The Hilarity of Empire

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by David Stockman 

“The odds were a hundred to one against me

The world thought the heights were too high to climb

But people from Missouri never incensed me

Oh, I wasn’t a bit concerned

For from hist’ry I had learned

How many, many times the worm had turned

They laughed at me wanting you, said it would be, “Hello, Goodbye.”

But oh, you came through, now they’re eating humble pie

They all said we’d never get together, darling, let’s take a bow

For ho, ho, ho! Who’s got the last laugh?

Hee, hee, hee! Let’s at the past laugh, 

Ha, ha, ha! Who’s got the last laugh now?”

– George Gershwin, “They All Laughed” (1937)

“As far as glimpses on unscripted reality, there’s nothing quite like a “hot mic moment” at a gathering of the world’s purported potentates. It happened again a couple weeks ago, at the gathering of NATO leaders in London. Boris Johnson, Emmanuel Macron, and Justin Trudeau were overheard making exceedingly light of one of their peer’s long-winded, often public appearances during the event. In front of a prying camera, Trudeau gestured wildly to imitate the surprised reaction of handlers as the latter blabbered responses to questions he wasn’t actually asked during a photo op he himself turned into an impromptu press conference. “He was late because he takes a 40-minute press conference” said Trudeau. “You just watched his team’s jaws drop to the floor.”

Of course, it’s the Donald he’s talking about. And, of course, it immediately triggered knowing tut-tutting on Morning Joe and elsewhere among the Mainstream Media. The Donald, they say, is once again besmirching his great office and undermining America’s prestige at the same time. As globalist talking head Ian Bremmer put it, “This happens at every NATO summit with Trump. Every G7. Every G20. The U.S. President is mocked by U.S. allies behind his back.” Well, to that I say, “Huzzah!”

And here’s why: The Donald is fulfilling his destiny as the Great Disruptor. And that’s just about the only positive thing that can possibly result from his ill-starred presidency. In this instance with Trudeau, et al., in London, the Great Disruptor further undermined the scam of Washington Consensus-propagated multilateralism. That’s an essential step if the costly and destructive projects of the present empire are to ever be stopped.

When Mr. Bremmer cited the above constellation of forums – NATO, G7, G20 – the implication is that these are legitimate and weighty international institutions that require utmost respect, deference, and support from the President of the United States, “Leader of the Free World.”

They are not, and they do not. These forums are fig leaves. They are there to provide the appearance of multilateral sanction for Imperial Washington’s exercise of global hegemony. Indeed, they are the vital instruments of interventionism. They allow the Duopoly to embrace baldly unilateralist forays by Imperial Washington’s military, political, and economic tentacles into every corner of the map. They are “allies,” bought and paid for or not, in the name of “peace-keeping,” stability, and the “rule of law.”” That sounds like an agreeable kettle of fish.

But it boils down to what I like to call “Forever War.” Stephen Wertheim and Samuel Moyn, as we discussed on Friday, call it the “Infinity War.” But how do you say, “I like that, too,” about something such as this? It’s because, as Wertheim and Moyn note, U.S. leaders have normalized war. Peace seems strange now. And that’s absurd. But NATO, the G7, the G20, well, they legitimize the power that made it so.

This multilateralist scam originated during the Cold War. At least then there was at least a modicum of justification for imperial pretensions. But, after the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 and the Soviet Union shuffled off the pages of history shortly thereafter, there was really nothing at risk. There was no need for NATO, and certainly the G5, the G8, the G7, the G20, et al., were superfluous too. That’s to say nothing of positively destructive multilateral organizations like the International Monetary Fund and/or the World Bank.

At that very juncture, George Bush the Elder and his Deep State advisors confected a “Coalition of the Willing” for the First Gulf War and a new, more egregious form of multilateralism enabled perpetuation of an imperial pose

Imperial Washington is now a monolithic menace to the peace and security of the planet. Where it isn’t “smart” bombing “evildoers” and innocents alike, it’s conducting economic warfare nearly as destructive. Imperial Washington’s Achilles heel is the pretense of blessing for what amounts to its rogue exercise of superpower hegemony. And it’s that predicate the Great Disruptor is doing his very best – willingly or not – to destroy. So, yeah, LOL now, multilateralists. The joke’s about to be on you.”

- http://deepstatedeclassified.com/

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Fred Astaire Sings George Gershwin’s “They All Laughed”,

 from “Shall We Dance” (1937)