'AMERICAN EXCEPTION" -- Explanation Of Purpose & Collapse Of The American Corporate Empire
"Rely not on the likelihood of the enemy's not coming, but on our own readiness to receive him." -- Sun Tzu
"An evil enemy will burn his own nation to the ground....to rule over the ashes."
-- Sun Tzu
“Who runs the show?”
— Professor Jeffrey Sachs
By Mark Taylor
DeMOCKracy.ink (12/28/24)
If, like many, you look at the world and wonder “What the hell is going on and how did we get here?” this post provides five resources to greater understanding.
Since the beginning of the US/Israel genocide in Gaza, I have been plowing my way through a number of books and countless articles trying to understand how this has all happened.
Last month, I came across an interview that led me to a superb book that is providing me context that brings the insane cruelty and madness of American and Western foreign policy into a logical structure.
A pathologically cruel, perverse, treasonous and self-destructive logic to be sure, but a logical structure nonetheless.
I have complied a selection of videos below to explore and explain what is happening.
“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.” — Sun Tzu
Aaron Good’s recently published book American Exception: Empire And The Deep State (2024) is based upon his PhD dissertation in political science at Temple University. But don’t let that scare you off. Good is not some dusty dry academic writer. “American Exception” is well written, well resourced and well worth the time. You can get a good sense of the book and Good’s perspective in the first interview on Jeffrey Sach’s Book Club podcast directly below.
The second Good interview explores examples of his thesis of American Exception power in action … and brutal, bloody clown car failure. The first two interviews are an hour each.
The third video came late in the day from comedian Jimmy Dore, looking at the split in Trump’s MAGA ranks between his billionaire boyfriends and the rank-and-file. Dore explains how — to the credit of MAGA and the shame of Democrats and liberals — while both Trump and Biden are screwing over workers, it’s only the MAGA crew speaking pushing back. At least watch the first Good video, then watch the Dore clip.
The fourth video is a 20-minute interview with Col. Larry Wilkerson that provides current examples of US foreign policy nesting neatly in Good’s model.
The final interview is with Jeffrey Sachs and retired Air Force Command Chief Master Sergeant Dennis Fritz, a former Pentagon insider whose book Deadly Betrayal: The Truth About Why the United States Invaded Iraq (2024), uncovers the ugly truths and hidden motivations behind the criminal 2003 Cheney/Bush Iraq War. A war that was a directly pooped out of the corrupt system and world view Good lays out in American Exception.
All of this ties in with the work of Whitney Webb and her two-volume One Nation Under Blackmail (2022). You can link to an earlier post, including an insightful interview with Webb on her important work, here.
Seeing through the BS
I know this is a lot of material, but I deeply believe that when taken together, one can see through the smoke screens and BS static to understand the strategic plan that is underway to destroy us financially and gut our freedoms. It’s already well underway. While the mainstream media is of little use or help, we are blessed to have some amazing alternative media and even more amazing books. I urge you to buy physical books. There will be a day your Kindle will be cleansed, and used against you. (Likewise, get off as many apps as possible.)
I hope you will take an afternoon, or a couple afternoons, to view these videos, then observe how what is happening fits a matrix not of our making or best interest.
“The opportunity of defeating the enemy is provided by the enemy himself.”
— Sun Tzu
WHAT WE HAVE BECOME: ‘American Exception’ — Empire & The Deep State
The disastrous merger of the corporate elite ‘overworld’ and criminal drug smuggling ‘underworld.’
Book Club With Jeffrey Sachs (11/19/24)
Join Professor Jeffrey Sachs and political scientist Aaron Good as they discuss Good’s book, American Exception: Empire And The Deep State (2024). Good delves into the breakdown of U.S. democracy, focusing on the continuity of American foreign policy, the erosion of the rule of law, and the concentration of wealth and power among the corporate elite.
Together, they uncover the hidden forces shaping American governance, including the creation of a national security state after World War II and the rise of a covert empire. The podcast explores how the U.S. deep state, driven by corporate and security interests, has influenced major events like foreign interventions and political assassinations, and examines the future prospects for restoring democracy in America.
“Thus it should be understood that when pro-US figures use the term, “rules-based international order,” they are not referring to anything analogous to the rule of law. Quite the opposite, they are using Orwellian language to describe a system in which essentially no rules can be established and/or observed, given that the dominant state has the prerogative to violate any/or rewrite ‘rules’ at its whim.”
— Aaron Good, American Exception: Empire and the Deep State p. 18
61-minute video
“This whole American era is not what we think.”
“American Exception seeks to explain the breakdown of US democracy. In particular, how we can understand the uncanny continuity of American foreign policy, the breakdown of the rule of law, and the extreme concentration of wealth and power into an overworld of the corporate rich. To trace the evolution of the American state, the author takes a deep politics approach, shedding light on those political practices that are typically repressed in ‘mainstream’ discourse.”
— American Exception: Empire and the Deep State, from book description
Aaron Good On James Jesus Angleton: CIA, JFK Assassination, Israel, Watergate, Cold War Dynamics
FOX 11, Los Angeles (6/29/24)
Political scientist and podcast host Aaron Good weights in on James Jesus Angleton's role with the CIA. For more information on Dr. Good's work check his podcast here.
58-minute video
RIGHT NOW! Comedian Jimmy Dore Shows How Aaron Good’s Theory Is Playing Out With Trump’s Billionaire Boyfriends
The Jimmy Dore Show (12/28/24)
Former Presidential candidate and current Trump advisor Vivek Ramaswamy caused quite a stir within the MAGA movement when he degraded US culture, suggesting that Americans no longer value excellence and instead pursue mediocrity. As a result, he says, we need to import more H1-B workers from places like India and China to restore American greatness.
