China is in the news every day now. Today here in Australia we’re pretending to be offended because a Chinese tabloid published the accusation that our nation is a “giant kangaroo that serves as a dog of the US”, even though we all know that’s completely true and we should be flattered that at least they said “giant”. Before that we were getting indignant over a hefty barley tariff in response to our facilitation of America’s global anti-China spin campaign, which it turns out Washington screwed us on.

Anti-China sentiment has been thriving in Australia, aided by our Murdoch-dominated news media, State Department-funded think tanks explicitly geared toward manipulating the China narrative, and of course our own deep-seated racism and xenophobia. Because of its geographical location, the US military/intelligence asset conventionally known as Australia has been a major focal point for the US-centralized empire’s propaganda campaign against the most powerful unabsorbed nation in the world.

China is in the news constantly now, and it’s not because of any virus. It’s not because of Hong Kong, it’s not because of Uighurs, it’s not because of intellectual property violations or any of the other scattershot, unrelated hodgepodge of excuses you’re being fed as to why the Chinese government must be regarded as the latest Actual Hitler all of a sudden.

China is in the news all the time because of imperialism.

To understand what’s going on with China and why the “news” media keep punching you in the face with stories about how awful it is, you really only need to grasp two basic points:

Point 1: We are in the middle of a slow-motion third world war between the US-centralized power alliance and the nations which have resisted being absorbed into it.

A loose alliance of nationless oligarchs who use governments as weapons have secured control over a large empire-like cluster of nations with economic and military might loosely centralized around the United States. In order to gain more power and ensure its ongoing hegemony, this oligarchic empire must keep expanding by absorbing more nations and brutalizing them if they resist. China is by far the most powerful of the unabsorbed nations, followed by Russia at a distant second and Iran at a distant third.

Nuclear weapons make another hot world war undesirable, so this one takes the form of resource control, economic warfare, staging coups, arming oppositional militias to use as proxy armies, expanding military presence in key geostrategic regions under the pretense of fighting terrorism, and “humanitarian interventionism”, with old-school full-scale ground invasions used only as a last resort, and only after manufacturing sufficient international approval to ensure the continued cohesion of the empire-like power alliance.

But the end goal is the same as that of a conventional world war: to beat the other side into submission and compliance. And, in this case, absorption into the imperial blob. After the fall of the Soviet Union, the prevailing orthodoxy in US power structures became that the US must maintain unipolar hegemony at all cost to maintain a “liberal world order” (even if it means abandoning “liberal” values whenever it’s convenient). From that point on the agenda has been global domination and the slow, suffocating subversion of anyone who gets in the way.

Point 2: Propaganda is used to move this world war along.

In a conventional war each side has clear military objectives that everyone understands, and the weapons are naturally moved around in accordance with these objectives. In this weird slow-motion world war, nobody understands what’s going on besides the major power players and those who are paying very close attention. The various agendas against the governments of Iran, Venezuela, Russia, Syria, China etc appear different and unrelated when looked at individually, and indeed you will see different political factions supporting some of these agendas but not others. The only thing unifying this slow-motion movement toward the destruction and absorption of all unabsorbed nations is carefully constructed propaganda narratives.

The way these unifying propaganda narratives operate is simple. It would never occur to rank-and-file citizens that a nation on the other side of the planet that’s pretty much just doing its own thing needs to be sanctioned, subverted and brought to heel, so the imperialist oligarchs who own the political/media class make sure everyone is fed custom-made narratives according to their own ideological echo chamber to prevent any domestic inertia from being thrown on these agendas. Once there’s sufficient agreement that Saddam/Gaddafi/Morales/Assad/Maduro/whomever must go, the campaign to subvert, sabotage and absorb that government can safely be escalated.

If you can understand points one and two, you can understand everything that’s happening with China, and everything that will continue to happen. Propaganda narratives will be rolled out with increasing aggression which have the long-term goal of alienating China from its allies, hurting its economic interests, and preventing its rise to true superpower status and creating a multipolar world.

And the funny thing is, none of this is necessary. Westerners have been deliberately propagandized into believing that China wants to take over the world and will do so unless kept in line by the United States, who has surrounded China with military bases in an act of extreme aggression that the US itself would never tolerate from any unabsorbed government. But if you really grill people on how they know that China wants to take over the world, you’ll find they don’t have any substantial evidence for it.

They’ll tell you that China has an authoritarian government which persecutes ethnic and religious minorities, wrongly claiming that this means they want to take over the world and inflict the same on everyone else. They’ll tell you China has sought to expand control over some directly adjacent territories, wrongly claiming that this means they want to dominate the planet militarily like the US currently does. They’ll cite evidence which shows China is seeking to become a superpower and create a multipolar world (something China openly admits) and wrongly claim that this is proof that they are seeking to dominate the world with unipolar hegemony. They won’t be able to produce any actual, hard evidence that China is trying to take over the world and censor your internet and take away your rights, because no such evidence exists. It’s a completely empty belief arising from aggressive narrative manipulation.

“One myth I think really that needs to be dispelled is that somehow China is aiming to replace America and going to run the world, and it’s not,” said Chinese venture capitalist and social scientist Eric Li on the John Pilger documentary The Coming War on China. “First of all, the Chinese are not that stupid. The west, with its Christian roots, are about converting other people into their beliefs. The Chinese are not about that. It’s just that–again, I’m not degrading the western culture, I’m just pointing out the inherent nature, the DNA of two different cultures–the Chinese two thousand years ago built the Great Wall to keep the barbarians out, not to invade them.”

I’d say this is a reasonable summary. After European nations tried to conquer the planet just a few generations ago in the name of spreading Christianity and “civilization”, we’re projecting our sick vestigial colonialist values on a nation whose culture never drove it to such madness.

Violently dominating the entire planet for all eternity on the vague suspicion that another country wants to do the same to you is not sane, and is not an option. Unabsorbed nations should be allowed to remain unabsorbed, absorbed nations should have their sovereignty restored (or in Australia’s case granted to it for the first time since its existence as a nation), and America should begin acting like a normal country. The notion of “pre-crime” is the purview of dystopian horror fiction when applied to individual people, and there’s no reason we should find the prospect of attacking and destroying for hypothetical future offenses any less insane on an international scale.

There was never any reason for the coronavirus to be made into an issue of international conflict when it could just as easily be an issue of international collaboration, and indeed collaborating is what we should all be doing, with this virus and with everything else. Let’s end this weird slow-motion world war and move toward sanity.

______________________________

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68 responses to “How To Understand All This China Stuff”

  1. Wayne Roberts Avatar
    Wayne Roberts

    The article is nought but a rant by a chinese apologist.

  2. I cannot stand this woman’s constant stream of half-baked generalizations and silly flights of fancy, especially since much of what she cites as reference points actually are accurate, but she then spins stupid conspiracy theories from them.

    For example:
    “They’ll tell you that China has an authoritarian government which persecutes ethnic and religious minorities, wrongly claiming that this means they want to take over the world and inflict the same on everyone else. They’ll tell you China has sought to expand control over some directly adjacent territories, wrongly claiming that this means they want to dominate the planet militarily like the US currently does.”

    Cite specific, objective data that shows someone “claiming that this means they want to take over the world and inflict the same on everyone else.“, not some nutjob trumpist rag.

