Listen to a reading of this article:
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During the furor over Nancy Pelosi’s incendiary Taiwan visit last week, I was watching an appearance by Antiwar’s Dave DeCamp on the show Rising which brought up the under-discussed point that US officials going to Taipei is actually a continuation of a trend that had already been happening under the Trump administration.
DeCamp pointed out that China began regularly flying planes into Taiwan’s Air Defense Identification Zone after Trump administration officials made similar visits to Pelosi’s.
“That started happening regularly after August 2020 when President Trump sent Alex Azar to Taiwan,” DeCamp said. “He was his health secretary. He was the highest-level cabinet official to visit Taiwan since 1979. The following month, in September 2020, they sent Keith Krach. He was the undersecretary for economics in the State Department, and he was the highest-level State Department official to visit Taiwan since 1979. So these are unprecedented steps, and since then we’ve seen more Chinese military activity in the region.”
Later in the interview Rising’s Briahna Joy Gray asked DeCamp if these escalations against China from the Trump administration into the Biden administration were a “kind of blob foreign policy decision that is not partisan.” DeCamp explained how in 2018 the US military began officially transitioning from emphasis on “counter-terrorism” in the Middle East toward “great power competition” with China and Russia, with the ultimate target being China.
“If you look at all the really hawkish think tanks in Washington that are funded by the arms industry, it’s all about this so-called great power competition,” DeCamp said. “Russia right now seems to be the more imminent issue I guess, but China seems to be in the long run. And we’ve seen this from just about every government agency — the Pentagon, the FBI, the State Department, the CIA — say that China is the long-term so-called threat. And we’ve seen Biden say this, and this is kind of the name of the game in Washington right now.”
In the lead-up to Pelosi’s visit, Moon of Alabama spotlighted this strange phenomenon where US foreign policy moves along the same trajectory regardless of political party or election results with a collection of recent articles that have all raised this subject independently. This one from Naked Capitalism stands out the most right now:
National leaders never have complete freedom to act; even autocrats have constituencies or power blocs they have to appease. In the US, it has become clear that the President has limited degrees of freedom on foreign policy matters; the military/intel interests call the shots. Mind you, there are factions so a President can push the needle to a degree; that’s why, for instance, Obama was able to check Clinton’s plans to escalate in Syria. But the flip side is that Presidents who want to improve relations with pet enemies get nowhere. In the Oliver Stone interviews, Putin recounts how he had productive discussions with Bush and they agreed on concrete de-escalation measures. Follow ups were unanswered. Eventually Putin got a written bafflespeak climbdown. That and other examples led Putin to conclude that US presidents are hostage to bureaucratic and commercial interests.
Biden is a visibly very weak president. And it appears that that has enabled the neocons to have an even bigger say over foreign policy than usual.
One assumes Xi has to understand that. Yet the Chinese readout has Xi starting from lofty first principles to contend that the US and China, as leading world powers, have a duty to promote peace, global development, and prosperity. From that, Xi reasons that seeing China as a strategic rival is “misperceiving” US-China relations and misleading the world community.
Who is Xi talking to when he goes on like that? It certainly is not to Biden.
New on MoA:
What Presidents Say Does Not Matter. It Is The Execution Of Policies That Counts.
https://t.co/QJv9LlBuwi pic.twitter.com/rClly4Uvsv— Moon of Alabama (@MoonofA) July 30, 2022
An example of the aforementioned comments by Putin was when Oliver Stone asked him, “You’ve gone through four U.S. presidents: Clinton, Bush, Obama and now Trump. What changes?”
“Almost nothing. Your bureaucracy is very strong and it is that bureaucracy that rules the world,” Putin replied.
It’s that “bureaucracy” that is responsible for the fact that the US-centralized empire continues to move in the same way along the same trajectory regardless of political parties and election results.
Nobody elects that bureaucracy. You can’t even see most of it behind the veils of government and corporate secrecy. You can study it your whole life and at best you’ll come away with a list of opaque government agencies, longtime military and intelligence operatives, plutocrats, corporations, banks and financial institutions, war profiteers, think tanks, lobbying firms and NGOs with ties to different nations and governments around the world, but exactly who is responsible for what specific decisions behind each specific move of the empire will remain shrouded in mystery to you. It’s just a jumble of names and words with no useful application.
Westerners are fond of crowing about the freedom they have to criticize their president or prime minister in whatever way they want, saying that if you tried to criticize the leadership of one of the foreign regimes we are all trained to hate you would be thrown in jail for it.
And depending on the nation that may be true, but is it really “freedom” to be able to criticize an elected official who is nothing more than a figurehead? Sure, you can criticize the president all you want. You can stick googly eyes on a sock and criticize that all you want, too; it will make the same amount of difference. At least people who live under more overtly authoritarian governments know who rules over them and who’s calling the shots. In that sense, they have more freedom than us.
As an Australian I know live in a member state of the US-centralized empire which is functionally just a US military base with kangaroos, but I can’t see who’s making the actual decisions about how the empire will act, how capitalism will move, and whether my children will be conscripted into the military to fight some idiotic war with China provoked over Taiwan or the Solomon Islands. If I were Chinese I would know exactly who is ultimately responsible for making the important decisions about economics and foreign policy in my country, but as an Australian I don’t get to know those things.
The truth is westerners live in a giant empire loosely centralized around the United States whose operations they have literally no influence over, whose operators they’re not even allowed to know, and whose mechanisms are entirely hidden. If you call that freedom, I call you a fool.
We can see that the empire moves the same way on important matters regardless of who we elect by simple naked-eye observation of the empire’s behaviors from year to year. We can also see it in the fact that the official leader of the most powerful government on earth is obviously suffering from some kind of dementia and is clearly not the one calling the shots.
All this makes me wonder: at what point will foreign leaders begin demanding to speak to those who are calling the shots? At what point do Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping begin saying, “No, we’re not doing another fake phone call with America’s fake government. Put me in touch with the actual people who are responsible for the issues I am concerned about. Who is making the actual decisions on these specific matters? Let me talk to them. I demand to speak to your real government.”
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75 responses to “When Will Foreign Leaders Start Asking To Speak To America’s REAL Government?”
There is one small, Middle-Eastern country whose leaders trouble very little with our sock-puppet “leaders.” Indeed, for them, talking to our real government is very like simply talking among themselves.
“The issue which has swept down the centuries and which will have to be fought sooner or later is the people versus the banks.”
Lord Acton
The current ‘face’ of the power brokers is Blackrock and Vanguard. They issue all the instructions to 80% of the industries and companies in the US. They set the agenda. No CEO can go against them and retain his job or company or pension.
The bureaucracy are instructed by Barak via the DoJ. He sets the tone, speed and agenda for US government.
It used to be the State Department, Industry, commerce and banking when JFK became president.
Then it was the CIA and MIC, big oil and banking under Bush and with W Clinton as a front but they failed to secure Europe via Yugoslavia and colour revolutions, and completely messed up in the Middle East.
The insiders co-opted big oil, chemicals and banking with Obama as their face man and the DoJ (FBI) as their protector and hatchet-man.
H Clinton was chosen to take over and perpetuate the dynasty but ‘deplorably’ screwed it up.
Trump really thought that the President actually ran things, but 10 million government employees proved him wrong. When 2020 came along the election was so egregiously ‘fixed’ that a one eyed moron with cataracts could see how blatant the theft was handled. The DoJ covered for Clinton, screwed over Trump, covered for Hunter and Joe and then refused to investigate a single incident even when evidence was overwhelming, with the famous Hilary quote “After all this time, what difference does it make?”
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“Since I entered politics, I have chiefly had men’s views confided to me privately. Some of the biggest men in the United States, in the field of commerce and manufacture, are afraid of something. They know that there is a power somewhere so organised, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive, that they better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it.”
– Woodrow Wilson, 28th President of the United States (1856-1924)
“The real rulers in Washington are invisible and exercise power from behind the scenes.”
Felix Frankfurter (1882-1965), US Supreme Court Justice, (1939)
“So you see, my dear Coningsby, that the world is governed by very different personages from what is imagined by those who are not behind the scenes. “
– Benjamin Disraeli, British Prime Minister
(1804-1881)
“There is something behind the Throne greater than the King himself.”
Sir William Pitt (1708-78),
“The governments of the present day have to deal not merely with other governments, with emperors, kings and ministers, but also with the secret societies which have everywhere their unscrupulous agents, and can at the last moment upset all the governments’ plans.” —
British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, 1876
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt wrote in November 1933 to Col. Edward House: “The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the larger centres has owned the government since the days of Andrew Jackson.” It may be recalled that Andrew Jackson, US President from 1829-1837, was so enraged by the tactics of bankers (Rothschilds) that he said: “You are a den of vipers. I intend to rout you out and by the Eternal God I will rout you out. If the people only understood the rank injustice of our money and banking system, there would be a revolution before morning.”
