QUIZ - Who controls our neighbour to the South?
When you share a bed with an elephant, it is good to know its quirks!
Welcome to our newest feature! Quizzes may be a way to test your own knowledge, but also to use in bits and pieces as potential conversation starters with people not yet aware of the degree to which news is being censored. We will add new quizzes from time to time.
Image source: Dreamstime.com
In 1969, Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau told the Washington Press Club that having the U.S. as a neighbour is like "sleeping with an elephant."
https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/video/1.4735178
This quote referenced Canada’s relative weakness next to our neighbour’s global superpower strength.
How comfortably can we share the North American “bed” now, 55 years later?
To answer that, we need to look south again. We seek to understand who our neighbour is (a democracy? a republic? an oligarchy? a plutocracy? a world empire? a pariah on the world stage?) We look to understand what is going on inside their country (a putsch? a coup d’état? some kind of revolution?) and we ask ourselves what might lie ahead. What comes to mind is possible chaos on at least three fronts simultaneously - the cultural, political and financial end of things.
Canadian news-watchers can barely imagine the challenges our American cousins face when their Chief Cook and Bottle Washer is neither able to cook or wash bottles, in other words, when the person currently holding the Office of President is unable to independently carry out the duties conferred upon him:
Article II, Section 3 of the United States Constitution grants several powers to whoever holds presidential office, as well as duties the president must fulfill. It requires that the president provide a report to Congress "from time to time" on how things are going in the country, which later became the traditional "State of the Union" address given at the beginning of each year. This section of Article II also gives the president the power to call both houses of Congress together for special sessions, for example, to consider a declaration of war.
He shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; he may, on extraordinary Occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in Case of Disagreement between them, with Respect to the Time of Adjournment, he may adjourn them to such Time as he shall think proper; he shall receive Ambassadors and other public Ministers; he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed, and shall Commission all the Officers of the United States. https://constitution.findlaw.com/article2/annotation15.html
We are likely not the only citizens in the world these days to wonder who is currently carrying out these duties and who is actually in charge in the USA. Everyone is asking who is leading the country. It seems like there are nameless men and women behind the scenes standing in for a functioning government. Are they the voices of BigBusiness, BigWeapons, BigPharma and the like using this vacuum to advance their profit-agenda perhaps?
How well do you know our neighbours? Try this short quiz - the answers are in the video that follows.
Who usually controls the USA?
The President
Congress and the Senate (i.e. the elected representatives of the people)
The Deep State (i.e. the permanent bureaucracy - the unelected officials who do not switch out each time electors vote out one party and pick another)
Who else controls the USA?
Very powerful lobby groups (lobbyists representing the arms industry or other business, medical or policy coalitions, or specific ethnic/cultural/religious groups like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, etc..) https://largest.org/people/lobbying-groups/, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIPAC, https://jacobin.com/2022/12/military-industrial-complex-budget-congress-arms-industry-war
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), which according to Wikipedia has “no law enforcement function and is mainly focused on intelligence gathering overseas”https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Intelligence_Agency. More specifically, there are two arms - the intelligence analysis arm and the intelligence gathering arm. It is this second arm that oversteps its mandate - getting involved in secret wars, undermining economies, overthrowing governments etc. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/intelligence/2019-03-04/understanding-cia-how-covert-overt-operations-proposed-approved-during-cold-war. (Caveat, this link only covers the Cold War era. Yet such activities continue to this day.) The CIA is only one of 16 US intelligence agencies briefly introduced here:
Both A & B.
Whose interests do the Deep State, the CIA and those lobby groups serve?
The interests of those citizens who elected the governing party at the time
The interests of all US citizens and other residents, whether or not they have American citizenship
The interests of the large corporations (such as defence contractors, pharmaceutical and other corporate giants, as well as their superordinate financial corporations — the banks and investment agencies)
The term “Neo-con” pops up a lot. Who or what are “Neo-cons” in the USA?
Conservative voters who believed in the rule of law, traditional values, individualism, and limited federal governmental power. Today neo- or new conservatives continue to elect officials for office who they believe fit those values.
Modern day conservative-minded elected officials in the US Congress & Senate who set policy for modern times.