    Johnstone just makes things up to fit her agenda. It’s fine to have an opinion, but her constant proclamations of causality without supporting facts makes her no better than the anti-vax morons. This kind of lazy thinking/writing churns my guts. And I say this as one who concurs with the general concept of the U.S. as a manipulative force in the world. I just don’t see the coordinated conspiracies that she sees. I see disorganized capitalism which infects everything it touches, often wherein the “host” willingly plays along for the money.

  3. “Every war when it comes, or before it comes, is represented not as a war but as an act of self-defense against a homicidal maniac.”
    ― George Orwell

    “The past was alterable. The past never had been altered. Oceania was at war with Eastasia. Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia.”
    ― George Orwell, 1984

  4. Blair Schirmer Avatar
    Blair Schirmer

    .
    While it’s true that the U.S. empire’s propaganda is dangerous and repulsive, it’s no less true that each of China and Russia, along with the U.S., among others, would like to dominate the globe.
    .
    All seek to expand their areas of control and dominance. All are a menace to the self-determination of everyday people. None, under their current leaderships, are peaceable actors. None, left to their own devices, would permit a multipolar world with stable borders, democratic elections, and expansive, universal human rights as the order of the day.
    .
    How do we know this? Because none are seeking to pursue this project within their own borders. Because all the major powers in 2020 are fundamentally psychotic. Put another way, have we ever seen a so-called Great Power that, if unchecked, did not expand without regard for the rights of those it would absorb?
    .
    Think of how utterly peculiar the following sounds:
    .
    ” “One myth I think really that needs to be dispelled is that somehow China is aiming to replace America and going to run the world, and it’s not,” said Chinese venture capitalist and social scientist Eric Li on the John Pilger documentary The Coming War on China. “First of all, the Chinese are not that stupid. The west, with its Christian roots, are about converting other people into their beliefs. The Chinese are not about that. It’s just that–again, I’m not degrading the western culture, I’m just pointing out the inherent nature, the DNA of two different cultures–the Chinese two thousand years ago built the Great Wall to keep the barbarians out, not to invade them.” ”
    .
    —Eric Li asserts here that part of a particular tactic of 2,000 years ago explains China today. It’s absurd on its face. It’s not that he’s necessarily incorrect, it’s that this sort of analogy is preposterous, as if we could accurately explain contemporary Egypt by pointing to the behavior of its ancient Pharaohs.
    .
    The best arrangement for nearly all of us is a stable planet with reliable borders, and politics internal to each major power that assures only reasonably stable people rise to power, who understand that war and nuclear weapons are terrible ideas, and that the use of them is madness. In short, what Hollywood pretended the U.S. was after WW2, and what Mr. Li pretends China is, currently.
    .

    1. SomeoneInAsia Avatar
      SomeoneInAsia

      China today certainly is trying to exert her influence around the world, if only to salvage her own image and reputation after the virus disaster. But that’s China today. Premodern China had been a nice guy at least since the 10th Century AD. Well, as you said, it’s ridiculous to explain contemporary Egypt by looking at the behavior of her ancient Pharaohs.

      I’d venture, though, that the West — and, if I may say it, the Jews as well — had a very big hand in what China has become today. It was the intrusion of (and poisoning with opium by) the British in the 19th Century — funded and instigated by a Jew by the name of David Sassoon — that led to the destabilization and eventual dissolution of the Qing Dynasty in the early 20th. (Japan and other European nations joined in to aggravate further the situation for China after the Brits.) Political opportunists then arose in spades to fill the political vacuum, one of them being the CCP of course, which eventually was to seize power on the mainland. The rest is history.

  5. Excellent post, again. I’ve always wondered about this: are the imperialist oligarchs motivated just by money and power, or, also by deep ideological convictions? Maybe both.

  6. See, Caitlin, the Real Life Movie (RLM) really is far, far more interesting and important than any movie ever made. If you watch the RLM carefully, every day, when the nukes inevitably start dropping you’ll at least have some idea why, and that alone makes watching it just about the most important activity any human being can undertake (except for doing the daily necessities of life, anyway).
     
    I think watching our common RLM is akin to watching the approach of an Extinction-Level-Event asteroid. Capitalism/greed has in the past made, and in the present still makes ALL-OUT, NO-HOLDS-BARRED, NO-WEAPON-LEFT-UNUSED wars inevitable. Humanity can do nothing to stop it(self).
     
    Some people are satisfied to know only that it’s going to happen and simply close their eyes, while others, like you and Tim, will want to know every single detail about the asteroid, and even watch it as it approaches, with eyes wide open, until it strikes.

    1. Just get into your outdoor movie theater and watch The End.

  7. “Let’s end this weird slow-motion world war and move toward sanity.”

    First we must move toward physical sanity. The sanity you refer to will then stand a chance.
    “Mens sana in corpore sano”

  8. When the Western powers do it – it’s called “A preemptive Strike!” When anyone else does it it’s called “A Sneak Attack”

  9. SomeoneInAsia Avatar
    SomeoneInAsia

    While I greatly appreciate the efforts of people like Caitlin Johnstone to expose the venomous narratives circulated around the world by hostile forces working against the interests of countries like China (and Russia, Iran etc etc), I still think the current Chinese regime has been indeed guilty of numerous acts betraying an unconscionable disregard for human life, the latest being of course the whole virus disaster, which has by now taken more than 300,000 lives worldwide. Don’t try to excuse the Chinese. If they’ve tried to cover it up, they’ve tried to cover it up. There are no two ways about it. China may not be interested in becoming another global hegemon like the USA, but it’s a different matter whether the Chinese regime has or hasn’t been engaging in various nefarious acts prejudicial to human life.

    I’m prepared to concede that I could be wrong and the virus didn’t in fact spread from Wuhan and/or the Chinese officials did not try to cover it up at first and/or the whole thing was a fabrication by the CIA and/or whatever. Just show me the evidence. Then I’ll happily stand corrected and take back everything I said above. (Strange that the Chinese themselves so far haven’t seriously come out to present any evidence in defense of themselves. Could it be that I’ve missed something, or that Western media have enforced a blackout on any Chinese efforts to defend themselves?)

    You may think I’m just another of those white supremacists who can’t see anything good coming out of anywhere else besides the white man’s turf, but then you’d be wrong: I’m Chinese (albeit by descent and cultural inheritance, not by nationality). In fact I cherish China’s history and ancient culture. Then why do I speak and think so harshly of her current regime, you wonder? Because this regime has betrayed, contradicted and trampled on my dream of China as a bastion of culture and civilization, that’s why. (As I said above, I allow for the possibility that many or even most of the terrible things this regime was guilty of were in fact fabrications, but I want to see the evidence. So far I’ve seen none.)

    Since I was a child I’ve always had a fond vision of China as a beautiful place with misty mountains where high values reigned supreme, people were guided by concerns with virtue rather than with the dollar, and so on. This vision has by now been basically eroded to nothing. Talk about growing up.

    And with all of us now facing the imminent collapse of the whole goddamn industrial order, it really does make you wonder just what we have left to live for. On my part I try to find solace in the literatures of the world’s different mystical traditions. But that’s another story.

    End of rant.