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt
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The ‘war’ with Russia is not turning out as expected or hoped, as Russia is not going to strike the US mainland just yet, no matter what the provocation and NATO is going to fall to pieces when the cold weather starts killing Germans and French. The ‘war’ with China is on hold as China is not going to strike the US mainland just yet, no matter what the provocation.
Now the DoJ is fomenting a revolution with it’s attack on Trump with the intent to create a “right wing extremist militia” taking to the streets as did BLM and Antifa so that they have an excuse to cancel the Nov elections, which if held would have a hard time getting even a single Democrat returned no matter how much they fiddle the results.
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Me, I am going to just sit back and watch the fun.
Foreign threats are absolutely essential to domestic power structures in every culture nation, religion and gang. Minus a foreign threat most groups can not coalesce.
Some days I tire of having to explain, to those who blindly go through their days (usually complaining about everything from gasoline prices, to the cost of food, without realizing who is responsible for all of their gripes). They don’t want to believe that a relatively small group of billionaire sociopaths actually own and control everything, that they provoke the fighting between factions, in order to mask their own activities as they continue to use their money (and the power they gain from creating other lesser wealthy sociopaths to do their bidding. They own and run this country – and are joined by other, internationally, with the goal of eventually controlling the entire world.
As George Carlin once said, “They want more for them and nothing for you.” It’s a game to them and, unless we find away to take back the power from them, they win/we lose. All the talk we do here will mean nothing, if we continue to permit that money-based power to control everything from the political landscape to the not-so-supreme court, including state legislatures as well as federal. In return for playing the game with them, politicians receive a measure of power and income that, if it didn’t exist before, then turns them into lesser sociopaths and extreme liars.
Exactly correct, however that is a function of all alpha individuals even among other animals b esides humans, for example here is an alpha dog:
https://twitter.com/OdedRechavi/status/1556700426178859009
The point is not to consume everything, assuming that over consumption (greed) is the point actually MISSES THE POINT! (its part of the propoganda to suggest greed is the point, that way the vicims misidentify motivations so are helpless to counter them) The point is to deny otheres, to sadistcaly keep inferiors “in thier place”, to always act with entiltement by ensuring others have no title to anything. Greed does not explain the dog emptying the water bowl so other dogs get no water, greed as motivation would not act in total opposition to the majoroty as this dog does, you need to empower other people for greed so what we have is sadism which is much worse than greed, the point is not to consume but to prevent otheres from consumming.
Indeed, and this older article explains the problems we face with psycopathy better than most. The books cited in it are the best of the best on the subject.
https://dissidentvoice.org/2008/05/beware-the-psychopath-my-son/
Who call the shots in America? It is right in front of everyone. The best place to hide is exactly in plain sight.
I’ve also wondered who exactly is running the US asylum, having noticed it clearly isn’t the persons designated, and I also happen to be in the middle of the Putin/Stone interviews you mention and I think the main reason Russia is trouncing the US right now is that they have actual political leadership, fortunately for them very competent, while the US government on the other hand is de facto run by a substantially unstructured collection of mediocre sociopaths, essentially a mob, the poor collective performance of which is only to be expected, as their irrational, pathological behavior is not an act. I’m reasonably confident Putin won’t stumble into thermonuclear holocaust. I have no such confidence in whoever is in control of the US government.
I have been thinking the same thing. No one group is in control. We have become a nation influenced and controlled by lobbyist. America is run by corporations vying for power and profit. The defense industry sells guns, bullets planes etc., with no care of how they are used. They push congress with bribes and favors to purchase more. The pharmaceutical industry creates fake pandemics to use their useless products. Amid it all are psychopaths weaving between the power centers vying somehow to take control of it all.
The effective power vacuum in the eye of the shitstorm.
“… Russia is trouncing the US right now …”
Agree. When comes to war, I think American football comparisons often can and do hold up nicely.
I have us trailing 28 to nothing at the half. The Russian are mostly jammin’ the ball down our throats with the ground game. Nothing fancy. Just handing the ball off, ripping gaping holes in our line, and letting their hard hitting backs gain huge chunks of yardage with every carry.
On the other side of the ball, the US has been able to fool em with a couple of extra fancy trick plays, but other than that, every series has followed a similar pattern; it’s been sack, tackle for a loss, sack, and punt.
Our punter has been the one bright spot. Thank god and Glory be to our punter, and the announcer too, who keeps insisting that everything is fine, and the second half is sure to produce a miracle comeback.
I see Putin as a wishbone man that balances the running and passing games.
Actually no, he probably doesn’t know how to play football.
He’s well-versed in judo. Was pretty damn good. I guess it takes discipline & knowing how and when to stand ground.
Seems like the perfect thread to link this vid. The most instructive political interview of my lifetime. It’s all summed up by Bernie in three minutes, and in the horror that is written all over neo-liberal whiz kid Ezra Klein’s face.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vf-k6qOfXz0
You can see it in Ezra eyes, in his shocked smile (“Really? The Koch brothers?”), this man must be stopped, AT ALL COSTS!!!
Lmao … Yup, old feckless, MIC lovin’ Berlin, was easily the greatest threat to the established order of my lifetime, and I’m including JFK, as I was three when JFK was removed for the brief dalliance he had, with impure thoughts.
Bernie got out of it alive, but only because he never really attempted to force his way into the finals, or god forbid, straight into the Oval Office itself, chiefly by refusing to campaign in crunch time with we might call, ruthless vigor.
I don’t blame you for it Bernie. To die a martyr can be a beautiful thing, but to die a martyr for a concept that doesn’t exist, a theoretical notion of a nation-state often comically referred to as the United States of America, would’ve been pointless and stupid.
Berlin should read Bernie, obviously. A Freudian slip? I don’t know. If it was, it’s a weird one.
More likely it’s part of trend I’ve been noticing lately. My fingers type whatever suits their fancy, regardless of the input my brain is giving them.
They’ve become ten rebellious son-of-bitches, and I am going to need to oppress them, based on the Chinese communist party model, if I am ever to get any work done.
Note: Hey, opression works. 70,000 kilometers of high speed rail will be laid down in China before the US has single line going from Fresno to … somewhere. Still not clear on where that “proposed line” is going. Outer Fresno?
I can hear the echoes of George C. Scott.
“Mr. President, we must not allow, for a high speed gap!”
Because I believe the transmission of this information about Bernie Sanders to be extremely important in the lead-up to the 2024 election (maybe he’ll try for a leave-em-at-the-alter hat trick!), I am going to reprint an article that appeared the Information Clearing House in the spring of 2019. I agree 100% with what Chris Hedges says about Bernie Sanders — you can’t be a socialist and an imperialist at the same time.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51464.htm
What follows is the article.
Bernie Sanders and the Nuclear-capable F35s
By Renee Parsons
April 19, 2019
Fresh off what the MSM is celebrating as a surprise victory for a Bernie Town Hall on Fox News, lurking in the background is his inexplicable support over the years for basing the highly controversial F35 at the Burlington International Airport. We now know, thanks to a conscientious citizen who bothered to read the fine print, that those F35’s will be nuclear-capable and of immense explosive power.
In September, as the fall colors begin to change in Vermont, City of Burlington residents may not be in the streets waving American flags as eighteen F35 Lightening II radar-evading stealth fighter jets land at the Burlington Airport. As part of a Pentagon plan to deploy 2,500 jets nationwide, the F35’s will join the 158th Fighter Wing, a unit of the Vermont Air National Guard, affectionately known as the Green Mountain Boys as its aging F-16 jets are replaced.
Not just known for its foliage, cheese and maple syrup, Vermont is also host to an active aerospace industry which already supplies 2,000 jobs. The jet’s bay door and GAU-22 gun system will both be produced in Vermont. With the Air Force spending $84 million per jet from Lockheed Martin, the DOD will spend $100 Million for infrastructure improvement and a new training center at Burlington where they will share one runway with commercial air traffic.
Basing more than a dozen F35’s in Burlington will bring a totally new generation of aircraft to Vermont as new high tech jets, not yet fully mature with all of its kinks and safety issues worked out, normally experience more accidents and ‘incidents’ in a shake down – and the F35 has had more than its share.
The F35 was commissioned by the Pentagon in 1995 at a cost of $1.5 Trillion, becoming the most expensive weapon system in US history as well as providing significant technical challenges including a “catastrophic engine failure” with total damage estimated at $50 million, a “life threatening ejection seat malfunction” and a crash in South Carolina due to a faulty fuel tube. The new controversial bomber jet fighter planes will be located in a dense area surrounded by public schools, a college and residential neighborhoods.
