Thread by @caitoz

The Two Faces Of The US Empire

"The empire needs both faces. Without the murder face, it could not exist as an empire. Without the grinning face, the public would never consent to the murder face."
caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/the-two-face…

The Biden inauguration event is going to be a star-studded celebration spanning an unprecedented five days, a giddy orgy of excitement at a murderous oligarchic empire having a new face behind the front desk after promising wealthy donors that nothing will fundamentally change.

This comes at a time when Americans are now reporting that they trust corporations more than they trust their own government or media,
cbsnews.com/news/edelman-t…

when pundits are gleefully proclaiming in The New York Times that “CEOs have become the fourth branch of government” as they pressure the entire political system to smoothly install Biden,

https://twitter.com/RaniaKhalek/status/1350208935488327680

when the leading contender for the Department of Justice's Antitrust Division is an Obama holdover who went from the administration to working for both Amazon and Google,

https://twitter.com/ddayen/status/1350214806968561666

and when Americans are being paced into accepting an increasing amount of authoritarian changes for their own good.
caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/consent-manu…

This manic celebration and increasing brazenness of corporate power are of course overlaid atop an unceasing river of human blood as the globe-spanning empire continues to smash any nation which disobeys it into compliance so as to ensure lasting uncontested planetary hegemony.

The US empire is ugly and creepy. The more you look at it, the uglier and creepier it gets. That's why so much effort goes into keeping the public from looking at it directly.
caitlinjohnstone.com/2020/11/03/the…

The US empire has two faces, one rooted in the west coast and the other in the east. The first face, which sprouts up from Hollywood, presents a grinning plastic smile to the world depicting how fun and wonderful and righteous America is and how all its systems are working fine.

The second face, which sprouts up from DC, Arlington and Langley, is wild-eyed and covered in blood.

Just like any other two-faced monstrosity, the face you will see depends on where you are standing.

The empire needs both faces. Without the murder face, it could not exist as an empire. Without the grinning face, the public would never consent to the murder face.

https://twitter.com/Americas_Crimes/status/1350234037605040129

People who inhabit the hub of a murderous empire are historically unaware of its horrific nature. In the old days that was because information was easy to restrict access to. Today it's because information is easy to manipulate and distort.

Humanity will not know health and harmony until it knows truth. Until we collectively come to a lucid reckoning with what's going on in our world, in our nations, in our society, and in ourselves.
caitlinjohnstone.com/2020/06/30/rea…

The movement toward a healthy world is a movement toward becoming aware of things we previously were not aware of. In this case, as a first step, this means collectively seeing behind that grinning plastic mask to the churning death machine underneath.