    1. I take issue with your seminal point that China is somehow culpable. The evidence is overwhelming that China is not: the virus has to start somewhere whilst if it is capable of containment at source then you may have a point. However, as the spread elsewhere has shown it can only be partially addressed by substantial quarantine based on experience. China was faced with an unknown whilst hindsight is a great thing. Further, transmission of a virus that spreads asymptomatically and has an incubation period of more than 2 weeks means it was impossible to avoid the spread unless of course the country has a superb health system beyond anything known to exist currently. If you think that China has that system then you have given it the greatest compliment? She mobilised the whole country to check it at its source winning the battle in Hubei. In doing so she gave the whole world time to prepare. Those that failed to or couldn’t have paid the biggest price. That China has no deaths for a month suggests that she has been very successful in containment whilst the US has failed miserably. The contrast is stark and as Caitlin has made clear it exposes the lie as to which country really cares for its people.

      1. SomeoneInAsia Avatar
        SomeoneInAsia

        From what I read, when certain doctors first noted the virus they tried warning everyone but were shut up and locked up. Also, the Chinese officials could have halted all Lunar New Year celebrations and cancelled all flights to other countries when they noted the virus. They didn’t. And the masks and test kits they later offered to other countries to fight the virus either turned out to be faulty or came with strings attached.

        China already had the experience of SARS several years back. Quite evidently nothing was learned.

        If the Chinese were really innocent, then they’d have no reason not to allow for an independent investigation into the matter by other countries. A regime with a clear conscience has nothing to hide.

        1. You have taken as read without further examining all this narrative. The so called Li, an ophthalmologist was not the whistle blower as the virus was already reported and investigation started before his communications. No Doctors have been locked up which is a blatant lie. Halted new year when the travel was well under way? The discovery was into 2nd week of January whilst the Lunar new year was early. Hindsight is a good thing. Further, you’re missing the point that the disease was novel, certainly not like SARS (much more contagious and asymptomatic for most). When China understood what it was dealing with its reaction has been phenomenal. Further China informed WHO at all stages. Lastly, the origins have still not been discovered, only speculation about Wuhan etc because of the spread there before anywhere else. Cambridge Scientists believe it is not Wuhan but South of it. An investigation should occur and China agrees for the sake of all humanity but not now whilst a propaganda war is underway. As for PPE China is so successful with this that she has contained the Virus. That there should be some that is faulty is normal when such huge amounts are produced by China who the World looks to for supplies.

          1. SomeoneInAsia Avatar
            SomeoneInAsia

            “For the sake of all humanity!” Such moving language!

            Interesting why you’re so anxious to defend China with respect to the virus (and using such excessively flowery language). Wouldn’t surprise me if you’re one of the wumaos, albeit hiding behind a Western name. 🙂

            As you said, there should be an investigation. An independent investigation by other countries. Let’s see a full report by a team of researchers and journalists, preferably from countries neither pro- nor anti-China to begin with, who can substantiate all your claims with the relevant documents showing that on this day, this person did this and on that day, that person said that etc. Then I’ll believe all you said. I’m sure Caitlin would approve of such an investigation. (I want evidence the team of investigators hadn’t been bribed or blackmailed by the CCP in any way, of course.)

            Until I see the above, I’m going to look at everything you say with the utmost skepticism. Certainly the CCP’s unwillingness to allow for an independent investigation into the entire matter inspires little confidence in me.

            Sorry.

            1. So much for free thinking liberals. I am as British as they come. Since when did natural justice ever require evidence to prove a NEGATIVE. How do you prove it didn’t happen? Dear me. You make a charge so I think you will find it’s down to you to provide evidence. So far it’s been mere conjecture based on anti China bigotry masked as anti CCP. Which is exactly why the post was made.

  10. Capitalism is the same as corporationism, because it refers to the owners of corporations: the “capitalists.” In capitalism, only the owners are actually represented; workers and consumers are not represented but only manipulated – or else any resisting or incompetent workers are fired – by the owners.
    Corporations were invented around the year 1600 so as to transfer all personal criminal liability away from owners onto their workers and customers, so that only workers and customers could become sentenced to prison. Prior to 1600, only bankers enjoyed such limited liability. Stockholders and bondholders have limited liability – they are liable only for monetary losses up to the extent of what they have invested in the corporation, but not for any crimes that their employees and other agents of the corporation perpetrate on behalf of further enriching the corporations owners. This well writen article can be read here:
    Ideology and Coronavirus by Eric Zuesse!
    https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2020/05/21/ideology-and-coronavirus/

  11. You always have such a crystal clear perfect analysis I have nothing to add, I would only suggest that the USA is not the only bully, just the one that “lucked out” as the biggest bully on the playground (or didn’t luck out since being a bully is not healthy) This country could extend its power by AVOIDING a monopoly on power, evolution always ensures that monopolies of any kind weaken and die.
    Aristocracies achieving total power in ancient times were killed off by the error of their own deviancy including increased proclivities to health destroying practices such as incest and assassinations driven by infighting.
    Nature abhors monolithic control and ensures that no one controls evolution, alphas in perportion to their own heights always eventually fall all the harder which is wide no world wide monopoly can ever succeed. We are not really in control of the ecosphere, the ecosphere is in control of us. Faith in power is its own surest undoing, it is faith in egalitarianism that ensures the longest lasting power.
    A balance of power ensures the peace and progress, an imbalance of power ensures war and retrogress.

  12. Calamity Jane Avatar
    Calamity Jane

    Don’t you mean how the msm wants you to think about a land mass called China?
    Either way if you adopt the ideas of msm ” fake liberal lefty”media ie bad US and good China you are being (politically) naive .And feeding the us v them mindset desired by those that control your mind through fear.
    The banking cabal and its shadow govt is not apart from China, as we could see when China led the world in fascism, locking up all its citizens in home detention.Like how we saw Russia bombing Syria.
    Wakee wakee.Its a narrative.Only if you believe the separative narratives can you help co create for the cabal.
    It is a tale
    Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
    Signifying nothing.

  13. Much good talk on this forum, but little in the way of effective revolutionary action.

  14. Roundball Shaman Avatar
    Roundball Shaman

    “China is in the news all the time because of imperialism…we are in the middle of a slow-motion third world war between the US-centralized power alliance and the nations which have resisted being absorbed into it..the end goal is the same as that of a conventional world war: to beat the other side into submission and compliance. And, in this case, absorption into the imperial blob.”

    So we have at least two imperial blobs trying to become The Dominant World Blob? Or, are these two imperial blobs actually working together behind the scenes while conducting a WWE-style match on the world stage for the gullible world public while both blobs plot out the matches together in the back room and divide up the profits at the end of the day?

    Imperialism is deep in the DNA of certain nations. Not nations in the sense of its citizens who DO want to be left alone. Nations in the sense of those (insert your own descriptive word here) who rule over their nation without hindrance and over much of their conquered world underlings.

    If you attempt to remove the Imperialism Gene from regimes who sold their rotten souls to it, the rest of their body structure collapses. There is no identity left. Yes, some former “superpowers” in history are still around as places seen on maps, but their identity is long gone. Their mojo is gone. They found no useful replacement gene for imperialism to reanimate their national body.

    They have no incentive to change. They have no desire to change. They don’t WANT to change. They like what they are. And they won’t stop until everyone else in the world also pretends to like what they are.