While the seven year debate over the F35 has been an intense round of public hearings and debates and public meetings, at least one lawsuit, and three of the most affected communities all formally opposing the F35 and even a successful anti F35 voter referendum which was adopted by the public, the state’s elected political leadership chose to ignore the outcome.
But it wasn’t until retired Air Force Col. Rosanne Greco was reading through a 68,000 heavily redacted Air Force document related to the lawsuit that she discovered vague references about the F35 carrying nuclear bombs.
Researching further, Greco who has thirty years of intelligence experience with the highest security clearances, is a specialized expert in nuclear weapons and arms control and a member of the US START delegation, confirmed the stunning news that the F35 was designed from the outset and had always been intended to carry a nuclear payload as it was to become an integral part of the US nuclear strategy.
Throughout all the furor, the Air Force never informed Vermont residents that the F35 was designed as a dual-capable plane; that is, able to deliver either a conventional weapon or a nuclear weapon or that its new guided nuclear bomb, the B61-12 was being specially designed to fit into the F35’s bay.
As if that belated information were not reason enough for the entire State of Vermont to be explosively irate at being lied to by the Pentagon, the state’s elected political leadership has yet to feel the full wrath of a citizenry that has only just begun to realize the consequences of being consistently lied to by its favorite sons. During the entire seven year campaign, both Senators Bernie Sanders and Patrick Leahy refused to meet with citizens who opposed the F35. In a short, pithy joint statement in 2016, the state’s entire Congressional delegation echoed their support for the F35 being based in Vermont.
And the B61 is one hell of a bomb – its range can be adjusted from .03 kilotons up to 50 kilotons. The bomb that killed 150,000 people in Hiroshima was a 15 kiloton bomb. Greco makes the point that the Green Mountain Boys could now directly initiate on their own ala Dr. Strangelove or participate in a nuclear war as ordered by the President. In addition, Vermont now becomes a central target in any potential conflagration since it is the delivery system that is the target. With no aircraft to carry them, bombs per se are not the target. The Burlington International Airport will now become Ground Zero.
When Greco’s revelations regarding the jets nuclear capability became public, Sanders and Leahy were unwavering in their denials and refutations which have been in direct contradiction with Air Force and DOD statements in the public record.
“Consequently the United States will maintain and enhance as necessary, the capability to forward-deploy nuclear bombers…around the world. We are committed to upgrading the DCA with the nuclear-capable F35 aircraft.”
Department of Defense, 2018 Nuclear Posture Review, Chapter VII, “Current and Future US Nuclear Capabilities, page 54
Further, the MIC boasts of a nuclear loaded F35 for its “ combination of accuracy and low-yield make the B61-12 the most usable nuclear bomb in America’s arsenal. This makes using nuclear weapons thinkable for the first time since the 1940s” as if that is a good thing! Further military assessments suggest “Yet the most dangerous nuclear bomb in American’s arsenal may be the new B61-12.” And that “What makes the B61-12 bomb the most dangerous nuclear weapon in American’s arsenal is it usability. “
State political leaders have been so supportive that former Governor Peter Shumlin traveled to Eglin Air Force Base in Florida came away declaring that “Listening has been a real eye opener. It is surprising how quiet the F35 is.” Noise abatement is a major issue since the F35 is four times louder than the F16’s being replaced and required the destruction of 200 homes identified
as being within the zone that exceeded acceptable decibel level. How nearby public school students or at the nearby college will be expected to learn and concentrate in an environment unfit for residential habitation remains to be seen.
During a 2016 campaign debate in which F35 supporters cited the local Air Guard’s efforts after the 911 attack, Burlington Mayor Milo Weinberger, another politically elite F35 supporter responded that “They flew over an area already devastated by a terrorist action. I don’t believe they stopped a single thing from happening.” Without meaning to, his comments raise a valid question about why the Pentagon funds local Air National Guard unit other than as a glorified jobs program.
In justifying his support in 2016, Sanders said it was not the plane but the jobs and economic advantage of the F35 that he supports. “In the real world, if the plane is built … and if the choice is if that goes to Vermont … South Carolina or Florida. What is your choice as a United States Senator?” he asked. “And that’s what the Vermont National Guard wants, and that means hundreds of jobs in my city. That’s it.”
Sanders claim that the project will add 1,100 new jobs to the Airport is fraudulent, according to Greco who says that with departure of the F16s’, there will be a one for one swap with the previous F16 employees being trained on the F35s.
The question is when did Bernie and the doddering Sen. Leahy, who apparently was the prime mover and shaker to bring the F35 to Vermont, discover that the F35 would be nuclear capable? Greco says that public records shows that after Vermont was initially explored and dismissed by the Air Force as being an unsuitable location with South Carolina being the preferred location, Leahy personally intervened to bring the F35 to Vermont.
It is inconceivable that the Air Force would keep that level of pertinent information secret from two US Senators who had become its reliably pro- F35 allies while they opposed and deceived the best interests of their own constituents .
” … maybe he’ll try for a leave-em-at-the-alter hat trick!”
Lmao … Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me, but fool me three times, and please line me up against wall and execute my sorry ass.
Thanks for the link.
When I used to get into arguments with my fellow citizens of the right wing persuasion, and the commie menace Bernie would be brought into the conservation, I would always ask, “Are you talkin’ bout Senator MIC Sanders?”
Not only did that confuse them, but it put the scare into them a little bit I think. MIC? What’s that? It sounds ominous.
The US has a war-based economy. George Kennan spelled it just a few years before the USSR ended.
“Were the Soviet Union to sink tomorrow under the waters of the ocean, the American military-industrial establishment would have to go on, substantially unchanged, until some other adversary could be invented. Anything else would be an unacceptable shock to the American economy.”
Let what Kennan said sink in.
It means that Russia was ASSIGNED the role of “enemy” literally the day that the USSR ended and that literally nothing that Russia can say or do will release it from that assignment.
It means that World Peace is today much more of a threat to the US’s war-based economy than perpetual wars!
It explains exactly why US government VIPs say what they say about the necessity of sending weapons to Ukraine to defeat Russia.
It explains exactly why Zelensky can not, and will not, be allowed to negotiate a peaceful settlement with Russia.
It explains exactly why Minsk II could not be followed by Poroshenko or Zelensky, and exactly why none of the signatories to that agreement (and the UN resolution making it international law) could force “Ukraine” to fulfill its commitment to that law.
It explains exactly why law, international or otherwise, no longer matters to “the US” (the microscopic percentage of the US population that actually IS “the US”)…………. because following the law may lead to peace!
To boil it all down, Russia making ANY arrangement with the US and its ass-licking vassals that results in a peaceful world WILL. NOT. BE. ALLOWED because a peaceful world would be “an unacceptable shock to the US economy”.
Why do the US vassals’ “leaders” go along with all of this? They go along with it because of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 and the Fed’s bail-outs of the domestic and foreign TBTF banks and their Elite owners. That Act and that Act alone kept the fatally-flawed “present arrangement” on life support. That Act created a legalized “coordination between financial authorities” and central banks of the world which results in a sort of “circle jerk” in which a group of central banks purchase EACH OTHER’S government bonds (and stocks in certain TBTF transnational corporations) with a literally infinite amount of printed-out-of-thin-air money (AKA money created by fiat) in order to keep the present arrangement going. What exactly is “the present arrangement”?
It would be politically impossible for the US to collect enough tax money or sell enough assets to provide the necessary funds – say between $1 trillion and $1.5 trillion annually — to fund the vitally necessary US’s war/military-base spending “up front”, not for just one year, but every year from here to literally eternity. Therefore, the US government must sell bonds – to “borrow” money from “investors” — in order to, again, finance the government’s spending on the soldiers, mercenaries, wars, MIC jobs, weapons systems and foreign bases that it, again, cannot afford up front, from here to eternity.
Investors must invest the USD they hold in something. In this case, investors buy US treasuries with USD and, by so doing, invest in US war-making – an investment that investors hope will end up generating a profit on the stocks in war corporations (Lockheed, etc.) that those same bond-investors are also heavily buying/investing in.
Again, investors lend money to the US government by buying low-interest bonds of whatever maturity period. There is not that much profit there. But by so doing, “the US government” then has the money to continue its perpetual wars, perpetual weapon-systems purchases, etc. and, therefore, stocks in war corporations increase in value as more and more buyers/investors bid-up / compete-for those irresistibly profitable shares! The war corporations’ share-price increases are where the really big money-profit is. A lot of congresspeople over many decades have made a lot of money by investing in the wars they create.