42-minute video
COL. LARRY WILKERSON: Where Things Are Spinning Toward In Middle East
“Israel is digging its own grave.”
By Mark Taylor
DeMOCKracy.ink (12/28/24)
Today’s Dialog Works podcast interview included both Jeffrey Sachs and Col. Larry Wilkerson. While Sach’s comments are, as usual, insightful, I strongly urge you to watch the Wilkerson segment, which begins at the 14-minute mark.
He begins with some very interesting comments about where Israel is now getting the majority of the oil needed to carry on their endless genocidal bombing campaigns.
He makes very interesting comments about where Israel is rapidly heading and the likely fate of all minority groups — like the Kurds and Palestinians — across the Middle East. “And we’re just stoking the fires,” he notes, playing the usual role of all dying empires, adding:
“They're all going to be swept up in this massive contest between the empires that are aborning and the empires that are dying. And we're the one that's dying. It may take us fifty years, but it'll be a bloody fifty years and I'm afraid we may adumbrate that fifty-year period, or whatever it is, with a colossal nuclear holocaust in the middle of it. That'll stop it. That'll stop it for sure.”
Wilkerson also refers to recent additional information quietly trickling out on the origins of 9/11 indicating major Saudi Royal participation and, perhaps, US complicity. For those of us who never bought the official 9/11 narrative, Wilkerson’s comments ring true and suggest possible Deep State motivation for such treachery.
Finally, while I disagree on Wilkerson’s assessment of the balance of power between the US and Israel and ultimately who calls the shots, he provides an interesting counter view.
All the absurdity and wanton cruelty Wilkerson describes fits right in with the work of Aaron Good’s “American Exception” framework.
35-minute video (21-minutes for the segment noted above)
‘DEADLY BETRAYAL’ — Iraq War, An Example Of How ‘American Exception’ Manifests
“It’s a money game.”
Book Club With Jeffrey Sachs (12/3/24)
Join Professor Jeffrey Sachs and retired Air Force Command Chief Master Sergeant Dennis Fritz, a former Pentagon insider, as they explore the extremely important insights in Fritz’s new book, Deadly Betrayal: The Truth About Why the United States Invaded Iraq (2024), which uncovers the ugly truths and hidden motivations behind the Iraq War in 2003.
Drawing from dramatic evidence, Fritz explains how a group of high-level Pentagon officials (a “cabal” in Fritz’s description) in the Bush Jr. Administration manipulated intelligence, pressured other nations, and swayed Congress and public to support a disastrous war.
Together, they delve into the astounding evidence that Fritz uncovered during his work at the Pentagon while examining the documentary record of the war. Fritz discovered three reasons for the utterly misguided Iraq War:
To restore American “credibility” in the Middle East,
To go to war on Israel’s behalf, and
To deliver “democracy” at gunpoint.
The results were a massive failure on all counts.
The lessons of the Iraq War remain crucial for our own time, as various lobbies continue to try to manipulate the US into still more unnecessary and reckless wars.
The Book Club with Jeffrey Sachs is brought to you by the SDG Academy, the flagship education initiative of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network. Learn more and get involved at bookclubwithjeffreysachs.org.
1-hour video
Origins & Real Purpose Of Iraq And Our Endless Wars
“How does this happen? So I started doing a study about this and I'm looking at the Israeli Lobby. I'm looking at the Military Industrial Complex [MIC]. For instance, right now — whether it be Israel or Ukraine — when we talk about the Military Industrial Complex — we brag about, hey, we gave Ukraine or we gave Israel billions of dollars. But think about the next step.
“They have to spend that money and buy their weapons from US manufacturers. The Military Industrial Complex are making money from war. And then what do they do? They turn around, along with the Israeli lobby and Military Industrial Complex lobby, and provide money for the Congressional campaigns. Even the administration campaigns. That's what the American people don't understand.”
— Dennis Fritz, author of Deadly Betrayal: The Truth About Why the United States Invaded Iraq
Professor Jeffrey Sachs: “Whether any of this is ever found…”
“Whether any of this is ever found, I don’t know. But if it is, it would change the course of America back to a true republic. Because what happened in this country is that we were overtaken by the security state and we became a system of confidentiality and unaccountabllity. And it’s a big, massive machine, and a lot of people are paid to keep quiet or to salute whatever the military industrial complex or the intelligence agencies are doing without asking questions. Because when you have one and half trillion dollars a year spent on that, you’re a pretty big business.
“And it has affected the universities, the think tanks, of course, the Congress, which asks no questions of any serious kind. And so major, major events of fundamental significance for our insecurity take place without any truth-telling at all.”
— Professor Jeffrey Sachs, “What Jeffrey Sachs And Tucker Carlson Get Right And Wrong About The Post-9/11 Wars”
That Which Can Be Destroyed By The Truth, Should Be
By Caitlin Johnstone
Caitlin’s Newsletter (12/25/24)
Maybe we won’t take that leap until things get so bad that the unknown looks less terrifying than what the familiar has become. Maybe we will find our courage before it comes to that point. But we’re going to have to jump for it eventually, or we will go the way of the dinosaur.
And if it does come to that, if we are collectively unable to take the leap because we value our lies more than our lives, that too will reveal a truth to us about who we are and what we were always made of. One way or the other, truth will have the final say.
That which can be destroyed by the truth should be. And, eventually, will be.
Link to story and 6-minute video
Resist
Persist
Don’t be complicit!
“Know thy self, know thy enemy.”
— Sun Tzu
Thank you Mark for taking the time to put this mini course together.
We watch a lot of the same videos, Mark. Thanks for gathering this collection in one place.