  15. The reason for never-ending wars, debt-slavery, poverty, growing incidence of chronic diseases and drug use, depression, oppression and alcohol dependency is that the vast majority of voters and non-voting public believe their governments are honest and benevolent. Naïve citizens have all been indoctrinated and those who are not hoodwinked are apathetic or powerless. Read more of this here: http://www.wisdompage.com/2013%20Articles/Molyneaux%20essay.pdf

  16. Agree, Ms Johnstone, good article. I’m not as up on things as you but China, Russia, Venezuela, Iran and the others are the great danger for those led by a guy, democratically chosen, who told his citizens to inject themselves with Lysol? Methinks Americans should look in the mirror before they cast around seeking enemies. They’re choosing fools to guide them? Maybe they should stop listening to such dunderheads. Maybe stop voting for them, too?

  17. When Zhang He and others conducted their voyages of exploration,they must have been disappointed in what they found. The rest of the world had no paper or printing, no mathematics, no science, little medicine of note, almost no metallurgy to speak of, a most primitive agriculture, no manufactures of any worthy kind, no porcelain, no spinning wheels or weaving looms to make clothing. From reviewing the history of Chinese invention, one develops an increasingly strong feeling the Chinese looked at the world and found nothing of interest in all those societies that were centuries, and in some cases millennia, behind China in almost every way. One can easily theorize this is the reason China closed itself off from the world at that time, concluding that other nations were so backward that little would be gained from prolonged contact. One can imagine they returned home and closed the door, perhaps planning to return in another 500 years to see if things had progressed.

    What China didn’t expect, was the West stealing all these ideas, turning them into weapons of colonization and war, returning to the nation that was the source of that knowledge, and invading it to colonize, to steal resources, and to enslave and massacre the population. China’s interest was always only exploration and trade. The Chinese were never expansionist or warlike, wanting only to protect their own borders from invasion from the North. China was quite unprepared for the violent nature and savage brutality of the White barbarians who sailed the world, invoking his God’s blessing on his countless atrocities. Coupled with a weak domestic government and outsiders using opium to reap billions while enslaving a nation under the protection of the British military, we have the severe downward swing for 200 years.

    The unique thing about the Chinese empire is that it has, since the Han dynasty at least, adopted a peculiar sort of tribute system whereby, in exchange for recognition of the Chinese emperor as world-sovereign, they have been willing to shower their client states with gifts far greater than they receive in return. The technique seems to have been developed almost as a kind of trick when dealing with the “northern barbarians” of the steppes, who always threatened Chinese frontiers: a way to overwhelm them with such luxuries that they would become complacent, effeminate, and unwarlike. It was systematized in the “tribute trade” practiced with client states like Japan, Taiwan, Korea, and various states of Southeast Asia, and for a brief period from 1405 to 1433, it even extended to a world scale, under the famous eunuch admiral Zheng He. He led a series of seven expeditions across the Indian Ocean, his great “treasure fleet”—in dramatic contrast to the Spanish treasure fleets of a century later—carrying not only thousands of armed marines, but endless quantities of silks, porcelain, and other Chinese luxuries to present to those local rulers willing to recognize the authority of the emperor. All this was ostensibly rooted in an ideology of extraordinary chauvinism—‘What could these barbarians possibly have that we really need, anyway?’—but, applied to China’s neighbors, it proved extremely wise policy for a wealthy empire surrounded by much smaller but potentially troublesome kingdoms. In fact, it was such wise policy that the US government, during the Cold War, more or less had to adopt it, creating remarkably favorable terms of trade for those very states—Korea, Japan, Taiwan, and certain favored allies in Southeast Asia—that had been the traditional Chinese tributaries; in this case, in order to contain China.

    Bearing all this in mind, the current picture begins to fall easily into place. When the United States was far and away the predominant world economic power, it could afford to maintain Chinese-style tributaries. Thus these very states, alone amongst US military protectorates, were allowed to catapult themselves out of poverty and into first-world status. After 1971, as US economic strength relative to the rest of the world began to decline, they were gradually transformed back into a more old-fashioned sort of tributary. Yet China’s getting in on the game introduced an entirely new element. There is every reason to believe that, from China’s point of view, this is the first stage of a very long process of reducing the United States to something like a traditional Chinese client state. And of course, Chinese rulers are not, any more than the rulers of any other empire, motivated primarily by benevolence.

    We’re not interested in any sort of war on China (or Iran or Russia or Venezuela). And we sure as shit ain’t interested in some global empire. Can you imagine how tedious ruling such a thing would be? No thanks, we’ve already seen that story—and at least it had magic and dragons (#DanyWasRight). But maybe they were on to something with that gift-giving stuff? How about releasing all current US-based intellectual property into the public domain, free for the entire world to benefit from? And, of course, abolishing the nonsense concept of `intellectual property’ entirely going forward. Too radical? Fuck off, you can’t own ideas you greedy shits; you’re the ones with the absurd and radical ideas.

  18. And doesn’t the propaganda work perfectly?

    “A Bloomberg poll has revealed that an overwhelming majority of Americans would be willing to spend more money on products if they are manufactured outside of China, with 40% saying they simply will not buy anything made in China at all.

    In addition to these findings, 55% said that they do not believe China can be trusted to fulfil its trade-deal commitment to buy more U.S. products, while 66% said they favor raising import restrictions over the pursuit of free-trade deals as a better way to boost the U.S. economy.

    The findings come as President Trump announced that he now feels ‘differently’ about the trade deal he signed with China earlier this year. ”

    https://summit.news/2020/05/20/poll-78-of-americans-are-willing-to-pay-more-for-non-china-made-products/

    You tell them what to think and they think what you told them.

    Propaganda works. Period.

  19. Beautiful example of KISS (keep it simple stupid). Making everything seem complicated is a basic tool of Empire propaganda. Caitlin cuts through the fog of confusion to reveal the simple truth hidden by it. Don’t buy into Empire’s endless distractions and meaningless arguments, just keep hammering on the simple reality underlying all of it.

  20. Shhhhhh ! Don’t tell Caitlynne Johnson if we are campaigning to nominate her for a pulitzer prize for her investigative journalism and poetry. We don’t want that to go to her head. Shhh !~ It’s her surprize un-birthday present. She probly dosn’t care about that anyway. But she earned that peice of cake. It’s just a badge to get the cable tv watcher people to sit more alert at what she has to say. I cant find her articles yet on https://www.wakingtimes.com/category/society-culture/ So I’ll post a letter mail to Dylan Charles and the altallycats to broaden her base. So let me be the 2977th or ?? person to second the motion to nomintate her for the pulitzer prize, as I’d be shocked if I am the first. Why can’t everybody be the first to nominate her.? Why does sOmeOne have to be #2? So..anybody here know how to navigate to pulitzer prize nominations? I’m catching up to the real news here… forgive me stupidly if these ideas of mine are antiquated. Maybe she’s sick of eating cake from pulitzer prizes.

  21. They want to make China into The Big Enemy. Meanwhile every computer on our desks, every phone in our hands is made in China. Nearly every product sold in our stores is made there and it doesn’t look like that is going to change. Methinks we are being played for fools.

    1. I think the primary function of the China stuff, and the Russia, Venezuela, Iran, etc. etc. stuff as well, is a way of organizing domestic politics and does not represent serious ruling-class policy. In the US different tribes are struggling for dominance and everything is grist for the mills of that struggle, as witness the almost instantaneous politicization of the current plague along the usual populist-elite lines.