Again, military bases outside the US are also funded by the US government’s borrowed money. That funding pays for those foreign bases’ weapon systems, US soldiers’ salaries, benefits, off-base housing, local employees, food, gasoline, other consumables, infrastructure provided by US manufacturers, maintenance, etc. The local (foreign) communities that “host” those US bases become economically dependent upon those bases’ continuing presence, from here to eternity. For example, what happened when the Donito Assholeini said he was going to reduce NATO’s presence in Germany?
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/7/19/german-states-appeal-to-us-congress-not-to-withdraw-troops
The totality of what we see going on before our eyes today is as simple as the above. Nobody, certainly not investors, foreign or domestic, wants the US government to stop borrowing and spending the way it does today; they want that to go on, again, from here to eternity. From the point of view of this whatever-you-want-to-call-it system’s beneficiaries, there’s too much at stake to allow “it” (ultimately, the US’s perpetual wars) to stop. In other words, perpetual war itself is Too Big To Fail.
OTOH, from the point of view of the victims of perpetual US aggression, “This” Must Fail!, or the victims will inevitably flee their destroyed homes and economies to live in, ironically, those of their oppressors. Do the Ukrainians fleeing Ukraine for EU countries, the UK, the US, Australia and “Canada” realize that they are the inevitable collateral damage of US-treasury-bond-investor profit-taking?
You know what’s ironic? Humanity is now funding / investing in (demanding!) an escalating, growing-like-a-cancer vicious cycle that is, as if by the action of an “invisible hand” (of infallible, insatiable greed; infallible, insatiable profit-motive), inevitably going to lead to its own nuclear extinction! If this situation is not the ultimate, tragic irony, I do not know what else could be.
As long as the tens of millions of US voters directly or indirectly employed by war corporations continue to vote for more and more severe warmongers in order to protect their jobs
https://www.pressherald.com/2021/03/30/bath-shipyard-looks-for-a-new-shipbuilding-contract-while-awaiting-the-navys-next-ship/
rather than vote for peaceniks; and small-to-central-bank-sized financial entities CONTINUE to buy US treasuries in perpetuity — again, lending money to the US so that the US will CONTINUE to do what it’s doing around the world — what future is possible for humanity other than all-out nuclear war?
By hook or by crook or by bombs landing on Main Street, USA, or by divine intervention, US voters must somehow be made to vote for peaceniks, even though their doing so might cost them their jobs; and investors must somehow be made to stop buying US treasuries, even though their doing so might deprive them of a great deal of money-profit.
Which is the more powerful human instinct – ancient animal greed or the evolved intelligence to recognize that unfettered greed is the number 1 to threat to human survival? We are about to find out.
Ishkabibble summarizes well what has been happening post WWII, hopefully more will understand and resist
Whether you directly said it or simply implied it in that long exposition of facts and observations is that the only way to “stop the merry-go-round and get off,” the only way to break this chain of madness is to blow it all up and start from scratch. And, the only way to do that, under these circumstances, is to trigger nuclear Armageddon, destroying every vestige of the present madness. The alternative for either everyone to stand down and start cooperating for the greater good, or for everyone to surrender to one chosen winner which assumes control and responsibility for everything is simply unthinkable. Not that it’s undoable, but unthinkable to human minds that act mainly out of the drive to dominate rather than organise, cooperate and survive. Only after thorough scorched earth destruction in total warfare between expansive nation states, which essentially wipe the slate clean, does reorganisation, cooperation and rebuilding even get a start. The thousands of such wars in our species’ history seems to be saying that it can’t happen any other way.
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I suppose all that’s inevitable in a universe where the ultimate natural laws governing the life process are to maximize one’s input of dG (free energy) in order to minimize one’s dS (entropy) with such mechanisms unendingly being optimized for intense competition through the filter of natural selection, otherwise called survival of the fittest.
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Or, maybe someone (outside of this existence) just presses a re-set button if, as many posit, if this is all just a simulation of “reality,” like a really sophisticated video game.
Love it! You couldn’t stop people from playing if you tried…since the beginning of time…gonna play flag, mission, sports, adornments…players gonna play. Trying to stop the insanity or getting bothered by trying to fix it is a lost cause…you can’t care more than those with you…in any situation…like breaking big rocks into little rocks. You don’t have to be nihilistic but don’t be an NPC and just take it…see the game board, get up on the hill and see the absurdity and the beauty of it all. Only the sanest of us realize the winning move is not to play. I’m rather enjoying the absurd show…the pain is the learning…no way forward but through.
I think America has plenty of special interests, but absolutely no leadership.
A headless horseman, with brainless cowboying – that’s US foreign policy.
Combine this image with terrible US education system that mostly is focused on empowering the MIC, and the increase of the intelligence personnel in the government in the last 20 years, and you know we are living in a nuclear swamp.
The “One China Policy” was used by the United States to gain favorable trading relations with the PRC. That is deplorable. The United States used Taiwan as a bargaining chip.
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Then the United States back-tracked with the “Taiwan Relations Act” (TRA) in which it was stated that any hostile attempt by any power to interfere with Taiwan’s sovereignty would be seen as something of grave concern to the United States.
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I mean seriously, the U.S. agreed with China that Taiwan was part of China to gain preferential trading status with China, and then behind closed doors, the U.S. passes another law stating that it will protect Taiwan against hostile aggression.
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Seems to me, that was almost guaranteeing war.
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Taiwan should be recognized as a sovereign nation period. As far as “The One China Policy,” China should take the United States to world court and demand compensation for creating an agreement with them, while never intending to fulfill the terms of the agreement.
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https://www.csis.org/analysis/what-us-one-china-policy-and-why-does-it-matter
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“A1: When the United States moved to recognize the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and de-recognize the Republic of China (ROC) in 1979, the United States stated that the government of the People’s Republic of China was “the sole legal Government of China.” Sole, meaning the PRC was and is the only China, with no consideration of the ROC as a separate sovereign entity.
The United States did not, however, give in to Chinese demands that it recognize Chinese sovereignty over Taiwan (which is the name preferred by the United States since it opted to de-recognize the ROC). Instead, Washington acknowledged the Chinese position that Taiwan was part of China. For geopolitical reasons, both the United States and the PRC were willing to go forward with diplomatic recognition despite their differences on this matter. When China attempted to change the Chinese text from the original acknowledge to recognize, Deputy Secretary of State Warren Christopher told a Senate hearing questioner, “[W]e regard the English text as being the binding text. We regard the word ‘acknowledge’ as being the word that is determinative for the U.S.” In the August 17, 1982, U.S.-China Communique, the United States went one step further, stating that it had no intention of pursuing a policy of “two Chinas” or “one China, one Taiwan.””
…
“What is the Taiwan Relations Act, and what role does it play in U.S. policy toward Taiwan?
A3: After the Jimmy Carter administration recognized the PRC, Congress passed the Taiwan Relations Act in 1979 to protect the significant U.S. security and commercial interest in Taiwan. The TRA provided a framework for continued relations in the absence of official diplomatic ties. It also set out U.S. commitments regarding Taiwan’s security and empowered Congress to oversee various aspects of U.S. Taiwan policy. The law required that the president inform Congress promptly of any anticipated danger to Taiwan and consult with Congress to devise an appropriate response. The TRA also authorized the continuation of commercial, cultural, and other relations between the people of the United States and the people on Taiwan. Each subsequent Congress has reaffirmed the TRA to ensure that the absence of diplomatic ties does not negatively affect the continued strong, substantive relationship enjoyed by the United States and Taiwan.
The TRA sets forth the American Institute in Taiwan as the corporate entity dealing with U.S. relations with the island; makes clear that the U.S. decision to establish diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China rests upon the expectation that the future of Taiwan will be determined by peaceful means; considers any effort to determine the future of Taiwan by other than peaceful means, including by boycotts or embargoes, a threat to the peace and security of the Western Pacific area and of grave concern to the United States; mandates that the United States make available defensive arms to Taiwan; and requires that the United States maintain the capacity to resist any resort to force or other forms of coercion that would jeopardize the security, or the social or economic system, of the people on Taiwan.
The TRA also reaffirms unequivocally that the preservation and enhancement of the human rights of all the people on Taiwan are objectives of the United States. The TRA gives the United States the legal means to continue relations with Taiwan in economic, cultural, and security dimensions. In lieu of official exchanges, all programs, transactions, and relations are conducted and carried out by a nonprofit corporation under contract of the State Department—the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT). AIT and its counterpart, the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office (TECRO), handle interactions between Taiwan and the United States. Together, these two private organizations carry out the unofficial relationship between the United States and Taiwan, but neither operates in an official capacity as an embassy.”
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These two agreements are in direct opposition to each other. I guess ”The One China Policy” agreement was made at a time when the United States thought China represented no economic or military threat to the United States, so that the United States could make any agreement it wanted without fear of being held to that agreement.
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This is insane, the Taiwanese people were not even considered here; they were just bargaining chips.