The highly influential group in the USA (coming from either the Democratic or the Republican Party) who infiltrate the Deep State and the CIA, in order to spearhead the vision of a global American empire. Believers of the phrase “Might makes right”, they will support anything from secretly instigating and funding colour revolutions to overthrow governments all the way to full-scale military interventions.
“Neo-Liberals” also get some air time. This term…
is limited the polices of UK PM Margaret Thatcher and US President Ronald Reagan, which centred on free market capitalism and focussed on limiting government spending, government regulation, and public ownership. This is all a “recent” re-incarnation of early Liberal thinking.
includes the values of Thatcher and Reagan but expands them to include minimizing government control of industry and boosting private sector ownership of business and property. This includes most of the Democratic establishment like the Clintons, the Obamas, etc..
references the modern day focus on Fundamental Freedoms and Liberties - ensuring citizens have full freedom of mobility, of assembly, of speech etc. so that they freely travel, meet people and speak their minds.
The goal of “maintaining US hegemony” is often mentioned in discussions of international politics. What does this mean when the Cambridge dictionary defines hegemony as “the position of being the strongest and most powerful and therefore able to control others.”?
This refers to the role of the USA within the United Nations Security Council. The United Nations Security Council was “established to create a legal entity to help monitor and control the members of the United Nations, promoting global harmony and social wellbeing.” The USA ensured that it would be one of the five nations to have veto power. Given that the US has “veto power”, it has the power to vote down proposals that do not support its interests. https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/veto-power-countries
This refers to the role of the USA within the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). NATO is a security alliance of 30 countries from North America and Europe. The treaty states that if an armed attack occurs against one of the member states, it should be considered an attack against all members, and other members shall assist the attacked member, with armed forces if necessary. In 2017, the US was the NATO member contributing the highest per capita (per person/per head) amount (3.6%). But in 2022 Poland’s per capita contribution was higher than that of the US (3.9% vs 3.49%). This means the US was losing its hegemony. (Per capita contribution means the amount of membership fees paid to NATO divided by the number of citizens in the country. Contributions fund the operations of the organization.) https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/nato-spending-by-country
“Maintaining US hegemony” means the USA trying to maintain its position as the dominant world power, using organizations it can control, including the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) and NATO. The US wants to ensure that the US Dollar continues to underpin the global financial system. This is to have America control the world’s resources in lockstep with its global corporate partners. Any foreign head of state whose policies threatened the position of the US dollar as the basis for global trade, was quickly deemed “a danger to democracy” and secret “regime change” efforts were planned in order to remove this threat.
Given that the USA, like Canada, is a country based on free speech, freedom of opinion, freedom of the press, etc., how can people be led to believe in the “need” to support increased arms manufacturing in order to “protect democracy”?
Media outlets, academic think tanks, the entertainment industry and educational institutions can be funded to support certain narratives. Opponents of those narratives can be censored or projected as potentially harmful.
Politicians can be selected to run for office, and mentored and funded by Neo-Con or Neo-Liberal people whose agendas dovetail with those of the Deep State.
Both A & B.
American foreign policy is often referred to as “interventionist”. This is because
the US military industrial complex (weapons manufacturers, their financial backers and the media apparatus that pushes their agenda) keep identifying countries that need “interventions” otherwise known as “a change of government in order to promote democracy”.
the academic think tanks and many charitable foundations want to “intervene” in government policies in order to work for peace.
the Neo-cons in the Deep State intervene and stop Presidents from making plans for new wars.
In addition to focussing on overseas intelligence gathering, the CIA has been known to
write articles for and control journalists
infiltrate student groups, labour unions and think tanks like the Atlantic Council
A & B and much more
In 2017, European nations were pressured to enact censorship laws
by the American president at the time
by the Atlantic Council - a US think tank pushing for closer ties between Europe and North America
by Canada’s Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications
This quiz could be much longer. See this 13 minute video for more question ideas and to hear the answers to the questions above:
https://rumble.com/v5bhxvp-who-controls-the-usa.html (The source of this compilation is unknown.)
If you are in a hurry, here are the answers:
1c; 2c; 3c; 4c; 5b; 6c; 7c; 8a; 9c; 10b
If you got less than 50% - BLAME THE MEDIA - they should be doing a much better job keeping an eye on the “elephant” next door!
Sources:
https://x.com/MEtirol/status/1759635448601698458
