Thread by @caitoz

Detente: The Vital Word Missing From Discourse On Russia And China

A recent 60 Minutes interview with Tony Blinken illustrates the way the concept of detente (the easing of hostilities between nations) is being deliberately hidden from public awareness.
caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/detente-the-…

On a recent 60 Minutes interview with Norah O'Donnell, US Secretary of State Tony Blinken talked about the United States as a defender of the rules-based international order and the importance of bringing Beijing into compliance with it.

"Our purpose is not to contain China, to hold it back, to keep it down: it is to uphold this rules-based order that China is posing a challenge to," Blinken said. "Anyone who poses a challenge to that order, we’re going to stand up and defend it."

Now, had Blinken been speaking to an actual journalist, he would have been asked in what specific ways defending "the rules-based order" against China would differ from trying to contain China and keep it down.

He would have also been asked what business a nation that has killed millions and displaced tens of millions in illegal wars just since the turn of this century while starving civilians with sanctions and blockades has proclaiming itself the defender of any "rules-based order".

But Blinken was not talking to a journalist. Blinken was talking to Norah O'Donnell.

O'Donnell's interview with Blinken was a perfect illustration of the fact that modern mainstream reporters are only allowed to ask confrontational foreign policy questions of US officials when demanding to know why they aren't being more hawkish and aggressive.

Here are some of the insanely hawkish questions Blinken was asked during the 60 Minutes interview:
state.gov/secretary-anto…

At no point is Blinken ever confronted about the many glaring plot holes in the US government's Xinjiang "genocide" narrative, or the indications we are seeing that there is a propaganda campaign designed to advance western geostrategic agendas.

At no point is Blinken ever asked if China acting "so assertive or aggressive militarily" might have something to do with the fact that the US has been aggressively surrounding it with military forces for years.
caityjohnstone.medium.com/the-coming-war…

And at no point is Blinken ever asked by O'Donnell what measures can be taken to move away from this dangerous trajectory in pursuit of detente.

It's like the very concept of detente doesn't even exist. Like it's not even considered an option. Like people are being kept ignorant that it's an option.

And one gets the sense that this is entirely by design. The late Stephen Cohen, renowned scholar and expert on US-Russia relations, used the word "detente" constantly until his death last year,

...but in the preceding years as things began heating up with Russia Cohen had been finding his analysis less and less welcome on mainstream channels.
consortiumnews.com/2020/09/20/ste…

For the same reason Norah O'Donnell only asked Blinken how he was going to escalate aggressions against China and never how he was going to de-escalate them, the mainstream media are keeping the general public ignorant of the possibility of, and dire necessity for, detente.

We are meant to take it as a given that the only option available is to continue increasing aggressions with these two nuclear powers. This is a lie, and it is insane. Detente absolutely is an option.

We do not need to keep risking all life on earth with this psychotic game of nuclear Russian roulette every day just because a few powerful sociopaths have decided the US empire must retain supremacy at all cost.
caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/the-rising-t…

There is no valid reason why we cannot all get along and spend our energy collaborating toward human thriving.

I am often accused of having sinister loyalties to the Kremlin or to the Communist Party of China--which one depends on the day and what I happen to be writing about at the time.

Detente: The Vital Word Missing From Discourse On Russia And China (Audio)

"We are meant to take it as a given that the only option available is to continue increasing aggressions with these two nuclear powers. This is a lie, and it is insane."
soundcloud.com/going_rogue/de…