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This is a mess.
On the contrary, this is very simple: the US has no more business messing with Taiwan to defend “freedom and democracy” than it had for 20 years defending “freedom and democracy” in Afghanistan and the Middle East and now supporting nazis in Ukraine. This is all US imperialist, neo-colonialist, hegemonic – whichever you want to call it – calculations.
Do you think the millions who were killed, maimed and/or displaced there were considered?
If you still believe in the “good guys” (TM) propaganda in 2022 after 21 years of wars that were not even declared and approved by Congress and stole resources in the open like the Iraq and Syria oil in acts of pure piracy, you are very naïve – to put it mildly.
I don’t think there were any good guys left in America after the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
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Just because America behaved badly doesn’t give China license to behave badly. If that is accepted, the abuse will go on and on and on, with no end in sight.
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The one statesman in the U.S. that I consider a leader is Robert F. Kennedy Jr., but I doubt that he will ever be allowed to get within a hundred miles of the White House.
I am plenty aware of the corruption that the United States has visited on the world. I also know that there are still some good people in the United States waiting in the wings for the opportunity to take the helm away from the globalists.
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Your problem is that you see the United States as this monolith where all the people of the United States are corrupt including those that are working with every ounce of energy in their being to turn America around.
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All you can say is that there are corrupt people in the United States that managed to commandeer those gears and levers of government and subvert them to their will for the last 22 years which has led to millions of deaths.
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The bigger problem facing the world right now is not the United States, but the World Economic Forum and the Global Public Private Partnership; Government and Corporations working hand in glove to dominant the world. Xi Jinping is a member of this globalist organization, as is Emmanuel Macron, Justin Trudeau, Angela Merkel, Xi Jinping, and many others.
You forgot Vladimir Putin. He too was part of “the system.”
For whatever reasons – external pressures, rebellious natures, a suddent onset of late stage patriotism, numerous others and combinations thereof – Xi and Putin have gone off script.
Again, I will point out, the status of Taiwan is irrelevant. What’s playing out now on the global stage has nothing to do with Taiwan or the Ukraine.
What we are witnessing, is the concept of the nation-state vs the most twisted and perverted version of the Star Trek ideal imaginable.
And this long time Trekkie enthusiast can only say, it’s about goddamn time.
So thanks Vlad and Xi, you all powerful, and internally unopposed twosome!
It’s kinda like the West is the Ferengi, the Russians are the Klingons, and the Chinese are the Romulans. And the United Federation of Planets is no more.
The requirements of Realpolitik are sociopathic and those who play the game must follow the sociopathy of which in consists.
What is wrong with anyone from America traveling to Taiwan or South Korean?
*Depends entirely on how welcome they are to the locals or by the government claiming sovereignty over them. There is no universal right to go anywhere you please on this planet. Just a fact beyond good or evil.
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If Xi Jinping were to travel to Taiwan or South Korea, would there be a similar uproar?
*Depends on the place and whether he was told to keep out or invited in. Assuming the present attitudes, there would be plenty of uproar.
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Or is it because that these countries already recognize that China will be the next economic juggernaut of the world and they do not now want to offend.
*Like any social interaction, how things go are certainly influenced by whatever power differential precedes the attempt.
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…does that mean that the United States is now prohibited from traveling abroad?
*Not per se, of course. The US makes its own bed without approval or agreement and is often surprised when it is not universally embraced by the “host” and/or victim.
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China is wrong, Taiwan wasn’t always a part of China.
*The 250 yrs is the longest interval cited. The 50 yr occupation was by Japan was not legitimate and was not by the native Han Chinese but a very different group of ethnic overlords. The contest between the ROC and PRC was unending since the civil war commenced. The PRC never conceded a “win” or “victory” to Chung Kai-sheks crew over the matter of sovereignty. Moreover, by mutual agreement decided by the two factions, and witnessed by the US as a signatory to the treaty, the “One China” policy (the present final stage of affairs) was made formal during the Jimmy Carter administration. Only the United States insists upon a plenary right to renege upon the terms of any signed treaty, which is one reason why we are so popular around the entire world. The US has repeatedly signaled to the world that its word is no good, what kind of reception to that would you expect?
This was intended as a reply to Timothy Michel’s series of questions found below. Don’t know why the program entered them here instead of there.
It is an affront to China to visit Taiwan and not pass it through tge CCP. All such visits of sovereign land follow those protocals. It doesnt matter what you think, it is what they see as an insult. The US knows full well the insult they delivered.
I have reviewed the “One China Policy” agreement and I can only imagine that the United States made that agreement without ever believing it would be bound to that agreement.
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This was a terrible agreement because it did not consider the Taiwanese people.
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The Han Chinese were not the original people from 3000 B.C.E. until 1650, when the Dutch and Spanish took possession of the island. The Han came later after the Qing kicked the Dutch and the Spanish out. So you could say that the Chinese occupation of Taiwan was not legitimate either, nor was the ROC occupation legitimate. There must be some native Taiwan people still in existence that feel that their rights have been trampled on throughout history..
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As I said above, this is a tragic mess. We need lots of little countries for diversity sake, because diverse systems are more stable than monolithic systems.
Yes, there are the native Formosans whom I have mentioned elsewhere, but, as I said, they are presently a small minority, not the majority or rulers of the island by any means. As several others here keep telling you, it is the present populations that must be given their due. That’s why it usually takes a bloody revolution to so severely reshuffle the social order. China has been through that enough. “One country, two systems,” was supposed to mitigate that, but then Western NGO’s had to stick their snoots into Hong Kong and now Taiwan. The Ukies will not be applauded by future generations for attempting the same thing.
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How far back must one go in establishing land ownership and the prerogatives of rule or governance? We KNOW that ALL European peoples throughout the entire “new world” (the Americas) are necessarily immigrants, or the descendants of immigrants.
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Even though we KNOW that the Native Americans (i.e., First Peoples) are the only ones who could possibly stake a first claim on the entire land mass, would we, could we or should we ever “give it all back” to them and exile ourselves to whatever or how many other countries from which sprang our DNA? The problem becomes intractable, totally unrealistic and only dysfunctional if any major “social justice” kajiggering is even attempted. That’s why the demands for reparations to “blacks” for slavery without doing the impossible (ascertaining everyone’s entire ethnic composition based upon, not only their complete DNA analysis, but their entire lineage of personal histories to factually prove hypothetical exploitation (by both the exploited and the purported exploiters) is such an impossible and unjust fool’s errand. No one in my family ever owned slaves in America (maybe they did in Europe when some were marauding Vikings a thousand years ago, but those were probably captured white serfs, not black Africans). None of Barack Obama’s ancestors were ever slaves in America . Yet he would get reparations and I would have to pay him and his progeny under the proposed reparations bill in the state of California (where I thankfully do not live) where everyone black gets paid and everyone else (even the Mexicans and Asians) get billed. See how crazy and unfair the zealous crusade for social justice becomes?
So one has to earn their reparations money? There should be an ability to document your suffering in other words. Nobody wants to be bogged down in all that paperwork mess. Obama would be eligible for reparations because his ancestors’s friends, family, community was probably negatively impacted by stories of white men who will kidnap you and take you off to far away lands and be worked and beat to death. One can imagine the terror, trauma and PTSD that developed and was passed down from generation to generation. He would be eligible for reparations because it’s hard as hell being black to start with because we are still seeing the effects of slavery playing out today. The absent black father is an example of these effects. Because white slave owners abused black bodies and regarded them as commodities this devalued black people. Slave owners broke up families when they sold ppl into slavery. The black family is non-existent because white slave owners planted this idea in the American collective consciousness and this idea and attitude is passed down the family trees.
“Earn?” Absolutely no one pro or con is speaking in those terms. It’s more a matter of “qualifying” and even that is a guaranteed exercise in hypocrisy and futility as I abundantly made clear.
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You just want to replace one set of privileged characters with another. Moreover, it is totally absurd how you wish to reward some who, hypothetically disadvantaged by their race in your set of assumptions, still managed to rise to the top of this “evil, racist, white society” while others, presumably blessed by their race or color, somehow got dealt a poor hand of cards by fate and languished near the bottom of the pecking order no matter how hard they tried. If your priority is to “keep things simple” and simply reward blacks and penalize whites, you’d better tell us how “blacks” and non-blacks will be recognized without doing extensive genetic and genealogical tests. If the wokists can make defining a “woman” an exercise in delusional thinking, just try to objectively define a “black,” especially if there are dollar bill rewards at the end of that rainbow. There is no “just” way to manufacture “social justice” which is mostly in the eye of the beholder.
