The U.S. empire is up to its elbows manipulating events in the Middle East while homelessness among its own citizens has taken another record-shattering leap.
Portland, Oregon, January 2023. (drburtoni, Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
By Caitlin Johnstone
CaitlinJohnstone.com.au
Listen to Tim Foley reading this article.
The IDF has built a beachside resort on the coast of northern Gaza where its soldiers can take a break from committing genocide to relax, get massages, drink iced coffee and eat ice cream and cotton candy by the shore.
Meanwhile, the last hospital in northern Gaza has been burned down by the Israeli military after days of violent siege warfare on the medical facility.
The IDF is now saying that it may stay in southern Lebanon past the 60-day limit it agreed to in its ceasefire deal with Hezbollah, which means we may soon be looking at yet another protracted illegal Israeli military occupation.
Israel Builds a ‘Beachside Resort’ in Gaza for IDF Soldiers
The resort is the latest sign of Israel's plans for a long-term occupation
by Dave DeCamp@DecampDave #Gaza #Israel #Palestinians https://t.co/VJSIoTYVgN pic.twitter.com/OCiDmwAf8D— Antiwar.com (@Antiwarcom) December 26, 2024
A recent report from Drop Site News cites more than a dozen BBC staff who say all the British state media outlet’s reporting on Israel and Palestine is ultimately controlled by a single editor named Raffi Berg, who previously worked for the C.I.A. The BBC reporters told Drop Site News that Berg consistently manipulates headlines and reporting in a way that benefits the information interests of the Israeli government.
An anti-Assad outlet called Verify Syria has found that viral video footage purporting to show women and children being freed from Sednaya Prison after President Bashar al-Assad’s ouster actually showed no such thing. In reality the location where the terrified women and children were filmed was a family charity facility called the Dafa Association, and they were terrified because the facility was being attacked by armed “revolutionaries.”
This comes as the U.S.-backed al-Qaeda affiliates who are now in charge in Syria announce that they probably won’t be holding elections for another four years.
This is undoubtedly the single most incriminating statistic of the US system (alongside the 13% poverty rate): skyrocketing homelessness when your economy grows means something is fundamentally broken. https://t.co/KdXOqYDtaH
— Arnaud Bertrand (@RnaudBertrand) December 29, 2024
The U.S. empire is up to its elbows in the Middle East working frenetically to manipulate what happens there, while in the United States itself homelessness has taken another record-shattering leap forward.
Homelessness in the U.S. has increased by a staggering 18 percent since last year — and last year also saw a giant spike in homelessness of 12 percent from the year before. Officially there are now around 770,000 homeless Americans, though the real number is likely several times higher.
This massive injustice is entirely by design. As the hub of a globe-spanning empire, the U.S. needs to keep its citizenry poor, divided, distracted and powerless in order to keep them from meddling in the gears of the imperial machine.
The more free time and mental spaciousness Americans have, the more they’ll awaken to how depraved their government is and how badly it’s screwing them over. The managers of the Western empire naturally have a vested interest in keeping Americans poor, sick, ignorant, and propagandized. Which is why they remain so.
The U.S.-centralized empire thrives on lies, manipulation, callousness, and stupidity. The entire world is made worse by its existence. It degrades the collective soul of our species. It’s bad for Americans, and it’s bad for everyone else.
Humanity will be much better off when this murderous power structure finally crumbles.
Caitlin Johnstone’s work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, following her on Facebook, Twitter, Soundcloud, YouTube, or throwing some money into her tip jar on Ko-fi, Patreon or Paypal. If you want to read more you can buy her books. The best way to make sure you see the stuff she publishes is to subscribe to the mailing list at her website or on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything she publishes. For more info on who she is, where she stands and what she’s trying to do with her platform, click here. All works are co-authored with her American husband Tim Foley.
This article is from CaitlinJohnstone.com.au and re-published with permission.
The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
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slightly OT but relevant nonetheless: continue to pray for the children of Gaza
The US is run by insane psychopaths. Thanks for always being there to point that out, Caitlin. It’s crazy how they get away with so much destruction, both domestically and internationally. The US is a cancer on the planet and totally I agree with you, Caitlin, that, “Humanity will be much better off when this murderous power structure finally crumbles.”
