New Red Scare

The United States of America are rapidly moving toward a new cold war (or a real war), this time against China. This, on top of the internal move toward fascism, should worry you all. Read this post if you're wondering why this is the case, and why Trump and his supporters on the far right can't stop calling COVID-19 the "China virus" or "Kung Flu"...

First a bit of history. Franklin Delano Roosevelt is widely credited as the American president who, through his famous New Deal, managed to get the country out of the Great Depression. What many people forget to add is that he didn't do this voluntarily; in those years America had large, powerful unions as well as large powerful socialist and even a communist party. These socialist movements formed a united leftist block, and they demanded Roosevelt do something for the poor and working class, or there would be a popular uprising the likes of which the country has never seen since the civil war. Fearing this socialist revolution, Roosevelt had no choice but to say to his rich friends that he had to raise their taxes, at one time to more than 90% for every dollar earned in the highest bracket, so he could use that money for unprecedented measures benefiting the lower classes. And so social security, the minimum wage, and millions of government jobs were born.

This wouldn't have been enough though; the Second World War was the other component to lift the American economy up. From the late 1930s on, America transformed its economy into a war economy in preparation for the war against Nazi Germany. And America is still a war economy now; defense spending accounts for 15 percent of federal spending, approximately 750 billion dollar for this year alone. Dwight D. Eisenhower warned for unwarranted influence on foreign policy by the military industrial complex in his 1961 farewell address, a speech that didn't get much attention at the time because he was succeeded by the very popular John F. Kennedy. But let's look at what happened: since the end of the Second World War, with the Germans and Japanese defeated, America has been on a constant quest for new enemies. The U.S.S.R. were the first; the Cold War provided the excuse to keep spending heavily on the military, for communism had to be defeated all over the world, and America had to keep the advantage in the nuclear arms-race, or at least keep up with the Russkies to preserve the "M.A.D." (Mutually Assured Destruction) balance.

When the Berlin Wall fell and communism was finally defeated, America needed a new enemy; the Muslim terrorists fit that bill perfectly, first to aide America's ally in the Middle East(Israel), and after the 9/11 attacks the "war against terrorism" was official. This war is still going on today of course, with synchronous military action going on in 6 or 7 countries at once. However, there's a growing amount of international and native resistance against these wars, as there's no definition of a victory and we're fighting against an ideology instead of a strictly defined enemy or state; the war in Afghanistan is now America's longest running war with two full decades, and every president elected in the past decade has won with a program that promised withdrawal from the Middle East hot spots. Sooner or later one president will have to make good on that long standing promise...

And that's why, dear reader, China is being prepared as the new Red Scare. The military Industrial Complex is in dire need of a new and powerful enemy to keep churning out its planes, tanks, frigates, drones and bombs. It's disheartening and frustrating that all the lies being spread about China are so readily believed, especially by Republicans and followers of right wing hacks like Ben Shapiro. Shapiro is known for his disdain towards Muslims in general, so it's pure virtue-signaling when he now claims to be concerned about China's human rights violations towards the Muslim minority in that country, the Uyghurs. He and many others constantly blame China for "stealing our technology and intellectual property rights", when in fact it was a deal America made with China, who in return provided cheap labor and a big and growing market to sell American products. Some Americans and American corporations made billions of dollars more profits by moving production to China. If you don't want your technology in Chinese hands, then don't move your factories there; this is not hard to understand. There's no stealing here, so don't believe a word of those who keep spreading this lie. These lies about China fit in perfectly with all the other lies spread by the political far right and neo-fascists about leftists in general, like the whole "Cultural Marxism" conspiracy theory, and the labeling of Black Lives Matter and Antifa as extreme left, or even communist and Marxist violent radicals. The first casualty in every war is the truth, and right now in America this is more true than ever. In the above linked video, Eisenhower says: "Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together." I'm afraid we're severely lacking in the "alert and knowledgeable citizenry" part...

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