A strong President could clean house, fire the top brass at the Pentagon, CIA and FBI, and begin to take some control of foreign policy. Unfortunately, to even attempt to legislate out big cash would require a veto proof majority in the Senate, which is unlikely. It’s also unlikely that a Presidential candidate with that agenda would survive the nomination process. The old ones seem cognitively degraded, but when younger were hawks. The youngs serve the same word salad to please big cash. There is no secret government, it’s a system cleverly designed by the founding aristocrats to serve themselves and improved upon to serve big cash.
Yea, how did that work out for JFK.
We don’t have access to the real decision makers or even the masks they must wear when interacting with others. Just a puppet show performed by an endless stream of expendables. Difficult for journalism to not retreat into the absurd in absence of straightforward exposure to power. We basically need Assange now to ask the relevant Russians and Chinese useful questions. It’s bleak.
Does no one else read the Global Times? This looks like the biggest story today, but no one has commented yet.
https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202208/1272446.shtml
That represents quite a commitment of money and resources. Perhaps they are implying that they do not think it will take long to effect the outcome they desire? This in turn may reflect the seriousness in which they (do not) hold Washington’s promise to “defend” the island and wrest sovereignty of it from China. This is certainly considered worth the bet by the PRC, but what’s the payoff that makes it worthwhile for America? Betting a fortune in money, power and influence that it no longer has and cannot afford to erode further? Washington is acting like an alcholic addicted to gambling on a weekend bender in Las Vegas. China holds all the good cards because the foolish USA does not realise that China IS THE HOUSE in this game. The game is Contract Bridge but stumble bum Washington always assumes it is the children’s game of “war.”
Trump is so popular with his band of malcontents because he has convinced them that he does fight and that he is winning the war against the bureaucracy that they intuitively know controls the government. His adherents are correct about one thing, the bureaucracy is in charge. Of all Trump’s lies, his fighting and winning are probably his biggest and most effective in consolidating his personal power base.
Sorry, but the robot will not let me answer you. It repeatedly disappears my response. I suspect it does not want any more analyses of the Trump phenomenon. Whatever is at odds with the prevalent media version of the “truth” is probably considered “disinformation” rather than personal opinion.
In an interview last week, economist Michael Hudson, who can’t be suspected of fascism, redefined two concepts generally overlooked as custom discourages reflection: globalism and autocracy.
“Globalism”, according to him, is nothing else than rebranded imperialism/colonialism. Indeed, the NWO is a Mammon-led core-blob dictating self-asphyxiating policies based on debt-slavery and guaranteeing more debt-slavery – according to the principle that the less you can pay… the more you pay, which is the definition of credit – to vassal states of the First World and Third World unpeople.
Nothing to do with the nanny world government (“you’ll own nothing and you’ll be happy”) that the WEF is pushing on the sheeple. And it’s certainly not communism as the right would have people believe. It’s the ultimate logic of capitalism instead summed up in John D. Rockefeller’s statement: “I hate competition”. So he bought all he could, including politicians, to have laws passed guaranteeing him various monopolies – like in medicine, which gave us Big Pharma. Even the Standard Oil split – always quoted as the greatest achievement of the anti-trust laws – profited him.
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/chart-evolution-standard-oil/#:~
Excerpt: “By the time the Standard Oil was broken up in 1911, its market share had eroded to 64%, and there were at least 147 refining companies competing with it in the United States. Meanwhile, John D. Rockefeller had left the company, yet the value of his stock doubled as a result of the split. This made him the world’s richest person at the time”.
“Autocracy”: the conversation was about Russia and China with Putin and Xi being accused by the “democratic” West (i.e. run by Mammon through the puppets it gets elected by funding their campaigns, including and especially in the media, and eliminating the opposition one way or the other – think JFK) of being autocrats. However, said Hudson, in this case, autocracy prevents the rise of oligarchies which are never beneficial to the people since they only care for their own profits.
It does shed a different light on why the West doesn’t like autocrats. At least these two alleged (considering that Putin is democratically elected) autocrats because we’ve sure seen it support a whole slew of autocrats throughout history as long as they shilled for it.
The WEF-trained “global leaders” are de facto, once we take off the newspeak shell, colonialists led by Mammon through an oligarchy of “intellectual elite” (whatever that means beyond sold out media barons) and “world bankers” as David Rockefeller promised in 1991 to his Bilderberg pals: “We are grateful to the Washington Post, the New York Times, Time Magazine and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected their promises of discretion for almost forty years… It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subjected to the lights of publicity during those years. But the world is more sophisticated now and prepared to march towards a world government. The super-national sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national auto-determination practiced in past centuries.”
” … eliminating the opposition one way or the other – think JFK.”
Lmao … Exactly.
I love this interview. Chuck Schumer telling Rachel Maddow the reality of situation inside the Beltway.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hS1Lice2A0
“Fuck with the wrong people in this town Rachel and you’ll be sleepin’ with the fishes!”
And the best part is, Chuck and Rachel agree, this constant overhanging threat of termination, is a fantastic thing, otherwise politicians – and their kept media – might have to get off their lazy asses and do some work on behalf of a nation-state state they are theoretically a part of.
Western hypocrisy is so grotesque to truth tellers because it’s so absurd and because, until people see it like that, the people will continue to provide the energy that powers the beast.
Just watched the Barkley Marathons documentary and wife commented that the guy who broke the record has a screw loose…he’s not right in the head. I said exactly…mechanistic, detached, brutally focused people run the world…why wouldn’t they? The masses are so overmatched. You think Barkley Marathons guy could have any compassion\empathy for the ridiculous absurd human masses…they make no sense to him. Run the Barkley…what’s so hard about it?
Wife is a sweet Tao of Pooh…highest priority is to be nice. I’m mechanistic systems oriented…been unwiring emotional biological feelings that get in the way for so long now…what’s so hard about it? What’s taking you so long?
We come from nothing\everything and fade to the same. Sit with that idea and filter everything through it. What’s still worth doing? There is plenty…don’t cry about it…get up and let’s go!
Humans will never be strong enough to handle it…all the illusions will continue…the puppet masters have all the tech and data now…the biological impulse driven masses are no match…they will be rolled up.
Everywhere I go…I see how the puppet masters see them…all their absurd illusions…waving flags, bibles, products, indulgences…can’t stop…won’t stop.
I want to be for the masses. I’m not for the masters, but most of all I am for truth. If the masses don’t keep seeking the truth as highest priority, to themselves and to others…oh well…can’t say they weren’t warned.
Another very dire posting from you Caitlin. Please, if you haven’t, find a book by one author by the name Jim Marrs the title of which is ‘Rule by Secrecy’. Once you have done that you will realize that there are no governments anywhere in the world but very powerful and canny secret society formations who are in charge of world affairs. Nothing is beyond their grip including bodies like the UN. For instance, the land upon which the UN HQ’s are built was donated by the Rockefellers. These shadowy controllers are the ones who will decide whether WWIII takes place or not. .
If you ever wondered what happens when intelligence agencies, central banks and mega corporations run your country, just take a look around you. ~ Michael Krieger
Total opacity is the goal. That’s why they would love to end the charade and “come clean” by dissolving the whole nation-state paradigm once and for all. No more citizenship, no more constitutional and environmental protections, just capital running roughshod over the entire planet with impunity.
The best argument for “these lines and borders” is that nation-states keep financial power decentralized. Every sovereign nation that issues its own currency has the ability to address geographical and cultural problems with more speed and efficiency than a remote, unelected global bureaucracy even slower to move into action, if at all. Governments are the only way we fight to keep anything public alive. Otherwise, the mega-corporations would divide us into charter cities and regions with their own versions of a constitution and (kangaroo) court law.
The New World Order Is Ruled By Global Corporations And Megacities—Not Countries
As cities and companies gain in influence and the power of nation-states decreases, the world is undergoing a seismic transformation.
https://www.fastcompany.com/3059005/the-new-world-order-is-ruled-by-global-corporations-and-megacities-not-countries
After living some 30 years in the US – when I emigrated I said I would never again set foot in the US, that the US was turning into a police state (under Dubya Bush). What an understatement.
The ones actually driving the USA are the Pentagon. A strange building full of men who sit around conspiring to make war, identify threats and neutralize them. On their downtime they justify cruel military operations that destroy the earth, people, animals and environment in the interest of promoting power, influence and ultimately capitalism.
Australia “… is functionally just a US military base with kangaroos …”
Lmao … Got me again. I think that puts you double digits at this point, which means you are moving into Don DeLillo/Joseph Heller territory. Impressive.
A brilliant piece. Thanks for it.
Brings up the two most important questions I felt I needed to answer as I entered my stretch run, is anyone in charge of this joint, and what the fuck does freedom mean?
The first one I’ve answered. If we define joint as the United States of America, then the answer is clearly no. You cannot be in charge of something that does not exist.