It doesn’t have to be as bad as crumbling though, if Americans realized that other systems of governments and economies could be implemented, but they’re too intrenched in predatory capitalism to even realize they’re about to fall in a big way. First, you have to admit you have a problem before you can do anything to correct it. I cringe when I hear them tout how great their genocidal, slave-owning, dollar-worshiping, patriarchal puke of a nation is.
A psychopath in Amurka will be institutionalized. White ones will more likely be hospitalized … others , probably relegated to for-profit prisons.
The majority of national politicians and CEOs are highly functioning , sociopaths.
There is a difference.
(D) is for Double.
Remember that, in the future, when the privileged Democrats are trying to spin a future campaign into saying that they are on your side. Under the Democrat administration of 2021 – 2024, Homelessness doubled. (D) is for Double. Remember that when they start lying for the next campaign by pretending to care. American’s won’t be able to survive the next Democrat Doubling.
Is our involvement in the mideast in what appears to involve an American citizen and past US military man [with other than a Christian religion ?] that just killed 15 people by truck at Bourbon Street in New Orleans revenge for the US support for mideast military oppression/genocide ??
“The more free time and mental spaciousness Americans have, the more they’ll awaken to how depraved their government is and how badly it’s screwing them over.”
Caitlin does not live in America. She doesn’t understand the level of ignorance and illiteracy rates are growing by leaps and bounds. A current poll conducted in the US showed nearly 60% of the population, as a whole, have been deemed “ILLITERATE.”
So thinking that the homeless and barely surviving Americans would wake up and start educating themselves is a hopeless, hopeless dream.
“The U.S…. thrives on lies… callousness… our species… better off when this … crumbles.”
The US principle that money=virtue stands firm with the honor among thieves, love among scoundrels, respect among liars and cheaters, and credibility among idiots, that distinguish its substitute for culture.
The US fake culture and anti-constitutional government are the result of failing to regulate money power so that a market economy would not dominate mass media, elections, and thereby all branches of government.
All branches of federal government betray the Constitution, because the structure it prescribes is inadequate:
1. It does not protect government or mass media from economic power (bribes via political parties and businesses).
2. Checks and balances were poorly designed, and must operate within each branch having distinct powers.
We have been so loyal to the old Chevy that we refuse to allow anyone to fix it, and it is completely worn out.
Without Jefferson’s foresight of non-violent revolutionary change in every generation, primitive tribalism and tyranny inevitably reign.
Modern forms of tyranny must be eliminated by modern forms of education and political revolution.
Here’s the deal: since BUSH 1, US economic policy toward working class citizens has been engineered austerity.
Homelessness “crisis”: (obviously MSM propaganda term; every major urban city local pols walk on by) in reality: the Spike!
(Employer’s $tatement): “So ya don’ wanna work fer starvation wages, huh chump?
How ’bout dat Nice Family Tent fer You anna
Kids?”
There is more profit in fixing other people militarily than fixing ourselves with Civil Wars that never end here as permanent culture wars for political profits. Our addictions are showing military roots.
The well-off in the USA, D and R alike, like to believe that the homeless are all crazy or use drugs. In other words “it can’t happen to ME! I’m not like THOSE people”!
Trump promises to round the homeless up into “tent cities” somewhere out of sight, and “rehabilitate” them. I fear a lot of mass grave.
As the saying goes…charity starts at home…BUT NOT in America. Always bragging abroad while ignoring what is happening at home.
bragging abroad….with dire consequences: continue to pray for the children of Gaza
If the Empire wants a strong industrial base and to field a strong military force then keeping its subjects sick and impoverished is not the way to do it. Just what is it thinking?
Are you sure people in our Empire are thinking?
The title is redundant.
Empire = Homelessness.
The current homelessness crisis is primarily the result of predatory “investors” targeting the housing market. See the 2024 Institute for Policy Studies & Popular Democracy report “Billionaire Blowback on Housing” at hxxps://ips-dc.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/billionaire-housing-disruption-report.pdf