Click here to access article by Philip Giraldi from The American Conservative.
I occasionally post articles like this, which represent fairly significant points of view on serious issues that one sometimes finds in mainstream media, in order to clarify such issues. This article is posted in a traditional conservative US publication because it obviously supports their basic ideological position. This older capitalist ideology has now been replaced by neoliberalism and its global capitalist followers.
Back in the 1980s the US ruling class with their Anglo allies began launching a trans-nationalist version of capitalism that has replaced the older version of capitalism that traditional conservative predecessors (some examples: Pat Buchanon, Paul Craig Roberts, Ron Paul) favored, and continue to favor. I have long been convinced that this new version is only a natural segue in the evolution of capitalism, and that any desire to return to the former is futile.
According to the older national capitalist imaginary the US is a democracy that has gone wrong through
the rise of the influence of neoconservatives and their global agendas of
neoliberalism and Empire building. In this imaginary all the old myths about democratic elections and formal offices represent the reality of American political life. Thus elections were the expression of a "democratic" political process which resulted in formal officers who held real power. This view is still expressed in this article by regarding Obama as a real, not merely a formal, chief executive officer of the US government.
Indeed I see these two capitalist ideological positions, nation-oriented capitalism and neoliberal or global capitalism, influencing writers everywhere on the web. I see influences of the former even appearing among dissident writers, especially multipolar advocates such as F. William Engdahl, Tony Cartalucci, Pepe Escobar, and "The Saker". One finds some tolerance of traditional conservative thought expressed in corporate media, but not the latter dissidents who scathingly reveal the Empire's imperial agenda. Another variant of acceptable capitalist thought is represented by social democrats like Bernie Sanders and Richard Wolff (another pretend "socialist" as illustrated in this interview) who are permitted some coverage by corporate media.
I have always argued, based on 60 years of political activism, that the democratic ideology (aka "bourgeois democracy") of nation-oriented capitalists was always an ideological facade that legitimatized their rule since they took control of Western nations over 300 years ago (and now under trans-national capitalists, aka "neoliberals", dominate the world). This is a naive view which has contained only a modicum of reality and came to a final end with the ruling class's (with the collaboration of organized crime) assassination of President Kennedy. (Read JFK and the Unspeakable by James Douglass.)
This former CIA officer and author continues in this traditional view with this piece which, I believe, represents a kind of wishful thinking on the part of traditional conservatives. The latter often engage in fantasies about returning to power with the aid of militarists in the Pentagon. They are too often seduced by dangerous ideas about a military coup that could restore them to power. I believe that, indeed, this is most dangerous fantasy which justifies my posting of the article.
The military, like all other important sectors of society, have been thoroughly co-opted into the capitalist ruling class and the majority ideologically committed to the new neoliberal stage of capitalism. Surely I don't need to argue this with all the cogent observations that have been written about that reveal how militarists are playing in the revolving door game between the Pentagon and "defense" contractor corporations.