  22. Liked this a lot.
    Q: rather than a non-applicable metaphor ‘absorbed’ the word “colonialism” describes it: the “caste” system implicit in capitalism, colonialism and patriarchy. The subjugated nations and peoples are inferior things, not part of the master nation or race, not human.

  23. R Zwarich ('Caliban') Avatar
    R Zwarich (‘Caliban’)

    I don’t pretend to understand China all that well, or how its hybrid economic system, which some have called ‘state capitalism’, works. I know the government owns the Central Bank, and thus creates and controls the currency, (rather than the privately owned central bank we have in the US). However authoritarian its government may be, it claims to act for the good of the people, and with the “consent of the governed”, which is the classic definition of a ‘republic’, (rule by Elites with the consent of the governed, as in our own US republic). It seems that China has fueled its own development and economic growth on a model of consumerism and consumption that seems as dangerously unsustainable (environmentally) as ours.

    Trump is proposing cutting off China from its nearly $500 billion per year trade surplus with the US, by rebuilding the US manufacturing base, using government power of tariff and taxation, (as the stick), and corporate tax breaks, (as the carrot), to force US corporations to bring US manufacturing ‘home’.

    Wages for the American working class have been so dramatically lowered, by offshoring of jobs, and by the importation of as many as 50 million destitute foreign workers since NAFTA was signed in the mid 90s, which together have decimated US Organized Labor, (most remaining unions serve as little more ‘labor management and pacification agencies’ for corporations), that bringing manufacturing back ‘onshore’ may actually be feasible and attractive to corporations.

    Wasn’t the whole point of neoliberal globalization, (off-shoring of manufacturing jobs and open borders importation of destitute foreign workers into so-called ‘developed’ nations to do the remaining service jobs), to create an international ‘race to the bottom’ competition among working people?

    The ‘liberal values’ factor of ‘neoliberalism’ that Ms. Johnstone cites has been used to disguise the US Ruling Elites’ determination to rule the world, (America uber alles), as bringing ‘democracy’ and ‘human rights’ to the nations we want to conquer and bring under US power. “Follow our orders, or we will begin killing your citizens”, (either by overtly blowing them up, or through economic siege, aka: “sanctions”), is the basis of official US foreign policy. “If you agree to follow our orders, we will allow your citizens to vote, to choose between the candidates we pick to allow them to vote for”, which will all be people the US Ruling Elites choose, just as they are in the US. (Fools line up to vote. Those with the REAL power pick the candidates).

    When nations come under US control the Ruling Elites use the power of Mass Media to destroy their native culture and impose our mainstream Identity Politics ‘liberal’ consumer culture on them. Women will be ‘liberated’ by the promise of ‘sexual freedom’, and will be forced to work for wages, (rather than nurturing children), thereby expanding the workforce to propagate ‘excess labor’. Women will be encouraged to be promiscuous, pornography will become ubiquitous, and LGBTQ rights will be vigorously promoted. Heterosexual Men will be demonized for being men, to weaken their inherent self-identity (as men), and thus to erode their inherent sense of autonomous power, as culture is ‘feminized’. (“The future is female” is the rallying cry of prevailing US Mass Media-induced culture). Women’s lives will only become more miserable, (as they have in the US), as ‘sexual liberation’ (female promiscuity) and pornography erode the basic social unit of ‘the family’. The miseries of single motherhood, (while working for low wages to support children without a partner), become ever more the norm, as it has in the US. (Women are markedly less happy in the US now than they were before the ‘women’s liberation movement’ began in earnest in the late 60s and early 70s, which has been called by academic researchers studying the phenomenon, “the paradox of declining female happiness”. Google it).

    This is the ‘freedom’ that US neoliberal culture promises. Lots of meaningless promiscuous sex, as ‘family values’ decline, just like in the US, and the right to choose between political candidates the Elites choose to rule over them).

    Whether Trump’s proposal, (to rebuild the US manufacturing base, to deprive China of its primary US market, which has been the engine of Chinese economic growth), is a serious proposal, or just more Snake Oil propaganda, it sure seems to me that it’s going to at least be an effective campaign theme. With the American Marionette Left having completely jettisoned Class Analysis in favor of adopting and promoting the Ruling Elites’ own ultra-divisive neoliberal Identity Politics, it’s very hard to imagine that the Democratic Party faction of the Elites’ one-party political system can win over the support of American working people to erode Trump’s base.

    Predicting the future is a fool’s endeavor, of course, but it sure looks to me that Trump will win another term, and worse, it seems possible that he may win a ‘landslide’ victory, and enter his second term with the confidence of a ‘mandate’ behind him.

    The Elite-owned Mass Media still pretend to hate Trump. If the Elites wanted to unseat Trump, would they really have chosen Biden? Even as the Elites’ wholly owned and controlled Mass Media continue to pretend to hate Trump, they sure are fully onboard with his anti-China jingoism, aren’t they?

    I don’t think that many people who rail against the “mainstream media” really understand the sophisticated skill with which the power of Mass Media is being used by its owners. (It was the Mass Media that ‘crowned’ Trump, after all, with literally billions of dollars in ‘free’ media-time during the ’16 campaign. I still suspect that Trump has been a very sophisticated ‘ruse’ from the outset).

    If US corporations agree to cut off China’s US market, (by re-building the US manufacturing base, or simply moving it someplace else), that could seriously damage the Chinese economy, and thus seriously erode the Chinese people’s satisfaction with their government, which would, of course, provide the CIA with expanding opportunity to bring the Hong Kong unrest into mainland China.

    The Chinese, and their primary ally, Russia, know this, of course, and are working with great effort, and apparently considerable effect, to not just develop other markets, but to actually destroy the US dollar as the world’s reserve currency. The Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank, (AIIB), created as a threatening alternation to the US dollar dominated International Monetary Fund, (IMF), counts both Australia and New Zealand, as well as several European nations, as among its founding members. Traditional US allies seem to be ‘hedging their bets’ as the US Empire seems to be weakening.

    The AIIB, as well as other alliance organizations, like the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, (SCO), are the vehicles driving the ‘high concept’ vision of the New Silk Road, (aka: The Belt and Road Project), a multi-TRILLION dollar infrastructure vision/project liking Eurasia, and also Africa, as a solidified market entity against US domination.

    The Russia/China alliance is also trying to break the dollar’s domination of the world oil/energy market, (the petro-dollar), which is the primary factor in other nations’ demand to hold ‘dollar reserves, ‘by creating a market for energy/oil to be bought and sold in other currencies. This is apparently proceeding to develop rapidly, and is VERY threatening to the very root of the power of US Empire.

    The US Empire is facing directly into the existential ‘abyss’. US military power is entirely dependent on the hegemony of the US dollar as the world’s reserve currency. The US can only print dollars to finance the US military because the dollar’s reserve currency status creates international demand for dollars, which prevents the dollar’s inflation, no matter how many are printed. If the status of the US dollar is destroyed, which appears to be inevitable, the US deficit financing of the US economy, simply by printing more dollars, would be threatened by hyper-inflation.

    Given the above circumstances, the hysterical anti-China jingoism now being promoted by the US Elites’ Mass Media is certainly no surprise. The foreboding reality, however, represented by nations like Australia and New Zealand having joined the AIIB as ‘founding members’, and European nations, like Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and even the UK, having either joined as founding AIIB members, or having signed on, or having ratified acceptance of the AIIB articles, can be clearly seen as an existential threat to US World Empire.