As for the planet as whole, is there force or a power center that could positively shape the destiny of our species? Outside of Emperor Xi and his band of merry pranksters witin the 100 million strong Communist Party of Competing Interests, I can’t think of anyone.
– On the negative side, yeah, there are some people who are charge some important shit. Hi Klause!. Hello Bill! Whatcha up to, Bilderberger Group? –
And second one, regarding freedom, I can only say I’m going to continue my vitual tours of China, via ex-pat vloggers and local walkers, because I feel like in the 5 and half months I’ve been at it, I’ve learned more about the concept of freedom than I have in my entire life before that.
Will I ever arrive at an answer? I doubt it. It looks like the concept of freedom will turn out to be, the one that got away.
Great piece. It’s always struck me that, when it comes to foreign policy, the NYT and FOX News basically read off the same teleprompter…it’s almost as if all the pandering that happens in the ideological branding of these media entities in domestic politics is really just a psychological operation to build trust with 1/2 of the American people…so that when the real fighting starts overseas, 1/2 of the American people believe what the NYT says, and 1/2 believe what FOX says…and of course the rule is, both media outlets are saying the substantially same thing…
Nicely put.
What is wrong with anyone from America traveling to Taiwan or South Korean?
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If Xi Jinping were to travel to Taiwan or South Korea, would there be a similar uproar?
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Or is it because that these countries already recognize that China will be the next economic juggernaut of the world and they do not now want to offend.
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Granted there are no worthy leader in the United States right now, and the United Sates has been busy destroying it’s reputation around the world for the last 20 years. Still, does that mean that the United States is now prohibited from traveling abroad?
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China is wrong, Taiwan wasn’t always a part of China. It occupied Taiwan for a brief period from 1650 to 1895, and that is it. After that is was occupied by Japan and the at the end of WWII it was ceded to the ROC until the PROC prevailed over the ROC and the ROC to control of Taiwan until 1980 at which time Taiwan filly won independence and had their first democratic election in 1996. Now after that long struggle China is going to take that away from them and seize them as was done under the Qing dynasty.
Don’t depend on spell checkers, they are getting worse as time goes by. I hope you were all able to mentally make the corrections for the typos I made.
Timothy, even we accept your historical timeline regarding the status of the island known to us as Taiwan, what does this have to do with the price of tea China?
Taiwan’s “status” has nothing to do with this crisis. China made it clear to us in advance, this is our red line, please don’t cross it, and we said “FUCK YOU,” and then we crossed it.
Do you understand?
As far as launching an inquiry as to what initiated the sparks that lit this particular powerkeg, well goddamn, we could leave this one to a kindergarten investigation team.
Call them the KIT or something.
“Who should we call in on this one chief, the 1st Graders?”
“No, I don’t think we’ll need the expertise of the 1st Graders. Put the KIT on it.”
Plus how can Timothy confuse with a straight face Americans visiting wherever they want (including mainland China) with hostile American top politicians going to Taiwan to make speeches in favor of independence from China in the guise of the old “freedom and democracy” bullshit?
What would he say if Chinese top pols went to Porto-Rico to make speeches in favor of their independence from the US?
Washington’s reaction is bad enough when China just tries to strike commercial deals with any country.
Besides number one, Taiwan is the island where Chang-Kai-shek and his rump forces took refuge when they were defeated by Mao. It’s been a present from the victors in a typical Sun Tzu move: don’t corner the enemy against the river because he will fight with the energy of despair. Leave him some breathing space. And also Taiwan represented China at the UN.
Number two: after De Gaulle was the first major leader to recognize Mao’s government in 1964…
https://www.nytimes.com/1964/01/28/archives/de-gaulle-sets-up-tie-to-red-china-keeps-taipei-link-act-is-first.html
… the UN followed suit in 1971 and expelled Taipei’s ROC from the Security Council to replace it with Beijing’s PRC…
https://archive.nytimes.com/learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/25/oct-25-1971-peoples-republic-of-china-in-taiwan-out-at-un/
Then the US established diplomatic relations with Beijing in 1980 and Carter unilaterally put an end to the treaty assuring Taiwan of US military assistance in case of an invasion by the PRC, implicitly recognizing the concept of One China by which Taiwan would be fully integrated to the PRC in 2049.
Last but not least, during the 30s and 40s, Taiwan had served as an “unsinkable aircraft carrier” from which Japan carried out its aggressions against the mainland.
It doesn’t want to experience that again, especially with the US replacing Japan. And according to polls, 75% of Taiwanese are quite happy with the status quo. So denying, as he does, that these visits by American politicians are agitprop is either bad faith or ignorance.
Plus we have this gem. China “… occupied Taiwan for a brief period from 1650 to 1895, and that is it.”
That’s 245 years if my math is correct, which is roughly the amount of time the US has been around, and much of that time spent in various – smaller! – geographical configurations.
And then too, why do we lop off the 50 years, from 1895-1945, that Taiwan was a part of China but happened to be occupied by a foreign power?
Leaving out this “nuance” seems ever so slightly disengenuous, if you ask me.
Quite.
285 years against the 3,000 year history of Taiwan means that China was involved with Taiwan for 9.5% of it’s history. Before Chang-Kai-shek seized Taiwan, just after the Japan occupation of Taiwan had just been lifted at the end of WW II. Taiwan finally gained independence from the Chang-Kai-shek dictatorship in 1980 and had their first democratic elections in in 1996, and now you propose that it is alright to take that away from them and return them to being an occupied territory as they had been under the Dutch and Spanish, then China, then Japan, then Chang-Kai-shek and now I guess now China again.
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Granted the United States should not be allowed to use Taiwan as a base of operations, but neither should China seize Taiwan either; two wrongs don’t make a right. Taiwan should be recognized as a sovereign nation and be allowed to continue to exist as a democratic republic.
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We don’t want a homogeneous world with one world government and by allowing the China to begin aggregating all the territories surrounding it, we are moving in that direction.
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If I were permitted the right to vote, I would vote to let Taiwan remain a sovereign nation with the right to trade with any country it chose to trade with, including China. The miracle of the development of Taiwan was a result of the spirit of the Taiwanese people, not because the United States or China had anything to do with that miracle.
“The miracle of the development of Taiwan was a result of the spirit of the Taiwanese people, not because the United States or China had anything to do with that miracle.” Completely wrong and stinks of pure ignorance. When occupied Taiwan was handed over to Chiang Kai Shek and the ROC in 1945 as a result of Japan losing the war, Taiwan residents were incapable of governing the entire island much less any town or municipality. The residents were mostly of Chinese ethnicity and the indigenous local Taiwanese were a minority. Japan not only favored the Chinese ethnics but did little for the local Taiwanese because they were not educated or skilled and were farmers and hunters. When Chiang established Taipei as the capital of the ROC/Taiwan in 1949 and more than a million Chinese supporters of the KMT moved to Taiwan, he brought with him the expertise that existed in the ROC namely in administration, finance, manufacturing, infrastructure, economics and education. More importantly, the ROC having been an ally of the USA during WWII and the USA in the throes of fighting communism, it was only natural that a military alliance between Taiwan and the USA provided security and defense. Despite the ROC being a military dictatorship, Chiang established laws providing education for ALL residents of Taiwan, employment for ALL residents, modern banking and economic systems facilitating foreign investment in businesses and factories, building of modern roads, rails, bridges, airports, housing, modernizing Taiwan’s infrastructure, and established academic and cultural institutions bringing Taiwan out of antiquity. During the period of the KMT’s rule, Taiwan became one of the four Asian tigers (Singapore, S. Korea, HK) despite the military dictatorship. “Democracy” had no part in Taiwan’s transformation. The UN and later the US switched recognition of the “one China” from the ROC to the PRC in 1971 and 1979. The “spirit” of the Taiwanese people had nothing to do with the “miracle” of the development of Taiwan and everything to do with the China of the ROC and its alliance with the US. You are so completely wrong, Timothy Michel.
Why then do the US/UK/EU have it on record that there is what is called ‘one China’ policy? It doesn’t make sense at all. The west is confused as ever.
The “One China Policy” was used by the United States to gain favorable trading relations with the PRC. That is deplorable. The United States used Taiwan as a bargaining chip.
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Then the United States back-tracked with the “Taiwan Relations Act” (TRA) in which it was stated that any hostile attempt by any power to interfere with Taiwan’s sovereignty would be seen as something of serious concern to the United States.
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I mean seriously, the U.S. agreed with China that Taiwan was part of China to gain preferential trading status with China, and then when Taiwan’s economy takes off, the U.S. passes another law stating that it will protect Taiwan against hostile aggression.
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Seems to me, that was almost guaranteeing war.
