation’s top intelligence official says that the US has evidence that China is conducting biological experiments on its soldiers to enhance their capabilities," said CIA asset and reporter Ken Dilanian on a recent MSNBC segment.
"Picture super strong commandos who can operate on three hours' sleep, or a sniper who can see twice as far as a normal person."
~ CIA stooge Dilanian
Read 9 tweets
Caitlin Johnstone ⏳ Profile picture
3 Dec
Charles Manson never murdered anyone, he just convinced people that it would be a good thing to do. The mass media have convinced far more people that it would be a good idea to commit far more murders than the Manson cult ever committed, and should be reviled as such.
The fastest way to get yourself banned from social media is to say something that sounds like you're inciting violence. But mass media which do that constantly are never banned, because what's actually forbidden is inciting violence that isn't authorized by the powerful.
In fact the fastest way to advance your career in media is to incite violence on behalf of the powerful. This is true in news media, and it's even true in video games and Hollywood; make compelling games and screenplays glorifying military violence and your career will thrive.
Read 5 tweets
Caitlin Johnstone ⏳ Profile picture
26 Nov
Oligarchic Imperialism Is The New Dominant World Religion

"It is what shapes our culture. It is what holy wars are fought over and acts of terrorism committed for. It's what power is built around. It's what you're branded a heretic for rejecting."
caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/oligarchic-i…
I was just watching a gaggle of blue-checkmarked narrative managers attack progressive commentators @kthalps and @briebriejoy for platforming antiwar journalist @RaniaKhalek on the grounds that Khalek is an "Assadist", which is imperialist for "heretic".
At no point do any of these narrative managers bother to address the actual things these women were discussing together or why anything Khalek was saying in their video conference was wrong.
Read 14 tweets
Caitlin Johnstone ⏳ Profile picture
25 Nov
Oligarchic imperialism is the new dominant world religion. It's the scripture everyone reads. It's what forms our culture. It's what holy wars are fought over. It's what terrorism is committed for. It's what power is built around. It's what you're branded a heretic for rejecting.
Oligarchic imperialism is the new dominant world religion. Instead of reading the Bible adherents read The Guardian. Instead of going to church they see Hollywood movies. Instead of fighting a crusade they drop bombs. Instead of burning heretics they deplatform anti-imperialists.
Oligarchic imperialism is the new dominant world religion. It's just as fake as all other religions, just as power-serving as all other religions, and just as dependent on belief in insubstantial narrative constructs as all other religions. An old dynamic adapted for a new world.
Read 4 tweets
Caitlin Johnstone ⏳ Profile picture
24 Nov
This Is Your Brain On Echo Chambers: Right Calls Biden A Xi Puppet As He Packs His Cabinet With China Hawks

"Whenever someone tells you that a US president is going to be 'soft' on a nation the US government has marked as an enemy, you are being played."
caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/this-is-your…
This is your brain. This is your brain on echo chambers.
Prior to the US election I wrote a couple of articles saying that if Biden wins he will be attacked by the right as a Xi Jinping puppet even as he escalates dangerous cold war aggressions with China.
caityjohnstone.medium.com/if-biden-wins-…
caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/biden-will-n…
Read 17 tweets

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