    We all surely know that an enemy with its ‘back against the wall’ is the most dangerous kind of enemy. Any cornered beast will fight for its life. The fact that this beast of US Empire is nuclear armed makes this struggle to kill it an existential struggle for all humankind. The fact that Israel, which holds so much power over the US, is also hedging its bets, (is also an AIIB ‘founding member’), could actually be an encouraging sign, but one can never know or trust the evil self-serving motives of Zionism.

    1. Succinct and accurate summary of the current geopolitical situation. But the economic framework set forth is faulty. For example: “If the status of the US dollar is destroyed, which appears to be inevitable, the US deficit financing of the US economy, simply by printing more dollars, would be threatened by hyper-inflation.” Hyper-inflation has long been the bugaboo used to scare the masses off of demanding that fiat money be used to promote their interests and the overriding interest of a healthy planet. On the other hand, fiat money is cavalierly used without trumped-up fears of inflation to preserve and enhance plutocratic interests, like the recent trillions poured into shoring up big banks and corporations at the outset of this pandemic, or the massive tax breaks Trump and congress gave them early in his administration, or the similar trillion dollar bail-out of the elites at the outset of the Great Financial Crisis of 2008, etc. etc. etc. Additionally, of course, fiat money has been created to facilitate seemingly endless regime-change war and other criminal foreign interventions. Probably no group of economists have dug more deeply into the history and causes of hyper-inflation than those who adhere to Modern Monetary Theory. You may have already seen it, Caliban, but if not, please consider pulling up Stephanie Kelton’s YouTube video entitled “Angry Birds,” which conveys better (and more entertainingly) than any other vehicle I’ve found the self-evident axioms, at least to me, of the MMT model. There is no more hopeful message out there right now, because at its core is the revelation of the extraordinary agency we have (though not unlimited, being constrained by actual and natural resources) to use sovereign fiat money, uncoupled from debt, to meet pressing human and environmental needs…assuming that we can somehow summon the political will. But there is no possibility of summoning that will unless more and more people come to understand the yet-to-be-exercised power of the public sector to improve the quality of life for everyone and preserve and enhance Gaia’s health, a power which, to be exercised, must begin with the recognition of the reality, not the theory, of fiat money–how it has operated to promote evil since the constraints of the gold standard were removed, and how it could operate to promote good, beyond our wildest neoliberal-stunted imaginations, were the people to finally seize control of it.

      1. R Zwarich ('Caliban') Avatar
        R Zwarich (‘Caliban’)

        Thank you for these deeply thought comments, Mr. Finn. I do understand MMT theory a little bit, but don’t pretend to be an economist, or to have any meaningful level of economic expertise. I have long thought that a different model of ‘money’ could work that is not created through debt.

        The value of money is determined by people’s confidence in that value, however. If more money is in people’s hands, inflation tends to rise. If people’s confidence in paper money erodes, so does the value of that money.

        One example from the real world is that when our culture and economy consisted mostly of one income families, one income was enough to support a family in a reasonably comfortable standard of living for middle class families. But when women decided they wanted to return to the workforce en masse, the economic benefits to families, having two incomes instead of one, (minus the expense of hiring someone else to take care of the children, the expense of additional transportation, etc), was short-lived. When families had more money, costs simply rose to absorb that extra income. Rents and real estate prices rose, the costs of groceries, etc, rose. When more money was in circulation, it’s value, relative to the value of ‘goods’, eroded. Inflation took back the extra income being earned by women having entered the workforce en masse, until very soon two incomes were required to maintain the same standard of living that one income formerly could provide.

        The whole concept of ‘money’ as a measure of value is interesting to think about. Reportedly many nations, such as Russia and China, are now increasing their gold reserves, because they realize that the value of paper currencies is in flux. Other than its uses for industrial purposes, its resistance to corrosion, etc, there is no overt reason that a shiny heavy metal should have intrinsic value, other than people’s emotional affinity for it, (as decorative jewelry, as its heft and feel and appearance, etc). As actual money, it is impractical, because it is bulky and extremely heavy, and therefore hard to carry, etc. So paper money, backed by gold, which the entity issuing the money promised to hold in reserve to back the money, was created. Anybody holding paper money could go to the entity that issued it and exchange it for gold.

        ‘Fiat money’ is money that is just paper, (or actually is mostly just digital notations on computer ledgers). Paper and ink are relatively cheap commodities, and the only reason paper money has value is if people agree that it does. People must have confidence in that value. If people lose any relative degree of confidence in its value, its value will go down.

        An MMT system would only be possible if supported by a belief system that invested confidence in the value of that money. I do believe that such a system is possible, and I do believe it would make much more sense that our current system that creates fiat money by creating debt.

        But doesn’t the status of the US dollar as the world’s reserve currency make it more than merely fiat currency? All nations must maintain dollar reserves in order to obtain the ‘goods’ every nation needs to survive. That constant demand for dollars maintains their value, more than the value of a fiat paper currency that lacked such constant demand.

        Our current world monetary system is not an MMT system, and thus it is not supported by the belief system required to maintain ‘good faith’ in an MMT system.

        Again, I’m sure no economic expert, (as must be obvious from my comments here … LOL), but my understanding is that the current value of the US dollar is being maintained primarily by it’s petro-dollar status. All nations have a large demand for US dollar reserves because dollars are required to buy oil/energy. If oil/energy is bought and sold in other currencies, (as is beginning to happen already), the demand for dollars will evaporate, and nations will want to dump their trillions of dollars now held as reserves before they lose value. If dumping dollars before they lose value became a ‘panic’, (revealing the emotional nature of money), hyperinflation of the dollar would occur, and theoretically, the US would no longer be able to finance its military juggernaut by printing paper dollars.

        Anyway … Again … I’m sure no expert (as must be obvious) but that has been my understanding.

        Thanks again your comments.

        1. Rather than attempt to respond to your reactions, Caliban, I just humbly ask you to watch the video. If it doesn’t answer all of your concerns, then I look forward to further conversation on this blog that both of us so deeply value.

          1. I should have said further conversation about MMT, since I’m sure we’ll be conversing on many other pressing issues as well, on many of which we see eye to eye, while on others I’m open to being schooled by your often potent observations.

  24. Great article. I like the description of a slow moving world war fueled by propaganda and I think it’s 100% completely accurate. But as a someone who tries to advocate from a voiceless animal’s perspective I have little sympathy for a country like China that cooks dogs, cats and other animals alive with blowtorches. I wouldn’t be sad to see chinese culture unravel. I have much higher regards for places like Venezuela and Cuba but you don’t control the msm narrative so I don’t fault you for writing about China. Blessings to you and yours.

  25. Excellent article. I used the argument that China had no history of agression with the world throughout its long history. I am met by blind belief that this doesnt matter. The west however has always been agressive in its history. However most see this agression as justified. Propoganda is a powerful thing.

