The difference between people who supported the British Empire and people who support the US empire is that those who supported the British Empire knew they were supporting an empire.

Someone who supported the British Empire’s acts of mass military slaughter around the world did so because they supported the Crown and wanted His Majesty to civilize the godless savages and turn the whole world into his royal subjects. Someone who supports the US empire’s warmongering thinks they are doing so because Saddam is an evil dictator, because Gaddafi is an evil dictator, because Maduro is an evil dictator, because Hamas and Hezbollah and the Houthis are terrorists, etc.

Supporters of the British Empire understood that the enemies of the Empire were being killed because they refused to adequately subject themselves to the King and his demands. Supporters of the US empire think the US and its allies are always attacking Evil Bad Guys in the name of spreading Freedom and Democracy, and if this happens to advance pre-existing geostrategic agendas and/or resource interests then it is purely by coincidence.

Supporters of the British Empire understood that they were living under an actual empire: a power umbrella comprised of colonies, protectorates, dominions, mandates and territories which spanned the globe. Supporters of the US empire think it is entirely by coincidence that there is a giant cluster of nations which happens to move in near-perfect unison on all foreign policy agendas and continually wages war upon nations which are not part of that cluster.

The British Empire was entirely open about what it was. It would conquer a place, tell its inhabitants that they are now British subjects, and make them raise the Union Jack on their flag pole. The western empire which is loosely structured around Washington lets its member states keep their own flag and pretend they’re sovereign nations, while behaving in ways that are not significantly different from the subjects of the British Empire.

  • guy@piefed.social
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    11 hours ago

    Interesting read, but the US can hardly be called an empire though

    • freagle@lemmygrad.ml
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      11 hours ago

      Really? What makes you say that?

      • Hawaii
      • Alaska
      • Puerto Rico
      • Guam
      • Marianas
      • Samoa
      • 600+ global military bases
      • NATO
      • 20-year occupation of Afghanistan
      • AFRICOM
      • US elite ownership of international natural resources
      • US elite ownership of international land
      • CIA black sites
  • mistermodal@lemmy.ml
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    14 hours ago

    This lady just writes the same article over and over, I’m sorry. The only one that stood out to me was saying Israel was so bad it reminded her of her ex

    • geneva_convenience@lemmy.mlOP
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      11 hours ago

      She’s got some good insights frequently pointing out the absurdity of Western media and the pretentiousness of the Western Liberal.

      • mistermodal@lemmy.ml
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        11 hours ago

        That’s the thing we gravitate towards these guys bc they’re better than like 99% of what’s on the book or posting shelf. It’s not fucking Ezra Klein (or well Chris Hedges who’s openly anticom) right it identifies problems it has an ideology at least aware of the present issues. I’m sure it’s a case of being well-meaning and having connections. If you read Doug Valentine’s CIA as Organized Crime (Valentine’s a lib - also way too credulous of CIA officer letting him just browse files by leaving the room w em on the table - we must apply the book’s thesis to the book and Valentine itself lmao. the power dynamic of leaking info & controlling the truth) tho so read Western Marxism by Losurdo too and Rockhill’s book the ebook is online alrdy.) he outlines solid explanation for how this whole class of journalist operates I’m not just annoyed at a corny remark. Saying “this country/corp is doing DARVO” is kind of bread and butter for these writers. Daniel Ellsberg, Jeremy Scahill, Seymour Hersh, Glenn Greenwald, etc do a lot more damage. As a person annoyed by 1984 references finding out I can call them Ontologically Evil has been freeing

        • geneva_convenience@lemmy.mlOP
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          10 hours ago

          I feel like figures like Caitlyn fall moreso into anticapitalism than a real ideology. I like these types of articles for showcasing a different side of the story but while I can endorse this content I do not endorse everything they stand for.

          Secondly journalists like Jeremy Scahill report on events but they also do great work on humanizing resistance to the empire and bringing out their point of view. It is pretty ludicrous to view that as a negative solely because they don’t endorse certain different economical systems. They work plenty to defame the current one and have people search alternatives… However Ryan Grim has been extremely disappointing recently endorsing mass murderer Graham Platner.

          All in all I think a single journalist is not responsible for both reporting on events and then also providing the reader with the entire correct course of action to fix said events.

          • mistermodal@lemmy.ml
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            4 hours ago

            They’re definirely useful, don’t get me wrong. I subscribe to literally every one of them I see. They just become far more useful when we understand what makes them tick. The structure of the alt media as he explains it just perfectly encapsulates their shortcomings and “sudden betrayals” e.g. Ryan Grim who has been saying suspicious things for a while. Thanks for laying out your view of this I was wondering.

            Let me give you a quick example, Seth Harp. He seems like he makes the US armed forces look bad with his reporting on Bragg, but he sensationalizes it and makes it about rowdiness rather than systemic problems. He kept insisting that “the Houthis” were engaging in global piracy and not a targeted blockade. Aaron Mate also refuses to accept LHO had a 201 file and was on a CIA assignment in Russia and was probably the JFK patsy. Like they always cleave back towards the intellectual apparatus since it’s their meal ticket and class interest. Seymour Hersh has tried to make the Nord Stream bombings out to be an independent rogue project of the Ukrainian and British security state - as if those operate independently from the CIA-run intl intelligence racket that grew from the OSS and its nazi connections. Back when he wrote about the Phoenix Program he tried to make My Lai seem like a one-off atrocity driven by soldiers’ bloodthirst, and not the standard procedure for medium long-range targets beyond the grasp of frogmen. Just obliterating everyone. We know that, so why is it hard for us to see how Hersh is subverting our understanding of it? I find his writing annoyingly persuasive. It’s because he has a lot of resources and time to put it all together. There is some use value embedded in these intellectual products, as Rockhill explains, it would be insane if there weren’t considering their wealth and education or at least connections. Klippenstein gets handed a monopoly on some pretrial documents leak and it makes him a star. These ops are very profitable it’s not a drag on CIA resources at all it’s probably one of their most effective ways to convert money into social capital, and it can even make money itself when they strike gold. Which they have unlimited time to do, just like the French theory philosophy bros

            Sorry if this is a bit slapdash I’m trying to cover these points so I can go back to sleep. Will try to write a larger thing about this so don’t feel the need to pry apart every vague thing in here

            The idea of any of you needing to spend the amount of time I did stumbling across this information just makes me ill. Take the rare pdfs oomphies pls