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Taiwan should be recognized as a sovereign nation period. As far as “The One China Policy,” China should take the United States to world court and demand compensation creating an agreement with them, while never intending to fulfill the terms of the agreement.
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https://www.csis.org/analysis/what-us-one-china-policy-and-why-does-it-matter
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“A1: When the United States moved to recognize the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and de-recognize the Republic of China (ROC) in 1979, the United States stated that the government of the People’s Republic of China was “the sole legal Government of China.” Sole, meaning the PRC was and is the only China, with no consideration of the ROC as a separate sovereign entity.
The United States did not, however, give in to Chinese demands that it recognize Chinese sovereignty over Taiwan (which is the name preferred by the United States since it opted to de-recognize the ROC). Instead, Washington acknowledged the Chinese position that Taiwan was part of China. For geopolitical reasons, both the United States and the PRC were willing to go forward with diplomatic recognition despite their differences on this matter. When China attempted to change the Chinese text from the original acknowledge to recognize, Deputy Secretary of State Warren Christopher told a Senate hearing questioner, “[W]e regard the English text as being the binding text. We regard the word ‘acknowledge’ as being the word that is determinative for the U.S.” In the August 17, 1982, U.S.-China Communique, the United States went one step further, stating that it had no intention of pursuing a policy of “two Chinas” or “one China, one Taiwan.””
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“What is the Taiwan Relations Act, and what role does it play in U.S. policy toward Taiwan?
A3: After the Jimmy Carter administration recognized the PRC, Congress passed the Taiwan Relations Act in 1979 to protect the significant U.S. security and commercial interest in Taiwan. The TRA provided a framework for continued relations in the absence of official diplomatic ties. It also set out U.S. commitments regarding Taiwan’s security and empowered Congress to oversee various aspects of U.S. Taiwan policy. The law required that the president inform Congress promptly of any anticipated danger to Taiwan and consult with Congress to devise an appropriate response. The TRA also authorized the continuation of commercial, cultural, and other relations between the people of the United States and the people on Taiwan. Each subsequent Congress has reaffirmed the TRA to ensure that the absence of diplomatic ties does not negatively affect the continued strong, substantive relationship enjoyed by the United States and Taiwan.
The TRA sets forth the American Institute in Taiwan as the corporate entity dealing with U.S. relations with the island; makes clear that the U.S. decision to establish diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China rests upon the expectation that the future of Taiwan will be determined by peaceful means; considers any effort to determine the future of Taiwan by other than peaceful means, including by boycotts or embargoes, a threat to the peace and security of the Western Pacific area and of grave concern to the United States; mandates that the United States make available defensive arms to Taiwan; and requires that the United States maintain the capacity to resist any resort to force or other forms of coercion that would jeopardize the security, or the social or economic system, of the people on Taiwan.
The TRA also reaffirms unequivocally that the preservation and enhancement of the human rights of all the people on Taiwan are objectives of the United States. The TRA gives the United States the legal means to continue relations with Taiwan in economic, cultural, and security dimensions. In lieu of official exchanges, all programs, transactions, and relations are conducted and carried out by a nonprofit corporation under contract of the State Department—the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT). AIT and its counterpart, the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office (TECRO), handle interactions between Taiwan and the United States. Together, these two private organizations carry out the unofficial relationship between the United States and Taiwan, but neither operates in an official capacity as an embassy.”
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These two agreements are in direct opposition to each other. I guess ”
The One China Policy” agreement was made at a time when the United States thought China represented no economic or military threat to the United States, so that the United States could make any agreement it wanted without fear of being held to the agreement.
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This is insane, the Taiwanese people were not even considered here; they were just bargaining chips.
pelosi is not ‘anyone’ (south korea is not a province of china) – xi traveling to taiwan would be similar to biden traveling to texas (no problem with xi traveling to south korea in accordance with regular diplomatic practices) – etc … to me personally, it seems like you’re gaslighting.
So you assume that Taiwan is already part of China, just like Texas is already part of the United States. Using that logic, then Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Cuba, and Jamaica are already part of the United States and by extension, I guess so is Mexico.
what logic did you discern in my assumption?
If the United States were to seize Cuba, this would be considered a crime of aggression against a sovereign nation. Since Cuba is so close to the United States, the United States could consider Cuba as ancestrally part of America and therefore part of the United States. Close to the coast of the United States are the island nations of Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic/Haiti Cuba and Jamaica. From a defensive perspective it would be better for the United States if they were all annexed to the United States.
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Can you see why this logic just doesn’t fly?
Can you not see why your logic here does not fly?
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China does not claim Taiwan merely because of its geographic proximity to the island, but because of the ethnicity of most of its inhabitants who have been Han Chinese for longer than any particular political group has ruled that piece of turf. There were, in fact, some aboriginal Formosans on the island but they’ve long been only a small minority and hold no real power.
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Basically, it’s the same argument that Russia makes for defending the people in the Donbas from the Ukrainians. (And the same argument that Serbians made in defense of their fellow ethnic Serbs in Bosnia and Croatia.) In fact, Putin has many times claimed that Ukies and Russkies are the same people, which is why his army has been treading so softly in the present military action. Stephan F. Cohen, America’s foremost Russian scholar now deceased, used to emphasize how similar the two cultures and languages were, and how prevalent the number of intermarriages between the two groups. If they are truly distinct peoples the dichotomy occurred only during recent history, perhaps when Ukraine decided to throw its lot in with Nazi Germany during WWII because they felt abused by the Bolsheviks, who also notoriously abused the Christian Russians just as badly. To me, the whole things seems more like a Cain and Able relationship with the Ukies suffering from an interminable case of jealousy against their more formidable and accomplished brother. Like Cain, to this objective observer, the Ukies seem the bad apples whom Washington supports merely to gain leverage against Russia whose development it wants to prevent as a competitor in world markets and political affairs (See Wolfowitz Doctrine as subsection of PNAC document).
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The main reason that the analogy you wish to make about Cuba is fallacious hinges on the reality that Cuba has never shared a common political, economic or socioethnic history with the United States, not even with the most proximate piece of American geography, i.e., South Florida. Cuba: Havana critical hub of Spanish Empire in the New World, feudalism, Roman Catholic, West African Animism, mostly Hispanic ethnicity with some mixed African blood. Florida: mostly ignored by Spain, only two Spanish colonies in St. Augustine and Tampa, sold to USA early 19th century, settled mostly by English/Scots-Irish who farmed and raised cattle (Crackers), capitalism economy, Protestantism, developed in Guilded Age by Wasp oligarchs, later influx of Jews from NY and Eastern Seaboard spurring modern development through mid-century. Spanish arrive in large numbers only after Cuban Revolution by Castro, later come to dominate all of South Florida (Dade, Broward, PBC) with influxes from throughout Latin America, accompanied later by massive migration also from Haiti and many other Caribbean islands, large Puerto Rican migration to Central Florida. The USA has no basis whatsoever to claim any part of Cuba, though perhaps Cuba can be said to have colonised large swathes of South Florida.
Not to put to fine a point on it, but the US did occupy Cuba after the American-Spanish War in 1898, removing it from Spanish control and leaving it in the hands of a US-friendly regime. Puerto Rico has been a territory of the US since that time, and both Haiti and the Dominican Republic have been invaded and occupied multiple times since 1900. Jamaica is a US satellite by any description and the US undermined the government of Michael Manley in the 1980s. So, for all intents and purposes, all of those lands >have< been annexed to the US. Except Cuba, which is isolated and economically blockaded for its refusal to toe the US line.
By all means. They are all de facto if not de jure part of the American empire.
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But Washington over reaches and thinks that Taiwan, on the opposite side of the world, as far away from the American “homeland” as possible is also part of its empire.
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I think the maniacs in Washington also believe that China, Russia, and Iran (amongst the 3/4ths of the world’s landmass not allied with the Great Satan) are also part of its empire but simply don’t know it yet.
Nobody said that the US couldn’t travel abroad. The US does nothing but bully the entire planet into submission. The US builds hundreds of military bases and causes coups & wars and you ask “Why can’t the US travel?” The US shouldn’t travel because it’s homeland is a disaster with low wages, high inflation, no affordable housing, homelessness, no education, no child care , crumbling infrastructure and expensive healthcare. It’s foreign policy is depraved, ruthless, brutal and cruel. What in the world is Nancy Pelosi doing in Taiwan?
We are suffering a deficiency of reality. Just stuck in our own hellishly consuming story. Some day we will just walk away from industrial civilization and look under the vale. Those few of us that survive.
Technology is here to stay. The question is, will we use technology to enhance the natural biological order to the world or will we use it to destroy the natural biological order of the world, and in the process, ourselves as well. So far, it looks like the later is wining out.
Yes, Timothy, the only way out, if there is one, is through, not back.
What’s a vale? What could be under the valley?