  26. Klaus von Berlin Avatar
    Klaus von Berlin

    To understand American TEABAGGING CHRISTIAN ZIONIST evangelical movements is to get a sense of what motivates a nation that bombs invades and tortures at the same time as it proclaims its love for mankind and for human dignity one must understand the Christian Bible. But not the whole lot. To confusing most of it.No only the Book of Revelation of Saint John the Divine- its the only part ”for Christian”, Worth reading of the Bible .The Book of Revelation, also known by its original Greek title, the Apocalypse, is an especially important template for the right wing TEABAGGING CHRISTIAN ZIONIST to aggressively seek confrontation with whatever entity they perceive as the latest ANTI-CHRIST, a bogeyman that resist Amerika and its civilizing Christianizing mission They see imperialist Israel as an essential element in provoking the End Times and if that means risking nuclear war with Iran China Russia So be it, they say it was prophesied.by john’s strange vision from the Lord on the island of Patmos.At the end all will be forgiven by god and it’s new Jerusalem will be a shining beacon of democratic freedom and capitalist indulgence. Halleluya

    1. Wrong. The west may have had Christian roots long ago but not now. America is controlled by sociopaths bent on power and domination. Israel is almost totally secular with only 10% attending synagogue. They did have a national identity with the divine right to exist but it has morphed into a national and secular right instead of God given right. Stop thinking of the bible as a prophecy and start thinking of it as a simple history of what will one day unfold. Thd bible does not drive history any more than any history book. See it from Gods perspective and you realize it is not a prophecy at all.

      1. The movement that Jesus began, as best we can now understand it through the reconstruction of historical research and biblical scholarship, went off the rails early on. The message attributed to Jesus was that we were to believe that the “Kingdom of God” could come on earth and were to work relentlessly toward that end by extending compassion to and expanding care for “the least of these” AND by continuing to challenge the systemic evil which ground them under its feet. The first derailment came when the Jesus movement was institutionalized and “following” him morphed into subordination to the rituals and doctrines of the church (which, ironically, soon married the empire that murdered its founder). The second derailment occurred during the Reformation, when submission to the church was replaced by adherence to various sets of propositional “truths,” belief in which granted salvation regardless how one lived his or her life. This is obviously an overly broad picture that omits innumerable details, exceptions, and nuances, but such are the limits of internet commentary. Even today, there are still those who struggle to put the Jesus movement back on something like its original track, but it will surely take a miracle for them to succeed. Yet that’s no reason, at least for them, not to keep trying. In fact, that struggle (which now often takes secular humanist form for numerous understandable reasons) may turn out to be the reason we’re here…assuming one exists.

  27. Your articles are good at laying bare the propaganda of imperialism. However they don’t explain why empires emerge and in particular the modus operandi of capitalist imperialism. Throughout your analysis you reduce the issue to beliefs. However, the issue is materialism. Power is in the service of material interests. The imperialists are merely a class of capital seeking to expand their interests. They have contradictions between them and with their own working people as well as with those powers and nations that resist them. In which case unless the class issue is made the central point of all our analysis there can be no success in challenging the power of imperialism. We need to organise ourselves along class lines seeking to unite all those that have material interests that contradict the imperialists.

    1. When China was at its height as naval power, it never attacked anyone–only traded with countries. The overriding philosophy of the Chinese is HARMONY.

      1. That was before capitalism which seeks ever expanding markets. China has been bedevilled throughout its civilisation with internal feuds and wars which is why martial arts features. The tribute system and the focus on harmony was key but it was no plain sailing pardon the pun.

    2. Bingo.

      Until class consciousness becomes the norm we’re all cursed to be Thatcher’s coveted “sack of potatoes” with no direction and no collective power.

  28. Earth’s ruling demonic warlords OWN the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
    DISEASE > biological and chemical weapon labs world wide
    FAMINE > big agra and monopoly supply chain
    PESTILENCE > chemtrails, GMO, Fluoride, 5G
    WAR > started every war with false flag
    China has cannibalized Africa and South America, megalomaniac goals

  29. Don’t worry about China. They’re just like everyone else. Sitting around waiting for salvation from an Imperial hog. Just like Americans, Just like Aussies. MSM please let us know when your savior arrives.

  30. Caitlin:

    Could not agree more! Brava!

  31. Glenelg Smith Avatar
    Glenelg Smith

    Hi Caitlin.
    This is not about China, but it is about Australia and narrative control (I think).
    I first became aware of Andrew Wilkie when he resigned in protest during the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. Later, he appeared in Hobart, campaigning tirelessly and single-mindedly against poker machines. Since the time he first ran for parliament and I discovered that it was the same person, I have voted for him above any other candidate, and in fact I regarded him as the only politician I had any faith in at all. Occasionally I have spoken to him in person, briefly. I had always thought he was a person of strong integrity and principle.
    Since the lock-down, he has sent out two letters to his constituents (like me), and in both he has stressed the importance of (I’m paraphrasing here) following the official line and avoiding internet conspiracy theories.
    Quite frankly, I don’t know what to make of that. Surely with his experience of the way the Iraq war was handled he would understand exactly how much trust can be placed in politicians, the media and the media’s experts. I feel like he was the last person in the parliament I could trust to think for himself. This is a big disappointment for me, like a deep deep betrayal. I have considered writing to him, but I’m having difficulty putting all my concerns into words.
    .
    Re China. We think of ourselves as good-hearted, lovable larrikans who buck the system, but in truth Australia is a Quisling nation on the wrong side of history, and making no friends amongst its neighbours. I dread to think how this might play out in the future. I don’t see how the Australian population (given its voting record) can prevent things from going pear-shaped. Hopefully there are enough strugglers and battlers out there who still have a connection to reality and community, who can help us rebuild afterwards.

    1. Lili-Ann Berg Avatar
      Lili-Ann Berg

      I’ve seen the same vagueness in Andrew Wilkie as I’ve always suspected in Bernie Sanders. They are like the proverbial carrot – dangling seductively in front of your nose, but never close enough to actually grasp. You want to believe in their professed integrity, yet you know within yourself, that trusting a politician is sheer self-delusion.

  32. 9 MILLION HITs in less than 24hrs – And removed from youtube!
    “Dr. Rashid Buttar: The Coronavirus Agenda – What The Mainstream Media Don’t Want You To Know”
    https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/dr-rashid-buttar-coronavirus-agenda-what-mainstream/id474722933?i=1000472935096

  33. a poet in America once wrote …
    “Oh, and as I watched him on the stage
    My hands were clenched in fists of rage
    No angel born in Hell
    Could break that Satan’s spell

    And as the flames climbed high into the night
    To light the sacrificial rite
    I saw Satan laughing with delight
    The day the music died

    [Chorus:]
    He was singing bye, bye, Miss American Pie
    Drove my Chevy to the levee but the levee was dry
    Them good ole boys were drinking whiskey ‘n rye
    And singin’ this’ll be the day that I die
    This’ll be the day that I die”
    —(Don McClain “American Pie”)
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RciM7P9K3FA
    humming this tune as I catch the last train for the coast ….

  34. http://www.johndayblog.com/2020/05/maintaining-crisis.html
    Where “we” are in history;;;
    Our Fate Is Sealed, Vaccines Won’t Matter: Four Long Cycles Align
    ​Charles Hugh Smith​
    ​ ​A Covid-19 vaccine, or lack thereof, will have zero effect in terms of reversing these cycles. Call it Fate, call it karma, call it what you will, but the cycles have aligned and nothing can stop the unraveling of all that was foolishly presumed to be permanent.
    ​ ​We like to think we’re in charge and that technology conquers all, but history moves in cycles that are larger than any person, corporation, elite or (gasp) technology. My first version of the chart below was drawn in 2008, when the Global Financial Meltdown revealed the cracks in the happy-story facade of permanent wonderfulness based on the amazing magic of borrowing / printing ever greater sums of currency, a.k.a. “money.”​…​
    ​ In effect, the study of cycles is the study of human nature as it plays out in long-term social, political and economic dynamics.

    The four cycles depicted are:
    1. The cycle of credit expansion and contraction, which is now in the final blow-off stage of unsustainable credit expansion (bubble) which will inevitably lead to renunciation of debt (credit collapse) and global depression.
    2. The generational cycle (4 generations or approximately 80 years) of American history which leads to nation-changing social, political and economic upheaval (The American Revolution: 1781 +80 years = Civil War, 1861 +80 years = 1941, World War II + 80 years = 2021) as described in the book The Fourth Turning.
    3. The 100+ year cycle of price inflation and stagnation of wages’ purchasing-power which began around 1901 is now reaching the final stage of widespread turmoil, shortages, famine, conflict and crisis. (This can be viewed as aligned with Turchin’s cycle of social disorder and disintegration.)
    4. The demographic cycle: the workforce stops expanding and starts shrinking while the population of dependent elderly explodes higher, triggering a decline in earnings and the tax base just as taxes must increase to pay for the care of the rising population of elderly. (This is one dynamic in Turchin’s deterioration in central state finances.)
    https://www.oftwominds.com/blogmay20/cycles5-20.html

    1. Agree. The great unwinding has begun.

    2. I’d like to add that there are probably going to be more bad viruses every flu season, so “normal” might look very different in the future.

    3. Added to the above is the most defining and undeniable of all cycles,the currently intensifying Eddy Grand Solar Minimum.

  35. The conclusion is clear: For all the intensity of George Orwells experiences in Spain, his passion for truth and integrity, his hatred of the abuse of power did not originate from his experiences in the Spanish Civil War. They all flowed directly from his own actions as an agent of the British Empire in Burma in the 1920s: Just as his creation of the Ministry of Truth flowed directly from his experience of working in the Belly of the Beast of the BBC in the early 1940s. You can read this great article here:
    How the British Empire Created and Killed George Orwell by Martin Sieff!
    https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2020/05/20/how-the-british-empire-created-and-killed-george-orwell/

  36. Speaking of propaganda–don’t know if you all have noticed–they’re switching the narrative [as in chess] as a counter to trump’s move to increase the testing to drive on the denominator pf the CFR ratio so as to more actually reflect the “death rate” [ex: as 5/15/20 with 3000 alleged deaths and a California population of 38 million you had a .0008% chance of dying from the alleged killer flu.

    So trump starting driving up the denominator [lowering death rate] and they countered/switched the criteria from death and disease to the growing incidence to those who test positive– for the CDC provided RNA partial sequence–that they call covid19. Most [99%] will have the sequence (rna remnant) without the subsequent disease. In fact, I would that guess that over 50% of the US population has the rna remnant– so with Washington’s target of 1/10,000 positive test ratio– before they open our residential cells–we will therefore be incarcerated for an infinite period of time.

    To add a bit of irony to the puzzle– listen to Dr. Kaufman’s articulate interview [below] in which he states that the so-called covid19 virus has never been “isolated” and therefore cannot be identified—or more to the point–it doesn’t scientifically exist. In fact, he challenges the whole western medicines’ germ theory–as if to suggest, that the disease culprits are not those little organisms that co-inhabit our bodies and our environment–but rather the industrial pollution that we continue, unabated for 100s of years, to add to the environment [google James West]. https://beforeitsnews.com/health/2020/05/censored-dr-kaufman-they-want-to-genetically-modify-us-with-covid-19-vaccine-lost-his-job-and-willing-to-go-to-jail-to-resist-video-3023973.html

    1. LOL. Read Veterans Today frequently. We have very nice microscopes today that can see every single atom in a molecule and know exactly what it’s position is relative to the surrounding atoms, so we do know. Obviously, your expert doesn’t.

      1. The expert I read was saying that the reason they can’t isolate the virus it is not because they can’t see the atoms but because they CAN. There is no single pattern. It is not a species. It is a heterogeneous population of somewhat similar molecules, never the same. This is what is meant by “it doesn’t scientifically exist.”
        Having said that, they really don’t look under a microscope to study these molecules atom by atom. It is a lot more complicated than that. The expert I read was saying that even the way you interpret the data is polluted by the assumptions you make about what it is you’re seeing. Germ theory, for example, is such an assumption. This expert was asserting that germ theory, although the only acceptable mainstream dogma today, has never been verified by science. i.e. it’s dogma, not science.
        Much of science is just a good guess based on a good guess based on a good guess. After a while, it becomes a house of cards that falls apart as soon as people stop believing in parts of the guessing chain. I know we have achieved amazing technological feats in certain areas (along with some astoundingly awful side-effects), but that doesn’t mean that all science dogma is truth. You have to follow the actual science IN DETAIL, including all of its assumptions. Even scientists have trouble doing that! But if you did that, you would understand that almost none of it is unquestionably true.

    2. Dr Andrew Kaufman is a peddler of pseudoscience who denies the existence of viruses and germ theory altogether.Just another grifter to emerge during this current encounter with the bioengineered SARS-CoV-2 virus.

  37. Thanks for continuing to remind me that it isn’t just me thinking these things. I’m currently in the middle of Shoshana Zuboff’s lengthy tome ‘The Age of Surveillance Capitalism’, all about the surveillance and subversion on us that the tech industry, in collusion with Western governments, is doing to turn us into predicable and easy manipulated little clones – initially for commercial and now more recently for political purposes (think the Cambridge Analytica Facebook scandal in 2016). It is nasty because most of it is taking place below our consciousness, deliberately in order to ‘condition’, censor and control our behaviour. Nasty stuff. Narrative control + increasingly heavy censorship is part of conditioning we are being subjected to.

  38. There’s real tensions within the Empire here between the USA & Israel too. The US is pushing back against Israel’s close ties to China because Zionist penetration of the US Gov’t led to Israel selling out America by providing China w/ US cyber & hi-ech weapons.Things are decidedly non-linear these days, America’s greatest ally has been selling highly sensitive military and civilian technology to China. theepochtimes.com/mike-pompeos-strange-trip-to-israel_3355330.html

    1. LOL. The USA is a Possession of Israel. There is real USA as an independent nation, and there are no real elections, our next and probably last president will be Trump; if that wasn’t so Nancy P. wouldn’t have appointed a dead man to be the Democratic alternative to Trump

  39. It is very difficult to “move toward sanity” when many of your leaders can reasonably considered to be insane.

    Unless you consider killing more than 2 million innocents, who never threatened you, sanity.

    1. Practically ALL of them are insane, including in China. No sane person seeks to control their neighbor by putting a gun to their head and forcing them to do this or not do that. Psychopathy is a job requirement.

  40. Robert Steele Avatar
    Robert Steele

    Just dropped by to thanks you for adding the links so I don’t need to strain my eyes trying detect and decrypt the fnords for myself.

    You are an amazingly prolific and insightful writer (although I do not agree with ALL your opinions or conclusions), but the world, both real and virtual, is a better place with you in it.

    Best

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